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"This is more than being fond. Dad. Can't you see?"

He blinked his eyes rapidly as if he was at last beginning to see, and then over his shoulder he glanced towards the dividing wall and said,

"If I thought he meant anything I'd knock his bloody head through the road."

"He does mean something, but dont say anything, at least not yet. Sam knows and David knows, and now you know. And you must believe this, Dad. Don Dowling is bad." I pressed one closed hand tightly into the palm of the other to emphasize this, and he stared at me for a long moment in a bewildered fashion, then muttered, "I've always known he wasn't the best.

"Twill be better if I dont come across him for a while."

There was neither sight nor sound of Don for the next three days. I listened carefully to the sounds next door. When Aunt Phyllis's wireless wasn't blaring forth there came no sound of voices, only the sound of doors closing and her foot steps creaking on the stairs.

And then it was Saturday. David had rushed in about ten o'clock to say he was being sent out on an assignment. It was a murder case, some place near Hanlepool, and he didn't know what time he would be back.

If he was too late in getting home this evening to come up, he would be round first thing in the morning. Would I tell Constance how disappointed he was about the dance tonight ?

"Yes/ I said.

"And dont worry, she'll understand." And I patted his arm.

"It might be a big thing for you."

He nodded and said, "That's what I'm thinking. But isn't it awful somebody has to go and be murdered before you get a break?"

In the afternoon Constance washed her hair, then she washed some of her undies and ironed them, and it was as she stood ironing in the kitchen at the table near the window and I stood baking at the table in the centre of the room, going back and forward to the oven every now and then, that I talked. I talked about myself and Don Dowling. I told her right from the time I could remember, right from the time he held me in the river, and only once did she pause in her ironing and put her hand over her mouth. That was early in my talking when I came to the incident of the rabbit nailed to the tree. I told her about her father and how he came the second time, and how I wanted to do away with myself when I discovered I was going to have another baby. But I didn't tell her he had any relations on Brampton Hill. I thought it better not to. If there had been any chance of her meeting up with her half-brothers then I certainly would have told her about the colonel and his daughter. But as it was I thought it better to leave that page closed. But I told her about Ted Farrel and about the letter he had received and the letters I had received. I told her about the form of mental torture that went on for years with the knockings on the wall.

I told her everything that concerned me and why I hadn't married her Uncle Sam. And I knew that she understood, especially this last, for there was a fear in her now, a fear that something would happen to separate her from David.

When my story was ended I felt very tired, suddenly very tired, and I dropped into a chair. I had a need on me for a drop of whisky, but when she came and put her arms around me and pressed my head to her, saying softly, "Oh, Mummie! Oh, Mummie!" the need for the moment left me.

We were close, really close for the first time in our lives. And then it was she who talked, and as if she were the mother and I her daughter. This was no new feeling, for often in the last two years or so I had felt that she had already reached a maturity that would never be mine. The only thing that had developed in me through the years was my weakness.

That evening, after tea, Dad said, "I'm going to slip down to the club for an hour. Harry Benger's interested in the allotment."

"Our allotment?" I said.

"Aye." He got up and put on his coat.

"I'm not getting' any younger, I've been feeling lately I'm past it.

Anyway, the vegetables we need we can get from Sam. Half the stuff I grow there I give away."

I felt I knew the reason why he was doing this, and it wasn't because the allotment was too much for him. Soon we'd be needing the allotment as much as we had done years ago, for the pits, after a blaze of prosperity never before known in their history, were once again on the down-grade. It was a repeat of the nineteen-thirties. Whole pits were closing down. At any moment the Phoenix or the Venus might be on the list.

"I'll leave your supper," I said.

"I'm a bit tired and I'll get to bed early."

Neither Dad nor Constance ever remarked on my going to bed early. If they knew why I went upstairs so soon in the evenings they thought it better to say nothing. If I had to drink, then that was the best place to do it.

But I did not get upstairs early that night, because this new relationship between Constance and me kept me tied to the kitchen listening to her plans for the future. The wonderful plans for her and David. And then it was she who went up stairs first. She kissed me good night in a new way. Again as if I were the younger, she held my face between her hands and looked at me, and then she said something that gave me a thrill, like I'd never had for many a year.

"Mummie," she said, 'you're still beautiful. "

"Oh! lass," I said, disbelieving, but grateful.

