Hamilton

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What did you happen to have on your desk at the side of your typewriter?’

  ‘A little tape recorder.’

  ‘And what did you use this tape recorder for?’

  ‘For making notes.’

  ‘What kind of notes.’

  ‘Well, funny little things I might think of to put in my book, because I couldn’t always remember them later.’

  ‘And you had just stopped typing and switched it on to record something when the door burst open?’

  This was a piece of invention advised by my counsel.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your husband came into the room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He…he told me how he was at last going to get my house, by making me out to be of unsound mind because he had found pieces of my writing in the wastepaper basket.’

  ‘Could you remember everything word for word?’

  ‘No, but the tape was running and everything he said went down.’

  My counsel turned from me, and now he went to the table and picked up my tape recorder and, taking it to the bench, he spoke to the judge.

  The prosecuting counsel was standing once again beside him and there seemed to be some slight argument. Then the judge said, ‘We will hear the tape.’

  At this my counsel said, ‘It isn’t very loud, my lord, as it is only a pocket tape recorder, but I have brought an attachment that will make it much clearer…With your permission.’

  He went back to the table and opened his case; then returned to the bench and, placing my tape recorder on it, he attached a sort of amplifier to it.

  Then my voice filled the court, saying, ‘If anything happens to Bill, I don’t know what I’ll do. Gran says I should get another dog straight away, but I’ll never have another dog. There’ll never be another one like Bill. I’ve felt lost when I’ve had him, but that will be nothing to what I’ll feel when he goes.’

  There was a silence now. Then as Howard’s voice burst into the courtroom, I saw him swivel round towards me and the look on his face was similar to that which it had held when he had first spurted the words at me.

  ‘Well now, little Maisie, so you’ve been snooping around, eh? And what did you find, eh? Nothing. You just had to take the word of your friends, hadn’t you? You’ve had nice little journeys out there on Saturdays and Sundays, haven’t you, Maisie? You think you’ve got me where you want me now, don’t you? But what proof have you? None whatever. I was visiting a friend the day Maggie Talbot happened to come to the door. My friend’s name is Mrs Ribber, and her two boys are called Ribber. No, Maisie, you’ve got nothing on me, but by God, I’ve got something on you. Something that, if it doesn’t fix you for good, it’ll prove that you are in need of psychiatric treatment and should be put away for a time. And while you’re away, I’ll have to have someone to look after me, won’t I? So I’ll bring in a housekeeper, all very proper, and who better than Mrs Ribber and her two boys. And should you ever come out of wherever they send you, you’ll have to have someone to carry on looking after you, won’t you, Maisie? And Mrs Ribber will see to it, and I will see to it, for as long as you care to stay. Do you understand me, Maisie?’

  ‘You can’t do anything like that, as much as you would like to. I have my doctor and…’

  ‘But has he seen these, Maisie?…This is just a sample. I’ve got dozens of them, telling about a woman who’s so barmy she talks to a horse that crawls around this house and gets on buses with her and goes into the supermarket and stands on its hind legs in indignation when it sees women shoplifting. Oh, Maisie, Maisie, what have you put into my hands, eh? Well now, can we come to terms, eh? Will I have to have you exposed and put away, at least for a time in order to bring my wife…And yes, she is my wife. And if you hadn’t been mental you would have suspected something long ago. What did you think I got the seven hundred and fifty out of you for? To give to old Hempies in order to become manager? Huh! I wouldn’t give that old sod the smoke that goes up the chimney. As for him inviting me for the weekends there…Eeh! God, when you swallowed that, I realised you’d swallow anything. No, that money went to buy the cottage. And the rest of your four thousand to get my first car and add a bit on to the end of the house. Oh, anybody that wasn’t mental would have seen through it years ago. But you are, aren’t you? You’re bats. You’ve not got one scrap of brain, except to copy what other people think, and any idiot can do that, any idiot. And write down your madness. Well now, am I to expose you, or are you going to sit quiet and let me bring in her and the boys? It’s up to you, because, let me tell you this, I’ll have this house in the end. May persuaded me to marry you in order to get it and get it I will, because by God, I’ve bloody well worked for it. Just seeing you day after day has been a heavy mortgage. Now I’ll give you till this evening to make up your mind, no longer, then I’m going to the doctor. And, by the way, for some time now I’ve taken the precaution to mention your oddities to him. I’ve also said you’ve denied me your bed for the past ten years or more. Huh! and by the way, I can tell you this, that you can thank my woman on that score, because without her, by God! I would have taken it out of your limbs. What I did to you in the beginning would have been nothing to what I would have done if I hadn’t had her. Anyway, there it is.’

