‘Nonie. . . .’ Neil looked miserably from his sister to Charlie. ‘No. I don’t want to make trouble between you two.’
‘You’ve made it!’ shouted Charlie.
‘A girl called Jackie made it,’ said Nona, calmly. ‘It’s nothing to do with Neil.’
‘Oh, stop quarrelling,’ said Edward, plaintively. ‘It’s so stupid and gets us nowhere. Sit down and let’s talk this out like sensible people.’
‘Settle it by arbitration,’ said his mother, drily.
‘Listen . . . listen. . . .’ whispered Neil, frantically. ‘Someone is coming up the steps.’
They were suddenly all silent. Neil, edging towards the door behind his grandmother’s bed, had the terrified air of the fugitive again.
The front door was evidently open, for whoever it was came down the passage.
‘Mrs. Collins . . . Mrs. Collins. . . .’ called a plaintive female voice. ‘Can I come in?’
The old woman looked quickly from one agitated face to another. ‘Who is it?’
‘Linda’s mother.’
With two waves of her hand Mrs. Collins motioned Neil into the closet-room and Nonie to open the door.
The woman who entered was tall and striking. She would have been attractive had it not been for the deep lines of discontent and the acute anxiety on her face. She stood in the doorway looking from Nonie to Mrs. Collins in the bed. Ignoring the two men, she said tersely. ‘It’s Linda. It’s after ten—and she’s not come home.’
CHAPTER XV
THERE was a silence after the woman’s words and then Nonie quickly shut the door behind her.
‘Sit down, Mrs. Sanderson,’ said her grandmother quietly, ‘and tell me about it.’
‘I came home at half-past six as usual,’ said the woman. ‘Linda is always waiting for me at the end of the road. She comes to meet the bus. She wasn’t there tonight. If she’s late she always waits for me outside the house. Tonight she wasn’t there. I’ve waited and waited. No one has seen her. I thought perhaps she was here, Mrs. Collins. I know she often comes to you. . . .’
‘She was here,’ said Mrs. Collins. ‘There was a bit of trouble. Linda’s been taking the flowers off the graves in the cemetery and bringing them to me. It seems that people have complained, and today a policeman followed her and came here. It was that young Wilson. He warned her—but he was very nice. She went off earlier than usual—about half-past four.’
All the time the old woman was talking she was thinking. That man the child said was hiding over there in the ruins and whom she said was watching this house. Ought I to tell her about that? Ought I? And if I do, what about Neil? What if Linda had gone there again? She was an inquisitive child and her curiosity had been aroused. ‘It was just like a film, Gran,’ she had said, ‘him lying there and threatening Cissie and me like that.’
‘Can your daughter get into the house—has she a key?’ asked Edward, breaking the silence.
‘My son,’ said Gran briefly, glancing in Edward’s direction and then back to Linda’s mother. ‘And this is my granddaughter Nonie and her husband.’
‘Linda always has a key. She wears it on a ribbon round her neck.’
‘A very dangerous habit, madam, and one which I observe is becoming more and more prevalent amongst women who go out to work.’
‘That’s enough, Edward,’ his mother said shortly. Hadn’t she herself had to do the same thing when Edward’s children had been at school?
‘Do you think that perhaps she lost her key and couldn’t get in?’ asked Nonie.
‘More likely she was thoroughly upset by the policeman . . . and afraid to go home,’ said Edward. ‘Fear is the cause of most crime.’
‘Young Wilson was very decent,’ repeated his mother. ‘I saw him shaking her hand and patting her shoulder. They parted very good friends.’ But was it the man on the waste ground over there that frightened her? And has she gone there again? worried the old woman.
‘Charlie,’ she said coaxingly. ‘Go out and have a look round for Linda will you? She plays over there on that waste ground a lot. Have a look round. There are deep holes over there. She might have fallen down or twisted her ankle or something.’
‘Then she’d cry out—we’d have heard her—or someone would have heard her,’ said her mother, worriedly. ‘Do you think I’d better tell the police?’ There was acute anxiety now on her face.
‘Not yet,’ said Mrs. Collins. ‘You go home in case she should come back—she’d be upset at finding no one there. Charlie and Nonie’ll go and hunt round for her.’
