by Ruth Sutton
‘You’re a bright lad, with a good job and prospects. You haven’t found a nice lass yet but there’s plenty of time for that. Now you have this house and everything in it and people might say you’re sitting pretty, however sad the circumstances. Some people have to wait half their lives for what you’ve got already.’
She sat back, flushed, defiant. John looked down again. He could feel his heart in his chest. No one had spoken to him like this before and he didn’t like it. He pushed back the chair and stood up.
‘Thanks for helping today,’ he said, desperate to get out of the small kitchen and away from her. ‘Now I have to get on with things.’
Mrs Barker pursed her lips, picked up her basket and left the house.
At last John had the place to himself. Upstairs the smell of urine and disinfectant was beginning to fade. His mother was gone, buried in the earth beside her patient husband. He was free to do whatever he chose. He began by walking into the front room where he was rarely allowed. Bright white antimacassars adorned the hard chairs, and the glass-fronted china cabinet in the corner bounced light into the room. There was so much stuff.
He looked around the tidy, soulless room where the first thin layer of dust had begun to form after days of neglect. There on the mantelpiece was the photo he’d known all his life. Taken in a studio somewhere, in Barrow probably, with a big potted plant behind the chair where Enid Pharaoh sat with a baby on her knee. Arthur stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder.
They looked quite old, even then, but pleased with themselves. Arthur’s hair was slicked down on each side of his small head from a straight centre parting: small round glasses made his face look even rounder than normal. Enid sat erect, her hair pulled back and her knees together, legs crossed at the ankle. You couldn’t really call it a smile on her face, but she looked a lifetime younger than the last time he had seen her just a few days before, when he’d got home to find the doctor upstairs and Mrs Barker drawing the curtains in this very room.
John looked hard at the photograph. Now he knew it was a sham. They had taken him from someone else. He was not theirs. He turned the photo on its face.
Another photo stared back at him from the top of the bookcase. He was always surprised that his mother should have given this picture pride of place in the front room. It had been taken by one of the boys he went climbing with, on a mountain summit just a year or so ago. John remembered looking down at the camera and beyond it down into Mosedale, and then up again to the pyramid of Great Gable. He picked up the photograph and looked carefully at himself.
The angle of the camera made him look even longer and thinner than he actually was. Dark hair flared away from his head in the wind. He was smiling because he was happy, feeling strong and confident as he often did in the mountains. They had climbed all morning, and now were about to run down the scree just for the fun of it. John remembered the tension in his knees as he hurtled down, feet planted sideways to stop him falling, loose rock sliding away. The boys had cheered his last few strides. Then they walked down the valley to the hotel at Wasdale Head, where beer had never tasted so clear and sharp.
* * *
There were few secrets in the small town. John was dreading going back to work, facing the pretence of sympathy from people he hardly knew. At the end of his first day back at the brewery he escaped with relief. Safe in the privacy of the quiet house he sat at the table in the kitchen, leafing idly through the Evening Mail. In the ‘Situations Vacant’ section something caught his eye. It was a job in the office of a quarry up in Eskdale on the west coast, close to the narrow gauge railway that John had always been interested in. They wanted someone for the accounts. He could do it.
The pay might not be as good as at the brewery, but after the day he’d had, he reckoned it was worth it. He had money, as Mrs Barker had so clearly pointed out to him, and now he could make choices for himself. He found some paper, wrote a letter there and then, and posted it when he went out again to get pie and chips for his tea.
Waiting for a response made him even more fed up with the brewery than he’d been before. The longer he waited the more the sickly smell of hops and the predictability of the work irritated him. He didn’t want to talk to people, and when he tried to do so nothing came out right. He thought about his mother, his real mother, the one who’d given him away. Why did she get pregnant if she didn’t want to keep him? And who made her pregnant? He might never know his own father, and that was her fault, too. Everyone had lied to him. Even Anne and George had let him down. They’d lied to him for years. How could they?
