by Pam Weaver
It was just like Jack when he saw Sylvia, not a tear or a murmur of regret, just an eerie silence as if she’d retreated into another world. This couldn’t be true. In a minute she’d wake up and it’d all be all right. It was like the day Granny Simms had taken her in, the day her dad had not come home. How strange.
Dr Murray gave her something to make her sleep and they stood over her while she swallowed it, but it did no good and she jumped up, pacing the floor, searching the farm for her hidden bottles, searching to no avail.
‘You won’t find anything in the loft or the cellar.’ Ben had heard the noise and opened her bedroom door. He was no comfort at all. ‘I’ve gone on a recce and cleared them all out. You are going to sort this out once and for all. It can’t go on! Jack mustn’t die in vain. Pull yourself together for his sake!’
Mirren held up at the funeral, or they held her up as she walked behind the coffin, her eyes staring ahead, not wanting to look down. Tom and Florrie were in pieces but the Dale’s farmers, as usual, came out to honour their own and the strong singing of ‘Rock of Ages’ had everyone in tears except her. Chapel folk knew how to stand together in grief. She was no part of the proceedings. It was just meaningless words and empty condolences. She watched it all from a long way off.
Jack was buried with Sylvia in the parish churchyard, and they planted bunches of snowdrops around the grave.
The day held up, being almost spring. The days were pulling out but it felt that darkness would always cover Cragside from now on. Ben had never felt so alone. How he wanted to escape, but he had promised Gran to see things through and he was not letting her down again.
‘Where are you taking me?’ shouted Mirren as Ben, grim-faced, dragged her up the hill, up the familiar beaten track to World’s End.
‘I’m taking you home…to the house I did up for you and Jack to live together. I’m putting you inside and locking you in until you sober up enough to see sense. That’s what I’m doing!’
His words fell on deaf ears. She made to turn back, but he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of coal. He was taking no more nonsense from her.
‘No you don’t! You can climb out of the window, jump off the ridge, if you must, but you’ll be sober as a judge when you do it, right? This nonsense has got to stop!’
‘Put me down! You can’t do this to me! I’ve a farm to run…things to see to,’ she screamed, wondering why he was behaving like a caveman.
‘Who’re you fooling? You’ve not been running Cragside since Sylvia died, not for months. You’ve been in another world. You can do what you want up here but there’s no booze, I’ve checked, and no pub, no hiding place. The cupboard is stacked with food. You won’t starve if you ever start to eat again. I’ll check on you and Dieter will guard you. He knows the score. We’ll watch over you but this is where it stops, right?’
‘This’s barbaric. You can’t make me stay here!’ she yelled, feeling foolish on his back.
‘Oh yes I can. I’ll be behind that door night and day. You’re not coming down to Cragside until you clean up your act. Tom and Florrie have enough sorrows without watching you stumbling all over the show pretending you’re compos mentis and bringing them more grief. I’ve told them you need to be on your own for a while. This is your problem and you’ll sort it one way or the other.’ His voice was hard and angry.
‘You’re very hard all of a sudden. What gives you the right to be my gaoler?’ she continued, hoping to cajole him out of this stupidity.
He fixed his lips, hard and mean. ‘Promises I made a long time ago to people I respected and loved, and I don’t want Jack to have died in vain. You owe it him. We all let him down…’
‘But I keep telling you, I don’t have a problem. I can stop whenever I choose,’ she argued, but there was fear in her voice.
‘So you keep telling me, so prove it. Show me that Mirren Sowerby can take her punishment. Prove me wrong.’
‘Oh, go to hell!’
‘It’s you who’ll go to hell in there, but I’m your friend and always have been. I want the old Mirren back, not this…walking skeleton with crazy eyes. I don’t believe you any more. So go on, and get in, sort yourself out and prove me wrong.’
He threw her in the door and turned the key. She could stew in there for a few days and see how she managed. He wanted to teach her a lesson.
15
Mirren paced the flag floor of World’s End, bemused at Ben’s antics at first. Then she looked around in amazement. So this was what he had done for them both? She felt so ashamed.
