The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Let me go! I tell you let me go! What if David found…’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll not find out.’

  ‘I’d rather die than hurt David, do you hear? Do you hear?’ She was speaking through her teeth. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Just a moment longer. Let’s be like this a minute longer. It might have to last a lifetime. Oh, Sarah, Sarah.’ His mouth was covering her ear.

  She screwed her head into her shoulder and struggled with all her might to free herself from his arms, but he held her fast. As big as she was, he held her as if she were a child. Then with a suddenness that made her feel sick she felt her body go limp against him and she spluttered as she cried, ‘I’m happy, I’m happy, leave me be, don’t spoil it. I’ve never been so happy in me life, it’s all I want, Davie and the house…A place of me own.’

  ‘You’re not happy. You don’t know what it means. Davie rescued you. He was the first plank thrust out to the bottom end and you grabbed it, and now you’re breaking your neck with gratitude.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not.’

  ‘How does he love you, eh? How does he? Gentle, considerate, kindly, as if asking a favour? He doesn’t take you, he couldn’t.’

  ‘Shut up, you! David’s good…good.’

  ‘Aye, he’s good. Davie’s a good fellow, a fine fellow. I’m his brother. Aye, aye, I’m his brother, and I wouldn’t hurt him for the world either, so you have it, you needn’t worry, but he hasn’t got it in him to love you. Not like this…and this!’ He jerked his loins into her. His mouth almost covered the lower part of her face and for as long as it took her to realise that he was right, every word he had said was right, she submitted to him, and then she was thumping and pushing and kicking his body from hers.

  They were standing apart now, breathing like two great animals lost in the wind and darkness, still alone in a world that had been created when she had submitted for an instant to him. It made no difference that there was no contact of flesh, they knew each other as if they had sported stark naked on an open moor.

  Then her limbs became weak, all strength left her and she had to lean against the shed again for support. Her whole body was shaking as if with St Vitus’ dance. Her bones seemed to be strung on jangling wires. She had no power to move, nor did she want to; she had no urge to get away from him. No desire to run, nor did she wish she were dead, or that he had never been born. The only coherent thought in her turbulent brain was that David must not be hurt.

  So close were they at this moment, even spiritually, that he picked up her thought and said, ‘Stop worrying.’ His tone was flat now. ‘Davie won’t be hurt. You would never hurt him, not with your sense of gratitude. And I don’t want to hurt him either, I’ve told you…But I’m not in a position to hurt anybody, am I? You don’t say “Come fly with me and be my love” when you’re on the dole, do you? But everything apart, this is between you and me, so don’t worry. Me madness is under lock and key and I’ll try to see it doesn’t break out again. Not in that way, anyhow…

  He groped now and found her hands, and she did not resist him and he said softly and sadly, ‘But, by God, how I could have loved you, Sarah.’

  When she heard her voice answering him it sounded strange to her, she couldn’t recognise herself, for it was a woman who was speaking, speaking the thoughts of a woman, slow and flat, ‘It all depends on what you call love. David’s kind of love takes in even me feet, and they aren’t lovely. They swell and go shapeless and look like big white puddings, but he takes me shoes off and pulls me stockings away from me soles after I’ve walked back from the docks, or shopping. He’s even washed me feet in hot water and soda—you wouldn’t do that, would you?’

  Except for their heavy breathing, which was caught and whirled away by the wind, there was no sound between them for some minutes, then he said, ‘What you talking about?…I was talking about loving you.’ His voice was hoarse and there was a note of perplexity in it.

  ‘Loving me?’ She experienced a weird urge to laugh, long and loud. She was afraid of the feeling. She was afraid of herself altogether at this moment, and she was actually shocked at the rawness of her next words, but still in that slow flat grown-up woman’s tone, she said then, ‘I know your kind of loving, you’d take me clothes off but not me shoes…Oh, I know, I’m no fool…Leave go me hands.’

