A man who cried (35 page)

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firmly, ”Leave Mr Blackett to me” and to this the yotfng lady answered with an indignant ”Eeh!”

Now the old man was looking through the partition at Abel and was saying, ”Your name, sir ?” ?

>•

”Gray . . . Mason . . . Abel Gray Mason.” ;-

”Would you mind taking a seat, sir?” ?

”Thank you.”

Abel took a seat and he watched the old man disappear through a door and he was left staring at

the partition and at Miss Wilton who was staring back at him in no friendly fashion. Under other

circumstances he would have laughed at the expression on the young girl’s face, but he doubted

at this moment if he would ever laugh again.

It was almost five minutes later when the old man returned and, in the same polite manner, said,

”Will you come this way, sir?”

Abel knew that his exit was being closely watched by Miss Wilton and as he went up a narrow

corridor the old man said, ”The young lady is new to the work but she’s right in one way, it i&:; usual to make an appointment.”

”I realize that now but I’m . . . I’m badly in need of advice at the moment.”

”I understand that, sir. This way.”

They now crossed an open office where four typists, busily tapping away, raised their heads for a

second and glanced at him; then through another passageway; and now the old man was opening

a door and ushering him into a sparsely furnished room.

”Mr Gray Mason, Mr Roscommon.”

The man sitting behind the desk rose slowly to his feet, but that hardly brought him up to Abel’s

shoulder. He didn’t speak, he just motioned towards a chair and Abel, sitting down, said, ”I ...

I’m sorry to barge in like this but . . . but time is precious, you see, sir, I’ve got to appear in the magistrates court tomorrow morning and it’s . . . it’s all happened so quickly. I ... I didn’t

realize . . . well, the procedure. ...”

The small broad man closed his eyes for a moment and said, ”All right, all right, Mr Mason. Now

just settle back and start from the beginning. What’s your case?”

On an outgoing breath Abel said, ”Bigamy.” ”Oh.” Mr Roscommon showed no surprise

whatever. ”How many times ?”

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”Oh. Huh!” Abel smiled wryly. ”Only the once.”

”Only the once.” Mr Roscommon now began to apply himself to his desk pushing papers here

and there. Finally, he drew one towards him - it was blank - and again he said, ”Well now, start

from the beginning.”

Abel started from the beginning. Twenty minutes later Mr Roscommon stopped making notes

and asked the first question. ”Where’s your wife living now . . . your legitimate wife ?”

”I ... I don’t know.”

”You don’t know ? Oh. Well then, we’ll have to find out, won’t we?” He looked towards the

clock and said aloud, ”Half past eleven. And that’s not the only thing we’ll have to find out

before tomorrow morning.

”How has the woman . . . well, the one you’ve been living with as your wife taken this matter ?”

”Very badly.”

”Is there any hope she’ll stand by you ?”

”No, none.”

”. . . And you pleaded not guilty?” He was tapping the writing on his pad now, and he went on,

”Yes, of course, else you wouldn’t be here. Well now, as I see it, Mr Mason, the worst part of all

this isn’t the fact that you married another woman while you still had a wife, although that is

what they’ll have you on, but the reason why you left your wife in the first place, because

looking at it from the judge’s point of view, no matter how cruel or unhappy your mistress was

with her husband she would likely be alive today if it wasn’t for you. Well, need I say more?”

No, he needn’t say more. And he had never thought of Alice as his mistress. They didn’t call

them mistresses in the working class

- his woman, or fancy bit was the name by which she would be known.

”Well now, your wife. She’ll likely come on you for maintenance. . . . You don’t know, I

suppose, how she’s been living, I mean, has she been supporting herself?”

”I don’t know.” t :

Mr Roscommon sighed. ”We’ve got a lot to go into.”

”What will happen after tomorrow morning, sir?”

”Oh, you’ll go up before the magistrates.” He paused, then said, ”Let me see. What have I got on

tomorrow morning ? Shall I be able to go with you ?” He pulled a book towards him, thumbed

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the pages, then said, ”H’m, h’m. Yes, yes, that’s afi right. It’ll likely be early. Oh, well now” - he again looked at Abel - ”what will happen then ? Well, you’ll plead not guilty, and I’ll ask for bail for you while the papers are being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, so you’ll be out

and about until the committal proceedings.”

”Is that the trial ? And how long will I have to wait ?”

”No, no, that isn’t the trial, that’s only . . . well, a sort of preparation. It’ll take place in about three or four weeks’ time. From there you’ll be committed for trial at the assizes. Now where

they’ll be held remains to be seen, it’ll be the nearest to the cornmittal proceedings. It could be in either Newcastle or Durham.”

”Can you give me any idea what the usual penalty is for a case like this ?”

”Oh.” Mr Roscommon pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. ”You could get anything up to

seven years, but it all depends on who’s on the Bench and the prosecution. Oh yes, the

prosecution. If the prosecution has a good barrister he can colour off-white tow black, so it’ll be

up to us to get you one who can bring the black to off-white again. But don’t look so down” - Mr

Roscommon smiled for the first time - ”I’ve even known cases like this where the judge has

dismissed the whole affair. It could happen if he’s had trouble with his own wife.” He laughed a

deep rolling chuckle now, but Abel didn’t join him.

Mr Roscommon now lay back in his leather chair and rolled a pencil between his two hands as he

asked, ”What is your wife like, good-looking ? Appeal of any kind ?”

”None whatever. To my mind she’s a vixen and looks it.”

”Oh yes, yes.” Mr Roscommon nodded now. ”She would look a vixen to you because you’re

prejudiced, but you must remember, all men, and especially those in court, won’t be seeing her

through your eyes, it’ll be what she sounds like that could sway the balance. Anyway” - Mr

Roscommon rose suddenly to his feet - ”I’ve got a lot of work to do on this so I’ll bid you

goodbye

until tomorrow morning.”

