Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Joe’s hands fumbled around her waist, looking for somewhere to rest, and his brown eyes looked into hers for encouragement. Perhaps he had not kissed as many girls as he liked to make out, she thought wryly. Sara closed her eyes and searched for his mouth once more. This time it was better. Their lips touched and lingered over the kiss, exploring and moist. Sara felt a slow thud begin in her chest and Joe drew her closer to him, his confidence increasing.

  They felt each other’s faces, drew apart for a moment, laughed sheepishly and began kissing again. She ran exploratory fingers into his dark, cropped hair, while he stroked the long wavy strands away from her face.

  Sara was unaware of how long they stood there, touching and kissing, oblivious to their surroundings, intent only on each other. Eventually the chug of a tractor disturbed their fondling and they looked round guiltily. It was two fields away, but they drew apart and headed through the gate.

  Hand-in-hand they skirted the top of the woods, out of sight of the farmer and continued walking across Whitton Common.

  ‘We’ll call it our kissing gate,’ Joe grinned at her, his pulse still hammering at the experience. He had never been caught in such an exciting embrace in his life, not even with last year’s Carnival Queen, whom he had enticed away from the pugnacious Normy Bell. Kissing Olive Brown had been satisfying only because Normy Bell had wanted her, whereas Sara’s passion lit her green eyes and suffused her skin, making her quite beautiful. Sexuality pervaded her like a scent, he thought with admiration. He wanted more of it, but rain threatened again and the afternoon was nearly over. He knew he must get back to the parlour.

  ‘You’re bonny as they come!’ He kissed Sara on the nose and took her hand. They walked slowly back down the path, Sara stopping to pick at wild garlic growing beneath the trees. She bit some and handed him a stalk. Joe chewed on it, releasing the pungent smell that reminded him of his mother’s cooking. Joe grimaced at the thought of his parents and how they would disapprove of his growing interest in this penniless country girl. It was one thing for Rosa to have Sara as a friend, and quite another for him to court her. They might turn a blind eye to the situation, he thought, if they knew it was a summer flirtation, but he could never bring Sara to the house as his intended. Her ways were different, her family unknown. No Dimarco had married outside their own kind since his father and Uncle Davide had come to England before the Great War.

  It was taken for granted that Joe would eventually find a girl from one of the Italian families here in Britain, or from their village back home as Paolo had done. His father had already talked about sending him on a trip to Italy, perhaps next year when he was eighteen, and Joe knew he would be expected to cast his eye over the unmarried girls. He was proud of his heritage, but he had never visited his parents’ village and had no great desire to be stuck for weeks in an isolated mountain hamlet. After all, he hardly spoke a word of their dialect, Joe thought ruefully.

  Shaking off such tiresome thoughts he consoled himself that there was no point in worrying about something that might never happen and at the moment he wanted nothing more than a summer romance, to divert him from the gloomy rumours of war. Looking at Sara, he felt gripped by a sweet, sweet longing.

  June drifted into July and Sara and Joe’s relationship blossomed as swiftly as the lush countryside about them. Sara saved up the measly allowance her uncle gave her from out of her earnings and spent it on bus fares into Durham to meet Joe on her free afternoons. They met in the back rows of darkened picture houses, at neighbouring village fetes where Joe was selling ice-cream, up on Highfell Common where the air was clear of coal smoke. They walked for miles across the low hills, Joe complaining at the enforced exercise, but Sara delighting in the gentle wooded countryside, awash with a sea of bluebells and wild irises, encircled by armies of purple and white trumpeted foxgloves. Sometimes they stopped at farm cottages and begged water from standpipes, or sat and talked to roving cyclists as they rested under the lacy cream flowers of hawthorn bushes.

  Occasionally the conversation would turn to the prospect of war. To Sara’s dismay, Joe had strong opinions on the matter.

  ‘Bullies must be stood up to,’ he said to a middle-aged veteran of the Great War, as they sat sharing a cigarette on the parapet of an isolated bridge.

  ‘I signed the Peace Pledge five years ago.’ The man’s affable face had turned grim. ‘Sanctions against an aggressor are the only moral answer.’

