Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Joe felt himself grow hot at the way they discussed him. He was about to re-enter swiftly when Raymond spoke again.

  ‘Well, perhaps she’s not so bothered now. She’s got another lad up Weardale, you know.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish! What other lad?’ his aunt asked in disbelief.

  ‘It’s not rubbish. Some lad wants to marry her - she told me once when she was missing home. Can’t remember the name - Jim or Sid or something.’

  ‘Well I never!’ Louie clucked. ‘Don’t go telling Joe such tales, mind.’

  Joe did not stay to hear any more. He turned and marched out of the yard, swinging on to his motorcycle, shaking with fury. How humiliated he felt! How much time had he wasted moping about missing Sara and feeling sorry for himself? he thought savagely. He had been prepared to rebel against his parents for her and all the time she had this lad waiting for her back home. Now she was choosing to leave Whitton and return home without attempting to see him or say goodbye. What a fool he had been over her!

  Joe revved the bike and drove off recklessly down the lane, not caring where he went, just intent on escape, to put distance between him and the village. He did not use his light in the blackout and could hardly see where he went, but the bite of cold air on his face temporarily eased the hurt.

  Sara hurried up Holly Street and turned into Hawthorn Street. It was almost dark now and the terrace was shrouded in blackout curtains and paper, making it difficult to find the Ritsons’ back door. A figure in the gloom shouted out, ‘You should be inside, lass, where it’s safe!’ Sara could just make out the dark uniform of an ARP warden. She waved at him and banged on the kitchen door.

  Sam peered out. ‘Oh it’s you lass, come in.’

  The kitchen was warm and fuggy, sealed from the outside world. Louie’s old father snored in his upright chair and Raymond was polishing his football boots by the hearth. Louie ushered her into a seat, but there was a strange awkwardness about the Ritsons.

  ‘I -I thought Joe might be here,’ Sara broke the silence, trying to hide her overwhelming disappointment. ‘Paolo said—’

  ‘He was here,’ Louie told her. ‘You’ve just missed him.’

  ‘Took off on his bike without saying goodbye,’ Raymond added, head bent over his boots as he brushed with vigour. ‘He’s that moody these days.’

  ‘So he might be coming back?’ Sara asked hopefully.

  ‘Not if Turnbull catches him flying around on that machine in the dark,’ said Sam.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Sara felt her throat tightening with tears. If Rosa had given Joe her message, there had been plenty of time for him to seek her out. But Joe had not tried to see her, she thought with bitter resignation.

  ‘Was there something you wanted to tell him?’ Louie asked gently, slipping a hand over hers.

  ‘No,’ Sara shook her head, then gulped. ‘I just wanted to say ta-ra…’

  It sounded so trivial in her ears, Sara thought, but how could she express her painful regret that events had not turned out as she had hoped?

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Louie Ritson said, squeezing her hand. Her pale, lined face was full of understanding.

  Sara left soon after. Tramping back in the dark with the acrid smell of burnt coal in her clothes and hair, Sara wished there had been time to know the kindly Ritsons better.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stepping off the bus at Lowbeck, Sara breathed in lungfuls of the sweet air. The hills around her, tinged with soft purple heather, were like old friends awaiting her return. The solid stone houses and the chapel stood mellow in the late summer sun and the muted sounds of bleating sheep and gurgling water were reassuringly familiar, yet part of her felt a stranger as if she was seeing it all for the first time.

  It was so tranquil that she wondered if the news of war had just been a bad dream. But as she bade farewell to the bus driver, she turned to see a young man in uniform striding towards her.

  ‘Tom!’ Sara cried in delight and, dropping her small case, ran towards him. They hugged.

  ‘By, you’ve put on weight,’ he laughed, giving her the once over, ‘Aunt Ida must be a canny cook.’

  Sara ignored his comment. ‘I never thought you’d be here - you don’t look like you’re wasting away yourself,’ she retaliated. ‘Oh, it’s so grand to see you, Tom! How come you’re home?’

  He picked up her case and nodded across the road to where their brother Bill was waiting, perched on a mud-encrusted tractor.

  ‘I’m on embarkation leave,’ he told her. ‘We’re part of the British Expeditionary Force ganin’ to France.’

