Groaning audibly, he went to the pictures, and there, watching the effects of a sizzling sky on a stretch of yellow sand and a pair of uninhibited lovers, he wished he could have gone back a month, for then, in comparison, life had been an easy uncomplicated affair. There might have been Kate Sparks and others like her, but they had aroused no battling tendencies; their impact had not touched his character or his heart. As his mind spoke this word, the sizzling lady on the screen suddenly burst into song. ‘Climb up the Garden Wall,’ she sang to an opposite number who, apparently, had been getting along quite well without having to attempt this Herculean feat.
Tripe! Rooney stood up, pushed through a row of glue-eyed, hypnotised Sunday escapists, and came out into the dark streets again. But he did not make his way to The Anchor. Instead, hoping to evade an encounter with Ma, he returned home, for he judged that she would still be at church. Arriving in the yard and seeing no light in the kitchen or the living room, he felt he was in luck. But between closing the door and groping for the switch he was thrown into a state almost of agitation by the sound of Ma’s voice coming either from the hall or from Grandpa’s room. That Grandpa was also in the thick of it he soon knew, for the old man’s treble was at its highest.
‘Tell her to get out, would you! You can tell nobody to get out of here. The house is in my name, on the rent book. You’re the one that’ll get out…And me furniture…don’t think you’ll get that. Or me insurance policy either—it’s hers. Ah! I’ve put a sneck on your neb, me lady. You wait and see.’
‘You old devil!’
‘Old devil, am I? I can hear you, I’m not so deaf.’
‘Be quiet! Go on in…Yes, yes, go on now. I’ll be there in a minute.’
Rooney was surprised to hear Nellie’s voice—he could just hear it and that was all, it was so quiet and level.
There was the sound of a door closing, then Ma saying, ‘You little liar! You’ve tried to hoodwink him, telling him you’ve had money left you. Who have you got that I don’t know of who would leave you money? Nobody…Well, I told him…’
‘Yes, you would. You told him it was old Brummell, didn’t you? But let me inform you, Grace, you are mistaken.’
‘I’m not mistaken. Don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes—I saw his face when I asked him where you were. And you seem to forget you told me yourself he’d tried his hand.’
‘I know I did, but that was years ago. But I tell you again, it isn’t him…Brummell! I wouldn’t let that man within a mile of me.’
For no accountable reason Rooney felt his spirits rising, for the words, so quietly and softly spoken, held the quality of truth, and that this had got over, even to Ma, was revealed in her next question.
‘Are you denying it’s a man?’
During the long pause that followed, Rooney’s spirits remained stationary; then, as Nellie’s voice, still quiet, came to him, they took a rapid downward descent.
‘It would be stupid to deny anything, for you would believe what you want to believe. Yes, there’s a man. Are you satisfied? I’m in love with a man. Now that will give you something to rake over in your twisted mind! I’m in love. A state you’ve never been in in your life, Grace. That’s why you could never bear to see me happy. The happiest time in your life was when I was in the depths, when nobody noticed me, only as an object of pity. Oh, I’ve known almost your every thought and mood for years. You hated my mother because she got the man you wanted. You didn’t love him, but you thought he had money. What you did to me through Tim was in your estimation, rough justice, and you would never have taken me into this house in the first place had it not been for the few pounds that went with me and which you claimed in lieu of my keep. But what does it matter now?…Yes, there is a man. I’m in love, I have money, and there IS A MAN!’
The silence descended again, and Rooney had a picture of them facing each other, their minds fighting without words through their feelings. Then Nellie’s voice again, a little louder now, saying, ‘“Think on these things.” Saint Paul to the Philippians, chapter four, verse eight. I remember you stopping me going with the rest to the sands because I couldn’t repeat that verse, word for word. It’s ironical when you think of it, you of all people to make me learn that. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there…”’
He heard her step on the stairs and her voice getting fainter…
As he let himself quickly and quietly out again, a laugh followed him like a husky echo, but full of composure, so full of composure that it transcended Ma’s loud howl of raging words. But Ma, nor nobody else, could rattle her any more for, as she had said, she was in love, she had money, and a man.
