Maggie's Boy

by Beryl Kingston

  But it wasn’t the same now. She couldn’t concentrate on the film with him crashing about in the bathroom next door (and running off all her nice hot water). She poured herself another G and T, but his arrival had even taken the flavour out of that.

  Despite his bravado on the beach, being attacked had been a nasty shock to Rigby Toan. The shower gradually restored the feeling to his numbed fingers and toes but it would take more than warm water to repair his pride. One thing was certain. He couldn’t stay in Hampton. Not with thugs like that around.

  He wrapped himself in one of his mother’s thick towels while he rummaged through his travelling case for some clean clothes. Most of his shirts were too dirty to contemplate and so was his underwear. Fortunately there was a clean red sweater at the bottom of the case and that looked all right, even if his jeans were crumpled.

  I’ll get the old dear to pop this lot in her washing machine tomorrow, he thought, dusting his least objectionable pair of socks with his mother’s expensive talcum powder. But what he had to get out of her first was some of the money that was owing to him. It was wicked to make him wait all this time for his rightful inheritance. She must give it to me now. Or part of it, at the very least. I deserve it. I need it. Good God, she must see that. I’ve never needed it so much. I’m on my uppers.

  Suitably psyched up, he marched across the landing to do battle with his mother for what was rightfully his.

  Margaret was sitting up in her awful satin bed, wearing her awful satin négligé, drinking a G and T and watching some awful film. Better butter her up first.

  ‘Washed and clean,’ he said. ‘Now I can give my lovely Mater a kiss.’

  ‘You’re a great nuisance, Rigby,’ she said, half teasing and half scolding. ‘I’d just got settled for the night and now you’ve put me out. I hope you realise that.’

  ‘I’s a pig to my sweetheart,’ he said. ‘A rotten-otten piggy.’

  The baby-talk placated her—as he knew it would. ‘Well just so long as you know it,’ she said. The film was getting to the exciting bit. She could tell by the volume of the music. Her eyes swivelled to the screen.

  Her inattention made Rigg feel irritable and hard-done-by. Damn it all, he thought, she might look at me. We haven’t seen one another for months. If she’s going to watch telly all the time, it’ll make things very difficult for me. I am her son, for Chrissake. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I’ve come to see you?’ he prompted.

  She answered question with question, automatically, sipping her G and T, her eyes on the screen. ‘Why’ve you come to see me?’

  ‘I’ve got no money.’

  That didn’t bother her at all. ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘Seriously, Mater.’

  ‘You’ll get some,’ she said, following the film. Yes, she remembered this bit now.

  ‘I’m in debt.’

  ‘Um.’

  He leaned across the bed and switched off the telly. ‘Listen to me, Mater,’ he said. ‘I’m in trouble.’

  ‘I was watching that,’ she protested. ‘You’re very discourteous sometimes, Rigby.’

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ he repeated, looking at her with what he hoped was a suitable imploring expression. ‘Mumsie dear, you’ve got to help me.’

  ‘You do exaggerate, Rigby,’ she said, searching for the remote control. Where was the stupid thing? ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.’

  Rigg slipped the remote control in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘It’s as bad as it can possibly be,’ he said. ‘I’m in serious trouble. I need a lot of money’

  Margaret sighed. This would go on until she gave him what he wanted. Or part of what he wanted. And he was wasting her viewing time. ‘How much?’ she asked.

  ‘Sixty grand.’

  ‘Oh Rigby!’ Margaret said, but she wasn’t scolding: she was laughing and sounded almost affectionate. ‘You’re so ridiculously ambitious. Just like your father.’

  ‘So will you…?’

  ‘He never did anything by halves, your father. He always thought big. You’re just like him. “Twenty thou,” he’d say. “That’s all. We can manage that.” And we never could.’

  Rigg began to relax. She was going to come across, thank God. ‘You’ll see me clear, then?’

  She squinted at him. ‘Do what?’ she asked, as if she’d forgotten what they were talking about.

  ‘Let me have the money?’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Oh come on, Mumsie, the sixty grand.’

  ‘I haven’t got sixty grand.’

