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

  On the day before she left, still smarting from Alan’s dismissiveness, she went down to Wallsend to see Jack and Pearl. On the spur of the moment, she went to visit Ivy too. She had hardly seen her since the summer. Ivy was delighted to see her and said how pleased she was to hear of Jack and Pearl getting married. Yet Jo soon became aware that something was preying on her mind.

  ‘It’s Mark,’ Ivy admitted without much probing.

  ‘I thought things were going better for him and Brenda?’ Jo said. ‘That’s what Pearl heard from Brenda’s mam. Said they were living with Gordon − planning to get a house of their own. And he got that award −’

  ‘I know all that,’ Ivy interrupted fretfully. ‘He’s better in a lot of ways. His hands have healed up champion and you’d hardly notice there was any weakness in his leg now. But he’s still very moody. I don’t know how Brenda puts up with it half the time. He’d argue with his own shadow. And he’s refusing to go to London for the medal ceremony. That’s upsetting everyone.’ Ivy gave her a look. ‘Though you’d probably approve of that, with all your peace camp business!’

  Jo looked at her sadly. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m sorry for all of you. Why won’t he go?’

  Ivy shrugged. ‘Says he doesn’t deserve it − that they should chuck it in the South Atlantic for the real heroes who died there.’ She sighed. ‘I kept thinking maybe he doesn’t want to see all the other servicemen who are fit and back at work.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Jo agreed.

  Ivy looked perplexed. ‘Aye, but it’s more than that; it’s as if he’s really afraid of something, but I don’t know what.’

  A memory came back to Jo of that terrible argument she had had with Mark in Ivy’s backyard. He had said something about being guilty for living when his friends had died. It struck her that that was how her father had reacted to the loss of Joy and Gloria all those years ago. Jack had wrapped his grief in guilt and punished himself for years because he was still alive.

  ‘Maybe he’s afraid of being happy again, because Colin and Skippy aren’t there to share it with him,’ Jo said quietly. ‘It’s like he’s being disloyal to them. He’s stuck with his guilt at being alive and can’t move on. He won’t let himself imagine a future without his friends.’ She shrugged, wondering if she was right.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Ivy asked worriedly. ‘What a terrible burden to carry.’ She looked at Jo pleadingly. ‘So what’s the answer?’

  Jo gave a bitter smile. ‘I wish I knew! I don’t have answers any more, just lots of angry questions.’

  Ivy stretched out and squeezed her hand. ‘Look after yourself, hinny. Don’t get into any bother. It would worry your father that much.’

  Jo smiled, but felt her heart sink. She too had a burden to carry these days that the war had bequeathed her; that of being the family’s last surviving child. She hurried away from Wallsend and thoughts of such heavy responsibility. She had a right to live her life as she chose, she determined angrily, and she was going to choose action.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jo gazed around her. As far as the eye could see there were thousands of protesters ringing the high chain fences of the air base. They were all wrapped in waterproofs and boots and hats against the bitter December weather. Since before dawn, women had been arriving, some drifting out of the makeshift tents, others pouring in from far and wide.

  She felt a great stirring of pride at the numbers who had responded to the call for the December ‘embrace the base’ protest. They were going to completely surround the American Air Force base with peaceful protesters. Quite a few of the women had brought their children with them. One woman with a baby told her, ‘I see everything differently since I had Ben. I have sleepless nights − not just from feeding either! It’s the thought of nuclear war; it’s really terrifying.’ She stroked the nose of her baby, muffled in layers of clothing, and smiled tenderly. ‘It’s his future world I care about; that’s why I’m here.’

  As the day wore on, people pressed forward to pin baby clothes and toys to the wire fence. Huge cobwebs of cotton where woven into the wire to represent their campaign symbol of a tiny missile trapped in a web. Some children came forward and stuck a crumpled piece of paper in the mesh.

  ‘It’s our poem,’ one of them said proudly. ‘We don’t want them to bring big bombs here. They’re dangerous. We have to tell them, don’t we?’

