Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle

by Pam Weaver

  There was no time to lose. Whilst the kettle was boiling it was time to tackle his feet. To her surprise his boots were well made but his socks were welded to his skin. She took the nearest towel and began to massage his toes gently. What was she doing with a stranger at her hearth, rubbing him down like a beast? Florrie would have the vapours to know what she was up to.

  She placed a warm cloth over his face to release the frozen mask, curious to see who was underneath. Then she fished in his pockets for some identity.

  There was only a silver cigarette case and lighter, some coins and tickets. There was a thin diary with a travel warrant stuck in one page and baler twine. His name scrawled was smudged by water, unreadable, but you could tell a lot from a pocket. Here was a farmer on his way to market, who smoked and drank with the best. It didn’t add up to much but perhaps she would be safe in the house with this curious stranger, unless he was a thief.

  She took away the lighter, just in case. He was in no state to be moved and in for a rough time when the numbness wore off. She would make a bed for him by the hearth with the dogs.

  The wind was rattling the doors as it did when it blew in from the east. They had beaten the blizzard by the width of an eyelash. ‘Someone must have been looking after this chap,’ she muttered as she prepared the bowl of water. Now she must be cruel to be kind.

  It was like laying out the dead, sponging him down, opening his shirt, listening to see if his breathing was steady. Jet sat by her side, interested, trying to lick him back to life. There were hot bricks in the bottom of the Rayburn. Wrapped in old cloths, they could be padded round his body to warm him through.

  It felt as if she was in some strange dream: the walk in the snow, feeling the coat in her fingers, dragging the half-dead man into the safety of the house and now anointing his body with lanolin, trying to rub the life back into him.

  She was exhausted with the effort, unnerved by him lying there, packed with blankets and rugs. What if he died on her?

  She sat vigil until her eyelids were drooping and found herself wrapping the blankets around herself. She might as well kip down with the dogs by the hearth, lie by his side and see him through until morning, but first she must unpeel the scarf.

  Bit by bit she released the material, first his nose, then his mouth and neck, and only then did she see who it was…

  19

  Ben stirred, hearing himself groaning. Was this a dream? Where was he? He lay helpless on a rug, stripped, covered over with rough blankets. There was the smell of wet dog, muck and manure and peat smoke, and he sensed he was safe. Then he felt the searing pain of his thawing body and rolled in agony, his limbs on fire. A woman was rubbing his arms, slapping life and pain back into him when all he wanted to do was sleep.

  ‘Ben, I have to do this,’ a voice whispered, checking to see if he was really awake. All he could register was pain and a pair of his own eyes looking down at him with concern. What the hell was going on? He shut his eyes to hide his agony but she kept shaking him as if he was a rag doll. Why was she doing this? Then he recalled the station and the walk and the blizzard, and being dragged across the snow with a dog licking his face. It was Jet wagging his tail in his face, and his eyes focused and he saw it was Mirren torturing him, pulling him up and making him change position. Then he saw the bowl of hot water.

  ‘No! Have a heart! Mirren, is it really you? What happened?’

  ‘Later…we have got to get your feet in the bowl,’ she said, her cheeks flushed with exertion.

  ‘My feet are fine,’ he protested, trying to focus on her hair loosened from a scarf.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she snapped.

  Still the same old Mirren, sharp as a knife, he sighed.

  ‘If you’re daft enough to walk through a blizzard then you risk losing your toes and fingers. Don’t be a girl’s blouse!’

  ‘I’ll do it slowly,’ he groaned.

  ‘Do it how you like, but just get on with it,’ was all the sympathy he was going to get. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea.’

  The drink was piping hot and laced with sugar from her ration. Swallowing took his mind off the agony in his toes as they were coming back to life. He began to shiver and saw that he’d been stripped down to his underpants and vest.

  ‘When you’ve finished, I’ll have your head in friar’s balsam. Might as well keep the chill off your chest,’ she ordered, like a hospital matron.

  How could he protest, face down with his head covered by a towel, sniffing camphor fumes? His cheeks were raw and stinging.