Abel was already at the door and when the small man held out his hand he took it, and as the

solicitor shook it he said cheerily, ”There’s one thing in your favour, there’s a war on; people’s

views have changed, widened. The powers that be have more important things to deal with than

family issues, and who knows the

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judge might think you’re worth more to the country in the factory than in gaol. Part time, you

said, and you run a cycle repair business as well ?”

”Yes.”

”Ah well, funny thing to say, but this war has come as a godsend to many. Good-day to you.”

”Good-day.”

As in a daze, Abel threaded his way through the typing room, along the corridor, past the outer

office where Miss Wilton’s eyes seemed to be waiting for him, and down the stairs into the

street.

There’s a war on. He had forgotten for a moment there was a war on. He had forgotten that he

had spent most of the night helping to clear the debris of a house almost brick by brick so the

joists wouldn’t crush an old woman and her dog, both still alive in the basement of the house. He

had forgotten that they had let him down through the cross beams that were supporting half an

intact wall that tended any minute to collapse. He had forgotten that he’d had to prise the dog

from the old woman’s arms before he could lift her and push her upwards, all the while she

crying for the dog. He had lifted the dog very gently, for its back legs were badly crushed, he

didn’t think it had long to survive. They had pulled him up through the hole only just in time, and

when a few seconds later he had stood and watched the wall cave in he felt physically sick.

Of a sudden he again felt sick and very tired; and oh God! he had the desire to cry. He must get

home, home to Florrie.

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The house was quiet. . . dead. Dick was still asleep. It was only half past five in the morning; the town was not yet astir, but even when it was the house would still appear dead.

She put the kettle on the gas ring and went about the usual routine of brewing the first cup of tea, and while it was brewing she pulled the damper out of the fire, placed some pieces of coal gently

on the top of the still hot ashes, and raked the fire, the dead ash falling into the pan underneath

the grate. Then having poured herself out a cup of tea, she sat down, not in the big wooden chair,

she never sat in that now, but on a kitchen chair near the table.

While sipping her tea she stared at the blackout frame fixed over the kitchen window. Her

thoughts were jumping from one thing to another, as they were in the habit of doing these days,

always avoiding the main issue. There hadn’t been a. raid now for three weeks. It was a pity,

because she wished one would blow the place to smithereens, with just her in it, because there

was nothing more to live for. Everybody in the world seemed to have something to live for

except her. Dick was always trying to hide the fact that he had a lot to live for.

What would she have done without Dick these past weeks, and Molly too; they had both been

wonderful. But it was Dick who had held her in the night when during that awful fortnight she’d

had the bouts of screaming. But for him, they would have put her away, sent her for treatment

was how they put it. At nights now, when she got all tensed up the only thing that made her take

a pull at herself was the memory of those nights of alternate screaming and laughing. She didn’t

know which was the worse, her screams or her laughter. The doctor said it was shock. When it

stopped, she had gone back into that strange silence, and in it she spent hours, even days going

over her life. At the end, her mind would

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always ask herself the same question: What had she had from her life? And the answer would

be ... nothing, because nobody had ever really loved her. She excluded from her thoughts her

supposed father because he hadn’t loved her, what he had done all the vears while bringing her

up was hug to himself the dream of the woman who was her mother. Yet she could still think it

strange that a horrible little man like that could love with such intensity.

That was the word that had been missing from her own love, intensity. She had loved Abel, but

not with intensity; at least not when she married him she hadn’t, and not during all those fruitless years either; not until now. Dear God! not until now, for now the feeling she had for him was all

consuming. She should be hating him. She did hate him, but all the while she wanted him, she

needed him, she loved him, and with intensity now, and for the first time she knew that this

feeling was real love and so different from anything else she had experienced in her life. She

loved him in such a way that she’d be willing to live in the house with him even if he never came

within a yard of her again, but what was more telling still she would gladly live with him on his

own terms, the terms that he had laid down about loving.

She rose from the chair and, going to the fire, she put more coal on it; then poured herself out a

second cup of tea and sat down again. Today was the day, likely his last day of freedom; surely

his last day of freedom. What would they give him? Would what she had done shorten it in any

way ? She had asked Dick to take the letter to his solicitor. He had hesitated, asking, ”You’re not

going to make it harder for him, are you ?” and all she answered to that was ”No; it should help.”

She knew she would have a struggle today to stop herself from going to the court in Newcastle,

she longed to look on him just once more; but she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that

woman again, or their Florae. . . . But if their Florae was wise she’d keep away. This last

statement reflected the old Hilda, the authoritative Hilda, the condemning Hilda. But there again,

too, her feelings towards their Florae had changed. During her screaming period she had seen

herself springing on Florae, bearing her to the ground and beating her until she lay still, after

which she had taken hold of the child and thrown it - her mind had always shut down in the scene

showing where the child landed. But now her mind seemed to have put a cocoon around

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.*..->*

Florrie, it was as if she no longer existed. She didn’tjlven think any more : I’m glad she’s been

made to suffer, perhaps because she fully realized that Florrie’s suffering would be short,

compared with her own, only the length of time he would be away from her.

Her thinking ceased abruptly as Dick came into the kitchen, and she turned to him and said,

”You’re up early.”

”Yes ; I’ve been awake for some time, I heard you come down.”

”I’ve just made the tea.” As she went to rise from the table he said, ”It’s all right I’ll get it.”

When he had poured himself out a cup of tea he sat down at the other side of the table, but before

raising the cup to his lips he looked across at her. Their eyes held; then he put out his hand

towards her and she placed hers in it, and when he gripped it tightly she bowed her head and bit