Hit the Road Jack , livre ebook

Volume III




Hit the Road Jack





Frank English









2QT Limited (Publishing)


First eBook Edition published 2017

2QT Limited (Publishing)
Unit 5 Commercial Courtyard
Duke Street
Settle
North Yorkshire
BD24 9RH

Copyright © Frank English 2017
The right of Frank English to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder


Cover design: Charlotte Mouncey
Cover images: main photographs supplied by © Frank English
Additional images from iStockhoto.com




ePub ISBN 978-1-912014-96-5

This book is also available as a paperback ISBN 978-1-912014-51-4














To mi Mam, Florence May English.
Always in mind.






Chapter 1
“W ho the bloody ’ell’s that, at this time of day?” Jud muttered, at the incessantly impatient rattling of the side door.
“Then why doesn’t thy go and have a look,” Marion answered sharply, “and stop being so bloomin’ grumpy?”
“I’ve onny just started mi cup of tea, for goodness’ sake,” he grumbled.
“It’s Marion that’ll be answering the door, then?” she replied sarcastically. “I’ll put my tea down and go and have a look, shall I?”
“Sarky bugger,” Jud muttered, as she opened the inner door on to the small porch.
“You took your time,” her visitor quipped with a grin.
“Jack!” she exclaimed with a note of excitement dispelling her mood. “Our Jack. My, it’s good to see a friendly face and hear a cheerful voice, for once. Come in, lad, come in. Why is it you always seem to know when a fresh pot has been mashed?”
“Knack? Skill?” he suggested, as he took off his shoes in the porch. “Or is it that there’s always one on the go, any time of day or night?”
He hugged and kissed her like he’d not seen her for an eternity.
“Mi granddad not in, then?” he added, noticing that he wasn’t sitting in his favourite arm chair by the hearth.
“He’s in t’front room, love,” she answered, dropping to a whisper, almost. “Not been too well lately. His chest’s playing him up.”
“Mmm,” Jack muttered, concerned to hear that. “Doctor been?”
“He has that,” she said. “Says there might be summat up wi’ his gall bladder, as well, whatever that is.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jack replied, sipping his tea. “Gall bladder?”
“Aye, lad,” a deep voice joined them from the front room doorway. “Thinks it might be gall stones.”
“Granddad,” Jack shouted, leaping to his feet to hug the big man.
“Steady on, Our Jack,” Jud warned. “Just a bit … delicate at the moment, si thi.”
“Oh aye, Owd Cock?” Jack puzzled, backing off a bit. “I’m rayt sorry to ’ear that.”
“Yon lass o’ thine bearin’ up all rayt?” Jud asked, a grin growing in his face the first time for some weeks. “Sent thee aht for a bit o’ peace, eh?”
“Summat like that,” Jack laughed. “I just wanted to come and spend a bit of time with you during mi holidays, you know. Don’t get much time when I’m in school.”
“But you were onny here in May last,” Marion puzzled. “Whitsuntide, wasn’t it? And now it’s end of August. Everything all right with yon … Lee, wasn’t it? How long have you been together now?”
Jack was quiet for a moment or two as he drank his tea and nibbled on a digestive in front of the fire.
“Been married for just over twelve months,” he said slowly, staring into the flames, “and everything’s all right, I suppose. It’s just that – living in the same house as her dad – she seems to want to spend more time with him than me.”
“Do you think it might be because she feels sorry for him?” Marion asked, trying to find a meaning to it all. “I mean, he is on his own, and she is his daughter.”
“You all right, Grandma?” Jack asked, a smile creeping up on him. “It’s not like you to give anybody the benefit of the doubt.”
“Cheeky young bugger,” she harrumphed with a grin. “There’s got to be some reason, hasn’t there?”
Marion was no fool. She knew instinctively things weren’t right. Hadn’t she known Jack’s ways and strangenesses almost as well as his mam for all the years she had known him? Because he didn’t show his feelings that often, he found it hard to hide entirely what was important to him. It would come out, she was sure, when he was good and ready, and not a moment sooner.
“How long you stopping, then?” Jud asked, as he sat down in his favourite kitchen chair.
“Well,” Jack started, choosing his words carefully so as not to worry them, “Lee has the car – her car – so I’m on the train. I was wondering if I might stay over a couple of nights? Get chance a to catch up, really.”
“Of course you can, love,” Marion said, glancing across at her husband. “Stay as long as you like.”