‘She’s never been late before, that’s why it worries me so—all these assaults on young children lately—but Linda’s a good child—she’s never stayed out before.’
And that’s partly because I send her home early, thought the old woman but she did not say so.
‘Thank you, I’m grateful, Mrs. Collins. . . . Linda’s so fond of you I thought you wouldn’t mind my coming here to ask . . . I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted your evening. . . .’ She looked from Edward to Nona and Charlie, nodded to the old woman, and hurried out.
‘I’ll come with you and look for her,’ said Charlie, gruffly. He gave Nonie an angry resigned look and followed the woman.
‘It would happen now when we’re trying to get Neil away,’ said Nonie, hopelessly. The door behind the bed was cautiously opened and her brother came into the room. . . . ‘Blessed kid! She’s causing a lot of trouble for me,’ he said. ‘Nonie, what am I going to do? Can’t you get Charlie to change his mind and take me?’
‘No,’ said Nonie in a hard voice. ‘I told you. It’s all washed up between Charlie and me.’
‘Nonie,’ Neil pleaded, ‘can’t you forgive Charlie and make him help me? He’s really awfully fond of you.’
‘He’s got another girl,’ said Nona, flatly. ‘D’you want me to condone that just so you can get a lift on his lorry?’
‘No, Nonie, I don’t mean that. I mean can’t you just string him along until I’ve got away?’
‘You saw for yourself how it is.’
‘But you could tide it over until I’m away. You could, couldn’t you, Nonie?’
‘Why don’t you put on your uniform and go back?’ asked his grandmother, suddenly. ‘You say you may not be missed until tomorrow morning. Why don’t you go back again?’
‘No, I can’t, I can’t.’ The panic in his voice shocked all three of them.
‘Have you committed some crime that you’re so afraid?’ asked his father, curiously. ‘I’m not speaking of those endless and petty charges by which the Army destroys the soul of a man. I mean something which matters. Have you?’
‘No,’ shouted Neil, violently. ‘I haven’t. Can’t you of all people understand that I just can’t stick it. I won’t go back.’
‘You realise that if you persist in this it will mean a lot of worry and trouble for your sister and grandmother. The police’ll come here again and again questioning them . . . the house will be watched . . . you know all that? You should have pleaded conscientious reasons and refused to join the Army.’
‘It isn’t you who’ll have the trouble, Edward—you’ll be far away as you always are when there’s trouble,’ said his mother, drily.
All the time he was talking Neil was watching the door. He had been terrified when his grandmother had suggested that Charlie should search the ruins. He was waiting now . . . listening for his return. Over there waiting, was Mike. Mike. He was sure of it.
‘Don’t keep watching the door like that,’ said the old woman. ‘It gives me the willies. . . .’ But she herself was listening too. Why, she asked herself, had she sent Charlie out to look for the child? And especially told him that she often played on the waste ground? Was it because Charlie was strong, a great hulk of a man, afraid of nothing, and should he come across that fugitive of whom Linda had spoken he would be quite capable of dealing with him?
They sat there again, the four of them, each busy with their own thou
ghts. Neil, desperate by now, was frantically turning over plans in his mind. Nona sat white and silent thinking of Charlie’s face as he had looked at her before he went out. Edward was furious at the turn the evening had taken and resentful of Neil’s inopportune arrival. He had come here hoping to interest his mother in his new friend and to prepare her for the idea of his possible remarriage. Now he saw that the reception of such an idea in this atmosphere would be even more charged with suspicion and contempt than was his mother’s normal reception of his schemes. He looked purposely at his watch. ‘Twenty to eleven . . . have to be getting along . . . well, Neil, what are we going to do about you?’ He took his raincoat down.
‘Here, look in the paper! It says the call-up’ll be ended in 1960.’ He held out the evening paper.
The boy sat silent and did not answer.
‘Oh, don’t be so idiotic. How can that help him? All you’ve got to do is to keep your tongue quiet about this,’ said his mother. ‘And that’s a difficult thing for you to do, Edward.’
