Shelter from the Storm (27 page)

‘I’ve nowhere else to take him,’ he said apologetically.

‘He’s the only pitman left in the house. Where else would he go?’ she said tiredly.

Mary Cameron had had a get-together after the funeral at her house but Vinia and Joe had refused to go. Dryden had not been asked.

‘Vinia, look.’ Joe had stopped calling her Mrs Cameron. It changed things when a woman put her arms around your neck, he had discovered. ‘I want to help. If there’s anything at all, because it shouldn’t have happened—’

He stopped because she came to him, and in the delightful understanding way she had she said, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Until then Joe had not realised that he blamed himself entirely.

‘It was my pit. There will be full compensation, of course. There will be—’

She put her fingers to his mouth.

‘Shh!’ she said. ‘It was an accident. It isn’t always somebody’s fault.’

‘My father could have done such a lot that he didn’t, but I will put it right—’

‘You can’t put everything right. There is God,’ she said.

Joe hadn’t thought of God like that before. It seemed such a useful view.

Now, in the orchard, with the most beautiful woman on earth, Joe couldn’t speak.

‘Was he married, the man who died?’ Luisa asked softly.

‘Yes. She’s a fine woman is Vinia. If all the pitmen were married to women like that the world would be an easier place. She’s starting a shop in the main street.’

‘What sort of shop?’

‘Fashions, hats and things. You should go. She’ll probably carry on with it.’

Luisa smiled.

‘I buy my clothes in Paris,’ she said.

‘London, Paris, Deerness Law.’

Luisa laughed.

‘I will call in,’ she promised, and then she came to him and kissed him.

‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Joe said.

‘I think I should.’

After that Luisa would make any excuse she could to see him. She told lies. Her father and mother started to worry about her staying away from Edinburgh, and Joe took time off as he never had before. She would not let him go to Edinburgh because too many people knew her there, but they spent nights in Berwick, Alnwick and Newcastle. He tried to stay away from her, it was madness to want another man’s wife so badly, and at first was convinced that she thought it a game. She was merry, reckless, and the accident had made Joe feel the same. He accepted invitations to be where she was, even though he was certain people were beginning to notice her partiality for his company and to talk. When she did not see him she would turn up at his house, which she had claimed was ugly and poor, crying and beseeching him to make love to her.

For the first time in his life Joe found himself unable to resist a woman. His nights were tortured with dreams of discovery, his work interrupted by thoughts of her. Every day without her was endless, every hour with her like a second. He remembered her saying that he had no conversation. Now he needed none beyond endearments. No matter how much he had of her, it was not enough; he began to think it never would be.

One particular morning he awoke in the Golden Crown Hotel in Newcastle and thanked God to be alive. Since the accident he had been filled with wonder at the simplest of things, and this to him was perfect.

Luisa was sleeping, one bare arm flung across the pillow, the sun streaming in where the curtains were not quite closed. There
was an empty champagne bottle on the bedside table and glasses on the floor. She was so precious to him, and after that dark week at the pit he thought that he deserved as much of her as he could get.

Luisa stirred and then realised where she was and who with, and she smiled and opened her eyes.

‘Joe,’ she said.

He kissed her in reassurance. They had to leave that morning — she was going back to Edinburgh and he to his pit. He didn’t want to face it, not after what had happened. Her train left before lunch. It seemed so final. He wouldn’t be seeing her again for weeks; she was going on holiday with George to Paris.

‘And perhaps Milan,’ she had said.

‘Oh, Milan, very nice.’

‘Don’t pretend you care,’ she had said, hitting him with a pillow.

They had to go. They dressed in silence though it would be the last chance for privacy since there would be nothing between them beyond public small talk after that. They wouldn’t take breakfast; they didn’t take meals in hotel dining rooms — somebody might see. Putting on her hat before the big mirror over the dressing table, Luisa turned around.

‘Do you ever think that we might have been married?’

‘Often. Do you?’

‘I would have been poor.’

‘You certainly wouldn’t have been going to Paris on holiday, wearing diamonds and spending nights in hotels with other men.’

