A Mother's Gift Page 3

  ‘Aye,’ said Kitty. ‘But I don’t know where the heck I’m going to get a bit of good sacking for a new mat before Christmas now. You’ve ruined that tatie sack, it was nice and close-woven an’ all.’

  ‘By heck, woman, you’d find summat to grumble about in heaven!’ Noah growled, but mildly. It was dole day the day after tomorrow, he’d have a few pence for himself, buy a decent pack of Woodbines. Twenty, even. It was cheaper to buy in bulk.

  At least he got a bit of dole now. During the strike able-bodied men got nowt, only a bit of out relief for the wife and bairns. It was the single men who did the worst though. As long as they were able-bodied they got nowt at all. So it worked out that a man would get food for one day and not the next. A man was considered able-bodied if he’d had something to eat in the last twenty-four hours. Aye, but things would get better. They had to, they couldn’t get much worse.

  The oven shelf was hot, courtesy of the pitch balls and Katie lay in bed with her feet on the shelf wrapped in an old towel and it was lovely. She huddled under the blanket with her coat on top and the bedroom mat on top of that. Outside the wind howled and the rain pattered on the window. Sleepily she thought of the toff they had met on the wagon way down by the old coke ovens. She had been frightened he would turn her grandda over to the polis, he looked so cold and angry. She dropped asleep wondering why he had not.

  Chapter Three

  ‘WHY MAN, I’M a hewer not a safety man,’ said Noah. He stood in the manager’s office where he had been summonded that morning by Billy Wright knocking at his back door.

  ‘Me da says the gaffer wants to see you, Mr Benfield,’ Billy had said.

  ‘Me? Are you sure he wants to see me?’ Noah was filled with foreboding. Had someone seen him take the pitch yesterday? But it wasn’t stealing, not really, the pitch was no good for anything except burning, it had been left to the elements too long.

  ‘That’s what he said,’ said Billy. ‘As soon as you can get there.’

  As Noah washed and shaved he went through what it could mean. Were they going to be put out of the house? Was he going to be told he’d never get a job in any of the company’s pits again so he might as well emigrate? Leave his beloved Durham for one of those new-fangled car factories in the south?

  ‘What’s the matter, Noah? Why does he want to see you?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘Nay lass, I don’t know, I haven’t a crystal ball.’

  Noah was in a right state inside when he finally stood before the manager’s desk so that he never even saw the owner’s agent (Parsons was he called?) sitting in the corner.

  Mr Thompson gazed at the man in front of him. In fact he was as mystified as Noah. The man must be in his late fifties and past the time when he should be hewing which was a young man’s job. Yet his back was ramrod straight and his shoulders powerful despite the low seams of the coalfield.

  In the corner, Parsons uncrossed his legs and reached in his pocket for a cigar. Noah glanced across at him. Oh aye, he’d seen him before. The boss’s lackey, wasn’t he? Aping the boss’s ways no doubt an’ all. Not that he’d ever seen the boss or knew anything about him really. Except that he was an ironmaster from Cleveland, one who had supported the other owners in their demands for longer hours and less pay for the miners. Demands which led to the strike. Noah turned his attention back to the gaffer, dismissing bitter thoughts.

  ‘Well, do you want the job or not?’ Mr Thompson asked him.

  ‘Why aye, I do, gaffer,’ said Noah. After all, his pride in still being a hewer at his age didn’t put meat on the table, not when there was no hewing to be done.

  ‘That’s it then, Monday morning, back shift.’

  ‘What’ll I be doing exactly, like?’

  Mr Thompson sighed. ‘Just generally helping the deputies, watching out for anything, you know, you’ve been down the pit long enough. You know what the dangers are in this coalfield.’

  ‘Oh aye, I do that,’ said Noah. He cleared his throat and forced himself to look humble. ‘Is there any chance of a sub, like? I am a bit short an’ I’ll get nowt off the dole the morrow, not now I’m taken on again.’

  ‘You’re a cheeky bugger, Benfield,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘All right, see the wages man, he hasn’t much else to do at the minute.’ Noah grinned, his eyes crinkling in his ruddy face.

