The Menagerie

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘He breaketh open a shaft from where men sojourn.

  They are forgotten by the feet that passeth by.’

  Already they would be forgotten in the hectic jollification in Durham today, for those nearest and dearest to the dead would not be there, while for the rest, Life must be lived. The latter either would already have got over their particular sorrow or it was yet to come.

  His memory having touched on Pam, a licence forbidden it except in the dead of the night, do what he might now he could not press her away into temporary oblivion. He felt her near him—it was as if his arms had just released her—and the gnawing ache and emptiness rushed upon him again and brought him to his feet. He began to move about the scullery continuing the job he had been on with, that of trying to bring some semblance of tidiness into the muddle of crockery, pans and food; but suddenly the ache became unbearable and he tore out and up the stairs to his room. Yet once inside, he could not immediately indulge his personal feelings, for the unmade bed, the dust and untidiness, shouted at him and he stood looking about him like a bewildered stranger. He put his hands on his head and muttered words unintelligible even to himself; then dropping onto the side of the bed he said quietly, as if he were reasoning with another person, ‘This can’t go on. You’ll go off your head. If that woman doesn’t come you’ll have to get somebody.’ Then, from the depths of his tortured self, the voice that was forever crying ‘Pam! Pam!’ came tearing up through his being to the surface, and with her name on his lips he turned and buried his head in the pillow, and with his hands gripping their fill of feathers he writhed until with a gasp he drew in a great breath, then lay still.

  When after some time he rose from the bed, he went and stood near the window. He could look out today without any fear of being seen, for the street was deserted. He stared at the cottages opposite, and his eyes went to Willie’s door. Of the losses he had sustained in the past weeks that of Willie was not the least. Willie’s death had left a soreness behind that was not present in the miss of his father or of Jack, for Willie had loved him. The word sounded unmanly and strange, yet he knew it to be true. And the feeling Willie’s loss had left on him was also akin to betrayal, for had he not gone off on that particular day he would undoubtedly have been with him and the deputy. Mrs Macintyre had passed him in the street the other day without as much as a nod; a cut which was like a slap in the face. She, too, thought he should be where Willie was now. It would have been no use telling her he wished to God he was; that he envied the dead their peace, their release from responsibility. No more had they to strive to get through a day, then strive with equal intensity to seek oblivion at night. Why, he asked of the empty street, should he have been picked out to shoulder the dead weight he now carried? Hadn’t he the right of a man to make his own life? What had he done that everything should have gone wrong for him?

  As if in answer, there came into his line of vision the figure of Jessie. She was not dressed in her best, for she was returning from the shop, yet her clothes were not the drab garments he associated with her. His immediate reaction at the sight of her was to step back into the shadow, but he checked it, for the curtains were drawn almost together, he could not be seen, or his reactions noticed. If, prior to his return home, he had stopped to dissect his feelings about Jessie, he would have said they consisted mainly of pity mingled with remorse for having hurt her; but now the sight of her evoked neither pity nor remorse, what he felt was resentment, keen resentment against her. He did not remember the years of her devotion, but he remembered her look when she confronted him under the lamp and laid the blame for Aunt Lot’s behaviour at his door. It could have been yesterday that it happened, so fresh in his mind was her scorn of him. As he watched her go indoors he thought, Well, she’s got her own back all right. She must be crowing and thinking differently about her mother’s tracts now: ‘As ye sow so also shall ye reap.’ I’ve proved that one for her. Yet she herself had played fast and loose with Willie, if all tales were true. Faint snatches of conversation overheard came back to him. Jessie Honeysett was going strong with the minister, and Ma Macintyre had gone for her. The minister, they had said, was a catch in a lifetime for the likes of Jessie. And he was a fine fellow an’ all.

  He remembered the minister. They had knelt side by side, but for different reasons, more than once during those dreadful days, but he had not thought of him then in connection with Jessie. Now he thought maliciously, He’ll look like her son, not her man.

