The Invisible Cord

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘There.’ She put the plate of bacon and eggs on the table before him, and he smiled at her, saying, ‘Thanks.’ Then, as he picked up the knife and fork to begin eating, he paused and asked, ‘Where’s yours? Aren’t you having any?’

  ‘No, I had something just a little while ago. I’ll have a cup of coffee though. I can drink coffee at any time.’

  For the life of her she told herself she couldn’t sit at that table and eat with him. There was something about him that was disturbing, but in a different way from that which she remembered. Yet he wasn’t acting differently from what he had done seven years ago. His actions, his voice, his manner were still that of the young man of twenty-four. That was the point, he was no longer that young man, seven years divided him from that young man, and those years were written on his face. He appeared like an older man acting the boy. He startled her now by repeating her thoughts aloud. His voice grave, he said, ‘I’ve been imagining that I had just come into your kitchen on that night, the second time we met. Do you remember?’

  Did she remember! Would she ever forget? There were periods when, night following night, Georgie hurled down the stairs towards her, sometimes knocking her over and tumbling with her down a further flight.

  He said no more until he had finished eating, by which time she had brewed the coffee and carried it into the sitting room. She placed a small table near the chair to the side of the fire and on it she put his cup, while she placed her own on a similar table but at the end of the couch farthest away from the chair.

  When he asked from the kitchen door, ‘Shall I wash up, I’m quite used to it?’ she turned to him and said hastily, ‘Of course not! Anyway, I’ve got to heat water. They can wait till the morning.’

  As he came down the room she pointed to the coffee, saying, ‘Do you take sugar?’ She didn’t add, I’ve forgotten, but ended, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t ask whether you like it black or white? I made it white.’

  ‘That’s how I like it, and without sugar, thank you.’

  He sat down and when he picked his cup up and it rattled in the saucer she realised with surprise that he was as nervous as she, and it enabled her to speak to him calmly. ‘Are you still teaching in Newcastle?’ she asked.

  ‘I was up till last term; I’ve left.’

  ‘Oh!’ She raised her eyebrows slightly.

  ‘I may be going to America in August to teach in a university there; in fact, I’m sure I’m going.’ He smiled now as he nodded, ‘I have a research scholarship.’

  ‘Oh! That’s marvellous.’

  ‘Well, that remains to be seen.’ He was smiling again. ‘I may get my head blown off on the campus.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that. Yet there have been dreadful riots over there, haven’t there? But then, why go to America for riots; we’ve got an assortment of them here, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘I suppose your wife is looking forward to it; most women like the idea of going to America.’

  He now sipped from his cup, then placed it on the table to his side, but he didn’t look at her as he said, ‘My wife won’t be going with me, we were divorced two years ago.’

  ‘…Oh! Oh, I’m very sorry.’

  ‘It would be very boorish of me to say I’m not, yet it would be true.’

  She remained quiet, until the silence became embarrassing; then she asked as evenly as she could, ‘Do you ever see your uncle now?’

  ‘Uncle Arthur? Oh yes. I came from there yesterday. He doesn’t live so very far away, just beyond Hawick. It’s over the border in Roxburgh. Do you know it?’

  ‘No, I haven’t been that far…How is he?’

  ‘Very well. Very well indeed. Strange, but he was talking of you the other day.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  He did not go on to say what Arthur Bailey had said but added evenly, ‘And who do you think I saw last year?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Mona.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘And in Paris of all places.’

  ‘Paris!…Mona?’

  ‘Paris…Mona.’

  ‘Was she on holiday?’

  ‘Part that, and part honeymoon; she had just married again.’

  ‘Really! Well, well.’

  ‘And she looked marvellous, radiant.’

  Annie moved her head slowly; she could never imagine Mona looking radiant.

  ‘He’s an Australian and a very warm Australian by the way he was spending money, and judging from the hotel they were staying in. But he was a nice fellow. I rather liked him, no swilling pints and slapping you on the back which, unfortunately, is the general picture of the Australian; quite an intelligent man.’

