Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Haway and swing your leg over, lass,’ Joe laughed and pushed her forward. He clambered on and held out his hands to help her.

  Sara only hesitated a few seconds, then, hitching up her dress, mounted the pillion of the slumbering machine.

  ‘Put your arms round my waist,’ he instructed.

  This, Sara Pallister, she told herself excitedly as she slipped her arms about the handsome Italian, is the beginning of a real adventure.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sara’s nervousness at balancing on the noisy machine gave way to exhilaration as they picked up speed along the Durham Road and she clung on to Joe’s body, leaning into the bends as he did. The night breeze caught her hair and lifted it like the mane of a wild pony, whipping strands across her face. Above them the sky was clear, the pall of coal fires that usually hung over the village dispersed by the wind. A spattering of stars winked above the outline of the low hills and the bright disc of an almost full moon lit their way into the dene.

  Joe rode along the cinder track, disturbing a courting couple who jumped back with fright, the man shaking his fist after them. They passed the grand villas of the well-to-do of Whitton Grange and emerged once more on the road snaking east towards Durham. He brought them to a halt and turned to speak over the throbbing engine.

  ‘Do you want to gan up to The Grange and watch the posh lot through the big windows?’ he asked.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Sara laughed, pushing hair out of her eyes.

  ‘I’ve done it plenty of times,’ Joe chuckled, ‘and I’ve never been caught.’

  ‘We haven’t time,’ Sara was half-hearted in her objection.

  ‘Sit tight,’ Joe ordered and turned to rev the motorcycle.

  They took off along the narrow road like the wind. Sara gulped in the cool air and laughed out loud with sheer joy. The weeks of dislocation and homesickness were wiped from her memory for that brief period and all she could think of was how good it felt to be speeding through the Durham countryside on a fast machine with the most handsome and desirable lad she had ever set eyes on.

  They headed up the moonlit drive that Sara had cycled on Sergeant’s old pedal bike. Then, she had had to dismount and push it up the final slope, weighed down with groceries and puffing in the heat. Now the surroundings seemed magical and mysterious, a silver trail winding into the woods with the hoot of an owl to announce their intrusion. Holding her breath at Joe’s audacity, she thrilled at the sight of the gothic mansion towering over them as they motored nearer, like some enchanted castle spilling golden light on to the gravelled drive.

  Through large uncurtained windows, they glimpsed a throng of people in evening dress, milling around a vast room, the men in stiff black tails, the women shimmering in backless gowns that swept the floor. Sara noticed a group sitting round a table playing cards, before Joe swerved on the loose stones and almost threw her off as he righted the bike. From somewhere, dogs began to bark and the massive front door was thrown open.

  ‘You’re a terrible driver, Joe Dimarco!’ Sara shouted in his ear, terrified as she clung on to him tighter. ‘I’d never have got on this contraption if I’d known.’

  Joe laughed in reply and accelerated down the drive as the baying of dogs pursued them. By the time they reached the village once more, Sara was laughing, too, the relief of escape making her light-headed. They stopped on the edge of the green and Joe switched off the engine, so as not to draw attention to their arrival. Nearby, the old horse Gelato munched in the dark and the calls from late revellers echoed across the rough, open ground.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been flying,’ Sara panted as she climbed off the bike, her legs weak as they touched ground again. Joe laughed and removed his goggles. They looked at each other a moment then Sara said, ‘Raymond told me how you saved him. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Joe shrugged, ‘I don’t feel clever about it - I should’ve kept a closer eye on him before - but I had other things on my mind.’ Joe had no intention of adding that it was Olive Brown who had distracted him from the growing danger.

  ‘Well, I think it was brave of you,’ Sara said shyly. ‘But don’t you think he should report the attack?’

  ‘That’s not the way scores are settled in Whitton Grange,’ Joe smiled ruefully.

  The chimes of the church clock carried towards them on the wind. It was quarter past eleven.

  ‘I’m late,’ Sara gasped.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ Joe offered.

  ‘No,’ she replied quickly, ‘someone might be looking out. Me uncle would have a fit if he knew I’d been riding on this.’ She touched the bike.

  Joe caught her arm. ‘Can I see you again, Sara?’ he said, his face suddenly earnest.

