A Mother's Gift (6 page)

NOAH TOOK A
deep breath of the fresh, cold air as he came out of the cage with the rest of the safety men on his shift. It brought on a deep, rumbling cough and he stopped for a minute to clear his air passages. So he was a little behind the rest of the men as they crossed the pit yard to the gate. In spite of the cough, which was becoming a regular and persistent irritation to him, he was still an upright figure, striding out with a young man’s gait. He glanced at the fancy car standing in the yard with a chauffeur in a peaked cap sitting at the wheel. (No sort of job for a real man, he thought fleetingly.)

‘Wot cheor,’ he said to the man as he caught his eye.

‘Now then,’ the man replied.

Briefly Noah wondered what sort of high-up boss was in the office of an idle pit but his curiosity was only slight, he was more interested in what Kitty had ready for his dinner.

Matthew, looking out of the window of the manager’s office, watched Noah as he made his way down the yard.

‘What’s that man’s name again?’ he asked.

The manager was sitting at the desk making notes of the conditions under which they would re-engage the men with Parsons overseeing him. There had been no need for Matthew to be there and the fact that he was put both men on edge. They looked up from what they were doing. Thompson got to his feet and went over to the window.

‘Benfield, sir,’ he said. ‘Noah Benfield. He’s a hewer but he has been working with the safety men. He knows the layout of the mine like the back of his hand,’ he added as though making excuses for having a hewer doing safety work.

The agent was gazing out of the window too by now. ‘It’s the man you wanted taking on,’ he said. ‘A couple of years ago.’ He hoped to hell it was the right man, he had forgotten all about him until now. He glanced up at Matthew.

‘A good man, is he? Satisfactory?’

‘Reliable, yes. Never misses a shift,’ replied Thompson.

‘Won’t be picking pitch then,’ said Matthew.

The other two looked at each other. ‘Pardon, sir?’ asked the manager.

‘Oh nothing,’ said Matthew, ‘Well, I’ll be off now, good afternoon to you both.’

Both men felt a lightening of spirits as the ironmaster left the office. ‘It’s good news for the men, anyway,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘But how long do you think it will last, Mr Parsons?’

‘For as long as Hamilton’s Ironworks want the coke,
I
suppose,’ said Parsons. ‘But the outlook is more promising than it was, let’s just say that.’

Thompson knew he would get no more from the agent. Mr Parsons rarely discussed business with individual mine managers. Still, it was good to be starting up the pit after it had been lying idle for so long. He handed the notice to his clerk to be typed and pasted to the gate. By the following Monday he expected to have taken on all of the men needed for the work. Within a month or so production would be back to normal.

‘Drive along the ends of the colliery rows, Lawson,’ said Matthew. ‘Fairly slowly, I want to see their condition.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Lawson was startled, the boss had shown no interest whatsoever in his workers’ housing before now. He drove along by the rows at ten miles an hour. Matthew was just in time to see Noah Benfield disappear into a house two or three doors down West Row. He didn’t even notice the condition of most of the roofs, most of which were awaiting the colliery slater to start repairs.

So that was where the man lived. Did his granddaughter live there too?

‘Right, Lawson,’ he said, leaning back in his seat. ‘Home now if you please.’ There was a couple of hours’ journey back to the Hall on the North York moors and Matthew settled himself to have a sleep on the way. It had been a full and interesting day and he had to prepare himself for the night with Mary Anne. For he was determined that he would have a son of his own to inherit the empire he was still enlarging at every opportunity.
And
opportunities there were, so many of his fellow businessmen, second and third generation ironmasters, had gone soft and slow, he thought. Too near-sighted to realise they were on the slippery slope and when they fell in over their heads unable to get out again. Ready for the picking they were and he was just the man to do it.

Matthew sighed, his thought returning to Mary Anne. Having sex with his wife, for he would hardly call it making love, was the hardest thing he had to do in his life. He couldn’t enter her bedroom without a couple of stiff drinks. ‘All cats are alike in the dark,’ his father had once said to him but it wasn’t true, not for him. Even with his eyes closed he couldn’t imagine her being anything or anyone other than Mary Anne, his mouse of a wife.

