by Maggie Hope
The landlady gave Nick an uncompromising stare and he dropped his eyes in embarrassment and looked unhappily at the worn brown linoleum on the floor of the passage outside his room. He had had another bad night, the third since he came to this lodging house in Claypath, Durham City.
‘But where can I go? What can I do? The doctor said I must …’
‘This isn’t a bloody hospital, man! It doesn’t matter to me what the doctor said.’ The landlady put her hands on her hips and became even more strident. ‘That’s my last word on’t. Out. By twelve o’clock, mind.’ Turning on her heel, she descended the narrow staircase on her way back to the kitchen.
Nick watched her descent hopelessly. Sighing he went back into his room and began to gather together his few personal belongings. The twitch under his right eye was working furiously and his hands were trembling. Where could he go? There weren’t many places in Durham left to try.
It was all the fault of these nightmares, he thought. Last night had been a bad one though. He shuddered as he remembered it. Vividly he had relived all the terrors of the trenches in the time before the shell burst so close to him. How everything had gone into slow motion. The horror of seeing his friend disappear into a thousand pieces beside him before the splinter which took his arm brought him merciful oblivion. But the nightmares were almost worse. These nights he went through it all again but didn’t wake up in a field hospital. No, he woke up in this small, smelly room in a cheap lodging house.
Last night he had wet the bed. The cold, clammy sheets had made his dream even more hideously real, so like the cold wet mud of the trenches. He had screamed aloud, over and over again, bringing the whole household awake and into his room before turning away in disgust at the smell.
‘Bloody hell, man,’ one of the lodgers had shouted as he stood at the door wearing only his shirt. ‘Aa thowt the Huns were ’ere! Why, man, pull theesel’ together. What a bloody stink!’ Holding his nose ostentatiously he had stamped back to his own room, muttering about snivelling bairns under his breath. And Nick had seen the disgust on the faces of the other men before they too turned away.
He was left with his shrinking shame. Now, as he packed his old kit bag, he wondered wildly what he was going to do. Then the memory came like a sudden shaft of light through clouds. Karen. He would go to see Sister Knight and she would tell him what to do. Sister Knight always knew what he should do. She would help him. Shouldering his kit bag, he straightened his back and marched down the stairs. Now at least he had a plan.
‘Right, you off then?’ The landlady was waiting for him at the foot of the staircase. She held out her hand. ‘That will be ten shillings rent you owe me. There’s the washing and the cleaning and the week’s rent.’
She favoured Nick with a belligerent stare, as though she was expecting an argument. But he simply put down his bag and reached into the pocket of his worn overcoat, a relic from pre-war days for he hated to wear his uniform greatcoat. He pulled out a handful of coins and one or two crumpled notes and handed her the money. Grabbing it from him as if she felt he might change his mind, she opened the door to the street.
‘Right then, away wi’ ye. And good riddance! Ye aughta be in Sedgefield loony bin, man!’
Her parting shot struck straight through Nick but he did not look back or try to retort. Head held high, he carried on down the street until he turned the corner.
Sedgefield, he thought bitterly. Maybe she was right and he did belong in a mental hospital. Putting it out of his mind, he considered his diminishing store of money and decided to walk to Morton Main. After all, it was only a few miles and there was the incentive of seeing his beloved Sister Knight when he got there. She was his lifeline, she would understand.
Nick was very tired, the lack of sleep of the night before combined with a still poor physical condition making him ache all over with the effort needed to cover the stretch of road between Old Morton and Morton Main. His head was aching and his kit bag weighed a ton.
He was thankful when he reached the house of Karen’s parents and put his bag down on the step while he knocked on the door. It was a warm day and he was feeling very hot and bothered so he searched in his pocket for his grimy handkerchief and wiped his face. He could feel the stubble on his chin, uncomfortable against the cloth, and he felt dirty and disreputable. For the first time he began to doubt his reception.
‘Yes?’
The door had opened and a strange woman stood there, a woman a few years older than Karen, thicker set, yet bearing a strong family likeness. She was looking at him with a frown and he was intimidated.
