Hamilton

by Catherine Cookson

  He straightened up, stood looking at me with that dreadful expression on his face, then turned and walked out.

  The door hadn’t closed before I jumped up and followed him.

  He was buttoning up his coat as he crossed the hall. I watched him pick up his cap—he was wearing a tweed cap these days—and open the front door. I was behind him now and there, through his legs, I saw Bill. Apparently, he had been wanting to come in and had come round to the front door. He had the clever habit of thudding his head against it; it was a form of knocking.

  Howard became aware of me behind him as he looked on the dog who was now attempting to get past his legs and into the house. When his foot came out and he kicked Bill and sent him dithering and yelping across the top of the icy steps, the explosion happened. I think it would have come about in any case, but that was the match to the powder. I heard myself scream as, at the same time, I stooped down towards the box of bottles. The top one happened to be an old-fashioned brown stone ginger beer bottle. I caught it by the neck and in a lightning swing I brought it to the side of Howard’s head. Before his scream had time to give itself an echo, I had used his tennis racket technique on him, and brought the bottle to the other side of his face. The blood was spurting in all directions now and the sight of it seemed to elate me, for as he fell backwards down the steps I stooped again for another bottle and threw it at him. It bounced off the back of his head, and he lay still now at the foot of the steps.

  As if from a distance I heard a voice yelling as I threw another, then another: ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ When the words, ‘She’s killed him. She’s killed him,’ came to me, some great cry burst soundlessly from me, yelling, ‘I hope I have. I hope I have.’

  I looked down into the box. There were no more bottles left; but there was a sea of faces on the pavement, and great narration in the street. People were looking up to me, with their mouths open. I stared back at them until, as if I had two bodies, one of them turned me about and gave me the impetus to dash indoors. Almost tripping over Bill in a headlong rush for the stairs, I made straight up them for the bottle room.

  The window of this room faced the front of the house, and I thrust it right up. And then I started my onslaught. I gathered up the bottles in armsful, fat ones, thin ones, three-cornered ones, green ones, blue ones, black ones, red ones, ones with long necks, ones so small they were no bigger than my little finger, and one after the other I pelted them with all the force I was capable of, and so quick was I that it seemed for a time that Hamilton was bringing them to me. As I pelted them down the street I took a delight in seeing the people jumping here and there as if they were on hot bricks.

  There were some vehicles in the street now but I couldn’t make out exactly what they were because I didn’t seem to be able to see clearly, and I was becoming very tired. The shelves were almost empty now. I was grabbing up the last of the bottles from a high shelf when two men appeared in the doorway. I recognised them as policemen. One had his helmet in his hand and his fingers to his brow and there was blood on his hand.

  When the other said quietly, ‘Now missis. Now missis,’ I saw Hamilton for the first time. He was standing in the corner, his head half buried in an empty shelf, and as I looked at him, the elation seeped out of me. My vision cleared and I realised that the policeman’s brow was cut, and a voice within me said, Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you, but no words came.

  ‘That’s a good lass. Come on, you’ve done your stuff.’ It was the same policeman talking. He had a fatherly manner, and I went quietly with him down the stairs. ‘Have you got a coat, lass?’ he said.

  The injured policeman spoke for the first time. He had his helmet under his arm now and he pointed with his free hand, saying, ‘You might find one in there, it looks like a wardrobe.’

  The kindly policeman still had hold of my arm and he led me towards the hall wardrobe and opened the door, and then he said, ‘Ah, yes, here’s your coat.’

  He left loose of me and I put my coat on. As I did so Bill came and stood close to me, and the other policeman said, ‘What about her dog? They say she’s here by herself.’ He spoke as if I couldn’t hear him, and at this I stooped down quickly and with an effort lifted Bill up into my arms, which prompted the kindly policeman to say, ‘Put him down, hinny. Put him down now. He’s a heavy beast. Put him down.’

  For answer I just stared at him, and the policeman who was again holding one hand to his brow, said, ‘Take him off her.’

  ‘You kiddin’?’ The kindly policeman turned his head to the side. ‘Do you see what it is, it’s a bull-terrier?’

  ‘But she can hardly hold him.’

  The kind policeman’s voice was very low now as he said, ‘The condition she’s in, she could hold an elephant, lad. Let’s get her to the station. Come on.’ He didn’t take my arm now, but indicated that I should go to the door.

  I obeyed him, and on the steps he said, ‘Mind how you go. Step over your handiwork, lass.’

  There was a crowd of people at both sides of the gate and they were silent as I passed through them. Then a voice from the back of the crowd came to me, saying, ‘Has she done him in?’ And another voice said, ‘Had a damned good try by all accounts.’

  Bill nestled close to me in the car and his weight seemed to press the air and tension out of my body. I was quieter now inside, yet there was still that sense of elation and from somewhere like a voice re-echoing from down the years, the words, ‘I’ve done it. I’ve done it,’ kept floating around me.