  ‘You saw them a lot then?’

  ‘Not a lot. I met them two or three times; we had a few meals together.’

  Mona in Paris in a posh hotel with a rich Australian for a husband. Funny how things turned out. A girl with one eye and no looks to speak of could marry for a second time, and a rich man into the bargain. Oh now! Down dog, she said to herself; cut out the bitchiness. Surely Mona was entitled to some compensation to make up for those sexless years with Arthur. She’d had her troubles with Georgie, but a starved body hadn’t been one of them. Yet over these last few years she had known what it was to have a starved body, and more than once this had caused her to give a thought to Mona…And now she was married again. Well, good luck to her.

  She said now, ‘How is your mother? She’s in America, too, isn’t she?’

  ‘No, not now; she’s gravitated to Switzerland.’

  ‘Is she still …?’ She stopped; it would be tactless to ask if she was still married. But he had guessed at the question and he laughed at her now as he said, ‘Oh, she’s still married, very much so. And very happy, I’m glad to say.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  Everybody he knew seemed to be happy. She felt herself receding farther and farther away from him. She wished he would go. She looked towards the window and said, ‘The mist has cleared, thank goodness. It’s very cold at nights when the mist settles. I should say it will be dark soon tonight; the sun went down early. It’s funny how you get to know the weather up here; some nights the twilight seems endless, and at other times it seems to gallop towards the dark.’

  He stared at her for a moment before bringing himself to the edge of the chair and rising to his feet, and she felt the colour rushing to her face as she, too, rose from the couch. She had been tactless, she might as well have told him openly to get himself away.

  ‘I’ll be off.’

  ‘Are you making for the inn?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure. If it’s a fine night and the moon comes up, as it should, I’ll go on walking. It’s a wonderful feeling walking across the hills in the moonlight.’

  ‘Yes, it must be. I must try it some time.’ She laughed ironically, and he said, ‘I wonder you haven’t done it before, the tracks leading from here are all clear cut…May I go through the kitchen to get my pack?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She followed him down the room and through the kitchen, and after picking up his pack from the floor he put it outside the door; then standing on the square of flagstone he said, ‘You’re not afraid to stay here alone?’

  ‘No; it’s funny but I’m much more nervous in the town. I bolt and bar every door and window when I’m home.’

  ‘You should lock up here, too. Remember—’ he gave her a twisted smile—‘there are people who walk about in the moonlight.’

  She ignored his joke and her face was straight as she said, ‘I’ve never had any intruders so far.’

  ‘It’s been nice seeing you again, Annie.’

  Her answer to this should have been, ‘And you too’; but all she said was, ‘Thank you.’

  He held out his hand and she placed hers in it. He did not squeeze it with undue pressure, or hold it longer than was necessary. And then he was saying, ‘Goodbye.’

  And she answered, ‘Goodbye
.’

  With a swing he brought the pack across his shoulders, then walked along the side of the house and round the corner and was gone.

  She stepped back into the kitchen and slowly drew the bolt in the door. She went into the sitting room and to the window and, standing to the side of it, she watched him going down the hill, not towards the inn but in the direction of the copse and the road that led to Otterburn. When she could no longer see him she walked towards the fire and, seating herself in the chair on which he had sat a few minutes earlier, she stared into the flames.

  She could not in this moment describe how she felt. She had wanted him gone, and now he was gone she felt a loss, greater than that she had experienced seven years ago, oh much greater, because at that time the memory of Georgie was still clinging heavily to her.

  There was stillness all around her, she was enveloped in it, and the aloneness that was in her flowed from her and filled the silence. The room was full of it, the house was full of it; all those miles of moors and hills were full of it; and he was walking away untouched by it.

  For God’s sake, don’t cry!

