by Maggie Hope
Alf got to his feet and shrugged before walking to the gate. ‘I’m just going for a walk,’ he said. ‘Tell your mam I won’t be long.’
Cath put down the bowl by the sink and walked over to the rabbit hutch. She fed the rabbits with the grass she had pulled earlier and stood watching them eat through the wire grille on the door. They snuffled and their noses twitched as they ate busily. They had nothing to worry about except eating and sleeping, she thought. But they had, of course; they were prisoners. She made sure the catch on the hutch was closed properly then picked up the washing-up bowl and took it back inside. Then with her back to the door again she looked straight at her mam.
‘Mam, I am going to the grammar school,’ she said. She was poised to run up the yard and away, should her mother chase after her or throw the blacklead brush she was using to brush up the range at her. Sadie had done that before. Sadie smiled.
‘Lady, you’re asking for it,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what you’re going to do or not going to do.’
Cath felt sick and she could feel a pulse beating wildly in her throat, but she stood her ground. ‘If you don’t let me go to the grammar school, I will tell Dad all about Keith. And I will tell the bobby about the other baby, the one before Timmy.’
Before Sadie could erupt in rage she turned and flew out of the yard and ran and ran, past the ends of the rows of pit houses and along the road to the path which went up past Coundon. She didn’t stop until she was at the entrance to Eden Grange Hall. She stopped there because she had such a stitch in her side it bent her double and she could only breathe in retching, painful gasps. She looked into the park. The drive curved in until it was out of sight behind the trees. The house was out of sight too, so no one could stare in, she supposed.
The wrought-iron gates had been taken off in 1940 to go to the war effort along with all the other railings in Eden Hope, and so she was able to creep just inside the park and collapse down by old, sun-warmed bricks of the high perimeter wall.
The pain in her chest eased slowly and she hugged her knees and put her head down on them. She didn’t care if her mam murdered her, she thought. She didn’t care if she gave her away like she had done with Timmy. She just didn’t care about anything at all, no, she did not. She closed her eyes and the sun dipped behind the trees so that they cast long shadows across the grass.
‘Who are you? You can’t sleep there, girl, come on, you’ll have to go home.’
Cath sprang to her feet and swayed slightly so that she had to put out a hand to the wall to steady herself.
‘Are you all right?’ The voice became anxious and she looked up at the man. He was outlined against the setting sun, which struck through the trees so that he was hard to see at first, the light shining like a halo around his head. He was carrying a gun, she saw, but it didn’t worry her. After all, the Home Guard all had guns.
‘I’m fine,’ said Cath, then added, ‘sir,’ as a precaution. Not that the man was dressed at all posh like the toffs she had seen at the pictures, but neither was he dressed like a miner. He was wearing corduroy trousers reaching to just below the knee and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and he had a funny hat on his head. The gun was broken over his arm and had a double barrel. Cath saw all this in the first glance after the dizziness left her.
‘You’re trespassing, young lady,’ he said. She looked up at him. His eyes were a lightish brown, not so dark as her own, and his hair, what she could see of it under the funny hat, was grizzled. He gazed sternly back at her.
‘Are you the gamekeeper?’ she asked. Cath had heard the off-shift miners talk about the gamekeeper as they sat on their hunkers on the end of the rows. They rolled badly shaped cigarettes with tiny amounts of baccy and smoked and talked. She was interested because she could roll them really well and did so for her dad. Cigarettes weren’t on ration but they were short and the store allowed only a few per customer with the weekly rations.
Anyway, the miners had been chased by gamekeepers when they went snaring rabbits to eke out the meat ration. One, Mr Patton from West Row, had been caught by the gamekeeper and was up before the magistrates next week. All this flashed through her mind like lightning as she stood warily before the man with the gun.
‘The gamekeeper? What do you know about gamekeepers, girl?’ He continued to look sternly down at her.
‘Nothing, sir,’ she replied.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Eden Hope Colliery, sir.’
