‘There might be, though it’s not an entertainment fair. It’s where people come at the end of a farming year to find new employment or where farmers come to find new workers. Those who are looking for work dress up to show what they can do,’ she explained. ‘For instance, a dairy maid will carry milk pails on a yoke or bring a three-legged milking stool; stable lads wear a harness round their necks or some horsehair in their caps, and a cowman mebbe carries a piece of cow tail. And although it’s a day of fun for those who are not looking for a job of work, it’s not for those who are seeking one, cos they have to stand in line whilst employers look them over. Rather degrading, I came to think as I grew up.’ She gave a sudden laugh. ‘And young lads who are looking for their first job are called Tommy Owt and are at everybody’s beck and call. Come on. Let’s go down and eat.’
The bar was full of customers, but the landlord had set two places at a table for them and brought onion soup with thick slices of bread, and then plates of meat pie brimming with gravy and a dish of mashed potato, turnip and cabbage. They both refused apple pie for dessert, though Jack was tempted in spite of being full.
‘Best food I’ve ever tasted,’ he whispered to his mother and she agreed.
The fire was lit and the room warm when they went up, and both fell asleep almost as soon as they got into bed. Jack woke early and heard strange noises, and as a grey dawn began to lighten the sky he could hear birds whistling.
‘Mother,’ he whispered, ‘there are a lot of birds outside. Have they got an aviary, do you think? And I heard a dog barking during the night.’
‘It might have been a fox,’ she murmured sleepily. ‘You’re in the country now and the birds are waking up and singing in a new day. In spring and summer they start very early, about four o’clock or so – as soon as day breaks.’
‘I like it,’ he said, turning over to face her. ‘It’s better than hearing wagons and cabs trundling past.’
‘Oh, you can hear wagons here too, especially at harvest time; the wagoners begin very early.’
He sat up in bed and leaned on his elbow as he looked across at her. ‘Why did you leave home? Was it because you wanted to be a singer and your parents didn’t want you to?’
She tucked her hand beneath her cheek and gave a deep sigh, blinking her eyes awake. ‘That’s another thing I’ll tell you about one day,’ she said. ‘When you’re older.’
He rolled out of bed and went to the window. It was barely light and a frost had draped fine cobwebs over the branches. A small terrier wandered over the grass and cocked his leg against one of the trees. Terriers were yappy dogs; it wasn’t his bark he’d heard during the night. His mother must be right; he liked to think it was a fox he’d heard.
After a substantial breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausages and an enormous pot of tea, they collected their few belongings, paid the bill, thanked the landlord, and went on their way, but first of all they walked along the narrow trickle of a stream that was all that was left of the Hedon haven. Jack found it difficult to imagine that large ships used to sail up it from the Humber.
‘It was a long, long time ago,’ his mother told him. ‘Before my time, or even my parents’ time. It was when Hull became a successful port that Hedon’s shipping failed and the haven dried up.’
They walked on towards the town and into Market Place and already there was a buzz of conversation and shouts of laughter coming from a crowd of young people gathered there. As his mother had said, there were dairy maids carrying milking stools and servant girls wearing mob caps or carrying feather dusters, trying to impress sour-faced housekeepers dressed in black bombazine and carrying umbrellas and large leather bags. Some of the young girls were not staying in Market Place but heading for the town hall, and his mother said that perhaps the rules had changed about exchanging contracts with only a handshake.
Horse lads chewed on pieces of straw as they joked with their peers, and gentlemen in tweed jackets and sturdy well-polished boots were walking amongst them and asking questions, as were rough-skinned, red-faced farmers dressed in cord breeches and jackets who barked interrogations to determine the suitability of raw and tongue-tied working lads.
He watched as a young boy performed a clog dance, and a small girl tucked into a shop doorway sang sweetly to the accompaniment of her father’s concertina and nodded her thanks as people threw coins into a cap on the ground. I’d be able to quote Shakespeare, he thought, except that I don’t know the full verses but only parts of them. Arthur Crawshaw only ever asked him to read the first few lines of a speech so that he might prompt him to begin his recitation, as he said that once Jack had started he could remember the rest.
He suddenly missed Arthur; he thought of how he used to turn up, even if he wasn’t appearing in the same theatre as his mother, and shake him by the hand as if he were a properly grown-up person. I wish he would turn up now, Jack thought. Arthur would know what to do. He would be able to advise her.
‘Come on,’ his mother said. ‘I’ll take you to see the church; it’s a very important one.’ They walked out of the Market Place and turned a corner and there it was on a slight rise in front of them. ‘It’s very ancient,’ she told him. ‘It’s called the King of Holderness.’
He nodded. It was very
