A Mother's Gift

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’ the cameraman shrieked, ‘I’ll have the law on you, I will, that’s expensive equipment that is.’

  ‘Do that,’ Robert snapped. ‘See how far you get. This is private property in case you didn’t know.’

  ‘It’s broken, look what you’ve done,’ cried the cameraman. He was bending down on the path and picking up the camera. Kate, watching out of the window, couldn’t see much wrong with it except that the flash bulb attachment had become separated from the camera. In spite of her rage at the way Robert Richards had spoken to her she gave an involuntary smile.

  ‘Go on, get off this property,’ said Robert, standing over the man threateningly.

  ‘I’m going, I’m going,’ the cameraman shouted. He got to his feet with the camera and bits in his arms and went off through the gate and up the path a short way, unsure where the so-called private property ended. Robert strode to the jeep and got in and started the engine. He reversed and turned back up the hill and drove straight up, making the newspaperman jump to one side.

  ‘Watch where you’re bloody going!’

  Robert grinned and drove off, soon disappearing over the rise.

  ‘The arrogant bugger,’ Kate said. ‘By, it’s not often I swear but I’ve been driven to it today. I tell you, Georgie, I’ll swing for that fella if he doesn’t change his attitude to us. And mind, the next time one of those newspaper men come to my door he’ll get a bucket of water on him.’

  ‘Well, Robert soon shifted that one,’ Georgie remarked. She gazed at her mother. Kate’s face was more animated than she had ever seen it. And her cheeks were flushed slightly, a becoming pink so that her mother looked ten years younger. Georgie’s heart lifted, let them say what they like, she thought. She and Kate would be all right.

  Robert, driving along the road to Teesside, felt a bit ashamed of himself. Talk about kicking someone when they were down, he thought. And no matter what, there was no denying that Kate had had hard times these last few days. And Georgie too. Georgie was little more than a child, he should have had more restraint he could see that now. Poor kid.

  He had been so angry though, so fearful of how all this publicity would affect his mother. And so sure that Kate or Georgina must have said something to the damned press. Now he reckoned they must have had some other source. He grinned as he remembered the cameraman and his broken camera. He would probably have, to pay for that. But it had been worth it. Kate had been so feisty when she opened the door but nevertheless she had had a haunted look, her eyes large and luminous in her white face.

  She had looked so young, no older than he himself was anyway. For goodness sake, he thought angrily, Matthew must have got hold of her when she was still a child, the old lecher.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  ‘I’M GOING TO Winton Colliery today. Will you come with me?’

  Georgina, spreading marmalade on a slice of toast, looked up in surprise. ‘Winton Colliery?’

  ‘Yes, Winton Colliery. You know where it is, I’ve told you about it,’ Kate said patiently.

  It was the end of August, and in the weeks since her father had died Kate had not ceased to surprise Georgina. Kate had bought a small car, second-hand of course for she was not prepared to put her name on a list and wait for a new one, but a Morris 8 and in good condition. She had learned to drive and passed her driving test in record time and now Georgina was taking lessons.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go back there?’ Georgina asked. ‘You haven’t got very good memories of the place, have you?’

  ‘Of course I have, I was brought up there,’ said Kate. ‘Now I’ve a fancy to go back. Howay, it’s a lovely day for a ride out. You can drive if you like. At least some of the way.’

  Georgina had been planning to go over the list she needed to take to Durham but after all, there was still plenty of time.

  ‘Okey dokey,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll take a picnic if you like. I’ll have a word with Dorothy,’ said Kate.

  It was a good day for a drive. Soon they were rolling along the road east, driving across the Great North Road at Rushyford and on past Windlestone Hall to Coundon.

  ‘I’ll drive from here,’ said Kate. ‘I know the way and anyway you’ll have the chance to have a proper look at the view,’ she added as Georgina opened her mouth to protest.

  They swept down Durham Road into Bishop Auckland, the castle and park on their right. There was a slight haze on the bottom by the river but when they swept up the road past the bishop’s castle into the market place it gave way to bright sunshine. It was market day and the place was thronged but Kate wasn’t fazed, she negotiated her way by the stalls and the buses standing in and turned down into Newgate Street, the main street.

