Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Still in his damp football clothes, Raymond stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door. Louie looked after him with a long-suffering sigh.

  ‘You’re as stubborn as any Kirkup when you want to be,’ she said aloud. ‘I just hope my instincts are right and you’re not going to get hurt again, bonny lad.’

  Raymond found the Dimarcos in the middle of a family squabble over Uncle Gino who was out buying fish and chips for the children with Bobby’s wages from the cycle shop.

  ‘I’m looking for Sara,’ he said at once.

  ‘Come in, Raymond.’ Arturo was glad of the diversion. ‘She’s here in the back-shop.’

  Anna and Arturo followed him in, and Raymond realised he was not going to be left alone. Well, what he had to say was for them all, he thought, steeling himself for the ordeal.

  ‘Sara, I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he said, his voice tense.

  ‘Raymond!’ Sara’s delight at seeing him evaporated at his words.

  Arturo clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘You are going to America, to make your fortune, eh?’

  Raymond ignored him. ‘If I thought I had a chance with you, Sara, I would stay, even now.’

  Sara felt her throat drying as she tried to respond. His blue eyes in the lean face regarded her intently. She could not find the words to answer him.

  ‘You must not throw away your chance of going to America,’ Anna chided him. ‘Sara is not ready to marry again. Perhaps no one will take the place of our Joseph.’

  Sara saw the look of pain crossing Raymond’s face at Anna’s words but he stood his ground.

  ‘She can speak for herself, can’t she?’ Raymond replied shortly to the grey-haired woman. Turning back to Sara he said, ‘I want to marry you, Sara, and I’ll wait until you’re ready, if there’s half a chance you’d say yes. Do you want me to go?’

  Sara looked into his anxious face. For a moment Joe’s laughing visage came into her mind, but she forced herself to banish it. Raymond’s intense blue eyes, watching for her response, were far more vivid now.

  ‘No,’ Sara found her voice at last, ‘I don’t want you to go. I’ve only kept away because I thought this chance of going to America was what you wanted.’ She stepped towards him and put out her hands. ‘I love you, Raymond,’ Sara said shyly. Raymond grabbed her to him and their arms went around each other protectively.

  ‘Oh, thank God for the common sense of Auntie Louie,’ he laughed and kissed Sara on the lips.

  Anna burst into tears. ‘How can you do this?’ she sobbed. ‘Have you no respect for Joseph’s memory?’

  ‘Of course we have,’ Sara replied, controlling her temper. ‘But I know Joe would have wanted Paul to have a father to care for him. Raymond was one of his closest friends - he once said he would’ve liked Raymond in his family.’

  ‘No, that cannot be!’ Anna was almost incoherent with distress, ‘Raymond is not one of us.’

  ‘Neither was I once,’ Sara reminded her mother-in-law.

  ‘But that is different,’ Anna protested. ‘You gave us a grandson.’

  ‘Stop it, Anna!’ Arturo trembled with emotion, finding the courage to intercept at last. ‘How can you speak to Sara and Raymond in this way? Raymond is our friend - he has helped around our shop since he was at school - he came to protect us when the village turned against our family. Do not say that he is not one of us. There must never be such divisions again, else our boys will have died for nothing.’

  Behind them, Rosa and Sylvia had appeared on the doorstep, silenced by the raised voices, listening to the heated exchanges.

  ‘Papa is right,’ Rosa spoke in support. ‘It would be wrong for any of us to stand in the way of Sara’s happiness after all she’s been through. If you try and stop her she might leave with Raymond anyway and you’ll lose both her and Paul.’

  Anna gawped at her youngest daughter, astonished at the unheard-of criticism to herself.

  ‘I agree,’ Sylvia spoke up unexpectedly. ‘Only I know what Sara has gone through losing her husband and it is a terrible thing. Let her be happy now, Mamma.’

  Anna was silenced by Sylvia’s quiet plea, feeling the stirrings of remorse for her churlishness towards Sara and Raymond.

  ‘Raymond,’ Arturo turned to the young man, standing protectively beside Sara, ‘I have a suggestion. It is not necessary for you to go away from the village. You can stay and work in my shop. I have no sons to help me run the business - Bobby has no interest - and my daughters are making their own lives. Anna and I cannot go on for ever - we are getting old and need the help of strong arms to make the ice-cream, do the fetching and carrying. You worked in Sergeant’s for long enough and know about business. When the time comes - and if you are up to it - you can take on the shop - with Sara’s help.’

