Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Mick looked at his father-in-law with stony-faced contempt and said nothing. Ben rocked back on his feet, instantly annoyed by his insolent silence. He spoke in a harder voice, the threat barely concealed.

  ‘If you choose to turn your back on my offer, I can’t guarantee you anything, I’m afraid. And with a criminal record, well, look what happened to your grandfather. He hardly worked again after twenty-six.’

  Mick glanced at his father and saw the appalled look on his face. ‘Leave my lad alone, Shannon,’ he growled.

  ‘You can’t divide us against each other like a herd of stupid sheep,’ Mick was scathing. ‘I know what game you’re playing and it stinks! And don’t think you can try and get round me dad either, just because you went to school together. We all know how you turned your back on your own kind, how your father was a scab. My grandfather might have been a ruined man because the private coal owners wouldn’t take him back after he’d gone to prison, but at least he didn’t betray anyone - not like the Shannons!’

  Ben turned a livid red. To Mick’s surprise, Charlie intervened. ‘That’s enough, lad.’

  But Ben was riled. ‘I can see he’s as hot-headed and ill-tempered as-you, Toddy,’ he said in fury. ‘I can’t imagine what my daughter saw in him. Turned her into a common drudge.’

  This was too much for Charlie. He jumped out of his seat. ‘You can say what you bloody well like about me, but don’t you insult my son or your daughter like that! You’ve never given a toss about what happens to Carol. But I can tell you she’s been happier with our Mick and with my family than she ever was with you. Carol’s a Todd now,’ he said with defiance, ‘and she’s proved herself one of us a hundred times over. She wants nothing to do with you.’

  Ben was apoplectic. ‘Well, don’t be so proud of your precious Todd credentials,’ he snapped back, his look vicious. ‘I bet you haven’t told Carol about the skeleton in your family cupboard. Or Mick for that matter.’

  The two men stared at each other in hot fury.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mick demanded, unnerved by his father’s abrupt silence.

  Ben spun round and gave a cold, deadly smile of triumph. ‘You haven’t told him, have you, Toddy?’

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ Charlie replied, his throat tight with rage. ‘Nobody asked you to come here.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s time the boy knew all his family history,’ Ben continued, aware of gaining the upper hand at last.

  ‘What you on about?’ Mick asked him impatiently. There’s nowt in our family to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ Ben turned on him with all the aggression of a savaging dog. ‘Your father is still deeply ashamed of his part in your grandfather’s arrest, isn’t that right, Toddy?’

  Mick looked at his father and saw with shock that he had tears in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll tell him, not you!’ Charlie shouted, then turned to his son. He struggled to compose himself. ‘Your grandfather was arrested for breaking the windows of Shannon’s house—’

  ‘I was cut by flying glass, got taken to hospital,’ Ben interrupted.

  ‘Because Shannon had scabbed,’ Charlie glared.

  ‘I know all that,’ Mick protested. This is old history.’

  ‘My father was arrested and found guilty and went to prison,’ Charlie continued in a strained voice.

  ‘But he was innocent, wasn’t he, Toddy?’ Ben goaded him.

  ‘How would you know?’ Mick demanded.

  ‘It’s true,’ Charlie said, his face trembling. ‘I was the one who threw those bricks. I wanted to injure old man Shannon so badly. He’d stopped me from seeing me pal, Ben. And he’d got me father that angry he was going out of his mind. I wanted to kill him!’ Mick heard a sob catch in his father’s throat.

  ‘Instead you got me,’ Ben added, his eyes bright with anger or some other emotion Mick could not fathom. ‘But your father protected you, didn’t he? Took the blame. Damn idiot! And hardly did a day’s work again because of it. Because of you, Toddy. Not because of me or my father. We weren’t the cause of your father’s misfortune or your family’s hardship, or his early death. You’ve blamed us for that all your life, when all along the fault was yours. Stupid little runt that you were!’

  Mick watched in horror as his father crumpled into his deck chair, buried his face in his hands and began a deep, wounded sobbing that rose up from the pit of his being. He had never ever seen his father weep and it shocked him to the core.

