Fenwick Houses

by Catherine Cookson

  "

  It was Dad's hand that steadied me. Sitting down he called me to order, i "Now, hinny, dont worry, you've only got to tell the truth. I promise you you won't get into trouble, you won't get your : backside smacked. "

  There was no laughter in my dad's eyes nor in any other part of his face, and this, like a douche of cold water, brought it startlingly home to me that the matter was serious, very serious. If my dad wasn't laughing with any part of his face there was something very wrong. So I turned from him and, looking at my mother, I said, "I never done anything naughty, Main. Don took me behind the bushes. He wanted me to lie down so he could show me about the operation, and I wouldn't...."

  I felt my dad's fingers pressing on my hands, and when I looked back at him he was looking across the room to my Aunt Phyllis, and he said quietly, "What do you say to that, Phyllis?"

  "I say she's a little liar."

  "Well, it's up to us to say the same about Don, isn't it?"

  "Look, I know my Don, he wouldn't have come home in that state if he had been telling a lie. He was upset, I've never seen the lad so upset, disgusted I would say. Surprised and disgusted at her. You've always given her too much rope ... running mad about the fells like a wild thing."

  "That's our business, Phyllis, how we bring up our baims." It was my mother speaking, her voice tight and steady.

  "And;

  I'm telling you here and now that I dont believe a word of it. " If you had said it was Cissie Campbell I might have believed you, but "

  But not when it's her, oh, no! " Aunt Phyllis's tone was deriding.

  "Well, let me tell you, if she was to go down on her bended knees before a priest this minute and tell him that she didn't do it, I wouldn't believe her, so there. And that's my;

  last word on the matter. " She turned her gaze on me again, | then most surprisingly she said, her voice laden with bitterness, " You and your silly laugh. "

  The kitchen door and the back door had banged before any of us moved, then my mother with her fingers linked tightly together came to me and, kneeling down so that her face was on a level with mine and my dad's, she said to me softly, "Christine, pay attention.... Tell me, did you?

  Now dont be frightened, just tell me if you did or not. Did you take your ... your knickers off when Don was there and ... and ..." Before she had finished her struggling words I cried, "No!

  Mam, no! You know I wouldn't do that. " Her hand covered mine when it was resting on my dad's knee, and she said, still quietly, " I thought you wouldn't. "

  My mother got to her feet and went and looked out of the window, and after a few moments she said, "This is going to make things awkward."

  "Aye," said Dad, 'it will for a time, but it'll pass over. Lads get funny notions, he's at a funny age. Try to think of that, Annie. "

  My mother still kept looking out of the window as she said, "I've never liked Don, and now I know why."

  Dad made a sound that wasn't a laugh but tried to be as he said, "Well, she's returned the compliment: she doesn't like ours."

  He didn't say which one of us my Aunt Phyllis disliked, but the pressure on my arm as he automatically pulled me nearer told me. And I remember the surprise I felt, for whenever I went into the house next door I was always nice to my Aunt Phyllis. I had never answered her back, not once, and I had never been cheeky to her oh no, that was the last thing I would have dreamed of and I always noticed when she had something new and would say, "I like that, Aunt Phyllis," although very often I didn't know what the things were for. And when I would go in to my mother and say excitedly, "Aunt Phyllis has got a new tablecloth, Mam, silky it is," or, "Aunt Phyllis has a new ornament, Mam," she would make no comment whatever, but always tell me to get on with this or that, or go out to play. And because of my mother's attitude I felt that I was the only one who noticed my Aunt Phyllis's nice things, so besides being surprised I felt hurt to know that she didn't like me.

  But even all this upset was obliterated from my mind the next day when Fifty Gunthorpe was thrust on to my horizon. Fitty lived in a caravan with his father on a piece of spare ground at the edge of Bog's End.

  He was a man six foot or more tall, thin and gangling and subject to epileptic fits. He was known to everybody as Fitty Gunthorpe, but he was also known to be quite harmless and very fond of animals. At times I had met him in the wood, and he aroused no fear in me. He had a little dog forever at his heels they said the dog was never parted from him night or day. It was the sight of the dog that inspired the wish in me to have one of my own, and I had mentioned this to my father and had received a vague promise of "Aye, I'll look out for one." But it wasn't the dog but a rabbit that brought Fitty Gunthorpe into my life.

