Harold Read online

  ‘Janet. Janet, please, don’t distress yourself. They’re not … I … I mean it’s natural. Look! Give me a cup of tea, will you?’

  Janet sniffed, then laughed and said, ‘Oh, Mrs Leviston, ma’am, a cup of tea? Yes, of course, of course. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  As she hurried from the room her family awkwardly took their seats again, and as was usual on these occasions a silence enveloped us all.

  It was the Mohican who broke it and surprised me yet again by turning to me and saying, ‘Where do you intend to send him to school—later on I mean?’

  All eyes were on me as I answered. ‘I … I don’t rightly know. He should be all right where he is for a good while yet.’

  ‘Don’t ever send him to a boarding school.’ His voice was flat sounding, his face looked stiff, and I replied, ‘No, no; I wouldn’t dream of doing that.’

  ‘Good.’

  What a strange individual. I recalled Janet telling me a little of what she knew about him. Apparently he had been to a boarding school, spending most of his holidays there, too, with his housemaster, because his parents were travelling. When he was fifteen they were divorced. He remained at school until he was seventeen when, although he could have gone on further, he opted out. It was even rumoured he had been in the police force and was thrown out.

  What a shame, I thought, because I could detect something warm and kindly about him. But yet, what was I thinking? Warm and kindly! He had been brought up two months ago for having caused actual bodily harm.

  When he turned from me I looked down the room towards Max, who had been the one with most to say, and asked, ‘By the way, where is the young man in question?’

  ‘Oh, along at the Flannagans, saying goodbye to the dog I think. The dog’s missed ’im, yer know.’ And Max grinned at me, causing his features to take on an impish look as he ended, ‘Yer see, the kid’s boots ain’t as big as the others’.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Max, nobody kicks the dog.’

  ‘What do yer know of it, May, yer never ’ere.’

  ‘I was brought up with their other dog, remember, and stopped you from kicking him.’

  ‘I never kicked ’im.’ Max now turned his still-grinning face towards me, adding, ‘I would never kick a dog.’

  Looking straight at him, I replied soberly, ‘I’ve only your word for it.’ And at this there was a titter round the room and as he was saying, ‘Oh, Mrs Leviston,’ Janet came in with a tray on which was a teapot, a jug of milk, and four cups.

  I wondered at the four cups until, glancing round the room, she said, ‘If you lot want tea you know where the water an’ the tea caddy is,’ and proceeded to pour out the tea.

  Having handed me mine, she passed one on to May and one to Hilda; then, taking one herself, she sat down and, looking at her son Billy, who was sitting to the left of her, she jerked her head as she said, ‘Go on, fetch him in. But I don’t think you’ll have to go far, he’s waitin’ outside the back door. I told him to stay there until he was sent for.’

  Again a silence fell on the room, until there appeared in the doorway, standing by the side of his uncle, the reason for my sitting in the midst of Janet’s family. My adoptive son was not yet seven years old. He wasn’t tall for his age, more broad than tall, of his Uncle Max’s build. He had fair hair, a round face in which were two deep brown bright eyes. His mouth was well shaped and always ready to smile.

  As he wound his way through the family towards me, one and another of his uncles giving him either a dig or a wink, he said nothing until he was standing in front of me and, because he always came straight to the point, he asked, ‘Are we goin’ now?’

  ‘’E can’t get away quick enough. What d’yer think of that? Are we goin’ now?’

  ‘That’s the last we’ll see of ’im; too big for his boots already.’

  The laughing comments came from different quarters of the room, but the child took no notice, he just looked into my face, then made a statement, ‘Mr Tommy’ll be waitin’.’

  ‘Oh, d’yer hear that, Mr Tommy’ll be waitin’. ’E’s got a smashin’ car, not like our bangers, lads.’ His Uncle Joe was nodding from one to the other in assumed indignation, and when they all took it up, my new son turned on them and bawled, ‘Shut yer gobs, you lot!’

  ‘Harold!’ My tone was sharp; and Janet’s accompanied mine but with more to say: ‘We’ll have none of that,’ she said. ‘I’m still your gran an’ I’ve still got a hand an’ you’ve still got ears, an’ they’ll meet up in a minute.’

