Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Davie laughed bemusedly with her as they continued walking.

  ‘You are,’ Minnie answered with mirth.

  When they reached the dark flanks of the outbuildings and Minnie’s rude quarters, Davie slid a tentative arm about her shoulders. To his surprise she did not shrug him off. In the shadow of the first barn he dared to go further. Pulling Minnie away from the pram, he pushed her against the wall and planted a kiss on her moist lips. She answered his exploration by opening her mouth. Davie felt his excitement soar as if he had just downed a pint in one. He had never kissed Minnie Slattery before, but had often daydreamt of doing so. He could not believe his luck; providence had sent her to him.

  A sudden thought of Iris made him reluctantly pull away. ‘It’s the country air - goes to your head.’ Embarrassed, he made light of their embrace.

  Minnie giggled, ‘Aye, doesn’t it.’

  ‘I’ll be off then.’ Davie stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped backwards.

  ‘See you tomorrow?’ Minnie asked with more than a casual question in her husky voice.

  ‘Aye.’ Davie could not help a grin.

  She turned and pushed the pram across the uneven courtyard towards her cottage. Above the sound of the pram wheels squeaking and bumping over the earth, she could hear Davie Kirkup’s light-hearted whistle as he retreated down the track. Minnie guessed she was about to find the amusement for which she had come searching.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The week before Sam was released, a family dispute arose from an unexpected quarter. Sadie came home triumphantly on the second-last day of school and announced she had won a scholarship to the grammar school in Durham City. Louie was darning her cousin’s threadbare stockings by the slowly winking fire in the hearth. For the past two days it had poured with rain, heavy thunderous bursts that turned the dusty back streets into running channels of liquid mud.

  ‘That’s grand.’ Louie put down her darning and congratulated the girl with a hug. ‘You’re a clever lass.’

  ‘Jane Pinkney passed as well; and Frank Robson and Tom Gallon - they’ll go to the boys’ grammar in the town,’ Sadie told her with excitement.

  ‘What about May Little?’ Louie asked.

  ‘She didn’t pass,’ Sadie answered dismissively. ‘May Little’s daft.’

  ‘Sadie!’ Louie scolded. ‘Don’t you go getting a big head all because you passed a few tests. Any road, there’s little chance of you being able to go on to secondary school - Mam and Da can’t afford to send you.’

  Sadie was dashed. ‘But it’s free, Miss Joice said so!’

  ‘The uniform and the train fares aren’t free. How are you going to travel in every day? And you’ll need a satchel and a decent pair of shoes—’ Louie stopped, seeing the look of acute disappointment on her cousin’s face. ‘I’m sorry, pet, but these are hard times for us all. We all have to make sacrifices.’

  Angry tears spurted into Sadie’s dark eyes. ‘But I want to go,’ she pleaded. ‘Please, Louie, let me go!’ She buried her head in Louie’s lap and sobbed. Her cousin felt a pang of helplessness; she did not want to witness any more unhappiness and yet the problem seemed insoluble.

  ‘It’ll be Da’s decision,’ Louie told her, ‘but I’ll see if I can put a word in for you, eh?’

  ‘Thanks, Louie.’ Sadie sniffed and brightened as her hopes rose again.

  That evening, at the Kirkups’ house, a row blew up over Sadie’s future.

  ‘We’ve been through all this with our Hildy,’ Jacob Kirkup pronounced in his stern pulpit voice. He was polishing his boots through force of habit, although they did not need a clean. ‘She’s got a good grounding in reading and spelling and sums from Miss Joke - that’s all she needs.’

  ‘But, Da,’ Louie reasoned, ‘she has a head for figures - she can do the housekeeping as well as any of us - and she reads well for her age. It seems a shame not to use the talents God gave her.’

  Jacob Kirkup, irked by Louie’s persistence, put down the boot he was polishing. ‘She’ll carry on getting an education until she’s fourteen,’ he said gruffly, ‘like you and Hildy did. It’s enough for a lass. Besides, with you married and Hilda out working, Sadie will be a help to your mother.’ Louie glanced at Fanny sitting silently by the window, straining her eyes in the poor light as she mended a man’s shirt. She needed no reminding that her mother was not in the best of health; the grating cough of last winter had eased to a gentle wheeze, but it lay dormant as a sleeping beast.

