Up in her room, Cally sobbed until she was empty.
8
The upshaft cage rattled to a halt, coal blackened colliers pouring from its confines. George hung back, letting his workmates push past him to hurry home, or to the pub. Then he dawdled across the pithead; he was in no hurry go home and he didn’t fancy a pint, or mindless chatter concerning pigeons, whippets and pigs.
Throughout the summer, consumed with guilt, he had taken the easy way out and let Annie have her way. Cally’s disappointment had torn at his heart, and although he would have been proud for her to attend the grammar school, he knew he wasn’t up to contending with Annie’s wrath for the next seven years. These days, what with that and the continuing threat of strike action, George felt as though his mind wasn’t his own and that he was a shadow of the man he once had been.
‘Hey, George! Somebody here to see you.’ The clerk hurrying towards George gestured at the wooden hut by the pit gate. ‘They’re all waiting for you.’ He gave George a curious look.
All? George’s expression matched that of the clerk as he pushed past him into the hut. An elderly man and four children eyed him expectantly. George was utterly bewildered.
‘Are you George Manfield?’ The elderly man stuck out his hand. Automatically, George clasped it. The man smiled. ‘I’m right glad we’ve found you. I was afraid you might have moved.’
George frowned. ‘What do you want wi’ me?’
‘To bring you your Rosie’s bairns: you being their rightful next of kin I’ve brought ’em here. I—’
Seized with panic, George waved him into silence. ‘What the bloody hell are you talkin’ about?’
‘Your Rosie’s dead; died a couple o’ weeks back and our Fred got killed down t’pit a year past. I’m Fred’s dad. This lot need looking after and I can’t do it; I’m too old for that sort o’ thing.’
In a daze George pictured his sister Rosie, a sister he hadn’t thought of in years. She’d left home at sixteen and gone to work in Nottingham and since then they’d had no contact. Now Rosie was dead and this man was expecting him to take responsibility for her brood.
‘I can’t take ’em,’ George blustered, ‘I’ve me own family. There must be somewhere else they can go.’
The man shrugged. ‘Only t’workhouse or one o’ them orphanages: Rosie wouldn’t want that. She always spoke highly of you. Said you’d step up to the mark if she didn’t pull through – and she didn’t.’ He dabbed the fingers of his right hand on his forehead then his chest and either shoulder. George stared, mesmerised.
Two girls and two boys, their clothing shabby with age, watched this exchange, their eyes darting to George’s face, then their grandfather’s, and back again.
The grandfather made for the door. ‘I’ll be off then now we’ve settled things. You be good lads and lasses for your Uncle George.’
George’s roar ricocheted off the hut’s walls. ‘Hold on! Hold on! You can’t leave ’em wi’ me.’
‘I’m not taking ’em back. Like I said, you’re their next o’ kin.’ The man bolted across the pithead.
The youngest girl began to cry and George dithered, torn between running after their grandfather and removing the children from under the supercilious gaze of the sniggering clerk. By the time he’d shepherded them outside their grandfather was nowhere in sight.
‘Have you been diggin’ for childer today, Georgie?’ a workmate joshed as George, shrouded in embarrassment and cursing under his breath, herded the sorry brood through the gate. It would be all over the pit tomorrow, his workmates laughing at the way George Manfield had been saddled with four bairns. He set off at a brisk pace, the children running to keep up with him.
And what the hell was he going to tell Annie?
*
‘They’re not staying here. I’ve enough to do what with looking after me own and your blasted Cally.’ Hands on hips, Annie faced him defiantly. ‘To think you let him get away with leaving ’em. You can take ’em back home tomorrow.’
‘I don’t know where that is,’ muttered George, too stunned to argue.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Annie scoffed, ‘they can tell you.’
That night twelve-year-old Emma shared Cally’s bed and her older sister, Bella, thirteen, slept with Daisy in what had been Annie’s. The boys, Jack and Fred, aged ten and nine, slept with Bernard in a truckle bed George fetched from Joe Hudd’s second-hand furniture yard. The Godbers had moved in.
