The Urchin's Song Part 8

Of course, there could be innumerable explanations for Barney having appeared to have aged ten years, along with the brooding expression his countenance had a.s.sumed whenever he wasn't forcing himself to act bouncy and cheerful. Betty might speculate that things had gone from bad to worse since Barney had begun to work for Pearl's uncle at Ginnett's, but Josie couldn't see that herself. She'd found Ernest Harper to be a nice little man and he'd been well respected by his own staff and performers alike. She couldn't see Barney finding it difficult to get along with Ernest. And Barney and Pearl had been able to move from St James Street into the prosperous suburb of Jesmond which was almost exclusively occupied by handsome dwelling houses - Pearl must have liked that. Betty said their large gracious home in Windsor Terrace was big enough to house ten families, let alone one bit la.s.s and lad, the one time she and Frank had been invited there just after the couple had moved in.

Whatever, Barney's marriage was not her concern. Josie repeated this vehemently in her mind as she'd done many times before when her thoughts wandered into forbidden territory. Whatever went on between husband and wife was the couple's business and theirs alone, but oh, those cosy nights in front of the kitchen range in Betty's house so long ago seemed to belong to another lifetime and different people now. And Barney had looked so sombre, so bleak the last time she'd seen him . . .

Enough. Enough, enough, enough. She sighed irritably. She was going home tomorrow and come Monday she was starting at the Avenue Theatre and the Palace. She'd have a word with Vera and see if they could get her mam in to see a show one night if she was up to it. She could arrange for her mam and Vera and Horace to have a box all to themselves; her mam'd be tickled pink at that.

And Oliver Hogarth? Her heart beat a little faster and she put a hand to her chest. She didn't know what she thought about him, except that if he knew what she was really like under the paint and flamboyant clothes she had worn onstage, he wouldn't be interested in her in that way as Lily had intimated. He was a roue and used to experienced, worldly women. His eyes had told her so. But there was something about him . . .

Well, she would see him tomorrow - she really couldn't do anything else now - and she'd make it plain where she stood. And that would be the end of that, at least for the time being.

She turned over in the bed again, the movement sharp, and asked herself why bad men were always so much more attractive than the other sort.

Chapter Eight.

Despite her promise to Lily, Josie did not meet Oliver Hogarth for lunch the next day; at eleven o'clock she and Gertie were on a train to Sunderland after an early-morning visit from Horace to say her mother was very ill and asking for her.

She left messages for both Lily and Oliver Hogarth with a clucking Mrs Bainsby whilst Horace transported their trunk and portmanteau out to the carriage he had waiting, but they were succinct in the extreme. All Josie wanted to do was to get home.

She had thought, when Mrs Bainsby had first tapped on the bedroom door to say that there was a gentleman downstairs with news about her family, that at last there had been some sort of contact from her father and brothers. Since the night she had been attacked in Newcastle, her father - and two days later Jimmy and Hubert - seemed to have vanished into thin air. Patrick Duffy had turned up some weeks after the incident and had claimed no knowledge at all of the affair when the police questioned him. The last time he'd seen Bart Burns, Duffy stated, had been at least a week before the alleged episode with his daughter, and then Bart had been talking about signing on with a s.h.i.+p leaving for foreign parts. Some trouble concerning gambling debts, so he'd heard. But of course he'd be only too happy to keep his ear to the ground and let the authorities know if he heard anything.

The absence of her husband had been a great relief to s.h.i.+rley but not so the loss of her lads, and although some months later the doctor had confirmed her cough was due to the consumption and that a stay in a sanatorium would benefit her greatly, she had refused to move from Vera's house. The lads would know to look for her there when they came home, she'd insisted, and no one, not even Josie, had managed to persuade her differently. And now the influenza had curtailed even the short amount of time she'd had left to her, and there could be no doubt her demise was imminent.

There was a bitter north wind blowing when Horace and the two girls alighted from the train in Sunderland's Central Station, and the January air was redolent with the unmistakable smell of snow as a horse and cab carried its three occupants and the girls' luggage to Northumberland Place.

Vera's front room had been turned into a very pleasant bedroom, and Josie never stepped into her mother's little sanctuary without deep relief and grat.i.tude flooding her. Vera's sacrifice had made the last four years possible.

