A man who cried (18 page)

”I never thought you were.”

”Don’t lie, that’s why you came here. I know. Oh, I know.” She flapped her hand disdainfully at

him. ”I know the impression she’s given you. And, of course, she’s laid it on blacker because she

wants you, she wants to marry you . . . and don’t look so surprised, you can’t be that blind.

Anyway, it’s the best thing you could do.”

She turned from him and went slowly towards the couch and sat down; then looking up at him,

and her voice quiet now, she said, ”Don’t let what you heard stand in your way, she’s not to

blame for that, and I won’t tell her. I said I would, but with her kind of temperament she

wouldn’t be able to stand it. As far as she’s concerned, illegitimacy is a sin, she wouldn’t only

blame those responsible she would take the sin on to her own shoulders, being made as she is.”

He walked forward now and took a seat opposite to her before asking quietly, ”You’re halfsisters

then?”

”No, no.” She shook her head. ”No relation whatever.”

”What! . . .you mean?”

”What I mean is, Dad’s not her father and my mother wasn’t her mother.”

”She was adopted?”

in

’If

”Well, in a way you could say so. Funny.” She turned her head to the side and shook it slowly

before looking at him again and saying, ”You’ve seen my dad, haven’t you ? A scruffy little man,

five foot three inches tall ... I take after my mother” - she accompanied this statement with a

movement of her hand that started at her head and finished pointing to her feet - ”although I am

much taller than even she was. But can you see my dad, looking at him now, consumed with fires

of love ? Well, he was. He was one of twins. His brother Len inherited both looks and height.

They must have looked opposites. But they both fell in love with Annie the girl next door, not

exactly next door but along the street, and, of course, she chose Len. Well, as I understand it

from my mother who actually did live next door to them, he took himself off and nobody saw

anything of him for five years, but when he came back he picked up with my mother. As she said

herself, she had always liked him - she never used the word love. She was a shy woman was my

mother, but kindness itself, and he on the long rebound needed kindness so he married her.

”In the meantime, so the tale goes, Len and Annie who had moved from the town came back, and

from the minute they arrived Dad was never away from them. Even the night I was born he was

along there ; he didn’t see me until I was some hours old. This situation went on for five years ;

then my Uncle Len died in a pit accident - both he and Dad worked down the pit. My mother

waited for the worst to happen, that is my Dad to walk out and go to Annie’s, because he had

seen to everything, the funeral and all its details, and he was never away from her, at least for a

fortnight after my Uncle Len died. Then, so my mother told me, he came in one day almost

demented. She had gone, just walked out, left him a note to say that she was fed up with

Doncaster . . . that’s where we lived, and she was going to London. You know” - she now rose

from the couch and went again to the fireplace and, again extending her hands towards the flame,

she rubbed them together, talking all the while - ”I’m amazed at the things women do for men

and at what men expect women to do for them; even today.” Her head snapped round towards

him. ”Nothing’s altered in the last thirty years. The vote? Huh! makes you laugh, that. You know

what?” She turned fully round now and looked down on him. ”He expected my mother to

sympathize with him, he even cried, for the first time in his life my mother said she saw him cry.

He

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hadn’t cried when his brother died, nor yet when his mother and father died. Can you understand

it ? Anyway -” She now took the seat opposite to him again and, leaning back in it, resumed

quietly, ”Eighteen months passed, then one day who should turn up on the doorstep but dear

Annie, pregnant to the hilt, and I mean to the hilt for the child was born only forty-eight hours

after she stepped into the house, and as she brought it into life she went out of it.”

She paused, sighed, and then said, ”Now I can take up the story because I can remember seeing

the new-born baby lying across the foot of the bed and Mrs Williams from up the street and my

mother trying to bring back life into Annie. Later I can see myself sitting by the kitchen fire

looking into the wash-basket where the baby was, and I can see me dad sprawled half across the

kitchen table, his head buried in his arms.

”Well, the next picture I have of all this is our furniture being packed into a little van, and then Dad carrying the baby and my mother with me by the hand boarding a train. We moved straight

into 109 Temple Street. Dad had come up here and rented the house; he had arranged everything.

To all intents and purposes Hilda was his daughter and my mother was to be known as her

mother. In that quarter the obvious situation was accepted. There you have the full story ; except

for one thing, which is ironic when you think about it, all the love that he deprived my mother of

and bestowed first on his twin’s wife and then on her illegitimate child, because he never learned

who the father was, was wasted because Hilda grew up almost disliking him. He knows this and

it has turned his feelings into a love-hate relationship with her. He deprived my mother or love,

even of consideration, and he certainly deprived me of the affection due from a father because

before Hilda came on the scene he hadn’t much use for me, but from the moment she appeared

all I was good for in his eyes was seeing that no harm came to his little dear.”

She leant towards him again and there was a wry smile on her lips as she said, ”Can you imagine

how he felt when she married Peter Maxwell, a man older than himself, because if anyone was in

love with his daughter, who wasn’t his daughter, he was. . . . Don’t look so shocked.”

”What makes you think I’m shocked?” :;,.

”For a moment you looked it.” r-

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In

”Well, I can only say that my looks belie my feelings.”
F,

•
”Anyway, that’s that and I’ve no need to ask you neverlto breathe a word of it, have I ?” |

”No, you have no need.”

”Her birth certificate doesn’t give her away either. . . . Do you like her?”

Again there was a pause as if he were considering, and then he said emphatically, ”Yes; yes, I

like her.”

”You could do worse than marry her.”

”I’m . . . I’m not that way inclined.”

”Oh, well” - she laughed gently now - ”you’d better make up your mind one way or the other

because you won’t be able to stay there if you don’t. Well, you won’t, will you ?”

