The Solace of Sin

by Catherine Cookson

  Constance stared at him. His face was drained of all colour and for a moment she thought he was about to cry. She moved her head slowly. ‘What did Kathy say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He sounded ashamed. ‘I wanted to scream at her, choke her, but I knew that’s what she wanted so that the whole place would be in an uproar. She just stood there waiting, so’—he lowered his head—‘I…I scuttled out like a frightened rabbit.’

  ‘And Kathy?’

  ‘She came out a minute or so after. I asked her to get into the car, but she wouldn’t.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She asked me’—his voice cracked and he coughed—‘if I was the father of the baby, and I said, “No! No!” but she didn’t believe me. I told her I loathed Ada and always had. She still didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Did she say so?’

  ‘No, she didn’t need to…Oh God!’ He dropped his head into his hands. ‘I feel sick, sick to the bottom of my stomach.’

  She, too, felt sick to the bottom of her stomach. That girl! And he was helpless against her. She could do this any time they met; unless she herself put the matter into the hands of her solicitor. But then that would upset Harry. And in any case, she would have to be found first. She said soothingly, ‘Kathy will understand. Give her time. When she has time to think, she’ll know you could never have been with a girl like Ada…or any girl.’

  ‘How? How will she know?’ He was on his feet, bending towards her. ‘It doesn’t leave a mark on you, you know. If you’ve been once, twice, or forty times with girls, it doesn’t tattoo you.’

  ‘Peter!’

  ‘Well, you sound like something left over from the Stone Age. The fellows in my form last year, Pete—you remember Pete and Mickey. Well, Pete started when he was thirteen, and he’s had twenty-seven different girls since then. As for Mickey, he’s stopped counting. So how can you tell! And remember you liked them both; you said they were…nice boys.’

  Peter straightened up and they stared at each other. Yes, she had liked them both. Nice boys. Nice boys. She was old; yes, she was old, indeed something left over from the Stone Age.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right, I understand.’

  And she did understand. In spite of his big talk he had never as yet been with a girl. ‘It doesn’t leave a mark,’ he had said, but in fact there was a mark on him, the mark of virginity. And it was there through the fear that once he started, he’d acquire tastes similar to those of his father.

  ‘Are you going down to the O’Connors?’ she said.

  ‘No, of course I’m not. Do you think I am a fool? She’d spit in my eye. She wouldn’t get into the car, remember.’

  ‘She’s…she’s had time to think it over. Did you go to meet her later?’

  ‘No. Do you think for a moment she’d have been there? Oh Mother!’

  She was silent, until he suddenly said, ‘I’ll be getting back.’

  ‘What! But you’ve just come. And all that way! You must have something to eat.’

  ‘I don’t want anything…Oh, I’m sorry.’ He put out his hand and touched her shoulder. ‘I’m all het up. I tell you I could throttle that cheap, dirty little pro. That’s all she is, a—’

  ‘Don’t…don’t upset yourself. It’ll all come right.’

  ‘… In the end? Yes, I know.’ He moved his head slowly. ‘About as right as your life has…Oh, I’d better go else I’ll just go on saying I’m sorry.’

  He picked up his coat and hat and made for the door. She put her hand out towards him, only to allow it to fall again. He wanted action; that was the way the young tackled their problems, with movement. It scattered them to a certain extent. She had sat still under hers, like a hen on eggs; and doing that she had hatched fresh nerves, to be strung tight and played on.

  She kissed him and let him go.

  ‘Mrs Stapleton’s been down. She was askin’ if you’d pop up and see her. Didn’t she, Florence?’ Hannah looked from Kathy to Florence, and Florence said, ‘Yes. She’s seemed rather troubled lately. By the way, how’s Peter?’

  ‘Oh, he’s all right,’ replied Kathy.

  ‘Where’s he taken you this week? To the pictures?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘No, no; he’s been busy working.’

  Hannah looked at Florence; then seeing Vincent standing near the door, she caught the signal from his eyes and changed the subject.

  ‘Are you goin’ to miss the bairns a lot?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Aw, but then you’ll be so taken up with being in a real hospital you won’t have much time to think about anything. Oh now, won’t it be grand to see you all decked up in uniform…you must get your photo taken right away.’

  And so they talked hospital until it was dark, and then Vincent came into the kitchen, and looking at Kathy, said, ‘Hadn’t you better go up there? The time flies; you’ll soon have to be thinking of getting back.’

  She returned his look, then said, ‘All right’ …

  It was five o’clock when Kathy went up to the house, and at six, when she hadn’t come down, Vincent walked slowly up the hill and stood by the spring and waited. He waited nearly another twenty minutes before he heard the murmur of voices and Kathy’s quick tripping step clapping the stones. When she came off the terrace he swung his torch in a double circle to let her know he was there, and she called, ‘Vin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so long.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ His voice was light.

  ‘It spoils your evening, having to take me right in.’

  ‘What evening have I to spoil?’

  He took hold of her hand and led her across the top of the hill, and as they were about to descend he said, ‘Well?’ and she stopped and said hesitantly, ‘It was just about Peter.’

