The Year of the Virgins Read online

  ‘Well, I wish you both all the luck in the world, you know that. And I shall miss you both. We’ll all miss you both, because quite candidly, Flo, you and Harvey have brought a little lightness into this house over the past months. And that was badly needed.’

  ‘Thanks, Daniel. Well, until Saturday. You’d better come down on the Friday night, because it’ll be an early do on the Saturday morning.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Flo. I’ll do that. Goodnight. God bless.’

  Back in the kitchen Maggie, on being told the news, said, ‘How wonderful for them. Yet I doubt if they’ll have an easier time there than they have here. It’s awful to think of, for they are two of the nicest people in the world. And I’ve never met a man like him before, with the manners that he has. He’s a gentleman of gentlemen, but he has to be persecuted because of his colour. By! When you think of some of the swabs round about it makes you want to spit, and them in high places. And you don’t have to look far, do you? Look at Annette’s father. He’s the only one who never spoke to Harvey. But then he’s not speaking to his own daughter. Is it true that he’s trying to get rid of his businesses?’

  ‘No, no; that was just a rumour. They are too profitable for him to let go.’

  ‘But it’s true that they’re moving, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, as far as I can gather, that’s true enough.’

  ‘Somewhere around Carlisle, somebody said.’

  ‘Well, they can move to hell for all I care. But to get back to us, Maggie; what about it?’

  She turned from him and went towards the fire and, bending, she pushed in the damper to the side of the boiler, then said quietly, ‘I’ll…I’ll have to think about it, Daniel. Leave it for the present, will you?’

  She turned and looked at him, and he, walking over to her, put his arms about her again, saying, ‘Then make it a short “present” will you? Please, Maggie, make it a short present.’

  Seven

  It was half past six on the Thursday morning that Annette took ill. She felt a sharp pain at the base of her abdomen, and for a moment she felt she was going to faint. Slowly she brought herself up to the edge of the bed and looked at the clock. Daniel and Joe didn’t normally come into the room until seven o’clock and the nurse didn’t arrive until eight. She got out of bed, looking towards where Don was still sleeping under the influence of the night pill and walked carefully past the foot of his bed and towards the door leading to the sitting room. She just managed to reach the couch there before the pain gripped her again and she was brought double, her hands hugging her abdomen.

  She looked at the bell pushes on the wall; then, making an effort, she took stumbling steps towards them and pressed one, and it seemed only a minute before she heard footsteps running along the corridor, and there was Joe, saying, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘Yes, dear? Take it easy. Take it easy.’ He had guided her back to the couch, and now sat down beside her, his arm about her. ‘You’ve got a pain?’

  ‘I…I think it’s coming, Joe. You…you had better get the doctor.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She gasped now before she said, ‘Dreadful pain.’

  He rose immediately and went to the phone that was placed on a side table.

  Presently he came back to her. ‘He’s coming,’ he said. ‘He won’t be long. Lie down.’

  ‘I…I can’t, Joe. Oh dear!’ She groaned out the words. And he was now holding her tightly to him, saying, ‘There, there. It’ll be all right. Look; just rest easy, I’ll ring for Dad. He’ll get you a hot drink. That might help.’

  He stretched out his free arm and pressed the other button, and within a minute or so Daniel came hurrying into the room, only to hesitate for a moment before he approached her, saying, ‘This is it then?’

  ‘Dad…Dad, it’s too early.’

  ‘I know. I know, love. But it’s all right; these things often happen. You’ll be all right, you’ll see. The doctor?’

  ‘I rang him; he’s on his way.’

  ‘Oh my! Oh dear!’ Her face was screwed up in agony now, and they both held her twisted body while Daniel muttered, ‘Why the hell doesn’t he hurry up!’

  ‘He was asleep. I woke him. He has to get dressed.’

  ‘He’s only a five-minute car ride away.’

  ‘Look; go and wake Maggie. But go carefully, we don’t want Don to know about this; not yet, anyway.’

  Maggie and the doctor arrived in the room almost simultaneously. Annette was lying back on the couch now, her body heaving, and she put her hand out to the doctor and, gripping his, she said, ‘Please! Please, do something.’