A single bed had been placed at one side of the room under the window, so that s.h.i.+rley could see pa.s.sers-by through the lace curtains, and next to this a small table held her medicines and a flowering potted plant. The horsehair suite and the gla.s.s-fronted cabinet had gone but Vera had kept the piano which Horace now played most days; two large, resplendent rocking chairs with voluptuous cus.h.i.+ons meant Vera and Horace were comfortable when they kept s.h.i.+rley company each evening before they retired to bed. Evenings which, according to Vera, they all enjoyed immensely and which were filled with laughter.

There were no smiling faces today, however.

Vera had opened the door to them, which indicated she had been waiting at the window in s.h.i.+rley's room, and she embraced both girls silently in the hall before opening the front-room door and standing aside for them to enter.

s.h.i.+rley's skeletal frame barely made a b.u.mp under the eiderdown - which like everything else in the room was bright and clean - and her lined skin had taken on a pallor that had the reflection of death about it. Bronchopneumonia, the doctor had declared - inflammation of the lungs arising in the bronchi due to the side effects of the influenza which s.h.i.+rley had been battling with for some time. According to Horace, she'd had some sort of seizure and coughed up basin after basin of phlegm and blood twenty-four hours since, but after the doctor had allowed free rein with the laudanum this coma-like calm had prevailed, and the bouts of coughing had become infrequent.

Her mother's head was sunk into the pillow, her eyes closed, and as Vera followed them into the room, saying quietly, 'The doctor's just left an' he don't think she'll regain consciousness,' Josie thought her mother had already gone, so still was the shape beneath the covers.

And then there was a deep shuddering breath and s.h.i.+rley's eyes opened, focusing slowly on the two girls at the side of the bed. Josie was crying, 'Oh, Mam, oh, Mam,' deep inside, but she forced herself to speak gently and without tears as she said, 'We're here, Mam, and we love you. Everything's going to be all right. You just rest now.'

'Me . . . me bairns.'

One of the parchment-like hands lying on the eiderdown tried to reach out, and as Josie quickly enfolded her mother's fingers with her two hands, she said, 'It's all right, Mam, it's all right. We're here.'

Gertie made a small sound in her throat at the side of Josie and as Josie turned to look at her sister, she saw Gertie's face was awash with tears, and was conscious of thinking, She does love Mam after all.

'Here, come away out of it, hinny, an' have a sup tea for a minute,' Vera said. 'You don't want to upset your mam, now do you?'

As the two of them, along with a silent Horace, disappeared through to the kitchen, Josie was left alone with her mother, and now she knelt down by the bed without loosening her grip on her mother's hand, saying quietly, 'I'm here, Mam, and I'm not going to go anywhere until you're better. All right? I'm staying with you.'

'La.s.s . . .'

'Don't try to talk, Mam.' She couldn't bear it - she couldn't bear for her mam to die, she thought wildly, desperately controlling the grief that had the tears welling against the back of her eyes. Her mam had had such a miserable life, and it was only in the last few years she'd had anything approaching happiness, and then only with accompanying ill-health and pain. Her mam was forty-four or forty-five, she couldn't remember exactly, but she looked decades older. Vera had said her mam had been pretty once; prettiest la.s.s in the street and with all the lads after her, so why, why had she chosen her da out of them all? He'd never been any use to her and his last act, that of taking the lads away with him wherever he'd gone, had been pure spite. And greed. Doubtless he was living off them somewhere or other.

And then, almost as though her mother had followed her train of thought, s.h.i.+rley murmured, 'All . . . all broken up. Jimmy an' Hubert, you an' Gertie an' then . . . Ada an' Dora. All broken up,' before her voice faded away.

'Only for now, Mam. I'll find them all, I promise, and we'll be together again. All right?'

She had only spoken thus to bring her mother some comfort, not because she believed it, so now, when s.h.i.+rley's hand in her daughter's moved and the bony fingers gripped the younger flesh with a strength that was surprising considering her condition, Josie was taken aback. 'The lads,' her mother said. 'They're somewhere near, la.s.s. I feel it in me bones, always have. They're . . . here.'

'Here?' This was wishful thinking on her mam's part.

'Aye. I never felt it with me la.s.ses - they've gone.' s.h.i.+rley took another deep, shuddering breath that sounded so painful Josie found herself wincing. 'But you'll find 'em all, some . . . day.'

When Josie felt the grip of her mother's fingers slacken she realised she had fallen into the deathly slumber again, and so she sat quietly, her hands still holding her mother's.

