by Nancy Carson
As the days grew longer, bringing fine spring weather, Ben Kite enjoyed the quiet, strenuous hours he spent growing vegetables in his allotment. It was still a novelty, since he’d only just begun learning about vegetables. He received plenty of advice from other allotment holders, and welcomed it. Now it was all starting to take shape, and already he was contemplating growing more produce than he needed, with the intention of selling the surplus to workmates. Working there in his spare hours gave him time to think; to mull things over. While he turned over the black earth, pondering his wife, his child and his own good fortune, he also pondered the state of the world around him. And the world around him was a constant worry. Only two weeks ago he was appalled at the loss of the Titanic and some fifteen hundred of her passengers. He still could not erase the horror from his mind. To make matters worse, Barnsley had beaten his beloved West Bromwich Albion in the Cup Final replay.
Ben was just about to thrust his spade into the ground when Alf Collins called him from outside his father’s shop at the bottom of the hill. Ben waved. Alf had been pushing a handcart, evidently full of coal. He left it at the gutter, walked up to the allotment and opened the gate.
‘What yer plantin’, Ben?’
‘Coal.’
‘Christ, and we could do with it.’
‘I’m planting a bit of everything, Alf. I want to grow enough to sell. The way things are going we’ll need it.’
‘Take some round to me father when it’s ready. He’ll buy some.’
Ben leaned on his shovel. ‘Think he would?’
‘If the price is right. It’s a pity you can’t grow coal, though, eh? That’s what we need most of. We’ve bin laid off over a month now at the Coneygree. There’s no more coke to fire the cupolas and, even if there was, they can’t get no more pig iron.’
‘Well we’re back at work now, Alf. The coke’s starting to come through now the miners are back. But what a mess. Now the blasted dockers are on about striking again. It’s always the same. The miners, the dockers, the railway workers. They always go on strike together. The country’s gone soft. It’s all these unions, and that barmy Labour lot.’ He felt in his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of Woodbines. He offered one to Alf.
‘Ta, Ben. Am yo’ in a union yet?’
Ben struck a match and offered a light to his companion. ‘What for? So they can stop me working? So they can tell me I’ve got to go out on strike all the while? Where’s the sense in that, Alf? I tell you, I’ve seen enough of strikes. I wonder how much money they’ve each lost being out on strike? I know I’ve lost four week’s money through ’em.’ He lit his own cigarette, waved the match out and tossed it away as he inhaled the smoke deeply.
‘It don’t matter how much money they’n lost not workin’, Ben. Yo’ should be in a union to protect your own interests.’ Alf regarded him earnestly. ‘Unless everybody’s together and stands firm the gaffers’ll walk all over yer.’
‘Is that right?’
‘It is right, Ben.’
‘That’s what they want you to believe, Alf. I’ve heard it all before till I’m sick of hearing it. But it’s all lies. Believe me, there’s a sight more to fear from the unions than from any of the gaffers. Look at all the trouble they’re causing. There’s ne’er a union interested in the likes of you and me. All they’re interested in is using us for their politics. We’re just political fodder – pawns in a big game of politics.’
‘Doh talk saft. Look at them poor sods in the cotton mills in Lancashire, locked out by the gaffers. Where would they be without a union?’
‘At work, I expect,’ Ben said cynically. ‘The gaffers shut the mills because they didn’t want a union telling ’em that all their workers should be members. I don’t blame ’em, either. If folks don’t want to be in a union they shouldn’t have to be. It ain’t democratic.’
‘But, on the other hand, Ben, if they want to be, then let ’em. All the while the unions am strivin’ for better conditions for the likes of yo’ and me – for better pay.’
‘Alf, the only thing the unions are striving for is trouble. Striving to bring even more bloody poverty to everybody. Striving to bring the country to its knees by spreading discontent, so as the Marxists can take over the government.’
Alf inhaled the smoke from his cigarette, savouring it. ‘Well, I’m in the union, Ben.’
