by Ruth Sutton
The clock on the wall said nearly noon. Anne might be back soon, or George home for his lunch. They would want to know what he’d found out. He had to decide how much to tell them. Keeping things to himself would take more energy, but John desperately wanted to do so, to stay in charge of it. It was his life. He wasn’t even related to these two, not by blood. He had to decide what to do, where to go next. It was nearly Christmas. Did he want to stay here, in Ulverston?
First things first. Before he was disturbed, and as a way of clearing his head, he took a small notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket, took off his coat finally and sat down to write in a small meticulous hand the things he’d found out in the past few days. After only a few lines he stopped writing and thought about Arthur. He was well over forty when John arrived. Did men of that age want babies as badly as women? John knew that older women were less likely to have babies but he wasn’t sure at what age it would be impossible. Anyway, they got the chance of a baby, and they took it. That was brave of them, he thought, with unusual generosity towards his adopted parents. It must have been hard, to have a baby so late, when they were so set in their ways. Everything would change. Or maybe they expected the baby to fit in with them. He’d always felt that as a child: not unwelcome, but a bit of a nuisance. Maybe they were disappointed, not in him but in the idea of being parents. But Arthur had been so kind, so willing to have fun with him and do the things that boys like to do. It wasn’t just ‘duty’. Arthur had loved him, he was sure of that.
Without warning, sadness welled up inside him, up from his stomach to his head and eyes. He wept without control, the tears oozing through his fingers and down onto the table, onto the little notebook, staining the pages. John pushed it to one side, found a handkerchief, wiped his face and blew his nose. He would write more, but not yet. He couldn’t bear any more for a little while.
When Anne and George came into the house an hour later, together, John was asleep upstairs. They noticed his coat in the kitchen where he’d left it.
‘He’s back,’ said George. ‘Our John’s back from Grange. That was quick. Maybe that chap was no use to him, the choir chap he was going to see. All too long ago. Poor lad. Must be awful, knowing bits of things but not being able to fill in the gaps.’
‘We’re back, John,’ called his aunt up the stairs. ‘Are you there?’
‘He might be sleeping,’ said George, pulling her back into the kitchen. ‘Leave the poor lad alone and make us a brew. And how about some lunch, too? I’ve got be back in twenty minutes or old Monty will be on at me again. Bloody nerve, that bloke. Think ’e was never late the way ’e goes on at me.’
George was on his way out of the house back to work when John came slowly down the stairs. He’d heard them, but wasn’t ready to face them both. He needed more time to think.
‘There you are, John,’ said his aunt, putting her apron back on again. ‘Sit yourself down and I’ll get you some lunch. You must be starved. George and I went to the bank, stuck in a queue. Why does everyone go at lunchtime? There was only one teller serving and the line was right to the door. How long have you been back? Was it the eleven-fifteen you got? Have you been asleep? Didn’t get much rest last night, did you? I said to George, you were up half the night, pacing about, up and down the stairs. You must be exhausted –‘
‘It’s alright!’ John cut across her. It sounded rude but he had to stop her talking, just for a minute. If she didn’t stop he’d have to get out. He couldn’t stand it. ‘It’s alright, really, thanks Aunty Anne,’ he managed to say, and avoided the urge to put his hands over his ears. ‘I went to have a rest, I’m fine now.’
‘Of course you are, love,’ she said. ‘George and I are just concerned about you, you know. Must be hard for you …’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, a little too abruptly. ‘But I’m fine, just a bit tired, all this running around, talking to strangers. Never was very good at it.’
‘And how’s it going?’ she went on, unaware. ‘What have you found out? Was that chap helpful, the one from the choir? Sounded as if he might be a bit ga-ga, in a nursing home like …’
John smiled. ‘Oh no, not him. He was just staying there, with his sister. She owns the place. Nothing wrong with Mr Crane. Fitter than me. He walks along the prom at Grange every day, rain or shine. Sunny out there this morning, but cold, the wind …’
‘You see, that’s why we worry, love. You were very ill, not long ago. Got soaked through in Barrow and here you are, out again in all weathers. Maybe you should wait now, till the weather gets better, when the spring comes.’
