Pack Up Your Troubles

by Anne Bennett

  One Saturday in November, nearly a week after Jamie’s birthday, Richard set off for the warehouse in his car, armed with a list of requirements that Grace wanted, for she’d been right and most of the stock he’d bought had been severely depleted. She also wanted more of the special items brought in just for Christmas for the women to buy for their menfolk: boxed cufflinks, tiepins, hankies and silk ties with matching scarves.

  It was as she was doing the final alterations to the window, decorated especially lavishly for Christmas, that she spotted her young brother lurking in the shadow of the shop, watching Richard pull away, and she guessed he hadn’t wanted Richard to catch sight of him.

  She went to the shop door and called, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jamie said.

  Grace sighed. Her brother looked the picture of misery. His collar was turned up against the fine icy drizzle that was falling, his hands were stuffed in his pockets and his socks concertinaed down to the tops of his scuffed boots. ‘Well go and do nothing someplace else,’ Grace snapped. ‘In fact go home before Mammy finds you hanging around the streets after dark.’

  No way was Jamie going home yet to be bossed about by Bridget and tormented by Mary Ann and Angela, or found a million and one jobs to do for his mother. It was nearly half-past four and his mother wouldn’t be home till after six. Time enough to go home then.

  The point was, he didn’t know what to do with himself and he was suddenly furiously angry with Grace for, first of all, spotting him and then trying to tell him what to do.

  ‘Bugger off,’ he cried, ‘and mind your own bloody business!’

  Had Grace not been at work, she’d have chased Jamie and boxed his ears. As it was, she stood and watched her brother hurtling his way down the road, knowing the effect his words would have on her temper, and she sighed again and returned to the shop.

  Really, she thought, the boy was getting impossible and though she was loath to tell on him, she really thought it was time to enlist the help of her mother before he got out of hand altogether.

  Jamie hadn’t a clue where he was going, so long as it was well away from Grace and her poxy shop and away from the Mosses too, and he ran along Bristol Street towards Latimer Street, where they used to live.

  But as he passed Bristol Passage, the small alleyway that led from Bell Barn Road, he heard the clatter of boots and boys of various sizes burst on to the street. The first boy, Gary Pritchard, was carrying a ball.

  ‘Hiya, Hogan,’ he cried. ‘Want a game?’

  Jamie knew Gary – he knew them all – but Gary was in his class in St Catherine’s and he stared in awe at the ball in his hands. He had a ball, a cheap rubber thing that you only had to look at wrong for it to develop a hole. But Gary’s ball was of thick leather, like a proper football. He ignored the question and said instead, ‘Where did you get it?’ and he stroked the ball almost reverently.

  ‘Me dad,’ Gary said proudly. ‘For me birthday.’

  ‘Yeah, probably fell off a bleeding lorry,’ one of the other lads said jealously.

  Gary rounded on him. ‘Shut your mouth, you, or I’ll shut it for you,’ he said, and turned back to Jamie. ‘Are you in, or not?’

  ‘Where you making for?’

  ‘The rubble tip?’

  Jamie knew where he meant. There had once been shops and houses on the corner of Bristol Street and Colmore Street that had been turned into rubble courtesy of the Luftwaffe. Just lately the heap had been levelled and the rumour was they were building something on it, but nothing had been started yet. The boys often had a kick about on it and Jamie had been expressly forbidden to do so because it was too close to the road. And now it was dark as well.

  ‘We won’t see owt,’ he complained.

  ‘Course we will. There’s streetlights on Bristol Street, ain’t there, and others in Colmore Street at the side? We’ve played there before, anyroad. It’s OK.’

  Maeve’s face passed before Jamie’s eyes and then Richard’s, and his own eyes hardened. He was fed up with grown-ups telling him what to do. At that moment he hated the whole world.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m in.’

  It was, Richard reflected, a filthy night, cold and rain-sodden, the drops dancing in front of the headlights. He’d be glad to get in and he was in a rush because he wanted to catch Grace before she left. He wanted her advice on a new line in silk camiknickers and matching slips. They were pretty enough, but pricey at twenty-five shillings and elevenpence each. He thought they’d probably sell for Christmas, but he’d value Grace’s opinion because he didn’t want them left on his hands at that price.

