The House of Women

by Catherine Cookson

  She nodded in assent, then walked slowly away. If Henry were to die what would there be left in life for her? She wouldn’t love again, not like this. She had never loved before like this. There would be Gran, and her mother, and Peggy, and the baby, not forgetting Andrew, and Len. Oh no, not forgetting Len. She wouldn’t be able to go on. She’d put up with this life for nearly eighteen years, but she couldn’t go on for another eighteen, not another eight months, not even eight weeks, if anything should happen to Henry.

  They were all waiting for her when she got back and she told them the little she knew. And Frank wondered why it was always the decent blokes that were let in for it; he had known Henry Brooker for years and there wasn’t a nicer fella walking.

  It was just on ten o’clock that evening when she heard Len come in. She heard his key in the door, then the door bang. She heard him going up the stairs and his bedroom door bang.

  He was back again and immediately the atmosphere in the house changed.

  It was well after twelve o’clock when she left the sitting room and went upstairs, but she couldn’t sleep. It was three o’clock before she dozed off. It was seven o’clock when she woke, seven o’clock on Monday morning: Monday, when the week’s routine started. There’d be a cold breakfast this morning, just cereals and toast, because it was washday. Her mother would go round collecting all the dirty linen, making the same comments as she did every week. Though not quite, for recently one had been dropped: Why had Peggy to change her underwear every day? When she was younger it had been once a week, except when they were going somewhere special, and then they all put on a clean vest and knickers. However, the comment that never varied concerned Len: why did he wear a clean shirt every day, sometimes two: Mondays and Fridays, when he was going to the Boys’ Club, he always changed his shirt in the evening.

  How soon could she go to the hospital, she wondered. The wards were always very busy first thing, but she could phone.

  She phoned, to be told Mr Brooker had spent a comfortable night.

  What did that mean?

  Breakfast over, her mother was in the utility room sorting the washing. She herself was washing up the breakfast things when Victoria came to the door saying, ‘What do you make of that?’ She was holding out one of Len’s shirts. ‘You know, Lizzie, I starch all the cuffs and the collars of Len’s shirts every week without fail. I’ve done it for years and when I haven’t you have, but look at that: that cuff’s stiff and that one’s limp; it’s been washed. Look! Part way up the sleeve it’s been washed. Now why should he do that? He’s been up to something when he’s been away. And he left cuff links in another shirt. That’s not like him. But why should he wash one sleeve?’

  ‘Likely because it was dirty.’

  ‘How do you get one sleeve dirty?’

  ‘You ask me; or better still, you ask him, Mother. But what does it matter?’

  Nothing mattered, except getting to the hospital and seeing Henry again. Before she went, however, she would have to go to the works. Last night she had phoned Joe Stanhope and told him what had happened. He had been shocked and said, ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Hammond, things will carry on as usual. At least I’ll do the best I can.’

  And she had no doubt they would all do the best they could; except Len, of course, who would be gloating, and waiting now, desperately waiting to see if he would at last be given his due: there was no better worker than Joe Stanhope, but where management was concerned he was virtually inexperienced.

  At half past eight she crossed the yard and went to the side door of the annexe. She never used the communicating door inside the house because she felt strongly that they both must feel it was their house and so was private.

  Peggy was concerned not only for Mr Brooker, but also for the way her mother was reacting. It was as if Mr Brooker was a relation or something. ‘It’s a pity Mr Brooker isn’t there this morning,’ she said, ‘because Andrew’s taken his poster in. Gran saw it last night and thought it was excellent. She thought up a slogan for it and is going to have it printed and stuck along the bottom. It’s alluding to the girl on the bonnet and it says simply, “It’s what’s under the bonnet that counts”. She’s going to pay him for it.’

  ‘Where are they going to put it? In the showcase outside?’

  ‘Oh no; I think it’s going in the showrooms.’

  Now it was Lizzie’s turn to say, ‘Oh no!’ Then, ‘Len isn’t going to like that, and that’s putting it mildly.’

  ‘It’s only a poster.’

  ‘But it’s his showroom; and you know what he thinks of…of Andrew.’