  ‘We’ll do something, dear, don’t worry. How often have the pains been coming?’

  ‘It…it seems to be all the time…all the time.’

  He turned from her, looked around the room, then pushed past Daniel and went to the phone. Then after a moment, he said, ‘The ambulance will be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘The ambulance?’ Annette went to pull herself up into a sitting position, and he said, ‘Yes; the ambulance. And lie quiet, you’re going into hospital.’

  ‘I…I thought…’

  ‘Whatever you thought, you can think in hospital, my dear. That’s the place for you, and you’ll be all right in no time. There’s nothing to worry about.’ He turned to the men now, saying, ‘I would get your clothes on; one of you had better go in with her.’

  As they both made to go from the room Joe said to Daniel, ‘You stay here, Dad, and see to Don. I’ll take her in.’ Strangely, Daniel made no objection, but just said, ‘All right, lad. All right.’ And each hurried to his room to dress, as both missions were equally urgent.

  Before the ambulance arrived Annette, hanging on now to Maggie, had three more painful spasms. But when the men brought in the stretcher, she waved it to one side, saying, ‘I…I can walk. And…and I want to look in on my husband.’

  The doctor and Daniel between them helped her to her feet, then led her through to the bedroom. Thankfully the hustle and bustle had not awakened Don, and she bent over him and kissed him on the cheek. But when he stirred and muttered something, the doctor turned her quickly from the bed. Once in the corridor, however, he said, ‘Now you’ve walked far enough. Lie down on the stretcher and we’ll tuck you up, then you can forget about everything but that you will have a fine baby. I’ll be along to see you later. I’ve been in touch with Doctor Walters, so he’ll be waiting for you.’

  When, overcome by another spasm, she began to groan, the ambulance men stopped and she, gasping, looked up at Joe, saying, ‘You’ll stay with me…Joe?’

  ‘I’ll stay with you. Never fear, I’ll stay with you.’

  Two hours later, Joe had had four cups of tea and had explained at least six times to three expectant fathers in the waiting room that no, he wasn’t the father, he was the brother-in-law. And when a young fellow asked, ‘Where’s the bloke, then? Scarpered?’ he had answered good-humouredly, ‘No; he’s still in bed,’ to which the reply, after a moment’s hesitation, was, ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Drunk?’

  And to this Joe had said, sadly, ‘No, not drunk—I wish he were—he had an accident.’

  ‘Oh.’ The enquirer was obviously very sorry. ‘Hard lines, that,’ he said. ‘It’s every man’s right to know what’s going on, don’t you think?’ And when Joe had said, ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ the young fellow had pointed to the far end of the room to a pacing expectant parent and, in a low voice, had said, ‘That bloke demanded to be in on the show. Can you believe it? He can’t have gone through what I have else he’d bloody well want to steer clear of that. Eeh! Some folks.’

  Part of Joe was laughing; but only part of him; the other part was bitterly engaged in alternately begging God and demanding of Him that Annette would be all right; and if it should be either her or the child, to let the child go. This business of the child at any price was all hooey to hi
m. The church was wrong there, and he would tell them so the very next time he saw Father Ramshaw; or, yes, Father Cody. He would be the one to throw it at. If they let anything happen to her to save the child, what light was left in his life would be extinguished.

  He had had to wage a constant struggle to carry on, even behind the façade he had put up: for as he had watched her abdomen swell, so his own envy of Don had grown. Although he knew that never again would Don give her another life to carry, he was still, in a way, jealous because he would keep reminding himself it needn’t have happened. He should have been strong, forceful, shown his hand before his Dad set to work developing his own ideas for his son’s escape. If he had come into the open and declared his love, Don wouldn’t be on his back now, nor would his own adoptive mother be in an asylum.

  ‘Mr Coulson?’ The nurse was tapping him on the arm. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right, Mr Coulson. Don’t look so worried; everything’s fine.’

