Nellie could look back to the day when Maggie had first gone to work in the laundry—like yesterday it was—and now she owned half of it. Fancy that Maggie owning half of the laundry! And by what she said last week it wouldn’t be long afore she owned the lot. There it was, the war again had brought that about. No labour to be had and Mrs Thornton being ill. Of course Maggie had worked like a Trojan—there was every credit due to her. If only it had brought her happiness.
Nellie’s reminiscences stopped at this point. She washed the dishes, trying the while to close her mind to the thought that seemed to lead naturally from Maggie’s unhappiness to Ann’s. But it was of no use. She stopped in the middle of cleaning out the sink and stared through the window. If only their Ann had had a bairn. That’s where the trouble lay. She wouldn’t have had nerves then; nor would she have had this unnatural love for Stephen; for after all it wasn’t natural to dote on the lad like she did. And then there was the lad himself, upsetting Maggie every minute by sneaking off to see Ann. It was getting out of hand, the whole thing. And David didn’t like it. No, she could see he didn’t like it.
On her thought of David, she saw him walking down his mother’s back garden. When he turned to shut the gate he waved and called to her, ‘Coming out the night to get blued?’
She leaned towards the open window and shook her head reprovingly at him. He was a nice lad, was Davie. Ann was lucky to have a man like him. It wasn’t everybody who would have put up with her nerves these past years, and on top of that this mad affection for the lad.
As David walked towards his own home it was the lad that was filling his mind too. He was telling himself that he would have to pull himself together and not be such a blasted fool as to be jealous of an eight-year-old kid. Not that he didn’t like Stephen, he thought the world of him. But not in the same way as Ann did. She was clean potty on him; and he was potty on her. At times lately he had been able to see Maggie’s side of the affair. If the tables had been turned, how would Ann have liked a son of hers to give his affections elsewhere? No, Maggie must have her due, it wasn’t right.
But what could he do? It would take someone cleverer than him to convince Ann she was wrong. It all came of her not having bairns of her own. Oh, the same old problem. He got tired of it at times. For himself he was now quite content to accept the fact that they weren’t going to have any bairns. Not that he wouldn’t have given his ears for one, but what had to be had to be. As long as he had Ann he was, to a great measure, content. He wished he could think it was the same with her. Not that she didn’t care for him. She did. She had been a good wife in every way. Like with everyone else, there had been bad times. That time a few years ago when she wouldn’t come near him. But that was her nerves, and she had got over that. And now that the war was over she’d get over her fear of raids, and her nerves would get better. Aye, she’d get better now…Only there was still the lad.
He called out and answered excited greetings as he walked up his back lane.
‘Goin’ to miss a shift the morrer, Dave?’
‘What, and get him to lose his bonus!’
‘Deputies don’t lose their bonus, man. Do they, Dave?’
‘Be hard put to, seein’ they don’t get any,’ David laughed.
‘Aw, go on, man; I bet you make a bit on the side…Goner get blued the night?’
‘What do you think?’
Laughing and chaffing, he reached his gate and went up the path, and his step was checked when, through the window, he saw the two heads close together—half an hour ago the lad had left his granny’s with Chris to go home. As he neared the door they came fully into his view, Ann with her arm about the boy’s waist, and he kneeling on a chair with his arm about her neck. They were both engrossed in a map spread on the table: and on David’s entry Ann jumped and said, ‘Oh, you did give me a start. Why do you come creeping in like that?’
She took her arm away from the boy, but he still kept his about her neck.
‘Hallo again, Uncle Davie.’
‘I thought you had to go home.’
‘Father had to go down to the yard and I came to show Auntie Ann my map, to show her what we have won.’ His voice was clear and his diction correct.
Ann rose from the chair, pulling herself away from the boy’s arm, and he stood up and looked at David with a look that was open yet guarded.
David turned away from it and said, ‘Your da told us that your mother was expecting you back. That was why he couldn’t stay.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Stephen jerked one shoulder with a nervous movement. He looked at the shoulder whilst it jerked as if he could see something being thrown off. ‘I only called on my way home.’
‘But it isn’t on your way home, and you know it isn’t.’
‘David, stop it!’ Ann’s voice was trembling. She did not look at him as she said this, but went to the fireside box and took out a duster and started to rub the table vigorously. And David, watching her, thought, How like her mother.
He spoke again to Stephen: ‘You’d better get home…Have you a copper for your bus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then off you go, your mother’ll be worrying.’
‘David!’ The note now in Ann’s voice made his face grim, and he said, ‘We’ll talk about this later. Now he’s got to go. It’s a good step and Maggie’ll be wondering.’
‘Maggie!’ Everything Ann was feeling was conveyed in that one word. She turned angrily away from him, and turning to Stephen, said, ‘Wait a minute, I’ll go up to the bus with you.’
As she went into the passage to get her coat, quite quietly David said, ‘You’re not going.’
‘What!’ She turned on him.
‘You heard what I said.’
‘Uncle David’—the boy’s voice was low and there was a tremor in it too now—‘here’s my father coming.’
