A man who cried (32 page)

The old man remained standing. His jaw moving from side to side ground his teeth into audible

sound. Then almost jumping round he made for the door, dragged it open, paused for a moment

to unloosen the dogs, then went down the yard in a staggering run.

Dick stood and watched him for a moment before turning to Molly, who had stood mute through

all this. He motioned to her to go to Hilda, who had now turned and was standing with her raised

arms and hands pressing against the mantelborder, her head drooped forward in between them,

and he whispered to her, ”I’ll get Dad ”

Abel was at the far end of the garage working on a lathe and when Dick made frantic gestures to

him to stop the machine he did so, then said, ”What’s the matter?”

”Everything, I should say.” Dick’s tone was the same as he had used last night on the walk back

from Florae’s.

I’What do you mean, everything?” Mr Donnelly’s just been. He must have taken you at your

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word that there would be a room for him here. V$ell, Aunt Hilda seemed to have other ideas

about having him in the house and she told him so. He was very drunk, at least he was when I

first saw him but I think he’s sobered up now. He ... he made a disclosure which he imagined

would floor her. Well apparently it didn’t. But that might just be on the surface. . . .” ! Abel was wiping his hands on a piece of tow as he said, briskly,

”What disclosure? What did he say? Get on with it.” j ”Oh, you needn’t worry.” Dick’s face was

tight. ”He told her

! that Florrie was going to have a child but he didn’t mention the

man ... he must have forgetten.” ;j ”Now, now! lad, don’t you start that again. What did he come

ill to sa^?”

i!*j* ”Apparently he didn’t come to say anything, he only wanted

to stay here, but when she wouldn’t have him he just told her that

she doesn’t belong to him. He told a long tale about a woman he

!ii loved, someone who married his brother, and after he was killed

; in the pit she went off and got herself pregnant with somebody

^ else.”

|i When he saw Abel turn away and put his hand to his brow and

i’ say, ”Lord God above ! not that,” he muttered, ”You knew about

; this?”

jl ; Abel let out a long shuddering breath as he said, ”I’ve known

’ about it for a long time.”

[ijj ”That . . . that she wasn’t old Donnelly’s daughter and . . .

! | and not Florrie’s sister?”

[ i . ”Yes, yes.”

!!|:
,
”HOW?”

I ”Oh, I overheard Florrie and him going at it one day, but I

:i didn’t know then what it was all about. It was only later that

j Florrie inadvertently let it out of the bag.”

!I|M ”And you’ve kept quiet about it?”

i| , Dick almost jumped as Abel rounded on him, crying now under

c •: his breath, ”What do you think I should have done ? Told her that

j ! she didn’t belong to them ?”

,l I ”No, no.” Dick shook his head. ”I’m sorry. Lord!” He turned

to the side and now pushed his ringers through his hair, saying, ”Everything coming at once.” II,

”Yes, everything coming at once.”

; j Looking at his father, his voice and manner somewhat molli-

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fied now, he said, ”She’s in a state, she ... she needs comfort, but . . . but not from me.”

Abel stood with his head bowed; then after a moment, he muttered, ”Go on in; I’ll be there in a

few minutes.”

”Dad.” It was the first time he had used that name for many months, and as Abel looked up at

him he said, ”As I said, she knows about Aunt Florrie, but. . . but if she brings it up you . . . you won’t tell her the truth, will you? I don’t think she could stand much more, not after today’s do.

It would likely turn her brain.”

Abel glanced away for a moment, then his voice dry and throaty, he said, ”Don’t worry, I’m . . .

I’m used to lying, I’m a dab hand at it.”

As Dick went slowly out of the garage Abel looked at the piece of tow which he was still holding

in his hands and he crushed it tight in his fist and for a moment he had a picture of himself in the barn straining against the iron shackles.

Slowly he opened his fist and let the tow drop from it; then he walked out of the garage and up

towards the house, and as he went he hoped he wouldn’t have to lie, that she would have already

sensed the truth, and that as she had turfed out her father she would also do the same with him,

for then his problem would be solved.

For the moment he had forgotten about the ceremony he had gone through with her in the

registry office.

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Not on that particular Saturday, nor on any day during the following six weeks did Hilda mention

Florrie or her condition. She knew, without it being stated in words, who had fathered the

forthcoming baby, but she realized that were she to bring it into the open, Abel would walk out

on her. The disclosure would be like a licence allowing him to go free, and she couldn’t bear the

thought of life without him. Life with him was a pattern of taut questions and answers during the

day, and the wide gulf in the bed at night.

At nights she would lie awake on her side listening to his deep, steady breathing, and she would

still her crying in case it wakened him because should he awake and hear her he would make no

movement towards her, which would only add to her humiliation. She longed for him to turn to

her and to cuddle her and soothe her, but he had never reacted like that for years. The very last

time he had turned to her, his gentle fondling and soothing had changed swiftly into what he

termed loving and she had protested with as much energy as he was using, saying, ”I’m tired,

I’ve had a hard day and . . . and I want none of that. You can’t act like a human being for five

minutes.”

That phrase, you can’t act like a human being, had the same effect as that of the last nail in her

coffin for now she knew she was literally dead to him as far as emotion went.

Slowly and terrifyingly she knew there,was growing in her another being, a questioning being, an

anti-religious being, an anti-Reverend Gilmore being. It was a woman who was asking wouldn’t

she have saved herself years of unhappiness if she had been able to look upon this act, which her

mind told her was dirty, in a non-religious way. Or again, look upon it as the women in the Bible

did? Mr Gilmore was always reading and quoting

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the women of the Bible, but when you got down to rock bottom what were they ? A lot of Mary

Magdalenes, a lot of whores. But were they any the worse for that? Christ hadn’t thought so, so

why had she felt that she had to be better than them ?

