The Blind Miller

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, Father,’ Kathleen put her hand across her mouth, and glanced at Paul. ‘We were having a bit fun, a bit carry-on.’

  ‘A bit carry-on!’ He nodded at her with mock sternness. ‘As far as I can gather there were ten of you having a bit carry-on, and I want two shillings from each of you, understood?’ He looked from one to the other, and Paul, nodding his head once, replied, ‘Understood.’ He did not say Father.

  As he looked at the young boy the priest’s expression changed, the smile which lifted his cheeks up into pouches under his eyes had a seriousness to it. ‘I’m to congratulate you, Paul, I understand. Oxford? Now isn’t that wonderful…a scholarship to Oxford! When do you go up?’

  ‘Oh, not for some time, sir.’ The sir came out naturally. ‘I’ve got to do my National Service first.’

  ‘When did you have your interview…I mean for Oxford?’

  ‘Oh, before last Christmas.’

  The priest nodded. ‘You must have done well, you must have impressed them, indeed you must, to have got a scholarship.’

  ‘Oh no, sir.’ Paul’s eyes narrowed and his mouth took on a humorous twist, and with the facetiousness of youth he went on, ‘I was just dead lucky. The English tutor who took the interview happened to be a dialectologist, and, hearing my Geordie twang, he said, “By, lad, y’just watt Aa’m lukin’ for. Aa can de aall the dialects but Aa get stumped wi’ the Geordie. By, yo’re a godsend, lad!”’

  They were all laughing again, the priest heartily, and when Father Bailey laughed heartily the tears ran out of his eyes. ‘Go on with you. Go on.’ He pushed at Paul, then as he dried his eyes he exclaimed, ‘Oh, I wonder if you’re any good at languages…translating? Do you know any Spanish?’

  ‘Spanish? No.’ Paul shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’ Father Bailey drew a piece of paper from his inside pocket and, after looking at it, he handed it to Paul, saying, ‘Well, take a look at that and see if you can make anything of it.’

  Paul took the paper on which was written the following:

  Si Señor, Derdago, Forte Lorez Inaro.

  Demainte Lorez Demis Trux,

  Foolacoos Andens Andux.

  Slowly he read aloud, ‘Si Señor, Derdago.’ Then looking at the priest he said, ‘No, sir, I can’t make head or tail of it…sorry.’

  The priest shook his head solemnly. ‘Well, if you can’t read that it’s a poor lookout for you up at Oxford,’ and taking the paper from Paul he pointed his finger to each word translating, as he went, by splitting up the words. And what he read was:

  Si Señor, der dey go, forty lorries in a row.

  Dem ain’t lorries, dem is trucks, full of coos

  and hens and ducks.

  Paul and Kathleen looked at each other, then at the priest, then together they let out a howl of laughter, and again the tears ran from the priest’s eyes. ‘I had you that time…the last one’s on me.’

  ‘Oh, Father, you old twister!’ Kathleen was pointing at the priest, and Paul through his laughter was crying, ‘You wait, sir, I’ll have my own back on you.’

  ‘Any time, any time.’ The priest was moving away from them now, waving his hand at them. ‘Goodbye, goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Father.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ They called together.

  Then, half running, half walking, in their laughter and excitement they went past the station calling to each other as if yards apart, ‘Dem ain’t lorries, dem is trucks, full of coos and hens and ducks.’

  ‘Isn’t Father Bailey lovely?’

  ‘He’s all right.’ Paul was non-committal, mainly to tease her.

  ‘He’s not all right, he’s lovely.’ She swung her racket at him again in an upward movement, and he caught her arm and they struggled together until of a sudden Kathleen became still, and her face losing its merriment, she whispered hastily under her breath, ‘Give over, there’s me granda behind.’

  Letting go of her, Paul glanced casually back up the road, and there, walking as always with his hands in his pockets, was the little man who Kathleen called granda. Whenever Paul saw this man he would remind himself that there was no blood relation between his Aunt Sarah and Pat Bradley, and he was glad, even relieved. He would have hated to think there was anything of this man in his Aunt Sarah, or Kathleen.

  They walked on quickly now, sedately, a space and silence between them. Kathleen said quietly, ‘He gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Don’t let him worry you.’