Feeling more depressed than he had ever felt in his life, he went to The Anchor.
Chapter Seven: The Letters
It was on Monday evening that Ma showed Rooney the flowers.
‘Look,’ she said, before he’d hardly got in the door. She was pointing to a large cellophane-wrapped bunch of tousled-headed chrysanthemums lying on top of the sewing machine. ‘They came for her this afternoon. “Does Miss Nellie Atkinson live here?” the boy said…Miss Nellie Atkinson!’ Ma’s chest expanded. ‘Look, a card on them, too. And a letter.’ She jerked her thumb towards the mantelpiece. ‘That came at dinner time…Do you want any more evidence?’
Rooney’s eyebrows seemed to spring apart. ‘Me want evidence? I don’t want evidence—it’s nothing to do with me.’
‘But you don’t believe she’s up to anything, do you? Oh, I know. I wasn’t born yesterday, nor the day before that. I know all about it; she played on your feelings and she told you such a tale…’
‘She did no such thing. And look here, Mrs Howlett. This is none of my business, it’s no concern of mine, and I don’t want to have any say in the matter. And what’s more, I don’t want to hear anything more about it…’
‘You needn’t shout, Rooney.’ Ma sounded distinctly hurt.
‘I’m sorry, I’m forgetting myself. But once and for all, I want nothing to do or say in…the little…in her affairs.’
‘Very well.’ Ma’s head wagged. ‘I was only pointing out to you for your own good. I know you, and you could be taken…’
‘Damn it all!’
‘Mr Smith!’
He was past being affected by her indignation; he was disturbed, upset, all to pot. As he put it, he didn’t know where he was, except that he was in this damned house.
He went upstairs, changed, and went out without his tea.
The following morning, Ma brought another letter in from the hall and placed it conspicuously against the clock. But she needn’t have done that; he knew who it was for, although he did not look towards it.
The same thing happened on Wednesday. But on Thursday morning Ma threw the letter on to the table, almost to the side of his plate, and he had to check himself from exclaiming, ‘Now, look here!’ But he and Ma were barely speaking, and he was beginning to wonder which was causing the greater strain, listening to her or not listening to her. As for Nellie, almost the same situation existed there. On Tuesday evening she had come out of her door just as he was coming out of his. She was wearing a different hat and coat and her face was done up. She had said, ‘Hallo’ and he had answered briefly, ‘Hallo.’ Then she had stood before him, saying, ‘Grandpa’s had a wonderful day. You know where we’ve been?’ She had not finished, but looking into his face she had smiled, a funny little smile, and added, ‘Oh, is that how it is? I’m in your bad books now.’
‘Why do you say that? Why should you be, it’s got nothing to do with me?’
‘I know, I know…it’s got nothing to do with you. Nothing’s got anything to do with you. Look, Rooney.’ She had strained her face up to his and whispered, ‘I’d like to talk to you.’
As he looked down on her, he co
uld hear her voice coming through the days and nights as it had been doing since Sunday, saying, ‘I’m in love, I have money and a man.’ And to her request, he replied briskly, ‘I’m busy, I’m seeing a pal.’
She had let him pass and precede her downstairs, and in the street he had protested volubly to himself. It wasn’t fair, her being able to put him in the wrong like that. Looking as if he’d hit her. What did she want? She’d got everything now, she’d said so herself. And then those letters and flowers. The bloke must be an unusual type to send her flowers, either old, like Brummell, or…a foreigner. There were dozens of white women married to Arabs an’ such. God in heaven! what was he thinking about? And anyway, what did it matter to him what she did? Or how many letters or flowers she received.
Now the letter was lying by his elbow, and his eyes slid sideways to it. The writing, like everything about this affair of hers, was odd. It was like script: Miss Nellie Atkinson…71 Filbert Terrace…South Shields…
Why is it that out of the morass of mannerisms peculiar to an individual one scarcely perceivable motion should impinge itself on the eye of the onlooker and from its small unconnected self create its creator?
