Justice is a Woman

by Catherine Cookson

  Miss Pringle was the first to break the silence. She put her knuckles to her mouth as she said, ‘Oh! not another one.’ Miss Pringle knew all about pit disasters. Her father had been killed in one, as also had the boy she had been planning to marry.

  Joe took her arm, saying, ‘Now, now; it might just be something slight.’ From experience he knew that Old May, as his father called her, could weather any emergency except a pit disaster. ‘Go and sit down,’ he said, ‘I’ll take a run along there and see what the situation is. Now, now, stop shaking.’ He shook her arm, then said briskly, ‘It’s your turn to drink your tea. Then don’t forget there’s that batch of letters to get off, and if we’re going to have opposition from another factory we’ll need to be on our toes, won’t we?’

  His brusqueness worked to some degree. She took her hand from her mouth, replying sharply, ‘All right! All right! All right!’ and marched out of the office.

  A few minutes later he was in the car making for the pithead, as seemingly was everybody else in the town, for the pit village housed only a third of the miners employed in the mine.

  He couldn’t get the car anywhere near the gates, nor, when he got out, could he get much information, because everyone was asking questions, and there was no-one to give any clear answers, except that there had been an explosion and it was thought part of the mine was flooded.

  Seeing the impossibility of getting further information at the moment, he got into the car and drove home, though not right up to the house. Driving straight to The Cottage, he found David trying to console young Elizabeth, who was crying for her mother.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ David asked immediately.

  ‘No, nothing specific. I couldn’t get near the gates to see. They say there’s been an explosion and there’s water in.’

  ‘Hazel’s in a state: old Dan’s on this shift, and Willie and Fred an’ all.’

  ‘They’ll be all together?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised; they’re all face workers.’

  ‘Willie and Fred are the married ones, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Still, it mightn’t be as bad as we’re anticipating.’

  ‘God! let’s hope not…There, there; now stop crying. Come on, don’t let Mr Joe see you’re a big baby.’

  ‘I want me mammy.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what.’ Joe now dropped onto his hunkers before the little girl and, taking her hand, he said, ‘How would you like to come and play with Martin? You know you like to play with Martin, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ The tears were blinked away and a slow smile spread over the round, pretty face.

  ‘Well, then, your daddy will take the car and bring your mummy back straightaway from your grandma’s and in the meantime you’ll come up to the house with me and we’ll all have a fine game in the nursery. What about it, eh?’

  Elizabeth’s smile widened. She glanced coyly up at her father now, and David said under his breath, ‘You may need the car if…’

  ‘I don’t need it.’ Joe kept his eyes on the child’s face. ‘Get yourself away, and if you can make use of it down there, do so.’

  From the corner of his eye he could see David standing still, and he said now abruptly, ‘Go on, man, before the waterworks start again.’

  ‘Will I get my coat, Mr Joe?’

  ‘Yes, get your coat, dear.’

  ‘The one with the hood?’

  ‘Yes, the one with the hood.’

  As the child ran into the bedroom, David took his own coat from the back of the door and as he put it on, Joe said, ‘Tell Hazel not to worry about her; she’ll be all right, and she can stay the night up there if you’re not back.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe.’

  As her father went out of the door Elizabeth came running from the bedroom in a red mackintosh coat with a hood attached, and Joe shaped his mouth into a large amazed, ‘O…h!’ before he said, ‘My! My! don’t you look bonny.’

  ‘Granda bought it for my birthday.’

  ‘Your granda certainly knows what suits you. Come on then.’

  He heard the car turning in the road as he lifted her into his arms; then having gone out the back way, he cut through the garden to the house.

  He still held the child in his arms as he went across the hall and up the stairs, and as she looked about her in curiosity, for it was the first time she had been inside the house, the hood fell back from her head.

  He had just reached the landing when Elaine’s sitting-room door opened and his wife emerged, followed by Betty.

