Christmas Past (8 page)

Robert started to write again, but the rows of words before his eyes became rows of men, long organised rows, silently waiting, moving gradually towards the calm dark water’s edge, and
then into it.

The panic came again. He couldn’t swim; the water was chin high. Petrified, he moved on. Soon he would be out of this bloody world, soon he would be with Tom and Jocky Johnson – then
suddenly he was heaved upwards into the boat, and he heard again the cry of, ‘That’s enough. Another boat’s on its way, lads. Keep yer chins up.’

He was sweating now and wanted to vomit as he relived again the rise and fall of the small boat, and then the relief as sleep overcame him and the ship carried them home.

He would write the letter another day; he was too tired tonight. Robert sank into another sleep, a fitful sleep in which another nightmare awaited him.

Mary knew something was wrong as they cycled down the lane. Mr Downing was leaning on the gate with an arm round his wife, and the boys were sitting on the wall swinging their
legs in a woebegone manner.

‘Oh, no,’ groaned Bessie. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve lost Honeysuckle. She seemed much better last night. I hope to God it isn’t foot and mouth. Me dad thought it
might be.’

‘What’s up, Mam?’ Lucy asked anxiously.

Mrs Downing handed her a letter, breaking into sobs as she did so. Mary suddenly realised it was about Tom. Her hair seemed to stand away from her scalp and she felt cold, despite the warm
evening.

Lucy read the letter aloud slowly.

Mary seemed oddly detached from the scene before her, as though she was accepting the inevitable, and had already lived through the shock and grief even before it happened.

Lucy crumpled the letter viciously.

‘It’s all lies,’ she cried. ‘He’s got a cheek scaring us like that. We’d have heard by now from the War Office. He can’t be dead.’ Then she broke
into deep, heart-rending sobs. Mrs Downing drew her daughter into her arms in an effort to comfort her, silently suffering herself even more than the grieving girl.

Little Douglas kicked his clogged feet rhythmically on the drystone wall, too young to know anything unusual had happened. Cyril, unable to stem the tears, jumped down and ran to the closet,
slamming the door behind him, ashamed of showing his feelings in public.

It was Tom’s father for whom Mary felt the most sympathy. He seemed to have shrunk since she had ridden past him that morning. His brown workworn wrists were thrust deep into the pockets
of his corduroy breeches, stretching the braces to their limits. His shoulders, usually squared and jaunty, were slumped, causing him to look inches shorter in his distress. Only Bessie seemed
unaffected. Then she began to laugh, at first softly and then louder.

‘It’s all a joke,’ she cried. ‘Our Tom’s not dead.’

Her laughter turned to hysteria, which held them all in frozen distress until Mary remembered how her mother had dealt with Auntie Norah after the pit accident. She slapped Bessie’s face
sharply, shocking her into silence. Then she said softly, calmly, ‘Come on, let’s go inside.’

She had known all along that he wouldn’t come back. Something had told her outside the jeweller’s. She hadn’t been able to stop staring at him, knowing it would be for the last
time.

She must take after her grandmother. The same thing had happened to her on occasions, like the day before Mary’s uncle had been killed in the pit. She had begged him not to go to work the
next day but he had laughed. They had all laughed but she had been right. Now it had happened to her. Her da always said she had her grandmother’s ways, and now it seemed he was right.

‘I’ll go and make some tea if that’s all right?’ she said. Mrs Downing nodded, and she set off into the house. The family followed her, slowly, silently, as though in a
funeral procession. To a funeral without a body.

For a change Rowland Roberts showed his authority and insisted Mary take a holiday. The day after the letter arrived at the Downings’ he went to the station and bought a
ticket to Newcastle. Then he wrote out a sick note and delivered it personally to the steel works, along with others for Bessie and Lucy, who were in a far more obvious state of shock than
Mary.

‘She’s too calm,’ he said to Gladys after they had seen Mary off to bed with a mug of hot milk. ‘I don’t like it when they don’t show any emotion. It causes
nothing but trouble in the long term.’

