The Chainmakers

by Helen Spring

  Florence Nicholson was a witness to Anna's confusion. Having been married for so many years to a man who was both an industrialist and an artist, Florence now enjoyed the friendship of a wide variety of people, whose opinions ranged from the strictly traditional to the most enlightened liberal. After her guests were gone she would often talk to Anna about the evening's conversation, discussing and explaining points which Anna had missed or misconstrued. As much as Anna enjoyed these evenings, they served as a forcible reminder of her own lack of knowledge.

  After Christmas had come and gone with a succession of icy cold mornings and searching bitter winds, Anna found she had saved enough for a long craved personal indulgence, a pair of boots from the leather and shoe shop in Dudley, and some thick knitted stockings. Florence had provided her with some good leather shoes which were ideal for High Cedars, but Anna was loth to ruin them in the mire of Sandley Heath, and so left them in the wardrobe at High Cedars, with the other clothes Florence had provided. When Will called one evening in late January he was quick with praise for the boots.

  'I'm glad to see you'm doin' summat fer yerself at last, ma wench. You 'm earnin' all this extra, an' yo' ay 'ad a bit o' treat fer yerself. My, they'm bostin' boots an all, they'll last a year or two.'

  'Well, they should, they cost enough,' Anna answered briefly, as she took a bread pudding from the oven. 'I'm glad you've come Will, this fillbally is for your Mary. It'll be cool soon...'

  'Don't call it "fillbally" Anna,' her mother admonished. 'You know I don't like it, especially now you're mixing in good company so much...'

  'Aw, cum on Mom, our Anna talks like a lady, an' yer know it.' Will winked his eye at Anna and leaned over to see the bread pudding. 'My, that's a good 'un our Anna, plenty a currants an' all. Call it what yer like, it'll be fillbally cum termorrer. We'm down ter bread an' find it at our 'ouse till Friday.'

  'Everyone all right?' Anna's mother asked.

  'That's what I cum for Mom, our babby's middlin'.' Will's handsome face became grave, his eighteen month old daughter Dorothy was the apple of his eye. 'Mary's at 'er wits end. 'Er's tried all 'er knows, it's a sort of bally gripe.'

  'Glede water doing no good?'

  Will looked embarrassed. 'Well, to tell you the truth, we'm burnin' ling... Mary hasn't been able to get to the pit bank wi' Dottie middlin''

  'Oh, our Will, if you don't take the cake...' Anna was quite annoyed. 'No proper fire and a babby in the house...'

  'Don't say 'babby", Anna,' her mother put in quietly.

  Anna poured some water from the kettle into a basin and pulled a red hot glede from the fire with the tongs. She dropped it into the water and they watched as it hissed and steamed.

  'There, we'll take that with us, it'll last the night,' said Anna. 'I'll just do Dad's Jolly Boy for the morning and I'll be with you.'

  'You'm lucky to 'ave Jolly Boy of a Wednesday,' Will commented, watching as Anna spooned tea and sugar on to a piece of newspaper, and then a spoonful of condensed milk on top. She covered this with more tea and sugar and then rolled it tightly in the newspaper. A ball of Jolly Boy dropped into a billycan of boiling water made a good brew. She started to make another.

  'Here you are our Will, I can't see you go without a Jolly Boy.'

  Will flushed slightly, but smiled as he said diffidently, 'I didn't mean...'

  'I know that our Will, we've plenty to last till Friday.' Anna gave him the screw of newspaper and added, 'I'll get my shawl. If our Dottie's really middlin' we'd better call at Pearce's for a bottle of Infant Preservative. He'll be shut but he'll open up for us.'

  As they left the house Anna took the bread pudding from Will and balanced the glede water on top of it.

  'Now our Will, fill a bucket with gledes and bring with you.'

  'It's kind of yer our Anna, but perhaps Dad won't like it...' Will was hesitant.

  'Dad's not paying for it,' said Anna sharply. She looked at Will, and her tone softened. 'Anyway, if you're quiet he won't hear you.'

  She hurried away down the ginnel and by the time Will caught her up, they were nearing Pearce's shop.

