The Menagerie

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Get your things and get out!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard what I said.’

  ‘I won’t. I want notice.’

  ‘You’ve had all the notice you’re getting.’

  ‘Oh, have I? That’s where you’re mistaken.’

  Larry rounded on her, his eyes narrowed and his voice deep in his throat. ‘If you’re not gone within fifteen minutes I’ll call the police.’

  The little woman became agitated. ‘I wouldn’t stay where he was, Clara, if I was you. Get your things and come on. Go on, do.’ She pushed at her sister and Clara, after looking at Larry for a moment, flung round crying, ‘You won’t hear the last of this. I’ll make you pay dearly for this, just you wait and see.’

  Turning to the case once again, he tipped the whole of the contents on to the table, and the woman, snatching at a brown paper bag, cried, ‘That’s mine, that’s me wool.’

  He looked at the food. There was, he made a rough guess, about three pounds’ worth butter, boiled ham, gammon, sugar, tea, even a tin of lambs’ tongues. And this, he had not the slightest doubt, had been going every week.

  In less than the time he had given her Clara was downstairs again. She was red in the face and looked furious. There were no tears about her. ‘I want me pay,’ she demanded.

  ‘I paid you in advance, and you got it on Saturday. I pay you no more.’

  ‘You…!’ She came out with a string of invective that left him blinking, for he had never heard her swear before.

  ‘Get going!’ he said.

  She got going, and as she passed the front-room door she glared towards Jinny, where she was sitting in a chair before the fire, holding tightly on to Lottie; and she cried back at Larry, ‘I wish you luck with your handful. You’ll never get anybody to do what I did, never.’

  The door banged and they were gone, and after a moment during which he stood passing his hand alternately through his hair and across his mouth he went slowly into the front room, and Lottie, released from Jinny’s grip, came rushing to him.

  ‘They locked the scullery door an’ all, and I couldn’t get in. She always did that when she came…her sister. Oh, Larry, are you bad?’

  He went to his mother and said, ‘I’ll find somebody. She’s been helping herself all along.’

  ‘Sit down, lad, sit…sit down,’ said Jinny. She felt tired with holding on to Lottie in an endeavour to stop her from interfering. She had known that if Clara was given enough rope she would hang herself, but she hadn’t thought it would come about so soon. And she felt a great relief now that Clara was out of the house, for she knew what women were, women who had lost their men and were still young enough to crave for another. Clara had made no bones about her intentions, and a man in Larry’s state of mind, Jinny had thought, would be capable of any folly. ‘You’re not well, lad,’ she said.

  ‘A bit off colour, that’s all.’

  ‘Go and…see the doctor.’

  ‘No, I’ll go to bed and sweat it out.’

  ‘You won’t sweat out…out what you’ve got. Go to the doctor.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll find somebody, somewhere.’

  ‘I’m not worrying,’ she said, ‘not…not about that. But go to the doctor. And look—’ She pulled herself slowly to her feet and, taking three shaky steps, said, ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Yes’—he tried to show some enthusiasm—‘but don’t overdo it, and you’ll be out and about in no time.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will.’

  ‘Will I make you some tea, Larry?’ asked Lottie.

  ‘No. The quicker I go the quicker I’ll get back. Do you think you could put those things away off the table and put them in their right places?’

  ‘Oh yes, Larry, course I can.’

  She went out airily, and he followed, saying over his shoulder to Jinny, ‘I won’t be long.’

  Jinny waited till she heard his step going along the side of the house and the front gate click, then she called sharply, ‘Lottie! Lottie!’

  Lottie came running in from the kitchen, ‘Yes, Jinny? Oh, isn’t it nice to have the house ours again? Oh! I didn’t like her, I didn’t. Oh, the things she made me…’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Yes, Jinny.’

  ‘Now listen, and pay…pay heed to what I’m saying. I want you to go over to Jessie’s and say…say…Jinny says will…will you come over a minute?’

  ‘To Jessie’s? But, Jinny, Jessie won’t come across here.’