  As Noah went out he started whistling, the sound surprisingly sweet and clear. ‘Who were you with last night—’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right man?’ Mr Parsons asked. “There’ll be hell to pay if you haven’t.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s the right man,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘He’s the only one I know to fit the description Mr Hamilton gave you. I hope the boss doesn’t regret it. Noah wasn’t one of the ringleaders in the strike but I’m sure he was right behind the ones that were.’

  ‘I hope he learned his lesson.’ Mr Parsons got to his feet and started for the door. ‘I’ll see you next week, Thompson. I expect you’ll have someone keep an eye on Benfield. Let me know how he shapes up.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll shape up all right. He always was a good worker.’

  ‘Well, I’ve still a lot to do. Good day to you Thompson.’ Mr Parsons went out to the pit yard and got into the driving seat of his Austin saloon. He pressed the self-starter and drove in a circle round the empty yard before heading out of the gate. Hamilton coming had taken him by surprise today, usually he had advance warning of the owner’s visits. The boss had been on his high horse too, criticising the way he had let some of the places on bank at the non-working mines get a bit run down. As if it was his fault, such things were up to the managers. But he’d sharpen them up anyway. They had very little else to do. Though after all, they were keeping things going underground right, weren’t they? That was the most important thing.

  Parsons’ thoughts returned to his interview with Mr Hamilton that morning. A queer carry-on about the man Benfield, wasn’t it?

  ‘Do you know a man, in his fifties, worked at Winton, Parsons? A big man, red-faced, dark blue eyes? Not afraid to speak his mind?’ Mr Hamilton had asked.

  ‘Well, Mr Hamilton, there were nigh on 800 men worked at Winton,’ the agent replied.

  ‘Yes of course. This man has a granddaughter, same eyes as himself, blonde hair.’

  ‘I can’t say I do, Mr Hamilton.’ Was the man going off his head? How was he supposed to know all the men that worked at Winton?

  ‘No, but you can ask Thompson, can’t you?’ The boss sounded testy. What had the fellow done?

  ‘I will, of course,’ Parsons said hastily. ‘Do you want Thompson to black-list him? Has he been impertinent?’ (How the heck did you meet him? was what Parsons wanted to ask.)

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. But if Thompson knows who it is I mean, I want him to give him a job.’

  ‘A job? Do you mean at Eden Hope or are you intending to open Winton again? I don’t mean to question your judgement but—’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Matthew with a hard stare. ‘No, Thompson can put him on doing something till the pit opens again, can’t he?’

  ‘Yes, yes he can. Of course he can.’

  ‘Right then, see to it.’

  Matthew went out to his car and climbed in, sitting back with a sigh, content with his day. Though to be honest he didn’t know why he had given that last order to Parsons. But somehow he couldn’t get the picture out of his mind, he had kept thinking about it all day. The picture of the young girl coming round from behind her grandfather and standing shoulder to shoulder with him. The way she had gazed at him so directly with the old man’s eyes, the uplifted chin and the smear of pitch across her cheek. Of course the sack was full of pitch, he had known it by the smell even before he had come across the pool of old pitch further along the wagon way. There was obvious marks on the surface where the man had been taking lumps out.

  He’d never given much thought before as to how the miners got their heat when their concessionary coal was stopped. He looked
at the window where sleet was pattering against the glass. It was snug in the car, thank God. Well, the old chap was showing some initiative going all that way for pitch balls.

  The girl too, helping him.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ Matthew said, half-aloud. ‘I’m going soft in the head in my old age.’

  Lawson looked through the rear-view mirror at him, startled. ‘Pardon, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Take it careful, Lawson,’ said Matthew. ‘There’s no rush.’ He didn’t want to get home before his dinner guests went home. One of the reasons he had come out today was to make the fellow unsure of himself. Dawson was in deep water and there may yet be the chance of picking up his works for a song. Matthew forgot about the old man and the girl as he turned his keen mind to the problems of working iron.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Kitty stared as Noah strode into the kitchen and threw a ten-shilling note down on the table. He was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘What does it look like, lass?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been taken on at the pit. That’s a sub the gaffer let us ’ave.’

