The Invisible Cord Read online

  ‘Mr Wilkins?’ Annie rose slowly to her feet.

  ‘I’ve put him in the dining room.’

  Annie stood for a moment holding the back of the chair, then her head moved just the slightest in Rance’s direction, where he was standing with his back to her, both hands gripping the mantelpiece. Young Susan Wilkins had been running after Rance for the last year or so; she made a nuisance of herself. He had taken her out once or twice to a dance, but then, as always, he had grown tired of her. He never kept his girls long but Susan waylaid him at every opportunity. She knew that he often left the car at the bottom of the street and came in the back way in order to avoid her. She was a silly girl was Susan.

  She went through the door that Tishy was holding open for her, across the hall and into the dining room. Mr Wilkins was standing to the side of the fireplace and he turned immediately towards her, and she saw that he was in a very agitated state. ‘It’s about Susan,’ he began; ‘she’s gone, left home. She left a note. Her mother found it when she came in; she’s nearly round the bend.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Wilkins, I am indeed. Have you no idea where she’s gone?’

  ‘No, none at all. We…we wondered if Rance might give us a lead.’

  ‘Rance?’

  ‘Yes, she thought a lot of your Rance.’

  ‘Yes, I think she did, Mr Wilkins.’

  ‘Well, he might have seen her the day.’

  ‘But…but Rance has been in the garage all day and…well, you know he’s never taken Susan out for months.’

  ‘I…I know that, but…but I thought he might know who she was friendly with; she wouldn’t tell us. And… and there is something else.’ The man now bowed his head in shame as he said below his breath, ‘She’s started smoking.’

  ‘Oh—’ Annie gave a little laugh—‘that’s no crime, Mr Wilkins; they all do it sooner or later.’

  He lifted his sad bulbous eyes and looked at her as he said, ‘No ordinary smoking, drugs.’

  There was a long pause during which her heart seemed to miss a beat before she said, ‘Oh no, Mr Wilkins!’ and he replied, ‘Aye, I’m afraid it’s true. It was one night last week. She came in sort of dazed, and then she started to act daft. We’ve noticed she’s been, well, not herself once or twice before, but it never dawned on us until we searched her room, and then…well, her mother nearly went mad. She shook it out of her. It apparently started at the party Rance took her to a few months back; somebody gave her a cigarette.’

  ‘Not…not Rance?’ Annie could scarcely hear her own voice.

  ‘She didn’t say who gave it to her, she just said somebody gave her a cigarette, but she didn’t take to it all at once. I think she got miserable when Rance dropped her. She wouldn’t face up to the fact that he didn’t want her. Her mother told her; she was young and these things happened and she’d get over him, but…but she never seemed to, and lately she’s been getting worse.’ He rubbed his hand across his eyes, then round his chin as he muttered thickly, ‘It’s the shock. It’s the shock, you see; her mother’ll never get over it. I’m going to the police, I’ll have to report it, but…but I thought if Rance could give us a lead.’

  He stared at her for some time before she said, ‘Yes, yes, all right, Mr Wilkins, I’ll get him.’

  Rance was no longer in the kitchen, and she had just reached the top of the stairs when she saw him coming out of his room dressed for outdoors. She stood in front of him and said without any preamble, ‘Susan Wilkins has run away; her father wonders if you could give them any lead to where she might have gone.’

  ‘What me! I haven’t seen her for weeks, well—’ he shook his head—‘days; it’s over a week since I spoke to her.’

  She stared at him as she repeated, ‘Mr Wilkins wonders if you can give him a lead as to who her friends were, she’s on drugs.’ Her eyes looked straight into his, but his lids did not flicker nor did his expression alter as he repeated, ‘Drugs?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Well, I ask you, what lead could I give him on that? You don’t think…?’

  ‘I think nothing, I just want you to come down and tell him if you know any of her friends.’

  ‘But I don’t. How should I?’

  ‘You took her out, you took her to a party.’

  ‘Yes, but that was years ago.’

  ‘It wasn’t years ago.’

