Pretty Lady (6 page)

‘Don't like them?' he suggested hopefully.

‘Well ... yes.' She frowned faintly, and he knew he was losing ground. ‘But ... there's usually another reason. The reason
why
they dislike them ... isn't there, Denny?'

He nodded eagerly, still hopeful. Maybe she was going to tell him.

She was. ‘Because they're bad men, isn't that so, Denny?' He nodded again, relaxing, as she went on.

‘Because they're going to hurt other people – women or children – and they want to save them. You wouldn't stand by and let someone hurt a lady, would you, Denny? You wouldn't let someone hurt ... me?'

‘No!' It was impolite to shout, and he found he was on his feet with his fists clenched. He slumped back into his chair, lost in confusion, groping for words of apology.

But Merelda didn't seem to mind. She seemed pleased, even. Her smile was warmer than before. ‘I knew I could depend on
you,
Denny,' she said.

He felt the warm flush rise into his face and twisted his head away. ‘Nobody would hurt you,' he said. ‘You're too pretty.'

Then there was a long silence. When he could stand it no longer, he swivelled his head shyly to see how she was taking it. Mum said grown-ups never made personal remarks. But he'd forgotten. And she was such a pretty lady.

‘Oh, Denny,' she sighed. ‘I wish you were right.' A sad little smile curled her mouth wistfully. ‘But all men don't think the way you do. There's one – Oh, but I shouldn't bother you with my troubles. You came to tea. I want you to enjoy yourself. Have another cake, do.' She leaned forward, holding out the plate of cakes to him, but the ghost of sadness still haunted her lovely face.

‘No!' Denny said, then realized she might think he was refusing the cake, and not refusing the thought that some wicked man might try to hurt her. He snatched a pink cake from the plate before she withdrew it. ‘Thank you,' he said.

She seemed to understand. Her smile grew brighter, her eyes seemed larger and softer. She picked up the teapot ‘Have another cup of tea,' she said, in a voice like clotted cream.

Denny nodded dumbly, holding out his cup. Somewhere deep inside of him there must be some words to tell her what he was feeling, to assure her that he'd take care of her, protect her, as he'd protect Mum or Sheila, if danger threatened. But the words wouldn't come-they never came. He could only blurt out bits of what he felt.

‘Nobody would hurt you. I wouldn't let them. I'd hit them. I'd – I'd shoot them!'

‘Thank you, Denny,' she said, accepting the loyalty and the promise. ‘If only ...' she broke off and sighed.

‘What?' he asked. ‘Only what?'

‘No ... never mind.' She shook her head, smiling bravely. ‘You can't be here when I really need help most ... at night.'

Denny's heart lurched in wordless sympathy. He knew what she meant about night. He wasn't really afraid of the dark. Big boys aren't afraid of the dark. But night was a strange and dark time, with shadows moving in black corners, footsteps echoing down deserted streets, stopping abruptly and – when you looked out of the window, there was no one there, could never have been anyone there – strange cries and scuffling sounds at the end of blind alleys, shouts and fights when the pubs closed. Night was a bad time, full of bad things. Anything bad could happen in the night.

‘But perhaps ...' she said thoughtfully, ‘perhaps ...'

He leaned forward eagerly. Once again, she seemed to be offering him a solution to some strange question she hadn't quite asked, but which still hung in the air. ‘Perhaps what?' he urged her on.

‘Perhaps ... if you could be here just
one
night ... to frighten him. You're so big and strong – and bullies frighten easily. I expect you know that.'

Denny nodded. ‘I've frightened them.' The gang of hooting boys, who had followed him through the streets some while ago – when? Last year? Year before? Longer than that? He rubbed his forehead. Time was like night and other things. Try to think about them too much and you grew dizzy and your head ached. (
‘Don't bother your head about it, Denny.'
)

‘Once,' he said, ‘once I scared them good.' They hadn't expected him to be waiting for them around that corner. They'd made his life a misery all day, following him around, jeering at him, throwing pebbles at him, scattering! when he turned around, but re-forming into the pestering, gad-fly gang as soon as his back was to them again. And it was only the beginning of school holidays. (
‘Ignore them, Denny, and they'll get tired and go away.'
) It was all very well, Mum talking like that, but it had never happened to her, and she couldn't really understand how it felt. She couldn't understand, either, that bad kids didn't get tired of teasing him as quickly as she thought they did. They came back, again and again. Just when you thought they'd gone off and found something else to do, they were behind you again, shouting and throwing things. You had to do more than just ignore them.

