by Maggie Ford
Chris saw Billy bite his lip and knew then that all his begging was a waste of time.
The boy’s eyes were beginning to sting. There was no one left but Billy with his round blue eyes and his ready smile. Mum didn’t really love him. She had taken him away from Aunt Vinny where he’d been happy. It occurred to him that he hardly saw anything of his own family now, except perhaps for Aunt Lucy and Uncle Jack. Hardly ever saw his grandfather and that awful frowsy woman who called herself grandmother but wasn’t. Mum was always too taken up with her gallery to visit her father and he was too old and doddery to come and see her.
As for Aunt Vinny, the last he’d seen of her was when he’d sneaked off to visit her. She and Mum didn’t speak.
It was a strange family. A strange life. An aunt he’d once thought his mother; a mother he’d once called aunt. An uncle he’d called his father had died, and a father he had never known was alive and trying to take Mum away from him and Billy. Now the only person he really loved, who had been as wonderful as any true father could have been, might leave him too. Tears welled over.
‘I hate Mum! She doesn’t love me. I hate her! And I hate him!’
Billy’s grip strengthened. ‘You mustn’t – you mustn’t say that. They’re yer parents – true parents. Yer mum – she loves yer. She gave yer up – sacrificed all ’er love so’s you’d ’ave a better chance in life than – than she thought she could give yer. And it was – was ’er love that made ’er get yer back …’
It was painful to hear his laboured intake of breath, the effort it cost him to talk, the words hardly more than a hoarse whisper.
‘An’ yer father – she loves ’im too. Yer see, yer can’t stop someone lovin’ someone when it’s as strong as yer mum loves yer father. It sort of takes over. Yer mum can’t love me as she loved ’im. And I can’t go blamin’ ’er fer what’s only natural. You mustn’t either.’
‘But I don’t love her!’ he burst out, bewildered by the words.
‘Listen ter me, Chris!’ Billy fought to regulate his breathing, and talking taking it out of him. ‘I ain’t goin’ ter be ’ere … well, that’s as it maybe. But you’ve got yer ’ole life in front of yer. And yer’ll ’ave ter grow up wiv what yer’ve got.’
‘But you don’t know how I feel, Billy.’
‘Yes, I do. But what’s done is done. Yer’ll ’ave ter learn that – as yer go along – or go under and stay there – all bitter and ’ating and never comin’ ter terms wiv anyfink. I want ter see yer prop’ly adjusted ter what’s ’appened to yer.’
He lifted a hand as Chris again made to interrupt.
‘Yer can’t go blamin’ people for what ’appens to ’em. No one’s ter blame. It ’appened, that’s all. When yer grow up an’ meet someone – a gel – and yer fall in love wiv ’er, yer’ll want ’er to be ’appy. That’s ’ow it is. When yer love, yer give. Yer give yerself – even yer own ’appiness, for ’er. Your mum – she gave up ’er own ’appiness fer you. She wan’t married when she ’ad you. Yer do know what that means do yer?’
Christopher nodded vaguely. He understood that people had to be married to have children and his mother hadn’t been. She’d explained it a little to him but it had gone over his head then. He understood a little better now but still could not entirely accept that it wasn’t a nice thing to be, what he was.
‘Yer see …’ Billy was having terrible difficulty, breath wheezing with each intake, rumbling and rattling with each exhalation. ‘She thought – yer dad was dead – and she wasn’t ’avin’ you ’urt – by other people pointin’ at yer – callin’ yer names. So she let your aunt – let ’er take yer ter bring yer up. It broke ’er heart.’
He seemed to be rambling, his eyes closed, his lips distressed.
‘Now she’s met yer father again. I ain’t goin’ ter stand in the way of ’er ’appiness. Nor should you. She’s yer mum who gave up all ’er ’appiness fer you. So if yer’ve any kind of understandin’, yer mustn’t blame ’er fer – wanting the man she’s loved all ’er life and ’as found again. Yer’ll bide wiv ’er. Be ’er son – ’er friend. You’ll be that to ’er won’t yer?’