  Jo smiled and nodded. She fumbled with cold fingers inside her jacket pocket and pulled out an old black and white photograph she had been saving for this occasion. It showed a group of children about the age of the ones beside her now. Three cheeky-faced boys laughing and two girls leaning on each other, grinning at the camera. The background was Wallsend Green, with a long-forgotten summer fete going on outside the imposing building in the background. On the back of the photograph, scribbled in fading pencil, was the date, 1965, and the names: Colin, Skippy, Mark, Joanne and Marilyn. Pearl had taken it with her box Brownie camera and they had posed for what seemed like ages while she lined them up in the glass.

  ‘Keep still and stop giggling!’ Jo remembered her aunt shouting. ‘Colin, look up − and Marilyn, don’t put your hand over your mouth. That’s it. Oh, Mark, you’re moving again. Skippy, put your tongue away!’

  ‘Haway, Auntie Pearl!’ Colin had complained. ‘We want to gan round the stalls.’

  ‘Fete’ll be over by the time she’s finished,’ joked Mark. ‘Is that the sunset behind you?’

  ‘Ha, ha. Now smile and stop breathing!’ Pearl had ordered and finally clicked the camera, catching them in various degrees of merriment.

  Jo’s eyes swam with tears as she stared down at the lively group of friends, so happy and carefree, living for the moment and innocent of the future. She kissed it quickly and secured it to the fence with a paperclip.

  ‘Who’s that?’ the young girl with the poem asked.

  ‘My brother,’ Jo said quietly. ‘He’s dead. So’s one of his friends. That one there.’ She pointed at Skippy. ‘Killed in the Falklands.’

  The girl looked puzzled. ‘But they’re just children.’

  ‘We all were once,’ Jo said, with a pang of memory. ‘They grew up. Colin joined the Army, his friends the Navy.’

  ‘Then they must’ve known they might get killed,’ the girl answered.

  ‘I don’t think they really thought about it,’ Jo reflected. ‘It was a job, a way to see the world, a big adventure.’

  The girl touched the photograph. ‘What about him? He looks nice.’

  ‘That’s Mark − he fought in the Falklands too.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jo sighed, ‘but he wishes he was dead.’

  The girl looked shocked. ‘That’s terrible. Why does he wish that?’

  ‘Because his two best friends were killed in the war,’ Jo answered, feeling her anger stir.

  ‘He must be very sad,’ she said simply.

  Jo was struck by the girl’s words. Sad was not how she would have described Mark to a stranger. Angry, embittered, depressed, self-pitying, mad at the world or just plain mad. But the girl was right. Underneath all the protective armour of his fury and punishing guilt, Mark must be unutterably sad, she realised.

  ‘Is that you?’ the girl asked. Jo nodded. ‘You all look really happy.’

  ‘We were,’ Jo said, her eyes stinging with tears.

  ‘Well, at least he’s still got you as a friend,’ the girl said, turning to her.

  Jo felt a stab of guilt at the child’s trusting bright eyes. If only she knew what a useless friend she had been. To her relief, at that moment the other children pulled on the girl’s arms and tugged her after them impatiently. She smiled and waved at Jo and then was gone into the crowd. But the feeling of emptiness and failure remained, and as the throng of supporters grew and more police appeared to contain them, Jo’s un-happiness turned to angry determination and she joined in with the anti-war songs and lit candles as
the circle was completed.

  At this point the police moved in to clear them away from the gates. When talking to the children, Jo had become separated from Susie and the other friends who shared her tent, and she had no idea where they now were.

  ‘Sit down!’ someone shouted at her in the mêlée. ‘We’ll be harder to move. Keep singing!’ Jo plonked herself down on the tarpaulin at once and linked arms with the women on either side. Others around them did the same, some of them lying stretched out. They continued to sing, keeping a watchful eye on the police.

  It didn’t take long to discover the police’s plan. Scores of them began to pile out of vans and march towards the throng of women near the gates. They pushed and trampled their way through the passively resisting protesters until they had cut a swath through the crowd and reached the fence. Then the men linked arms like a dark-blue chain cutting off the women behind from those around the gateway. The same was done on the other side. Jo could see how those of them sitting in front of the entrance were now to be targeted. She could hear police radios crackling and orders being shouted above the sound of the singing.