  I was never one for lying in bed in the mornings. Often I was out of bed and had been down to the river, just to have a look, while my mother was getting the breakfast ready, and was back in the house before Ronnie stumbled downstairs, his knuckles in his eyes and his mouth agape. And when I would say to him, "Oh, Ronnie, the river's lovely this morning," he would reply, "Oh, you, you're barmy, up all night."

  Some mornings I went into the fields or the wood to pick flowers to take to my teacher. There was always something to be picked at different times of the year, cowslips not butter cups or daisies, they were too common catkins, wood anemones, ferns, bluebells and may, beautiful scented white may.

  This particular morning was bright golden, and soft and warm, and the birds were all singing. I could distinguish some of them by their song: the lark, of course, for its voice shot it into the heavens, and I could tell the difference between the thrush, the blackbird, and the robin. But this morning I did not run up the street or hug myself and leap from the ground at the sound of the bird song as I sometimes did, but went into the wood and made my way to the place where yesterday I had been with Don, for it seemed to me that I would find something there that would bear out that I had spoken the truth, and then my Aunt Phyllis would believe me. But the only evidence that I found was three blackberries lying close together on a clear piece of sward.

  They were laden with dew and were sparkling like jewels. They should have been able to prove in some way that Don pushed me into the bushes and upset my can, but I knew that they couldn't, and I turned away on to the path. And there I saw Fitty Gunthorpe. He came up to me, his mouth agape and smiling a welcome. The dog was at his heels. He wore no hat, and his hair was longish and brown and wavy like a girl's. It did not seem part of him, but looked like a wig.

  "Ha... hallo," he said.

  "Hallo," I said.

  "Lo ... lovely m... morning."

  And I smiled at him and said, "Yes, it is."

  The dog took no notice of me, and they both passed by, taking the path by which I had entered the wood. This was the lower path. It started above the last house in our street and if you kept to it you would come out on the hill that looked down on to Bog's End and the spare piece of ground where the caravans were. I did not want to go that way this morning so I took a side track which led to the upper path. I think we children had made many of the tracks in the wood, and we knew them as well as we did our own backyards. The wood itself was a continuation of the hill on which Fenwick Houses stood, and the hill was tree-studded to its summit and way down the other side, too. The upper path ran in a zigzag fashion towards the top of the hill. In parts the trees were sparse, and where they let in the light the grass grew and rabbits sported. We called these various open spaces bays.

  There was the little bay, the big bay and the tree bay. The tree bay was my favourite, for it was the smallest sward of grass and was set in a complete circle of trees, not in rigid formation, but nevertheless enclosing the space in a rough ring. It was an enchanted place to me, and I liked it best when I could come here on my own.

  When I was with the lads we were never quiet.

  I had to cross the second path to get to the tree bay, and it was when I reached the path that I heard the cry. It was small, a squeaking, in
termittent yet linked in a continuous, pitying yelp. I scrambled over a bank of rich moss, bright green and close woven, then through the trees and to the bay. I knew the cry was that of a rabbit, and before I saw it I was already shivering with pity. The men, to supplement their tables, were catching rabbits, setting traps for them.

  They would set them

  at night and come early in the morning to clear them. I'd never seen the traps but I knew, from listening to Dad, all about them. But I understood that they were mostly set around the perimeter of the wood, for the rabbits came out to feed in the fields. This was the heart of the wood and somebody must have set a trap here. Then I saw the poor creature, and the sight riveted me to the spot. I could feel my hands coming slowly up to my mouth to still the scream. The rabbit was not struggling against the weight of a trap, but against the weight of a tree, a big tree, for one of its back legs was nailed to it. I hid my face, then I knew I was running, and thought I was running away through the wood again, and seemed surprised when I felt the rabbit's quivering body under my hands. The leg was all torn and bleeding, and when I pulled madly at the nail and the poor thing squealed loudly I began to moan. The sound reminded me of a man who had been knocked down by a car in the market last year. They had lain him in a shop doorway and he made moaning sounds. The next thing I remember was that I was running through the wood finding my way more by instinct than by sight, for I was blinded with a flood of tears. When I came out of the dimness of the wood and into the morning sunlight on the street I tore to the house, and there pushed everything before me, doors, chairs, little obstacles, and flung myself, not on my mother, but on my dad, crying, "Dad! Dad! Come on. The poor rabbit, the poor thing. Oh, Dad Dad."