She didn't move, not through the long afternoon and evening and not even when Gertie went to bed in Vera's spare room, Ruby the lodger having long since moved out. She had told her mother she was going to stay with her and she was; she explained this to Vera when that good lady, heartsore and weary, tried to prise Josie away from the unconscious woman lying so still in the bed.

During her vigil, Josie found herself thinking about all sorts of things, painful on the whole but with a few happy moments mixed in among the dark memories. Like the time her mam had made her and Gertie a small rag doll each the first Christmas after she had started the singing. It had been the only real Christmas present she'd ever had - before that, Christmas Day had been just like any other day. She and Gertie had been ecstatic. They had played with their 'babies' every spare moment until their father, some months later, whilst drunk and angry with her mam about something or other, had thrown them on the fire.

It was after a visit to the privy in the early hours that Josie noticed a change in her mother. It followed a bout of coughing when Josie thought her mother was going to speak again, although she hadn't. Now s.h.i.+rley was only drawing breath seemingly every minute or so; the break between her long-drawn gasps unending.

Vera joined her at three o'clock in the morning and sat quietly beside her after making a cup of tea, which they both drank without speaking. Josie was glad of its warmth because the control she had been keeping on herself had seemed to freeze her limbs as well as her insides. She dare not let the tears fall, not now, not when her mam might open her eyes again and need her, but the hard tight lump in her chest was unbearable.

And then, just as the dawn was breaking, the hand in hers moved. She saw her mother's eyes flicker, as though she was trying to open them, and then the grey lips parted and her mam's voice, a whisper, a breath, said, 'Josie . . .'

And she answered, bending near, 'I'm here, Mam, and I love you. I love you all the world,' before she kissed her.

And then her mother's hand went limp, the last breath was expelled softly and slowly, and she had gone. As quietly and as peacefully as that. Josie put her arms round the frail, workworn body and gathered her mam to her, hugging her as though she would never let her go and quite unaware of the tears pouring down her face as the pain in her heart imploded. Never again would she see her mam's eyes light up when she popped her head round the door and said she was home; never again would she see that look of joy and pride on her mam's face when she sang to her, or hear her soft, 'Oh, go on with you, la.s.s,' when she told her mam how dear she was.

She knew her mam had loved her; whatever else, her mam had loved her more than she had loved anyone else, and for a moment her loss was more than Josie could bear.

'La.s.s, leave that. I've told you we'll see to it later. You're all done in.'

'It's all right, Vera. I'd rather do it now, really.'

Vera stared at Josie, and she had to admit she was at a loss. First the la.s.s had insisted on laying out her mother herself, which wasn't a pleasant task and certainly not one for a young la.s.sie to Vera's mind, and then she had stripped the bed once her mam was clean and laid out on the wooden trestle Horace had brought into the front room, and had proceeded to scrub at the stained bedding in the wash tub until her hands were raw.

Vera remained standing at the door to the wash-house for a minute longer, her eyes on the young girl wringing the bedding through the wooden rollers of the iron mangle, and then she sighed deeply before saying, 'I'll make a sup tea, hinny.'

'Aye, thanks.'

'An' you're havin' a bite, la.s.s, whether you want it or not.'

Josie made no reply to this, and after standing a moment more Vera made her way back into the kitchen from the yard. The la.s.s had taken it hard, not like the other one. Oh, Gertie might have wept and wailed a bit at first, but it was surface emotion nevertheless. She was a funny little thing, was Gertie.

'She's insistin' she'll finish it afore she comes in.' Vera walked across to the range as she spoke to Gertie who was sitting at the kitchen table, lifting the big black kettle and pus.h.i.+ng it deep into the glowing embers before reaching for the brown teapot on the shelf at the side of the range. 'She's half frozen out there; she'll be bad next, you mark me words. I'll make some girdle scones to go with the tea, eh? Nothin' like a hot b.u.t.tered girdle scone, is there?'

'I'll help.' Gertie sprang to her feet, glad of something to do. She knew Josie and Vera were all upset - their eyes had been so red and puffy when she'd come downstairs this morning that they'd hardly been able to see out of them - but she just couldn't feel the same way they did, no matter how she tried. She was sorry her mam had gone, of course, and she'd had a gliff when she'd first seen her the day before, but . . . She wrinkled her nose as she tried to sort out her feelings. Her mam had always been sickly, not like a proper mother somehow, and it wasn't as if they hadn't known she was middling . . .

