Bill Bailey's Daughter

by Catherine Cookson

  Mark stood where he was and watched Bill stalk from the room, and what he thought was, He’s a funny man, really. I don’t think he understands Mam.

  Three

  Saturday afternoon was grey and icy cold. The sky was low and heavy and the forecast, everyone said, was snow; and yet it was only the end of November.

  Bill was driving back home from the outskirts of Durham. He was feeling very pleased with himself: he had, as he thought, killed two birds with one stone. The first was reposing in the glove box. It was Fiona’s Christmas box and in it lay, on a velvet pad, a heavy filigree gold necklace with matching earrings. They had been handwrought by a young artist and, as he put it to himself, had cost him a bomb. But what did it matter as long as they pleased her? The notion had entered his mind when watching her face as she was looking at the picture of some actress attending a gala: Katie, who was sitting beside her, had said, ‘Look at that necklace she’s wearing, Mam. Isn’t it beautiful?’ and Fiona had murmured, ‘Yes, indeed; and I bet it was a beautiful price too.’ Well, it had been a beautiful price. That young goldsmith was maybe just starting out but he knew his own worth. Still, what odds; he was making money now and he’d make more.

  Then there was the house. Twice in the last week he had been over to see it. The first time he had just walked round the garden, all five acres of it. But on Wednesday he had made an appointment with the agent to view the house itself; the people were still in it. And by! As soon as he had stepped into that hall he knew that this was where he would want to bring Fiona and the family. It wasn’t a baronial hall in any sense, quite modern in fact; well, the whole house had been modernised thirty years ago and the man had done a good job on it: the mouldings on the ceilings had been retained, as also had the eighteen-inch skirting boards; and all doors were solid hardwood. But the furnishings, especially the carpets and drapes, were modern and beautiful. The whole house was beautiful. Three of the six bedrooms were en suite. And there was an indoor swimming pool with dressing rooms. My! My! He could see them all there, the whole family, with Sammy Love, too. Aye, Sammy Love, too. It wasn’t strange, he was continually telling himself, that that boy’s name should pop into his mind: if ever there was a saviour it was Sammy Love.

  Roll on Monday. He smiled to himself. Katie was going to lose her bet. He could picture her handing over the five pounds and him taking it and pocketing it, at least for a time. That would teach her a lesson. He loved Katie. He loved them all. But love alone didn’t express his feelings for Fiona, adoration was nearer the mark. And he had sworn to himself never to upset her again as he had done the other night. By, she was in a state! And so was he. Oh, aye, he was an all. Funny about cryin’: it was more painful when you cried inside; you got relief when you could let the water flow.

  Blast it! He had taken the country road off the roundabout. It was that bloody lorry driver. Maniacs! Likely the same bloody hit-and-run one that had finished Mamie’s Mam and Dad and her brother.

  Being a country road, he could have turned back, but he kept on although it would put another couple of miles on the journey. Had it been a pleasant day he would have enjoyed this run. The road must have gradually been rising, for it opened onto a stretch of moor. Here it was bordered on one side by a ditch and on the other by a wire fence.

  He had travelled about a mile and a half along this stretch before seeing another vehicle, but there, in the far distance was one seeming to be travelling in the same direction. Presently, however, he realised that the car was stationary and was parked half on the road and half towards the fence.

  He slowed down, wondering if there were anything wrong, and in such an out-of-the-way place.

  There was something very familiar about the car, an elderly Rolls, at least as much of it as he could see, for one side of the bonnet was up and the driver was bending over the engine.

  He stopped and, putting his head out of the window, shouted, ‘Got trouble?’

  When the figure straightened up and turned towards him and said, ‘Yes, you could say that,’ they both stared at each other for a moment. Then Bill, getting out of the car, walked forward, saying, ‘You’re out of your way this end, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, no; I often take this road.’

  ‘But Brookley Manor is over there in that direction.’ He pointed.

