Matty Doolin

by Catherine Cookson

  Matty’s gaze dropped slowly away from his mother’s, and, stooping, he tugged Nelson gently to his feet. The other boys made for the door, and Willie, endeavouring to be polite to the last, said, ‘Goodnight, Mr Doolin; and you too Mrs Doolin. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ Mr Doolin’s reply sounded flat, while Mrs Doolin, with a helpless air, said, ‘Aw, goodnight, Willie.’

  ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Doolin; it was grand. Thanks a lot.’ It was Joe now, addressing her, and she half smiled at him as she said, ‘That’s all right, Joe.’

  The three boys were going into the yard when Matty suddenly stopped and handed the dog to Joe, saying quietly, ‘Take him down the yard, will you; I won’t be a minute.’ Then he went back into the kitchen, and there interrupted a muttered conversation that was passing between his parents. He stood staring at them until his father, with his usual form of enquiry, said, ‘Well?’

  Matty held them both a moment longer in his glance before he asked stiffly, ‘You really mean it, that you won’t let me go campin’?’ He watched his mother close her eyes before saying, ‘I thought you’d have sense to know we’ve had it all out. Do I have to repeat it again? You’re not going camping on the fells with those two alone. With a crowd, yes, but not just by yourselves. They haven’t got two pennorth of gumption atween them. Anything could happen.’

  ‘Is that enough for you?’ asked his father menacingly.

  Matty now wetted his lips; then swallowed before he said, ‘And you really mean that I’ve got to get rid of Nelson, that . . . that he’s got to go someplace the morrow?’

  His mother looked at his father, then wearily back to him as she said slowly, ‘Boy, I’ve told you. It isn’t only that he tears up things, it’s his howling. From the minute you leave the house that animal howls to high heaven. The street is raised; people are complaining.’

  Again the three of them stood looking at each other. Then, his head drooping, Matty half turned away, only to pause. Bringing his head up again, he gazed deliberately at his father now and said, ‘I’m on sixteen and I can’t go campin’, and I’m not allowed to keep me dog, so don’t you be surprised if I want to do something else . . . like jumping a boat, say.’

  ‘You young . . . !’ His father’s advancing figure and his voice were checked by his mother crying, ‘Now that’s enough . . . Go and get yourself out, boy.’

  Matty was trembling when, with Nelson on a lead now, he followed his pals out of the backyard door, and he didn’t know whether it was with indignation at being treated like a small boy, or at Nelson’s coming fate, or because he had dared to stand up to his father. Perhaps it was a little of all three.

  Chapter Two

  The boys walked slowly, dolefully discussing the failure of their plans for the summer holidays. At least Willie and Joe made their disappointment verbal, but Matty’s disappointment could find no outlet in words, because it probed beyond the fact that he was being done out of a holiday to the wider issue of being thought incapable of taking care of himself. Then there was Nelson. Nelson’s plight was of more importance at the moment than the holiday or anything else. As the other two boys chatted, his thoughts were dwelling on Joe’s proposal and he said now, ‘We could start up White Leas way.’

  ‘White Leas?’ repeated Willie. ‘What are we going to do up White Leas way?’

  ‘Joe here thought that somebody might take Nelson.’

  ‘Aye, I did.’ Joe nodded brightly. ‘It would be better than have him gassed the morrow.’

  ‘He’ll not be gassed.’ Matty turned on his pal. ‘Don’t say that. They stick a needle in them and put them to sleep; they’re not gassed.’

  ‘All right, all right. Eeh! You are in a tear. I only said . . . ’

  ‘I know what you said.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Willie, bending in front of Matty to look at Joe now, ‘you mean, go round the doors and ask?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joe.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Willie. ‘But why White Leas? Why not go down Westoe?’

  ‘Use your napper,’ said Matty. ‘Westoe! Who’d take a stray dog down Westoe? They’re snooty down there; more likely set their dogs on you if you went to a gate. No, we’re going up White Leas.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Joe, ‘Matty is right. White Leas is best.’

