The Loner

She gave a deliberate sigh. ‘Oh, but I don’t suppose you’ve got any such thing, eh? So we’ll just have to go without, won’t we?’ Beth knew full well that Joseph always kept a bottle of brandy in the cupboard. ‘It would have been nice, though, don’t you think? A drop of the good stuff to warm our cockles?’

Slowly but surely, a glimmer of understanding crept over Joseph’s sorry features. ‘You artful devil, Beth Makepeace,’ he said in a croaky voice. ‘You know exactly where it is.’

He rallied round. ‘You can fetch it, if you like.’

The brandy did the trick. By the time Joseph had drunk three cups of tea with the ‘teeniest’ drop in it to give it a kick, he was beginning to talk freely, though the sadness was all too evident. ‘I’ve got you to thank for looking after her,’ he told Tom. ‘God only knows what might have happened if you hadn’t heard Davie calling from the woods. Oh, and where is the lad?’ He grabbed hold of Beth’s hand. ‘Where’s my Davie? Did you know, I threw him out… lost my temper. I couldn’t see owt but what she’d done, and he was willing to go with her and leave me on my own.’

His voice trembled. ‘I turned against him – lost my head. He’ll never forgive me, will he, eh? Surely he knew I’d change my mind the minute he was out the door, and I did! I went after him, but he were gone. They were both gone, and it was too late. Too late.’ His voice broke, and for a moment he was quiet, then when he was composed, he looked at Tom. ‘Why doesn’t he come home, Tom? He needs me…we need each other. Where in God’s name is he? What’s going to become of him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tom answered truthfully. ‘Happen he’ll think things over, and when he’s come to terms with what happened out there in the woods, he’ll turn his mind to you, and he’ll know you didn’t mean it when you spoke harshly to him.’

Unconvinced, Joseph’s next question was directed at Judy. ‘I reckon you know him better than any of us, lass. Will he come home, d’you think? When he’s cried himself out, will he make his way back to his old grandad? What d’you reckon, pet?’

The girl said cautiously, ‘Maybe.’ Davie loved his grandad, she knew that for sure. But what she didn’t know was how deeply he had been affected by what had happened to his mammy. And for his grandad to turn against him was unthinkable. Davie would be taking it hard, she knew that well enough, but she revealed nothing of her thoughts. What would be the point? She’d only upset the old chap further.

‘It’s a lot for the lad to deal with.’ Joseph was thinking aloud now. ‘First his mammy comes home drunker than I’ve ever seen her, then there’s this terrible fight and his daddy walks out, and as for me…’ He took another swig of his tea. ‘I threw him and his mammy out onto the streets. And that was after I had damn near pushed her down the stairs. She must have hurt herself badly but she didn’t say owt, you see? Oh, my Rita. My stubborn little girl!’ He sobbed anew. ‘What kind of monster am I?’ He took another swig. ‘The lad saw his mammy die out there in the woods. God Almighty! I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to set eyes on me again.’

For a split second there was an uncomfortable silence, before Judy flung her arms round the old man’s neck, saying passionately, ‘He loves you! Davie would never think bad of you – never!’

Startled by her sudden show of affection, the old man looked up to see her crying. ‘Oh, lass,’ he said huskily. ‘It’s no wonder our Davie took you for a friend. You’re a caring, kind young thing, and if you say he’ll forgive me, then I’ll take your word for it.’ If only he could turn back time. If only…‘I’m hoping our Davie won’t forsake me, any more than I could forsake him,’ he wept, ‘and I hope you’re right, bonnie lass, when you say he’ll come home. But I was harsh on him…on both of ’em. I turned my back on the lad when he needed me most. Happen he’ll never forget that. Happen he’ll never forgive me for it neither.’

Taking another swig of his tea, and for the first time, Joseph told them about his late wife, Marie. ‘My wife was a real beauty, just like Rita,’ he said fondly. ‘Unfortunately, she started the boozing soon after having Rita. An’ then our second child – baby Matty, we called him – died in his sleep one night, and there was no consolin’ her. Poor little Matty – an’ now Rita, too. Both me childer dead an’ gone.’ He gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘At first I thought I could help my Marie to be rid of the booze and the men, and live a decent life with me and with our beautiful daughter Rita. But for all my efforts, it didn’t happen. Lord knows how hard I tried to change her. Many a man would have walked out on her, but I couldn’t do it. I loved her, y’see, and when she was sober she had a mischievous and lovable nature, just like Rita.’

