Minutes passed. Mr Newman wrote. He wrote with a flourish, but without bending his head, so that his entire face was ever present before the class. Only his eyes were cast down on his work; and he never raised them until Stephen, his voice sounding like a squeak, said, ‘Please, sir, I want to tell you why I didn’t come to school.’
Still without lifting his eyes, the master said, ‘You came in without knocking, Taggart. Go out and come in the correct way.’
It was some seconds before Stephen moved; then his head gave a jerk and, blinking rapidly, he walked out of the room, closed the door after him, then knocked…waited…knocked again…waited…knocked for the third time, and when the sound of a grunt came to him he entered the room again and walked slowly up to the desk. Now his courage was definitely ebbing, and he knew that if he did not say what he had to say right away he would revert to the ‘nightmare’ excuse, and in some way that would, he felt, be letting Mr Rankine down and spoiling everything. So he stood below the desk and looked up at the white face with the lowered lids and said, ‘Please, sir, I played truant, and I’m sorry.’
Mr Newman’s lids lifted even slower than they were wont to fall…it was as if the effect of this preposterous utterance was weighing them down with leaden incredulity.
‘You what!’ The question was quiet; there was even the feeling of sensuousness about the words. As they came, wrapped in their soft thickness, they deceived Stephen; and he went on, ‘I didn’t mean to, and I won’t do it again.’
Mr Newman moved out of the desk and off the dais as if he was borne on air. He looked down on Stephen through misted eyes for quite a while before he said, and still quietly, ‘You have the effrontery to come and tell me you have played truant?’
Stephen only heard the words, he could not be expected to recognise the deeper meaning which said, ‘You fear me so little that you can tell me the truth?’ or to recognise that behind the meaning lay the knowledge that never before in his teaching career had a boy voluntarily spoken the truth to him—he arrived at the truth only after whacking it out of their hides.
Something inside Stephen’s stomach suddenly became loose, it shook and trembled, making his shoulder twitch and his head jerk. He turned round slowly to watch Mr Newman as he glided to the cupboard to take out the cane. He had seen that cane only twice before. Once he had watched Mr Newman push a boy along the corridor, and his imagination had given him a picture of what happened in the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. The boy was called Miles, and he was eleven and was a boarder, and he had cried and said he would write and tell his father, who was a Commando.
‘Bend over.’ Still quiet, Mr Newman pointed to a chair. Stephen gasped as if he was about to choke, but he did not move.
Then Mr Newman emitted a roar, which broke the stupefied silence of the boys and actually made Stephen jump from the floor.
‘Over!’ it said. The cane whisked the air until the sound resembled the rush of seagulls’ wings.
Stephen was not conscious of bending over the chair—it seemed as if the bellow had lifted him off his feet and thrown him over it. He felt he was losing his balance and grabbed at the chair legs. Then his arms were flung wide and his legs jerked out behind, and a scream tore out of his being as the cane, like a red-hot poker, struck his buttocks. The breath had hardly returned to his body before a searing pain lashed him again, seeming to cut him completely in half. He made a series of animal sounds and tried to rise, but a hand like steel held the back of his neck; and once again his body was set alight in agony. As the cane, this time, lashed the flesh beneath his trousers, so violent was the kick of his legs that he was propelled forward. The grip on his neck was released, and he found himself on the floor against the dais. Through the mist of his flowing tears he saw Mr Newman’s hand righting the chair, then saw his arm stretching out to its full extent and his finger point to it. The twin emotion of his fear rose to him; it swelled up, blotting out the fear completely for a moment; his eyes became red with his hate. Never taking his eyes from the master, he scrambled to his feet and stepped back on to the dais.
‘Taggart…come here!’
‘No!’ His voice was no longer a squeak—it was like no voice he was conscious of having used before. He stretched his thin neck out of his flaming body and looked across the desk at the approaching face.
