The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  The flagstones beneath their feet were devoid of the smallest clippy mat, and apart from an orange box which was more than adequate to hold their few items of clothing - there were three pegs on the wall near the door for coats and hats - and an old patched armchair that was losing its stuffing, which David had bought for a few shillings from a pal, the only other items in the room were a dented brass coal scuttle standing in front of the tin bath and a large and rather ugly oil lamp above the range.

  Carrie wasn’t aware of the expression on her face as she glanced round what was now officially her new home, but when David said, his voice hearty, ‘This is just to tide us over, lass, until we can get hearth and home together,’ she nodded quickly.

  ‘Aye, I know, I know.’

  ‘It won’t always be like this.’ He took her two icy-cold hands in his, chaffing them gently as he spoke. ‘You do know that?’

  She nodded again, but now her voice was soft when she said, ‘David, what you’ve done for me . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t ever thank you enough but I am grateful.’

  ‘No, don’t say that.’ Her russet hair fell over her ears in silky waves and it rustled beneath her hat as she moved her head. The skin of her cheeks was a soft creamy white, porcelain pale.

  Too pale, David acknowledged painfully. And she always went a shade whiter when he touched her. But that didn’t matter. She was his wife, his wife, and in time he would make Carrie love him like he loved her. He just had to be patient, that was all. Ever since she had agreed to marry him he’d been tied up in knots, scared to death she would change her mind at the last minute and refuse to go through with it when push came to shove. But she had gone through with it.

  He began to tremble inside as he surveyed the girl in front of him. And now her face was drained of colour and she was saying she was grateful to him. He didn’t want her gratitude. He wanted--

  He forced himself to let go of her hands, saying evenly, ‘You’re freezing, lass, and no wonder. It’s like an ice-box in here. I’ll light the fire. I set it ready yesterday so it’ll soon take, and once that’s going it’ll make everything more’ - he had been about to say bearable but perhaps that was clumsy - ‘cheerful, eh?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Thanks again. He wasn’t going to be able to stand this if she kept thanking him all the time. As he reached for the matches on the shelf above the range, there was a knock at the door. He turned to look at Carrie in surprise.

  She, in her turn, stared at him wide-eyed before she walked to the door. She opened it to Mrs Bedlow, their landlady, who began to speak before Carrie could say a word.

  ‘I thought you could both do with a nice cup of tea, the weather bein’ so bitter. Am I right, lass?’ The tray in the landlady’s hands held a pot of tea, a milk jug and sugar bowl, a plate of freshly baked buttered drop scones and a small saucer of jam.

  ‘This is so kind of you, Mrs Bedlow,’ Carrie said. ‘Won’t you come in for a minute?’

  ‘Just a minute then.’ Their landlady’s voice lowered although Carrie had now shut the door. ‘I thought I’d better say hello an’ God bless you both, ’cos it’s for sure them upstairs won’t pass the time of day. Mind, I’ve no complaints ’cos they pay up every Friday regular as clockwork an’ are as clean an’ quiet as the fairies, but they’re foreigners, see. Polish I think they are, or mebbe it’s Russian, I forget now.’ She nodded to David who had applied a match to the fire and was straightening, brushing his hands against his trousers.

  Carrie smiled at Mrs Bedlow, taking the tray as she said, ‘You’ll join us in a cup of tea, I hope?’

  ‘No, thanks all the same, lass, but I’m expectin’ a happy event in the next little while. My Emilia is havin’ her first an’ I don’t like to be too far away in case she needs me.’

  ‘Emilia? Is that your daughter, Mrs Bedlow?’

