After the Storm (18 page)

There was a gap under the study door as there had always been and the hose fitted beneath with no noticeable flattening. How could she not have seen when she passed, was it just a moment ago? Her breathing was shallow, rapid.

‘Archie,’ she called. ‘Archie!’

She rattled the door. ‘For God’s sake, answer. Let me in.’

But there was silence as she knew there would be. She hammered on the door and then it opened at a mere turn of the knob and the ugliness of the gas filled her face in a rolling wave. She shut it again and leant on the door, rubbing her forehead backwards and forwards against the panel. It was cool; so cool. You bloody bugger. Oh my God, you bloody bugger, how bloody could you. She beat her fists on the door, her mouth working and her rage growing but she did go in again and she did open the windows, her hand across her nose, gagging against the drowning mist and she did look at his body, upright in the chair except for his head which hung on his chest but she did not touch him. The gas was still writhing out of the grey flaccid hose but it was silent which was how his death had been, she thought bitterly.

Upstairs Annie half lay on Tom’s warm body. She was glad he had crept in as he usually did when the cold had sucked the warmth from his feet. She slept better when he was here; when he wasn’t at his Aunt’s. She pulled the blanket over her head and sank back into the underground treehouse and the lost boys. It had been the most wonderful Christmas of her life and she still felt the thrill of a world she seldom saw. The lights, the size, the gaiety, and she wondered if the people there knew of the world the sparkle did not reach. Tom had said he would
shout loud enough one day so that everyone would know; paint it on canvas for them to see. Good with his hands Tom was. She drifted, seeing daubs of yellow, red and green slashing from dark to light.

Through the warmth she felt the clumsiness of Betsy’s feet as they banged against the stairs, heard her shout and the hair on the back of her neck rippled. Betsy could not run! The landing was cold when she reached it and she stood looking at Betsy as she came towards her and saw the words slowly fall from the working mouth and she wondered if she could push them back, stream after stream, hand after hand but she knew they would just keep escaping though they would not reach her ears. She would not let them do that. Betsy pulled her hands away from her ears, jerked her, held her between strong hands and then Annie could no longer escape.

‘Finally gone and done it, he has. Joined your bloody mother,’ shrieked Betsy. ‘Bloody well stuffed himself with gas, d’you hear. Didn’t care a bloody monkey’s did he?’

‘What do you mean,’ Annie shouted, wanting to be heard above the noise.

‘Bloody killed himself, hasn’t he.’

Annie’s scream was loud and went on and on. Tom was there now, pulling at her, pushing at his mother. He had heard what Betsy said and it couldn’t, no it couldn’t be true. Annie’s face was ugly, her mouth was open. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. ‘Look at Annie’s face!’ he shouted at his mother, ‘What’s happening to her face?’

Annie held him back. ‘Get away from me, you bitch. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do anything so ugly. He was too neat. He wouldn’t leave me for her.’ She screamed again and could see herself from a great height; she was as ugly and distorted as he must be and she wondered if she would ever fit together again. And she saw and remembered throbbing bulging veins and heard the grinding fairground music. She refused to see the body and so did Tom.

Don came home the day after it had happened. He walked in the door and came to her. She was sitting by the fire, her hair was uncombed, she didn’t speak, just looked up as the door opened and he walked in.

‘So, the old fool left us all sitting in the middle of a right bloody mess, didn’t he,’ he said, sitting down beside her. He
had red eyes, Annie saw, but hers weren’t red. The pain still wouldn’t explode into tears, just sat in her body and tore her apart. She reached for his hand and he held hers. He had put his bag down by the chair but had kept his jacket on.

‘Where’s Betsy?’ he asked.

‘Round with Ma Gillow. She said she needs a good cry and someone to read the tea leaves for her.’ Annie laughed, then shook her head. ‘Poor Betsy. There’s no money but there is a ticket for you to get his watch back. It paid for the pantomime.’

Don stood up letting her hand drop. He walked to the sink and poured himself some water, then threw the mug back into the sink.

‘No money at all?’ he asked, turning to face her, his face dark with anger.

‘None. He wrote to Joe suggesting that he came back and took on the shop, using Betsy as housekeeper.’

