Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Chapter Nine

  Sara clattered in the back door, bracing herself for a reprimand.

  ‘Where in the world have you been, girl?’ Ida fretted, her face pink in the steam of the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry, Aunt—’

  ‘It’s a good job I got back early from Mrs Hodgson’s. Father’s in a fearful temper as it is - he’s late for the billiards competition. Did you expect him to go out on an empty belly? Really, Sara, what were you thinking of?’

  ‘I met a friend in the park—’

  ‘It’s no time for excuses - get yourself into the dining-room,’ Ida interrupted.

  Sara did as she was told, never having seen Ida so agitated.

  ‘And where the hell have you been?’ Uncle Alfred thundered from the end of the table. ‘You should have been here helping your aunt, not gallivanting’ around the town.’ He stood up and wiped his mouth, dressed in his best suit.

  ‘Sorry, Uncle Alfred, I won’t be late again,’ Sara apologised.

  ‘No, you won’t, ‘cos you’ll stop in all of next week and help your aunt around the house, starting from tonight,’ he ordered.

  Sara bit her lip in frustration, glancing at Colin across the table.

  ‘Oh, Uncle Alfred, I only went to the park to see Gypsy race, didn’t I, Colin?’ she protested.

  Colin glowered back at her. ‘No you didn’t - you went off with Rosa Dimarco,’ he accused. ‘I saw you.’

  Sara blushed hotly, taken aback by his disloyalty.

  ‘Dimarco?’ Alfred frowned. ‘One of them Italians? What you doing with the likes of her?’

  ‘She’s just a friend, Uncle Alfred - comes into Mrs Sergeant’s. Mrs Sergeant thinks the world of the Dimarcos,’ Sara added quickly. ‘Such good payers, you see. Me and Rosa got chatting.’

  He pursed his lips in disapproval. ‘Well, I’ll not have you gettin’ cosy with foreigners - and Catholics at that. No, you just stop in the house with your Aunt Ida,’ he nodded at his wife as she bustled in with a fresh pot of tea. ‘I know what’s best for you and while you’re under my roof you’ll do as I say. I’ve no time for another cup Ida, I’m late as it is.’

  He left with Marina and Ida following him to the door and making a fuss over his going.

  ‘It’s nice to know who your friends are,’ Sara muttered at Colin.

  ‘You said you were going to watch Gypsy.’ Colin was petulant.

  ‘You didn’t have to tell him about Rosa, did you?’ she countered.

  ‘What you want to be friends with her for? She’s not one of us. The Dimarcos are foreigners,’ he said with disgust. ‘They don’t belong here.’

  ‘Then neither do I, Colin Cummings!’ Sara hissed back as Ida returned.

  For the rest of the meal she remained silent and resentful. Once she had helped Ida wash up and set the breakfast table and Marina had gone to bed, Sara locked herself in the bathroom and wrote the events of the day into her diary, pouring out her fury at her Cummings relations. But it was to Joe Dimarco that her thoughts kept returning and the harsh words she had spoken to him in the back lane behind the parlour. On reflection, perhaps she had been a little hasty in her condemnation. After all, they hardly knew each other, so why should she be so bothered that the dark-eyed Joe was courting someone else? Sara sighed heavily as she closed her notebook for the night.

  If Rosa had gone to the park on Sunday afternoon, she would have looked in vain for her friend, Sara thought with frustration, as she spent the afternoon helping Ida cut up and stitch together scraps of cloth into dolls’ clothes to sell at the Carnival. Marina was bad-tempered and Colin bleary-eyed and morose, having come in late the night before and been boxed around the ears by his father. Only Ida was content, seeming to enjoy having Sara’s forced company while she supervised her needlework and told her of the sewing sessions they had at the Mothers’ Union.

  ‘If you keep your nose clean,’ Ida promised her, ‘I’ll take you along to Mrs Hodgson’s sewing bee one of these days.’ Sara paled at the thought but kept quiet.

  It was a relief when Monday morning came and she escaped to the shop, anticipating Raymond’s cheerful banter and Mrs Sergeant’s familiar scowls. But she found her employer in a gale-force mood.

  ‘He’ll not be in today,’ she snapped when Sara dared to ask where Raymond was. ‘He’s done som’at to his leg playing football - daft game, I say. Mrs Ritson called at home to tell me. I’ve a good mind to sack him on the spot. What use is he to me, hobbling around with a stick?’

  ‘Will he be off long?’ Sara asked in dismay.

  ‘Better not be,’ Dolly Sergeant bellowed, ‘or there’ll be hell on. He’ll stand behind this counter if it kills him. But what I’m going to do with the deliveries, I just don’t know.’ She shook her head with worry.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ Sara offered at once. ‘I can ride a bike as good as any. Used to ride for miles at home - and the hills round here are nothing compared to up the valley.’

  Mrs Sergeant gave her a dubious look. ‘You’re just a puny lass - you’ll never manage all the groceries. It’s heavy work.’

  ‘Give us a chance, Mrs Sergeant,’ Sara pleaded, relishing the thought of being out in the fresh air on the deceased Mr Sergeant’s ancient bicycle.

  The elderly woman sucked in her sallow cheeks. ‘Well,’ she considered, ‘you can have a trial run to Greenbrae, in the dene. Do you know where I mean?’

  ‘I’ll easy find it,’ Sara assured her. ‘What do I need?’

  Dolly Sergeant flapped a list of provisions and, snatching it, Sara hurried to collect the items off the shelves. She bound them up in brown paper and tied the parcels carefully with string, carrying them out to the bicycle in the yard, hidden among discarded crates, mouldering boxes and packing straw. Mrs Sergeant stood with hands on hips, instructing her where best to place the groceries. Tins and sugar went in the box on the back of the bicycle, while tea, eggs and a packet of wheat flakes were balanced in the basket on the front.

  The machine wobbled precariously as Sara mounted, but she managed to steady it and launch forward across the yard. The seat was too high for her to perch on comfortably, so she stood in the peddles and called goodbye, not wanting to halt the momentum.

  ‘Miss Joice’s is the green door, next to the Naylors’,’ Dolly Sergeant cried, leaping out of the way.

  ‘I’ll find it!’ Sara grinned and wove unsteadily out of the gate, leaving a troubled Mrs Sergeant shaking her mop of white hair.

  ‘If you break those eggs you’ll have to pay for them, mind!’

  But Sara was rumbling down the slope towards South Street, gathering speed, whooping with joy at the motion and her unexpected freedom. Narrowly missing a coal cart, an arthritic man crossing the road and a hooting Parker’s bus, she negotiated the hazards of the centre of town and headed for the Durham Road and the dene.

  The morning was bright and blustery, the fresh breeze shaking the purple lilac and yellow laburnum blossom like Monday morning dusters clearing out the dreary weekend weather. The burnt, cindery smell of the village lessened as she took to the path through the dene and Sara gulped in lungfuls of air, privately thanking Raymond for injuring himself and giving her this chance to explore.

  She found the large redbrick villa of Greenbrae, sheltering behind a screen of chestnut trees bedecked with candlesticks of white flowers. At the tradesmen’s entrance, a cheerful, aproned woman with discoloured teeth and straw-coloured hair helped Sara carry in the parcels.

  ‘You doing Raymond’s job then?’ she asked. ‘Just put them on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Aye, he’s injured himself playing footy,’ Sara panted.

  ‘Footy!’ the young woman guffawed. ‘And I’m Vivian Leigh.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sara questioned.

  ‘He’s been in a scrap from what our Louie says. Raymond’s my nephew, you see. Our Louie - that’s my sister - is in a right panic he’ll lose his job over it, so she’s pretending it’s a football injury. I�
�m Hilda Kirkup, by the way, but everyone calls me Hildy.’

  ‘Sara,’ Sara smiled briefly. ‘Is he hurt badly?’ she asked in concern.

  ‘Bit bruising to the head and a nasty gash on his leg.’ Hilda shook her head. ‘But he’s a tough’n’.’ She cleared a space and dumped the sugar down on the huge, untidy wooden table. ‘I’ve told Louie not to worry about him losing his job - that old dragon Sergeant’ll not find many lads who’ll work for the pittance she pays him - not with that many of them joining up just now. Queuing outside the DLI recruiting office they are.’

  ‘Me brother Tom’s in the DLI,’ Sara told her. ‘I don’t like to think there might be a war.’

  ‘Who does?’ Hilda sighed. ‘My lad Wilfred’s in the Terras - he’ll be one of the first called up if it comes to war. Have you time for a cuppa? There’s a fresh pot just made.’ The bony-faced woman seemed eager to chat.

