by Ruth Sutton
‘Let’s not talk about my taste in men, Agnes. Or our age, come to that. I’m going to get my hair done tomorrow.’
‘The annual shearing,’ said Agnes, smiling. ‘Ready for the festive season.’
‘Or my first date in decades,’ said Jessie.
They both laughed. Agnes quickly moved on to talk about something safer, although the demolition of the old ordnance factory at Drigg was proving to be anything but safe for the men working on it.
‘Turns out the site is riddled with unexploded nasty things,’ she said. ‘So they’re having to work very slowly.’
‘What’s going to happen when it’s clear?’ Jessie asked. ‘I hope it’s something that employs a lot of people.’
‘Courtaulds, I heard,’ said her friend, ‘but there may be other plans.’
‘What other plans?’ said Jessie, looking up from the ironing. The room was full of the smell of starch and hot fabric.
‘Oh just something they were talking about at work,’ said Agnes, getting up. ‘Nothing definite. We’ll have to see. Tea, dear?’
Later they were walking back together, arm in arm, from a whist drive at the village hall when Agnes asked about the school.
‘The thought of giving up keeps popping into my mind, so I must be thinking about it at some level,’ said Jessie. ‘Alan Crompton is controlling his discipline and exercise mania a little better, but I’m still concerned about him bullying some of those children in less obvious ways. He shouts at them so loudly sometimes you can hear him outside. I can write my worries down, but who would back me up if it came to a proper row with him? The vicar and he are clearly very friendly.’
‘There are other jobs you could do,’ said Agnes. ‘And my house is your house, you know that. I’ve always thought how happy we could be here, together.’
‘I know,’ said Jessie. ‘You’re a great comfort. I would need to work, if I wasn’t at the school, but at what I’m not sure. I could volunteer, but I’d prefer a proper job.’
‘Well, I think you should prepare yourself for an alternative, in case the chance comes up.’
‘How would I do that?’
‘Shorthand,’ said Agnes. ‘You should learn shorthand. It’s just like learning another language and I’m sure you could do it without difficulty. Best thing I ever did. It’s a useful skill, like driving, and that’s something else you should learn. Modern times, Jessie. We need modern skills. You’ve got years of useful contribution left in you, and all that experience too – far more than some of these younger women have to offer. You could teach yourself shorthand out of a book, and I could teach you to drive. How much notice would you need to give to school?’
‘Whoa,’ laughed Jessie. ‘Slow down, Agnes. Life moves slowly up north you know, not like the big city. We country folk need time to think.’
* * *
Two days later, a note arrived from Dr Dawson, inviting Jessie to accompany him to the pictures on the coming Friday. At the end of school that day, as Jessie checked her new haircut in the mirror in her room and was pleased at what she saw, she noticed a woman standing by the school gate. When she left the building and walked down the yard towards the gate, the young woman was still there, looking at her.
‘Miss Whelan?’ Before Jessie had the chance to respond, the confident voice continued. ‘My name is Margaret Lowery. I think we need to talk. It’s about your son. John.’
CHAPTER 11
JESSIE TOOK A MOMENT to register what she had heard, and who this person might be. She looked back towards the school. Alan Crompton was turning his bike around at the top of the yard and was about to walk down towards them.
‘I would prefer not to talk here,’ said Jessie quickly. ‘My house is just around the corner if you’d like to follow me there.’
Maggie understood. She hesitated, debating whether to say something within the hearing of the man who was approaching them, presumably one of the other teachers. Jessie watched with twisting apprehension until Maggie looked away from the man and followed her towards the privacy of the schoolhouse. Jessie knew that Alan Crompton would have noticed, but she could deal with that later.
Jessie went up the steps to the back door, opened it, stepped inside and gestured for Margaret to follow. She thought about taking the woman straight into the front room, usually the preserve of guests, but then decided against it. She put down her basket and took off her coat. She did not sit down, nor did she invite Margaret to do so. Those few precious minutes had restored her mind and her breathing to the control that she needed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t catch your name, Miss …?’
