It’s Sunday dinner and I can hardly eat a thing. I’m that full of giddy about meeting Sam later, and can’t stand the idea of dousing it with mutton and taties – so the smell of the roasts being carried home from the bakery is making me feel almost qualmy.
Flo’s off to her mam’s, and the Scots lasses have been invited onto one of the luggers where they’re having a bit party. So our Jimmy’s back with the weans for a visit, and it’s just our family again for a few hours.
The littluns are hanging on Mam’s skirts, and trying to climb onto her lap every time she sits down and Da’s flicking them with the back of his hand, like they were flies, to get them to stand nice. And there’s soon to be another, if I’m right – though Mam would never let on, what with the shame of it – and it’s hard to tell, what with her petties and pinnie and that. But there’s a way she’s been walking, a kind of side-to-side rocking, and her varicoses have been paining her and her legs swollen from standing all day. Just looking at her face now, that quick creasing of pain as the weans clamber up.
Even Da’s noticing, and asking, and putting a hand on her arm. But she just smiles and shakes her head, and tells him to carve the meat before it congeals.
It’s grand to see our Jimmy for a proper blether, mind, and to wander back with him to Nana’s after with the weans – though my feet want to skip and dance, not wander, for I’ve thought straight away that this is my chance to slip away to meet Sam.
He’s pensive, our Jimmy, though, so I’ve to damp down my buzzingness and, by and by, we drift down to the little beach by the salt works, where the cobles are pulled up, and lean against an overturned hull in the sunshine while the bairns plodge around in the shallows.
‘It’s canny what you’ve done with your hair,’ says he after a bit, which is our Jimmy all over, for what other lad would notice an extra few curls wisping out of a scarf? ‘It’s like you’ve changed in just the few days I’ve been away – or maybes it takes me going away to notice it. You’re looking right bonny. Did you know that?’
So I say no, which is only half a lie, because I am beginning to know it but still can’t hardly believe it.
But now he’s poking at the sand with a bit driftwood until I want to kick him – and I do shove him a mite to try and jostle him out of being such a pensive old pudden. For I’m that jumping with the idea of seeing Sam, I can’t see a glum face but I have to try and put a smile on it. So I ask what’s the matter, and he starts on about how everything’s changing, sighing like it’s the end of the world. So I’m asking, what’s changing then, and he’s saying: ‘All of us. You and me. Tom, Flo.’ So I’m saying, what does he mean, but it’s like he’s gone off into a dream, and is staring across at a lad going up to another lad over by the Lifeboat House and leaning in close to share a match. Then after lighting up, instead of moving apart again, they stand facing each other for a spell, then the one leads and the other follows round the far side of the building.
So now I’m nudging Jimmy and he’s jumping like I’ve surprised him somehow, and he’s saying sorry sorry, I was miles away. And I’m saying the sooner this season’s over the better, for it seems lodging with Nana’s not suiting him at all.
And now he’s complaining about how Nana’s mythering on at him the whole time, about what he’s up to and what time he’s coming home. ‘I’m just out walking, Annie – that house is so crammed with mouthy lasses, I think my head will burst if I don’t get away. But she won’t leave it alone.’
‘Is there none there that you like?’ I ask, teasing, and a look of such alarm comes over his face as makes me burst out laughing, for our Jimmy’s never been a one for the lasses, for all his pretty ways.
So now I’m walking along the Tynemouth Road in the sunshine, with the trams and carts rumbling by full of day-trippers out from Newcastle, and lads and lasses on bicycles. And I’m trying to walk nice, like the High Town ladies out a-strolling on the arms of their men, with their pretty parasols – but I want to kick off my clogs and gather up my skirt, and run and run and run to the War Memorial, where Sam said he’d be waiting.
He’s there watching for me when I round the corner into Front Street, and starts towards me, walking quickly, then running, and I forget all about being a lady so I’m running too, until what I was scared would be a slow and fumbly meeting becomes a thing of grabbing hands and swinging round and laughing instead. And before you know it, there we are, linked in and walking along the cobbles, blethering away like an old married couple.
