by Maggie Hope
‘Yes, we will. See you later,’ echoed Rose, and the gulf between her and her friend made her want to cry.
‘Howay then, pets,’ she said briskly, covering up the moment of emotion. ‘Drink up. We have to catch this bus.’
And they had gone out by the back door, and as far as Rose could see Marina never noticed them go. They ran for the bus, the twins holding out their windmills to catch the breeze and shouting with excitement as the coloured strips of paper whirled round.
Chapter Three
‘Marina Morland, please.’
The woman stood back and tipped her head enquiringly and Marina stepped forward and through the door. The room was vast with a thick carpet on the floor and an enormous desk behind which sat the Treasurer and another man, his deputy, Marina supposed. The Treasurer was old, older than her dad, easily fifty. And he had rimless glasses which reflected the light so she couldn’t see his eyes.
‘Sit down, Miss Morland,’ he said, kindly enough, so she sat down on the chair before the desk and tried to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing stockings or gloves by tucking her legs under her chair and her hands under her bag. She’d noticed while she was waiting that all the other candidates wore stockings and gloves.
The Treasurer was looking at a paper in front of him. He finished and handed it to the other man, nodding slightly.
‘You wouldn’t mind travelling from Bishop Auckland to Durham every day, Miss Morland?’ he asked.
‘Miss Morland’. She had never been called that before; it didn’t sound as though he was actually addressing her but her father’s sister, whose intended had been killed at Dunkirk and who swore she would never marry, though Mam said she still saw that look in her eye whenever there was an attractive man present.
‘No.’
Ten minutes and a few searching questions later she was running down the steps of Shire Hall, smiling with relief at being released. She still didn’t know if she’d got the job or even if she wanted it, but if she had to go out to work instead of taking her Higher she supposed Durham City wasn’t a bad place in which to work. She turned up the road into the city centre, lingering by the steps leading down to the water from Elvet bridge, looking at the line of punts and rowing boats drawn up by the boathouse on the edge of the river. Further along, trees and bushes framed the curve of the river and covered the steep bank side below the cathedral.
The sun broke through the clouds and glinted on the water and on the river a punt glided along smoothly, the pole handled expertly by a boy, a student probably. A girl sat quietly, her hand trailing through the water at the side of the boat. She lifted her head, listening to something the boy was saying, and Marina felt a momentary pang of envy. Did she know how lucky she was? But Marina was not one to be envious of anyone else for long and, after all, what did she know of the girl’s life? Good luck to her, whoever she was.
She climbed the steep hill into the market place and saw by the town hall clock that she had just missed a bus to Bishop Auckland, so she went into a cafe and got a cup of coffee, taking it to a table by the window where she could look out. She sipped the coffee slowly, making it last until the bus was due.
It was market day and watching the people crowding round the stalls, she didn’t at first notice the lad pause at the window. When he tapped on the glass she looked at him, startled. It was that friend of her Yorkshire relatives, the one she had met at the Big Meeting. He waved and indicated he was coming in and the events of that day last summer flashed through Marina’s mind. She flushed with embarrassment.
‘Marina, isn’t it? You remember me, don’t you? Charlie Hutchinson, OK if I sit here?’ Without waiting for answers he sat down opposite her and signalled to the waitress. ‘You’d like another cup?’ he said to Marina, and ordered for them both in spite of her demurral.
He was tall and gangling and his mop of dark hair fell into his eyes. He swept it away impatiently every few minutes, hardly noticing he was doing it. He had a quick, almost nervous way of moving and talking, which he did almost all the time, pausing only for Marina’s replies. He drank his coffee black with three spoonfuls of sugar and leaned his elbows on the table, holding the cup in both hands as he talked. His hands were narrow with long lean fingers and clean nails cut straight across.
‘What are you doing in Durham?’ he asked, and not just politely, there was real interest showing in his eyes.
‘I had an interview for a job at Shire Hall,’ Marina answered, and found herself telling him all about the Treasurer.
‘You’ll get the job,’ he told her confidently. ‘If you want it, that is?’
