THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘I can manage on me own,’ Mark said, awkward at the sudden argument. But Pearl was not going to be diverted.

  ‘I want to say hello to your mam and I need a breath of air,’ she said pointedly to Jack.

  ‘Too warm and cosy for you with a real fire, is it?’ Jack needled.

  ‘Yes, too stifling by half!’ Pearl retorted, glaring at him. She bundled Mark out ahead of her and slammed the door. There was shocked silence in the room for a moment, and then Jack told them gruffly to get to bed.

  ‘I thought Auntie Pearl liked it here with us?’ Jo said, quite bewildered.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jack said curtly. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about moving or your aunt’s opinion. She lets her mouth go too much.’

  They scrambled upstairs and quickly got ready for bed in the icy bedroom. Jo lay shivering under the covers, wondering how such a happy day had ended so badly. She waited for her father to come and kiss her goodnight, but eventually heard the back door close and his footsteps clomp off down the street.

  ‘He’s gone and left us!’ she hissed to Colin.

  Her brother grunted sleepily. ‘He’ll be looking for Auntie Pearl.’

  ‘What if a burglar comes in while he’s out?’ Jo imagined.

  ‘Not in this street,’ Colin yawned. ‘Nowt worth nicking.’

  ‘What if the house burns down?’ Jo persisted.

  ‘Then we’ll have to move,’ Colin said in a muffled voice from under his covers. ‘Now shut your gob and go to sleep.’

  After a pause, Jo whispered, ‘I’ve never heard Dad and Auntie Pearl shout at each other like that before. Do you think she’ll come back?’

  ‘She’ll have to her things are here,’ Colin reasoned. ‘Now will you shurrup!’

  By the time Jo heard her father return, Colin was asleep, but she still wanted a proper goodnight. When he did not come up, she decided she needed a trip to the outside toilet and climbed out of bed anyway. As she tiptoed across the cold linoleum, she heard the tap of thin heels across the yard and the back door latch lift again.

  Crouching in the dark on the stairs, she heard Pearl’s voice. Jo edged down the banisters, wondering if she should make a dash through the kitchen or hang on until Pearl came upstairs. But her aunt did not come. As she crept closer, she could hear their voices, soft and apologetic, and realised with relief that they were making up. She heard the rattle of the poker in the fire and someone pouring tea. Then the murmur of voices changed. There was a comment from Pearl, then an abrupt answer from Jack, and their voices grew louder. Now Jo could not help listening.

  ‘Why don’t you just go and look at some of the new houses?’ Pearl asked. ‘It wouldn’t do any harm. Take the bairns, see what they think.’

  ‘Leave the bairns out of this,’ Jack replied. ‘They’re too young to know what they want.’

  ‘Joanne’s nine now and Colin’s nearly eleven,’ Pearl cried, ‘and they both know their minds! They’re growing up, Jack. They’re not babies any longer. They should be having their own rooms soon.’

  Her father’s voice sounded agitated. ‘We’re happy here, we don’t want change. Don’t you go filling their heads with ideas of grand houses we can’t afford.’

  ‘You know I could help pay for a new place,’ Pearl offered. ‘It could be a fresh start for all of us, Jack.’ Her voice was pleading.

  ‘I don’t want your money,’ Jack said, offended.

  Jo heard Pearl make an impatient noise. ‘And I’m sick of living off your charity!’ There was a pause and then she went on quickly, ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I’ve always lived in someone else’s home – first Aunt Julia’s, and then it became yours and Gloria’s. I don’t remember what me parents’ home was like; it was that long ago they died. But I’m thirty-two now, Jack. I’m not Gloria’s little sister any more. I’m a grown woman and I want what grown women want! Has it never occurred to you how I might feel about all this?’

  Jo was hopping around by this time, desperate for the toilet. But if she emerged now they would know she had been eavesdropping on their conversation.

  ‘I’ve always tried to make you feel welcome here,’ Jack said defensively. ‘What more do you want of me?’

  ‘Oh! Nothing, Jack,’ Pearl said angrily. ‘You’ll still be here when they’re knocking this place down around your ears, I can see that! And I know why. You’re still torturing yourself over my sister. You see this place as some sort of sanctuary where you don’t have to remember what happened. But Jericho Street’s never been the escape you thought it would be. Gloria’s been dead over eight years, yet you still let her rule your life, don’t you? You tiptoe around her photograph like she’s some sort of saint. Saint bloody Gloria!’

  ‘No!’ Jack cried. ‘How dare you talk about your sister like that!’

  ‘Well, it’s true. Sometimes I really hate her,’ Pearl said heatedly, ‘for the way she wrecked all our lives! When I think of those lovely bairns, Colin and Jo…’

  ‘Shut up!’ Jack shouted. ‘How dare you blame her?’

  ‘You can stew in the past,’ Pearl continued, unabashed, ‘but I’ll not be made to feel guilty any more. The future’s all that matters. You’ve got to live for tomorrow. And I’m going to buy myself a flat if you won’t budge from here!’

  Jo could hang on no longer. She burst into the kitchen. ‘I need a wee! I wasn’t listening,’ she gasped as she dived across the room and out of the back door. They gawped at her in astonishment. Jo skidded over the freezing yard and plonked herself on the icy seat. She was shaking hard, partly from the cold and partly from overhearing the terrible row in the kitchen. She did not understand it all, but she knew that the argument had not just been about moving. It had been about her mother, Gloria, the fairy-tale princess. Auntie Pearl had spoken about hating her, Jo thought with shock. It made her feel sick inside. Perhaps her aunt was just like a wicked stepmother after all, having bad thoughts about people. How could she hate her mother, Jo wondered, when Dad had always said she was so good and with the angels?

  When Jo darted back into the house, both adults were looking warily at her. Pearl held out her arms. ‘Come here, pet.’ But Jo side-stepped and bolted for the door into the passage. She could not look at either of them. She felt strange inside, as if she had eaten something she should not have.

  A few minutes later, she heard someone come up the stairs after her. She buried herself under the covers and pretended to be asleep. When her father bent over and kissed the top of her head, she held her breath. She wished more than anything that she had never heard the argument downstairs or the frightening words, but she had. Jo was aware that there were secrets she knew nothing about that her father kept from her; something to do with this house and the memory of her young mother. Auntie Pearl had talked about her mother as if she still lived with them and would not let them move.

  Maybe her aunt was just jealous because her mother had been pretty and had worn a long white dress like a princess, all around Wallsend. Jo was hurt by Pearl’s words about hating her mother, and for making her father so angry that he had come too late to kiss her goodnight. But worst of all, the disdain her aunt had shown for their home in Jericho Street had tarnished Jo’s unquestioning love for the house. She stared through the dark at the damp walls where her pictures of the Beatles were crinkling and lifting, and was filled with a strange hankering after something better.

  Chapter Three

  Jo was glad to get back to school on Monday, for a bad atmosphere choked the house like smoke from a blocked chimney. After school, she tried to talk to Colin about it, but he brushed off her questions and went to band practice at the Boys’ Brigade. She found Mark kicking a football around in the back lane.

  ‘Things still bad?’ Mark asked, seeing Jo’s glum expression. She nodded. ‘I’ve never heard your dad raise his voice like that before,’ he added. ‘It was a bit of a shock, but.’

  ‘I know,’ Jo agreed, and found her
self confiding in him about the row she had overheard later the same night. ‘I don’t think it’s just the house Auntie Pearl doesn’t like,’ she puzzled. ‘She was saying things about me mam − nasty things − really making me dad upset.’ Jo remembered how wretched it had made her feel inside. ‘Now she’s trying to be all nice to me, but I don’t want to speak to her. Auntie Pearl shouldn’t have said those things, should she?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘It’s not like her to be nasty about anyone. Mind, I’ve heard a lot worse at my house. Me dad never has a good word to say about anybody, except maybes Gordon. But then our Gordon’s good at everything and I’m not.’

  ‘Yes you are!’ Jo defended him. ‘You’re dead good at footie and conker fights, and climbing trees.’

  Mark gave her a sheepish grin and laughed. ‘That’ll really get me into the grammar school.’

  It suddenly dawned on Jo that next summer Mark and her brother and Skippy would be leaving her primary school and moving on to big school. She could not imagine them not being around in the playground. Her father was hopeful that Colin would pass the eleven-plus and go to the grammar, but she had often heard Matty Duggan tell Mark that he was ‘thick as a plank’ and bound to fail. It already seemed taken for granted by his parents and headmaster that Mark would be going to the secondary modern.

  They squatted by the wall in the fading light, sharing Jo’s cinder toffee, both reluctant to go home. Mark suddenly asked, ‘Do you want to come down to me Nana’s the night? She said I could dunk some apples for Hallowe’en.’

  ‘Fab!’ cried Jo, remembering how Ivy liked to celebrate Hallowe’en. She had been married to a Scotsman, who had kept up the tradition where everyone else made a big thing of Guy Fawkes Night instead. But Ivy hated fireworks.

  ‘Fab? You sound just like Pearl,’ Mark teased.

  Jo pulled a face. She knew she was going to need her aunt’s cooperation in making a turnip lantern and persuading Jack that she could stay out late on a school night. ‘Haway! Let’s ask Auntie Pearl if she’ll cut out a turnip for us.’

  Pearl seemed delighted to help. As she gouged out the turnip and cut holes for the eyes she told them about the flat she’d been to see. ‘It’s on the ninth floor and you can see right up the river in both directions;Tynemouth and the sea in one, and the Tyne Bridge in the other. It’s fab!’ Mark and Jo caught each other’s look and smirked as Pearl chattered on. ‘I’ll take you to see it if you like and you can come and stay when I’m back on leave.’

  Jo felt a flicker of excitement. It would be like going on holiday to stay in a new flat halfway to the sky, with a view like a bird over Wallsend and far beyond. But she was still cross with Pearl and was not going to show her enthusiasm.

  ‘So you’re really going to move then?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pearl firmly. ‘It’s time I got somewhere of my own. I’ve been like a cuckoo living in someone else’s nest all my life.’

  Jo didn’t really know what she meant, but she could not help her reproachful question. ‘Won’t you miss being here with us, then?’

  Pearl swung an arm around her at once. ‘I’ll not have to miss you if you come and stay with me when I’m home, will I?’

  Jo wriggled out of her hold. ‘Depends what me dad says,’ she answered, feeling torn.

  Pearl continued digging out the turnip. ‘They’ll have to remove your dad with a bulldozer. But I’m not stopping in this place any longer. You’ve got to look ahead, not live in the past like your dad. Besides,’ she grinned, ‘I need somewhere where I can cover the walls with all my souvenirs that your dad hates.’

  Jack returned weary from labouring and allowed Jo to go to Ivy’s as long as Pearl went too. ‘I’ll stop in and wait for Colin; don’t you be too late, mind.’ Pearl walked them down to Nile Street, carrying the lantern. She seemed just as keen to get out as Jack was to stay in, Jo noticed.

  Jo breathed in the smell of burnt turnip in the dank air and skipped ahead excitedly. There were other lanterns glowing in front windows and occasionally they would hear the bang and fizz of early fireworks going off in the distance. Crossing the high street aglow with shop lights, they descended the bank towards the docks. In the dark, the huge hulk of a half-built tanker loomed over the end of the street, like a ghostly monster. Ivy’s door was open and a gaggle of children were gathered outside waving sparklers. There were two lanterns balanced on the windowsill and two more sitting on the hearth either side of a roaring fire. On the table was spread an array of treats: home-made fairy cakes, gingerbread men and toffee apples.

  ‘Haway in, hinnies!’ Ivy welcomed with a cheery smile. ‘Eeh, it’s grand to see you back, Pearl. Sit yourself down. I told the bairns we couldn’t start without you, bonny lad,’ she told Mark, hugging him to her faded apron. Mark grinned and rushed to turn out the electric light so that the room suddenly leapt with shadows and their faces were bathed in soft firelight. The neighbours’ children squeezed in and began to help themselves to the food in the dark.

  ‘Will you tell us one of your scary stories, Nana Ivy?’ Jo asked through a mouthful of cake.

  Ivy obliged as they munched their way through toffee apples, the thick gooey toffee sticking to their teeth. It was all about a shipwreck and a ghostly crew, and Ivy claimed it was a true story passed on by her seafaring father from South Shields. Mark’s eyes widened into huge dark pools as he hung on every word.

