Netherwood (12 page)

Arthur and Seth bowled into the warm kitchen on the crest of their triumph over Rockingham to find Eve and the Grangely minister seated at the table. Arthur was surprised, Seth disappointed. He wasn’t sure who this man was but by the looks of the dog collar, he wasn’t likely to want to talk about knur and spell, or hear him describe his first bitter shandy at the Hare and Hounds, a victory drink with the team, awarded to him with elaborate ceremony by Mr Medlicott for dedication above and beyond the call of duty. Seth had had to sit on an old bench outside the pub with only Jonas Buckle’s dog Barney for company, which took the gloss off it a bit, but he still felt
proud as punch. Now he was going to have to hold it all in until the man left.

Eve saw the struggle in his features and understood instantly what Seth was feeling. She saw him now through the minister’s eyes; a comically miniature version of his father, ears stuck out like chapel hat pegs and a flat cap perched on his head. He’d been born with an old man’s face, and he still looked older than his years. She smiled at him.

‘This is Reverend Farrimond, Seth, say ’ow d’you do,’ she said.

‘’ow d’you do,’ said Seth, obediently but coolly. Arthur pulled off Seth’s cap, then his own, and shook the minister’s outstretched hand.

‘Reverend Farrimond buried Mam’s mam.’

Eliza’s voice came from under the kitchen table where she’d been sitting with Ellen for the past half hour. It was her favourite spot when grown-ups were talking. Some years ago she’d realised that if she sat still and stayed silent, adults assumed she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Eliza had learned all sorts of things using this reliable method.

‘And christened your mother and married her to your father,’ said the minister, lifting the cloth and stooping down to see the child. ‘I don’t only deal with the dead, miss.’

She stared at him, unsmiling; she was shocked to be directly addressed, and wished she hadn’t spoken. Eliza’s sixth sense for gossip told her that the main purpose of his visit hadn’t yet been discussed, and now she was likely to be sent out of the room.

‘Out you come, young ’un,’ said Arthur. ‘Call on Minnie next door, see if she’s laikin’.’

‘Minnie’s gone in for ’er tea,’ said Eliza, but it was useless, she knew. Eve bent down low enough to give her a hard look. Eliza immediately crawled out from under the table, followed, predictably enough, by Ellen. The two girls left the kitchen,
Eliza stomping her feet, Ellen trailing amiably behind, but on the threshold of the back door Eliza turned and said, ‘Why’s ’e staying?’ and pointed an accusing finger at Seth.

‘’E’s ’ad no tea and ’e’s ’alf starved wi’ cold,’ said Arthur. ‘Not that it’s any o’ your business. Now sling yer ’ook.’

The door slammed shut, and Eve stood to pour tea for her husband and son. Arthur sat in the chair she’d vacated and got straight to the point.

‘Now then, Reverend, what’s your business?’

A
rthur Williams had lost his wool scarf. It usually hung with his hat and his coat on the pegs at the foot of the stairs, but this morning it wasn’t there and the search for the scarf was now in its seventh minute. It really didn’t matter that much, thought Eve. A man wouldn’t perish without a scarf, just the once. At this rate he would be late for work, and that was unthinkable.

‘Go without it,’ Eve said. She had stopped looking anyway. It seemed to her that if an object didn’t present itself within the first few moments of a search, it should be left to turn up when it was ready. There was enough to be done in the day without finding extra work.

‘One o’ them bairns must ’ave ’ad it,’ Arthur said.

‘Aye, well, that’s as may be,’ Eve said, by which she meant that it wouldn’t serve her purposes to have them woken before it was necessary.

There was still a great deal unsaid between Arthur and Eve since Reverend Farrimond had taken his leave on Saturday evening; somehow, in the hours between then and now, the opportunity to properly discuss what had been proposed and agreed to had eluded them. And now Monday morning had
come round again in its inexorable fashion and Arthur, scarf-less, was about to leave the house.

On the threshold of the back door, he turned to his wife.

‘It’ll just be temp’ry,’ he said.

‘I know it will,’ said Eve.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ta’ra then,’ but he still looked unsettled and stood, on the brink of departure, unable to leave. Eve saw Seth in his hesitancy and she took pity.

‘Wait,’ she said, and she walked across the kitchen, took his familiar, beloved face between her hands and planted a warm kiss on his mouth.

‘You’re a good man, Arthur Williams,’ she said.

He smiled at her, a little bashful now, and opened his mouth to say something, but outside in Beaumont Lane Lew gave a shrill whistle, so Arthur turned and left the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him.

Reverend Farrimond’s request had not been for food, or clothing, or any of the charitable schemes Eve had had in mind. What the minister had asked was for Arthur and Eve to take in a family from Grangely. A particular family, and a very small one, but one in the direst need. The husband, a hard-working, god-fearing man, had died on the day after they were evicted. He had been desperately ill for weeks, said the minister, and the upheaval of being carried out of his bed and into the cold had proved fatal. He had died on a makeshift mattress of straw in the crowded tent that, for the foreseeable future, was to be his home. His young wife and baby were now utterly helpless. Even if the strike ended – which everyone suspected it would – and the miners and their families were allowed back into their former homes, the widow and child were no longer the responsibility of the Grangely Main Colliery
Company. She was twenty-two, said the minister. The baby, a girl, was six months old. Could Arthur and Eve have them, just for a few weeks? It was a great deal to ask, he knew, but other people had taken in the needy and Eve had seemed to want to offer help.