  ‘Well, it’s gone now.’ Peggy pursed her lips. ‘He’ll have to make the best of it.’

  ‘It was quite big. How on earth did he manage that on his bike?’

  ‘He didn’t take his bike; his father picked him up in the old banger. Oh, it’s a wonder that car doesn’t set itself on fire. Anyway, they put it on the top. Andrew had packed it in cardboard ready. I…I thought his using all those parts to form a frame was very good, didn’t you?’

  ‘What? Oh yes, the tools. Oh yes; I thought they were very good, very good.’

  Parts forming frames, posters, Len going mad when he knew who had done that poster, Henry lying in hospital battered to bits, her mother worrying why Len had washed one sleeve of his shirt…Yes, why had he washed one sleeve of his shirt? Oh, what did it matter? Nothing mattered. She must get to the works.

  Willie Anderson, looking at the six foot by four poster, commented, ‘Eeh! that’s grand. By! You shouldn’t be greasing, you should be painting.’

  ‘I will one day.’ Andrew preened himself.

  ‘Quite an artist, aren’t you?’ This from Ken Pickford, who was standing to the other side of the poster which had been placed for inspection against the boot of a car. ‘You should take it up full-time.’

  ‘I’m going to night classes now to keep my hand in. It was my subject at school.’

  ‘I’d say!’ Ken Pickford jerked his head to the side; then, poking his neck out, he said under his breath, ‘But how d’you think Hammond will take your efforts, lad, eh? He seemed to hate your guts.’

  ‘He can’t do much about it; Mrs Funnell likes it; she paid me extra for it.’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘Oh yes, she did. She gave me five quid.’

  ‘Well, well. Anyway, it can’t remain here. Look, Willie’—he turned to one of the men—‘you give him a hand to take it into the showroom. And mind, you’d better do the talking to Mr Hammond, ’cos, I understand, he hasn’t opened his mouth to you, has he?’ He was addressing Andrew, and Andrew said, ‘No, he hasn’t opened his mouth to me, but I haven’t missed anything he’s had to say. Anyway, whether he speaks or not doesn’t affect me; I know where I stand.’ He looked from one to the other knowingly, and the two men exchanged glances and, nodding, said together, ‘He knows where he stands.’ And Willie Anderson added, ‘Lucky lad who knows where he stands at seventeen.’

  ‘I’m eighteen next week.’

  ‘He’s eighteen next week.’ Again they had spoken together; then laughing, Ken Pickford said, ‘Get on with it! Forward into battle, idiots and fools first.’

  Both Willie Anderson and Andrew were still laughing as they carried the wooden-framed poster through the workshop, not without drawing some comments, then across the forecourt, past the main entrance that led to a small hall and the offices, to the double glass doors of the showroom.

  The showroom was a large one. It could take ten cars comfortably, styled. Leonard Hammond’s office was at the far end of it. It, too, was glass-fronted, so he had an open view into the showroom itself, where the cars were so arranged that his view could take in the main doors and any customer entering.

  He had been sitting in his office for the last fifteen minutes. He had a ledger in front of him and a pen in his hand, but he hadn’t written anything or even turned a page. He had already been along to the main office and seen Joe Stanhope ensconced in th
e managerial chair and had been told that Mrs Hammond would be along later to see to things. He’d had to curb his desire not to reach out and drag the fellow across the table and fling him to the floor…Mrs Hammond would be along later to see to things. Yes, Mrs Hammond would be along later to see to things, and he would see to Mrs Hammond. If it was the last thing he did, he would see to Mrs Hammond. His mind seemed to be red hot. He could practically see inside his head, and it was flaming. His temples were bursting. It was when he lifted his eyes and looked towards the door that he saw the two young men easing something into the showroom. When the nearer one turned his face and recognition came, it was as if he had been startled by a loud report, so quickly did he spring up and lean across his desk and stare through his dividing glass panel, to see Alec Fox, the chief salesman, walk towards the two, and Pat Kenyard, the second assistant, come from behind the car and join them. He watched them talk for a while; then Alec Fox looked towards the office and him before pointing to a wall where there hung two framed photos of cars. He was further incensed when Fox took down the photos and beckoned the two carrying the poster towards him.