  ‘Oh, Gag.’ He turned to her. ‘Well, you should stop ’em.’

  ‘Yes’—Janet nodded at him now—‘yes, I should stop ’em, I should have stopped ’em years ago.’

  I rose to my feet; the Mohican rose too, but except for Janet the others remained seated. That the oddest-looking male individual should have such manners and also be considered by the rest of this family as a weirdy was odd in itself.

  ‘Goodbye.’ I looked from one to the other, and each of them nodded, but only Max and Joe answered; Mr Flood didn’t even nod.

  In the little hallway I straightened Harold’s cap, tucked his scarf inside his coat, told him to put his gloves on, then turned to Janet, saying quietly, ‘Thank you, Janet. I’ll … I’ll see you on Monday then.’

  For a moment she seemed overcome with emotion. She looked down on her grandson, then muttered, ‘You behave yourself mind. I’ll be ’earin’ about it, everything you do, mind. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Gag.’ Impulsively now he put his arms up and she bent towards him, and he kissed her on the cheek. This was followed by a push that almost overbalanced him, but he laughed and gripped my hand and took me towards the front door that was being held open by the Mohican. Hilda was by his side now, and she, to my surprise, caught my arm and, after glancing at the Mohican, she said softly, ‘Yer can see why I like ’im, can’t yer, Mrs Leviston? ’Cos ’e’s a gentleman. ’E’s the only gentleman I’ve ever met. As the sayin’ is, never judge a bull by the ring through its nose … ’

  It was her turn to be nearly knocked on her back, and the cry, ‘Hilda!’ certainly did sound as if it had come from the throat of an Indian Chief.

  The Mohican was definitely embarrassed, but I smiled at him and said, ‘I don’t know your name.’

  ‘John Drake.’

  ‘Goodbye, John,’ I said now. ‘It’s been nice meeting you.’

  I gave one last look at Janet, then walked away down the street, my son by my side. And that’s how I thought of this child, my son, not adopted, he was mine. And he wanted to be mine. That was the most important thing, he wanted to be mine.

  Before we reached the end of the short street I knew that the family were no longer seated in the sitting room but that most of them were on the front pavement. And they weren’t alone, because other doors were open and other people were standing on their steps. And as if Harold knew this was happening, he swung round and waved, and I, looking over my shoulder, saw a number of hands lifted in reply.

  We were now in another street, in another life, both of us. I looked down at him and he looked up at me, and we smiled at each other but did not speak; my hand, though, tightened on his and he walked closer to me …

  Tommy was waiting for us in the car park. He had wanted to bring us to the house but I’d said no. The fact of him sitting outside in the flash Jaguar would certainly not have enamoured either him or me to the Flood family. He was now coming towards us. He was a tall man, six foot two, and his height always dwarfed me still further. As Gran Carter said, we looked like Mutt and Jeff, who, apparently, were two strip-cartoon figures from her childhood. He was thin and attractive, in fact quite good-looking, and he was in love with me … God alone knew why, for I wasn’t even what you would call attractively plain, and I had a withered left arm. In my favour, it could be said I had a sense of humour, and I was supposed to be a good conversationalist, and I was given credit for some kind of a mind because I wrote books, weir
d books in the opinion of some folk, about a woman, me, talking to an imaginary horse, which horse took on a wife. That being so, I suppose some people would have agreed with the description my first husband screamed at me in the courtroom less than two years ago just before he had been sentenced: ‘Yes, I did it, and I’d do it again. Just give me the chance and I’ll get you yet. By God, I will! I’ll … get … you yet … you crippled, undersized, barmy sod you!’

  Tommy, towering over Harold, smiled down at him as he said, ‘Well now, young feller-me-lad, how does it feel to have a mother?’

  ‘Just the same.’

  ‘Oh, it can’t be the same,’ persisted Tommy, ‘she’s not Mrs Nardy any more, she’s your mother.’

