by Diane Allen
‘I’ll help you,’ offered Molly, seeing the look of doubt in Helen’s eye. ‘I’m with the lads – I don’t reckon this spot much.’ When Helen gave the nod, she shouted to John, who was looking perplexed at the thought of not getting a pint: ‘John, will you run us down in the trap and help us get set up before this lot arrive?’
‘Aye, I’ll take you – anything to get a pint. We’ll have to get a move-on, though – once this lot hear you’re opening up, they’ll be off. It may be half a mile down the road, but I reckon they’re that desperate for a pint they’ll cover the distance faster than my horses can.’
‘Come on then. Our Florrie would have wanted us at home. I don’t suppose her useless lump of a father will have the doors open.’ Helen Parker lifted her youngest on to her hip and shouted above the din: ‘The Welcome’ll be open in ten minutes.’
A cheer went up as John opened the door and held the crowd back so Molly and Lizzie could help Helen and the children out. They mounted the gig and whipped the horses into action, trotting just ahead of the running navvies.
The Hill Inn emptied as fast as it had filled, leaving the sweating barman dumbstruck and short of takings with only the top brass sipping their whisky and eating sandwiches.
As Helen had predicted, the Welcome Inn was closed and in darkness.
‘I can pull a gill,’ said Molly, putting an apron on and nipping behind the bar. Seeing that Helen was busy lighting lamps and lining up glasses and jugs, Molly took charge: ‘Lizzie, you’re in charge of looking after them little ’uns. John, bring a barrel in from the yard – we’ll need plenty of drink in today.’
‘Thanks for this,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t know where my useless lump of a husband is.’ She was missing Florrie more than ever. In that past it had been her daughter she’d turned to for help when crowds of mourners flooded the inn, but today it was Florrie they were mourning.
‘Happen it’s best he’s not here. From what I hear, some of them want to string him up.’ Molly started pouring pints in readiness for the thirsty crowd.
‘Aye, he’s not popular at the moment. But folk are scared of him. He still has the ear of the bosses and pays the workers out on a Saturday, and he owns this place and can ban anyone who so much as looks at him funny.’ Helen broke off and gave Molly a frightened glance as the first mourners burst in through the door.
Conversation was lost as the inn was rapidly filled to the brim, the oak beams and seats groaning with the weight of people crammed inside.
Molly helped behind the bar while John collected glasses.
‘What the hell have you got there, Ted?’ John stopped what he was doing and stared in disbelief at what Ted and his mate were carrying through the door.
‘I thought Helen could make use of this. I’m sure it’ll not be missed.’ The carcase of a huge pink-and-black pig was heaved on to the bar. ‘I’ve sticked it,’ said Ted cheerfully. ‘It just needs shaving and curing. I’ll do it, if you like. That’ll keep us in bacon for months.’ The navvy grinned, showing all his black teeth, as he patted the dead pig on its head. Blood trickled on to the bar from the wound on its neck.
‘For God’s sake, take it around the back,’ hissed John. ‘You’ll get us all locked up.’
‘Nay, I won’t,’ said Ted calmly. ‘The constable from Ingleton caught me at it, but we’ve come to an understanding: he gets a joint of ham and keeps his gob shut. He wants a bit of pork off the other ’un when I go back and help myself to that.’
A cheer went up as Ted and his mate nudged and wormed their way through the revelling navvies, struggling to carry their burden out to the shed.
John shook his head. It was theft, pure and simple, but Ted’s heart was in the right place.
‘Come on, lads, get another round in,’ shouted one of the railway gangers.
The cry was immediately followed by the slamming of tankards on the tables, and shouts for them to be filled.
‘We’ve only one pair of hands, you know,’ said Molly, cuffing one of the navvies round the ear.
While John got to work pulling pints, she swerved through the drunken hordes picking up empty tankards, dodging the hands that tried to pat her on her backside. They grinned at her through cracked and broken teeth, enjoying the way she gave as good as she got, not standing for any cheek.
‘Bye, I don’t know how you do this every night.’ Molly wiped her hands on her skirts and confessed to Helen that she was about ready to drop.
