Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle (152 page)

‘You knew about her little haunt, then? Why didn't you say?'

‘It was not my place, as you'd soon have spelled out,' Ben replied. ‘I didn't fancy your fist in my jaw.'

‘Is that what you think? We all used to be mates. What's happened to us? I come back drinking like a fish and kill my kiddy…Don't look like that. It's true. Now Mirren's hitting the bottle and I'm sober as a judge. God forgive me, I shouldn't've abandoned her. I'd better go back.'

‘No, I'll go,' Ben offered. It was a foul night and Jack was not fit to drive.

‘It's not your problem. I'll be fine.' Jack raised his hand to fob him off. ‘Just a bit out of practice with all those sleeping pills. I'll be all right.'

‘What's going on?' Florrie was out of her bedroom door, wearing iron pin hair curlers under a pink net. ‘You've been up and down them stairs like thunder…What's going on?'

‘Nothing, Mam, go back to bed. We'll explain in the morning. I'm just going to fetch Mirren from the station,' Jack said.

‘At this time of night? Have you two had another quarrel?'

‘Nowt like that, go to bed,' Jack snapped.

‘I'm coming with you,' Ben ordered. His heart was thudding with fury at Mirren for keeping them up again. Would she never learn?

‘Well, I'm driving!' Jack jumped back into the van. They backed out of the yard and down the drive and track towards Windebank. Ben sat in the car on the bench seat, waiting until the steam train puffed into sight on its way up to Carlisle.

Jack stood by the platform as the last stragglers left through the side gate, walking back, his shoulders hunched. ‘What's she playing at?'

‘Missed the train again?' Ben shrugged. ‘Hop in. I'll drive.'

‘This is my shout and my wife. We'll have to go and fetch her from that flaming pub. Hutch up…'

He was driving like a madman, taking corners too fast, lost in his fury.

‘Steady away, there's ice on the road.' Ben was
nervous. Jack's love of speed, racing round bends, wasn't funny on a night like this. ‘Gently, Bentley, there's a black patch in the shadow of the wall. This's not Oulton Park! Calm down, she'll still be in there.'

‘I hope so. She needs help. What a bloody mess. If only—'

‘Just concentrate on the road; you're making me nervous. It's a while since you've driven in these conditions. Let me take the wheel,' Ben offered, but Jack was adamant.

‘What've I done to make her like this? No, don't tell me!' He turned to look at Ben for one second and suddenly the wheels went into a skid.

‘Jack! Reverse the wheel!' Ben screamed, trying to grab the steering wheel. They ricocheted off the stone wall and spun into the air. It was like some slow waltz, shaking like marbles in a tin can, the sound of splintering glass. The van door opened of its own accord and Ben was flung onto the grass verge. The last thing he saw was the wheels spinning, the van upside down.

He woke with a crushing pain in his side. There was not a sound from the van but somewhere a dog barked in the night.

The policeman came back with a cup of strong tea sweetened too much.

‘Have you rung the post office at Windebank?

They'll send a message to him. He'll come for me.'

‘I'm afraid that's not possible,' the officer muttered, looking at her sideways on. ‘I've contacted a Mr Reuben Yewell instead. He'll be along shortly.'

‘But I want Jack, not Ben,' she said, knowing it would mean more lectures and sermons from the mount. The whole of Windebank would know her business once Sergeant Bill Turnbull passed the glad tidings around, but it would appear in the
Scarsdale Gazette
anyway. She felt numb and silly now. If only she'd not broken that bottle. It was cold without Pam's cardigan, and how would she explain its loss?

Why was everything taking so long? she thought, watching the hands of her watch creep slowly round. She tried to look contrite and smiled at the young man who brought her more awful tea but he looked at her as if she was an object of pity.

It was a relief when Ben stood in the doorway still in his farming gear, smelling of dung and hay. He could at least have changed his shirt.

‘At last! What took you so long?' She stood up, trying to look dignified in her dirty skirt and tattered stockings. ‘You needn't look at me like that! Where's Jack? He said he'd wait for the last train.'

