Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Been a canny do then?’ Sid grinned.

  ‘Just as expected – hot and hellish. I’ve been trying to get away from a kid with acne for the last hour.’

  ‘Well show us where the action is,’ said Sid.

  ‘Sid’s on the scrounge,’ Kelly teased.

  ‘I’ll pay my way. I’m just interested in a late bar.’

  ‘Any bar, you mean,’ Kelly said, linking her other arm through his.

  ‘This way to the dungeons then,’ Carol said with a grin.

  The evening picked up. Nancy was prevented from making a fuss at the uninvited guests by Carol’s father immediately buying them drinks and Vic making a fuss of Kelly, whose father was one of his coach drivers.

  Finally, Fay and Vic made a grand departure with the guests following them out onto the steps of Brandon Castle to wave them away.

  ‘Look after Mum and Dad, won’t you?’ Fay urged Carol, growing suddenly tearful. ‘I’m leaving home and you’re all they’ve got now.’

  ‘You’re only going for two weeks; they can’t get up to much trouble in that time.’

  Fay grabbed her in a surprise hug. ‘They need you, especially Mother. Don’t do anything silly. I’ll miss you, little sister. I love you.’

  Carol squirmed. ‘Hey, how much have you been drinking? I’ll be up the road to pester you more than you’ll want.’

  Vic came over to extract his new wife. ‘Come on doll; let’s get this honeymoon underway.’

  He winked at Carol and she wondered if she was the only guest thinking the same thoughts: would they do it tonight? Had they already done it? And what did big, bearded, hairy-armed Vic look like without his clothes on? She hoped his shrewd grey eyes didn’t mean he could mind-read; there was something too knowing about him, too confident in his own charm. It made her stomach twist and she wasn’t sure if she secretly fancied or really disliked him.

  ‘Bye, little sister,’ he smiled, leaning over and putting an arm about her. Very briefly, he kissed her full on the lips; a moist possessive kiss, and then let her go. Turning to hail someone else, his arm now firmly around Fay, he left Carol shaking.

  ‘Well!’ Kelly smirked.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘That wasn’t a very brotherly kiss.’

  ‘He’s kissing everyone like that.’

  ‘Not me, mores the pity,’ Kelly sighed and leaned on her friend. ‘Hey, you’re shaking.’

  ‘It’s chilly.’ Carol watched her mother and Fay having a very public emotional parting; she would be hearing about this day for the next decade.

  ‘It’s the hottest night of the year,’ Kelly said, dropping her voice. ‘You’re trembling with passion for Victor.’

  ‘Get off,’ Carol laughed, pushing her away.

  ‘I know the signs. I don’t half fancy him myself.’

  ‘You fancy anything in trousers.’

  ‘Or out of them.’ Kelly gave a raucous laugh.

  They waved at the revving sports car, bedecked with balloons, trailing cans and a message sprayed by Simon and best man, Pete Fletcher: Now for a bit of son and heir. Carol’s insides fluttered again at the thought of sex. She was confused by her sudden interest in Vic and guilty towards Fay for even thinking it. Champagne made her randy about the wrong people; she’d stick to lager in future.

  At the last moment, Fay shouted, ‘Carol, catch this!’ and hurled her bridal bouquet out of the open-topped car. It was a command to be the next one married, preferably to someone rich and responsible who would ‘clip her wings’, as her mother sourly put it. But Carol made no attempt to catch it. She didn’t want all that; she wanted freedom and fun with no commitment or responsibility for anyone else – just a bit more of that funny feeling in her guts when a grown man kissed her.

  ‘Look, I’ve caught it,’ Kelly squealed, crushing the limp blooms to her large bosom.

  Carol saw the look of disgust curling down the edges of her mother’s mouth, before Nancy turned to wave her favourite daughter away with tears in her eyes. As the car roared down the drive, rattling cans, honking horn and spraying gravel, her mother gave way to loud sobs and even permitted Ben to put a comforting arm about her.

  ‘My baby’s gone for ever!’

  Guests flocked around, offering tipsy words of comfort. Vic’s old school friend and best man, Pete Fletcher, watched with detached interest. Tall and thin, with a sensuous mouth and wire-rimmed glasses – Carol heard he was a journalist – he gave her an amused smile and joined the group.

