First, I switched off the oven. Next I found scouring pads under the sink and I got to work in the dark. I scraped and scrubbed and after a while I could feel my fingers gliding on the enamel as the burnt flakes loosened and liquefied. The surface was too far gone for a perfect result but the dish would be at least usable again. I left it out on the draining board with the lid next to it so he might see how well I had done. I would have given a lot to see a look of pleasure on his face, the corners of his mouth tipping upward into even the faintest smile.
Then I went back to the conservatory. Litter had amassed all over the shelves and floor. Torn cartons and banana skins, discarded cups and bottles, newspaper cuttings, photographs and piles of papers, dirty dishes and cutlery were strewn among a crowd of indoor plants and clusters of rotting garden flowers. I shifted some dead geraniums along so that I could lean against the window ledge for a moment while I decided what to do first; they were desiccated in their plastic pots and top-heavy, and the movement tipped them straight onto the floor. I kicked at them. The pots rolled and scraped on the tiles, scattering mulch and fingery white plant roots among the litter and dry leaves. Clearing up the mess I had made myself seemed as good a place as any to start, and I went back to the kitchen to look for a dustpan and brush.
Arthur, I felt, was aware of my presence and stayed away out of politeness. Yet as I worked, I was not entirely alone. In her conservatory, with her dustpan and brush in my hands, sweeping up the relics of plants she had tended and maybe even grown from seeds she had sown herself, I knew myself to be under an authoritative and assessing gaze that could only be Ruth’s. I lifted the broken stems and roots tenderly, feeling regretful and self-conscious. I murmured the words that would come from any clumsy and embarrassed visitor after such a mishap, putting off the moment when I would have to broach, somehow, the real matter that stood between us.
And so I found myself in a rather one-sided conversation. Though she seemed to have nothing to ask me, I had questions for her, to which her replies came swift and unfiltered to my mind, and rather dismissive. I asked her several times if there really could be such a thing as dying without minding it. Of course there couldn’t. I wondered if there had been a second or two after she landed on the road when dying sooner rather than later seemed preferable, less dismaying than surviving long enough to find out in detail how irreversibly she was damaged. You tell me. What is it to you, anyway?
I didn’t manage to apologize to her, quite. No expression of shame could be adequate, and all the words I tried to construct into an entreaty that she might forgive me seemed threaded together with a wholly unintentional defiance, even levity, as when a contrite child-a pupil of Ruth’s, say-trying genuinely to apologize realizes that the teacher will never believe her sorry enough, and so is unable to sound quite serious. Nor did I come even close to completing the tidying and cleaning. Long before I had finished I heard the first birds and saw the glowing of light low in the sky. I went quietly and quickly from the house.
THE COLD AND THE BEAUTY AND THE DARK
Chapter 7: Evelyn Confides
On a bright Saturday afternoon in April, Evelyn knocked on Daphne’s door in Chadderton Street. To her relief it opened almost immediately. The walk from Stan’s Mam’s round to Daphne’s was a long one. Her back ached and her ankles were swollen. Still nearly three months to go and already she was getting so tired. Daphne drew her into the chair nearest the fire.
“The boys and my Dad have all gone off t’match,” she said, “and Mam’s round at Gran’s. So we can just be cosy, eh? Eh, but you’re looking tired, lass. You’re carrying heavy.”
Evelyn sighed.“Aye, the Leighs all carry the first heavy,” she said. “I suppose that’s all there is to it.”
“Aye, perhaps. I’ll get kettle on.”
Evelyn smiled gratefully and leaned back in her chair. You didn’t have to spell things out to Daphne, she seemed to know. Now that Daphne had switched to the day shift they didn’t see so much of each other. A Saturday afternoon knitting by a nice fire and chatting with her friend was the one good thing to come out of Stan’s latest habit of staying away from home from Friday till Sunday. Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them away fiercely, staring into the glowing yellow of the flames.
“I’ve not seen your Stan in a while,” Daphne said when they were sipping their tea, as if reading her mind.“Behaving, is he? How’s that mother of his?”
Evelyn hesitated, considering. There could be no harm in telling Daphne. What else were friends for?
“Oh, Daphne, I hardly see him myself. He stops over Fridays and Saturdays in Manchester these days. On Alan O’Reilly’s floor. Or so he says. O’Reilly’s only got the one room. On Reuben Street, over the pawnbroker’s.”
“He does what?”
“He says it’s the meetings,” Evelyn said quickly. “They’re going on later now, till after t’last bus on Friday night. Then they’re back at it all day Saturday an’ all, and Sundays. They’re up to something, I don’t know what.”
“Getting drunk, like as not. Or worse. Stirring up trouble.”
“Maybe. Wouldn’t be surprised, knowing O’Reilly.”
“Knowing Stan,” Daphne said, not too unkindly.
“Aye, I know.” Evelyn sighed and took up the little baby’s jacket she was knitting. “But at least he’s not coming home drunk. At least he’s not getting a name for himself round here. Oh, it is a difficult shade, this lemon. Fiddly.” She rubbed her eyes and went on to the end of the row.
“Give it here,” Daphne said.“Three-ply’s always hard going.” She took the work from Evelyn’s lap and examined it thoughtfully, then handed it back. “Plain enough, though. You could do it with your eyes shut.”
She took up her own work, bed socks for her gran in pale green. “I reckon I know what they’re up to, your Stan’s lot,” she said. “Our Paul’s been going on about it. You know Paul, can’t keep his mouth shut. Only it’s unofficial and he says I’m not to gab or they’ll put a stop to it. But there’s this big walk planned. They’re all going. It’s tomorrow.”
“Big walk? What big walk, where to? What on earth for?”
“Mind you, he’s not one of them agitators, Paul,” Daphne said quickly. “He’s not like some others. He’s harmless, just keen on his rambling. He’s going for the principle.”
Evelyn was perplexed. As they knitted, Daphne explained everything she’d heard from her brother. Paul regularly went out on Sunday hikes with a group of other young people, taking the bus out of the town and into the surrounding countryside. The trouble was that strictly speaking there weren’t many places they were allowed to go, even though they did no harm. Some landowners turned a blind eye to the ramblers but others put up fences to stop them. Sometimes the innocent walkers were threatened or even attacked by gamekeepers when all they wanted to do was go across empty land that was no good for livestock or crops. The landlords were within their rights to prevent them, but there was a rising swell of people, according to Paul, calling for a change in the law. Now things had come to a head. Hundreds if not thousands of people would be converging to join in a big walk planned for the next day. It would be no less than a mass trespass over Derbyshire’s most famous peak, Kinder Scout. At present ordinary folk were turned away from there and only a few snooty walking clubs got the necessary “prior permission in writing” from the landowner, the Duke of Devonshire, to go to the summit. Paul told Daphne that a gesture by ordinary folk walking up there peacefully would help get the law changed. If that happened, you wouldn’t have to be in with the toffs to enjoy a country walk. Sure enough there were folk spouting political nonsense about the rights of the working man but all Paul wanted was to be able to go on a harmless walk without getting accosted by a gamekeeper.