Road to Berry Edge, The (20 page)

‘Well, by God,' Claire said, staring at her. ‘You turned him down, didn't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘You don't care about him?'

‘No, of course not. He's just another man,' Susannah said and put both hands over her face as she began to sob. ‘I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it to him, and he hates me.'

‘He doesn't hate you.'

‘Yes he does, and I'm going to have a baby.'

‘Oh my God,' Claire said.

*

Harry walked into Rob's office one fine day that autumn and said abruptly, ‘The house in Durham's all locked up. What's going on?'

Rob looked up. ‘Don't knock, will you?'

‘What's going on?' Harry said again.

‘I'm working,' he said. ‘Can we discuss it later?'

‘You've been bad tempered ever since you went away for
a break. We can't discuss anything at the house, not with my father there. What's going on?'

‘I thought you didn't go there any more?'

‘I don't, I just … Has Susannah gone?'

‘I don't know. I haven't seen her.'

‘You make it sound as if you don't care.'

‘I don't. Now will you let me get on?'

*

Rob's mother came home late in the autumn. Vincent was very polite to her and she seemed to get on well with Ida. Vincent talked of going home, but when the strike began he stopped mentioning it. Twice during the summer he travelled there for a few days and came back, but Ida didn't go with him and it was obvious to Rob and Harry that he intended to stay with them during the difficult time.

Rob hoped that the men would not strike until the bad weather came, but he reckoned Michael McFadden was too clever to wait, and that autumn was the best and mildest that Rob had ever known. Since the men didn't care to work during the good weather it was obvious that they would begin then, and so they did. There was money from the union, and the men were glad of the time off, Rob could see. They could go fishing or ferreting, see to their gardens, walk in the country if it suited them, play billiards and have a drink if the weather was bad as it was eventually.

Rob was frustrated. He had now built things up so that there was work and enough for all the men to do, even though the prices were not good anywhere. He considered giving in, paying what they wanted, then he thought everybody else would go the same way, wanting more. If he paid them all more it would be difficult to keep the place going and see any profit. So he sat back and watched to see what would happen.

*

His mother had not been back a week when she took him
aside and said, ‘I'm worried about Faith, she's so pale and thin. Do you think she's all right?'

It was unlike his mother to confide in him. Rob hadn't seen Faith, she was avoiding them. Now sometimes even when her parents came to dinner she made excuses that she was busy at the chapel and in the town, and could not come. When he did make an effort to see her, he was shocked by her appearance. She had indeed lost weight and her eyes had no spark at all. He had gone over to the house and found her sewing by the window in the living room. She smiled wanly when she saw him. Rob knew nothing about such things and tried hard to take an interest, only saying when he could be silent no longer, ‘Faith, do you feel all right? You look ill.'

‘I'm just a little tired.'

Rob's heart squeezed. That was what Sarah had said at the beginning of her illness. She was always just tired.

‘Don't you think you ought to see a doctor?'

‘I'm perfectly well. How is Harry?' she asked bravely.

‘Worrying about the strike.'

‘Aren't we all? What do you think the people will do when they have nothing left?'

‘It won't go that far.'

‘Why not? Won't you let it?'

‘Of course I won't. Don't cast me as the villain, Faith. I'm only trying to do what's best.'

‘I doubt that's how the miners see it,' Faith said.

*

‘How was she?' Harry asked simply when he got back.

They were in the garden - it was cold out there, with a few stars - because the house seemed to be full of people, what with Vincent's loud voice and Ida's chatter and his mother joining in. His mother seemed happier than he had seen her since before John died. She liked the company and Ida was persuading her to go out and buy new clothes even though she was in mourning, encouraging her out of black.
They seemed somehow to have much in common. Vincent was forever going across the road to play chess with Faith's father. Rob was amazed that the two men and three women got on so well.

‘You should go,' Rob told him.

‘She doesn't want me there.'

‘She doesn't look well to me.'