  ‘But if Sadie got an education she could get a really good job,’ Louie argued. ‘There’s nothing for her round here, Da.’

  ‘You know we can’t afford to send her to Durham,’ her father answered impatiently, astonished by his daughter’s dissension, ‘especially now. Isn’t it enough that we’ve given Sadie a decent home and a loving family?’ Louie clamped her lips together, aware that nothing she said would sway her father’s mulishness. Sadie kept close to her, her dark eyes fixed in awe on her uncle.

  Unexpectedly, Eb stirred from his sketching on the kitchen table. ‘I could buy Sadie her uniform,’ he offered. They all stared at him.

  ‘With what?’ Jacob demanded.

  ‘I could ask the doctor for an advance on my wages,’ Eb answered evenly, ‘or put in some extra hours at Greenbrae.’

  ‘Oh, Eb, would you?’ Sadie piped up in delight.

  ‘Aye, I can ask.’ He smiled at the transparent glee on the child’s face.

  ‘Thanks, Eb.’ Sadie rushed over to him and gave him a peck on his rough cheek.

  ‘But that doesn’t solve the problem of the train fares,’ Jacob reminded them, agitated by the undermining of his authority.

  Iris suddenly entered the debate. ‘She could live with my family during the week.’ No one had consulted her for an opinion or even thought of it as her business. ‘I’m sure my mam would give her bed and board for a bit of help around the house. That way, Sadie would only need to travel in on Monday morning and back on Friday.’

  Fanny looked up uncertainly and Jacob seemed quite flummoxed by the suggestion.

  ‘Would you want to live with the Ramshaws, Sadie?’ Louie asked, thinking selfishly how much she would miss her company.

  ‘Aye,’ the girl nodded vigorously, ‘Iris says her sisters have a rocking horse and lots of comics.’

  Iris laughed, ‘You’d have to put up with my brothers too, you know.’

  ‘B-but, a public house,’ Jacob stuttered his objection, ‘I can’t have my niece living above a pub!’

  ‘The flat is quite separate from the pub,’ Iris assured him with an easy smile. ‘Different entrances. She need never go near the bar. My family are decent people, Mr Kirkup,’ Iris said proudly with a toss of her head.

  ‘Please can I go?’ Sadie beseeched her uncle, hopping impatiently onto one foot. Jacob looked at his dark-haired niece, her small face turned to his in supplication, trusting and hopeful. He knew she was bright and quick-witted and from a timid, anxious child, she had flowered before their eyes into a popular, sunny-natured girl, albeit with a flash of Kirkup moodiness and temper. Perhaps for the sake of his long-dead brother George he should allow Sadie the chance none of his own children had had, a grammar school education. As a self-taught lay preacher himself, how could he in all conscience deny Sadie the chance to use her God-given gifts? As he struggled with his prejudices, his family held their breath.

  ‘If Eb really can help out with your uniform and that, and the Ramshaws agree to have you as a lodger,’ Jacob at last decreed, ‘then I don’t hold any objection to you going to the grammar school.’

  Sadie screeched in triumph and before her uncle had time to retract, she had flung her arms about his neck as he sat astride a stool with his half-polished boots at his feet.

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Jacob.’ She kissed his white-bearded face. ‘I’ll make you proud of me, I promise.’ Jacob looked over to Fanny in the window for her approval and saw her smiling at him with affec
tion.

  Eb walked Louie and Sadie home that evening. As Sadie skipped ahead to tell her friend Jane Pinkney the good news, brother and sister walked in companionship, enjoying the freshness of the air, cleared of its dusty mugginess by the last days of rain.

  ‘You’re going to ask Mrs Seward-Scott for the money, aren’t you?’ Louie asked him directly. Eb carried on walking.

  ‘How did you know?’ he queried.

  ‘I know there is something going on between the two of you,’ Louie answered frankly. ‘It worries me, Eb.’

  ‘Don’t be worried.’ Eb briefly touched her arm. ‘We’re just friends, that’s all.’

  ‘You will be careful?’ Louie begged him, as they turned up North Street where the Pinkneys lived. ‘You know how folk can talk.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing to shame anyone,’ Eb insisted. ‘Now stop nagging me, Louie. I’ll be pleased when Sam’s back and you’ve got someone else to fuss over.’ She saw from the amusement in his blue eyes that he was teasing.

