Cotter's England

by Christina Stead

  "I never had a husband. You made him yours early and I didn't know enough. I was right out of the convent."

  With a delighted expression, Nellie got up and said, if Estelle was going, she'd go along, too; she had to be at her newspaper office at eleven. She'd be home late and she'd bring a bottle of gin.

  She said once more, "I'm a bloody fool, Eliza, to care about my George, but love's an incurable disease. I made up my mind that if I didn't have a letter from the sod this morning, I'd get roaring drunk. So get in the beer and lemonade for your shandy, Lize and I'll drink my gin. I ought to dump George overboard, but I'm too fond of the two of you. Ah, Lize, I don't know where you get your sweet ways from. Well, I'm gannin'."

  She went.

  The afternoon of the …

  THE AFTERNOON of the funeral, Constantine Ilger, Marion's husband, took Tom to the local station in the farm car. At the station, Constantine helped Tom with his luggage, asked him if he had the right change, said goodbye very kindly.

  When Tom had his ticket, Constantine said, "Give me your name and address, if you like and I'll write to you one of these days."

  Tom wrote and handed him a little card.

  "Thomas A. Cotter?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, of course I knew your name wasn't Tom Green."

  "I knew you knew."

  "It was for her and I didn't mind. You were very good to her."

  Tom said, "I wanted to be."

  "You were better than Patrick. He went off and he knew she was dying."

  "Yes, I thought a brother would not leave a sister. Even a half-brother."

  Ilger said, "You did not know he was not her half-brother?"

  "I was never sure. Her mother remarried twice."

  "She was engaged to Patrick, when he went to the war. She met me and she liked me. We got married; but she never told Patrick. She kept on writing to him. She said, it wasn't fair to hurt him. When he came back, he found us married. He was quite broken up. She said we had to look after him and so we took him here to live with us. That's how it was."

  "She could have told me. I would have understood."

  "Marion always thought it was better not to go into things."

  "Yes, I know."

  "Well, goodbye and good luck, Tom."

  "Thanks for the fowl."

  "It was fresh killed this morning. I did that before the funeral."

  "Thanks."

  There was a train leaving King's Cross near midnight. He sat in a café till it was time, and had an interesting conversation with a man counting pennies in heaps, perhaps a newsboy. He was able to stretch out in the second-class carriage. Now that he was on his way, the last terrible days at the farm became real to him; and yet seemed weeks away. He was very tired. There were moments when he felt he had been happy there. "But the man's a fool who expects happiness or the happiness to last; I'm grateful for what I had."

  One of his first thoughts was that he must look for another woman at once, who would take him and hold him, so that he could turn his back on the past eight years and begin again. But where should he look?

  The train rattled along in the night and he thought for a while of the dark trains he had traveled in during the war and after he got the car, the dark roads, a hooded glimmer all that was allowed; but he had never driven into the ditch. How one's senses developed! And then it was to Marion he had traveled, by train and by car.

  He slept as well as he could, waking not long before Bridgehead. "Back to Bridgehead gray," the color of his youth. It was a dark morning, the docks, bridges, ships were lighted. Different shifts were going to work and coming away; and he passed a stand where he got a cup of sour gray tea, "stewed water." He got to his old home before seven. The boy hadn't been around; the empty milk bottles were still standing there. Uncle Simon was some time answering the door; and when Tom heard the old voice, "What d'ye want?" he smiled.

  "It's Tom."

  Uncle Simon let him in, coughing. "Ye can get in now without that dog tearing the seat off your pants."

  "Back home!" smiled Tom. He pushed his grip into the front room and took his parcels to the kitchen. His uncle was too polite to notice them at first, though he cast a few glances under his spectacles.

  The fire was not going too well. A newspaper was fastened across the front of the stove and grate. The house was cold but it was warm enough there. The sky was black with smoke fog which had not come down. "If we had a decent government, it would do something about this weather," said Uncle Simon. He was heating his old tea from the night before on the stove and was about to pour some for Tom when he said hospitably, "A'll make ye a fresh pot. Did ye come in your car or off the train?"

  "I'm off the train; I sold my car."