*
‘The Godber Invasion’, as Cally secretly called it, was a blessing. No longer was she the sole recipient of Annie’s wrath and, furthermore, the Godber girls were fun. Now the overcrowded little house pulsated with a new friction: Cally and the Godbers versus Annie. Cally had no sympathy; Annie was getting her just desserts.
To compensate she withdrew her labours, leaving the household chores to the three girls. She now spent her days wallowing in self-pity, her head buried in cheap magazines whose pages depicted the glamorous lifestyle she craved. To lighten the chores, the girls made fun of Annie behind her back.
‘Who’s this?’ Bella would scoff, pulling a mardy face and standing with her back to the fire, her skirt raised to warm the back of her legs.
‘Arsehole Annie,’ chorused Cally and Emma, Bella chasing them round the kitchen table making mock swipes at their backsides with the wooden spoon. Cally loved these moments, and for the first time in years the house rang with giggles and laughter.
Jack and Fred also rebelled against Annie’s harsh regime. They stuffed her Sunday best shoes with potato skins and tied the laces in knots, Cally laughing wickedly and saying, ‘She’ll be crippled walking to Chapel. That’s if she ever gets there.’
When the boys weren’t tormenting Annie they were out creating havoc in the village. Annie blamed George. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she raged, ‘you brought them into this house and they’ve brought nothing but shame and misery. We were happy before they came.’
George had grimaced. Wherever had Annie got that idea?
After a brief appearance before a magistrate, Jack and Fred were committed to an Approved School for wayward boys. George, present at the hearing, came away feeling the abject niggle of failure and a huge sense of relief. Annie would have less to complain about. With this in mind he dropped in to a pub and sat there deep in thought. He walked back to Jackson’s Yard, the beer in his belly giving him courage.
Cally and Emma were sitting in the yard darning socks and minding the youngsters. Cally ran to meet him, following him into the kitchen. Since his refusal to allow Cally to accept the grammar school scholarship, George had avoided being alone with her. Now he watched her stir the stew on the hob, his heart aching and his mind made up. There’d be a uniform and books to buy and bus fares to pay. And yet…
Annie greeted him pleasantly, her bitterness temporarily salved by a liberal dose of love stories. As they sat down to eat, George saw his advantage.
‘I know she’s missed a year but I think we should let our Cally go to t’Grammar in September if they’ll still take her.’
Cally’s grip on her knife and fork tightened. Her heart pounding, she held her breath. Emma gave her a triumphant grin.
Annie’s expression soured. ‘She’s not going. We can’t afford it.’
‘We’ll manage,’ George insisted, although he did not raise his eyes from his plate to meet Annie’s. ‘Now Bella’s working for t’Hattersley’s and them lads off where they belong it’s three less to find for – an’ there’s talk of us getting a rise.’ He glanced hopefully in Annie’s direction before adding, ‘It’s not right to spoil our Cally’s chances.’
Annie’s chair toppled as she leaned across the table glaring into George’s face. ‘Spoil our Cally’s chances,’ she shrieked. ‘You didn’t care when you spoilt mine.’
‘Aye, that’s right. Bring up that bloody old chestnut again. You wanted it just as much as I thought I did,’ he snarled. He pushed back his chair and stomped over to the fire
place. After lighting a cigarette he swung back to face Annie, and jabbing the Woodbine in her direction with every word he roared, ‘I say she’s going. I’ll not let a spiteful bugger like you ruin her future.’
Annie sneered. ‘Future, George, future? Our Ada wasn’t cold in her grave when you ruined mine.’
George reddened, a spectral vision of the night of Ada’s funeral rearing before his eyes. All the bombast went out of him. ‘Aye, you’re right about that, Annie,’ he mumbled.
Like a punctured balloon Cally released her breath. Annie had won again.
*
Cally had been glad to see the back of Bella for she was not dissimilar to Annie in her dealings with people. She had bullied Emma and Cally and now Emma was no longer under Bella’s coarse, sometimes malign, influence her naturally sweet nature came to the fore. In no time at all, Emma and Cally became the best of friends, two motherless girls against a tyrant: Annie.
In daylight hours, after school and at weekends, they equably performed the chores that Annie neglected, one protecting the other from her erratic outbursts. At night, in bed, their voices kept deliberately low so as not to wake Daisy and Bernard, they shared hopes and dreams, yearning and giggling like young girls do.
