”You understand? Now tell me you understand.”
’Yes, Dad, I understand.’
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Abel had been working for Peter Maxwell now for six months and to him it seemed like six years, six pleasant years, six pleasant lifetimes. He did a six-day week, often twelve hours each day. On Sunday he rested as they all did. No one worked in Mr Maxwell’s establishment on a Sunday; even the meals were cooked on a Saturday and eaten cold on the day of the Lord, as Mr Maxwell was apt to describe it.
Abel knew he had found favour in his boss’s eyes where his work was concerned, and with his sober manner of living too. There was only one snag, as both Mr Maxwell and Mrs Maxwell and Abel himself saw it, he wouldn’t attend, and they wouldn’t get him to attend, church on a Sunday.
With tongue in cheek he had tried to tell them that in his view he could be as near God while walking on a hillside as he could within four walls, for wasn’t God said to be everywhere? Yes, they admitted, but He touched man personally within the precincts of four sanctified walls.
As for Dick, the boy bore no resemblance to the white, wet, pasty-faced child who had come to this house those months ago. His cheeks were rosy, he had put on flesh, and he had grown a little, but above all he was happy: he was happy in his school, he was happy up in the rooms above the garage, but he was happiest, Abel realized, when he was in that kitchen.
They had their main meal in the kitchen at dinner time with Mr and Mrs Maxwell, and sometimes on baking day they were invited to tea. At other times, such as breakfast and a late snack, Abel saw to these up in the rooms.
And Abel was happy that the boy had made two friends, diverse in mentality but nevertheless close. The first one was the retarded Benny Laton. Benny was no longer a boy, at least he didn’t look a boy, he was a man of twenty-two, but he talked and acted like a 81
backward ten-year-old. But right from the first day he had taken to Dick, and Dick to him, and whenever possible the boy would be at Benny’s side handing him tools, purposely the wrong ones to hear him laugh as he shouted, ”Why! man, you’re daft; that ain’t a spanner!” or ”That be a hammer not a nail.”
The other friend was a twelve-year-old girl who, as though in • reverse from Benny, was being made into a woman before her time. She was the neighbour’s daughter, the neighbour being a Mrs Esther Quinton Burrows who lived in the big house separated from the Maxwells by the strip of paddock and the garden.
Molly was Esther Burrows’s only daughter, and since four years ago when her mother decided, on the death of her husband, to become an invalid, she had been used as nurse, companion, and housekeeper. The latter position she continually assumed when the maid would decide, on the spur of the moment, she couldn’t stand the whims and demands of her mistress any longer and would walk out, which emphasized that the pressures imposed by Mrs Burrows were indeed great because work was as scarce for women „ as it was for men.
But when the young girl could escape from the house and her mother she would run over the paddock, stoop under the wire, skirt the Maxwells’s vegetable garden and so come into the yard where she would invariably bring her running to a halt and look about her in order to find out where Dick might be.
On this particular day it happened to be baking day and teatime when she arrived.
Seeing no one about, she hesitated in the middle of the yard; then looking towards the kitchen window and realizing they were all at their tea, she was about to turn away when the door opened and Hilda Maxwell called, ”Come away in, Molly! We’re just on finishing.” Then as the girl came shyly into the room Hilda turned towards the table and, wagging her finger towards Dick, cried, ”And don’t gobble your last mouthful.” It was as if she were talking to her own child, but-when she addressed Molly it was as she would a visitor, saying, ”Sit yourself down, Molly. Now would you like a cup of tea and a piece of tea-cake ?”
”Oh yes, Mrs Maxwell. Oh, thank you.”
A few minutes later Molly was eating the freshly baked tea-cake and sipping at her tea while the four at the table who had evidently finished the meal sat waiting.
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The silence could have proved awkward but Abel was used to it by now: no one started the meal at this table or left it without a blessing being asked, so he looked at Molly and smiled quietly at her. She was a nice little lass ; he had grown very fond of her over the past months. He had never seen her mother but from what he had heard of her he imagined she was a lady born not to dirty her hands. The trouble was she had been brought up without having to dirty them in the very house where she now lay on a couch most of the day. He supposed her complaint was what in the last century would have been called the vapours, which was another name for laziness or escape from life.