  "Aye." The old man put one of his three kettles on the gas stove and turned the jet very low under it. The kettle had been sold to Simon as a gas-saver. "It'll be ready by the time the milk gets here." He then got out the bread and his own bit of butter which he set before Tom. "Would ye like some bacon? A haven't touched me bit. Put your washin' on the dresser, ye'll get it spotted."

  "That's not washing, that's a chicken! brought for you, Uncle Sime, for Peggy to cook," said Tom.

  Uncle Simon said nothing. "It's for you and mother, Uncle, you know Peggy wouldn't touch it."

  Uncle Simon looked at the kettle, turned the gas up a little and fussed at the stove. "Thank ye, thank ye." His hands trembled. "A had a bad night: A coughed a lot, A thought A'd die. A ran out of me syrups of quills and me drops." The black coaly sky frowned at him.

  Tom said, "How's mother?"

  "She's sleepin' too much, not eatin' enough, wanderin' about on the stairs and she sees the dead. Your sister stays in bed till eleven most days; but A wake them with a cup of fresh tea and some bread and butter. Mary needs it. A'll light the back-room fire for ye if ye like."

  "I'll sit with you, Uncle Sime. I'll go and see Mother when she wakes."

  "She's probably awake now and starvin', but that gel never gets oop for her mother."

  When the milk came he prepared the tea, while explaining to Tom about the bread-saw, "They, don't know how to coot it: ye move the knife backwards and forwards withoot pressure, it does the cootin; ye can get any thickness ye like." The kettle boiled after a long while and Tom took the tray upstairs.

  The dog lying inside the door made a fuss. Peggy said, "It's that silly old man scratching on the door to tease him; all right, Uncle Sime man, wait a bit, can't ye?" and she opened the door. "Oh, lord lovaduck, it's Tom."

  "Is it Tom?" said the mother quickly.

  "It's Tom: Tom's here. When did you get in?"

  He came in, without smiling. "Hello, Peggy, hello, Mother."

  The old woman had started to get up and was trying to arrange her little white plaits. She had the brush and comb in her hands and she turned to Tom with a lively amused expression.

  Peggy was excited, "Well, the lad's dropped in from the sky."

  The old woman observed the young fellow calmly, put back the brush and comb and slid back into bed, "Well, put it there," she said patting the bedside table, "I'm not so hungry."

  Tom did as he was told, "How are you feeling this morning, Mother?"

  She made a trifling little scoffing smile, "The doctor told me to stay in bed in the mornings, but for all the good it's doing me, I'd rather be up," she said crossly, "up at me work. I don't know what I'm lying here for. Get up, Peggy: aren't you ashamed, in bed, with people here?"

  Tom said he'd pour out for her. He sat down on the bedside, but she seemed uneasy and said, "Take a chair, there's a chair there"; and when he held the cup for her, she said, "It's very kind of you."

  Tom sighed and looked dispiritedly around, at the plain walls with the children's photographs, the nice dressing table of which his mother was proud, the sickly little tree outside the window, now bare between brick walls. It was still quite dark. "Don't get up yet, Mother," he said, "it's a bitter raw morning, real Bridgehead."r />
  Peggy wanted to know if he was on holiday.

  "I'll be here a few days, I came to see how Mother was."

  "What struck ye, man?" enquired Peggy sarcastically, "something must have bit ye, ye thought of coming to see your sick mother."

  "I expected that kind of welcome."

  "What kind of welcome would you be expecting? The flags put out and the fatted calf? After not coming near us at Christmas; it was a black dreary house for me in the festive season. We all stayed in bed all Christmas Day and no one near us. I suppose you had a gay time at Christmas."

  "Yes, I had a very gay time."

  "Well, it certainly is an unexpected pleasure in a black February day to have a distinguished visitor from London," said Peggy who had got back into bed and was finishing her breakfast. She wanted to know if he had a holiday from work.

  "No," he said wearily, "I'm out of a job just now."

  "You've not lost that job too?" she cried. "Eh, man, you're hopeless! Well, there's no unemployment round here yet, you'd best try to get a job here and live here. At least we're all paying the same rent and you can help with the house a bit: I'm sick of it. It's not fair a young woman like me never getting out or getting a chance to see anyone."

