Fenwick Houses

by Catherine Cookson

  It was not in me to say "I've had dozen of chances," although it was true; nor yet to say, "I've waited for years for this day, just to see you." Nor could I say anything that would embarrass him further, not only embarrass but frighten him. A little flame of terror shot through me at this last thought. Whatever happened I must not frighten him away before he had seen Constance, for when he had seen her he would be mine forever. There was no thought in my mind of trapping him. I had no subtlety. My ideas were straight and simple, based, although I did not realize it, on the teachings of my religion. He was the father of Constance there had been no other man near me. In my mind he was my husband, and when he saw his child there could be no doubt in his mind either. Yet I could not mention her name here. Perhaps I was a little subtle, perhaps a little cunning.

  Still with the smart woman's example before me, I tried to adopt a casual tone which would put him at his ease, as I asked, "What have you been doing all this time?"

  I could see that his mind was not on his words as he tapped his uniform, saying, "Flying, since the beginning."

  "Since the beginning?" My inflection must have implied how lucky he was to be still alive, and he answered this by saying, "I've been one of the favoured. I'm in with Him." He thumbed the ceiling and gave a little smile before adding, "I'm on training duties now."

  "At the aerodrome on the fells?" I couldn't keep the eagerness from my voice. He shook his head.

  "No," he said, 'the Littleborough drome. "

  The Littleborough drome was about ten miles away.

  "Have you been back here long?"

  "Four months or so."

  Four months and I hadn't seen him . ;. four whole months.

  There followed an awkward silence, and he broke it by saying, "Come on, finish that and have another."

  "No, thanks." I shook my head and remembered the butcher's, but I did not say, "I've got to go." It was he, pushing back his sleeve and looking at his wrist watch, who said, "Struth, I must be off I'm afraid. I was due in Littleborough at one. I won't make it now, but I'll have to go."

  He did not immediately rise but leant across the table, saying, "It's been grand seeing you, Christine. We must meet again."

  "Yes. Yes, we must."

  He did not make any date and I became panicky inside. As I buttoned up my coat I heard myself saying rapidly, "I can't get out much now, my mother died and I'm looking after the house."

  "Oh.... Do you still live in the same place?"

  Yes. "

  "I must look you up then."

  "Yes... yes, do. Would you make it after seven o'clock?"

  He gave me a look of startled surprise, then said, "Yes .."s yes, of course."

  We were in the street now, standing facing each other once again, and I knew he was going to leave me without making any definite date, and the panic screamed in my head, "Ask him to come."

  "When can I expect you?" I asked sedately.

  oh, well now. " Again he pulled at the bottom of his tunic, and I remember thinking the action wasn't far removed from the coat-buttoning one that the lads indulged in, and I had once imagined he was as separated from such gaucheness as was God.

  "Any night could it be? You said after seven?"

  Yes," I nodded.

  "Well, what about tomorrow? No, you'd better say Wednesi day. How's that?"

  "Yes, that'll do fine."

  "Good-bye then, Christine."

  He held out his hand, and I placed mine in it and said, "Good-bye, Martin."

  It was he who turned away first. Even his walk thrilled me is5

  - the movement of his legs was more intoxicating than the gin that I had just drunk. My road lay in the same direction that he was taking, up the street and round the corner, but I let him get a start for he had not inquired which way I was going, and I would not see this as symbolical of the future.

  I cannot tell you what my feelings were as I stood alone in that street. Not of joy, but definitely not of sorrow. Not full of new hope, but definitely not of despair. I felt no newborn courage, nor yet a chilling fear. I only knew that Martin was in my life again as I had known that one day he would be. That book of Ronnie's had been right. Desire something with all your heart and you'll get it.

  When I got to the butcher's Rex Watson wasn't there he had gone to his dinner and Mr. Jameson said they had nothing but mutton. So I took our rations in mutton, and when I reached the house I couldn't remember having walked from the butcher's.

