My Beloved Son

by Catherine Cookson

  The same pattern was repeated in the library.

  Slowly now, he walked to the bare staircase, and when he reached the gallery, he became still as he looked along the corridor towards the room that he knew he must enter once again.

  When he thrust open his mother’s bedroom door, he half expected to see her sitting in the bed facing him. And yet, he had no memory of seeing her sitting upright in bed; the only memory was of himself stripping the bedclothes from her and revealing her in her outdoor clothes. The bed was bare except for a mattress and, but for the wardrobe, the room was bare of furniture.

  Slowly he walked across the floor, looking at the boards, his eyes searching for a loose one that could indicate a hiding place. He even pulled the brass bedstead away from the wall and examined the exposed floor; but each board showed not the faintest sign of having been moved.

  The bedstead spring and the mattress on it he found was intact on both sides.

  Next he looked in the wardrobe. It was an old Dutch wardrobe, just one large empty space inside. The top was flat with just a slight rise of ornamentation at the front. He reached up and groped across the top with his hand, but felt nothing; he hadn’t really expected to find anything there.

  It had to be somewhere. What other furniture had been in the room? The wash-hand stand with the marble top, a dressing table with two short drawers and one long one, which he could see now as if it were standing before him, and a writing table.

  He walked to the window. It was an odd-shaped window. There were two of them on this side of the house, one at each end of the wall. They called them the triangle windows, this one set above the central bow of the library. The bedroom window itself was no more than three feet wide and both bottom panes opened outwards. For some reason which he couldn’t explain to himself his eyes became riveted on the cup of the drainpipe that ran down the side of the wall towards the ground floor. Rising from it was an angled pipe connected to one leading down from the main roof guttering.

  Slowly he opened the window, a gust of wind catching it and almost wrenching it out of his hand. Pushing the window open to its fullest extent he now leant well out until his head was above the cup of the drainpipe. Looking into it told him nothing, only that it was rusty and blocked with leaves.

  Hanging on to the window sill now with one hand, he eased himself further out until he could thrust his arm down the cup. This resulted in his having to pull out handful after handful of black, rotting, mulched leaves, but nothing else. He withdrew himself back into the room, pulled off his overcoat and his suit coat, rolled up his sleeve well above the elbow and once again leant out of the window; and now thrusting his forearm down into the cup’s outlet, he found what he was looking for. His fingers recognised the shape of the wooden handle. He gripped it and pulled, but it remained fast. Again he tried while the wind tore at him and the window flapped against his shoulder.

  He was breathing heavily and, far from feeling cold, he was now sweating as he pulled himself back into the room. He’d have to get at it somehow or never sell the house, because whoever bought it would, if they cared for the place at all, clear the drainpipes, the blocking of which any householder knew was one of the main causes of decay in the brickwork. And what would happen when the gun was found? The war being over, newspapers had to be fed, and they would grab at this. You could even see the headlines: Poachers hunted and blamed for killings.

  But perhaps the new occupants would have the spout taken down and thrown away. Yes, but once it was loosened, the gun would probably be loosened too.

  Once again he had his arm in the drainpipe, but tug as he might he couldn’t move the gun.

  Minutes later, his topcoat on once more, he heard himself laughing; then he checked it; but he could not check the words that came out of his mouth as he looked towards the bare bed. ‘You were determined that I should have it, weren’t you? This seems to be your final card.’ And then he almost left the ground in one leap as he swung round to hear his name being spoken. ‘Eeh! Mr Joe, you did give me a gliff. I saw you from the road hanging out of the window. I…I thought you were one of those fellows after the lead. And then I recognised you.’

  ‘Oh Mary—’ He put his hand to his brow for a moment, and she came towards him, saying softly, ‘Have I given you a turn?’

  ‘Yes; yes, Mary, you’ve given me a turn.’

  She now walked past him and stood by the window and, looking downwards, she said, ‘Were you looking for something?’

  He stared at her. ‘I…I think the drain’s blocked, Mary. It…it was full of leaves. I cleared it.’

