Maggie's Boy

by Beryl Kingston

  You should try being his wife, Alison thought. She was weary with frustration and failure. She’d made the most difficult decision in her life and nothing had come of it. Nothing could come of it because he was so well hidden.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you.’ And she hung up quickly and went back to her packing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was Saturday evening and Morgan was on his way to Hampton, driving with care because grief had made him inaccurate and clumsy. There had been so much to attend to after the funeral that his few days’ leave in Wales had extended into a week. Now and at last, he was on his way back to Alison. As the miles ticked by, he couldn’t wait to get to Barnaby Green.

  It upset him to see how derelict the house looked in the fading light of that cold April evening. The flower beds were full of dead daffodils, their crumpled heads as brown as paper on their long, dark stems. The front door was ajar and there was a long white scratch down the paintwork. There were tea chests and packing cases stacked on top of one another against the living room window, pushing the curtains askew. The topmost case was covered with a double-page spread from a recent newspaper. He could see the headline as he walked up the path. ‘Nearly 3 million unemployed.’ There was a kid’s bike lying on its side in the flower bed and several toys scattered in the porch but no sign of Alison or the children. Feeling suddenly rather unsure of himself, he pushed upon the door and went in. There was no one on the ground floor at all.

  ‘Alison,’ he called.

  ‘Up here, Morgan!’ Jon’s voice called back.

  She was on the landing, struggling to manhandle a chest of drawers down the stairs, and had obviously been working hard for some time. Her hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat, her jeans and jersey were smudged with dirt and grease and she frowned as she hauled at the chest of drawers.

  ‘What are you doin’?’ he said, bounding up the stairs to help her. ‘You can’t move a thing that size by yourself.’

  Now that he was close to her he realised that she was furious and tearful. ‘Yes I can,’ she said, tugging at it. ‘I’ve got to. There’s no one else to do it. We’ve got to be out of here on Thursday.’

  ‘Put it down a minute,’ Morgan said, pulling at her arm, ‘while I think of the best way.’ Ever since the accident he’d had problems carrying heavy weights.

  She fought him off. ‘I’ve got to do it. Don’t you see? I’ve got to.’ Then she turned to shriek at Jon, who had put his head out of the bedroom door to see Morgan. ‘You go straight back to bed! Do you hear me? And stay there. I don’t want you two getting hurt on top of everything else. Read your book.’

  Morgan recognised the edge in her voice as hysteria. There was only one thing to do, and that was to get the chest of drawers out of the way and then try to calm her. He dragged himself away from his grief to cope. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘You take that end, I’ll take this. Easy does it.’

  It was heavy even for the two of them and by the time they’d carried it into the living room his shoulder was beginning to pain him. But she wouldn’t rest. There was a toy chest to bring down and a bedside cabinet and two cardboard boxes full of games.

  We’ll do those,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll stop. It’s not good for the kids to be up there in the bedroom all on their own. They need settlin.’’

  ‘They’re my kids,’ she said wildly, heading upstairs again. ‘I’ll do what I like with them. You can’t tell me how to treat my own kids.’

  ‘Alison, cariad,’ he pleaded, following her. ‘Nobody’s criticising you. I only said…’

  ‘Yes, you were. I heard what you said. You think I’m a bad mother. Well you’re right. I am a bad mother.’ She knew she had been treating the kids appallingly these last few days, shouting at them for nothing and sending them up to bed long before they were tired, but she couldn’t help herself. The more guilty she felt, the more badly she behaved; and the more badly she behaved, the more there was to feel guilty about. ‘I’m a bad mother – and a bad daughter – and a bad sister – and a bad daughter-in-law. I can’t pack. I burn the dinner. I can’t even make a phone call without upsetting people. I can’t do anything right. I’ve got all those debts to pay. Brad’s still bald and it’s all my fault. And there’s Mum and all that money. I should have seen that coming but I didn’t. I’ve been sick with worry ever since she told me. You’re right. You’re right. You don’t have to tell me. I can’t cope with anything.’

  How did we get into this? Morgan wondered. He made a supreme effort to sympathise with her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She refused to look at him. ‘Nothing,’ she said sarcastically. ‘What should be the matter? My life’s perfect’

  Sarcasm was more than he could bear. ‘Well at least you’re alive?’ he said. His voice was so bitter it stopped her in her tracks.

  The realisation that she’d forgotten all about his grandfather was like being doused with cold water. ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘Oh Morgan, I’m so sorry.’

  But he wasn’t listening to her. He’d sunk down on to the stair below her and was sitting with his face hidden in his hands. And he was groaning.

  The sound filled her with such pity it made her ache. She’d seen Rigg weep many, many times, and all three of her brothers had cried at Dad’s funeral, but she’d never heard a man groan with grief. She crept shamefacedly down the stairs and sat down beside him, with one arm round his huddled shoulders. To carry on like that when he was grieving! To forget about his grandfather! How could she have been so callous? ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘He was such a good man, Ali,’ he said, his hands still over his eyes. ‘It shouldn’t have been like that. It wasn’t fair. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  ‘I loved him so much an’ now I shall never see him again. Never. It’s…’ But he could find no words to express this misery. There was only the pain of it.

