He had said to Molly that they would be happy, in spite of all the emotional turmoil around them they would be happy; but what he had learned over these past weeks was that people were entwined one with the other, and that you couldn’t isolate yourself from them and say, ”I am going to be happy”, because their emotions penetrated you and cast a shadow over your happiness, they tinged your love with sadness and fear until you were being forced to believe that sadness and fear were part of love. He didn’t want to see love like that, not his and Molly’s love.
He didn’t want his life to be like his father’s.
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She had said to Dick, ”I’d like to see our Florrie, again; and to this he had answered, ”The only clear time is a Wednesday afternoon because he’s there every evening and Saturday and Sunday afternoon too.”
She had said, ”I’ll go tomorrow then,” and so here she stood, holding in one hand a basket containing a box of home-made cakes and her month’s ration of sweets, and in the other a bunch of flowers, and she was staring with stretching eyes and open mouth at the empty bed. It was stripped right down to the mattress.
When she dashed into the corridor she almost overbalanced two visitors approaching the ward, and now running towards the duty room she went straight in and gasped, ”Mrs Ford ! Mrs Ford, where is she? Have they moved her?”
”Eeh! I know nothing about it.” A woman turned from the sink where she was washing dishes.
”You’ll have to see the nurse or sister. Go to the office.”
She was in the corridor again ; then she stopped and darted back into the kitchen. ”Where’s the office ?”
The woman looked at her as if she were mental and said, ”Right afore you, in that door there where it says office.”
She turned about again and the next minute she was knocking on the door marked office. It was some seconds before it was opened by a nurse, and she gabbled at her, ”Mrs . . . Mrs Ford, where is she? Have . . . have they moved her?”
The nurse, holding the door-handle, looked back over her shoulder towards the sister seated behind the desk, and she, rising to her feet, came forward, saying, ”Come in. Please take a seat.”
When she took a seat the sister said, ”I’m very sorry but Mrs 265
Ford died this morning. You should have got word, aftd a message was sent to the man who comes to visit her, but there was no reply, he must be out at work. Anyway, a note was left for him.”
She’s dead! Florrie.
When she sprang up from the seat the sister took her arm, saying, ”Sit quiet for a moment,” but Hilda, shaking her off, muttered, ”No! no! I’ve got to get back and . . . and tell Dick; he’s got to go and find him ... his father.”
The nurse and sister looked at each other.
Hilda now went towards the door, then stopped and turning she asked flatly, ”Where’ve they put her?”
”In the mortuary.” The sister didn’t add ”Of course”, but her n’V tone implied the words.
”Oh! Oh!”
She ran along the corridor, out of the hospital, round by the bed that had once held flowers but was now showing the stripped stalks of brussels sprouts, and into the street.
There she hesitated and looked first one way and then the other before she turned in the direction of home, running one minute, walking the next, talking to herself all the way. Dick wouldn’t be finished till five, but she could go to the factory and perhaps he could get off an hour earlier and go and meet his father and tell him, break it to him. That’s what she would do, she would go to the factory. But she’d have to go home first and leave these things. The bairn would be all right with Molly. It was a good job she was on the night shift. Yes, yes. She was still gabbling to herself like someone demented.
As she went up the yard a man said, ”You not doing business any more, I’ve been waiting round here half an hour for me bike?”
”Oh, I’m sorry. Turnbull, isn’t it?”
”Yes.”
”Just a minute.” She opened the kitchen door, threw the flowers and the basket on the table, picked up a bunch of keys from a nail, flung out of the kitchen again, locking the door behind her; then opening the garage door she again said, ”Turnbull?”
”Yes.”
”Here. . . here it is.” , ,•’.”
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”It’s taken some time,” said the man; ”it’s been here over a fortnight.”
She turned on him now angrily. ”Well, you know yourself we can’t get labour, nor bits. You’re lucky my son works in his spare time doing them.”
”He gets paid for it, doesn’t he?”
She wheeled the bike forward and thrust it at him and when he said, ”What’s the cost?” she ran into the office, looked up a narrow ledger and shouted towards him, ”Twelve and six,” and at this he shouted back at her, ”God! I could have got a secondhand one for that.”
She almost pushed him and the bike out of the garage; then having locked it she was running once more. It was a good fifteen minutes’ walk to the munitions factory but she covered it in less than ten, and after making enquiries at the gate the porter, looking up a ledger, said, ”Gray, Dick Gray. Aye, number four shop. Along the end there.” He pointed. . . .
Five minutes later she was walking out of the gate with Dick and he was saying, ”I knew it was coming, I knew it would happen, but not as quick as this.” She looked at his grease-smeared profile as she said, ”Do you ... do you think he knew ?”
”Yes, he was bound to. There’s been a change in her these last two weeks but I knew he kept hoping. But he wouldn’t expect it to be so sudden.”
When they came to the crossroads and their ways lay in different directions she confronted him squarely and quietly. She said, ”Stay with him as long as he needs you, I’ll . . . I’ll be all right.
If ... if I want company there’s Molly. He’ll have to see to the funeral and things, he’ll . . . he’ll need help.”