  ‘What on earth possessed you to come tramping up here? You were nearly a goner when Jet found you.’

  ‘It wasn’t that bad when I left the station,’ he muttered under his towel, feeling naked and silly and entirely at her mercy.

  ‘You should have stopped in the village. Honestly, you haven’t the sense of a flea. I had to get you out of those wet clothes and quick.’ Mirren plonked a pair of Grandpa’s old fustian breeches, a thick shirt and clean vest before him. ‘These’ll have to do for now. I’ve no other spares. There’s not enough hot water for a bath so I sponged you down as best I could. You’d got some smart tweeds on for hiking. Off somewhere special?’

  ‘I was making for Glasgow; got a ticket on a ship. Didn’t Florrie tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’ She paused from her busyness.

  ‘I’m emigrating to Australia…an assisted passage.’

  ‘Are you now? Deserting the old country in its hour of need? What happened to college?’ she replied, and then there was silence. Mirren left him to struggle into the breeches and long socks. His whole body was tingling and sore, but where there was feeling there was life, he thought with relief. The smell of bacon was coming from the range like perfume to his nose, and he was ravenous, gazing around the familiar kitchen with pleasure. Nothing had changed: the smooth flag floor with rag rugs covered in dog hair, custard-cream walls and ancient stove. The cupboard of china plates still fixed to the wall, a clutter of pipe cleaners, jugs and candlesticks over the mantelpiece, a glowing kerosene lamp in the middle of the deal table, two dogs watching him and Mirren’s open book turned face down as usual.

  Grandpa’s breeches itched and smelled of mothballs but they covered his credentials perfectly. He blushed to think of Mirren undressing him. How unbelievable that she had found him like that. It was hard to take in that he’d escaped death by a whisker.

  ‘You’re done then?’ She eyed him furtively as she laid the table. ‘Were they expecting you at Scar Head?’ she added. ‘No one said, but then I only get told what Florrie thinks is good for me these days.’

  ‘No, it was a last-minute idea on the train. I jumped off at the Halt,’ he said, eyeing up the bacon rashers, his mouth slavering.

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? No panic then with Tom and Florrie. Sit down, eat up and rest a while. It’s not fit to throw a louse out in this storm.’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any bother,’ he offered.

  ‘You already have but you’re family, so no mind. Get stuck in,’ she smiled, and the clouds parted, the stern look on her face brightened, her full lips smiled and those sad eyes flashed a welcome. In that instant he saw her beauty again and knew he was lost.

  Mirren watched him wolfing down his bacon with relish. He finished off the last bread in the bin, slurping down his mug of tea, savouring every sip, and it was like old times round the kitchen table after milking. If she hadn’t got out of the chair he could have been lying in the drift, stiff as a board like George Pye for weeks. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘How’re your toes?’ she asked, knowing he must be in agony.

  ‘I’ve still got ten of them, thanks to you,’ he smiled, and she had forgotten just how blue were his eyes and fair his hair in the lamplight. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘You tried to do the same for me and I never thanked you,’ she blushed, not wanting him to see how close to tears she was.

  ‘I
t’s bad out there. Do you want me to try to get to the barn?’

  ‘Just get those legs going up and down the stairs, up the passage. Give them a good stretch. The beasts are going nowhere. Time you had a proper rest. Happen in the morning you’ll be fit enough to give me a hand,’ she paused, recalling that he had a train to catch and a ship to board and she might never see him again. Better make the most of him while he was around.

  She poured hot water from the kettle on the hob into a stone bottle and passed it over. ‘You know where everything is. I’ve aired Grandpa’s bed. You can sleep posh tonight.’

  She could see him wincing as he rose up and it was natural to give him a hand up the stairs with the lamp. Ben smelled of balsam and mothballs, soap and something she couldn’t quite fathom. It was over two years since he had climbed those stairs. He leaned on her and she could smell his warm breath.

  The curtains were drawn and the drapes around the four-poster pulled across.

