The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  When the gas was lit in the kitchen it showed the fire banked down and almost out, and she hurried forward, saying, ‘Eeh! I’ll never let this happen again. I don’t know what I was thinking about.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘But I am. And no tea ready for you. The time just flew.’ She straightened her back from the fire, and turning to him, said, ‘I haven’t told you where I’ve been.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’ve been to see our Phyllis.’

  He swung round towards her. ‘You’ve been into Costorphine Town…to the house?’ His voice held concern again.

  ‘No, no, I got a letter from her by the second post. She asked me to meet her on the ferry. We went across to North Shields. I didn’t know whether to tell you or not.’ She drooped her head. ‘I thought if I did you might stop me, and I wanted to see her because…because she’s a good girl really. She’s not bad, our Phyllis, she’s only a child yet.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah.’ He was enfolding her again now. ‘I wouldn’t have stopped you. The only thing is I hate you going around the lower docks and that quarter on your own. It’s pretty rough round there, you know, at all times, and’—he pummelled gently round her chin with his fist—‘you’re an eyecatcher in any port.’

  ‘Oh, David, I’m not. You stretch it.’ She laughed, raising her brows at him. ‘ You forget I’ve been going back and forwards into Shields since I was fourteen.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you didn’t look…well…like you do now…happy. You’re more than fetching, Mrs Hetherington, when you’re happy.’

  ‘Am I?’ She slanted her eyes up to the ceiling as if thinking. ‘Well, I’m not to blame, it’s all your fault…Oh, David. Darlin’…’

  They sprung apart as if cleaved by a chopper when there came a voice from the backyard and a knocking on the back door. ‘Are you in?’

  As David withdrew the bolt Sarah applied herself madly to the fire. No fire on, no tea ready…his mother would have to come in at this minute.

  ‘I’ve been round three times this afternoon. You’ve just got in?’

  Sarah turned from the fire. She was still wearing her outdoor coat and she muttered hastily, ‘Yes, yes, I was held up.’

  ‘She’s been looking round the shops for Christmas boxes, got fascinated with the bargains and forgot the time.’

  Mary Hetherington was looking at the table covered with a chenille cloth and no sign of food on it. Then, looking at the fire, she remarked coolly, ‘It’ll be some time before you’ll get anything going on that; the tea’s still on the table indoors, you’d better come in and have it.’ Then, looking at David she added, ‘I suppose you’re ready for it with not a bite since dinner time.’ On this she went quietly out.

  Sarah and David exchanged glances, and as Sarah saw him make a gesture towards his mother’s back that meant refusal she quickly raised her hand, then called, ‘We’ll be in in a minute.’ She pushed at David as she whispered now, ‘You go on. I’ll just put some sticks on and get it going. I’ll follow you.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll see to it. I’m not going to be…’

  She swung him about and pushed him out of the kitchen, saying, ‘Go on. Go on.’

  When she had closed the door on him she stood with her back to it looking towards the dead fire, but she felt as warm as if it was ablaze and its flames were lapping the heat towards her. If David had to choose between her and his mother there was no doubt which side he would be on. She knew that when a man married the cord was not always cut between him and his mother, and if the wife went to snap it she was in for trouble. But in this case it was his mother who had snapped the cord. Yet there was a part of her that felt sorry about the severance. She didn’t want any upset. She didn’t want David to have to take sides. She wanted him to want his mother; not as much as he wanted her, but to want her nevertheless. She wanted them all to be happy and jolly together because she was happy. Life was being wonderful to her, and, oh God, she was thankful. As her mind uttered the word God she turned her glance quickly round the kitchen as if to reassure herself she was alone, then, dropping quickly on to her knees by the side of David’s chair, she buried her face in her hands and began to pray, asking God, as always, to overlook her past sins and to recognise her marriage. She followed this up with a prayer of thanksgiving, praying in her own way, her words bereft of any supplication. She made no pleas for future happiness, she only thanked God for giving her David.