  Sara’s stomach lurched at the stark words.

  ‘How long have you got?’ she asked.

  ‘Three days,’ Tom smiled ruefully. ‘Three days to get Jane Metcalfe to say she’ll marry me.’

  Sara gaped at him. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Aye,’ Tom grinned. ‘Going to war concentrates the mind, Sara - and a lass can’t resist a lad in uniform.’

  Sara gave him a playful push, then Bill was helping her into the trailer behind his new machine, with an embarrassed peck on her cheek.

  ‘This is smart, Bill,’ she admired the tractor.

  ‘Got it second-hand in the show at Lilychapel,’ he said proudly. ‘Should have had one years ago.’

  ‘How’s Mam?’ Sara asked.

  ‘A terrible patient,’ Bill groaned, starting up the vehicle. ‘She can hardly stand up, but she’s chasing Mary round like a skivvy, fretting over these visitors.’

  ‘Well, they’ll be gone by the end of the month,’ Tom shouted over the noise of the engine, lighting up a cigarette as they pulled away. ‘There’s a rumour we’re going to get some of these land girls who’re being trained up for farm work,’ he grinned.

  ‘And what about Jane Metcalfe?’ Sara teased.

  ‘She hasn’t said yes, yet,’ Tom replied, offering her a puff of his cigarette behind their elder brother’s back. Sara glanced at Bill, but he was oblivious to the wickedness, happily driving his beloved machine. The smell of burning tobacco gave her a faint craving and reminded her nostalgically of Joe. She took a drag with a mischievous smile and handed it back.

  ‘How’s Mary?’ she shouted to Bill. ‘I’m pleased to hear she’s expecting.’

  Tom mimed a figure with an enormous belly.

  ‘She’s grand,’ said Bill over his shoulder. ‘But it’s been a bit of a strain with all of us in the cottage. I’m glad you’re back, Sara. It’ll cheer Mam up and stop her going on at Mary all the time.’

  There were changes at the farm. Stout House had a freshly painted green door and window frames and the yard in front had been cleared of hens and was occupied by a large black saloon car and a dashing blue open-topped sport’s car with large headlamps like frog’s eyes. They belonged to the shooting party, Bill told her as he dropped her off and trundled away on the tractor.

  Round the corner, she found her mother sitting outside the cottage, peeling carrots, and was fleetingly reminded of Granny Maria. It was a shock to see her mother looking older, her face drawn and grey strands in her brown hair, her once bustling body immobilised by a huge plaster-cast on her leg.

  ‘Mam!’ Sara flew at her, sloshing water from the tin bowl on to her mother’s apron. But Lily did not protest, clinging on to her daughter and crowing with delight.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you. Did you not buy yourself something new to wear? I told you to go to the Store and get a couple of frocks,’ her mother fussed. ‘I hope you spent some of your wages on yourself.’

  ‘I did,’ Sara answered, deciding to leave until later the news that Uncle Alfred had only given her back a quarter of what she had saved, declaring the rest was for bed and board. She was still furious, too, at his refusal to hand back her diary.

  ‘Doesn’t she look well, our Tom?’ Her mother’s face lit with joy. ‘I want to hear all about Whitton Grange - and Alfred’s house - and who you met. You hardly wrote a word to us after the first month.
Dolly Sergeant sounds just like the old battleaxe I remember.’

  Tom brought some chairs out of the cottage and they sat together in the sun while Sara told them about the Ritsons and Kirkups, the chapel and St Cuthbert’s, the Carnival and the village, now full of young evacuees with strange Geordie accents.

  Mary appeared from Stout House with a mop and bucket in her hand, and Sara realised she had not thought to ask where her sister-in-law was. She looked vastly pregnant, and waddled down the steps, her chin a rash of spots, hair bound up in a cotton scarf.

  ‘Come and say hello to our Sara,’ Lily Pallister ordered. ‘You can leave the cleaning till later.’

  ‘It’s done,’ Mary said shortly. ‘Hello, Sara.’

  ‘Let me take that, Mary.’ Sara sprung up, feeling suddenly guilty that the pregnant girl had been labouring alone in her uncomfortable condition. She looked exhausted and fretful. ‘You have a seat.’

