”Oh, don’t be silly!” She bowed her chin on to her chest, then muttered, ”Don’t make me say it.
It was bad enough before but since that do with Dad and her. . . . Abel” - she now raised her head and looked at him - ”I couldn’t live with myself if ... if I knew she was going to be left alone, I mean altogether. To be deprived of her family and then of her husband, well, it’s enough to send her round the bend. Aw, Abel” - she now put her arms tightly about him - ”I want you, I want you every minute of the day, but I know, I know meself and . . . and I couldn’t be really happy if I took you completely away from her. I ... I know I have you, every bit of you, so it’s not hard for me to say ’Don’t leave her’, although I know it’s hard for you to stay. Anyway, leave things as they are for a time; you’ll find it’ll work out. Strange how things work out. Be happy, be happy with me in this moment because I’ve never been so happy and contented in my whole life. I’m so happy I’m beginning to fear that something will happen to shatter it. It’s got nothing to do with you or me, I don’t know what it is, I suppose it’s just a natural fear that happiness brings, you become terrified of losing it. Anyway, don’t worry; you’ll see, everything will work out. You know, as I lay here today I thought how strange it is about all the little things that happen to make wishes come true, it’s as if life is cut out to a
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pattern. And I think it is, I think our lives are cut out to a pattern from the beginning and that one day we’ll be sewn together like that” - she took his hand and linked her fingers tightly in his ”and nothing or no one will be able to unpick us.” .. .V j(k
*U
It was the first batch of the miniature ducks he had taken to the shop in weeks. The hours he now spent nursing his daughter left him little spare time for his workshop, but during this past week he had gone at his whittling at a pace which suggested he had a time limit to get an order out. His earnest application to his woodwork craft was not solely created by the fact that he would from now on need to add money to his savings, although if there wasn’t as yet any need to support the mother he was nevertheless determined from the start to be responsible for the expenses of his daughter. She, he had decided, was going to have the best that could be obtained, and black market prices were high, even where baby commodities were concerned. But his hurry sprang from some deep urge that kept pestering him to add to his capital, telling him he could do nothing without money.
So on this particular winter’s day of alternate flurries of sleet or snow and hail he pushed open the door of Roger Lester’s art shop. The term art had at one time encompassed a great many sidelines. Besides artists’ materials, various pieces of china depicting scenes of Newcastle and Durham would have been on display, even Sunderland cut glass. But now Mr Lester sold whatever he could get his hands on and a number of empty shelves in the shop showed that he wasn’t too successful; and therefore his welcome of Abel was warm and genuine. ”Hello there,”
he said. ”Am I glad to see you ! Where’ve you been ? I thought you must have got it in one of the raids. Ah. Ah” - he dug with his finger the flat box that Abel was carrying - ”come on let’s see what you’ve got in here.”
’Not over much this time, I’m afraid, but I’m getting down to it again.”
The box on the counter and now opened, Mr Lester lifted the 213
birds and animals one after the other from their aest Jf cotton wool. ”Ah, this is new. A blackbird?” I i
”No, a rook.” I |
”Well, there’s not much difference, they’re both blacTt. And a swan. Nice, nice. But only two of them ? Ah, the ducks.” He now picked up two of the small ducks and placed them on his palm, saying as he nodded his head, ”Of all the animals you do you can’t beat these. You’d think that little fellow was trying to pick fleas off himself.” He traced the rounded neck back to the tail.
”Work of art this. I’ve always said it, haven’t I, a work of art. You should have gone in for this in a big way instead of cars and bikes.”
”I might yet.”
