38
There was a ring at the doorbell.
A young man stood outside who said he’d come to fetch them in his car. “At least try and keep you dry until we start!”
It was the rain as much as anything that had got on Josh’s nerves…his wife’s reaction to the rain.
“What we can’t help we must endure!” She would have made a far better teacher than ever he did; especially good with six-year-olds. (He couldn’t imagine her trying to seduce them, either.) “Swearing at the weather is just the same as swearing at our Lord.” (He’d only said, “Oh, blast this rain!”) “We should wrap up well and walk out singing.”
“If Gene Kelly were dead,” he said bitterly, although he personally wished Gene Kelly not the least harm in the world, “I would now swear he’d come back to haunt us…Except that you can’t dance as well as he can.”
And then it occurred to him that he would possibly have preferred—oh dear—living with Gene Kelly than with Dawn Heath.
He hadn’t thought of that before.
This man who’d come to get them was likewise your submissive and cheerful philosopher. Even when Josh said that, speaking for himself, he always liked to have a really good grumble, this Tony-person humoured him with the same brand of patient jollity; told him just to go ahead and grumble. Why not?
Hell.
Besides being artificial they were cliquey. And clearly very pleased with themselves.
“I don’t think I’m coming,” he said. “I’ve decided not to come.”
They humoured him in that, too. “Oh, Josh,” Dawn repeated twice, without much variation. “I wish you would. Won’t you? It would be so much nicer if you did.” But that was it, more or less.
“In that case,” she said, “I’m sorry I gave the milk and margarine to Mrs Newton.”
“I’ll go and get them back.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because you just can’t!” Maybe not such a very good teacher, after all. But she might have got on okay with the inspectors: judging from the harried smile she flashed at Tony, trying on the one hand to apologize, dissociate herself, and on the other to pretend it was all just part of the day’s fun, thoroughly structured and perfectly healthy. “You’ll have to leave another note for the milkman then and—for today—get whatever you need at Presto’s.”
As soon as they were gone, however, he couldn’t face the thought of leaving another note for the milkman or of getting whatever he needed at Presto’s. (Cream, please. Butter. A female with a sense of humour. How about a fairly witty cow?) Nor even at Littlewood’s. He could go back to bed, he supposed, induce sweet dreams. Though where was the point? The only dreams worth having were those which had at least a fighting chance of coming true.
Fighting…chance: an adjective and noun he’d always thought made stimulating bedfellows.
Five minutes after the four of them had gone he closed the door behind himself as well. Locked it. Put the key under the mat; he needed no extraneous luggage. From now on anything he wanted he would buy new. Colourful socks. Sexy underwear. Toothbrush. Nail clippers. Razor. In London he’d get a job—eventually—no big rush. (Labourer? Dishwasher? Something would turn up. Kept man? Male escort? TV personality?) In the meantime Cashpoint would keep him ticking over fairly nicely. (He’d given Dawnie her share of the loot in cash—an envelope containing seventy-five twenty-pound notes—he hoped she wouldn’t give most of it away. But just in case she did he’d left a hundred pounds on the kitchen table.)
There was bound to be a London train quite frequently.
He could have got to the station in several ways, the station being nearly next door to the employment office. Generally he cut through the side roads: past the auctioneers, the magistrates’ court, the Civic Theatre.
Generally? No, always.
This morning he went up the High Street.
Afterwards he tried to work out why—since it was undeniably a longer route, busier, less attractive. This way, of course, there were the men’s outfitters and the travel agent’s and the shop that sold Walkmans…but what kind of idiot would buy anything in Scunthorpe when three hours later he could be in London? Here, indeed, he had wandered a lot more often with his family yet he was in no frame of mind for nostalgic recollections nor for journeys of farewell. There was no reason on earth why he should have chosen to walk up the High Street on his way to the railway station.
But it was near the top of the High Street that he came across the car and all the people standing round it. He wouldn’t have stopped. He wasn’t interested in accidents or the possibility of blood—not unless there were no helpers on the scene, naturally. And because of the crowd he didn’t see his wife sitting sideways in the front seat with both feet on the ground and Billy’s head resting against her shoulder—she had him on her lap and was crooning to him, massaging his brow. Nor did he see, next to the open door of the driver’s seat, his younger son leaning in and trying to give support to Tony. All that alerted him was the whimpering.
Josh had no idea when he’d last heard Mickey whimper. Quite possibly, never. And furthermore he’d have sworn he wouldn’t be able to distinguish, even for money, his own child’s whimpering from the whimpering of anyone else’s. But now, as soon as he heard it, an image of Mickey rushed into his mind. Josh pushed through the spectators with an impetuosity bordering on violence.
His first thought was that Billy was dead. “No?” he cried. “No!” It struck him later it was almost like a prayer.
Dawn didn’t question his prompt arrival. She clutched his hand, held the back of it to her cheek, instantly allayed his fears. “The young gentleman says there’s nothing to worry about. Not for either of them.” The ‘young gentleman’ was a doctor and had hurried off to phone the hospital.