  ‘He worries me mother. He’s started coming round again. He hasn’t been for months. He’s been living with his cousins, but they’ve had a row and now he’s in digs and he doesn’t like them. He wants to come and live with us.’ She glanced towards Paul. ‘I think I would die if he lived with us. I couldn’t bear him in the house. But, anyway, I needn’t worry about that, for me mother can’t stand the sight of him. She’s warned him time and time again, but he still comes. There’s some people think we should have him because we’ve got room. Betty Lawson said last term when we had a quarrel that everybody knew that my mother was hard because she wouldn’t give her own father houseroom after the blitz that time. The quarrel was nothing to do with Mam or anything else, it was about netball, but she brought that up. So people think that Mam is hard. She isn’t, is she?’

  ‘Aunt Sarah, hard? Good Lord, no. She’s too soft, if anything. Don’t you take any notice. People only get half of the story, then they make up the other half. Aunt Sarah’s got reason to hate his guts because he led her and your Aunt Phyllis a life of it when they were young. Dad told me all about it.’

  Kathleen said now, ‘Let’s get the bus. I want to get home. He might catch up on us. Look! There’s one coming in, we’ll just make it.’

  Simultaneously they began to run, and they caught the bus.

  Fifteen minutes later, laughing again, they came up the backyard and burst into the kitchen on Sarah and Phyllis.

  ‘Oh, hello, Aunt Phyllis.’

  ‘Hello, Kathleen pet; been playing tennis?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Phyllis.’ She threw her racket and shoes on to the armchair, and Sarah, turning from the table where she was rolling out pastry, said, ‘Now get those off there, Kathleen. I’ve told you before.’

  ‘OK, Mam. OK, Mam.’ And picking up the racket and holding it at arm’s length and dangling it from her fingers, she asked innocently, ‘Where’ll I put it, Mam?’

  Sarah and Phyllis exchanged glances, and Sarah, trying to suppress a smile, said, ‘Wherever you’re going to put it you’d better get it there and quick!’ She turned round sharply, her hand extended to give her daughter a wallop across the buttocks, but Kathleen, leaping past Paul and towards the scullery, cried, ‘Save me! Save me!’

  ‘Save yourself, you’re big enough.’ With manly indifference Paul sauntered to the hearth and, jerking his head at Phyllis, exclaimed in throaty tones, ‘That’s telling ’em.’ Whereupon Phyllis let out a bellow of a laugh. Sarah too laughed, but as she trimmed the pastry from the edge of a large plate she said without looking at Paul, ‘Your mother’s been across, Paul. She wondered if you were back.’

  ‘Oh.’ The laughter slid from Paul’s face and again he said, ‘Oh,’ then added, ‘I’d better be getting over.’

  ‘Where you going?’ Kathleen was entering the kitchen again.

  ‘Over home, of course…I have one, you know…a home.’ He thrust his head down to her.

  ‘I didn’t say you hadn’t, there’s nobody arguing with you. I’ll come over with you.’

  Before Paul could make any reply Sarah put in quietly, ‘No, Kathleen, I want you for a moment. Let Paul go over home.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Never mind any buts. Go on, Paul.’ She smiled at the boy, and Paul, returning her smile, said, ‘Be seeing you.’ He made a small swipe with his racket in Kathleen’s direction then went out.

  ‘What do you want me for, Mam?’

  ‘Never you mind, that can wait. You haven’t been in the house five minutes.’
/>   ‘Do you want me to do something?’

  ‘No, I just want you to stay put for five minutes.’ She turned, and, looking down at her daughter, smiled at her. And Kathleen, as always, returned her smile, but pursing her mouth and grinning now, her expression saying, ‘Anything to humour you.’

  ‘Well, I must be off, Sarah.’ Phyllis rose to her feet.

  ‘Oh, wait a minute, I’ll make a cup of tea before you go.’

  ‘You’ll not. I’ve had two lots of tea since I’ve been in. You’ll drown me in tea. It’s a wonder your stomach’s not poisoned. How many times do you have it at work?’

  ‘Oh, only twice. In the morning and afternoon break.’

  ‘When are you going back?’

  ‘Monday, I suppose, if he’ll sign me off. It seems daft to catch a cold, weather like this, doesn’t it? It’s sweltering. But they’re worse in the summer.’