  Quickly she pulled herself up from the chair, placed a wire guard around the fire, locked the front door, then went upstairs, thinking as she did so, Thank God for one thing, Tishy isn’t here.

  Two

  The twilight hadn’t been short, it had been long, and she had lain staring into the sky until there was nothing to see, not even the reflection from the window, for there was no moon, as he had foretold, and it was a starless night.

  She didn’t remember at what hour she fell asleep but she woke at first light and watched the dawn bring back the hills and clouds. She heard the birds in the copse start their dawn chorus. She heard some moor animal scream and an owl hoot, and she thought, Yesterday I was disturbed but I wasn’t really unhappy, today I’m disturbed and unhappy. But the unhappiness had clinched one matter in her mind: she was going to make a break, she was going to get right away, to some place where nobody could get at her; and not just for a week, or a fortnight, but a month, two months, three months.

  Tishy could see to herself, Bill would get married, and Rance, well he could have his house, or his flat, but without her. She’d go on one of those cruises. She always despised the widows who went man-hunting on cruises; but she wouldn’t be going man-hunting, she’d just be getting away, giving herself time to think, to find out what to do with the remainder of her life.

  The sun was well up when she went to the window and looked towards Corby Pike. It was beautiful in the morning.

  She walked across the room to the small window set in the side wall, it was the only one that wasn’t on floor level, and from here she could see the continuation of the Pike where it met up with Highspoon. The sun was filling the craggy hollows with softness, it was giving a velvet sheen to the greenery that tightly cloaked the hills. It was beautiful. Why couldn’t she stay here?

  No! No! She swung around quickly, pulled her dressing gown from off the rail of the bed and put it on as she went out onto the tiny landing. She descended the stairs, went straight into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She opened the cupboard door and looked in. Should she leave all this tinned stuff here? Some of the others might want to come. Tishy would, most likely.

  When the kettle boiled she brewed the tea and, having set the tray, she carried it into the sitting room and, as she did every morning when it was fine, she went to open the door so that she could take in, as she drank her tea, the wonder of the moors. She had put the tray down on the table and had unlocked the door, but on pulling it open she sprang back, clutching at the front of her dressing gown as she made an unintelligible exclamatory sound.

  He was sitting with his back against one stanchion and his feet against the other. He looked up at her and blinked before getting to his feet. His hair looked rumpled, as did his clothes. She looked at his sleeping bag draped for airing over the handrail of the steps.

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry I startled you.’ His face was unsmiling, his voice flat, serious sounding, matching the sombreness of his looks.

  When she could speak she said, ‘You…you haven’t been there all…all night?’

  ‘No…no, just since dawn.’

  ‘Where did you sleep?’

  He pointed without speaking down towards the copse, then said, ‘Your car makes good shelter.’

  ‘You slept out?’

  ‘Of course: yet I had no intention of doing so last night. But…but I found I had to.’

  He was still standing outside the door, and now as if talking to an unruly child she said, ‘Come in, come in; you must be stiff. Here.’ She went quickly to the tray and poured him out a cup of tea; then after handing it to him she hurried up the room and, taking the bellows, blew on the fire, and he called to her, ‘It’s all right, I’m not really cold.’

  When she returned to him he was standing just where she had left him, inside the door, and again she spoke to him as if to a boy. ‘Go to the fire, I’ll get you something to eat.’

  He made no reply but obediently he walked up the room and, sitting in the chair, he put out his hands to the licking flame.

  When she came back into the room she stood some way from him as she asked ‘Do you like hard or soft boiled eggs?’

  ‘Oh, medium, please. Can I help?’

  ‘It doesn’t need any assistance to boil an egg.’

  Still acting the mother, she turned sharply away and went into the kitchen again, and a few minutes later she called from the doorway, ‘Would you like to come and get it?’

  When he entered the kitchen he did not sit down but, looking at her across the table, he said softly, ‘Annie, I’d like to talk to you.’

