His mind was made up. He would have to threaten Ivor that he would tell Marie himself if he didn’t explain. He had only seen the father’s house from a distance. The outside was neglected and from Marie’s description of the foul smell emanating from Ivor when he got home, presumably from visiting the place, the inside must be far worse.
Marie hurried into the house, anxious to make use of the afternoon off by clearing the bedroom drawers and packing the surplus items in tea chests borrowed for the move. Where they would be unpacked again she tried not to consider.
*
Geoff returned to his shop but he couldn’t concentrate on his work. It began to rain, darkening the office behind the shop. He didn’t switch on the light, unaware of the gloom, his thoughts taking him far away, to a place where Ivor and Marie would be together, and the worries about her husband’s dishonesty would vanish and he would become a reliable provider again. Ivor was lucky that Marie wasn’t the sort to give up on a marriage. Her vows were immutable.
He sat looking through accounts, listing those overdue for payment, but the invoices didn’t get written and after a while he gave up, pushed them into a drawer and closed the shop. It was earlier than planned but his intention of talking to Ivor until he persuaded him to take Marie into his confidence overrode everything else. He drove to the edge of the farmer’s three-acre field, in which a small herd of cows stood staring at him with their soulful eyes. Leaning against the bonnet of the car he could just see the entrance to the wood yard and the sound of saws reached him from the work sheds. He seemed unaware of the rain as he stood, glancing at his watch from time to time, tilting his head to allow rain to spill from the brim of his trilby.
At five o’clock he moved away from the car and slipped through the hedge and across the field to a position from which he could see the office door. At five fifteen the sound of the hammering and sawing ceased. He heard doors being dragged shut and locks rattled as the place was made secure.
At twenty past five Ivor came out of the office, neatly dressed in a mackintosh, waterproof over-shoes covering his feet, and wearing a trilby. He stepped cautiously across the yard, avoiding the few puddles and the slush of wet sawdust and mud, carrying an umbrella high above his head. Geoff thought he looked a dandy, yet there was nothing about their man, with all his finicky attention to his appearance, that was effeminate. Moving with great caution, Geoff prepared to follow him. They left the area around the wood yard behind them in a procession of two, heading for the other side of the wood from where Geoff’s car was parked.
At a bus shelter about a mile from the village, Ivor stopped. After looking around furtively Ivor changed his shoes for wellingtons he had previously hidden in the hedge. Geoff watched him take a battered suitcase from its hiding place deep in the trees and, removing his mackintosh and jacket, folding both with infinite care, he put them into the suitcase from which he took other clothes. He saw him put on an overall and a shabby overcoat, rather too large for him, tighten the belt to take up some of the slack and, after replacing the suitcase in the tree, walk on, head down, in a hurried, purposeful manner.
With relief, Geoff followed, thankful that the dull and wet evening discouraged the man from looking back. They left the country road, crossed fields, with Geoff holding back several times to avoid being seen. Once he thought he’d lost him, but the sound of cracking twigs helped him to relocate him easily. After about twenty minutes the path led them out and into a clearing in which a cottage stood, forlorn and apparently abandoned, as no light showed on this dark evening and no smoke issued from the chimney. Ivor went in without knocking.
Cautiously Geoff approached. His heard voices, one angry and loud, the other frail and quaking. Looking through a window he saw a scene such as he’d never imagined, even in nightmares.
The old man who sat on a chair near the empty grate was surrounded by filth. Papers of all description and what looked like stale food and empty bottles and tins were strewn around the room and the old man held his arms up as though to protect his face. He couldn’t see Ivor but he could hear him shouting at the man, the words indistinct but clearly angry.
Forgetting the need for secrecy Geoff stared through the grimy window at the mess, and half imagined, half smelled the foulness of the place. The old man was saying something in reply to Ivor’s tirade and, presuming he was still standing there, Geoff was startled by a shout as Ivor appeared silently behind him and shoved him angrily away from the window.
