‘Scotch tinkers and thieves more like!’ Ellis would laugh harshly. ‘Your mam followed the herring fleet, so don’t go thinking you’re any better than us.’
On the accusations would go. The reason there was scant food was his doing. The reason it was burnt and inedible was hers. Millie would lie upstairs and watch the clouds whip across the stars, wishing she could climb on to one and escape. All the time she wondered why they never spoke of the one thing that she wanted them to – her dead brother. The fights had never been this bad when Graham had been around, but without him they seemed to be tearing each other apart. She hated her parents for not missing him as she did. Not once in nearly three years had they mentioned his name.
But this banging on the piano made Millie anxious. Her mother had hardly touched it since Graham’s death. It was the only piece of furniture left of any worth, yet it stood in the corner of the tiny parlour gathering dust, a reproachful reminder of happier days when they had gathered around it on a Saturday evening and sung songs. Those were days before the war when her father had walked without a limp and sung with off-key gusto. The cottage in Saviour Street had been full of harmonious sound then: her mother’s humming, Graham’s whistling, her father’s hymn singing, her skipping songs with friend Ella. Now it was a house of bickering and bitter words and slamming doors. Yet there seemed to be something worse than usual happening in the dark downstairs, something else that was keeping her parents and probably their neighbours from sleep.
Millie decided to get out of bed and creep to the trap door beyond her curtained room. Shivering in her nightgown she peered down the ladder to the kitchen below. It was in darkness. But beyond she saw candlelight flicker from the parlour where her parents slept and where they now fought. The dim light threw grotesque, exaggerated shadows across the floor.
‘There’s nowt I can do to stop them,’ Ellis insisted.
‘That’s typical! You’ve never been able to stand up to anyone,’ Teresa accused.
Ellis blustered. ‘We can go and live with Hannah for a bit till this all gets sorted out.’
Millie’s heart sank at the mention of her aunt. She was censorious and mean with her money, and all too ready to beat Millie with a hairbrush if she broke anything or spoke out of turn. Why could her father possibly want them to go and live there? she wondered. She climbed down the ladder to get a better view.
‘I’ll never be beholden to that woman,’ Teresa hissed. ‘She’s always treated me like I’ve just crawled out of the midden – thinks she’s above us just because she’s married to that preacher. And the way she picks on Millie . . .’
‘She’s a good woman,’ Ellis defended his sister. ‘She sees the way you spoil that lass. It’ll not do Millie any harm to have a bit of firmness for a while.’
‘No, Ellis! Wild horses wouldn’t drag me to live under her roof.’
‘You don’t have a choice. Do you want to end up on the shore in a makeshift tent like the MacAulays and the Smiths?’ her father shouted. Millie’s stomach turned over at his dire words, thinking of those leaking, windblown structures that were now home to the strikers’ families who had been evicted from a neighbouring terrace last week. Their homes had already been occupied by strangers rumoured to have come from Cornwall.
‘Don’t you threaten me with that,’ Teresa shouted back. ‘This is all your doing.’
From the bottom of the ladder Millie could glimpse the pair through the door. The candlelight fell on her father’s angry, gaunt features, creating deep shadows for eyes.
‘It’s not my fault the bosses tried to cut our pay by half,’ he answered. ‘They’re the ones that locked us out. They’re the ones that are bringing in scab labour.’
‘Not to my house they’re not!’ Teresa replied with spirit.
‘And how are you going to stop them?’ Ellis demanded. ‘They’ve given us two days to clear out or they’ll hoy us out. Is that what you want, to be thrown out on the street in front of all the neighbours? Well, I’ll not have anyone making a spectacle of the Mercers. We’ll go quietly.’
For the first time Millie saw her mother’s face as she stepped towards her husband. Her prominent cheeks looked sunken in the lurid light, but her dark eyes blazed with contempt and indignation.
‘Is that all you care about – your precious Mercer pride? When are you ever going to stand up for your own family, Ellis? You’re weak, weak as dust tea! You’d sooner see your wife and daughter evicted than make a fuss or disturb the neighbours.’ She was close up to him now, jabbing a long finger into his chest. ‘Why do you think they’ve picked on us, Ellis? Why are we the only ones being thrown out of Saviour Street when there are half a dozen others on strike down our street?’
