Lanky Jones Page 5

  He read the letter at the breakfast table and Mrs Everton, noticing his face, said, ‘Bad news, Daniel?’ And to this he replied, ‘It’s how you look at it, Mrs Everton. It’s from me mother. She’s playing war with me because I haven’t been to see her over the last six weeks.’

  ‘Didn’t she know you hadn’t been well?’

  ‘Yes, yes; but then she doesn’t lay much stock on illness, especially colds. She never had a cold, she was never ill, not that I can remember.’

  ‘She’s a very lucky woman then…Don’t you want to go and see her?’

  He hung his head for a moment, aware that the eyes of both Michael and Sally were on him. Then his chin jerking upwards, he answered truthfully, ‘Not very much. I…I don’t like her new husband. To my mind the only thing he’s got is money.’

  ‘Well, that isn’t a bad thing.’

  Daniel looked steadily at Michael now and although he knew Michael was joking he answered him soberly, saying, ‘Well, it isn’t always good. The more you get the more you want. That’s how Dad’s always seen it, and I think I go along with him; you can’t be happy on just money.’

  ‘Some people manage.’ Michael rose from the table now. ‘And if you come across anybody who wants to get rid of any, let me know, will you? Or have you got any yourself stacked away that you don’t want?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Daniel nodded at him joining in with Michael’s mood. ‘I’ve got seven pounds fifty pence in the Building Society and I’ve got eight pounds upstairs to carry me over the holidays.’

  ‘Good. Good. We’ll go into Hexham tonight and blow that.’

  ‘Will you?’ Sally bounced up from her chair, adding now, ‘Oh! Michael, may I come?’

  ‘Don’t be silly’—her mother flapped her hands at her—‘he was only joking. And come and get cleared away. But wait, before that, go to the bottom of the coach-house stairs and shout Billy up. By the look of things he’s sleeping off his night out.’

  ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘No.’ Mrs Everton moved quickly towards her son, adding now, ‘I want no trouble, Michael. For the rest of the time he’s here, let things be.’

  ‘How long will that be?’

  ‘Well, that depends on you. It was your suggestion that the bottom field should be cleared of stones and you should try tilling.’

  ‘I could do it myself, well, with the help of Daniel here. He’s got another four weeks at least, that’s if he wants to stay.’ He now glanced towards Daniel, and Daniel with a wry smile answered, ‘I’ll stay as long as you let me, outdo me welcome likely in the end.’ He was looking at Mary Everton, but she made no direct answer: turning to her son again, she said, ‘I’ll tell him he’ll be finished at the end of next week. I’ll put it to him that we can’t afford to pay him.’

  ‘Put it any way you like, but get him out of my hair, Mam.’ Michael had turned about and was walking towards the door, and Daniel made haste to follow him. But he hesitated just long enough at the door to hear Sally say to her mother, ‘I can never understand, Mam, why Dad made a friend of that man: Dad was nice, Combo’s awful.’

  Yes, why had Mr Everton made a friend of a man like Combo? He himself had never met the farmer, but going by everyone’s opinion, he had been a very nice man, a good man, and so, as Sally had said, why had he to pick up with someone like Combo?

  Twenty-four hours later Daniel was given the reason.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday morning, everybody was up early and busy about his own particular task, for there was a fête on over the hills and they were all hoping to attend in the afternoon. Michael was going to enter the hill race and his mother had already made a Dundee cake and scones with which she hoped to compete against the other farmers’ wives. Sally had done a tapestry square for a stool. This had already been sent in and in her mother’s opinion stood a good chance in the County Craft Class for the under-fourteens. The only one who didn’t want to go to the fair was Combo. A lot of country know-alls showing how little they knew, had been his verdict of the show at breakfast. Half of them, he said, knew nowt about sheep, being unable to tell wet rot from dry rot. Apparently, by the look on his face he had expected a laugh at this, but when none was forthcoming he added with a growl. ‘Aye well, I could buy them at one end of the field and sell them at t’other, the lot of ’em. And not only about sheep either.’

