‘Just the same as he does now. But the fact that he didn’t know, that she kept mum about it all these years, makes her more formidable still, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. The reason she gave me for not telling him was that he would kill me, in fact they would all kill me if they knew. And then I felt I owed her something after what happened. And as the years went on it wasn’t too bad. I had the shop on my own, and this.’ He spread his hands out to indicate the little room. ‘I had my books; and then the last few years I’ve had’—he leant his head forward and his voice dropped as he ended—‘you and Florence. That’s meant a lot to me, more than you’ll ever guess, Dennis. And the pastime you opened up for me.’
‘Oh, that was Florence’s doing, not mine. She saw immediately that you were a natural writer and would make an essayist.’
‘Huh! A natural…an essayist who couldn’t spell more than a four-letter word.’
‘You can spell better than me, it was never my strong point either.’ They laughed at each other now. Then again there was silence between them, until Dennis exclaimed, ‘Oh, by the way, what I meant to say when I first came in was, what do you think about our Rosie coming home?’
‘Oh…Rosie.’ Hughie got up, took Dennis’ cup and went to the stove to refill it, saying, ‘Well, I don’t really know. What’s your opinion?’
Dennis shook his head. ‘Well, since you put it like that I feel there’s something not quite right. She says she’s had the flu. That could account for her being thin and white, but…well, I might be imagining it, but she looks sort of scared to me.’
‘She’s in trouble, Dennis.’
‘God, no!’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s that.’ Hughie raised his eyebrows as he handed Dennis the filled cup. ‘Yet I don’t know. But I just don’t want to think it’s that, not with her. But there’s something. You put your finger on it when you said she looked scared. The others, though, don’t seem to have noticed anything.’
‘They wouldn’t.’ Dennis jerked his chin upwards. ‘But if she’s in trouble it’ll drive the old girl barmy. That would be the end of it, because she’s the apple of her eye, as you know. It’s a wonder she isn’t a completely spoiled brat, yet she isn’t…I’ve always had a soft spot for Rosie.’
‘Me too.’ Hughie again went to the sink, filled the kettle and set it on the stove, but did not light the gas. And Dennis, looking towards him, was about to say something further but withheld it. Then he bit on his lower lip as if to suppress the question, after which he drained the last of his tea at a gulp and stood up, saying, ‘I’d better be making a move or I’ll be late for dinner. You’ll be along this afternoon?’
‘Yes. Yes, Dennis, I’ll be along this afternoon.’
They went through the shop in single file, and when they were near the door Dennis turned towards Hughie and said quietly, ‘We’re going to miss you, you know.’
‘It won’t all be on one side, Dennis. I’ll never forget the pair of you.’
‘Will you ever come back this way, do you think?’
‘I doubt it; not the way I’m feeling now; but you never know. There’s one thing I’m certain of. Wherever I come to rest there’ll be room for you and Florence and’—his face spread into a grin—‘the bairns.’
Dennis put out his fist and punched him in the chest, then opened the door, saying, ‘So long. See you later.’
‘Yes, Dennis. So long.’
Back in the room again, Hughie sat down before the narrow desk. There was half an hour before he need go back to the house. He reached up and took down some sheets of paper from the shelf where the books were, and after thinking for a moment, he began to write from where earlier he had left off. But he had only written a few lines when he stopped, and staring down at his thin, scribbly writing, he thought to himself, an essayist. It was a wonderful word, essayist, and Florence didn’t say things for the sake of saying them. He had started scribbling years ago, but hadn’t dared show his efforts to anyone, until by chance Dennis had picked up something from the desk here. That’s how it had started; and with it his friendship with them both. Dennis had said, ‘You’re a deep one; I never even thought you thought—I forgot you weren’t one of us.’ They had both laughed. Now, if he wanted, he could spend all his days just writing. Going carefully, he had enough money to keep him for the remainder of his life; and who knew? He might one day see himself in print. That would be worth all the money in the world. And he was going to see the world, the whole world. From his house on wheels he was going to see the world.
At this point, the shop bell ringing once more surprised him, and when he opened the door there stood Dennis again, but now with Rosie by his side.
‘I brought her back to go along home with you. She’ll explain.’ Dennis pressed Rosie over the threshold. ‘I must be off. Look’—he pulled at Rosie’s arm—‘what about coming over to our place this afternoon with Hughie, eh? Florence would love to see you.’
‘Thanks, Dennis, but Betty has already asked me. But I’d rather come over to you. I’ll…I’ll see if I can manage it,’ she smiled at him.
‘You do, you do. So long.’
‘So long, Dennis…Thanks.’
As Dennis turned away Rosie took a step into the shop and stood waiting, and Hughie, closing the door, said, ‘Go on into the back room, Rosie, it’s warm there.’
She kept her head slightly down as she went round the counter and into the back shop, but once inside an exclamation came from her, and she turned to him spontaneously, saying, ‘By, you’ve got this cosy, Hughie!’ She looked about her now. ‘It’s something different from when I saw it last.’
‘Home from home.’ He smiled shyly at her. ‘Sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘No…no, don’t, Hughie, I don’t want anything. Thanks all the same.’
