I looked down on him. His face was lint white; his arms were lying stretched down by his sides. There was some sort of shield over the lower part of his body. As I whispered his name the nurse said, ‘He’s asleep, dear. He’ll be like that for a while.’ And so I sat down and kept my eyes on that beloved face …
A short time elapsed, then Mike came to my side, saying, ‘Come away now.’ Then he added, ‘George is out too.’
I followed his pointing finger and I saw a face in the bed opposite. I could hardly recognise George; I had forgotten that his hair had been burnt off. One arm was stretched out and covered with bandages.
I now looked around for Kitty, and when I couldn’t see her, I said, ‘Where is she…Kitty?’
‘In another ward.’ Mike nodded at me, and the nurse put in, ‘She’s in intensive care.’
Intensive care. What did that mean? Near death? Oh no! Oh no! Mary would go mad, George would go mad, and all through me. It was only me that Stickle wanted to get rid of. Or was it? Or was it everyone that was living in the house he had coveted for years? …
‘Here, drink this. Drink it up.’
I didn’t recall being taken from the ward and seated in an ante-room. But, looking up into Mike’s face, I said, ‘I’ll kill him.’ And he answered soberly, ‘Well, if you don’t, somebody will or should.’
Ten
The next three days are hazy in my mind. The only thing that stands out clearly is, later that first day, sitting by Nardy’s bed and, when he opened his eyes and whispered my name, I could not even speak his. Although the nurse had said he was heavily sedated and was, as yet, in no pain, nevertheless, the pain seemed to be expressed in every line of his face.
George had had two fingers amputated; but fortunately, so the nurse had said earlier, the working part of his hand had been saved. But they were still fighting for Kitty’s life.
I had been to the bank and made arrangements about money, and had then bought clothes for myself and the children. But wherever I went I was escorted by a plain-clothes policeman, while a uniformed one was on duty outside Gran’s house because we were being continually harassed by reporters.
It was now known that the fire must have been started deliberately; but what I couldn’t understand was that Stickle apparently wasn’t the culprit.
After Mike had spoken to the police, they had gone to Stickle’s house, only to find him in bed and hardly able to move with back trouble. And confirmation had come from his own doctor who had said he had been called in two days beforehand. Moreover, I learned that they were troubled in another way for the younger boy had gone missing. This I read in the local paper.
Who then had done this ghastly thing? Paraffin or petrol rags must have been pushed through the letter box, whilst the kitchen window had been forced and oil-soaked rags thrown in there as well. The perpetrator must have actually got into the sitting room and soaked the couch with oil.
Now that suspicion had lifted from Stickle I was presented with the thought that perhaps some of George’s workmates had it in for him, reasoning that when an ordinary man like George prospers it can arouse jealousy among his associates: George now lived in a very nice house, or had done; moreover, he had a car and had been able to take his family, including his mother, on a fortnight’s holiday. Could the devil who had done this be one of George’s associates? I put this question to Mike, and he said, ‘Could be. Could be. But I would have bet my bottom dollar it was the work of Stickle. The dog business last year, too. Yet old Howell says he attended him the second day you were here, in fact the very afternoon before the fire. He said the man was in dire pain, and he’s still not up. And what’s more, apparently he’s very worried about his boy who went missing that same night and hasn’t been seen since…Could it have been his boy?’
We looked at each other.
I was again sitting beside Nardy who was still in a very painful and critical condition, but he could talk a little. And I almost burst into tears when he turned his eyes on me, saying, ‘Maisie, smile. Come on, do.’
‘Oh, Nardy.’
‘Go on, smile. I’m all right, so smile.’
My eyes misted. I smiled; then he said, ‘That’s better.’ After a moment he asked, ‘How is Kitty really?’
‘She’s…she’s holding her own. George is with her nearly all the time, and Mary.’
‘Gran?’
My smile widened as I answered, ‘It’s amazing, but she’s got her fighting spirit back again. And her voice. She’s sitting up and letting everybody know it. The shock had the opposite effect on her to what was expected.’
