Catherine Cookson - The Gambling Man

‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard the name before. And I also know of some of their activities.’

‘Well, you know what they’re like then.’

‘Yes, I’ve a pretty good idea. And—’ she had nodded and added, ‘I can see the reason why you must be with your brother at night. But you, too, must be careful. What they’ve done once they can do again.’

His head had jerked in her direction as he asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, they could break up another boat.’

‘Oh. Oh yes; yes they could.’

So he had stayed at home every night, including Saturdays, up till recently when, the urge rearing once more, he had joined a game, not on the waterfront, nor in the town, but away on the outskirts in Boldon.

It was odd how he had come to be reintroduced to the Boldon house for he had forgotten he had ever played there. He was in the train going to Gateshead when a ‘find the lady’ trickster took him for a mug. He had followed him into the compartment at Shields, then got on talking with a supposedly complete stranger who boarded the train at Tyne Dock, whom he very convincingly inveigled into ‘finding the lady,’ and, of course, let him win, all the while making a great fuss about his own bad luck, before turning to Rory and saying, ‘What about you, sir?’ It was then that Rory had turned a scornful glance on the man and replied, ‘Don’t come it with me. That dodge is as old as me whiskers.’

For a moment he had thought the pair of them were going to set about him. Then the one who had supposedly just won peered at him and said, ‘Why I know you, I’ve played in with you. Didn’t you use to go up to Telfords’ in Boldon?’

Yes, he had played in the Telfords’ wash-house, and in their kitchen, and once up in the roof lying on his belly.

From that meeting the urge had come on him again, not that it had ever really left him. But he had played no games, even for monkey nuts since Janie had gone.

So he had got in touch with the Telfords again and he went to Boldon on a Saturday night, where it could be simply Black Jack or pitch and toss. Sometimes the Telford men went farther afield to a barn for a cock fight, but he himself would always cry off this. He didn’t mind a bit of rabbit coursing but he didn’t like to see the fowls, especially the bantams, being torn to shreds with steel spurs. To his mind it wasn’t sporting.

His winnings rarely went beyond five pounds, but neither did his losses. It didn’t matter so much now about the stake as long as he could sit down to a game with men who were serious about it.

But now, at this present time, he was also vitally aware that he was playing in another kind of game, and this game worried him.

He looked back to the particular Saturday morning when, having told her he was married, her reaction had made him jump to conclusions which caused him to chastise himself for being a big-headed fool. But he chastised himself no longer.

He saw the situation he was in now as the biggest gamble of his life. There were two players only at this table and inevitably one would have to show his hand. Well, it wouldn’t, it couldn’t be him, it could never be him for more reasons than one. Him marry Charlotte Kean, a woman years older than himself and looking, as she did, as shapeless as a clothes prop, and with a face as plain as the dock wall! True, she had a nice voice . . . and a mind. Oh aye, she had a mind all right. And she was good company. Yes, of late he had certainly been discovering that. She could talk about all kinds of things, and he had realized that by listening to her he too could learn. She could make a very good friend; yet even so there could be no such thing between him and her for two reasons: on his part, you didn’t, in his class, make friends with a woman, oh no, unless you wanted one thing from her: on her part, it wasn’t a friend she wanted, it was a man, a husband.

Oh, he knew where things were leading. And he wouldn’t hoodwink himself, he was tempted all right. Oh aye, he was both tempted and flattered. At nights he would lie thinking of what it would mean to live in Birchingham House in the select end of Westoe and to be in control of all those properties and businesses, all that money. My God! just to think of it. And he would be in control, wouldn’t he? What was the wife’s was the husband’s surely. And there she was, willing, more than willing, to let him take control, him, Rory Connor, once rent collector from No. 2 The Cottages, Simonside. It was fantastic, unbelievable.

And them up in the kitchen, what would they say if he took this step? Lord! the place wouldn’t hold them. No, he was wrong there. It wouldn’t affect Ruth. As for her, his mother, after one look at Charlotte Kean she would be more than likely to say, ‘My God! everything must be paid for.’ She had a way with her tongue of stating plain facts. It would be his da who would brag. Every man in his shop would know, and it would be talked of in every pub in Jarrow from the church bank to the far end of Ellison Street.

But what would Bill Waggett say?

Ah, what the hell did it matter! It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. Anyway, he was all right as he was. Jimmy wasn’t doing so bad; he’d do better if it wasn’t for them blasted Pitties. By, he’d get his own back on them if it was the last thing he did in life. Hardly a day passed but that he didn’t think of them, when he would grab at this or that idea to get even with them. And he would, he would. He’d get a lead one day, and by God, when he did, let them look out! . . . He could have a lead now, right away. With money you had power, and it needed power to potch the Pitties. All he had to do was to say, ‘Thank you kindly, Miss Kean, I’ll be your man,’ and he was home, safe home from the stormy sea, with chests full to the top.

But what would he really say? He knew what he’d say. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but it wouldn’t work.’

And, strangely, he realized that when he should say the latter he would be sorry, for, banter as he would, and did, about her in his mind there was a part of him that was sorry for her, and it had been growing of late. He pitied her lonely state, and he understood it because of the loneliness within himself. But although her kind of loneliness had gone on for years and she was weary of it, she was not yet resigned to it. That was why she had set her sights on him.

But why him? People of her station usually classed the likes of him as muck beneath their feet. And what was more, just think how she’d be talked about if anything should come of it. Lord! any link up with him would set the town on fire.

He was already vaguely aware that sly looks were being cast in their direction. When they were last in Durham to look over some property along the river bank they had gone to an inn to eat. She had chosen it, she said, because she thought he would like it; it was a man’s place, oak-trestle tables, hefty beams, meat pudding and ale. And he would have liked it if it hadn’t been in Durham . . . the gaol was in Durham.

Well, he had done what he could in that direction. He had tried to make reparation; he had given Jimmy ten pounds and sent him up to visit John George and to ask him if he would come and see him when he came out. But Jimmy had returned with the ten pounds; John George was already out and they couldn’t tell him where he had gone. For days afterwards he had expected a visit from him, but John George hadn’t come. So he told himself that the business was closed; he had done his best. It was only in his recurring nightmare, when he would relive the awakening to Janie shouting at him, did he realize that his best hadn’t been good enough and that John George would be with him like an unhealed wound until the end of his days.