The Menagerie

by Catherine Cookson

‘Hello,’ said Willie, who, however, did not hesitate in his walk but continued at an even pace up the street.

  After saying a faint farewell to Mrs Patty, Jessie entered her cottage and stood aside to allow him in. He preceded her into the kitchen, and there he turned to meet her. And his face was no longer jovial. Quietly and to the point he asked her, ‘What is it, Jessie?’

  She did not answer but moved to the table and adjusted the lace centrepiece, first one way and then the other.

  After watching her for a moment, he went on, ‘There’s something wrong. When you didn’t come to either service on Sunday I came round on Monday evening. I had the feeling you were not out, but you didn’t answer. Wouldn’t it be better to tell me?’

  It should be easy now he had given her an opening, but she found that she could not look at him. She turned away from the table and took off her hat and coat, and with his gaze intently on her, he said, ‘I haven’t known you very long, Jessie, as regards time, but I have the feeling that there hasn’t been a time when I haven’t known you. I shouldn’t be saying this now, and I wouldn’t have, only I’m uneasy inside—I have the unhappy faculty of sensing trouble. On Sunday evening after the service I enquired after you from Mrs King. It was from then.’ He came and stood near her. ‘Tell me everything, whatever it is.’

  She turned now and faced him. ‘I’m not coming to chapel any more, Mr Ramsey, and it would be better if you didn’t call here any more.’

  He stared at her for a long moment before saying, ‘Tell me the rest, Jessie. Go on, all of it.’

  She swallowed hard, then brought out in a shamefaced whisper, ‘They’re saying…’

  ‘Yes?’

  She turned the chair round and sat down. Her hands were clammy with sweat. ‘I’ll have to start from the beginning…about my mother.’

  ‘Go on then.’ He pulled up a chair and sat opposite to her, and haltingly, with bent head, she told him how she came to have the money and what she had done with it. And when no word of censure came from him, she looked up to find him smiling, a quiet amused smile.

  ‘I guessed so much from what Dobson told me.’

  ‘But he didn’t know.’

  ‘Yes he did. He knew she had money put by, but he couldn’t do anything about it.’

  ‘You think I did wrong in withholding it?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t. If anyone worked for that money you did. But go on.’

  Jessie went on. She told him of her spending, of Willie, and very haltingly of Mrs Macintyre’s visit. When she again looked at him his expression bore no amusement, yet it was not as troubled as she had expected.

  ‘That’s the world over,’ he said, ‘and there’s little you can do about it. Will you marry me, Jessie?’

  She blinked twice. Then, like some gormless creature, her mouth fell open.

  ‘It may sound sudden, I know, and although you won’t believe it it’s got nothing to do with what you’ve just told me. I would have asked you sooner or later. I knew on Sunday when I looked for you and you weren’t there. I missed the smile in your eyes, and the feeling of security that you give me. You see, I’m always doubting myself. You might find this hard to believe, but I am. All this hail-fellow-well-met is a façade. The long and short of it is I should never have been a minister, but my father was one, and well…Anyway, from the first day I met you in this kitchen when you faced up to Dobson you have been a source of strength to me, and then on Sunday I knew…I knew I loved you, Jessie.’

  ‘No.’ Jessie shot up from her chair. ‘It’s…it’s…you can’t. I’m older than you. It’s because I’m older.’ He did not move, but smiled up at her. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m thirty-one.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I’m twenty-nine.’

  She swallowed and stroked her neck. Her mind was whirling. She had just received the biggest shock of her life…a minister had asked her to marry him. He said he loved her. But he was like a boy to her—he didn’t look twenty-nine. He could never look twenty-nine, while she, she knew, looked and felt far older than her years. It was fantastic, and anyway she had only known him a few weeks. Her…a minister’s wife! His wife! Half fearfully, she looked down on him. His face was…good. It was, she thought, a lovely face, fair and open. But he was a gentleman with education; why should he want her? There had been nothing in her to hold Larry, so what could such a man as this see in her?

  As if he were reading her thoughts he said, ‘You don’t know it, and you’d never believe it because you’re so full of humility, but you’re beautiful. There’s something shining through you.’

