My Beloved Son

by Catherine Cookson

  After a moment, Maggie, gulping in her throat, said, ‘Not for him, Aunt Lizzie, not for him. It’s pitiable: he sits there like a child who’s been told to sit still; and he’s got thinner: he’s like two laths. I’m glad of one thing though; the orderlies seem to like him. I suppose it’s because he’s biddable; some of them aren’t. Oh—’ she now moved her head from side to side and dried her eyes, saying, ‘I’m glad you don’t go to see him; it would upset you. I want to cry all the time I’m there. And yet, you can’t help laughing at things that happen. There’s one fellow who never stops singing. He makes up songs; parodies on this and that. When you’re sitting in the garden he’ll come and stand in front of you, quite naturally, and he’ll give you a chorus or two, then go on to somebody else. And sometimes what he comes out with…well, it isn’t fit for polite ears. Yet I had to laugh today. There’s one of the lads keeps painting. It’s nearly always the same kind of picture, a big black square with a hand in one corner, a bust in the other, and a leg in another. They are very weird. I understand his whole family were blown up in one go. Caruso, as they call the singer, always sings the same song when looking at this poor fellow’s pictures. The words go to a hymn tune, but he doesn’t only give him a couple of choruses, he goes on and on. One of the choruses goes like this.’ And between chuckles Maggie began to sing:

  ‘Oh glory, glory behold him,

  A student of the arts,

  Of busts and bums

  And other parts, silly bugger.’

  As Lizzie let out a roar of laughter Maggie leant towards her with her hand on her shoulder, saying, ‘Oh, Aunt Lizzie, it’s the funniest thing to hear him, yet at the same time when you’re laughing, you want to cry. He’s a tall fellow and handsome. They said when he first came in two years ago they had to strap him down; he fought everyone and had the strength of a bull, picked up chairs, tables and threw them about; one minute he’d be quiet the next minute he’d be away. Then all of a sudden his pattern changed to this singing lark. I suppose it’s the drugs they give them.’

  Now Lizzie, wiping her face, said, ‘Oh, that was funny, girl. I can just see it. But that’s in my mind’s eye; I don’t think I could stand it in the flesh.’

  ‘I didn’t think so either after my first couple of visits, yet I knew I’d sit in hell to be near Joe.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat, and the tears again sprang from her eyes.

  ‘No more, girl, no more.’ Lizzie now patted Maggie’s shoulder briskly, ‘Crying’s not going to do what you’re carrying any good, whether it be a he or a she. What do you want?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Then smiling through her tears, Maggie looked at Lizzie and said, ‘Do you think if I stuffed myself, really stuffed myself, I would have twins?’

  Again they were laughing, but softly now, their heads together. Then Lizzie said, ‘By the way, there’s a letter for you. It’s got the Newcastle stamp on it; it’ll likely be from that Mary.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maggie rose to her feet. ‘It’s funny, I was only there for a couple of days, yet she seems like an old friend. You know something?’ She pointed to her stomach. ‘She knows about this.’

  ‘How on earth…what do you mean?’

  ‘She must have come into the room that night: I could tell by the look on her face and the way she spoke to me the next day; so it’s come as no surprise to her. I wonder what she’s got to say?’

  In the house, Maggie sat down and opened the letter, and she read it to the end before she raised her eyes and looked at Lizzie, saying, ‘His mother’s dead. She’s to be buried on Monday. She’s leaving it to me as to whether Joe should be told or not.’

  Two

  It was three weeks later when she considered it to be the right time to tell Joe about his mother’s death. It was a blustery day, and there was rain in the wind, so she sat indoors at the end of a glass-covered arcade. Most of the visitors were in the main restroom and so this end of the arcade was comparatively quiet.

