by Marie Joseph
Polly nodded listlessly at the biscuit barrel on the mantelpiece, and Gatty took out the two pound notes and tried to speak briskly.
‘I’ll get some shopping, Mam. I know what to get.’ She lifted the blanket on the settee drawn up to the fire. ‘Have a nice lie-down. I’ll be back at dinnertime. Try and sleep. You’ll feel better if you have a nice sleep.’
Polly nodded, and did as she was told. Before Gatty had closed the door of the cottage behind her, she was asleep, as suddenly and completely as a new-born baby. She was struggling through the steep snow. She was holding Bella’s dead baby in her arms, all stiff and cold. He was looking up at her with staring green eyes, but they weren’t his eyes. They were Jack Thomson’s eyes, bulging from their sockets. He was coming towards her with his slow, swaying plod, walking on the balls of his feet, and round his thick neck the mark of a rope stood out clearly.
Bella was there too, pointing an accusing finger, her features rock solid and unmoving in the grotesque mask of her frozen face.
Now Polly could see them advancing against a backdrop of trees, and a sky lost in a whirling flurry of snowflakes. Suddenly it was no longer Bella, but Gatty, and the baby Polly was holding in her arms looked like Harry. So where was Bella? And if that was Gatty, why was her face as hard and cold as marble when her mother reached out to touch it?
From behind Polly a huge white branch came cracking down from a tree, and she screamed and screamed . . . and screamed. . . .
There was a loud knocking in her ears. Polly opened her eyes, stretched them wide and saw a log burning in the hearth where it had dropped from the fire. Pushing the blanket aside she stood up, then steadied herself on the end of the sofa as the floor seemed to rise up and smack her between the eyes.
The screaming in her ears had stopped, but the knocking was still there, loud and persistent. A heavy sob broke from her as she dragged herself to the door, drew back the catch of the lock and opened it wide.
He was there, Robert, standing outside, etched against the grey and windless morning, with a pale sun behind him hanging sombrely over the larch and rowan trees in the far distance.
Stepping inside, he reached for her. ‘I’m here, little love. Shush . . . shush . . . shush. . . .’ Over her shoulder he saw the pillow and the blanket on the sofa. His face was very close to hers, watching her carefully, willing her to calmness. ‘You were dreaming, sweetheart. I heard you call out. But it’s all right now. I’m here, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
Gently but firmly he rocked her backwards and forwards, soothing, whispering words of comfort, and only when she stopped trembling did he lead her back to the sofa, tucking the blanket round her, trying to hide his dismay at the sight of her white, pinched face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she kept repeating. ‘Sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry. . . .’
At last the tears came, the first tears she had shed since her terrible discovery three days before. He sat down beside her, smoothing the hair back from her forehead. He gave her his handkerchief, told her to blow, then watched without speaking as her eyelids drooped over tired blue eyes and she sank into a sleep so much needed, he guessed, it was more like a small dying.
Outside all was silence, the weak sunshine dappling the great oak tree. Robert sat without moving as one hour passed, then another. He relived the minute when he had opened last night’s paper and seen the shouting black headlines: ‘Triple tragedy in lonely cottage.’ His heart had palpitated madly as he’d read further. ‘The bodies were found by a Mrs Pilgrim, a thirty-three-year-old married woman, who had struggled through waist-high snowdrifts in the long shadow of Pendle Hill to report her findings to the village police sergeant.’
Only his commonsense had prevented him setting off there and then to walk the miles in the dark to her. He had gone into the office, tried to work, found it impossible and had walked out, leaving his colleagues staring after him in amazement.
She woke at noon, blinking up at him like a child, trying to smile, her frayed nervous system reaching for some sort of normality. He let her talk, listened to her account of how it had been, watching her all the time with his pale grey eyes.
There was a pan of soup on the hob, and he pushed the trivet over the coals, lifted the lid and stirred it round. He ladled some into a bowl and made her drink it, seeing the colour come back to her cheeks and the blue marks round her mouth fade away.
He made up the fire, went outside for logs, let the dog out, bathed her face, helped her across the cinder path to the privy and waited for her to come out before guiding her gently back into the cottage. There was no embarrassment in what he was doing for her, no revulsion on his part. When her stomach rejected the soup, he held her head, wiped the sweat from her brow, brought water and bathed her face. Some of the vomit had gone down the front of her nightdress, so he went upstairs, rummaged in a drawer for a clean one, lifted the soiled one over her head, sponged her body, lowered the clean linen over her head, buttoned the row of tiny pearl buttons, then took her brush and tidied her hair.
For yet another hour Polly slept, and this time when she awoke Robert knew she was much better.
‘What a time to get ‘flu,’ she whispered. ‘Just before Christmas.’
He didn’t ask her any questions about Harry. The time for questions wasn’t yet.
‘It won’t always be dark at three,’ she told him. The light was there in her blue eyes again, and he knew she would survive.
‘I’m going now to meet Gatty from the bus,’ he told her, ‘and if she’s loaded with shopping I’ll help her up the hill. If not, I’ll go home and come again tomorrow. You’re not going to get rid of me as easily as that.’
