ON the same day, at noon, George Malpas paraded before the Governor of
Shrewsbury Jail to take his discharge. The interview was short, almost
friendly. The prisoner had behaved well throughout his term, the
chaplain had reported on him as a young man of superior intelligence, and
for these reasons a remission of a quarter of his sentence had been
recommended and sanctioned. From the governor’s office he was marched
across the rigid quadrangle that he knew and hated to another room where
he signed a receipt for the personal belongings that had been taken from
him in the Lesswardine police-court and now miraculously reappeared. A
warder checked them as each was handed out:—
‘One watch. Silver chain with medal. One packet of letters. One
notebook and lead pencil. One steel foot-rule, folding. Four shillings
and twopence, silver and copper. One pocket-knife.’ He paused. ‘Is
that all?’
George Malpas was seized with a sudden anxiety. He tried to speak; but
long familiarity with the ways of warders made him frightened to use his
tongue.
‘Not half!’ said the other, with a wink. ‘One leather wallet. Fifty
pounds in Bank of England notes.’
‘God! That’s something like!’ said the other, handing it to George with
a wink.
He thrust it into the breast pocket of the coat which had been placed
that morning in his cell, and the action gave him an unfamiliar thrill.
What a thing it was to have pockets!
‘Well, Malpas, it’s good-bye, then,’ said the warder, who was also a
humorist. ‘Look in any time you’re passing!’
George Malpas did not smile. They showed him out of a small doorway at
the side of the arch under which the prison vans came grinding in. From
his cell he had been able to hear the sound of the horses’ shoes sliding
on the stone. He saw a street along which free men were moving with a
rapt, purposive hurry. Sometimes a passer-by would turn and look up idly
at the great nail-studded doors and the fan of spikes that surmounted
them. George had never seen the gateway before. He only knew the jail
as a heavy building dominating the hill above the station. When they had
brought him handcuffed from the train, humiliated, wondering if it were
worth while wrenching himself free and throwing his body on the rails,
they had driven him to the prison in a black van. Now he stood
undetermined, not knowing which way to take. Over the hill-side the city
of Shrewsbury sprawled: spires, chimney-pots, towers, and smoke stacks
blowing in a free and windy sky. Not a leaf on the trees, and black,
unfriendly dust whirling along brick pavements.
He shivered. For some reason his newly-pressed clothes hung loose and
damp upon him. He must have lost flesh. Of course he had lost flesh.
Who wouldn’t after fourteen months in jail? A cart came slowly past him
with a load of horse manure. A good smell . . . a country smell! The
driver cracked his whip, and the noise made George Malpas jump. That was
a bad sign surely! The sooner he got a drink and steadied his nerves the
better. He looked up and down the road for the sign of a public-house.
A hundred yards away a strip of hoarding with gilt letters topped the
sky-line of a red brick building. Astill’s Celebrated Entire, it said.
Brummagem beer was better than nothing. He crossed the road with long
strides, but a dog-cart driven fast down the middle of the street made
him pause. There was a bicycle behind it, and he did not think he could
avoid both. People should not be allowed to drive so furiously.
He reached the public-house and thanked God for his escape. He felt that
in gaining the shelter of its walls he was doing more than sheltering
from the bitter wind and the dust. He grew surer of himself, cracked a
joke with the barmaid, and paid for his beer. The florin that she
tendered him in change for a half-crown looked like a foreign coin. He
examined it suspiciously.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘One of these new ones. It’s quite a change
to get the Prince of Wales’ head, isn’t it? I don’t think he looks half
the man of King Edward.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘No, he don’t.’ He examined the coin, bewildered.
Then, fearing that she must read the whole of his story in his ignorance,
he pocketed his money and darted out into the street again. It was
strange how a broken habit reasserted itself. He put his hand in his
unfamiliar waistcoat pocket and pulled out his watch. Nine o’clock.
That was impossible. He laughed, realising that his watch had run down
at its usual winding time on the night of his arrest.
‘I’m like a fool,’ he thought. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m dull,
useless. I want another drink.’
Gradually, under the influence of the liquor, his confidence returned.
