Hardacre's Luck (The Hardacre Family Saga Book 2)

by CL Skelton

  The Dane wasn’t having it, just yet. He was communicating with the master of a sister ship, hoping to pick up a tow from him, keeping it in the family so to speak. And meanwhile he struggled with his engines. They waited, and Pete said, as the lights of the freighter drifted shorewards, ‘Bugger gets himself on the rocks, I’m sure as hell not joining him.’ But he spoke without emotion. The waiting was part of the game. Twice the coaster got under way, twice her engines failed again. At dawn they could see her still powerless, and being battered broadside by the waves. But her master was stubborn, and still refused their tow. And in the end he was right. In the grey light of a storm-lashed early morning, he finally got under way and the coaster battered her way off northwards on her journey under her own power. The sight of her rusty transom disappearing gamely into the rain made Sam think of nothing so much as Mavis’s red Mini going on its feisty independent way.

  He went out on deck to watch and met Mick Raddley, standing glowering in the rain. ‘What you grinnin’ for,’ Mick grumbled, watching the Danish ship go. ‘Silly bugger’ll break down again in half an hour and be shouting for help. We ought to bloody leave him.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Come on, Mick, if she were your ship you’d do the same. Not let some bloody salvage tug haul you off and make himself a fortune.’

  ‘Aye, fine, but he better be right. Lot uv lives lost by folk tryin’ to save someone money.’

  Sam just shrugged. ‘Well, we’ll just go and get him if he does.’ He was still thinking of the ship as Mavis’s little car, and said, ‘In the meantime, good luck to him.’ They watched the lifeboat return to her port, and the Mary Hardacre turned herself round in the sea and made for her own.

  ‘Yer gettin’ soft,’ said Mick. ‘It’s all this romance.’

  He still found quite hysterically funny the fact that Sam was, at long last, getting married. He was pleased too, Sam knew, like he was not pleased over Janet, and that approval meant a lot to him, even though it was never expressed.

  ‘Tell you one thing,’ Mick continued. ‘Things are going to change in your life. No more traipsin’ out overt’ North Sea whenever you fancy, for a start.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Sam said with a grin. ‘Anyhow, you manage well enough.’

  ‘Aye, but you don’t see t’ scenes when I get home. Nay lad, a married man’s lot is another thing entirely.’ He was smiling slyly, standing in the lessening rain and lighting his pipe, shielding it against the wind.

  ‘Trying to put me off?’

  Mick shook his head, suddenly serious. ‘No. You marry your lass. Marry her, and treat her well.’

  Sam nodded. He was looking out to sea, and thinking. He said, very tentatively, ‘Mick?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Will you stand up for me?’

  ‘Eh, lad?’

  ‘In church. Will you stand up for me at my wedding?’ He paused, turning to face the old fisherman, his eyes a strange mix of teasing and pain, ‘Terry was meant to do it, but he’s got a prior commitment.’ He laughed lightly.

  ‘You mean to be t’ best man, enall?’ Mick asked, faintly incredulous.

  Sam nodded. ‘That’s what I mean.’

  Mick was silent. He fiddled with his pipe, knocking ash out on the rail of the tug, watching it blow in the rain, into the sea. He sighed slowly, and shook his head. ‘Nay, lad. Don’t ask that of me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be right. Really it wouldn’t. Besides,’ he said, ‘I’d feel an awful fool.’

  Sam said sharply, ‘Well, feel a fool, for me, then. You’ve made enough of a fool of me, one time or another, over the years.’

  Mick laughed softly. ‘Now don’t get het up,’ he said. He sucked at his pipe-stem contemplatively, in that infuriatingly slow way of his. Finally, he said, ‘Sam, let me teach you a little lesson.’ He suddenly indicated a bunker on the deck that stored ropes and gestured that they were to sit down. Sam obeyed, as he always did when Mick got serious about something. ‘Now look, lad,’ he said, ‘sometimes we have a gift to give, and there’s a right person to give it to, and a wrong person. Sometimes the person we want to give it to, for whatever t’ reasons are, isn’t the right person. T’ trouble is, a gift to t’ wrong person can end up no gift at all. Now, I’m thankin’ ye for your gift. I know the honour it is, don’t get me wrong. But I’m the wrong person. The right person is Jan. Now, he’s not Terry, lad. Neither am I. Neither of us, nor anyone, will ever be Terry. But he’ll come close one day, if you’ll let him. One day you’ll be as old as me, lad, and I’m sure as hell not going to be here. But Jan will, and by then you’ll be brothers, if you let it happen.’

