by Pam Weaver
She recognised Constable Fletcher, who was kind. He took off his helmet as he spoke.
‘You’ll have to be brave, lass. There’s been a terrible accident. Yer dad got knocked over on the track.’
Mirren shook her head, not wanting to hear what was coming next, wanting to run, but her legs had turned to jelly so she shoved her hands over her ears. It was Granny who put her arms around her shoulders and held her tight.
‘He wouldn’t’ve known a thing, love. He fell asleep on the line. He must have taken a short cut and slipped.’ Her eyes were full of tears.
Mirren couldn’t believe what she was saying. ‘Dad’d never cross the line at night. He said I must never do that. Where did it happen? You’ve got it all wrong. The track’s miles from the Green Man.’
‘I’m sorry, lass, but he must have been taking a short cut down the line in the early hours. He was hit on the down line–the night sleeper from Glasgow and him Scotch-born and all…Let yer granny make you a cup of tea,’ said the constable.
‘She’s not my granny,’ Mirren screamed in fury. ‘My real granny lives up the dale on a farm.’ At Christmas there was usually a parcel of clothes from Grandma, which never fitted, and a printed card from the Yewells of Cragside Farm. The rest of the year there was nothing.
‘I want to see my dad.’
‘That’ll not be possible,’ whispered the constable. ‘There has to be an investigation.’
‘I have to go and see if it’s him. It might not be him,’ Mirren said, not listening. This was all some strange nightmare she was living in and soon she would wake up. How could her dad be gone and have left her all alone?
‘Come on, Mirren, you’ve had a shock,’ Granny Simms whispered, ignoring the earlier betrayal. ‘She’ll stay with me until such times—’
‘But it’s all my fault,’ Mirren cried out. ‘I should’ve waited and brought him home.’
‘Now how do you make that out, young lady?’ said the policeman, kneeling down so close up she could see the hairs sprouting out of his nose.
‘I should have stayed on. He told me to stay outside on the bench, but I was cold and came home. He needed me and I wasn’t there. It’s all my fault.’ The hot tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘I want my dad. I have to tell him I’m sorry.’
‘Now none of that, child,’ said one of the strangers, a man wearing a clerical collar. ‘Mr Gilchrist was a grown man and should’ve known better than to leave a child alone in the dark outside a pub,’ he tutted in her defence, but his words gave no comfort.
‘I’m afraid there’s many as does round here,’ answered the constable. ‘The child was right to go home. In his befuddled state, Paddy wouldn’t know what time of day or night it was. Don’t fret yerself, lass. It were an accident and a cruel one at that, just before Christmas.’
‘That remains for the coroner to decide,’ the parson replied. ‘The railway line is always a temptation, an easy way out of life’s troubles.’
‘Not in front of the kiddy, sir,’ snapped the constable. ‘She’s got enough to bear as it is, without putting that burden on her.’
But the words were spoken and a seed of doubt sown in turbulent soil. Mirren had sensed early that a force greater than her childish adoration always drew her father towards danger. He’d once lived in a world of soldiers. When he sat in the Green Man there were old pals from the war who supped and sang that ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ song that made him cry. Once she had rooted in his tin box of papers and found a likeness of him, standing so straight in his uniform, his dark hair plastered down and his moustache waxed. He looked so strong and handsome, but when he caught her staring down at it he almost slammed the lid on her fingers.
‘Put that away. There’s nothing in there for you!’
‘Is that you?’ she’d asked, looking at his kilt.
He’d stared down at the young man and shook his head. ‘Never seen him afore.’ His voice was cracked and his breath smelled of stout, his skin was grey, his shoulders stooped as he fought the demons she was too feeble to conquer. She never opened the tin box again because it was where he kept his wounds and pain, out of sight of a child’s prying eyes.
‘It is good to see this child Miriam has signed the pledge.’ The parson pointed to the badge on her lapel. ‘A weakness for strong drink is bred in the bone. Do you belong to the Band of Hope?’ He was changing the subject, trying to make polite conversation.
‘Yes, she does,’ Granny Simms interrupted. ‘She’s a regular at their banner parades and treat in the summer. She wears that blue ribbon all the time.’