‘I’ve waited long enough,’ said John, more firmly than he intended. There’d been enough talk in this house about his delicate health. He wasn’t a child and he was tired of being treated like one. ‘Once I decided I wanted to know more, I had to do it. Couldn’t wait. Still can’t.’
‘So he wasn’t much use then, this chap?’
John hesitated. ‘No,’ he lied, after a moment’s pause. ‘Nice enough bloke, willing like, but couldn’t help much.’
‘But what did he tell you?’
‘Not much, as I said.’ The lie was getting easier. ‘We talked a while, then went for tea in a café behind the station and I got the train back here. That’s alright. I didn’t expect much really. It’s all so long ago. Why should people remember just because I want them too?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘No,’ said John. ‘It’s alright. I’ll leave it a while, have another think about it. There’s no rush really, just me being …’
‘Curious. Of course, love. Of course you are.’
John picked up his little notebook from the table and went back up the stairs, murmuring about something he’d left up there. He would be relieved to get away from this woman who kept finishing his sentences for him. He was already thinking about the next train to Barrow.
By mid-afternoon he was heading north on the train, just by the place where he’d nearly drowned a few months before. The day was darkening under a low ceiling of cloud that slid across the sky from the north-west. The sea was grey and flat as slate, despite the wind earlier in the day. In the crowded carriage cigarette smoke hung thick and blue in the air. John felt his lungs itch, and he pulled down the window to look out at the sea and suck the freshness of it into his body.
The few people who got off the train at Newton quickly disappeared, hurrying home to families and familiarity. Standing on the platform with his bag John felt suddenly alone, terribly alone. He had no idea how he would get back to Mill Cottage. There’d be no more trains up the valley at this end of the day. It wasn’t raining, mercifully. He pulled his coat around him, tightened the scarf Anne had insisted on giving him, shifted his bag to the other hand and set off walking up the hill towards the main road. If it stayed fine he could get quite a long way before it was too dark, and then his eyes would adjust. It would be all right.
He hadn’t walked more than a mile when a horse and cart slowly caught up with him, going the same way. It was Peter Sim, the landlord from the pub in Ganthwaite. ‘You going my way, up to Boot?’ he called down to John from his perch behind the horse.
‘Aye,’ said John. ‘Mill Cottage.’
‘I ’eard you were there. Alright is it?’ asked Peter, as John climbed up beside him. ‘Rum couple those two, I’ve ’eard.’
‘Hannah and Fred you mean? Aye, they’re funny like, but grand to live with. Very easy-going.’
‘That’s what I ’eard,’ said Peter.
They talked as they rode up the dark valley together, of the weather, and the plans for the new school. Peter thought the school was exactly what the village needed, but he doubted it would ever get built.
‘Folks have enough to do round ’ere, without volunteering for things. Vicar can bang on all he likes about Christian duty and all that, but schools shouldn’t be run like that. It’s the country that needs the schools, to get young people educated and into work when the work’s to be ’ad. Nowt
to do wi’ church. If this were Carlisle or even Manchester, we wouldn’t be messing about like this.’
John agreed. It was the church, he was sure, that made Jessie feel ashamed about her baby, about him, and shut her away, hushed everything up. And it was the church and that precious ‘respectability’ that had made Enid deny where he had come from, right to the last.
Finding themselves of one mind on major issues of the day, the two men continued in amiable silence, interrupted only by the crackle of wheel rims against stone and the rhythmic clopping of the horse. Above their heads the skyline glowed fierce as the moon rose, flattened and deep orange over the black line of the ridge. Stars appeared slowly, more and more, some steady, some twinkling, some clustered together so close that the band of the Milky Way was soon clearly visible if the two men had craned their necks back to see it, which neither of them did. The white noiseless ghost of a barn owl reared in front of them, disappearing behind the wall as suddenly as it had appeared.