‘Er … does Sister Knight live here?’
His voice squeaked as he stood up straight, instinctively turning slightly so that his missing limb was not noticeable.
‘She’s not here. What do you want?’
Kezia stared at the slightly smelly, scruffy young man. What could he want with their Karen? And hadn’t she herself enough on her plate with Mam upset and Da’s dinner to get, then there was Luke and the bairns to see to.
‘What is it, Kezia? What’s the matter?’
Now Mam had come to the front door and was peering over her shoulder. Kezia was doubly vexed. She hadn’t wanted Mam to be disturbed.
‘Just a tramp, Mam.’ In her vexation she spoke with little regard for Nick’s feelings. ‘He says he knows our Karen. It’s all right now, you go back and sit down. We don’t want to have to get the doctor, do we?’
Her voice was tender as she took her mother’s arm and tried to lead her back into the kitchen where a fire was burning even on this warm day.
However, Mrs Knight would have none of it. ‘Kezia, how can you? Where’s your Christian spirit? You must give the young man some food and see what he wants with Karen.’ As sometimes happens with frail women, she was becoming a little shrill in her animation.
‘I just want to know where she is …’ Nick interjected diffidently. He knew he was shabby and needed a shave but was still shaken at being taken for a tramp.
‘But what do you want with her?’ Kezia was not going to give him information about her sister’s whereabouts without knowing more about him.
‘Well, she gave me this address and said that I …’ Nick faltered.
‘Karen’s gone away. She’s gone up the dales. Come in, young man, and we’ll give you some food and a couple of bob. Not that we have much ourselves but we can spare you that,’ Mam said kindly.
‘Mam!’ Kezia, who did not believe in encouraging layabouts, looked horrified. ‘Food, yes, but not money.’ She looked at her mother, whose colour was a little too high and eyes a little too bright. She knew the warning signs.
‘All right, Mam, all right. Now you come and sit by the fire in the kitchen, I’ll see to it.’
Unprotesting, her brief show of strength over, the mother did what she was bid by the capable daughter. It was true, she felt a bit off-colour today, what with Karen going just when she had got used to having her back. For something told her that she wasn’t going to have her youngest daughter living at home any more. Then there was Joe living in Australia. Though he was in Europe now there was no guarantee he would even see them before he went back to his adopted country. But there was still Kezia and the bairns, she thought. That was a comfort.
Kezia saw her settled and went back to the tramp at the door, but he was gone. Strange! She stepped into the street and looked up and down but there was no sign of him. Shrugging, she closed the door and took a quick inventory of the front room to make sure nothing was missing before going through to the kitchen again.
‘He’s gone, Mam. Some of these tramps are funny folk. I suppose they have to be, to be tramps in the first place. They don’t like other people, that’s what it is. Now forget about him. We were willing to feed him, it’s not our fault he took off. I’ll make a nice cup of tea, eh? Before I start the dinner.’
She bustled around the kitchen, filling the big, iron kettle and putting it on the fire, settling it do
wn safely on the steel bars. Surely she had enough on her mind without worrying about strange tramps!
Nick had taken advantage of the women being occupied with each other to slip away down the street. He was shaken by the offer of charity. He still had some money left from the army and anyway he had worked for his own living ever since he left the Home when he was fourteen.
This had been a flaming, rotten, bloody day. Why couldn’t he just start again now he was out of that devil of a war? He pondered it as he left the long, straggling streets behind and struck out on the road back out of the village, the road he had come in by earlier. A cart trundled past him on its way to Durham but Nick ignored the driver’s offer of a lift. He wasn’t in the mood to mix with people. He would just walk along till he came to a haystack or barn where he could spend the night.
Maybe it was true, he wasn’t fit to live with, he thought bitterly. The doctors hadn’t helped him much, too busy and too impatient like everybody else. Except for Sister Knight. She was never impatient with him. She was good and kind and always had time for him.