  ‘She’s…’

  ‘Yes, she’s all right, I tell you. She’s asleep now. We had to give her a caesarean. You have a little girl…I mean’—she laughed—‘you have a little niece.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Well’—the nurse laughed again—‘if she’s a niece I suppose she’s a girl; there’re only two types.’

  His relief and thankfulness showed as a deep exhalation of breath, enough to bring a number of heads turning in his direction, and as he followed the nurse out of the door, one of those heads turned to another, saying, ‘Funny bloke, that. He’s supposed to be the brother-in-law. Huh! He’s been more stewed up than me.’

  The brother-in-law was now gazing through a window to where a nurse was pointing to a cot in which he could just make out a small wrinkled face like that of an old woman.

  When the nurse at his side said, ‘She’s beautiful; small, just over six pounds, but beautiful,’ Joe smiled down on her, saying, ‘Can I see her? I mean, Mrs Coulson,’ and she said, ‘It wouldn’t be any use, she’ll sleep for some time yet. If I were you I’d go home and give the father the news, then have a bath and a big breakfast, by which time she should have come round.’

  ‘Thanks, nurse. I’ll do that. But do you think I could have a word with the doctor before…?’

  ‘Oh—’ she cut him short by saying on a laugh, ‘you’ll have a better chance when you come back, because he’s still in the theatre bringing another one…out of the depths.’

  He laughed with her, nodded, then said, ‘Thank you very much, nurse,’ and walked away.

  Out of the depths, she had said. Was she a Catholic?

  Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee,

  O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.

  Let Thine ear be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

  How many times of late had he said that? And at the same time wondered why he was saying it, because he had his doubts, his grave doubts, about anyone or anything being there to listen to the voice. What was more to the point, he knew that if anything had happened to her this morning, it would undoubtedly have made him realise that for years, like millions of others down the ages, he had been talking to himself, and that would have been the finish of ‘I believe, help Thou my unbelief’, for never again would he have prayed for faith.

  But she had survived.

  He stepped out into the cold morning and took in long breaths of icy air. He looked upwards. The sky was high and blue but it was still cold enough to be deep winter.

  Having arrived in the ambulance, he took the bus home, one that would leave him nearest the house. The bus was full of people, all remarking on the sudden cold, apart from one passenger, the woman that was sitting next to him, for she turned to him and in a low voice said, ‘’Tisn’t sudden at all; it’s been like this for two or three mornin’s now. I said last week we’ll have snow, and we will: end of March or no end of March, you’ll see. I’m gettin’ off here.’ He moved his knees to let her pass and she said, ‘Ta-ra.’

  He answered likewise, ‘Ta-ra.’ And he remarked to himself that you missed a lot when you had a car: not only did you fly through the countryside without seeing anything, but also you missed people. ‘Ta-ra,’ she had said. Nobody had said ‘Ta-ra’ to him for a long time. The three fellows and the two girls in the office would say, ‘Bye! Be seeing you.’ The nearest they got to ‘ta-ra’ was, ‘so long’. He sat now looking out of the window. That woman, she could have been his mother. He cast his glance backwards. Any one of these women could have been his mother. But then, no; they all looked very working class, and his mother had been…What had she been? Oh, not again! He should stop deluding himself, because it wouldn’t end there; once he found her he would want to find his father, wouldn’t he? Anyway, to stop the nagging there was only one way to tackle it: he’d go back to the home and ask.

  During his teens he had thought that, as he grew older the questioning would lessen, but it hadn’t. It had grown in intensity. But what if he did find her and she turned out to be a disappointment? He’d have to risk that. But could he? He’d been rejected by his mother, he’d been rejected by his foster mother. He had, in a way, been rejected by Annette. Could he risk another rejection or disappointment? But he had this great emptiness inside. He needed something…someone to fill it, and no matter how soon dead men’s shoes became vacant, he couldn’t see himself jumping into them, no matter what Don wanted…it wouldn’t be decent. Anyway, there was Annette, to whom he was just a brother.