  And as she rose from her knees she thought of Sunday morning and muttered aloud, ‘I’ll go to Jarrow mass, early. They know nothing about me there.’

  Only once since her marriage had she been to Tyne Dock church and she had come out feeling like the scarlet woman herself, and she knew that she couldn’t sit under the gaze of Father O’Malley ever again.

  She turned down the gas and was about to move out of the kitchen when she stopped and looked around. It had been a funny day. Funny things happened to people, perhaps they always had. But as you got older you became more aware of them. She had been to North Shields with Phyllis and walked countless streets, talking, talking, talking. David had met her off the tram and had nearly carried her into the house and had wanted to make love to her in the passage. Her body shivered deliciously at the thought. And then his mother had come in and brought with her bleak condemnation. And just a minute ago she had gone on her knees and prayed. She had never gone on her knees in the daytime before, unless she was in church…Yes, it had been a funny day.

  She locked the door leading into the yard, and when she went to open the back door into the lane it was pushed inwards and she was confronted with John’s broad back. He swung round towards her, his bulk only discernible in the reflection of the lamp from the bottom of the lane. His body stood within the shadow of the wall, but she could make out the chair he held in front of him.

  ‘I’ve just finished this one,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been out. There was no tea ready. Your mother came round and said we must go in for tea. I’ve locked up; will I let you in?’ She was gabbling.

  ‘Well, I’ll only have to take it back, I’m not leaving it in the yard. Don’t you want to see it?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, John.’ She rushed back up the yard, unlocked the door and held it open for him, and he moved past her into the kitchen and placed the chair by the side of the table.

  ‘There, what do you think?’ He was looking at her.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely.’ The words were slow in admiration. ‘I’ve never seen any like it, with a carved back.’

  ‘Sit in it and see how it feels.’

  She sat down and moved her ribs into the curve, then wriggled her body in the seat. ‘It’s lovely, and so comfortable. Oh, thanks, John. But you shouldn’t go on wasting your time making these. You’ve done us the table, that’s enough.’ She got to her feet and put her hand on the top rail.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a waste of time.’ He was looking at the chair. ‘Chairs are the most difficult things to do, more so than a table. A chair knows it’s going to be sat on; it’s a personal thing, a chair.’ He touched its back and moved his fingers across the grained wood to within an inch of hers.

  ‘Nice feel wood, hasn’t it? Clean, nothing underhand about wood.’

  She looked at him. He was waiting for her eyes. They hadn’t been alone together but once since she was married. She felt nervous, even slightly afraid, of what she couldn’t say. There came to her the memory of the night when she had wanted to fall on his breast and cry. She moved quickly and said, ‘Eeh! I’ll have to be getting next door or I’ll be in the black books. Are you staying?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’ His eyes were still on her.

  ‘Have you had your tea?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve had my tea, but I’ll stay until you come back. I want to have a talk with Davie. But don’t let on to the old lady I’m here.’ He smiled. ‘It wouldn’t do, would it?’

  She shook her head. They were like conspirators now. She
moved towards the door, but felt compelled to turn and look at him again. His eyes never seemed to have left her. She said quietly, ‘Thanks for the chairs, John.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. As she turned away again his voice came at her. ‘You know what I’m going to do when I get me dole this week?’ She looked over her shoulder waiting. ‘I’m going to get blind drunk. I’m going to bust the lot, every penny, and I’m going to roll in next door and lie on the couch snoring.’

  She couldn’t laugh. She knew that he wouldn’t get drunk on his dole. She knew that he would never lie on his mother’s couch snoring, as much as he might want to. He just said these things, he said them to her often, these things, apropos of nothing that had gone before, to hold her attention, to keep her looking at him. At first she had not known how to meet these moods—they were like the tantrums of a precocious child—and she had remained silent and embarrassed on the spate of his words, but on this occasion she put them in their place by saying, ‘A raw egg in tea is a very good thing for a hangover.’

