The Gambling Man Read online

  The Gambling Man

  Catherine Cookson

  Rory Connor was a gambling man and he had a gambler’s luck. From the day he was born, his mother had known that Rory would be the one to make something of his life. At seven years old he was earning money from odd jobs and by fourteen, he was in full-time work. By the time he was nineteen, he had escaped the factory to become a rent-collector.

  Now, at twenty-three, ambition was in full flow and he was always looking to bigger and better games to play. He feared nothing and nobody, not even the unscrupulous landlord he collected for. For an ordinary working lad, he was doing well – until one day, his luck changed and suddenly, things did not go as smoothly as he was used to . . .

  THE GAMBLING MAN

  Catherine Cookson

  THE CONNORS

  Paddy Connor a steelworker

  Ruth Connor his wife

  Rory Connor their elder son, a rent collector

  Jimmy Connor their younger son, apprenticed to a boat builder

  Nelly Burke their only daughter, married to Charlie Burke

  Lizzie O’Dowd Paddy Connor’s half-cousin

  THE WAGGETTS

  Bill Waggett a widowed docker

  Janie Waggett his daughter, a nursemaid and engaged to marry Rory Connor

  Gran Waggett his mother

  THE LEARYS

  Collum Leary a coal miner

  Kathleen Leary his wife

  Nine surviving children of whom three have emigrated to America

  John George Armstrong Rory’s friend and fellow rent collector

  Septimus Kean a property owner

  Charlotte Kean his only daughter

  PART ONE

  1875 Rory Connor

  1

  Tyne Dock was deserted. It was Sunday and the hour when the long dusk was ending and the night beginning. Moreover, it was bitterly cold and the first flakes of snow were falling at spaced intervals, dropping to rest in their white purity on the greasy, coal-dust, spit-smeared flags.

  The five arches leading from the dock gates towards the Jarrow Road showed streaks of dull green water running down from their domes. Beneath the arches the silence and desolation of the docks was intensified; they, too, seemed to be resting, drawing breath as it were, before taking again the weight of the wagons which, with the dawn, would rumble over four of them from the coal staithes that lay beyond the brick wall linking them together. Beyond the fifth arch the road divided, one section mounting to Simonside, the other leading to Jarrow.

  The road to Jarrow was a grim road, a desolate road, and a stretch of it bordered the slakes at East Jarrow, the great open stretch of mud which in turn bordered the river Tyne.

  There was nothing grim about the road to Simonside, for as soon as you mounted the bank Tyne Dock and East Jarrow were forgotten, and you were in the country. Up and up the hill you went and there to the left, lying back in their well-tended gardens, were large houses; past the farm, and now you were among green fields and open land as far as the eye could see. Of course, if you looked back you would glimpse the masts of the ships lying all along the river, but looking ahead even in the falling twilight you knew this was a pleasant place, a place different from Tyne Dock, or East Jarrow, or Jarrow itself; this was the country. The road, like any country road, was rough, and the farther you walked along it the narrower it became until finally petering out into a mere cart track running between fields.

  Strangers were always surprised when, walking along this track, they came upon the cottages. There were three cottages, but they were approached by a single gate leading from the track and bordered on each side by an untidy tangled hedge of hawthorn and bramble.

  The cottages lay in a slight hollow about twenty feet from the gate, and half this distance was covered by a brick path which then divided into three uneven parts, each leading to a cottage door. The cottages were numbered 1, 2 and 3 but were always called No. 1 The Cottages, No. 2 The Cottages, and No. 3 The Cottages.

  In No. 1 lived the Waggetts, in No. 2 the Connors, and in No. 3 the Learys. But, as this was Sunday, all the Waggett family and three of the Learys were in the Connors’ cottage, and they were playing cards.

  ‘In the name of God, did you ever see the likes! He’s won again. How much is it I owe you this time?’

  ‘Twelve and fourpence.’

  ‘Twelve an’ fourpence! Will you have it now or will you wait till ye get it?’

  ‘I’ll wait till I get it.’

  ‘Ta, you’ve got a kind heart. Although you’re a rent man you’ve got a kind heart. I’ll say that for you, Rory.’

  ‘Ah, shut up Bill. Are you goin’ to have another game?’

