Harold

by Catherine Cookson

‘Hello, John. By the way, this is my friend, Doctor Kane.’

  ‘How do you do, sir.’

  Mike made no response to the greeting, he just stared; and even when the Mohican added, ‘I’ve heard Mrs Flood speak of you,’ Mike did not make any reply.

  Turning to me, the Mohican said, ‘I’ve been tipped off about one of the missing pieces, at least I’m pretty sure it must be from your description; it’s the little coffee jug. But if I’m right, and as I told you last week, it’ll be kept under wraps for a while yet. I know it’s not the usual shop, and I’ll have to keep nosing around—with a little help from my friends!—until a certain individual risks putting it out on sale. That’s when I can arrange to take you along, or’—his face stretched, and the lines with it—‘direct you where to identify it. Trust me, and I promise to let you know the moment I’ve got something definite. Now I must be off again. Goodbye, Mrs Leviston.’ He now turned to Mike, adding, ‘Goodbye, Doctor. And don’t worry about the numbness my appearance has caused, it will wear off: it falls into the same category as shock; a strong cup of tea helps.’

  I saw Mike stiffen, and I put my hand out quickly and caught his arm, saying, ‘Come on, come on.’

  It wasn’t until we were in the drawing room again that, turning to me and his voice serious, he said, ‘I may have been worried about that odd pain you have when I came in before, but now I’m much more worried about your acquaintance with that individual. Now Maisie … Be quiet!’ He wagged his finger at me. ‘Let me have my say. About these stolen things. It’s the police you’ve got to go to, not the likes of that … because that lot are twisted, their minds are warped, and more so his kind because, going by his voice, he’s had a decent upbringing, and apparently he’s got a mind that works if his tongue’s anything to go by. But it’s working, like all of his kin, in the wrong direction, sustained by drugs.’

  ‘Mike, Mike, I don’t think … ’ If I could have gone on and said, I don’t think he’s connected with drugs, it wouldn’t have been absolutely true, but Mike’s finger was still stabbing at me as he said, ‘And don’t you say you don’t think he’s on drugs, that get-up is the first indication of it.’

  Now I did put in, ‘Oh, Mike, no, don’t go by his clothes, please. There are lots of youngsters dressed like that and they are not on drugs. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You can be sure of nothing with that lot, Maisie; you’ve had no experience of them. You want to see some of the poor creatures who are inveigled into that life fighting withdrawal symptoms, screaming like tortured wild animals, willing that you should cut off their hand if only you give them some of the poison. And that fellow, he’s got brains and has the makings of a pusher. Oh, they’re very suave fellows, the pushers. And he’s right in the middle of his own set, I suppose, if in fact not leading it. I tell you, Maisie, break off all connections with him. Cut your losses with regards to the silver and your miniatures, it will be worth it in the end.’

  ‘Mike’—my voice was loud now—‘are you suggesting he’ll get me on drugs?’

  ‘No, I’m not suggesting it, but as you’ve mentioned it, it could be a possibility.’

  ‘Oh, Mike.’

  ‘Never mind, oh Mike, in that tone of voice; you know nothing about what goes on in his kind of life. I wish I could take you down to the police cells one night, that would open your eyes. And tell me this, has he got a job, at least one that you know of?’

  No, he hadn’t, not as far as I knew, and he made those odd trips away. Oh, I hoped Mike wasn’t right because … yes, as I had admitted to myself before, I liked the Mohican; there was something about him … Yes, there was something about him, and likely this is what got other people. Perhaps Mike was right after all.

  I swept the thought away by saying, ‘He’s Janet’s daughter’s boyfriend. As far as I know he’s on the dole.’ Then, my attitude and voice softening, I said, ‘Oh, Mike, I know you’re concerned and I’ll take heed of what you say, I’ll be careful and I’ll try to find out more about him.’

  ‘Don’t do any such thing, Maisie, just drop him.’

  ‘But, Mike, it’s very rarely I see him. I haven’t met up with him more than four times altogether.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is his manner seemed very familiar for four times, even his Mrs Leviston had a touch of familiarity about it.’

