Читать книгу Josephine Cox 3-Book Collection 2: The Loner, Born Bad, Three Letters - Josephine Cox - Страница 14

WHILE HIS WOMENFOLK busied themselves in the kitchen, Tom tried to get the grieving man to say something, but Joseph had fallen into such a deep silence, he seemed unaware that anyone else was there with him.

When, a few moments later, Beth and her daughter returned with a pot of piping hot tea, Tom revealed his concerns. ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’ve tried everything to coax him into talking, but all he does is rock backwards and forwards, his eyes fixed in a stare to the floor. It’s like he doesn’t even know I’m here.’

As was her way, Beth took matters into her own hands. Setting the tray down on the table, she knelt in front of the old man. ‘Joseph?’ Her voice was silky soft. ‘Joseph, it’s Beth … look at me, dear.’

When he seemed not to have heard, but instead kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, she raised her hands to his face and made him be still. ‘JOSEPH! It’s me, Beth. I’ve made you a hot drink. I want you to take it, and then we’ll sit and talk, you, me and Tom. Will you do that for me?’

Now, as he turned away, she persevered. ‘You, me and Tom,’ she repeated. ‘The three of us like old friends, just drinking and talking, and helping each other. Do you think you can do that for me?’

Joseph looked into her eyes and saw the kindness there. But it seemed an age before he answered, and then it was just the slightest nod.

Beth smiled at him. ‘All right, that’s what we’ll do then, eh? The three of us … talking and drinking, and helping each other. Yes! That’s what we’ll do.’ Greatly relieved, she could see he was coming back to her, but he was still in shock, and in her brightest voice she teased, ‘D’you know what, Joseph? I don’t know about you, but if you’ve got any old brandy hidden away, I wouldn’t mind just the teeniest drop in my cup of tea.’

She gave a deliberate sigh. ‘Oh, but I don’t suppose you’ve got any such thing, eh? So we’ll just have to go without, won’t we?’ Beth knew full well that Joseph always kept a bottle of brandy in the cupboard. ‘It would have been nice, though, don’t you think? A drop of the good stuff to warm our cockles?’

Slowly but surely, a glimmer of understanding crept over Joseph’s sorry features. ‘You artful devil, Beth Makepeace,’ he said in a croaky voice. ‘You know exactly where it is.’

He rallied round. ‘You can fetch it, if you like.’

The brandy did the trick. By the time Joseph had drunk three cups of tea with the ‘teeniest’ drop in it to give it a kick, he was beginning to talk freely, though the sadness was all too evident. ‘I’ve got you to thank for looking after her,’ he told Tom. ‘God only knows what might have happened if you hadn’t heard Davie calling from the woods. Oh, and where is the lad?’ He grabbed hold of Beth’s hand. ‘Where’s my Davie? Did you know, I threw him out … lost my temper. I couldn’t see owt but what she’d done, and he was willing to go with her and leave me on my own.’

His voice trembled. ‘I turned against him – lost my head. He’ll never forgive me, will he, eh? Surely he knew I’d change my mind the minute he was out the door, and I did! I went after him, but he were gone. They were both gone, and it was too late. Too late.’ His voice broke, and for a moment he was quiet, then when he was composed, he looked at Tom. ‘Why doesn’t he come home, Tom? He needs me … we need each other. Where in God’s name is he? What’s going to become of him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tom answered truthfully. ‘Happen he’ll think things over, and when he’s come to terms with what happened out there in the woods, he’ll turn his mind to you, and he’ll know you didn’t mean it when you spoke harshly to him.’

Unconvinced, Joseph’s next question was directed at Judy. ‘I reckon you know him better than any of us, lass. Will he come home, d’you think? When he’s cried himself out, will he make his way back to his old grandad? What d’you reckon, pet?’

The girl said cautiously, ‘Maybe.’ Davie loved his grandad, she knew that for sure. But what she didn’t know was how deeply he had been affected by what had happened to his mammy. And for his grandad to turn against him was unthinkable. Davie would be taking it hard, she knew that well enough, but she revealed nothing of her thoughts. What would be the point? She’d only upset the old chap further.