‘If she could get out of here—'

‘She doesn't want to leave.'

‘Maybe we should drag her out, kicking and screaming.'

‘I wish there was a way.'

Rob's mother came into the garden. ‘How is Faith?' she said.

‘Not good.'

‘If she had a husband and a child or two she'd be different,' his mother said, to his surprise. ‘Your father and I have thought all along, and so have Faith's parents, you ought to marry her.' His mother paused and then said, ‘You're very like John now, I'm not sure you know how much.' She went back into the house again.

*

Alice McFadden died in the middle of the strike and Nancy went over to help Michael with the funeral arrangements. It was the first time that she could remember having seen dust in the house and the first time that she had actually enjoyed being there.

‘What are you going to do now, they'll take the house off you.'

‘I'll have to go and lodge with somebody.'

‘On strike pay? And what about the furniture?'

‘I'll have to get rid of it. If you want any, Nancy, just take it.'

‘It's better than what I have …' Nancy said tentatively.

‘Have it, then, and sell yours.'

‘You might want it.'

‘What for?'

‘Well, I mean, isn't there some lass …?'

‘No,' he said.

Nancy saw to the funeral tea. A lot of striking miners and their families came. Nancy thought disrespectfully that some of them came for the sandwiches.

‘Are you still working at Berkeley's house, Nancy?' one of the miners' leaders, Tom Cowan, asked.

‘And if I am?' Nancy said, looking squarely at him.

‘Should you be? I wouldn't let any lass of mine anywhere near that bastard. For tuppence I'd shoot him. I've got a handgun my uncle brought back from America. We'd be well off with Berkeley dead.' Tom Cowan wrinkled his nose and parted his lips.

‘If you spit on the rug, Tom, I'll rub your nose in it,' Nancy said, and there was silence.

Tom Cowan looked at Michael. ‘You should teach your Nancy her manners.'

‘This strike's nowt to do with Nancy,' Michael said. ‘She does her job, she has two bairns to provide for. She works hard and asks for nowt, so you can all mind your own business.'

The funeral tea wasn't quite the same after that. Nancy didn't eat at the time but afterwards, when everything was washed up and put away and she had returned various plates and such to kind neighbours, she sat down by the sitting room fire with a cup of tea and a pease pudding sandwich and watched Michael playing on the rug with the children. You would have thought there was nothing the matter to look at him, she thought, no strike, no death. His face was clear of worry, his eyes were full of fun. She wondered what it would have been like if Sean had been that way.

Later he took her home, with Clarrie asleep against his shoulder and William walking by his side. For the first time, when he left her to go back home Nancy wished that he wasn't going.

‘Will you be all right in the house on your own?' she said.

Michael smiled. ‘I'll manage,' he said.

‘Thank you.'

‘For what?'

‘For sorting Tom Cowan out.'

‘He's a useless bastard,' Michael said. ‘He needs to talk. He treats their Mary like our Sean treated you. He's muck. He likes being out on strike so that he doesn't have to get up of a morning, and he can't mind his own business.'

‘Things are going to get worse, aren't they? What will I do when you and Rob really start fighting?'

Michael looked at her. ‘You like him, don't you?'

‘I think he's doing his best.'

‘There's not much more he can do then, is there?'

Nancy touched him. She wasn't given to touching people, but it was only his arm.

‘You will be all right, won't you?'

‘You just asked me that. Losing my mother was like losing my dad and Sean. It was how much it didn't matter that hurt.'

Nancy watched him as he went off down the rows, and thought that in a way it was better for him without his mother. She had cared for cleaning and Michael's wage and that was about all.

It was difficult for Nancy because she saw both sides. Around here the pitmen propped up the corner ends, while the weather stayed fine, when they hadn't much money, and at the Berkeley household things went on as usual, just as though nothing had happened. Harry, Rob and Vincent went to work.