  ‘She’s in safe hands, Mrs Shannon, so lets go inside and toast the happy couple again before the bar closes.’

  ‘Well said,’ Ben Shannon agreed and the two men steered Nancy back up the steps.

  Sid appeared at Carol’s side. ‘Sounds like good advice to me, eh girls?’

  But Carol felt suddenly flat; excluded by her mother’s scene in the driveway. Nancy would never be that upset for her – would probably set off fireworks in celebration at being rid of her. Carol couldn’t fathom what it was about her that so irritated her mother, while Fay and Simon could do no wrong. Maybe all families were like that; some members were just harder to love than others and she was one of those that was lacking.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ she urged, ‘like down the beach.’

  ‘Can we take some of your dad’s booze with us?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Leave that to me – once I’ve got changed out of this fairy costume.’

  ‘Pity,’ he grinned, ‘it suits you.’

  Carol glanced at Kelly but her friend gave an exaggerated wink and didn’t seem to mind Sid flirting.

  ‘Well tough, it turns into rags at midnight,’ she laughed. ‘Come with me Kelly.’

  The two girls set off at a run up the stairs; no one seemed to be interested in them. With Kelly’s help Carol managed to find the room where she’d left her clothes and in two minutes flat she had discarded the dress and petticoats and was pulling on her jeans with relief. They felt like old friends, comfortably hugging her, fraying flares at the bottom tickling her bare feet.

  As she buttoned up her shirt, Kelly said, ‘I’m not going out with Sid, you know, we’re just mates. Same street sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh?’ Carol kept her voice light. She grabbed a hairbrush and pulled it through her long brown hair, dragging on her cropped fringe to try and lengthen it.

  ‘So he’s yours if you want him,’ Kelly spelled it out.

  Carol laughed. ‘Does he have any say in it?’

  ‘Seems to me he’s taken a shine to you already - all that pink frilly lace driving him wild.’

  Carol hit Kelly playfully with the brush. But a spark of excitement lit inside. ‘Let’s be off then, before Dad puts a stop to it.’

  They hurried downstairs to find Sid had already negotiated an armful of cans from her father and Carol was thankful she did not have to return inside the fetid disco and risk a confrontation with either parent. As they clattered down the steps and out into the warm night air, a figure wobbled in front of them. It was young Dan Hardman and from the look of his pasty face, he had just thrown up in the bushes. He caught sight of Carol and lurched towards her.

  ‘Carol! Where you going?’

  She recoiled at the smell of vomit on his breath. ‘We’re off to the beach,’ she said, sidestepping.

  He put out a hand to steady himself on her. ‘Let me come.’

  Kelly pushed him away. ‘Sod off, zit-head, you’re too young.’

  Dan’s ill-looking face looked offended then angry. ‘I wasn’t asking you, fat git. I was asking Carol.’

  Carol realised Dan was about to get dumped in the bushes by an irate Kelly, but before she could intervene, Sid stepped in.

  ‘Listen, lad, get yourself back inside. Carol doesn’t want you hanging on, can’t you see that? Looks like you’ve had a skinful, any road.’

  Dan looked at them all with hostility.

  ‘Aye, go back to your mam and dad,’ Kelly needled. ‘Don’t want them
worrying about you.’

  He turned and spat at her and then threw Carol a reproachful look.

  ‘I’ll see you around, Dan - at the next family party,’ Carol said, forcing a smile.

  But Dan just sniffed hard and pushed past her. Kelly and Sid grabbed Carol and hurried her off towards the car park, chattering and laughing. Carol glanced back, hoping that Dan couldn’t hear what was being said about him by the other two. She saw him standing illuminated on the gravel, wavering unsteadily and looking very ill. For a moment she felt bad about leaving him out, but smothered her guilt by telling herself that she’d cause no end of trouble in her parents’ eyes if she let the fifteen-year-old go with her. She plunged into the dark with Kelly and Sid, too far away to see the look of bitter disappointment on Dan Hardman’s wretched face.

  Chapter Three

  After drinking with his father and Grandda Bowman, Mick bumped into his Uncle Eddy and was enticed to The Ship for a drink - Eddy’s favourite pub on account of the beer and the dated selection on the old jukebox. The Ship was run by a retired merchant seaman who had been on the convoys to Russia during the Second World War. The walls were covered in nicotine-stained photographs of old cruisers and frigates ploughing through rough waters. Captain Lenin, as he was affectionately named because he’d once been ashore in Murmansk, kept Eddy’s tankard behind the bar and was pouring foaming beer into it from a hand pump the moment he saw his ‘regular’ at the open door.

