Shelter from the Storm (19 page)

‘He could lodge with you, certainly, if that was what you wanted.’

‘It’s the only way I would take it,’ Tom said roughly, and he left the office.

*

Vinia wondered whether she was at fault. Usually when Tom came home in a bad mood he had been brooding about something for days and it would all come out in a rush and she was careful not to argue or get too close. He ate his tea in silence, washed and changed, and she waited.

‘I saw Mr Forster tonight. He’s offered us our Dryden’s house.’

‘Offered it to us?’ Warning bells rang in Vinia’s head, and her mind showed her Mary Cameron saying that they were entitled to a pit house and she realised what Mary had done. She hoped that Tom would not find out; only a little bit of her wished that he would, but he would not hear tales or half-tales from her.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Tom said, having interpreted her astonished reaction.

Vinia wanted to stay exactly where she was but she could not say that to Tom, she could not tell him that the little house was dearer than anything in the world to her, that it had been her parents’ and that sometimes she thought she could still smell her father’s pipe tobacco and the cloth his best blue suit had been made of.

‘What did you say to him?’

‘I said that the only way we would take it would be if our Dryden could live there too,’ Tom said triumphantly, and Vinia’s heart beat hard and painfully. She did not want to live two doors down from Mary and Alf, she did not want Dryden in their house, and she certainly did not want the house where so many awful things had happened. She had nothing but hurtful memories of it. She knew that given the chance she could grow to hate it.

‘It would be nice for my mam to have us there. She’s always going on about it and she would be company for you.’

It was the very last thing in the world Vinia wanted but she held her tongue because she knew that Tom would never understand.

‘It’s a nice house,’ Tom said. ‘It has a view of the fell.’

A view of the fell where Vinia was convinced Esther Margaret lay dead, a view that she had sat and stared at day after day when she was poorly after the baby died.

‘It would look nice with our furniture in it,’ Tom said, and she realised that possibly for the first time in their marriage he was asking her for her consent to something. He would undoubtedly, if she disagreed, go ahead anyway, for Dryden’s sake and for his mother’s. She had only one place to fight him from.

‘Do you think your mother would accept Dryden living with us?’

If this had occurred to Tom he gave no sign of it. He considered.

‘Our Dryden’s not going back to Ma Clancy’s,’ he said.

A little song of praise started up in Vinia’s head because that was the first time she thought Tom loved Dryden better than he loved his mother. And then she thought no, she had always known that. Tom tolerated his mother from a sense of duty and because things had been hard for her, but he didn’t love her and he would sacrifice his peace of mind and his closeness to her for Dryden’s sake. She could not help being glad that Tom would stand up for the person he most cared for, because Dryden was not easy. It was also laughable that Mary Cameron’s plans should misfire quite so successfully. Vinia only hoped she was privileged enough to be there when Tom told his mother that they were going to take the house in Prince Row and that Dryden would be staying. His mother would never visit them again. It would be wonderful — no waiting for her footsteps in the passage, no examining of the food or the ironing or the dust, no nasty remarks about Vinia’s childlessness. Vinia thought she would be glad to put up with Dryden for the sake of that. She had half
forgiven him for what he had done, though if she had had the choice she would never have let him past the door again. She didn’t really think that he was evil, but she thought that he carried evil with him. There was no safety where he was, but he did not deserve what Mary Cameron was trying to do to him. She thought he never had. She went over and kissed Tom, to his surprise.

‘What was that for?’ he asked.

‘You’re lovely, Tom,’ she said.

During the second week in March, the weather, which had been hard and frosty, began to thaw. Joe preferred the hard weather to the wet mud that followed, though it didn’t affect him too badly. He had acquired a horse so he no longer had to trudge to work. His father became ill and took to his bed. Joe couldn’t feel sorry for him; he was only relieved that he no longer had to come home every day to the sight of his father drunk over the study fire. He had been doing it so long he would have thought he would have become used to it, but he hadn’t. With his father banished to bed but well enough to shout against having the doctor, Joe felt that the house became more his own. Jacob was not good in health either and had gone back to his little tumbledown cottage, which was the only other building in sight. Joe felt obliged to visit him there but Jacob wouldn’t let him in. Joe hired a widow from the village to come and clean the house, and though she was not allowed into his father’s room he was satisfied that things had improved and went off to work happy with the progress.

