A Mother's Gift (29 page)

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked baldly as they bumped along to the rise where the track ran out. ‘We’ll have to walk from the road end,’ she added.

‘No we won’t,’ said Robert. ‘I’ve tackled worse terrain than this in a jeep.’ And so he had, he thought, a picture
of
the North African desert coming to mind. Sure enough he drove right up to the front gate of the cottage with no trouble.

There was a closed-up look about the place. Usually in summer the front door stood open but now it was firmly shut. But suddenly it was flung open and Kate came out on to the path, arms akimbo.

‘I told you lot yesterday I had nothing to say to you! Now you’d better be ganning before I get the polis on you. Oh! It’s you, Georgie, what the heck are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you till this afternoon. And you, what do you want with me?’ This last was addressed to Robert as she suddenly recognised who he was.

‘Well, that’s a real northern welcome!’ said Robert dryly. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in Miss Benfield?’ He couldn’t help noticing how lovely she looked with her cheeks flushed with anger and her eyes flashing.

‘My name is Hamilton; it was changed by deed poll years ago, Matthew saw to it. And Georgie is a Hamilton too, it’s on her birth certificate.’ Kate stared at Robert her chin lifted. He wasn’t going to put her down, indeed he was not, and not on her own ground any road.

‘Oh Mam, we may as well go inside,’ said Georgie. She was weary of it all suddenly. And if there were reporters lurking about on the moor she didn’t want to see them.

‘Howay then,’ said Kate. ‘Let’s hear what you have to say, Robert Richards. We might as well get it over with.’

Inside, Dorothy was hovering in the tiny hall, looking anxious. ‘Will you make some tea, Dorothy?’ asked Kate. ‘It’s all right, this is Mr Hamilton’s stepson.’

‘No tea for me,’ said Robert.

‘Oh, please yourself.’ Kate led the way into the sitting-room. ‘Now, as I said before, why are you here?’

‘I want to know who is responsible for telling
The Recorder
,’ said Robert. ‘And if it was either of you, and I strongly suspect it was, do you realise what harm you may have done the family? Not to mention the business!’ He didn’t raise his voice but his tone was hard, cutting almost.

‘You’re a fool if you think it was me or my Georgie,’ snapped Kate. ‘I was pestered all day yesterday; I couldn’t come outside of my own front door. Why should I speak to reporters, for God’s sake? Did you read what they said about me and the lass? Did you? They pushed a copy through the letterbox this morning and were shouting through it, asking what I had to say about it. A tart they branded me, and my Georgie a tart’s daughter. Do you think I wanted that?’

‘I didn’t think you’d care,’ he replied. After all, that’s what you are isn’t it?’

Georgina snapped. ‘Don’t you talk to my mother like that!’ she shouted. ‘It wasn’t her fault,
he
made her do it. He ran after her, he—’

‘Oh? And how did he do that?’ asked Robert. He looked mildly interested, as though he was asking about the weather. ‘He didn’t tie her up and kidnap her, did he?’

‘No, but—’

‘Oh, for the love of God, stop it!’ said Kate. ‘Georgina, keep out of this or you can go into the kitchen and help Dorothy. And you,’ she rounded on Robert. ‘You watch
your
tongue or get out of my house!’

‘I’m going. I only came to say that if either of you talk to the press ever again, say one word to them, I’ll blacken your names until you won’t dare show your faces anywhere. And don’t think I can’t do it. What’s more, we will contest my stepfather’s will and make sure you don’t get a penny, either of you. Now, have I made myself clear?’ He looked from one to the other, Kate was livid, her face white as a sheet and Georgina was quivering with rage. But Kate put a hand on her arm warning her to stay silent.

‘Are you finished?’ she asked. ‘Then get out.’

‘Good day to you both,’ said Robert and his tone was almost pleasant. It changed, however, as he went out into the hall and opened the door and a flash bulb exploded in his face. He strode up the path and grabbed at the camera and threw it down on the ground.

‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’ the cameraman shrieked, ‘I’ll have the law on you, I will, that’s expensive equipment that is.’

