The Old House on the Corner

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The Old House on the Corner Page 33

by Maureen Lee


  She would have enjoyed the wedding more if it hadn’t been for Harry’s scowling face, all because his son was marrying a woman he objected to. It was so unlike him. Usually so good-natured and free with his smiles, she realized that when it came to the boys, another side to her husband emerged, one that she hadn’t known existed.

  Fortunately, nobody else seemed to notice: even Donna, in a smart white suit, melted slightly at the reception when showered with so many kisses and good wishes for the future. She seemed particularly taken with Sylvester, who told her she reminded him of Louise Brooks, one of his all-time favourite stars of the thirties. Ashley, her little boy, was very sweet, dark like his mother and very well behaved – until he was noticed pouring champagne over the remainder of the wedding cake and eating it with a spoon. ‘I’ve made a pudding,’ he explained.

  Judy was glad when Donna said, ‘What a clever thing to do, sweetheart, but it might make you sick.’ She’d dreaded that she might smack the child.

  The day wore on. At six o’clock, the newly married couple left for their honeymoon in Brighton. Judy hadn’t realized they were taking Ashley with them and thought it rather nice, but Harry’s face darkened even more. ‘It’s not natural,’ he mumbled. He’d had too much to drink, which was a first. ‘Why couldn’t Donna leave the boy with her sister?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Judy sighed. The room had been booked until ten. She was wondering how she would get through it with Harry in such a horrible mood and was glad when he went to talk to his father. She’d always imagined the boys’ weddings being very different, her and Harry united in their delight that their sons had found wives they loved, but this wedding had been a bitter disappointment.

  She noticed Sam was sitting by himself, a lonely figure. He’d miss Joe no longer living at home. They’d always been the best of friends.

  ‘You look sad, love,’ she said, sinking on to a chair beside him.

  ‘I’m tired. Joe’s stag party didn’t finish until four this morning. I suppose I am a bit sad too,’ he conceded. ‘It’s not every day you lose your brother.’

  ‘Never mind, you’ll be next.’ Judy patted his knee.

  There was a long pause before Sam said, ‘I don’t think so, Mum.’

  Just five words, said in a quiet, steady voice, yet there was something about the words, or it might have been the voice – too steady, too quiet, too positive – that made the hairs tingle on Judy’s neck.

  ‘I’m sure you will, son.’ Please say you will, another voice inside her shrieked. Please say you don’t mean what I think you mean.

  ‘No, Mum, I won’t.’ He looked at her compassionately, knowing that what he was saying would break his mother’s heart. ‘I like women, but I’ll never marry one. I’m not attracted to them, not in the way our Joe is to Donna. I prefer …’ He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  Judy finished it for him. ‘Men?’ There was a quiver in her voice and waves of nausea were washing over her.

  Sam nodded, his face crimson with embarrassment.

  ‘Oh, Sam! Oh, my dear boy.’ Her beloved son, was a … She refused to even think the word. ‘What’s to become of you?’ she wailed.

  ‘It’s not the end of the world.’ He took her hand and squeezed it hard. ‘Please say you don’t hate me, Mum.’

  Suddenly, he was her little boy again needing the comfort of his mother’s arms and soft words. ‘Of course, I don’t hate you, Sam,’ she said fervently. ‘I love you with all my heart and I’ll never stop loving you until the day I die.’

  ‘Ta, Mum.’ He was still squeezing her hand, as if he needed her reassurance. ‘I’d sooner have not told you in the middle of the wedding,’ he said soberly, ‘but a few people today have said, “you’ll be next,” just like you. It doesn’t matter about them, but it does about you and Dad. I don’t want you expecting me to bring a girl home one day and announce we’re getting married.’

  ‘Do you want me to tell your father?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind. I’ve been meaning to tell you for ages, but I didn’t know how to begin. What do you think Dad will say?’

  ‘He’ll blow his top at first, but he’ll soon get over it,’ Judy said confidently.

