One Snowy Night

by Rita Bradshaw

  It didn’t look good, his da had said quietly, and he just hoped the trade union leaders in every industry would hold firm. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the coal owners and other big manufacturers who controlled the docks and the railways and factories and the rest of it treat their employees fairly. But if one of the trade unions caved in it would rock the boat and they’d all sink. It’d been bad enough in 1921 when every colliery in the country was closed and padlocked by the coal owners for thirteen weeks to force miners to agree to their wages being reduced and the working day being longer. The miners had lost that fight. They couldn’t afford to lose this one.

  Adam stretched and reached for the cup of tea Olive had placed by his elbow ten minutes ago. It was cold now but he didn’t mind that; he took a bottle of cold tea to the pit each day along with his bait and he’d grown to like it. You could get used to anything if you had to.

  The last thought brought his eyes to Olive for a moment. The old saying as he remembered it was that familiarity bred contempt; well, he’d started off his married life full of contempt for the woman who had tricked him into marrying her and ruined his life, but over the years that emotion had faded. Living with her, and in spite of himself, he had to admit, he’d slowly come to reluctantly admire her strength and grit. He’d put her through hell on a daily basis, and even now he felt she’d brought that on herself, but whatever the ins and outs of it she had never whinged or complained. Nor had she refused him his conjugal rights in spite of the way he’d handled her. His meal was always ready when he came home of an evening; his slippers would be warming on the hearth, and she kept the bairn and the house spotless.

  The fire in the range spat and for a moment a deep cavern showed in the glowing coals like a mini hell. Before Ruby had left, he’d always imagined hell was like Father McHaffie described, a physical place of intense heat where you burned day and night with the smell of sulphur in your nostrils and nothing to soothe your scorching body, but he knew different now. Hell was worse than anything the priest could drum up to frighten his flock witless. It was knowing you had made a mistake there was no coming back from, a mistake that soured and coloured every single aspect of your life. That was the torturing part that had driven him mad, and although he’d excused himself at first by putting all the blame on Olive, he knew there had been a few moments on that New Year’s Eve when he could have stopped it happening. And Ruby had known it too. He would forever remember her face when he had told her, the look in her eyes.

  But – and here his thinking became so painful that he screwed up his eyes against it for a second – there had been no sign of that terrible desolation when he had met her in the street a few weeks ago. She had changed. He knew everyone said he had too – his mam certainly was one for calling a spade a spade – but Ruby had changed in a different way. Deep inside he knew he was still the same, even though because of self-survival he’d put on a tough front the last years, but as he’d stared into Ruby’s face he had known she wasn’t the same person he had loved so passionately. Even the way she had been with him – understanding, gentle even – had told him the feeling she’d had for him was dead, and the old Ruby, the girl who tormented his dreams, was no more. He would have welcomed bitterness, anger, accusations from her rather than the kindness. He’d stood there in his work clothes looking at this creature from another lifetime who had transformed into someone who could have been from the upper classes, and he’d felt sick to the soul of him.

  Looking at his wife, he said quietly, ‘I saw Ruby before she went back to Newcastle.’ He hadn’t meant to ever mention it and he had no idea why he had.

  ‘I thought you might have done.’

  The words sounded calmly indifferent and if he hadn’t seen the way her face had tightened he would have thought she was unconcerned. Even more quietly, he muttered, ‘She’s different. Not just in the way she dresses and speaks, I mean, but she’s different. Did you think that when you talked to her? That she’s changed?’

  ‘No one stays the same. She’s a woman now – she was a girl when she left here.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He swallowed the last of the tea and put the cup down before saying, ‘I told her she’d become hard.’

  Olive’s hands became still and she looked straight at him. ‘I don’t think that’s true. She had to find a way through what happened, that’s all, and make a new life for herself. Did she tell you Ellie’s dead?’

  ‘Ellie? No.’ He was shocked. ‘We didn’t talk as such, just exchanged a few words in the street as she had to catch a train. What happened to Ellie?’

