Above the Harvest Moon

by Rita Bradshaw

  Adam and his father decided to try their hand at a spot of painting and decorating and went knocking on doors in Fulwell and Roker and the more well-to-do part of Southwick, but as they were competing with many other miners, jobs were few and far between. Joe had a little more success collecting fish and vegetable scraps from the market and from people’s bins which he sold to folk who kept hens or pigs.The four younger children thought it was great fun to go out with shovels and buckets and follow the carthorses, picking up their manure, which they sold to the big houses on the outskirts of town for their gardens. As the strike dragged on into August, it was clear to Hannah that without Jake Fletcher’s help in the way of the sacks of food he brought to the house each week the Woods would have been in dire straits.

  It was this very thing that caused the first serious disagreement between Hannah and Adam late one Sunday evening at the beginning of September, a disagreement which was to have repercussions neither of them could have dreamt of. It had been a fine day and Hannah had joined the Wood family for a picnic on the beach.At least that was the way everyone referred to the hours spent picking winkles and looking for crabs and sea coal.The week before,Adam and his father and brother had earned a few shillings fetching sand from the beach, washing it in buckets and selling it to a local builder. This source of income had been short-lived. The builder had told them kindly there was only so much sand he could use and he wouldn’t be needing any more for a week or two. But the three men had noticed women and children foraging for anything the tide left behind. Hence the Sunday outing.

  It was close to sunset when they walked home to Wayman Street through the hot dusty streets. People were sitting on their doorsteps or gossiping over their backyard in the dying sunshine, the smell of the privies overpowering in some places due to the heatwave they’d been enjoying the last weeks.

  Hannah and Adam trailed behind the others, who walked ahead in a small group, Joe and his father carrying the five-year-old twins, Matthew and Robert, on their backs. Rose was holding a bucket full of winkles and Naomi one containing a few crabs, while Stephen and Peter were pulling the wooden packing case on wheels Mr Wood had made to transport the sea coal and seaweed which would be dried out and used on the range fire. No one glancing at the family group would have guessed the growing desperation within its ranks. The summer was all but over, autumn was upon them and winter loomed round the corner with its ice and snow and raw winds. They were weeks behind with the rent, the twins had ringworm and impetigo and no matter what their mother tried she hadn’t been able to get rid of the infections, and all the family were pale and washed-out looking.

  As Hannah and Adam turned the corner into Wayman Street, they saw the others approaching the tall dark figure of Jake Fletcher who had obviously been waiting outside the house for their return. Adam swore under his breath. ‘What’s he doing here? Come to gloat.’ He swore again, a base oath, and Hannah blinked against it.‘Why me da doesn’t tell him to stuff his charity where the sun don’t shine, I don’t know.’

  ‘He’s family, Adam. He’s only trying to help out.’

  ‘Help out?’ Adam stopped and looked at her, shaking his head. ‘Don’t you believe it. He’s rubbing our noses in it, that’s what he’s doing with his sacks of this an’ that. I’d rather starve than take anything from that scum.’

  But he didn’t. He ate the spuds and turnips and other vegetables Jake brought each week, along with a joint and the odd round of cheese and butter. Quietly, she said, ‘Why do you hate him so much?’

  ‘Because he’s an upstart. Thinks he’s better than the rest of us.You can see it in his eyes, and all because he got lucky. He’s managed to pull the wool over Farmer Shawe’s eyes and work his way in but he’ll come a cropper one day.’

  She stared into Adam’s face, at the clear fresh skin and handsome features.‘It must have been hard for him, looking the way he does.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. He’s canny, he’s used it to his advantage. How else do you think he’s got where he is? By rights he should be here with the rest of us, doing what his da did and his granda afore him. Instead he chickened out and took the easy road.’

  Such animosity. ‘Perhaps it’s not the easy road, just a different one.’

  Adam’s face stiffened. ‘You sticking up for him?’

  The look on his face warned her to say no more but lately she had bitten her tongue more than once. ‘I’m only saying people don’t necessarily have to follow what their parents do, that’s all. Just because his da was a miner and yours is, it doesn’t follow Jake or you have to be one. Everyone should be able to make their own destiny and aim for what they really want.’

  Adam’s expression didn’t alter.‘You’re talking rubbish.’

  ‘I don’t think so. If folk want to better themselves—’

  ‘Oh, so he’s better than us now, is he? Here’s the truth of it. You think he’s better than me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. I didn’t mean that. I was talking generally.’

  ‘Generally my backside.’ He was livid. She could see it. ‘Maybe you think you’re too good to walk out with me, is that it? All this talk about leaving the pit and going down south.’

  Her expression altered to one of angry surprise. ‘I said that once, just once.’

  ‘Maybe it was once too much.’

  ‘You mean I can’t discuss anything with you? Can’t have an opinion? I’ve got to be like your mam and most of the women hereabouts, treating the man of the house as lord and master and worshipping the ground he walks on? Well, I don’t think I’m like that, Adam. So there you have it.’