‘Tommy?’
‘He’s all right,’ I said. ‘He went back yesterday, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He moved his head. ‘But he didn’t look…he didn’t look right.’
No, Tommy didn’t look right. He had suffered no physical injury, only taken in a lot of smoke, but he was oddly quiet as if he were still under shock. If I hadn’t been so worried about Nardy and Kitty I should have been more worried about Tommy. But Kitty was fighting for her life, and my dear, dear beloved Nardy had just missed losing his, and there lay before him weeks of pain and treatment before he would be himself again, if ever.
I sat with my beloved until he went to sleep. Then I went along the corridor to where Kitty lay in the intensive care unit. I looked through the door and saw George sitting there, his bandaged hand lying across his chest, his face turned towards the cot, and I knew I mustn’t go in, my emotions were too near the surface. If not the sight of that child, then the look on his face would be too much for me. I went out into the sleet-driven night, and was fortunate to see a taxi at the gate letting down some passengers. Within a few minutes I was at Gran’s, and the minute I entered the house I knew there was something further wrong. Mary was there and she was seeing to Gordon, dabbing at his eye.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
She looked up at me from where she was kneeling on the mat before the fire, Gordon in front of her, and she said, ‘It’s that Stickle boy, the older one, he collared him and punched him. He imagines Gordon knows where the young one is, the one that is lost, he even said he was hiding him here. Can you imagine it?’
I bent down towards Gordon and asked quietly, ‘What did he actually say to you, Gordon?’
‘He…he said that if I didn’t tell him where Neil was, it would be all the worse for him when they did find him, his father would skin him alive because Neil was a liar.’
‘Why did he say that?’
‘I…I don’t know, Auntie, except that he thought Neil had told me something and it was a lie.’
When I sat down on the couch Hamilton appeared to the side of the fireplace and was throwing his head from side to side. But I actually shook mine at him as I dismissed the thought that Stickle could have set fire to the house: he had been attended by a doctor, hadn’t he, who had verified not only that his back was bad but also that he was practically unable to move on the night of the fire.
However, even as I now silently protested, Hamilton’s head kept bouncing up and down until his mane streaked out from behind him as if driven there by a strong wind.
‘What is it, Maisie?’ Mary was holding my hand, and I closed my eves for a moment, saying, ‘Nothing, nothing, Mary; I was just thinking.’
‘You look tired.’
‘I’m certainly not the only one’—I smiled weakly at her—‘you must be worn out.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind being worn out. I wouldn’t mind anything as long as I felt that Kitty was…’ She stopped and closed her eyes tightly, and Betty, suddenly bursting into tears, flung her arms around her, crying, ‘Oh, Mam, Mam,’ and in broken tones, Mary soothed her, saying, ‘She’ll be all right. Don’t worry, dear, she’ll be all right. They’re doing everything possible, and your dad’s with her.’ May now turned her head and looked down at me saying, ‘It’s odd, isn’t it? but the nurses say she cries if, when she wakes up, he’s not sitting there. I’ve
never known a man who loves children so much.’
I, too, had never known a man who loved children so much.
‘Well now. Well now.’ Mary’s voice became brisk. ‘Let’s have something to eat. Come on, Betty; you see to the table. And by the way’—she looked at me again—‘we’ve got to do something, Maisie, about where you ought to sleep. That couch’—she thumbed to where I was sitting—‘would break anybody’s back. But in the meantime, will you go upstairs and sit with Gran for a bit and we’ll call you down as soon as the meal’s ready. She’ll want to know how Nardy is. And tell her…tell her that Kitty’s all right. You know what to say.’
As I rose from the couch I thought it was strange how Mary had somehow come into her own in this crisis. She was no longer in the background. She had the whole situation in hand.
As I made towards the stairs there came a knock on the door, and John said, ‘I’ll see who it is, Mam.’ But Mary caught his arm and whispered, ‘If it’s one of them reporters, tell them there’s nothing to say.’
