CHAPTER 41
Marsden is still a lovely place, a chaotic jumble of sea-stacks and tidewrack, sand and pebbles, with the deafening sound of kittiwakes screaming their name in case they forget it. We spent a while skimming flat stones, and exploring the caves under the Rock before returning to the Grotto terrace, where Mam, Neil and Ralph were ‘hevvin’ a bit tab, like’

I could never get my head around the fact that she was still here, still smoking, and Dad, whose only real excess had been exercise, was gone. The important fact, though, the vital one, was that she was indeed still here. Larinda held my arm in hers, as we walked with Will and Rachel.

“Nice here…”

“Aye. See that little cave, just along there?”

“Yeah”

“When I was young, when I had had too much, I would ride out here and sit there, watch the sea, build a little fire. Gave me a chance to get my head a little straighter, like”

She looked up the cliff, and I just nodded. “Aye, I thought of that a lot as well. Not good times, but I’m hoping for better now”

Rachel took my other arm as we moved off the firm tide-washed sand onto the loose shingle below the terrace. “And that word, mate? Hope, yeah?”

I slipped my arms free and hugged them both to me. “Aye, hope. Not had a lot of that, yeah, but things seem to be changing a bit”

They both giggled at my understatement, and it was as a laughing trio that we rejoined the others, and I saw the creases by Mam’s eyes as she smiled. Ralph was looking out at some distant marine point, and I wondered whether it was memories of Dad or his shipping days that held his thoughts just then. He shook himself, and smiled.

“Tha knaas, Jill, Ah remember up at Little Haven, when ye were a bairn, and Rob, thy Dad, like, took ye to see a ship that was blaan ashore there…so many, many years, aye? An’ ye’ve had this monkey on thy back just as lang. Bugger a hell, lass, how do we help?”

That love between men, it was apparent not just how much he had cared for my Dad but also why the elder Rob had cared for him. He was almost tearing up, I realised, and that would never do.

“How, a bit chilly here, aye? Time we were off to the tourist trap”

Up in the lift to the car park, and a last look out over the top of the rocks, and then we drove inland to the Gormley sculpture that dominates the approach to Newcastle and Gateshead, an immense standing figure with wings the size of a 747’s, and tucked almost underneath it, next to a riding school, a pub and restaurant, the Bowes Incline. They had a table, and they had beer, and so Ralph was happy. Rachel insisted on getting the drinks in, and I settled down to more tour-guiding.

“The name, Will? Cable railway. Full coal trucks go downhill, cable round a pulley pulls the empty ones back up. No energy involved apart from a brake on the cable. Pity the coal owners didn’t think more of their workers, like. Long story, not here, aye? Food…”

Rachel laughed out loud at that, and leant over towards Mam. “We’ve got her on a diet, yeah? Been good all day, apart from that breakfast of yours. Shall we let her loose for tonight?”

When my mother giggles, she loses about sixty years of her age, and she looked over to me and asked, “How do you get such good friends when you neglect your Mam so badly?”

It was a good night, as these things can be, and we kept the booze down to a trickle as two of us were driving, but the food was a delight and the company beyond complaint. Eton mess for pudding brought a sharp look from Larinda, but I didn’t care at that moment. I could actually see the possibility of a new life ahead. In the end, we made our way home, and of course had to finish the night off in the Nev, which seemed to be largely at Rachel’s instigation. I dropped back with her as we walked round from the house.

“You sneaking about, Rach?”

That brought a grin. “Well, if I never come back, I can at least flirt. He seems nice…”

“He is nice, Rachel, as far as I can see. He never gave me any shit at school, like, but he has a brother, and that one was always a bastard to me. Trouble is, I’ve been away so long, sort of lost touch, so if you want chapter and verse on him and his women, I can’t help you”

She nodded. “Yeah, and if he’s single, at our age, is it because of his faults, yeah, or whatever woman he was with? That the brother you were telling me about, the one who got kicked out of the Army? You do realise that was probably the reason he beat you up?”

“Don’t care, lass. Serves the fucker right”

“Jill Carter, just when I thought you were the soft, caring one!”

“Aye, mebbes, but it’s a bit bloody different when the person in question has been beating you up most of your school life. Bit hard to reach out and be fluffy, aye?”

I got her arm in mine, then, which seemed to be happening a lot. “Jill…look, I have a real problem with men, yeah, and you know that, but it doesn’t cancel out the need. Like that sleeping with your brother, yeah? That’s fine, that’s comfort, that was what we both needed, but there’s more…”

I laughed, wryly. “Aye, a shag is always nice”

“Jill, I could get a shag any time I wanted one, yeah? It’s not that. Well, it is that, to an extent, but it’s more sharing stuff, more, well, LIFE, yeah? Men have hurt me, one really, really hurt me, but, you know, I still want one of my own. Like I never learn, girl”

“No, I know what you mean. Nobody’s ever complete on their own, not if they’re normal, aye?”

“No man is an island, entire of itself…”

“And which of us is a bloody man, aye?”

