by Julian Gloag
“How do you do, Mrs. Stork.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure, Miss Deke. I’ve always been ’oping I would. My, you’re a regular household word in this house.” She fumbled rapidly in her bag and pulled out a handkerchief.
Miss Deke said nothing.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Stork, patting her throat, “ever since Di was in your form, I’ve heard about you and what a wonderful person you was. You won’t run out of love in this ’ouse, Miss Deke, I can tell you that. I was ’ere nine years, I was.”
“Really?” Miss Deke coughed. “Er—you must know the children very well.”
“Me? Like a second mother to them, I was. Ain’t that true, Berty?”
Hubert forced a smile.
“There you are! Oh, Berty, don’t bother about that apron now. I’ll fetch it another time,” she wiped the patch of flesh beneath her chin, “if you’re not away at the seaside, that is. Was you just going, Miss Deke?”
“Yes,” responded Miss Deke. “I was on my way out, when we heard you knock. We thought it might have been the doctor.”
“The doctor—oh, my Lor—the doctor! I ’spect you’re walking up the terrace, aren’t you? That’s just on my way ’ome too.”
Suddenly the two women were smiling at each other.
“Well, goodbye, Berty.” Mrs. Stork dropped the hand kerchief in her bag and snapped the lock shut. “Be sure an’ tell your mother I called.”
The two women descended the steps together. As he watched them walking down the path, on a sudden impulse Hubert called out, “Goodbye.”
They stopped and turned. For a moment they stared up at him and then their heads came together again. As they moved on, Hubert caught a snatch of a sentence. “Tell me, ma’am,” asked Mrs. Stork, “how is Mrs. Hook?”
Then the gate clicked to behind them and they were hidden by the front hedge.
17
It was the worst thing that could have happened. As he watched Miss Deke’s hat bobbing over the hedge, he knew that.
They were in real danger now.
He closed the door and walked back to the front room. But he didn’t go in as he had meant to. Through the crack in the half-open door he saw Elsa and Diana. He watched. Elsa was sitting where Miss Deke had been, and Diana was kneeling beside her chair. He heard Diana’s voice.
“What does it matter, Elsa, about Miss Deke?” She was stroking the older girl’s head. “Mother will always look after Gerty.”
There was no protest from Elsa. Face between her hands, she submitted silently to the other’s gentle caress. At last she lifted her head and seemed to stare directly at the crack through which Hubert looked. But she stared as though she didn’t see anything at all, as though she were listening, maybe, to something very faint and distant that was more important than anything else in the world. Perhaps it was Mother’s voice … perhaps …
Hubert turned away.
He went briskly to the stairs and began to climb. On the landing he halted. He knew quite well what he was going to do.
He entered his workshop. Willy was sitting on the floor playing with the top Hubert had made for him for his last birthday. The little boy did not even glance up. He muttered as he wound the string of the top. Probably talking to his black wife, thought Hubert.
He went over to his workbench and looked at his tools. He hadn’t used them much lately. They’d never let him have a workshop like this at the orphanage. He selected a medium-sized chisel.
He left Willy sitting on the floor and walked across the landing to Mother’s room. These days the door was unlocked and the key on the inside. He shut the door behind him and twisted the key.
It was easy to press the lock of the desk down with the blade of the chisel. He pulled the lid back carefully. Inside the papers lay just as Elsa and he had left them that morning long ago. He took out the sheaf of letters. “89216 L/C Hook C. R.” It was the right bundle. He even remembered some of the words. He undid the string and spread the letters on the desk.
It would be the last one in the bundle. It was. It was dated last year, and, what was much more important, it had an address in the top right corner. The letter was short:
My dearest Vi,
As ever to wish you well and comfortable on your birthday. Many happy returns, old girl.
How are the kids?
I’m fine and I’ve even got a steady job—I won’t tell you what as it might offend the ancestral sensibilities and all that. However it pays well. If you ever want any extra clover, you know you’ve only got to drop your old Charlie ’ook a line.
