My Beloved Son

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Yes and no. It all depends where I land.’ He stopped again and, taking her firmly now by the arm, pulled her into a shop doorway and, looking into her eyes, he said, ‘If it wasn’t for leaving you I’d be glad to go, and…and I thought you’d be proud of me going.’

  ‘Oh, Joe’—she turned her head slowly to the side—‘don’t start on that again; you…you know nothing can come of it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Look, don’t be silly.’ She pressed her lips tightly together for a moment. ‘You’re asking the road you know, it’s been spelled out so many times: the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. Only the poor man happens to be me.’

  ‘That’s daft, rubbish. Look, there’s a war on, everybody’s changing. Everything will be changed after it. And, anyway, what are you talking about, the rich man in his castle? When Martin marries next month she’ll be out. Mother, I mean. She hasn’t said anything, but she knows all right. Even if Martin wanted her to stay, Marion can’t stand her. And I don’t blame her, the way she’s been received. At the same time, though, I can see Mother’s side of it, at least on this one point, for she hasn’t considered herself as being just a housekeeper all these years, she’s felt mistress of the place, and she’s going to miss it.’

  ‘Will you?’ The question was direct and he blinked for a moment before answering: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘honestly, yes, I will. It’s a lovely house, it’s a lovely place. And I’ll miss…well, I’ll miss Martin. We’ve…we’ve always been close, but more so since Harry went. But in a way I’ll be glad when he’s married; he’ll have someone really of his own then.’

  ‘Will you really be glad when he marries?’

  ‘Of course I shall. What makes you ask?’

  ‘Oh, just that…well, he could have children.’

  ‘Well, I expect he will have.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind. And I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Yes, of course you know what I’m thinking, because you are next in line for the title and all it entails. And what if Martin doesn’t have any children; or, say, if he were to die in the war and you survived, what then…Sir Joseph Bartholomew Jebeau?’

  ‘Oh! Carrie.’ Joe turned away from her, thrusting his hands deep into his overcoat pockets, and he sounded very like Martin himself as he growled out, ‘Suppose, suppose, suppose. There’s as much chance of that happening as…’

  When he hesitated Carrie ended, ‘As your mother greeting me with open arms. I know, I know. And yet I’m wrong, there’s more chance of that happening than your mother ever looking upon me with favour. Why, if she knew we were meeting, she’d go mad. You know she would. Every time you want to see me you have to make an excuse, haven’t you, tell a fib of some sort? There’s times I don’t see you for weeks on end.’

  ‘That isn’t my fault.’ He turned on her now, but was almost pushed aside as someone came out of the shop. And so he took her arm and pulled her into the street again and, still holding her arm, he said, ‘And what do you think I feel like when I don’t see you and knowing you’re away dancing with that John Bennett or that Sweetman fellow?’

  ‘Well, what do you expect me to do? Sit in the house and wait for you coming? And look, don’t drag me any further, Joe, please. See where we are! This is where I work, remember?’

  They stopped just beyond the steps of the food office and, all the irritation seeming to flow from him, he looked at her meekly now as he said, ‘I may not see you again for weeks. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so, Carrie, I must say it—I’ve implied it in a thousand different ways for months now—I…I love you, Carrie. Looking back, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you. Do…do you love me?’

  Her head was bent and her words were hardly audible above the noise of the traffic as she said, ‘What’s the good in loving someone you…you can never have?’

  ‘But we can, you can. I don’t care what my mother thinks, or anybody else, I’d…I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d have me. Will you…will you, Carrie?’