It must be market day in Shrewsbury, he thought, for the streets were so
full of people; but reflection told him that Shrewsbury market is not
held on a Monday and that the crowd that moved on the pavements of the
steep high street was no more than the normal week-day traffic. It gave
him a thrill of pleasure to realise that people were not staring at him.
He was encouraged to slacken his pace, to walk no longer as if some one
were pursuing him. He stared in several shop windows, and at last found
himself gazing at his own image in a long mirror. It gave him a start to
find himself facing an elongated lath of a man that he did not know,
until he realised that the mirror was a convex affair placed as an
advertisement outside an eating-house to emphasise the contrast between a
man who had fed there and one who had not. It was not such a bad idea.
He would go in and eat his first square meal.
The place was nearly empty, for Shrewsbury does not dine till one
o’clock. They brought him steak and kidney pudding, the best that he had
ever tasted, and a pint of half and half. He began to feel a man again.
He called the waiter for a second drink and ordered, with it, a local
time-table. Looking through it at leisure he found that the trains to
Llandwlas had not been altered, though there was now time to get a drink
in the change at Craven Arms. If he caught the afternoon train he would
have time to look about Shrewsbury for another two hours and see to
certain business matters that were in the back of his mind.
He paid his bill, gave the waiter a liberal tip, and walked up the hill
past the half-timbered houses to the main street. He wondered if the
place was where it used to be. Yes, it was still there. It pleased him
to think that he hadn’t lost his memory. Nothing would have surprised
him after all those useless, numbing months. Above the shop door was the
inscription: ‘Emigration Office.’ Inside, a long counter, backed by
posters of shipping companies, and a single yawning clerk who had been
left in charge during the luncheon hour. He asked George what he could
do for him.
‘Canada,’ said George. ‘I want to know all about it.’
The young man produced a sheaf of circulars and began to explain. He
found it difficult to place the applicant, his pale face, his hat jammed
on his head to hide the prison crop, his equivocal hands.
‘Are you a mechanic?’ he asked.
‘No. Farmer.’
The clerk stared at him. ‘Farmer? You want to buy land?’
‘No, I don’t. I want to work on it. I have a little money.’
‘Married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Taking the missus with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And children?’
‘No children.’
‘You have to get two references for an assisted passage, you know,’ said
the clerk, producing a form.
‘Never mind that. I can’t wait for any rubbish of that kind. What’s the
fare, steerage?’
The clerk looked it up. ‘Liverpool, Quebec. That’s what you want,’ he
said. ‘Then you get right over to Calgary if you take my advice. I’ll
write it all down for you.’
He did so, in a sloped, flourishing hand, on the back of one of the
circulars. ‘You’ll get the Allan boat from Liverpool Saturday week,’ he
said. George thanked him and plunged out into the street.
At the station he bought a daily paper, the North Bromwich _Courier_. As
usual on Monday it was full of football. Albion at the top of the first
league: Notts Forest, second. Strange clubs from the Southern League had
invaded that sanctuary: the season was half over, and they were shaping
well. He read words that meant nothing to him. He could not
concentrate, for he had drunk as much as was good for him. The platform
seemed to him a noisy, exposed situation; for he could not yet be at his
ease in a crowd. He started at the sound of a familiar voice speaking
the word Lesswardine. A man passed him in a drab covert-coat: Mr Prosser
of The Dyke, talking to young Maddy. They had not recognised him. He
slipped into a urinal to avoid them and waited there till he heard the
south-bound train roll in. Then he made a dash for a non-smoking
carriage and hid himself behind his newspaper in the corner. The train
was not full, and to his great relief no one entered his compartment.
They started smoothly and soon left Shrewsbury behind. A wintry
landscape unfolded on either side of him: the low bow of the Wrekin; Caer
Caradoc, a sheer crag on the left; the cloven bastions of the Long Mynd.
He threw up the window and drank in great draughts of hill air. He
laughed to see the green of the fields and the gray, monstrous hills.
But he knew that he was a stranger. The country that he rejoiced to see
had rejected him. If he lived to be a hundred not a single man of his
acquaintance would forget that he had spent a year in jail. As soon as
he should have left Craven Arms the hills would fold him in, draw him
within the confines of his old life. He was free, but this could never
be a real freedom. A wider country, a new life, Canada. . . . He was
dying for a drink.