  Her heart pounded as she heard herself reply. ‘Aye, I’d like that. But I must go in now.’

  ‘Tomorrow? he pressed her.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Afternoon. I’m going into Durham with a drum of ice-cream. Come with me,’ Joe suggested.

  ‘I’ll try and get away,’ Sara promised, breathless at the thought of another escapade in Joe’s company.

  ‘I’ll wait in the dene until two-thirty,’ he told her and then, raising her hand to his lips, he planted a kiss on her fingers.

  Sara gulped hard and pulled her hand away. ‘Goodnight, Joe,’ she whispered hoarsely and turned from him.

  ‘Ciao, Sara.’ She heard his low reply as she ran up South Parade. Outside number thirteen, she glanced back to see him still watching her. They waved. Opening the garden gate, Sara tiptoed up the path and let herself in as quietly as possible.

  To her relief there was no one about, just her uncle’s shoes and coat discarded at the foot of the stairs to indicate his revelries were over. The hall clock confirmed she was twenty minutes late. Slipping off her shoes, she padded upstairs without switching on any lights. Beyond the gentle ticking of clocks, she heard her uncle’s thunderous boozy snore and wondered how her aunt could sleep on undisturbed.

  Undressing in the dark, a small voice asked sleepily, ‘Where have you been?’ Sara’s heart sank. Marina was still awake.

  ‘To the dance, of course,’ she hissed back. ‘You should be asleep.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ her young cousin demanded.

  ‘In the morning.’ Sara stole a look through the curtains. The lamps outside Dimarco’s were still ablaze and she wondered how Joe would explain his prolonged absence from the parlour.

  ‘I’ll tell Daddy you were late coming in,’ Marina threatened. ‘I heard it strike eleven and you weren’t here.’

  Sara mentally cursed the meddlesome girl, but went over and sat on her bed.

  ‘There was a big band on the stage and the hall was decorated with bunting. It looked wonderful. The Carnival Queen started the dancing,’ Sara whispered.

  ‘What did she wear?’ Marina sat up in bed, full of curiosity.

  Sara found herself recounting the evening in detail to her cousin, all except the final hour.

  ‘Was there lots and lots to eat?’ Marina asked.

  ‘Plenty savouries - and jelly and ice-cream—’

  ‘Jelly and ice-cream,’ Marina interrupted, her tone envious. ‘My favourite.’

  ‘Well, if you’re very good and go to sleep now, I’ll take you to Dimarco’s one afternoon,’ Sara promised.

  ‘Ooh,’ Marina squealed with delight, ‘and buy me a fruit sundae in a big glass?’

  Sara nodded, thankful to see a smile lighting the girl’s small, moody face. ‘As long as you keep quiet about what time I came in,’ Sara bargained, prepared to spend her meagre pocket money from Uncle Alfred to win Marina’s compliance.

  Marina weighed up the choice for a moment, but decided the lure of the forbidden Dimarco’s was a greater pleasure than getting her big cousin into further trouble. She nodded in agreement.

  ‘Snuggle down, then,’ Sara instructed and leaning over, kissed her lightly on the forehead as her mother used to do to her.


  ‘Don’t do that,’ Marina complained and made a fuss of wiping the kiss from her skin.

  Sara turned away and pulled a face in the gloom. But settling down on her creaking camp bed, she grinned to herself in the dark as she re-enacted the evening in her mind. Drifting off to sleep, she was cosy in the memory that Joe Dimarco wished to go out with her again.

  On Sunday, Uncle Alfred came in late for lunch from the club and Sara fretted she would not be able to slip out of the house in time to join Joe in the dene. In the cold light of day, it seemed a mad ploy to run off with him into Durham alone.

  She hardly knew him and he had a reputation for being wild and irresponsible. What if they were spotted leaving the village on his motorcycle and the news was reported back to her uncle? Knowing the shortness of his temper and his prejudice against the Dimarcos, Sara suspected she would be thrown out of his house.

  Yet her yearning to break out of the strictures of South Parade and visit the prestigious city of Durham with its grand houses and ancient cathedral was too strong. Above all, she could not wait to be in Joe’s company again, feeling a hungry ache in the pit of her stomach that only seeing him could satisfy.

