by Pam Weaver
‘Chip off the old block!’ said another.
‘No, I’m not,’ she said, trying to get up with dignity.
‘Just look at the state of her. Next stop she’ll be out in the alley for a pee and a puke, by the looks of her. Shame on you, lass. Don’t come in here tellin’ us what’s what!’ The old men were ganging up against her now.
Mirren staggered into the street and the cold hit her. She made for the nearest lamppost and leaned on it to steady herself. She was about to turn when a middle-aged man in a grey mac and trilby came up to her.
‘How much?’
‘How much for what?’ she replied.
‘How much for the business? Just up the wall, nothing fancy, a hand job’ll do…’
She still hadn’t cottoned on. Then it clicked and she saw Woodbine Winnie, with her back to the wall and her drawers round her ankles while some man humped her up and down; the other girls pacing the pavements, looking for trade while she sat outside this wretched place.
‘I’ve got nothing for sale,’ she snapped.
‘What, a looker like you, all dolled up and asking for it? How much?’
‘Bugger off or I’ll call the police. What do you take me for?’
‘A drunken tart who’s down to her last sixpence and needs a punter, or aren’t I good enough for you?’ he shouted.
‘Just leave me alone,’ she shouted, trying not to shake at the enormity of his words. Had it come to this?
She stumbled down familiar streets, feeling dizzy and sick, and then she threw up over the pavement and gasped at the danger she was finding herself in.
So it had come to this: back in the gutter where she belonged, skint, gasping for another drink, cold and out of her head with whisky. She was no different from her dad after all, just another loser, another lost cause. What was the point?
All those broken promises: everything she touched she destroyed. All her promises to be sober had turned to farce. What was there to be sober for? There was nothing worth living for.
Jack had tried to help and died in the attempt. Ben had tried to protect her from herself and she’d sent him packing. She was nothing but a useless bit of cow muck with no willpower and no pride left. One difficult day and it was back to square one. What was the point of going on?
It was still 8 May, the date forever branded into her brain. Victory in Europe. Where was her victory?
She found herself walking towards the railway station along the side of the track, a familiar path she knew since childhood. How many times had she guided her drunken father carefully over the rails, the short cut across towards their carriage home? The one night she hadn’t bothered he’d been killed. There was another life she’d destroyed but it was not going to happen again.
Like father, like daughter, better just to follow in his footsteps and get it over with, no more messing up, letting people down. She just wanted to go to sleep and put an end to the misery. No point in troubling anyone ever again. There was nothing to live for, not now, and no one cared if she lived or died. Better to call it quits and let them off the hook.
Mirren lay across the track–at least it would be quick–but the iron rails dug into her back and she shifted into a ball between the rails. Nothing came.
Perhaps it was just a shunting line. Perhaps it was easier to keep walking and be hit in the guts by one of those big black steaming monsters that scared her as a child. It wouldn’t see her coming but she would hear it in the distance.
Her head was spinning and she was sobering up in the chill air. Her courage was failing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake come quickly,’ she yelled into the darkness but nothing came. Now she was shivering and sobering fast. It had to come soon…
‘Don’t be a numpty, Mirren. Away to yer scratcher!’ A long-forgotten voice pierced her head. ‘Away home to yer bed, the now!’ There it was again.
‘Dad?’ she called out, seeing him walking along the line swinging a lantern into her face. ‘Away home. This is no place for yer, mo ghoil!’
‘Dad? I’m here!’ she shouted, running towards him.
‘Who’s that on my line? Get off, you bloody fool. Don’t you know there’s a train coming?’
The guardsman swung the lantern into her face. ‘What on earth are you doing here, miss? You’re trespassing. Get off at once!’
‘I was just taking a short cut,’ she heard herself say.
‘Like hell you were…I know what you were up to: taking a short cut to hell, more like. Just get off this line at once and don’t come back! It’s me as has to scrape you off the track and I’ve done a fair too many of late to want any more messy jobs. Don’t you have a home to go to? This is the end of the world for you, the end of the line, if you step back on.’
Meekly she hurried back to the embankment and scrambled up, shaking at what she had just been about to do, and sat down trembling. He was right. This was the end of her world. So easy to give up. No more worries. How could she even think of it?
Not now, when she was sure she’d heard Dad calling her like he did when she was lost in the snow on the night she found World’s End. She had seen it sparkling in the snow, her refuge and comfort through so many sorrows. There was another end of the world after all, she remembered. Her heart was thudding with confusion.
How could she go back and face World’s End, knowing what she had tried to do? Whose was the voice she had heard? Had her father come to rescue her? She’d gone in search of him and he had found her. Her dad had stopped her in his tracks. Why? Who would rescue a girl like her? How could he think her worthy of saving after all she’d done? But he had!
She sat on the chilly grass and sobbed and sobbed. The dam had burst and the floodgates opened at long last. She wept for Sylvie and howled for Jack’s needless accident and the fact that she’d never said goodbye. He tried to do his best. She wept for the woman she’d become and the shame she’d brought on her family. What a mess, what a sorry mess she’d made of everything.
