The Loom

by Sandra van Arend

  In other dreams (or nightmares, he would think later) he was trapped down the pit. These terrified him more than those of war. Strange, how men seemed to want to go to war. Because of this, or so the history books said, there had always been wars. War seemed to be the main aim of the human race. Why did he want to go he often wondered, knowing how terrible it was? When the War began he’d been thirteen. His mother had not worried about him going then. It would all be over by Christmas, so everyone said. Three years later it was still going strong. He was sixteen, now. Still too young to join, but how many had signed up at fourteen and even younger? Quite a few, if you believed the stories! The last time he’d been out with his mother to the Square she’d dragged him away when she saw him staring at the picture of Kitchener pasted to the wall of the Mercer Clock.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she threatened. He did, though, even after he’d wake sweating.

  Last night he had a beautiful dream (for a nice change). He was paddling in a stream: a crystal clear stream, the ripples emanating slowly outwards from his moving feet. It was a warm day and his feet felt so cool in the water. Then a rosy face appeared in the water’s reflection. Shining black hair lifted in the breeze. Blue eyes gazed into his through the water. White teeth smiled at him. A dimple deepened. Kitty!

  Darkie Hammond had worked in the Townsend pit since he was fourteen. He hated the job but the pay was good and the heavy work had filled him out and with his naturally solid build, at sixteen he looked like a prizefighter.

  He got up, had some bread and dripping for his breakfast and a cup of strong tea which still remained in the teapot on the range. He didn’t start the next shift until later and he decided to have a walk to the Town Square. He looked out of the window. The rain had stopped and the sun was trying its best to shine. Perhaps it would clear up? It was still cold, though and he was glad of the heavy jumper, which his mother had knitted, as he walked purposefully up Glebe Street towards the Co-op. Most people were at work but a number of women were doing their shopping, baskets in hand, coats, or more often shawls wrapped warmly around them.

  Darkie strode on up the street and then was suddenly aware that the woman coming towards him was holding her hand up. He automatically raised his, although he didn’t think he knew the woman. As she passed by she slipped something into his hand. She hadn’t smiled, hadn’t said a word, but he knew immediately what it was. His fingers uncurled about the small white feather, which lay in his palm. He looked at it and swore softly. Bloody hell, another one! This was the third time it had happened. The first time he’d laughed it off and flung the feather from him without another thought. The second time he hadn’t been quite as amused. Now he was bloody mad. It wasn’t his fault that he looked old enough to be at the Front. He was no coward and if it hadn’t been for his Mam he’d be there!

  He was still fuming on the incident when he heard a voice calling him. He turned round. Paddy O’Shea was running to catch up, so he waited. ‘What the hell’s the hurry,’ Paddy said, breathing heavily.

  ‘No hurry,’ Darkie growled. He held up the feather.

  ‘Join the club!’ Paddy dropped his disdainfully on the ground. They both laughed ruefully.

  ‘They must be doing a roaring trade.’

  ‘Aye, looks like they’ve really got it in for us. Seems like people have nowt else to do these days.’

  ‘I’m getting bloody sick of it,’ Darkie said.

  Paddy nodded. ‘Aye; bloody silly women must be bored to death if they’ve nothing better to do than run around town all day giving us feathers. They need a bit more work, that’s what.’

  ‘What I’d like to know,’ said Darkie, still seething, ‘Is how these bloody women have the cheek to give us feathers when none of ‘em have ever been in a war. They want the vote and everything else so why can’t someone give ‘em a rifle if they’re so keen and let them shoot a few of the Hun. It’d keep ‘em off our backs, any road!’

  Paddy laughed. ‘Now don’t get so het up, Darkie lad. You know what women are like. Anyway, it doesn’t bother me how many bloody feathers they give me. All I know is that I’m not going until I have to.’ He gave Darkie an affectionate push on the shoulder. ‘Come on; stop thinking about the bloody things. Life’s too short to worry.’

  Darkie looked sheepish. ‘I do get a bit riled up. I should be more easy going, like you, Paddy.’

  Paddy couldn’t understand Darkie. They could give him a sack full of feathers for all he cared. What he did was his business and he knew what those silly women could do with their feathers.