Suddenly she knew she did want it, for after all, if she was honest with herself, she knew that Mam wasn’t going to change her mind and let her stay on at school, and it wasn’t really her fault either. Kate tried so hard to make the money go round and then, just when she thought she was on top of all her problems, she would get another nasty blow. As she had last night when a man up the street had told her that Dad had borrowed three pounds from him to bet on the outcome of a dominoes match and hadn’t paid him back.
‘I thought I had a good chance and the money would have come in useful if I’d won,’ was all he had said when challenged. He had sat beside the fire in his pit black, looking hunted, so that Marina wanted to shout at her mother to leave him alone.
‘And you were the one who wanted the lass to stay on at school!’ Mam had said. ‘Fat chance with you for a father.’
‘Shut up, woman!’ Dad had flared up but soon subsided and got out his baccy and cigarette machine to roll himself a tab. So Mam was going to the Co-op today to take out the dividend she had been saving to buy Marina a new outfit for when she started work and use it to pay his debt.
‘Marina? You look faraway, what are you thinking about?’ asked Charlie.
Brought back to reality, she took a sip of coffee. ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing important anyway. Do you know, I think I would really like to work in Durham.’
‘It is a nice place,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve enjoyed my time here. And now I’m doing post-graduate work, I think I’ll enjoy it even more. When term starts –’
‘Oh, of course, it’s not term-time yet,’ Marina exclaimed. So much for her envy of the young girl in the punt, she thought. She was probably just someone like Marina herself, out on her afternoon off and spending it with her boyfriend.
‘No, not until October. I have a job though, I have to be here in the holidays.’ He didn’t elaborate on what his job was and Marina didn’t ask.
‘I have the afternoon off,’ Charlie continued. ‘Would you like to go for a walk? It’s a nice day, there won’t be many more like it this year.’
Marina was surprised and flattered. But she was being silly; he wasn’t suggesting they start ‘going out’ together, of course he wasn’t. Maybe he was just being polite because she was a relative of his friends? There was a dismal idea.
‘I … I was just going to catch a bus home.’
‘Oh, do you have to go?’
She should, really. Mam was still upset over Dad and this morning had started a migraine which would last for days if it was anything like her usual ones. No dinner would be prepared for the men coming in from the pit.
‘No, I can stay for a while,’ replied Marina, not even feeling guilty.
They walked down Silver Street and the steps leading to the river path there, following the wide loop of the river which surrounded the steep hill with the castle and cathedral on top. They talked as they walked, Marina finding herself telling him all about her family – except for Dad’s gambling of course. And Charlie told her how his father was a miner too, an ironstone miner in North Yorkshire.
‘My mother died years ago and Dad married again. I don’t go home often now,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I stay at Fortune Hall with my aunt.’ He smiled down at her as she took his arm impulsively from sympathy. ‘It was a long time ago, you know.’
They walked along the towpa
th for a while, silent now. Marina kept her hand on his arm, feeling the warmth of him through the rough serge of his jacket. She hadn’t felt like this about a boy before and found it slightly intoxicating. She peeped up at him through her lashes. Charlie was looking out over the river to where a family of ducks quacked quietly by the opposite bank, the ducklings almost full grown now. The path skirted the old woollen mill which stood by the side of the Wear and they went on round the loop of the river all the way to Elvet bridge and the row of punts and rowing boats.
Leaves were already falling on the damp earth, the grass at the side yellowing. Autumn comes early around here, she mused, but it wasn’t a melancholy thought. She looked forward to the winter now, starting a new job at Shire Hall, with always the chance of meeting Charlie Hutchinson around the city. If she got the job, she reminded herself. Oh, how she wished she’d tried harder at the interview!
‘Would you like to go on the river?’ asked Charlie, and Marina blushed as she remembered again the drenching she and Rose had had on Big Meeting Day. But she nodded and he paid for a punt and they floated out on the water. Marina sat on a cushion and watched Charlie as he poled the boat out over the water, sailing back round the bend the way they had just walked. And she felt like a queen, or at least as good as Princess Margaret Rose.