His voice had grown fainter and fainter while he spoke, as though the effort had drained away all his strength.
Christopher, his face creased up, his eyes stinging with tears, not looking at Billy, felt him pat his hand, heard his breath coming in racked gasps, audible enough for a nurse to pause in passing, double back in her tracks to take a closer look at him.
‘Go an’ find yer mum,’ Billy managed as the nurse hurried off. He laid his head feebly against the pillow. ‘And tell ’er yer love ’er. An’ mean it!’
Christopher found himself being hustled from the ward by the nurse who had come back with the sister and another nurse. His mother and Billy’s parents were staring past him as screens were put up around Billy’s bed, a trolley with odd-looking bottles and things hurried behind it. A doctor in a white coat, a stethoscope hanging around his neck, had arrived too.
‘Go and sit in the sister’s office,’ ordered the nurse, and left Chris to go on alone as she confronted the bewildered adults and began talking to them.
Chris, being rejoined by the grown ups, looked at them one by one, wanted to ask what was happening but dared not, each face registering gnawing fear. Something awful was happening, he was sure of it.
‘What’s the matter?’ he finally asked Billy’s dad, saw the man’s face pucker as he patted Chris’s shoulder. Billy’s mum looked tense. So did his own mum.
‘Is Billy going to die?’ he whispered, hoping someone would answer, but all that happened was that Billy’s mother started crying softly into a handkerchief.
‘Mum …’
‘Not now, Chris.’
He had never heard her voice so strangled, so pain-racked; suddenly he realised how much his mother loved Billy. She loved another man too, but loved Billy enough to be suffering terribly.
The sullen hatred that had hung within him like some dark amorphous cloud melted away. All he wanted to do now was to comfort. But who’d listen to him?
Standing by his mother, tall enough to be past her shoulder now, he slid his hand into hers.
‘I love you, Mum,’ he said quietly.
Chapter Twenty-Four
What she really wanted was to cry on David’s shoulder, to have him take away the guilt that comes with losing someone dear; all those words left unsaid, all those that might have been better left unsaid.
Instead she wrote asking that he not see her until she’d been able to collect herself.
‘I have to think of Christopher,’ she wrote.
It was an excuse, a clinging to duty that was no longer relevant. There was nothing to keep her from doing exactly what she wanted to do, yet duty had become a habit, a second skin after a lifetime of laying aside her own freedom for someone else. She felt almost as though she’d be guilty of desertion if she saw him, but to whom and to what she no longer knew.
She received a letter from him in return, reminding her: ‘He’s my son too. He needs us both at a time like this.’ Also that he had hoped she’d turn to him in her hour of need, was disappointed and hurt that she hadn’t.
But she couldn’t – longed to, but couldn’t. The pain she must have caused Billy at the end was haunting her. Going running off to David now would have accentuated that even more.
Chris didn’t need his father – he needed Billy. He had grown closer to her with Billy’s death. Having time off from school, he was constantly by her side.
‘I’ll look after you, Mum,’ he said, with the grave overemphasis of a child that made her heart fill as she hugged him, grateful to have him with her in this now lifeless flat.
Billy was buried in East London Cemetery not far from her mother’s plot. Letty went through the funeral in a daze, unable to cry, unable to think, giving the impression of being fully in possession of herself. She drew some admiring glances, though others frowned disapprovingly. If they k
new the numbness that produced this unemotional exterior!
Afterwards the family gathered in her flat. Billy’s family, his brothers and sisters; her family, except of course for Vinny whom she hadn’t expected to come anyway, animosity still present. Her sister didn’t even send a letter of condolence. Letty, past caring, felt nothing.
‘How’re yer goin’, Letitia?’
A warming glass of sherry in her hand, Letty turned to her father. She saw an old man, the once dark wavy hair thin and limp now and completely grey, the blue eyes rheumy, only the moustache healthy-looking.
Ada, plump and comfortable and blowsy, stood beside him, holding him by the arm. Letty, still unable to like her, admitted that Dad would probably have departed this life long ago but for this frowsy woman.
