Three Letters (11 page)

‘I’ll do that right now,’ Tom answered. ‘Mind you, I don’t suppose he’d care
much if we left him there till morning.’

‘Well, we’re not having that. So, go on, you put your son to bed, and meantime I’ll get us a drop o’ summat good to warm the cockles.’ Reaching out, he patted Tom on the arm. ‘How does that sound, eh?’

‘Sounds good to me.’ Tom looked into those kindly blue eyes and for one precious moment he felt incredibly safe; even strong enough to take on the world
all by himself. ‘I can never thank you enough, Dad, for taking us in like this.’

‘Oh, give over. You and me, we look after each other. Always have, always will.’ He gave Tom a friendly push. ‘Now then, be off and get the lad to his bed.’

As Tom hurried towards the kitchen, Bob called after him, ‘You needn’t worry if you didn’t have time to pack a bag for the lad. Casey allus keeps a spare pair
o’ jamas here. And I’ve enough shirts upstairs to open a shop. Find one that doesn’t altogether drown him, and he’ll come to no harm. Now then! Don’t forget to fetch him in ’ere, so’s he can say good night to his old granddad.’

Tom found Casey on the kitchen floor, with the comic spread out in front of him, but he wasn’t reading it. Instead, he was lying flat, with his arms stretched out, and
his head resting on his arms. ‘It’s time for bed, son.’ Tom stooped down beside him. ‘Granddad Bob needs you to say good night.’

Big, soulful eyes looked up at Tom. ‘Did Granddad Bob say we can stay here then?’ His voice was suspiciously shaky, and from the smudges round his eyes, Tom suspected he’d been crying.

‘We can stay here as long as we want, that’s what he said.’

‘Can’t I stay up a
bit longer?’

‘No, son. You’ve had a rough time of it. You need to get your sleep. You look shattered, and besides, me and Granddad Bob need to talk … grown-up stuff, if you know what I mean?’

‘About that man?’

‘About all sorts of things.’ Tom wisely skirted the reference to ‘that man’.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes.’ Taking the boy by his arms, Tom drew him up. ‘What is it, son?’

‘I don’t think I can go to
sleep.’

‘Oh, and why’s that?’ Tom needed to satisfy himself that, tonight of all nights, his son should sleep well and be safe from harm.

One thing was certain: there would be no sleep for Tom himself. Not with his mind in such turmoil. He needed space and quiet in order to think things through. He had to be sure he was doing the right thing for everyone, and not just for himself. Caught between
the devil and the deep blue sea, he had made an agonising decision, which was bound to cause further pain and regrets for those he loved.

To his surprise, he found himself counting Ruth in that group. He knew she could be unbelievably cruel, and he deeply regretted the shame she had brought to their marriage. Moreover, he had seen at first hand her uncontrollable dislike for the boy. And yet,
for some reason Tom was surprised to find that he still had feelings for her.

Angry and confused, he thrust away his thoughts and concentrated on Casey. ‘Right then, son, let’s have you. First, you can say good night to your granddad, then it’s off up them stairs.’

‘OK.’ Without further ado, the boy replaced the biscuit barrel to the shelf, then he folded his comic and tucked it under his arm,
before giving a long, lazy yawn. ‘Did Granddad really say we can stay here?’

‘If we want to, yes.’

‘Well, I want to, ’cause I never want to go back home.’

‘All right, son, but for now, I need you to put it all out of your mind and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day, isn’t that so?’ He thought it surprising that, even after all the turmoil and troubles, the boy still referred to that unhappy
dwelling on Henry Street as ‘home’.

Granddad Bob held Casey a moment longer than he might normally have done. ‘You’ve had a bit of a rough time,’ he said, ‘but it’s all behind you now, so put it out of your mind, lad. And while you’re here, you and your dad must treat this place as your own home. D’you understand?’

‘Thank you.’ The boy hugged him. ‘I love you, Granddad Bob.’

‘Mek sure you do,
or you’ll get no more ginger biscuits.’ He gave a little wink. ‘Right?’

‘Right!’

Giggling, Casey ran across to his father. ‘Granddad Bob is really funny.’

Tom laughed. ‘Until you leave the bathroom in a mess, then you’ll find out differently.’

‘I don’t leave the bathroom in a mess.’

‘Ah, well, that’s a good job then, isn’t it?’

As the two of them went up the stairs, chatting and laughing,
the old man remained deep in thought.

