September Starlings

by Ruth Hamilton

  I had to search for a sensible reply until I remembered Tommo’s real name. ‘Yes,’ I answered feebly. ‘I’m Laura McNally.’

  ‘Sit down, please.’ His hand waved towards a chair, and I noticed the blue-black marks of coal eaten into the skin. ‘Phoebe should be here in a minute. She … er … might enjoy a bit of female company, because we’ve just the two boys, you see.’ From his tone, I gathered that Mrs Thompson didn’t really want any company at all.

  I hadn’t known that Tommo had a brother, and I shot a look of surprise in his direction. He was leaning casually against a dresser where some statues sat, the sort of statues that lined the corridors of St Mary’s school. This wasn’t going to be easy, then. A practising Catholic family would not welcome a non-believer into its midst, would not be pleased about a hasty wedding. I sat down, waited for Tommo to say his piece.

  He didn’t even clear his throat. ‘We’re getting married,’ he announced. ‘And I’m not going back to college.’

  Mr Thompson stared at his son, then glanced at me. ‘Pregnant?’ he asked.

  Tommo nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s exactly what I might have expected from you, Bernard. Really, you were wasting everyone’s time at university, so I expected you to leave before completing the course. But there was no need for the drama. I was already concerned about the money that was being wasted on your education.’ He looked at me for a second or two. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen.’ My cheeks were burning like a foundry furnace, were warm enough to heat the whole room. ‘Seventeen and a bit.’

  Mr Thompson took a step towards his son. ‘Go to Butterworth’s and fetch your mother. She’ll be gossiping in the queue.’

  Tommo turned towards the door. ‘Coming, Laura?’ he asked.

  ‘She is staying here,’ stated Mr Thompson. ‘I want to have a word with her.’

  Tommo slammed the door in his wake, then Mr Thompson drew back the curtain, as if making sure that his son was out of earshot. ‘Laura,’ he said, coming to sit in a green-covered armchair. ‘You must not make this dreadful mistake.’ He removed the dark spectacles and placed them on the table.

  I searched his face for clues, found nothing but concern in the coal-stained features. ‘But I can’t kill a baby, Mr Thompson. My m— I know somebody who did that, and she finished up in hospital. Anyway, I think it’s wrong.’ I didn’t want the baby, didn’t want to murder it, didn’t want to die because of dirty instruments. ‘I’ll have to get married.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Someone who has no children will adopt your baby. I’ll talk to the priests and the nuns, because they always know how to place a child. Don’t think about ending your pregnancy except by giving birth. And don’t marry that boy.’

  ‘That boy’ was his son. He seemed a genuine sort of man, looked concerned for me. ‘I love him, Mr Thompson. We met ages ago when he was going round with Ginger and Art and the twins. Then when I moved out to Barr Bridge, he started to come up at weekends. It was funny at first, because he just watched me, took weeks to come and talk to me.’

  ‘Stalking his prey,’ said Mr Thompson. He dropped his head, moved his lips in what looked like prayer, pleaded with me again. ‘Just stay away from him, please. He isn’t right for marriage.’

  ‘Well, we’re both a bit young,’ I answered carefully, ‘but he’s the father and he wants to marry me. I know it won’t be easy. I’ll have to leave the convent and Tommo will need to get work and find somewhere for us to live.’

  He sighed, rose from the chair, went to lean on the fireguard. ‘I’ll get you a rentbook if you really want one. There’s a house on the other side of John Street, one of the smaller ones without cellars. If you insist on going through with the marriage, I can at least make sure that you are near me.’

  I studied my hands, kept folding and unfolding them in my lap. Mr Thompson was a nice man who seemed not to like his own son. Up to now, I had believed that my mother was the only person in the world who managed to dislike her own flesh and blood. But this man was sitting on something, was withholding some of the truth. Or perhaps he was simply trying to save his family from disgrace. He looked uncomfortable, preoccupied. ‘We’ll be all right, Mr Thompson,’ I said. ‘Tommo will do his best to look after me and the baby.’