  She was shaking herself roughly, violently, to try to get away from him when with his voice, urgent and tender, now he appealed to her, ‘Don’t shut me out, Sarah…don’t. And don’t be frightened of me, ever. I won’t do anything, try anything, I promise you. Just let me talk to you now and again and look at you. Give me this much…Say something to me, at times, something kind, Sarah. I need kindness, I do. You just don’t know what it’s like to be without kindness. And you’re kind. The first minute I saw you, I saw your big heart shining from every part of you…You’re big, Sarah, in every way. You’re big and kind…’

  Normality was rushing back into her body, the normality of fear, fear against the softening effect of his pleading. She almost whimpered now, speaking as if to herself. ‘If I bring trouble on the house I’ll kill meself, I will, I will. I couldn’t bear it…Your mother…’

  It was as if the mention of his mother’s name broke the spell, for now he burst out, ‘Oh, for God’s sake! I’ve told you to stop being afraid of me mother, and of any of them. I think that’s about the only thing that could make me really mad with you. It drives me crazy when I see you bending before them. And when May, the upstart, looks down her nose…’

  ‘M…ay?’ she put in stammering. ‘M…ay? May looks down her nose at me?’

  ‘Can’t you see it? And she’s not fit to wipe your shoes. May’s a prig; a cold, bloodless prig. She’s got as much of a woman in her as Leslie Waters next door, and he doesn’t know what he is. But you’ve only yourself to blame, you’re so damned humble…humble and kindly. Kindly, that’s you, Sarah, when you should be haughty and proud, because you’ve got something to be proud of…You’re beautiful. My God, you’re beautiful…your face…your body…everything…Oh, it’s all right, don’t worry; I’m not going to start again.’

  Above her own gasping breath she could hear the quick intake of his as if he were sucking it in and out through his teeth. They stood quiet and without words for some minutes, and then he asked, ‘Is it a deal?’

  There was another moment of silence before she said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you’ll not ignore me, not push me aside as if I didn’t matter. I won’t ask anything of you, I promise you, and I mean it…Mind, I wouldn’t say I’d be talking like this if there wasn’t somebody like Davie with a claim on you. But that’s the throw of the dice. It is Davie and that’s that…Come on.’ He pulled her sharply from the support of the shed and, holding her arm, he said softly, ‘Stop trembling. You can’t go in like that. Come on, walk briskly.’ He led her forward, supporting her, and she walked like someone slightly drunk.

  They went across the wasteland above the bottom ends of the streets until they came to Camelia Street back lane. Neither of them had spoken since they started to walk, but now she halted and with her head down she muttered, ‘You’d better go on, I’m going in our house for a minute.’

  He went to take her hand again, but she pulled it aside, saying under her breath. ‘Don’t! My God, don’t! Not here. You don’t know who’s out the night.’

  He stood looking at her bent head for not more than a few seconds, then, without further words, he turned abruptly and walked down the back lane.

  She stood, with her back arched, leaning against the wind, and not until she heard the dull thud of the back door banging did she go down the lane, and through her own back door and up the yard.

  Once in the kitchen she didn’t light the gas, but, crouching down on the mat beside the fender, rested her arm on the seat of David’s chair, and twisting her hands together, she stared into the dying embers of the fire, crying, ‘Oh, David! Oh, David! Oh, David!’ Then
jerking herself around she enfolded the chair in her arms as if it was the kindly gentle loving David himself. And her mind kept reiterating, Oh, David! Oh, David! Oh, David! and she told herself that she only wanted David, and David’s kind of loving. She didn’t want that other kind, not John’s kind. No, no, she didn’t want that, she didn’t.

  She became still, quite still, her body and her mind, and in the stillness she recaptured again the moment of terrifying intensity when she had grappled and strained and writhed to answer his body’s demands and now she extended it. She could feel them struggling together like two savages, their bodies joined at every point possible, striving towards a climax of unearthly rapture, receiving and inflicting pain that created laughter, and the laughter did not escape from them but flowed back and forth through their beings as if through one body. The chair moved under her across the line and its motion brought her heaving body to stillness again and her mind to the present.