‘What are you doing here? You’ve followed me!’
‘I came to find out what was going on and to insist you tell your wife!’ Shock and anger made Geoff shout as loudly as Ivor. ‘What’s going on?’ Geoff recovered his balance and returned to stare through the window.
‘Why did you follow me?’ Ivor demanded. ‘Did Marie ask you to?’
‘She doesn’t know I’m here. I had to find out what was happening that was making you change from a good husband and provider to a man who gambles to the extent that you’re making your family homeless. How can rediscovering your father cause that?’
‘You know?’
‘Yes, but Marie doesn’t and as your wife she should!’
‘Are you sure she doesn’t know?’
‘She thinks it’s another woman.’
Ivor relaxed his shoulders, his body drooping. ‘Not another woman, just that dirty old man.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
‘Look at him,’ Ivor said in disgust. ‘That filthy confused creature is my father. How can I tell her?’
Geoff said nothing and they watched as the man inside gathered papers and a few sticks and lit the fire in the grate, the glow from the dancing flames making a mask of his lined old face. Seeing him close to, it was hard to believe in a connection between the meticulous Ivor and the dirty, pathetic old man. Then he said, ‘Get help for him, Ivor. But you have to tell Marie.’
‘I can’t do that. The truth is, my marriage has been built on lies.’
‘Now is a good time to rebuild it, this time on honesty. Marie deserves that, surely?’
Ivor shook his head. ‘I can’t.’
‘That old man is suffering, desperately in need of help, and I don’t have to tell you that your wife is suffering too. She’s trying to hold everything together. How much longer are you going to wait? Is your pride worth all this misery? Will you wait until everything falls apart with no hope of rebuilding?’
There was no word from Ivor.
Geoff turned and grabbed him, glared into his face then shook him like a dog with a rat. ‘You pathetic, cowardly excuse for a man.’
‘I’ve lost her and nothing else matters.’
Geoff shook him some more and threw him against the wall of the house.
‘Tell her!’ he shouted.
Five
Ivor stared at Geoff, wanting to argue, searching his mind for a reason for not telling Marie. Geoff glared back defiantly. There was a lot more he could say but he didn’t want to completely alienate the man and put himself in a position where he could no longer be available to help Marie. He looked at Ivor but it was Marie he was seeing.
He stared through the dirt-rimmed window and saw the man was making a futile effort to gather the piles of old newspapers into some order. Resignation showed clearly in the bent shoulders and the droop of the man’s head, as the untidy pile slithered slowly across the wooden floor, a waterfall of white and yellow.
‘Can’t we help him?’ Geoff said at last, glancing at Ivor.
‘I’ve cleared the room twice and the kitchen at least four times. But he goes out on the road, searching the ashbins, and within a day or so it’s all back again. I’ve stayed through the night to stop him going out but as soon as I leave out he goes and drags it all back in again.’
‘He’s sick, is he?’
‘It’s since my mother died. Although she wasn’t much better,’ Ivor added bitterly. ‘Although there was no food left about, not when Mam was alive. Just pap
ers and empty bottles and anything people put out for the ashman that she thought was worth saving, perhaps selling. Most of it didn’t find a buyer and ended up in there.’
‘What are you going to do? Something has to be done, he won’t get better on his own. Can I do something?’ There was no reply and he asked, ‘Shall I go with you to the authorities?’
Ivor turned angrily then, and demanded, ‘What are you doing? Sneaking around, following me.’
‘Marie was worried. You should have told her.’
‘What, that I was brought up in a home like this? That he’s my father? I told her a load of lies. Everything I told her about my life before we met was an invention. She mustn’t find out the truth.’
Geoff touched the man’s shoulder and urged him to move. ‘Come on, we can at least make the room safe by taking the papers away. We can get the fire going properly – there’s plenty of wood around – then get him some food, find some clean clothes for him.’ Like a child, Ivor allowed himself to be led back into the noisome place.
