The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, for all the good the change has done they might as well have stayed in, for Ramsay MacDonald and Snowdon are still carrying on the same policy; they make my belly heave. Once the Labour Government got in it was going to play hell with a big stick. And it’s done bug…’ On a warning look from David, John just suppressed the adjective and substituted ‘damn all’ in its place.

  The little incident caught at Dan’s sense of humour. The heat of the discourse, the added colour that rose to John’s face with the suppression of the word bugger was too much; he put his head back and let out a bellow of a laugh.

  ‘You…you big stiff!’ John’s great arm knocked Dan sideways on the couch. ‘You can laugh.’ But now John’s laughter had joined Dan’s. And Dan’s finger came out and wagged itself in John’s face while with the other arm he gripped himself around the waist to ease the pain that his merriment was causing. The next moment the two men were locked together sparring like irrepressible schoolboys.

  ‘Give over, give over, you fools!’ David was standing above them. ‘You’ll break the couch, the pair of you.’ He jumped aside as they fell sideways on to the floor and there, locked together, they lay panting and still laughing.

  ‘You pair of fools!’ David, himself laughing now, was staring down at them where they both sat with their backs to the seat of the couch, their legs stretched out on the mat.

  ‘That takes us back some years.’ John had his head turned to Dan, and Dan, rubbing his wet face with his hand, said, ‘By! It does that. We used to have some fun and games, didn’t we?’ As they hitched themselves back on to the couch, Dan took a fit of coughing which caused him to press his hand across his chest.

  David, turning now to where Sarah was rubbing fat into flour preparatory to making pastry, and herself laughing at the antics of these men acting like young lads, said eagerly, ‘What about us throwing a bit of a party, eh, Sarah?’

  Her hands stopped their rubbing. ‘A party! Oh, yes. Oh yes, I’d like that. When?’ They were all looking at her. ‘What about Thursday?’ she said. They continued to look at her but no-one spoke. John was the first to look away. He cast his eyes sideways towards Dan and then said on a small laugh, ‘Well, what about Thursday?’

  Dan got to his feet, pulling his coat straight, saying as he did so, ‘Not Thursday, Sarah.’

  ‘Oh no.’ She nodded her head. She had forgotten, Dan always went to stay with a friend of his on Thursday. She could understand Dan having lots of friends. She had never seen this friend. Apparently he lived at yon side of Westoe village. Perhaps he had a wife, she didn’t know. David hadn’t seemed to know much about it when she had asked him about Dan’s friend some time ago. Impetuously she said now, ‘Why don’t you bring your friend along, Dan? Shouldn’t he, David?’

  Dan’s head came up quickly. He had been dusting the legs of his trousers and now his hands were held outwards as if the question had fixed him in one position. There was a look of perplexity on his face, until he turned his gaze full on David and smiled at him. Then, moving towards the scullery door and coming abreast of Sarah, he said quietly, ‘Make it Friday and we’ll have a night of it.’

  When the door closed quietly John turned to David, and speaking below his breath, he said, ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t told her?’

  ‘I didn’t see the need.’ There was an unusually sharp note in David’s reply.

  John turned his head and looked at Sarah now, and she looked at him as he said, ‘Well, she’s a married woman and she won’t faint, and, being Sarah, she’ll understand, won’t you, Sarah?’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘About Dan. You see…’

  ‘I’ll tell her, John. If it’s necessary, I’ll tell her.’

  ‘All right, have it your own way, but it would have saved an embarrassing situation if she had known already, wouldn’t it? But that’s you.’ He brought his fist in a quick flick past the end of David’s nose. Then he screwed his face up at him and moved across the room. ‘Goodnight, Sarah.’ His voice was quiet now.

  ‘Goodnight, John.’

  When the back door had closed, Sarah, scraping the flour and fat from her hands, looked over her shoulder and asked, ‘What was all that about, about Dan? Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Really it’s none of our business, it’s Dan’s business.’

  ‘Did I put my foot in it in some way?’