‘She’ll be all right,’ Gladys said. ‘She did all her grieving after Tom went back from leave. It was as though she knew he wouldn’t return. Didn’t I tell you
at the time, about the premonition? It seems she takes after her grandmother, knew in advance what was going to happen, though I can’t say I ever believed in such things until now. Still, my
mother always said there’s something strange about Catholics.’

‘It’s nothing at all to do with religion. I’ve seen stranger things happen at the hospital on more than one occasion – patients claiming to have left their bodies during
surgery and watched the whole operation being performed. At first we put it down to vivid dreams caused by the ether, until one patient accurately described the layout of the theatre and the
surgical team, all of which she’d never set eyes on. Oh, there’re some strange forces at work which none of us understand. Still, if it’s softened the shock for Mary it can only
be for the good.’

‘Even so, I think you’ve done the right thing by insisting on her going home for a while,’ Gladys said. ‘There’s nothing you want more than your own flesh and blood
in times of trouble, though this place’ll be like a morgue without her and I shall be counting the hours until she comes back. Oh, when I think about Tom I can’t believe we shall never
see him again. What his poor parents must be going through, not knowing officially one way or the other. I’ll go down as soon as I’ve seen Mary off and find out if there’s
anything I can do.’

‘Yes, you do that, dear. All this bloodshed, I can’t for the life of me see what good can possibly come out of it all. Still, we mustn’t be downhearted. There’s work to
be done, not only on the front lines but here in the hospitals. I’m beginning to think our city will be a target before long. Better for Mary to go now before things begin to hot up. Though I
shan’t rest until she gets back. I only hope I’m doing the right thing by sending her.’

‘You are, Rowland, I’m sure of it. If she stays here she’ll be going off to work as usual, and I’m sure a change can only be for the good. Oh, but I’m going to miss
her so much.’

‘I know, dear; God knows I couldn’t think more of the girl if she were our own daughter. I only hope she doesn’t decide to stay with her family, but that’s a risk we have
to take. Oh, well, shall we be going up? Somehow I don’t feel like listening to the radio tonight.’

Mary had boarded the train with the feeling of a lead weight in her stomach, but by the time she reached Newcastle she couldn’t fail to be uplifted by the anticipation of
seeing her family again. Besides, a crowd of airmen had piled into the compartment and sung for most of the journey, trying to persuade her to join in. She hadn’t done that, but instead she
had taken out the enormous packed lunch Gladys had made and handed round the oven bottom cakes filled with eggs and salad from the garden, and by the time the sandwiches had been eagerly devoured
Mary had confided the reason for her journey and been offered consolation and inundated with requests for her address. One of the airmen lifted her bags from the rack for her and she left the train
feeling much more cheerful. She could just imagine her ma’s face when she walked into the house.

The cheer vanished as she dismissed the taxi two streets from home and walked the rest of the way, not wishing to attract the attention of the neighbours. Even so she noticed the curtains
shifting at a number of windows as she passed by, and was filled with disgust at the squalor of some of the houses. Surely the area hadn’t been so bad when she lived here, or was it just that
she was spoiled now by her present environment? She pressed the brass sneck, relieved to see that it was newly Brasso’d, and walked into the living kitchen, welcomed by the smell of frying
onions and potatoes.

Kathleen saw her first. She was setting the table and squealed with delight as Mary walked in. Dropping the cutlery, she ran to throw her arms round her sister, then stood back and looked down
at Mary’s best costume, as though afraid of soiling it.

‘Ma,’ she called, ‘our Mary’s come home. She looks lovely.’

The scuffle on the stairs announced the entry of her mother. ‘Holy mackerel,’ she exclaimed, and Mary went into her arms, weeping for the first time since Tom’s departure,
inconsolable as she gave way to the pent-up feelings of the past months. She closed her eyes and for a moment felt like a child again, comforted as she once was by the special warmth and devotion
that only a mother and child can exchange. She realised at that moment that, much as she loved Gladys, it had been worth the long, uncomfortable journey to be here in her mother’s arms at
this time of grief.

