A man who cried (31 page)

”ome corner of his mind there was pride in him that this flesh of his was making a stand against

immorality. His own retaliation had been against the immorality of a nation, the immorality of

killing, but his son’s was a more common kind. He was making his stand against the immorality

of sinning if you like, the sinning of one person against another, and when he dubbed it sin his

son wouldn’t be thinking of the social code but of the pain such immorality, such sin inflicts on

another human being.

He had the urge to turn on him now and say, ”I’m going to tell her. Right now I’m going to tell

her”: but what would that mean ? He would have to tell her not only that she wasn’t his wife but

that he was soon to be the father of her sister’s child. . . . God! No! No! The boy was right, he

couldn’t do it, for there was no way he could soften the blow; and she didn’t deserve to be felled,

as the truth would surely fell her.

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”Look, dear.” Dick put his arm around Molly’s shoulder. ”It would have happened some time,

she had a bad heart. And you haven’t a thing to blame yourself for. Good lord ! after the way

you’ve looked after her, and what you’ve put up with from her?”

Molly lifted her head from her hands and as she stared over the table towards the door that led

into the hall she said, ”You remember what we were talking about last night?”

”Yes, yes, I remember, we were talking about wishing people dead. We could have talked about

it last week, last year, and it wouldn’t have affected you, but we just had to talk about it last

night; and now you’re going to enjoy having a guilt complex about it.”

”Enjoy!” She snapped round in her chair, and he stared down into her face as he said, nodding

his head, ”Yes, that’s what I said, enjoy.”

Molly made no reply as she looked back at him. Within the last twenty-four hours he seemed to

have changed, he was a different person. Only once today had she seen any nervous movement in

his shoulder. With an authority that she would have attributed only to his father he had handled

the funeral arrangements, he had directed the men when they moved her mother to the mortuary,

and now he was speaking to her as he had never spoken before,, with a note of maturity in his

voice.

As she stared at him a strange thought entered her head: she knew that he would never again

laugh at his own shortness of stature, and that more likely he’d hit out if anybody mentioned it,

even in a jocular way. He was right too about the guilt feelings, not that she was enjoying them,

but that she was allowing herself to be plagued with them. It was stupid of her because she had

nothing to blame herself for where her mother was concerned;

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she had been a hand-maiden to her since she could toddle. But one thing she was sure of in her

mind, she wasn’t going to say she should have loved her mother, for not even a saint could have

stood the daily railings of a person like her mother. Even so, she wished . . • yes, she wished that they hadn’t talked as they did ’ast night, because after he had gone she had stood over there by

the kitchen door and, looking across the hall, she had pictured the querulous creature lying under

the table and when the voice had come to her again, crying, ”Do you hear me, Molly?” she had

thought how wonderful life would be without her. And now here she was without her, and

wonder was far away, and she was sick with the feeling of guilt and remorse.

”Come on. Come! Aunt Hilda’s holding dinner for us.” He smiled at her now. ”You know what

she’s like if she’s got to wait for a meal. She likes her food, and she’s beginning to show it for

she’s getting fatter. She’s always nibbling. They say it’s . . .”

He stopped himself from going further and adding, ”A sign <->f frustration, or to fill some

need.” Recalling the open row that ne a had with his father last night, and his discovery of his

Aunt Florrie’s condition, it was more than ever clear to him now that there was an emptiness that

needed filling in the woman who had been a mother to him for so long and that she could only

attempt to assuage it by eating.

”Come on.” He had her by the hand and just as he went to open the door he turned and, taking

her into his arms, he looked into her face as he said, ”Everything’s going to be plain sailing for

us two from now on; whatever happens to anybody else things are going to be right for you and

me, understand ?”

She looked into the so familiar face. It seemed to have added a number of years on to itself

overnight, and she nodded her head but made no comment, but when he kissed her with a short

hard kiss on the lips she thought wryly, Funny, how compensations are handed out. His Aunt

Hilda would say, ”God works in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.” And she knew it was

a wonder. Oh yes, it was nothing short of a wonder that Dick loved her. She had only to look in

the glass to realize how great was the wonder. And the wonder was intensified by the knowledge

that Dick considered the luck to be all on his side.

