Mary Ann and Bill Read online

  When she saw Corny enter the room, she bowed her head against the look on his face. The thing might be dead but she felt he was suffering the loss as if of a beloved one…It wasn’t over yet then.

  She had to do something to ease the embarrassment between them so she pulled David towards her, and, her voice trembling, she asked him, ‘Tell me, what made you do it?’

  David stood before her with his head bent. When he raised his eyes he didn’t look at her, but at his father who was standing with his elbows resting on the mantelpiece, his back towards them, and he said, ‘Because of Samson.’

  ‘Samson!’ Mary Ann gazed at her son in perplexity. The she asked, ‘Which Samson?’

  ‘The Samson you told me and Rose Mary about with the long hair.’

  Mary Ann shook her head slightly and waited.

  ‘Well, you said that when his hair was cut he couldn’t do anything, he was no use. You said everything was in his hair, an’ I thought’—he glanced quickly at his father’s back again, then ended on a high cracked note, ‘I thought she couldn’t do anything if her hair…’

  When his voice broke he screwed up his eyes tightly and the tears welled from between his lashes, and Mary Ann drew him into her arms and held him for a moment. Then rising from her chair, she took him by the hand and into the bathroom, and before she washed his face she held him again, and kissed him and murmured over him, ‘Oh David. David.’ And he cried now with his eyes open and whispered, ‘He won’t go, will he, Mam? Dad won’t go?’ And she whispered back, ‘No, no. Don’t worry; you’ve made it all right.’

  Whether he had or not, at least he had been the means of proving to her that Diana Blenkinsop was gone. But the question now was, had her effect on Corny been such that their life, as it had once been, was a thing so dead that it could never be revived?

  Chapter Fourteen: The Ethics of Stealing

  It was just after three o’clock when David approached Jimmy for the second time that day. ‘Are you still busy?’ he said to him.

  ‘Aye,’ said Jimmy, without looking at him.

  ‘I told you I’ve got somethin’ to show you.’

  ‘And I told you I don’t want to see it.’

  David stood looking at Jimmy’s bent body; he was cleaning an engine that was jacked upon a low platform.

  ‘It won’t take five minutes, Jimmy.’

  ‘I told you I haven’t got five minutes. And what if your dad comes and finds me away from my job?’ He straightened up and looked down on the small boy, and David looked back at him and said, ‘But you’re goin’ the night.’

  ‘Aye, I’m goin’ the night, and a bloomin’ good job an’ all.’

  David now turned from him and went to the door of the shed and looked into the yard, then coming back he whispered, ‘Will you not go away until I come back, I mean into the garage? I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘I’ll be here for the next half-hour or so,’ said Jimmy flatly.

  Jimmy watched the boy run out of the shed and across the yard, and he shook his head and muttered to himself, ‘Who would believe it, eh, who would believe it?’

  In less than five minutes David was back in the shed, and when he closed the door Jimmy shouted at him, ‘Leave that open, I want to see.’

  ‘Just for a minute, Jimmy. I’ll switch the light on.’

  He now came and stood in from of Jimmy. He was holding in his hands a cocoa tin with a lid on it and he held it out, saying, ‘It’s for you, for the car, so you won’t have to go.’

  Jimmy bent his thin bony body over David and he said one word, ‘Eh?’

  ‘You wanted money for the car, for your share. I haven’t got it all but there’s a lot, and me pocket money an’ all. I only kept sixpence back of me pocket money and put the other one and six in.’

  ‘Chree-ist!’ exclaimed Jimmy. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been taking it for me?’ He was showing not only his teeth but his gums, and his face looked comical, but he didn’t feel comical. He knew the kid had been pinching for weeks now and he knew that when the boss twigged the money was missing he would get the blame of it. He had wanted to tip the boss the wink, but he found he couldn’t. How could you tell him his own bairn was a thief? He couldn’t do it, he liked the boss. The only thing he could do was to leave and let him find out for himself. The boss was always easy with money, and he had been very easy these past few months when it had been flooding in, and he himself could have made quite a bit on the side but he wasn’t given that way. But he would never have guessed in a month of Sundays that the young ’un was taking it for him, for the car. He remembered the day Poodle Patter had come into the garage and tried to persuade him to go to Baxter’s. The kid had been listening then. Crikey! What was he to do now? He dropped onto an upturned wooden box and, looking at David, said, ‘Aw man, you’re daft, barmy, clean barmy.’