‘I see no reason why you should imply that I would risk giving away my own son by talking,’ said Edward with dignity. ‘The Army destroys a man, kills his soul and coarsens his mind and body. It’s legalised brutality and murder. I’m the last man to send Neil back there.’
‘How d’you know the Army does all you say it does to a man? You’ve never been in the Army. It didn’t hurt Len—he loved it.’
‘It murdered him.’
‘The Army didn’t murder him—one of those Cypriots did,’ retorted his mother. ‘And Len would be the last boy to have borne them any ill-will. I can’t understand your attitude to something you know nothing about.’
‘It’s not your fault that I never suffered as Neil is doing,’ said Edward bitterly. ‘You did your best to push me into the war. Your patriotic humbug sickens me. I suppose it’s your having been brought up in State homes. I should have thought that having lost Father in the First World War you’d have got over all that and have been glad enough to have kept me out of the second one.’
‘Don’t let’s go into all that again,’ said his mother, wearily. ‘Here’s Charlie back.’
Heavy steps sounded outside. All four watched the door until Charlie’s knock sounded on it. ‘Can’t find the kid anywhere—no one’s seen her. The rain’ll send her home if she’s still out playing.’
‘Did you look over there by the ruined flats?’ The old woman’s voice was tense. She was watching Neil as she spoke. His face, intent on Charlie, showed a desperate anguish which ravaged it, making the thin young outline so taut with strain that the old woman was again overwhelmed with pity.
‘I did—it’s dark and I had no torch so I couldn’t see into the deep bits in the foundations, but I called and called. If she had been down there she’d have heard and cried out. She’s not there.’
His grandmother, looking again at Neil’s face, saw beads of sweat dripping down it. The tautness sagged suddenly and he looked old—old and lifeless.
‘Charlie.’ Nona’s voice was like a whip. ‘Are you going to take Neil in the lorry?’
Charlie looked from his wife to her twin, then at Gran. ‘No,’ he said, deliberately. ‘You can get your twin sister away yourself.’
Neil sprang up, his hands clenched. Nona pushed him down, turning a furious look on Charlie.
‘Good. Now we know where we are. You can get out of here and go to your Jackie. She can have you seven nights a week and welcome.’
‘Nonie. Nonie,’ pleaded her grandmother.
‘I mean it,’ said Nona, angrily. ‘And now if you’ll kindly get out of here, Charlie, Neil and I can get going.’
‘You can’t leave your grandmother like that,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you. You’ll smash up your marriage and leave your grandmother without a thought, all for this weakling who can’t face up to life.’
‘Nor can you,’ said Nona. ‘You can’t face up to the fact that a man can only have one wife in this country. You’re just as weak as Neil.’
‘Now, now,’ said Edward. ‘That’s enough for tonight, Nonie. Think carefully what you’re doing. Let Neil work out his own problems and you stay with your grandmother.’ He got up, holding out the evening paper. ‘Look!’ He pointed to the headlines, ‘Call-up to be ended by 1960’.
‘Edward,’ said his mother, ‘stop it. How can that do anything but upset the present conscripts still further?’
Edward looked in his pocket-book and brought out a small card. ‘Here,’ he said, grandly. ‘This is the best I can do. I’m moving about a lot just now—this’ll find me if you want me.’
His mother took the card distastefully and read aloud, ‘“Box 3125, c/o Newton’s News Agency”. That’s about the best you’ve ever done,’ she said, quietly. ‘I remember when Connie was having the twins—and desperately ill—the only address we had was care of some tobacconist. I remember what the doctor said too.’
‘Now, Mother, there’s no use in bringing up old scores. . . .’ Edward was putting on his raincoat. ‘I’ve told you that my work is above domestic worries and sentimental ties. . . .’ He stopped short as he remembered with dismay that this evening had been meant for the introduction of his new woman friend, just such a possible domestic tie—and heard his mother saying, ‘I don’t know about that, Edward. It seems to me you’ve been coming here a good deal more lately than you have in years. Why? Because you’re getting on now, Edward. The road becomes even lonelier when you’re old. . . . You’re almost forty-nine.’
