Candles in the Storm Read online

  The track widened to a rough road and as Daisy walked down it with Alf she was experiencing an emotion hitherto unknown to her, that of shyness. It suddenly seemed wrong - no, not wrong, that wasn’t the right word, Daisy told herself silently, but she couldn’t think of one that fitted how she was feeling. But walking together like this, where folk could see them, made her feel that everyone knew what Alf had asked her.

  Apart from one or two boats the small fishing fleet was in, and most of the fishermen were either seeing to damage on their craft or repairing their nets with big wooden needles threaded with cotton treated with creosote. Daisy hated using this cotton when she helped her da with the nets. If it wasn’t properly dried out her hands would be black in no time, and she would have to scrub them until they were raw to get the strong-smelling oil off her skin, and even then the smell would linger.

  ‘Bad couple of days with that storm blowin’ up out of nowhere.’ Alf’s eyes had swept down the higgledypiggledy line of boats, some pulled close to the cottages and others at varying distances from the water’s edge. ‘The boats took a beatin’ but we were lucky not to lose any.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘Me granny was worried. Not that she let on, mind, but when you all didn’t come back the first night she had the candle burnin’ from dusk the second.’

  ‘Aye, well . . .’ Alf raised his hand to one or two of the fishermen who had called to him. ‘Likely it gives her a bit of comfort, same as me mam, but I’ve a mind it’d take more than a candle burnin’ to stop old Neptune havin’ his way if he decided your time was up.’

  ‘Alf!’ Daisy was shocked. She believed wholeheartedly in every one of the superstitions her mother had passed on to her with her milk, like her own mother with her. Everyone knew you couldn’t wash clothes on a day the menfolk went to sea in case you washed them away; same as a woman whistling was unlucky and watching the boats depart meant you’d be waiting for ever to see them come back. None of the old fishermen would allow a clergyman near their boat before it sailed - something Daisy had always secretly thought very strange, because weren’t the clergy supposed to be God’s ambassadors and go around doing only good? - and she had known from a small bairn never to mention the word ‘pig’ in front of her da or any of the other fishermen.

  But the candle, that was the most important thing of all; it lit the way home for the boats, everyone knew that. Every fisherwoman in their village would make sure she had a candle in readiness for when her menfolk sailed, even if there was no food in the cupboard and she didn’t know where the next penny was coming from.

  Alf looked into the indignant young face frowning up at him, and his lips twitched. ‘All right, all right, have it your way, lass.’

  ‘Aye, I will an’ all.’

  This was so typical of Daisy that now Alf laughed out loud, partly from relief that she seemed to have reverted to being completely at ease with him again after their stilted conversation on the path.

  They had been walking down the rough unmade road which passed in front of the cottages, dirt and sand blending with snow and ice to form a speckled, crunchy-surfaced toffee mallow underfoot, and now, as Daisy reached her door, waving to her father and brother who were working on the family boat at the water’s edge, her voice was still reproving when she said, ‘Thank you for seein’ to Gran an’ thank your mam for the barley drink.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ Alf grinned at her. He liked it when Daisy got on her high horse about something or other. She might be a slip of a lass with a waist so slender he could span it with his two hands, but her sylphlike frame belied the spirit within. By, she could keep a man in line, could Daisy Appleby, and no mistake. But she was sweet-natured, as sweet as honey, and that’s what made the difference between her and some of the other lasses he knew. Daisy hadn’t got a spiteful bone in her body and he’d seen her in all her moods over the years, so he should know. Oh, Daisy . . . Alf forced his voice to betray nothing of the sudden surge of love that had swept over him when he said, ‘There’s a pot of me mam’s crab-apple jelly on the table an’ all. Mam thought it might tempt your gran to eat when she’s feelin’ a bit more herself again. She likes a bit of that on a drop scone, don’t she?’

