A Mother's Gift (14 page)

Lawson’s plans for the future were interrupted by a soft knock on the door and Daisy came in. Blimey, she was early tonight. He sat up and turned to her.

‘Howay, lass,’ he said and held out his arms.

‘No time for that Eddie,’ said Daisy. ‘You’re wanted. There’s been an accident or something, his nibs is going over to Bishop Auckland.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Lawson swore. ‘Just when I’ve got settled in. By, when I’m my own boss no one will call me out on a cold night, I tell you that.’

‘Oh aye?’ said Daisy. ‘That’ll be the day.’ She grinned.

‘Aye well, you need laugh but the day will come,’ said Lawson. Reluctantly he got to his feet and fastened his uniform. Before putting on his cap he caught hold of Daisy and kissed her, one hand on her breast and the other holding her bottom. Groaning he let her go and went out to the car.

His employer was already coming out of the front door, tripping down the steps as though it was the beginning of the day not the end, Lawson thought sourly.

‘We’re going to the hospital first,’ said Matthew. ‘Hurry up, we have to go to Winton.’

Well, Lawson thought, that told him which hospital at any rate. He was shivering in the night air so was glad when the car began to warm up. He was not overly surprised when they arrived at the hospital and his employer rushed inside, coming out with that young girl. He reckoned the old man was going soft in the head but it was none of his business. He jumped out to open the back door for them then got back in himself.

‘Winton?’ he asked.

‘Yes man, I told you. Winton Colliery to be exact, haven’t you listened to the news on the wireless tonight?’

Oh yes, there’d been an accident, some miners killed.
Lawson
could vaguely remember hearing something about it. But accidents at the pits were commonplace, it wasn’t exactly on the lines of a major disaster. And even if it had been, the boss didn’t normally rush to the scene. No, it was the girl. Lawson grinned to himself as he pulled away from the kerb and turned the corner out on tb Durham Road.

Behind him, Matthew Hamilton and Katie were barely aware of his presence. Matthew sat with a fatherly arm around her shoulders and with his other hand held hers. He said little but in the light of the streetlamps she could see the sympathy in his eyes. She did not question the way he had come so quickly, she thought he had to go to the colliery. He was the owner, wasn’t he? So he must have things to see to. It didn’t occur to her that his position at the top of the business empire meant this was not a thing he would normally do.

Katie felt numb, she hardly felt the weight of his arm on her shoulders or the occasional squeeze he gave her hand. Her grandda was dead in the pit. No, he couldn’t be, it was a mistake, they had mixed him up with some other miner. Noah Benfield had worked a lifetime in the pit, he was too wise in the way of it to get caught. He used to say how you could hear the coal face working by tapping on the coal seam, ‘Jowl, jowl and listen lad and hear the coal face working …’ The old mining rhyme ran through her head. ‘There’s many a marra missing lad—’ No she wasn’t going to think of that any more.

‘How do you feel?’ asked Matthew.

How was she supposed to feel? she wondered. She
didn’t
know how she felt. She didn’t believe her grandfather was dead, killed in the pit. Killed in the pit. The phrase ran through her head, she couldn’t stop it. She felt it was being drilled into her skull. And in the back of her mind there was another dread. What about Billy? But she refused to believe Billy was probably dead too. She should ask Mr Hamilton. But she dare not. Oh no, she dare not.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

She stared out of the window at the lights of Darlington as they sped through the town. The High Row was lit up and people were walking about as though nothing had happened. How could that be? Then they were out in the country again, heading for South-West Durham.

There were lights in the pit yard when they got there. The winding wheel whirred as the cage was brought to the surface. A small crowd of people, women and officials, pressed forward eagerly to see who or what was coming to the surface. Katie stood up and was out of the car before Lawson could open the door for her.

‘Wait,’ said Matthew and caught hold of her arm and the women turned back from the entrance to the shaft and looked at the posh car suddenly in their midst. One stepped forward.

‘Katie,’ said Dottie Dowson and Katie shrugged off Matthew’s hand and ran to her. ‘What am I going to do without him?’ Dottie asked her. But Katie had no answer, just a hug of fellow feeling.