More and more now she was blaming Mr Maxwell and the vicar for inveigling her into the

association, the so-called marriage which had been no marriage. If she had been initiated into

marriage from the start things might have been different. The other woman was asking her now,

what she would do if Abel were to give her another chance ? If one night he were to turn in the

bed and take her into his arms, how would she respond ? The self she had lived with so long

turned its head away and said, ”I don’t know.”

One consolation she was finding, and which remained a surprise, was the fact that Dick was on

her side; and what was of equal surprise was the knowledge that there was an open rift between

him and his father. The child had adored his father, the schoolboy had adored his father, the

youth . . . the early youth had adored his father, but the young man had cut down on his

adoration, and the man of nineteen certainly didn’t adore his father, and she felt she knew the

reason for it! Dick must have been aware of Abel’s association with Florrie and had spoken

boldly out against it. Perhaps at bottom this was the reason for his nerves. But no, this nervous

business had been growing since he was sixteen.

At times she wondered what she would do without his support, and Molly’s. Molly was a nice

girl. They planned to marry next year. The sooner the better, she thought, because it was strange

how attractive a plain girl could suddenly become to certain men when it became known that she

now owned a big house and a good piece of land, not to mention a few thousand pounds.

Men were crafty, wily, out for the best chance; they’d jump at anything that offered a good setup.

Abel had jumped at a good home and business ; he hadn’t married her because he loved her,

he had never loved her, she knew that now. She had known it from the beginning, but she had

loved him. . . . Yet could you love without the other thing ? He had said you couldn’t, it was all

part of the whole. Aw, life was hell.

Eeh! she must stop thinking that way; she was using terms in her mind that would have brought

her to her knees a few years

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l’

ago. Twice this week she had brought out the e^lamation My God! Only yesterday she had said

”Damn it!” when the milk boiled over the stove. She was changing, she knew^she was changing

and she was afraid, and sad, afraid both of the change in herself and sad that it was too late for it to have any effect on Abel.

Abel, too, had changed, at least towards her, during the past weeks. His manner had been softer,

he was more considerate. He had stopped spending all his spare time, even part of his dinnertime,

up in the workshop whittling away at those animals of his. Twice recently she had come in from

church meetings to find the tea-break cups washed up and the table set for the evening meal. She

hadn’t remarked on it because she feared she would have said, as her mother used to say, ”It’s

thin butter on your conscience. ...” Her mother . . . she wasn’t going to go into that again because no matter what kind of a face she had put on when that revelation had been thrown at her it had

caused a wound inside her which was still wide open.

She stood now looking down the yard at the passing army trucks. The war was in its third year, it

couldn’t go on for ever. When it was over people would want cars, they’d want to get away on

holidays, business could soar. But would it matter if it didn’t ? No, not if Abel wasn’t with her.

What would he do when the baby was born ? He wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself then, he’d

be bound to give himself away . . . and what then ? Would she raise Cain and give him the

chance to walk out ? or would she humble herself and say ”Don’t leave me, Abel. You can see to

her and the child, only don’t leave me?”

She turned from the window and went through the kitchen and into the hall and up the stairs to

her bedroom, and there, sitting on the edge of the bed, she covered her face with her hands for a

moment. But when her throat became tight with tears she rose quickly from the bed again,

muttering to herself, ”Don’t. Don’t,” because she knew that if he came in and asked why she was

crying there would bound to be a show-down.

She went and stood in front of the mirror and appraised herself. She was thirty-seven. She hadn’t

a line on her face or a grey hair in her head. She looked much younger than her years, and she

could still be called pretty. But then there was her figure. She had put on pounds lately, and she

couldn’t afford to put on

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pounds, not with her height. If only she could stop eating. She moved nearer to the mirror and

fingered her cheeks. She had a better skin than their Florrie. She shook her head impatiently: why

couldn’t she stop saying
their. Their Florrte.
She was no longer their Florrie or our Florrie as she herself was no longer our Hilda. Oh no, she was no longer our Hilda to either that horrible old

devil or his daughter.

Yet, when she asked the question of the mirror her thoughts fell into the old idiom: Why do they

all fall for our Florrie ? What is she after all? She’s got no looks to speak of, and no figure; a

yard of pump water, that’s what she looks like ... so why ?”

The only answer she gave herself was
”Men”,
and on this she turned from the mirror and went from the room, her head moving from side to side as if in denial of the truth her mind was

presenting to her with regard to the attractiveness of their Florrie.

Florrie’s baby was born near midnight on a Thursday night but Abel didn’t see it until twentyfour

hours later, which meant he hadn’t seen her for forty-eight hours altogether. She was in high

spirits when he had left her on the Wednesday afternoon. The child wasn’t due for another week

and she laughingly said she had never felt better in her life except that she had put on a little

weight and she would have to see about getting it off.

He entered as usual by the garden door. After turning his key in it he had pushed it slightly open

and slid in between it and the blackout, but as his hand went to pull the blackout aside it was

stayed by the sound of a baby’s cry, a young baby’s cry. His mouth fell into a gape, his eyes

widened, then he was round the curtain staring at Fred Donnelly coming out of the kitchen

carrying a tray. It was the old man who spoke first and what he said was typical. ”Taken your

bloody time, haven’t you?” he said.

”Sh. . .e’shadit?”

”Well what the hell do you think that is cryin’ ? Me whippets haven’t been at it so you can’t

blame them.” He grinned from ear to ear at his joke. *< : ,-,,-. ..,-:, .; ,%, :H

”Is. . .is she all right?” -....’ ..<- - ;’.,: > J ••”’•