  Carrie lifted her head and looked at him, and what she saw was a young boy, the same young boy she had known when she lived in the cottage. She didn’t see the dark nineteen-year-old youth, for he didn’t look nineteen: there was hardly any stubble on his chin, his face was pale, his mouth tender, his clear grey eyes filled with the hurt of love. She saw the boy who wrote poetry, and she loved him, but as the boy, not as the youth or the budding man. She thought of her brothers. They had all appeared to be like men when they were sixteen, especially Mick. Mick had always been like a man to her. Oh Mick, Mick was something. Oh yes, their Mick was something. And he understood Joe. He had explained his character to her by saying, ‘He lives half in the air; it’s only his toes that touch the ground.’ She remembered him laughing kindly as he said this, because he liked Joe, he liked Joe very much; but at the same time he felt guilty about him, because in a way he had made use of him as a sort of cover. Her mind swung away from her brother and she told herself that she couldn’t see herself spending her life with someone whose toes were just touching the ground; her nature demanded stability. She knew she had been brought up these last few years with her Aunt Alice and Uncle Stan because of the instability at home. Of course that had been mostly created by the lack of money, but the instability she saw in Joe wasn’t that kind of lack, it was something she couldn’t put her finger on. But Mick’s description of him sort of fitted. Yes; nevertheless, he was nice. She liked him, she liked him a lot. Perhaps she loved him. She didn’t really know. Could you love two people…two men like that? There was no answer.

  ‘Look, Joe, I’ve got to go.’ She put out her hand as if warding him off. ‘I’m late already.’

  ‘You…you don’t care for me? You don’t even like me?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She took a step towards him. ‘You know I like you. But…but I’m not ready yet for what you want.’ She knew she was lying, and she went on lying. ‘I…I don’t want to be tied down to anyone, and…and things are so uncertain with the war and all that. But…but I do like you, I like you a lot, Joe. Get that into your head, I like you a lot.’

  ‘But you don’t love me?’ His voice was flat.

  ‘Oh, why must you harp on about that! Look, I’ve got to go. Bye-bye.’ She backed two steps from him, then turned and ran towards the building.

  He remained where he was. The weight in his heart seemed to have tethered him to the pavement, and he had to force himself to turn away, and some seconds after she had disappeared through the doorway. What would he do without her? He wouldn’t be able to love anybody else but her, ever. When some part of his mind prompted the words that he had heard so often, boyish fancy, his inside actually jerked in protest. It was no boyish fancy, the feelings he had for her; they seemed to have been born in him. They had lain dormant for some years after she had left the cottage, but he knew now they had simply been growing in the warm darkness of his being where love bred …

  He had to meet Martin at four o’clock and he had to kill time till then. He did so by wandering the streets, and when for the second time he passed the food office where she worked, he knew what he was going to do. He was going to face up to his mother when he got home and have it out. If he could convince her that nothing she could say or do would make him change his mind about Carrie, the way would be open for him to prove to Carrie he had enough love for the two of them.

  But there was so little time left now, for he could get his papers any day…He had the urge to run.

  He had been so quiet on the journey home that Martin said to him, ‘What’s up, laddie?’ and when Joe had replied, ‘Everything,’ Martin had nodded his head, saying simply, ‘Carrie?’

  It had been almost a minute before Joe replied, ‘Yes, Carrie.’

  ‘Well, better finish it now, laddie, because no good will come of you marrying into that lot. Oh, I know, I know.’ He had taken one hand from the wheel and held it up
in protest. ‘She’s a nice girl, what I’ve seen of her, the best of the bunch, I should say, next to Mick and, of course, Dick. Old Dick’s all right, but if you marry her you’ll be marrying her family…Does she feel the same way as you?’

  When Joe gave no immediate answer Martin had sighed as he said, ‘There are a lot of women in the world, laddie, thousands and thousands of ’em. And the right one is among them, the right one for you, that is. Some day you’ll come across her and you’ll know it, as soon as you look at her, you’ll know it. As I know it. Something goes bang inside your belly. And as often as you tell yourself she’s not your type, that you don’t like blondes, your taste tends towards the browns, even redheads but not blondes, no; and what’s more, her face is round, but you don’t like round faces; and you’ve always gone in for a bit of shape and she’s flat as a pancake. You’re not having any of that, you tell yourself, but you’re hooked, laddie, you’re hooked.’ He had glanced laughingly at Joe, and Joe had known he was describing his future wife, but his words had brought no consolation to him …

  It seemed to Joe that his mother was waiting behind the hall door for him, because no sooner had he entered the house than there she was, staring at him over the distance.

