The Unbaited Trap

by Catherine Cookson

  When she had got the number from the directory she lifted the phone and inserted the four pennies, and when a woman’s voice said ‘Fellburn 289’, she pressed the button, wetted her lips and said, ‘Can I speak to Mr Emmerson?’

  There was a considerable pause before the voice came again, saying. ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘I’m Mrs Thorpe. I would like to speak with Mr Emmerson, please.’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Emmerson is busy. Could I give him a message?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. This is important, very important. Would you tell him it’s me, Mrs Thorpe? I’m sure he’ll see me…speak to me.’

  Again there came a pause, and then Cissie heard the receiver being laid down. She heard the faint sound of footsteps receding away, and it was a while later when John’s voice came to her saying, ‘Yes. John Emmerson here.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Emmerson, I’m sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Thorpe, quite all right. Is there anything wrong?’ His voice sounded different.

  ‘Yes. I’m in great trouble. It’s about Pat, Mr Emmerson. Do you think I could see you?’

  ‘Pat? Something’s happened to him…an accident?’

  ‘No, not that…much worse. Could…could I see you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I’ll come round right away.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr Emmerson. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  When John turned from the telephone table he saw Ann standing in the lounge doorway. There was a curious look on her face and he felt obliged to give her an explanation of the call, so he said, ‘I’ve got to go out for a little while. It’s a client, she’s in a little trouble.’

  As he went up the stairs he was aware that she was still standing in the doorway watching him, and it recalled to his mind that first night he had returned from Cissie’s, when they had all stood watching him going up the stairs. He hadn’t felt guilty that night, but he did today. There were times when he wished she knew about his visits to Cissie’s. There was one way to enlighten her and that was to tell her, yet he knew he would never be able to bring himself to it. She would never understand his need of a person like Cissie, and it was as well that she didn’t, for otherwise the personal affront to her would be terrible, and he had no desire to hurt her further.

  Up in the bathroom, he washed himself, combed his hair, drew his fingers down his nose, then along each side of his upper lip and was ready to go…go to Cissie’s, to see her twice in one day. He thought of it as going to Cissie’s. He never called her anything but Mrs Thorpe, but he never thought of her other than as Cissie.

  He found himself almost running down the stairs, not quickly like Laurie did, but at a much faster pace than usual. As he stood in the lobby putting on his hat and coat his attention was brought to the glazed door and to the outline of Ann standing in the middle of the hall. She was apparently looking towards the closed door. This fact made him uneasy; she had been acting rather strangely of late. She came down to breakfast every morning now, and time and again in the evening he would look up to find her eyes on him. He had thought, just after Christmas, that perhaps she wanted to talk, and he had made a strong effort to open up a conversation with her, something that he had given up attempting many years ago. But apparently her attitude hadn’t changed; she wanted nothing from him, not even small talk, except when they were in company, or in the presence of Mrs Stringer, when appearances had to be kept up.

  Having to reverse the car out of the garage, which was to the side of the house, he swung it round at right angles to the front door, looking in his mirror to take care that he didn’t hit the porch, and, as he did so, he was more than surprised to see reflected, as if in miniature, Ann standing to the side of the lounge window, just beyond the edge of the curtains, watching him.

  He was blinking rapidly as he drove out of the drive.

  PART TWO

  LAURIE

  One: The Impossible

  Ann was lying in bed, and Laurie was sitting by her side holding her hand. He had been holding it only a few minutes when, with an impatient movement, she withdrew it from his grasp and, pulling out of her closed fist a fine lawn handkerchief, she began to straighten it out on the silk coverlet, tugging at the lace edge and forming the whole into a small square.

  He watched her in silence, nipping at his lower lip as he did so; then he closed his eyes, as if thinking deeply, before saying with gentle insistence, ‘Now look, dear, you’ve got to tell me what’s troubling you. I’ve never seen you like this before.’

