five pounds. Poor John George! Poor John George! And Rory would go mad when he knew.
9
A fortnight later they brought Rory home in a cab actually paid for by Miss Kean. Miss Kean had visited the hospital three times. The last time Rory had been propped up in bed and had stared at her and listened silently as she gave him a message from her father.
He was not to worry, his post was there for him when he was ready to return. And what was more, her father was promoting him to Mr Armstrong’s place. Her father had taken on a new man, but he was oldish and couldn’t cover half the district. Nevertheless, he was honest and honest men were hard to come by. Her father had always known that but now it had been proved to him.
Miss Kean had then asked, ‘Have you any idea who attacked you?’ and all Rory did was to make one small movement with his head. He had stared fixedly at Miss Kean and she had smiled at him and said, ‘I hope you enjoy the grapes, Mr Connor, and will soon be well.’ Again he had made a small movement with his head. It was then she said, ‘When you are ready to return home a cab will be provided.’
His mind was now clear and working normally and it kept telling him there was this thing he had to face up to and it was no use trying to ignore it, or hoping it would slip back into the muzziness that he had lain in during the first days of his recovery when they had kept saying to him, all of them, the nurses, the doctor, Ruth, his dad, her, Janie, all of them, ‘Don’t worry, take it slowly. Every day you’ll improve. It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle.’
Although after the third day he had stopped saying the word ‘Pity’ aloud it was still filling the back of his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the big feet coming towards him; that’s all he remembered, the big feet. He couldn’t remember where they had hit him first, whether it was on the head or in the groin or in his ribs; they had broken his ribs. For days he had found it difficult to breathe, now it was easier. His body, although black and blue from head to foot, and with abrasions almost too numerous to count, was no longer a torment to him, just a big sore pile of flesh. He did not know what he looked like, only that his face seemed spread as wide as his shoulders.
He didn’t see his reflection until he reached home. When they helped him over the step he made straight for the mantelpiece. Although Ruth tried to check him he thrust her gently aside then leant forward and looked at his face in the oblong mottled mirror. His nose was still straight but his eyes looked as if they were lying in pockets of mouldy fat. Almost two inches of his hair had been shaved off close to the scalp above his left ear and a zig-zag scar ran down to just in front of the ear itself.
‘Your face’ll be all right, don’t worry.’
He turned and looked at Ruth but said nothing, and she went on, ‘The dess-bed’s ready for you, you can’t do the ladder yet. We’ll sleep upstairs.’
He said slowly now, like an old man might, ‘I’ll manage the ladder.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s all arranged. Don’t worry. Now come on, sit yourself down.’ She led him towards the high-backed wooden chair, and he found he was glad to sit down, for his legs were giving way beneath him.
He said again, ‘I’ll make the ladder,’ and as he spoke he watched Lizzie go into the scullery. It was as if she could read his mind; he didn’t want to lie in the same room with her, although she lay in the box bed behind the curtains. He couldn’t help his feelings towards her. He knew that she had been good to him over the past weeks, trudging down every day to the hospital, and he hadn’t given her a kind word, not even when he could speak he hadn’t given her a kind word. It was odd but he couldn’t forgive her for depriving him of the woman he thought to be his mother. But what odds, what odds where he slept; wherever he slept his mind would be with him, and his mind was giving him hell. They thought he wasn’t capable of thinking straight yet, and he wasn’t going to enlighten them because he would need to have some excuse for his future actions.
Nobody had mentioned John George to him, not one of them had spoken his name, but the fact that he had never been near him spoke for them. Something had happened to him and he had a good idea what it was; in fact, he was certain of what it was. And he also knew that he himself wasn’t going to do anything about it. He couldn’t. God! he just couldn’t.
‘Here, drink that up.’ Lizzie was handing him a cup of tea, which he took from her hand without looking at her and said, ‘Ta.’