‘It’s a lot for the lad to deal with.’ Joseph was thinking aloud now. ‘First his mammy comes home drunker than I’ve ever seen her, then there’s this terrible fight and his daddy walks out, and as for me …’ He took another swig of his tea. ‘I threw him and his mammy out onto the streets. And that was after I had damn near pushed her down the stairs. She must have hurt herself badly but she didn’t say owt, you see? Oh, my Rita. My stubborn little girl!’ He sobbed anew. ‘What kind of monster am I?’ He took another swig. ‘The lad saw his mammy die out there in the woods. God Almighty! I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to set eyes on me again.’

For a split second there was an uncomfortable silence, before Judy flung her arms round the old man’s neck, saying passionately, ‘He loves you! Davie would never think bad of you – never!’

Startled by her sudden show of affection, the old man looked up to see her crying. ‘Oh, lass,’ he said huskily. ‘It’s no wonder our Davie took you for a friend. You’re a caring, kind young thing, and if you say he’ll forgive me, then I’ll take your word for it.’ If only he could turn back time. If only … ‘I’m hoping our Davie won’t forsake me, any more than I could forsake him,’ he wept, ‘and I hope you’re right, bonnie lass, when you say he’ll come home. But I was harsh on him … on both of ’em. I turned my back on the lad when he needed me most. Happen he’ll never forget that. Happen he’ll never forgive me for it neither.’

Taking another swig of his tea, and for the first time, Joseph told them about his late wife, Marie. ‘My wife was a real beauty, just like Rita,’ he said fondly. ‘Unfortunately, she started the boozing soon after having Rita. An’ then our second child – baby Matty, we called him – died in his sleep one night, and there was no consolin’ her. Poor little Matty – an’ now Rita, too. Both me childer dead an’ gone.’ He gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘At first I thought I could help my Marie to be rid of the booze and the men, and live a decent life with me and with our beautiful daughter Rita. But for all my efforts, it didn’t happen. Lord knows how hard I tried to change her. Many a man would have walked out on her, but I couldn’t do it. I loved her, y’see, and when she was sober she had a mischievous and lovable nature, just like Rita.’

As the Makepeace family listened respectfully, Joseph paused. The bad memories had, by now, brought a scowl to his face. ‘Oh, but when she’d been at the booze, by God, Marie was the devil incarnate.’

He explained how Rita seemed, in time, to have naturally followed in her mother’s footsteps. ‘I can’t blame the lass for what she became,’ he said regretfully. ‘She grew up adoring her mammy, living in her shadow, seeing her kind and loving one minute, and in the next how violent and cruel she was.’

He took a moment to remember. ‘I should have left her then,’ he said gruffly, ‘but I loved her too much. I kept on hoping she’d come to her senses for the child’s sake, but she never did. And when the TB took her off when she was still in her prime, it seemed like my Rita took on her mother’s character … up and happy one minute, then down and shameless the next.’

He spoke of his son-in-law. ‘She were just a kid when she met Don, and oh, I was that pleased for her. I thought, here’s a good man, hardworking and decent. They will be happy together, not like Marie and me. Aye, he loved her as much as any man can love a woman, but when she went wrong, he couldn’t change her, any more than I could change her mammy.’

He hunched his shoulders. ‘I don’t blame him for walking out, and nor should anyone else. If I’d walked out, all them years back, I might have saved Rita from copying her mammy’s ways. In truth, Rita became worse than my Marie ever was. She went with men openly. She even did her dirty work with blokes who worked alongside Don at the factory.’ Growing emotional, he took a moment to compose himself. ‘There were snide remarks and cruel taunts, and my son-in-law would retaliate, like any other normal man would. But then there’d be fights, and he’d lose his job again and there would be no money coming in.

‘They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the …’ Unable to say the word, he closed his eyes, then quickly opened them again, and now his voice was stronger. ‘It pains me to say it, especially now she’s gone … but my daughter was a slut of the worst kind. There was such badness in her – almost as though her mammy had passed it on with a vengeance. And good man that he was, Don stuck with her, till his patience was tried too far. I knew it had to happen, and somehow I reckon I also knew that one day it would end in tragedy. She was like a runaway train, my Rita, heading straight towards a cliff-edge.’

