‘Huh! I don’t know why I didn’t smash that thing long ago,’ Ruth sneered.
Tom wrapped an arm about Casey’s shoulders. ‘It’ll be all right, son,’ he assured him. Carefully placing the broken instrument into its cover, he handed it to him, saying. ‘Take it with you, and wait for me at the end of the street.’
‘Yeah, go on!’ As the boy made his way along the passage, his mother’s vicious rantings followed him. ‘Get off to yer granddad Bob. Tell him not to mek you too comfortable, ’cause I’ll be along soon enough to fetch yer back!’
With Casey out of earshot, Tom turned on her. ‘What kind of creature are you?’ He remained outwardly calm, though he would gladly have throttled her there and then. ‘If I had any doubts about taking Casey away from here, you’ve just proved that I’ve made the right decision.’
Without another word, he walked out of the room and along the passage.
Ruth ran after him. ‘Think you’re the man, don’t yer, eh? If you try and take my son, I’ll ’ave the police on yer! You’ve no rights, d’you hear me? You’ve no rights!’
‘I’ve every right! Casey is my son, and I’m responsible for his safety. If you interfere, I warn you, Ruth, you’ll be starting something you might regret.’
‘Really? Well, I think you should know, if you try and fight me, you’ll be sorry. You can be sure o’ that.’
Tom was not impressed. ‘I know what you’re up to, but it’s not on.’
‘Huh!’ Her manner changed suddenly. With a sly, triumphant smile on her face, she spoke slowly, so the words would cut deep, ‘Casey … is not … your son.’
For what seemed an age, Tom gave no reply. He felt shocked and numbed, unable to comprehend what she had said.
Turning the knife, Ruth elaborated in a harsh and cruel voice. ‘Truth is, you raised another man’s bastard. After he was born, I used to watch you doting on him, hugging him like he was something precious. You never knew how much I longed to tell you the truth … to take the smile off yer face, but I never did. I’m telling you now, though. He was never yours, and he never will be.’
‘You’re a damned liar!’ Tom was shocked, then enraged. ‘You’ve stooped to many a dodgy thing in your time, but this is really evil. You’d better take back what you said. Take it back … now!’
‘I’m not lying, Tom. Not this time.’ Delighting in his distress, she pressed home her own version of the truth. ‘I’ve no idea who his father is, but I do know it’s not you, because it happened a short time before you and I lay down together. I tricked you, and like the gullible fool that you are, you never suspected; not even when I lied about him being born early. He’s an unwanted little bastard … made down a dark alley with some stranger who had more money than he knew what to do with.’
Stricken to the heart, Tom took her by the shoulders. ‘You’re a wicked, destructive woman, and your lies won’t get Casey back.’ He gripped her so tight she winced with pain. ‘He’s my son. Mine! D’you hear what I’m telling you? Casey is mine and he always will be. Nothing you say or do will ever change that.’
‘Oh, but you’re wrong. You’re not listening, Tom! It isn’t your blood that runs through the boy. It’s the blood of a stranger who never knew what he’d made, and probably couldn’t care less anyway. When the pleasure was over, he went his way and I went mine.’
Her words were like a knife through Tom’s heart. In his mind he went back to the day she told him she was pregnant. Had he really been so gullible?
Now the truth was out after all these years, it was as if a dam had broken in Ruth and the words poured out. ‘Do you remember all that time you were after me, and I turned you away; but then you finally came in useful … if you see what I mean?’ She gave a sly little grin. ‘When I found I were up the duff, I moved Heaven and Earth to be rid of it, but for some reason it wouldn’t be budged, more’s the pity. But there you were, all doe-eyed and in love. I never had any real feelings for you in that way. You were simply a way out of my dilemma. When I told you we were having a baby, oh, you were over the moon. So excited, planning this and that …’ she laughed out loud, ‘… and you never knew that your joy had been another man’s pleasure before we were ever married.’