  I laughed now, saying, ‘Come on; sit down, and draw in those bristles from your beard, you look like a porcupine. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to ask you, how does Jane put up with that forest on your face?’

  His jocular manner returning, he said, ‘She likes it: she buries herself in it at night, it keeps her warm.’

  I was about to leave him to go and make the tea when the lift bell rang. Turning, I said, ‘That’ll be the boyo.’

  A minute later Harold came barging into the hall, crying, ‘I gorra star.’

  ‘You’ve got a star. Is that what you said?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I gorra star for writin’.’

  ‘You got a star.’

  ‘Oh, you, I … got … a … star.’

  ‘That’s better. We’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come and see.’ I took his hand, and when we entered the drawing room and he saw Mike sitting on the couch he smiled and walked slowly towards him.

  ‘Well, say hello to Doctor Kane.’

  My charge did not say, Hello, or, Hello Doctor Kane, but, his smile turning into a grin and casting a sidelong glance up at me, a mischievous wicked look that always preceded some cheeky remark he was about to make, he said, ‘Flannagan’s dog!’

  For the second time that afternoon Mike let out a bellow. I too laughed because during the conversation that had ensued after their first meeting Harold had likened Mike to Flannagan’s dog.

  When the laughter died down, Mike said, ‘I’ve had my beard trimmed this week, let me tell you, sir.’

  ‘It still looks raggy.’

  Mike now looked at me, saying, ‘Apparently the education of this young man hasn’t reached the social graces yet. Anyway’—he held out his hand towards Harold—‘come and sit down here and tell me what you’ve been up to at that school of yours. And in the meantime, Mrs Leviston, you can go out and make that cup of tea.’

  I left the room smiling; but as I prepared the tea my thoughts kept dwelling on the Mohican. I knew Mike was right in most of what he said, and I wondered why I should be so concerned that the Mohican should not be involved in the drug racket. Surely, if he had been, I told myself, the men in Janet’s family would have found out something about him before now. And as for Janet herself, she would not have let her daughter bring him into the house. Yet, what had Janet said to me a while ago? They make their own friends these days and if you say anything against them you don’t see them or their friends. That’s the pass families have come to in this day and age.

  As I entered the room Mike was saying, ‘Oh, I know a funnier rhyme than that. I used to say it when I was a boy. It went like this:

  There was a bloomin’ spuggy

  Went up a bloomin’ spout,

  And then the bloomin’ rain came down

  And washed that bloomin’ spuggy out.

  Up came the bloomin’ sun and dried up the bloomin’ rain,

  And then that bloomin’ spuggy

  Went up the bloomin’ spout again.’

  It was years since I’d heard that one, and as Mike finished the last line in a rush as it was meant to be said, Harold lay back on the couch, drew up his knees and rocked himself while laughing hilariously.

  Suddenly stopping, he said, ‘What’s a spuggy?’

  ‘A sparrow.’

  ‘A sparrow. Cor! We call sparrows spadgers. And I know a funny one, me Uncle Max sings it.’

  ‘Harold!’ There was a reprimand in my tone, and he looked up at me, saying, ‘It’s all right, there’s no swearin’ in it.’

  ‘I’m not worried so much about the swearing … at least, I am, and everything else your
Uncle Max sings.’

  ‘Me Uncle Max’s funny.’

  ‘It all depends on what you call funny.’

  ‘Come on, come on,’ said Mike, ‘let’s hear it, what your Uncle Max says.’

  ‘Now, Mike!’

  ‘Oh, woman, be quiet! We are boys together. Come on, Harold, let’s hear your Uncle Max’s funny one.’

  ‘Can I?’ His face was bright, his eyes shining as he appealed to me.

  ‘If there’s no swearing in it.’

  ‘No, there’s no swearin’ in it.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, it goes to Rule Britannia.’

  I started to pour the tea before I said, ‘All right, go on.’

  So he began in that surprising, beautifully clear voice. Now he sang:

  ‘Rule Britannia,

  Eat kippers when they’re ripe,

  Fish … ish never, never, nev … ver

  shall be tripe.’

