After the Storm (21 page)

‘Just you remember that. If you want a job, you have to do as you’re told. That’s one lesson we should all ’ave learnt by now.’ He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. He dropped it on the floor, watching it as it fell. ‘Boil that up today.’

He pushed past her to the door. ‘You’re lucky to have such a tolerant boss, Annie. Work, that’s how you survive these days.’

She shook her hand at his back as he shut the door. And lending money out and adding on a power of interest, you bloody old skinflint. Don’t think I don’t know all about it. You’re a blood-sucking scrooge. She picked up the handkerchief with the shovel and poker and heaved it on to the fire. It might mean a clout but it would be worth it, to show him he didn’t treat her like that. Today it didn’t matter anyway.

The boots were still there in the corner, the newspaper was soggy from the thawed early spring frost and fell away as she lifted them but she did not put them on although her toes were numb, neither did she hurry as she walked back from Andover Street and shopped at the corner near Wilson Terrace. Georgie lived near here and just maybe she might see him when he came off the midday shift.

The walk home was long because he was not to be seen although the whistle had blown at the pit for the shift end. The sandals found new areas to rub and she tottered into the yard, the sugar heavy in her hand and he was there, leaning against the shed rolling a Woodbine, his face black from the pit, his cap on the back of his head. Annie knew her nose was red and her legs mottled by now without stockings. She was joyous and ashamed.

The yard broom had slipped down the wall by the corner of the privy and she set it back in its place. The mortar was crumbling between the bricks and flakes fell where she had disturbed it.

‘The pit needed pudding and pie today, then,’ she called and marvelled at these words which came from herself and sounded quite calm.

He moved from the wall, settling his cap more firmly on his head.

‘Never change, our little Annie, do you?’ he drawled.

This time she could not answer because the words would have found no way to squeeze through the swelling in her throat. Our Annie he had called her.

‘Here, try this then.’

The finished cigarette was thin and flopped in the middle with tobacco straggling from either end. It was still damp from his lick down one side and smelt like her father’s pipe. The taste though of the dark brown shreds was sharp and bitter and when he lit it the paper flared, her mouth opened and it dangled helplessly from her lower lip quite unalight. He reached out and between strong square thumb and forefinger gently peeled it off her lip without tearing the skin.

‘Like this, pet,’ he said and placed it between his lips which were pink on the inside but otherwise dust-covered to blend with his face. He lit it with a match picked from amongst others, red-tipped and pale-stalked. The sulphur scent lingered long after the hiss of striking until the mellow breath of lit tobacco replaced its odour. He was the most beautiful creature Annie had ever seen.

‘Now breathe this in as though you are sucking them corn stalks we used to pick up peas.’

Sharp and burning was the drawn breath but his lips had held it as hers were now doing so heaven was in every puff.

‘Where’s me bloody lunch and put that fag out of your mouth or I’ll belt your behind, you lazy little strumpet.’

The door slammed behind Albert as he withdrew his head and the noise of the back alleyway came alive and the yard looked small again.

He grinned and lazily pushed his bike to the gate.

‘See you, bonny lass, and don’t burn his bread and cheese.’

How had she never noticed his eyes were brown and his lashes as thick as the hedgerows along by the beck?

Before he rode away, he turned. His face no longer smiling. ‘You tell me if he ever hurts you, Annie.’ He hesitated, his foot on the cobbles, steadying the bike. ‘I won’t have anyone hurt you.’

The days passed in a rapid pulse of waiting and being with him. The summer evenings were lazy and long and the fish
shop had a lamp-post which had known Tom’s swing-rope and now knew their shoulders well. Around their feet the crumpled paper blew and she failed to notice when a scattered sheet would catch against her legs until tugged further by the breeze. Until nine at night she was Albert’s, after that she was Georgie’s and the gang’s. Albert had said she could do whatever she liked and Annie had been deflated; she had expected a battle but he had merely shrugged. Your da wouldn’t have liked it, he had grunted and turned again to his paper.