  "I'll think it over," he said; "I don't see why I shouldn't. What else have I got to do?"

  "Eh, you're hopeless, just hopeless," cried Peggy.

  "Yes, I am," he answered.

  "What sort of a future have ye, man?" she enquired anxiously, "if you're such a trifler and so restless at your age?"

  "That's a good question."

  "Ah, be serious, Tom, I'm worried about ye, man."

  "Thanks for that," said he seriously, "that's kind of you: you don't know how kind that is."

  "Eh, Tom, I'm not trying to harass you, I'm worried about ye, I don't doubt you have your troubles."

  "I'll never forget those words, Peggy," he said getting up to hide the tears in his eyes. "I've had an awful time: it was horrible."

  "Well, take it easy, man, don't go imagining tragedies. Pluck up courage, man, try to be like I am. Look at what I have to face every day in this house with no one to stand by me! You had better make up your mind to stay here and the troubles you think you've had will be nothing to the troubles you're going to have with these two crazy old people at ye day and night and not one word of sense from one year's end to the other."

  "You're a great consoler," said her brother, going to the door, and smiling faintly, "I had quite an experience once: a friend of mine took me to an undertakers' annual banquet. I'm glad I was there now: I can see there's humor in everything."

  "Ye sound like Uncle Sime, now watch out, man, you're getting on in years, thirty-three is not twenty." Tom burst out laughing. The dog rushed out the door and escaped downstairs where he began a savage barking.

  When Tom got down there, Uncle Simon was standing in the kitchen near his chair, with bowed legs, looking desperate, while the black dog leaped at him. "He's gettin' warse and warse," said he. "He won't let me move. A'd better go to bed. A go back to bed as soon as there's someone aboot, for he doesn't come into me room. A've made up the fire, Tom, and A'd better get to me bed, that's where they want to see me. They don't want me to get up again."

  "All right, Uncle Sime," said Tom, "you go up and rest a bit and I'll be muttering to myself down here."

  "Don't let the fire go too low and see your Mother doesn't put it out with flingin' food into it." He offered Tom the Daily Mail, and though Tom refused it, he left it on the table for him, "It's a good paper, there are some good items in it today. There's another air accident. You mark my words, Tom, they'll give it up, this flyin'. A man is not a bord. Ye've seen it yourself: there's something loose, they haven't time to attend to it, and it goes to pieces in mid-air."

  "Yes," said Tom, "all right, and I'll see they cook the chicken for us for lunch or dinner." Uncle Simon slowly made his way through the hall, muttering his thoughts to himself and very slowly got upstairs, being held up halfway by a bad fit of coughing.

  Peggy and her mother came downstairs about half past eleven when the house was warm. The street lights were still on; and everyone was coughing. Tom sat in Uncle Simon's chair by the fire, looked at the Daily Mail and thought how tired, betrayed and unhappy he was. Marion, after all her loving and his loyalty, had used him, and perhaps despised him. And then she had always thought she was clever, cleverer than the men she brought round her. She lied to them all; that was her idea of running things efficiently. Efficient she was, even at the end, in her misery. At the very end she had given the three men—her husband, Connie, her half-brother Patrick and himself—each a beautiful engraved champagne glass. They stood round her with the glasses in their hands. "Drink to me!" He, too, passed as a half-brother. Connie had the orchard and farm, Patrick had gone away a few months before; he, the so-called half-brother, had looked after her to the end. He didn't mind that: he was glad of it. When she died, he broke his glass on the stone floor of the kitchen.

  Tom heard them all coughing. He said aloud, "Marion, Marion, why did you do that? You could have told me. I would have forgiven you." He thought, "I am going to fall immediately for another woman. I hope not some woman out there in the murk of Bridgehead." More likely someone in the sprawling smoking garbage-tip London is in winter. "She'll be the wrong woman and I'll run to her blindly, just to forget myself."

