The Man Who Cried

by Catherine Cookson

  Hilda had risen to her feet and now she looked towards where Florrie was also making to rise and with a tremble in her voice, she said, ”I suppose you’re going too ?”

  Florrie became still and, looking straight at Hilda, said in a quiet voice, ”Not if you want me to stay.”

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  ”Please yourself.” As Hilda swung round and went fo precede her father out of the room, she looked full at Abel, who had not spoken since he had entered the sitting-room ten minutes before, and she seemed to bring him into the orbit of her small family as she said, ”It’s always the same, always.”

  He made no remark whatever because he couldn’t see how her statement refuted anything that had been said. It was as if she was expecting him to know the ins and outs of some past family situation.

  When he was alone in the room with Florrie he looked towards her. She was sitting well back in the couch, her eyes were cast downwards looking to where she was slowly moving the diamondstudded ring round and round the third finger of her left hand.

  He walked quietly towards the fire and stood with his back to it for some seconds before he said,

  ”She’s upset. It’s natural.” •••

  She raised her eyes to his. ”Yes, it’s natural.”

  ”Will you stay the night with her?” ;

  ”Yes, if she wants me to. But it’ll only be for the night . . .-Ir mean she’ll only need me tonight, she’ll be in control of herself” tomorrow.”

  ”You think so?” There was a note of surprise in his voice.

  ”Oh yes, yes.” She nodded slowly at him. ”I know so. Huh!” It was that small imitation of a laugh he had heard her use before. ”I always think that sounds so silly, I know so, yet from time to time I hear myself saying it. It sounds so pompous, so Godinspired, and I haven’t much time for God. . . . Are you like -•” She now waved her hand towards the door before adding, ”I mean, do you keep up a religion?”

  ”No.”

  ”Didn’t they manage to convert you ?” : «No_,, - ...... , . , .. ;,

  ”You must be a strong character.” •• •’•

  ”Just stubborn.” ’•’•’’

  The door opened and Hilda came in the room again and she began to talk immediately, with the same defensive ring in her tone. ”He doesn’t change, not in any way. You would have thought he would have bought a new suit, but no, he had to be himself and come in that old grey thing.”

  ”He’s not flush, you know that.” ”I would have given it to him if he had asked me.” >••

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  ”Oh, Hilda!” ’

  Now Abel saw a startling change in the tall, elegantly dressed Florrie. Using the same movement that had caught his attention in her own room, she swung herself up from the couch and seemed to tower over her sister as she said, ”Ask you for it ! You know he’s never asked either of us for anything, and under the circumstances he would have died rather than ask you for money for a suit to go to your husband’s funeral in. Talk sense.”

  ”That’s it. That’s it, start ! There’s a pair of you. Everything I do is wrong in your eyes, always has been.”

  ”There you’re wrong.” Florrie’s voice held a note of deep bitterness now. ”There’s not a pair of us, there’s a pair of you, because he spoilt you from the beginning, but since you were able to step out on your own, you’ve treated him like dirt, muck beneath your feet. Anyway, look ; I’m going, you don’t need me. If I stayed it would only end up in one holy row, and this is not the night for it.” Florrie’s voice now dropped to an even note as she added, ”Good-night. Like Dad said, if you want me I’ll be there.”

  As she walked towards the door leading into the hall, Abel had the desire to catch hold of her and say, ”Stay. Don’t go. Stay.” But then he warned himself it wasn’t his business. This was a family, this was their war, and by the sound of it, it had been going on for some time, and what he mustn’t do in this war either was to enlist in it. Oh no ! Oh no ! he mustn’t get entangled in this war; as he was in the other, so in this he must also be a conscientious objector.

  It was with the sound of the outer door closing that Hilda went to pieces, and in consternation Abel now watched her drop on to the couch, turn her head into the wing of it, and begin to cry.

  Embarrassed, he moved from the fireplace and stood near the head of the couch looking down on her, but he did not touch her.

