The Menagerie

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Have you eaten something?’ The question was so low as almost to be a whisper.

  ‘No, Jinny…I’ve been sick all the week. I didn’t tell you ’cause you were upset about the bairn.’

  Being unable to look at her sister a moment longer without doing something she would later be sorry for, Jinny turned quickly away and went down the stairs, and sitting by the kitchen table she began to pick wildly at her apron. Her world had gone mad, absolutely mad. A mental bairn upstairs, her own son’s bairn; Gracie and Florence on their way to Australia; Larry skulking like a thief after another man’s wife, and the whole place alive with the scandal of it; and now, the crowning…Lottie carrying a bairn. The house would be like a menagerie.

  Years ago her Granny had told her that, as a child, she had paid a ha’penny to go into a menagerie, and had there seen a boy with a head so large that it had to be supported with a built-up framework, and he was being taunted by a great, tall, thin man, whose arms were so small that his hands appeared to sprout from his armpits. But the boy with the big head had laughed all the time. She had been dreaming about her Granny last night and of the times she used to tell her stories, and this morning she had woken up thinking of the one about the menagerie. And now she felt that her dream had been broken, for she could see her own house becoming a menagerie. The thought terrified her, and made the thumping come into her head again. She moved her eyes about the room, taking in every article of furniture. There was nothing that did not gleam. These past weeks she had put double her effort into the house. If her furniture shone and her windows gleamed and her curtains were fresh, then she had vainly imagined nothing could go far wrong. But all the time they were going wrong, her whole world had gone wrong; it had indeed turned into a menagerie. She looked down the garden and across the road. Even Jessie…Jessie, above all people, having an affair, not with Willie—she could have understood that perfectly—but with a minister, who looked like a lad compared to her. But nevertheless, for all his young looks, he was a quick worker; he hadn’t been in the place five minutes. But who was to blame anyway for Jessie going to the bad? Nobody but her own son. He was to blame…What was she talking about? She roused herself…Jessie going to the bad…she didn’t believe a word of it, and she had told Emily King so. Old Dobson had called three times a week on Mrs Honeysett and the Catholic priest was forever going into the Connellys, and there’d been nowt said about them. It was because of the furniture and the new clothes the tongues had wagged. She was supposed to have said that her mother had left the money. Well, it was like Jessie to say a simple thing like that, there wasn’t enough badness in her to concoct a better story. But where had she got the money from? Oh, what did it matter? Why worry about Jessie? Hadn’t she enough to think about with her own house as it was? She put her hands to her head. Perhaps, she thought, this pain in me head’ll drive me barmy, and I’ll laugh like the lad in the menagerie. Eeh! Dear God, what thoughts. She got to her feet, and as she did so the click of the garden gate brought her eyes to the window again, and she saw Frank standing, his hand on the gate, staring down at the pavement. She watched him for a moment, then went to the scullery and put the kettle on one gas ring and the frying pan on the other; and she was placing two gammon rashers in the pan when the door opened. She glanced round as usual to say, ‘Hello there’, but she did not give her husband the greeting, for before she could speak, he said, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Larry.’

  ‘Why, he’s in bed. You know he’s in bed.’

  ‘How should I know? Can you count on owt he does?’

  ‘What’s the matter now? Dear God, what’s the matter now?’

  Frank gave her no answer but pushed past her, and up the stairs.

  Pulling the frying pan to one side, she went to the foot of the stairs and listened. Frank’s voice was raised, but she could not hear what he was saying. And when he came down again, she said, ‘Tell me, what is it?’

  ‘It’s nowt,’ he said.

  ‘Nowt?’ she replied. ‘You don’t go on like that for nowt.’

  ‘Let’s have something to eat,’ he said.

  She was still staring at him and demanding to know what was wrong when she heard Larry’s unmistakable tread on the stairs, and she was at the scullery door as he came into the passage. He did not speak to her, but went past her, thrusting his shirt into his trousers. She watched him wrench open the front door and go down the path and stand, as she had seen Frank do, looking down on the pavement. When he again came into the house the skin round his mouth showed a pasty white against the dark stubble on his cheeks.