  ‘No.’ He caught at her floured hand and pulled her towards him, pressing her down into the big leather chair at the side of the fireplace. Then, seating himself on a cracket close to her knee and looking to where the rising dough was pushing against the cloth, he said, ‘Dan’s got a woman.’

  Dan with a woman! Sarah couldn’t believe it. Dan the kindly, jocular, nice man, carrying on with a woman! He wasn’t the type. She made David look at her as she said, ‘I just can’t take that in.’

  ‘It’s true. But it’s his own business; it’s Dan’s own life and he can do what he likes with it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, David. Yes.’ She was quick to agree with him. ‘But somehow—well, Dan just doesn’t seem…Is she married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s not? Well, why doesn’t he marry her?’

  ‘It’s very difficult to explain.’ David took hold of her hand again. ‘It sounds a bit fantastic, but you know different people think in different ways and some people think for themselves. Dan does, and apparently this woman does too. She’s a widow and as far as I can gather she’s glad to be a widow, as she had a pretty rough time during the six years she was married to her husband. He was killed by a lorry and the firm was found to be at fault and she gets a small pension. Perhaps this is a bit of the reason for her independence. Well, anyway, she doesn’t want to marry and neither does Dan.’

  ‘Dan doesn’t want to marry her?’

  ‘No, nor nobody else. I mean Dan doesn’t want to marry anybody. Dan’s been serving in a shop since he was twelve. He started running errands then and he’s had a sort of education against marriage through listening to women…at least that’s how he laughingly put it to me. But he just doesn’t want to marry. Anyway, he met this woman. How, I don’t know, he never told me; I only know that she’s got a decent kind of house and that one night in the week, Thursday night—it has never varied over the last four years—he goes and sees her.’

  ‘But your mother…?’

  ‘Oh! There was the devil to pay. Being Dan, he was quite straight about it. But fancy having to tell a thing like that to my mother; imagine the scene; especially when she looked on him almost as a son and not a brother. You see, she had the business of bringing him up when her own mother died. Anyway, he gave her the option; he was quite willing, he said, to go and get lodgings elsewhere. He emphasised to her that he was not going to live with the woman, only see her that one night a week. Lord, he had some pluck. It all sounded fantastic and I can see how my mother thought he was going up the pole. But, anyway, she didn’t tell him to get out and take his life of sin with him. And for two reasons. First, she’s a saver, and a very careful housekeeper as you have gathered. She’s nearly always had twice as much coming in each week as what she’s spent. She could teach Micawber a thing or two.’

  ‘Micawber?’

  ‘Oh, he’s a character in Dickens. I must get you Dickens, you’ll like him…And then there was the fact that if she ordered Dan out he might, although he said he wouldn’t, go and live with the woman, whereas if she kept him under her eye she might manage to convert him from his sinful ways. But up to date she hasn’t made any impression on him. The atmosphere in the house on a Thursday morning is always painful.’

  ‘But it’s fantastic. I can’t see…well, I can’t see Dan doing it. And if he’s living with her part of the time what’s the difference, why doesn’t he live with her all the time?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, Sarah, I just don’t know. Dan has arranged his life and he has found someone to arrange it with.’

  ‘I liked Dan.’ />
  ‘Don’t say it like that in the past tense, Sarah. Surely this won’t stop you going on liking him. Dan’s a fine fellow.’

  ‘But it’s a bit of a shock. Dan doesn’t look…’

  ‘You can never tell by people’s looks, Sarah. And see here.’ He tilted her chin upwards, his voice holding a note which she had never heard before. ‘You are not going to make any difference to Dan, I mean in your manner. I wouldn’t like that, Sarah.’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ She smiled at him now. ‘It was just…well, just as I said. I…I couldn’t see Dan doing anything like that. But don’t worry, I’ll be the same to him. And why should I make any difference?’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got no room to speak. Look at our Phyllis. And she’s nice and all. I’ve always told you our Phyllis is nice.’

  ‘There you are then.’ They were smiling at each other. He leant towards her now. ‘And you’re nice, too, Mrs Hetherington. Very, very, very nice. Do you know that, Mrs Hetherington?’

