A man who cried (33 page)

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”Well, you’re not likely to find out stafltjin’ there glued to the bloody spot, are you ?”

Abel closed his eyes for a moment, smiled weakly, then hurried across the room and into the

bedroom. But once inside he again became still and looked towards the bed where Florrie was

sitting propped up with pillows, and to the side of her in a cot was the howling baby.

He gazed from one to the other and it was she, like her father, who had to stir him into

movement, saying, ”Well, if you’re coming in, come in; there’s somebody wants to see you.”

Ignoring the child for a moment, he walked slowly up to the bed; then sitting on its edge, he leant

towards her and gathered her into his arms. Presently, he drew himself away and, looking into

her face, asked quietly, ”Are you all right ?”

”Perfectly all right.” She cocked her chin upwards. >.

”When . . . when?”

”Near midnight last night.”

”But . . . but you were all right when I left you?”

”Yes, I was, but you weren’t gone five minutes until I knew something was afoot. I phoned Mrs

Kent and she came straightaway; then later on the doctor came. He said it was the quickest thing

he had seen in years.”

”Was it bad, hard?”

”Well” - she sighed - ”I wouldn’t want to go through it again this week.”

He laughed and drooped his head against her brow, and as he sat like this she said, ”You’re not

interested at all in what we’ve got?”

”Oh! Florrie. Florrie!” He rose quickly now from the bed and went round to the other side and

stood over the cot looking down on the crinkled face, on the working lips and blinking eyelids

and the head with a tuft of hair sticking up from the crown.

After a moment, lifting his eyes to her, he said, ”What is it?”

”It’s a baby.” Her voice was loud now and tinged with laughter; then she added softly, ”A girl.”

”A girl.” His smile widened. ”I’m glad. Oh yes, I’m glad. Are you?”

”Yes, of course. I wouldn’t have minded either way, but I think I am ... I am glad it’s a girl.”

He came round the foot of the bed again and sat beside her,

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then said anxiously, ”How are you managing ? You’re going to see about Mrs Kent staying?”

”Don’t worry, Mrs Kent’s been. She’s coming in every day; and Dad . . . well” - she nodded

towards the bedroom door ”he’s been marvellous. Of course he shocks everybody within earshot

but nevertheless he’s . . . he’s been marvellous.” Her face lost its smile now as she ended, ”I’ve

been glad of him. Abel.”

”Yes, yes, I suppose you have ... I should have been here.”

”I’m glad you weren’t.”

”You are? Why?”

”Well. Well, you would have stayed all night and there would have been questions. You know

what I mean.”

”Oh! Florrie.” Again he was holding her, talking into her hair now. ”How am I going to stand

it ?”

”It will become a pattern. Don’t worry, we’ll work something out.”

Raising his head he looked at her steadily as he said, ”Don’t you want me with you all the time?”

”Oh, don’t be silly!” She bowed her chin on to her chest, then muttered, ”Don’t make me say it.

It was bad enough before but since that do with Dad and her. . . . Abel” - she now raised her head

and looked at him - ”I couldn’t live with myself if ... if I knew she was going to be left alone, I

mean altogether. To be deprived of her family and then of her husband, well, it’s enough to send

her round the bend. Aw, Abel” - she now put her arms tightly about him - ”I want you, I want

you every minute of the day, but I know, I know meself and . . . and I couldn’t be really happy if I took you completely away from her. I ... I know I have you, every bit of you, so it’s not hard for

me to say ’Don’t leave her’, although I know it’s hard for you to stay. Anyway, leave things as

they are for a time; you’ll find it’ll work out. Strange how things work out. Be happy, be happy

with me in this moment because I’ve never been so happy and contented in my whole life. I’m so

happy I’m beginning to fear that something will happen to shatter it. It’s got nothing to do with

you or me, I don’t know what it is, I suppose it’s just a natural fear that happiness brings, you

become terrified of losing it. Anyway, don’t worry; you’ll see, everything will work out. You

know, as I lay here today I thought how strange it is about all the little things that happen to make wishes come true, it’s as if life is cut out to a