By the time the letter arrived early in September he’d almost forgotten about the job. The letter was officially from the manager of the quarry, but seemed to have been written by someone else. Whoever it was apologised for the delay in responding – ‘circumstances beyond our control’ – and asked John to make himself available for a chat the following week when the writer, a Mr Timmins, would be in Ulverston on other business. The meeting, when it came about, was positive. Mr Timmins was satisfied. John was delighted.
There were some matters to deal with before he could leave the Ulverston house for good. The house was his by right, but Mr Southward, the agent, looked at him strangely when John announced he wanted it sold as quickly as possible.
‘Your parents?’ said the elderly man, looking at John over his glasses.
‘Both dead,’ said John cutting off the enquiry. ‘The house is mine and I want it sold.’
‘Perhaps you could rent the house,’ said Mr Southward, trying to curb the impatience of the angry young man in front of him.
‘No,’ said John with finality, ‘I want it sold.’
And so the sale of the house and everything in it was set in motion. John had one last thing to do. All his previous attempts to find any clues about his birth or his parentage had failed, but now he tackled the search with a frantic urgency. In vain he hoisted himself up into the dusty loft, searched every cupboard in the house, pulled open every drawer.
Upstairs in Enid’s old room, the room where she had revealed her secret before she died, he looked again through the old chest of drawers next to the window. Bending down to pull open the stuck drawer at the bottom, he yanked so hard that it came right out. At the very back of it, John noticed a scrap of paper, its corner caught between the base of the drawer and the side.
Carefully, he pulled it out, placed it on top of the dresser, and smoothed out the creases. It seemed to be the first page of a letter, but the ink had faded. He pushed it closer to the light. The writing was large and flowery.
Furness Road
Wednesday
Dear Mrs Pharaoh
Forgive me. If you don’t want to consider this we need never speak of it again. You told me once how much you and Arthur have longed for a child.
There’s a lady in the choir at church whose niece has got herself into trouble. Respectable family, the Thompsons, not what you might expect. This war is turning everything upside down. Anyway, the girl is in The Oaks, in Carnforth. Baby due in a few weeks. She’s prepared to let it go, according to the person I’ve spoken to – a respectable person but I can’t tell you –
That was all. The back of the page was blank. John read it again, trying to take it in. Who wrote it, and when? It must his real mother they were talking about, and he was the baby about to be born.
He felt his heart thumping in his chest and leaned against the wall for a moment. He re-read the paper a dozen times over the next few hours, and finally folded it into an envelope to keep with his other treasures, the only things he would take with him. Enid’s old chest of drawers had reluctantly yielded its secret, and when the house clearance man took it away, John was glad to see it go.
Chapter 7
Early in October, John took the train heading west to Barrow and then north up the Cumberland coast, to a new job and a new life. Bad weather was forecast, and by the time the train left Barrow, rain was running down the carriage wind
ow and a westerly gale screamed through the tiny gap at the top. At a place where the line skirted the beach and sea spray salted the rain, John was not surprised when the train slowed and then stopped, with no station in sight. The conductor walked down to tell the few passengers that the track was washed out ahead of them and they could go no further. John picked up his bag, dropped down onto the track, turned up his collar against the wind and rain and started to walk the mile or so north into Newton.
On reaching the village, he struggled into the Farriers Arms, red from the wind and soaked by the westerly storm that shrieked in the trees across the road. The place seemed deserted, but in the back bar and the ‘snug’ fires were blazing in the hearth. He called ‘hello’ and a large woman emerged from the kitchen at the back. She wore a scarf around her head, from which wayward strands of grey hair escaped and defied recapture. The woman’s face was flushed, and she wiped large red hands on a large blue pinafore as she came through into the bar where he stood dripping, his bag at his feet.
‘The train stopped,’ he offered as explanation of his presence. She looked at him blankly. ‘The line’s flooded. We have to wait. I’ll have to, you know, find another way, or maybe stay here a night?’ His voice rose to turn the statement into a request, but the only response from the landlady was, ‘What can I get you?’ It was as if his explanation was either unheard or unnecessary.