  ‘Be quiet…and…do…do what I tell you…and don’t say Larry’s bad and he’s gone to the doctor’s or…or anything. Just say what I tell you.’

  There was hardly any hesitation now in Jinny’s speech, she was sounding almost like the old Jinny, and Lottie replied the same as she had always done, ‘Yes, Jinny.’

  She went into the scullery, and taking an old raincoat from the back of the door she put it over her head and went out. The rain was coming down heavily and she stood crouched in Jessie’s doorway as she knocked rapidly on the door.

  Jessie, opening the door and seeing who it was, exclaimed, ‘Why, Aunt Lot! You’re drenched. Why are you out on a night like this?’

  ‘Jinny sent me, Jessie. Eeh, the drops’ll wet all your floor…your nice carpet.’

  ‘That’s all right. Come on into the kitchen.’

  In the kitchen, she took the coat from Lottie’s shoulders, saying, ‘Jinny sent you? What for, Aunt Lot?’

  There was no eager enquiry in her tone—Lottie had likely been upsetting the housekeeper and Jinny had sent her out of the way.

  ‘She said for you to come over, Jessie.’

  Jessie was on her way to the scullery with the coat, and she turned very slowly about and repeated, ‘Jinny said that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re mistaken, Aunt Lot.’

  ‘I’m not, Jessie, that’s what she said.’

  ‘But she knows I couldn’t.’

  ‘Larry’s not in.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter—he’d soon find out I had been. I couldn’t, Aunt Lot.’

  ‘But Jinny’s set on it, Jessie—I can always tell when she’s set on a thing. And it isn’t about me, Jessie—she doesn’t want you to take care of me or anything, ’cause we’ve been fine lately. She’s even talked to me about the bairn coming. She’s going to make some things. She’s been lovely to me. Just now and again when she got mad she’d go for me, but I didn’t mind, Jessie. I didn’t mind. She didn’t like Clara, and she stuck up for me when Clara went for me for not doing things. She told her she was being paid for it. Four pounds Larry gave her a week, and then she was pinching all the stuff.’

  ‘Has Mrs Barrett left?’

  ‘Yes, Larry sent her flying.’

  Jessie turned from Lottie, and said softly, ‘Where is he now, what shift is he on?’

  ‘Night shift, Jessie.’

  ‘What does Jinny want to see me about?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jessie.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, honest. Honest, Jessie. That’s all she said to me, honest, Jessie.’

  Jessie moved the coat about in her hand, and she muttered, ‘I can’t go. No, I can’t.’

  ‘Oh, Jessie, it won’t take you a minute, and nobody’ll see you. It’s pouring cats and dogs—and nobody’ll be out.’

  Jessie stood pondering. If this invitation had come six weeks ago she would have taken it, for up till then she had been unable to quench the faint ember of hope that periodically glowed in her, but after having come face to face with him she had no longer fanned the ember but had faced the situation squarely. He hated the sight of her. She had been going along the main road to catch the Newcastle bus at Pelham’s Corner when he had come out of Brown’s, the chemists. Only by turning completely about could he have avoided her, and as he came on his eyes had looked at her with a dark, bitter light in them. It was as if he loathed her. She had stoo
d by the bus stop trembling, and had told herself that it was final, that she didn’t need any more proof. Yet in the night she had asked herself why…why should he hate her? The boot should be on the other foot. Did he hate her because she no longer dressed like a tramp? And she had retracted for a moment, thinking, I would dress like ten tramps…if…But no. She had not allowed herself to finish, but had stated firmly, ‘I’ll never be less than I am now, never! I won’t go back…for him, nor no-one else.’

  ‘Are you coming, Jessie?’

  ‘No, Aunt Lot.’

  ‘Aw, Jessie.’

  ‘Tell Jinny that I can’t. She’ll understand.’ And she placed the coat about Lottie’s head again and gently led her to the front door.

  When Jinny received the message she bit on her knuckles for a moment; then said, ‘Give me…the pencil.’