He looked at her steadily for a moment, then bending forward, he kissed her on the cheek before turning quickly away.
As she walked blindly homewards she kept repeating to herself, ”Oh! Florrie, Florrie!” and each time she spoke the name it was a plea for forgiveness. Since they were young she had slandered her, and since Abel had come into her life her jealousy had bred hate in her; and now she was gone, and it was too late to say to her, ”I’m sorry for all the things I said about you.”
When she reached the kitchen she sat down at the table without taking her hat and coat off, and laying her head on her arms she cried, and as she cried she talked to the woman who for years she
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had thought of as her sister, she talked to her as she had né^er talked to her in her life; and finally, before raising her head from the table she beseeched her, ”Please, Florrie, let me bring up your child. Let me keep her. Please. Please.” ^.
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Dick couldn’t understand his father. That night he had met him outside the gates of the works.
Although his very presence he knew must have conveyed to him why he was there, and he had given him the news as gently as possible, Abel had just stared at him, then walked on in the direction of Bog’s End. Once, he had stopped and put his hand out against a lamp-post; his arm extended to its full length, he had stood supporting himself while he looked down at his feet; then had walked on again.
Inside the dingy room, Dick had expected him to give way but all he had done was to sit down and stare towards the gas ring that stood on the bare table next to the shallow sink. When he had said to him, ”Will I make you a cup of tea?” he was answered by a shake of the head.
Not until he had mentioned the funeral did his father speak. ”The funeral will have to be arranged,” he said, and Abel answered, ”I’ll see to that.”
After Abel had left the room to go to the outside toilet and when, twenty minutes later,
had not returned, Dick had opened the back door to see a strange man standing in the yard. He was leaning against the doorway leading to the upstairs rooms, and he looked towards Dick while nodding towards the lavatory as he said, ”That bugger’s takin’ his time.”
When his father came out a few minutes later he passed the man without looking at him, and when he entered the room he said to Dick, ”You go home now; I’ll be all right.”
”I’m not going to leave you like this.”
Abel had then turned and looked at him as if he were seeing him for the first time that night, and he said quietly, ”I’m going to be like this for a long time, lad, a long, long time., so you go home.”
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Dick swallowed deeply. ”I’ll go back and get a wasf, and change,” he said, ”but I’ll be along later.” I
”I might be out.” |
”I’ll be along anyway. ...”
Abel hadn’t been out when he returned that night, nor the following four nights preceding the funeral. . . .
The sun was shining and the frost glistened on the grass. Besides the minister and the gravedigger, the only people present at the graveside were his father, Hilda, and himself.
As the coffin was lowered into the earth, Dick took Hilda’s arm and turned her away. Her face was red and swollen and the tears were running quietly down her cheeks. When they reached the chapel she said to him, ”I’ll go.”
”He’ll likely want a word with you.”
She shook her head vigorously now, saying, ”Oh no! No!”
”Wait nevertheless.”
When, at last, Abel left the graveside Hilda watched him approach. It was the first time they had come face to face since the day she had thrown him out of the house. He stood before her now looking down on her, and he said quietly, ”Thanks, Hilda.”
What could she say ? If she had thought of anything the words would have stuck in her throat.
She just made a movement with her head.
”I’ll . . . I’ll take the child as soon as I get a fresh place.”
Now she actually started and, staring up at him, her words coming in a gabble, she said, ”It’s all right. It’s all right. As long as you like, I mean I’ll look after her for as long as you like. Dick here” - she flapped her hand to the side - ”he can bring her to see you whenever you want and . . .
and you can take her out and things, whenever you like.” Again her hand was flapping towards Dick. ”Dick will fetch her. I mean, he’ll bring her to you.”
Abel now nodded at her, saying, ”Thanks. Thanks, Hilda. It’s very good of you. I appreciate what you’re doing. I ... I know it isn’t easy.”
”Oh.” She shook her head in an emphatic denial of what he was saying, but when he went on,
”I’ll. . . I’ll pay for her keep,” she almost cried at him in her old manner, ”Oh no! Please, please, don’t. Spare me that, please.”
”Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. Well, just as you like . . . just as you say.
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But . . . but I’m grateful.” He stared at her for a moment longer; then turning slowly, he looked down the path to where the gravediggers were still busy covering up his love, burying his love. . .
. No, not burying his love, he’d never be able to bury his love. He didn’t want it to be buried, he wanted to suffer it to the end of his life, he wanted to hold the pain to him in the knowledge that it had been born of a rare thing, the thing that had taken years to hatch, but which when it had sprung into life had brought him happiness that could only be explained by the word ecstasy.
Such happiness nearly always died in pain; all the great loves in history had been like this, they had all died in agony. But no matter what the payment, he wouldn’t have forgone a moment of it.
There was one thing that was surprising him about Florrie’s going, he had never cried over her ; he had the strange feeling that at the present time his emotions would, if he were to cry, flow out in blood not water.