Both Ann and David turned to the window and watched Chris hurrying up the path; and when he came in neither of them spoke to him, nor he immediately to them, but he addressed his son harshly, ‘You’ll do this once too often, me lad. Didn’t I tell you to go straight home? I dropped him off at the foot of the Hill.’ He made this remark to David; and David answered through tight lips, ‘It isn’t his fault.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Chris. ‘He just does it to vex…’ He did not finish, but pointing to the door said, ‘Get going. And touch nowt in the car, mind. I’ll be there in a minute.’
The three of them watched the boy walk out and down the garden. Although his shoulder twitched slightly he walked slowly and calmly, so calmly that David thought, I’d like to put my toe in his backside, and Chris said, ‘What can you do? I got home expecting him to be there. He’s due at somebody’s party at four o’clock. And there she was, nearly mad.’
David said again, ‘You can’t blame him.’
‘No. Blame me!’ Ann was pointing dramatically to herself. ‘I rushed to the foot of Brampton Hill and brought him here.’
Chris looked at Ann and shook his head. ‘I understand, really. He likes to come…I don’t blame him. If only the young devil would do it on the quiet. But it seems as if he does it at times just to…Oh, what’s the use of talking! Well, I’d best be off. Bye, Ann. Don’t worry. See you the morrer, Dave.’
David nodded silently, and Ann said nothing, and Christopher went out still thinking, Who can blame him for coming? I come meself. But he’s got to be stopped.
As he walked up the lane towards the car, he too, like David, came in for his share of chaff, chaff that was a mixture of fun, envy and derision:
‘Goner throw a victory party, Chris?’
‘Aye, top hat and tails up yonder, isn’t it, Chris?’
‘What you goner sell when they don’t want scrap, Chris?’
‘Why, he’ll buy it back and make it into bikes, won’t you, Chris?’
‘They can all chaff you, Chris, but there’s every credit due to you. And you haven’t forgotten your own folks…that tells the stamp o
f a man when he don’t forget his own folk.’
The last was from a woman; and he turned grateful eyes on her and threw a remark back at the others that was lost in their laughter. And when he reached the car most of his temper had passed, and he said to Stephen, who was sitting behind the wheel, ‘Move over, there.’ And the boy, sensing his change of mood, said, ‘I’m sorry, Father.’
Chris started up the car. ‘It’s no use telling me you’re sorry, you’d better tell your mother that.’
The boy’s face closed on the words; and as Chris glanced at him he thought, That’s the only time he looks like her, when he puts that…shut look on his face.
‘Father.’
‘Aye.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
Again Chris glanced at his son. He was sitting upright on his seat staring straight ahead; he looked in expression and height a boy of ten, certainly not one of eight. It always surprised Chris anew when he thought, as he was doing now, This is my lad. He never thought, This is my son—son was in the same strange category as father, and he was not even yet used to the boy addressing him as father. There were times when he longed to hear him say da; but the word da was strictly forbidden.
His thinking was interrupted by a hail from the corner of his mother’s street. He raised his hand in a return salutation and smiled a grim little smile to himself. Mr and Mrs Farrett breaking their necks to recognise him! The time wasn’t far passed when they would not have looked the side he was on. They had always been the nobs of their street because they had a shop in town, and the Taggarts had been beneath their notice. But now, since he had a car and things…He ran his hand around the wheel. This was another thing he couldn’t get used to. Fancy him having a car…and driving it. And going back now to Brampton Hill! Well, they could keep Brampton Hill any day in the week; he wouldn’t care if he saw the last of the Hill the morrer. It was bad enough now with hardly anyone on it, but what would it be like when the folks came back, the folks who really belonged there? Maggie thought she was getting her feet well in because she had joined the WVS and so worked with some of the women and was on the child welfare committee. Maggie and child welfare! My God! And her own son hating her guts!
He turned the car cautiously into the main road, which was swarming with people; but although he was careful to avoid them he was doing so more by instinct than sight, for he wasn’t really seeing them, he was seeing Maggie, the new Maggie who couldn’t, even with all her striving, cover up the old Maggie; neither her new smart clothes nor her visits to the hairdresser could make the desired difference. Who would have thought she would go mad on clothes? She even bought clothing coupons at two bob a time! He could remember when she begrudged having to pay five shillings for a shirt for him; now she even fought with him to get his suits tailor-made. Aye, suits. He had three now besides his working clothes, and all made by a tailor. He had argued that the Store ready-mades were good enough for him, and he could still feel the cruel sting of her reply, ‘The Store might make clothes for men of your height, but not of your size!’ She might as well have said shape instead of size, for that was what she meant. He had never before wanted to strike her, but he had that day.