  Mary gave her a suspicious look but plonked her weight down on the vacant chair as Sara relieved her of the bucket.

  ‘I can do the tea tonight for the guests if you like,’ Sara offered, squeezing on to Tom’s chair.

  ‘They call it dinner,’ Mary corrected, ‘but I could do with the help.’

  ‘Little Miss Domesticated now, eh?’ Tom scoffed at his sister.

  Sara groaned, ‘I’ve done nothing else this past month - sweeping out the shop or helping Aunt Ida in the house - everything spotless. It’s good to see a bit of honest farm muck around the place.’

  ‘You’ll not find any muck inside the house,’ Mary bristled. ‘We’re giving them jugged hare tonight,’ she went on, ‘and summer pudding—’

  ‘Quiet, Mary,’ Lily flapped a hand at her. ‘Sara was telling us about Whitton Grange.’

  Mary would not be silenced. ‘So what was all this trouble with the Italians?’ she demanded.

  Sara flushed. ‘Trouble?’

  Lily looked annoyed at her daughter-in-law, but answered. ‘Alfred sent us a letter a few weeks back, telling us you’d fallen into bad company and that he was going to send you home. But as you didn’t say you wanted to come home, I asked him to keep you on a bit longer - see if things settled down.’

  ‘But once your mother had her fall,’ Mary elaborated, ‘it was obvious you’d be more use around here.’

  ‘And keep you away from the wicked foreigners,’ Tom laughed and nudged her.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea to bring you home,’ her mother said, ‘but I’m that pleased to see you, pet.’

  ‘So were you seeing an Italian lad?’ Mary persisted.

  ‘Aye,’ Sara answered, with a jut of her chin, ‘until Uncle Alfred put the block on it. Not that he had any right to - the Dimarcos are a good family.’

  ‘Never knew them,’ her mother said. ‘They came to the village after I’d married your father. Catholics, I suppose?’

  Sara shot her mother a surprised look, but Mary interrupted again.

  ‘I’m sure Uncle Alfred was right to be protective,’ Mary said with a censorious look. ‘He’s a respectable man.’

  ‘He’s a pain in the neck!’ Sara contradicted. Mary gasped with shock as Tom guffawed and Lily tittered.

  ‘Yes, he can be,’ her mother admitted.

  ‘Anyway, it’s all over now with Joe,’ Sara said dismissively, as if she was trying to convince herself.

  ‘Sid Gibson will be pleased to hear it,’ Mary sniffed. ‘Asks after you all the time, doesn’t he, Mrs Pallister?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘We didn’t tell him about the Italian - and he’s not going to know, is be, Mary?’ She gave a severe look.

  Sara felt a flush of guilt at mention of Sid and the thought that he might have been waiting for her all this time.

  ‘Well, it had nothing to do with Sid Gibson any road,’ Sara said with a toss of her fair hair. ‘I’m not courting him - or anyone - lads are just a nuisance.’

  Tom laughed and stood up. ‘I’ll make myself scarce, then,’ he said.

  ‘Bill needs a hand in the top field,’ Mary told him.

  ‘I’m off to Thimble Hill,’ Tom replied unconcerned. ‘I’ll be back in time for tea.’

  ‘Dinner,’ Sara corrected impishly.

  ‘Let him go.’ Lily put a stop to Mary’s protest. ‘He’s got precious few days of freedom left.’

  They watched him saunter off in his uniform, whistling his way down the hill in the sunshine.

  Sara met her sister Chrissie off the school bus at Rillhope and, after they had helped Mary serve a four-course dinner to the guests at Stout House, they settled down to a family evening in the cottage. There was much chatter and teasing and laughter as Sara told them anecdotes about the pit village and the strange Cummings’ household. When Bill and Mary and Chrissie had retired upstairs to bed and Tom gone down to Rillhope for a pint of John Lawson’s home-brew, Sara and her mother sat on by the banked-up fire.

  She wanted to tell her mother about her feelings for Joe Dimarco, but something about her mother’s attitude made her reticent.

  ‘Why should he hate the Dimarcos so much, Mam?’ Sara asked.

  ‘Alfred’s always held strong views about things,’ her mother mused. ‘He’s not broad-minded like your father was - but then your dad had gone away to war and had seen a bit of the world. Alfred’s known nothing else but Whitton Grange - he’s suspicious of people from the next village, let alone Italy.’