At Craven Arms the satisfaction of this desire did not seem easy, for
others were before him in the Refreshment Room and every moment his
chance of meeting Lesswardine people increased. He took a flask of
brandy from the counter and paid for it without waiting for the change.
The local train stood humbly in the siding. He chose a carriage already
full of Radnor farmers whom he did not know. He drank down the whole of
his flask of brandy, and then fell into a kind of doze lulled by the
sing-song voices of his companions. The train twisted along the valley
in the dark, pulling up with a jolt at every upland station. At
Llandwlas he turned out in a hurry and handed his ticket to a new porter,
who stood at the gate in the dusk swinging a lantern. Men were shouting,
driving bullocks into a pen. A trap was waiting with the lamps already
lit. He avoided their light, but guessed by the colour of the horse and
the erect figure of the driver that Marion was waiting for Mr Prosser. A
year before he might have dared to ask for a lift to Chapel Green. God,
how strange, how hauntingly strange the country smelt!
An hour later he staggered into the bar at the Buffalo. Mrs Malpas, a
withered, pathetic figure, half the size of the woman whom he remembered,
gave a cry and ran to meet him.
‘My son, my son!’
He kissed her, laughing heavily, blowing gusts of brandy into her eyes.
She would not think of the spirit in his breath. Her hands caressed his
face. She turned him to the light to see if he were changed.
‘Oh, George, you’re that thin! They haven’t fed you proper.’
He freed himself from her. ‘How’s dad?’ he asked.
‘The same as ever, George.’
‘Poor old devil!’ he said.
She drew him into the bar-parlour where the old man was sitting.
‘It’s George, my dear,’ she cried excitedly. ‘It’s our George!’
George slapped his father on the back: ‘Don’t you know me, dad?’
The old man only mumbled.
‘He’s gone downhill,’ said George. ‘You’ve been with him all the time.
You don’t see the change like I do.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said listlessly. She could not keep her eyes from her
son. ‘You’re thin, George, so thin!’
‘Then give us a drop of beer, mother. That’ll help fatten me.’
She could not refuse him. While she was filling the tankard at the
counter old Drew and another labourer from the Pentre who had been
driving Williams’s bullocks to Llandwlas station came into the bar.
‘My son’s home,’ she told them gaily. ‘And so thin! It’s a scandal.
They starve them.’
‘So I’ve always heard tell, ma’am,’ said Drew, with a wink. ‘Here’s his
health.’
‘Who’s that?’ George asked anxiously. He still found it difficult to
resist the impulse of hiding himself.
‘I didn’t see,’ Mrs Malpas lied.
She gave George his beer, and he settled down to it. The two labourers
spoke spasmodically in the bar.
‘Well, mother,’ he said at last. ‘Tell us how things have been going
on.’
Mrs Malpas pursed her lips. ‘Going on! That’s the word. I wrote to
you, George. You got my letter?’
‘Yes, I got that all right.’
Mrs Malpas grew intense. Her hands trembled with emotion. ‘She’s a bad
woman, George. Downright bad. I told you so before.’
‘There’s not another kid waiting for me, no surprise packet of that
kind?’
‘No. But she’s that deceitful, George. She’s no better than her father.
She couldn’t have used you worse than she has. So open! You never made
a worse mistake.’
‘You let me teach her!’ said George between his teeth. ‘I’ll learn her
her bleeding duty!’
‘Don’t swear, George!’
‘You ought to be more shocked at her than me!’
‘And that Fellows is no better. Rotten bad. Always going after women.
There’s Susie Hind.’
‘God! He’s welcome!’
‘And Mr Prosser’s daughter. They had to turn him off The Dyke.’
‘Her?’ George laughed. ‘He’s a proper young bull!’
‘And all the time living as man and wife with Mary. Laughing at you, the
two of them, behind your back.’
‘I’ll see to that!’ said George grimly. The liquor was spreading in hot
fumes through his brain.
‘But you won’t go up to-night, George,’ she said anxiously.
‘Won’t I? You bet I will.’