”There now, you’ve finished.” It was Peter Maxwell speaking, and having done so he looked around the table, then bent his head and said, ”Lord, for what you have been gracious enough to provide us with this day I thank you on behalf of all here present. Amen.”
”Amen. Amen. Amen.”
”There now.” His voice altering, Peter Maxwell rose from the table and, bending towards Molly, said, ”I suppose you’ve come over here, young lady, to waste my third assistant’s time?” He pulled a mock, stern face at the girl, and she, her eyes twinkling, said, ”Yes, I suppose you could say that, Mr Maxwell.”
The reply sent Peter Maxwell’s head back and he let out a roar of laughter, and Hilda Maxwell, as her husband had done, also pulled a mock prim face as she said, ”There’s a saucy miss for you, straight to the point.” And she nodded from one to the other, lastly towards Abel, who nodded back at her as he grinned widely. But then the grin was swept suddenly from his face and the laughter in the room died as if it had been cut off by a knife for Peter Maxwell was now bent over double and was groaning aloud as he hugged his chest.
”Oh my goodness ! my goodness !” Hilda was holding on to him at one side and Abel at the other. ”Get him down, on to the mat.”
”Peter! Peter! are you all right?” She went to straighten the huddled form lying on the rug now, but Abel said quickly, ”Don’t touch him, get the doctor.”
”I can ring for him.” Molly was going towards the door. ”I know the number; it’s the same doctor as ours, isn’t it?”
Hilda turned towards her, saying, ”Yes, yes. Tell him . . . tell him Mr Maxwell has collapsed. It’s
. . . it’s serious, tell him.”
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-*>*
L
”Get a blanket to put over him.” . . -T,
She looked at Abel, then nodded before springing to her feet.
A minute later as Abel was helping to tuck the blanket around the prostrate man he felt a change in the man’s body and his groaning stopped. He looked in apprehension down on to the drawn face, which was no longer twisted, and the lines .seemed to have disappeared from it, leaving the skin smooth.
He raised his head and met Hilda’s eyes, and she whimpered, ”Oh no, no ! It can’t be.
He’s . . . he’s had them before. Oh no ! No ! No ! No ! He’s not, is he ?” She was appealing to Abel now and he said, ”I . . .1 don’t know, I don’t think so, his pulse is very weak.” He was holding Peter Maxwell’s wrist and his fingers could feel no beat under them, but he couldn’t say to her, ”He’s dead.” He couldn’t even say that to himself, it had all happened so suddenly. He had died on a laugh. Yes, he had died on a laugh, he had died laughing. This religious man . . . this good, really good religious man had died laughing. It was a good way to go.
It was nine o’clock. Peter Maxwell was laid out in the sitting-room. They had brought a single bed downstairs. The undertaker’s man having helped with this task, it was Mrs Maxwell herself, the young girl, as Abel still thought of her, who saw to the undressing and last dressing of him. And now here she was sitting at the kitchen table, her joined hands resting upon it, her eyes, quite dry for as yet she had not shed a tear, looking straight at him as she said, ”My father will
have to be told, I suppose, and our Florae.”
From his seat at the other side of the table, Abel blinked but said nothing. He had never before heard her mention her father or her sister; but then why should she? He knew nothing really about her except that she was Mrs Maxwell and efficient in all she did, and kind. Then his surprise was registered openly on his face when she said, ”Would you mind going and telling them?”
”What! . . . You mean they’re hereabouts?”
”Very much so.” There was a note of bitterness in her voice now. ”I’ve never seen them for more than two years; he was . . .
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J
(
he was against me marrying Mr Maxwell.” She always referred to her husband as Mr Maxwell.