‘Have you any idea where Don was headed?’ Tom wondered if the man had been informed of the situation – his wife dead, and his son missing.

‘No idea at all.’ Joseph had been thinking along the same lines. ‘When he left here, it was on the spur of the minute. He was in such a state, I don’t reckon he knew where he was headed himself. Although, he did give a slip of paper to young Davie, with someone’s name on it. The boy must have gone off with it.’

‘Well, Don will have to be told, won’t he?’ Tom queried. ‘He’ll need to know what’s happened. His wife is beyond his help now, but the boy needs his father.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Sad at heart and not knowing which way to turn, Joseph revealed, ‘I told the police the whole story, from beginning to end, and they promised to do what they could to find him.’

‘But they’re not really duty bound to do so, are they?’ Beth intervened.

Joseph agreed. ‘Happen they’ve done their duty in telling me about the accident, and mebbe it’s up to me to do the rest.’

‘But what about Davie?’ Judy persisted. ‘The police will have to find him, won’t they?’

‘I hope so, lass. After all, he’s only just coming up to fourteen. I told them how much he thought of his mammy and how badly this whole business would have affected him. Let’s hope they find him, eh? Aye, let’s hope they do. As for him going after his dad, he doesn’t have a penny piece on him, and the mood our Don was in when he left, it wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t already left the country – jumped on a ship at the docks mebbe, and gone to sea. They can always use a good carpenter on board ship.’

Tom was interested. ‘Was that what he hankered after?’ he asked. ‘Making for foreign parts?’

‘Yes. Right from when he went abroad with the Army he had an appetite to see the world. Said as how he’d like to join that scheme to emigrate to Australia … with all those wide open spaces where a man could breathe. Then again, he might have gone back to Ireland. I understand he has an old aunt there, although, as I recall, he hasn’t seen her in years.’

He yawned, and said sleepily, ‘Aye, happen that’s where he’ll be headed … Australia, or Ireland. One or the other, I’ll be bound.’

All talked out and exhausted from grief and the effects of the brandy, he began to nod off, and when he closed his eyes, Judy whispered to her mammy, ‘Can we go and look for Davie now?’

Carefully, without waking him, Tom helped the old man onto the sofa, where he promptly fell into a deep sleep. Judy ran to get a blanket and Beth laid it gently over him, and when they were certain he would be safe, they left the place, securing the door behind them.

Beth tapped at the house next door to let them know that Joseph was sleeping soundly. ‘Will you keep an ear out for any disturbance, Patsy?’ Beth asked the young woman who opened the door. She knew her vaguely from her visits here to collect Judy or pick up Davie.

‘I’ll be glad to.’ With her lank hair tied back with a grubby ribbon, the woman appeared to have her hands full with a multitude of children clamouring round her ankles. ‘It’s no bother at all,’ she assured them.

Thanking her, Beth explained, ‘He should be fine now, but I thought it best to let you know he’s on his own.’

Patsy agreed to look in on him within the hour. ‘Don gave me a spare key last winter, when the old man went down with pneumonia. There were times when Rita wasn’t … well, you know what I mean.’ A look of repulsion flickered across her features. ‘The boy needed looking after when his dad was at work. I just popped in from time to time to make sure everything was all right. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on old Joseph,’ she promised.

Beth was relieved. ‘Thank you so much.’

As she turned to walk away, she saw what she took to be the woman’s son, standing further back in the passageway. Tall and well-built, with dark eyes and longish dark hair, he was a good-looking boy. ‘This is my son, Lenny.’ To his embarrassment, the woman pushed him forwards. ‘He’s a handy sort.’

Thinking that was an odd thing to say, Beth smiled and nodded, and he nodded back, and as she went away Beth heard his mother reprimanding him for not keeping the children out of her road while she dealt with the visitor at the door. However, satisfied that Patsy and her husband Ron would take care of Davie’s grandfather, Beth returned to the car. ‘Apparently Don gave them a key when Joseph was ill last winter,’ she said, getting in beside Tom.