  For almost five minutes she cried, not an anguished crying, just a quiet sobbing, and when eventually she lifted her head she blinked up to him through her tears and said, ”I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  ”Oh, it’s the best thing; it’ll do you the world of good. There’s nothing like a good cry for easing pain - special pain.” ”I feel so lost, so alone.” ”That’s natural; it’s early days yet.” She took her handkerchief and blew her nose, swept her hair

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  back from her brow, pulled her skirt well down to the sides of her calves, then said, ”Our Florrie’s hard. They both are.” i

  ”I wouldn’t say that.”

  ”You don’t know them.” Her rounded chin jerked upwards. ”They don’t care how they show you up, either of them; him like a tramp, and, and her with the life she leads.”

  ”We’re all individuals. There’s something in us that makes us take different roads.” His voice was very low now; in contrast, hers was high as she put in aggressively, ”But there are values to be considered. If you want to live a decent life you’ve got to live among decent people and stick to the rules, the laws, the laws of the church and -” Her voice now lowered as she stated, ”You’re f,,, on their side, aren’t you ? Because you don’t believe in religion of any kind, do you ?”

  ”No, not really. But I’m on nobody’s side, because it isn’t any of my business.”

  She stared at him for a full moment before asking quietly, and with some amazement in her tone,

  ”Don’t you believe that . . . that you suffer in an afterlife for the sins you commit in this one ?”

  He allowed himself to smile, then preceded his answer with a light ”Huh !” before he said, ”I’m afraid I don’t. What I do believe is that we punish ourselves for our misdeeds here. It’s circumstances and environment that make people do all kinds of things. What I do believe is that the mind, or the conscience, whatever you like to call it, has its own way of extracting payment.”

  ”Oh, that’s ridiculous!” Her indignation brought her to her feet. ”What about murderers and people like that ?”

  ”Well, if society doesn’t extract payment by hanging them or incarcerating them for life, the thing I was just talking about does the rest.”

  ”But how do you know ? How do you know that anyone is ever sorry for the terrible things he does ?”

  ”I don’t; but then again how can you tell what’s going on in my mind and how can I tell what’s going on in yours ? Nobody really knows what lies behind all the small talk and chatter. Nobody really knows what goes on in a man’s or woman’s mind in the small hours of the mornin’ when thought goes wild and the filth and beastliness of ages erupts and the . . .”

  He stopped suddenly. Her eyes were wide, there was even a slight look of fear on her face. He said hastily, ”I’m sorry; it’s a

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  deep subject. As you know I don’t do much talking but when I once start -” He smiled tentatively at her before ending, ”I’d better get to the youngster up aloft. I told him to go upstairs once Benny left the workshop” - he glanced at his watch - ”and that must have been all of two hours ago. . . . Will you be all right tonight?”

  ”I’ll be all right.” Her voice was low, wary.

  ”It’s a pity your sister didn’t stay.”

  ”Oh” - she shook her head - ”it’s just as well. We’ve never hit it off together. And anyway, I’ve got to get used to being on my own. But” - she paused a moment - ”I must admit I feel safer knowing you’re out there because there’s s
o many people on the road now. You never know -”

  She closed her eyes tightly and bowed her head, then gave it an impatient toss as she said, ”Oh, I’m sorry.”

  ”Oh, .you needn’t be sorry.” His tone was light. ”It’s as you say, you never know. I was a traveller for only a few weeks, but it was an education on the best way to keep your skin on your body because some of them would have even taken that if you hadn’t slept with one eye open.”

  She smiled weakly at him now; then leading the way into the kitchen, she said, ”Will you want anything before you go over ?”

  ”Oh no, not after that meal, thank you very much.”

  ”What. . . what about Dick?”

  ”Not for him either. If he isn’t sick tonight I’ll be surprised. Good-night now. Try not to worry.

  Have a hot drink and go to sleep.”

