Road to Berry Edge, The (4 page)

Two days later Vera came back with some information.

‘I think I might have found you a job,' she said. ‘Mrs Berkeley wants somebody to clean for when their Robert gets back. What sort of a lad wouldn't have come back well before now considering how things have been all this while, Mr Berkeley so poorly and the works in such a state?'

‘He likely wouldn't want to, would he, after killing his brother and they wouldn't want him to, would they?'

‘You could go and ask, Nancy, there's nowt lost. Just make sure she pays you, that's all.'

Nancy unwillingly left the children with Sean's mother two rows away at the bottom of Berry Edge bank. Vera said that she would be glad to take them when she wasn't at work, but she was that day. The Berkeleys lived halfway up the bank, it wasn't far.

‘I'm going to go out and look for work,' she told Alice.

‘I can't take the bairns every day, Nancy, I've got a lot to do.'

Alice turned out her house every day. It wouldn't have surprised Nancy to discover that their Michael had to live in the yard. He was the only one at home now, the four daughters had married and gone.

‘I hear our Michael came to see you the other night?' her mother-in-law said.

‘He popped in to see how the bairns were.'

‘He's all the wage I've got, Nancy.'

‘I have to be going,' Nancy said.

She hated leaving the bairns there. How was she to work? If she didn't leave them with his mother or Vera she would have to pay, and if she had to pay she would be working for very little. Nancy trudged up the hill towards the Berkeley house. If Mrs Berkeley didn't take her on she didn't know what she would do.

*

When Faith got back from a chapel meeting one day soon after her talk with Nancy in the churchyard, she found her mother engaged on a strange task. She was looking in Faith's wardrobe. As Faith came on to the upstairs landing she could see her mother through the open door, pondering.

‘Mother, what are you doing?' she said.

‘I'm looking for jumble, dear.'

‘You won't find any there.'

‘You're like your father, Faith, you never throw anything away.'

‘Not when there's use left in them.'

‘Somebody else could use this, I think,' her mother said, extracting an old blue dress from the far reaches of the wardrobe. ‘How many times has this been mended?'

‘I wear it all the time.'

‘I know you do.' Her mother eyed her. ‘I think a trip to Durham might be a good idea, something new perhaps.'

And then Faith understood. She took the dress from her mother and put it back into the wardrobe.

‘I don't need new dresses, Mother, I'm not going anywhere,' she said.

Her mother said nothing more as though she had accepted the decision, but Faith knew that it was not so. Her mother left the room, went downstairs and when Faith followed her was busy pouring tea by the sitting room fire.

‘I know that I've disappointed you and I'm sorry,' Faith said, ‘but nothing will change because Robert Berkeley is coming home, and I'm certainly not going to buy a new dress for the occasion.'

‘I hope you're wrong,' her mother said. ‘I went to see them this morning and Margaret says he's bringing another man with him. I don't think they're very pleased about it.'

‘That's just what Berry Edge needs, another workman,' Faith said.

‘We don't know what kind of a man he might be,' her mother said, sipping tea.

‘And is this the reason for clearing out my wardrobe? Really, Mother.'

Her mother picked up half a buttered scone but didn't eat it.

‘It's difficult not to think of how things might have been,' she said. ‘We could have had three or four grandchildren by now.'

‘I know that.'

‘Do you? You never talk about it. After you were born and they told me I couldn't have any more children because I had been so ill, you have no idea how I longed for a family like other women had. It's strange how you can miss people who weren't born. I often think what our son would have been like, maybe two, another daughter. I don't mean to blame you, Faith, I understand how you felt about John, it's just that our lives are so very empty now, filled with detail but without joy. Children bring that as nothing else ever could. And it's - it's interesting. Families are what people talk about. When I meet other women and hear about their grandchildren it hurts me. I feel as though our lives stopped completely when John died.' Her mother looked at her straighter, Faith thought, than she had done in years. ‘There was nothing wrong with Robert, Faith, he was a fine young man.'

‘How can you say that?'

