Shelter from the Storm (31 page)

‘And my mother thought so too?’

‘Why, yes. I think women all do. Your father was a nice enough man in his way. You’re very like him. He didn’t drink in those days. He thought he could hold her in this forsaken place. She deserved better. She was beautiful like my Luisa. All he wanted was the pit and the people and to look after things, but I always thought she wanted a lot more than he could give her.’

‘They were never happy?’

‘I wouldn’t say never. Unlike Luisa she didn’t realise until after they were married how dull it would be. It was easier for me with Thaddeus. He always tried so hard with the right people. Your father was not one for society. Luisa is so like your mother. She always hankered after cities and travel and …’

‘Money?’

‘She was a very beautiful girl. She could have had anybody, I knew that.’

‘You didn’t want her to throw herself away.’

‘Oh, I knew she wouldn’t. All George needed was a little encouragement.’

‘You thought she could be happy?’

‘Happiness is elusive. We did the best we could for her.’

Luisa danced and danced. Joe longed to have her to himself even for just a few seconds, but she was always surrounded by other people, and George McAndrew watched her every moment.

‘Will I see you?’ he couldn’t help but ask before he left.

‘Why yes, of course. You’re invited to Christmas dinner, so my mother tells me,’ she said.

*

Joe had not been long in the office on Monday morning when he had a visitor. He had not quite yet, by his own estimates, turned
into his father, but he was beginning to understand how women drove men mad. He wanted Luisa in his arms. He couldn’t think, eat, sleep, work. The time without her was a torment. Therefore when her husband was announced in the outer office he could not think what George might want and he could not be easy.

He tried affability, smiling. McAndrew was a big smiler. It was the worst kind of smile. It meant nothing, least of all civility. He offered a seat. It was a good seat, a big armchair with a tall back, and made George look like a gnome.

‘I had to see you. There is something I particularly wish to discuss with you.’

‘Really?’ Joe said, sitting back in his chair across the desk. He was glad of the desk between them.

‘I don’t know how to put this delicately, Mr Forster, but it seemed polite to tell you. My wife is …
enceinte.’

Joe had to hold himself in the chair and maintain the indifferent look on his face.

‘That’s nice for you,’ he said.

‘Yes. It’s what we hoped for, dreamed of. You see, I have long wanted an heir. I doubt you would understand but a man in my position needs a son.’

‘Yes?’ Joe said politely.

‘You think I’m foolish.’

‘I would never think that.’

‘I think you have.’ George McAndrew looked at Joe in such a way that it turned his stomach. ‘You seemed to think that you could — what is the polite term for this? — bed my wife without my noticing. You bedded her in Berwick, Alnwick, even Newcastle. How very dangerous. I’m told the danger adds a certain piquancy to these things, that and the fact that you did it under my very nose.’

‘Who told you this?’

George McAndrew laughed.

‘Nobody told me. I knew all the time. You have supplied me with an heir. I am in your debt.’

Joe couldn’t think of a thing to say. He just looked.

‘There is no point in protesting your love. I’m quite sure that you love Luisa very much, I saw the devoted way in which you looked at her on Saturday evening, but she is my wife. She cares too much for wealth and position to leave me and you will have no claim on the child. She chose to marry me and I must ask you to leave her alone now. If you fail me in this matter I will take steps to ensure that you follow my wishes.’

He left. Joe didn’t get up or see him out.

*

That night, when Dryden was playing dominoes in the Golden Lion, Joe walked in. The men fell silent immediately. It was an unwritten rule that the pit-owner did not frequent the same pubs as the men, and Dryden was sure that Joe knew that. He believed that Joe had hardly ever been in a pub anyway because of his father being a drunk. He hadn’t seen Joe take a drink at all. Maybe if he had Joe would have had sufficient sense to know that he could go into the Station Hotel, where the farmers drank, or one or two other places, most especially the Brown Horse just beyond the village where the local professional people went to drink, the doctors and the solicitors. Joe had rescued Dryden from pubs in the village more than once, so he should have known, but he walked straight up to the bar without acknowledging anybody. The men who were in were all foundry workers or pitmen so they were all employed by him and he knew every one of them by name. It was a bad sign all round, Dryden thought.