  ‘No, begod! I’m not. I’ve only half a dozen monkey nuts left, an’ Janie there loves monkey nuts. Don’t you, lass?’

  Bill Waggett turned round from the table and looked towards his only daughter, who was sitting with the women who were gathered to one side of the fire cutting clippings for a mat, and Janie laughed back at him, saying, ‘Aw, let him have the monkey nuts; ’cos if you don’t, he’ll have your shirt.’ She now exchanged a deep knowing look with Rory Connor, who had half turned from the table, and when he said, ‘Do you want me to come there and skelp your lug?’ she tossed her head and cried back at him, try it on, lad. Try it on.’ And all those about the fire laughed as if she had said something extremely witty.

  Her grannie laughed, her wrinkled lips drawn back from her toothless gums, her mouth wide and her tongue flicking in and out with the action of the aged; she laughed as she said, ‘That’s it. That’s it. Start the way you mean to go on. Married sixty-five years me afore he went; never lifted a hand to me; didn’t get the chance.’ The cavity of her mouth became wider.

  Ruth Connor laughed, but hers was a quiet, subdued sound that seemed to suit her small, thin body and her pointed face and black hair combed back from the middle parting over each side of her head.

  Her daughter, Nellie, laughed. Nellie had been married for three years and her name now was Mrs Burke. Nellie, like her mother, was small and thin but her hair was fair. The word puny would describe her whole appearance.

  And Lizzie O’Dowd laughed. Lizzie O’Dowd was of the Connor family. She was Paddy Connor’s half-cousin. She was now forty-one years old but had lived with them since she had come over from Ireland at the age of seventeen. Lizzie’s laugh was big, deep and hearty; her body was fat, her hair brown and thick; her eyes brown and round. Lizzie O’Dowd looked entirely different from the rest of the women seated near the fire, particularly the last, who was Kathleen Leary from No. 3 The Cottages. Kathleen’s laugh had a weary sound. Perhaps it was because after bearing sixteen children her body was tired. It was no consolation that seven were dead and the eldest three in America for she still had six at home and the youngest was but two years old.

  It was now Paddy Connor, Rory’s father, who said, ‘You were talkin’ of another game, lad. Well then, come on, get on with it.’

  Paddy was a steelworker in Palmer’s shipyard in Jarrow. For the past fifteen years he had worked in the blast furnaces, and every inch of skin on his face was red, a dull red, like overcooked beetroot. He had three children, Rory being the eldest was twenty-three.

  Rory was taller than his father. He was thickset with a head that inclined to be square. He did not take after either his mother or his father in looks for his hair was a dark brown and his skin, although thick of texture, was fresh looking. His eyes, too, were brown but of a much deeper tone than his hair. His lips were not full as might have been expected to go with the shape of his face but were thin and wide. Even in his shirt sleeves he looked smart, and cleaner than the rest of the men seated around the table.

  Jimmy, the younger son, had
fair hair that sprang like fine silk from double crowns on his head. His face had the young look of a boy of fourteen yet he was nineteen years old. His skin was as fair as his hair and his grey eyes seemed over-big for his face. His body looked straight and well formed, until he stood up, and then you saw that his legs were badly bowed, so much so that he was known as Bandy Connor.

  Paddy’s third child was Nellie, Mrs Burke, who was next in age to Rory.

  Bill Waggett from No. 1 The Cottages, the son of Gran Waggett and the father of Janie, worked in the docks. He was fifty years old but could have been taken for sixty. His wife had died six years before, bearing her seventh child. Janie was the only one they had managed to rear and he adored her.

  Bill’s love for her had been such that he did not demand that she stay at home to keep house for him when his wife died but had let her go into service as a nursemaid, even though this meant that once again he would be treated as a young nipper by his mother who was then in her seventy-ninth year. But he, like all those in the cottages, gave her respect if only for the fact that now at eighty-five she still did a full day’s work.

  Collum Leary was a miner. He was now forty-eight but had been down the pit since he was seven years old. His initiation had been to sit twelve hours a day in total blackness. At eight he had graduated to crawling on his hands and knees with a chain between his legs, which was attached to a bogie load of coal, while his blood brother pushed it from behind. He could not remember his mother, only his father who had come from Ireland when he himself was a boy. The nearest Collum had ever got to Ireland was the Irish quarter in Jarrow and as he himself said, who would bother crossing the seas when almost every man-jack of them were on your doorstep?