  He shivered suddenly. Next time he got a car, he reflected, he would get one with a heater, and he promised himself both a bath and a whisky to warm himself up before his tea.

  The traffic had increased as he turned into Bristol Street, both with workers driving home, and with buses and trams laden down with shoppers. The rain had suddenly increased too, and the swishing of the wipers was almost hypnotic. He put his foot down. The sooner he was home the better.

  On the rubble tip, the boys played on, oblivious to the drizzle that had plastered their hair to their heads, seeped into the shoulders of their jackets and had turned their socks to soggy mud traps. But, suddenly the rain increased in ferocity and Gary called out, ‘Better call it a day, lads. Our dad will be in any minute, anyroad.’

  ‘Here y’are, Hogan,’ the lad dribbling the ball called out. He gave it an almighty kick and it sailed through the air to Jamie. He leapt for it and felt it scrape past his fingertips. He watched in dismay as it bounced past him on to the pavement and then rolled into the road. It was caught by the wing of a passing car, which bounced it to the far side, where it lodged in the tram tracks.

  Behind him he could hear Gary’s frightened voice crying, ‘Me dad’ll kill me if anything happens to that ball.’

  ‘I’ll get it for you,’ Jamie said, feeling guilty that he’d not been able to leap high enough to catch it. There was a tram rumbling up the tracks, but he knew it was far enough away for him to reach the ball first. He leapt into the road before anyone could stop him and, in the blinding rain, he didn’t see the car heading straight for him until it was too late.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Richard didn’t see where the dark shape came from. One minute the road was clear and the next there was a boy in front of him. For a second, he caught a glimpse of the boy’s eyes, transfixed with terror, and though he slammed his brakes on hard and swung the wheel towards the pavement, he knew he hadn’t a hope in hell of stopping in time. There was an unearthly scream and a sickening thud as the car slammed into the boy, lifting him into the air and throwing him down on to the road, where he lay perfectly still. The car drew to a grinding halt, the wheels crushed against the kerb.

  People came running out from their houses and from the shops. Richard, dazed himself, pushed away the hands trying to help him as he struggled out of the car. He’d hit a child – he may have killed a child. That thought kept resounding in his head.

  He felt nausea rise in his throat as he stood outside of the car at last, willing himself not to faint. He’d never fainted in his life, but he felt mighty odd.

  He couldn’t see the child – he was surrounded by people – and one turned as Richard made his way towards them. ‘Are you all right, mate?’

  Richard shook his head impatiently. ‘Ambulance?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, someone’s phoned for one. Gone for the mother, and all. Poor sod, eh?’ the man said. ‘Can’t blame yourself, mate. He just ran in front of you. I seen it all, I did.’

  Richard pushed his way through the crowd, but when he went to touch the child lying so frighteningly still, someone said, ‘I wouldn’t, mate. Do more harm than good. Wait for the ambulance, I would.’

  But Richard didn’t need to turn the boy over to know who he was. It was Jamie Hogan, Grace’s young brother, the one always hanging round the shop. In the glare of the headlights
he’d left on, he saw the boy’s white face and the big gash on the side of his head where blood was oozing on to the road and mingling with the rainwater. ‘Oh God!’ Richard breathed.

  He stretched out two trembling fingers and put them to the side of Jamie’s neck, as he’d done to many colleagues in the war. The pulse was there, but slight. ‘Oh God,’ he said again.

  He began to shiver so violently, his teeth chattered, and as he stood up again, he staggered. Comments and suggestions came from all sides.

  ‘Poor sod is in shock.’

  ‘Sit him on the kerb.’

  ‘Put his head between his knees, he looks as if he’s going to pass out.’

  Someone brought a blanket from a house and put it round him. Another was laid over Jamie. Hot tears began to gush from Richard’s eyes and he made no effort to wipe them away.

