The room was quiet now—too quiet—and John broke the silence by saying haltingly, ‘Frankie… he… he gave me your message yesterday, Aunt Lucy. Was it something important you wanted to see me about?’
John’s question now placed Aunt Lucy in a quandary. Yes, to her mind the reason why she wanted to see him was important, very important, but should she tell him now, in the state he was in? For although he was no more daft than she was, there was something that wasn’t quite right, especially about this St Christopher business… It had all to do with the bump on his head, she had no doubt, and when that subsided, well, as likely as not, so would the Saint. It was to be hoped so anyway. Yes, indeed.
‘Are you in trouble, Aunt Lucy, are you short of anything?’
‘Short? No, no, lad. I’ve got what sees me through, and I’m in no trouble either. I’m only a bit worried.’
‘Well, I’ve told you mine, why not tell me yours, eh?’ John was smiling now.
Aunt Lucy wanted to say, ‘It’s not my trouble, lad, it’s yours.’ And although she could see he was in no fit state to receive any more trouble, she felt bound to tell him the reason for her visit. Nothing could be gained, she felt, by beating about this particular bush. So she folded her hands, palms upwards, in the centre of her lap and said quietly, ‘Freda’s in the district, John.’
John’s brows puckered deeply, his lips fell slightly apart then tightened together again as he gulped. The name Freda came to his ears like an echo. He hadn’t thought of it in years, except for odd moments. At one time—a long time ago—it had dizzied about in his head at all hours of the day and night and it was always accompanied by a feeling of shame, and of his own inadequacy. Even now the echo could reduce him to half the man he knew he was.
His voice didn’t sound his own when he asked, ‘Where is she?’
‘In the new houses.’
‘Here?’ John’s eyes were wide.
‘No, them lot they’ve put up Biddleswiddle way. Seven, Lark Lane.’
‘You seen her?’ John shook his head at himself. ‘That’s a daft question, I mean have you spoken to her?’
Aunt Lucy nodded.
‘What’s she after, do you know?’
‘I would like to say I don’t, lad, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. Although when I tackled her with it she denied it flatly.’
‘But he’s not hers, Aunt Lucy.’
‘No, lad, I know he’s not, but you know she wanted him as a bairn—you don’t forget she came and tackled Florrie about it, do you? And be what she may, John, she stuck to Manning all these years and she must have cared for him more than a bit to want to take his bairn when she couldn’t have any of her own.’
‘His bairn.’ John was sitting rigid in the bed now, his face a dark, angry red. ‘Did he care a damn what happened to his bairn or the lass that was bearing it? Don’t you talk to me about his bairn, Aunt Lucy.’
John brought his knee up sharply and placing his elbow on it rested his face in the palm of his hand and stared unseeingly at the pattern on the eiderdown. His bairn! His bairn, indeed. He forgot for the moment he was in bed supposedly suffering from hallucinations and his mind leapt in the distance of twenty-two years. He was working in Hartlepool after having escaped from home and his mother. He remembered he had been drunk for a time with the feeling of freedom, it was as if he had just been let out of jail or some such place of confinement. Then Freda had come to lodge in the same house and that was that.
His mother had always managed to put the tin hat on any affairs he had started with a lass, but now he was on his own, he went ahead. Freda talked a lot and laughed a lot and she made him dance. He was bemused, bewildered and beguiled by her, and within six weeks of first meeting her they were married. Within six weeks of being married he was no longer bemused, bewildered or beguiled. His eyes were wide open and he knew he had made a blasted fool of himself.
He hadn’t had the nerve to tell his mother what he had done, and even if Freda had been other than she was, it would have still taken some strategy to present her to his mother. As it was, he dreaded the day when they should meet. Aunt Lucy was different; she knew all about everything from the start.
