She tried to talk to him about it in the morning when he returned from the pit and after she had helped him bath. Finally they were alone together in their cramped bedroom. Millie had attempted to make it homely with a vase of flowers on the washstand and embroidered pictures on the wall that she had bought from a bazaar. But she could not hide the fact that it was a dismal boarding-house bedroom with a view over the Co-operative stables and a pungent smell of horse muck that grew worse with the summer weather.
‘Tell me what’s happening with the Comrades,’ Millie insisted, as Dan flopped down on the bed to sleep.
‘It’s nowt for you to worry about,’ he insisted, pulling her down beside him. ‘It’s all a fuss over nothing. All that I’m bothered about is winning the Northumbria Cup this time.’
Millie allowed herself to snuggle up to him; the chores downstairs could wait for once. ‘I’ll stick up for you, whatever they say.’
Dan kissed her. ‘That’s my lass.’ Then he slumped back on the pillow and Millie feared he would be asleep before they had time to talk any further.
‘Dan,’ she said, shaking him, ‘I’ve been putting a bit by now from me wages at the Palace. Not a lot, but enough for a deposit on a bigger room than this.’ Dan grunted his surprise. Millie wondered if she was wise in telling him about her savings; he was so generous he would be out tomorrow spending it on gifts for her if she told him where it was hidden. But she decided to continue.
‘Major Hall says there’re rooms to rent in Ivy Road, just along from him. We could go and have a look,’ Millie suggested.
Dan snorted. ‘When we move from here, pet, it’ll be for something grander than Ivy Road.’
‘Oh aye! And when’s that going to be?’ Millie demanded in exasperation, sitting up.
Dan pulled her down beside him again. ‘Soon,’ he promised.
‘I want to get away from here,’ Millie protested, resisting his placating kiss. ‘I can’t stand any more of that Ava.’
Dan just laughed. ‘I wished I’d been there to see you going three rounds with her in the kitchen. Hammer and tongs, your mam said.’
‘Don’t!’ Millie said, flushing with remorse. ‘It was all over you, anyway.’
Dan tickled her. ‘How about we gan to the seaside in a couple of weeks – after the final? There’s a charabanc going from the club. We’ll have a canny day out, eh?’
Millie sighed. ‘And how are we going to afford it?’
Dan grinned. ‘You’ve just said you had a bit put by. We should enjoy ourselves while we can, not be worrying about the morra.’ And he kissed her before she could protest.
Millie gave up, realising that it was partly his happy-go-lucky nature that made her love him so much. Dan was never plagued with the anxieties over the future that kept her awake at night. With his optimism and her practical nature they would succeed, she determined. Millie believed that if she could just get him into a place of their own, or even away from Ashborough altogether, she could change his profligate ways. With that thought, she kissed him back.
***
When the Comrades won the Cup for the first time since before the Great War, Dan and the rest of Ashborough were ecstatic. The team played their final game in front of an enthusiastic crowd of six thousand. Millie went along to support Dan, thrilled to see him play before so many spectators and seeing him respond to their cheering by scoring twice. The season over, they went on the charabanc trip, spending some of Millie’s hard-earned wages, and early summer came with a measure of freedom from the hotel. They borrowed bicycles and went cycling with Ella and Walter to Morpeth. But in the weeks that followed, the victory became tarnished when the players were suspended while the allegations over illegal payments were investigated.
Dan shrugged these off. ‘If they declare us professionals, so what? That’s what I intend to be anyway.’ He went off on the club’s annual trip quite cheerful, for a day of sport and drinking, leaving Millie morosely wondering if the day would ever come when his talents would be spotted. Her mother was beginning to make pointed remarks about how little Dan was bringing into the household, and that he should be concentrating on getting a better pit job. ‘Life’s all about putting food on the table, not wasting time hankering after what you can’t have.’
Millie was always quick to defend her husband and argued back, ‘That’s rich coming from you, Mam! You’ve always cared more about singing and playing the piano and chatting to folks than bothering what’s cooking for tea.’
Teresa glared. ‘I’ve worked my fingers to the bone keeping you all these years – and now I’m keeping that lazy husband of yours!’
