A Wise Child

by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)

  ‘Where’s me dad?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Gone out to see his mates,’ Nellie mumbled and Tommy looked downcast. ‘I thought he might be in bed. Billy’s dad was going to take us to the park for a game of footer but I wanted to get home and see me dad.’

  ‘I can’t talk,’ Nellie mumbled, standing up and moving to the stairs trying to conceal the stiffness of her limbs.

  ‘Should I bring you a cup of tea, Mam?’ Tommy said eagerly but Nellie refused.

  ‘And don’t touch me washing that’s in soak,’ she said, afraid that Tommy might try to help by doing the washing.

  Upstairs she drank the small amount left in the black bottle and with a shudder of revulsion lay down on the bedspread. She felt that she would never sleep easily in that bed again but the drug worked and soon she had fallen into an uneasy sleep.

  * * *

  Sam walked unsteadily away from the house, keeping to the back entries or streets lined by warehouses. He was unshaven and unkempt and he had no wish to be seen by the respectable people making their way to morning services. He felt light-headed with reaction, weak and drained of emotion by what had passed, and bitterly ashamed.

  As long as he lived, he felt, he would never forget the sight of Ellie’s damaged face or her instinctive terrified shrinking from him. He pounded his fists on the walls at the thought and felt such self-hatred that he wished he was dead.

  Gradually he realised that he was attracting curious glances from the few people he passed as he staggered along and he felt that his weakness was increasing. He tried his usual remedy of sluicing his head and face in a horse trough but it made no difference.

  He found himself near some cocoa rooms and went in and ordered a pint of tea. He had eaten nothing since leaving the ship except his dinner the previous day and a little at the christening, but he was unable to eat. A crowd of dockers surged in, in high spirits at getting Sunday overtime, but Sam ignored them.

  He crouched in a corner drinking the scalding liquid. Deliberately he tried to close his mind to what had happened in the bedroom and all that had gone before it, but the sight of Ellie cringing away from him in fear refused to leave him. He must have gone mad, he thought.

  He stood up, unable to bear his thoughts, and leaving the cocoa rooms he drifted along aimlessly, unable to think or plan, only to suffer.

  His attack on Nellie seemed to have purged Sam of all bitterness but left him instead filled with shame and remorse and a deep feeling of rejection, of being an outcast.

  Suddenly there was a delighted scream of, ‘Sam!’ and Madge Kenyon came teetering over the waste ground in her high-heeled shoes. She grabbed his arm.

  ‘Oh Sam, I’m that pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘I’ve done nothing but think about you all night. You’d got me right up to the boil kissing me then you went up into your house. I was desperate for you, Sam.’

  Sam said nothing but tried to pull away from her. She clung even more tightly to him.

  ‘You look bad, Sam,’ she said. ‘What about a wet? The Oak’s only round the corner?’ Sam allowed himself to be led into the public house where Madge ordered brandy for both of them. As the spirit burned like fire down Sam’s throat he began to feel more alive.

  ‘That’s better,’ Madge jollied him, ‘you looked like you’d lost a tanner and found an ’a’penny when I first seen you.’

  Sam still said nothing and Madge began to talk about the job she said she had in the matchworks. She had noted Sam’s instinctive withdrawal from her talk of sex and she was too experienced to pursue it but she had already decided that he was going to be her means of escape from her life in Liverpool. There were too many creditors ready to demand their money and even worse two moneylenders to whom she owed money. It was time to go, and with Sam.

  She had hung on waiting for Jimmy McGregor, hoping that marriage to him would solve her problems, but he had made it clear the previous night that he had no intention of marrying.

  ‘I’ve seen what it done to me brothers,’ he said. ‘I can kip at me old one’s. She’s no cop with the grub but I can get that anywhere.’

  She plied Sam with drink, paying with the money she had taken from him the previous night and which he seemed not to have missed, and bought some bottles to take with her.

  Gradually Sam slumped lower and lower in his seat and when he seemed to be almost asleep she roused him enough to get him to his feet.

  Even in his fuddled state he resisted her attempt to lead him along the pavement outside.

  ‘I can’t go home,’ he mumbled, pulling away from her.