  ‘I want you upstairs a moment,’ she said. Her voice was quiet, controlled.

  He turned his head and glanced to where Martin was taking off his overcoat, and Martin raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips and nodded his head, the action saying, ‘You’re in for it again, laddie.’

  By the time he reached the gallery his mother was at the far end of the broad corridor, but she wasn’t going into her room or into his room, she was making for the attic stairs, and now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows. What on earth did she want him up there for?

  But he knew why the moment he entered the old schoolroom, for after allowing him to pass her she closed the door and stood with her back to it, her pale face, now tinged to a deep red, thrust out towards him as she cried, ‘Think you’re smart, don’t you? Lying, sneaking, crawling individual that you’ve become, and all to see that little slut. Well, it’s finished. Do you hear? You attempt to go near her again and I’ll make it my business to go across there…’

  ‘Shut up!’

  She shut up and her mouth fell into a gape, the sweat appeared in globules on her upper lip, the colour deepened in her face and she seemed to have to force breath into her lungs as she listened to him now saying, ‘You’ll not tell me any more what I’ve got to do and what I haven’t got to do. I’ve made up my own mind what I’m going to do. I’m sick and tired of your domination. Do you hear? Do you hear me?’ He had actually taken a step towards her. ‘If I want to see Carrie, I’ll see Carrie, in spite of you or anyone else. Do you hear me?’

  She blinked rapidly now; then, her face becoming suffused with an anger that seemed to send out rays of heat towards him, she cried, ‘Yes, I hear you. And now you hear me. I’m your mother and I forbid you to take that tone with me. But the first thing I’ve got to say to you here and now is you’re no more capable of keeping a wife than of keeping a—’ she seemed to search for the word, then brought out, ‘rabbit. You’ve been at school for years and what have you achieved? Nothing. The only thing you can do is scribble; and what is the result of your scribblings? Mediocre stuff, stupid rhymes. What’s going to happen to you without me behind you? Have you ever asked yourself that? And here you are, eighteen and you don’t even know what you are going to do. Go to university…Huh! And waste more years.’

  She now drew her chin into her chest and in a voice almost as deep as a man’s she said, ‘And you dare to tell me to shut up, me, who’s given her life to you! From the moment you were born your future has been my one aim, and now to see your trailing after that little slut, you who are in line for a title…’

  ‘What?’

  The anger that the insults to his intelligence had aroused in him was put aside by the amazement that surrounded the question, and again he mouthed, ‘What?’ then added, ‘In line! You really must be mad; I’m…I’m as much in line for the title as the rabbit you inferred a moment ago I’d be unable to support. Martin and Marion will have a family. She wants a family; I’ve heard her say so, and she’ll have a family, and I hope it’s a big one, ten, twelve…In line, indeed!’

  While they glared at each other he recalled that Carrie had said something similar earlier in the day.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ She was biting on her lip now as if regretting her words; then she added, ‘It isn’t every woman that can bear a child, and she doesn’t look a child-bearer to me. And I have a feeling—’ She now drew in a long breath before resuming, ‘And it’s more than a feeling, it’s a certainty that, although we’re leaving here, being forced to leave here, we’ll return, for this is our home. If…if everyone had their rights I should be legal mistress of this place now. Whether you’ve known it or not, I was your uncle’s mistress for years, and he would have married me. Yes, yes, he would.’ She nodded her head before adding, ‘But a man can’t marry his brother’s wife. It was a dirty quirk of fate. I…I feel I’ve been robbed, all along the line I feel I’ve been robbed. But it can’t go on forever. No, it won’t go on forever and, I repeat, we’ll come back here one day. I know inside.’ She thumped her chest.