And from the start he knew he was no match for Freda. She was loud, she was coarse and she was shameless—and her laugh defied him to take any action to check her. He was intimidated by her laugh until the night, the shift being cut short, he arrived home well before his time and found Manning there. It was the first time he had seen Manning, but it was evident it wasn’t the first time Freda had seen him. He remembered hitting Manning between the eyes and could recall the momentary satisfaction he felt. But his elation was brief for within a second Freda had knocked him onto his back. This last incident seemed to degrade him and the following day when she packed her things and left him, he felt nothing but relief. His relief became boundless when she returned some weeks later and asked him for a divorce. He could go ahead, she had said, and state the facts as they were for she didn’t care a damn; she was living openly with Manning and she didn’t care who knew it.
He had made up his mind to sell his few bits of furniture and enlist, and he was actually taking the lino up from the kitchen floor one evening when there came a knock upon the front door. He could see himself now, standing looking at the girl on the pavement. She had asked to see Mrs Gascoigne and he had said that she wasn’t in. And then she asked if she could come in and wait for she must see her. Not knowing what next to say he had asked her in, and he remembered her surprise at the sight of the half-stripped house. It was when she had asked in a quivering voice if he was expecting his wife back that he had to admit he wasn’t. She had nearly passed out then and he had made her a cup of tea. Over it, and with bowed head, she had told him that up to a short time previous she and Manning had been courting and were going to be married, and then he had met Freda.
The girl’s idea was simple. She thought if she saw Freda and explained the situation to her she would leave Manning alone. Because she was in such a state, he had given her Freda’s address, knowing full well that her journey would bring her nothing but final disappointment—he knew his Freda. Then the next evening he had a visit from Freda. She had stormed in on him. What did he think he was up to? She was getting a divorce whether she married Manning or not, but she was going to marry Manning. Anyway, he said the kid wasn’t his. It had come as something of a shock to him to learn that that nice girl was going to have a bairn by Manning.
He had never thought to see the lass again but six weeks later he was passing a fruit shop and there through the window he saw her serving a customer, and he had gone in and bought some oranges and spoken to her. Her sad eyes and the fear in their depths, had touched his heart, and the touch remained on it still.
The divorce took some time in coming through and the child was born to Florrie before he could marry her. Although at first he had felt a natural feeling of resentment towards the baby, it had soon passed, for the child took to him and he to it.
Then there was his mother and the fiddling he had to do to explain the complicated business to her. When on one of his rare visits to her he broke the news that he had been married for over a year and had a son, she nearly went through the ceiling. Oh, he would never forget that day. It was a good job she hadn’t demanded to see the marriage lines which showed the ceremony to have taken place but two months earlier. Strangely enough, or perhaps just to be contrary, she took to Florrie from their first meeting.
It was after the war when he was demobbed and trying to get used to his own four-year-old son, who strangely seemed less his own than Arthur, that Freda paid them a visit. It was her second visit, at least to Florrie, for after Frankie was born she had come and made the proposition to take Arthur off her hands. They were living in cramped quarters in Newcastle at the time. He remembered the rooms and the day very clearly for Aunt Lucy was there. It was after Freda made an impassioned plea to Florrie that she should give up Arthur to his rightful father now
that she had two children of her own, and the rumpus that ensued, that Aunt Lucy had warned him to put as much space between his family and Freda as possible if he didn’t want trouble.
Whether Manning wanted his son or not, John never knew, but definitely Freda did. The twists in human nature were beyond John’s comprehension. He had no means of understanding the change that had come about in his former wife, but what he did understand was that she meant business. So when the following week Aunt Lucy came with a proposal, he jumped at it.
At the time, there were plenty of jobs for everybody with big attractive pay packets attached but there was a growing scarcity of houses and people were herded together like cattle. When Aunt Lucy said she could get him a job in the country with a nice self-contained house and garden, it seemed like a gift from God. She had kept the nature of the job until the last and even then she had called it… being a sexton. The main work, she said, was looking after the church but they must go and see the house first.
