OLD TOM IN PB

(Back to Port Brokeferry and the people there and the complex relationships that we can recognise. And people are not perfectly good or perfectly bad - they never are... and we do well to remember that, I think.)

LILLIAN’S MOUTH RUNS AWAY WITH HER

Old Tom was worse. His breathing had a noise to it. Like gravel that is ground under a heavy foot. He had woken briefly and been a little surprised to see the minister by his bed. A little frightened too, for Tom seemed on waking to understand what that might mean. Then he’d relaxed.

‘Not in heaven yet, then,’ he joked.

‘You’re doing fine, Tom,’ said the minister.

Old Tom said that he was not really up for cards tonight. He was something tired, he explained. He coughed with the effort of speaking and the pain of that coughing was in his face and in a moaning sound that came from deep inside him. The minister supported the back of Tom’s head and helped him drink from a glass. Then old Tom rested back on the pillow and fell easily into sleep again.

Lillian had made a bed up on the sofa in Tom’s front room so the minister could sleep. She brought a hot meal, too, one plate sitting on top of the other to keep it warm. She and the minister spoke in whispers. She said she would maybe sit with Tom a while. Take a turn. She’d wake the minister if there was any change. Then she made a cup of tea, checked on Tom still in sleep, and she sat in the livingroom, watching the minister eat.

‘There was a girl here earlier,’ the minister said. ‘Sitting with Tom. A schoolgirl. She was reading poetry out loud.’

‘Susan Downs’ lass,’ said Lillian. ‘She’s a pretty thing though.’

The minister didn’t know what to say then.

‘Quiet,’ said Lillian. ‘And serious. Not surprised she was reading to Tom. That’s the kind of serious she is. Just what you’d expect with the things wrong in that house. You must have heard?’

He nodded.

‘It’s the child that carries the heaviest share of the bad that goes on between a husband and a wife. That’s what I always say. And the thing is she’s a good lass. I asked her to sit with Tom till someone came. She did it without complaint. That says something.’

He sipped at his tea.

‘’Course she’s a bit of a dreamer. Clever at the school, but always lost in her own thoughts. There’ll come a time when it’ll be boys she’s thinking of. And hearts will be broken, hers and theirs.’ Lillian laughed then, forgetting for a moment where she was. Then in a quieter voice she went on. ‘She’s pretty enough, though she’s a bit young yet. Leastways, I think she is. But then they grow up so fast these days. I could be wrong.’

‘Susan Downs’ lass. Does she have a name? Only I do not believe I have seen her in church of a Sunday.’

‘Corinne’s not for the church. She gets that from her father. Too much of the devil in him for church.’ Then Lillian regretted what she said and tried to take something of it back again. ‘I heard things from that house and I shouldn’t have heard. There’s wrong on both sides. Sure there is. But like I said, there’s a child to think on and Corinne’s a good lass yet.’

The minister appeared to be only half listening. Maybe Lillian thought he had one ear on the breathing of old Tom. The bedroom door was open so that if old Tom made a sound it could be heard.

‘You should get some sleep,’ said Lillian. ‘Not be listening to me going on about things that are far from why we are here.’ She got up then and went to sit with old Tom.