Tom decided to take the train into Bishop Auckland when he at last had a Saturday free. It had been weeks since he had seen his father and stepmother because of the diphtheria epidemic, and he had had to put Miles off visiting him earlier in the summer, as the disease was suddenly raging over most of the county.
At least it had eased now the cooler weather had arrived, he thought, as he cycled in to Durham Station with the wind chill in his face. Soon it would be winter and that would bring its own plagues of colds, influenza and chest complaints.
‘A third-class return to Bishop Auckland, please,’ he said to the man in the ticket office. No sense in wasting money on a first-class ticket for such a short journey, he reckoned. The wind whistled down the platform as he stood waiting after seeing his bicycle onto the guards van. Fortunately the small local train came in on time and he took a seat by the window. As he always did he watched out for a glimpse of the cathedral and castle as the train chugged out of the station. How many children’s epidemics had it seen in the hundreds of years it had stood there, he wondered idly, and stretched his legs out before him. It was good to relax; this was the first full day he had had free for weeks. His thoughts turned to his father as he wondered if he was any happier in his marriage. Why on earth had he married Bertha Porritt in the first place?
Tom had to admit to himself that he knew why, really. It was the chance of owning his own mine, or even more than one, that drove his father. But perhaps he was being unfair to him; perhaps Miles really was in love with his wife. He shifted uncomfortably on the hard seat. The only other person in with him was a housewife with a large covered basket on her lap. She smiled as he glanced over to her, showing crooked teeth; he nodded and turned back to the window. They were pulling out of Coundon Station, just one stop before Bishop Auckland.
Tom’s thoughts wandered to Jane Hall. At one time he had thought the two of them might make a go of it but she had made it plain that the life of a doctor’s wife was not for her.
‘A girl would have to be a saint to marry a family doctor,’ she remarked after Tom had had to cancel a date for the third time in a row. He hadn’t asked her, he said to himself but not to her. Later she had become engaged to a lecturer at the university and was getting married in November. He had to admit that his heart was not broken.
The train went into the tunnel by Canney Hill and out into the daylight on the outskirts of the town. They were there. He waited as the housewife got out then followed her onto the platform. Soon he had his bicycle and was cycling the short distance back out to Canney Hill and his father’s house.
‘It’s good to see you, Tom,’ Bertha said primly and offered her cheek for him to kiss. ‘It certainly is quite a while since you visited us.’
‘I’m sorry. It has been a busy summer, what with—’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she interrupted him. ‘You are so like your father – always too busy for his family.’
Tom let that pass and moved to shake his father’s hand. Miles was looking older, he thought, and slightly harassed which was not like him.
‘Why didn’t you bring the trap?’ asked Bertha and wrinkled her nose. ‘You smell of smoke.’
‘I enjoy a train ride,’ he replied.’
They sat down to a lunch of vegetable soup and salad with pressed tongue, a meat that Tom knew his father disliked. Bertha made most of the conversation; his father ate his food and answered when spoken to. Afterwards the two men went out into the conservatory that Bertha had had added, while Miles smoked his pipe. Bertha had announced her intention of slipping into town for a few odds and ends as she called them.
‘It is not often I can use the trap,’ she said to Tom, though she was watching her husband coldly as she spoke. ‘Miles insists on living here and he needs the trap, he says. Though why we can’t have a carriage—’ She had shrugged. Miles did not rise to this.
‘How are you, really, Father?’ Tom asked when the pipe was going well and Bertha had gone off down the driveway.
Miles laughed shortly. ‘I’m well enough,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry about your stepmother and I. She talks a lot but I have learned to let it wash over me. She has her good points.’
After the tedious hour at lunch Tom had some difficulty in thinking what they might be but he did not comment.
‘It has been a bad summer of diphtheria and scarlet fever,’ he remarked. ‘I understand it has been the same in Winton and Eden Hope.’
‘Yes,’ his father said. ‘These people have no sense of hygiene, that’s the problem.’
‘How can you say that? What can you expect when the only water tap for a whole row is in the street; when there is no proper drainage or sanitation? This hot summer we were lucky to escape cholera. This is the twentieth century, surely we can do better.’
Miles took his pipe out to reply. ‘For God’s sake, Tom,’ he snapped. ‘Can’t you talk about anything else? I haven’t seen you for months. Haven’t you got a nice girl yet? When are you going to give me any grandchildren?’ He was going red in the face.
‘Calm down, Father,’ said Tom. ‘You’ll have an attack of apoplexy if you’re not careful. I’m sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t talk about work.’
Miles grunted and drew on his pipe causing acrid fumes to swirl and rise to the glass roof of the conservatory.
‘I asked you a question.’
‘Yes, sorry,’ Tom said again. ‘No, I haven’t got a future wife in mind at the moment. I don’t have much spare time, you know, and women don’t like having to take second place to a job of work.’ For some reason his father’s question had brought to mind not Jane Hall but a picture of Old Pit in a snowstorm and the young girl who had wanted to be a nurse. She was married now, had been for years. She probably had half a dozen children and was middle-aged and careworn before her time, like some of the miners’ wives that were his patients at Burdon.
Miles talked a little about his work: how one seam in Winton was petering out; how they had decided to sink a shaft to try to reach Busty seam but their efforts were hampered by water which they were pumping out into a new reservoir. The chances of actually making a profit after all this capital expenditure were poor and they would likely have to reduce the men’s wages further. The chance of unrest if this was done was very real – the miners’ Union was becoming too powerful, that was the trouble.
Tom thought of the miners and their families and bit his lip. Since the end of the Boer War coal and steel were not in such high demand and the wages bill was the easiest thing to cut down in spite of the Union.
‘There will be hard times ahead for the families here then,’ he said.