“Thank God! Thank God!” Josh transferred his hand to Billy’s forehead, then brought it back to his wife’s cheek. It didn’t stay there long. Mickey had realized he’d arrived and had hurried round the car to throw his arms around his father’s legs, hugging them tightly. Josh’s hand had fallen to the top of Mickey’s head. “It’s all right, my love; it’s all right.”
“You need to get yourself an umbrella,” Dawn remarked inconsequentially—and then began to cry.
“Dawnie, don’t! Please don’t. Think how bad it might have been.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. But if it had to happen—why today? Why did Tony have to remember he’d gone and left something at home?”
It hadn’t occurred to Josh to wonder about the accident’s location. St Matthew’s lay in the opposite direction.
“Why did he so much want us to let Simon down?” For a moment Josh thought the pronoun referred to Tony. Then he realized that in Dawnie’s mind it began with a capital.
She was still crying.
“It doesn’t make a difference,” he said. “He’ll have hundreds going with him to London.”
“We can’t be sure of that. We can’t be sure! And every single person counts—every one!” Her voice held a note of vehemence.
He said: “I’ll let Simon know what’s happened.”
“The young gentleman said he’d try to catch Dulcie Owen before she left the house; luckily I knew her number. But not one of us, Josh—not one of us! It doesn’t seem right.”
“You mean, not one of us, the Heaths? Not one of us going to London?”
“And walking in step with Simon and the Lord.”
“Well, if you like…” He’d had no notion he was going to say that.
Her eyes widened. “You, Josh?”
“Me, Dawnie.”
“Oh, would you?” Not simply had she stopped crying. She was suddenly laughing. “Oh, I can’t believe it!”
“Got to do something for the Lord,” remarked Josh—joshing. “I mean, after everything he’s done for us!”
He didn’t specify. But if he had (and done so honestly) he’d have said: “Spared Billy’s
life! Put three thousand smackers in our pockets! Given me this chance to get away—and to do it, furthermore, without hurting either you or the kids!”
The real irony was that at this moment he no longer cared so much about getting away. But he knew himself. Very soon he’d be feeling every bit as frantic as ever. Of course he would.
Yet at least the question of timing now seemed less important. Three hours by train or three weeks on foot? What did it matter? He had his whole future ahead of him. And once in London he’d be able to find a good enough reason to stay. Good God, yes. At last! I’ve been given a decent job!
Nor was it as if he wouldn’t be able to come home from time to time or as if Dawnie and the boys mightn’t occasionally travel down to London. It could be worked. It could.
“Yes, I’ll go on that march—certainly I will—if it means so very much to you.” He smiled. “I’ll walk to London with the Lord.”
Dawn looked at him not merely with respect but even with wonder. There were renewed tears glimmering.
“Oh, Josh! Do you realize that all my dearest prayers have just been answered?”
He accompanied them in the ambulance. Later she came with him to the main door of the hospital and even a few yards down the road, despite the rain and the fact she carried one of Tony and April’s siren-suited babies. Mickey came, too. Thank heaven it was Dawnie who’d refused Mickey permission to go on the march without her. Refused him categorically. Thank heaven, thought Josh, because if it hadn’t been for that, he himself would probably have let the boy come. His memory of that quietly unrestrained grief had affected him deeply, especially the fact that it had only been unrestrained until Josh himself had got there. And it would continue to affect him, he believed, whenever he allowed himself to think of it.
Yet Mickey would have been an encumbrance.
“Besides,” said Josh, “you don’t want to miss the wedding, do you?”
“But you’ll be back by then? Surely you will?” protested Dawn.
“Who knows? And if not, you mustn’t let them postpone it. For it’s now my turn to testify to the miracle in which our own two sons were chosen to play so pivotal a role; my turn to bear witness to the enormity of the privilege conferred on them—conferred on us, as well. And you’ve often said it yourself, Dawnie: that when you’re engaged in the Lord’s work you simply can’t tell how long it’s going to take.”
“Oh, Joshua!”
“Now don’t go all soft on me, you great big silly! You’ve no reason to start crying again.”
“You’ll take good care of yourself, won’t you? Really take good care?”
He laughed. “Ever known me not to?”
“Perhaps I feel I don’t know this new Josh at all. Perhaps I feel he’s more like the old one I used to know. During the early years.”
Carrying the baby, it was difficult for her to get at her handkerchief. He handed her his. This reminded him of practicalities. “I’ve left the key under the doormat. You should be okay for most things while I’m gone. The boys can see to fuses, washers, jobs like that. In any real emergency go to Ted Wilson. And as for money…whatever you do, don’t wait until you’ve nearly run out before you reapply—”
“Run out?” she exclaimed. “What, run out of fifteen hundred pounds?”
He gave them both a hug—it was a little awkward with the baby—handed Mickey two ten-pound notes, one for himself and one for his brother; then broke away and instantly began to run.
“Come back safe,” Dawn called. “And may God be with you!”
