Eve and Her Sisters (2 page)

Eve approached the house by way of the back lane. No one in the family came home through the front door and even in time of crisis the unwritten rule held. She pushed open the rickety wooden gate into the back yard and passed the brick privy and the small washhouse-cum-coalhouse next to it.

The back door, like that of any other in the neighbourhood, was never locked, and she stepped straight into the small scullery off the kitchen. Facing her was an old wooden chair without a back, on which boots were cleaned, and above this a row of pegs hung. In this confined space her father and brothers stripped off their filthy pit clothes each evening, whatever the weather, and washed in the tin bowl waiting for them on the backless chair which Eve had filled with warm water. When they had dressed in their spare set of clothing hanging on the pegs and come through to the warmth of the kitchen, she would take the pile of trousers and jackets out into the back lane and beat the coal dust out of them. Then they would take their place on the pegs ready for the next shift.

Eve paused, her eyes on the pegs. The sick fear she had been battling with throughout the long hours at the pit gates rose to the fore.
They had to be all right, they had to be. Anything else was unthinkable.
She crossed her arms over her middle as though she had the stomach ache, swaying slightly as she closed her eyes and prayed a frantic prayer consisting of muddled words and phrases. Her da, her lovely da. And Frank, he was only twenty-one, and William just eighteen.

After a few moments she raised her head, an inner voice telling her she had to be strong. She wanted to lay her head on her arms and give vent to the tears which had been choking her all day but she must not. She must not cry. If she cried, it would mean there was something to cry about and she didn’t know that yet. She mustn’t tempt fate.

She wiped her feet on the old cork mat, opened the scullery door and stepped up into the kitchen. Immediately the warmth from the range washed over her and again, as she glanced round the room, she wanted to cry.The open fireplace with its black-leaded hob, the oven to the right and rows of pans to the left, the gnarled wooden table covered with oilcloth beneath which six hard-backed chairs stood, the long wooden settle and her father’s ancient armchair to one side of the fire - all took on a poignancy which she would have termed silly only yesterday.

She took off her hat and coat and threw them on the settle. The room was dark, the light almost gone even though it was only mid-afternoon. With the weather worsening outside, she lit the two oil lamps before seeing to the range fire which had nearly gone out.

The dough was ruined. She stared at it. But it would suffice for stottie cake, she couldn’t waste it. She’d intended to make a pot pie for dinner with the steak and kidney she’d bought from the butcher the day before, but there was no time for that now before the girls got home. She’d make one tomorrow. Her da and the lads would likely need a good hot meal once they were home. For tonight Nell and Mary would have to be content with the last of the bread from yesterday, along with the remainder of the cheese and chitterlings. She had some pork fat on the slab in the pantry too, they could dip the bread in that if it was too dry.Tonight would have to be a make-and-mend meal, as her mother had been wont to say on the occasions she’d spring-cleaned.

The longing for her mother’s arms about her hadn’t been so fierce in years. Quickly she busied herself with practicalities. Taking the big black kettle from the hob she went into the scullery and out into the back yard, gasping as the cold and snow hit her. After filling the kettle she returned it to the hob. The fire was now blazing but she stoked it up still more, putting plenty of coal on. Her father and brothers being miners, coal was never in short supply.

Returning to the yard, she filled the scullery bucket with water. If the tap froze it took ages to melt with bits of burning paper pushed up the spout and experience had taught her that a full bucket was the minimum required for cooking, drinking and washing.

The kettle was boiling and the table laid for tea when her sisters came running into the kitchen ten minutes later.

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Eve stopped them, pointing to their snowy boots. ‘Wipe your feet, both of you. What do you think the mat’s for in the scullery?’

‘Is it true?’ Nell, who was two years younger than Eve but a head taller and nearly double her size in width, which made her appear far older than her eleven years, had been crying. It was evident in her pink-rimmed eyes and red nose. ‘The fall at the pit? Is it true?’

‘Go and wipe your feet.’ Eve ushered her sisters back into the scullery but as they went, she said, ‘Aye, Nell, I’m afraid it’s true. Now come and take your things off and sit down. Da and the lads are probably quite safe but we won’t know what’s what for a while.’