  At twenty-past two, Sara had finished the washing up and told her uncle and aunt she was going out for a walk. To her surprise, they did not question her on where she planned to go, Uncle Alfred being overcome with drowsiness and Aunt Ida assuming she was going to join Rosa in the park, but not wanting to mention her name in front of Alfred. That morning Sara had told her more about Rosa, overcoming Ida’s apprehension by stressing how much Mrs Sergeant approved of Rosa as a polite and responsible girl.

  ‘They do dress well, the Dimarcos,’ Ida had conceded, ‘and Rosa can’t help being a foreigner, I suppose.’

  ‘She’s not foreign - Rosa was born in Whitton Grange,’ Sara had answered impatiently. ‘She’s just a lass like me, Aunt Ida.’

  ‘I can’t say I’m happy, you being friendly with her,’ Ida had been grudging, ‘but I suppose there’s no harm in it - as long as you don’t go on about Italians in front of Father - you know what he thinks of you mixing with their sort. It’ll just be our little secret,’ she had said with a conspiratorial nod.

  Sara was happy to leave it at that; she winced at the thought of confiding her attraction for Rosa’s elder brother to her aunt. Anyway, the romance might come to nothing, she reasoned, so there was no need for the Cummingses to find out.

  Rushing down the street, she heard someone call her name and looked back to see Colin ambling after her with his dogs. He had been bleary eyed and sullen at lunch and Sara had found it hard to speak to him now she knew of his part in Raymond’s battering. She gave him a cold stare, not wanting to delay in talking to him.

  ‘I can’t stop,’ she said.

  ‘Going up the park?’ he demanded.

  ‘No,’ she answered shortly and stepped past him. Gypsy followed, sniffing at her legs.

  ‘Where you off to then?’ he asked, keeping pace with her.

  ‘Nowhere special,’ she increased her step, uneasy at his lumbering presence.

  ‘You’re in a hurry for nowhere special.’ He caught her up.

  Sara cringed to think she had sought the friendship of someone who had made a vicious attack on a defenceless lad. He sickened her, yet at the same time she was unnerved by his powerful bulk and the way he stared at her continually.

  ‘Stop following me!’ Sara said tersely. ‘It’s none of your business where I’m going - you’ll only go blabbing to your father, anyway.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Colin scowled, plodding doggedly by her side.

  Sara quickened her pace again.

  ‘You meetin’ someone?’ he goaded her when it became clear she wasn’t going to respond. ‘Got a fancy man from the dance, eh? It can’t be that little runt, Raymond Kirkup, surely?’

  Sara stopped and turned on him angrily.

  ‘Raymond Kirkup’s a canny lad - ten times better than you, Colin Cummings! Aye, you’re nothing but a big lout - and to think I felt sorry for you being picked on by your father. But you’re ten times worse - you’re a bigger bully than he is.’

  Colin took a pace back from her disdainful green eyes and Flash growled at her with menace. But Sara’s temper made her go on recklessly.

  ‘And I’ll tell you this! Last night I had the best time I’ve ever had since coming to this dirty hole of a place. Some people know how to enjoy themselves dancing and being sociable without having a skinful of beer and picking on lads half their size.’

  Colin gawped at her a moment, then, as she continued on her way, he ran after her, red-faced with fury. How dare she compare him to his father, the man he hated most in all the world, the man who humiliated him and made his life a misery every day of the week?

  Finally, he gave up as she ran off down the street. ‘You can gan to hell, Sara Pallister!’ he shouted after her, almost incoherent with rage. ‘I want nowt to do with you any road, nowt.’

  A group of children playing in the street had stopped their game of marbles to stare. He turned and swore at the onlookers.

  ‘Picking on a lass! Cowardy-cowardy-custard!’ the cheeky-faced boys chanted and the others laughed to see the large youth colour with embarrassment.

  Colin turned on them and drove his hefty boot into the middle of their marbles, scattering them into the drains. Cursing them foully, he took hold of the nearest boy by the hair and threw him to the ground, kicking his skinny rump. The boy yelped in pain and the mean-faced whippets yapped about his head. The rest of the children scattered in fear. Colin hurried away with his protective hounds about his heels, before his victim returned with his father or elder brothers to seek revenge.

