ever.’ She turned her head and looked into the room again. ‘We’re in for it, another window-sill winter. I can smell it.’
Janie had taken an old coat from the back of the door and as she hugged it around her she glanced back towards the table and Rory, and when she said, ‘Half an hour?’ he smiled and nodded at her.
‘Go on, Gran, go on; you’ll blow them all out.’ Janie went to press her grandmother on to the outer step, but the old lady resisted firmly, saying, ‘Stop a minute. Stop a minute. Look, there’s somebody coming in at the gate.’
Janie went to her side and peered into the darkness. Then again looking back into the room, she cried, ‘It’s John George.’
Rising slowly from the table and coming towards the door, Rory said, ‘He wasn’t coming the night; he mustn’t have been able to see her.’
‘Hello, John George.’
‘Hello there, Janie.’ John George Armstrong stood scraping his boots on the iron ring attached to the wall as he added, ‘Hello there, Gran.’
And Gran’s reply was, ‘Well, come on in if you’re comin’ an’ let us out, else I’ll be frozen stiffer than a corpse.’
Janie now pressed her grannie none too gently over the step and as she passed John George she said, ‘See you later, John George.’
‘Aye, see you later, Janie,’ he replied before entering the kitchen and closing the door behind him and replying to a barrage of greetings.
Having hung his coat and hard hat on the back of the door he took his place at the table, and Rory asked briefly, ‘What went wrong?’
‘Oh, the usual . . . . You playing cards?’ The obvious statement was a polite way of telling the company that he didn’t wish to discuss the reason for his unexpected presence among them tonight in and they accepted this.
‘Want to come in?’
‘What do you think?’
As John George and Rory exchanged a tight smile Bill Waggett said, ‘You’d better tighten your belt, lad, an’ hang on to your trousers ’cos he’s in form the night. Cleared me out of monkey nuts.’
‘No!’
‘Oh aye. We were sayin’ he should go to America and make his fortune on one of them boats.’
‘He needn’t go as far as that, Mr Waggett, there’s plenty of games goin’ on in Shields and across the water, and they tell me that fortunes are made up in Newcastle.’
‘Gamblin’! That’s all anybody hears in this house, gamblin’. Do you want a mug of tea?’ Lizzie was bending over John George, and he turned his long thin face up to her and smiled at her kindly as he answered, ‘It would be grand, Lizzie.’
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
‘I’ve had me tea.’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh. Oh, not so long ago.’
‘Have you a corner for a bite?’
‘I’ve always got a corner for a bite, Lizzie.’ Again he smiled kindly at her, and she pushed him roughly, saying, ‘Death warmed up, that’s what you look like. Good food’s lost on you. Where does it go? You haven’t a pick on your bones.’
‘Thoroughbreds are always lean, Lizzie.’
As she turned and walked away towards the scullery she said, ‘They should have put a brick on yer head when you were young to make you grow sideways instead of up.’
The game proceeded with its usual banter until the door opened again and Janie entered, fully dressed now for the road in a long brown cloth coat to which was attached a shoulder cape of the same material. It was an elegant coat and like all the clothes she now wore had been passed on to her from her mistress. Her hat, a brown velour, with a small flat brim, was perched high on the top of her head, and its colour merged with the shining coils of her hair. The hat was held in place by two velvet ribbons coming from beneath the brim and tied under her chin. She had fine woollen gloves on her hands. The only articles of her apparel which did not point to taste were her boots. These were heavy-looking and buttoned at the side. It was very unfortunate, Jane considered, that her feet should be two sizes bigger than her mistress’s, yet she always comforted herself with the thought that her skirt and coat covered most parts of her boots and there was ever only the toes showing, except when she was crossing the muddy roads and the wheels of the carts and carriages were spraying clarts all over the place.
‘Eeh! by! you look bonny.’ Lizzie came towards her, but before reaching her she turned to Rory, who was rising from the table, saying, ‘You going to keep her waiting all night? Get a move on.’
The quick jerk of Rory’s head, the flash of his eyes and the further straightening of his lips caused Janie to say quickly, ‘There’s plenty of time, there’s plenty of time. I’ve got a full hour afore I’m due in. Look, it’s only eight o’clock.’
It’ll take you all that to walk from here to Westoe an’ the streets covered.’
‘No, it won’t, Lizzie. When I get goin’ George Wilson, the Newcastle walker, or me grannie’s fusiliers aren’t in it.’ She now swung her arms and did a standing march and ended, ‘Grenadier Waggett, the woman walker from Wallsend!’ Then stopping abruptly amid the laughter, she looked to where John George was taking his coat from the back of the door, and she asked flatly, ‘You’re not comin’ surely? You haven’t been here five minutes.’
‘I’ve got to get back, Janie, me Uncle Willy’s not too good.’
‘Was he ever?’
The aside came from Lizzie and as Ruth went to admonish her with a quick shake of her head Rory turned on her a look that could only be described as rage, for it was contorting his features. He did not shout at her, but his low tone conveyed his feelings more than if he had bawled as he said, ‘Will you hold your tongue, woman, an’ mind your own business for once!’
Strangely Lizzie did not turn on him, but she looked at him levelly for a moment and countered his anger with almost a placid expression as she said, ‘I’ve spent me life mindin’ me own business, lad, an’ me own business is to take care of those I’m concerned for, and I’m concerned for John George there. That uncle and aunt of his live off him. And what I’m sayin’ now I’ve said afore to his face, haven’t I, John George?’
‘You have that, Lizzie. And I like you mindin’ me business, it’s a comforter.’
‘There you are.’ She nodded towards Rory, who now had his back to her as he made his way down the long narrow room towards the ladder at the end that led into the loft, which place was Jimmy’s and his bedroom and had been since they were children, one end of it at one time having been curtained off to accommodate Nellie.
With no further words, Lizzie now went into the scullery, and Janie began saying her good-byes. When she came to Nellie she bent over her and said below her breath, ‘You all right, Nellie?’
‘Aye. Aye, Janie, I’m all right.’
Janie stared down into the peaked face; she knew Nellie wasn’t all right, she had never been all right since she married. Nellie’s marriage frightened her. Charlie Burke had courted Nellie for four years and was never off the doorstep, and Sunday after Sunday they had laughed and larked on like bairns in this very room. But not any more, not since she had been married but a few months. It was something to do with—the bedroom. Neither her grannie nor Lizzie had spoken to her about it and, of course, it went without saying that Ruth wouldn’t mention any such thing. But from little bits that she had overheard between Lizzie and her grannie she knew Nellie’s trouble lay in— the bedroom, and the fact that she had not fallen with a bairn and her all of three years married. Charlie Burke rarely came up to the house any more on a Sunday. Of course he had an excuse; he worked on the coal boats and so could be called out at any time to take a load up the river.
Janie now went into the kitchen to say good-bye to Lizzie.
Lizzie was standing with her hands holding the rim of the tin dish that rested on a little table under the window, which sloped to the side as if following the line of the roof.
‘I’m off then Lizzie.’
Without turning and her voice thick and holding a slight tremor, Lizzie said in answer, ‘He’s a bloody upstart. Do you know that, Janie? He’s a bloody snot. I’m sorry to say this, lass, but he is.’