They argued constantly through the summer, while Dan kept out of the way, refusing to be drawn into their battles. Ava, in the mean time, had astonished them all by courting surly Grant Nixon. Millie was amazed to see him quite boyish in her company, seemingly endlessly patient with her possessive, bossy demands.
‘He’ll never stick it,’ Ella said to Millie, ‘not once he gets to know what she’s really like.’
Ella and Walter had managed to secure a small colliery house back in Tenter Terrace, a few doors away from Mungo and Grant. Millie enjoyed her visits there, admiring the way they had decorated it with flowery curtains and some of Effie’s old brass ornaments for which Mungo had no use. Millie wished that she lived in such a private haven, despite the constant fight against coal grime and dust from the unpaved lanes around that quarter of the town. Millie would escape to Ella’s to help her work on a hooky mat, sitting either side of the frame by the kitchen range, or outside in the yard in the sunshine, as they were one day in June.
‘Grant needs his head examined,’ Millie laughed. ‘And there was his mam always worried he was too serious about books to get himself a wife to look after him.’
‘I think that’s why he’s courting now,’ Ella mused. ‘Mungo’s in poor health these days, and Walter says I’m not to spend me spare time round there running after them. It’s little thanks I get when I do. Mungo’s got a temper like a bear and Grant’s too busy with his debating and his politics to notice I’m there.’
‘Well, they should just get themselves a housekeeper,’ Millie answered.
‘Cheaper to marry,’ Ella snorted. ‘But I can’t see Ava wanting to settle to a life of skivvying for them.’ Ella sighed and put down her hook. ‘Oh, it’s too hot for this.’
Millie, noticing her friend’s unusual lethargy, got up to make them a pot of tea. When she came back, Ella said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ Millie saw her blush and look away.
‘What is it?’ Millie asked, her stomach suddenly clenching.
Ella smiled coyly. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’
Millie gasped and then flung her arms around her friend.
‘That’s grand! I’m that pleased for you.’ Yet at the same time she felt envy twist her insides. They had married on the same day ten months ago, and had done everything together since. Now Ella was pregnant and she was not. She would have given anything for them both to be going through their first pregnancy at the same time, comparing experiences and revelling in the anticipation together. But this was something that she could not share with her oldest friend, and she tried to hide her disappointment.
Ella seemed to read her mind. ‘Likely you’ll be next.’ She smiled awkwardly. ‘Then we can help each other poss the nappies!’
Millie agreed, but on the way home she held back tears of panic that she and Dan might never have a baby. Even with him working night shift, they still found time for snatched lovemaking. They had done it scores of times since getting married, yet nothing had happened. Why had the old wives of Craston always muttered darkly about the dangers of being left alone with a man, and how this could ruin a young girl, as if getting pregnant was like a contagious disease? What was the secret? Millie puzzled tearfully. Perhaps she ought to ask Ella, for she was the only person in the world to whom she could speak about such things. But when she arrived back home, such th
oughts were banished instantly by an unexpected caller.
‘Is this where Daniel Nixon lives?’ asked a stout man in a smart suit and trilby hat.
‘Aye,’ answered Teresa suspiciously, as if the visitor might be some dubious tick-man.
‘Is he at home?’ the man persisted.
‘Yes,’ Millie said quickly, ‘he’s sleeping before his shift. Can I help you? I’m Mrs Daniel Nixon.’
The man smiled and took off his hat. ‘Mr Coburn.’ He extended his hand. ‘I’m from Gateshead Vulcans; the football club.’
Millie gaped at him and then seized his hand and shook it quickly. ‘Please come in. I’ll go and get him straight away.’
She raced upstairs and shook Dan awake, gabbling the news to him. She had never seen him react so fast off the pitch, pulling on trousers and jacket over his pyjamas and rushing down the stairs. Millie insisted that they went into the dining room for privacy, and brought them in tea and biscuits. When the club official went, Dan could hardly contain his excitement.