  When the policeman helped me out of the car and into the station, my mind seemed very clear. Everything and everyone seemed to stand out in sharp relief about me. Two men in mackintoshes who had got out of another car were now talking to the kind policeman; the other policeman was showing the cut in his forehead to a man who was standing behind a counter. The man listened in silence to the policeman; then he looked at me and, speaking as if I wasn’t there, he said, ‘That little ‘un?’

  ‘That little ‘un,’ the hurt policeman said.

  ‘Well, you know what they say.’ The policeman behind the counter moved along it now to get a better view of me, then muttered, ‘Well, a stick of dynamite isn’t very big after all.’

  Then my kind escort leant across the counter and said something to him, and he replied, ‘Aye, yes, I see what you mean. People grow like their dogs, and when that breed get their teeth in they don’t let go.’ Then looking towards me, he said, quietly, ‘Would you like to sit down, missis?’

  I looked round, and then went and sat thankfully on the form that was placed against the wall, and once seated, I let Bill slide from my lap onto the floor.

  Now the three policemen and the two men in mackintoshes were joined by a policewoman, and they all talked together for a moment; then my kind policeman, as I thought of him, said, ‘They say she’s got a granny somewhere in Bog’s End.’

  Almost on a bawl now, the man behind the counter seemed to yell, ‘Well, find her Gran;’ only to subside again as he muttered, ‘Find her, wherever she is. And we’d better get the doctor in here an’ all.’

  There was a general movement around the counter now, and the policewoman approached me. But she came to within only two steps of me, when Bill let out a low growl.

  She stopped and looked at him, and then at me, and she said, ‘Would…would you like a cup of tea, dear?’

  The voice inside me said, Yes, please, but I couldn’t get it past my throat. I was finding this strange. There was a great deal of talking going on in my head but I couldn’t give voice to it. I stared at her for some seconds, and she turned away.

  One of the men in a mackintosh was now saying to the man behind the counter, ‘I’ve never seen so many broken bottles in me life.’ His voice sounded full of laughter, although his face was straight. ‘She kept ’em coming. She didn’t mean to hit one of your lot, she just aimed for him, her man that was lying on the pathway. By, she must have had it in for him to turn like that! And yet, by t
he talk around of the neighbours, he was a quiet enough fellow. Very gentlemanly, they said. A bit of a sportsman, played tennis an’ that. Manager of Hempies’; had been for years. Well, well, you never know, do you? But by, if it hadn’t been so tragic, I would have laughed me head off! I didn’t get there till nearly the end, but there they were, coming from that window, all shapes and sizes, the neighbours all under cover and the ambulance men dodging them as they tried to get him into the ambulance. It was as good as a play. As I said, if it hadn’t been serious, I would have split me sides…And she hasn’t said a word since?’ They were looking at me now, and one policeman said, ‘I wonder what Doc will make of her when he comes? One bawl from him and she’ll be on her feet, I’ll bet.’

  How long did I sit on that bench? I don’t know. It only seemed like a second before I saw Doctor Kane come through the door with his black bag. He was apologising to one of the officers for being so long because he had been down to the quayside where a man had been hurt in a winch. And then he turned and looked at me, and all the hairs on his face spread out, his mouth opened wide, and I saw his tongue. It came out twice before he clamped his teeth shut. Then coming slowly towards me, he said, ‘What in the name of God has happened to you?’

  The kindly policeman was at his side now and he said, ‘Doctor, can you spare a minute, just a minute?’ And my dear friend turned from me, because he was a dear friend. And I was so pleased to see him, yet I didn’t show it. But he went with the kind policeman to the counter, and there he stood listening to the man behind the counter and the kind policeman and the one with the blood on his brow which by now had congealed. It didn’t look a very big cut, not from where I was sitting. And all the while the conference was going on, the doctor kept turning and looking towards me, and the hairs kept moving on his face. Then I saw that he was talking, and the policeman was looking towards me, and their eyes were stretching.

  When Doctor Kane eventually came over to the bench, he first bent down and patted Bill, saying, ‘Hello there, old fellow. Bet you never expected to be in the clink.’ Then sitting down beside me, he took hold of my hand and he said, ‘Well, you did something at last, Maisie; but you needn’t have made it so drastic.’ He leant forward towards me now and, his face close to mine, he said, ‘Don’t worry. Something had to happen. Just take everything quietly. But I’m afraid, Maisie, you’ll have to stay here for a time. You understand that?’

  Yes, yes, my mind was saying; definitely, yes, I understand that I have to stay in…I hesitated at the word, gaol. But that’s where I was, I was in the police station and they would keep me here until somebody could take me out. He said now, quietly, ‘I’ll bring your granny, and she’ll take the dog. He likes staying with her, doesn’t he?’