‘Good. That’s a start, young lady, and next we must get the Welfare to sort out accommodation. She can’t stay here alone,’ he added.
‘She’ll bide with me tonight. This lass’s not budging from where she knows best,’ Granny said, holding her tight. Mirren’s eyelids were drooping, her mouth was dry, her head whirring as her legs buckled. ‘Look at the poor mite. She needs a mash of sweet tea. There’s friends enough round here to see to the poor bairn in her sorrow.’
They stumbled up the steps and into the fug and clutter of Granny Simms’s compartment, where Brian sat dosing with his dog on his lap. He didn’t know yet. He hadn’t heard the news.
For a second, life was as it always had been, bread and dripping on the table as if her world had not been turned upside down and she left alone.
If only she’d stayed with Dad, if only it was yesterday all over again. But the mill buzzer hooted at dinner time as normal. How could something terrible happen and the mill chimneys went on smoking just the same? She started to shake and couldn’t stop.
Granny shoved something bitter on her lips. ‘Sip it slowly, lass. It’ll calm you down,’ she coaxed, but Mirren spat it out.
‘It’s spirit. I know that smell. Don’t make me break my pledge.’
‘Bugger the pledge…It’s the only medicine for shock.’
‘What am I going to do?’ Mirren cried, feeling the hot whisky slipping down her throat. It tasted bitter. How could anyone pay good brass for such poison?
‘First things first. We’ll see yer dad buried good and proper and you kitted out to do him proud. Everything else can wait until then. Yer a good lass and sharp as a knife, but you’ve not gone far to find your sorrows. Happen something will turn up for you.’
‘I’ll have to go in the orphanage, won’t I?’ Everyone at school knew of the orphan kids, in their grey uniforms and cropped hair, who walked in lines around the town and had no parents to care for them.
‘Over my dead body! You deserve better and, as you said, I’m not yer real kin. It’s time them as are got to know what’s happened,’ Granny Simms smiled. ‘I’m no good with lettering but we’ll get someone to write and get them down here fast. It’s time they took up their responsibilities. Yer mam would have wanted that.’
‘But I’d rather stay here with you.’
Granny shook her head. ‘Be that as it may, there’ll be nothing but bad memories for you here. You deserve better. Happen it’s time you were changing yer sky!’
Adeline Yewell was too busy finishing off the Christmas pig to see the letter that George, the postman, delivered to the kitchen table at Cragside Farm. He would be wanting his forenoon drinkings and a bit of gossip with Carrie before he headed across the moor on foot to the next farm.
The farmer’s wife had trapped Myrtle, the brown pig, against the wall so she squatted on her fat rump. Then Adeline shoved a ball of oatmeal down the pig’s throat and gave her a sup of good buttermilk from the bucket to swallow. ‘That’s a girl, stuff thyself!’ She wanted some fat sweet flesh on this porker before she got seen to with an axe, strung up and bled off. At least her pigs died happy and belly stuffed. No place for oversentiment on a farm, she thought.
There was so much to see to before the big day and she didn’t want George holding up Carrie Sutcliffe from her chores. They were getting a bit sweet on each other, them two. She hoped that didn’t mea
n another live-in domestic giving notice. It was hard to get girls and lads to stay overlong up on the tops. They wanted to be in nearer the town.
Oh, what it was to be love-struck and silly! She could still recall the time when she’d made eyes at Joe Yewell at the Christmas dance, nearly forty years ago. It’s a good job she had collared and bagged him by the New Year stir-up in the village hall as he stomped across the wooden floor in his shirtsleeves, before the fiddle and the stamp of dancing feet became Satan’s snare.
Once he got ‘saved’ in Brother Handel Morton’s tent he hadn’t time for worldly gatherings, only preaching and chapel meetings. She’d caught him just on the turn, and her being Church not Chapel, it could have made things impossible.
The two didn’t mix in Windebank village, never had and never would, but love conquers all, so they say. The two of them went their separate ways each Sunday morning.