'Here, hinny, sift the flour an' everythin' together.' Vera's voice was brisk as she measured the currants, half a teaspoon of salt, a level teaspoonful of cream of tartar and a half a level teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda into the plain flour in the mixing bowl, before walking across to the cold slab in the pantry and bringing out the lard and milk. Gertie stared after Vera's bustling figure. Her mother's old friend was trying to act normally but she was the same as Josie really; forcing herself to keep active to hide her feelings. Did they think she was awful?

Vera smiled at her as she tipped the fat into the big bowl, and as Gertie began to rub in the lard and mix it to a soft dough with the flour and milk, Vera said, 'There's a good la.s.s. You'll make a canny wife for some lucky lad, Gertie.'

Gertie smiled back into the kind, rough-textured face. If she had spoken her true feelings on the matter, she would have told Vera that marriage was the last thing she envisaged for the future. She might not be particularly bright - certainly her last year at school had been a nightmare she wouldn't inflict on her worst enemy - but over the last three or four years she had come to realise she had talents of other kinds. Practical talents. However, her whole body shrank inwardly at the thought of employing those abilities in the role of a wife. She had seen what marriage meant; subjugation, misery, enslavement. She would never willingly give the control of her life and well-being over to a man unless she could be absolutely sure he wouldn't turn out like her da. No, she was more than happy in her capacity as Josie's dresser and companion. Josie's star was going to be a brilliant one, and she could a.s.sist its rise. And no one deserved success more than Josie.

'That's grand, la.s.s. Now, roll it out to about a quarter of an inch thick an' cut it into rounds, an' we'll have 'em cookin' on that girdle afore you can say Jack Robinson. A good girdle cake, nicely browned, is hard to beat. You go an' call your sister, eh? Tell her to take the weight off.'

Gertie nodded at Vera. Power. Power and prestige; that's what got you anywhere in this life, and she didn't need to be top of the cla.s.s to know that. And what was at the root of power and prestige? Money, that's what. She'd heard the talk in the dressing rooms; she reckoned she knew more than Josie as to what the big stars earned. Marie Kendall was earning 100 a week three years ago, and even the middle-of-the-road performers were getting anything from 10 to 30 a week in London. And Josie was better than middle of the road. By, she was that. When she sang she could make them laugh or cry or turn somersaults . . .

Gertie finished cutting the last of the scones and brushed her hands on her skirt. Would Josie be vexed if she knew she'd left Vera's address with Mrs Bainsby in case the agent feller should ask? And then she gave herself a mental shake of the head. Why ask the road you know? Josie'd go stark staring barmy. But it was done now. And she wasn't sorry. If he was keen enough, he'd follow them here to Sunderland, and if he wasn't, well, in spite of what Lily had said there must be other agents with as many connections as this Oliver bloke. And now their mam was gone, Josie was free to work further afield.

'I'll get Josie then.' She spoke to Vera's back; Vera being busy turning the first batch of scones on the hot girdle.

'Aye, you do that, la.s.s, an' I'll pour us all a sup tea. I don't know about you but me tongue's hangin' out.'

Vera's voice was suspiciously thick and Gertie suspected she was crying again. It was going to be a long few days till the funeral. Horace had had a word with the parson on his way to work that morning, and the parson had been straight round before Josie had even finished laying their mam out. 'Course, the fact that Josie had told Horace to say they wanted a funeral with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs might have something to do with his promptness. Waste of good money, she called it. You were either going straight to heaven or the other place from what she could make out, and neither venue took any notice of what sort of send-off you had on this mortal plain. Still, she wouldn't alter Josie's mind on this, same as she wouldn't on anything else. Josie thought with her heart more than her head but she had a mind of her own, and that mind was formidable when it was put to anything.

She thought again of the hastily scribbled address she'd left with their old landlady, and found herself biting hard on her lip as she opened the back door and walked across the small yard to the wash-house. By, if Oliver Hogarth followed them here she'd get it in the neck from her sister. Gertie wasn't sure if she wanted the agent to persist or not now.

Chapter Nine.

Owing to the opening of London's Hippodrome Theatre in Charing Cross Road on 15 January 1900, it was over ten days before Oliver Hogarth made his way north again. He had been a member of a party which included lords and ladies of the highest rank, and an invitation to a house-party the following weekend after the prestigious opening - which had included none other than the Prince of Wales himself - had meant a further delay before he could legitimately leave London.

