The Gambling Man

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘You go on a train to Gateshead every Saturday? I didn’t know that. Eeh! on a train . . .’

  ‘Well’—he laughed self-consciously—’not every Saturday, only when funds allow. And then not to Gateshead, but Newcastle. I take the train up half-way, say to Pelaw, and walk the rest. I love Newcastle. Aw, lad, if I had the money I’d live there; I wouldn’t mind rent collecting around Newcastle.’

  ‘Aren’t there any slums up there then?’

  ‘Oh aye, Janie, plenty. But I don’t look at the slums, it’s the buildings I look at. There’s some beautiful places, Janie. Haven’t you ever been to Newcastle?’

  ‘No, I’ve been across the water to North Shields and Cullercoats, and once I went as far as Felling on this side, but no, I’ve never been to either Gateshead or Newcastle.’

  ‘Rory should take you up, he should take you to a theatre.’

  ‘There’s a good theatre here, I mean in Shields.’

  ‘Oh aye, it’s all right, but it isn’t like Newcastle.’

  ‘They get the same turns, only a little later.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not thinkin’ about the turns, nothing like that, it’s the buildings you know. I suppose it was a wrong thing to say that he should take you to a theatre, but I think he should take you up to Newcastle to see the lovely places there, the streets and buildings.’

  ‘I never knew you liked that kind of thing, John George?’

  ‘Oh aye, an’ have ever since I was a lad. It was me da who started it. On holiday week-ends we’d walk up there. Me mother never came, she couldn’t stand the distance and she wasn’t interested in buildings. It was because of me da’s interest in buildings and such that I was taught to read and write. He was standing looking up at a lovely front door once. They’re called Regency. It was off Westgate Hill; it was a bonny piece of work with a lovely fanlight and the windows above had iron balconies to them when a man came alongside of us and started crackin’. And it turned out he worked in an architect’s office and he seemed over the moon when he knew me da was interested in masonry and such and was leading me along the same lines. That was the first time I heard the name Grainger mentioned. He was the great builder of Newcastle. And John Dobson, he used to design for Grainger and others. I’d heard of the Grainger Market, and had been through it, but you don’t think of who built these places. And then there’s Grey Street. Eeh! there’s a street for you. The best time to see it is on a Sunday when there’s no carts or carriages packing it out and few people about. By! it’s a sight. As me da once said, that’s what one man’s imagination could do for a town.’

  Janie now blew at the snow that was dusting her lips and turned her head towards him and blinked as she said, ‘You’re a surprise packet you are, John George. Do you ever talk to Rory about it?’

  ‘Aye, sometimes. But Rory’s not really interested in Newcastle or buildings and such.’

  ‘No, no, he’s not.’ Janie’s voice held a dull note now as she added, ‘Cards, that’s Rory’s interest, cards. Eeh! he seems to think of nothing else.’

  ‘He thinks of you.’

  ‘Aye, he does, I must admit.’ She was smiling at him through the falling snow and she added now, ‘You’ve got me interested in Newcastle. I’ll tell him . . . I’ll tell him he’s got to take me up.’

  ‘Do that, Janie. Aye, do that. Tell him you want to see Jesmond. By! Jesmond’s bonny. And the houses on the way . . . Eeh! lad, you see nothing like them here.’

  ‘I think I’d like to see the bridges. I heard me da say there’s some fine bridges. Funny me never ever havin’ seen Newcastle and it only seven miles off. And there’s me grannie. She worked there at one time, she was in service at a place overlooking the river. She used to keep talking about the boats laden down with coal going up to London. It was funny, she never liked Newcastle. She still speaks of the people there as if they were foreigners; she’s always sayin’ they kept the South Shields men down, wouldn’t let them have their own shipping rights or nothing until a few years back. It’s funny when you come to think of it, John George, we know more about the people from Ireland, like the Learys and Rory’s folks, than we do about them up in Newcastle. I’m beginning to see the sense of some of me grannie’s sayings; she always used to be saying, “You could be closer to a square head from Sweden than you could to a man with a barrow from Jarrow.”’