  Olive told him but made no mention of Daniel Bell or the fact that because Ruby had sent the police to his house he was now in the hands of the law. Ruby had asked her not to mention Daniel Bell to anyone, but it was less her promise to her sister and more the fact that she didn’t want Adam charging off to Newcastle like a white knight on a charger that caused her to hold her tongue about it. She finished by saying, ‘I think Ellie’s passing was what prompted Ruby to come and see our mam an’ da and make her peace with them.’

  ‘And you.’

  ‘Aye, and me.’ She had no idea how he felt about that.

  As if he was reading her thoughts, he said, ‘Before she came back I would have imagined I’d feel angry if you two made up.’

  ‘Because it would mean she’d forgiven me for what I did.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And do you? Feel angry?’

  He didn’t answer this but said, ‘Do you hate me?’

  Visibly shocked, she said, ‘Hate you? Of course I don’t hate you.’

  ‘I could understand why if you did.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’ Terrified she would betray how she really felt about him, which would be the final humiliation, she added, ‘You’re Alice’s da and she loves you.’

  A smile touched his mouth, which had settled into stern lines over the last four years. ‘Aye, she does. Funny that.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s natural for a bairn to love her da.’ She picked up her mending again to give her hands something to do and so she could look away from his face, which was paining her.

  It came to Adam as he continued to stare at her bent head that Ruby wasn’t the only one who had changed. This thought unsettled him more than the rest of their conversation but he didn’t want to examine why. He stood up, stretching as he said, ‘I’m for bed. I’m meeting the lads first thing to plan the week ahead although to my mind it’s a bit like shutting the door after the horse has bolted. We should’ve been more organized from the start. None of our lot took into account that the government would use the newspapers and the wireless to turn the British people against us, but how can we come back and challenge their lies with no voice? They’re saying the strike’s against law and order and King and country and calling us enemies of the state, and there’s that Cardinal Bourne telling the whole nation the strike’s an offence against Almighty God an’ all. That’s even put the wind up Catholic workers, let alone the middle class. It’s a mess, I tell you straight.’

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute when I’ve finished this.’

  Once he had gone upstairs Olive put down her mending. She couldn’t see what she was doing for the tears blinding her and streaming down her face. He hadn’t forgiven her. He would never forgive her, and the fact that it was only what she deserved didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ruby’s heart was pounding fit to burst. She stood in the middle of the establishment that until recently had been a sweet shop, looking about her. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the mullioned bay window and sounds from the street outside filtered through into the empty room. The walls were lined with shelves which had held large glass jars of every kind of confectionery, along with boxes of chocolates and bonbons, trays of coconut ice and different varieties of toffee, and other treats. The lingering smell made her mouth water, but all that was left now were the little scales and smal
l brass scoop on the long wooden counter.

  This was hers, she told herself, still hardly able to believe it. This shop, the one-bedroomed flat above and the small annexe that took up most of the tiny backyard, was hers.

  She had first noticed the terraced shop near the library in the centre of Newcastle a couple of days after she’d returned from Sunderland. She had been in the area because Bridget had told her that Daniel Bell was being brought up before the magistrate, and she had gone along to the court to see what transpired. She had been more than a little apprehensive, but had needed to be sure he’d be put away, if not for his crimes against Ellie for which there was no proof, then for the possession of the drugs the police had found when they had searched the house after she had given them Daniel’s address.

  She had got something of a shock when she had seen him in the dock. He had a black patch over one eye from which a livid red scar ran down across his cheek, puckering the skin. Daisy had told her about the injury, of course, but even so it had given her a start. Not that she regretted her action, not in the least; he deserved that and more for what he had put Ellie through. He had been impeccably dressed in a dark grey suit and white shirt and striped tie, and his general demeanour as he’d stood there had been meek and mild. His counsel had insisted that the charges against his client were a terrible mistake, and that the person responsible for the drugs being in the house was a man called Howard Riley. His client, the defending counsel had said, had given this man a room in his house out of the kindness of his heart and had been quite unaware of what went on in it, and as it had been at the top of the house he had had no reason to go there himself. He had been as horrified as anyone at what this rogue, Riley – who incidentally had fled who knew where – had been about. Mr Bell strenuously denied any involvement in any wrongdoing and it was this same Mr Riley, an aggressive, violent individual, who had given poor Mr Bell the recent injury to his face when he had told Mr Riley to find other lodgings the day before the police had come to the house.