  The niceness was inside her, she could feel it. David could make her feel that she was nice. She felt a different person when she was with David, soft inside, even refined. Yes, even refined. She had always longed to be refined, to know what to say, to know what to do. She had always felt she would never reach this desired pinnacle, not only because she was ignorant but because she didn’t look refined, at least her body didn’t. It was too big—the word was voluptuous. She had looked that up in the dictionary David had bought her. He bought it for her the very next day after she had told him she had always wanted a dictionary. He had seemed very pleased that she had wanted a dictionary.

  David was looking at her now. She knew the look and she became quiet. She remained quiet when he rose swiftly from the cracket and went and put the bolt in the back door. She hitched her hips to one side and made room for him when he returned, and he lay with his head on her shoulder, his fingers slowly outlining her breasts. Her lips dropped apart; they were trembling slightly and moist. ‘I’ve got the bread to do,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I’ve got all my baking to get through.’

  He opened her blouse, and, supporting the large cup of her breast on the palm of his hand, he said, ‘I wish all men joy because of you.’

  She felt more than nice; more than refined, she felt wonderful, honoured, like a queen must feel.

  Three

  New Year’s Eve was typical, the day being made up of a number of small busy-busy issues leading to the climax. But when Sarah looked back on this particular day she saw that everything she had done had a bearing on what was to come. Like threads of a tapestry, on which was worked the outline pattern of her life, they began to work inwards to the central point.

  It was when she finished scrubbing the scullery and had returned to the snug warmth of the kitchen that she thought, I wonder how me mother is? I should slip across, it being New Year’s Eve. She’ll feel it, being all on her own. And he’ll be out this morning, signing on. Yes, I should slip across.

  Ten minutes later she locked the scullery door and went down the backyard and out into the lane. The back lane was clean and empty—you very rarely saw the women of Camelia Street standing gossiping at their back doors; it was a sign of their raised status, that any gossiping they did was over a cup of tea in the afternoon after they had…got the men off.

  The morning was biting cold; there was a high wind blowing that spoke of snow. Sarah felt she could smell it. She pulled the collar of her new coat up around her ears and kept her gloved hands up under its warmth as she walked. She loved this coat, she had never had anything like it; it was David’s Christmas box. He had paid five pounds ten for it. She had played war with him. It was dove grey, trimmed with brown fur, and it fitted her as if it had been made to measure.

  Perhaps it was because her life was now spent between the sparkling cleanliness of her mother-in-law’s house and her own home, that the streets through which she was now passing seemed dirtier than she had ever noticed them before, and the houses, although the same size as those in Camelia Street except for number one, looked smaller.

  There were three men standing at the bottom of Howard Street and they looked at her but seemed shy of acknowledging her, until she remarked breezily, ‘By! It’s a stinger, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, aye, it is that. How are you getting on, Sarah?’

  ‘Oh, fine, Mr Prideau.’

  ‘That’s the ticket, Sarah. You’re looking well…Bonny.’

  She turned her head as she passed them, smiling widely on them. People were nice, people were kind.

  ‘Happy New Year, Sarah. Happy New Year.’

  The combined voices turned her head towards them again and she called back, her mouth wide and laughing, ‘Happy New Year to you an’ all. Happy New Year.’

  Mrs West from Number Seven was doing her windows, and Mrs Young was doing her step. It was late to do steps this time in the morning; still it was New Year’s Eve and all the work was topsy-turvy.

  The two women stopped what they were doing and waited for her approach. ‘Hello, Sarah. Goin’ to see your mother?’ Mrs West nodded her head at her.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded back, then turned to Mrs Young. ‘Hello, Mrs Young.’

  ‘Hello, Sarah, lass. By! Isn’t it cold!’

  ‘Freezing.’

  ‘How’s things going?’ Mrs West was poking her head forward, speaking in a confidential whisper.

  ‘Oh, fine, Mrs West, fine.’

  ‘You like it up there?’