  The blue flannel suit that Joe was wearing seemed to hang on him like a bag. There was a collar to his shirt, but no tie, which was significant. His face wore a placid expression. Although he didn’t talk she always maintained a conversation, feeling that he could listen and in part understand. But today she didn’t know whether she was hoping he would understand or not, because whatever had turned his mind she felt it was connected with his mother. She took his hand now, saying, ‘Aunt Lizzie sends you her love, Joe, and she’s baked you some of the scones you like. She’s always baking. I don’t know how she gets her hands on so much fat. Joe…Joe, can you hear me? Joe, I feel you can hear me and…and I’ve got some news for you.’ She now gripped his hand more tightly before going on: ‘Your mother, Joe; your mother died a few weeks back.’

  She waited for some response, and when she could detect none whatever she said, ‘Mary wrote me. She’s been writing regularly since we were there, remember? She said your mother went peacefully in her sleep…’

  She was almost overbalanced by his arm jerking upwards, then flinging to the side as if in an effort to knock her over.

  Rising quickly from the chair, she put her hand on his shoulder, saying, ‘You understand! You heard me, Joe. Say something. Please say something. She’s dead, Joe, your mother’s dead.’

  Then Joe said something, not in words but as part of an ear-splitting, high-pitched, cackling laugh that brought the visitors at the other end of the arcade round to stare in some apprehension and an orderly to come hurrying from an inner room. He looked first down the arcade, then towards them and when he came up to where Maggie was standing holding Joe by the arm, her face screwed up against the eerie noise coming from his wide-open mouth, he pushed her gently aside and, almost lifting Joe to his feet, he said firmly, ‘There now! There now, chappie! There now! Come on. Come on, let’s go and have a walk, eh?’

  Maggie watched the man lead Joe away, Joe still emitting that hysterical laugh. But once they had disappeared she dropped into a chair and endeavoured to still the trembling of her body.

  A woman, leaving a group of people further along the arcade balcony, came up to her now, saying, ‘I shouldn’t worry; it might be a good thing; it could be a breakthrough. He’s never spoken, has he?’

  All Maggie could do was make a slight movement, and the woman said, ‘Well, it’s something like what happened to my son.’ She made a backward motion with her head, indicating another young man in blue. ‘His turning point came when he started to cry. He was in water for days: they had to take their turns clinging to the life raft; all but two died. You could say he was lucky, but it turned his mind for a time. I wouldn’t worry because next time you come you’ll likely see a great change in him.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The woman left her alone and she sat waiting for she knew not what. Would they bring him back? She had just come and they were allowed two hours.

  They didn’t bring him back, but the orderly himself returned, saying, ‘He’s quietened down; he’ll sleep for some time. Would you like to come along and have a word with the matron?’

  A few minutes later, while sitting in an easy chair in the matron’s office sipping a cup of tea, the matron came to the point of why she had asked to see her. ‘Could you tell me, Miss LeMan, what you were talking about before the Corporal started to laugh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie said flatly, ‘I told him that his mother had died a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Oh…do you know what kind of relationship existed between them?’

  ‘Not very good, I should say; she seemed to be the cause of his distress, more than the fact of losing his cousin, although he never confided in me.’

  ‘Well, this may be a good sign. At least he is making a noise; that’s something he hasn’t done since he came here. I hope we have better news for you on your next visit.’

  Maggie’s pregnancy was close on seven months when she broke the news about her condition in the camp. The reaction of her superior was one of utter disbelief: ‘No, Maggie
! No! Not you,’ she said.

  ‘Why not me?’ Maggie asked harshly.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. But somehow you seem to be a cut above such things. And then there was Corporal Jebeau. You were friendly with him and he was such a nice young man. Is it that Billings? Is that why he was posted?’

  ‘No, it’s not Billings, miss. It doesn’t matter who it was; I’m pregnant and I’m feeling very much off colour. I can’t stand the long hours at the counter any more, so what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘That doesn’t rest with me; you’ll have to see Miss Robertson.’

  Maggie saw Miss Robertson, who also thought her condition to be equally ‘incredible’; but their reaction was nothing to that of the girls. Peggy took it as a breach of friendship. After a series of rapid questions, to each of which she was given a short, negative answer followed by a long silence, she said, ‘I think you might have told me; I was supposed to be your pal.’