  Oh, he wished he hadn’t got on the bus. No, he didn’t really, because he liked to be among people. Yet that was a contradiction, wasn’t it? Why had he asked to have his rooms in the cottage, separate from the family? Oh, he knew why, because he had to get away as much as he could from the rejection by her; and also from his dad breaking his neck to make up for the rejection which, in a way, was just as bad.

  What about Jessica? Jessica Bowbent; or Irene Shilton…yes, what about them? No, not Irene. So that left Jessica or, better still, Mary Carter. Yes, better still, Mary…

  Maggie was waiting on the doorstep, with Daniel behind her, and Peggie and Lily behind them.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s fine. It’s a little girl.’

  Daniel closed his eyes and he, too, exhaled loudly; then his voice almost attacked Joe as he cried, ‘Why the hell didn’t you phone, then? We’ve been on tenterhooks.’ But then he showed his surprise when Joe barked back at him in the same tone: ‘There’s a phone at this end; you could have phoned the hospital yourself, couldn’t you?’

  ‘All right, lad. All right. Calm down.’ Daniel patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’ve been there and I can understand you must have been worried. But quite candidly, I was afraid to phone. Come on. Come on. Have something to eat.’

  ‘I will in a minute; I want to go along to Don.’

  ‘Of course. Of course. He’s been on hot bricks. He couldn’t believe that she had gone and that he hadn’t woken up.’

  Joe went swiftly along to the sick room, but before entering he braced himself, then thrusting the door open, he cried, ‘Who’s a papa then?’

  The nurse turned from the bed, crying, ‘She got it over?’

  ‘Yes, she got it over.’ He was standing now looking down on Don; but Don didn’t speak, and so he cried at him, ‘Well! Say something, man!’

  ‘How…how is she? Is she all right?’ Don’s voice was thin, weak.

  ‘She’s fine.’ Joe didn’t know if this were true or not; but for the moment she had to be. ‘You have a daughter,’ he said.

  ‘A girl?’ The words were short, but Joe’s voice was extra loud as he said, ‘That’s what a daughter means: yes, a girl. Anyway, that’s what the nurse said to me.’

  Don now pressed his head back on the pillow, looked up while his teeth drew on his upper lip, and the nurse asked, ‘What did she weigh? Is she all right? I mean, not sick or anything?’

  Joe, and still in a loud voice, said, ‘Of course she’s all right. I don’t know what the baby weig
hs. Oh yes, I do. I think the nurse said just over six pounds. I was in a daze. I tell you, the room was packed with men all striding about waiting to be dadas.’ His voice low now, almost at a whisper, he said, ‘Oh, don’t, man. Don’t.’ He looked down on Don’s closed eyes and the tears running down his cheeks. ‘It’s wonderful news. Come on. Come on.’

  ‘Well, why can’t a man cry with joy? That’s what he’s doin’. Aren’t you?’ The nurse now wiped Don’s face as if he were a child, saying, ‘What you need now is a celebration. In fact, we all need one. What about it?’ And she cast a cheeky glance up at Joe, and he, catching her mood, said, ‘Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea.’ And he hurried from the room. He had been surprised that Daniel hadn’t followed him along to Don’s room and so, as he made his way to the dining room and seeing his father coming down the stairs, he stopped and said, ‘What’s the matter? Why didn’t you come in with me?’

  Daniel now ran his hand through his hair as he said, ‘I…I somehow couldn’t face him…I felt I’d break down. I’ll go along there now.’

  ‘I’m going to get us a drink.’

  ‘That’s an idea.’ Daniel smiled now, saying, ‘And we’ll have them all in. I’ll shout Stephen down an’ all. Peggie’s up there with him.’

  As Joe was about to turn away Daniel said, ‘Just a minute. Look, could I ask you to do something?’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to ask, you know that. What is it?’

  ‘Would you go up in my place on Saturday to Flo’s wedding? It means leaving on Friday night. Would you do it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, like a shot; but I thought you wanted to be there.’

  Daniel turned away for a moment and looked across the hall before he said, ‘Yes…I would like to be there, but I’ve got a weird feeling on me: I don’t want to leave Don; I think he’s failing fast, Joe. What do you think?’