It was a long speech for Ruth and had the added advantage of being the truth, and now, as Polly saw Luke was hesitating, she added, ‘They come down from the cow byres and calf pens mostly, but the odd one lives in here an’ all. I
hate
rats.’
‘Aye.’ Luke still wasn’t totally convinced. ‘Especially the two-legged kind.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Arnold’s righteous indignation was more forceful now he knew Polly wasn’t going to give him away. ‘Always having a go about something or other, you are.’
‘And there’s usually just cause.’
‘Aye, well, there’s not today.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Oh, for cryin’ out loud!’ Arnold shook his head, and no one looking at him would have guessed his irritation was feigned. ‘What are we wasting time for? It’s a right bonny day and I’m for the river. You told ’em what we’ve brought the day?’ And as Luke shook his head, Arnold turned to the others, a smile on his face, and said, ‘Bandy nets. Thought we’d try for some tiddlers.’
‘Bandy nets?’ Ruth was jumping up and down in her excitement. ‘Where are they?’
‘Down by the wall in the lane.’ It was Michael speaking now and his eyes were on Polly. ‘We thought it’d be a surprise, and you can keep them here so we can use them again.’
‘Come on then.’ Arnold turned and walked out of the barn, and as the others followed him, Michael caught hold of Polly’s hand once more and said in a low undertone, ‘Are you all right, Poll? Really?’
His concern and the feel of his fingers holding hers made Polly’s voice light as she said, ‘Aye, I’m fine,’ and she was – now. But she’d make sure she was never alone with Arnold again. He would have kept trying to kiss her if Luke hadn’t called, and she knew she’d have bruises on her shoulders tomorrow from where his hands had gripped her flesh.
The sun was beating down out of a cloudless blue sky as the five of them picked up the nets and climbed over the wall, and in spite of the way her stomach was still churning, Polly’s spirits lifted. Everything was so much better when the sun shone.
She and Ruth could get up early tomorrow and have the weekly wash soaking in the poss tub before breakfast, and out drying over the thorn hedge skirting the field sides once the sun was really up. The worst job was wringing out the sheets and towels – they always made her hands ache for ages afterwards – but even that didn’t seem so bad when the sun was shining. They had a mangle in the scullery at Stone Farm. That must be wonderful, a mangle. Still, with a bit of luck she’d have everything dried and damped down and ready for ironing by tea-time tomorrow – that’d please her granny. She gave a little skip, the incident in the barn fading to the back of her mind as the afternoon regained its normality.
Once at the stream, Luke and Arnold followed the flowing water some way until they came to the point where it joined another inlet and the whole widened into quite a substantial river. Michael had been holding back a little, his hand still clasping Polly’s, but now, as Luke and Arnold took off their black hobnailed boots and then their socks before rolling up their trouser legs, they called to him to join them on the large rocks, the tops of which formed stepping stones across the river just in front of the really deep water.
As Michael turned to Polly she answered the unspoken request on his face with a smile. ‘Go on, you go. Me an’ Ruth’ll plodge.’
Once the lads were in the middle of the river, casting their nets, the two girls sat down on the thick grass and unbuttoned their boots before rolling down their black stockings and slipping their garters into their pinafore pockets. Ruth said nothing whilst they did this, and after a moment or two Polly glanced at her sister’s sulky face. ‘What’s the matter?’ Her voice was resigned. Ruth was in a tear about something. She knew the signs.
‘Nothin’.’
‘Yes there is. You look as if you’ve lost a penny an’ found a farthin’.’
Ruth shrugged. She was fed up with everyone making up to their Polly, and they did. They did. Sun shone out of her backside, as Nellie Cook at school would say. All that fuss in the barn and all she’d done was to drop her plate; if Ruth had dropped hers she’d have got wrong for it, not all that attention. And Michael, Michael liked Polly better than her, she knew he did. He was always talking nice to her and sitting near her, and look at today – him holding Polly’s hand and everything.
‘Come on.’ Polly had scrambled to her feet and was holding out her hand, but Ruth ignored her. ‘Come on, Ruth. It’ll be fun fishin’ with our nets. Oh, don’t be mardy, not today.’