‘You just do,’ said Helen. ‘Either that or risk a good hiding from Henry because the takings are low.’ She hung her head in shame at having to admit what she put up with from her husband.
‘I’d be giving him a bloody good hiding if he was mine!’ Molly said as she served a grinning navvy.
‘She would an’ all. Our Moll can hold her own with any man.’ The elderly navvy gave his four penn’orth to the conversation before retreating back into his corner.
John, listening in, took Molly by the elbow and whispered loudly in her ear: ‘Don’t you get involved in this, Molly. Henry Parker is a hard man. He’d think nothing of laying into a woman and dumping your dead body under one of those viaduct piers.’
‘That’s as maybe – he still needs bloody sorting. He’s the scum of the earth.’ Molly’s eyes flashed.
‘From what I hear, it’s in hand, so keep your mouth shut.’ Molly could tell from the worried look on John’s face that it was time to stop voicing her thoughts about Henry Parker.
The drink flowed all night and into the early hours with tales being told and songs being sung and tears being shed as memories of home and family were rekindled. The embers in the hearth were glowing their last dying light as the revellers slowly departed, one by one. Helen locked the door behind the last straggler and looked back into the bar to see Molly, fast asleep in the corner next to the fire. She covered her with a horse blanket before winding the chain in the grandfather clock, her last act before bed. It had been a hard day, one she would never forget.
24
Molly and Helen sat warming their hands on mugs of tea, looking around at the beer-swilled flagstone floor strewn with broken glasses. A pile of rags moved in the dim light of the snug, revealing the body of a stirring navvy as the first rays of dawn crept through the murky windows of the Welcome Inn.
‘Well, at least the children are asleep, and John saw Lizzie home.’ Molly took a long sip of tea and looked at the state of the inn, knowing that she would have to help clean up before starting at the hospital.
‘What time did John get away? I didn’t see him leave. He was a grand help.’ Helen stared thoughtfully into her cup. ‘You’ve a good man there.’
‘Nay, some days he’s mine, some days he isn’t. At the moment he’s living up at Jerusalem, wanting time away from me.’ Molly could have wept, her heart ached with love for him. She was so tired and emotional after the long hours spent serving people and hiding her emotions, after seeing the people who had died in her care laid into a mass grave.
‘That lad loves you. Why, you’ve only to see the way he is with you to know that. If my bastard of a man looked at me like that, I’d be happy. Instead, he treats me like just another one of his possessions.’ Helen gazed out of the window into the grey morning light. ‘I wish he was dead. It was him got Florrie in the family way, you know. Her own father! Evil bastard. If I’d known, I’d have tried to stop him, but knowing Henry he’d probably have killed me. And then what would happen to the little ’uns?’ Helen was too numb to show emotion. She’d been raped, beaten, kicked and abused so many times that she no longer cried or let her feelings show.
Molly put her arm around her. ‘What a bloody pair we are, stuck in this godforsaken hole. But chin up, girl, things can only get better. Let’s face it, they can’t get much bloody worse! Come on, we need to get this place straightened up. I start work at the hospital in an hour, but I’m not leaving until you are straight.’ Molly pulled her long hair back, took hold of a brush and began sw
eeping, just as the main door’s latch went up and the dark figure of Henry Parker walked in.
He was square-set and his shoulders blocked the morning light from creeping in through the doorway.
‘Who the fuck are you and why’s my pub in this state?’ he bellowed at Molly. His face was hard and dark with stubble.
‘Henry, Henry, this is Molly, she’s helping. We buried Florrie yesterday, along with the rest of the pox victims. Molly’s been helping me.’ Helen ran to the side of her husband, pulling on his arm.
‘Get off me!’ He shook Helen loose. ‘Fucking well clean up. And you – out of my pub!’ Henry Parker pointed his stick at Molly as he pushed Helen to one side.
Molly looked at him.‘You ungrateful bastard! Where were you yesterday?’ She didn’t care how big he was; no one got away with swearing at her.
Henry lifted his stick into the air threateningly. ‘Why, you bitch . . .’ An ugly sneer twisted his face as he contemplated striking her across the face with his stick.