  ‘Yes, I know where Brookley Manor is, but I wasn’t going to Brookley.’ Rupert Meredith’s tone was stiff, and when he looked at his wristwatch Bill said, ‘Been here long?’

  ‘Oh, about five minutes.’

  It was obvious that the fella, as Bill termed him, seemed to be on tenterhooks, looking first up the road, then down. ‘You expectin’ help?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Where would I get help on this road except from passing motorists.’

  ‘Aye.’ Bill gave a small laugh. ‘There’s that in it. Well, can I be of any help to you? Where do you want to go?’

  The younger man now stared at Bill for some moments before he said simply, ‘Hetherington.’

  ‘Hetherington? You…you mean the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, I mean the hospital, or as some would still call it, the lunatic asylum.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ For a moment Bill seemed taken aback, then he said, ‘Well now, I should ask why, but I’m not goin’ to. Anyway, I would lock her up.’ He pointed to the car. ‘And on our way there we should find a garage and ask them to pick her up. But I’d like to bet Sir Charles won’t welcome the news that his baby has broken down.’

  ‘It won’t be the first time; she’s getting worse for wear.’

  ‘How is he, by the way?’

  ‘He was very well when I put him and Lady Kingdom on the train for Scotland this morning.’

  ‘Oh, they’ve gone to Scotland then?’ They were both sitting in Bill’s car now and as he started her up he added, ‘What’s takin’ them up there at this time of the year? I thought he didn’t like the cold.’

  Rupert didn’t enlighten him on this subject, and they drove in silence for some way until they came to a country crossroads, when he said, ‘If you turn sharp right here it will bring you to the gates. And there’s a garage just beyond.’

  ‘I’ve never been on this road before. I thought I knew this part very well. You live and learn.’

  ‘That is quite true. And when one is living and learning I should like to tell you now that I have no designs on your wife.’

  The car jerked as if it were going over a grid as his mind said, ‘That’s straight from the shoulder anyway.’ But the actual words that came out, and in a casual tone, were, ‘Well, you surprise me. Still, accept that’s so, why then your frequent visits?’

  ‘Because I found it pleasant to talk to someone of my own age, and a woman. Sir Charles and Lady Kingdom are the dearest people in the world but they are of another generation and one again removed. And there isn’t what you would call a home life in the Manor, except when the family bring their children; whereas in your home there is a liveliness, and with the added attraction of amusing youngsters like Master Sammy Love.’

  ‘If you feel like that then, why haven’t you a wife of your own? Why aren’t you married?’

  ‘Fiona asked me the same question.’

  The very fact that the fella was calling his wife by her Christian name and in that voice of his stirred something in his bowels, but he forced himself to say, ‘What answer did you give her?’

  ‘I told her I would tell her sometime.’

  ‘Are you normal, I mean…?’

  Even Bill himself had to admit he couldn’t have bawled any louder than the fella when he cried, ‘Yes! I am normal. And yes! I know what you mean.’

  ‘You can shout almost as well as me.’

  ‘You’re an insulting bugger, aren’t you?’

  Bill suddenly wanted to laugh. It was the way he said bugger; it sounded so fancy, it wasn’t like bugger at all. ‘I don’t know about being an insultin’ bugger; I’m a plain one, I say what I think.’

  ‘Well,
I think it might pay you in future to think before you speak.’

  ‘Now look here!’

  ‘No, you look here, Mr Bailey. I have no need to explain anything to you, but here we are at the hospital and I thank you for the ride. You need not wait for me. There is a garage quite near, I can walk there.’

  ‘Just as you like.’

  He drew up the car outside the high iron gates, and when Rupert got out, Bill watched him walk towards the small wicket gate and speak to a uniformed man standing there, then go towards the window of an office, where he stood for a few moments before striding away up the drive towards the hospital that was out of sight beyond the trees.