  Collum at forty-eight was a wizened, prematurely aged man who carried the trade-mark of his following on his skin, for his face and body were scarred as with pocks by blue marks left by the imprint of the coal. But Collum was happy. He went to confession once a twelve-month, and now and again he would follow it by Communion, and he did his duty by God as the priest dictated and saw to it that his wife gave birth every year, at least almost every year. Those years in which she failed to become pregnant were the times he took Communion.

  ‘How’s the shipbuilding goin’, Jimmy?’ Collum Leary now poked his head forward across the table.

  ‘Oh, grand, fine, Mr Leary.’

  ‘When are you goin’ to build your own boat?’

  ‘That’ll be the day, but I will sometime.’ Jimmy nodded now. Then catching Rory’s eye, he smiled widely. ‘I said I will, an’ I will, won’t I, Rory?’ The boy appealed to his older brother as to one in authority.

  Rory, shuffling the cards, glanced sideways at Jimmy and there was a softness in his expression that wasn’t usual except when perhaps he looked at Janie.

  ‘You’ll soon be out of your time, won’t you, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy now turned towards Bill Waggett, answering, ‘Aye, beginnin’ of the year, Mr Waggett. And that’s what I’m feared of. They turn you out, you know, once your time’s up.’

  ‘Aw, they won’t turn you out.’ Bill Waggett pursed his lips. You hear things around the docks you know; there’s more things come up on the tide than rotten cabbages. I hear tell you’re the best ‘prentice Baker’s ever had in his yard; a natural they say you are, Jimmy; mould a bit of wood with your hands, they say.’

  ‘Aw, go on with you.’ Jimmy turned his head to the side, his lips pressed tight but his whole face failing to suppress his pleasure at the compliment. Then looking at Bill Waggett again and his expression changing, he said, ‘But I’ll tell you somethin’, I wouldn’t be able to finish me time if old Baker saw what I was doin’ at this minute.’

  ‘You mean havin’ a game?’ Rory had stopped shuffling the pack and Jimmy nodded at him, saying, ‘Aye. Well, you know what some of them’s like. But now there’s a notice come out. Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘No, you didn’t. A notice? What kind of a notice?’

  ‘Well it says that anybody that’s found playin’ cards on a Sunday’ll lose their jobs, an’ if you know about somebody having a game an’ don’t let on, why then you’ll lose your job an’ all.’

  Rory slapped his hand of cards on to the table. ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Aye, Rory.’

  ‘My God!’ Rory now looked round at the rest of the men, and they stared back at him without speaking until his father said, ‘You don’t know you’re born, lad.’ There was a slight touch of resentment in the tone and the look they exchanged had no friendliness in it. Then Paddy, nodding towards Bill Waggett, said, ‘What did you tell me the other day about when you worked in the soda works, Bill?’

  ‘Oh that. Well’—Bill brought his eyes to rest on Rory— ‘couldn’t breathe there. If you were a few minutes late you were fined, and if it was a quarter of an hour, like it might be in winter when you couldn’t your way through the snow, why man, they stopped a quarter day’s pay. And if you dared to talk about your work outside you were fined ten bob the first time, then given the push if it happened twice. That’s a fact. It is, it is. An’ you might be sayin’ covered of any account. And if anybody covered up for you when you were late . . . oh my God! they were in it for it. You know what? They had to pay the fine, the same fine as you paid. You were treated like a lot of bairns: back-chat the foreman and it was half a dollar fine. My God! I had to get out of there. You see, Rory, as your da says, you don’t know you’re born being, a rent collector. Your da did something for you lettin’ you learn to read. By! aye, he did. It’s somethin’ when you can earn your livin’ without dirtyin’ your hands.’

  Rory v was flicking the cards over the flowered oilcloth that covered the wooden table. His head was lowered and his lids were lowered, the expression in his eyes was hidden, but his lips were set straight.

  Jimmy, as always sensing his brother’s mood, turned to Collum Leary and said, ‘It’s a pity our Rory isn’t in America along with your Michael and James and one of them boats that ply the river, like Michael said, where they can gamble in the open.’