"I wish I was half as pretty as you are. I've always thought it unfair that I dont look like you."

I pulled her to me for a moment and, pressing her head into my shoulder, I said quietly. Thank God you dont, lass. Thank God you're not like me in any way. "

"Oh! Mummie." She moved her head slowly.

"I am, I'm like you in lots of ways."

I put my lips on hers, then said, "Good night, and God bless you....

God bless you and keep you happy," I said.

I stood where she had left me, listening to her going up the stairs. I heard her open the door, and then I thought she had started to sing.

It was a high note as if she had burst into song, and I smiled to myself. Then my smile vanished and became perplexed for a moment by the sound of banging in her room, as if something had dropped. There was nothing to drop that I could think of that would make that thudding sound. I found myself standing at the bottom of the stairs listening.

There was no sound now, and then I called, "Constance!" And when she didn't answer I took the stairs like some frantic animal, for before I thrust open her door I knew what to expect. She was standing with her back pressed into Don's body, held fast by his great arm, and from her mouth dangled the ends of a tea towel. A loud unearthly scream escaped me and the spring was in my body when he checked it:

"Come any farther and I'll give her this." This, I saw, was a razor very like the one Dad used.

"Go on downstairs."

"As I backed slowly, he pressed Constance forward. Step by by step I went down the stairs and into the kitchen where a moment before I had kissed her with so much love. Suddenly I was helpless with fear, I had no strength to combat this man and I heard my voice pleading, " For God's sake, Don, leave her be. Please! I'll do anything . anything, only leave her be. "

"Even kill me, like me God-damn brother." He was smiling, but only with his mouth, his eyes were dead cold and terrifying.

"You've both been sittin' for years behind these walls, haven't you, wondering how you could do me in? And you haven't been able to keep it out of your face, yet you couldn't rake up the nerve. I've had you taped. I've always had you in the hollow of me hand, and I still have.

Nobody does anything to Don Dowling and gets away with it, and you've done plenty, you bitch, you!"

"Don' my voice was a thin, pathetic whimper " Don, I tell you I'll do anything, anything you ask, only dont touch her. " I put my hand out towards Constance's petrified face, and he stepped back pulling her with him as he said, " Thank you very much for nowt.

Miss Christine Winter. You're still Miss Christine Winter. God, it's laughable. But where'd you get the idea I want you now? Christ! I'd as soon go with a midden bitch as I would with you. But this' he jerked his arm tighter, pushing up Constance's breasts 'this is you when I wanted you, and, believe it or not I'm going to play fair with her.

I'm not goin' to leave her on the grass like you were left. No, when she's goin' to have the hairn I'll marry her. Not that I want a hairn, but she's goin' to have one. You know why? Because I want to see you on a grid-iron. You'd think after all this time I'd done enough to you to have me own back, but it's never been enough. But this'll satisfy me, for you'll feel it. Aye, every time I touch her you'll know and you'll feel it like hell. "

He caused her bust to rise again, and a moaning sound came through the tea towel, and I began to gibber.

"Don, Don," but as I did so I knew what I was going to do. I was going to dash through the front room and out into the street and scream blue murder. He would never use that razor. I was on the verge of making a move towards the front room door when he fore stalled me. Lifting the razor to Constance's cheek and pressing the blade to her skin he cried,

"Another jerk like that and I'll mark her I'll mark her for life."

As I stood gasping and shaking before him he gave a grim laugh and added, "You can do nowt like always you can do nowt, an' I've got everything fixed, every step. I'm not letting you or any white-livered paper bugger man th raw me not this time I'm not."

At this moment there came from our back yard the sound of someone whistling softly and Don turned his head sharply to wards the kitchen window. Then saying to me.

"Open the back door," he pushed Constance towards me and once again I was walking backwards.

When I withdrew the bolt from the scullery door he called softly, "In here Rox," and in came a short man in a big, bulky coat. The man looked from one to the other then grinned and said, "Well, well."

"Keep an eye on her." Don nodded towards me and then moved back into the kitchen, and as the man came towards me I backed from him. This man had a round, chubby face and a fresh complexion. If you had met him in the street you would have thought he looked homely.

He stared at me as he fitted his steps to mine and said coolly.