  ‘It feels as if someone’s punched a hole right through the middle of your body,’ she said, remembering. ‘I know.’

  He looked up at her, his blue eyes strained with grief. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s how it is. That’s exactly how it is. How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ she said simply. ‘When Dad died.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and dropped his head into his hands again.

  Now that her self-pity was drowned and her sympathy aroused, Alison knew, instinctively, how to help him. He needed to talk, to weep – if he could – to be encouraged to remember. Above all, he needed to be comfortable and comforted. She left him quietly and tiptoed into the kids’ bedroom to kiss them good night and settle them, promising them a story when she’d finished ‘a bit more packing.’ Then she went back to Morgan to do what she could.

  ‘Come downstairs,’ she said, leading him by the arm. ‘It’s too cramped here.’

  He allowed himself to be led, walking heavily and with little sense of where he was going. They sat side by side on her untidy sofa.

  ‘Could you tell me about him, Morgan?’ she asked. ‘Or would that be…?’ She spoke very gently and tentatively because the expression on his face was so awful, but he answered her at once and with evident relief.

  ‘He was such a good man,’ he mourned. ‘I know he was old, but he shouldn’t have died like that. He should have died peaceful, in his bed, not strugglin’ for breath, on the floor.’

  She waited, knowing there was more. And more came, slowly, haltingly, but with gradual and increasing relief: about the death and the funeral, about Nan and how brave she was, about Granddad and what a fine man he’d been. He was remembered at home, out fishing, down the pit, among his family.

  ‘Head of the family, he was. The one we all looked up to. Old man Griffiths. No matter what your problem was, he had an answer for it. Wasn’t always the answer you expected mind. I remember he used to say: “Nothin’ ever came of forcin’ things. Easy does it. Go with it, wait for t
he moment, then turn against the grain, an’ you can take it all your way, sweet an’ easy.”’

  ‘Sounds like sense to me,’ Alison said, thinking about it. ‘I’ve been trying to force things these last few days.’

  ‘Is that why you were in such a state?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your turn now,’ he said, remembering some of the babble of nonsense she’d been yelling. ‘What was the matter?’

  ‘It’s nothing really,’ she said. ‘Just something I found out about Rigg.’

  ‘Ah! What’s he done?’

  He had recovered sufficiently for her to unburden herself. ‘It’s Mum’s nest-egg,’ she said, and told him the whole story briefly, from the meeting with Harry Elton to her visit to the solicitor. The telling upset her and reminded her of how wicked Rigg had been and how hopelessly guilty she felt, but she remained relatively calm. ‘I don’t know how he could have done such a thing,’ she said. ‘To Mum of all people. And to touch Greg for twenty thousand.’

  ‘Was that why you said you’d got to do all the packing yourself?’

  ‘I didn’t think I could ask them for help. Not after that.’

  ‘But you don’t think that now?’ It was only just a question.

  She answered honestly. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They’ll be hurt if you don’t’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Confessing to him had made her see things differently. ‘It was so evil. That’s what I can’t get over.’

  ‘The evil flourish like the green bay tree,’ Morgan said sadly, remembering his grandfather’s funeral. ‘The good die of the dust.’

  ‘I used to think I loved him once,’ she said. ‘Now I think it was just pity. He’s very good at making people feel sorry for him. He keeps on about it. All about how badly his mother treated him, and how he loved his father and wasn’t allowed to go to his funeral, and how people let him down and ran off with his money. I used to think: it was all true. I’m not so sure now.’

  It was the moment to come clean. ‘Look,’ Morgan said, turning so that they were face to face. ‘There’s somethin’ you ought to know. Somethin’ I should have told you ages ago. When I came down to Hampton that first day and met you, I was lookin’ for Rigg.’

  ‘Were you?’ she said, intrigued to hear it. ‘What for?’

  ‘I’d been paid to.’

  He waited for her reaction. But it didn’t come. She went on looking at him, her expression thoughtful. ‘I’m a private investigator,’ he explained. ‘Right? I was hired to investigate him. By one of his creditors.’ Then he was afraid that he’d upset her because she screwed up her face and shut her eyes. ‘I should have told you at the start but there was always a reason not to, d’you see. It wasn’t the right time. I thought I might upset you.’

  She opened her eyes, blinked and looked at him. The expression on her face was so extraordinary he wasn’t sure whether she was going to laugh or cry. ‘What you’re telling me is: you met me because you’d been sent to find Rigg.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But that’s funny,’ she said. She was grinning at him. ‘That’s really funny. That’s poetic justice. Serves him right.’ Then she began to laugh.

  Relief that he hadn’t upset her made Morgan laugh too. The irony of it was rather splendid when he came to think about it.

  ‘So you know about the voluntary arrangement?’ she said, when their laughter died down. ‘And him doing a runner to Spain.’

  He’d come to the painful part of this confession. ‘Yes,’ he said, his expression changing. ‘As a matter a fact, it was me went out there and made him come back. I wish I hadn’t’

  She understood what he was worried about. ‘It wasn’t your fault he hit me,’ she said.

