Our Mother's House

by Julian Gloag

  “And me? Me? I’m going to be free. Free, like a blooming bird. You know what—I’m sick of the bloody sight of you. ‘Charlie this and Charlie that’—I’m sick to death of it. Snooping around, prying—making bloody prune faces every time I take a drink. Christ, I dunno how I stuck it. Christ. Just like your mucking mother—the whole lot of you. Your mother—that—”

  “Leave Mother alone!” Dunstan had risen. His face was absolutely white and his black eyes reflected the red firelight. “Leave her alone!” he cried.

  “Leave her alone, you bloody little bookworm? I left her alone for fifteen years.” He began to laugh. “Leave ’er alone!” The laughter gripped him and he shook, spilling the beer from the glass.

  Hubert was on his feet too. He was hot, terribly hot, and he tasted the blood from his bitten lip. He bit it again, harder, and for a moment he was able to speak above the noise of the sea-pulling blood in his ears. “You were here, though. You were, you must ’ave been—you must have!”

  “Must ’ave—bollocks! I didn’t go near the fat old tart for fifteen years!” He frowned at Hubert and then his face broke into a smile. “I get it! Blimey, I get it!” he said in a tone of wonder. “Christ—you ignorant bloody kids. You still don’t know, do you?” He looked at them one by one, smiling at the puzzle and terror that he saw. “Well,” he said, “let me straighten you out about your sainted mother. You can’t remember me being ’ere ever, can you now? None of you. That’s because I wasn’t. I wasn’t ’ere since before any of you was born. You know what she used to call me? ‘Charles!’ Imagine. ‘Charles!’ I couldn’t stick it. Let ’er ’ave my kids? And ’ave them brought up to talk like you lot—la-di-mucking-da? Not bloody likely …”

  The room was entirely black to Hubert—except for the scarlet of the firecoals and the orange flames and the huge shadowed figure that rose up above it and from whose lips the jumbled words were smashing down like stones. The stones fell and then there was a sudden pause.

  “Jiminee, take Willy out of the room.” Elsa’s voice cut across the thick vicious tones of Charlie ’ook.

  “Stay where you are!” he roared. “No one’s leaving this mucking room till you’ve heard what I’ve got to say. You asked, didn’t you? Well, you’re bleeding well going to listen.” He turned and spat into the fire. The spittle hissed fiercely for a moment.

  “She was an ’ore—a tart, a bleeding tart! She wasn’t even choosy—she’d pick ’em up from anywhere—sailors, God knows what else. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of you didn’t have a bit of nigger blood in you. She didn’t care. She just closed her eyes and opened her legs and—Jake’s your father!” He chuckled. “ ’ow do I know? ’cause I took the trouble to find out, that’s ’ow. I probably got more of an idea of who your father is than she did. She didn’t care. Why should she? She was just ’ot for it. Precautions? Not on your nelly. It would be against religion, wouldn’t it?” He pulled a crumpled cigarette from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He stared at the silent children angrily. “She was an ’ore—d’you understand! A prostitute.” He was shouting. “You’re all a bloody lot of little bastards. Bastards! You’re not ’ooks—you’re Smiths and Browns an’—an’ Millards!” He was triumphant. “Millards!” He shook the matchbox. It was empty. He let it drop into the fire and looked around. “Got to get bleeding light,” he mumbled, patting his pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper. “Ah!”

  Now Hubert was frozen—a cage of ice for the birds that had gone quite mad inside him. He saw the huge figure turn and kneel down in front of the fire—and the heat was cut off and he was colder still. He was surprised he could move, move to the side and close so he could see the orange coals. And the paper flared and the smoke clouded up from the cigarette. And now Hubert was hot again, burning in the $$$fiery furnace.

  “ ’ere, reach us the poker, Hu.” The hand stretched out towards him, open. The fingers snapped. “The poker.”