  When there sounded on the tape a little click which was the door closing, there was silence in the court. It was like the silence that follows a marvellous play or concert. Then the noise became almost deafening and the judge had to bang his hammer three times before the last voice faded away and he said, ‘Any more of this and the court will be cleared.’

  Now, he turned to me where I was standing, but standing with an effort for my legs felt like jelly, and in the complete silence he and I looked at each other. And then he began to speak, partly to me and partly it seemed to the jury. ‘I see before me,’ he said, ‘a woman who has been physically handicapped since she was a child. I see before me an intelligent woman, whose intelligence was battened down by circumstances of her life, and she became so lonely that she resorted to fantasy in order to gain a friend. And for a friend who does she pick but a noble animal, a horse.’ He paused here; then went on, ‘I think that if a priest was attempting to explain her choice of a friend in whom she could confide, he would, in my opinion, say that she had been really communicating with her spirit. Or on the other hand, if an atheist was endeavouring to explain it he would say she was communing with the “I” in her…the “I” that is in each one of us.’

  Again he paused, but his eyes never left my face; then he went on, ‘Now, if it was Rabindranath Tagore or—say—Sai Baba, either of these Indian mystics, they would undoubtedly put the name of soul to Hamilton, but with whatever name you care to explain her friend, she was I think…no, I am sure, communing with her better and wiser self. And who among us, except the utter fools, do not at some time have the sense to look deep inside ourselves and find that small spark which is really the core of all that is in us. This thing that never lies.

  ‘So, as I see it, far from Hamilton being the evidence of a disordered mind, I would say he is proof of a deep spirituality, which’—he paused now and shook his head—‘I’m afraid must for a short time have deserted her when she resorted to an old-fashioned ginger-beer bottle as an implement of retaliation for what she says she had suffered from both the hands and the tongue of her husband for thirteen years. And her husband has just, for all to hear, endorsed her statement.’ He paused a long moment here and his eyes turned from me and moved to the jury, and he went on, ‘You will, I know, judge this woman as your minds direct, but I would point out to you…and the press, who will no doubt make tonight’s headlines out of this case, that it is nothing new for the human mind to take an animal into its consciousness and to talk to it, because, while being unique, we are nevertheless lonely creatures at best, and I feel it was the deep awareness of this knowledge that prompted an eminent American doctor to write a book
called, Feeling Fine. This book states it is a twenty-day programme of pleasure for a lifetime of health, and I can vouch that if you read it and follow the advice therein, you cannot but help feel better. By the way, the doctor author himself talks to a rabbit, called Corky, and in doing so, taps his inner wisdom. And, I may add at this point, this particular doctor is not considered to be mad. They don’t usually give great lengths of television time in the U.S. to madmen. I myself enjoyed reading this book because it confirmed in my mind that I wasn’t any different from the rest of youth when from five to fourteen years old I talked to a she-wolfhound.

  ‘But when my father remarried, after being a widower for seven years, I didn’t need my canine friend any more. And I don’t think after this Mrs Stickle will have further need of Hamilton, except as a subject for her books.’

  Did he smile at her? The muscles of his face moved. But then I could hardly see him. Somebody said, ‘Stand down.’ Somebody else led me into the dock again. I knew the Doctor and Gran and George and Nardy and others were all looking towards me, yet I couldn’t distinguish their faces.