‘I’ll have a pint, please,’ he said, eying the various taps along the bar, ‘of the Hartleys.’
The landlady pulled half the pint, holding it up to the light before finishing it off. He handed over coins and took a first sip before risking another attempt at conversation. ‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said the landlady. ‘There’s a ship run aground on the beach. They’ve all gone down to watch.’ So that was why the place was empty.
‘I have to stay here,’ she added. ‘If they can get the folk off the ship they’ll bring them up here to dry out. I’ve built the fires up. You could dry out yourself if you want to. It’ll be a while yet before anyone gets here.’
John took off his coat and sat down with the pint. It was quiet and warm, and his trousers began to steam in the heat from the fire. He could stay there, waiting with the landlady for people to return from the beach with stories of storms and rescue. That would be easy. That would be what he’d spent his life so far doing, apart from the climbing. He did what was expected, the safe thing, the thing that kept him away from awkward encounters, not knowing what to say to people. ‘Stay where you are, John,’ his mother would have said. The person who called herself his mother, that is.
John drank the rest of his pint of beer with unaccustomed speed and got up from his seat by the fire. ‘I want to go and see,’ he said. ‘ Can’t get much wetter, but have you got a coat or a jacket I could borrow? I’ll bring it back.’
The landlady looked him up and down. ‘I’ve got some stuff might do for you,’ she said, ‘not been worn for a while, but it would save your clothes. My man was nearly as tall as you. He won’t be needing them any more.’
She disappeared upstairs and returned with a huge pair of waders, and an old coat. ‘This lot’ll keep the wet off you,’ she said, handing them over. ‘Leave your bag in the snug. I’ve got things to do.’
The landlady retreated into the kitchen, leaving John to work out how to put the waders on without lying on the floor to do so. In the end he did lie on the floor, wormed his way into the waders, struggled to his feet, pulled the braces tight to keep the waders up to his waist and buttoned the jacket over the top. It was short in the arm and long in the body, and the buttons were stiff in the heavy fabric, but it would do the job. He left his bag in the snug and clumped heavily out of the pub, over the deserted road now strewn with branches, and down the path to the beach.
Five minutes later he struggled up the final rise in the dunes. The gale hit him full in the face and pushed him backwards. Wiping the rain from his eyes, he could see people lined up along the crown of the beach, and a larger crowd at the far end. They were all looking out to sea, where a steamer had its stern towards them, engines full running and smoke swirling into the wind. A man standing next to him shouted, ‘They can’t ’ang on much longer. The anchors can’t hold ’er.’ Even as he spoke there was an audible crack and the ship began to swing broadside to the gale, bucking as the incoming surf buffeted along its length. ‘That’s it,’ shouted the man, ‘they’re in real trouble now.’ At the other end of the beach, where the narrow road from the village ended, there was a commotion. ‘Ehyup,’ said the man. ‘Here’s the Rocket Brigade.’
As they peered through the brown foam blowing up the beach, a large vehicle bounced into view. It had huge wheels and a flat bed, on which half a dozen men in oilskins and hats were trying to keep their balance. As it stopped they jumped down and began hauling equipment off the back, setting up a solid tripod on a flat grassy patch at the top. Orders were shouted and well-rehearsed activity produced a rocket launcher, pointing into the wind towards the steamer.
‘What are they doing?’ asked John of the man who seemed to know what was going on.
‘They’re going to fire a line to the ship. They fix the line to the mast, and use the buoy to carry folk off. It usually works, but it’s slow.’
By now the first rocket was ready to be fired. It snaked away, its tail shredded by the wind, but fell well short and the crowd groaned as it disappeared into the sea. ‘The wind’s blowing it back,’ said the man. ‘They’ll ’ave to try again.’ The second rocket got closer, but also fell short, and the crowd groaned again. Four small boys pushed past them to get nearer to the action. The third rocket arced higher, urged on by the roaring of the crowd. They cheered as it skittered onto the sloping deck. ‘That’s the first line across,’ shouted the man to John. ‘Now they pull the heavy line over. There it goes.’ They could see activity on the deck as crew scrambled for the line and a figure climbed a little way up the mast to tie it fast. Then the breeches buoy was winched across. ‘Watch this now,’ said the man. ‘They shove someone in them trouser things and then they pull at this end to get them across. Good job the line’s good ’n high, or they get a right soaking on the way in.’
