by Jane Harris
‘She might have fallen off that bridge back there,’ says the doctor. ‘Or been carried along by the train that hit her. That’s not uncommon.’
More words were spoken but I don’t remember anything because the next thing I knew, master James had noticed me and was walking towards me. ‘Bessy, Bessy,’ he was saying, not unkindly. ‘What the Devil are you doing down here?’
I gazed at him and then beyond him at the thing that lay under the sacks and then up at the folk gathered on the top of the grassy slope, peering down. My head felt like it might explode. Master James was waiting for me to say something but I couldn’t speak for fear I was about to burst. The sweat was pouring off me. I wanted to leap at him and batter the lard out him with my fists. That was the solution, by Jove! To have a square-go, wigs on the green! That was what I had to do. Why had I not thought of it before? I almost did it too, I had my fists bunched up but just at the last moment I changed my mind. Motion was what I needed, I suddenly realised. Motion and distance. And with no more thought than that I took to my heels and began running as fast as my legs would carry me, along the side of the track, with somebody calling out after me, the name ‘Bessy’ echoing in my ears.
There was no plan to my flight. To be blunt, I did not know where the Hell I was going. I simply kept running alongside the track. Despite the clamour in my brain, it was good to be running. I got quite a rhythm going. I was the running girl, so I was. After some time, it might have been a few minutes or it might have been many, I came to a station. There must have been a train due because people were stood on the platform looking down at me running along the track. There they were, waiting on a train and instead what comes puffing along but a girl. I found that enormously funny for some reason. All these people staring at me, some of them with GREAT disapproval, you could just see it on their phizogs. Would you look at that girl there, running along? Trespassing on railway property so she is, causing a nuisance, acting in an unseemly fashion! I was guilty of it all, but I didn’t give a tuppenny damn. I just scrambled up onto one of the platforms and glared back at them all until they looked away. And then I stood there like a great lilty not knowing what the flip to do. If a train had arrived I might probably have jumped onto it, but nothing came immediately and I had no patience, I needed motion again. So after about 5 seconds I started to run once more.
Out the station I went and up towards the main road. There was a man coming downhill towards the ticket office. He opened his mouth as if he was about to yell at me but instead he just yawned and then he kept yawning as he walked along, it was the biggest yawn I’d ever seen. He was still at it as he went past me. How strange to be able to yawn with such contentment! I did not think I would ever be doing that again.
Up at the road I looked about me but hadn’t a clue where I was. To the right, I seen a row of big houses with wooden gates and archways of privet in their gardens and beyond them glasshouses in a field and so I ran up there and ducked through a gap in the hedge and after that I kept running across country. It was open marshland there, with no trees and in the distance only tall chimneys and squat bings. At one point I splashed through a stinking black bog that sucked the shoes off my feet and soaked me to the wishbone. It was agony to run in bare feet but I kept going. After a while, the lie of the land rose and the marsh became heath, with dark earth and knee-deep rusty heather, going through it was like wading through waves and my legs grew heavy. I struck out for a scribble of trees I seen in the distance but when I got there found it was not the edge of a forest, only a thin strip of woods. At the other side was a narrow unmetalled road and so I turned and began to follow where it led. On I went, sometimes crossing little bridges butted by clumps of trees, sometimes passing the ruins of old works, with tumbledown heaps of bricks, and beams exposed to the sky like a ribcage. The light began to fade just as I came to the outskirts of a village. Last thing I wanted was to encounter another human and so I struck off the road across more fields until I came to a place that was all fenced in. I peered through a gap in the fence and seen a few ramshackle sheds and a greystone bothy. Next to them was some kind of tank and the entrance to a tunnel but not a living thing in sight. It was a coal pit, all shut down for the night, though I didn’t realise it at the time.