  He turned the car around, but then drew it along by the side of the high wall and in such a position that he could keep his eye on the gate. Why should this fella be going to Hetherington? Some people called the place a nerve hospital, while others gave it its old name of asylum. But then, why should he be goin’ there? Well, in the ordinary way you would have thought he would have gone to Scotland with Sir Charles and Lady Kingdom, ’cos it seemed at times that the old fella couldn’t get on without him. Had he a parent in there, a mother or a father, or some relative that he felt responsible for?

  He recalled that in the car he would keep looking at his wristwatch, and he seemed agitated, so much so that his suave gentlemanly manner had slipped and he had reacted to the pointed questions just as he himself might have done.

  He, too, looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes to three. How long would he likely be in there? Well, he would give him an hour. Aye, he would; he would give him an hour. Fiona wouldn’t be worrying because he had told her he was going out shopping for Christmas boxes for the bairns before all the shops were sold out.

  He switched on the radio; but after a minute or so switched it off.

  That fella wasn’t so soft and pliable as he looked. But then, soft wasn’t the right word, perhaps courteous would be better. Still, courteous or pliable, he could swear. And he smiled to himself as he said aloud, ‘Bugger.’ Then for him to come out with, ‘I have no designs on your wife.’ No beating about the bush there.

  But who had he gone in there to see? Someone connected with him or perhaps with the old boy? Aye. Yes, that was a possibility. That’s why he had stayed behind, to carry out the visits.

  Oh hell! If he had an hour to spare, surely he could find something better to do than sitting here. By! He could that. It was weeks now since he had given himself a day off; even on Sundays he kept at it.

  It would be today, when he hadn’t a newspaper or book in the car. Had the kids left anything in the back? He leant over the back of the seat and groped in the paper rack and pulled out a square hard-backed book and smiled as he looked down on it. It was one of Mamie’s, entitled Nancy Nutall And The Mongrel. Where on earth did these writers get their titles? The pictures were nice. Mamie loved this book.

  He started to read the little story. It didn’t take long, and he found himself amused that the last words of most of the little chapters were: ‘And Nancy’s father sighed again.’

  Apparently Mr Nutall was sighing over his daughter because she was in her way demanding a dog and his wife didn’t like dogs…He’d have a daughter soon, or a son. Somehow he fancied a daughter. Of course, a son could follow in his footsteps. He could see himself taking him to football matches; that’s if the crowd weren’t wearin’ steel helmets by then. Well, a cricket match then. And that was getting as bad. He could see himself reflected in the windscreen nodding at himself, and he smiled. This is what happened when you were left on your own, sitting in a car waiting, because the fella could have got a taxi quite easily at the garage.

  But what if he did have a daughter? Well, as he said, he would call her Angela; and he would watch her growing up into another Katie, but with a difference: she’d be his, his own daughter. Looking back down his family line, he had to admit that they weren’t good breeders. His father had been an only child, his mother one of twins and the twin had died. And what he remembered of his grandmother, she’d been a loner too. Anyway, he’d be quite satisfied with one, whatever sex. But being satisfied with one wasn’t going to stop him trying again. Oh no. And Fiona, bless her, was more than willing. By! He’d got a prize there; and he meant to hang on to it. And the thought brought him back to the man who had gone up to the hospital.

  How long had he been sitting here now? Over half an hour. Well, as he’d said to himself he would give him an hour.

  He switched on the radio again: a sports commentator was yelling his head off over a motorcycle race. He lay back in the seat, pulled his tweed cap over his brow and prepared to doze, only immediately to pull himself upright again and look out the rear window. That was a daft thing to do, he told himself; the temper that fella was in he could have walked past him and left him sitting high and dry till the cocks crowed.

  His watch said he had been sitting fifty minutes when he saw Rupert come out of the gate. And he noted that he neither looked to the right nor to the left but walked with his head down away from him as though making for the garage.

  He tooted sharply on the horn, but had to repeat the process three times and start up the car before he saw the fella pause and look towards him.