  'I was quiet,' he volunteered, swinging the bucket of coal.

  'Right. We'll put the lot on to get a good fire going, and then I'll take the bucket to the pit bank for some sleck to bank up tonight.' In Will's company, Anna was already beginning to slide into the slight Black Country dialect she used when her mother wasn't around.

  'I'll get it...'

  'No you won't our Will. It ain't a man's job.'

  Will subsided into silence, and looked on as Anna knocked hard on the shop door. Mr. Pearce soon emerged from his living room at the back, and served them quickly, assuring them that Atkinson's Infant Preservative would do the trick all right. As they hurried along the street and turned the corner Will suddenly said, ''Ave I done summat wrong our Anna?'

  Anna snorted. 'What makes you think that?'

  'You'm bein' mighty snotty nosed, I know you...'

  Anna stopped dead in her tracks and turned a furious face towards him. 'Alright our Will, I'm angry, don't pretend you don't know why!'

  'I don't know why! Honest... honest! What's to do...?'

  'You, Will Gibson! That's what's to do! Burnin' a ling fire and our Dottie middlin'. I'll bet there's no milk in the house neither!' Will's sheepish look let Anna know she was right.

  'You knew very well I had a bit o' money and would help! You'm too proud by half our Will.'

  Will sighed, and fell into step beside her as she started to walk again.

  'It ay that I'm proud,' he tried to explain, 'It's just that we can usually manage, but Mary ay bin able to work for a while...'

  'Exactly! So why didn't yer ask?'

  'Well... I didn't like...'

  'Exactly!' Anna said again. 'Too proud.' She stopped and caught at Will's arm. 'Don't you understand our Will?' she said, almost pleading. 'There ain't no room for bein' proud, not in a proper family, and most of all not when a babby is sick. Babbies come first Will, you know that. Our Dottie's surely worth a bit o' pride?'

  Will's big hands fumbled on the handle of the coal bucket. 'Arr, you'm right our Anna. I'm sorry.'

  'Promise me Will, if ever you're in trouble, money or anythin' else, you won't keep it to yerself. Promise,'

  Will smiled. 'I promise, ma wench. An' yo' promise me an' all... if you'm ever in a fix...'

  'Yes Will, I promise. Now let's see what's up with our Dottie...'

  An hour later, having helped Mary make up a good fire and spoon some of the Infant Preservative down Dottie's wheezing throat, Anna made her way through the dark streets towards the pit bank. You weren't really allowed to help yourself, but even if someone saw her they would turn a blind eye, provided she only collected slack. It was a thin broken coal, almost like dust, but if you banked up the fire with it at night it gradually solidified into a mass, and in the morning a few prods with the poker would break it into a good blaze.

  Reaching the coal bank, she climbed a little way up, glad of her new boots, and dug the galvanised bucket fiercely into the slack. 'I wonder,' she thought as she began to scoop with her hands, 'I wonder what Florence and Robert would make of it if they could see me now?'

  ~

  George Gibson took a swig from the bottle of "seconds", a beer made from the second fermentation of the hops, and then slung the bottle back into the bosh to keep cool. He pulled on the bellows and took a white hot rod from the fire. With a few well directed blows he shaped it into a horseshoe shaped link, then inserted it into the last link of the chain before beginning to hammer again. The black thoughts had been at him again today and he would be glad to see the back of his shift. In summer George often started work as early as four in the morning and finished at lunchtime, to complete his quota before the heat became unbearable, but on dark winter mornings when he didn't start until seven the shift seemed to go on for ever.

  He splashed water from the bosh on to the hood over the fire and finished off th
e link by working the Oliver with his foot. The leaden weight in his chest would not go away, and no matter how he tried the dark thoughts returned. His frustration lay in the knowledge of his own limitations, for there was nothing he could do for Sarah... his Sarah. The time for change was long gone, perhaps it had never existed. Their dream was exactly that, just a dream. From the moment they had been thrown off her father's farm with curses ringing in their ears, there had not been a time when there was enough money to last out the week. Their endeavours as newly-weds, when they had walked every day, slowly making their way towards the burgeoning industrial towns of the Black Country, existing on love and hope and little else, now seemed the height of folly, a youthful game played by ignorant children unaware of the cards stacked against them.

