Trapped In She Town : A Romantic Novella (The Jute Mills Series) (9 page)

As she put the children to bed later, she listened to the wind
howling outside and thought of John travelling in such atrocious weather. He
always caught the same train back arriving home around quarter to eight in the
evening.

At ten o’clock the children were awake again and crying – the noise
from the storm outside was deafening. Mary had never seen or heard a storm like
it. She lay with the children on their bed and sang to them to help allay their
fears until they all fell back asleep again. It was now half past ten and there
was still no sign of John. She felt the worry pulling at her but she told
herself that he was sensible. He had probably decided not to travel in such
terrible weather conditions. The old head groomsman would have given him a bed
for the night and he would make the journey back after work tomorrow evening.
To take her mind from her worries she began to imagine them all living in the
little house and she wondered what it looked like full of the children’s
smiling faces. Green fields for the bairns to play in and fresh air. She fell
asleep thinking of them all out walking and breathing in the fresh country air.

Mary was awakened in the morning by Tess banging away on her door.

“Mary! Mary! Wake Up! Look at this!”

She dragged herself to the door and it was flung open by Tess, as
she rushed past her into the wee house. “Mary! Where’s John! Did he get home
last night?”

Mary shook her head to waken herself up.

“Look at this” Tess urged, as she handed Mary the local morning
newspaper. Mary took one look at the screaming headline and fell to the floor
moaning.

Catastrophe
on the Tay Bridge

Panic
spread through the town of Dundee last night as a great part of the Tay Bridge
blew down in the violent storm that .......

Tess fell to her knees beside her. “Mary, Mary, listen to me. Was
John on that train?” Tess was shaking Mary.

“I don’t know, Tess.” she cried. “He usually arrives home around a
quarter to eight but when he didn’t arrive I just assumed that with the
terrible storm he would have taken shelter and not travelled. Oh Tess, what
will I do?”

“Look Mary you know how John is. I’m sure you are right. He would
not have travelled in that god awful weather. Get yourself down to the pier.
You’ll see, he’ll come over on the steamer today.” Tess rallied.

Tess took the children with her and Mary quickly dressed and headed
down the road towards the train station, where it was absolute pandemonium. She
was told the train from Edinburgh due at Dundee yesterday evening at quarter
past seven had fallen into the river when part of the bridge had collapsed.
They didn’t know if there were any survivors.

Mary felt sick to the bottom of her stomach. If there were no
survivors now – she knew that there was no chance of there being any survivors
at all. No one could survive in the freezing water of the Tay in December for
long. All she could hope for was that John had not boarded the train last night
and had taken refuge somewhere, probably unaware of the tragedy unfolding here.
She would give him a right belt around the ears when she saw him, for worrying
her so much.

Mary walked towards the river. There seemed to be thousands of
people there and when she looked towards the west, down the river, the sight
she saw caused the colour to drain from her face, and she had to hold onto the
wall to stop from falling over. About half a mile to the west, was the great
Tay Rail Bridge opened only the year before with a great party that the whole
town had enjoyed. And there, in the middle of the bridge, was a great, gaping
hole. The high girders which had been so conspicuous on the centre of the
bridge were entirely gone. All you could see were the stumps of the foundations
standing desolate in the water. Mary’s hands covered her face and she stood and
cried for a full ten minutes. Then she composed herself and headed towards the
pier where the steamer was just leaving for Newport.

The guard who checked tickets was surrounded by people shouting “Has
a Tam Milne come off the boat?” “Did an Elsie Hooper travel”?

Mary waited until the steamer had returned again from Newport and
disgorged its passengers, and when John was not among them she headed back to
the train station. She eventually spoke with an official and gave him all
John’s details. She told him she was unsure if he had travelled on the train,
and she gave her address in case there was any news. He told her divers would
be going down later that day and she choked back the tears once more.

There were lots of rumours circulating. “I saw the lights of the
Edinburgh train enter on the bridge at quarter past seven and when it reached
the high girders there was a sudden shower of sparks. Then the train dropped to
the river...” she heard one man explain to a crowd of spectators eager for any
titbit of news. There were other stories of mailbags being washed ashore at
Broughty Ferry.

She slowly made her way back up the narrow dark lanes to the little
flat in Kemback Street.

Mary carried on through a daze. She went to work at the mill while
her neighbour Mrs Miller downstairs looked after the youngest two with Patrick
still attending school. When the factory hooter went at dinner time, Mary would
scoot out of the factory gates and down the hill to the train station, to see
if there was any news. In the evening she fed the children and put them to bed.
There were no songs or stories for them during this dark time.

Two weeks later, she was given the news that John had been added to
the list of victims of the Tay Bridge Disaster. An inquiry would be held
eventually making this official. But Mary realized, that she had to accept the
fact that John had probably been desperate to get back to the family that
evening, and had managed to get on the train to Dundee, where he had perished
along with all the other passengers.

The gale had been so violent that night, that nobody had heard the
noise of the great iron structure falling over the howling wind. The part of
the bridge that had disappeared was that in which the lattice girders stood
above the platform and so the train was enclosed in a huge iron cage at the
time of disaster.

