by Ruth Sutton
‘It was just …’ He stumbled over the words, despite having rehearsed them as he walked to the house. ‘I wondered whether … if … you’d like to come for a walk with me at the weekend. Tide’s going to be low in the afternoon and I like to go to Fleswick Bay, to the rock pools.’
Her face brightened.
‘I love those pools,’ she said. ‘And it’s a grand walk, looking right out to th’ Isle of Man on a good day.’
‘Will you come then?’ he said, amazed how easy this seemed to be. ‘On Saturday, maybe, or Sunday?’
‘Sunday’s better,’ she said. ‘About one?’
‘Grand,’ said John. ‘Well, I’ll see you then.’
Maggie saw him through to the front door, as Frank watched. ‘Good work, lass,’ he said as she turned, smiling, towards her father. ‘Told you he was a good ’un. Nowt too forrard, polite like. A real gent.’
‘There must be a catch, Dad,’ said Maggie. ‘He still doesn’t know where we work.’
John was early and nervous on Sunday afternoon. He waited on the main road for a while to calm down and appear at the agreed time, feeling, or at least looking, more confident. Maggie seemed so assured – what would she think if she knew how much he struggled with simple things like meeting people and making conversation? He so badly wanted the afternoon to go well, and the weather was certainly doing its best. The sun shone, the sea was flattened by an offshore wind, and the sky was on the blue side of grey, as it often was in November.
Maggie opened the door immediately after his knock. She was wearing a dark blue jacket and trousers, with strong shoes. That had been his other dread, apart from not having anything to say. If she had been wearing silly shoes, they would never manage the walk round the headland. But what could he have said? Her hair was covered by a bright green scarf, tied at the nape of her neck, which allowed her hair to stream out from underneath, curling onto the shoulders of the coat. He wanted to touch it.
‘Have a nice walk,’ Violet McSherry called from the back of the house. ‘I’ll put Judith to bed if you’re out late.’
‘We won’t be late,’ said Maggie, frowning at her mother’s words.
Once the door was closed, and they were alone, they stood for a moment looking out at the sea, sheltered from the unusual easterly wind.
‘No noise from the sea today,’ said Maggie. ‘Calm, and low tide, and t’wind tekkin’ sound away. Most of the time you can hear it up ’ere.’
‘Must get pretty wild in the winter.’
‘It does that. You can taste the salt on the air, on your face. Hard to get the front door closed, and we have to pile stuff against it to stop the draught. Dad wants to move, but Mam never will.’
‘I thought we’d walk to Sandwith along the lane for a start,’ John said, ‘to avoid the quarry. I know the way from there. It’s a bit rough in parts but you’ll be right in those shoes.’
He shortened his stride, knowing that most people struggled to keep up with him if he didn’t. He was quiet, trying to think what to say, when Maggie started to talk. Nothing very significant, just about where Judith went to school, what her teacher said about her. Hannah had told him that women like men who listen to them, so John listened very carefully and asked the occasional question. In the shelter of the lane down into Sandwith the air was still and surprisingly warm. Maggie unbuttoned her coat. John took his off and tied it round his waist by the arms.
‘Is this where you live?’ she said, looking at the neat row of cottages along the edge of the green beyond the pub.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The little one in the middle of the row. Blue door.’
‘On your own?’
‘I like my own company.’
‘Where were you, growing up?’
‘In Ulverston. When my mother died, I sold the house and moved up the coast, to the quarry in Eskdale.’
‘That’s a long way off the track.’
‘I wanted to be nearer the mountains, for the climbing. And I like the little railway, you know, la’al Ratty they call it.’
‘I went on that once, on a school trip,’ said Maggie, smiling at the memory. ‘Must’ve been just before I left. I could have stayed on. School wanted me to, but Dad’s accident, you know …’
‘What happened?’
‘Roof fall, underground. Him and another bloke were caught. T’other feller died, poor bugger. Dad were lucky. Took a while to dig ’im out. E’ll never walk again but he’s still ’imself, like. ‘
‘Nice bloke,’ said John. ‘Straightforward, I like that. Find it hard sometimes when people … when they aren’t what they seem.’