By now the twilight was almost gone. I found a hole in the fence and slipped through, with the intention of resting in one of the shacks. As it turned out, the bothy itself wasn’t locked. I went inside, there was only one room, it must have been the office though there was nothing much in it except an old desk and chair and a blackened fireplace. No curtain or piece of cloth or cushion but at least it was a fraction warmer than outside and it was dry. I wrapped my shawl and Muriels coat around me and crouched in the corner with my back to the wall, hugging my knees and shivering because the sweat had gone cold on me now that I was no longer in motion. As yet I had not stopped to think. I had only run and walked, hurrying onward, filled with misery and dread. On reflection, I perceived that I felt strange and terrible. I was trembling all over and my head was splitting. No food had passed my lips since the day before. I believe I must have lost my senses. At one point, I started to have a daydream about how if I cleaned out the bothy and got curtains and a table and chair and a little mattress I could live there instead of going back to Glasgow. It was a daft idea, I know, but I kept thinking about it anyway. The only way it would work, I decided, was if nobody knew I was there. I’d have to forage for food at night. And then I started to think that if I could make myself cry it might help me get rid of the terrible anguish I was feeling. But no tears would come. I said out loud the words, ‘My mammy,’ to see what would happen, but nothing did. And so I said it again, ‘My mammy.’ But still I did not cry. And then I just started saying it over and over again. ‘My mammy, my mammy, my mammy, my mammy.’ And then it just turned into, ‘Mammy, mammy, mammy.’
And then the tears came. Like a stubborn cork, they had stuck in my throat. But when they slipped out, unexpectedly and with great force, they took me by surprise. I wept like I was delirious and then sank into sleep like a dead person.
23
Desolation
LET ME GO ON. When once again I became aware of what was around about me, the bothy was filled with silvery light. It must have been not long after dawn. How much time had passed or what I was doing in that hut in the middle of nowhere I hadn’t a notion but when I opened my eyes there was a rough, begrimed hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw before me a man in working clothes, peering down. His face was weathered and cut with deep lines and he had on him a wild untrimmed beard and whiskers that gave him the look of a startled owl. Beyond him were several other men, younger than he, but dressed the same in baggy trousers and loose jackets. Some of them wore caps. They were crowding in at the entrance to the bothy, all staring at me, practically clambering over each other to get a better view. In my delirious state, I thought they meant me harm. I cried out and tried to get to my feet but my body was too heavy, it was as though I had become part of the floor. I sank back. Whiskers said something I couldn’t make out. And then a circle of blackness closed in and claimed me once more.
In the next interval I was dimly aware of some sensations. Hands lifted me, pulling at my clothes. I moaned and struggled but I was not molested, it was simply that they were trying to hold me upright. Then the world fell away from my feet and tilted sharply as I was borne aloft. ‘You go there!’ a man called out and—thinking that he had spoke to me—I tried to rouse myself and move my legs but found that the hands only gripped me tighter. ‘Get her, Charlie!’ the voice says. ‘Mind that arm, that’s it! Watch her now!’ My ankles were gripped, my spine stretched, my head was cushioned against a pillow of corduroy that smelt of tobacco and soap (I realised later it was probably a waist-coated chest). I heard grunts and throat-clearings. ‘Right here we go!’ says the man. And then everything jolted into motion. I turned my head and seen the earth flow beneath me like a river, mud-caked floorboards giving way
to hard-packed earth and then after some time, a rutted lane. It was as if I was trapped in a moving machine that gripped me and sped me along. I did not know its purpose but I had a feeling it was an old machine for the further we travelled the more it began to wheeze and pant like an old mare fit for the knacker, and sometimes it spat off into the grass and now and then it made a comment to itself and once, to my surprise, part of it chuckled at something another part had said.
In time, the swaying movement lulled me and I slipped once more into oblivion. My next sensation was of being set down with a slight jolt. I was in a bed recess and close at hand there was a commotion of leave-taking, whispers and low voices and many pairs of boots shuffling out, it could have been the end of Mass. A door closed. Silence fell. A womans hands settled a blanket over me and gave me milk to drink. And then she pulled the curtains to block out the light. My eyes closed over and I felt as sealed away from the world as though I had been shut forever in a tomb.