  When she stopped speaking his feeling of animosity towards her seeped from him, and the pity that he always felt for her again rose to the surface and for a moment he himself knew the extent of her frustration and the reason behind her furious tantrums when she had known his uncle was going to marry again.

  He could see now that she was placed in an almost similar position, for with Martin marrying, she was once more being cast adrift. He thought for a moment that if she would only accept his feelings for Carrie he would go to her this minute and put his arms about her and comfort her, but he knew she would never accept Carrie. But then Carrie hadn’t accepted him, had she? So what was stopping him from going to her and telling her that she had no need to worry? Whatever it was, it was like a wall between them and he was honest enough to admit to himself that most of the time he was building on it brick by brick in order to blot her out of his sight…forever.

  He watched her now lean against the door, her body slumped, her eyes closed. Of a sudden she looked old. She was forty-six: her face was unlined, her hair still golden without grey in it, her body trim, very trim, yet he seemed to be looking at an old woman. Pity for her again seeped through until, opening her eyes, she said, and in a quiet appealing voice now, ‘Promise me, Joe, you won’t see that girl again.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘I’ll do no such thing,’ but he found himself compromising by saying, ‘I’m going to join up.’

  ‘You’re going to what?’

  ‘Join up.’

  She moved her head slowly now and seemed to be making an effort to speak, and then she muttered, ‘You’ll be getting your calling up papers eventually, in any case, so why…? Please.’ She now straightened up and extended her hand towards him, and again she said, ‘Please’—then added his name—‘Joe. Don’t…don’t go until you must. Don’t leave me…until I get over this. I mean the move. You…you don’t know what it’s costing me.’

  He turned from her now, shaking his head, saying, ‘I’m…I’m sorry but…but I must do it.’

  He had his back to her and he stood waiting for another outburst, but when neither answer nor movement came to him he turned his head slowly and looked at her over his shoulder. She was standing straight, looking in his direction but seemingly through him, and the strange look on her face brought him around fully, and he was about to speak, not with the intention of giving her the true version of why he wanted to volunteer, for it wasn’t in him to hurt her to that extent, but she turned from him and, quietly opening the door, went out.

  Her exit caused him more concern than if she had made it in the blaze of anger similar to that with which she had first confronted him. He put a hand to his brow and now ou
t of all she had said there came into his mind her words: ‘You couldn’t support a rabbit.’ And they stabbed at him and caused his whole body to tremble as if in shame because, in a way, he knew she was right: his inadequacy to face his future was there for even himself to see; he had considered volunteering in order to avoid the responsibility of making the choice either of going to University to read for a degree in English Literature or of just plumping for a teacher’s training college course.

  Why was life like this?

  Six

  There was a high wind blowing. The night had turned rough and the rattle from the windows had seemed to be emphasised by the silence during supper. They had almost finished eating when Martin spoke. As if following up a train of thought, he looked across at Joe, saying, ‘I wonder if those thieving scoundrels will be on the prowl again tonight?’ and Joe answered, ‘I shouldn’t think they’d have the nerve to make a third trip, not in the same week, anyway.’

  ‘Those beggars have got the nerve and cunning to tackle anything. But there’s one thing sure, next time they come on this land they’ll be met by a reception committee. Oh, yes.’

  ‘Who’s on tonight?’

  ‘Paxstone, and I’ve given him orders to shoot and be damned. If those devils can wring the necks of chickens and slit the throats of sheep, then they shouldn’t object to some shot, should they?’ He poked his head slightly towards Joe, and after a moment’s hesitation Joe said, ‘He would really shoot them?’

  ‘Yes, yes, indeed; aim for the legs to bring them down. Oh—’ He now thrust out his hand in a flapping movement, saying, ‘Don’t look like that, there’s nobody going to be murdered.’

  ‘What…what if those men have guns too?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t think so. But then you never know; they’re probably ready to poach anything. No, you never know.’