Justice is a Woman

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, keep at it, lass; we’ve got a long way to go yet, the bottles are still half full.’ He pointed to the table at his side on which stood three bottles, one of port, one of whisky, and one of gin.

  ‘They say you should never mix your drinks but it’s a nice feeling to feel drunk. I’ve never felt like this before, Mike. I could like everybody…everybody.’

  ‘I thought you always liked everybody, Betty.’

  ‘Oh no, Mike.’ She turned her head on her hands. ‘Oh no. You said yourself I’m a hypocrite, and I am, I’m two-faced.’

  ‘Not you, Betty; you’re the straightest piece of woman I’ve come across in me life.’

  ‘Aw no, no, you’re wrong, Mike. I am, I really am, I’m two-faced, ’cos sometimes I want to stand on my hind legs and tell Elaine exactly what I think of her, but do I do it? No; I just say: Yes, Elaine; and, No, Elaine; and, You’re right, Elaine.’

  ‘That’s not being two-faced, lass, that’s diplomacy. That’s what you call diplomacy.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right.’ She sighed and nodded at him. ‘Yes, it’s diplomacy. That’s how I’ll look at it in the future…diplomacy. But I’m still two-faced. Oh yes, I’m still two-faced.’ She lowered her hands from behind her head and joined them on her lap and, gazing at them, she went on, ‘I’m two-faced because I play at being good old Betty, and I’m not a bit like that inside. I envy Elaine. Do you know that, Mike? I envy her because she’s got Joe…and Martin…and this grand house. She always got everything she wanted, Elaine, and…and I should be glad. I tell myself I should be glad, but I’m not. I’m not, Mike.’

  Mike now leaned forward and put his hand on her knee and he looked into her eyes as he said quietly, ‘You’re lost, lass; you should be married.’

  ‘Yes. Oh I know that. Oh I know that, Mike, but who’ll have me?’ She gurgled again in her throat.

  ‘Anybody who wasn’t a bloody fool, lass. You know something?’ He squeezed her knee now as hard as his gnarled fingers would allow. ‘If me body weren’t twisted an’ I was ten years younger I’d ask you meself.’

  At this she let out a deep rollicking laugh; then leaning towards him, she said, ‘And you know what? And you know what, Mike? If I were ten years older and had any sense left I’d take you up on that and say, Thank you kindly, sir. And you know something else, Mike?’ Her eyes were twinkling and her lips pressed tight for a moment and she hiccuped and gave a spluttering laugh before she whispered, ‘I’m going to tell you something. It’s funny, it really is; but you know what I’ve always secretly wanted to be? You’d never guess. You’d never guess in a thousand years…Some man’s mistress! Isn’t that funny? I’ve never dreamed of getting married; no, oh no; just being some man’s mistress. Now I ask you if that isn’t the limit. I’ve pictured myself sailing round a magnificent bedroom, my own bedroom, mind; everything had been bought for me, all expensive stuff…no expense spared.’ She stopped now and drooped her head towards her chest to check her rising laughter, then went on, ‘I’m always dressed in a flowing negligée, yards and yards of crêpe-de-chine. No, no! not crêpe-de-chine, wild silk, the most expensive wild silk. And then he comes in, the hero, the fellow that’s paying for the lot. And you know something? Do you know something, Mike? I have never been able to put a face to him, not once. I’ve never been able to put a face to him, and perhaps I know the reason.’

  She now straightened her back, her laughter sliding away, and picked up her half-empty glass of port from the table and looked down into it before she added, ‘The farce always ends up by me looking in the mirror and seeing myself as likely he would see me, and so it’s on those nights that I ask myself why. And then I answer myself: “’Tisn’t fair,” I say, “’Tisn’t fair.” And I get sorry for myself because, as I see it, no matter what a woman looks like on the outside the mechanism underneath is the same. Don’t you think so, Mike? The same emotions boil behind the plain and the ugly as behind the beautiful. Isn’t that true? In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that the passions hidden behind the plain fronts are the stronger, oh, by far the stronger. Years ago when I used to look at Elaine I used to tell myself for my own comfort that God had worked it out evenly to His way of thinking: To those with beauty He gave no brains, and He compensated the plain ones with a lot of grey matter and personality. But’—she smiled weakly now as she nodded at Mike—‘I used to think it was blooming unfair of Him not to let us have a choice, because I know what I would have plumped for…’

  ‘Betty.’

