The light of the fresh spring day and the sound of the birds as they came after Beauty’s oats came in through the window.
‘I thought Don might come,’ Betsy said as she passed the mint sauce to Grace along with an extra potato, waving aside her protests. ‘You’ve gone thin lass and you suit a bit of flesh, don’t she, Tom?’
‘Oh aye,’ Tom said, but thought she’s bloody marvellous whether she’s thin or fat and remembered the first time they made love, up on the hill by Bell’s Farm when it was so cold the grass had been like dry bracken but they’d not noticed. He felt the warmth of his longing rise in him and looked across the table, his eyes heavy with thoughts of her, and she kicked him and his ma asked:
‘So where’s Don then, lad?’
Tom swallowed past his throat which felt swollen, then forced down some lamb. ‘He’s off to Annie’s, today. He said he’d like to come next week if that was all right. He’s borrowed the motor bike and will be back tonight. If he’s got a strong enough stomach he said he’d come on to the meeting, if only to give me a bloody good heckle.’
Grace laughed. ‘I bet old Albert’s right livid at his going across to Gosforn again.’ She passed Tom some more greens and Tom helped Betsy to cut her meat.
She nodded her thanks and held her fork awkwardly as she ate her meal. ‘There was bad blood between him and Archie. He won’t want them two to be friends, I reckon.’ Her lip began to tremble. ‘I never realised how he was though or I never would have …’
‘Hush now, Mam,’ Tom interrupted.
‘I never would have sent her there if I’d known he was so bad. I reckon he wanted them kids ruined to spite Archie, you know, and I should have seen.’
‘Now, Betsy,’ soothed Grace, ‘eat your meal and forget all about it.’
‘I can’t really remember much about them days you see, it’s all a bit of a blur, what went before and what went after.’ Her cheeks were red and her eyes darted from one to the other.
‘Mam,’ said Tom firmly, shaking her arm and feeling its softness beneath his fingers. ‘Mam, it’s gone now. We’re all fine and you should have seen the lad on the bike.’ He was speaking loudly now making her listen and he saw her eyes focus on him and knew that he had her attention.
‘He’s bought himself a helmet and goggles and looks like something out of a horror story.’ He laughed and Betsy did too. He felt Grace stroke his leg with her foot and caught her eye which was gentle on his.
‘So it’s working out, is it, sharing Davy’s bike?’ Tom nodded and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Betsy slapped his hand. ‘Use your napkin and don’t be a pig, lad.’ He raised his eyebrows at Grace and was glad that he had pulled his mam back to today.
‘Them eggs you brought back from Annie’s were beautiful and fresh. They’re in the pudding you know.’ Betsy cleared the table and gave Tom the cloth to carry the sponge from the oven to the table. ‘She sounds keen in her letters about this nursing, but worried, lad; worried about the pits. She wants you to go on painting.’
‘We all do,’ agreed Grace, frowning at Tom.
He showed her his cuff. ‘See, I’ve done some this morning already.’
‘But Annie says you need a teacher and we reckon a correspondence course is the best idea.’
Betsy sat back at the table heavily and handed the spoon for Grace to dish up. ‘Don’t we, Grace? You, me and Annie.’
Grace grinned and nodded.
‘And I’ve got the money,’ said Betsy.
Tom shook his head. ‘No Mam, I’ve some money from the pits.’
‘I’ve got the money, I said,’ insisted Betsy. ‘Annie says there’s one for six pounds. You send away to London and I’ll pay.’
‘No, Mam,’ said Tom, his mouth full of custard and sponge, his words indistinct.
He winced as Grace kicked him. ‘Let her, she wants to,’ mouthed Grace. ‘Or I’ll not go to the beck with you.’
He finished his mouthful, the laughter welling up. Now there was a threat to be reckoned with. Betsy ate on, not looking up as Grace pulled the kettle on to the hob.
‘Can you manage it then, Mam?’ he said at last when his plate was scraped clean. ‘Maybe a couple of bob.’ He knew she’d be disappointed but he didn’t want to ask her for too much.