  John George laughed now, saying, ‘I’ve never heard that one afore.’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s one of me grannie’s make-up ones. You know, half the things she says I think she makes up. If she had ever been able to read or write she would have been a story teller. I’ve said that to her. Oh—’ She sighed now and shook her gloved hands to bring the circulation back into her fingers as she said, ‘We’re nearly there.’ Then on a little giggle, she added, ‘If the missis was to see you she’d think I was leading a double life and she’d raise the riot act on me.’

  As they stopped before a side gate that was picked out by the light from a street lamp she looked at John George, now blowing on his hands, and said with deep concern, ‘Oh, you must be frozen stiff, John George. And no gloves.’

  ‘Gloves!’ His voice was high. ‘You can see me wearin’ gloves, I’d be taken for a dandy.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You need gloves, especially goin’ round in this weather, scribbling in rent books. At least you want mittens. I’ll knit you a pair.’

  He stood looking down on her for a long moment before saying, ‘Well, if you knit me a pair of mittens, Janie, I’ll wear them.’

  ‘That’s a bargain?’

  ‘That’s a bargain.’

  ‘Thanks for comin’ all this way, John George.’

  ‘It’s been my pleasure, Janie.’

  ‘I . . . I hope you see your girl next week.’

  ‘I hope so an’ all. I . . . I’d like you to meet her. You’d like her, I know you’d like her, and what’s more, well, being you you’d bring her out, ’cos she’s quiet. You have that habit, you know, of bringing people out, making people talk. You got me talkin’ the night all right about Newcastle.’

  Janie stood for a moment blinking up at him and slightly embarrassed and affected by the tenderness of this lanky, kindly young fellow. His simple talking was having the same effect on her as Rory’s gentle touch had done. She felt near tears, she had the silly desire to lean forward and kiss him on the cheek just like a sister might. But that was daft, there was no such thing as sisterly kisses. That was another thing her grannie had said and she believed her. There were mothers’ kisses and lovers’ kisses but no sisterly kisses, not between a man and woman who weren’t related anyway . . . Yet the master kissed his sister-in-law, she had seen him. Eeh! what was she standing here for? She said in a rush, ‘Good night, John George. And thanks again, I’ll see you next Sunday. Ta-rah.’

  ‘Ta-rah, Janie.’

  She hurried up the side path, but before opening the kitchen door she glanced back towards the gate and saw the dim outline of his figure silhouetted against the lamplight, and she waved to it; and he waved back; then she went into the house . . .

  Mrs Tyler, the cook, turned from her seat before the fire, looked at Janie, then looked at the clock above the mantelpiece before saying, ‘You’ve just made it.’

  ‘There’s three minutes to go yet.’ Her retort was perky.

  She wasn’t very fond of Mrs Tyler. She had only been cook in the Buckhams’ household for eighteen months but from the first she had acted as if she had grown up with the family. And what was more, Janie knew she was jealous of her own standing with the master and mistress.

  The cook never said anything outright to her but she would talk at her through Bessie Rice, the housemaid, making asides such as ‘Some people take advantage of good nature, they don’t know their place. Don’t you ever get like that, Bessie now. In Lady Beckett’s household, where I did my trainin’, the nursemaid might have her quarters up on the attic floor but below stairs she was considered bottom cellar steps. Of cours
e, a governess was different. They were educated like. Why, in Lady Beckett’s the still-room maid sat well above the nursemaid.’

  On the occasion when this particular remark was made, Janie had had more than enough of Lady Beckett for one day and so, walking out of the kitchen, she remarked to no one in particular, ‘Lady Betty’s backside !’