  With the change in Jimmy’s attitude David’s face brightened and he pulled the lid off the tin and emptied the contents onto the bench. There were ten shilling notes, pound notes, and one five-pound note.

  Jimmy closed his eyes, then put his hand over them, and when he heard David say excitedly, ‘There’s nearly ten pounds. You won’t have to go now, will you?’ he looked at the boy and said slowly, ‘David man, don’t you know you’ve been stealin’? Don’t you know you’ll get something for your corner for this?’

  ‘It isn’t lock-up stealing, Jimmy, not real stealing, it’s just from Dad, and he’s got lots of money, and he doesn’t bother about change, you know he doesn’t. He said, “What’s sixpence?”’

  ‘Aye, he might have said what’s sixpence, man, but look, these are not just sixpences, there’s a fiver. When, in the name of God, did you take that?’

  ‘Just a while back.’

  ‘Oh crikey!’

  ‘You won’t go now, Jimmy, will you?’

  Jimmy looked down into the round face that was wearing an most angelic expression and he was lost for words. This here kid was a corker. You never knew what he was going to get up to next, but to pinch for him! It put a different complexion on the whole thing. He’d have to do something about it.

  He gathered up the money and put it back into the tin and, gazing down at David, he said, ‘Now look; I’ve got a little job I want you to do for me. Now will you stay here and do it until I come back?’

  ‘Aye, Jimmy, I’ll do it for you, but,’ he paused, ‘you won’t leave, will you?’

  Jimmy looked back into the now solemn countenance, and he jerked his head and rubbed his lips with his tongue before saying, ‘We’ll see. We’ll see. Only you stick at this job. Now take that bit of glass paper and get a polish on this rod. I want to see me face in it. Right?’

  ‘Right, Jimmy.’

  Corny was in the office. The till was open and he was looking at the contents. He slanted his eyes towards Jimmy as he stood at the door but he didn’t speak, and Jimmy said, ‘Could have a word with you, boss?’

  Still Corny didn’t answer. There was a five-pound note missing from the till. He wanted to turn on this lad and say, ‘Hand it over before I knock it out of you!’ but in another hour or so he would be gone and that would be that. And, by damn, he’d see that the new one who was starting on Monday didn’t grease his fingers at his expense.

  Jimmy didn’t know how to begin, and the boss wasn’t being very helpful. He looked in a bit of a stew. Well that to-do at dinner time with that piece and the missis was enough to put anybody in a stew, but he didn’t think the missis would be troubled any more by Miss Blenkinsop, and that was a good thing. He had been sorry for the missis lately, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand the boss. He said now, ‘There was a reason, boss, why I wanted to leave.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt about that.’ Corny’s voice was cold.

  Coo! He was in a stew. And now having to tell him what his lad had been up to was a bit thick, but there was no other way out of it. ‘You…I don’t know whether you’ve noticed anything about the takings, boss, but…bu
t there’s been money going.’

  Corny slid from the stool and stared at Jimmy and he said, ‘Aye, aye, Jimmy, there’s been money going. But it’s rather late in the day, isn’t it, to give me an explanation?’

  As Jimmy stared back into Corny’s eyes, he realised the thing he had feared, the thing he was leaving for had already happened; the boss had known about it all along and thought it was him. Aw, crikey! He wagged his head from side to side, then thrusting the tin towards Corny, he said, ‘It’s all in there. But…but it wasn’t me that took it.’

  Corny looked at the cocoa tin, then lifted the lid. Following this he turned out the contents onto the desk and picked up the five-pound note. Slowly now he turned round and looked at Jimmy, then he said, ‘Well, if you didn’t take it, who did? The fairies? There’s only you and me dealing with money here.’

  Jimmy bowed his head. ‘You remember Poodle Patter coming and tryin’ to get me to go a share in the car for the band, boss?’

