The Letter (27 page)

Albert pulled out a wooden chair from under the kitchen table, “Sit thi sen darn. Tha shud ’ave let us know. Well you’re ’ere now safe and sound. “

“I didn’t mean to put you out” Margaret said, “I thought the train went to Mexborough.”

Shirley cleared the remains of a meal from the table. “Tommy’s father’s been on the day shift but I’ll soon have you a bite to eat.” She produced a lace tray cloth and set a place with a china cup and saucer, plate and silver butter knife.

Albert sliced chunks of bread to toast on the fiery coals of the black lead range. A kettle steamed incessantly. The hot toast was lavishly buttered and set before Margaret. Someone would have to go without for this hospitality.

“This was my mother’s tea set,” Shirley explained. “Only the best is good enough for Tommy’s future wife. He’ll be back soon. He’s gone for a walk.”

Gone for a walk, Margaret thought. Who’d go for a walk in this awful place?

Shirley told her that they were lucky to have Tommy. “He’s an accident waiting to happen. We didn’t think he’d recover from T.B. let alone join the army… Hasn’t he told you? He had a T. B. spine as a boy. The hospital put him in a plaster cast. Albert concocted a flat cart for him to lie on. Alice, that’s Tommy’s eldest sister, pushed him round on it. Florrie, she’s the youngest, was in a sanatorium for months. At least he was at home.”

“I married a grand lass,” Albert said. “She took on children. as her own; travelled every week t’ hospital at Ilkley t’ see Florrie.”

“Enough of that, Dad…” Shirley said pleased to have the attention turned on Tommy who came in through the back door

“Where’s tha bin lad? We’ve got a visitor.”

“I can see” Tommy said. He leant awkwardly on the mantelpiece aware of his rough hob-nailed boots and shoddy clothes. He put his hands in his trouser pockets. Took them out, did it again but Margaret saw his despondency at not finding work and the scars standing out like ridges on his gaunt face.

She explained about the train, skirting round his discomfort. It struck Margaret that when you returned to your parents’ home you became a child again. She was the same in Scotland, but this wasn’t what she’d travelled half way round the world for. She had to get away.

“Tommy, I’m expected at the hospital and it’s getting late.”

Albert put on his trilby hat and coat saying, “I’m off t’ see Father O’Keefe. Stay ’ere lad. Keep Margaret company.”

Margaret looked at him blankly. She was having trouble
understanding what he said. She was fine with Shirley, who had hardly any accent, certainly not a Yorkshire one. It was Tommy’s turn to explain, “The priest’s got a car. My dad’s gone to sort it.” And, with his whippet-like father gone, he quickly, kissed her.

“I thought you’d never get round to doing that,” Shirley said. “You know Margaret, Denaby wasn’t what I was used to. It’s been hard but I mustn’t grumble.” She said she’d had a daughter before she married Tommy’s father. Albert was good to both of them, and she was happy. Things had a habit of working out.

Margaret instantly liked and admired Tommy’s stepmother. Such open honesty. Secrets didn’t belong here but how much had Tommy told her? Margaret didn’t want things to work out if it meant living like this. She had tried to fit in to Ben’s family and it hadn’t worked. She didn’t know if she could do it again but Tommy was so pleased to see her, standing taller, his face relaxed. What ever would she do? She smiled at him and said, “Tommy, the basket of nuts and dates by the door is for Shirley.”

“Margaret, you shouldn’t have…” Shirley said. “It’s years since I saw nuts. We used to have them at my parents’ house at Christmas, and dates. I don’t think Florrie’s children have ever tasted them.”

Shirley carried some of the gifts into the tiny kitchen, giving Margaret and Tommy a few moments alone. He hadn’t deceived her about his family. They hadn’t talked much about their parents. It hadn’t been important. Denaby and Gorebridge were immaterial. India was to be their home. She put her arms round him to reassure them both.

Albert returned with the priest who kept the car engine running, while Margaret said goodbye. She was greatly tempted to ask him to take her to Doncaster Station and catch the next train back to Scotland.

Chapter 33
 

The pits resembled battlefields, equally capable of mangling a man’s body and mind. Margaret worried what became of patients discharged from hospital but she soon discovered the unspoken loyalty that bound the mining community together. Neighbours rallied round. Meals were cooked; children looked after, washing shared out and what ever else was needed to ’tide the family over’.

People took to knocking on Albert’s door with various ailments or to ask for advice when the nurse came. “Tha might as well move in… Turn kitchen in t’ surgery…” He complained but Margaret knew he liked the attention. His son had a feather in his cap having a fiancée who was a nurse.

Living in at the hospital enabled Margaret to save. The Post Office savings book was in her name. She suggested to Tommy it was changed, to include him.

“It’s your money, Margaret. I can’t take a penny.”

“It’s for us, for our home. I want to be with you more than I want money.”

“I’ve no right.”

“We have the right to be together. What’s mine is yours and if anything happened to me… ?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I know but the divorce isn’t through and well… you see what I mean.”

He shook his head.

“Then do it for me.”

They went together to change the account. Tommy’s shaky signature bound them together but it increased his determination to find work. His sister Alice lived outside Manchester. Her husband was overseas and she had three children to support. Tommy decided to stay with her. Albert, Shirley and Margaret were against it.

*  *  *  *  *

Tommy hadn’t been at Manchester three weeks before a letter came from Alice.

Manchester

Dear
Margaret,

I
am
writing
to
ask
you
to
send
Tommy’s
bank
book.
He
has
found
a
job
but
will
not
get
paid
for
another
week
and
I
have
the
children
to
support.