  ‘Yes, Mike?’

  ‘Now listen to me, Betty. Listen carefully.’

  ‘Yes, Mike.’

  ‘You listenin’?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Mike, yes, I’m listening.’

  ‘I want you to marry me. Now, now, listen, I’m serious. I’m not old as age goes, I’m fifty-two, and I’m not all that useless as a man. You know what I mean. Marry me, Betty.’

  ‘Oh…Oh, Mike.’ She swallowed deeply, closed her eyes tight, lay back in the chair and remained utterly silent; nor did she do anything to stop the tears raining down her cheeks. Not until she had gulped deep in her throat did she speak, and then her voice was a mere whisper as she said, ‘We’re both tight. Don’t forget that, we’re both tight, Mike, but…but nevertheless I thank you. I do, I do indeed, and from the bottom of my heart, because it’s the first proposal I’ve had in my life. Men…men sort of like me, I know, and women use me, but no-one has ever loved me. We are a type, women like me, we are a sort of worker bee to the queens of this world…like Elaine, and to some men we…we are pals, sort of, and so I’ll never, never…’

  ‘Stop your nattering; I’m…I’m not all that far gone, in fact I’m not far gone at all. I can hold me drink an I’m sober enough at this minute to know what I’m after. I mean it. Will you marry me?’

  She rose to her feet now and stood looking down at him as she wiped her tears from around her chin, and when she could speak she said softly, ‘Oh, Mike. Mike!’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Ask me again in the morning, Mike. Goodnight.’

  ‘All right then. Goodnight, lass; and never fear I’ll ask you again in the mornin’, Christmas mornin’.’

  She walked unsteadily towards the door and opened it quietly, then turned and said softly, ‘It’s been the best night of my life.’ Then she went out and down the stairs and into her room. She didn’t undress but dropped slowly on to the bed and, burying her face in the pillow, she cried as she had never cried before in her life.

  Two

  ‘Happy Christmas, Elaine.’

  ‘Oh. Happy Christmas…Oh, my head! My head!’ Elaine pulled herself up in bed, then said, ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  ‘Good Lord!…Oh, I couldn’t face breakfast.’ She waved away the tray that Betty was about to put on the bed table. ‘A cup of tea, that’s all…where’s Joe?’

  ‘Outside, I think; he’s been up and about for some time now.’

  ‘He’s inhuman.’

  ‘What time did you get in?’

  ‘Two…three, I don’t remember, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Elaine opened her eyes wide. ‘Surprisingly, yes. There were two nice men there. One was a doctor who turned out to be Lena Levey’s brother.’ She narrowed her eyes and squinted up at Betty, saying, ‘What’s the matter with you? You look as if you too had a night out on the tiles. Didn’t you sleep?’

  ‘Yes; yes, I slept, but I was up rather late’—she jerked her head backwards—‘playing cards with Mike.’

  ‘Oh, fast and furious living, playing cards with Mike. How’s the master of the house?’

  ‘Oh, happy, smiling. You’d think he knew it was Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, here’s the second master, or is it the third?’ Elaine flicked her fingers towards Joe, who was now entering the room, and Betty, turning from the side table where she had just poured out a cup of tea, asked
him, ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head; then, going to the bed, he sat on the side of it. He did not look at Elaine as he groped for her hand, but he kept his eyes on Betty as he spoke, ‘I’ve just seen Father.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Betty turned her head to the side and looked at him.

  ‘He told me some news.’

  ‘Did he?’ Betty now came to the bed and handed a cup of tea to Elaine, and she, taking it, tried to draw Joe’s attention to her as she demanded, ‘What news? What do you mean, news?’

  Still Joe did not take any notice of his wife but, staring at Betty, he said, ‘If you need a blessing you have mine.’