  She didn’t pluck up the courage to tell Harry for another week, by which time he seemed to have recovered his good humour and was smiling again. They’d been to her in-laws for a meal. Mr Moon had talked about retiring from the shop in the near future. ‘Your Sam’s turning out to be a darned good photographer. Why don’t you make him a partner when he’s twenty-one, like I did you, and I’ll disappear from the scene?’ Sam had taken a photography course at the art college – Joe had shown no interest and had chosen hotel management as a career.

  ‘Will you?’ Judy asked when they got home. ‘Make Sam a partner, that is?’

  ‘If he wants. You don’t think he’s too young?’

  ‘You managed OK at the same age.’

  ‘I suppose I did.’ He yawned and stretched his arms. ‘Is Sam home?’

  ‘He went to a disco. He’ll be ages yet.’

  ‘Oh, well. I think I’ll turn in.’

  Judy took a deep breath. ‘Before you go, there’s something I want to tell you. It’s about Sam …’

  She thought he took it very well, kept saying, ‘I see,’ from time to time, his face devoid of expression when she repeated what Sam had told her at his brother’s wedding.

  ‘I see,’ he said again when she’d finished.

  ‘Are you all right about it?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘What do you think?’ He went to bed without another word and she had no idea whether he was all right about it or not.

  Harry was already up when she woke next morning: Sunday, she remembered, when she heard church bells ringing in the distance.

  She went downstairs and found him and Sam seated at the table in the breakfast room. ‘Good morning,’ she said cheerily. ‘Did you have a nice time at the disco, Sam?’

  Before Sam could answer, Harry sneered, ‘Yeah! He danced all night with his boyfriends.’

  Judy’s blood ran cold. ‘What a terrible thing to say!’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  Sam said quietly, ‘As it happens, it’s not the truth.’ He turned to his mother and she could have wept when she saw the grief in his dark blue eyes. ‘Dad’s just chucked me out, Mum. I’ll pack my stuff in a minute and be on my way.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she snapped.

  ‘This is my house,’ Harry said in a grating voice, ‘and I’m not having a bloody pansy living under my roof.’

  Judy gasped. ‘What on earth’s got into you, Harry? You’ve changed out of all recognition. Sam is your son. How can you possibly throw out your own son?’

  ‘Sam’s no longer my son. I thought Joe was bad enough, marrying a divorced woman with a child when he knew that I, his father, was dead against it, but this!’ To her surprise, he began to cry. His shoulders heaved. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. Everything’s going wrong.’

  Judy made no attempt to comfort him. It was his sheer pigheadedness that was making everything go wrong. They still could have continued, a perfectly normal family, accepting Joe’s choice of a wife, accepting Sam for what he was, if only Harry could have understood he didn’t own his sons. They weren’t puppets and all he had to do was pull the strings and they would dance to his tune.

  ‘I’ll go, Mum.’ Sam heaved himself wearily to his feet. ‘It’s for the best.’

  ‘But where?’ she cried.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t really know.’ He seemed about to cry himself.

  ‘Go to Gran and Granddad Smith’s. They’d love to have you and there’s plenty of room. I’ll give them a ring, shall I?’

  ‘Please, Mum.’

  Harry must have been listening. ‘You’re not to tell them,’ he said hoarsely. There was a look, almost of fear, in his eyes. ‘You’re not to tell anyone what you are. I’m too ashamed. I couldn’t stand it.
What Joe did was bad enough. But you, you’re beyond the pale.’

  Judy ignored him. ‘After I’ve rung, I’ll come upstairs with you, love, help you pack a bag.’

  Half an hour later, she stood at the window, palms pressed against the glass, and watched her son walk away. Although the bag she’d helped him pack wasn’t particularly heavy, he carried it as if it contained a ton of bricks; his shoulders curved like an old man’s. She felt her heart contract and wanted to rush after him, fetch him back, but that just wasn’t on, not with Harry the way he was.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ he said from the door.

  ‘No, he won’t. I’ll go and see him later.’

  ‘I’d sooner you didn’t,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’d sooner you had nothing more to do with Sam. He’s no longer a member of this family.’

