Fenwick Houses

by Catherine Cookson

  But there was no light in the front room now. When I opened the door there was a man standing on the pavement. He was in army uniform, a private, and all I could take in of him in the dusk was that he was thick-set and had bulbous eyes. But when he spoke I knew he was from these parts, perhaps the North Tyne.

  "Hallo," he said, and the '0' was dragged and brought his lower lip out with it.

  "Hallo," I replied quietly. There was a pause, during which he grinned at me. Then he said, "I'm right, aren't I? You're Christine Winter?"

  "Yes. Yes, I am."

  "Aye, well--' his grin broadened 'can I come in?"

  I had the door in my hand. Instinctively I drew it closer to me and asked swiftly, "What do you want?"

  He gave a little laugh and replied, "Well that's a question, isn't it?

  You'd better let's come in and I'll tell you. "

  I pulled the door closer still and said, The father's asleep, I'm going to bed. "

  "Your father?" he repeated, and as he screwed up his eyes I asked sharply, "Who are you?"

  "Oh--' his voice had a cold sound now 'it doesn't matter who I am. I was given your name and address. Seems like I'm not very welcome the night. But custom's custom I suppose? Still, I can come another time.

  Fd better book, eh? "

  As if I had been prodded from behind I jumped back and banged the door shut, then staggering into the kitchen I stood with my face buried in my hands. Later, as I lay staring into darkness, I told myself I couldn't go on. Yet as I said this I knew that I was not strong enough to make an end of it. I even had to face the fact that if Don Dowling had not made his appearance on the river bank that morning I still wouldn't have drowned myself. I hadn't that kind of courage. I hadn't any kind of courage. The new Christine hadn't any more courage than the old one; all I was equipped with now was a i95

  kind of angry defiance. Yet I knew that I was going to need courage, for Don, as Sam said, was remembering. As the night wore on and I could not sleep there came over me a longing . an intense longing for a drop of whisky.

  Following on this incident I was afraid to answer any knock on the front door, and when one evening a few days later, there came a sharp rat-tat I went upstairs and peered down from behind the blind on to the heads of two men, both in uniform, and thought stupidly, I'll kill Don Dowling. The rat-tats came at intervals over the following weeks and always at night when Dad and Sam were on the late shift.

  I told Sam nothing about this, nor Dad. The humiliation was so great that I could not bear to speak of it. Besides, I was afraid of what Sam might attempt should I tell him. To help steady my nerves and calm, to some extent, my fears, I began fortifying myself in the evening with a glass of whisky. Two glasses, when I could afford it, ensuring me a night's heavy, dreamless sleep. If I had more than one during the day, which I sometimes managed at Mollie's, my tongue was loosened and I became confidential and found relief in talking, talking about anything. And Mollie listened and never said to me as she did to Doddy, Tor Christ's sake shut your trap! "

  Whisky was scarce and I could only get it through Mollie, and she got it because she had a number of pals in the know. One particular evening I had been to Mollie's and when I came back I had a couple of glasses of whisky in my bag, and was comforted somewhat to know that I would sleep that night, a sound sleep, without thoughts bursting through and dragging me into wakefulness.

  After Dad had bidden me good night and gone into the front room, I made the whisky hot and took it immediately, not taking it upstairs to drink as I usually did, and it got to work even before I was undressed, and as soon as I lay down I fell asleep.

  How long I had been asleep I dont know, but I was roused by the sound of Don Dowling singing. I turned on my side and put my head under the clothes, but the insistence of his voice brought me on to my back again, and wearily I opened my eyes. He must be roaring drunk to sing in the street like that. Even with my room being at the back I could hear him dearly. I heard him banging on the front door, then his voice told me he was going through the front room and into the kitchen. I did not hear Aunt Phyllis speaking, but I could hear him yelling replies. Some time later there came the sound of his heavy steps on the stairs, then of his bedroom door crashing open and his voice almost in my ear yelling a parody on a well-known song, a dirty parody as usual. He raved on for about half an hour, then abruptly his voice ceased, and in the quiet that followed I went to sleep again, and I dreamed, as I had done often of late, that I was drowning, and it was al ways in the same place, in the river between the shelves of rock, and I never seemed to be surprised that the river was running through my bedroom. I had come to the point of the dream where I screamed and clutched at an invisible hand when I was brought sharply awake not only by the sound, but the feeling of someone in the room. I swung up on to my elbow, whispering, "Is that you, Constance?" There was no answer.

