by Joan Lingard
‘Sadie! For dear sake!’ Mrs Jackson dropped the fish slice on the floor.
‘Ma!’ Sadie flung her arms round her mother’s neck and hugged her.
Mr Jackson, brought downstairs by the noise, arrived in his vest and trousers, with his braces dangling.
‘Is it you, Sadie?’
‘Who else?’ she cried. ‘Have I changed that much?’
‘’Deed you don’t look as if you’ve changed one bit,’ said her mother, picking up the fish slice to flip over a bit of bacon in the pan. ‘Your hair’s all over the place and you’ve the same pair of jeans on you. You didn’t tell us when you were leaving and you didn’t tell us when you were coming back.’
‘Are you pleased to see me though?’ asked Sadie.
‘Aye well, I suppose I am right enough.’
Sadie grinned. She would never get a fuller admission than that from her mother. In a moment she would be sniffing and sighing and telling Sadie she was a sore trial, but right now she was half smiling and reaching for another rasher of bacon to toss into the pan for her returned daughter.
‘We’ll say no more now you’re back,’ said Mr Jackson. ‘We’ll let bygones be bygones. But you must know you caused us a sore bit of trouble.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sadie, edging round her mother to pinch a piece of bacon from the pan. ‘I’m starved. Smell’s gorgeous.’
‘No, you don’t change, do you?’ said her mother, well enough pleased. ‘We knew you’d see the light about that boy soon enough, but you had to find out for yourself. You can’t tell kids anything.’ Mrs Jackson sniffed, turned off the gas and began to dish out the breakfast.
Sadie sat at the table, quiet now. ‘How’d you mean, I’d find out for myself?’
‘That you’d made a mistake of course,’ said her father. ‘What else?’
‘But I don’t think I did make one,’ said Sadie.
‘What?’ Mrs Jackson laid her hand against her thin neck between the edges of the apron. ‘Do you mean –?’
‘I’m still married,’ said Sadie, starting to eat. The bacon was delicious, lean and crisp, just as she liked it, and the fried potato bread melted in her mouth. ‘This potato bread tastes good. Boys, I really missed it in London.’
Her mother and father were not eating: they were watching her with wonder and apprehension.
‘Do you mean to say you’re still living with that Mick and you’ve got the nerve to come back here?’ said her father.
‘Aye well, I’m on my way down to Tyrone. We’re going to be living on a farm there.’
Mr and Mrs Jackson looked at one another warily. Yes, Sadie was a sore trial, and only last night Tommy had told them he was leaving next month for Australia.
‘Tyrone,’ said Mrs Jackson, as if it were the moon. ‘What’re you going there for?’
‘Kevin’s mother comes from there. We’re going to be living next door to her, and his sister, and brother-in-law, and seven or eight other brothers and sisters,’ Sadie added, unable to resist watching their reaction.
‘With all them Micks?’ Mr Jackson’s horror made him pale. ‘You’re stupider than I ever thought you were, Sadie Jackson. I used to think you were smart!’ He shook his head.
Sadie finished her breakfast, took a slice of bread from the packet on the table, and spread it with butter. She needed food inside her before she faced the journey to Tyrone, though it was not the journey that bothered her, it was the arrival.
‘And did you think you’d be welcome here when you were on your way to take up with a bunch of Micks?’ Her mother put her hands over her face. ‘It’s too much! I don’t know what we did to deserve it.’
‘Probably nothing, Ma.’ Sadie touched her arm. ‘Come on now, don’t take on so. I’ll be all right.’
‘But what about us?’
‘Your ma’s right, Sadie,’ said Mr Jackson, ‘it’s us that suffers. Everybody was talking about you round here when you went off with him.’
‘You’d think they’d enough to talk about.’ Sadie got up. ‘What with people getting killed and all that. You’d think they wouldn’t care about two people wanting to marry one another.’
‘Depends what people,’ said Mr Jackson.
‘You needn’t worry, I’ll be leaving soon. Tommy gone to work?’
‘Yes. And he’s going to Australia next month and all.’
‘I’d like to see him,’ said Sadie. ‘I’ll leave my address for him.’
Her mother and father sat at the table drinking their tea, letting their food grow cold and congealed on the plates. They looked miserable. Sadie opened her mouth, then closed it again not knowing what she could say to them. She sighed. Her mother scratched her head between the rollers and sniffed.
‘I don’t know,’ said her father. ‘I just don’t know.’
Sadie put on her coat, lifted her suitcase. ‘Nice seeing you again. I’ll keep in touch.’
