Oh! Stinker. Poor Stinker, with his shaggy coat and his warm tongue and his laughing eyes. Oh! Stinker.
I learned later that the man who had come to the door for Dad had seen a man swing a sack into the river. But he was too far away to be recognized except that he was very tall. My mind had sprung to Fitly Gunthorpe again, but when I put this to Dad he said, "Aye, I thought that an' all and I went round there, but Fitty's been evacuated for the last month."
I was deeply affected, not only by Stinker's death but by the way he had died, and day after day I cried about him until Dad, looking into my white face one morning, said firmly, "Now look here, lass, he's gone and he can't be brought back and you've got the hairn to see to, so knuckle to."
He was talking to the mother of Constance, but I did not feel a mother, I felt in this moment a very young girl who had lost her dog.
Stinker hadn't only been a dog, he had been a person to whom in the darkness of the night I had whispered my thoughts, my pain.
All the time I had been carrying the child I had, in a way, been free, free from the pressure of both Ronnie and Don, but now the pressure was back, heavy and menacing. With Ronnie, it was his solicitude, for which at any moment he might ask payment or, what was more likely, plead for payment, for I had unheedingly broken down certain barriers for him: I was no longer a virgin, there was no question of being raped by my brother. With Don, it was the insidious penetration of himself into my life through the wall that separated us. For hours he would sing loudly and practise on a guitar, playing the one tune over and over again. And then every third week, when he was on the day shift, around twelve o'clock at night or at whatever time he returned from the bars, there would start a gentle tapping on the wall. This would last from ten minutes to anything up to an hour. The more tight he was the shorter would be the duration. I began to wait for the tapping, knowing it would come, for I could never go to sleep until it finished.
It took swift payment of my nerves, for at times the soft tap-tap became loud in my head, like a hammer beating on tin, and I felt I must scream at him through the wall or go mad.
Between the two of them, I had good reason for asking Dad to change rooms again, but had I told him the situation I doubt whether he would have believed me. More likely he would have thought my mind was affected. I could not even make Constance the excuse for a change of room, for the child slept anywhere, and she never cried except when she was hungry, and then I had only to lift her from the cot where it was wedged between the wall and the foot of my bed.
And now I was back where I had started, with Don on one side and Ronnie on the other, the only difference being they were no longer boys, they were both men. Of the two, at this time, I think I was mostly afraid of our Ronnie, and this fear came to the surface one Friday night when, after placing his board money on the table, he pushed three pounds towards me, saying, "Get yourself something."
I looked at him, then turned sharply away from the light in his eyes, that soft, pleading light that could turn my stomach. I did not touch the money, but said, "Thanks, but there's nothing I want."
"Dont be silly," he said; 'you're letting yourself go and you're not to do that. Get yourself a frock or something. " He picked the money up and put it on the mantelpiece.
I left the money where it was. And there it remained until Dad came in.
"Whose is this ?" he asked, touching the notes.
"Our Ronnie's," I said, but gave no further information. The next morning the money had gone, and I went down the town and bought a strong bolt and that afternoon I fixed it on my bedroom door.
CHAPTER FIVE
the night following Constance's second birthday, in March 1942, Fellburn had the heaviest air-raid it had yet experienced. I was alone in the house, both Dad and Ronnie being on the night shift, and at the first sound of the siren I quickly gathered up the things I always kept ready and hurried across the road, with Constance in my arms, and down into the shelter. Dad had rigged up three bunks. Also there was a little oil stove and a cupboard made out of boxes, and if one could have slept without worry the shelter would not have proved a bad alternative to the bedroom.
I had just got Constance settled when from outside the door in the sandbagged passage I heard Sam's voice saying, "You there, Christine?"
I opened the door for him, and he came in making, as usual, an excuse to cover his concern for us.
"Our shelter is already like the morgue.
I hate to be in there by me self I still can't get Mam to use it.
Funny, isn't it, her so frightened and won't go in an air-raid shelter.
She did at first, that's the odd thing. "
I nodded.
"Perhaps she's wise," I said.
"If you've got to go you'll go, air-raid shelter or no."
He turned his head slowly and looked at me in the light of the hurricane lamp, then as slowly turned his gaze down on Constance and, repeating a statement he had made a thousand times before, he said,
"By, she's bonnie, Christine."
At this very moment the earth gave a mighty shudder and we both dropped on to our knees and threw ourselves across Constance. For quite some moments I could feel the trembling, and it seemed to run through me, and Sam, whose head was close to mine, smiled and said, "Coo! a step nearer and it would have taken the skin off our noses."
Then he added, "Look, she's still sleeping."
There came another thud, more distant this time; then within a few seconds another one that seemed to fall softly.
"They're trying for the aerodrome," said Sam.
"What the devil did they want to build an aerodrome up here for anyway?
They should never put dromes near houses." He sounded angry.
I smiled at him and whispered, as if afraid to raise my voice, "But I thought you liked the air force. Weren't you talking of joining up?"
"I like the air force but not that aerodrome. It's too bloomin' near for my fancy. Anyway, when I do join up they'll know about it, for I'll go straight to the Air Marshal and give him a piece of my mind."