  ‘It’s been blocked for a long time, Mr Joe.’ They stared at each other and he found his head moving in disbelief, while his mind told him that Mary knew.

  His voice was a mere whisper now as he said, ‘You know, Mary?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Joe, I know.’

  ‘And…and you did nothing about it? You continued to look after her?’

  ‘Well, you see, I didn’t believe it, not at first. She used to have sort of nightmares and she would wake up yelling about the spout. “Get rid of that spout,” she would shout. Then just before she died her mind was clear and…and she told me. With her own lips she told me. And she kept saying she did it for you. But after, when I came to think about it, I know why she did it; it was only a bit for you; most of it was for herself, ’cos she had been mistress of this place for years and she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it. You know, Mr Joe’—Mary now looked towards the bed—‘I nearly committed murder meself that night. The only thing that stopped me, I think, was that I knew she was near her end. She did a dreadful thing, but by God, Mr Joe, she paid for it. Eeh! She did that. When I saw her lying there dead, all I felt against her kind of vanished: she had never been a very happy person and she had gone through hell in her last years…When did you find out, Master Joe?’

  He drew in a shuddering breath before he said, ‘The night she killed them. I saw her as she came back, and I surprised her in bed with her clothes on.’

  ‘She was a clever woman in her way, your mother. If it hadn’t been for that, you spotting her, she might have carried on normal, like, and no-one any the wiser. But about this spout. I’ve thought about it a lot. I tried to get the gun out last year. Well, I mean, what I did was, I put my arm down to see if there was anything there to satisfy meself that it hadn’t all been a sort of me own imagination playing havoc with me, because sometimes when I’ve been left here on me own, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d gone off me head meself.’

  ‘I can understand that, Mary. I just don’t know how you’ve stood it.’

  ‘Well, it was either here, or going to live with me mother or going into munitions, and I didn’t fancy either of those two. This was the lesser of all the evils; I was me own boss so to speak. Anyway, about the spout, Mr Joe, I understand…well, there’s a rumour, I got it from the solicitor, that you might be thinking of selling, and I think something should be done about it.’ She nodded towards the window. ‘It’s all past and done with now; let sleeping dogs lie, I think; I’m not one for stirring up trouble, never have been. I often thought if I had help I could have unscrewed the whole pipe; it isn’t all that long; but I couldn’t do it on my own, and to ask anybody, they would want to know the reason, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, Mary, they would want to know the reason.’

  He paused. ‘Do you think we could do it together?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, Mr Joe; but…but first of all let’s go down and have a cup of tea.’

  Ten minutes later they were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, and once again Mary caused him almost to leave the ground when she said, ‘How is Maggie and the bairn? I bet he gets more like you every day.’

  ‘Like me? What do you mean, Mary, like me?’

  ‘Well, why shouldn’t he be?’ Mary narrowed her eyes at him now. ‘Have I said something wrong? I hold nothing against you for not marrying her. I…I mean, you know
your own business best, but when she had the bairn by you…well.’

  ‘Mary—’ He was on his feet now and, his hands flat on the table, leaning across towards her in such a manner that she scraped her chair back away from him as he cried, ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  Pulling herself to her feet, she went round the back of the chair and held on to it as she stared at him, thinking for a moment that he too, like his mother, had gone mad. ‘Well, it’s your bairn, Master Joe, and I thought…’

  ‘Mary’—he had closed his eyes now and drooped his head—‘what are you saying? It’s not my bairn.’

  ‘Master Joe—’ The tone of her voice brought his head up and as he stared at her she said slowly, ‘Well, I reckoned from the time you were together to the time it was born, it was yours.’

  Slowly he sat down on the chair and, staring up at her, he said, ‘Mary, sit down and tell me what makes you think the child is mine.’