  ‘No Sam, we’re going the other way. I’ve got to get something from me room,’ she said soothingly. A taxi had dropped some foreign seamen and she hailed it and managed to push Sam into it.

  Her landlady poked her head out from the cellar kitchen as Madge steered Sam up the steps of the house.

  ‘I wanna see you, lady,’ she said threateningly.

  ‘I’ll see you later. Me friend’s not well,’ Madge said glibly.

  ‘Humph. See you do,’ the woman said going back to her kitchen.

  In her room Madge lowered Sam on to the bed where he promptly fell asleep.

  Madge waited until she was sure that Sam was unconscious before she checked that he was carrying his seaman’s book then she cautiously withdrew his money from his pocket, leaving only loose change. She sighed with satisfaction as she counted the notes. Added to what she had stolen from him the previous night it would be enough to take them back to her home town of Southampton for a fresh start.

  She pushed the notes inside her brassiere and quickly changed from her flamboyant clothes into a plain and shabby coat and skirt, and covered her hair with a black hat. Sam stirred and grunted and she quickly filled a cup with brandy but he had fallen asleep again.

  As she made her preparations for flight, packing an old carpetbag with her clothes and trinkets, she watched Sam warily and gave him small amounts of drink whenever he woke. She would have to wait until darkness fell, and she wanted Sam drunk enough to be unable to realise what was happening but not incapable.

  When she judged that the time was right she roused him and led him downstairs but the noise he made alerted the landlady. ‘Where d’yer think you’re going?’ she demanded and Madge skilfully dropped the carpetbag behind her.

  ‘I was taking him home for his seabag,’ she said meekly, ‘but I think I’d better send a lad. He’s too shaky.’

  The word ‘home’ had penetrated Sam’s muzzy mind and he made a clumsy gesture of protest but Madge said quickly, ‘All right, lad. Sit on the step. I’ll send a lad.’

  Quickly she called a boy and told him quietly to go to the house in Johnson Street. ‘Say a big fella sent you,’ she whispered. ‘And you’re to take the bag to the Seaman’s. Bring it here and I’ll give you sixpence.’

  In a short time the boy was back with the bag. ‘Who give it to you?’ Madge whispered.

  ‘A young lad. Said his mam was asleep,’ the boy said, snatching his sixpence and racing away. Madge had already taken the carpetbag back upstairs and now she sped lightly up to her room with Sam’s bag.

  Quickly she transferred her clothes and trinkets into it then took it downstairs. ‘Here’s your bag, Sam,’ she said loudly as she regained the front door where Sam sat slumped on the step, and as she expected, the landlady looked out again.

  Like a bloody cuckoo in a clock, Madge muttered to herself, but aloud she said, ‘He’s got his bag. I’ll put him in a cab to the Seaman’s.’

  Stepping out she hailed a passing taxi. ‘The Seaman’s,’ she said loudly, ‘but hang on.’

  She got Sam to his feet and into the taxi then went back for his bag. As she threw it into the cab she jumped in after it and slammed the door. ‘Never mind the Seaman’s. Lime Street,’ she said. As she looked back she could see that the landlady had run up the area steps and was standing, hands on hips, screaming after her.

  The taxi driver could also see her
in his mirror and he winked at Madge. ‘Eloping, are yer?’ he said.

  ‘Something like that,’ she said with a laugh.

  The man nodded at Sam. ‘You’ll have to sober him up before he’ll be any use to you, girl,’ he said lewdly.

  ‘Don’t be hard-faced,’ Madge said, annoyed that the man had so quickly summed her up. He wouldn’t talk like that to Sam’s bloody wife, she thought.

  There had been some discussion about Nellie and Sam in the Volunteer the previous night and most people had disagreed with Jimmy’s brother’s comments about Nellie being ‘on the game’.

  ‘That’s wash-house jangle,’ George Adams’ brother Harry said. ‘Our Rose said Nellie and her mate met Dusty Miller’s one when they was on the way to the pictures and walked along with her, like.’

  ‘Aye, Nellie’s a real respectable little woman and Sam thinks the world of her,’ another man said.

  ‘No smoke without fire though,’ Madge had giggled.

  ‘No, you’ve only got to look at Nellie to see she’s not on the game,’ Harry Adams said. ‘You can soon pick out the ones that is.’

