The Round Tower Read online

  He was surprised the way his mother started calling on God. He had never heard anybody say things like that, except Emily.

  There was a long silence now before she said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  ‘Well—well, I didn’t want to give Vanessa away; I—I knew she would get wrong. And then Uncle went away and I forgot about it until he came back.’

  ‘What happened when he came back?’

  He bowed his head, then said, ‘She went into the wood, but—but I didn’t follow her; I was waiting for Michael. He had promised to sneak out and I thought he would be frightened if I wasn’t there and go indoors again. We were going to sleep there all night.’

  ‘Yes, yes, go on.’

  ‘Well I saw Uncle and Vanessa at the gate, the wood gate, and she was crying and he kissed her.’

  He was now looking down right onto the crown of his mother’s head. He looked at it for a long time before she straightened herself up and said to him in a funny voice, ‘Come on.’

  When they entered the dining room she checked what her husband was about to say in a voice that caught his attention. ‘Ray’s got something to tell you,’ she said.

  He looked at her face for a moment longer, then turned to his son and said, ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘I think you’d better sit down.’

  He stared at her hard again, but sat down, and she pushed Ray towards him, saying, ‘Tell your father what you’ve just told me…all of it.’

  Jonathan Ratcliffe said not one word as his son talked haltingly, but when the boy was finished speaking he rose from the chair, pushed his son to one side and walked out of the room, across the hall and into his study. A moment later Jane Ratcliffe joined him, and at the first sight of him she was afraid of what might happen. He looked as if he was on the point of a seizure. His complexion was both red and grey, and the greyness around his mouth had paled to a sickly white. She dared not speak in case she said the wrong thing and incited him more.

  When he spoke, he surprised her because he didn’t speak immediately of his daughter but of Arthur Brett, and not about what Arthur had done to Vanessa but what Arthur had done to him. ‘You see,’ he said; ‘you see why he did it? To spite me. He planned it; he planned it every step of the road; he did it to get his own back. I always knew he’d do something one day. He took it too quietly years ago, too smoothly. He must have been boiling against me all this time; behind that quiet smile of his he was hatching this. He wanted some way to bring me low, and he knew exactly how to do it. And he timed it, he timed it that the balloon would go up before the wedding. Don’t you see? DON’T YOU SEE?’

  No, she didn’t see, not quite the way he was seeing it. For once she saw a situation in its true light, an older man, an unhappy man, playing on the sensitive nerves of a young girl at her most impressionable age. She dared to say now, ‘No, don’t look at it like that, Jonathan; I’m sure he—’

  ‘You’re sure of nothing, woman. I know, I know. Everything fits. He had refused my offer to send him abroad in the first place. Then he got cold feet and thought he’d better get out of the way. The swine. The dirty swine. He expected the balloon to burst while he was away, when she found out she was pregnant…and he hoped she would be. You mark my words.’ He was stabbing his finger towards her. ‘That’s what he was aiming at, her pregnancy. Then he would come back and gloat.’

  ‘But,’ she felt she had to reason with him, ‘but he took his life, Jonathan. He didn’t gloat, he took his life.’

  ‘Yes, to spite me, so that people who didn’t know the real facts would say he had done it out of frustration. He had done it because I had walked over his head; that’s what they would say. He had been brooding over the injustices for years; that’s what they did say.’

  She knew it wasn’t any good trying to combat at the moment his irrational way of thinking, nor in fact in the future; Jonathan was a law unto himself; he would think what he wanted to think; but she voiced now what had been in her mind from the moment Ray had spoken. ‘And we accused Angus,’ she said.

  He stared at her, trying to collect his whirling thoughts: Angus, Angus Cotton. And he was going to marry her. Well, this only confirmed what he had known all along—that slob was determined to rise. Ten minutes ago he was determined to put his spoke in his wheel, but now, no, no, he’d let him get on with it, because one thing was utterly vital: not a breath of this latest development must come to light.

