The Gambling Man

‘I could be dead, you could be dead.’

‘We’ll have to take a chance on that.’

‘You know, Janie, you’re hard; there’s a hard streak in you, always has been about some things . . .’

‘I’m not.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I’m not hard.’

‘Yes you are . . .’

‘I’m not. I’m not.’

‘All right, all right. Aw, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I am. Don’t cry.’

‘I’m not hard.’

‘No, you’re not, you’re lovely . . . It’s all right. Look, it’s all right; I just want to hold you.’

When his arms went about her she jerked herself from his hold once more and going to the window, stood stiffly looking down on to the river, and he stood as stiffly watching her. Only his jaw moved as his teeth ground against each other.

She drew in a deep breath now and, her head turning from one side to the other, she looked up and down the river. As far as her eyes could see both to the right and to the left the banks were lined with craft, ships of all types and sizes, from little scullers, wherries and tugs to great funnelled boats, and here and there a masted ship, its lines standing out separate and graceful from the great iron hulks alongside.

Rory now came slowly to the window and, putting his arm around her shoulders and his manner softened, he said, ‘Look. Look along there. You see that boat with a figurehead on it—there’s a fine lass for you . . . Look at her bust, I bet that’s one of Thomas Anderson’s pieces, and I’ll bet he enjoyed makin’ it.’

‘Rory!’

He hugged her to him now and laughed, then said, ‘There’s the ferry boat right along there going off to Newcastle . . . one of the pleasure trips likely. Think on that, eh? We could take a trip up to Newcastle on a Sunday, and in the week there’ll always be somethin’ for you to look at. The river’s alive during the week.’

She turned her head towards him now and said, ‘You said the rent’s three and six?’

‘Aye.’

‘You won’t get anything from Jimmy, not until he gets set-in.’

‘I know, I know that. But we’ll manage. I’ll still be workin’. I’ll keep on until we really do get set-in and make a business of it. I mightn’t be able to build a boat but I’ll be able to steer one, and I can shovel coal and hump bales with the rest of them. I didn’t always scribble in a rent book you know; I did me stint in the Jarrow chemical works, and in the bottle works afore that.’

‘I know, I know, but I was just thinkin’. Something the mistress said.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Well—’ she turned from him and walked down the length of the room—’she doesn’t want me to leave, I know that, she said as much.’ She swung round again. ‘Do you know she even said to me face that she’d miss me. Fancy her sayin’ that.’

‘Of course she’ll miss you, anybody would.’ He came close to her again and held her face between his hands. ‘I’d miss you. If I ever lost you I’d miss you. God, how I’d miss you! Oh, Janie.’

‘Don’t . . . not for a minute. Listen.’ She pushed his hands from under her oxters now and said, ‘Would you demand I be at home all day?’

‘I don’t know about demand, but I’d want you at home all day. Aye, of course I would. Who’s to do the cooking and the washing and the like? What are you gettin’ at?’

‘Well, it was something the mistress said. She said she had been thinking about raising me wage . . .’

‘Ah, that was just a feeler. Now look, she’s not going to put you off, is she?’

‘No, no, she’s not. She knows I’m goin’ to be married. Oh, she knows that, but what she said was, if . . . if I could come for a while, daily like, until the children got a bit bigger and used to somebody else, because well, as she said, they were fond of me, the bairns. And she would arrange for Bessie to have my room and sleep next to them at night and I needn’t be there until eight in the morning, and I could leave at half-six after I got them to bed.’

He swung away from her, his arms raised above his head, his hands flapping towards the low roof, and he flapped them until he reached the end of the room and turned about and once more was standing in front of her. And then, thrusting his head forward, he said, ‘Look, you’re going to be married, you’re going to start married life the way we mean to go on. You’ll be me wife, an’ I just don’t want you from half-past six or seven at night till eight in the morning, I want you here all the time. I want you here when I come in at dinner-time an’ at tea-time.’

‘She’ll give me three shillings a week. It’s not to be sneezed at, it would nearly pay the rent.’

‘Look. Look, we’ll manage. A few more games like last night, even if nothing bigger, and I can spit in the eye of old Kean . . . and your master and mistress.’