Goodbye Hamilton

by Catherine Cookson

  Seven

  It was the day after the funeral, a Wednesday; she had been buried on the Tuesday. Apart from the heads of the office and Nardy and myself and Bella, there were no other mourners at the funeral.

  Nardy had returned to the office. Tommy was to see the solicitor with regard to his mother’s will. That’s how things stood, until six o’clock that evening.

  We had finished tea and I’d washed up and I was about to go and change because we were going to the opera when the lift bell rang. Nardy and I were both in the hall. He went and opened the door and in walked Tommy. Or did he race in? Or jump in? I’m not quite sure. There was the strangest look upon his face. Was it full of glee, or was it devilish? His large grey eyes looked almost black and, spreading his arms out towards us both in an exaggerated dramatic way, he said, ‘My friends. My friends.’ Then noticing the look on Nardy’s face, he dropped his arms to his sides and, his voice changing, he said, ‘I’m not drunk, I’m solid and sober, but you see before you, dear friends, a man so full of hate that he’ll have to live ten lifetimes before it’s burnt out of him.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you? What’s happened?’ Nardy’s voice was terse.

  ‘May I sit down and have a drink now?’

  I turned to go to the drawing room and Tommy followed me. Nardy went into the dining room to get the drink. When I sat down, Tommy, bending over me, said slowly, ‘You’ve got your Hamilton, Maisie, I’ve got the devil.’

  ‘Oh! Tommy. Tommy, what is it? What on earth’s happened?’

  Nardy was entering the room with a tray, and Tommy called, ‘Make it neat, Nardy, and a double.’

  He threw off his whisky in two gulps; then sat down on the couch and drew in a long shuddering breath before looking up at us and saying, ‘You also see before you a rich man.’

  We exchanged a glance, Nardy and I, both thinking the same thing, he had become deranged in some way. And he, picking up our thoughts, said, ‘Sit down, Nardy, sit down. You’ll need to sit before I’m finished. And I’m not barmy, I haven’t gone round the bend. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I did. I’ve been with my solicitor all afternoon’—he nodded at Nardy—‘and I expected him to say, “Well, Mr Balfour, there’s little to talk about. Your mother’s will is very straightforward. The house was in her name, as you know, and of the thousand pounds that her aunt left her, she has, as you know, taken the interest every year. But apart from that, I don’t think there’s anything further to discuss.” That’s what I expected him to say. But what did he do? He invited me to sit down. He smiled at me, and then said, “Your mother was a very strange lady, Mr Balfour.” I could have been flippant and said, you’re telling me, but I remained mute, until he said, “Right from the beginning she wanted this matter kept strictly private. No-one was to know anything about it until she died. Then I’m afraid, if you had been married—“ he then poked his head towards me and said, “You are not married, are you?” And to this I replied, “No, I am not married, sir.” And so he went on, “Well then, the estate won’t go to the animals so I can say now that everything appears to be straightforward, seeing that you have no brothers or sisters to make their claim on the estate.”’

  Tommy stopped here, wetted his lips, then again exchanged a glance with us both and said, ‘I repeated, “Estate?” and the dear old fellow nodded and said with emphasis, “Yes, estate.” At this I smiled and said, “A terrace house and a few pounds.” And then you know what he said?’

  We waited while he stared at us, swallowed deeply, then put his hand to his throat and stroked it as if trying to push his Adam’s apple down his gullet. And then he went on, ‘He said, “I wouldn’t consider seventy-five thousand pounds and four considerable properties to come under the heading of a few pounds.” And he smiled as he said it; and I stared at him, and I couldn’t speak for a time, then I said, “What?” And he repeated, “Seventy-five thousand pounds. And there are the four properties, here in London, let as offices at present, but worth not less than one hundred thousand pounds each.”’

  We were both speechless. We continued to gaze at him and he at us, until he went on, ‘It was fifteen years ago that her aunt died. She lived in Devon. I’d only met her once. I was a young fellow at the time, in my twenties, and I thought Mother and she could be sisters, they were so alike. Well, when she died, Mother went down to see to her affairs. She had always, I think, imagined her to be slightly hard up. And thinking about it now, she very likely got the idea of the games she played with me from her dear aunt, for the solicitor tells me that she was surprised to be left the four houses and amazed at the sum of money, which then was about fifty thousand pounds, apparently the aunt had played with stocks and shares. What Mother had expected, so I understand, was the cottage and the furniture, which then would have been worth about fifteen hundred pounds. I remember she stayed down there for four or five weeks, and it was such a nice respite for Bella and, of course, for me too. Oh, yes, me too. Then when she returned…’ He stopped and, wetting his lips, he looked from side to side; then pointing to a chair, he said, ‘I can see her as if she were there now, sitting in the chair with her arms folded across her stomach, telling me that the aunt had left her the little house and that she had sold it and she was richer by a thousand pounds. But she had put it in the bank and had decided each year that the interest would buy her a winter or a summer outfit, and in that way it would ease my purse. Those were the very words she used, ease my purse.’

