The Unbaited Trap

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘I want the truth. Do you hear? I want the truth.’

  ‘All right then.’ He found himself shouting back at her. ‘I’ll give you the truth. You know what’s been going on for a long time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You asked for the truth, didn’t you?’

  When she didn’t make any reply to this he said, ‘I didn’t know about anything until this evening, when Val told me.’

  ‘Val? What does she know? She knows nothing.’ All her body was jangling, her hands, her head, her legs, as if she was about to go into a dance.

  ‘Aunt May knew, didn’t she? Well, could Aunt May keep anything? Everybody knew he was having an affair with—’

  ‘He wasn’t having an affair.’ Her voice was thin, the words pinging as if off stretched wires. For a second her body became still, and she remained poised, her head half turned to him, and when he looked away from her and said slowly, as if tired by her gullibility, ‘Oh, my God, Mother,’ she screamed at him. ‘He wasn’t having an affair. He wasn’t! He wasn’t, I tell you.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Again he was shouting back at her. ‘If you want to look at it like that, he wasn’t having an affair. He was just visiting this girl but he wasn’t having an affair.’

  ‘That’s right, that’s right.’

  ‘Look, be your age. What are you getting all worked up about if you think he wasn’t having an affair?’

  ‘He wasn’t having an affair. I tell you he wasn’t. HE WASN’T.’ Her voice rose to a screech, and now to his amazement he saw her grip her hair on both sides of her head. He saw her face become contorted, her mouth open wide as if gasping for air, and then on a loud cry the tears gushed from her eyes and her nostrils, and the saliva ran from her mouth. Then, almost bringing him from the floor, she let out one piercing scream after another. After a moment’s hesitation he had her by the shoulders, shaking her, shouting, ‘Give over, Mother. Stop it! Stop it!’ He tried to draw her into his arms to smother her cries but she fought him, struggling and pushing at him.

  ‘Stop it!’ he begged her. ‘Don’t scream like that; they’ll hear you down the road.’

  When she opened her mouth for yet another scream, he screwed up his face, paused a moment, stepped back from her, then struck her with the flat of his hand. The blow did not knock her off her feet, but like a deflating balloon she subsided onto the couch.

  Gasping and sobbing now, she lay back staring up at him, and he, panting as if he had been in a fight, stood looking down at her. He had heard that slapping the face was an effective cure for hysterics, but had he been told he would ever use it on his mother he would have sneered at the ridiculousness of such a suggestion.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Although he sounded sorry he did not sit beside her or take her hand, or show her any comfort; this wasn’t, he felt, the time for softness. He went towards a chair and sat down beside a little table a distance from her, and he waited, not speaking until her breathing returned somewhat to normal. But when at last she spoke to him, her tone calm, saying, ‘He wasn’t having an affair with her,’ he thought, Oh my God is she going to start all that again? But he said nothing, he just let her go on.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Laurie. I’m telling you, your father couldn’t have an affair with…with anyone…anyone.’

  ‘What! Do you mean he’s…?’ He didn’t say impotent, but it was as if he had, for she shook her head. Then she pulled herself a little way up on the couch, and with both hands she smoothed her hair back from her brow, stroked down the front of her dress, then turned towards the high stone fireplace and said, ‘We were only married a week when he was called up. I fell with you right away.’ He felt surprise at her using this natural kind of expression. ‘Your father did three months’ training before being sent to a unit. The second day at this new place they were handling some ammunition in a shed and it exploded. Seven of the men were killed outright, about ten others injured…The bottom of your father’s stomach was shattered…’

  He felt something jump within him, like a live thing. It leaped from his groin up through his stomach and into his throat and checked his breathing.

  ‘He was in hospital for nine months. He tried to take his life twice during that time, and they sent him to an asylum.’ Her voice was unemotional.

