Shelter from the Storm (11 page)

‘You want me to go there and be nice to Mr Hunter?’

‘Aye,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘Had any practice, have you? And then you go to the pit and talk to Joe Forster about a house.’

‘A house?’

‘You’ll need somewhere to live.’

In the end Dryden went to Esther Margaret’s house, but it wasn’t because of her or the baby; it was because of Tom. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing Tom so soon after finding him, and if he ran away, which was his only alternative, he would. He walked slowly up to Oaks Row and banged on the door in the middle of the evening, and when Mr Hunter himself answered it Dryden followed him into the sitting room. Dryden hadn’t been in a sitting room since he left the Harmers. His memories of it, the tiny fire that always burned there, the brown walls, being made to sit in the musty silence on sunny days while other boys went building dams in the beck in the valley and ran through the fields in game, it all came back to Dryden with a vengeance, and although this room was comfortable there were Bibles and prayer books and other religious books in the little wooden glass bookcase against the far wall. Mrs Hunter was there but Esther Margaret wasn’t. Mrs Hunter stared at him with harsh eyes and Dryden felt, as he always felt with women her age, that deep sense of hate.

‘I came to your lodgings earlier but you weren’t there,’ Mr Hunter said.

‘Our Tom took me to the pub. I’ve had Esther Margaret to see me. She says she’s expecting—’

Mrs Hunter fairly flew out of her chair and tried to hit
Dryden. He couldn’t hate her any more than he did, and he couldn’t possibly hit her back, so he just held her off carefully and waited for Mr Hunter to stop her, and when he did Dryden put up with the things she called him. They were nothing people hadn’t said to him before so he didn’t take much notice of it when she said he had come from hell to torment people, that he was the Devil’s spawn. Esther Margaret came softly into the room and she also was surprised to see him, he could tell, but not as displeased as they had been. It took Dryden everything he had, and the constant nagging in his mind of what Tom had said, in order to ask her to marry him. He didn’t want her, he didn’t like her, he couldn’t imagine how awful being married would be. He blamed her for getting him into such a mess, no other lass had done so, but Tom was right, there was no alternative.

‘Esther Margaret, look …’ He wondered if he could ask to see her on her own and then thought it was unlikely; they were going to make him do it here and now. ‘We should get married. I’m willing if you are.’

Mrs Hunter screamed and cried and Mr Hunter didn’t look at him.

‘I don’t know,’ Esther Margaret said.

Dryen was not prepared for this; he had assumed she would say yes immediately. He knew as well that Tom was right. If they didn’t get married, no matter what the reason might be, he would end up knifed. Being married to her could not be worse than that, he told himself.

‘Esther Margaret, you’re going to marry him,’ her father said, ‘for all our sakes.’

‘She can’t,’ her mother wept, ‘not him.’

*

Dryden went to the pit office the next morning and got in to see Joe Forster. They had known one another all their lives but had rarely spoken. Joe had of late spent a lot of time down the pit seeing to things, as he called it. The deputies and the men
resented him there, but Dryden thought that things had improved since Joe had been more involved and his father less so, though the older men said nothing good would come until some money was put into things, and Joe had no money. A rumour had gone round some time since that Joe was to marry a rich lass and the pit would prosper and they would go back on to full time, but he wouldn’t do it. Joe, Dryden thought, looking carefully at his employer’s son that hot summer morning, was not the sort to be shoved into anything.

There was nobody else there. It was his dad’s office, not the main one. Joe used to work in the main office with the clerks and everybody, but now that his dad didn’t come much he had moved into the little office. Dryden was glad of it, considering the embarrassing subject of his visit. He was glad also that Mr Forster wasn’t there; he was the kind of man who swore at you. If anybody did anything wrong in the old days Mr Forster used to knock them down. A lot of people had left and gone to the brickworks or the ironworks or to other pits, but times were more difficult now, there was less work about, so you couldn’t afford to leave if you had a family, and he was about to have a family. It was not a pleasant thought.

Joe closed the office door. Dryden liked that too. He couldn’t think where Joe had got his manners from. He had no mother and his father had none and it was hardly likely that Jacob Smith could teach anybody owt. He was a dirty old bugger.