‘Mrs,’ said Maggie immediately. ‘Mrs Lowery.’
‘Ah,’ said Jessie, nodding her head slowly as the pennies began to drop. ‘And you say you need to talk to me. What can we have to talk about, I wonder?’
‘I told you, it’s about your son, John. John Pharaoh.’
‘I know John’s name, and you’ll notice that it is not the same as mine. Who told you that John is my son?’
‘He did,’ said Maggie. The two women were both standing, on opposite sides of the small table, like boxers eyeing each other before a fight that lacked a referee. ‘He told me that you gave him away to a couple called Pharaoh who brought him up as their own.’
‘And what, may I ask, has any of this story to do with you, Mrs Lowery?’
‘Mr Pharaoh is a friend of mine,’ said Maggie. ‘We have been walking out for a while now, and he wanted to tell me about himself.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ said Jessie, using the curiously formal slow conversation to gather her thoughts. ‘But it doesn’t explain what you and I could possibly have to talk about.’
‘I was shocked by what he told me,’ said Maggie. ‘Not only did you give him away, to strangers, when he was just born, but then you rejected him when he found you again, all those years later.’
‘They were not strangers, Mrs Lowery. I made a mistake as a young woman, and took the consequences of that. It was wartime, long before you were born. You cannot judge my actions.’
‘They weren’t family,’ said Maggie. ‘Family is different. They were strangers.’
‘They gave John a good home, better than I could have done.’ Jessie felt herself being drawn into a conversation she was not prepared to have with this woman, whoever she was. ‘You are a stranger to me, Mrs Lowery, and I do not wish to discuss this matter with you.’
‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Maggie. ‘Don’t think you can frighten me, Miss Whelan, with your posh job and your schooling. Your son came to find you and you turned him away.’
‘I wasn’t sure …’ Jessie began, wondering if there was any point in denying that John was her son, when this woman appeared to know all about it. As she hesitated, Maggie interrupted.
‘You made ’im keep quiet about it.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Jessie could feel herself rising to the bait. ‘I did not seek John out. He found me, and when he did, I wasn’t sure what to do. It was his suggestion that we pass him – that we tell people that he is my nephew. I agreed and the arrangement has been satisfactory for both us, until now.’
‘Satisfactory?’ Maggie raised her voice. ‘What kind of word is that, about family, about a lad you gave birth to, for God’s sake?’
‘There’s no need to blaspheme,’ said Jessie.
‘Don’t patronise me,’ Maggie was shouting now. ‘You’ve made the man lie, all these years, about who ’e is and where ’e came from. It hasn’t been “satisfactory” for ’im, I can tell you. He hates it, ’e told me so. And I couldn’t believe it. What kind of mother are you, to treat ’im like that?’
Jessie turned away, wishing that this woman would just go away and leave her alone. What would happen if she just told her to leave? She might go to the shop, anywhere, and just start talking. That couldn’t happen. If the truth had to come out, it would be on her own terms, not some screaming redhead from God knows where.
Maybe it was blackmail.
Jessie needed to put herself back in charge.
‘Mrs Lowery, I suggest we calm down, and talk about this matter sensibly, if we truly need to talk about it all. I’m still at a loss to understand why you’ve come all this way to find me. You’re not from here, or I would know you.’
‘No I’m not. You may not even know that Mr Pharaoh lives in Sandwith, and I live in Kells, with my family.’ Maggie knew she was shouting but she didn’t care.
‘Please don’t raise your voice in my house,’ said Jessie. ‘I think we should sit down in the front room and talk. Can I offer you a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you.’ The instinct for politeness was strong, and Maggie could not avoid the customary response.
