The Round Tower

by Catherine Cookson

  He closed his eyes for a second and turned his head to the side, then said, ‘Look Missis, what I want is to have a word with Miss Ratcliffe. I happen to know her. Will you tell her that Angus Cotton is here?’

  She wagged her head in small movements and her lids blinked over her round black eyes; then she said, ‘I’m not deaf. Stay where you are.’

  As she mounted the stairs he watched her, and when she was half up them she turned and looked down at him, scrutinising him from head to foot as if she couldn’t make him out. Then she continued on her way.

  It was a full five minutes before she returned and her manner was unchanged. She said briefly, ‘It’s the top floor, number eight. And you’d better mind your head on the ceiling on the top flight.’

  He was glad she had warned him about the ceiling. The third flight of stairs was dark and he had almost to grope his way up them. The top landing was lit by a fanlight in the roof and the door to the left of him was marked number eight.

  He was again nipping his lip as he knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened and she was standing looking at him. She was wearing a loose kind of dressing gown and he reckoned she must have just got out of bed. Her face, as his mother had once described it, looked all eyes and teeth. He had always thought he had never seen hair the colour of hers, a real chestnut with a gleam of dark red in it. There was no gleam in it today, it was dull and lank. When her lips began to tremble he said, ‘Hello, Van.’

  ‘He-llo, Angus.’ She gulped on his name. Then standing aside, she said, ‘Wo…n’t you come in?’

  He walked into the attic room and tried not to notice how it looked, but his immediate impression made him compare it with the home she had left, and he thought, it’s unbelievable! His own home left a lot to be desired, but it was Buckingham Palace compared to this. There was a narrow iron bed under the sloping roof, there was one chair and a small square deal table; there was a hanging wardrobe attached to the ceiling at its highest point near the little four-paned window, and beside a much-battered chest of drawers there stood on the floor a tin tray, on which was a gas ring and a kettle. When he turned and looked at her she dropped her head and said below her breath, ‘Don’t say it, Angus. Don’t say it.’ Then her head still bowed, she said, ‘Won’t you sit down?’ She motioned towards the chair, at the same time she sat down on the foot of the bed.

  When he was seated he dropped his hands between his knees and tried to think of something to say, but found it impossible. Of the two, she seemed more in control of the situation. ‘How is Emily?’ she asked.

  Even now he couldn’t answer her right away; then after a moment he said, ‘Oh, she’s fine.’

  ‘Has…has she got a new job?’

  ‘No, no. I don’t want her to go out any more; she’s done enough.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  There was silence between them again, and in the silence the smell of the place filled his nostrils. The air was dank, dirty, thick. He imagined that the walls were impregnated with muck. He longed to turn round and throw the window open, but the room was chilly. His eyes moved about, looking for a means of heating, and then he saw a tiny gas-fire by the wall at the head of the bed.

  When they both broke the silence together he smiled and nodded at her, giving her place, and she said, ‘I was going to ask where you are working now.’

  ‘Oh.’ He straightened his back against the chair, ‘I’m on me own, I’m me own boss. I’m in partnership with a fellow called Singleton. Haulage, you know, contracting. It’s working out fine.’ He wanted to assure her about that at least.

  ‘Oh, I’m glad, Angus.’ Her head drooped for a moment before she raised her eyes to his again and said, ‘I’m…I’m sorry, Angus, about the trouble I brought on you and the others.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve got no need to worry about that. If that’s all you’re worried about you can put your mind at rest. It did us both a good turn. I mean me mam and me. It set me up on me own, and Mam’s a new woman now she’s had a rest.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said again.

  Now his face became straight and he stared at her blankly for a moment before asking, ‘And what about you?’

  When she made no reply he leant slightly forward and said under his breath, ‘This is no place for you, Van. Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘No! I’ll never do that, Angus.’

  ‘But why? They’re your people.’

