Matty Doolin by Catherine Cookson Read Free Book Online Page B

and their attention was centred on two men, one of whom – whose voice Matty recognised with dismay – was his father. A wave of shame enveloped him. His dad rowing in the street. Was he drunk? His father never got drunk; their family was respectable. His father liked a drink but he never stayed late in the pubs and then came rolling home to fight. His mam would never have stood that. His mam laid great stock on their being considered respectable.
    Slowly and unnoticed, Matty walked up the street; unnoticed, that was, until he came to the outskirts of the crowd. Then a woman, turning and looking at him, exclaimed, ‘Aw, Matty, lad.’ There was such commiseration in the woman’s tone that Matty’s heart gave a painful jerk. Something had happened to his mam? Careless of whom he was pushing, he went through the people, until he came to the clear space where stood his father, facing Mr Tollet, and his father was shouting, ‘Don’t tell me you were only doing twenty. Sixty more like it. You should be had up.’
    ‘Look, man,’ said Mr Tollet in a calming tone. ‘I haven’t killed anybody; it was just the dog. An’ if you had looked after it it wouldn’t have been running wild, would it?’
    Mr Doolin, about to retort, became aware of Matty standing at his side, and, his aggressive manner and voice changing, he appeared and sounded flustered as he said, ‘Aw, lad, there you are then. Well, look. Come on . . . come on indoors.’ He made the unusual gesture of putting his arm around his son’s shoulders and leading him through the crowd towards the open front door, which he shut forcibly behind them with a thrust of his foot. Then, still keeping his hold on Matty, he led him into the kitchen, where Mrs Doolin sat, her elbows on the table, her face buried in her hands.
    On their entry, Mrs Doolin raised her tear-stained face to her son and brokenly said, ‘Oh, Matty.’
    Matty made no reply, not even to ask the obvious question, for he knew by the dreadful dead weight inside him that something irrevocable had happened to Nelson.
    ‘I . . . I didn’t mean it, Matty, not like that I didn’t. Believe me I didn’t.’
    ‘Now, now, Jean.’ Mr Doolin went towards his wife. ‘Give over, it wasn’t your fault. It was that damned maniac racing round the corner.’
    ‘It was . . . it was, Matty.’ Mrs Doolin put her hand out towards Matty now. ‘It was my fault.’
    Ignoring her pleading gesture, Matty asked, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own, even to himself, ‘Where is he?’
    ‘He’s in the shed, lad.’ It was his father speaking. ‘He’ll likely be gone by now. He was in a bad way.’
    On these words Matty seemed to come to life, and he cried, ‘He’s not dead then?’
    ‘Now don’t excite yourself.’ Mr Doolin himself preceded Matty through the scullery. ‘He could be; he was as near enough to it as makes no odds a few minutes ago.’
    Matty, scrambling now, pushed past his father, ran down the yard and pulled open the shed door, there to see a pitiful sight. Nelson lay on his side, his blood-soaked hindquarters showing where the car had hit him. His eyes were closed and he appeared dead, but as Matty, dropping slowly to his knees, laid a trembling hand on his head, the dog gave a slight shiver and opened his eyes. Both eyes were glazed, his good eye looking almost as opaque as the one with the cataract on it.
    When Nelson, making one more valiant effort, licked weakly at Matty’s hand, Matty, throwing himself almost flat on the ground, laid his face near the dog’s. But still he neither spoke nor made a sound, not even when his father said, ‘Don’t get too near him like that, lad. You don’t know what you’ll catch.’
    As Matty, his body seeming to swell with the queer pain that was filling him, held Nelson’s head between his hands, the dog slowly closed his eyes, and his tongue becoming limp where its tip touched Matty’s thumb, he died as he would have wished, in the hands of