Northern Girl (2 page)

Remembering how well his mam knew him gave Tom a warm feeling. It suddenly seemed like only yesterday that his imagination had run riot, making up stories about the dragon who’d so
obviously
lived inside that chimney. And probably still did, if that smell was anything to go by!
He sniffed at the air. Oh yes, that’s a dragon smell all right, he thought, as he walked steadily home.

Fast approaching Bank Top now, he glanced up. ‘Blimey! The bus shelter’s still standing!’ He was so amazed that he spoke out loud. He grinned, remembering its secrets. The shelter at the top of the bank, he thought. I suppose you’d call it the top of the
hill
, if you were posh. He was suddenly reminded of his upperclass army mates. He was wondering what the ones who were still alive would make of this quaint little mining village, when, all of a sudden, the heavens opened, and the rain came down in buckets.

Christ Almighty! He broke into a run. If I’d got on the right bus in Bishop Auckland, he thought, I’d have been home by now. But no, I had to get on the first bloody one I saw. I should have got the number eleven instead of the twelve. Then he reminded himself that he wouldn’t have met the mischievous blonde clippie if he had.

In his haste to get under cover, he practically fell into the three-sided wooden shelter. After he’d wiped his wet face on the rough itchy sleeve of his coat, and once his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he looked around. This place could tell some stories, he thought, remembering the brazen lasses who’d once shimmied around inside, displaying their naked breasts to an audience of eager village lads. For a brief moment he was back in the past, feeling a pang of embarrassment, and sitting on this very bench with his mates, staring in awe at those poor lasses, who’d do all kinds of mucky stuff in return for a fag, or even less.

It was all part of growing up, he supposed, and probably happened in most villages where there was nothing better to do. You could always go to the pictures instead, of course, but only if you had a tanner to spare for a ticket. Transported back to his teens, he sat on the damp bench a while longer. He noticed the musty smell of the shelter had got worse over the years, which he hadn’t thought possible. He glanced at the rotting wooden walls. Apart from that, it was the same. Although it was comforting to find that things hadn’t changed while he’d been away, it was also strangely disturbing, too. It was difficult to fathom how, after all that had happened in the world in the last six years, the pit chimney and the bus shelter could have remained untouched. Even the village looked intact. How the hell could that be? It just didn’t seem right to him, this sameness, when, where he’d been, right in the thick of it, there had been so much destruction and death.

I’m getting all maudlin sitting here, it’s time to move on, he thought, getting up. Outside, the rain was easing, so he decided to make a run for it. It was just as well he hadn’t been able to let his mam know in his letter the exact time he’d be home. All he’d told her was the day, and that it would be some time in the afternoon.

He felt happy at the thought that he wasn’t too far from her now. Oh, how he’d longed to see her! He wasn’t afraid to admit that he’d missed her terribly. There’d been times, during the cold dark nights, when he’d actually cried. Not only out of fear, but because he craved her comforting embrace. Sometimes, his longing
had been so intense that he had crouched in his dugout, oblivious to the mud, and wrapped his arms around himself like a child – in an attempt to alleviate the torture of his surroundings. But, invariably, he hadn’t succeeded, and he’d broken down, doing his utmost to stifle the sobs over which he had no control. Even now, tears pricked his eyes, as he recalled that he’d not been alone in feeling like that.

More than once he’d come across the other lads in the same state, and they’d insisted that it was only the cold making them shiver and sniff. But he’d known better! There’d been no place for sentimentality in those bloody foxholes, so each and every one of them had had to find their own way of dealing with the homesickness and fear. They’d had orders to obey, they’d been there to fight. And by God, how they’d fought! He’d watched some of his closest mates fall at his side, and he’d had no choice but to keep on – running and stumbling over broken bodies where they lay, some so clogged with mud that he’d not have recognized them even if he could have stopped. And all the while, there’d been a never-ending fog, caused by the continuous bombardment.

How the hell
he’d
got out of it he didn’t know, and he’d vowed to himself that if he ever got home, he was going to make the best of his life. No matter what!

Skirting puddles, he arrived outside his old school, which he remembered as being huge. He was shocked at how small it was. It was insignificant, he thought, as he stared at the tall narrow windows blending into the dull
grey stonework. I suppose our Jeannie must go there now. He smiled, visualizing his young niece. She’d been a funny little thing. She had to be ten by now, and he probably wouldn’t recognize her.