‘Do that,’ Robert snapped. ‘See how far you get. This is private property in case you didn’t know.’

‘It’s broken, look what you’ve done,’ cried the cameraman. He was bending down on the path and picking up the camera. Kate, watching out of the window, couldn’t see much wrong with it except that the flash bulb attachment had become separated from the camera. In spite of her rage at the way Robert Richards had spoken to her she gave an involuntary smile.

‘Go on, get off this property,’ said Robert, standing over the man threateningly.

‘I’m going, I’m going,’ the cameraman shouted. He got to his feet with the camera and bits in his arms and went off through the gate and up the path a short way, unsure where the so-called private property ended. Robert strode to the jeep and got in and started the engine. He reversed and turned back up the hill and drove straight up, making the newspaperman jump to one side.

‘Watch where you’re bloody going!’

Robert grinned and drove off, soon disappearing over the rise.

‘The arrogant bugger,’ Kate said. ‘By, it’s not often I swear but I’ve been driven to it today. I tell you, Georgie, I’ll swing for that fella if he doesn’t change his attitude to us. And mind, the next time one of those newspaper men come to my door he’ll get a bucket of water on him.’

‘Well, Robert soon shifted that one,’ Georgie remarked. She gazed at her mother. Kate’s face was more animated than she had ever seen it. And her cheeks were flushed slightly, a becoming pink so that her mother looked ten years younger. Georgie’s heart lifted, let them say what they like, she thought. She and Kate would be all right.

Robert, driving along the road to Teesside, felt a bit ashamed of himself. Talk about kicking someone when they were down, he thought. And no matter what, there was no denying that Kate had had hard times these last few days. And Georgie too. Georgie was little more than a child, he should have had more restraint he could see that now. Poor kid.

He had been so angry though, so fearful of how all this publicity would affect his mother. And so sure that Kate
or
Georgina must have said something to the damned press. Now he reckoned they must have had some other source. He grinned as he remembered the cameraman and his broken camera. He would probably have, to pay for that. But it had been worth it. Kate had been so feisty when she opened the door but nevertheless she had had a haunted look, her eyes large and luminous in her white face.

She had looked so young, no older than he himself was anyway. For goodness sake, he thought angrily, Matthew must have got hold of her when she was still a child, the old lecher.

‘I’M GOING TO
Winton Colliery today. Will you come with me?’

Georgina, spreading marmalade on a slice of toast, looked up in surprise. ‘Winton Colliery?’

‘Yes, Winton Colliery. You know where it is, I’ve told you about it,’ Kate said patiently.

It was the end of August, and in the weeks since her father had died Kate had not ceased to surprise Georgina. Kate had bought a small car, second-hand of course for she was not prepared to put her name on a list and wait for a new one, but a Morris 8 and in good condition. She had learned to drive and passed her driving test in record time and now Georgina was taking lessons.

‘Are you sure you want to go back there?’ Georgina asked. ‘You haven’t got very good memories of the place, have you?’

‘Of course I have, I was brought up there,’ said Kate. ‘Now I’ve a fancy to go back. Howay, it’s a lovely day for
a
ride out. You can drive if you like. At least some of the way.’

Georgina had been planning to go over the list she needed to take to Durham but after all, there was still plenty of time.

‘Okey dokey,’ she said.

‘We’ll take a picnic if you like. I’ll have a word with Dorothy,’ said Kate.

It was a good day for a drive. Soon they were rolling along the road east, driving across the Great North Road at Rushyford and on past Windlestone Hall to Coundon.

‘I’ll drive from here,’ said Kate. ‘I know the way and anyway you’ll have the chance to have a proper look at the view,’ she added as Georgina opened her mouth to protest.

They swept down Durham Road into Bishop Auckland, the castle and park on their right. There was a slight haze on the bottom by the river but when they swept up the road past the bishop’s castle into the market place it gave way to bright sunshine. It was market day and the place was thronged but Kate wasn’t fazed, she negotiated her way by the stalls and the buses standing in and turned down into Newgate Street, the main street.

