Slinky Jane

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No, no, lad,’ said Mr Mackenzie soothingly, ‘we know you’re not, but as we see it you need money to expand. This’—he waved his hand round the old blacksmith’s shop—‘this won’t do for the future, it’ll have to be rebuilt, and where are you goin’ to get the money from?’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we know that, an’ all.’ Mr Mackenzie’s voice was as smooth as butter. ‘As you say, lad, it’s your business. So all right, we’ll leave it for the time being. You never know what changes a man’s mind—never. Ah, well, we’ll away, but we’ll be seeing you, lad.’

  As they departed Peter’s voice hissed out at their backs, ‘I won’t sell a stone, so you needn’t bank on me changing me mind.’

  ‘We heard you.’ Davy’s reply, thrown over his shoulder, was not as smooth as his father’s, and turning at the garage door he added, ‘There’s one thing I will ask, and that is if you do change your mind you’ll let us have the first refusal—you won’t go and do another dirty trick on us.’

  Before Peter could make any retort to this, Mr Mackenzie reprimanded his son with a loud, ‘Come on, come on, enough of that.’

  Peter almost sprang to the garage door, the urge strong in him to get at Davy, but he was forced to restrain himself on the sight of his mother coming out of their gate, sails all out. Even at this distance he could detect the signs, and when he saw her heading up the street he returned hastily into the garage and began busying himself.

  Rosie swept upon him. Nothing else could describe her entry, and without any lead-up she began where she had left off at breakfast time. ‘If you think I’m putting up with this, you’re mistaken.’

  Peter said nothing. He went on greasing the steel rod in his hands.

  ‘The place is on fire, everybody’s talkin’…Are you mad?’

  There was still no retort from Peter.

  ‘If you don’t think of yourself, you should think of me. Three of ’em I’ve had to put up with in this way. All me life I’ve had it, and now you start. God in Heaven! It’s unbearable. And with a hussy like that.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  The bark almost lifted Rosie from the ground. It lifted her hand to her mouth and she gasped, ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’

  ‘Well, be careful what you say.’ He was looking at her in a way that he had never done in his life before, as if he hated her.

  But Rosie, refusing to recognise any change in her son, went dauntlessly on. ‘Well, don’t think I’m going to stand by and let you make a fool of yourself, as big as you are. I’ve still got some say in this family, and you’ll find that out. And mind you’—she raised her finger to him—‘if you take her to the sports the day you won’t see me there, and there’ll be summat to do.’

  ‘Well, there’ll be summat to do, because she’s going.’

  For a moment Rosie was silent and startled; then through tightly drawn lips she brought out, ‘You can’t be serious, lad, not with her. I think I’d rather see you take up with Mavis after all. Better the devil you know. At least she doesn’t look like a—’

  ‘Shut up, will you!’

  Rosie stared at her son. He hadn’t barked this time, in fact she could only just make out what he said, but it was the way he had said it. It wasn’t her lad speaking. For the first time she began to doubt her power over him, and it made her afraid, but she showed none of her fear as she cried, ‘You can’t do it, you can’t! You’d be worse than any of them. The ones that they took at least looked decent.’

  He swung round on her, his face ablaze and his anger choking him, and they glared at each other until she wrenched herself about and went out, her body shaking with unintelligible sounds.

  Slowly he passed his forearm over his wet brow. He would never have believed that this could have happened between his mother and him—never. He put out his hand and gripped the doorpost to steady the trembling of his body. Oh, this business was damnable, damnable. If he knew where he stood he could have said firmly, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it, I’m going to marry her,’ but he didn’t know where he stood. He couldn’t think that he was to have Leo for only another week, yet he knew without doubt that when the car was put together again she would go. For a moment he wished that he had never set eyes on her. Then he refuted this thought sharply. She was the most wonderful thing that had happened to him in his life. He also felt now that there hadn’t been a moment in his life when he hadn’t known her. Yet what did he know about her? Nothing. He could only keep guessing. He was tortured by the thought of the men in her life. He had the constant desire to find out just what this last one had meant to her, but he had not the courage to bring up the subject boldly.