  He now turned the car about and stopped again alongside Rupert, and, leaning over and pushing open the passenger door, he called, and none too gently, ‘Get in.’

  Rupert did not immediately get into the car, but bending slightly, he said, ‘You needn’t have done this; I could easily get a taxi.’

  ‘Get in. I’m bloody well froze. I suppose you know when these are stationary they don’t give off heat.’

  Rupert got into the car. But Bill didn’t start up straight away; he turned and looked at Rupert as he said, ‘Well, put your seat belt on. If we go out lookin’ for an accident you’ll go straight through the windscreen.’

  They had gone about half a mile along the road, and Bill, glancing at his passenger, asked, ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m all right.’

  The words were said in the usual polite cultured tone; and Bill, ever forthright, said, ‘Well, you don’t look it. Where you makin’ for?’

  ‘Brookley. But…but drop me in the town; I can get a bus out.’

  ‘Who’s lookin’ after you there?’

  ‘I’m looking after myself. I’m used to it. Anyway, Jessie comes in every day.’

  ‘Look; I’m sorry I opened me big mouth.’ Even as he said it he was wondering why he should be apologising to this fella because he had to admit he was still furiously jealous of him; what he was and what he stood for he imagined must appeal to Fiona as they were pretty much of the same class.

  ‘Do you mind stopping the car for a moment?’

  ‘What do you want me to stop the car for? Now look, just sit tight.’

  ‘Please. I’m going to vomit.’

  ‘Good God!’ Bill didn’t know whether he spoke the words or just thought them, but he pulled the car up to a jerking halt. And the next minute he watched the fella hanging on to a railing and vomiting onto the grass verge.

  He went round the car to him, and as he was wont to do with the lads or Katie or Mamie under such circumstances, he put out his hands and held Rupert’s head. And his face twisted into a grimace as the fella heaved as if he would bring his heart up.

  When the bout was over he remained by Rupert’s side as he leant against the railings and drew in long slow deep breaths. But when he seemed to be making no move Bill shivered and said, ‘Come on; get yourself back into the car; it’ll freeze you out here.’ He did not, however, now attempt to assist him, but hurried round the car and took up his seat again, and remained seated quiet for a while; then said, ‘You often car sick?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Rupert said, ‘No; I’m never car sick.’

  Again there was silence. And Bill noted that the fella lay back against the headrest and continued to take in the long deep breaths, after which h
e said, ‘Take your time; there’s no hurry.’

  The silence hung heavy on him. There was no movement on the road, except for a passing car, and he sat looking straight ahead and down the long length of the road, waiting for the fella to say he was all right. But when he did speak it was to say, ‘You asked why I never married. Well, the reason is back there. We were going to be married on her twenty-fourth birthday. We had been engaged for two years. We had actually known each other since our schooldays when she had come to stay with the Kingdoms because her people were abroad. There was a distant connection there. Then her parents split up. Her mother remarried and her father was killed in an accident. Her mother was then in America and wanted her to go, but she wouldn’t leave me. We seemed to know from the start there was only each other. I had been through university and was interested in industrial design. Sue’s stepfather was in big business in the US, and he had an opening for me once we were married. It was all set. Then one night we were at a party.’ He paused and wiped his lips with his handkerchief. ‘We were leaving early. I went round to get the car. They were chock-a-block and so it was a while before I could bring the car to the front of the house. She wasn’t there. The police found her the next morning, in the shrubbery not far away. She had been raped, and hit on the head. Just one blow, apparently just one blow to stop her screaming. She was in a coma for days; and when she came out she screamed, and when she wasn’t screaming she just sat perfectly still, so perfectly still, looking ahead. And she’s never spoken since, until today. They generally phone me when the fits are bad because she calms down somewhat when I’m near her. They are chary about giving her too many drugs in case she goes into that long sleep. But, today she called my name.’

  He stopped talking, and for once in his life Bill could find nothing to say, until the silence screamed at him, and then he said, ‘Well, that’s a good sign if she called your name.’