  I had knocked some fried bread out of his hand and the grease had gone across the tablecloth, and my mother ex claimed, "What on earth's up with you, child? Look what you've done. What's the matter?" Then as if attacked by a thought that had suddenly frightened her, she pulled me from my dad and, shaking me, said, "Stop it! Stop it! What's happened?"

  "A rabbit, a rabbit, a poor rabbit!" I gulped and swallowed and choked before I could voice the horror that I had seen.

  "Nailed, somebody's nailed it to the tree. It's back leg, and the blood all over it." I turned up my palms to show the blood, and Dad, who was now on his feet, said, "Where?"

  "In the bay, Dad, up at the top."

  Stopping only to put his coat on, for nothing would have induced him to go outside the door without his coat, he hurriedly followed me into the street. I ran on ahead all the way, but when we reached the bay he was only a few steps behind. Now it was he who went ahead, and then, slowly, I approached his back, he ordered me sharply, "Stay where you are!"

  I saw his arm moving in a pumping motion, but he did not fall back with the nail in his hands as I had expected. Then I saw him grope in his pocket and bring out his knife. He paused with it in his hand, then called sharply, "Christine! go away, go away into the trees." I turned and, putting my fingers to my ears, ran to the end of the bay.

  It was not long before I heard him behind me, the rabbit was in his hands, it was dead. There was blood on its neck and it had only three legs. I fell flat on the ground and pushed my face into the wet grass, then my stomach seemed to rise through my backbone. I felt my spine drawn up in a curve, something like the hump of a fell, and then it seemed that my whole stomach came through my mouth.

  I didn't go to school that day.

  It was my mother's morning for Mrs. Durrant and she took me with her, and when we reached the bridge at the bottom of the hill, it seemed to be blocked by men. They weren't sitting on their hunkers or leaning over the parapet, but they were gathered together in a group. We had reached them before I realized they were listening to my dad, and it was the first time I had heard him swear. I couldn't see his face now, but I knew by his voice that it would be long and hard, for he was crying, "If I could find the bugger who did this, I'd nail him to the bloody tree with me own hands. The bloody sod! What it's done to my Christine remains to be seen."

  I was aware of two things at this moment, my dad was using bad language and my mother was doing nothing to stop him. We rounded the circle of men as if they were all unknown to us, even the man in the centre.

  Some moved to make way for my mother, and as we went towards the hump on the bridge, I heard one man explain angrily, "Let's go and find Gunthorpe," and I had a picture of Fifty's face with the morning light on it, saying, "Hallo I could see the dog close pressed against his boot and ragged trouser leg, and I was filled with a feeling which I can put no name to, just that it was a sort of sorrowful bewilderment.

  Fifty had always appeared a part of the wood to me, he was as natural to the wood as were the trees, yet he had nailed a rabbit to one of them, at least I had said so.

  I felt so upset that the beauty and elegance of Mrs. Durrant's house was lost on me. I could not see it because I was all the time seeing a rabbit with pain-glazed eyes.

  Mrs. Durrant herself came into the kitchen, and as she bent over me to stroke my hair she smelled nice. And with her hand on my head she turned to my mother and said, "How lucky you are, Ann." Then looking again at me, she added, "You can't tell if it's gold or silver, I have never seen anything like it."

  As Mrs. Durrant went out she paused by my mother and asked with a laugh, "What will you take for her?" My mother answered with another laugh, 'not all the tea in China, Ma'am. "

  Mrs. Durrant had no children, but she had a lot of money and a big house and nice clothes, and that day my mother brought a big parcel back home, and a basket of food, but I couldn't be happy about either the parcel or the food.