While Tom took all this in, she watched his agony and felt nothing. ‘The thing is, I’ve done you a favour. You won’t want to be saddled with him now, will yer, eh? Not now you know the truth. He’s not so special after all. Think about it, Tom. For all we know, his real father might have been a dodgy sort with a badness that could rise in the boy at any time. Then there’s the matter of my own blood running through his veins … the blood of a woman you believe to be wicked. Maybe the boy’s a chip off the old block. What if his real father turns out to be some sort of villain, a wanted killer, even?’ The thought amused her. ‘What about that, eh?’
‘Never!’ Though reeling from what she’d told him, Tom ferociously defended the child’s good nature. ‘Casey is nothing like you! He’s good and fine. I’ve raised him to know the right way to live. I’m proud of his every achievement, and I’ve always encouraged him into doing what he loves and what he’s good at. That’s what a father does, and that’s what I am: Casey’s father. I held him when he was born and I’ve nurtured him ever since. I love him and he loves me, and there’s a powerful father-and-son bond between us. No man alive could be prouder of his son than I am of Casey … my son.’
The more distressed he became, the more Ruth revelled in it. ‘Tell him!’ she urged. ‘Go out there and tell him he’s not your son. Then we’ll see who he’ll want to stay with. Tell him he can be with you – someone who had no part in creating him – or he can stay here where he belongs, with his blood mother, the woman who carried him inside her for nine months; the woman who gave birth to him, and raised him, and made sure he had a roof over his head. Tell him how I was made to use my wiles and make sacrifices, to be with a man I didn’t love, so he would always be provided for.’
When he made no move, she rounded on him. ‘Go on! Tell him the truth! Because if you don’t, I will!’ She would much rather Tom told the boy, because then Tom would be outcast instead of her.
But Tom was determined. ‘Casey is my son and I’m his father, and if you tell him anything other, I swear I’ll kill you!’
Seeing him like this, so cold and unforgiving, she took an involuntary step back. ‘Big words for such a little man.’
Tom wisely ignored her remark. ‘I mean it. That boy has gone through enough already, without you telling him he was spawned in some dark alley by his tart of a mother and some stranger who’s long gone.’
‘Sorry, Tom, but the boy has a right to know. So, like I say, if you don’t tell him, I surely will.’
In that moment Tom actually entertained the idea of putting his two hands round her neck and strangling the life out of her. By God, he was sorely tempted.
‘Alongside my own father, Casey is the only good thing in my life,’ he told her. ‘I need to know he’s safe and secure.’
Thrusting her aside, he started down the passage, Ruth right behind him, ranting and raving, telling him how he could not stop her from getting to the boy.
‘If not today, then tomorrow. Either way, you’ve lost him, Tom. But then, he was never yours anyway.’
When Tom tried to get out of the door, she leaped forward to catch him unawares. Grabbing his hair, she caught him off balance and fought him down. But Tom was the stronger. Having swiftly wrestled her to the carpet, he made a dash for the door.
When she clambered up, intent on forcing him back, he instinctively hit out and sent her sprawling. Before she could get up, he was away down the street, the only thought in his mind to find Casey.
Spread-eagled on the floor, Ruth made no effort to get up. ‘You won’t have him for long!’ she shouted after him. ‘When I tell your dad the truth, he won’t even want the little bastard in his house!’
Tom ran down the street, leaving her yelling obscenities. ‘You’ve not hea
rd the last o’ me! I’ll get him back, even if I have to fight you in court.’
Deliberately closing his ears to her screeching, he grew increasingly anxious that Casey might have overheard what she’d said earlier, and her vile threats played on his mind. She’s lying! he tried to convince himself. Casey is my son. She would say anything to suit her own ends; even labelling her own child a bastard. But she won’t get her claws into him, not if I have anything to do with it.
But he knew that keeping her at bay would not be easy and because of his own unfortunate predicament, might even be beyond his control.
‘Dear Lord, what am I to do?’ Slowing his steps, Tom glanced up at the shifting skies and, for the strangest moment, he felt a great sense of peace. The kind of peace that warmed and reassured; easing the restless soul.