He regarded her for a moment, then said, ‘Come with me and I’ll show you a quick way back. It’s getting too dark for little girls to be out and with no streetlights because of this damn war—’
‘I’m not a little girl, I’m eleven. I’m going to the grammar school in September. And I can manage the road,’ said Cath.
‘Don’t argue with me, girl,’ he said and set off up the drive. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed him.
After about a quarter of a mile the big house loomed up ahead of them.
‘We’ll go round the back to the kitchen,’ the man said. ‘Cook will give you a piece of cake and then I’ll show you the way home.’
The kitchen was big, as big as the schoolroom at the Methodist chapel where Cath went on Sundays, dragging Annie with her so that her mam and dad could have a rest. There was a boy sitting at the kitchen table eating cake and drinking tea, and Cath was soon sitting beside him and doing the same. She ate every crumb because she had missed her tea and besides, it was sponge cake, which she liked.
‘When she is finished you can take her home, Jack,’ the gamekeeper said.
‘Aw, Dad,’ said the boy ‘I wanted—’
Whatever he wanted to do rather than take her home, Cath didn’t find out. The gamekeeper just gave his son a stern glance and went through a door at the other end of the kitchen. The boy pulled a face.
‘Hurry up then, I haven’t got all night,’ he said to the girl. She was still busy picking up every last crumb of cake with a wet finger but she stopped and lifted her chin.
‘I can go myself, you don’t have to go,’ she said. ‘If you just show me the short cut.’ The boy was about fifteen, she reckoned, and thought he was the bee’s knees, just like the lads in Eden Hope who had just started work in the pit and came out with black rims round their eyes.
‘Come on,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘You heard my father.’
Cath was about to say the man wasn’t her father but, looking at the boy’s face, decided against it. After all, it was quite dark now and she would never find a short cut on her own. Without streetlights she might not even find the road.
‘Thank you for the cake,’ she said to the woman who had come into the kitchen and was sitting by the fire smiling. She must be the cook the gamekeeper had talked about. The woman nodded.
‘Tell the gamekeeper thank you an’ all,’ said Cath and followed the boy out into the dark, so she didn’t see the cook’s startled glance at Jack. It must be very late, Cath realised, what with double summertime an’ all. Mam would clout her round the ear again. At least Dad would be home and Mam wouldn’t murder her for what she had said before she ran away.
Jack had a flashlight and he led the way to a path going steeply downhill a few yards from the house. Now and then he turned to make sure she was all right. He didn’t speak so she decided to say something herself, just to keep out the strange noise coming from the undergrowth.
‘I’m going to the grammar school in September,’ she said. ‘Do you go to King James?’ King James was the boy’s grammar school in the town.
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied. ‘Stop talking and watch where you’re going.’
Cath stumbled after him and sure enough, they came to the road just above the rows in less than half the time it would have taken to go round the road.
‘Go on, you’ll be all right now,’ he said and disappeared back up the path.
Chapter Six
‘Where the hell have you been?’
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Sadie and Alf started towards her from where they had been standing in front of the range. Sadie’s hand lifted as she shouted and Cath’s hand went up automatically to shield her ear.
‘Let the lass speak before you hit her,’ Alf warned, and Sadie stayed her hand.
‘I went for a walk and got lost in the woods up by Coundon way,’ said Cath, lifting her chin.
‘Never thinking about us, worried to death about you and me having to see to Annie and everything.’ Her fingers clenched into fists by her sides. She glared at Cath and Cath stared levelly back. After a moment Sadie turned away, and the girl knew that some understanding had been reached.
‘Howay in and get warmed,’ said Alf. ‘I’ve missed my pint at the club now, there’ll be none left. I might as well stay in. Your mam’s saved you some supper.’
Sadie took a plate out of the oven and to Cath’s surprise she saw that Mam had made a pie, a Woolton pie filled with vegetables, not meat, but still, she had bothered to make pastry. There was Oxo gravy but it had dried up around the edges.
‘You can eat it all up, spoilt or not,’ said Sadie. ‘We can’t afford to waste food, there’s a war on.’
‘I won’t waste it,’ said Cath and picked up her knife and fork and began to eat.