  She was closing the back gate as she heard his laugh. It was high and mirthless, of the same quality as Phyllis’ had been on the ferry.

  It had been an odd day.

  Two

  ‘Have you tried Palmer’s lately?’ said Dan.

  ‘Aye.’ John lowered himself further into the couch by letting out a deep breath.

  ‘No good?’

  ‘No good.’

  ‘I thought since the N.S.S. had taken it over things had looked up. I heard they had a number of ships ordered.’

  ‘Aye, they have; and they’ve got a number of men to do the work and they’re sitting tight. They’ll drop down dead on the job before they’ll take a day off sick, that’s what fear will do to you…But, look, don’t worry about me, Dan. Stop, it, man, will you?’ John hoisted himself up straight again. ‘You’re like an old hen. Isn’t he, Sarah?’

  Sarah was working at a side table, her arms deep in a batch of dough, mixing, turning, kneading. She looked relaxed, completely at ease. She turned and smiled, not at John in particular but at the three men sitting around the fire. Her eyes coming to rest on David, his long legs stretched out on the fender, her smile widened, and he said to her, ‘Are you ready for more water?’

  ‘No, I’ve got enough, I don’t want to drown the miller.’

  ‘You can’t kid me,’ said Dan, ‘you’re worried. Why not admit it and stop acting the big fellow. It stands to reason, everybody’s worried. Even with the Palmer’s little boom on, people are not spending like they used to, they’re frightened. And who’s to blame them? You know, some of them on the dole are spending as much on groceries as those in work. I had a talk about this to a woman, a Mrs Robinson—she’s been a customer of ours for years. She admitted it. She said they were clearing up the rent and clubs and things because when the next bad spell comes they’d be able to run up again. But if they didn’t pay up now they’d get short shrift if they ever wanted tick again. And, as she said, you may be sure they’d want it again. It’s an awful lookout, you know.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said John bitterly now. ‘It makes me want to go berserk. We’re back a hundred years ago, man. There’s riots breaking out all over the country, and fellows being jailed. Nothing changed in a hundred years. The men marched from Hebburn and Shields to Jarrow in those days to be at a Trade Union meeting and what happened? Seven of ’em were sentenced to death. It was changed to transportation. Lads who were God-fearing, peace-loving individuals, Primitive Methodists…Not that I carry any flag for Primitive Methodists, but all they and the others wanted to do was to work and eat.’

  John was sitting forward now addressing Dan loudly as if this young uncle of his was the cause of all the past and present trouble. ‘Young lads under twelve kept at work for twenty-four hours at a stretch they were then.’

  ‘But that was in the pits…’ Dan began, but was shouted down again by John crying, ‘Pits or shipyards or steel mills or puddling mills, what does it matter on a twenty-four hour stretch? It shouldn’t ’ave been tolerated. And it’s as bad today in a way. How do they expect a man to live? Twenty-six shillings to keep three of us. Two shillings to keep a child! Did you ever hear anything like it? And if I hadn’t been working full-time these last years I wouldn’t be getting that. How about the poor devils who haven’t had thirty contributions on their cards in the last two years or so. I tell you it’s a bloody scandal.’

  ‘Look, John, calm down and fight your own battles for the moment. As you stand now you could be off for seventy-four weeks and still get benefit…’

  ‘Seventy-four weeks! My God, man, do you want me to land up in the loony bin in the Institution…Look, Dan, don’t you start talking as if they were being kind to me. Every man jack of us is up afore them every eleven weeks and our money could be stopped like that.’ He cracked his thick fingers and the sound was like the meeting of drumsticks. ‘There’s a clause called “the not-genuinely-seeking-work clause”. Have you heard of it?’ His voice was sarcastic. ‘You want to get into that queue, Dan, and hear just how those boys behind the wire grids with their smug gobs can manoeuvre it.’

