The Solace of Sin

by Catherine Cookson

  There came the sound of distant laughter; then footsteps coming towards the door.

  ‘Yes? What d’you want?’

  Constance was unable to speak as she stared down at the baby-faced girl, whose appearance suggested she might be about nineteen, but who was more likely seventeen. Her eyelids were painted almost as black as her eyelashes; on her pouting lips was a light brown lipstick, and her fair hair was built up high on the back of her head.

  ‘I said, what do you want?’

  ‘Is your name Miss Vagus?’

  ‘Aye, yes. What about it?’ The voice sounded as common as its owner looked.

  ‘I would like to speak with you. May…may I come in for a moment?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Who are you, anyway?’ She looked from Constance to Millie and back again to Constance. ‘If you’re sellin’ anythin’ I’m full up; I’ve got so much in me kitchen that I can’t get in meself. You’re not the one that was here the other day, offering fancy foundation, or corsets, or what-have-you?’ She now turned her head over her shoulder and called along the passage, ‘Is this the one that called the other day about the corsets, Ada?’

  When a figure appeared at the end of the passage Constance and Millie both groaned. Then Millie, pushing the girl aside, was along the passage and standing in the doorway staring at her daughter. She shook her head at her as she said slowly, ‘Oh, you! Oh, you!’

  ‘What d’you mean? Oh, you!’ Ada’s protruding belly was pulling up her woollen skirt to a point between her legs, and she hitched the waistband further around the mound of her flesh as she cried, ‘And I say again, what d’you mean? Oh, you! What d’you want here, anyway?’

  ‘Who is it? What’s it all about?’ The Vagus girl was standing close to Ada now. ‘Who are they, anyway? It isn’t the one about the corsets, is it?’

  Ada, looking at the girl, jerked her head upwards; then with the same quick movement she directed her thumb towards Millie. ‘It’s me mother.’

  ‘Aw. Aw, now I understand.’ The girl giggled. ‘Well, don’t let’s all stand here as if we was queuing for the lav. Get into the room.’

  Millie followed Ada, and Constance followed Millie. She glanced around at the cheap trappings, thinking it was more than likely her money had bought them. ‘We didn’t come to see Ada,’ she said icily; ‘we didn’t know she was here…I came to see you.’

  ‘Me? What do you want with me? I—’

  ‘Phil’—Ada was standing with one hand on the place where her waist should have been, and she dropped her head to the side as she stated flatly, ‘She’s me Aunt Connie…remember?’

  The girl now turned her eyes slowly on Constance; then her face seemed to be pulled downwards as her mouth dropped into a large O. When she closed it, making a motion as if she were biting into an apple, she brought her head forward and screwed up her eyes, not with concern, or embarrassment, but with laughter. Then, putting her arm around her waist, she half turned her body away from the two elder women and leant against the cheap sideboard, on which stood a number of bottles and glasses. After a moment, during which Constance stared at her, trying yet again to understand the urge that drove him to pick such types, the girl slowly turned about and, with a bubble of laughter on her puckered baby lips, she cried, ‘Well, what do you expect me to do? If you’re in a sweat about it you should do things to keep him at home, shouldn’t you? Like being nice…an’ obligin’.’

  It was like a child talking; her voice had a petulant ring to it. Her body, too, was as yet a child’s body, or at best, that of an unformed young girl, her breasts mere buds. This was a late developer.

  Constance could find nothing to say; she could only stand and stare at this girl. But Millie’s reaction was different. She took a step forward and said, ‘For two pins I’d skelp the face off you. You should have your nose rubbed in the gutter, you loose little bitch, you! As for you!’ She turned quickly on her daughter. ‘You’ve got yourself nice company, haven’t you? An’ tell me, miss’—she put out her hand and grabbed the front of Ada’s dress—‘what are you doing here, anyway? You know what will happen if your dad gets wind of it; he’ll come along here and there’ll be murder done. He’ll kill him…your Uncle Jim. You know that, don’t you?’

