Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle (164 page)

Not another drunken sot? Not another capurtled fool wandering over hill and dale out of his wits? When do we ever learn?

She was used to tramps and bog trotters on the moors, calling at all farmhouse doors for handouts. Sometimes when it was harsh she would let them kip down in the hay barn for the night but not before she searched their pockets for matches just in case.

There were good tramps and rogues, war-scarred veterans and lazy deserters. This one looked fresh-faced, with no matted beard and foul-smelling clothes, younger than most of her visitors.

‘What am I going to do with him? I can’t have
him in the house. I don’t think I could drag him there. He’s a big man. What’s he doing stuck out here at this time of night?’

She often talked to herself. It was Paddy Gilchrist’s nagging spirit that had brought her out here with the dog. His prompting might yet save this man’s life.

The tramp’s sandy hair was matted with ice. There was something about him she recognised. The face was clean shaven, the bit she could see was handsome enough and he was still breathing. She bent close to check his breath as his eyes flickered for a second, blue eyes fringed with frosted sandy lashes. He muttered something incoherent in what she took to be a foreign language so she bent down closer, smelling the whisky on his frozen lips. There was no time to judge his stupidity. She must treat him like a frozen beast and revive him as best she could.

She rubbed his arms with vigour to get warmth into them, but straw, hot water and blankets were what were needed now, with sweet tea and hot-water bottles. She had to get him on his feet before his limbs froze for ever, but how?

‘Oh, give me strength to lift him, to rouse him from his stupor. He has to help himself or he is lost.

‘Stay by, Jet. Stay.’ She ordered the dog to sit across his body, tearing off her sacking to cover
them both, leaping in panic back over their footings. She must go to bring the sled and harness the cart horse but then she remembered the barn door was fast with snow. The muffled man would die of cold long before she reached him.

There was nothing for it but to drag him to his feet. He had to get his own limbs going, get the circulation back into his frozen body. He had to help himself.

Every second seemed to be in slow motion as she tugged and tugged at his frozen coat to release him from the snowdrift.

‘Get up! Get up. You are not far from the house,’ she cajoled him out of his stupor. ‘Come on, last lap. Wakey, wakey! You’ve got to help me. I can’t drag you. You’ve got to work your legs!’ she shouted in his ear.

He opened his eyes through the slit in his frozen scarf like a drunken man, not taking in her words and yet searching her face with his eyes, unable to form words with his lips. She was rubbing his hands. It was going to hurt like hell once his numbness wore off. She had to get him into the kitchen to thaw out.

From somewhere outside of herself she felt the strength flooding into her tired body, sap rising up in a spurt of energy to get him sitting upright, pulling him on his feet, but his legs were rigid and he was going to fall.

He groaned and cried out in protest but she felt angry with frustration as to why this drunken stranger had to stray onto her land, interrupting her peaceful evening and demanding such attention.

‘Lean on me,’ she ordered gruffly, thinking about a sack of coal stuck on her back. At least her shoulders were used to heaving burdens. She would drag him behind her, bent double with the effort, but they would get to that fixed point where she placed the storm lantern to light their path home. She would rest and put the lantern ahead again, and drag him to the next fixed point until the outline of the whitened farmhouse came into view.

Slowly they edged ever closer to the farmyard, but there was a gate to open; a gate blown over with snowdrifts. The snow was beginning to fall again and soon there would be another blow-in. The last yards would be the worst if he didn’t help himself. She could feel the cold seeping into her body.

Then she remembered the cripple hole, the gap in the stone wall where the sheep could run from one field to another. If she could only drag him through the wall, but it would be blocked by now. The gate would never open. The wind was rising and whipping the snow. She could see only six feet in front of her but nothing was going to distract her from one last effort. Her shoulders were on fire with the effort.

‘What do I do now?’ she cried into the wind. To be so near and yet so far from safety…Suddenly the wind dropped and the clouds parted for a few seconds. The moon shone down, torching a path. The snow was piled so high by the farm gate that it was right over the stone wall, built up, freezing hard, a ready-made slope for her to cross over and down into the farmyard.