Before long the faint light of oil lamps appeared in houses and farms along the way. Peter dropped him off at Hill House and John walked from there up the lane and over the bridge towards his home. He guessed that Aunty Anne had been appalled by his accounts of life at Mill Cottage. She’d said something about John settling down in a ‘proper house’, finding a ‘nice girl’. To John, though, Mill Cottage felt like home. As he pushed open the door, saw the familiar glow of rugs on slate flags and smelled the remnants of Christmas baking from the range, he was glad to be back. Hannah and Fred were glad he was back too: another pair of hands and legs to help with the jobs, someone to bring them news of the world beyond the valley, someone who liked them as they were. They asked how he was, and how he was feeling, but nothing more. John told the same lies he’d told in Ulverston. They ate supper, opened the beer that Fred had brewed for Christmas and stayed up late till the log basket was empty and none of them could be bothered to fill it.
As the moon shone higher in the sky casting white light across fields and walls and streams, John lay on his side in bed, looking out of the little window, listening to Hannah and Fred making love in the next room. He was used to it now and found the muffled noise comforting. It was love, not just sex, that made that sound. He hoped it had been love, that had made him, too.
Jessie. His mother’s name stirred a memory at the back of his head. It flickered for a moment, then was lost in sleep.
As he sat at the table the following morning, mug of tea in hand, Hannah turned around from the sink to speak to him, holding a delicate cup in her hand.
‘Forgot to tell you last night,’ she said. ‘Fred’s beer, make you forget your own name! Never use these cups normally, they were me mother’s. Anyway, got one out for a visitor we had, t’other day while you were away. Couldn’t think who it could be when we heard car coming up t’lane. It was that woman from Newton, the posh one, the one who brought you back from hospital.’
‘Miss Plane?’
‘That’s the one. Funny business,’ Hannah continued. ‘Never really told us why she’d come. Maybe just for a run out. It were a grand day, reet enough. She drove that car over Hardknott last year, did y’ know? God knows why. Just for ’ell of it, Fred reckons. Any road, there she were, all dressed up. Maybe that’s her usual. Must ’ave her own money. Lovely colours. Fred says he’d like a rummage in ’er wardrobe, when she chucks things out.’
John was half listening, wondering where all this was going.
‘Turns out she came all this way to ask after you. Very disappointed you weren’t ’ere, so she said. But happy that you were recovered. Hadn’t seen you since that day she brought you home in the car.’
‘Aye, I remember that,’ said John. ‘I’ll have a car one day, I’m determined. Once I get another job, get earning again.’
‘And afore y’have a lass to spend all y’money,’ Hannah laughed.
‘Nay, Hannah,’ he said, ‘My lass’ll bring home money, too. Modern lasses … not like th’old days. That Miss Plane. She pays ’er own way, wherever the money comes from. Nice woman, in a posh kind of way, but not stuck up. I like ’er.’
‘She likes you too, by t’sound of it.’ Hannah stood with her back to the sink now, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘She asked how you are, in yourself, like. Asked where you were, too. I told her you ’ad family in Ulverston, and she asked about that. Questions, questions! Maybe just making conversation. Have to talk about summat, don’t you, when you’re in someone’s ’ouse, drinking tea out of best cups.’
‘What else did she say?’ John was curious now.
‘Nothing much. She knew, you know, about your mam, and how you were adopted.’
‘Told ’er that meself, in the car that day.’
‘Asked if you’d ever tried to find your real mam. Funny question, I thought, for a stranger to ask. Nearly said to mind ’er own business. I just said I didn’t know. She said no more about it after that. Just finished her tea and went off again …’ Hannah paused. ‘No I’m wrong,’ she said. ‘Before she went she told me to tell you that if you ever wanted any ’elp, she has the car and she’s getting one of them telephones and you were welcome to use them, summat like that. Fred was ’ere, he might remember. Bit rum, I reckon. ’Appen you said more to ’er than you recall. You were still pretty shook up after being so ill, in hospital, all that.’