‘Me and your dad, we’ve decided you can go to the grammar school,’ said Sadie. She picked up the poker as she said it and stirred the embers in the grate, not looking at her daughter.
‘Thank you, Mam,’ said Cath and continued to eat.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ her father demanded. ‘Do you not want to go? You were keen enough this morning.’
‘Aye, I do want to go,’ said Cath. She tried to show some enthusiasm for his sake but suddenly she was just too tired. ‘Where’s our Annie?’
‘In bed, where you should be,’ snapped her mother. ‘Mind, I hope you know the rest of us will be having to do without things so you can go to your fancy school. You might at least show some appreciation.’
‘I’m pleased, Mam, really I am,’ said Cath. She cleaned her plate with a bit of bread and then stood up. ‘Can I go to bed now?’
‘Aw, hadaway now,’ said Sadie.
Once in bed, Cath lay by Annie, feeling the small warm body by her side. She could hear the murmur of voices downstairs as her parents talked. After a while the back door opened and closed and her father’s footsteps went up the yard. He must have gone to the club anyway, hoping there might be a drop of beer left.
‘Don’t think I’ll forget this, our Cath, you ungrateful little bugger,’ her mam’s voice came from the doorway. Cath closed her eyes tightly, pretending to be asleep. She thought about the gamekeeper and his son. Jack, the man had called him.
Jack was tall with fair hair and hazel eyes like his father. He would have had a pleasant face if he learned to smile, she thought drowsily. As it was, he was a right miserable-faced lad. Thought he was something special an’ all, better than her, she could tell. Well, he wasn’t. He didn’t even go to King James Grammar; he must not have been good enough to pass the scholarship. She fell asleep smiling at the thought and slept through the night.
Friday, 3 September 1943 was a very important day for Cath. The war was four years old to the day and, almost as if to celebrate it, the Eighth Army landed on the mainland of Europe: the toe of Italy, to be exact. That was the headline in the Daily Herald, anyway. Cath read it as she sipped her tea and ate a slice of plum jam and bread for breakfast before they went into Auckland to buy her school shoes. The shoes were what really made it an important day for Cath. She had been thinking she wasn’t going to get them in time for school, which started on Monday.
Aunty Patsy had a sewing machine, and she had made her a tunic in the bottle green that was the school colour, and Mam had got her a hat and coat from the secondhand stall in the school when they had gone to the open day. By this time Sadie was quite proud of having a daughter going to the grammar school and took care to let everyone she spoke to know about it.
‘By heck, I wish I was there with them,’ Alf said wistfully. In his mind he pictured the lads of the DLI racing up the beach in warm and sunny Italy. In the north-east of England, autumn had already begun and it was raining and blustery.
‘Don’t be so soft, Alf,’ snapped Sadie. ‘Your place is here, man, look at the size of me.’ Her belly was sticking out a bit, thought Cath, looking at her mother. Maybe it was a big baby.
‘Many a soldier’s wife manages on her own in this war,’ Alf reminded her.
‘Aye well, I wouldn’t have to but for you,’ Sadie whined. ‘Any road, you can mind the bairn.’
‘I cannot, man,’ Alf protested. ‘I have to go to see the manager, haven’t I?’ He was starting at the pit on Monday. Not Eden Hope or even Winton but the pit at Chilton, seven miles away. The miners had to go where they were told during the present emergency. It meant walking up to Coundon and getting a bus from there. Alf regretted the incident with the pick bitterly.
‘She’ll have to come with us then, won’t she?’ Sadie replied sharply. ‘Cath, get our Annie ready.’
They were walking down Newgate Street towards Benton’s department store, for Sadie had taken out a five-pound club with them, when Cath saw the boy, Jack, again. He was in a large car and sitting beside a woman with a fancy hat on, not a headscarf as most of the women were reduced to wearing. It sailed up Newgate Street towards the station and as it passed Jack stared straight at her, then gravely inclined his head.
‘All right for some, isn’t it?’ Sadie demanded of Cath. ‘Some folk can get petrol coupons.’
‘They’d be no use to us any road,’ Cath protested. ‘We haven’t got a car nor the money to buy petrol if we had.’