  ‘Good evening, comrades,’ he called, in a voice that penetrated like a fog horn across the smoky interior.

  ‘Evening, Captain!’ Eddy replied. ‘A pint for young Mick here an’ all, please.’

  ‘Coming up,’ growled their host, in his deep tobacco voice.

  Eddy sauntered over to the jukebox, not completely at home until he’d chosen a few favourites. They were all his singles anyway, brought to the pub over the last twenty years and installed as if in his own sitting room, which was largely how he treated the front bar of The Ship. Captain Lenin was a widower and happy to oblige, having no cosy private hearth to retreat to and no one to keep him company but a bad-tempered parrot who swore at him in Polish, Russian and Arabic.

  As Nat King Cole’s honeyed voice began to croon, ‘When I Fall In Love’, Eddy strolled back and claimed his pint, closing his eyes and taking a deep satisfying drink. He and the Captain fell to talking about football and the approaching start of the season and what Newcastle’s chances might be. Eddy quizzed the Captain about his new dinghy and soon they were back reliving the days when Lenin had taken a youthful Eddy out fishing on his spells of leave and they’d returned with fish which his Polish wife Wanda had gutted and rolled in oatmeal and fried for their tea.

  ‘Nowt like a fresh fish,’ Eddy said, with a smack of his lips. ‘Mind you, the fish stocks were always safe from me. Best thing I ever caught was a starfish, if I remember rightly. I’d not survive on a desert island, I tell you. Not without your beer either, Captain.’

  His host took the hint and refilled Eddy’s tankard. They talked more of fish and discussed the cod war with Iceland. Mick picked up his pint. Soon they would be off on more reminiscences around the high seas and he suddenly felt the urge for fresh air. He nodded towards the back and murmured he was going outside.

  ‘Join you in a minute, Mick lad,’ Eddy called after him.

  At the back of the pub was a small uneven garden with a couple of weatherbeaten benches, a stone sun dial and a weathervane in the shape of a ship. There was a row of salty-looking garden gnomes painted in naval uniforms sheltering behind a white fence. It was an eccentric, jolly garden, quite suited to its owner, and it was deserted, which suited Mick’s strangely melancholic mood.

  Mick breathed in the powerful scent of roses that hung in the warm air and, resting his elbows on the fence, looked out over the rough grazing land to the sea beyond. The haze of the afternoon had lifted to reveal a mysterious and molten sea, reflecting the last of the sun. Out in the depths, the lights of a passing vessel winked in the twilight and crept silently on. To his left lay the pit. Behind him wafted the strains of Ella Fitzgerald. Mick felt deeply at peace for the first time in weeks and, as he drank his pint in the evening calm, tried to work out just what it was that had been bothering him.

  He sat on the bench for an age before the tranquillity was abruptly broken by the roar of a car churning up the dust along the main road behind him, accompanied by the jangle of tin cans. The unseen car was blaring its horn through the village and he could hear shouts from drinkers in the street as it sped past. Turning, Mick caught a glimpse of the sports car’s headlights as it tore up the far bank, off towards Quarryhill and away to the south.

  ‘Victor Proud and his new missus,’ Eddy said, sauntering out of the back door.

  ‘Aye,’ Mick grunted. ‘Who else would be showing off his expensive motor like that?’

  ‘Good luck to him, I say,’ Eddy said amiably, ‘if he’s found the right woman.’

  Mick smirked at his uncle. ‘And what about you, Eddy? Is Lesley Paxton going to be the next Mrs Todd?’

  Eddy was quiet for all of three seconds, then laughed off the question. ‘Lesley’s far too good a lass for the likes of me - I keep telling her so.’

  Mick grinned. ‘So does Mam.’ He thought of the cheerful, dark-haired Lesley who supervised the pit canteen and seemed to be able to organise everything in her life except the capricious Eddy.

  ‘And what about you, bonny lad?’ Eddy turned the tables on his nephew. ‘Haven’t seen you courting for a while.’

