A man who cried (6 page)

”I know what you’re offering me, and I say thank you very much, but no!”

”You’re a fool.”

”Maybe; it’s how you look at it. I’m going back to bed now and I’ll leave first thing in the

morning.” ”No! No! You said you’d go on to Huntingdon with me.” ”Yes, that was when you

wanted a crew not a fancy man. I aim to be nobody’s kept man, missis.”

As the door opened the woman’s voice, louder now, spat out words that seemed to bounce

around the small cabin. ”You’re a common thankless clod, that’s what you are. You’ve got the

makings of a tramp, I saw that too at first. Who do you think you are anyway ? And don’t

imagine I’ll pay you. We agreed on Huntingdon; if you want your wages you’ll stay till then, if

not you’ll get nothing. Do you hear? Nothing. ...” ”Mother! Mother! Listen . . . listen to me.

Come away.” The cabin door was closed. His father had switched on the light and he was sitting

on the side of the bunk, and they looked at each other, then he started, and his father did too as

the woman’s voice screamed, ”Leave go of me!” ”I won’t until you stop making a fool of

yourself.”

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When the sound of a ringing slap came to them, Dick watcHed his father’s eyes close tightly.

Following this there was silence.

For the next fifteen minutes he watched the shadows leaping ’ around the small cabin as his

father packed the rucksack. He didn’t seem to hurry, but did everything in a tired sort of way.

When the packing was completed he turned to him and pressed him down into the pillows,

saying, ”Try to get some sleep, we’ll leave at first light.”

He made no answer but watched the light being switched out, then lay staring into the darkness.

Why was it women wanted his father ? His mother, Mrs Alice, and now the lady.

He was trying to sort out the reason when he fell asleep. . . .

He seemed to have been asleep for two or three minutes only when his father’s voice came from

a distance, saying to him, ”Come along, Dickie. Come along, get up.”

He blinked, sniffed, and was about to say, ”Will I go and get a wash in the sink, Dad ?” when, as

if reading his thoughts, his father said, ”Leave your wash; we’ll have a sluice down along the

bank somewhere.”

He noted that his father was already dressed and ready for the road, and he himself had just got

into his clothes when his father switched off the light and caused him to exclaim, ”It’s still dark, Dad.”

”No, the light’s breaking, it’ll be quite clear when we get outside. Come on. Go quietly now.”

On tiptoe he followed his father into the cabin, through the galley, and up the steps on to the

small deck, and to his surprise he found it was already light enough to see; but the bank and the

fields ahead were covered in mist and he shivered.

As his father hoisted him and his rucksack over the side the boat rocked slightly. Everything was

very quiet, very still. He couldn’t see his feet for the mist, he couldn’t see the water for the mist; everything seemed buried in mist.

They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards along the bank when his father stopped abruptly

and turned about. He himself hadn’t heard anyone coming, having been too concerned about

where he was placing his feet.

As Daphne approached she appeared legless. She was wearing

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an outsize woollen sweater and she kept pulling the sleeves up around her elbows as she talked.

”I just want to say good-bye. I’m sorry to see you go, you’ve been the best of the bunch. She’s

man mad; she can’t help it and it isn’t only since my father died. He’s only been gone six

months; she always says it’s a year.” She held out her hand, not to shake but proffering

something.

Abel looked down at the pound note for a moment and then into the face of the young girl and he

said softly, ”Thanks, my dear; but I don’t want anything. I’ve had bed and board for the both of

us.”

”Take it, you’ve earned it and she’s got plenty, we’ve both got plenty. It’s nothing, only a pound.

I’ll. . . I’ll be upset if you don’t.”

Dick watched his father hesitate for ’a moment, then take the note, saying, ”Thanks”; then pause

before adding, ”I wish things could have ended differently for your sake anyway.”

”You don’t wish that more than I do. You know what I thought when I first saw you ? Well, I

mean what I wished when you first came aboard ? I knew she was gone on you, and I thought

that if only Dick had been a little bit older we could have made a double. I ... I would have liked

that.”

As she gave a soft chuckle Dick looked at his father. His head was bent, his face looked red

against the greyness of the mist, and his voice was soft as he said, ”You’re a nice girl, Daphne.

Look after her, she needs someone. I’m sorry it can’t be me.”

”So am I ... I hope you find work.”

”I shall. Thanks again for this.” He flapped the pound note gently. ”Good-bye.”

”Good-bye, Abel. Good-bye.”

’ They had turned from her and gone a few yards when her words came to them softly as if she

had laid them on the mist and blown them forward. ”I’ll always remember you,” they said, ”as

the man who had little to say, but looked a lot.”

It was some seconds later when Abel turned and glanced back, but she was no longer there.

”Don’t cry.”

”I’m not, Dad, I’m not.”

He didn’t know why he was denying it for he could hear himself crying. He was crying because

of the great sadness that was choking him. He was cold, he wished he was back in the bunk, he

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wished his dad could have liked the lady. He had liked Daphne, they had laughed together.

As the sky lightened he saw the day stretching away into eternity and during it he knew he would

be hungry and tired, his legs would ache and he would have more blisters on his feet. Why

couldn’t his dad have liked the lady ?

It took them twelve days to reach the outskirts of Leeds. For most of the way they had kept to the

Great North Road, diverting from it only at night to find some place to shelter. ~ Dick didn’t

chatter on the j ourneys now ; although he didn’t feel so tired at the end of the day and his legs

had stopped paining there was one blister on his foot that refused to heal, and he wished, oh how

he wished, that they didn’t have to walk any . ~ more, and that the men, particularly the young

ones, they met up with on the road would stop calling out such things as, ”You’re goin’ the

wrong way, mate.”

