My Beloved Son

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, try to explain’—he was standing behind her now—‘if there’s no-one else and you don’t actually dislike me.’

  She swung round now and faced him. ‘Dislike you? Oh Joe! How could anybody dislike you?’ She stressed the word ‘anybody’. ‘If I could love anybody else, it would be you.’

  ‘What do you mean, anybody else?’

  Again she had hold of his hands and what she said now, was, ‘Promise you’ll try to understand what I’m going to tell you. Promise?’

  ‘I promise…’

  ‘What the hell are you two doing in here! Eh? Come on, there’s a party in the other room. We are going to play sardines. What’s up with you, our Carrie? You can’t come the sergeant major here.’ Janet pushed Joe to one side and, gripping Carrie by the arm, she pulled her out of the room, leaving Joe standing, his fists gripped by his sides, an impotent rage filling him.

  Oh, that woman! His head drooping onto his chest, he gritted his teeth: if she wasn’t careful he’d say something to her that he might later regret. He could still hear her voice coming from the sitting room. It was well above the chatter and laughter of the party; she was likely arranging the game and could at any moment come back and haul him into it. Oh no, no, he couldn’t stand that.

  Mick’s bed was in a boxroom at the end of the upstairs corridor. The men had been directed to leave their outdoor coats there. The next minute he found himself taking the stairs two at a time, and he had just reached the top of the stairs when the whole party seemed to erupt into the hall and a voice came at him shouting. ‘’Tisn’t fair, he’s got a start.’

  When he reached the boxroom he stood for a moment leaning with his back against the door before groping for the light switch. The furniture in the room consisted of a single bed, a corner wardrobe, and a small dressing table. He couldn’t see a chair, and so, pushing the clothes to one side, he dropped down onto the foot of the bed and, his arm over the wooden rail, his body sagged as he sat listening to the confusion on the landing and with his eyes directed towards the door, hoping desperately that no-one would take refuge in here, except it be Carrie, or even Maggie. Oh, he wouldn’t mind Maggie.

  When the door opened abruptly his body, as if pulled by wires, jerked up from the bed and he stared at Janet who, having entered the room, now stood with her back tight against the door. And when someone apparently attempted to follow her she pushed her hand behind her and slid in the bolt.

  ‘Well! Here we are, then.’ She moved from the door and took two steps towards him, and as she stood looking at him he imagined that she had sobered up somewhat, for her voice was steady as she said, ‘I’ve…I’ve been wanting to have a word with you, private like, Joe, but there’s been no chance. Sit down.’ She stretched out her hand and went to push him onto the bed, but he jerked his body to the side. At this, the expression on her face altered and she said, ‘Don’t take on like that; all I want to say is, half a loaf’s better than no bread, and there’ll be no strings attached.’ Her face slid into a slow smile, her head drooped to the side and she said, ‘I know I go on a bit loud like, but it’s just a cover-up. I’m lonely as hell, an’ so are you. Lonely folk recognise each other. Do I…I make myself plain?’

  ‘Yes, very. Get out of my way!’

  The tone of his voice brought her lips tight and her brows together, and when he went to pass her her arm shot out and she said, ‘Don’t take that tone with me. You might have a title but you’re no better than anybody else, ’cos your mother’s the biggest scrounger going. She an’ you lived off the master and Mr Martin all your lives. They were class, they were. But not you or your mother. And I was a fool to lower meself to you. As for you looking down your nose at me, what was your mother but a whore? Everybody knew about her an’ the master.’

  ‘Then there’s two of you.’

  ‘You cheeky bugger!’ Her hand came out across his face, and as he staggered back from her she screamed, ‘You! To call me a whore. It’s your lady-love you should give that name to. But no, that’s too clean for her. You’re a stupid young bugger! You know that? You always were and you always will be. Talk about flogging a dead horse. Carrie, dear Carrie, the dirty, unnatural little scut that she’s always been.’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ Even as he growled the words at her his mind was adding, What do you mean? Unnatural scut? And then she told him. Her voice rising now almost to a scream, she pulled open the door as she yelled, ‘Go and ask her! And ask him, our Mick! Face up to them. See what they have to say to it.’