  He raised his head, and I saw a flicker of hope in the gentle eyes. ‘You may be right. My son has never been one to shoulder his responsibilities, you see. So he may well take to fatherhood and prove me wrong.’ He sighed. ‘I hope for your sake that I am completely mistaken.’

  Phoebe Thompson rushed in and stopped abruptly when she saw me sitting by her fireside. It seemed that the top half of her body was still running, as if she had ground to a halt at the lower level while continuing to move above the waist. ‘You’re not getting your hands on my boy, you evil little minx,’ she snapped.

  ‘She spoils him, thinks he’s special,’ said Mr Thompson to no-one in particular. ‘He’s special all right, but not in the way she imagines.’

  Mrs Thompson rounded on her husband. ‘Shut up, Colin. Can’t you see what’s happening here? This girl has trapped our son in the usual good old-fashioned way. She’s trying to take him away from me, from his home, from his studies—’

  ‘He’ll not study, Phoebe. You know damned well that he’s doing no good in London. He’d be better off at work.’

  The tiny woman turned on me again. She was like a little doll with red cheeks and black hair painted on to its head, because she had scraped back every thread into a tight bun at the nape. ‘You’re not having him.’

  Throughout all this, Tommo had been casting his eye over the Green Final, a sports edition of the Bolton Evening News that was issued each Saturday. ‘They’ll not get the cup again,’ he muttered. I assumed that he was referring to the local football team. ‘And don’t shout, Mater. I’ve made my mind up to marry Laura, so leave her alone.’

  She dumped a basket on the table and stared hard at me. She had blackcurrant eyes that seemed to pierce my flesh so deeply that they might well have found my innermost core. ‘Well, you made sure you got first prize, eh? There’s many a girl would open her legs to catch a good man, but—’

  ‘Phoebe!’ roared her husband. ‘There’s no necessity for that sort of talk. You’ve ruined that lad all his life and now you’re reaping the benefit. It’s not a cat he’s fetched home this time, not a dumb creature that can’t defend itself against his wickedness. He’s caught a human being now, and my pity goes to Laura, not to this so-called good man you’ve reared.’

  They were frightening me a bit. He clearly disliked Tommo, she obviously doted on him. How would I cope if I lived in this street? There would be Tommo’s parents across the cobbles, one of them cursing him and the other one praising him, damning me. The future seemed rather bleak.

  Tommo tossed aside the newspaper and grabbed his mother’s arm. ‘This is what I want,’ he said between lips that had narrowed to a thin line. The words continued to force themselves out from behind clenched teeth. ‘You can have me and Laura, or you can have just our Frank. Laura and I are a team now, so if you want to keep me, you must take her on as well.’

  Mr Thompson touched my arm. ‘Frank is Bernard’s older brother. He was born lame, so he is not considered by his mother to be a proper person. Bernard has been my wife’s whole life. She can take full credit for the man he is today.’

  Although Mr Thompson’s voice was soft, a silence hung in the room at the end of his short speech. Tommo plucked a cherry from the table, tossed it into his mouth, tipped the stone into his hand after chewing the flesh. ‘I’m nineteen,’ he said. ‘So I don’t really need permission to marry. When the church hears about Laura’s condition, a way will be found so that we can marry. Laura needs permission, but with her expecting a baby, she’ll be allowed to get married just to give it a name. So it’s all as good as cut and dried.’ He stared hard at his own male parent. ‘You’ve no time for me, Pa, and that works both ways. As for
Mater, she’ll come round in a while. Laura, let’s get you home in time for tea.’

  Phoebe Thompson was taking my measure, running those dark, beady eyes over my body as if assessing a beast on its way to market. ‘Well.’ She slid the tip of an extremely red tongue along her lower lip. ‘Then I must welcome you to the family, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll get them the empty house across the way,’ announced Mr Thompson. ‘So that we can keep an eye on them.’

  The door opened and a beautiful young man hobbled into the room. Like Tommo, he had red-gold hair and grey eyes, but everything about him was softer, gentler. I glanced at the boys’ father, realized that he too had hair of this rare colour, but he had lost most of it, and the little that remained was weary and running to salt-and-pepper. Frank Thompson leaned against the mirrored dresser and awarded me a shy smile. One of his boots was built up in an effort to lengthen a shrivelled limb, yet he still depended heavily on the healthy leg. ‘I’m Frank.’ He blushed like a teenager, jangled some coppers in his jacket pocket.