‘I’m going over there!’ yelled John, pointing towards the Rocket Brigade truck, and he set off, slipping on the wet stones. Head down, watching his feet, he bumped into the first of the onlookers, who looked at him and pointed out towards the ship. On the deck of the steamer, they could just see a small boat being lowered from the sheltered side into the water. Six or seven men, and a boy, or a small woman, struggled down into it. John pushed on through the crowd towards the truck. A young man, as tall as John, and broad with curly hair plastered to his head by the rain, leaned back on the bonnet of the truck with binoculars trained on the steamer. ‘Bloody idiots,’ he muttered, ‘They’ll never make it in that thing. Surf will pound it, or the rocks will get them. Why can’t they just wait? We know what we’re doing.’
He lowered the binoculars, and handed them to John without a glance. ‘Amos!’ he shouted to one of the men hauling on the line that was inching the buoy towards safety. ‘Tell the others we have to speed this up. When that bugger’s out of the buoy get it back fast. They must be panicking out there.’ The breeches buoy with the man’s legs kicking underneath it was getting close to the beach and two of the crew went down to pull it through the surf. Holding a bundle tight to his chest, the rescued man struggled up the beach, cheered on by the crowd. Somebody slapped him on the back. Another shook his hand. The buoy began its jerky passage back to the vessel, which still slewed and lurched beyond the surf like an elongated horse pulling wildly at its tether.
Meanwhile the small boat, propelled by oars at either side, caught the full blast of the storm as it pulled away from the shadow of the ship. For a few seconds it disappeared altogether. John strained to see any sign of it. The crowd groaned and people shouted useless instructions into the screaming gale. Ther
e was the little boat again now, cresting a wave and surfing in at an angle. The oars flailed uselessly. ‘They don’t know where the rocks are,’ shouted the young man. ‘Wait, wait,’ he yelled into the wind, and snapped his fingers for the binoculars.
‘They’re going to catch those rocks,’ he said, ‘They won’t make it!’ He turned to John looking at him fully for the first time. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘John Pharaoh,’ said John immediately, compelled by the authority in the man’s voice.
‘Well, John, I’m Andy Leadbetter. I’m in charge of this lot. You and I are going to get those people off, before they drown right here in front of us.’ He took John firmly by the arm and pulled another man along with them, shouting into his ear as they stumbled down the steep bank of pebbles towards the waves.
Down they went, into the surf, towards the boat that seemed larger now, tossing in the chop where the rocks were just below the surface of the rising water. ‘It’ll be deep and then get shallower,’ Andrew shouted into John’s ear. ‘We’ll go out, you stay here and pull them through when we get them out of the boat.’ John stood his ground, knowing that he dare not go much further. Even standing was hard enough, as the backwash on each wave swept past his feet and scoured the pebbles out from under him.
The boat had stopped its forward rush, caught on the rocks as Andrew had predicted. The men on board had given up trying to row and were struggling out into the water, unsure of the depth, knowing that others were wading out to help them. Andrew had almost reached them. John saw the incoming high surge too late to stagger back out of its reach. The wave, higher than any he’d seen before, rose around him, its crest breaking in his face, filling his eyes and nostrils with salt water. It pushed him backwards and he fell heavily onto his side. It took him a while to get up, but the rush of the ebbing wave helped and he was upright again before the second big wave hit him. He spluttered as the wave broke in his face. He was too deep in the water to keep his balance, and tried to move his feet back higher up the slope. But he couldn’t move one of his legs. On his right side, the leg of his waders had filled with water and the weight was holding him fast.