Truly, it’s that quick. One minute we’re clumsy as a cart with two unbroken horses, jibbing and bumping though a narrow lane, next thing you know we’re easy as a brace of matched trotters bowling along. And it’s like when me and Flo have been parted for a few days, and there’s all that missed blethering to do, so we’ve to talk extra fast – except with Sam there’s our whole lives to catch up on.
Slow down, pet, says Sam at one point, for my feet have started speeding along with my tongue, till we’re fairly cantering along. And he tugs me over to the railings above St Edward’s Bay, where there’s nets trailing down over the bank, and we lean there a spell, looking down at the cove where the trippers are camped out on the sand, with their wrapped pieces and jars of lemonade, and trailing up and down the steps with their weans on their hips.
It’s as well he’s steered me to the railings, for I swear if I hadn’t those cold bars to hold on to, I would have lifted into the sky, like a seagull does just by opening its wings and stepping up, or a cat jumping up on a wall. That’s the sort of lightness there is in my chest, being with Sam, like a soft moth whirring away inside the bowl of an oil lamp, or a kitten pouncing in a pile of shruff, or – oh, every sort of light and limber thing you can think of.
And what are we talking about? Well, there’s no order to any of it. Serious matters, like me being out of my ’prentice time at the smokehouse and him studying for his mate’s ticket, mixed up with daftness about our favourite biscuits. For all its muddle, though, it’s like we’re both trying on new shiftenings, and finding they fit, and suit us, and that we look – oh, we look so fine and bonny!
But it’s hard, at times, to mind what he’s saying, for all the gazing that’s to be done while he’s speaking. First at his mouth, which I’ve already said about, and his eyes that can be merry, like a bairn’s, but that have a watchingness about them sometimes that’s halfway towards grief, so that I want to kiss him and kiss him as if kisses were a salve for sadness. Though we’ve never kissed yet, of course. How can we, when the sun’s still so high and it seems the whole world and his wife is out strolling along the sea front?
I was on about the gazing, wasn’t I? About his eyes, which are a pale blue, like the sky before a summer fret’s burned away. And his hair, combed down tidy under his cap, that looks like it will spring alive at the first breath of a breeze, which is my Sam all over: careful and tidy, but with a merry wild thing coiled inside just waiting to leap into life.
And it’s me that can make it leap, that’s the joy of it. For he’s gazing on me too, through all my blether, and it’s a stroking sort of a gaze, and I’m a cat meeting that stroking hand, that arches its back and stretches its neck up all a-quiver. I can’t believe this feeling he’s awaking in me with just a look, and am amazed that folk around are not staring – though what’s to see but a herring lass leaning on a railing with her lad?
We’ve come for ice creams, but the queue outside Watt’s is that long, he buys us cups of ginger beer from an ice cart instead, which is as sharp and tingling as you could wish. Then without him asking or me agreeing, we set off back to Shields by the coast path, that winds past the Priory and coal staithes, and over to the trysting hill, where the grass is long and the wyn makes private places that smell of salt and wyn flowers.
Being a sunny day, it’s thronging with lads and lasses, cosied up in the hollows: sitting and looking at the sea, or picnicking, or kissing on top of a greatcoat – or under it, some of them that have no shame.
And without him asking or me agreeing we find a hollow of our own, and settle down in the grass, spreading my shawl and folding his jacket. So I’m sitting, and he’s sitting, and the hollow’s pressing us together and I have to close my eyes, because I want to keep this moment safe for ever: this sun on my face, this press of his shoulder, this smell of his shirt now his jacket’s off, of leaf-lard and fish broth, and the vinegar smell of his oxters.
A decent lass shouldn’t speak of such things, I know, but I can’t help it. My skin’s that tingling, like the ginger beer, and my heart galloping so fast I can’t catch my breath. I know if I open my eyes and turn my face he’ll kiss me, for what else are we here for? But these minutes of waiting and knowing are that precious I don’t want to lose them. So I rest my head on his shoulder, like I would with Mam, and he shifts a little like she would, to put his arm around me, and I hear him sigh into my hair – or is it me sighing? I can’t tell, for we’re that melted together now, as if we’ve sat like this a thousand times.
Then without him asking or me agreeing, when we’ve had our fill of waiting, I open my eyes and turn my face and he kisses me.