  He paused, looking steadily at Sam with his rheumy old eyes tearing from the salt wind. ‘Now you give your gift to Jan. He’ll be happy, and do ye proud. I’d make a fool of myself. Oh, I’ll come tot’ church a’reeght, and see ye wed your lass. But that’s all, Sam. There’s just so far your kind and mine can go together, and we’d both be fools to go further.’

  Sam shook his head slowly, and Mick just laughed.

  ‘Aye, lad, ye’ll change a lot with your own hands, but ye’ll never change that. Accept it. We’ll work together, all day, every day uv t’ year. And if we make a mistake, we’ll maybe die together. But until then, at t’ end uv t’ day we go our own ways.’ He stood up suddenly, laughing, and tousled Sam’s grey hair with an affectionate hand.

  ‘Go on, lad. Ask me to t’bluidy christening. I’ll be t’ godmother, instead.’

  Sam smiled, and knew he’d not win. He also suspected that Mick was right, and knew already that he would ask Jan. He did really owe it to him. But he said now, ‘You’ll wait a long time for that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Mick said, his eyes widening, as Sam stood up, ‘why’s that?’

  Sam laughed again, ruefully. ‘This lad and lass you’re always talking about are pretty well middle-aged. I don’t think there’ll be any christenings, Mick.’ He smiled as he said it but he was sad, all the same. Still, he was sure he was right. Mavis was thirty-eight and had raised her son to manhood. He honestly felt he had no right to ask her for a child. He had accepted it already. He would be father to his cousin’s son now, as Harry had been to his brother’s grandsons, and that way, perhaps, a debt would be paid. It was their way of doing things, anyhow. They held together. Mick grinned broadly, and slapped his back.

  ‘Getting too old for it, are ye?’ he chortled. ‘Never ye mind. I’ll nip round t’ back door uv that bluidy great house uv yourn, an’ fix things up. Ye’ll have bonny twins by July. Happen ye’ll not mind them lookin’ a bit like me.’

  Chapter Thirty

  In August of 1960, three weeks before the date of the wedding, Mavis Emmerson was received into the Catholic Church. She had been under instruction since the spring. It was one of the many things she did without ever consulting Sam. She did it because she knew both that he dearly wanted it and that he would never ask. It was her wedding gift to him, and his to her, though she did not realize that at the time. It gave him tremendous happiness and peace, and was the one single thing that cemented their relationship into certainty and cast away what remained of his doubts.

  They were to be married in the Catholic Church at Beverley in the first week of September. Sam did, in the end, ask Jan to be best man, and Jan accepted with alacrity and gratitude. By the day before the wedding most of the more distant members of the family had gathered at Hardacres, or at The Rose at Kilham, with the sole exception of Janet Chandler, who was filming in London, having recently returned from New York. She and her husband passed each other, like ships in the night, appropriately enough, but their long separations seemed in no way to harm their marriage. Janet had been quite correct in her assessment of herself. Like many other people she was a different person, subtly, to every person she knew. The tempestuous child she had been with Sam had vanished when she married Jan. She was a mature and understanding woman in his company, though from time to time,
on the rare occasions she was again in the company of Sam, she was known to revert.

  They did not precisely avoid each other; neither of them was bitter and neither of them ever lost the heady delight they felt in each other’s company. But they dodged each other a bit, and arranged never to be alone together. Sam called it avoiding the occasion of sin; Janet called it not looking for trouble; Jan called it simply wise. And there they left it.

  Janet was due on the midday train from York, and Sam had promised to meet her. He was in the library at Hardacres hiding from the musical genius of his cousin and about-to-be stepson when the telephone rang. It was Janet.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said, suddenly suspicious.

  ‘London.’

  ‘What the bloody hell are you doing in London? I’m meant to be picking you up in York in an hour.’