  Of course she should never have said such a thing and she regretted it as soon as she was out of the door, and before she had reached the nursery she knew that the cook was knocking on the parlour door asking to speak to the mistress. Ten minutes later the mistress was up in the nursery looking terribly, terribly hurt as she said, ‘Janie, I’m surprised at what the cook has been telling me. You must not use such expressions, because they may become a habit. Now just imagine what would happen if you said something like that in front of the children.’ She had gulped and stood speechless before the young woman who had shown her nothing but kindness and when the mistress had gone she had laid her head in her arms on the table and cried her heart out until young Master David had started to cry with her, and then Margaret, and lastly the baby.

  She looked back on that day as the most miserable in her life, and yet when she went to bed that night she had had to bury her head in the pillow to smother her laughter. Having earlier decided that feeling as she did she’d get no rest, she had gone downstairs to apologize to the mistress and to tell her that never again would she use such an expression in her house, and that she need not have any fear that the children’s minds would ever be sullied by one word that she would utter.

  She had reached the main landing when she was stopped by the sound of smothered laughter coming from the mistress’s bedroom. The door was ajar and she could hear the master saying, ‘Stop it. Stop it, Alicia, I can’t hear you . . . what did she say?’

  She had become still and stiff within an arm’s length of the door as her mistress’s voice came to her spluttering with laughter the while she made an effort to repeat slowly: ‘She . . . said . . . you . . . can . . . kiss . . . Lady . . . Beckett’s . . . backside.’

  ‘She didn’t!‘

  The laughter was joined now, high, spluttering; it was the kind of laughter that one heard in the Connors’ kitchen when Lizzie said something funny.

  ‘Well done, Waggett!’

  There was more laughter, then the master’s voice again saying, ‘I can’t stand Tyler. You want to get rid of her.’

  ‘Oh, she’s a good cook; I can’t do that, David. And Janie mustn’t be allowed to say things like that. But oh, I don’t know how I kept my face straight.’

  She had backed slowly towards the stairs, and when she reached the nursery floor her face split into one wide amazed grin; yet her mind was saying indignantly, ‘I didn’t say that. It’s just like cook to stretch things. But eeh! the master, I’ve never heard him laugh like that afore. Nor the missis. They sounded like a young couple.’

  It wasn’t until she was in bed that she thought to herself, Well, I suppose they are a young couple. Yet at the same time it was strange to her to realize that people of their class could laugh together, spluttering laughter; for they always acted so very correct in front of other folk, even when the sister came. But then the sister was married to a man who had a cousin with a title, a sir, or a lord, or something, and, of course, she wouldn’t expect them to act in any way but refinedly. But, anyway, they had laughed, and the mistress actually repeated what she herself had said, only, of course, with a bit added on by the cook.

  And that night she had told herself yet once again that she liked her master and mistress, she did, she did, and she would do anything for them. And as she had recalled their laughter the bubbling had grown inside her, and to stop an hysterical outburst she had turned and pressed her face tightly into the pillow. And her last thought before going to sleep had been, ‘I’ll have them roaring in the kitchen next Sunday. And she had.

  2

  It was the Saturday before Christmas; the sky lay low over the town and the masts of the ships were lost in grey mist.

  Rory shivered as he walked up the church bank and entered Jarrow. He passed the row of whitewashed cottages, then went on towards the main thoroughfare of Ellison Street. He hated this walk; he hated Saturday mornings; Saturday mornings meant Pilbey Street and Saltbank Row. Pilbey Street was bad enough but the Row was worse.

  He had six calls in Pilbey Street and fifteen in the Row, and as always when he entered the street he steeled himself, put on a grim expression and squared his shoulders, while at the same time thinking, Old Kean and those other landlords he represents should be lynched for daring to ask rent for these places.

  For four years now he had collected the rents in these two streets. In the ordinary way he should have collected them on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday because on these days he came this way collecting, and right on into Hebburn, but you couldn’t get a penny out of anybody in Pilbey Street or the Row on any other day but a Saturday morning. And you were lucky if you managed to get anything then; it was only fear of the bums that made them tip up.

