The Chainmakers (6 page)

'Don't call it "fillbally" Anna,' her mother admonished. 'You know I don't like it, especially now you're mixing in good company so much...'

'Aw, cum on Mom, our Anna talks like a lady, an' yer know it.' Will winked his eye at Anna and leaned over to see the bread pudding. 'My, that's a good 'un our Anna, plenty a currants an' all. Call it what yer like, it'll be fillbally cum termorrer. We'm down ter bread an' find it at our 'ouse till Friday.'

'Everyone all right?' Anna's mother asked.

'That's what I cum for Mom, our babby's middlin'.' Will's handsome face became grave, his eighteen month old daughter Dorothy was the apple of his eye. 'Mary's at 'er wits end. 'Er's tried all 'er knows, it's a sort of bally gripe.'

'Glede water doing no good?'

Will looked embarrassed. 'Well, to tell you the truth, we'm burnin' ling... Mary hasn't been able to get to the pit bank wi' Dottie middlin''

'Oh, our Will, if you don't take the cake...' Anna was quite annoyed. 'No proper fire and a babby in the house...'

'Don't say 'babby", Anna,' her mother put in quietly.

Anna poured some water from the kettle into a basin and pulled a red hot glede from the fire with the tongs. She dropped it into the water and they watched as it hissed and steamed.

'There, we'll take that with us, it'll last the night,' said Anna. 'I'll just do Dad's Jolly Boy for the morning and I'll be with you.'

'You'm lucky to 'ave Jolly Boy of a Wednesday,' Will commented, watching as Anna spooned tea and sugar on to a piece of newspaper, and then a spoonful of condensed milk on top. She covered this with more tea and sugar and then rolled it tightly in the newspaper. A ball of Jolly Boy dropped into a billycan of boiling water made a good brew. She started to make another.

'Here you are our Will, I can't see you go without a Jolly Boy.'

Will flushed slightly, but smiled as he said diffidently, 'I didn't mean...'

'I know that our Will, we've plenty to last till Friday.' Anna gave him the screw of newspaper and added, 'I'll get my shawl. If our Dottie's really middlin' we'd better call at Pearce's for a bottle of Infant Preservative. He'll be shut but he'll open up for us.'

As they left the house Anna took the bread pudding from Will and balanced the glede water on top of it.

'Now our Will, fill a bucket with gledes and bring with you.'

'It's kind of yer our Anna, but perhaps Dad won't like it...' Will was hesitant.

'Dad's not paying for it,' said Anna sharply. She looked at Will, and her tone softened. 'Anyway, if you're quiet he won't hear you.'

She hurried away down the ginnel and by the time Will caught her up, they were nearing Pearce's shop.

'I was quiet,' he volunteered, swinging the bucket of coal.

'Right. We'll put the lot on to get a good fire going, and then I'll take the bucket to the pit bank for some sleck to bank up tonight.' In Will's company, Anna was already beginning to slide into the slight Black Country dialect she used when her mother wasn't around.

'I'll get it...'

'No you won't our Will. It ain't a man's job.'

Will subsided into silence, and looked on as Anna knocked hard on the shop door. Mr. Pearce soon emerged from his living room at the back, and served them quickly, assuring them that Atkinson's Infant Preservative would do the trick all right. As they hurried along the street and turned the corner Will suddenly said, ''Ave I done summat wrong our Anna?'

Anna snorted. 'What makes you think that?'

'You'm bein' mighty snotty nosed, I know you...'

Anna stopped dead in her tracks and turned a furious face towards him. 'Alright our Will, I'm angry, don't pretend you don't know why!'

'I don't know why! Honest... honest! What's to do...?'

'You, Will Gibson! That's what's to do! Burnin' a ling fire and our Dottie middlin'. I'll bet there's no milk in the house neither!' Will's sheepish look let Anna know she was right.

'You knew very well I had a bit o' money and would help! You'm too proud by half our Will.'

Will sighed, and fell into step beside her as she started to walk again.

'It ay that I'm proud,' he tried to explain, 'It's just that we can usually manage, but Mary ay bin able to work for a while...'

'Exactly! So why didn't yer ask?'

'Well... I didn't like...'

'Exactly!' Anna said again. 'Too proud.' She stopped and caught at Will's arm. 'Don't you understand our Will?' she said, almost pleading. 'There ain't no room for bein' proud, not in a proper family, and most of all not when a babby is sick. Babbies come first Will, you know that. Our Dottie's surely worth a bit o' pride?'

Will's big hands fumbled on the handle of the coal bucket. 'Arr, you'm right our Anna. I'm sorry.'

'Promise me Will, if ever you're in trouble, money or anythin' else, you won't keep it to yerself. Promise,'

Will smiled. 'I promise, ma wench. An' yo' promise me an' all... if you'm ever in a fix...'

'Yes Will, I promise. Now let's see what's up with our Dottie...'