‘Oh, Eve.’

‘Now don’t start blubbing, that won’t help anyone and Da’d be mad if we gave way.You know he would. They’ll be all right. I’m sure they will.’

It wasn’t until her sisters were seated at the table drinking the hot tea she always served up in winter when they got home from school that Mary said, ‘Mrs Price’s husband is down the pit. Someone came to tell her and she went home. Flora Davidson, one of the girls from the top class, came to sit with us. She was ever so bossy.’

Eve nodded but didn’t comment.

‘Hannah Walton lives next door to Flora and she said when Flora an’ her mam an’ da came round for New Year’s Eve, Flora kissed Hubert, Hannah’s brother, on the mouth. Do you think she would? Hannah said you can have a bairn if you kiss a lad on the lips. Is that how babies are made?’

‘Shut up, you.’ Nell poked Mary in the ribs and none too gently. ‘Who cares about that when Da and the lads are stuck down the pit?’

‘Shut up yourself.’ Mary tossed her blonde curls and glared at her older sister.

With only sixteen months separating Mary and Nell, rows were common. It didn’t help that the two girls were so different, and not just in looks; with Nell being big and beefy and Mary as fragile as thistle-down, folk would be hard pressed to see any resemblance whatsoever. But the real difference lay in their personalities. Earth and wind, her father called the two, but while he would come down hard on Nell, even taking the belt to her on the odd occasion, Mary got away with murder. It wasn’t fair, Eve thought now, because Nell was all heart whereas Mary - as her detachment from the present calamity showed - was more interested in herself than anything else.

Her voice flat, Eve said, ‘Eat your tea,’ and placed the bread and cheese and chitterlings in front of her sisters.

Wrinkling her small straight nose, Mary surveyed the plates in front of her. ‘You said we were having pot pie tonight.’

‘I haven’t had time to cook with what’s happened. If you don’t want anything, that’s fine, but you’ll go to bed hungry, all right?’ Setting the pork dripping on the table, she added, ‘You can dip your bread in that if you want.’

Mary pouted, a prelude to her crying, an action which normally served to get her what she wanted - at least with her father and brothers. Glancing at Nell’s scowling face and Eve’s tight one, she appeared to change her mind and reached for a shive of the bread. Eve forced herself to eat a little too, even though every mouthful seemed to stick in her throat. She could not afford to get sick. She had to keep things ticking over as usual. It was what her da would expect of her.

At eight o’clock she could stand her sisters’ bickering no longer and sent them to bed. It was an hour before their normal bedtime and they went under protest.

Eve stood at the kitchen door and watched Nell’s fat figure, candle in hand, waddling indignantly up the stairs to the room the three of them shared, and Mary flouncing after her. Eve pressed her fingers tightly to her mouth as if to forbid its trembling. Was it only last night the three of them had had a crack with da and the lads, laughing and joking after the evening meal? She swallowed hard. And now . . .

Whirling round she busied herself tidying the kitchen before starting on a basketful of ironing. Once that was finished and the oats were soaking for the girls’ porridge in the morning, the urge to find out what was happening at the pit became overwhelming.

Hoping Mrs McArthur was back, she stepped into the back yard. The snow was inches thick and the air so frosty it took her breath away.The clouds had dispersed and the night was clear, the sky pierced with twinkling stars. Everything seemed clean and bright and new. They had to be safe, she told herself for the umpteenth time. It was inconceivable that on a beautiful night like this everything wouldn’t come right. There had been other falls, other times when it had taken the rescue teams ages to reach trapped men and they had been alive.

The McArthurs’ house was in darkness but a light showed from the kitchen window in the house to Eve’s left where the Finnigan family lived. Mr Finnigan worked at the South Moor Colliery so he wouldn’t know anything. She was about to go back into the house when the Finnigans’ door opened and Mr Finnigan stood there in his shirt sleeves with a mug of tea in his hand.

‘I thought I saw someone out here. Any news, lass?’ he called softly.

Eve shook her head. She liked Mr Finnigan, everyone did. He was young and smiley and his wife had had twin boys the year before last and was expecting again.