  They both stood and stared at him and the child for a moment, and as he approached them he began to talk. ‘You would have heard the siren, so you know what’s happened.’ He spoke in a kind of aside and chose his words: ‘There’s three of the E-G-A-N-S down there, all on the face, I understand…You see who I’ve got here?’ He bounced the child in his arms. ‘She’s come to play with Martin, haven’t you?’

  When he looked at her, the child, more out of shyness than anything else, pressed her cheek against his, and at that moment the nursery door opened and Martin, his face bright with surprise and pleasure, cried, ‘Oh, it’s Elizabeth! Look! Mummy, it’s Elizabeth.’

  ‘No! Go back into the nursery, Martin, this moment…No!’ The ‘no’ was directed with deep emphasis towards Joe.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ His voice was quiet now. ‘Haven’t I told you what’s happened. Hazel and David have had to go to the pithead.’

  At the mention of the names Elaine’s face seemed to blanch; her eyes grew wide and her lips left her teeth as if she were about to yell. Her eyes were riveted on the two faces while her mind cried at her that it was what she had suspected all along, and now she had proof of it. She had seen the child occasionally but had never really looked at her closely. Moreover, she had forbidden Nellie to take Martin anywhere near the cottage; and Joe had previously known better than to bring the child into the house. Now there he was, the child in his arms, and who could deny her parentage? Her eyes, her mouth, her nose, even the shape of her face was his. Her voice rose to a screech as she cried, ‘Take her away!’

  ‘Elaine! Elaine! come, come…’ Betty was holding her firmly by the arms in an endeavour to turn her around; and Joe, putting the now frightened child on her feet, pushed her towards Martin and then shoved them both into the nursery and closed the door on them; then, moving to Betty’s assistance, he almost carried Elaine into the sitting room.

  When, with a strength that gave a lie to her languidness, she thrust them both off, they stood staring at her helplessly for a moment as her hands went to her heart. Then, as they caught her before she fell, they looked at each other, and their eyes spoke the same words: ‘Oh, not again.’

  Two days later the bodies of Dan, Willie and Fred Egan were brought out of the pit and Elaine resumed her breakdown, although this time she had to depend only on the ministrations of Betty, for she would not tolerate Joe near her; in fact, she herself locked both the outer door to the dressing room and the door to her bedroom at night, and opened them again only in the morning.

  She had only to resort to this twice in order to keep him away from her. The first time it happened he had taken his fist and hammered on the door, while he yelled, ‘Open this door, do you hear? or I’ll break it down.’ He wasn’t going to be made a fool of in his own house.

  The next night, when he found the doors locked, he just quietly tried the handles, then turned about and made for the end bedroom on the landing.

  It was strange, Mike remarked, that she was helpless enough to have Betty dancing attendance on her all day, yet she could get out of her bed at night to lock the doors and then again in the morning to open them. Wasn’t it about time he woke up?

  Yes. Joe decided, it was about time he woke up.

  A week from the night he had reached the decision in the kitchen, he paid his first visit to Newcastle. He also got into the habit of downing a double
whisky before going to bed. And so a new pattern was set.

  PART FOUR

  One

  Between the years 1931 and 1938 the atmosphere in the house changed yet again. Whereas during the year the little girl had lived, the feeling of pity and compassion had been overall, and even after Elaine’s first breakdown there had been added deep concern and unstinting love, from the day of the pit accident, compassion and love had been swept away, never to return.

  It took a year for Elaine to recover from her relapse, but the pattern of life for Joe did not change; there remained the ever-present probability of further relapses, and so he had no need to make excuses about refusing invitations, or even about him and Elaine being seen together.

  As time went on, it was imagined by many that Elaine’s frequent trips to London were really sojourns in private clinics, but here they were wrong. She did stay in London, but she enjoyed her trips there, and she made no bones about telling Betty that but for these breaks her life would be intolerable. And on this, Betty agreed with her.