  ‘It’ll be clashy tonight. Listen to that gale blowing in, but we might get out in the morning,’ she said without much conviction.

  If the storm continued they were going to be stuck together for a few more days. Judging by the look of him he was in no fit state to be let loose up the dale. Why did that fleeting thought warm her cheeks? She ought to be furious with him still, but somehow now was not the time to be going into all that.

  They sat in silence, only the ticking of the wall clock, the stirring of the dogs by the door disturbing this makeshift meal. For the first time since his arrival Ben felt awkward and unnerved by the tensions still unspoken between them. He was bone weary, propping his hand on his chin to stop it from dropping onto the table, eating the tinned corned beef hash with one fork, trying to stay awake.

  They had slaved like navvies all day digging out. There were just too many trapped sheep for two of them to tackle, too many buckets of water to fetch, too much fodder and mucking out. Back and forth with freezing limbs and aching fingers, the ice biting his cheeks and nose as they trudged over the snow.

  Nearly three hundred sheep were bleating for fodder, sheep trapped, frantic for release. Already they were pouring milk away and it froze into piles like ice cream. It was too cold to make butter and they hadn’t the strength to load the milk kits and try to make it to the lane end just in case a lorry might get through. They worked like two pairs of hands with nothing to think about but the next bale or the next bucket of water.

  The storm was still howling the odds. There was no escape from its iron grip. It was going to be some battle to fodder the beasts in their stalls. Every journey was an excavation, and dangerous. How on earth would Mirren have survived without help when none of the farm hands would make it back for days? Until then he was her only hope and he owed her his life so he was staying put.

  Now they sat speechless, lost in their own thoughts. Sooner or later Mirren’s drinking must be brought up but now was not the time. He’d noticed the house was still stripped bare of any trace of Sylvia’s presence; not even the photograph of her sitting on the bench taken as a baby, no toys or reminders. The house was sanitised and empty, not how it used to be, cluttered and welcoming. The big rooms were never used. They were too big to heat now. Mirren lived in the kitchen and in the bedroom with the little parlour off it upstairs.

  It was dark by the time they staggered back after their chores. First job was to thaw their frozen coats, to hug the fire until they stopped feeling numb and only then did they look round for something easy to fill the belly: soup, porridge, scrambled egg, anything quick.

  ‘I’ll have a go at digging out to the lane end tomorrow,’ Ben offered.

  ‘Don’t waste your strength. The more you dig, the more the wind just blows it back,’ Mirren said. ‘Can’t wait to leave us?’ she smiled, but her eyes were cold.

  ‘Just thought it might help getting the milk out. It breaks my heart to chuck it out,’ he snapped back, hurt that she was so quick to see his offer as a desertion. ‘Any road, I’m not budging until you and I’ve cleared the air. I can’t go halfway across the world knowing I’m not welcome here.’

  ‘Who said that?’ she replied.

  ‘Why do you think I kept away for all these months…after what you said?’

  ‘That was ages ago! We were all in shock and said stuff better left unspoken.’

  ‘I hear you sorted yourself out.’ There, it was out on the table now.

  ‘No thanks to you this time, but you did me a favour, made me work it out for myself. It was like a madness. Drying out is never easy but I was in a safe place, in the madhouse where it all began,’ she said. Her voice was clipped and her words carefully measured.

  ‘Was it awful?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you think? Finding out you’re not little Miss Perfect after all, finding things about yourself, but I had to do it for their sake. I dosed myself up to stop the pain and it was poison, just like you said, but you can’t be told so you just have to find out for yourself the hard way. I have to live with the consequences and I do every day. I guess men and women do things differently.’ She stopped and eyed him again. ‘Is that why you’re off to Aussie land, to put all this behind you?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No…it’s just there’re opportunities there for land, to be my own boss.’

  ‘Uncle Tom always looked to you to fly the Yewell flag here and you beetled off and left us to it.’ There was a ring of accusation in her words.