  ‘What are you saying, Arturo?’ Anna said bewildered.

  ‘It will suit you too, Anna,’ Arturo assured her quickly, ‘because I shall tell Gino I have a partner and there is no place for him in the shop. He will have to go back to Glasgow. Does that make you happy?’

  ‘Of course,’ Anna mumbled, blushing.

  ‘And Raymond?’ Arturo asked.

  Raymond and Sara exchanged looks.

  ‘Please say yes,’ Sara urged, gripping his hand. She felt an answering squeeze as he smiled at her tenderly.

  ‘I’d be honoured to work with you, Mr Dimarco,’ Raymond replied and stepped forward with an outstretched hand.

  Arturo clasped his own rough fingers around Raymond’s in acceptance.

  ‘Then I am happy, too,’ Joe’s father smiled, his eyes shining. ‘Welcome to our family.’

  Sara felt a surge of joy at the words. As she reached towards Raymond, he turned and their arms went around each other in a fierce hug and they kissed roundly, not caring what anyone thought. How near she had come to losing him! Sara shivered with fleeting anguish, and then succumbed to the wave of happiness surging through her as they clung together.

  ***

  The Durham Mining Trilogy

  Following on from THE HUNGRY HILLS and THE DARKENING SKIES, NEVER STAND ALONE is the final novel in THE DURHAM TRILOGY of mining sagas. Vividly portraying the tight-knit village of Brassbank through the momentous times of the 1984 Strike, it is an emotionally-charged and compelling story with a passionate heroine who touches the heart.

  Read a bonus chapter from NEVER STAND ALONE.

  Praise for NEVER STAND ALONE:

  ‘A gritty, heartrending and impassioned drama

  The Newcastle Journal

  ‘A tough, compelling and ultimately satisfying novel … another classy, irresistible read’

  Sunderland Echo

  ‘She pulls no punches, tells it like it is and taps directly into your emotions. Excellent’

  Northern Echo

  ‘The gritty, unforgettable story of families torn apart by the conflict that divided a nation…a powerful story’

  World Books

  ***

  Praise for THE HUNGRY HILLS:

  ‘I read The Hungry Hills with pleasure…Not only a good read but a vivid picture of the coalfield. All the misery and class division are there but so are the warmth and courage of the people. You’ll believe you are there.’

  Denise Robertson

  ‘Truly a novel for saga lovers … weaving together the lives of her many characters with compassion, skill and affection.’

  Northern Echo

  ‘An unforgettable saga of life in the 1920’s’ Worcester Evening News

  ‘My children are unfed, the clothes unwashed, ironing undone … This is a wonderful book …if you don’t mind loosing sleep as you read by torchlight into the night, do get this book.’

  The Miscarriage Association

  Janet welcomes comments and feedback on her stories. If you would like to do so, you can contact her through her website:

  www.janetmacleodtrotter.com

  NEVER STAND ALONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  1976


  Carol pulled a face in the mirror.

  ‘I look about twelve!’ she protested, staring in dismay at the way the hairdresser was yanking her shaggy brown hair out of its usual feather-cut into a high ponytail. ‘And the dress - God, the dress!’

  ‘Stop swearing Carol,’ Nancy Shannon scolded her youngest daughter. ‘The dress is a picture.’

  ‘It’s a nightmare,’ Carol contradicted, tugging at the high lacy collar above the yards of flowery pink cotton and matching bolero that were to be her bridesmaid’s dress. ‘I look like summat out of a pantomime.’

  ‘Something out of a pantomime,’ her mother corrected automatically.

  ‘If Kelly or my mates catch sight of me, I’ll never live this down,’ Carol continued, unabashed.

  ‘Girls have friends not mates,’ Nancy said, giving herself a sideways view in the vast bedroom mirror and smiling with approval at her trim figure in the cream silk suit. ‘I don’t know where you learned to talk like that.’

  ‘The same place you did Mother,’ Carol goaded, ‘Brassbank Secondary Modern. Only you decided to go posh when Dad got the job as pit manager, didn’t you?’

  Nancy flushed, glaring at the silent hairdresser, defying her to show so much as a smirk at this remark.

