The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  ‘John, you can’t really expect us to believe this is what you want,’ came his mother’s voice. ‘A little temporary past-time perhaps, but–’

  ‘You c-can believe what you like,’ Joss said. ‘We’re keeping the farm.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes. WE.’

  ‘We wondered how long this set up with Fielder would last,’ said Mr Deerman. ‘It’s rather predictable John.’

  ‘What, that a young man from the trenches has a breakdown?’

  ‘That’s not what we meant, and you know it.’

  Joss gave a short, humourless smile. ‘No, I didn’t think it was.’

  ‘Your father and I are only trying to help, John,’ came his mother’s voice in an unusually irritating whine.

  ‘What, by undermining everything?’

  ‘Look at it from our point of view,’ said his father. ‘You return from the war, a new friend in tow, and some half thought-out scheme about farming.’

  ‘I’d already decided on farming before I met Tom,’ Joss said, his face was stony. ‘And I was lucky enough to meet someone who shared the same views. Anyway, the farm is in joint ownership, so even if I did want to sell – which I never will – I can’t without Tom’s agreement.’

  His father stared at him, too stunned for words, then he seemed to come to.

  ‘I never thought of you as being that stupid,’ he whispered. ‘But you really have staggered me this time.’

  ‘So there you are. And I’m not going to sit here and listen to any more of this. I have important things to do. Like finding Tom. Goodbye.’ He held the front door open and they sidled out reproachfully.

  Joss passed them on the farm track as he cycled away on his old bike and their car bounced inelegantly up the rutted track.

  On the kitchen table was a note written on a large sheet of paper.

  Dear Tom,

  If you arrive while I am out, please stay. I’m begging you please don’t go. I know what happened and I know none of it was your responsibility. I can’t live without you. Joss

  It was nearly dark when he returned later that afternoon. He had telegraphed the local and national papers with the simple request:

  Thomas Fielder of Heathend Farm, Worcestershire. Please let me know that you are all right. Joss

  He had filed a missing person’s report at the nearest large police station and was met with an incredulous stare from the surly police constable, who none-the-less recorded all the details. Then he left a message at the Market Arms, alerted everyone he could think of. When he had done all that, he reluctantly went back to the farm, back to its new loneliness. While he had been reporting, logging, moving, searching, he had coped, but, as he cycled back in the cold dying afternoon light, the nightmare came yawing back, like an enormous stain over his mind. It really would have been easier to go mad.

  Roger Deerman stood up from the stone seat as Joss walked up to the door.

  ‘What do you want?’ Joss asked as he pushed past him, opened the door and hastily retrieved the note for Tom.

  ‘To talk to you.’

  ‘Why? You don’t normally bother.’

  ‘May I come in, John?’

  Reluctantly Joss let him through.

  A few minutes later an observer looking in would have seen two figures sitting on either side of the kitchen table with Deerman talking and gesticulating, and Joss’s head coming up slowly, as if in some horrified disbelief. The next moment he had launched himself at Deerman who ricocheted back off the chair and crashed to the floor. Joss dragged him up and slammed his right fist into his jaw. Then the front door crashed open and Deerman was hurled across the courtyard, the door slamming shut with such force it shook the windows.

  The next morning there was another flurry of activity with the family car pulling up at just after nine o’clock. Joss dragged the door open, he was in shirtsleeves. Mrs Deerman glanced at the arm holding the door, it was bulky, like a labourer’s arm; his obvious masculinity made her look away, oddly embarrassed.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘I would like this to stop,’ she said.

  Joss looked at her incredulously. ‘Did Roger tell you what he had done?’

  ‘Yes he did. But we can’t have this going any further, John.’

  ‘You do know what he did to Tom?’ Joss whispered.

  ‘He attacked–’

  ‘Raped him.’

  Mrs Deerman shrank back. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Oh yes, it is.’

  The expression on Joss’s face made her step back further. ‘Roger is genuinely sorry,’ she appealed. ‘And you nearly broke his arms.’

  ‘Bring him back and I’ll do a better job.’