  The brass knob was cool as a golden pomegranate, and the sceptre was heavy. He looked down, way down and beheld the face turned up to him. It was a blood-red face and flickered as the blood of the fire trembled, and the eyes were blue, light blue like Cambridge, and a fine network of red lines covered the whites. And the lips were stained with brownish froth. They moved—and Hubert bent closer to hear the words that were so far away. “Come on, come on—give it me …”

  The lips were like worms writhing. He raised the poker slowly. He had all the time in the world. It was alive in his hands. And it was then he saw the face change: the teeth showed suddenly, brown and cracked, and the nostrils collapsed inwards all at once, and the eyes—they were bigger and, yes, bluer and they—they were afraid. Afraid. He saw this quite clearly before the poker struck and there was a noise like the slap of a hand on a deal table and the figure swayed gently backwards and sideways and fell.

  So long he took to fall.

  41

  “He’s d-dead!”

  The little flames of the fire curled and licked at the coals, and Jiminee’s whisper hissed as the fire hissed when a bubble of coal gas suddenly flared.

  The body lay twisted, as if in the abandonment of exhausted slumber—the right shoulder propped in a final shrug high against the stone corners of the fireplace, the left arm outstretched still to grasp the poker. In the fingers of the right hand the freshly lit cigarette was held upright and the smoke drifted towards the grate, lingered, then slipped smoothly up the chimney.

  Diana rose from her place on the floor. She knelt by Charlie ’ook and took his head into her hands. She lowered her face until her hair quite covered his open blue eyes, and she rested her cheek against his, as if to listen to a message which only she could hear. She stayed for a long while thus, in the motionless attitude of prayer.

  At last she looked up. She stared steadily at Hubert, the tears filming her eyes with light and wetting her face so that it shone. She withdrew her hand carefully from the lolling head and held it out to Hubert. There was blood on her fingers.

  “Is he d-dead really?” Jiminee whispered.

  “Yes, he’s dead,” said Diana.

  A sigh of indrawn breath rose from the children at her words.

  “He’s dead,” she repeated quietly. She lowered her hand and looked down once more at the dead face.

  Hubert rubbed his upper lip. It was cool and smooth with sweat. But the hot and the cold had left his body now. He reached back and slipped the poker into the rack of fire tools. Then he too knelt.

  The green of Charlie ’ook’s waistcoat was stained dark with Guinness. When he had fallen, the gold fob watch had slipped from the lower pocket. Hubert took the watch gently in his hands. It was quite warm, and it was sticky with the spilled beer. He wiped it dry on his sweater and turned it over and read once more the great curling initials—C.R.H. He frowned at the inscription, trying to remember the name of the real owner. Cyril Rupert Haverford—that was it. It didn’t really sound a fancy name at all. It sounded like an old man with a bald head and whiskers and pink cheeks and a long black coat like they used to wear in the old days. He put the watch to his ear and listened.

  He turned, the watch in his outstretched palm. The children stood behind him. Their gaze shifted from the body to the watch.

  “It still works,” said Hubert.

  As he stood up, Dunstan quickly stepped back. After a moment’s hesitation, Jiminee and Willy did too.

  “What’s wrong?” Hubert asked in bewilderment.

  They didn’t answer him.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated. He tightened his grip on the watch.

  “He’s dead,” said Dunstan. There was a pause, then, “You killed him.”

  “But,” Hubert began, “but …” It might have been an accusation. He didn’t know. He looked at each one of them in turn and suddenly he was alone again. All at once the heat of the fire on his back was unbearably intense. The room started to sag to the left, to the right, and he saw everything as if through an underwater shimmer.


  “You killed him.” And this time it was surely an accusation.

  His knees trembled and in a moment he knew he would fall. Then Elsa was beside him and her arm was round his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Hu,” she said. She turned to the others. “I killed him, just as much as Hu did. And so did you, Dun.”

  “Hu had the poker,” said Dunstan sharply. “I didn’t, he—”

  Elsa overrode him fiercely. “You’d have done it though, wouldn’t you? If you’d had the poker, you’d have done it?”

  Dunstan wavered. “Well, I…”

  “Of course you would. We all would. He deserved it.”

  “P-p-perhaps it was an accid-d-dent,” Jiminee said earnestly.

  “No.” Elsa shook her head. “He didn’t care for us. He didn’t love us—not one little bit. Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you listen? He betrayed us.”

  There was a pause.

