Читать книгу The Girl From World’s End - Leah Fleming - Страница 12

29 June 1927

The total eclipse of the sun was going to be the most exciting event in Mirren Gilchrist’s life since that snowstormy night at World’s End.

Granny Yewell was throwing a leaflet from the council on the table, telling them the hours when they must dowse their fires, so as not to spoil sightings of the sun with smoke. ‘If I hear one more word about this blessed eclipse…’ she called out to Grandpa Joe, who was kicking off his boots in the back porch and then knocking over his mug of tea on the clean tablecloth.

‘There, look what you’ve done,’ she snapped. ‘What a fuss about nothing. You’d think it were the end of the world!’

Poor Gran got so flustered and crabby when the farm workers invaded her kitchen, but there was always something warm waiting for Mirren on the table after school: a pot of broth or warm oven-bottom teacakes dripping with rhubarb jam. Adey Yewell had taken a great interest in her schooling ever since she’d marched down to Windebank with her hackles raised on her granddaughter’s behalf and tore a strip off Mr Burrows.

‘We can’t have our lass wasting that brain of hers trying to knock some learning into lumps o’ lard like Billy Marsden. You should be grateful to have such talent. I want no more nonsense. She’s taken her punishment from us so just you treat her right or you’ll have me to deal with!’ Of course, news quickly spread and the whole village was agog at Adey’s stand. Mirren felt so proud of her.

Now that Mirren and Mr Burrows had come to an understanding after she wrote her own letter of apology, and the vicar had stepped in as referee with the family over the runaway episode, school was not so boring. She was going to be put in for a prize scholarship. The Head was giving her extra coaching and he didn’t have whisky breath any more. A new girl called Lorna Dinsdale arrived in Mirren’s class. They became best friends and they were both trying for the scholarship together: no skiving off for Mirren with Lorna chasing her heels in class for top marks.

One of their projects was to study the total eclipse of the sun, due that summer, and the vicar brought in lantern slides to explain the ‘fenominer’ and how their dale was to be honoured with the best view in the whole of England. It was the centre of Totality. The sun was going to be eclipsed completely right above Mirren’s head.

No one in the village could talk of anything else because every farmhouse, cottage and hotel was going to be booked up with visitors. There was brass to be made.

‘Aye,’ Joe replied to Adey, mopping up the spilled tea, giving his wife and granddaughter one of his twinkling looks. ‘Who knows what the Good Lord in His mercy, who sets His firmament in the sky and causes the sun to go down at noon, has in store for us? It’s all there in the Good Book. I shall be taking mesen off to the highest spot to stand before my Maker. I’ll be nearer heaven should I be taken up to glory and you should all be doing the same.’

Grandpa Joe was of the old school of local preachers; just like the preachers in the Band of Hope at Scarperton, well drenched in the Holy Bible, never considering he had done service to his Lord unless he had his congregation whipped up into a frenzy of enthusiasm, making their Sunday roast dinners dry out in weariness by the length of his preaching, but she loved him dearly. There was always a sweetie in his pocket for her and a twinkle in his eye.

‘Now then, none of that talk afore the lass,’ Gran said, seeing Mirren’s wide eyes on stalks. ‘I’ll have enough to do making breakfasts for all them folk thronging the hillsides for a good view. It’ll be all hands to the pump, Joe. I want that yard spotless.’

Mirren knew they’d put their names down on the Eclipse Committee to provide field parking, hot breakfasts and some overnight accommodation when the world came to Windebank. All this work for a little extra brass in the kitty would be useful come the autumn when she must be kitted out far winter: clogs, shoes, uniform. Her legs just kept growing out of things. There was a limit to how far the egg money would stretch, but she would do the work and collect the takings. That was what this coming eclipse was all about.

They had seven bedrooms and she must go in the attic while Grandpa Joe could kip in the stable loft for one night and the family visitors would sleep in the upper parlour on a camp bed. Gran would charge ten shillings a night for the privilege of sleeping in her best rooms and full breakfast.