  Daniel understood from a remark Mrs Everton had made that Combo was indeed very knowledgeable where sheep were concerned, and he had noticed that when the man went among the sheep they didn’t scatter as when he himself went into the fields. But knowledge of sheep or no knowledge of sheep, he was, in Daniel’s opinion, a loud-mouthed, ignorant man.

  He was working on the platform in the barn and was just about to pull a bundle of hay from the far corner when he heard Combo’s voice. Apparently he was speaking to Mrs Everton, who must have just come into the barn and he had followed her because the place had been empty a moment ago.

  Combo’s voice was low but his words came distinctly to Daniel: ‘You didn’t mean what you said, did you, Mary?’

  ‘I’m afraid I did, Billy,’ Mrs Everton replied.

  ‘There’s still a lot to do.’

  ‘Be that as it may, Billy, as I’ve told you, I…I can’t afford to keep you on.’

  ‘That for a tale. You know I’d work for nowt just to be here, you know that full well. I’m going to tell you something, Mary. You’ve…you’ve changed since John went, me welcome’s not so warm. You used to be glad to see me at one time.’

  ‘I was never…’ Mrs Everton’s voice trailed away as if she regretted what she was about to say.

  Daniel straightened his back but he made no move to go towards the end of the platform and let his presence be known; and now Combo’s voice came to him, harsh sounding: ‘You were going to say you were never glad to see me, was that it?’

  ‘You were John’s friend so I made you welcome.’

  ‘Ho, ho! Mary, come off it. And don’t take that line with me. All right, you know and I know why I was made welcome by John.’

  ‘Billy’—there was a plea in Mrs Everton’s voice now—‘I want no trouble, I’ve had enough. Please do as I ask, leave us at the end of next week. You can come again later.’

  There was a pause now before Combo replied, ‘Come again later you say. That’s maybe because somebody’s getting a big boy now and throwing his weight about. It’s a wonder it wasn’t he himself who told me to be gettin’ on me way and not you. But give him another year and the hills won’t hold him.’

  ‘Billy, please. Look, do as I ask, go on a round—there’s plenty work to be had here and there—then…then you can come back for the winter.’

  There was another silence during which Daniel stood with his head to the side, his ears strained, and for a moment he thought they must both have gone quietly from the barn, until Combo’s voice came again, saying, ‘What if I decide to stay, permanently like? I’ve thought about it a lot, even before John went. But now I could stay on different terms. You want a man here, Mary, not just a young kid, or a travelling hand, but a man permanently. How about it?’

  Mrs Everton’s voice hardly reached Daniel for her words seemed to be caught in her breath as she said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know full well what I mean. I’ve always had a fancy for you. You’re bound to know that an’ all, an’ you wouldn’t be making such a bad bargain. I’ve got me health, not like John, God rest him, and there’s nothing I don’t know about running a farm. If I hadn’t been such a blasted fool I would have had me own long afore now.’

  When Daniel heard Mrs Everton’s voice, no longer a whisper but a strangled yell as she cried, ‘Let me go! Let me go! Do you hear?’ it brought him as if out of a trance and springing towards the edge of the platform; but there he halted for Michael had appeared in the barn doorway and the voice with which he spoke was not that of a youth but came deep-bellied as if from a man of stature.

  ‘Take you
r hands off my mother.’

  Daniel, standing stiffly on the edge of the platform, watched Combo swing round. Then it seemed as if in a flash Michael and he met with fists flailing. But Michael, as young and strong as he was, was no match for the mature Combo. Such was his strength born of anger, however, that he delivered two blows to Combo’s face before he found himself dashed against the timbers of the barn; then Combo, reaching out grabbed up a pitchfork and, standing over him, yelled down at him between gasps, ‘For two pins I’d ram this into your upstart face. Who do you think you are, anyway? Well, I’m gonna tell you who you are, I’m gonna give you the answer to your words. Take your hands off my mother, you said. Well, for your information, Mr Big-head, you’ve got no mother. She’s as much your mother as she is mine. You don’t belong to anybody. Never did. So what do you think of yourself now, Mr Would-be-farmer?’