  She looked at him pityingly. ‘He’s my son, Harry. He’ll always be my son. And I’ll always be his mother. You can’t argue with that, you can’t change it.’ When she glanced through the window again, Sam had disappeared. She said, ‘I think I’ll go to church.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Harry. I want to be by myself.’ She wanted to pray for Sam, for Joe and Donna, for Harry and herself. Most of all, she wanted to pray that their marriage would survive the events of the last few weeks. She still loved Harry, but the love had been badly scarred and she had a feeling the scars would never completely heal.

  Sam stayed with his grandparents for two months before moving to London. ‘I’ll fit in better down there.’ He grinned. He seemed much more cheeful. ‘There’s more people like me around and they’re quite open about it.’

  ‘Are they really?’ She’d never met a – she still refused to think the word – person of Sam’s disposition in her life.

  ‘There’s an awful lot of us about, Mum. I’m not exactly one in a million.’

  ‘Is it something I did that’s made you like this, son?’ she asked anxiously.

  Sam laughed. ‘I don’t know what made me like this, Mum, but it was nothing to do with you. You’re still not used to it, are you?’

  ‘I never will be, Sam. I’m afraid I don’t understand any of it.’

  ‘I don’t think I do, either.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Write to me with your address as soon as you’ve got one.’

  ‘To the house?’

  ‘To the house. Your father will be cross, but that’s his problem.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be best if I sent the letters here?’ he asked, meaning the house in Penny Lane where his mother had been born.

  ‘No, it’ll only worry your gran and granddad. They’re already worried enough, wondering what’s happened, why you left home in the first place.’ Mum and Dad were in their seventies. Dad was as fit as a fiddle, but her mother was becoming very frail.

  Everyone was getting older. In a few days, she would be forty-two and Sam twenty-one. She’d planned a big party, but that wouldn’t happen now. She couldn’t visualize ever going to a party again.

  She did, of course, although it was a long time before she and Harry began to get along, and it was never the same as it had been before. She felt as if a curtain had fallen between them and they couldn’t communicate with each other any more. If a letter came with a London postmark, Harry would ignore it. He wasn’t interested in knowing how Sam was getting on. When he’d been away a few months, Judy paid him a visit and Harry went around, tight-lipped, hardly speaking, for days beforehand and for days after she came back. Judy continued to visit and he accused her of being disloyal.

  ‘You should be on my side, not Sam’s,’ he finished in a hurt voice.

  ‘I’m not on anybody’s side,’ she replied. ‘I’m not deserting Sam for you – or you for Sam. I’ll see him whenever I like.’

  Joe visited them often, sometimes bringing Ashley with him, but it was rare that Donna came and just as rare that they were invited to their house in Allerton. Judy didn’t like to call unannounced, worried she mightn’t be made welcome. She was resigned to the fact that she would never make a friend of her daughter-in-law.

  She also got used to explaining to people why Sam never came home. ‘He works for a newspaper and spends loads of time abroad. He keeps promising to come and stay, but never manages to make it.’

  At least the newspaper bit was true and Sam did go abroad, but only occasionally. She felt annoyed at having to lie because of Harry’s prejudices. ‘Next time someone asks, I’ll refer them to you,’ she told him crossly, but people gradually stopped asking.

  Nineteen eighty-five was a sad year. Mr Moon passed away in January, followed not long afterwards by Judy’s mother. It was also the year when Joe discovered the truth about his brother. The two young men wrote to each other and frequently spoke on the phone but, in deference to his father, Sam had always kept his secret hidden.

  Joe had been on a hotel management course in Kent. On the way home, he called on Sam in his basement flat in Islington. Back in Liverpool, the very next day, he came to see his mother. Harry wasn’t there, having gone to work in the shop, as Joe had known he would.

  ‘Sam’s living with this black guy, Josh. They’re a couple. Why didn’t you tell me, Mum?’ Joe said reproachfully. ‘Did you think I’d mind or something? Sam said it’s why Dad chucked him out and he’s never come back, not even for a visit.’

  ‘Your father didn’t want anyone to know. He’s too ashamed.’

