The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m not being silly, but you know what it’s like down there.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to come sometime.’

  The coolness was pressed from her body, she was warm again. She dropped her eyes from his.

  ‘I’ll call for you tomorrow…that’s fixed.’

  Her head was up. ‘No, no. Please, oh please.’ She was pleading now. ‘Don’t come to the door, I’ll meet you here.’

  He was about to say something when a group of boys who had come tearing down the roadway now raced round them on the pavement, and one of them, as he swung away from a pursuer, grabbed at Sarah’s skirt. As she almost overbalanced David’s hand went out to steady her, and he cried at the boy, ‘Here! Here! Let up on that, will you?’

  The boy scrambled back into the road again, but the one who had been doing the chasing stopped in the gutter and peered up at Sarah, and without a preliminary lead-up remarked, ‘There’s hell going on in your backyard, Sarah. Yer da’s taken the belt to Phyllis. She’s been screaming blue murder and he’s locked yer ma in the netty.’

  Sarah’s lips moved without any intention of uttering words. For a moment they were like the lips of a very old woman chewing the cud of unformulated thought; only Sarah’s thoughts were not unformulated. In a matter of seconds the faint sweetness of life that she had tasted was smudged out with the picture conjured up by the boy’s words. She could not bear to look at David but turned away and with a swing of her body sped from him and raced up the road. Then he was by her side running with her, and she was forced to stop. Gasping, she almost barked at him, ‘No, no! Don’t come, please. I don’t want you to. Don’t you see?’

  He remained still, saying nothing, and once again she was running past the street corners. There were no men standing at the bottom of her own corner tonight, nor were they in the front street. The street was strangely bare, except for Mrs Young, the neighbour on the right-hand side. She was coming out of her house as Sarah hammered on the front door, and she said quietly, ‘I doubt you’ll not get in that way, hinny; he’s been at it for the last half-hour. You know, something should be done with him. I would go to the Cruelty Inspector, I would an’ all, if it wasn’t for your ma. He’s belted that poor lass within an inch of her life. Sam Ferris just got over the wall in time. He’s mad, you know, vicious and mad when the fit takes him. I wouldn’t care if he did it in drink, but for a man who’s teetotal and acts the way he does there’s somethin’ radically wrong with him.’

  ‘But what’d she done, Mrs Young?’

  ‘Aw lass, it’s none of my business, you’ll know soon enough. But I’d go round the back if I was you.’

  Running again, Sarah entered the back lane. There were groups gathered together all along its length, the men mostly by themselves, the women likewise. Outside of their back door were four men standing and a woman. The woman turned and said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Sarah.’ And one man, taking hold of her arm, said, ‘I wouldn’t go in for a while if I was you, lass; let him cool down. Your mother’s with him now.’

  ‘He’s not all to blame,’ another man was addressing her, his head bouncing as if on wires. ‘You’ve got to do something when it comes to that, you know.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Mr Riley? Comes to what? What’s happened?…Leave go of me.’ She turned to the man who was holding her arm, and when he released her the other man said, ‘Arabs, to put it in a nutshell.’

  ‘Arabs?’ Sarah was aware that she was showing all her teeth, that her lips had moved back from her gums as if the word itself smelt.

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said, lass. Young Phyllis’ been with an Arab. Now your da’s no angel, we all know that, but I would have done the same in his case.’

  ‘No bloody fear you wouldn’t; he’s a maniac!’

  As the woman spoke, Sarah pushed past the group and went through the open back door and up the yard. There was no sound coming from the kitchen, the whole place appeared quiet. She opened the door and stepped into the little square scullery and noted that the tin dish, which usually stood on the cracket behind the door and in which they did the washing up and used for everything that required the use of water, was lying against the wall end up, and that the floor surrounding it was covered with soapy suds. She opened the kitchen door and stepped quietly into the room. Her father was sitting at the corner of the table. His thin sour face looked yellow, and the red marks that always streaked the whites of his eyes seemed to have spread completely over them. They looked a bloodshot blur except for two dark jets pointed at her from his narrowed lids. His short wiry body and equally short legs were held taut; he looked as if he were jointless.