On the Sunday of that week, however, Joe was astonished to receive a visit from the police, two of them with faces on them like tombstones. Joe took them into the study, which was nicely free of his father and the smell of brandy — at least he hoped it was — but then they probably knew. Policemen knew everything,
including how people lived, and it was common knowledge in the area that his father was a wretched drunk.

‘There’s been a body found, sir, up on the fell. A woman.’

Joe had been dreading the words for weeks. Inside him there had remained a small hope that Esther Margaret’s letter was some kind of mistake, some dreadful joke, that it could be misinterpreted. He thought, having loved her for so long, that he would know if she were dead. His second reaction was anger. Perhaps that was some sort of defence. He was angry with Esther Margaret, that she would prefer killing herself when she could have come to him … The thought faded. He knew that Esther Margaret had lost at least part of her mind, and even when she had known her mind she had not wanted him.

‘Is it … is it Mrs Cameron?’

‘It’s hard to say, sir. She’s been … she’s been in the water.’

Joe felt sick.

‘It seems likely,’ the policeman said. ‘Golden hair, blue eyes. A member of her family would know, I dare say.’

Joe thought about Dryden being put out of his house today. What wonderful timing. On the other hand there was always Mr and Mrs Hunter. They deserved to have to do this.

He rode to the pit and left his horse there and walked slowly down the row to the house where the last time he had visited Esther Margaret had been lying in bed ill after the death of the baby. The front door stood open and from inside he could hear the sounds of a row. Joe hesitated. The disagreements of his workers were not his business. He could hear the unmistakable sound of Mary Cameron’s voice. Joe was inclined to take a step backwards.

‘I will never set foot in this house again and you needn’t think I want you in my house! You scheming, deceitful lad, our Tommy!’

‘You couldn’t just accept it, could you? You’ve never given him the time of day in almost twenty years. What did he ever do to you?’

‘You are the only son that I have.’ Her voice was lower and steady.

‘That’s not true and your saying it won’t make it true!’ Tom said. ‘He’s not going back to Ma Clancy’s because I won’t let him. He’s my brother and I care about him!’

Well done, Tom, Joe thought, wanting to applaud. There were more sounds from inside, and then Mrs Cameron careered down the hall. Joe stepped back. She looked darkly at him.

‘This is your doing!’ she declared, and stormed past him. Joe hesitated on the doorstep and then knocked tentatively and went inside.

It looked so different. There was good furniture but it was in disarray for all their possessions were boxed and not yet organised. Tom was standing by the fire and Vinia was beside him, as though she were about to offer comfort, and then she sensed Joe’s presence and turned.

‘I would have knocked,’ Joe said.

Tom turned as well, wiping the vestiges of temper from his face before his employer. Joe had never felt such a boy. He had dealt with a great many problems during the last few years when he had had no help from anyone, but this was new.

‘Is Dryden here?’ Joe said.

‘No, he isn’t bloody here. You put him out,’ Tom accused him.

‘I thought—’

‘He wouldn’t stay,’ Vinia interrupted. ‘He knew what would happen.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He went to Ma Clancy’s,’ Tom said, bitterly. ‘Who the hell else would have him? He’s not staying there. I’ll go and bring him back.’

‘I think I’m about to make things worse,’ Joe offered.

They both looked at him.

‘I’ve had the police. They’ve found a woman’s body up on the fell. They think it could be Esther Margaret.’ Joe never knew
afterwards how he got the words out. Vinia’s face registered shock and sorrow — also pity, he thought.

‘Oh God,’ Tom said, and he turned back towards the fire.

*

Joe had never been to Mrs Clancy’s establishment and he didn’t particularly want to go now. Tom did offer but he felt that he ought to go himself since he had subjected Dryden to this place. It had probably been a decent building at one time but neglect and dirt had won the day. In the windows were frayed yellow nets and the windows themselves were rotted and so was the front door. Joe banged hard on it several times and then it was flung back and Mrs Clancy in all her glory, fat and red-faced, filling the doorway, stood there amid the smell of burned cooking and grease. She looked him over as she might have looked at a pig at market.