He had also had other, less welcome matters to attend to; matters which he had procrastinated about long enough, but which had proved to be every bit as unpleasant as he'd expected. d.a.m.n it, women were the very devil. Oliver stared out of the window of the train, scowling at the snowy vista outside the luxurious first-cla.s.s carriage.

He would have thought Stella had quite enough to occupy her without kicking up about his departure from her life, or to be more precise, her bed. Since she had married Stratton she'd acquired all the social privileges she'd ever wanted, and the man was clearly besotted with his beautiful wife. Seven large trunks she'd brought on that last weekend, and he had noticed half-a-dozen changes of clothing on the first day alone. With G.o.dfrey Stratton being a member of the Prince of Wales's inner circle, Stella now dined out or entertained every night, and last year alone the Strattons had spent a short time in Paris, several weeks in Biarritz, and several more cruising in the Mediterranean before returning to London at the beginning of May for the Season. Then there had been the move to Ascot in June for the races, their stay with the Duke of Richmond for the racing at Goodwood in July and then the regatta at Cowes. A month's cure at Marienbad; Balmoral for the grouse and deer throughout October, and then the whirl of Christmas parties at which the entertaining had been more relentless than ever. Why the h.e.l.l did she think she needed him?

He closed his eyes, leaning back against the thickly upholstered seat and letting his breath escape in a long slow sigh. That scene she'd created, it had been wearying. But then he had to confess that for some long time now he had become weary of the lady herself. Stella had been a novelty when he'd first got involved with her some five years ago, he admitted it, but the attraction of having a cultured, charming mistress with the right family history, who behaved like the worst bawdy wh.o.r.e he'd ever had in private, had soured on him this last year. Perhaps even the last two. Her pa.s.sions had become like her rages, exhausting and distasteful. He didn't like displays of jealousy, in a man or a woman, and Stella was jealous to the core.

Still it was done now. He understood G.o.dfrey had business in Madrid and that Stella was going with him. When she returned in a few weeks' time, he hoped she would be calmer. Whatever, the affair was finished.

He stretched his long legs, settled himself more comfortably in the seat, and put his ex-mistress out of his mind with a ruthlessness that was typical of the man himself. Born of aristocratic parentage but to a father who had gambled away a vast country estate before killing himself and his wife in a yachting accident, Oliver Hogarth had found himself penniless and homeless at the tender age of twenty. The benefits of a first-cla.s.s education and influential friends had proved invaluable however, and Oliver had found he was adept at making full use of both. He also discovered a leaning towards anything theatrical, and a natural flair for knowing what the common - and not so common - man liked. By the age of twenty-five he was well on the way to making his own fortune, and by the age of thirty had secured some of the biggest stars on the music-hall stage in his own net.

However, the trait which had ruined the father was in the son, and although Oliver was a more proficient and skilful gambler than the late Squire Hogarth, he also had a weakness for the fairer s.e.x - which had proved just as expensive a vice as the gambling. Nevertheless, Oliver was able to indulge in a lavish way of life that had made him, at the age of thirty-eight, a wealthy, attractive but deeply cynical man.

So what was it, he asked himself now, straightening in his seat and calling one of the waiters to bring him a double brandy, what was it that had captured him about this young girl, this Josie Burns? True, she was beautiful, and had a presence to go with the exceptional voice, but then so did half the artistes in the music hall. She appeared intelligent enough on brief acquaintance, and not too forward. The promiscuous ones were entertaining enough, but he avoided taking them on his books, knowing such women created difficulties at some stage.

The brandy came and he swallowed half the gla.s.s immediately. If he told anyone he was chasing off up the country again after some chit of a girl who had refused him once before, they wouldn't believe it. He wasn't sure if he believed it himself. She might have talent but it was raw at the moment; she needed moulding and shaping if she were to compete with the likes of Marie Lloyd, Marie Kendall, Vesta Tilley and the rest of them. But the potential was there.

His guts contracted as the same excitement he'd felt on that night in Hartlepool gripped him once again. It'd been a long time since he'd felt like this, and even longer since he'd considered taking on the task of grooming an artiste himself. He had others he could call on for that. But this time . . . this time he just might indulge himself. A picture of a young sweet face and wide, startled, heavily lashed brown eyes flashed before him and he swallowed the rest of the brandy, his mouth curving slightly in a wry smile. Yes, he just might make an exception for Josie Burns.

