Racing the Wind: A Cumbrian Childhood

CHAPTER ONE

Dark Days, Silver Threads

ON THE day I heard the news, I left my lunch untouched on the plate and wandered back down the dusty road to school, framed by the fell which lay under a lazy autumn haze. From the playground the sound of the girls playing a skipping game floated over the wall of the tiny playground. ‘Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper,’ they chanted, squealing if someone was careless enough to catch a foot in the rope.

I went inside and sat at my desk. Our teacher asked us to write a story about being granted three wishes; I wrote one word, ‘If…’ but pressed down so hard that the lead in my pencil snapped. I did not sharpen it, but sat staring at the blue lines and red margins of my English book. Two girls asked if they could read out what they had written, but their words meant as little to me as the drone of bees over moorland heather, and I laid down an arm to cover the blank page in front of me. Some of the infants at the other end of the room listened, while others hummed and murmured to themselves in their own private language and drew mysterious shapes on their small slates.

At afternoon break we ran across the road to the stile, up some steps, through a small gap in the stone wall and into to a rocky field we called The Howe. I joined in a game of tag but wandered off after a few minutes to find my friend who was lying on her back counting the stream of small fluffy clouds overhead. I shook her arm.

‘Barbara, listen, if I tell you something will you promise to keep it a secret?’

‘Sixteen, seventeen…’ She stopped counting and turned to look at me, her eyes wide, a trail of summer freckles sprinkled over her nose and the blue ribbon of one of her bunches trailing on the grass.

‘Is it important?’

I nodded.

‘Aw right. I promise.’

She looked serious enough to be entrusted with my secret so I bent to whisper in her ear.

She must have kept her word as school went on as usual until, on the Thursday, our teacher made herself a cup of tea at morning break and picked up The Whitehaven News.

‘Good heavens!’ she spluttered, looking at me over the top of the newspaper. ‘But, Pat, why didn’t you tell me your father had died?’

Her mouth fell open and she stared at me without speaking. With a collective gasp the children followed suit, though many had heard by now.

‘Blinkin’ ’eck!!’ one of the boys said. A silence followed.

‘Who knew about this?’

A few people sheepishly raised a hand.

‘Well,’ she puffed, and then added, ‘Oh dear!’It was as though my blood was turning to ice. I felt a great ache in my chest, and, laying my arms on the desk wept days of suppressed tears onto my reading book.

It was just not fair. For a start I did not live on a farm, help with the milking, look t’yows (check the ewes), pick taties or any other mysterious occupations. I was the only person in the school whose father voted Labour and now this had happened. I do not remember how the day evolved, only that I was treated carefully, which I hated.

Tragedies do not always happen without warning; sometimes they creep up with long shadows, deepening by the week, by the month, until one day the sun never comes out. My father had suffered from ill-health for as long as I could remember, sitting by the fire after his supper, eyes closed, in obvious pain from his duodenal ulcer, which today could no doubt be zapped by a course of antibiotics. He had to make do with milky drinks and cream crackers. I had to be quiet after he had eaten his supper, which he digested with closed eyes and hands resting on his stomach.

One day in mid-September I returned home from school and burst through the front door to find two neighbours sitting in our best chairs, sipping tea.

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘Upstairs with your dad. He’s not so well.’

At that point my mother called me up.

Nervously I entered the bedroom. There was a fire flickering in the small grate by the bed, a sure sign someone was poorly. A strong smell of Dettol pervaded the room, a frightening, serious sort of smell. My father was lying propped up by two pillows; he looked pale and thin in his blue striped pyjamas, but he was smiling.

‘Come over here.’ He took hold of my hand.

‘Now, I want you to be a good girl for Mummy. Do you promise?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

He squeezed my hand.

‘And you must say your prayers every night.’ He was a devout Catholic.

I did not reply, sensing finality in his words, and stepped back from the bed.

‘Say goodbye to Daddy,’ Mum said, gently propelling me forward, and he held out his arms to hug and kiss me, his skin cool and dry against my burning cheek. Bursting into tears I buried my face into the gold and black satin eiderdown, then was taken downstairs.

‘Joe’s had a haemorrhage,’ said one of the tea drinkers in a low voice, as another neighbour arrived. Whatever that was, it must be something serious. Auntie Doris was a good friend and had been given the task of looking after me while my mother accompanied my father to the infirmary in Carlisle, sixty miles away. An ambulance must have arrived, but I never saw it; clutching my stuffed toy and a few books I went off to her cottage at the end of the row, where I was to spend the next three weeks.

At first I was miserable and terrified at the thought of bad news. No one around had a telephone but there was one at the local grocer’s shop, where they kindly delivered messages if urgent. Then gradually I moved to a state of faint optimism; my father had been ill before and recovered. Why not this time? And so the days passed; soft early autumn days of hazy blue mornings and evening skies echoing with the sound of roosting crows in the nearby wood. I looked forward to my parents returning and picking up the thread of our lives again.

That is, till lunchtime on the 26th September. I left school as usual at midday and half ran, half skipped back to Auntie Doris’s for something to eat. I was hungry and thought of the slice of luncheon meat with salad and a piece of bread and butter in store, not to mention the spoonful of condensed milk I could pinch while she was in the pantry.

‘Hello dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll get your dinner.’ But I noticed that her voice was flat and subdued. She sat down beside me.

‘I got some news this morning,’ she said. ‘About your father.’ She paused and took my hand. ‘He’s gone to heaven, to be with Jesus.’

She was looking out of the window as she spoke, towards the sky, so I looked too, for a split second wondering if she had caught a glimpse of him, but knew immediately that was silly; heaven was invisible. She hugged me and then we cried a little, and she explained that it was good he was in no more pain, and that my mother would be returning soon. Only two months ago my father and I had celebrated our birthdays together, he his fortieth and I my eighth.

A few days later I stood on the steps of our cottage watching my mother walk slowly up the lane towards me carrying her suitcase. As she drew near she stopped and stretched out her arms, and with the accumulated longing and misery of those weeks without her, I ran down the steps and hurtled into her arms; nothing could ever be as bad again, now that she was home.

But later that evening the neighbours came round to pay their respects clutching cake and homemade biscuits while my mother brewed some tea. At first the atmosphere was subdued, but gradually people began to chat, firstly about what had happened and then relaxed into more general talk. I refused to join them even after my mother called me over.

‘I’m tidying my drawer,’ I said, straightening the boxes of games again for the third time. I glowered at my dolls and threw the yoyo into a corner with a pile of puzzles. It was chilly away from the fire but I refused to budge.

Finally, after everyone had left, Mum put her arms around me and said, ‘Now, tell me what’s wrong?’

‘You don’t care that Daddy died!’ my cheeks