John tried to remember the trip in Agnes’s car. He couldn’t remember telling her very much. Something snagged at his mind.
Chapter 30
‘Have you seen Mr Leadbetter?’
Jessie’s voice seemed to bounce off the walls of the quarry yard. The man she had called out to looked familiar but she didn’t really care who he was. All she wanted was to find Andrew before her courage failed.
‘Miss Whelan, isn’t it?’ said the man. ‘Long way from the school up ’ere. Arkwright’s the name. You had our two, ages ago.’
‘Of course, Mr Arkwright.’ said Jessie, suddenly connecting the name with two children from a decade before. ‘I remember your two, of course. How are they now?’
‘Grand, thanks,’ said Mick Arkwright. ‘Good of you to remember, miss. Good memory, eh, goes with the job.’
Jessie smiled. ‘Is Mr Leadbetter around?’ she asked again, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice and to find the words she’d rehearsed as her reason for being there. ‘I was taking a walk up here and I could do with a word about the school, the new building, you know.’
‘Aye, I know,’ said Mick. ‘Is it going ahead? Boss hasn’t said much about it lately.’
‘That’s why I need a word,’ said Jessie, brightly. ‘Is he here?’
‘Might‘ve knocked off early like, being Christmas Eve an’ that, aye. I’m on me way mesen. Too dark to do owt. Try the ’ouse, miss, ’appen ’e’s there, like. ’E’ll be down Farriers later if that’s any good. Any road, I’m off. I’ll wish thee a good day, for tomorrer, like.’
‘And to you Mr Arkwright, thank you. And to the family, of course.’
‘Aye, reet enough,’ said Mick, touching his cap to Jessie as he picked up his bait box and walked across the yard and out to the lane.
Jessie waited, listening, but could hear nothing but the roaring of the swollen beck and the wind in the trees. She’d waited all day, pretending to be busy, baking, just to pass the time before she was due at Agnes’s house for their Christmas together. It was mid-afternoon and nearly dark when she finally decided what to do about Phyllis’s revelation; all the way from her house to the quarry she’d regretted the decision but she seemed unable to abandon it. She should have been as shocked by Phyllis’s words the previous day as she pretended to be, but the possibility that Andrew had something to do with Alice had been on her mind for a while. Maybe it was something Nellie had said, or maybe just the expression on Andrew’s face that night at the Bower House, the way he’d looked at those girls. She could believe that Andrew had been with Alice, but surely he didn’t harm her.
Jessie ne
eded to find a reason to forgive him. She wanted Alice to be a liar, or Phyllis, and both of those were possible. And she wanted Andrew to be appalled when he realized that he’d attacked Jessie, to be contrite and beg her to forgive him. She wanted to forgive him. He was the only one since Clive who’d wanted her. There’d been others who’d admired her, respected her, but no one as demonstrative as Andrew. She was terrified that he, of everyone she knew and who knew her, he was the one who truly understood the secret side of her, the side she had kept hidden. She’d always known it was there, the part of her that lied, and yearned for the touch of a man. Andrew had seen it. That night when he first confessed how he felt, just a few weeks before, she should have told him ‘No,’ right at the start but she hadn’t. She’d thought about it for days, about whether to give in to him, and then she’d done it. Everything that had happened since, she had brought on herself. And still she wanted him. If she could see him, ask him about Alice, give him the chance to explain, to be sorry, then maybe she could still have him.
She turned off her torch and sat on a slate bench in the quarry yard, shrouded in her big coat and a hat pulled down against the cold. It was late afternoon, dark already and there was no one about, here or on the road as she walked up. Then she saw the light: just a gleam, no more, in one of the downstairs windows of the house across the yard. As she watched, the light moved from one window to another, a lamp carried by someone who cast a black shape on the far wall of the room. The door opened. She shrank back but the light shone in a long beam towards her, caught her boots in its glare and then moved slowly up to her face. She wanted to look down, to hide, but she could not.