The Miner’s Girl (20 page)

‘I've got you an apple for after your dinner,' said Merry. ‘If you eat it all up, that is.' Benny ate another forkful.

Merry remembered the evening before; it was late, about seven o'clock when Robbie had come in from the allotments. His face darkened when he saw Benny, playing in the corner with a ‘wheelie' made out of a cotton reel, elastic and a short stick of wood. The stick was used to wind up the elastic and then when the contraption was put on the floor it slowly rolled along the flags as the elastic unwound. Jimmy's dad had shown him how to make one, helped him do it even, and Benny was proud of it.

‘What's he doing up at this time of night?' Robbie demanded.

‘I was getting him ready for bed in a minute,' Merry replied. ‘Benny, it's bedtime.' Benny didn't look up; he hadn't even noticed his father had come in, being so absorbed in his game.

Robbie bent and grabbed Benny by his arm, lifting him up off his feet. The boy began to scream at the shock of it and that further enraged Robbie. He picked up the ‘wheelie' and threw it on the fire.

‘Robbie!' Merry shouted and went to take the boy from him. Robbie pulled him away roughly but put him on his feet at least and the boy's sobs subsided to a hopeless crying. The only sound he made was an occasional sniff.

‘There was no call for that,' Merry said flatly. ‘Leave loose of him, you great bully or I'll . . . I'll bang you over the head with the frying pan. I'll scream the place down and tell everyone how cruel you are to the bairn.' The walls between the houses were single brick and any commotion could be heard two doors away at least. Robbie wouldn't like that, she knew – he liked everyone to think he was a great fellow.

Robbie sneered at her but he let loose of Benny and Merry breathed her relief. She rushed to the boy and gathered him up in her arms. Benny buried his face in her shoulder.

‘I wasn't going to hurt him, woman,' Robbie growled. ‘He's as soft as muck. I was just trying to make a man of him.'

‘He's only five years old,' Merry reminded him. She could smell the beer on Robbie's breath now; he must have been to the Club on his way home. Of course, the
Pigeon Fanciers meetings were held at the Workingmen's Club, and it was a good excuse for a drink.

‘You smell like a brewery,' she went on, bitter about the way he had treated Benny. ‘I expect you're fit for the pit tonight.' She could feel Benny trembling in her arms. ‘Howay, son,' she said to him. ‘I'll make you another wheelie. I saw how it was done. Now it's time for your bed.'

Robbie scowled. ‘Aw, you have the lad like a little nancy boy. Why don't you dress him in a skirt an' be done with it?'

Merry didn't reply – she couldn't. She felt if she did she would give him such a mouthful he would be sure to hit her, and it wouldn't be the first time. Oh God, she thought, mebbe I should have gone to the workhouse as it couldn't have been worse than this. She rushed upstairs with Benny, undressed him in the icy bedroom and put him to bed. At least he had stopped his silent sobbing and his fair eyelashes, beaded with tears, were beginning to fan his tear-stained cheeks.

When he was asleep Merry checked on his sister, asleep on the other side of the room in a cot that had been Robbie's when he was a boy. Then she went downstairs. Robbie was dressing in his pit clothes which she had dashed against the wall in the yard to get rid of the excess coal dust and then dried by the fire. He was about ready but for his boots when Benny began to scream.

‘That little sod, he'll wake my bairn,' Robbie shouted and pushed Merry out of the way as he ran upstairs. Merry followed full of dread.

‘Don't touch him!' she cried. ‘Don't you dare touch him.'

‘Touch him? I'll murder him,' said Robbie.

Benny was standing up in a bed drenched with urine, his night shirt wet at the front. ‘Mam, mammy!' he was shouting.

‘You dirty little tyke, I'll mammy you,' said Robbie. In her cot, Alice stirred and sat up. ‘Look what you've done now.' He advanced on the boy and Benny, his face full of fear, dodged him and ran for his mother. But Robbie grabbed him from her and pushed him ahead of him to the top of the stairs. Merry tried to get between them but he pushed her out of the way so violently she fell to the floor.

‘They'll hear next door.' She tried to stop him the way she had the last time.

