by Maggie Hope
Norma nodded. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she conceded. ‘But there is so much to do. All the arrangements—’
‘Me and your dad will see to everything, pet,’ her mother assured her. ‘Like Theda says, you have to think of the baby.’
With Norma upstairs lying down, the Wearmouth family made their excuses and walked back to West Row. On the way, Matt told them what had happened.
‘All those years we campaigned for pithead baths,’ he said bitterly. ‘Who could have thought it?’
It was ironic, thought Theda. Oh God, how could this happen? A stupid, stupid freak accident and Chuck was gone.
‘I sent a cable to Clara,’ said Bea. ‘Not that she can come, of course, not with all those bairns.’ For Clara had four children now. It was clear to Theda that Bea yearned for Clara to come, children or no, for she needed the comfort of her family with her.
‘Never mind, Mam, at least you know she’s all right.’
‘Oh, aye, she is an’ all. Happy as Larry, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘She wouldn’t get over in time for the funeral anyroad,’ said Matt, and blew his nose loudly.
The funeral wasn’t until a week later. Both Joss and Theda had had to return to work in the meantime. Joss had swapped days off with a mate to get down the day after Chuck was killed but got two days’ compassionate leave for the funeral, as did Theda.
‘I’ll pick you up,’ he offered when he rang her. ‘What about Richard?’
‘I’ll have to take him,’ she replied. She had no one to leave him with, not for any length of time. For the actual funeral, Renee had offered to mind him.
The sun shone through the windows of the Methodist chapel as the coffin was carried down the aisle behind the minister and the light glinted on the brass handles. It was carried by Joss, Norma’s brother, and two of Chuck’s marras. The family walked behind, Norma supported by her father, then the Wearmouths and the Musgraves. After the short service they drove off to the cemetery and stood round the grave with the sun still shining on the cross of lilies as it went down into the hole with the coffin and the brightly coloured wreaths as they were laid by the side. They all filed past and threw in the token handful of soil, and the men fingered their starched collars and took out their handkerchiefs to wipe their eyes and foreheads, ostensibly because of the heat though it was still early-spring.
Theda was aware that the chapel had been full and a lot of men off shift had followed Chuck’s coffin to the grave but she didn’t look at them and therefore didn’t notice that Tucker Cornish was there with a younger man.
The funeral tea was in Norma’s house and Theda and Beth helped pass the sausage rolls and plates of ham and beetroot salad while Richard followed them round, helping.
‘He’s as grey as a badger, isn’t he?’ Joss was saying to his father. They stood in the window that looked out over the rows of Winton Colliery as the shadow of the winding wheel lengthened over them.
‘Who is?’
‘The gaffer.’ Matt turned to his daughter to answer her question and took a sausage roll. He looked at it and put it in the saucer of the cup of tea he was holding.
‘I understand he worked his way up, just the same as our Chuck. You can tell an’ all. He makes a good manager from the men’s point of view as well as the bosses’. Maybe if it hadn’t have been for his family he would have been area manager by now.’
‘His family? But his mother and grandmother live over by the coast. His brother is a farmer, his grandfather was too. How can they affect his work?’
Matt looked curiously at Theda. ‘What do you know about it? Tucker Cornish’s father and half-brother were the ones who were hanged for killing the mine agent. Did you never hear of that?’
Yes, she had, of course she had. It was a local murder and at school the children had sung rhymes about it. Just as they still sang rhymes about the West Auckland woman, Mary Anne Cotton, the woman who was hanged for poisoning her children. Absurdly that rhyme ran through her head, ‘Mary Anne Cotton, she’s dead and she’s rotten’.
She shook her head. ‘I’d forgotten that.’ She almost said she knew Tucker Cornish’s family and they were very respectable but to talk about anything connected with Ken was dangerous, well-nigh impossible.