  ‘Now you listen here, you little madam-’ Nancy broke off as her eldest daughter entered the room, looking pink and flustered in her mammoth white dress.

  ‘Here comes Cinderella,’ said Carol.

  ‘Darling you look wonderful,’ Nancy cried, jabbing Carol in the back. ‘Your father is going to be so proud of you.’

  Carol thought for one brief moment that her mother was going to succumb to tears at the sight of Fay in yards of Laura Ashley satin and lace and crown of false flowers in her permed brown hair. But she had never seen her mother cry, not even when Grandma Hutchinson had died, and it did not happen now. Nancy Shannon’s heavily made-up face with its false tan and bright lipstick struggled successfully to compose itself under the stiff waves of dyed blonde hair.

  Fay did not notice her mother’s moment of emotion; she was fare too distracted with worrying about the day ahead.

  ‘Do you think I’ve overdone it on the eye shadow? Vic prefers the natural look.’

  ‘Is that why I’ve got to look like Little Bo Peep today? To please the wonderful Vic?’

  ‘Shut up Carol,’ her mother snapped. ‘Fay, you look just right. Vic Proud’s a lucky man to be marrying you and he knows it. Your father and I have been looking forward to this day for so long – it’s worth all the expense.’

  A good investment, Carol thought wryly. Her parents couldn’t believe their luck that Fay was marrying Brassbank’s most up-and-coming businessman with a fleet of coaches and two new travel shops opening up in Whittledene New Town. Fay had chosen one of the mock Georgian houses in the nearby village of Brassy as their marital home and had spent the past three months dragooning an army of decorators and joiners and landscape gardeners into producing the eight wonder of the world. Everything was split-level, built-in, shiny new and cream; from the kitchen cupboards to the Habitat furniture and deep pile carpets. They had a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and a fountain in the ground-floor lounge that lit up a lurid green at night. Carol had annoyed Fay by likening it to Santa’s grotto. Yet the cost of this marriage and the wedding was staggering to Carol.

  ‘Don’t worry Mother,’ she smiled impishly under her halo of pink flowers, ‘I’ll elope on the back of a moped to save you a bit of money.’

  Nancy gave her a sharp look but Fay snorted, ‘You’ll have to catch a man first, and heaven help him when you do.’

  Carol was dismissive. ‘I’m not going to catch any lad. Girls don’t need men as the only way to get on in the world any more. At least some of us don’t.’

  Fay’s large-featured face turned crimson, her brown eyes watering. ‘It’s not like that with me and Vic. We’re marrying because we love each other. I’ve got ambitions too, you know. Vic’s going to help me set up a health food store in Whittledene with a sliming centre – wholefoods, herbal remedies – all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Don’t let her get to you,’ their mother intervened. ‘You and Vic have a grand future ahead of you. As for Carol, well, she’s never going to get on in the world hanging around with the likes of Kelly Laws and the village boys. She wasted her time at school and refused to go to college. Now all she wants in life is a measly part-time job in a second-rate boutique.’

  ‘I’m right here,’ Carol smarted, ‘you don’t have to talk about me as if I’m out of the room all the time. And Bowman’s isn’t second-rate it’s-’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Shannon,’ Margaret, the hairdresser, dared to intervene, ‘it this how you want Carol’s hair?’

  Nancy stifled a waspish remark and glared at her daughter. It was the first time she had really looked at her youngest for an age. With her long wavy strands of shaggy hair pulled off her face, she could see the full features: the large mutinous mouth and wide nose, arresting and sensual rather than pretty. It struck her how alike she and Fay were, except the elder girl had her father’s deep-set brown eyes while Carol’s were large and green and fixing her with their perpetual defiant look. Those eyes, Nancy shivered, so direct and accusing.

  ‘Cut the fringe,’ she ordered and turned to help Fay with her veil and train.

  ‘No, Mam, not the fringe,’ Carol pleaded. Margaret hesitated, wishing this ordeal at the colliery manager’s house was over.

  ‘Yes the fringe. You’re going to look smart for one day in your life. And don’t call me Mam.’

  Carol backed away. ‘Don’t bring those scissors anywhere near me.’

  ‘It’s just typical!’ Fay suddenly screamed. ‘You’re deliberately trying to spoil my special day. Can’t you do as Mother says for just once?’