  Kitty slumped down on to Noah’s chair. Suddenly her shoulders heaved and tears ran down her face unchecked, she who had never cried all during the ten-month strike and afterwards, when the miners had had to cave in and go back to work and the shock of finding that Winton wasn’t going to open any road and they faced another long wait.

  ‘Aw, howay, lass, I thought you’d be pleased,’ said Noah. Awkwardly he put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Eeh, I am, I am really. I thought the day would never come, I did. The pit’s starting up then?’

  ‘Nay lass, it isn’t. I’ll be working with the safety men. Until it does open, that is.’

  Kitty looked up at him through swimming eyes. She opened her mouth to question it but closed it: again. It was enough that there was a wage coming in for the first time in so many long months. Katie came in the door and her mouth dropped open as her gaze was drawn to the note still lying on the table. She put the heavy bag of jam jars she had been collecting on the flagged floor.

  ‘Katie! Katie! Hadaway down the store and buy half a pound of brawn and a couple of pig’s trotters, pet. Oh, an’ half a stone of taties an’ a turnip. And a—’

  ‘Kitty, Kitty man, what do you think the lass is a pit pony? She cannot carry so much, can she?’

  Kitty nodded. ‘No I wasn’t thinking, was I. Just a quarter of taties then, Katie.’

  ‘But what, what’s happened?’ Katie asked. She had been out for three hours collecting jam jars from all over Winton and beyond because the store gave a ha’penny each for them if they were washed and clean. She reckoned she had enough to buy a quarter of brawn and five Woodbines for her grandda. And here on the table was a whole ten-shilling note!

  ‘Your grandda’s been taken on, Katie! He’s been taken on!’ Once again Kitty Benfield dissolved into tears.

  ‘Here at Winton? Do you mean here?’ As her grandfather nodded, Katie was lit up with such an intense joy she felt she must be glowing like a gas mantle. ‘Does it mean I can have—’ Katie stopped abruptly as she realised she had been going to ask for new shoes already. By, her granma would think she was so selfish, thinking only of herself.

  But Kitty wasn’t even listening, she was building the fire up with pitch balls so as to have a good blaze to cook the taties and turnip and heat the oven for the pig’s trotters when she got them. She was bustling about in the old way, the way Katie vaguely remembered her doing so long ago.

  Later, as her grandmother belched softly as she sat dozing in the heat from the fire, and her grandfather sat smoking a whole Woodbine, his legs stretched out on the fender as he inhaled deeply, Katie brought in the tin bath and filled it with water from the boiler at the side of the range and began to wash the jamjars. Maybe she could take two of them and go to the pictures on Friday night. The manager let them sit in the front four rows for a penny or two jam jars and Charlie Chaplin was on.

  ‘We ’ave to pay the Guardians back for the out relief money we’ve ’ad,’ Noah remarked suddenly. ‘We’re not going to be rich you know.’

  ‘How much?’ asked Kitty, waking up at the mention of money.

  ‘A shilling a week, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Flaming heck,’ said Kitty. ‘We’ll be paying till Judgement Day.’ But she wasn’t going to let the thought of anyone or anything spoil the evening. After all, she wasn’t going to have to sell the sofa now, that was worth a fair bit. More than 2/6 any road.

  ‘Go and get yourself a pint, Noah,’ she said and his eyes widened in shock. He jumped up with alacrity.

  ‘Aye I think I will, Kitty,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking, a pint would go down nicely, like.’

  ‘Aye, I bet you were,’ Kitty said drily. ‘Only the one mind.’

  Katie reached for the tea-towel hanging on the brass rail above the range and began drying the jam jars. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she caught her grandmother’s eye.

  ‘By,’ Kitty said, shaking her head, ‘when things are going all right there’s not a nicer man than my Noah.’

  Katie stopped smiling, remembering the times when he was not nice, how he could be harsh and even violent sometimes. Kitty seemed to read her thoughts.

  ‘It’s the drink changes him, Katie,’ she said. ‘He gets a black devil on his shoulder. An’ then, it’s not surprising he’s had such bad moods this rotten year, is it? By, I’ll be glad when it’s a new year. But there’s many a worse man than my Noah, believe me.’

