by Ruth Sutton
‘Who doesn’t like me?
‘They wish you were a man, Jessie, face it. If they could, they’d get rid of you. “Nice family man”, that’s what they want. Safe, boring, just like them. And as for my old man, he’s just as bad as the rest for all his big talk about “the children”. That new school isn’t about the children, it’s about him.’
‘That’s not fair. He does care.’
‘I think different, and I know him better than you. Anyway, this place is going nowhere. I need to get away, should never have come back, and this time you’re coming with me. How do you fancy Canada?’
He raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her, pushing a strand of hair away from her mouth.
‘You’re the one, Jessie. I know it, you know it. We both have the energy and the guts to get out of this place, to make something of our lives. We’re both young.’
Jessie’s eyes widened.
‘Young? You’re young, not me. I’m happy here, however you feel about it. I’ve got my friends, my work –’
‘Friends? Who? That dried up old prude in the shop. Looks at me like I’m a hired hand? Swanning off to London all the time just so we know how rich she is? You can do better than that, Jess.’
‘Leave Agnes out of this.’ Jessie pulled the covers over herself. ‘She’s a good friend to me. Anyway, we’ve been over all this before. You think there’s no problem with you and me turning up together in the Farriers one night and telling everyone that we’re together now and isn’t it grand.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘Well, it’s not going to be like that,’ she said. ‘Look at me, I’m falling apart. I think about you all the time as it is, and long for you to come to me. Hearing your step on the stairs tonight, I felt sick with excitement. I know it’s madness: it can’t last. You want to be away and I need to stay here.’
‘But you don’t, you don’t,’ he said, taking her in both his arms and pulling her towards him.
He kissed her, hard. She didn’t resist him, but then pushed him away. He lit another cigarette and went back to staring up at the ceiling.
They lay in silence for a while.
‘Why me, Andrew?’ she said, not looking at him. ‘You could have anyone you wanted. Andrew Leadbetter, big and strong, good-looking, good earner.’
‘Good fucker,’ he added.
‘Don’t be crude. I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’
‘I’ve had a few women, granted,’ he said. ‘But the one I want is you. I have to have you, Jess.’
‘But why? I’m old and getting fat. I’ve got grey hairs. I’m nearly your mother’s age.’
‘Rubbish. You’re the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. You’re clever and funny and that arse – come here.’
‘Not with that cigarette in your hand, you’ll set fire to us.’
‘Don’t need a cig to set fire to you,’ he said, holding the cigarette above his head and pushing his other hand down between her legs.
An hour later the fire was out and it was cold in the room. It smelled of cigarette smoke and Jessie wanted to open a window and clear the air. She turned and shook him.
‘Andrew, you have to go. If you fall asleep properly you’ll bump into someone in the morning when you leave, bound to. Come on.’ She cupped his chin in her hand. He stirred.
‘What time is it?’
‘Late. Time you were gone. Where’s the bike?’
‘What?’
‘Where’s your bike. Where did you leave it?’
‘Behind the pub.’
‘Well, you need to go. I’ve got to work tomorrow, and so do you.’
He groaned. She pulled the covers back and he rolled to put his feet on the floor.
‘Christ it’s cold.’
‘Then get your clothes on, quick.’
He pulled on his trousers, and picked up his shirt from the floor on the other side of the room where he had pulled it off earlier. His pullover was halfway up the stairs and his boots by the back door where he’d left them a couple of hours before.
She stretched out a hand and touched his back. ‘When will I see you?’
‘Next weekend. Are you going to the hunt ball?’
‘Probably. Is it the same band as last year?’
‘Think so. It’ll be good. I’ve got to go, judging the hunt queen thing, you know.’
‘Just up your street,’ said Jessie. ‘All those young girls on display.’
‘None of them a patch on you, gorgeous. You could be in the running for the prize for the Best Lady’s Head of Hair.’
‘Go on,’ she said, delighted.
Jessie lay back, watching him.
‘I thought you wanted me just to spite your father,’ she said.
He turned around and grasped her wrist.
‘Don’t you dare,’ he said, fiercely. Spittle landed on her cheek and she blinked.
