The Collier’s Wife

by Chrissie Walsh

  Bessie knew it was a lie and that he would spend the money on drink. Both he and Thomas had rarely been sober since the morning of the fight. Taking consolation in the fact that she still controlled Intake’s finances she fished the key to the safe-box from between her breasts, leaving it dangling from the gold chain round her neck as she walked over to the dresser. Her fingers trembling, she opened the box and extracted a handful of coins.

  ‘We can’t go on like this, Sammy love,’ Bessie said, handing him the money.

  Samuel’s baleful glare told her he intended to do just that. ‘I don’t need a trollop like you telling me what to do,’ he snarled.

  ‘Think of the farm,’ Bessie pleaded.

  ‘Aye, that’s what you thought of when you fooled my dad into marrying you, and once he were dead you had the bloody cheek to bring that filth in to take his place.’

  ‘The farm needed him. You were letting it go to ruin just like you are now, but it needs you, Sammy, and so do I,’ Bessie cried, clutching at his arms in an attempt to embrace him.

  ‘Aye, well bugger the farm and bugger you. I don’t need either,’ Samuel yelled, and calling to Thomas who lolled in the doorway, he barged out.

  Bessie leaned against the sink and did what she had been doing for the past eleven days; she cried piteously.

  *

  ‘I’m worried about Mam,’ Amy said, when she returned from a visit to Intake. ‘Our Sammy’s still not speaking to her, or if he does it’s to call her vile names, and him and our Thomas are drinking their heads off.’

  Jude looked up from the book he was reading. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to change that. Samuel put your mother on a pedestal, and now she’s fallen off it his head’s all over the place. One thing for sure is that they’ll come to terms with it.’ He chuckled. ‘Your brothers need her to feed ’em and she still holds the purse strings so they’ll have to learn to live with one another whether they like it or not; the farm’s their livelihood. And anyway,’ he went back to his book, ‘we’ve enough to contend with now Raffy’s living here.’

  Amy nodded sombrely. She had readily agreed with Jude that Raffy should stay, and couldn’t deny he had made himself useful fixing the leaking tap, fettling the stove and mending a broken chair, but his presence had altered their way of life. He talked too much, repeating the same stories time and again, the peaceful quiet of the little house disturbed by his restlessness.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge letting him stay but he does get on my nerves,’ Amy said, lifting Kezia from her pram and handing her to Jude, ‘and I’m glad he’s taken to Beattie and she to him. They get on like a house on fire.’

  ‘Two of a kind,’ said Jude, ‘I think I must take after my mother, thank God.’

  *

  Less than a week after this conversation, Raffy surprised both Amy and Jude by announcing that he was moving in with Beattie. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful to ye for your kindness, it’s just that Beattie wants it.’

  He wasn’t going to tell them that he did too. That he found Amy and Jude’s neat, quiet house restrictive, and though he was fond of Amy he considered she was far too particular about the way things should be done.

  ‘It just be a case of me takin’ the truckle bed off your landing and puttin’ it on Beattie’s,’ Raffy continued. ‘Ye’ll no doubt be happy to see it go.’

  Amy certainly was, and neither she nor Jude pressed him to stay.

  ‘Birds of a feather,’ said Jude, after he returned from carrying the truckle bed up to Beattie’s. ‘It’s our good fortune they get on so well.’

  *

  A couple of days later Amy dropped by the house in Grattan Row, her spirits sinking when she heard the howls and roars emanating from behind the door. Leaving Kezia outside in her pram, she cautiously stepped inside.

  Raffy was down on his knees roaring and growling. The children sat, mouths agape and shivers running down their spines as they watched Granda Raffy battle with sharks and swordfish before killing the whale with the golden tooth.

  ‘Twas the gold I used to make this,’ he boasted, flicking his earring.

  ‘It was an elephant had the golden tooth, the last time I heard that story,’ Amy said, her laughter high with relief that the awful noises she had heard from outside were nothing but good fun. She glanced into the kitchen. ‘Where’s Beattie?’

  ‘Out. Took off an hour ago.’

  ‘Go on, Granda, tell the next bit,’ Maggie cried, directing an annoyed glare at Amy. Albert and Fred added their pleas as Amy stepped back outside to bring Kezia in. Raffy finished his story, and roaring and growling, the boys ran outside to play their own version.

