Wilbur was there, sitting in his chair in front of the range. Each morning he ate his breakfast and left the house as though he had a shift, only to spend hours standing about on street corners with old pals who were in the same position as him. In rain, hail and snow they banded together, hands in pockets and eyes dead. Adam was now his father’s connection with the pit. As long as his son was working, Wilbur felt he had a chance of returning.
Lily was round at her mother’s with the baby. It appeared she was there most of the time these days. Things between her and Adam had never been good, according to Rose, but now they were at rock bottom. Rose glanced at the twins who had been forced to stay in the house rather than play with their friends, owing to the fact their boots were more holes than leather, then she put her head close to Hannah’s and murmured, ‘She keeps threatening to clear off for good and I wish she would, may the good Lord forgive me. But at least when she’s round her mam’s she’s not under my feet, and her mam an’ da have taken to having Sadie most weekends now.’
Hannah nodded. Rose, who loved all children, hadn’t taken to her first grandchild, possibly because little Sadie was distinctly precocious and inclined to hour-long screaming tantrums if thwarted. She was also the spitting image of her mother. ‘Doesn’t Adam mind her being at her mam’s so much?’
‘He’d pack her bags himself, given the slightest chance.’
‘But the child, Sadie? She’s his bairn,’ Jake put in quietly.
‘She’s Lily’s bairn,’ Rose said in a low voice with another glance at the twins to make sure they weren’t listening. Having satisfied herself they were engrossed sitting on the clippy mat sorting out the bag of marbles Jake had brought them, she continued, ‘From wanting nowt to do with her when she was born, once she was crawling and talking a bit, Lily’s been all over her.’ She paused. ‘Mind, to be fair, I can understand that, the way the marriage has gone. I suppose the bairn’s a comfort.’
Jake and Hannah exchanged a glance. In an effort to divert the conversation from Adam’s marital problems, Hannah said, ‘And Adam? Are things any better at the pit?’
‘No, an’ not likely to be.’ Normally,Wilbur remained as silent as the grave during their visit, but now he entered the conversation with a scowl. ‘He worked all of last week, and when there was a fall an’ they needed extra he did a double shift, and at the end of it he come away with a pay packet with just over a pound in it. Them and their damn trumped-up fines.’
‘But couldn’t he say something, Mr Wood?’
Wilbur’s look was pitying as he surveyed Hannah. ‘One word and he’d be finished, and if he’s finished now we’ve all had it. The blighters know that. They know how we’re placed.’
Jake said nothing. His stepfather was longing to let fly at him, he knew the signs, but of late Wilbur hadn’t dared. In a minute they’d have a list of Adam’s virtues if Wilbur ran true to form.
‘They had him shovelling on his knees for a penny farthing a yard and his legs under water from the time he went in till the time he come out, and does he whine about it? Does he heck. He’s a good lad, none better, an’ anyone who says different is a liar.’
‘Aye, all right, all right,’ Rose intervened, and as the look between wife and husband caught and held, it was Wilbur who lowered his head first.Turning to Hannah, Rose said, ‘Your aunt and uncle are away for Christmas then? Somewhere foreign, I understand. I’m surprised they shut shop at what must be their busiest time.’
‘Aunt Aggie’s selling the business,’ Hannah said quietly. ‘It was all signed and sealed the day before they left so I know she won’t mind me saying now. They may not return to England at all but she’s going to write to me when she decides what to do.’
‘Is that so? Ee, Bart’s family will be hard pressed. They rely on the lad’s wage.’
‘The new owners are keeping him on. Aunt Aggie was insistent about that.’
They continued to chat for a few minutes more but with Wilbur sitting glowering in his chair, they didn’t prolong the visit. Rose saw them out, watching Jake help Hannah into the small two-wheeled carriage and then waving as he clicked the horse into motion and they disappeared into the now thickly falling snow.
She didn’t immediately return to the kitchen but stood on the doorstep for some minutes, her mind miles away. She had long since given up on the notion that had assailed her at one time after Seamus’s death, that of her lad and Hannah getting together. She didn’t know what had put it into her mind but once there, it had stuck for a while. Hannah was a good lass, a kind lass. If anyone could see past Jake’s appearance to the man beneath, it was Hannah. As though the thought had been a criticism of Jake in some way, she followed with, and the lass would have been doing herself proud if she’d looked the side he was on. There was no one better than her lad, no one in the whole world. He wasn’t just big in size but in his heart as well, and there was a depth in him none of her other children had, even Naomi. But there, it hadn’t happened and as the months had gone by she’d told herself it was a daft idea. One thing was for sure, the lass was so bonny she could pick and choose.
Sighing, Rose shut the door. Adam was still of the mind that Daniel, Jake’s manager, meant more to Hannah than the lass let on and he might be right. They didn’t know what went on at the farm after all. But Hannah wasn’t walking out formally with him or else she would have told Naomi. Although the two of them didn’t see so much of each other these days, they were still close. Naomi . . . Rose sighed again, irritably this time. She wished her daughter would see that Stuart Fraser would never be any good to her.Two years they’d been courting and he messed her about something rotten. What with Adam and Naomi, perhaps she should be thanking her lucky stars Jake hadn’t got a lass and seemed content enough. But then, you could never tell with Jake. Quiet waters ran deep with her firstborn.
