100 Tiny Threads

by Judith Barrow

  Her mother spoke first. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll call in, in a few days to pick up whatever is necessary.’

  So she was as reluctant as me to say where she will move to. Winifred nodded. ‘And so will I.’

  Her mother sniffed and stood, holding her handbag at her waist. ‘I’ll bid you good day, Mister Winterbottom.’ She left without a glance in Winifred’s direction.

  Bill was waiting in the outer reception room of the solicitor’s.

  ‘Yer mother looked none too chuffed.’ He grinned. ‘Everything went okay?’

  ‘Everything went all right.’ She confirmed, holding out her hand to him. ‘We need to go to the bank, and then I need to call in somewhere before we catch the train to be in time for when Tom gets home from school.’

  On the pavement outside the solicitor’s tall brick building Winifred drew in a long low breath. For the first time in her life she was free.

  Chapter 83

  It didn’t take much to persuade Bill to wait in the Wagon and Horses while she went to visit Bertha on Wellyhole Street. It being warm for October Winifred expected to see her sitting outside the house but, although the door was open, there was no sign of anyone.

  She lifted the knocker and let it drop. ‘Bertha? It’s Winifred Duffy.’ The woman wouldn’t know her married name. ‘Bertha?’

  ‘Winifred?’ Her voice sounded weak. ‘Oh, yes. Do come in, child.’

  The hall was so dark it took a while for Winifred’s eyes to adjust when she entered the kitchen. It was a shock to see how much her gran’s friend had aged. Seeing her sitting on an old wooden chair Winifred could tell how much thinner she was than before. And her hair was now completely white. She pulled out a chair from the table and moved closer to the old woman, taking hold of her hand. There were dark smudges beneath Bertha’s eyes, the lids swollen.

  ‘We’ve just sold the shop and I thought I should call. I need to say I’m sorry I haven’t been before, Bertha. I feel so bad about that.’ Winifred was ashamed to think that in the last three years she’d never given the residents of Wellyhole Yard another thought.

  ‘I’ve always felt rotten about not going to your gran’s funeral.’

  ‘Mother arranged it while I was looking after Tom, my son. He caught the influenza as well.’

  ‘But he got better. I was glad to hear that.’

  Unlike Horace. Winifred found herself feeling guilty even about that; even as she felt the great wave of gratitude.

  ‘I knew nothing about Granny’s funeral until it was too late.’

  ‘None of us knew.’ Bertha shook her head. ‘A mean woman, your mam.’

  ‘Yes. She didn’t even go.’

  ‘Mean,’ Bertha repeated. The lines deepened at the corners of her mouth. ‘The influenza claimed Tony as well. My youngest.’ The tears came easily as she bent forwards as though in pain. ‘I lost two sons.’

  Only then did Winifred realise what was different; the house was silent. ‘Oh Bertha…’

  ‘I heard you were nursing your son at the time.’ Bertha patted her hand. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to be there. And my boys were buried together that day. They were company for one another.’ She sighed. ‘They say time heals, Winifred, but it doesn’t. That influenza tore my family apart; we were never the same again. We were always such a crowd I used to think I’d never get any peace. Now I have too much. But…’ She moved Winifred’s hand up and down in a gesture of determination. ‘I do try to get out once a week to go to see them.’ She smiled. ‘You know, at the cemetery?’

  Winifred nodded.

  ‘We have a good talk. And I go to see your gran as well.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I do. And, when my old knees let me, I get down on the ground and weed her grave.’

  The self-reproach was overwhelming. ‘There’s still no headstone on Gran’s grave.’ Why had she let so much time pass without doing anything about that? The fact that she’d had little money to spare; that she’d only ever taken from the shop takings what she and Tom needed was no excuse. ‘Would you like to go there now, Bertha? With me?’

  Bill would be all right, especially as he had taken five shillings from the bank money she’d drawn out. Which she now recognised was a mistake; she’d have a job getting him home if he spent it all on ale.

  ‘Oh, I would, Winifred, thank you.’

  They walked slowly; Bertha muffled in a thick coat and woollen hat and scarf, limped on swollen feet.

