Slinky Jane

by Catherine Cookson

  At the opening he turned and looked back to where the girl was now standing in the middle of the drive. She was slowly and methodically wiping her hands on a handkerchief, and she raised her eyes and, looking towards him, said, ‘It’s a nice little village.’

  He nodded. ‘None better.’

  ‘Battenbun…the name’s intrigued me for days. I wanted to come and see what a place with a name like Battenbun could look like…it’s pretty.’ She turned her eyes and looked over the village green. ‘And quaint,’ she added.

  ‘Aye, it’s quaint all right.’ He smiled as if she had paid him a personal compliment. ‘Not a quainter or prettier village in Northumberland.’

  ‘It’s difficult to get at.’

  ‘Well—aye, it is, but I suppose that’s part of its attraction.’

  She nodded understandingly. ‘It hasn’t been commercialised yet.’

  ‘No. No, it hasn’t.’ But how I wish it was, he thought; then chided himself, No, you don’t! You know you don’t. No, he didn’t want Battenbun commercialised, but what he did want was a bit more traffic through and a few more jobs like this one here might prove to be. It was twelve o’clock in the day and but for Honeysett’s tractor he hadn’t seen anything on wheels go past the garage. And it was a bonny day, a fine day, a day when cars should be whizzing about. They were whizzing about all right, but miles away on the main road.

  ‘How long will it take you to find out what’s wrong?’

  ‘Well, I’ll get down to it right away. Perhaps you’d like to have a meal…Look, down yonder, at the far edge of the village, there’s the Hart. Mrs Booth does a good dinner.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘Aye, she does.’ He smiled as he looked at her; then he took his eyes from her, for she was staring at him in a fixed kind of way. Her eyes, he had noted, were brown, large, like saucers in her white face, but tired, lifeless. Only her voice seemed to hold any animation.

  As he looked away from her he happened to see his father running up the green from the direction of the Hart and making for the house. This was so unusual that he lifted his head and his eyes narrowed in the sun. His father never left the Little Manor before ten to one, landing home dead on one for his dinner. And when he waved to him excitedly before entering the gate he was made to think, ‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Do you live here? I mean in the village?’ The girl was speaking again.

  ‘Yes.’ He drew his eyes slowly back to her and repeated, ‘Yes…dead centre. Our house is the black and white one.’

  ‘Are all the houses old?’

  ‘Not all—some. Ours is the oldest, goes back four hundred years. It’s got the date on it. There’s been Puddletons there for over two hundred years.’

  ‘And your name’s Puddleton?’

  ‘Yes, I’m a Puddleton. My great-grandfather’s alive, and he’s near ninety…my grandfather is seventy-two.’

  ‘You’re all long-livers then here?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you could say we are. Plenty of fresh air, peace and quiet. Nothin’ much ever happens here…you can time everything and everybody nearly every hour of the day.’

  She was standing gazing at him, her hands hanging slack by her sides as she asked him, ‘Do you like it that way?’

  Now he became a trifle embarrassed. If he were to speak the truth half of him would say ‘Aye…yes, I do. I don’t want anything to change,’ but the other half would say, ‘I want a bit more business, and that means a bit more life.’ But whichever way he would have answered her was forgotten, for at that moment his whole attention was brought to the village green again, for there in a huddle, and making their way towards him, were his father, his grandfather and his mother. Now what on earth was up!

  So unusual was the sight of his family coming en masse to the garage that he had the desire to go and meet them but courtesy told him he had a customer, so all he did was to move a step or two onto the drive and await their coming.

  His father, away ahead of his grandfather and mother, reached him first, and one thing about him was strikingly noticeable. His face was abeam. This was unusual, at midday anyway, without a drink…or a woman to chaff.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Won the sweep?’

  ‘Sweep? No. What d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Road’s goin’ through!’

  The effect of these words on Peter was electrifying. His six-foot-two long angular body stretched, his head reared up, and the beam that split his face outdid that on his father’s.

  ‘No! Who told you? How did you hear?’

  ‘The major. He’s just got back from Hexham. Saw his solicitor, Ludworth. Ludworth told him the road business is set. Of course, the major’s furious…you know what he thinks about it.’