  “He was a traitor,” Dunstan said, and his voice had lost its uncertainty.

  Diana looked up. Her cheeks were channelled with the dirt of her dried tears. Carefully she removed her hands, which cupped Charlie ’ook’s head. She rose to her feet. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said quietly.

  “But he was a traitor,” repeated Dunstan.

  “It wasn’t really his fault. He didn’t mean any harm—not, not in his heart of hearts.” Diana looked down at the body. She rubbed the tearstains from her cheek with a swift backward movement of her hand. “He was just weak, that’s all.”

  Each of them regarded the body. Hubert stooped down and picked the still smouldering cigarette from the dead fingers and dropped it into the fire. For some time nobody spoke.

  “We haven’t g-g-got anyone n-now,” said Jiminee, “we haven’t g-got anyone at all.”

  “We got Mother,” said Dunstan quickly. “We’ve always had Mother. It’s just—just that we forgot,” he ended lamely.

  Elsa shook her head.

  “We have,” Dunstan insisted. “I can feel her—here in this room. Can’t you feel her?” he challenged Elsa.

  “No,” said Elsa, “I can’t feel Mother.”

  “Well I can,” he said, but it was unconvincing. Already the reality of Mother was as distant as the thought of snow in spring.

  “When did Mother die?” said Willy.

  Elsa answered him. “A year ago. Almost a year ago.”

  Willy put his head on one side to consider. “That’s a long time,” he said, “a very very very long time.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Dunstan. “It just seems long, that’s all. Mother’s here just as she always was. We’ll rebuild the tabernacle and we’ll have Mothertime again and Diana will read us the book again and it’ll be just like it was before.” He turned pleadingly to the sister he loved most of all. “Won’t it, Dinah?”

  “No,” she answered gently, “I don’t think it’ll be the same anymore.”

  And Hubert felt a great opening within himself as he heard her words—it was as if the bird had been freed at last, freed to soar beautifully into the sun.

  “B-b-but,” began Jiminee again tremulously, “we haven’t got anyone—”

  “Yes, we have,” said Hubert. He lifted Elsa’s arm from his shoulder and went over and touched Jiminee’s hand. “We’ve got each other. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Well,” said Jiminee doubtfully; and then he brightened. “Perhaps we c-c-could get Louis b-back?”

  Elsa answered him: “No, Jiminee, Louis’s happy now—he wouldn’t want to live with us.”

  “B-but we’ll be happy t-too, won’t we?” insisted Jiminee.

  One by one, as if by some unspoken agreement, the children turned to Diana.

  Diana looked down at her hands. She held them before her and they were touched with the drying crimson-brown of Charlie ’ook’s blood.

  She raised her head. “Yes,” she said gravely, “yes, we’ll be happy. Not just yet. But we will be.”

  It was then that Dunstan began to cry. He didn’t cry with the angry sobs of defeat and he didn’t turn away. He just took off his glasses and let the tears run freely down his cheeks. And, without his glasses, Dunstan’s face was all at once gentle and helpless. Hubert smiled.

  And, though he wept, Dunstan managed to smile back.

  42

  The small Sunday crowd in front of 38 Ipswich Terrace waited unblinking in the weak sunshine. Sometimes a ruffle of murmurs would disturb the impassivity of the watchers. A head would turn, a hand flutter, a finger point. Then gradually they would settle back into their silent staring.

  Newcomers would ask a question and, nodding sagely at the reply, be absorbed into the group. Occasionally somebody would detach himself and drift away.

  Soon after the arrival of the two dark police cars, which now rested at the curb, the little crowd had begun to gather. In the first hour of waiting it had been stirred with excitement several times as various people had passed the constable at the front door and been admitted to the house. Long negative hours followed.

  At about two o’clock a small grey Austin drove up and parked behind the police cars. The driver, a worried-looking man in a blue blazer with a nameless crest, got out and slammed the door hurriedly. He hesitated at the sight of the crowd and then pushed his way through to the gate, murmuring, “Excuse me please, excuse me,” and giving automatic smiles. He ran jerkily up the steps and spoke to the constable on the porch. As the front door was opened and he stepped inside, the crowd pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the dark hall.

