Mother’s Boy Read online

  Copyright © 2022 Patrick Gale

  The right of Patrick Gale to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency

  This Ebook edition published in 2022 by Tinder Press

  An imprint of Headline Publishing Group

  All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical characters – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 5740 6

  Cover image © Derek Adams/Arcangel Images

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Patrick Gale

  Also by Patrick Gale

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Atlantic – 1941

  Teignmouth – 1914

  St Thomas Water – 1918

  Laundry Blues – 1918

  Penny Buns – 1922

  The Pork-Butcher’s Son – 1925

  Sunday School Picnic – 1927

  Stains – 1928

  Pentameters – 1931

  New Suit – 1933

  Trunks – 1938

  Nativity – 1941

  I Am a Sailor – 1941

  Gertie

  Scapa Flow – 1941

  Gib – 1942

  Valletta – 1942

  Captain’s Chair – 1943

  Portrait of an Older Woman Taking Tea – 1944

  Liverpool – 1944

  Teignmouth Again – 1945

  Surrender – 1945

  Mr Causley – 1948

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Author photograph © Markus Bidaux

  Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight. He spent his infancy at Wandsworth Prison, which his father governed, then grew up in Winchester before going to Oxford University. He now lives on a farm near Land’s End. One of this country’s best-loved novelists, his most recent works are A Perfectly Good Man, the Richard and Judy bestseller Notes from an Exhibition, the bestselling A Place Called Winter and Take Nothing With You.

  Praise for Patrick Gale:

  ‘One of the joys of Gale’s writing is how even the smallest of characters can appear fully formed, due to a charming wickedness alongside deeper observations’ Irish Times

  ‘A writer with heart, soul, and a dark and naughty wit, one whose company you relish and trust’ Observer

  ‘Absolutely one of his complete best. So many funny and tender and terrific scenes. He hovers between social comedy and apocalyptic tragedy without the move appearing artificial or contrived. Just a wonderful, wonderful read’ Stephen Fry

  ‘Safe in the arms of Patrick Gale’s BEAUTIFUL writing again – I could weep with joy’ Joanna Cannon

  ‘Sexy, joyous, funny and tender. I relished it’ Sarah Winman

  ‘Joyous and full of light. I only meant to read a chapter and I greedily gobbled down the whole lot in one go. He is a beautiful and empathetic writer’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

  ‘A fascinating story, gripping, moving and exquisitely written, this is a wonderful gift of a book from one of the best writers working today’ SJ Watson

  ‘Very well done indeed – brilliantly sustained’ Rachel Johnson

  By Patrick Gale

  The Aerodynamics of Pork

  Kansas in August

  Ease

  Facing the Tank

  Little Bits of Baby

  The Cat Sanctuary

  Caesar’s Wife

  The Facts of Life

  Dangerous Pleasures

  Tree Surgery for Beginners

  Rough Music

  A Sweet Obscurity

  Friendly Fire

  Notes from an Exhibition

  The Whole Day Through

  Gentleman’s Relish

  A Perfectly Good Man

  A Place Called Winter

  Take Nothing With You

  Mother’s Boy

  About the Book

  Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura’s husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress, and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.

  As an intensely privately young man, Charles signs up for the navy with the new rank of coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war sees him blossom as he experiences not only the possibility of death, but the constant danger of a love that is as clandestine as his work.

  MOTHER’S BOY is the story of a man who is among, yet apart from his fellows, in thrall to, yet at a distance from his own mother; a man being shaped for a long, remarkable and revered life spent hiding in plain sight. But it is equally the story of the dauntless mother who will continue to shield him long after the dangers of war are past.

  For Aidan Hicks

  Watch your hurt heart when it wavers,

  Keep your clay cool on the shelf.

  Avoid other flesh and its flavours.

  Keep yourself to yourself

  From ‘Never Take Sweets from a Stranger’

  by Charles Causley, an early work excluded

  by the poet from his Collected Poems

  ATLANTIC – 1941

  The ship was under attack and horribly exposed by a clear night and a full moon. Until a change in the weather brought fog or cloud, ideally both, all they could do was fight back and hope they were not outnumbered or outgunned. Sometimes an explosion would shake them from so close that Charles almost forgot, in his stifled terror, to feel sick. Sometimes the sounds of their guns going off or the shouts and stamping boots of their crewmates would stop long enough to let them hear the piercing cry of someone wounded.

  Signals came through constantly so there was no time to do anything but deal with them, and certainly none to talk. Talk was impossible in any case because Dizzy had his headphones on. These meant that when he swore, as he sometimes did when the ship was especially badly shaken, he did so at the top of his voice, which made Charles jump almost more than the explosions did. Occasionally the speaker tube’s thin peeping sound would summon Charles, to receive instructions from the bridge, or be asked to make a report on the latest signals to come through.