  Corny made no response and Jimmy went on, ‘He was at me to go to Baxter’s for more money, and to get rid of him I said I would think about it. Well, there was somebody listening and they thought up a way to get the money for me.’ He lifted his head and looked at Corny and said simply, ‘Young David.’

  Corny stared at him. He stared and he continued to stare until Jimmy said, ‘I’m sorry, boss.’

  ‘Our David!’ It was a mere whisper, and Jimmy nodded his head once. ‘You mean he’s been stealing from the—’ he thumbed the till, ‘all this time, under my nose?’

  Jimmy said nothing until Corny asked, ‘How long have you known about this?’

  ‘Oh,’ Jimmy wagged his head in characteristic fashion, ‘it was the week you got Bill I think. Aye, about that time, because he remembered you telling me to tell the man to keep the change. You said, “What’s sixpence?” I saw him at it through the window the first time, but I thought I was mistaken until the next time he came in an’ I watched him.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me, Jimmy?’ Corny’s voice had risen now.

  ‘Aw, boss, ask yourself. Anyway, I tried twice but both times you were in a bit of a stew about something and I thought I’d better not make matters worse.’

  ‘You know what you are, Jimmy, you’re a fool, that’s what you are, you’re a long, lanky fool!’ Corny was shouting now. ‘I’ve known this money’s been going all the time, but I thought it was you.’

  ‘Aye.’ Jimmy jerked his head. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t think I was so green as not to miss pound notes and ten shilling notes going out of the till, did you?’

  ‘Well, you didn’t say nowt, boss. Anyway,’ he now hunched his shoulders up, ‘I couldn’t give him away; he sort of, well, likes me, and trails after me. Aw, I just couldn’t, so I thought it was better to clear out an’ you find out for yourself. But then, well he brings me the tin and tells me he’s done it for me so’s I won’t go.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Corny sat down heavily on the stool and, leaning his elbow on the desk, he supported his head. He’d go barmy. After a moment he looked at Jimmy and said, ‘You know I don’t want you to go, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to go either, boss.’

  ‘You’ve got fixed up at Baxter’s.’

  ‘Aye, I start on Monday.’

  ‘Could you back out?’

  Jimmy looked down towards his boots, then said, ‘Aye, I could, but then you’ve got the other fellow startin’ Monday.’

  ‘Oh, that can be fixed,’ said Corny. ‘We’ve said for some time we could do with another hand. And he’s young and I won’t have time to see to him myself and train him. How about it?’

  ‘Suits me, boss.’ Jimmy was grinning slightly, and Corny got off the stool and went towards him and again he said, ‘You’re a fool, Jimmy. No matter who it is—now you listen to me, man, woman or child—don’t you take the rap for anybody, not for a thing like that, for stealing.’ He drew in a long breath, then putting his hand out and gripping Jimmy’s shoulder he said, ‘Nevertheless, thanks. And I won’t forget you for this. Now where is he?’

  ‘I set him cleaning a rod in the shed. You won’t come down too hard on him, will you?’

  ‘You leave it to me. This one lesson he’s got to learn and the hard way.’

  As Jimmy walked quickly by Corny’s side he asked, under his breath, ‘Where’s Mrs Boyle?’

  For answer Corny said, ‘It’ll be all over by the time she gets downstairs.’

  David stopped rubbing the rod as soon as he caught sight of his father. Jimmy wasn’t there, there was just his dad, and when he saw the look on his face he began to tremble.

  ‘So you’ve been stealing from me?’ Corny was towering over him.

  ‘N…not pro…proper stealing, Dad.’ It was as if he had gone back six months and was learning to pronounce his words again.

  ‘There’s only one form of stealing. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you that’s stealing, proper stealing.’

  ‘I…I d-didn’t want J-J-Jimmy to go, D-Dad.’

  ‘Jimmy could have asked me for the money. If Jimmy had wanted a share in that car he could have got the money. He didn’t want you to steal for him.’

  ‘You said it di-didn’t matter, Dad.’

  ‘What didn’t matter?’