  The jury was out for only fifteen minutes. The man at the end stood up and when he was asked, ‘Do you find the accused, guilty or not guilty?’ He said, ‘Not guilty, on all counts.’

  Again the judge’s hammer banged on the bench. And now he was speaking to me, ‘Mrs Stickle,’ he said, ‘you have been found not guilty. But you did cause what’s called an affray. May I suggest that in future you rely more on your spiritual self to guide your behaviour.’ And now he smiled quite broadly.

  I had seen the devil in Howard when he stood looking at me over the desk that fateful day, fateful for him, but that look was nothing to the expression on his face as he turned and looked at me across the courtroom before his solicitor took his arm and almost pulled him up the aisle.

  Then Father Mackin pushed his way towards me, and he said, ‘I’m happy for you. Yes, I am, but there’s no getting away from it, you are a dark horse.’ This caused general laughter, until he said, ‘As it was in the beginning, is not now, and never shall be. Well, there’s a lot of truth in that, and more’s the pity.’ Then almost whispering in my ear, he said, ‘We’re very tolerant people, we R.C.’s, and we laugh at ourselves until we bust, but we don’t take too kindly to it coming from the outside. So, why don’t you bring your horse into our stable, eh?’

  I laughed and he laughed as I was tugged away. He’d never let up, would Father Mackin. But I liked him. And after all, it was he who had sparked off the idea of making Hamilton into a book. I must tell him that next time I see him, I thought.

  It was only through the efforts and protection of the men around me that I got through the crowd of reporters and clicking cameras outside the courtroom. And then I was home. We were all home, and Gran was hugging me, and George’s Mary was hugging me, and the children were jumping about, and everybody was talking and all seemingly at once. Then George’s voice rose above the rest and he, with his big hands under my oxters, lifted me up off the floor, crying, ‘A bloody novelist of all things! I knew you had it in you. Eeh! But I couldn’t believe it. Eeh, by! but I was proud of you. You showed ’em. By, you showed ’em!’

  ‘Shut up you! An’ put her down. An’ look,’ Gran cried; ‘get yourselves into the sitting room. There’s something in there to wet your whistles, and I’ll bring the tea in in a minute.’

  And there was something in the sitting room to wet the whistles: two bottles of whisky, a bottle of sherry, and a bottle of port. It crossed my mind that it wouldn’t have gone to waste if I hadn’t come home.

  George did the honours and they all drank to me: The doctor, Mr Houseman, George and Nardy, Gran and Mary, and I still continued to cry even while I was smiling.

  About half an hour later, Doctor Kane said he would have to go as he had a surgery and that fool of a partner of his would be killing the patients off two at a time. He was very fond of his partner, I knew that.

  I walked with him to the door and I held his hands, and when he leant forward and his bushy face came close to mine, closer than ever it had been before, and he kissed me, I put my arms around him and said, ‘Thank you, my dear Doctor, thank you for giving me Hamilton.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ He pushed me away from him. ‘Don’t you lay the blame on me for him.’ Then he said softly, ‘You know what I would like to do?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’d like to bring the wife around later on if I may?’

  ‘Oh, I’d love that. I’ve never met her. Oh, I’d love that.’

  ‘And you’ll love her; she’s a canny lass.’

  When he was gone, Mr Houseman followed, but not before telling me that my book would have runaway sales from now on. When Nardy said he would see him to the station, I was surprised, yet so pleased he wasn’t returning to London until tomorrow. He said he had some unfinished business to attend to.

  When they had gone, I said to George, Mary, and Gran, ‘Nardy’s coming back, and you know what? The doctor’s bringing his wife round tonight.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Gran, getting up. ‘The doctor’s wife? Eeh! that’ll mean we’ll have to get somethin’ in, bits and pieces to make sandwiches an’ such.’ And at this she hurried out of the room, saying to Mary, ‘Come on, lass, get your coat on. We’ll have to do a bit of shoppin’.’

  Left with George, we sat close together on the couch, and quietly now he said, ‘Well, it’s over, lass. Your purgatory’s over.’

