‘Was he rough?’
I didn’t turn round as I muttered, ‘Terrible.’
‘I would have put you wise, lass, but you seemed to know. And you know, hinny. Look. Look at me.’ I looked at her. ‘It can become a sort of beautiful thing like. Yes, yes, it can.’
I almost bounced up from the couch and began walking up and down the room, my hands gripping each other. Talking rapidly now, I said, ‘Gran, you don’t know. He acted like a wild beast. No words, nothing. Just a sort of an attack.’
‘He didn’t love you? I mean, fondle you like, lead up to it?’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’
‘He’s a swine then. Aw, pet.’ She too got up now and stopped my pacing, and holding me tight she said, ‘I knew from the beginnin’ it was wrong. But you were for it. You thought nobody else would want you. You silly lass.’
‘Can I come and stay with you?’
‘No, lass, no! You can’t.’ Her tone was emphatic. ‘This is something you’ve got to work out; you can’t run away from it. And anyway, what would happen if you left that house? He wouldn’t leave it, nor his sister. They would be planted there for good. But that’s what they were after from the start; it’s the best house in the terrace. I’ve heard a lot about him since. He was engaged to a woman in the office of the shop and when he broke it off she left. Nobody seemed to know what had happened atween them. I understand from Florrie Ridley, whose lad’s an apprentice there, that the lass’ mother was for setting about him ’cos the lass got a lot of bits and pieces together. Now I ask you, why should he break that off and turn to you if he hadn’t a deeper motive? To my mind that big lump of a sister of his arranged everything. So…well lass, as much as I’d like you to come here, an’ I’d welcome you, but if you did, it would be just playing into their hands, and you’d have a job to get that property back, I’m tellin’ you. And a house like that is worth thousands. You’d have to get a solicitor an’ likely go to court, and that’d cost something, and in the end he’d get his share. Men are for men when it comes to the push and, if I’m not mistaken, there’s some law about it. At one time the husband could claim the lot. I don’t think it’s the same now, but they’ve still got some rights along that way. I’ll look into it. In the meantime, make a stand against him. If he starts any more hanky-panky, rough like, take a hatpin into bed with you. It’s been done afore. Oh aye.’ She nodded at me, her face solemn now. ‘I’m not jokin’…What has big May to say about it?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t say anything to her.’
‘Do you see much of her?’
‘Too much. She’s always in and out. Yet at the same time I’m sometimes glad of her company, especially at night when he’s in.’
‘Look, pet’—her brows knitted and her eyes narrowed—‘are you really frightened of him?’
I hesitated before answering, and then it was only half an answer, ‘In a way I am,’ I said. ‘Yes, in a way I am.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, looking at him in the daytime he doesn’t seem to be a frightening person. It’s…it’s just at night. He…he seems to change entirely once we’re alone upstairs. It’s strange, odd.’
‘Oh, hinny’—she turned away from me—‘I wish I could do something for you, explain things to you. But I can’t; you only come to this kind of knowledge through experience. Everybody’s different. Every man’s different. An’ you never know how different until they get you in that bedroom. Yet I’ve had nothin’ to grumble about. No, indeed, no. Georgie’s father was what you call a gentle man.’ She turned to me again. ‘You know it’s a pity you hadn’t come across somebody like our Georgie. He doesn’t know B from bull’s foot education like, but about livin’ and lovin’, well, there isn’t much he doesn’t know. He’s like his da. A man like that would have suited you down to the ground. If you only had waited. Aw!’ She shook her head violently. ‘But what’s the use? It’s done. But you go back now an’ brace yourself an’ make a stand, because that’s your home and I know you love the house. You were happy in it from your ma died, you could see it in your face, and you kept it nice, as nice as she did. And I know one thing for sure, pet, you couldn’t put up with this kind of life for long,’ and with outspread arm and hand she indicated the room; you cannot swing a cat here. And there’s no privacy around these quarters. Why, you can hear when Mrs Pratt, two doors down, has been to the lav. No, lass, this kind of habitation isn’t for you. So go on home and stand up to him. You’ve got a lot in your napper that hasn’t come out, I know that. Our Georgie used to say that an’ all about you.’