  They worked at fever pitch in the hot little office, Dizzy barely turning from his console to flick signals he’d deciphered from Morse across to Charles so that he would decode them into something like English. Dizzy had said once that Morse was enough for him to focus on and that it would have scrambled his brains if he’d attempted to guess the meanings hidden under the second layer of code. He passed Charles neatly filled-out pages from his pad, lines of letters and numbers, always in groups of four.

  Charles knew to resist the urge to interpret or anticipate. Accuracy was all. He decoded four letters or di
gits at a time and only read to check for sense once he had the whole signal down. Sometimes it would be gibberish, and he would know that Dizzy, or whichever wireless telegraphist was on with him, was tired.

  In this case, he swiftly recognised the code shorthand for a powerful battlecruiser. He knew before getting two words further in the missive that this was one he’d need to take to the bridge in person at once, rather than shouting it to a junior officer through the voice tube. He tore the page off his pad, folded it neatly and tucked it into his pocket to protect it from spray. As he pulled on his duffel coat, Charles tapped Dizzy’s shoulder and pointed upwards so he’d know he was heading to the bridge, then stepped out.

  The cold on deck was a shock after the heat generated by all the electrical kit in the Signals office, but it was the painful intensity of the noise that momentarily confused him. The enemy ship they had engaged had approached from the starboard and they must have swung round to present a narrower target. Charles could see both forward guns blasting shells into the darkness. The weather was changing, thank God. Poor visibility might soon give them cover to slip away to the south. The swell was such that he was amazed the guns could be aimed with any accuracy.

  Climbing to the bridge, he knew to avoid looking out at the sea for fear of making his sickness worse but, even so, he had to pause a moment before climbing further as a judder of nausea ran through him, making him dry-heave over the railings and break out in a sweat the Atlantic wind immediately chilled.

  There was never mayhem on the bridge, but the sense of group focus was intense. It was known that because of the skipper’s slight deafness he would tolerate no unnecessary talk. Charles saluted, and handed over the signal. He waited to attention while it was passed to the skipper and the skipper read. Often there was a signal to send in reply, but this time the skipper simply shook his head, betraying nothing of the horrors he had just read.

  ‘Back to your watch, Causley,’ he said, then checked Charles’s leaving. ‘Causley?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Did you know anyone on board?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You know the drill, though. Not a word.’

  Which was when an explosion lit up the night and caused several of them to lose their balance and grab at the nearest handhold. One of the officers swore.

  ‘Off you trot,’ one of them told Charles as the skipper calmly demanded damage reports.

  The fire crew was tackling a blaze on the deck while the MO and his small team were pulling the wounded to safety. Everyone seemed to be yelling and one of the wounded was crying out in a thin, high voice as though astounded by the pain he was in. The MO was following two sailors, who were stretchering one of the wounded to the sickbay, when he cursed roundly and turned.

  ‘Causley. Good man. Bring that for me,’ he called.

  Charles looked where he was pointing. It was a hand and part of a forearm, cleanly severed, smeared with oil, a dusting of golden hair on the skin. It wore both a wedding ring and a wristwatch.

  Charles froze.

  ‘Come on, man. We’ve not got all day.’

  Charles picked up the hand by its wrist, averting his eyes the moment he made contact with the skin, and hurried it over to the stretcher where the MO received it on a napkin of bandage before heading inside with the shattered patient.

  There was another terrific blast of shell fire as Charles staggered into the nearest heads to throw up.

  A boyhood friend – his best friend, arguably – had been on the ship in the signal he’d just delivered, reported sunk in the Denmark Strait with only three survivors, and he could tell nobody. Now it seemed quite possible they were to be blasted out of the water as well.

  Charles washed his face and hands, then sat on the heads for a moment, stilling his breathing. He conjured the greenish midsummer water of a small municipal swimming pool, the soapy smell of the rough beach towel beneath him, birdsong from surrounding trees, the artless chatter of the friend lying in the sun at his side.

  TEIGNMOUTH – 1914

  Laura was in the garden cutting a bay leaf and chives for one sauce and parsley for another when she heard the gate clang and, startled, turned to see him. He was tall – about six foot two – and dark, and smartly turned out in a plum-coloured drill waistcoat and had a matching cravat tidily tucked into a very well-laundered shirt. She took in no details of his face beyond that he was conventionally handsome – like an illustration in a library romance – because of the unconscious little boy held in his arms, who was bleeding from a wound to his head. The man looked so smart that it didn’t occur to her to show him to the kitchen.

  Without a moment’s hesitation she said, ‘This way, sir,’ and hurried ahead of them to open the front door and lead the way to the parlour where she indicated the chaise longue below the bay window.