He had waited until late one afternoon. They were tiring of their game then, but had thought of nothing new to replace it. He'd led them out of their own familiar territory and got a bit ahead of them, and cut down an alley he knew about. They'd thought they'd lost him. It was beginning to grow dark and, watching from the shadows, he had seen the uneasiness growing in them as they realized how far from home they'd strayed. They'd huddled together briefly, some of their cockiness leaving them, and obviously decided to abandon the game of baiting Denny and go back to the comfortable familiarity of their own neighbourhood. Unsuspecting, they'd turned and begun retracing their steps.

He'd waited until they were almost upon him, then leaped out into the centre of the pavement, waving his arms and shouting, in his turn. He'd scared them, he'd really scared them good!

They'd wheeled and run, screaming for help. Pursued by his gyrating shadow, cast by the street lamp behind him, stretching out eight feet long, so that he'd only had to run after them a few yards to make them think he was going to chase them for ever. He'd had to laugh. When he was laughing so hard that he could no longer run, he stood there, his laughter booming out with the uncontrolled note that always made Mum say anxiously, ‘
All right, Denny, don't get so excited.
'

So, he'd stopped laughing, except softly to himself now and then on the way home. Those bad kids had run in the wrong direction – that was a good joke, too. He'd bet they got so lost it would be hours before they found their way back. He'd enjoyed that moment, really enjoyed it.

Only then, the police had come.
‘A complaint,'
they'd said,
from the parents. About an incident.'
There had been tears – Mum's mostly – and he'd tried to explain. They'd seemed to understand. They'd let him off with a warning, they'd said, but it must never happen again. Mum had made him promise it wouldn't – no matter how much the bad kids teased him. And it hadn't. Because the bad kids hadn't come after him again. Just that once, he'd fought them with their own weapons, and they'd never bothered him again.

So, maybe Merelda was right when she said he'd only need to scare her bad man once. Just once, and he'd be good. And Mum need never know. And it wouldn't be the same as scaring kids littler than himself, even if the police found out about it. Although, with a rueful nod, Denny acknowledged the truth, he was bigger than practically everybody – except Rembrandt. Most grown-up men, he was bigger than. Only, in some funny way, it never seemed to make any difference.

And Mum would get awfully upset, if she ever found out. So would Auntie Vera.
‘The incident.'
That was the way they still referred to that time, in hushed voices, when they thought he wasn't paying any attention. And they'd been talking about it again recently. It seemed to have something to do with Mary-Maureen's getting sick and going away for a long rest. That, too, had seemed to upset the family.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea of Merelda's, after s all. Maybe there was something else she could do that would work better, and then he wouldn't have to break any promises. He looked across the table at her.

‘... Denny? Isn't that so, Denny?' She must have been talking to him for some time, and he hadn't been paying attention. She was biting her lip, the way Sheila did when he wasn't being quick enough, smart enough.

‘Yes,' he nodded eagerly, not sure what he was agreeing to, but anxious to please her.

‘Oh, I'm so glad you think so, too.' Her face cleared and the smile he adored beamed out at him. ‘It's always best to get things over with, once they've been decided on, isn't it, Denny?'

Uncertainly, Denny nodded again.

‘Then, you'll do it soon, Denny. Very soon. You'll come back here, and let yourself into the house – the spare key is under the last flower-pot on the top step – and you'll ... help me.

‘But soon, Denny, very soon. I ...' Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I can't go on much longer. Tomorrow, Denny? Or ... better still, if you could only manage it ... tonight. Tonight, Denny?'