I picked up my hat and coat and as I put them on I said, ‘Have you any idea when he’s coming back?’
‘No, lass. He seems to have settled in Falmouth these last few weeks. He’s likely found a dame down there. One thing’s certain, he won’t show his face here till Wicklow gets hooked up with somebody. I don’t go back to her for me hair. She came round here and raised the house on me after he went, as if it was my fault. You should have heard the names she called me. But she learned a few new ones afore she left, I can tell you that.’ She smiled her old smile; then putting her arms around me, she kissed me and said, ‘Look, I’m in most days atween one and half past two. If you need me slip round then. Or atween five and six round teatime. But I suppose that’s his time for coming in.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘he doesn’t get in most nights until half past six.’ And as she led me to the door she said, ‘What does he do nights?’
‘He mostly goes upstairs and arranges his bottles.’
‘Arranges his bottles! What bottles?’
‘Oh’—I hesitated—‘well, I didn’t tell you but he collects bottles.’
‘Beer bottles?’
‘No; all kinds of bottles.’
‘Bottles?’ Her lips remained wide apart when she finished the word.
‘Yes, sauce bottles, ginger-beer bottles, vinegar bottles. Any kind of bottle that’s ever had anything in it. He’s got hundreds of them upstairs.’
‘Oh…my…God!’ The words were spaced. ‘Have you married a nut?’
‘I…I understand lots of people collect bottles.’
‘Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of it, except beer bottles. But they don’t collect them, they take the empties back, if there’s anything on them. And he’s got them all up in the bedroom?’
‘No; I’ve given him a separate room. It takes a full room.’
‘Eeh!’—she looked upwards—‘Gordon Highlanders! Go on, lass.’ She pushed me towards the door. ‘I’ll be lookin’ forward to seein’ you the morrow. And do what I told you, mind, make a stand.’
I went out down the street and walked across the town, then through the park, and for the first time since I’d been at school, I sat down on one of the seats opposite the pond and looked at the ducks. It was very cold. The world seemed empty. The future seemed empty. What was I going to do? Were all my days going to be like this? Gran had said, make a stand, but how could I do that?…Oh Hamilton what have I done?
I’d continued to keep Hamilton at a distance for some time now, but there he was standing at the end of the park seat. His coat didn’t look so bright and shiny. He looked as if he had been galloping through bad weather; his mane looked wet, his tail drooped. His eyes were sad. I spoke to him, first apologising, saying, ‘I wouldn’t listen to you; you were right.’
What’s done’s done, he said. The question is, how are you going to go on from now? Would you consider following Gran’s hatpin suggestion? His upper lip moved slightly from his teeth, but I couldn’t raise the slightest smile in return. ‘I could never do that kind of thing,’ I said. ‘You know I couldn’t.’
Then what do you propose to do?
‘I don’t know. Can’t you tell me?’
Use your elbow, he said.
‘My elbow?’ I looked down at my arm, the foreshortened forearm resting as usual across my waist. This part of my arm had very little flesh on it compar
ed to my right one. The doctor had referred to it as withered. The elbow was very bony. I had once playfully jabbed Katie with it and she had cried, and I was so contrite I swore I would never use it again in that fashion.
I looked at Hamilton. He was standing straighter now, and looking not so shaggy. I said to him, ‘But what am I going to do in all the days ahead?’ And his answer was, Take one thing at a time. What you could do is take up your writing again, about me or anything.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I get all flustered when he’s in the house, even when he’s up among his bottles, and I haven’t attempted to do any of my kind of writing in case I say something about him or May, for as sure as I did he would come and say, as he did the other evening, ‘What’s that you are writing?’ And when I said, ‘The grocery list,’ he retorted, ‘Do you never find anything better to do? May will see to that.’