  ‘This will be your brother-in-law,’ said Tommo. ‘Frank, this is Laura.’

  He held out a hand and shook mine firmly. ‘Pleased to meet you, Laura.’

  ‘He’s a clerk with the corporation,’ sniffed Mrs Thompson. ‘He had to have a sitting down job because he’s a cripple.’

  I wanted to hug Frank in that moment, wanted to shake him too. He needed telling that he was beautiful, because his mother was making him so small and useless. ‘For hair like yours, Frank, a woman might commit murder,’ I said.

  Tommo stared at me. ‘His hair’s the same as mine.’

  ‘It’s a bit quieter,’ I said. ‘And his eyes are a warmer grey.’

  Tommo laughed. ‘Our Frank’s a good chap.’ He clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder, causing a degree of unsteadiness that made Frank’s blush even deeper. ‘I’ll be trying to get a job alongside you, old boy. This university business isn’t up my street at all.’

  Mr Thompson walked to Frank’s side. ‘College would have been just the ticket for you, Frank. All you needed was confidence and you’d have walked an honours.’

  Mrs Thompson sidled towards the kitchen. ‘He can’t walk half a mile, never mind the honours. Will you be back for tea, Bernard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tommo led me to the door. ‘I’ll see you when I see you.’

  We walked down towards Deane Road, then ambled into town until we reached the bus station. ‘I’ll go on my own,’ I said.

  He stared at me. ‘Oh no. I’ll be with you from now on. Wherever you go, I’ll be there.’

  When he said that, I shivered as if cold steel had touched my spine. But I dismissed the sensation, took my lover’s hand and caught the bus to Barr Bridge. It was August, and no-one shivers in the summer time.

  As far as I have been able to remember, John McNally only raised his voice once or twice during the length of my time in his house. But when I told him of my pregnancy, his behaviour disturbed me beyond measure. He did not scream and shout, did not scold me for my sins. No, his reaction was far worse than anything I might have imagined. My father simply sat down on a stool in his laboratory, laid his head in his hands and wept.

  I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Tommo had chickened out at the last minute, had asked me to do the job by myself. ‘He’ll not want me there, Laura. This has got to be done by you alone.’ So much for his speech about us being together for all time, I thought. Still, I was glad that Tommo wasn’t standing here watching my father’s tears.

  I hadn’t even considered talking to my mother. She would have made a feast of it, would have enjoyed telling me what a disgrace I was. Of course, I could have brought Mary Dunbar into it, could have ranted on about policemen and sports pavilions, but I wasn’t up to much. If this was pregnancy, then I wouldn’t be wanting more than one child.

  ‘Laurie. Oh my Laurie-child.’ He got down from the stool, mopped his cheeks and made for the door. ‘Back in a moment,’ he said. I guessed that he was going to the washroom where he might clear his head sufficiently to cope with this latest shock.

  I walked to a door at the opposite end of the laboratory, looked through a pane of toughened glass, saw a part of my father’s kingdom. There were long benches where the workers sat during the day, some stretches made lower than others to accommodate the disabled. Overhead, small vats hung from an upper floor where the Cooling Teas were mixed, then pipes led down to the benches. Each pipe fed a measure into a circle of muslin, then the operators tied and boxed the bags for the warehouse. The place was empty now, gloomy in the parsimonious glimmer of a few dim lamps. I was seventeen, pregnant and alone, and my father was in the washroom, probably being sick.

  I cast an eye over his bench, saw sheaves of notes piled high next to pipettes, beakers, boxes of herbs, bottles of essences. A gas burner sucked its nourishment from a tube of reddish-brown rubber, gave forth a long pale flame with a yellow core. He worked hard, my poor father, and I was killing him.