‘Bugger the neighbours,' he said savagely. Merry staggered to her feet, but even as she stepped towards the landing she heard Benny fall, bumping on each step, taking an eternity to get down to the bottom.

‘What have you done?' she cried. ‘You pushed him, didn't you?'

Robbie was standing at the top of the stairs, quieter now, looking down at the huddled figure of Benny at the bottom.

‘I did not push him, he fell,' Robbie said as she took the stairs two at a time and bent over the small figure.

‘He's all right. He isn't dead. Oh, God be thanked,' Merry breathed.

She relived that terrible moment when she thought he was dead as she gazed at him the following night. She was going to have to do something, she knew. For the sake of her son she must do something. But what could she do? She had no one to turn to, no one at all. Very well, then she would do something herself. She vowed it now as she laid her hand on her son's head, smoothed his pale hair, so different from her's or Robbie's. If she didn't, Robbie might kill Benny. She went back down into the kitchen. Robbie was putting on his pit boots.

‘I'd swing for you if it wasn't for the bairns,' she said quietly. ‘Make no mistake, one of these days I'll take a knife to you if you don't leave Benny alone.'

Robbie laughed. ‘Oh aye? Then who'll look after your precious lad? Me mam will take Alice but she won't take that little bastard. I've told her the truth, you know, I told her last week.'

Miles gazed out of his study window in Winnipeg Colliery with profound dissatisfaction. It was just like his fool of a father-in-law to give the place such an idiotic name, he thought. Old Porritt and his wife had been on honeymoon in Canada when news had come through that the engineers sinking an experimental shaft on the north side of Bishop Auckland had struck coal, Busty seam in fact. So he had called it Winnipeg, where they were actually staying at the time.

Damn fool of a man. Old Porritt, as Miles was in the habit of calling his father-in-law though he was but ten years older than he was himself, was a fool. Far from turning over the reins of his business to Miles as any man of his advanced years and waning powers would normally do, he treated his daughter's husband as an errand boy, or just about. He certainly never let Miles anywhere near decision making. In fact, anything Miles suggested was usually barely considered by him.

At least he was still agent for the group of mines and the land surrounding to the south of the river. But he wanted more, he wanted his own mines, and he wanted to market his own coal from them too. He was sure he would make a success of it. The coal from Eden Hope and the rest belonged to his ironmaster boss and went straight to Teesside for it was good coking coal for making steel. Marketing didn't come into it. But there were great possibilities to take the odd waggon load or two and add them to that of Winnipeg Colliery. Were it not for Porritt. Why, he was almost decrepit. He was past bothering about new markets.

The door opened and Miles turned, irritation rising in him. Bertha came in, her long nose pink at the end for she had a perpetual cold. She was wearing a pink dress too and it was completely unsuitable for daytime wear with its ribbons of a deeper pink. He watched her critically as she came up to the desk. Her bodice was cut low but only showed up her lack of bosom. She was altogether too thin, all angles and hard bones, and uncomfortable to lie beside in bed. All this went through his mind but he still managed to smile at her.

‘Now then my love, I'm rather busy. You know I'm delighted to see you but if my work is interrupted—'

‘Oh, shut up,' said his wife. ‘I'll go anywhere I like in my own house. But I came to tell you that I want to go over to see Father this morning. So be good enough to harness the horse to the trap. You can take me and then you can go and do what you like.'

‘But I have to go to Winton today to see the manager—'

‘Rubbish, you can do that later. I need to see Father. And another thing. It's time we had a proper carriage, something as befits our station in life. I'm ashamed to be seen riding through the town in the old trap.'

‘Really, my dear, I don't know if we can afford—' Once again he was interrupted.

‘Of course we can. And if we cannot, Father will buy one for me. I'll ask him today.'

Miles groaned inwardly. He knew what would happen then, he thought. The old man would go on and on about how Miles wasn't treating his daughter as she deserved; couldn't afford to. Miles capitulated. He rose to his feet and sighed. ‘Very well, my love, I'll take you now.'