When Georgie was on late shift she still passed along Mainline Terrace on shoes bought from Garrod’s used goods shop and lolled and laughed but did not soar and felt tired when she was the last to be dropped at home because no parent would be breathing fire and threatening damnation of bairns of 14 walking home late with lads of 16 at well past the time decent folk were in their beds. Aye, but when the lad was there, then was the time for flights of pleasure as rough hands held hers and arms which thickened daily with twisting muscle lightly pulled her to him and she was special.

The hours merged into softly breathed air and mirth which melted one girl into one boy and they strolled with occasional words the longest way to the door, then long, closed-mouth, breath-held kisses left her yearning and bereft to see him go. Annie knew he was her summer sun and the only reason she drew breath and that no one in the entire world had felt as she did.

On Sundays, they would collect Tom and Grace and stroll to the beck with Beauty. She was too small for any of them now but still kept Tom in liquorice and pink mice with her manure and nuzzled Annie as she lounged on the bank. Sometimes Georgie would have some honeycomb and they would lick and suck the honey. They watched one day as Georgie and Mr Thompson smoked out the bees to lift the combs and Annie had never known such fear for another person as when the bees attacked their covered figures. Later she had dabbed bicarbonate of soda on Georgie’s arms where he had red stings up to the elbows. He had brought it in a screw of paper and she used the hem of her skirt, dampened in the beck to whiten the lumps. The swellings were large and angry but he had never referred to them again that day.

Life’s too short, he would always say, it’s for enjoying, Annie. There’s so much to look at, to find out. And he would kiss her and Tom would look at Grace and they would raise their eyes and pull a face.

Tom always brought his pad and would sketch and draw the changing season or the fly agaric toadstool which grew under the birches, marking in the white warts on the scarlet cap, and which Georgie explained he must never eat because of the poisons it contained. Or the speckled wood butterfly which Georgie showed him on a sun-spotted leaf. Or the foxglove with its tuber-shaped flowers drooping on one side of the stem only and which Georgie told him contained digitalis which doctors used to heal hearts. Tom had said that Georgie and Annie should have a bit of that since their hearts seemed to be all over the place.

Grace pulled a face when he picked her feverfew for her headache and made her eat it. Her headache disappeared.

Summer turned to autumn and winter sharpened the air. Grey overlaid blue warmth but Annie saw only sun and butterflies dancing. She answered an advertisement for a housemaid now that she was 14 but was refused because Albert would not give her a reference. She would go on trying always though, in spite of his rantings. You’re mine, I’ve told you once, he had growled, and she did not tell Georgie what had been said but instead allowed her thoughts to fly high above the cracked ice of the lavatory pan and the soda fumes as she prodded and plunged with the long-handled brush.

I bet he even looks a cracker with his trousers round his ankles and sheets of newspaper in his hand she thought and pulled her sleeves down as far as she could to stop the chapping as the wind tore into every crevice.

But winter passed, then spring and summer waned into a gentle August and she was pleased when he rolled up, with quick deft fingers, his shirt sleeves and she saw his strength. The movement of his muscles held her eyes and quickened her breath and tears seemed close but why they should hover and return she could not understand.

‘Tell you what,’ he said, as they walked home late one night. ‘On your birthday we’ll go as far from here as we can and not come back until the end of the day. How’s that then?’

Annie had forgotten there was anything else apart from these streets.

‘Will we walk then or go by train?’ she asked. ‘Shall we take Tom?’

He squeezed her to him and she fitted in with his stride.

‘No, this time we won’t take Tom,’ he said. ‘And you just wait and see where we go and how we go. That’s part of the surprise.’

‘Great God almighty,’ she gawped. ‘There’s no way, no way, my lad, I’m getting on that.’

He laughed as he pushed the cycle at her, propping his own against the wall of the yard. They were standing in the alleyway at the back of the shop. ‘You’ll get on and bloody well like it. I’ll hold the saddle, you just peddle and steer.’ He put down his bait-bag because he had brought the picnic with him.

‘Peddle and bloody steer,’ she panted, as they went down the alley for the fifth time, rushing past back gates, dodging the central gulley. It was coming but he had to start her on the saddle and push her fast or it was without hope. One hour later, they were ready to go.

