The Gambling Man

‘Are you staying with your parents?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, ‘I’ve been with them over the weekend but I’m going back to the boatyard.’

She said with some concern now, ‘Do you think it wise for you to be alone at this time?’

‘My brother will be with me.’

‘Oh.’ She stared at him; then again she said, ‘I’m deeply sorry.’

He made no reply but turned from her and she had to stop herself from going to him for she imagined he was about to cry, and if she were to see him cry . . . She turned hastily and went out.

Alone now he stood staring down at the desk as if he had never seen it before, as if he were surprised to find it there; then going behind it, he sat down and, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped it quickly round his face before blowing his nose. He had said he’d be better at work. He’d never be better anywhere, anytime, but being here was better than remaining in the kitchen. He’d go mad if he had to listen to any more talk of Janie. Since Saturday night they had talked about her, wailed about her, cried about her, and he too had cried and wailed, but inside. To them it was as if she were lying in the coffin in the corner of the room. They had drunk their beer and had their tots of whisky as if they were holding a wake. They had sat up all night, the Learys and her da and grannie, and his own father and Ruth and Jimmy . . . and her. Nellie had come and her husband with her. And that had been another thing that had nearly driven him mad, when Nellie announced through her tears that she was pregnant at last, and her, his big slob of a slavering mother, had cried, ‘That’s God’s way. That’s God’s way, when He shuts one door He opens another.’ Another day among them and he would have gone out of his mind.

There was only one good thing that had come out of it, he and Jimmy were back where they were before. Nothing had been said but Jimmy hadn’t left his side since Saturday, not even during the night, the longest night of his life. All Saturday night he had sat by his side up in the loft, and last night too, and it was he who had said early this morning, ‘Let’s get back away home, eh?’ It was odd that Jimmy should think of the boatyard as home rather than the place in which he had been brought up. But Janie had made it home.

He thought with shame and guilt of how he had begun to compare it with Charlotte Kean’s place. God, he wouldn’t swop it for a palace decked with diamonds at this moment if Janie was in it.

Aw Janie. Janie. Oh! God, and they had parted like strangers. The last words he spoke to her were, ‘You are hard. I said it afore in this very house and I say it again, there’s a hard streak in you.’

She had gazed at him and replied, ‘Aye, perhaps you’re right.’

Then she was gone, and when the door closed on her he had beaten his fists against his head.

Why the hell was he standing there! Why didn’t he go after her and drag her back by the scruff of the neck? He was her husband, wasn’t he? He had his rights—was he a man? No other bloody man in the town would have put up with what he had these past two weeks, they would have knocked the daylights out of her. Why was he standing here?

Back in the cottages they referred to him, behind his back, as ‘the big fella,’ and he had come to think of himself, and not without pride as ‘a gambling man.’ But what in effect was he? He . . . he was nothing more than a nowt who couldn’t keep his wife, a nowt who had let a little chit of a lass best him. Had it happened to John George he would have said, ‘Well, what do you expect?’

. . . John George!

This morning he had taken up a jug and hurled it almost at the same place at which he had thrown the ship’s wheel. It was because of him he was in this pickle.

Janie! Janie! How am I to go on?

There was a knock on the door and Mr Taylor entered and provided him with the answer . . . work. It was either that or the river.

PART THREE The Bargain

1

In 1877 those who were enlightened by reading newspapers discussed among other things such topics as Disraeli proclaiming Queen Victoria Empress of India and seeing to it that she had the adulation of Indian princes and African chiefs. But for the ordinary man and woman in towns such as South Shields, there were other happenings that struck nearer home, very much nearer home.

The sea which provided most of the inhabitants with a livelihood also created havoc and disaster. There was that awful night in December last year when three vessels were wrecked and the sea, still unsatisfied, had engulfed and destroyed another two later in the day, and all under the eyes of horrified townspeople who could only watch helplessly. Even though the Volunteer Life Brigade did heroic work, many lives were lost.