  Almighty God! He never went to church; he didn’t think about religion in any way, it was mostly bunkum; yet in this moment he cried to something outside himself, something that understood pain, the strange pain he was experiencing now, and the years, the eternities of pain suffered by the man he had despised.

  ‘You were a year old before he saw you. By that time I knew that you were all I had, or would ever have, of comfort. He saw that I was wrapped up in you. Sometimes I thought he was glad that this was so; other times I knew that he suffered, and I couldn’t do anything about it. And the years went on and on. He had his work and I…I had you.’

  He sat staring at her with the strangest emotion coursing through him. This elegant but now slightly dishevelled woman was his mother. He had always loved her, championed her, adored her, but in this telling moment no vestige of these feelings remained. Yet there was feeling in him for her, but what was it? Hate? No! No! No! How could he hate her? Did he despise her? How could he despise her? All this reversal of feeling was ridiculous and would pass. But at this moment he knew that if she were to touch him he would shrink from her hands, because whether she had intended to or not she had made him despise the man who was his father. From as far back as he could remember, and without saying a word against him, she had held him up as something as pulpable as unleavened dough, something lukewarm, spineless, inane, until her picture of him had become fixed in his mind. She had said she’d had only himself, and with her every breath she had secured him to her while alienating him from the man who was of no use to her.

  With a feeling now that seared him he conjured up the picture of his father, the big flabby-fleshed blinking man, the eunuch hiding behind the fixed smile. God! God! He had the unusual desire to lay his head on his arms and cry. He knew now with a certainty that if his father were to die remorse would gnaw at him for the rest of his days. He turned his head slowly and looked at the woman who in the past few minutes had shattered his emotions, the emotions that she had guided, and he said to her, ‘If you knew that nothing could happen between them why have you made all this fuss?’

  Unmoved, he watched her as she closed her eyes and bit on her lip before saying, ‘You don’t understand. I couldn’t expect you to. But…but lately, this last year or so, not just since I knew I was going to lose you. No, no,’ she moved her head emphatically, ‘before that I felt…I felt. Oh! I can’t explain.’ She dropped her chin onto her chest. ‘Perhaps it was remorse for the way I had treated him, for having shut him out. I don’t know. I only know that for some time I’ve wanted to get near him, to take that awful lost look from out of his eyes. It had been there for years, but somehow I noticed it more of late. And then…then at Christmas when I got the first inkling of this business, I…I knew it was too late. I knew I had lost him. I think I knew from the very minute it started. He had never sought companionship of any kind from man or woman; then this…this thing I could have had, that would have been far more lasting than anything created by sex, this thing that was there for my taking, and which I scorned, and belittled him even further by doing so, he gave to someone else.’

  Her lips parted and he saw her tongue wobbling in the dark cavity of her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was going to lose control again. But she didn’t. She snapped her mouth closed, pressed her fingers against her lips, then said, ‘I told you you wouldn’t understand. I don’t expect you to, because I can’t understand it all myself. If anyone had told me three or four years ago that I would be jealous of him, that I would be nearly driven mad with the thought of him being happy in another woman’s company, I would have laughed. Yes, even two years ago I would have laughed. I’d never had a normal
married life, so what was there left to be jealous about? But even so I’ve gone through hell. I’ve been terrified of anyone finding out, terrified at the humiliation, of people feeling sorry for me. But now, funny, it doesn’t matter any more what they know. I feel he’s going to die, and I’ll remember that the only happiness he’s had in the last twenty-six years is what that cheap-looking girl has given him. For he has been happy lately. That’s what’s been so hard to bear; I’ve known he’s been happy. There’s been a lightness about him and he’s tried in vain to hide it. Just last week I heard him singing softly to himself in the bathroom. It was like a knife being driven through me.’

  She became quiet, one hand was resting on her lap, the other lying palm upwards on the seat of the sofa. He sat staring at her, unable to go to her, or even to offer her a scrap of comfort, for there was nothing left in him for her. With her confession she had scraped him bare of sympathy; she herself had smashed the picture of a beautiful, not quite-of-this earth creature tied by law to a bloodless individual.