  ‘It’s my arthritis,’ she explained, leaning heavily on Winifred’s linked arm.

  ‘There was no rush. And we’re here now.’ Winifred pushed open the wooden gate into the cemetery. The chapel doors were closed and no-one was around.

  Leaving Bertha at the grave of her sons she walked along the gravel path to the small mound where Granny lay. It was covered in grass and weeds. Sorrow caught in her chest and she inhaled steadily to control the tightness. Dropping to her knees she yanked at the roots and threw the plants to one side with such force that in a few minutes she was panting.

  ‘Winifred.’

  The touch on her back was too much. She twisted, seizing hold of Bertha’s coat, the tears coming through great spluttering sobs.

  ‘I should have made sure Gran had a headstone,’ she gulped as her tears gradually lessened.

  ‘It’ll be fine, love.’ The soft patting soothed.

  She scrambled to her feet. ‘It will, Bertha. I’ll make it right.’ Blowing her nose she managed a faint smile. ‘I’m glad we came, I should have come a long time ago but I felt guilty that I couldn’t give her a headstone.’

  ‘She’d understand.’

  ‘She would.’ But that didn’t help. ‘And now I can do something about it.’

  Linking arms they ambled back along the path to the chapel gate. Fastening the catch, Winifred stared over to the corner towards her grandmother’s grave. I’ll buy you a headstone, Granny, she promised under her breath.

  She paused, glancing around at the familiar countryside. I shall only once come back to Lydcroft, she thought. And I shall never see Mother again.

  Chapter 84

  March 1923

  Bill whimpered and, despite the cold night, kicked the covers off him. In her sleep Winifred clung on to the blankets, hoisting them up to her chin.

  He was crouching in a trench covered in slime and mud, his arms over his head, protecting himself from the large yelping rats scurrying over him. But it wasn’t the rats yelping, it was the youth that was tied to the lamppost and the men around him were laughing and jabbing him with bayonets. Men, not dressed in the usual British uniform, but in khaki and black. And they weren’t in a field anymore but in a street where women and children were watching them in silence, standing before houses with the doors wide open like gaping mouths. And then he was the youth, feeling each cruel stab, each vicious cut as the men worked their way up his body with the steel blades. And the blood was running in his eyes and he couldn’t see. But still he heard the screams. His screams. And somewhere, there was the dull thud of bombs. And the sharp crack of rifle shots.

  ‘It’s all right, love. I’ve got you.’ Winifred held onto him as he struggled to free himself. ‘Calm down, it’s just a dream. You’re safe now.’

  ‘I can’t find my brooch.’ Winifred rummaged through the tin that she kept her mementoes in; Tom’s birth certificate, her marriage certificate, a brass tiepin, watch chain and cufflinks of her father’s, a lace handkerchief embroidered with the letter F that had been her grandmother’s, a metal suffragette badge with the inscription “Votes for Women” in green lettering.

  The small oval amethyst brooch, surrounded by pearls pinned to a velvet cushion that Florence had given her wasn’t amongst them. ‘Bill?’ She emptied the tin onto the kitchen table and spread the contents out. The brooch was definitely missing. She tried to think when she’d last saw it. Not after they moved to Ashford she was certain. She’d worn it on her wedding day. She remembered that becaus
e her husband had admired it against the cream dress.

  Bill was crouched in front of the fire. The air in the kitchen still held the sooty smell from the billow of smoke that had blown from the chimney. Outside the wind howled, plastering the rain against the window. After a bad night’s sleep his chest was always worse and he was in a foul mood.

  She knew he was worried about the trouble that seemed to be brewing between the owners of the mine and the miners. He’d ranted all the previous evening about Baldwin and the Tories, and how miners’ wages were low after the strike in nineteen twenty-one. He kept telling her that, as the new union representative, it was up to him to keep talks going. But she often thought he was absolutely the wrong man for the job with his fiery temper. She put her hand to her stomach; with another mouth to feed she was fretting herself about the amount of housekeeping he allowed her. Let alone the amount he spent on beer.