  ‘This is news, eh, lad?’ It was his grandfather speaking, and Peter answered, ‘Yes, Old Pop, I should say.’

  ‘We’re set for life now.’ The old man gazed around him from one to the other, until his eyes alighted on his daughter-in-law, and his look, so evidently full of the pints that future prosperity would bestow on him, wiped the bright gleam from Rosie Puddleton’s face, and she said, tightly, ‘Not so much of the we!’

  ‘Now, now, Ma!’ said Peter under his breath.

  The ‘Now, now!’ was an entreaty, but Rosie would have none of it. Looking up at this great big son of hers, she spoke to him as if he were still in his teens. ‘Never you mind, I know what I’m talking about.’ She nodded at him, then at her father-in-law, then at her husband, and Harry Puddleton exclaimed, ‘That’s goin’ to start now, is it?’

  ‘It’s never stopped as far as you’re concerned,’ said Rosie; ‘you never wanted me to buy the garage for him.’ She bounced her head towards Peter. ‘It was a dry well you said, no good, money down the drain. Forgetting it wasn’t your money that was going down the drain.’

  Just as Harry, his face darkening, was about to turn on his wife, Peter put in soothingly, ‘Now, now…look here, there’s enough time for all that later. And anyway—’ he threw his glance back to the girl standing in the opening of the garage, and his voice sank, ‘Anyway, I’m busy.’

  Harry, following the direction of Peter’s eyes, stared for a moment at the girl, and the smile slowly returned to his face. Then remembering with a self-conscious blinking the presence of his wife, he turned his attention to the matter in hand again and exclaimed excitedly, ‘You’ll be busier still, lad. Just think!’ He took a step back and his eyes swept over the garage, which had at one time been the blacksmith’s shop, then on to the piece of spare ground to the side, and, he murmured in something like awe, ‘Only garage for miles, and only bit of spare land in village, for it’s a known certainty that the major won’t let them build on his ground.’

  ‘There’s Poynter’s tree nursery,’ said Rosie; ‘he’s got a good bit of land there.’

  ‘And a good bit of income coming in from it. He’s no fool, he won’t sell that.’

  ‘Well, there’s the wood…don’t forget that,’ said Rosie, seeming bent on dampening her husband’s enthusiasm.

  ‘The wood!’ It was Old Pop who turned on her. ‘Who’s goin’ to build on that? The springs have it like a piece of wet yeast. The wood!’ he said scornfully.

  ‘They can drain,’ snapped Rosie.

  ‘You can’t drain springs, woman. They would pop up all over the place, under the floors and everywhere. No, as Harry says, that bit of land’—he pointed towards the side of the garage—‘that bit of land is the only buildable bit for miles, at least where it’s needed most, on the main road. The farms can’t do nowt, theirs is agricultural land. No, you’ve no opposition, lad.’

  As Old Pop was waving his hand about indicating the absence of opposition, his thoughts suddenly skipped away from garages and land and he, too, became aware of the girl. His grin widened and his eyes brightened, especially the one with the cast in it, and, touching the thin grey tufts of hair on the front of his bony foreh
ead, he nodded brightly and called, ‘Good day, miss.’

  The salutation brought all eyes round to the girl, reminding Peter that he had a job in hand, and he moved towards his client, saying apologetically, ‘I’m sorry, miss, but we’ve had a bit of news we’ve been expecting for a long time.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked from one to the other and smiled faintly; then added, ‘I’ll go down to the inn as you suggested. Will you let me know the trouble?’

  ‘Aye, I’ll come down as soon as I’ve looked her over.’

  She moved away, and as she came abreast of the group on the drive, the cast in Harry’s left eye, similar to that in his father’s, twinkled and he said, ‘Beautiful day, miss.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  Their eyes followed her, as if drawn by a magnet, and Peter, standing apart, also watched her go. Her walk reminded him somehow of her voice, lazy yet vital. He couldn’t place her at all. She was an odd type, bit of all sorts, he thought. He noticed that she did not take the foot-worn path across the centre of the green but was walking in the grass, and this added to the slight sway at her hips.