  He saw her now like a leech sucking all his affection from him, leaving nothing that could be spared for the man who had created him, and whom he had needed, yes needed…And now, because the despised, crippled creature had found comfort—other than physical, and there was the rub, other than physical—with someone else, she suddenly realised that she wanted him, that she needed him. After twenty-six years of isolation, of freezing him out, she had thawed towards him, only to find it was too late.

  Yet, he now asked himself, was he blameless in this matter? Couldn’t he, as he grew older, have made some kind of effort to look at his father through his own eyes? Why hadn’t he stopped to think of what others saw in him? Men like Arnold Ransome and Michael Boyd; they both held him in high esteem. And they weren’t the only ones…But no, he had only allowed himself to see what she saw. He was, in a way, as much to blame as she. Strip out the childhood, when he hadn’t much say in the matter, and come to these last few years…even at this late stage, he could have given this man a form of companionship, the rare form that exists between a grown son and his father.

  When he saw her rise from the couch he made no move towards her. She said softly, ‘I’m going up.’ Then she stood looking at his averted face and added, ‘You’re blaming me, aren’t you? You’re shocked.’

  He, too, rose to his feet, and with his eyes averted from hers, he said, ‘It’s no use apportioning blame now, but to tell you the truth I do feel a bit shocked. I…I feel he’s had a rotten deal all through.’

  The force of her stare brought his eyes to her, and he saw that she looked tired and ill, and even old. Her chicness had gone; that calm, suave veneer was stripped from her; she looked more like an ordinary woman than ever he had seen her before. Yet the change evoked no softness in him. He would need time he knew before any such feeling would return; he was still stunned by her cold-blooded, diabolical treatment of a human being, whom, and this was a telling point, she had made feed, clothe and house her in style for years.

  She left the room without speaking again, and when he heard her muted footsteps overhead he looked up towards the ceiling. Women were vicious, cruel. If such a thing was to happen to him, say, if tomorrow morning he went out and was hit by a car and his sex life was finished, how would Val react? Say they were married, how would she react? In exactly the same way as his mother had reacted. He nodded his head in affirmation. Only Val would go a step farther; she would either divorce him or get her satisfaction elsewhere; she wouldn’t starve of the thing she needed most.

  Slowly he rose to his feet and went out of the room and up the stairs. As he crossed the landing he looked towards his father’s room and a feeling of remorse, so weighty that he bowed his head under it, descended on him. And when he reached his room he did not switch on the light but groped his way towards the bed and dropped onto it and, his hands clutching at the pillow, brought it pressing hard against his mouth.

  At half-past eight the next morning the Wilcox family came en masse to the house. Ann was up. She had been downstairs since six o’clock, when she had phoned the hospital. And now James and May were closeted with her in the lounge, while Valerie was having it out with Laurie in the study.

  Laurie stood with his hands on the desk leaning slightly forward, letting her go on as she had for the last few minutes.

  ‘…And when would you have told us? Tonight? Tomorrow? Can you imagine what we felt like when Millie came in and told us he was in hospital…had been picked up from that woman’s place and that you were there? Why did you have to go? At least why didn’t you tell me you were going?’

  Laurie turned his head to the side and did not speak, and Valerie continued, ‘Father’s furious. He says you’re a damn fool and should have minded your own business and—’

  ‘And what do you say?’ His voice sounded patient, cool. His head was still turned from her.

  ‘Well, if you want to know, I say the same. It’s bad enough your father’s name being bandied round the town in connection with her without you going out of your way to give it more publicity. And Millie says you were fighting with her. Miss O’Neill heard you. The whole place was raised. Are you mad?’