  When the heat swept through her whole body, it brought the sweat oozing out of her pores, and she wetted her lips as she was about to say, ‘I don’t need your blessing, Joe, it’s misplaced,’ when Elaine, putting the cup sharply down on the side table, demanded, ‘What is this? What’s happening?’

  Now Joe did turn towards her and, smiling, he said quietly, ‘Father’s asked Betty to marry him.’

  No-one could have adequately described the look on Elaine’s face at this announcement, for it was a mixture of amazement, horror, disgust…and anger, yet when she spoke her tone in no way corresponded with her expression, for her voice was flat, her words mundane: ‘You’re joking,’ she said.

  Before Joe had time to reply, Betty, her face and manner as stiff as her voice now, cried, ‘Why should he be joking?’ She had meant to laugh the whole thing off; that is, even if Mike remembered what he had said to her last night, for on awakening this morning it had taken her some time to recall the incident; but the look on her sister’s face, in fact, her complete attitude, which spoke of furious anger, aroused in herself a defensive bitterness, and she added now, from deep within her throat, ‘Is it so strange that a man, any man, should ask me to marry him?’

  They were staring at each other as if Joe weren’t present, and Elaine, her voice matching her expression, cried, ‘Yes, it is. In this case it is. He’s an old man and crippled and he’s…’

  ‘And what, Elly?’ Joe had risen from the bed and was staring down at her. ‘Go on, why don’t you say it? He’s not your kind of man, no matter what age he is; he’s uncouth, rough, coarse.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Elaine put her hands to her head, and lay back and closed her eyes, but she had hardly touched the pillows before she was sitting up again, staring at him and demanding, ‘Do you mean to say you’re for this?’

  ‘Yes, every step of the way. Betty, here’—he jerked his head over his shoulder—‘she needs someone, and he needs someone, they both get on well together.’ He now bent towards her and, his face grim, he said, ‘I can’t understand you; there are things about you that simply amaze me. I thought you’d be delighted. Don’t go!’ He swung round as Betty made for the door, but she took no notice of him and as the door clashed behind her, leaving the room filled with the expression of her feelings, he turned again to Elaine and, shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘You’re a cruel little bitch.’

  ‘And you are a stupid, bull-headed fool.’

  He had been standing stiffly, but now the upper part of his body moved slowly to the side, rather like the slow-motion action of a boxer about to deliver a side blow. However, his hand got no further than the second button of his coat, and gripping this he twisted it as he stared at her and listened to her hissing at him: ‘Don’t you know what this means; haven’t you any foresight? You have a son, you seem to forget that. If they married it is not impossible that they might have children, and where would you stand then? Have you thought about that?’

  ‘You mercenary little bugger!’ The way he said ‘bugger’ didn’t sound the same as when it came through his father’s lips, and it was the first time he had used the word to her. Her head pressed deep into the pillows, and her voice still coated with bitterness, she hissed at him, ‘I won’t have it. I won’t stand for it; there can’t be two mistresses in this house. She’s angled for this. I should have known.’

  He straightened up now, took in a deep breath, stretched his neck out of his collar, then said slowly, ‘You’re right there: there could never be two mistresses; we’d have to move.’ And on this he turned slowly about and left the room, leaving her sitting bolt upright in the bed, her large white teeth nipping savagely on the long painted nail of her middle finger.

  ‘You’re a fool.’

  ‘Yes, I know I am, Mike.’

  ‘You like me, don’t you?’

  ‘There’s nobody I like better.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be difficult to live with and I wouldn’t ask much of you.’

  ‘I know that. I know all that, but such a decision…well, it would cause complications and far-reaching consequences.’

  ‘Aw! To hell with that for an excuse! As you likely know, I told our Joe and he was for it. He could have said, “My God! are you in your dotage, man?” but he didn’t. Even knowing that money-wise he and his would stand to lose, he said nowt of the sort. What he said was, “I hope it comes off, Dad, but if it does, mind, I refuse to call her stepmother.” You look het-up, lass; you’ve been having words.’

  ‘Yes, you could say I’ve been having words.’