  He was silent now. We were all silent. We just couldn’t take it in. That dreadful woman to hang on to him all these years, to plead poverty so he wouldn’t leave her.

  He now asked quietly, ‘Can you believe it?’

  ‘No. No.’ Nardy’s voice was small. ‘It’s diabolical.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the word, diabolical, because every month it’s taken nearly all my pay cheque to keep things going: Bella had to be paid, as small as her wage was, she had to be paid. Poor Bella. What she’s gone through too.’ His head dropped back on his shoulders now and he said, ‘I’ve always wanted a car, but I’ve told myself again and again I’d never be able to afford one. Yet, all these years I could have had a car, couldn’t I?’ He looked at me now and said, ‘Couldn’t I, Maisie? I could have had a car…two cars, three cars. And I could have taken her out and about. Can you see the reasoning in it? Oh!’ He closed his eyes tight and clenched his fists now and shook them in front of his face as he said, ‘Why am I asking such a bloody silly question? Of course, anybody can see the reasoning of it: with a car I’d be able to drive away, wouldn’t I, with a girl beside me? And with money like that I would have had half a dozen, no, a dozen suits and shirts to match. Aye, shirts to match instead of Bella having to turn the cuffs, which she has done for years.’ His head was wagging now. ‘Yes, Bella’s turned the cuffs of my shirts for years.’

  He got abruptly to his feet and in silence we watched him stamping up and down behind the couch. Twice he went the length of the room and we didn’t move. And then he stopped and, leaning over the couch towards us, he cried, ‘I wish I had killed her. I do, I wish I had killed her. I would willingly spend the next ten years in a cell for the pleasure of having killed her.’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Nardy was on his feet now. ‘That’s no way to talk. You would have never killed her.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know, Nardy. What do you know about it, really? You only saw the rehearsals, you didn’t see the real acts. You didn’t have to sit with her night after night and listen to her. If I wanted to read, she wanted to know why I didn’t talk, and if I talked she would always slap me down as if I was a little boy, saying, “Don’t talk such tommy rot. Poetry!” she used to say. “No real man reads poetry.” When I pointed out Keats, Browning, Byron, and the rest, her answer was, “They weren’t real men, they were perverts.” It’s many a long day since I talked poetry in that house. You know what she did once? She turfed nearly all the books out of my room and gave them to somebody who was collecting f
or a jumble sale, among them an early edition of Keats, and an edition of Shelley’s poems arranged by Stopford Brooke.’ He pointed his finger into Nardy’s chest, saying, ‘Macmillan published it. And then there was…’

  ‘All right, all right. I know about that, you told me. But now it’s over. Come and sit down and listen to me. As you said, you’re rich, and you’ve still got a long life before you.’

  ‘What, at thirty-nine?’

  ‘Yes, at thirty-nine. Don’t be ridiculous. Sit down there.’ Nardy pushed him back onto the couch. ‘Now, the main thing for you to do is to come back to work, at least for a few weeks, if not for good. In the meantime, buy that car, learn to drive, get yourself out and about. You once said to me, how wonderful it would be to do a world tour. Well, do your world tour. But first give yourself time to think.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve given myself time to think. I’ve walked for miles before I came here. You know that? When I went back and told Bella, she couldn’t believe it. She just couldn’t. In fact, she thought I was crazy, like you two did.’ He gave a wry smile now. ‘In fact, I’m asking myself, am I not crazy? Anyway, crazy or not, I’m selling that house, and I can’t think of the thousands that’ll bring in these days. Huh!’ He laughed. ‘Talking in thousands now when for years I’ve taken the tube because I couldn’t afford to run to taxis. Anyway, Bella’s got a hankering after Brighton. She’s spent her one week’s holiday a year there for some time past, and so I’m going to buy a flat and she can move into it. It will be a place for me to go at the weekends when I’m at a loose end. Anyway, I’m giving her ten thousand. If anybody’s earned it for a lifetime’s work, she has.’

  ‘That’s good of you.’

  He looked at Nardy, saying now in a bitter tone, ‘No, it isn’t. I’m doing it mainly to get one back on her; she’d go stark staring mad if she thought that Bella was getting a cut of her cake.’

  ‘You’re not doing it to spite her.’ I spoke for the first time. ‘Well, you’re telling yourself you are, but you are really doing it out of the goodness of your heart.’

  ‘Maisie’—he slowly shook his head—‘there’s no goodness in my heart at the present moment. I disliked her. I loathed her at times, but I knew nothing about hate, real hate like that which is in me now. I tell you, I could…’

  ‘No more of that!’ Nardy was shouting at him. ‘And get it out of your mind; in fact, make yourself laugh about it.’

  ‘What!’

  For a moment I thought Tommy was going to go for Nardy physically, for he bent towards him and his voice was a yell as he cried, ‘Laugh at what I’ve gone through since I was a lad? Laugh?’ He now thumbed towards me, saying, ‘Maisie wouldn’t tell me to laugh, Nardy, for she knows what it is to live with a sadist.’