  In the space of a few days his life had become a sort of sweet hell dominated by her. And on the outskirts stood his mother and the villagers watching his every move…and there were the sports this afternoon. God! He groaned aloud.

  Since he was sixteen, apart from the two years he was away on National Service, Peter had on sports day run in the race over the fells; he had also manned one end of the tug o’ war, had a shot at climbing the greasy pole, and had been successful on three occasions in getting the goose from the top, and yearly he had attempted to beat the record at mending a puncture. Also he invariably had his fortune told by Miss Tallow, who wore a mask and a gypsy costume, and the reading of his fate had always been accompanied by guffaws and side-chat from the listeners outside the tent. And finally he had danced on the uneven grass to Ned Poole’s fiddle and Harold Casey’s melodeon, and altogether always thoroughly enjoyed himself. How much of this enjoyment had been derived from popular acclaim and from knowing that, the Mackenzie men excepted, he was without an enemy in the place, he never questioned. He only knew he liked the sports. But today was different, he was afraid of the sports. He did not want Leo to go to the fête at all, and there be the focal point of sly interest on the men’s part and something not so pleasant on the women’s, for he, like his great-grandfather, was feeling that all was not as it should be, even outside his own home. To some extent he could understand his mother’s attitude, but not that of the other women. What is it? he asked himself. Why don’t they like her? And to this question he gave himself the answer: Well, would they now, with she as she is and they as they are?

  The race over the fells did not start until two o’clock. But shortly after one Peter left the house. Rosie was in a silent-martyr mood, which was worse than her yelling, and unbearable to him.

  Grandpop looking somewhat soberly from the window, said, ‘Early off, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aye,’ replied Peter briefly.

  ‘Gonna be rain.’

  ‘Yes, it seems like it.’ He looked up at the grey-tinted sky. ‘Could be a storm.’

  ‘Aye, it will be, an’ be a bad ’un, I can tell yer.’

  ‘So long.’

  ‘So long, lad. Take care of yersel.’

  Peter turned at the gate and paused for a moment and looked across the garden at the old man. He did not feel annoyed at the caution inferred, rather did he feel a tenderness rise in him towards this querulous and still sensual individual, and he smiled across at him and nodded, saying, ‘Never fear, old ’un, I will.’

  He was going to the lake, and the nearest way from the house was up Wilkins’ cut. There were several people on the street but he made no effort to hide his destination. Let them talk; they would talk in any case. But in spite of this bold way of thinking he was thrown into some confusion when turning sharply into the cut he almost fell on Mavis and Florrie. His colour went soaring, but without a word or nod of recognition he passed them both; and was acutely aware that their eyes remained hard on him until he cleared the stile.

  It was common knowledge that only one thing existed between Mavis and Florrie and this was condescension which one bestowed and the other refused to recognise, but now seemingly they were one, and Peter had not the slightest doubt who was the cause of this affinity. It said much for the
change that had come about within him that this meeting, apart from making him blush, did not worry him. Three days earlier he would have been in a stew, with his tow technique in action. But that was three days ago, the only thing that now remained of the old Peter Puddleton was, he knew, his name.

  When he stepped into the clearing Leo was lying on her back on the grass, a book by her side, and she didn’t rise but turned her head lazily towards him and held out her hand. In a moment he was down beside her, his arms about her and his lips tight on hers, and when he released her she gasped for breath, then laughed gently and touched his cheek saying, ‘No-one will convince me but that you had your training in the big city.’

  He took her hand from his cheek and rubbed her fingers across his lips, and as he looked down into her eyes he said, ‘The big city came to me.’