  Maeve was cashing up in the shop when the frantic hammering came on the door. At first she ignored it; if people couldn’t get their shopping in between eight in the morning and six at night, well, hard luck to them.

  Her stomach grumbled and she knew she was ready for the stew she had prepared that morning. It had been simmering for two hours and Bridget had been watching it. However, when she’d popped upstairs just a few minutes before to check all was nearly ready, Bridget had said Jamie wasn’t in, hadn’t been in for hours. She’d have words with that young man when she saw him, Maeve thought. Being sorry for him was one thing, being soft was something else entirely, and she’d not stand for him disobeying her. She’d not have him running round in the dark streets like a hooligan. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t a fine and comfy home to come back to. He would get the sharp edge of Maeve’s tongue that night.

  The hammering on the door went on and Syd came through. ‘Bloody nuisances,’ he said. ‘Think we haven’t got lives of our own.’

  ‘Shall I see what they want?’ Maeve said.

  ‘May as well, or we’ll get no peace tonight,’ Syd said morosely.

  The man nearly fell through the door when Maeve shot the bolts. ‘Your lad, your wee lad,’ he almost yelled at her. ‘He’s been knocked over.’

  Maeve’s hand flew to her heart. ‘Dear God, is he badly hurt?’ she asked ripping off her overall as she flew for her coat in the lobby at the back of the shop.

  The look on the man’s face frightened her. ‘I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘I didn’t wait to see, I just took off to fetch you.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Bristol Street. The ambulance is on its way.’

  Maeve fled from the shop, leaving the cashing-up half done and the money in piles on the counter-top. Her only thought was to get to Jamie.

  Afterwards, Maeve knew she’d always remember that moment when she saw him. Her son lay on the rain-soaked road, his lifeblood seeping away from a gaping head wound. She wanted to clasp him to her breast and hold him tight, but the policeman who’d arrived on the scene stopped her. ‘He’s alive, missus,’ he said. ‘Hold on to that.’

  ‘Who did it? What happened?’ Maeve cried, looking at the sea of faces around her. They shifted uncomfortably, but no one spoke. They all felt immensely sorry for Maeve, but it wouldn’t help to know that it had been the boy’s own fault. The driver had disappeared, anyway, and no one had seen him go. One minute he’d been sitting on the kerb and the next he’d just gone. The police, who’d arrived before Maeve, had wanted to know where he was as well.

  One of them went to try his home – there were plenty to supply the address – but first he turned off the car’s headlights and removed the keys, while the other policeman stayed to wait for the mother and the ambulance, but even he didn’t give Maeve the man’s name.

  ‘They’ll be interviewing the driver shortly, missus,’ he said. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting your little lad seen to just now, shall we?’

  The ambulance sirens were heard then and the crowd began to move away to make room for the vehicle. Jamie was lifted into the ambulance by stretcher and Maeve climbed in beside him. She’d never seen him so still; even in his sleep he fidgeted. She held on to one cold unresponsive hand and prayed more devoutly than she’d done for years that God would not take her son from her.

  Richard had slunk home, too scared to face Maeve and admit what he’d done. Amy took one look at her tall handsome son, his hair sticking up in spikes from his running his fingers through it, the mark of tears still evident on his face, his eyes wild, and the colour drained from her face and she felt fear clutch at her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked in a shocked voice.

  Richard pushed past her, unable to answer. He dropped into an armchair, covered his face with his hands and groaned.

  ‘What is it?’ Amy asked again and when Richard continued to shake his head helplessly, she knelt before him and held him in her arms, poignantly aware that the last time she’d done that, he’d been a week old. Now her son of forty-plus was crying into her shoulder as if his heart was broken.

  Eventually, Richard looked at his mother with ravaged eyes and said brokenly, ‘I almost killed a child tonight.’

  ‘Killed a child!’ Amy repeated, horror-struck, but before she could ask any more there was a knock on the door.

  ‘That will probably be the police,’ Richard said calmly, and Amy went to the door as if she were in a dream and let the policeman in without a word.