Shall I tell more? Oh I must, for I can’t but speak of it! For his lips on mine, and mine on his, are like our hands on the chair that time: polite and awkward, holding fast, not knowing how to let go. So we stay a long moment, with our lips pressed together, not daring to breathe – and I’m guessing that this is his first time too. And that knowing sends such a shiver through me as to make my lips soften, and open a little, and suck in a bit breath, which is spiced with the taste of him. So now he’s noticing and doing the same, so our mouths are both soft now, and our lips barely touching, and we’re just breathing together, and tasting the breathing.
Oh, but it’s the tenderest thing in the world, this first kiss; and a holy thing too, like kneeling in church of a winter’s evening, when the candles are lit and all the gold bits glinting out of the darkness. Why should there be shame in a feeling like this? For isn’t this what men’s and women’s mouths were made for, and wasn’t it God that made them so?
All we’re doing is kissing, after all, though a more creature thing I can’t imagine. For now we’re breathing together, all it takes is a mite more opening and his tongue’s meeting mine and he’s kissing me inside, and I’m tasting him properly, which is the closest thing I’ve ever done with a body – even Mam when she’s been bad, even the bairns when I’m bathing them. And I’m wondering, how can a lass give her mouth to any lad she doesn’t love?
Flo said she’d to be alert for Tom’s hands all the time, to keep them from opening her blouse and tugging up her skirt. But I can’t see how I could ever find enough calmness to think of such things. For kissing Sam feels like a door unlocking, and once it’s unlocked, all I want is to go into the room. And if his hands want to lead me there, well, all I want is to let them, and—
I can’t confess it! Woman my age – what will he think of me? But it’s only if you can’t remember a sin that you don’t have to confess it. ‘For these and all my other sins which I cannot now remember.’ Otherwise you’re lying, aren’t you?
I keep on going back to that night; what he wanted me to do. Dear Lord, forgive me, but I can’t help thinking I made the wrong decision.
It’s the funeral that’s set me off. Seeing Mr M. laid into Your consecrated ground – after everything he’s done, all his sins of the flesh. And what that new priest said, about how Jesus knows what’s in our hearts, and that’s what He meant when He said, ‘Let those who are without sin cast the first stone’.
And all those folk at the church and at that do after – talk about Sodom and Gomorrah! I hardly knew where to put myself. But they all had something good to say about Mr M., didn’t they? They showed me a side to him I never saw before, and it’s really churned me up.
So I started thinking about Mary Magdalen and all her sins of fornication, and how Jesus loved her best of all his female apostles. And that other Mary, who never lifted a finger round the house when Jesus came to call, while poor Martha was rushing about making things nice. But it was Martha he chastised, wasn’t it? For prioritizing the wrong thing, that’s how I’ve always understood it. For doing her duty, when the occasion called for her duty to be set aside.
That Mary spent all their money on a pot of ointment for His feet, and washed them and dried them with her own hair. I’ve always thought that’s not a very clever way to dry feet, that maybes the translation’s gone a bit wonky there, and what she really used was her headscarf. But washing His feet, drying them – a woman doing that for a man, well, it’s not decent either is it? But He said that was the right thing to do.
I keep thinking back to when Alfred went off. And he was crying, and begging me to hold him, because it might be the last time. And there was this queer feeling in me, a sort of hunger, but lower down. I’d never felt like that before and it made me feel ashamed. I thought maybes he could tell, and that’s why he was pressing me so hard. I thought, this can’t be right, this must be a sin; this must be how a lass falls into the sin of fornication.
So I pushed him away, didn’t I? I was like Martha, when I should have been like Mary.
Right, she’s come out and it’s my turn.
He’s been smoking, I can smell it. Father O’Brien never smoked or took a drink. Folk say we’ve to move with the times, but isn’t that what the Bible’s for? To keep us on the right path when things around us are changing?
‘Hello, there,’ he says. ‘Jesus is listening, and He’s ready to forgive.’
Why doesn’t he stick to the proper words?
‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned,’ I’m saying. ‘It’s been three weeks since my last confession.’ But what I want to say is: why can’t you stop changing things all the time? Why did you get that guitarist for Mass last week? How can I talk about having impure thoughts when the box stinks of tab smoke?