Yet she had been right; the fellow did make the suits in such a way that at least, if they did not diminish his hump, they did not emphasise it. It was odd when he came to think of it, but nonetheless irritating, that she turned out to be right about a number of things—such as the buying of this car, a 1938 Morris Eight which he could now sell perhaps for three hundred and which he got for only a hundred and twenty. Only yesterday she had told him with elation that six months ago she had taken a mortgage on four little houses in the town, all slightly bomb damaged, and that within the next few months she’d be able to sell them for double their cost. It was the first he had heard of the deal. She was cute, was Maggie. That was one thing he had to hand her, she was cute. She could see ahead, whereas he never could; he only saw the thing under his nose. Well, he considered himself, even with that range, as not having done so badly. He knew that he was classed in the category of warm men now, especially round about his own quarter. It was odd that although he had been left home for nearly ten years he still thought of Oswald Street as his own quarter. And that was how, he supposed, it would be till the end. Brampton Hill or no Brampton Hill, he’d feel at home only in his own quarter. And the core of that quarter was his mother’s kitchen.
Why was it all the lads of their family were always dropping in home? Look at this morning, the house packed with all but Fred. They still fought and squabbled, but they came back. Was it their mother who kept them together? She made no noticeable claim on any of them that he could see. It wasn’t ‘Where have you been?’ or ‘Where are you going?’ with her; not like Aunt Nell. Perhaps that was why they all came back. And then there was always something to eat or drink. He didn’t know how she managed to get it. It had always been the same, even when money was scarce; but now with money plentiful and food scarce there was little difference; the only difference was in himself. For when he sat eating her food now, he knew that before he left he would slip her something, very likely a note, and she would nod and smile and push it down between her ample breasts; and he would leave the house feeling straight, for the feeling of money in your pocket helped to straighten a man out…inside, as did the recognition in the eyes of his brothers that their Chris was a business man—him, the runt of the litter, a businessman, him they fought over on his wedding day, the wedding that made his mother shed bitter tears. And now she was proud of him. Oh, she said nowt, but he knew; as he also knew that she didn’t, or would never, like Maggie. Yet—he’d admit this only to himself—if it hadn’t been for Maggie he wouldn’t be where he was the day. Oh yes, he might have sold scrap without her, but she had said truly during one of their many rows ‘Any fool can make a little money, but it takes a clever one to keep it and double it.’ She was right once more; and he damned her often for being right.
‘Father, why didn’t you marry Auntie Ann?’
The car swung into the centre of the road and just missed a cyclist by a hair’s breadth. They were passing Duke’s Park which was only two turnings from the Hill itself, and Chris swung the car into a side road and brought it to a halt alongside the high wall of a house. Then he turned to Stephen.
‘What did you say there?’
The boy wriggled on his seat and tucked one leg under him; his shoulder twitched as he looked up at his father. ‘I just said why didn’t you marry Auntie Ann?’
‘What put it into your head to ask that?’
‘Nothing.’ Stephen looked away through the windscreen up the tree-shaded road. ‘Auntie Ann told me she always went with you to feed the pigs, and you used to take her for walks before she married Uncle Dave. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if you had?’ Swiftly he brought his gaze back to his father as if trying to take him unawares.
Chris swallowed, and brought out, ‘Now look here, me lad, I want to hear no more of that talk. D’you hear?’
‘But I thought you liked Auntie Ann too.’
Again Chris swallowed. ‘Everybody likes Auntie Ann.’
‘Oh no, they don’t.’ The leg was slowly withdrawn from under him, and Stephen sat straight up as if stiffened by the meaning of his words.
‘Stephen’—Chris’ voice was definitely pleading —‘now listen to me. Your mother is trying to do her best for you. You’ve got to get that into your head. You understand? And things would be better at home if you did what you were told…Look. Do this to please me, will you? Have a shot at doing what you’re told. If you do I promise you I’ll take you along myself to see Auntie Ann at least once a week.’
There, he was on the subject of Ann again when he thought he had cleverly sidetracked it.
‘But I don’t want to go just once a week, I want to go every day. Why won’t Mother let me call every day? Why won’t she?’ It was a question that demanded an answer by its very insistence, besides the pr
obing steadiness of the eyes and Chris turned from his son and thumped the wheel softly with his fist.
‘Is it because of you, Daddy?’
‘Because of me!’ Chris confronted his son again as if he was a grown man, surprise and amazement in his face at the question. He almost stammered the answer, ‘No…No. What makes you think that?’ My God! the boy had a mind like a grown-up. What did he know? He couldn’t know anything, there was nothing to know. Then what was he guessing?
‘Well, if it isn’t because of you, what is it because of?’ Chris stared helplessly at the boy. He knew his son liked him and trusted him; there was a bond between them, born in the first place through conspiracy against the common enemy; but even with this bond he found this boy at times beyond him, as now, when his approach to anything that puzzled him was almost adult. And for a moment he glimpsed the pain that Maggie must feel after one of her frequent conflicts with him. And he reminded himself that this was a child, who had to be controlled, and he said sternly, ‘Now look here, me lad. I want no more of this cross-questioning. You’re goin’ to do what you’re told. And if you don’t, then you’re on your own, for I won’t take your part in any way. Understand?’
The boy did not answer but watched his father start the car and back out into the road. He watched him until they passed through the gateless pillars of their drive, and then he looked ahead again. And when they arrived at the wide steps leading to the house and he saw his mother running down them, his shoulder began to twitch, and instead of looking towards her as she pulled open the car door he looked down at his shoulder as if from it he could draw an answer to all his questioning.
Maggie Rowan Page 19