At first there was plenty of coal, but as time went on the coal that had been stockpiled further away at the pitheads had to be moved so that the mills would work. When Rob tried to move the coal from the Diamond pit, which was the nearest to the town, the miners pelted those responsible
with stones and other missiles until they retreated. Vincent was inclined to call the police. Rob had to stop him.

Back at the Berkeley house Nancy bathed a cut under Rob's eye.

‘You were lucky,' she said. ‘Just a bit higher and you could have been in serious trouble.'

‘I am in serious trouble, Nancy. You should be at home. I'll take you back.'

‘Indeed you will not. You're not safe down the rows.'

As she spoke there was a blinding crash and a brick came through the kitchen window. Rob grabbed Nancy and pulled her well out of the way back into the safety of the corner where nothing could touch them. He held her there against him, tight in his arms, his hand on the back of her head against her hair, pressing her near as though he thought she might be frightened. Nancy wasn't, she was too disconcerted. She hadn't been that close to a man since Sean had died. She thought she could feel his heartbeat. They stood listening to the noise, as other bricks followed through other windows. Luckily, Nancy thought, Mrs Berkeley and Mr and Mrs Shaw were at the Normans' so there was only Harry to be considered. She could hear him shout from the sitting room, ‘Are you all right in there?'

‘We're fine,' Rob shouted back.

‘I'll help clear up,' Nancy said, moving away from him.

‘No, you won't. We'll do it. Stay there.'

Nancy stayed in the kitchen while Rob and Harry cleared up around her and in the other rooms. It was blowing a gale, and a cool dark night, and they spent a lot of time boarding up the windows as best they could without going outside. It was a strange feeling being trapped there.

‘Where are the children?' Rob asked her.

‘They're with Vera.'

‘You should stay, Nancy. It might not even be safe on the streets for you. People know that you work here. Their mood isn't good. Will Vera understand?'

‘I'm sure she will.'

They sat over the fire. The others didn't come back so they must have known what the problem was and not dared cross the street.

‘I should have had the sense to send you home before now,' Rob said, ‘days ago.'

‘I didn't want to do that,' Nancy said stoutly.

‘Would you like a drink?' Harry offered.

‘A drop of whisky would be nice.'

‘I couldn't agree more.'

In the morning when the streets were clear Vincent took Nancy home. He left her at the end of the row, but when she reached her yard, people had been busy there too. Her windows were smashed, the door was kicked in and the furniture which had been Alice McFadden's, some of it quite good, was broken. The crockery was in pieces on the floor, even the few toys which the children had. Their clothes had been torn, the food in the kitchen had been thrown around. Some of it was stuck to the walls and the floor. There was not a single thing left untouched. As Nancy stood there she heard a noise behind her, but it was only Vera. The tears were big in her eyes.

‘Michael came and took the bairns,' she said. ‘He's expecting you. I'll come with you.'

‘No, really, I'll be fine,' Nancy said, but Vera went with her anyhow.

She was conscious of being watched but nobody did anything, though she thought she heard whispers like ‘blackleg'. The children ran down the yard to meet her. Vera left her. Nancy went into the house with them. Michael was in the kitchen.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘there was nothing I could do.'

He had got rid of most of the furniture in his house, thinking that he would not be there long. All he had were the basics.

Michael had fed the children. They played happily
enough by the fire as rain began to pour down the windows.

‘You've got to stop this,' Nancy said. ‘Somebody will get badly hurt.'

‘How can I stop it? I'm only one person.'

There was not much food in the house.

‘I'll have to go to the shops.'

‘No, you can't,' he said quickly.

‘Somebody will have to go.'

‘I'll go.'

‘You can't go shopping.'

‘I'll have to. We can't both go, somebody has to be here for the bairns.'

Nancy made him a list and he went but after last night - after the broken windows, the darkness, the fear of not knowing what would happen next - and the morning, discovering her own house, Nancy could not be easy until he came back. He was not long, she knew he was aware that she was frightened.