Believing in tomorrow, p.1
Believing in Tomorrow, page 1
RITA BRADSHAW
Believing in Tomorrow
For Gabrielle, who put up such a brave fight for so long. Reunited with Joe and Hannah in that place where death is just a memory and tears are no more.
And dear Yoke, an amazing mother and beautiful person. No words could convey what you’ve gone through and with such courage and strength. We pray every day that the God of Ages will be your comfort and peace until you’re all together again.
Contents
PART ONE
The Escape, 1900
PART TWO
The Next Beginning, 1904
PART THREE
The Metamorphosis, 1909
PART FOUR
The Real Miss Molly McKenzie, 1914
PART FIVE
Friends and Enemies, 1915
Epilogue, 1965
PART ONE
The Escape
1900
Chapter One
‘So what are you going to do tonight then? You coming with us or what? The Michaelmas Fair’s only here once a year, Moll.’
Molly McKenzie looked at the group of girls, her big blue eyes fastening on the one who’d spoken, her best friend, Fanny Howard. Softly, she said, ‘You know I want to, it isn’t that. It’s – it’s him.’
The others knew who Molly meant. Him, her da, Josiah McKenzie. Molly was terrified of him, everyone was. A tall, muscled man with thick black hair and hard eyes the colour of pewter, Josiah was well known for his quick temper and penchant for settling even the mildest of disputes with his fists. No one, not even the blacksmith in the next village who was a huge man with hands the size of cannonballs, got into an argument with Josiah. At harvest time, when all the farmworkers for miles got together in a gang and made a contract with each farmer to be paid a lump sum based on an agreed price per acre, rather than the usual weekly wage, it was an accepted fact that Josiah acted as the gaffer. There was an innate viciousness about him, something primal that made every man, woman and child anxious not to cross him.
Fanny, her voice scarcely above a whisper, drew closer to Molly. ‘He wouldn’t know, lass. I heard me da telling me mam that now the harvest’s in, Farmer Roach has invited all the men to the farm for a drink an’ bite to eat tonight. Me mam’s right put out. She thinks the women and bairns should’ve been invited too. I mean, we do our bit same as the men, don’t we?’ she added, raising her voice as she included the other girls.
Everyone nodded. For eight to nine months of the year every available woman and child was pressed into service alongside the men in the fields, working on the local farms scattered on the outskirts of Newcastle and Gateshead and Sunderland. On the whole, whether the farms were large or small, there were few cottages attached to them. The farmers relied on labour from the villages and hamlets that stretched along the country lanes and highways.
Up at earliest dawn, whole families would make their way to their designated farm in all weathers where they would divide into groups, the men to their work and the women and children to theirs. A few women and older girls would be fortunate enough to be taken on in the dairy on the larger farms under the instruction of the farmer’s wife, but most would work in the fields. Pulling weeds, lifting potatoes and other crops, topping beets, hoeing, stone picking, clod beating, turning hay or whatever the season demanded would be their lot. Most of the work involved continual stooping or kneeling on damp soil, and from a toddler Molly could remember regularly getting soaked to the waist when hand-weeding a standing crop of corn. In the winter they left home in the dark and returned in the dark, six days a week. When work was available, that was.
Fanny, her voice low, went on, ‘Me mam says that farmers like old Roach think more of their dogs and horses than they do the women and bairns who work their fields. Scum to them, we are.’
The group nodded in silent agreement. They knew it to be true, but it was dangerous to voice such sentiments. The farmers had the whip hand. Every penny they earned was needed at home to supplement the wages of the menfolk, and it could mean the difference between food being on the table or going hungry.
At eleven years of age, Molly and Fanny were the oldest in the little group of friends, the youngest being Bertha, a red-cheeked child of seven who had a continually dripping nose. None of them could read or write, but then, no one in their hamlet of ten cottages situated a few miles west of Ryton could. Schools were attended by farmers’ children and those who didn’t live hand to mouth. This was never questioned. It was how things were.