  ‘No, all right. I know you haven’t got sixty grand. That’s chicken feed to what you’ve got. You’re rolling in it. We all know that. That’s why I’ve come to you.’

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘Rolling in it,’ she said slowly. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Dad’s money,’ he said crossly. This wasn’t the time for pretence. ‘He was a millionaire. He left you rolling.’

  She finished the G and T and laughed, once, a short harsh yelping sound, like a vixen barking. ‘Your father wasn’t a millionaire,’ she said. ‘Far from it.’

  ‘But he left me my inheritance,’ Rigg said easily. She could talk as much nonsense as she liked, providing she came across with the money.

  ‘Ah! The inheritance,’ she said, waving it away with red-tipped fingers. ‘That’s nearly a year away, Rigby. We don’t need to talk about that yet.’

  ‘Yes we do,’ he insisted. ‘I need to know how much I’m going to get.’

  ‘Why?’

  How many more times? Rigg thought. ‘Because I’m in debt. I owe a lot of money to a lot of people. It isn’t just a cash-flow problem. This is serious. I owe the Inland Revenue nine grand for a start and three grand to the VAT and they’ve got to be paid by the middle of October – that’s only three weeks away. Three weeks! Do you understand that? So you see…’

  Margaret’s eyes grew shrewd. ‘How much do you owe altogether?’ she asked.

  ‘Sixty – seventy grand. I’m not sure exactly. There’s interest charges. Anyway I’ve got to have that money. You can see that, can’t you? Or at least some of it. You wouldn’t like your baby to be sent to prison, now would you?’

  Margaret had listened carefully to what he had to say. Now she shrugged. ‘Well, really Rigby, that’s your affair. There’s nothing I can do to help you, darling. Not with a debt as big as that.’

  ‘Now look,’ he said, face darkening. ‘You will have your little joke, but this has gone far enough. I’m desperate, don’t you understand? I need that money now. I’ve got to pay my preferential creditors in three weeks or they’ll make me bankrupt. I’m not leaving till I get it.’

  She lit a cigarette and poured herself another G and T. He was pleased to note that her hands were shaking. Then she looked at him for an uncomfortably long time.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, my darling,’ she said, ‘but there isn’t any money.’

  He was enraged to hear her say such a thing. ‘This is no time for stupid jokes!’ he roared.

  Margaret gulped her G and T. ‘I knew you’d be cross,’ she said. ‘It was all very well for your father with his tricks and plots, I was always the one who had to face the music.’

  She’s gone gaga, Rigg thought, looking at his mother’s flushed cheeks and bleary eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There isn’t any money,’ Margaret repeated. ‘There never was. It was one of your father’s tricks. He was going bankrupt, you see, so he put all the money he had into a fund for you.’

  ‘I know. He told me. I remember.’

  That surprised her. ‘Do you?’ she said. ‘You were only a little thing.’

  ‘I was eight. I remember. There was money.’

  ‘It was so that his creditors couldn’t get it,’ Margaret explained. ‘It was a trick. After he went bankrupt he made me take it all out, so that he could start again. By the time he died, it was all gone.’

  The shock o
f what she was saying was making Rigg’s blood run cold. ‘But you let me go on thinking…’

  ‘We had to darling, don’t you see? If you’d known what was going on, you might have told somebody and that would have got us into trouble. You were only a little thing. And then later on, after he died, well … it was a such a comfort to you I didn’t like to spoil things. I knew you’d be angry if I told you. You always had such a temper, even as a little boy. And there wasn’t any need to upset you, was there? Not then. The truth is always so ugly, isn’t it darling. So destructive. I used to think I’d find the right moment, but it never turned up, you see. And you were so happy thinking he’d left you an inheritance. I couldn’t destroy that for you, could I? I always say it was knowing you had money that gave you the confidence to get started.’

  Shock was turning into his familiar, terrible anger. ‘You let me go on thinking there was money all this time and it was all a lie. You lied to me. How could you do such a thing? I’ve banked on this money. I’ve planned my whole life on it.’

  ‘I knew you’d be angry,’ Margaret said, wincing. The expression on his face was one she recognised only too well and had always shrunk from. ‘I am sorry, Rigby. But what else could I do?’

