by Pam Weaver
Clothing coupons were the least of her worries. How was she going to manage when Kurt and Dieter were repatriated? She’d fallen lucky with them. They were almost family now. They were farmers’ sons and needed no training up on chores. She saw to it that they were well fed and muscled up for the job. The rhythm of a farming life knew no war zones or language barriers. It was a good arrangement.
Then Sam Lund, the shepherd, put her in a mood by going on about the ring round the moon the other week and it being Candlemas. He didn’t like the signs if the sun was breaking through the clouds as it was now.
‘Aye, Missus Sowerby, three circles is a bad sign. A pale moon is growing snow, I reckon,’ he sighed, scratching his cap, searching the sky. ‘I’d rather see a wolf running with me flock than the sun out on Candlemas morn.’
She ignored his warning. Everyone knew February could go either way: snow or rain, black or white. Only a fool thought winter was over. It mostly never started until the back end of January but they’d had such a poor summer and rough December, a mild New Year ought to even things out, but when was life ever fair?
She was glad that Christmas was behind them. Florrie wanted to do it the traditional way: visiting other farms, cards round the table and chapel singalongs. Mirren tried to make a bit of an effort, inviting their Germans for a meal now that the rules against fraternisation were lifted, killing a cockerel and boiling an apology for a Christmas pud just to show willing, but her heart wasn’t in it. Going through the motions sapped every ounce of her energy.
Christmas was for kiddies and families, and a dangerous time for drinkers. The big old Yewell celebrations before the war was what Florrie yearned for, before…No use going over all that.
There were just the three of them now, Mirren, Tom and Florrie, with lodgers in Cragside when they could get them. World’s End was deserted. Her supply of refugees had dried up for the winter. It was too grim in a cold farmhouse at the mercy of every whim of the weather.
Uncle Tom liked to feel he was in charge and gave her orders each week like some farm hand, but Mirren sometimes wished he’d stay put and leave her to get on with things her way.
‘Mirren Sowerby, you’re getting an old grump,’ Florrie would tease. ‘Just look how you’re letting yerself go. When was the last time you looked in the mirror? Ben wouldn’t recognise you,’ she cajoled, as if Mirren was interested in her appearance.
Sometimes she felt as old as the hills with all the sorrows of the world on her back.
There was the usual selection of cast-off overcoats to pile on her shoulders: army greatcoats from the Great War, Ben’s Home Guard one that drowned her, and some tattered mackintoshes at her disposal. There was always one standing stiff with frost like a guard on sentry duty by the range, others hanging on the pulley over the kitchen range to dry off. If they were all sodden then she could pile on the sacks over her head like Sam did. Sheep didn’t care what you looked like in a storm.
Responsibility weighed heavy; she was no shirker of duty. This was her portion and she must swallow it.
No use looking backwards to what once was. One day at a time in soberness. That was her philosophy and it would get her up of a morning in the refrigerated bedroom. She was keeping up the family tradition as best she could. There was no other life on offer. A woman could run this farm as well as any man. No one could say she didn’t do a man’s job as well as most.
There were enough on the tops ready to point the finger at her drunken past, saying that farming was not women’s work, but perhaps she was best kept from the town. There were enough men around the place to keep busy. Doreen might not be much help outdoors but she would give a hand with butter making and kept the surfaces clean enough.
Not that they did much of that now, with all the regulations for subsidies. It was hardly worth the bother.
She missed Ben. He’d kept well out of her way ever since their falling-out. She heard news of him through Uncle Wesley. She’d let a good friend go. No one could fault him. He was reliable and trustworthy, a good stockman who never clock-watched. He could hold his beer and never made a fool of himself, not like her lapses…They’d been a team, two work horses hitched to the same wagon for a while.
When he left she carried on, knocked sideways by her sudden need of him. She had thrown stuff back at him in anger and lost a friend.
Was it her fault that Cragside, once full of coats and gumboots and the noise of dogs and men, had fallen silent? Only the coats were left to bear evidence: Gran and Grandpa Joe passed away, Jack gone, Ben, Daisy married and away, and Sylvia buried in the churchyard. There was no future in this place now.
