Goodbye Hamilton

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No, she won’t. And let me tell you something, Georgie: you’ll look splendid in grey tails and your topper.’

  ‘Eeh! God above. That topper! It’s a good job we’re not leavin’ by Mam’s street else they’d be rollin’ in the gutters. I’m tellin’ you, ’cos let’s face it, Maisie, I’m not built for that kind of rig-out. I’m too bulky.’

  ‘You’re not, you’re just right, and you’ll look the smartest man there.’

  ‘Oh aye. Well, if you say so, Maisie. But fancy’—he screwed up his face—‘being able to hire togs like that. I wonder who had that suit on last?’

  ‘Somebody with the itch, no doubt,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘Aw, you!’ He pushed me in the shoulder, and when I staggered slightly his big hand gripped my arm and pulled me forward again. Then his voice low, he said, ‘There won’t be much time for talkin’ after this, but…but I just want to say again, thank you, Maisie, for lettin’ us stay here. I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d ever come back to this house.’

  ‘It should have been yours really, Georgie, in the first place. You were her husband, she should have left it to you. And then that devil wouldn’t have got his claws into me.’

  ‘Well, hair goes the way the wind blows, lass, an’ if things hadn’t worked out as they did, although they were hell for you, I doubt if you’d be standin’ here the day. Nor me either.’ And his face going into a grin again, he said, ‘Talkin’ of wind, on me long treks I had an assistant driver. He was an educated bloke. How he come to be on the road, I don’t know, he never said, but he was always spouting poetry. And he used to say, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” And you can imagine what my reply was to that, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ I said, pushing him. ‘You’ve got a crude mind, Georgie Carter. You’d catch on to anything like that and remember it word perfect, wouldn’t you!’

  ‘Aye, I take after me mother. And I’ll tell you another thing,’ he now said: ‘Nardy’s Big Top friends, they think we’re a lot of Geordie aborigines up here. I heard one of them say to his mate, “You should hear him talk, not that you’ll understand him, but you should hear him.” They meant me. I was talking to Jimmy Tyler in the pub last night. I’m tellin’ you they think we’ve just been dug up, prehistoric like. By lad! I laid it on thick just for them.’

  He was laughing, he wasn’t upset by it all. He now left me and bounded up the stairs. And I went on into the kitchen where his four adopted children were still at the table eating, and on my entrance their chatter subsided. They were apt to be more subdued in my presence because Auntie Maisie was someone of importance, she had written a book and it was a best-seller. And because of it, she was going to marry a gentleman, her publisher indeed, and live in London, and had let them have this house and they had to behave themselves.

  I had heard them being lectured in different ways by their mother, their stepfather, and their stepgrandmother, but they amounted to the same thing, they’d all be out on their necks if they didn’t behave.

  I smiled at them and said, ‘It’ll soon be time for your getting ready,’ to which Betty, who was fifteen and the eldest, answered, ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever been a bridesmaid, Auntie Maisie.’ Her voice and face looked serious. But when her brother John put in on a splutter, ‘And never the blushing bride. That was on the television the other night, a fellow was singin’ it,’ Betty said, ‘Oh you!’ and slapped out at him. But Gran shouted, ‘There’s one thing I can promise you, me lad, if you don’t finish that plate and scarper you’ll never live to be a bridegroom.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll turn out to be a groom to Aunt Maisie’s horse.’

  There was utter silence in the kitchen for a moment; then an explosion of laughter, and I looked at Gordon who was the youngest and who was blushing to the roots of his red hair, and I ruffled it, saying, ‘Well, he could do just that.’ And I asked him, ‘What would you be?’ For answer he looked at his brother and, quietly, he said, ‘I’d be assistant groom to our John.’

  He had a nice nature had Gordon, he’d never hurt anyone knowingly. I liked all four children but I think I favoured Betty and Gordon above John and Kitty. Then we were all brought back from a hypothetical future to the present by Gran’s shouting, ‘Well, you two grooms better get a brush in your hand and sweep up the muck from the horse by way of getting rid of those boxes in the backyard and tidying up the place.’