  I got to my feet and went towards him and, taking his hand, I said, ‘Yes, I do, I do, Tommy; but I also know that the sadist wins if you let hate of him corrode you. I went mad for a time under such treatment. And just lately, when Sandy there’—I pointed to where the dog was lying curled up in his favourite place, hugging the fire—‘was tortured, and I felt there was only one person who would have done it, there was in me for a time the feeling that if I came near Stickle I would make sure I had a knife in my hand, and I would tear the flesh from him bit by bit as he had done from that poor little beast. Then I knew that the only sane thing to do was to put distance between the perpetrator of evil and myself. Well now, Tommy, there’s a great deal of distance between your perpetrator and yourself, and, as Nardy said, you have a long life before you. Get that car, then do a world tour, then get married.’

  He was staring down into my face and he repeated, ‘Get the car, do a world tour, then get married. Thank you, Maisie, I’ll think about it. But now, I’ll make myself scarce because I’ve just remembered this is the big night at the opera. You’ve had tickets for it for some time.’

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter; you stay where you are and I’ll make a…’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. I’m off.’ He stood up and buttoned his coat. Then laughing a laugh that was threaded with bitterness, he said, ‘You see the beginnings of the new man. But I’ll tell you what you can do, at the weekend you can come and help me choose the car.’

  ‘We’ll do that, we’ll do it with pleasure.’ Nardy was walking up the room with him. I didn’t follow, and at the door Tommy turned and said, ‘Be seeing you, Maisie.’

  ‘Yes, Tommy, yes.’

  I stood where I was until I heard the outer door close, and then Nardy came back into the room. And when he reached me, we looked at each other for a moment but didn’t speak. I stooped down and picked Sandy up into my arms and he snuggled his head into my neck. And it was then I said, ‘She would have left it all to the animals, and she wouldn’t even let him have a dog, or a cat when he was a boy. She was a fiend.’

  ‘She was that all right. But you know something, dear?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I feel more worried about him now than I was before, because he will go on hating her.’

  ‘Time will tell,’ I said. Then looking at the clock, I added, ‘We’d be late, wouldn’t we?’ And he nodded and said, ‘Yes, we’d be late. But what does it matter? I don’t think I could enjoy even the singing of angels at this moment.’ Then reaching out his arm, he said, ‘Come and sit down and let us thank the gods that we are what we are and we have each other.’

  And as I sat down, still holding Sandy, I added, ‘And Sandy.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sandy.’

  ‘And Hamilton.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Hamilton.’

  ‘And Begonia.’

  He smiled but he didn’t laugh.

  Tommy had come into a fortune, but it seemed to have put a damper on all merriment.

  Tommy got his car. He took driving lessons, a crash course, and passed first time. He sold the terraced house, bought the flat in Brighton, and Bella, hardly able to believe that this was happening to her, went to live there, and found herself a part-time job in relieving a nurse who was looking after an invalid, a woman, the antithesis of her previous mistress. She kept her weekends free so that she could be in the flat and see to Tommy, should he care to come down. So life for her had fallen into what she termed, a fairy tale pattern.

  Tommy said he wouldn’t dream of leaving Houseman’s, but he intended to ask for an extended leave in order that he could realise his dream of doing a world tour. He had it all mapped out.

  Eight

  It was again a week before Christmas, and both Nardy and I were in a dilemma. Gran had been unwell for some time. It had started with a cold. It had developed into pneumonia, and Mary kept saying that Gran wished she could see me. Remembering the events of last New Year, I was afraid to go back to Fellburn. So we talked it over and we came to the decision that we would go up for just a couple of days and see Gran, and if she was on the mend we would come straight back.

  Also there was another tangent we had to sort out. Tommy had bought a host of presents for the children, all kinds of things. He seemed bent on spending. Shortly after he had come into the money, he had presented me with a diamond brooch and matching earrings, and Nardy with a magnificent pair of gold cufflinks. More than once Nardy had warned him that the rate at which his money was going would soon see him back to where he had been. But Tommy had laughed and said in an airy fashion, ‘Why, since I sold one of those houses to that advertising firm, I’m not even making a hole in the interest on the money. And who’ve I got to spend it on but my friends? And as charming as dear Housey is and our friend Rington, do you know they never once invited me to dinner at their homes…Oh yes, you were, you were’—he had nodded to Nardy—‘but never me. No, my friends are few, but they’re of the best quality.’

  He could say the nicest things, could Tommy. But here we were, and Nardy was saying, ‘Well, as he was coming to us for the holidays the best thing for it is to let him come up with us. But I’m not going in that car; he’s a madman behind that wheel. You’d thi
nk he’d been driving in Le Mans races for years. No, let him go up his way and we’ll go by train as usual.’

  And so it was arranged.

  I phoned May and told her we’d be up the next day, but not to expect us to stay very long, especially not over Christmas. And also to prepare for an invasion by Tommy.

  So, once again we were getting off the train in Newcastle station, and I was carrying Sandy in my arms and was dressed in my fur coat and hat, but fortunately there were no photographers and journalists there today. Our luggage was light, only two cases, one filled with presents, the other with our night clothes and toiletries.