Houses with tightly closed curtains marked the processional route. Cars glided behind the parade-polished soldiers, slow marching down the main road, round the castle, past the pit into Denaby. Coal-dusted miners, fresh from the day shift, stood to attention, blinking in the daylight. Old and young in Sunday suits lined the pavements. Trilbies were raised, cloth caps tucked into pockets, bareheaded men saluted. British Legion, regimental flags, and mine union banners dipped in respect as the hearse passed by.
The vicar waited outside All Saints Church to lead the coffin in. Mourners crowded around him. Margaret couldn’t make out the faces. There were so many saying their own goodbye. The church bell tolled as the soldiers carried the coffin, taking over the duty from the family. People touched it as it passed. Inside the church eulogies spoke of the decorated soldier and a much loved man who lived courageously with the consequences of war.
The slow-marching soldiers led the hearse past the Miner’s Welfare, bowling green and tennis courts, towards the cemetery on the fringes of the Crags. Mother and daughter, straight backed, heads held high walked behind, flanked by the family. A hushed crowd parted sympathetically at the cemetery gate to let them through.
Margaret saw the Catholic priest by the grave, his lips moving in silent prayer. The flag was ceremoniously removed from the coffin. Matt and Albert restrained Florrie from throwing herself on top of it as it was lowered into the gaping earth. Others were on the verge of collapse. Incense and holy water, prayers and pleas, it was as though Margaret was watching some horrific slow motion film.
A crack of rifles tore through the air — a lull — the smell of cordite and the poignant heart rending bugle notes of The Last Post, drifted over the gravestones and onto the open Crags.
Handfuls of earth and roses scattered into the grave battered the bereaved. Margaret’s heart threatened to burst. If only she could crawl away like some poor wounded animal. If only she could cry.
* * * * *
A month after the funeral Albert said it wasn’t proper for him to continue staying with Margaret. He didn’t want to be in the way of her remarrying. He left carrying two oversized suitcases. She guessed he was going to Florrie’s. It was hard to accept that Tommy’s father couldn’t be there when she most needed him. Margaret thought he cared, but did anyone?
* * * * *
A tribunal decided Tommy’s death was solely due to an industrial accident. Margaret was denied a war widow’s pension and the accompanying benefits. The British Legion and Limbless Ex Service Men’s Association decided to fight the decision on her behalf, but advised that it could take years.
Chapter 40
Jean came to Conisbrough for Christmas. They tried to make something of it for Elizabeth and somehow it passed.
New Year had been party time when Tommy was alive. After tea, Florrie and Matt came with their children. The men went to the Ivanhoe, a working men’s club. If you didn’t get there at opening time you’d have to stand all night. They saved a seat for Florrie who would join them after she’d put her youngest two children to bed. Elizabeth and the older ones were allowed to stay up.
Every time Margaret turned her back there were high jinks between Florrie’s children. “You’ll go upstairs,” generally calmed things down but she soon had them busy polishing glasses, folding damask table napkins into triangles and setting out knives and forks in a wheel pattern. Then they practised their party pieces, singing and dancing with more gusto than talent.
Tommy, Albert, Matt, Florrie, friends and neighbours streamed into the kitchen, after the club closed. Later, in the front room Matt played the piano, his elbows bent and workman fingers stretched across the keys, moving rhythmically, while his feet pressed the soft and loud pedals. He couldn’t read a word of music but, like Margaret’s father, heard a song and was able to play it.
Tommy’s dad put on a flat cap and sang, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag . . .” dancing a march across the front room, saluting and winking. He taught Elizabeth to sing, “My old man said follow the van and don’t dilly dally on the way . . .” Margaret pictured her, holding a small wire bird cage, dancing the music hall routines.
She could still hear Tommy’s voice reciting, “There’s a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu . . .” the tale of Carew, a soldier in the East, who for love, steals the eye of the idol and goes mad. By the time Tommy reached the climax, when a knife is buried in the heart of mad Carew, the children were suitably terrified.
Last year, Tommy had locked the doors to keep everyone inside, counting down the seconds to midnight, and then they sang Auld Lang Syne. Albert unlocked the doors. In came first foot of the New Year, Michael McCabe, blackened-faced, carrying a lump of coal, shortbread and whiskey, for good luck. The party started again.
At dawn the room went quiet while Margaret sang, “My love is like a red, red rose . . .” to Tommy, and he replied by singing, “If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy . . .” They kissed under the mistletoe. It was time to go. Matt’s touching rendering of Danny Boy brought an end to the celebrations. The pains in Tommy’s head had been dormant for one night.
No one came to see out this dreadful year. At midnight Margaret and Jean drank a glass of sherry to 1956, in front of the television. Elizabeth had fallen asleep on the sofa. Jean said that often people didn’t know what to do when someone died but it made Margaret feel abandoned.
* * * * *
Margaret had negotiated with the hospital to start work mid January. She would work five weekdays, from half past eight in the morning, to three in the afternoon. Who would take care of Elizabeth? The sisters discussed the possibilities. Jean couldn’t help. She was teaching and would have to return to Scotland for the start of the term. Florrie was ill. Albert had gone to Alice. The obvious solution was to move to Scotland.