  Ada tore herself away from her mother’s grasp, smacking violently at her hands as she cried, ‘Well, let him do murder, an’ then let him find out he’s done it for nothing. You…you two’—she glared from her mother to Constance—‘saintly, middle-aged bags! You make me spew. You’ve got nothin’ to give anybody, either of you; you’re as dried up as sawdust, and you wonder why your men leave you, or are bored stiff with you…You!’ She nodded at her mother. ‘Your body’s never seen daylight in its life; dressin’ and undressin’ under your nightie. Aw, God, a convent behind every window.’

  As Millie’s hand went up, Constance grabbed it and said, ‘Don’t! Don’t, Millie.’ Then she was glaring at Ada, and Ada was shouting, ‘I can understand why he went off the rails living with you. You’re like your son: both neuters; terrified of it, aren’t you?’

  When Millie again made to go for her daughter Constance held her and cried, ‘No! No! Millie,’ and after a moment Millie’s body sagged and she stood with her head bowed deep on her chest.

  Turning now to Ada, Constance addressed her in a voice that shook: ‘Regarding my son,’ she said, ‘I’d better tell you that if you speak to him again in public, or molest him in any way, I shall inform the police. Now understand this: I don’t have to consider your mother or father any longer. You approach Peter just once more and I’ll have you in court. And don’t think the police will be unable to find you. And when they do you’ll be put under protection.’

  Something in Constance’s face stilled Ada’s tongue for the moment, but she continued to glare at her viciously. Transferring her attention to the other girl, and her voice heavy with scorn, Constance went on, ‘As for you; you can tell my husband I called.’

  ‘An’ you know what you can do, missis?’ The fair head was bowed towards her, anger filling the baby face. ‘You can go to bloody hell’s flames, that’s what you can do.’

  Both Constance and Millie stood staring at the girl. Then Millie, looking at her daughter again, said slowly, ‘Get your things on an’ come home out of this.’

  ‘Huh!’ Ada tossed her head back, then clapped her two hands on the front of her stomach. ‘Did you hear her? Come home, she said. You didn’t care a damn when you threw me out; you were glad to see me go.’

  ‘You weren’t thrown out; you went of your own accord.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t do much searching for me, did you?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been much use, would it?’

  ‘How do you know? You never tried. And I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’. And you too, dear…Aunt Connie. If it hadn’t been for your bad, bad man, I would likely be spendin’ me nights in the station waitin’ room. Aye, you can look surprised, dear Mama. When you’re carryin’ cargo in your hold you haven’t much chance of a job of any kind. Oh, I know I could have gone to the hostel for wicked, unmarried mothers but, you know, I didn’t fancy it, somehow.’ She wagged her head vigorously and her shoulders and her stomach followed suit. ‘Anyway, it was Uncle Jim who, gettin’ off the night train, saw me coming out of the waiting room bleary-eyed, and he brought me here. The wicked, wicked man took compassion on me and gave me shelter and food.’

  ‘He likely got his payment.’

  ‘You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you, Mam,’ said Ada now, quietly. ‘It would make you feel better. But he didn’t want any payment off me; he’s got Phil, an’ she supplies all his needs. But let me tell you, if he had asked I would have given it him; and I might yet.’ She turned to Constance and curled her lip. ‘Do you hear that, Aunt Connie? I might yet, and damn you and your police.’

  Constance felt as if, after entering this house, all the blood had been drained from her body.

  Millie’s voice sounded a littl
e distant to her now as she said, ‘What do you intend to do with the child when it’s born?’

  ‘What do I intend to do with it? Bugger all. I don’t even want to see it. It’ll go the same way as every other child of sin goes. That’s what you call them, isn’t it? It’ll be adopted; and good luck to it.’

  ‘Where are you having it?’

  ‘What does that matter to you?’

  ‘Where are you having it?’ Millie’s voice was a roar. ‘You’ll tell me or I’ll have the authorities along here before you can wink. Underage girls living in a bad house…Take your pick.’

  Biting on her lip, Ada said, ‘The Royal. But don’t you come an’ see me, ’cos if you do I’ll spit in your eye.’