Organising parking in the fields would be Uncle Tom’s job with Uncle Wesley’s boy, Ben, from Leeds, but they were all moaning about the wetness of the spring and the awful summer so far, and Tom didn’t want his fields poached or the lambs disturbed by vehicles.

Gran suggested they open the fields for campers, tents and cyclists, and charge at least a shilling per person. It was only for one night.

‘You’re a hard woman,’ Joe smiled, sipping from his refilled mug of tea with relish.

‘Someone has to be in this house,’ she argued. ‘You’re as soft as butter with yer head either stuck in a milk pail or in another world, on yer knees night and day waiting for the call to glory. If thousands of mugginses want to traipse up here for a clear view, then let them pay for it, I say.’

‘That’s hardly the spirit, Mother, of a good Christian woman,’ he tried to tease her, twinkling those blue eyes, but she was not for soft-soaping.

‘Life’s shown me that you don’t get owt for nowt in this world. We’ve a bairn now to feed and clothe. You have to take yer chances, as well you know, and this event won’t happen again in our lifetime right slap-bang in this dale. The minute the shadows are over, I’ll stoke up my fire and make a hundred breakfasts if I have to. Think of the brass.’

‘There’s more to life than brass, Adey,’ said Grandpa Joe.

‘My name’s Adeline, as well you know, but it’s brass as polishes the silver, keeps us all fed and clothed. We live off our wits and off our land. The land can give us a bonus this year, that’s all,’ she answered. ‘The girl’ll have to do her stuff too and earn her keep.’

Mirren sensed that her gran got tired of having a boisterous child around when the rest of her family was grown up. She tried not to show it but it sort of leaked out at the corners. The coming of the city hordes was a worry to her, not being used to throngs of people.

‘I don’t like offcumdens wandering where they will, knocking down walls and leaving litter, frightening and stealing. I shall keep out of their way,’ Adey added.

‘They’d not want to meet you on a dark night with yer dander up. No need to put up any sign “BEWARE OF BULL” but “BEWARE OF FARMER’S WIFE’”, Grandpa laughed, but Gran was not amused.

They were always arguing and bickering, and sometimes forgot she was there, but they were kindly and welcoming so that the sad life in the Rabbit Hutches seemed a long time ago. She wished she could remember her own mam. All she had of her was the photographs in her father’s tin box, but being here she could imagine her as a little girl on the farm and wonder how she could ever have left such a beautiful place.

Sometimes they sat her by the fire and quizzed her about life in the Hutches but Mirren only told them the good bits. The bad times were hidden at the back of her head and not for sharing.

Cragside was a house full of men with Grandpa Joe, Uncle Tom, the yard boys and shirts to iron. Mirren helped Carrie where she could but Uncle Tom, up at Scar Head, was in want of a wife to do all his laundry, and needed regular pies and bread to keep him stocked up. The news that he was courting was a great relief, but Florrie Sowerby worked in The Fleece, which didn’t go down so well.

Grandpa teased Mirren that she was growing into the bonny bairn of the dale, the bobby-dazzler with golden curls and bluebell eyes, fringed with long lashes. She’d rather be a boy and race around the school playground with a football, never sitting still, scourge of the Sunday school trying to catch up with Jack Sowerby, who ignored her when he was with his friends. She palled up in mischief with anyone who’d let her join their gang. The village girls gave her a wide berth but Lorna stuck to her side.

No one seemed to fuss much over appearance but Uncle Tom knew the way to her heart and sometimes brought her ribbons and crayoning books from the market. Sometimes he brought Florrie’s son Jack to help out on the farm. They would all be coming to help out with the parking and cooking.

Mirren’s hair was bobbed short now. It was easier to manage than plaits. Grandpa Joe complained she looked like a lad, which pleased her no end.

Gran was not one for titivating her appearance to please her man. She preferred sludge colours, plain shirts and pinafores with her greying hair scraped back.