  ”Thank you, Abel; you’ve . . . you’ve been a great help to me, and I must say it, you’ve . . .

  you’ve given me more comfort than my own folk. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there.”

  ”Oh” - he nodded at her - ”somebody else would have turned up. You know what you’re always saying” - he now poked his head down towards her as if he were talking to a child - ”God provides.”

  Her face serious, she looked back into his eyes as she said, ”Yes, Abel, I know that, God provides.”

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  ”Dad.”

  ”Yes, what is it?” ’

  ”Benny’s actin’ funny these days.” ’ ’:>-

  ”Benny acts funny every day, you know that.” ”But this is a different funny, Dad. Before it was a nice funny, you know, you could laugh at him, but yesterday he was nasty and he said he was going to tell Mrs Maxwell that I had dodged Sunday school.”

  ”How did he know that if you didn’t tell him?” ”I didn’t tell him; but he must have heard Molly going for me because I wouldn’t go with her. And then today he said a funny thing, not laughin’

  funny.”

  ”Well, what was it that was not laughin’ funny ?” Dick screwed up his face as if thinking. ”Well, he said his mother said that I was aiming to sleep over in the house, an’ if I did she would come and do me one.”

  Abel straightened himself from where he had been looking into the little dressing-table mirror to adjust his tie and, pulling at the knot, he turned and looked down on Dick as he said, ”Have you ever told him you wanted to sleep over in the house ?”

  ”Why no, Dad, ’cos I never thought about sleepin’ in the house; I like it here. I wouldn’t ever want to sleep anywhere else.”

  Abel turned to the mirror again. He, too, had noticed a change in Benny over the past few months, ever since Mr Maxwell died. He had put it down to a bit of boyish jealousy of himself because now not only did he do the car repairs, but ran the whole yard with a hired man under him, at least the practical side of it, because Mrs Maxwell . . . Hilda saw to all the paper work, as she had done all along. Perhaps too he was jealous of the fact that she had allowed him to start doing pottery up here in his spare time.

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  During the past six months he had been attending night school twice a week in order to use the kiln. He wasn’t interested in the wheel for the turning out of pots and vases and such like but he had delved wholeheartedly into his one-time hobby of modelling animals, and some of his efforts after painting and glazing had turned out so good that he was hoping she might allow him to set up a separate workshop in the yard where her customers could see his efforts. But as yet, he had told himself, he should bide his time and wait for the right moment; she was very touchy about some things, time for instance. She didn’t like it to be wasted, not when she was paying him four pounds a week and a mechanic two pounds ten; even Benny’s fifteen shillings had to be accounted for by his time spent entirely on the bikes.

  Today there was on him the desire to be away from the place when she came back from her weekly visit to the cemetery, because she was nearly sure to ask him in for a cup of tea, and over it the talk would revolve around the business of the past week and the business of the forthcoming one. It wasn’t that he didn’t like discussing business or that he wanted to shun her company but of late he had become uneasy in her presence. . . . And he was well aware of the reason for it.

  He had also become uneasy in Florrie’s presence and he knew the reason for that too. He liked Florrie, but in a different way altogether from the way he liked Hilda. His feeling for Hilda was threaded with gratitude and a sort of compassion because he felt that behind her tight façade she was, as she herself had said on the night of the funeral, lonely and lost.

  Florrie had a different effect on him altogether. Florrie’s presence excited him; he thought of her when lying awake at night. She could in a way have been Alice; they were so different in all ways, yet so alike in their effect on him. She had called a few times during the past month, and each time had stopped and had a word with him in the yard. Only once since the night of the funeral had he been in her company inside the house. She had happened to call on a Saturday dinner-time for the purpose of telling Hilda that their father was ill and didn’t she think she should go and see him. How she was received whenever he wasn’t present he didn’t know, but it was evident to him that Hilda didn’t welcome her sister’s appearance on that particular occasion.