Millie saw her father back away. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your vicious tongue, woman.’
But her mother persisted. ‘It’s because the bosses know that there’s not one family in this street will lift a finger to help the Mercers now. Not after all the shame. They’ll be pleased to see us go; they’ll say it’s no more than we deserve, what with us raising a coward in our home!’
Ellis grabbed Teresa’s hand with a howl of anger and shoved her back. She fell against the open piano, which squealed in protest. Turning with a sob, Teresa thumped the keys with rage, the jarring sound filling the tiny room.
‘Coward, coward, coward!’ she screamed. ‘I spawned a yellow-bellied Mercer. My son should have been a hero, but they shot him for running away. He was a coward all along – just like his father!’
‘Damn you!’ Ellis croaked, and lunged to silence her. He snapped down the lid of the piano and trapped her fingers. Millie heard her mother scream in pain while her father shouted, ‘Shut up, shut up! I told you never to mention that lad again.’
‘Graham, Graham, Graham!’ Teresa taunted as she wept. It was the first time Millie had heard her mother call his name since his death, and it seemed to conjure him into the room. Millie felt winded and saw her father flinch too. Then in horror she watched as he struck her mother across the face, the name of her brother ringing around the room with the dying piano notes.
‘You can’t stop me talking about him anymore,’ Teresa howled, clutching her face. ‘I want to hear his name. Graham, Graham, Graham . . .’ She became incoherent as she gave way to choking sobs and sank to her knees.
Millie saw her father pick up the candlestick and wave it above her mother’s head where she lay crumpled on the floor. Suddenly she leapt forward.
‘No!’ she cried.
Her mother looked up in time to see the brass holder bearing down on her. She glanced away and took the blow on her shoulder. The candle fell into her hair, and she shrieked in panic as the flame flared. Ellis stood back in horror at what he had just done. As the smell of singeing hair stung Millie’s nostrils, she lunged for the chamber pot under the iron-framed bed and flung the contents at her mother. Teresa gasped and spluttered with shock, but the flame fizzled out. Both parents turned to stare at her as she dropped the chamber pot. Millie stood shaking uncontrollably in her nightgown, her tousled black hair snaking about her face, but unable to hide her appalled expression. She did not know what to think of them. They had frightened her with their talk of eviction and their hatred for each other, yet for a moment she had felt pity at the sight of their distress – her father’s desolate face, her mother’s agonising cry for their lost son. She was too upset to know if she hated or loved them anymore.
‘Millie, pet,’ her father whispered, ‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘Come here, my precious!’ her mother commanded, holding out her arms.
But Millie could not move. Her father’s sudden violence made her afraid of him, while her mother repelled her with the smell of scorched hair and urine.
‘Where are we going to live?’ she whispered in a trembling voice.
Neither of them could answer her.
She felt a small worm of bitterness twisting inside at what they had done. They had spoilt th
e place of her growing-up, taken away the feeling of safety and cosiness that had once been there. Ever since Graham had answered the call of the recruiting posters for the army in Flanders and been waved away at the station in Ashborough, this house had deteriorated into a worried, unhappy place. It dawned on Millie for the first time that Graham had been the one person who could hold the family together. Without his easy laugh and quick forgiveness they had fallen to pieces. She, Millie, could never be big enough to step into the role of peacemaker. In fact she seemed to make matters worse, driving her parents further apart as they argued over possession of her.
‘I don’t care,’ she said defiantly. ‘I hate this place, I hate this house. I’m glad they’re hoying us out. Ella was the only one round here speaking to me and now she’s gone to London. They wouldn’t even let us take part in the peace tea would they, the miserable lot? Who needs neighbours like that?’
She saw her father’s eyes glisten with tears, but he could not speak. Her mother rallied at her stout words. It had rankled with her too that they had been ostracised from the end-of-war celebrations last year. Teresa had taken Millie on a rare trip into Ashborough to see a Charlie Chaplin film rather than be excluded from the street party and the feting of Craston’s surviving heroes.