Farm cooking was plain and simple with ‘no frills and fancies’. They baked rabbit pies and rib-sticking milk puddings, food to fill bellies and stave off hunger until the next feed. There was no time on a busy farm for fancy baking and showing off, Gran declared, so each week’s menu followed a regimental order: roast, cold, mince, pie, hash, stew. Who needs a calendar when you can tell the day of the week by the dish of the day? Mirren thought. The days of bread and dripping and what her dad called ‘push pasts’ with Granny Simms were long gone.

As they went about morning chores, Gran was barking out lists and orders for the coming invasion. This kitchen was her world and she ruled it like a sergeant major. Sometimes Mirren caught the sharp end of her tongue and wondered why Gran was being so hard.

It was Uncle Tom who told her the tale of Adey’s parents, who were farmers up the dale, who’d killed a cow for their own use and then when others fell dead and anthrax was discovered, it was too late for them to survive. Gran was boarding with an aunt near Settle and banished from any contact. She never saw her parents again or got to say farewell, and never went back to visit the spot. The farm was boarded up and the land useless. It would never be farmed again in her lifetime. She was the object of curiosity and pity for a while. Who wanted a child of anthrax victims on their land?

This made Mirren sad too, for she knew how it felt to be left alone in the world at the mercy of strangers. She was glad that Grandpa Joe had made Gran happy and she, in turn, ploughed all her love into running her side of the dairy, butter and cheese making and housekeeping as efficiently as she could. No one could ever say Adeline Yewell was a shirker of duty who let dust settle, or a lazy mother whose lads wore grey shirts not white, or one who kept a poor table and empty cake tins. Just when she was due a rest, along came Mirren to spoil the show.

Now Gran was going to make sure that the money pot on the mantelpiece would be stuffed full of brass by the end of this eclipse but she’d not be giving this sun dance a second glance herself.

Mirren loved Cragside. No one had a house as big or grand as this one. Only Benton Hall was bigger and it had been a hospital for the soldiers in the war who couldn’t walk or talk. In her eyes Cragside was a fairy castle high on the hill. She was the princess in the turret, huddled under the goosedown quilt as the wind whistled around, the candle flickering in the draught, while Jack Frost painted ice pictures on her window. She felt safe here, the house wrapped its arms around her, shielding her from ghosts and ghoulies of the night.

Sometimes she thought she heard the voices of children laughing and playing across the landing but when she got up to find them there was only silence and creaky floorboards. Here she was queen of all she surveyed. This was her world and she’d never leave this kingdom.

Now the valley would be flooded with visitors. Tomorrow the world would come to her kingdom and she was afraid, not of the eclipse for they had done that at school for months, but of having to share this space and give up her room.

She loved the magic lantern and slides show with the blinds down, showing pictures of the moon eclipsing the sun and how the light would be blotted out for twenty-three seconds. It would go very dark and she was not to be frightened because Jack said the light would not be destroyed.

Jack’s class in the grammar school were doing the topic, and he knew about everything and kept going on about ‘the Totality’ and that was why everyone wanted to come to Cragside to see it all.

Very important people were setting up telescopes at Giggleswick, down the dale, and the Prince of Wales would come to see it if he could. Grandpa Joe said they must all pray each night for a perfect viewing with no clouds to hide the sky or no one would see anything.

Uncle Tom was busy, and Florrie Sowerby was running round with a pink face shouting at Mirren to shift this, shove that, and tidy everything away. She looked so pink all the time, trying to butter up Gran into liking her.

Jack had plans to go car spotting, for there would be thousands of motor cars and motor bikes heading in their direction. He could not imagine there being so many cars in the whole world. Only the squire and the doctor had a car in Windebank.

When the first few cars began to scrunch their gears up the hill, Mirren and Jack were sitting on a five-barred gate that shut the road from the young lambs on the moors. It was Jack who opened the gates for the driver in goggles and a leather helmet. Mirren waved at them and the ladies smiled. Then the man held out a penny for Jack so they shut the gate behind them carefully and scrapped over how they would spend it.

There were three such gates at strategic points across their stretch of the moor track from Windebank village. They sat on one apiece with Uncle Wesley’s son, Ben, who’d arrived on the train from Leeds. He was ten and nearly as tall as Jack. There would be pennies galore to collect if they smiled and opened the gates.