  She became aware for the first time since entering the kitchen that they were still singing next door and she turned her face slowly towards the fireplace and whispered aloud, ‘I can’t help it. It wasn’t my fault.’ And it was as if in answer Mary Hetherington came walking through the wall and stood before her, saying, as she had done on the day of the wedding, ‘A mixed marriage is bad enough, but to have it unsanctified in a registry office…Well, I only hope some good will come of it.’

  Then she saw her mother-in-law joined by the priest, and Father O’Malley said, ‘I told you mixed marriages have their penalties and this is only the beginning.’

  Her greatest fear from a mixed marriage had been the loss of her immortal soul, but now even the phrase seemed meaningless. It was something that might or might not happen, something that wouldn’t be proven until she was dead. What had come upon her tonight was something of the now—and it was tangible, this thing, this other love.

  ‘No, no, I don’t love him.’ She was on her feet, speaking her denial aloud. She pressed her hand over her mouth and stood looking through the dark towards the wall. Then, heaving a great sigh that swelled and deflated her body, she said helplessly to herself, ‘You’d better get in.’

  They’d be wondering next door and they mustn’t wonder, they mustn’t ask questions. Nothing had happened, nothing ever would. As she had said, she would die rather than hurt David. David had pulled her up out of the mire…All right, what if he was a plank, he was a plank that she was going to cling to all her life. She would manage this thing, this wild-beast thing. She would have to. She straightened her shoulders, gulped spittle into her dry mouth, pulled the bolt out of the door, and went into the yard.

  Four

  Sarah came quietly down the stairs and into the living room. Mary Hetherington was sitting in the armchair near the fire, her eyes closed, and as Sarah tiptoed past she opened them and said, ‘I’m not asleep.’

  ‘Oh, I thought you might have dropped off. You should, you know, you’re worn out. He’s asleep now; it seems sound, not like it’s been.’

  ‘I’ve made some tea. Would you like to pour it out, Sarah?’

  Sarah poured out two cups of tea and took one to her mother-in-law, then sat near the end of the table drinking hers.

  Mary Hetherington sipped at her tea, then, looking down into the cup, she said, ‘It’s been a time, hasn’t it? All that jollification on New Year’s Eve and since then we’ve never stopped running, three weeks of it.’ She looked up and towards Sarah, and added, ‘You’ve been very good, Sarah. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. May is very little use in sickness, and she hasn’t the lifting power of a mouse.’

  ‘Well, I’m about twice her size. And she’s been very good with the shopping and getting the medicine and that.’ Sarah felt that she had to defend May, as if she owed her something. She didn’t like this feeling and the only way she could ease it was to say something nice about May.

  ‘I don’t know what we’d have done if John hadn’t been off work. Everything has its other side, hasn’t it? He’s been so good sitting up too, because David and his father couldn’t have kept it up. With having to go to work they need their sleep…Ah, well.’ She took another sip from her cup. ‘He’s past the worst but I never thought he’d get over it.’

  ‘Nor did I.’ Sarah shook her head. No, she never had thought Dan would get over it. His cold had resulted in double pneumonia and he had at one point seemed almost sure to die.

  ‘Oh!’ The cup wobbled in the saucer as Mary Hetherington brought herself upwards in the chair and, leaning towards Sarah, said, ‘I’m awfully sorry, I forgot to tell you. I hope it isn’t important, but your father called round this morning to see you. It was when you were out.’

  ‘Me—my father!’ Sarah screwed her face up in disbelief. ‘My father called here?’ Her lips were spread wide from her teeth.

  ‘Yes.’ Mary Hetherington’s voice was soft. ‘And he was very nice and civil. He asked if you were in and I told him you had gone out shopping for me. He said he was very sorry to hear about my brother. He asked if he could do anything.’

  ‘My father!’

  ‘Yes, your father. Now you mustn’t be vindictive.’ Mary Hetherington’s Christianity was to the fore at the moment. ‘Although I’d be the last person to tell you to encourage him, you mustn’t bear malice or bitterness. It’s never worth it. As I said, he was very civil and he looked very clean and tidy.’

  ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

  ‘No, no, he didn’t say.’

  ‘Perhaps my mother isn’t very well?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. He said he called at the back door one or twice last week but got not reply; he wondered if you were all right.’