  The first door they went to was painted yellow and had a bell, which Joe took upon himself to ring, his finger pressed tightly on it for some seconds. They were all in different states of nervousness as they waited, but when after some minutes there was no response to their ringing, it was evident there was no-one at home.

  ‘We’ll knock next door,’ said Willie.

  ‘No,’ said Matty, putting Nelson onto the pavement again.

  ‘Why for not?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Well, it looks scruffy,’ said Matty. His eyes were skimming over the doors as he spoke. Then he pointed. ‘There’s a nice one. It’s just been varnished and the house has got nice windows, nice curtains.’

  Again Joe rang a doorbell, and this time it was opened almost immediately by a little girl of about eight. ‘What do you want?’ she said, without any preamble.

  Joe and Willie remained silent, their gaze on Matty now, as he swallowed deeply before saying, ‘Is your ma in? Will you ask her if she wants a dog?’

  ‘A dog?’ The little girl’s voice was high and excited, and, looking at Nelson, she added, ‘Him!’

  ‘Aye. He’s a good dog,’ said Matty, ‘friendly like.’

  ‘Ma!’ The little girl was running back up the passage. They heard her voice gabbling to someone beyond the closed door, then a woman made her appearance. She was big and fat and seemed to fill the space between the walls, and she cried at them, ‘A dog! A dog, is it? Now get yerselves away afore I bite yer. Go on with you.’

  The next minute they were looking at the closed door. When they were on the pavement once more they were silent, until Willie, chuckling slowly, said, ‘Did you hear what she said? She said, “afore I bite yer”. It’s funny, isn’t it, trying to get her to take a dog, and her tellin’ us she’ll bite us, see?’

  ‘Aye, it is funny.’ Joe was laughing with Willie now. But Matty wasn’t laughing. He felt awful, he felt as if the woman had slapped him in the face. He had a feeling of being humiliated somehow, and at this moment his thoughts returned to his mother and he felt bitter against her. All this was happening to him because she wouldn’t let him keep Nelson.

  At another house a man answered the door. He was a thin oldish man, and they knew he was a pitman by the blue marks on his face and arms, the insignia of hewing coal. Although his refusal was firm, his voice was kindly and went some ways towards soothing Matty’s feelings. ‘No, lad,’ he said. ‘We don’t want a dog. We’ve had enough trouble with animals and bairns over the years, and now the wife’s past bothering. You know what I mean; she wants to get out a bit, and you can’t leave an animal tied up for hours on end.’ He looked at Matty knowingly and added, ‘Your mother won’t let you keep him?’

  Matty nodded his head.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for you, lad, and I don’t doubt your trek is goin’ to be a hard one, ’cos as soon as the licence is due they push them out. Not all, oh no, not all. There’s some folks love their dogs but there are others who are not fit to keep rats. Still, I wish you luck, lad.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Matty.

  The next door they visited was painted blue, and as they rang the bell there came the sound of raised voices, and Willie, bending towards Matty, whispered, ‘They’re having a row.’

  Matty had realised this and was just about to turn away when the door was wrenched open and they were faced by a young woman glowing with temper. ‘What do you want?’

  Matty stared up at her but said nothing. He knew that in this particular case the offering of a dog would only be adding fuel to the fire. But Joe didn’t think along these lines, for, looking up at the woman and giving her his brightest smile, he said, ‘Would you like a dog, missis?
’

  ‘You cheeky monkey!’ A very large hand came out, and the next minute Joe found himself sitting on the concrete looking at the bottom of a closed door, while Willie hung over the railings laughing at the top of his lungs, and Matty, his head bowed, found it almost impossible not to bellow with him, and, try as he might, he couldn’t keep his face straight as he pulled Joe to his feet.

  Their visits to the last three houses had been observed by a boy of about ten years old. He had been pushing a bike along the other side of the street. One tyre of the bike was quite flat, making it evident why he was walking. And now he turned the bike in the direction of the boys, and when he came up to them, he said, ‘You trying to get rid of your dog?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Matty. ‘Do you know anybody who wants one?’