What started as a game soon was a deadly endeavour to see each gate stayed closed, opened, and then reclosed after each vehicle. Cyclists were happy to open their own gates, nodding to the children but giving nothing. Motor bikers with side cars were not much better, but it was the large stately cars that yielded the richest pickings.

Mirren’d never possessed so much brass in her life. Pocketfuls of halfpennies and pennies, three-penny bits and even some silver sixpences were thrown at them by ladies, who patted her shiny bob as she curtsied, in case any of them were real lords or ladies.

By the evening of the Tuesday night there was a steady stream of cars heading to spend the night on the hills, waiting for the 5.30 a.m. start of the eclipse.

It was Jack who decided they would make most money during the night, guiding motorists up towards the parking fields with lanterns.

‘But it’s our secret, right?’ Jack whispered. ‘We’ll go to bed no bother and sneak out later, but it won’t go dark until nearly midnight. Don’t go blabbing owt to yer gran, Mirren.’

Mirren had never been up at midnight before. She was a little afeared of the darkness, but she’d do anything to impress Jack and Ben. Everyone knew there would be great revels in the valley: eclipse dances and cinema shows, cafés open all night, midnight parties. The newspaper was full of notices of events and Grandpa Joe read them all out with a sad face.

‘This’s no way to prepare for the Lord’s coming, in such drunkenness and dancing. They should be on their knees in prayer, asking the Lord to be merciful to sinners and temper His wrath. Much is expected of us, children,’ he exhorted.

Mirren was that wound up with excitement she stayed wide awake in the attic, watching out of the window as their visitors arrived by the front porch to stay in the grander rooms at the front of the house. Gran and Florrie were decked out in their best checked pinnies and hats, and never noticed Jack and Mirren in their lookout tower.

Mirren didn’t like the thought of strangers using her jerry pot under the bed in the night but Gran’d clipped her ears and told her not to be cheeky to visitors. It was only for one night.

Where were they going to hide all their pennies? She was dreaming of the sweetie shop down the village with a shelf of jars: rainbow crystals, liquorice straps and dolly mixtures, sherbert dabs and chocolate drops. She spent her money ten times over in her head, slavering with delight. For the first time in her life she was going to be rich beyond her wildest dreams. How she wished Dad could be here to see it all.

At last she fell asleep, dreaming of cars dancing across the sky and coins falling like rain.

Jack woke her with a start, shouting in her lug hole, ‘Gerrup! Time to get cracking…out of the window.’

Getting out of the attic window was not for the faint-hearted. Jack had done the old sheet rope trick as best he could but it didn’t stretch down far enough. He just jumped the rest, falling on the grass and waving Mirren on.

In the half-light she was terrified but tried to be brave and climbed down backwards, feet touching the stone walls until she ran out of sheet and had to let go. The jump took her by surprise as she fell on her side, cracking her elbow. Tears welled up in her eyes but Jack pulled her up roughly and she winced.

‘Hurry up, slow coach…follow me,’ he whispered, but Mirren was struggling to keep up in the darkness, trying not to cry as they made for the barn loft to meet Ben, guarding the lanterns, which Jack knew how to light.

‘I can’t carry one now, me arm…’ she cried, pointing to her elbow. Jack yanked the lamp off her.

‘Give it here and make for the gate,’ Ben offered, and she trundled on, watching Jack every step of the way.

Out on the fellside they could hear sheep bleating at the noise of harmonicas and gramophone records echoing out into the night air. There seemed hundreds of twinkling lights dotted around the fields: campfires and the flickering of car storm lamps. It was as if the hills were alive with an army before some battle. Uncle Tom would go mad at all the mess in the fields.

There was a snaking light along the river road in the valley, cars edging their way north to see this great show. If only her arm didn’t hurt so much, Mirren thought, but Jack kept rushing her to do gate duty.

‘I can’t open the gate, Jack. Me arm hurts,’ she said.

‘Don’t be a girl’s blouse,’ Jack snapped. ‘We should never have let you come.’

