Mam. Davie will never come back here, not now.’ Judy Makepeace was unsure about a lot of things in her young life, but of this she was 100 per cent certain. Wherever Davie went, it would be far away from the house in Derwent Street.
WHILE HIS WOMENFOLK busied themselves in the kitchen, Tom tried to get the grieving man to say something, but Joseph had fallen into such a deep silence, he seemed unaware that anyone else was there with him.
When, a few moments later, Beth and her daughter returned with a pot of piping hot tea, Tom revealed his concerns. ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’ve tried everything to coax him into talking, but all he does is rock backwards and forwards, his eyes fixed in a stare to the floor. It’s like he doesn’t even know I’m here.’
As was her way, Beth took matters into her own hands. Setting the tray down on the table, she knelt in front of the old man. ‘Joseph?’ Her voice was silky soft. ‘Joseph, it’s Beth … look at me, dear.’
When he seemed not to have heard, but instead kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, she raised her hands to his face and made him be still. ‘JOSEPH! It’s me, Beth. I’ve made you a hot drink. I want you to take it, and then we’ll sit and talk, you, me and Tom. Will you do that for me?’
Now, as he turned away, she persevered. ‘You, me and Tom,’ she repeated. ‘The three of us like old friends, just drinking and talking, and helping each other. Do you think you can do that for me?’
Joseph looked into her eyes and saw the kindness there. But it seemed an age before he answered, and then it was just the slightest nod.
Beth smiled at him. ‘All right, that’s what we’ll do then, eh? The three of us … talking and drinking, and helping each other. Yes! That’s what we’ll do.’ Greatly relieved, she could see he was coming back to her, but he was still in shock, and in her brightest voice she teased, ‘D’you know what, Joseph? I don’t know about you, but if you’ve got any old brandy hidden away, I wouldn’t mind just the teeniest drop in my cup of tea.’
She gave a deliberate sigh. ‘Oh, but I don’t suppose you’ve got any such thing, eh? So we’ll just have to go without, won’t we?’ Beth knew full well that Joseph always kept a bottle of brandy in the cupboard. ‘It would have been nice, though, don’t you think? A drop of the good stuff to warm our cockles?’
Slowly but surely, a glimmer of understanding crept over Joseph’s sorry features. ‘You artful devil, Beth Makepeace,’ he said in a croaky voice. ‘You know exactly where it is.’
He rallied round. ‘You can fetch it, if you like.’
The brandy did the trick. By the time Joseph had drunk three cups of tea with the ‘teeniest’ drop in it to give it a kick, he was beginning to talk freely, though the sadness was all too evident. ‘I’ve got you to thank for looking after her,’ he told Tom. ‘God only knows what might have happened if you hadn’t heard Davie calling from the woods. Oh, and where is the lad?’ He grabbed hold of Beth’s hand. ‘Where’s my Davie? Did you know, I threw him out … lost my temper. I couldn’t see owt but what she’d done, and he was willing to go with her and leave me on my own.’
His voice trembled. ‘I turned against him – lost my head. He’ll never forgive me, will he, eh? Surely he knew I’d change my mind the minute he was out the door, and I did! I went after him, but he were gone. They were both gone, and it was too late. Too late.’ His voice broke, and for a moment he was quiet, then when he was composed, he looked at Tom. ‘Why doesn’t he come home, Tom? He needs me … we need each other. Where in God’s name is he? What’s going to become of him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tom answered truthfully. ‘Happen he’ll think things over, and when he’s come to terms with what happened out there in the woods, he’ll turn his mind to you, and he’ll know you didn’t mean it when you spoke harshly to him.’
Unconvinced, Joseph’s next question was directed at Judy. ‘I reckon you know him better than any of us, lass. Will he come home, d’you think? When he’s cried himself out, will he make his way back to his old grandad? What d’you reckon, pet?’
The girl said cautiously, ‘Maybe.’ Davie loved his grandad, she knew that for sure. But what she didn’t know was how deeply he had been affected by what had happened to his mammy. And for his grandad to turn against him was unthinkable. Davie would be taking it hard, she knew that well enough, but she revealed nothing of her thoughts. What would be the point? She’d only upset the old chap further.
‘It’s a lot for the lad to deal with.’ Joseph was thinking aloud now. ‘First his mammy comes home drunker than I’ve ever seen her, then there’s this terrible fight and his daddy walks out, and as for me …’ He took another swig of his tea. ‘I threw him and his mammy out onto the streets. And that was after I had damn near pushed her down the stairs. She must have hurt herself badly but she didn’t say owt, you see? Oh, my Rita. My stubborn little girl!’ He sobbed anew. ‘What kind of monster am I?’ He took another swig. ‘The lad saw his mammy die out there in the woods. God Almighty! I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to set eyes on me again.’
For a split second there was an uncomfortable silence, before Judy flung her arms round the old man’s neck, saying passionately, ‘He loves you! Davie would never think bad of you – never!’
Startled by her sudden show of affection, the old man looked up to see her crying. ‘Oh, lass,’ he said huskily. ‘It’s no wonder our Davie took you for a friend. You’re a caring, kind young thing, and if you say he’ll forgive me, then I’ll take your word for it.’ If only he could turn back time. If only … ‘I’m hoping our Davie won’t forsake me, any more than I could forsake him,’ he wept, ‘and I hope you’re right, bonnie lass, when you say he’ll come home. But I was harsh on him … on both of ’em. I turned my back on the lad when he needed me most. Happen he’ll never forget that. Happen he’ll never forgive me for it neither.’
Taking another swig of his tea, and for the first time, Joseph told them about his late wife, Marie. ‘My wife was a real beauty, just like Rita,’ he said fondly. ‘Unfortunately, she started the boozing soon after having Rita. An’ then our second child – baby Matty, we called him – died in his sleep one night, and there was no consolin’ her. Poor little Matty – an’ now Rita, too. Both me childer dead an’ gone.’ He gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘At first I thought I could help my Marie to be rid of the booze and the men, and live a decent life with me and with our beautiful daughter Rita. But for all my efforts, it didn’t happen. Lord knows how hard I tried to change her. Many a man would have walked out on her, but I couldn’t do it. I loved her, y’see, and when she was sober she had a mischievous and lovable nature, just like Rita.’
As the Makepeace family listened respectfully, Joseph paused. The bad memories had, by now, brought a scowl to his face. ‘Oh, but when she’d been at the booze, by God, Marie was the devil incarnate.’
He explained how Rita seemed, in time, to have naturally followed in her mother’s footsteps. ‘I can’t blame the lass for what she became,’ he said regretfully. ‘She grew up adoring her mammy, living in her shadow, seeing her kind and loving one minute, and in the next how violent and cruel she was.’
He