  She glanced quickly from him towards her mother, who was standing with her hands gripping the mantelpiece, her head hanging forward, gazing down into the low fire in the bottom of the deep grate between the black-leaded oven and the pan hob. Her mother was a big woman, almost twice the size of her father. She had been bonny too at one time, with a fine figure and a laughing face, but Sarah hadn’t seen her really laugh for years. A thought that she had asked herself countless times she asked again now. Why did she do it…marry him? A man ten years younger than herself. Perhaps, as she had told herself before, it was just because he was ten years younger and she had been flattered.

  Her words came out on a stammer as she asked, ‘W-what’s the matter?’ She couldn’t believe what they had said in the back lane, that Phyllis had been with an Arab. Her father would jump at anything that would give him the excuse to use his belt.

  ‘So you’ve come in, have you?’

  Ignoring his words, she said again, addressing herself pointedly to her mother, ‘What’s the matter?’

  Pat Bradley was on his feet, glaring at her now from his bloodshot eyes. ‘You’re goin’ to make on you know nowt about it, that’s what you’re going to do, aren’t you? There’s a pair of you. Oh, aye, there’s a pair of you. What she doesn’t know you’ll put her up to. Not that she needs much coachin’.’

  Her mother turned from the fireplace, speaking for the first time, her voice heavy with a dead kind of weariness. She said, ‘Go on upstairs, Sarah, and see to Phyllis.’

  ‘She’ll go when I give the word.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ Annie Bradley turned on her husband, towering over him, threatening now. ‘You’ve done enough for one night, I’ve told you. You’ve gone too far this time. I told you what would happen if you lifted your hand to one of them again, didn’t I?’ She turned from the staring eyes of the man and said again to Sarah, ‘Go on up to Phyllis.’

  Sarah turned away slowly. She wanted to go up to Phyllis and yet she didn’t want to go, at least not yet. She wanted to face up to this man too, to tell him what would happen if he dared raise his hand to her. She knew that she had been waiting for a long time for this opportunity and praying for the courage to use it, but she obeyed her mother. Moving between the square wooden table and the leather couch, she opened the staircase door and, groping for the rope balustrade, she pulled herself up the almost precipitous staircase. One step across the four-foot square of landing and she was in the bedroom, standing by the bed looking down at Phyllis.

  Her sister was lying on her side. Her jumper lay in shreds across her back; there were two rents in her skirt from waistband to hem, and the seat of her bloomers were all black as if she had been dragged around the yard. Sarah brought her face closer to the torn blouse. There was no sign of blood, but, lifting the shreds of material apart, she saw a criss-cross of rising dark-blue weals.

  ‘Oh, Phyllis!’ She put her hands gently on her sister’s shoulder, but Phyllis did not move or speak, and Sarah said, urgently now, ‘Phyllis, sit up. Phyllis, do you hear me? Come on…Phyllis.’

  Phyllis moved slowly; then with an effort, as if her body was tied to the bed, she turned on to her hip. Her eyes were closed; her face, except for a dark weal that started at the top of her ear and came down across her cheek to the corner of her mout
h, was a sickly white. But Sarah was not looking at her face, she was looking at her breasts, the small undeveloped breasts that Phyllis was forever trying to enlarge. They were bare and criss-crossed with lines, similar to the one on her face.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed and gently enfolded the slight body within her arms, rocking her like a mother with a child. And again she said, ‘Oh, my God!’ She stayed like this for some time, gently rocking and making sounds that expressed pain; and then she said, ‘I’ve got some Pond’s cream; I’ll rub it on, eh?’

  Phyllis still did not speak, but when Sarah released her she moved her legs and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked as if all life had been whipped out of her, not a protest left. But this impression was shattered as Sarah went to apply, with gentle fingers, the first dab of cream on to the weal on her sister’s cheek, for Phyllis’ hand came up and gripped her wrist and in a whisper, cracked and hoarse but laden with a fierce strength, she said, ‘One day I’m going to kill him, Sarah.’