  I saw Mike’s stomach wobbling; then before I had time to make any comment on the silliness of the words, Harold went into the next part. The tune changing, he sang:

  ‘Alway … ays, wear … ear your bikini in the sun,

  And pa … a … a … a … anties too … oo … oo … oo … oo!

  And be a goo … ood girl, now come, come, co … ome, come,

  Else you’ll get bli … i … i … isters on your bum!’

  Mike had turned his face away from the vocalist, but I hadn’t.

  ‘I don’t think that’s funny, Harold; it’s silly.’

  ‘’Tisn’t. There’s a lot more, an’ Uncle Max says … ’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more of what your Uncle Max says.’

  His eyes blinking, Mike now turned to Harold, saying, ‘You’ve got a fine voice there, young fellow.’

  ‘I know, an’ I’m goin’ in the choir with it.’

  ‘God help the choir.’ Mike’s words were muffled in laughter, and Harold said, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, Good for the choir … Is your Uncle Max in the choir?’

  Now it was Harold’s turn to throw himself into a paroxysm of laughter, and when it was over and looking at Mike, he said, ‘No, silly, me Uncle Max sings in the pub.’

  ‘Yes, of course he would. Of course he would. As you said, it’s silly of me.’

  When I handed Mike a cup of tea he said, ‘I envy you, you know; he’s doing the same for you as you did for me on those far gone Monday mornings.’

  ‘You think so?’ My voice was flat.

  ‘Sure of it.’

  Harold was quick to take the conversation up, asking Mike now, ‘What did yer do for her on Monday mornin’s?’

  ‘Oh, I gave her a dose of castor oil and watered her horse.’

  When Harold now punched him in the arm, saying, ‘You’re funnin’,’ I cried at him, ‘Don’t do that, Harold!’

  ‘Well, he’s funnin’.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘I know another … ’

  ‘We don’t want to hear any more, Harold, at least none of your Uncle Max’s compositions. Now sit up straight and have your tea unless you want to have it in the kitchen.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to have it in the kitchen, but can I bring Sandy in? I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘No you may not bring Sandy in.’

  ‘Aw!’ This protest came from Mike, and I drew in a long deep breath, and when he said, ‘I wouldn’t mind going into the kitchen and having my tea with Sandy,’ I said harshly, ‘Doctor Kane!’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Leviston?’

  Harold looked from one to the other, and when I said, ‘Go on … fetch him in,’ he sprang from the couch and ran down the room.

  I looked sternly at Mike. ‘I wouldn’t want to attempt to bring up that boy if you were in the house all the time.’

  ‘You know something, Maisie? As long as you’ve got him I’m not really going to worry about you, with your mysterious pains in the stomach and your questionable Indians.’

  From the moment Harold came bouncing back into the room accompanied by the equally bouncing Sandy our conversation became general. And when at half past five Mike left to catch his train his last words to me were, ‘See Doctor Bell as soon as you can about that other business, eh?’

  ‘As you say, Doctor. As you say.’

  On the Tuesday morning I saw Doctor Bell. He was pleased at my decision. He rang up immediately and tried to make an early appointment for me, but the earliest I could get, apparently, was a week come Wednesday, eight days’ time.

  And it should happen that I didn’t go to see the psychiatrist.

  Ten

  It was on the Thursday night about eleven o’clock, only a short while before I’d said goodbye to Tommy and he had put his arms around me and said, ‘Maisie, I’m worried about you. Look, until you make up your mind to marry me … And you will, you will one of these days, I know you will. You must. I couldn’t feel about you the way I do without a little of it rubbing off on you, and then coming back to me. So, until then, what about me coming and staying here? Just to be near you. It’s ’84; nobody cares a damn what people do. And the time is going on; the older one gets the quicker it goes, and a day not spent near you is a day lost. What do you say?’

  What I had said was, and gently, that I couldn’t and that he was to give me a little more time. And I had added, ‘Let me get this pain business cleared up first; I don’t want to take you as a night nurse.’ I had laughed but he hadn’t.

