No Greater Love

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  She watched the expression on his face turn from angry frustration to bewildered resignation. He jammed on his hard hat, tight-lipped, and strode to the door, exchanging a look of animosity with George.

  ‘Mr Heslop,’ Maggie said as he reached for the door handle. ‘Please give Susan my love and best wishes for Saturday.’

  He gave her the curtest of nods. Then George blocked his way with an arm on the door.

  ‘If you betray Maggie to the police or anyone else, I’ll come after you, Heslop,’ he threatened.

  Heslop glared back. ‘I’ve already given my word that I’ll do nothing of the sort.’

  George stood back and Heslop dived for the open door, slamming it behind him. The candle snuffed out.

  For a moment, Maggie stood staring at the place where her old family friend had been and felt an acute wave of loneliness engulf her like the sudden darkness of the room. Then George’s arms went about her and pulled her into his warm hold. She leant against him and sobbed quietly into his rough jacket as he caressed her head.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Geordie,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, Maggie man, I’ll never leave you,’ he promised fervently, clinging to her tighter.

  She looked at him with haunted eyes in her tear-stained face. ‘No, I mean tonight. Don’t leave me alone tonight.’ For a moment he seemed not to understand. Then he bent and kissed her gently on the lips.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want, pet,’ George whispered into her hair.

  Maggie took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom.

  That night was a startling awakening for Maggie. Faint gaslight filtered in from the street through the dirty skylight, but hardly penetrated the blackness of the box room. They undressed in an awkward, expectant silence, each as bashful as the other to be seen naked. In the end they got into bed still in their undergarments, shivering at the touch of the chilled bedding, and reached for one another, thankful of the dark.

  For a while they simply lay and held each other, wondering what to do next. Maggie, having invited the intimacy, had no clue how to act. In the raciest film she had seen, the actress just lay on a couch looking furtive. Perhaps this lying together in the same bed was sex, she thought in bafflement.

  George lay, overcome with nerves. He had only had lasses standing up in back lanes, never lying down. They had been older girls, doing it for coppers or food and he had hardly touched them. Sex had been a quick gratification, for mutual self-interest, a transaction carried out and quickly forgotten, a bodily function like eating or urinating. But here he was, lying next to the woman he had desired for months, petrified she would find him disgusting, would turn her face to the wall in boredom or disdain like the other girls he had penetrated. He was paralysed, yet already aroused.

  Maggie spoke softly. ‘Kiss me, Geordie, man.’

  George felt relief as he began to cover her hair and face with gentle exploring kisses. Soon their kissing became more urgent, the exploration more daring and the lovemaking began.

  Maggie, who had not even seen her own brother naked, was fascinated and aghast at George’s body. The touch and smell of the man was quite alien and the way her own body responded to his caressing was terrifying and thrilling. Under the warming bedlinen they wriggled out of their clothes, eager to experience more.

  Awkwardness was forgotten as they gave way to pleasure and excitement on the ancient iron bedstead.

  ‘I love you, Maggie!’ George whispered.

  Maggie held him fiercely and responded, ‘Don’t ever leave me now.’

  ‘Never!’ he promised and kissed her tenderly.

  Later, George fell asleep, his arm resting across Maggie, heavy and protective. But she lay awake, staring up at the skylight, thinking of her sister about to embark on the same experience with Richard Turvey.

  Was Susan lying awake nervously at this same moment? Maggie wondered. Would Richard be as affectionate and passionate a lover as George? She could not help thinking that Susan would probably be revolted by the mess and intimacy of the marriage bed and for a moment worried for her elder sister.

  But after tonight, Maggie knew she could not possibly return to her family as if nothing had happened. They would look at her and know.

  No, Maggie thought with only a twinge of regret, she had put herself beyond the pale of society, just as Rose had accused. She was not only an arsonist and a criminal, as Heslop had said, she was also a fornicator. It sounded such a harsh, unforgiving word, she thought sleepily, denying the depth of love she felt. Yet that is how the world would judge her for giving herself unreservedly to George Gordon, the loving, strong man at her side.