He watched Joe approach the bar. He ordered brandy, you could hear it. Another unwritten rule was that you drank beer. Real men drank nothing else. Brandy was for visitors, people who were ill and drunks. Joe downed the first one and coughed and ordered another, and then he got that down in a very short time. Dryden finished his game and got up and wandered across. There was a big space around Joe, purely from politeness; the men couldn’t drink with him.

‘Mr Forster,’ Dryden greeted him.

‘Dryden!’ Joe said cheerfully.

‘You on the road home, then?’

‘Not exactly.’ Joe finished the second brandy and ordered a third. The landlord didn’t say a word. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve got one. You want to go easy with that stuff,’ he advised quietly.

‘My father used to get through a lot of it.’

‘Yes, well, it didn’t do him any good. Maybe that should be the last,’ Dryden said.

Joe eyed it.

‘Yes, but it was years and years, you know, not just … not just the odd one.’

‘It gets hold of people.’

‘Something should, don’t you think?’ Joe said.

‘What?’

‘Get hold of people. Things should matter. They should.’

Joe downed the third. The landlord hadn’t even had a chance to move away. Joe pointed at the glass.

‘Shall I just leave the bottle, Mr Forster?’

‘No!’ Dryden said.

‘Yes,’ Joe said, reaching for it.

‘Look, why don’t I see you home?’

‘I don’t want to go home. It’s quiet. It’s very quiet, you know. My parents are both dead.’

‘Why don’t you come home with me? My house is anything but quiet.’

Joe looked at him.

‘Your wife,’ he said.

‘Yes. My wife.’

‘And Vinia. Vinia is … she’s lovely.’

Dryden thought by the silence in the rest of the pub that it was definitely time to leave. Joe wouldn’t go without the bottle, so Dryden paid for it and manoeuvred him outside. It was freezing. Joe wavered slightly. They began to walk up the bank
towards the corner that led to Dryden’s house, Joe stopping from time to time and taking large swigs from the bottle.

‘Your wife is lovely. Do you know that I once asked her to run away with me?’

‘She was a bloody fool not to.’

Joe eyed him.

‘Do you think she was?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I thought I loved her. Do you love her?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think so,’ Joe said. He stopped. ‘I have done something very stupid.’

‘Everybody does eventually.’

‘No, really stupid.’

Joe slid down the wall. Luckily there was a wall to slide down. It belonged to the bank, banks being the kind of institution that can afford walls. It was a good wall, well built, and had a tree behind it, the kind of tree that looks good even naked in winter and jagged with frost. Joe took the bottle in both hands.

‘This is nice,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise it was so nice or I would have started sooner.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Dryden said, getting down beside him. ‘Remember your dad.’

‘Did you know that my mother wanted more?’

‘Did she? That’s women all over.’

‘She drove him to drink.’

Dryden took the bottle from him and sat down and took a swig, more for the cold than anything else. At least there would be less for Joe to drink, though there was a surprising amount left. He hadn’t ever had much brandy. It was expensive stuff but it was nice. It had about it a sweetness that defied its effect. It caught nicely at your throat as it made its way down and then it went all warm and encouraged you to have some more, rather like Joe’s mother.

‘What more did she want?’

Joe waved a hand.

‘Everything,’ he said. ‘McAndrew gave Luisa everything except …’

‘Except what?’

‘Except what mattered. He didn’t give her anything that mattered.’

‘Maybe she didn’t want it.’

‘Do you think not? Maybe you’re right.’ Joe took the bottle from him. ‘Do you think there’s really more than this?’ He swept a hand at the clear black sky and the bright silver stars.

‘Aye, I do. A warm fire at my house. Howay.’ Dryden got up and pulled him to his feet.

Joe hesitated, and then he looked clearly at Dryden.

‘She’s having a baby,’ he said. ‘Mine.’

‘Why don’t you run away with her?’

‘I’ve tried that before — with your wife.’

‘Howay,’ Dryden said again.

By the time they got up to the top of the hill towards Prince Row and the pit, Joe couldn’t have got anywhere without Dryden. Dryden managed to get him as far as the house and then inside. Esther Margaret and Vinia were both in the kitchen. Esther Margaret put down the sewing she was doing and Vinia stopped sketching. They ran across.

‘What’s happened?’ Vinia said.

‘Nothing. He’s drunk.’

‘But he doesn’t drink,’ Esther Margaret said as Dryden let Joe down gently on to the sofa.