‘No!’ It was the defiance of Dennis and Jimmie speaking, it was the indomitable spirit in the face of his two grandfathers, it was the stubborn independence of all the Taggart men, it was the cry against injustice, and its very sound brought courage to himself.
The face came slowly nearer, and as if anticipating the hand that would, in the next second, flash out and lift him through the air, his own hands flew to the desk, lifted the large, oblong, metal inkstand, with its two wells of red and black ink, and hurled it, with a strength drawn from a source other than his body, right into the large white face.
The gasps of twenty-two boys were like the moaning of the wind through the treetops. No sound came from the master; he was leaning back against the front desk, his hands held to his face, and his fingers were coloured with three coloured fluids…scarlet and crimson and black. The sight was dreadful, past description; it sapped the courage that was born of hate; and fear returned to Stephen. He leaped from the dais to the door and, tearing it open, fled along the corridor and out through the main glass door, beside which only a matter of minutes ago he had stood in happiness. He raced down the drive and on to the main road, on and on, until, gasping like a trapped animal, he found himself at the gate of the field, the same field he and Mr Rankine had crossed, and through whose hedge he had been dragged so happily earlier that morning.
Now, stumbling and running, he crossed the field and entered the wood. He was still running when he began to loosen the buttons of his trousers. Panting he climbed the bank that hid the little valley, and, rolling like someone drunk, he descended to the stream, where, with hardly a pause in his walking, he stepped out of his trousers and sat his lacerated buttocks in the gently flowing water. After a while, he staggered out and moved towards the clump of bracken, and putting his head on his arms he began to sob.
Chapter Thirteen: The Full Circle
To Maggie there was always something very satisfying in paying out the wages; not that she considered that the women had earned half of what she paid them, the satisfaction lay in that she, once Maggie Rowan who began at the very bottom, was now at the top . . . at least of this particular world.
There was left in the laundry only one other woman of the original group Maggie had started with, and she had risen to the position of forewoman. She was standing now at Maggie’s side, at the sorting-room table, calling out the amount due to each woman, and from time to time Maggie would glance up at a woman whose name was called and look her disapproval at, perhaps, the make-up or the clothes…some of them came to work as if they were going to a party!
‘Mrs Stringer…three pounds two,’ said the forewoman.
Three pounds two for an ironer! Maggie counted out the money and pushed it across the table. Before the war, it was five shillings a day, and offtakes off that. With their morning tea and their bus fares, they were very lucky if they cleared a pound a week.
‘That’s the lot. Except Mrs Fuller. Hers is three pounds fifteen and eight.’
‘Where is she? Why isn’t she here?’ asked Maggie.
‘She’s not feeling too good,’ said the forewoman.
‘What’s the matter with her?’
The forewoman gathered up the money. She wasn’t going to tell the bitch what was the matter with Beattie Fuller, she had a down on her already—sticking her on those machines! Although, she must give the devil her due, if she’d known what was wrong with Beattie she likely wouldn’t have shoved her down the wash-house. ‘She’s had a bilious attack.’
‘She’d better get home then, and put Mrs Tingley in her place. The machines should be empty now, anyway, for the cleaning.’ Bilious attacks had to be p
aid for if they took place in the laundry.
‘Tell her to go home? But she’s all right now.’
‘Then why isn’t she here?’
The forewoman hesitated, then said, ‘Well, she wanted to get a load in…a machine was empty and she didn’t want it to stand idle.’
Maggie looked straight at her forewoman. The woman was even too stupid to lie properly—she was covering up in some way for that Fuller piece. Trust any of them to trouble their heads about a machine standing empty! Without further comment she gathered up the bag and the time sheets from the table and went into her office.
The office was glass fronted and looked down the length of the laundry. Her eyes travelled expertly over the five-roller calender, over the single-roller Tullis, past the collar machine to the ironing tables, and then to the arch, through which she could see one of the washing machines and the figure of Beattie Fuller bending over it.