  Maggie kissed his sleeping face, comforted by the feel of his regular warm breath on her cheek, and fell asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Susan woke on her wedding morning to see snow lying like a sprinkling of sugar over the densely packed roofs and cobbled lanes around Gun Street. It gleamed in the dark and for an instant she was delighted by the dazzle of whiteness covering the grime of the back yards and listened to the silence that had descended with the snowfall. It seemed an omen of good luck; of purity, of a fresh beginning. Then Helen spoke from the bed they shared.

  ‘It’ll ruin our shoes,’ she yawned and complained at the same time. ‘We’ll be slipping all o’er the place. And the slush on me new frock—’

  ‘Belt up!’ Susan shouted at her crossly. ‘You’re not going to spoil me wedding day with your whingeing on.’

  Helen stepped out of bed, unconcerned. Susan eyed her warily as she began to unbraid the rags that were twisted into her hair, her bare legs protruding from the too-small nightgown that pulled tightly over her developing breasts. Susan was struck again by the air of defiant confidence, of knowingness that hung about her sister these days. She was just seventeen, yet Helen had the scent and sleekness of an older woman which made Susan feel as awkward as a schoolgirl.

  For the first time, Susan was glad that she was marrying today. She had thought Richard too hasty and would have preferred a respectable period of betrothal while he progressed in his new job until they could afford a house of their own. As it was, they would have to live with Aunt Violet and Uncle Barny and Susan would have to defer to her fussing aunt in all things domestic, instead of running the household as she was used to doing. But Richard had swept aside her doubts, assuring her that he would soon be earning good money and she could have any house in the west of Newcastle that she desired.

  And she did desire. Susan longed and dreamed for the day when she could live again on Sarah Crescent and leave behind the filth and stigma of Gun Street for ever. So she had agreed to Richard’s hasty marriage plans, flattered that he was so eager to become her husband.

  And this morning, with Helen so moody and giving her those superior looks, Susan felt a new urgency to be married and regain her status over her sisters. She only allowed herself a fleeting thought of Maggie, for Maggie’s outrageous behaviour was too painful to contemplate. She had brought shame on the family with her extreme politics. To have a sister who deliberately went to prison and now ran from the police and was rumoured to be the one who carried out the arson attack on the mighty Pearsons; Susan shuddered. She must marry Richard with haste in case he changed his mind about marrying into such a family.

  Dressing in work-a-day clothes and hurrying into the kitchen, she found her mother was already up. She had lit the lamp and made a fresh pot of tea and was toasting stale bread over the fire.

  ‘Mam, you should’ve stayed in bed a bit longer,’ Susan admonished, kissing her mother with sudden affection. Her recent illness had been a constant irritation and worry to Susan, but now that she would be leaving her for the first time in her life, she felt a keen nostalgia for the days when her mother had been the solid dictatorial woman to whom they had all clung - obeying, fearing and loving in equal measure.

  ‘I’ll not lie in me bed on the day me eldest lass is to be wed,’ Mabel protested ‘I’ve dreamed of this
day for you, hinny.’

  ‘Have you, Mam?’ Susan asked in surprise, delighted to see her mother so robust on this special morning.

  ‘Aye,’ her mother nodded, unbending from her task for a moment and turning the heel of bread. ‘I’ve wanted to see you wed more than any of the others.’

  Susan flushed with pleasure. ‘Why, Mam?’

  ‘You’re a home-maker, Susan hinny,’ her mother smiled. ‘Maggie got all the brains and Helen the looks, though it’ll bring them nowt but bother.’ Mabel shook her head and sucked in her weathered cheeks. ‘But all you’ve wanted was to mother folk. Now you’ll have a chance to mother your own, and you deserve it. I know you’ve taken the brunt of bringing up your sisters and brother and it’s time you thought about yourself. I just wish you didn’t have to live in with that complaining old wife Violet.’

  ‘Mam! Aunt Violet’s canny really,’ Susan protested. But she was touched by the sudden concern, the unexpected tenderness. She put her arms about her mother’s burly shoulders and hid her face in the sour-sweet warmth of her neck.