  ‘She’s still Mrs Nardy.’ Harold looked up at me and ended, ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Harold, I’m still Mrs Nardy.’

  Harold now ran towards the car and, opening the door, climbed onto the back seat.

  When Tommy had settled me by his side and we were driving out of the car park, he said, ‘Well, Mrs Nardy,’ and I was aware of the stressed title, ‘What about celebrating? A slap-up tea somewhere?’

  Immediately Harold’s head was poked between us. ‘With cream buns?’

  ‘With cream buns, as many as you can eat.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ I said. ‘All right, we’ll go to tea but only one cream bun.’ And I lifted my hand and tweaked Harold’s nose; and he grinned at me, saying, ‘In that swanky place where the men are all dolled up as if they had pokers up their ar … ?’ The head was slightly withdrawn and the voice was lower as it ended, ‘I mean, stiff shirts like.’

  Tommy was making a strange noise in his throat. I kept my eyes straight ahead and my voice level as I replied, ‘Yes, we’ll go to that restaurant again.’

  When Tommy remarked in an aside, ‘One for effort,’ I replied primly, ‘Yes, yes indeed.’

  It was two hours later, as we were entering the hall of my home and making our way towards the lift carrying on a conversation that had begun in the car, that we met Captain and Mrs Beckingtree-Holland. They were stepping out of the lift as Tommy said, ‘You must be able to get a babysitter somewhere … Oh.’ He raised his hat and stood aside as the delicate-looking lady paused and divided a thin smile between us. She was wearing a well-worn fur coat, and above her china-doll face her white hair curled upwards about her ears onto a small matching fur hat. The man accompanying her had a military bearing. He wore a three-quarter length, moleskin-coloured coat. He had a knotted silk scarf on his neck and a cap on his head which he raised as he passed us, at the same time extending towards me a slight bow.

  They, I guessed, were the temporary occupants of the flat below ours.

  The whole of this house had once belonged to my second husband, Leonard Leviston, but being too big for him he had turned it into three very spacious flats. There was a basement flat too in which the caretaker lived. He it was who kindly took my dear poodle Sandy for walks whenever possible.

  We hadn’t seen much of Mr and Mrs Stretton, the owners of the first-floor flat as both he and she seemed to be connected with work at some ministry, and we very rarely met except in the hallway. But a fortnight ago Mr Stretton had told me he had been transferred to Germany for a year and that a distant relative of his wife was coming to look after the place until they came back. So here were Captain and Mrs Beckingtree-Holland. I didn’t know their name at this time, I wasn’t to know it until the next morning.

  As we stepped out of the lift into our hallway, Harold confronted us both, saying flatly, ‘I don’t want a babysitter; I can look after myself.’

  I glanced impatiently at Tommy. He’d no right to bring up the matter in front of the boy, but he had for some time been wanting to see Noises Off at the Savoy Theatre, and naturally he wanted me to go with him. He had suggested leaving the boy with Janet, but this would have meant an erosion of my efforts to improve my charge, for once Harold was back in the company of his uncles for any length of time he reverted rapidly to their ways. The boy had been living with me now for some months, in fact, ever since Nardy died, shortly before last Christmas.

  I pushed Harold before me into the inner hall, saying, ‘Get your things off and put your slippers on,’ and turning towards where he had flung his coat on a chair, I cried, ‘Hang it up! I’ve told you.’

  Good gracious! I was acting like a mother already. And an impatient one too. And so, smiling at him, I added, ‘And go and see Sandy in the kitchen; he’s barking his head off. That’s a good boy.’ And I turned towards the drawing room, Tommy following.

  It was rarely I entered this room without feeling a sense of wonderment and pleasure. I switched on the electric fire and then sat down on the couch opposite and looked to where Tommy was now standing near the mantelpiece gazing at the artificial logs that were beginning to glow, and I said to him, ‘Don’t be annoyed, Tommy; you see how I’m fixed.’

  Slowly he came towards me and, sitting down beside me, he took my hand and said, ‘I could never be annoyed with you, Maisie, never, no matter what you said.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I pushed his hand away. ‘I can look back and remember times when you bawled at me.’