‘Wait,’ Geoff said as they began to gather up some of the mess. ‘Whether you seek help or not, I think we need a photograph of this. Come with me to get my camera.’ Geoff was afraid to leave him there in case he locked the door and refused to let him in, or tidied up the worst of the filthy room. Ivor was in such a depressed state he didn’t think to argue.
They were gone about an hour. Geoff driving them back in Ivor’s van. The old man was exactly as they had left him, trying in vain to pick up the papers then watching as they slid back down again. Geoff took half a dozen snaps then handed the camera to Ivor. ‘Is there anything you want to record?’ Ivor shook his head. He seemed as unaware of what was going on as his father. Geoff hung the camera around his neck, afraid to put it down in all the filth surrounding him, and began the work of clearing up. He gathered some empty boxes, plenty of those thrown haphazardly around, and began filling them with the newspapers and books that were in untidy heaps around the floor. Ivor put a scarf around his hand and collected the half-empty food tins, and the wrappings from chips, and, with a shovel, scraped up potato peelings and other unrecognizable vegetation that had stuck to the slate floor. The man sat in the solitary armchair and watched, rocking rhythmically to a tune only he could hear.
‘You have to get some help for him, Ivor,’ Geoff said, when they had succeeded in creating some order, and had a tire of logs burning cheerfully in the grate. ‘You can’t manage this on your own.’
‘Don’t you understand? I can’t allow people to know he’s my father, that my background has been an invention.’
‘I understand that you should have told Marie. She’s your wife and you’ll have to tell her sometime.’
Ivor took from his coat pocket a package of sandwiches, which he handed to his father. The old man stared at them as though he didn’t recognize what they were. ‘Eat them, damn you,’ Ivor shouted, and with a jerk of alarm the man began to eat. Sometimes he spat a piece of crust into his hand and was about to drop it on to the floor, but each time he glanced at Ivor and put it back in his mouth.
Leaning against the window sill, from which they had removed several dozen milk bottles, their contents mildewed, Ivor looked at Geoff as though trying to come to a decision.
‘I won’t tell her, if that’s what you’re wondering. This has to come from you,’ Geoff said.
His mind made up, Ivor began to explain, his voice a low monotone. ‘I ran away from my parents when I was twelve. I’d tried to get away several times before, but people knew me, they could smell me a mile off! I was always taken back home. I always knew I didn’t belong with them. I wanted cleanliness. I wanted smart clothes and a decent place to live.
‘I lied about my age and got a job in a garage, but I didn’t like the dirt. I wanted clean hands. I wanted to work in a place where I could dress in smart clothes, not a pair of greasy, ill-fitting overalls that had been worn by God knows how many people before me.’
‘Where did you live?’ Geoff couldn’t imagine how such a young boy could cope all alone.
‘Rough for a while, then I shared a room with two others. I hated it. They were lazy and put up with any mess if the alternative meant doing some cleaning, but I put up with it knowing that I was managing to save a little and I wouldn’t be there for ever. Then I found a position in a hotel and for the first time I found a place where my skills were valued. I was quickly promoted and was soon given the post of manager, and I found a woman who understood what I was trying to do, to work as housekeeper and together we made the place shine. It became the cleanest, most smoothly run hotel you’ve ever seen. I made sure the staff polished and scrubbed, cleaned windows and made the brass fittings glow. I learned everything the business could teach me and left there a changed man.
‘I married Marie after meeting her family and seeing how mannerly and particular they were. She gave me all I’d ever dreamed of, a clean, well-run home, and children to nurture as they should be. Time passed and although I had moments of conscience when I thought I should find out how my parents were, I never did. I tried to pretend the first twelve years of my life hadn’t existed. They’d happened to someone else.’
Almost afraid to interrupt, Geoff asked quietly. ‘So how did you meet up with you parents again?’
‘That was the worst imaginable luck. I met someone from my school days.’
‘Jenkin Jenkins?’ Geoff said.