  She turned from him, again helpless to answer. No-one had ever said such a thing to her. It made her hot. Her, beautiful. He was a strange man…boy. Yes, that’s how she thought of him, as a boy. Yet, he wasn’t a boy, he was more of a man than—she did not name the name—and he said he was in love with her and she could be married. Her mind leaped across the street. That would give Larry Broadhurst something to think about, her marrying the minister. And not only him, it would stop the tongues wagging in the wrong way. But what was she thinking? She couldn’t do it. Her and this man. He was a stranger; she didn’t know him or anything about him, only that he knew a lot about books and was kind. But even with his kindness and being younger than her, she stood in awe of him. She had to force her words out, and she stammered as she began, ‘It’s ve…ry kind of you, Mr Ramsey, but…but, I…’

  ‘My name’s Alan, and it’s not kind of me. If there’s any kindness that’s going to be done, it’s you who are going to do it. But don’t say anything now, think it over. I know there is someone else in the running.’ He smiled broadly. ‘Willie…but all’s fair, you know.’

  She gazed at him. Anyone listening to him would imagine that men were falling over themselves for her favours. That was the niceness of him—he had the power to make you feel wanted. But she couldn’t take him, she wasn’t fitted for him and his life. Larry, no matter how clever he might have become, would still have been no mystery to her; her love and adoration were based on knowledge of him. She could even see herself as Willie’s wife, but this man’s—never.

  He stood up and came towards her, and, unclasping her agitated hands, said, ‘You don’t dislike me, Jessie?’

  ‘No. Oh no.’

  ‘Do you love Willie?’

  ‘No, no.’ The truth was easy there.

  ‘Well then, I can wait. For a time at any rate. I am not staying here, Jessie. They are too set in their ways. It’s sad when you come to think that an old diehard hypocrite like Dobson, and that’s all he was, could hold them, make them believe, while moderation smacks to them of the devil. When I heard of you stripping the walls of those tracts, my heart leapt to you. Jessie, don’t look so scared. Am I so awful?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Ramsey.’

  ‘Alan.’

  The colour that was flooding Jessie’s face had in this moment brought beauty to it, and his eyes were making her desperate with embarrassment, when relief came in the form of a series of sharp knocks on the front door.

  ‘Excuse me a minute, there’s someone at the door.’ Hastily she withdrew her hands and went through the front room, and before the door had swung fully open, Lottie’s voice had begun.

  ‘Oh, Jessie, I had to come the front way. I tried your back door twice earlier on, and I came over last night and couldn’t make you hear. Can I come in?’

  Jessie knew that there would be a number of eyes on the doorway speculating as to whether Lottie would be admitted or not. ‘Yes, yes, come in, Aunt Lot.’

  ‘Oh, Jessie, we’re in a state. Jinny’s in a state, and I’ve been sick. And last night Larry went off. There was a row. He’s gone off for good with Pam. And her Dad’s been up, and Jinny’s nearly mad, and Frank—I’ve never seen Frank like he is.’

  The latch in her hand, Jessie stared at the brown paint on the back of the door. The gossamer thread of hope that had persistently lingered was broken. Slowly she turned and went towards
the kitchen, with Lottie behind her, gabbling on, ‘And Jinny won’t look at me, she won’t speak. I’m going to have a baby, Jessie.’

  ‘Ssh!’

  Lottie, standing in the doorway, looked at the minister. He had heard what she had said. Well, ministers weren’t men, they were like nuns and things. You could say things in front of ministers you couldn’t say in front of men, so she repeated to him, ‘I’m going to have a baby and Jinny, me sister’s, mad at me.’

  ‘Do you want a baby?’

  ‘Oh yes, I love bairns. Lena won’t let me near Betty, and the poor little thing’s funny like Mary Tollet in Cranwell Avenue. But I can mind bairns. I’ve always minded bairns.’

  ‘Aunt Lot!’ Jessie’s voice sounded a little like Jinny’s, and Lottie said, ‘Oh, all right, Jessie.’ Then she added, ‘There’s been no tea or anything. The house is all upset, and I daren’t go to the cupboard ’cause Jinny might go for me.’

  Alan Ramsey glanced at Jessie, and there was a gently humorous light in his eye as he said, ‘A cup of tea is always a good standby in times of trouble. Could I make one?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And as she went into the scullery a wave of sickness assailed her. He was gone—it was over. Well, she’d known it would happen, hadn’t she?