  Colin determined there and then, he would make Sara pay for rejecting him so publicly.

  By the time Sara reached the dene, the church clock had already chimed the half hour. She searched for Joe anxiously, fuming at Colin for delaying her. Where would he wait for her? she worried. Was she too late? There were children splashing in the burn and fishing for tadpoles and several couples strolling down the over-grown pathways. The air was pungent with wild garlic and the spicy smell of elderberry flowers, but Sara could not enjoy the place for fear she had missed Joe. Ten minutes more elapsed before she emerged at the far end of the dene, where it petered out into a derelict railway siding. Beyond a broken-down fence proclaiming it as private lay the debris of a once-busy railway crossing.

  About to retrace her steps, she saw Joe emerge from behind a rusty coal tub. ‘Haway, Sara, the ice-cream’ll be melted by the time we get to Durham.’

  ‘Nice to see you, too,’ she pouted, but allowed him to help her on to the motorbike. For a moment, she worried he might find her dull in the harsh light of day. She was clad in her own faded cotton dress and darned cardigan, ankle socks and sandals, though running through the dene, she had pulled her hair loose from its ribbon and allowed it to fall around her face and she had splashed on some of her precious store of lavender water that her mother had given her before she left home.

  Joe squeezed her bare knee as she settled behind him and she felt the familiar thrill at his touch. ‘I waited, didn’t I?’ he answered dryly and kick-started the machine, pulling goggles down over his eyes.

  They wound their way out of the siding on to the Durham Road and, picking up speed, soon left behind the last straggle of cottages that marked the edge of the village. The road was deserted and they sped along the winding lanes, through a patchwork of green wheatfields, yellow haystacks and poppy-filled meadows, disturbing showers of butterflies from the hedgerows as they passed.

  Sara breathed in the smell of newly cut hay and felt a fleeting pang for home. But she had to admit that, for the first time in a month, she would rather be at Whitton Grange than at Stout House, and with the exciting Joe Dimarco than the quiet dependable Sid Gibson.

  As they pulled up the final hill and descended into Durham, Sara was entranced by the sight of mellow brick houses
and the tree-lined river coiled around the magnificent cathedral and stout Norman castle. The bike bumped over cobbles, winding through the narrow streets, almost brushing young men who strolled along in flannels or rowing shorts and disappeared into quiet college courtyards. Sara had only the vaguest memory of visiting Durham with her mother on a noisy and crowded miners’ gala day. But today the banks were lush and green with willows trailing their branches into the river and a timeless air hung over the city’s medieval stone bridges and cluttered streets.

  ‘We’ll stop here.’ Joe brought the motorcycle to a halt by the river, near a boathouse that was doing a brisk trade in hiring punts and rowing boats. ‘You can take the money.’

  Soon Joe was calling out his wares and beckoning young children to buy his cones of Dimarco ice-cream. The day was breezy but pleasantly warm when the sun skipped out from behind the rushing clouds. In no time at all there was a willing crowd gathered around the drum of ice-cream, handing their pennies over to Sara, who gave them change from a pouch tied around her waist.

  She felt a niggle of jealousy when Joe bantered with the young girls in their summer dresses and flattered them with his mix of Italian and Geordie.

  ‘Ciao, bella. Try Dimarco’s ices - the best in County Durham! Gan on and treat yourself, bonny lass,’ he coaxed a young girl with dark, wavy hair who was whispering about him with her friend.

  The girl giggled flirtatiously and bought two cones. When she seemed in no hurry to pass on, Sara gave her a frosty look and demanded payment.

  ‘Enjoy yourselves, girls.’ Joe sent them on their way with a smile then he turned and winked at Sara. ‘Nearly done,’ he said. ‘Stuffs going fast this afternoon.’

  ‘So’s the chatting up,’ she answered dryly.

  ‘The sooner we sell all this, the sooner we can have a bit time to ourselves,’ Joe grinned at her, unrepentant. ‘Gan on and have one yourself - I can see your mouth’s watering.’

  He dolloped an ice on a cone for her and she took it with a shy laugh.