‘So . . .’ Fanny returned to the matter in hand. ‘You’d be home afore your da gets back, lass. Me mam says they’ll all be drinking and making merry till the early hours if there’s free beer going.’
Mrs Howard might be right but what if she wasn’t? Molly asked herself. Everyone was scared of her da but no one knew what he was really capable of, not even her brothers. Only she and her mam. The thought pressed down in her chest like a heavy weight, making the secret harder to bear. Her mam had warned her she could never speak of it or her da would be taken away and they’d end up in the workhouse, but sometimes she felt she would rather that than keeping silent.
It had been eighteen months since the night when Kitty, her sister, had broken down and told their parents she had fallen for a bairn, and her only fourteen and without a steady lad. She had heard Kitty climb out of the pallet bed they’d shared – their two brothers sleeping in a similar one on the other side of the room – and then go downstairs. Curious as to what was the matter, she had crept to the top of the steep ladder that separated the upstairs of the house from the downstairs and listened to what was being said. Their parents hadn’t yet retired to their double bed to one side of the kitchen but had been sitting in front of the range. She had heard her sister tell them that she had been taken advantage of by one of the vagabonds who tramped the countryside and that he had forced her.
Kitty had cried, saying she had been too frightened and ashamed about what had happened to tell anyone, but now, some months later, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide her changing shape much longer. Their mother had sworn and carried on, but strangely Molly had heard nothing from their da.
From her vantage point at the top of the ladder she’d watched him put on his cap and jacket, still without saying a word. After he’d handed Kitty her coat they had walked off into the darkness. That had been the last time she had seen her sister. She had sat shivering and waiting for what had seemed like hours, and then her da had walked in. Alone.
She hadn’t caught what he’d first said to her mam, but when her mam had let out a cry it had startled her so much she’d nearly pitched head first down the ladder. Then his voice, grim and cold, had filtered up to her. ‘Be quiet, woman, you’ll wake the others – and remember she’s got what she deserved. You didn’t think I was going to stand by and let her drag my name through the mud, did you? They’d all be at it behind me back, Stan and the rest. I can hear ’em now. Josiah McKenzie, him that likes to play the gaffer and he can’t even stop his own daughter whoring.’
‘But she said she was forced—’
‘I know what she said and I don’t care, all right? Whether she was forced or not don’t matter, the end result is the same. She’s got a bellyful. I’ve got enough on my plate without feeding some bloke’s flyblow. Now here’s what we’re going to say . . .’
Terrified, she’d crept back to bed without hearing any more, pulling the thin blankets over her and curling into a little ball, missing the warmth of Kitty’s body. Her da had hurt her sister. He’d done something bad, she knew he had.
The next morning when she and her brothers had gone down for breakfast, her da had told them that Kitty had run off in the night. He’d been out looking for her this morning, he’d added, but she’d gone. She had said nothing but when she had been in the fields with her mother she’d whispered what she’d heard the night before. Her mam had rounded on her and told her to shut her mouth, threatening her with the prospect of the workhouse if she said a word to anyone. ‘Kitty ran off in the night,’ she’d hissed. ‘You say different an’ your da’ll skin you alive, you hear?’
Her parents had spread the rumour that Kitty had been hankering for the bright lights of Newcastle, but she knew that wasn’t true. Kitty would never have willingly left home. Her sister had always been timid and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. It had been over nine months before the body of a female had been found in thick woodland near Hendon-on-the-Wall. Animals had been at it and there wasn’t much left, but according to what folk said there was still some long brown hair attached to the skull. Kitty had had long brown hair. She hadn’t said anything to her mother – there was no point – but she’d been unable to eat anything for days without being sick.
‘Moll?’ Fanny’s voice brought her out of the darkness. ‘Say you’ll come tonight. Your da never lets you do anything and you won’t get a chance for a bit of fun for ages. They’ll have shuggy boats an’ coconut shies an’ hoopla an’ everything, and the music’s grand. No one’d say anything to your da if they see you, they all know what he’s like. Go on, please.’