  ‘Well, I needn’t ask who your opponent was; and I bet it was about this very subject, because, if it had come off, she’d have her nose put out, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she would. But what we both seem to forget is that what hurts her, in the end hurts Joe.’

  ‘Aw, damn that for reasoning. Well—’ He hobbled to the window, leaned on the sill with one hand and scratched his head with the other as he said, ‘Nice Christmas box to be turned down flat on the second proposal of me life.’

  When he slowly turned his head to look at her, they both smiled, and he said, ‘Come here,’ and when she was standing by his side he turned his back to the window sill and leaned his buttocks against it for support, then taking her hand, he said, ‘I want you to promise me one thing as a sort of compensation for the dirty trick you’ve played on me.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You won’t go and leave us; you won’t go off to that Lady Mary, whatever her name is. You said you had a letter from her last month telling you she was looking for a house, and not too far away from here, I understand. Well, I have me own ideas what she’s up to. The old are always selfish and she’s a determined old faggot, if ever there was one; so I want you to promise me one thing: no matter what the atmosphere is down below’—he made a face towards the floor—‘you’ll not leave here.’

  ‘Oh, Mike, that’s a tall order. Anyway, when I wrote to her I half promised that I’d go and stay with her for a week or two on my holiday.’

  ‘Oh well, there’s nowt against that. Take all your holidays with her as long as you regard this as your home.’ He now jerked her hands and brought her nearer to him, and, staring into her eyes, he said, ‘I can’t do without you, lass. I look back and life seemed empty afore you came into it. I can’t explain me feelings: I’m past passionate love; I would say I’m past love of all kinds; but then I’ve never laid such stock on love as I have on liking, and by! I like you, lass.’

  When she bowed her head and stood mute he whispered thickly, ‘Aw, don’t cry. Don’t cry. And yet in a way it’s good to see a woman cry because of something I’ve said to her. Do you know something? The last woman I saw cry over me was me mother. Come on. Come on, dry your eyes, else if our Joe sees you he’ll think we’re already married and I’ve been indulging in the privileges of wedlock and hammerin’ you.’

  ‘Oh Mike, Mike!’ She sniffed, blew her nose, then added, ‘By the way, I never wished you a Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, lass.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, Mike.’ Slowly she bent towards him and placed her lips on his, and for a moment she was held against him so fiercely that they almost overbalanced.

  Seconds later she was on the landing and making for the stairs. He had said he was sti
ll a man, and from that brief embrace she could tell he was still very much a man.

  She was a fool. Oh, she was a fool. She had thrown away the only chance she would know in life of being a wife, the mistress of a house…and of being held tightly in a man’s arms.

  Three

  ‘Isn’t it a beautiful view?’

  ‘Wonderful. Really wonderful.’

  ‘Don’t you think I was clever to find this house?’

  ‘You’re clever in all ways, Lady Mary.’

  ‘Yes, yes I am. There’s no false modesty about me; yes, I’m clever in all ways, always have been. I was clever in the buying of it. Because it was furnished I pretended I didn’t want it, not my style, I said; and I knew they hadn’t time to clear it and get it to an auction because they were due to leave for South Africa in ten days. Their idea had been to let it furnished, but they’d had no applicants. I must have appeared to them at first like a godsend; then’—she now bent towards Betty and slapped her knee as she ended—‘I was the last resort. And then there was Nancy, and their cook, Mrs Bailey, from the village thrown in, so I bought Valley View cottage: beautiful outlook overlooking the Teviot; that’s what they put in the advertisement. And here I intend to stay for the rest of my life…that’s if I have a good companion.’

  Betty looked at the old lady, who was sitting in a wicker chair on the lawn that was bordered on two sides by a blaze of colour. Beyond these were banks of bushes and trees, and straight ahead, beyond a long sloping grass meadow, flowed the river, not big as rivers went, but gleaming and twisting like a gliding eel.

  Behind them stood the house. Part of one gable was covered with Virginia creeper, its leaves pink with the promise of scarlet here and there, and from the other gable were hanging great festoons of wistaria leaves indicating that the blossom must have weighed them down in the spring.