‘It would warm you up. It won’t take a minute.’
She was looking up at him, and he down at her, and their exchanged glances embarrassed them both. She said quickly, ‘All right, all right, I’ll have one,’ and he turned just as quickly and went to the stove and lit the gas.
The striking of the match was like a whip’s crack in the silence. It was a different silence from that which he had shared with Dennis. Aware of the strained atmosphere too, Rosie moved on the chair and turned sideways and leant her elbow on the desk and her eyes dropped to the paper lying there.
Having been trained to read quickly she took in the first paragraph of the writing almost at a glance. It read: ‘March 12, looked at programme “The Cosmologist”. Speakers were: Professor Fred Hoyle, Professor Sir Bernard Lovell and Professor Hermann Bondi, and Doctors Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge. This programme interested me so much it set my mind moving, and I thought of the following when I was on the point of sleep and made myself put it down, just as I thought of it. Must extend it.’
Then followed the words: ‘The word conscious is the only means we have of explaining our ability to be aware of our surroundings. Yet how do we know that unconsciousness, which now we understand as a state of unawareness, might not, when deprived of this body, be a higher form of mind which will produce another body, which will in turn take up life on a planet suited to maintain it for a span of time in accordance with the properties of that planet, where it will go through the same process—namely, what we now term unconsciousness will be a form of consciousness. This consciousness will eventually merge again into the universe as unconsciousness…ad infinitum.
‘Unconsciousness, or the subconscious mind, could be the reality. All the universe could be alive to deeper and deeper forms of unconsciousness. The whole universe could be made up of these levels of unconsciousness, and death could be a mere merging into the universe by way of this unconsciousness.’
‘It won’t be a minute before it boils.’
‘Oh…oh, I’m sorry, Hughie. I…I didn’t mean to read it.’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’ He smiled widely. ‘It’s
just some of my scribbling…Passes the time, you know.’ He sat down opposite to her; their knees were almost touching.
‘I…I stopped you writing,’ she said, ‘barging in. It reads very clever. I didn’t understand it.’
‘There’s two of us.’
They laughed together.
‘But I stopped you, and…’
‘That you didn’t,’ he put in quickly. ‘I was on the point of going home. It’s on dinner time, isn’t it?’
She lowered her eyes, then said, ‘I was just passing Waldorf Street when I saw Ronnie in the distance; he was going up the school cut. He stopped when he saw me, but I knew what he would do; he would come out in Baldwin Road and meet me full on. I was standing like a stook not knowing whether to go on, or to go back into the town and to take the bus to the top of our road, when Dennis came down the hill.’
‘He’s married now, it’ll be all right.’ Hughie’s voice was low.
And hers was just above a whisper as she answered, ‘It wouldn’t, Hughie, it wouldn’t.’
‘Well, I suppose you know best.’ He cleared his throat, then smoothed his hair back.
Rosie looked at her hands encased in the fur-lined gloves that her mother had bought her yesterday, and she began to pick at the fingers as she said, ‘I half told my mother that I would stay home and get a job near, but I don’t think I can now.’
He did not speak for a moment, but kept his eyes intently on her averted face before he said, ‘His wife’s going to have a baby, I don’t think he would—’
‘Oh, it isn’t only him, Hughie, it’s everything…You change when you go away, you know, and in a way it’s a good thing you do.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that.’
His tone held regret, and she lifted her eyes to his and said quickly, ‘Oh, you don’t need to change, Hughie.’ She shook her head at him, a gentle smile playing round her lips.
‘Huh!’ His body moved in self-derision.
‘Well, you don’t, you’ve always been sensible. I mean you’ve thought for yourself, an’ you’ve got more brains than all of us put together.’ She glanced towards the paper on the table which had read like double Dutch to her.
He leant towards her now. ‘If I’d thought for meself, Rosie, do you think I’d still he here?’ Both his look and tone were enquiring.
As she looked back at him, she had the urge to ask him questions, but found herself overcome by a sudden feeling of shyness. What she did say was, ‘You said you were leaving. What’s made you change your mind, Hughie?’
He looked at her a full minute before speaking. ‘I’ve come into money, Rosie,’ he said.
‘Into money, Hughie? The pools?’
‘No, not the pools…I don’t know whether you remember or not, but I had a sister; I can hardly remember her meself.’
‘I seem to have heard something about her.’
‘Well, she went to America just before the war as nurse-companion to an old lady. She was about twelve years older than me. And she wasn’t really a nurse, not a trained nurse, and I never heard of her until two years ago, and in a really odd way. You see she wrote to the Vicar of All Souls, you know, the big Protestant church behind the market, and she asked him did he know of Hugh Geary who had been evacuated to Fellburn during the war. Now you know me, Rosie. I never put me foot inside a church, either Catholic, Protestant or Methodist, and it’s ten to one any other minister but this Mr Pattenden would never have heard of me but for the strange coincidence that he’s always brought his boots here to be mended. He always did in your da’s time and he still does, and he came to me with this letter. He was as happy about it as if it was affecting himself. And that’s how it all started. I wrote to her and she wrote back, a long letter, telling me all that had happened to her. It wasn’t much when you summed it up. She had looked after the old lady all these years, and a few months previous to her trying to find me the old lady had died and had left her a good slice of her money. She asked me if there was any chance of me coming to America, and I wrote back and said no, I was settled comfortably here. I didn’t want her to think that I was on the cadge—but I told her that if ever she thought of coming to England I would be overjoyed to see her. Well, it turned out that she wasn’t very well herself, apparently and wasn’t up to travelling; then just before Christmas she died.’ From his seat he looked out through the glass door again towards the row of shoes, before he said, as if to himself, ‘She must have been bad when she tried to contact me. She likely knew she was going then and she wanted to be in touch with someone belonging to her. I know the feeling. But, you know, I’d rather have seen her than had the money.’