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pattern. And I think it is, I think our lives are cut out to a pattern from the beginning and that one day we’ll be sewn together like that” - she took his hand and linked her fingers tightly in his ”and nothing or no one will be able to unpick us.” .. .V j(k

*U

It was the first batch of the miniature ducks he had taken to the shop in weeks. The hours he now

spent nursing his daughter left him little spare time for his workshop, but during this past week

he had gone at his whittling at a pace which suggested he had a time limit to get an order out. His

earnest application to his woodwork craft was not solely created by the fact that he would from

now on need to add money to his savings, although if there wasn’t as yet any need to support the

mother he was nevertheless determined from the start to be responsible for the expenses of his

daughter. She, he had decided, was going to have the best that could be obtained, and black

market prices were high, even where baby commodities were concerned. But his hurry sprang

from some deep urge that kept pestering him to add to his capital, telling him he could do nothing

without money.

So on this particular winter’s day of alternate flurries of sleet or snow and hail he pushed open

the door of Roger Lester’s art shop. The term art had at one time encompassed a great many

sidelines. Besides artists’ materials, various pieces of china depicting scenes of Newcastle and

Durham would have been on display, even Sunderland cut glass. But now Mr Lester sold

whatever he could get his hands on and a number of empty shelves in the shop showed that he

wasn’t too successful; and therefore his welcome of Abel was warm and genuine. ”Hello there,”

he said. ”Am I glad to see you ! Where’ve you been ? I thought you must have got it in one of the

raids. Ah. Ah” - he dug with his finger the flat box that Abel was carrying - ”come on let’s see

what you’ve got in here.”

’Not over much this time, I’m afraid, but I’m getting down to it again.”

The box on the counter and now opened, Mr Lester lifted the

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birds and animals one after the other from their aest Jf cotton wool. ”Ah, this is new. A

blackbird?” I i

”No, a rook.” I |

”Well, there’s not much difference, they’re both blacTt. And a swan. Nice, nice. But only two of

them ? Ah, the ducks.” He now picked up two of the small ducks and placed them on his palm,

saying as he nodded his head, ”Of all the animals you do you can’t beat these. You’d think that

little fellow was trying to pick fleas off himself.” He traced the rounded neck back to the tail.

”Work of art this. I’ve always said it, haven’t I, a work of art. You should have gone in for this in a big way instead of cars and bikes.”

”I might yet.”

”You’d be wise. Well, I can assure you these won’t be on the shelf for long, but I shall keep

some back for special customers. People can’t get anything to make a decent present these days,

they’d pay any price for them. Why, a funny thing happened not an hour gone. You know my

Andy’s little ’un, Stephen ? Well, I : gave him one of your last batch - it was this one, the duck

preening its feathers - and you know he carries it around everywhere; holds it in his fist as he

goes to sleep his dad says. Well, there he was in the shop standing over there, not an hour ago as

I said, and in comes this woman, out for a day I think because I’ve never seen her before, not

round here, and she didn’t speak our lingo either. She wanted some writing paper, and there was

Stephen buzzing around the shop holding the duck out as if it were an aeroplane you know how

bairns do - and what does she do but she takes it from him and stares at it. And then she says to

me, ’Do you sell these?’ and I said, ’I do when I ca< -; :;t them.’ And then she says, ’Do you

make them?’ and I laughed and said, ’Me? No! no! I haven’t got clever fingers like that.’ Then

after a moment she asks, ’Who makes them then?’ and I said, ’Oh, a man at the other end of the

town.’ And at that she said, ’Oh, is it a Mr -’ I think she said, ’Mason’ and I said ’No, his name’s Gray.’ Then she turned the thing over in her hs:;d and looked at it, and I am positively sure she

would have pocketed it if Stephen hadn’t said, ’Give me me duck.’ She then wanted to know if

you had a shop and I said no, you had a garage. . . . What is it? What’s the matter? . . . Here . . .

you all right ? Come and sit down, man. Here, sit down on the chair.”