‘Oh, Robert. . . .’ She held out her hand and he took it, and as before she felt his strength flow between them. ‘You’re a good man,’ she whispered.
‘I wouldn’t bank on that. I’ve been on my best behaviour today!’ He grinned, raised his hand and was gone, closing the door behind him with a soft click of the lock.
Although the snow had partly thawed, it still lay in patches as far as the eye could see across the bleak and undulating moorland to the east. The wind came from the east too, whistling with an icy touch down from the great hill of Pendle. Shivering, Robert turned up his collar awkwardly with his one hand as he slid down the rocky steep path to the village.
His ears were freezing, his nose dripped, and his eyes watered with the cold, but there in the little main street a red telephone box afforded him shelter as he waited for the bus to come up from the town.
Acting as nursemaid to Polly during the long quiet hours of the winter’s day had lifted a curtain on his memories. Just as he had sat with Polly, so he had sat with his wife Jean towards the end of her life. Patiently he had sat there, waiting for the moment when she would open her eyes in her brief moments of wakefulness. He recalled how she’d smiled at him before drifting away from him, and he remembered how the world outside had almost ceased to exist during that last week.
Could it be that he was still feeling bereft without the feeling of responsibility? Had Polly filled that need? He knew for certain that her dependence on him was a temporary thing. She had guts, and courage, and once her weakness had passed she would be her own self again, ready to challenge the world, and fight it if need be.
Polly Pilgrim wasn’t his. And another thing – did he really want her to be?
His sister-in-law Nellie was ‘speaking’ to him again. Her olive branch had taken the form of a batch of her light-as-a-feather scones, and although she would never apologize for her rudeness to Polly, Robert knew she regretted her behaviour.
The closed-in atmosphere of the telephone booth was stifling. In his concern for Polly, he hadn’t eaten all day. He had to get out into the air, but even as he pushed at the heavy door to open it, he saw the bus from the town trundling round the corner.
There were only three people getting off it. A woman festooned with parcels who hurried away in the opposite direction
, Gatty, and a man of average height, hatless in spite of the cold, dressed in a brown jacket and carrying a suitcase.
Robert guessed who he was immediately, even before he saw the way Gatty clung to his arm, laughing and talking nineteen to the dozen. Father and daughter, flesh of the same flesh, so much alike they might have been brother and sister.
Stepping back instinctively into the telephone booth, Robert pulled the brim of his trilby lower over his forehead, turning his back as they came towards him.
There was no need to hide. Lost to everything but each other, they walked by, on past the grey stone cottages and the tiny general store, turning eager faces towards the hill, and home.
Robert waited until they’d walked out of sight before leaving his shelter, then he ran on his long, grasshopper legs to where the bus had already turned, ready for its journey back into town.
He was happy for Polly, and at the same time sorry for himself. His feelings were contradictory and alien to his normal habit of straightforward thinking.
‘A single all the way,’ he said, sitting down on the seat by the door, a man who had thought he was in charge of his own destiny, and now wasn’t too sure.
As soon as Robert had gone, Polly did what she called ‘pulling herself together’. The long day of sleeping had left her refreshed, and although her legs felt like rubber, she told herself she was better, much better.
A product of her mother’s strict upbringing, she felt out of place and uneasy downstairs in her nightdress. Only soppy women slopped about like this. Either you were in bed ill, or you were up and doing. On your two feet. There was no in between.
Christmas was almost here. There were a thousand and one things to do. Gatty had been marvellous, but now Polly was at the helm again. Taking her time, she dragged herself wearily upstairs and started to dress.
Harry would get the letter in time. She felt it in her bones. And if he didn’t come home, she would take the last of the money out of the savings bank after Christmas was over, leave Martin with her mother, Gatty with Winnie, and the dog . . . well, Mrs Bebson at the post office would have him, once Polly convinced her that Jim would be more scared of her cat than the other way round.
If Harry was ill, or if he was in any kind of trouble, then she would see for herself. Enough was enough. Living like this was no good.
But without Harry, what sort of a Christmas was it going to be?
Slowly, holding on to the banister, Polly went downstairs again. It would have to be eggs again for tea, and she’d eat one even if it choked her. Strength was what she was going to need in the next few days. Strength, determination and hope. All three.
The floor was undulating beneath her feet, but she told it to be still. She was in charge once again, and that was all that mattered. Holding on to the table for support, whimpering with weakness, she reached up to the dresser shelf for a blue bowl and began to crack three brown-speckled eggs into it.
‘You go on, Dad,’ Gatty drew back as they passed Bella’s cottage, averting her gaze from the bracken-grey of it, trying not to see the way it seemed to have sunk even lower into the frost-trimmed long grasses. ‘I’m not frightened. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. You go on, and I’ll follow slowly.’ Her small face was serious and intense. ‘I want you to tell mam yourself. I want the two of you to be together. Just for a little while.’
‘You’re sure, love?’ Harry hesitated, but nodding her head Gatty urged him on.
‘Go on, Dad. Hurry! Please. . . .’