  He had looked at Madge with contempt and remembering that look Madge was even more determined to get Sam away. She managed to buy two single tickets and get Sam on to the platform but he seemed to rouse and he looked about him in a bewildered way.

  ‘Wha— wha’s happening? Where are we?’ he asked thickly. ‘We’re getting a train, lad,’ Madge said quickly. ‘You can’t go home. Your wife’s threw you out and got her fancy man in. He brought your bag.’

  Sam looked at his bag but before he could speak Madge put a bottle of overproof rum to his mouth and tilted it so that the fiery spirit ran down his throat.

  Sam was in a drunken stupor when she got him on to the train with the help of two burly passengers and a porter.

  As the train began to move Madge sank down beside him with a sigh of relief. She’d done it, she thought triumphantly. She’d got him away right under the nose of his mealy-mouthed wife and his mates and there was no way she would ever let him go.

  She would have the time of her life now with Sam as her protector and on her home ground. She took a swig herself from the bottle of rum and began to hum a bawdy song.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In later years, whenever Tom heard the word ‘interminable’ he was reminded of that Sunday. While his mother lay in her drugged sleep upstairs he sat in the silent house, expecting that at any moment his father would return, and afraid to leave the house in case he missed him.

  Gradually as the slow minutes crept by, the conviction grew in him that something was horribly wrong, something much worse than his mother’s gum boil and his father’s absence. There was a strange feeling in the house, he felt.

  From time to time he sneaked upstairs to look at his mother but she slept on, making a strange guttural sound as she breathed. She was lying on the bedspread covered only by her shawl and Tom could see the extent of the damage to her face. Could a gum boil do this? he wondered.

  Downstairs again he watched the hands of the clock which seemed scarcely to move, and listened to every footstep that approached the house, hoping it was his father’s, but he was always disappointed.

  From time to time he cut thick slices of bread and spread them with jam for himself and went upstairs to ask if his mother wanted food but she still slept.

  At last there was a quiet knock on the front door and Tommy flung it open eagerly but only a ragged young boy stood there. ‘Some big fella sent me for his seabag,’ he said. ‘He’s gonna give me sixpence if I take it to the Seaman’s.’

  ‘Was it me dad?’ asked Tommy but the boy shrugged.

  ‘Just a big fella,’ he said. ‘Give us it quick. I wanna get me sixpence.’

  ‘Me mam’s asleep,’ Tommy said doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t want yer bleedin’ mam,’ the boy said impatiently. ‘Give us the bag. There it is.’ He pointed to where the bag lay in a corner and Tommy gave it to him.

  Several times he had knocked at the parlour door but there was no answer and now he tried again but without success.

  Darkness had fallen completely when he heard a sound then his mother came shakily downstairs.

  ‘Oh, Tommy lad, how long have I been asleep?’ she asked in a dazed way.

  ‘All day, Mam, and me dad hasn’t come home,’ Tommy cried, ‘and Janey’s out too.’

  Nellie sank into her chair. ‘Fetch me a wet flannel, lad,’ she said and the boy rushed to bring the flannel and towel.

  ‘Has it burst, Mam?’ he asked.

  Nellie looked bewildered. ‘What burst, lad? What do you mean?’

  ‘The gum boil,’ Tommy said and she made a visible effort to collect her thoughts.

  She dabbed her face with the wet flannel and wiped it with the towel then handed them to her son.

  ‘Not yet, lad,’ she said. ‘Did you get sump’n’ to eat?’

  ‘Yes, jam butties. Why is me dad at the Seaman’s, Mam? When’s he coming home?’

  ‘The Seaman’s?’ Nellie exclaimed, looking wildly at him. ‘Who said he was at the Seaman’s?’

  ‘The lad that come for his bag,’ Tommy said, and as Nellie gave a cry of pain he shouted, ‘Mam, Mam, what’s going on? What’s happening?’

  Nellie put her arm round the boy. ‘It’s all right, lad,’ she said. ‘Who was the lad? What did he say?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was just a scruffy kid. He said a big fella told him to take the bag to the Seaman’s and he’d give him sixpence. I asked if he was me dad and he didn’t know.’

