"Christine, I'm going to buy Mr. Pybus's cottage and the small holding
"You are, Sam?" I asked in surprise.
"Aye. Yes, I am that. And I'll make a go of it. It's what I've been waitin' for for years, praying for. Oh, Christine." He had put his hand out and grabbed mine.
"Think, working in the open all day."
"But won't you miss the big money, Sam?"
"I'd rather have a crust and fresh air and the sky for a roof than any fortune that could be offered me for working down the pit."
And then he had turned from me and gone to the window and, looking up at the sky, had said softly, "No more darkness."
Sam did the business very thoroughly. He took out a mortgage on the house, then set about furnishing it. And he insisted on me going round with him to choose the necessary furniture. He bought most of it in the second-hand shops, and although he would say such things, "Well now, I'll need some kitchen chairs, and a comfortable chair or two, and a table and a couch," he seemed to have no preference when confronted with numbers of chairs and tables and couches but left the picking to me. I must say that I enjoyed furnishing Sam's house. But even before he went into it I was feeling the miss of him. And I remember wondering with a pang if he had got tired of his role as guardian; there was a limit to patience, even such as his. The break in the triangle that I had longed for had come about and I didn't like it.
Whether Don was riled by Sam's venture and was determined to show him, or, as he gave out, his side-line was doing so well that he could afford now to have only one job, and that a well-paying job into the bargain, he, too, left the pit. Whatever his new job was it was certainly of a leisurely nature, for his car was outside the door at all hours of the day, except when he would go away for a week at a time, buying, so I understood from Aunt Phyllis's loud chattering with the neighbours.
Then there was Constance and her rhyming. Since the piano had come into the house she was always picking out tunes and fitting the words to them. I wanted to suggest to her that she should take piano lessons but I couldn't bring myself to do it, for at times I wanted to smash the thing to smithereens. These times would be when, through the front-room curtains, I would see Don Dowling standing in the street talking and laughing with her.
Dad was very proud of her literary efforts and he said to her one day,
"Why dont you send them rhymes to the ma gaines or write a song and try it in a song contest?" and she did, but she had them all returned with polite little printed slips. Every so often she sent out little batches, and the printed slips came again and again, yet she did not seem to mind these rejections It was an exciting game to her, which occupied most of her spare time She didn't bother very much with the lads, and one day I thought I had found the reason, and the discovery filled me with such horror and hate that I think I be came insane for a time. Anyway, I did more harm than good with my reactions.
I was doing afternoons at Dr. Stoddard's and didn't usually get in the house until six, but this day I had accidentally cut my hand with a glass and the doctor, having dressed it, insisted that I go home. It was about five o'clock when I got in, and I felt a bit sick and went straight upstairs with the intention of lying down. The sun at this time of, the day was filling the room and shining on to the bed, and as I went to the window to pull the curtains, my eye was drawn down to Aunt Phyllis's back yard. There stood Don Bowling and Constance. Don had his arm round her waist and in his hand was a little box, and her two hands were round the box. It was as if hell had opened and engulfed me. Yet I did not seem to be taken by surprise. It was a case of "And the things they feared came upon them." This is what I had feared. I flew down the stairs and through the kitchen and to the scullery door, and there, gripping the front of my coat in an effort to steady myself, I called, "Constance Constance!"
There was no sound of running footsteps down the next yard, and as I waited, the sweat breaking out all over my body, I heard our front door open and she came through the front room into the kitchen. I glared at her across the length of the room.
"Where've you been?"
"Why?"
"Never mind why, where've you been?" I felt forced to ask the road I knew.
"Well if you want to know I've been talking to Uncle Don."
"Talking! Where is it?"
"Where's what?"
"That box, where is it? What's in it?"
Slowly I watched the red flooding her face and her soft young mouth becoming tight as she said, "Well if you know so much, you'll know what's in it."
On this I rushed across to her, and gripping her by the shoulder, cried, "Give it to me. Give it to me this minute."