  Dad was disappointed and said, "Wait till I see Rex Watson," and he had let the stew set on, but the burnt taste made no impression on me.

  On the Tuesday night, with the house to myself, I washed my hair, bathed myself and did my nails, and on the Wednesday morning I practised making up my face, not heavily, but just enough to give me a touch of sophistication, for that is what I knew I lacked.

  Sam, like Dad, was on night-shift, and for this I was thankful, for I would have had to get rid of him somehow. Not that he would have stayed once he had seen Martin, but I wanted no one here when Martin came, for it was absolutely necessary that I had him alone.

  The last thing I did before getting myself ready was to prepare Constance for bed, but I did it as if she were going out for a special occasion. I curled her hair and did her nails and put her on a clean nightie, and every stitch on her bed was fresh. The only thing I couldn't do was make Ronnie's room, where she now slept, look like a nursery. I could do little with the house, the things were shabby, but everything was as clean as soap and water and polish could make it.

  At five-to-seven I stood on the mat, my back to the fire, and wished that I smoked or drank or had some other means of settling my nerves.

  At seven o'clock there was no knock on the door, but I heard Don Bowling's cough coming through the wall, and involuntarily I shuddered.

  Would he come in? But no. I knew his routine pretty well now. He would be off down to the house in Bog's End.

  At half past seven I was sick in every pore of my body. During the eternity from seven o'clock I had never moved from the mat and now I felt I could collapse at any moment. Then there came the knock on the front door and I went to open it.

  "Hallo."

  "Hallo," I said.

  He was in the front room, and I noticed his eyes flicking from the brass bed to the other articles of furniture that crowded the room. He had his cap in his hand and seemed ill at ease.

  "Will... will I take your coat?"

  Slowly he took off his coat and handed it to me and I laid it on the bed.

  When he stood in the brighter light of the kitchen he said, "I'm sorry I'm late. I thought I wasn't going to be able to make it at all."

  "Sit down," I said. And as he sat down by the side of the table I asked, "Would you like a cup of tea ?"

  "No thanks," he answered, and gave a little laugh. I sat down, too.

  The table was between us, and so was something else. A great, solid awkwardness. He did not seem to possess the ease of manner and fluency of speech that I remembered.

  His thoughts, too, must have been on how he remembered me, for he now said as he looked into my face across the space of the table, "I thought when I saw you the other morning that you hadn't changed, but you have. You're better looking than ever, Christine, And you've grown sort of filled out." He again gave a little laugh, and I thought if Don Dowling had said these words I would have taken them as an insult, something bad, but nothing Martin said could be bad to me.

  Then he added, "What have you been doing with yourself all the time?"

  It was such a trite question that some small part of me that held the same vein of character that had run through our Ronnie cried voicelessly, "Having your child and looking after it.

  The thought brought me to my feet, and I went to the fire and poked it, and as I poked I felt his eyes on me and I knew that I must come straight to the point, I must show him Constance. I placed the poker very gently on the hearth and, turning about, said, "Martin, I've got
something I want you to see."

  "Yes?" He was looking up at me, and we were about an arm's length away from each other, and I wanted to fling myself on him, and into him, never to come out as myself again.

  "You sound very serious all of a sudden."

  "Would you mind coming upstairs?"

  He was on his feet now, his face straight and not pale any more but tinged with colour. His eyes were hard on me and he asked in a flat voice, "What's this?"

  I did not answer but led the way up the narrow dark stairs and into the bedroom where I had left a night light on.

  I felt him hesitate on the threshold, and I turned and looked at him, and he came into the room. I had to close the door behind him before he could see the cot, and I could see that he was puzzled, even amazed at my action. And then he saw Constance. She was lying on her side, her hair no longer tidy but tousled about her head. She had pushed the clothes down from about her, and her pink nightie was rumpled around her waist. I dont know how long he looked at her, it might have been seconds or minutes, but when he turned to me his face was a deep dark red. He did not say, "Now look here, you can't pin this on me."