The thought of being a gravedigger had given him the jitters. He had seen all the dead men he wanted to see, but when he had looked at Florrie’s face as she walked round the house, that had settled the whole business. He became a gravedigger and as he had served his time as a fitter and worked in the yards all his life, a country village gravedigger would be the last clue of his whereabouts that Freda was likely to follow.
So sixteen years had passed and he had heard nothing about Freda or Manning—whether they were dead or alive—up to this minute. And now here she was again, and where Freda was there also, you could bet your life on it, was trouble.
As if coming out of a trance, John looked at Aunt Lucy. ‘Why has she come to live in this part anyway?’
‘She says she wants fresh air. She’s had enough of the towns.’
‘She didn’t know we were here?’
‘No, I’m sure of that. She seemed surprised to see me. But there is one thing I gleaned in a very short time—she hasn’t forgiven you for disappearing.’
‘Did you tell her where we lived?’
‘No, of course I didn’t, lad. But she’s no fool; she’s only got to keep her eye on me and she knows one day I’ll lead her to you. Anyway, she’ll put two and two together and ask where John Gascoigne lives and folks for miles round would tell her. A gravedigger’s better known by his name than a priest.’
John once again wiped his face round with his hand, then muttered, ‘It only needed this.’
‘Well now,’ said Aunt Lucy brightly. ‘It might be a blessing in disguise. For when your mind’s got this to tackle, it will make you forget the other thing.’
‘You’re just like the others, Aunt Lucy, you just think…’
‘No, she isn’t, John. No she isn’t.’
John’s head swayed a moment before he turned roughly round and addressed the figure standing in the middle of the room. ‘For God’s sake, man, you’ll scare the wits out of her. Keep out of this, will you, and mind your own bloody business.’
The soft white hairs on Aunt Lucy’s neck rose individually until it felt as prickly as a hedgehog. Her body was rigid and her lips were dry and she had a creepy-crawly sensation all over her skin. When John’s hands came on hers she almost jumped out of the chair.
‘It’s… it’s all right, Aunt Lucy. Look, do something for me, go on, turn your chair round and look towards the wall. Go on.’
It seemed that Aunt Lucy had great difficulty in taking her eyes off John and she didn’t turn her chair round but she slowly swivelled her head in the direction he indicated.
‘Can you see anything, Aunt Lucy?’ John was breathing as if he had just emerged from deep water.
She gave a tight little shake of her head.
‘It’s no good, John. She won’t be able to see me.’
John closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them he saw that Aunt Lucy’s were screwed up tight. In desperation he turned towards the Saint and pleaded, ‘Look, make her the second one that can see you. Go on… I’ll put up with anything if you only do that.’
St Christopher shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sorry, John, but Aunt Lucy, dear, kind creature that she is, never even thinks about me. I’m nothing to her one way or another.’
‘John.’ It was a weak whisper from Aunt Lucy. ‘Lie quiet, lad, and don’t distress yourself.’
‘My God, Aunt Lucy…’ John thrashed about the bed in desperation. ‘If I can’t convince you then there’s no hope for the others. I tell you, Aunt Lucy, he’s there, standin’ not a yard from you, as large as life… larger than life. My God, aye.’
‘All right… all right, lad.’ Aunt Lucy was aiming to keep her voice low. ‘I do believe you but I can’t at the moment say I can see him, that’s all, not like you do, you know.’
‘Don’t go, not for a moment.’ John put a detaining hand on her as she made to rise, then turning his head sharply, he addressed the Saint in no weak manner as he said, ‘And you leave me alone for five minutes.’ When he turned again to Aunt Lucy she had put her head down and he appealed to her, ‘Oh, Aunt Lucy, I’m not off me rocker, no matter how things look. I’m neither mad nor barmy, honest I’m not.’
‘No, lad; no, lad.’ Aunt Lucy patted his hand quickly, her head still down.
‘About this other business.’
‘I don’t think you should let that bother you, lad… Not for the moment.’