  She looked at him for a time before saying, ‘Yes, they’re my people. And if I’d gone on the streets they couldn’t have treated me worse. They were terrified, really terrified, about me having the baby. Not because of what it might do to me, but because of the effect it would have on their prestige. You see…Father was determined that I got rid of it, and, and I didn’t want to.’ There was a firmness in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Well, you know I think he was right. I do. I don’t hold with a damn thing he’s ever done or said, in fact I might as well tell you I hate his guts, but on that score I think he was right. You could have started again.’ She was looking downwards, and he stumbled on, ‘You know what I mean. You’re young, you would have forgotten all about this, and they would have stood by you and seen you all right.’

  She was gazing into his face now and there was a deep bitterness in her voice as she said, ‘They would have stood by me, but how? They intended that after I came out of the clinic in London I should stay indefinitely with a great-aunt in Scotland. She lives miles and miles off the beaten track. She has an old couple who look after her. They are over seventy. There’s nobody young within miles. The minister visits them on Sunday and they have prayers. He’s made a special journey out to her for years hoping that when she dies he’ll be taken care of. They haven’t a car. There’s one taxi down in the village, and that’s miles away. I was there last year for a week…Mother, too, wants to be remembered in her will.’ Her tone was cynical now. ‘So I was packed off there as a sort of insurance premium to be raked off later. After two days I thought I would go mad.’

  As Angus listened to her talking in a way that surprised him he realised that, although she still looked very young, the girl he had known was gone. But then that was to be expected; the girl would have ceased to be when she started the bairn. It was as his mother said, he was barmy in some ways. Into the silence that had fallen on them he said, ‘You’ve been bad, I mean ill?’ and she answered, ‘I caught a chill. The shop is rather draughty where I work.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He nodded at her.

  ‘How…how did you find out?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t, it was Rosie. They passed the place last Saturday and saw you.’

  ‘Will…will she talk? What I mean is, Angus, I…I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. You see, I write home every week and my letters go from as far away as London, Devon, and places like that. I give them to Mr Noakes. He’s…he’s in number nine.’ She nodded towards the door. ‘He’s a long-distance lorry driver. He, he posts them in London for me, and gets one of his workmates to post them some other place.’

  A long-distance lorry driver, Mr Noakes. And what did Mr Noakes expect for his kind service? Long-distance lorry drivers who picked up any slimy piece that thumbed them from the gutter. She didn’t know what she was askin’ for. Doubtless Mr Noakes would one day inform her. After the bairn was born likely, if not afore; it all depended on how desperate was his need.

  She seemed to sense his reaction to what she had just told him and she said, ‘He’s a very nice man, kind, oldish.’ When she shuddered he said, ‘You’re cold, I’m keepin’ you out of bed. Can’t…can’t you light the fire?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I have it on most of the time but it got a little too hot and I put it out.’

  He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t go and light it. Instead, he said, ‘Where do you eat?’

  ‘I usually have my lunch in a café in the town and bring something in for an evening meal. I manage all right.’

  ‘Van.
’ He got to his feet. ‘I’ve got to be going now, I’ve got a load waiting for me,’ he nodded towards the window, ‘but I’d like to come and see you again. Can I?’

  She shook her head slowly, then said, ‘No, Angus. I don’t think it would be right. If they ever found out you know what they’d say; they would put—’

  ‘Aye, I know what they’d say, and what they would put together. Well, they would be bloody well wrong, wouldn’t they?’ He lowered his head and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ When he looked at her she was smiling slightly, the first time the muscles of her face had moved upwards since he saw her, and she said quietly, ‘Don’t apologise; I’ve enlarged my vocabulary quite a bit in the last few months. It, it isn’t that I don’t want to see you, Angus, it’s been wonderful seeing you but, but I don’t want to cause any more trouble, and you know it would only lead to—’

  ‘Well,’ he said briskly, ‘let me deal with the trouble and whatever it leads to. Now look. You get back into bed and I’ll call later on and bring something back for you to eat. And in the meantime you tell that one downstairs that my intentions are honourable.’ He felt he had said the wrong thing, and he blustered, ‘Well, I’ve got to go. There’ll be so much ballast waitin’ at yon end they’ll have me scalped. I’ll be seein’ you. Now get back into bed. I can’t say what time, after six though. Aye, it’ll be well after six.’

