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

  ‘Alan,’ Pearl snorted. ‘Since when has he been an expert on military tactics?’

  ‘He’s very knowledgeable about international affairs and the situation in South America,’ Jo bristled.

  ‘Well, he ought to be more worried then,’ Pearl retorted, then started to cough. Jo rushed to get her a glass of water. When the coughing had stopped, Pearl went on: ‘Did you not see the pictures of all those celebrating crowds in Buenos Aires cheering Galtieri? They’ve gone Falklands daft − or Las Malvinas, as they call them. I’ve been to Argentina. Even in the sixties they used to go on about those islands being theirs. The Junta may have organised the invasion to save their own skins, but that makes it the more dangerous. If they back down now, they know they’ll be kicked out at home.’

  Jo looked at her, feeling anxiety rise at the words. ‘But the Americans won’t let it continue,’ she suggested. ‘Mediation must work.’

  Pearl gave her a direct look. ‘Like Mark said, we’re dealing with a dictatorship. They’re used to getting their own way. We came back here after that terrible meal out and watched those Argentinian crowds on the telly. Mark said, “Look at that. It’s like they’ve already won a war. They’ll not give up those islands without a fight.” That’s what he said, and I think he’s right.’

  Jo felt sick. ‘Did he say anything else? About the evening?’ she asked with difficulty.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Pearl answered. ‘He was that quiet after the restaurant. Brenda was calling you all the names under the sun, but that just seemed to annoy him more. He told her to lay off and then they argued. It was a bad evening all round. I think he was almost glad to get away, poor lad. Poor Brenda too.’

  Jo felt a wave of remorse at the memory of her harsh words to Mark. How was it that she kept hurting him, when he was one of the people she cared for most deeply? She realised that now. She was not sure she had ever been truly in love with him, but she cared what happened to him. And it grieved her to think he had left with her callous words ringing in his ears. She knew how sensitive he was about his parentage under his I-don’t-care attitude. How could she have been so cruel as to taunt him about it in front of the others? Jo promised herself that when Mark returned, she would apologise and make it up to him.

  That night she wrote a brief note to Brenda saying sorry, and posted it the next day. When she heard nothing back, she fretted over the incident all the more. She rang Marilyn at her flat to ask to meet up, but her friend was working late each evening on a school play. ‘It helps to keep busy, I find,’ said Marilyn rather brusquely.

  ‘Let me know when you’re free,’ Jo said, but doubting that she would get in touch. For the first time she felt really cut off from her old world. A few months ago it had been her choice to see less of them all, but only now did she see how far she had drifted. She did not like her exclusion.

  Jo was thankful that she was going back to work on the following Monday, for it stopped her moping around the flat getting on Alan’s nerves, or finding herself glued to the news bulletins when he was out. And the news was not optimistic. The Government had rejected Haig’s peace deal and plans were going ahead with sending further troops down to the South Atlantic. Jo threw herself into her work, banishing thoughts of conflict and hoping that good news would soon come. But that Saturday a British casualty was reported: a Sea King helicopter had crashed, killing one of those on board. The next day, Jack rang.

  ‘Colin’s heard; he’ll be going out with 5th Infantry Brigade on the QE2. Says he’s always wanted to go on a cruise,’ he joked. But Jo’s heart felt heavy.

  ‘When, Dad?’ she asked.

  ‘As soon as they’ve got the ship ready, I imagine. Pearl and I said we’d keep Marilyn company and go down to see her sail,’ he told her.

  Jo felt again that stab of being left out, and her pulse hammered. ‘Do you think Colin would want me to come too?’ she asked, holding her breath.

  ‘Maybe not.’ Jack was frank. ‘But he can’t stop you if that’s what you want to do. And if you-know-who will let you.’

  Jo flushed. ‘If you mean Alan, he doesn’t stop me from doing what I want.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Jack grunted.

  ‘Honestly! I don’t know why you’re so against him. He’s a very caring man,’ Jo defended her lover. ‘And he likes you and Pearl.’

  Jo was glad when May Day came and she was involved all day with drama in school, the children showing off their maypole dance and marching with May Day banners. That night there were reports of the RAF bombing the airport at Port Stanley, and then next day came the shock news that the large Argentinian cruiser, the Belgrano, had been sunk outside the British-imposed exclusion zone. Hundreds of lives had been lost.