On the step he paused as he said, ”We’ll cut across the field. Your field, do you realize that? It’s your field now.”

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--

IT

She glanced at him sideways as she said, ”I hope it’ll soon br ours.”

”Aw, Molly!” He shook his head. ”I wasn’t thinking along those lines.”

”I know you weren’t but -” She leant her head towards him and smiled a small knowing smile as

she said, ”I bet it hasn’t escaped your Aunt Hilda’s notice.”

”No, you’re right, I bet it hasn’t. But it’s your land and you do what you like with it.”

”We’ll see.”

They rounded the back of the outbuildings and came through the passage into the yard; then both

stopped and glanced at each other as the sound of raised angry voices came from the kitchen. *””

After a moment of listening Dick said, ”That isn’t Dad; come on. . . . Look.” He stopped and

pointed to where the two dogs were tied by a length of string to the drainpipe, and he said under

his breath, ”Mr Donnelly.”

When they opened the kitchen door both Hilda and the old man looked sharply towards them ;

then almost instantly Mr Donnelly turned his verbal attack on Dick. Pointing at him but looking

at Hilda, he cried, ”You could take them off the road, give shelter to any scum, but when it

comes to your own . . .”

”Shut up!”

”Don’t tell me to shut up, girl.”

As the old man staggered towards the table and leant on it for support Dick realized that although

his speech wasn’t yet slurred nevertheless he had had a lot to drink. He was again yelling at his

daughter, ”Don’t tell me to shut up. You know what you are, you’re an ungrateful sod. You

always have been and -” He half turned and, addressing himself to Dick and Molly, he cried, ”All

I was askin’ was shelter, a room for few nights, an’ what did she say, no, not in her house. I could

’ave the rat hole up above the garage, but only for few nights mind. ...”

”They’re . . . they’re very nice rooms, Mr Donnelly,” Dick now put in quietly. ”We ... we lived in

them; they were cornfortable ”

”Don’t you tell me how long ya lived in ’em. I ... I know how long ya lived in ’em, lad. An’ she

had them all done up fancy for ya. But what’re they now, eh ? Woodwork shop ; least they were

two years gone back when I climbed those stairs.”

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”There’s only one room a workshop, Mr Donnelly.”

”Well, t’other room ain’t gettin’ me, boy. If it’s so good you . . . you go up there an’ I’ll take

your bunk. . . . Aye; aye. Now that’s fair, isn’t it?”

Before Dick could make any reply Hilda shouted, ”There’s going to be no exchange of any kind.

You’re just doing this on purpose to ... to upset me. You’ve got plenty of cronies down at your

own end who’d give you shelter. . . . And what about out Florrie?”

”Our Florrie ?” He turned to her again. ”Our Florrie’d put me up like a shot if she could, but

she’s only got one bedroom^ you’ve got four of ’em up ’bove.” He thumbed towards the ceiling.

”And anyroad she’s hardly room for herself, and when het belly gets emptied next month or so

she’ll want all the room she can find. She put me up on the couch last night an’ me dogs an’ all,

an’ it was your man who said, ’If ya want a bed come round, Fred.’ Didn’t he?” he now appealed

to Dick. ”You were there, weren’t ya, on Florrie’s drive when he said it ?”

”What did you say? Where?” Hilda was walking slowly from the fireplace to the end of the table,

but she didn’t look at the olc} man, she looked towards Dick as she said to him, ”What’s this ?

Were you at our Florrie’s last night ?”

He swallowed deeply. ”Just for a minute,” he said.

”Just for a minute ?” she repeated. ”You went to the post to get your father if I remember, didn’t

you ? If he was at the post how did he come to be at our Florrie’s ?”

”He ... he had just called to see if she was all right.”

As she nodded at him the colour of her face changed, even het neck looked red; then turning her

gaze on her father she demanded, ”What do you mean about ... ?” She hesitated and the old man

cried at her, ”Go on, say it. Soil your mouth, lass, soil your mouth. I said when her belly empties

an’ the bairn comes.”