  ‘Mam, I’m sorry I’ve been a bit sharp with you lately. I didn’t mean any of those things about Richard saving the family from the workhouse. You’ve always done your best by us, I know you have. You’ve been the canniest mam we could’ve had.’

  Mabel shook her off, embarrassed. ‘Eeh, haway with you. Gan and help your gran get washed and dressed.’

  The brief intimacy between them was over but Susan would not forget it quickly. How often, when the younger ones had seemed to be getting all the attention, had she yearned for a hug and a confiding word from her mother.

  Mabel had already bent again to her toasting.

  ‘You’ll not drink too much today, will you, Mam?’ Susan asked, her mind once more on her wedding day. She was desperate for it to go well and fearful that it would not.

  But her mother just grunted, ‘You may be about to become Mrs Turvey, but you’re still my lass and you’ll not tell me how to carry on.’

  Susan’s heart sank as she disappeared into the parlour, noticing at once the smell of her grandmother’s incontinence that would have to be disguised with disinfectant and polish before the wedding party that afternoon. The stench of incontinence and the fear of her mother’s behaviour combined to increase her apprehension.

  Mabel stared into the fire and thought of her long dead husband Alec. How he would have relished the wedding day of his firstborn and the excuse for a party. She still saw him as young, as he had been on the day he strode off to work whistling - and never came back. She had watched him from the scrubbed and chalked step of their neat, prosperous home and thought how lucky she was to be married to the tall, broad-backed Scot who commanded such respect in the street. It should have been Alec’s privilege to deliver his daughter into Richard’s care and not John Heslop’s, who would be taking his place in the chapel that day, at Susan’s request.

  Mabel coughed and spat into the flames. John Heslop! The man who had given them friendship and help when she was first widowed and struggling to make ends meet, yet had drawn back from marrying her, Mabel thought bitterly. She had even promised to stop her drinking and to attend chapel if he would take her on for the sake of the children. But he had seen in her eyes that she did not love him and he told her as gently as possible that he did not love her either. So, humiliated, she had thrown him out and sworn that she would rely on no man’s charity; she would raise her children and survive in the world without a man in the house interfering.

  The memory made her defiant. Today she would have a good skinful of booze and the devil take the long-faced teetotallers. Then she could forget that Susan was marrying a fly talker and spendthrift. And she could forget about Maggie and where she might be and what she might be doing, and the soreness in her heart would be dulled for a day.

  ‘What about me, Mam?’ A sleepy voice in the corner disturbed her thoughts. She had forgotten Jimmy asleep on the truckle bed.

  ‘What about you?’ Mabel answered shortly.

  ‘If Maggie got all the brains, Helen the looks and Susan’s the home-maker, what’s special about me?’ he demanded.

  The little bugger had been eavesdropping, she thought in exasperation. Mabel snorted. ‘You, Jimmy? You’re just a daft lad.’

  ‘Mam, I’m serious,’ Jimmy answered in annoyance. ‘Tell us what was different about me?’

  Mabel thought, but could only remember how ill she was the eight months she carried him and the terrible birth, after which she swore she would have no more babies.

  ‘You were the sickly bairn,’ she told him. ‘We expected you to die. But your father wouldn’t let you. He sat up all night and fed you teaspoons of whisky and said the Lord’s Prayer over and over till the sun came up.’ Mabel grunted. ‘So you’ll either be an alcoholic or a priest or both. Now get yourself up and gan and get some water from the pump if it’s not frozen.’

  Jimmy got up and pulled on his trousers and jacket, his look bitterly disappointed. But Mabel had turned again to the fire and did not notice.

  ***

  Susan looked around the room at the glowing faces. Her wedding day appeared to have gone well enough, she thought with relief. She knew she had looked becoming in her new outfit of blue and cream with the matching hat and gloves for which Richard had insisted on paying. Jimmy had managed to last until after the service before soaking his new trousers in a snowball fight with Tommy Smith, and Helen had looked demure in pink. Even her mother had made an effort to smarten her hair and looked quite handsome in a yellow dress and mustard tweed coat that she had salvaged from the second-hand stall.