  She was standing on the landing now and a bedroom door had opened and a number of people had emerged. Somebody had switched on the landing light and the guests were standing blinking as they looked towards Janet, who was flailing her arms now as Joe passed her and she was still yelling, ‘Go on! Ask them. I’d like to see their faces. They’ve been at it since they were bairns. She slept with him until she was nine and then me Dad moved her off out of the way. But that didn’t stop it, did it?’

  He was aware that he was standing beside Maggie and that she had caught hold of his arm.

  ‘He called me a whore. Whores are clean compared with the likes of her. Aye, and you an’ all, our Mick. Tell him. Go on, tell him the truth.’

  ‘Good God! Good God!’ Joe heard the whispered comments from both sides of him and they seemed to whirl around his head, and the voice of his thoughts joined them, saying, ‘Good God! Good God!’ Then as through a blur he saw Mick approach Janet and, taking her by the shoulders, drag her backwards into a room. He felt Maggie turn him about and lead him towards the stairs. And there, at the head, he came face to face with Carrie. There was no vestige of colour in her skin. She looked like a corpse, one who had died in shock. Her lips opened and twice they came together but they emitted no sound.

  At the bottom of the stairs he pushed Maggie from him. He felt he was going to be sick. There was an outdoor lavatory, and he made his way to it.

  But he wasn’t sick. He came out of the lavatory and stood beside the door looking upwards. The sky was carpeted with stars and he heard a voice seeming to come down from the heavens saying, ‘Promise you’ll try to understand what I’m going to tell you. Promise?’

  She…she had expected him to understand that…that she and Mick were…No! No! His mind, in a scream, was refuting the very thought of it, when, down the path, he saw a dark figure coming towards him. It was that of the man who had once said to him, ‘You mustn’t say you love a man.’ And he remembered he had made it sound as though it was slightly indecent. Yet, what had he done…had been doing, even then?

  ‘Joe. Joe, listen to me.’

  There he was standing in front of him, the boy who had taught him to fish, who had walked and run the hills with him, whose sayings had seemed to his young ears so mature, so wise.

  ‘Joe, it isn’t what you think.’

  What did he think? Had he ever thought clearly in his life? All his thinking had been two feet above his head. That’s what Harry used to say about him. ‘I can see your thoughts wafting two foot above your head, laddie.’

  He had always thought the best of everybody; nobody was really bad, until he had to face the fact that his mother had murdered four people. But again, murder was clean compared with this…this thing that this man had done to his sister, the girl who he himself had loved and who had once said she loved him; this thing was not clean, it was vile.

  ‘Joe, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s true I love Carrie and she me, but…’

  ‘Take your hands off me!’

  As he spoke Joe stepped back and tried to bring Mick’s face into focus through the darkness. But it was blotted out by a series of pictures flashing in front of it! One showed him Carrie saying, ‘Dad’s going to send me to Aunt Alice’s to live’; then another, a sharp-edged picture this time, in the kitchen at her Aunt Alice’s. He was looking through into the scullery and Mick was kissing Carrie goodbye, not on the cheek but on the mouth.

  He saw the reason now, too, w
hy Mick had left the farm to go and live in the town; he was nearer to her there. And Carrie. Hadn’t she once said to him, ‘There’s nobody like our Mick. I love our Mick’?

  ‘I’ve got to make you understand, Joe, there was never anything like that…I swear.’

  That’s what she had said, ‘I’ve got to make you understand, Joe.’ There shot through him now, like the explosion from a bomb, a wild rage and, like a bomb, its one aim was to destroy. So quick was his attack that when his hands gripped Mick’s throat the two of them overbalanced and fell over the low stone kerb bordering the vegetable garden. As they rolled over Mick tore the thumbs away from his windpipe and, gasping, he endeavoured to stop the flailing of Joe’s arms. Even when they stumbled to their feet and Joe’s fists caught him in the mouth, he still did not retaliate. But he yelled at him, ‘Joe! Joe, man, stop it! Listen. For God’s sake…’

  When they were dragged apart by other men from the party, Joe, the frenzy still on him, turned on them and when his fists caught one of the men on the side of the head, he received in return a blow that sent him staggering backwards. When again he came forward, another punch in the stomach this time brought him onto his back, and when his head hit the kerb he lay stunned, while the hubbub faded back into the house.