As the Makepeace family listened respectfully, Joseph paused. The bad memories had, by now, brought a scowl to his face. ‘Oh, but when she’d been at the booze, by God, Marie was the devil incarnate.’

He explained how Rita seemed, in time, to have naturally followed in her mother’s footsteps. ‘I can’t blame the lass for what she became,’ he said regretfully. ‘She grew up adoring her mammy, living in her shadow, seeing her kind and loving one minute, and in the next how violent and cruel she was.’

He took a moment to remember. ‘I should have left her then,’ he said gruffly, ‘but I loved her too much. I kept on hoping she’d come to her senses for the child’s sake, but she never did. And when the TB took her off when she was still in her prime, it seemed like my Rita took on her mother’s character…up and happy one minute, then down and shameless the next.’

He spoke of his son-in-law. ‘She were just a kid when she met Don, and oh, I was that pleased for her. I thought, here’s a good man, hardworking and decent. They will be happy together, not like Marie and me. Aye, he loved her as much as any man can love a woman, but when she went wrong, he couldn’t change her, any more than I could change her mammy.’

He hunched his shoulders. ‘I don’t blame him for walking out, and nor should anyone else. If I’d walked out, all them years back, I might have saved Rita from copying her mammy’s ways. In truth, Rita became worse than my Marie ever was. She went with men openly. She even did her dirty work with blokes who worked alongside Don at the factory.’ Growing emotional, he took a moment to compose himself. ‘There were snide remarks and cruel taunts, and my son-in-law would retaliate, like any other normal man would. But then there’d be fights, and he’d lose his job again and there would be no money coming in.

‘They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the…’ Unable to say the word, he closed his eyes, then quickly opened them again, and now his voice was stronger. ‘It pains me to say it, especially now she’s gone… but my daughter was a slut of the worst kind. There was such badness in her – almost as though her mammy had passed it on with a vengeance. And good man that he was, Don stuck with her, till his patience was tried too far. I knew it had to happen, and somehow I reckon I also knew that one day it would end in tragedy. She was like a runaway train, my Rita, heading straight towards a cliff-edge.’

‘Have you any idea where Don was headed?’ Tom wondered if the man had been informed of the situation – his wife dead, and his son missing.

‘No idea at all.’ Joseph had been thinking along the same lines. ‘When he left here, it was on the spur of the minute. He was in such a state, I don’t reckon he knew where he was headed himself. Although, he did give a slip of paper to young Davie, with someone’s name on it. The boy must have gone off with it.’

‘Well, Don will have to be told, won’t he?’ Tom queried. ‘He’ll need to know what’s happened. His wife is beyond his help now, but the boy needs his father.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Sad at heart and not knowing which way to turn, Joseph revealed, ‘I told the police the whole story, from beginning to end, and they promised to do what they could to find him.’

‘But they’re not really duty bound to do so, are they?’ Beth intervened.

Joseph agreed. ‘Happen they’ve done their duty in telling me about the accident, and mebbe it’s up to me to do the rest.’

‘But what about Davie?’ Judy persisted. ‘The police will have to find him, won’t they?’

‘I hope so, lass. After all, he’s only just coming up to fourteen. I told them how much he thought of his mammy and how badly this whole business would have affected him. Let’s hope they find him, eh? Aye, let’s hope they do. As for him going after his dad, he doesn’t have a penny piece on him, and the mood our Don was in when he left, it wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t already left the country – jumped on a ship at the docks mebbe, and gone to sea. They can always use a good carpenter on board ship.’

Tom was interested. ‘Was that what he hankered after?’ he asked. ‘Making for foreign parts?’

‘Yes. Right from when he went abroad with the Army he had an appetite to see the world. Said as how he’d like to join that scheme to emigrate to Australia…with all those wide open spaces where a man could breathe. Then again, he might have gone back to Ireland. I understand he has an old aunt there, although, as I recall, he hasn’t seen her in years.’

He yawned, and said sleepily, ‘Aye, happen that’s where he’ll be headed…Australia, or Ireland. One or the other, I’ll be window, she stared out into the darkness, but there was nothing to be seen, except a lone cat prowling the area for a mate.

Turning away, she crossed the room, stumbled into bed and drew the blankets over her. In a matter of minutes she was fast asleep.

In the other room, having talked themselves into exhaustion, Beth and Tom also were asleep.

It had been a worrying day for them all.