  Frank, standing in the kitchen doorway, said, ‘Things have come to a pretty pass. We’ve always been able to hold our heads up, and now, because of your looseness, this happens on me doorstep. Well, here’s an ultimatum. You give her up, or you get out. One or t’other. And before you do either, you’ll get a bucket and clout and wipe that filth off.’

  ‘I’ll be damned if I will!’ Larry’s hands went to tighten up his belt, but not finding one, he hitched savagely at his trousers.

  ‘What’s up?’ Jinny’s cry pierced the men’s voices. ‘What’s out there anyway?’ She looked towards the front door.

  ‘Summat that should never have been…our name’s like mud in the town. Are you going to do it?’ Frank turned to his son again.

  ‘No.’ Larry walked firmly towards the stairs, and Frank cried, ‘Good. Good enough. Then get out!’

  ‘I’ll do that an’ all.’

  Larry mounted the stairs, and Jinny, her hands gripping her blouse, looked in desperation from her son’s retreating figure to her husband. Never had she seen Frank like this. Frank was easygoing, peace-loving. He thought the world of Larry. Like herself, she felt that deep inside he housed a pride and feeling for his elder son that he did not have for any of the others. So much so that for years now he had openly acceded to him. When there was a question to debate, whether about pit or politics, he would sit and nod at Larry’s cool reasoning, commenting from time to time, ‘Aye. Aye; you’re right theer, lad.’ And now he had ordered him out.

  Automatically patting her hair into place, and taking off her top apron, which she always did when going out the front way, she went down the path to the gate. Looking over it, she saw at first only a number of whitewash marks on the flags. Her sight was not too good, and she scorned glasses, except for reading, and so she had to step onto the street and peer towards the pavement. And from this point of vantage, the marks took shape and formed lines of writing, writing done in letters inches high. Slowly she read the crude printing:

  Pam had a little Larry without any dough,

  So Pam dropped Larry in the cold, cold snow;

  But her rich Daddy’s kisses were not so hot as his,

  So to the Barn came Pam again—Fizz, fizz, fizz.

  Sucker.

  Being unable to believe the evidence of her eyes, Jinny stared at the pavement, and she had to read the words again, and yet a third time, before she could take them in. Then shame, belittling and humiliating, covered her. All she had worked for in her life, which could be summed up in one word—respectability—was gone, trampled in the dirt of the whitewash on the pavement. There seemed no use any more in fighting or struggling to put a face on things. Even the façade of her brusque manner, that had helped so much in warding off the neighbours’ bold approach, she could see now as useless. Slowly, almost humbly, she went up the path and round to the back door, and filling a bucket with water, and taking up a cloth and brush, she went to the gate again, and under the covered scrutiny of eyes behind curtains and over garden railings, she scrubbed away the words.

  For the tenth time in half an hour Larry went to the opening of the barn and looked out across the rain-drenched grass. It had poured steadily from seven o’clock that morning, and now a cold wind was added to it, making the June day reminiscent of December. From its beginning it had been a hell of a day, and it wasn’t ove
r. How, he was now wondering, would Pam react to his decision? She had promised that as soon as her mother was strong enough she would make the break; but would she? Would her love for him be strong enough to break the ties that reached from across the Atlantic? It wasn’t her mother he was afraid of now, but the man—he could feel his power in the silence that surrounded him—for his name had not been mentioned between them since the night they had come together again. At first, she had said, ‘We must talk about it…about him’, but she never had, and they had lived and loved hungrily, in the precious time that she stole from her mother’s or father’s watchful eye. They would laugh and joke, then become painfully silent, and the silence in turn would be broken by a passion of feeling, of taking greedily until, drunk with grasping, they sent each other reeling to their respective homes, she by her car, and he by bus or on foot. This divided departure always irked him, to see her drive away in a car placed a world between them. He could tell himself that any fool could have a car nowadays—half the fellows in the pit had cars now; he could have one tomorrow if he wanted one—but the thought brought no comfort. He was, there was no doubt, in the position to buy himself a second-hand car, but would he ever be in the position to provide her with a car like the one she had now?