  ‘This is my home town,’ she said.

  Georgina was not impressed. The street was long, narrow, straight and dusty. The shoppers were mostly shabby and some of the shops could do with painting. There was still an air of austerity about the shop windows but then, she thought that was true of most towns in the after math of the war.

  Kate turned left at the traffic lights and soon they were going through a succession of mining villages with their attendant slag heaps and winding gear and tall smoking chimneys making the air smell smoky. Periodically, along the long lines of tiny houses, there were heaps of coal, the miners’ allotments, ready to be shovelled into the coal houses. There was coal dust in the air, shimmering in the sunlight.

  ‘It’s good to see the pits working,’ said Kate. ‘I know it’s because of the war but even so. By, my grandda would have been over the moon if he knew they had been nationalised. It was always his dream. It all looks grand, doesn’t it?’

  Georgina looked at her in amazement. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for her mother when she was a little girl. If this was grand what must it have looked like then?

  ‘It looks pretty dismal to me, Mam,’ she said.

  ‘Dismal? Dismal? Don’t talk tripe,’ said Kate. ‘The bairns have shoes on their feet, haven’t they? I know the government is stopping the rationing of shoes next month. Here the shoes were always rationed. Rationed by the lack of money to pay for them, not the coupons in the ration books. Mind, our Georgie, you don’t know the half of it.’ She shook her head to emphasise her point.

  She was driving along the edge of the Winton Colliery rows by now and she slowed and pulled up by the side of the road.

  ‘Are we here then?’ asked Georgina.

  ‘We’re here. Come on, get out, we’ll walk up the road to the rabbit warren and have our picnic there before we look round.’

  They strolled up the road past the houses, past where they could see the old village to one side, past the colliery yard and out into the country. Kate carried a rug to sit on and Georgina had the picnic basket over one arm. When they came to the track that was the entrance of the rabbit warren Kate changed her mind and walked on, up the bank to where there was a derelict building, its roof fallen in in one place and grass growing thick round the door.

  ‘It was the engine house of the old aerial flight,’ said Kate. ‘Billy Wright and I sometimes came here when we were courting.’ Memories of being here with Billy were rushing back to her. She had a soft, faraway look in her eyes as she spread the rug by the building and sat down, leaning against the old red bricks that were warmed by the sun. She looked so relaxed and happy that Georgina said nothing, not wanting to disturb her mother’s mood.

  They ate sardine sandwiches and drank dandelion and burdock pop, sitting side by side and gazing out over the valley. On the opposite side the bank rose steeply for about a mile, mostly farmland and woods. The view was hazy because of the smoke from the houses and mine workings but no less lovely for that. To Georgina it looked like an impressionist painting.

  It was quiet, no one walked by for a while until a couple of miners coming off shift. They were still black and had their helmets pushed to the back of their heads so that the white li
ne showed above the coal dust on their faces and their hairline. They still wore their leather knee protectors and as they walked coal dust shimmered on their clothes.

  ‘Now then,’ one said as they passed and both nodded their heads.

  ‘Morning,’ said Kate and scrambled to her feet. ‘Do you mind, I used to live around here. Can you tell me if there’s anyone called Benfield still living in Winton?’

  The older one of the pair pushed his helmet further back until it was in danger of falling off the back of his head.

  ‘Willie Benfield do you mean? Aye, he lives there. And there’s Ethel, only she married Dave Canvey. Was it Ethel you wanted?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, that’s right, thanks,’ said Kate and sat back down as the men walked on.

  ‘Ethel? Who is Ethel?’ Georgina asked.

  ‘My sister,’ said Kate and picked up her sandwich and finished eating it.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you had a sister.’

  ‘No. Well, I didn’t tell you everything,’ said Kate. ‘When we’ve finished we’ll walk down and see if Ethel Canvey is in.’ As she ate, Kate was gazing out over the village and colliery. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘they’ve put up some pre-fabs on that side, do you see? I wonder who has been lucky enough to get one of those? I read they have bathrooms and fitted kitchens. Even refrigerators.’