As they drove down the bank to the ancient stone bridge over the Wear then up the other side, the horse slowing to a walk, his thoughts were dark.

‘Be back for me by three,' Bertha ordered as he handed her down at her father's door. ‘There'd be no need for this, you know, if you'd come and live here. This house is superior to yours.'

She never let anything go, thought Miles. Every day she said something about moving in with her father. But on this he was adamant. Mr Bolton, the ironmaster, liked his employees to stay where he told them; the agent's house was there, overlooking the valley and hillside studded with mines, and there he expected his agent to live. He would be very suspicious if Miles moved to live with another owner nearby, even if that owner was his wife's father. Mr Bolton had a keen eye for his company's interests.

Miles held out his arm for Bertha to take and led her to the door. ‘I must stay where I am, my dear,' he said. ‘It is a condition of the position.'

Bertha sniffed. ‘You could take up my father's offer,' she said.

‘No Bertha, I could not,' he replied. She might wear him down, he thought wearily as he returned to the trap. But the position old Porritt had offered was one without power – he would be a glorified office boy. He would fight to the last to avoid it. One of these days the old man would be completely past it then he would have total control.

He drove the horse out onto the road, took the turning back into the town and out the other side, turning off onto the road for Winton Colliery. It was a nice day, the first warm day of the year. He would leave the trap in the colliery yard and walk up the line to Eden Hope. He
had plenty of time before he had to go back for Bertha so he might as well stretch his legs, get some fresh air in his lungs.

As he drove through Winton Colliery village he gazed sadly at the surgery where Tom had used to practise. He could have gone so far, that lad. Instead he was working in another colliery village over by Durham. Miles had to admit he missed him. Tom was maddening at times with his funny ideas about working for the pitmen and their families, but he was a hell of a lot better company than Bertha.

When Miles came out of the manager's office with an obsequious Jack Mackay showing him off the premises as it were, the sun was warm on his face. The winding wheel was whirring against the blue sky and the cage came up, spilling a load of men out. They blinked in the brightness of the unaccustomed sun, and the light twinkled and bounced off the coal dust on their clothes as light does off sequins. They looked over at the two gaffers but all they were really interested in was that first draw on a fag for eight or ten hours and getting home for their dinners.

‘Get the horsemen to see to my horse, Mackay,' said Miles and strode off up the waggon way towards Eden Hope.

The wind was slightly chilly in his face but fresh and bracing. He strode out with a will, trying to work out in his mind the best course of action for him to achieve
what he wanted. When he came to the offshoot that led to the abandoned Jane Pit and its deserted village he paused, distracted by memories. On impulse he turned off along the overgrown track, past the ancient pithead. The memorial was almost obliterated by dead weeds, brown and sere. A nettle bed had new growth almost six inches high already, growing right up to the stonework. Anyone walking past would not recognise the structure for what it was.

The double row of cottages faced each other, still not demolished. But there was very little to salvage from them, Bob Wright the joiner had told him years ago. He paused at the end house with the water pump opposite, rusty now but still standing solid and sturdy. There was glass in the bedroom window still. Undergrowth and even taller trees encroached on the houses.

Miles thought of the woman who had lived there with the little girl. A real woman she had been, he thought, not like Bertha. As he turned away and took the track that led out of the village towards Eden Hope, he felt even more dissatisfied with his life than he had that morning.

He was abstracted as he conducted his business with the manager, Mr Jessop, absent-minded almost, less critical. When he had finished he went outside to find the day was darkening, rain beginning to fall, stirring the dust in the yard and turning it into black mud.

‘Blast the bloody weather!' he said savagely to the manager. ‘I've left my trap at Winton.'

‘I'm going home for dinner today,' said the manager. ‘I'll take you over to Winton if you like.'

‘Thank you. I think I'll take you up on that,' Miles replied.

They were going through the village of Eden Hope to the road that led to Winton when Miles saw the boy. He was with a woman and a younger child but the younger child looked different. The boy was the same colouring as Tom and that other one; even as he himself had been when he was younger.

‘Is something wrong?' Jessop asked. The gaffer looked as though he had seen a ghost.