The Round Tower

by Catherine Cookson

  He could draw, he was a good drawer. But now the chance to draw had been whipped away from him. The drawing office, any drawing office, was now as far from his reach as the moon, that was unless he did the thing properly and went every evening to a technical school, and it was too late for that. Anyway, he had burnt his boats. He was committed now for good or ill to cartage; he had gone in with Fred Singleton. Tomorrow he was to collect his lorry and start. And all this had come about through Van Ratcliffe.

  Where was she? Where had she gone? Certainly not to any of the family friends else he wouldn’t have come tearing around here. The bloody nerve of the man. He was sure, wasn’t he? He was so sure. He picked up the book and rammed it back onto the hanging shelf. Je-hov-ah he would like to get even with that bloke. Wouldn’t he just. He’d give half his life, or sell his soul, to get even with him. But what chance had he of that, apart from going and shooting him? And he could understand now why blokes got shot. Yes, he could that!

  The door opened and Rosie put her head into the room. ‘I hear you’ve had a visitor,’ she said.

  He got to his feet and smiled wryly, saying, ‘Aye. You missed it; you shouldn’t have gone to the pictures.’

  ‘Mam’s brewed up. Come on, have a cuppa.’ She moved towards him, smiling now and adding, ‘Because, you know, this is the last night of Angus Cotton, Fitter; from the morrow mornin’, boy, you’ll be Angus Cotton of Cotton and Singleton, Haulage Contractors. Just think of that, lad.’ She pushed him hard in the chest, and he, punching her back playfully on the jaw, said, ‘Aye, just think of that.’

  ‘Come on.’ She pulled him towards the door. ‘I bet you what you like you’ll remember this night. Won’t he, Ma?’ she called to Emily who was sitting with her feet on a modern oxidised kerb fronting the old-fashioned grate. ‘When he’s got his big house and his Rolls won’t he look back to the night and say, “Remember?” you know, like they do on the telly where the poor lad makes good and buys out the lord of the manor, together with his mama and his papa.’ She was giggling. ‘That sounded funny, Mama and Papa.’

  ‘Funny or not,’ Emily’s voice was flat and there was no smile on her face as she said, ‘there’s many a true word spoken in joke, and I know this much, he’ll see his day yet with that bugger.’

  On this prophecy Angus jerked his head, whether hopefully or hopelessly it was hard to tell.

  A few minutes later, when Rosie had poured out the tea and they were sitting at the table amid an unusual silence, she remarked, ‘I wonder where she’s got to? She’s going to find it chilly out there in the big, big world is Miss Vanessa. It’ll be like being thrown in from the deep end.’

  Aye, thought Angus, just like that, being thrown in from the deep end.

  Six

  Susan’s wedding was over. It had been a big affair; half the county had been there. Vanessa’s absence had not been remarked upon. One thing education did, it enabled one to be tactful, at least before the parties concerned.

  Jane Ratcliffe explained her daughter’s absence by saying that she was on the Continent touring with friends. It was rather an inopportune time for her to be away from home, but one of the party had dropped out and Vanessa had been so anxious to go. She was very adventurous was Vanessa. And she wrote every week, such interesting letters.

  The recipients of this information smiled and nodded and said how nice for Vanessa, it was what every young girl should do, travel and have experience.

  Jane Ratcliffe wondered if there was double meaning behind these smiling replies. She also wondered where her daughter was. The postmarks had said London, another Brighton, another Eastbourne, one as far away as Torquay. She had been forced to show Vanessa’s note and her first letter to Doctor Carr because he had become difficult. He had acted as if they had done away with her. She had become very frightened about his attitude, but Jonathan had taken care of him and they had changed their doctor.