  ‘Aye, she does. Ta, Alf.’ Daisy smiled at him, her voice warm again. He was so nice, and Mrs Hardy too. And their cottage was bonny inside. Daisy didn’t allow herself to think ‘much nicer than ours’, because that would have been disloyal to her da and granny, but there was no doubt that it was true. An old aunt of Mrs Hardy’s had stepped out of the family’s favour by going off to be in service somewhere or other years ago, gradually working herself up to lady’s maid, whatever that meant. And when her mistress had died she had left one or two nice bits of furniture in her will to the aunt who, finding herself without a roof over her head, had been taken in by the newly married Mrs Hardy. Alf’s mother had had her own mam living with her at that time too, according to Daisy’s granny, and had thought it would be nice for the two sisters to end their days together.

  So the aunt had come, along with her furniture, and after a period of time the sisters had died, leaving Mr and Mrs Hardy quite nicely set up for fisherfolk as the aunt had saved a bit too. But the icing on the cake, Daisy’s granny always insisted, had been when Alf had come along after Mrs Hardy was getting on and had given up all hope of ever having a bairn. And with Mr Hardy being lost at sea when Alf was a young lad of seven or eight, the aunt’s money had seen them through until Alf was able to go out with the fleet, and then later work his da’s boat.

  This story, which Daisy’s grandmother had told her time and time again as a child when the little girl had crept into the old woman’s arms for a cuddle, had always held a touch of magic for Daisy.

  It was like a fairytale where everything came right at the end only it was true, and from Daisy’s being a bairn it had added a touch of enchantment to Mrs Hardy’s nicely furnished little home that would have made Alf’s mother smile if she could have read Daisy’s mind.

  And she could live in Alf’s cottage one day if she married him, Daisy thought as she watched Alf stride down the road. It would be her who would polish the fine pieces with lavender wax, and brush the two velvet-covered armchairs with bobbly beading round the bottom, when his mam was gone.

  Eeh! She shook her head at the last thought, horrified it had come into her mind. How could she think about Mrs Hardy passing away? She was wicked, she was, though she hadn’t meant it nasty like. She liked Alf’s mam, loved her even. And such was her self-reproach that she opened the cottage door with enough force to make her grandmother start violently in her bed.

  ‘Landsakes, hinny, whatever’s wrong?’

  Nellie was clutching her scrawny throat, eyes wide. Full of contrition, Daisy ran to the old woman lying on the platform bed pushed flat against the wall to one side of the range in which a good fire was blazing. ‘I’m sorry, Gran. Did I give you a gliff ?’

  ‘Give me a gliff?’ Nellie glared at the granddaughter who was the light of her life. ‘If me teeth weren’t me own I’d have swallowed ’em for sure.’

  ‘Oh, Gran.’

  ‘Aye, you might well laugh, miss, but me poor old heart can’t take much of that. What’s up anyway? You had words with someone? Someone upset you?’

  ‘No.’ Daisy hesitated. ‘I’ve just been talkin’ to Alf an’ he was . . . nice,’ she finished somewhat lamely.

  ‘I’d hate to be in this bed when he puts your back up then, lass. That’s all I can say.’ Nellie looked into the fresh young face in front of her and what she read there caused her voice to become gentler. ‘So, what’s caused you to come in all of a lather then, hinny?’

  Daisy stared at her grandmother for a moment before she said quietly, ‘Alf’s asked me to start walkin’ out with him.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ It was to Nellie’s credit that she didn’t fling her arms into the air and shout ‘Hallelujah!’ at this point, considering it was what she had prayed for ever since she had got wind of how Alf felt. In
stead she made a play of fiddling with the worn grey blankets covering the lower half of her emaciated frame as she said, her voice steady, ‘An’ what did you say in reply?’

  ‘I said I wasn’t sure, that I didn’t know whether I wanted to or not.’

  ‘I thought you liked Alf?’

  ‘I do, I do like him, but . . .’

  ‘But?’ Nellie’s voice was still gentle.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be more than likin’, Gran? Shouldn’t you feel . . . oh, I don’t know. Like you felt for Granda, I suppose.’

  ‘An’ what was that, hinny?’