‘We can’t be too late,’ said Joss, putting down his plate. ‘I have to get back with Beth and you have Richard, it’ll be his bedtime soon enough.’ He smiled down at the boy who was hanging on to his mother’s skirt with one hand and had the thumb of the other firmly in his mouth. Theda followed his gaze.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said automatically, and gently removed the thumb. Joss swung him up in the air and Richard broke into delighted giggles.
‘Again, Uncle Joss, again!’
‘Just once, then we have to go.’ Joss swung the child in an arc and his legs stuck out in the air. Matt pretended he had to duck and the rest of the company looked on eagerly; the play with the boy broke the tension somehow.
They said their goodbyes and Theda promised to come again soon then they were away up the lane to Durham Road and the funeral was over.
‘It went well, I think,’ said Beth. ‘Considering, I mean.’
‘Yes.’ Theda sat back in her seat and Richard dropped his head on her shoulder, eyes already closing with the motion of the car.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘An unusually thin skull, eh?’ said Ken. ‘What a thing to happen.’ The two men had just returned from the funeral and were having a drink together before Ken drove back to Sunderland.
‘And who would have thought it? A man spends so many years in the pit where he could have all sorts of accidents – well, most miners have been hit on the head by the odd stone at some time or other. But he hits his head in the showers. Ironic, I call it.’
‘Lost one son in the war, the Wearmouths, didn’t they?’
‘That’s right – Dunkirk.’
Ken sipped at his whisky and water, a weak one because he had an hour’s drive ahead of him. He pictured Theda as he had last seen her, standing by the grave, beautiful in a black suit with a pencil slim skirt and heart-shaped neckline. She had been so quiet, so sad. He had wanted to go over to her and comfort her, had had to stop himself from going. She aroused all his protective instincts.
He had looked around for her husband, feeling irritated. Where was he? Why wasn’t he there, looking after her? He thought he recognised him but he was standing with a petite blonde so it couldn’t have been him. Maybe her husband was looking after the child. The thought made him feel even more irritated, or maybe angry was the right word.
Which was silly; why should he feel like that about a girl he hadn’t seen for years? A girl who made it plain all those years ago that he meant nothing to her by the fact that she hadn’t even replied to his letter.
‘Penny for them?’ said Tucker.
Ken stirred and glanced across at his uncle. ‘They aren’t worth it,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking how little Theda Wearmouth has changed from when she was nursing the prisoners-of-war at Bishop. Even though she’s married and with a family now.’
‘Married? Is she? I didn’t know that.’ But Tucker’s thoughts were still with his lost under-manager. ‘You know, he was a good man, Charles Wearmouth. Reliable and that. He’ll take some replacing.’
‘Yes. I see his wife is expecting a baby soon too. Poor girl. Will she have to move from that house?’
‘Not immediately, but eventually of course. Not while the enquiry is ongoing. But I should think she’ll get some compensation, even though he had a thin skull.’
‘Yes. Her husband drives on the buses, you know. I saw them together once as I was going into the hospital at Sunderland.’
‘Who’s husband?’ Tucker was mystified, had no idea at all what Ken was talking about.
‘Theda Wearmouth’s. She must still be nursing. Though I haven’t seen her lately. Maybe she has some more family.’
‘What on earth are you on about? The
da Wearmouth has only the one boy, I don’t think she’s married. She never was, though there was talk for a while about that Canadian, or perhaps he was an American, she went out with during the war. But he’ll be safely back in Texas or Michigan or some such place, I suppose. Now her sister, Clara I think her name is, she succeeded in marrying her Canadian. I understand she’s living out there in the frozen north, a baby every year according to Chuck. He’s always talking about his family.’ Tucker paused. ‘He was always talking about his family. Except for Theda, he didn’t say much about her. She fell out with the family, you know, over the boy I should think. I was surprised to see her here, though I suppose at her brother’s funeral . . . Ah, well.’
Ken shook his head. ‘No, you’re mistaken. I saw her with her husband. I told you, he’s a bus driver.’