  ‘Then why tell him to go for a pint?’ Katie couldn’t resist asking.

  ‘It’s not for you to question your elders, cheeky monkey,’ said Kitty, her tone changing. ‘A man has a right to a pint, especially when he’s working.’

  He hasn’t been working yet, thought Katie, but she didn’t say it. It would be all right, she knew it. Any road, he’d only taken sixpence. He was starting back shift on Monday.

  Down at the Working Men’s Club and Institute, Noah walked in with his head up and rapped his knuckles on the counter, what was known locally as a ready money knock.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of the best, Les,’ he called to the steward who was sitting at the other end of the bar, reading the Auckland Chronicle. There were two or three men in the bar, no more and they were sitting playing dominoes at a table by the door.

  ‘Not till you pay your slate, you won’t,’ said Les, not even looking up. ‘Not unless you have the tuppence ha’penny. To pay for it.’

  Noah loosened the white scarf around his neck and pushed his cap to the back of his head. Then he felt in the top pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a sixpence. ‘There you are then, Les,’ he said. ‘There a tanner. Mind I want thrupence ha’penny change an’ all.’ He looked round at the domino players and grinned broadly.

  ‘What’s happened Noah, you come into a fortune?’ asked one, then hopefully, ‘You going to buy us all a pint then?’

  ‘Nay I’m not, I cannot,’ Noah admitted. He picked up the foaming glass which Les had put before him and took a deep, deep swallow. ‘By, but it’s bloody nectar, it is,’ he said reverently. He put down the glass and picked up his change, putting it carefully back into his waistcoat pocket before he turned back to the men sitting at the table.

  ‘Nay, lads,’ he said, ‘I’ve not come into a fortune but it’s nearly as good. I’ve been taken on at the pit. I join the safety men on Monday’s back shift.’

  ‘Yer what? You never!’

  ‘Aye, I have and I do,’ said Noah earnestly, remembering his own incredulity as he stood in the mine office earlier.

  He could picture the scene perfectly, he knew he always would. ‘Hamilton’s lackey, you know, the boss’s agent, he asked for me special like. It’s because of the experience and knowledge I ’ave of Winton Colliery.’ He turned back to the bar and took another swig from his glass of beer. At that moment he was as happy as anyone in the land.

  Chapter Four

 
; ‘BY HECK, KATIE,’ said Billy Wright, ‘you shouldn’t be doing that. It’s too hard for a lass.’

  Katie stopped shovelling coal through the coal hole to the coal house and leaned on her shovel, glad of a breather. She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a coaly smudge.

  ‘I can manage,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to leave it for Grandda when he come in from work, it will be dark.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you,’ said Billy, ‘here, give us hold of the shovel.’

  Katie hesitated. She was on her dinner hour from school and there wasn’t much of it left. ‘We cannot pay you,’ she said.

  ‘Did I ask you to? Howay, man!’

  Billy took the shovel from her and began throwing in the coal, lifting a shovelful with an easy swing and making the coal piled on the pavement disappear rapidly.

  Katie watched for a minute before saying something about getting washed ready for school and going inside.

  ‘Who’s that, then?’ Her grandmother looked up from the pot pie she was preparing for when Noah got in from the back shift.

  ‘Billy Wright.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a good lad,’ Kitty observed. She spooned meat into the basin lined with suet pastry and covered it with a pastry lid. Deftly she tied the whole in a pudding cloth and lowered it into the pan of water already boiling on the fire. Sighing with satisfaction she stood back and watched it before drawing it slightly away from the heat on to the bar. By, it was lovely being able to cook proper meals again, she thought, it had been such a long time since she had had the chance.

  ‘Tell Billy to fill a couple of buckets for old Mrs Scott,’ she said as Katie came out of the pantry where the only tap in the house was. ‘And tell our Betty to get Willie to come and get a couple of buckets the night.’ Betty was one of Katie’s younger sisters who lived with her own parents. The way they were giving away their concessionary coal would leave them short before the next load was due, thought Katie but she nodded. It was the way of the rows.