  Then he said, ‘What about the blood?’ in a harsh Devon accent, and she knew him for a servant.

  ‘I’ll fetch towels,’ she said, grateful, for the chaise was upholstered in silk. There was a lavatory off the hall, a room whose luxury still surprised her, with a mahogany throne, a pretty view across the orchard and a beautiful sink of blue and white china, which pivoted to tip its contents into a lead chute below. She fetched towels from the cupboard in there and hurried back to spread them over the chaise longue where he carefully laid the boy down.

  ‘Is he dead?’ she asked.

  ‘I hope not. He ran out chasing his hoop and I couldn’t stop the cart in time. We were on our way to a patient.’

  She saw him now, his high-boned handsomeness and the way shock was turning him pale.

  ‘I’ll fetch hot water and bandages,’ she told him, thinking she should bring tea as well. ‘Afternoon, sir,’ she added to Dr Butler, who had just come in. He was lame from a childhood illness and rarely strong enough to drive his own cart, much less carry a wounded boy. His black bag was weight enough for him.

  ‘Good girl,’ he told her. ‘A palmful of salt in the water, please. Have you witch hazel?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That, too. I apologise for intruding but yours was the nearest house. The Frasers are out, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She hurried down to the kitchen. It was Mrs Ashbridge’s day off and she had gone to her sister in Exeter, leaving Laura to make a cod pie and a redcurrant fool. Her employers were still out for lunch in Dawlish, for which she was grateful. She swiftly gathered together all she imagined the doctor might need. She was relieved to hear the little boy groaning softly when she came back to the parlour.

  ‘Concussion and a nasty cut,’ the doctor murmured. ‘He was lucky to be thrown clear of the wheels. Do you know him?’

  She took in the pinched face, the too large boots worn without socks, and knew him for the cheeky scamp who sometimes followed her down the hill on her errands, singing saucy songs and asking if she had a sweetheart. She nodded.

  ‘From the cottages,’ she said, and the doctor sighed, knowing which cottages she meant.

  ‘Are you squeamish?’ he asked, and she shook her head. ‘Good. This will hurt him and you’ll be a comfort.’

  So she sat with the boy’s head on a towel on her lap and held his hand while the doctor cleaned out the wound, then threaded a needle and stitched it in several places to hold it closed. She watched, fascinated that skin could be stitched and stretched just like cotton, and thinking of the stitching on the back of her best kid gloves as the child clutched her hand hard. She murmured to him, ‘It’s all right, John. Soon be over. Brave boy . . .’ Nonsense like that to keep him still.

  And all the while she knew the other man’s gaze was on her, like a lamp.

  The hall clock chiming three seemed to bring the doctor to his senses.

  ‘I must go to Miss Ramsay, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I can walk from here but you can collect me when you’ve driven our young patient home. Perhaps . . .?’

  ‘Laura,’ she supplied.

&nbsp
; ‘Perhaps Laura can show you the way?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, glancing up at the other man, now named, and realising he was her age.

  ‘Dress the wound with this liniment,’ he handed her a small jar, ‘then make a dressing and a bandage. I doubt he’ll keep it on for long but at least it will give the wound a clean start towards healing. I’ll see myself out.’

  The boy was crying silently, from the pain and shock, she supposed. She used her handkerchief to wipe his eyes, then dressed the neatly stitched wound on his forehead, laid a pad of gauze over it, tapped it carefully into place, wincing in sympathy as the boy flinched. Then she bound it to his head with three turns of bandage.

  ‘There,’ she told him, ‘you look like a right little soldier now, back from fighting the Boer. Cup of tea?’ she asked Charlie. ‘I think we all need one. You stay here with the patient and I’ll be right back.’

  She brewed a pot of tea and cut three slices of seed cake. Mrs Ashbridge always baked with duck eggs for the good rise they gave and the cake was butter yellow from their rich yolks.

  Everything was topsy-turvy, Laura thought, with her serving tea and cake to a fellow servant and an urchin in her employers’ parlour, so she restored a measure of order by serving it on the sturdy kitchen china and using the brown teapot. Her employers drank tea from bone china you could see daylight through. She was so nervous of breaking it that sometimes she had to pause in washing it to step back from the sink a little and calm her hands. She had been raised to labour and her grip was as strong as a man’s. It amused Mrs Ashbridge to pass her pickle jars to open.

  The cake revived the boy, who sat up, taking in his fine surroundings with sly eyes. ‘Are you going to be more careful where you chase that hoop in future?’ she asked him, and he nodded. ‘You are a very lucky boy. The kick that pony gave you might have cracked your skull.’

  ‘If I’d died,’ he asked slowly, ‘would he go to prison?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Charlie told him. ‘I kill boys like you every week. It’s a community service, like rat-catching.’