‘Don’t you dare start all that rubbish with me. My father’s my business. He has nothing to do with this, with you and me. Yes I’m tired of creeping about. Yes I want him to know how I feel, and that you and I are together. Why not? But I want you because of what you are. You’re the woman for me, Jessie, that’s all I know. Just get used to it.’
She pulled her wrist away, and sat up. He pulled on his shirt, still with his back to her.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘That was a stupid thing to say. I’m sorry. It’s just that … I just don’t understand, why me, even after all you’ve said. You know nothing about me, really.’
‘And I don’t want to. Just leave it. We’ll just carry on like this for now if that’s what you want. Leave the rest. But I can’t wait too long, Jess. I need to get out and I need you with me. You have to decide.’
‘Not now, not yet. Look, you need to go. I’ll see you next week. If I draw the curtains in the back room, that means I’m expecting you. Be careful. Don’t give me away, please, love. I’m not ready.’
He bent over the bed and kissed her again. ‘Next week.’
She heard his steps on the stairs, the back door opened and shut quietly. Minutes later she heard his bike as it puttered up the hill past the house and away to his cold house at the quarry.
Chapter 17
Jessie and Agnes were walking back together from the committee meeting at the vicarage. Agnes was just about to tell Jessie about the interesting young man she’d taken from Whitehaven Hospital up to Boot when Jessie turned to her and they both spoke at once.
‘Sorry,’ said Jessie. ‘Carry on.’
‘No, dear, it’s not important. What were you going to say?’
‘It was just about the hunt ball next week,’ said Jessie. ‘I wondered if you’d want to go this year. Do you remember last year you said you’d never go again.’
‘Did I?’ said Agnes. ‘I don’t remember. What was that about?’
‘I think it was the young woman who made such a scene. She must’ve had something to drink. She was shouting at that man, do you recall? Pretty unsavoury stuff. They had to practically carry her out.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember now,’ said Agnes, linking Jessie’s arm. ‘That was quite a scene wasn’t it? Who was it? Anyone we know?’
‘I think it was one of the McCallister girls from up the valley. The older one, can’t recall her name. She’s gone away, by all accounts. Manchester, or Leeds.’
‘Just as well! You do such a wonderful job with the bairns, Jessie, but sometimes as they get older they seem to turn into creatures we hardly recognise. What gets into them?’
‘Life, I suppose,’ said Jessie. ‘They realise they’re not bairns any more and push against everything we’ve tried to teach them. They settle down in the end, most of them, anyway.’
‘And some end up like poor Alice Kitchin,’ said Agnes, as they reached the brow of the hill and started down again towards the schoolhouse and Applegarth. ‘Tea, dear, or a spot of supper? I’m feeling peckish, so let’s see what’s in my pantry.’ She squeezed Jessie’s arm.<
br />
‘Why not?’ said her friend, as they quickened their pace down the hill.
Agnes found some cold chicken and some of her delicious green tomato chutney and they ate, side by side at the kitchen table. Afterwards they made tea and took it in the sitting rooom, to the comfortable chairs on either side of a fire that Agnes had poked back to life when they came in.
‘You seem to have a new lease of life since you had your hair cut,’ said Agnes. ‘You’re looking very well, dear, I must say. Very bonny.’
Jessie smiled: she knew why she might be looking ‘bonny’, and it had nothing to do with having her hair cut.
‘I never thanked you properly for taking me shopping that day, Agnes,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I do love that green jacket and I would never have bought it if you hadn’t been with me.’
‘What about the hunt ball?’ asked Agnes. ‘Time for another shopping trip, perhaps?’
‘Oh no,’ Jessie replied, shaking her head. ‘I’m sure I’ll find something to wear.’
As she walked back to the schoolhouse, Jessie wondered about Agnes. She’d been shocked by how much Andrew seemed to dislike her. Surely most people realised that Agnes meant well, even though she didn’t really fit in the village. She was well organised and generous, but she spoke ‘posh’, and the car and the clothes gave her away as having more money than most of the village put together. Surely that was no reason to dislike her.