‘They want me to play in a trial next week! There’s a touring side from France visiting and I’m getting a game for the Vulcans’ reserves.’ His face was lit with happiness as he swung Millie off her feet and twirled her round. Millie screeched with pleasure. ‘This is it, bonny lass, I know it!’
Millie caught sight of her mother’s sceptical look, but ignored it. ‘You show them how good you can be,’ Millie told him, kissing him boldly in front of Teresa.
***
The following Saturday, Millie took the train to Newcastle with Dan to watch him play. ‘You’ll bring me luck,’ he told her, insisting that she come. That morning she got up early to cook him a mammoth breakfast of four eggs, six rashers of bacon and toast, to keep him going after a full shift at the pit. Fuelled with food and nervous energy, Dan showed little sign of fatigue.
Millie was bursting with excitement at the sight of Newcastle’s impressive buildings emerging out of the steam as they drew into Central Station: the delicate crown tower of the cathedral, the ornate redbrick buildings of commerce, the squat castle fortress and the span of a railway bridge across the teeming River Tyne. She had never been so close to it all before, and she clutched Dan’s arm in excitement as they crossed the high-level bridge to Gateshead on the south side of the river. The place was bustling with shops and tramcars and horses pulling trolleys laden with goods. The smoky air held a whiff of the sea, blown upriver like the gulls, while below, the quayside rang with the unloading of cargo and the hoot of tug boats.
Millie was amazed at the size of the Vulcans’ ground, further upriver from the town centre, near some coal staithes. Thousands of people had turned out to see the friendly game between the Third Division side and their French visitors. She willed Dan to do well and he rose to the occasion, rushing around the pitch like a man possessed, tackling keenly and stealing the ball again and again. Millie sensed he was going to score as soon as she saw him receive the ball on the edge of the penalty area, his back to the goal. She held her breath as she craned to see him. With supreme confidence, he pivoted on the spot, jinked between the two defending backs and whacked the ball past the advancing goalkeeper and into the net.
Millie leapt in the air, with thousands of other fans, nearly choking with pride. She knew she was witnessing something momentous, something that would change their lives for good, and she relished it. She hung around afterwards, waiting for Dan to emerge from his meeting with the managing board. Mr Coburn came out beaming and shook her hand. ‘I’m pleased to say, Dan has accepted our offer to join the club. Part-time to start with, and see how he comes on.’
Dan took Millie out to celebrate with drinks in a prestigious hotel near the station, and a fish-and-chip supper. ‘Three pounds a week extra, Millie,’ he crowed, booting his empty fish paper in the air and catching it. Millie hid her initial disappointment that he was not to be full-time, for her mind had raced ahead with plans of moving to Tyneside.
‘I suppose you’ll just have to keep on at the pit in the mean time,’ she said, slipping her arm through his.
‘Aye,’ Dan agreed. ‘But it’ll not be for long. I’ll be full-time before the year’s out, I reckon.’
‘And we can put some money by, save for our house when we move here,’ Millie said enthusiastically.
‘Little Miss Thrifty,’ Dan teased, and kissed her cheek.
They got a train home, returning triumphant. The news soon spread, and all week people called at the hotel to congratulate Dan and talk football. He was toasted around the town wherever he went, refusing to allow friends to dip their hands into meagre pockets. Millie knew he was buying most of the rounds because she noticed with concern that his pit wages were gone in three nights’ drinking. Yet Dan was so happy, she could not deny him this period of celebration, even if it meant him spending too much time with the likes of Kenny Manners.
With the end of summer, Dan began his regular trips to Gateshead and beyond to play for the Vulcans most Saturdays, sometimes having to stay away all weekend. She hated these separations, yet it was better than worrying about him down the pit pushing coal tubs, bent double in wet seams. Her anxiety over his pit job increased. What if he got injured? she fretted to Ella. He might ruin his chances and never play football again.
‘I wish he would give up his job at the pit,’ she said, noticing how much Ella had thickened out at the waist this past month.
‘Count yourself lucky he’s got work. He’s got more than any of the other lads around here,’ Ella replied sharply. ‘You’ve two wages coming in. Walter’s back on short time. I don’t know how we’re going to manage once the bairn’s here.’