  It was too much. Millie turned quickly away as the tears rained down her face and, groping blindly for the latch on the front door, she allowed Constance, putting her hand forward, to open it for her. And then they were in the street again; and in the car.

  Constance’s hands trembled on the wheel. She knew she was in no fit state to drive at this moment, but she carefully backed the car across the street and drove away slowly into the main road, across another street and towards the park. There she brought it to a halt, and putting her hands out she gripped Millie’s, saying, ‘I didn’t know, Millie, I hadn’t any idea. I wouldn’t for all the world have asked you—’

  ‘Oh…oh, I know that, Connie,’ said Millie brokenly. Then blowing her nose violently, she added, ‘I’ll take it, the bairn. It’s what he would want. But as for her, she’ll end up on the streets…End up, I say; she’s there already. She’s bad, Connie, bad. And where does it come from? Not from me, I know that. And not from Harry.’ She leant back now against the seat and looked pityingly at Constance. ‘And you. I’m heart sorry for you, lass. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Get a divorce, Millie.’

  ‘Yes, you should have done it years ago. Our Harry said that’s what you should have done years ago.’

  ‘Harry? Harry didn’t know about this…I mean about Jim and—?’

  ‘Oh yes, he did. Harry knew about Jim’s capers long afore you did, Connie. I can tell you now ’cos it won’t hurt you any more. But just after Jim was twenty, Harry said he got belted by a man because he wouldn’t leave his daughter alone, and she still at school. There was nearly a police case about it. But Harry thought that once he got married it would straighten him out. Apparently it didn’t, did it? Yet’—she paused—‘he took Ada in and never let on, not even to you.’

  ‘Well, he could hardly do that, could he, Millie?’

  ‘No, no, of course not…Still …’ Millie paused again, and then asked, ‘About what you said: had Ada been taunting Peter?’

  ‘Yes, she caused a scene in a coffee bar when he was with a girl. She…she told the girl he was the father.’

  ‘Oh my God! Oh, I wish she was dead.’

  They sat quiet for a time; then Millie asked, ‘Will you come home with me and I’ll make a bite to eat?’

  ‘No, thanks, Millie; I’ve got a lot to do. And anyway, I couldn’t eat.’ She touched Millie’s hand. ‘But thanks all the same.’

  ‘Where you goin’ now?’

  ‘To my solicitors.’

  Constance started the car and when, a short while later, she dropped Millie at her door, Millie, bending down, said, ‘No matter what happens, Connie, I don’t want to lose sight of you.’

  ‘You won’t, Millie. Come out any time; from now on I’ll be living up there.’

  ‘All the winter?’

  ‘Yes, all the winter, Millie.’

  ‘It’ll be pretty tough, lass.’

  ‘I’ll get used to it. And the O’Connors are near.’

  ‘How are you findin’ them?’

  ‘Marvellous, all of them.’ She shook her head. ‘I…I don’t think I’d be able to stick it if they weren’t near; it’s very bleak in the winter, and lonely.’

  Millie nodded. ‘Aye, yes, it’ll be that. But there’s worse things than loneliness, lass. Well, as soon as the weather breaks we’ll be up, and by that time, if I get my way, there’ll be three of us again.’

  ‘I hope it turns out as you want, Millie,’ said Constance, and she knew that it would, for Millie would move heaven and earth, if that were necessary, to get the child; not so much for her own sake, but for Harry’s. Love had many strange facets.

  It was dark when Constance reached the bungalow. She felt tired and ill, and cold, cold to the heart of her. She had seen her solicitor and set the wheels of a divorce in motion. She had also been to the estate agent who had sold her the bungalow and told him to resell it as quickly as possible.

  If Jim’s business trip concerning the sale of the film rights of his book was successful, then he could buy himself a house; if not, then that was his problem in the future, not hers. On acceptance of the book, he had received half of the advanced royalties, which amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds; the rest he wouldn’t get until the book was actually published, perhaps in a year’s time. Well, if he couldn’t earn a living by his writing he would have to do what many better writers than he had done before: take up work of another sort, for he would no longer be supported by her.