‘Do you rent the house?’ she asked, as they passed it.
‘No, I bought it,’ came the quiet reply.
Maggie made no further comment and they turned right in the middle of the village along muddy lanes towards the lighthouse and the sea. Gulls were wheeling round the cliffs below them.
‘All sorts of birds nest and breed down there in the spring,’ said John. ‘You have to lie flat on the edge to get a proper view.’
But today they kept walking, turning south along the cliffs. They passed the lighthouse, and the rounded shape of Black Combe rose out of the coastal plain far beyond. Then the path turned inland along the side of a steep gully, and they were looking down onto a curiously ridged beach, where rounded pebbles gave way to undulations of sandstone and long shelves of rock pierced by many deep pools. They scrambled down the steep path and across the rocks above the ebbing tide. The pools were straight-sided, created by nature but looking man-made, adorned with crimson groping sea anemones, bright green seaweeds and transparent shrimps.
‘Isn’t it grand,’ said John, congratulating himself on providing such a rare spectacle for his new friend.
‘We were down ’ere all the time as kids,’ said Maggie, as if she’d heard his thought. ‘No good if the tide was in. Just another beach then. But we could play in the caves, read names carved on the rocks. Paradise for us kids.’
John thought about his lonely childhood in the silent Ulverston house.
‘I was adopted,’ he said, suddenly, looking straight ahead to avoid seeing her reaction. He hadn’t planned to tell her. It just bubbled up and out before he had time to think. ‘When I was a baby, a few days old. My mother … gave me away.’
Maggie stopped, thinking about how this could happen.
‘Didn’t they want you?’
‘My father was dead … he never knew. They weren’t married.’
‘When?’ asked Maggie.
‘It was 1917, in the first war.’
‘Things happen like that in wartime. Isaac knew I was having Judith, but he never saw her.’
‘But you didn’t give her away.’
Maggie was quiet for a moment. They were standing still now, facing each other but not looking. ‘So the woman in Ulverston, the one who died …’
‘She was my adopted mother.’
Maggie looked at him in the fading sunlight. He’d taken off his hat and held it in front of him in both hands. She saw his long face, the way his hair fell over his eyes.
‘You don’t ’ave to tell me any of this,’ she said. ‘We all ’ave things we keep to ourselves.’
‘Not you, though,’ said John.
‘Me, too,’ she said, pushing the tell-tale hands further into the pockets of her jacket.
Lamps were lit in some of the windows when they walked back through Sandwith.
‘Would you like to see my house?’ he asked.
‘Lead on,’ said Maggie, controlling her curiosity. How did he live, this strange self-contained man? She’d never lived alone and couldn’t imagine doing so. Did he make meals, just for himself, or live on bread and dripping? Did he have a proper bed? A big bed? John unlocked the blue door in the middle of the row and stood back. Maggie stepped slowly into the small front room. There wasn’t much in it: a chair, a small table with a lamp, a granite fireplace. The fire made up, ready to be lit. Curtain
s at the windows. Who made those, she wondered? It was neat, and clean, as far as she could tell without running a finger along each surface as her mother would have done.
‘Who looks after th’ouse?’ she asked.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘I enjoy keeping the place tidy. Come in the kitchen. That’s tidy, too.’
‘I’m being nosey, aren’t I?’ she laughed. ‘Never seen an ’ouse where someone lives on their own, except really old people, you know.’
“Now you want to know how old I am?’
‘No!’ she said. ‘Don’t mind me. Just like me mam. Nosey.’
‘I’m nearly thirty,’ he said, ‘Imagine that!’
‘I’m not far off that meself. Our Judith’ll be seven next birthday.’
‘Shall we have a brew?’ asked John. ‘There’s even some cake in the tin.’
‘Did you make that, too?’
‘Believe it or not, I did,’ he said. ‘Hannah taught me, when I was ill one time with nothing to do.’