She now unclasped her hands and, putting one to her cheek, she rubbed it up and down before saying, ”I ... I could see his point because Mr Maxwell was older than my father by three years, being sixty-two. But . . . but I tried to tell him it wasn’t what he thought, I mean our association ... I mean -” She looked towards the fire now, then said under her breath, ”He wouldn’t listen, he wouldn’t listen to my reasons.”
Abel remained silent, thinking he could understand her father’s attitude in not wanting to listen to the reasons why a girl like her was marrying a man of sixty-two. Yet Peter Maxwell hadn’t looked anything near that, fiftyish yes, but not sixty-two. And that was over two years ago, so she said. Well! well!
”And then there’s our Florrie.” She was looking at him again. ”I don’t want to tell her anything but I suppose I’ll have to. If I don’t he will . . . Father, they’re as thick as thieves and of like minds, godless both of them.” Her full-lipped mouth puckered itself, expressing how she felt about her godless relations.
She had risen to her feet now and gone to a drawer in the dresser from which she took out a cloth and, with a sweeping movement of her arms, spread it over the table. The routine of setting the breakfast followed, and as she worked she talked as if to herself, yet all the while addressing him.
”I’ll be surprised if you find her in, off jaunting likely. But if she is in she won’t be alone, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. Oh no; not our Florrie. He’ll be there. If not him, somebody else. Yet knowing what was afoot my father took her part. Can’t believe it when you think of it.”
Abel looked at the table and noticed with surprise that it wasn’t set for one, for herself alone now, but for three. She stopped in her bustling, her glance following his, and without any preamble she said, ”I can’t bear eating on my own, you and Dick can come over for breakfast.
Anyway for the time being. And I’ll have to keep busy to stop myself thinking. If you don’t feel like going round and telling them tonight, tomorrow morning first thing will do ; but . . . but” -
now her fingers were clasping and unclasping themselves - ”I don’t want to be left alone here the night, and . . . and if she’s got any decency in her she’ll offer to stay.”
”I’ll go at once.” He was on his feet. ”Just tell me the names and addresses.”
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”Well, our Florrie’s not hard to find. She lives on Brampton Hill. Yes” - she nodded at him - ”not ten minutes’ walk away.k I ... I think it’s forty-six. Anyway, it’s a big house, one of thoseS that’s been turned into flats. It’s the only one with big iron gates on p that side of the road. I don’t know which flat she lives in; there’ll likely be names on the doors. But my father . . . well, you’ll have to go further afield. He’s” - she turned her head now to the side as if about to admit something shameful as she added - ”in Bog’s End, 109 Temple Street. My father’s name is Donnelly, and hers is the same.”
As he made for the door she turned to him again, saying softly, even sadly, ”When you see 109
you’ll understand why I’m here in this house.” She pointed her forefinger towards the floor. ”But makes no matter, tell them that Mr Maxwell’s dead. He . . . my father will likely go out and drink to it, but our Florrie, well, her reactions remain to be seen.”
He paused and looked hard at her, then said, ”I’ll . . . I’ll bring the boy down to keep you company, he won’t be in bed, he won’t go until I go, and I’ll be as quick as I can.”
When she nodded at him he turned from her and went out, closing the door quietly after him. In the yard he stopped for a minute and looked up into the dark starlit night. She was a funny lass, so young in some ways yet as old as the hills in others. She seemed to be a girl who had never experienced youth.
Abel had knocked on 109 Temple Street and before the door was opened Hilda Maxwell’s last words were making sense to him. Even in the darkness he guessed that Temple Street was one of the poorer streets of Bog’s End, and that was saying something.
”Well! who are you?”
”Mr Donnelly?”
”Aye, that’s me.”
”I’m ... I’m Abel Gray.” ’•
”Aye, well, so what ? What you after ?”
Abel looked down on the thin, undersized man with the outsize voice and he had the odd desire to laugh. Anyone so different
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from Hilda Maxwell he couldn’t imagine. That this little fellow could ever have fathered Mrs Hilda Maxwell appeared ridiculous. This raucous unshaven little chap belonged to another world altogether from 3 Newton Road which was in reality in the Brampton Hill area and Bramptom Hill was Fellburn at its highest.