‘If she’s in the neighbourhood, Aunt Lucy, and I don’t let it bother me, it won’t be five minutes afore she’s doin’ the bothering and, what’s more, at Florrie. But there’s something troubling me even more than that. You must remember, Aunt Lucy, that me mother doesn’t know a thing about Freda. Just you imagine how she’ll go on if she finds out I was married afore, an’ not only married but divorced. God alive, life won’t be worth livin’. She’s hard enough to stomach at times now.’
Aunt Lucy had risen to her feet and her voice was trembling as she said, ‘I thought of that but above everything else I’ve thought of Arthur. How’s he going to take it if it comes out?’
‘Believe me, Aunt Lucy, if this comes out it will get Arthur out of a jam that’s goin’ to tie him up for life. I bet me bottom dollar that he would welcome it.’
‘Welcome the fact that you’re not his father, John?’
‘Oh.’ John dropped his eyes. ‘There’s that. I wouldn’t like him to hear that, not for the world.’ He paused and thought a moment, then ended, ‘I’ll have to see her.’
‘Yes, yes, do that, John, but when you’re better.’
‘Oh, Aunt Lucy.’ John moved his head wearily. ‘I’m not bad; honest to God, I’m not bad, Aunty.’
‘No, John, you’re not bad, you just need some rest. Look, I’ll go down and get a cup of tea, eh? Oh, and send you another up… that one’s finished now.’ She picked up the cup of cold tea from the table.
‘You do that, Aunt Lucy.’
‘And I’ll come up afore I leave.’
‘Yes, Aunt Lucy, yes, come up afore you leave.’
When the door had closed on her, John looked towards the middle of the room. There was no one to be seen but nevertheless he spat one word fearlessly into the emptiness. ‘You!’ he said.
Aunt Lucy’s legs were almost giving way beneath her by the time she reached the kitchen and she made an effort to calm her disturbed feelings as she heard the sound of strange voices coming from the kitchen—there were visitors. Perhaps this was just as well, she thought, because she did not know what she was going to say to Florrie about John’s condition, for although he talked all right, at least to her, he was far from being all right. Her heart was sore with worry over him for she loved him and often thought he should have been her son and would have if it hadn’t been for our Mamie. So it was as the mother of a son that she was worrying now.
When she entered the kitchen, she recognised one of the two visitors. One was Katie McNally from next door; she did not know who the other was, but whoever she was, she looked a sour docken.
Florrie turned an agitated face to Aunt Lucy and hesitantly made the introduction. ‘This is Mrs Duckworth, Aunt Lucy. She is Joan’s mother. You know Joan, Arthur’s girl.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Aunt Lucy.
‘How do you do,’ said Mrs Duckworth with a cool nod, ignoring Aunt Lucy’s outstretched hand. Then turning abruptly to Florrie again she said, ‘I’ll come back when you haven’t got so much company for we must have a talk, and soon.’
‘Don’t let me disturb you.’ Katie waved her hand at Mrs Duckworth. ‘I can sit through anything—blather, lies or blackmail.’
Mrs Duckworth cast a glare in Katie’s direction that had no need of interpretation, then, going towards the door, not accompanied by Florrie this time, she let herself out.
‘If I had me way…’
‘Well, you haven’t got your way, Gran. And if you hadn’t put your nose in in the first place she would have had her say and gone, and I wouldn’t have the thought of her coming back again.’
‘Well, I like that,’ said Gran. ‘And you don’t like the thought of her coming back here again… No! Well, let me tell you, after the wedding, this house will be as open to her as a railway station, and if she isn’t telling Joan how she should run Arthur, then she’ll be telling you how to run… him’—Gran pointed her thumb at the ceiling—‘an’ your house. If you don’t want to see Mrs Duckworth again, you’d better tell Arthur to emigrate or some such.’
‘You’re right, Gran, you’re right.’ Katie was laughing. ‘After the wedding there’s only one room in the house you’ll be able to keep her out of, and then only if you put down the sneck. It’ll be worse than havin’ a lodger.’
Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger Page 9