  Lottie handed her a pencil and pad from the mantelpiece, saying, ‘She says it’s no use, Jinny, she can’t come. She’s frightened of seeing Larry, I think, but I told her he wasn’t in; I said he was on night shift.’ Lottie preened herself at her cleverness and rested her arms on top of the mound of her stomach while she watched Jinny slowly writing on the pad.

  Jinny’s mind was back to normal, even if her body wasn’t, and for weeks now there had been nagging at her the thought that there must be something she could do to make her son’s life bearable, and the only answer that had come to her mind was for her to…get on her feet again and take the burden of the house off him, for it was the burden of the house as much as his private misery, she felt, that was getting him down. And then when Lottie brought her the news that the minister had left the town and Jessie had not gone with him she immediately began to scheme. If Larry and Jessie could be brought together; if they could but speak, just speak, things would right themselves, for if Jessie had refused the minister there was only one answer, she still loved Larry. Emily King had said it was because she had been offered a partnership in the shop that she had refused the minister, a partnership such as that was too good a chance to miss, and she was wise to keep in with old Miss Barrington for she was rolling in money; but Jinny could not think that Jessie had given up the chance of becoming the minister’s wife but for one reason. At this point Larry had engaged Clara, and of the three housekeepers Clara had been the most dangerous. But now she was gone, and thanks be to God for it.

  ‘There’—she folded the note—‘slip across…with that. And…and don’t come back without her…Go on.’

  Once again Lottie left the house, and Jinny, her hands locked in her lap, sat and waited. She looked about the room. Jessie would get a shock when she saw the place. It wasn’t dirty, but it was far from clean, as she meant clean. There was no sheen, and not a flower anywhere. But that hadn’t been Clara’s fault. Larry couldn’t stand the sight of flowers—even her big geranium had upset him, actually made him retch. Larry was bad, not in his body but in his mind. He had never been the same since the accident. They said that the men never got over what they saw, on top of which he was carrying the knowledge that he had quarrelled with his father the last time that he saw him alive. This would have been enough without Pam Turnbull. She was back in America now, Emily King said, and going to have a baby. Jinny shut her mind down on this; she would not question who the child’s father would be.

  A wail from the kitchen made her turn towards the room door. Betty had woken. Well, she’d have to cry till Lottie came in. But here they were now, coming in the back way. She moved excitedly in her chair. Why couldn’t Lottie use the front door? She had gone out that way. The excitement rose in her, bringing a smile to her face. It would be good to see Jessie again at close quarters. She had always liked Jessie, even, she thought at times, more than her own daughters, for they had never been very mindful of her.

  When Larry filled the room doorway Jinny gaped in surprise. This would put it all wrong. Jessie was to be sitting quietly talking to her when Larry should walk in, and when they had spoken to each other everything would be all right. He wouldn’t even go for her for sending for Jessie. Not that he ever went for her. He might go for Lot, but with her he was always gentle.

  ‘Where’s Aunt Lot? The child’s raising the house.’

  Jinny turned to the fire. ‘She won’t be a minute, she’s just gone out on an errand. You’re back quick. Was the surgery empty?’

  ‘No. Packed out. I couldn’t stand and wait, I’ll go in the morning. The things are still on the table; I asked her to put them away. Oh, what’s the use!’ He turned into the kitchen and going to the pram picked up the child.

  It was strange, but the flat, pushed-in face was no longer repulsive to him. He often held her now, and he felt that she knew him, for she always became quiet when he looked at her. At such times he seemed to sense a faint glimmer of intelligence coming into its eyes, but that it would only ever remain a glimmer he knew only too well. There was nothing about the child that made him think ‘That’s our Jack’, yet it was as if when he lifted her, he was once again ‘minding Jack’. The kinship that had been between Jack and himself was there between the child and him, and he had in the past weeks come to understand how his mother could not bear that the child should be taken away.

  ‘There, there,’ he said; ‘you’ll be changed. Be quiet now. There, there.’