It was snowing again when the train pulled into Sunderland Central, and as Oliver alighted and glanced about him, he sighed irritably. d.a.m.n gloomy place. How he hated visiting the provinces! It was only just after two in the afternoon and already the lantern oil lamps, placed strategically every few yards along the platforms, were burning of necessity.

He had only brought a small portmanteau with him for his planned overnight stay, and after declining the a.s.sistance of a porter he strode out of the station before hailing a horse-drawn cab. After asking the driver to recommend a good place to stay, he dropped off the small travelling bag at the hotel in Fawcett Street, then told the man to take him to Northumberland Place, at which point he settled back in his seat and contemplated the forthcoming meeting with the young woman called Josie Burns.

'It always comes in threes. Didn't I say to you just t'other night it always comes in threes, la.s.s, after Horace had that fall? But I didn't expect this. By, I didn't. How's Betty takin' it, lad?'

'Bad.' The monosyllable carried a wealth of feeling.

Vera nodded slowly. 'First s.h.i.+rley, then Horace nearly breakin' his neck, an' now your da. What we've done to deserve this packet I don't know. An' you say Reg an' Neville'll be off for a few weeks?'

This was directed to the man sitting next to Barney at the kitchen table. 'Aye.' Amos, Barney's elder brother, was very like Barney in appearance, or had been a few years ago. Now his face - although clean and scrubbed - carried the unmistakable stamp of the pit. His brow and nose were marked with small blue indentations from the coal he worked, and his eyes were rheumy and pink-rimmed. 'Reg's arm is broken an' our Neville copped it on his legs. Right mess, the left 'un is, but Nev's not sayin' much. After what happened to me da, it's nowt.'

Vera nodded again, glancing at Josie who was sitting at the side of her. In Josie's face she saw reflected her own shock and distress.

A fall of the roof at the coal face had taken two miners' lives - Frank being one of them - and injured six more. Not an uncommon occurrence in the precarious labyrinth of low tunnels where hundreds of men worked six days out of every seven, hemmed in below millions of tons of rock, slate and coal, but nevertheless, devastating to the families concerned. Labouring long, exhausting hours in the darkness, often soaked to the skin or crouched hewing narrow seams, it wasn't always possible to swiftly obey the warning that the tell-tale creaks and groans in the roof gave to the colliers. Explosions, foul air and accidents involving the props and equipment took a heavy toll, and suffocation and poisoning were among the swifter deaths the mine could inflict.

Vera spoke to Amos again as she said, 'Was . . . was it quick?'

'Aye, la.s.s, it were. If nowt else, that's summat to thank G.o.d for.'

Thank G.o.d? Barney s.h.i.+fted restlessly in his seat. He wouldn't be thanking Amos's G.o.d for any of this, by, he wouldn't, but he didn't doubt for a minute that his brother had meant exactly what he'd said. Reg and Neville played in the colliery's bra.s.s band in their spare time, but Amos's bent was in quite a different direction. Right from a young lad he'd had religion, had Amos, Barney reflected silently. The rest of them had played the wag from Sunday school when they'd had the chance, but not Amos. He'd met his wife through the church and she was as bad as him; he still did a bit of lay preaching on the odd Sunday according to their da. Da. Oh Da, Da, Da . . .

He forced his mind away from the mental image of his da's broken, twisted body which had been in his head ever since he had heard about the accident at the pit, and returned to the issue of Amos's G.o.d as his brother talked on to Vera. Maybe there was something in this religion thing after all, he thought bitterly; of his da and three brothers, Amos was the only one who had emerged from the pit whole and unhurt. Mind, he'd heard Amos preach once, and his brother had said something which had stuck with him somehow. 'The sun s.h.i.+nes on the righteous and the unrighteous,' that's what he'd preached, and Amos had maintained G.o.d had no favourites.

He'd pulled Amos's leg after, about the sun bit. 'Not much sun on you most days, man,' he'd said. And Amos had looked at him with the Robson green eyes, and answered, 'There's nowt else but the pit round here for most of us, lad, an' I thank G.o.d I've got work, good honest work, an' with a bunch of right good mates an' all. There's worse things than bein' underground, an' worse worries than whether the props'll hold.'