”You’d be wise. Well, I can assure you these won’t be on the shelf for long, but I shall keep some back for special customers. People can’t get anything to make a decent present these days, they’d pay any price for them. Why, a funny thing happened not an hour gone. You know my Andy’s little ’un, Stephen ? Well, I : gave him one of your last batch - it was this one, the duck preening its feathers - and you know he carries it around everywhere; holds it in his fist as he goes to sleep his dad says. Well, there he was in the shop standing over there, not an hour ago as I said, and in comes this woman, out for a day I think because I’ve never seen her before, not round here, and she didn’t speak our lingo either. She wanted some writing paper, and there was Stephen buzzing around the shop holding the duck out as if it were an aeroplane you know how bairns do - and what does she do but she takes it from him and stares at it. And then she says to me, ’Do you sell these?’ and I said, ’I do when I ca< -; :;t them.’ And then she says, ’Do you make them?’ and I laughed and said, ’Me? No! no! I haven’t got clever fingers like that.’ Then after a moment she asks, ’Who makes them then?’ and I said, ’Oh, a man at the other end of the town.’ And at that she said, ’Oh, is it a Mr -’ I think she said, ’Mason’ and I said ’No, his name’s Gray.’ Then she turned the thing over in her hs:;d and looked at it, and I am positively sure she would have pocketed it if Stephen hadn’t said, ’Give me me duck.’ She then wanted to know if you had a shop and I said no, you had a garage. . . . What is it? What’s the matter? . . . Here . . .
you all right ? Come and sit down, man. Here, sit down on the chair.”
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”No, no.” Abel shook his head. ”What. . . what was she like, this woman?”
”Thinnish, in her forties I should say, decently put on, whitish face, small features you know, bit peevish looking I thought.”
”What. . . what time did you say she was here?”
”Oh, about an hour ago.”
Abel turned swiftly towards the door now and Mr Lester called, ”What about settling up?”
”I’ll come back later.”
”All right, if it’s all the same with you, all right.”
He was in the street now and only just stopped himself from running. God Almighty! Lena. After all these years, Lena. It couldn’t be anyone else. Nobody would have recognized the duck like that.
~Lena ! What must he do ? What could he do ?
He ran across the road now and jumped on a bus. His mind was racing, throwing questions at him, giving answers, answers without hope. He knew that it wouldn’t take her two minutes to connect the name Gray with that of Mason. Oh Hilda. Hilda. If he had only told her. Now this revelation on top of all the rest would, as Florrie had said, surely turn her brain. She had been acting strangely of late too ; he was positive she knew about the baby, and he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t bringing it into the open. But Florrie said she could; Florrie said that in her position she would be doing exactly the same because she wouldn’t want to lose him. Oh !
God. Lose him ? If he could only lose himself.
Two stops before the house he jumped off the bus but remained standing on the edge of the pavement until the bus had receded far into the distance. He was feeling sick and not a little afraid. One thing he knew he couldn’t hope for, that Lena’s character had softened with the years. She would show him no mercy, she would glory in bringing him down.
The panic swirling in him made him sweat, it ran from his hair down into his eyes, and as he stepped off the pavement a lorry driver tooted his horn sharply and, sticking his head out of the cab, shouted, ”Why don’t you wait for a bomb, mate!”
Having reached the other side of the road he stood perfectly still for a full three minutes; then he squared his shoulders, jerked his chin upwards out of his collar, smoothed the pockets of his double-breasted greatcoat downwards as if pressing out the 215
creases, and began to ma
rch, his step quickening as he neaifed the yard. He hurried up it, and into the kitchen, and came face to face with his wife. . . .
Lena had hardly altered except that she seemed smaller; she was still thin, and there was no trace showing in her face of the girl he had married, but there was in every line of it the woman who had screamed abuse at him when he walked out of the cottage door almost twelve years ago.
”Hello, Abel.”
He couldn’t associate her voice with a cat teasing a mouse before the kill, it was more like the composite baying of dogs before they tore the stag to shreds ; and if ever there was a stag at bay he knew that he was in a like position now.
”She won’t believe me.” Lena moved her thumb slowly over her shoulder towards where Hilda was sitting in the high-backed wooden chair staring at him as if she were paralysed in both speech and movement. ”She’s hardly opened her mouth, she’s been struck dumb. You’re a bad lad, Abel, aren’t you, going through a form of marriage with another woman when you already had one? By the way, where’s me son? . . . What!” She gave a short sharp mirthless laugh now.