  Many eyes had turned towards poor Mr Bell who had suffered such abuse from nasty Mr Riley, and for the first time Daniel had raised his downcast gaze and glanced around the court sorrowfully. It was at this moment he realized Ruby was present and the transformation in him had been immediate and ferocious. Far from being the pitiful wretched victim of a cruel misunderstanding eliciting sympathy, he had revealed who he really was, screaming obscenities and threats, the main thrust of which was that he would get even with her if it was the last thing he did for what she had done to his face.

  It had been a gift to the prosecuting counsel and one they had made the most of, the result being that Daniel Bell had been sent down for a minimum of three years’ hard labour.

  It had been that very day when, shaken and at the end of herself, she had passed the ‘For Sale’ sign on a quaint and charming old shop on her way home. It was the prettiness of the building that had first caught her attention, the white-painted bricks and big bay window with a window box full of flowers standing like a rose between two thorns from the austere-looking solicitors on one side and chemist on the other. If nothing else it had taken her mind off the disturbing scene in the courtroom when she had thought Daniel was going to leap out of the dock and fling himself on her. The two policemen either side of him had clearly been of the same opinion because they had pinned his arms and done their best to restrain him, with the three of them wrestling in a very undignified manner on the floor in the end. It had been bedlam, and by the time she had left the court she had been trembling uncontrollably.

  She had told Edward and Clarissa about the sweet shop when she had gone to Foreburn for Sunday lunch, along with the visit to the courtroom. They had both been full of enthusiasm about the shop and horrified that she had gone to the court alone. In Edward’s case, excessively so, and he had been angry as well, saying that anything could have happened. She had said she hardly thought so – it was a court, after all, and by its very purpose populated with officials and policemen – but he wouldn’t be coaxed round and lunch that day had been a somewhat stiff affair.

  The next evening, however, Edward and Clarissa had picked her up at seven o’clock and the three of them had met the estate agent who was selling the property outside the shop. He had been a small rotund man with a hearty manner and hadn’t been able to hide his surprise at Ruby having such wealthy and influential friends, almost tripping over his own feet as he had shown the three of them round the premises. Apparently the old lady who had owned the shop had moved down south to live with her sister, so it was vacant possession. Always a bonus, he’d said ingratiatingly.

  All the houses on that side of the road were shops or businesses, and the rest of them comprised the solicitors and chemist either side of the premises, along with a cabinetmaker, a hairdresser, a dentist, a grocer and, at the far end of the street, a butcher. None of the other properties had bay windows, and neither did the houses on the other side of the road. Besides the large room in which Ruby was standing, there was another smaller one which had apparently been used as a storeroom, and beyond that, a tiny back hall from which a steep staircase rose to the one-bedroomed flat. On inspecting this with Edward and Clarissa, Ruby had been amazed to discover that besides the tiny kitchen, small sitting room and bedroom, the flat boasted the modern innovation of an indoor closet, bath and washbasin. The estate agent had told them the bathroom had been installed in what had been the box room only the year before on the insistence of the owner’s married son who had been worried about his mother’s increasing frailness. She was well over eighty, he’d continued, but had been determined to stay in her home and run her little business, but unfortunately a bad fall resulting in a broken leg and other injuries had put paid to that. The annexe in the yard still housed an old privy and wash house, and at the end of this the coal bunker.

  Despite the renovation and refurbishment that would be involved, Ruby had fallen in love with the old shop. She had learned from the estate agent that the old lady had been born in the bedroom of the flat, as had her mother before her, and the premises had been used as a sweet shop for well over a hundred years. She didn’t think the house would mind its new role as an exclusive dress shop, though. She felt, even from that first time she had stepped across the threshold with Edward and Clarissa, that it had welcomed her.