‘Because it's true. He was headstrong, yes, he was a touch wild but dear me, it's no more than many other young men. He only looked so bad in John's light. A man's the better for a fault or two, it makes us easier to live with ourselves.'

‘John had no faults,' Faith declared.

‘You're an embittered woman, Faith.'

‘A dried up old spinster,' Faith said. ‘So I am, and Robert Berkeley is to blame.'

Harry had thought County Durham was a lot further away than it actually was. He had never been that far north before and had been under the mistaken impression that after Yorkshire there was Scotland. Harry had heard that the north east was a grimy collection of tiny, ugly houses with dirty foundries and pits. He had heard that the women wore aprons and headscarves, the men were black from work, with thick guttural voices, that there was no culture, that there was no beauty, that there was nothing of any significance in Durham. So as he drew further northwards he gazed out of the train window surprised at the pretty farms and small neat fields, and when the train pulled into the station at Durham it was quite a shock.

Any dirt, any disfigurement that might have spoiled Harry's impression was hidden under a cloak of snow and the view from there was a full picture of the small city. The little houses were transformed into the kind of thing which you read about in children's stories, with thick white window ledges and gleaming silver roofs. There were church spires and best of all the Norman cathedral set square with its four towers and the castle close beside, grey against the snow, bright in the sunshine. Rob barely glanced at it but for Harry it was like a homecoming, small enough to be cosy. He felt as though it was welcoming him like he was a son as the train slowed and then stopped high on a
hill above the city. He stayed quite still to try to keep those moments of first seeing the place fresh in his mind.

‘It's beautiful,' he said.

‘You've seen Venice, Rome and Paris,' Rob said roughly, ‘let's get out of here.'

Harry persuaded him to linger a little. The streets had magical names such as Silver Street on a tiny twisting bank which led down to Framwellgate Bridge. He hung over the bridge because the view from there was of the River Wear, and the cathedral and castle rose up sharply amidst bare, black, winter trees. The river had a pale grey sheen on that sunny winter's day. On either side there were houses, some of them with gardens which went straight down to the towpath and the river. Saddler Street was through the market place on another bank and wended its way up to Palace Green where the castle and the cathedral stood with pretty stone buildings around a square. It was all tiny banks and hidden lanes and bends so that everything was a surprise.

*

It was early evening by the time they got off the train at Berry Edge. This was more like Harry's idea of what a north east industrial town would be. It sat high up on the edge of the moors, and there were pit wheels and pit heaps, and all the grime and muddle and smell of coal and coke and steelworks with tiny houses built right beside the pits and the works.

An old man with a horse and trap was there to meet them. Rob recognised him, greeted him, was rewarded with nothing more than a grunt and didn't speak again until they reached the front door of what looked to Harry like a very small house, and then Rob thanked the man and lifted the luggage down himself. The horse and trap went away without another word from anyone and Harry glanced around him.

There was no drive to speak of, just a short distance between the house and the gate posts; there were other
houses around and some of them did not appear to be prosperous.

Rob opened the front door and went inside. Harry followed him, and for the first time realised that his brother-in-law had come from a very moderate kind of background. A tiny fire burned in the hall. A skinny woman came towards them. She wore an extremely dowdy dress. Ida would have died first, his mother was a fashionable woman when she had company or went out and loved the latest styles of hats and dresses.

‘Hello, Robert.'

‘Mother.'

There was no kissing, there was no embrace. Harry was introduced, she said little and then there was a trek upstairs to icy rooms, carrying his own luggage. Harry began to wish that he had stayed at home, and when he saw his bedroom he wished it doubly. It was shabby and dark and there was no servant to do the unpacking. He was not used to being without his valet and wasn't sure what to do. The room was small and the furniture in it hideously large. The bed was uncomfortable. Harry left his bags on the floor and went across the landing where Rob was calmly putting clothes into a chest of drawers.

‘You wanted to come,' he said without looking up.

‘I didn't say anything.'

Harry wandered around. It was dark so he couldn't see anything from the window and this room was no better than his own, overpowered by an enormous wardrobe that you could have stored dead people in and a grate that Harry would have sworn had never seen warmth.