‘I am weak and I have no more strength left.’ In a flash she knew she had sunk so low and come to the end of the line. ‘Dad,’ she cried out into the darkness. ‘I can’t stay sober on my own. I need help. Oh God, Dad, please help me. I can’t go back to World’s End like this. Where can I go?’
There was silence and then the clanking of iron wheels on rails in the distance. The world was going on just the same. No matter what tragedy she’d suffered it would go on turning.
She stood up, sobered, her head rinsed clear by tears, and began to walk slowly back towards Scarperton. Everywhere was shuttered and silent. Turning away from the station a name, a place came into her head and it was not far from here. It was worth a try. This time she hoped the gates of the asylum would open and shut her in.
The telegram from Mirren was brief.
‘DO NOT SEND SEARCH PARTY. I WILL CONTACT SOON. GOOD LUCK BEN. MIRREN.’
‘Now what are we to make of this? Another of her little tricks?’ sniffed Florrie.
‘She’s a funny one but at least we know she’s safe and in one piece. You hear such tales these days. I never slept a wink last night, wondering where she was, but she’s let us know even if it’s not good news.’
Ben was packing his things up, relieved that Mirren was safe. She’d gone on the razzle and sobered up enough to keep them in touch. She was too ashamed to come home until she had got her act together so she could fool them all again. This would be the pattern for years to come and he’d never be able to trust her not to have slipups. It was all hopeless and beyond him. Better to get out now.
He couldn’t go on mollycoddling her. It was time to let go of his dream of ever having her to himself. Florrie was right: she was a hopeless cause. Time for a change of sky.
There was an agricultural college near York that was advertising courses for practical supporters and an emergency teaching diploma. It would do him good to have a look at other aspects of farming–arable and animal husbandry. Teaching was in his blood,
after all. He might try another farm or go abroad.
He would like to learn more about proper crop growing after all the blunders they had made trying to grow oats in this high altitude. Perhaps he could take in some estate management. The possibilities were legion, but his heart would always be in limestone scree and pastures, here in the Dales.
There was no point hanging about. Tom gave him a bonus and some extra. He was letting them down but there would be men demobbed soon and back in the fields. He said his farewells and made for the station. No use hankering over what would never be. Time to move on. He was not wanted here.
17
They were sitting on the grass in the shade of one of the big ash trees. The asylum garden was well tended and it was a beautiful June afternoon so the group were meeting outside.
‘My name is Mirren, Miriam Sowerby, and I am an alcoholic.’ There, it was said, and it was as hard as giving birth to admit those words to herself and to a circle of patients in the very place she’d visited Jack not that long ago.
Dr Kaplinsky was sitting at the back, silent, watching her first confession.
‘I was teetotal until my daughter, Sylvia, died in an accident. My husband was a drinker, as was my father, but I thought I would never take to strong drink, especially whisky. But I did and it became my only source of comfort. I know now I can’t take anything with alcohol in it. One drink leads to another. I’ve not had a drink since May the eighth, the first anniversary of Sylvia’s death. With God’s help I will try to go through this day without a drink.
‘To feed my habit, I stole things that weren’t mine, I betrayed a loving friendship. I let my family down but most of all I let myself believe it was everyone’s fault but mine for letting my child die in such a way. I blamed my husband and my cousin. There is no justice in life’s events and life’s not always fair or in my control. I see that now. Others have suffered like me one way or another but I must only talk about what I know.
‘I thought I was alone and abandoned, and I lay down on the railway track, wanting to die like Anna Karenina in the book, but I couldn’t do it. Don’t ask me why. I heard my dad’s voice calling me to get up and telling me off, and a man came out of nowhere and shooed me away so perhaps I was not meant to go in that fashion…I don’t know. Perhaps I didn’t end my life because I was too scared. I heard a train and I wanted to live. That’s all I know. Then I decided to come here and ask for help. Sounds simple but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I hated this place when I visited Jack here but I know I can’t stay sober on my own.’
Everyone clapped.
‘You chose life, Mirren,’ said the man sitting next to her. ‘You chose life over death. Every day you say no to a drink, you choose life.’
‘Do you think so? How can I ever stay sober?’ she asked.
‘By doing what you’ve just done: acknowledging your weakness and asking for help from others, from a higher power than just your willpower. That way you’re never alone, never abandoned, and if it gets too much try to keep busy with other things. You can do it but it won’t be easy. One day at a time is all we can ask of ourselves,’ he said, and the others nodded.
A woman smiled and added, ‘There’ll always be temptation but put it in the corner of the room, not centre stage. Keep busy and you’ll find ways to be the master, not its slave. You can do it!’
Dr Kaplinsky edged forward. ‘Have you thought that May the eighth is a good date to remember? It will always be Victory in Europe and, of course, a sad day of loss for ever. But it is also for you, Miriam. Victory over alcohol, the day when you discovered your true self and began the battle you’ll have to fight for the rest of your life. Every time you choose to be sober, you win another victory. Sylvia and Jack will be proud.’
Mirren stayed in the hospital for six weeks, using her savings to pay for her stay. They had given her the latest electric pad treatment, shocked her brain, giving her such a headache and fuzzy feeling. Her mouth tasted of rubber but it was the talking with other patients that helped her most, knowing they were all fighting the same battle to stay sober that she was.