  He thought she would have been invited to have a bite to eat, or at least to take a 103

  seat, but Hilda proffered neither; what she did do was to turn to him and, using the manner of a boss, practically dismiss him. ”If you’ve finished, Abel,” she had said, ”see to Benny. If you don’t make him go he’ll be there all afternoon and his mother will complain that he doesn’t get any time off.”

  He hadn’t really finished his pudding but on Florrie’s entry he had already risen to his feet. It was a little trick of courtesy that had taken his fancy many years ago, for it seemed to place a man, if not in the class of a gentleman, at least among those who knew their manners when a woman came into a room. He recalled that he had glanced downwards but not at the remains of his pudding, and as he went to leave the room he kept his eyes averted from Hilda but had looked at Florrie, and she at him, and their exchanged glance had understanding in it.

  The result of that incident made him determine to keep his place in the future, and the attitude he adopted from then on he knew hadn’t been lost on Hilda because during the days that followed she had gone out of her way to be especially friendly to him, and almost broke her neck in her efforts of kindness towards Dick.

  He looked towards the boy now, saying, ”Do you want to come for a walk ?”

  ”Yes, Dad.”

  Abel smiled. ”But you’d rather go over to Molly’s, wouldn’t you?”

  ”No, Dad.”

  ”Don’t tell fibs.”

  Dick hung his head and laughed sheepishly now as he said, ”Well, she’s teaching me to play chess and she can’t get out because of her mother . . . her mother’s a right old . . .”

  ”Now! now!”

  ”Well, she is, Dad. She puts on airs and graces, an’ as soon as Molly sits down she rings the bell.

  It’s like as if she were a servant, like Lady Parker had.”

  ”All right, get yourself away. I’m going for a walk; if I’m not back by six you come over here and read or something, but don’t go troubling Mrs Maxwell.”

  ”No, I won’t, Dad. But she might want me to go into tea.”

  ”Well, if she asks you, that’s different.”

  ”Where are you goin’ walkin’, Dad?”

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  ”I don’t know yet, perhaps up into the country.”

  ”You’ll get blown away with this wind.”

  ”Aye, well, I’ve got a lot of cobwebs I want to get rid of.”

  He was about to add, ”It would do you good to come along, better than
playing chess,” but checked himself. The boy hated walking; those weeks on the road with blistered heels and weeping toes had turned him against walking for life. It was a pity; he was going to lose a lot.

  Only last week when he had received Dick’s school report, which had been very good, he had said to him, ”What do you fancy doing when you grow up ?” and the boy had turned his head and looked thoughtfully away before adding on a laugh, ”Something that I can do sittin’ down, Dad,”

  and they had both laughed.

  ”I’m off then, Dad.”

  ”All right, behave yourself. . . . Here! wait a minute.” He went to a cupboard and, taking from the top shelf a bag of toffees, he said, ”Give them to Molly. Tell her they’re from me, mind.” He poked his face down to his son and, pushing him in the shoulder, said, ”And don’t you eat any of

  ’em unless she presses you.” And Dick laughed and said, ”Ta, Dad, thanks. I’ll just eat one when she does.”

  Abel stood still as he watched the boy running from the room. He had never seen him so happy in his life before, it was the happiness of security and contentment. The lad imagined he was set here for life. Well, why not... ? He turned, and the words became an audible mutter now as he repeated, ”Why not? With what’s looming up, why not?” He wasn’t blind, he wasn’t a fool of a man. No? Wasn’t he? Why not indeed? There was just one reason why not and he knew it only too well, as he also knew he’d better get rid of any thoughts regarding an alternative, because Mrs Hilda Maxwell wasn’t that kind of a woman. Now if it had been Florrie. . . .

  He dragged on his overcoat, picked up his soft felt hat, and went downstairs. As he opened the bottom door the wind wrenched it from his hand and as he went to grab it with one hand he flung out his other arm and caught hold of Florrie, where she was staggering back from the impact of the door. Only in time he caught her and prevented her from falling, and as he held her he shouted above the wind. ”I’m sorry; the door sprang out of my hand.”

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