‘Just follow me and do what I do,’ he told her, bringing his bike alongside. ‘And don’t fall off because the beer’s in your basket and I’ll tan you proper if you break it!’

They laughed and he bent forward and kissed her cheek and was off. She followed. It was good but the cobbles rattled her teeth and made the beer chatter. His jacket was flying wide as he turned yet another corner and jumped off, putting out a hand to steady her halt. They were surrounded by piles of coal waiting for shipment to the ports.

‘Into the station now, we’ll put the bikes in the van.’

Annie remembered the steaming of that other train, but here the sun was shining and the gap between platform and train held no fear for her. She held his arm, pulling him to a stop as they walked down the platform to a carriage.

‘Tell us where we’re going, Georgie.’

‘We are going to the seaside.’ He grinned and kissed her face and loved her.

She remembered the colourless pictures on that other train and her heart sank.

The train jerked and spat and roared and pulled and stopped and left them on the quiet Northumbrian coast. The bikes beat into the wind and her hair whipped across her face and she saw
more sky than she had dreamed existed and forgot the pictures.

The pale white sand ran out from the creeping blackness of the coal-spoilt beaches and swept round the endless sea in a curve that was clean and quiet. The waves left bubbles as they ran away from her feet which clenched at the sand; the sea, determined in its greed, plucked and sucked from beneath her. Her legs stung as the salt dried and Georgie stood smoking back at the couch-grass-tipped dunes. She knew no haste because this moment had been here for ever for the sea and would be here long after she had left. Waiting, always waiting; the sea, the wind, and the shriek of the gulls too, proved how little anything mattered as it rolled and swept away every imprint.

‘Look, Georgie,’ she called, trailing and pulling through soft shifting sand until her calfs dragged and her breath rose in pants. ‘There’s no sign of me down there and I’ve only just turned me back.’

He was down on his hunkers now and his eyebrows were raised.

‘They throw the tiddlers back, you know. Just not enough meat on you, lass, to do more than just tickle it a bit.’

She was nearing the dune now. ‘I’ll show you I have grown enormously since last year.’ She drew herself up in the wind which dragged her clothes tight against her form. Her nipples challenged by the cold stood proud on small firm breasts and she laughed down into his eyes, her hands on narrow hips, half child, half woman and Georgie felt a thickening in his throat.

He turned to watch the white caps behind her and pulled on the Woodbine which burnt fast as the wind rushed in gusts around them. Annie could smell the smoke but not see it. It was snatched and thrown into nothingness and she tipped her head back.

‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful, Georgie, to be like the wind. It’s just as it is, no memories to carry with it, no rules to heed. Just free.’

‘Come and sit down, you daft fool. Wrap yourself round this ham roll, it’ll do you more good than standing there catching your death. Some memories are good. I need mine.’

The hollow-sided dune was quiet after the buffeting wind and surging water and Annie felt the tightening of her skin as her feet dried. Holding the roll in one hand, she scooped sand up in the other and let it fall through her fingers and then lay back on one elbow.

‘But what about the bad things, how do you stop them creeping back?’

‘You don’t. You just clobber them, see them for what they are and throw them out again. You don’t run away from them. Have some beer.’ He passed her the bottle and she took just a sip. He was watching her.

‘What if you can’t do that?’ The beer had left a thick warm taste.

He tilted his head back and took a drink. His throat was bulging up and down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked at her.

‘Then you learn to do it.’ He dug the bottle into the sand to hold it firm, then leaned forward and rubbed her feet until there was warmth. He was never cold. In all the time she’d known him he had never felt cold, she thought. She watched him as he lay on his side like her, propped up on his elbow.

‘Does your mam scrub your back, Georgie, when you get home from the pit?’ She couldn’t look at him while she asked, she was too conscious of the line of his body, the way his leg lay partly on hers.

‘Aye, and me brothers an’ all, them that’s in work that is.’

‘Do you like the pit then, Georgie? Don said he’d never go down but that was me da telling him.’

The gulls were wheeling above and Georgie threw the remains of his roll far down the beach and they shrieked and clustered around it.