The Most Precious Thing (29 page)
‘Oh, go on with you.’ Joan came over to him and put her arms round his neck. Her voice was indulgent as she said, ‘Look, m’lad, you might think the ground turns holy if our Carrie walks on it, but not everyone is of like mind. She’s his sister-in-law and Matthew is his nephew, and likely he enjoys having a bairn to spoil. You know how things are with Margaret.’
‘Aye, I do.’ He gave her a look. ‘You only have to see the pair of them together to guess at how things are behind closed doors.’
‘I meant about them not being able to have their own babby,’ Joan said reprovingly. ‘What’s the point in having all that money if he can’t spend a bit on his brothers’ bairns? He’s perhaps thinking an uncle is all he’s ever going to be.’
‘So you think I’m worrin’ unduly?’
‘Aye, I do.’ Joan rested her head against his shoulder.
He hoped she was right. Sandy said no more, but he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling, which had been growing steadily for some months now, that Carrie was on edge about something. But she was a grown woman, a wife and mother, and gone were the days when he could sit her on his knee and charm away her tears with a slab of toffee or a bag of bullets, more’s the pity. He sighed loudly. This business of having bairns wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Chapter Thirteen
‘They’re stupid, the lot of them. Do you really think the government is going to listen to a load of ragtag and bobtail working men with their backsides hanging out just because they march from one end of the country to the other, carrying an oak box?’
‘Over eleven thousand people have signed that petition.’
‘So? What’s the betting Baldwin won’t even look at it when they get to London? It’s just a waste of good shoe leather.’ Renee glared at her husband, hands on hips and chin stuck forward.
‘There’s times I think you’ve forgotten where you’ve come from now you’ve got this forewoman’s job,’ Walter said grimly.
Renee tossed her head and threw herself down in the armchair in front of the range. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said, more coolly now.
‘You were forever rabbiting on about the working man’s rights when we were first wed, and now when there’s families living on bread and gravy or going into the workhouse, and men topping themselves rather than having to face hearing their bairns crying with hunger or going through the means test, you say it’s stupid to protest. You say
they’re
stupid. I don’t know how you’ve got the gall.’
they’re
stupid. I don’t know how you’ve got the gall.’
‘It was working
women’s
rights I “rabbited” about,’ Renee corrected without raising her head. She sipped at the cup of tea she had poured herself before the row had begun.
women’s
rights I “rabbited” about,’ Renee corrected without raising her head. She sipped at the cup of tea she had poured herself before the row had begun.
‘Aye, well, like as it’s the same thing in these times.’
‘It’s never the same thing. Men like you still think all a wife is good for is to stay at home and get their dinner, regardless of how intelligent she is.’
‘An’ you think you’re intelligent, do you?’
‘Aye, I do. Too intelligent to agree it’s very bright to march all them miles to London in October when they’ll be sleeping rough most of the time. Look how bad you were when you did the Durham march.’
‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’
It was bitter, very bitter, and Renee looked up at him. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t start,’ she said in a bored tone. ‘By the way, I shan’t be home till late tomorrow so I’ll leave something cold in the pantry for you and Veronica. Me and a couple of the girls from the factory are going to the Empire after work. There’s a new Laurel and Hardy on.’
‘We can’t afford it.’
‘No,
we
can’t but I can.’
we
can’t but I can.’
Walter gritted his teeth. ‘The bairn needs her boots mending and we’re out of leather.’
‘They’ll do another few days.’
‘They won’t, her feet were blue when she came in earlier and it’s been sleeting today. She needs--’
‘For crying out loud!’ Renee leaped up out of her seat, her voice high. ‘If she needs them mending then go and buy the leather yourself.’
‘There’s nothing I’d like better and you know it.’ The effort it was taking Walter to hold on to his temper showed in the veins bulging on his forehead. ‘But with only a couple of shifts last week--’
‘You can’t,’ Renee finished for him, her voice scathing. ‘Then you’ll have to wait until I can, won’t you? But I tell you one thing, Walter. I work hard for my money and like I’ve said before, it’s not all going on you and Veronica. I deserve to get out of this house now and then.’
‘Now and then? You’re hardly ever in it. The bairn needs to see more of you, you’re little more than a stranger to her.’
‘Don’t you come that, Walter Sutton.’ Renee’s head was pushed forward and she glared at her husband. ‘Right from the beginning I said I didn’t want bairns.’
‘But she came.’
‘Aye, she came all right and it was no accident, not on your part, was it? So you got what you wanted.’
‘And I thank my lucky stars for her every day. I’d have been in the asylum living with you all these years if the bairn hadn’t been around.’
‘Believe me, I wouldn’t have been around but for her. Who in their right mind would choose to stay with a weak-kneed scut like you! You’re not a man, you’re nothing! A nowt! All wind and--’
Walter moved without thinking and hit her. The blow propelled her backwards into the seat she’d just vacated. For a moment Renee lay there, stunned and silent, and then she scrambled to her feet, her hand to the side of her burning face. ‘I hate you, do you know that?’ she hissed. ‘With every bit of me I hate you. I wish you was dead.’
‘Mam?’
The voice from the doorway brought both pairs of eyes turning as one. Walter died a thousand deaths as he looked at his daughter’s white face, everything within him crying out in protest. Veronica ran to her mother, burying her face in Renee’s skirt and Renee looked him full in the face, satisfaction in every line of her body. ‘Come on, me bairn,’ she said, her voice softer than Walter had heard it in a long time and her eyes still watching his stricken face. ‘This is no place for you. Mam will take you up to bed.’
