The Wingless Bird Read online

  Five

  ‘Is that all she said?’

  ‘No, Mother, that wasn’t all she said.’

  ‘Well, what did she say?’ Her father was bawling now, and she turned on him, crying, ‘Don’t you yell at me like that!’—each word emphasised—‘I can’t stand much more. I’ve told you, I’ll walk out and leave the lot to you; there’s nothing to keep me here.’

  ‘For God’s sake, girl!’ He turned away from her now, his hand to his brow. ‘Don’t get on that tack. Just tell me what she said. Is she going to have her or not?’

  ‘It’s a bit in the air. She…she said she would do what she could, she would have to talk to her husband. But then, in the morning they would be leaving for a week or so’s holiday…and—’ She gasped and put her hand to her throat. How could she lie like this? They were just rolling out of her.

  ‘Sit down.’ Her mother’s voice was unusually soft, and in the same tone she went on, ‘Do you think she’ll take her?’

  ‘I…don’t know. She’s going to get in touch.’

  ‘Get in touch!’ Her father swung round now, saying, ‘I’ll write to her.’

  ‘No. No. Don’t do that. She’s very touchy, and about you.’ There it was again. Why was she talking like this?

  ‘What d’you mean, about me?’

  ‘Well, she’s not over-fond of you, as she’s not over-fond of you, either’—she was now nodding towards her mother—‘and…and if either of you do anything she’ll likely wipe her hands of it. Just leave it a week or so. It’s not going to make any difference, is it?’

  Her father was about to say something when she put her hand up, saying, ‘One thing she did say, she might…well, she might want to’—she swallowed deeply—‘see Jessie before settling anything, and she half said that I could take her through and…and…and they could…well, they could talk, perhaps. So, just leave it. Let well enough alone. I’m tired; it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.’

  She went from the room. She did not, however, make for her own bedroom but turned, went to the closet, and there she bent over the pan and retched; but it was merely a nervous reaction, for she brought nothing up from her stomach.

  She was still asking herself how she could have spun those lies and made them sound so true, so authentic.

  When she left the closet she went along the corridor and to Jessie’s room. Jessie was in bed and she greeted Agnes with, ‘Oh, Aggie, this is a nightmare. I can’t stand it. You’ve been so long away. What happened? Is she…she going to take me?’

  Agnes sat on the edge of the bed and, taking Jessie’s hand, she said, ‘Listen, and listen carefully.’ She turned and looked towards the door. ‘I’m going to whisper because I don’t trust Father. Now, it’s this way. You can’t go to Mother’s dear cousin. I only saw her for a matter of minutes outside, just as she was getting into her carriage, and from the short conversation we had I gauged she would just as soon take a live tiger into her house as a pregnant girl. On the other hand, in her charity she would let a child die of starvation on her steps before she’d give it a crumb. That’s how I estimated her character. She didn’t know who I was and I didn’t inform her. Now listen. I met Mr Farrier by chance, we travelled up together and I put him in the picture. Oh no’—she wagged her hand in her sister’s face—‘I didn’t say anything about your condition, but he knows there’s trouble here and he knows you want to marry this boy. He suggested you marry at the Registry Office after you’ve applied for what he called a special licence. This will take a week or more to get. But there is a snag; you must have your parents’ consent, and you know what hope you have of that. Now, the Felton family seem to be very clever in lots of ways we won’t go into, and I’m sure they couldn’t be above fixing a couple of names on a form. That’s dreadful, even to consider it, I know. Failing it, there’s only Gretna Green. Now it’s up to Robbie from now on, as I see it. The next question is, will you be up to roughing it with him, for rough it you’ll have to?’

  ‘Aggie, hell couldn’t be worse than what I’m going through here. As for life being rough, I can stand anything as long as I’m with Robbie; and he’s the kind of fellow who will see to me, look after me. I know it. I know it.’