She nodded and sat back in the chair with her arms folded. Tom grinned to himself to see her in Archie’s chair. She was a strong woman now, his mam was.
‘It’s not right that you’ve gone into the pits for good. You should have gone to College and then on to this business with Annie. It’s bad you know, the life down there. Your da wouldn’t have wanted it for you.’
Tom sighed and pushed back his chair, carrying the pile of plates that Grace handed to him. ‘I know, Mam, but it’s just something I’ve got to do. Maybe later Annie and I’ll get together.’
Betsy nodded as she moved over to her seat by the fire.
‘Aye, that you will. Ma Gillow always said it would be you and Annie together and so it will be; if not now, later.’
She tucked her head into her neck and smiled as Tom stoked the fire for her and sat down while Grace made a pot of tea.
‘So me da wouldn’t have wanted me to go into the pit, then?’
Betsy shook her head. ‘Nay, lad, he didn’t like it himself you know. His da was killed when a cage fell and my Barney couldn’t forget that. He didn’t like the dark either, or the rain.’
‘So tell me more about him, Mam.’ Tom was leaning forward, his hands resting between his knees. Grace turned and watched him, then brought tea to him and Betsy.
‘How old was he when he died then, Betsy?’ she asked gently.
‘Nineteen he would have been, lass. Nineteen, that’s all. He was the only one, you know. There were no other children.’
‘So what was me grandma like then, Ma? Did she visit us?’
Betsy shook her head and sipped her tea, holding the cup between two hands as she had always done. Grace sat down next to Tom, lifting the cushion from his cut down chair as she did so, tracing with her finger the hexagonal lines of stitching. Tom watched the line of her face, her cheek, her chin and he reached out and touched her softly. Betsy nodded as she watched them.
‘No,’ she answered quietly, blowing the steam from the top of her cup. ‘No, she never saw you, lad. She died not so long ago but didn’t want to know me. I was a slag, you see. I’d had a bairn out of wedlock and nice girls don’t. You were her grandson and she didn’t want to know you even though both her men had gone.’ Her face was sad but she smiled gently at him. ‘But my mam thought you were a right cracker, she did, and then she died too, of the flu, you know.’ She sighed and Grace put the cushion back in the chair. ‘Joe cut that chair down, you know, lad. He’s a good man in his way. Took me in, paid me he did, when lots wouldn’t have done.’
‘Aye, Mam, I know.’ Tom replaced his empty cup on the table. The dresser against the wall was catching the sun, the blue and white plates looked fresh and clean. ‘So didn’t me da ever think of doing painting then?’
Betsy looked over her cup at him, her face puzzled. She stretched out her legs and leaned back in the chair.
‘Now why would he want to do a thing like that, then?’ she asked.
‘Well, look at me. I’m like him, you said.’
Betsy rose from her chair, then sat down again. ‘Tell you what, lad, take your young legs up them stairs, into your Annie’s old room. Bring me down the picture that’s on the side of me bed. Off you go now. Grace can hop up with you or stay here and keep me company.’
She smiled at the girl, at her copper curls and soft blue eyes and Grace said, ‘We’ll have another cup of tea, shall we, Betsy?’
Tom had not been up into the house since the day he left and it all seemed smaller somehow, the black-patterned hall floor, the turned banister which led on up to the study where it had happened. He opened the door and the room was empty. The old dark desk was gone, the prints were no longer
on the wall. It was an empty room which did not even hold a ghost, just a vague memory of the man who had locked himself up in here so often, until the last time. The walls had been whitewashed as though to wash away the stains of the past and the northern light made his breathing quicken. He walked on into the room, stood in the centre, turned around judging the size, judging the feel. It was right, you know, just right, he walked swiftly to the door, and down the stairs before he remembered that it was to Annie’s bedroom he had been going.