  The room should have been in black darkness for I always left the blackout up now, but through my sleep-bleared eyes and muddled mind I took in the fact that I could see the sky. And then I saw something else, the great dark outline of a man.

  As one tries in vain in a dream to shout for help, so now no sound escaped from my throat, but I scrambled up on the bed as swiftly as my heavy bulk would allow, and stood with my head grazing the ceiling and my back and hands pressed to the wall, and I knew before he spoke that it was Don.

  "If you as much as make a sound I'll kill you."

  The scream wouldn't come loose.

  "The Fenwick Houses' whore. I've come to be obliged. Any objection?"

  His voice through all this was low, and it held none of the thick muddled tones of a man in drink. I knew he was solid and sober.

  "You can't say I haven't been patient, I've waited a long time ...

  years.

  Now I'll see your bloody bust that your mother padded, and more. "

  As he made a silent lunge towards me the scream ripped from my throat:

  "Dad! Dad! Dad! Da ... ad! Da ... ad!"

  I had turned my face to the wall and was clawing at it as I screamed, and when hands came on me and pulled me down on to the bed I still continued to scream until I recognized Dad's agonized voice yelling above mine, "For God's sake, lass, what's the matter now?"

  Oh! oh! oh! Oh, Dad! Oh, Dad! "

  "Quiet, and you, Constance an' all, be quiet. Quiet! I say. My God, the street'll be out. What's happened? Stay still until I light a candle."

  Shaking and sobbing, my gasping breath threatening to choke me at any moment, I pointed towards the window, and it was only then that he became aware that the blackout curtains were drawn and the window wide open. He closed the window and drew the curtains before lighting the candle, then said, "Get back into bed."

  "No, no, I'm going downstairs." I struggled into my coat, and with Constance hanging on to me I went down into the kitchen. He followed, saying in a different kind of voice now, "Tell me what happened."

  I drew a chair up to the nearly dead fire and, crouching over it, muttered, "Someone came through the window ... a man."

  "A man?" he repeated. Then pulling his belt he went out through the scullery and into the backyard. In a few minutes he was back and his face looked grim and he asked quietly, "Did you see who it was?"

  I did not look at him as I said, "No." Had I said it was Don there was no telling what the consequences might be. But more than this, if he knew it was Don, Sam would know it was Don, and Sam must not know, not for sure. He would suspect, but that would prove nothing in this case.

  "There was no ladder and the spout isn't near the window. I can't see how he could have climbed up."

  I knew without looking at him that he was working out the distance between Aunt Phyllis's back bedroom and mine. Ten feet separated them, and about three feet from each windowsill was a big staple which he himself had placed there some years previously. The clothes lines ran through these staples and through rings on the end of high poles fixed to the backyard walls, thus en
abling the clothes to soar above the confined space of the yard and catch the wind from the fells. Anyone holding on to the gutter and having a large enough stride and being reckless enough into the bargain could make the distance between the two windows.

  I knew that I must not allow Dad to put two and two together else there would be murder done, so I shamefacedly admitted about the soldier coming to the door.

  I heard him mutter an oath, then as he turned away to go into the scullery he cut me to the heart by saying, Thank God your mother didn't live. "

  It was as I drank the hot cup of tea he made me that I felt sick, and then a pain started that was like no pain I had felt before. When at four o'clock he said he would go for Aunt Phyllis, I stopped him and murmured, "No, no. Get Sam to go for the doctor."

  I was in hospital at seven o'clock and before that afternoon I gave birth to a boy, and he lived an hour and I floated for days in a semi-lit world, uncaring, unthinking, unfeeling.