  After several false starts George had at last found work at Sandley Heath, with a gaffer who needed a fourth man to complete his team making cable chain for the ocean going liners which regularly plied from Liverpool to America. It had only ever been intended as a temporary measure, to make enough money to last until he could find work on the land. Sarah had been taken on by a fogger who paid her a pittance, but by the time she had acquired sufficient skill to earn a little more she was pregnant with Will. Two years later Anna had arrived, and somehow every week there was never enough money to feed and clothe them all, no matter how hard he worked.

  George Gibson still missed the countryside, mourned for the loss of fresh green fields and whispering woodlands, yearned deep in his soul for the closeness to living things he had known in his youth. He knew it was the same for Sarah, although they never spoke of such things. Perhaps it was worse for her, born to a better life. She had never had a chance, his Sarah, not after she married him. He could see her now, running across the lower field to meet him at Bennett's Copse...

  George started another link. He didn't like this half inch chain, it was a struggle to make six hundredweight in a week and even that didn't pay much after shelling out about four shillings to the blower. Think about something more cheerful, he told himself, there was an order for big cable to start next week which should pay better.

  Sarah's parents had been right, he could see it now he had a grown up daughter of his own. They did not want their beloved child to waste her life with a mere farm labourer, and they had been right. Only it had been worse than they could have imagined. Sarah had found the grimy back to back terraces of Sandley Heath depressing beyond belief, and had never really settled. Her soft Worcester accent had earned her the nickname "Toffee" Gibson amongst her neighbours, the implication being that because she was well spoken she was toffee-nosed. She was not lacking in backbone however. She worked hard, and was never slow to help a neighbour in trouble, and over the years her nickname of "Toffee" Gibson became more a term of affection than censure.

  Then there had been the really bad time, two sons, both stillborn, one after the other. Despite their grief they had comforted one another, had stayed close. Then as if in answer to their steadfast hope, little James had been born. His sweet gurgling nature delighted everyone who saw him, and when at one year old he had been struck down by whooping cough it was too much to bear.

  George hammered at the link, trying to blot out the image of Sarah's agonised eyes as she pleaded, 'Are we being punished George? Surely the Lord is not so angry He would take my baby?' And he had held her and told her of course not, James would soon be better and everything would be alright; but the next morning James had slipped away from them, as gently and lightly as the death of a butterfly, and Sarah had raised her racked face to him, crying 'It's true. I am being punished for marrying you, for defying my parents. I have broken the commandment...'

  'No, my love, no... it's not your fault...'

  But Sarah only repeated over and over again, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land the Lord thy God giveth thee...'

  After that she had given up, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He had watched her age, almost overnight she became greyer, thinner, hopeless. Her skin now seemed paper thin, and she had developed a bluish look around her mouth, and a burning haunted look in her eyes.

  Guilt gnawed at George's thoughts, but he pushed it away. So what if he liked a drink? So did lots of other men. There had been too many years of going without. Even if he didn't drink at all, there would never be enough money to provide what Sarah needed, come to think of it, money wouldn't help at all.

  ~

  Dottie was better by the weekend, and Anna set off for High Cedars with a light heart early on Saturday morning. As she crossed the main road and walked towards the lane which led down to the canal, she was surprised to see Clancy sitting on a low wall. As she approached he got up quickly.

  'So there ye are! I thought I'd catch ye, so I did!'

  His happy smile and the sound of his light Irish brogue caught at Anna's heart. Clancy was such a good soul, she would go a long way to find a better.

  'Hello Clancy. What are you doing here?' she greeted him.

  'Now what do you think a fella would be doin' down here at this unearthly hour, and on a Saturday morning too?’Clancy chided gently. 'Waiting for his sweetheart, I should imagine. Trying to get a few minutes of her valuable time, busy as she is, dashing around all over the place...'

  'Oh Clancy, I know. We haven't seen much of each other lately have we? But it won't be for much longer, I think this will be my last weekend.'

  'Is the painting nearly finished then?' Clancy asked, falling into step beside her.