  A touch of the anger she had felt that night she had confronted him in the street returned. He would get what he deserved, as so would she. They would pay each other out. There was only one thing she wished. She wished he could know that the minister wanted to marry her. Not a pitman or a workman of any kind, but a minister, young, attractive, and a gentleman. Yes, a gentleman. She put a match to the gas which had been turned on for some seconds and it lit with a loud plop. A gentleman with a college education, and she couldn’t see him checking her pronunciation when she opened her mouth, as Larry had done after he had come out of the army. He was an upstart. Behind her love for him she had always known it. That’s why he had gone after Pam Turnbull in the first place. He wanted to rise, he wanted to write and be thought somebody, and the bitter truth of it was, if he did write and become somebody the wrong he had done to her and the American man would be forgotten, even condoned.

  The way of the world drained her anger from her. She made the tea, and when she returned to the kitchen Alan Ramsey came immediately to her and took the tray, while Lottie, laughing now, said, ‘Your minister’s funny, Jessie; he’s been making me laugh. He said he knew a woman once who hung her baby out to dry on a line. He didn’t, did he, Jessie?’

  Jessie looked at the minister, and his eyes were waiting for her. He smiled and in his smile she could see love for herself and pity and tenderness for Aunt Lot, and she thought, I’d be a fool if I didn’t take him.

  Chapter Ten: And the Things they Fear

  During the past few days Willie’s world had been knocked upside down—his mother had been proved right, Jessie was carrying on with the minister fellow. What he should do, he knew, was to go in and ask her point blank what she was up to. But he found he couldn’t. He had always thought Jessie as straight as a die, but he had seen them himself going into the house together on Wednesday, and he had stayed over an hour—he had timed him himself. Letting Aunt Lot in, his mother had said, was just a cover—the fellow had never been off the doorstep that week. And if you could pick anything out of Aunt Lot’s prattle, they were thick all right. It was fantastic and bewildering. The man hadn’t been in the town but a few weeks, and if rumour was true he wouldn’t be here many more. And yet, Willie thought, with the faculty he had for seeing two sides of every question, who could blame Jessie if she did take the chap? He was a good catch, and she wanted something after the dirty deal she’d had. But why had she let him himself cotton on to her? She should have told him straight out in the first place. He had, he supposed, as usual been slow. But he hadn’t wanted to rush her after her mother died. Still, she had known fine well he was courting her—hadn’t he done all the business of the funeral for her? Yes, she knew all right. She hadn’t really played fair; as his mother said, she had made a fool of him. He hadn’t minded standing aside where Larry was concerned, but he didn’t feel the same way about this other bloke.

  And then there was Larry. To leave the pit and go off like that without as much as a goodbye, after all the time they had been marrers. Why, they had been like brothers; closer than brothers, for Larry could hurt him where no-one else could. The pain of Larry’s departure was like a knife inside him, and the unusual emotion of hate was in him for Pam Turnbull. Women! The trouble they caused. But Pam Turnbull wasn’t even a woman, not as he thought of women, she was just a piece, fancy-tongued, and fancy-dressed.

  ‘Hello there, Willie.’

  ‘Oh, hello, John.’

  The man, his bait tin tucked under his arm, joined his step to Willie’s, and together they walked down the main road to the pit gate.

  ‘Won’t be doin’ this much bloody longer if those Johnnies don’t get them trains movin’. Seen the paper this mornin’?’

  ‘No,’ said Willie.

  ‘Negotiating now. That’s what happens when unions split. They’ve got to negotiate each other afore they can negotiate the bosses. What’s the good of a bloody union if it doesn’t speak for you all? Divided you fall, united you stand.’

  ‘Aye, that’s about it,’ said Willie.

  ‘And the dockers had a do at Liverpool last night, didn’t they? Wanted to lynch one of their blokes.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Aye. The country’s in a bloody state, and they can’t blame the Labour Government noo, can they? Aye, and if you believe all you read, wor coal mines are aboot worked oot. Some bloke writin’ in the paper this mornin’ about bringin’ industry to West Durham, ’cause wor pits are nearly worked oot. Aa’d like to write that bloke to come doon the Phoenix or the Venus. What d’ye say, Willie…eh?’