It was on the way home that she met Rose again. Marina had got off the bus from Durham in Bishop market place and walked along to the bus stand for Jordan. Rose was huddled in a doorway there, her shoulders hunched as though she was cold though it was quite a mild evening. There was even a pale shaft of light from the setting sun lighting up the doorway and Marina could see that her friend was looking worse even than she had the last time she’d seen her. Her hair was lank and worn simply clipped back from her brow, which was bumpy with spots and whiteheads. But she wore a new coat of navy blue and a little velvet hat to match, one of those with a hairband inside so that it hugged the top of the head.
‘Now then, Rose,’ Marina greeted her. ‘Waiting for the bus?’
‘No, I’m just standing here ’cos I like it,’ Rose replied, but she grinned as she said it and the grin transformed her face and for a moment she looked like the old Rose.
‘Still making a fortune at the factory, are you?’ Marina leaned against the wall. ‘That’s a new coat, isn’t it?’
‘Factory sale,’ said Rose. ‘You should go, there’s some real bargains there. Mind, I get a discount.’
A picture of Dad giving her the money flashed vividly through Rose’s mind. He had come into the house just as she was telling her mother about the factory sale. Mam liked to hear about things outside the house, always listened to her eldest child with great interest, so Rose saved up pieces of news to relate to her at the end of the day.
‘Buy yourself something nice, pet,’ Alf Sharpe had said, handing over three pounds. He’d smiled at her then, his glance going over her neat figure and lingering on her pert young breasts as they thrust against her blouse. Automatically she had hunched her back and turned away.
‘You see, Rose?’ Mam had said, pleased. ‘You’ve got a good dad, haven’t you?’
‘How’s your mam, Rose?’ asked Marina now. ‘Mine says the doctor’s been again.’
It was as if shutters had come down on Rose’s face, she was all closed up again. ‘She’s bad,’ she answered and turned away, looking up the street in search of the bus. She stood with her back to Marina, discouraging any further conversation. After a few minutes the bus did come and it happened that Marina got on first, fully expecting her friend to come and sit in the seat beside her. It was like a slap in the face when Rose walked past her and took a seat at the back of the bus. Righto, Rose Sharpe, Marina said under her breath. If you don’t want me as a friend I can do without you. But what on earth was the matter with her?
‘Did you say something, pet?’ Eddie the conductor asked as he held out his hand for the fare.
‘Just that I’ve got a return ticket,’ Marina replied. She stared out of the opposite window when Rose got off at the stop before hers.
Rose knew exactly what Marina was thinking but she just couldn’t help herself. She walked past her and got off the bus and trudged up John Street to her back gate before remembering she was supposed to get the rations from the Co-operative store, so she had to trail back along the street and down the main road. When she finally got back with both arms pulled down by the weight of the carrier bags, she stopped for a moment or two just outside the gate in spite of the string handles cutting into her fingers. She had to steel herself to go in.
‘You’re back then, pet,’ said her father. He was kneeling before the tin bath in front of the fire, sluicing the coal dust from his upper body. He sat back from the bath, raising his arms and flexing his muscles, watching her out of the corner of his eye. ‘By,’ he remarked casually, ‘I’m ready for my bed.’ He took the towel from where it was hanging on the brass rail over the range and began rubbing himself dry, the upper half of his body gleaming white in the firelight.
‘I’m back.’ Rose put the bags down on the kitchen table and began to put the groceries away.
From the room her mother called, ‘Rose? Rose, is it you?’
‘Yes, Mam, I’ll be in in a minute.’
‘Oh, aye, do that,’ her father said, his voice muffled by the towel. ‘Never mind me and my dinner, I’ve only been working all day.’
Rose bit back a retort that so had she and went in to see to her mother. ‘Have any of the neighbours been in, Mam?’ she asked. For her mother was lying in a bed wet with sweat and her hair was sticking to her forehead. The grotesque lump on her neck loomed smooth and white, in contrast to the yellowish tinge of her face.
