The Loner. Josephine Cox

thing?

      Suddenly he was out of the front door and shouting for them to come back. ‘We’ll give it another go! We’ll work at it! We’ll try again!’ His lonely voice echoed along the early-morning street.

      He paused to get his breath, then he hurried up to the top of Derwent Street and round the corner, and he called yet again, but the pair were gone, out of sight, out of his life, just as he’d ordered them to do. And it was more than he could bear.

      Wearily, he made his way back. In his troubled heart he feared for them both.

      But even Joseph could not have foreseen the shocking sequence of events that were about to unfold.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ON LEAVING THE house, Davie did not look back. With his mother leaning heavily on his arm and stumbling at every turn, he threaded his way through the familiar streets of Blackburn, his heart frozen with shock at the night’s events and his mind swamped with all manner of torment.

      He suspected his grandfather had been watching from the window, and he knew how bad he must be feeling. From past experience and having been on the receiving end of the old man’s kindness countless times, he knew the calibre of the man, knew how it went against Joseph’s loving nature, to have thrown his own daughter out onto the streets. Davie readily forgave his grandfather. He did not want Joseph to feel guilty, because he had always done right by Rita. Over the years, he had done right by them all.

      Twice the old man had taken the whole family in; once, a few years back, when a little business Don had set up after the war, had gone bust, and then again, more recently, when Rita had squandered the rent money and they were evicted. Most of her own wages and tips went on drink and cigarettes, these days.

      Through it all, Joseph had supported them. No man could have done more for his family. And who could blame him for turning her away? The neverending fights and arguments had tired the old chap to the bone.

      ‘Where are we going, Mam?’ The boy knew she was hurt and he was anxious. ‘Maybe we should go straight to Doctor Arnold’s house? He’ll be up by now.’

      But Rita would have none of it. ‘I’m not going to no bloody quack!’ she retorted. ‘We’ll pay a call on a good friend of mine. Jack will help us, I know he will.’ She chuckled fruitily. ‘Lord knows, I’ve done him enough favours in the past.’

      She instructed her son to head for Penny Street. ‘Third house on the right – number six, as I recall.’ She gave a deep sigh. Her whole body was becoming numb. ‘Once we’ve rested, we’ll get away from Blackburn Town and never come back.’ There was hatred in her voice. ‘If I never see that old bugger, or your father again, it’ll be too soon.’

      As they went slowly towards Penny Street, her footsteps dragging, she slurred, ‘My Jack’s an obliging fellow. He’ll not turn us away.’

      But turn them away he did.

      When they got to number six, the lights were out. ‘Jack!’ Rita’s voice sliced the morning air. ‘It’s me… Rita.’ Banging on the door, she yelled through the letterbox, ‘The old sod’s chucked me out on the streets and I’ve nowhere to go. Let me in, Jack! I’ve got my boy with me. I’m hurt. I need to rest…a few days, that’s all. Then I’ll be gone and I’ll not bother you again.’

      Suddenly, the door was flung open. ‘For chrissake, you silly cow, will you shut up!’ Sleepy-eyed and unshaven, the man was bare to the waist. ‘What the devil d’you think you’re doing, banging on my door this time of the morning! Clear off and bother somebody else. I want no truck with you!’

      ‘Send the old slag on her way!’ a woman instructed, shouting from the upper reaches of the house. ‘If you don’t, I will!’ Her harsh mutterings could be clearly heard. ‘Thought I wouldn’t find out about the pair of you, did you? Worse than the dogs in the street, you are, carrying on the minute I’m away to see my poor sick sister…Now I’m warning you, get rid of her, or I swear I’ll have her eyes out!’

      Half-closing the door, the man called Jack lowered his voice. ‘Jesus! She’ll be scrambling her clothes on to come and face yer,’ he warned Rita. ‘She can be a right bastard when the mood takes her. Soonever she got back from her sister’s, the neighbours couldn’t wait to tell her about us.’ He shifted his attention to Davie. ‘Sorry, son, but it’s been murder, trying to stop her from coming after your mam. You’d best take her away, and the quicker the better. There’s nothing for you here.’

      When Rita refused to leave, the man rounded on her with a vengeance. ‘For God’s sake, Rita, take a look at yourself. What the hell are you thinking of, wandering the streets at this time of a Saturday morning with this young lad in tow? Have you no shame at all?’ He felt guilty. ‘Aw, look, I know we had a bit of a fling, but you mean nowt to me…I told you that from the start. We had our fun and now it’s over.’

      ‘She’d best not be there when I get down the stairs!’ His wife’s angry voice sailed from the rafters.

      Afraid of the consequences if his wife should suddenly burst in on them, he hastily pushed Davie aside. ‘Get her away from here. Go on! Make yourselves scarce, the pair of you.’ Desperate to be rid of them, he slammed shut the door.

      As they went away, Davie and his mam could hear the argument raging inside. ‘Let go of me! She needs a damned good leathering, and so do you! I can’t believe you took that dirty slut to our bed the minute my back was turned. Christ Almighty! She must have been with every bloke in Blackburn.’

      Davie tried to block his ears, but the voices followed them down Penny Street. The postman stopped to listen, curtains twitched, and a dog in a nearby house began to bark.

      ‘If I had any sense I’d pack my bags and be out that bloody door!’ The wife raved on. ‘Another feather in her cap, that’s all you are. She’s trash, that Rita Adams. She’ll flutter her eyelashes and the blokes’ll gladly tip up the price of a drink for a knee-trembler wi’ that one down a dark alley. Fools, the lot of ’em! An’ I thought you were different, our Jack, but you’re just like the rest of ’em, a dirty dog sniffin’ after a bitch on heat.’ There was a muffled cry before she was shouting again, ‘Let go of me. I’ll have the skin off her back when I catch up with her.’

      ‘I was sure he’d help us.’ Rita sank onto the nearest doorstep, her face deathly white and her limbs all atremble. ‘I really thought I meant sum-mat to him.’ Out of all the men she had slept with, Jack had been the special one, or so she thought. He had really listened to her, bought her small gifts, seemed to be her friend.

      Gathering her strength, and holding onto her son, she carefully hoisted herself up. ‘Make for the church, love.’ Her head on his shoulder, she urged him on. ‘They’ll not turn us away.’ The smallest of smiles crept over her features. ‘We’ll rest there for a while, and then we’ll think what to do.’

      ‘It’s too far, Mam.’ Davie could see how that tumbledown the stairs had really hurt her, and now this humiliating rejection seemed to have taken the heart out of her altogether. He was ashamed of what she had become, could have sat down and cried at the pity of it all. How she could have given herself to that married man Jack, when she had his own lovely father, Don, was a mystery to him.

      ‘What about your other friends?’ he asked kindly. ‘Couldn’t we go to one of them?’

      ‘I lied, son,’ she confessed. Unable to look him in the eye, she hung her head. ‘There are no friends. There’s just you and me.’ She gave a wistful smile. ‘Nobody wanted to know me when I was your age.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Even at school, I always found it difficult to make friends.’

      In that revealing moment, she saw herself as she really was, that quiet, lonely girl from a troubled background, the daughter of an unstable woman, and now, herself, a wife who time and again had