  They were both very serious. ‘It was my fault he came back,’ he said.

  ‘He’d have hit me sooner or later anyway. That’s the sort of man he is.’

  ‘I’m sorry I brought him back, cariad.’

  ‘I know,’ she said gently. ‘But if it hadn’t been for you knowing about him, we wouldn’t have met in the first place, would we?’

  That was true and comforting.

  ‘I’m going to check that the kids are all right,’ Alison said, kissing his cheek, ‘and then I’m going to rustle up a supper. We can’t go on for ever without food.’

  They ate what they could, found two cans of beer in the fridge, and went on talking. They talked until three in the morning – she reliving the anger and revulsion she’d felt as she uncovered Rigg’s dishonesty, he telling the awful story of that death over and over again – talking and talking, healing one another with words.

  At four, Morgan woke up to find that they’d both fallen asleep on the sofa. At a little after six, he woke again to discover that he was lying at full length and that she’d put a pillow under his head and a blanket over his legs. She must have gone up to bed, he thought, as sleep overtook him again, and was touched that she’d looked after him so tenderly. He didn’t wake again until it was full morning and the children were standing beside the sofa with their picture books ready for him to read to them.

  Alison was in the kitchen, dressed in her clean jeans and a pretty pink jersey, busy making tea. ‘It’s a lovely morning,’ she said.

  He stood beside her and looked through the kitchen window at the pale spring sunshine dappling the grass. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is.’

  The pain of that long night had brought them very close together. Now they were warm and easy with one another and full of affection. He kissed her briefly and gently, loving her very much.

  ‘I’ll have Sugar Puffs,’ Jon said, from the kitchen door. So the family breakfast had to begin.

  ‘What are you goin’ to do today?’ Morgan asked, when they were all settled round the table.

  ‘I’ve got the key to the new house,’ she said. ‘I’m going to do a bit of cleaning up.’

  ‘I could help you, if you like,’ he offered. ‘I haven’t got to start work until tomorrow.’

  She smiled at that. ‘I’d be grateful.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. Would your mum look after the kids?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘I’ll drive them round.’

  For a few seconds, Alison wondered how she was going to explain the appearance of a strange man at her mother’s house so early on a Sunday morning, but she had too many other things to think about, and the work had to be done, so she set her misgivings aside and phoned. Elsie said she’d love to look after the children. Toys were chosen to keep them entertained and they all drove over.

  It was a significant meeting, even though Morgan and Elsie both handled it with casual caution.

  ‘This is Morgan,’ Alison said, when her mother opened the door.

  Elsie looked her visitor up and down. He’s a funny-looking bloke, she thought. Kind face though. Nice blue eyes. She could tell from Ali’s voice that he was important.

  ‘We’re going to clean up the new house,’ Alison explained.

  So he is important, Elsie thought. ‘All right then. When d’you want them back?’

  ‘Could they stay all day?’

  They could. ‘I could give them supper if you like.’

  ‘We’ll collect them in time for bed,’ Alison said. ‘Thanks ever so.’

  ‘He don’t say much, this Morgan feller a’ yours,’ Elsie said to the children as she took them into the house.

  ‘He’s Welsh,’ Jon told her, seriously. ‘He reads stories ever so good.’

  ‘He sleeps on the sofa,’ Emma said. ‘In his socks.’

  ‘Does he though?’ Elsie said. ‘Fancy that.’ Oh yes. He is important.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alison’s second moving day was remarkably straightforward.

  Mark drove the removal van, Brad looked after the kids and kept them overnight, Elsie hung the curtains she had adapted to the right length two days previously, Alison and Morgan unpacked, and Jenny cooked a meal and broug
ht it over for the workers that evening. By the time all the helpers had left, the worst of the move was over.

  After the rush and effort of the day, the evening was as soft as a rose, languorous, sea-hushed and full of strange scents and colours. Sunset stained the western sky with streaks of pale green and smudged purple and the clouds that drifted across the face of the moon were spindrift veils of lilac and grey.

  ‘What a night!’ Morgan said, standing by the garden gate to admire it. ‘I never seen a sky that colour.’

  She looked at him for a long moment, her face serious in the half light. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

  ‘If you like,’ he said, wondering what she was going to say.

  But it wasn’t the sort of question he hoped for. ‘Does your back hurt you?’

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you. You carry things – oh, I don’t know – sort of carefully, as if it hurts you. Does it?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ And as she waited, expecting more, ‘I had a bit of an accident, down the pit. Broke a few bones.’

  ‘Oh Morgan!’ she said, full of sympathy for him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known, I’d never have let you carry all that furniture about.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Would you tell me now?’ she asked.

  So he told her as much as he could remember. She listened with total concentration, sharing every moment and sympathising with every emotion. What a terrible thing it must have been, down in that awful darkness, not knowing whether he would live or die.

  ‘I do love you,’ she said. The words were spoken in a rush of admiration and pity before she had time to consider them. But once said, she knew how true they were. She did love him. She’d loved him for a long time. She just hadn’t admitted it.

  Morgan had hoped for this moment ever since he first declared his own love for her but now that it had come he could hardly believe it. ‘Truly?’ he asked.