  Mary sat down, but cautiously, and she pressed her hand against the side of the table as if for support as she said, ‘Well, when you deserted from the Air Force, she came here looking for you. She was here before you got here. We found you upstairs in your mother’s room; she was screaming. You were very strange, didn’t speak or anything, and we got you to bed and the doctor to you, and she sat up with you. Well’—she looked down now—‘your mother had a bad night, dreadful, and I had to get up and see to her, and I thought I would look in and see how you were. And there you were, both of you, in bed together.’ She lowered her head now as she said, ‘She was tight in your arms and you were both fast asleep.’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ He let his head drop back onto his shoulders and his mouth fell into one large gape and he seemed to stretch it wider and wider before finally bringing his head forward again. ‘Of all the bloody fools in this wide world, you’re looking at one, Mary,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that, Mr Joe.’ There was a faint smile on her face now.

  ‘I would, Mary, I would. I accused her, at least I did in my mind, of going off the rails. And to think…Oh, my God!’ He got to his feet, ‘No wonder she walked out on me.’

  ‘She walked out on you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded at her. ‘Carrie came to see me, and Maggie must have got the wrong impression…’

  ‘But our Carrie’s going into the Church.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but Maggie didn’t know that and she’d had enough.’

  ‘Eeh, what a mix-up! But then our Carrie was always one for mixing things up, in a different way, I know, from our Janet and the rest. But for her to go and be a nun. Eeh, Mr Joe! Well, it floored me mother; she won’t speak to her. It was bad enough when she became a Catholic. But now a nun! Somebody’s got at her. That’s what me mother says. And our Mick is almost as bad; he’s gone for a sort of holy Joe. Oh—’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, Mr Joe; it’s just a saying.’

  He had to smile. Dear Mary. In a way she was like Maggie, a leveller, bringing things down to earth, and she had certainly brought him down to earth. Charles was his? He couldn’t believe it. Oh, Maggie! Maggie. He must get back. And he repeated the words aloud; ‘I must get back, Mary,’ he said; ‘and so let’s get on with that spout, eh?’

  ‘Yes, Master Joe, let’s get on with it.’ …

  It took them almost two hours to undo the rusty bolts; and when they had the pipe on the ground and had forced the gun from its resting place, neither of them made any comment as they stood looking down at it. It was covered with the black slime of the decomposed leaves. As Mary went to pick it up, Joe stopped her and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he put it round the barrel, saying, ‘Get a spade, Mary.’

  Down in the wood he dug a narrow trench almost three feet deep, and there he laid the gun at the bottom of it, and again they stood looking down at it without speaking.

  Joe had asked the taxi driver to return in three hours, and so he should soon be here. They were sitting in the kitchen waiting.

  ‘I’m glad you’re going to be married, Mary,’ Joe said, ‘and it goes without saying that I wish you every happiness; you deserve it.’

  ‘I’ll be happy, Mr Joe, never fear; he’s a good man. I’ve waited a long time’—she laughed now—‘but I know I’ve chosen right. He’s been married afore; his wife died in the Blitz in Liverpool. And he limps a bit, because a foot was hurt in one of the raids. We’re thinking about setting up a tobacconist’s shop, Confectionery and Tobacconist.’ She nodded at him. ‘He’s got an appointment with the bank manager next Monday, because he’s got his eye on a nice little business; it’s a corner shop in Gateshead. And quite a nice neighbourhood an’ all.’

  ‘May I ask how much they’re asking for it, Mary?’

  ‘Eeh, quite a lot, Mr Joe. But he’ll get it. He’s got a hundred and fifty saved up, and I’ve got a bit, ’cos I’ve never used me wages and it’s in the same bank. We want about another two hundred. Oh, he’ll get it.’

  ‘There won’t be any need, Mary, for him to get it.’

  He went to the table whereon lay a small case that he had brought with him and, opening it, he took out a leather folder, and from this he extracted a cheque book, and on a cheque he wrote: Miss Mary Smith. Five hundred pounds.