  Betty’s existence over the years had followed much the same pattern as previously, the only change being the length of her stays with Lady Ambers; they were sometimes extended to a month, for the old lady was now much more frail, though only, it should be said, in her body, for her mind was as alert as ever, and Betty often felt like succumbing to her persuasive attempts to get her to leave the house altogether…But then, there was the boy, and Mike…and Joe. Hardly a day went by but Mike expressed his need of her; and, in a less demonstrative way, so did Joe.

  Elaine still needed her too, for she had to have someone to whom she could talk and recount the details of her visits to London; and, of course, she needed someone to take care of her son in her absence.

  That Elaine loved her son, Betty had no doubt, and she seemed to prove this by demanding that he be in her company for every moment after he came home from school. The only time she didn’t want him near her was when he had his screaming fits. And of late these had increased. On three occasions this last week he had raised the house in the middle of the night and had lain in a lather of sweat and fear. Even so, Betty hoped they would never indicate to the boy the real reason for his nightmares, for she felt that Martin was such a sensitive boy that a revelation of that kind could be very harmful to him.

  The doctor had said he believed that Martin would grow out of his problem, but over seven years had passed since the first one and the fits of screaming were still as intense as they had been on that first night; and now that he was growing rapidly and was very tall for his age, the fits seemed to take their toll of his strength. This worried Betty.

  When she mentioned her worries to Joe he admitted that he too had been concerned for some time about the boy’s health, and he told her that Marcus Levey had suggested he go to his brother for advice. What he expected or even hoped this might be he hadn’t indicated to Betty, but he stressed that he was out of patience with Dr Pearce’s view that time would do the healing.

  On this particular day in early December 1938, Betty was walking up the drive with Martin. David had met the boy from school and herself from the town, where she had been doing some shopping, and now as she and Martin walked briskly towards the house they continued the conversation they had begun in the car.

  ‘But he’s sure of it, Aunty Bett,’ insisted Martin. ‘You see, his father is a Jew, being Mr Levey’s brother; and they have cousins who have come over from Germany, and one of the cousins had a newspaper and knew everything about what was going on, and he’s sure there’s going to be a big war.’

  ‘Well now, that’s silly talk, because I’m sure you know that Mr Chamberlain’s been over to Germany, and Mr Hitler and he have come to an agreement which has done away with all this talk of war…’

  ‘Manny says his father says his cousin says that the people in England don’t know what they’re talking about.’

  Betty put her head back and laughed; then, looking down at him, she said, ‘Have you done Frederick the Great at school?’

  ‘Frederick the Great? Well, I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Well, I remember learning something he was supposed to have said. It goes, “My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.” And I think that holds good today. People will always say what they please, what suits them, but crowned heads nearly always do what they please, even if they lose their heads in the doing.’ Again she laughed; and now Martin laughed with her as she ended, ‘So it’s no good us worrying one way or the other, is it?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ He now put his head on one side and his expression was thoughtful as he said, ‘I’m not sure if I would like to go to war: I don’t like killing things; rats or even beetles. In biology the other day John Dolan said I was a cissy because I hated looking at the inside of a rat, but I’m not a cissy, am I, Aunty Bett?’

  ‘Of course you’re not, you’re a very boyish boy, as your ripped trousers have proved at times.’

  ‘Elizabeth said she wouldn’t mind if there was a war.’

  ‘Elizabeth said that?’ Betty paused in her walk, and the boy looked up at her, nodding emphatically, saying, ‘Yes, she did, because then she’d be able to go and be a nurse.’

  ‘But she can be a nurse without there being a war.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t be nursing wounded soldiers, and that’s what she wants to do, nurse wounded soldiers.’

  ‘Oh? When did Elizabeth say this?’

  They were walking on again and the boy answered immediately, ‘Oh, last night when we were down by the greenhouses and…’ He stopped abruptly and cast a quick glance up at Betty; and she returned his look.