  Jonathan said he had washed his hands of Vanessa once and for all, he never wanted to see her again. She herself wasn’t so adamant; after all, she was her daughter and she was so young. She still felt the matter should be placed in the hands of the police, but Jonathan went almost mad if she brought up the subject. Perhaps it was because Rowland, the Chief Constable, was a member of his club, and Jonathan thought a lot about his status in his club, yet it would reflect badly on them if Vanessa had the baby in some charity home and the fact was discovered. But she couldn’t make Jonathan see this. She was at the other end of the country, he said, and let her stay there. Far better that than under their noses and consorting with that lout; at least she’d had the sense to break away from him.

  The house seemed very empty now without Susan, and when Ray started boarding school—another decision of Jonathan’s—she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She would have to take up some charity work to fill in her time. The house was no great concern now, for she had been fortunate enough to get a woman equally as good as Emily, if not better. She had thought for years that the world would come to an end if ever she lost Emily, but, you see, everybody could be done without. This had proved it.

  PART TWO

  One

  It was Rosie who first found out where Vanessa was. It happened while she and Stan were in Newcastle. They had arrived at three o’clock with the intention of looking round before going to the cinema, but they were back in Fellburn by five o’clock.

  Angus was in the house but he hadn’t yet changed. He had finished work at twelve and spent the hours since going over his lorry in the shed that Singleton rented as a garage. He had bought it cheap and it was acting cheap. In the last three months he had learned a great deal about the mechanics of an engine. He’d had to or go bust, for during the first week the lorry had broken down four times. He knew he had been done over his purchase, and he put it down to experience; it would all add up to knowledge when next he went lorry hunting, but by the look of things at present, he was telling himself, that would be some time ahead. Forty quid a week they could make each, Fred had said. The highest he had touched was thirty. Last week he was down to twenty-four. They both worked all the hours that God sent, but their lorries were not big enough or good enough. The business that had passed them by in the last four weeks made him literally sick, yet he knew that even with new lorries two men on their own weren’t going to get very far. He wanted half-a-dozen lorries at least, and the same number of men to go with them. He also told himself he wanted the moon. At the rate he was saving now it would take him a year to buy one lorry and that second-hand. He could have got one on the never-never but he didn’t want to start that. He was against hire purchase because he had seen too many of the swabs coming claiming the stuff back around the doors; no, he wanted to pay on the nail. It might be frustrating waiting, but that was what he’d have to put up with. There was another thing. Once he started the never-never business Fred would keep him at it. He was finding he had to be firm with Fred; he was too slapdash, too easygoing.

  He was looking dolefully down at the exercise book in which he did his accounts when the door opened and Rosie came in, still in her outdoor things. ‘What do you think,’ she said, excitedly. ‘I’ve seen her.’

  ‘You’ve seen who?’ She could have been meaning anyone at the moment.

  ‘Miss Van, of course.’

  His face was straight as he asked, ‘Where?’

  ‘In Newcastle. Come on, come into the kitchen, I’m not going to tell it twice.’ She turned about and left him, and he followed, but slowly.

  ‘Well, go on,’ said Emily. ‘Where…where did you see her? Stop muckin’ about an’ tell us.’

  ‘You’ll never guess, not in a thousand years. Not her. Would they, Stan?’ She looked from Stan to Angus, but Angus didn’t speak, he just waited. And then she looked at her mother again and said almost gleefully, ‘Servin’ in a greengrocer’s. A potty, dirty little greengrocer’s. Wasn’t she, Stan?’

  ‘Not Miss Van, no!’

  ‘Aye, Mam, MI
SS VAN. It was her, Stan, wasn’t it?’ She looked at Stan for confirmation, and Stan nodded. ‘You said it was.’

  ‘It was.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘We had just got out of the bus station and gone round by the pig market. Stan wanted to have a look at the river and I wanted to go and have a look at the flats, you know where Kyle Street used to be. We were wandering about there, and then we came to some of the streets that hadn’t been pulled down yet, old mucky places you know, worse than anything round here.’

  ‘Go on, get on with it,’ said Emily impatiently.

