The Solace of Sin Read online

  Millie turned from the window and, putting her hands behind her, supported herself against the sill, and she gulped audibly before she said, ‘I think she’s done it again, Connie.’

  ‘No!’ Constance walked slowly towards her and again she said, ‘No!’

  ‘She’s brazen and he can’t see it; he thinks she’s clever. He would soon see it in anyone else, but not her. I’ve been through her things. I’ve seen nothing over the past three months. So…so yesterday I tackled her with it. An’ you know what she did? She just laughed at me. It’s a disease with her, Connie. It’s a disease. She thinks nothing of it. I’m scared, I’m really scared of him finding out this time, because she’s getting more and more brazen. She knows he’s daft about her, yet I could see her taking a knife and cutting him to pieces and laughing while she did it. There’s something radically wrong with her, but there’s only me and you, Connie, who seem to recognise it; everybody else says, isn’t she a good sport? Isn’t she fun? It’ll surely finish him when he finds out, as he’s bound to do sooner or later. I wish to God she’d go away, run away. You know, when I hear of girls running away from home, I think to meself, Why, in the name of God, doesn’t she do it?’ Millie now closed her eyes and bowed her head onto her chest and said, ‘Fancy saying things like that about your own daughter.’

  ‘Oh, Millie.’ Constance put her hands out and gently held the plump arms. She’d always been very fond of Millie; there were even times when she wanted to lay her head on her chest and draw comfort from her. Millie was only a year older than herself but she gave one the impression of motherliness, of warmth and security. And yet her own daughter needed none of these things from her. Her daughter was without heart. She hadn’t any heart even for the boys or men she took up with. She wanted one thing from them, and when she’d got it she quickly grew tired of them. It was strange, Constance thought, but Ada could have been Jim’s daughter, for their characters were similar. And stranger still, her own son was more like Harry. At some point the wires of heredity had crossed.

  ‘The hardest part,’ said Millie now, ‘is to put on a good face to him. If I look serious or a bit off-colour he keeps on at me to know what’s the matter.’

  ‘Millie! Millie! Here a minute…Tell Connie.’

  The sound of Harry’s voice coming from the lounge brought them both to the table, and as Constance lifted the tray Millie took it from her, saying, ‘It’s a dead weight. Let me carry it.’

  The small gesture, made often before, brought a sense of comfort to Constance. Millie always wanted to take the load; there were so few people, at least in her life, like that.

  As they entered the lounge Harry called across the room, ‘I’d forgotten about the house. I was just telling Peter how we came across it.’

  ‘Oh, the house.’ Millie smiled and nodded to him. Then turning to Constance, she said, ‘Oh, aye, I meant to tell you, Connie, for the minute we saw it we thought of you. Didn’t we, Harry?’

  ‘Yes, we did. It was funny. We stood looking up at it and we both nearly tripped over ourselves saying the same thing together.’ They nodded to each other as they recalled the incident.

  ‘Oh, it was funny.’ Millie put her head on one side. ‘There we stood saying, “Connie would like this. This is just her type of house.” And you know—’ Still with her head on one side, Millie looked up at Constance and added, ‘It was the kind of house that would suit you. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. And so did Harry. Didn’t you, Harry?’

  ‘Well, all right, Aunt Millie’—Peter was standing by her side now, laughing down at her—‘we’ll take your word for it: Mother would like the house. But tell us what it’s like, and where it is.’

  ‘Well, it was like this,’ said Millie. ‘We were out for a run last Sunday and we got as far as…Oh, what’s that place, Harry? You know what I am for remembering place names.’

  ‘Chollerford,’ said Harry patiently. ‘You’ve been there dozens of times, woman; Chollerford.’

  ‘Oh well, you go on with the story,’ said Millie.

  ‘I know Chollerford,’ said Peter. ‘It’s where the bridge with the fine arches is; up the North Tyne.’

  ‘That’s it. We all went for a picnic there, remember? It was years ago, when you came down for a holiday.’

  ‘Oh, I remember it well,’ said Peter. ‘But go on about this house.’

