Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘What’s the matter now… you brought a funeral in with you? All standin’ round like a lot of stuffed dummies.’

  Her greeting returned the atmosphere to something of normality. Florrie began ladling out portions of sauce-covered tripe and onions, and in the middle of each plate Linda placed a diamond of toast, before carrying it to the table where Gran and Frankie were already seated. As Linda placed the plate in front of her grannie, the old lady offered no word of thanks but turned her eagle eye on her grandson and asked abruptly, ‘What’s up with you? Sickening for somethin’?’

  Frankie brought his gaze from his father, who stood at the sink, back turned, methodically washing his hands, and answered, ‘No. What makes you think that?’

  ‘Bein’ in the room nearly three minutes and I haven’t heard you open your mouth.’

  ‘Coo!’

  ‘Coo’ was an exclamation that Frankie resorted to when things got beyond him, and this was such a moment. Picking up his knife and fork he attacked his high tea, only to bolt his first mouthful as his father’s voice hit him with the expressive word, ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Yes, Dad… Aye.’

  ‘So am I.’ John sat down at the head of the table and Florrie, whipping off her apron, joined them.

  John said, ‘Now.’ Whether he was going to add ‘We can start’, or had been about to further surprise his family with a wordy sentence, is a matter of conjecture, for his mother at this point raised a bony, blue-veined finger and cried, ‘Ready, set… go.’ Her chin moved twice, once up and once down before she continued, ‘Since when did we start to eat to order? Now,’ she mimicked her son, then repeated again, ‘Now.’

  John levelled his gaze at her with anything but filial love.

  ‘Now, Gran, get on with your tea, do,’ said Florrie in a soothing tone, as she pushed the cruet towards her mother-in-law. ‘And you, Frankie, if you’re in a hurry to eat, get on with it an’ all.’

  ‘But, Mam…’

  ‘No “but Mam”s. Get on with your tea.’

  They all began to eat and as the meal went on and the silence became more constrained, Florrie found that the tripe, tender as it was, was sticking in her throat. There was something up with John. She had noticed it from the moment he came in the door. His face had looked different but she hadn’t realised it fully until he had spoken.

  Florrie loved her husband; at one time she had worshipped him, but now the emotion held no ethereal quality, it was settled on the solid basis of understanding. This love, had it been evident to her family, would have amazed them, but then she knew things about her husband that they were unaware of, things that evoked admiration, things that no one, no one but herself could give him credit for. She alone knew the character of John Gascoigne. It was this knowledge that made her so patient with his mother.

  Sometimes she thought that his feelings for his mother had passed from mere dislike into hate and this worried and upset her, for she had the old-fashioned idea that no one could hate their parents without sinning deeply. But she knew it was almost an impossibility to find a likeable trait in old Mrs Gascoigne. And yet… This ‘and yet’ presented itself to her from time to time, for she thought that if the old woman had it in her to care for anyone it was for Florrie herself. And this suspicion of warmth in her mother-in-law helped Florrie to keep applying the soothing oil of patience to her, and also to the unlucky member of the family who was unfortunate enough to be under her attack.

  Florrie’s pondering over the sudden change in her husband was abruptly checked by the kitchen door opening and the head of her eldest son, Arthur, appearing round it. And not only did she turn towards it but so did everyone at the table.

  ‘You’re early, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I asked off.’

  Silence greeted this remark and Arthur, avoiding the eyes directed at him, withdrew his head into the scullery again and there, taking off his coat, he threw it over the gas boiler. Then, stepping outside the back door, but keeping under the porch so that he wouldn’t be observed by the neighbours either to the right or the left, he banged himself violently all over with his hands.

  Arthur was assistant to Mr Duckworth who had the monopoly of baker shops in Downfell Hurst—his being the only one. Moreover, Mr Duckworth lived next door, on the left side of them; moreover still, Arthur was entangled with Henry Duckworth’s only daughter, Joan. How this had come about Arthur couldn’t rightly explain. Perhaps it was the subconscious desire to be a master baker and have his own shop one day that had been the prod which had pushed him on to ask Joan Duckworth out, and eventually to mention marriage. Or, he was asking himself often now, was it he who had first mentioned marriage or had she? What he knew she had mentioned, and quite a lot, was that one day he’d be head of Duckworth’s. But this prospect looked at in broad daylight, which was a different light from that of Potters Lane in the dark, was very far ahead. Henry Duckworth was hale and hearty at fifty, and Arthur could see him living to ninety, and if he did die young there would still be Mrs Duckworth, for Arthur could never see Mrs Duckworth dying. And still moreover, Arthur had a strong suspicion now that he didn’t even like Joan, that he never had liked her and never could like her, but they were going to be married on 25 August.

  Arthur banged the seat of his pants, his knees, his calves and finally his head, and as he turned to go indoors, he admonished himself for his past weakness by saying to himself, ‘You don’t want your head banged, you want it lookin’ at.’

  When he was seated at the table and his mother had found sufficient tripe still left to give him a meal, he was really taken by surprise when his father addressed him quietly saying, ‘Not bakin’ the night?’ It was usually Frankie who asked the questions.