  When they’d first been called to the scene, the sympathies of the police had lain with the boy, ready to believe the driver had been reckless and driving too fast for the road conditions. But the many people who’d witnessed the event had hit that idea on its head. Without exception the consensus was that the driver couldn’t possibly have avoided the child.

  And that was what the policeman had told Richard when he asked for a statement. He could see the distress on Richard’s face and it was plain he’d left the scene of the accident in panic The policeman told him to make him feel better, but Richard didn’t care whose fault it was, a child was still injured or worse. Amy was glad her son had been exonerated, but still she listened horror-struck to Richard’s account of his journey home from the warehouse and how the accident happened.

  The policeman wrote it all down, then read back the statement and Richard signed it before asking, ‘Is he badly hurt, the child?’

  The policeman shrugged, ‘Hard to tell,’ he said. ‘They were waiting for the mother and the ambulance when I left.’

  Richard gave a sigh. ‘It’s hard,’ he said. ‘I knew the boy, you see.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that, sir,’ the policeman said. ‘Did you know him well?’

  Richard was aware they’d been speaking in the past tense and he stiffened and then went on, ‘I know the family more. My mother and I employ his sister in the business and I know his mother too.’

  He wondered why he’d said that. He’d not set eyes on her nor spoken to her for months. But still he knew her; the hours and hours he’d spent talking to her, he’d come to know her. And then no one could do what they’d done together and not know someone. He could lie in bed at night and even now remember the feel of her arms holding him close, every line and curve of her beautiful body and the sweetness of her lips on his.

  His mother had been startled by what he had said and had glanced over at him and caught the soft look on his face in the unguarded moment when he was remembering Maeve and was further surprised. So, she thought, that was the way of it. He’s sweet on Maeve Hogan and she wondered if Maeve had been the woman he’d been seeing months and months before. She wondered what had gone wrong between them.

  Then hadn’t Grace told her Maeve was getting married to a man she knew well and she’d seemed happy enough about it? Richard had seemed to go mad for a little while. He had quite frightened her one night but at the time, she’d not connected his drinking binge to the news of Maeve’s marriage. And then it had all gone wrong. Amy never knew the details; Grace would never say. The girl was very good at evading questions she didn’t want to answer. Anyway, i
t had coincided with her mother’s illness, which Amy knew she had been very worried about at the time.

  But her poor Richard still loved her, that much was evident, and now there was this distressing incident with the child.

  The policeman was talking of taking Richard to hospital, going on about delayed shock, but Richard was having none of it. ‘I haven’t time for shock, delayed or otherwise,’ he’d said. ‘And I’m going to no hospital.’

  He came back into the room, after seeing the policeman out, holding his car keys in his hand. ‘The policeman gave them to me,’ he told his mother. ‘Decent of him. He turned the headlights off too. I’d never have given them a thought.’

  Amy ignored what Richard said about the car; she was less worried about that than Richard himself. He still looked quite feverish to her and she wasn’t at all sure the policeman hadn’t been right to advise him to go to the hospital. She was so concerned that in the end he relented and to please her, he let her phone the doctor to come and give him the once-over.

  Dr Fleming knew all about the accident. News of it had flown round the area and he’d made it his business to find out where the child had been taken and how badly he’d been hurt. He could see that Richard was feeling guilty about it, but from what he’d heard he could have done little to prevent it at all. He didn’t share the extent of Jamie’s injuries with Richard, feeling that wouldn’t be helpful.

  Instead he said, ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. The boy is alive at least.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Phoned them myself.’

  ‘Yes, but for how long?’ Richard said gloomily. ‘I mean what chance has a young boy against a heap of metal driven at speed straight into him?’

  ‘The same chance as many who’ve survived that and worse,’ the doctor told him. ‘And he’s in the best place. The Children’s Hospital performs mini miracles daily.’

  Richard said nothing. He’d seen the child lying motionless in the road and he was not a fool. But the doctor continued, ‘Let them do their work, man, and let me do mine, and my concern at the moment is you.’ He pulled out a prescription pad and began writing on it. ‘I’m prescribing you some mild tranquillisers for you to get in the morning. I have some in my bag to see you through tonight.’