”Have you been struck dumb an’ all? Oh, you’re wondering how I found you out, are you ? Well, you shouldn’t have gone on making them little ducks ; nobody could make little ducks like you.
Well now, what are you going to do about me ? Eh ? Eh ?”
When surprisingly he took a quick step forward towards her she seemed nonplussed but when, his voice holding a deep, firm ring, he said, ”What I’m going to do is this, I’m going to tell you to get out and do your worst. I walked out on you twelve years ago because I couldn’t stand the sight of you any longer and I haven’t changed,” she turned her head quickly and looked towards Hilda, then back to him, and she cried, ”By! you’ve got a bloody nerve. You walked out on me because you couldn’t stand the sight of me, you say ? You walked out on me ? You did not, you scuttled from Hastings when the woman you were carrying on with was murdered by her husband. I’ve just told her that.” She thumbed again towards Hilda, but still Hilda made no move whatever. ”An’ if you hadn’t gone her brothers would have scuttled you, there would have been another murder done. You left me to escape the consequences of your wrhorin’.”
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”Get out! Do you hear me ? Get out! because I haven’t changed much in twelve years and what I threatened to do that day I might just do now.”
When he took another step towards her she backed from him and towards the door and as she did so she cried, ”Oh, don’t think you’re going to get off as easy as that, Mr Abel Mason or Gray, you’re going to do a stretch, an’ I’m going to do a jig the day they send you down. I’m goin’ to stand up in court and tell them all that I’ve suffered through your neglect and for deprivin’ me of my bairn all these years. I’m going straight from this very room to the polis station, so look out and don’t try to run away again.”
”Get!” - his arm was stretched out, his finger pointing - ”and go to the polis ; I’ll be quite willing to do a long, long stretch not to set eyes on you again. Now go !” He reached beyond her and pulled open the door, and she stumbled backwards into the yard yelling, ”I’ll see you get your deserts, by God! I will. I’ll show you up from one end of the country to the other; I’ll put you in all the papers.”
He banged the door on her voice, then stood with his back to it looking towards where Hilda still sat like an effigy incapable of either movement or speech.
Minutes passed before he walked slowly towards her; then dropping on his hunkers he reached out to take her hands, but when his fingers touched hers she drew them back as if she had received an electric shock. But still she didn’t speak, only continued to stare at him as he began to talk to her softly, soothingly. ”Hilda. Hilda, listen to me. I know I’ve done wrong. It’s been on my mind all these years ; I’ve never really known a minute’s peace. And believe me, I wouldn’t have had this happen to you for all the world, I wouldn’t. No matter how I’ve acted towards you I wouldn’t have hurt you like this. I could have walked out any time over the years but I knew you didn’t want me to, so I stayed on. Yet in my heart I knew it would come out some day. But . . .
but not like this. I should have told you. Somehow though I felt it would be depriving you of something, a family, and you needed a family. . . . Say something, Hilda, please. Please say something.”
She didn’t say anything, but with a jerk of her body she moved the wooden chair back from him; then rising slowly but keeping her eyes on him, she walked round him, then backed towards the door and out of the room. When he heard her going upstairs she 217
was still walking slowly, it was as if she were pausing oft each step.
As he dropped into a chair by the kitchen table he realized he still had his coat and hat on, but he made no effort to take them off. What was he to do ? Almost immediately it seemed, he was given the answer.
When he heard the thud he rushed into the hall to see a suitcase lying at the bottom of the stairs, then another one came tumbling down to join it. He stood staring at them for a moment; then as he went to pick them up there followed a spate of clothes, suits, shoes, shirts, ties, underwear, all tumbling down the stairs, some not reaching the bottom but getting caught up in the banisters until the whole staircase was littered with his clothes.