‘Am not! Look yerself, it sticks out funny,’ she snapped, swallowing her snot, trying to be brave.

‘We’ll have to do it together then, but yer not having my share of the brass.’ Jack glanced at her arm. ‘This was my idea.’

‘It’s not her fault she can’t use it,’ said Ben with concern. ‘Why couldn’t you both have used the back stairs?’

Mirren was glad someone understood. It was hard trying to stand her corner but the pain was yelping now.

Jack ignored her protest and did the best he could, but the takings were down without the full workforce.

Mirren knew she was letting the side down but even Jack could see her arm wasn’t right.

‘It’s sticking out funny. You’d better go off home,’ he yelled. But both of them knew if she was caught out of bed she’d be for it and in trouble for taking money from strangers in the dark.

‘Better stay put here,’ said Ben, pointing to the old barn, ‘until first light and we can pretend we got up early.’

Mirren was so tired all she wanted was to curl up and sleep if she could lie comfortable. She crept behind them to the shippon. It was a fine warm summer night and excitement grew as dawn broke over the valley. The day was clear and promised a good view. She lay on the tussocks of hay sheltered by the stone wall, letting Jack and Ben deal with the stragglers. Her eyelids dropped and soon she was dreaming of a wonderful eclipse.

There he was making a fool of himself as usual, thought Adey, watching Joe at his antics. He was sitting on the high ridge at World’s End, marvel-ling at the sight of such a throng of people now assembled on the slopes, just like the Sermon on the Mount. He had it on good authority that only a miracle would open the skies for he had been to the open prayer meeting that night and heard about the Reverend Charles Tweedale, Vicar of Weston, who had attached himself to the Astronomer Royal’s party at the Giggleswick Observatory in order to make sure that they would have a pure viewing of the corona.

There was no stopping him when he was on one of his missions. He’d sent word for all Christians to kneel down and pray for the parting of any clouds, for he had dreamed that a great black cloud would obstruct the view if left to its own devices. He’d decided the least he could do was to hold a vigil on this side of the hills to back up any emergency should it arise on the other, where the Anglicans were gathered. Better that Chapel and Church should work together for the good of all, for a change.

He’d tried to get Tom roped in but he was far too busy calming his restless cows. It was rumoured that animals could run amok at the first signs of shadows and darkness.

He should have had more sense than to get Adey out here when she was busy up to her elbows in flour, baking baps with the last heat on the range. She might be hard as flint on the outside but he knew her heart was warm. She’d never got over losing George, and Ellie running off like that, and blamed herself for being a bad parent.

Sometimes it was hard to fathom why Joe had taken to her so strong. The Yewell boys were known for being one-girl men. She’d not let him down, running the farm on tramlines. He couldn’t fault her housekeeping but even she knew she was laced up too tight. No one ever saw her sit down to count the daisies, allus on the go. There was never a grin on her face. Perhaps a bit of laughter would do her good, crack the enamel on that stiff mask into something close to pretty.

If Adey stood still she would flop down and be a limp rag. It was better to be on the go. But Joe had dragged her high up the fell. The ridge might have a great view but there was nothing else going for World’s End but the old ruins that had saved the child last winter.

She surveyed the sky. It was nearly 5.30 now and already light. She hoped Florrie had dowsed the fire but she could see in the distance a bank of cloud gathering that might scupper their view. Soon the clouds were playing hide-and-seek with the sun.

Joe was looking at his fob watch. It was 6.10 and one black cloud was progressing ever closer to the sun. The eclipse was beginning to happen and the crowds on the hillsides were ready with their spectacles and smoked-glass eye shields.

Even Adey was peering out anxiously. Everyone was willing the clouds to break. Then she saw her husband fall on his knees and throw out his arms, heedless of the curious looks from bystanders. It was time to wait upon the Lord as the cloud moved ominously on.

‘O Lord of the Heavens and Earth, open our eyes to the wonders of the Firmament. Just budge that cloud a little lower down,’ he was pleading, a single voice in the silence of anticipation and dread. Suddenly the sun stood alone with the moon creeping to its position through a window in the sky. Joe got up and came rushing over.