  Again Sarah’s face screwed up, but she said nothing this time. Her father calling on her? What was he after? Likely on the cadge. He was having to stump up his dole now that her mother hadn’t got Phyllis’ and her own money coming in. Yet he was no fool was her father, he knew the feeling that existed between them. He had never asked her for any money in his life, he had just taken it—that is, everything he could get his hands on. But was it likely that he would come cadging from her now? She couldn’t understand it. Still, she would likely know what he was after when he turned up again. She said now, ‘I’ll take the washing round and put it in soak while there’s still light.’

  ‘No, no, no, Sarah, it’s far too much; you’ve done it for weeks now. I’ll get Mrs Watson to come in. She used to, you know.’

  ‘There’s no need when I can do it. I’m doing our own, and I’m as strong as a bull, anyway.’ She flexed the muscles of her arm and smiled, and Mary Hetherington returned the smile, saying, ‘Well, have it your own way.’

  Sarah went out of the scullery and down the yard into the wash-house, and, gathering up the dirty linen from the poss tub, made it into a bundle and carried it next door, and placed it in her own wash-house.

  In a way, if she could put it like this, she felt grateful to Dan for being ill. It had helped her to be of use to Mary Hetherington, really of use, and it had broken down some of the older woman’s reserve…it had also given herself less time to think.

  She began now to carry buckets of water from the tap at the bottom of the yard and fill the poss tub, then she placed in the ice-cold water all the white linen, sousing them, with her arms up to the elbows, until they were all wet. They would be ready for her early start in the morning.

  The twilight was deepening when she went into the kitchen, but she didn’t light the gas straightaway, she was practising economy. Over the past three weeks she had learned more of the running of a house from her mother-in-law than she had in all the first weeks of her marriage. Mary Hetherington had unbent enough to give advice, such as, ‘You can save so much by doing a thing the right way; you needn’t be mean, you know. For instance, if you riddle your cinders every day you’d save a bucket of coal a week, four buckets a month and fifty-two a year. Reckon that up; the saving would buy you something for the house, wouldn’t
it? And then there’s the men’s clothes. Now when I buy a new shirt I always cut three inches off the tail straight away. This piece will give you a new collar and cuff facings later on.’

  Yes, Sarah was learning a lot, and she had already started to save and with an object in view…she was going to get David a second-hand piano. She hadn’t told anyone about this, not even David, and certainly not his mother, for she didn’t think the purchase would be looked upon favourably; it would mean that David wouldn’t be such a frequent visitor next door. Not that she minded him going to his mother’s, but she knew that he would like a piano of his own.

  But with regards to saving through economy Sarah found it was difficult to economise on food, because she and David went down to Shields Market on a Saturday afternoon. When they had first married it had been a sort of hilarious excursion and they had come back laden. That was, until the day they passed the men standing in the roadway, when one of them, looking at the top-heavy baskets, had remarked with sadness but without envy, ‘By! That’s a sight for sore eyes. There’s not a better sight in the world than a basket laden with grub.’

  On that Saturday David had said, ‘We mustn’t buy so much altogether, we’ll just get what we need for the weekend and you can get the rest in the middle of the week.’ So she did that, but she found it was dearer buying in bits and pieces.

  After she had set the table for the tea she sat down for a moment by the fire, in the now darkening room. She had had little time to sit in the past three weeks and that was just as well. Sometimes she thought that what had happened in the wind-maddened first hour of the New Year was a figment of her imagination, and she could at times actually believe this, for neither by look nor sign had John reminded her that he had been party to the madness…the instigator of the madness. If there was any noticeable change in his manner towards her it was evident in an unusual gentleness of manner, like the gentleness he used towards Dan, but in Dan’s case the gentleness was charged with power, and authority even to ward off death. John had literally fought with death to keep Dan alive, seeming almost to breathe for him when this became almost an agony. Only once had she seen the old John come rearing through this new gentleness. It was one evening down in the living room when May said, ‘Why don’t you put in for a job of male nurse? They’re going at Harton, you’d be in your element. They are always wanting them on the mental block…’