‘Nonsense,’ Miles replied tersely. ‘If the men drank a bit less and stayed away from the pitch and toss schools behind the slag heaps, their families would do well enough.’
Tom didn’t answer, for there was no point. Sadly he felt he had grown even further away from his father than he had been. They would never think alike. Miles rose to his feet.
‘I have to reply to a letter from Bolton – the owner, you know. Best do it while Bertha is out of the house and it is quiet, I think. You can amuse yourself for a while, Tom?’
It was a crisp October afternoon and the sun still shone, though there was little heat in it. Tom fancied looking round his old haunts.
‘I might go for a short ride out if you don’t mind, Father,’ he said as Miles knocked out his pipe in a large plant pot containing a sorry looking spider plant and went back into the house.
It was good freewheeling down the bank to Winton Colliery. He cycled by the miners’ rows then took the road to Eden Hope. He considered calling in on Dr Macready then changed his mind as the house looked so peaceful and no one was in sight. It was a shame to disturb his colleague if he was having a rest. It was fairly quiet being Saturday afternoon. Bishop Auckland was playing a football match against Shildon and most of the men and boys who could afford tickets were probably there, he guessed. Most of the women were likely to be looking for bargains at the market in the town.
The place looked just the same apart from that. Two or three urchins playing ‘kicky off chock’ with an old tin can on the end of the rows. Tom turned on to the road leading up to Coundon, intending to do a circular tour that would bring him back to Canney Hill. At the top of the bank he paused to catch his breath and looked out over the valley with its mixture of green farms and woodland, and pockets of industry with pit winding wheels and chimneys sticking up against the hillside opposite. He glanced along the farm track that intersected the road. To the left, the track would bring him back to Canney Hill. To the right it led past the stile and path leading down past Parkin’s Farm to Old Pit. He climbed back on his bicycle and pedalled along the track. At the stile he lifted the machine over and freewheeled down the grass to the waggon way then the path that ran alongside.
It was slow going and he had to watch out for stones and patches of gravel or oil but eventually he came to where the waggon way divided. He took the branch that led to Old Pit, having to dismount and walk now for the way was neglected and overgrown. Great beds of nettles and rosebay willow herb and long strands of bramble stuck out from the side. The waggon rails were rusty and some of the sleepers displaced so that there were gaps between some joints.
The sun had gone in when he reached the houses of Old Pit. There was no wind and a chill silence hung over the place. Grass grew among the cobbles. Yet some of the cottages still had doors and there was the glint of glass from a few of the windows. Tom left his bicycle and walked up the road in the middle. There were patches of weeds growing there too, between the patches of stone and brick that the old miners had once formed into a surface that would not turn into mud every time it rained. The pump was still there and what’s more it seemed to be still in working order for there was a trickle of water from its spout.
Tom looked through the window of the end house and was surprised to see signs that someone had been there and not too long ago either – there was straw in the corner, straw that looked fresh. And there were ashes and cinders in the grate and an old chair by it. He went in and felt the bar; it was still warm. Probably some tramp, he thought. Or perhaps some children from round about played here, playing house. He smiled and went out, closing the rickety door after him. He turned, frowning and looked across at the houses opposite – for a moment he had thought someone was watching him. But there were only the blank holes where most of the windows had been and dirty glass in one or two, black now and reflecting nothing for the sun had gone.
Tom went to the pump and worked the handle a few times – sure enough water came out in a trickle at first and then a steady stream splashing out over the square of bricks beneath. He cupped his hand and took a drink; the water was cold and tasted faintly of minerals but seemed pure.
Standing up straight he looked again at the houses opposite, even considered going over to look closer but in the end changed his mind. His imagination was working overtime, he told himself, and walked up the length of the street to where he had left his bicycle.
He had to walk his machine up the bank to the track then cycle along its length to where it met the road just below Canney Hill. The day was darkening as the early October dusk came in. He could see patches of white fog swirling at the bottom of the valley and the air had turned bitterly cold.
‘Where have you been?’ Miles demanded as he entered the house and stood to take off the bicycle clamps around his trouser bottoms. ‘I’ve been waiting for my tea.’
‘Oh, just around,’ Tom answered.
‘Well, come on in now and I’ll ring for Polly,’ said Miles. ‘I’m surprised you stayed out so long when it has turned cold. Now we have hardly any time left to talk before you will have to go back.’
As Tom drank tea and ate toasted pikelets oozing with butter he was listening to his father with only half an ear. After a while Miles fell silent too. Tom was still thinking with regret of Merry. He should not have gone to Old Pit, it merely stirred up bittersweet memories. Yet he hadn’t known her well, he told himself. Apart from that one night all he saw of her was at the hospital, a small hard-working little girl being bossed around by Sister Harrison.
The telephone rang in the hall and after a moment Polly came in. ‘It’s the mistress, sir, she wants to speak to you,’ she told Miles and he got up with a heavy sigh and went out.
‘She’s staying at her father’s house,’ he reported when he came back. ‘She left it too late to come back. She doesn’t want to travel in the dark. She has more sense than you – you shouldn’t be travelling in the dark either.’
Tom reflected that his father seemed happy enough about his wife staying away for the night but merely remarked that it wasn’t far to the station and he did have lights.
‘I’ll have to go now to catch the train,’ he said and Miles grunted what could have been a goodbye. As he rode down the hill and up the other side into the market place Tom thought his father seemed to be thinking of something else. Perhaps he should have taken more interest when Miles was talking about his work; perhaps his father was worried about something there. He would have to come home more often, he thought.
Miles had been thinking of something else but not what Tom had supposed. A plan was forming in his mind, a plan that might achieve his ends. He spent the evening sitting before the fire working the plan out in his mind; he would have to be very careful and take plenty of time to work it out, for he couldn’t afford a mistake.