And he demonstrated with his finger and thumb how big the piece would be. Then went on, "I'll tell him a thing or two he won't forget before I'm shot."
It wasn't only what Sam said that was funny but the way he said it, and he was always using his dry humour to turn my thoughts from myself.
And he succeeded in his aim once again for, moving from his side, I laid my head on the foot of the bunk for a moment and laughed.
Then looking at him I said, "You are an idiot, Sam." He was looking at Constance and made no comment, but there was a little pleased smile around his lips.
He got to his feet now, saying, "I'll Just look out and see if the street's standin'," and by this I knew he was going to slip across and see if his mother was all right.
As I opened the door for him and watched him ease his thick body and broad shoulders out into the passage I wondered, and not for the first time, what I would have done during the past three years without him.
He was just turned seventeen but he seemed much older, and so wise for a lad. One thing I was certain of, he was the most understanding of those around me, and that included Dad, for his understanding was not born of sorrow like Dad's and there was not a trace of condemnation in it. I'm sure that something within me, never very strong, call it my nerves for want of a better name, would have snapped under the strain of Don's persistent covert persecution and our Ronnie's insidious attempts to penetrate into my inner life, if it hadn't been for Sam.
Ronnie had now placed me in such a position that f could no longer turn on him in a temper, real or simulated, for he i3l
was so kind and patient. so patient. It was this patience that was wearing my nerves to frayed threads. Not the threat of raids and bombing or even Don Dowling's present form of torture, it was Ronnie, and his blatant desire I knew would be the end of me, if not morally, then in some disastrous way, should the situation continue for much longer.
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Dad was blissfully unaware of anything wrong and he daily added to my strain by making such suggestions as, "Go on, lass, go to the pictures with Ronnie. The hairn will be all right with me. You worry too much about her." Or, "Go on, let Ronnie go with you for the shopping and carry the things."
One day, getting Dad by himself I said to him, "Dad, I want to go out on my own, I dont want Ronnie or anybody else about me." At this he had said, "All right, lass, have it your own way." But there had been a look of worry in his eyes.
I knew the reason for both the look and his tone. The air force was all around, lorry loads of blue-clad figures passed the door every day.
I wanted to say to him, "Dad, they hold no more interest for me than old Mr. Patterson next door," but I knew he wouldn't believe me. I was nineteen and motherhood had caused me to side-step the unbalanced fat of the teens, and I had quickly developed a figure which brought whistles from the lorries and advances from more than one uniformed male. But it was always the new ones to the drome that made the advances, for it had got around that I was unmarried and had a child, and in some perverse way this seemed to give me a form of protection, at least in the daylight. I never trusted myself out of doors after dark for, as Aunt Phyllis crudely put it, the air force swarmed over the town at night like maggots on meat.
Sometimes lying awake at night I asked myself if I was a complete fool altogether, for I simply could not forget Martin. If I could get him out of my mind then perhaps I would meet some man who would accept Constance and marry me. On this thought I would always toss restlessly and end up by turning my face into the pillow and there see his face emerge through great clouds of multi-coloured mist and the desire for him would rise in me until, unable to bear it any longer, I would get up and pace the narrow length of my room. Or sometimes I would sit at the window for hours on end, wondering about him, where he was, if he was in the army, the navy or the air force, if he had been wounded. I could never think of him as being dead, for my longing told me I should meet him again I must. I was still young enough to imagine that all things are possible to them that hope.
One day I started a sort of mental game I got the idea from a book our Ronnie was reading. It was dealing with the power of thought, and it told you that anything you wished for in life could be yours, if you made the desire strong enough. I remember laughing with some bitterness as I read this there could be no desire stronger in anyone alive than the desire in me for Martin. The book gave a number of exercises that had to be done just before dropping off to sleep, and I did the exercises and played this game until I asked myself one night why Ronnie had been reading such a book, and it came to me, as it should have done at the beginning, that he was using the exercises to accomplish his desires as I was to accomplish mine, and from that moment I stopped doing them, but hope was in no way lessened in me.
Sam came back into the shelter saying briefly that everything was all right, but added, "By! there's some fires blazing round about," and as he sat down on the bunk he remarked, "You know I used to be terrified of the pit, but now I think it's the safest place." He was in his usual position with his hands hanging down between his knees, and he looked down at them as he stated, "They say given the will you can get over anything in life, but you can't, not really."
"Are you going to stay in the pit, Sam?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"When I make a bit money I'm going to save like billy-ho for that piece of land I've always been on about. You know," he went on, his eyes still cast down, but now with his head moving slowly from side to side,
'when I'm sitting at the end of that conveyor belt pushing the coal around I'm not seeing coal. Some pieces are taties, and the longish pieces carrots, and when along comes a piece that's nice and rounded I say "There's a grand turnip for you, that one's threepence, Mrs.
Jones."
I was laughing again, a real laugh. It started as a chuckle inside, then for the first time in nearly three years I_was really laughing, really laughing, and Sam was laughing with me, his eyes on me now. And Constance slept all through the laughter as she had through the bombing.