She wanted to, so much. And it was true what Fanny said – since Kitty had gone she wasn’t allowed any freedom. These days she couldn’t even go for a walk with Fanny and her other friends after Sunday school in the next village like she had used to. She had been forced to miss the Sunday school picnic in the summer, an event everyone looked forward to all year, and when Mrs Howard had knocked on the door and said to her da that she w ould keep an eye on her if he’d let her go and deliver her home safely, he’d sent Fanny’s mam away with a flea in her ear. And yet Fred and Caleb could do anything they wanted. She could understand that to some extent where Fred was concerned – he was thirteen, after all – but Caleb was only nine years old.
The feeling of being hard done by, which had been growing steadily for months, brought a spark of recklessness with it. Molly looked into Fanny’s small bright eyes and nodded. ‘All right, I’ll come.’
Fanny gave a squeal of pleasure. She was a replica of her mother, being stout and round-faced with a wide smile and rather forceful personality, but she had a deep affection for Molly and Molly for her. In the early days of Kitty’s disappearance Molly had relied heavily on her friend. Kitty had always been more of a mother to her than a sister – their mam had little maternal affection to spare – and even now she still missed her badly.
The six girls were working together in Moat Piece, which was one of Farmer Roach’s fields, and they were busy hoeing the ground. The rural naming of fields went hand in hand with an intimate knowledge of the local terrain, fed by a continuing presence in one place of generation upon generation of country folk.
The field names often gave a clue to the field’s history – Fishpond, Cuckoo’s Clump, Lark Hill, Bee Meadow – and Moat Piece was no exception as it was surrounded by a narrow boggy ditch. One name was as good as another to most of the workers; what really mattered about the field in which they happened to be working was whether it was comparatively sheltered. In some of the more open ones the wind would hurtle through, driving the rain into clothes in minutes. It was better if the soil was easily workable too; sometimes it could be of back-breaking heaviness or so bound together that a ploughshare could scarcely get through it.
Moat Piece was one of the more exposed fields and could be a miserable place in the depths of winter but today, although cold, an autumn sun was shining and it made the work pleasant enough. Now that the harvest had been gathered in and the corn was safely in the stack or barns, more mundane jobs could be done again, but already it was the end of September and soon the weather would change. Molly and the others knew they had to work while they could. Winter, when unemployment for the women and children for three or four months was the great bugbear, often meant empty bellies. The men usually found work of some kind but as the most they could earn was eleven or twelve shillings a week, the loss of the few shillings the women and children brought in was sorely missed. Josiah McKenzie was normally first in line for any jobs going. Besides sheer muscular strength, Molly’s father had much dexterity and knowledge of how each of the many operations of farm work should be done – even if it was only how to pull turnips and lay them out in such a way that their tops could be cut off more easily. The farmers knew they could rely on him too; Josiah got things done and if he had to tread on his fellow man to do so, it didn’t worry him.
‘Are you going to tell your mam you’re coming with us?’ said Fanny, straightening her aching back and pushing her hair out of her eyes.
Molly looked across to where her mother and a couple of other women were working at the far end of the field. It had only been after Kitty had gone that she had realized she didn’t like her mam. Her mam had never bothered with her and Kitty – she only ever had time for the lads – but it wasn’t that so much that had caused the resentment and dislike to fester, or the clips round the ear her mam dished out for the slightest misdemeanour. It was the knowledge that whatever her da said or did, her mam was on his side, and him doing away with her sister was proof of it. Her mam had carried on as though Kitty had never existed. Sometimes when she was lying awake on her pallet bed with the lads snoring on the other side of the room, she could hear her mam and da talking and now and again her mam would laugh, a silly girlish giggle. It always caused her stomach to knot. How could her mam do that when she knew what her da had done?
Molly looked at Fanny, and her voice was flat when she said, ‘No, I shan’t tell me mam owt.’