  ‘My daughter?’ There was a wheezy laugh. ‘God bless you, dear, no, it’s me little tabby. The good Lord never blessed the late Mr Bedlow an’ me with bairns. Mind you, perhaps that was no bad thing. How I’d have managed with bairns and my Charlie, I don’t know. You only had to mention the word work and Charlie’s back would go. But he was a good man at heart, an’ with the lodgers an’ the bit of washin’ an’ ironin’ I take in we was never short of a bob or two. An’ he liked cats.’ She nodded, causing the enormous bun of white hair balanced above the round face to wobble alarmingly. ‘Aye, he liked cats, an’ that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Carrie agreed weakly.

  ‘Anyway, I mustn’t stand here jawin’ with Emilia needin’ comfort, must I, but I wanted to say welcome and congratulations to you both.’ She opened the door and turned on the threshold to say, as though bestowing a blessing, ‘May your two shadows ever lengthen in the sun of happiness. Me an’ Charlie had that said to us on the day we wed, nigh on forty years ago now, by me old da. Couldn’t abide Charlie, me da couldn’t, but you couldn’t fault his wedding speech. Grand, it was. ’Bye bye then, an’ if you need owt, tap on me door.’

  When the door closed, Carrie turned in a daze to face David who had taken the tray from her and placed it on the seat of the armchair.

  ‘He liked cats.’ David’s voice was choked, and then they both began to shake with small helpless tremors which intensified into muffled laughter, their hands tight across their mouths to stifle the sound.

  It was some time before they could control themselves, and as David glanced into Carrie’s eyes, bright with laughter, he blessed Mrs Bedlow. The day had ended in laughter. It was a start.

  Part 2

  Not a penny off the pay Not a minute on the day. 1926

  Chapter Six

  ‘So it’s begun then?’

  ‘Aye, it’s begun.’

  Joan McDarmount stared at her husband who had just walked in the door from attending a union meeting. Sandy’s voice bordered on the euphoric, but try as she might she couldn’t see eye to eye with him over this General Strike business.

  Four days ago at the end of April the coal-owners had closed every pit in the country, locking the miners out, just as Sandy and many of the old diehards had predicted. The owners’ terms to the miners amounted to pre-war wages and an extra hour on the working day to boot. Their terms to the government amounted to no state interference in the running of the mines, all strikes to be banned by law and the state to take control of all funds belonging to the trade unions. The owners had declared war on their working force, and every union, regardless of what industry it was involved in, knew it.

  The TUC had said they would back the miners to the last man, and this morning workers in almost every industry had laid down their tools, bringing the country to a stop. No buses and trains were running, factories were deathly silent, the docks were deserted and offices empty. And Sandy was cock-a-hoop.

  ‘Don’t look like that, lass.’ Sandy walked over to Joan who had resumed the task she’d been about before his entrance, that of kneading bread dough. ‘You knew it was comin’, it had to, didn’t it? We can’t sit under it any more. Three pounds eighteen shillings I was earnin’ regular five years ago, an’ what is it now? Two pounds if I’m lucky, an’ that’s before I’m docked with their trumped-up fines. With every worker in the country showing they’re for us, we can’t fail.’

  ‘You said that in nineteen twenty-one.’ Joan’s voice was bitter. ‘An’ I tell you straight, Sandy, I’m sick of hearin’ it won’t happen again. Why shouldn’t it? The other unions hung the miners out to dry then and nothing’s changed in my book. They’ll back down again, I feel it in me water. It might take days or weeks, but they won’t stand with us for ever. Churchill and his lot are already trying to paint the miners blacker than the ace of spades, you know they are. Never mind the dole queues and families like that poor Mrs Cook’s in Renee’s street. Him out of work sixteen weeks and eight of them starving. Renee said although Mrs Cook’s nursing her latest, all the food she’d had when Renee popped i
n that day last week was a cup of tea at breakfast time, and tea and two slices of bread and butter, provided by a married sister living near, at teatime.’

  ‘Aye, I know, lass, it’s wicked.’

  ‘It is wicked.’ Joan glared at Sandy as though he’d disagreed with her. ‘Churchill might insist all things are bright and beautiful in Britain, but only for them born with a silver spoon in their mouth.’