‘Where’s my gran?’ she asked the woman who had been their neighbour all Katie’s life.

‘They took her home. They’ve got Noah’s body up, there’s only the injured now. They’re laid out in the lamp cabin.’ She broke off as the crowd parted and the stretcher men came through with a man writhing under a blanket.

‘Come away, Lawson will take you home.’

Katie looked up at Matthew Hamilton, the man who had brought her over from the coast in his car. It was like looking at someone from another planet, he looked so strange and out of place in his Crombie overcoat and his homburg hat. The pit folk were staring at him. But still she didn’t ask him about Billy.

‘I’ll go home with Dottie,’ said Katie. ‘Thank you, very much for your help. Come on Dottie, you should be home now. There’s nothing you can do tonight. Tomorrow maybe.’

Matthew watched as the two women went out of the pit yard in the direction of the miners’ rows. A voice was raised among the people waiting by the pit head.

‘What about the safety work that needed doing, eh gaffer?’

Matthew turned to the man who had shouted but he wasn’t looking at him but at the door of the office. Thompson had opened it and was coming across. There was a murmuring in the crowd.

‘Come in, Mr Hamilton, sir,’ said Thompson. ‘Mr Parsons is already here.’

The crowd hadn’t even realised who he was, Matthew thought. He followed the manager into the office and Thompson closed the door on the yard. ‘A bit nippy tonight,’ he commented and the comment sounded
ludicrous
in the pit yard, that someone should actually be noticing the weather.

Kitty Benfield was sitting quietly by the fire when Katie opened the back door and went into the kitchen. The shock had diminished her somehow and she looked older, her hair more white than grey, her cheeks white and sunken. The sight of her was enough to break Katie’s heart, bringing home to her finally that it was true, her grandfather had been killed.

‘He’s gone, lass,’ said Kitty and held out her arms and Katie flung herself into them. Her grandmother looked down at her and stroked her hair. ‘It’s no good taking on, Katie, all the wailing in the world won’t bring him back.’ She took hold of Katie by the upper arms and held her and looked into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry about Billy an’ all, lass,’ she said. ‘He was a canny lad.’

The ensuing days were like a nightmare for the girl. She had a few days’ compassionate leave from the hospital and the way she felt it didn’t matter whether she had or not, she couldn’t leave her grandmother. For there was another blow, Tucker, Kitty’s son and Katie’s father, had been injured and was in the County Hospital in Durham. Betty came round the very next morning to borrow the fare for her and her mother to go to see him. And Kitty did not say a word about Hannah not having a penny saved for emergencies but handed Betty a pound note from the Rington’s tea tin which she kept on the corner of the mantelpiece.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Katie.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Betty. ‘I think he’ll just want to see us just now.’

‘I’m his daughter too,’ said Katie and Betty gave her a funny look.

‘Well, it’s me and me mam he’ll want to see,’ her sister answered.

Katie forced her eyes open and uncurled from the foetal position she had been in all night in an effort to preserve body warmth. A faint light penetrated the thin cotton curtains so it was morning at least. The night had been icy cold. Stretching her legs out her feet landed on the oven shelf near the bottom of the bed. Her grandma had put it in the bed last night and then it had been lovely and warm but within an hour it was cold, bitter January weather. Katie shivered, her nose, stuck outside the bedclothes, felt numb.

Steeling herself, Katie pushed back the blanket and old coat and the new proddy mat that Gran had worked over every night for weeks ready to lay it down before the kitchen fire on Christmas Eve. Usually it kept out the worst of the cold but now the house hadn’t been warmed by the fire in the range because there was no coal in the coal house to light a fire. And, as the miners had been forbidden to pick at the slag heap for bits thrown out with the waste slag and stone, the house just got colder and colder.

Katie jumped out of bed and pulled on her clothes, shivering violently. She thrust her feet into her shoes,
no
socks, as they had finally fallen to bits. More darns than sock they had been and now even the darns had disintegrated.