  Not that she was smart now, Susan thought with disapproval, eyeing her mother as she leant against the piano, her hair falling from its pins, her face flushed with drink as she ordered Richard to play another music hall score.

  But no one else seemed to care, even Aunt Violet was clapping at the music and her quavering voice was joining in with Mary Smith’s. Uncle Barny was wedged in the corner with his cork leg, singing two bars behind the others, his nose a red beacon in the fading light. Behind the horsehair sofa Jimmy and Tommy were swigging beer out of the best china cups and giggling at their own jokes, while Granny Beaton sat beaming vacantly by the fire, sipping ginger wine. John Heslop had stayed only briefly to toast their union in tea and with his departure the wedding party’s inhibitions had relaxed.

  Even so, Susan could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong. Richard, since the chapel service, had seemed preoccupied, almost sullen. He banged aggressively at the keyboard and was drinking twice as much as everyone else. Perhaps, like her, he was just emotional and exhausted. She wished they could now be alone together, so she could have him to herself.

  ‘Give us The Blaydon Races, Richard hinny!’ Mabel shouted, thumping her new son-in-law on the back.

  ‘I told you before, don’t know it, Mrs Beaton,’ he said curtly.

  ‘What! Don’t know... How long’ve you been in Newcastle? Eeh, Violet, get this lad of yours taught quick. He’s a Geordie now.’ She thumped him on the back again.

  Susan stepped forward, sensing her husband’s irritation, and placed a possessive hand on his shoulder. She was sorry none of Richard’s own family had been able to attend the wedding, but if he had felt any disappointment he had not shown it.

  When Susan had expressed regret at not meeting his mother, he had laughed ‘She thinks the Eskimos live up here, darlin’. Too far and too cold for the old doll to travel at this time of year.’

  ‘Perhaps we could travel down and see her in the spring,’ Susan had suggested tentatively, eager to meet Richard’s mother and visit London.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Richard had replied evasively.

  Now Susan said, ‘It’s getting on, Richard. Perhaps we should be going.’

  He looked round at her. ‘Go? We’ve just started celebrating, doll.’ His laugh sounded harsh.

  ‘Aye!’ Mabel waved at her daughter. ‘Gan and make so
me tea if you’re tiring. You’ll need to keep your strength up for the night. Eh, Richard?’ she cackled and slapped him playfully.

  ‘Mam!’ Susan exclaimed, blushing furiously. The thought of being left alone with Richard set her stomach churning with nerves, but she wanted to get the first night over with quickly, so that people would know she was fully a wife and a woman of the world and Helen’s smug smirking would be wiped from her face. It annoyed her that her sister was sitting close to Richard, balanced on the edge of his stool, flitting, and it niggled that Richard did not seem to mind.

  Mary Smith surprised Susan by leaving the group around the piano and taking her by the arm.

  ‘You and me will get the kettle on, hinny. I’m parched and the beer’s running out. Haway!’

  Susan felt a rush of gratitude towards their neighbour and regretted that she had so often dismissed Mary Smith as an inadequate mother and slovenly housekeeper. She had led a hard life with her strange, moody husband who was more often absent than present and yet the woman was always cheerful and generous with what little she had.

  They made tea and brought out rice cakes and more sandwiches and the party continued. It grew dark and the beer and spirits ran out.

  ‘Let’s go to the Gunners!’ Richard suggested, to Susan’s dismay.

  ‘Richard...’

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Susan,’ he cut off her protest, his smile tight. ‘If you don’t want to come, you go on home with Aunt Violet. Me and Uncle Barny will follow on. Eh, General Dodds?’

  ‘ With a ta-ra, ra-ra, ra!’ Barny sang and waved in agreement.

  ‘Aye, Mary,’ Mabel cried, loud with drink, ‘we’ll gan an’ all. Have a little jug in the snug, eh?’

  Susan saw that her mother was hell-bent on a drinking session and wondered if she was deliberately trying to blot out her disappointment that Maggie was not here. John Heslop had been apologetic in failing to persuade Maggie to attend, but he would not disclose where she was hiding and this had annoyed her mother intensely. The whole question of whether Maggie would turn up for the wedding seemed to have irritated Richard too.