Maggie's Boy

by Beryl Kingston

  Two hours later he’d passed on the cheque to a car dealer and he was behind a wheel again, feeling a lot better. It wasn’t much of a car – only a Ford and much too old – but it belonged to him and he could always trade it in for something more classy. I’ll run it in for an hour or two, he thought, and then I’ll go to this Barnaby Green place and see what’s happening.

  Alison was at home and had been hard at work all afternoon. By the time she had to set off on her long trudge down to the school to collect Jon, she was feeling quite pleased with herself. The living room was clear at last, tea chests removed, cardboard packing cases folded away into the attic, bookshelves on the wall, TV in the corner, toy chest doubling as a windowseat. Her two grey-blue sofas looked rather peculiar against the floral wallpaper and that awful loud carpet, but she was planning to make half a dozen new cushion covers in bronze and gold to link up with the better colours in the room so as to play the worst ones down. As she closed the front door that afternoon and sniffed the aroma of the cakes she’d left cooling in the kitchen, it almost felt like home.

  It was a surprise – and a shock – to find Rigg lolling against the doorpost waiting for her when she got back. After so many months without a word, the unexpected sight of him tossed her emotions into turmoil – anger at being left to cope on her own, relief that he’d come home to help her at last, shame because she was on welfare. But the children were thrilled to see him.

  ‘Daddy!’ Jon cried, hurling himself at his father’s knees. ‘You’ve come home!’

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Emma echoed, scampering after her brother.

  Rigg put out a hand to protect his trousers but he didn’t look at either of them.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for ages.’

  ‘Down at the school to get Jon,’ Alison explained, keeping her voice calm.

  ‘All this time? Don’t pull at my clothes, Emma.’

  ‘It’s a long way,’ Alison said, gathering her daughter by the hand.

  ‘Well open the door then. I need some tea.’

  Although she knew she didn’t want to, she let him in. She switched on the light and the gas fire, pulled the curtains, settled the children. Then she gave him tea and one of her fresh cakes, after taking the precaution of hiding the rest away in a tin.

  ‘These are good,’ he said, cramming the second half of his cake into his mouth. ‘Got any more?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  But Jon was talking at the same time. ‘There’s lots in the tin, Daddy.’

  ‘Go and get them,’ Rigg said, licking the crumbs from his lips. And when the child hesitated, ‘You don’t want your poor old Daddy to starve, do you?’

  The tin was retrieved and Rigg helped himself to four more cakes as though he had the right to them. That’s my hard-earned wages you’re eating, Alison thought, begrudging him every mouthful. Four cakes your kids won’t eat.

  ‘You’re all right then,’ he said, when he’d finished off the last crumb.

  ‘All right?’ She looked down at her hands, still scratched and bruised from the move, and remembered the backache she’d suffered over the weekend after shifting all that furniture about. All right?

  ‘You sold the house,’ he said. ‘Did it make a profit?’

  ‘It was repossessed,’ she informed him, cold with anger. ‘I had to go to court and be repossessed. We could have been on the streets.’

  That wasn’t the answer he expected, or wanted, but he pushed it aside. ‘You’re not on the streets though, are you,’ he said. ‘You’re all right. You like your new house, don’t you, kids?’

  ‘We got a gardin,’ Emma told him solemnly.

  ‘An’ a swing,’ Jon said. ‘It goes ever so high.’

  ‘There you are then. You’re all right.’

  ‘We’re a welfare family,’ Alison said. ‘If you call that being all right. We live on state hand-outs.’ It shamed her even to say the words.

  He ignored them. ‘Got any more tea?’ he asked. ‘My mouth’s like a parrot’s armpit.’

  She poured another cup and plonked it down in front of him, too angry to trust herself to speak.

  ‘How many bedrooms have you got?’

  She could answer that. ‘Two.’

  ‘Just right for the four of us, eh kids?’

  Alison’s anger was growing so alarmingly she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to control it. He surely doesn’t imagine I’m going to let him live here, she thought. He can’t be that insensitive.