‘Would you have beaten me?’

‘I would have killed you.’

Joe expected her to come back with some light retort but she didn’t. She pulled the hat off her head and sat there with it in her hands, turning it round and round.

‘I don’t suppose George will,’ Joe said, getting down beside her chair. She pulled away from him.

‘I was so stupid!’

‘I couldn’t have given you anything you wanted. You would have hated it.’

‘I could have had you every night, and possibly children. We could have had a child by now, maybe two. George doesn’t make love to me. He tried several times when we were first married but he doesn’t really want to.’

‘That’s what you have me for.’

‘Is that what you think?’ She looked at him with stricken eyes so that Joe laughed.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’

‘I love you.’

She began to cry, so hard and so desperately that Joe got up and would have gone to her except that she turned away, shaking her head.

‘He’s an old man,’ she said, shakily. ‘He’s boring and … opinionated and he says the same things all the time. He does everything out of habit and his friends are all old and so are mine and …’

‘Leave him. Come and live with me.’

‘I can’t. We couldn’t stay here and you can’t leave the pit and the people. I know you would never do that. It would be a terrible disgrace.’

‘Then we’ll stay lovers. There isn’t much wrong with that.’

‘I want to do normal things with you. We can’t go to the theatre or eat in a restaurant or even go for a walk. We have to pretend all the time. I’m tired of pretending. I want to show you off to my friends, I want them to envy me. Why didn’t I understand what this was going to be like? I can’t have you to myself.’

‘You do have me to yourself. It’s me that’s sharing.’

‘It’s not real sharing. I don’t love him as I love you and I never will. I never, never will.’

She kissed him all over his face. If they had had enough time Joe would have taken her back to bed. As it was they had to leave
the room when her tears were dry and go downstairs and carry on as if nothing was the matter, smile, leave without fuss and part before the railway station because in such a public place they might be seen. They separated without another kiss and Joe went home and she went back to Edinburgh to prepare for going abroad.

Esther Margaret put off going back to Deerness Law. She kept telling herself that she would do it the next week and then the next. She did the shopping for Daisy, taking the train into Alnwick, and it was there one Friday morning in the local butcher’s that she heard the familiar sounds of a Deerness Law accent, that soft, broad and to her somehow warm sound, and it made her feel homesick. Suddenly Esther Margaret stopped thinking about the sounds and began to listen to what was being said, and as she listened she grew cold, as though she had been standing outside on the beach in a bitter wind.

‘Poor soul,’ the woman was saying, ‘poor Mary Cameron. Six days it took to get them out of the pit and then the younger lad dead. I remember her when everything went wrong. There wasn’t a nicer woman in Deerness and she’s never been the same since.’

Esther Margaret went out and bought a newspaper, and there it was — the two brothers had been trapped by a pitfall and the younger one had died. She read the article several times before she took it in, and then she had to do the shopping. She didn’t know how she got through the next two hours; she couldn’t see or hear anything but that Dryden had died down the Black Prince Pit and she was widowed. She managed to buy everything on her list though the day had an unreal quality about it, and
then she got the train home and trudged with her groceries to the village, and when she saw Daisy she burst into tears. The words tumbled all over the place so that she had to keep on re-explaining because she couldn’t manage to get them right. She showed Daisy the newspaper.

‘He’s dead, Daisy. I ran away from him and let him think something had happened to me and now something’s happened to him. He’s dead.’

She couldn’t sleep that night, couldn’t get used to the idea that they would never meet again, and she blamed herself freely for what had happened. She thought of all the weeks when she had been happy she would not see him again, when she had thought that she would never go back, and now everything had changed.

Her thoughts became clearer the next day. She didn’t have to go back because Dryden was no longer there, so what was the point? She could go anywhere. Being able to go anywhere meant that she sat about, watching the tide go in and out and doing nothing. By the following day her thoughts had taken a completely new turn and it was the evil in her that took over. She could not believe that in three days she had gone through shock to believing that Dryden was dead, to thinking she need not go back, to wanting to because the image of Joe Forster grew in her mind and flowered there.