He glanced back several times to wave but then Mickey came racing after him to tell him about all the stuff for the journey—its still being at the hospital—and he had to return for it…which was anticlimactic. The delay, however, was only short. On his second departure Mickey accompanied him to the first corner, the end of Highfield Avenue. When Josh looked back Dawn was still standing at the roadside near the entrance, waiting to wave to him. Perhaps it was only because of her own recent words but he suddenly remembered the girl behind the counter shyly passing him his cigarettes. “Look after her,” he said, “you and Billy. Look after yourselves too. I’ll send more money when I can.”
“And a postcard?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ll write as well. Care of places. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
Again he had to pull away.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too. I’m glad that Billy’s all right. I’m glad that neither you nor your mum got hurt.”
“Oh, Dad, do you really have to go?” And Mickey’s voice quavered. His hand reached out for his father’s. “Do you really have to go?”
In short, the departure of Josh Heath from Scunthorpe was a lot more difficult than—only an hour or so earlier—he had ever imagined it could be.
39
“Remember,” his mother had said, crisply—almost her last words to him—“Take pity on Frank Cooper!”
“I will. I promise you. At any rate I’ll do my best.”
“Take care of one another.”
Paula, disliking herself but unable to help what was happening, had looked with hostility upon this woman who came from London, this intruder with her city airs. Even while offering wishes that she tried to make sincere, her voice, to herself, had sounded sulky and resentful.
Simon asked if they would gather around him in a circle: Geraldine, Alison, Dulcie, Paula, his mother, even the three men from the press: a small group under black umbrellas.
“Lord,” he said, after a long moment in which they all stood quietly, with their heads bowed, “we humbly ask you to bless this venture and to be with us through every single minute of it, both those of us who are going and those of us who are staying…”
When he had finished they said the Lord’s Prayer together: which in the open air, even with the background noise of swishing traffic on the nearby busy road, made Geraldine think of a crowd of fishermen standing on the shores of Lake Galilee. Once, she would have warned herself against sentimentality. Now, she saw no harm in the reflection.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore. Amen.”
They set out along Frodingham Road. In spite of their boldly stated resolves, Simon and Geraldine carried only one banner between them: Our angel says act now! (The photographer and reporters had fixed the remainder across Simon’s haversack.) At Britannia Corner—since Simon had naturally notified the police of his intention to process, possibly with fifty or a hundred others, more likely, he had said, with only twenty—a constable waited to hold up the traffic while they made the ninety-degree turn into Doncaster Road. At first they felt abashed, yet were glad to have him there, less for his upraised arm than for his friendly grin. “Good luck,” he said. “Really. We’re all of us behind you.”
“Then why not join us?”
“The sergeant wouldn’t like it!”
“Blow the sergeant.”
“Funny you should say that.” He called out after them: “Hope our angel comes up trumps! A bit of better weather would be a good beginning.”
Others wished them luck, as well. Without the rain they might have had a larger send-off but small knots of pedestrians stood and watched as they went by, people waved, drivers hooted in encouragement. A bus driver shouted, “Give Maggie our love!” but his conductress cried, “Not mine! No bloody fear!” An old man with a beer can in his hand raised it unsteadily and said something of which only the last few words became intelligible: “…were always fucking crazy.” (“Who were?” asked Simon. “I think,” said Geraldine, “the British.”) They both kept shouting back, “Why don’t you come with us?” or “Don’t you want to save the world?” But it seemed that nobody did. Not enough.
Further from the shops, pedestrians were shyer about bandying opinions, even to the point sometimes of pretending, despite exhortatory hails, not really to have
noticed the two marchers.
Then an odd thing occurred while they were walking down the steep hill towards Berkeley Circle. Or, rather, a couple of odd things occurred.
First, noticing a bin attached to a lamppost, Simon disposed of Paula’s hymn sheets. “Should you really be doing that?” asked Geraldine.
“Well, what the eye doesn’t see…”
“No, I just meant that in your sermon—though you didn’t happen to mention throat lozenges in that exhaustive list of yours, surely something of an oversight—you did happen to mention singing hymns.”
“I know. I think at that point I must have gone a bit over the top.”
“Yet you told me you hoped you were being inspired.”
“So?”
“So what do you suppose went wrong at that particular moment?”
He retrieved the hymn sheets.
“You know,” he said, “I believe it’s reasonably possible that you could turn out to be a reasonably good influence.”
The smile she gave conveyed hardly anything of the pleasure she experienced.
“But on the other hand,” he added, “if you would simply like to take a look at Paula’s hymn selection…!”
“Well, they may not be your own all-time favourites but even so…You never quite know what unlikely thing is maybe going to touch somebody somehow—and perhaps you’re not the only person round here who can sometimes feel inspired.”
“Now I think it must be you who’s gone a bit over the top.”
“Anyway, shouldn’t we just wait and see if at any time…? After all, we’re not committed to using those sheets merely because we’ve decided to keep them. I’ll even offer to carry them for you if you like.”
“Why for me? Why not for us? But in any case it’s generous of you.”
“I’m glad you noticed. Especially as Paula was glaring at me the whole time as if she thought I was related to Lucrezia Borgia.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s not.”
“Utter nonsense.”
“No.”
“Of course it is. Why just related?”
And the second thing which occurred was that they heard a shout and—when they turned—saw someone running down the hill.
Such Men Are Dangerous Page 23