The Boy I Love (11 page)

Patrick's fist closed lightly around his cock. Opening his eyes, he stared at the ceiling. Of course Paul wasn't interested in him, Mick was right. He thought of him, dancing with his pretty wife, smiling into her eyes as though he loved her. Rolling on his side he cursed and brought himself to a quick, unsatisfactory climax.

Chapter Thirteen

H
ETTY SAID
, ‘M
E MAM
'
S
poorly. She won't be able to see to Mr Morgan this dinnertime.'

She watched as Patrick went on jointing the pig. Its head sat on the counter beside him, its soft, dead eyes watching her above its broad grin. Wondering if he had heard she started again.

‘I'm not deaf, Hetty.' He glanced at her. ‘What's wrong with your mother?'

‘A bad cough – she didn't want Mr Morgan catching anything.'

‘No, of course.' He sighed, laying the cleaver down gently. ‘He's expecting her. I don't like leaving him on his own all day.'

As she'd planned to she said, ‘I'll go, if you like, the shop's quiet.' Even to her own ears she sounded reluctant and she expected him to dismiss the idea at once.

Instead he asked, ‘Are you sure?'

Already anxious, she managed to smile. ‘As long as you can spare me.'

‘I'll pay you the same rate as your mother, on top of your normal wage, of course.' He turned back to the carcass as though the matter was settled. ‘Twelve thirty, then. The key's underneath the lion. Let yourself in.'

Between outbreaks of coughing her mother had said, ‘If he's left soup for him see that it's piping hot. He'll only make you heat it up again if it isn't. And he likes his tea strong, almost black. Don't chatter – he hates it. Set his tray with the good silver and a serviette. You'll find them in the third drawer of the dresser in the back room, all starched and ready.'

‘I won't remember all that.'

‘Yes, you will. He'll soon tell you, anyway. Soon lets you know when it's not right.' She smiled a rare, soft smile. ‘He's a gentleman. Such good manners.'

‘Except when you serve him liver.'

Her mother sighed. ‘Aye, well. We can all lose our tempers sometimes.'

Crouching beside the hideous lion, Hetty fumbled for the key, shuddering at the woodlice that scattered in panic from her fingers. Nervously she opened the front door, squinting into the gloom as she stepped into the hall. ‘Hello? Mr Morgan …?'

A door at the end of the hallway opened, banging against the wall as Mick wheeled himself towards her. He frowned, stopping a few feet away. ‘Hetty? What are you doing here?'

‘Mam's poorly. I've come instead. If that's all right?'

For a moment he seemed lost for words. He took off the glasses he was wearing, folding them into his shirt pocket and closing the book on his lap. Taking out his cigarettes he lit one, exhaling a long plume of smoke before finally looking up at her. ‘Shouldn't you be at the shop?'

‘He's spared me.'

‘Right. Well, good …' He wheeled himself towards her, awkwardly pushing open another door and waving her through. ‘Please, come in. Sit down.'

This was a different room from the one she'd been shown into last time. The other room was cramped, busy with wallpaper and furniture and bric-a-brac. This room was empty except for a desk, a bookcase and a single armchair. There were no pictures or photographs, only the spines of books to look at, rows and rows so that the bookcase was full and still more were stacked on the mantelpiece and floor. Despite her nervousness Hetty asked, ‘Have you read all these?'

‘There were one or two I couldn't finish. Take your coat off, Hetty – sit down. Would you like a drink? Is it too early for a drink?'

He looked younger. His hair was washed but not combed and there was a stain of something that looked like jam on his collarless shirt. The tartan blanket that usually covered him from the waist was missing, the legs of his grey flannels neatly folded and tucked beneath his thighs. Realising she had been staring she looked away quickly, unbuttoning her coat and draping it over the back of the armchair. ‘I'd best get on, Mr Morgan, you'll be wanting your dinner.'

‘I'm not hungry. Look, sit down. There's no hurry for any of that. Sit down and tell me what you've been doing today.'

She sat down on the edge of the chair, feet and knees together, hands folded in her lap, making herself as neat and demure as possible to hide the awkwardness she felt. She promised herself that in a moment she would make her excuses and escape to the kitchen.

He laughed self-consciously. ‘I don't bite, Hetty.'