  After being assisted to his feet, he stood swaying like a drunken man and dimly, as if from the end of a tunnel, he heard Maggie’s voice saying, ‘Will you stay with him till I get our things?’ And a man saying, ‘Yes, yes; but I can’t see him able to ride.’

  ‘No, you’re right.’

  As Maggie ran into the house, she could hear Janet’s voice, tear-filled now, coming from the front room, babbling on in some form of explanation, and as she mounted the stairs she caught a glimpse of two men attending to the sergeant, as she thought of Mick.

  It was at the top of the stairs that she ran into Carrie. Carrie had two clean towels in her hand, and they stared at each other for a second. It seemed as if Carrie was going to speak, but changing her mind, she turned and ran down the stairs, and Maggie ran first into the main bedroom, picked up her coat, hat and shoes, dragged them on, then went out onto the landing again and opened the doors until she found where the mens’ things were; and having taken up Joe’s overcoat and cap, she scrambled downstairs again.

  At the foot of the stairs she met two of the women apparently about to make their departure, and one of them, nodding towards her, said, ‘Disgraceful affair. Disgraceful. Tut, tut!’ And the other said, ‘I should never have come. George warned me about her…And such a carry-on in the family. Really! Who would believe it?’

  Yes, who would believe it? Maggie went out of the side door and down the garden. The man was still supporting Joe as he leant against the lavatory wall, and again he said to her, ‘He’s in no shape, miss, to go on a bike; he’ll never make it.’

  ‘I…I’m all right.’

  ‘Here, get into your coat!’

  Joe pulled himself from the support of the wall and she helped him into his coat and buttoned it up and placed the cap on his head. As she did so she felt a stickiness on her fingers. He was bleeding. Turning to the man, she said, ‘Do you live in the town?’ and when he answered, ‘Yes,’ she asked, ‘Do you know anyone who’s got a garage or a van who would run us out Madley way?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a tall order tonight. There’s Foster’s, round by the station. He supplies the camp, I know, so he gets a good ration. You…you could try him, but it’ll cost you something. Do you know where the station is?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know where the station is. And I know Foster’s. Thank you very much.’

  ‘Nice how-d’you-do on a Christmas night.’

  ‘Yes,’ she repeated flatly, ‘a nice how-d’you-do on a Christmas night…Would you open the back gate for me, please?’

  Turning now to Joe, she said, ‘Do you think you can walk?’

  ‘… I’m all right.’

  A minute or so later, she pushed the two bikes out into the lane, and when Joe lurched to the side she said quickly, ‘Hang on to the handlebar.’ Then turning her head towards the man, she said, ‘Thanks. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Wish I could do more.’

  Slowly they went up the lane and into the street, and when they came to the end of it and turned into the main road she stopped and said, ‘Do you think you’ll be able to make it?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  These seemed to be the only words he had left …

  Mr Foster was having a party and he peered at her from the front door of his house, saying, ‘You must be mad, miss, to expect me to go out tonight all that way. Anyway, I’m not a taxi service.’

  ‘I…I know you’re not.’ Her voice was soft with a note of pleading in it as she went on, ‘But…but my friend has…has had an accident and we can’t make it home on our bikes. I’ll make it worth your while; I’ll give you double or even treble what you charge.’

  He took a step towards her now, pulling the door closed behind him, saying, ‘The damn blackout.’ Then added, ‘Well now, if you’re willing to part with six quid I could make an effort. Where do you say you want to go?’

  ‘Bramble Cottage. It’s about five miles out of Madley. You could be there and back in an hour.’

  He peered towards Joe who was leaning over the bike now, and he said, ‘He’s not just drunk, is he?’