  ‘I couldn’t help but, could I?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Anyway, I’m glad to see you’ve fallen on your feet. Your mother can be proud of you, at least.’

  Sarah turned from Mrs West again. She would have to say that, digging at their Phyllis. She said quickly, ‘How are you keeping, Mrs Young?’

  ‘Fine, lass, fine. But I won’t say I wouldn’t be better if they were at work. Still, you never know what the New Year’ll bring, do you?’

  ‘No, Mrs Young.’ Sarah knocked on the front door, and as she heard the steps approaching on the other side she said, ‘I wish you a Happy New Year in case I don’t see you again.’

  ‘The same to you, lass.’

  ‘A Happy New Year, Mrs West.’ She nodded to the other woman.

  ‘The same to you, Sarah. The same to you.’

  Annie was surprised to see her, but the light that spread over her face showed her pleasure. ‘Why, lass, I didn’t expect you across the day.’ She spoke as if Sarah was in the habit of visiting every day. She went before her through the front room and into the kitchen, talking quickly. ‘I’ve just made a cup of tea, I must have known you were comin’. I haven’t done me baking yet, I was just about to start. Sit down, sit down, lass. By! You’re looking well. Is that a new coat? It’s bonny…a beauty.’

  ‘David brought it for my Christmas box.’

  She hadn’t seen her mother since three days before Christmas when she had given her Phyllis’ money and a pound of her own.

  Sarah watched her mother pouring the tea out. Her hands were shaking slightly, and she spilled the tea into the saucers, exclaiming on her awkwardness as she did so. Sarah glanced around the kitchen. Everything looked clean but not with the sparkle of her own house. She said, ‘You’re all done, I see.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I thought I might as well get it over with. Yet I ask meself, what for?’ Annie sat down suddenly opposite Sarah. Her hand was still on the teapot. She looked at her daughter for a long moment before saying, ‘Oh, I’m glad to see you; I felt the house would be empty all the day. You notice it more on New Year’s Eve and I was dreading twelve o’clock. We always sat up, didn’t we, me and you and Phyllis, and saw the New Year in. But it’ll be different this year.’

  Sarah felt a lump rise to her throat. Yes, it would be different for them both. As her mother had said, they had always seen the New Year in; their father never sat up. Not given to drink or merriment of any kind, he saw no point in it. His logic on the matter had always been: it’
s just another day so why kid yourself? And he had usually left them with this sentiment, but slightly more embellished.

  She said to her mother now, ‘Are you going to sit up?’

  ‘Well, I always have, lass. It’s like a habit. Mrs Young has asked me next door but I don’t think I’ll go.’

  ‘Why not? Go on.’

  ‘I like me own fireside. You know what it is on a New Year’s Eve. Everybody should be at their own fireside.’

  Sarah hesitated only a moment, then she said, ‘Why don’t you come across to us? You’ve never been. You’ll have to come some time. Come on.’ She leant forward and caught her mother’s hands.

  ‘Ooh, no, lass, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t know them.’

  ‘But you’ve met David that once, and you said you liked him.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. I think he’s a fine fellow. But no; no, lass. But mind’—she nodded her head at her daughter—‘I’m glad you asked me, and I won’t forget it. But don’t worry about me.’ She straightened herself up in the chair. ‘I’m all right now that I’ve seen you.’

  ‘I tell you what.’ Sarah’s voice was eager, her attitude like that of an excited child. ‘Are you sure you’re going to sit up?’

  ‘Yes, lass, yes, I’ll sit up.’

  ‘Then I’ll come across about half-past twelve and wish you a Happy New Year.’ Their hands were joined again. It was as if some great problem had been solved. Their hands still holding, they got to their feet and Sarah said, ‘That’s what I’ll do.’

  ‘But, look, you haven’t drunk your tea.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Sarah took up the cup.

  ‘Oh, I’d love that, lass. Do you think you’d be able to get away?’

  ‘Oh yes. David will run over with me.’

  In the middle of the front room Sarah stopped and, turning to her mother, asked quietly, ‘But what if he stays up the night, you being on your own?’