But Hilda was saying good-bye. He turned to her again, saying politely, ”Thank you. Thank you, Hilda.” Then he watched her walk away, and part of him marvelled at the change in her, there seemed to be no bitterness in her now. Florrie’s death must have expunged it. Yet even before Florrie died Hilda was looking after the child. That must have taken some doing to take the child, his child, Florrie’s child, into her home, into that God-protected home in which sin was frowned upon. Oh no, no, he mustn’t get back into that way of thinking. She was changed, something about her had changed radically. They were all changed. His son was changed.
He turned towards Dick now. His son was a man, and he was a good man. He would always be a good man, that was if there was not too much of himself in him, for then that would surely lead him into disaster. But on the other hand far better he inherited too much of himself than too much of his mother. This thought reminded him of the letter he had received only that morning. It was from his solicitor telling him that the divorce proceedings had begun.
He turned away towards the gates of the cemetery and as he went his mind said, ”I can marry Florrie now. I can marry Florrie now.” He stopped and gave a quick shake of his head and, looking at Dick, he said, ”Will you come back along of me?”
”Yes, of course. Where else do you think I’d go.”
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For the next nine months they worked to a pattern. Either Dick or Molly would push the pram on a Saturday afternoon and a Sunday afternoon to Bartwell Place, and there they would leave the child with Abel.
That he enjoyed having her Dick was certain, for she was now walking and chatting in her own way. But he never took her outside the door. What he was also certain about was that Hilda didn’t know a minute’s peace until the child was returned home. He knew that her fear was that one day Abel would say, ”I’ve found a decent place and ... a housekeeper.”
That word had been mentioned between them when discussing the child, but only once, and it was he who brought it up. What he had said was, ”He’s looking for a place but as I told him he won’t be able to manage without a housekeeper, because she’s a handful now.”
She had turned on him with a shadow of her old temper crying, ”A housekeeper! The child looked after by a housekeeper! Oh, I know what housekeepers are, I’ve seen some of them.”
He almost read her thoughts. If her idea of a housekeeper looked after the child it would be with one aim in view, hooking the father.
He knew the very night that Hilda made up her mind about what she was going to do. It was when he and Molly and she were sitting before the fire and Molly said, ”We’re going to be married next Easter, Aunt Hilda.” Hilda had looked from one to the other and replied softly, ”I’m glad, although” - she turned her eyes on to Dick - ”I’ll miss me man about the house.”
”Huh!” He had punched his doubled up fist towards her. ”You’ll hardly notice the difference, I’m in and out of both places all the time now, sometimes I feel I’m on a diabolo.” Then he had 272
added, ”I intend to go on working at the factory when the war’s finished, Mam, they’re going to be needing spare parts for planes for some time yet.” He had given a hick of a laugh, then said soberly, ”I think you should make up your mind to get somebody permanently in the yard. As Molly’s just said, we can see the end of the war and that can mean cars again and people going mad for them, it could mean big business. Young Stephen’s all right with bikes, but that’s all. . . .”
”Stephen isn’t all right with bikes, he’s fumble-fisted, he does more harm than good. And that’s not the only thing” - she had jerked her chin upwards - ”I’m going to get rid of him as soon as I can, I’m telling you. He’s as bad as Arthur Baines.” It was the following day she said, ”How is he?” He had just returned from carrying the child down to Abel’s. He always carried her now if possible, he hated pushing the pram. To her question he had answered, ”Oh, much as usual”; then taking the c
up of tea she offered him, he placed it on the table and, sitting down on a wooden chair, he put his elbows on the arms of it and leant his body forward and almost groaned as he said, ”I always want to cry when I see him. That room, there would be more comfort in the workhouse. And he doesn’t go out.” ”Is ... is he drinking ?”
”Drinking?” He turned his glance towards her. ”No, no; I shouldn’t think so, I think he’s saving every penny. I don’t even think he eats properly, he’s skin and bone, and . . . and he looks so lost.
He can’t go on like this.” He stared up into her face and repeated, ”He can’t, something will happen to him. I’m . . . I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to do something before now. I think he would have if it hadn’t been for the bairn.”
She now seated herself by the side of the table and she traced her finger along the edge as she said, ”What is he saving for?” ”Oh, I don’t know, except to set up a house somewhere.”
”And take Lucy?”
It was a long pause before he replied, ”Yes, I should say that’s his idea. He’s . . . he’s very fond of her, he always waits for her coming.”
She was still tracing her finger along the table edge as she said slowly, ”I’ll die, Dick, if he takes the child from me.”
”Oh! Mam.” He didn’t move towards her, he just stared at her, and for once he could find nothing to say in the way of comfort.
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”She’s all I’ve got. She’s altered my life, I ... I seeni to He things differently now. I ... I couldn’t bear it if I lost her.” Her fingers stopped moving; she turned and looked at him, as if waiting for an answer to the solution of the problem, and vhen he gave it he knew he was only voicing something that was already in her own mind, and had been for some long time. ”The only way you could really keep her,” he said, ”would be to hive him back,” and this she confirmed by saying softly, ”Yes, I know,” then added, ”but would he come back ? That’s the point, would he come back?”
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