  ‘You understand if this comes off you’ll have to fly miles away, both of you, because if not, he’—she again thumbed towards the door—‘would kill you. And let me tell you, girl, I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me when he finds out, because it’s me who will have to tell them what’s happened. And God help me. I feel I’ll have to have someone with me when I do tell him, someone who can restrain him, because he’s lifted his hand towards me before for nothing, so what will he do now? Anyway, I’ll make it my business to see Robbie tomorrow or as soon as I can get out, and if so I will tell him you will go along with whatever arrangements he can make. Is that so?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Aggie.’ She threw her arms around her sister and held her tightly, until Agnes said, ‘For goodness sake! Don’t cry like that or else you’ll have him in. Now try to go to sleep; we’ll talk in the morning because I’m very tired.’

  In her own room, she turned up the gas jet, then looked at herself in the lime-green dress that had turned her into a lady for a day. Then slowly she took it off and hung it up under the coat that was already in the wardrobe and stood looking at it for a while, almost in contemplation, before she closed the door and said to herself: ‘And that’s that! No more of it.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going out, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that, girl, you are going out, but where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to do some shopping for myself.’

  ‘Oh; next door?’

  ‘No, not next door.’

  ‘Then what kind of shopping do you need to do?’

  ‘I need some underwear, Mother.’

  ‘You’ve got plenty of underwear.’

  ‘They are mostly thick. And anyway, I’ve been buying my own clothes for some time now, so please allow me to know what I need to wear underneath.’

  ‘How long will you be?’

  ‘I don’t know; I want to look round the shops. Surely I’m allowed a little time to myself. As it is Father’s club night, I’ll have to be in attendance downstairs from teatime, won’t I?’

  Her mother gave her a long look, then turned away.

  She had to leave the house by way of the shop because her father had locked the back door leading to the yard, and of course he had kept the key.

  She was entering the storeroom when her father came through the low door from the tobacconist’s and he said to her, ‘Oh! Where you off to?’

  ‘I’m going to do some shopping.’

  She went to walk away from him when he caught her arm; but his grip was gentle on her as he said, ‘Don’t be hard on me, lass. I’m broken up. It’s as if I’ve been paid out because I’ve always put her first; and you were worth ten of her, I know that now. But you won’t lose by it, lass. Oh no, you won’t lose by it.’

  In this changed manner of his, she thought she could see a way out, and so she said, ‘Couldn’t you forgive her, accept things as they are? She has made a mistake, but if you were kind to her and told her that you forgive…’

  ‘Lass,’ his voice was still quiet but it had a thread of steel running through it as he said slowly, ‘I could no more forgive her what she’s done than I could those Jews for crucifying Christ.’

  Her first reaction was one of amazement. Here was a man who never crossed a church door but who could be biased against Jews, and yet he served Jews almost every day of the week in his shop. It could be a common saying, but if it was, she hadn’t heard it before. No; she recognised prejudice when she heard it.

  She drooped her head and turned from him. It was as if his words had returned the burden to her shoulders, the burden that for a moment she had imagined he could lift with forgiveness.

  As she passed through the sweetshop Nan Henderson made the remark: �
�You’ll have to hold tight to your hat, Miss Agnes, because there’s a wind got up. ’Tis a change from yesterday.’ She was moving round the counter now as she went on, ‘I’m glad it’s cooler than yesterday; the chocolates don’t like the sun. What we want is a sun blind outside. Don’t you think so, Miss?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, Nan. That would be an idea.’

  Her voice now dropping to a whisper, Nan said, ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, Nan; everything’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right then.’

  She opened the shop door to allow Agnes to pass, and she said something else, but the words were lost to Agnes in the gust of wind that did indeed almost take her hat off.

  Nan was no fool: she knew what was afoot; at least she guessed as much and she wanted confirmation…

  Agnes reached the Feltons’ house within fifteen minutes of leaving the shop.

  The street looked shabbier in the daylight: the little square that could have been a garden within the iron gate was full of rank grass. Yet she noticed that the front door had been crudely painted, and also the window sill to the side of it, and the front step had been recently bath-bricked.