  But he was. ‘I came home at the right time,’ he said, still addressing his remarks to Jon. ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘That’s out of the question. I only got this place because I’m an abandoned wife. I’m not allowed to cohabit. I’d get flung out.’

  He laughed. ‘Cohabit?’ he said. ‘You don’t cohabit with your husband. Anyway I’ve got rights.’

  ‘We were repossessed because you didn’t pay the mortgage,’ she said. ‘Or have you forgotten about the mortgage?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Kitten,’ Rigg said and sent her one of his looks. ‘I couldn’t pay it. I had a cash-flow problem.’

  Once upon a time a look like that would have reduced her to jelly. Now it had no effect at all. ‘You should have told me you weren’t paying it,’ she said coldly.

  ‘It was only a couple of months. I don’t see why they made such a big deal about it. You were paying, weren’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean, I was paying?’

  ‘Your half.’

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to be paying half. You agreed to pay it. You said you’d take care of it.’

  ‘Half of it,’ he insisted. ‘If you didn’t pay your half, no wonder you were evicted.’

  ‘We were evicted because you didn’t pay anything. Not one single penny. That’s why we were evicted.’

  ‘Well then you should have paid it.’

  That was so unfair it took her breath away. ‘How dare you!’ she said. ‘Where am I supposed to get that sort of money? On what I earn!’

  ‘At least you’ve got a job. Which is more than I have. I’ve been unemployed all these months. Stuck out in that dreadful hole, all by myself.’

  She looked him up and down. He looked reasonably rested and healthy. Then she looked down at her shoes which needed repairing. ‘Do you mean you’ve been in Fuengirola?’

  ‘Of course I’ve been in Fuengirola. Where else would I have been? You know very well where I’ve been.’ There was a reason why he should feel particularly aggrieved by all this, but he was so angry he couldn’t think what it was.

  ‘Then you must have got my letters.’

  ‘Yes. I got your letters.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you answer them?’

  His answer was surly. ‘I had other things to do.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I was looking for a job, wasn’t I?’

  She didn’t believe him. ‘You could have worked in a bar,’ she pointed out. ‘There were plenty of vacancies for bar staff when we were there.’

  ‘In a bar!’ he said, his voice heavy with outrage. ‘Me? In a bar!’

  ‘Better than being unemployed. At least you’d have been earning.’

  ‘It’s all very well for you. You can get work. There’s a recession on, in case you hadn’t noticed. In a recession women can get work. Men can’t. I can’t.’

  Anger drove Alison to speak louder than normal. ‘I got a job, Rigg, because I made it my business to get one,’ she said. ‘I took anything on offer. Scrubbing toilets, cleaning out chalets, anything. While you were sitting on your backside in Fuengirola doing nothing.’

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that,’ he threatened. His voice was so harsh that Emma began to whimper. ‘I worked my fingers to the bone. And that’s another thing.’ Now he remembered his grievance. ‘You gave my bloody address to that bloody private eye.’

  ‘What?’ Alison went over to Emma and lif
ted her on to her hip.

  ‘You heard. You gave my address to a private eye, you stupid bitch.’

  She felt the child’s rounded belly press against hers. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not true. I haven’t told anybody where you were. I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘He came straight to the flat, hounding me. If you didn’t tell him, who did? It was you. You haven’t got a loyal bone in your body. You’re just a bloody, stupid, little bitch.’

  This has gone far enough, Alison thought. Both kids were round-eyed with anxiety, watching him, and Jon had edged across the room until he was standing right beside her. ‘There’s no point in going on with this’, she said, keeping her voice as calm as she could. ‘I didn’t tell him. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I didn’t. Drink up your tea. I think it would be better if you went.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘You can’t stay here.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me what to do in my own house.’

  It was what he’d always said in Shore Street and it had annoyed her there, when she’d paid half the mortgage. Now it made her hot with anger. She’d struggled and worried, been repossessed – all on her own – coped with the DSS, the move, his VAT bill, closing the shops, the never-ending nightmare of the last few months, and he dared to claim this house. ‘It’s not your house,’ she told him furiously. ‘It’s mine. And you’re not welcome in it.’