  ‘Aye, it is that, Jimmy,’ Collum laughed at him. ‘He’d make his fortune.’ He turned and pushed Rory in the shoulder with his doubled fist, adding, ‘Why don’t you go to America, Rory, now why don’t you?’

  ‘I just might, I just might.’ Rory was now fanning out the cards in his hand. It would suit me that, down to the ground it would. A gamblin’ boat . . . .’

  ‘Gamblin’, cards, fortunes made in America, that’s all you hear.’ With the exception of Rory the men turned and looked towards Lizzie O’Dowd, where she had risen from her chair, and she nodded at them, continuing, ‘Nobody is ever satisfied. Take what God sends an’ be thankful.’ Then her tone changing, she laughed as she added, ‘He’s gona send you cold brisket this minute. Who wants pickled onions with it?’

  There were gabbled answers and laughter from the table and when she turned away and walked down the room past the chiffonier, past the dess-bed that stood in an alcove, and into the scullery, Janie, too, turned and followed her into the cluttered cramped space and closed the door after her.

  Hunching her shoulders upwards against the cold, Janie picked up a knife and began cutting thick slices off a large crusty loaf. She had almost finished cutting the bread before she spoke. Her head still bent, she said quietly, ‘Don’t worry, Lizzie, he won’t go to America.’

  ‘Aw, I know that, lass, I know that. It’s me temper gets the better of me.’ She turned from hacking lumps of meat from the brisket bone and, looking full at Janie, she said, ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, it’s funny, but you understand, lass, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye, I understand, Lizzie. Aw, don’t worry, he understands an’ all.’

  ‘I wish I could think so.’

  ‘He does, he does.’

  Lizzie now put the knife down on the table and, bringing one plump hand up, she pressed it tightly across her chin as she remarked, ‘I’m not a bad woman, Janie, I never was.’

&nb
sp; ‘Aw, Lizzie, Lizzie.’ Janie, her arms outstretched now, put them around the fat warm body of Lizzie O’Dowd, whom she had known and loved since she was a child; even before her own mother had died she had loved Lizzie O’Dowd as if she were a second mother, or perhaps she had placed her first, she was never quite certain in her own mind; and now, their cheeks pressed close for a moment, she whispered, ‘It’ll all come right. It’ll all come right in the end, you’ll see.’

  ‘Aye, yes. Yes, you’re right, lass.’ Lizzie turned her away as she roughly swept the tears from her cheeks with the side of her finger. Then picking up the knife again and her head bowed once more, she muttered, ‘I think the world of Ruth an’ I always have. She’s the best of women . . . . Life isn’t easy, Janie’

  ‘I know it isn’t, Lizzie. And Ruth’s fond of you, you know she is. She couldn’t do without you. None of us could do without you.

  ‘Ah, lass.’ Lizzie was smiling now, a denigrating smile. ‘Everybody can be done without.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Have a walk around the cemetery the next time you’re out.’

  ‘Aw. Lizzie—’ Janie was leaning against her shoulder now laughing—’you’re the limit. You know, every time I feel down I think of you.’

  ‘Huh, that’s a left-handed compliment if ever heard one: When you’re down you think of me. You can’t get much lower than down, can you?’

  ‘You!’ Janie now pushed her. ‘You know what I mean. Look, is that enough bread?’

  ‘That! It wouldn’t fill a holey tooth; you’d better start on another loaf . . . How is that nice family of yours?

  ‘Oh, lovely as always, lovely, Eeh! you know I often wonder what would have become of me, I mean what kind of job I would’ve got in the end. I’d likely have landed up in some factory, like most others, if I hadn’t had that bit of luck. Life’s so different there, the furniture, the food, everything. The way they talk the master and mistress, I mean. Do you understand, Lizzie? You know I’m not bein’ an upstart but I like bein’ there. Mind you, that’s not to say I don’t like comin’ home; I love coming home, even when I know me grannie is goin’ to choke me with words and her bloomin’ old sayin’s. Eeh! the things that she remembers.’ They were laughing again. Then she ended, ‘But there’s different kinds of life . . . I mean livin’, Lizzie. You know what I mean?’