  It was evident that she hadn’t told Cotton who the father was and he was taking her on trust, on trust that he thought was going to pay off a good dividend later on. Oh yes, Cotton’s type did nothing for nothing; he was ambitious, he was a climber. Being one himself, he thought he recognised the same traits when he met them in another man.

  She said now, ‘What are you going to do about them? I mean about them marrying?’

  He hadn’t enough cool nerve to go on looking at her as he said, ‘Let them get on with it.’

  ‘You mean, you’re not going to do anything?’ she was addressing his back.

  ‘Just that.’ He turned to her again. ‘I’d even give them consent, for this thing mustn’t leak out. Do you hear? Fetch that boy in. He’s got to understand that he must never mention this to a soul. If she’s kept quiet we can keep quiet. We’ve got to. I—we’d be the laughing stock of the town if it leaked out. The past scandal would be nothing compared to what it would be if it was known that Brett,’ he ground his teeth, ‘the dirty, dirty swine had given her the child.’

  ‘You don’t think they know, they guessed? I mean next door? Irene and Colin and Paul?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, woman.’ His voice was filled with scorn. ‘Do you think that Irene would have kept that to herself? And did we guess?’

  ‘No. But knowing Irene, yes, I think she would have kept it to herself if she had known.’

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense! That kind of a woman couldn’t keep anything to herself. Go on and bring the boy in. And one more thing. Don’t breathe a word to Susan about this, mind. Do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you; you’ve got no need to stress the point,’ she said.

  She did not go immediately into the lounge but stood in the hall trying to collect herself. For weeks now her feelings had been softening towards her errant daughter. She imagined her travelling from one job to another, from one place to another, and the baby’s birth getting nearer and nearer, but now her duplicity had wiped away any lingering tenderness. Granted she had been taken advantage of by an older man, but that was no reason why she should now resort to marrying a person like Angus Cotton, someone who was the antithesis of all she had been brought up to expect in a man and a gentleman. She could see herself now accepting the child knowing it was Arthur’s, because after all Arthur had been a gentleman; but Emily’s Angus! Well, he was nothing more than an uncouth, gauche, ignorant individual, and in marrying him her daughter was indeed sinking to the depths. And there, as Jonathan had implied, she must be allowed to wallow.

  It was, after all, a comfort to her that she saw eye to eye with her husband over this unhappy affair.

  Five

  They were married at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. Emily wasn’t present, nor was Rosie, but Stan acted as Angus’s best man and the verger made the other witness. When the short service was over Vanessa couldn’t believe that she was now married, and to Angus Cotton.

  As she stood in the vestry she had an overpowering desire to turn and fly out of the church, fly out of the town, to put as much space between herself and him as possible. But she liked Angus, for he was the only one who had been kind to her, the only one who had stood by her, the only one who had accepted her condition and hadn’t asked questions, at least after the night he asked her to marry him. And now she was married to him and the enormity of the step she had taken loomed over her like a dark canopy.

  Yet she felt she could live with Angus and know a modicum of happiness if it was possible for them to be alone. But she was going
back to that tiny little house which was filled with Emily…and Rosie, and she was frightened, frightened of them both.

  She had lodged with Stan’s mother for the past three weeks, so fulfilling the requirements of living in the parish during the calling of the banns. Stan’s mother was a quiet woman who asked no questions and talked mostly about the weather, and her Stan. She wished they were going back there, or that, things being as they were, they were returning straight home—she thought of it now as home—so that she would get the meeting with her new mother-in-law and sister-in-law over. But Angus had arranged that they would spend the day in Newcastle. She didn’t wonder why this was; he knew it had to do with Emily and Rosie.

  And it had, it definitely had. Angus thanked Stan and said rather sheepishly they would have a drink later—which term gave no indication of time. Then he bade him goodbye, and Stan, after awkwardly shaking hands with Vanessa, wished her, ironically, the best of luck, following which he took his departure with unconcealed haste.