Downstairs, to her surprise there was a bit of fire in the grate and Gran was sitting over it, drinking tea from a pint pot. Even as Katie reached the ranges the fire collapsed in on itself and fell with a shower of sparks, dying in the ash can beneath. It had only been paper and a few twigs, how Gran had managed to boil a kettle was a mystery. But looking closely, Katie was horrified to see a hard, brown bookback, charred and almost gone.

‘Gran! That wasn’t my library book!’

‘Eeh, lass, I was desperate,’ said Gran, guilt making her cheeks red and mottled.

‘But I’ll have to pay for it,’ wailed Katie. ‘Where will I get the money?’

‘Aw, don’t be so soft,’ said Gran, guilt making her angry now. ‘How can they make you pay for it when you’ve got nowt? Nay man, they cannot make you pay.’

Katie didn’t reply, what was the use? She sat down heavily on one of the hard wooden chairs by the table, close to tears.

‘There’s a drop of tea in the pot,’ Gran said, coaxing.

‘Bloody hell, this place is enough to freeze the balls off a brass—’ Noah had come down the stairs, trousers at half-mast, braces hanging down. His collarless shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows. His feet were bare and white, the toes gleaming blue. He rubbed his hands together as he strode over to
the
range and stared disconsolately at the by now nonexistent fire.

‘Hey!’ said Gran. ‘Watch your language. I’ll have no swearing inhere.’

Katie woke up with a start. She had been dreaming of her childhood, she realised. Well, if only Noah had still been here, he could swear as much as he liked, she thought. Even Gran would not object. But he wasn’t here, and neither was Billy. She felt so full of pain she couldn’t bear it. Wearily she got out of bed though she felt as though she never wanted to get up again. If only she could just burrow here, under the bedclothes and never come out. But downstairs she could hear the muffled sounds of her gran moving about: filling the kettle, settling it on the fire. Gran coughed a harsh, hollow sound. Gran needed her, she had to go downstairs and help her gran.

‘OH, IT’S YOU,’
said June. She stood for a moment in the doorway before reluctantly standing back to allow Katie to go into the house. Billy’s father and mother were sitting on either side of the fireplace. The curtains were drawn, denoting a death in the house and as a mark of respect and the gas mantle was burning, giving off a dim yellow light. The door was open to the front room and the middle of the floor had been cleared of furniture so that the coffin could stand there on its trestles.

The bodies were coming home today, the post-mortems were finished. The men had died from fractured skulls or crushed chests and most had suffered burns. Katie averted her eyes from the doorway of the waiting room.

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Wright, Mr Wright,’ she said. The lump in her throat, which made it so hard to swallow, grew larger. She clasped her hands tightly, digging the nails into her palms.

‘Aye lass,’ said Mr Wright. ‘I know you and Billy were fond of each other. I’m sorry for you an’ all.’ Mrs Wright
held
a hankie to her nose and stared at the drawn curtains, She sniffed.

‘June will make you a cup of tea, Katie,’ she said. ‘Sit down lass.’ June thrust the kettle on to the fire, looking very angry. Or was she simply grieving her brother? Katie couldn’t tell. She sat down on the horsehair chaise-longue, which was at right angles to the fireplace.

‘Billy and me—’ Katie stopped as tears threatened then started again. ‘Me and Billy were going to get married when I’d finished my training,’ she said. She could feel the ring lying on her breastbone, could almost have drawn the circle of it against her skin.

June made a noise, choked off, derisory. She took down the tea caddy from the mantelpiece and spooned tea into a brown pot; poured boiling water on the leaves.

‘What did you say, pet?’ Mrs Wright asked.

‘Nothing. But I was thinking, I can’t help it, Mam, I was thinking that if Katie had really wanted to marry our Billy she wouldn’t have put him off all the time, would she?’ She poured tea into a fine china cup from the set kept for visitors and handed it to Katie, slopping a drop in the saucer as she did so. Katie kept her eyes on the cup. She pressed a finger hard against her upper lip to hold back the tears. She couldn’t speak to defend herself.