Sometimes, she thought, it was possible for things to work out for the best. Joe was not a boy any longer. Her dreams were filled with images of him just out of sight and reach but he might not be if she went back. Joe was a good prospect. It was true that she would have to return and play the widow and that would not be too difficult because nobody in the village had ever liked Dryden, nor would they mourn his passing, but she would be free to marry again, and after a decent interval, if Joe was still of the same mind as he had once been — and she smiled, thinking of how he had come to the house after the baby died, his arms full of fruit and flowers and his face so concerned for her — if he still
cared, and she believed that he would always care for her, then she might win Joe Forster and the whole world would be put right.

She thought more and more about Joe and became better and better convinced that for once God was looking after her. There had been all kinds of obstacles put in their way, not least her stubborn stupidity. Looking back on it, she would have given anything to have run away with him. Perhaps it was best like this because Joe was doing well, he didn’t need to go anywhere. He had made the village and the pit and the fell his own, and she would be his wife, and her parents … She thought that they would be pleased that she had at least made a respectable alliance.

The idea took such a hold on her that she got her belongings together and said a tearful goodbye to Daisy. Daisy pressed paper money into her hand. Esther Margaret stared at it.

‘I can’t take this,’ she said.

‘Esther Margaret, I have nobody to give anything to. I’m very fond of you and this is the only thing I can give you to take back. Spend it the way you choose, and if you ever need help again you can always come to me.’

Daisy kissed her and Esther Margaret left. Leaving was difficult, but once she was on the train bound for Newcastle she felt excitement at the idea of going back. She was a different person and she would look different to them. She was no longer afraid of the future.

She was going to get another train straight away, she had not intended to linger in Newcastle, but the streets were inviting. She found herself walking up where the big shops were and looking in the windows of the department stores. Miss Applegate’s was never like this, and neither was her father’s precious Store. She remembered how her parents had not let her take a job. How different things might have been if they had given her a small amount of liberty. It seemed to her that, having never been let out, it was not surprising that she should have gone wrong when she had, but she was mature enough to understand that she
couldn’t blame her parents for everything, even though it was a nice idea.

She began to walk back down the streets towards the station, and was passing one of Newcastle’s finest hotels when a man and a woman came down the steps. There was something about the man which made her stop. She recognised him — not immediately, but there was something. He was wearing a very good suit. His fair hair glinted in the sunlight and he was smiling and talking intimately to the woman who was with him. It was Joe Forster.

There could have been a dozen explanations for their presence in the hotel, and although several flitted through her mind Esther Margaret’s instincts told her that the couple were close. She drew well back, but she doubted whether they would have noticed anybody. He looked even better than she remembered, and the woman was so beautiful that Esther Margaret’s heart did nasty things and so did the pit of her stomach.

The woman was young and slender and golden haired. She wore a navy blue and white costume and a blue-and-white hat, frivolous and obviously expensive, and her upturned face looked into his with love. Esther Margaret did not fail to notice the rings on her left hand, one diamond and the other a wedding ring. Joe had fallen in love after she had left, had married this beautiful creature, was happy and probably never gave a thought to Esther Margaret Cameron.

They made a perfect couple, faces close as they spoke softly, coming down the steps of the hotel. She put her hand through his arm, they walked slowly down the street together, their footsteps matched, and they were still talking and she was smiling at him and he was looking down at her and there was no mistake. They were in love.

Esther Margaret was shaking by then. She had gone from paradise to hell in a few moments and it was too much. All the rest of that day she walked the streets, trying to compose her thoughts. If Dryden was dead and Joe was married there was no
reason for her to go back, but where else was she to go, and what could she possibly do that would be of any use or any satisfaction to her? Her life was completely empty. She could hardly go back to Daisy; she was too young, she realised, to accept the slow existence by the sea. She could not envisage anything in the future. When it grew late and she became tired she found herself outside a modest hotel. At least she could afford to stay here until she worked out what she was going to do next. She climbed the steps, responded wearily to the woman’s enquiries and fell into bed, caring nothing for yesterday or tomorrow. The world had collapsed. Nothing else mattered.