‘Come on, Adey, leave yer fiddling, come and see the miracle,’ Joe yelled from his perch. ‘Come up here and see the eclipse.’

‘Leave me be, Joe. I ought to go down and see to things,’ she snapped, but he strode over and grabbed her by the arm roughly.

‘For once you’ll do as yer bid. There’s more to life than griddle cakes and bacon. The porridge’ll keep. Have a bit of soul, woman…’ He pulled her towards the edge facing east, overlooking the fells where people now crawled like ants in the gathering gloom.

Have a bit of soul indeed, she thought, as she stared up at the broken cloud watching the shadow pass across the sun. Suddenly there was a chill of air, and darkness was falling fast. The silence was unnerving. She was glad Joe was watching by her side.

A hush fell over the crowds. A silence you could cut with a knife, so sharp and powerful. Then came the racing shadow over the fells like the wings of some black angel brushing across the earth, an eerie shadow of death passing over their heads.

Adey watched the black moon devouring the sunlight. Joe shoved the smoked glass in front of her and she glimpsed briefly the sight of the corona of fire and bowed her head.

All the songbirds were silent and the chill made her shiver, for she felt the whole world was wiped out and for a second she felt such panic. How many of their ancestors had stood and watched in terror as this mysterious act was performed in front of their eyes? They would have looked with fear and dread at this unexpected darkness.

She thought of Mam and Dad, George and Ellie, and of the terrible war. All that grief and suffering, and for what? She was flooded with grief, and tears welled in her eyes. It was all there in that black shadow blotting out life and warmth and happiness, all the shadows of her own life rolled into one.

Yet even this shadow could not blot out the sun’s rays and fire. It was an illusion of time and circumstance, just an illusion. The sun’s life burned regardless, the crown of fire would win through with power. Each of those twenty-three seconds seemed like an eternity of suffering burned up, devoured in the heat of life.

Would the sun ever return them to brightness? What if Joe was right and this was the end of the world? Was she fit to meet her maker, this sad, shrivelled-up, old-before-her-time woman? More than anything she longed for it to be over, for colour and life to return, for the warmth to touch her very heart as it had when she was a child so many years ago.

She turned to look at Joe afresh, her husband, her boys, Tom and Wesley safe, this farm, her life, and young Mirren, their second chance. This was what mattered now, not the past lives.

Suddenly the Totality was over and the shadow slipped away. Light was beginning to return. The clouds raced in, closing the curtain on the sun. There was nothing to see.

Huge cheers went up, a stirring of relief and excitement as the dark moment passed. The moors began to clatter with the roar of vehicles and engines revving up. Normality would soon return, but Adey was transfixed by what she had witnessed; something so unexpected, so personal, enlightening.

It felt like a message just for her–as if scales had fallen from her eyes and she saw all things anew. How small the world below looked from this perch; how magnificent were the hills around them, grey and green. ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’ she sighed.

There was such a vivid green to the fields, a sharpness to the grey walls, a freshness of the breeze on her cheek as she raced down the slope towards the outline of Cragside. She noticed the white blossom dripping from the hawthorns, their scent wafting up her nostrils. She looked up at the frontage of their ancient farmhouse as if seeing its grandeur for the first time. This is my home, my family, she thought, though Joe might be standing in his midden clothes, still smelling of the farmyard, scratching his head at all he has seen, no doubt thinking his prayers have opened the skies. She saw Jack and Ben strolling among the crowds, eyeing the girls with interest. It was good that those two were becoming friends, but where was Mirren?

Mirren woke in the hayloft at the sound of cheering, her eyes crusted, and she wondered where she was. Then she felt the pain in her arm and heard voices whispering down below.

‘Tom, behave yourself! I’ve got the breakfasts to do!’ giggled Florrie Sowerby. Mirren leaned over to see more. Tom was on his back pulling Florrie into the hay, fooling around, tussling her. What were they doing? He was jumping on her like a tup at a ewe. They were kissing and making silly noises. Wait until she told Jack.