  Darkie was fond of Paddy. He had been his best friend for as long as he could remember, was easy going, generous and had a good sense of humour, even if he didn’t want to ‘go’ to war. Paddy didn’t worry about anything much. Yet he wasn’t a push over, either. Darkie had seen evidence of this when Paddy had given Ted Ainsely a black eye. Just like that, bang! Ted had been obnoxious Darkie had to admit, a dirty talker, mainly about women. Paddy couldn’t abide him.

  ‘So I hit him,’ Paddy said to Emma when Darkie related the incident, ‘me Mam’s a woman. I think he forgot that in his dirty talk.’ Emma nodded, pleased.

  ‘So what’re you going to do today,’ Paddy said as they sauntered on to the Square. The sun had come out and a few older people were sitting on the benches around the railings enclosing the clock.

  Darkie shrugged. ‘Oh, nowt much; I might have a bit of a kip later and then go down to the mill and catch Kitty when she comes out.’

  Paddy raised his eyebrows and made a kissing sound. ‘Don’t be a silly bugger,’ Darkie said, blushing.

  He turned around as one of the old men sitting on the bench called out to him and waved him over. Darkie turned to Paddy.

  ‘Come on, Paddy, we’ll go and have a natter with old Bob Haskell. He’s a bit of a character.’

  They sat on the bench next to Bob and his friend, Tom Newbury. Both had worked in the mines all their lives. Tom looked ill, and coughed a lot into a grimy handkerchief. His face was a chalky white. Bob still looked healthy enough, in spite of his hard life down the mines and his seventy odd years.

  ‘See Alf Fifty over there,’ Bob said when Darkie sat down next to him on the bench. He pointed to a very small man in well-worn clothing and a black neb cap, selling black-eyed peas from a barrow in the middle of the Square. Darkie nodded.

  ‘Have you ever wondered why he got that name?’

  Darkie and Paddy looked puzzled.

  ‘Think about it for a minute,’ Bob said with a wink.

  ‘You’ve got me stumped, Bob,’ Paddy said.

  ‘He got it on account of the peas,’ Bob said triumphantly.

  ‘Peas,’ Darkie said. He grinned at Paddy and winked. ‘All right, go on, tell us.’

  ‘Well, I was saying to Tom here. What happens when you eat peas? Tha knows what happens doesn’t tha, Tom?’

  ‘Aye, I does,’ said Tom and lifted off the seat a little and let off a loud fart.

  Paddy and Darkie roared. Bob looked at Tom in disgust. ‘All right, all right; you don’t have to demonstrate.’

  ‘Sorry, Bob.’ Tom grinned, showing a toothless gummy mouth. ‘I had to do it or I get a right pain. You know how it is.’

  ‘Aye, I do, I do. Let me get on with me story. Well, now, owd Alf must have eaten a lot of peas, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And he must have had a lot of wind, poor bugger. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, it stands to reason they couldn’t call him Alf Farty, could they. It would have been a bit much.’

  ‘Aye, it would.’ Tom was still perplexed.

  Bob looked at him in exasperation, then at the two boys who by this time could hardly contain themselves.

  ‘Ee, he’s thick,’ Bob said to Darkie. He turned to Tom. ‘So they couldn’t call him Alf Farty. You know, so what did they call him?’

  ‘Alf Fifty!’ Tom said triumphantly.

  ‘Good story, Bob.
’ Paddy grinned down at Bob as he stood up. ‘Very classy, like.’ Bob laughed.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Darkie. They stopped talking to listen.

  ‘It’s the Salvation Army Band and it’s coming up Church Street. They’re playing Tipparary,’ Paddy said. They waited and soon, round the corner came the

  Band followed by a trail of brass band enthusiasts and a few heckling children. The Band came to a standstill on the Square and people began to gather round to sing the popular war song. Darkie and Paddy got up off the bench and joined in. Darkie listened to Paddy’s soaring tenor in appreciation. When the song finished he turned to Paddy. ‘You should do something with that voice, Paddy. It’s wasted here in Harwood.’