I suppose it’s no use asking you the same old question again, is it, my old dear? Still, here goes. How about it? I’m ready and willing and will promise to be as ever loving and faithful as human nature permits. I can’t say more, can I? I admit, it don’t sound very good. But those kids need a dad—even me. Remember that, Vi.
Think it over and let me know. Present address will find me until the bailiffs come.
Your tender-hearted spouse
Charlie
Hubert read it over and then pulled the pad of writing paper to him. He picked up the pencil and licked it. Carefully he wrote the address in the right-hand corner, as should be done. He stopped. After a minute he put the pencil down and crossed to the window.
The room was stuffy and all the scent of Mother had gone. He looked down at the garden. Already the lilies had begun to cover the mound of earth at the base of the tabernacle. Come the autumn, the plants would be lapping against the walls. He looked across at the Halberts’ garden. It was immaculate as ever. It was empty. Hubert wondered if Halby was indoors or whether he had gone for another drive. Halby! He had a momentary wild idea. Halby might … but it died almost at once. Mr. Halbert was very nice, but, deep down (and why he was so sure of this he didn’t know), Mr. Halbert didn’t like children.
Hubert went back to the desk and sat down again. He picked up the pencil. He hesitated, and then his pencil came down on the paper.
“Dear Dad,” he wrote.
AUTUMN
18
He had been kept in for not “paying attention,” so he had missed the others at the school gate.
He was alone and he hurried.
The greyness of the day was already turning to dark. The roof of the sky had sunk to a level just above the neon lights, making greenish tunnels of the streets, dusky with autumnal mist. Except in the lesser roads, still lit with old-fashioned street lamps, night had been abolished. Nothing could lurk in the main streets.
Hubert halted at the mouth of Hatton Alley. It was a short cut, but there was only a single lamp in the whole length of it. He listened. He heard the shifting of the dead leaves that had fallen from the trees arching over the alley walls. Leaves—footsteps. Cowardy cowardy custard. He took a breath and plunged in.
Footsteps, yes—always that metallic echo of other feet running behind him. He crunched the curled leaves faster. He ran.
“Whoa up, sonny!”
The hand on his shoulder stopped him and steadied him in one movement.
The policeman stood bang under the light. He must have been in the alley when Hubert started down.
“What’s after you, son?”
He looked up at the policeman’s face. The eyes were shadowed by the peak of his helmet, and only the mouth and half of the nose were visible.
Hubert glanced back the way he had come. There was no one behind him. The leaves lifted and scattered a little and lay still. He turned back to the policeman. They stood together, silent in the lamplight. Their cold white plumes of breath met and mingled. He was quite safe now.
He moved to lift the hand from his shoulder. Momentarily their flesh touched and he felt the hair on the back of the man’s hand. The policeman dropped his arm.
Hubert didn’t move. There in the dark alley with this man it was suddenly better than anywhere he was going, and at once he had the temptation, which had come to him often lately, to just go up to a
policeman and say … He opened his mouth to speak.
And then he was running on down Hatton Alley. He stopped before he reached the terrace and stepped into the shadow of the alley wall. Swiftly he rubbed his sleeve against his eyes.
When he looked back, the policeman was gone.
He moved out into Ipswich Terrace. To push the thoughts away, he watched the slabs of the pavement beneath his feet. He didn’t try to avoid the cracks—step on a crack and kill your mum, they said. But that was a child’s game. He let his feet fall where they would. Soon he was hurrying again. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get rid of the thoughts …
The Day he’d Posted the Letter. He had hurried back then, too. No one had seen him go out and the streets had been deserted, although it was a warm evening of summer. When he had posted the letter and started on his way back, he had thought of his white envelope lying among all the others due to be picked up at 5:30 P.M. It was as if all the effort of hope had been deposited in the red letter box—and a great relief had come over him.