Maggie walked out of the office and up the calender room and into the wash-house. She made the pretence of examining one machine after another; she spoke to an old man who was loading one with sheets; and she stood in front of the other two that were in motion, clanking and rattling when the gears changed, revolving the drums first one way then the other; then her eyes casually came to rest on the fourth machine, and she walked slowly up to it.
Beattie Fuller’s head and shoulders were lost inside the drum. One arm was raking the cold water with a stick, and with a swish she brought the stick up and slapped the small square of linen on top of the wet bogie load of washing. And she gasped as she straightened herself; and Maggie said, ‘I hear you’re not well.’
Over the top of the load of washing Beattie looked at Maggie and said, ‘I’m all right.’
She had known for a long time now who Maggie was, and she guessed Maggie knew who she was. Nothing had been said, but more than once she had caught a look in Maggie’s eyes that spoke volumes, which she interpreted to mean that if hands weren’t so hard to get she would have short shrift. One thing was a constant puzzle to her, that Tom Rowan could have a sister like this.
‘If you’re sick you’d better go home.’
‘I’m not sick. I do my work, don’t I?’ She gave the bogie a jerk, and it swung slowly and heavily round, and with a great effort she got it moving towards the hydro.
As Beattie moved away, Maggie’s eyes became fastened on her hips, and a feeling akin to a thrill passed over her. She watched Beattie manoeuvre the bogie up to the hydro, and her eyes fell to the coarse apron covering Beattie’s stomach. It bulged slightly…But that could be the rubber apron beneath it. No, that was no rubber bulge…And she’d had a bilious attack. You were usually only sick up to three months, though…the sickness could be anything. Yet…She walked nearer and stood at the bogie as Beattie hauled the wet linen into the hydro. She watched her ram it down, and she was about to say, ‘You haven’t got it even, you’ll not get the machine to start packed like that,’ but what she said was, ‘Are you pregnant, Mrs Fuller?’
Beattie stopped lifting the linen and brought defiant eyes to meet Maggie’s. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant.’
Maggie drew in a long breath, then after a moment said, ‘Isn’t this work too heavy for you, then?’
‘When I can’t do it I’ll pack up.’
‘How far are you gone?’
The question sounded excited, even eager. It surprised Beattie, or the manner in which it was asked did, and she answered slowly, ‘Over four months.’
Over four months…Although Maggie still stared at Beattie she wasn’t seeing her, she was looking back and reckoning…from May. It was now the end of September…Over four months…Of course, it could be any man’s. But it wasn’t…it was Davie Taggart’s.
Without another word she left Beattie and, back in the office, she sat at her desk and a surge of satisfaction so sweet as to be sensual swept through her.
It was now many months since she last saw Ann. It was in her kitchen, where she had gone yet once again to fetch Stephen away, and Ann had dared to come out into the open and say, ‘Who’s to blame if he prefers me to you?’
She had thought it impossible for her hate of Ann to find a yet deeper level, but on that occasion it had bored into regions of her being not hitherto dreamed of.
The sensation that was warming her showed in her eyes; she felt them to be sparkling. Beattie Fuller was carrying David Taggart’s child! She was not mistaken, she felt as sure of it as she was of sitting there. David Taggart had begotten a child. What would Ann do when she knew that, for had she not, voicelessly, laid the blame for her childlessness on David? Here would be proof positive who was at fault…And Christopher had threatened what he would do if she spoke! Her lips formed into a mirthless smile. What would he say to this? Would he try to hush it up to save his precious Ann? God! What did men see in her, anyway? Her father…David…Christopher…and…She would not even think her son’s name. Anyway, one of them at least had grown tired and taken unto himself another woman. And what a woman! Oh, it was many years since she felt as she was feeling at this moment; not since her son was born had she glowed like this.
The phone on her desk rang, and she lifted it, and when the voice spoke she smiled and said, ‘Oh, yes, Mr Maitland Byrnes, this is Mrs Taggart speaking.’