She made to get up. ‘Mr Morgan, Mr Morgan told me I should see you get something to eat …'

‘Too many
Mr Morgans
, Hetty. It might be less confusing if you call me Mick, as you did at the dance. We had a good time, didn't we? I didn't expect to enjoy it so much.'

‘It was lovely.'

‘Have you kept your balloon?'

‘It's shrivelled up quite a bit.'

‘I know the feeling.'

Noticing her blush he looked at his cigarette. ‘Sorry. Always was hopeless in mixed company.'

She smiled. ‘You've jam on your shirt.'

‘Oh?' He frowned down at himself. ‘Blast it, so I have.'

‘Is that why you've no appetite? Filled up on bread and jam?'

Picking at the stain he said. ‘Just the jam, actually.' When she laughed in disbelief he said, ‘Don't tell Pat. He thinks it's decadent not to spread it on bread first. So,' he cleared his throat. ‘Was the shop busy today?'

‘Mondays are quiet.'

‘Then he won't want you to rush back?'

‘He didn't say.'

Patrick hadn't said anything, only nodded curtly as she called goodbye, raising the meat axe to bring it down hard on a carcass. He'd been silent all morning. Earlier she'd dropped a tin tray on the tiled floor and its clatter made him jump so badly a woman in the queue had mouthed, ‘Nerves. They're all bad with their nerves.' The rest of the queue had nodded sagely.

Hetty glanced at Mick. Nerves didn't seem to affect him very much. She wondered how he had lost his legs, imagining the horror of it. Ashamed of her gruesome thoughts she said quickly, ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?'

‘No, thank you. Father Greene made me some earlier. I get the feeling he only ever makes tea when he comes here. He seems so keen to do it I haven't the heart to tell him I'm capable of boiling a kettle. Pat doesn't like me to, of course. He worries I'll scald myself reaching up.'

‘I'd worry, too.'

He looked down at his cigarette, burnt almost to nothing between his fingers. Tossing it into the fire he said, ‘Don't worry about me, Hetty. Waste of time. Now, tell me how you came to work for Pat.'

‘I fancied a change from Marshall's.'

‘From sugar pigs to real pigs? I would have thought the sugar pigs were pleasanter.'

‘I like the shop.'

‘Do you?' He lit another cigarette, frowning. ‘I hated it. Dad made me work there every minute I wasn't at school, helping with the slaughtering out the back. Patrick and I were the only boys from Thorp Grammar who knew how to wield a meat axe.' He looked at her through a grey screen of smoke. ‘As soon as I left school I joined the army to get away from it. Dad called me all the names he could think of. I told him I'd be a general. Shame he got himself killed before I was even a major – I would've liked to see his eyes pop one last time.'

‘Don't you miss them?'

‘I miss my mother.'

‘I remember her. She was always so lady-like in her lovely clothes, so tall and elegant. I could never look like that.'

‘Yes you could.' He held her gaze, just as he had at the dance. As she was about to look away he said, ‘I think you're very pretty. And you looked so lovely at New Year. I was proud to be with you.'

She blushed.

After an awkward silence he cleared his throat. ‘You know, I've been stuck in this house for days. If Pat isn't expecting you back at the shop perhaps we could go out? The park is just at the end of the road … we could take a turn around the duck pond.'

‘Oh, I don't know …'

He grinned. ‘I look pale, don't I? As though I need some fresh air? And Father Greene said I'd go blind reading so much.'

‘Did he?'

He nodded solemnly. ‘Terrible blind. Now you don't want that on your conscience, do you?'

She stood up, taking her coat from the back of the chair. ‘Once round the pond then straight back.'

Patrick locked the shop door, turning the sign to
Closed
. He'd had enough of customers, their grumbles and inane chatter, the way their fingers scrambled secretively in their purses like misers begrudging every dirty penny. The last one had wanted three sausages. Three bloody sausages. Her hands had been filthy.

He took the day's takings from the till and walked along the High Street to the bank where the grey-faced little snob of a clerk counted the pennies and half pennies as though they stank. Patrick stared at him, willing him to say a wrong word as the queue shuffled impatiently behind him. He noticed that the bag of copper had speckled the counter with grains of sawdust. He smiled to himself, gratified.

