Frails Can Be So Tough by Hank Janson

Author:Hank Janson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd

CHAPTER TEN

I’d disliked Frisk on sight. Even though I was just a kid, ten years of age, I’d instinctively distrusted him.

It was different for my mother. She’d been a widow for eight years. I guess she’d got tired of living alone, and Frisk could be charming with women when he put himself out. He put himself out as far as my mother was concerned. I was horror-stricken when my mother first told me I was going to have a new father, and that I must learn to obey and respect him.

Being just a kid of ten, I didn’t realize the significance of everything. But in later years, thinking back, I was able to tie up the odd little things that happened, realize and fully understand exactly how Frisk tortured and drove my mother to death.

In the first place, he lied to her about his financial position. He was always smartly, flashily dressed, and during his brief courtship was constantly buying orchids and candies for my mother. But from the day he brought her back from the church as his bride, everything changed with breathtaking suddenness.

Previously, he had been charming, suave and ingratiating. Now he was domineering, smilingly cruel and utterly selfish. I remember distinctly the wedding day. There was no honeymoon, on account I had to go to school and mother would not leave me to fend for myself. There was no wedding party, because none of my mother’s relatives would knowledge Frisk. Frisk himself had no personal friends he wanted to invite.

The three of us sat at table, and the coloured maid served tea. Mother said, looking at him tenderly: ‘When will our furniture be arriving, John, dear?’

He smiled that smile I grew to know so well and hate. ‘It’s outside in the hall.’

My mother stared at him. ‘Just two suitcases?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But the other stuff you have. The furniture you’re so proud of. When will that be coming? We must make room for it.’

Again that smile. ‘There is no furniture, my dear.’

My mother stared at him, forehead crinkling in perplexity.

‘Perhaps now is the best time to tell you,’ he said calmly. ‘I am a pauper. I have come to the end of my resources.’ His kindly eyes smiled at my mother. ‘Our union for that reason alone is highly gratifying to me.’

My mother had money. She owned the house we lived in and had securities and annuities that would take care of her for the rest of her life.

‘You’re joking, John,’ she said. She gave a timid little laugh. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

‘I was never more serious, my dear. I’m entirely reliant upon you. I have no income, no job.’

Again my mother’s perplexed frown. ‘But why, John? You’ve always had plenty of money, you told me your job was …’

‘My money, my dear!’ he interrupted. ‘You think only of money. Now I’ve told you …’

‘But that’s not fair,’ she burst out. ‘It’s just such a surprise you didn’t tell me this earlier.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, you know now.’ Again that smile.

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