‘So, what can we do for you?’ Joe said.

Dryden liked that too. Joe treated everybody alike — it didn’t matter that the rest of the village thought you were muck. All Joe cared about was how you did your work. You were looked after fairly even though things weren’t going well. Dryden didn’t know how to put it.

‘I just wondered, like, Mr Forster, if you had a house free?’

‘A house?’

‘Aye.’

Joe stared. He stared for such a long time that Dryden was inclined to think Joe’s manners had completely left him.

‘Are you getting married?’ he said, and his voice was sort of hard and flat and his eyes took on a look that would have made Dryden back off if he had been the backing-off kind of person. It wasn’t polite to ask questions; it was an unwritten rule between the pit-owner and the men that you didn’t ask anybody owt that wasn’t to do with work.

‘Aye,’ Dryden said.

‘And who’s the lucky lady?’

Dryden wondered whether Joe would sack him if he didn’t answer the question. It would look like cheek. He didn’t think Joe was like that but he couldn’t afford to take the risk.

‘Esther Margaret Hunter,’ he said softly.

Joe looked at him as if he were filth. Dryden was used to it, expected it, but it didn’t make it any easier because Joe wasn’t given to judging people. The quiet after that went on and on, but Dryden wasn’t going to break it because he had the feeling that if he did Joe would break him somehow or other. He just stood there and waited, making himself not shift around like he was inclined to. He wanted to tell Joe that he didn’t want to marry her, hadn’t intended getting her into trouble, it had happened like that. It was not as if he had had to persuade her into it, talk to her nice and slow and gentle. Esther Margaret had been easy, that was the truth of it. He didn’t know why, just that something had been wrong to begin with and it had carried on from there. He lowered his eyes and stood and waited until the quiet was like a great big river between them.

‘What if I don’t have a house?’ Joe said.

Dryden knew the name of this game, had had it played against him since he was a child. He looked up and Joe’s eyes were full of contempt.

‘Have you got one?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.’

‘You could look,’ Dryden said.

Joe glanced at the door and then he shouted, ‘Riley! Bring me the housing book.’

He could hear rustling outside while the clerk found the appropriate book and then he came into the office and went back out again and Joe spent a long time perusing the book and then he gave a little smile.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said, ‘I have got a house. Mr Price’s house in Prince Row. He died a couple of weeks ago and his son’s moved out.’

Dryden knew the house, it was two doors down from where Alf and Mary Cameron lived.

‘I can’t go and live there,’ he said. ‘Have you got another house, Mr Forster? Anywhere else would do.’

Joe closed the book.

‘No,’ he said.

*

The bridegroom was drunk at the wedding. Vinia was disgusted but not very surprised. Tom practically had to carry Dryden into the church and let him lean all over him during the short service. There were just the four of them; even Esther Margaret’s mother and father weren’t there. Vinia was convinced that the last time Dryden had been in a church was before he left the Harmers’. Esther Margaret’s face was marked with dried tears, her eyes huge and disbelieving. Tom was inclined to think it funny. Tom’s parents didn’t think it very funny that Dryden and Esther Margaret would be living two doors away. Mary had complained loudly.

‘You could have had that house. It’s a much better house than the one you have, it has two rooms downstairs. Do you think I want that lad living near us after what he’s done?’

If Dryden had been the kind of lad you felt sorry for Vinia would have felt sorry for him, but he wasn’t and she didn’t and she hated the way he was so drunk. They had nothing, no
furniture and no money to get any, so Tom had gone off to the salerooms in Crook and come back with a bed, a table and chairs and a settee. Vinia wanted nothing to do with any of it but Esther Margaret kept turning up at her house, crying. Vinia assumed it was something more Dryden had done, but Esther Margaret shook her head.

‘He hasn’t done anything,’ she said, sighing and sitting down by the fire. It was early evening and Tom was at the pub. ‘He doesn’t want me, that’s all. He doesn’t want me and he doesn’t love me. What place is that to start from?’

‘You don’t love him either,’ Vinia pointed out.

‘Who could love him?’ Esther Margaret looked into the fire as though it might give out extra warmth if she did. ‘He frightens me. People hate him. They’ll hate me after this.’

‘No, they won’t.’

