The Child from the Ash Pits Page 6

  The women quickened their pace. So did Cally, her heart throbbing painfully with every step.

  At the pithead she huddled in the crowd of anxious men, women and children, all of them oblivious to the pouring rain. Her dad was deep underground, trapped in water and Cally could do nothing to help him but pray. On and on she talked to an unseen presence; a mantra of all the things she loved best about George, asking Him not to take her dad away: she’d already lost too much.

  The cage rattled to the top of the shaft and a man wearing goggles and a heavy canvas vest to which was attached a long tube that was wound round his neck stumbled out. ‘That’s one o’ t’Fire and Rescue team,’ said a man standing next to Cally. Coated in filth, and looking like some strange subterranean creature, the Fire and Rescue man shambled closer to the crowd. ‘It’s chaos down below,’ he called out, ‘water’s pourin’ into Section Seven. Them as were in there didn’t stand a chance.’

  Panicked, the crowd surged forward then scattered as a big shiny car sped across the pithead to the downshaft entrance: the owners had arrived. Men in suits huddled under large, black umbrellas whilst the commander of the Fire and Rescue team, his face and uniform caked in black slime, delivered his report. Cally wanted to ask him which section George Manfield worked in, but she was afraid.

  She prayed it wasn’t number seven.

  Down and up the cage clattered, metal screeching on metal, colliers stumbling out each time it reached the top of the shaft. Like slimy black beetles, their eyes wide with fear, they hurried to find the loved ones they knew would be waiting there for them. Frantically, Cally scanned the blackened faces.

  And there he was.

  ‘Dad! Dad!’ Cally splashed through the puddles towards him. Seeing her, George dropped to his knees in the mud and spread his arms. Cally threw herself at him, unmindful of the filth coating his body.

  ‘Eeh lass, it’s good to see you. I thought I were…’ George choked on the words and as Cally clung to him they both silently affirmed their need for one another. Gently, George wiped Cally’s tears with a blackened thumb then, hand in hand, they went and stood with Jimmy and Lizzie Stott, watching and waiting as the rescue continued.

  The cage brought men on stretchers to the surface, two ambulances and a lorry whisking away those whose faces showed above the red blankets covering them. Canvas sheets completely covered some of the stretchers. These were the dead men. George told Cally to go home; he’d come later.

  Cally made her way back to Jackson’s Yard, Lizzie keeping her company. Annie stood at the door of number eleven. Lizzie eyed her with disgust. Failure to stand by your man in his hour of need was tantamount to murder. ‘I didn’t see you running to find out if George were all right.’

  ‘He could have drowned!’ cried Cally.

  Annie gave a callous smirk. ‘Pity he didn’t.’

  ‘You hard-hearted bugger,’ yelled Lizzie, ducking into her own house out of the rain. Cally ran indoors and up to her room. She was wet through and hungry but she’d sooner starve than stay downstairs with Annie.

  Torrents of rain battered the windowpane, and Cally strained her ears for George’s return. As she waited she thought how tenuous life was; it could have been her dad on one of those covered stretchers. He could have drowned; then she would have been truly alone. Exhausted, she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  Sometime after midnight Cally wakened and went downstairs, hunger gnawing at her insides. George was slumped at the kitchen table, his face ashen. He beckoned for Cally to come close, pulling her to his knee. After a minute or two he spoke, his voice like shifting gravel. ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, lass. I heard it on me way home an’ I know it’ll upset you, but you have to hear it sometime.’

  Cally pulled away to stare into his face, perplexed. Whilst she felt sad for the dead and injured miners, none of them were likely to affect her life. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  George swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘It’s Harriet an’ the Jessops. They’re gone, lass.’

  Cally frowned. ‘Gone where?’

  George took a deep breath. ‘It were that slag heap on their doorstep. You know all this rain we’ve had this past week, well, it shifted it during t’night. It buried the whole row of houses, and them in it. Harriet an’ her family are dead.’

  Cally froze. In her mind’s eye she saw the mountain of slag oozing slowly towards the houses, pushing against the doors and windows then slinking upstairs to smother the unsuspecting Jessops. They had all perished whilst she had been sleeping and not thinking about them at all. Her knees sagged, and she would have fallen to the floor had not George scooped her up into his lap.