  ‘…And no one ever saw the captain again!’ Ivy concluded. ‘Aye, your great-grandfather Matthias was a great one for a tale.’

  Afterwards they dunked for apples in Ivy’s zinc bath that usually hung on a nail in her backyard. Mark and Jo gave up trying to drop forks from their teeth into the bobbing apples and instead plunged their faces into the chilly water, soaking their hair and clothes. By the finish, Ivy’s floor was awash with water and the apples ended up being thrown around the street outside. But no one told them off and Ivy seemed content to share a bottle of barley wine with Pearl beside the fire while the children rampaged outside. When Jo rushed in for a drink of Ivy’s home-made lemonade, she heard Pearl telling Ivy about the new flats.

  ‘Well, it sounds canny for you young ’uns,’ Ivy wheezed, her stout body filling the chair by the fire, ‘but you’ll not catch me living that far above the ground. Where do you hang your washing? And how does the milkman deliver your pint if you don’t have a doorstep?’ She shook her head in bafflement. ‘No, I like a front door on to the street where you can have a bit crack with your neighbours and the tradesmen. You know where you are with a front doorstep.’

  Pearl rolled her eyes. ‘Ivy, you sound just like Jack. I like everything that’s new. I need a bit of change in my life now and then − but not him.’

  Ivy gave a sympathetic nod. ‘Aye, it’s a shame you two…’ Then she saw Jo in the gloom and stopped. ‘All right, hinny?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jo said, gulping down her drink and dashing for the door again.

  But Pearl decided it was time to go and soon they were off up the street with their lantern burnt out and clutching small parcels of food for Colin and Jack. Jo went to bed with her mind still vivid with Ivy’s stories of ghostly ships and missing captains, but she did not end up creeping into Pearl’s bed for comfort, as she often did when her aunt was home. Somehow she felt it would be disloyal to her father or her dead mother, she was not sure which. For despite Pearl’s attempts to win her round, she knew something had changed between them.

  The week did not pass quickly enough for Jo, as excitement grew for Bonfire Night. Their street bonfire was the biggest she could remember, with bits of stolen garden fence supplementing the large branches and debris from the Burn. To their satisfaction it was bigger than the one built by Kevin McManners’s gang two streets away. It was to be lit at six thirty when everyone was back from work, and then the grown-ups were invited to a party at the Duggans’, after the fireworks had been let off.

  At last Saturday came, and all day they roamed the park and the Bur
n collecting final barrowloads of firewood. Mrs Leishman had helped make a guy by providing material to stuff into an old pair of Colin’s trousers and a jumper of Skippy’s. She sewed them together and they added a head made out of newspaper stuffed into a brown paper bag. Mark drew on the face, with a black moustache and a big nose.

  ‘Looks like me dad, doesn’t it?’ he said with satisfaction.

  Gordon, overhearing, gave his brother a cuff, but climbed on to the Duggans’ back wall to put it on top of the bonfire for them. Jo felt her insides twisting at the sight of Gordon in his denim jacket and flared jeans. His shaggy hair fell into his eyes and she loved the way he looked at her with sultry disdain. He was the nearest thing to a Rolling Stone she had ever met.

  Jo had refused to go shopping with Pearl that afternoon, even though her aunt had promised her a treat from Woolworth’s. Jo had felt bad at the look of disappointment on Pearl’s face, but she could not rid herself of the memory of her poisonous words against her mother.

  When Jo and Colin clattered in for tea, Pearl had fried egg and chips waiting for them and a bag each by their place on the table. Jack came in from feeding Colin’s finches, looking more cheerful than he had done all week. Pearl had put her name down for one of the high-rise flats and there had been no more talk about the rest of them moving. They appeared to have come to a wary truce on the matter.

  ‘See your aunt’s been spoiling you again,’ Jack smiled.

  Jo tore into the paper bag on her side plate. She got a whiff of plastic and gasped in delight. ‘It’s a Beatles wig!’ she cried, pulling the black plastic dome over her auburn hair. Leaping on to an armchair, she craned to view herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. The plastic sideburns dug painfully into her high cheekbones, but she loved what she saw.

  ‘I look like Paul McCartney, don’t I?’ she demanded.

  ‘More like Ringo,’ Colin teased, for they both thought Ringo Starr the ugly one.