The scurry and flurry following so quickly on her numbness was startling, but he could make no protest, all he could do was to gather up the articles and press them into the cases. But when these were both full there was still enough to fill another two or more.
It was as he brought the last of his clothing from the stairs and added them in a heap on the kitchen table that Dick came in the back door. He had just come off his shift and was still in his overalls, his hands and face streaked with engine grease.
Before closing the door he stopped and stared at his father, but Abel merely glanced at him before going back into the hall and picking up the two suitcases.
”What’s . . . what’s happened?”
”Does it need any explanation?”
”But -” Dick looked in perplexity at the jumble of clothing on the table. ,. .••-.•••.
”Your mother’s been.” ,
”No! Oh! Oh God!”
”Yes, oh God!”
Abel stopped stuffing the underwear into a shirt which he was using as a bag and said slowly, ”In one way I would say I was glad if it wasn’t for the effect it’s had on her.” He jerked his head towards the ceiling. ”Stay here with her and see to her, will you?”
Dick stared at him, making no response for a moment ; then he said, ”Me mam ?” The word sounded strange to his ears. ”What . . . what is she like?” ,,;
”Can you remember the day we left?” , , - :
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”Yes. Yes, sort of, vaguely.” >,-C
”Well all I can say is she hasn’t improved, she’s a vixen.”- ”What is she going to do about it?”
”Oh, see me along the line for a long stretch. She’s promised’me that.”’ ll’
”Oh, dear God!”
Abel now put out his hand and gripped Dick’s shoulder and, looking at him steadily, said, ”Don’t worry. I knew I had it coming some time, and strangely, in a way it’s a relief. I’ll pay whatever price they decide. I’ll have to, I’ll have no other choice. Then I ... I can be with Florrie.”
”What about. . . what about her?” It was Dick who now jerked his head towards the ceiling, and for answer Abel simply turned and pointed to the table, then to the suitcases standing on the floor. ”She wouldn’t even listen,” he said; ”she wouldn’t even speak. If she had gone for me I’d have felt better about it. I’m . . . I’m a bit worried about her so don’t leave her, will you ?”
”You going to Florrie’s now ?”
”Yes; where else?” • -”<”
”What if me mam comes back ?”
”I don’t think you need to worry about that, although she might want to see you. She talked about you as her
child. Anyway, when you see her and hear her I think you’ll understand more fully why I walked out.”
”I do understand, I did then, but what I’ve never been able to understand is ... well, your deceiving Aunt Hilda.”
Abel now bent forward towards Dick as he said, ”Your Aunt Hilda wanted to be deceived; I didn’t ask her to marry me, she did the asking. I’ll tell you now, I even offered to live with her. I would have preferred that. Oh yes, I would have preferred it that way, but with her religious outlook she would have none of it. I had to put up a fight not to be married in the church, it didn’t seem so bad in a registry office.”
”I’m sorry, Dad.”
”I know you are, lad; but as long as it’s all right between you and me things aren’t too black. I may as well tell you, I’ve been upset lately the way things have gone.”
”Me too.”
Look, I’ll stack these things in the garage. I’ll have to make a couple of journeys, but once I’m clear I think you’d better ring for
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:’lpn tmh
Doctor Cole. You can tell him what’s happened, he’lURnow how to treat her then.” I
”All right. . . Dad.” 1 •
As Abel turned from the table, the bulging shirt m his arms, Dick, his stammer evident again, said, ”Wi. . . will. . . will they c . . . come and take you, I m ... mean what happens in a case like this?”
”I don’t know. I know as much about this end of the business as you do, but I’ll soon find out, won’t I ?” He smiled wryly; then holding the bundle to one side, he put his free arm out and now pulled Dick towards him and pressed him tightly as he said, ”Don’t worry about me, just stay here and see to things . . . and her.”
’* ’*•* j-S*!**11 •
*fc
«DK>
The detective inspector knocked on the door of the garden flat and Abel opened it to him. ,=? , :r;
?
The Man Who Cried Page 25