  ‘We have a fridge, Mam,’ said Georgie. To her the pre–fabricated houses looked tiny, smaller even than the houses in the mining rows.

  Kate laughed and stood up. ‘I know that. But somehow I never expected there to be one in Winton Colliery. Apart from in the manager’s house, that is. Let’s go down and have a proper look, shall we?’

  They walked back down the road and put the picnic things in the boot of the car. Kate peered into the wing mirror, looking at herself critically.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh Mam, you look fine, of course you do. You always do.’

  They walked along the top of the rows, drawing curious glances from the few people about. So far, Kate had seen no one she knew. A few boys were playing in the middle of the street with a cricket bat and a tennis ball and wickets chalked on the wall of a coal house. Kate hesitated at the top of West Row, wondering whether to go down and look at the house where she grew up. In the end she walked down the back alley to the gate and looked over into the yard.

  ‘Our Katie! What the heck are you doing here? Slumming it a bit, aren’t you?’ A woman had come out of the back door with a tin bath full of wet washing and she halted and stared at them.

  ‘Mind Ethel, that’s a grand way to talk to your sister,’ said Kate, unfazed, though she had not expected to find Ethel so easily. She walked up to the woman and pecked her on the cheek. ‘So you and Dave got me Gran’s house, eh?’

  Ethel sighed. ‘You’d best come in,’ she said and led the way.

  The kitchen was different. There was a utility sideboard instead of Gran’s press and a gas stove of all things in a corner. The walls were distempered a light lemon colour. The range was still large and black-leaded with a brass rail under the mantelshelf and on one side there was an old picture of Noah and Kitty and on the other a tinted one of Thomas and Hannah. A bright fire burned in the grate despite the warmth of the day.

  ‘Sit you down,’ said Ethel and picked up the iron kettle and shook it, decided there was plenty of water in it and placed it on the coals. Turning, she looked Georgina up and down.

  ‘This is your lass, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, sorry. This is Georgina,’ said Kate. ‘Georgie, this is your Aunt Ethel.’ She looked a little apprehensive, a child out of wedlock was not looked upon lightly in Winton Colliery. At least not as she remembered it.

  ‘How do you do?’ said Georgina, lifting her chin and holding out her hand.

  ‘By, she’s a fancy talker an’ all,’ said Ethel. ‘How do you do, pet? You’ve got the Benfield eyes any road. Though you must have got that black hair from your dad.’

  Kate beamed. Ethel was taking this altogether better than she had expected. She had always been such a shadow of Betty and Betty was a bitter sort of girl when they were younger. Now Ethel was different, more tolerant.

  ‘I haven’t got much in, it being washing day and I haven’t been to the store,’ said Ethel, putting out a plate of Yorkshire parkin.

  ‘We’ve had our lu – dinner,’ said Kate. ‘We brought a picnic and ate it up by the old aerial flight engine house.’

  ‘Mind, you needn’t to have done that,’ Ethel declared. ‘We are family after all.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know how things were now, I thought you might not want us in your house,’ Kate said deprecatingly.

  ‘Aye but we might as well let bygones be bygones,’ said Ethel. ‘Dave’s in the back shift and the bairns get their dinners at school now, there never were such times. So I’m not rushed for time. I’ll just hang these clothes out though, they could be drying.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Kate.

  Georgina was fascinated. She watched through the window as the two sisters hung out the lines of clothes in the back yard. The sheets were taken out of the yard and strung across the back alley. As they worked they talked about the days gone by, what an old devil Grandda Noah had been. How their father had lingered on for a while after the accident before he died and how Hannah had gone soon after. How the pit yard had been bombed in 1940 and nothing hit but the lamp cabin. How Betty had met and married a Canadian airman and gone to live in Canada from where she sent food parcels home with notes like she was blooming Lady Bountiful. How Dave, who’d been a Territorial, had gone into the army, the DLI, and been in Tunisia and Italy and come home unscathed. They were still talking when they came back in with the empty peg bag and while Ethel brewed the tea. Yet not a word had been said about Kate and Georgina and what had happened to them. Kate was talking in exactly the same accent as Ethel by now.