Her son said good-bye hurriedly. His mother’s words had taken him aback. He’d always thought the old woman was a witch. Seemed to know a fellow’s thoughts in the most uncanny way. Just now . . . why did she have to go on about age like that? How could she know that he’d been uncomfortably conscious of that very fact. At one of his recent meetings the promoters had said, ‘You’re slipping. Not the same attention tonight. You’d better take stock of yourself, Collins. You can’t afford to slip.’
It was typical of him that he took leave of his daughter and son without any further reference to the situation which was tearing at them both. Edward, champion of a multitude of causes, was deliberately blind to those of his own flesh and blood.
‘Well,’ said Charlie, when the door had closed behind Edward. ‘What now?’
‘You can take Neil in the lorry. Now. He ought to have been away long ago.’
‘It’s not my lorry. Give a chap a chance, Nonie.’
‘You can get it when you need it for others; it’s strange that you can’t get it now.’
‘You can’t get out of it that way.’ Nona’s eyes were hard and did not waver as she looked at Charlie.
‘It’s easy enough if I’ve a load for that way, but there’s the speedometer—it shows the mileage and it’s checked every day.’
‘You can fix the speedometer,’ said Nona, stonily.
‘No,’ said her grandmother, sharply. ‘Surely you don’t want Charlie to start those sort of games.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me what he does. He can do as he likes.’
‘If it doesn’t matter, why d’you ask me to take your brother in the lorry?’ Charlie shouted angrily. ‘Women are always illogical—go off at a tangent and never stick to the point.’
‘If you think I’m going to trade in your Jackie for Neil’s ride in the lorry you’re mistaken.’
‘But, Nonie. . . .’ Charlie was genuinely bewildered now. ‘Look, you haven’t got this straight. I’m not that sort . . . surely you know that by now? Let me explain.’
‘I know nothing about you—I’ve just discovered that.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s get going. We’ve wasted hours just talking, talking. . . .’ Neil sprang up and started pacing up and down the room.
‘Oh shut up!’ snapped Charlie. ‘All right, Nonie, I’ll get the lorry. I’ll go along about four. Five is the normal time for the start of the long-distance runs. I must get there before that.
I haven’t got all the keys. It’ll mean picking a lock. I’ve always gone straight—I don’t like doing this—it may get me into a packet of trouble—even lose me my job. But I’ll do it. Not for your brother—I don’t care if he’s caught. If he wants to be on the run he shouldn’t ask anyone to share it. I’m doing it for you. No one matters to me but you, Nonie.’
‘There’s still Jackie. What about her?’
‘Nonie,’ snapped the old woman, ‘Charlie has offered to do what you’ve been worrying him to do all evening. He’s doing it against the grain. Be gracious and accept it. You can thrash the other out later—if you must.’
Neil took his sister’s arm turning her face to his, and urged, ‘You will forgive Charlie, won’t you? The lorry’s the only way that’s safe for me.’
Nonie pulled herself away and went over to the window. In some vague way she felt that she was being sold. Sold by these three people. By her grandmother for her peace of mind, by Neil for his freedom, and by Charlie to exonerate himself about Jackie. Something in her resented this violently and something else accepted it as her lot. It seemed to her now that this bargain with Charlie—for as such she saw his proposal to help Neil—was but a foretaste of the renunciation of the whole plan to go to Australia. Her grandmother was too ill to be left alone. And how long would it be? No one knew. It could be months and it could be years. She was a tough old woman with a strong heart and tremendous will power. Charlie would have to go alone—and that might mean more successors to Jackie. He would have to go on ahead and she and Neil would follow later when Gran was gone. But already the picture her aunt had painted and strengthened by the photographs she had sent them of a life in the sun with clean air to breathe, time to play, and space in which to rear children was becoming dim. If she accepted this thing from Charlie she would have to forget Jackie. Could she? She turned round to her grandmother’s anxious face and her twin’s wretched one.
‘All right, Charlie. You win,’ she said at last. ‘But you must get the lorry now.’
‘Look, Nonie. Have a heart. I’ve been driving all day—two hundred miles and more. I must get a few hours’ sleep. If we start about five we’ll make Southampton by nine. I’ll go on to Weymouth where I’ll pick up a return load so it’ll look all right.’
The Fledgeling Page 16