  Straining his ears, he was listening now for the sound of the car on the road, and thinking he heard it, he moved from out of the shelter of the barn, but the wind, lashing the rain at him, drowned all sound but that of itself, and he returned to the barn again.

  It was their arranged plan that if she could not keep an appointment, he should wait at the barn between six and seven of an evening; that is, if his shift permitted. Today, they were to have met at two o’clock, but she hadn’t turned up. He was on the third shift, and, in the ordinary way, he should have gone down at three-thirty. But there would be no more shifts for him, fore, back or night. No, by God. He might live to regret a lot of things he would do from henceforth in his life, but leaving the pit, never.

  The thought of his release made him buoyant for the moment, and he had a desire to dash out into the pelting rain and walk and walk, even run. He was free, free from the earth. No more would that winter be one continuous night; no more would the sweat stand on him, not from the heat or dripping water, but from fear—fear of the roof dropping in; fear of being trapped; fear of an explosion. Of all his fears, his fear of an explosion was the greatest, and the one he would have denied most, for had it not made the coward in him deny himself promotion? Years ago, he’d had the idea of becoming somebody in the pit: an overman, a deputy; who knew—assistant manager. He knew, as he put it to himself, that where brains were concerned he could have bought and sold the deputies that were over him. Most of them knew their immediate job, and that was all. It had been his determination to go into the thing thoroughly that had caused him not to go in for it at all. And the truth of ‘Where ignorance is bliss…’ came to him when he had done so much reading that he saw in the smallest spark from a coal-cutter, or the veriest suspicion of one from chock releases, the cause of an explosion; or when the cutter picks struck iron or copper in the seams, then his new knowledge would say…pyrites. And only a spark would be needed from that to ignite firedamp and air, and that particular section, he knew, would have had it.

  A deputy might know all this, but if he wanted to hold down his job he didn’t visualise it happening every time he entered the pit.

  No more listening to talk of Aneurin Bevan and was he or was he not the reason why the Labour Party hadn’t got in. The talk of some of his mates made him sick; the less they had in their heads the more they had to say. And it was the same with members of Parliament. Some hadn’t the sense to realise that their past efforts had already borne fruit, that they were no longer appealing to a mob of ignoramuses. He had been sickened when listening to some of his own party, listening to their infantile reasoning and cheap slating. The pitmen were the top dogs now, they had said. Top dogs! Top dogs of what? Who wanted to be top dog in the bowels of the earth? And ‘princely’ had been another term used when comparing the miner’s life of today with that of fifty years ago. They could have their princely lives…Princes of darkness, princes who had still to crawl on their bellies, princes who walked like permanent hunchbacks most of their days; princes who breathed, chewed and swallowed death in bespangled dust. Princely! Why didn’t they try the princely life? If, in the future, he should have to live from hand to mouth, his existence would, he felt, be more princely than it was now even with his swollen pay packet.

  ‘Pam.’ The name sprang from his thoughts and he was out and across the open space to where she was struggling towards him. His arm about her, he half carried her to shelter, and there, in the comparative dryness of the barn, she gasped and leant against him.

  He held her closely, saying, ‘I thought you weren’t coming. Did you get my note? That’s silly’—he gave a short laugh—‘you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t. What a night to bring you out. I’m sorry I had to send it. Look, take off your mac and I’ll shake it.’

  He went to undo the top button, but his hands moved from it to her rain-drenched face, and holding it between his palms he murmured, ‘Why are you so beautiful?…It drives me mad.’ Then pulling her close again, he murmured thickly, ‘My love. Darling! Darling!’ With each word he jerked her nearer and nearer to him, but when no answering endearment or responding pressure of her body came to him, he paused and raised her face, saying, ‘What is it?’