‘Well, I hadn’t heard about it. He must be a friend of her brother’s. Now Joss, the one who was a paratrooper, he’s a bus driver. He never came back to the pits. Left in the mid-thirties, I believe, joined the army then.’
Joss! Yes, of course, she had a brother called Joss. That was who must have been with the blonde woman today. He had had the looks of the Wearmouths, it was true. A lightness stirred in Ken. No doubt the whisky had given him a lift, he no longer felt down at all.
‘Well, I have to go to the office,’ said Tucker. ‘There’s more paper work than ever now we’re all working for the Coal Board. What are you smiling about?’
‘Nothing. I was just thinking how we all assume things and half the time they aren’t true. Anyway, I must get back too.’
Ken was whistling as he went out to his car. He had done his duty and supported Uncle Tucker through the day, as his grandmother had asked him to. Mind, his uncle did look old and tired, he thought as he drove up to Durham Road in his new Rover, only ten minutes before Joss in his old Austin Ten. Well, he only had a year or two to go before he retired. A pity Tucker had not married again after Betty died. He was the sort who needed a wife.
Sometimes Ken felt the same way himself, he mused as he drove past the inn near Spennymoor where he and Theda had once spent the night. How shy she had been, and inexperienced. He could have sworn he was the first lover she had had. He negotiated the roundabout at Croxdale and got on to the dual carriageway of the great North Road. Automatically he put his foot down, enjoying the way the Rover responded immediately with a surge of power. Now if Theda Wearmouth wasn’t married as he had thought, well then . . . He felt a stir of excitement within him. So what if she had a child, even if the father had been an American? There had been a war on, hadn’t there? A lot of girls had let their feelings run away with them. Theda would be older and wiser now and he had to respect her, bringing up a child on her own. Maybe if he himself hadn’t had to go away when he did . . . Ken sighed. He didn’t know now what he would have done, he had still been hurting from what had happened to Julie. Her dying like that. Oh, God, wars were so pointless. Though not the last one. They had had to defeat the Nazis, of course they had.
Ken smiled wryly. Theda had really got under his skin, and when he had sworn never to let another girl do that after Julie. It had taken him a long time to stop thinking of Theda. He had been determined to get over her and here he was, five, nearly six years later, still thinking of her. The only way was to find her, have it out with her. He would never be able to take an interest in anyone else, not properly, until he did.
Theda put Richard to bed, not bothering with his bath. He was already asleep and barely opened his eyes as she undressed him and put on his Rupert Bear pyjamas and tucked him up in bed. Though the day had been warm there was a frosty feel to the air and she opened the window just a crack and drew the curtains across. Then she went downstairs and made herself a bowl of spaghetti and cheese sauce and sat eating it at the kitchen table, a book on public hygiene propped up against the milk jug before her.
But she grew tired of reading and soon put down her fork too. The meal was uninteresting and the book held nothing she didn’t already know. How could there be any sort of public hygiene around here until the mining villages were rid of their ash and earth closets, until they had proper plumbing and flush toilets, indoor toilets? No wonder disease still flourished.
But she couldn’t even summon up indignation; she was too full of sadness and not just because of Chuck and the funeral. She felt sorry for herself, she realised. She saw Joss and Beth together and was jealous of their happiness. What a stupid, mixed-up woman she was, growing into an embittered spinster even though she had Richard. She was filled with undefined longings, a restlessness.
Opening the kitchen cabinet she took out the half-full bottle of sherry left over from Christmas and poured herself a glass to take into the sitting room. She looked at her row of textbooks with distaste. Ambition wasn’t everything. Chuck had had ambition but it availed to nothing in the end. It was family which was the important thing. And she had Richard, she reminded herself.
What she needed was a man in her life, she admitted. Maybe she should have settled for Gene, married him, gone to America. They could have had a better life, both her and Richard. Why had she let the memory of Ken Collins stop her? Many a girl had had to settle for second best, why not Theda Wearmouth?