The boy’s overheard remark about ‘that man’ had only confirmed his suspicions about Ruth’s continuing affairs.

Yet Bob wondered whether that was just one reason for Tom’s distress. He couldn’t help but feel that Tom was keeping something back. Something he was not yet ready to share. What else besides his marriage had gone wrong?

The idea of Tom carrying
some deep problem he felt unable to share was deeply worrying to the old man; so much so that he began pacing back and forth across the parlour.

Upstairs, Tom lingered by the bathroom door while young Casey squirted a measure of toothpaste onto his finger before rubbing it into his teeth. ‘If we’re staying here now, I’ll need a new toothbrush. I don’t want to go back and get my old one. Is that
all right, Dad?’

‘Fine by me, so long as you stop talking and get on with the business of cleaning your teeth.’

A few minutes later, Casey was done. He then wiped the basin over with a flannel. ‘That’s all clean now, eh, Dad?’ Combing his tousled hair, he smiled at Tom.

‘Why yes! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a clean basin. I reckon Granddad Bob will be very pleased with that. You know
how fussy he is about his bathroom.’

As they made their way to the small bedroom, Casey wanted to know, ‘Why is Granddad Bob so fussy about his bathroom?’

Tom gave it some thought. ‘I reckon it’s because, for a long time, we never had a proper bathroom. My mother – the grandma you never knew – well, she always dreamed of having a proper bathroom, instead of bringing in the tin bath that hung
on the wall outside. So anyway, when they finally got the boxroom turned into a bathroom, Mam was so happy that she was very particular about having it left clean and tidy.’

‘Why was she so puticlar?’

‘I think you mean “particular”.’

‘Hmm! Well, why was she so … you know …
that
?’

‘I’ll answer your question when you say the word properly.’ Tom sounded it out: ‘Par-tic-u-lar.’

‘All right then.
So, why was she so par-tic-u-lar?’

Laughing, Tom clapped his hands. ‘Well done! Mum was so proud of the bathroom that she wanted visitors to see it in all its shining glory, polished up and clean as a whistle. Your granddad remembers that, and it’s why he, too, wants the bathroom always to be left clean, just the way Grandma would have liked it.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Casey was happy with the explanation.

Tom turned back the bedclothes and Casey climbed in.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, son?’

‘I love it here, with Granddad Bob.’

‘Good.’

‘Can we stay for ever?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Would you like to stay here for ever, Dad?’

‘I think so.’ If things were different, he wondered if his answer might have been more definite.

‘And d’you think Granddad Bob would be willing to put up with us, if we stayed for ever, I mean?’

‘Yes, ’cause we’d be sure and look after him, wouldn’t we?’

‘That’s right! You could take him to the pub sometimes, and in the summer we could go on picnics; he’d like that. And I could run errands and fetch in the coal. We could go to Blackpool on Sundays and ride on the hobby-horses and after that, we could make sandcastles on the beach. Oh, and then—’

‘Whoa!’ Tom laughed out loud. ‘That all
sounds too exhausting and wonderful, and I’m sure Granddad Bob would love it, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get all wound up just now, when I need you to go to sleep.’ He added cautiously, ‘No doubt there’ll be time for all that later on.’

The memories of his own wonderful childhood flooded Tom’s mind and lifted his heart. Lately, though, he had discovered that sometimes life was really
cruel.

When the boy yawned again, Tom tucked the bedclothes over him. ‘I’m so proud of you, son.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers twining through the boy’s thick hair. ‘No man ever had a more wonderful son.’

‘Dad?’

‘Go to sleep, Casey.’

‘But I want to ask you a question.’

‘Aw, go on then. But that’s the last one.’

‘Are you proud of me when I play the guitar and sing?’

‘Of course.
How could I not be proud of you, eh? You have a gift, and you must always use it. But I’m not only proud of you for that. I’m proud of you because you’re a good boy. It makes me feel special to have a son as fine as you.’

For a moment he paused, looking Casey in the eye. ‘I want you to tell me the truth, Casey. Are you sorry we left home … and your mam?’

‘No, Dad, I’m not sorry. I can’t be happy
at home, because Mam won’t let me be. She gets angry and she makes me cry, even when I haven’t done anything wrong.’

Tom received the boy’s answer with mixed feelings. ‘Do you think you might be able to forgive her … some day in the future?’

