The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, it’s all how you look at it, isn’t it? A thing is good or bad how you look at it, that’s what I say…The mother’s a bit of a tartar.’ He jerked his head towards the wall. ‘Thinks herself somebody, I hear. Never out of the Baptist chapel they say. Narrow as they come. No understanding. Now our lot can booze and whore and think nowt of it…’

  ‘I’ll have none of that talk in my house.’

  ‘Well, I was just explaining, no offence. But you know yourself we’re all human, you should know that better than anybody.’ He was smiling again, nodding at her now. ‘But what a Catholic would laugh off, a Baptist would hang you for.’

  Sarah was standing straight now, stiff and tall, her hands gripped in front of her waist. There had come upon her a terrible feeling of apprehension. It might only be imagination, she told herself; but the smell from him seemed to be filling the room. She felt faint, sick with it. He was staring at her, not speaking. She told herself not to let him see that she was agitated. That’s what he wants, she said. Stand up to him like you did to her yesterday…go on. She took a deep breath, then said, ‘Look, if you’ve had your say you’d better go because I’m going out, I’ve told you.’

  When he still did not answer but continued to look at her with his unblinking red eyes she withdrew one hand from the other hand, and, putting them behind her, supported herself against the edge of the table. And as she did so he said quietly, ‘It’s a pity the big fellow hadn’t been single an’ all, you’d have had your pick then.’

  ‘W…w…what?’

  ‘I said…’

  She was away from the table now, standing over him, shouting, ‘I heard what you said.’ She glanced at the wall. She would hear her next door if she went on like this. Her voice dropping, she hissed at him, ‘Don’t think you can frighten me with anything your sewer mind can make up. All David’s family come in here, his uncle and his father.’

  ‘Oh?’ He turned his eyes up towards her and his voice sounded almost childish. ‘I didn’t know they all came in, that’s nice. But it wasn’t that I was meaning. You see…’ He pushed his head back as if to get a better view of her. ‘About New Year’s morning. You know the Collinses, me cousins down Bogey Hill way, well, they asked me over for first footin’. I was a bit surprised like but I went, but didn’t stay long, and on me way back Aa was took short.’ He stopped at this point and Sarah closed her eyes and waited, her breath suspended, her whole life suspended. She waited.

  ‘I went in one of the huts, you know, the end one on the waste land, and then I heard this coughing. Well, you know, there’s always couples around there. I bumped into two or three on me way up, making the best of New Year’s morning. Well, this couple began…well, they began to talk. At least he did, an’ Aa was a bit surprised like. Well, you see what I mean.’

  Sarah, her eyes open now, was pressing herself against the table; then her body, arching itself upwards, shot forward and she was hanging over him and words, each borne on a spurt of rage, came frothing from her mouth. ‘You devil! You dirty, evil devil! It was nothing…nothing. I tell you it was nothing. Nothing happened.’

  ‘No?’ He seemed to be untroubled by her rage, and his voice still held a childish innocent note and he shook his head as if in perplexity.

  ‘You dirty-minded swine!’

  ‘Now, look, Sarah.’ He got slowly to his feet. ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you. There’s no reason. An’ it wasn’t my doings, was it? I just happened to be there, and there I had to stay. You wouldn’t have liked me to show me face, now would you? I had to stay put for over ten minutes, you know.’

  Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Sarah bowed her head deeply.

  ‘I couldn’t close me ears, that’s why I said it was a pity, a pity the big fellow’s married, for he seems clean gone on you…Mind…’ He moved his head slowly. ‘I don’t blame him, but it’s awkward, isn’t it? It’s an awkward situation all round, I mean with your man being such a nice bloke an’ his mother being such a tartar an’ all that. And then the big fellow’s got a bairn, hasn’t he, and a wife that’s a bit of a spitfire too as far as I can gather…’