The walls were plastered and limewashed, the old range was lit and its flue was cleared. The stone sink had piped cold water from the slate tank outside. The hearth was swept. There was a supply of split wood and kindling, old sleepers for logs and even a humiliating jerry pot and a supply of newspaper. He’d thought of everything.
Upstairs was a makeshift bedroom with a camp bed and blankets, a chest of sorts and washstand and mirror.
‘I’ll show him,’ she snorted, not quite believing that she was imprisoned. She didn’t need a nip but every time she said the word her throat and lips ached for the taste. Then she thought about Jack’s sacrifice and shivered, hot and cold, shaky and unnerved by the silence. She still couldn’t believe that he was gone.
Soon it would be growing dark and she felt afraid.
By nightfall she was achy and shivery and feeling sick. The joke had gone far enough. How dare he lock her up like a prisoner? Now she was going down with a chill and all she needed was a nip to warm her throat. All she could think of was a drop of something to calm her down.
Ben popped his head round the door later with a flask of hot soup. She tried to look in control.
‘Get that down you,’ he insisted, ‘before it gets cold.’
‘I’m fine.’ She waved away his offering. ‘I don’t want your bloody soup. It’s too warm. I want to go home. I promise I’ll never touch a drop again.’
‘Nice one, Mirren, but it won’t wash. I expect there’s a bottle I missed somewhere, in the outbarn?’ He searched her face and saw her mouth drop. ‘I thought so. I found the one in the milking parlour and the one hidden in the rafters of the nessy You’re in a bad way and need help.’
‘Ben, I can’t stay here. I’ll catch my death. It’s freezing,’ she pleaded.
‘I thought you were roasting a minute ago. You will stay upstairs and I will kip down here. This is the only way to stop you. Hasn’t there been enough grief this year? I want to get on with my own life and not have to nursemaid you.’
‘I’m not stopping you,’ she barked, hoping he’d go away.
‘Yes you are. I won’t leave until old Mirren’s back in charge and I see her in your eyes. There’s no easy way to dry out. Doc Murray says—’
‘So the whole world knows my business now?’ she yelled. ‘How dare you take over my life? Get the hell out of it!’ she screamed, pulling off her boot and throwing it down the stairs. He ducked and it missed his cheek.
‘I’m going nowhere and neither are you. This is your World’s End for a while. You’re going to have to sweat this out of your system and it won’t be pleasant. I’m being cruel to be kind,’ he pleaded as he left her alone with just the storm lantern for company.
For three nights she paced the floor, sweating, crying out with cramps and perspiration. ‘Let me out of here! You can’t do this, you sadist!’ There was no answer from him but she knew he was close by and Dieter took turns to guard the door. It was unbelievable what they were doing to her and her indignation fuelled her anger even more.
The bedroom was indeed her World’s End, her hands trembled and she twitched. She cursed and swore and lay on the bed crying as the agony of withdrawal curled her into a ball.
And all he brought her were foul-smelling teas made from dried leaves he’d bought from some quack. They smelled of carbolic and disinfectant all rolled into one, and tasted like piss.
Then came the terrible dreams that tor
e at her sleep. Sylvia and Dad were waving through half-open doors. When she ran to find them they were gone. Jack’s bruised body was rising up to wag a finger at her. She screamed out and Ben came rushing up to hold her through the nightmare. When she lay back exhausted he disappeared downstairs.
‘Hush,’ he cried. ‘You’re doing really well. It’ll pass. All this will pass.’
She screamed as the spiders crawled out of the corners of the room, creeping over her skin, and she tried to cover her body from them. ‘Let me out! Oh, Ben, have pity!’
She took the last of the powders he left and sipped it slowly with a grimace. This was not medicine, it was torture by mouth. He was poisoning her and then he’d hang and she’d be glad.
By the fifth day she slept in and woke to find the winter sun filtering through the makeshift blind. Outside looked bluer and brighter and greener, with snow still hanging back in the crevices. Her tongue felt smoother and for the first time she sensed a little hunger in her belly.