"She pulled herself roughly from me crying, " No, I won't, it's my birthday present. "
She looked startled, and I saw her mouth drop open and her eyes widen and it came to me that she might not even be aware that he had had his arm around her. Perhaps I was putting into her mind things of which she had never even thought, but in my fear I could not stop myself from galloping on and I shouted, "If I see him near you again, or if you let him touch you, I'll kill you, do you hear, I'll kill you."
And now she blinked her eyes and peered at me through narrowed lids as if seeing me from a different angle. Then she gave an infuriating little laugh and said, "Uncle Don's right again ... you're jealous. I asked him what the trouble really was between you and him and he said you were jealous because he threw you over after ... after the other baby was born."
"Oh, my God!" I groaned the words aloud, and they seemed to drain me of all my strength, all my wild, angry strength, and when she said,
"Well, why else would you be going on like this? We were doing nothing!" I replied in a weary voice, "Then if you were doing nothing why didn't you come through the back yard and into your own. I saw you from the bedroom."
Her colour deepened and she said lamely, "Well, Uncle Don knows how you go on if I'm in there, and so he told me to slip through the front way."
Clever. Oh, how clever. The devil wasn't in it, he was an infant by comparison.
After this incident there came between us a rift, and daily it widened.
If I had told Dad of my fears he would have been unable to comprehend, he would have thought that my mind had become twisted. It was not in him to understand such evil, such long-calculated evil as was in Don Dowling. And if I had told Sam he would have blamed himself for having moved away from next door. Though he came across the river nearly every day to see me, and this fact set Aunt Phyllis's tongue wagging afresh, he had not now any spare time in which to sit around, for he worked practically from dawn to dusk.
On one of his visits he must have noticed I looked unusually harassed, for he said in his casual way, that would have belied his words of any forethought had I not known him so well, "You know, Christine, I was standing on a chair in the bed224 room the other day fixing the sash at the top of the window and I could see the roofs of all the houses in the street and a bit of the top windows an' all. It was a nice discovery. I didn't feel so far away as it were." He had then dropped into his old position, his hands dangling, and he seemed to talk to them rather than to me as he went on, "If ever you wanted me and couldn't get across you could jamb something in the top of the window I'd be able to see it say a towel or something."
I did not laugh at the suggestion but looked down at his head and replied slowly, "Thanks, Sam, I'll remember. Who knows?"
Now I must go back to Mollie. She had played quite a part in my life and she was to play even a bigger part. The simple reason I didn't see Mollie any more was that she had married. Not Jackie, but a very respectable man, a greengrocer, a Mr. Arkwright. He was fifteen years older than her and had not been married before, and he didn't like me.
It was really laughable when I thought of it, for whatever blame there was attached to Mollie's past he put it down to my influence. There was evidence of my sinning but none of Mollie's. I cannot think that she'd had any hand in forming this opinion, but apparentl
y she could do nothing to alter it, and when she had to choose between becoming Mrs.
Arkwright and respectability, which position I am sure she never dreamed would be her luck, or keeping our friendship, Mollie, being human, chose Mr. Arkwright. She tried to soften the blow by saying he was a bit fussy like and wanted her to himself for the time being. She had laughed and nudged me, but I couldn't see the funny side of it. I had met Mr. Arkwright three times, and he did not hide his opinion of me. In Mr. Arkwright's mind I was one of the fast pieces left over from the war. Moreover, when I had a drink I laughed a lot, which only proved to the greengrocer that he was right in his opinion of me. So Mollie and I no longer met in the back room of the Crown on a Saturday night. Nor had I been invited to the wedding. The excuse given me was that it was to be very quiet in the register office. And I wasn't invited to her new home. I liked Mollie; next to my mother, I think I loved her. She had been good to me, she had been my stay in my time of trouble, and her rejection of me hurt more than a little. It absolutely amazed me that she, of all people, could allow herself to be dominated by any man, and it seemed that she was paying a high price for her respectability. But that was the way she wanted it.