He walked on up as he had done for all those years. The stairs seemed dark when he was a child and his footsteps had always sounded sharp and cold but now there was a carpet on the stairs and at the top a large oil lamp which glowed as the old one had never done. He did not go into Annie’s room yet, but opened the door into his own and there were the drawings he had done, still pinned to the walls as he had left them. His old cardigan was on the chest which had been at the bottom of the bed, but now of course there was no bed, for he had taken that with him, the day he had left. There was just a square section of black-painted floorboards surrounded by cracked linoleum. The little table which had held his oil lamp was spotless and there lay his jacks which he had left because he could not believe he was never coming back. He moved to pick up the stones, the hard ball, but then stopped, leaving the room as he had found it; as his ma wanted it.
He crossed the landing into Annie’s room and this too had been whitewashed. The bed was draped in a new patchwork quilt in muted beige and purple colours, ones that picked up the rag rug exactly. There were flowers on the dressing-chest and he felt a tightness because Annie had never had it like this and thanked God that his mam now had some beauty, some peace.
There was a picture of a man’s face on the bedside table. It was in pencil and he knew it was his da. It was his own face he was seeing but with darker hair. The face of a young man who had only been three years older than him, for God’s sake, when he had died.
He picked the drawing up, brought it to the window. It was good, there was life in the face, in the eyes. It was easy for portraits to look like death-masks, the colour too heavy, the eyes blocked in, but this was good.
He took it down to Betsy. ‘He was a lovely man, Mam.’
She held it carefully in her swollen hands. ‘He said he’d buy me rings for me pretty fingers, called me the Queen of Sheba and afterwards I drew this.’ She sat still, looking at the drawing, framed in glass, the mahogany polished until it shone vivid in the firelight.
Tom was still, quite still, watching her, watching her hands, hands that had once drawn this and could now barely hold the frame.
He gripped his own hands tight together, seeing again the design of the rug he had his feet on, the colours of the patchwork and he knew he should have guessed before. His mother, he knew now, had the soul of an artist, his soul and that she must have felt as he did when it was stifled, when life took over and snatched the dream away. One day, he decided, one day when he had done enough here, he would be an artist, then come back, he and Annie together, because they had much to do.
‘It’s good, Mam, so very good.’ He said, ‘Look, Mam, if I’m to get on, if I’m to be a painter I’ll need another pound towards me postal course. Can you give it to me?’ He wanted her to feel that she was making art possible for him.
Grace reached over and took his hand, squeezed it and nodded at Betsy.
‘Aye, lad, I reckon I could.’ Betsy looked again at the picture. ‘D’you really think it’s good?’ Her voice was tentative.
‘It’s the best, Mam. It’s the best I’ve seen.’ He looked again at the face of his da and knew that here was the real man.
He took Grace’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
‘We’ll go now, Mam, take Beauty for her walk.’ But Betsy did not look up. She was gazing at Barney, running her swollen finger over the outline of his face.
As Tom left the room he stopped and turned. ‘Mam, d’you think Joe would let me use the study for me studio? It’s the light you see; the light is right and if I do the course, I’ll need to get a folio together.’
He thought she hadn’t heard because she sat so still and then she lifted her face to his and looked hard at him and said nothing.
‘D’you think Joe would let me?’ he repeated. It was as though she was making a hard decision and thoughts chased across her face too quickly to grasp and then she nodded.
‘Oh aye, he’ll let you.’ But there was a strangeness about her and he turned to go back but Grace called him on.
‘I’ll pay him, Mam,’ he offered as he stepped out into the light.
‘No, bonny lad,’ Betsy said quietly. ‘I’ll be the one doing the paying.’
The Lodge Meeting Hall was crowded and Tom slipped through the men, nodding to some, not recognising others. Smoke from cigarettes held in cupped hands rose into the air and stung his eyes. He edged between two groups and forced his way through to the platform, nodding to Davy’s mates who were setting up the lectern. Frank patted his shoulder and he nodded, his mouth suddenly dry, his hands shaking and he put his notes down on the sloping stand as the men slowly noticed he was there and the talking became a murmur, then the murmur slipped off into silence.