  ‘They didn’t stop Mussolini marching into Abyssinia, did they?’ Joe retorted. ‘It wasn’t right what he did to them Africans - and I’m from Italian stock me’sel’. I’ve argued with me Uncle Davide about it - nearly caused a family rift - but Musso should’ve been stopped. Look how he’s mopping up in Albania now. And Hitler’s the same. Bullies only take notice if they’re kicked in the backside,’ Joe said firmly, ‘and in my mind, Adolf needs a good kickin’.’

  The cyclist had shaken his head sadly and when Joe had looked set to argue, Sara had quickly changed the subject. She was amazed by Joe’s knowledge of politics and the way he talked with familiarity about places of which she had barely heard. In contrast, she wanted to ignore such disquieting thoughts, but they would no more stay away than the rumblings of distant thunder that sent them hurrying off the hill and the cyclist on his way. How could war ever come to such a peaceful land as this? she wondered in perplexity, as they sheltered under a haystack and watched a couple of magpies swoop among the stooks. She wanted nothing to disturb the growing love between her and Joe, for she believed he cared for her. It showed in the tenderness of his dark eyes and the amused smiles he gave when she told him of her skirmishes with her uncle and aunt in order to win time away from the house to meet him.

  For life at South Parade had become bearable, as long as she knew she could get away to see Joe. They had managed to keep their meetings secret, she was fairly sure, although sometimes she caught her aunt watching her suspiciously from the parlour window when she said she was off to meet Rosa in the park. Once, in Durham, they had nearly run straight into Aunt Ida coming out of a haberdashery, but Sara had pushed Joe into Woolworths and they had hidden until her aunt and Mrs Hodgson had gone past.

  Furthermore she had had to smother her desire to tell Rosa of where she went when she made excuses not to meet her in the park. Fortunately, Rosa appeared too engrossed in arrangements for Domenica’s July wedding to notice Sara’s dreamy-eyed state or the flush of excitement on her face when Joe appeared in the Dimarcos’ back shop where she and Rosa chatted over the washing up.

  Three times she had treated Marina to fruit sundaes in the Dimarcos’ parlour and her young cousin had been noticeably less hostile towards her, no longer threatening to tell her father if Sara arrived in late, because now they shared these secret trips to the cafe. Colin had not spoken to her since their public argument, but Sara was not troubled by his coldness, only relieved that he appeared to have stopped following her around.

  Raymond, though, was party to her illicit courtship with Joe and it was he who suggested they could meet at his house in Hawthorn Street. To Sara’s delight, Raymond’s Auntie Louie gave her a warm welcome and Joe appeared quite at home among the Ritsons, who treated him like one of their own.

  Sara would rush after work to the Ritsons’ tiny colliery house with its dark mahogany furniture crowding the low-ceilinged kitchen and parlour. The floors were covered in cheap linoleum, with multi-coloured clippy mats at the hearth and doorways and Mrs Ritson spent half the time wrestling with an old range, which she coaxed to the correct temperature for her baking and boiling water. There was no sign of any bathroom and Sara presumed they still used the tin bath hanging on a nail in the backyard. Once, needing to relieve herself, she was directed across the back lane to a primitive water closet.

  ‘They’re going to put in proper toilets soon,’ Louie Ritson had apologised, ‘Holly Street have them and we’re next.’

  But Sara loved her visits to Hawthorn Street and the shabby cosiness of
Louie’s kitchen on wet Thursday afternoons when they would sit round the kitchen table listening to the wireless and drinking tea, while Louie darned socks by the open fire and Joe discussed the situation in Europe with Sam. Sara soon learned that Sam had a great influence over Joe and that her boyfriend’s opinions had been moulded by this gruff unemployed pitman who had taught him to box when only thirteen years old.

  Sara was wary of Sam Ritson at first, having heard of his radical reputation, and his manner was often blunt and aggressive. But she saw how Joe and Raymond looked up to him and noticed the way his look softened when he watched his wife moving around the room. He was passionate and principled and staunchly loyal to his union, while Louie was kind and long-suffering to the youngsters who came and went and ate her precious store of food.

  On one warm breezy Saturday afternoon, Sara called round, knowing that Joe and Raymond would return to Hawthorn Street after the football match. She found the Ritsons’ house full. Louie’s father, the lay preacher Jacob Kirkup, sat in his chair by the fire reading a weighty volume as if none of the visitors or their chatter existed. Sara recognised Hilda Kirkup among the throng and her plump fiancé, Wilfred.