  ‘I am, Mam, I am. I’m just tellin’ you, I’m givin’ you the settin’. Well, we saw this little greengrocer’s, you know, that sells everything; candles, firewood, the lot, a real huckster shop. There was some pomegranates in a box outside and Stan here says he wants one and I said I’d like one an’ all. It would be like being a kid again eatin’ pomegranates in the street. Well, Stan went to the door where there was an old woman servin’, and there was a lass inside serving somebody else, an’ it was as I stood by the window that I recognised her. It was Miss Van.’

  ‘Couldn’t be. She could get a job anywhere. She wouldn’t want to go into a huckster shop; she would go into one of the big stores…’

  ‘Mam,’ said Rosie slowly and patiently, ‘she couldn’t go into one of the big stores an’ she wouldn’t get a job any place, not lookin’ like she does…she’s big.’

  ‘God in heaven! Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No, course not, I kept out of the way, she didn’t know Stan. You know I’ve never cottoned to her but I felt sorry for her for a minute servin’ in that bruised apple dump.’

  She looked at Angus as he said, ‘You could have made a mistake.’

  ‘I’m not daft, our Angus; I know her as well as you do.’

  ‘Where did you say the shop was?’

  ‘I told you, where they haven’t started pullin’ down yet. I don’t know what the name of the street was. Do you, Stan?’

  Stan shook his head, then said, ‘No; but I remember that it was near Murphy Street and it was the end one. There was a big open space filled with rubble behind it.’ He added, ‘I’ve heard a lot about her but I’d never seen her afore. She’s a good-lookin’ piece, even if she’s—’

  ‘Watch it! Watch it!’ Rosie dug him hard in the ribs and they both laughed; but Emily and Angus didn’t join in.

  ‘You goin’ to the club, our Angus?’ Rosie now asked, and he answered, ‘Aye, I might as well. But I’m goin’ down to the baths first.’

  ‘You were there last night.’ Rosie’s voice was high.

  ‘Aye, well. And I’m goin’ the night again.’ His tone said, ‘What you trying to make of it?’ He stared at her for a minute before he turned away and went into his room, and Emily, now bending towards Rosie, whispered thickly, ‘You shouldn’t have let on.’

  ‘Let on?’ She screwed up her face at her mother. ‘What do you mean?’

  Her voice lower still, Emily said, ‘Don’t be a stupid bugger; about Miss Van.’

  ‘Why not for?’ Rosie was whispering back.

  ‘Because it’s ten to one if she’s in a plight he’ll do somethin’.’

  ‘Don’t be so daft, Mam.’ Rosie pulled her chin to her neck. ‘And him being accused of droppin’ her. He’s not barmy altogether.’

  ‘You don’t know him like I do, and he is barmy about some things. If he wasn’t barmy he would have married May years ago.’

  Rosie now turned her head slowly and looked towards the front-room door and she asked under her breath, ‘You mean…you mean he’s been struck with her?’ Her tone was incredulous, and her mother whispered sharply, ‘I mean no such thing, he knows his place, but, as I said, if she was in a fix he could be sorry for her an’ want to do somethin’. He’s not barmy you say, an’ I say he’s bloody well barmy in some ways.’

  During the next week Angus came home every night about the usual time. He would have a wash in the sink or take his soap and towel and go down to the public baths three streets away. It all depended on what he had been loading during the day. Monday night he stayed indoors; Tuesday night he went to the club—Stan gave Rosie this information the following day—Wednesday night he stayed at home again; Thursday night he went to the pictures, and on Friday night he was going to the dogs. But on Friday afternoon he took his lorry into Newcastle.

  He found Murphy Street and parked the lorry near a mound of rubble. Dusting down his coat and adjusting his cap he went up the first street and found the huckster shop. There were pomegranates in a box outside, and onions and soft tomatoes. He looked through the window but could see only an oldish woman. He bit tight on his lip before he entered the shop and the oldish woman said, ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘I’ll have a pound of apples, please.’

  As she went to weigh the apples he looked towards the little back shop but could see or hear no-one. ‘You’ve got a young lady helping you?’ he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed and she peered up at him without speaking, and he said, ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘It happens that I know her. Can I have a word with her?’ He looked towards the back shop again, and she said, ‘She’s not here, she’s off bad.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said, bad.’