  Mick turned on Ben Shannon, more angry than he had ever been in his life. He would wipe the smile of destructive satisfaction off his face for good. He drew back his fist and threw a resounding punch into his face. Ben reeled back and hit the ground; he never even saw the punch coming. Mick advanced on him as he lay among the lettuce, stunned by the blow. Ben threw up an arm to protect himself and ward off his furious attacker.

  Mick stood over him, restraining the urge to kick him senseless.

  ‘My father was not to blame for what happened to me grandda or to his family,’ Mick roared. ‘It was men like your father who were to blame - the scabs who caved in to the bosses! If they had stayed out and stood firm with their marras as they should have done, your windows would never have been broken and no one would’ve gone to prison. The shame lies with your father. My father has no reason to be ashamed. Me grandda might not have thrown the bricks, but he as good as did. He knew what the lock-out had done to him and his son and all the other starving families in the village. I bet he was proud of what his son did!’ Mick glared down at the cowering manager. ‘So don’t think you can intimidate us or set me against me father. I’m proud of me dad, always have been and always will be. He’s ten times the man you are, Shannon. You? I wouldn’t piss on you if you caught fire!’ Mick stood back and turned away in contempt.

  Charlie looked at him, his face damp with tears, yet there was admiration in his brown eyes. He stood up without a word and went to his son’s side. They stood together, stocky shoulders touching, and watched Ben pick himself up hurriedly from the lettuce bed. His pale trousers were stained with soil and he winced in pain as he tried to answer back.

  Giving up, he limped away, clutching his jaw. Dougal, Charlie’s terrier, chased him down the path yapping aggressively. Together the Todds watched him retreat. Eventually they heard a car engine start up and listened as the car drove away.

  Charlie put an arm round Mick’s shoulders. ‘I think you might have broken his jaw.’

  Mick grimaced. ‘I hope I did. He’s had it coming for a long time. All the things he’s done to Carol and said to us.’

  Charlie looked at his son, his eyes bright. ‘I wish you’d known your grandda Todd,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re that like him. He would have been proud of you, just like I am.’

  The two men smiled at each other. This strike was bringing them closer together than they had ever been before, just like Charlie had grown close to his own father in 1926. Then worry gripped Charlie, remembering how his own father had been so strong throughout the dispute, only to be beaten by it when it collapsed in defeat. All the fight had been bled out of him and never returned. That must not happen to Mick, he vowed, else he would never forgive himself.

  Mick went back to Septimus Street with his father, not wanting to be on his own at home. There they explained to an aghast Lotty what had happened at the allotment.

  ‘He’ll probably have me done for assault,’ Mick said with a fatalistic shrug.

  ‘Well, they’ll have a job getting past me if they try to arrest you,’ Lotty fulminated.

  Charlie smiled. ‘And what am I going to tell Carol if you’re both in the nick when she comes back, eh?’

  Mick felt his insides twist at the thought of what Carol might say. He had let her down again, he thought bleakly. Assaulting her own father . . .

  He stretched out on the settee and dozed while he waited for the knock on the door. The hours ticked on through the night, yet no one
came to pick him up. He could not believe that Shannon would pass up the opportunity of having him arrested and punished for such a humiliating attack. But by early morning, nothing had happened. Exhausted yet restless, Mick decided to risk going with his father to the picket to see if he could help. He was already in such trouble, breaking his bail would make little difference, he told himself.

  As they emerged from the back lane they heard a rumble of vehicles. They looked up the hill towards Brassy and stopped dead in their tracks. Charlie blinked and stared again as if he could not believe what he saw. Out of the dawn shone the lights of a solid line of vans as they snaked down the steep bank into the village, flanked by motorcycle outriders like some invading army. Police on foot ran ahead, shouting at a few early morning bystanders to get back in their houses.

  ‘What the hell’s ganin’ on?’ Charlie exclaimed.