  Huge sobs wracked Cally’s body, and deep inside she blamed herself for Harriet’s death: with all the panic at the pit she had forgotten to pray for her. God spared my dad and took Harriet and the Jessops instead, she thought. Why is it that everything and everyone I love gets taken from me?

  *

  Experience had taught Cally that life goes on, even when those you love best are no longer there to share it with you. She accepted there would be no more joyful days with Harriet in the same way she accepted she would never again feel Ada’s loving embrace or hear her gentle voice. However, accepting her loss did not make it any easier to bear.

  7

  Dreadful though they sometimes were, in the next two years Cally learned to deal with life in the way she thought her mam would have wanted her to do. More than once her mam had said, ‘Happiness doesn’t find you; you make your own,’ so Cally determined to do just that.

  During that time Annie gave birth to Bernard. Another unwanted pregnancy and another child to rear exacerbating her bitterness, Annie spent her days carping and screaming. When George wasn’t roaring back at her, he took to standing in the yard staring into space as if waiting for something or someone. At other times, oblivious to Cally, Daisy and baby Bernard, he sat with his head in his hands; Cally was certain he was hiding tears. Annie wielded the wooden spoon liberally, Cally and Daisy were rarely without bruises, and Bernard was all but ignored. So fraught was the tension that Cally thought that the house might implode at any moment. She no longer felt part of a family and the house didn’t seem like home.

  To counteract these feelings, Cally spent as much time as she dared with her schoolmate, Marie Gilmore. Like the Jessops’, the Gilmore house was filled with happiness and fun, and Cally wanted, and needed, a share of it.

  She also worked hard in school; another thing of which her mam would have approved. Ada had once told her, ‘Education opens doors, and behind every door there are prospects that improve your mind, and your life.’ Recalling this, Cally applied herself diligently in every lesson, and her teachers, liking her because she was spirited and inquisitive and used her imagination, were pleased to give her their support. With their help, she would open as many doors as she could, Cally told herself, the first being to win a scholarship to the Girl’s Grammar School in Barnsley.

  So, night after night in her bedroom, or with Marie after school in the Gilmore’s cottage, Cally studied. As her eleventh birthday approached, she was sure the scholarship was within her grasp.

  *

  Outside the kitchen door, Cally kicked the snow off her boots and then stood shivering in the frosty air, listening with a sinking feeling to Annie’s shrieks and George’s roars.

  ‘I don’t want another baby. I’ve no life of my own as it is,’ screeched Annie. Earlier that day, much to her chagrin, Dr Blackstone had confirmed her third pregnancy.

  ‘Don’t sound so bloody hard done by,’ roared George, ‘if you didn’t want a bairn you shouldn’t have done what caused it.’

  ‘It’s you that put it there.’

  ‘Only because you never leave me alone,’ he snarled. ‘Come on, George, make love to me,’ he said, mimicking Annie’s whining tone and then laughing derisively before growling, ‘Love has nowt to do with it.’

  A sudden hush descended on the kitchen. Bo
th knew he spoke the truth for he rarely initiated their coupling. More than three years on, and his guilt at betraying Ada still burned.

  But he was a healthy young man and there were times when he found it impossible to resist temptation.

  Cally slumped against the wall, her thoughts ugly. Another baby nobody wanted. You were meant to love babies, but there was no love in this house now that her mam was dead. Families should love one another, but we’re not a proper family, she thought, as she reluctantly entered the kitchen. Neither George nor Annie acknowledged her arrival. He was standing in front of the hearth clenching and unclenching his fists, his face dark and bitter. Annie stood at the sink, scowling. Cally looked from one unhappy face to the other and smelt animosity, sharp and sour as rotting cabbage.

  In the next months, as Annie’s waistline thickened, her disillusionment intensified. Brief, loveless moments of satisfying her own needs, and his, had condemned her to a life of drudgery. Steeped in bitter remorse she hated everything and everybody: the dirty little mining village that was Calthorpe; the poky little house in Jackson’s Yard; George; Daisy, the child he’d foisted on her; Bernard and the baby growing inside her. Most of all she detested Cally.