‘Well?’ Don said, walking to and fro behind her, still thin-lipped, still raging, she knew, because he hit the back of the chair every time he passed with his fist.

‘Joe says yes, but not me and Tom.’

Don came and sat with her. ‘Well, I can’t have you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got me job to think of.’ He stood up again and this time walked through to the shop and poured some beer. His voice was distant but she heard him say. ‘Can’t you go to Albert’s?’

And Annie felt more anger to go on top of that which was already filling her to the brim. ‘I am going to Albert’s so Betsy says. Apparently he’s the nearest relative. Sarah Beeston wanted me but Albert said I was to go to him. Betsy said she’d trained me well enough to suit him.’ She tried to stroke through her hair with her fingers. It was like rats’ tails.

The door opened again and Tom came in carrying a tray, ‘May sent you this, Annie.’

She looked up at him and smiled as he took off the cloth covering a steaming bowl of broth and brought it to her.

‘You’re like a little old man, Tom.’ Her voice sounded strange to her, thin and flat.

‘Remind me to put me shawl on next time,’ he said, passing her a spoon. He sounded tired and sad.

‘Don’s back.’ She took a sip though she was not hungry. She felt she would never want to eat again. The spoon felt heavy.

Tom looked up as Don came through. ‘Glad to see you, Don.’
He smiled but looked at Annie in query as Don glowered back.

‘He’s just heard there’s no money,’ she offered.

Don came and propped himself up on the fender. ‘So where are you going, Tom? Your Auntie May, I suppose?’

Tom nodded. ‘I wanted to go with Annie.’

‘I told him May would do a better job of looking after him. He wouldn’t want to go to Albert’s.’

Don drank his beer. ‘He’s all right you know. Don’t know what you all go on about. He knows how to make money, not like …’

He stopped, aware that Tom and Annie were looking at him. He leant over and took the spoon off Annie. ‘Let’s have a bit of that,’ he demanded.

‘Only a bit,’ said Tom. ‘She hasn’t eaten for ages.’ Why did Don always come and shove his weight around? Couldn’t he see Annie wasn’t right. He was almost as tall at 11 as Don was at 15 but he was no match in weight. Don looked him over as he spooned another mouthful. Annie felt the tension between them.

‘Let her have it,’ Tom said, squaring his shoulders.

Annie’s hand felt heavy as she reached forward and touched Tom’s arm. ‘Do you think May could run to a bit more for Don? He’s had a long journey remember, he’s tired and upset. Just pop round the corner to her, there’s a good lad.’

She smiled at him and he looked at her, nodded and left. It was what she wanted but he was also scared.

Don grunted as he left.

She ate what she could before she passed it over to Don to finish up. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said and did not come down again except for bread and dripping until the day of the funeral, though she did go into Tom’s room whenever she heard him crying and she hugged him and told him everything would be all right. Think of the day at the beck – wonderful things do happen, she would say wishing she could believe this herself.

But he was the only da I had, Annie, he had wept, and she had almost felt the pain burst out of her into tears but it had not done so. Still there was this harsh blackness which choked her and which was shot through with great gusts of rage. She had patted him, hoping that, in May’s husband, Tom would find a father who would treat him like a real son. She sent him over there after that.

She did not see Don until the funeral. He stayed with Albert and earned himself a bit of money helping in the shop, and she would not think of that.

Betsy called her down on the morning of the funeral. She polished the sideboard, dusted the table, flapped the curtains a little free of dust. Tom helped her put in the middle leaf of the table and they carried through the food and it looked like a feast. But the smell and sight did not tempt her to eat. She felt as though she wasn’t really here, as though she was floating above it all but couldn’t escape.

The funeral was simple. It was cold and wet and Annie knew her feet were soaked and frozen standing in the earth at the edge of the coal-black hole and she felt grief give way to anger yet again. The graves looked pathetic, she thought viciously, just the two of them side by side in this poky corner to one side of the consecrated ground. Well, she hoped they were happy now, the two of them, wherever they were, because they’d sneaked themselves out of this beggar of a life very nicely thank you.