  She didn’t answer straight-away, and when she did it was as if she was repeating a lesson. ‘I’ve told you, I’m feeling run down. I had that cold and it’s left me feeling run down. There’s nothing more to it than that. Surely I can stay in bed for a couple of days.’

  Laurie rose from the chair and walked to the window and looked down into the garden onto the groups of tulips, daffodils, and narcissi, and as he stood there he heard Valerie’s car come onto the drive. He could not see it but he knew the sound of the engine and the way she skidded on the shingle when she drew to a stop. Turning now, he walked back to the bed and, his voice still soft, he said, ‘I may as well tell you I went to see the doctor today.’

  ‘You what!’ She gathered the handkerchief again into a ball. ‘You had no right to do that.’

  ‘Someone’s got to do it, and if I don’t, apparently no-one else will.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Her tone was so sharp that it caused his eyes to widen and his chin to move upwards. He was surprised that his inference that his father wouldn’t trouble should have roused her, and now, his own tone sharp, he said, ‘The doctor told me you haven’t got a cold, you are suffering from nerves. And that didn’t surprise me, but what did surprise me was that he inferred you’re worrying about something, and you won’t be any better until you air it. He tells me it’s been going on for months.’

  She was staring at him almost, unbelievably, in hostility, he imagined. Going quickly round the bed, he took his seat again, and gripping her hands, whispered, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m worried about you. You’ve never been like this before, you’ve always been so calm, reasonable. What is it? Look, you can surely tell me? What is it?’

  Her head was bowed, her eyes tightly closed, and her lips were trembling as she replied, ‘It’s nothing, Laurie, nothing. Believe me. I’m just run down.’ She moved her head slowly. Then raising it, she looked him in the face and smiled, a stiff, small smile. ‘I’m not getting any younger and I suppose I’m going through what is known as…as the difficult period in a woman’s life.’

  He stared back at her. Perhaps. Yes, it could be that. But he should imagine that she had started that some years ago. He also should imagine that anyone of his mother’s type would have taken such a thing in her dignified, reserved stride.

  There was a sound of quick, soft footsteps on the stairs now, and when she turned her head towards the door he said, ‘It’s Val; she’s bringing her work round tonight. I’ve got a pile, too. We thought we’d get at it downstairs.’

  She made no comment, and when a tap came on the door he called, ‘Come in,’ and rose to his feet.

  Valerie smiled at him and he at her; then she moved towards the bed, saying, ‘Hello, Aunt Ann. How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Much better, Valerie, thank you.’ The tone was polite.

  Valerie now said, ‘It’s been a marvellous day; it’s a pity you couldn’t get out. Are you thinking about getting up tomorrow?’

  ‘I may.’ Ann now looked towards Laurie and said, ‘When you go down will you ask Mrs Stringer to come up; I’d like to see her.’

  The request was also a dismissal. ‘All right, I’ll do that.’ He put his arm around Valerie’s shoulder and moved her towards the door, where she, half-turning towards the bed, said, ‘You’ll likely want to get to sleep; so I won’t disturb you again. Goodnight, Aunt Ann.’

  ‘Goodnight, Valerie.’

  They wen
t down the stairs in silence, but as he opened the study door for her he said, ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ll just tell Mrs Stringer.’

  When he returned to the room Valerie was lighting a cigarette, and she handed her case to him. He lit his before either of them spoke again.

  And then, as she often did when she meant business, Valerie spoke enigmatically. She said, ‘Something should be done.’

  ‘Something should be done? About what?’

  ‘Your mother, of course.’

  ‘Well, I know. I went to the doctor today.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  He pushed his hand through his hair and paused before answering her, wondering the while if he should tell her what the doctor had said.

  ‘Well, what did he say?’

  ‘He said he thinks she’s got something on her mind, something worrying her.’

  She dropped her head back on her shoulders and puffed the smoke towards the ceiling. ‘You’re telling me,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Now look, Laurie.’ She flicked the cigarette ash towards a tray and took no notice when it fell onto some papers on the long desk. ‘These evasive tactics of yours annoy me to say the least. You always play so dumb about your mother.’