”Why shouldn’t I ?” His tone was on the defensive now.

”Can you imagine her consenting to having an affair with you ?”

”Who’s talking about affairs ? I wouldn’t dream about suggesting such a thing to her with her

religious outlook.”

”That’s just it, that’s just it.” Her head was bouncing towards him. ”Life would become

unbearable for both of you, she’d make it so. She’s young, she’s been married to an old man,

can’t you see you’ll soon be called upon to make a choice ? It won’t be any use thinking you

can’t be done without, she can get a manager in there any day.”

”I wasn’t under the impression that I could be done without and I’m well aware she can replace

me tomorrow.” He felt annoyed, angry at her. Now he could in a way understand why Hilda lost

her temper with her, her bluntness was disconcerting. He knew that his face was flushed, he

wanted to get up and walk out. And he was on the point of doing just that when she asked

quietly, ”Did you love your wife?” and his voice was loud in contrast as he answered briefly,

”No.” ”Never?” ,.„.;„•• ....

”A little at first; it didn’t last.”
,,-
-,

”Have you ever loved a woman?”

He stared at her, watching her face change into Alice’s. He saw her flat body take on a fleshy

bust, her hips swell into comfortable mounds, her long thin fingers with their painted nails

become blunt and roughened, and he answered on a long drawn-out breath, ”Yes, I once loved a

woman.” ,rr ...

”Very much?”

”4

He didn’t know whether it was she who had asked the question or if he had asked it of himself,

so soft was it, but he answered, ”Yes, very much, very much.”

”Do you think it would have lasted?”

”Yes, I think it would.”

”I don’t think love ever lasts, not that kind of love, not the consuming kind, the kind that’s half

pain. It isn’t fair really; anything so short-lived should be wonderful. But real love doesn’t work

out like that. All the time you’re in it it’s playing hell with you, you’re full of fear in case it isn’t going to last. You’re jealous in case you’re going to lose it to someone else. The whole damn

thing is an operation without anaesthetic.”

”Apparently you’ve had the operation?”

She looked up at him, then turned her gaze away and nodded as if to herself as she said, ”Yes,

I’ve had the operation; but only the once, not the three times I’ve mentioned. I was near eighteen,

it was my first job after leaving the typing school and within six .months I’d worked my way up

from the pool into the manager’s office. Boy! that was something to be proud of.” She shook her

head again, and now she nodded towards him as she said, ”You can bring your eyebrows down

and take that grin off your face because I didn’t fall for the manager. He had ginger hair and he

sniffed; all the time he was dictating he sniffed.” She laughed outright now. ”No, I fell, like the

fool I was, for an Adonis on the shop floor. I wouldn’t believe that he had worked his way

through most of the female staff because I reasoned one of them would surely have caught him

before this time, him being thirty. You know I went with him two and a half years. We were

courting, as the saying goes, and I became estranged from every girl in those offices; they all

wanted to be my friend and tell me I was being duped. But I knew they were just jealous, for

didn’t I see my bold bohemian boy every night, up till ten o’clock that is? That was the time I had

to be in or me dad locked the door. Can you imagine how I felt when I finally learned that the

minute he left me he made straight for his young widow woman, who had four kids. I learned the

truth from my boss - he was a nice man in spite of his sniff. He told me quite gently that my dear

Fred had sent him notice and had taken the widow and her brood to Doncaster. Huh ! of all

places, Doncaster, from where me dad had flown with the remnants of his love.

”5

Vr^

”You know something ?” She leant forward again and, placing her hands on her knees, she patted

them as she said in a tone that was full of soft bitterness, ”There wasn’t one person in that

factory who didn’t believe that I knew about his capers; in some quarters they even said I had

prevented him from marrying the poor widow woman and giving the bairns a much needed

father. In other quarters it was said I deserved all I got and that I tried to keep him by buying him presents. It was true about the presents.” Her head moved slowly up and down. ”I spent every

penny I had on him after paying my board. Anyway, I know what it’s like to be in love. . . . Was

it anything like that with you ?”

”No, with me it was a beautiful thing on both sides.”

”What happened?” •r’ ”She died.”

”Oh . . . oh, I’m sorry. Would . . . would you like a cup of coffee?”

”I wouldn’t mind.”

Left alone in the room, he lay back on the couch and slowly he began to move his hand first

across his chin, then up and down each cheek. It was a sure sign that he was agitated, and

recognizing it, he stopped the motion abruptly and joined his hands tightly in front of him.

Whether he liked it or not he was becoming involved in this family; but how deep it would go

was another question. Suddenly, he asked himself how much money he had and gave himself the

known answer, seventy-two pounds. It was quite a sum - he had never had that much in his life

before - but even so it wasn’t enough to set up a business. As things stood now he was on to a

good thing : Hilda had refused to take payment for their midday meal and he was living rent free,

so out of his four pounds a week all he had to do was to provide for the odd meals and to clothe

them both. The latter he had done to excess with Dick. But if he were to strike out on his own he

would have to rent a shop and find some place for them both to live, and with the particular

business he had in mind, which would come under the heading of fancy goods, it would take

some long time to become established. As a side line he could see it doing well, but to make a

real living out of, no, it wasn’t possible.

What he would do if he were faced with the alternative Florrie had suggested he didn’t know,

except he would tell Hilda the truth.

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And what would be the result of that ? He could even now see the look in her eyes and hear her

voice saying, ”You mean to say you walked out just like that and left your wife simply because

she objected to your affair with another woman ?” Now if it had been Florrie here to whom he

had to speak the truth there would be no fear of her disdain; but then Florrie, by her own words,