Dad’s hand touched Letty’s. ‘We don’t see much of yer these days. Wasn’t easy to get ’ere today but I felt I ’ad to. If there’s anything we can do – anything yer need – let us know, Letitia. We oughter see more of yer, yer know.’
‘I know, Dad.’ Feeling a twinge of her old love for him, she smiled down at him, realising how age shrank a person. ‘I’ll be all right. I shall try to come and see you and Ada more often. The gallery takes up so much of my time.’
‘Gallery – fancy!’ Ada put in, sipping her glass of Mackeson’s stout. ‘We called ’em shops in our time. Yer’ll ’ave to show me downstairs, love. I’d love to see ’ow that gallery of yours is comin’ along.’
‘I’ll take you down later,’ Letty offered. ‘It’s still small.’
There were a lot of people to talk to – art dealers, collectors who had come to know Billy through her and had come to pay their respects to him. The flat full of subdued conversation, she circulated, longing for them all to go, dreading the emptiness they’d leave behind, when she must start to think again.
She never did take Dad and Ada downstairs to show them around.
It was the little things she missed: not listening out for Billy’s cough, hurrying upstairs every now and again to see how he did; not having to thump his back or to fill the inhaler, now three months later stacked away in the top of the kitchen cupboard. She missed someone to speak her thoughts aloud to, longed for four-thirty when Chris came home from school, Mrs Warnes in charge while she prepared him a meal. He never went out after coming home although she assured him she was fine on her own; wished he would for his own good. He would eventually, she imagined, as her own sense of loss eased.
David telephoned twice a week; couldn’t quite understand why she was still not ready to see him, but it was hard to explain how she felt. She did want to see him yet couldn’t feel easy about it. How could she explain the persistent sense of disloyalty? Worse since her loss.
David’s call to her yesterday had been fraught with impatience. ‘This is stupid,’ he’d said, tetchy but pleading. ‘I’ve tried to understand how you feel, but it can’t go on.’
‘I’m sorry, David.’ What more could she say? She dared not tell him how she ached to see him. Her love for Billy had been gentle and giving and she had an abiding fear her memory of it was being soiled by the tingling desire inside her every time she so much as heard David’s voice.
‘I’m still not over losing Billy,’ she fought to explain. ‘I can’t help how I feel. You must try and understand, David.’
‘I do,’ he told her. ‘But you have to stop eventually. You have to get over it.’
‘There’s Christopher …’
‘Yes – Christopher,’ he echoed. ‘How much longer can I be kept away from my son? I think I’ve been remarkably patient, but this is driving me insane. What is there to hold us apart now?’
‘There’s your wife,’ she replied feebly.
‘Damn my wife! It’s you I want, Letitia!’
She couldn’t hold off any longer, had agreed to see him. But not here. She wouldn’t have him come into the flat. Not yet. He could meet her a few yards away – take her to the cinema if she liked?
Now she must break it gently to Chris, hoping he wouldn’t see it adversely, that after three months he might not think straight away that she was being disloyal to Billy’s memory. She wasn’t.
She waited in a fever of anxiety for him to come home from school, waited until he had eaten, was twiddling the knobs of the wireless set until distant music came crackling through, absorbed as always in the novelty of it.
‘Chris,’ she said, and as he looked up: ‘I suppose you know that I – that your father and I have been – well, he has telephoned me on quite a few occasions and I – well, I’ve decided to let him take me out this evening – to the cinema. I know it’s a little soon since … I just thought I had better explain things to you. You see, Chris …’
Battling to explain things to a boy hardly yet eleven in words he would understand, unable to see how she was going to accomplish it, she faltered to a halt. He cut in smoothly, without animosity, and with a child’s forthrightness.
‘There’s no need to explain, Mum. I understand.’
He turned momentarily back to the wireless set as she stared in surprised relief, then looked at her again.
‘When am I going to meet him?’ he asked, suddenly earnest.
Quickly Letty gathered her wits. ‘Do you want to, Chris?’
‘Of course I want to.’
‘Then we’ll go to the cinema together – the three of us.’