  ‘You…you mean the baby, it’s…’

  ‘No, I don’t mean the baby, it’s not due yet. You know about that, but I don’t suppose…’ She looked him up and down and didn’t finish, but he finished for her. ‘That it could be me. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t say nowt of the sort.’

  ‘You didn’t need to. Where’s she livin’?’

  ‘Why should I tell you that?’

  He stared at her and decided to tell her the truth, for her sort could keep mum and he’d have had his journey for nothing, and another night of thinking ahead of him. ‘Well you see the truth is me mother used to work for her family and she’s been worried since she ran away.’

  ‘And so you want to go back and tell her where she’s living so she can carry it to the lass’s folks?’

  ‘Nothin’ of the sort. Me mother doesn’t work for them any more and she’s no intention of letting on about her. I just want to see her and have a word with her.’

  The woman stared at him again, then said, ‘It’s funny you findin’ her; her people haven’t done much searchin’. I don’t know what kind of folks they are to let her be on her own, an’ her in her state. She’s nowt more than a bairn herself and no more fit to be left on her own than a new bride in a barracks.’

  He hadn’t heard that one before. He must remember that one—a new bride in a barracks.

  ‘It’s a good job she stumbled on Nell Crawford’s house when looking for a room; if she had got in some places I could speak of, even in her condition, she’d have been eaten alive. But Nell’s is all right, an’ clean.’

  ‘Where’s this Nell Crawford’s?’ he said.

  The woman moved her head impatiently. He had only to go out into the street, she said, and ask to be directed to Nell Crawford’s and anybody in this district would show him the way. ‘It’s 132 Batterby Bay Road,’ she said.

  Batterby Bay Road! God! Of all the places she could have landed in she had to land in Batterby Bay Road. Nell Crawford, whoever she was, might run a clean house but, if she was in Batterby Bay Road, he’d like to bet his life it was the only one there. He said ‘Thanks’ and turned on his heel, and when she said, ‘You haven’t paid for the apples,’ he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. How much?’

  ‘One and fourpence.’

  He gave her the money and went out of the shop and he sat in the cab of his lorry for a few minutes biting on his lip. Batterby Bay Road! Good God! They made them in Batterby Bay Road; it was a training school for them. He’d first walked down Batterby Bay Road when he was fifteen. It was on a Saturday night, and he and three mates had come into New
castle and had dared each other to go down the road.

  They had gone down it, but they had come out the other end quicker than they had entered it. They had thought they were great guys to go down Batterby Bay Road and had bragged about it for weeks afterwards, but each one of them had been scared stiff by the tarts. Tarts of all types, tall and short, young, middle-aged and old ’uns. Not one of them had started yet. Talked about it never-ending, but never got down to it, and, all the opportunity in the world offered them, they didn’t that night either.

  He took the lorry right to the door of number 132. It was a tall, double-fronted terraced house. It had undoubtedly at one time been the home of a middle-class family. Now its ten rooms had ten separate occupants. Their names were on dirty pieces of paper pinned on a board inside the dim hallway; even the paper bearing the name V. Ratcliffe was thumb-marked. There was a glass door leading out of the lobby, but he found it locked. Looking to the side he saw a bell. He did not hear it ring, but after a few minutes there came the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, and as it was opened a voice said, ‘Haven’t you got your key?’

  The woman stared up at Angus and added, ‘Oh, what do you want? I’m full up.’

  ‘I’ve come to see a Miss Ratcliffe.’

  She was now looking at him in the same way as the woman in the greengrocer’s shop. Then she said, ‘Eeh. You have, have ya. And what would you be wantin’ with her?’

  ‘That’s my business.’ He stepped towards the door with the intention of entering, but her thin arms checked him with a force that was surprising.

  ‘Don’t rush it, lad. Don’t rush it. And let me tell you somethin’. If you’re after anythin’ you’ve come to the wrong shop.’