Forever Yours (3 page)

He stopped in the hall to feel for his coat on the row of hooks attached to the wall, but didn’t pause to put it on, such was the urgency in his bowels. It was only when he was sitting on the wooden seat with the hole in the middle that he pulled it on, his teeth chattering.

The power of the fermenting apples in his system ensured it was over half an hour before he left the privy, and his only thought was to get back to the warmth of his bed. He was frozen, inside and out. But halfway across the yard he paused. There was a light brighter than he’d seen before shining from the house next door where the Sheltons lived. He liked the Sheltons. Mrs Shelton was bonny and Mr Shelton hadn’t told on him when he’d accidentally kicked a can full of pebbles he and some of the other bairns had been having a game of footy with, straight through their kitchen window. Mr Shelton had been mad, but he’d said the fact that he hadn’t run away with the others but had stayed to face the music made them square. Aye, the Sheltons were all right.

It was only when a curl of black smoke dimmed the light for a second that he realised he was seeing leaping flames. He stared transfixed as the kitchen curtains blazed, the material eaten up so quickly he barely had time to blink before they were gone. And then he was galvanised into action. Wrenching open his own back door, he yelled for his parents at the top of his voice before again running into the yard, and as he did so the sash window in the bedroom above the kitchen next door was pushed up. He could hear the sound of coughing and choking, but when Mr Shelton leaned out, he was holding what looked like a tightly wrapped bundle of clothing in his arms.

‘You down there. Can you catch her?’

For a moment he didn’t realise Mr Shelton was intending to throw his bairn out of the window, but when he did he braced himself. ‘Aye, Mr Shelton. It’s me, Matt. I’ll catch her.’

He didn’t have time to think about it. One moment he was under the window and the next he’d fallen to his knees with the impact of seizing the bundle before it hit the ground.

He heard Mr Shelton say, ‘Thank God. Good lad,’ before he turned back into the room moments before smoke billowed from the open window. He sat on the cold flagstones cradling the baby and he thought he heard Mr Shelton coughing and shouting, ‘Wake up, lass. Wake up!’ as his parents and brothers ran out into the yard, along with the neighbours on the Sheltons’ other side, Mr and Mrs Preston.

When his father and Mr Preston tried to enter the house the flames and smoke beat them back, and although his mam was shouting and screaming up to Mr Shelton, he didn’t come to the window again. Nor could Matt hear him coughing any more.

 

The fire was out and he was sitting in his da’s armchair in front of their range when Mrs Shelton’s mam and da arrived. He knew his da had gone to fetch them – they only lived in the next street – and when they came into the kitchen he heard his mam softly say, ‘We can’t get him to let go of the bab, Mabel. He keeps saying he had to catch her.’

When Mrs Shelton’s mam crouched down in front of him he raised his eyes from the baby’s tiny face to look at her, but his arms tightened round the bundle on his lap. He saw that the lady he’d always known as Mrs Gray was crying, although her features were blurred with his own tears. Her voice sounded broken, funny, when she said, ‘You’re a brave lad, Matt. Do you know that? A brave lad. But for you, Constance wouldn’t be here right now.’

Her voice quivered and her husband’s hand pressed her shoulder as he murmured, ‘Hold on, lass, hold on. There’s the bab to think of. She needs you now.’

Matthew saw Mrs Gray swallow hard before she spoke again: ‘I’m Constance’s grandma, hinny. I know you’ve got two nice grandmas, haven’t you, and you like to visit them, no doubt. Well, Constance is coming to stay with me so I can feed her and look after her. You can come and see her whenever you want, would you like that?’

He gulped over the lump blocking his throat. Mr and Mrs Shelton gone, just like that. ‘You look like her.’

‘What’s that, pet?’

‘Mrs Shelton – you look like her.’

‘Aye, well, that’s to be expected. She’s my daughter.’