"So you're Christine Winter. Well, what d'you know?" Then coming into the kitchen and turning to Don, his tone taking on a curt note, he said, "Come on, man, you've spent enough time over this."

"She's got to be put out of action first." Don nodded towards me again.

"She's generally blind about this time and sleeping it off, snoring.

You'd have to be sober the night, wouldn't you, Christine?"

His tone was mocking.

"That's just your bad luck for I'm going to give me self the pleasure of putting you to sleep."

Like someone hypnotized I watched his tongue move over his upper lip as if he was licking something off it, then he went on, "It'll be my last parting gift so to speak, for we won't meet again Connie and me are off to faraway lands aren't we, Connie?" He almost lifted her off her feet and I saw her eyes close.

"Well, hand her over," said the man hastily, moving to wards Constance,

'and get on with it if we want to make the docks the night. "

It was at this point that the key turned in the front door and I heard myself screaming, "Dad! Dad!" There was hardly a second between my scream and Dad entering the kitchen, but he stopped dead just within the door and I knew by his face he couldn't take in what he was seeing.

Then the full realization springing at him, he yelled in a terrible voice, "Take your hands off her, Don Dowling, or before God you'll not live to tell the tale." He was moving steadily towards him when the other man spoke again, and as he did so he pulled his hand from his pocket.

"Take it easy, Grandad, we're just goin'."

"Get out of me way!" Dad brushed the man aside without even glancing at him.

"Dad!" I screamed at him as he had not seemed to notice what the man held in his hand. The man, too, was taken aback, but he said.

"Now look here, I dont want to get rough with you, so stop acting the bloody goat and stay put."

Dad's arm came up in an ugly swing but before his fist had descended on the man I saw him jerk upwards as if some thing had hit him in the chest, then he bowed his head, and then his shoulders, and slowly he sank to the floor. There had been no sound of a shot. There was no blood. I was past screaming but I heard myself in horror-laden tones exclaiming over and over again, "You ... you ... you ..." The man was looking at the revolver in his hand and as I rushed to where Dad was lying he turned towards Don, saying, "Look, I didn't even touch it."

"That was a bloody mad thing to do."

Even with my mind in the state it was, the fear in Don Dowling's tone got through to me.

"I tell you, I haven't fired it. Let's get out of here."

Dad's mouth was hanging open, his face looked pale and soft, and I thought that he must be dead. In the agonized second during which I raised my eyes from Dad's face to that of the man, I was aware of a number of things. Constance was slumped within Don's hold, she had fainted, and outside the kitchen window, in the space between him and the man there loomed a dark shadow which I took to be that of another of them. Moreover, the knowledge that Aunt Phyllis just be yond the wall must know what was going on, what her beloved son was up to, was actually as terrifying in a way as the scene before me.

Then from somewhere there flowed into my being a wave of strength, I felt it washing away the fear. Under the pretext of helping myself to rise from my knees I put my hand on the high fender and gripped the big iron poker that lay resting on its edge, and with a twist of my wrist I sent it flying high across the room in the hope that it wouldn't touch Constance. Which one of them I was trying for I wasn't quite sure, but almost instantly I knew my aim had found the man, for he yelled and grasped his shoulder as the revolver leapt out of his hand. And it was at this moment that I saw Sam. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, right behind Don, and in his hand was a great lump of wood. As it came down on Don's head there was a horrible thudding sound. For a moment after the impact Don remained stock still, then with a long groan he crumpled up, and Constance with him. As they hit the floor, the man, yelling something at Sam, spurted into life and made a dive for the revolver where it lay not a yard from Dad. At the same 248 instance I plunged towards it and the next minute the man and I were locked together. But only for a minute, for something happened that made me bounce away from him. It was like nothing that I can describe, except perhaps that I had been slung slap bang into a brick wall. It seemed as if my face was being pushed in, and for a moment I could see nothing, nor hear anything but a great buzzing in my head. Then my vision cleared and I knew I was leaning back against the table and looking down on a shambles of bodies. But they seemed to be a great distance away, as far away as the sea is from the top of a cliff, except the man and Sam. They were close, for they were pounding each other on the mat at my feet. Then they too receded and joined the others, and the distance between us grew greater and I was borne upwards into the air, away, away from it all, and I went, I remember, with a sort of relief, yet I knew I was crying, "God Almighty! God Almighty!"