As Dick watched her hand clutch at the end of the table there arose in him a momentary hatred

against the old man, but more so against his father. But the latter feeling wasn’t momentary, it

was already there.

”You didn’t know ? Well, you wouldn’t, would ya” - the old fellow was still yeiling - ”you never

look the side she’s on. She’s scum to you, but you’re not fit to wipe her boots. Do you hear me?

You’re not fit to wipe her boots. An’ she’s done something

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that you couldn’t manage, for all her age; aye, she has»^

”Get out! Get out this minute!” Her fingers began to claw along the edge of the table as if in

search of something to’ grip, and then she was screaming at him, ”Get out ! Do you hear me ?”

and it stressed the height of her feelings when she cried at him, ”God! I don’t know, I don’t know

how I ever came to be connected with you. Out!” Her arm was outstretched, her finger pointing

towards the door. But the old man didn’t move ; he had been leaning over the table supporting

himself on his hands, but now slowly he straightened himself and seemed to take on inches and,

strangely, both his voice and his mien appeared sober and there was a depth of deep fury in his

tone as he said, ”Well now, lass, I’m gona relieve your mind by tellin’ you somethin’, aye, by

tellin’ you somethin’. An’ it’s this, you’re not connected with me, do you hear ? Eh, do you

hear ? What’ll you say if I tell you you no more belong to me than those two there do.” He flung

his arm to the side. ”You’ll be relieved to know, lass, that you’re a bastard. You were born a little bastard an’ you’ve grown into a big bastard. Aye, by gum! if there was ever a true word spoken

I’ve just said it.”

He paused and now he smiled, a rather terrible smile, as he said, ”You’re losing your colour, lass.

I’d sit down if I was you ’cos there’s more to come.”

Hilda didn’t sit down but she backed from the table as if from a reptile and when her heel

touched the fender she stopped. Her lips apart, her eyes wide, she stared at him like an entranced

hare as he now, in the same terrible tone, went on talking. He talked and he talked, giving her

every sordid detail of his love life; and then there was almost the sound of tears in his voice when he said, ”I took you on as a sort of lost love, I devoted me life to you. Aye, I did, I devoted me

life to you. Nothin’ was too good for you, the others could go to hell but you must have, and you

know, there’s a thing called irony, and by ! I’ve often thought an’ all that God must have handed

that out as a punishment to me ’cos the irony of it was you never took to me. Not from the time

you could toddle you never took to me ; you took to Annie. Oh aye, you took to Annie, but not to

me. You got under me skin but I put up with it ’cos I saw your mother in everything you did. But

now” - his voice rose sharply - ”I know that if I’d married her she would have likely been as big a

bitch as you, ’cos you’ve

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got it from some place. On the other hand though you could have got it from him who did the

trick on her. But only God knows who that was, likely one of many. Aye, lass, grope for support,

I think you’d better sit down.”

”Leave her alone, Mr Donnelly.” Dick moved towards Hilda. ”And I think you’d better go.”

”Bugger me eyes ! don’t you start, young ’un, else I’ll soon deal with you. I’ll go when I’m

ready, you hear me! I’ll go when I’m

ready.”

”Sit down. Come, sit down, Aunt Hilda.”

Hilda didn’t sit down, what she did was to push Dick’s hand aside; then gulping in her throat, she

stretched her neck upwards two or three times before she spoke, and as she spoke she bent her

body forward in the direction of the old man and what she said was, ”Do you know something ?

Do you know something,
Mr Fred Donnelly
? That’s the best news I’ve heard for years, it’s the best news I’ve heard in me life.” Her voice was rising almost to a scream now. ”You think

you’ve done me down, don’t you, by spewing this at me ? Well, you couldn’t have done me a

better service. Now I feel clean. Do you hear me ? I feel clean because I know I’m not connected

with you. Now again I say
get out. Get out of my house and I never want to set eyes on you again
ever. Ever.”