‘You’d best stay here, George. Don’t you go near her. She’ll talk you
round.’
‘I’ll shut her mouth for her. And I’ll get level with him too!’
The old woman grew alarmed.
‘Don’t go near them, George,’ she pleaded. ‘There’s a home for you here.
Leave them to it. They’re not worth taking the notice of.’
‘What about the kids, eh?’
‘Fellows will have set them again you. They won’t know you. You see!’
‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ He grew excited. ‘And I tell you, if I
have to do time again I’m going to put that b— on his back!’
He put down his tankard with another oath. One of the drinkers in the
bar knocked at the counter.
‘Keep still till I’m back, George. I won’t be a minute,’ she said.
‘Get us another pint, then,’ George grumbled.
She took his tankard, and having given the labourers their change and
wished them good-night, she brought it back to him filled. God would
forgive her this sin. Even if he were drunk she wanted to keep him at
the Buffalo, for she dreaded Abner’s strength. When she returned he was
still on his feet, talking indistinctly to the old man, who was shaken by
a fit of coughing that choked him. She thumped his back.
‘That’s right, dad,’ said George. ‘Better out than in!’ The joke
appeared to please him.
She drew him down gently to his chair and gave him the tankard.
‘Sit down, my dear,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘I’ve done talking,’ said George obstinately. ‘Let me get at him: that’s
what I want. Let me get at the dirty pair of them!’
She bent over him and whispered in his ear.
‘The money, George,’ she said. ‘Where did you put it? She told me you
hadn’t hid it in the house, but I reckon she lied to me, or they couldn’t
have lived all this time with him out of work. They must have got at it.
Where did you put it, my son?’
He stared at her with affected stupidity. ‘What money?’
‘Fifty pounds. Out of my box. I guessed it was you that had it. That’s
why I didn’t dare tell the police.’
He laughed. ‘Good old woman! I knew you wouldn’t. You’re a good
mother. I’ll say that for you.’
‘Then you can give it back to me. Give it to me, my son.’
His cunning returned to him.
‘I’ve lost it, mother. Every penny. It’s gone.’
‘Gone? Fifty pounds? You couldn’t lose it, George.’
‘You try backing horses, and you’ll see,’ he said.
‘Racing, too!’ she cried. ‘Oh, George, George! It was all I had.’
‘Well, you’ve got me, mother,’ he said. ‘What more do you want? It’s no
good crying over spilt milk.’
She came to his arms, weakly sobbing, and clung to him.
‘Now don’t go crying all over me,’ he said thickly. ‘Loose me! I’m
going.’
‘George, you mustn’t go, dear. You’re not fit.’
‘I tell you I’m going. Leave hold of me!’
‘George!’
‘Do you say I’m drunk? I’ll show you if I’m drunk!’
Still she clung to him. He gave her a push and she went over into the
hearth with a clatter of fire-irons. The old man began to wail in a
high-pitched voice: ‘Help! Help!’
‘Shut your damned mouth, you!’ said George.
He blundered out into the bar, knocking against the end of the counter
and bringing down a tray of glasses with a crash. A freakish idea seized
him. He took the key from the door and locked it on the outside. He
shook with laughter at the joke.
A young moon sank slowly over the misty woodland. He stopped in the
middle of the road and solemnly turned over the packet of banknotes in
his pocket for luck. Drunk? Not he! He was sharp enough to think of
everything. He turned his uncertain steps toward Wolfpits.
Before him, with half an hour in hand, old Drew went pounding along the
same road as fast as his rheumatic knees would let him. He reached
Wolfpits breathless and knocked violently at Mary’s kitchen door. She
was upstairs, putting the children to bed. Morgan was tucked in already,
and Gladys was having her hair brushed. Panic seized Mary when she heard
the old man’s knock. Those rapid blows seemed to her to herald
catastrophe. She ran downstairs and came to the door with an ashen face.
‘Hey, missus,’ Drew panted. ‘Be Abner in there with ’ee?’
‘No, he’s not back yet,’ she said, relieved. Then, as a new fear chilled
her: ‘Isn’t he at the Pentre?’