It was good of old Kean,’ she said, ‘to send a cab for you. He can’t be as black as he’s painted. And his daughter comin’ to the hospital. God, but she’s plain that one, stylish but plain. Anyway, he must value you.’
‘Huh!’ Even the jerking of his head was a painful action, which caused him to put his hand on his neck and move his head from side to side, while Lizzie concluded, ‘Aye well, you know him better than me, but I would say deeds speak for themselves.’
When Lizzie took his empty cup from him and went to refill it, Ruth, poking the fire, said, ‘I’ll have to start a bakin’,’ and she turned and glanced towards him. ‘It’s good to have you home again, lad. We can get down to normal now.’
He nodded his head and smiled weakly at her but didn’t speak. It was odd. Over the past weeks he had longed to be home, away from the cold painted walls and clinical cleanliness of the hospital, but looking about him now, the kitchen, which had always appeared large, for it was made up of two rooms knocked into one, seemed small, cluttered and shabby. He hadn’t thought of it before as shabby, he hadn’t thought of a lot of things before. He hadn’t thought he was cowardly before. Afraid, aye, but not cowardly. But deep in his heart now he knew he was, both cowardly and afraid.
He had always been afraid of enclosed spaces. He supposed that was why he left doors open; and why he had jumped at the collecting job, because he’d be working outside most of the time in the open. He had always been terrified by being shut in. He could take his mind back to the incident that must have created the fear. The Learys lads next door were always full of devilment, and having dragged a coffin-like box they had found floating on the Jarrow slacks all the way down the East Jarrow road and up the Simonside bank, they had to find a use for it before breaking it up for the fire, so the older ones had chased the young ones, and it was himself they had caught, and they had put him in the box and nailed the lid on. At first he had screamed, then become so petrified that his voice had frozen inside him. When they shouted at him from the outside he had been incapable of answering; then, fearful of what they had done, they fumbled in their efforts to wrench the heavy lid off.
When eventually they tipped him from the box he was as stiff as a corpse itself, and not until he had vomited, after the grown-ups had thumped him on the back and rubbed him, did he start to cry. He’d had nightmares for years afterwards, and night after night had walked in his sleep, through the trap door and down the ladder. But having reached the kitchen door that led outside he would always wake up, then scamper back to bed where he would lie shivering until finally cold gave place to heat and he would fall into sweaty sleep.
But since starting collecting, he’d hardly had a nightmare and he hadn’t sleep-walked for years. But what now, and in the weeks ahead?
Jimmy came in at half-past six and stood just inside the door and stared towards the dess-bed where Rory was sitting propped up, and he grinned widely and said, ‘Aw, lad, it’s good to see you home again,’ then went slowly towards the bed. ‘How you feelin’?’
‘Oh, well, you know, a hundred per cent, less ninety.’
‘Aye, but you’re home and you’ll soon be on your feet again. And you know somethin’?’ He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve seen him, Mr Kilpatrick. I told him how things stood, an’ you know what he said? He said the rest can be paid so much a month. If you could clear it off in a year he’d be satisfied.’
‘He said that?’
‘Aye.’
‘Oh well—’ Rory sighed—’that’s something. Yes—’ he nodded at Jimmy—’that’s something. We can go ahead now, can’t we?’
‘You know, he came to the yard for me ’cos he was down that way on business. And Mr Baker wanted to know what he was about ’cos I had to leave me work for five minutes, and so I told him.’ Jimmy pulled a face. ‘He wasn’t pleased. Well, I knew he wouldn’t be. You know what he said? He said he had intended keepin’ me on an givin’ me a rise . . . That for a tale. He asked what we were givin’ for it and when I told him he said we were being done, paying that for the goodwill when it was just a few sticks of furniture and half an old patched sculler. One of the lads told me that he had seen him round there himself lookin’, an’ what he bet was that the old fellow was after the place for himself. Anyway, we scotched him.’ He jerked his head and grinned widely, then added, ‘Eeh! man, I’m