  Upstairs in the workshop, Hubert stepped away from the window and turned round. “Somebody just came,” he said.

  All the children were there. Jiminee was doodling at the table; Dunstan was reading. The others just sat.

  “Who?” asked Elsa, dully.

  “A man.” He waited for someone to ask him what sort of man, but no one spoke. “Like a schoolmaster,” he said. “He walked like this.” Hubert thrust his head forward and turned out his feet in imitation of the urgent nervousness of the man who had just come.

  The children eyed him.

  “I ’spect,” Jiminee said, “I ’spect he’s the orphanage m-man.”

  Hubert let his hands fall slowly to his sides. “Yes,” he said miserably. He sighed—if only he could get one of them to smile.

  He went over to Jiminee and looked down at the random patterns of the pencil. “What are you drawing?” he asked.

  Jiminee glanced up at him. “Nothing,” he said.

  “Why don’t you use some of your crayons?”

  “They’re packed,” he answered. “This is all I g-got left.” He waited for a moment, looking at Hubert as though his brother could suddenly miraculously produce a fistful of coloured crayons.

  Hubert turned away. He thought of the piled and strapped suitcases in the hall. “You can take anything you like,” Miss Deke had said as she’d helped them with their packing. Anything you like.

  He went to his worktable. There were still a few tools that he had not put in the case. He lifted his sharpest chisel and felt the edge with his thumb. All at once he remembered Louis—Louis sitting at the table, painting his box light blue. The tears rose in Hubert’s eyes. He fought them down. With great care he began to fit the tools into the case.

  Anything you like, she’d said. But what use would tools be to him at the orphanage? He didn’t want them. He didn’t want to take anything. All he wanted was to stay here—in this room with Jiminee and Elsa and Dunstan and Willy and Diana.

  “Hu?”

  “Yes,” he turned round abruptly.

  It was Dunstan, holding his book poised on his knees. “How much longer have we got?”

  Hubert felt the weakness in his knees. If it could be forever. “I expect,” he said, trying to beat down the tremor in his voice, “I expect we’ll have tea before we go. It’s … it’s …”

  “I don’t want any tea,” said Willy.

  Hubert nodded. He didn’t want any hi
mself. None of them had been able to eat the lunch that Miss Deke and the policeman had brought up on trays. None of them had touched a mouthful. They’d had nothing to eat all day. Even breakfast … that seemed like years ago. Hubert frowned. Mrs. Stork had come before they’d even started breakfast. And when she’d gone, it was as if they were paralyzed, sitting, waiting for the inevitable ring of the doorbell. And then, politely but inevitably, the grave plainclothes policemen had stepped inside.

  All day their house had been filled with strangers.

  “I d-don’t want any tea either,” said Jiminee.

  “Well,” said Hubert, “I don’t expect they’ll make us eat it if we don’t want to.” The grownups now were all quiet-voiced and kind, and you didn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to—except to go away.

  “Will we—will we be able to see each other?” Dunstan whispered.

  “Of course we will.” Hubert turned to Elsa. “Won’t we, Else?”

  He saw her take a deep breath. “Yes,” she said, “yes, of course.”

  “How often?”

  “Well, I expect—I expect …” He faltered. He had no idea, none. They hadn’t even dared ask Miss Deke.

  Willy stood up. “I don’t want to go,” he said firmly. “My black wife doesn’t want to go too. We want to stay here forever an’ ever.”

  No one said a word. There was such utter silence that they could hear the faint movements of people downstairs in the front room.

  Hubert bit his lip. He crossed the room and looked out of the window so that no one could see his face. He let the tears come.

  43

  In the front room Mr. Halbert also stood by the windows. Invisible behind the lace curtains, he stared out into the front garden. Once or twice he glanced back briefly at the room. He smoked incessantly.

  The inspector sat behind the small table, which had somehow gained the formality of a desk. To his right was a sergeant with a notebook. On the sofa, which had been moved back against the wall by the door, Miss Deke sat still as a waxwork. Beside her, fidgeting continually, was the man in the blue blazer who had just come in. The chair in front of the table, directly facing the inspector, was occupied by Mrs. Stork.