  ‘No, no, he’s not drunk at all.’

  ‘What kind of an accident has he had?’

  ‘Er…well, he…he went to someone’s aid and got mixed up in the mêlée, and he fell on his head.’

  ‘Huh! Anybody who interferes in a row deserves to fall on their head. Mind your own business, that’s what I say. There’s enough accidents without looking for them. Well, hang on, I’ll be with you in a minute or so.’ He went into the house again, and she turned to Joe and, using his words now, she said, ‘It’ll be all right; we’ll soon have you home.’

  Between them, she and the man helped Joe down from the high seat in the front of the van past a startled Lizzie and laid him on the couch in the sitting room. Then after asking her Aunt for the six pounds, she paid the man, thanked him and closed the door on him.

  Having quickly taken off her coat and hat, she now hurried into the sitting room where Lizzie, kneeling by the couch, greeted her with, ‘In the name of God! What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. We’ve got to get his things off and see to his head. It’s still bleeding, and I don’t know where else he’s hurt.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Aunt Lizzie, for the Lord’s sake, don’t ask me anything now, just let me get him undressed; he’s in a bad way.’

  Joe made no protest as they stripped him of his clothes. He wasn’t quite aware of what was happening: there was a muzziness in his head, like a thick fog that was full of pain, in which snatches of conversation and words floated in and out.

  ‘Will I get him a drop of whisky?’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea; he might have concussion or something. And look at that cut! A good two inches long. We’ll have to cut the hair around it.’

  ‘Look at his ribs. Good God! They’re discolouring already. What’ll they be like in the morning? And look at his shins, all grazed as if he had been kicked. What kind of a fight was it, anyway? How many were there?’

  ‘Shh! Be quiet for a minute.’

  ‘What was it about, girl?’

  ‘I can’t tell you yet.’

  ‘Nice thing to happen on a Christmas Day.’

  For the second time that evening Maggie repeated, ‘Yes, nice thing to happen on a Christmas Day.’

  A spasm of pain shooting through the mist cleared his head for a moment as the hands turned him onto his side, and again, when they went to move him, he cried out and came to his senses, groaning now, ‘Don’t. Don’t. My arm.’

  ‘All right, Joe, all right.’ Maggie’s voice was soothing. ‘Can you turn on your back again?’

  When h
e tried to do this he realised he could only use one arm, and when slowly he dug his elbow into the couch it came to him he was almost naked.

  ‘Push the cushions under his shoulder, Aunt Lizzie.’

  When he fell back on the support of the cushions he lay panting for a moment. Gazing up at the two faces hovering over him, he muttered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? What are you talking about?’ Lizzie’s voice was brusque.

  ‘Trouble, putting you to trouble.’

  ‘Don’t…don’t talk such tommyrot. Just lie still there and I’ll get a bottle for your feet.’

  Lizzie gone from the room, he looked at Maggie and, his tone contrite, he said again, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t talk, just lie quiet.’

  ‘My head’s splitting. What’s happened to it?’

  ‘You’ve got a gash in it. I’ve put some plaster on but it will have to be seen to.’

  ‘What’s…what’s happened to my arm?’

  ‘I…I don’t know. Where does it pain?’

  ‘The shoulder. I can’t move it.’

  She put her fingers gently on his bare flesh before saying softly, ‘You’ve likely put it out. But if that was the case I don’t think you could have borne us to touch it before. And Mr Foster helped you in on that side. Anyway, we’ll get the doctor to look at you tomorrow.’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘I…I have to get down to camp.’

  ‘All right. All right,’ she said soothingly. ‘We’ll see.’

  Lizzie came in with the water bottle and a hot drink and three aspirins, and after they had settled him and he had closed his eyes and seemed to be resting, if not asleep, Lizzie beckoned Maggie into the kitchen, and there, closing the door quietly, she said, ‘Now, will you please tell me how he came by that lot?’

  Before answering, Maggie sat down on a chair and she drooped her head forward and let out a long sigh of weariness.