Mabel Gray’s voice cracked and she made a little sound which caused Ruth Heath to wrinkle up her face in sympathy. She stood looking down at her neighbour kneeling by Matthew, unable to take in the enormity of what had happened. That lovely young couple, and them only just having had the bairn. And Mabel was right. But for the lad, the bairn would be lying alongside of her mam and da.After all the neighbours had formed a human chain from the tap in the yard and put the fire out with every bucket they had between them, they’d discovered the two rooms upstairs hadn’t been consumed by the fire. Nevertheless, the young lass and her husband had been lifeless when they’d reached them. It’d been the smoke, of course. The lass had still been lying in bed, it didn’t look as if she’d ever woken up, but after Stephen had got the bab out he must have been overcome. Tragedy, it was. Terrible.

When Ruth saw her son pass the baby to Mabel a moment later she expelled a silent sigh of relief. Thank goodness. For a while there, she’d thought the whole thing had turned Matt’s brain, the way he wouldn’t let go of the bairn an’ all.

Mrs Preston had made a pot of tea and now as she silently handed everyone a cup, Ruth took hers with a nod of thanks. The smell of smoke was strong; it’d take days, weeks even, for it to disperse, and the damage next door would take some putting right, but that was nothing compared to the lasting heartache this night had caused. There was no telling what had started the fire. The clothes horse might have been too close to the range maybe, that was easy done, she herself had scorched the odd thing or two over the years, but whatever had caused it the result had been devastating. A babbie robbed of her mam and da and two sets of families grieving.

As though her thoughts had conjured them up, a knock at the back door preceded Stephen’s parents and three younger, unmarried sisters entering the kitchen. The girls were crying and Stephen’s father looked stricken, but such was the expression on Stephen’s mother’s face it brought a rush of tears to Ruth’s eyes.

No one said anything, but as Hannah’s mother made room on the settle where she was sitting rocking the child in her arms, Stephen’s mother sank down beside her, reaching out and stroking the downy forehead of the sleeping baby with the tip of her finger. The two looked at each other, as one in their pain, and as Ruth wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her dressing-gown, she thought, At least the bairn will be loved. There’s no doubt about that. But it won’t be the same as having her mam and da, will it, God bless the poor little mite.

 

They had the funeral on the following Sunday so everyone could pay their respects and not lose a shift. The whole village turned out despite the deep snow and ice which had hit the north-east the day after the fire. It being the Sabbath, all the shops were closed and the quietness which pervaded the village on a normal Sunday was more intense, seeming to pulse like a live thing as the men and boys from both families walked the funeral route, surrounded by male friends and neighbours.

Every pair of curtains in the village was closed and the women and children who lined the street were silent as they watched the cart carrying the two coffins make its way to the graveyard north of the Cross Streets. Afterwards, family and close friends gathered at the Grays’ house where Mabel and her two remaining married daughters and Stephen’s mother and sisters had prepared a spread.

Vincent McKenzie had followed the coffins along with his workmates, knowing it would raise eyebrows if he didn’t, but that wasn’t the only reason. He wanted to be near Hannah one last time. The short service was held over the open graves and when the first clods of earth hit the wood and Hannah’s father stood shielding his face with his hands as the tears dripped through his fingers, the man’s grief didn’t move Vincent.

‘This is your fault,’ he wanted to say. ‘You let her walk out with Shelton, you let her marry him. This is your fault – and now see what’s happened.’ But of course he remained silent, standing slightly apart from the other mourners, his stomach churning with the sickness that had been with him for days.

He watched as Matthew Heath was called forward by Hannah’s father to lay a wreath at the foot of each grave which would eventually be laid on top of the mounds of earth when the grave-diggers had finished their work. His eyes became pinpoints of black light as he stared at the young boy. But for this lad’s interference Stephen Shelton’s brat would be where it should be – six foot under. Instead it was alive, a reminder of Hannah’s duplicity and her union with Shelton.

He was almost the last person to leave the cemetery. The sky had been heavy and low all day and now the snow began to fall in great white flakes.

‘We’re in for another packet.’ One of the grave-diggers passed him as he stood just outside the gates. ‘All this afore Christmas don’t bode well for the New Year. It’ll be a long, hard winter sure enough, you mark my words.’