  ‘I do.’ The boy was looking at Nelson, and they all looked at the boy, and Joe and Willie now gabbled together, ‘Great! Great! He’s yours, isn’t he, Matty? You can have him.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Where do you live?’ asked Matty.

  ‘Up the close,’ said the boy, still gazing at Nelson. ‘Second turning from here.’

  ‘Are you the only one?’ said Matty.

  ‘No.’ The boy looked up at him now. ‘I’ve a sister but she’s mad for a dog an’ all. We’ve always wanted a dog, and me ma promised we could have one sometime.’

  ‘We’ll go and see your ma,’ said Matty.

  Excited now, and headed by the boy, they made their way to No. 4 The Close, only to find that the boy’s mother was not at home. But his sister was.

  ‘Look, Ann!’ the boy cried. ‘These lads don’t want their dog; they say we can have him.’ The girl was apparently a little younger than the boy, and though she looked at Nelson with open affection she did not show as much enthusiasm as her brother about accepting him. ‘Better wait till me ma comes in,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said the boy. ‘You know she said last week that we could have one, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’ The girl nodded. ‘Yes, she did.’ She brightened and, dropping onto her knees, she looked into Nelson’s face, and was captivated immediately when he put out his tongue and gently licked her. Looking up at Matty, she said, ‘Oh, he’s lovely. Why do you want to get rid of him?’

  Staring down into the upturned face, the truth stopped between Matty’s teeth. If he told the real reason that would be the finish of Nelson. As he groped for a substitute reason, Willie came to the rescue by exclaiming loudly, ‘They’re moving.’ And this was endorsed by Joe saying, ‘Aye. Aye, they’re going to Seahouses.’ He laughed at his own ingeniousness. He had once been to Seahouses and would have liked to stay there, and now he was making Matty move there. He returned Matty’s wide stare and only prevented himself from winking.

  ‘What time will your mother be back?’ asked Matty now. And the girl answered, ‘Oh, she’ll likely be late; she’s gone to me Aunt Mary’s.’

  Matty thought for a moment; then said, ‘We’ll leave him with you, and I’ll tell you where I live so . . . so if it isn’t all right with her you can let me know.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’ll be fine,’ said the boy eagerly.

  ‘Does he eat a lot?’ asked the girl.

  ‘No,’ Matty lied. ‘Just what you can give him . . . Here.’ Abruptly he handed her Nelson’s lead, and, turning quickly, he marched out of the yard.

  When Joe and Willie caught up with him, Joe said, ‘You never said goodbye to him; we did. He licked us all over.’

  ‘Shut your trap. You talk too much.’ Matty strode ahead, the other two having to jump a step every now and again to keep up with him.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Willie after a time. ‘Anyway, you know he’s alive an’ you know where he is and you can go on the sly now and again and have a look at him.’

  As they neared home Joe said, ‘What are we going to do about the camping?’ and he actually started as Matty turned on him and bawled, ‘You heard me mam and dad, didn’t you? Wasn’t that final enough?’

  ‘Coo!’ said Joe. ‘I don’t know why I put up with you.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to,’ said Matty, thrusting his face down to his pal. ‘There’s no pressure from this side. And that goes for you too.’ And he turned his white face towards Willie, before marching off and leaving the boys open-mouthed, gazing after him.

  Over the past hour Mrs Doolin had tried to hide her relief. She felt happy. Matty was a good boy; he had done as he was told and got rid of the pest. She showed her appreciation by piling his plate high at supper time with cold pie and pickles. But her disappointment was evident when Matty, pushing the meal away, muttered, ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Now, you eat your supper,’ she said. ‘And be sensible. Now go on; there’s a good lad.’

  ‘Get it down you,’ said his father. ‘There’s never any use worryin’ over spilt milk. What’s done’s done.’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Matty rising from the table, ‘I’ll go up; I’m a bit tired.’

  Mrs Doolin’s voice cut off the reply his father was about to make. ‘All right. Do that,’ she said.