  ‘So will I.’ Louie smiled at him suddenly and hugged his arm.

  Another deluge of rain sent the pickers running for cover. Minnie reached the large cowshed before the rain drenched her totally. She was glad Mrs Halliday had repeated her offer to take baby Jack indoors while the unsettled weather lasted. Jack Kingston appeared and told the women they could take their break for dinner early, while the downpour lasted. With grumbles of protest the field gang broke up into twos and threes and found comfortable perches in the hay where they could eat their bait.

  Davie, who had been mucking out the byre that morning, found Minnie alone in one of the stalls.

  ‘Morning.’ He pushed back his cap and grinned at her. ‘You look like a drowned rat,’ he teased, noticing how her damp blouse clung to her full body and her curly hair snaked round her cheeks and neck.

  ‘Ta very much,’ Minnie retorted. ‘You hardly look like Rudolph Valentino yourself - covered in muck.’

  Davie laughed and swung himself down beside her. They had not kissed again since that first evening a week ago, but he had enjoyed flirting with Minnie at every opportunity, and his attraction for her was growing. She did not have Iris’s piquant good looks, but her face was prettily plump and her green eyes bold and full of mischief.

  ‘There’s a canny walk over-by,’ Davie told her, cocking his head in the direction of the hills behind the farm. ‘Strange rocks. Uncle Jack says there used to be an old hill fort there long ago. You get a canny view from the top.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Minnie sounded unimpressed. ‘And what is there to look at but more hills?’ Davie sucked on a piece of straw as if it were a cigarette.

  ‘It’s nice and quiet,’ he said pointedly and gave her a wink.

  ‘Don’t know if I’ve got the strength for walking after a day at the cauliflowers,’ Minnie answered noncommittally and leaned back on her elbows.

  Davie was unabashed. ‘I’ll wait for you up by the old mill. You can’t be seen from the farm once you’re up there. Meet me there tonight, Minnie,’ he pressed.

  He leaned close to her but they did not touch. Minnie could see the glisten of fair bristle on his chin, the sinewy strength in his arms where his sleeves were rolled back. She could smell the sourness of his body from his labouring, and the dung on his boots. Yet his earthiness strangely excited her, more than if he had smelt of household soap and starched clean clothes. Life in Whitton Grange seemed so remote from the timelessness of this secluded farm. She hardly thought of Margaret or Louie or even Bomber. The only people real to her at the moment were her companions, the strong-limbed women she lodged with, and handsome Davie Kirkup who was out to court her.

  ‘If the lasses will keep an eye on Jack, I’ll come,’ Minnie agreed. Davie gave her a chaste peck on her cheek and jumped up with a grin of satisfaction. He sauntered off, whistling, into the rain.

  That evening, the rain clouds were furled away like limp rags, leaving the sky a watery, washed-out blue and the breeze fresh. A woman called Sarah agreed to watch over Jack in return for Minnie’s promise to procure her some cigarettes. She knew Davie could cadge the odd Woodbine from his uncle, so with the deal struck, she set out for the old mill.

  Davie was already waiting in the shadows of the grey stone building with its moss-covered wheel. He took her hand as if they were lovers keeping a tryst and led her up the steep gully behind the mill.

  As they scrabbled for a foothold Minnie complained, ‘Davie man, I didn’t come mountaineerin’.’ Davie laughed and pulled her up after him, with surprising force in his slight, muscled body. ‘Where’s John tonight?’ she asked him, gaining her breath again as the moor levelled out.

  ‘Beating my uncle at dominoes,’ Davie replied. ‘He never knows when to let someone else win. Uncle Jack’ll kick us out by the end of the month if he carries on losing, but John won’t give an inch. He’s a worse loser than the devil.’

  Minnie laughed. ‘So where did you say you were going?’

  ‘They didn’t ask,’ Davie said, ‘but they’ll think I’ve got a lift down to the Wagon Way, this being Saturday.’

  They carried on walking as the sky grew dim overhead and the sun splashed into the hills, sending up waves of rusty orange.

  ‘Here we are,’ Davie announced, jumping on to a raised rampart of turf.

  ‘Here we are where?’ Minnie asked derisively. ‘I thought you said there was a fort or something grand. All I can see is a couple of stones and a lot of sheep muck.’ Davie laughed and pulled her unwillingly after him over the ridge and down into a sheltered hollow that was once the dwelling of some long-forgotten tribe. Here the wind did not whip around them as before and Davie spread out his jacket for them to sit on.