  ‘What, this mornin’?’ It was a chorus from both boys and she yelled back at them, ‘Not this afternoon, or the morrow, but aye, this very mornin’. So get!’

  I got, too. I left the war zone and went quickly up to my room. I looked at my bed with my beautiful blue voile dress laid on it and my cases standing at the foot of it and already packed. And for some strange reason I wanted to cry. Then going swiftly to the door, I turned the key and, throwing myself on my knees by the side of the bed, the bed in which I had never known a moment of love or happiness, I gave way to a bout of weeping. And as I knelt there, my hands holding my face, I felt a presence near me. It wasn’t a human presence, and it wasn’t a single presence either. Without raising my head I knew it was Hamilton and Bill standing there: Bill who had been flesh and blood, Hamilton who had been the creation of my lonely mind; they were both there and I took my hand away from my face and held it out towards them, and I felt a great peace overwhelm me and an assuredness that nothing ill would ever befall me again.

  Such are the wishful illusions of the mind.

  Two

  Doctor Mike Kane held me at arm’s length. Shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘This is how it should have been from the very first, Maisie, and—’ his voice changing he growled at me, ‘don’t you contradict me when I say you look beautiful, because at this moment you do look beautiful.’

  ‘I have no intention of contradicting you, Doctor. But I can say in return, I don’t believe you, or, let me add, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and from under that awful bristle of yours your vision is distorted.’ I put my hand up and pulled his beard. ‘But under there too is the man who changed the original ugly duckling. I know it is a policy for doctors not to get involved in their patients’ lives. In their illnesses…Oh yes, they can muddle them up as much as they like: if they’re not really bad when they go into the surgery they’ll see all that is altered by the time they come out.’ My smile had softened my words, and I went on, ‘But right from the beginning you were concerned for me and, whatever else age makes me forget, I’ll never forget that.’

  Slowly now he bent forward and kissed me, and I was buried for a moment in the bush of his face and my throat and heart were full.

  ‘Well’—he looked down at himself—‘it’ll be a pearl-grey pageant coming out of the church. Anyway, girl’—his tone had changed again—‘this is likely the last private word I’ll have with you for the next month or so.’ And his voice suddenly rising, he cried, ‘Then after, I don’t want to see you ever again, except when I’m invited up to London.’

  I said nothing, and he backed from me before turning and walking swiftly towards the door, there to turn again and add, ‘Only one thing I’ll ask. Keep that damned horse out of the proceedings.’

  I laughed, then blinked my eyes rapidly, and the door closed again on the commotion in the hall and the to-and-froing down the front steps to the cars.

  The door opened again and Gran came hurrying in, but then she almost stopped before continuing to walk towards me, saying, ‘Oh lass, I used to think you were as plain as a pikestaff and that what you had was all inside your head, but I take it all back. An’ that little blue hat…Oh my!’

  ‘Oh, Gran, be quiet!’

  ‘Aye, I will, ’cos I’m near makin’ a fool of meself. An’ I won’t come nearer you, ’cos if I do, there’ll be buckets flowin’, but I just want to tell you, it’s…it’s as if you were me own goin’ to the church this very day, ’cos I love y
ou like I’ve never loved anybody else, except me lad. God bless you, lass.’

  As she scurried from the room I put my hand tightly over my mouth. This was no good; I’d go up that aisle crying my eyes out.

  There was the sound of cars moving away along the street. Then there were only the strange voices coming from the hall now, those of the caterers who were to serve light refreshments in the sitting room for all the guests, that’s if they were ever able to get in the house. Then Nardy and I would start on our honeymoon and our life together, and later, there was to be a dinner and dance in the hotel for the family and guests.