Mirren peered into the wall mirror, not recognising the reflection of sallow-faced harpie, with scraggy hair, sunken cheeks and broken veins on her nose. Who are you? She blinked as if to make the horror go away but it pulled faces at her. It was real. Then she remembered all that had happened: Sylvia, Jack, her public shame to come.
It was like looking down at another person, not Mirren Gilchrist or Mirren Sowerby but a stranger. She wanted to cry out at this image and fell on the bed sobbing, rocking back and forth, trying to piece together those lost months: Jack’s breakdown, the hospital visits, the Golden Lion, the police cell, funeral. How could she ever face the family again?
‘Ben, Ben, let me out, I’m starving!’ she cried. There was no one there but she noticed the door was ajar and she climbed down the ladder and went in search of food and fresh air.
Downstairs the fire was lit and crackling, and she recalled that very first visit here as a child, a little girl lost in the snow, saved by this ruin. Now it had done it again, saved her sanity, made her clean, rinsed the mud out of her mind. She was cured. No more whisky ever again.
How long had it taken? Days or weeks. Time had no meaning here but she felt clean inside, fresher. Ben would be pleased. She would look Tom and Florrie in the eye and apologise. It was as if for the first time in months she could see things differently and feel her own thoughts.
How could she have been so daft? How could she bear to think about poor Jack? He would have understood her torture. He had tried to warn her but it was too late to make it up to him now. The pain of it made her wince.
She must thank Ben for being her big brother again. It couldn’t have been easy, and how she’d misjudged him and all the effort he had put into her house. She’d called him every name under the sun, cursed him for imprisoning her here, but he knew World’s End was her friend. It had held her and protected her, but she was better now and must get back to the real life down at Cragside, pull her weight as never before.
For the first time in months she tasted the salty bacon she’d cooked and relished the smell with fried bread and fresh eggs. It was a welcome feast. She boiled the kettle until she had a zinc tub full enough to make a bath, stripping herself down for a decent wash, soaking her hair and combing it, rubbing it dry so it smelled of soap and smoke. Mirren felt clean all over, tingling with the chill but alive.
From the window stretched the panoramic view across the valley. She could see for miles and wanted to run outside to embrace the whole hillside. The door was still locked. Ben had not trusted her enough to set her free just yet.
We’ll see about that, she smiled to herself, opening the window shutters wider to squeeze her narrow body through to freedom. Just the knowledge that she could was enough. It was good to sit by the fire and listen to her racing thoughts. Where had she been all these months? The answer was plain enough to guess.
Her drinking had taken her to a faraway place, a wild shameful place, a place her father knew well, but she was not Dad and had broken the spell. She would never touch whisky again. It didn’t suit her constitution. It had made her mental, like Jack. Now she could face Cragside and face the fury there. She had paid her due, done her sentence. Everyone must realise she’d never let them down again.
How thoughtful they were in letting her come up here to rest. It was basic but her woman’s eye roamed over it. It would suit her well but it needed some pegged rugs and mats, some decent curtains, draught excluders, proper bedding and towels, cushions and a proper chair by the fireside. Given a little attention it could be cosy. Men never saw those details that softened the edges of a room-lace, fabric, pictures, ornaments. It could be her home with all her treasures, her carved box that belonged to her ancestor, the first Miriam Yewell.
When Ben bothered to return he’d get a surprise to see her cooking, clearing up, whistling tunes. She must thank him properly for setting her back on the straight and narrow. Now it was up to her to mend all the broken bridges and fences she’d crashed into on the way.
First she would invite Ben and Lorna for tea, and make cakes and pastries and try to heal the rift there. She’d go to chapel with Florrie and help with the Brownies and get herself out on the farm, keep herself busy so there was no temptation to pop into The Fleece for a quick nip.
No one would ever say that Mirren was not a reformed character. She’d seen the error of her ways. Now she knew better, thanks to Ben, the rest would be easy.