‘Took him long enough to go.’
As she stepped into the kitchen,Wilbur glared at her but as was happening more and more these days she returned his look, saying, ‘It was good of him to come in this weather and bring the bits for the bairns and the food for Christmas. There’s a whole ham and one of their turkeys, along with butter and cheese and whatnot. Have you looked?’
‘I don’t need to look. I knew you’d tell me soon enough.’
‘And why not? It’s what keeps us going. The least you could do is to be civil to him.’
‘I was civil.’ He shot the words at her, his voice heavy with suppressed rage as he added, ‘Sure signs I’m not bringing anything in these days, the way you talk to me. Things have come to a pretty pass when there’s no respect in a man’s house from his own wife.’
Rose said nothing to this. She took the items Jake and Hannah had brought out of the bags and placed them on the kitchen table. The presents for the children, which Hannah had already wrapped, she put out of sight in one of the cupboards. She didn’t hurry to put the food away even though she knew the sight of it was infuriating Wilbur still more. She took a brown packet from the table. ‘Stephen’s sent his wage packet. Do you want to open it?’
Taking Wilbur’s silence for refusal, she slit the brown paper with her fingernail, her face softening as she counted the folded notes inside. Jake had told her he had given Stephen a Christmas bonus. What he had meant was she now had enough to buy the twins and Peter new winter boots, with a bit more besides.
She went across to the mantelpiece and lifted down the metal tin with a picture of the late Queen on the lid and added half a sovereign and two two-shilling pieces to the couple of coins inside. That would take care of the worry about the rent over Christmas. They would still be in arrears but when the rent man called tonight she could pay enough off the back to keep him happy. She went into the scullery and put the notes away in a small linen bag she wore pinned to the inside of the bodice of her petticoat. They hadn’t a drop of beer or hard stuff in the house for Christmas, and if she knew anything about her husband and son they would put that before new boots for t
he bairns.
She returned to the kitchen and busied herself with the mutton broth she had simmering on the hob, skimming off the murky surface and adding a couple of dessertspoonfuls of rice, a chopped leek and some other vegetables to the scrag of mutton and bones before returning it to the hob. The evening meal seen to, she was just about to clear away the farm food when the kitchen door was thrust open and Adam came in.
Rose saw his eyes go immediately to the kitchen table and she could have kicked herself. She hadn’t realised it was so late. With the bairns off school for the Christmas holidays and Jake calling in, she’d lost track of time.
‘The big man’s been round then?’ Adam addressed his father, not her, throwing his bait can down on the table as he spoke.
‘Oh aye, he’s been.’
Wilbur had brightened up as soon as Adam appeared. Nowadays, even if Adam worked a double shift into the night, Wilbur would wait up for him. She had remonstrated with him at first but since she had come to understand that Adam was her husband’s link with the pit Wilbur had worked in since a lad of thirteen and, more than that, his pride, she’d left well alone. She steeled herself for the inevitable question and like clockwork it came.
‘So, lad,’ Wilbur said, his voice as offhand as he could make it, ‘anything doing yet then?’
Depending on Adam’s mood he would respond to the question he heard six times a week with mild impatience or downright irritation. She couldn’t blame him. Since Wilbur had lost his job, six times a week added up to a fair few times her son had walked in to the same words, and there was always a note of heightened desperation after Jake had called.
Whether Adam had noticed this too and the knowledge moderated his reaction she didn’t know, but her son’s voice was sympathetic when he said,‘There’s nowt, Da. Maybe after Christmas, eh?’
‘Aye, aye.’Wilbur clutched at the lifeline.‘Things have got to ease up soon. I met Seth Todd a couple of days ago and he reckons some of the old-timers’ll be set on again in the New Year. Mind, he’s only working ’cos he nipped up to the colliery the day there was that accident and three men were injured and asked to be taken on. A dozen or more raced each other to the gates even as the poor devils were being carried out. If I had to get back down like that I’d tell ’em to shove it.’
Rose met her son’s eyes for a moment. They both knew that if Wilbur had heard about the accident, he’d have been there with the others. Every time a man came home and said he’d been given the sack, his neighbours would slink off, shamefaced admittedly but with a thin wife and bairns crying because their bellies were empty, what could you do? Shaking off her thoughts, Rose said briskly, ‘Get yourself washed and I’ll have a cup of tea and a shive of sly cake ready. Dinner’ll be a while yet.’
Ignoring her, Adam turned to his father again. ‘Hannah come with him?’
‘Aye, she brought some bits for the bairns for Christmas. There’s something for Sadie an’ all.’
Adam’s eyes were hard. ‘My bairn’ll have nowt that comes from him.’