  When the door finally opened, George stood there in all his glory. He didn’t speak but came slowly towards me. There was no bright grin on his face either. Solemnly he offered me his arm and I, accepting his mood, took it and went from the room and through the hall, down the steps and through the crowd of spectators, some with cameras flashing, and into the white-ribboned Rolls-Royce. I was amazed at the size of the crowd outside the church, but I was more amazed at the crowd inside; I glimpsed people standing at the back. The organ was pealing out ‘Here Comes The Bride’, and I was walking by the side of my burly stepfather and all eyes were turning in our direction but mine could see only one man. There he was waiting for me at the bottom of the aisle. He looked beautiful today, too. Of course he always looked attractive, with his kind eyes and gentle manner and, above all, his lovely voice.

  I was standing by his side now and we were gazing at each other. I had to take my eyes from him as I walked up the two steps to where the minister was waiting. Betty took my bouquet, George stood on one side of me, and Tommy Balfour, Nardy’s best friend, stood to Nardy’s side. And it was just as the minister began to speak that my heart lost a beat and I gasped audibly, for there, close to him, was standing the familiar figure of my old friend in all his glory: his coat had never shone so black, nor his tail and mane looked so purely white; his eyes were like two stars, and his lips were well back from his teeth, and his mouth was wide open. But that was not all. Inwardly I cried out against what I was seeing on the other side of the minister, for there was standing the most beautiful cream and brown mare. She was about half the size of Hamilton, but if you could ever put the word wondrous to a horse, this animal looked wondrous: her eyes were as soft as those of a seal, her nose was moist, her milk-chocolate mane was floating in the air as her head moved up and down as if in answer to something Hamilton was saying, for they were looking across the minister. But it was at Hamilton I inwardly cried, Now why are you here? It’s all over and done with. And what he said was, We’re happy for you. You wouldn’t want this day to pass without seeing me, would you? Because, don’t forget, I started it all. And anyway I wanted you to meet my mate. They call her Begonia.

  I closed my eyes. I mustn’t laugh. I mustn’t laugh; I was being married; this was a serious moment.

  ‘Leonard Murray Leviston, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together…’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Maisie Rochester, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance…’

  They were still standing there, the pair of them, and I’ll say this, they were behaving themselves.

  ‘…And, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’

  Oh dear. They were nodding their heads and smiling. Yes. ‘I will.’…

  The main ceremony was over but the minister was still talking, telling us about the sanctity of marriage. I couldn’t listen to what he was saying for I was asking myself, was there some part of me really a bit barmy? Because those two animals standing there still, one on each side of the minister, were as real to me as he was, if not more real. In fact, I was thinking that at times Hamilton talked more sense than this man was doing now.

  By the time the minister led the way into the vestry, Hamilton and…How on earth had I given his mate the name of Begonia? What a name to give a horse, Begonia! But anyway, they had both disappeared and things were back to normal. Nardy was looking at me so lovingly and I felt so happy; I was, as Gran would say, like fit to burst …

  Outside the church, amid the headstones and the flower beds, the crowd was milling about us. I had never been kissed so much in my life, and by women too: wives of Nardy’s friends, smart ladies who while smiling at me were, I’m sure, thinking, Whatever in the name of heaven can he see in her! It’s because she’s become famous likely, with that book…And I knew that this was the opinion of most people, because, after all, take away the frills and the make-up, there was just me left underneath, and I was well aware of what my mirror presented to me …

  It was almost an hour later before we all poured out of the cars and into the house. There, the champagne corks popped and speeches were made by various men, the one causing the greatest stir coming, of course, from George, who ended his by saying in his thick Geordie accent, ‘I’m her stepfather, but there’s many a time, years ago, when I wished she had been a bit older and me a bit younger, and I would have changed all that,’ and the only one who took this in good part seemingly was Nardy, for he clapped Georgie on the back and said, ‘Well, I’m quite a bit older than you and I beat you to it.’

  Gran’s response came later: ‘My God!’ she said: ‘trust him to come out with something like that. The minister’s wife, who had answered the call, nearly dropped it there and then an’ with another three months to go by the looks of her.’ Gran could be relied upon always to cap her son …

  Then came the goodbyes. And for the first time since it had all begun, we were alone together, in the car making for the station, and when he looked at me with that loving look, I said to him, ‘Did I act funny during the ceremony?’