So would you believe that I remained in that bed recess for about four days and nights. Jesus Murphy there was not an ounce of strength in my limbs, I had as much command over them as I would have had over molten lead. I drifted in and out of sleep and was sometimes aware of movement and hushed voices in the room beyond the curtain. There were times when I heard a child crying. At other times, smells of cooking seeped into my little coffin. The woman that had give me milk brought me food at intervals, mostly stirabout and broth, and she fed me the few spoonfuls that I was able to swallow. I soon gathered that she was a miners wife and that her husband was the owl-faced man I had first seen in the bothy. He looked in on me each day when he came home from the pit, the whiskers on him still wet from his wash. His name was Chick and his wife was Helen, this I knew from hearing them call to one another in the next room. (What I didn’t at first appreciate was that this was only a two-room cottage and that the bed I lay in was their own which they had give up to me, while they slept on a tick next door.)
Helen and Chick were not the worlds greatest talkers but sometimes, in what I took to be evening, I overheard them whispering about me. Once I heard him say to her, ‘Has she said anything yet?’ Helen made no reply, but must have shook her head, for I hadn’t uttered a peep since I arrived. Another time she says to him, ‘D’you think she’s a gowk?’ and he replied, ‘Mebbe.’
What was it about me that people were always taking me for a simpleton?
Mostly the drapes kept out the light so I was hardly aware what hour it was. But one day, I awoke to see the curtains part and in the gap appeared one fair tousled head and then another. Two wee girls were peering in at me, one about three years old, the other perhaps six. These, I gathered, must be the children of Helen and Chick. They stared at me in silence with sombre faces and eyes as round as pennies until their mother noticed them and chased them away.
On the fourth day, when Helen brought me some stirabout I had just enough energy to whisper my thanks and she near dropped the bowl in shock. ‘Hooch!’ she goes, ‘Man girl! You’ve no says a word in days. We thocht you were a dummy!’
At the sound of their mothers voice, the two children came scuttling into the room. They darted behind her skirts and peered out at me with great suspicion, the eyebrows on them drawn down. Helen took my hand.
‘Poor bairn,’ she says. ‘You were just starved and exhaustit. But you’re looking better now. D’you want a message sending to anybody?’
For a second, I wanted to tell her everything, but just as quickly realised that I did not have the strength. And so I just shook my head.
She squeezed my hand. ‘Well then,’ she says. ‘You just eat this porridge and hae another wee sleep.’ Then she left me the bowl and steered her girls out the room.
The following morning I was well enough to sit up. And the morning after that, I got out of bed, though my legs trembled as if somebody had whacked me on the head.
It was the first really fine day of the year and Helen placed a chair for me by the front door where I sat wrapped in a blanket, the sunlight warming my face. She had mended my stockings as best she could and brushed the dirt off my clothes and Muriels coat. She had even give me her other pair of shoes. They were her best shoes, made of highly polished leather and hardly ever worn. I knew by now that the row of cottages where I found myself was part of Stoneydyke, a pit village some ten miles to the north east of Snatter. Neither Helen nor Chick had pressed me for information about myself. I kept putting off telling them how I had ended up there, saying to myself, ‘I’ll tell them this afternoon. Tonight. Tomorrow. When I feel stronger.’ But in the end, somehow, I couldn’t bear to talk about what had happened and so I tellt them only that I’d got lost on my way to Edinburgh and had sought shelter in the pit bothy. They seemed happy enough with that explanation. I could have wished they weren’t quite so taciturn, however, since I’d heard no news of Snatter since I arrived.
About 11 o’clock that morning, Helen joined me outside the front door and I helped her to scrape potatoes for the dinner. This seemed as good a chance as any to find out what she knew. I began cautiously enough.
‘There was a place I went through the other day,’ I says. ‘They had a big crowd there, all gathered round a fountain so they were, and a man making a speech.’
‘Oh aye,’ says Helen, without looking up from her scraping.
I tried again. ‘What would the name of that place be now? It was on the Great Road. There was an inn, the Swan I think it was called. And The Gushet.’
‘Snatter,’ says Helen.
‘That’s it,’ I says. ‘There was a man making a speech when I went by, a minister.’
Helens mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Him that was attacked, ’ she says.
I made a surprised face. ‘Attacked?’
She nodded, but infuriatingly just went on with her scraping.
‘Well—what happened?’ I says.
She shrugged. ‘Some lady attacked him. Then she ran away. English lady, I think. Completely mad. Hit him wi’ a shovel.’