  ‘Come in!’ Louie called, catching sight of Sara hovering in the doorway. ‘Our Sadie’s back for her birthday. You haven’t met Cousin Sadie have you, pet?’

  ‘No,’ Sara smiled as she was pushed into the room. A small, dark-haired young woman in a smart worsted suit and cream blouse came forward and took her hand.

  ‘How do you do?’ she asked in a pleasant, cultured voice. ‘I’m Sadie Kirkup, Louie’s cousin.’ Sara echoed the greeting, wondering how this grand woman fitted into a family of miners.

  ‘Sadie’s a teacher,’ Hilda said with reverence, ‘in a grammar school in Newcastle.’

  Sadie smiled modestly. ‘Louie and Hilda virtually brought me up - and Uncle Jacob,’ she added quickly, glancing at the white-bearded preacher. ‘It was thanks to them I had the chance of an education and becoming a teacher.’

  ‘And thanks to our brother Eb, too,’ Hilda added. ‘He paid for your schooling after all.’

  ‘Hush, Hildy,’ Louie scolded her sister, with an anxious glance at her father. ‘You know you shouldn’t mention—’

  ‘He’s deaf; he can’t hear us,’ Hilda said dismissively.

  ‘Family politics,’ Sadie said to Sara with a rueful smile. ‘Come and have some of Louie’s sponge cake - it’s delicious - and tell me about yourself. Louie says you’re from up Weardale.’

  Sara was surprised by how much this assured young woman knew about her and her family, and said so.

  ‘You know Louie,’ Sadie smiled. ‘She takes an interest in everybody. Her house is always open to waifs and strays.’ Sara blushed and Sadie said swiftly, ‘Sorry, that was tactless. I was thinking of myself, really. Louie’s parents took me in when I was orphaned at four years old and I can never repay this family for what they’ve given me.’

  ‘Did you grow up in this house?’ Sara asked.

  Sadie nodded. ‘There were never less than eight of us at any one time, I don’t think! But most of the time it was a happy childhood - or perhaps we only remember the happy times the older we get.’

  ‘Aye, I think that’s true,’ Sara mused. Already Stout House was bathed in fond memories of hot summers and games around the beck or dancing to the tunes on the gramophone in the huge beamed kitchen.

  Louie pressed a cup of tea into her hand and introduced her to the others in the room; two middle-aged spinsters called Dobson and an elderly bespectacled woman with inquisitive eyes who turned out to be Wilfred Parkin’s mother. There was a friend of Sadie’s called Jane Pinkney and a friend of Louie’s called Minnie Bell who had a bright-eyed daughter Nancy: somehow she looked familiar. Sara slid a cautious look at the Bells, wondering if they were related to Normy. There had been no further threats to Raymond or Joe from Normy Bell and his mates since the dance and Sara pushed the incident to the back of her mind. But she was reassured to hear Minnie Bell was an aunt of Joe’s friend Pat Slattery.

  ‘You know Pat, then?’ Minnie asked her with interest. She had straggling dark hair, but Sara thought she was still pretty for a woman in her thirties.

  ‘Aye,’ Sara was cautious. Something about the way Minnie Bell was looking at her, made her reticent.

  ‘I’ve seen you before, I’m sure,’ Minnie persisted. ‘Have you been round to Mam’s with Pat?’

  ‘No,’ Sara answered, feeling her cheeks begin to colour.

  ‘Sara works at Sergeant’s with Raymond,’ Louie said quickly, ‘that’s where you’ll have seen her.’

  ‘Can’t afford to shop at Sergeant’s,’ Minnie snorted. ‘No, it was somewhere else.’

  ‘Well, Sara’s been in Whitton since the beginning of May,’ added Louie. ‘Want a refill, Minnie?’

  Just then, Minnie’s pretty daughter Nancy piped up. ‘It was in Durham, Mam.’

  ‘Durham, pet?’ her mother queried. Sara felt her heart begin to beat rapidly.

  ‘Down by the river. We had ice-creams by the river,’ Nancy’s voice was adamant. ‘She was selling ice-cream with Joe Dimarco. Remember, I pointed them out to you?’

  Minnie turned and scrutinised Sara. ‘Aye, I remember now - it was in Durham - about a month ago. We haven’t been in Durham since.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Sara’s voice came weakly. ‘I sometimes help the Dimarcos when they’re busy - I’m a friend of Rosa’s.’