  Arthur kept his eyes on his plate as he answered, ‘Aye but he let me off… there’s a social on in Biddleswiddle.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Gran.

  The Gascoignes would appear to be experts in the use of expressive monosyllables and this one brought a deep rose hue that tinted Arthur’s pale skin.

  It would seem that this reply now prompted John and Frankie to place their knives and forks slowly on their plates as they looked towards Arthur, but naturally it was Frankie who spoke first.

  ‘The game the morrow?’ he asked. ‘He’s not keeping you on the morrow?’

  Frankie was now leaning across the table and Arthur, his eyes still cast down, said flatly, ‘Aye. He wants to play.’

  ‘Why the peg-legged old…’

  ‘That’s enough, Frankie.’

  ‘But, Mam, he can’t play for taffy apples. Look what he did last week; he lost us the game, and that was just a friendly. But the morrow… And them coming from Battonbun and the pitch perfect.’ Frankie half rose from the table now crying, ‘You go and tell her what to do with that social. The game’s more important than any social.’

  ‘Madam Joan said social and social it shall be.’ Gran’s chin seemed to have jutted another inch and Arthur, raising his eyes to her, said reproachfully, ‘Now, Gran.’

  ‘Don’t “now, Gran” me, that won’t make me shut me mouth. That madam’s got you under her thumb now and the minute you put the ring on her you’ll be flat on your face for the rest of your life, with her heel stuck right in your neck, me lad.’

  The prospect of lying under the weight of his future wife’s anatomy was too much for Arthur as he pushed his chair back from the table and, getting up, went quickly from the room.

  John, looking at his mother added, ‘Can’t you mind your own business for once, Mother?’

  ‘It is me business. If you haven’t got the spunk to say anything about it, and tell him what he’s in for, then don’t criticise me ’cos I have.’

  ‘Your spunk means mischief, Mother, it always has and it always will.’

  Florrie stared fiercely at her husband. Whatever was the matter? There was something different about John tonight. His words were coming easy. Always before she had seen him stop and think before sp
eaking, even to his mother.

  ‘Well, I think Gran’s right.’

  This was quite a short statement for Frankie but it took some courage to make it, for it put him in open opposition to his father and Frankie, for all his bumptiousness, was afraid of his father. He could talk big behind his back but he had never yet been able to do it to his face without a tremor of fear running through his thin body. Now, having taken the side of his grandmother—at least in this small instance—he was straightening his shoulders under the momentary flush that courage brings, when his grannie floored him with, ‘When I want you on me side I’ll ask you, me lad. Until then speak for yoursel’ and you’ll find you have enough to do.’

  ‘Coo!’ Frankie was reduced to his syllable and Gran—as was her wont—did a repeat with, ‘Coo… aye… coo.’

  At this point in the proceedings, Florrie sighed deeply, which John noticed, and the sigh brought his mind from Frankie’s provoking remark to her. How she put up with his mother all day and every day he just didn’t know. Did she do it because she thought she had to… sort of payment like? He had asked this question of himself before, and the answer was the same now. He shook his head. Yet only a saint could put up with his mother and not retaliate.

  John thought the world of his wife, but he wasn’t sure if she cared a straw for him. He’d had the idea for years that the affection she showed him might only be gratitude. It was hard for a man to tell the difference between gratitude and love. Yet she had seemed to love him when they were first married. He remembered it as an intense, almost embarrassing emotion, but in these latter years there had been none of that. He supposed that was the way of marriage, any marriage. But theirs hadn’t been just any marriage. He rose from the table, his mind still on her, and so deep had his thoughts, for the moment, gone into the past that he had to drag his mind back to take in what his ears were hearing. He turned slowly to the table again and, looking across at Frankie, who was talking to Linda, asked him, ‘What did you say there?’

  Frankie, putting his head back, looked up at his father as he said, ‘What d’you mean? About the motorbike? I said I’m savin’ up for a motorbike.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Well… well, you heard me, Dad. What’s wrong with that?’ Frankie sidled slowly to his feet. ‘Savin’ up for a motorbike.’

  ‘You’ll have no motorbike while you’re in this house.’

  ‘But why? I’ve been on about a motorbike for ages.’

  ‘Well, you can forget about it from now on.’

  Florrie, dragging her eyes from her husband, turned to Frankie and said soothingly, ‘Your dad’s afraid of you having an accident. There’s been so many latterly, you know there has.’

  ‘But, Mam, all the fellas have motorbikes.’

  ‘And all the fellas carry St Christopher medals with them, don’t they?’

  Now Frankie’s eyes were wide and his mouth hung open in perplexity as he looked at his father. ‘Aye, they do. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nowt’s wrong with it if you look on it as a passport to the other side. People are dying all over the country because you and the likes of you carry bits of tin on yoursel’s that you think gives you a licence to say “Scram out of it, I’m a St Christopherite, the road’s mine!”’ John thrust his finger towards Frankie’s chest. ‘You’re carrying the medal so you’re all right, Jack. But the other fellow. Oh, him! “Skedaddle chum if you don’t want your brains splattered all over the place.”’

  Florrie gaped at her husband.