  After allowing him to hold her gaze for a moment she eased herself up into a sitting position, and with a small laugh she said quietly, ‘I couldn’t make you or anyone else believe that I’m not big city, could I, Peter?’ She was looking across the water as she said this, and in spite of the smile that was still on her face he thought he detected a sadness in her question and a drooping in her whole attitude. It reminded him of the night when she had cried, that night that now seemed so very far away in the past, and he checked the retort of, ‘No, you couldn’t,’ and replaced it with, ‘Big city or small town, you came and that’s all that matters to me.’

  She put out her hand gropingly for him, and he pivoted himself round to her side. ‘You’re nice, Peter.’ She squeezed his fingers. ‘Do you know’—she turned her face to his—‘now don’t contradict me when I say this, for it’s true—that you can love someone without liking them, but if you like them and love them, too, then you have the world…I like you, Peter.’

  ‘And love me?’

  She dropped her head towards his shoulder and rubbed her cheek against his coat. ‘First things first.’

  Such a reply could have plunged into mute silence the man he had once been, and that individual would have thought, ‘There can be no half measures, you either do or you don’t.’ But into this association had come so many shades of feeling that now he just clutched at whatever she gave and tried to bank down the fire that was demanding more fuel.

  As she lay against him she nodded towards the water and said, ‘I haven’t seen her today, nor have the boys—I felt sure I’d see her again, and if the storm breaks she will certainly go. Somehow I feel she knew me. I’ll miss her.’

  ‘I’ll bring my line and you can sit and fish.’

  ‘That’s an idea.’

  ‘You like fishing, don’t you? I never imagined I’d ever meet a girl who liked fishing.’

  ‘I like sitting.’ She laughed, and the thought intruded into his mind that she was right there, she liked sitting. She was as indolent as a sun-drenched native, only there was no evidence of the sun on her—she was the palest thing he’d ever seen. This thought swung open the door that was never really closed, and Mrs Booth walked through it again, and although he banged it shut in her face she managed, as always, to shout at him. ‘Well, where has she been this last year? She doesn’t say, does she? And you’re afraid to ask her. You haven’t the spunk.’

  In an effort to get away from his thoughts, he said, ‘I must go.’ But he made no effort to rise, instead he reached for the book that was lying at her other side and asked, ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘Oh, just a book. I liked the title.’

  With his free hand he turned it over and read ‘Words of a Woman in Love’, then looking down at her he asked; with a twist to his lips, ‘Had it long?’

  There was some laughter in her eyes as she replied, ‘Since Wednesday,’ and his eyes, betraying a leaping hope, held hers a moment before he began to scan the pages. When he stopped flicking them and began to read she eased herself away from him, and putting her arms around her knees she looked about her at the lowering sky now seeming to rest on the tops of the trees on the far side of the lake; and after a time, during which he had made no comment, she asked, ‘What are you reading?’

  He gave her no answer, and there followed another pause. Then somewhat self-consciously and without having looked at her, he began to read aloud, his voice low and thick and halting:

  ‘Would I like woods without you?

  And birdsong and pollen-laden bees,

  And trees;

  And the night sky, and dawn,

  And young things just born;

  And eating out of doors,

  And a hundred and one chores;

  And autumn with its flame of dying

  And wood to chop and leaves to burn,

  And coals to lug and the fire to hug

  And lights ablaze about the house

  And steaming water in the bath;

  Thick snow on the winding path;

  And bed, and sleep, and dreams…?

  What are they without you?’

  As he finished the last line he brought his gaze to hers. And she turned and looked at him, and he repeated, ‘What are they without you?’ There was so much compressed passion in his voice that when he cried, ‘Leo!’ and made to pull her towards him she shook her head quickly and, sliding with an unusually swift motion to her feet, said, ‘Now, Peter, don’t let’s get involved. Not like this—not in this way.’

  She took the book from him, and holding her other hand down to him said, in a matter-of-fact way, ‘Come on…up! What about the sports? Listen to that noise over there.’

  ‘Leo.’ He stood before her, his face set now, his laughing façade ripped away. ‘Leo, I’ve got to know where I stand.’