After a pause Rosie said, ‘I’m sorry you didn’t meet her, Hughie, but I’m glad for you, oh, I am. I would sooner it had happened to you than to anyone else I know of.’
‘Why me?’ He turned his head and looked at her intently. And she dropped her eyes from his and said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps just because I was brought up with you, and…and I never thought you got…well, a square deal. And you took everything so quietly, not bashing, or yelling, or swearing as the others would have done, if…if me ma had treated them as she did you.’
Following another silence, during which she kept her eyes cast downwards, she asked, ‘And me ma knows nothing about it?’
‘Not a thing. If Nancy, that was me sister, had written to the priest he would naturally have gone to the house.’
She looked up at him. ‘She’s going to get a gliff.’
‘Yes, Rosie, she’s going to get a gliff.’
‘When are you going?’
‘As soon as they’ve altered the caravan.’
‘You’ve got a caravan?’
‘Yes, I bought it second-hand. A Land Rover and a caravan. I got it as a bargain an’ all. The funny thing is, if I hadn’t had enough cash I would never have got the chance of it at the price; I would have been asked to pay through the teeth. It’s the irony of life, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes. But why are you having it altered? Is it in a bad way?’
‘No, it’s in fine condition, but they used it mostly for sleeping. There were five in the family and it’s all bunks. I’m having a sink unit put in, and a cooker.’ His face looked alight now. ‘And a kind of desk-cum-drawers, and a wardrobe. It’ll be like a house on wheels. I’ve taken the design from one I saw in a weekly, and old Jim Cullen, next door, is doing it.’ He nodded his head. ‘You wouldn’t remember him, I don’t suppose, but he’s a wizard with wood. In fact he makes antiques, you know, copies, when he has orders for them. But things have slumped in his line this past few years; it’s with Brampton Hill going down and all that, and so I’ve given him the job. And I know I won’t even have to bother and look at it until he’s finished. He’s that kind of a worker. The only thing is, he won’t be hurried too much, he’s a craftsman. If he keeps at it, it should be ready a week come Monday or Tuesday, and the minute it is I’m on the road.’
‘Can you drive a car, Hughie?’ Her eyebrows were slightly raised.
‘Oh, aye. And I’ve got Dennis to thank for that an’ all. I’ve got Dennis to thank for a lot of things. And Florence, too. When they had the car a few years ago he would insist on teaching me to drive; and then when I could he said, “You go and pass your test.” “What for?” I asked. “You never know,” he said, “you never know.” And you don’t, do you Rosie?’
She shook her head.
‘But now they’ve sold the car because they’ve been trying to raise the money for a deposit to put down on a house. But what they don’t know as yet’—he leant forward towards her, his elbow resting on his knee—‘they’re going to have a house bought for them.’ He nodded slowly. ‘A three-thousand pound one. But I can’t do it until I’m on the road, because Dennis wouldn’t hear of it. But when I’m away and he can’t get in touch with me…well, he can’t do anything about it, can he?’
His plain face looked almost handsome, illuminated as it was with the joy of
being able to give. And the look did something to Rosie that nothing else had been able to do for days. It penetrated the terror that was still encased in her body, the terror that had gone beyond fear. On Friday night she had thought when once she was alone in bed she would cry and cry and ease herself, but she had lain dry-eyed, staring through the terror into the blackness of the night; blackness that was disturbed only by the sounds below her; grunts, faint sighs, snores, splutters and coughs; and these had made the terror more real. All those men down there…MEN…MEN…MEN.
‘Rosie. Aw, Rosie, what is it?’ Hughie was on his feet. ‘Don’t cry. Aw, don’t cry like that.’ His hand hesitated as it went out to her shoulder; then it rested gently on it, and at his touch something cracked in her throat and she gulped and gasped and held her face in her hands, while the tears ran through her fingers.
‘There, there.’ He was kneeling by her side now, his hand still on her shoulder, and when, like a child, she turned her head into his neck, he stared at the wall opposite, and it looked as if he too was fixed with emotion, for his other arm hung by his side like a false limb.
Perhaps she felt the stiffness of his body, the unresponsiveness of his hand, for, pulling herself upright, she turned her face from him, gasping and spluttering as she said, ‘I…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Hughie.’
He was on the chair opposite to her again. ‘What’s to be sorry about? A cry will do you good.’ His voice sounded flat.
She groped at her handbag, and taking out a handkerchief, dried her face; and again she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
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