‘Most like he be,’ said Drew, slowly regaining his breath and leaning on
the doorpost. ‘I’ve been a driving they bullocks to Llandwlas station.’
She looked at the clock. It was a little earlier than Abner’s usual hour
of return.
‘Better wait if you want him. Take a seat, Mr Drew. He’ll be back in a
few minutes.’
‘You must stop ’en . . . you must stop ’en!’ said the old man
impressively. ‘If he come down over the field I shall meet ’en myself.
But often he do come by the road. You must send some one to stop ’en
that way.’
‘Stop him? What do you mean?’ she cried.
‘You must stop ’en. Your George be coming up from the Buffalo, mad with
the drink. You must stop Abner. Keep him away, or there’ll be murder
done, sure ‘nuff! Murder! You take my word for it!’
‘How can I stop him? What can I do, Mr Drew?’ she cried.
‘Go yourself, missus. Or send Mrs Mamble. Her’ll run along for ’ee.’
‘No. I must wait for George,’ she said.
An inspiration came to her. She took a piece of paper and scribbled a
note to Abner, telling him that George was coming, begging him, for her
sake, to keep out of the way until she had seen him. Then she called
upstairs: ‘Gladys!’ and the child came down with her hair plaited for the
night.
‘Come here, my darling,’ she said. ‘Put your shoes on. I want you to go
down to the corner and meet Abner and give this to him.’
‘Isn’t it rather dark, mam?’ said Gladys, thrilled by the prospect of
adventure. She shivered.
‘No, my darling. There’s a lovely moon, isn’t there, Mr Drew? Just wait
at the bottom of the drive till he comes, or go a little way up the road.
Let me put your coat on.’
She helped the child into her overcoat and kissed her. Gladys took the
note. ‘Won’t our Abner be surprised?’ she said, as she went.
‘I’d best bide along with you, missus,’ said old Drew darkly.
‘I’d rather you went, Mr Drew,’ she replied. ‘I know you mean it
kindly.’
‘Well, my dear, I’ll be going on up to the Pentre. Maybe I’ll meet Abner
up the fields. Shall I send Mrs Mamble in to ’ee?’
‘No. Mrs Mamble’s out: gone to the shops in Lesswardine. I’d rather be
alone when he comes. It was good of you to warn me.’
He left her, and she waited. Her brain followed the messenger down the
avenue step by step. She realised that the most awful moment of her life
was upon her. She wondered if she ought to pray. She could not pray.
What right had she, a guilty woman, to call on Divine help? She must
fight for herself. She looked at the clock. Barely two minutes had
passed since she had looked before. Surely Abner could not be long.
Her strained ears heard steps in the distance. She peered out into the
moonlight. Two dim figures were visible. Abner, in his obstinate folly,
had seen her note and refused her warning. Even now there was time to
stop him. She dared not call, for it struck her that George might well
be coming up behind him. She stood, trembling with impatience, waiting
for him to come within earshot. The figures of the man and the child
became more distinct. His gait was unsteady but too fast for Gladys, who
ran at his side. He carried her note unfolded. The paper showed white
in the moonlight. They came toward her, and she saw that it was George.
A cry came from her lips. He left the child behind him, stalked straight
into the kitchen and flung his hat on the table. He was as pale as
death; his cropped head shaped like a skull. The walk had partially
sobered him.
‘Go straight upstairs, Gladys,’ she called.
‘It’s dad, mam. I give him Abner’s note.’
‘Go upstairs as I tell you!’
Gladys’s mouth fell. ‘Why, mam?’ she faltered.
George pulled a chair toward him and flopped into it. ‘You be said!’ he
shouted.
The child ran upstairs, frightened. George sat on, his eyes staring
savagely at her out of his sunken orbits.
‘Well, Mary,’ he said at last. ‘This is a bloody fine game!’
She could not speak for her increasing terror. She had never felt so
frightened of him in her life. ‘He looks like a criminal,’ she thought.
‘Speak up,’ he said. ‘What’ve you got to say for yourself. What’s the
meaning of this?’ He held out her note. ‘Tell him to keep away, would
you? You dirty bitch!’
‘George,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t believe all people tell you. You know
your mother’s against me!’
