She turned away, biting on her lip, her head slightly lowered. He was raw, uncouth in many ways, and she doubted if he would ever change. Definitely, the English lessons and selected reading had made no notable impression on him; but it didn’t seem to matter, she loved him; she loved him as she hadn’t imagined loving anybody. She had never imagined what it would be like to love like she loved him; it was a consuming feeling. Yet she wasn’t happy.
She turned now and looked on his bent head as he put a knife down between the two floorboards and prised them upwards, then lifted a metal box onto the mat, from which he began counting out five-pound notes.
When he had counted to eight she said in some surprise, ‘What are you going to give him?’
‘A hundred.’
‘A hundred pounds, Angus?’
‘But—but will he take all that from you?’
‘Take me hand off for it an’ all.’ He grinned up at her with slanted glance.
He now replaced the box under the floorboards, and after straightening the mat and putting the chair back on it he counted the money again before putting it in an envelope.
When he looked at Vanessa she shook her head and said, ‘I can never believe that he takes it.’
‘You can believe it all right.’ His head was bouncing up and down. ‘That’s how these blokes get rich, that’s how all blokes get rich. You never find a rich, honest businessman. I mean, not one sticking to the books, everything down in black and white. Such men make a profit but they don’t get stinkin’ rich. And our kind friend, Mr Fowler, intends to get…stinkin’ rich. And he should do with all the pies he’s got his fingers in.’
‘But he helped you at first without taking anything.’
‘Aye, aye, you’re right he did; but he had his eye on the future, and I soon picked things up. I know which side me bread is buttered.’ He jerked his head at her.
‘What if you hadn’t given him any money on the side?’
‘What do you think? I’d have been dropped. I’d have managed a one-man little business, just keeping afloat but nothing like where I am now, and where Stan is. It would appear we all took a chance and it paid off. Do you know how much Stan picked up last week? Forty-seven quid. Mind you, he had to work for it. And there’s our Rosie going on about him coming home late. She doesn’t say that when she goes and spends a small fortune on her clothes on a Saturday afternoon. She wants her ears scudded, that one.’
Vanessa said now, ‘How long will you be? They’re coming round tonight.’
‘Oh, about an hour I should say. We’ll just have a drink together and a natter…and a little exchange.’
‘Why doesn’t he transact the business in the office?’
‘Not this kind of business, honey.’ He leant towards her and tickled her chin. ‘He’s a very wise guy, is Mr Andrew Fowler. He’s got a secretary there and secretaries have ears and noses. As he said himself, the walls have ears. No, he’s cunning and cute, yet likeable. You know, I like him. You can’t help liking him because, in a way, he’s sort of honest about it. “Come for a walk along the river bank,” he’ll say, and there we go out of the office and along the river bank, and he’ll say to me something like he did a month ago, like this. “Threadgill’s are putting out a tender. They’re opening up the land beyond Dark Town. It’s just a sort of pilot scheme; your ten lorries could manage it. There’s a fellow called Richardson there; he’s got a lot of influence, but he’s got a weakness for presents—a television, or a crate or two, or something like that.” I said, “Wines?” and he said, “No. His taste runs to something a bit stronger, whisky.”’
‘But you got that contract, didn’t you? I wrote—’
‘Yes. Yes, I got the contract. Of course I did. That’s what’s been pulling it in these past few weeks.’
‘And…and did you send him a…present?’
‘Aye. Aye, I did. I didn’t tell you about it at the time because I felt a bit chipped about doing it, sort of, well, half-ashamed like.’
She came and stood close to him and looked into his face, ‘A television set?’
‘No; nor whisky. You’d never believe in a month of Sundays what I sent him. Go on, have a guess.’
‘A wristwatch?’
He shook his head.
‘Gold cufflinks?’
Again he shook his head.
‘Was it something for himself?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I give up.’
‘A donkey.’
‘A what!’ Her face was spread wide with laughter. ‘A donkey?’
‘For his daughter; a very good donkey an’ all. Now who would suspect anyone of doing a graft through a donkey? Sixty-two quid it cost me, that donkey. And it’s not a donkey really, it’s a pony, and a spanker.’