  He stood stock still for a moment, absorbing the change in his wife, then he sprang at her, fists clenched. ‘You bloody little cow,’ he roared and punched at her. The blow caught her on the cheekbone and knocked her to the ground.

  For a few seconds she lay where she was, too hurt and stunned to move. He was engorged with anger, out of control, hulking over her as he punched and shouted abuse. Both the children were screaming. She knew she ought to try to protect herself, and to protect them, but it was as if she was stuck to the ground. Then he seized her by the shoulders, hauled her to her feet and shook her.

  ‘I’ll teach you to talk to me like that, you bloody little cow. If I want to do a thing I’ll do it, d’you understand? I’ll do it and you’ll keep your bloody mouth shut or get your bloody neck broken. You’re just a whore. You’re all whores, all the lot of you. I hate you. Hate you. Hate you.’

  Alison was now very frightened and fought him as hard as she could. She struggled to free herself, panting with terror, her heart pounding and jumping. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Jon was clinging to her legs, screaming as though he was being beaten too. She couldn’t see Emma, although she could hear her weeping. ‘Stop it!’

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the phone hanging on the wall and she fell towards it, thinking 999. I’ll ring for the police. But he was too quick for her.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ he said, and he tore the phone from its socket and hurled it through the window, curtain and all, breaking the glass.

  The crash was so loud it stopped both children in mid-scream. Rigg seemed stunned. He stood by the broken window looking out with a bemused expression, as if he couldn’t understand how it had happened.

  Alison gathered her children on to her lap and tried to soothe them. They were both sobbing with terror, great gulping sobs that tore her with pity. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, cuddling their faces into her chest. ‘Mummy’s all right. Don’t cry, my darlings. Please don’t cry! Please don’t cry!’ She inched towards the sofa, and crouched beside it, enfolding them against her body, ready to use it as a barricade if he attacked again. ‘Please don’t cry.’

  Rigg was moving about the room. Oh God! What was he going to do now? She could see his feet walking towards the sofa. But then she realised that he was crying too and shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ he wept. ‘I don’t know how that happened, Ali. I’m so sorry! Oh God! I’m so sorry.’

  Alison knew the weeping trick of old and his tears meant nothing to her any more. She went on cuddling the children, stroking their heads and holding them close.

  ‘Ali!’ he pleaded, and knelt down beside her. ‘Look at me, please. I’m so sorry. I’d give anything for this not to have happened. Believe me. I’m so sorry.’ He was right next to her. ‘Look at me, please. I’m so sorry.’

  She looked up at him, her face ablaze with anger. ‘Go away!’ she said. ‘Get out! Haven’t you done enough damage? Get out! I never want to see you again. Never!’ Then she turned right away from him and crouched by the sofa with her weeping children in her lap and her hair hiding her face.

  There was a long, terrible pause. Then she heard the door being opened and slammed shut. A few seconds later an engine started up and a car was driven away. The children stopped crying. The house was suddenly very quiet.

  Even though she knew he’d gone, Alison remained where she was for a very long time, rocking the children and soothing them and stroking their hair. One side of her face throbbed violently and all her teeth ached.

  The sound of a children’s television programme boomed and quacked through the dividing wall, bringing her back to her responsibilities. ‘We shall have to get our supper, won’t we?’ she said. ‘It’s getting late.’

  ‘Is Daddy coming back?’ Jon asked fearfully.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I’m quite sure.’ The phone was still hanging out of the window in its bulge of curtain and the room was several degrees colder. I shall have to clear that broken glass, she thought, and fix the window. I wonder whether the phone still works. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said, ‘and I’ll get you a drink.’

  But they wouldn’t leave her. They clung to her legs while she retrieved the phone and swept up the glass. They followed her upstairs and into the bathroom while she cleaned herself up and tried to examine her face and teeth. One felt loose and she was going to have a black eye by morning as well as several bruises. They stood on the landing while she found a piece of cardboard for repairs and watched as she plugged the phone back into the wall and dialled Brad’s number to see if it was still working – which it wasn’t. They stood beside her while she cooked the supper that none of them could eat. And that night they both had nightmares and they both wet their beds. Alison had to find clean pyjamas for them and take them into her own bed for comfort at three o’clock in the morning.