An hour later, having helped Mary make up a good fire and spoon some of the Infant Preservative down Dottie's wheezing throat, Anna made her way through the dark streets towards the pit bank. You weren't really allowed to help yourself, but even if someone saw her they would turn a blind eye, provided she only collected slack. It was a thin broken coal, almost like dust, but if you banked up the fire with it at night it gradually solidified into a mass, and in the morning a few prods with the poker would break it into a good blaze.

Reaching the coal bank, she climbed a little way up, glad of her new boots, and dug the galvanised bucket fiercely into the slack. 'I wonder,' she thought as she began to scoop with her hands, 'I wonder what Florence and Robert would make of it if they could see me now?'

~

George Gibson took a swig from the bottle of "seconds", a beer made from the second fermentation of the hops, and then slung the bottle back into the bosh to keep cool. He pulled on the bellows and took a white hot rod from the fire. With a few well directed blows he shaped it into a horseshoe shaped link, then inserted it into the last link of the chain before beginning to hammer again. The black thoughts had been at him again today and he would be glad to see the back of his shift. In summer George often started work as early as four in the morning and finished at lunchtime, to complete his quota before the heat became unbearable, but on dark winter mornings when he didn't start until seven the shift seemed to go on for ever.

He splashed water from the bosh on to the hood over the fire and finished off the link by working the Oliver with his foot. The leaden weight in his chest would not go away, and no matter how he tried the dark thoughts returned. His frustration lay in the knowledge of his own limitations, for there was nothing he could do for Sarah... his Sarah. The time for change was long gone, perhaps it had never existed. Their dream was exactly that, just a dream. From the moment they had been thrown off her father's farm with curses ringing in their ears, there had not been a time when there was enough money to last out the week. Their endeavours as newly-weds, when they had walked every day, slowly making their way towards the burgeoning industrial towns of the Black Country, existing on love and hope and little else, now seemed the height of folly, a youthful game played by ignorant children unaware of the cards stacked against them.

After several false starts George had at last found work at Sandley Heath, with a gaffer who needed a fourth man to complete his team making cable chain for the ocean going liners which regularly plied from Liverpool to America. It had only ever been intended as a temporary measure, to make enough money to last until he could find work on the land. Sarah had been taken on by a fogger who paid her a pittance, but by the time she had acquired sufficient skill to earn a little more she was pregnant with Will. Two years later Anna had arrived, and somehow every week there was never enough money to feed and clothe them all, no matter how hard he worked.

George Gibson still missed the countryside, mourned for the loss of fresh green fields and whispering woodlands, yearned deep in his soul for the closeness to living things he had known in his youth. He knew it was the same for Sarah, although they never spoke of such things. Perhaps it was worse for her, born to a better life. She had never had a chance, his Sarah, not after she married him. He could see her now, running across the lower field to meet him at Bennett's Copse...

George started another link. He didn't like this half inch chain, it was a struggle to make six hundredweight in a week and even that didn't pay much after shelling out about four shillings to the blower. Think about something more cheerful, he told himself, there was an order for big cable to start next week which should pay better.

Sarah's parents had been right, he could see it now he had a grown up daughter of his own. They did not want their beloved child to waste her life with a mere farm labourer, and they had been right. Only it had been worse than they could have imagined. Sarah had found the grimy back to back terraces of Sandley Heath depressing beyond belief, and had never really settled. Her soft Worcester accent had earned her the nickname "Toffee" Gibson amongst her neighbours, the implication being that because she was well spoken she was toffee-nosed. She was not lacking in backbone however. She worked hard, and was never slow to help a neighbour in trouble, and over the years her nickname of "Toffee" Gibson became more a term of affection than censure.

Then there had been the really bad time, two sons, both stillborn, one after the other. Despite their grief they had comforted one another, had stayed close. Then as if in answer to their steadfast hope, little James had been born. His sweet gurgling nature delighted everyone who saw him, and when at one year old he had been struck down by whooping cough it was too much to bear.

George hammered at the link, trying to blot out the image of Sarah's agonised eyes as she pleaded, 'Are we being punished George? Surely the Lord is not so angry He would take my baby?' And he had held her and told her of course not, James would soon be better and everything would be alright; but the next morning James had slipped away from them, as gently and lightly as the death of a butterfly, and Sarah had raised her racked face to him, crying 'It's true. I am being punished for marrying you, for defying my parents. I have broken the commandment...'

'No, my love, no... it's not your fault...'

But Sarah only repeated over and over again, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land the Lord thy God giveth thee...'

After that she had given up, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He had watched her age, almost overnight she became greyer, thinner, hopeless. Her skin now seemed paper thin, and she had developed a bluish look around her mouth, and a burning haunted look in her eyes.

Guilt gnawed at George's thoughts, but he pushed it away. So what if he liked a drink? So did lots of other men. There had been too many years of going without. Even if he didn't drink at all, there would never be enough money to provide what Sarah needed, come to think of it, money wouldn't help at all.

~

Dottie was better by the weekend, and Anna set off for High Cedars with a light heart early on Saturday morning. As she crossed the main road and walked towards the lane which led down to the canal, she was surprised to see Clancy sitting on a low wall. As she approached he got up quickly.

'So there ye are! I thought I'd catch ye, so I did!'