  Sarah did not reprimand her for the statement, but, sitting close to her, she whispered. ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘He said I’d been with an Arab.’ Phyllis’ eyes were looking straight into Sarah’s.

  ‘But you hadn’t, had you? Not an Arab.’

  ‘He said I’d been with an Arab…not just speaking to one…with him.’

  ‘But you’ve never even spoken to an Arab, have you?’

  ‘Of course I have.’ Phyllis’ eyes did not drop away. ‘They come into the cafe every day, you’ve got to speak to them.’

  ‘Yes I know, but not outside?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to one outside.’

  ‘Oh, Phyllis!’

  ‘Don’t say “Oh, Phyllis!” like that. He’s a decent enough fellow; in fact he’s better than them around these doors, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Oh, Phyllis…but…but an Arab. You know you’ll get your name up. You’ll be hounded out of the place. Remember Betty Fuller? You mightn’t, but I do. She married one, and when she came back to see her mother, Mrs Baxter emptied the chamber pot on her out of the upstairs window. I was only about ten, but I remember. The whole neighbourhood was raised.’

  ‘What do I care? Anyway, I hadn’t been with him and I’ve only spoken to him twice outside the shop. Once, when I was crossing the ferry, Mr Benito had sent me to North Shields with an order and he was on the ferry and we got talkin’, and I can tell you’—her voice now hissed at Sarah with a strength born of anger—‘I can tell you he spoke to me better than the lads around this quarter do. He talked just like any Geordie, but he had manners.’

  Sarah did not say anything; she was bewildered, amazed. Phyllis talking to an Arab! Everybody knew what happened to girls who went with Arabs; they were ostracised, never again could they come back into the clan. Their families knew them no more—at least not around this quarter, they daren’t. Most of the white girls who married Arabs lived in the Arab community in Costorphine Town and East Holborn way. Those who made a break and took houses in other parts of the town only stayed for a short time, the neighbours saw to that.

  Even among their own kind, Sarah knew that class distinction was strong. The top and the bottom of the fifteen streets knew their places; they didn’t mix…or at least they hadn’t until she had broken—or, more correctly, David Hetherington had broken—the hoodoo. But this distinction of class, which took its pattern from the even stronger sense of distinction that prevailed in Jarrow and Shields, even crippled as each town was with unemployment, was nothing to the distinction between a white girl of any class and an Arab.

  At this point Phyllis’s face screwed up with pain and she pressed her hands gently over her chest; then, turning her head slowly to Sarah, she said, ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do, Phyllis. But tell me, how did he’—she nodded towards the floor—‘get to know?’

  ‘It was this afternoon; it was only the second time I’d spoken to him outside, as I told you. I’d just finished and I was comin’ up into the market when I thought I would like to bring me ma something home; you know she likes mussels, and so I went to that shop, you know that sells the mussels and the brown bread and beer, and he was inside. He was having a plate of mussels and he asked me if I’d have one. I said no thanks, I’d just come in to take some home, and when I came out he came with me and we walked along the street and up into the market. I couldn’t say “You can’t walk along of me”, could I?’ Her eyes, pain-filled yet rebellious, asked the question, and Sarah said, ‘No. No, of course not…And that was all?’

  ‘Aye, that was all; atween me and God that was all. But you know something?’ Phyllis brought her face to Sarah’s. ‘It won’t be all from now on. You bet your bottom dollar it won’t be all. He’s done something to me the night, broken something. He’s belted me afore but not like the night, and I swear I’ll get me own back. An’ I know how I’ll do it an’ all. By God! Aye, I’ll get me own back!’

  ‘Oh, Phyllis, you’re feelin’ bad, don’t talk like that.’

  ‘Aye, I’m feelin’ bad, I feel awful.’ Phyllis now moved her head in a desperate fashion. ‘I feel I’m gona die, but I’ll not die.’ Her head wagged quicker now. ‘No, I’ll not die, I’ll live just to spite him. Oh God.’ She joined her hands tightly together. ‘Oh God, I’ll get out of here and quick. You’ll see, you’ll see. I’ll be gone afore you; you’ll see, our Sarah.’ She was talking as if Sarah was opposing her. And Sarah said, ‘All right, all right, don’t excite yourself. Go and lie down; let me put some of the cream on your back.’