  ‘Shut up! Shut your evil mouth. I tell you, nothing happened, noth…ing, do you hear? Noth…ing.’ Spurts of frothy saliva came from her mouth with the last word. A voice was going mad inside her now, urging, directing, yelling. Stand up to him. Don’t let him get you. Tell him to go to hell and do what he likes…But he wouldn’t go to hell. She would, she would be plunged into a living hell. If she hurt David in any way that would be hell. But what she could do was to take the wind out of this slimy devil’s sails by telling David what had happened…And turn him against John? No, no. She could never do that. Then she must tell John…What, and have him murder this little reptile? Whatever road she tried to take out of this mess was blocked, she could see that. If she made a move in any direction she’d bring disaster on them all, the disaster that Mary Hetherington had prophesied, that the priest had prophesied. She remembered Father O’Malley’s words: God works in strange ways, sometimes through a series of disasters. Her whole being trembled. It was as if he had known what was going to happen, as if he had a hand in the plan.

  ‘I wouldn’t take on like that, there’s no need to upset yourself. I just thought I’d tell you and put you on your guard like in case you got careless.’

  Her eyes were closed again. She could not bear to look at him in case she sprang on him and beat her fists into his face. Her mouth opened twice before she said, with eerie quietness, ‘There was nothing happened, he was drunk.’

  ‘Aye, I can believe that. Yes, New Year’s morning, lots of funny things happen in drink. Meself, I’ve always steered clear of it, but there it is…Well, I just thought I’d pop in and tell you an’ see if you had a couple of shillings on you. That’s all I want, a couple of shillings until you see your way clear…anyway, what’s five bob a week to keep everybody happy, eh? I ask you now.’

  She was going to be sick. She was going to faint. She had never fainted in her life, but she wanted to faint now, to pass right out, for if she didn’t she would do something to him, she knew she would.

  She found herself at the cupboard next to the fireplace where she kept her bag, and, groping blindly in it, she found her purse, and taking from it a two-shilling piece she threw it with a backward movement on to the table. She heard it bounce twice; then from the corner of her eye she saw him stooping to pick it up from the floor.

  ‘Thanks. Thanks, lass. Now don’t worry, there’s nothing to worry about. I won’t tell your mother so you needn’t worry, ’cos it would upset her, you know. She lays great store by your being up this end. It sort of makes up for the other one and the Arab like. There’s nobody need know anything about this only you and me…and them concerned…Well, so long. Aa’ll be seeing you. Aa’ll pop over now and again. So long. Aa’ll see meself out. Don’t you bother.’

  When she heard the door close she stood with her back pressed against the cupboard shelves. She would go mad. This would drive her mad. What could she do? She staggered to the table and gripped its edge until her nails broke. Then she was leaning over it, her stomach heaving. It seemed to turn over and rush upwards. The next moment she was standing over the sink vomiting.

  She was still sick when David came in at dinner time. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Have you eaten something?’

  She hung on to his hands tightly with both of hers, and she made herself smile when she gave him the news, ‘I’m going to have a baby I think,’ she said.

  At two o’clock the following morning Sarah awoke screaming from a nightmare, and when David held her, trying to assure her that she was awake and safe, she grabbed at him. ‘I was in the mud. Everybody was in the mud, but they dragged me to the middle. I had it in my mouth and I was choking…Oh, David, it was awful, awful. I’m frightened, David.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be frightened about, darling; it was only a dream.’

  Yes, it was only a dream. Her body slowly unwound
against him. ‘But it was worse than usual.’ She said, ‘It was worse than usual, much worse.’

  ‘You’ve had it before then?’

  She nodded against his breast. ‘It started with an overdose of cough mixture my mother gave me.’ She felt a tremor of laughter go through his body. ‘Well, that’s put paid to cough mixture.’

  They lay silently, their bodies close, breathing almost the same breath, until David whispered, ‘Don’t let anything frighten you, dreams or anything else. And as long as you’ve got me I’ll see to it that nothing does, not even…’ He pressed his finger into her backbone and the pressure spelt ‘mother’. ‘You understand, love?’

  Yes, she understood. She also understood that his words meant the exact opposite from what he thought. They meant, for as long as she had him she would know fear, the fear of her little world, her new superior little world exploding.