There was no time for gratitude, only to seize the moment; one last dragging, pushing effort. She crawled up herself and then dragged him like a sledge down the slope, laying him with relief on the snow.

‘Come on, nearly there,’ she shouted yanking his arm.

He made one supreme effort to stagger to his feet, his arms clinging across her chest. Together they staggered to the door already covered with thick snow, but after all she had been through kicking a path into the kitchen was nothing at all.

The warmth and light of the room hit them both. She had never been so glad in all her life to see the flag floors and kitchen fire. She smelled the peaty smoke with relish.

‘We’ve made it,’ she cried, but now the real rescue job would begin in earnest.

He was already prostrate on the floor, exhausted, disorientated and fevered. She was going to have her work cut out to save his hands and feet from
permanent damage. Stripping off his greatcoat and army jacket, she found underneath a woollen shirt and thick vest. These layers must have saved his life.

They were not the clothes of a vagrant unless they were stolen from a washing line. There was a mixture of tweeds. Around his neck and face was the frozen scarf masking his face. She would have to peel it off with care or it would rip off his skin.

She was curious now. She examined him like a carcass. He was well muscled and well fed but on the thin side and very tall. Everything that was dry and warm must be piled on top of him. He needed thawing out by the range like a frozen sheep. She smiled to herself, thinking of the tune from
Messiah
, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray,’ and thought of Sylvie’s birth in the vestry when she was young and full of hope.

There was no time to lose. Whilst the kettle was boiling it was time to tackle his feet. To her surprise his boots were well made but his socks were welded to his skin. She took the nearest towel and began to massage his toes gently. What was she doing with a stranger at her hearth, rubbing him down like a beast? Florrie would have the vapours to know what she was up to.

She placed a warm cloth over his face to release the frozen mask, curious to see who was underneath.
Then she fished in his pockets for some identity.

There was only a silver cigarette case and lighter, some coins and tickets. There was a thin diary with a travel warrant stuck in one page and baler twine. His name scrawled was smudged by water, unreadable, but you could tell a lot from a pocket. Here was a farmer on his way to market, who smoked and drank with the best. It didn’t add up to much but perhaps she would be safe in the house with this curious stranger, unless he was a thief.

She took away the lighter, just in case. He was in no state to be moved and in for a rough time when the numbness wore off. She would make a bed for him by the hearth with the dogs.

The wind was rattling the doors as it did when it blew in from the east. They had beaten the blizzard by the width of an eyelash. ‘Someone must have been looking after this chap,’ she muttered as she prepared the bowl of water. Now she must be cruel to be kind.

It was like laying out the dead, sponging him down, opening his shirt, listening to see if his breathing was steady. Jet sat by her side, interested, trying to lick him back to life. There were hot bricks in the bottom of the Rayburn. Wrapped in old cloths, they could be padded round his body to warm him through.

It felt as if she was in some strange dream: the walk in the snow, feeling the coat in her fingers, dragging the half-dead man into the safety of the house and now anointing his body with lanolin, trying to rub the life back into him.

She was exhausted with the effort, unnerved by him lying there, packed with blankets and rugs. What if he died on her?

She sat vigil until her eyelids were drooping and found herself wrapping the blankets around herself. She might as well kip down with the dogs by the hearth, lie by his side and see him through until morning, but first she must unpeel the scarf.

Bit by bit she released the material, first his nose, then his mouth and neck, and only then did she see who it was…

19

Ben stirred, hearing himself groaning. Was this a dream? Where was he? He lay helpless on a rug, stripped, covered over with rough blankets. There was the smell of wet dog, muck and manure and peat smoke, and he sensed he was safe. Then he felt the searing pain of his thawing body and rolled in agony, his limbs on fire. A woman was rubbing his arms, slapping life and pain back into him when all he wanted to do was sleep.

