Fenwick Houses

by Catherine Cookson

  "Mummie," she said, 'you're still beautiful. "

  "Oh! lass," I said, disbelieving, but grateful.

  "I wish I was half as pretty as you are. I've always thought it unfair that I dont look like you."

  I pulled her to me for a moment and, pressing her head into my shoulder, I said quietly. Thank God you dont, lass. Thank God you're not like me in any way. "

  "Oh! Mummie." She moved her head slowly.

  "I am, I'm like you in lots of ways."

  I put my lips on hers, then said, "Good night, and God bless you....

  God bless you and keep you happy," I said.

  I stood where she had left me, listening to her going up the stairs. I heard her open the door, and then I thought she had started to sing.

  It was a high note as if she had burst into song, and I smiled to myself. Then my smile vanished and became perplexed for a moment by the sound of banging in her room, as if something had dropped. There was nothing to drop that I could think of that would make that thudding sound. I found myself standing at the bottom of the stairs listening.

  There was no sound now, and then I called, "Constance!" And when she didn't answer I took the stairs like some frantic animal, for before I thrust open her door I knew what to expect. She was standing with her back pressed into Don's body, held fast by his great arm, and from her mouth dangled the ends of a tea towel. A loud unearthly scream escaped me and the spring was in my body when he checked it:

  "Come any farther and I'll give her this." This, I saw, was a razor very like the one Dad used.

  "Go on downstairs."

  "As I backed slowly, he pressed Constance forward. Step by by step I went down the stairs and into the kitchen where a moment before I had kissed her with so much love. Suddenly I was helpless with fear, I had no strength to combat this man and I heard my voice pleading, " For God's sake, Don, leave her be. Please! I'll do anything . anything, only leave her be. "

  "Even kill me, like me God-damn brother." He was smiling, but only with his mouth, his eyes were dead cold and terrifying.

  "You've both been sittin' for years behind these walls, haven't you, wondering how you could do me in? And you haven't been able to keep it out of your face, yet you couldn't rake up the nerve. I've had you taped. I've always had you in the hollow of me hand, and I still have.

  Nobody does anything to Don Dowling and gets away with it, and you've done plenty, you bitch, you!"

  "Don' my voice was a thin, pathetic whimper " Don, I tell you I'll do anything, anything you ask, only dont touch her. " I put my hand out towards Constance's petrified face, and he stepped back pulling her with him as he said, " Thank you very much for nowt.

  Miss Christine Winter. You're still Miss Christine Winter. God, it's laughable. But where'd you get the idea I want you now? Christ! I'd as soon go with a midden bitch as I would with you. But this' he jerked his arm tighter, pushing up Constance's breasts 'this is you when I wanted you, and, believe it or not I'm going to play fair with her.

  I'm not goin' to leave her on the grass like you were left. No, when she's goin' to have the hairn I'll marry her. Not that I want a hairn, but she's goin' to have one. You know why? Because I want to see you on a grid-iron. You'd think after all this time I'd done enough to you to have me own back, but it's never been enough. But this'll satisfy me, for you'll feel it. Aye, every time I touch her you'll know and you'll feel it like hell. "

  He caused her bust to rise again, and a moaning sound came through the tea towel, and I began to gibber.

  "Don, Don," but as I did so I knew what I was going to do. I was going to dash through the front room and out into the street and scream blue murder. He would never use that razor. I was on the verge of making a move towards the front room door when he fore stalled me. Lifting the razor to Constance's cheek and pressing the blade to her skin he cried,

  "Another jerk like that and I'll mark her I'll mark her for life."

  As I stood gasping and shaking before him he gave a grim laugh and added, "You can do nowt like always you can do nowt, an' I've got everything fixed, every step. I'm not letting you or any white-livered paper bugger man th raw me not this time I'm not."

  At this moment there came from our back yard the sound of someone whistling softly and Don turned his head sharply to wards the kitchen window. Then saying to me.

  "Open the back door," he pushed Constance towards me and once again I was walking backwards.