‘Oh, Angus! Oh, Angus!’ She leant against him sideways and they both began to laugh. ‘And you know something else?’ They were still laughing. ‘I heard yesterday from Fowler that he’s looking for a little go-cart, what they used to call a governess trap, you know. I haven’t seen one in me life, and Fowler can’t remember seeing one either, but that’s what Mr Richardson’s looking for, so Mr Angus Cotton is going to enquire if anybody’s got a governess trap hanging about their backyard that they don’t want.’ They were holding on to each other shaking. When he released her she wiped her eyes, then held her hands on her high stomach as she asked, ‘But what’s the hundred pounds for?’
‘I’m not sure meself yet.’ He turned his head slowly towards her again. ‘But if it means what I think it’s going to mean that’ll be the first of a few hundred I’ll be dishing out…Now, now.’ He put his hand up to her cheek. ‘You don’t have to worry; this is how business is done. Your big, ignorant slob of a man has learned a lot in the last few months, and he’s got a lot to learn yet. But whatever he learns he’s going to make it pay, because—because he’s promised his wife something.’ He took her chin firmly in the palm of his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ll never rest until I fulfil that promise.’
‘There’s no need, Angus. Please, I’ve told you. I—I would rather you got the work in the ordinary way, I would, believe me, Angus, rather than run risks.’
‘Risks? Oh! Oh! Now you’re on the wrong track. There’s no risk. I told you. Fowler walks me along the river bank; I buy a donkey for Mr Richardson’s daughter. Why do I buy a donkey for Mr Richardson’s daughter? Because Mr Richardson’s daughter tells me that she is looking out for a donkey and I happen to see one going reasonable and I go and buy it. Does Mr Richardson pay me for it? Of course he does…That would be the way it would go if anybody said anything. There’s no risk.’ His face suddenly becoming straight, his jocular manner disappearing and his eyes hardening, he said, ‘No risk, only the feeling you want to kick somebody up the backside every time they give you a hint a backhander is required if you want the job. When I see tenders put out it makes me laugh—grimly.’
There now came to them the sound of a door opening and Rosie’s voice, high and excited, coming from the kitchen. The next minute both she and Emily were in the room, and Emily cried, ‘What do you think? Rosie says Old Davis has died at the corner.’
‘Aye?’ Angus looked from one to the other. Then addressing Rosie, he said, ‘What do you expect me to do? Send him a wreath? I’ve hardly seen him for years.’
‘Don’t be so daft, man.’ Rosie pushed her hand out towards him. ‘The house. He’s been living there by himself since his wife died. The house; it’ll be empty.’
‘Oh, aye, aye.’ He nodded at her. ‘You’ve got something there, our Rosie. You don’t miss much, do you?’
They both flapped their hands at each other, then Vanessa, coming forward, said, ‘But there’ll be a waiting list.’
‘Not for these places,’ said Rosie scornfully. ‘They’re all up for comin’ down. Five years is the limit. Well, don’t stand there, our Angus; go and do somethin’. If we hadn’t got that place last month I’d have been after it like a shot.’
‘About half an hour ago I should say. I saw Mrs Green coming out of the house. She’s just washed him.’
‘God! He’s hardly cold.’
‘Warm or cold, it doesn’t matter to him now,’ cried Emily. ‘Go on, get yourself away. It’ll be a godsend, that house especially, ’cos there’s a bath in it.’
‘Oh yes.’ Angus turned quickly towards Vanessa. ‘I forgot about the bath. There was quite a to-do in the street when he put it in. I’m off…Wait a minute.’ He went back into the room towards the small table and, opening a drawer, took out three pounds, saying, ‘I want more than this. Have you got any loose?’
Vanessa went to a chest of drawers to the right of the fire place and took her bag from the top, saying, ‘How much do you want?’
‘Oh, give me what you’ve got. A fiver should help get me into that bath. If not, it can be doubled.’
As he was passing Emily he gripped her wrinkled face tightly between his fists and, bending towards her, he quoted,
‘Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupation
That is known as the Children’s Hour.’