  ‘Well, Mrs Sergeant won’t miss me for a few more minutes,’ Sara said, tempted to sit in the large kitchen with its huge black range. The smell of dried herbs and freshly made bread reminded her poignantly of her mother’s farm kitchen, except this one was cluttered with piles of magazines and books, knitting patterns and half-made clothes strewn among the scales and baking implements. ‘I don’t want to keep you from your work, mind.’ Sara glanced at the chaos. Hilda was unperturbed.

  ‘Sit yourself down,’ she said brightly, turfing a ginger cat out of a sagging armchair and flinging a half-sewn dress over the back. ‘Miss Joice is no slave-driver - she won’t be back till dinner time so I’ve got plenty time to do the washing.’

  ‘Mrs Sergeant says Miss Joice is a schoolmistress,’ Sara said, settling into her chair and feeling more at home with Hilda’s mess than Aunt Ida’s obsessive tidiness.

  ‘Headmistress,’ Hilda corrected, ‘but she’s canny - not the least bit strict with me. Mind, I’ve worked here since I left school, when old Dr Joice was alive. Now he was a real gentleman. Miss Joice never married, so there’s just the two of us rattling around in this big house. Can you believe it?’ she chortled. ‘And if Wilfred Parkin ever gets round to popping the question, she’ll have to find someone else to look after this place.’ Hilda’s grin was wry. ‘Are you courting?’ she asked, handing Sara tea in a blue-and-white striped mug.

  Sara flushed at the woman’s directness, watching her open a tin of homemade shortbread and push it across the table. ‘Not really.’ She thought fleetingly of Sid, but he seemed so remote now, from another world. ‘There was a lad at home - up Weardale - but…’ Sara reached for a sugary biscuit to hide her awkwardness.

  ‘So you’re not from round here?’ Hilda’s deep-set blue eyes widened with interest.

  Sara found herself repeating the story of how she had come to Whitton Grange and, as Hilda seemed keen to hear more, she told her all about her family and her life on the farm.

  ‘Poor lass, losing your father like that,’ she sighed. ‘My mam died a few years back - she was always poorly. But me dad’s fit as an ox. He was still working down the pit until three years ago when he retired. Now he walks around the villages preaching in the chapels - a proper John Wesley.’ Hilda squinted over her mug. ‘Jacob Kirkup, perhaps you’ve heard of him?’ Sara shook her head. ‘Your folk not chapel people?’

  ‘My family are - the Pallisters,’ Sara answered. ‘But me Uncle Alfred likes me to go to the parish church with Aunt Ida. It’s not really my cup of tea though - all that bobbing up and down.’

  Hilda laughed, ‘You should come to the chapel on North Street then - we’d be happy to see you. Our Louie goes regular - she sees that Raymond attends, too. Who did you say your uncle was?’

  ‘Alfred Cummings,’ Sara replied uneasily. ‘Raymond says your family and Uncle Alfred don’t speak.’

  Hilda grimaced. ‘Cummings is a bad word in Louie’s house.’

  ‘Why?’ Sara wanted to know.

  Hilda sighed. ‘It all goes back to the ‘26 lockout.’ For a moment she looked sad and reflective, then she smiled at Sara, a warm, compassionate smile that made her plain face interesting. ‘It’s water under the bridge - nothing for you to worry about, pet. These days, only men like Louie’s Sam remember. Mind, Sam’s had it hard - hasn’t had a full week’s work for ten years.’

  ‘That must be terrible,’ Sara said in concern. ‘How on earth do they manage?’

  Hilda shrugged. ‘Louie cleans next door for the Naylors. Sam hates her skivvying for the under-manager but it helps put bread on the table - and now Raymond’s working. But it’s been hard for our Louie - I can’t say it hasn’t. And now my dad’s retired from the pit, they have to pay rent on the pit house.’

  They supped their tea in silence, as Hilda’s mind seemed focused on the past. At least on the farm they had never gone hungry, Sara thought with thankfulness. She had been lucky in her upbringing in so many ways in comparison with the hardships these pitfolk endured. She was only just beginning to realise how fortunate she had been. Sara wondered why her mother had never told her about the poverty in Whitton Grange when she reminisced about the place. Surely it was something that could never be forgotten?

  Then Sara remembered she was on trial as a delivery girl and broke into Hilda’s reverie.

  ‘I’ll have to be off- ta very much for the tea, Hildy.’

  ‘Any time.’ Hilda stirred herself and stood up with Sara. ‘It’s been nice having a bit natter - usually just the cat or myself to talk to around here,’ she smiled. ‘Come again, won’t you?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Sara agreed, ‘I don’t know many folk here. Just Raymond. And the Dimarcos - they’ve been friendly.’ She did not know what suddenly made her mention them.