  A cry from downstairs brought him to the door, and when he reached the landing Lottie was at the foot of the stairs crying, ‘Larry! Larry! It’s Betty. She’s something stuck in her throat—it’s choking her.’

  He stilled the retort ‘That’s the best thing that could happen’ and going down the stairs none too hastily he went into the kitchen, and there he saw the child really choking. She was blue in the face and gasping for breath. From the front room came his mother’s agitated cries: ‘Tip! Tip her…up…upside down.’

  He had never yet touched the child—to him it was a repulsive thing, something not quite human. It was as much as he could do to make himself look at it now. Its face was swelling, and in another few minutes it would undoubtedly be gone. He looked coldly down onto the struggling child and repeated to himself, ‘This is the best thing that could happen,’ and stepping in front of Lottie, with his arm outstretched, he stopped her from picking it up, and said with strange quietness, ‘Get a glass of water.’

  Even by the time she came back it would be too late.

  The child’s gasping and choking were horrible, and he could not bear to look at it for one moment longer. And he was turning from the sight of it when his mother’s voice came at him. It came with the force of a blow in his back, seeming to come from just behind him, and the words were almost coherent: ‘Pick the child up—do you hear me?’

  He swung swiftly round and looked across the passage to see her standing on her feet, clinging on to the foot of her bed. The wild look in her eyes bored into him across the distance, frightening him, as big as he was, and as swiftly again he turned to the pram and whipping the child up he held it by its feet, as he had seen her do with Gracie when a baby, given to convulsions. The surprise at seeing his mother on her feet was forgotten for a moment, for the child, after holding its breath for what seemed an age to him, made a great hawking sound, reminiscent of an old man, and out of its mouth spurted a hard crust of bread, the remains of Lottie’s pacifier.

  Lottie, rushing back up the passage, gave another cry, but it was the sight of Jinny on her feet again that caused it. The glass tipped and fell to the floor and she let it lie there—Jinny took precedence and the needs of the child were forgotten for the moment. She rushed into the room to her sister, crying, ‘Oh, Jinny! Oh, Jinny! You’re up. Eeh, it’s a miracle.’

  ‘Help me back.’ Jinny’s speech was thick, and as she clung on to the bed with Lottie clutching at her in clumsy assistance, she said, ‘Bring the child. Go on…bring it.’

  Before Jinny was half settled in the bed Lottie excitedly rushed to do her bidding. She came into the kitchen, laughing and crying the words at the same time: ‘Everything will be all right now.’ Then she stopped, pushing the tears of her mixed emotions up her cheeks with the back of her hand. Larry was nursing the bairn…he had it in his arms. ‘Eeh, Larry,’ she said quietly, ‘that’s the first time I’ve seen you nurse her.’

  ‘Be quiet, and pick that glass up, and get a cloth for that water.’

  ‘Yes, Larry…Jinny wants her. It’s wonderful, she was standing…All right, I’m going.’ She dashed out of the room, exclaiming as she went, ‘Eeh, it’s wonderful.’

  Larry moved awkwardly towards the pram. The child was breathing evenly now, and as he looked down on it, it turned its head slowly and pushed its face into his shirt until he could feel the soft warmth of it coming through to his skin, then the small fist opened and shut as it clutched at the air, and he noticed that the nails were dirty, and not on
ly the nails but the skin between the fingers held dirt too.

  Jinny’s voice came again from the bedroom. ‘Bring her in here,’ it said.

  Larry hesitated a moment before deliberately putting the child into the pram again; then going out of the room without once raising his eyes to the bed across the passage, he went into the scullery and said to Lottie, ‘Go and tell my mother you’ll bring her in directly; she’s going to have a bath.’

  Lottie went out exclaiming excitedly, and Larry, going to the roller towel on the back of the door, rubbed his face vigorously with it, and in rubbing the sweat away he tried to erase the memory of the past few minutes.

