Road to Berry Edge, The (13 page)

‘Did you go to Midnight Mass last night, Michael?' Nancy asked him.

‘No.'

‘Some people only go to church for weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas.'

‘I don't go at all.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't believe in God.'

‘Holy Mary, don't say such things. Thank goodness the bairns aren't here.'

‘Do you believe in him after the life you had with our Sean?'

‘Am I supposed to blame the Lord for that?'

‘Don't you think people are entitled to a little happiness?'

‘I think people are entitled to die in a state of grace and that's all.'

‘And do you think our Sean was in a state of grace?'

‘No, I think he was in a state of intoxication,' Nancy said quickly and then wished she hadn't. It wasn't right to speak ill of the dead, Sean wasn't there to defend himself. She looked at Michael but he didn't seem shocked. They were
sitting on the edge of the fell, looking out over Berry Edge. They could see the houses and the chimneys and most of the works from there and it was a really big expanse. You didn't often see how big it was.

‘It would be like going straight to hell with nothing in between, wouldn't it? You can't think how many times I've brought it back to me, that he was paid out for the way that he treated me. Do you think God did that, Michael?'

‘No, I think it was just an accident.'

She began to cry, she didn't know why. She had never cried over Sean, he had never deserved it, so perhaps this was just for herself.

‘I was glad he was dead.'

‘I was glad he was dead too,' Michael said. ‘How could you not have been?'

‘Isn't it a dreadful sin to hate people who are dead?'

‘It's hard though when you hated them so much when they were here. It takes a bit of getting used to that they aren't going to hurt you any more.'

She laughed through her tears, that was the Irish way, and just for a moment Nancy wished that she could be somewhere she had never been, somewhere her grandparents had spoken of with love and hate. The most beautiful place in the world that was their home which had never belonged to them while they had always belonged to it, where the people had starved and died or left and died somewhere else, except for the strongest ones. They had gone places and been hated because they would do anything for enough food to survive on. They would not fight or strike or take up a position. They would live without education, without ambition, just to be there because anything was better than starving to death, which many of them had done back in Ireland. To find a place like Berry Edge was luxury. Here you could have a house that went with your job, a roof, coins in your hand and enough left over so that you had to decide what to spend it on when the food was bought.
It was untold wealth, it was Paradise. This dirty little town with its iron and steelworks, its moors unlike anything else in God's creation, it was heaven.

She wondered whether it hurt Michael to see Sean's children. They were all that was left of his brother and they might make something good of what he had given them. They were in a way the children of luck, they would grow up hopefully. They would not know what it was like to want, to starve, to have nothing, to lose their home. They would even have education.

‘Nancy, can I just say something?'

‘What?'

‘I want to help. I've got enough money—'

‘No. Mrs Berkeley pays me. Keep your money, Michael, it's yours.'

‘I don't need it.'

‘You will one of these days. You'll find a nice lass and want to settle down and have some bairns. I never met a man as good with bairns as you are. If you have something put by it helps. Keep it and thanks.'

Nancy was quite proud of this little speech. Being with the Berkeleys all day she was learning how to say exactly what she meant and in pretty terms. Somehow it was lost on Michael.

‘You shouldn't have to go out and leave the bairns, it's not right. I'm making good money. Why not take it and stop working?'

‘I like my work,' Nancy said.

‘They're left either with my mother, and you know what she's like, or with Vera. They must be starting to think Vera Riley
is
their mother,' he said.

‘Nothing of the sort,' Nancy said. ‘Besides, what would I do stuck in the house all day?'

‘Some women would be glad of it.'

‘Well, I wouldn't.'

‘It's your place.'

‘My place? And who are you to tell me what my place is, Michael McFadden?'

If he had been Sean he would have clattered her for that, Nancy thought. He would have held her eyes with his fierce black gaze and then knocked her sideways. Michael sat there looking like Sean and just as angry, she knew somehow, but not meeting her look. Nancy was frightened at first. His doing nothing unnerved her. She understood violence. She didn't understand restraint. And she had to sit there and convince herself that he was not about to look up and then wallop her. She couldn't breathe normally, she was so frightened, but he just went on sitting there doing nothing and gradually she stopped being frightened and remembered with relief that he was not Sean. Sean was dead and Michael, she admitted to herself, was really nothing like him. He looked like him, yes, and even then not so much as she had thought, but that was all. Since his set-to with Rob, as far as she knew he had not got drunk or had a fight and he had never, again as far as she knew, lifted his hand to a woman in his life. She also remembered for some reason now the younger man that he had been, and she knew that if Michael had been born into different circumstances he would be living quite differently than he was, that he could have been some kind of an artist. There was no room for artists in Berry Edge, there was no time and no money and no opportunity. Michael would be a pitman for the rest of his life because of it, but at least she saw him as he was now. He had, Nancy thought ridiculously, eyelashes you could practically have sledged down. She didn't know what to say.

‘I don't want any man in my way,' she said, and her voice trembled.

He looked up then. She didn't learn anything from the look, his eyes were like great big dirty puddles.

‘I'm not trying to get in the way, Nancy,' he said.

‘Good, because one McFadden in my road was quite
enough.' She didn't like saying these things to Michael, because he was kind to her and the bairns, and she knew by now that he was as unlike Sean as he could be, but she was too afraid to try again. She would never forget Sean. Nothing could wipe out what he had done to her. Nobody would ever again take up all the room in bed, sit on the only decent chair, and get her to run about after him. Never, she swore, never.

*

Rob and Harry went home for New Year. Harry had rarely been as glad of anything or as angry with his father for insisting. They reached the house in time for dinner, and Ida, who had obviously been watching for them, came out of the house and ran down the steps to the carriage. Harry got out first. She hugged and kissed him several times, and did the same to Rob, and said, ‘My darling boys, I have missed you.'