  ‘I tell you, Mam—’ his voice was low, harsh—‘I don’t know who she’s been going round with, an’ I don’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘Well, come down and tell him so.’

  Pushing past her now, he growled, ‘All right, if that’s what you want I’ll tell him so.’

  Annie looked at Rance as he faced Mr Wilkins. There was that withdrawn look on his face, his cover-up look, as she termed it to herself. ‘I wish I could help you,’ he was saying, ‘but I don’t know who she’s been going round with.’

  ‘Can you remember who she met at the party? It was there all this started when this, this fellow gave her a cigarette…Cigarette. My God! I wish I could lay my hands on him just for a minute, that would be enough.’

  ‘The party was packed; there were people there I’d never set eyes on afore or since. Let me think.’ He lowered his head. ‘There was Arthur Devlin, Ronnie Mason…but Ronnie was married last week.’

  ‘Arthur Devlin. That Arthur Devlin’s no good. He was in the papers the other week.’

  ‘Was he? I don’t know anything about that. What had he done?’

  ‘Robbed somebody, and was up for grievous bodily harm an’ all. That’s what worries me, her knowing that lot. You should have more care who you introduce young lasses to.’

  ‘Look, Mr Wilkins, she plagued me to take her, I didn’t bloody well press her.’

  ‘No, perhaps you didn’t.’ Mr Wilkins’s voice was flat and he sighed deeply.

  ‘Hadn’t she any girl friends?’ Annie asked now, and he answered, ‘Yes, she had one particular one, Connie Blackman, but they had a row.’

  ‘Still, perhaps she’ll be able to help you?’

  ‘Aye.’ Mr Wilkins now moved slowly towards the door, then added, ‘There’s only one real place we can go for help and that’s the polis. But it’s the scandal; it’ll kill her mother.’ He turned his head towards them and repeated, ‘It’ll kill her. Respectable we’ve been all our lives, respectable, and now this.’

  Annie followed him into the hall and as she opened the front door for him he said, ‘You know, it’s funny, but at one time you were always afraid of some fellow taking your daughter down; the thought of a lass coming home and saying she was going to have a bairn hung like a nightmare over people; now if Susan was to walk in the door and say she was pregnant I wouldn’t mind a damn. Anything but drugs.’

  Annie nodded at him dumbly and he went out. When she closed the door Tishy was standing in the hall looking at her; then coming towards her she whispered, ‘Susan on drugs?’

  Annie gulped deeply in her throat. ‘She’s left home,’ she said.

  Tishy turned now and looked through the open dining-room door where she could see Rance standing at one side of the table. He was straightening his tie as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and Annie, following her gaze, hissed at her, ‘No, girl, no, you’re wrong this time! No.’

  ‘Just as well then, isn’t it?’

  As Tishy was going up the stairs Rance came into the hall, shrugging his overcoat onto his shoulders, and he stood looking at Annie for a moment before he said, ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘He thought you might be able to help him; you can see he’s desperate.’

  ‘And you thought I was mixed up in it, didn’t you?’ His voice was low. ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘I thought nothing of the sort.’

  He pushed past her and went out, banging the door so hard that the house shook.

  It was about fifteen minutes later when she excused herself to Kathy, Bill and Percy, saying, ‘I’m going to have a bat
h while the going’s good. Tomorrow night everybody will be lining up and there won’t be enough hot water.’ She smiled at Kathy.

  ‘Are you going straight to bed, Mam?’ asked Bill, and she answered, ‘Straight to bed? Of course not. Who’s going to cut sandwiches for the supper and …?’

  ‘You go to bed if you want, Mam—’ Kathy nodded towards her—‘we’ll fend for ourselves.’

  ‘Thank you, miss!’ said Annie with mock humility, aiming to bring a little lightness into the sombre atmosphere.

  ‘You’re very welcome, Annie.’

  ‘I’ll Annie you if you’re not careful.’ She pursed her lips at her daughter, then went out smiling. But as she mounted the stairs there was no smile on her face as she said to herself, ‘Now stop it. Don’t be insane, woman; he can have nothing to do with this.’

  In her bedroom, she collected her dressing gown and slippers from the wardrobe, and as she closed the door she stopped and looked towards the wall, then cocked her head to one side. There was somebody in Rance’s room. Her hand went to her throat. Had he sneaked back to pick up something? Oh my God! No. No. The only other person upstairs was Tishy, and wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Tishy into his room. Should she let it go? What would be his defence if she surprised him now? Couldn’t he come back and pick something up without being accused of being in a drug racket? It was as if he were already answering her. He always had an answer.

  She found herself rushing out of the room and onto the landing and thrusting his door open. Then she stood with her mouth agape. There, standing on a chair, her hand groping along the top of the high Scotch chest, was Tishy.

  ‘What in the name of God, girl, are you doing?’

  Tishy turned an unperturbed face towards her, saying, ‘One of two things, Mam: trying either to prove your fears are right or to set your mind at rest, whichever way you like to take it.’

  ‘You’ve got a bad mind, our Tishy; you’ll never rest till you see him behind bars, will you?’ She was standing close to the chair now looking up at her daughter. ‘Come down out of that.’

  ‘I will in a minute, Mam. It’s some time since you cleaned the top of this, it’s thick with dust.’

  ‘I’m not a giraffe, I can’t get up there every week; it gets done in spring-cleaning.’

  ‘Give me something to force the lid up.’ Tishy put her hand down and Annie barked at her, ‘I’ll do no such thing! That blanket box has never been opened for years.’

  ‘That’s all you know, Mam. Parts of it are clear of dust, but it was a piece of fluff hanging over the edge that led me up here in the first place. I’ve never seen lumps of dusty fluff hanging from anything in this house before.’

  ‘Z Cars is missing out not having you in the gang.’

  ‘There might be something in that an’ all. Will you hand me that file off the dressing table or will I have to get it myself?’

  Annie grabbed the file and thrust it into her daughter’s hand. As she watched Tishy trying to prise up the lid of the top of the six-foot tall chest which she had picked up in a second-hand shop years ago, part of her mind was gabbling prayers.

  She saw the edge of the lid move upwards. She watched Tishy peering downwards, then slowly turn her face to the side and look at her. And her expression was almost triumphant. Then putting her hand down into the blanket box she drew something out and said, ‘Hold these.’ And she handed down to her a flat packet of banknotes held together with an elastic band; then another and another and another and another.

  When Tishy had stepped off the chair she twisted it round and said to Annie, ‘Sit down,’ and Annie sat down. Then she looked up at Tishy helplessly, and Tishy said, ‘Well?’

  ‘He—’ she had to gather spittle into her mouth before she could go on—‘he could have won it gambling.’

  ‘He’s not supposed to be gambling, Mam; he was supposed to give it up.’

  ‘How do we know what he does when he’s out? Anyway, it could be ordinary gambling, not the tables; he could go to the betting shop any time of the day.’

  ‘Do you think that amount of money came from gambling? Give it here.’

  She took the bundles from Annie’s unresisting hold and Annie watched her lay it on the bed, take the rubber bands from each bundle in turn and begin counting. Each time she spoke it was as if a knife were going through her. ‘There’s a hundred single pounds in that lot; and there’s sixty five-pound notes in that one; a hundred in that one, and a hundred in that one; six hundred altogether.’

  Tishy now sat down on the side of the bed and said quietly, ‘He’s either been cooking the garage books for a long time or he’s in some racket.’

  ‘He can’t cook the books.’ Annie shook her head slowly, ‘I see to them; you know I do.’

  ‘Some pay cash, don’t they? You’re only there about an hour in the day; he could have a job in and out every day for a week.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Well, it’s better to think that’s how he got this—’ she flicked a bundle of notes aside—‘than from some other racket, say the one connected with Susan Wilkins.’ Tishy’s voice had taken on a harsh note and Annie’s was equally harsh and low as she hissed back to her, ‘Don’t say that! Don’t say it. Do you want to kill me, girl?’

  Tishy now bowed her head and, putting her hands between her thin knees, she pressed them together before saying, ‘There’s only one thing I want. I want you to open your eyes and see what’s before your nose in order that you won’t get hurt; but I know that’s an impossibility, for as long as he breathes he’ll hurt you.’

  ‘Tishy! Tishy! Look at me.’ There was a pleading note in Annie’s voice, and when Tishy lifted her head. Annie said, ‘If I open my eyes, as you put it, and say, all right he’s getting this from some racket, am I going to be less hurt than if…if I thought he had any dealings with…with drugs? I’d die of shame in either case.’

  Tishy got to her feet, saying quietly now, ‘It takes a lot of shame to kill people, Mam.’ And as Annie gazed at her she felt, as she had done last night while talking to Kathy, younger than either of her daughters. Neither of them closed their eyes to facts that were staring them in the face; but oh God, she could stand anything staring her in the face, except drugs! If this money was from that it meant he wasn’t only taking drugs, he was profiting by the degradation he brought on others.

  Of all the base creatures in the world the lowest, in her estimation, were those men who sold drugs to the young; slimy, stinking, putrid, were the adjectives she attached to them. She couldn’t, she couldn’t think that her son, her Rance, could be capable of such vileness. He was weak; oh yes, she admitted that; and he was a liar, he could look you in the face and swear black was white and you believed it in spite of yourself; but he wouldn’t put youngsters on the road to hell, would he, just for money?

  Tishy was searching through the dressing-table drawers, but now she did not protest, she only stared at her, watching the swift movements of her hands, and waited. She watched her go to the wardrobe and take down his suits one by one and go through the pockets. When, out of one pocket, she brought a half burnt cigarette she took it to the light and examined it; then after a moment she put it back where she had found it. She watched her inserting two fingers into the watch pocket in the inside of a jacket. She watched her pull out a crumpled piece of paper, press it straight between her fingers, and read it; then, coming towards her, she held it out, saying quietly, ‘This could be it after all.’

  When Annie looked at the betting slip that registered a five-pound bet the wave of relief that passed through her made her feel faint. Pressing the slip between her hands as if holding something precious, she looked up at Tishy and said, ‘Oh thank God, lass! Thank God! I don’t mind about that; I don’t mind if he gambles his shirt away.’ With a bright eagerness, she now said, ‘Put that money back, lass, and remember how it was placed. Leave everything as you found it. Oh, thank God! Thank God!’ She went towards the bed and h
erself folded up the betting slip and returned it to the inner pocket of the coat. Then she hung the suit back in the wardrobe.

  A few minutes later she watched Tishy step down from the chair and lift it to the side of the bed, and she said to her, ‘Come on now. Come on.’

  On the landing, she stood looking at her daughter for a moment. Then with tears in her voice, she said, ‘I couldn’t be happier if I had won the pools.’

  Simultaneously they turned away from each other and went into their rooms, Tishy to stand, as she often did, with her back to the door, her head well back on her shoulders looking upwards towards the ceiling. Her mother hadn’t upbraided her for trying to expose him; she hadn’t waved the ticket in her face and said, ‘There! I knew my Rance wouldn’t do such a thing as that’; she had just grasped at the flimsy evidence and literally held it to her as if it were an innocent child.

  She moved from the door and sat on the dressing table stool and gazed at her reflection in the mirror and asked of it, ‘Do I want him to be caught out on this?’

  No; not that she didn’t think he was capable of any trickery, or fiddle, but there was a special kind of disgrace about drugs that she wouldn’t wish on him, not the taking of them so much but the selling of them.

  What would have transpired if she had proved he was in this racket? Would it have benefited her in any way? Would her mother have suddenly stopped loving Rance and turned her affection wholly onto herself? No, of course she wouldn’t. Her mother would never love her more than she did at this moment, and she knew that this love had for its main ingredients maternal duty threaded with pity.

  Why did she hate Rance so? Was it that since she was a child she had been aware that he claimed her mother’s whole attention? Or was it that since she was a child she knew that she herself had craved love? Her granda had been the only person who had really loved her. And then again his love had been born of pity; he had been sorry for the poor little lass because she looked so plain, for the ugly duckling that he had prophesied would turn into a swan.