  ‘What do you mean, play so dumb?’ His annoyance was evident.

  ‘Just what I say.’ She leant towards him, speaking under her breath. ‘You must be blind if you don’t know what’s going on. I said to Mother tonight, damn it all somebody should do something, promises or no promises, and I said I was going to tell you.’

  He got to his feet, looking at her while he stubbed his cigarette out.

  ‘Well, tell me,’ he said quietly.

  Valerie drew in a long breath that brought her shoulders up; then when they had subsided she said, ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t noticed anything in the atmosphere of this house since Christmas?’

  He could say to her ‘Nothing more than usual’, although when he came to think of it there had been a difference, and it could be summed up by the statement that his father had talked more and his mother had talked less. Odd that, but that is how it could be summed up. But it meant nothing. The situation in the house had been the same as it always was, but only he knew that, not Valerie, or her old nosey father, or her mother, even if she was his mother’s dearest friend.

  ‘There’s no way to give you this, Laurie, but straight; your armour needs to be attacked with an axe. Either you know, and you’re covering up, or you’re absolutely stone blind to the fact that your mother is ill because your father’s keeping another woman.’

  It was some seconds before he cried, ‘Father’s what! What did you say?’ He leant towards her as if he hadn’t heard right.

  ‘Just what I said. Sit down before you fall down.’ She pushed him in the chest with the tips of her fingers and he sat down.

  ‘Do you remember Christmas night when your father went all jolly? Do you remember when he told us about the bull, the bull in the Argentine. He had told it twice and he laughed like I’d never heard him laugh before. And do you remember your mother sitting like a statue most of the night? You don’t remember, you just didn’t take it in did you, the unusualness of your father telling jokes. My father used to say it would take a landmine to move your father in any way, and that night he was laughing, and causing laughter, and the landmine was a woman, the one that saw to him the night he was taken ill. You do remember the night when he came back with his collar and tie loose, the night that he forgot to turn up for the dinner, don’t you? And father was right about him that night, too…He was blotto.’

  ‘Hold your hand a minute, hold your hand a minute.’ His face was turned from her, almost buried in his shoulder, and he was punching the air with his clenched fist. ‘This is all surmise; you’re just looking for one thing to explain another. It’s all guess work.’

  ‘You listen to me.’ She pulled at his arm and brought him round to face her. ‘It was on Christmas night that mother, up in the bedroom here, asked Aunt Ann why she wasn’t wearing the Chanel perfume, and your mother asked her what she was talking about. And then it all came out. You see Millie—you know our Millie. Well, she lives with a woman named Miss O’Neill. They live on the first floor in number ten Greystone Buildings, and she, this Miss O’Neill, happened to be in Danes’ when your father was buying a bottle of Chanel which cost nearly ten pounds. So she tells Millie that she saw your father buying the perfume, and Millie says to mother in all innocence that she knows what Mrs Emmerson’s going to get for her Christmas box. A bottle of scent, a great big bottle of Chanel. Naturally mother asked Aunt Ann about the scent, and your mother was so taken off her guard that she gave herself away and she made mother swear that she wouldn’t tell father or me. And she didn’t at first, not until she started pumping Millie and learned that your father visited Mrs Cissie Thorpe at least once a week, on a Saturday morning. Mrs Cissie Thorpe is a typist and has Saturday mornings off. They thought nothing of it the first time, because he came to thank her for looking after him the night he took ill. But when it becomes a regular habit…well they are only human, as Millie says, and they start talking and prying. Miss O’Neill, who happens to be off on Saturday mornings too, goes upstairs to visit her friend and happens to find your father there, and the funny part about it is he hasn’t come up the stairs to get to the top flat. Nor did he leave by the stairway, so they could only surmise he came over the roof. If they wanted any more proof, the old couple underneath this lady’s flat gave the show away, because, not only had the old man been up there and seen your father but they could hear them talking on a Saturday morning, and, as the old lady said, they stopped going up because they didn’t like to disturb them…Ha, ha.’