Millie bristled. ‘Aye, but Dan’s that generous he spends as fast as he gets it – more often than not on your Walter.’
‘Well, I’d rather he didn’t,’ Ella complained, heaving herself out of the chair where she had been sewing cot sheets out of an old tablecloth. ‘Walter’s too easily led.’
Her friend seemed so irritable these days, Millie thought in annoyance. If this was what being pregnant did to you, then perhaps she was not missing out after all. Ella had lost her sparkle and sense of fun, as well as any interest in going dancing on a Saturday night. To Millie’s irritation, all she did was make endless things for her baby and grumble about lack of money.
Then, shortly before Christmas, events came to a head. Dan was due to play for the Vulcans away in the Midlands. To do so he had to miss the Friday-night shift down the pit and travel with the team. But the pit manager refused to let him, and he came storming home in a terrible temper that Millie had never before witnessed.
‘He says I’ll be out on me ear if I don’t turn in for work Friday,’ he fumed.
Millie exchanged anxious looks with her mother. ‘They can’t stop you! It means that much to us . . .’ She swallowed angry tears.
To her surprise Teresa came to Dan’s defence. ‘If the game’s that important to you and Millie, you’ve got to go.’ She was adamant. ‘Tell them to go to the devil. This is your big chance to give my Millie a better life, so take it!’
Millie fought down her usual caution. ‘Aye, Mam’s right, the match is far more important, even if it means losing that job. I’d be glad if you weren’t ganin’ down the pit any more.’
But as Friday neared, events overtook them. Grant organised an unofficial strike among the face workers, threatening that they would all walk out if Dan was not allowed to travel away with the Vulcans. The bosses backed down, quite taken aback by the strength of feeling over the matter. Dan went, and Millie waited nervously for the result to filter through, rushing out for the evening newspaper.
‘They won!’ she cried, running into the kitchen to find Grant waiting for Ava. ‘It doesn’t say who scored, but they won!’
In her excitement, she swung an arm around her brother-in-law’s neck as he sat waiting, and kissed him on the cheek. She laughed as she saw Grant flush with embarrassment. ‘And it was thanks to you that he got
to go.’
Grant began to mumble a denial when Ava entered, throwing Millie a suspicious look.
‘Come on, Grant,’ she ordered, ‘or we’ll be late for the concert.’ He followed quickly, without a backward glance at Millie.
Millie could hardly wait for Dan’s return late that night. She met him off the train in the frosty dark and he grabbed her in an emotional hug.
‘We’ve done it, Millie!’ he cried. ‘They want me full-time at the club, so the bosses at the pit can stick their job – it’s no more hauling coals for Dan Nixon, centre forward!’
Millie screamed with delight. ‘I’m so happy,’ she cried.
Dan laughed. ‘You can start packing your bags; we’re off to Tyneside.’ But Millie suddenly burst into tears, and Dan held her in concern. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted?’
‘I do!’ Millie was laughing and crying at the same time. ‘I just can’t believe it’s happening.’
‘Well it is,’ Dan reassured her with a grin. ‘And I know something else – I can’t do it without my Millie beside me.’
‘You’ll always have me,’ Millie promised him, smiling through her tears of pride.
‘I’ve missed you, bonny lass. Give us a kiss,’ Dan whispered. And they kissed long and hard on the frozen platform, warmed by their passion for each other and the thrill of their new life beckoning.
Chapter Eleven
1926
Millie was up early preparing the picnic for the charabanc outing to the seaside. They were to meet outside the Waterloo public house at the end of the street by nine o’clock. She bustled around her small, neat kitchen with its gas stove and green-painted cupboards and gleaming linoleum floor, making salmon-paste sandwiches with the fresh loaf she had just bought from Tilley’s the baker’s. It was still a delight to descend from their upstairs flat in Paradise Parade and walk along the wide street to the shops as they put out their awnings for the day, beckoned by the yeasty smell of baking bread, the spicy whiff of hanging cured meat and the delicious aroma of coffee beans from the grocer’s.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 58