  When I withdrew the bolt from the scullery door he called softly, "In here Rox," and in came a short man in a big, bulky coat. The man looked from one to the other then grinned and said, "Well, well."

  "Keep an eye on her." Don nodded towards me and then moved back into the kitchen, and as the man came towards me I backed from him. This man had a round, chubby face and a fresh complexion. If you had met him in the street you would have thought he looked homely.

  He stared at me as he fitted his steps to mine and said coolly.

  "So you're Christine Winter. Well, what d'you know?" Then coming into the kitchen and turning to Don, his tone taking on a curt note, he said, "Come on, man, you've spent enough time over this."

  "She's got to be put out of action first." Don nodded towards me again.

  "She's generally blind about this time and sleeping it off, snoring.

  You'd have to be sober the night, wouldn't you, Christine?"

  His tone was mocking.

  "That's just your bad luck for I'm going to give me self the pleasure of putting you to sleep."

  Like someone hypnotized I watched his tongue move over his upper lip as if he was licking something off it, then he went on, "It'll be my last parting gift so to speak, for we won't meet again Connie and me are off to faraway lands aren't we, Connie?" He almost lifted her off her feet and I saw her eyes close.

  "Well, hand her over," said the man hastily, moving to wards Constance,

  'and get on with it if we want to make the docks the night. "

  It was at this point that the key turned in the front door and I heard myself screaming, "Dad! Dad!" There was hardly a second between my scream and Dad entering the kitchen, but he stopped dead just within the door and I knew by his face he couldn't take in what he was seeing.

  Then the full realization springing at him, he yelled in a terrible voice, "Take your hands off her, Don Dowling, or before God you'll not live to tell the tale." He was moving steadily towards him when the other man spoke again, and as he did so he pulled his hand from his pocket.

  "Take it easy, Grandad, we're just goin'."

  "Get out of me way!" Dad brushed the man aside without even glancing at him.

  "Dad!" I screamed at him as he had not seemed to notice what the man held in his hand. The man, too, was taken aback, but he said.

  "Now look here, I dont want to get rough with you, so stop acting the bloody goat and stay put."

  Dad's arm came up in an ugly swing but before his fist had descended on the man I saw him jerk upwards as if some thing had hit him in the chest, then he bowed his head, and then his shoulders, and slowly he sank to the floor. There had been no sound of a shot. There was no blood. I was past screaming but I heard myself in horror-laden tones exclaiming over and over again, "You ... you ... you ..." The man was looking at the revolver in his hand and as I rushed to where Dad was lying he turned towards Don, saying, "Look, I didn't even touch it."

  "That was a bloody mad thing to do."

  Even with my mind in the state it was, the fear in Don Dowling's tone got through to me.

  "I tell you, I haven't fired it. Let's get out of here."

  Dad's mouth was hanging open, his face looked pale and soft, and I thought that he must be dead. In the agonized second during which I raised my eyes from Dad's face to that of the man, I was aware of a number of things. Constance was slumped within Don's hold, she had fainted, and outside the kitchen window, in the space between him and the man there loomed a dark shadow which I took to be that of another of them. Moreover, t
he knowledge that Aunt Phyllis just be yond the wall must know what was going on, what her beloved son was up to, was actually as terrifying in a way as the scene before me.