So, striding forward, Harry Pilgrim made his way home. In front of him, the great mass of Pendle Hill no longer green as on the September morning he had seen it last, merged into the swiftly falling darkness. The trees at its foot were as black as pitch, its gullies were clothed in purple, as the fading light crept over the snowy slopes. His heart beat wildly as he began to run, his feet slipping on the stones, shiny from the ice beneath the hard-packed snow.
Long before he reached the cottage his key was in his hand, and when he stepped inside he saw her spreading the cloth over the table in the way he remembered so well. In the next minute, the dog was leaping up to greet him and she was in his arms.
She was thinner than before, but her eyes were still as blue, her smile as warm. He kissed her, then held her from him, suddenly uncertain, the past months of their mutual frustrations and agonies coming between them.
He told her quickly, the words tumbling from him as he pressed his cold face against hers.
‘There’s a cottage, love. Only three up and two down, but with a bathroom built on the back.’ His voice rose in a shout of triumph. ‘Hot water, love! At the turn of a tap, with a back-boiler behind the fire. A good grammar school for Martin not far away, and a good train service into London for Gatty if she wants to work in Oxford Street.’ He shook her gently, as if forcing her to believe him. ‘It’s true, love! Don’t cry. I know it’s a miracle, but they do happen sometimes, and one’s happened for us.’
‘It’s a long story, Polly, but this one has a happy ending. I told you about the man, the friend I made in my lodgings?’
‘You told me hardly anything.’ Polly traced the outline of his mouth, running her fingers over his face as if she could hardly believe it was real.
‘I’ve never been much of a letter writer.’ He led her over to the settee, and they sat down, arms around each other, smiling into each other’s eyes. ‘It’s all on account of him. On account of his family.’ For a moment a shadow crossed his lean dark face, then was gone so swiftly Polly thought she must have imagined it.
‘Oxford Street?’ Polly whispered. ‘Our Gatty working in Oxford Street? She’ll be over the moon.’
‘She’s changed, love. We met at the bus stop, and she never stopped talking.’
‘We’ve all changed, Harry.’ Polly looked at him soberly. ‘You’ve changed, too.’
‘In what way?’ Suddenly he was on the defensive.
‘You’ve got your confidence back.’ Her blue eyes teased. ‘You talk like a southerner already. Like you’ve got a hot potato in your mouth.’
‘I never.’
‘I like it.’ She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Tell me what it’s like, love. Paint a picture for me.’
‘Well . . .’ he thought for a moment, ‘well, for a start, it’s warmer. The snow’s all gone, and when it came it was no more than a thin coating on the ground. Folks don’t look as tossed, Polly, love. Not where we’re going to live. It’s right out in the country, but the trees are softer somehow. Beech trees mainly, and the way things grow!’ He held out his hands. ‘Work. Oh, but there’ll be plenty of that. Yon garden’s in a right mess. He’s a lord, Polly, the man I’ll be working for. All white whiskers and a clipped way of talking. He wondered if you’d give his wife a hand up at the house?’
‘I had it in mind to be a secretary,’ Polly smiled, ‘but I might consider. Till something better comes along.’
They kissed again, then rocked together, smiling, excited, as happy as children.
‘Your mother?’ he asked her. ‘How do you think she’ll take us going away?’
‘Badly.’ Polly was honest. ‘But she’ll be happy for us.’ She contradicted herself. ‘Well, she won’t be happy, but she’ll make the best of it. You know mam.’
‘She can come and see us.’
Polly smiled. ‘Oh, she’ll like that. Having a son-in-law working for a lord, and living down south. She might even come to terms with you.’
‘Oh, Polly. . . .’ Harry stared into the fire, his eyes suddenly serious. ‘It was like coming back into another world, coming back up here. Seeing the groups of unemployed men on the Boulevard when I got off the train.’ He sighed. ‘Oh, there’s a depression down there, but not like up here. They’ve no idea, Polly. They see the figures in the papers, but they don’t understand. We’ve been given another chance, love. We’re the lucky ones. But up here they have to go on, day after day searching for work, even when all hope is gone. We mustn’t ever
forget them. Or ever forget that this is where our roots lie. We’re Lancastrians, Polly, and will be till the day we die.’
For a quiet, inarticulate man, he wasn’t doing too badly. Polly’s blue eyes were gentled with laughter as she saw the change finding the right kind of work had wrought in him. And there was something else . . . something she couldn’t put her finger on.
There was a lot more to be said. But there were secrets that would remain secrets for ever. Creating not a rift between them, but a better understanding. She knew that and accepted it. All that mattered was that they were together again.
Bringing the cold wind in with her, Gatty burst into the cottage, saw the two heads close together, one so fair and the other so dark. Pretending disdain, she humped the shopping-bag on to the table.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if nobody else looks like shaping up, then I suppose Mrs Muggins’ll have to make the tea!’
Stretching his legs contentedly over his own hearthstone, Harry beamed on them both. ‘Now I know I’m home,’ he grinned. ‘Get the kettle on, our Gatty. Your old dad’s spittin’ feathers!’
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Epub ISBN: 9781448107872
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First published 1984
© Marie Joseph 1984
ISBN 9780099329206