  ‘Yes, George, my purgatory is over.’

  ‘You’re puttin’ in for a divorce?’

  ‘That’s already in hand.’

  ‘Well, with what’s happened these last few days, it shouldn’t take long. By the way, he’s a nice fellow, that Nardy.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I like him.’

  ‘He likes you.’

  I turned and looked at him as I said, ‘Yes, I know he likes me. But he’s a bachelor of forty-five, and settled in his ways. Moreover, he’s a gentleman. So, we both like each other and that is as far as it will go.’

  ‘You never know. No, you never know where a blister might light.’

  ‘Oh, George. I’ll tell you whom I more than like.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Aw, lass.’ He put his arms around me and hugged me.

  He seemed to have his arms still around me at ten o’clock that night, when with the doctor and his wife Jane, Nardy, Gran and Mary, he sat singing, ‘Now Is The Hour’, an old Gracie Fields song, and we were all joining in. It was past eleven o’clock and the drinks had been flowing from shortly after eight. We were all very merry. There had been another addition to the company earlier on, for my solicitor, Mr Pearson, called in. He had congratulated me, and everybody had congratulated him on his choice of counsel, and when he had left me an hour ago, there was no sign of the formal man I had come to know. Three large whiskies had, in George’s words, slackened his face.

  The doctor had added to the liquor store a bottle of brandy and a bottle of whisky, and Nardy had gone out with George and returned with bottles of beer and more spirits.

  What not only I but the whole company had discovered in the last few hours was that Nardy had a beautiful tenor voice. Apparently, from what I remember him saying to the Doctor, he had been at a sort of choir school in his youth and had been weaned on the usual ‘O For The Wings Of A Dove’.

  George was now crying towards him, ‘Come on, let’s have another one of them ballads! It’s a night for sweetness an’ light.’

  These last two words, sweetness and light, said in George’s broad Geordie twang, sent the whole company roaring. And Gran, thumping her son on the side of the head, cried, ‘Did you ever! Him comin’ out with things like that, sweetness an’ light.’

  Nardy was on his feet now: standing with his back to the fire, his face was flushed, his eyes were bright. He had, I had noticed, drunk as much as any
one there, yet seemed the least affected by it. He didn’t sway on his feet, nor was his voice fuddled, as was the doctor’s when he cried, ‘“I Hear You Calling Me” or “Love, Could I Only Tell You?” They’re lovely. They’re lovely.’

  Before anyone could answer, Nardy said, ‘Let it be this one.’

  I hadn’t drunk anything near the quantity that the others had imbibed because I was wanting to remember every detail of this night. I’d had two sherries and I was glad at this moment that the emotion that Nardy’s voice created in me did not come about through spirits. His voice was clear and warm, the cadences rising and falling, and his eyes were fixed on me as he sang:

  ‘One day when we were young,

  One wonderful morning in May.

  You told me you loved me,

  When we were young one day.’

  My emotions became almost unbearable. If only he was younger and I was older. If only he did not look upon me just as a friend, a dear, dear, friend. If only I could see him in the same light and not as I did. If only…if only.

  ‘Remember, you loved me

  When we were young one day.’

  He was looking at me, his face soft, yet aglow. The tears were streaming down my face, but I was the only one who wasn’t shouting his praise and clapping.

  ‘“I Hear You Calling Me”’.’ It was the doctor shouting again. ‘My mother used to sing that. Go on, Nardy.’ Everybody called him Nardy now. ‘Go on, Nardy,’ he said. ‘Go on, give us, “I Hear you Calling Me”.’

  And so, still standing, he sang,

  ‘I hear you calling me.

  You called me when the moon had veiled her light

  Before I went from you into the night;

  I came, do you remember, back to you

  For one last kiss beneath the kind star’s light.’

  The beauty and the sweetness and the sadness of his voice was too much. And as he finished drawing out those last four words, ‘I hear you calling me’, I could bear it no longer and I went out of the room.