Justice is a Woman

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What about Dobson and his wife; have they gone?’

  ‘No, no, they haven’t gone. Why should they go? They know when they are well off. Do you know what I have done? I’ve had a bathroom put in their cottage. Yes, a bathroom. But they are three hundred yards away along the road; what if I needed them in an emergency?’

  ‘You must put the phone in, so you can ring them whenever you want them.’

  ‘Yes, yes’—Lady Mary nodded now—‘of course. That’s what I’ll do. She won’t like it, his wife. You know why?’

  She now turned to Joe, and he, his lips in a twisted smile, replied briefly, ‘No.’

  ‘’Cos she’s afraid of me, scared stiff of me. And I play on it.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘I stare at her without speaking and then I let out a bawl. The creature jumps. Stupid woman! I want to say to her: You’re a fool. Do you know that? You’re a fool. You shouldn’t be afraid of anyone. If you are, you should have the sense not to show it. I nearly took her hand the other day and pulled her in here and said, “Sit down, woman, and look at me. What do you see? A bundle of old-fashioned clothes on an eighty-plus emaciated body. But what does the body matter? What do the clothes matter? It’s the mind that matters, and you’ve got a mind, woman. Use it and make it tell you that you’re as good as the next.”’

  Betty bent her head and bit on her lip. Contradiction on top of contradiction. She still held it against Mrs Bailey for having sent her son to a grammar school in the first place; and yet here she was, the old autocrat of autocrats, preaching equality. What would have happened if poor Mrs Dobson had stood up to her in the way she was advocating? But she hadn’t time to give herself the answer before Lady Mary supplied it by crying, ‘And what would have happened to the poor individual had she stood up for herself, eh?’ She now put her head back and laughed, a high trilling laugh. ‘I would have thrown her out of the door. And what does that go to prove, Mr Remington?’ She was now confronting Joe.

  ‘That you are very much of a woman, Lady Ambers.’

  ‘Huh! Well—’ Her old head wagged, her lips pursed themselves, her eyes twinkled, and she answered him, ‘Neatly put,’ but it was a superficial answer. ‘Now if I’d asked the question of Betty here, what would she have said?’ She now turned and looked at Betty: ‘What would you have said, eh? Come on, tell me.’

  Betty glanced at Joe before she looked back at Lady Mary and said, ‘Much the same, that your attitude would have been characteristic of you.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. You’re just saying that so that his remark’—she nodded towards Joe—‘won’t be considered trite. Had we been on our own you would, in your own particular way, have let me have it.’ She now turned to Joe again, saying, ‘That’s the difference between her and other people: she’s not afraid of me! she never has been. And why? Because she’s herself, and she’s got a mind, and she uses it; I don’t think she has much chance for intelligent conversation in your home.’

  Joe’s face was unsmiling now. His jaw moved from one side to the other before he said slowly, ‘We’re not a lot of morons, Lady Ambers.’

  ‘Oh, you surprise me.’

  A quick signal from Betty’s eyes quelled the sharp retort that he was about to make, but as quick as it was it didn’t escape the old lady’s scrutiny, and her head went back and she laughed again as she cried, ‘Oh my! Oh my! the male ego must not be affronted. Don’t worry, Mr Remington’—she now leaned towards him—‘I’ll behave myself from now on and play the hostess. Lunch should be ready any time now. Let’s have a drink. Ring the bell.’ She motioned with a bob of her head towards a hand bell on the table to the side of Joe’s chair, and after he had rung it and no-one appeared in the room, she commanded, ‘Again!’

  His eyes were downcast and his head was slightly to the side as he again picked up the bell. After a few moments, during which she had asked Joe what he would prefer to drink, and there was still no answer to the summons, Betty, making an attempt to rise, said, ‘I’ll go and see.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ The old lady was on her feet. ‘She’ll be outside sunning herself in the garden; taking a mouthful of air, she calls it.’

  A minute later, when they were left alone, they looked at each other, Betty smiling, Joe, lips compressed, his head shaking.

