Chapter 8
One year later.
Meanwhile Wakefield itself was slowly changing.
The old mining town had begun filling with new faces over the past few months.
Men came for work from all over, drawn by the mines, the mills, the brickworks, the engineering plants and the busy wharves along the Calder.
Barges still crawled through Thornes Wharf carrying coal and raw materials, though Patrick muttered with a shake of his head that the river trade was dying.
Some of the newcomers were coloured folk like herself.
Caribbean men with deep rolling laughter. Indian and Pakistani workers who travelled in groups to the factories and brick-making yards.
A few Chinese families had opened narrow little shops near the market streets, selling dried mushrooms, strange sauces in bottles, silks and bright tins with labels no one could read. Children pressed their noses against the windows while older folk muttered suspiciously about foreign things.
The town tolerated the change in the way a man tolerated the icy rain—grudgingly and miserably.
And at the pub, Asha slowly became part of the scenery.
Not fully accepted, but no longer entirely foreign either. A hard worker and a devoted mother. Not one to mess with if you didn't want to meet James in a dark alley.
One evening, a group of younger men from the brickworks came in together. They had been to another pub before this and they were loud and half-drunk before they even sat down.
One of them caught her attention.
Or rather—she caught his.
He was younger than most of the miners. Lean-faced and handsome, with warm brown skin, curly dark hair and intense eyes that followed her every movement. Twice she caught him staring, only to quickly look away. She knew he was either Indian or from Pakistan.
The third time their eyes met, he smiled. By his third pint, his courage bloomed enough to ask her name. She only smiled and slipped away.
As she placed another beer in front of him, he suddenly spoke in a familiar language from home.
“You shouldn’t be in a place like this.”
The words made her feel both homesick and terrified at the same time. She had often wondered what her traditional mother would have said had she seen her now, serving alcohol to men.
For one startled second, she nearly answered in the same language before remembering herself.
“The owners prefer that we speak English here,” she replied shortly before walking away. The truth was she didn't know if either Patrick or Mavis had opinions of that sort but she wasn't risking her job for nostalgia.
She could not help but feel regret as she watched the smile slip from his young face. He must be lonely in this foreign land.
A few men looked curiously between them.
Across the pub James had turned his focus to this new threat to what he considered his territory. He was sitting near the far wall with two of his friends, pint untouched in his hand.
The young man tried again later when she passed with empty glasses.
“Come now,” he said once more. “At least speak properly to your own people.”
Asha was not aware that James had risen despite his friends trying to talk him down. The young man seemed oblivious to the approaching danger.
James crossed the floor slowly, pale eyes fixed entirely on the other man's bent head.
The lad noticed too late. His grin faltered and his throat bobbed as James advanced towards him.
A thick hand clamped around James’s forearm before he could reach him.
“Easy, lad,” said Patrick in the tone he used to soothe his unruly sons.
The older man’s voice was calm but promised to bodily remove James if he broke anything.
Asha watched with trepidation as James’s muscles bunched beneath his rolled sleeves before relaxing. His gaze never left the younger man. For one frightening second Asha truly thought he intended to drag him outside and squeeze the life out of him.
The entire pub had fallen silent. The young brick worker swallowed hard, all of the swagger draining from his face.
Patrick tightened his grip slightly.
“Ain’t worth prison over this, is it?”
James breathed once through his nose. Then again before slowly stepping back.
But his expression promised pain. The young man looked away first. Then James turned his silver eyes to shoot a possessive warning at Asha to stay well away. Mavis took over the table.
And later that evening, while Asha stood alone in the back corridor trying to steady her nerves which had still not recovered, Mavis appeared beside her with a long, suffering sigh.
“Oh dear,” she muttered. “This is getting serious. The look on his face, girlie. Next thing you know, he will be pissing a circle around ya.”
***
For the entire trip home that night, Asha did not say a single word.
She remained silent on the bus. There were none of those shy side-glances he had come to anticipate. No, now her mouth was set in a tight line.
James sat behind her in silence, broad shoulders taking up too much room in the narrow seat while the boy slept against her chest, one small fist curled in her coat. He had grown in the last few months and it was becoming a struggle for her to carry him and his bag.
He watched the tense line of her shoulders, the rigid way she stared ahead and he suppressed a frustrated sigh.
He thought they had been getting closer.
She no longer flinched when he touched her hand. She accepted the books now. Sometimes he even caught her watching for him when she stepped outside the pub at night.
And then he had gone and lost his temper. When he had seen that boy look at what was his, he saw red.
He had lost control and now he would have to backtrack.
The bus rattled through the sleeping town before finally hissing to a stop near her street. James automatically stood and paid the tickets before she could argue.
She did not thank him, but neither did she protest.
Outside, the cool air smelled faintly of rain and coal smoke.
The familiar walk stretched ahead of them, narrow streets silvered beneath weak lamplight. Her shoes squeaked softly against the pavement while his heavier footsteps followed several paces behind.
The boy slept through it all.
When they reached the building, James noticed movement upstairs immediately. A twitch of curtains. The landlady was watching.
The old bat probably timed his arrivals.
He snorted to himself.
Asha climbed the steps slowly, shifting the child awkwardly in her arms. James could see the strain in it now—the exhaustion drooping her shoulders after fourteen-hour days.
He turned slightly, preparing to leave as he always did.
“Wait.”
Startled by this break in their routine, it took him a moment to realise she was talking to him. She only stood there silently beneath the dim hallway light, waiting for his mind to catch up.
Then she gestured awkwardly toward the sleeping boy.
“Can you carry him up for me?”