A Wartime Nurse (37 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
Chapter Thirty
It was a quarter to four on the day before Theda and Richard travelled to Winton Colliery that Chuck joined the back shift men coming off shift as they walked to the shaft bottom. The men were tired and talk was desultory. It had been a hard day’s work and they were hungry. Some of them moved over and made room for the young under-manager as a mark of respect, but after all it hadn’t been so long ago that he had been working alongside them on the coal face.
‘He always did have enough ambition for half a dozen,’ observed Sam Hughes, the overman, as he watched Chuck stride through the crowd.
‘Aye, he intends to be chairman of the Coal Board, that one,’ someone else answered, and there was a general laugh.
Chuck heard it but it didn’t matter to him; he got on well with most of the men and let them have their little digs. It was true, anyroad – he was going as far as he was able and had high hopes that under the Coal Board that would be right to the top.
Norma would have his meal ready, he thought. No need to go to the new canteen, which had been built beside the equally new pithead baths. There was his report to write but it wouldn’t take long, the new coal cutter was working fine.
He rode up to bank in the cage with a group of young hewers, their spirits noticeably brightening the nearer they drew to the surface, and they all spilled out into the grey drizzle of the afternoon. Chuck shivered. It was cold after the heat of underground. What he needed was a hot shower. He marvelled that in such a short time the pithead baths had become so essential. He had almost forgotten the discomfort of going home black and caked with coal dust from the pit.
‘Not before time an’ all,’ Da had said when the builders arrived to put up the baths, or showers as they were really. ‘By, in my young day we would have thought we were in heaven, not having to travel home in our pit clothes. And to have a hot meal in the canteen. Molly-coddled these young ‘uns are going to be.’
Chuck grinned to himself. He went into the dirty room of the baths and stripped off his pit clothes and put them in the drying locker. At the other end of the room a party of youngsters were larking about, laughing as they talked of the dance that was being held in the Miners’ Welfare hall that evening, most especially the girls who would be there. Another cage load of men joined them as Chuck walked through to the main room with its open-ended shower cubicles. He could hear the laughing and joking getting more and more boisterous all the time, and smiled.
Just like bairns let out of school, he thought, but he himself was past all that. He was a married man with a baby on the way and hadn’t time for messing about; he had better things to do. Picking up the soap, he turned on the water and stood for a minute or two, letting it sluice down his skin.
By, the hot water was grand. Thank God for the Coal Board. He threaded his fingers through his hair to loosen the dust and watched as the black water eddied round his feet and drained away into the plug hole. Soaping himself all over, he paid particular attention to his hair. He must remember to bring some of that shampoo Norma had bought him. Imperial Leather, that was it. He had felt slightly decadent, a bit cissy even, using special liquid soap to wash his hair but had to admit it made a better job than ordinary soap.
The suds ran down his face and stung his eyes. On the other side of the waist-high partition the young lads were larking about, flicking soap at each other, chasing round from one cubicle to another, laughing and shouting boisterously so that it sounded like a near riot in the echoing room. It was different for those who lived outside the village and needed to catch a bus home. He’d known that lot to come up in the cage at a quarter to the hour and be in the dirty end of the baths and out the clean side in time to catch the five to the hour Martin’s bus.
‘Bloody hell, man!’ an older miner shouted as he was almost knocked off his feet as he stepped outside his cubicle. Chuck rubbed his eyes and looked across at him.
‘Sorry, Grandda,’ a lad said over his shoulder, his grin belying his words.
‘An’ I’m not your grandda!’ shouted the older man. The others exploded into laughter as though he had made the joke of the century. It was time to intervene, thought Chuck.
‘A little less hilarity, lads, if you don’t mind,’ he said, sounding only slightly pompous. They said nothing, though the laughter died in the air and they went back to their cubicles rather sheepishly.