The only light was on the platform now and he turned to Frank who nodded. ‘Get on with it, lad,’ Frank whispered, ‘they’ll not stay quiet for long, the bar’s open.’
He turned again to the floor and felt too young for this. It should have been Davy; he was the one the men had come to hear and that was why they were suffering him, so he’d better do a bloody good job, he told himself.
‘Davy,’ he began tentatively, fingering his notes. ‘Davy died just before he was going to talk about the means test; about what it means and his thoughts on where we should be going, what we should be asking our union to do for us. I have,’ and he held up pencilled pages, ‘his notes here.’ His voice was stronger now. He put down the papers and leant on the lectern.
‘We all know,’ he said, ‘that, because of the world depression, there is long-term unemployment and God knows when it is going to end, whilst here we are, up the bloody swanee without a paddle.’ He waited for the whistles to die down, the calls and cheers to fall.
‘What this has meant to us up here in the North is pit closures, no work for two thirds of us. That means that families cannot buy newspapers, or a stamp to post a letter, can’t help a neighbour any more, join a sick club, pay subs to the union. People feel helpless.’
He was in his stride now, the words were coming quicker without any need to look at the notes. His voice was stronger and the trembling in his legs and hands was gone. It was still dark on the floor but he could see shapes, the glow of cigarette ends, the stillness of men listening and felt a surge of power, of enjoyment. The lectern edge was cool and hard as he gripped it again.
‘Bairns have no spending money; we have nothing to give them. Their das have no tobacco or beer money; mothers have no dresses. There’s not enough food to keep the family healthy or free from hunger that keeps us awake at night. There is not enough coal to keep us warm in winter and we are living on top of a bloody heap of the stuff’ He banged his hand in his fist and nodded at the calls from the hall, the agreement in their tone encouraging him to continue.
‘So what have the National Government done, a government which I might add, brothers, is led by a Labour Prime Minister? Why, they have brought in the means test.’ He bowed ironically and the catcalls were loud and he held up his hand to quieten the hall.
‘The means test is a grand way of lowering the money paid out by the government and at the same time does a bloody good job of lowering the dignity of the unemployed. Who likes snoopers coming in, poking their noses into cupboards, telling us we have to sell grandma’s best teapot? Nobody.
‘The means test must go, Parliament must be lobbied, we must make our complaints loud and long. Get your unions to make them for you.’
He stood back and let the calls and the t
alk between the men on the floor continue while he took some water from Frank and sipped at it, asking him over the top of the glass how it was going.
‘Good, man,’ said Frank. ‘You’ve got them thinking, got them talking. Just give ’em a burst of Davy’s allowance idea and call it a night.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Tom and picked up the gavel. The knocking brought a hush to the hall again.
‘But, lads, as we all know and as Davy knew, there is another problem. What about the low wages when we’re in work? Work does not bring fresh milk. It does not bring butter. It will bring one egg if you’re lucky and that doesn’t keep our bairns well. So, you will ask, what do we do?’
‘Aye, that’s a question could do with some answering right enough,’ called a deep voice from the well of the hall and was taken up by others, loud and long.
‘Well,’ shouted Tom, forcing his voice through the uproar. ‘Well, we can stop having bairns but the bosses would like that less than a wage rise because their future workers wouldn’t be produced.’ He pulled a face and the men laughed. ‘We need a decent minimum wage; we need state control of the mines so that our men are on the board and can make sure of safety, reinvestment, a decent return for our work. But, more than that, men.’ He held up his hand for silence.
‘We need an allowance, not just for the miners but for all the workers in the land above and beyond wages. An allowance that is paid out by the state to the families, a certain amount for each child. That would mean that, low wages or no wages, there would always be enough to feed your bairns.’
There were cheers now and he could feel the sweat running down his back and sides, running down his face and on to his open shirt-collar.
‘What about the unions though?’ a voice cried from the back of the hall. ‘They won’t back that idea, it might make owners pay less in wages if they thought we was all getting extra anyway?’
After the Storm Page 30