  ‘You mustn’t mind her,’ Betty said softly.

  ‘Mind her?’ He moved his chair closer to hers so that he could touch her hand. ‘She’s a tartar. And yet you’re so fond of her?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded slowly at him. ‘I could say I love her; next to you I love her best in the world.’

  ‘Next to me? Oh! Betty. Betty.’

  The following Friday Betty accompanied Lady Mary to the hospital; and when she was about to leave her she felt overcome with guilt for a moment when the old lady patted her hand and said with genuine concern, ‘You needn’t be afraid to stay in the house alone, we never get prowlers, not at night, anyway.’ The old lady’s further words of explanation and suggestion were heard but hardly registered: ‘The men who are still on the road come begging at the gate during the day but I’ve never been disturbed at night. Anyway, should you be alarmed, go to my bedroom window and shout. Mrs Dobson will likely hear you; from her own account she never sleeps.’

  And now Betty was back in the house. Both Mrs Pollard and Nancy had gone to their homes over an hour ago. It had turned eight o’clock and he hadn’t yet arrived. He had said he would be here around half-past seven.

  At nine o’clock he still hadn’t arrived. She was tired of walking from the drawing room to the kitchen, the window of which looked out on to the yard and the narrow drive leading to the side road. She had purposely not switched on the kitchen light so that she could see the road.

  Had there been an accident? Had something happened at the house, something that would prevent his coming? But surely he would have phoned her.

  She rolled her hands in the collar of her dressing gown and pulled it tight around her throat. She had known it was too much to ask, too much to expect that this thing should happen to her. She was forty-one years old, she was in the time, or nearing the time, when the cycle of life would change, a time of life when women who’d had a succession of children thanked God that nature had let up on them. But she had never tasted such nature. What was more, she had never discussed the subject with anyone, not even with Elaine. Oh no, not with Elaine, who looked upon nature, at least where it concerned Joe, as something to cause the lips to draw back from the teeth.

  By ten o’clock she was no longer standing by the kitchen window. Sitting on the couch in the sitting room, staring into the fire, she questioned the whole experience of the last few months. Perhaps she had dreamt it. After all, what had actually happened? When she had thought she was dying she had told him that she loved him, and he had held her in his arms and kissed her. But that memory was hazy, as were the days that followed, days when she couldn’t hold any food in her stomach, when diarrhoea and sickness made her at times wish she had died. What had transpired between them then? The touch of the hand, an exchange of glances. They had never been alone together until they made the journey in the car. But that had been real. Yes, that had been real; that was no dream. Yet she did not know for certain if he loved her; what she did know was that he needed her as much as she needed him, and that if it had been possible he would be here now. Yes, she was certain of that. Something had happened. So what must she do? She must phone the house.

  She had already risen from the couch when she heard the knock on the front door, and she seemed to leap from where she was to the actual door itself, and when she flung it open to see Joe they each remained still, gazing at each other before, their arms going out, they pressed close and stood silent for a moment.

  On a deep intake of breath, she said, ‘I…I never heard the car; I…I thought something had happened. Did…did you have a puncture?’

  ‘No, no.’ He took off his coat and, putting his arm around her shoulders, walked her into t
he sitting room; then, sitting close together on the couch, he rested his eyes on her for a moment before taking her face between his hands and kissing her gently on the lips. ‘There were ructions on at home,’ he said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Martin let it slip that he had been to the Christmas concert with David.’

  ‘After all this time?’

  ‘After all this time. And not only that, but that he had been in the Egans’ house more than once. Elaine went on like someone insane; I’d never heard anything like it. I thought she was in for another spasm of hysteria. But no, this was a bout of sheer virulent temper. Oh, how she hates David and Hazel. It’s beyond all reason. If either of them had ever done anything to her you could understand it, but right from the first time she set eyes on David she’s loathed him.’

  Betty shook her head and glanced towards the fire. Yes, she knew Elaine loathed David; she knew that in many people there was a natural bias to colour; but she, too, had never been able to understand Elaine’s antipathy towards the young man, for no-one could be nicer or more pleasant than David. She looked at Joe again and asked, ‘What was the outcome?’

  ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I was supposed to be off tonight to York for a conference, as, of course, I shall do tomorrow. But at one time, Betty, I really did think it would have to be tomorrow before I could leave there, because I became so blindly furious with her, I…I don’t know how I prevented myself from telling her what I’d learned. But I knew if I had, the session would have gone on all night.’

  ‘Oh my dear.’

  ‘How did the old lady fare at the hospital?’ Joe now asked.

  She smiled as she replied, ‘You should ask how the staff will fare,’ and at this they both laughed; then, her face becoming straight, she said, ‘I feel a little guilty at deceiving her.’

  ‘Don’t. You know, somehow I think she’d understand.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps she would. Being who she is perhaps she would…I made something to eat. It just needs warming up. You must be hungry.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat a bite. Honestly. I’m sorry if you’ve gone to any trouble, but just a cup of coffee.’ They again stared at each other in silence; then, their hands still clasped, they rose and went into the kitchen…

  It was midnight. Joe lay with his head on her breast, his arm about her bare waist. He had never felt so content in his life before. He loved this woman. He knew, as in the moment when pure truth is revealed, that he loved her, and not just because her body had satisfied him as no other had done, but because she was who she was; Betty: a woman he had lived in the same house with for years without once touching her; a woman whose mind was broad and whose heart was big and whose compassion was boundless.

  He now moved his lips against the firm flesh of her breast, and she made no response in any way. She had not spoken a word since his first gentle loving, nor through his not so gentle taking, when his mind became subordinate to his senses, nor since he had lain in the deep valley of contentment against her warm flesh. He now took his hand from her waist and turned her face towards him and saw in her eyes an emotion that was impossible for him to translate into words. Winding his fingers now in her loose hair, he brought his face slowly down to her and, placing his lips on her mouth, he lay still.

  PART FIVE

  One

  They had sung, ‘We’ll hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line’, but they hadn’t been able to do it.

  When, on 3 September 1939, Chamberlain’s appeasement of fear had failed and England declared war on Germany, the sirens went for real for the first time and people scuttled to the air-raid shelters and waited for the bombs to rain down. But nothing happened that day, nor the next, nor the next, and as days moved into weeks the whole thing became a bit of an anticlimax. Except for what was happening in France.

  But then there was the Maginot Line, wasn’t there?

  Poland, of course, had got it hot and heavy, but Poland was a long way away. As long as the Germans didn’t bomb here, that’s all that mattered. Of course, there were irritations, such as blackouts and having to carry gas masks in those horrible little boxes. And then you weren’t allowed to use the headlights on your car.

  And, of course, there had been the business of evacuating schoolchildren and teachers, together with mothers with children under five, from what were known as danger areas.

  Reshuffling the population, in those first months, had been as big a headache as organising rationing. And by early 1940 many of the evacuees had returned home. Yet, later in the year, after Dunkirk, when Hitler’s bombing sent them scattering from the industrial towns, doors that had been shut were now opened to them. There was a broadening of understanding of how the other half lived, at least among certain sections of society, for there were still those who strenuously refused to give shelter to evacuees; and Elaine was one of them. ‘Where,’ she asked Betty, and not for the first time, ‘would we put them?’

  ‘We still have one spare room, and the morning room could be turned into a bedroom.’

  ‘Why not suggest taking over my sitting room?’

  ‘Well, it didn’t happen, anyway, and it certainly won’t now.’

  ‘Look!’ Elaine peered through narrowed eyelids at Betty before she went on slowly, ‘what’s come over you recently? You’re different: you’ve turned into a different being during this last year; you have no concern for me now at all.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Betty nodded slowly now. ‘Looking back, I’d say I’ve wasted years of concern on you.’

  ‘Well!’ Elaine took a step back and she narrowed her eyes as she said, ‘Now we’re coming into the open, aren’t we? Now we know where we stand. Are you looking for an excuse to leave? Because if you are, it’s a dirty way to go about it. And it would be just like you to walk out and go to that old horror when you’re most needed here.’

