A man who cried (13 page)

again, do I?” -••••-•• •>:•• ’ -

”No, Dad.” •- -v; ’ r

”You want to stay here, don’t you?” T

”Oh yes, Dad, yes. And the lady’s nice.”

Abel turned his head to the side. All the ladies had been nice to the boy, except the mad woman.

He knew the symptom, the need for mother love, and this latest one was to him likely the nicest

of all. And for himself too, oh aye. And the safest, because she was married. And with both her

and him being religious, there’d be no hanky-panky here as on the boat or with that maniac. No,

if he worked for them as he would work, he could be set for years ahead. The boy would have

schooling and he perhaps would have peace of mind in time when Alice sank below the pain in

his heart.

”You understand? Now tell me you understand.”

’Yes, Dad, I understand.’

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Abel had been working for Peter Maxwell now for six months and to him it seemed like six

years, six pleasant years, six pleasant lifetimes. He did a six-day week, often twelve hours each

day. On Sunday he rested as they all did. No one worked in Mr Maxwell’s establishment on a

Sunday; even the meals were cooked on a Saturday and eaten cold on the day of the Lord, as Mr

Maxwell was apt to describe it.

Abel knew he had found favour in his boss’s eyes where his work was concerned, and with his

sober manner of living too. There was only one snag, as both Mr Maxwell and Mrs Maxwell and

Abel himself saw it, he wouldn’t attend, and they wouldn’t get him to attend, church on a

Sunday.

With tongue in cheek he had tried to tell them that in his view he could be as near God while

walking on a hillside as he could within four walls, for wasn’t God said to be everywhere? Yes,

they admitted, but He touched man personally within the precincts of four sanctified walls.

As for Dick, the boy bore no resemblance to the white, wet, pasty-faced child who had come to

this house those months ago. His cheeks were rosy, he had put on flesh, and he had grown a little,

but above all he was happy: he was happy in his school, he was happy up in the rooms above the

garage, but he was happiest, Abel realized, when he was in that kitchen.

They had their main meal in the kitchen at dinner time with Mr and Mrs Maxwell, and

sometimes on baking day they were invited to tea. At other times, such as breakfast and a late

snack, Abel saw to these up in the rooms.

And Abel was happy that the boy had made two friends, diverse in mentality but nevertheless

close. The first one was the retarded Benny Laton. Benny was no longer a boy, at least he didn’t

look a boy, he was a man of twenty-two, but he talked and acted like a

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backward ten-year-old. But right from the first day he had taken to Dick, and Dick to him, and

whenever possible the boy would be at Benny’s side handing him tools, purposely the wrong

ones to hear him laugh as he shouted, ”Why! man, you’re daft; that ain’t a spanner!” or ”That be

a hammer not a nail.”

The other friend was a twelve-year-old girl who, as though in • reverse from Benny, was being

made into a woman before her time. She was the neighbour’s daughter, the neighbour being a

Mrs Esther Quinton Burrows who lived in the big house separated from the Maxwells by the

strip of paddock and the garden.

Molly was Esther Burrows’s only daughter, and since four years ago when her mother decided,

on the death of her husband, to become an invalid, she had been used as nurse, companion, and

housekeeper. The latter position she continually assumed when the maid would decide, on the

spur of the moment, she couldn’t stand the whims and demands of her mistress any longer and

would walk out, which emphasized that the pressures imposed by Mrs Burrows were indeed

great because work was as scarce for women „ as it was for men.

But when the young girl could escape from the house and her mother she would run over the

paddock, stoop under the wire, skirt the Maxwells’s vegetable garden and so come into the yard

where she would invariably bring her running to a halt and look about her in order to find out

where Dick might be.

On this particular day it happened to be baking day and teatime when she arrived.