  ‘Funny?’ He screwed up his face. ‘What do you mean, funny?’

  ‘Did I act as if I was startled or something?’

  He shook his head, then said, ‘No. But wait. Yes, I remember now: you jerked a little as if you were going to lose your balance. It was just before I put the ring on your finger, and I thought, she doesn’t want it.’ I leant towards him and he kissed me long and hard; then, still in his embrace, I said, ‘I was startled. I saw them.’

  ‘Them?’ He drew his head slightly back from me.

  ‘Yes. Hamilton.’

  ‘Oho! You did?’ His face broadened into a smile. ‘That’s a good omen. You haven’t seen him for months and months; so you told me.’

  ‘I don’t know so much about a good omen. I said them, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you did, Mrs Leviston.’

  Again he kissed me, then said, ‘Explain the plural.’

  ‘He has a mate. They call her Begonia.’

  His body shook us both as he said, ‘No! No! Not Begonia.’

  I nodded at him. ‘And they were standing one each side of the minister as large as life.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘I’m telling you. Now why should that be? I…I don’t need him any more.’

  ‘Oh, come on, come on. You’re in for a series. I told you that. But what is she like?’

  I looked away from him, through the glass panel and over the chauffeur’s head and out into the swiftly passing traffic, and I said softly, ‘She’s beautiful: milk-chocolate brown with the most wonderful eyes in the world, and…and he loves her.’

  He pulled me round to him again and, softly now, he said, ‘Of course he’s bound to, because she’s you.’

  ‘Oh! Nardy.’

  ‘Oh! Maisie,’ he mimicked; then, his brow touching mine, he said, softly again, ‘My delightful, delightful Maisie. What have I ever done to deserve you? Never change. Tell me you’ll never change.’

  I turned from him, lay back against the upholstered padding and asked myself seriously, Was this happening to me, really happening to me? Had I not slipped back into the fantasy world of Hamilton and become so much lost in it that it appeared real?

  My question was answered when the car drew up outside the stat
ion and the door was pulled open by Tommy Balfour who helped me out into a crowd of grey-clad figures who, like a lot of hooting schoolboys, surrounded us and accompanied us onto the platform and, when the train arrived, brought heads out of carriages as they shouted and showered us with confetti. The minister had made it a strict condition that no confetti or rice would be used outside the church. And when the train began to move out and some of Nardy’s friends ran along the platform by the side of the carriage giving him advice, and I saw, among them, the face of one of the older members of the publishing house, I was made to think: Why should I imagine I was odd when middle-aged and elderly men acted like schoolboys out on a spree whenever the occasion warranted.

  When at last they were out of sight and we sank back into the temporary privacy of the compartment, Nardy seemed to endorse my thoughts as he said, ‘And you imagine Hamilton is unusual. Did you see old Rington there skipping along like a two-year-old? I wouldn’t like to see that lot after the dinner tonight. Anyway’—he put his arms about me—‘we’ve given them an excuse to let their hair down. And you know it isn’t very often our lot get the chance to do that. We’re stiff-necks, at least they are, I’m not any more.’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘For who, I ask you, could remain a stiff-neck with Gran, Georgie, Mike, and above all, Hamilton.’

  My chin went up and I put in, ‘Not forgetting Begonia.’

  ‘No, Mrs Leviston, not forgetting Begonia. Oh, Begonia; I’m dying to meet Begonia. But very likely, now that you’re a settled married woman there’ll be very few occasions when they will visit you, only when you are stuck for some incidents in your new book.’

  ‘Yes I suppose so,’ I said.

  But why, I asked myself at this precious moment, should I sound so unsure as to cross my fingers?

  Three

  I had lived in London for three months and I didn’t know yet whether I liked it or not. I loved my new home. The citric yellow suite and the matching curtains at the windows in the drawing room filled it with sunlight all hours of the day. Then there was the warmth and comfort of the rose-coloured carpet that went through the eight rooms of the top flat of the house where Nardy had been born, the whole of which he had at one time owned, but which, after the deaths of his parents, had become too large for his bachelor existence.