He hadn't been down into the bowels of h.e.l.l then, being in his last year at school, but within the year he had known he couldn't agree with Amos. Nothing, nothing was as bad as that netherworld. The panic and fear he'd felt as he'd descended in the cage on the first day he'd gone down, and the physical reaction of his body, had made him feel as though he was dying. He'd stood it nigh on a week, pa.s.sing out three times in the process, until the day when - according to his da because he couldn't remember anything for a full twenty-four hours - he'd not come round. They'd got him up top and called the quack, and Dr Winter had diagnosed claustrophobia. An abnormal fear of confined places, the good doctor had told his da. But his da had only heard the word 'fear', nothing else. From that day on, Frank had never looked at him without the shame and disappointment showing in his face.

Whisht. Barney shut his eyes for a second, angry with himself for thinking the way he was. None of that mattered and now was not the time to think about it. He'd come to terms with how his da saw him years ago. It was being here within sight and sound of Josie that had him thinking this way, because at the back of his mind he'd wondered for years now how she saw him. Did she think he was a coward, a weakling for not mastering his fear and following his da and brothers down the pit? She hadn't seemed to, when he'd first confided in her before he was married, but she'd been nowt but a bairn then and bairns accepted things adults questioned. She must know he got the job at Ginnett's through Pearl's family. Did she despise him for that as well?

He glanced across the room and at the same moment Josie turned her head slightly and met his gaze, her eyes sympathetic at the tragedy which had befallen the family. Their gaze held for a moment before she looked away, but it was the expression on her face which stayed with him as he half listened to the others talking. Josie and Gertie had stayed with his family probably a year in all, but Pearl had known the Robsons since she was a little bairn, and had been made welcome in his da's home for that long. As a child she'd fairly lived in their house, having tea with them all, tagging along with Prudence when he and his brothers let the two la.s.ses join the lads; she'd even called Betty and his da Aunty and Uncle for a time. And yet she'd had a job to say she was sorry about his da. Aye, she had. And it hadn't rung true when she had managed to force the words out. And yet Josie had looked as though she was heartsore for them all.

By, he'd been a fool to ask for Pearl. Why hadn't he seen what she was really like afore they were wed? But he had thought he knew her, that was the thing. In fact he'd have bet his life he knew her inside out, but it just showed. Aye, it showed all right. Living with someone was a darn sight different to Sunday tea at her parents' house or visiting in the evening and sitting on the sofa with her parents fluttering in and out. Even when they'd joined the other courting couples for the ritual walk round the park when it was fine, or tea at one of the tea houses in town when it was wet, it had all been artificial. Aye, that was the word. Artificial.

He'd looked at Pearl and he'd seen the pretty, pet.i.te, smiling la.s.s she'd wanted him to see, but beneath the sweet face and childish manner had been a cast-iron selfish woman who was a replica of her mother. And now, when she acted girlish and skittish in front of other people it had the effect of making him feel sick.

He hadn't thought she'd like the intimate side of marriage; women didn't, did they, but he'd told himself if he was gentle and patient to start with she'd come round eventually. Come round! The thought was bitter. But it wasn't even that she made him feel like some sort of depraved debauche if he so much as touched her; he might have been able to cope with the lack of physical love if everything else was all right. No, it was the cold-blooded alienation from his family she'd set out to achieve from day one; the nagging from morning to night and the fierce, even obsessional desire she had to climb socially. She consulted with her mother about everything before she talked to him; she insisted on seeing to the finances and gave him pocket money like a bairn - or she had done until this last year when he'd suddenly realised he was daft, mental to put up with it. He'd put his foot down then with the result that they'd had a bitter exchange of words and he had moved into one of the spare bedrooms.

Strangely, in a funny sort of a way, it had been a relief to physically remove himself from her. Ever since they had been married she had insisted he eat his main meal of the day at a cafe near his place of work, refusing, as she put it, to slave over a hot stove just for the two of them. His evening meal would invariably be cold meat and cheese, even the bread was shop bought, and very often she was out when he got home. At her mother's. The only time they really ate together was when she invited friends round for what she liked to call dinner-parties. Her friends, not his. So all in all, the physical removal of himself from the faint possibility of any bodily contact had just been the final nail in the coffin of their relations.h.i.+p.

He often wondered these days how many other couples lived separate lives once the front door was shut and they were alone. More than he'd ever dreamed of before he was wed, he'd bet. He knew now he'd been a young lad still wet behind the ears when he'd got married - gormless and as naive as they come with regard to women. But then unless you went with a la.s.s who'd got a bit of a name for herself - and who'd want to be seen out with a girl like that? - there was no other option.

'. . . if that's all right, Barney?'