‘He bullied me when we were at school, made those years a misery, and now he’s turned up to ruin my life again. Do you believe that some people are bringers of bad luck? I do, and Jinks Jenkins is one of those for me. From a chance encounter with that cursed man, I learned that my mother was dead and my father was living only a few miles from me. I found him living like this.’
‘So it was conscience that brought you here?’
‘Morbid curiosity to begin with. A short walk intended only to allow me a peep through a window, but that moment destroyed everything I’ve achieved.’
‘It needn’t. I think Marie will be relieved. She believes you are seeing another woman.’
‘She believes I’m a gambler who puts his needs before hers and the children’s. She’s right on both counts. I’ve gambled in the stupid belief that it would give me the money to see my father right and allow me to leave him again without having to tell Marie. Because of the guilt that old man revived, I’ve made us homeless. And in my desperation for the boys to love me, I’ve tried too hard to be their friend. We covered up their foolishness. In an attempt to earn and keep their love we made excuses for them when what they did was inexcusable.
‘I was always on their side whatever they did, and even admired their worst behaviour, pretending it was normal for boys to behave in that foolhardy way. I’ve ruined everything by trying to be as unlike my parents as it’s possible to be. I don’t deserve Marie. She’d be better off without me.’ He turned to look at Geoff and said, almost cheerfully, ‘She said that once, you know, that they’d manage better without me.’
‘Tell her,’ Geoff urged. ‘If you think there’s nothing to lose, tell her, take the one chance of surviving all this.’
‘I can’t.’
*
Marie was in her parents’ house. The twins and Violet were with her and she was doing what her sister asked.
‘Mam, why don’t you ask Jennie to come home? I think she’d come if you explained how difficult it is for you with your arm weak and Dad not as fit as he was.’
‘I can’t ask her to give up the flat. She and Lucy are enjoying their freedom.’
‘You don’t stop her doing anything she wants to do. Ask her, tell her you really need her. I think she’ll come.’
‘You’re finding it a bit much are you? Coming here at lunchtimes as well as in the evenings?’
The criticism was there as always. It didn’t matter that she had a family to care for and worked at two jobs most of the time. Jennie was always the important one. Holding back a sigh,
Marie said calmly, ‘Mam, I’m not asking this to help me, I think you need her here.’
‘But better for you, too, Marie.’
‘All right, Mam, better for me too. Although, apart from the relief of knowing you and Dad have someone here at night, I don’t quite see how. She’s out practically every evening and at work all day, I’ll still have to come, won’t I? Or will you manage without me?’
‘I’ll leave it to your conscience, Marie,’ her mother said.
Marie was watching the clock. Perhaps Ivor was home and perhaps Geoff had learned something about where he went when he returned so late. She felt a shiver of fear as she tried to imagine how she’d cope if her suspicions were true and Ivor had been meeting another woman.
‘You’d better go,’ her mother said. ‘You’ve been watching the clock since you arrived.’
‘I have a husband due home, wanting to be fed,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘I’ll just do these dishes before I go.’
Without being able to explain why, she dawdled on the way home. Darkness was throwing shadows into corners, and, apart from an occasional bicycle passing, the roads were empty. The twins played hide and seek as they strolled along, Violet hiding in alleyways and behind trees and the boys pretending not to find her so she could jump out and frighten them. They always allowed her to find them and, although she knew they were cheating, she loved it. Marie forced herself to laugh at their antics and prided herself on her acting skills as she joined in and hid in her turn, shrieking with laughter as she was found.
As they approached Hill Crescent she saw that their house was in darkness. Ivor was not yet home, and there was no sign of Geoff’s car. It was more than an hour after Ivor’s usual time to return from work and she knew she was facing another evening of wondering.
The boys dealt with the fire as she began to prepare a meal. No meat today, just bubble and squeak, potatoes and a few vegetables boiled, mashed then fried until they were crispy. She had three eggs, so the children and she would have half each and Ivor – if he came home – would have a whole one.
The House by the Brook Page 11