Just ahead he could make out the red brick of
his
terraced street, where each house had its own back yard enclosed by high walls. Like the others in the village, his street was back to back with another, separated only by a narrow cobbled lane. So that on the rare occasions when washing wasn’t strung out from one side of the lane to the other, causing the flapping sheets to blot everything else out, you could look straight from your own gate into the opposite yard. There was a hell of a lot of gas-bagging went on from one gate to another, he remembered. But that was the way in Evenwood.

He looked quickly at the church on his left as he walked by, but it was only a glance. Unlike his mother, he had never had much time for religion. He had even less now, since seeing what he had, in this world supposedly looked after by God. He just couldn’t believe in an invisible and supposedly loving force that had allowed such things to happen, and more often than not to innocent folk.

Again, he had to give his head a little shake to rid himself of the visions, sounds and odours that crept into his mind unexpectedly: weeping children; tanks on fire with men screaming inside; the smell and sight of rotting flesh. They gave him so many nightmares that he was afraid to sleep.

He looked up, and saw that just above the downstairs
window of the end terrace house was the metal sign he’d visualized so many times, still clinging on to the red brick wall with its rusty old screws. Even the badly faded blue lettering couldn’t obliterate the words he’d longed to read: GLAMIS TERRACE. Here it was, his street … the only one in the village with a strip of land along the front, which the proud residents had turned into gardens.

As he got closer he slowed right down. Only a few more steps to go, and even before he raised his eyes he knew she’d be there. Slowly, he looked up, and there she was, his mam … just as he’d pictured her so many times, waiting on the doorstep.

He cleared the lump from his throat and walked towards her, and before he could get there, her arms reached out to him. Without a word, Tom dropped his kitbag to the ground and fell into them. They clung together for a few moments, before Tom, in an attempt to stifle the emotion threatening to overwhelm him, held her at arms’ length and questioned light-heartedly, ‘Nice pinny, Mam. For something special, is it?’

She smiled through her tears, and, giving him a playful shove, answered, ‘Yer know fine well that ah always wear me best pinny on special days, our Tom.’

‘Aye, I do, Mam, but why you wear your best pinny over your best dress when you can’t see the dress for the pinny, like, I’ll never know.’

‘Ay our Tom, yer still the same, pet, never serious.’ She laughed. ‘Anyway, what are we doin’ out here talking about me pinny, when yer must be soaked ter the
skin? Get yerself in here,’ she said, pulling him none too gently towards the front room. ‘And get in front of the fire while ah make us a nice cup of tea. That’ll soon warm yer up. Then we’ll have a good old chinwag, an yer can tell uz all about what yer’ve been up to. The bits yer didn’t tell us in the letters, like!’ she added with meaning.

It didn’t escape him that, as she scuttled towards the scullery, she grabbed the bottom of her pinny and pulled it up to her eyes in a discreet attempt to wipe away the tears. Tom dropped his wet coat on the floor and flopped down into the armchair, looking around appreciatively.

The room gleamed, and a cheering blaze glowed red against the black-leaded fire-surround. There was a shining hob and oven, and a brass fender to catch any coals that fell. He called out, ‘Are you all right in there, Mam?’

‘Yes, pet, ah’ll be there in just a minute,’ she called back hurriedly.

Tom relaxed into the chair, relishing the cosiness of the house, which he felt was unique. He’d never come across anything like it anywhere else. Not even at Madeleine’s, and that certainly hadn’t been on account of her family, who he had gradually grown to … yes, love, he supposed. But French homes were much more sparsely furnished, and their tiled floors could be cold. Although at Madeleine’s house there were rugs on the floor.

That thought prompted him to look down at the mat
under his feet. How many long winter nights had been spent making it? he wondered. He remembered how his mam – and sometimes the neighbours – had sat on high stools years ago, leaning over a large wooden frame. Sacking was stretched tightly across it, and with their ‘prodders’ they’d busily poke clippings – small strips of material – down through the hessian and back up again, the clippings being packed in tight against each other. Everyone had worked on their own little area, until, eventually, the whole of the sacking was hidden by brightly-coloured clippings. It had been a long laborious job, but they’d obviously made the best of it, because he remembered lots of laughter and chat.