‘They won’t speak to me any more.’

‘Tom and I will.’

‘I don’t think I can bear it.’

‘It’s too late for that. You don’t have any choice.’

She had thought Esther Margaret was going to pass out in the church but she didn’t, though she went very white and swayed. When the ceremony was over Tom was still propping Dryden up and had to walk him all the way back down the church lane and up the bank towards Prince Row. Vinia thought that the fresh air might have helped, but when they were inside the house Tom let Dryden slip down on to the settee and he didn’t wake up.

‘You’re not going to leave me with him,’ Esther Margaret begged, and clutched at Vinia’s sleeve.

‘Are you coming, Vinny?’ Tom called from the door.

Vinia looked at the length of Dryden stretched out on the settee.

‘I doubt he’ll wake up until tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you make yourself a nice cup of tea?’

‘Stay and have one with me.’

‘I’ve got a meal to make for Tom before he goes out to the pub.’

‘Vinny, are you coming?’ Tom called, louder, from outside.

Vinia left Esther Margaret and went after him, walking fast to keep up with his long-legged strides as he set off down the back lane.

*

Vinia was wrong about Dryden sleeping until the following morning. Round about eight o’clock he began to wake up. He didn’t speak, he lay not moving for about ten minutes, and then he got up, and when Esther Margaret was about to offer him tea because Tom and Vinia had bought them a teapot and crockery from the market as a wedding present he collected his jacket and walked out. He slammed the door after him. The late evening sunshine poured into the house, showing up the bareness of the rooms, the places where the wallpaper was peeling off. Esther Margaret had never felt quite so alone. All she wanted to do was go home. There was nothing to do, nobody to talk to. There wasn’t a book in the house, she couldn’t go anywhere. The last thing her mother had said before she left was, ‘Don’t think you’re bringing that lad here, and we won’t be visiting.’ They had let her take her clothes and nothing more. There had been no wedding present; they did not ask about the house or whether she had anything she needed to set up home. They had not and would not forgive her. She could not go to Vinia’s, even though Tom would be at the pub by now and Vinia would be alone. Vinia had done enough for one day.

Esther Margaret was very tired and went up the stairs to bed. There was nothing in the room but the bed and a chair which they had brought up from the kitchen. She lay there with the curtains open. Vinia had insisted on having curtains in there. She cried herself to sleep.

She awoke in the darkness when Dryden came home and lay
there, holding her breath. She didn’t understand why she was afraid of him. He didn’t love her, it was true, but he had shown no violence towards her, he hadn’t even shouted. She didn’t know what his voice sounded like except when soft and even. Her parents had shouted, her mother had wailed, her father had not even offered to take her to the church to be married, the church she had attended for as long as she could remember. She had imagined being married there, the happiness, the friends, her mother and father proud of her, a home, a husband, the prospect of a future.

Dryden didn’t fall over any furniture simply because they hadn’t any, but he was obviously drunk for the second time that day. He pulled off his clothes and lay down and passed out. After that Esther Margaret couldn’t sleep. Being in bed with a man like this was new and nothing like her only experience of such things, the day that she and Dryden had been together for the first time. He had held her; it had been pleasurable and exciting. She lay there, listening to his steady breathing, aware of his naked body. He was turned away so it could hardly have been threatening, but she couldn’t sleep. As the light began to come up again in the very early morning Dryden’s smooth brown body was visible above the bedclothes.

She got up and put on the fire and the kettle so that when he finally did open his eyes she could offer him tea. Dryden looked hard at her, as though he had forgotten her existence, and then he said, ‘That would be nice,’ and rolled over again.

When she brought the tea, however, he sat up and accepted it. Esther Margaret sat down on the edge of the bed. Dryden regarded her intently.

‘Do you still fancy me?’ he said.

‘I don’t love you.’ Esther Margaret didn’t look at him.

‘I don’t care much about you either but I fancy you.’

‘Dryden—’

Esther Margaret backed away. She had imagined him doing a great many evil things. She had not imagined him inviting his
wife into bed. She shook her head and then for seconds together she imagined him forcing her, and she backed off even more. Dryden went on looking at her until her actions answered his question and then he drank his tea and lay back down, rolled over and went to sleep.