  'There are two paintings. One is finished and one is nearly done. Robert is going to come over and make a few sketches at the chainshop next week, for the background.'

  'Oh, so it's Robert now is it? You'll be having me jealous.'

  Clancy's lighthearted smile faded to a quizzical look as he noticed a faint blush suffuse Anna's face, but she only said 'Don't be silly. He told me to call him Robert, and I call his mother Florence...'

  'Well that's all right then.'

  They walked on for a few minutes in an uneasy silence. Clancy had the feeling he had done something wrong but had no idea what. He cleared his throat.

  'I wanted to talk to you Anna, my Mam isn't so good...'

  'Oh Clancy, I'm sorry!' Anna was immediately full of concern. 'I intended to call and see her this weekend but our Dottie's been middling...'

  'No... it's not that. I didn't mean that.' Clancy was having difficulty, and with sudden intuition Anna kept silent, allowing him to take his time.

  'Well, it's like this. You know Mam has been poorly a long time... last week I got the doctor...'

  'The doctor!' Anna was surprised. Doctors were rarely called at Sandley Heath unless you were on your deathbed, and she could not help adding 'How much did that cost?'

  'Two shillings and sixpence,' Clancy said sourly, 'But I had to do it, she's lost so much weight. Anyway, according to Dr Lawrence she's not long to go.'

  'Oh Clancy, I'm so sorry. Was it ... what you thought?'

  'Consumption... yes. Of course we've both known it for some time but it's still a shock when the doctor tells you.'

  'Yes, it is.' Anna felt a pang of guilt. She had been thinking of many things these last few weeks, but Clancy's mother had not been one of them. She squeezed his arm. 'I'll help Clancy, any way I can... as soon as Spring comes we can make an infusion of dandelion flowers, that helps the consumption...'

  'I doubt she'll be here when the dandelions arrive,' Clancy said softly. He hesitated and then continued carefully, 'I've been thinking about what I'll do... after Mam is gone.'

  'Yes of course.' Anna was sympathetic.

  'I've been finding out more about America. You know I have two cousins there...'

  Anna suddenly had an icy feeling of foreboding. 'Last time we talked about it you weren't sure.'

  'I am now. I've definitely decided to go. There's nothing here for me except a life as a puddler, or perhaps a forgeman in twenty years time if I'm lucky, and there's
nothing back in Ireland. I could never go while Mam is alive, but according to Doctor Lawrence she only has a few months at most.' He made an effort. 'Anyway, when it happens I'm off to America to see if I can better myself.' He looked a little sheepish, and then added, 'I dream of it Anna, doing really well there.'

  'Oh Clancy dear...' Anna caught at his arm as they reached the canal. The boat was already there, and one or two passengers were climbing aboard. The bargeman, recognising Anna, gave her a cheery wave and indicated she should hurry.

  'Clancy, I'm sorry, I have to go...'

  'Yes. I just wondered if... what you thought about it.'

  Clancy took Anna's arm as she clambered aboard, and then walked along the towpath to talk to her as she settled herself at the rear of the barge. He leaned towards her.

  'Ye didn't say... Anna... ye didn't say...' he entreated in a loud whisper.

  'What?' Her face was stricken. The bargeman took the tiller and the canal boat began to move away. Clancy walked alongside, eyes locked with Anna's.

  'Are ye coming darlin'? To America? Are ye coming with me?' She did not answer. The boat drew away and she mouthed 'I'll see you next week...'

  Clancy raised his hand in acknowledgement and watched the barge recede slowly. Then he turned away and walked back along the canal path. It was only when he reached the main road that he realised he had not asked Anna to marry him.

  ~

  'Have you any idea?' Robert asked, his brush poised in mid air, 'Just how beautiful you are?'

  Anna froze. His tone had been conversational, but he had never said anything like it before, and she did not know how to respond.

  Robert laughed. 'Modest too, unbelievable in this day and age.'

  Anna gazed steadfastly ahead. Eventually she said, 'What do you mean, what is unbelievable?'

  'The fact that you are unaware of your looks. Most young ladies of my acquaintance who have any sort of beauty use their looks to get what they want.'