What about us, her mind challenged the yawning darkness as the coffin was sunk deep into the ground but she was suddenly too tired to work out any answers. She stood apart from the others, shoulders hunched and heard words solemn and deep-spoken by a vicar who could not say God, only Gond. Fancy choosing a man who stumbled over that word, she thought. His words went on and were licked away by the wind before they could settle. She preferred the silence which fell as they turned from the grave, from her parents and walked back through the narrow streets past neighbours who took off their caps and lowered their eyes. Another victim of the bosses, they thought and looked to the pit wheel in the distance which was still and quiet and had been since the owners had closed down the mine. They squatted down oblivious of the drizzle as the mourners arrived at the shrouded house. The ham tea was laid out in the dining-room.

Coats had been hung in the hall by Annie, and dripped on to the black and white tiles. Umbrellas, the few that there were, had been shaken and set in the stand. Sarah Beeston’s was grey and stood out against the black of the others, and the clock just went on ticking, thought Annie, as she moved past it and through into the dining-room. A room she had never sat in before.

She slid into a chair, set round the polished dark table. The
clink of glasses and murmur of voices washed over her. Tom squeezed her leg and she covered his hand with hers. Albert sat across from her, his face satisfied and for once not dour and bitter. Like the cat with the bleeding cream, she thought.

There were people she didn’t know. God was there, of course, in the shape of Bob Wheeler who looked pale and stroked his moustache continually. Grief was on his face and Annie was strangely pleased that he mourned his friend. Next to him was Sarah Beeston. Annie had not known her as she climbed out of the taxi. She had arrived just in time for the service and had slipped into the back of the church and Betsy had nudged her. Thank your da’s cousin for the gloves before she leaves, she’d said. She was tucking into the ham all right, saving herself a dinner when she got home, thought Annie, and my word, gets on well with God doesn’t she. Sat at his right hand too. The vicar would like that, sat at the right hand of Gond the Father.

She put Tom’s hand from her gently. ‘Get on with your food,’ she said quietly and rose. He was pale and shaken but wanted to stay next to her, so he rose also but she put out her hand to stop him, so he sat again and saw that the laughter, the smiles were growing now that the sherry was out. Annie could see Don swigging his back. He had been quiet at the graveside but now he was laughing with Albert and she wanted to bang their heads together but moved instead to the musty faded brocade curtains which had once been green, she knew, but now had no colour. Like the streets outside and the slag-heaps beyond and the distant laughter behind her. She gripped the curtain, dug her nails deep into it. How could the lost boys have come back to a world like this when they could have been free forever?

‘Annie, bring the decanter over, pet, let your Uncle Albert have some of your father’s whisky. Been a bit of a shock for the poor dear, hasn’t it?’

Automatically Annie turned to fetch the whisky. Betsy looked flushed, her eyes were still red-rimmed. She had cried and howled and Annie had been surprised at her grief. It had a fierceness about it which was almost savage, more like a rage that had burst and could only be forced back bit by bit. Perhaps it was an overpowering anger and who could blame her. She had borrowed a dress from her friend, Ma Gillow, who lived on the corner and was here, stuffing her face as a reward. Bet’s hands were permanent claw sausages in this weather and she
was struggling to cut her ham. Annie moved across and did it for her. Poor bloody woman, she thought.

‘And what about you, Joe dear? Will you have a sup of Scotch?’

Annie stood straight again, putting the knife on to Betsy’s side-plate. She felt the anger stir again.

Yes, what about you, Joe dear, thought Annie. Coming back to get your feet under the table again are you, just as he planned. Nice and neat, Da, you were always nice and neat. Little letters to little people, but it’s gone wrong and we are to go to places we don’t like. There are some things you can’t organise you know and other people’s lives are one of them. One day I’ll pay you back for what you’ve done, just you wait and see.

Betsy slapped her. ‘For God’s sake, hinny. Pass the decanter.’

It had been moved down here from his study and stood on the newly dusted and polished sideboard. The rich clean smell of polish lingered. Annie still had it on her hands from the waxed cloth. Not beeswax, Georgie Porgie, but it still looks good.

‘It’s all that’s left of his good stuff,’ minced Betsy to Ma Gillow. ‘Wedding present, not ours of course, his first.’ She pursed her lips and pressed her breasts up with her arms.