‘Well, bonny lad,’ she said, grinning happily.

‘I’m Joe Forster—’

‘Aye, I did know.’

‘I’m looking for Dryden Cameron.’

‘You’ve come to the right place,’ she said, and flung back the door triumphantly and let Joe inside. The floor was sticky and the walls were dark. ‘They’re nearly all abed but I think the lad’s in the lounge. Dryden, you’ve got a visitor.’

She opened the door. It was another dark room at the back of the house and overlooking a yard. A tiny fire burned there against the cold but made little impression. Joe could see his breath. Dryden was standing up by the fire as any sensible person would, and it struck Joe for the first time how much alike he and Tom were. The room had various bits of furniture, but none that Joe would have trusted with his weight, and it looked ill used, as though for countless years things had been spilled and thrown and leaked out upon the surfaces. The window was dirty, and beyond it were the last signs of winter, the gleam of dirty slush.

Dryden barely acknowledged him and Joe was ashamed, too ashamed to fulfil his errand, until Dryden finally turned around.

‘Have I got summat else you want?’ he said.

‘Why don’t you just leave?’ Joe said. He hadn’t intended to say it, he couldn’t think how the words had got past his lips without any recognition from his mind.

‘Are you taking my job off me?’

‘No. No. I didn’t mean that. I meant …’ Joe cursed his clumsiness. ‘I don’t understand why you stay.’

‘I’ve got a brother,’ Dryden said.

‘I thought he’d offered you lodging.’

Dryden looked at Joe as though he were a complete fool.

‘With his mother in the middle of it? Did you think I would?’

His mother. Joe wished himself back a day or two when things had been easier.

‘Dryden …’ The word came hard; he hadn’t addressed Dryden by his first name before and he hadn’t realised that just two syllables could be so difficult to say. Dryden watched him, knowing worse was to come, Joe thought.

‘Well?’ he prompted.

‘I had the police to see me. They’ve found … they’ve found a woman’s body up on the fell.’

‘She’s dead, then,’ Dryden said, as though he had always doubted it.

Joe wanted to shout at him, you never loved her, you didn’t want her, now look what’s happened, but he didn’t.

‘Mr Hunter is … is taking care of things.’

‘That’ll be a first,’ Dryden said.

Joe didn’t know what to say after that. He had seen few places that were more cheerless than his own home but this was definitely one of them. He didn’t like to think how the bedrooms would be. All he wanted was to get out of there, to be anywhere else. There was nothing more that he could do and he had to try to grow used to the idea that Esther Margaret was dead. She had not gone away, she would not come back, and somewhere
between the day he had asked her to run away with him and now everything had gone wrong. He wanted to sort it out in his head. He excused himself and left, taking deep breaths of cold air once he got outside. He didn’t linger at the pit but rode home, and was glad to stable the horse and go inside. The woman who helped, Thelma Ferguson, was a childless widow, and although Joe told her that she didn’t have to come on Sundays she came every day.

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, this place wants a good clean,’ she had said to begin with. Joe had no quarrel with that.

She was there now. His home had changed. He thought as he walked in that it was such a contrast to Mrs Clancy’s. A big fire burned in the hall and it was all bright and shiny, as much as it could be in its dilapidated state. Thelma came out of the kitchen, drying her hands.

‘I went up to see to your dad, Mr Forster, and it’s my opinion that he’s very poorly.’

‘He won’t have the doctor.’

‘He said, but if it was up to me I’d get him anyroad. Do you want me to call in on my way home?’

‘That would be kind of you,’ Joe said.

He trudged upstairs, and at first he thought his father had died. There was no movement coming from him. For the first time in his life he didn’t stink of alcohol, but he was pale and his breathing was uneven.

‘Father?’

Randolph Forster opened his eyes; they were watery and narrow and had lost their colour and light. He didn’t speak.

‘Mrs Ferguson is leaving soon and she’ll ask the doctor to come.’