Giving up the house would be like giving up Tommy, and his grave was in Denaby. Margaret couldn’t bear to go so far away from him. Conisbrough was her home. She belonged here, not in Scotland. A letter from the Postmaster added weight to her decision to stay:
Dear Mrs Waters,
We were all deeply grieved at the death of your husband in such tragic circumstances. Christmas must have been a painful reminder.
Words are difficult on occasions like this, but it may afford you some comfort to remind you that your husband was very popular and well thought of, not only by us but by the public generally.
Keep faith in God, with his help you will no doubt find the necessary fortitude to bear your sorrow.
Should you need any help, acquaint us of the facts and we shall be ready to do anything within our power.
The staff join with me in a further expression of sympathy.
Yours sincerely
Harold Wormsley
Postmaster
Margaret didn’t feel so confident when Jean returned to Scotland. There was no alternative; Elizabeth would have to come home alone, into an empty house, for the rest of the winter.
Margaret bought a two-bar electric fire to use in the morning and laid the coal fire. Elizabeth put a match to it when she came in from school.
* * * * *
The electric iron broke. Margaret used the two flat irons she’d kept as ornaments, heating them on the gas rings of the cooker, spitting on the iron’s flat plate to test for readiness. Permanently tired and melancholic she subsisted from pay day to pay day.
The morning the shovel scraped along the concrete floor of the coal shed without stopping; Margaret closed the door and cried in the dark. There was nothing left, except dusty slack. You couldn’t light a fire with that. She sent Elizabeth to school telling her to switch on the electric heater as soon as she came home.
Margaret rushed back from work to find a note on the kitchen table:
Margaret, Collected Elizabeth. Given her t
ea. Will fetch her home. Matt has got you a half ton of coal. It will be delivered tomorrow.
Florrie
That night Elizabeth slept with her mother to keep warm.
* * * * *
The coal was dumped on the road. Matt would lose his job at the pit if it was known the load belonged to him. He certainly couldn’t be seen helping to get it into the coal shed.
The streetlamp cast enough light on the garden path for Margaret to see her way. She found Albert’s wheelbarrow in the outhouse and some bits of wood to make a ramp. Then she put on the immersion heater for hot water, filled a bucket with coal and made a fire in the little room she used daily.
“Mum, what are you doing?” Elizabeth asked seeing her mother getting into Tommy’s gardening trousers.
“Getting ready to get the coal in…”
“Can I help?”
“Get changed first…”
Margaret filled the barrow too full and couldn’t get it up the ramp from the road to the pavement. She worked out that a lot of lighter runs would be easier. Elizabeth picked up the fallen coal and swept the dust into a pile. In two hours they’d done it.
Bathed and warm, Margaret brushed Elizabeth’s hair by the fire, told magical stories from pictures in the coals and toasted bread for their supper. It was good news that Florrie was better. Soon it would be the Easter holiday and Margaret reminded Elizabeth they were both going to Nan’s. She could do without spending the money but wasn’t ready to be without her daughter.
“Do you think Aunt Jean will take me to the ballet?”
“I’m sure she will if you’ve asked her. We can all go” Margaret said, looking forward to seeing her sisters. She talked about Elizabeth’s love of Nan’s homemade ‘tattie’ soup. They could have buns at Crawford’s; go to the zoo, to Aunt Mary’s, and to Our Lady of Carfin’s grotto.
“Not Carfin again” Elizabeth groaned. “Last time my knees ached with praying.”
“They’d have ached more if the priest hadn’t blessed them.”
“Oh mum… You are funny.”
“Not as funny as you, young lady” Margaret said, trying to stifle her laughter. “Now off to bed.”
“I want to finish my library book. It’s due back tomorrow.”
“Leave it out. I’ll hand it in on my way from work. You can get another at the weekend. Night-night… I’ll switch off your light when I come up.”
YORKSHIRE 1985-1986
Chapter 41
Yorkshire 1985
The clock struck six… Elizabeth… the library… Margaret sensed it was dark. She must have been dreaming? She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to face the reality of today, of Elizabeth grown, of the years gone without Tommy. She’d lie for a few minutes to get her bearings. The empty space beside her in the iron framed bed had grown bigger. It wasn’t the original mattress. There’d been several replacements, each put on top of the one shared with Tommy. It reminded her of the story of the princess and the pea which had been one of Elizabeth’s favourites. Margaret had read to her every night and she grew up to love books, they both did, often reading side by side in the evening.
Elizabeth was interested in everything. There were copies of The World of Wonder and Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia in the bookcase in the front room. Margaret had bought them from door to door salesmen, spreading the payment. Now the books were out of date, including an expensive Atlas. Countries had merged, become independent and had different names. You couldn’t stop change.