‘Very wise too,’ Tom declared, starting the engine. ‘What with Rita boozed out of her mind half the time and trawling the streets for men the other half, I expect he was concerned that someone should keep an ear out for the boy and his grandad.’

Feeling guilty, he addressed himself to Judy. ‘We’ll be on our way now, lass.’ Waiting for Beth to settle herself in the seat, he then pulled away from the kerb. ‘I know we could have gone back to search for Davie first, but I was worried about Joseph. I knew it would come as a shock when the police arrived to see him, and I just needed to make sure he was all right. And there was always the chance that Davie might be there.’

Judy understood. ‘It’s what Davie would have wanted,’ she said. ‘He must be worried about his grandad too.’

‘Well, at least old Joe is resting now.’ Tom gave his wife a sideways wink. ‘After the brandy your mammy plied down him, I dare say he’ll sleep till the cows come home. Matter of fact, if the Almighty Himself came knocking at the door, I don’t reckon Joseph would hear a thing.’

Some short time later they arrived at the spot where Davie had run out onto the lane. ‘This is it.’ Pulling over to the verge, Tom got out of the car to collect a torch from the boot.

‘You’ll need to stay close,’ he warned, ‘but like I say, I don’t think we’ll find him. I went round and round these woods, calling out his name and looking into every nook and cranny, to no avail. So don’t go expecting miracles.’

Judy was the first out of the car and away. ‘Come back here, child!’ Startled, Beth brought her to heel. ‘I know you’re keen to find him – we all are – but I don’t want you wandering off into them woods by yourself. You’re to stay close at all times.’ Though anxious for Davie, the fear for her own flesh and blood was instinctively stronger.

They spent almost two hours searching. Tom led them to the spot where he’d found Rita, and from there they covered a wider circle, calling out Davie’s name and leaving no stone unturned. But at the end of it, they were disappointed.

On the way back to the lane, Tom had his arm round his daughter’s shoulders. ‘You’re not to be too disheartened, lass,’ he said kindly. ‘He’ll turn up when he’s ready.’ Though he gave Beth a look that said different, because after what young Davie had been through, he doubted whether the boy would ever again be seen round these parts.

Judy was quiet all the way home. From when they left the spot where Tom had first seen Davie, her troubled gaze was strained to catch a glimpse of him, through the lamplit streets, along the darkened lanes, down by the river and alongside the canal, and now as they drew ever closer to home, her heart sank like a lead weight inside her. The thought of never seeing Davie again was unbearable.

Tom drew up at the battered five-bar gate with its handpainted sign reading Three Mills Farm. He got out, opened up, drove the old Morris Minor through, then got out and closed the gate again. He patted the bonnet approvingly, then went to change into his wellies and old coat to check on the animals.

Beth made her and Judy a mug of cocoa. ‘There y’are, lass.’ She placed the drink and a slab of fruit cake in front of Judy, who was sitting at the table, looking forlorn. ‘Come on now, love,’ Beth said. ‘Davie’s a strong, sensible young man. Wherever he is, I’m sure you’ll find he’ll come to no harm. Now, drink your cocoa, there’s a good girl, then you must get yourself ready for bed. It’s been a long day today, and we’ve a hard day ahead of us tomorrow, what with having to help round up the sheep and a load of other jobs. Your daddy will need all the help he can get.’

They had just finished their cocoa as Tom walked in the door. ‘That blessed fox is about again!’ he grumbled. ‘It’s already had two o’ my chickens … best layers an’ all! By! I nearly had him just now.’ He shook his fist in the air. ‘If I ever get close enough, he’ll feel the heat of my shotgun up his backside an’ no mistake!’

Red-faced from the chase he fell into a chair, thanking Beth when she handed him a freshly made cup of milky cocoa.