But then he thought of the jeopardy Casey was in, and his peace was short-lived.
As he went down the street, calling out for Casey, the next-door neighbours were at the front door looking out. Sylvia Marshall and her husband, William, had lived next to the Denton family these past nine years. Having soon learned that she was trouble, they had given Ruth a wide berth, but they always had a smile for Tom and his son, Casey.
‘I’m worried.’ William was anxious. ‘Something went a hell of a bang. I’m wondering if somebody might be hurt.’
‘Well, thank goodness it’s not Tom or the boy, because we’ve just seen them go off down the street … poor little devil, having to put up with a mother like that! And if Tom’s given that wife of his a good slapping, then it’s no more than she deserves.’ Having overheard a snippet of the argument that had raged on, she could only guess at the rest.
‘I ought to go and see if everything’s all right.’
‘You keep your nose out of it and don’t interfere. They’ve rowed before, and no doubt they’ll row again. She thrives on trouble, you should know that by now.’
Sylvia, however, found herself talking to thin air as her husband followed the shouts and abuse that came from the Denton house. ‘Oh, my!’ At the door, he saw Ruth lying there, still loudly complaining. She appeared half dazed and there was a trickle of blood running down her face. When she madly struggled to get up off the floor, the ornaments fell off the side table one after the other.
‘Whatever’s happened? Here … let me help you …’
As William began to make his way into the house, Ruth gave him a barrage of abuse. ‘Bugger off out of it!’ Snatching a small ornament, she sent it flying through the air, to land at his feet. ‘You’d best clear off before I get up … or you’ll rue the day!’
When he came running back indoors, his wife was in fits of laughter. ‘You silly old fool! I told you not to go, but you never listen, do you?’
‘Hmm!’ Without another word, he skulked into the parlour, lit up his pipe, and sat there, contemplating life and thanking his lucky stars he had married a sensible, understanding wife.
Away from Henry Street, Tom was growing frantic. Casey was nowhere to be seen. He was not in the street, nor was he at the bus stop, and each time he called out, Tom was greeted with silence.
After widening his search beyond Penny Street he wended his way back to Henry Street. At the back of his mind Tom worried that the boy might have overheard the row. If so, it would have been a devastating shock, flooding Casey’s young mind with all manner of imaginings. Tom hoped with all his heart that the one thing Casey had not heard was his mother’s shocking confession.
Suddenly Tom recalled the place where Casey would go whenever he wanted to be alone or quiet; mostly after school and before his daddy was home. That was the time when Ruth might send him out – so she could entertain her men friends, Tom now knew.
He remembered how much Casey loved the peace and quiet of the Blakewater, a long winding brook that ran behind Henry Street and on through the lowlands of Blackburn. He quickened his steps towards the place.
Once there, he paused to look over the little stone bridge, and was greatly relieved to see Casey below. A small bundle of humanity scrunched in a heap on the wet cobbles, he was sobbing bitterly, his arms wrapped round the guitar and his head bent low.
Saddened at the sight of that small, innocent child hunched up in the cold and so deeply distressed, Tom thought of where the blame lay. He suspected the worst: that Casey must have heard his mother’s damning confession; that the man he had always known and loved as his father was not his father at all.
Tom felt helpless. While he himself was trying to come to terms with her wicked claim, he could not even imagine the trauma Casey was going through. His heart went out to him.
‘Casey!’ Tom called out.
When there was no answer, he took off at a run, over the bridge and down the slope, where he slithered and slipped on the shifting cobbles. ‘Casey. You had me worried, son. I’ve been searching everywhere for you!’
Casey appeared not to have heard or as Tom suspected, he chose not to respond.
A few minutes later Tom was seated cross-legged alongside the child.
‘I’m sorry about earlier, about the shouting and the things that were said, but none of it was your fault, son. Don’t ever think that.’ Deciding it might be wiser not to elevate the situation, Tom slid a comforting arm about Casey’s shoulders. ‘I’m just glad you’re safe. When I couldn’t find you, I got really concerned.’