  ‘Sorry!’ he yelled. ‘Sorry! So you bloody well should be. How am I supposed to manage now?’

  ‘Your father had it, you see,’ Margaret tried to explain. ‘That was the way he was. If there was any money going, anywhere, he had it.’

  His anger rose, exploded, spilled over into violence. He sprang at his mother, slapping her stupid, flabby face from side to side as he shouted. ‘You bloody, stupid, lying old bitch! I’m ruined, I hope you realise. I’m ruined and it’s all your fault.’

  She scrambled out of the bed and struggled to run away from him. But he had her by the arms, shaking her. Then he was slapping her, over and over. She was desperately afraid but she knew she had to fight back. She couldn’t let this begin all over again. Not with her own son. It had been bad enough with his father. She summoned her strength to oppose him.

  ‘Get out of my house!’ she yelled at him, ‘or I’ll call the police.’

  ‘No you bloody won’t,’ he said, looking round for the phone.

  That precious second’s inattention gave her the chance she needed. She made a grab for the phone, her finger on the button. ‘I will Rigg,’ she threatened. ‘I’ll call the police and I’ll tell them what you’ve done and I’ll have you arrested. Is that what you want?’

  It stopped him. He stood before her, panting and scowling but not attacking. ‘That’s evil,’ he said. ‘You’re a bloody evil woman. You wouldn’t do that to your son.’

  She was fighting back now – the way she ought to have fought his father all those years and tears ago. ‘You lay one more finger on me and I will,’ she said.

  Anger was still bubbling in his chest, the old black anger that had to be released – but there was something about her expression that inhibited him. Something that reminded him … of a voice … long ago … shouting ‘Don’t you dare hit your mother!’ It was unfair because it was his father who was hitting his mother … over and over again.

  ‘Oh God!’ he said, putting his hands over his ears. ‘Oh my God!’ Then he ran, scooping up his case from the bathroom, leaving his wet clothes on the bathroom floor and his wet shoes and socks on the doorstep.

  Standing in the bedroom, still clutching the phone, Margaret heard his car start up – on the third attempt – and rattle tinnily away.

  Now that he’d gone, she was aware that she felt ill. Shock probably. There was a dreadful pulse beating in her neck and she was finding it hard to breathe, as if she was climbing a mountain and the air was thin. But he’d left the front door open and she had to shut it. There were things to do.

  She went downstairs, very slowly, holding on to the banisters for support and feeling so very ill she was afraid she was going to faint. If I can just get that door shut, she thought …

  But as she reached the last step, a wave of violent sickness swept up through her body, as though she was drowning. It filled her throat and blackened her vision. She fell, arms outstretched, unconscious before she could call for help.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rigg was in such a state as he left his mother’s house that he didn’t know where he was going. He drove without purpose, automatically, simply putting a distance between himself and what he’d done. He was approaching the Chichester bypass before he came to his senses. Then he pulled into the nearest lay-by, switched off the ignition, leaned his head on the steering wheel and wept for a very long time, paralysed with guilt, sunk deep in self-pity.

  I’ve hit my mother, he grieved. No matter what she did to me, I had no right to do that. Not to my mother. Only criminals hit their mothers. Criminals and the lowest of the low. I’ve put myself in with all the worst trash in the world, hitting my mother. I can’t go any lower. This is rock bottom. I’ve lost all my money, all my shops, I can’t pay my debts, I can’t go back to Spain, I’m driving a clapped-out Ford, I’m on the run – and now I’ve hit my mother. Dear God! How did I come to do such a thing? I must have been out of my mind. What can I do to put it right? There was nothing. He couldn’t do anything, with no money, no home and nowhere to go.

  As his tears dried up, he realised that he was desperate for a drink and yearning to be inside a pub in the good old-fashioned easy companionship of men and money. But he didn’t even have enough cash for a small scotch, did he?

  After drying his cheeks on his sleeve, he fished out his wallet and checked. Not a lot, but more than he’d imagined. Right then. Next pub along the road. A quick one – or two – something to eat, someone to talk to. Anywhere rather than in this car.