  Nothing like that. He had only to look on the child to know it was his her skin, the shape of her face, her hair were all his. He turned fully to me and moved his head once from side to side, then dragged his lips between his teeth before speaking my name in a dazed kind of way.

  "Christine."

  My eyes dropped before his gaze.

  "Good God!"

  I did not speak, I just waited for his arms to come about me.

  "Christ!"

  He was swearing like any man I knew, and because of it was nearer to my life.

  "But, Christine ... only that ... that once." The last word was just a whisper and he stumbled on its utterance, then slowly he put out his arms and drew me to him, and I lay where I had wanted to lie for so, so long. And it was too much for me.

  I had rehearsed our meeting step by step and what would take place, and crying had no part in it, but now I was sobbing into his neck as if I would never stop. Yet, even at this moment, I told myself to be quiet in case they heard me next door.

  His mouth was moving near my ear and he was repeating my name:

  "Christine. Oh, Christine," and by the depth of regret in the tone I was repaid a thousand fold for all I had gone through.

  It was he who led me down the stairs, but we did not relinquish our hold on each other, and in the kitchen he again took me in his arms and soothed me, saying, "Oh, my dear." And when he asked, "You waited all this time?" and I nodded my head dumbly against his coat, his voice sounded agonized as he muttered, "Good God!"

  He sat me down in the armchair by the fire, then pulling a little crack et forward with his foot he seated himself by my knees and held my hands tightly. And I looked down into his face, which seemed changed and full of trouble, and now it was my turn to comfort and I touched his cheek, and said, "Don't look like that. It happened and there it is, and I'm not sorry, not a bit."

  Suddenly he dropped his head and buried his face in my lap, and the happiness I experienced as I stroked his hair was new, like the love that I had for Constance intensified a thousand fold It had nothing to do with the body.

  When after some time he looked up at me, he said softly, "Christine, we have got to talk."

  "Yes, Martin."

  I did not want to talk. I just wanted to sit and hold him and he to hold me. I wanted to feel his mouth on mine; he had not yet kissed me.

  "That night... by the river...."

  "It doesn't matter." I smiled down at him with the com passion and understanding of all the mothers in the world, for now he was like a troubled child and I was not just twenty, I was old in wisdom. I did not want him to resurrect his humiliation, but he cut me short, saying,

  "It's odd, but I've never been able to get you out of my mind.

  It is the only time I ran away in my life. "

  "It's a? right."

  "It isn't all right. It's been on my conscience for years. Not because I love you, you understand." I nodded. And then he went on,

  "But because I ran before that damned priest. He put the combined fear and terror of all the ages into me that night. He made his appearance at the wrong moment, for my uncle. Colonel Findlay, had been talking that very day about the power of the priests in this town. Apparently some time earlier my uncle's housemaid she was a Catholic married a Protestant in spite of the threats of the priest. The man had a mind of his own and wouldn't turn, nor say that the children would be brought up in the Church, and uncle said they were giving the girl hell."

  I gazed down at him. What was he trying to tell me? That he would not become a Catholic? That he was afraid of the pressure? I would give up my religion tomorrow, this minute. What did my religion matter to me if it meant losing him? Not all the Father Ellises in the world could make me feel differently. He was still talking.

  "Then the very next day Uncle had a phone call from a friend at the other side of the hill saying that one of the priests was on the warpath looking for a fellow who had been He dropped his eyes from mine as he said, 'carrying on was the word used." Then looking at me again he added, "I wasn't carrying on that night, Christine, I loved you. It was the greatest experience of my life. I have never felt like it since. I meant to see you again I remember what I said, " It's going to be a lovely summer" but I skedaddled home to France that very Sunday afternoon with a big push from Uncle."

  Again I stroked his cheek and said, "I knew that was the house you had been living in. I knew that the colonel was some relation of yours."