  When he came back, I looked at him as if for the first time. He was a man of moderate height, but the feet and inches were variable in accordance with his mood. On this evening, he was shorter, as if his shoulders had been weighted by all the worries in the world. Of late, he had taken to wearing spectacles, because his startlingly blue eyes were feeling the strain of many hours spent hunched over notes and theories. He was old, older than his years.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I whimpered. Really, I was sorry for myself too, felt like a tragic princess whose fairy tale had not yet managed to come right. But I pushed away the pity I felt for my father, because the fear of my condition was greater than any other single thing. I had to get married quickly, and my father would be required to help me achieve my goal.

  He walked up to me, lifted my chin with a finger. ‘I think you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘For some time, I have believed you to be anaemic, so your symptoms will be caused by a lack of iron. You are not pregnant, Laurie.’

  Hope stirred in my breast, fluttered like a small caged bird that has heard a promise of freedom. I did not want to be married. I did not want to be married to Tommo, not yet. ‘How can you be so sure?’ I asked. ‘Don’t we need a doctor?’

  Dad pursed his lips, shook his head slowly. ‘I think not, dear. I know that doctors are supposed to keep quiet, but Barr Bridge is such a small place and Dr Horrocks is an ageing man, too old, really. He’d be running about gossiping, telling everybody how John McNally let his daughter suffer from anaemia. Oh yes, he’d get some mileage out of that, Laurie. All you need is a few doses of ferrous sulphate. There’s no point in visiting a semi-retired doctor when your dad’s a chemist. I can treat you myself. It’s just a matter of a tonic, two or three doses, then some bed rest.’

  ‘But I feel pregnant.’

  He swallowed, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his thinning throat. ‘And how does “pregnant” feel, Laurie?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Just different. A bit heavy, very tired. Everything seems to be dragging downward towards my feet, as if I’m made of lead.’

  ‘Anaemia,’ he said authoritatively. ‘You aren’t expecting a child. Please believe me. You must stay at home for a few days, allow me to treat this weakness. In a week or so, you will be back to your normal self.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What about Mother?’

  ‘Leave her to me also. I’ll tell her that you need a rest.’

  I pondered again for a moment. ‘Well, why don’t I tell Dr Horrocks that we think I need iron? There’s no need for me to say I might be pregnant, I can just go in and—’

  ‘No.’ His voice, though soft, was forceful. ‘The man couldn’t treat a horse with bellyache. And as I said just now, he’d make me into a laughing stock. You don’t need a doctor, love. I’ll sort you out. Just leave the details to your old dad.’

  He sorted me out, all right. When he had finished with me, I felt as if I had been through the Victorian wringer, that aged monument whic
h had been relegated by Mother to the back garden since the advent of her washing machine. I bled copiously, suffered severe back pain, had cramps in my belly that precluded me from standing, even from sitting up in bed.

  When the pain subsided, I sat in our new bath, stared ahead at the frosted window, paddled my hands idly in steaming water. The baby was gone. My father had killed the child. The anaemia had been a figment of my father’s educated imagination, had been dreamed up during his lonely sojourn in the washroom on the night of my confession.

  I hadn’t wanted the baby any more than I had wanted any of the dolls in my bedroom. For years, those silly faces had sat behind their cellophane wrappings, the tiny clothes fading into rags, the rosebud lips still perfect, untouched, unkissed by a loving child-mother. Perhaps I was not normal. Anne had always loved her dolls, had wheeled them in a pram, had dressed them, given them tea-parties, had talked to them and cuddled them. ‘I’m not normal,’ I said aloud. ‘And my mother and my father are both murderers.’ Living on the fringe of Catholicism had given me a strong sense of guilt where birth control was concerned. Abortion was wrong. I wouldn’t go to hell, because I’d been taking a tonic for my blood, but Dad was condemned now to an eternity of heat and pain.

  When I was dressed, I made my way downstairs, depending heavily for support on the iron handrail. Mother was smoking in the kitchen, and the smoke made me sicker than ever. I walked past her, went looking for air in the garden. But she stopped me before I got outside, stood by my side, raked my face with her eyes. ‘It’s all right for you, then, is it? All right for you to run around like a tramp with that horrible boy? Oh, I heard you moaning and rolling about. It hurts, doesn’t it?’