And still holding the child against her, she led Veronica out of the room.
‘You all right, man?’
Four days later David was standing with his father and brother outside Jarrow’s Christ Church where two hundred marchers had just filed in for a special service, along with those wives and mothers who could attend. Beneath the threadbare clothes each man was as clean and fresh as soap and water would allow, newly shaven, their Sunday caps on their heads. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, the mayor, and other corporation officials had led the way, and the Bishop of Jarrow was taking the service.
There had been an air of suppressed excitement about the marchers as they went into the church, and this feeling had spread to the large crowd outside which included reporters and photographers and dozens of bairns. Walter, however, had hardly said two words since he had met his father and brother that morning for the walk into Jarrow. Billy and his father had intended to accompany them but at the last minute they had both got a shift at the colliery, and no one in their right mind ever refused work.
Now Walter turned to David, his voice low as he said, ‘Aye, I’m all right.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I said I’m all right.’
‘Aye, and pigs fly. You middling or something?’
Walter stared at his brother, and then, as Ned began to talk to one of his cronies from the pit who had also made the journey into Jarrow to support the marchers, he said, ‘I’ve had a do with Renee.’
‘So, what’s new?’
‘This was different. I . . . lost me temper. I hit her, man, and the bairn, our Veronica, she walked in on it.’
‘You struck her?’ David knew quite a few men who used their wives for punchbags or wouldn’t think twice about a cuff round the ear if they thought their spouse deserved it, but Walter was not one of them. Their da had brought them up never to raise their hand to a woman and he couldn’t quite believe his brother had hit his wife.
‘Don’t look at me like that, man. I’m not proud of it. But she--’ Walter broke off, shaking his head. ‘Oh, what does it matter! I hit her and Veronica saw enough to know what had happened. She’s had a job to look me in the face the last few days. What do you think I should do?’
David said nothing for a moment. There was the odd drop of rain blowing in the icy wind and it was freezing cold, but the look in Walter’s eyes was bleaker than the weather. ‘Talk to her,’ he said at last. ‘Your Veronica’s a canny little lass. Explain it was a mistake, that you regret it--’
‘I don’t.’ Walter’s head had been hanging down but now he raised it, and David caught his breath at his brother’s expression. ‘I regret the bairn being upset but Renee deserved it, and more. I tell you, I don’t know how I’ve kept me hands from her throat plenty of times. Only the thought of what would happen to Veronica has stopped me. She’s a devil, David.’
A loud cheer signalled the fact that the service had ended and the marchers were coming out. David took his brother’s arm and drew him to one side. ‘Don’t talk like that, man. It can’t be as bad as that.’
‘It’s worse.’ Walter was speaking slowly and quietly, and it carried more weight than any shouting. ‘She thinks I don’t know but she’s been carrying on with someone for years, someone at the factory, like as not. I’ve walked the streets some nights when she’s supposed to be out with some pal or other, looking for her and this bloke. I’m surprised I’ve not copped a good hiding, the number of courting couples I’ve disturbed in me time.’
David stared at his brother. ‘That’s daft, man,’ he said weakly. ‘I mean, I know things haven’t been too good between you two for some time, but a fancy man?’
‘I know, all right? Same as you’d know if it was you.’
There was a short silence which David was too shocked to break.
‘I reckon he’s got a car or a van or something, he must have or I’d have found them by now.’
‘But . . .’ David shook his head as though he’d been punched in the face. ‘What would you do if you did find them?’
‘Beat him into a pulp, do for him most likely. Her an’ all.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
Walter screwed up his eyes as though they were smarting. Then he looked directly into David’s and said, ‘I do mean it. Oh, I mean it, man.’
There was a crab seller a few feet away, one hand on her hip, the other holding a basket balanced on her head. ‘Nice boiled crabs,’ she was shouting, ‘ready to eat. Cr-a-bs, cr-a-bs, nice boiled crabs.’ Men were streaming out of the church and the band struck up just feet away.
‘Come over here, man, I can’t hear meself think in this circus.’ David pulled his brother clear of the crowd. ‘Promise me you won’t go walking the streets again,’ he said urgently. ‘Not without coming for me first. We’ll go together if you need to try and find them, but promise me you won’t go alone.’
‘I don’t do that any more.’ It was weary. ‘But thanks, David.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’
‘Would you have? If it’d been your Carrie?’
David wrinkled his face against the thought. ‘No.’
‘There you are then.’
The marchers and the harmonica band disappeared round a corner and the folk who weren’t following them to the outskirts of town began to drift away in twos and threes. Ned came hurrying up, accompanied by a roly-poly figure of a man with a smiling pug’s face. David recognised him from somewhere.
‘I’ve bin lookin’ all over for you two,’ Ned said breathlessly. ‘You remember Terry Proudfoot, lads? Amos’s brother?’
‘Oh aye.’ David and Walter nodded to Terry who had moved down south when they were bairns.
Terry nodded back, his red-cheeked face smiling as he said, ‘By, lads, I wouldn’t have known you if I’d passed you in the street and that’s the truth.’
‘We’re sorry about Amos, Terry,’ David said and shook his hand. ‘He was a grand man.’
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