‘That’s up to you, Alf, but you’re laid off all the same. And d’you know why? Because your soft brothers, the miners, have been out on strike. That’s why you’re having to suffer. That’s why we’re all having to suffer. That don’t strike me as being very brotherly, eh? When they went out on strike did you honestly believe as they considered the likes of you and me – other workers who depend on coal for our work? D’you honestly think they considered our wives and children, who depend on coal to keep warm through the winter?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’
‘No. Not enough folk do. So where’s the sense in it?’
‘We’m all brothers, Ben. We’m workin’ class. Don’t yer see? We gorra stick together. As long as they get what they want I doh mind bein’ laid off. It’ll be for the best in the long run. We gorra show the gaffers who’s boss.’
‘Listen, Alf, you’re single. You’ve got no wife and no kids to provide for. A good many have, and some are starving. Not only that, I see you’re wheeling a cartload of coal home. Where did you find that?’
‘Never mind where I found it,’ Alf protested, ‘but I paid over the odds for it.’
‘You damned hypocrite. You’re like all union men – grab, grab, grab. It don’t matter who has to suffer, just grab what you can – off anybody – off everybody. If you were true to your cause you’d do without.’
‘Oh, I could do without all right, Ben, don’t get me wrong. It’s me mother and father I have to think about. They’m gettin’ no younger.’
Ben tutted and shook his head in despair. ‘Alf, you’re softer than the bloody miners. And I should know. My own father was one.’
Poor Alf always had the feeling he was being savaged whenever he and Ben discussed politics. It wasn’t so much that he believed Ben was right – far from it; he had his own beliefs – but Ben had a way of expressing himself simply and directly. Alf dearly wished he possessed the same talent.
‘There’s trouble brewing in the Dardanelles with them bloody Italians and Turks,’ Alf remarked, changing the subject.
‘There is, and let’s hope we don’t get dragged into it.’ Ben stooped to pick out a stray weed. ‘At least Winston Churchill’s got it right. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the best navy. We’ve got to build more warships. The Kaiser’s got plenty now with his new dreadnoughts, and he’s building more. We’ll have to watch them blasted Huns. We don’t want them invading this country. They ain’t like us, Alf.’
‘I agree wi’ yer there, Ben. They’d bugger things up for us good and proper.’
‘And one thing we don’t need is Huns here to bugger things up. We can do a great job all on our own,’ Ben absently kicked a stone into the next allotment and flicked ash from the end of his cigarette. ‘What d’you think about all these suffragettes, eh, Alf? I didn’t mind them tying themselves to the railings and starving themselves to death. That’s up to them. But now they’re smashing windows in the shops in London I think that’s taking it a bit too far. It’ll be Brummagem next, you’ll see. And they think that sort of behaviour should entitle them to the vote? They’m softer than bellyache shit.’
‘But we’m the saftest for standin’ for it, Ben. I’m sick to death o’ readin’ about ’em in the paper. Would you let your missis do anythin’ as saft?’
‘Lizzie’s got more sense.’
‘Yes, I reckon so. How is Lizzie, anyroad, and the babby?’
‘Lovely. Our Henzey’s golden. We hardly know we’ve got a child.’
‘Listen, I’m off for a pint in The Junction when I’ve tipped the coal in the cellar, Ben. Fancy o
ne wi’ me?’
Ben took a last drag on his cigarette and threw the end away. ‘Go on, then. I’ll just put me fork and shovel in the shed. There’s a horse running at Chester that I fancy having a flutter on. I should be able to get a bet on in The Junction with Colonel Bradley.’
*
August 25th 1912 was the day Henzey was baptised. Daisy Foster, still unmarried, and May, were both godmothers, and Joe was godfather. The day after, the heaviest August rainfall in living memory fell, bringing widespread flooding. In early September Albert Crump died suddenly after a coronary thrombosis, and was buried on the 12th. He was sixty-six. As if in sympathy old Jack Clancey fell ill after the funeral, took to his bed and never got out of it again, save for using the commode they’d had in the family for years. He passed away at mid-day on the first Saturday in October, leaving Jesse to run the dairy business alone.