‘Oh, he did that all right, waited and waited,
but you weren't on it, were you? Then, being Jack, he made his way back to Scarperton just like I did to find you, but there was black ice on the road, Mirren, the sort you don't see in the middle of the night. We skidded and crashed the van, did a spin and hit a wall full on.'

He paused, shaking his head, and she sank onto the bench, winded with shock.

‘Is he OK?' she mouthed.

He shook his head again wearily. ‘Mirren, there's no easy way to tell you this, but Jack is dead. He died at the wheel. It would have been quick, the ambulance man said.'

‘Is this some sort of joke?' she snarled, looking at the bobbies standing in the doorway.

‘No, missus, sadly not,' said one of them. ‘We were called out early this morning to an incident. The A65 is treacherous. Poor man never stood a chance. This one here was lucky he fell out of the van.'

Mirren sat in the back of the police car, silent, stony-faced, out of this world, with her brows furrowing, trying to shake off her hangover. Suddenly she felt so small and vulnerable and lost. This was all some dreadful nightmare; too much cheap hooch was giving her strange dreams. There was Ben, full of bruises, telling her some tale about Jack being dead, but it was little Sylvia who was dead.

Then she was in some cold tiled place where
they were making her look under a blanket. Her eyes wouldn't focus. It was as if it were all happening to somebody else and she was looking down from the ceiling. It looked like Jack fast asleep except for the dent in his head and the strange colour of his skin. She saw herself nodding but her tongue was stuck in her mouth.

It was just like Jack when he saw Sylvia, not a tear or a murmur of regret, just an eerie silence as if she'd retreated into another world. This couldn't be true. In a minute she'd wake up and it'd all be all right. It was like the day Granny Simms had taken her in, the day her dad had not come home. How strange.

Dr Murray gave her something to make her sleep and they stood over her while she swallowed it, but it did no good and she jumped up, pacing the floor, searching the farm for her hidden bottles, searching to no avail.

‘You won't find anything in the loft or the cellar.' Ben had heard the noise and opened her bedroom door. He was no comfort at all. ‘I've gone on a recce and cleared them all out. You are going to sort this out once and for all. It can't go on! Jack mustn't die in vain. Pull yourself together for his sake!'

Mirren held up at the funeral, or they held her up as she walked behind the coffin, her eyes staring ahead, not wanting to look down. Tom and Florrie
were in pieces but the Dale's farmers, as usual, came out to honour their own and the strong singing of ‘Rock of Ages' had everyone in tears except her. Chapel folk knew how to stand together in grief. She was no part of the proceedings. It was just meaningless words and empty condolences. She watched it all from a long way off.

Jack was buried with Sylvia in the parish churchyard, and they planted bunches of snowdrops around the grave.

The day held up, being almost spring. The days were pulling out but it felt that darkness would always cover Cragside from now on. Ben had never felt so alone. How he wanted to escape, but he had promised Gran to see things through and he was not letting her down again.

‘Where are you taking me?' shouted Mirren as Ben, grim-faced, dragged her up the hill, up the familiar beaten track to World's End.

‘I'm taking you home…to the house I did up for you and Jack to live together. I'm putting you inside and locking you in until you sober up enough to see sense. That's what I'm doing!'

His words fell on deaf ears. She made to turn back, but he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of coal. He was taking no more nonsense from her.

‘No you don't! You can climb out of the window,
jump off the ridge, if you must, but you'll be sober as a judge when you do it, right? This nonsense has got to stop!'

‘Put me down! You can't do this to me! I've a farm to run…things to see to,' she screamed, wondering why he was behaving like a caveman.

‘Who're you fooling? You've not been running Cragside since Sylvia died, not for months. You've been in another world. You can do what you want up here but there's no booze, I've checked, and no pub, no hiding place. The cupboard is stacked with food. You won't starve if you ever start to eat again. I'll check on you and Dieter will guard you. He knows the score. We'll watch over you but this is where it stops, right?'

‘This's barbaric. You can't make me stay here!' she yelled, feeling foolish on his back.