  Then from somewhere there flowed into my being a wave of strength, I felt it washing away the fear. Under the pretext of helping myself to rise from my knees I put my hand on the high fender and gripped the big iron poker that lay resting on its edge, and with a twist of my wrist I sent it flying high across the room in the hope that it wouldn't touch Constance. Which one of them I was trying for I wasn't quite sure, but almost instantly I knew my aim had found the man, for he yelled and grasped his shoulder as the revolver leapt out of his hand. And it was at this moment that I saw Sam. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, right behind Don, and in his hand was a great lump of wood. As it came down on Don's head there was a horrible thudding sound. For a moment after the impact Don remained stock still, then with a long groan he crumpled up, and Constance with him. As they hit the floor, the man, yelling something at Sam, spurted into life and made a dive for the revolver where it lay not a yard from Dad. At the same 248 instance I plunged towards it and the next minute the man and I were locked together. But only for a minute, for something happened that made me bounce away from him. It was like nothing that I can describe, except perhaps that I had been slung slap bang into a brick wall. It seemed as if my face was being pushed in, and for a moment I could see nothing, nor hear anything but a great buzzing in my head. Then my vision cleared and I knew I was leaning back against the table and looking down on a shambles of bodies. But they seemed to be a great distance away, as far away as the sea is from the top of a cliff, except the man and Sam. They were close, for they were pounding each other on the mat at my feet. Then they too receded and joined the others, and the distance between us grew greater and I was borne upwards into the air, away, away from it all, and I went, I remember, with a sort of relief, yet I knew I was crying, "God Almighty! God Almighty!"

  CHAPTER NINE

  I dont know how much time elapsed before I opened my eyes again but when I did it was to look up into Sam's face. My head ached and I felt stiff and I was unable to turn, but when I moved my eyes I was looking at David, and David brought my mind to Constance. But I could not ask where she was, I was too tired. I felt very tired, and Sam said softly, "Go to sleep." And I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  Again, when I opened them, it was to see Sam's face still there, but when I turned my eyes to the other side, this time I saw Constance.

  She smiled so tenderly at me, and leaning over me she kissed me, and her face obliterated the white glare of the hospital ward, and again I went to sleep.

  That seemed to be the trouble, I was always going to sleep. People came and went, doctors and nurses, and they dressed my head and they talked to me and said such things as, "Wouldn't you like to sit up?"

  But I didn't like to sit up, I closed my eyes and went to sleep. I knew that Dad was not dead, his collapse had been a heart attack; I knew that Constance was all right because I had seen her, and my fears for her were gone, for Don was where he would be unable to hurt me or her for some time at least, Sam had told me. One night as he sat by my bed he whispered to me, "Christine, listen to me. There's nothing more to worry about. He can't do anything to you now."

  I remember forcing myself to say one word in the form of a question:

  "Dead?"

  "No, he's goin' along the line."

  The battle seemed over and I was resting. I wanted to go on resting for ever.

  I do not remember much of the transition from the hospital to Sam's house, it meant only a change of bed. I remembered nothing much until yesterday afternoon when I heard the doctor talking, and I opened my eyes and looked across the valley to Fenwick Houses, to where it had all begun. Then I had started thinking, thinking from the very beginning, and as I thought I wondered why I was doing it, why I was troubling myself. It wasn't until I had gone over everything right to the very end that I knew there was something gnawing at me, something bothering me, something I wanted to know. One more thing. Simply, how long would Don Dowling get? Would it be long enough to make living worth while, or would it just be sufficiently long to prepare myself for the battle again ? If I was certain of one thing in my muddled mind, it was that I was preparing for no more battles. The doctor was right, I had fought all the battles of which I was capable. I wasn't made for fighting battles, I was a weakling, there was no strength in me.

  So when Sam returned from seeing the doctor out he was amazed to find me sitting up, my eyes wide, staring across the valley, and he said with an eagerness that somehow hurt me, "You're better?"

  I lifted my hand and touched him, and my eyes looked into his for a long, long moment, then I asked in a whisper, "Tell me, Sam. When ...

  when will you know ...?" I did not finish, and Sam's lids drooped and the pressure of his fingers tightened on my hand as he said, "It's over and done with."

  "When?" I asked.

  "Three days ago."

  "Three days?"

  I stared at him and felt my eyelids stretching for knowledge. He moistened his lips twice and then he said, "I'll get you the paper if you feel fit for it." He was looking at me again.

  I'm fit for it. "

  He brought -me the paper and left me alone with it, and slowly, slowly I read it, and I learned of the stuff that Sam was made of, and the strength and courage of him both amazed and frightened me, and the self-sacrificing nature of him brought the tears raining down my face, for Sam had manacled his conscience for the remainder of his life.