  Minnie just looked at her with the knowing eyes of one woman confronting another. Sara knew she was not fooled by her innocent explanation and her burning cheeks were evidence enough that Sara was hiding the whole truth.

  ‘You’re courting, Sara, aren’t you?’ Minnie teased.

  ‘Leave the lass be,’ Louie tried to intervene.

  Minnie smiled, triumphant at having guessed the truth.

  ‘No need to be so shy. Joe Dimarco’s a bonny-looking lad. Why should you want to keep it secret?’

  ‘There’s nothing to keep secret,’ Sara bluffed. ‘It’s just me uncle doesn’t like me associating with Catholics, so I’d rather you didn’t say anything…’

  Minnie laughed. ‘Better not tell him you’ve been speaking to a Slattery, either! Who does Alfred Cummings think he is anyway, the Archbishop of ruddy Canterbury?’

  ‘Minnie! Now don’t you go causing any bother for Sara with that wagging tongue of yours,’ Louie warned.

  ‘I wouldn’t speak to Cummings if I tripped over him in the street,’ Minnie declared. ‘You’ve nothing to fear from me, pet.’

  All the same, Sara was unhappy that knowledge about her and Joe’s relationship should be spreading. When she told Joe they had been seen together in Durham, he shrugged it off.

  ‘We can’t go round with sacks over our heads,’ he teased. ‘If we want to see each other, Sara, we have to take risks.’

  It was true, Sara thought, and deep down she knew that, for both of them, the secrecy added a tinge of excitement to their courting. Still, there were times when she longed to shout out her secret to the whole world. At least at work she could confide in Raymond when Mrs Sergeant was out of earshot.

  At first he had been teasing about Sara’s infatuation with the tall Italian boy.

  ‘Lasses are right soppy,’ he had said disparagingly as Sara told him for the third time how wonderful the film of Wuthering Heights had been. They were making up a parcel for Mrs Naylor. Raymond’s leg was healed and he had swiftly reasserted his right to the deliveries.

  ‘It’s my favourite story,’ Sara sighed, ‘and Laurence Olivier was so handsome…’

  Raymond clutched his heart in mock agony. ‘But not as handsome as my darling Joe,’ he mimicked. Sara gave him a swipe.

  ‘Shush yourself, the dragon’ll hear you,’ she protested, glancing anxiously towards the storeroom door.

  ‘So are you courtin’ seriously?’ Raymond asked.

  ‘Maybe’s,’ Sara pouted. ‘As long as Uncle Alfred doesn’t get
to hear about us - you know what he’s like.’

  ‘Aye, a narrow-minded vindictive old bugger. Pass me the string.’

  ‘And Joe still doesn’t want his family to know either - just yet,’ Sara added, concentrating hard on the parcel. ‘He says after Domenica’s wedding when things calm down a bit, he’ll tell his parents we’re courting.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Raymond’s look was sceptical. ‘He’s certainly got all the patter, has Joe Dimarco.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Sara sparked back.

  ‘I told you what the Italians are like - they stick with their own. Don’t expect it to last.’

  Sara was riled by the worldly-wise expression on Raymond’s pale face, as if he were far her senior.

  ‘Joe’s different,’ she replied stoutly. ‘And he loves me - he told me so.’

  ‘As I said,’ Raymond nodded sagely, ‘he’s canny with words.’ He caught her thunderous look. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he added hastily. ‘Joe’s a canny lad and a good marra of mine. I don’t doubt he’s fond of you, but in the end he’ll have to do what his people say and marry one of them - like Domenica’s doing. They’ve probably got one lined up for Rosa an’ all.’

  ‘Ah, Rosa!’ Sara cried, seizing on his weakness. ‘That’s why you’re against me and Joe, ‘cos she hasn’t shown you any interest since the Carnival dance.’

  ‘Get lost!’ Raymond retaliated, his thin face flushing. It was true he had been hurt by Rosa’s reticence to his clumsy attempts to ask her out. She had not even accepted his present of the cheap necklace, saying he should give it to Sara. But he was not going to show that he minded. ‘I don’t care about the lass - or any lasses for that matter. They cause nowt but strife.’

  ‘You’ll change your tune when you’re older,’ Sara said with a patronising air. ‘Wait till you fall in love, like me and Joe.’