Where was she? He thought about it as he kicked up dust in the road. Maybe he would never find her, maybe she didn’t care. The humiliation of his encounter with the woman who resembled a fairer and plumper Karen seared his mind. Tramp! He was no tramp. Kezia’s words came back to him. What was it she had said? ‘Up the dales’, that was it. That was where Karen was. He could go up the dales. He knew where that was, hadn’t he worked in Tynedale? Why, he knew the way there from Durham. He could go to Tynedale and someone there would tell him where Karen was.
Lifting his head resolutely, he stepped out more firmly. He would find somewhere to sleep and tomorrow he would buy a train ticket to Hexham from his dwindling store of money. Coming into Morton village he bought a steak and kidney pie and a bottle of ginger beer for his supper. He took the road back to Durham and, coming upon a stone barn which he had noticed earlier in the day, settled himself in a corner hidden from the road. There were still the remains of a hay crop in it and he made a nice bed from it, pulling the loose hay around him.
Taking out his ginger beer and pie he began his supper, feeling easier in his mind now he had a plan. From Hexham he could explore the dales and the weather was nice and clement so he could sleep rough. Content, he finished his simple meal and taking his boots off lay down to sleep.
Nick woke in the grey dawn to the busy chirping of the sparrows nesting in the roof of the barn and the cold morning mist prevalent in the North-East. He had slept soundly with no nightmares to trouble him, for a change. Shivering he tried to pull more hay around him in his corner but it was no use, he couldn’t get back to sleep. He was too uncomfortable altogether.
Reluctantly he got up and brushed the hay from his clothes, putting his boots on with his one arm and tying the laces as he had been taught, using his teeth to help. Going out to the farmyard only a short distance away, he stealthily drank from the pump by the horse trough. It was ice-cold, but welcome. A cow lowed in the shed and he looked up quickly at the blank windows but the house remained quiet. Not even a dog barked. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he picked up his kit bag and set off on his quest once again.
Chapter Eighteen
AS KAREN STEPPED out of the station at Stanhope in Weardale, the sun was warming the old stone-built town with its late-afternoon glow. Her heart lifted to the remembered beauty of the scene. The station was in a hollow and she looked up to the main part of the town on top of the bank opposite, surrounded by green hills.
Karen had picked a Monday to come because it was Gran’s shopping day and she could have a ride up to the farm without causing Gran the inconvenience of turning out specially. Even as she looked up the road she saw the old trap with the farm pony, Polly, in the traces, coming down the incline. But Gran was not holding the reins, it was a middle-aged man whom Karen recognized as Gran’s nearest neighbour, Fred Bainbridge.
‘Hallo there, lass, I’ve come to pick you up. I was coming into Stanhope for the messages anyroad, and your gran isn’t so well today.’
‘Hallo, Mr Bainbridge, how are you? It’s good of you to come for me. What’s wrong with Gran, do you know?’ Karen said as he jumped from the trap and lifted her boxes into the back, swinging them up easily.
‘She’s all right, you know,’ he continued as he saw Karen’s look of concern, ‘just a bit of a cold. She’s not getting any younger, like. I’ve been helping her out a bit lately, what with all the lads off to that dratted war.’
Karen’s face cleared with relief. ‘Well, so long as it isn’t anything serious. Oh, Mr Bainbridge, I haven’t seen you for years but you look just the same as you did then. And Mrs Bainbridge and the family? Are they well?’ Karen climbed into the seat beside him as she spoke.
‘Aye, fine.’
Wasting no time, he clucked at Polly and they were away up to the town, past the imposing avenue of lime trees along the broad main street. Karen had a brief glimpse of the medieval church on the right and the castle and market place on the left before they were leaving the town and turning to climb the moorland road leading higher up the fell.
They both got down from the trap to ease the load on old Polly as they came to the steepest part of the road, walking along in quiet companionship. Mr Bainbridge was kindly but taciturn as were so many of the hill farmers and Karen knew better than to chatter needlessly.