  After locking up I had looked in on Harold who had been asleep these past two hours. He was lying curled up in a ball and looked almost angelic. But he was no cherub, was Harold. I then went to bed, but I did not go straight to sleep, I lay awake waiting for the pain to start, but it didn’t, and I was about to fall off to sleep when I experienced the most strange sensation: I was choking; it was as if I was dreaming I was choking. I turned from side to side and tried to throw something off, I didn’t know what, I knew only that I was choking. I tried to cry out but no sound came, like in a dream when you are calling for help, when your voice is but a squeak …

  I remembered no more, until I woke up hours later. I looked at the clock. It was twenty past six. I’d had a good night’s rest, an unbroken night.

  I rose slowly from the bed, but feeling somewhat strange. I had no way of explaining the feeling, only that I wasn’t worrying that this was Friday and tomorrow was the day when Jimmy Stoddart would call for his son. I would meet that obstacle when it arose, I told myself.

  I had made a pot of tea and taken it into the drawing room, switched on the electric fire, sat down and finished a second cup of tea. Only then did I question how I felt. And I could give myself no explanation why the night past was the only night for months that I hadn’t been racked more or less with that pain.

  The day passed pleasantly, and when Tommy called late afternoon and said I looked better—did I feel better?—and I said, yes, strangely I did, he stayed only a short while because he had been invited out to dinner at the Housemans and, as he said, you couldn’t refuse an invitation to be present at the table of God.

  Alone, only one thing was worrying me: Gran hadn’t phoned, nor when I had phoned her had there been any reply, and I had tried several times during the day.

  When about seven o’clock the phone rang, there she was, and her first words to me were, ‘Have you seen the papers then?’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen the papers, Gran.’

  ‘You’re in them again.’

  I held the mouthpiece back from me as if I were staring at her and in doing so missed something that she was saying. Then her voice came loud and clear—she always shouted on the phone—‘I’ve just got in. I’ve been on a trip to Seahouses with the club, and there it was staring me in the face.’

  I waited, then said, ‘What was?’

  ‘Stickle.’

  ‘Stickle?’

  ‘Yes. You remember him … Stickle.’

  ‘Don’t be funny, Gran, p
lease.’

  ‘I’m not being funny but you said it as if his name was new to you. Well, he won’t trouble you any more, he’s committed suicide.’

  If I’d heard the news of someone I’d dearly loved I could have understood my groping for a chair and sitting down and gasping as if for breath as I’d done in the early hours of this morning.

  ‘What did you say, Gran?’ My voice was small.

  ‘It’s in the papers, he’s committed suicide.’

  Stickle would never commit suicide; he thought too much of himself. ‘You must have got it wrong, Gran.’

  Her words were lost in the shout she gave. Again I held the phone away from me, and when once more I could distinguish her words she was saying, ‘Headlines two inches deep and there underneath: Former husband of local writer, serving twelve years, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘All right, Gran, all right. But,’ I asked quietly now, ‘how could he hang himself in prison?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, it just says he was found hanged in a wash-place.’

  ‘In a wash-place?’

  ‘That’s what it says.’

  ‘Well, in a wash-place there would be bound to be somebody about.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you, lass? Does it matter where he did it as long as he’s gone? That’s what I say, ’cos the way that fellow was made, twelve years would have been nothing to him, he would have had you in the end, of that I’m certain, and you know it inside yourself … I’ve got to go now; I promised to go down to Mary’s. It’s John’s birthday, if you remembered.’

  When I was silent the voice came at me, ‘No, of course you wouldn’t, you’ve got other interests now.’

  ‘Oh, Gran, why can’t you let up?’

  ‘Goodnight, lass.’

  The phone went dead and I sank back into the chair. Yes, I’d forgotten John’s birthday. But what did that matter against this other news? Suddenly I shivered violently, then shook my head again, remembering that strange choking feeling last night … It couldn’t be possible, it couldn’t. I didn’t believe in things like that.

  I hastily pulled myself up from the chair. The phone rang again.