  Mick squinted into the gloom and saw a bus in the middle of the convoy. It was green and yellow, the colours of a Proud coach. In an instant he understood.

  ‘Bastards!’ Mick cried. ‘They’re bringing in the scabs!’

  Charlie’s stunned expression gave way to grim determination. ‘Haway, then, lad. We’ll be needed at the picket.’ He set off at a run.

  Mick did not hesitate but followed his father. A new purpose lit inside him as he rushed forward, one that he had not felt for weeks. He was prepared for anything, just as his grandfather had been. He would defend that picket line to the end.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Carol sensed the danger in what she was doing but could not stop herself. After several drinks with Pete at a snug old inn on the harbour, they took a walk along the beach in the dark, lit only by the spangled lights along the shore.

  Pete listened while she talked and told him deeply personal things about her past, her early childhood, how she had felt excluded from the rest of the family in some inexplicable way. She talked of the directionless, empty years of her growing up, the scrapes she had got into with Kelly and her father’s cold, furious contempt.

  ‘Perhaps if he had really taken an interest in me or what I got up to, it might have been different,’ Carol sighed. ‘But I knew, deep down, whatever I did he wouldn’t care, so I just kept on doing things I knew he wouldn’t approve of, just to get back at him.’

  ‘Like marrying Mick?’ Pete asked quietly.

  They had stopped at the end of the beach and were leaning on a large rock, gazing out to sea. All at once the sounds of the restless, murmuring waves jolted her back to that fateful evening on Brassbank beach where she had rescued Eddy from the water and met Mick for the first time. She tried to remember how she had felt about him then. Was it possible that she had made herself interested in him because she knew it would upset her father more than anything she had ever done before? Surely she could not have been that calculating.

  She closed her eyes tightly and remembered. The look of Mick’s handsome, surly face, the watchful, vivid blue eyes, his strong body glistening wet from the sea. No, she had hungered for Mick Todd from that moment, Carol knew. Nothing could have prevented her falling in love with him, whatever his family.

  Carol opened her eyes and turned to look at Pete. ‘I married Mick because I loved him,’ she told him simply, ‘and for the first time in me life I felt I belonged somewhere - with Mick and his family. I’ll be grateful for that till me dying day.’

  Pete’s look was searching. ‘But do you still love him?’

  Carol looked away, confused. Being so close to this sensual man in the dark with the sea sighing around them, filled her with longing. She knew she could tell him anything and he would understand, would keep it secret between themselves. Pete was so self-contained, so private, yet so receptive to her need to talk and explain. No man had ever given her the chance to express herself as Pete Fletcher did. For some reason he seemed to value her opinion and care about her in a way that other men did not, not even Mick.

  ‘Things are difficult between Mick and me,’ Carol whispered, ‘I can’t deny it. It’s been such a hard year for him. But all marriages go through rocky patches, don’t they?’

  Even as she spoke her inmost thoughts, she felt disloyal to Mick. She turned away, but Pete stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, pulling her round gently to face him.

  ‘Why don’t you admit it?’ he urged in a low voice. ‘It’s been a terrible year for you, Carol. You’re the one taking the brunt of all this suffering, you and the other women like you. I’ve watched a beautiful, spirited woman gradually buckle under the weight of worries that she’s carrying, including the guilt that she doesn’t love her husband any more.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Carol cried, trying to pull away from him. That’s not true.’

  ‘Admit it, Carol,’ Pete persisted. ‘It’s not the strike that’s wrecking your marriage. The strike’s the only thing that’s keeping you together. You have nothing in common with Mick any more. The spark’s gone, hasn’t it? I’ve stood by and watched him hurt you with his indifference. God, how I’ve wanted to step in and protect you, hold you tight; tell you that someone does love you. I bet it’s crossed your mind to leave Mick, though you’d never admit it. But you won’t leave him while he’s fighting for his job, for the pit, isn’t that it?’

  ‘No! I’ve never thought such things,’ Carol gasped in horror at the suggestion. Suddenly he let her go and she clutched her arms about her to stop herself from shaking and tried to control her erratic breathing.