  PART THREE

  One

  ‘I think there’s going to be a march,’ said John.

  ‘Where to?’ asked David.

  ‘London, of course.’

  ‘It’ll likely be the same as the one in Seaham Harbour when you met Ramsay MacDonald. Tea and soft soap and the promise that Jarrow would be kept in mind. That’s three years ago.’

  ‘We’ll get results this time or else…’

  ‘Or else what?’ said David. ‘Riots?’

  ‘Aye, if necessary. But they don’t want it to be like that; everything’s going to be orderly, at least from our end. Ellen’s coming with us.’

  ‘Oh, that woman!’ May’s thin voice broke in on the men. ‘My godfathers! You would think she was a priestess; I’m sick of the sound of Ellen Wilkinson’s name.’

  ‘Shut up!’ John turned on her, spitting the words at her. ‘You haven’t got the list to lift a hand to help anybody, and you haven’t a good word in your belly for those who do.’

  May raked John with her cold glance before rising to her feet and saying, almost listlessly, ‘Lift a hand? You’ve been lifting hands for years now, the great John the Baptist, and where’s it got you? What’s it got us?’

  ‘As much as it’s got anybody else in this town—a place in the dole queue. If we hadn’t fought, you and the likes of you would now be in Harton, that’s if you could get in. You’d more likely be lying on the salt grass, as they did not fifty years ago, dying on a bit of sacking.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Let up, will you! I’ve heard it so often it’s got whiskers.’ May moved round the table, past Sarah, who sat silently sewing, and made her way towards the staircase door, saying, ‘I’ll call Paul down.’ But before she reached it David spoke to her quietly, ‘But he’s right, you know, May. If it wasn’t for the likes of John here and people like Alfred Rennie and Drummond…’

  ‘Oh, David, don’t you start…please. And tell me something I don’t know. I’m sick of listening to the virtues of Drummond and Riley and Rennie and Thompson and the rest. Oh yes, and the Virgin Mary herself, Miss Ellen Wilkinson. But tell me, David…’ She stepped back into the room, ‘What have they done? All this curfuffling and what have they done?’

  Before David could answer John was on his feet crying, ‘They just keep men sane, that’s all. Keep reminding them that they’re men, that they might be down but not bloody well out. They’re trying to feed their minds. At least, put into them as much as their depleted systems will allow them to take, so that when we march into London it won’t be a band of ignorant numskulls they’ll be talking to, and that’s what they take us for down there, a lot of bloody brainless numskulls. And they’re not alone in thinking along those lines, are they, May dear?’

  They glared at each other for a moment. But just as May was about to speak, John put in quickly, ‘You won’t come up to the rooms, will you? No, because you’d have to swallow your words. And, what’s more, you might learn something…Oh, but you don’t need to learn, do you? No, you know it all, don’t you? Like them up there. Well, as I said, they’ll get an eye-opener when we march in.’

  ‘Da-di-da, da-di-da; tra-le-la-la.’ May gave an imitation of blowing a bugle, and as John took a step forward David, catching his arm, said quickly, ‘Now then, now then. Stop it, you two.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea.’ Sarah rose from her chair, and, pushing the little dress she was smocking on to the dresser, went out into the scullery, while John, looking towards May again, said bitterly, ‘One of these days I’ll land you one and you’ll not get up again.’

  ‘Try it on.’ She smiled at him as she rolled her head tauntingly on the back of her shoulders. Then, going into the passage, she called upstairs, ‘Paul! Paul, do you hear me? Come on. We’re going over.’

  There was some laughter and chatter from the room above, then a bouncing step on the stairs and a boy of about eight years old followed May into the kitchen. He was tall for his age and thin, and he looked like neither May nor John, but there was a suggestion of his father in his mercurial manner. With a flicking movement of his eyes he looked from his father to David and said, ‘You’ll never be able to make her spell, Uncle, I bet you won’t. She can read long words, but she can’t even spell “cat”.’