May was taking over. With a greasy smile on her face and a soft tone, her progress into the house was insidious. The little liking I’d had for May had evaporated.
When Hamilton came and stood by my side, his legs astride the park seat, I turned my head and looked at him as I said, ‘I feel trapped, Hamilton, and I…I feel I’ve been tricked.’
You can say that again. Well—he brought his thick lips together and his head bobbed up and down—you’ve got to play them at their own game. He hasn’t given you any money for housekeeping, has he?
‘No.’
And you paid the bills last week?
‘Yes.’
Well, stop paying them. He’s got a decent wage; he’s taken on the title of husband and head of the house, let him see to them.
‘But he knows I’ve got money.’
Well, use your napper, as Gran would say; think about it. If you hadn’t any money what would he do then?
I turned my head and looked over the lake. The ducks were quacking loudly. One was skimming across the surface leaving a white arrow of froth behind it.
Go to a solicitor, put your money in Gran’s care.
My head jerked round towards him again, ‘Could I do that?’
Go to a solicitor and find out. He seemed a nice enough man, the one who made the will out for your mother. You could pass the lot over to Gran with certain provisos, such as, she would hold the money in care for you, and that if you should die, it had to be split between her and George, or all of it go to the one who survived.
I smiled for the first time in days. ‘You think of the cleverest things, Hamilton. What would I do without you?’
I don’t know, he said. I only know that life is very dull at the moment and it’s a long time since we had a laugh together. I’ve never kicked anyone in the back of the front for some time now, although it isn’t that I haven’t wanted to. But you weren’t about. Or you were but you had shut the door on me, and it’s no good a horse acting the goat on its own; anybody who’s capable of acting the goat needs an audience.
I rose from the bench feeling somewhat better. I would beat them at their own game as far as the money was concerned and I would see to that as soon as possible. And as for my weapon, well, I might even put that into use before tomorrow.
I did.
At half past six when Howard came in, May was there. She had brought a shepherd’s pie down, saying, ‘I know you give him his dinner but he also likes a warm snack at night, and he needs to be fed. He was very delicate as a child,’ which made me almost snap back, ‘He has the strength of a bull now;’ but that certainly would have led to questioning.
When he came in his face was bright as if with excitement. Even before he had taken his hat and coat off he called through the hall to May, ‘What do you think I’ve heard today?’ And she, passing me, went to the kitchen door and said, ‘What, dear?’
‘They’re making tennis courts in Brampton Hill Park.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘How lovely!’ May turned to me. ‘They’re making tennis courts in Brampton Hill Park. Isn’t that exciting?’
When he came into the kitchen he actually put his hand on my head in passing as one would on a dog’s. Yet the gesture was so unexpected that it made me smarmy and I could have kicked myself for saying, ‘You’ll enjoy that, being able to take it up again.’ He smiled at me as he said, ‘Oh, yes, yes indeed,’ and looking at May, added, ‘We were very good at it one time, weren’t we, May?’
‘First-rate.’ She jerked her chin upwards and repeated, ‘First-rate. We were always picked to represent the club. When will they be ready?’
‘A couple of months’ time, I think. And oh, by the way, I’ll have to be off again in half an hour.’ And noticing that the table was set for the high tea, his eyes resting on the casserole dish, he said, ‘Shepherd’s pie. Oh! May; I’m sorry I won’t be able to do justice to it because—’ He paused and his glance took me in now as he said, ‘I’ve been invited to supper at Mr Hempies’. What do you think about that?’ His eyes did a flicking movement from one side to the other of us; then to me he said, ‘Put me a clean shirt out and my brown shoes. See they’re polished, will you?’
I paused a long moment before leaving the room, and I was at the foot of the stairs when I wondered what brown shoes he wanted. He had four pairs. I returned towards the kitchen door again but stopped to hear him say, ‘He seems impressed at my being married. I think it’s the house; and he seemed to know about her mother and that she was quite well off. It can’t be anything else; eleven years I’ve been there and this is the first invitation.’