‘Oh—oh dear,’ I says. ‘Did they—did they find her at all?’
‘I am no sure,’ she says. ‘I don’t think so. They did find somebody though. The very same day, some poor soul fell affy a bridge and was killed by a train. Irish woman. Tragic. They want to make they bridge walls higher.’ Of a sudden she peered at me, concerned. ‘Are you all right, dear? You’ve went aw pale again. Should you lie down?’
‘I am fine, thank you.’ After a while I says, ‘So it was—definitely an accident then, the woman on the railway line? Was it?’
‘Oh aye,’ says Helen. ‘By all accounts, she’d spent the day in the Swan and the Railway Tavern. Then she weaved oot, might have been a call of nature, you know. And it was foggy. Probably lost her footing.’ There was a pause then she says, ‘Are you defeated?’
For a moment there, I thought she was talking about my life in general. How did she know that things were so bad? But when I looked up I realised she’d only meant my pile of potatoes. She made to take them off my hands.
‘No,’ I says. ‘Let me finish them. You’ve done so much for me. And eh—I have to be going, this afternoon.’
She looked at me askance. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘I have to. You need your bed back. And I am feeling so much better.’
To be honest, I had no more strength than a wet wasp. But even a wet wasp will creep towards jam—and so it was with me, I was drawn back to Castle Haivers and to missus.
I will pass swiftly over my departure from Stoneydyke. Suffice to say that as well as the thanks I offered to Helen and a promise to return her shoes as soon as I had my own boots, I silently vowed to repay her and Chick for the kindness they had done me. However, the flipping shoes were that stiff they might as well have been made of metal. By the time I had walked the first mile my feet were cut to ribbons. Also I was worn out. I doubt I’d have got within a hounds howl of Castle Haivers but thank God I was took up by a rag and bone m
an and so could rest a while on his cart. He dropped me at Smoller, from where I hobbled the last mile or two, taking the back route up Cowburnhill since I didn’t really feel like showing my face in Snatter. I might bump into gob knows who, even the Old Bollix, if his head had mended. And I don’t know what I might have done had I seen him.
The sun was setting as I approached the side gate of the house. It felt strange to be coming back like this, just as if I was returning from the shops or what have you. The place had a deserted look. No smoke rose from any of the chimneys. Nothing stirred in the vegetable garden. The bonfire out of which I’d plucked The Observations was now just a heap of cold ash and charred remains. As I neared the yard, I noticed a sharp, rotting smell that hung in the air, like something had took a watery shite and died. Fearing for the animals, I hared round to their pens. But to my surprise, I seen that both the sty and the hen run lay empty. No pig, no chickens. And no sign of the cat.
I glanced over at the house. The last of the suns rays lit up the windows. They were gold and dazzling, yet it was not pretty but somehow blank and foreboding. Just then something pecked at my shin, I just about lit 6 foot in the air but it was only a single stray hen, a bit bedraggled looking. I shooed her away and approached the house. At first I considered going round the outside and peering in from room to room to see who was there but then I changed my mind, telling myself it was in case anybody got a fright at me spying in at windows. But really I think it was because I was feart of what I might see.
The best thing to do, I decided, was to go inside and find out what was the go. The back door lay open. I poked my head round and seen that the kitchen was empty so I went in and closed the door behind me, for it was cold now that the sun was setting. First thing I did was prise off Helens shoes. Then I peeled off my stockings and blew on my blistered feet. After that I looked around, trying to work out if anything had changed since last I’d been there. Now, the fire was out and cold. A drop of milk left in a jug had turned sour. The bread had been stale before I left and now it was furred with green mould. And there was a rank smell rising from the swill bucket. I stood quite still and listened, but the house was silent. The passage to the hall lay empty and quiet, dust motes hung almost motionless in the last rays of sun. I glided silently through, making the dust swirl and dance. After the cold stone of the kitchen, the floorboards felt warmer to my bare feet. Beneath the posting slit lay a small pile of letters. Did that mean there was nobody here? It occurred to me that master James might have went looking for missus somewhere. And then I seen my old coat and the granny bonnet, draped over the newel post. Exactly what missus had been wearing when she had gone missing. She had returned home then.