  With alarm, Carol saw her sister’s eyes fill with tears. She had resisted assaults on her fringe for years, but seeing Fay in such a wound-up state, Carol capitulated. As much as she resented being paraded down the aisle in flounces of pink, she didn’t want to ruin things for her sister, however over-the-top it all seemed.

  ‘Okay, Margaret,’ Carol said, ‘do the wicked deed. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, mind, Fay.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Fay almost managed a smile and Nancy’s taut face relaxed a little.

  While Margaret snipped, Fay fretted again over which outfits to pack for her mystery honeymoon.

  ‘Why such secrecy?’ Carol asked. ‘How can you pack if you don’t know where you’re going?’

  ‘It’s romantic,’ Fay said in irritation.

  ‘Bikinis in Alaska – yeah very romantic.’

  ‘Very funny. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You think romance is sitting on the back of a draughty motorbike or drinking beer on the beach. When you’ve seen a bit of the world like I have, you’ll realise there’s life beyond Brassbank.’

  ‘You’ve been to Corfu twice and you’re moving a mile away; hardly the world.’

  ‘It’s a step up from here,’ Nancy snapped. ‘Put them all in,’ she advised, ‘and if you need anything else Vic will buy it.’

  After that there was no more time for argument. The wedding cars arrived: a cream Rolls-Royce for the bride and father while Nancy and Carol followed in a metallic silver limousine, with two small nephews of Vic’s who were dressed in blue velvet pageboy suits. Carol felt some sympathy for them as they tugged at their stiff collars and pulled at the constricting breeches, while her mother ordered them to stop climbing on the front garden walls and get in the car.

  ‘Make sure they behave themselves in church, Carol,’ her mother fretted. ‘Keep a tight hold on that David, he’ll be climbing over the pews given half a chance.’

  ‘Yes Mam,’ Carol sighed, lifting the smallest black-haired boy off the wall.

  ‘Don’t let him get your dress dirty!’ Fay shrieked. ‘He’s been jumping in the flower beds.’

  Carol watched her sister growing more puce by the second
under the canopy of white lace and flowers. It was already hot and not yet eleven o’clock. Her father’s bald head was prickled with sweat and his bulldog face was an uncomfortable crimson above the starched collar of his hired morning suit. He had been standing outside for half an hour, not wanting to get embroiled in the bickering upstairs and concerned that the small pageboys might do permanent damage to his prized display of bedding plants, still blazing with colour despite the unusually dry summer.

  Carol thought her father looked quite distinguished in his formal black jacket and pinstriped trousers that managed to hide his spreading paunch. Today he looked tall and benign and fatherly under his brindled moustache. The etched frown and shrewd brown eyes softened with pride for his eldest daughter.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he kept repeating to Fay, ‘I’m going to be the proudest man who ever took his daughter up the aisle of St Brandon’s.’

  ‘Dad, stop it,’ Fay said with a mixture of laughter and reproach. ‘You’ll make me cry and smudge my make-up.’

  ‘Do hurry up, Ben,’ Nancy carped. ‘We don’t want to keep Vic waiting too long. Now into the cars everyone. Half the village will be out to see us. Let’s give them a sight for sore eyes.’

  Carol winked at the small boy in her arms. ‘Come on Davey, we’re not allowed to escape till after the fashion parade.’

  ‘Why’ve they got sore eyes, Auntie Carol?’

  ‘It’s just an expression. Mam wants us to look our best for the half dozen people who didn’t get invited for the wedding.’

  ‘In the car, Carol.’ Her father gave her a warning look.

  Carol bundled the two boys into the limousine. She breathed in the smell of leather; one of her favourite – along with petrol and coal fires in winter. Her family thought she was weird about smells, especially her father who prided himself on growing the best perfumed roses in Brassbank.

  It took five minutes for the wedding party to arrive at the church gates, driving up the steep bank out of the mining village towards open fields and the squat towered medieval church of St Brandon in prosperous Brassy. Within the time it took her mother to slap the boys’ knees twice for fidgeting, they had left the ranks of brick colliery houses, bustling high street, patchwork of allotments and busy park, and emerged into an oasis of ancient trees and ivy-bound walls. Gone was the incessant clank and throb and the mine, the haze of smoke that hung over the colliery even in summer, the blackened brick and overhead electric cables that reached between houses like giant washing lines.