She listened, her elbow resting on the desk. Then the smile vanished and she rose to her feet, her mouth agape. And when Mr Maitland Byrnes asked, ‘Hallo! Are you there?’ she brought her lips together with a snap, and said, ‘I don’t believe it. Stephen wouldn’t throw an inkwell at anyone. Let alone a master.’
‘But, Mrs Taggart, I can assure you he did. And not only the inkwells, but the metal stand with them. The master is now at the hospital having his eyebrow stitched.’
‘Stitched?’
‘Yes, stitched!’
‘What have you done with Stephen?’
‘What have I done with Stephen?’ Mr Maitland Byrnes’ tone was very unlike the usual suave one Maggie was accustomed to. ‘I have done nothing with him, as yet. The young man thought it best to fly after he had made his attack.’
‘You must be mad,’ said Maggie.
‘Madam!’
As the syllables vibrated along the wires, Maggie thought of what Christopher had said about this man and she knew his judgement to be right. She had known it then, though not for worlds would she have admitted it. She glared into the mouthpiece, and her tone too was unlike the one she kept for Mr Maitland Byrnes. ‘I know my boy, and he wouldn’t have done such a thing unless he was driven to it.’
‘If you know your boy so well, are you aware that he played truant this morning? And just before lunch he marched into Mr Newman’s room and coolly stated the fact.’
After a time during which Maggie held the receiver away from her as if afraid of what next would issue from it, she said again, ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Then you had better come here and meet the twenty-two witnesses of the scene, Mrs Taggart.’ He paused. ‘You will understand that I cannot possibly have the boy back here.’
Again there was a pause. ‘When I took him I told you we were accustomed to receive boys only from homes which had a certain social status, and I fear now that in breaking the rule in your case I have laid up trouble for myself. What are the parents of those boys to think?…And then there’s the master. It’s yet to be seen whether he makes a case of this…’
Maggie banged the receiver down, and her mind acted so naturally under the shock that she cried aloud, ‘To hell with you, and the master!’
Without pausing to lock up her desk or to give any instruction to her forewoman, she whipped her hat and coat from the peg and put them on as she ran out of the laundry to her latest acquisition, a two-seater car. She sped out of the laundry yard and through the town and up the hill without giving a thought to any traffic regulation; and she had barely brought the car to a standstill before she was out of it and in the house.
Christopher, after a good lunch, was lying
back in an armchair smoking. He, too, liked Fridays. It was funny, but on Fridays he had the best dinner of the week…Mrs Overmeer seemed to go out of her way to please him on this day. And while he was eating he would often fancy he was back with his mother. He’d had a pot pie today, every bit as good as his mother could make. ‘I cook her for four hours, and she’s got all the gravy nice through her.’ That’s what Mrs Overmeer said when she brought his dinner in. All smiles she was, not like when Maggie was at the table; then she was as stiff as her apron.
Only one thing was troubling him as he half dozed, and then it was but vaguely…Stephen hadn’t come home for dinner. Knowing his mother wouldn’t be in, he had likely nipped off to Ann’s. Well, he’d tip the wink to Mrs Overmeer not to say anything, and Maggie would be none the wiser.
‘Where is he?’
Startled, he looked up into Maggie’s face. ‘Who? What’s up?’
‘Stephen.’
‘Stephen?’ He pulled himself to his feet
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maggie went into the hall, calling for Mrs Overmeer, and Christopher followed her, saying, ‘Look, what’s up?…I tell you he isn’t here. Perhaps he’s gone to…to your mother’s, or having his dinner at school. You know he’s always wanted to.’
Maggie looked down on her husband, and her neck worked in and out like a bellows as she said, ‘He’s struck a master with an inkstand and split his head open. And he played truant this morning.’
Christopher made no comment on this statement, but he continued to stare up at Maggie as if she had gone mad; and he looked prepared to humour her by listening to her gibberish.
‘Are you stupid altogether? Don’t you hear what I’m saying?’
Maggie Rowan Page 24