  He lifted the iron knocker and rapped on the paint-cracked knobless door. There was a noise of children either fighting or playing coming from behind it, and after a few minutes it was opened and three pairs of eyes from three filthy faces peered up at him. All had running noses, all had scabs around their mouths and styes on their eyes. The eldest, about five, said in the voice of an adult, ‘Aw, the rent man.’ Then scrambling away through the room with the others following him, he shouted, ‘The rent man, Ma! ’Tis the rent man, Ma!’

  ‘Tell the bugger I’m not in.’

  The woman’s voice came clearly to Rory and when the child came back and, looking up at him, said, ‘She’s not in,’ Rory looked down on the child and as if addressing an adult said, Tell her the bugger wants the rent, and somethin’ off the back, nr else it’s the bums Monday.’

  The child gazed at him for a moment longer before once more scrambling away through the room, and when his thin high voice came back to him, saying, ‘He says, the bugger wants the rent,’ Rory closed his eyes, bowed his head and pressed his hand over his mouth, knowing that it would be fatal to let a smile appear on his face with the two pairs of eyes surveying him. If he once cracked a smile in this street he’d never get a penny.

  It was almost three minutes later when the woman stood before him. She had a black shawl crossed over her sagging breasts, the ends were tucked into a filthy ragged skirt, and in a whining tone and a smile widening her flat face she exclaimed, ‘Aw begod! it’s vou, Mr Connor. Is it the rent you’re after? Well now. Well now. You know it’s near Christmas it is, and you know what Christmas is for money. Chews it, it does, chews it. An’ look at the bairns. There’s not a stitch to their arses an’ himself been out of work these last three weeks.’

  Without seeming to move a muscle of his face Rory said, ‘He’s in the rolling mills and never lost a day this six months, I’ve checked. You’re ten weeks in arrears not countin’ the day. Give me five shillings and I’ll say nothing more ’til next week when I want the same and every week after that until you get your book clear. If not, I go to Palmer’s and he’ll get the push.’

  It was an idle threat, yet she half believed him because rent men had power, rent men were rich; rent men were a different species, not really human.

  They stared at each other. Then the smile sliding from her face, she turned abruptly from him and went through the room, shouting, ‘You Willy! You Willy!’ And the eldest child followed her, to return a moment later with two half-crowns and the rent book.

  Rory took the money, signed the book, marked it in his own hard-backed pocket ledger, then went on to the next house. Here he pushed open the bottom door and called up the dark well of the staircase, ‘Rent!’ and after a moment a man’s voice came back to him shouting, ‘Fetch it up.’

  His nose wrinkled in distaste. If he had a penny for every time that worn-out quip had been thrown at him he considered he’d be able to buy a
house of his own. After a moment of silence he again shouted, ‘Rent, or it’s the bums Monday.’

  The moleskin-trousered bulky figure appeared on the stairhead and after throwing the rent book and a half-crown down the stairs he yelled, ‘You know what you and the bloody bums can do, don’t you?’ then as Rory picked up the money and the book and entered in the amount the man proceeded to elaborate on what he and the bums could do.

  Without uttering a word now Rory threw the book on to the bottom stair, looked up at the man still standing on the landing, then turned about and went towards the end of the street.

  There was no answer whatever from the next three doors he knocked on, but he had scarcely raised the knocker on the fourth when it was opened and Mrs Fawcett stood there, her rent book in one hand, the half-crown extended in the other, and without any greeting she began, ‘You won’t get any change out of them lot.’ She nodded to one side of her. ‘Nor to this one next door.’ Her head moved the other way. ‘Off to Shields they are, the lot of them, to the market and they won’t come back with a penny, not if I know them. Lazy Irish scum. And I’ll tell you somethin’.’ She leant her peevish face towards him. ‘Her, Flaherty, she’s got her front room packed with beds, and lettin’ them out by the shift; as one lot staggers out another lot drops in. Great Irish navvies with not a drop on their faces from Monday mornin’ till Saturda’ night, but Sunday, oh, that’s different, away to Mass they are, and straight out and into the bars. Disgrace!’