  Nellie had been sitting with her hand over her mouth, thinking, and now she said hopefully, ‘Maybe it was just a trick to steal the bag, Tom. Your dad might’ve talked out of turn when he was drunk and someone got the idea to rob his bag. Not that there was much in it, mind you.’

  ‘He’d took our presents out,’ Tommy said.

  ‘He might’ve left his book in it, even his pay-off,’ Nellie said and Tommy looked alarmed. ‘I shouldn’t have give it to him but I couldn’t wake you, Mam, and Janey was out too.’

  ‘It’s all right, lad. I’m not worried about the bag,’ Nellie said. ‘I just wish I knew. He’s probably just drinking somewhere.’

  ‘Should I see if he’s in the Volley?’ Tommy asked and Nellie agreed.

  The boy sped away but he was soon back, looking downcast.

  ‘The barman said he hasn’t been in all day,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God, where is he?’ Nellie murmured despairingly and they clung together crying. ‘Your poor dad,’ Nellie wept. ‘He’s not well, Tom, not himself, like. I don’t know what they done to him in that hospital.’ She dried her eyes. ‘I’ll have to go and see is he in the Seaman’s,’ she said firmly.

  The next moment there was a knock at the door and they looked at each other in wild hope, neither stopping to think that Sam would just have walked in. Tommy darted to the door but when he opened it only his Uncle Bobby stood there.

  ‘Your mam in, lad?’ he asked, stepping in, then as he saw Nellie’s damaged face he shouted in horrified anger, ‘Did he do that? I’ll bloody murder him.’

  Nellie’s shawl drawn close under her chin hid her neck and her bruised arms but there was no way that she could hide her face. She stood up and faced Bobby with dignity.

  ‘It’s not your business, Bob,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s between me and Sam.’

  ‘Of course it’s my business. You’re my sister, aren’t you?’ Bobby said angrily. ‘Where is he?’

  Tommy was about to speak but his mother glanced at him and shook her head. ‘He’s not here,’ she said

  ‘And that happened after you left my house?’ Bobby said. ‘I was mad enough about him belting me mate and upsetting Meg but to do that to you! He’s not getting away with it, our kid.’

  ‘This hasn’t got nothing to do with the christening,’ Nellie said. ‘It hasn’t got nothing to do with you at all.’

  ‘How can you st
ick up for a fella what done that to you?’ Bobby exclaimed angrily. ‘Well, I tell you this. He never sets foot in my house again. You’re always welcome, Nell, but I don’t want him there no more.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Nellie said quietly. ‘I don’t go where me husband’s not welcome.’

  ‘But good God, after he done that to you,’ Bobby said. ‘You’re a fool if you stick to him, Nellie, I tell you straight. You’re always welcome though, girl. You done a lot for me and Meg and I don’t forget it.’

  But Nellie was adamant. ‘I don’t go where Sam’s not welcome,’ she said again.

  ‘I’d better go, then,’ Bobby said, ‘but don’t forget. If I meet that fella I’ll learn him to batter me sister, whether you want me to or not.’ He flung out of the house and Nellie sank back weeping, into her chair.

  Tom crouched beside her. ‘Why is Uncle Bob so mad, Mam?’ he asked, looking bewildered. ‘It’s not me dad’s fault you’ve got a gum boil, is it?’

  Nellie dried her eyes. ‘I’d better tell you the truth, lad,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s not a gum boil. Your dad done it but he didn’t know what he was doing. It’s that illness he had or something them doctors done to him. It’s kind of turned his brain, like.’

  The boy said nothing for a moment then he asked quietly, ‘Should we go to the Seaman’s, Mam, and try to find him?’

  Nellie put her hand up to her face. ‘Better not, lad. I don’t want to make a show of him with me face like this. Anyhow, the more I think of it the more I think it was just a trick to pinch his bag. People get up to all kinds to rob seamen. We’ll hang on and wait for your dad to come home.’

  She felt sure that Sam was drinking somewhere and would return eventually, but she was also sure that there would be no repetition of the horror of the previous night.

  The slow minutes crawled by as they waited for Sam or for some message from him but nothing happened. After a while Nellie boiled an egg for Tommy and made a bowl of bread and milk for herself. She found it difficult to eat even this but she felt stronger after she had eaten it.