  Now he was out of the office and striding towards them, the impeding cars increasing his anger as he cried, ‘Hold your hand a minute! Hold your hand a minute! What’s this?’

  ‘Apparently Mrs Funnell said this has to go up in the showrooms,’ Alec Fox said.

  ‘Begod, it has! Mrs Funnell said, did she? Now get that out of here before I put my foot through it.’

  ‘Better not do that.’

  Slowly he turned his head and looked at Andrew. The boy’s face was red, the lips of his wide mouth pushed out. ‘I’ve done that, and Mrs Funnell paid me for it and says it’s got to hang in here. So hang in here it will.’

  ‘Get out, you scum. Get out!’

  For a matter of three seconds no-one moved; then Pat Kenyard said, ‘Look, Mr Hammond, let’s talk this…’

  ‘Shut up, you, you fathead!…So you won’t get out and you won’t take that with you. Well, I’ll show you what I’ll do with it.’ Like lightning he swung out an arm towards a stand and grabbed up the metal vase holding artificial flowers and hurled it at the poster, and it went through it as if it were tissue paper. What followed next no-one was later able to explain: whether it was Len Hammond who sprang forward on the boy, or the boy sprang forward on him, with three men aiming to separate them. When they did, Hammond screamed, ‘Get him out! Get him out!’ with Andrew yelling back at him, ‘You’ll not push me out, or anybody else. I’ll be here when you’re gone…I’ll take your place, and higher. D’you hear? Higher. I’m all set and you’re finished.’

  Another implement was hurled, and the men scattered, trying to make for the door; but when the second metal vase went through the glass pane, they crouched behind the cars and then watched Hammond wreak his vengeance on one of the cars. Picking up a loose jack from against the wall he smashed through the car’s windscreen and was on the point of attacking the bonnet when suddenly he fell to the side and leant against the door. It was Willie Anderson who, rising slowly from behind the shelter of a car, said quietly, ‘He’s…he’s having a seizure.’

  Now he and Alec Fox moved cautiously forward over the broken glass, to see the wrecker slumped on the floor beside the car, his arms folded across his chest and groaning aloud.

  ‘Straighten him out.’

  They were all standing round him looking down on the blue face, the mouth gasping for breath, and Alec Fox muttered, ‘Phone for a doctor…no, an ambulance, quick!’

  Pat Kenyard said, ‘It’s a stroke all right. My dad died with one similar to that. My God! Look at this place. He went mad.’ He turned now and looked at Andrew, adding, ‘All through your bloody poster.’

  ‘It wasn’t through his bloody poster,’ Alec Fox said, nodding at Andrew; ‘he’s been going mad for a long time. This isn’t unexpected. So, don’t let it worry you, son.’

  Andrew was leaning against the bonnet of a car; he felt sick, he wanted to vomit. All those weeks of work smashed up. He didn’t care if Hammond died; it would be a good job if he did.

  As though prompted by these thoughts, a feeling of guilt brought about by his having said he’d get his place, and higher, assailed him: he hadn’t meant it to come out like this. He wouldn’t like it to get back to Mrs Funnell; he had already gathered that she was a woman who liked you to keep your place until she thought fit to change it. But that madman could have done for him if that vase had hit him.

  Suddenly all their thoughts were brought together again by the opening of the door. Mrs Hammond stood there. No-one spoke as they watched her eyes move from the wall and the shattered poster to the broken windscreen on the first car, then come to rest on the scattered glass about her feet. When she moved slowly into the showroom it was Alec Fox who said, ‘Your…your husband’s had an attack, Mrs Hammond. We…we’ve sent for an ambulance.’

  She walked over to the figure lying curled up on the floor of the showroom, and she put her hand over her mouth before she said, ‘What happened?’ She said it merely for something to say, for she knew what had happened: there was evidence to the side of her; he couldn’t take the poster or the fact that his son-in-law had dared to enter his sanctum.

