THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Aye, for me an’ all,’ admitted Dan. ‘But we’ve still got each other. Nothing’s going to come between us again.’

  As Millie smiled at him and they kissed again in renewed yearning, a voice shouted down the passageway, ‘Who’s that? Millie, have you got company?’

  Millie pulled away with a regretful smile. ‘Mam,’ she sighed.

  Teresa’s commanding voice came again. ‘If you’re making tea, I’ll have a cup, pet.’

  Dan gave a quizzical look. Millie whispered, ‘She never leaves her room now. But she does receive visitors.’ She gave Dan a wry smile. ‘This’ll make her sit up – seeing the prodigal return.’

  ‘Aye, I bet,’ Dan grimaced. ‘Well, you get the tea brewing and I’ll get the sandbags.’

  Millie laughed. ‘You’ll need them, the things she’s said about you this past year.’

  Dan glanced over at the gurgling Robert. ‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?’

  Millie wagged a warning finger at him. ‘Don’t you go upsetting her, do you hear?’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t go taking advantage of you,’ Dan countered.

  Millie felt a stab of apprehension that marred the joy she felt at seeing him again. She wondered how long it would be before her mother and husband were rowing once more and the dull equilibrium of her existence was shattered. She had no idea how things were going to work out for them, but then she had decided she shouldn’t worry about the future. Warming the teapot, she reminded herself once more not to look beyond the day.

  Chapter Twenty

  After Mungo’s funeral, Dan stayed on for the rest of the summer, declaring to Millie, ‘It’s the best thing me dad ever did for me – dying. Brought us back together again.’ His reappearance seemed to galvanise Teresa and she made attempts to leave her bed and sit in the kitchen, where she could keep a better eye on Dan’s comings and goings.

  ‘He’s drinking too much,’ she told Millie in disapproval. ‘You should try and stop him.’

  Millie silently agreed that he spent more time than she would have liked with his old drinking friends, and she noticed how small amounts of money that she had hidden around the house to pay bills were disappearing. At first she was just relieved to have him back again, and enjoyed their walks along the river, picnics in the park with baby Robert and watching Dan organising games of football with children in the street.

  But Dan made no attempt to find casual work and Millie found it increasingly difficult to make their meagre takings at the hotel last the week. She could not understand why he could not make do with what the club must be paying him over the summer. But try as she might, she could not get him to talk about money.

  ‘I can’t give you any more,’ she told him. ‘You’ll just have to stay in.’ He looked about to protest and then stopped. ‘At least you’ll be earning a full wage again shortly.’ Millie tried to be optimistic. ‘When will you have to go back to Kilburn?’ She looked at him warily, wondering if he was going to try and insist that she return with him. But his look slid away from hers as he lit up a fresh cigarette from the one he was already smoking.

  Millie felt a flicker of apprehension. ‘Dan?’

  Dan coughed and looked edgy, pacing the kitchen where Millie was ironing.

  ‘The thing is, Millie,’ he began hesitantly; ‘the thing is ... I don’t know if I’m going back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Millie demanded, banging the iron on to its stand.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I will be,’ he answered. ‘It’s just. . .’He gave her a helpless look. ‘I was suspended twice last season,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That’s why I couldn’t send you any money – they stopped me wages for two months, and I got into a bit of debt. But nothing I can’t pay off once I’m earning again.’

  ‘Are people after you for money?’ Millie asked, her mouth going dry. Dan did not answer. Millie stared at him in dismay. ‘What were you suspended for?’

  Dan drew hard on his cigarette. ‘I lost me head on the pitch a couple of times – had a go at the referee.’

  ‘Dan!’ Millie cried.

  ‘Well, they were having a go at me – dirty tackling, calling me names, trying to get me to lose me temper,’ Dan defended himself. ‘I used to be able to handle it.’ He gulped. ‘But – well – since the bairn died. . .’He gave Millie a bleak look, flicking his cigarette into the fire. ‘I started taking nips of brandy before going on. Thought it would give me courage, but it just made me lose me temper more.’ Millie watched his face crumple like a small child’s. ‘God, Millie! I wasn’t right in the head,’ he sobbed. ‘I thought I’d lost you as well as the bairn.’