  It took just this movement alone to arouse the familiar ‘Well!’ in Rosie. She glanced quickly towards her husband. Like a vulture he looked, as did his father. They were all like vultures, the Puddletons, that is, all except Peter. She glanced towards her eldest son. He was of the same height and build as the other two, big-boned and dark, but not cross-eyed, thank God!

  ‘Well, Dad, what did Grandpop have to say about it?’

  This question of Peter’s that touched on a still more poignant thorn in Rosie’s flesh brought her swiftly from her critical comparison, to put in sharply, ‘What he usually has to say, swearing and carrying on.’

  Harry, ignoring his wife’s remarks, answered Peter with a laugh, saying, ‘Cursing his “pluddy” legs as usual, because they won’t carry him no father than the back door. But he’s game, he made an effort to come along wi’ us, didn’t he, Dad?’

  Old Pop nodded and laughed as he remarked, ‘Aye, he did an’ all. Some spunk the old ’un’s got.’

  Spunk! thought Rosie, with a whirling of agitation in her stomach that she always had whenever this bane of her life was mentioned. I wish his spunk would bring on a fit and he’d die in it, I do, honest to God! Ninety a week come Saturday, and by the looks of him could go on for another ten years. She turned her back on the group and raised her eyes to Heaven in silent prayer, but quickly brought them to earth again as Harry remarked sharply, ‘See there…there’s Mackenzie.’

  They all turned, and in silence looked to where a short, thickset man was edging himself from a car outside the cottage below their own.

  ‘I bet you what you like he’s got wind of this, and not just the day either.’ Harry turned and looked at his son. ‘What made him come last week and ask you for a share, eh? That was funny, when you come to think of it. And after them always holding us up as nitwits for buying. Aye—’

  A loud, sharp sniff cut off Harry’s words, and brought his eyes to Rosie again as she said flatly, ‘I’d like to remind you, Harry Puddleton, that us didn’t buy it. Oh, you can come round now.’ She waved her hand airily. ‘Oh, I know. I also know that you’ve been on at me for the last six years for spending me dad’s money on it.’ And she ended, by saying flatly, ‘This is Peter’s and mine, and the money it makes will be ours…see!’

  Harry Puddleton glared at his wife. Sometimes she aggravated him so much that he could murder her. He had to keep telling himself that she was a good mother. She was also a damn fine cook. Oh yes, he would always admit that. And their house was the most comfortable in the village—if only she would let you stay in it in peace! But as she got older she was getting worse. He knew that in his wife’s eyes he was woman-mad. She had only to see him look at a woman and in her own mind he was already sleeping with her. All the Puddletons he had ever heard of had had an eye for a woman. It was their natural trait, that is—Harry paused in his thinking—all of them except Peter. He sometimes thought that Rosie had thwarted all natural desire in this strapping son of his, for never, to his knowledge, had he had what he himself would call an affair. He was nice enough with the lassies, but nothing seemed to get beyond that. You couldn’t call the business of Mavis Mackenzie an affair, although it had caused a stink in the house last night.

  Then there was Miss Florrie…But nobody was supposed to know about Miss Florrie, least of all Rosie. Rosie would have a fit if she thought that Peter had any ideas about the major’s daughter. He was sure, in his own mind, that Peter hadn’t. It was Miss Florrie who was doing the running there. She was a strong character was that young lady and, like her father, usually got what she wanted. But to get back to Rosie. One of these days, if she wasn’t careful he’d walk out…he would that.

  Mr Mackenzie having disappeared into his house, their attention was drawn once again to the girl now nearing the Hart, and to Bill Fountain, the butcher, who was standing outside his shop waving his hand to them while with his hips giving an exaggerated imitation of the girl’s walk.

  And there’s another of them, thought Rosie. Another one that can’t keep his eyes at home.

  ‘Look at Bill wobbling his belly…mickying her, he is. Oh, he’s a lad. Let’s go down and tell him.’ Harry turned to his father. ‘Not that he’ll be over-pleased either, for he’s got the daft idea the road’ll take some of his custom away…Come on. See you later, lad, and then we’ll talk.’ Harry nodded to his son and, followed by his father, hurried from the drive onto the road, while Rosie, nodding after them, said, ‘“And then we’ll talk!” What have they got to talk about?’