  Was it possible that Pete had seen the truth of their situation before she had? She thought back to the past months of rows and silences, petty bickering and cold shouldering; the lonely nights when Mick had taken himself off to Laura’s empty bedroom or drawn away from her when she’d tried to touch him in the dark. On occasion, Pete had slept on the settee downstairs and might have heard the footsteps moving about in the night, the doors closing.

  Pete reached out for her again, but did not touch her. ‘Sweet Carol,’ he murmured, ‘don’t torture yourself. I’m sorry. I should never have said those things. I never meant to upset you like this.’

  Suddenly Carol found herself weeping. She bowed her head and moved towards his comforting arms. Pete enfolded her, stroked her hair and murmured reassurances. How she had ached for physical contact, for hugs and embraces like this.

  ‘I’ve been so lonely,’ she sobbed.

  ‘I know,’ Pete whispered and kissed her forehead. ‘I’ve wanted to step in and hold you a hundred times.’ He tilted her chin up and gently kissed her lips.

  ‘We shouldn’t. . .’ Carol gulped, feeling the longing flare inside her.

  Pete kissed her again, a longer, lingering kiss that made her hunger for more. His hands moved round her back, pressing her closer so that she could feel the thud of his heart against her chest.

  ‘I love you, Carol,’ Pete said, caressing her face with soft kisses. ‘I want you.’

  Carol shuddered and closed her eyes, feeling her insides melt.

  ‘You want this too, don’t you, my love?’ he whispered, beginning to kiss his way down her neck.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ Carol faltered.

  ‘Let me love you, Carol,’ Pete said, his voice as seductive as his fingers as they moved over her skin, setting it tingling with delight. ‘Let me make love to this wonderful body of yours.’

  Carol felt light-headed at his erotic words. She should not be letting this happen, yet at that moment she did not know how she could stop.

  Suddenly, something very cold rushed at her feet. She yelped and jumped back.

  ‘Ah, the bloody tide’s coming in!’ Pete shouted, hopping backwards to save his shoes.

  At once the sexual energy between them was broken. Carol burst out laughing at his undignified hopping.

  ‘That’s the North Sea for you, a real passion killer. Now if we’d been beside the Pacific, just think what might have happened.’ She was already making light of their embrace, her self-control returning.

  Pete l
ooked put out. ‘How can you laugh about it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Carol smiled with regret, ‘but we can’t let that happen again.’

  ‘Can’t we?’ Pete asked wistfully.

  ‘No,’ Carol was firm. ‘Maybe I’m not happy with Mick, but I’d never leave him for anyone else, no matter how sexy.’ She flashed a smile, then fell serious once more. Anyway, I’ve Laura to consider too.’

  ‘I know,’ Pete sighed. They began to walk back up the beach. He put out a finger and ran it down her arm. ‘Don’t know how I’m going to keep my hands off you though.’

  Carol shifted away before she weakened again. ‘No more, please.’ Her smile was kind but her green eyes held a warning. She quickened her step. ‘Time I got back to the hostel.’

  ‘Can I walk you there if I promise not to touch?’ There was a mocking note in his voice.

  Carol nodded.

  He chuckled, ‘So I’m sexy, am I?’

  Carol gave an impatient sigh. ‘Men and their egos. That was off the record, so don’t go quoting me on it.’

  They walked through the town, where everything had quietened down. Carol had not realised how late it was.

  ‘I’ll be locked out of the hostel,’ she grimaced.

  ‘Have to come to my hotel after all,’ Pete grinned. She ignored the remark.

  They arrived at the hostel to find it locked and in darkness. After a moment’s hesitation, Carol picked up some pebbles from the path and began chucking them up at a first-floor window.

  ‘It’s Kelly’s room,’ she whispered, ‘though knowing my luck she’ll still be out on the town.’

  But moments later the window was thrown up and Kelly stuck her head out.

  ‘What the . . .?’ Kelly peered into the dark.

  ‘It’s me,’ Carol hissed. ‘Can you come down and let me in?’