  At this moment, more than at any time in his life, Angus wanted company, lots of company. If someone had told him years ago that one day he could have Aladdin’s lamp and three wishes, he would have used all three to wish that he could some day marry a lass like Vanessa Ratcliffe; and now Aladdin’s lamp had been rubbed and he had married, not an imitation of Vanessa Ratcliffe, but Vanessa Ratcliffe herself, and the fact had stilled his tongue, made him self-conscious, yet elated, and at the same time sad, sad because his mother had refused to come to the church.

  Last night there had been hell to pay. ‘You still goin’ through with it?’ she had said. ‘God Almighty, Mam!’ he had bawled back at her. ‘Haven’t you got it into your head yet? I’m marryin’ her the morrow. Come hellfire or high water, I’m marrying her the morrow.’ And to this she had said quietly, which made it all the worse, ‘Aye, well, I hope you don’t live to regret it.’

  Then May had come in. One or other of them had used May as a last straw. Neither of them had liked May; May was common. Aye, there were grades below 24 Ryder’s Row.

  May was standing at the kitchen table when he came out of the room ready to go and meet Vanessa, and she had said, ‘Hello there, Angus.’ And he grinned sheepishly and replied, ‘Oh hello there, May. How you keepin’?’ To which she had replied, ‘How do you think?’ She would never have made this answer, not within those four walls, if she hadn’t had his mother and Rosie behind her.

  Rosie and his mam had gone upstairs and left them alone and May said to him, ‘Is it right that you’re gettin’ married the morrow?’ and he had answered quietly, ‘Yes, May. I’m sorry an’ all that, but it’s right.’ And to this, and with her voice as quiet as his, she had said, ‘You know what you are, Angus Cotton; you’re a lousy, rotten twister, you’re nothin’ but a stinking bugger. I’ve been good enough for you on an’ off for years; I’ve served your purpose, haven’t I? Every time I made a break from you an’ got a decent fellow, up you’d pop again and wag your little finger and expect me to come runnin’. And being the bloody fool that I am, I came runnin’. And now this. But don’t think you’ll get off with it; you’ll get paid out one way or the other.’

  At this point he had asked her had she quite finished, and she had replied, ‘Not by a long chalk. You’d have been married already, and to me, wouldn’t you, if I hadn’t been such a bloody fool as to tell you the truth?’ Her voice was weighed now with bitterness. ‘You can do it every night in the week and with as many as you like, can’t you? But because I was honest and told you of the other two you cooled off. Like a parson at a striptease, you melted away.’

  When he hadn’t answered her she moved towards the door and from there she said, ‘Well, I wish you joy of her, and from what I hear you’ll need it. She’ll make you feel like a worm, that’s after she gets rid of the bairn. Once she’s had the bairn she won’t be scared out of her wits any more. She won’t want a lifebelt then. It makes a difference having a bairn. I should know, shouldn’t I? And when she wakes up and sees the big galoot that she’s married she’ll ask herself if she was clean barmy, because she will wake up. Oh aye, she will, an’ then you can look out, Mr Bloody Big-Head.’

  What had upset him more than anything she had said was when she looked around the room and put her head back and laughed mirthlessly, saying, ‘And you’re bringing her back to this? God Almighty! Even I wouldn’t have stood for that. I’m goin’ to wish you luck, big boy, because you’re goin’ to need it. And how!…Who put the overalls in Mrs Murphy’s chowder.’ She ended on a saying that she usually fitted to situations that puzzled or were beyond her. It had always made him want to belly laugh. May had had the knack of making him belly laugh. Vanessa would never have that kind of knack.

  They were sitting in the bus now and he turned to her and asked, ‘All right?’ She smiled faintly at him as she answered, ‘Yes, Angus.’ After a moment he said, ‘We’re going to have a spot of lunch, then have a look round.’ He paused. ‘Is there anything you would like?’

  ‘Like? What do you mean?’

  ‘Something for yourself.’ He was smiling into her eyes now. ‘Wedding present, sort of.’

  ‘No, Angus, thank you very much.’

  ‘Nothing?’ The smile had gone from his face.