  I’m due to go into work tomorrow, she thought, as she lay unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep. Brad’s coming to pick me up at half past eight. I shall have to go down the end of the road and phone her and put her off. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Good God!’ Brad said. ‘I should just think he did hit you. The rotten bugger!’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Alison said, throwing a warning glance at the children inside the house. ‘Not in front of the kids.’ She didn’t want to talk about it.

  Brad was too angry to take the hint. ‘You should’ve called the police,’ she said fiercely. ‘You could have done him fer assault. Rotten bugger.’

  ‘Well I didn’t,’ Alison responded wearily. ‘Anyway, it’s over now. I’d rather not talk about it. I didn’t mean to drag you out here, you know. That’s why I rang.’

  ‘You didn’t drag me,’ Brad said. ‘The old dears are all fed and watered. This is my break.’

  Alison was aware of a neighbour peering from behind the curtains in the house opposite and a new unreasonable fear scratched in her chest. She could do without Brad’s concern, but she certainly didn’t want to provide her neighbours with ground for more gossip than they already had. ‘Come in and have a cup of coffee,’ she said. ‘The kettle’s boiling.’

  ‘I reported your phone,’ Brad told her, stepping through the door. ‘They said they’d be along some time this afternoon with a bit a’ luck. But that could mean anything. Blimey! It’s parky in here. Where’s the gale coming from? Oh, I see.’

  ‘Daddy threw the phone out the window,’ Jon told her.

  ‘Your Da
ddy’s a pig,’ Brad said. ‘’Lo Emma. Whatcher got there?’

  ‘Playdoh,’ Emma said. ‘Tha’s a eat.’

  ‘Do a hedgehog,’ Brad advised. ‘Your Mr Tiggywinkle’s still in my garden.’

  ‘Is he?’ Jon said, much impressed.

  ‘You’ll ’ave to come an’ see him,’ Brad said. ‘Tell you what, if your Mum wants a couple a’ days away from everything, you could come an’ see the hedgehog, couldn’t yer?’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Alison said, putting a cup of coffee in front of her friend. ‘Once we’ve got the phone fixed.’

  ‘What about the window?’ Brad asked. ‘D’you want me to tell your brother to come over?’

  ‘No. I can do it. I’ve got to be independent.’

  ‘Well you mind what you’re up to,’ Brad advised, drinking her coffee. ‘Glass is nasty stuff. And if the Great-I-Am comes back, don’t let him in.’

  Alison’s answer sounded listless. ‘No. All right.’ She knew Brad was trying to help but she wished she’d go away.

  ‘I mean it,’ Brad said. ‘Put a chain on the door and if you hear a knock, look out of the window to see who it is, an’ if it’s him, don’t answer the door.’

  ‘We’ll be all right, Brad. Really. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘It won’t, if you fight back,’ Brad said, looking at her friend’s battered face. ‘Trouble is you been a doormat fer too long. You aint got the gumption.’

  ‘Don’t start, Brad,’ Alison begged, her voice weary. ‘I can’t take it. Not this morning.’

  ‘OK, mate,’ Brad said. ‘Only look after yourself, that’s all. You don’t want another basinful, do you?’ She was thinking: a pity that Welshman wasn’t here. He’d have stood up for you.

  The Welshman had been too hard at work that day to get out of the office. In fact it was Thursday before he had any spare time at all. Then, and at the end of another hard-pressed day, he drove down to Hampton to see how Alison was. Now that he’d met her husband he had to see her again – if only to explain how he’d been involved in her affairs.

  The town was even more run down than he remembered it, the High Street full of tatty cars, shops making fewer goods spread as far as possible, ‘For Sale’ signs everywhere. There were three of them in Shore Street, hanging like wooden flags outside the tiny cottages. The third one gave him a jolt, because it was nailed above Alison’s door.