CHAPTER SIX

SETTLING DOWN IN the barn, Davie thought he had caught a glimpse of someone at the window. He wondered if it might be Judy, but he daren’t draw her attention. If he was discovered here, he knew how Tom would want to return him to his grandad, when all he needed was to hide in a quiet place where he could be left alone to think things through.

At first he had thought that may be he might go and see Tom and thank him for what he had done. But then, as he got closer to the farm, he decided against it. Sometimes, when a kindness was so big between two people who understood each other, saying thanks was far too small and insignificant.

After searching around, he found the old Tilly lamp hanging above the window; another search in the semi-darkness revealed a box of matches hidden on the shelf alongside. Aware that the light might be seen from the house, he took the lamp and the matches, then from a safe corner, he lit the lamp, keeping the flame low and shielded, while he made himself a bed in the hay.

‘Don’t you worry.’ Peeping over the stable door, the old shire horse had been watching him with big curious eyes. ‘I’m not moving in on you.’ Davie stroked its long mane. ‘I just need somewhere to bed down for the night. I need to think, and plan. I have to know where I’m going from here.’ His voice and spirit dropped. ‘I feel hopelessly lost,’ he confided. ‘I miss my grandad, and I need to be near Judy and her family. But if I stayed I might hear bad talk about my mam, and I wouldn’t like that at all.’

At the thought of his mother being slandered, a wave of anger rushed through him. ‘I know she did bad things, and I know she caused a lot of unhappiness for the family, but if I hear anybody calling her names, I swear I’ll kill ’em!’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘I’ll never know why she did those terrible things…shamin’ us an’ all. But I don’t think she meant to hurt us. I don’t think she could help herself.’

Gulping back the tears, he quickly composed himself. ‘I need to look for my dad.’ He gave a great heave of a sigh. ‘But where do I start?’ he asked the wide-eyed creature. ‘And if I was to find him, would he thank me for it?’

Deep down he desperately needed to locate his father and be reassured. At the same time he believed his father would rather be left to find his own way through what had been a difficult time for all of them, added to which, Davie was reluctant to burden his father with the knowledge of the terrible sequence of events following his sad departure.

Because of the angry, wounding words born out of despair, Davie was sensible enough to realise that it would take time and distance for everyone to reflect on what was said and done. He could not know how long that would take, or whether things would ever be better for this unfortunate family. But one thing he did know now, and he voiced it in a whisper. ‘No! I can’t go after my dad, and I won’t go back. Like it or not, I’m on my own.’

Sighing deeply, he leaned his head on the railing. ‘I’ll need to be away first light,’ he muttered, ‘I’m not sure which direction to take or where I’m headed, or what I’ll do when I get there. All I know is I can’t stay round these parts any longer.’

Worn by recent events and the crippling loss of his parents, he felt the tiredness laying heavy on him. But try as he might, he couldn’t sleep. He shifted, and turned, fretting about the where abouts of his father, and agonising over his grandad, knowing that he, too, must be feeling the pain of losing his family in such a devastating way. But what about me, Davie mused. Should he leave as planned and never come back? What should he do? Which way should he go? Sleep was elusive. The nightmare was real. Tormented and unsure, and so weary he could hardly breathe, he finally drifted into a shallow, troubled sleep.

The touch of a hand startled him awake. And when he instinctively clenched his fist to lash out, she closed her small hand around his fingers. ‘I knew you were here,’ she whispered. ‘I went to sleep thinking it might have been you I saw running across the yard.’

‘Judy!’ In the soft glow from the lamp, he saw her face and was reassured. He smiled up at her. ‘You gave me a fright. I thought I was being attacked. I was just about to tackle you.’

Judy’s voice was soft as gossamer. ‘I’m sorry, Davie. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

Somewhat refreshed by the two hours or more that he’d slept, Davie was thrilled to see her. ‘Your parents…still asleep, are they?’

She laughed. ‘I could hear Daddy snoring as I came out.’

‘That’s good. I don’t want them to find me.’ Quickly, he tucked his shirt into his trousers and scrambling to his feet, he took her by the shoulders and drew her up to face him. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he told her. ‘I thought I saw you at the bedroom window but I wasn’t sure whether you saw me. I daren’t come too near the house in case your mam or dad saw me…I was afraid if they did, they might take me back to Grandad.’ His voice fell. ‘Did you know he told me to get out and never come back.’

Judy assured him, ‘Your grandad is sorry that he threw you out. He wants to make amends.’