”I’ve come with a message from your daughter . . . Hilda.” He felt he had to add the Christian name and it sounded strange on his tongue. It was the first time he had said it aloud, and it seemed to have no connection with the person it represented.
”Hilda? Wor Hilda? What’s up with her? Bad is she an’ on her death bed that she sends for me ?”
”No, she . . . she herself is all right but her husband died suddenly tonight.”
In the light from the dimly lit passage Abel saw the old man’s expression changing. He watched the man’s mouth open, then close; he watched his hand rasping across his unshaven chin; he watched him consider a moment before saying in a more moderate voice now, ”You’d better come away in.”
Taking off his cap as he passed the old man, Abel went into a room which he saw at once was used as a kitchen, sitting-room, and bedroom combined. The place looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for some long time, and yet it had two homely touches, a large battered, once red leather armchair drawn up before a blazing fire, and a couple of whippets sitting on a clippie mat; and they must have been so comfortable they didn’t even bother to rise up and sniff him.
”Sit yoursel’ down.” Mr Donnelly pointed to a wooden chair near a square kitchen table on which were a number of dirty dishes.
After Abel had seated himself the small man did not take his place in the leather chair but stood confronting him, asking now, ”When did this happen?”
”Around five this evening.”
”Expected was it?”
”No, no; he had just finished a meal when he collapsed.”
”Well -” He now turned from Abel and went to the fire, having to bend over the dogs to spit into it, then turned back to him and continued, ”She shouldn’t have been surprised at that, he’s been shaky on his legs for years that ’un. Yet it’s always the creakin’ doors that last out the longest.
Well -” His features
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moved into what could be called a grin now and he rïodded his head slowly at Abel, saying,
”She’s got what she went for quicker than she expected, hasn’t she now ?”
”I don’t follow you.”
”No, you wouldn’t, you’ve only been there a few months. Oh, I know all about you. I know all about everything. I’m stuck at this end and she’s stuck at that end but I know her every move.
You were on the road weren’t you, you an’ your lad, and you helped old Maxwell when he had a turn? Oh, you see there’s nothin’ I don’t know. Well, all I can say now is I hope she l
ives long enough to enjoy the fruits of her two and a half years’ labour, ’cos my God ! it must’ve been hard labour. . . . An’ don’t you say, mister” - his arm was thrust out to its entire length now, pointing straight at Abel like a gun - ”don’t you say you can understand her makin’ the move; this hole in the ground mightn’t be everybody’s choice but her and Florrie never wanted for nowt. Sent her to typing school I did, same as Florrie. Florrie made a go of it but she didn’t. She didn’t want to work in an office. No, she didn’t want to be a secretary; she wanted to start at the top, a house and business all ready made for her. But there were no young lads around here with houses and businesses to bestow on her. She turned her nose up at every male in Bog’s End. She even left the Chapel that she’d been to since a bairn and went to St Michael’s, ’cos why ?” He poked his small head forward and now his voice changed into refined mimicry. ”They were nice people who went to St Michael’s, refined. There was nobody out of work that went to St Michael’s. The men usually wore gloves and carried walking sticks who went to St Michael’s, and the women always wore hats when they went shoppin’, not head scarves, no, and they got up coffee mornin’s for charity, an’ at Christmas at the masons’ dinner they vied with each other who could throw in the most to help the poor starving buggers of Bog’s End.”
”Oh ! Oh !” He now flapped his hand at Abel as if to silence him and went on, ”She had her eye to business had our Hilda, but she didn’t find her path a smooth one there either because mothers of sons are not bloody fools, not the likes of them that go to St Michael’s, they didn’t want to be landed with a daughter-in-law from Bog’s End. No. No. Well, when she couldn’t get into that high-rachy, she had to do the next best thing, she took old Maxwell. Pillar of the church old Maxwell. Hadn’t been married in his
The Man Who Cried Page 10