‘There are no fires in the bedrooms, Rob,' Harry said, obvious in his misery.

‘Welcome to Berry Edge,' Rob said.

Later, when Harry was contriving for the first time in his life to do his own unpacking, a pretty, golden haired girl came into the room, struggling with a bucket of
coal. Mrs Berkeley had spoken of her in front of them. Her name was Nancy McFadden. Harry rushed over and took the bucket from her. At his home men did such things.

‘Eh, sir, no,' she said, ‘you'll get all mucky.'

‘You ought not to carry that.'

‘What for?'

‘What?'

She smiled shyly. Harry grinned. She was very pretty with big blue eyes.

‘I'm sorry to come in when you're busy, sir,' she said, ‘but Mrs Berkeley is bothered about these fires. You must be frozen.'

‘I am,' Harry agreed.

‘Don't worry, sir, I'll fettle it,' she said, and so she did. Much to his astonishment, she began busily twisting newspaper into neat rolls and then fastening them in a kind of bow. She put sticks on top and a touch of coal, and to his delight the fire soon began to burn. ‘There now, it'll be lovely shortly. Oh, and Mrs Berkeley says if there's anything you want just tell me, sir.'

There were several things Harry thought of that he would very much like her to do for him, but since all of them were less than respectable he merely shook his head and thanked her.

*

Rob had dreaded more than anything seeing his father again. They had never got on. John had been such an easy child, so when he wasn't, his parents were surprised and displeased. Rob kept them busy during his childhood when he ran away both from home and from school, got drunk, and went around with girls his mother didn't like. Really, Rob reflected, he was fairly normal, but they didn't see it like that because of John, and the more they tried to alter him the worse it became.

Even now it was difficult to think of John with equanimity.
Rob hesitated on the landing outside his parents' bedroom door, and then went softly inside.

His father was sitting up, propped on pillows and was a shock. He seemed to Rob an old man, ill but not defenceless, and all the greeting he gave Rob was, ‘So you finally came back.'

Rob had imagined this, had rehearsed what he was going to say, had thought how it might be, but years of Vincent Shaw as a father figure had altered his perception of these things and he knew immediately why it was. Northern men like his father showed their children no affection for fear it would make them dependent but Vincent, wonderfully strange to Rob, believed in showing love, and Rob knew that Vincent had liked him almost as soon as they met. Vincent admired him, had told Rob many times over the years how brilliant he thought he was and, although Vincent had at various times treated Rob badly in different ways, there had always been somehow a generosity of spirit about it. Rob had never been afraid of Vincent but he was afraid of his father. In his presence Rob knew now that he would always be a child of ten or eleven, sick with fear, unable to speak while his father rolled around him a blinding sarcasm. He was ten, stupid, worthless, evil perhaps and his father was about to put him down across some convenient piece of furniture and thrash him into helpless misery.

He backed away and banged into the door. The doorknob seemed so sharp it brought him into the present again. He had rarely been in here, his parents' room was out of bounds. Rob was used to Ida Shaw's idea of bedrooms and her ideas were very different. There was little privacy in the Shaw house, strangely he thought. For one thing there were servants. Maids went in and out with bedding and towels and cleaning equipment, the male servants brought buckets of coal and Ida waffled about making sure that everybody had every creature comfort. You could be almost sure of not being alone in your bedroom except when you were asleep,
and even then if you left your door open you could awake in the night and find a cat curled up against your stomach. Animals were meant to be banished from the house, but if a window was left open or the door ajar it was surprising what happened.

Parts of the house were old but she would have nothing to do with these except in summer when you needed all the draughts you could get. In the winter Ida believed in fires in every room and hot meals three times a day. Everybody was well fed and well kept. Servants rarely left. Ida treated her maids almost as well as she treated her children; she fussed over their welfare, became concerned about their love affairs, was unhappy when they were ill, made sure they ate properly. On their birthdays and at Christmas she gave them the kind of presents which any girl would have been pleased with.