All right, face it, he wasn't going to call. He was never going to call again. He wasn't the first – undoubtedly, he wouldn't be the last. She ought to be used to it by this time.

She slammed the oven door shut, hurled the fork clattering into the sink, taking it out on the small inanimate objects around her. Because who else could you take it out on? It wasn't Denny's fault. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't Mum's fault – or Dad's. It was just the way things were – and she was stuck with them.

The family were all used to it by now. They'd had a long time to grow accustomed to it. It was strangers, acquaintances, newly-made friends meeting Denny for the first time, who reacted as though poor Denny were some sort of obstacle suddenly encountered in the middle of what should have been a smooth path. Poor Denny. He was a big hurdle for the uninitiated to take – few of them made it.

By this time, she should have stopped minding. The worst had been in her teens, when childhood friends were turning into prospective sweethearts. They'd all grown up together, all lived in the same neighbourhood, gone to the same convent school. They'd known about Denny all their lives – accepted him – accepted her – she'd never expected it to make any difference to them.

But suddenly, the difference was there. In their eyes as they looked at her, weighed her up, with new adult wariness. Just two of them in the family – and one of them wasn't ‘right'. To their thinking, that made the odds fifty-fifty on any children she might bear. As though the cruel trick nature had played on Denny were some kind of latent gene, to be carried down, like haemophilia, through the female line. A man looked at her, and had a vision of himself looking down at his eldest son – and seeing another Denny,

And so, they drifted away, the boys she'd known all her life. After that, she'd heard the banns read in church, gone to their weddings as they'd married her friends, been bridesmaid a few times. And the protective shell had begun to grow around her. ‘
Always a bridesmaid –
'

Sheila stabbed viciously at the stubborn eye of a potato with the paring knife. Why had she ever thought it might be different?

Working in the city-centre, meeting new people who knew nothing of her home life or her background, she had begun to think there might be a chance, after all. At first. And then the new difficulties had begun. When friendships had begun to blossom, when it was time for ties to grow closer, when dates began to insist on escorting her home, the problem rose up again. What did one do about Denny? Rather, what did one say about him?

‘By the way, my brother is a mental defective'? Or, ‘Don't be surprised when you meet my brother – he isn't all there'? Perhaps, just simply, ‘I have an eight-year-old brother – mentally, that is'?

Or did you play it the smart way? Let some man thoroughly entangle himself before springing it on him? Even then, when – and how – did you let him know? Did you wait until the last moment? At the church, perhaps, when you walked down the aisle on Denny's arm, to meet the man standing at the foot of the altar, to see him look past you at Denny's pleasant empty face? Denny, giving the bride away.

Well, Denny had given her away this time, all right. Two weeks ago, to be exact. Two weeks without a phone call, without a note. Another hopeful romance ended. She knew she was losing the courage to start many more. She was ready to give up – renounce the world. No, not a convent – Denny couldn't come, too. And what would happen to him, if anything happened to Mum? Mum, looking thinner, tireder, more drawn, every day.

That was something she did not want to have to face. Something she would, inevitably, have to face some day.

But not yet. She put the potatoes on to cook, began setting the table, pushing away thought with the domestic businesses that needed attention. Time enough to think later. Time enough to face the worst when it actually happened.

Bad enough, what had happened recently. The two of them, strolling down the high street, laughing together, delicately balanced in that mood which might veer either way. Pleased with the show they'd seen, pleased with the meal they'd had, pleased with each other's reactions, the intangible intimacy gradually growing. And then -

Then – Denny. Denny, loping along, like an ungainly puppy, his face brightening when he saw her. Heading straight for her, purposefully for once, eager and trusting. So trusting. She could not deny him – small use to, anyway, when he was so obviously sure of his welcome.

He'd halted in front of them, eyeing her brightly, trustingly, waiting for her greeting. There'd been no help for it, none at all. Already the English face beside her was congealing slightly. Puzzled, but with a wary remoteness ready to set in, as it had, when she'd turned to him and said, ‘I'd like you to meet Denny – my brother.'