  My first lucid thought was one of relief that the child was dead. I should have been grateful to Don Dowling.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  the war was over.

  "Hip ... hip! ... hooray!" I hung over Mollie's front room window sill, crushed between her and Doddy, and waving my flag to the procession passing below. Fellbum Victory Procession.

  Bands playing, lorries laden with men and girls, and rows of couples joined arm in arm, dancing along the width of the street.

  "Conquerors Conquerors Germany lies bleeding."

  Doddy was at it again, and I turned my face to him and laughed widely.

  And he went on, "But the blood is yellow and the victors will squeeze her as they did before, and there will rise out of the juice another Hitler."

  "For God Almighty's sake, stow it, Doddy. If you dont talk some bloody sense for a change I'll push you out of the window, so help me God I will!" Mollie, too, was laughing, and Doddy went on, "But I'm merely quoting one. Sir Eric Geddes. Hast thou not heard of his words, spoken at the end of the last war? He was the man who conceived Mr.

  Hitler, for didn't he say "We will get everything out of her that you can get out of a lemon, I'll squeeze her until you can hear the pips squeak" "

  "And you're a pip-squeak if there ever was one. And for God's sake dont push, Jackie, you'll have me in the street." Mollie was talking to the man behind her now who was leaning over her back.

  "Hooray! hooray!"

  "Can that " sweet, red, soft kissing mouth" utter nothing but hooray!

  hooray? And for what dost thou cry hooray! sweet maiden? "

  "Oh Doddy, Doddy, you are funny."

  "There, that's the end. Get off me back, Jackie, and let me up,"

  Mollie gave a push with her large buttocks and finished, "Come on, let's have a drink. Coo! I can't believe it. No more bloody cordite.

  Christine, come away in out of that. You and your hooray.... Come on.

  Come on, let's get the table set. The others'll be here afore we know where we are. What did you bring, Jackie?"

  "A ham, a whole one."

  "Good for you."

  "And three tins of bully, a collop of butter, and a four-pound tin of biscuits. How's that for an entrance fee?"

  "It'll get you in."

  "And you, Doddy," demanded Mollie, 'what about the liquor? "

  "It will flow out of the side door six o'clock as the bell tolls. The scullion he did promise me in good faith. Three pounds a bottle, because tonight is one of glorious victory...."

  "He wants a kick in the arse for chargin' that."

  "Doubtless, doubtless."

  The room was filled with high laughter and gaiety as the four of us set the table for the party. At one period Doddy and I put our heads together and sang, "Maid of Athens, 'ere we part Give, oh give me back my heart!" Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now and take the rest! "

  I had learned this from Doddy, and when we finished we hung round each other's neck laughing.

  "Stow it, you two." There was a touch of irritation in Mollie's voice.

  I would not have Mollie irritated for the world, so I drew away and made an effort to stop my laughter and to straighten my face. And Mollie, looking at me, said, "You get a whisky inside of you and you go daft."

  And Doddy, striking a protective pose, cried, "Touch'lier not with your harsh tones, God's laughing in Heaven to see her so good ... and happy." His eyes looked kindly at me on these last words.

  I went into Mollie's kitchen and began to put the cakes I had baked that morning on to the plates, and as I did so I warned myself,

  "Quieten down. Quieten down and stop laughing with Doddy." But it was difficult not to laugh with Doddy for he was a fellow you could laugh with and he wouldn't take it wrong. Doddy was a bit of a mystery. All Mollie knew of him was that he had been to college. He was possessed of a photographic mind, for he remembered all the poetry he had ever read. More often than not he spoke in poetry, little of which I could make head or tail of. Yet I knew behind his flippancy there was sense in everything he said.

  When I had a drink I enjoyed Doddy, when I hadn't he got a bit on my nerves.

  It would seem on the surface he got on Mollie's nerves, too, for she was always on at him. But what irritated her most was that he had never asked to sleep with her. He would do anything on earth for her except apparently that, and Mollie was at present sleeping with Jackie.