‘Henry, Henry, she didn’t mean it. She helped me, Henry, she helped me when you weren’t here.’ Helen pawed around him like a helpless puppy.
‘Go fuck off, you interfering bitch!’ Henry pushed Helen to one side and bellowed that he wanted something to eat.
Molly stood for a moment, watching the menacing hulk stumble into his favourite chair. She was all too aware that he was capable of snapping her neck with a single blow, and if she antagonized him it would only be worse for Helen. Picking up her shawl, she gently touched Helen on the arm as she left, avoiding eye contact with Henry Parker.
She stood outside the inn’s entrance, listening to tables being tipped over and Henry’s swearing and Helen’s screams. The door opened for a second as the pile of rags was thrown out. The elderly navvy picked himself up, shook his head and dragged his weary feet homeward. Molly looked up at the bedroom windows, where a row of frightened children’s faces were squeezed up to the glass. There was nothing she could do to help them. Henry Parker would kill her if she interfered. She put her finger her to her lips, urging the children to be quiet, and walked away.
Spring mists clung to the bottom of Whernside as she followed the riverside path back to the huts. All the scaffolding was up now, stretching right the way across the valley. The huge stone piers of the first few arches of the viaduct looked grand; it was going to be an impressive structure when all twenty-four arches were complete.
Molly breathed in the sharp air in and smelled the peat as she mounted the steps to her home. She tried to envisage how the moor would look without the ramshackle shanties on it. One day it would be a sight of great beauty, an engineering wonder of the world. In the meantime it was a place where daily existence was a struggle and you learned to be thankful for what little you had.
She opened the hut door quietly and pulled her new curtains back to let the morning’s light in. John was asleep in the chair, snoring loudly, while Lizzie was fast asleep in her bed behind the curtain. There wouldn’t be much work done on the railway today, not with the hangovers most of the men were carrying. Molly pulled the curtain back and looked at Lizzie; she was growing up so fast, practically a young lady already. Tears filled her eyes as she thought how proud Lizzie’s father would have been if he could see her now. She turned as she heard John stirring.
‘You’re back then.’ John yawned and stretched. ‘I kept Lizzie company. She didn’t want to be on her own and I couldn’t be bothered to walk up the fell in the dark, not when I was the worse for drink.’ He opened the stove door and poked the dwindling fire with a kindling stick, then put the kettle on to boil. ‘I’ll make us a cuppa. I see you’ve raided the old home like I told you. The place is looking grand.’ John yawned again and stumbled to the door, opening it wide. ‘You know what I like about this place? The silence, and the smell of the moorland when nobody else is about. Just listen to that – not a sound, just the cry of a curlew. In a few hours there’ll be engines running, people shouting, and such a din as you can’t hear yourself think, but now it’s grand.’
Molly slipped her arms around him. ‘I can’t stay. I’m working at the hospital today. Lizzie knows to get herself to work. Thanks for stopping with her, I’m glad she didn’t stay on at the pub. That bastard Henry Parker came back this morning. God, I’d kill him if he was mine. He’d only hit me the once!’
She kissed John gently on the neck. He smelled of sleep and his reactions were slow. She wished she could curl up in bed with him instead of going to work.
‘You wanton hussy, if folk see us they’ll think I’ve slept here with you.’ He turned and grinned.
‘Let ’em think what they want, I’m past caring.’ Molly smiled at him, putting her head on his shoulder.
‘Now then, lass, I’m not ready for this yet. I need more time.’ He gripped her arms and gazed into her eyes. ‘I want things right, lass. This time they have to be right.’ He let go of her and walked to the steaming kettle.
Molly stood staring out of the door. Right? What did he mean by right?
‘Things will never be “right” here. Look at it – the place is a quagmire, full of outcasts and people struggling to eke out a living. What are you waiting for? You know I love you – or if you don’t, you’re stupid.’ Molly sighed and sat down at the table as John placed a mug of tea in front of her.