It had been nearly four years since Sylvia Dando and Jesse Clancey had split up. In that time Syliva had not set eyes on Lizzie Kite, nor did she want to, but she was kept up to date on her life by her mother and father. She received a shock one Saturday morning when she answered the door to the milkman to find Jesse himself standing there waiting to fill their jugs. Prior to his death, Jack Clancey had always serviced the area where the Dandos lived. Seeing Jesse again set her heart fluttering. Time had healed her broken heart, but the scar that remained was tender and fragile; fragile enough to be ruptured by his friendly, easy conversation now.
‘It’s lovely to see you again, Jesse,’ she said, ‘And I was so sorry to learn of your father’s death. Please give your mother my condolences.’
‘Thanks, I will. So how are your own family, Sylvia?’
‘Mother and Father are well, thank you.’
‘And Stanley?’
‘Well, as far as I know. He’s still in South Africa, you know, but we expect him home within the next few months.’
‘If we get embroiled in this trouble in the Balkans, I bet he’s ever likely to be drafted there,’ Jesse suggested.
They talked for a quarter of an hour, the quarrel that had finally split them no longer relevant. Sylvia avoided telling Jesse that she was due to be married in November. Indeed, if he asked her out again she would accept and cancel her wedding if need be. Seeing Jesse made her realise that her love for James Atkinson, which she believed had flourished, was nowhere near as strong as it ought to be. But Jesse did not ask to see her. So Sylvia resigned herself to her forthcoming union with James, whom she still greatly admired, nonetheless.
When the day arrived that she was to be joined in Holy Matrimony, she smiled her lovely, even smile bravely, but complete contentment evaded her. The wedding took place on Sunday 10th November at St. Thomas’s church at the top of the town. To Sylvia’s profound disappointment the day yielded the densest fog for two years and it was bitterly cold. They’d booked a photographer called Tom Doubleday, but the fog rendered his presence futile. When he was far enough away to get everybody in the frame of his plate camera and viewed the ground glass screen under his black cloth, he could see nobody. Experience told him that clients were seldom pleased to receive pictures of grey fog with the bride and groom hidden somewhere unseen in its murky depths. So Tom abandoned the photography and scheduled another day when they could all dress up again, and visit his studio.
*
At Christmas Ben was delighted when Lizzie informed him she was pregnant again. He reckoned it was the finest Christmas box he’d ever had. Henzey was in her shorter clothes by this time, and Lizzie began planning what extra things she would need for the new child, and what cast-offs she could utilise. She knew it would be hard work with two babies still in napkins but, for her, there was something about a new-born child that was hard to resist. Lizzie was unsure whether it was its total dependence, its smooth skin, or even its sweet, milky smell. It might have been all these things; and more. Whatever it was, Lizzie looked forward to her new child.
This time Lizzie gave Ben plenty of notice that she was having birth pains. On the Saturday night of Whit weekend everyone went out into the street to watch the fireworks display taking place in the castle grounds. The occasion was the Dudley Fete, held every Whitsuntide to raise funds for local charities. There seemed little sense in going and paying to watch when they could see it all across the valley. There was a great party atmosphere. Ben fetched two large jugs of bitter from The Sailor’s Return and placed them on the window sill while his mother-in-law gossiped with her life-long friend, Beccy Crump. While Lizzie sipped her drink leisurely, Beccy’s cat stole under her skirt and sensually rubbed its soft, warm body against her shins. While she was enjoying the sensation she felt a familiar twinge deep in her belly.
By bedtime, however, the pains seemed to have stopped, so she saw no reason to wake Ben during the night. But when he arose at seven next morning, urgently seeking the chamber pot, she announced that she’d been having pains again for more than three hours. He dressed at once, alerted Eve, and ran like a hare for Donald Clark, who should be sober at this time of day.