  It was a funny set-up but no one said a word against Mollie.

  No, by gum, and they shouldn't either I moved my head in warning down on to the plate of cakes Mollie was one of the best. Where would I have been if it hadn't been for her? This house had become a haven in more ways than one, for when no one else could get a drop of spirits in the town Mollie could always be relied upon to turn up with some. No, Mollie was all right. And one day she would get Doddy. My head suddenly went back and I burst out laughing to myself at the thought of Mollie and Doddy together. Mollie with every other word a curse and Doddy to whom poetry was as the air he breathed, a necessity.

  "Are you baking those bloody things all over again?"

  "No, I'm coming, Mollie."

  "Stop laughing," I said to myself.

  "Stop laughing."

  As I entered the room Mollie was looking towards the outer door and crying, "Listen to that. It's the bloody light infantry coming." A moment later the door burst open and there poured into the room a number of men in uniform, both army and air force, and a crowd of girls, and they were all pals of Mollie's.

  I never ceased to be amazed at the number of pals Mollie had. I knew none of these people and for a moment the old shyness in me overcame my whisky-stimulated gaiety, and in the pushing and shoving and the din of voices I was looking round for Doddy or Jackie when I came face to face with someone I did know.

  "Why, hallo."

  "Oh, hallo."

  "Many moons, no see."

  I laughed, "Yes

  "Fancy meeting you here."

  "I know Mollie."

  "Who doesn't?" We laughed together.

  He was looking me up and down as much as was possible in the crush, and then he said, "Remember the fight with Don Dowling?"

  My face fell and I said quietly, "Yes, I remember."

  "Look, the lot of you, move round and sit down so's I can see what I'm doin'." Mollie's voice was roaring above the din, and Ted Farrel, taking my arm, said, "Where does she expect all this lot to sit, on top of one another? Anyway, I'm sitting next to you." And he wagged his finger at me. Then asked, "What's Dowling up to these days ?"

  "I dont know, and what's more I dont care."

  "Ah, that's it, is it?"

  "You two know each other?" It was Mollie squeezing past us, and Ted said, "I'll say. Done battle for this lady in me time. A war afore the war."

  Mollie looked from me to Ted and back again to me, and she laughed her hearty laugh as she said, "It's a small world." And then, ^What the hell am I goin' to do with this lot? I never asked all this squad, I know
that. Twelve of us there was going to be and there must be thirty or more buggers here. Will we have enough to eat ? "

  "I doubt it," I said.

  "Then somebody will have to raid the stores, that's all."

  Later it was Ted who raided the stores. He was a sergeant and sergeants could get things. He took me in the jeep with him and parked me in a side cut while he went scrounging. He brought his efforts back in a sack, and we laughed long and loud on the return journey. Later that evening, room and seats being scarce, I sat on his knee with my arm around his shoulders and he with his arms tightly round my waist, and we sang and ate and drank. At eight o'clock when I remembered Constance I told myself just another half-hour.

  When the half-hour was up Doddy was reciting, and every body was talking and laughing and paying no heed. He was standing in the middle of the room and there were people sitting round his feet. He was more drunk than ever I had seen 203 him. Sometimes somebody would shout,

  "Ssh! let's listen to him." And once in the lull he was saying, "I come from Nottingham. But from where come the undying thoughts I bear?" Then in another lull, with his arms wide, he stood looking at Mollie where she sat on Jackie's knee, and he cried:

  "Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles."

  And Mollie cried back, "Oh, go to hell with you, Doddy." And he laughed. But when he was reciting some puzzling words which went:

  "I am that which began;

  Out of me the years roll;

  Out of me God and Man;

  I am equal the whole,"

  and somebody shouted, "Can't somebody knock that bugger down? He's been on all the night," it was Mollie who commanded, "Leave him alone."

  "But doesn't he get on your bloody nerves ?"

  "He's tight, and that's the way it takes him."

  "God, what a way to be taken. Sit down and hug somebody, man!"