”His divorce will be through shortly,” he said, only to be taken by surprise when she sprang up and shouted, ”I wasn’t waiting for that. He could have come any time, I wasn’t waiting for that.”
As he looked at her open-mouthed, he realized how greatly she had changed. This wasn’t the Aunt Hilda speaking, Aunt Hilda could never have existed. He said now in an off-hand tone,
”What do you propose to do about it?”
”You’ll see tomorrow.” She moved her head in small terse nods and said again, ”You’ll see tomorrow.”
He was standing in the yard holding the pram, shaking it up and down assisted by Lucy who was gripping the sides and chattering unintelligibly but loudly as she did when she was happy, and what made her happy was bouncing the pram. But he swung quickly around when Hilda came through the kitchen door, and he was still staring towards her as she turned her back on him to lock it.
”Well, what are you looking at?”
”Nothing.” He pushed the pram handle towards her, then walked a little behind her as she marched out of the yard.
She was made up. It was the first time he had seen her with lipstick on. He was sure she had rouge on too. And she was wearing her best coat, and he hadn’t seen that hat before. Well! v/ell!
one could die from the shocks one got, but he hoped, oh, he hoped to God that there were no shocks awaiting her, that the charge she was about to make this afternoon would win her battle and bring
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her some happiness, eventually that is, and in doing so also bring peace
to his father.
When twenty minutes later he knocked on the door and his father opened it he knew a moment of apprehension because he couldn’t translate the look on his father’s face as he stared at Hilda with the child in her arms.
It was Hilda herself who broke the spell. Her voice brisk yet quiet, she said, ”May I come in?”
”Oh yes, yes.” He pulled the door wide, then looked towards Dick who was saying, ”Shall I leave the pram out here today?”
”No, no; fetch it in, it wouldn’t last two minutes out there.”
In the room they now stood looking at one another until Abel said, ”Oh. Oh, sit down.” He pulled a chair forward, but before Hilda took a seat she held out the child towards him, and when he took her into his arms he gazed at her for a moment and, her hand gripping his chin, she made a noise. ”She’s saying, ’Da-da’,” he said.
Dick laughed. ”She’s been saying it continually since yesterday,” he said.
”Oh,” Abel smiled at his daughter, who had Florrie’s eyes and Florrie’s mouth. When he kissed her on the cheek it brought the quick response of her arms around his neck and self-consciously, he again looked at Hilda. ”She . . . She’s in fine fettle,” he said.
”Well, she’s about the only one that is that I can see.”
”What ! Oh, me ? Oh, I’m all right.”
”Huh!”
Dick looked at his father’s puzzled expression. The battle had begun and he wasn’t ready for it.
Would he surrender or would he stand out against her ? Well, it remained to be seen how strong the enemy was ; and the enemy was now on her feet.
Hilda had risen from the chair as abruptly as she had sat down, and now she was walking slowly around the room. The sight of it really appalled her and her surveying of it was definitely embarrassing Abel for he now said, ”I ... I won’t be here much longer, I’ve got a place in view.”
”Have you?” She was nodding at him. ”Well, by the look of you I don’t think you will survive long enough to enjoy it.”
Again Abel turned his gaze towards Dick looking for an answer, but all he got from this quarter was a slight raising of the
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eyebrows and an almost imperceptible movement of thjs head which said, ”Well, I know nothing about it.”
”Sit down, Abel.” She was standing in front of him, and he hitched the child from one arm to the other; then pulling the only other chair in the room forward, he sat down. Now their faces were almost on a level, and when she spoke her voice was firm but quiet as she said, ”Now don’t interrupt me until I finish. You can’t go on living in this mucky den any longer, it’ll be the end of you. I’ve come to take you back home. . . . Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.” She put up her hand in the manner of a policeman directing traffic, then went on, ”I’ve said let me have me say. I ... I don’t want anything from you because you’ve got nothing to give, I know that, I’ve faced up to that, but I ... I want to keep the child. And what’s more I need a man about the place. Dick’s going to be married shortly and I’ll be there on me own, and I’ve got a fellow there now who’s neither use nor ornament, and he’s doing me out of money every day. You’ll be doing me a favour if you come back. And I’m going to say it although I shouldn’t, you owe me a favour, and this is the way you can repay it, so if you want to pay your debts get your few things packed and let’s get out of this because it isn’t fit for a pig to live in.”
He didn’t move and the child was strangely still in his arms. They were both looking at her, the child at the woman who had become its mother, and he at the woman who had once thought she was his wife. He, like Dick, noted with amazement that she was wearing make-up; he noticed, too, that she was no longer podgy; but what was most evident was the change within her. She was asking him to come back, she was offering him cleanliness, warmth, and good food . . . and comfort. The comfort of her ? The first three he wanted, but would he ever again be able to take comfort from her ... or any other woman for that matter ? The question was a blank in his mind.
He lowered his head and looked down to the worn oilcloth that he had not so long ago scrubbed on his hands and knees ; then raising his head slowly, he looked at her and said, ”I’m still a married man, Hilda.”
”I’m well aware of that.”
He could have almost laughed. He said now, ”You’ve got your name to think about, there’ll be talk. You can’t stand up to the vicar about a thing like this.”