Arthur, seated next to Reverend Farrimond and opposite his wife, had thrown her a look that the minister couldn’t see. It was a challenge, a gauntlet, flung on the table. It seemed to say, ‘Now we’ll see how far your conscience takes you.’

Seth was still in the kitchen too, and he looked at the minister with wide, horrified eyes. There was no room for anyone else in this house, he thought. Why was he even asking?

Eve said, ‘’ow long would they have to stay?’ betraying her unwillingness by her choice of words, even though she kept her voice level.

‘Just a matter of weeks, really,’ Reverend Farrimond had said, mistakenly encouraged by her response. ‘The young widow wishes to travel back to her homeland, and there’s every chance that the church distress fund might be able to help her do this. She’s willing to work in the meantime. She could be a great help to you, Eve. Eve?’

Eve forced herself to look up. She had stopped listening after the minister said ‘homeland’ and she gazed at him blankly. Arthur spoke up.

‘Where’s she from then?’ he said.

‘Russia,’ said the minister, quite cheerfully, as though there was nothing at all unusual being discussed and he was simply responding to Arthur’s polite interest.

‘Leo and Anna Rabinovich,’ he went on. ‘Just Anna now, of course. Not sure what the baby’s called. Fascinating, really, how they ended up in our little corner of Yorkshire. We have two other foreign families in Grangely, you know. Polish, though.’ He chuckled. ‘Oh yes, we’re quite international.’

He looked at Eve then back to Arthur. Seth, forgotten by
everyone, said, ‘Then they should go to them. They should go to the foreign people, not come ’ere. We’re not foreign.’ He spoke quickly, out of panic, and his voice cracked. He felt maddening tears pool in his eyes.

The three adults looked at him and the boy waited to be sent out of the room, but the stranger said, ‘We are to them, Seth,’ then they all simply looked away again, and their behaviour made him feel more afraid. He wanted his mother to banish him in the normal way instead of staring at the table. More than that, he wanted this man to get up and leave. He had walked in on their perfect Saturday and ruined it completely. The boy glared at the minister with hatred, but nobody was watching him any more.

‘You wouldn’t ask this of us if you weren’t desperate?’

It was Arthur who spoke, not Eve. She looked at him, aghast. He seemed to be speaking her line, asking the question she should ask, but her compassion for the needy of Grangely and her desire to help them had been a poor, stunted impulse in the end, she thought.

‘That’s right, Arthur,’ said Reverend Farrimond. ‘I truly wouldn’t.’

‘Then they can come,’ Arthur said.

‘No!’ said Seth. ‘They can’t!’

Now his mother did turn on him.

‘Seth Williams, get up them stairs now and stay there till you’re told otherwise.’

He hesitated a fraction too long and she gave him the look she reserved for such moments, the look that conveyed the seriousness of her intent, the firmness of her resolve. He fled through the doorway at the foot of the stairs, pulling it shut behind him so that his mother couldn’t see he was still there, his face pressed into his father’s coat. It still smelled of beer fumes and tobacco from the Hare and Hounds, and Seth breathed it in, wishing they were still there.

The door swung open, and there was Eve, alerted to his attempt at defiance by the absence of footsteps up the stairs. ‘Up,’ she said. ‘Now.’

So he went, but he surreptitiously slid his father’s woollen scarf from the peg and took it with him. It was bitterly cold in the little bedroom and he was glad; shivering on the bed helped him feel as wretched as he believed the situation demanded. He wondered how long he’d be made to stay here. He rolled the scarf into a pillow and, curling on the bed, shoved it under his cheek and lay listening to the voices in the kitchen below. They were muffled, but he could still tell it was his mother speaking, and Seth wondered what she was saying. She didn’t want those people to come any more than he did, thought Seth, and that’s why she was angry at him. He was only a boy, but he understood that well enough.

L
ew Sylvester’s brother Warren had picked up a copy of the Sheffield
Telegraph
at the dog track on Saturday, and had seen an advertisement in it for miners to fill the vacated positions at Grangely Main. There were similar adverts, too, he’d heard, in newspapers in Birmingham, Newcastle and Liverpool. Only a matter of days now before the striking miners slunk back to work, Warren had said. He had no sympathy for them, not an ounce. The miners should put up and shut up or get on and do something else for a living. That was his view. Warren had no time for self-pitying whingers.

Lew was full of this news as he walked along the dark streets with Arthur and Amos, but disappointingly Arthur would only nod, as if it was only to be expected, and Amos walked ahead so he didn’t have to listen. And then, when they got to the colliery, it turned out not to be news at all – the talk in the time office and the lamp room was of nothing else.

‘Waste o’ bloody time,’ said Alf Shipley, who had no faith in the power of the working man to improve his lot. ‘All them weeks, kiddies starvin’, folk dyin’, an’ all for nowt.’