‘Didn’t he ask to see her?’ This came from May. And my breath stuck in my throat as I waited for his answer. ‘Yes, he did,’ he said, ‘but I made excuses, saying that she wasn’t at all well. And that’s how she’s going to remain, if I’ve got anything to do with it.’
I took three silent steps backwards before turning, and I slowly crossed the hall to the stairs, and there I stopped and looked upwards to see Hamilton. His head was lashing from one side to the other, his mane falling over his face. I went up and into the bedroom—he had preceded me—and I spoke aloud now, really aloud: ‘Tomorrow the solicitor.’ And he nodded his head twice, saying, Yes, tomorrow the solicitor …
Howard was late coming in. I had fallen asleep, and he woke me up to tell me all that had taken place at Mr Hempies’. ‘And you know something,’ he said; ‘his is a semi-detached in Durham but it isn’t half as substantial as this. Nor is his furniture anything like ours.’
Ours. My dulled mind repeated, ours.
I couldn’t bear to watch him undress and I turned on my side and buried my face in the pillow but couldn’t shut out his chatter. Then I stiffened as he said, ‘If you made yourself a bit more presentable we could have him here. That would show him. You want to go and have your hair properly done and get something done about your face. There’s places. They can alter noses to any shape; and mouths an’ all. And if you put make-up on …’
I swung round in the bed and glared at him now as I cried, ‘I am as you married me and like this I stay. I’m not changing for you or God Almighty.’
That he was surprised by my retaliation was evident, but he was more surprised a few minutes later when, on my side once more, his arm came on me in a grabbing movement, for it was at this point I took my elbow, and wham! I stuck it into his ribs. The squeal that he let out was comparable with those he had wrenched from me on the night of our marriage. And now gasping and holding his side, he said, ‘What do you think you’re up to? You…you could injure me. You have. You have.’
He screwed round and sat on the edge of the bed. The bedside light was still on. That was another thing: he never put the lights out until he was about to sleep; he seemed to enjoy watching my torment. I watched him now pull his pyjama coat open and look at his ribs, and pathetically he repeated, ‘You could have injured me.’ And then his tone suddenly changed: he glared at me and growled, ‘Don’t think you’ll get the better of me by using that stump.’
When I said
, ‘Well, it’s either that or a hatpin,’ his face seemed to stretch to twice its length.
‘You’re mad!’
‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised; I must have been to fall into this trap.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Would you like me to put it into words for you?’
He bent over me now, one hand still holding his side: ‘You’ve found your tongue all of a sudden, haven’t you? May said you were out all afternoon. Where were you? Along at the old hag’s again? Did she put you up to this?’
‘My gran’s not . . ’
‘She’s not your gran. She’s your stepfather’s mother, and she’s an old hag, a common old cow.’
Hamilton was rearing at the foot of the bed, standing right on his hind legs as I yelled, ‘Don’t you dare put that name to Gran!’
‘I’ll put what name I like to … Gran! She’s an old … And he came out with a mouthful of short four-letter words that up till now I hadn’t heard anyone voice—I’d seen them written on the walls of toilets and the subway that led to the station—and nothing he could have done could have affected me more, this tall, thin, well-dressed, gentlemanly looking individual who had the appearance at times of an ascetic monk as portrayed in the films, using the foulest of language.
I felt immediately it was a mistake to let him see how it affected me; but I couldn’t have known then that I had given him a weapon which was to be his main line of attack down the years. If I had told anyone that Mr Howard Stickle was a foul-mouthed individual, not only would I not have been believed, but I would have surely been accused of slandering a gentleman; indeed one of nature’s gentlemen. I’m sure that even May wasn’t aware of this trait in him.
It was some long time before I went to sleep somewhere in the middle of the night. And when, across the breakfast table the next morning, he looked at me and said, ‘You look tired, you should get more sleep,’ and he laughed, I thought, I can’t stand it. I won’t be able to stand this. He can have the house and all that’s in it.
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