Still, he thought, as they drove through Darlington and out into the blackness beyond on the road to Yarm, she had proved she wasn’t barren at any rate. There were Robert and Maisie.

Later, about midnight in fact, when Mary Anne had been in bed for a couple of hours and was beginning to believe he was going to leave her alone that night, he entered his wife’s room. She went rigid as she lay in the high bed listening to him taking off his clothes, felt the movement of the bed as he sat down to take off his shoes, heard the thud as they were thrown to the floor. The scent of whisky hung heavily on the air.

The assault, when it came, was swift and brutal with no preliminaries. She ought to have been used to it but still, it was always a shock. Grasping her meagre breast he parted her legs with his knee and thrust into her.
Mercifully
it was over in seconds rather than minutes. He flung himself off her and lay on his back, panting. He felt her turn from him to lie with her back to him. She was still stiff and quiet; he could hardly hear her breath. Shame flooded through him, what was he putting this poor woman through?

‘I’m sorry, Mary Anne,’ he whispered and got out of the bed.

He put out a hand to her then decided against it. She would recover the sooner on her own, he thought. He walked across to the door and went out.

Mary Anne sagged down into the mattress as the door closed behind him. Her eyes stung with unshed tears but she didn’t cry. Instead she got out of bed and went to the hand basin, newly installed in her closet. She would not go to the bathroom in case he heard her though she wasn’t sure why. Instead she ran water into the basin, stripped off her nightgown and washed herself all over before putting on a clean gown. Then she gazed at herself in the mirror. Was she so repulsive? she wondered. Perhaps she was. Her front teeth were a little too long but they were white and regular. Her skin was white and rather dull, but that was because she hadn’t got out in the fresh air as she ought, not these last few weeks. The children had both had measles but they were recovering now. Her hair was thin and refused to curl, she knew that. Even when she wore steel pins all night the curl lasted only for an hour or two in the morning. A Marcel Wave made it frizz, not wave. It was neither one colour nor another, she thought dismally. Wearily she climbed back into bed.

It had been different with Robert. Her lovely man. Robert. Aching, she turned over on to her side. Robert had loved her, really loved her, not what she could bring to the marriage. She had been able to conceive with Robert and she had two beautiful children to show for it. Oh, Robert, why did you have to die? The familiar ache settled on her, in her stomach, in her head. Robert was gone and in his place she had Matthew and Matthew didn’t love her. It was her own fault, she could have refused to marry him, she had been a widow for goodness sake. She had wanted a father for her children and her own father had persuaded her that Matthew was just the man. And he had been kind when he courted her. In fact, he was kind to her most of the time. The exceptions were all in bed.

Dear God, she prayed, let there be a child. Then perhaps he would leave her alone. She lay awake for a long time, allowing the thoughts and memories of Robert to fill her mind. They were a comfort to her, she could almost forget the reality of her present life when she did that but sometimes they made her feel disloyal to Matthew. Tonight she didn’t care.

Grey light was creeping around the edge of the curtains before Mary Anne finally got to sleep. She could hear movement in the dressing room next door, then water running. Matthew was an early riser. After a while the soft noises stopped; she heard his door close. It was only then that she relaxed sufficiently to drop into sleep and then she dreamed. The old dream, the one she loved. Robert was alive and they were living at Whitworth Hall and the sun was always shining and the children laughing. All
four
of them would go down on to the beach near Hart and they would search for shells and watch the sea coalers and their donkeys. Little Robert loved to watch the sea coalers.

Maisie was slow to walk and Robert would take her on his shoulders and they would walk along the beach to Crimdon and back to the Hall in time for tea. And then she woke up and the euphoria would fade.

Matthew never had time to spare to take the afternoon off from the business, she thought. And even if he did it wouldn’t be the same. Wearily, Mary Anne forced herself out of bed. It was time to start another day.