He didn’t want to go back to his mother but he wished he could go back home and sleep in a bed.

. . .

Abel was well aware of what was going on in the boy’s mind and within himself a feeling of

desperation was growing rapidly. He was down to his last sixpence. The past three days they had

eaten sparingly, even after standing from five o’clock that morning in a baker’s shop queue to get

a share of the stale bread and cakes that were sold off cheaply, and then stuffing themselves with

the dry buns and broken pastry, they were still hungry.

Yesterday he had so pleaded with a farmer for a job that the man, becoming irritated, had sworn

at him. One thing was certain, tonight he had to make for the nearest workhouse if only to give

the child a meal and a night’s rest in a bed of sorts.

Earlier in the day he had decided to leave the main road and its vicinity, hoping that in the

villages further away from the traffic there would be more chance of something turning up. That

was the phrase that was on the lips of every man he had spoken to on this journey. They were

hoping for something to turn up.

He had drawn out a rough map of the road he must take but as

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he sat looking at it now he realized that he had wandered someway off it because a signpost a

dozen yards away stated: Leeds 5 miles. And he had imagined he had glimpsed it from the last

rise. Well, perhaps he had, distance was deceptive. Nevertheless, they were both too tired to

waste their steps, and so he must make sure of where he was.

”Sit there a minute,” he said in a soothing tone; ”I’m just goin’ up that bank to have a look

round.”

At one time the boy would have cried, ”I’ll come along with you, Dad,” but not now; whenever

he had the chance to sit, he sat.

From the top of the rise Abel again viewed through the smoky haze the blurred horizon of a

straggling town, but much nearer he could see a huddle of roofs, indicating a quite large village,

and nearer still, not more than half a mile away, over two stubbly fields was a house, a large

house, and near it a range of buildings.

He had already decided it wasn’t a farm, then he noticed some animals moving about in a field

beyond the house. He screwed up his eyes against the light and muttered to himself, ”Pigs.” He

had never liked pigs. Sheep, cows, horses, any other animals could draw his hand to them but not

pigs. But who knew, this might be the one place where he would be lucky. He went down the

bank and had swung the rucksack on to his shoulders before he said, ”Come on; there’s a place

down there that looks likely. They keep pigs.”

Dick was trailing some yards behind him when he came to the gate leading to the yard and the

house, and he stood waiting leaning against it taking in what was before him. It was evident that

the house, a large sprawling one and stone built, had never seen paint for years, and what he

could see of the yard showed him that it was no farmyard, it was more like the courtyard at Lady

Parker’s with half a dozen horse boxes going off one side of it, with the doors on the other side,

he surmised, leading to harness rooms and storerooms. What he could see from where he stood,

and close to the house, were two great open doors leading into a barn.

He could offer the owner his labour in exchange for sleeping dry in there tonight at any rate, and

by the look of things at first glance the place was in need of labour. In any case, if he were to

reach the workhouse in Leeds he’d have to pay hard with a full day’s work

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tomorrow for their night’s stay: nobody gave you anythjjlg for nothing. No, no; they didn’t.

He was about to open the gate when a chorus of squeals and screams came to him from

somewhere beyond the house and he reckoned those pigs in that field were getting some slop.

The place looked deserted but if he were right in his reckoning the owner would be seeing to his

animals, and so he decided to go round the back of the house. But first, he took off his pack and,

laying it on the ground, said to Dick, ”Sit on it; I’m going to see if I can find somebody.”

When the boy again made no reply, Abel gazed at him sadly for a moment, then gulped deeply in

his throat before walking slowly along what had once been a short drive but which was now

hardly discernible for the matted grass covering it.

As he passed the front door of the house he looked towards it. It was obviously made of solid oak

but was now weather-beaten to a whitish grey.

Before rounding the side of the house he cast a glance towards the barn-like building. Just inside

he could make out two stalls divided by stout pillars and there was a quantity of loose straw in

one of them.

He was just turning the corner at the back of the house when he started visibly as he almost ran

into the apparition, because that’s how he viewed her from the beginning. What age she was he

couldn’t make out. She was a tall woman, and wisps of hair from under the battered trilby hat

showed her to be fair, or was she white ? Her face was long, lean, and weather-beaten, yet his

first impression was of a delicate etherealness. Even under the bulky, old army top-coat she was

wearing he could sense her thinness, and the oddness of her was made clear by the long

mudstained

flowery dress that fell to the top of her boots, men’s boots, again which had an army

flavour about them and in which he guessed her feet could float, so big were they.

He was the first to speak. ”I’m sorry, ma’am; I was looking for the owner.”

When she put out her hand and her fingers gently touched his arm he felt inclined to spring back,

but restrained himself. She couldn’t possibly be the owner, yet he told himself as he stared at her

that her appearance linked her with the place. He almost stammered as he said, ”I ... I was

wondering if you would allow us,

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my son and me, to sleep in your barn tonight ? I’d do any odd job you wanted in payment.”

He now watched her draw in a breath that seemed to make her even taller and when she spoke he

was amazed at the sound of her voice, for it had a high cultured tone. He recalled his late

employer ; she too had spoken like this, only not so high.

”Who sent you?”

”Nobody, ma’am ... I mean, we are making our way North, we were goin’ on to Leeds, but it’s

coming on to drizzle and my son is very tired.”

”Who sent you?”

He shook his head. ”I told you, ma’am, nobody.”

”Oh, yes they did. God sent you. I knew He would.”

When he half turned away and looked to the side, her voice and manner changed completely, so

much so that he was startled again. Her tone, still high, was brisk now, even businesslike as she

cried, ”Yes, yes, of course you may stay the night, and . . . and I’d be glad of your help. Oh yes,