Alice

What kind of work had Tommy found? Was he well? The letter only mentioned the bank book. He’d probably had one when he was in the army but Margaret hadn’t seen it. This was theirs, for their future, a statement that she’d given up hope of returning to India. She’d take it to Manchester.

*  *  *  *  *

Margaret waited patiently. Alice registered her disapproval by banging pans, chopping vegetables and over-polishing the kitchen range. Talk was impossible. Alice grudgingly offered to stretch the meal to one more but there was no invitation to stay the night.

The heavy iron sneck was lifted several times before Tommy opened the back door. He didn’t notice Margaret. Ashen faced, more dead than alive he stripped off his shirt to wash in the kitchen sink. Margaret counted every rib in his drastically underweight frame. Towelling himself dry he brightened at the sight of her. “Alice got me a job, working in the mill.”

“I can see that.” Margaret said trying to control her anger.

“It’s easy. When the cloth comes off the machines all I have to do is wrap it round me. If I stick at it I’ll earn good money.”

Tommy was a human bobbin! Margaret rounded savagely on Alice, “Are you blind? Can’t you see what it’s doing to him?”

Alice fought back, “You come here thinking you know it all! Well you can tell my brother what to do but you’re not telling
me
.”

Tommy tried to calm things down, “I owe money.”

Margaret looked at Alice in disgust, “So it was really you who wanted the bank book?”

“I can’t expect my sister to keep me for nothing,” Tommy said, looking from one to the other.

Margaret threw the bank book at Alice, “Take your blood money!”

Alice ground it into the kitchen floor. Tommy shouted above the din, “Margaret it was my idea.”

“Pack your bags and return to Yorkshire with me tonight or there’ll be no wedding!”

Tommy hadn’t the strength to argue. He slept for most of the journey back to Yorkshire. Margaret realised the foolishness of losing her temper. Tommy couldn’t know what the bank book meant. She had humiliated him and alienated Alice. What if he’d chosen to stay in Manchester?

Tommy found another job in the local glass-making works. The high temperature and his stubborn attempts to do the same work as the other men made him ill. He missed shifts and was sacked. He tried to work in a small engineering factory making irons and kettles but the constant hammering of the steel press drove him mad and he had to give it up.

Margaret hated to see him dead beat with trying. She attributed her late period to overtiredness. A rest and change of scene would put things right.

Chapter 34
 

A
break
in
Scotland

Scotland provided a ready escape. Tommy didn’t question Margaret’s decision to go there and was excited at the prospect of a holiday. Frances had left Margaret’s father and returned to London. He was with Nan. His collection of clocks, at various stages of repair maddeningly ticked and chimed the hours away. Nan was looking forward to Margaret and Tommy’s visit, especially as the clocks would be stopped. Their father said that Tommy coudna do with the noise.

Margaret tossed and turned in bed at Nan’s. After her behaviour in Manchester she hadn’t the heart to reject Tommy’s lovemaking. He was so vulnerable. He might think she didn’t want him. But Tommy was clumsy and she would have to deal with the consequences. How could they cope with a child?

She understood why women procured abortions. A foolish lonely war time fling, a careless slip and another mouth to feed, so much to lose for a moment’s pleasure. At the Montague she’d nursed the results of women interfered with by so called, ‘mothers helpers’. Often the result was abortion but damaged wombs, childlessness and death through septicaemia were equally common. Everyone knew but nothing was said. This way fewer people were hurt.

Margaret wasn’t certain when her baby was due. Late August or September seemed the most probable. Saurabh’s birthday was in August so she plumped for September. Birthdays and Christmas were the worst of times. She would have this child, not as a substitute for those she’d lost, or because of her belief in the sanctity of life, but because Tommy deserved hope.

Nan queried, “Maggie, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes…”

“Well you dinne look it,”

“Well I’m fine.”

Nan was rarely put off. “Maggie is there something you should be telling Tommy?”

It was as if a dam broke inside, “I’m pregnant Nan. I’ll have to give up my job, and then we can’t afford to live. How will we manage? Oh Nan I shouldn’t put you, of all people through this.”

“Life has to go on. Tommy’s a good man but it’ll no be easy.”

“He’ll insist we go back to Denaby and I don’t think I can take it.”

“You’ve got to tell him Maggie… whatever he does.”

“Let’s get Christmas over. It’s such an unlucky time for us.”

“Oh Maggie make the most of what you’ve got. The divorce’s through. Away and get a special licence.”

“Father wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Maggie, faither’s changed. Leave him to me.”

A joyous Tommy married Margaret in Edinburgh on an arctic Tuesday in January. Cards and telegrams from friends and family wished them well.

Chapter 35
 

Return
to
Denaby

Tuberculosis was in the fabric of Denaby. It must have been dormant in Shirley for years. She put the increased shortness of breath and weight loss down to a heavy cold but the persistent cough and bloody sputum worried Albert. He sent for Doctor McArthur who confirmed the disease. It was too advanced to send Shirley to a sanatorium. The doctor prescribed keeping her at home, supervised by Margaret. Tommy’s youngest sister, Florrie, took over while Margaret finished working her notice at the hospital.

Margaret had already organised the conversion of one of the two bedrooms into a ‘sickroom’. Florrie diligently washed Shirley’s eating utensils, bedding, towels and night clothes separately from those of the rest of the household. After that the general treatment for the illness was light and air.

Light and air in Denaby! The ‘sick room,’ with the window opened wide let in the coal dust, blown in on the slightest breeze, making Shirley’s cough worse. Albert closed the window. The room became hot. Shirley couldn’t breathe. The sliding of the sash, open or shut, marked the hours.