Seeing no one about, she hesitated in the middle of the yard; then looking towards the kitchen

window and realizing they were all at their tea, she was about to turn away when the door opened

and Hilda Maxwell called, ”Come away in, Molly! We’re just on finishing.” Then as the girl

came shyly into the room Hilda turned towards the table and, wagging her finger towards Dick,

cried, ”And don’t gobble your last mouthful.” It was as if she were talking to her own child,

butwhen

she addressed Molly it was as she would a visitor, saying, ”Sit yourself down, Molly. Now

would you like a cup of tea and a piece of tea-cake ?”

”Oh yes, Mrs Maxwell. Oh, thank you.”

A few minutes later Molly was eating the freshly baked tea-cake and sipping at her tea while the

four at the table who had evidently finished the meal sat waiting.

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The silence could have proved awkward but Abel was used to it by now: no one started the meal

at this table or left it without a blessing being asked, so he looked at Molly and smiled quietly at her. She was a nice little lass ; he had grown very fond of her over the past months. He had never

seen her mother but from what he had heard of her he imagined she was a lady born not to dirty

her hands. The trouble was she had been brought up without having to dirty them in the very

house where she now lay on a couch most of the day. He supposed her complaint was what in the

last century would have been called the vapours, which was another name for laziness or escape

from life.

”There now, you’ve finished.” It was Peter Maxwell speaking, and having done so he looked

around the table, then bent his head and said, ”Lord, for what you have been gracious enough to

provide us with this day I thank you on behalf of all here present. Amen.”

”Amen. Amen. Amen.”

”There now.” His voice altering, Peter Maxwell rose from the table and, bending towards Molly,

said, ”I suppose you’ve come over here, young lady, to waste my third assistant’s time?” He

pulled a mock, stern face at the girl, and she, her eyes twinkling, said, ”Yes, I suppose you could

say that, Mr Maxwell.”

The reply sent Peter Maxwell’s head back and he let out a roar of laughter, and Hilda Maxwell,

as her husband had done, also pulled a mock prim face as she said, ”There’s a saucy miss for

you, straight to the point.” And she nodded from one to the other, lastly towards Abel, who

nodded back at her as he grinned widely. But then the grin was swept suddenly from his face and

the laughter in the room died as if it had been cut off by a knife for Peter Maxwell was now bent

over double and was groaning aloud as he hugged his chest.

”Oh my goodness ! my goodness !” Hilda was holding on to him at one side and Abel at the

other. ”Get him down, on to the mat.”

”Peter! Peter! are you all right?” She went to straighten the huddled form lying on the rug now,

but Abel said quickly, ”Don’t touch him, get the doctor.”

”I can ring for him.” Molly was going towards the door. ”I know the number; it’s the same doctor

as ours, isn’t it?”

Hilda turned towards her, saying, ”Yes, yes. Tell him . . . tell him Mr Maxwell has collapsed. It’s

. . . it’s serious, tell him.”

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-*>*

L

”Get a blanket to put over him.” .
. -T,

She looked at Abel, then nodded before springing to her feet.

A minute later as Abel was helping to tuck the blanket around the prostrate man he felt a

change in the man’s body and his groaning stopped. He looked in apprehension down on

to the drawn face, which was no longer twisted, and the lines .seemed to have

disappeared from it, leaving the skin smooth.

He raised his head and met Hilda’s eyes, and she whimpered, ”Oh no, no ! It can’t be.

He’s . . . he’s had them before. Oh no ! No ! No ! No ! He’s not, is he ?” She was

appealing to Abel now and he said, ”I . . .1 don’t know, I don’t think so, his pulse is very

weak.” He was holding Peter Maxwell’s wrist and his fingers could feel no beat under

them, but he couldn’t say to her, ”He’s dead.” He couldn’t even say that to himself, it had

all happened so suddenly. He had died on a laugh. Yes, he had died on a laugh, he had

died laughing. This religious man . . . this good, really good religious man had died

laughing. It was a good way to go.

It was nine o’clock. Peter Maxwell was laid out in the sitting-room. They had brought a

single bed downstairs. The undertaker’s man having helped with this task, it was Mrs

Maxwell herself, the young girl, as Abel still thought of her, who saw to the undressing

and last dressing of him. And now here she was sitting at the kitchen table, her joined

hands resting upon it, her eyes, quite dry for as yet she had not shed a tear, looking

straight at him as she said, ”My father will have to be told, I suppose, and our Florae.”