  ‘Oh, the Italians on Pit Street?’ Hilda sounded surprised. ‘Wilfred sometimes takes me there if we’re going to the pictures. They make the best ice-cream I’ve ever tasted.’

  ‘Do you know them quite well then?’ Sara asked lightly, as she pushed her hair into her beret to keep it off her face.

  ‘No,’ Hilda admitted, ‘but Sam taught boxing to one of the lads - Louie’s quite fond of him - what’s his name? - goes about on a motorcycle…’

  ‘Joe?’ Sara felt butterflies as she said the name.

  ‘That’s the one. But the rest of the family keep themselves to themselves. Bit clannish, the Italians, Wilfred says. But they’re respectable people - Mr Dimarco donates free ice-cream for the bairns’ summer picnic every year. Mind you, the village give them plenty business in return - they have their own van and their own shop which is more than most of us have to show for years of hard work. No, the Dimarcos won’t be short of a penny or two,’ Hilda said with a touch of envy. She lifted the latch on the back door. ‘And they’ll make plenty out of the Carnival - hundreds of folk’ll be at the parade and the fair - then there’s the dance. You’ll be going to that?’

  ‘I doubt if my uncle will let me,’ Sara said with a resigned expression. ‘And I’ve no one to go with, any road.’

  ‘Everyone goes to the dance,’ the older woman’s voice sounded pitying. ‘You could always come along with me and Wilfred.’

  ‘Thanks, but I couldn’t do that,’ Sara answered hastily, leaving the haven of the warm kitchen. Hilda was friendly, but she must be nearly twice her age. Hilda and her man Wilfred would hardly want a girl of sixteen tagging along, spoiling their big night out, and the Carnival dance appeared to be a big social occasion in this pit town.

  ‘Raymond could take you.’ Hilda suggested as Sara climbed on her bicycle.

  ‘Raymond?’ Sara laughed. ‘He’s not interested in lasses and dancing is he?’

  ‘If he’s like his father he will be,’ Hilda smiled wryly and waved her away. Sara felt a surge of restlessness. Somehow she would find a way of getting to the dance.

  At closing, she decided to risk a telling-off for being late home and go and visit Raymond. In Hawthorn Street, she asked directions to the Ritsons’ home and found them near the top of the steep street, hidden behind lines
of flapping washing. Entering cautiously by the backyard, dodging some well-patched shirts, she called at the open back door. A bareheaded Louie Ritson popped out.

  ‘Haway in, lass,’ she greeted Sara with a breathless smile. ‘It’ll be Raymond you’ve come to see?’

  ‘Aye,’ Sara nodded, following her into the cottage. ‘How is he?’

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ Louie answered with a wave of her pink, chapped hands, showing her into the kitchen beyond the scullery. Sara stepped over a basket of washing waiting to be ironed and saw a white-bearded man sitting by the fire reading a newspaper. He nodded at her and Louie introduced him in a loud voice as her father, Jacob Kirkup. Beyond, Raymond sat eating fried egg and potato at the kitchen table. He looked up and grinned sheepishly, his head swathed in a thick bandage and his left eye a slit in a mass of purple bruising.

  ‘Eeh, Raymond!’ Sara winced.

  ‘Pretty picture, isn’t he?’ Louie said with a click of her tongue. ‘Won’t tell us who did it, mind. Even Mrs Sergeant’s not going to believe he got an eye like that playing football. I don’t know what his mother would say if she could see him.’

  ‘Well, she won’t will she?’ Raymond said defensively. ‘There’ll be nowt to see by the time she turns up at Christmas or whenever.’

  ‘Sit yourself down, pet,’ Louie pulled out a stool for Sara. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘I can’t stop long. I’m just on me way home for tea, thanks all the same, Mrs Ritson.’ Sara sat down.

  ‘How’s the Sergeant-Major?’ Raymond asked, slurping his tea. Louie put a full cup at Sara’s elbow. ‘Missing me, I bet?’

  ‘No,’ Sara teased, ‘I’m doing the errands now, so you can stay off as long as you like.’

  ‘You are?’ Raymond asked astounded. ‘But you’re just a lass.’

  Louie chuckled. ‘Well done, pet. Perhaps he’ll appreciate how important his job is after all.’

  ‘There’s not much point going back if Sara’s doing me job,’ Raymond complained. ‘I can’t be doing with standing in the shop all day with the Sergeant-Major breathing down me neck.’