He ended on a deep note, thumbing towards Vanessa, ‘Hurry that Children’s Hour up, will you, ’cos I can’t stand much more. If I have another night like last night I’ll never live to see him. I was twisted up with cramp.’
Emily jerked her head from his grasp and pushed him through the kitchen, crying, ‘Go on. Go on, you great big gowk.’ But when they reached the front door the laughter went from his face and his bantering tone vanished as he said under his breath, ‘See to her, won’t you? Don’t leave her?’
‘Look,’ said Emily, ‘bairns have been born afore, and they’ll be born again. This is just one of millions.’
‘Aw, no, aw no.’ He jerked his head at her. ‘One in a million, that’s what you mean. One in a million. Now do as I tell you, stay with her, don’t leave her for a minute. You won’t go out, will you?’
‘I’m not barmy, lad, or in me dotage. Go on, get on with your job an’ I’ll get on with mine; and she’ll get on with hers. What’s the matter with you? Gone soft all of a sudden? Go on an’ get the contract. An’ get that house. And anything else you can lay hands on.’
He nodded at her; then said slyly, ‘Will do, Mrs Cotton. Will do.’ Then he stepped across the narrow pavement and into his car, a ten-year-old Rover, which he had chosen because it was the remains of a good thing. That was to be his policy, he told himself, all the way up: he’d rather have the remains of a good thing until he could get the good thing. No shoddy tinpot new stuff, not for him or his.
Vanessa, Rosie, Emily and Stan waited in the kitchen for him coming back. He had said to Vanessa he would be an hour, but taking into account his visit to the rent agent they gave him another hour. That should have brought him back into the house at eight o’clock. At nine, he hadn’t returned, and at half-past nine Vanessa’s pains began; and Emily began to swear. He was a thoughtless, ignorant swine, that’s what he was. In some pub likely, or fancy hotel, stuffing himself. There was the supper spoilt and them all starving. He thought of nobody but himself. He was a selfish swine, he always had been and always would be. Damn him.
At ten o’clock they began to get worried. At half-past ten Vanessa was sitting in her coat with her bag packed waiting to be taken to the hospital in Angus’s car.
‘If he comes in sodden,’ said Emily, ‘I’ll brain him. We won’t see him till closing time, you’ll see. The night of all nights.’
Rosie, pacing the kitchen, stopped at this point and looked at Stan and said, ‘If you did this to me, Stan, you’d have your eyeballs served up to you the next day, and I’m tellin’ you.’
Stan grinned sheepishly at her, and then said, ‘Somethin’s keepin’ him. You know for a fact he’s as worried as if he was going to have it himself.’
Nobody said there could have been an accident, only the thought was constant in Vanessa’s mind. Over the last half-hour she had resorted to prayer. It was as if she was back in the convent listening to the nuns: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…Blessed Michael, the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil; rebuke him, we humbly pray…Angus, Angus, hurry up. Please come home. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Let him come now, please.’
Her last prayer seemed to receive a lightning answer, for there came the sound of a car drawing up outside. The next minute Angus was in the room. He wasn’t drunk, as they all expected, but he wasn’t tightly sober. He stood in the doorway and raised his hands for silence, crying, ‘Now all of you, all of you don’t say it. I’m telling you, don’t say it.’ He didn’t seem to take in the fact that Vanessa was sitting in her coat. ‘I’ve done it. A treble up…Mrs Cotton Junior, Mrs Cotton Senior, Mrs Rosie Barrett, Mr Stanley Barrett, you see before you a successful businessman, a man who’s going up and up. I’ve pulled off the Henson quarry deal, two years’ work. I’ve got the whole contract. Twenty lorries I’ll need. Twenty lorries and twenty men, Stan. And,’ he moved slowly towards Vanessa, ‘you’re moving, Mrs Cotton Junior, to a house with a bathroom. But it’s only temporary; this is only the beginning.’ He wagged his finger down into her pale but smiling face. ‘And now for the last news, the top of the treble.’ He turned to his mother, where Emily was standing at the far end of the table, her fists thrust into her hips, her face grim. ‘Mrs Cotton Senior, your son has had an honour bestowed on him. You always said it would happen. Give the lad a chance, you said, and it’ll happen. And it has.’ He leant across the table towards her. ‘I’ve been put forward as a member of the Round Table. Now what do you think of that?’ He straightened up and looked from one to the other. There was both pride and scorn on his face. ‘Me, Angus Cotton, asked to represent the contractors of this town in the Round Table, because you know,’ he shook his head widely, ‘only one man can be in there representing one profession. Profession mind; I said, profession.’