  After she had rested and made herself a light meal she set about stripping the bungalow of china and anything that could be packed in the car.

  When they had moved from the flat she had taken nothing back to the house with her. Sticking to her original idea that the ‘Dwelling Place’ would reject anything modern, she had sold more than half the furniture but had kept all her china and ornaments, mostly vases and figurines, which were either Dresden or Sèvres and which had originally belonged to her father. Now she spent the evening wrapping them in underwear, blouses and jumpers. She stripped the cupboards of the dinner and teasets; she emptied the cabinet of cutlery, making it easier for her to handle the case; then, on the point of exhaustion, she went to bed, and after a long, long wakefulness, finally fell into a fitful sleep.

  By nine o’clock the following morning the car was packed to its limit, with the boot so full that the lid would not close. The last object she brought out from the bungalow was a nest of inlaid tables and these she placed on the passenger seat. Returning to the house, she sat down and wrote a short letter.

  This is to tell you that after visiting 18 Quilter Street, I have started divorce proceedings. I have put the bungalow in the estate agent’s hands; the remaining furniture will be sent to the salerooms. I am not leaving you without habitation; you had a choice of three and you made it. I don’t wish to see you again.

  She did not sign the letter, but put it in an envelope and placed it on the bare mantelpiece; then she went to the car and drove away.

  As she left, it began to snow again. The nearer she got to the fells the heavier it became, and she prayed it would fall and fall and cut her off from the outside world and all in it, for now at last she had done what Millie had suggested and Peter had long insisted she should have done.

  It wasn’t until she drew the car to a skidding stop in its usual place below the house and sensed its atmosphere, together with that of the other house down in the valley, that she asked herself boldly if she would have had the courage to make the break, and cut herself off into aloneness, if it hadn’t been that in this wilderness there was one particular O’Connor waiting for her? And she found she could answer, Yes. Yes, she would have done it this time, for there was only so much one could stand.

  The sight of that girl, that low, foul-mouthed creature, and the thought of his daily visits to her, the afternoon meetings and the fact that he thought so little of her own intelligence that he had practically carried on this latest affair under her very nose, must have been the deciding factor…Well, it was over.

  As she went to get out of the car she saw Peter come running and sliding down the snow-covered slope towards her, followed by Davie and Michael.

  ‘Oh, am I glad to see you!’ he cried. ‘There’s a snow warning; we thought you
would never get back home.’ He took hold of her hand and helped her up.

  Home, he had said. She was home.

  Eight

  It snowed all through Wednesday night, but it stopped during Thursday morning and the sun shone, only for the radio to warn that there was more snow to follow and that it would be heavy.

  Vincent had collected Kathy from the high road, where a bus had managed to get through earlier in the day, and half an hour ago he had dropped her and Peter on the main road near Black’s Farm for the barn dance, with the warning that they were to stay there until he came to pick them up, whether or not the snow became heavier. Should this happen, he might get the car down to the main road, but not up again, and they would have to make the latter part of their journey on foot.

  This prospect had not deterred Kathy, because she knew Vincent could make his way up the windswept slopes; as she assured Peter, their Vin had the feet of a mountain goat.

  But even on this return journey Vincent found difficulty in getting the Land Rover back to the house, and when he entered the kitchen he went swiftly towards the fire, rubbing his hands together, and saying, ‘I won’t get her back up again the night, that’s a certainty.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have gone,’ said Hannah from her seat to the side of the fireplace.

  ‘Aw!’ Sean said, the while leaning over towards the fire bars and knocking the doddle from his pipe, ‘let them enjoy themselves while they’re young. And what’s a bit of snow? This is nothing. Not yet a foot on the level, it isn’t, and the drifts are neither here nor there. It’s the melting and then freezing again that you’ve got to worry about. Isn’t it, Vin?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vincent. ‘But it’s blanketing down pretty hard now.’

  ‘Ah, don’t worry about them; they’ll be just one of many down there, and if they can’t get back they’ll dance the night through. It’s been done before…Remember, Florence, that year at the Freemans’ do?’