  ‘Snug, isn’t it?’ he questioned.

  ‘Aye.’ Minnie breathed her reply, bewitched by the sudden quiet and the heady freshness of the evening air. She pulled her cardigan around her and listened to the faint munching of sheep below the grassy fortifications. ‘It’s so peaceful,’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye, it would drive you mad if you lived out here,’ Davie moved close and put his arm about her shoulders, ‘but it’s just the job for a lad and lass on holiday.’

  ‘Holiday!’ Minnie scoffed. ‘I don’t call picking veg all day long a holiday. Slave labour more like. Look at the state of my hands.’ Minnie held them up and studied her cracked and earth-ingrained fingers. Davie took them in his and put them to his lips.

  ‘Bonny hands.’ He kissed the palms. Still holding her hands, he nibbled her neck and ear. She smelt of hay and soap and sun-touched skin. ‘Give us a kiss, Minnie,’ he pleaded.

  Minnie lay back on his jacket feeling the moisture from the grass cold on her head. But the ground was only superficially damp, the day’s rain unable to quench the thirsty earth after the long, hot, dry spell of previous weeks. She closed her eyes and parted her lips, mesmerised by the tranquillity of their secret hideaway. How many other generations of lovers had lain here as they did now, centuries of courting couples succumbing to their desire amid these stones?

  She felt Davie’s mouth warm on hers, his hands exploring her body, combing her hair, fumbling with her buttons. Her senses came alive in the open air, as if the wind was stroking her nerve endings. Minnie responded quickly to his caresses which grew more assured and dextrous as their passion rose. For those brief minutes, she emptied her mind of everything and everyone else, giving herself up easily to their unfaithfulness.

  Davie’s excitement peaked as swiftly as it had stirred. He lay back in the grass, content with his conquest. Minnie Slattery had always caught his interest, like the dreamy-eyed actresses in Sadie’s postcard collection. Tonight she was beautiful, full-breasted and soft to the touch. Tomorrow … Davie pushed thoughts of tomorrow from his mind. He never thought beyond the moment, no pitman did with life always so uncertain.

  ‘Davie,’ Minnie stirred, ‘what about —?’

  ‘Don’t spoil it,’ Davie interrupted her, fearful she would c
onjure up accusing spectres that he did not want to meet in their hilltop nest. ‘Let’s just think of ourselves tonight, eh?’

  ‘Give us a kiss then.’ Minnie grinned and rolled over on to his prone body.

  Slowing to a halt at the junction with the Durham road, Eleanor saw Eb emerge from behind the hedge. She leaned over and swung open the car door.

  ‘Jump in,’ she called to him. He gave a nervous look round and then climbed quickly into the green Austin. Eleanor pushed the car into first gear and moved forward, taking the right turn towards Durham. ‘Isobel gave me your message.’ She broke the silence between them. ‘You don’t have to tell me what it’s about yet, unless you want to.’

  ‘It’s Sadie I’m asking you to help.’ Eb plunged into his request, embarrassed at having to ask another favour. ‘She’s won a scholarship to the grammar school.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ Eleanor interrupted with genuine pleasure.

  ‘I’ve offered to pay for her uniform,’ Eb admitted uncomfortably. ‘My father wouldn’t have considered sending her otherwise.’

  ‘And you’d like me to help with the expense?’ Eleanor tried to make it easy for him.

  ‘Aye,’ Eb answered gruffly. ‘I’ll pay you back just as soon as I’m able. It doesn’t seem right the lass shouldn’t have her chance.’ Eleanor smiled to herself, resisting the temptation to remind Eb of his once vehement opposition to Hilda receiving just such an opportunity.

  ‘I quite agree,’ she assured him, ‘and I’d be delighted to help. You can pay me back if you insist, though I’d be more than happy to let the loan be a gift to Sadie.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Eb replied proudly. ‘It’s good of you to lend the money and I’m grateful.’ He took off his cap and smoothed his tanned scalp, feeling at a disadvantage sitting in the intimate car with its smells of expensive leather and Eleanor’s musky perfume. Even though he was wearing his Sunday suit in preparation for band practice later in the day, he was acutely aware of his own shabbiness and smell of cheap soap.