‘He’s not; you know he’s not, Lizzie.’ She shook her head at the older woman. ‘An’ you’re as much to blame as he is. Now yes you are.’ She bent sidewards and wagged her finger into the fat face, and Lizzie, her eyes blinking rapidly, put out her hand and touched the cream skin that glowed with health and youth and said, ‘Lass, you’re too good for him. And it isn’t the day or yesterday I’ve said it, now is it? He’s damned lucky.’
‘So am I, Lizzie.’
‘Aw, lass.’ Lizzie smiled wryly. ‘You’d say thank you if you were dished up with a meat puddin’ made of lights, you would that.’
‘Well, and why not? And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve eaten lights.’
They pushed against each other with their hands; then Janie said, ‘Remember that starving Christmas? How old was I? Ten, eleven? No work, strikes, trouble. Eeh! we had lights all right then. Me grannie cooked them seven different ways every week.’ She paused and they looked at each other. ‘Bye-bye, Lizzie.’
Spontaneously now Janie put her arms around Lizzie and kissed her, and Lizzie hugged her to herself. It was an unusual demonstration of affection. People didn’t go kissing and clarting on in public, it wasn’t proper; everybody knew that, even among engaged couples kissing and clarting on was kept for the dark country lanes, or if you were from the town, and common, a back lane or shop doorway; the only proper place for kissing and darting on was a front room, if you had one; if not, well then you had to wait for the bedroom, as every respectable person knew. She was going to wait for the bedroom, by aye she was that, even although she wasn’t all that taken with what she understood happened in the bedroom.
She now disengaged herself and went hurriedly from the scullery, leaving Lizzie once more gripping each side of the tin dish.
Rory and John George were already dressed for outdoors and waiting for her, Rory, although not short by any means, being all of five foot ten, looking small against John George’s lean six foot.
John George wore a black overcoat that had definitely not been made for him. Although the length was correct, being well below his knees, the shoulders were too broad, and the sleeves too short, his hands and arms hanging so far out of them that they drew attention to their thin nakedness. There was a distinct crack above the toecap of one of his well-polished boots and a patch in a similar place on the other. His hard hat was well brushed but had a slight greeny tinge to it. His whole appearance gave the impression of clean seediness, yet his position as rent collector in the firm of Septimus Kean was superior to that of Rory, for whereas Rory had only worked for Mr Kean for four years John George had been with him for eight. Now, at twenty-two years of age and a year younger than Rory, he showed none of the other’s comparative opulence for Rory wore a dark grey overcoat over a blue suit, and he had a collar to his shirt, and he did not wear his scarf like a muffler but overlapping on his chest like a business gentleman would have worn it. And although he wore a cap—he only wore his hard hat for business—it wasn’t like a working man’s cap, perhaps it was only the angle at which he wore it that made it appear different.
Looking at him as always with a feeling of pride welling in her, Janie thought, He can get himself up as good as the master.
‘Well then, off you go.’ Ruth seemed to come to the fore for the first time. She escorted them all to the door and there she patted Janie on the back, saying, ‘Until next Sunday then, lass?’
‘Yes, Mrs Connor, until next Sunday. You’ll give a look in on her?’ She nodded towards the next cottage and Ruth said, ‘Of course, of course. Don’t worry about her. You know’—she smiled faintly—’I think she’ll still be here when we’re all pushing the daisies up.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder.’ Janie went out laughing, calling over her shoulder, ‘Ta-rah. Ta-rah everybody. Ta- rah.’
Out in the black darkness they had difficulty in picking their way in single file down the narrow rutted lane. When they reached the broader road they stopped for a moment and Rory, kicking the snow aside with his foot, said, ‘By! it’s thick. If it goes on like this we’ll have a happy day the morrow, eh?’
‘I’d rather have it than rain,’ John George replied; ‘at least it’s dry for a time. It’s the wet that gets me down, day after day, day after day.’