Hannah? He’d mentioned her before, but there were too many questions, and that one remained unasked.
They drank tea and ate gingerbread, sitting at the tiny table in the kitchen. He pulled up a stool to sit on as Maggie had the only chair. She was quiet but her mind was racing. There must be something wrong, something she couldn’t see. A nice-looking man with a good job and his own house, never married, or at least no wife around now. Maybe he didn’t like girls. Some men didn’t, she knew that. But he had asked her out, and here they were. He hadn’t done anything, not made a pass or even looked as if he wanted to. She couldn’t work it out. Thank God she hadn’t mentioned anything about it to Gladys. With any luck no one would know and she could avoid the questions until she was ready. Maybe it would never come to that. He was just being polite. Or he was lonely enough to take her for a walk but not enough for anything more. And he didn’t know she was a screen lass. That might change everything. She daren’t tell him, not yet.
‘Another piece?’ His voice cut across her thoughts. ‘Or do we need to get going? About twenty minutes or so back to your house, and we could be there before dark.’
They walked back to Kells with just enough light to see their way. Neither of them said anything for a while. Before they reached South Row and turned left down the hill, he stopped and she stopped too.
‘Can we do this again? Go for a walk, or you could come for tea sometime? Bring Judith if you like.’ He had more to say but nothing more came out. She waited just long enough for him to think that she didn’t want to see him. His head buzzed.
Then she smiled at him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Saturday afternoon?’ he said quickly, before she could change her mind. She didn’t know what was happening, but it didn’t seem to matter.
He left her at the door, saying he had to get back. She waited, but he didn’t touch her. Maggie stepped into the room where her mother and father were sitting, listening to the radio.
‘Well?’ said Violet.
Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went upstairs to check on Judith.
Frank looked across at his wife. ‘Leave it, Vi,’ he said.
CHAPTER 7
JOHN WALKED HOME IN THE DARK. The moon rose from behind the grey outline of hills to the east, flattened and orange at first, like a setting sun. He had tried to stay calm when he was with her, to help the words to come out the way he wanted them to. But now with no words to worry about, the jumble in his mind spilled over. The hair, that pale skin and light green eyes. And the shape of her: a girl’s face, a woman’s body. And there was something less obvious about her; he felt she could see through him, understand him, but not judge him. She didn’t pose, or tease him. Everything about her was real: the husband who died, the child, Frank and Violet, even the house looking out over the sea. It was all real, alive.
He’d wanted to touch her, but he didn’t dare, in case it all disappeared. The last time he’d tried to touch someone, she’d pulled away, but he didn’t know why. He’d thought she wanted him to touch her, but she hadn’t. It was down in Bransty, when he was in digs there. He’d met her in a queue at the pictures, with her friends, and they’d all gone for a drink afterwards. He’d bought her a drink, and they’d sat together, away from her friends. He’d walked her home, and then he tried to hold her, that was all. But she pushed him away, and stomped into the house without saying anything. He’d seen her again, with the same group of girls, but she’d whispered something to them and they all laughed. He blushed even now to remember it. And still he didn’t know. What did they want, these girls?
But Maggie was different. She’d been married, had a child. That must make a difference, surely. She reminded him of Hannah, straightforward, more like a man, and he always found men easier to deal with. He dreamed about her that night. She was naked, and so was he, but he was trying to cover himself, to hide away. She walked away from him, through crowded rooms where people were watching him, not her. He lost her in the crowd. He woke stiff and finished it, sweating and ashamed.
John put his mind to his work with more focus than usual for the rest of the week, and managed to keep Maggie out of his thoughts, but not out of his dreams. He wondered how he would face her on Saturday with those images so powerful in his mind. And where would they go? It was on Friday evening, when he was walking home, that he knew where he would take her. Too far to walk, and the Ratty wouldn’t be running for passengers again until the summer, but he had the bike and just enough fuel to get them there and back. He would take a risk and show her something about himself. If he kept on sharing little bits of himself, one at a time, maybe she would get used to it, and wouldn’t just walk away like the others, without telling him why. Hannah and Fred would ask lots of questions, but they wouldn’t show him up. They would like Maggie, and he thought that she would like them.