Harry regarded his home affectionately and then said, ‘For God's sake, Ida, stop slavering all over us. We've only been gone a few weeks.'

She looked up.

‘You get more like your father every day.'

‘Who am I supposed to get more like, Mother, the gardener?'

They went inside. Vincent was standing by the drawing room fire.

‘So,' he said, ‘you came back.'

‘We didn't have much option,' Harry declared, pouring himself a whisky. ‘We could hear you all the way to Durham.'

‘I need Rob here.'

‘Well, thanks. We had a wonderful journey, freezing slush and inedible food.'

‘Where is he?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps he paused for a moment to take off his coat.'

Rob came in then, closely followed by Ida.

‘You've lost weight,' she was saying to him.

‘I have not.'

‘What you need is a good meal,' she declared. ‘I'm going to go and see if they can speed up that dinner,' and off she went.

‘And how is the great northern venture?' Vincent asked.

‘Fine.'

‘Really?'

‘It would be if we didn't have to come back here every five minutes,' Harry said.

Vincent was looking hard at Rob.

‘How much?' he said.

‘A lot.'

Vincent shook his head.

‘Let it go,' he said.

‘I can't.'

‘Is that you can't because you think it's going to make a profit, or are we talking sentiment?'

‘Do you want a whisky, Rob?' Harry said.

Rob nodded and Harry poured out the golden liquid.

‘Answer me, damn you!'

‘I think it's worth trying to save, yes.'

‘You think! All you're any use at is bedding women and drinking my whisky, the pair of you. I suppose you think it's a good idea as well, do you?' He glanced at Harry.

‘No, I don't think it's a good idea—'

‘Well, a little light in the darkness.'

‘—but I'm going to back him anyway.'

‘You're going to help finance something you think will fail? Are you my son or is your mother not telling me something?'

‘I wish she would,' Harry said. ‘Having a father who is completely devoid of dress sense is a great burden to us all, and perhaps my father was a gentleman.'

‘And what does your father think?' Vincent asked Rob.

‘I don't know. He didn't tell me.'

*

The dinner was wonderful but Harry didn't enjoy it, because all the way through, Vincent told them how stupid they were, how incompetent they were. Harry thought of the way that Rob's father had treated him and didn't understand that Rob could go on calmly eating cheesecake as though there was nothing the matter.

‘Why don't you shut up?' he said finally.

‘Harry!' Ida said.

‘You don't know what it's been like for Rob going back there—'

‘He didn't have to go.'

‘He did have to go. How would you feel?'

‘Harry—' Rob put in.

‘His brother's dead, his father's ill, the place is dropping to pieces and the people there depend on it for their work. It'll destroy the whole town if somebody doesn't do something about it.'

‘Such heat,' his father said. ‘I'm surprised you became involved. If you want to throw your money away I can't stop you but don't ask me for any.'

‘I wouldn't ask you to pass the salt,' Harry said, and he threw down his napkin and got up and left the room.

*

Rob found Harry in the library, drinking brandy and sitting with his feet up on his father's desk. Rob sat down on the desk. There was nothing on it but Harry's feet, Vincent never used the library for its real purpose.

‘He doesn't mean anything,' Rob said. ‘He's worried, that's all. He doesn't want us to make a big mistake. If you have misgivings about it then stay here.'

‘And put up with that bastard telling me what to do all day? No thanks. Besides, I like it.'

Rob laughed.

‘What do you like most about it, the cabbage or the cold bedrooms?'

‘I don't know, there's just something, and I like the idea of working on something without him there trying to keep us right all the time.'

‘If you want to be free you could start up something yourself.'

‘I know that, but this is interesting, the not knowing gets to me. I want to watch myself at a distance and see how hard I try to succeed. I want to see myself struggle. I've never done that, he would never let me. Things have been so easy, I always had everything I wanted and school was easy and so was university and … Vincent did so much, he made so much money. I felt like there was nothing left to try and he doesn't want me to try, he wants me trailing around after him being astounded at his genius. He'd like me to wear those dreadful checked suits like he does. I'm tired of being his son and at Berry Edge I'm not, I'm just some foreigner with weird ways and ideas. I like it there, it feels right. I didn't want to come home. Only the idea of decent food and a nice bed persuaded me, and even that lost its savour when Vincent shouted at us all the way through dinner. I'd go back tonight if I could.'

‘You can't, I need you here.'

‘Christ, you're starting to sound like him. You need me at Berry Edge and that's where I should be.'

He should be there now, he thought. Leaving Berry Edge was already a wrench and he was convinced that things would go wrong at the works when he was not there to see to everything. He and Rob had worked every day up ‘til Christmas and it had been strange being away from home at the time. He had never done that before. Usually they went to London for a few days to see friends there and go to parties and the theatre. Sometimes people came to the house in Nottingham to stay, but since Sarah had died at Christmas two years ago there had been no celebrations,
so in a way he was glad to be in a different place. The not being there made things much easier.

It was funny too that he should have enjoyed himself because nothing lavish was arranged up there in Berry Edge. There was to be Christmas dinner with Faith's parents. That meant no alcohol and a lot of polite conversation.

Harry had been brought up to buy gifts for people and so he bought Faith a muff and a pair of pretty pearl earrings. She was clearly astonished when she opened her presents and blushed so much that Harry was rather pleased with himself. It was obvious that no man had bought her anything in years. She wore a green silk dress that day, much prettier than anything he had seen her wear before. He thought that the earrings and the dress together brought out the colour of her eyes, making them quite definitely green. She put the earrings on, saying that he should not have bought them, but it made Harry feel good being able to produce such pleasure with so little effort.