The wireless set forgotten, Chris leapt up, his dark eyes brilliant. ‘Gosh! D’you think it’ll be all right – me going along? What a surprise! What’s he like?’
‘He’s very like you.’ Happiness was flooding through Letty. ‘In looks, that is. He’s much calmer than you. You’re more like your Aunt Lucy in temperament. That’s the only thing wrong with Dav … with your father – he’s rather a little reserved and sedate. I’m glad you’re not reserved, Chris … Oh, Chris! I’m so glad!’
She caught him to her and hugged him convulsively, all the dull years fading behind her, all the wonderful ones stretching out before her, going on and on, into the distance.
David was waiting further down Oxford Street as he’d promised, was sitting at the wheel of his car as she and Chris came out of the door next to the gallery used in common with the apartments above her.
At the sight of two figures, Letty saw him get hurriedly out of the vehicle, the bright Oxford Street lighting illuminating the tension in his face.
‘Is that him?’ Chris whispered urgently.
He’d dressed himself up in his best blazer and short grey trousers, his thick school scarf wound around his neck against the biting April evening. Socks for once pulled up to full height rather than sagging around the ankles, he’d spent over ten minutes polishing his shoes.
David was coming swiftly towards them, surprise and delight now lighting his lean handsome face.
‘David,’ Letty began as he stopped just short of them, ‘this is Chris.’
She could find nothing else to say, stood by foolishly inadequate, her whole being in a sudden turmoil. She needn’t have worried. David stretched out a hand to the lad who took it solemnly, then as if it were the most natural thing to do, David pulled his son towards him, his other arm looping about the boy’s neck in an embrace.
With tears in her eyes, Letty stood to one side, watching the thing she had dreamed of all these years come to pass. Christopher and his father meeting in loving embrace. It was beyond her wildest dreams; she knew she could never be as happy again as she was at this very moment.
‘We’re going to be so happy together – the three of us!’ her heart sang impetuously, forgetting in her happiness that there was still one obstacle to the completeness she visualised: David’s wife.
Letty and David were standing together swaying, mesmerised by the strains of Al Jolson’s poignant ballad, ‘Sonny Boy’; a gramophone record she had bought after seeing The Jazz Singer, the first ever talkie. Letty, moved to tears by the song’s words during the film last week, could hardly wait to buy it.
Now she was made dreamy by Jolson’s compelling voice.
Chris had been packed off to bed, leaving them to a brief nightcap before David made for his home and wife. The music turned down low, they’d danced slower and slower. And now he kissed her, asked why he needed to go home at all tonight?
Letty’s reaction was to press her face to his shoulder, suddenly guarded. ‘Not with Chris asleep in the next room,’ she said hastily. ‘It wouldn’t be right,’ she finished, knowing how silly it sounded.
It was always the same excuse, even after all this time; it had taken her these two years to get over the feeling of still being married. Ada had once said bereavement was a two-year disease. She had been right.
David had asked before, but only when Chris’s holidays took him to stay with friends. An outgoing twelve year old, popular with his school chums and liked by their parents, Chris was often invited to spend time with this one and that – sometimes for a weekend, sometimes a week in the longer breaks, even going on holiday with them.
She had consented to let David stay on two occasions but each had been a disaster with Letty breaking down, unable to shake off the notion of betraying Billy. David had understood, been so patient with her. But now he was asking again, lifting her face with a gentle hand, kissing her again tenderly. ‘We are his mother and father, you know, darling.’
‘But not married,’ she reminded softly, regretfully, wishing so much that it was otherwise. ‘It makes a difference.’
‘You never used to be so prudish.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Do you remember those years we first knew each other? The beach at Brighton?’
‘I was young and silly then,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t. I was in deadly earnest – loved you with every ounce of my being. I’ve never ceased to love you, Letitia.’
The music forgotten, David held her and kissed her closed eyes. ‘You’re even more beautiful than you were then. These glorious green eyes, the flame in your hair. You’ve gained such poise these past years, I can hardly … Letitia, let me stay tonight.’