-o-
“That was a lovely tea, Grandma,” Jack smiled, pushing his empty plate away. “One of my all-time favourites.”
“It was only egg, bacon, and beans,” she said, a puzzled frown on her face. “Don’t you get anything better at home?”
“Doesn’t matter what I get, Grandma,” Jack said calmly, “as long as I like it. Lee doesn’t usually try to give me stuff I won’t eat.”
“Aye, Our Jack,” his granddad laughed, “tha allus were definite about what tha would and wouldn’t ayt for thi dinner.”
“None of yon tripe or liver or kidneys,” Jack insisted with a grimace and a shudder. “That’s an offal dinner.”
They all laughed as they settled by the glowing fire. Jack was back and at home, the stresses of everyday living melting away and taking him back to when he was a nipper again. He was concerned about his granddad’s health, though, but it wouldn’t do to labour it too much. Although Jud would expect him to be concerned, because it wouldn’t be Jack if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t expect him to cause a fuss. What he had he couldn’t change, like hordes of coal miners before him, and countless ones after, no doubt.
“Shall we be allotmenting tomorrow then, Granddad?” Jack asked, looking forward to seeing their old stomping ground. He was quite staggered to think it was nigh on twenty years since that first time he had smelled Tommy Stoke’s pig muck, and had seen Tom Smith’s duck shed. These memories brought fond feelings back to his mind, and a dimpled smile to his face.
“’Fraid not, Our Jack,” Jud said sadly. “Had to give up the second one a month or so ago. Couldn’t cope wi’ it any more, tha knows.”
“But what about yon greenhouses,” Jack sighed, “and all those memories we shared there?”
“Got a good price for the greenhouses,” Jud said, putting a brave face on it all, “but memories can’t be priced or sold. Anyway, they stay in mi heart and mi head. They’ll be wi’ me as long as iver I’m ’ere. Be rayt.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Owd Cock,” Jack said quietly and with a good deal of sorrow; sorrow which he would never let his granddad see. “Tha taught me all I know about all sorts of stuff up yonder, and I know it won’t amount to much in t’grand scheme of things, but it’ll allus stay wi’ me, tha knows.”
The room fell silent as insistent, crepuscular night sneaked in under doors and around curtains, challenging the crackling fire to fight its onslaught.
“’As tha been to see thi mam’s grave yet, Our Jack?” Jud asked as he drew the curtains and switched on the table lamp.
“Not this time, Granddad,” Jack replied. “Not yet. Now that we won’t be allotmenting tomorrow, I thought I’d pay her a visit, and tidy things up with some fresh flowers. Not the same from Womack’s florist, though, I don’t think. Not the same as yours…”
They drifted into an uneasy silence as they watched the shiny black nuggets spitting and hissing in the fire grate. Black diamonds, he called them, as each man struggled with his own personal fears for the future. Jack’s thoughts of his mam were hijacked by Lee constantly, as if she were telling him he ought to come back to her – soon.
He felt like he didn’t belong there any more, with the space for him in her life lessening as their lives moved on. He didn’t begrudge the time she spent with her dad, or the fact that they were living in his house. Ron had prevailed upon her to let him buy the house, which she would inherit when he died. Jack had never felt comfortable with this. His wife seemed happy with the arrangement, so he let it slide.
True to his principles and feelings of propriety, disquiet began to grow, which he shared with her. Quarrels had started to surface and increase, usually out of nothing much, but they left increasingly indelible residues in his mind. This sort of thing shouldn’t have been happening, but he didn’t have anyone impartial with whom he might share his disquiet.
-o-
“Well, mi owd love,” he muttered at his mam’s graveside as he weeded and titivated her garden, “I wish you were here to talk to. You were allus there to smooth troubled pathways, weren’t you? Now things are getting beyond my control and understanding. I miss you. I miss you a lot.”
“Jack?” a quietly surprised little voice urged him to notice its presence. His conscious thoughts resurfaced to a very real and painfully familiar face.
“Jenny?” he gasped, his eyes focusing on the one woman who could cause him pain and take it away at the same time. “What are you doing here?”