  George, however, was beginning to see things in a different light. He had come to realise that the only person who showed him any affection was his daughter, Cally. Sadly, at first her everyday acts of kindness only exacerbated his guilt at betraying Ada and he was incapable of responding. Now, he realised the error of his ways. He’d had enough of this misery! He’d do right by Cally; Annie be buggered. So, on the evening of Cally’s eleventh birthday, George sat reading his newspaper in the parlour instead of going to the pub. Curious as to why, Cally joined him, hopeful he might talk to her or help her with the mathematics homework Miss Halstead had set that day.

  When Annie clumped downstairs, having put Daisy and Bernard to bed, Cally stopped hoping; no chance of George talking to her or helping with the homework in Annie’s presence; she abhorred the idea of Cally going to the grammar school.

  After a while George folded the newspaper and, setting it aside, delved in his trouser pocket. ‘Here you are, Cally, this is for your birthday; it’ll help wi’ all that homework your doin’ for that scholarship to t’grammar school.’

  Cally stared in awe at the black and silver fountain pen. Feeling light headed and lost for words she mumbled her thanks: her dad had acknowledged her birthday. He must love her after all.

  ‘What’s that?’ The air soured, Annie’s shrewish tone stealing Cally’s pleasure.

  ‘Our Cally’s birthday present; she’s eleven today.’ George picked up the paper and carried on reading.

  Annie darted across the room and snatched the paper away. He leapt to his feet yelling, ‘Hey up! What the bloody hell’s wrong wi’ you?’

  Annie glared. ‘Have you forgotten there’s another baby on the way? How dare you waste money on presents for her.’ The way she emphasised the word ‘her’ made it sound dirty.

  George’s eyes darkened dangerously. ‘You’ll have all t’money you want when it’s born. Whenever have I kept you short?’ he roared.

  Annie roared back. ‘She’s the only one you care about and I’ll not stand for it.’

  ‘You’ll stand for it all right, an’ what’s more if I ever catch you layin’ a finger on that bairn again you’ll feel the weight o’ my fist.’ He pushed her to one side, marched into the kitchen, yanked his jacket off the hook behind the door and slammed out.

  Utterly confounded, Cally watched him go. Her dad had remembered her birthday, and what’s more he’d stood up to Annie. Cheering inwardly she skipped up to her bedroom, and after using the pen to complete her homework she put it in the treasure box. It was then she spied the gold locket. She hadn’t dared wear it, but made bold by George’s recent defence of her she fastened it round her neck, telling herself it was a birthday present from her mam.

  ‘What are you up to up there?’ Annie’s shout and footsteps on the stairs had Cally hastily buttoning the collar of her blouse. No use in tempting fate; if Annie saw the locket she’d claim it. Cally dashed from the room, meeting Annie halfway down the stairs. Annie shoved sixpence into Cally’s hand. ‘Get me some mint humbugs and be quick about it.’

  Cally slipped past her and ran.

  Exiting from the yard she came face to face with the ragman’s donkey. The ragman gave a shout; Cally stumbled. The cart trundled under the arch, Cally rubbing her grazed knees.

  In the shop she hopped from one foot to the other partly because her knees were stinging and partly because the long queue meant it wouldn’t be only her knees that were sore if she didn’t hurry up.

  ‘What kept you?’ Annie’s raised hand was just about to connect with Cally’s cheek when George walked in. His glare stayed Annie’s hand, the half smile and sly wink he gave Cally making her forget about her sore knees.

  George began to put on his pit clothes and Annie to make sandwiches for his snap. ‘Chuck this in the bin,’ she said, handing Cally the wrappings from a quarter of corned beef.

  Cally nipped outside to the bin across the yard. On her way back she picked out the constellations in the night sky – just as she and her mam had often done – then she remembered: the treasure box! She hadn’t put it back in its hiding place. Hurtling upstairs, she came down just as quickly.

  ‘Annie, where’s my treasure box?’ Her voice was tight with anxiety.

  ‘Your what?’ Annie sounded unconcerned. ‘What are you on about?’ She placed corned beef sandwiches into George’s snap tin.

  ‘My box! It was on my bed. I left it there when you sent me to the shop.’