‘Let us know when you hear, and if you need anything in the meantime, you know where we are.’

The kindness loosened her tongue. ‘Thank you.’

He nodded at her, taking a sip of the tea, and he was still standing there watching her when she opened the back door and stepped into the house.

In the kitchen she stood biting at her fingernails. Coming to a decision, she lit the candle in the lads’ candlestick and made her way upstairs by its light to where Mary and Nell were sleeping. The lads’ room was across the landing - her father slept in a big brass bed in the front room - and she gazed at the closed door for a moment before going into the room she and her sisters shared. She made her way to the double bed where all three of them slept. Bending down, she shook Nell gently, saying, ‘Nellie, lass, wake up. Wake up.’

‘Wh-what?’

‘Look, I’m going to the pit to see if there’s any news. I might be awhile so don’t worry if you wake up and I’m not back.’

‘I’ll come an’ all.’

‘Don’t be daft, I need you to stay with Mary.’

‘Take my coat then, it’s warmer than yours. An’ me scarf an’ all, an’ Mary’s. It’ll be bitter.’

‘All right.’ Her voice soft, Eve added, ‘I’m sorry I was moany earlier, I didn’t mean it.’

Now it was Nell who said, ‘Don’t be daft,’ her breath a cloud of white in the icy room by the light of the candle.

Tucking the eiderdown round her sister’s shoulders, Eve smiled and left the room on tiptoe.

In the kitchen she pinched out the candle and then put on Nell’s coat and her own hat and a couple of scarves. The last thing she did was extinguish the oil lamp before she left the house for the white world outside it.

The last man and boy had been brought up. Of the one hundred and ninety-eight trapped miners, only thirty had survived.The miners’ local inspector, Frank Keegan, was acclaimed a hero for his part in rescuing twenty-six men, but on the day of the funeral when the whole town turned out to pay their respects, people were not thinking of the living so much as the dead.

The day passed in a dream for Eve. She knew it was happening. She knew she would never see her father and brothers again but, like everything else, it did not seem real. Since the first day, a part of her had been expecting her father to walk in like he always did, his thick droopy moustache permanently stained yellow from the nightly soaking it got in Burton’s Bass, calling for his dinner, the lads a step or two behind him, pushing and shoving each other. There would be noise and bustle and activity; the house came alive when the menfolk were home. But it had not happened. It would never happen again.

The three sisters went to Mrs McArthur’s after the funeral. Larry McArthur had made his last journey from the pit face to the surface held close in his father’s arms. Unlike many, Eve’s father and brothers included, he had not been burnt but merely looked as though he had gone to sleep. It had taken three men to prise the body from his father and Mrs McArthur had told Eve that when Larry was laid out in the front room, her husband had sat up all night stroking his son’s face and telling him it was time to wake up.Anne’s husband, too, had been killed and the day he had been brought up,Anne had found out she was going to have a child. She had now moved back to live with her parents, along with Mrs McArthur’s younger sister,Alice Turner, and her three bairns. Alice’s husband and son of fourteen had both lost their lives in the accident.

It was Alice who now left a group of mourners tucking into the ample spread Mrs McArthur had put on to come over to where Eve was standing, Nell and Mary pressed into her side. Without any preamble, she said, ‘You’re the lassies from next door, aren’t you?’

Eve nodded. She had seen Mrs McArthur’s sister several times at Christmas jollifications and the like, and thought her as different to her sister as chalk to cheese.

‘Our Cissy tells me you’ve got no family to take you in, is that right?’

Again Eve nodded.

Bending forward slightly, her voice low, Alice spoke into Eve’s ear. ‘Don’t think our Cissy will be able to help. She’s got a houseful now, what with me an’ mine and Anne coming home an’ all, and family comes first at such times.’

‘I know that.’

‘Aye, well, just so it’s clear. Cissy’s got a reputation for being a bit of a soft touch, as I’m sure you’re aware.’ Hard eyes glanced at Nell and Mary before coming to rest on Eve once more. ‘So, what are you going to do then?’

Eve’s fair skin was scarlet but her voice was steady and her tone brought a flush to the older woman’s face. ‘I think that is my business, Mrs Turner.’