Rooney sat staring, fascinated at the envelope, and slowly he was telling himself that if what he was thinking was right there was something fishy here. What did it mean? What could it mean? He threw his mind back to the first time he had seen Nellie take a pencil and a pad from her pocket and write ‘Lodger’ and go da-da with the pencil, making two dots after the word. He could remember thinking along the lines that it looked a very precise and definite action from such a nondescript person. And there staring at him from the envelope were two dots after Atkinson, two after Terrace, and two after Shields. He knew there was a correct way of addressing an envelope. There was a comma at the end of each line, and at the finish you put a full stop. There might be two people who would put two full stops at the end, but would they do so at the end of each line?
He left a good part of his breakfast uneaten, and in a bewildered state went out to work. It just didn’t make sense. Why should she write letters to herself? Yet why not, if it was going to make Ma wild and give her something to think about?…But there were the flowers. Well, if she had sent the letters, she could have sent them an’ all. But what about the fellow?
During the following hours he had to stand a lot of chaff from Bill because of his more than usual silence. Bill had already made the events of Saturday night into an epic; the whole depot knew that Rooney, that quiet-looking chap with the sandy hair, had nearly killed a bloke in The Anchor because the bloke had asked him the ordinary conversational question, Was he keeping a woman? And the journey home through the streets Bill had turned into a rip-roaring pantomime in which Rooney had become a cross between a ballet dancer and a mountain goat.
But, make what effort Bill might, the pantomime stopped at the door of ‘71’, for Rooney refused to be drawn as to what he could remember once he had got inside the house.
All this had happened six days ago, but Bill was still playing on it, and by five o’clock Rooney was hating the sound and sight of him. For not even under Danny’s cautionary admonition of ‘Let up now’ had he ceased to tease and mickey him. He had teased and mickeyed him before, but with no adverse effect; in fact he had enjoyed it, for better than most he could stand a laugh against himself. But the subject of Saturday night, like a constantly scratched pinprick, was turning into a sore, and it was all he could do not to round on Bill and cry, ‘Shut your mouth else I’ll shut it for you!’ So by five o’clock he was glad to escape from the depot, in case he should create another epic.
He was walking out of the gate with Albert, and Albert was confirming his own views by saying, ‘You stand too much. It’s your own business, I know, but if he doesn’t let up you want to let him have it,’ when a voice to the side of them said, ‘Hallo.’
‘Oh, hallo.’ With some surprise Rooney looked at Jimmy.
‘Just finished?’
‘Aye. Yes.’
‘I’m going your way.’
‘Oh…well…This is me pal, Albert Morton. This is…I don’t know your name, just Jimmy.’
‘Fairbairn.’
The men nodded, and a few yards farther along the road Albert cut off from them saying, ‘So long. I’ll be seeing you.’
‘So long,’ they both answered. And then continued in silence for some way, until Jimmy, turning to Rooney, said, ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking but I’m not here by chance, Rooney.’
‘No?’ It was a question.
‘No. I want to ask a favour of you…It’s about Nellie.’
My God! Rooney did not voice this expression, but waited.
‘I suppose it’s none of my business and I should let things slide, but I just can’t. The fact is they are determined to get to the bottom of this affair of hers. I won’t say I’m not intrigued myself, but there’s a great difference in that to spying. The fact is they’re having her followed.’
‘Followed? Who by?’ Rooney’s step had slowed.
‘Oh, the great moraliser, Dennis. Also Ma is determined to get into her room. Nellie has kept it locked since this business started. There’s been a great rake round for keys. Oddly enough Nellie’s is the only bedroom door that’s got one…You’ll be wanting to know what all this has got to do with you.’
Rooney pushed his hair under his cap. ‘Yes, I am a bit.’
‘Well, it’s just this…I want you to tip her off. It’s impossible for me to catch her, but you’re on the spot…Would you?’