Mary grieved sorely for John, and each evening as she collapsed into
her bed she did not know how she had managed to get through the day. The nights
were the worst when the children were all fast asleep and she crawled into the
little bed she had shared with John. She was filled with guilt for not being
able to be a good wife to John. She knew he had adored her, and loved her, with
all his heart. But Mary had never been able to return that love fully, and this
had been especially noticeable in this little bed, where she had just lain down
and put up with John’s lovemaking. Mary hated herself for the way she had
treated him, and she wished with all her heart, that he would walk back in the
door one more time and she would invite him lovingly and enticingly into bed.
He had been such a good father, too. He had taken on Patrick as his own child.
Not one of the neighbours knew that he was not the father. Although Patrick had
Edward’s dark, brooding looks, while John and the girls were fair, Mary always
told anyone that asked, that Patrick looked exactly like her father in
Aberdeenshire. And they all seemed satisfied with that.

She knows it will be the death of her but she has no choice – so
Mary goes back to work in the mill. There is nothing else she can do. She
doesn’t know how much longer her lungs can stand the dust and Mary worries
every day - what will happen to the children.

George is wolfing down his breakfast of porage oats and a mug of
strong black tea. He must get the bottom field of wheat in today, or it will be
too late he thinks to himself. All this rain was having an adverse effect on
the harvest. But this morning the sun was out and he was sure he would manage
to recover the crop, if he got it in today.

Suddenly there was a heavy pounding on the back door. “George it’s
me. Tam Johnston.”

“Mary’s father, what can he want? Not wanting me to bail out another
of his daughters I hope” George thought bitterly as he remembered the lies he
and Mary had been told by this man and his wife.

“What is it, Tam?” he asked irritably. “I need to get out as soon as
dawn breaks to get the crop in, otherwise me and Molly will be starving this
winter.”

“George look at this! I saw it in yesterday’s paper. I didnae get
around to reading the paper until past 10 o’clock last night and it was too
late to rouse you then. But I’ve hurried here first thing to catch you before
you left for the fields this morning.”

“To show me the newspaper Tam. Have ye lost yer mind.” George asked
angrily. He was not in the mood for his father-in-law. They had barely spoken
since Beth and his mother’s funeral when Mary had told him the truth.

Tam started to look uncertainly at George but still he shoved the
newspaper into his hands.

“Look at the front page” Mary’s father insisted. It was report on
the findings of the inquiry into the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster.

“Aye Tam, I know it was a sore tragedy that Rail Disaster, but what
do you want from me?” he asked confused.

“Look George. Look at the list of victims – somewhere around the
middle – John Canavan – that was Mary’s man”

George stared and stared “That’s their address too, isn’t it, Tam”
he said quietly “ Kemback Street.”

“Aye, it surely is. Why did she no tell us? You know she’s never
forgiven me and her Ma, God bless her soul, for trapping you into marrying our
Beth” he said sorely.

George was no longer listening, he was making plans in his head.
“Tam, you must take the little one with you. I’m away to Dundee to get Mary and
bring her home where she belongs.”

“What about the crops George?” Tam countered.

“To hell with the crops” he shouted back.

George didn’t have time to think through what he was doing until he
was in his seat on the train, hurtling towards Dundee. He stared out at the
fields and the North Sea flying past, without seeing any of it.

“What if Mary has remarried“ he thought. “She’s a beautiful woman.
Someone would surely have stepped in by now to ask Mary to marry them, just
like before.” He began to doubt himself. It was 10 years since he had proposed
to Mary. He was no longer in his prime of youth, he thought to himself. Perhaps
she wouldn’t want him now. Perhaps she would never forgive him his part in
marrying Beth. Self doubt kept playing round and round in his head.

At Dundee train station he almost bought another ticket and jumped
back on the train to Aberdeen straight away.

“There’s no harm in going to see Mary and giving her my condolences
now that I’m here.” he decided and headed out of the station.

George asked for directions and soon found Kemback Street, where
Mary’s little flat was situated.

“What a dump”, George thought as he walked up the street wrinkling
his nose at the offensive and disgusting smells which seemed to be emanating
from everywhere.

After knocking for 5 minutes on Mary’s front door, her downstairs
neighbour came up to tell George to pipe down. She informed him that Mary was
at work along with her eldest, in the mill. The younger kids were both at
school she said. She also confirmed that John had indeed died in the terrible
Tay Rail Bridge Disaster. “My, my, what a tragedy” she said shaking her head.

George wandered back down the street towards the mill that she had
pointed out. He thinks about what Mary’s father had said about Mary not
forgiving them. “She probably just wants to be left alone to get on with her
life” he mused.

As George reached the mill he looked up at the tall, imposing, but
ugly building. It looked evil, belching out fire and disease. He watched the
workers moving around in the courtyard. Pale and ill looking, and he remembered
Mary at her mother’s funeral - thin as a rake with a grey pallor to her skin.
This was not the Mary of their youth, when she had been vibrant, full of health
and laughter and bouncing with vitality.

“No!” he bellowed out loud shaking his fist at the factory. “You
will not rob me of Mary. I have waited ten years and I will not wait another
minute. “And he marched into the courtyard and up to the office.

“I must see Mary Canavan” he said more firmly than he felt.

“The whistle blows at five” the girl behind the desk retorted.
“You’ll see her then, when she leaves for the day with the rest of the workers,
if she is employed here that is.”

“You don’t even know who your workers are – all these people who are
giving their lives in this god forsaken mill” he shouted disbelievingly.

Behind her desk was a door in the wall and a large window that
looked down onto the factory floor of the mill. George could see row upon row
of machines and lines of women and children black with dust and grease busily
working away.

“No! I’m not waiting a moment longer to see her” he countered, and
ran behind the desk through the door in the wall and down a set of iron steps,
which led directly onto the factory floor.