She had tried to fill the emptiness with whisky, but no longer. There were evacuees who came and went, refugees who lived in for a while up in the cottage, hired hands and POWs to fill the spaces left by Ben and Jack, but no one could stomach the bad winters or the isolation. You have to be born to it, she thought.
This stone house was built to withstand all that wind and blizzard could throw at it, low-roofed, elongated at the back in the old style, with small mullioned windows set into walls filled with rubble, windows glinting south-westwards to catch all the sun’s rays, set foursquare on the cragside, sheltered with a small copse of ash, rowans and beech; a good mile up the track from the Windebank road, easily cut off by snow. Man and beast lived side by side. Sometimes the cattle sheds were the warmest place to shelter, amongst the flesh of the beasts.
She padded downstairs in her rough wool socks. There was yesterday’s porridge stiff on the range. She poured in some milk and hot water, stirring it around. It was lumpy but it would do. Food was fuel. Her appetite was basic but she had to eat to stay warm. Why couldn’t she lie in bed and carry on dreaming?
‘You come to me in dreams that I may live my very life again though cold in death…’ No use going over the past, look forward, but it was weeks since she’d been to a meeting. Somehow it got harder to make the effort. It was time she proved she could go it alone.
Piling on the layers she went to check the water in the shippon. Milking was warm work with cheeks soothed by the flanks of her beasts, its fug of warm straw and dung. She only hoped there was enough fodder to see them through a bad spell.
Crossing the yard with the can full of milk strapped to her back from the cows in the outbarn, she felt the first flakes of snow settling on her cheeks, and shivered. The fight was on again. Sam Lund was right. They were in for another blow-in.
The sooner she did her chores, the sooner she and Jet could drop the latch and turn to the peat fire for comfort. Florrie wouldn’t walk up here in snow. She’d more sense than to risk getting caught on foot.
This would mean Mirren wouldn’t have to take a pan of hot water upstairs and do a strip wash, change her clothes and put on something half decent to show it was her half-day off. She needn’t change the rug in the parlour for the best one, or lay the table properly as Granny Adey used to do every Sunday, the embroidered cloth with the hollyhocks in the corners and lace trim. She could make do with something on her knees in the kitchen, hugging the iron range. There she would have only dogs and ghosts for company.
The old place was full of spirits, rattling, chattering in the wind, stomping hob-nailed boots along the stone-flagged passageways. She didn’t mind them. They had as much right to be here as she did. Sometimes she wished she might catch a glimpse of loved ones, of old Miriam her namesake, her guardian; of Sylvia, but her spirit was elusive. She sensed she wasn’t tied to a house place but roamed free over the fields with a line of old farm dogs chasing behind.
Lately she noticed after evening jobs she was that whacked she fell asleep, nodding off by the firelight like Granny Mutch, but there was no one to tell her off for skipping her darning. Even when she was sitting, there was always mending and knitting, unravelling old jumpers to reknit into something warm to wear that fooled no one. They always held back a fleece to spin up and dye. Florrie did a whole baby layette for Sylvia.
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sp; Florrie was always trying to get her interested in sewing. Mirren was happiest left to herself, and that was taken wrong among the other farmers’ wives, who thought her snooty and standoffish. She was a drunkard who by rights ought not to be running Cragside, taking jobs from the men. They were suspicious. She didn’t go to the Women’s Institute or to church. Her trips down to Scarperton on market days were brief and she lingered only at the library to change her books. There was always temptation to sniff the air and she might be lost again. Funny, spirits no longer had a hold of her senses. They just made her feel sad at those wasted months.
Florrie was right about her appearance, though. She must look a fright in a pair of old jodhpurs and holey jumper, but who was to know if she missed her lick and a promise, she smiled. It was too cold to get undressed. Happen she smelled of the farmyard to strangers, but could smell nothing amiss herself.