  Now he turned on her, his voice no longer quiet, his lips squaring away from his teeth. ‘Yes, I’m mad. But I’ll be madder if you don’t shut up. And another thing I’d like you to remember is that your father might be my boss at work but he has no say about what I do in my own time. As yet I can go where I like, talk to whom I like. Yes, and row with whom I like…As yet I can even go into Bog’s End and stay the night at Bella Pickford’s and enjoy all she has to offer. As yet I can do all that, and don’t you forget it.’ He was now pressing his finger into her chest. But she did not move away. Her cool gaze appraising him, she said, ‘Yes, yes, you can do all that. As for Bella Pickford, I’ve no doubt you’re well acquainted with her.’

  ‘No doubt,’ he said, making a deep obeisance with his head. ‘No doubt.’

  After glaring at each other for a moment longer he turned towards the desk and began to gather up some papers. And now, her voice almost soft, she said, ‘Oh, Laurie, I’m sorry. But you must admit it’s shattering. Even if we weren’t going to be married, our families have been close for years and this happens, and you don’t let us know…we’ve got to hear it through the daily woman.’

  ‘And by all accounts, she gave you a graphic description of the events. She’s missed her vocation, that one; she should have been a reporter.’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been any need for us to learn the news from Millie if you had acted like an ordinary human being…But look. Let’s stop this bickering and tell me, what’s she like?’

  ‘What’s who like?’ He turned his head towards her, but kept his eyes averted.

  ‘That tart up in the flats.’

  Looking fully at her now he said quietly, ‘From outside appearances she looks no more like a tart than you do.’ He did not know if this was his real opinion of the woman or he was saying it to annoy Val. He was still so churned up inside from what he had learned last night that he couldn’t think straight.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘You asked me what she looked like and I’ve told you.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, for the present moment let’s skip appearances. What did you say to her?’ She was striving to control her rising temper.

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember what you said to her? You went to tell her to lay off your father and you can’t remember?’

  ‘No, I can’t remember. I can only remember what she said to me …’

  At this point there came the sound of a door banging, then James Wilcox’s voice, crying, ‘Where are you, Laurie? You there, Val?’ The study door was thrust open now and the little man bristled in.

  ‘Ah, there you are. Now I’ve just had a talk with your mother. I’ve told her to leave everything to me.’

  ‘And what did she say to that?’

&
nbsp; ‘She said the same as all women do, that she can manage her own affairs. But you know how far that takes them…Well now, about this piece you saw last night, this so-called Mrs Thorpe. What was your impression of her?’

  Laurie looked at his future father-in-law, wetted his lips, told himself to count ten, but got no further than five before saying, ‘My impression of her was that she was an extraordinarily good-looking woman, with tastes beyond the usual, and somebody not easily frightened.’

  James Wilcox screwed up his small eyes and surveyed Laurie through his pinpoint vision, then looking towards his daughter he said, ‘You two been having a row?’

  When neither of them spoke he went on, ‘Well, that’s neither here nor there, there’s something much more important to be tackled at the present moment. Now, Laurie.’ He pointed his hand, fingers held stiffly together, gun-fashion towards him. ‘If your father gets better there’s a strong possibility that he’ll carry on with this game. Who knows; he might even want a divorce. Once these Thorpe types get their claws on a decent man he hasn’t got a chance. Well now.’ He pushed out his little chest. ‘It’s fortunate, as I see it, that her boy’s in trouble. Yes, I say fortunate, and I mean fortunate.’ He bounced his head towards Laurie. ‘I’ve had them before me on another occasion, and on this one I intend to make the town so hot for that lady that she’ll be glad to go somewhere else to cool off.’

  ‘Are you going to try the boy or her?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just what I say. Before the boy comes up you’ve already decided on your verdict. Is that right?’

  ‘Now look here, Laurie; I want none of your altruistic theories. I know my job as a magistrate; I know the types I have to deal with in this town, and I act accordingly. And I don’t need any lessons in justice.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘NO! And don’t forget who you’re talking to.’