The two of them had been friends for several years, ever since Jessie took over at the school. They enjoyed each other’s company. Agnes was the only person, or at least the only woman, that Jessie could talk to about things beyond the village, about politics, ideas, the world in general. They argued of course about some things but that was enjoyable too, most of the time. One of their more troublesome differences of view had been about the abdication the previous year. Jessie really didn’t care whether Mrs Simpson was divorced or not, and felt the king should be free to marry whomever he chose, but Agnes had stronger views about this, and about many other things. Much as she loved Wallis Simpson’s clothes and style, she’d insisted that she really should go back to America where she belonged and leave the king alone. Agnes’s brother, who was something high up in the diocese at Carlisle, had claimed the woman was the devil sent to tempt a hapless monarch. It was all very difficult.
‘Sex,’ Agnes had said, at the end of their discussion. ‘Always a problem. Life would be so much easier without it, don’t you think? If Edward had just married a good woman like his brother did, we wouldn’t have had all that upheaval and unpleasantness. Marriage is good for men. Keeps them out of mischief. Not so sure about marriage and women, though. Look at you and me. Do we need to be married? So restricting from what I can see of it. My sister Gwen, there’s a case in point. Just as bright as her husband but it was she who had to give up medical school to be his wife and raise his children.’
The memory of Agnes’s views on sex and marriage came back to Jessie suddenly as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and caught the residual tang of Andrew’s cigarette. She could not bear to consider what Agnes would think if she knew.
* * *
They were still clearing away the card tables from the whist drive when Agnes and Jessie arrived at the Bower House the following Saturday evening. The band was setting up at the far end of the big room, and the bar was crowded. Jessie looked at herself briefly in the big mirror in the entrance hall. Agnes was right: she did look well. The purple dress she’d bought last year and never worn fitted her well, and the new hair cut still pleased her when she caught sight of it. She looked younger, but was still puzzled and wary about Andrew’s reaction to her. This was why she didn’t trust him: everything in this room was his real world – the people he knew, the women and girls who obviously wanted him, the socialising he was so good at. She was beginning to understand the jumble of her feelings for him, excitement and anxiety, desire and fear. What might he do tonight, or say? Why did she put herself through this?
Agnes pulled Jessie’s arm and spoke into her ear above the noise in the bar. ‘Excuse me a minute, dear,’ she said. ‘Someone I want to say hello to,’ and she disappeared into the snug. Jessie waited, looking round. She wanted to check if Andrew was there without making it look too obvious that she was doing so. She spotted him, at the far end of the bar, pint mug in hand, deep in conversation. She watched for a moment, but he didn’t see her. Or at least, he didn’t acknowledge her. They were getting practised at deceit, Jesse thought. It was childish, but it excited her.
‘Jessie,’ Agnes called from the door of the snug, beckoning to her. ‘Some people I want you to meet,’ she said when Jessie joined her. ‘Just through here, dear, in the corner.’
Jessie recognised the odd-looking couple sitting in the corner of the crowded room: she’d noticed them before and knew that they lived up the valley, but she’d never been introduced to them. The long-haired woman was wearing a strange collation of garments, layered, and brightly coloured. There seemed to be a problem with one of her eyes. The man sitting next to her looked younger, a brown intelligent face, bright eyes. They look happy, Jessie thought.
‘Jessie, may I introduce you to Hannah and Fred Porter. This is Jessie Whelan, who teaches at the school in Newton. These lovely people live at the Mill Cottage, up at Boot. That’s where I was going that day in the car, with that young man, d’you remember, when we passed you? A week or two ago. You were talking to the vicar.’
Jessie thought for a moment. ‘I remember there was someone in the car with you, but didn’t really notice. I meant to ask you, who it was. ’
‘It was John, John Pharaoh. He’d been really poorly in the hospital in Whitehaven and I was taking him to his lodgings – his home, he called it – up the valley at Boot. Mill Cottage, which is where these two live.’
‘So glad to meet you both,’ said Jessie. ‘Is that the cottage opposite the mill, just over the bridge?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ve lived there all me life, but only a short while for Fred. ’E lived Broughton way afore that.’
‘Welcome to the west,’ said Jessie. ‘Broughton’s just a few miles away but sometimes it feels like another country.’