‘Aye, that’s right, Millie,’ she answered, picking herself up from the floor. We don’t need them. We’ll leave Craston. Start again somewhere else where they’ll respect us for who we are.’ She went over and put damp arms around her daughter.
‘Go where?’ Ellis asked with a despairing look. I’ll not get another job outside Craston Colliery, not with me gammy leg.’
Teresa turned and looked at him with weary contempt. ‘No, most likely you won’t. But that’s not going to stop me. Millie and me will go to Ashborough and look for work. You can follow on if you wish.’
Ellis gawped at his wife as if he had misheard her. ‘And who’s going to employ the likes of you?’
Teresa bristled. ‘I can get work as a housekeeper or a companion.’
Millie watched her father’s haggard face crease in derision. ‘A housekeeper! You can’t even keep this cottage in order, you useless woman.’
Millie knew in that moment that the final thread binding her parents to each other was snapping. If her father had said something placating to show he still wanted her, Teresa might have relented, even after such a row. They had made it up before after terrible fights. But both were now at the end of their tether.
‘Don’t laugh at me, Ellis Mercer.’ She spat out his name. ‘I’ll show you I can make something of myself outside this poxy village!’
She turned her back on him and spun Millie round with her, pushing her through the parlour door towards the ladder. Millie scrambled back upstairs and heard her mother follow. It was not the first time Teresa had slept with her instead of her father, but tonight, Millie knew, was different. This was no mere protest, even though her father thought otherwise.
‘You’ll not last more than five minutes on your own!’ he shouted up the ladder after them. ‘No one’ll have you as their cook – not unless they want to poison someone!’
He must have stayed at the bottom of the ladder for ten minutes or more, shouting derision and abuse at the dark hole above. Teresa removed her damp dress and ordered Millie to lie down beside her and go to sleep. ‘We’ll show him,’ her mother whispered determinedly. ‘We’ll show them all!’
Millie lay awake for most of the night listening to the sigh of the sea on the nearby shore and the uneven breathing of her sleeping mother. Below she heard her father go out, and just before dawn she heard his boots returning up the cinder track to the kitchen door. He was banging about, opening and closing drawers. Perhaps he was packing up their few possessions, she thought drowsily, as sleep finally came to claim her. But just as she slipped into oblivion, she heard a strange, muted crying, like a mournful seagull. Millie had never heard her father weep before, not even when the telegram had come telling them of Graham’s death, but she was sure she heard him now.
***
When she woke it was broad daylight and her mother had gone from beside her. Millie shot up in panic, thinking she might have been left. Struggling into her clothes she tumbled down the ladder to find the kitchen deserted and the fire quite cold. For the past week they had tried to keep it alight with driftwood and pieces of dross picked up from the shore.
Suddenly Teresa appeared from the parlour, carrying a small portmanteau that had belonged to her own mother.
‘There’s a lump of cheese in the pantry,’ she said quietly. ‘Go and get it. You can have that with a cup of water, then we’ll be off.’
‘Off where?’ Millie gulped, watching her mother take the gaudy tea caddy from the mantelpiece and wedge it in the bag on top of a few clothes.
‘Ashborough, like I said,’ Teresa replied shortly.
‘Is Dad coming?’ Millie asked. Her mother did not answer. ‘Where is he?’
‘Gone to beg with your Aunt Hannah, no doubt,’ Teresa said bitterly. ‘Now hurry up and do as I say.’
Millie felt her stomach tighten with hunger and nerves. The terrible scenes of the night before seemed like a bad dream and she was now frightened of the thought of leaving. She fetched the cheese but found it hard and indigestible, sticking in her throat when she tried to eat. Her mother seemed edgy and eager to be gone.
‘Hurry and put your clothes into a pillowcase,’ she ordered while wrapping her prized silver teaspoons in a cloth.