‘Ben, I have to do this,’ a voice whispered, checking to see if he was really awake. All he could register was pain and a pair of his own eyes looking down at him with concern. What the hell was going on? He shut his eyes to hide his agony but she kept shaking him as if he was a rag doll. Why was she doing this? Then he recalled the station and the walk and the blizzard, and being dragged across the snow with a dog licking his face. It was Jet
wagging his tail in his face, and his eyes focused and he saw it was Mirren torturing him, pulling him up and making him change position. Then he saw the bowl of hot water.

‘No! Have a heart! Mirren, is it really you? What happened?’

‘Later…we have got to get your feet in the bowl,’ she said, her cheeks flushed with exertion.

‘My feet are fine,’ he protested, trying to focus on her hair loosened from a scarf.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she snapped.

Still the same old Mirren, sharp as a knife, he sighed.

‘If you’re daft enough to walk through a blizzard then you risk losing your toes and fingers. Don’t be a girl’s blouse!’

‘I’ll do it slowly,’ he groaned.

‘Do it how you like, but just get on with it,’ was all the sympathy he was going to get. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea.’

The drink was piping hot and laced with sugar from her ration. Swallowing took his mind off the agony in his toes as they were coming back to life. He began to shiver and saw that he’d been stripped down to his underpants and vest.

‘When you’ve finished, I’ll have your head in friar’s balsam. Might as well keep the chill off your chest,’ she ordered, like a hospital matron.

How could he protest, face down with his head
covered by a towel, sniffing camphor fumes? His cheeks were raw and stinging.

‘What on earth possessed you to come tramping up here? You were nearly a goner when Jet found you.’

‘It wasn’t that bad when I left the station,’ he muttered under his towel, feeling naked and silly and entirely at her mercy.

‘You should have stopped in the village. Honestly, you haven’t the sense of a flea. I had to get you out of those wet clothes and quick.’ Mirren plonked a pair of Grandpa’s old fustian breeches, a thick shirt and clean vest before him. ‘These’ll have to do for now. I’ve no other spares. There’s not enough hot water for a bath so I sponged you down as best I could. You’d got some smart tweeds on for hiking. Off somewhere special?’

‘I was making for Glasgow; got a ticket on a ship. Didn’t Florrie tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’ She paused from her busyness.

‘I’m emigrating to Australia…an assisted passage.’

‘Are you now? Deserting the old country in its hour of need? What happened to college?’ she replied, and then there was silence. Mirren left him to struggle into the breeches and long socks. His whole body was tingling and sore, but where there was feeling there was life, he thought with relief. The smell of bacon was coming from the range like
perfume to his nose, and he was ravenous, gazing around the familiar kitchen with pleasure. Nothing had changed: the smooth flag floor with rag rugs covered in dog hair, custard-cream walls and ancient stove. The cupboard of china plates still fixed to the wall, a clutter of pipe cleaners, jugs and candlesticks over the mantelpiece, a glowing kerosene lamp in the middle of the deal table, two dogs watching him and Mirren’s open book turned face down as usual.

Grandpa’s breeches itched and smelled of mothballs but they covered his credentials perfectly. He blushed to think of Mirren undressing him. How unbelievable that she had found him like that. It was hard to take in that he’d escaped death by a whisker.

‘You’re done then?’ She eyed him furtively as she laid the table. ‘Were they expecting you at Scar Head?’ she added. ‘No one said, but then I only get told what Florrie thinks is good for me these days.’

‘No, it was a last-minute idea on the train. I jumped off at the Halt,’ he said, eyeing up the bacon rashers, his mouth slavering.

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? No panic then with Tom and Florrie. Sit down, eat up and rest a while. It’s not fit to throw a louse out in this storm.’

‘I don’t want to put you to any bother,’ he offered.

‘You already have but you’re family, so no mind. Get stuck in,’ she smiled, and the clouds parted, the stern look on her face brightened, her full lips
smiled and those sad eyes flashed a welcome. In that instant he saw her beauty again and knew he was lost.

Mirren watched him wolfing down his bacon with relish. He finished off the last bread in the bin, slurping down his mug of tea, savouring every sip, and it was like old times round the kitchen table after milking. If she hadn’t got out of the chair he could have been lying in the drift, stiff as a board like George Pye for weeks. It didn’t bear thinking about.