I was about to go up the stairs when John opened the door, and there, in the dim light, I saw the figure of a policeman and another plain-clothes man standing by his side. Going quickly towards them now, I recognised the policeman who had been on duty outside up till yesterday, and he said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Leviston. I…I wonder if you’d come down to the station with us? There has…well, there has been some developments.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ I paused, then looked to where Mary was coming along the passage and I called to her, ‘I’m to go to the station, Mary; something seems to have come up.’
Within a couple of minutes or so I had my hat and coat on again and was seated in the back of the police car. As it started up I leant forward and said, ‘What is it? I mean, is it some news from the hospital?’ There was a tremble in my voice, and the policeman turned his head towards me, saying, ‘No, not…not that, Mrs Leviston.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘It’ll be explained to you by the sergeant.’
I sat back and remained quiet. But when I actually entered the station I felt a shiver pass through my body: the last time prior to entering this room I had left a cell and was about to appear at the magistrates’ court.
‘Will you come this way, please?’ Another policeman was leading me along a passage. He opened a door and there, rising from a table was a sergeant, together with a woman officer and a person I imagined to be a plain-clothes officer. But sitting at the other side of the table was a boy, who looked to be eleven or twelve years old. He was thin and had a white peaked face and eyes that held a deep fear. Before anyone spoke I knew that this was Stickle’s son, the one who had gone missing. On the table before him was an empty teacup and a plate with biscuits on it.
‘Will you please take a seat, Mrs Leviston?’ It was the sergeant speaking.
As I sat down I kept my eyes fixed on the boy, and his were tight on me, and I saw he was afraid of me.
The sergeant was speaking again. ‘This is Neil, Mrs Leviston. I think you should hear what he’s got to say.’ He now looked at the boy and said, ‘You tell Mrs Leviston what you told us. And don’t worry, your father or no-one else is going to touch you ever again. And Mrs Leviston will not be angry with you, will you, Mrs Leviston?’
I said, ‘No, no,’ and waited.
The boy had his hands in front of him on the table and began to nip his finger ends one after the other as if he were pulling off a tight glove. Then his head jerked backwards and he gulped in his throat, and again the sergeant said to him, ‘It’s all right now, it’s all right. You have my word for it: I said no-one will lay a hand on you in future, and I meant it. Now go on; tell Mrs Leviston all you know.’
The boy brought his head forward and he stared at me for some seconds before, his voice coming like a croak out of a dry throat, he said, ‘My da set fire to your house.’
I remained perfectly still. Although Hamilton was going mad at the other end of the room, galloping backwards and forwards in the restricted space, I did not look towards him but kept my gaze fixed on the boy.
‘He…he said his back was bad. They sent me to bed early on. My mam had…had gone to Middlesbrough. My grandad had died, she had gone to the funeral. Da said his back was bad and he couldn’t get out of bed and Ronnie went and phoned for the doctor.’ The boy gulped again, looked at the sergeant, and when the sergeant nodded at him, he turned his gaze once more on me and said, ‘I…I went to watch the football match, but it was too cold and I came home and went in the back way and sat in the kitchen near the stove to warm me hands, and…and then I…well’—he looked upwards—‘heard the chain being pulled, and I knew it wasn’t our Ronnie because I had passed him in the yard, he said he was going for a message on his bike. I went to the bottom of the stairs and I heard me da’s bedroom door closing. And I thought it was funny because I knew he had told the doctor he couldn’t go to the lav, and the doctor had told our Ronnie that he could get a loan of one of them bedpans from the Red Cross.’ He sniffed now; then rubbed his nose with the side of his forefinger before going on, ‘Later on like, I had a bad head. I often get bad headaches an’ me mam gives me a pill. She keeps them in her room, and I asked our Ronnie if I could have one, and he went into the bedroom and he brought a pill down. But it wasn’t like one of the ones me mam gives me, these were just round hard ones, this was one of those long ones with powder inside. It was like one of her sleeping pills, but he said it was all right, it was for headaches and to go and take it. So I went into the back an’ got a cup of water, but I don’t know why, but I didn’t take the pill, I pushed it down the sink. Then after I had gone to bed, our Ronnie bent over me and I made on I was asleep and…anyway…’
He started to pull on his fingers again and once more he looked at the sergeant, and once more the sergeant nodded at him; and then he began again: ‘I heard our Ronnie come into the room again, and I knew he was putting his coat on. Then I heard me da’s door open; then the stairs creaked and I knew they had both gone down. Our bedroom window looks on to the yard and we are near the end of the block and there’s a lamp there and it gives a little bit of light, and I saw them comin’ out of the shed. Me da was dressed and he was carrying a case and he went out of the back door. But our Ronnie didn’t, so…so I got back into bed again quick.’