‘No but Keith—’ Sadie stopped and looked sideways at her daughter. Cath hadn’t seen or heard anything about Keith since the time she saw him with Sadie on the cinder path. Surely her mam wasn’t still meeting him? No, she couldn’t be, not when she had got so fat with the baby. Her mam was very proud of her figure normally.
‘Look at them, even the lad,’ Sadie was saying. ‘They think they are bloody royalty, bowing their heads to the peasants.’
She glared venomously after the car as it went on up the street, making slow progress because the shoppers had got into the habit of wandering across the road all the time, since most people’s cars were laid up for the duration.
‘He’s the gamekeeper’s son,’ said Cath. ‘I met him once.’
‘Oh aye, where did you meet a lad like him? Don’t make up so many stories, our Cath, or them teachers will have you out of that school as soon as look at you. I mean it, no more lies!’
Cath opened her mouth to protest that it wasn’t a lie, but Sadie was turning into the door of Benton’s and Cath and Annie had to hurry to follow her. It wasn’t very often they got to go in the big shop and especially not to buy anything.
Jack and the lady descended from the high step of the car at the station.
‘Wait here, Joseph,’ she ordered her driver. ‘Master Jack can carry his own case.’
Joseph was an old man. Retired, he had been called back into service when the younger men of the estate had gone into the forces. His son, Martin, had been a pilot with the RAF but was missing over Germany.
‘Yes m’lady,’ he replied. He sat in the chauffeur’s seat of the Rolls-Royce and watched as a group of soldiers hurried through to the platform. Steam from the train swirled down and along the cobbles in front of the station before dispersing in the wind. Joseph wished for the thousandth time that the war was over. Then he wouldn’t have to go back to an afternoon working in the vegetable patch behind the Hall or drive this dratted car again. Maybe, just maybe, he and his wife, Meg, would hear just what had happened to Martin. The familiar heartache settled on him like a blanket.
Jack was standing at the door of the first-class compartment. ‘I shouldn’t have to go to school, Mother,’ he said. ‘Other boys my age are working to help the war effort
.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jack,’ said his mother. ‘By the time you are old enough for that the war will be over, thank God.’
Jack watched moodily from his corner seat in the first-class carriage as the train picked up speed and hurried towards Shildon Tunnel. That was what he was afraid of, he thought as they chugged into the dark tunnel. That the war would be over before he had a chance to do anything. Joseph’s son Martin, now, he was barely three years older than Jack himself and there he was in the RAF. No, he corrected himself and blinked as the train came out into the light. Martin was missing over Germany. But that didn’t mean he was dead. He was probably having a great adventure hiding from the Jerries. Briefly he thought of his own brother, Aiden, killed a year ago. Well, there was no use in thinking of it.
A picture popped into his mind of the girl his father had brought into the kitchen that evening. She had been walking down Newgate Street today, towing another, tiny child. They were with a woman, poorly dressed and with a painted face, the sort his mother warned him against. She must have been the girl’s mother. Somehow, the girl’s face stuck in his mind. She had such big dark eyes and hair, hair that was almost black like a gypsy’s; her eyes were bright, vivid, full of interest in everything.
Jack sighed. He didn’t know why he was giving her even a moment’s thought: she was just a miner’s brat. He looked out on to the fields. They were coming into Darlington, where he was to change for York. He would have to fight his way off the train, for there were soldiers filling the corridors, sitting on their kitbags or leaning out of the windows. The air was thick with cheap tobacco smoke, and Jack grimaced.
Cath had forgotten all about Jack and the fancy motor car in her excitement at choosing new shoes. Not that there was a lot to choose from: only two styles in her size were in the shop apart from some with wooden soles like Dutch clogs. No coupons were needed for these, and Cath rather fancied them but the school had said brown leather lace-ups. Only one pair of the shoes fitted this description. Still, Cath was delighted with them. She held them, wrapped in plain paper, in one hand and held on to Annie with the other while Mam bought some steel studs for dad to hammer into the toes and heels to save cobbler’s bills.