  Jo and Alan watched in stunned disbelief. ‘What the hell are they playing at?’ Alan fumed. ‘That can’t be justified. Now we’re the aggressor. It’s as if we’re asking for war!’

  ‘All those lives…!’ Jo gasped. ‘Their poor families.’ All she could think of was that it could have been Colin on a troop ship − or Mark and Skippy blown out of the water. She did not know where HMS Gateshead was, but she must have reached the South Atlantic by now.

  ‘It’s started now,’ Alan said grimly. ‘There’ll be retaliation for this. God, the senseless waste of it all.’

  Jo could tell by the anguish on his face that he sensed the helplessness that she did, the feeling that events were spiralling out of control. It did not matter what they thought, or how much they argued the morals and politics of the situation. The conflict had started.

  Jo went about with a feeling of dread in her stomach for the next two days. That evening, as she watched the news, a Ministry of Defence spokesman came on and announced in a grave voice that HMS Sheffield had been hit by an Exocet missile. Jo had no idea what kind of weapon that was, but lives had been lost. She was filled with a very real fear.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Alan said.

  ‘They won’t say how many have been killed,’ Jo said anxiously.

  ‘It won’t be as many as were slaughtered on the Belgrano,’ Alan replied. ‘Have you seen how the tabloids are revelling in it? Well, this is what their jingoism brings − more young men killed.’

  Jo buried her face in her hands in horror. ‘I know!’ She was seized with anxiety about her brother. ‘I want to see Colin before he goes,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear the thought of him leaving without being able to say a proper goodbye.’

  Alan gave her a worried look. ‘I don’t want you upsetting yourself over all this.’

  Jo shook her head. ‘I can’t let him leave with bad feeling between us.’ Not like she had done with Mark, she thought but did not dare say.

  The next day Jo wrote to Colin and asked if she could travel to see him embark at Southampton. A week later she had a scrawled note from him. ‘It would be canny to see you one more time. Just don’t bring that tosser you live with, okay? Fancy me getting to sail on the QE2 − lots of good food and sunbathing on deck, I bet?

  She hid the note from Alan, embarrassed by her brother’s name-calling, but determined she would go down with the others to say her goodbyes. She needed to make up for their last acrimonious parting, for although she did not approve of the warmongering of the Government, she could no longer turn her back on what was happening. She was emotionally involved.

  Hasty word came through from Colin late on 11th May. The requisitioned luxury liner would be sailing the next day. There would be no time for a last day of leave or a meal out together before sailing, as originally planned. Jack told her, ‘Marilyn’s prepared to drive through the night so we can at least wave him off.’

  ‘I’ll help with the driving,’ Jo offered at once, and rang off to get ready.

  ‘I think I should come with you,’ Alan fretted. ‘All that driving and you in a state about Colin.’

  ‘No,’ Jo replied quickly, ‘I’ll be fine. There wouldn’t be room in the car anyway,’ she added, seeing the hurt look on his fa
ce. ‘But thanks for offering.’ He dropped her off at the Tyne Bridge, under the arc of lights, where Jack had said they would pick her up. She kissed him goodbye hurriedly and jumped into the car. At first there was an awkwardness between her and Marilyn, but after an hour of chatting about school work, the coolness thawed and Jo felt at ease. Jo was cheered to see Pearl looking much better, and her aunt helped ease the tension with anecdotes about the Seamen’s Mission. The younger women took it in turns to drive or doze in the passenger seat.

  While Jack and Pearl fell asleep in the back, Marilyn said in a low voice, ‘Well, one good thing’s come out of all this.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Colin’s asked me to marry him at last.’

  Jo was overjoyed. ‘That’s fantastic!’ she exclaimed, squeezing her friend’s shoulder. ‘And about time too.’

  ‘No one else knows yet,’ Marilyn continued in a hushed voice. ‘We were going to announce it on his next leave. But with him having to go straight to the ship...’

  ‘Oh, Marilyn!’ Jo felt for her. ‘We’ll have a celebration anyway − on the dockside if necessary! I’m really pleased for you. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as a sister-in-law.’

  Marilyn looked touched. ‘Thanks, Jo; that means a lot.’