  The next pub turned out to be rather a prestigious place, set in a garden full of trees. It was so crowded that he had to queue for nearly ten minutes at the bar before he was served. But, for once, he didn’t mind waiting. It gave him a much-needed chance to recover. It was quite a while before he noticed what sort of people were standing round him. Mostly yuppie, loud, and not worth cultivating – but there was one man, bellowing for service at the far side of the bar, who looked drunk enough to be touched for a drink or two.

  He was a rough-looking chap, in his mid-forties, with receding hair and a face and figure not only shaped but coloured by a life-long appetite for beer. His complexion was patched red and purple, he was barrel chested and had a ponderous belly. But the best thing about him was that he was waving a fistful of fivers and trying to bully the barman. He’d be good company, if nothing else.

  Rigg insinuated himself to the front of the queue and as he gave his order, he managed to catch the man’s eye. ‘What would you like?’ he called.

  ‘Scotch,’ the man said. ‘Double.’ And when Rigg carried his two glasses to the nearest empty table. ‘That’s very good of you. I ‘ppreciate that.’

  ‘Any time,’ Rigg said, enjoying the warmth of the scotch on his parched throat.

  ‘You’re a pal,’ the man said. ‘You could die of thirst before they serve you here. Bloody lot.’ Now that they were sitting opposite one another, Rigg could see that his new friend was on the edge of drunkenness, his eyes bloodshot and his speech slurred,

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve been here,’ Rigg confided. ‘What’s the food like?’

  ‘No idea. Take my advice an’ stick to scotch.’

  Well that fell flat, Rigg thought. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘You’re a local then?’

  The man confessed he was from Petersfield but said he had very serious doubts as to whether he would ever see the place again.

  ‘Problems?’ Rigg prompted.

  ‘Bloody car’s died on me, hasn’t it.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t got any wheels.’

  ‘Did have. Got it as far as this place and it went and died on me. Bloody battery’s flat. No bloody garage for miles. I’m sick of the bloody thing.’

  ‘You’re in luck,’ Rigg sai
d, thinking quickly. ‘It just so happens I’ve got a car I want to sell.’

  ‘Not here?’

  ‘Here as ever is. In the car park. It’s only a little run-around. I bought it for my wife.’

  ‘Don’t she want it any more?’

  ‘Surplus to requirements,’ Rigg said. ‘She’s run off and left me. Would you like to see it?’

  So they went out into the covering darkness of the park among the trees.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Rigg asked when his new friend had inspected the car.

  ‘It’s in pretty good nick,’ the man said, kicking the nearest tyre. ‘No rust. Not too much on the clock. How much d’you want for it?’

  ‘Cost me six grand,’ Rigg lied.

  The man laughed. ‘That was a few years back.’

  ‘Yes. What d’you say to a grand then?’

  ‘Too much.’

  ‘Six hundred?’

  ‘I’ll give you four.’

  ‘Five,’ Rigg hoped.

  To his surprise, five it was. The man took another wodge of used notes from his pocket and counted out ten fifties. Rigg handed over the log book and the deed was done. Three minutes later, the new owner was roaring off towards Petersfield with his bargain and Rigg was heading back to the pub with his case in his hand and his loot in his pocket.

  Unlooked-for success is the best balm for wounded self-esteem. I might not know where I’m going, he thought, but haven’t lost the old charm. I’ve still got flair. And now I’ve got a few readies as well.

  As he reached the wicket-gate, a brand new Peugeot purred into the car park. It was driven by a self-assured woman with diamonds flashing on her fingers and dressed in a very smart trouser suit, an Armani if he was any judge. Well, well, well. This could be interesting. Sensing another catch, or at least a useful pick-up, he turned away from the gate and lurked under the nearest tree to observe her.

  The car was locked, the streaked hair delicately touched into place. Then she strode into the pub.

  Where’s she from? Rigg wondered, checking that the park was empty as he walked over to her car. It was beautifully kept, clean and neat and highly polished. There was a brief case on the back seat with a glossy brochure beside it. By the light of his pocket torch and by dint of craning his neck into an impossible position, he managed to discover that there was a Manchester address on the brochure. So far so good, he thought. Now for the lady.