‘Nay, bonny lass,’ said her mother wiping her own eyes, ‘you should be laughing to be home, not turning the tap on and almost wetting me through.’

Mary smiled through her tears and said simply, ‘Tom’s dead.’

‘Oh, God, no,’ Mrs O’Connor said softly. ‘Oh, you poor lass, have a good cry then.’ And she gathered Mary into her arms again, rocking her right and left as though
soothing a child to sleep.

‘Do you want to talk aboot it?’ she asked after a while. ‘Tell us what happened. It’s better oot than in. Or shall we have a cup of tea and talk later?’

‘Yes, let’s do that,’ said Mary. ‘I feel better already - it was just seeing you again after all this time. Anyway, I’m dying for a drink. Where are the
others?’

‘Oor Norah’s at work – she’ll be home aboot six - an’ yer da’s on afternoon shift, finishes at ten. Eeh, I can’t wait to see his face when he knows
you’re home. I think he’s the one who has missed you the most. Blamed himself for you gooan’, said if he hadn’t spent so much on the beer we shouldn’t have been living
here amongst the grime and smoke and you wouldn’t have been ill and had to go convalescing halfway across the country. Well, I’ll say one thing: he’s a cheeanged man, determined
to shift us all out of here as soon as he’s able.’

‘Well, I’m glad some good came of my leaving.’

‘Why are you talking different, our Mary?’ asked Kathleen.

‘I’m not,’ said Mary, shocked.

‘Yes you are. Isn’t she, Ma?’

‘Well, I suppose she’s just picked up a different accent.’

‘I never noticed. It must have rubbed off on me from the doctor and Mrs Roberts. Oh, Ma, they are lovely – I’m ever so lucky to be living there. I wish you could visit the
house some day.’

‘That’ll be the day when I go anywhere further than the shops.’ Mrs O’Connor laughed. ‘Are those stovies ready yet, Kathleen? I bet our Mary’s starving.
I’d have done another panful if I’d known you were coming, lass, not that there’s many onions amongst the taties. Who’d have ever believed there could be a shortage of
onions?’

‘Perhaps this chicken will make them go further,’ said Mary, opening one of her bags and taking out a brown paper parcel. ‘It was only cooked last night, in fact the poor thing
was strutting around the garden yesterday afternoon.’

‘Eeh, lass, are you sure they can spare it? I mean with all the rationing and everything?’

‘I didn’t have chance to refuse. It was killed cleaned and cooked before I knew anything about it. I told you how good Mrs Roberts is.’

‘Look out, the camels are coming.’

The door burst open and in rushed Jimmy and Michael, stopping dead in their tracks when they noticed Mary, to stand shyly in the doorway.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘aren’t you going to say hello or something?’

‘Hello,’ said Jimmy. ‘Have you come home?’

‘Well, what does it look like?’ said Kathleen.

Mary laughed. ‘Oh, you haven’t half grown.’

‘’Ave I grown?’ asked Michael.

‘You certainly have. Why, I don’t think I’d have recognised the pair of you if I’d seen you outside. Where’s our Bill, then?’

‘Gone to the allotment.’

‘I didn’t know you had an allotment, Ma!’

‘It’s not ours, it belongs to the school, but anyone would think it belonged to our Bill, the way he’s taken over the running of it. Oh, well, let’s get out the stovies.
Have you cut the bread, Kathleen?’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Mary.

‘Oh no you won’t, not in those clothes,’ said her mother.

‘Well, give us a pinny, then. Oh, it’s lovely to be home again.’ But Mary couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before she was yearning to be back amongst the
green hills and valleys of Yorkshire.

As it happened it wasn’t the yearning for the countryside which forced Mary to return at the end of the week but the guilt of being away from work. The first few days had
been made up of visits to Joyce, Father Flynn, and the shops, where she bought a new dress for her mother and shoes for her father, brothers and sisters, not caring that her precious savings would
all be gone. After all, what could she possibly want, now that she wouldn’t have Tom to share it with? She also bought a white frilly pram set for Joyce’s new baby boy, crying bitter
tears as she held the warm cuddly form in her arms.