  Through burning eyes I read over again bits of the trial. I did not read the parts dealing with Don's abnormal tendencies, I knew all about them. The part that drew me was the report of Sam's evidence and Don's reaction to it. Was it poetic justice that his scream-abuse of his brother had only helped to confirm the sentence of guilty but insane, guilty of shooting to kill me and of killing his accomplice, Reginald Shawley, who fought him for possession of the gun? How convincing it read, but not one word of it was true.

  I raised my eyes and looked out of the window again. There was the picture clear before me. I could see Sam struggling with the man to get hold of the gun, while Don lay senseless on the floor, and I knew now as I did then that it was not Don who had shot me, nor could he have shot his partner.

  Sam's mind, waiting all the years for this chance, had no need to fumble and ask, "What will I do?" The gun must have gone off when he was struggling with the man. It was self- defence, and he would have had nothing to fear at any trial. Moreover Don's seizure of Constance and the fact that both men had on them a quantity of stolen money, would have been enough to put Don away for some length of time. Yet always there would have been the threat of his return. So Don had been found by the police with the gun and razor to his hand and, by his side, the young girl he had tried to abduct. In this, the paper said, he had been foiled only by his brother attacking him unexpectedly from behind with a piece of wood. This at least was true.

  The reading sounded fantastic, like something in the Sunday papers but which people knew for a certainty could never hap pen to them, not to ordinary people. But we were all ordinary people, and it had happened to us. Yet no, Don was no ordinary being, Don was an evil being, and although he would remain in prison during Her Majesty's pleasure, he would be here with us each day, treading on Sam's conscience heavier as the years went on. It was too much to bear alone. Sam must not be left to bear it alone. This knowledge told me I must live and love him and fight my private fight against the bottle. Sam never asked me how much I remembered of that night and I never told him. I owe him that.

  I owe Sam so much, so very much. Sam at this moment is to me as God.

  Let other people judge him as they will, I cannot but love him for my deliverance. Sam has played the Almighty.

  Let the Almighty be the sole judge of his imitator.

  Further examples of Catherine Cookson's renowned ability to capture the flavour of
the northern scene and its people, past and present: THE DWELLING PLACE

  When Cissie Brodie's parents were taken by the fever in 1832, Cissie suddenly found herself the head of a family of nine brothers and sisters. She was just fifteen and the youngest was but a babe in arms, yet she decided that rather than have the family split up in the workhouse, she would try to find work to keep them all, for they would be happier together. But how ? And where would they live ?

  In The Dwelling Place, Catherine Cookson tells with compassion and warmth of Cissie Brodie's heroic fight to rear the family under appalling conditions of cold, near starvation and persecution in the class-conscious society of nineteenth-century England.

  o 552'll203 8 i.

  FEATHERS IN THE FERE

  Every once in a while circumstance traps a group of people in a pattern of tragedy and violence from which they struggle vainly to fight free.

  Thus it was with the Master of Cock Shield Farm, Angus McBain, who was too easily tempted to sin, too sinful to escape a hideous retribution and Jane his gentle daughter who devoted her life to caring for her deformed young brother. Amos, the legless child whose tortured spirit transformed him into a demon capable of every cruelty even murder .

  and Molly Geary, the 'fallen' servant girl, whose love for the child she had borne in shame gave her strength to become a truly courageous woman . o 552 09318 I 1 pound 25 pence MAGGIE ROWAN by catherine cook son

  The Taggarts and the Rowans had been friends for thirty years. Their children had grown up together, they had shared the worries and hardships of life in a Durham mining village. When Ann Rowan and David Taggart decide to marry, everyone was delighted except Maggie Rowan.

  Maggie was consumed with jealousy at her sister's good fortune, for she was a plain, soured and embittered young woman on the surface but underneath she longed to be loved.

  o 552 08444 i 1. THE MENAGERIE by catherine cook son The Broadhursts were a mining family and they appeared to be happy, united, and loyal.