The sun was shining, the birds twittering in the branches overhead. They were gradually returning after the long winter, and the branches were thickening with buds.
‘Spring,’ said Brede happily. ‘It’s coming.’
‘Yes, it feels like it,’ said Kevin, tipping his head back to look at the white and blue sky. ‘And then you’ll have the summer and you’ll get fat and brown and when I come back I won’t know you.’
‘Don’t you wish you weren’t going away?’
‘I suppose so, a bit. But I’m going to see Sadie, Brede. That makes the difference.’
Brede nodded. She was married now to Robert, snug in her little cottage, and whenever she looked out at the grass and trees and heard the peaceful sound of the countryside she could scarcely believe it. Kevin had come with them to help them settle in but tomorrow he would go and she would miss him.
‘You’ll do your best by Ma?’ said Kevin with a sigh. ‘But of course you will. I don’t have to ask.’
‘She’ll get over it, Kevin.’
‘Ah well, she may not, but what can I do?’
Mrs McCoy had started at the farmhouse. She returned each afternoon to look reproachfully at Kevin, complaining that her back was aching and doubting if she’d last to see the spring come into full flower. But on the whole she was happier, relieved at last to have left the town and its cruel streets behind. ‘I never should have left Tyrone at all,’ she said. ‘I’d have done better to have married a local boy and stayed where I belonged.’
Brede glanced over by the road. ‘Kevin,’ she cried out, pointing, making him turn his head, ‘Look! Someone’s coming. It looks like –’
‘Sadie,’ he said softly. Yes, it was her, walking with her head up, her fair hair fluttering around her face, a suitcase in her hand. He started to run towards her.
She dropped the suitcase and ran into his arms. He lifted her right off the ground, clasping her tightly against his chest.
‘Sadie, oh Sadie!’ He set her down, still holding on to her, to look into her face. ‘It is you right enough. It’s like a miracle.’
‘Oh Kevin, it seems like ten years since I’ve seen you.’ Sadie was half laughing, half crying.
‘I was coming to you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I just came to settle in the family.’
‘But I’ve come to live with you.’
‘You have?’
‘You did ask me?’
‘Yes. But since then –’
‘Kevin,’ his mother called.
They turned. Mrs McCoy stood beside Brede on the path.
‘Kevin,’ his mother called again.
‘Come on, Sadie.’ Kevin took Sadie’s hand. ‘You must meet my mother.’
As they approached Brede and her mother, Brede said, ‘Hello, Sadie, nice to see you.’ Mrs McCoy stared hard at Sadie, unblinking and unsmiling.
‘Ma, this is Sadie,’ said Kevin.
‘Hello, Mrs McCoy,’ said Sadie.
Mrs McCoy said nothing. She stood like a statue, frozen.
‘Have you come to stay with us, Sad
ie?’ asked Brede. ‘I hope you have. We’d like it very much indeed.’
‘She’s not staying,’ said Kevin. ‘We’re leaving this afternoon. Together.’ Sadie glanced up at him quickly; he squeezed her hand.
‘Oh!’ Brede was disappointed. ‘Where are you going?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘Would you like to make Sadie a cup of tea, Brede?’
‘Surely.’ Brede went off to her cottage.
Mrs McCoy pulled her coat more tightly around her. ‘I’m away back to my work, Kevin,’ she said. ‘You’ll come and say goodbye before you go?’
He nodded. She gave Sadie a last look, then walked off along the track towards the farmhouse.
‘I don’t think I hit it off with your mother,’ said Sadie ruefully.
‘You’d no chance to, and you never would. We could never live here, love. We’d have no chance at all. I’d be a fool if I ever thought we had.’
‘I was willing to try.’
‘I know. And I’m grateful to you for that.’
He put his arms around her and she leant against him, sheltering from the wind. She looked at the countryside spread out before them. ‘It’s a pity in a way,’ she said. ‘It’s so peaceful here after London. Like you said in your letter.’
‘Yes, it’s peaceful,’ he said. ‘But that’s not everything. And there are other peaceful places, Sadie. We’ll find one. Of our own.’
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin …
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinUKbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
www.penguin.co.uk
www.puffin.co.uk
www.ladybird.co.uk
First published by Hamish Hamilton 1973
Published by Puffin Books 1974
Reissued in this edition 2017
Copyright © Joan Lingard, 1973
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover images © Getty Images and Unsplash
ISBN: 978–0–141–37934–0
All correspondence to:
Penguin Books
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