Nevertheless, he had hurried. When he got back, the house seemed deserted. He had gone from room to room, running at last, until he had found them all, standing in that room so quiet that he didn’t know they were there until he entered. And when he did, no one looked at him. No one looked at him now. None of the children looked at each other much now.…
As he reached up and pulled the latch of the gate back, he glanced up the road. He could see the ladies—four of them—standing there as always, waiting. What did they wait for? It would be cold to stand out there on a night like this. “Women of ill repute,” Mr. Halbert had called them. Perhaps that meant they didn’t have anywhere to go. Suddenly, Hubert imagined himself going up to them and saying, “If you haven’t got anywhere to go, you can come and stay at our house.” Silly, don’t be silly.
He pushed open the gate and let it slam behind him. He thought of the policeman and of Mr. Halbert. Mr. Halbert had hair on the back of his hands too—brownish hair that looked gold in the sunlight when he had his hands on the wheel of the car. Flight-Sergeant Millard had had it too. Mr. Roster, the headmaster, didn’t though, nor did Miss Deke, though she had a moustache, just a little one. He wondered if the ladies on the corner of Ipswich Terrace had moustaches too—he’d never been close enough to see. And then he thought of Him—he was sure He had hair on his hands, and most probably he had a moustache too. But why didn’t he answer the letter? Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he had never got it. Perhaps he didn’t answer because he was a “bad lot.” Perhaps …
He was crying again as he stood before the front door. He didn’t know why—it was something to do with the policeman and the “women of ill repute” and Mr. Halbert and Him …
Cry-baby bunting! He pulled the key from his pocket. He was as bad as Willy, always crying nowadays. He sniffed.
Be a man, Hubert, be a man!
He turned back to look at the street. There was no one there. He lifted the key and turned it slowly in the lock.
19
They had stood round Gerty’s bed and no one had looked at him.
“What’s the matter?” he said. He was hot with running.
They didn’t answer, and he pushed through the group of children round the bed. Gerty was lying quite still with her eyes open. She wasn’t flushed anymore. She was gazing at Elsa, who knelt on the floor beside her.
Hubert drew a deep breath. “She must be better,” he said. He touched Elsa’s shoulder. “She’s better, isn’t she, Else?”
The girl turned a frowning face up to him. “Sssh—she’s trying to say something!”
Hubert stepped back a pace and glanced round at his brothers and sisters. He gripped Jiminee’s arm. “What is it, Jiminee?”
The boy looked quickly at Hubert and hesitated. “She started to sc-scream,” he whispered.
“She’s not screaming now.”
“N-no—then she w-went all quiet.”
“Ssshh!” Another hiss came from Elsa. “She’s trying to say something.”
The little girl’s unformed lips moved clumsily, but there was no sound. Her eyes were very big and brown. And there was something about her face—perhaps the thin exhaustion of the flesh—that suddenly reminded Hubert of his last sight of Mother. He looked up and caught Dunstan watching him. As he looked at his brother, he wondered why Dunstan had come upstairs with the others. Nothing happy ever happened when Dunstan was there.
Gerty was still struggling with the words that would not come out. But at last she managed something—a sound like a worn-out needle on a very old gramophone record. Elsa bent lower. The noise flickered and died, then flickered again.
“What does she say?”
Elsa turned her puzzled face to the children. “I can’t make it out,” she said. “Something about a rabbit.”
“I know!” Willy pushed his way to the bedside. “She wants a rabbit—a cheesy rabbit, of course. Don’t you, Gert?”
The little girl closed her eyes and nodded faintly.
“There you are!” Willy announced with pride, “I told you so—she wants a cheesy rabbit.”
“A Welsh rabbit,” corrected Elsa, but she could not help smiling.
“She is better then,” Hubert said.
“Of course she’s better!”
And then they were all smiling at one another. And they turned to Gerty—and suddenly she was grinning her old Gerty grin again.
“Well,” said Elsa, standing up and brushing her skirt, “who’s going to get it?”