  The preservation of life is strong in all pitmen, for they are consistently trying to prolong it in themselves and often fighting a battle to preserve it for others; yet he had come near to taking a life in that he had made no effort to save it. But for his mother’s voice the child would now be dead. He did not think, as he had done a few moments earlier, it would have been better so. His mind had shut down temporarily on the trial the child’s existence was to the household and to himself in particular; he only knew that there was a strong feeling of relief in him that his conscience had escaped carrying this further burden.

  The woman came on Monday. She came while Larry was at work, and it lay to Lottie to show her round. The woman looked long and hard at Jinny. She looked long and hard at the child. She took a cup of tea that Lottie made for her and she laughed with her; then she left, leaving a message for Larry. The message was: ‘Tell him it would be too much for me. It’s me back; I couldn’t see to her.’

  Chapter Fifteen: Rancour of Remorse

  The summer had passed. It had been a wonderful summer, everyone felt there had not been one like it for years, but there were those who said they would be glad to see it snow, and they thanked goodness that the nights were cold now which entailed…a big fire.

  Whereas a hard winter is often said to kill the germs of illnesses, the rarer event of a hot summer is thought to multiply them. Bill Catley, looking down on Larry where he sat in the first-aid post, said, ‘It’s been the heat, man; it’s been too much…underneath and on top an’ all. You can’t stand a double dose all the time. Why, I felt pretty much the same meself last week. How do you feel now?’

  ‘Not so bad.’

  ‘You go back home and turn in.’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘All right be damned! You look like a corpse. And it isn’t the first time you’ve been like this lately. You go and see the doctor afore he comes and sees you. That’s the damned funny thing about it: a third of wor blokes what fill the surgeries are swinging the lead, as brazen as brass they are about it an’ all. Why, man, I’d be ashamed. They didn’t stoop to owt like that in my young days…if we were bad we had to work it off, for it was work or starve then. But now…why, man, they divn’t knaw they’re born. And I told them at the Lodge the other night they’d be sorry. It’s the swing of the pendulum, I said. It’s been swinging t’other side for a long time but it’s bound to follow the law of gravity and swing back. And who’ll be acting as its earth pull? I said. Why, the very ones who are filling the doctors’ surgeries now for certificates. There I go, ranting on; but there’s some of them gets me goat. Get yersel up, Larry, and gang hyem and take a few days off; I can vouch for you all right. An’ don’t you be a bloomin’ fool. You think over what I was saying to you yesterday. With your headpiece you’d do much more good up top knocking sense into some of the hotheads. I mentioned you to Davy Powell last night and he said to look him up. He could give you a push, could Davy.’

  Larry got to his feet, wiping the sweat from his face as he did so. ‘It’s good of you, Bill, but I’m not the man you want for that job. There’s dozens already in the Union breaking their necks to climb. Count me out; I’ve enough troubles.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Larry.’

  ‘Aye, I might be, but you can only fight for something if you think it’s worth fighting for.’

  ‘Why, man, don’t say that…we’re all in this together, no matter what the hotheads say.’

  Larry, slowly buttoning up his coat, said quietly, ‘I’m in it because I must, that’s all. If I could make as much at any other job within twenty miles I’d leave the pit tomorrow.’

  On his way to the door he nodded to the first-aid attendant, saying, ‘Thanks, Barney.’ Then, turning to where Bill stood watching him, he said, ‘Thanks all the same, Bill, and I’ll try and get in tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s all right, Larry. You take it easy.’ The old man watched him leave, and then turning to Barney, he said confidentially, ‘He’s two different kinds of a fool, and if he doesn’t come up top soon he’ll go up top.’ He patted his forehead. ‘You mark my words.’

  A drizzle was falling as Larry walked along the main road, and he took off his cap to let the rain cool his head. Bill had said take it easy. That’s what he wanted to do, take it easy; say, To hell with everything—with work and worry and feeling, especially feeling. What was going to be the end of it all? Marry Clara? He let out a harsh laugh that startled a passer-by who turned a head in his direction.