  ‘An’ what do you do, pet?’ asked Ethel at last.

  ‘I’m going to Durham University in October,’ said Georgina.

  ‘Eeh you’re not, are you? That’s grand! I don’t think we’ve had anybody in the family going to university before. Mind, my lad Tom is bright, real bright. He’s always top of the class at school. Get a scholarship he will, his teacher says.’

  The afternoon slipped away and Tom and his sister Grace came in from school. They stood about silently, looking at the visitors with the striking dark blue eyes of the Benfields. It was plain to see they were all related.

  Shortly afterwards Kate decided it was time to be on their way.

  ‘Come again,’ said Ethel. ‘Eeh, our family used to be all over the rows and look at us now. Only me and our Willie. And his sour-faced wife.’ She paused and looked hard at Kate.

  ‘Did you know he married Billy Wright’s sister? Well, he did. He’s an overman now and she reckons they’re too good for the likes of us. They’ve got an official’s house over at the other end of the rows.’

  They walked to where the car was parked at the end of the row, Ethel and the two children with them. Tom hung about the car, looking at everything; he even wanted to look under the bonnet.

  ‘My dad’s getting a car,’ he said, speaking for the first time. ‘He’s going to get an Austin ten,’ he told Georgina. ‘Only the waiting list is too long for a new one, see.’

  ‘I see.’ Georgina nodded her understanding. ‘This one is second-hand too, of course. But it’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s grand,’ said Tom fervently.

  ‘Come back soon,’ Ethel was saying. ‘Never mind what anyone else thinks neither. It was all so long ago, any road. I don’t blame you for getting away from here neither. They were desperate times, before the war. So don’t forget, come back to see us.’

  ‘I will.’ Kate and Georgina got in the car and Kate started the engine. Ethel leaned forward and spoke through the car window.

  ‘You know, they were desperate times. Me mam had to let you go to
our gran. She used to get dreadful head-aches an’ all, me mam, the megrims. An’ the doctor used to have no time for her. Said she was just lazy and looking for excuses. But in the end it was a brain tumour took her. An’ she had a hard time with me da before he died. She used to tell me all about it.’

  They drove home with the sun behind them, lighting the fields and hedges. In places farmers were reaping and stacking corn, it was a beautiful early evening.

  Georgina and her mother were quiet, Kate with a reminiscent look on her face and Georgina simply sitting there, digesting what she had seen and learned. On the way out they had stopped by the cemetery.

  ‘Wait here, I want to go in alone,’ said Kate. So Georgina sat and watched as her mother stopped by a sort of monument and stood for a moment, head bowed. It must be the monument to the disaster when her great-grandfather was among those killed, Georgina realised. And Billy of course. Billy, her mother’s sweetheart. Georgina waited ten minutes then went in and stood beside her mother. She took hold of her hand and felt it trembling. There was nothing she could say to comfort her, she knew. It had all been so long ago.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  ‘I TOLD YOU it would be a nine-day wonder,’ said Dorothy. ‘You see, they’ve forgotten all about you and Matthew Hamilton.’

  She and Kate were sitting in the kitchen over a cup of tea and the papers. Now that Kate was mobile she popped into Roseley every morning and picked them up. There was a short piece concerning the ironmaster’s will and Kate had feared they might have picked up on it and repeated the old gossip but there was nothing.

  ‘Just as well now Georgie’s away to Durham,’ Kate replied. She paused for a moment before coming up with what was uppermost on her mind. ‘I’m thinking of selling this house, Dorothy. I want to move back to Winton Colliery.’

  Dorothy put down her cup so suddenly her tea sloshed a little into the saucer. She stared at it then got up and took it to the sink where she wiped it before sitting down again. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose I could retire, find a little place for myself. They are building a few council flats on the edge of the village. Or I could go to Australia and see my grandchildren.’