  ‘Hang on to me,’ she urged the woman beside her. ‘They’ll have to carry us out together!’

  Dozens of police came towards them and began to haul the women off the ground, stepping on them with their heavy boots in order to reach the ones nearest the gates.

  ‘Ah-ya! Watch it!’ Jo howled, as one of them stood on her hand.

  The constable just laughed at her and gibed, ‘You should be home looking after your husband and kids.’

  Another one gave them a look of disgust. ‘Bunch of lesbians − don’t imagine they’ve got husbands. Just look at them − stink something rotten.’

  Jo grabbed his coat, furious. ‘Have you got kids?’ she demanded.

  He looked at her as if she had some contagious disease. ‘Yeah. And a wife at home looking after them. You lot aren’t normal.’ He tried to shake her off, but she clung on to him.

  ‘And you’re thick and ignorant!’ she shouted. ‘We’re the ones protecting your family − protecting their future! When the nukes start flying it’ll be too late.’

  He gave her a kick. ‘Go home and don’t worry your little head about war,’ he sneered.

  Jo’s fury ignited. She half rose and pushed at him.

  ‘Steady!’ the woman beside her warned. ‘Don’t let him get to you.’

  But it was too late, Jo could not stop. ‘I know all about war, you patronising bastard!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve lost me only brother and a best friend to war. Don’t tell me not to worry. You don’t have the first clue what war can do − or you wouldn’t be doing the dirty work for the warmongers now!’ She grabbed him round the legs and tried to bring him down.

  He took a swipe at her and caught her on the side of the head, sending her toppling backwards. ‘Right!’ he barked. ‘We’ll have you!’ He seized her by the arm and yanked her up, kicking her again in the side as she tried to resist.

  The woman beside Jo attempted to hang on to her, but the first constable who had taunted them jabbed her out of the way and then grabbed Jo by the other arm. The next minute they had her on her feet and were dragging her away towards a van. Jo’s head pounded and she felt sick and winded, but still she fought to stay behind. She was vaguely aware of passing someone with a camera and then she was being shoved through a van door and thrown onto a seat. The door slammed shut.

  She crouched where she had landed, sore and breathless and full of rage. Outside she could hear the women still singing in the cold air, their defiant, hope-filled voices rising up above the din of shouting and struggling. Moments later, the door banged open again and two other protesters were bundled in beside her. At first they talked animatedly and indignantly about their arrest, but by the time the van lurched off, they had fallen silent. Jo was suddenly exhausted, her anger spent. Without knowing why, she put her face in her hands and started to cry.

  ***

  Mark was at Ivy’s, sitting drinking from an endless pot of tea, when the scenes from Greenham Common came on the news. It was dark outside and bitterly cold, but inside it was cosy and the fire was glowing. Ivy had already put up her ancient decorations on a silver imitation Christmas tree and stood it on the sideboard. Ivy clucked, keeping up a running commentary. ‘Look at them all! They must be frozen in this weather, living rough. Eeh! See the way the police are going in. I hope Joanne isn’t anywhere near them. Jack’s that worried about her.’

  ‘At least she’s doing something,’ Mark said impassively.

  ‘You don’t agree with them, do you?’ Ivy asked in surprise. Mark gave a shrug of indifference. She went on, ‘Mind, you’ve got to admire them, whatever you think of them. It’s like the suffragettes, isn’t it? And look at the way the police are handling them − just the same.’

  Mark lurched forward and stared at the screen. ‘Look!’

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Ivy asked, startled by his sudden interest.

  Mark jabbed a finger at a figure in the background being frog-marched away. ‘It’s Jo!’

  Ivy squinted. ‘No it’s not! It’s someone much older.’ Then the clip finished and the newscaster was talking about Britain agreeing to send troops to Lebanon as part of a peace-keeping force. Ivy quickly switched off the television, knowing that Mark became volatile with any mention of British forces.

  He sank back. ‘It was her − I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I hope for Jack’s sake it wasn’t,’ Ivy fretted. ‘I warned her not to go getting into trouble.’