‘It does that,’ said Fred. ‘Summat special about the west, over ’ere. Hard to put your finger on, but it’s different.’
‘I think it’s the sea,’ said Agnes as she and Jessie sat down. ‘Not the estuary, or the bay like at Ulverston, the open sea. It’s wilder here, more exposed, just a strip of land with the sea in front and the mountains behind.’
‘Ages ago folk used boats to get about,’ said Fred. ‘Never ventured inland. Roads were too rough.’
‘Exactly,’ said Agnes. ‘Did you come for the whist drive, you two?’
‘Aye we did, but no luck. And we’re not going to win t’spot waltz are we Fred, not with your one leg and me half blind,’ said Hannah. ‘But it’s allus a grand night.’
‘While I think of it,’ said Agnes, ‘let me explain to Jessie about the young man. How is he by the way?’
‘Not bad. Something on ’is mind, making ’im restless when ’e needs to stay still a while and get better. Can’t go back to work yet, doc won’t let ’im.’
‘This young man, Jessie,’ said Agnes. ‘He came from Ulverston to work in the quarry office, a few weeks ago now, wasn’t it Hannah? Somehow he ended up being dragged out of the sea – of course you’ve heard about that, haven’t you? The Leadbetter boy, Andrew, saved his life apparently. Anyway, he hadn’t been at Hannah and Fred’s for more than a few days when he was taken ill, pneumonia, probably a legacy of that awful time in the sea, and nearly died. The hospital asked if anyone could get him home, so I brought him in the car, that day we saw you.’
‘I see,’ said Jessie. How fragile our lives are, she thought. And fancy calling Andrew ‘the Leadbetter boy’. No wonder he doesn’t like her.
‘Fred here is an artist,’ Agnes was saying. ‘He makes the mos
t wonderful rugs, finest examples of hookie rugs I’ve ever seen. Colours, designs, just wonderful. Next time I go to London Fred’s promised to give me some to take, to show to my friend who owns a gallery. Not easy to get them on the train but I’ll manage somehow. They really need to be seen by more people.’
Jessie was about to ask Fred some more about this talent, but Agnes pressed on.
‘And the other thing, dear, and this is just priceless, Hannah and Fred have used the water mill to provide their own electricity. Can you believe that? What a step forward, when the rest of the valley is still in darkness, so to speak. So clever.’
‘Heavens,’ said Jessie. ‘That is impressive. What a boon that must be for you all.’
‘Makes such a difference in the evenings,’ said Hannah. ‘Fred can do ’is rugs and I can read without straining my eye so bad. I’ve only one eye, you see.’ She pointed to her closed eye. ‘Lost the other one when I was a bairn.’
‘And I lost my leg in the war,’ said Fred. ‘What a careless couple we are, eh, Hannah?’ And they both laughed.
‘Will John be here tonight?’ Agnes asked.
‘Nay, we asked ’im, but not his kind of thing, ’e said. Said ’e were going to bed early. Good idea. Too much smoke in ’ere for his chest to cope with.’
‘You really should meet him, Jessie,’ said Agnes. ‘Such an interesting young man.’
‘I’d love to,’ said Jessie. ‘I often walk up the valley if the weather gives me the chance for some exercise.’
‘Well, we’re usually there, and you’re always welcome, Miss Whelan. Come for tea. Always cake in the tin.’
Jessie and Agnes said their goodbyes and sat down to watch the hunt ball unfold in its usual way. The band played old favourites and the new songs of the day. A group of young women began to gather, and Jessie noticed Andrew and two other men sitting down at a table, ready to choose the hunt queen. On Friday evenings all through the season, as the hunt moved from village to village clearing out foxes, girls presented themselves to a panel of judges and a queen was chosen from among them. At the end of the season, at the annual ball, these village winners came together for the selection of the best, and tonight was the night. Families had come from all over the area to support their daughters. There was tension in the air as old village rivalries surfaced and the injustices of previous years were remembered. All Jessie could think about was Alice. She too had primped and posed for the men’s scrutiny. She had smiled and teased, and then she had died. The Kitchins were not here tonight.