  Millie came swiftly round the table and put her arms around him. ‘Oh, Dan!’ He wept in her arms and she was shocked to see him cry. She had never seen him like this before and it was the first time he had shown such emotion over Edith’s death. Even in private he had not allowed himself to weep and she had been left with this image of his stony, impassive face at the funeral. For too long she had thought it was only she who was drowning in grief, quite alone.

  ‘I should have known how badly you’d take losing our Edith,’ Millie comforted, hugging him tight. ‘But drinking like you do isn’t going to bring her back,’ she added gently.

  ‘Aye, I know,’ Dan sniffed, wiping his face on his sleeve, embarrassed by his show of emotion. ‘I’m going to stop the drinking, Millie, I promise.’ He blew his nose. ‘And I’m going to sort things out with the club, get me career back on course.’

  ‘Good.’ Millie smiled with relief, hoping that he meant it.

  ***

  The autumn came, but rather than being welcomed back by his club, Dan found himself being transferred swiftly to a Third Division side in east Yorkshire. Millie could tell he was dashed by the demotion, but she was secretly relieved that he was now near enough to travel back to Ashborough more often.

  ‘At least you can come back during the week when you’re not playing,’ she tried to cheer him. ‘It’s just a couple of hours on the train.’

  She resisted any of his attempts to get her to go with him, saying that there was no point in moving for just a few months in case he was transferred somewhere else at the end of the season. It was the only thing they argued over, but Millie was adamant she would not leave her mother alone to cope with Moody and Robert. She could not bring herself to tell Dan that she was unable to bear the thought of leaving Ashborough again because that was where Edith was at rest.

  She felt near to her dead child and spent the anniversary of Edith’s death putting fresh flowers on her grave and sitting in the October sunshine writing her a letter. She hid this in her coat pocket, telling no one of its existence, ashamed of her sentimentality yet finding comfort in the action. She told her daughter how much she was missed by her parents, how many hopes they had had for her and that she would never leave her again.

  But she could talk to Dan about none of this. How could she say that she would rather stay close to the grave of her daughter than follow him to some unknown town, trying to fill long, empty days of inactivity? Once she dared to suggest, ‘Why don’t you give up the football and come back here? Help run the hotel? We could make a real go of it together.’

  Dan had looked at her, incredulous. ‘Give up football?’ he exclaimed. ‘For this dump? Not on your life! Don’t ever ask me that again.’

  When he returned to spend a few days with her just before Christmas, he put pressure on her to join him once more. ‘You’ve never even been to see where I live – or the club, or anything,’ he said, pausing on the ladder where he was hanging up battered decorations in the dining room. ‘The other lads think it’s odd you not being around; they have a good laugh at my expense. It’s as if you’ve stopped believing in me, Millie,’ he accused, ‘stopped thinking I’m any good as a footballer.’

  Millie glanced up from setting a table for the drapery salesman who was staying for the night. She could hear Robert shouting from his pen i
n the kitchen where she often put him when she had jobs to do. He was crawling so fast now it was not safe to turn her back for two seconds. Gone were the days when he would lie contentedly in her lap and sleep. Now was the time to tell Dan, before the predictable argument spoilt their few days together yet again.

  ‘I’m not stopping you playing,’ she said, rearranging the place setting, ‘but I can’t travel. I—’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Dan interrupted. ‘Listen to me, I’ve been thinking. You could bring Robert with you. We could pretend he was ours like you once suggested. He thinks he’s yours anyway, calling you mammy all the time. So does everyone else. We could get Ella and Walter to keep an eye on your mam and Moody – pay someone to live in like before.’

  ‘Pay with what?’ Millie laughed shortly. She pushed dark curls out of her eyes, her hair having grown long since her return to Ashborough. ‘No, I’m not going to go travelling about now,’ she went on quickly. ‘Not in my condition.’ She looked at him squarely.

  Dan stared back, puzzled. ‘What do you mean, in your condition?’

  She could not help a nervous smile. ‘I’m expecting again,’ she told him, feeling a thrill inside, despite her apprehension. At first she had ignored the signs of pregnancy, not wanting it to be true. It felt disloyal to Edith. As if she could ever be replaced! But after a couple of months of no periods, swelling breasts and the constant taste of bile in her mouth, she could deny it no longer. How they were going to afford another child or manage the hotel she did not like to think.