  Slowly I watched him pull back from me and I tried to draw him towards me again, as I said, "It's all right, I didn't say anything. My mother took me up, she made me go, and the colonel said there was no one of your name there. But I saw a picture of you with some other children.

  You looked just like Constance does now. "

  Slowly again he pulled himself from my hands and stood up and turned his back towards me, and I said softly, "I couldn't help it, Martin, I didn't want to go. It was my mother, she was so troubled."

  He did not look at me as he said, "It isn't that, but they never told me you had been." Then he asked a question.

  "Did you see anyone else beside my uncle?"

  "Yes, a young woman as we were going out." I did not add that she looked as if she could have killed me. He sat down by the table, then got up immediately again and asked, "Could I have my greatcoat, there's a bottle in there? I think I need a drink, Christine."

  I went into the front room and lifted his coat and held it to me tightly for a moment before taking it to him. From the inner pocket he pulled out a flask, and when I brought him a glass he said, "Where's the other one?"

  There was no need to be polished any more, so I replied truthfully, "I dont drink. I thought the gin was terrible yesterday."

  He stared at me in a sort of puzzled, bewildered fashion, then filling the glass to the top he drank it in one gulp, and as he set the glass down on the table he repeated what he had said earlier, "We've got to talk, Christine." But now he added as if to himself, "And I dont feel so badly about it now."

  My look must have held a question, for he touched my arm quickly saying, "I dont mean about you. I'm referring to other things. We'll talk about them later, but now, Christine, some thing must be done.

  How have you managed all these years? "

  His tone was so business-like that it changed him. He had become the officer, and I smiled softly as I said, "Dad's good."

  He gripped my hand at this and exclaimed in a low voice, "And you're good, you're so good it's frightening." He jerked himself upright now and his voice held the stiff note again as he said, "But you must have money. I must make pro vision, we must talk about money."

  "Oh, money." I not only shook my head, but shook my body as if throwing the word off, then shamelessly I put my arms about him and cried, "Oh, Martin, Martin, dont talk about money,
talk about us."

  Our faces were close, our breaths were mixing as they had done once before, then we were kissing and I was quite un ashamed that it was I who had made the first move, though once I had done so there was no need to press further for it would seem that he wanted to eat me alive with his love. My body was at ease for the first time in years. It lay heavy on the bed, weighted down with content and the release that I longed for, and deep within my stomach there was the old gurgle of mirth. It could have been that we were once again lying on the grass ready to roll with our laughter. I had not cried this time. I felt I would never cry again; there was nothing that could make me cry. I told myself that if this love was snatched away from me within the hour, so intense, so solid was the feeling burning through me that it would take a life time to extinguish. His hands were moving lovingly over me and I was so unashamed that I was sorry it was dark, and then he whispered, "Darling, darling, you're out of this world, they dont come like you today, high or low. You're a woman, Christine, a woman, and there are women and women. But you wouldn't know that. Listen, I want you to remember this...."

  I did not speak, only my heart repeated slowly, "Yes, Martin, yes, Martin."

  "There's never been anyone like you and there never will. Remember that, will you, and I love you. I dont think I've ever stopped loving you. That's why oh what does it matter. Wake up!"

  "I am awake and I'll remember."

  At that moment there came a rap on the front door and I felt him stiffen. I stiffened myself, then said, "Ssh! they'll think I've gone to bed."

  Whoever it was rapped three times before going away, and after that the enchantment was somehow broken and Martin said, "I'm afraid I'll have to make a move, Christine, but God, how I'm loath to go. And we haven't talked, and we must talk, it's important that we talk."

  With my lips on his I silenced him saying, "Tomorrow we will talk."

  Fifteen minutes later, after clinging together for another long moment, I let him out the front door into the dark street, which, as far as I could make out, was empty. Then I bolted the door and went straight upstairs and lay down again, and was surprised when I awoke and it was daylight. I put my arms upwards and stretched, then turned over on to my face and murmured, "Martin. Oh, Martin," and went to sleep again.