In the weeks that followed, Ben watched her progress with anxiety at first and then pride and not a little relief that his cure had worked so well. Mirren had done ‘cold turkey’ and come out the other side, and now she was more like her old self, or almost. She was cheerful and chipper, hardworking, full of ideas and plans.
He could see that World’s End had worked its magic once more but it was one thing being dry in the safety of this moorland retreat. At some time she must face the stresses and strains of the real world; the reality of her now being a widow with little income, the memories of this last year, the strictures of rationing and depression.
They were all aware that it would soon be the anniversary of Sylvia’s death and Mirren must get through that day; a day forever celebrated as VE Day, not a day of mourning and regrets.
He must stick close by her and help her through the worst, and make sure there were no whisky bottles to hand. There was still a bit of him unsure enough to go round checking if he had missed any hidy-holes. One sip and she’d be off again. Doc Murray had explained that there was only so much he could do and that the choice to stay sober was always Mirren’s alone, but surely if he kept her safe…He couldn’t bear to think of her starting up again.
So far so good. She was sober and going about her farm business with gusto, doing extra shifts to make up for past misdemeanours. The women were heavily into spring cleaning, beating rugs, washing anything that wasn’t tied down, turning Cragside upside down. Turning from winter into spring was a serious business and there was no let-up as Florrie, Daisy and Mirren scrubbed, cleared out, beat, hung out, aired and generally got in everyone’s way. There was no place to sit down and then they started on the dairy and shippon and outside paintwork. Dieter had never seen such a palaver.
There was tension in the air between Florrie and Mirren, an undercurrent of blame and bitterness not easily healed by spring cleaning. Mirren decided to live alone up at World’s End for a while until she felt stronger. Ben was glad that the two women were apart. She busied herself tearing up old clothes to make yet another rag rug.
If her eyes were a little too bright and her determination a little too brash, Ben felt it was just Mirren’s way of getting back to her bolshie old self.
She was brave in facing the embarrassment of her caution at the police station when the inspector tore her off a strip for her unreasonable behaviour. They decided to take into account the tragedy of her past year in mitigation for her conduct. She took it all on the chin, unflinching, and he was proud of her.
It was the f
irst time she had left the farm for weeks. Her trips to market were supervised but she didn’t seem interested in socialising.
The anniversary hung over them like a black cloud. How would she get through that day? Then Uncle Tom had a brilliant idea.
‘Let’s give ourselves a day out,’ he suggested. ‘A proper day out on the train to the seaside or the Lakes–you lot choose. No use hanging around feeling morbid. It don’t change any of it but it’ll happen pass the time with a change of sky.’
They were all sitting down to Sunday dinner and it was good to see Mirren’s cheeks filling out, the dark circles under her eyes barely shadows now.
‘What do you think, Mother? Sea or lakes?’ Tom smiled at Florrie.
‘Oh, the sea–Morecambe or Blackpool or Southport. They have some nice shops there. I fancy a bit of Lord Street. A bit of sea air will do us all good, but it’s lambing time, Tom,’ Florrie said, knowing it was the busiest time of year.
‘We’ll see. I might have to stay back with Dieter. You do the first milking and we’ll manage the rest, but you three must make a day of it. We can’t take Sylvia or Jack but you’ll be taking them in yer hearts for all of us.’ Tom was not one for making speeches but he’d certainly come up with a solution for 8 May.
‘Are you going to bring that lass of yours, Ben?’ asked Florrie. ‘It’s about time you and her made it official.’
Ben found his cheeks flushing. ‘Lorna’s given me over for Harry Batty from Holly Bank. I think she got a bit fed up the way things were.’ He didn’t want to cite Mirren as the cause of their recent bust-up. He’d spent so much time keeping an eye on her that he’d stood Lorna up one time too many.
‘I’m sick of kicking my feet, waiting for you to show up on time. This time you’re free to chase the black widow, but you’d better watch your step, her with those big blue eyes. She’s a wild one. She’ll run you ragged, chew you up and spit you out. Don’t make an ass of yourself mooning over her!’