By this time Henzey was a bonny fifteen month baby, and had been walking for some weeks. May and Joe took her to the castle grounds in her wicker baby carriage while Lizzie rested with the new baby. Henzey sat up and smiled, gurgling with delight and flapping her arms excitedly at the hundreds of people she saw at the fete. Her blue eyes widened with wonder as Joe picked her up and, together, they watched a huge, hot air balloon rise gently from its mooring in the courtyard and float magically above the white castle keep in the warm sunshine.
To May it seemed painfully ironic that, as Joe carried Henzey in his arms, she should be pushing an empty baby carriage. She’d yearned for a child for so long that she despaired of ever realising her dream. They’d been married six years, she was twenty-eight, and still childless. But Joe was philosophical. If God wanted her to have a child He would send her one, he said. It was little consolation, and she was sorry the baby Joe was holding so affectionately was not his own. He would make such a loving father.
Ben Kite was thoroughly proud of his new son, whom they christened Herbert, after Herbert Asquith. He adored his daughter, but a son was special. He thanked Lizzie and kissed her as he lay on the bed with her the day after the birth.
‘When he grows up I’ll teach him to play tip-cat and football,’ he said fancifully, his hands behind his head. ‘I’d love to see a son of mine playing for the Baggies. Then I’ll teach him to make a catapult from the branch of a tree, like we used to when we were kids. I’ll teach him how to swing a fire can …’
Lizzie turned to him. ‘What? So’s he can put stones through folks’s windows and set himself on fire? There’s nothing clever in kicking a bladder of wind about either.’
But he saw the humour in her eyes. ‘Listen, Lizzie, we’re talking about a lad here. Not one of them hooligan suffragettes.’
‘Well, don’t forget who’ll have to rear him first … me.’
‘And you’ll do a good job, Lizzie … Look at our Henzey’
Lizzie held Herbert in her arms contentedly while she and Ben continued to talk of the future. Their family was growing, and they had a great deal to look forward to.
*
The custom on most Saturday nights was for the Kites and the Bishops to go either to The Junction, or to The Shoulder of Mutton, for a drink and a sing-song. Joe usually ended up playing the piano in the smoke room. Alcohol always loosened tongues, so the more they drank, the more the gossip punctuated the singing. It was also a night when Lizzie put on her best frock and Ben dressed up in his three piece suit and stiff collar. Eve usually stayed at home these days with a bottle of stout, which she would pour into a glass and mull for a few seconds by immersing a red hot poker in it. She was content to stay indoors reading the newspaper and keeping an eye on the sleeping children.
One Saturday in May 1914, smoke hung like fog in The Junction as Joe played ‘Lily of Laguna’, specially requested by Jack Clayton, the landlord. Ja
ck pulled Joe a foaming pint of bitter and placed it on top of the piano. Joe nodded his thanks with a smile, but kept on singing, and Tom the Tatter, the local rag and bone man, went up to replenish his own glass.
Lizzie gossiped about a woman they knew from Brown Street who had run off with another man and all the money from her diddlum club. It was scandalous, she said. She was glad she’d never joined her club. But May just tutted absently. She seemed preoccupied. Although she commented in the right places it seemed she was hardly listening properly to what Lizzie was saying. Joe, on the other hand, appeared full of vitality, and Lizzie watched him, throwing his head back in abandon as he played and sang; he was in his element.
‘Our Joe’s on form tonight, May. I haven’t seen him like this for ages. Has he picked a winner today or something?’
‘Not to me knowledge.’
‘What are you feeding him on, then? He’s really on form.’
May hesitated to answer, then smiled; a smile that spanned anxiety and contentment. She picked up her glass of beer, sipped it, then put it down again.
‘What’s the matter, May? You’re fidgeting.’
‘Oh, nothing’s the matter, Lizzie. It’s just that … Well, I didn’t intend telling you yet, but I don’t think as I can keep it to meself any longer.’
‘What is it?’ Lizzie picked up her own half pint glass and took a sip.
‘I’m five months, Lizzie. I’ve never gone five months before.’
Lizzie put her glass down at once lest she spill any beer. She flung her arm round May’s shoulders and gave her a hug. ‘Oh, May, that’s the best news I’ve heard for ages. When are you due?’