  Like a child now, Phyllis lay on her stomach, and when Sarah had treated her back she turned over slowly and said, ‘I feel bad, Sarah; oh, I do feel bad.’

  ‘You lie still, I’ll go and get you something.’

  Sarah smiled compassionately down at the slight figure, and her fingers touched the white cheek, the one without the weal.

  But when she closed the bedroom door behind her she stood leaning against the wall for a moment. There was in her an overpowering feeling of rage. Such was its strength, it filled her with apprehension, for she had the desire to rush down the stairs, pick up the shaving strap that hung below the little mirror to the side of the fireplace and lash his thin body with it until he cringed for mercy; and she knew she could do it, she knew she was big enough and tough enough to do just that. Then why didn’t she? Perhaps because she had never raised her hand to anyone in her life. She tried to force herself to carry out the urge, but all she did was to say, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God.’ Then, as she groped her way down to the room below, she ground out at herself, ‘You’re big and soft. Why don’t you do it? If you did he’d never use that belt again.’

  There was only her mother in the kitchen, but a signal from her indicated that her father was in the scullery. She said to her, ‘I’m going to get the doctor.’

  ‘What’s that you say?’ The small tousled head came round the scullery door.

  ‘I said I’m going to get a doctor.’

  ‘Be God y’are! You bring a doctor here and he’ll be attendin’ to two of you; I’ll give you a taste of what I’ve given her. I intend to in any case, me lady. An’ if I hadn’t come across her the night with her chocolate-coloured fancy man you would have had it first. But it isn’t too late.’

  ‘I’ve told you I’m having no more of it.’ Annie had moved towards her husband.

  ‘You save your breath, woman. If you’re satisfied to have a couple of tarts for daughters they’re not staying under my roof.’

  ‘Well, let them go!’ Annie was shouting now.

  ‘They’ll go when I’m ready and not afore. But I’m not keeping a roof over a pair of bloody prostitutes.’

  Sarah took two rapid steps and she stood leaning forward, gripping the edge of the table as she cried, ‘Who you meanin’? You’d better be careful, because I’m telling you, after what I’ve seen upstairs it won’t take much for me to turn the tables. You’ve ha
d it your own way too long, everybody scared to death you’ve had. Well, it’s finished. If you as much as raise your hand to me or anybody else in this house I’ll use your belt on you and flay you alive I will! I will, I’m telling you!’ Sarah was yelling now, almost screaming the words, and her mother was standing to the side of her, pulling her away from the table by the shoulders, as she tried to drown her voice by shouting, ‘Give over! Give over! Do you hear me?’

  As if she had been galloping down the road, Sarah leaned back, drawing in great gasps of air. And this was the only sound for some moments, then Pat Bradley, pushing the door back to its fullest extent, came into the room. He began talking, but his voice was low, even calm. ‘Huh! We’re talkin’ big now, aren’t we, since we’ve rubbed shoulders with the top end?’

  ‘What about the top end?’ Sarah was glaring at him over her mother’s shoulders. She watched him saunter casually to the fireplace and stand with his back to it, the palms of his hands pressed against his small buttocks.

  ‘Nothin’. Nothin’ at all, if you know where you stand. But when a fellow from Camelia Street picks up someone from the midden end it’s not with the idea of turnin’ her into a respectable woman. Is it now? Plain thinkin’, all round, is it now?’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong then.’ She was barking at him again. ‘You, with your sewer mind, you’re wrong then, because I’m going to be married, see…see!’

  She felt her mother’s body start, and it acted like an injection on her own. She slumped against the table. My God! What had she said?

  There was silence in the kitchen again, until the alarm clock on the mantelpiece gave a rheumaticky whirring sound as it passed the hour.

  ‘Well, well, we’re movin’ fast, aren’t we? What’s all the hurry for, eh? You haven’t known him a month.’