‘BY,’ SAID KITTY
as they sat by the sitting-room fire on the afternoon of Christmas Day. ‘I reckon everyone in the rows will remember this Christmas all right. You should have seen the queue at the store yesterday morning, Noah. Ready money going over the counter an’ all. Some folk could even afford to go into Auckland to buy the bairns a few bits. Radley’s bus was nearly full.’

‘Will you stop rattling on, woman? I’m trying to tune the wireless in,’ Noah growled.

All that came from the accumulator set Noah had his ear pressed up against was a series of crackles and buzzes. Katie watched her grandfather excitedly, the wireless had been bought especially for Christmas with the dividend money Kitty had saved up in the store. All three had gone into Auckland to the main Co-op store to buy it, for the local branch sold little else but groceries and hardware. It had been a new experience altogether to see her grand-parents walking arm in arm down Newgate Street for all the world like a young courting couple.

‘Merry Christmas to all!’

A perfunctory knock heralded the entrance of Dottie and Jim from next door, Jim actually wearing a collar on his shirt and his braces on his shoulders rather than dangling down by the sides of his trousers. They were swiftly followed by Billy Wright, his mam and dad and his sister June. Before long the room was full to bursting. The young ones sat on the clippie mat leaving the sofa and the chairs brought in from the kitchen for their elders. Billy managed to sit next to Katie and was conscious the whole time of her thigh pressed close to his in the crush. All eyes turned to the corner by the window, where Noah still had his ear to the set. The crackling sounds were becoming longer and louder.

With an important though abstracted expression he fiddled with the aerial wire running from the back of the set out of a hole in the window frame up to the roof. He moved it slightly then went outside to gaze up at the aerial; came back in and twiddled with the knob.

‘Can I give you a hand, Noah?’ asked Will Wright, Billy’s father, starting to get to his feet but Noah waved him back.

‘Nay lad, I can manage,’ he said.

Sure enough the crackling stopped and a voice came over the airwaves. Instantly there was an absolute hush among the listeners in the room. Noah sat back in triumph and looked round at the others with pride.

‘We are here in Salisbury Cathedral where the Carol Service is about to begin,’ the voice said.

‘Hey! He talks funny, doesn’t he?’ Kitty demanded of Dottie. ‘Do you think he’s one o’ them foreigners?’

Noah frowned blackly at her. ‘By, woman, you don’t half show your ignorance,’ he snapped.

‘I only thought—’

‘Well, don’t! He talks like that because he’s a southerner, that’s all. He can’t help it,’ said Noah. Then everyone fell silent as organ music filled the room and the choir began to sing. And they stayed silent for the whole of the programme which lasted forty-five minutes.

Afterwards Kitty served tea and slices of Christmas cake with Wensleydale cheese. Katie, handing round plates of food and cups of tea, was happy enough to burst. It was the first party she could remember since she was very small. By the time the visitors filed out of the front door rather than the back for it was, after all, Christmas Day it was already dark. Outside, she could see the lamplighter with his long pole over his shoulder walking down the row, pausing at intervals to light the streetlamps. The gas flaring up before dying down to a steady glow added to her enjoyment of the magical day.

‘Eeh, it’s a miracle all right,’ said Dottie, lingering on the doorstep.

‘What?’ asked Katie, still watching the lamplighter.

‘Tch,’ Dottie chided. ‘What do you think? The wireless of course. By, I don’t know what my poor mother would have made of it. Merry Christmas, pet.’

‘Aye, merry Christmas,’ the others echoed and Katie went in and closed the door. The light from the gas mantle shone softly on the tinsel streamer wound round the brass
rail
above the fire and the red paper bell hanging from the ceiling. Oh yes, it had been a lovely Christmas.

The memory of that day came back to Katie as she wheeled the trolley round F Ward. Christmas Day in hospital was so different from what she had been used to, it was a different world altogether. She certainly had not realised how different when she passed her entrance examination and received the letter of admittance. She had been euphoric about it and her gran had been so proud she had told everyone in the rows. But Katie had worked so hard at night school, she deserved to get in.