Sadly, whilst Cally and Emma grew ever closer, the more George distanced himself from the travails of his life. Not even the TUC’s threat for a General Strike in support of the miners roused his interest. Although Cally dreaded the thought of George being on strike – it was a strike that had made Annie a permanent fixture in her life – she was more worried by his apathy.
‘Look, Dad,’ she said, waving that day’s newspaper under his nose in an attempt to spark some interest, ‘it says that the transport workers and dockers and gas and electricity suppliers are all going on strike. You’re bound to win this time.’
When George showed no interest Cally leaned over his shoulder, drawing his attention to the headline. ‘Not a penny off the pay; not a minute on the day.’ she read out loud. ‘That’s the miners’ answer to the pit owners?’ She laughed, wanting George to laugh too, disappointed when he didn’t.
On the fourth of May 1926 the pithead winding gear of every coal mine in the country was stilled: the General Strike was on. It lasted a brief nine days but Calthorpe Colliery, like many others throughout the country, remained closed, the miners locked out by recalcitrant owners who, having demanded longer working hours for less pay, were not prepared to weaken.
‘Only one slice each, mind,’ snapped Annie, as Cally and Emma made the evening meal for, like their neighbours, the Manfields were living on a starvation diet. Annie continued carping. ‘It’s bad enough for me own children without other women’s brats taking t’bread out of their mouths.’
Emma flushed, but Cally tossed her head defiantly, glad to be some other woman’s brat.
‘There’s no sugar and the tea’s as weak as dishwater,’ she said, handing George a mug and a slice of bread and dripping. ‘Will you be joining the picket line today, Dad? Keep the Blacklegs out.’ George detested scab labour brought in by the mine owners to work the pit during a strike.
‘No bloody point,’ he muttered.
‘The coal owners can’t hold out for much longer, Dad; they’re bound to give in. You’ve got to stay strong and fight it out.’
Annie sniggered. ‘There’s no fight left in him; he’s good for nothing.’ She turned on Cally. ‘And you, you clever little bitch, you think you know it all, don’t you?’
‘No, Annie; but it stands to reason that if Blacklegs are kept out the owners will have to give in.’
This informed reply riled Annie. ‘Don’t be smart with me, young lady.’ She raised her hand, ready to lash out.
George leapt up, grasping Annie’s outstretched arm before it could find its mark. He stared at her for several seconds, outraged, then he let go of her and shambled to the door, wiping his hand on his trousers as though to wipe away some unpleasant substance. Cally shivered involuntarily.
Out in the yard, George climbed the steps leading to the ash pits and the wasteland, cynically noting that the grass was greener since Calthorpe Pit was no longer belching out its usual filth. Even the air smelled cleaner but it did little to raise his spirits; although a few pints might, he thought, his hands deep in his empty trouser pockets.
By the time he’d smoked a cigarette down to the point where it was burning his fingers, George was no nearer to finding a solution to his dilemma. Of one thing he was certain; this slow, pernicious degeneration of his life was driving him to despair.
The longer George stayed in some dark place of his own making, the more Cally worried, for although he had always been inclined to periods of sullen silence his inner strength had shone through, as though a fire burned within him. Now the flame was quenched. Even his stature seemed altered, shrunken, and he walked with his head bowed and shoulders rounded, as if his rippling muscles had turned flaccid overnight. Cally firmly believed it wasn’t just toil and strikes that had done this to him; it was Annie. She’d burned the fibre out of him, and along with the suffering and deprivation came the realisation that Annie had finally broken him.
Cally hated her all the more.
By the time Cally was almost fourteen she had reached the conclusion that she had no power over the passage of time or the events that took place. In the ever repeating lap and reel of the seasons things were born and grew lush and ripe, bursting into new life. Others dwindled and perished, beyond reclamation. Things changed, and sometimes you never knew the reason why, nor could you control the changes but you could learn to make the best of them; lost hopes and unattainable dreams are often replaced with those of a different kind when one is young. With the unforeseen arrival of Emma, she now had a friend in whom she could confide, and an ally to relieve her of Annie’s relentless animosity.