  From where Daniel was standing at the bottom of the ladder, he could see the look on Michael’s face, the eyes and mouth stretched wide as if he were viewing something amazing, horrifyingly amazing. And now he watched him look towards where Mrs Everton was standing, her head bowed, one hand covering her eyes while with the other she supported herself against the stanchion of the barn. He did not at this moment stop to consider that he hated fighting, that he was afraid of fights, and that at bottom he was a coward and scared of being hurt both physically and mentally, for now he seemed to take a flying leap as if he was practising a rugby tackle and when he jumped on Combo’s back, the surprise attack made the man loosen his hold on the pitchfork. But within seconds Daniel felt himself falling backwards, and the impact of his back hitting the floor and the body on top of him momentarily stunned him. Yet he still managed to retain his hold on Combo’s neck. But the man must have been used to combat of all kinds for with a deft movement he sprang Daniel’s grip. The next minute Daniel found himself being jabbed by Combo’s knees and pummelled by his fists, and though he struck out blindly and once felt the impact of his own fist against Combo’s mouth, he was definitely aware that the man was too much for him and that he was being knocked senseless.

  Then like an answer to the unconscious prayer that was tearing around in his head crying, ‘Oh, dear God! Oh, dear God!’ Combo’s body was torn from him, and he saw him, as if through a haze, rising upwards. At the same time he knew something serious was happening to him. Perhaps it was death, for vaguely he knew his father was fighting his battle for him, and the battle for Michael, and the battle for Mrs Everton, and the battle for Sally…for that was her voice screaming, and then the great blackness overwhelmed him and he sank into it.

  His face was wet; he thought for a moment he was swimming under water but he couldn’t open his eyes, not even when he heard a voice saying, ‘It’s all right, he’s coming round. Don’t worry now, don’t worry. He’ll be all right.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  That was Mrs Everton speaking, and he wondered what it was she was sorry about? And when his father spoke he knew it was himself she was sorry for, for his father was saying, ‘Likely done him the world of good, although I never thought to see him go for anybody like he did for that individual. He’s never been the fighting kind really, something like meself.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not the fighting kind, you certainly showed up to some advantage today. I…I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come on the scene.’

  ‘Oh, Michael would have finished him off likely. Where is he, by the way?’

  The silence which followed was so long that Daniel tried to open his eyes. But the effort was tiring, so he kept them closed. And then he heard Mrs Everton saying in a low sad voice, ‘He’s likely walking the hills; he…he got a shock.’

  ‘A shock? You mean because he was knocked out?’

  ‘No, not that kind of a shock.’ There was another pause before she went on, ‘You see, he had just learned that he…he was adopted; he’s not really my son.’

  Now Daniel opened his eyes and looked upwards and neither his father nor Mrs Everton were paying him attention now, but were looking at each other as Mrs Everton said, ‘I thought we’d never have any children. We…we lived in Devon at the time. We had a small farm there, nothing much. There was a cottage on the land. It had been occupied for years by a family called Bingham. There was only the old granny left and one day her granddaughter turned up. She was only eighteen and she herself was an orphan and had been brought up for most of her life in a home. But there she was on the point of giving birth. Within two days of her arrival Michael was born. I helped to bring him into the world, so he…he seemed mine right from the start. The grandmother couldn’t look after the child and the mother didn’t want it. She was young, you see. So when we said we’d love to adopt it she was only too pleased. And…and that’s the story.’

  ‘Then he’s got a mother somewhere?’