  ‘Now, Mam.’ Peter looked down on his mother. ‘Don’t go on.’

  ‘They make me sick. What have they ever done to help? They’ve been at you for years about this place. Saying you couldn’t give it away, and you should go on the buildings or some such…be another Mackenzie and try to own the village.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go me own way as usual.’ He smiled gently at her. And when she answered his smile the hard lines went from her mouth and a softness came into her eyes, and, patting his arm, she said, ‘If you’re all right, lad, I’m all right.’

  He nodded down at her. ‘I know that, Mam.’ It was a shy admission. And then he added, ‘But don’t go for Dad, he doesn’t mean anything.’

  Her head moved in small jerks from side to side. ‘Doesn’t mean anything! Oh, I know what I know. But there, I must get back and see to the dinner.’

  ‘Be seeing you, Mam.’

  He smiled once again at her before she hurried away, and he watched her compact body bustling over the green towards the house. Poor Mam. In spite of her iron will and dominant attitude, he always thought of her as ‘Poor Mam’. But she should be better, he thought, when the road came through, for with it would come water, and this would mean a bathroom, one to outshine anything Mrs Mackenzie would have, of course. He smiled to himself. And why not? Why not, indeed! He himself wanted something to outshine the Mackenzies, especially Davy, the only fellow in this village or anywhere else who had ever been able to get his goat.

  Honeysett’s tractor came wobbling back up the village street, and he waited for it to wave an hello to George before turning finally into the garage to have a look at the job in hand.

  Perhaps it was the rumble of the tractor that covered up the sound of the approaching horse, for he had just lifted the bonnet of the car when a voice from the doorway said abruptly, ‘Hello, there,’ and he turned with a definite look of apprehension on his face to confront a short, slim young woman in riding kit.

  ‘Oh! Hallo, Florrie.’ His voice and everything about him showed his uneasiness and confusion, and as she slowly approached him he bent his head down towards the engine.

  ‘Look at me!’

  His head jerked up and he looked at her where she stood at the other side of the bonnet, and he almost spluttered as he said, ‘Now, now, Florrie. Now see here!’

  ‘Wh
y did you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’ He had grabbed up a handful of tow and was rubbing his hands with it.

  ‘You know what I mean. You took Mavis Mackenzie into Hexham on Saturday, didn’t you?’

  ‘Now, Florrie.’

  ‘Didn’t you? And out again on Sunday—didn’t you?’

  Florrie’s voice was so tight that she seemed to be finding it a bit of a struggle to get it past her lips.

  As if making an effort, Peter straightened his shoulders and, looking squarely down into Miss Florence Carrington-Barrett’s face, said, ‘Yes, I did. And what of it?’

  ‘What of it! You are a fool. If I’d been here you wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it, would you?’

  Throwing the tow into the corner and taking up a fresh lump, Peter continued with his rubbing as he said, ‘Look, Florrie, we had all this out last week. I told you it was no good…never could be. You’ll only get yourself talked about.’

  ‘Talked about!’ She almost spat his words at him. ‘What do I care about being talked about? It’s you who are afraid of being talked about. You haven’t the guts of a louse. You’re petrified of your own shadow…and your mother.’

  ‘Now, look here, Miss Florrie!’

  It would seem that the mention of his mother had recalled to his mind the title by which the daughter of the manor was spoken of in the house, and it brought a minor explosion from the young lady. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Peter, come off it, and stop the Miss Florrying. You know, I could laugh—if I wasn’t so mad I could laugh—you’re acting like one of last century’s melodramas. Miss Florrie!’

  ‘Well, it won’t do. I’ve told you afore.’

  ‘All right.’ Florrie’s voice was getting higher. ‘Say it won’t do, and say you’ve told me before. Was that any reason to take up with that nitwit after you had dodged her for years?’

  ‘Mavis is all right.’

  ‘Mavis is all right!’