  Bett Allsop’s reaction was, ‘Well, if it’s happened to you, why couldn’t it happen to me?’

  Only the reaction of Rona Stevens aroused Maggie’s anger, for after greeting the news with complete silence she turned away, muttering to Bett Allsop, ‘Somebody must have been hard up.’

  As Maggie’s grip on her arm pulled her round, her face blanched: ‘As hard up as he might be,’ Maggie spat at her, ‘he chose me rather than you, because a blind man could detect there’s nothing under that skin of yours but meanness of spirit. And let me tell you this, Miss Stevens, if you ever hope to come across your gentleman, you’ll have to learn to speak English.’ And in emphasising this she thrust Rona aside and went into the back room; and when Peggy followed her she turned to her and said, ‘She’s always got my goat, but, nevertheless, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Oh yes, you should, and more; she’s always been at you behind your back.’ Then Peggy, turning away towards the sink, said, ‘It was Jebeau after all?’

  ‘You surprised, too?’

  ‘No; no, not really, but you’ve always given out that it was just friendly, like, platonic, so to speak.’

  ‘Well, it was and it wasn’t.’

  ‘Oh, that kind of answer clears things up, oh, it does. Anyway, when are you leaving?’

  ‘As soon as they let me.’ Peggy now turned from the sink and, leaning her back against it, she said, ‘I’ll miss you, Lemon, we all will; except the duchess, of course. You know something, and you won’t understand this, but she was jealous of you.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You were popular, you see. You’re fat. You can’t get away from it now, can you, even without the added burden?’—she poked her finger towards Maggie’s stomach—‘and you’re no beauty. I’m not being nasty; it’s just a fact and you know it. But you have a good voice, both in singing and talking, and you were liked beyond the counter. You could always hold your own and the lads liked that. Yes, she was jealous of you.’

  Maggie now moved her head from side to side as she said, ‘That’ll take a lot of believing, Peggy.’

  ‘Well, you can believe it because it’s a fact, and you couldn’t have hit her harder than that bit about her English, because even when you’re chipping, you talk as if you were educated…well, knowledgeable, like. And people can be jealous of that, you know; I mean education, when they haven’t had it.’

  ‘I left school when I was fourteen, Peggy.’

  ‘Yes, but it all depended on what school, and what your people were like. Our Rona comes from the low end of Birmingham, so I suppose you can understand her wanting to change her voice.’

  Maggie turned away, saying now, ‘We all come from the low end of some place or other. I feel worse about it now than ever.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t let it worry you; you’ve got more to worry about than that, I should think. How is he, anyway, the corporal?’

  Had she spoken the truth her answer would have been, ‘Worse, if anything,’ but instead, she said, ‘About the same.’

  ‘Doesn’t he know about that?’ Peggy nodded towards her, and Maggie said, ‘No.’

  ‘Well, it’ll come as a surprise to him, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it will. It will.’

  Maggie’s discharge came almost two weeks later, for which she was grateful, for the news had spread through the wing, and although the quips were fewer, the questions in the eyes were many; in a way, Lemon had let them down; like a clown leaving the circus for the straight stage …

  The day after her release she went to visit Joe, but she was unable to see him; although she did see the matron again; and this time, one of the doctors, too, was present. Couldn’t she, he asked her, throw any real light on the relationship between Corporal Jebeau and his mother?

  At this, she replied that she had already told the matron all she knew and that had been gleaned from the servant, Mary Smith, who remembered Joe’s mother as a rather dominant woman who had tried to hold her son down, and one who was also given to fits of anger.

  The doctor nodded, but then he brought Maggie upright and wide-eyed when he said, ‘He’s under the illusion that his mother murdered four people to enable him to assume the title. You do know he is titled, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have said that you saw his mother once; can you tell me what she was like?’