Ruth looked up then. There had been a catch in her sister’s voice as though she was upset about something, but when Polly smiled at her and held out the bandy net, Ruth decided she must be mistaken. Anyway, what could Polly be upset about? Ruth asked herself bitterly. Everyone was always falling over backwards to be nice to Polly. Nevertheless, she too rose to her feet and took the net Polly proffered, saying mutinously, ‘I’m going on the whale’s teeth’ – their nickname for the stepping stones – ‘with the lads.’
‘You mustn’t, you know you mustn’t; they can swim and we can’t, and it’s deep one side. We’ve promised Gran—’
‘I’m going an’ you can’t stop me, you’re not Gran.’ And as Polly reached out to take her arm, Ruth darted away defiantly.
Polly followed her sister to the edge of the bank. She knew it was quite deep even on the shallower side of the whale’s teeth – when Michael had fallen off into the water the year before, it had come up to his shoulders – but the other side fell away in a sharp downward slope and looked murky and dark. So now, as Ruth went to put a tentative foot on the first rock, over which the water frothed now and again, Polly yanked her back with enough force to make her cry out. ‘Don’t you dare, Ruth. I’ll tell Gran and Da’ll skin you, you know he will.’
‘Oh, you! Tellypie tit, your tongue will split an’ all the little dicky birds’ll have a little bit.’ Ruth sang the rhyme tauntingly, her body bent forwards towards her sister and her neck stretched out. ‘I’m not scared.’
‘Well, you should be,’ Polly shot back. ‘Remember Clara Ramshaw? She drowned at Farrington burn an’ her da an’ her brothers were there but she dropped like a stone, her da said, an’ by the time they got her out she was dead.’
Ruth was silent for a moment. Clara had been in her class at school and her death had shocked everyone. ‘Oh, you, you spoil everythin’.’ But it was weaker and Polly, satisfied that her sister wasn’t about to launch herself on the slippery rocks to impress the lads, continued to walk along the bank a little way more to where the water wasn’t swirling quite so much. If they were going to catch anything in their nets it was more likely to be here, in this deep water away from the rocks and the noise the lads were making. She glanced behind her once and saw Ruth was following her, her face still querulous.
Polly sighed, and then called over her shoulder as she bent to skim her net through the water, her voice both laughing and conciliatory, ‘Come on, kiddar. It’s too nice a day to be moany. Come an’ see what you can catch.’
Kiddar.
They all thought of her as just a bairn, and Polly always made out she was miles and miles older than her instead of just three years. And she was fed up with Polly telling her what she could and couldn’t do.
Ruth was never really sure afterwards if she meant to push Polly into the fast-flowing river or just frighten her sister, but the end result was Polly seeming to hover in the air for a second as she gave one shrill, terrified scream, and then disappearing under the surging flow in a flurry of arms and legs and spray. And then Ruth was screaming herself and the lads were shouting, and Luke gave her an almighty shove backwards as he leapt into the river exactly where Polly had gone down. Ruth landed with such a bump it knocked all the wind out of her and she lay gasping but silent, listening to the voices above her head but unable to respond.
When Polly felt the waters close over her head her mouth was still open in a scream and she immediately took a great mouthful of the river before she knew what she was doing. It filled her airways and her eyes and ears as she sank – like Clara, like Clara had done at Farrington burn, her mind screamed. But then she felt her feet land on the river bed, and weeds and other things wrapped round her legs and she kicked out furiously, putting all her strength in aiming for the light she could see far above as she thrashed wildly with her arms.
She was aware the current was carrying her along and that its pull was aiming to keep her under, but she fought against it with all her might, her lungs beginning to ache as she held her breath. And then her head broke the surface of the fast-moving water and she managed to gulp a breath before she felt herself submerged again, and terror like she had never felt before gripped her.
It could only have been a second or two later that she felt her hair being torn out by its roots, the pain forcing her to open her mouth in a cry that made her swallow more water. But then she could breathe air again and her face was staring into Luke’s contorted features, whereupon she flung her arms round his neck in a stranglehold that threatened to drown them both.