  When Peggy came in, ready to fight if he would not stay in Bridgehead and look after the house and work for them, he shouted that he was not going to spend his life in the back kitchen of a sooty back-to-back, though she wanted to leg-rope him there, "like the rest of the Bridgehead women." Peggy said she had never seen such a thing in her life, a man of his age hanging about a kitchen fire, expecting his tea to be poured for him: she wasn't going to wait on him.

  "If you're out of work, you'd better get on relief."

  "I've never been on relief yet: not even on the dole in the bad days. I always found something. I did anything; I never got there."

  "Don't brag, man, ye'll get there," she said.

  He was glad to shout his lungs free and run out into the passage, like a boy again. Uncle Simon hid from the fight. The mother came downstairs with her gentle superior smirk. "Dogs delight to bark and bite," she said in her aged voice, getting distant now as it drew off to another part of the universe: and she looked about for her duster.

  "Tom's out of work and he's come home to live off us," said Peggy when he was at the front door. Tom came back and laid on the table all the loose change in his pockets, about twenty-seven and six. He kept only some notes and fifteen pennies for telephones: then he took back some change for cigarettes. The two women quickly and delightedly picked up the money and before he got to the door again, he saw them with joyful secrecy putting the money away in an old sewing box which fitted into the back of the linen drawer. There they kept the money paid by the insurance company and the weekly allowances made to them by Nellie and himself. Uncle Simon's pension covered the rent. He strolled out into the filthy air, full of coughing black smudges which had been born to be men and women; but it choked him after the fresh fields and hills round Market Orange where he had been living with Marion and Connie. He suddenly wondered if his mother had thrown the chicken into the fire. This made him hurry back.

  Peggy was sitting by the back room fire knitting, looking very pleased with herself and whistling. "What mischief has she been up to?" thought Tom. His mother and uncle were in the kitchen. Uncle Simon had his felt slippers on the bright fender and was making weak tea. The old woman in a clean apron sat by a clean empty cup.

  "Have some tea," said the old man, "I've got some milk of me own, lad, if you're hungry."

  Tom said he had eaten a "businessman's lunch," consisting of sausage and French fries.

  "A sausage is very tasty sometimes," said Uncle Simon.

  Tom found a cup and saucer and poured some tea, using Uncle Simon's milk that afternoon.

 
"I know ye need the money, lad: ye can share with me," said the uncle.

  "Bread's enough for me, I can live on bread," said Tom, "I don't want to get fat; I've been idling for three months now."

  "What've ye been living on, relief?" said the mother.

  "It's demoralizin' to take the dole, lad, if ye can get work," said Uncle Simon. "Ye can stay here, if ye like and get a good job here. There are plenty of places, and ye're the right age, just the right age; a man of thirty-three is what they want. Ye could get in at Armstrong's. It's not a question of how fast ye are, but how good ye are."

  Tom sat down and drank his tea. Three pale, long, blue-eyed Pike faces looked towards the dirty window and the black air. There was a sickly holly bush in the bit of ground round the tree and some bones and crusts at which birds were pecking. "The mice come out and eat Sime's bones," teased Mrs. Cotter.

  "There's mony a dead bord in this black fog," said Uncle Simon, "and mony a dead old man and woman, too. It's carryin' them off."

  "Did you hear from Nellie, Mother?"

  The old woman looked in front of her, "Nellie never coom, Tom never coom: I've got funny children. I washed and scrubbed and cooked and yet they are not grateful: they don't understand. Their wings get stronger, they fly off."

  The back-yard bell rang and Uncle Simon got up. "It's Charlie," said the old woman smiling. "He comes for the messages, his mother's very sick and he helps her: he's such a good boy," she told Tom politely.

  Uncle Simon returned with a well-grown smiling boy about ten, with shining black eyes and hair.

  "Hello, Charlie," said Mrs. Cotter. "You know, Mr.—" she turned to her son, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

  "Don't be silly, woman, it's your own son, it's Tom."

  "Don't you be silly, it's Charlie," she said rocking with laughter. "You'll be the death of me, Simon, you'll be forgetting your own name. He's no son of mine; it's Charlie Rockett, isn't it, hinny?"

  "Aye," said the boy smiling.

  The old woman went to a drawer and looked eagerly into it. "Who's been turning this drawer upside down?" she asked merrily.