The Loner. Josephine Cox

of carpenters where young Don, waiting for his call-up papers, was working. It was Rita’s half-day off from her apprenticeship at the hairdresser’s so her daddy had brought her along for a bit of company. The young Irishman and the seventeen-year-old girl had fallen for each other at first sight.

      Don sighed deeply, all these thoughts rushing through his brain while he held his wife’s body close to his, feeling her heart beating wildly against his own.

      When had it all started to go wrong? he asked himself. Maybe if they had had more children…but it wasn’t to be. More likely, it was when he’d gone overseas with the Army in 1942. A lot of people had changed during the war – and not for the better. Good marriages had gone bad all the time. He knew that Rita resented being stuck at home with baby Davie, and that bitch of a mother of hers, Marie, had encouraged her to go out drinking and dancing and doing God knows what.

      It had all led up to this. And he couldn’t take it any longer.

      ‘What is it with you?’ he asked brokenly. ‘You’re fortunate to have three people in your life who give you all the love they can, and yet time and again you throw it all back at us.’

      Supporting her by the shoulders he looked at her sorry face, now swollen with the drink, her once pretty eyes drugged and empty, and the tears rolling down her face. And his heart broke. She looked so vulnerable, so sad, he wanted to press her to him, to hold her so tight and love her so much that she would never stray again, and for a moment, for one aching moment, he almost forgave her.

      If only she would mend her ways, he thought. If only she could be a proper wife and mother, like she used to be. But she couldn’t. That woman had left them all behind long ago. ‘No, Rita.’ The sadness hardened to a kind of loathing. ‘Sure, I can’t forgive you any more.’

      In that moment, when he turned from her, he felt incredibly lonely, and more lost, than he had ever been in his whole life. And yet he still loved her. He always would.

      From the top of the stairs, Davie and his grandad saw and heard everything. ‘Come away, boy’ The old man slid an arm round his grandson’s shoulders. ‘You don’t need to listen to this.’

      As his father walked up the stairs, a broken man, Davie looked into his eyes. ‘You won’t really leave, will you, Dad?’ he asked. ‘You can’t leave us.’

      ‘I’m not leaving you, son.’ Davie was his pride and joy. The boy was conceived before Rita went bad, so he had no doubts about being the boy’s real father. Moreover, Davie had a way with him that reminded Don of his own boyhood, in his manner and his thinking, and in that certain, determined look in his eyes. Yes, this boy was his own flesh and blood, and through the bad times when Rita neglected them both, it was Davie’s strength and nearness that kept him sane.

      He looked at the boy, with his shock of brown hair and his quiet dark eyes and he saw a man in the making.

      Taking him by the shoulders, Don told him, ‘You must go back to bed now. In the morning, you and me are away from these parts.’ He glanced up at his father-in-law. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I’ve tried my best. She’s your daughter. I hope to God you can talk some sense into her.’

      The old man nodded. ‘And if I can…will you come back?’

      Don thought for a moment, before shaking his head. ‘No.’

      Through his anguish, the older man understood, though he did not underestimate the ordeal ahead of himself.

      ‘No, Dad!’ Davie had never been so afraid. ‘She needs us. I’ll talk to her…I’ll make her see. She won’t do it again, I promise.’ He tried so hard to hold back the tears, but he was just a child and right then, in that moment, his whole world was falling apart.

      Then, seeing how determined his father was, he clung to his grandad. ‘Don’t let him go!’ he sobbed. ‘Tell him, Grandad, tell him she’ll be good and she won’t hurt us any more. Tell him, Grandad!’

      Suddenly Rita was there, shouting and yelling and going for Don with her claws outstretched. ‘You cruel bastard! So you’d leave me, would you!’ Wild-eyed and out of her mind, she went for him, hitting out, tearing into his flesh with her nails, and it was all he could do to defend himself and at the same time keep the pair of them from toppling down the stairs.

      ‘ENOUGH!’ Enraged, the old man threw the boy to safety, before lashing out at her with the back of his hand. ‘To hell with you! You’re no daughter of mine!’

      When she stumbled and slid down the steps in an oddly graceful fashion, the boy lurched forward and ran down the steps after her. At the bottom, when he went to help her up, she threw him off. ‘LEAVE ME!’ she screamed.

      Then, seeing the agony on his young face she was crippled with guilt. ‘I’m sorry, son. It was my fault, all my fault.’

      Struggling with her, he managed to sit her up. ‘Where are you hurt, Mam?’ His voice trembled with fear.

      Composed now, she smiled resignedly. ‘I’m not hurt. Give me a minute to get my breath.’ She chucked him under the chin. ‘He can go if he wants to. You can make your mammy a cup of tea and the two of us will talk until the sun comes up – what d’you say to that, eh?’ She didn’t tell him how her back felt as though it was broken in two, nor that her arm had bent beneath her at a comical angle, and the pain was excruciating. She felt strange. Drunk, yes. But there was something else, a frightening thing, as though all the life and fight had gone out of her in an instant.

      Horrified, and riddled with guilt, Don ran down the stairs two at a time. ‘For God’s sake, Rita, are you mad?’ He stretched out his arms to help her. ‘What possessed you to start a fight at the top of the stairs like that? You could have been killed!’

      Seeing her like that, he couldn’t think straight. He loved her, hated her, needed to stay yet had to leave. The look on young Davie’s face tore at his heart. Where did it all go wrong? Was it after Davie was born? Maybe she couldn’t cope when money was tight and he found it difficult to get a job? Was the badness always in her? Or did he somehow cause it? But how could he blame himself? What did he do that was so wrong? And could he really stay here now and keep his sanity? Did he still love her enough?

      ‘We don’t need you!’ Her spiteful voice pierced his thoughts. ‘You bugger off!’ She waved him away, angry with him, angry with herself. ‘Go, if you like, and don’t come back. Me and Davie can do well enough without you.’

      For a long moment he looked at her, at the dark, lifeless hair that long ago shone like wet coal, and the eyes that were once alive and smiling but were now dull and empty. He recalled the years of happiness they had shared. But then he thought of the many times he had given in and gone another round and each time it ended in arguments. This time had been the worst, when her own father had lashed out and sent her hurtling down the stairs.

      It was no good. He knew that their lives together were over and, though it was a wicked shame and he would have done anything for it not to be so, it was time to realise that they had no future together.

      ‘I thought I told you to bugger off!’ She kicked out at him, gritting her teeth at the pain that shot through her.

      ‘All right, Rita.’ The sigh came from his boots. ‘But I’m taking the boy with me.’ He knew if he left Davie with her, their son would only be taking on a thankless responsibility, one, which even he himself could no longer cope.

      ‘I’m not coming with you! I’m staying with Mam!’ The boy looked up, his eyes hard and accusing. ‘If you won’t take care of her, I will’

      ‘No, son. She’ll only break your heart. Whatever you do, and however often you beg her to give up her bad ways, she’ll never change.’

      ‘She will!’ Tears stained his young face – angry, hopeless tears that tore his father’s heart wide open.

      Don