Millie’s heart hammered as she ascended the ladder for the final time. She glanced around the sparse room, with its low, sloping ceiling and worn linoleum, which she had once shared with her brother. Fumbling with the chest of drawers that her mother had painted with bright flowers, she pulled out clothes at random and stuffed what she could into her pillowcase. Her eye caught the childish music box that stood on a chair by her bed. Her father had made it for her years ago and she still played it every night to get to sleep. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out a petticoat and shoved in the music box instead.
‘Be quick now!’ her mother shouted up the ladder.
Millie hunted under her mattress for a precious bundle of possessions: Graham’s postcards and handkerchief, a roll of purple ribbon from Ella and a miniature picture book she had been given in Sunday school. She forced them into the bulging pillowcase as she scrambled for the stairs.
Her mother had Millie’s coat held out ready to put on. Teresa herself was already dressed for going out in her navy coat and best blue felt hat.
‘We can’t go without seeing me dad,’ Millie gabbled. ‘And I want to say goodbye to Ella’s mam.’
Her mother considered her for a moment and then seemed to change her mind.
‘This isn’t goodbye,’ she said briskly. ‘We’ll just spend the day in Ashborough looking for work and some decent lodgings. I can sell the spoons to cover the rent. Now let’s get started while it’s early and there’re fewer busy-bodies about. Don’t want the neighbours gawping at us like fish, whispering about us behind our backs, do we?’
They do that anyway, Millie thought, but kept it to herself. She felt a wave of relief.
‘So we’re coming back later to tell Dad where we’ve gone?’ she questioned.
‘Aye,’ her mother said, looking away.
Millie followed her out of the cottage into a grey, drizzly morning. Rain dripped off the red geranium in its pot on the low window ledge by the back door. Their feet squelched on the cinder pathway that was turning to black mud. Saviour Street was quiet, save for the squawk of a hen and a small group of boys playing football with a tin can. The rain was keeping people indoors, but Millie was sure they were being watched.
She hurried after her mother down the back lane and turned into Craston’s main street, but instead of walking past the huddle of sparsely stocked shops, Teresa cut across the street and down towards the shore.
‘We’ll take the short cut along the beach to t
he wagon-way,’ she told her daughter. Millie wondered if this was to avoid bumping into Aunt Hannah or her father, who might be hanging around the corner of Main Street where the out-of-work miners squatted on their haunches and passed the tedious hours together.
Millie’s heart lurched as she caught sight of the dismal tents on the beach where the homeless strikers were now attempting to shelter. There was a wisp of smoke from a spluttering fire which a thin-faced child was trying to coax into life. Her clothes and hair dripped and Millie could see her shivering from this distance. Shuddering to think that this fate might soon befall them, she hugged herself in her coat and clutched at her mother’s hand. It was cold, but she felt an answering squeeze.
As they passed, they heard the wailing of a baby and a mother’s sharp voice scolding. The sea frothed on rocks below them, a stiff breeze making the canvas shelters flap and tug at their makeshift pegs as if they yearned for escape too. Teresa pulled Millie after her, quickening their step, so that she did not have time to look back at the blackened village or its towering pithead that hissed and clanked on the skyline. All she saw was a fleeting impression of dark figures crawling over the spoil heap searching for nuggets of coal. Whether they were men or children she could not tell; all she knew was that they would soon be chased off by the police. Her father had forbidden her to go there in case she got into trouble, preferring to sit and shiver by a dying fire than risk arrest. Instead he had gone each day to the Institute to read and left Teresa to worry about how to keep the fire going. But today there would be no forays to the beach to look for wood, Millie thought with relief as they hurried away from the encampment and into the fields.
When there had been a wage coming in, she had occasionally gone to Ashborough with her mother, riding on the tankey which took passengers on a Saturday. They would sit on newspaper in the open trucks so as not to dirty their best clothes. But today they took all morning to walk into the bustling mining town and were wet through by the time the familiar landmarks drew near. Millie loved the town with its solid buildings and exciting array of shops, its cinemas and concert halls, imposing church spires and pillared town hall. Its streets heaved with horse traffic and wagons, busy shoppers, paper boys and the occasional gleaming, hooting motor car.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 45