Where had all the ‘golden locks’ gone that Sylvia used to twist around her finger and tug when she was going to sleep? It was going grey in the wings and was firmly anchored in a victory roll, using an old stocking, flattened with a headscarf or man’s tweed cap. Her cheeks were wind-burned and pink, with ice-blue eyes that missed nothing. She was still firm and full breasted, with a figure honed with lifting bales. Trousers suited her, and Ben’s twill shirt and army jacket her favourite outfit. She could still smell the sweat of him. It comforted her to wear his clothes. It was as if she was taking on his mantle and trying to do all the jobs as he would have done them. He would be glad she’d made it through the wilderness months. What use had she for dresses and tweed suits?
She would never darken the door of a church again if she could help it. The consolations of religion meant nothing to her, nothing at all. If it gave comfort to others, so be it, but it wasn’t for her. Her gods were closer to the hills, the old spirits of the Dales that promised nothing more than blood, sweat and tears for working this upland pasture.
On a clear day she could sometimes hear the bells of St Peter’s, Windebank in the distance, ringing out the seasons in turn. Kurt and Dieter were Catholics and went to services there when they could. Yewells were staunch Chapel, with a few renegades like Wes and Pam turning to Church when they went up in the world.
Sunday was just another day in the week for Mirren, but the one that she was allowed to spend to herself and that suited her fine. She would give last week’s local Gazette a good going-over.
She kept peering out across the yard to the fields. The snow was building up and a strange unease crept over her, reliving the night when one of the farmers up the dale failed to return from Windebank, last winter. His poor wife was waiting with hope, searching with the lantern, calling with the men for hours, lanterns across the snow, hoping he had taken shelter, sick in her stomach as the night turned to morning and her worst fears were confirmed. The newspapers had gone to town with florid prose: ‘Tragic death on Windebank Moor. Young farmer vanquished in raging storm. Gallant man loses his footings in the snow…’ describing how the lifeless body of George Pye was found lying close to a sheepfold, only yards from shelter. What the papers refrained from saying was that he had spent the night with his cronies in The Fleece, as usual, and staggered back to be caught in a storm with half his wits sozzled, disorientated, crossing and recrossing his own tracks. It was a stupid, needless accident but she knew how easy it was to drown sorrows in drinking. That could’ve been her. Everyone up the dale had some tragedy to blot out.
She was too on edge to pick up the paper now or a book. The classics and poetry were her preference: the Brontës, of course; Dickens, rereading into the small hours sometimes when sleep was elusive. Where was it she had read that there were three bad things in life?
To lie in bed and sleep not.
To wait for one who comes not.
To try to please and please not.
That was it. She had made acquaintance with all three in her time. Don’t go down that path, Mirren, she muttered. No going there or she’d never get the evening milking done.
Ben woke in the middle of nowhere, trying to fix a point in the landscape he recognised. The train rattled on, packed with Sunday travellers, all squashed together, trying to get some kip on the long journey north.
The low sun was already flooding over the stone walls like rose-coloured silk. As he gazed over the hills he recognised that peculiar winter light like the soft hues of firelight. Even the sheep were tinged pink and gold. All the roughness of the stones, the bare branches caught up in the flame, and then suddenly the light was gone.
Transfixed by the sight and sudden recognition that this must be close to Scarperton and home territory, Ben felt a stirring, a restless surge of energy and a voice whispering in his ear, ‘Go back. Pay them all a visit. Rebuild your bridges before you go off on your travels. Make your peace and sort it out once and for all. Australia’s a long way in the other direction!’
He turned round to see who was talking to him but the rest of the soldiers in the carriage were nodding and snoring. This was crazy. Now he was hearing voices singing loony tunes.
It was time to make for the door. Then he realised it was Sunday and this was the Scottish express that didn’t stop at all the little station halts. The stone walls were rushing by and he felt a panic. It was still light. There was still time, as his feet felt the wheels on the track slowing down, reducing speed. He tried to ignore the voice.
‘Why are you sitting there? Get off right now before it’s too late.’