  Clara was the third housekeeper he had had in four months, and Clara was bent on marrying him; indeed she hardly bothered to cover up her aims. Every day he heard of the offers she had received to look after Mr So-and-So who lived alone. She had been a widow for eighteen months, and her desire once more to become a wife would have been laughable had it not also been frightening. Even though he would not admit to himself that he was scared of Clara, nevertheless he was. Once or twice lately he had had the strong urge to go and get drunk, really blind, but what he might do or say under the influence both of the drink and of Clara had deterred him.

  He was feeling now that some of the present strain would ease if he could go in and say ‘Pack and get out!’ But should he do so it would mean starting all over again to find someone else. If it had meant just housekeeping for himself he knew he wouldn’t have had much bother, but the three inhabitants of the house seemed to frighten off any but those who were badly pushed for a home, or those who saw in him, as Clara had done, a future husband. But afraid of her or not, there was one thing he was determined to have out with her as soon as he felt fit enough, and that was the bills. It was costing just twice as much to run the house now as it had done in his mother’s managing days. Clara was a good enough cook, and he couldn’t complain about the food but the amount of stuff she ordered was colossal. When, a fortnight ago, he had tentatively approached the subject she had said, ‘Well, I can’t do on less; Lot eats like a horse. She must be carrying a regiment.’ But what did it matter? All he wanted at the present moment was to get his head down.

  He went into the Galloping Fawn; and calling for a double whisky he drank it in one go; then made his way home, telling himself he would sweat this out.

  He was never afterwards sure what made him stop at the scullery window. A broad slit of light was showing where the curtains had not been pulled together, and through it he caught a glimpse of two figures. They could have been Clara and Lottie, but something about the second figure’s height and width showed him it wasn’t Aunt Lot. The woman was short and fat and not unlike his mother. It was this resemblance that made him pause. Then it was the keen activity in the scullery that drew his attention. A large attaché case stood on the narrow scullery table and into it Clara was packing food. He saw her put in numerous tins and bags, then he watched her stand on a chair and bring from the back of a high shelf on which a conglomeration of articles was usually stored a bottle of sauce and another of pickles. So that was it! No wonder the bills were high.

  For a moment he checked a swift move towards the door. If he exposed the little game she would go, and then where would he be? Rid of her, he told himself. But when he went to push open the door he found to his amazement that it was locked; so taking his knuckles he rapped twice on it. Following this, however, not a whisper or a sound came to him, and not t
ill after he had knocked twice again did he hear Clara’s voice, and now it came from the direction of the kitchen: ‘Wait a minute, can’t you! What’s all your hurry?’

  Clara’s surprise on opening the door was quite genuine. ‘Larry! You…what’s the matter?’

  He did not answer her, but pushing her to one side went straight through the scullery and into the kitchen. The woman was sitting there with the case by her side. But Clara, forcing her way past him, said brightly, ‘This is me sister from Gateshead—you haven’t met—she just dropped in. You’re not looking too good…you shouldn’t have gone. I told you. Well’—she indicated a chair—‘sit yourself down; I’ll get you something.’

  Her tone implied two things: she was evidently nervous, but she was mistress of the house.

  Larry looked from her to the woman who was smiling inanely at him, then with a swift movement he bent to lift the case from her side up on to the table, but its weight checked his swing and in a flash the woman’s hands were over his.

  ‘Here, what you doing? Leave me case alone.’

  Clara, too, now had her hands on the case. ‘Put it down!’ she said. ‘That’s a nice way to treat my visitor. Well, I must say! What’s up with you? Look, leave go.’

  ‘You leave go.’ With a sweep of his arm he knocked them both aside, and lifting the case on to the table he opened it.

  ‘Those are my groceries,’ said the woman indignantly.

  ‘Yours!’ He turned on her. ‘Yours? What I’ve paid for, and have been doing for weeks.’

  ‘I can have you up for that. You be careful what you’re saying.’ Clara was now playing the part of the wronged woman; her prim neatness was bristling.