  ‘And what am I needed for? Tell me what I am needed for. Not to see to Mike, because you don’t give a damn what happens to Mike. What you need me for, Elaine, is to enable you to continue your jaunts to London; you couldn’t go off so frequently and leave Martin to his own devices if I weren’t here, because Martin might take to visiting The Cottage, or some other infectious place. And don’t tell me that it is concern for Uncle that takes you up there, because I’d laugh in your face. You haven’t fooled anyone…anyone. You understand?’

  Her mouth agape, Elaine was now standing with her back to the couch. Her face was red with temper and she stammered as she said, ‘I…I wou…would never have believed it…And what do you mean, I haven’t fooled anyone? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to work that out, Elaine. And also, I think you’d better spend the afternoon writing a long letter to Lionel and explaining how it will be impossible for you to come up this weekend, as Betty has walked out.’

  Elaine slowly eased herself to the front of the couch and, gripping the edge of it, she said, ‘You’re not! You wouldn’t.’

  ‘I am, and I will. In any case I’d have to leave shortly. You’ve just said you’ve noticed a difference in me during the last year. Well, I’ve been wondering that you didn’t also notice a greater difference recently, for I am now four and a half months pregnant and my baby will be born in October.’

  Elaine fell back against the couch and, bringing her hands up, she placed them one after the other across the lower part of her face; and then, her hands leaving her face, she flapped them as if throwing off something unclean as slowly, her lips spreading away from her teeth, she hissed, ‘You! and that dirty old man up there? You’re disgusting, filthy.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘I won’t shut up. I could go up there and spit on him, and you too.’

  Then she shrank back as Betty took two quick steps forward and, bending towards her, said with deep bitterness, ‘How often I’ve wanted to take my hand and slap you across the face, and never more than at this moment. You dare to call anyone filthy or dirty when you’ve been carrying on
with a married man for years under Joe’s nose, while depriving him of his rights under the pretext of nerves. Your first breakdown might have had some reality about it, but you’ve used it since to have your way and deprive him of his rights as a husband. And now you dare turn your lip up at me. Well, for your information I’ll tell you that the father of my child doesn’t happen to be Mike. If I’d known years ago what I know now he would have been, and I would have had a family running around me in this house. And I would have been its mistress; I wouldn’t have had to say thank you to you for the pittance you gave me; that is, until Joe found you out.’

  The colour drained from Elaine’s face now, the skin looking as taut as a piece of alabaster. Her eyes were wide and almost spitting fire as she cried, ‘You wouldn’t have been here at all if it hadn’t been for me. You would have been pushed from dog to devil, going the rounds as an unpaid companion. You’ve had the run of the house, you’ve done what you liked, and I still say it’s dirty and indecent that you, at your age, should go with a man. I suppose the old witch arranged it. Was it her chauffeur?’

  Betty’s hand came out and up, but just as Joe’s had done years previously it halted in mid-air. She closed her eyes and as her hand dropped to her side so did her head bow on to her chest, and she turned slowly about and went from the room. But before she closed the door Elaine’s voice hit her, as she shouted, ‘You’re pathetic! That’s what you are, pathetic!’

  Blindly now, Betty made her way across the landing but, hearing Martin’s voice in the hall below and knowing he would come to her room, she began to mount the stairs to Mike’s quarters. But halfway up she stood and leant her head against the wall and repeated to herself, ‘Pathetic. Pathetic.’ Was that how she would appear to others, pathetic? She hadn’t felt pathetic, at least not until now. For weeks she had felt wonderful, warm, alive, and everyone had said how well she looked. She hadn’t meant it to end like this. They’d had it all planned: she was going to make the excuse that she must go and look after Lady Mary, who was ill. She had thought to be away by next week. The hardest part, she had considered, would be telling Mike; and now that hard part lay immediately before her and she didn’t know how she would begin the telling of it.