He revved the engine of the bike outside the house in West Row on Saturday afternoon before he parked it. He had thought about the afternoon, and the plan made him confident. They would drive up to Boot, taking it slow. He remembered his first motorbike ride, clinging on to Andy Leadbetter’s coat and thinking he was going to be sick all over it. The memory caught him unawares. What if she hated it, or wouldn’t go on the bike? Too late now.
Maggie was upstairs when she heard the motorbike revving outside the house, and her father’s wheelchair was blocking the narrow passage as she clattered down the stairs. She watched Frank stretch to open the door, back the wheelchair up the passage and turn with practised ease into the front room. John pushed open the door and stood on the step. He took off the leather helmet he wore on the bike to stop his hair blowing in his face and shook his hair free.
‘Come in, lad,’ shouted Frank. ‘Can’t ’ang about at door in this ’ouse, not with that wind coming off the sea.’
‘It’s not bad today,’ said John, smiling at Maggie as he spoke to the unseen voice.
‘It’s allus bad,’ the voice replied.
Maggie pulled John into the passage and squeezed past him to push the door shut. ‘We ’eard you coming,’ she said. ‘Not much noise like that up ’ere, specially not with petrol rationed.’
‘Saved mine up,’ he said. ‘Too far to walk where we’re going today.’
‘Oh, so you’ve decided have you?’ she said. ‘Hear that, Dad. John’s got plans, a mystery tour. On a motorbike. Maybe I’ll be too scared to get on it.’
Frank’s laugh was audible.
‘She’s scared o’ nowt, that lass. Where are ye off to?’
Maggie pushed John into the front room. Light from the sky and the sea flooded in, making John blink.
‘Should see it ’ere at sunset,’ said Frank. ‘Colours like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Have you seen the green flash?’ John asked, looking out at the line of the horizon.
‘When sun hits the sea, like? Aye, not often mind, but we’ve all seen it. Never worked out how it ’appens,’ said Frank. ‘Maggie finds out
about things like that, reads books tha’ knows. Never read a book, meself.’
‘So where are we going?’ Maggie wasn’t used to being told what would happen, not standing in her own house. She wasn’t sure that she liked it.
‘The people I used to live with, before I came to Sandwith, they live up top end of Eskdale, place called Boot.’
‘Where la’al train goes?’ said Frank.
‘Aye, up there. They live at the water mill. Getting on a bit, both of them, and he only has one leg – from the first war, and she’s only got one eye.’
‘You making this up?’
‘Sounds daft, I know, but it’s true. They’re a bit, you know, eccentric, but they were good to me, and I get to see them when I can, to do chores they have trouble with.’ He hesitated. ‘And I think Maggie will like them.’
Maggie wondered what they would think of a screen lass coming to call. She would have to tell him soon.
‘Wind from the south,’ said John, ‘and it’s looking fair out to sea. We might have a decent afternoon.’ Maggie thought for a minute, told John to hang on and disappeared upstairs again, coming back with a red shawl wound round her head.
‘Hair in the wind,’ she said. He nodded.
‘Tell Mam I’ll be back before Judith’s bedtime,’ she said to her father. ‘Come on, John. Day’s a-wasting, and don’t go too fast.’
Maggie was less confident than she looked as she clambered onto the bike behind John. She hung on as he revved away up South Row towards the main road. At first she pressed her head into his back and tried not to think about the speed they were going, but as they left the main coast road and turned east at the start of the flat valley floor she relaxed a little and took more notice.
It was sunny, and the cloud was clear of the fell tops on either side. She saw chasing patterns of light and shadow on the tree-covered slopes, and the sparkle of water in the streams. The noise of the engine enclosed them both and she moved her arms further round John’s waist, feeling safe even when a bus came very close on a narrow bend. John pulled over and turned around.