  ‘Can I take Kezia for a walk, Auntie Amy?’

  ‘Yes, Maggie, and take Mary with you. Don’t go too far, I’m not staying long.’

  In the silence that ensued, Amy said, ‘Beattie’s taking advantage of you.’

  ‘I don’t be complaining.’

  ‘Did she say when she’d be back?’

  Raffy pretended not to hear. He didn’t object to Beattie taking a few gins with Lizzie Heppenstall, but he knew Amy did.

  ‘I hope she comes home sober,’ Amy said tartly. She opened the door, and with a curt ‘tell her I called’ she walked out. Catching up with Maggie, she relieved her of Kezia and headed for home feeling rather disgruntled.

  After Amy had left, and as Raffy made tea for himself and the children, he mulled over his situation. Moving in with Bert and Beattie had been the right thing to do but his heart was still aching from Bessie’s refusal to have him back at Intake Farm. That bastard Samuel had seen to that. He wondered how long it would take for the farm to go to rack and ruin. Slurping his tea to the dregs, he told himself it was none of business. Living with his daughter, and his son close by suited him fine.

  Walking home, Amy too did some thinking. She supposed she should be grateful that Raffy was living at Beattie’s but she worried that, given leeway, it left her unhappy sister free to neglect her children and seek pleasures in all the wrong places.

  16

  Careful not to waken Amy, Jude slipped out of bed and padded over to the crib to soothe Kezia’s wails. Gently, he lifted her to his shoulder, her breath dampening his ear and the heat from her tiny armpits warming his fingers. Sniffing and snuffling, she shuffled up his shoulder, her sharp little toes using his ribs as a ladder. As he walked the floorboards between window and door and back again, he pondered on what the future might hold for his little girl. Germany had invaded Belgium and Britain was at war.

  Colliers were exempted from the call to arms, the country needing coal to fuel the vast furnaces that produced the metal for weapons and Amy delighted at knowing Jude wouldn’t be expected to volunteer but Jude didn’t share her opinion. As he gently lowered Kezia back into her crib he struggled with the concept of loyalty. Where did it lie: with family or king and country?

  Later that day, it being a Sunday and the August weather exceedingly warm and sunny, Amy, Jude and Kezia went to Miller’s Dam for a picnic along with the Stitts. Whilst Maggie, Albert and Fred ran wild by the water and Kezia and Henry dozed in their prams, the adults lolled on the grass, Bert and Beattie with bottles of beer and Jude with his Sunday newspapers. Amy sat with little Mary on her lap and read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

  Bert looked over Jude’s shoulder and harrumphed. ‘Bloody war, newspapers are full of it. Sarry Jevo’s wa’ nowt to do wi’ us and neither is bloody Belgium.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Where is Sarry Jevo anyway?’

  Jude grinned. ‘It’s Sarajevo,’ he said, giving its correct pronunciation, ‘and it’s in the Balkans.’

  ‘Ball cans? I never heard of them either.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll hear of lots of places we’ve never thought about before,’ said Amy, her brow creasing as she rhymed off a list of countries. ‘We’re all involved and it’s going to get worse.’ She gave a little shudder and thought how apt the title of the book she was readin
g was.

  Beattie gave Amy a withering look. ‘You’re a right wet blanket, you are. Like Bert says, them places are a million bloody miles from here. And anyway, we’ve nowt to worry about, it’s not as though Bert and Jude will have to go and fight.’

  Amy smiled, secure in that knowledge.

  *

  The next night, as the lurching cage gravitated to the pit bottom in Barnborough Main, Jude sensed a feeling of loss and aggravation. Hal Sykes, Tommy Tinker and Jimmy Snell, none of them had turned up for this stint. Familiar faces, he’d grown used to the closeness of their bodies, the rank stink of Sykes’ breath, Snell’s irritating cough and Tommy Tinker’s wisecracks.

  ‘Where’s Tommy and the others?’ he asked Wally Hamby, although he already knew the answer. Wally, a muscular man in his fifties and head and shoulders shorter than Jude half-turned, speaking into Jude’s ribcage.

  ‘Joined up this morning, the silly buggers.’

  ‘Aye, answered Kitchener’s call,’ cackled an older man with a humped back.