  ‘No, I’m glad to say he hasn’t. She died three years later. She was drowned, of all things. She was no swimmer and she got caught in a current. Strangely, she died before her granny did. Anyway, we moved here when Michael was just on four and, stranger still, I was then carrying Sally. And here we’ve lived ever since as one family.’

  ‘But…but excuse me asking, how does Combo come into this?’

  Daniel watched Mrs Everton now turn to the bowl of water that was standing on the table and wring out another cloth while saying. ‘When drink’s in sense is out. John had taken overmuch one night at a reunion meeting, and it was there he had met up with Combo whom surprisingly he had been friends with while they were doing their National Service. I say surprisingly because no two men could be more like chalk and cheese than my husband and that man. Anyway, John had told him the circumstances of Michael’s birth. The next day he wouldn’t have realised he had done it, but Combo made sure he let him know. From then Combo has been a regular visitor, and John always seemed glad of his help. Of course I used to say there was no accounting for tastes, but John always seemed to like the fellow; he would make excuses for him, saying he was a rough diamond and that he had a heart of gold, et cetera. Well, he’s gone now. And so has Michael, for in a way I…I think Michael will never forgive me: the way he looked at me when he went out of the barn, it was as if he hated me.’

  ‘No. No. It would just be the shock. Sort of finding out you don’t belong, I mean by birth, it must be a shock, not only when you’re young but at any age.’

  ‘Oh, you’re awake. How are you feeling?’ Mrs Everton was bending over him.

  Daniel raised himself on his elbow on the settle; then, smiling weakly, answered, ‘As…as if I’d had me brains knocked out.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t his fault that you didn’t.’ It was his father standing over him now. ‘Can’t leave you a minute but you get into a scrap. You’ll find yourself behind bars if you keep this up.’

  ‘Oh Dad’—Daniel drooped his head—‘don’t be funny; I don’t feel like laughing.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. Come on, sit up and have a cup of tea. Oh, here’s Sally.’ Mr Jones smiled towards the young girl as she came slowly into the room and he watched her look towards her mother as she said sadly, ‘I can’t see him anywhere, Mam.’

  ‘Don’t worry; he’ll be back shortly.’

  ‘The show’ll be off now, won’t it?’ There was a keen note of disappointment in the young girl’s voice and her mother, taking the kettle off the cooker and mashing the tea, said, ‘We’ll see. We’ll see.’

  Sally was now standing in front of Daniel and when she put her hand out and tentatively touched his cheekbone with her finger he felt the colour flushing over his face; and when she said, ‘Does it hurt?’ he answered, ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Your eye will be black tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks very much.’ He smiled weakly at her. And now she smiled back at him, saying, ‘Well, it will, it’s half closed already.’

  ‘Sally!’—her mother’s tone was stern—‘When will you learn to be tactful?’

>   ‘I was only saying…’

  ‘Yes, I know you were only saying; but you’re saying the wrong thing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know so much.’

  Because of the look on Sally’s face, Daniel felt forced to take her part. ‘’Tis the right thing she’s saying,’ he said; ‘it will be black tomorrow with shades of blue and yellow. I’ve seen them.’ He turned to his father now, adding, ‘Saturday night in the city, you see some beauties, don’t you, Dad?’

  ‘You do indeed. And we must take a picture of yours and preserve it, because, as Sally says, it’ll be black tomorrow and to my mind big enough to get into the Guinness Book of Records.’

  At this Sally gave a high-pitched laugh, then clamped her hands over her mouth and, turning to her mother, said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why be sorry for laughing?’ Mrs Everton was carrying a tray to the table, and after she had laid it down she put out her hand and gently patted her daughter’s cheek, and Sally’s reaction to this was to clutch at her mother’s hand and to hold it tightly against her face for a moment.

  The scene was slightly embarrassing for Daniel, and after glancing at his father who was smiling quietly, he looked away. Then all of a sudden he was enveloped in a feeling of faintness again, and this brought a strong admonition from within as he told himself, ‘Don’t pass out again, you’ve only got a black eye.’