Jessie turned and led the way through to the small sitting room at the front of the schoolhouse, looking out towards the lane. She sat down in the middle of the sofa, leaving Maggie to perch awkwardly on the higher chair by the door, still wearing her heavy jacket. Jessie hoped that the woman would feel uncomfortable and leave quickly. The conversation was ridiculous, but she dare not antagonise her too much.
‘You say that you and Mr Pharaoh, John, are “walking out”?’
‘Yes we are. I’ve been a widow since 1942, for your information.’
‘And why did John feel he had to tell you this story? Does he know that you are here?’ Jessie wondered whether John had asked this firebrand to come to Newton, as some kind of punishment.
‘John doesn’t know. And he told me because he said he’d lied for long enough and he was tired of it. I could tell that he’d never stood up for ’imself as far as you were concerned and I was angry about that.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ said Jessie. ‘Whatever you may have heard is between John and myself. It doesn’t concern anyone else, least of all someone,’ she hesitated, ‘someone like you.’
‘What do you mean, someone like me? I’m a respectable woman, and I’m very fond of your son and he of me. He wants something from you, and you’ve denied him, so I’m here to say what he dare not. I don’t want to marry a man who’s pushed around by ’is mother like you’re doing.’
‘Marriage?’ said Jessie. The idea surprised and horrified her. John married, to this woman with the flaming hair and the flaming temper? ‘You and John are to be married? When?’
‘Well, no,’ said Maggie. ‘But we might, and –’
‘Mrs Lowery.’ Now it was Jessie’s turn to interrupt. She chose her words with care and blessed her quick mind and fluent mouth. ‘Let me understand this correctly. You and my son are “walking out” whatever that means. He has told you that I am his mother, and a few other details, and he doesn’t know that you are here. I know John, perhaps even better than you do. He would be mortified if he could hear and see you here with me. He respects me, and the decisions I have made, and he would never threaten and shout in this way. I think you should leave now. I will put this outburst down to your youth and some misguided urge to protect my son. I would advise to mention nothing of this to him, and I shall do the same.’
She stood up, and gestured towards the front door, hoping that the unwelcome visitor would give up and leave. Maggie looked defiant but said nothing.
‘I assume you came down here on the bus, or was it the train?’ Jessie continued in her best schoolteacher voice. ‘In either case, they are frequent and you should not be too inconvenienced if I ask you to leave. We have nothing more to talk about.’
‘I’m not done yet,’ said Maggie, standing up and finding her posh voice again. She was a head taller than Jessie. ‘I want to make it very clear to you, Miss Whelan, that I will support John through thick and thin about this. He wants to stand up for himself at long last, and I will stand beside him. He is a fine man, and he deserves better from you. He will decide when and how to tell people the truth about ’imself, and about you. He’s past caring what that might do to you. You have made these choices, all along, to suit yourself, to protect your precious respectability. You’re not the only one with pride. We have it too, my family and me. We will welcome John into our family, without strings, something you have never done. You’re a selfish woman, Jessie Whelan, heartless. Maybe it’s a good thing that John wasn’t raised by you.’
For once, Jessie could find no response.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ said Maggie. ‘You needn’t worry about me telling folk what I know. That’s not up to me. But John will, and about time too. You ask ’im. He may not know I’m here but he’ll agree with every word I’ve said. I’ll leave you to your precious job and all that goes with it. The whole thing is built on sand and you know it. Good afternoon.’
Maggie let herself out of the front door of the schoolhouse and banged the door shut behind her. In the next cottage, just across the lane, a curtain twitched.
Jessie sat still for several minutes after her uninvited guest had gone. She was angry that her home had been invaded by this harridan. How dare she? Surely John would not agree with what she said. He was a polite, thoughtful young man. What could he be doing with this working-class widow with Viking hair? She felt unsteady as she went back into the kitchen to make some tea and noticed that her hands were trembling. The ritual of tea-making calmed her. It had been upsetting, but no real harm done. The woman had said she would not tell people, and she believed her. But what about John? Should she tell him what had happened, what had been said? No, she decided as her rational mind reasserted itself. John and this woman could not possibly be serious enough to marry, that was inconceivable. It would blow over, and John might never know. The best plan was to pretend that this nasty half hour had never happened. Jessie knew about pretence. She was good at it. She would brush her hair, change into her second-best dress and shoes, and accompany her doctor friend to the pictures, apparently without a care in the world.