  ‘Darling, forgive me, but please let me off.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘The wedding.’

  ‘No,’ he said, furious, and then, ‘why?’

  ‘Because I’m going to be so damned jealous I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Jealous? That’s ridiculous. You’re married already.’

  There was a pause. Then her voice came again, chastened. ‘Oh, I don’t mind you marrying her,’ she said glumly, ‘I’ve gotten used to that. But I suddenly realized there’s going to be someone else in your bed and I can’t stand it.’

  ‘You suddenly realized? What were you expecting? Abelard and bloody Heloise?’

  ‘C’mon, Sam.’

  ‘No,’ he said again. ‘No, really, what did you want me to do, for God’s sake, live like a bloody monk for the rest of my life?’

  ‘Well, why not? You’ve had the practice.’ She paused and said offendedly, ‘You could have gone back, even, and prayed or whatever, and been wistful over me.’ She sounded really hurt.

  ‘With due respect, sweetheart, I doubt the good brethren would want me on those terms.’ He was silent for a moment, exasperated and then suddenly got furious again. ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘you get here. I’m meeting the next train at York and if you’re not on it I’m coming to London after you. If you don’t show up, Jan will be ashamed. No one will ever believe there’s nothing between us, again. And when I catch you I’ll belt your bloody little arse.’ He hung up the phone, and met the next train. She was on it.

  George Emmerson agreed in the end to give the bride away. It was an abrupt turnabout, and done in an abrupt and bluntly honest way that Sam respected. When he returned from Hull, late on the day after that dinner, and just before he set out once more on a towing contract to Oslo, he received a telephone call from George Emmerson in which he gruffly, but sincerely, apologized for his behaviour, wished Sam and his sister well, and offered to pay for the wedding. That latter was difficult to handle, because Sam rightly realized that, whereas accepting was difficult, refusing could well cause offence. The reconciliation, like a union-management discussion, nearly broke down before it was properly under way. But in the end Sam won by appealing to George’s economic logic. The wedding party was at Hardacres, the wines from their own cellars and half the food was home produce. Its value would be difficult to assess and, besides, since it all really was coming from the home farm, the person to consult was really Noel. George balked at that suddenly, for reasons, like the reasons for his sudden about-face, Sam never fully understood. But he conceded then to good sense, much to Sam’s relief.

  The other thing Sam didn’t really understand was Noel himself, whose willingness to provide from his harvest seemed suspiciously out of character. He was uncertain whether to thank him, or wait and see if he sent a bill. He decided on the latter because it was a distinct possibility, and because thanking Noel was always, so to speak, a thankless task.

  Sam left the arrangements of the wedding entirely to Madelene, acknowledging in doing so that it was an unfair and totally cowardly act for which he refused to apologize. Nor was it the normal course of events but, as the bride’s parents had opted out of arrangements nineteen years before, Madelene was the only candidate. She complained, but cheerfully, enjoying stage-managing the event, loyal to Mavis, and too delighted about getting her son within the bonds of holy matrimony to really care. It was to be a large and formal wedding; large because even were it limited to family it would be large, and formal because Sam wanted it that way. There was that much of Harry in him, yet.

  In keeping with tradition, as well, Jan Muller arranged a stag party the night before at The Rose at Kilham that was almost the undoing of it all. Geordie Emmerson the younger, having just received his new driving licence, volunteered to play chauffeur since everyone too readily assumed that Sam was not going to be in any condition to drive on his return. Geordie was pleased because, even if it meant he was going to have to stay cold sober, he was ever after going to be able to say he attended his own father’s stag night. He was enjoying the incongruities of his mother’s wedding more than Mavis would have liked. He’d even, before his uncle stepped in, volunteered to give the bride away, an offer which Mavis rather quickly declined. She didn’t trust anyhow that he and Paul Barton wouldn’t get up to something terrible, like the twins would have done at their age and, besides, as she pointed out to her son, she’d never exactly hidden him, but this was one occasion where she’d rather not advertise him either. He had conceded with good grace, and was getting his own back on the wedding eve.

  ‘Can I come on the honeymoon, Dad?’

  ‘Just drive, Geordie.’

  ‘Where you going? Scarborough?’