  The cage juddered to a stop. The colliers walked along the in-bye leading to the coalface, elbows knocking elbows where the tunnel narrowed and heads lowering or bodies bent double where the roof swooped down. Sharp flints crunched under their clogs. The shot-firers had opened new seams earlier that day, the air thick with dust. Brattices that directed the airflow hung like filthy curtains hiding the entrance to hell.

  Jude stooped for the umpteenth time, his eyes on the cartwheel backs of two elderly miners in front of him. Would he end up like that, he wondered, or would he meet his end in a different country far away from the pit? Lost in thought, he raised his head too soon, his helmet clanking on the roof. He pushed it off his forehead, irritated not so much by his carelessness as the confusion that plagued his conscience.

  At the coalface, Jude hacked at the seam. Coal shards flew in all directions, his manic vigour causing Willy Hamby to yell,’ Oy, Jude! Are you tryin’ to give Lloyd George all t’coal he wants in one day?’

  Jude hacked all the harder. His mind made up, he knew what he was going to do.

  *

  ‘But you don’t have to go. Colliers are exempt.’

  Amy’s crossed arms hugged her shoulders as she rocked back and forth in anguish, her forlorn plea ringing in Jude’s ears. He gazed at her stricken face, her eyes wide with disbelief and reddened from crying. Jude’s heart went out to her.

  ‘I’ll be back before you know it. They’re saying it won’t last long.’

  To Amy he sounded as though he was popping out for a jaunt. Her tears turned to anger. ‘Isn’t it enough that the poor Belgians are being massacred by the Germans without you losing your life? It’s not your war. You’re not a soldier,’ she cried.

  ‘No, but I am a man who knows what’s right. If we don’t stop the Germans we’ll end up like the Belgians.’

  ‘But you could be killed!’ Amy waved her clenched hands to add impact to her words, Jude catching hold of the little fists dancing before his eyes. Amy tore them free. ‘I never took you for a fool,’ she spat contemptuously.

  ‘I’m not being a fool, I’m doing my duty,’ Jude contradicted her, his words ringing with authority. Amy’s back visibly stiffened.

  Jude placed his hands on her shoulders, and this time she did not pull away. He held her to his chest, shaken by the intensity of her outburst. ‘I want to go. I need to go. I wouldn’t think I was much of a man if I didn’t.’

  ‘But what if you don’t come back?’ Amy sagged against him.

  A grimace twisted Jude’s lips. He looked as though he was about to laugh out loud.

  ‘When I go down the pit, do you spend the whole time worrying about me?’ he asked gently, his hot breath fanning Amy’s cheek.

  Amy shook her head and whispered, ‘No.’

  ‘Then maybe you should,’ Jude said, stepping back to look at her. ‘You can’t have forgotten the accident at Barrow Pit – the cage released too soon, seven men dead at the bottom of the shaft. They weren’t even hewing coal where the real danger is. And what about the explosion at Wharnecliffe when nobody knew the gas was building up until a spark blew them all to kingdom come?’ He smiled cynically. ‘And you worry that I might get killed if I enlist. I could just as easily end up dead if I didn’t.’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘And as for fighting the Germans – if we don’t, we might lose our freedom and all that we hold dear.’ He pointed to the ceiling above which Kezia slept. ‘I’m doing it for her.’

  Amy quailed as the truth of his words hit home.

  *

  The kitchen door almost flew off its hinges as Beattie Stitt flounced in, her hair on end and a malevolent gleam in her eye. Amy groaned inwardly. She had slept badly, afraid to rest on the darkness of the night, and now she felt in no fit state to deal with one of her sister’s tantrums. Affecting calm, she carried on stirring the porridge. ‘Good morning, Beattie,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t good morning me.’ Beattie wagged a threatening finger. ‘Just who does that bloody husband of yours think he is?’

  At a loss, Amy left off stirring and gave Beattie a quizzical glare. Beattie glared back. ‘That bloody husband of yours has persuaded my Bert to join up,’ she shrieked.

  Amy felt a spurt of anger in her chest. Jude had obviously told Bert before he told her. She should have been the first he talked to so that they could make a rational decision as to whether or not he should join the army. Last night had ended in tears, Amy feeling as though her words were knocking against a brick wall, and Jude refusing to discuss it further.

  ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, Beattie, and when Jude comes home from work, we’re going to thrash it out reasonably.’ Amy spoke firmly but deep inside she felt no conviction.