There was nobody to rely on now but herself and the support of her new friends. Dr Kaplinsky and the nurse slowly taught her to respect her own strengths, to grieve over what had gone and to let it go, to plan ways to feel good again.
Somewhere in all their discussions she had discovered some way to forgive herself for being weak, to forgive Jack and Paddy too for being human like herself–no better, no worse. It would take a lifetime to fathom it all out.
How she longed for World’s End, for the peace and solitude it would give her.
In the high summer of 1946 when she returned to Cragside and got stuck into haymaking she was sad to see Ben had taken her advice and left. There was so much she wanted to tell him and share.
Tom was struggling and she stayed on at Cragside and tried to make her peace with Florrie, but it was not easy. Too much had happened. It was better just to help with the influx of summer visitors to the farm, cooking, cleaning, showing she meant business this time.
The visitors spilled out to World’s End Cottage, for the income was needed now.
In September she wrote to Dr Kaplinsky, thanking him for his help and offering World’s End as a respite stop for any people he felt needed fresh air and quiet to get their broken lives back together again. All they needed to bring were their ration books.
She welcomed strangers, refugees, all sorts of humanity for a few weeks to walk the hills and draw breath. The path to World’s End was well trod.
She often thought of Ben, working across the county now, getting on with his life without her to worry about. She’d sent him away in a fit of pique and bitterly regretted his absence. Cragside was not the same without his cheery banter. They had said stuff she wished could be unsaid. She almost wrote to him but then thought better of it. Best to leave well alone. It was enough to get through each week sober.
Her greatest thrill was a trip to Scarperton long overdue, stepping down the cobbled street to see Sam Layberg’s shop to redeem Gran’s brooch. As luck would have it, the brooch was still in its box after all those months.
He stared up at her over his glasses and smiled as he handed it back.
‘I said I’d come for it. Took longer than I thought,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘You’ve kept your promise to yourself, young lady, and restored my faith in humanity. Wear it with pride. It’s too beautiful a jewel to be in a pawnshop, just like yourself.’
There was a spring in her step after that little remark. She crossed the road to avoid reminders of the Golden Lion, making for the Copper Kettle tearoom instead. In half an hour it would be time to catch a bus to the hospital for her monthly meeting with Dr Kaplinsky. This rendezvous was her lifeline, her hope for the future, her own World’s End.
Part Three
The Snow House
18
1947 She can just see the dark head among the buttercups, ribbons and ringlets bobbing in the wind, chasing across Stubbins pasture but the child is out of sight and suddenly there are nettles and tall burned grasses hiding her from view. She calls and calls but there is no answer.
Mirren was woken by the chill, dragged from her dreaming, dragged from the solace of chasing Sylvia. Why did she have to wake up?
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
She heard herself calling out the lines from her favourite Rossetti poem. Asleep, fully clothed on top of her bed again, woken only by the chill of the icy bedroom stabbing her back into consciousness, this was getting to be a habit, a lazy habit.
It was Sunday, with twenty cows to be milked, but no breakfasts to make for the men and time to please herself, she hoped, while cracking the ice in the water bowl. Had she remembered to bank up the Rayburn to keep the back boiler going?
This falling asleep fully clothed, piled high with musty blankets, had to stop. She opened
the shutters to look out on the February morning.
If only the sky was not so pigeon grey, darkening from the north. She needed no weatherglass to know there was snow on the wind. The old fears were creeping into the corners of her mind, closer, closer, making her uneasy. She hated snow.
She would have to crack the ice on the water tank again with the axe. The chores were all hers for the day: buckets of water to the indoor beasts, mucking out, chickens to feed, fields to scan for sheep. Thank God most were gathered down from the fellside closer into the farm, but there were stragglers out on the tops that would need rounding up.
The lorry would not be dropping off Kurt and Dieter from the German POW camp to help with evening milking. It was church in Scarperton for them and a long trek back for Sunday dinner.
Florrie might call in for tea as usual, walking up from Windebank after taking her Sunday school class, if it faired up. They had made a truce of sorts since Mirren’s return. She liked to keep an eye on her daughter-in-law, just in case. Even after all these sober months no one could quite believe she meant it.
Sunday or not, it was all the same here; udders must be emptied and milk collected up. The new live-in girl, Doreen, was visiting her parents, the cow man was courting down at Rigg village but if the weather closed in again she was in for a packet of trouble to deal with all by herself.
The snow fences needed repairing from the last downfall before Christmas, and they were getting low on fodder.
If it was bad Florrie would make straight for home back at Scar Head and she would be spared her incessant chatter about Ben’s new job on a farm near York. He wrote to Florrie but not to her. There was nothing to say. She’d shoved him away from the nest and he’d made another life. Good luck to him.
Florrie found comfort in her chapel work and seemed to think it was just what Mirren needed to come out of herself and be more sociable. Once she sat down to wolf down a plate of ham and eggs, there was no stopping her. It made Mirren’s ears ache, all that wittering on about having no new clothes to wear. Who had, after six years of war and nearly two more years of make do and mend?