‘Get that down you,’ she advised with a chuckle. ‘Chasing after foxes, in the dark an’ all, it’s a wonder you didn’t go head over heels in the dungheap. What’s more, you’re too slow an’ heavy in the belly to go running after foxes and the like. They must be sittin’ laughin’ at you, Tom Makepeace.’

‘What’s that, woman?’ he asked indignantly. ‘Are you saying I could do with losing some weight?’ He took a huge bite of his cake.

Beth cocked a snook. ‘If the cap fits,’ she said wryly with a mischevious glint in her eye.

Judy was the first to go to bed. ‘Good night, my beauty.’ Tom hated seeing her so quiet; it wasn’t in her nature.

‘Good night, love.’ Beth held her a moment longer. ‘Remember what I said … you’re not to fret about young Davie. He’ll be all right, you mark my words.’ All the same, she too was worried. He was only a boy, after all.

‘Good night, Mam … Dad.’ Judy kissed them both and headed off upstairs.

An hour or so later, lying in bed, her mind filled with thoughts of Davie, Judy heard her parents going into their room. ‘Ssh! Pick your feet up, man,’ Beth chastised her husband when he tripped over the mat. ‘We don’t want to wake the lass.’

Judy smiled when she heard her father arguing with Beth as to why she’d put a fringed mat on top of the landing. ‘Every blummen night, I trip over that damned mat.’

‘Will you give over with your moaning!’ Beth retaliated. ‘That mat’s been sat there these past six years, and nobody but you has tripped over it yet.’

With Davie strong in her mind, Judy couldn’t sleep. Climbing out of bed, she went across the room to perch on the windowseat. She would sit here for an age when her thoughts were troubled, and they had never been more troubled than they were tonight. Of all the forces of Nature, it was the sky that seemed to soothe and embrace her; day and night she never ceased to marvel at its changing moods. There was something especially beautiful about the autumn sky tonight; moody and magical, bathed in soft moonlight, it seemed more haunting than she could ever remember.

But then, Judy Makepeace lived within Nature itself; she walked it and felt it, and her every breath was tuned into it. Her only close female friend, a girl of her own age called Annie, would laugh at her, saying, like Tom and Beth did, that she should have been born a bird or a fish.

While other girls were already dreaming of dating boys and dressing up for Saturday afternoon at the pictures, Judy had never really craved those things. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy them, because she did. Like any other adolescent girl, she liked to look in the shop windows at the latest fashions, and when the boys in the picture-house started flirting and teasing, she would giggle in response. She could give as good as she got, though she would blush to her roots if a boy tried to kiss her.

Once, when her mam and dad took her to a local barn dance, Annie’s older brother Philip had kissed her full on the lips. She had wiped her mouth afterwards, when he wasn’t looking. He made her feel scared, somehow, but she put it down to her own shyness and inexperience.

Life was good, and there were so many things she wanted to do. But always in the forefront of her mind was Davie Adams. If she didn’t have him in her life, nothing would be the same. It was Davie she turned to whenever she needed advice, and it was Davie with whom she loved to walk along the river, or across the fields, or when they were bringing in the hay and it was all hands to the task. He was her hero, and she loved him.

Her love for Davie and the love she felt for her parents was not the same. The strength of love was the same, but it was as though they lived in different parts of her heart. The part where Davie lived had always been there, but now there was something else, a deeper feeling, and she did not know how to deal with it.

There had been moments when she thought she might talk about it to Annie, but something stopped her. She didn’t think the other girl would understand.

Sitting cross-legged on the windowseat, her thoughts shifted to other things. She sat for a time, her eyes closed and her mind going over the day and, after a while, with the sleep beginning to draw her down, she stretched her limbs and eased herself off the seat.

As she stood up to pull the curtains closed, something alerted her, some quick movement down in the yard. Leaning towards the window, she stared out into the darkness, but there was nothing to be seen, except a lone cat prowling the area for a mate.

Turning away, she crossed the room, stumbled into bed and drew the blankets over her. In a matter of minutes she was fast asleep.

In the other room, having talked themselves into exhaustion, Beth and Tom also were asleep.

It had been a worrying day for them all.