  There was a telling silence while they stared at each other, Adam’s face red with fury and Hannah’s chalk white. But she wasn’t going back on what she’d said, much as she loved him. He was like his father in as much as he didn’t think anyone could have a different opinion to him, certainly not a woman anyway. And she hated that about him.

  ‘If that’s the way you want it . . .’ He turned and marched away from her down the street towards his front door. The others had gone indoors.

  For a moment she couldn’t believe he’d left her like that and she stood still, expecting him to turn any second and call for her to catch up with him. She watched him reach his front door and without pausing he went into the house. He did not look back.

  The air went out of her like a deflated balloon and she felt the colour sweeping over her face with the urge to cry. Did this mean he’d finished with her? She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he had. Oh, why had she said those things? What did any of it matter compared to Adam? How could she have been so stupid?

  She walked the twenty-odd yards to the shop on leaden feet, praying Adam’s head would appear round his front door any moment and he would come towards her. Inside the shop, she stood for a minute or two. She didn’t want to go upstairs yet. She needed a little while alone to compose herself. She took off her straw bonnet and coat and left them at the foot of the stairs, and carried on through to the shop kitchen and backyard. Outside, the warm muggy air hung like a blanket within the brick confines of the yard and she walked across and sat on top of a stack of empty orange boxes. She had managed to secrete one or two into Adam’s house over the last weeks but she’d had to be careful her uncle didn’t catch wind of what she was about. She didn’t have to worry now. She could hardly go round to Naomi’s if she and Adam weren’t speaking, let alone walking out.

  With the thought came the tears. She was still sniffing and in the process of drying her eyes on her handkerchief when her uncle’s voice from the doorway of the house brought her off the orange boxes with a start. ‘What you doing out here?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just coming up.’ She pushed her handkerchief into her pocket as she spoke but did not move towards him. He was blocking the way into the house and she didn’t want to have to squeeze past him. Lately there seemed to have been too many occasions when he’d engineered just such a situation and the feel of his flabby bod
y made her nauseous.This last thought and the funny way her uncle was looking at her caused her to say flatly, ‘Where’s Mam?’

  ‘Your mother has a headache. She’s lying down.’ He stared at her in the gathering twilight, the setting sun turning her thick chestnut hair fiery red. Licking his lips, he said softly, ‘What’s the matter? You’ve been crying.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s that Wood lad, isn’t it? I told you. I told you how lads are but you wouldn’t listen.You’ve only yourself to blame, letting him take liberties and then wondering why he starts messing you about.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Indignant, her chin rose.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. I know how lads and lassies are. You’re not in the family way, are you?’ he added as the thought struck.

  She could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she was standing. These past few months he had been drinking more than he used to; not getting blind drunk but having just enough to make him either awkward or maudlin. Her chin rising even higher, she snapped, ‘Don’t you talk to me like that. I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you’re not ashamed. Brazen you are, like the rest of your kind.’And then his attitude changed in the blink of an eye and he mumbled, ‘Aw, lass, lass, don’t look at me like that. I don’t mean it. You make me say these things. Look, don’t hanker after the Wood lad, he’s not worth it.You want someone who can treat you nice, buy you things, eh? He’d never have been any good for you, not a miner. Even when they’re in work they don’t make enough to keep body and soul together. You want different to that.’

  He had been slowly approaching her as he talked and now a terror like nothing she had felt before froze Hannah’s vocal chords. She didn’t know how to describe what was in his face, she’d never before seen blind lust, but as he had advanced she had retreated until now she felt the hard wall of the yard behind her back. Her eyes, wide in a petrified stare, held the bloodshot ones of her uncle, and from somewhere she found the strength to stammer, ‘St-tay away from me.’

  ‘I’m only asking for a bit of kindness, Hannah, that’s all, and for that I’ll treat you like a princess, you’ll see. Anything you want, anything. You know what’s what, you can’t have messed about with the likes of Adam Wood without learning a few things, and I wouldn’t let you down.’

  ‘No.’ As his hand came out tentatively, she smacked it away and immediately he grabbed her, pinning her against the wall with his bulk as his mouth fastened over hers in a wide wet kiss that had her choking. Struggling violently and half mad with fear, she kicked and struck out, the acid smell of his sweat thick in her nostrils. She managed to wrench her mouth from his and give one strangled scream but then he slapped her across the face and her head hit the wall behind her hard enough to make her see stars.

  He had one hand over her mouth and nose and she could hardly breathe, which only added to the dizziness caused by the bang on her head. When she found herself lying on the dusty stone slabs she continued to struggle, but it wasn’t until she felt his nails scratch her skin as he hoisted her skirt up to her thighs that she found the energy from somewhere to kick out.

