Authors: Yelena Kopylova
mean you've got nothin' to go on when you don't know
their mothers or fathers, have you?"
Charlie turned from her and leant his back flat
against the wall, and putting his thumb to his mouth he bit hard on his nail. He had been in the habit
of biting his nails a lot at one time, but since
starting the school in Newcastle the habit had
slowly disappeared.
More to himself than to her now, he said., "He could cause trouble, big trouble."
"Aye . . . aye, he could; we'd . . .
we'd better keep on the right side of him."
"Yes." He turned and nodded to her; and as she stared up at him she said quietly, "You shouldn't be in this, you've got yourself mixed up in all ways with
us. Now you're up against your mother through us. I ... I don't know what to say, Charlie, how to thank you."
He pulled himself from the wall. "I don't want
any thanks."
Again they were facing each other.
"If. . . ever I can do anythin' for you, you've
only got to ask, Charlie."
Her eyes were round, mist-filled, and now she
gripped his hand and whispered urgently, "I mean it.
You understand? I mean it, anything."
"Yes, yes, Polly, thank you.
Yes, I understand." He withdrew himself from her hold, then backed two steps away from her. And he was
nodding at her again as she said, "I'll have a word with Arthur; I'll tell him."
As he went into the yard he knew she hadn't
moved away. He also knew what she was offering him
by way of thanks. He knew
too that he wanted to accept her thanks-Oh yes,
he wanted to accept her thanks-but he never would.
Why! Yes, why?
The answer came with the picture of his father taking
her mother.
It was ten minutes later when he told Arthur
of the new situation that had cropped up, and he watched him as he flopped down on an upturned bucket
in the pig-room and thumped one fist against the other as he groaned, "God Almighty! he's got me in
the hollow of his hand. If he opens his mouth I'll
go along the line ... or worse; aye, or
worse, The bloody hungry-looking workhouse
brat that he is!" Then turning his head to the side, he gazed up at Charlie as he endedj "An5
he's got you there an' all. And that ain't fair.
No. that ain't fair."
Looking back at Arthur, he
experienced a feeling of revulsion. Arthur had always
appeared to him as fearless, rugged, tough; in a way
he had hero-worshipped him for these qualities; but
now there was an abjectness about him that was distasteful.
His saying "He's got you there an' all; it ain't
fair" didn't ring with true concern, it was more of a statement, "We're all in this together." He
turned abruptly away, saying, "Don't worry
about me; only go lightly on him for your own good."
Out in the yard, with the mist almost obliterating the
house from his view, he walked towards the kitchen
door. He had said "Don't worry about me" as
if he weren't troubled by the fact that young Slater
knew of his part in the awful event; but deep inside
he was more than worried, he was fearful, for in a way
he was as much involved as was Arthur. There was such a thing termed accessory after the fact, and for his part in the affair he would be condemned more so than Arthur, for
what had he done but shield the person who had
killed his father, whereas as a dutiful son he should have brought him to justice.
The mist bathing his face was mingled with sweat now.
When he opened the kitchen door he actually
gulped audibly as he saw young Slater sitting
by the table, a mug of tea in one hand and a
large shive of bread in the other.
As the boy slithered to his feet Fanny put in
quickly, "Just giving him a bite, Mister Charlie,
just a bite."
Charlie looked from the round penetrating
gaze of Sidney Slater to Fanny, then
to Maggie who was standing behind her, a toasting fork in her hand and on which was stuck a slice of bread, and he
knew that how he reacted now with this boy would set the pattern for future time. Fumbling In his breast
pocket, he drew out the watch that his father had given him on his sixteenth birthday, and he made himself
stare at it for a moment before taking Ms eyes from it and fixing them on Slater, then saying, "It's quarter
past eleven in the morning, you have your breakfast at
eight and your dinner at one, isn't that so?"
The round eyes looking back into his had a
slightly puzzled expression, and Slater's
voice faltered slightly as he said, "Aye . .
. aye."
"Aye what?"
There was a pause in which he heard Fanny's
intake of breath.
"Aye sir ... Mister Charlie."
"Well, in future you'll stick to your
mealtimes. That understood?"
"Aye, Mister Charlie."
"Good. Well you may finish that." He waved his hand towards the mug and the bread on the table; then giving a lift of his
shoulders he walked away, up the kitchen and through the green-baized door.
It was actually seconds after the door had closed
on him that Fanny spoke. She had one cheek
cupped in the palm of her hand as she did so. "I
can't believe xst" she said. "What's come over him? He was as like the one who's gone as ever I've
seen., yet this very mornin" he stood up to the
missis and saved the Bentons." She shook her
head. "I can't believe it. I just can't believe
it."
"I can." Sidney Slater had lifted the latch
of the door, and he turned and looked over his shoulder, adding, "But don't you worry none about me, Mrs
Dimple. Don't you worry about me."
Fanny moved towards him now, saying, "Come
back, Sidney, and finish your bite." She
motioned towards the table, but he shook his head,
saying, "No, no. Ta all the same. I tell
you what though." He was actually grinning at
her now. "You give it to him, he'll likely need
it long afore I will."
When the door closed on him Fanny turned and
stared at Maggie and, her hand again cupping her cheek, she said, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. There's somethin' here I don't understand: Mister
Charlie
takin' on the guise of his father, an' Sidney there
not frightened any more. Did you see the look on that
lad's face? It was strange, it was as if he
feared neither God nor man any more. You know somethin'
Maggie? An' you might think me barmy for sayin'
this, but he looked the same as the master used to after he'd lathered one or t'other on the cinder path, like
as "if he had satisfied something inside himself.