  ‘They’re not to blame, John. They’re just doing their job.’

  They all turned and looked at David now. He was speaking quietly, his eyes directed towards the fire. ‘Phil Taggart in the Exchange said he would be out of it tomorrow, but it would just mean him standing on the other side of the grid.’

  ‘Phil Taggart!’ John’s voice was scornful. ‘He’s just one; you want to see the attitude of most of those swine. They look at you as if you’d just crawled up the wire. “Stand aside.” “Come back this afternoon.” “What did you say your number was?”’ John’s voice had taken up a haughty tone. Then it changed abruptly back as he said, ‘There’ll be riots I tell you, men can only stand so much.’

  Yes, there would be riots. If all the men were like John there would be riots all the time, Sarah thought as she turned the dough over for the last time. Lack of work, resulting in enforced idleness, broken only by miles of tramping in search of the elusive job, had taken the spunk out of most of the men. She remembered the men two or three years ago standing at the corners, talking loudly, protest oozing out of them, aggressive against misfortune. Now they still stood at the corners, but they were more quiet, their talk intermittent. Some of them walked slower. Their faces had a pale yellow tinge. They hoarded Woodbine ends in small tin boxes. Some of them pushed home-made barrows down to the tip at the bottom of Simonside Bank and scraped there for cinders and came around the doors selling them; a shilling they would ask for a barrow-load. She always bought a load. There were six buckets to the barrow. They were burnt-out cinders and wouldn’t burn on their own, but they did all right for banking down. One man had called twice last week. He did not ask her to buy the second time, he just stood looking helplessly at her. She hadn’t wanted the second load but she had taken it and said, ‘Would you like a flat cake? It’s just out of the oven.’ ‘Oh, missis!’ was all he had said, but his lips became soft with saliva. It was the first time she had been addressed as ‘missis’, and it made her feel married and very adult.

  Then there was David. David worried about the unemployed. He always had apparently, but now his concern was centred around John. He was very fond of John. He didn’t agree with half he said and argued with him, but nevertheless she knew from the way he talked that he thought a lot of his elder brother. He said John was the last person on earth who should be out of work, it would do something to him. Unemployment was like a personal insult to a man of his calibre. John, he said, would die protesting. He was made like that…

  Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve, the last day of 1929. She had decided to get her baking done tonight so that tomorrow she would only have the cleaning to do. Everything must be polished and shining with an extra brightness to greet the New Year. Everybody everywhere—to her everywhere was a synonym for the North—cleared up for New Year’s Day. She wanted to be all done
before teatime because they were going to spend the evening next door. Apparently they had a lot of jollification on New Year’s Eve, and also apparently without getting drunk. But this was the one night, she understood, when David’s mother allowed wine in the house. Also for this night she brewed a batch of home-brewed beer, the recipe for which she would tell no-one, and which had a kick Dan said that was better than any Burton and as good as some whiskies. She was a strange woman was David’s mother, Sarah thought, and a frightening woman in some ways. She had decided on one thing: she wouldn’t sing tomorrow night, not even if they pressed her, because she knew that her mother-in-law didn’t like her to sing, not on her own. She had gone out of the room when she had sung last time. It was ‘Where my caravan has rested’, and they had all praised her—all except David’s mother.

  As she put a cloth over the dough David rose from his chair and lifted the heavy earthenware dish down on to the fender. John was still at it; he was thrusting his finger at Dan now and saying, ‘We’ll be marching from here, you’ll see. It’s the only way to get things done. The Scots did it last year, they’re not the blokes to sit down under injustice. They’ve been marching and protesting since 1922.’

  ‘The N.U.W.M. got up the national march last year, don’t forget that,’ said Dan. ‘You don’t have to be a dour Scot to get things done. They made the Tories consider the “Not-genuinely-seeking-work clause” that you’re on about; they didn’t get it abolished but they got another year’s grace. And it was prophetic that only a few weeks later the Tories were out…’