  After that there was no reserve between them and the journey sped by. They arrived in Southampton in the early morning, shrouded in a drizzly dawn fog. Grabbing a cup of tea and an egg bun in a cafe on the outskirts, they made their way towards the docks, abandoning the car. The quayside was already teeming with activity. Soldiers were streaming out of a hangar, lugging equipment up the gangplanks, while other cargo was being lifted into the hold. They waited around all morning among the hundreds of other nervous people, jostling for a better view of those embarking. Some had made banners with their loved one’s name on; others were shouting as they spotted someone they knew.

  The fog began to lift and the sky to clear.

  ‘Can you see him?’ Marilyn asked anxiously, squinting short-sightedly at the ship.

  ‘Put your glasses on,’ Jo ordered. ‘He’ll still love you in specs.’

  There were journalists pressing around the gangplank, eager for last-minute interviews.

  ‘I can’t see him!’ Marilyn began to panic as the embarkation came to an end. Jo scanned the decks for any sign of her brother, but there were so many packed by the railings that she thought it impossible. A band was now playing and the gangplanks were being lifted. The noise on the dockside rose in a crescendo of shouts of good luck and unhappy sobbing. All were waving frantically.

  Then Jo caught a glimpse of a familiar red head, peering for a view of the ground far below. ‘There he is!’ she cried. ‘Look, up there!’ She pointed. ‘I’m sure it’s Colin.’

  ‘Where?’ Marilyn wailed, fumbling with her glasses.

  ‘Aye, you’re right,’ Jack agreed. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, ‘Colin, down here, lad!’

  ‘He hasn’t seen us,’ Pearl said, worried. ‘Colin!’

  They all began to scream his name and wave, but he continued to search the crowd with an anxious frown. Jo’s heart squeezed at the familiar expression. So many times in their childhood, when her big brother was trying to look after her, she had seen that protective look, that worried concentration.

  ‘Haway, Dad,’ Jo said hastily, ‘we’ll give Marilyn a leg up.’ Without hesitation the two of them seized her friend and hauled her up between their shoulders.

  ‘Help!’ Marilyn said, half laughing, half crying.

  ‘Hang on tight,’ Jack ordered.

  ‘Auntie Pearl, give her your shocking-pink scarf to wave,’ Jo said. ‘He’s bound to see that.’

  Pearl quickly untied the scarf from her head and Marilyn waved it high in the air, yelling with all the breath in her body. As the ropes began to slip and the huge liner edged away from the dock, the band struck up ‘Auld Lang Syne’. At that very moment, Colin spotted them. His serious face broke into an astonished gasp and then a broad smile of delight.

  ‘He’s seen us!’ Jo croaked, her eyes suddenly flooding with tears at the sight of her brother waving joyously at them. He was trying to shout something, but in the din all around them they could not make out a word. ‘Hey, I want to be bridesmaid!’ she called out.

  ‘Bridesmaid?’ Jack queried.

  ‘Tell them, Marilyn,’ Jo urged.

  ‘We’re going to get married when he comes back,’ she sobbed happily.

  Pearl screeched with delight and jumped up and down. ‘Better late than never, bonny lad!’ she cried.

  Jack’s eyes glistened. ‘By, that’s grand!’ They cheered and waved all the more desperately.

  ‘I love you, Colin!’ Marilyn screamed at him, tears streaming down her cheeks and blurring her glasses.

  ‘Come back safely!’ yelled Pearl.

  But Jo and Jack were too overcome to speak and could only wave until their arms ached. Colin was grinning and waving hard too. Jo blew him a kiss and hoped she was forgiven. The stately ship bowed out of the harbour, attended by a flotilla of small boats blaring their horns. When the band began to play Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’ and people began to sing along, Jo broke down in floods of tears.

  ‘Put me down, you’re soaking me skirt!’ Marilyn sobbed and laughed at the same time. They lowered her to the ground, Jo’s shoulders burning with the effort of holding her up.

  ‘You should be grateful for a seat in the circle,’ Jo teased her. Marilyn passed her a tissue, and Jo smiled tearfully. ‘You always did have these at the right moment,’ she joked, blowing her nose.