  ‘Mo-money.’

  Corny faintly remembered saying, ‘What’s money for but to go round?’

  ‘You knew it mattered, didn’t you? If it didn’t matter why did you do it on the sly? Why did you go to the office when I wasn’t there and take money out of the till if it didn’t matter? You knew it was stealing. You wouldn’t go upstairs and open your mother’s purse and take money out, would you?’

  David was past answering. He was staring at Corny, his eyes stretched to their limit.

  ‘Take your pants down.’

  ‘N-n-no, Dad, p-please, Dad.’

  ‘You’ll take your pants down, or I will.’

  ‘M-Mam!’

  ‘Your mother isn’t here and if she was that wouldn’t stop me from braying you. Come on.’ He made a grab at him and in a second he had pulled the short trousers down over David’s hips, but even before he had swung him round and over his knee David had started to holler, and when Corny’s hand descended on his buttocks for the first time he let out a high piercing scream.

  Ten times Corny’s hand contacted his son’s buttocks and it must have been around the sixth ear-splitting scream that Rose Mary entered the drive.

  She knew that noise, she knew who cried like that. She ran to the garage and was borne in the direction of the hullabaloo, and she was just rushing through the small door when she saw her mother coming from the yard. She was running like mad towards the repair shed.

  ‘Corny! What are you doing? Leave him go!’

  When Mary Ann went to grab her son from her husband’s hands he thrust her aside, and as he stood David on his feet he cried at her, ‘Now don’t start until you know what it’s all about.’

  ‘I don’t care what it’s all about; there’s no need to murder him.’

  ‘I wasn’t murdering him, I was twanking his backside. And he’s lucky to get off with just that. Do you know what he’s been doing?’

  Mary Ann said nothing, she just stared at her son. His face was scarlet and awash with tears, and from his face she looked to his thin bare legs and the side of his buttocks that outdid his face in colour.

  ‘He’s been stealing. This is the one that’s been taking the money from the till, and all the while I thought it was Jimmy.’

  Mary Ann couldn’t speak for a moment, then she whispered, ‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘David! You couldn’t.’

  Now David did a very strange thing. He did not run to his mother where he knew he would find comfort, but he turned to the man who had been thrashing him, and laying his head against his waist he put his arms around his hips and choked as he spluttered, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh,
Dad!’

  Corny swallowed deeply, wet his lips, then bending down he pulled up the trousers and fastened them round his son’s waist.

  Rose Mary had been standing at her mother’s side, absolutely too shocked to utter a word. Their mam smacked their bottoms sometimes, but…but she had never seen anybody get smacked like her dad had smacked David. He said David had stolen money. Eeh, it was a lie, because David never did anything without telling her. He would not even steal without telling her. But then David wouldn’t steal; he knew it was a sin, and he’d have to go to confession and tell Father Carey. Their dad was awful. She didn’t love their dad. Poor, poor David. Her feelings now lifted her in a jump to her brother’s side, and David did another surprising thing. With the flat of one hand he pushed her away, and whether it was with surprise or whether she tripped over one of the jutting pieces of wood that supported the engine on the bench, she fell backwards. And now she let out a howl.

  She howled until she reached the kitchen and Mary Ann, taking her by the shoulders, shook her gently, saying, ‘Now stop it. You weren’t hurt; stop it, I tell you.’

  ‘He…he pushed me, our David pushed me.’

  ‘He didn’t mean to, he was upset.’

  ‘Dad said he stole. He’s tellin’ lies, isn’t he?’

  ‘If your dad said he stole, then he stole. And that’s what he’s been thrashed for. Now go to the bathroom and don’t pester him or question him because he’s upset. Run the bath for me.’

  ‘Have…have we to go to bed, Mam?’

  ‘No, I’m just going to give David a bath, then he’ll feel better.’ She did not add, ‘It might ease the pain of his bottom.’

  As Rose Mary went slowly out of the kitchen Corny came in and stood near the table, but he didn’t look at Mary Ann as he gave her the explanation for David stealing the money. When he had finished there was a pause, and then she said, ‘You’ll have to make it up to Jimmy somehow.’