  When he handed it to her she stared at it for a moment and put her hand tightly across her mouth, while the tears sprang from her eyes and she muttered, ‘Oh, Mr Joe, you needn’t give me this because of…well…’ He now caught hold of her hand, and he said, ‘I’m giving it to you, Mary, in thanks for your loyalty to this house since you were a little girl, and not for anything else. You’re a good woman, Mary, a brave and kind woman, and I’ll always be in your debt. And you must tell me when you’re going to be married, because I mean to be there and meet this lucky fellow.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Joe.’ She was sobbing audibly now. ‘I…I never thought to see the day that I’d be so lucky. In all ways I’m lucky. In a way, I’ve always been lucky. No matter what this house has done to you, Mr Joe, I’ve always felt lucky because I was connected with it; I’ve never gone hungry, never wanted for anything because of it, and now me future’s settled. Oh, Mr Joe.’

  He had his arm around her shoulders now, and it was with a touch of sadness that he thought of how little it took to make some people happy. She thought she had always been lucky. She’d worked herself to a standstill in this house for years; she had looked after a madwoman; and even when she knew that woman had killed her own father, she continued to look after her and had kept her secret all this time. There weren’t many such Marys in the world, but thank God there were still a few.

  She was still crying when he bade farewell to her, and the driver closed the taxi door on him.

  And now for Hereford and Maggie. He caught the night train from Newcastle to Birmingham. With luck, by lunchtime he could be at the cottage.

  What if she wasn’t there? She had got to be there. She must be there.

  Nine

  It was raining heavily. He was drenched between leaving the bus and the time he reached the gate of the cottage, and when, pausing for a moment, he wiped the rain from his face and through narrowed eyes looked upwards to where a thin spiral of smoke was being spread out as soon as it left the chimney pot, he closed his eyes tightly, bit on his lip, then went up the path and round to the back door.

  As if he had just returned on that particular afternoon after saying goodbye to Carrie and Mick, there was Maggie seeing to the child’s wants: she was actually placing a bowl of hot cereal on the table when he opened the door. As she turned her head and looked at him a little of the contents of the bowl spilled over; then turning her gaze back to the table she reached out and, taking up a napkin, she dabbed at the spilt milk. And he couldn’t believe his ears when, her back to him, she went towards the stove, saying, ‘You’ve taken your time.’

  His throat was tight, his chest was tight, his whole body seemed tight, fit to bursting with the things he had to say, and what does she greet him wi
th? ‘You’ve taken your time.’ A gurgle of laughter spiralled up through the centre of him, but he didn’t give vent to it. What he did was to play her at her own game, and, going to the table from where the child had already turned and was shouting, ‘Joe! Joe!’ he lifted him up and stared into his face; and then he said something that surprised her for the moment: ‘Not Joe, Joe; it’s Dada. Say Dada.’

  ‘Joe, Joe.’

  He stared at the child for a moment longer and saw in his face the reflection of himself; then on a wave of emotion he pulled him tightly into his breast and, holding the child’s face against his own, he looked at Maggie where she was surveying him now from the other side of the table, and he said, ‘That’s one thing I’ll never forgive you for, do you hear? Keeping it from me.’

  ‘Huh!’ She tossed her head as she again turned from him, saying, ‘If you want the truth, you had very little to do with it. In fact—’ She paused now; and then, her face twisted with a peculiar pain, she muttered through trembling lips, ‘You didn’t even know it was me; you thought it was her, or else it would never have happened.’

  Slowly he put the boy down into the chair again, where he proceeded quite unconcerned to get on with his breakfast, and he moved round the table to stand in front of her to take her hands and pull them tightly into his breast, and his voice had a deep tremble in it as he said, ‘We’ve…I mean, I’ve got a lot of talking to do, Maggie. Come. Come on.’ And with this he led her out of the kitchen, through the little hall, and into the sitting room.

  The fire was smoking slightly, and as he went to draw her down onto the couch she reached out, saying, ‘I must push that wood on.’

  ‘Damn the wood!’ He jerked her round, and with a ‘plop’ she found herself sitting on his knee.