  She was standing at the foot of the bed holding the iron rail with both hands, and she said softly, ‘Goodbye, Angus.’

  He forgot about the ceiling as he went down the stairs and cursed as he hit his head; then he took the other flights two at a time.

  He had already lost two loads but he finished early, parked the lorry in the garage, then went straight to the baths, where he hired a towel and soap. He reached home at five-thirty, and sat down immediately to his tea.

  ‘Aren’t you going to have a wash?’ said Emily.

  ‘Don’t I look clean?’ He turned his head towards her. ‘I had a bath afore I came in.’

  Ten minutes later when the room door closed on him, Rosie said, ‘Him and his baths, he’ll wash himself away! In the end it would be cheaper to put one in the wash-house. He said that years ago, didn’t he?’

  ‘Where’s he off to in this rush?’ asked Emily under her breath. ‘The dogs don’t start afore eight.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  Ten minutes later, when he came out of the room, Emily did ask him. Casually she said, ‘Where you off to, lad?’ and he answered without blinking, ‘I’m goin’ along to see a fellow about a lorry. This one’s drivin’ me up the wall; it only goes when it’s pushed.’

  ‘A lorry?’ Emily’s brows gathered suspiciously. ‘You never mentioned it afore.’

  ‘I couldn’t, I only heard of it this afternoon. A fellow on the site told me I might pick up one cheap.’

  ‘The other one was cheap, and look what it’s brought you.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got me eyes open this time. Be seein’ you.’ As he went out of the front door he knew that they would both be looking at each other and wondering. Well, he would let them wonder for a little while until he knew what he was going to do. He’d have to do something, but what he wasn’t sure. Well, not really.

  Two

  This was his sixth visit to number 132 Batterby Bay Road, and he brought with him, on this occasion, two bags of fish and chips, two half-pint bottles of pale ale, a sliced loaf, a half-pound of Danish butter, and half a pound of cheese. It was Monday and she had started work today.

  He knocked on the door and entered when she said, ‘Come in.’ He hadn’t seen her since Friday night and he had worked late on Saturday to make up for lost time, and then to allay his mother’s suspicions he had gone to the club as usual; and yesterday he had made himself lie in, after which he had followed the usual Sunday routine. He had gone along to the pub for a couple of pints with Stan, and they had come back, had their dinner and, when his mother had gone upstairs to put her feet up, he had left the kitchen to Rosie and Stan and gone and lain down on his bed; and in the evening they had all gone to the club again, for as his mother had said it was often better on a Sunday night than it was on a Saturday. But here he was, here he was where his thoughts had been every minute during this last week and all the weekend.

  He stared at her. She was looking different. She was no longer wearing the slack dressing-gown thing but had on a brown woollen dress that hadn’t been cut for maternity.

  It was evident that she hadn’t expected him so soon, because when he entered the room she was going towards the wardrobe, and he watched her take the dressing gown from it. When she was about to put it on he said quietly, ‘Leave that off.’ She turned a surprised look towards him, and as he dropped his purchases upon the table he added, ‘You don’t have to hide yourself.’

  When he turned towards her she was standing in much the same attitude as her mother was wont to do, she was cupping her cheeks with her hands. ‘Oh, Angus!’ she said, and to this he replied brusquely, ‘Never mind “Oh Angus”! Get those plates out and let’s have this while it’s hot. I got skate. I don’t know whether you like skate or not; I like it.’

  She had never tasted skate; she couldn’t remember having it at home, but she said, ‘Yes, I like skate.’ So deep was her gratitude to him that if he had brought in fried dog she would have eaten it. She brought a dinner plate and a tea plate to the table; the smaller one she set before herself, and he said, ‘You’ll have to sport another meal-size plate, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I must get another plate. She doesn’t provide for visitors.’