Then this particular week, because I had felt so miserable and down, I paid a visit to the Crown on a Friday night, which I had never done before. I had my week's wages on me intact as I had just left the doctor's. It was half past six when I entered the back room and I noticed immediately that most of the people present were not the Saturday night crowd. There were only one or two that I knew, the remainder being strangers.
I sat down next to a woman called Mrs. Wright. She was always a bit of a sponger and soon she was telling me her woes, and I was paying for her drinks. After my third whisky, one of which was a double, I stopped listening and I began to talk. I told her about my job at the doctor's, my clever daughter who could write poetry, which, I assured her, she would one day see in the papers, and I told her about my dear friend who had a farm Sam's small holding At this point we were joined by a man and a woman from a table near by. The man I had seen before.
I did not know his name but I knew that he often looked my way. He talked a lot and he laughed as he talked, but his wife had little to say. He stood a round, and then it was my turn. Someone went to the piano and we all sang. And this was the setting when the door opened and Mollie and her man came in. I was facing the door and I saw her immediately, and with the past lost in the thick vapour of four whiskies I hailed Mollie loudly, shouting, Oo! oo! there, Mollie Oo!
oo! " She turned immediately in my direction and after a moment's hesitation she lifted her hand and waved. Then her husband, turning and looking at me for a moment, deliberately took her by the arm and led her to the farthest corner of the room.
Well, who did he think he was? That was deliberate, that was. He wouldn't let her come across, wouldn't even let her speak to me. Who did he think he was, anyway? I threw off my drink.
"What'll you have?" It was the man standing the round again. I looked at him and blinked, and in the act of blinking all my merriness seemed to vanish. I didn't like this man and I didn't like his wife, and I didn't like Mrs. Wright. I had spent a lot of money on her tonight and I didn't like her.
"I'll have a whisky large," I said to the man.
"You won't, you know, unless you pay for it." It was the wife speaking, and I turned sharply on her and said, "I haven't seen you handing out much."
"Well! Come on, Dickie. That's the limit, that is." She pulled her husband's arm, and I mimicked, "That's right go on, Dickie. Go on before you stand your turn."
"Now, now." The man's tone was soothing, and I flung my hand wide and said, "Oh! get yourself away or she'll hammer you when she gets you in."
Mrs. Wright started to laugh, but I didn't join in. The piano had stopped and people were looking towards our corner, and although the words were whispered I heard a voice saying, "You shouldn't take it unless you know how far to go. It's shameful. She'll turn nasty now."
I rounded on the unknown speaker, yelling, "Yes, I'll turn nasty if you dont mind your own bloody business."
"Here! here! quieten down." It was the old woman Wright pulling at me, and I pushed off her hand. Who did the lot of them think they were?
They were all looking down their noses at me. I was a bad lot because I'd had two hairns. But there was Mollie over in that corner who had slept with a different man every week for the first year of the war she had told me so herself and now she was so respectable she wouldn't look at me1 wasn't good enough.
I was in the middle of the floor before I knew what I was up to and could not stop myself from advancing towards her.
"Hallo, Mollie."
"Hallo, Christine."
"Long time since... since we met, eh?"
"You'll have to excuse us, we're in company." It was the husband talking, and I was about to turn on him when Mollie put out her hand towards him and said in the old tone that I recognized, "Leave her be and let her sit down."
"Not likely, you're not starting this. I've told you, and on it I stand firm."
~ "Oh, firm Mr. Arkwright. Oh, goody, goody. Mister bloody Arkwright."
I heard a voice chanting and it didn't seem to be mine.
"Here! here! Now come on." It was the barman, and he was standing at my side with his hand on my shoulder trying to steer me away. But I flung him off, crying, "You keep your hands to yourself, I'm sitting here."