  Paddy was embarrassed. ‘Get away with you. What could I do?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, join a singing group or something.’

  ‘What with all the owd fogeys? You must be wrong in your bloody head, Darkie lad. It’s bad enough having to sing in the church choir, and I only do that because me Mam pestered me to death.’

  ‘All right, all right, it was just a thought. Remind me to mind my own business next time,’ Darkie said.

  *********

  Leah watched in irritation as Janey wandered around her loom as though she’d all day to do on. Janey was so slow and daydreaming again as usual. You just could not afford to daydream in their job. It was piecework and the more you wove the more you made.

  She’ll have to pay them soon, Leah thought in exasperation. She signalled to Janey to get a move on. Janey deliberately ignored her. Calling to her was a waste of time. The weaving shed was enormous and housed almost a thousand looms. The noise was horrendous. The weavers employed a kind of sign language to communicate. The mill complex itself was huge; three storeys and numerous smaller buildings and a large weaving shed. The mill was surrounded on all sides by high stone walls and on the far side was a reservoir of water called a ‘lodge’, which supplied the mills with steam power.

  The weaving shed had a cement floor and pipes running around the sides, which every now and then let off jets of steam. This prevented the cotton from becoming too brittle. Even in cold weather the workers shed all but light clothing because of the high humidity. Most of the people at the looms were women, except for a few older men.

  Leah ran two looms, efficiently for her age. She was good at weaving. Janey ran one because she was on half time, although she had trouble with one at times because she was so slow. ‘They’re like chalk and cheese, my two,’ Emma would say.

  ‘I hate weaving,’ Janey complained the first week. ‘It gives me a headache. All that noise. I don’t know how you’ve stood it all this time, Mam.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Emma said. She couldn’t weaken with Janey or she’d sit home on her bum all day looking at movie star magazines.

  The older women had their hair severely scraped back into a huge bun.

  ‘That’s enough to give you a headache, without the noise’, Emma would say, ‘some of ‘em must weigh a ton’.

  The young girls wore theirs in plaits, although some had it tied back in a ribbon.

  Leah could see Alf Tatler in the distance changing a loom. She liked Alf. He was also responsible for the maintenance of the looms and always had a friendly word and wave for her.

  ‘You’re a good little weaver, Leah lass,’ he would say as he watched her quick movements with the shuttle. ‘Some of ‘em are always getting cotton in a mash or break t’cotton a hundred times a day.’

  At the end of the week Leah took home six shillings for her five and half days and Emma, who ran four looms, one pound. Emma complained incessantly of the unfairness that men got double that of a woman. Sometimes she had been at her wit’s end to make do on that one wage. Now they were all working it was a lot easier.

  Leah saw Alf walk towards Janey and hand her a piece of paper. Not again, Leah thought. She made sure her loom was running smoothly and then went over to Janey.

  ‘You didn’t get another one?’ she said.

  Janey nodded glumly. ‘I’m sick of ‘em. Have a look.’ She held out the scrap of paper. Leah read ‘report to Ted Hindley’.

  Leah handed the note back. ‘At least it’s Ted, not Ben Gribble. Anyway, Janey, you should be more careful with your weaving. You’re too sloppy.’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ Janey retorted. ‘You like it and you’re good at it. I hate it. One day I’ll get out of here and do something else, see if I don’t.’

  ‘Now don’t get in a huff. Just go and see him at lunch time.’ Leah said. Janey was almost in tears and it would be just like her to leave her looms and run home.

  ‘I’ve had of few of them meself and at least you’ve never had them from that horrible Ben.’

  Leah went back to her loom deep in thought. As Janey said she did like weaving, enjoyed the precision of it, the shuttle flying backwards and forwards, the picking sticks swinging. The picking sticks could be dangerous if you weren’t careful. She would brush under the loom as the huge iron bars swung. If they caught her broom they could break her arm. Her Mam would have a fit if she knew.

  She watched the shuttle flying backwards and forwards across the loom for a few minutes, remembering how she’d almost ended up in hospital because of that shuttle. You had to suck at the two holes in the top to get the thread through, often ending up with a mouthful of dust. On this particular occasion she sucked so hard the cotton caught round her tonsils. No amount of tugging or pulling had been able to dislodge the thread.