Tom waited for him to speak. The boy, though, remained silent, afraid to open a conversation that might prove his fears were all too real.
Tom understood. In some inexplicable way he, too, felt immensely safe in those familiar surroundings, and, again like Casey, he was momentarily lost in the peace of that place.
This dark, dank area beneath the Blakewater bridge could never be described as beautiful. Beneath life’s traffic, and surrounded by brick buildings and stone walls, a visitor might be forgiven for thinking he was deep in the bowels of the earth. The air was thick with a pervading stench of rotting food and other perishables routinely thrown into the water from the bridge, yet, for all that, there was something magical about this place. Here an unquiet soul felt safe and uniquely comforted. Unlike people, this ancient bridge would not desert or hurt you.
Now quieter of heart, Tom glanced about him at the tall, ancient walls that had stood for an age, thick and solid, and strong enough to support the houses that had rested on those reliable, stone shoulders for many an age.
At certain times, after heavy rains, the shifting stream of Blakewater would rise to cover the walls and flood the passageways into the back yards. Carried by the high water, rats would swim through into the house cellars. Many scampering rodents lost their lives when the frightened residents beat them with spades and threw their corpses back into the swirling, stinking waters.
When the water receded, the rats were carried off, and the walls were left covered in a coat of dark slime, which dripped relentlessly until a brighter day arrived to dry it off.
Now, softly breaking the silence, the delicate splashes of water trickled over the cobbles to create a unique melody. Above them, with the evening closing in fast, the streetlamp cast a flickering, eerie shadow over the fading day.
‘You love it here, don’t you?’ Tom said softly. ‘I can understand why.’ He chided himself for not searching here earlier for the boy.
‘Yes, it’s my favourite place.’ Casey did not look up.
Tom smiled. ‘Mine too.’
Surprised by Tom’s admission, the boy peeped at him out the corner of his eye. ‘When you were little, did you ever run along the bridge wall?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘Were you frightened?’
Tom laughed out loud. ‘I were terrified!’
‘So, why did you do it then?’
‘Because …’
‘Because what?’ Casey kept his gaze averted, his arms wrapped round his knees and his head bent as before, but now his face was turned sideways as he gazed up. He felt a deeper sense of security now that Tom
was there.
‘Well … because …’ Momentarily lost for words, Tom cast his mind back over the years. ‘Because I think I must have taken leave of my senses.’
When Casey laughed at that, Tom laughed with him, and the sound rippled softly through the air, causing some frightened creature to scurry away under the bridge.
There followed another small silence, before Casey confided his secret. ‘They wanted me to do it, but I never did.’
‘Well, thank God for that!’ Tom shivered inwardly at the way these children regularly risked life and limb, running along a six-inch-wide wall some twenty feet above the water. ‘So, who was it that wanted you to do it?’
‘School pals.’
‘Who were they?’
‘There were two Brindle brothers, and another boy who lives on King Street.’
‘Oh, the Brindles … big family. Yes, I know them.’
‘Well, the Brindle brothers had a race in bare feet. One of them ran on the far wall, and the other ran along the opposite wall. I had to count from one to ten, and see who got to the other side first.’
‘So, who won?’
‘Nobody. They got to the other side at the same time. On a count of eight.’
‘A draw, eh? Well, I think that was OK, don’t you? At least it stopped them from arguing.’
‘No, because they still argued. They said I must have counted wrong, but they were so fast, it was frightening. They ran like the wind … slipping and sliding all over the place, they were. I thought they might fall into the water, but it didn’t even bother ’em! They kept their balance, and made it to the other side.’ When he looked up at Tom, the light from the lamp caught the excitement in his eyes. ‘You should have seen them go, Dad!’
‘I can imagine.’ The Brindle family was boisterous, with the boys, in particular, always up to something.
‘They made it look so exciting, I really wanted to try.’
‘You never did, though, did you?’
Casey gave a huge sigh. ‘No, but sometimes I wish I had.’
‘So, what stopped you?’
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