Whatever Emily felt at her son’s success, at this moment what she said was, ‘You big, gormless gowk, shut up. Shut your trap a minute if you can. What do you think’s been happenin’ while you’ve been swillin’ beer? She’s had her pains all night since you left, an’ we’ve been waitin’ for you. She wouldn’t let Stan get a taxi. She’s a fool; she wanted her husband to take her, an’ she’s been hangin’ on. Now, pick up that case, that’s if you’re able to carry it, an’ get goin’.’
Angus was deaf to Emily’s bawling. He was looking down at Vanessa and she up at him, and he said softly, ‘Aw, honey.’
His voice was cut off by Rosie saying airily, ‘Well, you should have known what was happenin’. Didn’t you have your pains?’ On this, both she and Stan began to laugh heartily. Then their laughter was checked abruptly by Vanessa’s body doubling forward.
‘Look!’ cried Emily. ‘Get her into the car as quick as you can.’
‘No…o. No…o.’ Vanessa refused to move from the chair. She was gripping Angus’s hands, her fingers digging into his flesh.
After a few minutes, when the pain didn’t subside, Emily looked from one to the other and said, ‘God, no!’
But it was God, yes.
When Angus tried to get Vanessa to her feet she slumped down his legs onto the mat, saying between gasps, ‘Get…get the doctor.’
While Stan flew for Doctor Carr they all tried in various ways to get Vanessa to her feet and into the bedroom, and when Angus put his arms under to lift her up she cried out in agony, ‘No! No!’
It was Rosie who said, ‘Get an eiderdown and sheets to put under her.’
They managed to do this, and it was only fifteen minutes later when, on the mat in front of the fire, in the kitchen of the house where he himself had been born, Angus saw, to his horrified gaze, the
head of his son coming into the world.
When Doctor Carr hurried into the room and took over, Angus went down the yard and was violently sick; and when he returned his mother was holding a screaming child in her arms. He did not look at it but went and knelt at Vanessa’s side.
Vanessa looked at him. She was smiling. ‘It’s—it’s a boy,’ she said.
He nodded at her, unable to speak.
‘It’s been a day.’
He nodded again.
‘You know something?’ Her voice was faint. ‘I want to laugh.’
‘You can laugh the morrow.’ His voice was shaking. ‘What you want to do now is to go to sleep. Here’s the doctor.’ He moved aside and stood bewildered at what was going on around him. Rosie was gathering some pieces of linen from the floor and his mother was saying, ‘Put them in soak and get me a dish of hot water. And here,’ she turned to him, ‘this belongs to you, so hold him until I find some place to put him. Make yourself useful for once.’
He took into his arms the thing he had created. It looked old and wrinkled, mummified, but it was his son, the beginnings of a man. He had been born on a mat in a condemned house. That shouldn’t have happened; it was his fault. But he would remedy that. Oh aye, by God he would. His son would have education, the best money could buy, boarding school, public school, the lot. He’d have no memories of Ryder’s Row, number twenty-four or number two. Angus Cotton’s son would be a gentleman…He’d show them.
Two
The Rover 2000 swerved expertly into the car park and to the corner opposite the side door of the club. Angus got out, and after adjusting his Aquascutum overcoat he went towards the building, not to the side door, but around to the main entrance of Ransome’s Club.
Ransome’s had first been established in 1864; it said so on a brass plate discreetly embedded in an alcove in the lobby. It was, supposedly, a non-political club, but it was rarely you found any well-known member of the Labour Party registered on its books. But there was one thing necessary to become a member of Ransome’s…money.
The Round Tower Page 31