Vincent didn’t bother to reply. Turning away from the direction of the village, he pulled his muffler more closely round his neck and set out towards the town of Chester Le Street, a few miles north-east of Sacriston. Chester Le Street was situated on the Great North Road and was a thriving and busy town, its vibrant industrial centre bustling with activity on a normal working day. On a Sunday the trains – both passenger expresses and the less glamorous coal trains – were considerably fewer, and the engine – and rope-works and myriad other factories silent.

Not that Vincent was making for the heart of the town. His destination was a particular house set discreetly by itself in a narrow lane on the outskirts of Chester Le Street. Although the market town was only a short distance from Sacriston as the crow flies, most folk in the village only knew it as a place name, never having ventured further than the fields surrounding Sacriston. In the five years since Vincent had been visiting Ma Walton’s whore-house he’d never once come across anyone he knew, although he was always on edge lest that might happen.

He strode swiftly through the white landscape and by the time he reached Blackbird Lane he’d consumed the contents of the hip-flask he carried in the pocket of his overcoat. He’d drunk a great deal over the last few days; it was the only way he could sleep at night. To fall into bed senseless.

Vincent paused before opening the gate leading to the front door of the house. Every time he left this place he vowed it would be the last, but then his body would begin burning again and he’d return like a dog to its vomit.

He knew the men he worked with looked on him as some kind of oddity. He took off his cap and shook it to dislodge the snow before pulling it on again. He’d never walked out with a lass and they couldn’t understand that; consequently they made up their own theories about him. But he dare bet none of them came near the truth of it – that he’d known it all at the age of seven.

His features moved into what could have passed for a smile unless you were looking into his eyes.

But he didn’t care what they thought. They were all thick-headed nowts, gormless as they come. He was different and he’d show them. He didn’t intend to remain as he was until the day he died. His grandfather had had a bit about him by all accounts and he took after him, not his da. He was going to rise in the world and he’d see his day with this village, the whole jam pack of them. They’d soon be laughing on the other side of their face when they spoke of him.

The door to the house opened and a man stood silhouetted in the light for a moment, adjusting his muffler so it came over the bottom part of his face and his cap pulled down low over his eyes. He walked down the path, passing Vincent without a word and scuttling off in the direction of the town. Vincent watched him go until the thickly falling snow swallowed him up. Then he looked towards the house again.

The man’s sheepish demeanour had bothered him, emphasising as it did the sleazy aspect of what he was about to do. He ground his teeth, his countenance darkening. This wasn’t going to be the pattern for years to come, he was damned if it was. He wanted his bodily needs sated in the comfort of his own home – that wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Of course there would be his mother to contend with if he brought another woman into the house, unless . . .

He blinked, his eyes opening wider for a moment in surprise at the direction his mind had taken.
Unless his mother was no longer around to object.

Suddenly his brain was throwing possibilities at him and he realised this wasn’t such a new idea, after all. It had been there for years, buried in his subconscious but festering like a deep-rooted infection.

He wiped his hand round his face, his mind racing. It would need to look like an accident of some kind, or maybe an illness? A malady that came upon her gradually and then gathered steam. But that was possible. He could do that.

He’d been vaguely aware of a face at one of the windows and now, when the front door opened once more and Ma Walton’s voice came, saying, ‘Don’t stand out there, lad, you’ll catch your death. No need to be shy. Come into the warm,’ he moved obediently forward. His mind flung one more thought on top of the others which settled the matter: he’d never have to look at or hear his mother again if he followed through on this. He’d be free.
Free
. And it was about time.

‘Now listen, me bairn, there’s nowt to cry about. I should’ve told you before but you’re still such a child . . .’

Mabel Gray’s voice faded away as she surveyed her grand-daughter’s tear-stained face. It was a beautiful face and so like Hannah’s there were times it fair hurt her to look on it, but she had to accept the fact that Constance was a bairn no longer. She should have told her about the birds and the bees some time ago, and prepared the girl for the arrival of her monthlies, rather than it being such a shock. Constance had been convinced she was dying when she’d come running to her this morning.