  She shook her head at her fanciful thoughts, smiling to herself. But it was true. Edward had helped her with the buying of the property by recommending a solicitor friend of his who had dealt with the legalities involved, guiding her through the process of putting down a credible deposit and taking out a mortgage with all the paperwork that had generated, but the house had been hers long before the sale was completed and she’d received the keys. At least that was how she felt.

  But now began the real hard work. Ruby took a deep breath and then let it out in a satisfied sigh. She had finished at the laundry for good on Saturday lunchtime and today was Monday morning, the first week of her new life.

  She knew exactly what she was going to do both in the shop and her little home above. This larger room would be the place any potential clients saw first and she intended to make it both sumptuous and elegant, the decor screaming luxury. Comfortable chairs and small tables, with one wall holding racks of clothes for the women to browse through, and perhaps one or two dressmaker’s dummies modelling particularly beautiful creations. And she wasn’t going to cram the window full of clothes like so many shops did; maybe just one costume and hat on display with a pair of shoes and a handbag.

  The room beyond would be the fitting room and she intended to steal some of this space to have a small cloakroom built with a toilet and washbasin and mirrored walls. She could see it quite clearly in her mind’s eye. The annexe she intended to convert into her workshop but that might have to wait until the business got going. She had kept a portion of her savings back for the work she needed to do and she intended to do as much as she could herself, but money would still be tight. She wou
ld make her creations upstairs until the work on the annexe could be done. The important thing was to get the shop and fitting room ready before she added to the frocks and costumes she had been working on for the last months. She had a number ready to sell but not enough to open the shop as a viable business.

  The refurbishment of her living quarters would have to wait too. The small flat was dark and shabby and smelled strongly of cabbage, but a good scrub from top to bottom with plenty of disinfectant and bleach would sort that. The old lady’s son had removed all his mother’s furniture and belongings and the flat was empty, although he had left the curtains at the windows, so she wanted to get cleaning immediately. She’d arranged for a bed to be delivered at the end of the week, along with a table and chairs she’d seen in a second-hand shop and that would do for now. A kettle and a few pots and pans and items of crockery for the tiny kitchen would suffice; there was a small gas stove installed in there and the sink had a tap with the luxury of running water, another convenience which the son had had carried out at the same time as the bathroom had been installed. This had thrilled Ruby as much as the indoor toilet; no more mornings melting the ice on the tap in the yard in the depths of the northern winters.

  She had broken the news to Mabel that she was moving out of the house at the weekend, and although Mabel had tried to persuade her to stay until all the work was completed, offering to waive the rent, Ruby wouldn’t budge from her plans. She would be able to work as late as she liked and rise whenever she wanted and the thought of being in her own home was heady. Besides which – and now the glow that the joy of ownership had brought to her face faded – she needed to fill every moment, to be so exhausted she could fall into bed each night and sleep. Grief for Ellie, and to a lesser extent her father, although she kept telling herself he was still alive and could go on for years, kept her tossing and turning for a good while most nights. Now that she had left the workhouse laundry and was her own boss, so to speak, she intended to pay another visit home within the next few days. What she would encounter she didn’t know because since the TUC had called off the strike a couple of weeks ago the embattled miners had voted to fight on alone. Her mother wrote to her every week now she had her Newcastle address, and in her last letter she’d said Adam had been round to see her da the night before and said he and the other miners were preparing for a long, hard and bitter fight. The government had deemed the strike unlawful, which meant the workers could claim no relief, not even from their own union funds, and the Ministry of Health had already told workhouse guardians throughout the country that it was now a matter of law that no able-bodied man was to be given any money or vouchers of any kind. The Co-op’s headquarters had told all their branches to give no credit as they hadn’t been paid back from the 1921 lockout yet, and little corner-end shops could only give tick for so long before they went out of business themselves. It was up to the lodges in every district of every coalfield to look after their own people, Adam had said, and to raise money the best they could. There was no doubt in any miner’s mind that the strike had become a war against us and ‘them’, them being the government, the middle and upper classes and even the higher end of the working class.