‘Let go, Polly! You have to let go. I’ve got you, I won’t let you slip. Trust me.’
It was the hardest thing she had ever done, to follow his instructions and relax her hold sufficiently for Luke to turn her round against his chest, and her eyes were wide with fear as he struck out for the bank with one arm, towing her body behind him. And then she felt other hands reach down and grasp her, and she realised Luke had reached the edge of the embankment and Arnold and Michael were kneeling there waiting to help.
As she was hoisted to safety, Polly felt herself enfolded into Michael’s arms as Arnold heaved his brother on to dry land, but she was too spent to say anything, as was Luke.
‘Polly, oh, Poll. Poll ...’ Michael was murmuring her name over and over as he cradled her in his thin arms, his legs either side of her limp, water-soaked form and his arms tight round her as he endeavoured to stop her shaking with the warmth of his slight body.
She was covered in mud from being dragged up the bank; her granny would go mad when she saw the state of her Sunday dress and pinny. Polly was aware of the thought at the same time as her senses sucked in the heat of the sun, the smell of the warm grass and wild flowers dotting the riverbank and the twittering of the birds in the trees surrounding the water, who were blissfully unaware of the drama which had been enacted beneath them.
She raised her head to see Luke kneeling on the grass a yard or two away. He looked strange; he, too, was covered in mud and gunge, and there were bits of twig and more mud causing his wet hair to stick out at all angles. And then everything began to recede and she felt sick, and she rolled out of Michael’s hold as the nausea overcame her and her stomach rebelled against the river water she’d swallowed.
‘Polly?’ When she eventually pulled herself into a sitting position, Ruth was crouched at the side of her, and her sister’s face was ashen. ‘I slipped, Polly.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ said Michael, who had stripped off his shirt and now wrapped it round Polly’s shivering body. ‘No, it isn’t all right. You don’t act the cuddy near water, you know that as well as anyone, Ruth. You could’ve drowned her.’
He looked into Polly’s dirt-smeared face, in which her teeth were chattering so hard they could all hear it, and she managed a small, reassuring smile when she saw the expression in his eyes. He’d looked at her like that a few times since that time at the stream nearly a year ago, but never so long or so openly. ‘You look like a stranded little mudlark nymph,’ he said very softly, his narrow, thin chest rising and falling with the force of his emotion.
And then, as their shared glance became absorbing, shutting out everyone and everything else and making them oblivious to the three pair of eyes watching them, it was Arnold’s voice that broke the bubble as he said sharply to Ruth, ‘You oughta be whipped to within an inch of your life, you.’ His eyes had left Polly and Michael and were now glaring at the younger girl, and they resembled cold black chips of the coal he worked. ‘You’ll be in for a leathering tonight if I have anything to do with it.’
‘No, no, she couldn’t help it. You heard her, she slipped.’ Polly struggled to her feet as she spoke, walking across to Luke, who had also just risen to his feet as she said, ‘Thank you, Luke. Oh, thank you.’ She took his cold hands in her equally cold ones. ‘I wouldn’t have got out of there without you, I know I wouldn’t. You saved me.’
Luke stared at her for a moment. He was as aware as his brother had been of all that had passed between Polly and Michael, and for a moment the pain in his heart said, Oh, aye, I saved you all right, and it looks like it was for Michael. But then the bitterness was gone as the rational side of him added, Well? Wouldn’t you do the same again without thinking about it? Aye, aye, he would, by, he would. ‘I’ve never understood why lasses are discouraged from learning to swim.’ He smiled at her, allowing himself a brief touch of her face before he added, the smile turning into a grin, ‘Just give me a bit of notice the next time you decide to take a dip, eh?’
‘Oh, Luke.’ For a moment Polly leant against this big brother of hers – as she’d always thought of him. It seemed natural somehow that Luke had been the first to see the danger and dive into the water; he was like that. He might go on a bit about the unions and politics and education for the working classes and all, but there was something about this tall, big-shouldered miner that made you feel safe. You could walk into the worst of situations with Luke beside you and not be afraid.