I went to take the seat near Mollie, when, as if risking his life to spare his wife the contamination of my touch, Mr. Ark- wright stood in front of her. I looked him in the eye for a second, then my arm swept outwards and my hand brought him a slap across the face that resounded round the room and in some way brought me deep satisfaction, so much so that I went to repeat the action with my other hand. Then I was knocked backwards and would have fallen but somebody caught me, and when I was upright again I seemed to be surrounded by hands and faces, and I kept moving my head this way and that to get a look at the man as I yelled, "Who d'you think you are, anyway, tin pot little greengrocer?
Specked apples and rotten oranges in tissue paper," "Outside!
outside!"
"Take your hands off me."
"Get!" I was flung through the side door into the yard, and I seemed to bounce off the opposite wall. Then within a second I was back at the door hammering with my fists and yelling, "You take me money, you've taken it for years, you dirty lot of swine. Who do you think you are?"
How long I shouted and pounded on the door I dont now, but when a heavy hand came on my shoulder and pulled me round and I faced the policeman I was past being intimidated. I can't remember what he said but I know that I disliked him, and I know that I swore at him and tried to knock him on his back. What followed is hazy. There were two policewomen, and one said, "If you dont stop shouting I'll throw a bucket of water over you." I remember this quite clearly. I remember shouting at her,
"You try it, you Blue-Beat Betty." I also remember telling myself to give over, but the shouting was in my head and I had no control over it. Then I can't remember what else happened before I fell asleep, only that I continued to hate the greengrocer.
When I awoke I thought I had died and gone to hell. There was a blinding pain in my head that prevented me from opening my eyes. But it was the smell that first suggested hell. I've always been allergic to the smell of urine, it has the power 228
to make me vomit. So the combination of the pain, the smell, and my bemused thinking suggested that I had died and was getting my deserts.
I believed in my childhood, that whatever you disliked in this life, in the next you were given an overdose by way of payment for your sins, and my belief hadn't changed much. And then I opened my eyes.
Never, to my dying day, will I be able to forget that moment. I had experienced the feeling of shame. Yes, I knew what shame was, flesh-curling shame, but this was something beyond, something deep and searing.
I looked up at
the stone walls that enclosed me. At the top of one wall there was a small barred window. My dull, sleep- laden eyes moved down to a wooden structure in the corner. It was a lavatory pan. Next to it was a seat and a well-scrubbed wooden table. I looked down on the bed on which I lay. It had neither head nor foot, it was merely a platform with a mattress. I raised myself up and sat on the edge of it, and the "Oh! God' that escaped from my lips was an agony-laden sound to my ears.
Oh! God, what had I done? I next looked at the blank wooden door in the middle of which was a dark grille, and panic swept over me, the panic of being enclosed in a viewless space. I dashed to the door but didn't hammer it, for as I stood with my face and body pressed to it I heard footsteps. I stared at the grating, and behind it the little door opened and a face appeared. It was a woman's face and she seemed surprised to see my face looking at her. She did not speak, but I heard a key turn in the lock and I stepped back. I was gasping for breath and had my work cut out to prevent myself trying to dash past her.
It was her voice that steadied me. It was a most ordinary voice and she spoke as if she had come into my room at home.
"Feeling better?" she said.
I could not speak.
"Sit down." She pointed to the bed.
"I'll fetch you a cup of tea; I bet you've got a headache."
I did not sit down, but moved a space from her, and I beseeched her,
"Please let me go."
Her hand was on my arm and she said, "Your case will come up this morning; it will come up first. There aren't many. You can go straight home after that." 229 "But... but...." For a moment I was going to say, "I have a little girl," and then I changed it to, "My daughter and my father, they'll be worrying."
"They know, they know."
She was patting my arm. " She wasn't a day older than me, but her action reminded me of my mother, and it was too much for me. I broke down and sobbed helplessly. She sat on the bed beside me and talked.
"You know, you are too young to go on like this." I felt her hand lifting the tangled hair from my brow, and was brought to greater depths of crying by her kindness. Then she said, "I remember you as a girl. Oh, from quite a small girl. You used to go to St. Stephen's School, didn't you? I remember thinking that I wished I looked like you you had such wonderful hair. You still have."
Fenwick Houses Page 26