  Still, however much it irritated him, she needed to know where her brooch was.

  ‘Bill, I can’t find my brooch,’ she said again. ‘Any idea where it might be?’

  He started a prolonged bout of coughing before spitting into the fireplace. The globule sizzled on the fender.

  Winifred swallowed against the gagging that overwhelmed her each time he did that but said nothing; he wasn’t to blame that his chest was weak. But it was his fault he refused to use the pieces of cloth she’d cut for him out of one of his old shirts instead of the revolting spitting.

  She was wary of him today; when he was under the weather he was prone to explode with temper.

  ‘Bill?’

  ‘Shurrup, woman, for God’s sake. Can’t yer see I’m bad?’

  Winifred compressed her lips, suspicion growing in her mind. Standing over him, her hands on her hips, she couldn’t stop herself. ‘You sold it, didn’t you? Why?’ The realization struck her. ‘You sold it to buy this place?’

  ‘And what if I did?’

  ‘You said you’d saved the money from your wages.’ Her mouth was suddenly dry. She tried to stay calm, twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger.

  ‘On the pittance that old skinflint in Lydfield gave me. And after paying the bloody rent to your soddin’ mother?’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘And you should ’ave told me right from the start that you’d ’ave money from selling the bloody shop.’ He thumped himself on the chest, making himself cough again. ‘Keeping it secret.’ He scowled. ‘Why didn’t yer tell me right from the off?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She did; she remembered how angry she’d become when her granny had told her that everything she’d owned had belonged her grandfather once they were married. The law had long since changed but she’d hated the idea that Bill would assume that what was hers, earned by her own hard work for years, had become his. And she didn’t tell him she was worried that would be the only reason he would want to marry her. ‘It was too soon then. I needed to know…’ Humiliation vied with the urge to shout, to rage at him. ‘That brooch was the only thing I had of Granny’s.’

  ‘Except for the shop.’ He was mocking her.

  ‘Which was nothing to do with you.’ Winifred became reckless in her anger. She was shouting now, her face close to his. ‘We will always need that money to live on. With your weak chest and that old leg injury of yours there will always be times you can’t work. You had no right to steal my brooch. No right at all.’

  She didn’t see the blow coming, wasn’t ready for it. The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor. When she sat up her head swam. She tasted blood. Her lips were split. And there was a large lump on the back of her head where she’d hit the floor.

  Struggling to her feet and stumbling to the sink Winifred wet a teacloth. Thank goodness Tom wasn’t in the house; the last thing she wanted was for her son to see what had happened. She dabbed at her mouth and examined the spreading stain on the cloth. The whole of her body quivered with shock. If Tom had seen and tried to defend her against Bill it would have been hopeless, however tall her son had become.

  It was the first time Bill had hit her – it would be the last. The anger was slow to rise but when it did she savoured it. She had been frightened of him. She’d tell him that if he ever did it again she’d leave. She had been bullied by her mother. She wouldn’t be bullied by any man.

  When Bill did appear later that day and saw the state of Winifred’s face he was contrite. Kneeling by her side he put his head on her lap. ‘I’m that sorry, Win. And you with a babby inside you. I don’t know what came over me.’ When he looked up at her there were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m that angry with meself, I could cut my right arm off. It’ll never ’appen again, love, I promise.’

  And I promise you I’ll leave if it does, Winifred thought.

  Chapter 85

  July 1923

  ‘Mrs Jagger?’ Winifred banged on the wall of the kitchen. ‘Mrs Jagger.’

  ‘What is it?’ The voice was thin, querulous.

  ‘The pains have started. It’s the baby.’

  She’d felt the dull ache all night but said nothing to Bill, he said often enough that he didn’t like to be bothered with ‘women’s troubles’.

  So as soon as she heard the back gate close and the sound of his clogs fade away, she’d summoned her neighbour.

  ‘Winnie?’ The woman crashed open the gate, tying her wrap around pinny. Crossing the yard she yelled, ‘Is it time?’

  ‘Shush. Please.’ Winifred held on to the doorframe. ‘I don’t want half the neighbourhood hearing.’