If only he could have made Ellen, their daughter, see sense when she fell for that Scotch navvy Gilchrist. They both felt it was a grave mistake, but the lass burned her bridges good and proper, and paid the price. They’d not even gone to her funeral for fear of catching the flu and passing it on up the dale.
That act of cowardice had never sat easy on her; cost many a sleepless night. To abandon their own daughter was not something either of them was proud of but Ellie’d made her bed and all that. It was her choice to go rushing up to Gretna Green making a fool of them all, having a bairn not six months afterwards. It was not easy to stomach having a thankless child.
Adeline’d done her bit for the kiddies but had never seen the last one nor wanted to, but her father being a Catholic and fond of drink was a worry. Sometimes she lay in bed and wondered if the girl had Ellie’s fair hair or the blue Yewell eyes renowned in the district for the distinctive dark ring round the iris, making them sparkle like sapphires. It was those blue globes that had drawn her to Joe’s side. When he gazed into her face she was lost.
‘Get a grip o’ thyself,’ she sighed at such memories. There were geese to be plucked and sent down to market and the butcher. She hoped the prices held up for Christmas as it had been a tough year for farmers and workers, what with the General Strike and lay-offs.
She must parcel up a few bits for the Gilchrist lass down in Scarperton. She wasn’t sure whether Miriam was six or seven, but Mildred at the haberdashers always set aside a few items that hadn’t sold for her to parcel up. Time flew past so quickly. Where had the years gone?
There’d be many cutting corners this Christmas, making do with a cheap joint or scraps down in the market town. Joe would have to temper his chapel sermons; a little less hellfire and a little more goodwill to all men, she hoped. He could get so carried away when he got in that pulpit.
‘Remember those good women have scrimped and saved to put a Sunday meal on the table for their kin. Don’t you go spoiling their Yorkshire puddings with your rantings. Have a bit of Christian charity.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Adey! Come with me and give me a signal.’
‘Never,’ she would laugh. ‘I like my pew comfortable and quiet, with beautiful words and no bone shaking. The vicar gives us ten minutes’ pulpit talk. That’s enough for me.’
Joe would be out on the moors now, foddering the sheep, reciting the good bits of his sermon to himself, rendering choruses from Messiah and making sure none of his flock strayed too far, for the weather looked set for a blow-in of snow. He was a good shepherd to his flock through and through. He was for sheep and she was for cows so together they made a good team.
Cragside Farm sat on the slope of the fell, tucked into the hillside with windowpanes looking south and west to get the best of the sun to warm the stone a treat. Once it was thronged with children, dogs and yard boys, but now it was quieter as their son Tom farmed higher out at Scar Head, and his brother, Wesley, was a teacher in Leeds with no interest in farming at all.
This perch was fine while they were fit and strong, and Yewells were long livers, but come the next few years Joe would have to slow down a bit. Things were tough for farmers now and getting tougher, Adey thought as she sat with Carrie plucking the goose feathers into a sack. Nothing must be wasted.
‘There’s a letter come from Keighley,’ Carrie said, shoving the envelope across the table. ‘Who do we know in Keighley? Happen it’s a Christmas card from Paddy and the girl. What’s her name again?’ Carrie was fishing; always curious about the prodigal daughter and her infamous family who never darkened the door.
‘I’ve never had a card from him nor the girl, and she’s called Miriam, after Joe’s mam, as well you know. Little good that’ll do her. I’m surprised she didn’t get Theresa or Maria or some fancy saint’s name.’
Adey stared at the handwriting, curious for a second. The address was written in a neat copperplate hand. It looked official and it was addressed to both of them.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Carrie was at it again, rooting for information, but Adey wasn’t going to give her satisfaction so shoved the letter in her pinny pocket and promptly forgot all about it. That was the trouble with girls who lived in: they got a little too nosy about family affairs. It was none of her business who was writing to them.
‘Now what’s all this about you and George Thursby?’ It was Adey’s turn to go fishing.
‘He’s asked me if I’m going to the Christmas hop in the village hall. What shall I wear?’
‘Clothes would be a start if you don’t want to stir them all up,’ Adey laughed. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something to dazzle him with, but I want you back at midnight and no hanky-panky. It’s a long walk up that hill in the dark. Let him wait for his favours.’