  She raised the knocker and let it fall once, and almost immediately the door was opened and there stood the big woman, the enormous woman, because she looked bigger in the daylight than as she remembered her; and the woman showed her surprise in both her face and her voice when she said, ‘Well, well! Look what the wind’s blown in. You haven’t brought your father with you, have you?’ And she made pretence of looking first one way then the other up the street before saying, ‘Come on in; don’t stand there.’

  Agnes passed her and went into the living room; and again she took note of the shining brasses on the mantelpiece and the blackleaded fireplace, and she commented to herself that the stove appeared much cleaner than their own did after Maggie had given it its weekly blackleading.

  ‘Sit down.’ The woman pulled a wooden chair from the side of the table, swinging it round with one hand so that it was facing the fireplace, and then she said, ‘Have you come to see if he’s dead or alive?’

  ‘I’ve…I’ve come to talk to him.’

  ‘To ask him to give up your sister who’s carryin’ his bairn? Not a chance. Not a chance. If it hadn’t been for the bairn he might have eased off, but not now. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else, that bugger of a father of yours would be in hospital this minute, if not in the mortuary, if our lads had got their own way. But Robbie said no, it was his business an’ they’ve each fought their own battles. So they’ve held their hand, and it’s lucky for the old bastard that they have, ’cos you can take it from me our Jimmy was for scalpin’ him. He said, if your old man was for taking the youngster’s scalp off with a shovel then he would have tried doin’ it Red Indian fashion, and he meant it. Oh aye, he meant it. I brought me lads up to fight clean, bare knuckles, no boots; that was unless somebody hit ’em below the belt, an’ your father certainly did that. I tell you, I had me work cut out to keep ’em in hand and if it hadn’t been that one or t’other of ’em would have gone along the line I’d let ’em go ahead. Aye, I would that. Now then, what d’you want to talk to him about?’

  ‘I…I’d like to tell him myself. Is he in?’

  ‘Aye, he’s in. He’s upstairs on the bed. His head’s been achin’ like blazes, an’ no wonder. I’ll fetch him down. But come out of that an’ into the front room.’

  Her hand, sweeping the air, seemed to lift Agnes from the chair and she followed her across the kitchen, through a door into a short passage, then into another room.

  She knew that the front room of the lower working class was usually kept for show and used for special occasions, but she saw immediately that this room was well used, and yet it showed signs of comfort: a big leather couch and two matching chairs showing some hard wear; a high Welsh dresser holding coloured china plates and ornaments; and at the end of the room in front of a window was a large oval table supported by a central pillar on four feet. The Nottingham-lace curtains at the window were a deep dolly-tinted cream; and the empty fireplace was stuffed with crinkled fancy wrapping paper. Surrounding it, as a sort of fireguard, was a high fender with a wooden top broad enough to act as a seat, and on it were a number of ashtrays, some holding cigarette ends, others the dottles of pipe tobacco.

  Agnes was definitely amazed at the sense of order in this awful family, as she thought of them. She had expected the hearth to be littered with the butt ends and the scrapings from the pipes. People were surprising. All kinds of people were surprising. Her mind drifted back to yesterday.

  The woman had left her without further words; and now she could hear her footsteps overhead and the sound of her raucous voice. Presently there were steps outside the door and a young man came in. His brow and ears and the back of his head were covered in a bandage, and she could see where the hair had been cut away almost to the crown.

  At first he didn’t speak because his mother was saying to her, ‘Well, sit yourself down. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  She was about to say, ‘No, thank you,’ but changed her mind and said, ‘That would be very nice, thank you.’

  She sat down on the edge of one of the leather chairs, and he sat opposite to her on the couch, and after a moment, she said, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not too bad.’

  ‘I’m sorry for what happened.’

  ‘Aye, so am I…How is she?’

  ‘You mean Jessie?’

  ‘Who else?’

  His tone was sharp, and hers now was equally sharp as she retorted, ‘She’s as well as can be expected under the circumstances, being virtually a prisoner in her home.’