Frustratingly, the grown-ups had never explained what they were laughing about, they’d said he was too young – but he certainly hadn’t been too small to help cut the clippings! In fact, anybody who called at the house while the mat-making was going on got drawn in. Hannah, his mam would hand them a pair of scissors and some bits of fabric and old woollen clothes and set them to work. She said she liked woollen clippings best, because they were the warmest underfoot.

That must have been about sixteen years ago, he thought, as he bent forward and dug his fingers into the rug. ‘Why it’s still like new!’ he said out loud, surprised.

‘What’s that? Were yer talking ter me, our Tom?’ Hannah called from the scullery.

‘No, Mam, just muttering to myself,’ he called back.

‘There’s places fer people like you, yer know.’ She laughed.

‘I was just thinking about how you used to let me have a go with the prodder, when you were making all those mats in the old days,’ he called.

‘Aye, ah remember that all right. Yer were a right little bugger then. Hang on a sec, Tom, ah can’t be doin’ with shoutin’ through the walls, ah won’t be a minute. Just waitin fer the tea ter mash.’

Comforted by the familiarity of his mam having a go at him – and the promise of a sweet, warming mug of tea – he stretched his feet out. Poor Mam, he thought, I did lead her a bit of a song and dance when I was a nipper, I suppose. He could see why she’d sometimes lost her rag with him. Like that time when, feeling left out of the mat-making, he’d pestered her to let him use the prodder. She’d finally given in, but he’d soon got bored with pushing tiny bits of material through the sacking, and found it much more amusing to run around jabbing everything with the prodder, including the sideboard and the table. Worse, he’d accidentally jabbed someone’s backside, which hadn’t gone down too well with the neighbour concerned. Needless to say, he’d never been allowed to prod again!

Still unable to believe that he was really home, he stared into the blazing fire. It all seemed like a dream. He looked across the room at the old grandfather clock, standing where it always had in the corner, and listened to its non-stop pendulum swing back and forth. The sound always used to calm him, but today the ‘tick tock, tick tock’ suddenly grated. It was too loud and heavy in his head, so much so that when Hannah came
into the sitting room with the tea he said, ‘How on earth did that clock in there keep going through the war, Mam? I’ve come home to the same old pit chimney, same old bus shelter, same old clock. Why, the whole of the village is untouched, it’s as if nothing’s happened at all!’

Luckily, Hannah had talked to some of the other folks in the village whose lads had come back from the war, and was prepared for him to be unsettled and disorientated. Some of the lads had terrible physical injuries, and others had them in the mind – and these were, of course, far harder to assess. She was grateful that her Tom was sound in his body, but worried about what might be going on in his head. All she knew was that he, like so many others, had been through a torment that would make his old life seem abnormal; it was going to take time for him to calm down. She also knew that she had to be careful what she said.

So, as casually as she could, she answered, ‘Like us all, lad, the clock kept on going, just as we’ve all had to, ah suppose. And we’ve had our moments, believe me!’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, let’s not worry about that old clock just now. Yer must be shattered, and yer’ll need ter get them damp clothes off before yer catch yer death of cold! Why don’t yer go up ter yer room?’ She added with a smile, ‘That’s still in the same place as well! And get some dry clothes on while yer there! But hurry up, because ah’m desperate ter have a good talk with yer before yer da gets in from work causin’ his usual trouble!’

Tom grinned at the thought of his da, and got up and
hugged Hannah again. He said, ‘OK, then, I’ll not be a minute.’ At the bottom of the stairs, he turned and looked at her. ‘It’s so good to be home, Mam. I can’t tell you what it’s been like out there.’

Close to tears, she replied lovingly, ‘No need, lad, not till yer ready.’ She made an effort to sound light-hearted, ‘Now you get up them stairs, and you’ll find all yer clothes where they always were an’ all. Let’s hope they still fit. Looks like yer’ve lost a bit of weight, mind! Then yer can come and sit by the fire while we have our cup of tea. So hurry up before it gets cold.’ She playfully shoved Tom further towards the stairs, adding, ‘Go on then, and be quick about it!’