‘Hold your noise about my mother! She’s a good woman, she is, and a good
wife. The likes of you’s not fit to go near her. I know what’s been
going on here without her telling me. Sleeping with the lodger! Don’t
you deny it, or I’ll bash your mouth in for you!’
‘Never, George, never!’ she cried, passionately righteous. ‘I swear by
God as I’m standing here, it never came to that.’
‘You can swear by the devil for all I care. I’ve finished with you.
It’s him I want!’ His voice left him. He cleared his throat and spat
viciously in the fire.
Mary pulled her senses together. ‘George,’ she said, ‘have you ever
known me tell you a lie?’
‘I never knew a woman who wouldn’t,’ he said, with a laugh.
She let his speech pass. ‘Imagine the hard times we’ve had,’ she went
on, ‘and not so much as a word from you! Not a penny in the house! The
way he’s worked for us and suffered for us, and all for the sake of the
word he gave you. There’s not a man in a million who’d have done it!
And all for nothing!’
‘All for nothing!’ he mocked: ‘tell that to some one else!’
‘Without him we should have starved . . . me and the children. Can’t you
see that for yourself? And yet you believe the first word that’s spoken
against him and me. You ought to go down on your knees to him and thank
him for what he’s done. If it hadn’t been for him you’d have found us
all in the workhouse. George, you must believe me!’
‘Oh, shut your bloody mouth!’ he said, rising clumsily.
‘George, you must!’ she repeated. She put her hand on his shoulder, but
he pushed her away. Both of them heard a step on the path. She made a
last, desperate effort. ‘George, if you touch him . . . ‘ she cried.
‘If you . . .!
Abner stood in the doorway. His face was solemn and heavily lined. The
sight of Malpas did not seem to disturb him.
‘Hallo, George,’ he said, in a thick voice. ‘How goes it?’
‘Don’t you talk to me!’ said George, threateningly. ‘You wait till I’ve
told you what I think of you, you damned swine!’
Abner flushed.
‘Steady, George! Go steady! We’ve got to talk this over. You sit
down.’
‘There’s a sight too much talk about the both of you,’ George snarled.
‘When you’ve broke up a man’s home behind his back and then tell him to
take a seat in it. I’m going to give you your lesson before you get
kicked out!’
He made a threatening movement toward Abner, who watched him closely.
Spider came dancing into the room. She leapt up at Abner with little
yelps of joy at his return, licking his hand. At this sight the anger
that smouldered in George’s brain leapt into flame.
‘Not only the wife and the kids,’ he cried. ‘You’ve got round the lot of
them, even the bleeding dog!’
He snatched up the poker and hit out at Spider. Abner took the blow on
his thigh.
‘Here, drop that!’ he cried.
But George’s senses had left him. He flew at Abner, raining desperate
blows at his head.
‘George! You’ll kill him!’ Mary screamed.
Abner had picked up a chair and protected himself as best he could. For
a second the two men stood staring at one another, panting for breath.
Then another gust of anger swept over George and he made for Abner again.
Mary tried to throw herself between them, but Abner flung her aside. The
legs of the chair were splintered under George’s blows. He continued to
lash out, and it was as much as Abner could do to defend himself. He saw
that the man’s flushed brain meant murder, nothing less. Somehow he must
put an end to this madness. George’s hobnails slithered on the stone
flags. Abner took his chance, and timed his blow. George went down with
a groan: his poker sang like a tuning fork on the floor.
‘Abner, Abner, what have you done?’ Mary cried. She ran to George and
bent over him, pulling up his head. Abner, with black blood dripping
from a bruised vein on his forehead, stood back. The corners of his
mouth twitched with his violent breathing: he still held his chair
uplifted.
‘It was him or me,’ he panted.
‘He’s dead! You’ve killed him!’
‘Not he! That sort don’t die.’
But he himself was anxious for a moment and stooped over George’s body,
breathing heavily.
‘No. He’s all right,’ he said. ‘Just knocked out. I’ve been like that
myself.’
‘What can we do?’ she cried, staring at him with frightened eyes.
‘Leave him alone. He’ll come round.’
‘I sent you a note by Gladys,’ she said inconsequently. ‘He met her and
took it off her. I’d told you to keep away.’