  There wasn’t a great deal of power in her legs but straddled as he was above her, one hand fumbling with his trousers, it was enough to knock him off balance and onto his side. As she rolled over and away from him, he caught her foot, grunting obscenities, but now that she could breathe again, panic and fear renewed her strength and this time when she kicked she jerked herself free. Scrambling away on all fours, she reached the back door and hoisted herself to her feet. She didn’t look behind her. He was swearing and cursing as she stumbled through the kitchen and into the main area of the shop, making for the front door and the street, her only thought to get away.

  She heard him lumbering after her as she wrenched open the door and fell into the street - straight into the arms of Jake Fletcher. He caught her as she fell, almost losing his own footing in the process, and his startled exclamation of, ‘What the hell?’ was followed by, ‘Hey, hey, it’s all right, I’ve got you.’

  ‘He-he tri—’ Clasping hold of Jake and sobbing hysterically, her legs gave way, and the next moment she was whisked up into his arms. Expecting her uncle to appear at any moment, she clung to him, gasping, ‘He’s coming after me.’

  ‘No one is coming after you and if they do I won’t let them get you, OK?’ It was almost dark now and helplessly Jake glanced about him, but apart from a couple of women at the far end of the street, it was deserted. ‘You’re safe, don’t cry,’ he said as her sobs mounted.

  What on earth had happened in there? He thought there had been someone behind her but the shop door had swung to and with the blind down it was impossible to see in. Something had scared her half to death though. Making a snap decision, he turned and retraced his footsteps.

  It was Naomi who answered his knock, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she took in Hannah in her brother’s arms. Rose was sitting in the kitchen and she was alone; the four younger children had gone to bed, and Wilbur, Adam and Joe had gone straight to the Colliery Tavern after returning from the beach.

  Rose jumped to her feet as her son walked in and for a few minutes all was flurry and commotion. When Hannah was sitting in Wilbur’s armchair in front of the range, with Rose and Naomi kneeling either side of her comforting her, she managed to tell them something of what had happened. Jake’s face became dark with rage. ‘Her uncle?’ He glanced at his mother who was grim faced. ‘The filthy dirty swine.’

  Naomi and Rose had their arms round Hannah who was still shaking and sobbing, but as Jake turned to leave, Rose sprang to her feet. ‘Wait up, lad. Don’t go in there by yourself.’

  ‘Don’t go in there? I’m going to give him something he’ll remember for a long time.’

  ‘No, lad, no. Look, I’ll come with you. The lass’ll be all right with Naomi for a minute or two. We don’t know what’s what yet.’

  Jake glanced at Hannah. Her coiled hair had become loose and strands of it fell in wild disarray about her shoulders. One side of her face was flaming from her uncle’s handiwork and her blouse had several buttons missing and was gaping open, showing her petticoat. His voice guttural, he growled, ‘Look at her, Mam.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Rose agitatedly smoothed her hair and reached for her shawl. She bent and whispered something in Naomi’s ear before straightening and saying to Jake, ‘Come on then, but please keep calm, lad. We don’t want more trouble, I’ve enough on me plate as it is.’

  In the street, Jake caught hold of his mother’s arm. ‘What did you say to Naomi?’

  ‘I asked her to find out if there could be possible consequences to what’s happened.’

  ‘Dear gussy.’ Jake stopped dead. ‘You don’t think he managed to . . .’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I asked her to find out while it’s just the two of them.’

  Jake shook his head. ‘He wants stringing up from the nearest lamp post.’

  ‘Aye, maybe, but not by you and not tonight.’ They had reached the shop and it was Rose who stepped forward and rang the bell. She had to repeat this twice before the door was opened. Miriam Casey looked at them, her thin face unsmiling.

  ‘Where is he?’ Jake said grimly.

  ‘If you are referring to my brother-in-law, he is upstairs having his supper.’

  She knew. It was in every line of her face and body. Wondering what kind of a woman Hannah’s mother was, Jake said, ‘You’d better get him down here pretty fast.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Fletcher. He’s rather upset.’

  ‘He’ll be more than upset if I have to go up and drag him down.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Hannah’s lies, haven’t you?’ Miriam’s voice was low but without a tremor in it; in fact, unbelievable though it was, Jake could have sworn there was a touch of elation in her tone. ‘Edward told me exactly what happ
ened earlier.Were you aware your son and Hannah have quarrelled?’ she added, turning to Rose. Without waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘And she came in upset and Edward tried to talk sense into her. He reprimanded her admittedly, told her to have some pride and to stop chasing Adam, but that was all. And then she went mad.’

  ‘So mad she slapped her own face and tore her clothes?’ Jake’s voice made Rose shiver. ‘Let me make myself clear, Mrs Casey. If your brother-in-law isn’t down here in thirty seconds flat I’m raising the street. All right? And I’ll tell them exactly what transpired and show them the lass to prove it.’

  Miriam raked Jake with her cold eyes before stepping back a pace. ‘You had better come in.’

  Once they were both standing within the aromatic confines of the shop, Miriam said shortly, ‘I’ll fetch him but please keep your voices down. My sister-in-law has been unwell today and he doesn’t want her distressed.’