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”No, no.” Abel shook his head. ”What. . . what was she like, this woman?”

”Thinnish, in her forties I should say, decently put on, whitish face, small features you know, bit

peevish looking I thought.”

”What. . . what time did you say she was here?”

”Oh, about an hour ago.”

Abel turned swiftly towards the door now and Mr Lester called, ”What about settling up?”

”I’ll come back later.”

”All right, if it’s all the same with you, all right.”

He was in the street now and only just stopped himself from running. God Almighty! Lena. After

all these years, Lena. It couldn’t be anyone else. Nobody would have recognized the duck like

that.

~Lena ! What must he do ? What could he do ?

He ran across the road now and jumped on a bus. His mind was racing, throwing questions at

him, giving answers, answers without hope. He knew that it wouldn’t take her two minutes to

connect the name Gray with that of Mason. Oh Hilda. Hilda. If he had only told her. Now this

revelation on top of all the rest would, as Florrie had said, surely turn her brain. She had been

acting strangely of late too ; he was positive she knew about the baby, and he couldn’t

understand why she wasn’t bringing it into the open. But Florrie said she could; Florrie said that

in her position she would be doing exactly the same because she wouldn’t want to lose him. Oh !

God. Lose him ? If he could only lose himself.

Two stops before the house he jumped off the bus but remained standing on the edge of the

pavement until the bus had receded far into the distance. He was feeling sick and not a little

afraid. One thing he knew he couldn’t hope for, that Lena’s character had softened with the

years. She would show him no mercy, she would glory in bringing him down.

The panic swirling in him made him sweat, it ran from his hair down into his eyes, and as he

stepped off the pavement a lorry driver tooted his horn sharply and, sticking his head out of the

cab, shouted, ”Why don’t you wait for a bomb, mate!”

Having reached the other side of the road he stood perfectly still for a full three minutes; then he squared his shoulders, jerked his chin upwards out of his collar, smoothed the pockets of his

double-breasted greatcoat downwards as if pressing out the

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creases, and began to march, his step quickening as he neaifed the yard. He hurried up it, and into

the kitchen, and came face to face with his wife. . . .

Lena had hardly altered except that she seemed smaller; she was still thin, and there was no trace

showing in her face of the girl he had married, but there was in every line of it the woman who

had screamed abuse at him when he walked out of the cottage door almost twelve years ago.

”Hello, Abel.”

He couldn’t associate her voice with a cat teasing a mouse before the kill, it was more like the

composite baying of dogs before they tore the stag to shreds ; and if ever there was a stag at bay

he knew that he was in a like position now.

”She won’t believe me.” Lena moved her thumb slowly over her shoulder towards where Hilda

was sitting in the high-backed wooden chair staring at him as if she were paralysed in both

speech and movement. ”She’s hardly opened her mouth, she’s been struck dumb. You’re a bad

lad, Abel, aren’t you, going through a form of marriage with another woman when you already

had one? By the way, where’s me son? . . . What!” She gave a short sharp mirthless laugh now.

”Have you been struck dumb an’ all? Oh, you’re wondering how I found you out, are you ? Well,

you shouldn’t have gone on making them little ducks ; nobody could make little ducks like you.

Well now, what are you going to do about me ? Eh ? Eh ?”

When surprisingly he took a quick step forward towards her she seemed nonplussed but when,

his voice holding a deep, firm ring, he said, ”What I’m going to do is this, I’m going to tell you to get out and do your worst. I walked out on you twelve years ago because I couldn’t stand the

sight of you any longer and I haven’t changed,” she turned her head quickly and looked towards

Hilda, then back to him, and she cried, ”By! you’ve got a bloody nerve. You walked out on me

because you couldn’t stand the sight of me, you say ? You walked out on me ? You did not, you

scuttled from Hastings when the woman you were carrying on with was murdered by her

husband. I’ve just told her that.” She thumbed again towards Hilda, but still Hilda made no move

whatever. ”An’ if you hadn’t gone her brothers would have scuttled you, there would have been