  ‘What?’ Mrs Jagger tucked her hair under her turban.

  ‘Never mind.’ Winifred turned back into the kitchen, holding on to the chairs around the table ‘I think it is…’ She gasped, the warmth of the fluid pouring from her shocked her into silence. She looked down at the puddle around her feet and then at her neighbour, feeling the swell of panic.

  ‘Young Tom in school?’ Hands on hips the older woman studied her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. It’ll be over before he gets back home.’ She rolled up her sleeves. ‘Everything ready?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Kettle boiled?’

  ‘No… I’ll…’

  ‘I’ll sort it.’ Mrs Jagger bustled over to the sink in the scullery. ‘You get upstairs and strip off those wet underthings.’

  Hauling on the bannister, Winifred dragged herself upstairs.

  She heard her neighbour banging around in the kitchen and then the sloshing of water on the stairs. Even breathing against the rise of another contraction, Winifred couldn’t help thinking it would take ages to dry the coco-matting on the treads.

  ‘All ready?’ Mrs Jagger set the steaming bowl of water on the tallboy, her breathing rasping in her throat. She coughed. ‘Towels?’

  ‘Oh. No. Sorry.’ Winifred heaved herself upright.

  ‘S’all right, I’ll find them.’

  ‘That drawer.’ Winifred fell back. She turned her head sideways on the pillow watching as her neighbour deliberately opened each drawer of the tallboy. Obviously enjoying rooting around, she thought with an inward sigh. Still, there was no other choice but to have the woman there; she had the best reputation for delivering babies for miles around.

  ‘Right, let’s see.’ Mrs Jagger dumped the towels on the bed and pushed Winifred’s nightdress up around her waist, spreading her knees apart.

  Winifred flinched as the bony fingers explored her. She saw the grimace on the old woman’s face.

  ‘Hmm, think you’ve a bit to go yet, love, you’ll need to be patient. This one’s in no hurry to get out into this wicked old world.’

  The wave of pain circled Winifred’s stomach, taking her by surprise. She clenched her muscles.

  ‘You’ll need to relax if you don’t want this to go on forever, Winnie. This isn’t the first babby you’ve had. The lad must be twelve now but you must surely remember what to do.’

  ‘I know,’ Winifred panted as the
spasm subsided.

  Outside a horse and cart rattled on the cobbles.

  ‘Milkman’s late today.’ Mrs Jagger shuffled over to the window and lifted one corner of the net curtain. ‘Oh, no, it’s the coalman, he’s early and I haven’t opened the grate. She squinted at Winifred. ‘I won’t be a tick. Stay there.’

  Nauseous and desperate to move, Winifred waited until she heard the back door bang to before she eased herself to the edge of the bed and lowered her legs to the floor. The lino was already warm from the early-morning sun. Holding onto the black metal headboard she steadied herself before waddling to the window. The coalman was backing up to his cart to grasp the top of the first sack. His face and hands were already grimed in coal dust. Bowing his back he turned and spun around to pour the coal into the cellar under the pavement, while Mrs Jagger peered suspiciously at him, counting the bags.

  The man’s horse pawed at the road. Winifred heard the sharp clatter of his hooves as the cart shifted between the shafts, heard the man’s impatient shout. ‘Whoa!’

  From the house opposite a woman appeared at the front door to scatter breadcrumbs. Sparrows, oblivious to her, fluttered down from the roof and darted about, pecking and squabbling. The woman wiped her hands on her apron, looked up and saw Winifred and waved.

  She lifted her fingers in response, envying the freedom of Miss Cropper.

  The next pain seemed to start in her thighs and rise up to ripple through her stomach. Winifred doubled over, holding the weight of it. She staggered back to the bed, all at once frightened of being on her own.

  It felt a long time before she heard her neighbour slowly climbing the stairs.

  Chapter 86

  1924

  The man that the undertaker employed had made a beautiful headstone. The black marble shone in the sunlight and the lettering was just right. Plain gold lettering spelled out her grandmother’s name and inscription: