by Irene Carr
‘I know that, but if anything happened to them, if they were hurt and not properly looked after, then I would never forgive myself for not trying to be there. Take me.’
Matt, fearing for her, fearing he was going to lose her, argued, ‘You can’t go out there! You need a passport, a visa—’
Webster cut in, ‘I can fix that. There’s a Spanish ship in the Tyne. I’m joining her tomorrow night and taking a couple of dozen lads with me. They’ve all got passports but I reckon the skipper will take another passenger on the quiet for me.’
Matt said again, helplessly, ‘You can’t go out there on your own.’ And so the argument went on.
He returned home at the end of the evening, plodding through the rain with shoulders hunched. The lit windows of the house did nothing to cheer him. He found his parents in the sitting-room and told them with forced brightness, ‘I’m off tomorrow. Mr Younger has asked me to go to Darlington again.’ They discussed arrangements, his mother ticking off on her fingers what she would pack for him and promising, ‘I’ll give you a lift as far as the station with your case.’
Matt said, ‘I’m going from the garage.’
Chrissie shrugged. ‘They’re giving you a lift through, then. All right, I’ll drop you there.’
His father said, ‘It’s not the career I had in mind for you but if that is what you want more than anything . . .’ He stopped there, hoping for a denial, a change of heart.
But Matt said, ‘This is what I want to do.’
Chrissie was just glad he had a job and an aim in life, however transient.
Matt hardly slept at all and when he kissed his mother as she set him down at Younger’s garage he could have wept. He trudged in carrying his suitcase, handed in his notice to George Younger and a letter to a mechanic he had worked with, asking him, ‘Will you post this on Friday for me?’
Then he jumped on a tram that took him to the station and caught a train to Newcastle.
20
May 1938
The big hands reached out of the alley close by the shipyard gate and grabbed Tom by the lapels of his jacket. They yanked him out of the crowd of men pouring from the yard then hauled him around and banged him against the wall. One or two of the hurrying men stared but went on their way, minding their own business. If two young chaps had a fight that was up to them and common enough. Tom gasped with the shock of it and then began to fight, but even as he pulled back his fist, Dagger, big in overalls that strained across his wide chest, appealed, ‘Hang on! I’m not starting owt!’ He let go of the jacket and stepped back, then complained, I’ve had a hell of a job finding you. I’ve waited outside of here all this week and never seen you.’
Tom had worked late every night until now, but he decided that was none of Dagger’s business, and kept his fists up. I’ve had enough of you. What do you want, anyway?’ he demanded.
Now Dagger looked uncomfortable. He said, ‘Dolly came to see me and told me all about it. The bairn she’s having isn’t yours. It was her mother’s idea to say it was. Mrs Simmons doesn’t think much o’ me ’cause she knew I would get the sack as soon as I finished me time.’ That happened to lots of youths when they completed their apprenticeships, there being no work for them and the employers unable to keep them on at a man’s wage. ‘Dolly’s ma thought if she saddled you wi’ it the least she would get was a tidy sum to keep her quiet.’
Dagger shook his head and muttered, ‘Old bitch.’ Then he went on, ‘But as I said, it’s not yours; it’s mine.’ He tapped that wide chest with a thick finger. ‘I’m the father. And me and Dolly are getting married. I got the sack like Ma Simmons expected but I’ve got a job down south now. Me and Dolly are getting married and that’s where we’re going, where that old bitch can’t get at us and make trouble.’
He relaxed, at ease now he had had his say. ‘So I just wanted to let you know and say I was sorry about that night I got hold o’ you. I’d just got the wrong end o’ the stick, that’s all.’ He held out his hand.
Tom shook it. ‘Congratulations and best wishes. I hope the two of you will be very happy.’
Dagger grinned. ‘I think me and Dolly will be all right. I’ve got what I want and I won’t let old Ma Simmons nor anybody else spoil it for me. Happy? I’m happy now.’
So was Tom, and he whistled all the way back to his new lodgings.
The next Saturday he loitered in the foyer of the Ballantyne Hotel for almost two hours before he could meet Sarah Tennant and say with feigned surprise, ‘Hello! On your way out?’
Sarah smiled up at him, genuinely surprised and shy. ‘I was just going for a walk.’
‘So am I. Thought I’d stretch my legs. I’ll keep you company.’ Tom offered his arm and Sarah took it. Chrissie came out of her office just too late to see them go.
She was leaving early but only to go on to Ballantyne’s yard where Jack was working in his office. He was clearing his desk before leaving on the sleeper that night, on his way to Holland to try to find a buyer for the White Elephant, the unfinished tanker still on the stocks. Chrissie took a picnic meal with her in the Ford and they ate it sitting at Jack’s desk. Then she helped him finish his paperwork as night fell.
Jack sat back in his chair, stretched his long arms and said, ‘That’s the lot.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘There’s not long before my train goes. Just time to go home and pick up my case.’ He was silent a moment, watching Chrissie as she shuffled the last sheaf of papers into neat order. She stopped, smiling at him, and the coals burning in the big fireplace settled, crunching and firing sparks up the chimney. Jack said softly, ‘I wish I wasn’t going.’
Jack and Chrissie drove home to collect Jack’s case. The house appeared empty because the staff had long since gone off duty and none of the children was at home. ‘Look at the time!’ Chrissie said. ‘I’ll drive you to the station.’ As they passed through the hall, she saw a letter lying on the small table there. She picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her coat and ran out to the car. Jack caught his train but only just, running down the stairs to the platform as the doors banged shut, jumping aboard as the guard’s whistle shrilled. Chrissie only had time to kiss him and say breathlessly, ‘Take care and good luck.’ Then he was carried away and she was left alone.
She had parked the Ford outside the station and as she came up from the platform she decided to look in at the hotel. Pushing through the swing doors she remembered the letter and took it out. It was only then that she saw it was addressed to ‘Mr & Mrs Ballantyne’ and the writing was Matt’s. She ripped open the envelope as she crossed the foyer and took out the sheet inside. Then she began to read and stopped dead at the door to her office. She whispered, ‘Oh my God!’
Chrissie read the letter from her son again and again, not wanting to believe its message but slowly accepting. When she looked up she saw Tom and Sarah Tennant come in through the swing doors. They were laughing together and looking into each other’s eyes. Even in her anguish she could see there was something between them.
21
Chrissie got a message to Jack aboard the packet bound for Holland before it sailed from Hull, and he telephoned her from a box on the quayside. She sat at her desk in the silent and darkened hotel, just one light in the foyer and another above her head. She told him, ‘Matt has gone to Spain. He left us a letter. You remember Helen Diaz, Sophie’s friend? She has gone to be a nurse out there and he says he couldn’t let her go alone.’ It was a good line and she heard Jack groan. In the background there was the clatter of a winch working and the hooting of a distant siren. She thought, with an oddly detached part of her mind, that it might be the tug come to ease the packet from its berth.
Jack said, ‘I’ll get the next train home.’
‘No!’ Chrissie was firm about that. ‘You have to go on.’ They had to find a buyer for the tanker. Too many livelihoods hung on its sale. ‘He said they weren’t travelling by conventional routes but going underground, so it would be no good our try
ing to stop him or even find him.’ Then she went on quickly before the inevitable explosion, ‘But listen, Jack, don’t get the wrong impression. He’s not taunting or jeering. He says he’s sorry, he loves us . . .’ She scanned the letter again for those phrases that had given her some consolation. ‘He says, “I had to go with Helen. I think if Dad was in my place, if you had set off for Spain, he would have been with you.” You see what I mean Jack?’ Chrissie paused, listening. Another siren wailed on a different note, mournful, lost. She waited while the seconds dragged out.
Then Jack said, ‘He has a point. I have to go – she’s about to sail. Write to the Foreign Office and ask for their help. The first thing we have to do is find Matt and that girl.’ The siren moaned again and he said, ‘I’ve got to hang up.’
‘Yes, go, my darling. And don’t worry. Matt will be all right.’ Then he was gone. She put down the telephone and thought miserably, Don’t worry? The first light was showing through the cracks at the sides of the curtains. It was Sunday morning and she laid her head on her hands and prayed.
On Monday Tom returned to Newcastle, to his job and his new lodgings there. Sophie left with the Beaumont Band for a six-month-long tour of South Coast ballrooms, starting in Southampton. She went disbelieving her luck and delighted, but worried for Matt and Helen. Chrissie would not hear of either changing their lives because of Matt’s leaving: ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ Then she wondered what she herself could achieve. She wrote to the Foreign Office and they replied that they did not know the whereabouts of either Matt or Helen but they would institute a search. Chrissie waited . . .
Sarah still worked at the club. One night she was washing glasses in the room behind the bar and paused to rest, leaning on the sink. The door leading to the passage was an inch ajar and she heard the murmur of voices, but ignored them, her thoughts elsewhere with Tom Ballantyne. Then she caught the phrase: ‘You’ll get a fiver to fight him, double if you win – same as before.’ She hesitated then stole over to the door, set her eye to the crack and peered out into the passage.
Peter Robinson appeared to have just come in to train at the gym, shrugging out of his jacket, and found Fannon, grubby raincoat tight over his belly, waiting for him. The bookmaker’s pudgy face was sweating and he smiled falsely. Now Peter asked, ‘What’s McNally getting?’
Fannon assured him, nodding and licking his lips, ‘The same, just the same.’
Peter was tempted to refuse, sick of the bloody business, but driven to accept the challenge; he was out of a job and needed the money badly. His mother seemed stronger now from the diet of eggs and milk, and insisted on cooking and doing some light housework. But that diet had to be maintained and the dole would not pay for it. So far Peter had just about made ends meet by selling coal from the colliery tip or the sea shore, or by any other means that came to hand, but it was a precarious living. He said curtly, ‘Usual place?’
Fannon shook his head, pendulous cheeks wobbling. ‘No, we’re changing it. I think we’ve been there too often and the pollis might get to hear of it. It’ll be in Jackie’s yard, ten o’clock Wednesday night.’
Peter said, ‘Right,’ then he pushed past Fannon and walked into the gym, the door slamming shut behind him.
Fannon stayed in the passage, watching him go, then the door of the bar opened and Gallagher came out, McNally on his heels, the pair of them still in dirty overalls. Gallagher asked, ‘Did he bite?’
Fannon said unhappily, ‘He swallowed it.’
McNally smacked a big fist into the palm of the other hand and gloated, ‘Now I’ll have him!’
Fannon said, ‘Well, you won’t want me any more . . .’
But Gallagher seized his arm as he turned to walk away. ‘Not now, but you’ll be there on the night.’ His tone and expression were contemptuous. ‘You’ll not be much use but we’re all in this together.’
They tramped away along the passage, boots drumming on the boards, and left the club. Sarah realised she had been breathing shallowly from fear and now let out a long sigh, but she was not relieved. She knew she had overheard the arrangements for a fight between Peter Robinson and McNally. She also suspected that all was not as it should be, or as Peter believed.
She tried to warn him, left the door to the passage open and intercepted him later when he came out of the gym. She told him what she had heard but Peter shrugged it off. ‘Oh, aye, McNally wants his revenge. They’re all in the business together; I worked that out after the fight when I beat him. But I can do it again. I’ll fight him like I said.’
Sarah was still unhappy. She would have asked Tom for help but he was in Newcastle and she did not have his address there. She wondered, should she tell Mrs Ballantyne? But she was afraid Chrissie might go to the police and Peter would be arrested along with the others, because street-fighting was illegal.
A couple of days later Chrissie chanced to ask her, not for the first time, ‘Will you slip your coat on and take these to the post, please, Sarah?’ She handed over a sheaf of letters then added another: ‘And this is for Sophie.’ Sarah memorised the address and wrote to Sophie herself.
On the Monday evening before the fight Peter answered a knock on his kitchen door and found a ten-year-old boy standing there. The urchin, in a ragged jersey, shorts and worn plimsolls, was panting, having run all the way with his message. He asked, ‘Are you Peter Robinson, mister?’
‘Aye, that’s me.’
‘Mr Nolan says can you come up to the club for a minute? He says he has some good news for you.’
‘Righto.’ Peter fumbled for the few coppers in his pocket and gave the boy a halfpenny. ‘There y’are. Good lad.’
‘Ta, mister.’ Then he pattered along the boards of the passage in his holed plimsolls and ran out into the street.
Peter pulled on his jacket and told his invalid mother, knitting in her chair before the fire, ‘I’m just going up to the club. Won’t be long.’
She smiled at him. ‘You get away and enjoy yourself.’
Billy Hackett, nine years old now, sat on a cracket, a little stool, by his mother, his nose in an old comic he had got through a swop. Peter told him, ‘You be in bed by the time I get back.’
Billy started to complain, ‘Aw, Peter . . .’ but he stopped when he caught Peter’s eye and said resignedly, ‘Aye, I will.’
At the club Peter found Joe Nolan in conversation with the ex-boxer he had talked with some weeks ago, a man in his fifties, his hair still thick but greying, hands gnarled and tattooed. Joe said, ‘Aye, aye, Peter. This is Harry Latimer.’ The two men shook hands. ‘Harry was a handy lad in the ring in his time but he’s been going to sea for the past thirty-odd years. He can put you in the way of a job.’
‘Can he?’ Peter turned to the old seaman eagerly.
Harry Latimer saw that eagerness and warned, ‘I’m not offering a soft touch and I’m not recommending it, either. It’s hard work and hard lying, but we – that’s the ship I’m on now – we’re short of a hand. The mate was going to get somebody from the shipping office but I thought o’ you. D’ye want the job?’
Peter did not hesitate. ‘I’ll take it. When do I start?’
Harry said drily, ‘I hope you don’t regret it.’ He warned, ‘Just remember it was your choice. You’ll be paid by the month and all found so you won’t have to bring any grub with you. We’re sailing with the tide early Thursday morning. Get yourself aboard some time on Wednesday night. I’ll tell the mate you’ll be turning out.’
Peter set out for home, happier than he had been for a long time. As he left the club he met Gallagher and McNally. The latter challenged, ‘Are you goin’ to turn up on Wednesday?’ Peter hesitated, thinking that he no longer needed to fight because he had a job. Then he remembered that he would not be paid until the end of the month and he would have to leave some money for his mother and Billy to live on. McNally seized on that hesitation and taunted, ‘Turning yellow, are ye?’
‘I’ll be there.’ Peter sho
ved past so that McNally staggered, swore and lifted a fist. Gallagher grabbed his arm and muttered something and McNally lowered his hands.
That Wednesday started unseasonably warm, leaden clouds hanging low. As the sun set, the first thunder rolled. Peter packed a battered old suitcase he had bought secondhand for a few coppers. It gaped at the corners and was secured with a length of clothes line but it would serve his turn. When it was close to ten and Billy was in bed and asleep, Peter said to his mother, ‘I’m just going out for a bit.’
Margaret Hackett sighed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, son.’
Peter tried to reassure her. ‘I’m only off for a walk.’
‘I know all about the fighting.’ His mother kept on knitting. ‘Folks talk. And I’ve seen you after you’ve had a fight. I’m not blind.’ Peter had hoped she had not noticed his bruises but now he knew he was wrong. Margaret Hackett pleaded, ‘Don’t do it, Peter. We’ll manage till you get paid at the end o’ the month.’
Peter hesitated as the needles click-clicked, not wanting to hurt her, but then he remembered how his mother and Billy would ‘manage’. It would have to be by economising on food, because that was where their little money was spent after paying the rent. He said, ‘I’ve got you a bit better. I’m not going to throw that away. You rest easy, Mam. I won’t be long.’ He kissed her and left.
When the tread of his boots had receded down the passage Margaret Hackett laid down the knitting, fumbled in the pocket of her pinny for her handkerchief and held it to her eyes.
Peter walked down to Jackie’s yard, which lay not far from the river. A hawker kept his carts and stabled his horses there. A gate in a high wall stood open and the yard lay beyond. It was flanked by the blank gable ends of terraces of houses and backed by the blind windows of a deserted warehouse. Peter walked in through the gate and on towards where he could see a lamp shedding a pool of light. Halfway across the yard he heard the gate slam shut behind him.