  Gran peered at her son, and Frankie and Linda gazed at their father.

  Not one of them spoke a word, but they watched him as he filled his chest with air and made one more statement before marching from the room. ‘Let that be the last I hear of that,’ he said.

  Florrie slowly sat down in her chair and Gran, leaning towards her daughter-in-law, said grimly below her breath, ‘If we didn’t know him, I’d say he was bottled.’

  Frankie, looking towards the door through which his father had just gone, muttered with a kind of sympathetic awe, ‘It’s the gravediggin’. Uncle Brod’s always saying gravediggers and hangmen go loopy in the end.’ Then turning slowly towards his mother he made a half-hearted apology by adding, ‘Sorry, Mam. But there’s somethin’ up with him, isn’t there? I’ve never heard him talk so much in me life. And such rot.’

  Florrie did not answer, but Gran put in comfortingly, ‘Anyway, that’s put paid to you and your motorbike, me lad.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud, Gran, shut your mouth will you.’

  ‘Frankie!’ Florrie got to her feet. ‘Now I’ve spoken to you a number of times already the night.’

  ‘What’s wrong with everybody? Why should everybody pick on me? I’ll tell you what it is, Mam. I’ll go into digs, I will; I’ll not put up with it.’

  Florrie closed her eyes. Gran gave her derisive ‘huh’ and Linda, after watching Frankie dash towards the cupboard and pull out his shoes, jerked her chin upwards once before leaving the room unobtrusively and going up the stairs.

  Linda’s room was so small that if she sat on the deep windowsill and put out both hands she could touch the foot of her bed and her chest of drawers at the same time. She had been sitting on the sill for some minutes before she reached out and pulled open the top drawer of the chest, and after groping knowledgeably she lifted out a felt bag and gently shook a medal onto her palm. She gazed at it tenderly for some time then turned her eyes in the direction of the house next door, the McNally’s house, and sighed.

  A year ago, after Patrick McNally was divorced and had gone to lodge as far away as Befumstead, she had bought the medal and every night she had asked St Christopher to guide his steps back to his home next door. It had seemed an impossible request for the McNallys still considered him married. Then his wife that was had died. About this latter happening Linda’s conscience wasn’t entirely at ease, for at times it reminded her of her mixed assortment of prayers. But now Patrick had returned home and she had no longer to walk nearly to Befumstead to catch a glimpse of him; she saw him every day, and they talked. Linda hugged herself, and as she did so she dropped the medal, and when she retrieved it, she pressed it tenderly to her cheek. St Christopher had done all this, and then for her father to go on like that about him. Well, she wagged her head defiantly, nothing that he could say would make her stop praying to St Christopher, so there. What did her father know about him anyway? He was old—not St Christopher, her father, she laughed to herself…

  Across the landing John too sat looking out of the window and he also was thinking about St Christopher. It seemed monstrous to him, in fact a personal affront, that this figure of superstition should have penetrated his own door. Motorbike indeed! He thrust out his lips, and they remained out for some time before subsiding on the thought. ‘But why had I to go for the lad like that?’ Seemingly the question disturbed John for he rose to his feet and stood staring through the window, not seeing, as he usually did, through the gap between the two cottages opposite, the village green in the far distance and, on this particular night, its roped-off sacred centre patch. No, the whole window seemed to be taken up with Frankie’s face, and John asked himself once again, ‘Why did I do it?’

  His reactions towards this particular son had been the main problem of John’s life, for Frankie irritated him, whereas Arthur didn’t. John did not think of loving Arthur, that quality was kept alone for Florrie, but he would have said he had a dull affection for Arthur. And Linda? Yes, he was fond of Linda and she had her own particular corner in his heart. But Frankie… well, Frankie. The situation troubled John, had troubled him for years, for under the circumstances, the very odd circumstances, he knew it was most unnatural to dislike Frankie and love—well, say, Arthur.

  A tap on the door broke into his thinking and when Arthur’s voice came saying, ‘Can I come in, Dad?’ he answered abruptly, ‘Aye.’

  Arthur was dressed for outdoors and he appeared very presentable.
If his expression had not been one of deep solemnity he could have looked attractive, for his face, although not good-looking, was open, his grey eyes had a foundation of kindness and his mouth spoke of generosity. The combination did not make for strength and determination and his voice bore this out when he said with half-averted gaze, ‘I’d like a talk with you, Dad, sometime.’

  John, looking full at his son, asked briefly, ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘Lots. But I’d like to talk about it on the quiet.’ Now Arthur was looking at his father and as John jerked his head in the direction of the Duckworths’ house, Arthur, lowering his eyes towards the floor, answered the silent question with a small nod.

  ‘You’re working the morrow and it can’t be the morrow night, so Sunday it’ll have to be… mornin’.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, that’ll do.’

  ‘I’ll be goin’ up to the shed around eleven, there’s another one on Monday, early.’ John was referring to a funeral. ‘You could take a dander up then.’

  ‘Aye, Dad, I will; that’ll be fine… Thanks. So long.’

  Arthur had the doorknob in his hand when John checked him with, ‘Just a minute.’ He turned round and waited.