‘This is my home town,’ she said.

Georgina was not impressed. The street was long, narrow, straight and dusty. The shoppers were mostly shabby and some of the shops could do with painting. There was still an air of austerity about the shop windows but then, she thought that was true of most towns in the after math of the war.

Kate turned left at the traffic lights and soon they were going through a succession of mining villages with their attendant slag heaps and winding gear and tall smoking chimneys making the air smell smoky. Periodically, along the long lines of tiny houses, there were heaps of coal, the miners’ allotments, ready to be shovelled into the coal houses. There was coal dust in the air, shimmering in the sunlight.

‘It’s good to see the pits working,’ said Kate. ‘I know it’s because of the war but even so. By, my grandda would have been over the moon if he knew they had been nationalised. It was always his dream. It all looks grand, doesn’t it?’

Georgina looked at her in amazement. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for her mother when she was a little girl. If this was grand what must it have looked like then?

‘It looks pretty dismal to me, Mam,’ she said.

‘Dismal? Dismal? Don’t talk tripe,’ said Kate. ‘The bairns have shoes on their feet, haven’t they? I know the government is stopping the rationing of shoes next month. Here the shoes were always rationed. Rationed by the lack of money to pay for them, not the coupons in the ration books. Mind, our Georgie, you don’t know the half of it.’ She shook her head to emphasise her point.

She was driving along the edge of the Winton Colliery rows by now and she slowed and pulled up by the side of the road.

‘Are we here then?’ asked Georgina.

‘We’re here. Come on, get out, we’ll walk up the road
to
the rabbit warren and have our picnic there before we look round.’

They strolled up the road past the houses, past where they could see the old village to one side, past the colliery yard and out into the country. Kate carried a rug to sit on and Georgina had the picnic basket over one arm. When they came to the track that was the entrance of the rabbit warren Kate changed her mind and walked on, up the bank to where there was a derelict building, its roof fallen in in one place and grass growing thick round the door.

‘It was the engine house of the old aerial flight,’ said Kate. ‘Billy Wright and I sometimes came here when we were courting.’ Memories of being here with Billy were rushing back to her. She had a soft, faraway look in her eyes as she spread the rug by the building and sat down, leaning against the old red bricks that were warmed by the sun. She looked so relaxed and happy that Georgina said nothing, not wanting to disturb her mother’s mood.

They ate sardine sandwiches and drank dandelion and burdock pop, sitting side by side and gazing out over the valley. On the opposite side the bank rose steeply for about a mile, mostly farmland and woods. The view was hazy because of the smoke from the houses and mine workings but no less lovely for that. To Georgina it looked like an impressionist painting.

It was quiet, no one walked by for a while until a couple of miners coming off shift. They were still black and had their helmets pushed to the back of their heads so that the white line showed above the coal dust on their faces and
their
hairline. They still wore their leather knee protectors and as they walked coal dust shimmered on their clothes.

‘Now then,’ one said as they passed and both nodded their heads.

‘Morning,’ said Kate and scrambled to her feet. ‘Do you mind, I used to live around here. Can you tell me if there’s anyone called Benfield still living in Winton?’

The older one of the pair pushed his helmet further back until it was in danger of falling off the back of his head.

‘Willie Benfield do you mean? Aye, he lives there. And there’s Ethel, only she married Dave Canvey. Was it Ethel you wanted?’

‘Thank you. Yes, that’s right, thanks,’ said Kate and sat back down as the men walked on.

‘Ethel? Who is Ethel?’ Georgina asked.

‘My sister,’ said Kate and picked up her sandwich and finished eating it.

‘You didn’t tell me you had a sister.’

‘No. Well, I didn’t tell you everything,’ said Kate. ‘When we’ve finished we’ll walk down and see if Ethel Canvey is in.’ As she ate, Kate was gazing out over the village and colliery. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘they’ve put up some pre-fabs on that side, do you see? I wonder who has been lucky enough to get one of those? I read they have bathrooms and fitted kitchens. Even refrigerators.’