Theda sighed. She sipped the sherry, Harvey’s Bristol Cream, sweet and strong. Going into the kitchen, she poured another glass.
Next morning, she slept in and had to rush to get Richard to school. Her head ached and there was a sour taste at the back of her throat and she had to stop herself from snapping at Richard as he insisted on taking precious time tying his shoelaces himself and buttoning up his coat.
‘You look a bit pale,’ her first patient said. ‘Out on the tiles, were you, last night?’
‘It was my brother’s funeral,’ snapped Theda, and the woman was contrite.
‘Eeh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything,’ she said, lying down on the bed and allowing Theda to examine her distended stomach.
‘That’s all right, I didn’t mean to snap either,’ said Theda. ‘Fact is, I do feel frail today.’
The day was got through, as was the one after that and the one after that, and gradually the pain of losing Chuck began to lessen and Theda began to feel better. She managed to buy a second-hand car, a Morris, and went to driving school in the city. After all, she reasoned, if she was going to be a Health Visitor it would be so much easier for her if she could drive herself around.
She passed her test at the first try and drove home on her own in triumph. And then it was Whitsuntide and the weather was warmer and she had the weekend off.
It was to be a surprise for Richard. She met him out of school on Friday teatime with weekend cases packed for them both.
‘Where are we going, Mam?’ he shouted excitedly as she opened the car door while he climbed in. ‘Are we going to see Grandda or Uncle Joss and Aunty Beth?’
‘No, it’s a surprise. Just you wait and see.’
Theda drove out of the city and up the Sunderland road towards the coast. It took a while to get through the traffic in Sunderland, more and more people had cars now and it was a bank holiday weekend, but at last she was out on the coast road and past Roker seafront and on to Seaburn. For a minute or two she was tempted to go on to Whitburn and Marsden, but common sense prevailed and she stopped the car outside a boarding house right on the seafront at Seaburn which had a card in the window saying ‘Vacancies’.
‘Are we staying here, Mam?’ Richard was excited. He grasped his tiny attache case and stood on the pavement, waiting for her to lock the car. ‘Can we go on the sands?’
‘We are and you can,’ said Theda. They booked into a modest room with a double bed and a single in the corner, which left no room at all for any other furniture except an old wardrobe in the opposite corner and, incredibly, a hand basin. Within fifteen minutes they had unpacked and were walking across the grass to the sands, Theda hanging on to Richard’s hand as he pulled her along, jumping up and down with impatience.
‘Are there any fish, Mam? Or crabs? We’ve been learning about crabs at school – they pinch your toes.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to watch out for them and not let one get you, won’t you?’
They walked the length of the beach and after a while the water was no longer cold to their feet but delicious and refreshing, and their toes sank into the damp sand and that was delicious too. They bought sandwiches from a tea kiosk on the sands, spam sandwiches, which in normal circumstances Richard wouldn’t eat but he ate every last crumb of these and an ice-cream after. And the late afternoon seemed endless, white clouds too small to obscure the sun for long chasing across the sky, and the North Sea was blue instead of the usual colour Theda remembered, gun-metal grey.
It was high tea in the boarding house at half-past six and in the end they had to run across the road in their bare feet for of course she had forgotten that the tide line was changing all the time and the sea had taken their shoes. They found them again, dripping wet, washed up by a wave and had to carry them. They were unwearable. So they bought sandshoes at another kiosk on the front, and a tin bucket with a picture of a boy with a ball on it, and a wooden spade.
There were fish and chips for tea and the cod was fresh and white and flaky, and rice pudding after. Well, what did she expect for nine and sixpence a day? Theda asked herself and ate it up with an appetite that matched Richard’s.
‘Can we go back on the beach now?’ he asked. ‘Aw, come on, Mam – just for half an hour.’
‘Half an hour, then it’s time for bed.’ It was way past bedtime really, but what the heck?