She was shrinking, or so Elizabeth said, getting shorter and more stooped, but to Margaret it was the opposite. There was so much happening, nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren when she didn’t expect to have any. She wondered if they resembled her. Would she ever meet them? Elizabeth, Pavia, and the boys exchanged letters. Their regard for each other poured out from every page.
Margaret counted the blessings that had arrived so late in her life. Materially she didn’t have much, a few sentimental keepsakes. The council owned the house. There’d be a couple of thousand pounds from the insurance, enough to bury her. She had always saved. Most of it went on educating Elizabeth but she had some put by for a ‘rainy day’. She toyed with changing her will to include some of this money for her Indian children. She’d talk to Elizabeth about it. She’d also have a clear-out, get rid of some of the rubbish Elizabeth said she hoarded
* * * * *
Margaret turned out the suitcases, drawers and cupboards. There were photographs of Tommy in India, and one of him outside his quarters in Burma playing with puppies. There were university photographs of Elizabeth and some of her in a ballet dress, taken the year after Tommy died. She must have been ten.
Margaret didn’t know why she’d kept the comic seaside postcards, except they still made her smile. They could go but she’d keep Elizabeth’s certificates for playing the piano and Tommy’s First Aid certificate from the Home Guard.
She came across a papier-mâché box, delicately painted with kingfishers. The lacquer coating had preserved the colours so it seemed like yesterday when she had bought it in Kashmir. It rattled as she moved it. She took off the tight fitting lid. Inside was the heart-shaped box containing the blue sapphire ring, the gift of love from Ben to celebrate Saurabh’s birth. Tommy hadn’t minded her keeping it, but she buried it out of sight to be forgotten. One day she would give it to Pavia. It didn’t belong to Elizabeth.
There was also a glittering sari pin attached to a scrap of turquoise silk, and a brass engraved letter opener from her desk at Aakesh, gifts for Saurabh and Rajeev. Margaret had thought she had nothing tangible from the past to give them. These treasures were mementoes of some of the happiest years they spent as a family. When the pain and bitterness overtook her it was easy to forget how much she had loved their father.
Margaret filled the dustbin with rubbish and put plastic bags in the outhouse ready for the bin men to collect. There were more plastic bags with clothes, handbags, knick knacks; extra table cloths and bedding stored under the stairs. An assortment of paper carrier bags emblazoned with shop logos contained knitting wool for her favourite charity, Mother Teresa. The Albanian nun didn’t pass by the destitute and untouchables who Margaret had seen dying on the streets of India’s cities. Raising money was the least she could do.
It had taken a week, but past midnight on Saturday the work was completed.
Chapter 42
“Scottie where are you! It’s James! “
James, what was he doing here? Margaret called down stairs, “I’m up here. I’ll be down in a tick… just let me put a few clothes on.”
“It’s Sunday” he said, as she joined him at the foot of the stairs.
“So it is. I must have slept in.”
James had waited to collect her outside the church until everybody had gone, including the priest. Seriously concerned, he’d broken every speed limit driving to Conisbrough.
Unperturbed, Margaret continued, “I’ve been packing a few things for Elizabeth. This bag’s rather heavy… will you lift it down for me?”
“Good God, Scottie! Don’t tell me you’re coming to stay for good?”
“You should be so lucky. I’ve been having a clear out.”
“I can see that!”
“It’s not all for Elizabeth! The things under the stairs are for Mother Teresa. They’re coming for it on Monday.”
“I hope this India business isn’t too much for you? You can stop it at any time. Just say the word.”
Margaret told him that she hadn’t been sleeping properly and had been to see the doctor who had prescribed sleeping tablets. They hadn’t worked so she stopped taking them.
The whole situation was worrying James. He’d tell Lizzie but there didn’t seem much they could do. He said innocuously, “It’ll all come good in the end
.”
“I expect so, but meantime there are things I have to do.”
“Yes, like being where you’re supposed to be.”
“James, a lady likes to keep a man waiting, even at my time of life.”
“You’re incorrigible! Lizzie will sort you out.”
“Well she’s not managed yet.” They grinned conspiratorially. Lizzie was always organising something or someone. Margaret said it went with being a head teacher.
* * * * *
“I thought you’d never get here…” Elizabeth complained. It looked as if her mother hadn’t combed her hair and the ancient lilac cardigan she wore in the house was incorrectly buttoned. James explained that her mother had been unwell.
“Has she been to the doctors?”
“I am here, Elizabeth,” Margaret said crossly, “I’ve told James and I don’t want to talk about it now.”
Elizabeth made no more reference to her mother’s bizarre appearance and served dinner.
Afterwards while Margaret rested, husband and wife shared their worries in the kitchen.
“God James, mum looks awful. She’s lost a lot of weight.”
“Lizzie, I don’t think we appreciate what a toll this has taken…”
“I wonder if I should ring and have a word with the doctor.”
“Without telling her? She’d be livid.”
“Maybe she’s just exhausted? Look, we’ll talk about it when she’s gone. Go in the lounge and see if she’s asleep.”
James touched Margaret’s shoulder, “We can’t have you wilting away on us.”
The Letter Page 20