  ‘Well, we went along to Humshaugh, and right on to Barrasford, had a look at the trout hatcheries and I stopped Millie from going on the ferry.’ He nodded at his wife. ‘Once she was aboard, I would never have got her off; her and ferries. We skipped Wark-on-Tyne. That was as full as a fairground; you couldn’t put a pin on the river bank. We really meant to stop there and have some tea, but we went on and stopped just below Woodpark, near Lea Hall, you know, but this side of the river, and then we thought we’d stretch our legs…Well, we found a path and it went in and out, in and out, until it came right out on top of a hill—’

  ‘More like a small mountain!’

  ‘All right, have it your own way. A small mountain.’ Harry nodded at Millie. ‘One thing, you could see for miles.’

  ‘He said he could see the sea from there, but I couldn’t; it’s miles and miles from the sea; he was just looking into the sky. It seemed nothing but sky from up there. Grand, it was.’ She stopped and made a motion with her hand, then said, ‘Oh well, go on.’

  ‘Well, I thought I knew most of Northumberland and had seen it from every angle,’ went on Harry, ‘but I’ve never seen such a view in me life as from that rise. I knew Shepherdshiel Moor was away to the south—I’ve been over that way—but from this point it looked different. You know the moors are wild up there, but I’ve never seen anything so wild or so beautiful as the stretch of country that lay below us…All right, all right, I’m coming to it.’ He thrust out his hand towards Peter. ‘Anyway, we started to walk again, and there was nothing, nothing, only sky and scree and fell, not a thing. We didn’t even see a sheep, did we?’

  ‘No,’ said Millie. ‘And at one point I got a bit frightened; I thought we were lost.’

  ‘You weren’t the only one,’ said Harry; ‘I mean, thinking we were lost. And then—’

  ‘And then you saw the house.’ Peter flung his head up and laughed.

  ‘Yes, lad, we saw the house. We came on it suddenly. We came on a path. We could see it had been used before and we walked up it and over the breast of a hill, and there it lay. The sun was shining and the stones looked pink in the light. The same stones as the Roman wall is made of; perhaps taken from it, ’cos it isn’t far away. Anyway, between it and us lay a hollow, and there on the far side, on a piece of flat ground beyond a terrace of stones, stood the house. We nearly didn’t go near it because we thought someone might be living there. And then a jackdaw flew out of the chimney pot, and that was a good indication that no fire had been lit there for some time.’

  ‘But he knocked on the door.’ Millie pulled a face at her husband.

  ‘Well, I just wanted to make sure,’ Harry said, ‘I could have been wrong. When there was no answer we walked back a few steps and looked up at it, and quite out of the blue, I’m telling you, Connie—’ Harry was nodding at her—‘we both said, “Connie would like this.” I couldn’t get over it, because the fact is you hadn’t been in me thoughts at that time. And Millie said the same; she hadn’t been thinking about you. Anyway, we looked through one of the windows. Whoever built it was ahead of his time, because those windows were made to frame a view. The floors had old boards about a foot wide, you know the type, and as far as we could make out the walls weren’t even plastered; the same inside as out. And at the back, the kitchen—I suppose it was used as a kitchen and eating place—was nearly the length of this room. Honest.’ He nodded now at Jim, who was staring at him. ‘There was an old black grate in it, with a hook hanging down the chimney.’

  ‘And all this reminded you of me?’ Constance was laughing as she handed Harry a cup of tea.


  ‘Yes, it’s funny, Connie, but I could see you there. I tell you, Millie said the same. We knew what you would do with the place. You know, you have a flair for titivating, haven’t you?’

  ‘An old range with a hook hanging down the chimney. Oh, Harry!’ Constance jerked her head at him derisively.

  ‘If you could see it you would know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, tell her what happened next,’ put in Millie quickly.

  ‘Oh aye. Well, as I said we got round the back and her nibs here wanted to spend a penny.’ He laughed as he jerked his head in Millie’s direction. ‘And across a yard of large paving stones and at the end of a rough garden there were some outhouses, and she makes for one of them. Well, it turned out to be a coal and wood shed. Then she opens another door, like Goldilocks, you know.’ His head was now bouncing with amusement. ‘But no luck there either. Two more doors to go—’ he held up his fingers now, speaking directly to Peter—‘and she opens the third door, and bang! She lets out a squeal that nearly takes me over the roof. And mind, I’m telling you, I got a bit of a gliff on the side an’ all, when out stalks this fellow, six-foot-four of him if an inch, with shoulders on him like a bullock and a face that could have been chiselled out of the same stone that the house was built of. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark night, but the surprising thing about him was, he took the wind out of our sails by saying quite calmly, as if he was expecting us, “Hello; can I help you?”‘

  All their attention was drawn now to Millie, sitting with her arms round her waist and rocking herself slightly as she said, ‘“Eeh!” he stammered. I mean, Harry did. He said, “N…no. W…we’re just lookin’ round.”‘

  ‘I didn’t stammer; I was just taken off me guard.’ But now Harry laughed. ‘He was twice the size of me and it was a lonely spot. Anyway, it turned out that he was there because he was expecting a buyer for the house, but he was all right and he showed us around. And oh, Connie’—he nodded at her and more slowly now, emphasising each word, said—‘it was really lovely. A sort of family house, you know. There were five rooms upstairs, three of them running into each other. And there was this big kitchen, the length of the back of the house, and a big room running the length of the front. It was simply constructed but it had an atmosphere about it. I said to Millie, “This has been a happy house,” and she felt it an’ all. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Aye, I did.’ Millie looked across the room into the distance, her face wearing a sadness now. ‘I said I’d like to live there, away from everything.’

  ‘About the fellow,’ put in Peter. ‘Was he the owner?’

  ‘He didn’t say and we never asked him,’ said Harry.

  ‘He was so big,’ put in Millie, smiling now.

  ‘Did he live there?’ asked Constance.

  ‘No. There was no furniture in the place.’

  ‘And he had a knife in one hand and this piece of wood in the other,’ said Millie. ‘And he kept whittling at it.’

  ‘But he hardly opened his mouth,’ said Harry.

  ‘He asked you if you were interested in houses.’

  ‘Oh yes, he did. And I said I was, very much.’ Harry pulled his nose downwards. ‘He was a big fellow; I felt I had to agree with him, you know.’ And this caused all but Jim to laugh; he could see nothing funny in his brother’s recounting of being shown over an empty house on a fell by a big man.

  Turning now to Constance, Harry said, ‘Why don’t you take a run out there and have a look at it, just for fun? I’ll draw you a map. From where it lies I should think it’s somewhere between Shepherdshiel Moor, Green Moor and Allerybank Moor, circled by them so to speak. Anyway, I’ll do you a drawing before I go.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort.’ Jim’s voice filled the room. ‘Don’t be so daft, sending people on wild-goose chases. Who do you think’s going to live out there? Not me, for one, and not her, either. What are you trying to start now?’

  ‘What am I trying to start now!’ Harry screwed up his face at his brother, and looked at him squarely for the first time since coming into the house. ‘Man, I’m only wanting Connie to see the place.’

  ‘What for?’

  Harry’s face wrinkled itself further and his mouth fell open into a slight gape before he said, ‘I don’t know.’ Then on a high note, ‘I don’t know; just for her to see it. We thought it would make a marvellous weekend place, and being out there it would likely go for a song.’

  ‘Oh, so you don’t know why you wanted her to see it. Well, let me tell you we don’t require any weekend place. This flat serves us weekdays, and it’ll do for weekends an’ all.’

  Harry bowed his head. His teeth were clamped tightly together. He had come to his nephew’s tea party, and if he answered his brother the way he wanted to he would have to walk out of the house before it started. As he raised his head he saw Connie’s face. Her large brown eyes were pleading with him, for a moment revealing the pain she usually managed to barricade behind the façade of her upbringing, and because of it he forced himself to say with some calm, ‘All right, all right; we’ll let it drop. Forget I ever mentioned it.’

  It was at this point that the doorbell rang and Constance went to answer it. As she did so she thought it was strange that Millie and Harry should think of her when they saw that house. Tomorrow, if it was fine, she would go and have a look at it. Not that she would ever dream of taking it. If she was afraid to be alone in the town, she’d be more afraid out in the wilds, but it would give her a run out, and would please Harry and Millie.

  Two

  ‘This is all because that bloody fool mentioned that house to you.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort.’ Constance’s voice was quiet. ‘Why won’t you face up to the fact that we can’t go on living as we have done for the last ten years? I’ve tried to tell you again and again, but you wouldn’t listen. Well, now you’ve got to, because I’m selling the flat.’

  ‘Oh!’ Slowly he inclined his head towards her. The pupils of his blue eyes looked black behind his narrowed lids. ‘So you’re going to sell the flat. No consultation. Oh no! No discussion. Your money bought the flat and all that’s in it, and I’m just a kept man…Go on, tell me.’

  Her straight back pressed tightly against the high-backed chair, she stared towards the mantelpiece as she asked, in controlled tones, ‘Do you want me to remind you of how little money you have earned in the last ten years?’

  He had been standing to the side of her, and now he came and confronted her, his thick body seeming to swell as he bent towards her, grinding out between his teeth, ‘There are times when I’d like to ram your bloody money down your throat.’

  She stared into his red fury-filled face. How could two people who had ever…ever expressed love for each other sink to this?

  ‘There’s always a solution,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, there’s a solution now that your darling boy is out of rompers. There’s no more talk about him being the victim of a broken home. Oh, not any more. Because your own dear mama skipped it, everything had to be sacrificed to your son’s psychological background.’

  ‘Stop it!’ She pushed the chair back and strained her body away from him as she got to her feet. She was an inch taller than him, and so stiffly was she standing now that he appeared short beside her, and there was a dangerous quiver in her voice as she said, ‘I didn’t ask you to stay, ever, not even for Peter. You stayed because you wanted it easy, because you knew that the royalties your books were bringing in, even up to ten years ago, wouldn’t even keep you in clothes, not the kind you have a liking for, let alone running your own car, and…’ Her chin jerked upwards and she seemed to have difficulty with her words as she ended, ‘paying for your particular kind of amusement.’

  She watched the flush fade from his face, particularly from around his mouth, leaving a distinct grey line. In the silence between them the gentle chimes of the clock in the hall seemed to groan throughout the room. As she watched the beads
of sweat appear on his upper lip she began to feel afraid: he had never, as yet, struck her, but in scenes like this she always expected him to. She made herself turn slowly from him and walk to the empty fireplace, and there, resting her hand on the high mantelshelf for support, she said, ‘From now on you can please yourself what you do, but as I’ve told you, we’ve been living on the capital for the last three years. The way things are going there’ll soon be no capital left.’

  There was another silence before he said grimly, ‘If you’re so hard up why the hell did you buy him a car?’

  Her voice came back flatly to him: ‘It was only second-hand, and two hundred and fifty pounds, and I intend one of the other two to go anyway.’

  His voice was rasping: ‘And I suppose it’s mine that’ll be for the axe?’

  She turned from the mantelpiece and walked towards the door as she said, ‘If you can pay for the garage, petrol bills and maintenance, you’re welcome to keep it. Also—’ she turned and confronted him from the doorway—‘there’ll be no more separate withdrawals. I’m closing the joint account as from tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah!…So that’s it.’ He took three steps towards her; then stood leaning forward, his fists clenched. ‘So that’s it! We’re coming to the crux of the matter now, aren’t we? Your suspicious mind’s at work again. Well, I can tell you what I did with every penny I took out, if you’ll listen. I bought my suit and…and then that new overcoat; I also got him that wristwatch.’ He thumbed towards the wall.

  She looked steadily back at him. ‘In the last three months,’ she said slowly, ‘there have been seven twenty-pound withdrawals and five of ten pounds.’ As she turned around, then crossed the hall, she felt that something would come flying at her head, and when she reached her room she leant against the door and cupped her face in her hands, pressing it so tightly that her mouth was distorted. Then she dropped onto the bed and, with her face still gripped between her palms, she buried her head in the pillow, asking herself for the thousandth time why she really put up with it. Why? Why?