Chuck felt a fool. Even to his own ears he had sounded fifty at least. There was a muffled burst of laughter from the other side and something landed at his feet. The lads weren’t as respectful as all that. Not nowadays. Chuck rinsed himself off and stepped outside the cubicle, rubbing his eyes again as he did so, which were still stinging from the soap.
The fall was completely unexpected. One minute he was striding over for his towel on the other wall and the next he’d stepped on a sliver of soap and was flat on his back, staring up at the strip lights far above.
There was a splash of red on the white tiles of the cubicle. A drop was running down, ruby red turning to pink as it mixed with the water and he turned his head and saw the pink mingling with the coal-streaked soapy water, whirling round faster as it hit the drain. There were faces now bending over him, mouths working as though they were saying something, but there was no sound. And then everything faded from view.
It was just after ten o’clock when Theda, holding Richard by one hand and carrying her case with the other, walked up the yard to the back door of her parents’ house. She hesitated before turning the brightly shining brass door handle that had replaced the sneck and went in.
It was dim in the kitchen, the curtains drawn against the light as was usual in a house of mourning. There wasn’t even much light from the fire, which was almost out – just a few black cinders and a lot of grey ash. It wasn’t like Mam to leave it like that, thought Theda as she dumped her case by the side of the press. Taking the coal rake, she pulled some small coal down on to the fire and then stirred the embers with the poker. It wasn’t quite dead, smoke drifted lazily up the chimney.
‘Does anybody live here?’ asked Richard, looking round solemnly.
‘Yes, Grandma and Grandda do.’
‘I don’t like it here. It’s too dark.’ He put his hands in his coat pockets and thrust out his bottom lip.
‘Come on, we’ll go and find them,’ said Theda, taking his hand. Leaving the case where it was, they walked back up the yard and out on to the back lane. There was no one about. Whether the women were all out shopping or inside doing their housework Theda didn’t know, in fact she didn’t think about it.
It took only ten minutes to walk to the other end of the rows to where there was a small street of better-class accommodation, officials’ houses. Chuck and Norma lived in the second house in Office Street. Theda knocked at the front door and after a moment it was opened by her father.
‘Hello, Da,’ she said. She gazed at him. He looked so old and bent and grey, his eyes puffy as though he had not slept for a week.
‘Now then, lass.’ Matt gazed back at her sombrely. Stepping forward she threw her arms around his neck and after only a slight hesitation his arms were around her too.
‘Oh, Da. Oh, Daddy,’ she said into his bristly neck.
‘I know, lass, I know,’ he muttered.
‘Well, howay in, don’t stand on the doorstep like that for all the world to gawp at,’ snapped Bea’s voice from behind him and his arms dropped to his sides.
‘Mam? Is he my grandda?’ asked Richard, and then turning to Matt, ‘Are you my grandda?’ he asked again, throwing his head back so that he could look up into Matt’s face.
Some of the tension left Matt; he even managed a smile. ‘I am that,’ he declared. ‘Mind, I never knew you were such a big lad. How old are you? Eight? Nine?’
Richard stood as tall as he could, proud that anyone could think him so much older. ‘I’m only five,’ he admitted. ‘How old are you?’
‘As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth,’ said Matt. He took hold of Richard’s hand and Theda breathed a sigh of relief. At least there was going to be no bad feeling to complicate an occasion already so fraught with shock and sorrow.
Joss came, and solemn-faced he hugged his mother and Theda. Richard ran to him immediately and Joss sat him on his knee where Richard remained quietly watching the crowd of relations, all new to him except for Joss and Beth and his grandmother.
‘I’ll speak to Norma while you have Richard,’ Theda said, and Joss nodded.
She was in the front room with her mother sitting protectively beside her. Norma wore a maternity smock printed with large sunflowers, which did nothing to disguise her late state of pregnancy, and her face was swollen with crying. Nevertheless, she accepted Theda’s condolences with polite dignity.
‘He was your brother,’ she said. ‘You’ll miss him too.’