On the bus back to Kells, Maggie felt exhilarated. She still wasn’t sure why she had wanted so much to do what she had just done. But it had felt good, to stand in that woman’s own house and say what she wanted to say. This was the woman who had twisted a good man round her little finger and she, Maggie, the screen lass who left school at thirteen, she’d found the right words and they had sounded fine. She recalled it all in her mind, realising as she did so that John and his mother didn’t even look alike. It was funny about likeness, she thought, as the bus meandered north. We all have the same features, eyes, noses, and the same essential bits of our bodies, but the visible differences are still striking. Each of us is unique, she thought. And that’s not just about how we look, it’s about how we think and feel. John’s mother, this contained unfeeling woman that she had just met, seemed as unlike John as was possible. He had been raised by other people, but was that what made the difference? Maggie wished she could have met John’s father. She knew that he wished that, too.
One thing was very clear to her now: this tall man, with his soft hands was important to her. He liked her too, she could tell, but he seemed so shy. She needed to know what lay under that reserve. She would not tell him about today, not yet. She thought that Jessie wouldn’t pursue it either, not after so many years of letting things lie. But she had no regrets about what she’d done. It felt good.
CHAPTER 12
IT WAS STILL DARK, but it was Christmas Day and Judith couldn’t wait any longer. She could feel the weight of something on her feet. Then Maggie stirred next to her, holding her daughter close for a moment before she wriggled away.
‘It’s morning, Mam,’ said the child. ‘It’s Christmas Day.’
Maggie looked at the little clock by the bed, then lit a candle that flickered and wavered in the cold air, before burrowing back into the bed.
‘I don’t think there’s anything for you this year, pet.’
‘There is, Mam,’ said the child, pulling the lumpy stocking up towards her. ‘Look!’
‘Well I never,’ said Maggie.
Judith was fiddling with the stocking. She pulled out an oran
ge.
‘It’s an orange,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen them in books.’
‘What else is in there?’ said her mother.
‘Some toffees.’
‘Good,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s have one now.’
‘And here’s a little book, see,’ said the child, ‘with pictures of birds.’
‘I wonder where that came from?’
‘Uncle John bought it,’ said Judith. Maggie smiled, pulled Judith to her and gave her a kiss.
* * *
Agnes had stuffed the turkey the night before, and she was weighing it again before putting it in the oven. If they wanted to listen to the King’s speech at three, it would have to go in now. They would eat the main course, take a break while they listened to the radio, then have dessert afterwards. Perfect.
She helped herself to a sherry, just a small one. The house was quiet. Jessie was still asleep. Agnes remembered another Christmas, nine years before, when Jessie had been asleep upstairs. John had been here too, sure that Jessie was his mother and that she would love him. But it hadn’t happened. Jessie had protected herself all these years, and now Agnes wasn’t sure he would even come and see them this year. He had a friend, apparently, in Whitehaven. Jessie had told her no more than that. Maybe it was for the best. He was a grown man now, with his own life.
And Jessie? It was only a matter of time, Agnes was certain, before she gave up the school and the house and moved into Applegarth, where she belonged. It was what she, Agnes, had wanted and hoped for, for years, and now it was so close. By next Christmas it would be true: the two of them, living together here, enjoying each other’s company every day, entertaining their friends, going on holiday, travelling together. Jessie had less money, but Agnes had plenty for both of them. She heard a creak on the floor of the bedroom above. Jessie was awake. Agnes put the bird into the oven, washed her hands, took off her apron, and made her friend a cup of special Christmas tea, with love.