A man who cried (29 page)

”You’re going to get her downstairs?” Dick’s voice had changed, there was a brisk note in it now

and she said, ”Yes, I suppose so.”

”Shall I give you a hand?”

”Yes, you can, I’d be glad of it, but you’d better look out for squalls.”

”Well, if she goes for me I’ll chuck her under the table.” He grinned. ”By the way, is it ready?”

”It’s always ready; I keep the mattress permanently under there now. Come on.”

He followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom, there to see Mrs Burrows already sitting on

the edge of the bed.

”You’ve taken your time.”

”The siren’s hardly stopped, Mother.”

”That won’t prevent them dropping the bombs, will it? ... What do you want?” She glared at Dick

now, and he answered lightly, ”Just came to give you a hand downstairs.”

”She can manage.”

”That’s what you think; she makes herself manage.”

”Well! well!” Mrs Burrows was on her feet now, supported by both of them, and she looked

down on Dick as she said with cutting sarcasm, ”A little champion, aren’t you? But, of course, if

you’re going to be of any real help to anybody you’ll have to get a step-ladder, won’t you ?”

”Mother!” -
,-

”Yes, daughter?”

Molly said nothing to this but drew in a deep breath.

They were at the top of the stairs now and Mrs Burrows cautioned in a voice that no invalid

should have been capable of using, Look what you’re doing or you’ll have me going down

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head first. We can’t all go three abreast. Get on ahead you!’?She almost pushed Dick off the top

step with a sharp movement of her elbow and as he held out his arm to steady her he bowed his

head and bit hard on his lip to quell the angry retort that had almost escaped him.

She was a devil of a woman. How did Molly put up with her! Wish her dead ? If he had been in

Molly’s place he might have seen to it that she complied with the wish long before now. You

couldn’t believe that a woman could be so ungrateful, and to her own. It was hard to believe that

there were people like her in the world, yet hadn’t he found out early on that there certainly were.

If he ever needed reminding the pain that he had now and again in his ear would conjure up

another such as her. . . . Yet no, his mother could never have been as bad as Mrs Burrows. And

whereas Mrs Burrows had no cause for complaint against her daughter, his mother might just

have had some cause for cornplaint. This thought had been niggling at him a lot lately and with

his other suspicions it was breeding an anger in him.

”There you are. Careful.” He was helping Mrs Burrows down on to the mattress laid out under

the table, but as his hands went to straighten her legs while Molly heaved her on to her pillows

she smacked at them, saying, ”Take your hands off me.” ”Mother! you’re being helped.” ”I want

no help, not from that quarter.”

Molly now rose abruptly to her feet and, coming to the end of the table, she now pushed Dick out

of the room, across the hall and into the kitchen. When she had closed the door he turned to her

and said on a laugh, ”I can understand your death wish, but what’s she got against me? I haven’t

set eyes on her now for months.”

Molly now went and adjusted the blackout over the kitchen window and from there she said,

”Nothing more than she’s got against anyone else.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, ”Well, I’d better get in next door; but if Dad’s in I’ll come straight back and stay with you just in case there’s any high jinks.”

She said nothing to this but went towards the back door and was about to pull the blackout

curtain back when his words stayed her hand and she held her pose for a full minute before she

turned and looked at him with her eyes wide and her mouth

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slightly open, and he repeated what he had said, ”I love you, Molly, I had to say it some time. I

told meself when the siren went the other night, almost at the same time as the bomb dropped,

that it might have been the finish of both of us and you’d never have known how I really feel

about you, and so I made up me mind that the very next time it went I’d ... I’d tell you, just in

case I didn’t get another chance. And . . . and you needn’t come back with, ”There’s four years

between us, not to mention the two inches and a bit,” I know all that, it’s been drummed into me

for as long as I can remember. But the years and the inches don’t make any difference to what’s

inside. I ... I can’t remember a time when I haven’t loved you, Molly. But I ... I don’t want you to be troubled with what I’ve said, ’cos . . . ’cos I know what you think of me, just pally like.”

