‘Aw, Lizzie, Lizzie.’ Janie, her arms outstretched now, put them around the fat warm body of Lizzie O’Dowd, whom she had known and loved since she was a child; even before her own mother had died she had loved Lizzie O’Dowd as if she were a second mother, or perhaps she had placed her first, she was never quite certain in her own mind; and now, their cheeks pressed close for a moment, she whispered, ‘It’ll all come right. It’ll all come right in the end, you’ll see.’
‘Aye, yes. Yes, you’re right, lass.’ Lizzie turned her away as she roughly swept the tears from her cheeks with the side of her finger. Then picking up the knife again and her head bowed once more, she muttered, ‘I think the world of Ruth an’ I always have. She’s the best of women . . . . Life isn’t easy, Janie’
‘I know it isn’t, Lizzie. And Ruth’s fond of you, you know she is. She couldn’t do without you. None of us could do without you.
‘Ah, lass.’ Lizzie was smiling now, a denigrating smile. ‘Everybody can be done without.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Have a walk around the cemetery the next time you’re out.’
‘Aw. Lizzie—’ Janie was leaning against her shoulder now laughing—’you’re the limit. You know, every time I feel down I think of you.’
‘Huh, that’s a left-handed compliment if ever heard one: When you’re down you think of me. You can’t get much lower than down, can you?’
‘You!’ Janie now pushed her. ‘You know what I mean. Look, is that enough bread?’
‘That! It wouldn’t fill a holey tooth; you’d better start on another loaf . . . How is that nice family of yours?
‘Oh, lovely as always, lovely, Eeh! you know I often wonder what would have become of me, I mean what kind of job I would’ve got in the end. I’d likely have landed up in some factory, like most others, if I hadn’t had that bit of luck. Life’s so different there, the furniture, the food, everything. The way they talk the master and mistress, I mean. Do you understand, Lizzie? You know I’m not bein’ an upstart but I like bein’ there. Mind you, that’s not to say I don’t like comin’ home; I love coming home, even when I know me grannie is goin’ to choke me with words and her bloomin’ old sayin’s. Eeh! the things that she remembers.’ They were laughing again. Then she ended, ‘But there’s different kinds of life . . . I mean livin’, Lizzie. You know what I mean?’
‘Aye, lass, I know what you mean, although I’ve never lived any other kind of life but this and I don’t want to, not for meself I don’t, but for you and . . . and others. Yes, yes, I know what you mean.’ She now placed portions of the meat on the slices of dry bread which she then stacked on a plate. Patting the last one, she exclaimed, ‘Well now, let’s go and feed the five thousand an’ find out if it’s tea they want or if they’re goin’ to get the cans on.’
In the kitchen once more, Lizzie slapped down the heaped plate of meat and bread in the middle of the table, saying, ‘Is it tea or are you gettin’ the cans on?’
The men glanced furtively from one to the other, their eyes asking a question. Then Paddy and Bill turned simultaneously and looked towards the women, and as usual it was Lizzie who answered them, crying loudly now, ‘There’s none of us goin’ trapesing down there the night an’ it fit to cut the lugs off you. If you want your beer there’s the cans.’ She thrust out her thick arm and pointed towards four assorted cans, their lids dangling by pieces of string from the handles.
The men made no answer but still continued to look towards the women, and then Ruth spoke. Quietly and in levelled tones, she said, ‘It’s Sunday.’
The men sighed and turned back to the table again, and Bill Waggett muttered under his breath, ‘An’ that’s that then. Bloody Sunday. You know’—he glanced up from the cards and, catching Jimmy’s attention, he nodded at him, saying softly, ‘I hate Sundays. I always have hated Sundays ever since I was a lad ’cos she kept me going harder on a Sunday than when I was at work.’ He had inclined his head backwards towards the fire-place and had hardly finished speaking when his mother, her dewlap chin wobbling, cried across the room, ‘Lazy bugger! you always were. Wouldn’t even kick when you were born; slid out like a dead fly on hot fat.’
As the roars of laughter filled the kitchen Bill Waggett turned towards his mother and yelled, ‘That’s a fine thing to say; you should be ashamed of yersel.’ He now looked towards Ruth as if apologizing, but she was being forced to smile, and Ruth rarely smiled or laughed at ribaldry.
‘Remember the day he was born.’ Old Mrs Waggett had got their attention now. ‘Me mother an’ me grannie pulled him out, an’ I remember me grannie’s very words. “Like a Saturday night rabbit he is,” she said. You know’—she turned towards Janie—’when the last of the rabbits are left in the market, all weary skin an’ bone? “You’ll never rear him,” she said; “he’ll go along with the other five.” But I never had no luck, he didn’t.’
She now glanced in impish affection towards her son, where he was sitting, his head bowed, moving it slowly from side to side. The movement had a despairing finality about it. His mother had started and it would take some kind of an event to stop her, especially when as now she had the ears of everyone in the room. He could never understand why people liked listening to her.
‘And it was me own mother who looked at him lying across her hands an’ said, “I don’t think you need worry about the press gang ever chasin’ him, Nancy.” An’ you know somethin’? The press gang nearly got me dad once. Around seventeen ninety it was. I’m not sure of the year, one, two or three, but I do know that all the lads of the Tyne, the sailors like, put their heads together; they were havin’ no more of it. They, ran the press gang out of the town, North Shields that is, not this side. Then in come the regiment. Barricaded the town, they did, an’ forced the lads on board the ships. But me dad managed to get over to this side of the water; he said himself he never knew how.’
‘He walked on it.’
There were loud guffaws of laughter now and Gran cried back at her son, ‘Aye, an’ he could have done that an’ all, for at one time you could walk across the river. Oh aye, they once made a bridge with boats, me mother said, and laid planks over ’em, and a whole regiment passed over. The river’s changed.’ She nodded from one to the other. ‘You know, me grannie once told me they caught so much salmon on the Tyne that it was sold at a farthin’ a pound. It was, it was. Can you believe that? A farthin’ a pound!’
‘Yes, yes, Gran.’ All except her son were nodding at her.
‘And I don’t need to go as far back as me grannie’s or even me mother’s time to remember the great shoals of fish that were caught in these waters. An’ there were nowt but keels and sailin’ ships takin’ the coal away then. None of your Palmer’s iron boats. What did you say, our Bill?’ She frowned towards her son. ‘ “Oh my God!” that’s what you said. Well, I’m glad you think of Him as yours.’
She joined in the titter that now went round the room. Then nodding her head from one to the other, she went on, ‘Talkin’ of coal. I can remember as far back as when Simon Temple opened his pit at Jarrow. I was only eight at the time but by! I remember that do. The militia was marching, the bands playing, an’ when he got to Shields market the lads pulled the horses from his carriage and drew him themselves. His sons were with him and his old dad. They pulled them all the way to the Don Bridge, where the gentlemen of Jarrow met him. And that was the day they laid the stone for the school for the bairns of his workmen. By! I remember it as if it was yesterday. Simon Temple.’ She shook her head and lapsed for a moment into the memory of one of the rare days of jollification in her childhood.