  George looked up from lacing his clogs, his expression curious. ‘What box, lass?’

  ‘The one my mam kept in the wardrobe. The one with memories in it.’

  George understood. His face softened. Annie saw the look. Her eyes glittered spitefully but her words sounded perfectly innocent when she said, ‘Oh, that. I gave it to t’ragman. He gave me tuppence for it.’ She fished in her apron pocket. ‘Here, you can have it.’

  Cally’s face crumpled.

  George’s lips twisted. ‘You did what?’ he snarled. ‘You gave t’bairn’s box away to t’bloody ragman? What sort of a stupid bitch are you? It was her mother’s. She wanted her to have it.’

  Cally’s eyes widened; she was surprised George knew about the box.

  ‘I thought it was rubbish,’ demurred Annie, slipping the coins back in her pocket.

  Cally knew Annie was lying, and bolstered by George’s vilification of her, she added her own. ‘You’re lying! You could see it wasn’t rubbish. My new pen was in it.’ Cally’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘You gave it away because you hate me. Well, I hate you back, Annie! I’ve always hated you.’

  Annie sprang forward, landing a stinging clout on Cally’s cheek. George lunged at Annie, holding her arm in an iron grip. ‘Clout her again an’ I’ll give you t’best bloody hiding you’ve ever had.’

  His body quivering with pent up rage, he pulled on his jacket. Halfway to the door he paused in front of Cally, shaking his head in bewilderment as he caressed her bruised cheek. ‘You get off to bed, lass.’

  She heard the tenderness in his voice and saw the sadness in his eyes; her heart bled for him. It was too early for him to go on the night shift, Cally feared that he would go to the pub and get drunk. Sadly, she watched him go, thinking he shouldn’t go down the pit with drink in him. He might get careless and hurt himself. Annie neither moved nor spoke but her eyes gleamed malevolently.

  In bed, flat on her back, Cally fingered the locket nestled in the hollow of her throat. At least I still have this, she consoled herself, Annie took my lovely pen and all my other treasures but she can’t take my spirit and my soul, I’ll make sure of that.

  After a while she curled into a foetal position, her face to the wall. Just as sleep was about to claim her she thought she felt hot breath on her cheek and she was sure she heard
a voice say, ‘You’ll pay for this, Cally Manfield. Just wait and see.’ But when she rolled over and opened her eyes, no one was there.

  *

  And pay for it, Cally did.

  On the day Cally finished her Primary School education, and with the home time bell still clanging in her ears, she ran all the way down School Road, her heart bursting with pride.

  ‘Dad! Dad! I’ve won a scholarship,’ she cried, the minute she entered number eleven.

  Her joyful cries tugged at George’s heart. ‘Aye, well done,’ he muttered, ‘but you’ll not be goin’ to t’Grammar.’

  Cally’s elation ebbed, a chill confusion clutching at her insides. ‘Why ever not?’ The words hung like dead crows on barbed wire.

  George couldn’t bear to look at her. ‘Cos you’re not, an’ that’s that.’

  Something fluttered and then hardened in Cally’s throat. She’d won the coveted scholarship and now her dad was telling her she couldn’t accept it. ‘But why?’ she howled, disappointment making her lose control.

  ‘Cos I bloody said so,’ George bellowed, ‘an’ don’t start cryin’ about it when Annie gets back. I’ve enough on me plate wi’out you makin’ things worse.’

  Realisation narrowed Cally’s eyes. ‘It’s Annie isn’t it? She says I can’t go. You’re giving in to her.’

  George silently acknowledged the truth. Pride at her achievement and his own spinelessness curdled inside him. He’d pondered long and hard on the probability of Cally gaining a scholarship, and whilst he wanted her to accept it he didn’t think he could bear the aggravation if she did. Worn down by Annie’s spite and her constant carping, he had reached the conclusion that his and Cally’s lives would be made easier if she didn’t accept the scholarship; it would also be kinder to his pocket, and money was always a bone of contention between him and Annie. He couldn’t summon the will to defy her.

  A look of utter defeat etched his face as his eyes met Cally’s. She gazed back pleadingly with eyes like pools of ink. ‘You’re not going, an’ that’s that,’ he said brokenly.