  Her eyes, looking deep into his, were troubled, and when she made to disengage herself from him, he did nothing to stop her. She was looking down at her clasped hands when she said, ‘Ron’s here.’

  The muscles of his face tightened swiftly. His expression lost its look of adoration, and the protectiveness left his manner.

  ‘Did you know he was coming?’

  ‘No,’ she said dully; then added emphatically, ‘No, of course I didn’t. He walked in this morning out of the blue. I thought he was still in California…that’s where he wrote from last. He…he wanted me to go out.’

  ‘Why has he come then?’

  ‘I think it’s my father. He must have sent for him.’

  Her head was bowed, and her thick glistening lashes hid her expression from him, but gripping her by the shoulders he jolted her head up and stared into her face; then, after a moment, he said bitterly, ‘You’re glad he’s come. You’re glad he’s back.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool.’ She pulled herself from his hands. Then her expression softened, and she whispered, ‘Larry, how could I be?’ Then, more gently still, ‘How could I be? How could I?’

  Her tone drew the tenseness from his limbs, and gripping her hands and holding them to his chest, he said rapidly, ‘I know, I know. I’m a frightened fool. But listen. I’ve left the pit…and home. I got my marching orders from there.’ Her widening eyes asked why, and he said, ‘It doesn’t matter, but I’m going. And you’re coming…now, tonight. Just think, London tomorrow, Italy by the weekend.’

  ‘But Larry…’

  ‘Now, no buts, it’s all arranged. I’m packed up, actually packed up.’ The excitement was making him quiver.

  ‘I can’t come tonight, Larry.’

  ‘Why not? You said…’

  ‘Yes, I know. I know.’ She moved her head restlessly.

  ‘You’re coming tonight.’ Again he was holding her, ‘You’re not going back to him…not tonight or any other night.

  ‘Do you mean to say…?’ He strained back from her the better to see her face. ‘Do you mean to say you would stay with him tonight after… ? You couldn’t. Pam, you couldn’t.’

  ‘Who said I was going to? Not that, but I’ve got to return home, I just can’t run away. I’ve got to tell him and my mother.’

  ‘But you’ll come?’

  ‘Not tonight, Larry.’

  ‘You’re stalling. Pam, if I thought you’d go back on me again I’d…’ There was a terrible threat in his unspoken words.

  ‘I wo
n’t. Darling, darling, I won’t.’ She flung herself on him, pulling his arms about her, her cheek tight pressed to his, trying to soften his anger and allay his fears. ‘I love you. Don’t you know I love you? Haven’t I proved it? If you only knew what it’s been like at home, these past weeks. My father has been on every minute, and when my mother came out of hospital and got to know I thought she would die. How can you doubt me? But I can’t just leave tonight; I’ve got to have time.’

  ‘Time for what? I tell you, Pam, I just can’t let you stay the night with him there. I’d go mad with the thought of you and him.’

  ‘But I promise you, Larry, I promise you.’

  ‘Promises are no good. I just couldn’t stand it. Not again.’

  He went to pull himself away, but she held him, and he muttered, ‘I could put up with anything—all the tongue-wagging in the world, but I tell you I can’t bear to think of you and him…’

  She lifted her face from his shoulder in order to be better able to convince him by the truth in her eyes. But her gaze became fixed on the opening of the doorway and on a figure moving through the rain towards it.

  In the moment when in one swift jerk she freed herself from his arms, murmuring, ‘Oh, God!’ Larry too became aware through her wide-straining eyes of the man approaching, and when the heavily coated figure filled the doorway there was no doubt at all in his mind who it was. In a searing flash he took in the details of the man whom he hated as passionately as he loved his wife. He was as tall as himself, but broad with it, twice as broad; and he saw that it wasn’t fat. The face was square and healthy looking, and altogether he was the antithesis of his idea of her husband. Although he looked middle aged, there was a virility about him, a youthfulness that belied his years. Here was no overfed American, with a belly on him and thickening jowls; nor was the light of lustful ownership in his eyes.