  The child’s low whimpering ceased, and he took a napkin from a pile on the top of the sewing machine and, sitting down, began to change her. He had just dropped the dirty napkin onto the floor when he heard Lottie coming in by the front way. He heard the door close and Lottie’s voice saying, ‘She’s in the front room.’ He turned his head a little to see who was with Lottie because all the usual visitors to the house certainly knew where his mother was; at the same time he tried to hide his efforts, for he didn’t like to be caught doing a job like this. And then the child seemed to spring from his knee, and it was only by the quick clutch of his hand that he caught her. He was on his feet, the child half-naked hanging over one arm while in the other he held the napkin. His entire face looked on fire as he gazed at Jessie.

  It was close on three years since she had been in this house, and the Jessie Honeysett looking at him now was in no way connected with the docile, adoring woman whom he had courted since she was a girl and he a boy. Although her face was flushed she appeared to him composed, even uppish. He could see her thinking again along the lines of her mother’s tracts—‘and the mighty have been brought low’. This must be a crowning satisfaction to her, to see him having to change a bairn, he who had turned her down for someone smart, intelligent and beautiful, someone who had twice thrown him aside. Hadn’t she already got enough of her own back without having to see him do this?

  ‘What do you want here?’ His voice whipped her with its anger, and she did not immediately answer. Then, glancing at Lottie, she said quietly, ‘I came to see your mother.’

  ‘You should wait until you’re asked.’

  ‘I was asked.’

  Jessie’s face was drained as white as a piece of linen now, and she turned to the room door where Jinny was standing holding on to the framework with both hands; and Jinny’s eyes were beseeching her with some message she could not read.

  ‘I sent…for Jessie. It was me…I sent twice. I wanted to see…her.’

  Larry’s infuriated gaze passed onto his mother. He seemed on the point of saying something; then, turning from them all, he went to the pram and almost threw the child into it.

  After one look at Jinny, Jessie went along the passage again and out of the door, and as it closed behind her Jinny slowly shuffled into the kitchen, and there, looking at her son, she said, ‘You’ll live…to regret…the night. The only one…in the world who’s…been any good to you…or could be still…and you spit on her. When…when…you should go down on your knees for all the wrong you did her…There was still a chance…up to now…you could have had her back. She let the minister go…there was a chance…but not now. I could see it in her face…she has a…a pride in her now.
You’re my own son but…but you’re a fool.’

  He remained standing with his back to her, and when he heard her shuffling into the room and the unusual procedure of the door closing behind her, he went and sat down by the table and, putting his hands on it, he locked them like two steel bands together. There was a rhythmic opening and shutting in his head—he felt tormented, burnt out, ill; he felt…Just how did he feel? He stared at his clenched fists. Why had he acted like that? Why did he always become enraged now at the sight or thought of her? It wasn’t right; he knew it wasn’t right. That feeling should have been kept for the other one, but it seemed as if he couldn’t think of Pam clearly at all now in any way. At times he had great difficulty in even recalling what she looked like, and yet she remained as a heavy dull ache that he felt would never leave him. And although the ache became activated by bitterness at times, it was not Pam’s conduct that caused this feeling of humiliation that was constantly with him now, but Jessie’s. Jessie scorned him; she was glad he was being paid out. Of late, he’d found himself recalling how he had talked when he was courting her. He had been the big fellow who was going to ‘break eggs with a stick’, the chap who was going to use his brains. And what had he done? He was a pitman still, and likely to remain one all his living days. He knew why he hated her, because she sat snugly in her little cottage and watched the tables being turned on him. She was going up, effortlessly up, while he …

  Lottie came into the room and now she, too, closed the door and stood looking towards him, her hands as usual resting on her stomach. Lottie’s pregnancy should have made her a grotesque sight. Her arms, legs, neck, and face all remained long bony structures, while her stomach and hips were of such roundness as to make her a caricature of a Dickens character. Yet her condition had brought to her a comeliness and had seemed to steady somewhat her mercurial mind. Her flashes of penetrating simplicity were more frequent, and at this moment some inner guidance told her that her Larry needed help, and that she was not to be afraid of his temper or outbursts as she sometimes was, but she was to talk to him like the day Jinny let her tell him that Pam Turnbull was back. She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.