”I’ve already dealt with the vicar.” >
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Now he actually did want to laugh; and yet, no, he didn’t, the feeling that was rife in him wasn’t actually touching on laughter. But it wasn’t touching on tears either. Oh no, no, he’d never cry again, now or ever.
His head was drooping once more when her voice checked it as she turned from him, saying briskly to Dick, ”Get your father’s things together and let’s be gone.”
As if he was fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, scampering to do her bidding, Dick almost ran to the rickety cupboard and pulled a suitcase down from it, and having put it on the bed he opened the lid and began packing his father’s few possessions. He did not turn towards them as he heard her voice saying quietly, ”Give her here,” but he knew she had taken the child and had put it in the pram and it was she who opened the door and pushed it into the street and there stood waiting.
His father was standing over by the door leading into the backyard and he said softly, ”Dick,”
and as he approached him Dick could see that he was hardly capable of speech, and when the words tumbled out in a mutter, ”I don’t know. It isn’t right. I’m . . . I’m ashamed,” Dick gripped him by both arms and even attempted to shake him as he said, ”It’s for the best. We all want you, and she needs you. And as she said, you owe her something. Don’t forget that, Dad, you owe her something . . . you owe her a lot ”
A few minutes later they were all in the street and, like a family out for a Saturday afternoon walk, Hilda went on ahead pushing the pram while the father and son walked behind.
It wasn’t until they entered the yard that Dick realized how deeply affected his father was. His face was devoid of colour, his cheekbones were pressing white through the skin, his eyes looked sunken in his head, and as he walked up towards the kitchen door he looked first to one side then to the other. His gaze remained longest on the window above the garage and hi
s thoughts must have gone to the room that had afforded them shelter when they first came into this yard.
”There now. There now. Stop your yelling and I’ll give you your tea in a minute. Here, you take her, Dick, and don’t let her down on the floor yet, she’s got her good things on.”
Dick paused with the child in his arms and he looked at Hilda with admiration. It was as if they really had just returned from a
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Saturday afternoon’s outing. Then he looked towards his fajfcer. He wasn’t sitting in the big wooden armchair near the fire but at the corner of the table. He was still wearing his overcoat and holding his trilby on his knee.
When Hilda said quietly, ”Give me your coat here,” he did not rise from the chair, nor did he look at her. Something was happening inside him, something had burst in his bowels like burning white lava. It was rising, spilling forth its fire through his ribs and up through his gullet. He yelled at it, screamed at it, ”No ! no! Never! Not again. Never!” He could bear this, this humiliation, he could bear everything as long as he remained closed within himself, as long as he could withstand human kindness. As long as he could imprison his emotions nothing could touch him, but he was losing his power. The strength was flowing from him. He couldn’t combat the force of this burning flood ; he went down before it.
When the release came through his eyes, his nose and lastly his mouth, he gave a great cry and, burying his face in his hands, he rocked himself as a woman might in agony.
For a matter of seconds Hilda stood and watched him; then, putting her arms about him, she pressed his head into her breasts and, her own voice thick and choked, she comforted him, saying, ”It’s all right. It’s all right, you’re home. It’s all over. There now. There now. Come on, dear, come on.” She couldn’t remember when she had called him dear, yet she called his child dear all the time.
When his hands left his face and went around her hips she did not delude herself for she knew that the action was to be cornpared to that of a child seeking comfort and protection.
She looked through her blurred streaming eyes to where Dick was still standing holding the child and she knew now that she had two children to care for, one to bring up into womanhood and the other she hoped to lead into peace. She did not ask that it should be into love; yet life could be long and she could but hope. . . .
Dick stood, the child held close to him, and looked at his father. It seemed to him at this moment that he only ever saw the real man in his father when he was crying. His own face was wet but he knew he would never cry like his father cried because he’d never be half the man he was. This man who had done nothing
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with his life except impinge it on four women had, he felt, in him something naturally big; perhaps it would show itself in the years ahead if only in bringing some happiness to the woman he had wronged and who was now savouring a certain joy from his agony.
Catherine Cookson
THE MALLEN TRILOGY
The Malien Streak The Malien Girl ’ The Malien Litter
*A splendidly readable romance set on Tyneside a ’ century ago.’ ^H.
Sunday Express
THE INVISIBLE CORD
’Mrs Cookson treads a narrow path above the chasm
of melodrama in her 30 years’ chronicle, but she
never falters. A most moving book.’
Sunday Telegraph
THE GAMBLING MAN
’Extremely well drawn; delicate, subtle, convincing.’ The Yorkshire Post THE TIDE OF LIFE
’Like all her novels it offers splendid value for money.’ Daily Express THE GIRL
’Powerful and compulsively readable . . . The end of the last century is made alive by this very popular
novelist.’ The Yorkshire Post
THE CINDER PATH
’It is not fulsome to compare this (finest) Catherine Cookson novel with Thomas Hardy.
With him she shares an economy of expression. She pursues the same course - attributing deeds to environment. And she recognizes the inevitability of Fate.’ Coventry Evening Telegraph
1
Table of Contents
PART ONE
PART THREE
PART FIVE
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
The Man Who Cried Page 32