  ‘She doesn’t provide for boarders, if you ask me.’ He looked disdainfully round the room.

  ‘It’s better than some, Angus.’

  He paused with a chip to his mouth, saying, ‘You’re kiddin’.’

  ‘No, I’m not. There was a place farther down the street. It was terrible, dreadful. And at least the people in this house work.’

  ‘Well, didn’t the people in that house?’ He was quizzing her.

  ‘Yes.’ She had her eyes cast downwards. ‘Yes, I suppose so, work of a kind.’

  ‘Aye, of a kind,’ he repeated. Then turning the conversation abruptly, he added, ‘We’re goin’ out.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You heard what I said.’ He poked his big face towards her. ‘We’re goin’ out.’

  ‘No, Angus, no. What if we were seen together?’

  ‘You frightened?’ He placed his knife and fork down on the table, and she was quick to assure him, ‘Oh, not that way, Angus. Not what you mean, no, but I’m frightened that someone might see us and tell Father, and if he saw us together then nothing on earth would convince him but that—’

  ‘Look, Van. Get it into your head he’s convinced already. God Almighty steppin’ out of Heaven wouldn’t convince him otherwise. I told you he came to the house when you ran off, and although he believed you weren’t there at that minute he believed that I knew where you were. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to prove him right, Angus.’

  ‘Now let’s get this straight, Van. You can’t stay in this place forever, you can’t come from that stinkin’ little shop and bury yourself under this roof seven nights a week until the bairn’s born. And that’s another point. We’ve got to talk about this…It’s no use sticking your head in the sand.’ He looked at her downcast face. ‘What’s going to happen when it’s born? You goin’ to have it adopted?’ He waited, and after a while she said, ‘I…I suppose I should, yet I don’t know. I keep thinking first one way then another. It seems stupid having gone through all this then letting it be adopted. If that’s what I’m going to do I think it would have been simpler to have done what they wanted in the first place…’

  ‘Aye, it would,’ he put in. ‘As I said, that’s one thing him and me agree on, it would. It would have saved you a lot of trouble and worry, because as it is, you know yourself, you can’t keep it. Now where could you keep a bairn here? Yo
u could hump him along to the shop and put him in a basket out at the back. That’s easily fixed, it’s been done afore. I spent me early years in a clothes basket in people’s wash-houses when me mother went out doin’ a day’s washin’; under the table in different kitchens when she went out cleanin’; and once, she tells me, I spent three weeks in a hen cree. The old dear she worked for couldn’t stand bairns, and there was an empty hen cree at the bottom of the garden, and there me mother used to dump me.’ He was smiling now. ‘So you see you could manage that part, that would be easy. But this here house is the problem. You’d have to hump up water from the next landing, and take it down again and empty it. And, you must remember, a bairn needs a lot of water.’ He almost added, ‘And makes a lot an’ all,’ but refrained. ‘You’ve got some thinkin’ to do about this, Van.’

  She kept her head lowered as she said, ‘I do nothing else but think.’

  ‘Is there nobody you could go to? I mean, none of your relations or friends?’

  ‘Not one of them who wouldn’t be embarrassed to see me and who wouldn’t immediately get in touch with Father.’ Now she raised her eyes to his and said quietly, ‘But I’ll manage. I’ve got this far and I’ll manage.’

  ‘Manage be damned!’ He jerked his head—he had ceased to apologise to her for swearing. ‘You’re only at the beginning of it, an’ what’s more you know nothin’ about bairns. By the way, have you made arrangements about having it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve done that.’

  ‘Do you go to a clinic, or one of them places?’

  ‘No, I went once, but there were so many people there I…was afraid someone might see me.’

  ‘But you can’t hide away forever.’

  ‘I…I’m not going to. It’s just till it’s born, and then the thing will be done and he can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Only press you to get it adopted. That’s the tack he’ll take then.’