  ‘Ashamed of what?’ Joe looked truculent. ‘Sam said you’ve stuck by him all the way, but you could have told me. I’m his brother. I’ve a right to know. As for Dad, he’s still living in the nineteenth century. Strange,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I used to think he was the best father in the world, so laid back he was virtually horizontal, but it turned out he doesn’t go along with divorce, let alone homosexuality.’ Judy winced at the word and Joe went on, ‘There are loads of openly gay men and women around nowadays: famous actors, pop groups, film stars. There’s no need to make a big deal out of it. It isn’t against the law.’

  Judy sighed. ‘Have you told Donna about Sam?’

  ‘Of course I have. She’s dead shocked – oh, not with Sam, but with Dad for making him leave. By the way, she’s pregnant.’ He smiled joyfully. ‘We’re dead pleased. We’re having a little get-together on Saturday, just a few friends. Donna wants to know if you’ll come. She’s really impressed with the way you’ve stood by Sam. She thought you’d have gone along with Dad.’

  Judy’s heart leaped. It seemed as if she might make a friend of Donna, after all. ‘I’d love to. I’ll see what your dad’s up to that night.’

  ‘Dad’s not invited. Anyroad, he wouldn’t have come. He dislikes Donna as much as she does him.’

  The curtain between them was getting thicker. Harry would get up and leave the room whenever Joe mentioned his brother. He wasn’t even faintly thrilled when his first grandchild was born: a bonny little girl named Rosemary and wore the same scowl at the baby’s christening as he’d done at her parent’s wedding.

  ‘Why don’t you lighten up?’ she asked when they got home. ‘You’re making yourself terribly unhappy just because your sons haven’t conformed to the pattern you drew up for them. Joe and Sam haven’t done anything evil.’ He stared at her blankly, as if she’d spoken in a language he didn’t understand. ‘Harry,’ she said gently, ‘what’s happened to us? Remember the night we met in the Cavern? For years afterwards, our lives were perfect. What’s gone wrong, love?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The blank stare was replaced by a look of terror. ‘I’m frightened, Jude,’ he said piteously.

  ‘I’m not surprised, love. You’ve made enemies of the people closest to you. Why not make a fresh start?’ she urged. ‘Make friends with Donna – and Joe: he’s not exactly pleased about your attitude to his wife. Invite Sam home, even if it’s only for a weekend.’

  ‘Would he bring his boyfriend?’

  From his glacial tone Judy could tell she was wasting
her time. The family was now divided into two distinct camps: Harry in one camp, his sons in the other, herself somewhere in between, but slowly being drawn into the second camp and making an enemy of the husband she’d once loved so much.

  *

  Sylvester Smith refused to leave the house on New Year’s Eve, 1989, to see in the new decade with his children. He reserved Casablanca in the video shop, a film that not only featured two much-loved stars, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, but had also been his wife’s favourite of all time.

  Dorothy, who lived nearest, bought him a couple of bottles of beer and a box of chocolates. ‘Enjoy yourself, Dad. I’ll give you a ring as soon as Big Ben chimes in nineteen ninety.’

  But when Dorothy rang, there was no answer. Suspecting something might be wrong, she called Judy, Paulette and Fred – Ronnie had settled in New Zealand when he gave up the Navy – and they entered the house together to discover their father had passed peacefully away. Casablanca had finished and had rewound.

  ‘I wonder if he saw it right through to the end or did it rewind itself?’ Paulette moaned. ‘We’ll never know exactly when he died.’

  ‘I reckon he saw it. The beer and the chocolates have all gone. He usually made them last out the whole film.’ Fred closed his father’s eyes for the last time. ‘Didn’t you, Dad?’ he said fondly.

  Dorothy made the cold body comfortable on the settee, Paulette went to ring for an ambulance, and Judy took the bottles and the empty chocolate box into the kitchen. The others followed and they sat around the old table where they’d eaten their mother’s delicious casseroles. An ancient chrome alarm clock ticked loudly on the window sill. A poster advertising The Godfather was attached to the fridge.

  ‘I bet Mum and Dad are in heaven watching I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang.’ Judy managed a smile. ‘That was a ghastly film. Remember he asked us round the minute he got the video and we had to pretend to enjoy it so as not to hurt his feelings?’

 

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