  ‘I gathered that much. But what about him? You’ve had a row?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t explain, Vin.’

  ‘Why?’ She had never before said that, and he felt there should be nothing she couldn’t explain to him; he had practically brought her up. They were very close, perhaps because he had walked the floor with her for the first three months of her life. She had cried from the moment of her birth, and each night he took over from Florence and Hannah and allowed them to rest in turns.

  Kathy had been the second girl born to Hannah after her ten years’ absence. The other had died within a month of birth. All Hannah’s girls had cried during their first three months of life, yet the boys were born placid and happy. Even Vincent had been born so. He said again, ‘Why can’t you?’

  ‘Because’—she peered up at him through the dark—‘it would…well, it might upset you.’

  There was a pause before he said, ‘Has he…? Did he…?’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘Well then, what?’ His voice was harsh now. ‘It must be something unusual for her to want to see you about it. What has he done?’

  ‘He’s done nothing. Well, at least…Oh, he’s done nothing, nothing, I tell you.’

  ‘Out with it.’

  ‘Well, you’re not going to like it, our Vin, so I’m telling you.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be the judge of that. Go on.’

  So she told him; and when she had finished he said, ‘What did she have to say?’

  ‘She said he loathes Ada, always has, but that she’s always had her eye on him. She’s had two babies before this one. Constance says she’s bad. I…I said that people weren’t naturally bad because they had babies; I said Hannah had ten.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘That’s what she said. But how?’

  ‘Hannah wouldn’t go into a café and do what you say that one did. She sounds vicious.’

  ‘Well, yes, she was…horrible, dirty. Not dirty-looking, but just when
she spoke.’

  ‘Yet you believed he’d been with her?’

  ‘Yes. No. Well, he ran out of the place. He…he looked scared.’

  ‘He had reason to be, I think. Anyway, so you’ve dropped him?’

  ‘No; he’s dropped me. I turned up that night and he wasn’t there, and I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘You like him?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.’

  ‘Would you mind if it were true?’

  ‘No, not really, after I’ve thought about it. Men look upon this thing differently from us. Look at Dad. He’s been an education in different kinds of love. He doesn’t love Hannah, yet we’re all hers. It doesn’t follow, does it?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t follow.’

  After a few moments of silence they began to walk down the hill again, and he said, ‘What kept you so long?’

  ‘Oh, we got talking. You know I really like her. I used to think she was starchy, but it’s not so. She’s very unhappy, though.’

  ‘Did she say so?’

  ‘No, of course not. But then, she doesn’t have to; it’s in her eyes. They’re very alike, Peter and her…all keyed up. He’s always talking about her; at least, he was at first. I used to get a bit fed up listening to him. But he never mentioned his father. I’ve got an idea he can’t stand him.’

  ‘What does she want you to do?’

  ‘She didn’t say. She only wanted me to know the truth.’

  ‘And now you know it?’

  ‘Well, it’s up to him. I’m not going to go running, Vin.’

  When he didn’t respond, she said, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want me to, would you now?’ and he answered, ‘All I want for you is to be happy, whether you run to it or walk. But don’t let it slip past you; don’t wait too long; don’t wait for money, or anything else, marry young. It might not work out, but in the long run it’s the lesser of two evils.’

  ‘Oh, Vin.’ She laid her head against his arm, and again she said, ‘Oh Vin.’

  Four

  ‘I’m sure it’ll snow before mornin’,’ said Hannah, rubbing vigorously at the dry blacklead on the stove.

  ‘No, it isn’t cold enough,’ said Florence. She was stirring warm sugar and yeast in a basin prior to pouring it into the well of flour in the big earthenware dish.

  ‘It’s over three weeks since we had the last fall,’ said Hannah, ‘an’ the roads have been as clear as a new pin for a fortnight now. You would have thought she would have come up, now wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps she’s been busy with their new bungalow.’

  ‘Aw, she’s had that long enough to have everything ship-shape twice over, and she said she’d be up for Christmas. Then her not sending even a line; just that ordinary card. And there’s the bairns with all their bits of presents for her.’

  ‘There’s likely a reason,’ said Florence, her hands deep in the flour now.

  ‘Aye, and I bet it’s him. If only our Kathy had still been friendly with Peter we’d have known all about everything, but not a word do you get out of her these days. She’s like a blank page; no excitement, no tales, and her in a big hospital. But you remember how Moira said the Stapleton man went on when he saw missy coming over the fell with Vin. It was the day Vin went out after the sheep, you mind, when Sean thought they had foot-rot, and it was just that one of them had gone lame.’

  ‘Yes; yes, I mind.’ Florence’s voice had an impatient ring to it.

  ‘Well, now, it was just a chance meetin’, wasn’t it now? It couldn’t have been anything more.’

  ‘Of course, Hannah, of course; it was just a chance meeting. And we’ve been over this before.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I keep wondering why he went on the way he did—the Stapleton man, I mean—just because he had been waiting half an hour.