Fanny nodded. She would never say it out loud because Mrs McKenzie was Molly’s mam, after all, but she didn’t like her friend’s mother. Mrs McKenzie had a way of looking at you that made you think you’d got a dirty nose or something. She had said that once to her own mam, and her mam had said that Mrs McKenzie had a lot to put up with being married to Josiah McKenzie, but her da had been listening and he had shaken his head. ‘Birds of a feather there,’ he’d said soberly. ‘Birds of a feather, lass, an’ no mistake.’
Fanny kept her voice low when she said, ‘Shall I wait for you at Whistler’s Corner after dinner then? There’s a bunch of us meeting there. How are you going to get away without your mam knowing, though?’
Molly thought for a moment. ‘I’ll go to bed and then climb out of the window.’ Their small stone cottage was built against a sharply rising bank on one side and when the window was open you could virtually climb up on the sill and step out onto the bank. The bank was covered in briars and thorn bushes, but she would manage.
‘What about your Fred and Caleb? Would they tell on you?’
‘Fred’s going to the fair with his pals and he’s taking Caleb with him, so they won’t be there.’
‘What if they see you at the fair, though?’
‘They wouldn’t say anything to me da.’ She wasn’t as close to her brothers as she had been to Kitty, but the three of them were united against their father.
‘Me da said he’s going to give me some pennies for the fair and I’ll share them with you,’ Fanny promised. She knew Molly’s parents never gave her so much as a farthing to spend on herself.
Molly smiled gratefully. ‘Ta, thanks.’
‘An’ we can buy some jujubes or a bag of gingerbread to eat on the way home,’ said Fanny, warming to the theme. ‘Some of us did that last year and it was lovely.’
‘There’s toffee apples an’ cinder taffy an’ roasted chestnuts an’ all,’ piped up one of the other girls, a little too loudly for Fanny’s liking.
‘Shut up, Clara,’ she said crossly. ‘Molly’s mam’ll hear. You’ve got a voice like a foghorn. And don’t forget Molly coming is a secret, all of you, all right?’ She glared round the small group and they all nodded.
A thick autumn twilight had been gathering pace as the girls talked, and now, as their mothers called, they joined the group of women and children who had gathered to walk home, some to the hamlet and the rest to the nearest village a couple of miles beyond. Everyone was tired after a long day in the fields, but tonight a faint sense of excitement pervaded the air. They only had fairs come to the area twice a year – one was at Easter, but the Michaelmas Fair was much larger and grander. These two events were the highlight of the year, along with the Sunday school picnic in July.
When they reached the hamlet, those who lived there called goodbye to the villagers who walked on. On the whole, the dwellings in the village were vastly superior to those in the hamlet; most of the cottages had two rooms downstairs and two up, and quite a few even had a wash house next to the privy at the end of the garden. Those who had enough room kept a pig and chickens and had a fenced-off area where they grew their own vegetables. The well in the centre of the village provided pure, clear drinking water, and there was a small general shop and a public house, the Croaking Frog.
In the hamlet, everyone had to fetch their water from the stream which ran a hundred yards behind their dwellings, and the small bit of ground near each cottage hardly deserved the grand name of a garden, although vegetables were grown in the hard, unforgiving earth. None of the cottages had an oven, merely an open fire which served for warmth and cooking. Vegetables and meat, such as rabbits and pigeons caught in the fields, were boiled in big black pots hanging from a hook in the ceiling over the flames, and sometimes dumplings in small homemade bags would be added to the mix. In the winter a lot of ‘sparrowing’ was done. The men in the hamlet took the nets that their womenfolk had made and captured the small birds by beating the hedges in the dark evenings. Of food that had to be bought for cash, bread was far the most important. A two-pound loaf from the village shop cost two pennies; milk and butter and cheese could be purchased too, but no one in the hamlet could afford butter. Lard, made from pigs, was much cheaper, as was skimmed milk, a big crockful of which could be obtained for a ha’penny. In the spring, birds’ eggs were stolen from nests and taken home, but occasionally at other times eggs were bought from the nearby village from cottagers who had hens.