Rose stared at her son, anger uppermost. Reminding herself with some effort that he had a lot on his plate what with Lily and the bairn and, not least, working down the pit for a pittance, she said nothing. She’d long since become reconciled to the fact that her eldest son and her second-born would always be at enmity with each other. She took the kettle from the hob and carried it into the scullery where she emptied the contents into the tin bowl which served for daily washing, adding most of the pail of cold water at the side of the stone sink so the water was tepid. She placed a bar of blue-veined soap and a large rough towel by the bowl, then walked back into the kitchen, saying briefly, ‘It’s ready.’
Adam gave no word of thanks, brushing past her with a face like thunder. Rose hurriedly cleared the table after using the remaining water in the pail to fill the kettle which she placed on the hob. When the tea was made she poured three cups, giving Wilbur his before bringing out the sly cake. Glancing at her husband, she said, ‘Do you want a piece before your dinner?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.’
He glared at her, his eyes narrowed. ‘One of these days . . .’ He allowed the threat to hang in the air for a moment before he growled, ‘Aye, I want a bit, why wouldn’t I?’
There was silence in the kitchen until Adam came and sat down. He drank his tea in a few swallows, then pushed his mug towards his mother for a refill without speaking or looking at her. After finishing the sly cake and drinking half of his second mug of tea, he said to no one in particular, ‘Hannah all right then, is she?’
It was Wilbur who said, ‘Aye, far as I know, lad. She looked as bonny as ever.’
‘Come clean about her and this Daniel yet, has she?’
Rose looked at her husband and he at her, and for a rare moment their thoughts were joined. Tentatively, Wilbur said, ‘I think you’re on the wrong tack there, lad. From what I can tell, she’s one of them lasses that keeps herself to herself. Likely all that with her uncle’s put her off.’
Adam leant back in his chair but it was to his mother and not his father, he said, ‘Say it. I know you’re thinking it.’
Rose raised her eyebrows.
‘That it was me who put Hannah off, as Da terms it. Well, let me tell you, the pair of you,’ his eyes briefly turned to his father before returning to Rose, ‘she’s pulling the wool over your eyes. She was seeing that lackey of Jake’s before me and her fell out, Joe said as much back then.’
‘Not to me he didn’t.’ Rose met her son’s angry gaze and although her voice was low it was firm. ‘Hannah’s a good lass, she wouldn’t do something like that.’
‘You don’t know the half.’
‘I know enough to recognise the type of lass who behaves herself and them who don’t and you got caught by one of the latter.’
‘Huh!’ Standing up with enough force to send his chair tottering, Adam slammed out of the kitchen.
When they heard his footsteps in the bedroom he shared with Lily, Wilbur said, ‘He’ll freeze up there.’
‘That’s up to him, isn’t it?’ Rose cleared away the mugs and the remains of the sly cake with jerky movements.
‘We’d be hard pressed without what he brings in.’
‘We’d have to manage, wouldn’t we? And Stephen’s wage is double that of Adam’s.’
‘That’s not Adam’s fault.’
Maybe it was the fact that for once her husband’s voice was more sorrowful than angry, but suddenly Rose’s irritation and resentment drained away. Plumping down on one of the hard-backed kitchen chairs, she said, ‘I know, I know. And Adam’s a hard worker, I’m not denying it. I just wish . . .’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Useless to say she wished things had been different between Jake and Adam and that Adam was free of the pit and working alongside Stephen - it would be a red rag to a bull. Looking hard at her husband, she said, ‘Hannah’s a good lass, Wilbur.You know it same as me. And this - this obsession he’s got about her and this lad, it’s not healthy, even if he wasn’t a married man with a bairn. You’ll have to talk to him.’
‘Me?’
‘Aye, you. It’s been going on for too long. I thought it’d fade after a while but you heard him tonight.’
Wilbur’s head jerked to one side as it sometimes did these days. The nervous tic had started shortly after the miners had gone back after the General Strike and had got worse in the last little while. ‘I’m saying nowt. He’s allowed his own thoughts, even the damn owners can’t take away a man’s thoughts and I’m blowed if I’m going to tell him how to think.’ She saw him cast her a side-long glance. ‘Anyway, like the lad says, who knows what goes on up at that farm? Jake wouldn’t stand in her way if she took up with Daniel, that’s for sure, he’d look at it as one in the eye for Adam.’
‘Give me strength.’ Rose’s infuriated mutter brought Wilbur sitting up straighte
r but in the same moment the back door banged and a second later Naomi hurried into the kitchen, her face white and pinched with cold. In the ensuing bustle of getting Naomi’s wet things off and her daughter’s blue feet soaking in a bowl of hot water laced with mustard, the conversation was put to one side. But it was not forgotten, not by Rose, and the worry that had begun two years before on Christmas Day when Adam had disappeared for a large part of the afternoon and returned in a white-hot rage was stronger. She hadn’t believed his explanation that he had met some pals and finished up having a row with one of them then, and she didn’t now. He had been to the farm that day, knowing Jake and Joe were out of the way, she felt it in her bones, and whatever had transpired between him and Hannah had not been to his liking. And these walks he took sometimes, even in the winter if the weather wasn’t too bad.Where did he go? Adam had never been one to walk. Was he trying to spy on the lass? But it was no good her saying anything.
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