‘That’s just it: I know you love me, but I’ve got nothing for you. I own nothing, I’ll probably wind up following the railway line to Carlisle and end my days drunk in a hostel. I can’t even get one of these new houses that are being built because I’m not important enough. You deserve better, lass.’ John wiped his face with his hands and stared miserably across the table. Molly looked exhausted and her day hadn’t even begun yet.
‘Do you think I’m one of those women who follows money? Because I’m not. I love you because you are you, and through all the hard times, the rows and the deaths and the deceit, I never stopped loving you, John Pratt. It makes no difference to me whether we live in a hut, a palace or a cottage by the sea. We could have tuppence or two thousand to our name; so long as I have you, that’s all that matters.’ She held her hand out across the table. He grasped it and lovingly held it in his.
‘But it matters to me, lass. I want to give you everything, you and Lizzie. I want a roof over our heads and a wage coming in, and I know you want to stay around here, close to your old man and your baby. I love you, but I want us all to be happy. Give me time and I’ll try and get those things for us all.’ John bent and kissed her as she pulled her shawl around her, making ready to go to the hospital.
‘Nay, save your kisses. I love you for what you are, not what possessions you can give me. You must be more like your mother than I thought – she liked fancy stuff and dreamt of houses, and look where it got her. All I want is you, here with me.’ She turned and made her way out of the hut, determined not to let John see the tears in her eyes.
‘Molly, my dear, what’s wrong?’ Doctor Thistlethwaite couldn’t help but notice a tear rolling down Molly’s cheek as she cleaned the surgical instruments.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor Thistlethwaite, I’m just tired. It’s been a hard few months and we’ve had another two deaths this morning.’ Molly turned the blame for her tears on to hospital matters but really they were for John.
‘My dear, I’m always here if you need someone to talk to, you know that. We were quite close before my marriage to Gladys. I sometimes regret that you turned my proposal down. We would have been better matched.’ He put his arm around her shoulders and felt her trembling body.
Molly sniffed hard and tried to stifle her sobs. ‘Thank you, but you and Gladys look the perfect couple and I’m just tired and acting stupidly.’ Molly didn’t want to go down that road. She’d noticed that some days the perfect couple seemed anything but happy. She wished that the old doctor would forget his feelings for her.
‘As long as you’re all right.’ He looked into her eyes and squeezed her hand, releasing i
t quickly as he heard the hospital door open and his wife enter.
Molly mouthed her thanks and went about her business. Here was a man with money and position, and she’d turned him down – a man any sensible woman would want. And yet where did her heart lie? With a man who had hardly any money and no prospects, but she still loved every inch of him.
‘That man wants bloody killing.’ Molly couldn’t contain her anger as she bound Helen Parker’s bruised and broken ribs under Doctor Thistlethwaite’s supervision. ‘If I could get hold of him and bray him like he’s brayed you, I’d do a better job and kill him.’
‘Now, Molly, it’s not for us to comment on a patient’s private life.’ Doctor Thistlethwaite smiled a knowing smile at his nurse. He admired her outspokenness and honesty.
Gladys Thistlethwaite noted the glance between them. She’d seen them earlier through the window: her husband with his arm around Molly’s shoulders. Had he no respect for their marriage, flirting with a common navvy’s widow in their own hospital. It was time Molly went. Somehow Gladys had to get rid of her. She didn’t know how she was going to manage it, but she was determined that she would.
The wind howled and the rain came down in sheets with the river roaring in full spate as Henry Parker urged his horse on, weighed down with the week’s wages for Ribblehead. It was a pig of a day and to make things worse, he was late and the last light of the day was fast fading. He disliked travelling in the dark along the windswept moorland road. One on one, he could take any man on, but the wages provided a powerful incentive for robbery and if a gang of thieves stopped him he wouldn’t stand a chance.
‘Come on, ya bastard!’ He kicked the flanks of his horse to urge it on. The poor animal’s ears lay flat against its head as it strained up the incline heading for the lights of the Hill Inn that flickered in the distance. Suddenly the horse stumbled into a rope that had been stretched across the road, tied from tree to tree. Whinnying in terror, it reared up and threw its rider into the wet gutter before disappearing into the night with the money bags.