Lowering his gaze, Casey considered Tom’s question before answering quietly, ‘I don’t know. Sometimes, I don’t like Mam very much, and sometimes … well,
I think I might love her. Only she doesn’t want me to love her, and she won’t love me back.’

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ Tom reassured him. In his heart he was content to think that Ruth might never again get her claws into this boy. Then again, Casey was her son, and he needed a mother. And yet, if Ruth really had no warm feelings for him, he might be better off without her altogether.

‘It’s difficult to love someone, isn’t it?’ Tom said now. ‘Like you, I’m not really sure if she wants us or not. But there’s always the chance that she’ll change her mind. And if that happens, it would of course be for you to decide whether or not you want to forgive her.’

‘I’ll never forgive her!’ Casey had not forgotten. ‘She called me a liar, and I know what I heard. Anyway, she doesn’t want
me. She said so.’

Before Tom could reply, the boy asked quietly, ‘She meant it, didn’t she, Dad?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Yes, I think she did … at the time, but when we’re angry, we all say all kinds of things we don’t mean.’

‘Well, if she doesn’t want me, then I don’t want her. I’ve made up my mind, and I won’t go back.’

‘All right, son. That’s enough now. We’re here at Granddad’s, and he said you
can stay as long as you want. So, let’s leave it at that, shall we?’

‘All right.’

‘I love you, Casey, and all I want is for you to be happy.’

‘But I can’t be happy just now, ’cause I’m a little bit sad that I can’t play the guitar any more.’

‘Then we’ll just have to get it mended, won’t we?’

‘How can we do that?’ He looked up at Tom with wide eyes, the tearful words tumbling one over the
other. ‘It’s all busted, and the strings have jumped out, and … it’s no good any more.’

Tom gathered him into his arms. ‘Trust me, son,’ he murmured, ‘it can be mended.’

‘But, it’s all in bits.’ Casey’s tears spilled over. ‘It can’t ever be mended. Never, never!’

‘Hey!’ Tom wagged a finger. ‘Have I ever promised to do something that can’t be done?’

The child shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Right!
So trust me now. Tears and tantrums won’t mend anything. But, there must be a man out there who can mend whatever needs mending; even a guitar with “jumped-out” strings, and bits of wood missing.’

‘Where is he, then?’

‘Well, I can’t be really sure, not yet, but there must be someone out there. I mean, there are clockmakers to mend clocks; tailors to repair clothes, and mechanics to mend broken
engines. So I reckon that means there must be someone who mends guitars. Isn’t that so?’

Tom was rewarded with a bright, happy smile. ‘Yeah! And we’ll find him, won’t we, Dad?’

Relieved that the boy’s spirits were up again, Tom gave an encouraging nod. ‘Now close your eyes and go to sleep.’

‘Dad?’

‘What now?’

‘Will you tell me that story, about when you were a little boy, and Granddad used
to take you to Mill Hill bridge, where you watched the trains running underneath, and all the steam blew up into your faces?’ He grinned at the thought. ‘You said you felt invisible.’

‘That’s right, son. Oh, but they were wonderful times. I was a very lucky boy to have those adventures.’ Just now, when Casey mentioned the railway bridge at Mill Hill, Tom’s heart had almost stopped, because that
particular place from his childhood had played heavily on his mind lately.

Now, though, because of the boy’s curiosity, he was made to revisit Mill Hill bridge in his mind once more. The thought of his father and himself walking under that picturesque viaduct and onwards, up the bank and along the curve of the bridge itself, was one of Tom’s most precious memories.

When other, darker thoughts
clouded his troubled mind, he smiled at the irony. ‘Are you sure you want that particular story, son?’

‘Yes, please.’

With mixed emotions, Tom told the story about the days when he and Granddad Bob had regularly stood on the bridge for hours, watching the trains as they made their noisy way beneath, sending clouds of steam upwards and outwards. There was always much laughter when the steam enveloped
the two of them, before quickly evaporating in the air.

While Casey laughed aloud, Tom blinked away stinging tears. ‘Soon the next train would come along,’ he went on, ‘and sometimes we’d lean over the bridge wall, with your granddad Bob hanging onto my pants to stop me from falling headfirst onto the railway lines below. The steam was everywhere. When we finally came away, my hair would feel
really damp to the touch. Then Granddad Bob would always threaten to turn me upside down when we got home.’

‘Why would he turn you upside down?’

‘So’s he could wash the kitchen floor with my damp hair … or at least that’s what he said.’