”O ... h you! Dickie Gray, you fool.” Her lips were trembling, her head was bent towards him,

and now her voice shook as she said, ”Why? Why do you think” - she made a quick movement

with her thumb towards the kitchen door - ”she detests the sight of you, eh ? It’s . . . it’s because .

. . well, it’s because she knows how I’ve felt about you ever since you first came into the yard.

But I was that four years older, I was a big sister then, then I was a young woman and you were

the schoolboy. Now I’m nearly the old maid” - there was a high treble note in her voice ”and

you’re a young man, a good-looking attractive young ...”

They were holding each other tightly, not speaking, not kissing, just holding tightly. When they

drew slightly apart they looked at each other, then almost shyly they kissed, a soft closedlipped

kiss, almost like two children who were afraid of what they were about. That was until the

querulous voice shattered them, crying, ”Molly! You Molly!”

”Damn!” But she laughed as she said it; then again they were kissing, hard and hungrily now,

while the voice, louder, came at them, crying, ”Do you hear me? My back’s breaking. Molly!

Molly!”

As she pushed him from her, smiling into his face, she whispered, ”Come back. Come back as

soon as you can.”

He stood for a moment, his short slim body straight and steady, his shoulders remained still, his

lids were unblinking. He swallowed deeply and his Adam’s apple bounced in his throat. He

didn’t speak but, thrusting out his hands, he grabbed hers and

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held them at each side of his face for a moment, then turned quickly and without paying the

required attention to the blackout he pulled the curtain aside and went out. . . .

Hilda was in the kitchen. As she turned from the fire a look of disappointment on her face she

said, ”Where’s your father?” ”I ... I thought he’d be in, he was only on till nine o’clock.” She sat down in the wooden chair and tapped her fingers on the arms a number of times before she said,

as if to herself, ”He’s likely had to stay on.”

”Why don’t you come down into the shelter ?” ”You know I don’t like the shelter. I can’t bear

the confined space.”

”It’s safer.”

She cast a sideward glance at him as she asked, ”How safe would it be if they dropped a bomb on

the house?” Then she added, ”You go down if you like.”

”Me!” His voice was high. ”I don’t want to go down there.”

When he came and sat opposite her she brought her glance to

bear on him with a penetrating stare before she said, ”What’s up

with you, you look pleased with yourself? You . . . you haven’t

heard differently from the air force after all ?”

”No, no.” He shook his head, and he felt a sense of added warmth as he realized that she was

pleased he hadn’t heard; then half shamefacedly he said, ”I ... I think I’d better tell you, Aunt

Hilda. I’m . . . I’m in love with Molly.”

”Huh!” She started to laugh, gently at first, then quite loudly. He’d never heard her laugh so

freely for a long time; but slightly peeved, he said, ”You find it funny?”

”No, no, Dick; I don’t find it funny that you should be in love with Molly, but I do find it funny

that you should tell me something I’ve known for years. In fact, you’ve plastered it all over the

place, you might as well have put it up on billboards.” ”Oh! Aunt Hilda, it hasn’t been like that. I never . . .” She now flapped her hand at him, still laughing as she said, ”Yes, you did. Has there

been a day for years past when you haven’t scampered over there on every possible occasion ?”

”Yes, yes.” He was laughing himself now. ”But I thought. . . well, I thought you would think I

was just being pally.”

”Pally my foot! Anyway, that’s how you feel, what about her?”

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He bit on his thumb nail twice before he said sofdy, ”I can’t believe it, she feels the same way.”

”Well, I could have told you that an’ all.”

”You don’t object in any way ?”

”Why should I?” Her voice was quiet, her face straight now. ”I’m glad, I’m glad for you. She’s

older than you I know, but that’s what you need, Dick, someone older than you, steadier.”

”Yes, I suppose so.”

”Tell me” - she leant towards him now, her hands joined on her knee - ”I’ve wanted to ask you

this for a long time. Is there, or has there been anything worrying you, I mean besides wondering

about the air force and how Molly felt with regards to you ? Have you had anything on your

mind ?”