  ‘How am I going to manage all them kids on me own?’ Beattie wailed. She burst into tears, her raucous crying that of a wounded animal as she tore at her greasy hair.

  Amy took control of the situation. Clasping her sister in a tight embrace she forced her into a chair, the unpleasant odours emanating from Beattie’s armpits and hair quickly curtailing the sisterly hug. Then she grabbed the kettle. A strong cup of tea was in order. Still muttering at Jude’s betrayal, Beattie slumped at the table, her head on her forearms. Amy offered no words of comfort for she also felt betrayed. Yet, when she set down the cups of tea and sat at the table, she found herself repeating Jude’s reasons for going to war. There was little point in railing against the inevitable, she decided. What both women needed now was to be strong.

  The tea worked its magic, Beattie’s sobs mere sniffles she peered over the rim of her cup. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve a drop of summat strong to go in this tea.’

  Reluctantly, Amy produced the brandy kept purely for medicinal purposes. The bottle was almost full. Beattie slopped a generous measure into her cup then drank deeply. ‘I’ll not manage on army pay,’ she moaned. ‘Lily Tinker says its nowt compared to what t’miners are earning now, what with all t’coal they need for t’war.’

  Again, Amy found the voice of reason. She talked of duty to king and country, the need to support comrades, defend the nation against the Hun. She didn’t know if she truly believed it but she managed to calm Beattie who, having helped herself to several tipples of brandy, was feeling quite cheerful.

  ‘We’ll get by, Beattie, you’ll see,’ Amy said positively. ‘In wartime everyone suffers but we’ll manage. We’ll manage together. I’ll give you a hand with children.’

  Amy didn’t know then how much she would come to regret this remark.

  ‘Aye, you’re right,’ said Beattie, pouring brandy into her empty cup. ‘And think on. No more mucky pit clothes to wash, nobody farting and breathing beer in your face when you’re in bed unless,’ she giggled girlishly, ‘unless of course you look for a bit of company now and then.’

  ‘Beattie Stitt! You are incorrigible,’ exclaimed Amy. Although she laughed out loud, she couldn’t help thinking that in Bert’s absence Beat
tie’s unseemly behaviour would further deteriorate.

  Beattie stood, wobbling against the table. ‘I don’t suppose I can take this to steady me nerves,’ she asked, lifting the depleted brandy bottle. She tottered to the door.

  Amy shook her head despairingly. She really must talk to Jude tonight.

  17

  Beckett’s Park Hospital

  Late October, 1918

  Amy plodded through the hospital gateway, thick fog like damp, grey blankets hanging in front of her face. It had dampened her coat and her hair, but it hadn’t dampened her spirit. She had walked but a few paces when Eileen Brennan, the lovely Irish nurse whom Amy now considered to be her friend, caught up with her.

  ‘Ye managed to get here, then?’ she said cheerily, linking her arm into Amy’s. ‘I had one heck of a journey, what with the buses crawlin’ along and a car blocking the road after it had run into a lamppost. I walked most of the way.’

  ‘Poor you,’ said Amy, giving her a friendly grin, her heart-warming at the thought of this dedicated nurse’s determination to get to work. ‘I was in two minds whether to come or not when I saw how bad it was this morning, but I didn’t want to let Jude down, and fog doesn’t seem to bother the trains. It was only a few minutes late, but then I couldn’t get a cab for love nor money so I had to walk as well.’

  Eileen chuckled. ‘The things we do to put these fellas right, eh. They’ll be makin’ saints of us before we’re done. Mind you, it takes a lot more than a bit o’ fog for me to miss me work. My Liam says there’s a tinge of the burning martyr about me. He says I give Our Lady a run for her money.’

  Amy laughed. ‘You’re the Blessed Virgin Mary in disguise as far as I’m concerned. You’re doing a marvellous job with Jude. I can’t thank you and Dr Mackay enough,’ she said, as they climbed the steps to the hospital doors.

  Eileen flushed at the compliment. ‘Thanks, it’s nice to be appreciated – an’ I know Dr Mackay didn’t agree with the book reading,’ she continued, as they entered the foyer, ‘but no two men are the same, and the doctor’s not always right.’ She waited for Amy to sign in, and then as they entered the long corridor she said, ‘You’re not doing such a bad job yourself.’ Now it was Amy’s turn to blush.