  ‘Have…have you come with a message from her?’

  ‘No. I’ve come with no message from her, but with a suggestion, a proposition that I thought up. But first I must ask you a question.’

  ‘Aye; well, fire ahead.’

  He now brought himself towards the end of the couch and waited.

  ‘Do you care for her enough to marry her as soon as possible and take her straight away to some place where my father won’t find you?’

  ‘Well, I can answer that, an’ straight away an’ all. Aye, I care for her, and as she’s carrying me bairn I’ll marry her as soon as she’s ready. But that kind of thing takes time. And how am I goin’ to do it if as you say she’s held prisoner in the house? Of course’—he nodded at her now—‘I could take our lads to your house and I can tell you she wouldn’t be held prisoner for long then. But I don’t wanna cause any more trouble. So what’s your solution to that? I mean, how’s it to be done?’

  ‘Do you know anything about a special licence?’

  ‘Special licence? What for?’

  ‘To get married, of course.’

  He shook his head, then said, ‘No. No, never heard of it.’

  ‘Well, I understand it can be done. It could be done within a week or so, at least that’s what I’ve been told. You would have to go to the Registry Office and enquire. But there’s a snag to this. She should have her parents’ consent, and I’ve no need to tell you she’ll never get that. However, as has been pointed out to me, there’s a form which needs their signatures…or two such signatures.’

  As she and Charles had done at a similar point earlier, so they stared hard at each other, until she said, ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Oh aye, I understand. I…I do that all right. Oh aye.’

  He was standing up now and looking down at her, ‘But…but how will she get out of the house without your da knowin’?’

  ‘I…I can arrange that. She’s supposed to be going to live with my mother’s cousin in Durham. I…I went up yesterday to Durham to make arrangements. When I saw this woman I knew she would not countenance the arrangement, but—’ She looked away from him as she said, ‘I came back and I lied to my parents and told them that the arrangements could possibly go through. And then I met a friend who told
me about the special licence, and also that, as a last resort, there is Gretna Green.’

  He stared at her for some seconds before he said, ‘Gretna Green? You did all that?’ Then he smiled, a slow smile that changed his face and gave Agnes a glimpse of what had attracted Jessie. ‘You’re all right, you know that?’ he said. ‘An’ she’s lucky to have you. Aye, she is. Ma—’ He turned as his mother came into the room carrying a tray on which were three cups of tea, not mugs, but cups on saucers, and a bowl of sugar, and, standing up, he took the tray from her and carried it to the oval table, then picked up two cups, one he handed to his mother, the other to Agnes. Then, turning to his mother again, he said, ‘She’s got it all fixed.’

  ‘What d’you mean, all fixed?’

  ‘Us gettin’ married, Jessie and me.’

  ‘And how’s she goin’ to do that?’

  In his own words he told her, and she, now looking at Agnes and smiling, said, ‘You know what? You’re a bit of all right. There’s one thing sure, you don’t take after that bloody old maniac, you must take after your mother.’

  Why was it her mind jumped to retort, but silently, Oh, I hope not? She said aloud now, ‘But there is one thing you must agree to: you mustn’t stay in this city or any town round about; you’ll have to get right away, maybe as far as the Midlands.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that all right.’

  ‘You’ll…you’ll need money.’ She looked from one to the other.

  ‘You needn’t worry about that, miss. I’ve got a hit that’ll see us through until I get a job. I’ll make for a town that has a port in it. Wherever there’s boats an’ water I’ll get work.’

  ‘He won’t go short, miss; you can take me word for that. If he hasn’t enough I’ll make it right so that your sister will have the bairn in comfort, ’cos she hasn’t been used to roughin’ it, I know that much. She’ll have to learn, though, before she’s much older; but in the meantime things’ll be made as easy as possible for her. You’ve no need to worry on that score. An’ now you, lad; d’you think you can make it to the Registry Office? I’ll go along with you.’