  ‘Mind you,’ said Hannah, changing the subject, ‘even when I’m worried at the back of me mind, there’s a sort of excitement at the front, if you follow me, something that gives me the urge to pull up me skirts and do a bit of a jig.’

  Now Florence stopped kneading the dough and, resting on her doubled-up fists, she leant over the dish and her body began to shake with silent laughter, and Hannah, her head drooping to one side, also started to laugh; then Florence gasped, ‘Oh, Hannah, you’re incorrigible.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ said Hannah, wiping her mouth with the back of her smeared black hand.

  ‘Oh, it just means you’re a case.’

  ‘Oh, is that it? But you know, Florence’—Hannah now went to the sink and began to wash her hands and her voice took on a serious note—‘I’m right concerned at the back of me mind most the time because Vin’s actin’ like a cat on hot bricks, an’ that’s not him.’

  ‘It’ll pass, it’ll pass. It’s got to pass.’

  ‘Well, I hope to God you’re right.’ Hannah rubbed a lump of soap up and down her plump arms. ‘But what if it doesn’t?’

  ‘It’s just got to,’ said Florence firmly. ‘There’s no hope at all for him up there, in no possible way. You can see it for yourself, can’t you? Chalk and cheese.’

  Florence had turned her head to speak directly to Hannah, who was now standing with her back to the sink, drying her arms on a coarse towel, and Hannah said, ‘And he’s the cheese; which, unlike the chalk, is palatable, but of no great value, only to us. But why, I ask the God above, should he be so unlucky? What’s he done to deserve it? He’s done nothing all his life but see to others, other people. Now hasn’t he, Florence?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Hannah, he has.’ Florence was looking down at the dough again.

  ‘There’s no justice,’ said Hannah, flinging the towel from her. ‘Or’—she stopped as she neared the table and, her head to one side, she enquired of Florence, ‘or is he bein’ dealt the justice that should have come to me; the sins of the fathers?’

  ‘Now, none of that, Hannah, none of that. That’s silly talk and you know it.’

  ‘Aw, Florence.’ Hannah took in a deep breath. ‘I’m not so sure. An’ you know what? I would die this minute, yes, I would lay me life down if I could see him gettin’ a bit of happiness, just for a little while, just a little while, whether it was right or wrong.’

  ‘Mother! Hannah! Mother!’ Moira’s voice, accompanied by Barney’s, came from the yard, and then both children came pelting into the kitchen and pulled themselves up at the corner of the table and pointed their hands upwards before they had breath to say, ‘There’s a light on. There’s a light on up there.’

  Florence and Hannah looked quickly at each other, and Hannah said, ‘Well, now. Well now, they’re back.’ And Florence, turning to Moira, asked, ‘Where’s Vin? Is he still in the workshop?’

  ‘Aye,’ Barney put in quickly; ‘and Davie’s gone to tell him. We were all up on the crag and we saw the light from there.’

  ‘Will we go up, Mother?’ Moira asked, and Florence said, ‘Yes. Yes, go and see if they’ve got plenty of wood.’

  ‘Oh, they have, they have,’ said Barney; ‘our Vin made us cart up loads.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Florence. ‘Well, take them up some milk. Ask your father to give you a canful.’ She did not add, And see who’s up there; they would give her this information when they returned …

  Across the yard Vincent, too, waited for the news as to…who was up there.

  It was almost half an hour later when the children returned and Davie came dashing into the workshop, crying, ‘Oh, Vin! You should see what she’s brought us. Every one of us has got something. And Mother and Hannah’s got table lamps. They’re lovely.’

  ‘Good.’ Vincent straightened his back from the bench and asked quietly, ‘Have they all come?’

  ‘Mister isn’t there, just missis and Peter. And Peter says, will you go up and help him with the table lamps ’cos he’s frightened we’ll break them. Oh, they’ve got heaps of things.’ About to rush out of the door again, Davie paused; then as if Vincent were at the other end of the yard, he s
houted, ‘She’s been ill in bed!’ Then he was gone.

  Ill in bed. That was it. He had never thought about her being ill; everything else, but not that. The air he drew into his lungs brought a lightness in him and quickly he switched off the machinery, rolled down his shirtsleeves, dusted the wood shavings from his trousers and, after taking his jacket from the back of the door, put it on. Finally, before he left the workshop, he ran a comb through his hair. He had no mirror; anyway, he very rarely looked in a mirror because he didn’t like what he saw there.

  As he was crossing the yard his father called from the byre, ‘They’re back, then?’ and he nodded. That was all.

  When he rounded the corner of the house and stepped onto the terrace, the wind meeting him in full force, he thought, Why didn’t I light the fire today? Every day except today.

  He tapped on the oak door and waited for his knock to be answered. It was Peter who opened the door to him. His face looked bright, as was his greeting: ‘Hello, Vin,’ he said. ‘We’ve just arrived.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see that. And most of our family has too, by the look of it.’ He nodded to where Moira, Barney and Joseph were gathered around the couch. Then he turned to Constance, who was sitting there. She had her head turned towards him; then she rose to her feet. ‘Hello,’ she said.