  ‘Well,’ she lowered her head and shook it slightly, ‘I haven’t thought; perhaps later.’

  ‘Yes, aye.’ He looked ahead again.

  They had lunch, then they went to the cinema. They sat side by side and he didn’t take her hand. He hadn’t touched her in any way except to put the ring on her finger. He hadn’t even kissed her at the service, and the minister had made no comment on it. What he would do later on the night, he didn’t know. The separate beds would help.

  That had been another hellraising moment when the other single bed had been delivered at the house. On this occasion his mother had bawled at him, ‘Well you are marryin’ her, aren’t you? Look…if you want my advice you’ll start the way you mean to go on. There’s a sayin’: You’ve made your bed and you must lie on it, but there’s another sayin’: If you don’t make your bed the first night, whether it’s through being sozzled or not havin’ it in you, then there’s little chance you’ll do any better the second, or the third.’

  She was a coarse old bitch when all was said and done, and he had told her so. But she had replied that he was already trying to jump the fence to Van’s side where nothing was looked at squarely because it wasn’t the thing to do, but he wasn’t cut out for politeness, and he would soon find that it was choking him. Her words stirred a tiny fear that she might be right.

  It was around seven when they came out of the pictures, and there was a cold drizzle falling, and as they stood under a lamp he said, ‘What about a bit to eat, eh?’

  She pulled her coat collar up under her chin, and she looked up at him for a moment before she answered, ‘I’d rather go home, Angus.’

  He smiled broadly. ‘Good idea. Good idea.’

  He had wanted to put the going home off to the very last minute when he hoped both Emily and Rosie would be in bed. Tomorrow morning everything would look different; everybody would take a different slant at each other; but now she had said she would rather go home, and in a way he knew she was right. Far better get it over with. Anyway, they would likely be out at the club. One thing was certain, Rosie wouldn’t be in; Stan would see to that. Stan was a good fellow at bottom.

  It took much longer to get from Newcastle to Fellburn by train than it did by lorry, and then they caught a bus from the station to the end of the street. It was pouring with rain when they alighted and he took her by the arm and ran her across the road, and he kept her in the shelter of the railway wall until they were almost opposite the door. But as he made to cross over to the pavement he stopped. He had heard the singing farther up the street but he hadn’t thought it was coming from their house. The Conways usually had their wireless blazing away at all hours, but this wasn’t the wireless or telly, it was singing, voic
es singing. There was a difference.

  When he pushed open the front door the sound hit them like the backwash of a huge wave. The voices were all raised on the last line of a dated song: ‘Now is the Hour’. His hold tightened on Vanessa’s arm as he stared along the dimly lit passage. God! She had gone and got company in, which told him one thing even before he saw her, she was bottled. She wasn’t the one for having neighbours in. Only twice before in his life had he known her do this, and on both occasions she had been burnt up inside with anger.

  He stood in the kitchen doorway almost in front of Vanessa looking at the company. He was surprised to see Stan there, but the look that Stan gave him said, ‘I couldn’t do anything with them,’ and he could see that for himself, because Rosie had had a skinful too.

  There was Alf Piggott and his missis from down the street, and Bill Wilson and his missis from next door. Bill had his old concertina on his knee; they weren’t relying on the television or the wireless the night. His mother always said she hated the sound of Bill’s concertina, but she was singing to it now. As the song ended on different notes, the visitors all turned and greeted him, saying in different ways, ‘Congratulations, lad.’ They didn’t say anything to the bride; they just looked at her, and not at her face but at her distended shape, and grinned.

  What Emily said was, ‘Well, it’s a weddin’, isn’t it?’ She stared across the room at her son, but even her glance did not take in Vanessa. ‘Come on.’ She got to her feet. ‘Some of the old ’uns, Bill. “Cock-o-doodle”. Play “Cock-o-doodle”. If you don’t I’ll bloody well do me poetry piece again:

  ‘I hear in the chamber above me the patter of little feet. Da-da, de-da, de-da.