  ‘And he isn’t going to take it any further–’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘We must deal with it within the family.’

  ‘What would you have done if he had raped a woman?’ Joss asked, leaning against the frame of the door, hands-folded across his chest.

  Mrs Deerman shook her head. ‘Do you think this is the first time something like this has happened?’ she said, staring at him directly. For a moment Joss thought how old and then how young she looked: one minute an old woman ground down by anxiety; the next the young woman she had been, angry at the slightest injustice in the way only those on the borderline of maturity can be. But then weren’t they just that, the soldiers of this war, the young-old men who had died too many times.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Joss asked, slumping down a little against the doorpost as though trying to match up to its height. Mrs Deerman’s face drew in, her jaw taut. A strand of her hair had fallen out from the protection of her hat; she made no attempt to put it back up.

  ‘Roger has been in trouble a few times before. We’ve always had to dig him out.’

  ‘So he can go and do it again?’

  ‘He’s never been arrested for rape, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘So what has he been in trouble for?’

  Mrs Deerman hesitated. ‘He’s been blackmailed a few times, been rather too keen–’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘He’s been arrested for being a bit too persuasive, too amorous with some.’

  ‘You make it sound rather like a game.’

  Mrs Deerman looked at him with contempt. ‘And what do you think it’s like having a son like that?’ she retorted. ‘Having a son you can’t stand’, Joss knew she wanted to say, and knew she couldn’t.

  ‘You think that covering up for him helps anyone?’

  ‘We’ve been trying to control him for years,’ she said, sitting heavily on a hard wooden chair. ‘But he always eludes us. We’ve had endless late-night talks when we’ve had to bail him out. And when we thought he’d found his way in the army, that at last we might just be able to relax, this happens. It’s the same cat and mouse game we’ve been playing with him for decades. ‘

  ‘And?’

  ‘I am deeply sorry about what happened to Thomas Fielder, but we can’t turn him in, he’s our son, just as you are.’ Her face reddened, more strands of hair uncoiled from her hat.

  There was silence. Joss moved away from the doorframe and sat by the range.

  ‘Try being a parent,’ she said in quiet voice. ‘The whole of your life is one long compromise.’

  For a moment, Joss saw the disappointment of the young, lively girl whose dreams in girlhood had been cashed in, like chips at the roulette table, when she had agreed to the status of wife and mother. Joss sat, trying to frame something to say but couldn’t.

  ‘We’ll have to get him help,’ she continued. ‘He’s gone too far this time. I can see something is very wrong. If we can be discrete then it will be less damaging but I’ll start making enquiries. I think he realises it has to stop.’

  Joss sat back in the chair. ‘What did you do in the past?’ He was interested, in spite of himself.

  ‘We spoke to the schools...yes, don’t look so shocked it
’s been going on since then, then with the army college. Discrete talks, and an eye was kept on him, but no-one can be everywhere all the time. And in the early days it could have been misconstrued as youthful indiscretion.’

  Joss narrowed his eyes. No doubt by you, most of all, he thought.

  ‘Assault was the term used when he was apprehended. Fortunately, the people involved dropped the charges’.

  Probably oiled by the few hundred quid from Mummy and Daddy, Joss thought sourly. But then what would he have done? No-one wanted to think their child was a rapist, or a murderer, a thief even. Scratching the side of his face, he went to speak, but changed his mind.

  ‘I am very sorry you had to find out this way,’ said his mother. ‘And I’m sorrier than I can say about Thomas, but we will be doing something about your brother.’

  Your brother, the rapist. Actually, he wasn’t their responsibility any more, hadn’t been for nearly fifteen years, but he sensed it wasn’t as easy as that. Of course not. Responsibility probably dogged parents to the grave.

  Mrs Deerman got up to go. Joss stood. She pecked him on the cheek and walked outside with the gait of an old, defeated woman.

  That day was the lowest of Joss’s life. After he had been out following up any lead he could think of, he returned to the farm. The Greeners had managed the farming chores, quietly and competently. But when he returned they had gone home. Hauling up all the alcohol he could from the small cellar under the kitchen floor, he drank it continuously, passed out, came-to, went to the latrine, drank again, passed out.