  My eyes answered him, but still I said no word. He put up his hand and stroked my hair, and his touch brought a flood of tears. Like a spring bursting from a rock, they flowed out of my eyes and nose and mouth. Yet unlike a spring, they didn’t make any gurgling sound, no sound at all. And the doctor got up and abruptly walked to the counter, and he said something to them, then went hastily out.

  The three policemen and the policewoman all looked towards me. Their faces had a quiet look.

  There followed a period during which different people came in. One lady had lost her cat; but the greatest commotion was when two policemen brought in an old lady who was singing, and when she tried to stop and speak to the policeman behind the counter, he yelled at her, ‘Get goin’, Mary Ellen! Get goin’!’ And she called back at him, ‘Okay, darling. Okay. See you at the ’sizes.’

  It was all very cheeky and I was beginning to feel very quiet inside, but then the door opened and in came Doctor Kane and Gran. It seemed that the doctor had to push Gran towards me, because she kept hesitating and looking at me as if she didn’t recognise me. And when she eventually sat down beside me, her remark was typical: ‘God in heaven, lass!’ she said. ‘God in heaven! You needn’t have gone and killed him.’

  Had I killed him? Well, that’s what I’d wanted to do, wasn’t it? When I lifted that first bottle I wanted to obliterate him like something that was festeringly evil.

  ‘Say something, lass,’ she said.

  I stared at her and my mind said, What can I say, Gran? It had to come. If only you could have heard him. I’m not a worm, Gran. I’m not a slug. I am a person. Mr Leviston knows I am a person. Mr Leviston is the first one who has ever recognised that I’ve got a mind. You’re kind, Gran. You’re a lovely woman, but you never recognised that I’d got a mind. And neither did George. You both loved me through pity. But Mr Leviston…well, he likes me. He likes my turn of phrase. He likes what goes on in my mind.

  ‘Why won’t she speak?’ Gran had turned to the doctor now, and he said, ‘It’s a kind of shock. She’s retreated into herself because she can’t stand any more.’

  ‘What’ll they do with her?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll likely keep her here…well, until she’s charged, and then she’ll get bail. We’ll have to arrange that some way.’

  ‘Keep her in the cells?’

  ‘Yes, yes, in the cells.’ His whiskers were bristling now. ‘She’s almost killed him. If he survives, he’ll bring a case against her. By God, he will! He’ll do his best…’ He turned away now and, helping Gran up from the seat, he walked with her to the counter, his voice low, and although I couldn’t hear with my ears the end of that sentence, my mind knew what it was: after this to have her put away. ‘Anyway—’ His voice came to me now, saying, ‘the police will charge her. It’s really their case.’

  Dear God. That would mean he would achieve his aims in the end. But then, there was the tape. What he said was on the tape. If I could tell the doctor about the tape. But I couldn’t.

  Gran and the doctor seemed to be a long time at the counter talking to the man behind it, and bits of the conversation drifted towards me, such as when the man behind the counter said, ‘She could have knocked his eye out.’ And the doctor answered, ‘Oh, it’s only a scratch: a couple of stitches and that’ll be all right.’

  ‘Nevertheless, the charge will be bodily harm, you know that yourself. And I’ve got to charge her in the normal way, dumb or not dumb as she makes out to be.’

  Of a sudden I felt tired; all I wanted to do was lie down, even on this form.

  I was only dimly aware now of Gran coming and putting her arms around me and kissing me, then leading Bill away; and of the doctor, his hand once again on my hair, saying, ‘It’s going to be all right, Maisie. Don’t you worry; it’s going to be all right. I’ll see to it. Trust me. It’s going to be all right.’

  When the policewoman took my arm, I went quietly with her, but when she put me in a small room and closed the heavy door, the tiredness for a moment left me and a great yell spiralled up, seemingly coming through the stone floor and up through my body and out through the top of my head. Yet I didn’t make a sound. Instead, I lay down on the wooden bench that had a mattress on it and I drifted away into a kind of sleeping wakefulness in which the voice of the singing woman came through the wall and bottles of all kinds floated round the room. I started naming them: There went a big one. It hadn’t any neck; that had broken off when it hit the ground. I could see the label: ‘Allsop’s Indian Pale Ale’. And there were his precious blues, some of them dark blue, some of them pale blue. Some of them with the word ‘Poison’ raised in the glass. And, oh, there went a variety of the soda-water ones, the marbles all rattling in the necks. Funny, but few of those had broken. They were very solid bottles. ‘Twas a pity I thought. And there went a row of little medicine ones, patent medicine ones: ‘Veno’s Cough Cure’, ‘Glycerine and Honey’. And now the beer bottles started passing each other as if in a dance: ‘Guinness’ Double Stout’, ‘Guinness’ Extra Strong Stout’, ‘Australian Pale Ale’. That was a funny one, why Australian? He had prized that one. Some of them were quite whole and bright and looked just as they did when he used to hold them up to the light after washing them i
n the kitchen sink. If he had only treated me as gently as he had done those bottles.