  Valerie now dropped her bantering tone, and, getting up and putting her arms around Laurie, she said, ‘I’m sorry. Don’t take it like that. But I just had to tell you, and in such a way as to make you believe it, because you know’—she pulled him tightly towards her now—‘you just will not face up to things, you pretend you don’t see them.’

  Laurie wiped the moisture from his upper lip, then asked quietly, ‘What did you say her name was?’

  ‘A Mrs Thorpe. Millie calls her Cissie, and by the sound of it she’s a right Cissie at that. There’s a commercial traveller who lives on the ground floor; he’s a regular visitor. And at one time, as far as I can understand, young Holloway—you know the wholesaler in the market, his son used to visit her.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ He shook his head slowly and spoke as if to himself. ‘Him running a woman? It’s impossible. Of all people, him!’

  ‘Yes, my reactions were the same when I first heard it, because there’s no getting away from the fact that he’s one of the most inane creatures…I’m sorry, Laurie, but I can’t think it possible that he’s your father. Oh, I know he is, you look alike, that’s the odd thing about it. You’ve got all his features, but thank God they don’t make you look like him. Yet it isn’t his looks so much as his manner that makes him so utterly watery…Then the latest is that the woman’s in trouble…’

  ‘You mean…?’

  ‘Oh no. No, not as far I know anyway. Not that way, no. It’s her boy. He’s been in the courts before—he was up before father—and now he’s coming up for interfering with a girl, and him only ten. I tell you they’re a real bad lot. But I wouldn’t like to be that kid when he comes before my dear papa next week, for he feels very strongly about this business and if he can strike a blow in the defence of Aunt Ann he certainly will. As he said, there’s more ways of killing a cat than drowning it.’

  Laurie got to his feet, pressing her gently aside. He didn’t heed what she was saying about the woman’s son. He was thinking of his mother lying upstairs, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. That’s what the doctor said. ‘You must persuade her to get away, take a long holiday,’ he had said. ‘Is there any trouble at home? I mean…’ and before the doctor had finished he had assured him
there was no trouble like that, none whatever. ‘Then get your father to take her away on a holiday, a sea trip. That might do the trick. Get her away from the house and all her present associates, this often works wonders.’

  Get his father to take her on a sea voyage! He was walking blindly to the door when Valerie said, ‘Where are you going?’

  He turned back towards her and sat down. The numbness, the shock, was wearing off, but taking its place was a feeling of anger, of rage. It began to burn inside him as if a fire had suddenly been lit. The evidence of his feelings was pouring down his face in sweat, and it was as if Valerie’s voice was coming from another room when she said, ‘Now look, don’t let it disturb you like that.’ When she wiped his forehead he pushed her hands roughly aside, saying, ‘Stop it. Don’t do that,’ and she stood back from him, her voice huffy now. ‘Well, you needn’t take it out of me. Don’t be like that with me. I told you because I thought it was for the best.’

  ‘Well, you should have told me earlier, months ago when you first knew about it.’

  ‘My mother had promised.’

  ‘And she kept her promise, didn’t she?’

  ‘Now look. Don’t take it out of me, Laurie. I’m telling you.’

  Instead of her tone giving him warning, it only increased his anger, and he rounded on her, crying, ‘If she knows’—he thumbed towards the ceiling—‘that your father knows and you know, she’ll go mad. Why couldn’t Aunt May have kept it to herself, or told me on the quiet?’

  ‘Look.’ Her voice became cool, reasonable. ‘My father is a magistrate, he’s used to keeping secrets.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘Now don’t use that tone when speaking of Father, Laurie.’

  ‘Well, don’t make him sound infallible because he’s a magistrate; you said only a minute ago that he was going to take it out of that boy, that woman’s boy whoever he is, for something he hasn’t done.’