‘If I’d had it it would have made no difference. You can’t stop a thing
like this. Get up and put your things on. I’ll keep an eye on him. Get
the children dressed and all.’
She stared at him as though she couldn’t take in what he was saying. She
was still holding one of George’s inanimate hands that she had clutched
in her first anxiety. ‘Dress them, Abner? What do you mean?’
‘It’s time we cleared. He won’t hurt.’
‘But I couldn’t leave him like this!’
He took her arm. ‘Do what I tell you. Go on! The sooner we clear the
better.’
‘Abner, we can’t turn out in the middle of the night.’
‘That’s all right. You won’t come to no harm. I’ll look after you.’
‘Abner, I can’t!’ she wailed. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘It’s either go now or stay altogether. I can’t stop here. That’s clear
enough. If you and me are going together we must go now.’
‘Abner, my dear, I can’t face it. Not after this. Abner, I’m too
frightened to move a step. And if he died . . .’
‘I tell you he’s all right. He’ll come round sober. If I was to wait
for that there’d be no end to it. It’d begin all over again.’
She gazed at him, anguished.
‘Abner, my love, I daren’t. Don’t you understand? They’ll follow us.
They’re bound to. The police . . .’
‘It’s no good thinking of that,’ he said.
She began crying softly, there on the floor above the prostrate body.
Her fingers mechanically stroked George’s hand. The action irritated
Abner. He could not look at her. He took a cloth from the table and
mopped the blood that was running into his eyes. He propped himself up
with the table edge, for he was still giddy from George’s blow on his
temple. A sudden vision came to him of another kitchen, another man
lying on the floor, another woman crying. The room swam before him. He
steadied himself and sank down into a chair. The sense of time left him.
He could not be certain where he was or in what period of his life. A
shrill singing noise was in his ears. Through it, distantly, he heard
the clear tone of a clock striking eight; and this recalled him to life,
to the room that he had lost in a blur of confused memories, to the sound
of Mary’s sobbing. He remembered that he had been speaking, but could
only repeat the last words that had left an echo in his memory: ‘It’s no
good . . .’
‘What?’ he heard her ask.
‘Wasting time over this. If you’re coming you must come now. Now or
never.’
She neither moved nor answered him. He felt sorry for her: bent over
her, pressed her to him. She turned her face away.
‘I can’t, Abner . . . not now,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t think: I can’t
feel. Oh, why didn’t he kill me . . . why didn’t he kill me?’
He would have lifted her to her feet, but she lay a dead weight in his
arms. All power of volition had left her. She sank back again limply,
shaking her head from side to side. Her hair had become loose. It hung
down over her shoulder.
Abner felt that he must do something to break the paralysing spell that
held them.
‘I’m going, Mary,’ he said. ‘I can’t stay. Let me help you up! Come
along now!’
She shook her head. ‘It’s no use, Abner.’
‘There’s naught left for you here that I can see. It’s only you and the
kids I want to look after.’
She could only go on sobbing: ‘It’s no use . . . it’s no use!’
‘Well, I’m no judge. Maybe yo’m right,’ he said.
He turned from her and went upstairs to collect a few of his belongings.
On his way down again Gladys came timidly to the door of Mary’s room and
called his name. Her piteous fragility touched him. He took her in his
arms and kissed her.
‘Where are you going, Abner?’ she whispered. ‘Where’s mam?’
He picked the child up and carried her to her cot, telling her that she
must be a good girl and go to sleep. Morgan was sitting up with his
fingers in his eyes, crying mechanically. ‘You look after our Morgan
till mam comes,’ he told her.
He came down into the kitchen.
‘Mary . . .’ he said.
She did not answer. He went to her and put his arms round her neck.
‘Good-bye, lass,’ he said.
Her sobbing increased, but she would not raise her head. He wanted to
pick her up in his arms as he had picked up Gladys, to carry her away
with him; but he knew it was useless. He kissed her again, then rose and
went to the door, closing it softly behind him. The cold air revived
him. He drew it gratefully into his lungs. He was conscious of a
strange physical lightening, as though a material load had slipped from
his shoulders.