‘Here, hang on.’ Rory now pulled Janie close to him and linked her arm in his. It’s comin’ down thicker than ever. Can’t even see a light in the docks. Well find ourselves in the ditch if we’re not careful.’
Stumbling on, her side now pressed close to Rory’s, Janie began to giggle; then turning her head, she cried, ‘Where are you, John George?’
‘I’m here.’ The voice came from behind them and he answered, ‘Give me your hand. Come on.’
As she put her hand out gropingly and felt John George grip it, Rory said, ‘Let him fend for himself, he’s big enough. You keep your feet, else I’m tellin’ you well be in the ditch.’
It took them all of twenty minutes before they reached Tyne Dock, and there, taking shelter under the last arch, they stopped and drew their breath, and Janie, looking towards a street lamp opposite the dock gates, said, ‘Isn’t it nice to see a light?’
‘And you can just see it and that’s all. Come on, we’d better be goin’. It’s no use standin’, we soon won’t be able to get through.’
As Rory went to pull Janie forward she checked him, saying, ‘Look, wait a minute. It’s daft, you know, you walkin’ all the way to Westoe, you’ve only not to tramp all the way back. It isn’t so bad in the town ’cos there’s the lights, but from the bottom of the bank up to our place . . . well, we’ve just had some, haven’t we? An’ if it keeps on, as you say it’ll get worse underfoot, so what’s the sense of trapesing all the way there with me when John George’s place is only five minutes away?’
‘She’s right, Rory. It’s daft to tramp down all the way to Westoe for it’ll be another couple of hours afore you get back. And then with it coming down like this. Well, as Janie says . . .’
Rory peered from one to the other before he answered, ‘Imagine the reception I’d get if I told them back there I’d left you at the arches. They’d wipe the kitchen with me.’
‘But you’re not leavin’ me at the arches; John George’ll see me right to the door. Look.’ She turned and pushed John George away, saying, ‘Go on, walk on a bit, I’ll catch up with you in a minute at the Dock gates.’
When John George walked swiftly from the shelter of the arch Rory called, ‘Hold your hand a minute . . .’
‘Now just you look here.’ Janie pulled at the lapels of his coat. ‘Don’t be such a fathead; I’d rather know you were safely back home in the dry than have you set me to the door.’
‘But I won’t see you for another week.’
‘That didn’t seem to bother you all afternoon, ’cos you’ve done nowt but play cards.’
‘Well, what can you do back there? I ask you, what can you do? There’s no place to talk and I couldn’t ask you out in the freezing cold or they’d’ve been at me. And I wanted to talk to you, seriously like ’cos it’s . . . it’s time we thought about doin’ something. Don’t you think it is?’
She kept her head on the level, her eyes looking into his as she replied, ‘If you want a straight answer, Mr Connor, aye, I do.’
‘Aw, Janie!’ He pulled her roughly to him and pressed his mouth on hers and when she overbalanced and her back touched the curved wall of the arch she pulled herself from him, saying, ‘Eeh! me coat, it’ll get all muck.’
‘Blast your coat!’
Her voice soft now, she said, ‘Aye, blast me coat,’ then she put her mouth to his again and they stood, their arms gripped tight around each other, their faces merged.
When again she withdrew herself from him he was trembling and he gulped in his throat before saying, ‘Think about it this week, will you?’
‘It’s you that’s got to do the thinking, Rory. We’ve got to get a place an’ furniture ’cos there’s one thing I can tell you sure, I’m not livin’ in with me dad and grannie. I’m not startin’ that way up in the loft. I want a house that I can make nice with things an’ that . . .’
‘As if I would ask you. What do you take me for?’
‘I’m only tellin’ you, I want a decent place . . .’
‘I’m with you there all the way. I’m not for one room an’ a shakydown either, I can tell you that . . . I’ve got something in me napper.’
‘Gamblin’?’
‘Well, aye. And don’t say it like that; I haven’t done too badly out of it, have I now? But what I’m after is to get set on in a good school . . . A big school. And there’s plenty about. But you’ve got to be in the know.’