  ‘Oh, that was in another era, another life, when I never imagined that one day I’d sit here holding your hand.’ He again caught hold of my hand. ‘And you know, Maisie, if you never give me any more than this I’ll be satisfied.’

  Of a sudden he jerked his whole body away from me, saying, ‘Why am I such a damn liar? I still go on pretending. The fact is I’m not satisfied with what you give me, I want more of you—you know I do—I want the lot. What I don’t want is to put my hat and coat on and say, “Goodnight, Maisie.”’ He lowered his head, then asked quietly, ‘Are you still thinking of Nardy?’

  I too was looking down as I answered truthfully, ‘Yes; yes, I still think of him every day. And I still miss him.’

  ‘How long do you think you’ll continue to feel like this? Oh’—he made an impatient movement by flinging out his hand—‘I don’t mean that you should forget him, you know that, but life must be lived, and Nardy, above all people, knew that. He said it in his letter to me, didn’t he? He knew what I was feeling. He knew why I went away last year like a sick animal searching for some dark place to die in. He sensed my hate of him, the hate that had turned from love because of you. But he didn’t hold it against me, he was my friend. My God, yes, he was a friend, always had been, and I had to go and play the dirty on him by wanting to be rid of him so I could have you.’ He turned and glanced at me, and there was bitterness in his voice when he added, ‘Things like that shouldn’t happen. I blamed you for its happening, but you were as helpless as I was. It’s your nature to be kind and comforting. I think that’s what I fell in love with, your nature: you were so different from anyone I’d ever come across; after years with my mother you appeared like an oasis in the desert.’

  It was seldom now he mentioned his mother, a cruel, selfish, powerful, scheming woman who had kept him tied to her apron strings through supposed poverty for years. He’d had to work to support her in the middle-class way she’d been accustomed to, only to find, with her death, that he had become a rich man, for she had been sitting on a fortune for years, money left to her by an aunt. Twice she had stopped him from marrying; and long before her death there had been murder in his heart towards her. After she died he became consumed with hate, then embroiled in my affairs even to the extent of his being almost burned alive in that flaming house.

  I liked Tommy … very much, but did I love him?

  I look back on my life through sixteen loveless years with my mother, then twelve years of marriage to a sadist, the culmination of which led to a police cell; then divorce, followed by marriage to my editor Leonard Leviston and my meeting with his friend and publishing colleague, Tommy Balfour. Tommy had thrown up his job and gone off on a trip to Canada before Nardy, as my second husband was always known, had died; but since his return to Engl
and he had been invited to rejoin his old firm and was now a director and in effect my publisher.

  Again I asked myself if I loved him.

  I was saved from giving myself an answer by the opening of the door and Harold rushing in accompanied by Sandy, my beautiful big white poodle, who jumped up into my arms and licked my face. As I pushed him away, exclaiming, ‘Oh Sandy! Give over,’ Harold said, ‘I’ve put the kettle on and I’ve washed me hands, they were sticky.’ He turned them over for my inspection, then added, ‘You’ll have to wash me gloves, ’cos they’ll be sticky an’ all inside.’

  ‘I’ll see to them.’

  ‘You goin’ home now?’

  The straight gaze was directed towards Tommy, and Tommy, his eyes widening, his tone full of mock indignation, said, ‘Does that mean you want to be rid of me?’

  ‘We … ll’—the word was drawn out; Harold was nothing if not honest—‘you’ve been with us a long time, all ’safternoon.’

  ‘I took you to tea, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, don’t you think I should be shown some courtesy by being allowed to stay a little with my friend?’

  He glanced towards me.

  I fully expected my boy to speak the truth again, and he did, but in a rather diplomatic fashion: ‘Well, if she wants you to,’ he said, and looked directly at me.

  I made no reply to this; but Tommy said, ‘You make quite a good cup of tea. If you’ll give me a cup, then I’ll think about going.’

  ‘Will yer?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  At this Harold ran from the room, and Tommy, glancing at me, said, ‘You know something? I don’t think he’s cottoned on to me.’