  ‘You’ve got to know nothing.’ Her voice was suddenly harsh. Even the semblance of the drawl had gone, and her words came tumbling out rapidly as she went on, ‘It was a bargain, wasn’t it? So let us leave it at that. Why can’t you be satisfied? You’re like them all—’

  ‘All?’ His face looked grey, and suddenly old, and his voice had a rusty sound.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that.’ Her head rocked. ‘I meant all men in general, honest I did. Oh, Peter! Why can’t you leave things as they are?’

  There was no vestige of fond light in his eyes now. His look constituted a glare as he ground out, ‘Leave things as they are! What do you think I am? Have you like this for a week…two at the most, then off you go and I forget about you? I must have been daft.’

  ‘But it’s what we agreed on, remember. Or would you rather things hadn’t been like this at all?’

  He did not answer, and with a weary gesture she put her hand to her hair and pushed it back from her brow, saying, ‘Oh, why must you start on an afternoon like this, so heavy and close! And we’re fighting!’ This statement seemed to surprise even herself and she closed her eyes. When she opened them it was to stare up into his tense face, and her voice was weary and flat-sounding as she said, ‘I’ll tell you something, Peter. Perhaps this might make you see. I never expected to have an affair in my life again. Yes, I know you can raise your brows, you don’t believe me. But I can tell you honestly I wanted this no more than you did, it was just one of those things. And I tell you again it’s not for good. I’m being brutal, I know, but it’s best that way. I know it’s best that way.’ She stood back from him and said gently now as she surveyed the anger mixed with pain on his face, ‘Do you want it to go on, or would you rather not? Whatever you like, I’ll fit in. You’ve just got to say.’

  He stood staring at her, fascinated, bewitched by her. He seemed to suck into his body everything that came from her, pleasure and pain. What had she done to him? Her last words appeared to him to be as hard-boiled as anything he had heard, yet, as always, her face, her eyes, belied them. With an intake of breath he turned from her towards the gap, but as he did so he thrust his hand out behind him and drew her after him.

  Peter came sixth in the race he had won for two successive years, and was greeted with such laughing remarks as ‘Losing yer grip, lad?’ an
d ‘Eeh! Love always plays havoc with the legs.’

  As he stood wiping the sweat from his neck, his eyes searched for Leo, but he could not see her anywhere in the crowd. After leaving the clearing she had gone back to the inn with the promise to be on the field around four o’clock, at which time he was likely to return from the race, and now it was nearer five. It wasn’t until after he had joined his half-hearted effort to the tug o’ war and made an attempt at the greasy pole that he saw her. He had, in fact, just finished cleaning himself up at the tap that fed the cattle trough when he glimpsed her coming in the gate. A quick dive behind the hedge and he got his trousers and made his reappearance in a matter of seconds. Tucking in his shirt, his coat under his arm and without any hesitation, he wended his way towards her.

  When he came up to her she was still standing by the gate, there was a look of uncertainty about her that was unusual, and her greeting suggested relief at seeing him. ‘So you’re back. Did you break any records?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He paused. ‘In my condition?’ He smiled as he said this, his eyes looking into hers, and she answered his smile and shook her head. Then together they walked onto the field.

  As they moved through the groups, heads were turned here and there, and here and there voices called, ‘Hello, Peter,’ as if they had not seen him before. And eyes moved from him to Leo. He was not unaware of the nudging, winking and bobbing heads, but he took no notice, and it would seem that Leo was oblivious to anything that was going on around her.

  Coming to the children’s races he saw Florrie. Her face was red, almost purple. The heat was now oppressive, but her colour was not caused by the heat alone, for as she raised her eyes to his he was conscious of her sending out to him a blaze of hate. And when the twins, galloping at him, complained to him of her unfairness in handicapping them in the races, he found he could not laugh at their discomfiture. He had not expected Florrie’s reaction to take this form towards himself and spite to the twins, to whom she had on all other occasions shown prejudiced favours. If he had considered what her attitude would likely be, he would have expected her to adopt her mother’s manner and treat him and the whole business with cool condescension.