After a moment’s pause he said, ‘Yes…aye, I’ll put her wise.’ There was no need for him to debate about this. The thought of that long, slimy bloke spying on her brought on him the urge to hit out again. ‘What’ll I tell her…just what you said?’
‘Yes. You can’t do anything else. And tell her to burn anything of importance.’
Aye, thought Rooney, that would be the main thing. It wouldn’t matter if they found out if there was a fellow and who he was, but it did matter if they found out that the letters didn’t come from a fellow at all…that’s if they didn’t…Oh, he didn’t know what to think.
‘I’ve always been fond of Nellie, and she’s had a hard time of it. I don’t need to improve your knowledge of Ma, do I? It’s been pretty grim watching Nellie going downhill these past few years, especially when one remembers what she used to be like…in spite of Ma. But now she’s taken on a new lease of life.’ Jimmy gave a deep chesty chuckle. ‘Sin, to use Ma’s term, can be very rejuvenating, don’t you think?’
Rooney did not offer his opinion on this but asked, ‘When does he intend to follow her?’
‘That I don’t really know. It could be tonight or any time. It was May, my wife, who told me about it at lunchtime. They’ve decided it isn’t Brummell. All I know is that Dennis has appointed himself Ma’s lieutenant and proposes to go there straight from the office and follow Nellie when she leaves the house. Apparently she goes out between half-past five and seven. It’s a dirty business and it’s got my back up. If she doesn’t want to say who the man is that’s her affair, and under the circumstances I shouldn’t imagine she’ll want to divulge who he is, for he’s almost sure to be an old fellow or somebody married who will be as anxious as she is to keep the thing dark.’ Jimmy paused. ‘It puzzles me though how she has met either type with enough money to float her in the style she’s adopting, for she wouldn’t open her mouth to a man, not even those in the Literary Society. It was myself who got her to join that, unknown to Ma, of course. I happened to go in one evening and she was reading, for a change, and we got talking, and I told her I thought she’d find it interesting. At least she’d find some companionship there. I used to be in it before I joined the Archaeological Society. I know all the members there and not one of them fits the picture.’
Rooney liked this fellow. Like Nellie, he felt he was the best of the bunch, but it perturbed him to find that even he was creating, to a certai
n extent, the…the bashing feeling within him. Discussion in any form of Nellie’s morals was erupting a new and decidedly disturbing side of himself which he did not want or like but could not disregard.
‘You don’t mind me asking this of you?’
‘No. No, not at all.’
‘I’m glad…Do you think they’re a queer lot…Ma and them?’
‘I do, damn queer.’ This was said so quickly and definitely as to cause Jimmy to laugh outright.
‘After thirteen years, you’ve either had to get used to them or do a bunk. I myself don’t happen to be one of Ma’s favourites. One thing of deep regret to my mother-in-law is that I’ve given her no grandchildren.’ He inclined his head towards Rooney confidentially. ‘Believe me, I’ve purposely refrained from this indulgence, fearing that heredity would out and I’d be confronted with miniature Ma’s for the next twenty years or so. My sense of humour, which I’ve had to cultivate assiduously as a shield against Ma, could not have stood up to it.’
Rooney laughed. This Jimmy, he could see, was a fellow who could talk, and liked it, but he was a decent bloke all the same.
‘I’ll leave you here.’ Jimmy stopped before they reached the main thoroughfare. ‘If you can’t find the opportunity to have a word with her perhaps you would pop a note under her door. Would you?’
‘Yes, I suppose that would be the best thing,’ said Rooney, ‘for there’s not much chance of conversation there.’
‘All right then, I’ll leave it to you. And thank you…it’s good of you to bother.’
‘It’s no bother. So long.’
‘So long,’ said Jimmy.
Although she couldn’t hope to go on indefinitely keeping everything up her sleeve, the thought that the truth might be brought to light by that individual, Dennis, maddened Rooney. Not that it was any business of his, it wasn’t, but the least he could do was to put her on her guard. His step quickened, as much as he told himself from a desire to keep warm as to get home, for it was beginning to freeze hard.
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