  Dan scrambled down the ladder and rushed towards her, flinging his arms wide.

  ‘Is it true? Are you sure?’ he gasped in excitement. Millie nodded and laughed. He kissed her enthusiastically. ‘That’s champion!’ Then he steered her to a chair. ‘You shouldn’t be working so hard. Your mam’ll have to help out more.’

  Millie gently disengaged herself. ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she insisted. ‘There’s no need to fuss.’

  ‘There’s every reason to fuss,’ Dan replied. ‘We’re going to be parents again, Millie. It’s the best feeling in the world!’

  ***

  Dan managed to return home about once a month through the spring, and Millie looked forward impatiently to the end of the season, when he could come back to Ashborough and be present for their baby’s birth in June. She was apprehensive about the new baby, constantly concerned for its safety and anxious when she did not feel it kicking. Yet she felt guilty at allowing herself the pleasure of thinking about being a mother again or planning for a baby that was not Edith.

  Bearing another child made her think more acutely than before of her dead daughter, bringing back vivid memories of the happy days on Tyneside when she was carrying Edith. It made her miss her daughter more rather than less, but she tried to mask her grief and did not speak of it even to Dan. He seemed so thrilled by the thought of a second child, and it had given him new motivation. She noticed that his drinking had lessened and he appeared settled and happy at his new club, despite playing in the Third Division.

  His old optimism returned. ‘We’ll finish near the top this season,’ he predicted, ‘and next year we’ll get promotion to the Second Division, you just see.’

  Dan never mentioned playing for Newcastle United or one of the First Division clubs, but Millie knew he still harboured dreams of making it to the top. She no longer believed that he would. Looking back, she thought he had frittered away his talent at Gateshead, enjoying life too much to apply himself to the hard graft of top football. Perhaps he had never had the talent of a Hughie Gallagher after all. Millie was no longer concerned. All that mattered was that he had a job and was content with it, while she had a roof over her head and was managing to scrape a living for them all at the hotel. Their baby would not be indulged the way that Edith had been, but at least she could offer some security and prospects, which in the growing depression around them was an achievement.

  When Dan returned in May, he managed to pick up a couple of weeks’ casual work on Drake’s farm, labouring out in the fields. He enjoyed the physical exertion of working outdoors and came home with arms aching and face ruddy, his fair hair bleached by the summer sun. Millie ignored the barbed comments around the town that he was taking work from others worse off. With the baby on the way, they needed what little extra they could get. She became increasingly tired, running after an active Robert whom chair-bound Teresa could not cope with, as well as cooking and laying tables, making beds and cleaning for the household.

  ‘When the bairn comes, I’ll have to get some help,’ she told Dan as she hauled herself into bed one hot May evening, quite exhausted.

  ‘Maybe that lass Sarah might come back,’ he yawned.

  ‘Her mam doesn’t approve of us,’ Millie sighed, trying to shift into a comfortable position and failing. She threw off the covers.

  Dan put a hand over her bump. ‘I’ll have a word with her mam if you like. Folk can’t be too choosy these days. I bet she could do with one less mouth to feed.’

  Their preparations were overshadowed by a sudden event. One morning Millie hauled herself upstairs with a breakfast tray for Moody as usual, followed by an unsteady but eager Robert, who liked to come and peer at the man in bed. But that day Millie found him lying stone cold, his eyes staring at the damp, flaking ceiling. Millie spilt the tea over the counterpane in her shock and found herself gasping for breath as if she had been punched. Robert tried to climb onto the bed and howled when Millie grabbed him and pulled him away.

  ‘Leave Grandda,’ she gasped, bundling him towards the door. Shaking, she hurried from the room and called for Dan, but he had already left for the farm. Teresa, hearing Robert’s protests and Millie’s cry, demanded, ‘What is it?’

  Millie rushed breathlessly into the kitchen where her mother was sitting. ‘It’s Joseph,’ she hissed. She did not have to say anything more, for her ashen face betrayed what she had found.