  When we got back at half-past one there was a man standing at the door, and he took off his cap when he spoke to my mother.

  "You Mrs. Winter, ma'am?"

  "yes said my mother.

  "What is it?"

  "I'm John Gunthorpe."

  "Oh!" said my mother.

  "Will you come in?"

  He was tall like Fifty, and his hair was thick, but it was very white.

  His face and hands were clean, with a scrubbed look, and though his clothes were old and there was a patch on his coat pocket, there was a cleanness about them, too.

  "It is your husband I want to see, missis," he said.

  "He should be in at any time. Will you have a cup of tea? I am just going to make one. It's hot work coming up the hill."

  "No, thank you, missis," he said. He moved from one foot to the other, twisted his cap into a roll and stuck it under his oxter and looked at my mother, and she at him. Then he burst out, "The child was mistaken, Mick wouldn't do a thing like that. He loves animals ... he's crazy about them. He lives for nothing else." He poked out his head at her.

  "He's not an imbecile, ma'am. He has fits but he's not an imbecile."

  "No," said my mother.

  "If it weren't for his fits you know what he would have been?"

  My mother said nothing, and he went on, "A vet, that's what he would have been. And then to say that he did that, nail a rabbit to a tree."

  He shook his head slowly.

  "And that lot of ignorant, big-mouthed louts comin' storming to me van.

  They would have lynched him, missis. Do you know that? Just another spark and they would have lynched him. They've got time on their hands, nowt to do."

  I was staring at him transfixed when he came to me and, bending his long length over me, said softly, The hairn, my lad didn't hurt the rabbit, try to believe that. Somebody did, some cruel man but not my lad, will you try to believe that ninny? "

  I moved my head once slowly in answer, then I watched him straighten up again and say to my mother, "Where will I find him, missus your man?"

  "He'll be on his allotment, or you'll likely meet him coming back up the hill at this time."

  "Thanks, missis, I'm obliged."

  He jerked his head at my mother, then looked at me once more, and his look was kind, so kind that I wanted
to cry. And I did cry, I cried on and off all day. And when I was in bed that night I was sick and my mother had to come and clean me up.

  3i

  CHAPTER TWO

  the days moved on and the rules and formulae on whichj childhood is based formed a skin that covered up the scar on | my mind made by the rabbit. This in turn had overshadowed I Don Bowling's lying, at least for me, yet I could not help but ^ notice that the incident was still to the fore in my mother's! mind, and also in Aunt Phyllis's, for they did not speak. My ;i Uncle Jim and Dad still worked together on the allotment and there was no rift between them. I still went up into the wood , and down to the river, always now accompanied by Ronnie, or l by Sam when he could get out. But I did not jump or hug myself as I used to, in fact, I did not feel joy again until Christmas Eve. And then the sight of Dad putting up the I coloured chains across the ceiling, and of my mother taking out of the box in which they were replaced each New Year the fragile glass swans and balls made of coloured glass brought the leaping feeling back again, and forgotten magic from past Christmases rushed at me and I flung my arms about myself i and leapt in the air.

  Dad was standing on a chair tying the last coloured fan in the chain to the picture rail. Mam was on her knees, kneading dough in a great earthenware dish, the one she used for double bakings. They both stopped what they were doing, looked at me as I stood laughing at them, then looked at each other, and they, too, laughed. Then my mother said a funny thing.

  "The time has come," she said, 'to end this. I must go into Phyllis.

  "

  "Aye, lass, that's right. Good will and peace to all men."

  The kitchen was filled with such warm happiness that I only had to put my hand out to touch it. I felt I could scoop it up in handfuls from the air. I knew that I was drawing it down into my chest with long sniffs up my nose. At last I lay on the mat, my bent arms coupling my head, and stared through the little brass rods that supported the steel top of the fender, the fender that I had cleaned that morning with whiting and ashes, at the white-heated bars, behind which the fire glowed a steady, fierce red.