She was leaning so far out to see more that she rolled off the edge, falling between them with a scream. Uncle Tom lay back at the sight of her, laughing, scratching his head in surprise.

‘Look what’s jumped out of the hay.’

‘I’ve hurt me arm,’ she sobbed.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Florrie, trying to examine it. ‘I don’t like the look of this, love…It’ll need a looking-at and some of Dr Murray’s bone-setting liniment and plaster of Paris.’

The two lovebirds straightened down their clothes and made for the door. Jack came tearing across the yard and in through the barn door.

‘Did you see it, Mam?’ he said, looking up at them all with a cheeky grin on his face.

‘Of course,’ Florrie smiled. ‘It were that grand it made my eyes water. It makes you think…’

Mirren began to howl again, great rasping sobs that brought all her family running.

‘Does it hurt that bad?’ Uncle Tom asked.

‘I missed it,’ she sobbed. ‘I missed it all. I were asleep and they never waked me.’ She stared hard at Jack, one of her darkest glowers. It was then that Uncle Wes took a snap of her holding her elbow and scowling with his little box camera.

Gran gathered her up to comfort her, trying not to touch the sore bit. ‘Don’t fret on it, lass. Happen you’ll be young enough to see it again,’ was all she could offer. ‘I nearly missed it myself and that would have been a great pity, Mirren. There’ll be no second chance for me.’

If only she’d stayed in her own room and out of mischief but she had to go following Jack Sowerby It was all his fault and she wasn’t ever going to speak to him again; not never.

‘Look at the mess!’ shouted Uncle Tom, surveying the litter over the fields. No sooner had the world and his wife departed, and the farmers mopped their brows and counted the cash, than the real price was there to see. There were makeshift camps and fires, broken bottles, tyre marks and ruts and spilled petrol cans.

‘The dirty buggers!’

‘Thomas! Not in front of the children, please,’ shouted his mother.

Before the day was over there was news of other farms where lambs were caught and roasted on makeshift spits over fires.

‘Never again!’ sighed Tom.

Mirren had had to have her arm set in plaster down in Scarperton and that meant a trip on the bus and more expense, so she offered her cash and then out it came about Jack’s little scheme. Gran was not impressed.

‘I can’t leave you lot, five minutes…Now there’s doctor’s bills to pay and the house to clean out. Those mucky beggars from Bradford left the bedrooms in a tip. They’ve broken crockery, and my fancy towels are missing and the little china horse that belonged to Great-Aunt Susannah. Don’t go asking me to take in lodgers again, not so much as a please and thank you, and them with a car and a chauffeur.’

‘Oh, don’t take on so,’ said Grandpa Joe. ‘They’re only things. They can be replaced. Pity the poor devils who’ve to go back to soot and smoke and toil. Town folk don’t know how to behave in the country. They think it’s a big park to play in. They forget it’s our livelihood, but no mind…’

Mirren emptied her pockets of coins and put the whole lot on the table with a scowl.

‘There’s three shillings in coppers and two shilling pieces and sixpence…You can have that, Gran, for my doctor’s bill,’ she sighed. The furry sweets she was keeping back in her pocket. No one was having those.

‘We’ll put it in your piggy bank for a rainy day,’ Gran said, siding it all away. ‘I have to admit it was a grand do seeing such wonders in the sky.’

Mirren scowled again. ‘But I didn’t see any of it, it’s not fair…’ She turned for sympathy but none was coming.

‘You can take that look off your face, young lady. Life’s not fair and the sooner you learn that lesson, the better.’

Adey reckoned there were three miracles delivered on that June morning. The first was the easy one: the opening of the clouds to let them have the only clear view of Totality in the entire country. But the second was much harder to quantify. It was as if that eclipse brought such a change in their household and in herself that even she couldn’t understand. It wasn’t so much as if she got in the habit of cracking smiles more often or bothering a bit more about what she dolled herself up in, it was more as if she were one of them pictures that got itself hand-tinted with a bit of colour wash. Her knitting patterns were a bit brighter and her pinnies took on a bit more of red and blue and brightness.