  Mark almost smiled. ‘Well, she’s always done the opposite of what folk tell her to do; you should know that by now.’

  Ivy snorted. ‘I hardly think she’s doing it just to spite me.’ She picked up the empty cups. ‘Do you know what she told me? She said she’s doing it for all the future Colins − but I can’t help thinking it’s because she can’t come to terms with losing her own brother.’

  Mark looked at her uncomfortably. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, all this rushing about! She has to be doing something every minute of the day. Stops her having to think about life without him, I reckon.’ Ivy sighed. ‘But what would I know? I suppose she’s spent her life dashing at a hundred miles an hour.’

  Mark thought about it. There was Jo pitching headlong into protest and action while he sat vegetating, paralysed and fearful to do anything. Yet perhaps they were more alike than he cared to admit. They were both trying to escape the past which haunted them, the ghosts that followed them and would not let them go. A sudden moment of clarity came to him. It was not just the ghosts of Colin and Skippy that would not give them peace, but the ones of their childhood. Both their lives had been overshadowed and blighted by family secrets − his by his grandfather Hassan and Jo’s by a lost sister and a mother who had rejected her. All those years, without even knowing it, they had shared a similar burden. Was that why they had been drawn to each other as children, sensing that they were somehow different from the others? he wondered. Was that why they had understood each other so well?

  Then his heart hardened again. Their understanding and tolerance for each other had long vanished, he thought savagely. Watching her being arrested for peace protesting made him realise they had never been further apart. It was a rejection of what he had been through in the Falklands − a slap in the face for those who had stood up against aggression. By demonstrating against the military, she was as good as saying that he and his mates were the real enemy, Mark thought bitterly.

  He got up quickly. ‘Best be off,’ he muttered.

  ‘How’s your new flat coming on?’ Ivy asked tentatively.

  ‘Brenda’s still painting,’ Mark grunted.

  ‘Be canny to have your own place for Christmas,’ she encouraged. ‘Fresh start, eh?’

  He gave her a bleak look, wishing he could summon up an ounce of her enthusiasm. It was causing endless friction with Brenda that he would not motivate himself to help decorat
e their council flat. But he felt disembodied, watching himself from far off − and he did not like the irritable, nervy man that he saw.

  ‘Aye, perhaps it will be,’ he answered, pecking her on the cheek as he passed. She put out a hand to touch his face, but he flinched away. He still could not bear anyone to touch his disfigured jaw, he was so self-conscious about it.

  Ivy let her hand drop. ‘Take care, hinny,’ she said worriedly, watching him escape into the dark.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Jo spent only a night in the cells and was let go without being charged the following day. She felt deflated, as if they had cheated her out of her moment of glory. They had belittled her protest by treating it as too trivial to bother the courts with. She returned to the camp to find Susie feverish and unwell.

  ‘You should go home,’ Jo told her in concern. ‘I’ll take you back to London if you like.’ Susie accepted her help without much argument and Jo found herself nursing her friend for a week through a bout of flu. Susie’s boyfriend Bob chose that moment to break off their eight-month relationship and go abroad, so Jo stayed on longer. As Christmas neared, she knew she ought to go home, but was alarmed when she rang Alan to discover that she had been seen on television being arrested, and that everyone was talking about it.

  ‘Jack’s been on the phone daily,’ Alan laughed. ‘You’ve really put the cat among the pigeons.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Jo gasped in embarrassment. ‘They never charged me.’

  ‘I know,’ Alan said, sounding amused. ‘I made enquiries − to get your father off my back. I told him you’d be fine and could look after yourself. I’m very proud of you, girl.’

  ‘I’ll ring Dad to tell him I’m all right,’ Jo said hastily, encouraged by his friendliness and feeling an urge to go home.

  ‘Are you staying down with Susie for Christmas?’ Alan asked. ‘I’m up to my eyes here with the pantomime − it’s going very well. But I’ll not be around much.’

  Jo was disappointed at this. ‘Well, I could go to Dad’s for Christmas if you’re tied up with things…’