  ‘Which is why we can’t lie down after this last lot, lass. You do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye, aye, you know I do.’ Joan’s rigid stance crumpled and immediately Sandy put an arm round her.

  ‘Come on, lass, come on. This isn’t like you.’

  ‘It’s bairns like Carrie and David I’m thinking about. It’s only been the last couple of weeks she’s been anything like after that awful sickness. I was never like that, not with my first. She’s skin and bone, Sandy. Skin and bone. But for that landlady of hers keeping an eye on her during the day I don’t know what I’d have done.’

  ‘They’re not bairns, Joan. Neither of ’em.’ Sandy’s voice was flat.

  ‘And now, just when she’s able to pick herself up a bit, this strike has hit.’ Joan continued as though she hadn’t heard him, although she was very aware of both the tone of her husband’s voice and the way he had removed his arm from her shoulders at the mention of Carrie and David. ‘What if all this grand talk of solidarity and such melts away like it did before? Two hundred pits closed in Durham alone and one hundred and fifty thousand men laid off, and there they are in one room with next to nothing and a bairn on the way.’

  ‘Aye, well, it didn’t have to be that way, did it? It was their choice.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, love.’ Joan’s voice was suddenly soft. ‘They made a mistake, that’s all. A couple of bairns who let things run away with them.’

  ‘Aye, mebbe.’ Sandy turned away and stood staring into the fire glowing in the range. They wouldn’t be able to have a blaze like this much longer, not with the free coal finished. The thought came from nowhere and it made his voice even more terse when he said, ‘But they lied to me, the pair of ’em, an’ that’s what sticks in me craw if you want to know the truth. I went grovellin’ to that lad after our Carrie told me he was all above board, an’ he let me, all the time laughin’ up his sleeve.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been like that, you know that at heart. They’d have been frightened, scared out of their wits most like. Carrie’s a good lass, always has been, and David’s not a bad lad.’

  ‘I know what David is.’ There was no hint of softening in Sandy’s voice or manner. ‘By, if anyone knows that, I know it now.’

  ‘Sandy--’

  ‘No, don’t, lass. Don’t try an’ talk me round because it’s a lost cause. I want no more to do with the lad an’ if it wasn’t for our Carrie I’d wipe the floor with him. As it is . . .’ He sighed heavily. ‘I won’t show him the door if he comes with her, but that’s the most I can say. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.’

  Stubborn as the day was long. Joan felt a mixture of irritation and compassion as she gazed at her husband’s face. He was torturing himself daily with the loss of Carrie, she could see it clear as crystal, but would he admit it? Would he heck. She knew from what Renee had let on, via Walter, that her husband and Billy were making life as unpleasant as they could for David down the pit, but what could she do about it? Nowt. Only pray and trust that somehow this would all work itself out. They said time was a great healer, and maybe Sandy would be different when the bairn, his first grandchild, came, but she doubted it. And he was drinking again.

  She rubbed a flour-caked hand across her forehead, suddenly weary with the lot of them. She could have done without this at her time of life, by, she could, what with the weather not having let up since the New Year and the twins being confined to the house with chickenpox for the last week and more, driving her mad in the process. And Renee had turned as flighty as she didn’t know what, refusing to give up her job and furthermore declaring she and Walter weren’t looking to have any bairns for the time being. As for Carrie, she looked like death warmed up in that awful, stinking hole-- No. She caught the last thought, her innate honesty forcing her to admit, no, it wasn’t stinking. Clean as a new pin, more like, but still no place for her bright, bonny bairn.

  ‘Lass, I can’t be other than what I am.’ Sandy had turned back to her again and now took her arm, drawing her round and into his arms. ‘I’d like to be able to shrug it off, say it don’t matter, but I can’t an’ it does.’