  Her Mam had been called from the Premier Mill and she’d taken Leah to the infirmary at Blackburn, as Dr. Warrington was ill at the time. They went all the way by train, the two bits of thread hanging from her mouth. Must have looked real gormless, she thought, her mouth twitching as she remembered. Why on earth hadn’t she cut the threads or at least put them in her mouth so that people couldn’t see.

  She thought about Janey and her note and her own last one from Ben Gribble. Horrible man! She’d gone to his office with that knotty feeling in the pit of her stomach. His weazily, narrow face and fawning, sly manner always made her shiver. ‘Aye, I know him,’ Emma said when she’d told her what happened. ‘He should be locked up.’

  He’d cornered her behind the desk, leaning over her, his breath smelling of onions. Tufts of gray hair sprouted from his nose. He reeked of stale tobacco.

  ‘If you’re nice to me, lass,’ he said, ‘You’ll get no more notes.’

  He had almost frightened her to death, and her teeth had chattered so hard, she was sure they could hear her in the weaving room. She pushed passed him. ‘Don’t you touch me, you dirty old bugger,’ she yelled. ‘I’ll tell me Mam, I will that.’

  When Leah told Emma this story she had been incensed, had flung a shawl around her and gone to see Ben Gribble who lived just up the street from them. She wouldn’t tell Leah what she’d said to him, but he hadn’t bothered her since.

  Dora Baker and Kitty had looms on the other side of Leah. Kitty was the nearest and Leah watched her as she put her shuttle in. She thought about Kitty and Darkie. Of how much Darkie liked Kitty.

  ‘Besotted, he is,’ Emma would say fondly, as Darkie would shoot out of the house in a clean shirt, hair neatly combed. No wonder, Leah thought, she is bonny.

  Kitty had her hair tied back with a blue satin ribbon, the colour of her eyes. Leah knew that she was meeting Darkie after work and that was why she’d not plaited it. Instead it fell in waves and curls almost to her waist. Leah felt uneasy for an instant.

  Loose hair could be dangerous, though! She suddenly wanted to call to Kitty, to shout a warning. She watched Kitty bend forward and lean over the picking sticks. Her hair gleamed in the overhead lights, blue-black. She couldn’t get the words out and she began to run before the unearthly scream began. The scream resounded even above the noise of the looms.

  Leah stood over Kitty. Kitty’s hair hung grotesquely on the picking sticks, swinging backwards and forwards. Each ti
me they swung the hair became more and more tangled. Where the hair had been was a bloody, pulpy mess. Kitty lay on the floor, her mouth open in a continuous scream, now drowned by the clacking of the looms.

  Leah felt the vomit rise, heard voices and then the blackness descended.

  She could hear nothing but the noise of looms. She was much smaller, tied to a loom, which looked like a gigantic building to her. She dragged the rope around the loom as she swept and cleaned, darting underneath to get at the dust. There was a man with a whip. She darted away so that he couldn’t hit her, still dragging the rope.

  This scene faded and Kitty’s face with its open mouth reappeared. A red haze enveloped her. She felt herself falling.

  The next thing she knew she was in one of those new fangled things they called an ambulance, which ran without a horse. She’d always wanted to ride in one of them, but not this way. She was aware of Janey’s face leaning anxiously over her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Janey’s face was white as a plate. Her black eyes seemed enormous in her white face.

  Leah nodded. ‘Kitty?’

  Janey started visibly. She looked over to the other side of the ambulance. There was someone in the bed wrapped in a gray blanket. The head was wrapped in bandages.

  ‘Is she…?’

  ‘No…I don’t think so. Oh, it was so horrible. There was blood everywhere.’

  Janey began to cry.

  **********

  Darkie stood waiting outside the mill gates. He watched as the workers, weary and strained with the day’s work hurried to get to the warmth and comfort of their homes.

  The sun shone intermittently, brightening, just for a moment, the grim scene of the mill. Then it disappeared behind a cloud and the rain began. Big drops splattered on the pavements like giant pennies.