For one brief second this crazy idea hung in the air. If he missed this chance perhaps he might never see Cragside again, never get a chance to make his peace with Mirren. He stood up, gathered his case and his bag, his coat, pulled down the belt that lowered the window, peered out as the steam and soot rushed into his face. They were slowing down near Windebank level crossing. This was his chance.
He was suddenly wide awake, alert to danger as he threw out his bags and jumped onto the bank, rolling down just before the small station platform. With one leap into the unknown he was in free fall, parachuting into old familiar territory, answering the call in his head. He knew he was finally going crazy.
‘You can’t do that ’ere! It don’t stop ’ere!’ shouted a man, running towards him, while the one o’clock from Leeds to St Enoch’s, Glasgow, with its long line of maroon carriages, was already shunting out of sight.
Ben sprang up, sniffing that clean damp air up his nostrils, the welcome tinge of soot smoke. He was back in the hills one last time. It had been a long time since his last visit.
He would give them all a surprise, and Auntie Florrie would be delighted to feed him up and give him a bed for the night. There would be no other train on a Sunday in early February and the porter-cum-gate keeper was already demanding to see his travel warrant, looking up at him with suspicion as his ticket was for Port Greenock.
‘Now then, I know your face,’ he said gruffly. ‘You shouldn’t be jumping off trains, lad, but you always were a devil. It’s one of them Yewells, is it?’
‘Ben,’ he smiled back sheepishly, straightening his greatcoat and trying to act casual. The rest of his stuff was scattered along the line.
‘This’s highly irregular to jump off a train. I should report you,’ said the little man, trying to lift the battered case from cluttering his line. ‘Happen you’re a rare ’un to turn out on a day like this. Have you seen that sky? Off to see Tom Yewell up the tops?’ His accent was thick but the welcome was typical. He wanted to know all his business. ‘It’s no day to be wandering about the fells. The nights pull in sharp up here. Any road, you’ve miles to hike,’ he said, pointing to where the hills rose high in the distance.
The last-minute pilgrim smiled to himself. He’d miss all this–being recognised even by strangers who were curious about your doings. He was going to sail halfway across the world on an assisted passage to start a new life amongst total strangers. How he wished he could take all this with him.
He was glad he had not j
oined up, but taken work on an arable farm near York. He missed sheep and hills but a gang of farmer workers were setting off for the New Territories where farmers were needed and there was land to buy. Ben was free to follow his impulse, a free agent with time to say his farewells. His mother was upset, of course, but she still had Bert to mollycoddle since he returned from Germany. He and his German wife were the talk of Horsforth for a while.
Ben stood on the platform, uncertain. Taking out his last pack of Capstan from his pocket, he tapped the box several times to loosen the pack, pulled off the Cellophane and peeled back the packaging to shake out two cigarettes. He offered one to the porter, who popped it behind his ear with a nod. Then he pulled out his Ronson lighter from his trouser pocket and lit up, leaning back on the wall out of the wind. His hands were still shaking from the fall.
‘I’d forgotten how grand it is up here,’ he smiled, drawing in the smoke. ‘I guess a Sunday is not a good time to hitch a lift, though,’ he sighed.
‘You’re dead right there, chum. They’ll all be sleeping off their Sunday dinner. I hope you’ve eaten?’ asked the porter.
‘Yip, sandwiches on the train,’ Ben replied.
‘It’s a fair hike over the moor road. If you crack on apace, you’ll happen make it by nightfall, but don’t leave the road and if snow blows in find yerself a barn or summat for shelter. Don’t go wandering around or you’ll end up frozen in a ditch. We lost one man last winter. I’d leave yer case here. It’ll be safe enough with me. Where’re you living now?’
‘On my way to New South Wales,’ Ben replied, warming to the Yorkshire man.
‘By heck! That’s going it. The wife’s brother emigrated to Melbourne. Is that anywhere near your place? Jimmy Ewebank is his name. He’s a farmer,’ said the porter, certain of finding a connection.