We were still laughing as we entered the pub. Jim straightened up behind the bar as Rachel appeared, and there was a smile. Neil looked across at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I was never into bears, Rach, he’s just so not my type”

She grinned back, and made sure she went with him to get the beers in. Jim nodded from the bar at me, then made an odd shake of his head over towards the gents’ toilets, before switching his smile to ‘stun’ for Rachel’s benefit. I realised what he meant when the toilet door opened, and out came his brother.

It was like Bell’s appearance, an ogre from my past, but one that looked as if the intervening years had beaten him down. Unlike George, though, he was still slim and fit-looking, but the rage I remembered as burning in his eyes had gone. His stare was at distant things, and flicked across me without recognition. Neil knew him, though, and there was venom in his voice.

“Ah look, it’s John the puff!”

Jim growled at my brother. “Not here, not now, aye? Ye of aal folk should understand, aye? Not here, not now. And not ever if he’s wi’ me”

Oh, shit. I could recognise that look now in the older brother, his life folded, crashed and burned on things he had never had a choice in, and I realised Rachel had been right. I had turned my pain and despair inwards, slicing myself away piece by piece, and John Forster had thrown it outwards. If I hurt, I’ll make sure I’m not the only one. Which of us was in the worse state? I looked around our table, and it was obvious, and Rachel’s words came back: soft, caring. Fuck it, be true to yourself, Gillian. I rose and went to the bar.

“How, John”

“Rob? Rob Carter? What do ye want with me?”

The accent had slipped, the English taking over from the Geordie in him, but I could still hear that voice, the one that had taunted me so regularly just before each attack. Wind it back, girl.

“John, your lad tells us you have had…problems, aye? Explains a lot, when I think about it”

Pause. Deep breath. “Look, I ran into Geordie Bell the other night, aye? He was an arsehole at school, and thirty-odd years later he’s an arsehole with a red nose, aye? No change. Ye…look, thirty-odd years ago. If ye’re still that arsehole we knew, then I am more than happy to tell ye to fuck off and die, aye? But I think ye might have learnt a bit, so…shit, if ye need to talk, that’s us, aye, Raafie and Mam and my friends. Your call”

I looked over the bar, and Jim was staring, muscles working in his jaws, and then John just turned and went straight back to the toilets. Jim watched him go.

“Rob, thanks, aye? He’ll be back, once he’s dried his eyes. He might be a puff, like, but he’s still a man. Sorry Ah had to hev words with thy brother, but that one’s mine. Now, that Rachel lass…she single?”

“Are you, Jim? She doesn’t play games, that one”

“Ach, Rob, ye knaa Ah wes aalwes sweet on that Wendy Charlton?”

“Curly hair, fat arse?”

“Cheeky hoit! Aye, well, we got together, like, and then she moved away, and came back, like, and that was when Ah was working in the quarry at Springwell, aye? And she’d got off wi’ some lad ower Northampton way, and he gans off wi’ someone else, like, so there’s Wendy, and she’s got a bairn by the bloke, aye? Three years aad, and she caals her Elizabeth Gemma, and how, Rob, she was bonny, even if her dad were a darky, aye?”

Smiles, with shadows, and I was trying to second guess the outcome, because it wasn’t going to be good. Everything was past tense, everything was closed.

“So, Ah teks them both on, aye? Never stopped…never stopped loving Wendy, aye, never. And I’ve not got much, but it’s theirs, and we find a flat with an extra room for the bairn, and it’s good, and Ah’m being a dad, like…”

John was back. “It’s OK, kid. Look, go back, have a cup of tea, aye? I’ll hold the bar for a while. Gan on”

Jim disappeared through the private door, and John turned to look at me. “Thank you, Carter. Rob. I think it’s time we went back to the start, aye? I’m John Forster and I was a cunt. I’m now John Forster and I’m a puff. Not much to choose from, aye?”

“Hi, John, I was Rob Carter and I was a victim. I’m now Jill Carter and I’m a woman”

Why the hell had I just told him that? I hadn’t had a lot to drink, he was certainly not a close friend, WHY? His eyes crinkled a little.

“Fuck me. I always did wonder if you were like me”

“I am, sort of”

He looked across at the table. “Which one?”

“Larinda, on the left. Your kid has his eye on Rachel, the other one”

“And I thought I had a shitty deal. Look, I better tell you about Jim, save him breaking down, aye? It’s Christmas, the presents are ready…”

He paused, just for an instant, then it all came out in a rush of words.

“Cold snap, aye, he goes to work, she puts the heating on for the two of them, cheap boiler, shit flue...”

I knew what was coming, right away, and John’s voice took on a dreamy tone, his eyes like Ralph’s were at the beach, staring into the past and the distance.

“And when they die like that, aye, they always look so healthy, so happy, so alive…and that would have been his first Christmas as a dad, like, and the presents were all there, all ready for the big day, wrapped…fuck it, Jill, Rob, what do we have to do before this life gives us some breaks? I think I will take you up on that offer, aye? You OK, Jim?”

His brother was back, and clearly realised John had finished the story. “Aye, kid, aye, Ah hev te be, aye? Gan on, Ah’ll cope here. Thanks, Rob”

John winked, just for me. We went over to my little group, and he smiled at them.

“Can we perhaps have a fresh start, like?”