  ‘Dead?’ Teresa whispered, her hands moving in agitation. Millie nodded, bracing herself for hysterics from her mother. Robert was already screaming the house down, having inherited Teresa’s temperament. But Teresa merely closed her eyes and gave a shuddering sigh.

  Millie stared at her while Robert bawled and clawed at her skirt. ‘Mam, are you all right?’ she asked in concern, but her mother did not speak. To Millie’s astonishment, a slow smile spread across Teresa’s haggard face.

  ‘The old lecher’s gone,’ she said with quiet relief. ‘I’m free of him.’

  Millie gaped at her mother’s muted elation, quite baffled. She thought Teresa had come to love Moody, or if not exactly love, then grown fond of the strange man. Surely Robert was proof of that? Millie bent to console the screaming infant clamouring for her attention. She tried to lift the stocky boy, but felt a pain shoot through her at the effort, and gasped in agony. She felt odd, her pulse racing uncomfortably.

  Teresa opened her eyes at Millie’s cry of alarm. Millie clutched her swollen womb, feeling ill. ‘Oh, Mam,’ she groaned, ‘I think the baby’s coming.’

  ***

  When Dr Percy came to certify Moody’s death, he found himself helping out at the birth of Millie’s baby. Teresa had crawled to the kitchen door and bellowed for attention as Millie doubled up on the kitchen floor. A delivery boy from the Co-operative store had been passing and run for help. Dr Percy just had time to get Millie onto Teresa’s downstairs bed before she went into labour proper. Half an hour later, faint with the shock of discovering Moody and the speed of the delivery, Millie was presented with her newborn.

  ‘It’s a boy,’ Dr Percy told her. ‘Mr Nixon will be pleased.’

  ‘Aye, he will,’ Millie whispered, unable to look at the young doctor. She was mortified that a man had witnessed all the mess and intimacy; she would never be able to look Dr Percy in the eye again. Millie’s head swam. She had been certain she would have a girl to plague her with memories of Edith and a life of constant comparisons. But here was an unexpected boy. She ga
zed at the tiny, red-faced creature that Dr Percy had placed in her arms. He looked sleepy, as if he too had been taken unawares by his sudden arrival into the world. Millie experienced a surge of delight, coupled with relief.

  ‘I never dared hope ...’ she began. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘Perfectly all right,’ Dr Percy assured her.

  Millie felt herself choking with emotion. ‘Thank you,’ she gulped, giving way to tears of relief.

  By the time Dan returned home at tea-time, Moody’s body had been laid out and measured by the undertaker and Millie was already sitting up in a kitchen chair feeding their son. She had never seen her husband so lost for words. But he recovered swiftly, kissing her with delight and swinging the baby into his arms.

  ‘I want to call him Albert,’ he announced.

  ‘I thought he was to be called Daniel, if he was a boy?’ Teresa questioned. ‘Millie said she wanted him called after you, and she’s done all the hard work.’

  Millie sensed a quarrel brewing. ‘Daniel could be his middle name,’ she said quickly, too weary for argument. ‘And I like the name Albert – sounds regal.’

  ‘Grand!’ Dan grinned happily. ‘Albert it is.’

  Teresa snorted. ‘Think you’re royalty, do you? Naming him after Prince Albert.’

  Dan looked at her, puzzled. ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘After Albert Shepherd – centre forward before the war. Scored ninety-two goals in five seasons.’

  Millie caught her mother’s scandalised look and burst out laughing. Dan smiled down at the tiny-featured infant. ‘My Albert will play like him one day, won’t you, son?’

  Millie smiled at them both as Robert whined at her side, resenting the lack of attention. She glanced down at the fractious child and had an acute pang of regret that it wasn’t Edith there, sharing the moment. She smothered the ill-feeling towards Robert and put an arm around him.

  ‘That’s your new brother, Albert,’ she told him as she hauled him on to her knee, glancing at her mother to see if she would protest. Millie thought it best to avoid the future embarrassment of Albert having to call Robert his uncle. But Teresa said nothing. It appeared she did not care enough about her young son to make a fuss, or maybe she really did think it the best arrangement for Millie to pretend to be the boy’s mother.