  ‘Will you be able to come down at the weekend?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll likely be at the market; I’ll look in.’

  ‘Bring Kathleen with you.’ Phyllis looked towards her niece, and added quietly, ‘You don’t often look in on us. The lads love you to come. Young Dick said to me the other day, why weren’t there any girls in our family, and I said to him the doctor thought I could look after boys better; he said me hands are too hard for braying girls with.’

  Kathleen just smiled at this quip, she did not laugh, and Phyllis, turning abruptly away, said, ‘Here’s me for the road. Bye-bye, Kathleen.’

  ‘Bye-bye, Aunt Phyllis.’

  Clapping her hands over the board, then drying the remainder of the flour from them on her apron, Sarah followed Phyllis into the passage.

  When they reached the door they stood for a moment looking down into the street, and Phyllis said, ‘She’s bats about Paul, isn’t she? How’s it going to work out?’

  ‘Oh, it’ll take its course.’

  ‘What if they want to get married?’

  ‘I hope they will.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’

  The sisters looked at each other, and Phyllis, her head drooping, said, ‘Nothing, I suppose. There’s not so much pressure against cousins marrying the day.’ Then, glancing quickly up, she asked, ‘You really want them to?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sarah was now staring out into the street. ‘It’s about the only thing I do want.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry again?’ Phyllis’s voice was gentle. ‘You could, you know. You’re bonnier now than you were at twenty, being thinner, except for your bust…you’re stuck with that.’ Sarah pushed her and they both laughed. Then Phyllis ended, ‘Well, you wouldn’t have to go to the factory day in and day out if you did.’

  ‘I prefer the factory.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you know your own road best, like us all.’ She paused here before asking, ‘How long are you going to keep Kathleen at school?’

  ‘As long as she can stay. She’ll never reach Paul’s standard. But that doesn’t matter; the main thing for her is an education so there won’t be so much difference between them.’

  ‘You’ve got it all cut and dried, haven’t you?’ Phyllis was smiling her understanding smile. ‘Well, that’s how it should be. I wish I could do the same for even one of my four, but they haven’t a pennorth of brains atween them, except for making money, that is, and Ronnie isn’t bad on the piano.’ She laughed. ‘Oh, they’ll make out all right, the money way. You’d think our Jimmy was seventy instead of seventeen. And do you know that it was him who discovered ice cream?’ She pushed her fist in to Sarah’s arm. ‘Yes, ice cream hadn’t been heard of until our Jimmy struck it. Anyway’—her laughter was high now—‘he’s making money out of it, so good luck to him.’

  As Phyllis’ loud laugh floated into the street Sarah glanced towards the door that was only a few yards from her own, and she made a warning sign to Phyllis, and Phyllis, clapping her hand over her mouth, drew her head into her shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. Then, looking towards the other door, she asked, ‘No sign of a thaw?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t want any thaw now.’

  ‘It would drive me round the bend. Do you mean to say she still doesn’t open her mouth to you?’

  ‘Not a word, and when we pass in the street she could be blind, she doesn’t even see me. But there it is.’ Sarah gave a small smile. ‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter any more. You know, I forget she’s there. For days on end I forget she’s there.’

  ‘Does the old man still pop in?’

  ‘Oh yes, once or twice a week, mostly at the weekend. And Kathleen goes in and out.’

  ‘If she was mine I wouldn’t let her darken the door. If they wouldn’t have me they damn well wouldn’t have her.’

  ‘No, I would never stop her. After all, she’s her grandmother.’

  ‘Well, as I said, better you than me. I couldn’t put up with it. I must be off…Well, see you at the Assizes.’

  To this macabre but colloquial parting Sarah laughed and replied, ‘Yes. See you at the Assizes.’ Which saying they were to recall within a matter of hours. ‘My love to the boys,’ she added softly.

  ‘I’ll tell them. So long.’

  Going back through the front room, Sarah thought, It’s odd what Phyllis thinks she couldn’t stand, and her standing the stigma of the Arabs for years and still keeping her flag flying…Phyllis was a good lass. Yes, she was indeed. And she had spunk. By, she had that!