  They hugged each other as the ship gradually receded until they could no longer make out the figures on deck. Still they stood and watched, linking arms in comfort.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ Marilyn whispered.

  ‘So am I,’ Jo sniffed.

  ‘It’ll have pleased Colin so much,’ her friend smiled.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Jo trembled.

  Marilyn nodded. ‘It’ll help make up for the things that were said.’

  ‘I hurt him badly, didn’t I?’ Jo whispered sadly. Marilyn nodded. Jo said with remorse, ‘I’m sorry, I never meant to.’

  ‘You can tell him that yourself when he comes home,’ Marilyn smiled in encouragement.

  Jo felt the heaviness in her heart ease a fraction. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I will.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Jo got back to Tyneside, she stayed the night at her father’s. She rang Alan, but could not begin to express the emotion of the dockside parting, sensing that he would not have approved. ‘I think I’ll stop here for a couple of days − keep Dad company,’ she told him.

  ‘Do you have to?’ Alan asked. ‘I’m missing you, girl.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jo said, ‘but I’ll be back at the weekend.’

  She slept late the next day, back in her old bedroom where the walls were still plastered with her faded Athena posters and tickets from productions at the Dees Theatre. Jack brought her a cup of tea in bed just before noon, the way he used to when she had worked late at the Coach and Eight. He sat on the end of the bed and they talked about Colin, imagining what he was doing on board ship.

  ‘Fitness training up and down all those stairs, I bet,’ Jack mused, ‘and training some of the squaddies in first aid, maybes.’

  They both fell silent. Jo drank her tea thoughtfully.

  ‘Dad −’ She hesitated, not knowing how to bring up the subject. He studied her.

  ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

  ‘I feel that bad about the things I said to Mark that night,’ she admitted in a small voice, glancing away. ‘I don’t know what got into me. I suppose I was trying to protect Alan… And I do believe that going to war over this whole matter is wrong,’ she added more defiantly. He said nothing. ‘But I shouldn’t have taken it out on Mark like that. I’ve tried to explain to Brenda but she doesn’t want to know.’

  ‘Maybe she’s a little jealous of you,’ Jack sa
id quietly.

  ‘What on earth for?’ Jo asked, surprised. Jack shrugged and would not explain. Jo flushed and said, ‘She shouldn’t see me as a threat, if that’s what you mean. I got over Mark ages ago − and he certainly doesn’t think of me that way. Alan’s the only man I love now.’

  ‘So why are you so upset?’ her father asked gently

  Jo looked at him perplexed. ‘I don’t know… It’s just seeing Colin leaving with that fantastic send-off − knowing that his fiancée and family were there to wish him well. I keep thinking of Mark setting sail without anyone to wave or shout for him. All his life he’s had to fight his own battles. And there I was ridiculing him about not knowing who he really was. What sort of friend is that?’ she agonised. ‘I’ve let him down badly in the past and now I’ve failed him again as a friend, haven’t I?’

  Jack considered her. ‘Did you write to him like I suggested?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘It didn’t seem right, not when Brenda wasn’t speaking to me. I thought if I cleared the air with her first... I bottled it, Dad.’

  He stretched across the bed and took her hand. ‘I know someone you could chat to. Someone who’s missing the lad more than most.’ She gave him a questioning look. ‘Ivy,’ Jack smiled.

  Jo instantly perked up at the thought of talking to Mark’s grandmother. Then her face fell. ‘But does she know about the things I said to Mark?’ she frowned.

  ‘No doubt Brenda will have told her,’ Jack grimaced. ‘But you might feel better if you spoke to Ivy about it anyway. Think how anxious she must be feeling. It might comfort her to know you’re thinking of him too. You go and pay her a visit.’

  Jo leaned over and gave him a kiss. ‘You’re a wise old man sometimes, aren’t you?’ she grinned.

  ‘Hey, less of the old,’ he smiled back.

  ***

  Walking down Nile Street listening to the hammering and bustle of the yards, Jo felt transported back fifteen years or more, to when she would run down to Ivy’s for jam stotties and glasses of pop after school. The May afternoon was mellow; there was a warmth in the sun that lit the dirty bricks with a promise of summer. In the next street the jingle of an ice-cream van made her smile nostalgically. But when she reached the house near the bottom of the street, she found the door closed and no one answering to her knocking.