His shoulder jerked, his lids blinked and he rose to his feet as he said, ”No, no, nothing, nothing

important. Is there any milk left? I wouldn’t mind a drink.”

”Dick” - her voice made him turn towards her again - ”I don’t believe you. I believe you’ve got

something on your mind, something worrying you that’s caused these nerves. Now . . . now I’ve

never mentioned her, your mother. I haven’t probed, have I?”

Both shoulders jerked now, one after the other, then both together they almost cupped his head,

and now she, too, rose to her feet, saying, ”It was your mother, wasn’t it ?”

The beads of sweat rolled from his brow and down the sides of his cheeks as he muttered, ”Yes.

Yes, in a way.”

”What did she do to make you like this ?”

”Oh” - he looked downwards and shook his head from side to side - ”she was just bad-tempered

and . . . and used to box my ears. . . .”

. . . ”Oh my God!” They had sprung the distance between them and were clutching on to each

other as the house shuddered.

She hadn’t realized she had said ”Oh my God!” and she was saying it again when he cried, ”It’s

all right. It’s all right.” Then he listened for a moment before adding, ”He’s gone, over the town

way I think, the anti-aircraft’s coming from that direction.”

As he released his hold on her and went to make for the door, she shouted, ”No, no! don’t go out

yet, Dick, not yet.” Then putting her hand to her face, she said, ”There’s another one!”

Again he said, ”It’s all right; it must be in the town.”

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”And another! Oh, dear, dear, Lord!”

”Come on into the shelter.”

”No, no.” She shook her head wildly, then muttered, ”Abel. Where would he be?”

”He’ll be in the post or thereabouts and that first one was t’other side of here and nowhere near

the post, so don’t worry. Look; sit down, I’ll make you a drink.”

She allowed him to press her into a chair, and like a small girl she now sat with her hands joined

in front of her knees, her body rocking slightly all the while.

He had just handed her the cup of tea when he heard his name being shouted and before he could

get to the door Molly burst in. Banging it behind her, she stood with her back to it, one hand

gripping her throat; and now both Hilda and he were holding her, asking at the same time, ”What

is it? What’s the matter? It didn’t hit the house? It wasn’t that near.”

”No, no.” She shook her head, swallowed deeply. ”It ... it must have been the shock.”

”What must have been the shock?” Hilda was shaking her now.

Molly pulled herself away from the door and put her hand tightly over her mouth and held it

there for a moment before she said, ”She’s dead. It was after the bomb dropped. She . . . she cried

out and sat up and bumped her head on the underside of the table. I ... I thought it had knocked

her out but. . . but she hasn’t come round and -” She stopped and closed her eyes then said

slowly, ”Her heart’s not beating.”

”Come on; you could be mistaken, she’s likely in shock and her pulse is weak. Come on.” As he

went to open the door Hilda cried, ”Wait a moment. I’ll leave a note for Abel to tell him where

we are.”

Grabbing a pad off the dresser, she scribbled a few words on it and stuck it in front of the clock;

then they were all running down the yard, along the road, and up the drive towards the house.

It was only minutes later when the three of them rose from their knees and Hilda, turning to Dick,

said quietly, ”Go and find your father. Bring him as quickly as you can. . . .”

As he ran through empty streets towards the school, only once was he hailed by a warden

shouting, ”Do you want any help?”

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I

”No, no, thanks. I’m . . . I’m just going to the post, the Bower Road School one.”

He looked upwards as he ran. There was a glow in the sky towards the old town of Bog’s End,

and a brighter glow nearer still to the right of him.

There were two men on duty in the post room. He knew one of them, a Mr Blythe, and the man,

putting down a telephone quickly, said, ”You didn’t catch it?” and he replied on a gasp, ”No, no,

it’s over Swanson Terrace way I think. I saw a blaze coming from there. But . . . but it shuddered

us.” He looked round towards the other room. ”Is ... is my father about?”