  She was saved from further action or comment by the siren proclaiming the arrival of the ambulance.

  They were all pushed back, and the ambulance men were bending over the figure, straightening him, testing his heart. Then gently they lifted him onto a stretcher. And one of them, turning to her, said, ‘You a relative, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m his wife.’

  ‘You’d better come along then.’

  She went along, sitting next to the blue-faced figure on the stretcher, now and again putting her hand out, as did the ambulance man, to stop it from rocking. Then as the ambulance drew to a stop, the man leant over and placed his hand over Leonard’s heart. He lifted his eyelids, then slowly turned to Lizzie and said, ‘I’m afraid, missis, I’m afraid…’

  By the time they got him into the theatre it was confirmed that Leonard Hammond had died following a stroke.

  Eleven

  Five days later he was cremated at twelve noon. The parson from the church was there because his presence was necessary; the members of the family, the three women and the young married couple, were present; neither of Andrew’s parents had come: his mother was at work and his father said openly he wouldn’t be a hypocrite, for the man hadn’t recognised his son so he could see no reason why he should recognise him, even in death. Only four men represented the works because Mrs Funnell had pooh-poohed the idea of closing it for an hour or so. Two young men represented the Boys’ Club.

  Mrs Funnell saw to it that the men from the works were given a glass of spirits and the choice of some eatables in the dining room, and by two o’clock the whole business was over, and the house returned to normal. There was no need for a solicitor to be present for there was no will to read. Leonard Hammond had had nothing to leave except, as Lizzie was to discover, the evidence that he had tried to murder Henry.

  It was when she had been going through his things in the bedroom on the day after his death that Lizzie found his suitcase in the bottom of the wardrobe. It was locked, and none of the keys she found in the room or those in his clothes, which had been returned from the hospital, would fit. She had taken a screwdriver and wrenched the case open, all the while feeling that she would find something in it. What she found was his dark grey suit, with bloodstains on the sleeves and down the front of the coat and one trouser leg. Evidently he hadn’t had time to dispose of the clothes before death had hit him unexpectedly. But the condition of the suit linked up with the washed soft cuff of his shirt that her mother had found so odd.

  After the discovery, she had sat on the edge of the bed and questioned why he had done it; that he was willing to murder a man because he had been given a position he thought should be his. He had intended murder, and so it would have been if Henry hadn’t had suc
h a strong constitution and managed to get to the phone…

  It was three days later that Lizzie found out her husband had another reason for wanting to murder Henry.

  She had defiantly donned a brown mackintosh instead of her black coat. The weather had changed over the past two days and there was now intermittent rain.

  In the hall, she saw her grandmother talking to Andrew. She was saying, ‘Well, it’s up to you now, Andrew,’ and the young fellow replied, ‘Yes, Mrs Funnell, I know that, and I won’t let you down.’

  In spite of the life she had experienced with Len and what he had aimed to do to Henry she felt a spurt of deep anger on his account. If only her grandmother had spoken to him like that from the beginning, how different things might have been. And there entered her mind a faint suspicion of her young son-in-law’s motives. Looking at him now, she thought he was too pleasant to be genuine. And what was more, why wasn’t he at work with the rest of the men?

  Andrew smiled at her, nodded, then turned away. And her grandmother said, ‘Where are you off to? It’s raining.’

  ‘I know that.’

  The old woman looked her up and down, saying now, ‘You’ve quickly shed your black.’

  ‘For God’s sake! Gran, don’t be a hypocrite.’

  ‘Lizzie! Lizzie! Now you be careful.’

  ‘Well, you are, you are. You loathed him. You’re glad he’s dead. And, oh yes, yes, yes’—her head was bobbing now—‘you’re not the only one. But to chide me because I’m not keeping in mourning to portray my loss is…well—’ She made a scornful motion with her hand, then opened the door, bringing forth the immediate reaction of, ‘May I ask where you’re off to?’ from her grandmother.

  ‘Yes, you may, Gran, I’m off to the hospital. And I may have news for you when I come back. But I don’t know what time that’ll be, so I’d keep awake.’