Sarah Sharpe took hold of Rose’s arm and weakly pulled her close so she could whisper. ‘Your dad told them to keep out, that we can manage on our own,’ she confided, glancing at the door to the kitchen.
‘But why?’
It was her father who spoke from behind her. Rose swung round and there he was, lounging in the doorway in his pit hoggers, the clean top half of his body in contrast to the coaly legs sticking out of the dust-caked shorts.
‘Because we don’t need anybody poking their nebs into our business.’
‘But what are we going to do, man? Can’t you see me mam needs somebody to look after her? Not to mention the bairns!’
‘Aye, well, pet, we’ve got somebody, haven’t we? You’re big enough now, aren’t you?’
‘But I have to go to work!’
‘No, you don’t, you can give in your notice. In fact, I should think you won’t have to go back, not if you explain how we’re held, wi’ your mam and the bairns and everything.’
‘But the money?’
‘Aye, the money.’ Alf Sharpe was ready to give his big news. ‘We don’t need the money now, do we? ’Cos I’ve got the job of nightshift overman, that’s why. I’m going to be making plenty of money!’
Rose could only stare at his grinning face, feeling like a trapped animal.
‘There’s a letter for you, pet,’ said Mam as Marina came through the back door, a heavy shopping basket hooked over her arm. It was the Saturday following her interview in Durham and Marina’s pulse did a funny little jump when she saw the long brown envelope propped up before the wedding picture of her brother Robson and his wife Edna, which stood on top of the sewing machine. She put the basket on the kitchen table and turned to stare at the envelope. Durham County Council, it said along the top, Treasurer’s Department. There wasn’t a proper stamp, just ‘postage paid’ in the same red ink.
‘Go on then, open it,’ Mam encouraged her. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come in ever since the postman came.’
Which was a sign that she was now officially an adult in the Morland household, thought Marina. Her mam wouldn’t have thought twice about opening her letters if she’d still been at school. She picked up the envelope and slid her thumbnail under the flap, tearing it along the top. She took out the s
ingle sheet of paper, it too headed ‘Durham County Council’.
‘Well?’ demanded her mother.
‘Mam,’ said Marina, ‘are you sure there’s absolutely no chance of me going back to school? You know I’d get a grant from the county if I went to college?’
‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘Turned you down, have they? Never mind, pet, they’ll be missing a good worker in you all right. And there’s plenty more jobs –’
‘Mam?’
Kate plunged her hands into the earthenware bowl and began rubbing lard and margarine into flour; Saturday morning was always baking morning. She didn’t look at her daughter, keeping her head bent to her task. ‘Marina, it’s now we’re short. Even if you get a grant for college, how are we going to get along in the two years before then? You’re practically a woman now, it’s time you were keeping yourself. Anyroad, what would I do if you went away to university? Why, man, you know you’d have to go away, miles away.’
Marina had heard it all before but she had wanted one more try. Girls in Jordan were expected not only to keep themselves, but also to contribute to the home.
‘I got the job, Mam. I start on September the fifth.’
‘Eeh, our Marina! Why did you let me go on? It’s grand, it is. Nobody else has a daughter working at Shire Hall!’ Kate rubbed her hands together to rid them of particles of fat and flour and held out her arms to her daughter. ‘Come here, pet, give us a hug. By, I knew you could do it, I did!’
Marina moved over to her and hugged her. Mentally saying goodbye to her dream, she smiled at Kate. ‘I’ll mash the corned beef with the tatie and onion, will I, Mam? Dad’ll be back in an hour and you know how he looks forward to his pies on a Saturday.’
When the pies were cooking in the oven at the side of the range, Marina began to take off her apron, thinking she would go along to see Rose, tell her the good news. Always, ever since they’d started school on the same day together, she had told Rose everything. Until these last few months, that is, when Rose had grown so strange. But the habit was a hard one to break. With Rose’s growing distance from her, Marina felt as though something had gone missing from her life.