"Oh, Sam," I said, as I held myself, "I've got a lot to thank you for."
His kind mouth was smiling and his eyes had a gentle light. From his expression you would have imagined he had just received a gift of some kind. I knew as I looked at him that this was what he had been trying for during these past years, to bring my laughter back. Across the narrow space I put out my hand and touched his knee.
"Thanks, Sam," I said. As his head drooped I patted him two or three times, and this reminded me of my mother. When unable to find words with which to express her feelings she would pat.
This moment of warm comfort between Sam and me was broken by a voice calling, "Anybody there?"
Sam rose hastily and went to the door, and a man's voice said, "Any of the Winters inside... the father?"
"No, only Christine."
There was a pause, and I stood behind Sam and asked, "What is it?
Anything the matter? "
Again there was a pause; then the man said, "I'm afraid, lass, your brother's been hurt."
A stillness settled within me. Then out of it I heard my voice asking,
"Has there been a fall?" Although the war was on we pit folk would always associate accidents with the mine.
The man's voice came again.
"No, lass. It was the bomb that got the bridge."
I was outside in the passage now, standing close to the man, and as I peered into his face I said, "It couldn't be my brother, he's doing his shift. He left the house about an hour ago."
"Well, lass, he's been recognized as Ronnie Winter. Where's your dad?"
"He he's at work, Ronnie and him went out together. He's not " No. As far as I can gather there was a woman and two baims and your brother.
Can you come to the hospital? "
I looked at Sam, and he whispered, "I'll see to her, go on."
I picked up my coat and followed the man, and not until we were outside did I realize that he was in uniform and an A.
R.
P.
warden.
A jeep was coming down the road and he hailed it and said to the driver, "Will you give us a lift to the footbridge, the main one's gone?"
"Get up," said the man.
"Where you for?"
"The General Hospital," replied the A.
R.
P.
man.
"This lass's broAer caught it." His voice had taken on a sad intonation.
"Oh."
I felt the man's eyes slip towards me for a second. I said nothing because I was feeling nothing.
When we reached the place where the bridge had stood there seemed to be crowds of people about; it was the same at the footbridge, and the driver said, "Look, I'll run you down to Bog's Bridge and take you right to the hospital that way."
"Thanks," said the warden.
Ten minutes later I was in the casualty ward, and standing in a small cubicle by the side of a bed. On it lay Ronnie. His face looked very clean, as if it had been lightly powdered. His eyes were closed and I knew without being told that he was near death. As a thought rose up swiftly to the surface of my mind I cried at it, "No! No, for God's sake dont wish that. How can you?" But I knew in my heart that I could and did wish that he would die.
Someone pushed a chair forward and I sat down, and someone else brought me a cup of tea but I couldn't drink it. I sat there for three hours.
Towards the end of that time Ronnie opened his eyes and looked at me.
There seemed to be no recognition in the look yet he lifted his hand towards me. But before my hand reached him his dropped back on to the counterpane, and I knew that my subconscious desire had been granted.
Ronnie was dead, and pity and remorse and relief, but also love, yes strangely, love, now twisted my whole being.
A different nurse came and led me away into another room and she spoke
to me as if I were his wife.
"Have you any children?" she asked.
After a moment I moved my head and she said, "Well, dont worry, you'll be taken care of."
Something loud within me yelled at her "Shut up! shut up!" and when I shuddered she said, "You mustn't catch cold." I had to get away from her and her misplaced kindness or I would scream. A few minutes later a woman took me home in i35
a car and I didn't thank her, but ran into the house and into the kitchen and retched my heart out at the sink.
Ronnie had been dead three weeks and Dad still kept saying, "If only he had gone down that night."
The mystery of how Ronnie had come to be on the bridge when he should have been down the pit was solved when Dad had come up the next morning. While they waited for the cage Ronnie had apparently said he felt off-colour, that he could not go down and must go back to bed. As Dad was telling me this there had come to my mind a saying of my mother's: "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small'. Ronnie had been unable to get me alone, Dad was always there.
I had no doubt in my mind that his illness was a ruse to be in the house alone with me, and he had paid dearly for it. Yet, now safe from anything he could do, or try to do, I could say, "Oh, Ronnie. Poor Ronnie." But I did not hide from myself the release from strain that his death had brought to me. There remained only Don Dowling, and now, oddly enough, since Ronnie's death, he had let up in his persecution.
For the first time since my mother had threatened him with the poker he came to our door. Dad answered it and asked him in, and he stood in the kitchen expressing his sympathy in tones that sounded sincere.
"We had our differences. Uncle Bill," he said, 'but we were pals from when we were lads. "
"Aye, that's true," said Dad.
"You'll miss him, Christine," he said to me.
He had spoken my name as if he had never stopped using it, and although his tone was most kindly I could not help but wonder what was behind the words "You'll miss him, Christine." But after that one remark he addressed himself to Dad all the time. He did not stay more than a few minutes, and when he left he said to Dad, "If there's anything I can do, Uncle Bill, you've only to ask. I'm just next door, you know."
Fenwick Houses Page 15