  ‘The next street more like,’ Sara retorted. Her mother laughed and then the amusement faded.

  ‘I’m sorry if he made life awkward for you, pet.’ She stroked her hair as Sara sat at her feet on the hearth. ‘And it’s a pity about the money. He’s not a bad man at heart - he just thinks that discipline and strictness are what a father should hand out to his children. You see, our own father died when I was born and Alfred was just a bairn - we never had a father and Alfred’s always been resentful of that. He used to be very protective towards me, too, to the point of being a pest.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Aye, I sometimes think that’s what made me run off with your father - just to get away from Alfred. But he always thought he was doing the best for me, I knew that.’

  ‘He’s a bully, Mam.’ Sara would not be persuaded.

  ‘Don’t say that about your uncle.’ Her mother grew defensive. ‘And perhaps it’s for the best you were kept away from that Italian lad.’

  Sara pursed her lips together in annoyance.

  Lily sighed. ‘Anyway, you’re safe home now,’ she smiled. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, pet.’

  ‘Me too, Mam,’ Sara relented and laid her head on her mother’s knee.

  ‘And once the visitors have gone we can move back into Stout House,’ Lily said with optimism. ‘The bank’ll not evict us now - farms are going to be important in fighting this war - food for the people. Bill says we’re to start growing crops and things that weren’t cost-effective before.’

  ‘Tom says we might be getting land girls on the farm?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily confirmed, ‘Stout House will be full of working people again - a happy home - like the old times.’

  Sara thought silently of the future. Whatever her mother said, with her father dead and Tom far away, they both knew it could never be the same again.

  Tom left on the bus from Lowbeck, with a tearful Sara and Jane Metcalfe waving him away. Jane and Tom had become engaged on his final evening and the Metcalfes had said that Lily Pallister must visit them when she was able to travel once more. Sara went home to comfort her bereft mother and threw herself into the running of Stout House, even surprising Mary with her diligence. But it was only to ease the emptiness she felt inside, a niggling restlessness after the euphoria of the warm homecoming had evaporated.

  With time to reflect, Sara realised how much she missed Joe and Rosa and Raymond and the Ritsons. With Mary constantly carping at her to do things, she almost admitted to missing Sergeant’s where at least she could listen to the gossip o
f the villagers. The cottage was damp and primitive after the luxuries of South Parade, and she had to sleep on an old mattress on the floor of the parlour and tend to her mother on the truckle bed, as she was unable to climb the stairs.

  When she was not needed around the house, Sara escaped for brief walks on the fell, watching the skylarks swooping over the moors and the creeping bronze on the birch trees. Apart from seeing Sid Gibson to nod to outside chapel, she had avoided meeting him and she was glad that Mr Gibson kept his son busy with the harvest and the taking of beasts to market for the autumn sales. She did not know what to say to him and the look of puzzled hurt on Sid’s kind face only made her feel more wretched. Perhaps in time they could recapture their old affection…

  By October, Stout House was vacant once more and Lily Pallister moved swiftly back into her home with Sara and Chrissie. After a couple of days, Bill said, ‘No point wasting precious fuel keeping two stoves burning,’ and so he and Mary took up quarters in the room he had once shared with Tom.

  By the middle of the month, half a dozen young women arrived in the area, fresh from their training at Houghall Agricultural College in Durham. Three of them went to help with the harvest over at Thimble Hill, while the others were housed in the cottage and were detailed to help Bill and Mr Gibson with the ploughing and planting of fields that had hitherto been left as grazing.

  ‘It’s absolutely back-breaking,’ a girl called Phoebe complained after the first week, as they all sat around the supper table together. She had been a debutante and ‘come out’ in the summer of 1938, but had rushed patriotically to help in the war effort.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Mary said with little sympathy. ‘Some of us have had to work like this all our lives.’

  ‘Well, bully for you,’ Phoebe sounded equally unimpressed and handed round her cigarettes to Mary’s disapproval.

  Sara soon realised she had gained a friend when Phoebe found her smoking up the beck one day and they stopped and shared the last of Tom’s Capstans that he had left his sister.