'Twas an unholy look,"
w
HY you must have your birthday party between Christmas
and New Year the Lord only knows."
"... Not forgetting Mother and Father; they should have arranged my coming at a different time, they were very
careless about their indulging."
"Nellie! stop that kind of facetious chatter.
If Father were to hear you, he'd skelp your ears for
you."
"Yes, I suppose he would. Yet Mother
wouldn't. Strange that, isn't it?"
Nellie Chapman brought her legs up and
tucked them under her where she was squatting on the side of the bed, and putting her head on one side, she
gazed at her sister who was sitting before the mirror
turning the long strands of her hair into a plait, and
she said, "You know you are just like Father, coarse as a pig's back in one way yet finicky refined in
another."
"Don't you dare say I'm as coarse as a
pig's back!" Victoria twisted round on the
dressing-table stool, her squarish handsome face
flushed with irritation, which increased as her sister
smiled at her and undauntedly went on, "Well,
you are. You know you are, All you think about is
horses. You ride horses, you talk horses, you
swear horses. You outdid Father yesterday when you were buggering Phil for not seeing to Laddy right away. It
didn't matter about the other two horses, they could
sweat themselves to death, but Laddy must be seen to. And your language was such that it even pushed up
old Benny's eyebrowsst"
"That's a different thing, that's got nothing to do with talk about . . . birth. I mean. . . ."
Victoria now twisted the end of the plait into a
knot and was about to wind it tightly round the back of her head when her sister said, "What you mean is
cohabiting."
"Nellie Chapman, get off that bed, and get out
of my room! Go on, get out this minute!"
"All right, all right, I'll go. But that's what
the books call it, and it proves what I said about
you and Father. You know what?" She now leant her
plump body towards her tall well-proportioned
sister as she said, "I'm always amazed by this stuffy attitude of yours, I really can't understand it.
You're a hyprocrite, you know that; even the Bible can
speak plainly about it, procreation it calls it. And
it's going on around us almost twentyfour hours a day.
But here you are on the point of collapse because I
mention it. But"- she gave an exaggerated
sigh-"it's as I said, you and Father are fakes because underneath you're worse than big Billy for it, and you
know you are ..."
As Victoria swung round to the dressingtable,
her hand groping for something to throw, Nellie
sprang to the door, opened it and, bent almost double, was scrambling on to the landing when a large china powder
bowl, parting from its lid whizzed over her head and
struck the wall opposite and shattered into pieces.
"In the name of God! what's this?" Florence
Chapman took the last three stairs at a run.
Then stopping dead, she gazed from one to the other of her daughters, then at the broken china bowl that had left
a trail of pink powder across the red patterned
carpet, and now her angry gaze resting on
Victoria, she cried, "Have you gone mad? You could have knocked her out with that."
"It's a pity I didn't; I won't miss
next time if she dares to put a foot in my
room."
The bedroom door banged and Florence
turned her attention to her younger daughter. For a moment she kept her teeth together and her lips spread wide
from them while her head moved in small nods; then
she said, "And what did you do to bring this about?"
"Nothing; we were just talking."
"Talking?" Florence now rushed forward and,
grabbing Nellie by the shoulders, she pushed her along
the landing and into the end room, and there she demanded, "Out with it! It must have been something stronger than
usual for her to throw a thing like that at you, for if it had hit you it could have split your head open. Come on
now, what did you say?"
"Well, nothing really." Nellie shrugged, then grimaced before she said, "She was getting at me about my birthday party tomorrow. It was the same last year.
She said she didn't see why I couldn't make it
one do with the New Year's Eve party. But that wouldn't be my birthday party, would it?"
"No. I can see your point there; but, come on, that isn't what enraged her. What did you really say
to her to upset her like that?"
"Aw." Nellie walked down the length of the
large bedroom towards the window; then resting her
knee on the padded window-seat she looked out on to the white snow-covered
garden and beyond to where the furrowed fields lay, showing crests of straight black earth like ruled lines on
children's primers, and she muttered, "I said she took after father and they both took after big Billy."
Florence Chapman's large unlined handsome face
remained perfectly blank for a moment; then her
eyes seeming to take their direction from her mouth
stretched wide, but she spoke no word until,
having closed her mouth again and taken in a
deep breath through her dilated nostrils, she
exclaimed, "You said what!"
"Aw, Mother!" Nellie turned round and sat
down on the window-seat. "Don't look so shocked
because you know you're not. And anyway, you know what I say's true. Look how she eggs on Josh
Pringle. And she's got Archie Whitaker
slobbering. I've seen her and Archie behind ..."
"Nellie! be quiet! Now you listen to me."
Florence approached her daughter and, sitting down
beside her, she wagged her finger in her face as she went on, "Josh and Archie have merely been friends, and you know it his
just. L * * *
"I don't, Mother, I don't know it"-
Nellie's face was straight now, her tone
harsh-"because if I were to get up to some of the things that I've seen her and Archie at and I told you it was
all in friendship, by!"- she now turned her head to the side, nodding it as she did so-"I know what you'd
say Lord! don't I!"
Florence Chapman turned her face away from
her daughter for a moment and held her brow in the palm of her hand. What was she to do with this girl, this terror of a daughter, this honest individual. . .
this her beloved child, forof her two daughters she had love for only one. It was true what Nellie had
said, Victoria was very much like her father, talking one way and acting another. Not that she didn't care for
Victoria, she did, as she cared for her husband,
but she recognized the faults in both of them.