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Jiminee,” said Elsa in her sedate voice, “you’re best at making Welsh rabbits. You go.” And Hubert knew that it was the old Elsa speaking. “And Hu will help you.”
“Come on,” said Hubert.
At the head of the stairs, Jiminee said, “Race you, Hu!” Hubert was filled with joy as he ran merrily down the stairs which so few minutes ago he had run up with such fear.
He timed them by the kitchen clock. Toasting the thick hunk of bread that Gerty always liked, grating, mixing, spreading and grilling the cheese, and warming the plate. It took them exactly seven minutes.
“It’s a record.”
They gathered up knife and fork.
“Won’t she want to d-drink something?” Jiminee asked.
“Milk,” said Hubert decisively. He filled Gerty’s yellow mug to the brim. “I’ll carry it,” he said.
Again Jiminee went ahead of him. He had to climb slowly so as not to spill a drop of the milk. He was grinning in triumph as he entered the bedroom.
They were silent, staring.
“What’s up?” he asked anxiously.
“What’s the m-matter?” Jiminee murmured.
The milk slopped as Hubert moved further into the room. Elsa was kneeling by the bed again, but this time her head was bent all the way down to the pillow. And Gerty’s eyes were closed.
“What is it?” Hubert almost shouted.
“Hush, Hu.” Diana turned slowly towards him and her face was filled with the faraway look of Mothertime. “Gerty has passed on.”
“But …” He looked down at the mug in his hand. The milk he had brought for her had slopped over the edge and three lines of it ran down the yellow sides of the mug. It’s not fair, he thought, it’s not fair.
He raised his eyes to Diana. “You said,” he spoke carefully, wanting to remember the words just right, “you said Mother would look after Gerty.”
“But she has, Hubert dear.” Her voice was filled with gentleness. “She is looking after Gerty—now.” She shook her cap of golden hair with a soft movement of her head. “They’re together now. They’re happy together now.” She paused, then, “I must go to them,” she said.
They heard her going down the stairs, and for a moment Hubert thought of the brick tabernacle in the garden.
“We’ll have to bury Gerty in the tabernacle.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“No!”
Dunstan waited for them all to turn to him. Only Elsa remained by the bedside with her head down.
“Gerty won’t be buried in the tabernacle.” One of Dunstan’s socks had slipped down to his ankle, exposing a skinny, hairless leg—but he didn’t look at all silly. “Gerty isn’t fit to be buried with Mother.”
“B-but Dinah said—” Jiminee started.
Dunstan cut him short. “Gerty was punished. That’s why she’s dead—because she’s wicked. She betrayed us—that’s what she did. Gerty died because she was a traitor to Mother.” He spoke the last words with great precision.
Elsa raised her head. She glanced at Dunstan and then stared out of the window. She didn’t say a word. After a while she let her head drop down to the pillow again. A tuft of her thin hair fell across the dead girl’s puckered mouth.
Hubert’s hand shook convulsively and he felt the milk spilling on his skin. He bent his knees and set the mug down on the floor. He remained there, squatting, watching the yellow mug in the pool of milk. Behind him someone began to cry—and then someone else.
At last, the whole room was filled with weeping.
Hubert reached up his milky hand and the tears and the milk mingled on his face.
20
There was only Jiminee in the kitchen when he entered.
“Hullo, Hu. I thought you were n-never c-c-coming.”
Hubert nodded vaguely.
“I put the k-kettle on.”
He’d put the kettle on. That was something. Hubert slipped off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his grey wool shirt. Once, everybody had a duty. But that was a long time ago. It didn’t work nowadays—not since Gerty’d died and Elsa had … Had what? Hubert asked himself as he lit the Ascot and watched the hot water pour onto the dirty breakfast things in the sink.
“What’s for tea, Hu?” Jiminee asked cautiously.
They always asked him now—not Elsa anymore. “Marmite sandwiches, I ’spect.” Jiminee wasn’t much help, but at least he did try. None of the others did—although they ate what he gave them all right, even Diana and Dunstan.