The Gambling Man

He didn’t step back but stared down at them as they remained still, their postures seemingly frozen into a group of statuary. He noticed that Lizzie was wearing her old shawl, and old it was, green in parts. And Ruth too was in a shawl; she nearly always wore a bonnet. And they both still had their aprons on.

He moved from the window and went to the door and, having opened it, looked down the steps at them. They came towards him. It was his father who mounted first, and he said to him, ‘What’s up?’ But Paddy didn’t answer, he just walked into the room, followed by Ruth and Lizzie and, lastly, Jimmy.

Rory’s gaze travelled from one to the other, then came to rest on Jimmy who was gripping the paper with both hands and staring at him.

He did not repeat his question to Jimmy, but took the paper from him and began to read.

‘It is with deep regret that we hear of the terrible tragedy that has overtaken a Shields family on holiday on the coast of France. Mr Charles Buckham, his wife, three children, and their nursemaid Mrs Jane Connor, together with Mr Buckham’s brother, are feared lost, after their yacht was caught in a great storm. Mrs Buckham’s body and that of one child were washed ashore, together with pieces of wreckage from the boat. There is little hope of any survivors. Two other boats were wrecked at the same time, with a total loss of twenty-six lives. Mr Charles Buckham was a prominent member . . .’

Someone must have brought a chair forward for him to sit on because when next he looked at them they were standing in a half-circle before him and they were all crying, even his da. His own eyes were dry; his whole body was dry, he was being shrivelled up; his mind had stopped working except for a section which oozed pain and ran like a burning acid down into his heart, and there it was etching out her name: Janie. Janie.

‘Janie. Janie’ he said the name aloud and turned and saw Lizzie lift up her white apron and fling it over her head, and when she began to moan like a banshee he made no protest because the sound was finding an echo within himself. ‘Janie. Janie. Aw, Janie, don’t go, Janie. Don’t be dead, Janie. Come back to me, Janie. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I’ll see about John George, honest to God I promise, now, right now. Oh, Janie.’

‘Give him a drop out of the bottle.’

Paddy put his hand into his inside pocket and drew out a flat flask of whisky and, picking up a cup, he almost half-filled it. Then handing it to Rory, he said, ‘Get it down you, lad. Get it down you. You need to be fortified. God knows you need to be fortified.’

When Lizzie suddenly cried, ‘Why does God bring disasters like this to us? What have we ever done to Him?’ Paddy turned on her, hissing, ‘Whist! woman. It’s questions like that that bring on disasters.’

Her wailing increased, and she cried, ‘It’s the third thing. I said there would be three, didn’t I? Didn’t I? An’ I told Andrews the polis when he brought the paper up, didn’t I, didn’t I?’

‘Oh Janie, Janie. Come back, Janie. Just let me look on you once more.’ It was sayings like that that brought disaster his da had just said. He was ignorant. They were all ignorant. That’s what he had said to Janie, they were all ignorant. And he had compared their talk, their ways, and their dwelling, the dwelling that he had known since birth, with Charlotte Kean and her fine house. Yet their ignorance was a warm ignorance, it was something you didn’t have to live up to; pretence fell through it like water through a sieve. Their ignorance was a solid foundation on which he could lean. He was leaning against it now, his head tucked against warm, thick flesh, nor when he realized it was Lizzie’s flesh, his mother’s flesh, did he push it away. In this moment he needed ignorance, he needed love, he needed warmth, he needed so many things to make up for the loss of Janie.

‘Aw, Janie, Janie. I’m sorry, Janie. I’m sorry, Janie.’

7

Charlotte Kean did not read the paper until late on the Saturday evening. She had returned from Hexham about seven o’clock feeling tired, irritable and lonely. After a meal she had gone into the office with the intention of doing some work on the mass of papers that always awaited her on the desk, but after sitting down she stared in front of her for a moment before closing her eyes and letting her body slump into the depths of the leather chair.