‘Oh yes I can. I'll be behind that door night and day. You're not coming down to Cragside until you clean up your act. Tom and Florrie have enough sorrows without watching you stumbling all over the show pretending you're
compos mentis
and bringing them more grief. I've told them you need to be on your own for a while. This is your problem and you'll sort it one way or the other.' His voice was hard and angry.

‘You're very hard all of a sudden. What gives you the right to be my gaoler?' she continued, hoping to cajole him out of this stupidity.

He fixed his lips, hard and mean. ‘Promises I made a long time ago to people I respected and loved, and I don't want Jack to have died in vain. You owe it him. We all let him down…'

‘But I keep telling you, I don't have a problem. I can stop whenever I choose,' she argued, but there was fear in her voice.

‘So you keep telling me, so prove it. Show me that Mirren Sowerby can take her punishment. Prove me wrong.'

‘Oh, go to hell!'

‘It's you who'll go to hell in there, but I'm your friend and always have been. I want the old Mirren back, not this…walking skeleton with crazy eyes. I don't believe you any more. So go on, and get in, sort yourself out and prove me wrong.'

He threw her in the door and turned the key. She could stew in there for a few days and see how she managed. He wanted to teach her a lesson.

Mirren paced the flag floor of World's End, bemused at Ben's antics at first. Then she looked around in amazement. So this was what he had done for them both? She felt so ashamed.

The walls were plastered and limewashed, the old range was lit and its flue was cleared. The stone sink had piped cold water from the slate tank outside. The hearth was swept. There was a supply of split wood and kindling, old sleepers for logs and even a humiliating jerry pot and a supply of newspaper. He'd thought of everything.

Upstairs was a makeshift bedroom with a camp bed and blankets, a chest of sorts and washstand and mirror.

‘I'll show him,' she snorted, not quite believing that she was imprisoned. She didn't need a nip but every time she said the word her throat and lips ached for the taste. Then she thought about Jack's sacrifice and shivered, hot and cold, shaky
and unnerved by the silence. She still couldn't believe that he was gone.

Soon it would be growing dark and she felt afraid.

By nightfall she was achy and shivery and feeling sick. The joke had gone far enough. How dare he lock her up like a prisoner? Now she was going down with a chill and all she needed was a nip to warm her throat. All she could think of was a drop of something to calm her down.

Ben popped his head round the door later with a flask of hot soup. She tried to look in control.

‘Get that down you,' he insisted, ‘before it gets cold.'

‘I'm fine.' She waved away his offering. ‘I don't want your bloody soup. It's too warm. I want to go home. I promise I'll never touch a drop again.'

‘Nice one, Mirren, but it won't wash. I expect there's a bottle I missed somewhere, in the outbarn?' He searched her face and saw her mouth drop. ‘I thought so. I found the one in the milking parlour and the one hidden in the rafters of the nessy You're in a bad way and need help.'

‘Ben, I can't stay here. I'll catch my death. It's freezing,' she pleaded.

‘I thought you were roasting a minute ago. You will stay upstairs and I will kip down here. This is the only way to stop you. Hasn't there been enough grief this year? I want to get on with my own life and not have to nursemaid you.'

‘I'm not stopping you,' she barked, hoping he'd go away.

‘Yes you are. I won't leave until old Mirren's back in charge and I see her in your eyes. There's no easy way to dry out. Doc Murray says—'

‘So the whole world knows my business now?' she yelled. ‘How dare you take over my life? Get the hell out of it!' she screamed, pulling off her boot and throwing it down the stairs. He ducked and it missed his cheek.

‘I'm going nowhere and neither are you. This is your World's End for a while. You're going to have to sweat this out of your system and it won't be pleasant. I'm being cruel to be kind,' he pleaded as he left her alone with just the storm lantern for company.

For three nights she paced the floor, sweating, crying out with cramps and perspiration. ‘Let me out of here! You can't do this, you sadist!' There was no answer from him but she knew he was close by and Dieter took turns to guard the door. It was unbelievable what they were doing to her and her indignation fuelled her anger even more.

The bedroom was indeed her World's End, her hands trembled and she twitched. She cursed and swore and lay on the bed crying as the agony of withdrawal curled her into a ball.