As the clerk weighed the coin he found himself thinking of Paul, remembering the first patrol they went on together. His beautiful face had been daubed with mud and all badges, all indications of rank, stripped from his tunic. Snipers shot at officers first. Paul had smiled at him encouragingly and he remembered having to look away. Lust, on top of such fear, was too much. He wouldn't look at him directly again until they were safely back.

Hawkins always sent Paul on these patrols because Jenkins was such a useless little get. Patrick had suggested once he would go alone with one of the corporals, no need to risk an officer. The man laughed his terrible, braying laugh. It was as if he believed Paul enjoyed these expeditions into no-man's-land.

The clerk was saying, ‘Sign this, please.'

A slip of paper was pushed under the grille. Patrick signed it absently, thinking of Paul's slow, practised squirming through the ruts and furrows, how he kept his face close to the mustard-gas stink of churned earth. He had wanted to protect his body with his own as they crawled, covering his full length. He screwed his eyes closed.

Shoving the empty cloth bag under the grille, the clerk said pointedly, ‘Good day, Mr Morgan.'

Patrick started, opening his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder and the next in line glared at him. Bundling the bag up he pushed it into his pocket and walked out.

Patrick wandered the maze of narrow alleys that ran off the High Street and were lined with second-hand bookshops and pawnbrokers and poky, beer-only pubs. Stopping outside a junk shop he gazed through its grimy window. Amongst the battered furniture and bric-a-brac a hollow elephant's foot bristled with crutches. Next to it stood a wheelchair, a luggage label displaying its price. He wondered what had become of its owner and found himself staring at the suggestion of an indent on the chair's seat, as though whoever it was had only recently been lifted from it. He shuddered.

He walked on until he came to the high walls embedded with shards of glass that shielded Marshall's sugar factory from sweet-toothed burglars. The factory backed on to the railway line. He could hear the trains rumbling their way west to Darlington or north to Newcastle. If it weren't for Mick he would steal a ride; he would lose himself in a larger place than Thorp, if it weren't for Mick.

He remembered the army doctor watching him as he signed Mick's discharge papers, his cool, condescending voice as he said, ‘I hope you understand the enormity of what you're taking on.' This dapper little colonel in his pristine white coat and polished riding boots, and himself, a rough, awkward sergeant who imagined he could look after such a severely disabled man. Smiling the doctor said, ‘Major Morgan isn't the easiest patient.' He should've told him to stick his stethoscope up his arse.

A train whistle screamed. Patrick stopped on the embankment a little past the factory and watched the train speed north into a tunnel. He'd been to Newcastle once during leave in the middle of the war. He remembered liking its vastness, nothing like the pitiful villages of France and Belgium, or the closed-in narrowness of Thorp. Imagining himself living and working there, he'd strolled along its streets. Girls had smiled at him. He must have looked happy, he supposed.

He walked on towards Thorp Station. Cheap cups of tea could be had from the station buffet where Bath buns sweated under their glass domes and a coal fire burned in an ornate grate. The buns were soft and sugary and delicious. Decisively, he crossed the street and bought a platform ticket from the station's front office.

Leaning into the doorway of the classroom Adam said, ‘Well, you look the part, at least.'

Paul turned to him from wiping the blackboard. ‘Looks are deceptive.'

‘Oh dear.' Adam came in and perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Bad day?'

Placing the blackboard duster down Paul said, ‘I got through it. I don't think I taught them very much but at least there wasn't a riot.'

‘Did you expect there to be?'

‘I keep expecting them to spot what a weakling I am.'

‘You're not weak.'

‘Aren't I?' Wearily he said, ‘Are you going home? I'll walk back with you.'

‘I was thinking we could …' Adam laughed awkwardly. ‘You know … if she's not expecting you I could squeeze you in before Henderson arrives for his Latin tuition …'

‘I'm tired, Adam. All I want to do is crawl home, eat and go to bed.'

Adam followed him out of the classroom. As they walked along the corridor he said, ‘How about after supper, after Henderson?'

‘Not tonight, Adam.'

‘It's been a while, that's all.'

‘Less than a week.' Paul looked at him. ‘I don't want Margot to become suspicious.'

‘Why should she? We're friends, aren't we?'

They walked out of the school and into the yard. Boys still milled about. A football rolled at Paul's feet and he kicked it back in a curving arc. Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘Impressive. Tell the boys you were a football player and all your worries will be over.'