  She returned his look for a moment before she said, ‘There’ll…there’ll be plenty of time to talk later, after…after you’ve eaten.’ She pointed to the place that was set for him, with two eggs on the plate, but before he sat down he went to the other side of the small table where one egg reposed in an eggcup and drew the chair out for her.

  The three slow steps she took towards her place could have given the impression that she was slightly drunk. She did not look up when he took the seat opposite to her and she did not speak until a smell of burning pervaded the room; then she sprang up, saying, ‘Oh my goodness! The toast.’

  When she retrieved two black squares from under the grill he smiled at her for the first time and said quietly, ‘I’m glad you can make a mistake.’

  She cut more bread, made more toast, poured out more tea and finished her egg, and all in silence. It was when she finally looked up and found his eyes on her that she said, ‘Why on earth did you sleep out there all night?’

  ‘What would you have said if I had suggested you offer me a bed?’

  She moved her head slightly before she answered, ‘I would have told you to go down to the inn. I thought that was where you were making for anyway.’

  He said now, ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘You were lucky, I didn’t.’

  When he held her gaze she suddenly got up from the table and, pulling the belt of her dressing gown tightly about her, said, ‘I must go and get dressed.’

  ‘Why? You look beautiful as you are.’

  She turned from him now and, resting her hands on each corner of the stove, she bowed her head and said, ‘That’s enough of that, Alan. Don’t start something that’s going to bring embarrassment on us.’

  ‘I’m not starting anything, Annie, I’m merely continuing something that began years ago. Come here.’

  Before she could stop him he had gripped her hand and was pulling her out of the kitchen and through the room to the couch; and now sitting on it, he pulled her down beside him, saying, ‘If nothing else I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen. Out there last night I was made to believe there’s such a thing as destiny, that each one has it written for him from the day he is born. I could say it’s even mapped out before tha
t. Now this is how I see it. Look—’ he took her by the shoulders and pressed her back into the couch—‘don’t sit there like a ramrod, look at me, Annie, and listen to what I’m going to say. It begins with Uncle Arthur. Why was Uncle Arthur born a homosexual? Don’t shrink like that, Annie; you might as well turn away from the mention of male or female; it’s a quirk of nature, as we ourselves are. Well, Uncle being what he is, he meets Georgie…’

  She tugged her hands away from him, at the same time edging along the couch, and her voice was high and indignant as she cried, ‘Georgie was never like that, I told you before.’

  ‘I know he wasn’t, I know he wasn’t, Annie. Look, don’t get upset. It was because Georgie wasn’t like that, he was just the opposite and the kind of fellow, from what I gather, who would in the ordinary way make a big joke of it, but he didn’t. There was something in Georgie below his roughness that understood Uncle Arthur’s predicament. Uncle was going through one hell of a time mentally when he first met Georgie, not having the real guts to be a conscientious objector, knowing himself for what he was, pushed into a camp full of male specimens, their conversation enough to sicken a pig, and let me tell you the male in herds can become sick-making, no matter from what class they come.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ He shook her two hands.

  She didn’t answer but stared at him now, and he went on, ‘Well, now as I understand it, Georgie swore and cursed and was a bit of a roughneck, but there must have been in him a sensitivity that was hidden from most people. So we have the situation where, because he understands Uncle Arthur’s plight and is sorry for him, Arthur’s gratitude knows no bounds. He takes him home, and it’s as if he were yelling, Look, I’ve got a friend, an ordinary bloke. They were all well aware at home that class forms no barrier in cases like Uncle Arthur’s, but from what mother said I think they all believed, that is with the exception of my father, of course, that here was an ordinary friendship. Anyway Uncle Arthur’s gratitude, as I said, was boundless, so what must he do? Invite Georgie and his wife for Christmas.’ He paused and gazed at her until her eyes dropped away from his, then he went on softly, ‘And a little boy of five meets Georgie’s wife and recognises immediately that she is different from anyone else he has ever known, and they talk—of jigs.’