From his seat at the other side of the table, Abel blinked but said nothing. He had never

before heard her mention her father or her sister; but then why should she? He knew

nothing really about her except that she was Mrs Maxwell and efficient in all she did, and

kind. Then his surprise was registered openly on his face when she said, ”Would you

mind going and telling them?”

”What! . . . You mean they’re hereabouts?”

”Very much so.” There was a note of bitterness in her voice now. ”I’ve never seen them

for more than two years; he was . . .

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J

(

he was against me marrying Mr Maxwell.” She always referred to her husband as Mr Maxwell.

She now unclasped her hands and, putting one to her cheek, she rubbed it up and down before

saying, ”I ... I could see his point because Mr Maxwell was older than my father by three years,

being sixty-two. But . . . but I tried to tell him it wasn’t what he thought, I mean our

association ... I mean -” She looked towards the fire now, then said under her breath, ”He

wouldn’t listen, he wouldn’t listen to my reasons.”

Abel remained silent, thinking he could understand her father’s attitude in not wanting to listen

to the reasons why a girl like her was marrying a man of sixty-two. Yet Peter Maxwell hadn’t

looked anything near that, fiftyish yes, but not sixty-two. And that was over two years ago, so she

said. Well! well!

”And then there’s our Florrie.” She was looking at him again. ”I don’t want to tell her anything

but I suppose I’ll have to. If I don’t he will . . . Father, they’re as thick as thieves and of like minds, godless both of them.” Her full-lipped mouth puckered itself, expressing how she felt

about her godless relations.

She had risen to her feet now and gone to a drawer in the dresser from which she took out a cloth

and, with a sweeping movement of her arms, spread it over the table. The routine of setting the

breakfast followed, and as she worked she talked as if to herself, yet all the while addressing him.

”I’ll be surprised if you find her in,
off
jaunting likely. But if she is in she won’t be alone, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. Oh no; not our Florrie. He’ll be there. If not him, somebody

else. Yet knowing what was afoot my father took her part. Can’t believe it when you think of it.”

Abel looked at the table and noticed with surprise that it wasn’t set for one, for herself alone

now, but for three. She stopped in her bustling, her glance following his, and without any

preamble she said, ”I can’t bear eating on my own, you and Dick can come over for breakfast.

Anyway for the time being. And I’ll have to keep busy to stop myself thinking. If you don’t feel

like going round and telling them tonight, tomorrow morning first thing will do ; but . . . but” -

now her fingers were clasping and unclasping themselves - ”I don’t want to be left alone here the

night, and . . . and if she’s got any decency in her she’ll offer to stay.”

”I’ll go at once.” He was on his feet. ”Just tell me the names and addresses.”

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”Well, our Florrie’s not hard to find. She lives on Brampton Hill. Yes” - she nodded at him - ”not

ten minutes’ walk away.k I ... I think it’s forty-six. Anyway, it’s a big house, one of thoseS that’s been turned into flats. It’s the only one with big iron gates on p that side of the road. I don’t

know which flat she lives in; there’ll likely be names on the doors. But my father . . . well, you’ll have to go further afield. He’s” - she turned her head now to the side as if about to admit

something shameful as she added - ”in Bog’s End, 109 Temple Street. My father’s name is

Donnelly, and hers is the same.”

As he made for the door she turned to him again, saying softly, even sadly, ”When you see 109

you’ll understand why I’m here in this house.” She pointed her forefinger towards the floor. ”But

makes no matter, tell them that Mr Maxwell’s dead. He . . . my father will likely go out and drink

to it, but our Florrie, well, her reactions remain to be seen.”

He paused and looked hard at her, then said, ”I’ll . . . I’ll bring the boy down to keep you

company, he won’t be in bed, he won’t go until I go, and I’ll be as quick as I can.”

When she nodded at him he turned from her and went out, closing the door quietly after him. In