He stopped again and looked down at his hands which had become still on the table, and the sergeant asked quietly, ‘Can’t you recall what time it was?’
‘No, ’cos I think I went to sleep for a little bit before our Ronnie came back into the room and took his coat off. But I don’t know how long.’
‘Do you think it would be after twelve o’dock?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Go on.’
And he went on.
‘I became sort of frightened, I don’t know why. I kept wishing me mam was back and I wished we had never come back. We had left the house afore an’ gone to live in Middlesbrough with me granda. Then he was taken to the hospital and his council house was given to somebody else, so we came back. And…and—’ He was gulping now, and the policeman bent towards him and said, ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’
The boy shook his head, then, speaking more quickly now, he said, ‘I heard them coming up the stairs. But they didn’t go into the bedroom. There’s a chair on the landing that you can stand on and get into the loft, and I heard the hatch being pushed back. An’ then after that I heard the bath being run. It was then the door opened and I knew that our Ronnie was standing over me. I… ‘
The boy was staring at me now with pleading in his eyes and, his voice still coming in a rush and as if he was appealing to me for understanding, he said, ‘I nearly screamed like I do in a nightmare, and I think I would have but he went away, and…and they were a long time in the bathroom. Then…then he came to bed, and he was soon asleep. And I must have gone to sleep. But it was the next morning when I went down into the yard to get some coal for the fire, Mrs Dixon f
rom next door, she came to the fence and asked me how me da was. And when I said he was gettin’ better she laughed and said he would be when he hears his lady wife’s house was burnt down last night. That’s what she said, his lady wife. And then she said something about him getting’ his own back.’
I watched the boy now close his eyes and draw in a long shuddering breath before he added, ‘I was sick. I…I went in the lav and I was sick. Then I went into the shed. He always keeps two petrol cans in there, full, in case it’s his turn on nights and he needs more petrol. One of them was empty and he hadn’t been on night call for a long time. And our paraffin can was empty an’ all. It…it was then I knew I had to find me mam, and I got on a bus for Middlesbrough. But I got off halfway ’cos I knew if I’d found her she’d take me back there, an’ me da would knock the daylights out of me, an’ our Ronnie would an’ all. So…so I just kept on.’
He stopped, and there was silence in that bare room. Hamilton had ceased his prancing. He was standing behind the boy, and I said to him, Strange, isn’t it, that a man like Stickle can have a son like this who holds no part of him. He was likely all his mother. I put my hand out and laid it on his joined fingers that had formed into a tight fist, and I said, quietly, ‘Thank you for telling me. And don’t worry; as the sergeant says, no-one will hurt you in the future.’
I rose from the table and went out, and the sergeant followed me.
He led me into an office and, after offering me a chair, he sat down at his desk and said, ‘Now we’ve got to prove the boy’s words, and I’ve no doubt in my mind that we shall. Also what the boy didn’t tell you is that it was his father who tortured your dog, and it was him and his mother who brought it back. They really meant to take it and bury it, but they thought that with attention it might still live. Apparently the man struck them both when he knew what they had done. It was after that she left him. It’s amazing’—he shook his head—‘to look at him, and I remember him well when he was in court before, you would think that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Well, let’s hope, for his sake, that the child doesn’t die, for I understand she’s in a bad way. And your husband too.’
Goodbye Hamilton Page 14