Carrie was blushing, her neck a circle of pink weals. ‘Mrs Yewell, what do you take me for?’ she muttered.
‘As silly a lass as any in the dale, as daft as a brush when it comes to a handsome face and clean shirt, but with a canny eye for a good bargain,’ she replied. ‘You could do worse than one of the Thursbys’ lads. They’re reliable, sturdy and don’t squander their brass. His mother is that careful she’d skin a dog for its fleas.’ Carrie laughed at her joke but her eyes were far away.
‘Mind, I was young once: only the once and look where I landed up: plucking geese, scouring pigs, mucking out and general farm dogsbody stuck on the moors in all weathers. At least George won’t make you tramp with him. It’s a good job in the Post Office, steady and secure in hard times. You could do worse. Take our Tom. When’s he ever going to get himsen wed? He’s over forty and too set in his ways.’
Adey had been hoping her son might have taken a shine to this girl himself but he was tongue-tied when he came into female company, preferring to go his own gait and a game of darts in The Fleece, much to Joe’s dismay. If he didn’t get a move on there’d be no grandsons to take over the tenancy and run the family farm.
He was a good catch. The Yewells were a family of standing in the district. Joe was a lay preacher in the Methodist Circuit. She was a Boothroyd from a farm across the Ribble valley: two of a kind. It didn’t do to marry off the moor, like Ellie. You never knew what you were getting or what sort of stock they came from, its strengths and weak points. Better to be in full knowing of the facts before signing up for life, she thought.
All in all she’d had no regrets. It was a pity you couldn’t choose yer own bairns. They all needed kicking with a different foot: Wesley was all brains with no feel for the land; Tom was all brawn and no business sense; Ellie, well, she was bonny and bright but as stubborn as they came, wanting to go her own road into a town. Bradford was no life for a country-born girl, especially in the war, with rations and shortages and two babies to rear and a husband away fighting.
If she’d come home for a bit of fresh air they wouldn’t have turned her away from their door, but she didn’t because a Yewell was too proud to admit a mistake and they were too proud to go running after her. What a carry-on for good Christian folk!
As the morning wore on Adey was
too busy to dwell on what-might-have-been. There was the farm lads’ dinner to line up in the large stone-flagged kitchen, the chicken coop to see to and the ironing of shirts. She wanted to get the oven range hot for a bit of special baking: spice bread and ginger cake to put away for when company came calling. Joe would be wanting his tea before his last rounds, and tomorrow was the slaughterman’s day when Myrtle would give her all. They would be at the butchering until midnight.
It was after eight before she sat down to the basket of mending by the half-finished peg rug. No rest for the wicked, she smiled, and then remembered the letter in her pocket.
‘There’s summat come from Keighley Shall I open it or you?’ she asked, seeing Joe was half asleep in his big leather chair. He grunted as she opened the page, then opened his eyes when there was silence from across the table.
‘What’s to do? Give it here…’
She shoved the letter across the table. ‘You’d better read this,’ she muttered.
He fumbled for his spectacles and gave it the once-over, paused and then searched the flickering flames as if looking for a reply. ‘By heck, that’s a turn-up. I shall have to get on my knees to the Lord about this. Poor lass…and just before Christmas, but it’s too much for us to take on at our age.’ His eyes were pleading with her to agree.
Adey read the letter then she too searched the flames, trying to blot out the image of Ellie’s likeness that lay face down in her dressing table drawer. This was their own flesh and blood they were assigning to an orphanage, their only grandchild, named after their own famous kin, Miriam of the Dale, who had rescued children in a blizzard at great cost to herself.
If only it weren’t Christmas, with stories of wandering strangers and no room at the inn. How could you turn your back on a bairn at such a season and look your neighbours in the eye?
Joe stood up and stomped around the room. ‘The daft happorth! Crossing the line in the dark, getting torn to pieces by an express. It don’t bear thinking about. I’ve seen what engines can do to a dog trapped on a rail. Railway sidings are no place for a kiddy.’