Furthermore, although the lost opportunity to attend the grammar school still rankled, a tentative offer of a job in the Council Offices presented her with a new opportunity to better her future. Thus, Emma’s friendship and the promise of what lay ahead emboldened Cally’s hopes – because there must be hope, mustn’t there?
9
Cally wakened suddenly, aware of someone standing beside the bed. Alarmed, she sat up. ‘What are you doing here, Bell?’
By way of reply Bella shook Emma roughly, saying ‘Get up, Em, pack your stuff; we’re leavin’.’
Emma wakened, befuddled and fractious. ‘Get off, Bell; what you doin’?’ She pulled the covers up. Bella yanked them back.
‘We’re off to Bradford. I’ve got us a lift on a lorry, so get a move on.’
Emma sat up, looking askance. ‘Bradford? I don’t want—’
‘What! You want to stay here wi’ that bitch, Annie, when you can come wi’ me an’ have a bit o’ fun.’ Bella’s incredulity sparked Emma into climbing out of bed. Bella began pulling Emma’s clothes out of the drawers, stuffing them into a bag she’d brought with her. Cally leapt to the floor. ‘Don’t go, Em.’ She grabbed Emma’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
Emma wavered.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Bella snapped, ‘if you do, arsehole Annie’ll put you into service like she did me. Come to Bradford. This chap I know has got us somewhere to stay an’ he knows where we can get work.’
Emma mulled over what Bella had said and then gave Cally an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, Cally. It’ll be better if I go with our Bell. I can’t stick Annie any longer.’
Cally plumped down on the bed, the spirit knocked out of her; why was it everyone she loved left her in one way or another? Her mam and Harriet went to heaven and her dad was in a place she couldn’t reach; now Emma was leaving for Bradford.
‘What’s with the bags and parcels?’ Annie, just out of bed, stared at the clutter on the kitchen floor. At the table, Bella and Emma stuffed drip-bread into their mouths. Cally was too miserable to eat.
‘We’re off to Bradford,’ Bella said, reaching for another slice. ‘I’ve ha
d all I can take from that snotty bitch, Hattersley.’
‘You’ve left Mrs Hattersley’s?’ Annie was shocked. ‘That was a good position, one you should be grateful for seeing as you’re not trained for anything.’
Bella swallowed noisily. ‘I was a dogsbody; she treated me like dirt. Do this do that, all day long. I was down on me knees one minute scrubbin’ floors an’ dressed in me best cap an’ apron the next, serving tea to her lady friends, an’ her clippin’ me ear if me hands were mucky.’
‘And do you honestly think you’ll find anything better in Bradford?’ Annie’s imperious tone cut the air.
‘Well, I couldn’t find owt worse,’ Bella retorted, ‘an’ anyway, this chap I know says there’s all sorts o’ jobs in Bradford. There’s lots o’ factories and mills what pay good wages there.’
‘In that case, be off with you. I’d not want to keep you from making your fortune.’ Annie’s tone bristled with sarcasm. ‘And when you’ve made it I hope you remember who it was took you in when you’d nowhere else to go.’
Bella looked Annie up and down disparagingly. ‘Well, it wasn’t you, you mardy cow. You hate the bloody sight of us. If it wasn’t for me Uncle George we’d have been in t’workhouse.’
Cally watched the battle of wills, saddened to think Emma was leaving, and on such an unhappy note. ‘Wait till my dad gets off night shift,’ she said, half hoping George would persuade Emma to stay.
Bella shoved Emma towards the door. ‘Take no bloody notice, Em, that lorry driver’s waitin’.’
Cally went with them to the top of the yard. A man she didn’t recognise leaned against the side of a lorry, its engine ticking over. He grinned when he saw Bella and flicked the stub of his cigarette into the gutter. She gave him a peck on the cheek before climbing into the cab. Emma gave Cally a fleeting, pitiful glance, then followed.
‘Take care, Emma, I’ll miss you,’ Cally cried, as the lorry drove away.
When Cally arrived back in the kitchen, Annie was celebrating with a cup of tea. ‘What is it they say? Two down, one to go,’ she gloated, leering spitefully at Cally and cackling at her own wit.
The Child from the Ash Pits Page 7