  It was as Matty reached the passage that the front doorbell rang, and his mother, rising from the table, said, ‘You go on; I’ll see who it is.’

  Matty was halfway up the stairs when his mother opened the door, and he stopped dead as a voice demanded, ‘Is this yours?’ He turned to see a woman standing on the step holding Nelson by his lead. Slowly now he descended the stairs as the woman went on, ‘Foisting him off onto a pair of bairns! Well, you can take him to Seahouses with you. When I get a dog for them it won’t be an old blind one like this, with a howl like a banshee. Here, take him, and goodnight to you.’

  Nelson was now bounding round Matty’s knees, and Mrs Doolin, who hadn’t had a chance to open her mouth, stood helplessly with the door in her hand. Then, closing it slowly and still looking a bit dazed, she said, ‘Well that’s settled that. You’ll take him down to the PDSA tomorrow mornin’. You’ve tried and you’ve failed, so that’s all there is to it. Put him in the shed. Go on.’

  When he led Nelson through the kitchen his father just gazed at him and the dog, and for once made no comment. And as he went out into the backyard his mother, seeming to have regained her wits, cried, ‘What’s this about Seahouses? What did she mean?’

  When Matty put Nelson in the shed he bent his head down and the dog licked him furiously. But when Matty closed the door on him Nelson lamented this fresh separation in the only way he knew how. He howled.

  ‘Nice thing, isn’t it? Nice thing,’ his mother greeted him when he entered the kitchen. ‘The neighbourhood raised at this time of night. Well, you know what you’ve got to do. Go on up.’ She nodded her head towards the stairs. ‘And remember, you’ll have to face up to worse than this afore you die.’

  The following morning Matty, in a last desperate effort to keep Nelson, reasoned that if he made himself scarce straight after breakfast and stayed out all day his mother couldn’t do much about it, for she herself would never take the dog to the PDSA, nor, he imagined, would his father.

  So after he returned from his paper round, and after a silent meal, he went into the scullery, picked up his coat and slipped away.

  Matty did not go and call for either Joe or Willie, for he knew that today he would be very bad company and would probably only snap at his pals, so he decided to go down to the sands. Later, he would buy himself some fish and chips for his dinner, after which he would spend the afternoon in the pictures. That would take care of most of the day.

  Besides the half-crown his father left for him every Friday night on the mantelpiece, he had in his pocket his wages from his paper round. These he generally handed over to his mother immediately after breakfast, when she would give him back five shillings; the rest she put away for him, for, as she said, he would need it on a ‘rainy day’. Matty considered, metaphorically speaking, he’d had lots of rainy days, but his mother had never been induced to
break into his little hoard, not even when he had pleaded with her. Well, anyway, seven and sixpence of the money in his pocket was his, and this would see him through . . .

  Matty kept strictly to his plan. He went to the sands, had fish and chips, then on to the pictures. When he came out of the pictures at half past four he told himself that if he took his time walking home he should get in just after five.

  Whilst on his way home, he hoped his dad wouldn’t grab at him for this always made him want to hit out; and he hoped Nelson hadn’t howled too much; but mostly he hoped that his mother wasn’t wild. Altogether he felt highly nervous, and not a little fearful.

  Brinkburn Street was usually quiet at the weekend. There was less coming and going; people hadn’t to go to work. On a Saturday afternoon some of the women went shopping and took the children with them, and the men, those who liked cricket, went to the match. Others sat indoors looking at the telly; anyway, Saturday afternoon and Sunday brought a change to the street, but now, as Matty went past the bottom of the street on his way to the back lane he was brought to an abrupt halt, for there, up at the top end, near where he lived, stood small groups of adults, surrounded by a large number of children, and their attention was centred on two men, one of whom – whose voice Matty recognised with dismay – was his father. A wave of shame enveloped him. His dad rowing in the street. Was he drunk? His father never got drunk; their family was respectable. His father liked a drink but he never stayed late in the pubs and then came rolling home to fight. His mam would never have stood that. His mam laid great stock on their being considered respectable.