  ‘I couldn’t stay after…Florrie wanted me to get away. It wasn’t just me. You were so angry. We could never have worked together, and after Jack, well, it was not right to stay.’

  ‘His heart was never here after the war. He drowned his sorrows. This was never what he wanted. Sylvia bound us together and when she…something snapped between us. I hated his drinking…but got hooked on it myself. It got worse and it reminded me of my dad all of a sudden, the very person I’d hated for letting me down. You know, on that night I left you, I found my way back to the line where he died when I was small and left me an orphan. I loved my dad but hated him drunk. Jack began to remind me of him, but it was me as lay on that track and wanted to end it all.’ She eyed him. ‘Do I shock you? Well, I shocked myself but someone stopped me and I got up and chose life. I’m not my dad, I’m me, but if I drink again I could end up back down there and I don’t want to feel like that ever again.’

  It was the longest speech he’d ever heard from her. She looked up at him, rising quickly. ‘The war has a lot to answer for but it’s over now and you’ve a new life to lead. I wish you well, Ben,’ she whispered, patting him on the shoulder as she darted towards the door. ‘I’ll bid you good night. There’s a hot brick in the oven. Wrap it in the towel. We can’t spare water now for bottles. If you need a shave…’ She paused, seeing his stubble.

  ‘I think I’ll grow a beard. It’ll keep my face warm and the ice off my lips.’

  ‘Pity,’ she quipped. ‘It’ll grow red and won’t match your hair. You’ll look like a Viking on the pillage.’

  ‘Who cares in this weather?’ he laughed. ‘You look like a walking eiderdown.’

  ‘Precisely; anything to keep warm,’ she replied. For a second there was a flash of the old banter between them. He’d heard more about her history today than in the whole of the time they had worked together. Perhaps because he was leaving she felt she could share stuff with him, trusting he’d tell no one. Perhaps she was relieved that he was off to pastures new, perhaps not; it was hard to tell with Mirren.

  Yet Sylvia’s name had been spoken just the once and before he left he wanted to beg a snap of his godchild from her. Surely that was not too much to ask.

  Mirren lay in the dark, too stirred up to sleep. Grief never ends, she sighed and just the mention of that precious name brought back every second of that terrible day, and just that sniff of whisky in the snow brought so much back into her mind again. How easy it would be to slip, but the need was more bearable now. There was a sadness to the edge of i
t that softened each haunting memory.

  Death is for ever, and for months she couldn’t let go of the hope that it was all a nightmare and she would wake up to see her baby’s dark head on her pillow. It was never there and she’d gone on living, but it was a different life, with the terrible knowledge that awful things could happen again. She needed someone to hold her together in case she fell apart again.

  Jack had been too shattered to do that and she hadn’t been able to let anyone else near enough. Ben was strong but she had pushed him away and now he was going to the far ends of the earth to get away from her. All that anger and blame and fear had driven away friends and family until she was set up alone with strangers, her heart iced over with hurt and fear. Ben would find love and comfort, but she couldn’t risk ever letting anyone close. For the first time for months she wept quietly, sitting up in the chill, fiddling for the candle, and that was when she felt something strange again. She was not alone. The house creepers were back.

  For a second she tensed but it wasn’t a physical presence, more a comforting presence all around her of women: farmers’ wives who had paced these floors, treading the same Gethsemane road, a company of weeping women, Rachels weeping for their own lost children in the wee small hours of the night, mothers who couldn’t be comforted. It was this sharing of loss that bound her to Cragside for ever. A bit of Sylvia was here within these walls. How could she leave? She buried her head in her pillow.

  Grief has its own milestones, its own sad progress, perhaps: Sylvia’s birthday, Christmas, the anniversary and the ones to come. Each of these needed marking, and she had hidden all her pain away in suitcases or it had been done for her, and she had never bothered to sort out her daughter’s clothes or her toys. What the eye didn’t see…Now there was time. They were confined indoors, fast in, and Ben was the one person in the world who might help her face her fear. It would be the one last task they would share before he left. It was up to her to open the door, to clear the air once and for all.