  ‘Not interested.’

  ‘Course you are.’ Eddy nudged him. ‘It’s not like you to be hanging around with your old uncle. You should be out with the lads like you normally are. Where’s that Sid Armstrong the night?’

  ‘Gate-crashing the Shannon wedding,’ Mick snorted. ‘Drinking as much of old man Shannon’s beer as he can get down his neck, most likely.’

  Eddy laughed. ‘Good on him! Hope he has one for all of us. Shannon gets enough sweat and toil out of us every day of the week.’

  Mick looked at his uncle in surprise at the sharpness in his tone, but his face in the dusk looked merry.

  ‘You should’ve gone too, Mick lad.’

  ‘Not in a million years!’ Mick answered stoutly. ‘Not after what the Shannons did to the Todds.’

  ‘By, you sound like that bugger Charlie sometimes.’

  ‘Well, Dad’s right,’ Mick defended. ‘We’re the products of our own history, and the Todds and the Shannons have a long and bitter one. I’ll not go licking Shannon’s arse for any amount of free beer.’

  ‘Perish the thought, bonny lad,’ Eddy laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Tell you what. You keep fighting for the rights of the Todds and the working man, and I’ll fight me way to the bar for another round, eh?’

  As Mick was about to answer, another car roared through the village, hooting out a jingle on its horn. Even before they saw the pale blue metallic Capri, Eddy and Mick looked at each other and chorused, ‘Sid!’

  ‘I’ve seen some strange sights,’ Eddy chortled, ‘but Sid Armstrong going off on honeymoon with Victor Proud has got to take the prize.’

  The Capri shot past the end of the pub, windows down and Status Quo blasting from its dark interior. Mick was sure he caught a glimpse of Kelly’s grinning face and shock of red hair at the passenger window and felt a punch in his stomach. Revelation hit him like a giant wave breaking over his head and left him feeling sick.

  Eddy saw his expression and said kindly, ‘they’ll be ganin’ down the beach. Why don’t you leg it after them?’

  Mick could feel himself flushing. Did Eddy realise that he was jealous of Sid over Kelly Laws? He had told himself that Kelly was a daft overgrown kid, with a dangerous appetite for mixing it with the lads, and he hadn’t cared a damn that Sid had taken her off on his motorbike without his permission to wherever they’d gone. But he realised now he had cared. He’d been trying to get off with Kel
ly at the disco in Quarryhill, but had got roaring drunk because she seemed more interested in Sid. And Sid had gone off on his bike with her and pranged it.

  Mick tore his gaze away from where the Capri had disappeared from view. ‘No,’ he said, trying to sound unconcerned, ‘let them get on with it. If Sid’s playing Quo, he’s already halfway to having his evil way with someone. I’d rather join you and the Captain in the Battle of Jutland, or whatever it was you were talking about.’

  ‘Wrong war, Mick lad. For a working-class historian, you’re bloody terrible on facts.’ Eddy’s lived-in face looked teasing. He grabbed his nephew round the neck and pulled him forward. ‘Come on, who cares about Status bloody Quo? I feel an attack of Johnny Matthis coming on. Let’s gan inside and liven up that jukebox. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in action during National Service?’

  ‘You didn’t see any action,’ Mick laughed as he allowed himself to be steered inside by his slightly-built uncle.

  ‘There was plenty action in the bars of Portsmouth, I can tell you!’ As they re-entered the pub, Eddy began one of his colourful stories. ‘Did I tell you about the time I met Elvis Presley?’

  Mick had heard the story countless times before but he encouraged Eddy to tell it again. For a while, it made him forget what might be taking place on the beach below.

  In the dark it was not so obvious that the sand was blackened with the dregs from the pit, spewed out further up the beach. There were those who collected small coals from the shoreline like beachcombers, but the only ones there at this time of night were Carol and Sid and Kelly - and Roxy Music blaring out of the car parked above them. They made a small fire and sat round it drinking from the cans that Sid had salvaged from the wedding party and smoking Kelly’s Embassy cigarettes. Sid had a packet of cards and settled for a game of three card brag when the girls refused to play strip poker.

  When the tape on the car cassette stopped, Kelly struggled up and said she wanted to put on something they could dance to. While she was away, Sid rolled closer to Carol and grinned at her beneath his dark moustache.