  ‘You won’t tell Mummy?’

  She shook her head, then said, ‘But you do know you’ve been forbidden to go to the cottage.’

  ‘But I wasn’t at the cottage, Aunty Bett, I was down by the…’

  ‘It’s all the same.’ Her voice was quiet now. ‘You know what your mother means, don’t you?’

  The boy was looking ahead now and his voice was stiff and with an adult tone to it as he said, ‘I like Elizabeth, Aunty Bett. I’ve always liked Elizabeth and I’m not going to stop speaking to her. Anyway—’ He now jerked his head and looked up at Betty as he went on, ‘Father’s never said I shouldn’t talk to her, or go to the cottage. Father likes Elizabeth, he likes her very much, and he likes Hazel…and David. I…I don’t see why people should be disliked just because they’re black; David can’t help being black. Anyway, Elizabeth isn’t black, so what does Mother keep on about? I don’t understand it. I would like her to tell me why she doesn’t like her. I did ask her once, but she got into a temper and became ill.’

  ‘Martin—’ Betty drew him to a stop as they reached the curve in the drive and, bending towards him, she said softly, ‘Don’t pester your mother with questions like that. And don’t go out of your way to see Elizabeth when your mother is at home. When she’s away in London…well, I can’t keep an eye on you all the time, can I?’ She now grinned at him, and slowly he grinned back at her, then in a very unboyish fashion he suddenly reached up and put his arms around her and hugged her, and as she held him tightly for a moment he said, ‘Oh, Aunty Bett, I wish you were my mother. I do, I do.’

  They were standing apart now; her eyelids were blinking, and she swallowed deeply before saying, ‘Now, that’s very nice of you, Martin, but…but don’t repeat it ever again because…well, your mother loves you very much and she would be greatly hurt if she even imagined you thought such a thing.’

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry, Aunty Bett.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be sorry’—she put out her hand and gently touched his cheek—‘it’s the nicest and best thing that’s ever been said to me—believe that, Martin—and I’ll always treasure it, but…but don’t say it again, just in case…you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Aunty Bett.’

  They walked on again, and as they r
ounded the bend she said, ‘Look, there’s your grandfather waving to you,’ and the boy looked up towards the observatory and waved his hand wildly back; then as they approached the house he said, ‘I nearly had a fight about Grandpa yesterday.’

  ‘A fight? Why was that?’

  ‘John Dolan and Arthur Brown both said he was a mystery man and that likely he had committed a crime, else he wouldn’t stay up there in the glasshouse all his life. They said he had been there since he was a young man.’

  ‘What utter nonsense! Didn’t you tell them that he suffers from severe arthritis and can hardly walk?’

  ‘Yes, I did, but Arthur Brown said that was just a hoodwink. I would have belted him if he’d been on his own, but John Dolan was with him and he’s bigger than me and it would have been two to one. You know what they said, Aunty Bett? They said he had food put on a lift and winched up to him from the outside. John Dolan said he had seen it actually happening. Oh, I could have bashed his head…’

  As they entered the house Betty was laughing heartily as she said, ‘You know what they must have seen? The scaffolding in place when they were re-pointing the walls and putting the odd slates on the turret. John Dolan was one of the boys who came at the time and collected the windfalls with you, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Well then, that’s what he saw. He’s got an imagination, has Mr John Dolan. You remind him of the scaffolding when you next see him.’

  ‘Oh, there you are. You’re late.’ They both stopped as Elaine came down the stairs, and it was Betty who answered as she glanced at her watch, ‘I don’t think so; he’s come straight from school and I from the town.’

  ‘That might be so, but I saw the car come into the drive over five minutes ago.’

  Betty only just prevented herself from exclaiming loudly, ‘Oh, God in heaven, woman!’ What she forced herself to say was, ‘We decided to walk the last bit, Elaine, and we stopped to look at the blue tit’s nest.’