  ‘Watch the road, please.’

  ‘Fab place, Scarborough.’

  ‘Blackpool, Geordie. We’re going to watch the Illuminations. All night. Watch that bloody van.’ Geordie grinned, concentrating on his driving, which was better than Sam was willing to admit.

  They arrived at The Rose, safe and sound, with Sam wondering if murder of a would-be stepson really qualified as infanticide or not. Philip was waiting outside the pub, in the September sunshine, wearing his ‘mine host’ smile. He actually had customers, even regulars, at the pub now, though one of the reasons they came so regularly was to listen to Philip’s Yorkshire accent and see if it was still as bad as ever. There was a new, younger set, too, that sometimes turned up on mopeds from the coast. They looked a bit peculiar but they behaved well enough, and they were usually either friends of Paul Barton or some of his increasing band of fans. Emily had, much to her annoyance, put her pincurled head out of the window one morning to find herself, and the pub, being photographed by two giggling long-haired girls.

  There were none in evidence that night, to Geordie’s faint disappointment. Rodney was there, with Noel, who had amazed everyone by turning up. And Jan was there. Emily was also briefly there but she took one look and said, ‘I’m closing the bar and going out. You’re on your own.’ She glanced briefly at Sam and at the assembled company, and said, ‘Now look. Nothing too funny. He’s getting married tomorrow. And if he’s not at that church, safe and sober, by ten o’clock, I’ll have your guts for garters, Philip Barton.’ She glared once at her husband and walked out, slamming the door.

  ‘I think she means it,’ said Sam.

  ‘She’s been waiting for an excuse for years,’ said Philip morosely. But then he grinned, turned the key in the latch of the front door, and headed for the bar.

  It was the best party that Sam could remember since the war. The sort of party that he and Terry had once so adroitly created in those long past and lost days when they were young and life, with Hitler’s bombs pulverizing London around them, was not serious at all. In the end he got so drunk that, had Terry walked in through the door, he would not have noticed anything amiss. Nor, likely, would anyone else, other than Geordie Emmerson, who was as sober as a judge.

  Noel looked sober, but then he always did when he was drunk. Or perhaps, conversely, he looked drunk when he was sober. The relevant point being, he never changed. He just sat in a corner of the inglenook, not
saying much, and knocking back pints of ale alternated with nips of whisky, until he eventually, and quite suddenly, slid down the bench and went to sleep. There wasn’t much need for Noel to say something; everyone else was saying too much already.

  Philip had forgotten his Yorkshire accent for the evening and begun reminiscing about his past in the London police force, and how he had rescued Emily from a raid on the somewhat notorious nightspot at 43 Gerrard Street and carried her off to Hardacres by force, like a latter-day, if at the time unpopular, knight. He would have been more unpopular had Emily found out he’d been repeating that story, but there was no one there capable of remembering but Geordie, to whom it could mean nothing at all. Rodney had got giggly, which was an extraordinarily disconcerting state of affairs, and Jan Muller, pleasantly responsible through half the evening, like everyone’s older brother, suddenly settled into a nostalgic mood of boozy sentiment, and ended up doing a little German folk-dance in the middle of the room.

  As for Sam, he was drunker than the proverbial skunk. He went through most stages, from light and witty, to affectionately cheerful, to pedantically serious. Fortunately he was too happy to get maudlin and, fortunately too, he never got angry when he was drunk or drank when he was angry. He was a pleasant enough drunk, as they go, actually, and was, at the end of the evening, when Emily finally returned, carefully, logically, and extremely pointlessly explaining Anselm’s ontological argument to Geordie who, though patient enough to listen, would probably not have understood it had Sam been sober enough to make sense.

  Emily entered slowly, looking once around the room at Noel snoring in the inglenook, Rodney giggling in a corner, Philip expounding the virtues of real ale to Jan Muller, who was humming an old German melody and swaying happily on a bench, and the theological debate in the corner. She picked up a jug of water, threw it over Noel, kicked her husband in the shin and said to Geordie, ‘I don’t care how you do it, but get him home. Goodnight.’ She turned her back and walked out, slamming the old door so that a small rain of disintegrating plaster fell in her wake.