Theda had not seen Chuck since Joss’s wedding yet she realised that didn’t matter – Norma was right.
‘Would you like some tea?’ asked Norma’s mother, but she looked frail and strained almost beyond endurance by what had happened and what was still happening to her daughter and the question was the automatic one asked of any visitor.
‘No, thank you. I’m fine, Mrs Musgrave,’ Theda replied. She sat with them for a few minutes more, noting the high colour in Norma’s cheeks, the obvious weariness in her as she put a hand to her back and sighed. Norma probably had less than the supposed month to go, she judged, and hoped all this did not bring on premature labour.
‘Perhaps you should lie down for a while, Norma?’ she suggested, and looked at Mrs Musgrave who nodded her agreement.
‘Oh, no, I must be here for him,’ said Norma. Mrs Musgrave raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
Here for whom? asked Theda in her mind, though she did not put it into words. Here for Chuck, that was what Norma felt. It was an instinctive reaction.
‘The minister is coming anyway,’ she said. ‘We have to arrange the funeral.’
‘No, pet. There is to be a post-mortem and inquest first,’ her mother reminded her.
‘Oh, yes.’ Norma turned to Theda. ‘It was the tiles in the showers, you know. They’re so hard, that’s the trouble.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Though why Chuck should bang his head on them, I don’t know.’
She ought to be in bed. Theda took hold of her wrist, feeling the pulse flutter. Norma was being entirely too reasonable and normal, she was liable to crack at any time. But what did she mean? Had Chuck not had his accident down the pit? But this was no time to enquire.
‘Come on, love, we’ll help you upstairs. You have to think of the baby, you know. Chuck wouldn’t want you to get overtired, would he?’
Norma nodded. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she conceded. ‘But there is so much to do. All the arrangements—’
‘Me and your dad will see to everything, pet,’ her mother assured her. ‘Like Theda says, you have to think of the baby.’
With Norma upstairs lying down, the Wearmouth family made their excuses and walked back to West Row. On the way, Matt told them what had happened.
‘All those years we campaigned for pithead baths,’ he said bitterly. ‘Who could have thought it?’
It was ironic, thought Theda. Oh God, how could this happen? A stupid, stupid freak accident and Chuck was gone.
‘I sent a cable to Clara,’ said Bea. ‘Not that she can come, of course, not with all those bairns.’ For Clara had four children now. It was clear to Theda that Bea yearned for Clara to come, children or no, for she needed the comfort of her family with her.
‘Never mind, Mam, at least you know she’s all right.’
‘Oh, aye, she is an’ all. Happy as Larry, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘She wouldn’t get over in time for the funeral anyroad,’ said Matt, and blew his nose loudly.
The funeral wasn’t until a week later. Both Joss and Theda had had to return to work in the meantime. Joss had swapped days off with a mate to get down the day after Chuck was killed but got two days’ compassionate leave for the funeral, as did Theda.
‘I’ll pick you up,’ he offered when he rang her. ‘What about Richard?’
‘I’ll have to take him,’ she replied. She had no one to leave him with, not for any length of time. For the actual funeral, Renee had offered to mind him.
The sun shone through the windows of the Methodist chapel as the coffin was carried down the aisle behind the minister and the light glinted on the brass handles. It was carried by Joss, Norma’s brother, and two of Chuck’s marras. The family walked behind, Norma supported by her father, then the Wearmouths and the Musgraves. After the short service they drove off to the cemetery and stood round the grave with the sun still shining on the cross of lilies as it went down into the hole with the coffin and the brightly coloured wreaths as they were laid by the side. They all filed past and threw in the token handful of soil, and the men fingered their starched collars and took out their handkerchiefs to wipe their eyes and foreheads, ostensibly because of the heat though it was still early-spring.
Theda was aware that the chapel had been full and a lot of men off shift had followed Chuck’s coffin to the grave but she didn’t look at them and therefore didn’t notice that Tucker Cornish was there with a younger man.
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