  ‘What should I do with her? Bray her?’ David made great play of rolling up his shirtsleeves, and the boy laughed a high tinkling laugh. ‘I can see you doing that, Uncle David. But you being a good speller and knowing about words, you’d think she could spell, wouldn’t you? She’s over five.’

  ‘Yes, you would at that age.’ David shook his head sadly at the boy, causing him to laugh again.

  May, pushing at her son, now cried, ‘Get going. It’s a shame to waste two houses between you and her.’

  ‘Aw, let’s have a minute, Mam.’ The boy swung away from her and went quickly round the table to where John sat moving cardboard letters with his finger.

  ‘You playing Lexicon, Dad?’

  ‘Do as your mother bids you.’ John did not raise his eyes.

  ‘You playing Lexicon, Uncle David?’

  ‘Do you want to get shot, Paul Hetherington?’ David looked into the boy’s grinning face.

  ‘I want to watch you play. Why are you always messing about with letters, Uncle? You should have been a teacher. Have you always messed about with letters, like when you was a young lad?’

  ‘Yes, Paul, always. They’ve always fascinated me.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Mam. Just one minute, only one minute. Go on, Uncle Davie.’

  David looked at May and shook his head.

  ‘Why do they fascinate you, Uncle Davie?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s because a few lines differently arranged can tell you so much.’

  ‘But they’re not lines, Uncle Davie, they’re squibbles and things.’

  ‘No, they all start with lines. Look.’ David took from his pocket a piece of string and, cutting it into lengths with his penknife, he placed one piece before him, then he bent another in two, and, sticking it in the middle of the first piece, he said, ‘There you are, one straight line, another straight line, bent in two, stick them together and you’ve got K.’ The boy nodded and David went on, ‘Then you take another straight piece, put it next to the K and you’ve got I. Now I is the most important letter in the alphabet; it not only means I, it means me.’ David thumped his chest in a number of places, ‘It means all of me. I’ve always thought the letter I was an amazing letter. You think of that straight line and then you think of what it means…you see?’

  Paul nodded again, his eyes bright and twinkling.

  ‘Then you want an S, so you take your straight line and you bend it like that…there.’ He pointed. ‘You’ve got an S.’ He did the same again, then said, ‘Look, another S, and what have you? Kiss.’

  Paul thumped his uncle in the arm and laughed his high laugh. ‘Do some more.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. Come on.’ May grabbed her son by the collar, swung him round and marched him out of the room.

  In the scullery, protesting but s
till laughing, Paul grabbed at Sarah’s skirt as he was hustled past her and cried, ‘Goodnight, Aunt Sarah. She’s not asleep. I bet you a shillin’ she starts howling in a minute.’

  ‘Goodnight, Paul. She’ll get her bottom smacked if she does.’

  ‘What you havin’ for supper?’

  This question brought May to a halt, and, turning towards Sarah, she said, ‘Do you know something? I think he’s got a tapeworm—I’m serious.’ She nodded at Sarah. ‘The minute he got in he had a basin of stew left over from the dinner. That was half-past four. When I went next door’—she jerked her head towards the scullery window—‘he was sitting up having a full tea with his grandad. Chips…the lot. And then I came over here and found him scoffing again. And look at him.’ She shook his collar. ‘There’s not a peck of flesh on his bones, people think he’s starved. I tell you, he’s got a tapeworm.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘Well, he never ails anything, does he?’

  ‘Ail anything? He hasn’t got time, he’s always eating.’ She gave her son another shake, then pushed him out into the yard, saying, ‘Goodnight then.’

  ‘Goodnight, May.’

  The door had hardly closed behind her when it was opened immediately and May, her face in the aperture, said, ‘Tell him to get over home before twelve, will you? I hate to be woken up in the middle of the night.’

  She was gone before Sarah could make any retort, but if she had thought of one she would not have been able to voice it. She stood for a moment looking out into the dark yard. What did she mean by that? May knew that she herself went up to bed and left them downstairs talking until all hours. She had likely meant nothing. What could she mean, anyway? But May was deep. No-one ever knew what May was thinking, you couldn’t get to the bottom of her.