  ‘I had a brief glimpse only; she seemed rather weird to me. It was when Joe, Corporal Jebeau, left the camp without leave and turned up at the house unexpectedly. I…I had gone on before him, hoping to bring him back; I didn’t know he was in the house until I heard her scream. Mary Smith, the maid, and I rushed upstairs. That was the only time I saw her. Joe was just standing staring at her.’

  ‘And she was screaming?’

  ‘Yes. She looked scared, terrified.’

  ‘It’s a delusion that his mother killed four people, but there is something troubling him in his mind and when you told him his mother had died, in a way, it opened a door and his subconscious has twisted the facts of whatever was behind that door into delusion. Anyway, that is how we are seeing it at the moment. But there is one bright spot; he is talking, and this is more hopeful than his silence.’ …

  Back with Lizzie, she said to her, ‘He thinks his mother killed four people. They must have been his eldest cousin and Mary Smith’s father, and his uncle and his fiancée. But that’s crazy, isn’t it? Impossible. No woman like that could kill four people. What do you think’s behind it?’

  ‘God alone knows, girl, but there’s something there, and only he can tell us what it is; and by the looks of things that’ll be some time, some long time, I’d say.’

  Three

  Maggie’s baby was born on a Sunday morning in the middle of November. There was no need to hold it up by the feet to make it cry for it was lusty almost from the first moment it breathed air. It was a boy, and on top of his crumpled face was a tuft of black hair.

  When the doctor put him into her hands Lizzie cried, ‘That’s it! That’s it! Let it rip; it’s the loveliest sound in the world.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree with you more, but stop blathering, Lizzie, and get him washed. And now, Nurse.’ He turned to another woman at his side, saying, ‘There you are then; I’ll leave you to do the dirty work,’ and then bending over Maggie, he smiled down into her tired face, saying, ‘It’s been a long haul but it’s been worth it, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, doctor, yes indeed.’

  ‘Now what you’ve got to do is to go to sleep.’

  ‘I’d…I’d like to hold him first.’

  She looked to where Lizzie was still standing to the side of the bed, the child in her arms, and Lizzie, almost edging the doctor away, gave Maggie her son. Then, her voice breaking, but in her inimitable way, she said, ‘First-class job that, girl.’

  ‘He’s beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll say he is. But come on, give him back, else they’ll throw me out.’ …

  During the next few days Maggie had a number of visitors
from the camp. She had expected Peggy and perhaps Bett Allsop, but not Rona Stevens, nor her boss, nor Len Forbister, and they had each brought her something that must have made quite a hole in their sweet rations, besides items that had black market written in invisible letters on them. And when a large bunch of flowers came with a card attached, simply saying, ‘From the Lab Wallahs,’ this reduced her to tears, for in a way she saw it as an acknowledgment that a certain member of their section was the father of her son.

  It was strange, she thought, as she sat looking at the child in the cot by her side, that everybody seemed to know who the father was except the father himself. Poor Joe. It was a month now since she had seen him and, whereas earlier their meetings had been one-sided, she doing all the talking, their positions had later become reversed and he had jabbered about anything and everything, one subject running into another.

  He always seemed pleased to see her, but even when her stomach was bulging, he seemed to be unaware of her condition. She had spoken about this change to the matron, but she had not seemed concerned, simply stating that this was a pattern and it would work itself out.

  Christmas came and Lizzie put up the tree, and for the first time it had a real meaning for them both and they sat before the fire in the warm comfortable room, the baby contentedly nestled in the corner of the couch, the side table showing more Christmas fare than they could hope to get through, for again many in the camp had shown her that she was not forgotten, even to the extent of bestowing on her two priceless oranges.

  What was more, they had a duck for Christmas Day, a Christmas pudding, and plenty to wash it down with. Yet, sitting there, they seemed to emanate sadness for, as in many another family on this night, there was no man to share the festivities, and Lizzie brought this to the fore by saying, ‘Well, girl, we’ve got to look at it this way: he could be in Africa, he could be on the high seas, he could be a prisoner in Germany, or he could be dead. Looking at it like that, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for.’