‘He’s forgotten.’ Dryden put the bottle on the table.

‘I’ll light the fire in the front room. He’ll be more comfortable there when it warms up,’ Vinia said.

Esther Margaret looked disapprovingly at Joe.

‘Did you have to bring him here?’

‘What else was I supposed to do? Let him pass out in the pub with all his workmen there?’

Esther Margaret stared at Joe, and then she went stamping up to bed and left Vinia to put a pillow at Joe’s head and a thick rug around him. Dryden took off his boots.

‘There’s more to it, isn’t there?’ Vinia said.

‘Mrs McAndrew is having his bairn.’

‘Oh God.’ Vinia tucked the blanket in tenderly at Joe’s neck. ‘She came to the shop and bought two hats. She’s so … what my mother used to call brazen.’

*

When Joe came round it was light and he felt as if somebody was sitting on his head and his stomach was going round and round. Vinia came into view.

‘How are you?’

Joe buried his face in the pillow.

‘I’ve put clean sheets on the bed in the front room. You can stay there if you want to.’

‘I have to go to work.’

He sat up slowly and then wished he hadn’t.

‘I don’t think you’re going anywhere,’ Vinia advised. ‘There’s a jug of water and a glass.’

Joe tried to get up and realised that she was talking sense, but he struggled against it.

‘I have to go.’

‘I’m sure it’ll survive a few hours without you.’

He decided she was right and practically crawled up the stairs. The bed was soft and smelled of soap and was quiet. Joe shed his clothes and climbed in gratefully. From time to time after that he awoke and took a few sips of water and then went in and out of dreams about Luisa, running, hiding, him pleading with her, seeing George McAndrew’s face behind every tree. His head spun at first but gradually slowed down and the sick feeling left him, until after a long time, by what he considered to be early afternoon, he fell into natural sleep, and it was like a cool bath, peaceful and dreamless. He became aware of somebody in the
room, and when he opened his eyes Vinia was standing by the bed.

‘I’ve got Mrs McAndrew at the shop. She wants to see you.’

Joe turned over away from her.

‘I can find you a clean shirt,’ she offered.

*

Esther Margaret had insisted on being at the shop. She said she didn’t want to be left alone with Joe and anyway Vinia liked the way she dealt with the customers, so she left Esther Margaret and went into the back with Em. They had been asked to do several alterations and the doctor’s wife had ordered a dress that morning. Vinia was happy. She had spent some time working out what the woman wanted, making suggestions and sketches, and when the doctor’s wife had left she was pleased with her ideas. She was planning to go into Bishop Auckland that afternoon and find material, and then a carriage pulled up in front of the shop and Luisa McAndrew got out. Everybody in the whole village would know within an hour, Vinia thought. Couldn’t she have left it somewhere and walked up the back road or something, because although she pretended interest in the shop, Vinia knew instantly that Luisa was not there to buy clothes. She walked about nervously and, ignoring Esther Margaret, went with Vinia into the back and said in a furious whisper, ‘I must see Mr Forster.’

‘The pit’s the place for that,’ Vinia said, thinking of Joe asleep in her bed.

‘I can’t go to the pit. He’ll come to the house otherwise, I know he will, and George is there and my parents. Please help me. If he could come here …’

‘What on earth would you want with Mr Forster?’ Vinia said.

Luisa didn’t answer. She stuck her hands into her muff and her head came down so far that Vinia could see the top of a very well-made blue hat, all done with velvet. It was very pretty.

*

Joe, left alone with clean clothes, washed and dressed and made his way slowly out of the house. It was almost teatime. The men had not come off shift and most of the women, having done their shopping, were at home preparing the tea, so there were not many people about, nobody to wonder what the pit-owner was doing not in his office. He took the back street to the shop and opened the gate and came up the yard. He opened the back door and let himself in. Luisa was alone in the back room. He thought Vinia very organised to have managed such a thing.

Luisa had never looked more beautiful or less his, so richly dressed, with a diamond on her finger and her eyes like blue jewels. He thought of the hotels where they had stayed, of her body naked and in his arms, of her laughter and the way that she looked when she slept, of how he had adored her carelessness. She came across eagerly and kissed him and told him that she loved him, and Joe forgot the things he had just realised and begged her to leave George.