  ‘That you’d give up everythin’, everythin’ an’ everyone, to be at his side?’

  By, but this bairn of hers had a way of putting her finger right on the spot. Nellie stared at her. ‘An’ you’re sayin’ you don’t feel like that about the lad?’

  ‘No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know, Gran. When I thought about Alf askin’ someone else . . .’

  ‘You didn’t like it.’ Nellie’s tone was flat.

  Daisy nodded miserably. ‘But that’s not the same necessarily, is it?’

  No, it wasn’t. ‘How did Alf take it when you said no?’

  ‘I didn’t say no, not really. I said I wasn’t sure an’ he said he’d wait, that he would give me all the time I need.’

  Thank you, God. Nellie relaxed a little. ‘Then there’s nothin’ to get in a pother about, is there, hinny?’ She reached out and took one of her granddaughter’s hands in her own, squeezing it once before she said, her tone bright, ‘Are them baskets empty? You sold the lot?’

  ‘Aye, look.’ Alf momentarily forgotten, Daisy reached into the pocket of her skirt and brought out the contents for her grandmother’s inspection. ‘Full price an’ all. Tuppence each for them big bloaters, an’ the cods’ heads went straightaway down in the rougher end of town.’

  Nellie nodded. ‘They make a fillin’ meal when they’re boiled an’ the flesh scraped off an’ mixed with potatoes, as we know, eh, lass?’ There was many a spell, especially in the hard northern winters, when they’d had to sell all the fish just to pay the rent and stay alive, and then the scraps of cod came into their own. But her bairn was a marvel and a natural housewife. Daisy had a way of making a penny stretch to two and she wasn’t averse to hard work neither, although - and here Nellie sighed silently - it pained her when her lass’s hands were raw and bleeding from helping George and Tom with the nets, or when she came in exhausted and sick to her stomach from gutting the fish and washing the offal.

  ‘Da’ll be pleased.’ Daisy had left her grandmother’s side and walked across to the range. Now she busied herself spooning two ladlefuls of broth from a big black saucepan standing on a battered wooden table to one side of the range into a smaller pan. She then placed this on the hob, pressing it towards the glowing coals before warming a few drops of goose grease and bringing the pannikin over to her grandmother. ‘Rub this in, Gran, while I see to things.’

  ‘Eeh, lass, you’ve enough to do without worryin’ about me, now then.’ Nellie slowly raised herself on to her elbows, and Daisy adjusted the straw bolster around the bony back before handing her grandmother the warm pannikin, whereupon she turned back to the range. And then she halted halfway across the room, glancing about her as she thought, This might not be as grand as Alf’s mam’s, but it’s a palace compared to some in the streets I’ve been to today where the pervading smell’s like sitting in the privy.

  Some of the fishing cottages, of which Daisy’s was one, had their own privies, square brick or wooden boxes with a wooden seat extending across the breadth of the lavatory and filling half its depth. These were situated outside the back door, and for those who were forced to share, the visit could be either foul-smelling or relatively odourless, depending on the fastidiousness of the last occupant. Daisy made sure a bucket of fresh ashes found its way to their privy every morning and evening, but the keen salty wind that was forever in evidence, even on the mildest of summer days, was the best purifier. She had been thankful she lived in the cottages situated on the shoreline ever since her first visit to the towns to sell fish. The strong odour of fish and seaweed and tar here, which clung to every cottage and infused clothes, bedding and furniture with its pungent smell, she did not even notice.

  The cottage itself was very small, merely two rooms downstairs - the living room and a scullery - and one room above, although some of the fishermen’s families had no upstairs at all. In the Applebys’ case a third of the bedroom at the end by the window had been partitioned off many years before by means of a ramshackle floor-to-ceiling screen, which George had made with odd scraps of timber he’d salvaged. This was Daisy’s space, and there was just enough room in it for her narrow box bed - nothing but a foot-high wooden platform, again cobbled together by her father, and an ancient flock mattress - an orange box containing her meagre items of clothing, and two more boxes placed on top of each other to form a kind of table. These were draped with a piece of thick yellow linen which reached to the floor, and which had given Daisy great pleasure ever since she had found the cloth washed up on the shore years before.