She was worried about Gran despite his assurances. Gran loved her outing to Stanhope and the Co-op store. There was a bus service now, to and from Wolsingham, and there was the railway, so the town could get quite busy. After the quiet of the hills, Gran enjoyed a bit of life. I’ll soon see how she is for myself, Karen thought, and turned her attention to the countryside around.
The heather was just coming into leaf, giving a slight greenish tinge to the brown of the moor. Close at hand small patches of brighter green showed where new grass was pushing up in the warmer weather. Once out of the valley there were few trees except for the clumps planted round the farms as windbreaks.
‘Oh, I’d forgotten how empty the moor seems,’ said Karen. ‘The farms seem to be planted in the middle of nowhere, don’t they? No roads to be seen, just the empty land.’
‘Hmm,’ said Mr Bainbridge, looking slightly surprised.
She turned back to her contemplation of the fell. At the wayside there were wild flowers, violets and celandines beginning to peep out at the world from little hollows in the stony ground. By, it’s grand, she thought, her spirits lifting in tune with the spring.
‘Nearly there now, lass.’
Karen jumped as Fred’s quiet tones broke into her thoughts, making her sit up in eager anticipation. Sure enough, there was the track leading to Low Rigg, the little farm which had been tenanted by Gran’s family for so long. Oh, how she had always loved coming here.
And there was the rowan tree, planted by her grandfather, or maybe it was her grandmother’s father, to ward off the devil and bring good luck. It stood only a few yards from the gate of the yard, rooted firmly in the rocky soil against the sweeping winds which came over the top of the moor from Westmoreland. It was sturdy and strong with its feathery green leaves so fresh and lovely, the white of the flowers to come just bursting from the bud. The rowan tree. For Karen it was always the symbol of the old place, reminding her of childhood days on the farm with Joe and Kezia. The few green fields clustered around the old stone buildings, the spring grass bright in the sun, were like an oasis on the fell, she thought.
‘You’re here then.’
Gran was standing in the scullery doorway wiping her hands on a sacking apron. She looked somewhat diminished from Karen’s memory of her, slighter, older. Of course she’s older, Karen chided herself. But her smile was the same as it had always been and Karen climbed down from the trap and ran to kiss her cheek, rough and reddened by a lifetime of working out of doors.
‘Coming in for a cup of tea, Fred?’ Gran called over her shoulder to Mr Bainbridg
e, who was lifting supplies out of the trap before taking Polly out of the traces and leading her to the low fell.
‘I don’t think so, Jane, if you don’t mind.’ Fred put the box of groceries on the scullery table. ‘I’ll have to get back for the milking. John is over at Rookhope working and May finds it hard now on her own. So I’ll likely see you next week, eh?’
With a nod and a smile for Karen, he mounted his motor bike which he had left in the yard while he took the trap to Stanhope, and rode further down the track to his own place.
Karen and Gran moved into the farmhouse kitchen where the shadows were already gathering and a warm fire was lit against the chill of the evening. Karen relaxed visibly and took off her hat, refusing to think about the letter in her pocket.
‘Now then, lass, tell me what has happened to you since I saw you last. How did you like working in Essex? Are you glad to be back up here?’
‘Oh, yes, Gran, I am glad to be back, and especially glad to be back in Weardale. I’m so glad to see you.’ She gave the old lady an impulsive hug which was returned with interest. Brown eyes smiled into brown eyes with loving accord.
‘We’ll have our tea then,’ was all Gran said. Nothing else was needed. She bustled around laying the table with ham and pease pudding, sour milk scones and bramble jam. An iron kettle was bubbling on the fire and she pulled it forward, steadying it on the brass rail before mashing the tea. She covered the brown teapot with a patchwork tea cosy and together they pulled up the bare kitchen chairs to the table.
‘Eeh, I am glad to see you lass, I am. We’ll have a good crack when we’ve had our tea, eh?’
‘Aye, Gran.’ Karen slipped easily into the local way of talking. She sat down at the table and Gran poured the tea. They both had healthy appetites, even Karen who had been off her food lately, and made short work of the meal. Afterwards Karen sat back with a sigh of repletion and looked at Gran.