  The next morning the family car glided into the courtyard. Joss peered up, his head throbbing darkly, his eyes barely focussing. His mother’s target-eyes stare pierced him.

  ‘May I come in? Please.’

  He motioned her in as he loped off to clean his face and teeth; he realised he stank. Coming back into the kitchen, he sagged into the sofa.

  ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she asked, her voice an odd mixture of a wail and a reprimand.

  ‘Drinking,’ he said unnecessarily.

  ‘Sitting here treating yourself like this won’t help.’

  ‘Oh thank you. I hadn’t realised that.’

  ‘Smarten yourself up, we’re taking you back to the hall.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  Mr Deerman walked in. ‘What the hell–’

  ‘George!’

  He looked at his unwashed, unshaven son – Joss’s clothes were sagging and looked dirty. Handing him several letters that had just been delivered, Mr Deerman stepped back as if to avoid contact. Joss scanned the letters and snatched one out.

  ‘We can’t leave you like this.’ His mother’s voice was uneven.

  ‘And I’m not coming back to the hall. This is my home, like it or not.’

  ‘I’ll get two of the men from the farm down here to help out,’ Mr Deerman said. ‘And don’t argue John – you’re in no position to make trouble.’

  Joss merely waved a hand at them dismissively. Nico sidled up to him and, for a moment, the old Joss returned as he ruffled the dog’s ears.

  As soon as they had gone, he took Tom’s letter out of his pocket and tore it open.

  Dear Joss, it read, I’ve had to leave as I am so ashamed of what I’ve done and what happened to me. I have not gone for good, please believe me. I will be back as soon as I can.

  No address. No way of replying. So he was left with this. Relieved he had heard, yet the emptiness of this present gaped before him.

  The next day he got up as it grew light, fed the animals and cycled over to the nearest telegraph office and wrote:

  For Thomas Fielder (Heathend). I know what happened. Please come back as soon as you can. I can’t go on without you. S-f-J

  He telegraphed it to the newspaper offices of the town on the postmark and hoped it would get through.

  Every nerve in Tom’s body screamed out as he crawled out of the bathroom window of the hospital ward, and he bit down onto his fist so he wouldn’t make a sound. Then he had walked into the void of the night and gradually the pain had become less and less. A short time later, he ended up in a down-at-heel part of the city where rusting warehouses fronted the black river. He had no money and no way of drawing any; he needed to get work so he could at least eat and find somewhere to sleep out of the cold. It was growing light when he heard the lock on a gate open. The air was already yellow with coal smoke, and clouds in the leaden sky were bulging with snow. Puddles had iced over, splintering as Tom walked on.

  ‘Do you have any work?’ It came out as a whisper as he was so rigid with cold.

  A bulky man looked around at him, a cigarette hanging from his lips. ‘I got a few days’ work, bit more if you’re a fair worker. In that warehouse over there,’ he said pointing to a large single storey building. ‘Packing up wire into lengths.’

  ‘What’s the going rate?’ Tom asked, shivering violently.

  The man told him. They fixed a deal.

  ‘You’d better have a drink out the flask,’ the man said gruffly, pointing to his knapsack then looked at Tom. ‘You been fighting?’

  ‘I was robbed. That’s why I need the money.’

  ‘Where you staying?’

  ‘I haven’t got anywhere.’

  The man appraised him then shrugged. ‘Well, if you do the job properly, you’ll ‘ave no trouble from me. But you bring any trouble ‘ere and you’re out, you understand?’

  The next hours were a grinding toil, hauling up rolls of barbed wire, rolling out set lengths and cutting them, then rolling them back into smaller rolls. The leather gauntlets he was given gave only the most basic protection, and, by late morning, his hands were bleeding from several gashes. By mid-afternoon, the man came over and handed him his wages.

  ‘There’s some cheap lodgings up Canal Basin Street,’ he said. ‘Some better ones with a bath a few streets up, at the Cock and Comb.’