  This, together with the fact that she could sit up in bed and look out of the window - a mixed blessing in winter when the draught was enough to waft her hair about her face and ice coated the glass an inch thick - made her tiny bedroom a haven to Daisy.

  The table held the sum total of her possessions: her hairbrush, a small, chipped but still quite exquisite vase - another beachcombing find - which Daisy filled with wild flowers from spring to autumn, and Alf’s box holding some ribbons and hair grips which her da and brothers had bought for her birthday the year before, along with a small round hand mirror.

  The upper floor of the cottage was reached by means of a steep staircase almost in the form of a ladder, which led directly out of the living room into the one above, but in spite of the range below being kept going day and night in winter the bedroom was always icy cold. Her father and brother, weathered by the hard life they led on the freezing, wind-swept expanse of the North Sea, seemed unaware of the cold, and once they were under their blankets in the two iron beds the larger space boasted - in one of which used to sleep Daisy’s parents and the other her brothers, top and tailed - they were immediately asleep. Not so Daisy. Many was the night she shivered for half-an-hour or so in spite of her stone hot water bottle, finally drifting off to sleep curled round its warmth like a small animal.

  A popping sound from the pot on the hob brought her out of the uncharacteristically pensive mood she had fallen into, and she quickly tipped the broth into a clean earthenware bowl and carried it across to her grandmother. ‘Get this down you, Gran. An’ all of it, mind. Remember what that apothecary in Monkwearmouth said when Da went to see him after your last bad turn. You need to eat little an’ often. That’ll be better than all the mustard poultices an’ leeches an’ sulphur baths, he said.’

  ‘All right, me bairn. All right.’

  Once her grandmother was settled and sipping the broth, Daisy walked through to the scullery. The floor here was stone-flagged like the living room, and on it stood a table on which were piled dirty dishes and pans from the family’s evening meal the night before and breakfast that morning.

  There was also a poss-tub and poss-stick, a large tin bath which was leaning on its side against the wall, an upturned bucket on which sat a tin bowl, and under the narrow window a smaller table on which lay a large marble slab used for keeping food cool during the warmer months. Next to this stood a barrel made of wooden staves with metal hoops round them. There was another just outside the back door of the cottage to catch the rain and this, together with the freshwater stream which ran on to the beach some fifty yards from the cottages, provided all their water. Daisy now scooped up half a bucketful, filtering it through muslin - ladle after ladle - to strain the dirt out, and carried it through to the living room. She tipped it into the black kale pot permanently suspended by a chain attached to a metal rod which could swing
out over the fire when required, and which provided all their hot water for washing clothes and pans, and for bathing in the long tin bath.

  ‘Lass, I know you’ve got things to see to’ - her grandmother’s voice was apologetic - ‘but yer da wants you to work on the net.’ Nellie gestured towards the big net on the far wall of the cottage, held in place by a double-pronged hook which was fastened to the tarred walls of the room and which held the nets secure when they were being repaired. ‘Him an’ Tom’ve done the heavy work down the sides, you’ll only need the bone needles to mend what’s left.’

  ‘Aye, all right, Gran. I’ll do the dishes an’ get the mardy cake on for dinner first.’

  Poor little lass. Nellie’s sunken eyes watched sympathetically as Daisy’s slim figure bustled about the cottage. The old woman would have been mortally offended if someone had reminded her that her own daughter had been brought up to do the same tasks, and then Nellie hadn’t spared it a passing thought. The truth of the matter was that she had never loved her daughter like she did her granddaughter, her overriding disappointment at her own long-awaited child’s being a girl instead of the boy she had wanted for her husband only abating to some degree when Mary had redeemed herself by producing one baby boy after another. And such is the inconsistency of human nature that Nellie had never thought it ironic that she should now love Daisy with what amounted to devotion, whereas her five surviving grandsons held little interest for her.