  ‘I’m not going down to Aunt Phyllis’ on Saturday, Mam.’ Kathleen was waiting for her when she entered the kitchen.

  ‘All right, all right, there’s nobody forcing you.’ Sarah’s tone was tart.

  ‘Well, I can’t help it, Mam; I’ve tried.’

  Sarah was at the table again, her back to her daughter and, her voice quiet now, she said, ‘I know you can’t. We’ll not go in to it, it’s all right.’

  Kathleen sat down in what had been David’s chair, and she bowed her head as she said, ‘I like Aunt Phyllis, I do. She’s nice, and she’s a good sort…but the boys, and all…Well, somehow…’

  Sarah turned from the board. ‘It’s all right, dear.’ Her manner was soothing. ‘I know how you feel, so don’t worry. But all you’ve got to do is to remember that the boys can’t help looking like Arabs and that they’re nice boys, they are.’

  ‘I know.’ Kathleen was mumbling now. ‘But it’s since Iris Bannister got to know about it and she told the others. And just before the holidays, just as recently as that, Peggy Crofton, the sneaky little cat, came up to me and said, “It isn’t true, is it, that your auntie lives among the Arabs?” I could have smacked her face. I nearly did.’

  ‘Coloured folk are marrying white folk all the time now and it’s only ignorant people who make something out of it. You’ve got to look at it like that. And those girls ought to be ashamed of themselves. And them with their education an’ all.’

  ‘Education!’ Kathleen sniffed. ‘Iris Bannister lives in Westoe village. Their house—I’ve seen it—it’s not much bigger than this, but because she lives in Westoe she thinks she’s the last word, and she’s always telling you about the private school she went to before she came to the high school. Betty Chalmers says it was a potty little place, just a house run by two people, old maids, who hadn’t even been teachers, but of course they were very…very refeened, and they talked like this.’ Kathleen screwed up her nose and lifted her upper lip into a point showing two large white front teeth, and as her mother burst out laughing her face fell into its natural lines again, and she too laughed as she said, ‘Betty Chalmers can do it wonderfully, she’d make you scream.’

  ‘Oh, dear, dear.’ Sarah, still laughing, shook her head at the tragedies of youth, but when Kathleen, rising from the chair, said, ‘I think I’ll go across to my Aunt May’s for a bit,’ Sarah stopped laughing and answered quickly, ‘No, I wouldn’t. Your Aunt May doesn’t see much of Paul and you know he’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘Well, that
’s why.’

  ‘But you must think of your Aunt May, Kathleen…Oh’—Sarah tapped her brow with the knuckle of her thumb—‘I forgot to tell you. Lorna MacKay called in this morning. She wanted you to go and hear her new record.’

  ‘Oh, bust.’

  ‘But I thought you liked Lorna?’

  ‘I do, I do, but then Michael will likely be in.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘You used to like Michael, too, at one time.’

  ‘Yes…well, I suppose I did. He’s all right but he’s always asking me to go out now, to the pictures and places.’

  ‘Well, you go to the pictures with Paul, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know, but that’s different. But that’s what he said too: I went to the pictures with Paul.’

  ‘And what did you say to that?’ Sarah was smiling quietly as she worked away at the table.

  ‘Oh, I said…well…’ Kathleen paused and gave a hick of a laugh. ‘Well, I said, you let me go with Paul because he was my cousin, but you thought I wasn’t old enough to go out with him.’ Her voice became smothered with suppressed laughter.

  ‘You little monkey!’ Sarah was looking at her daughter, her eyes bright. ‘Anyway, I would go up and see Lorna.’ It was an order put gently over.

  ‘Oh, all right. It’ll be an educational afternoon,’ she sighed, ‘interposed with a running commentary on…our Michael.’ Here she mimicked Lorna’s voice and attitude. ‘Our Michael’s earning sixteen pounds a week and him only nineteen, and when he gets to the coalface he can make over twenty pounds a week, he can.’ She waggled her plump, adolescent body, and Sarah said, ‘Now don’t be catty.’

  ‘Well, she’s always on about the money their Michael’s making. Always getting a dig in that Paul won’t be making any for years. She even said that her mother said that Paul would be twenty-three before he earned a penny.’

  ‘Did she now?’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘Well, Paul has got something money can’t buy, you tell her that.’