  As soon as he said the name, Tom felt his throat clench. Thought of the summer, sitting in there with Joss, when everything had been all right. Now... Now? This cold, the pain of the injuries, and this guilt, this rabid guilt. The thought that he could just end it all by dropping quietly into the river, lurched into his mind. But he couldn’t. Knew that he shouldn’t. So he nodded and tried to say thanks to the man who thumbed for him to go.

  ‘Scram,’ he said. ‘I’ll see yer tomorrow at eight.’

  Tom walked like an old man, awkwardly, in obvious pain, found a post office and wrote the note to Joss.

  He carried on walking, came to the Cock and Comb and asked, almost against hope, if there was a cheap room available. As this was their quietest time of year, a room, with access to a bath, was within his price. He paid for it and then went to the nearest cheap clothes shop and bought a new set of underclothes. The top layer would have to wait. Going back to the pub, he asked the landlord if he could buy some salt and, the landlord, looking at him as though he was odd as well as odorous, handed him a packet.

  ‘On the house,’ he said. ‘If you go down the back, you’ll find the bath near the copper in the washhouse.’

  Tom nodded thanks.

  ‘What do you want to eat?’

  Tom stared at the few coins he had left. ‘I haven’t got enough,’ he said dully.

  ‘You can have what we’re having, and pay us tomorrow.’

  Tom looked at him in surprise.

  ‘You don’t ‘ave to look surprised son,’ said the landlord. ‘The missus could see you needed a good meal.’

  Tom thanked him then walked up the narrow staircase to a room in the eaves at the front of the pub. It was a surprisingly cheerful room with a high single bed, covered by a colourful hand-stitched counterpane. There was a small table and a chair to one side of the low window, and another chair for clothes. A vase of daffodils stood in the window space doubling as a net curtain. Tom looked in the mirror and grimaced. No wonder the missus was worried, he thought, he looked revolting. He was sporting a black eye
of many colours on the left side of his face, together with the healed gash from the shell explosion that had nearly taken them out at the Front, while on the opposing cheek, he had a large fist sized bruise, ripening almost as he watched.

  ‘Bloody hell, Fielder,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘I wouldn’t rent you a room.’

  He bundled up his new underclothes and clomped down the stairs to go to the wash house.

  ‘Hold there, lad,’ came a woman’s voice, and a middle-aged, plump figure came waddling towards him. ‘Here’s a towel and some soap.’

  Tom’s hand went to his pocket to find change.

  ‘Oh bugger off,’ she said, flicking his arm. ‘The state you’re in, you need a bit of looking after.’

  He smiled at her, the first smile for days now.

  ‘There’s plenty of hot water, and you take your time. We’re not exactly bursting at the seams with customers.’

  The wash house was spartan but superbly warm, thanks to the copper. He pulled the tin bath down from the wall, filled it with water and salted it. Pulling the thin curtains, which were held up by a short pole, he undressed and gently eased himself into the water, winced, but soon the warmth relaxed him. He moved around in the water. Then lay back. He was healing well, he could tell. Although sore, there was no more blood, no discharge of any sort. He knew enough from stretcher-bearing to know how to physically look after himself, and he found that in this quiet, in this warm, comforting place he could heal without having to explain. Only when he thought of Joss did he wince. Perhaps he could ask him to come over. But that was absurd. Why didn’t he just go back? He knew he couldn’t, not just now – he had to get back to himself, somehow. He moved around in the water gingerly, pushing down as he sat, then moving on to one buttock, then the other to gauge the extent of the injuries, and the pain shot back.

  The next morning he walked awkwardly to a post box in ample time for the first collection. A few people stared at him and nodded ‘good morning’, noticing his painful gait, and put it down to the war. Anything that was a problem these days could be put down to the war: recession, unemployment, mental illness, lameness, forgetfulness, even the bloody weather, but how that worked Tom had never tried to discover. After buying a newspaper, he made his way to the warehouse where there were several young men waiting by the gates. They nodded to him. Later that morning as they sat for a tea break, he scanned through the newspaper. Flitches of conversation drifted over.