Catherine Cookson - The Gambling Man

Rory stared about the empty room for a moment, then turning towards the mantelshelf again he bowed his head on it and slowly beat his fist against the rough wall above it.

‘Why, lass, it’s the chance in a lifetime. In a boat cruising? My! my! round France. By! the master’s brother must have plenty of money to own a boat like that.’

‘I think it’s his wife who has the money, he married a French lady.’

‘And you tell us it’s a sort of castle they live in?’

‘Yes, that’s what the missis says.’

‘We’ll miss you, lass.’ Lizzie sat back on her heels from where she had been kneeling sweeping the fallen cinders underneath the grate and she looked hard at Janie as she said, ‘I know it’s only for three weeks, but what puzzles me is him lettin’ you go at all. Didn’t he kick up a shindy?’

Janie turned away and looked towards Ruth where she was coming out of the scullery carrying plates of thickly cut bread, and she answered, ‘Yes, a bit. But then he’s taken up with his new position an’ such, and . . . and often doesn’t get in till late.’

‘Aye.’ Lizzie pulled her bulk upright and bent to her sweeping once again. ‘His new position. By! he’s fallen on his feet if anybody has. It was a whole day’s blessin’ when old Kean died, you could say.’

‘You’re off first thing in the mornin’ then, lass?’

Janie nodded towards Ruth and said, ‘Yes, we’ve got to be in Newcastle by eight o’clock; we’re goin’ up by carriage.’

‘Then all the way to London by train.’ Ruth shook her head, ‘It’s amazing, wonderful; the sights you’ll see. It would have been a great pity if you hadn’t taken the opportunity; such a thing as this only comes once in a lifetime . . . And you won’t stay for a bite to eat?’

‘I can’t, thanks all the same, there’s so much to do, to see to you know. And that reminds me. I needn’t ask you, need I, to see to me grannie?’

‘Aw, lass—’ Ruth pulled a face at her—’you know that goes without sayin’. At least you should.’

‘Aye, I know. And thanks, thanks to both of you.’ She cast her glance between them, then looking at Lizzie, who had now risen to her feet, she said, ‘Well, I’d better say ta-rah,’ and the next moment she was hugging Lizzie, and Lizzie was holding her tight and saying brokenly, ‘Now don’t cry, there’s nowt to cry about, goin’ on a holiday . . . Don’t. Don’t lass.’

‘There, there.’ She was enfolded in Ruth’s arms now and Lizzie was patting her shoulder. Then swiftly pulling herself away from them, she grabbed up her bag from a chair and ran out of the cottage.

It was Ruth who, having closed the door after her, came back to the centre of the room and looking at Lizzie said, ‘Well, what do you make of it?’

‘What can I make of it? There’s somethin’ wrong, and has been for weeks past, if you ask me. He’s hardly been across the door. And Jimmy, look what he was like the last time he was here, no high-falutin’ talk of boats and cargoes and contracts an’ such like.’

Whatever it is, it doesn’t lie just atween the both of them, not when Jimmy’s concerned in it.’

‘No, you’re right there.’ Lizzie nodded. ‘And it couldn’t be just marriage rows. Jimmy would take those in his stride, havin’ been brought up on them.’ She smiled faintly. ‘No, whatever it is, it’s somethin’ big and bad. I’m worried.’

‘In a couple of days’ time we could take a walk down and tidy up and do a bit of baking and such like. What do you say, Lizzie?’

‘That’s a sensible idea. Aye, we could do that, and we might winkle out something while we’re there.’

‘It could be. It could be.’

‘Things are changin’, Ruth. Folks and places, everything.’

Ruth came to her now and, tapping her arm gently, said, ‘Don’t worry about him, he’ll straighten things out. Whatever trouble there is he’ll straighten things out. He’s your own son, and being such he’s bound to be sensible at bottom.’

‘You’re a good woman, Ruth, none better.’

They turned sadly away from each other now and went about their respective duties in the kitchen.

Janie had been gone ten days and his world was empty. If she were to appear before him at this minute he would say to her, ‘All right, I’ll go, I’ll go now, as long as I know you’ll be here, the old Janie, waiting for me when I come out.’ His mind was like a battlefield, he was fighting love and hate, and recrimination and bitterness.

The recrimination was mostly against his employer. He had seen her only twice in the past three weeks. He still took the takings to the house in the evenings but his orders were to leave them in the study and to call for the books the next morning.

During their two meetings there had been no discussion about future plans of any kind. Her manner had been cool and formal, her tone one that he recalled from her visits to the office years ago. It was the one in which orders were issued and brooked no questions.

But although in one breath he was telling himself that if Janie were here now he would do what she asked, in the next he was asking himself what was going to happen when she did return. After the night of the show-down she had slept up in the loft, and Jimmy had slept on a shaky-down in the kitchen. Would it go on like that until he gave in? He could have asserted his rights as many a man before him had done by well-directed blows, but the fact that he had hit her once was enough; that alone had created a barrier between them. She wasn’t the type of girl who would stand knocking about, she had too much spirit, and he was ashamed, deeply ashamed of having struck her. He had acted no better than his father whom, at bottom, he despised.

It was Saturday again. He hated Saturdays, Sundays more so. He hadn’t gone up home since she had left, but they had been down here, at least Ruth and she had. They had cleaned up and cooked, and spoken to each other as if they were back in the kitchen. They hadn’t asked any questions regarding how he felt about her going away, which pointed more forcibly than words to the fact that they were aware that something was wrong.

Then there was Jimmy. Jimmy was making him wild, sitting for hours at night scratching away with a pencil on bits of paper and never opening his mouth. He had turned on him the other night and cried, ‘If anyone’s to blame for this business it’s you. Who pestered me into buying this bloody ramshackle affair, eh? Who?’ and snatching up a miniature wooden ship’s wheel from the mantelshelf he had flung it against the far wall, where it had splintered into a dozen pieces, and Jimmy, after looking down on the fragments with a sort of tearful sadness, had gone up the ladder, leaving him to increased misery.

He stood at the window now looking down on to the yard. The sun was glinting on the water; there were boats plying up and down the river; on the slipway Jimmy had set the keel of a new boat in the small stocks and he was working on it now. In the ordinary way he would have been down there helping him, they would have been exchanging jokes about what they would do when they had the monopoly of the river, or grinding their teeth at the Pitties and their tactics.

As he looked down on Jimmy’s fair head, he was suddenly brought forward with a jerk, for there, coming round the side of the building, was Ruth and his da and Lizzie. It wasn’t the fact that they’d all turned up together to visit him, it was the expression on their faces that was riveting his attention for both Lizzie and Ruth were crying, openly crying as they talked rapidly to Jimmy, and his da was now holding out a paper to Jimmy. He watched Jimmy reading it, shake his head, then put his hand to his brow before turning and looking up at the window. Then they were all looking up at the window.