  Joan swallowed hard. Aye, it did, she knew it did, and wasn’t this part of what had made her take him in the first place? He felt things, he cared. And whatever he said, she knew it wasn’t just the loss of Carrie he was grieving. He had liked young David, loved him even.

  ‘Sandy?’ She rested her floury hands on the shoulders of his old jacket. ‘Promise me one thing, lad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t . . . don’t have a drink the next little while. Not . . . till we’re sorted.’

  Sandy stared into the face of the woman he had loved since he’d first set eyes on her some twenty-odd years before. She had been bonny then, she still was bonny, but now her looks had taken on the weariness of all the women round about. She was canny, frugal, she could make a penny stretch to two and she had needed to often since the bairns had come, but never a word of complaint. There had always been something hot for him and the bairns come evening, be it broth with bare rib bones to suck at and new bread from a flat cake to mop up the last tiny drop when things were extra tight. She had always been a great believer in filling the belly and keeping the range going day and night so there was always somewhere warm to curl up near; the rest, even the rent money, she always said, came second. He didn’t know what he would do without her. ‘Aye, lass, I promise.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘I’ve said, haven’t I?’ And then he did something unheard of in the middle of the day in broad daylight. He kissed her, hard and long, the sort of kiss kept for the night hours and the warmth of their double bed. And Joan kissed him back, her arms tightening round his broad shoulders. She hoped Carrie and David had the same sort of feeling she and Sandy shared, she thought suddenly, but she just couldn’t tell. In fact she couldn’t work the pair of them out at all if she was being truthful. Course, it was early days yet, and being caught out like they’d been didn’t make for a good start in anyone’s book, but all that taken into consideration, there was something she couldn’t put her finger on in all of this.

  A little earlier, in an effort to expel some of the twins’ pent-up energy, made all the more volatile due to the fact the two small boys couldn’t even play in the yard or back lane owing to the driving rain and howling wind, she had set them the task of scrubbing the floorboards and furniture in the bedroom they now shared with Billy. Mindful of this she pushed Sandy away from her, half smiling as she muttered, ‘Give over, man, that’s enough. And where’s Billy? Didn’t he come back with you?’

  ‘A few of the lads have gone for a jar in the Tavern.’

  ‘And you didn’t want to join them?’

  ‘I thought you’d be wonderin’ what was what.’

  Joan stared at him for a moment, and her voice was soft when she said, ‘Aye, I was. Sit yourself down then and I’ll get you a sup. There’s a bite of sly cake I made not ten minutes ago if you’re peckish. Or a shive of stottie cake with a bit of pork dripping.’

  Sandy glanced across to the thick pastry covering an old dinner plate. It would be generously filled with currants and sugar inside, and no one made pastry like Joan. His mouth watered but he shook his head, saying, ‘A cup of tea’ll do for now.’ They were all going to have to pull in their belts for as long as the strike continued, so he might as well start now.

  Joan had an inkling of his thoughts but didn’t press him, her mind only half on Sandy. Once upon a time David, as Billy’s best pal, would have automatically come back here on a d
ay like this one, but recent events had changed all that. Sandy had lost a lad he’d looked on almost as one of his own, and Billy the pal he’d been thick with since he could toddle. Who’d have thought it? As for her, she was missing her lass more than she would have thought possible. Renee’s going had been natural somehow, and something of a relief, with her and her da always at loggerheads, but she felt Carrie had been ripped away from her. And with every Tom, Dick and Harry doing their sums from the day David and Carrie had wed in such a rush . . .

  Joan finished mashing the tea, straightened her bowed shoulders and adjusted her thick linen pinny before she brought the teapot to the table. Enough, she told herself firmly. It didn’t help anyone brooding like this, and she’d enough on her plate with four hungry mouths to feed and next to nothing coming in. And things’d get worse before they got better, that was for sure. Like her mam had always said, take life in bite-size pieces and it won’t choke you, and if anyone had known the truth of that statement, her mam had, the troubles she’d borne in her time.