  ‘Aye, you’re right.’

  The man cast a sidelong glance at Willie and said in an altered tone, ‘Aw, lad, I wouldn’t take on aboot Larry Broadhurst like that. Larry was always too big for his boots to my mind; but he’s done a dirty trick noo, and that American chap is not goin’ to think any more of the English ’cause of it. But as I said to the wife in joke like, Larry’s payin’ the Americans back in their own coin. But she said the Americans’ wartime activities was ower. I thought that was a good ’un, I did…wartime activities. Still, he shouldn’t uv done it. The fellow’s a nice bloke; real toff, they say. Old Turnbull and his missis are nearly up the lum; and I saw Frank yesterday. My, he looked bad…properly down and beaten, he looked. That family’s had a run of bad luck and no mistake. And noo they say Aunt Lot’s goin’ to have a bairn.’

  ‘What!’ Willie stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Hadn’t you heard then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that’s how it is. Me missis was at the doctor’s when Jinny took her. Jinny didn’t let on—she wouldn’t—but Lottie told me missis last night. Bright and airy she was. It’s the Bog’s End fiddler. I hear he did a bunk.’

  ‘My God!’ Willie rubbed his mouth with his hand, and his face expressed his shocked horror. ‘Aunt Lot. Why, man, it’s awful.’

  ‘Aye, it’s awful. It’s bad enough when they’re really sensible, but Aunt Lot, what’ll she do with a bairn? And if it’s like her…Well, here we are.’

  They turned in at the gate, and were immediately caught up in a stream of men, one of whom said, ‘Hello there, John. Hello, Willie.’

  ‘Hello, Stanley,’ they both answered.

  ‘Aa wonder if we’ll get goin’ this mornin’,’ said Stan.

  Willie looked at the man with the hollow cheeks and blue-marked skin.

  ‘There was a fall near the gap in number seven last night—Jimmy Tollet’s just been telling me. They were testing for firedamp.’

  ‘Find any?’ asked Willie.

  ‘Not that Aa know of, and they don’t go shoutin’ about it if they do. We’ll know when we get down, if they won
’t let us along.’

  ‘The whole bloody rabbit warren is full of gas,’ said John. ‘Ted Fuller said the gas took his light yesterda’. He reported it and the dep put up a new canvas sheet.’

  ‘Bloody lot of good that’ll do. Stone dust’s the only answer, and more of it. It’s got to be mixed with every ounce of coal dust in the pit or else one of these days we’ll all bloody well pop through the top.’ Stan laughed with macabre mirth. ‘Last week I would have come straight up into wor back garden, and Aa’ve just set me peas, but noo that we’ve moved back to the West four junction Aa’ll likely come up in the Wear somewhere near Durham Cathedral. Aa can see meself crawling up the bank and gannin’ straight to the church and givin’ a word of thanks for me survival.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Willie’s tone was unusually sharp and Stan, laughing louder, said, ‘Why man, what’s up wi’ ye…got cauld feet?’

  Willie did not answer but swung away and joined the press in the lamp house, and John remarked soberly, ‘Willie’s aal for a laugh, but not aboot that. He hasn’t forgotten when he was shut in. The young ’uns don’t throw it off like we did, Stan, and you’ve got to throw it off if you mean to go on.’

  Willie, walking with the other nineteen men of his section along the main road towards the loading station, felt a sadness settling on him, which had nothing to do with Stan’s joking. Down here his mind was taken up completely with the loss of Larry. Sometimes they had traversed the two miles to the face and Larry had not opened his mouth, but he had been there, part of the ordered plan of life. Lately, he might have been a bit short at times, but what did that matter? He had understood…there’d been a lot on his mind…a whole lot. If only he had said he was going. But to go off like that without so much as a ‘so long’—it wasn’t playing the game. He should have told him. Surely he must have known that he wouldn’t condemn him for anything he did.

  ‘Hold your hand there a minute.’ The order came from their deputy as they approached him at the loading station. He was standing to the side of the widened road, along which ran a mass of cables. He was in the middle of a telephone conversation, and he nodded a number of times, saying only, ‘Aye, all right,’ before hanging up the phone and turning again to the men.