After the Storm (4 page)

The earlier satisfaction had vanished and her arms ached with a weariness that seeped throughout her body and emptied her mind of even her nervousness. She pulled her coat from the back of the chair and slumped into its clammy heaviness and sat looking round a kitchen which was, from now on, her own. She felt no elation.

It would all have been so different but for the war. Then she would have married Barney and had Tom. Done things the right way round, her mother had hurled when Barney had died, and soon after his son was born. Look at the mess she had just made of a room she had spent hours cleaning and polishing; what a talent she had for little messes; and yes, her mother had said that too. Her hands lay throbbing one upon the other and the harsh pain of the tightening burn across the softness of her upper arm was almost a comfort. It was something which belonged to her and on which she could focus. She had been burned before and knew the course of the pain and that was all she wanted to know at this moment. Her head hung to one side and she lifted her shoulder to rub her cheek and that caress was better than none.

Barney Grant had been a strong young pitman but how gently he had led her to the slopes of the slag after he had arrived home on leave. She pressed her cheek closer now, deep
into the cotton of her blouse and she could feel the heat of her skin and she remembered the smell and the feel of the body of her man.

Again and again they had promised that they were different, that lovers who opened their mouths to one another and knew such pleasure in one another could not be touched by war, by death. But his eyes were deep with thoughts that were his own, that he would not share and later he had cried and worried for her in case there should be a bairn, my bonny wee lass he had whispered.

She had laughed then because next week they were to marry and no God would defy her love. And he had nodded and kissed her hand fit for bloody diamonds he had said again.

They had all been recalled the next day in a rush for the next big push. His mates had told her he had felt nothing but she knew it had been raining, raining, raining because that’s what the papers had said of Ypres and he hated the rain on his face.

He wasn’t found for days. Wipers was such a stupid name for a grave she thought and wished she could have cleaned the mud from his eyes and carried him home, warmed him and, in time, shown him his son.

She stared dully at the fire. Here she was then, living in the same house where she had worked since she was 14 but now it was to be with a man who had today given her a name and a family, not just a job. She should be grateful but her scream for Barney sounded so real that she snapped upright and could not tell whether it had pierced the air or just her mind. The fire was solid red now, God knew how much time had passed, she must be mad to sit as though life was a holiday. She pressed her fingers to her forehead, nervous at the thought of Archie coming home before all this was straight, but she had to fetch Tom, she was already late.

Betsy straightened her coat, drew the latch and the cold of the early evening caught her again. It cooled her even as it caught in her throat and she reached for the bairn’s blanket. He’d need it over his face in this chill, then she’d just have to be back in time for them to arrive. Yes, that was it, be quick and there was nothing to worry about she urged herself, thinking as she went that he was such a cold one there was no knowing how he would take a mistake. God, she thought as she undid the gate, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of tea.

Archie led the way up the four steps and fumbled for the keyhole.

‘The shop is over there,’ he told them over his shoulder and Annie nodded though all she could see were dark forbidding shapes in the dim light. She grasped the peak of one of the railings which lined the steps to the front door and through the thickness of her glove she could feel the flakes of old paint first stick into it and then give way beneath her restless thumb. The tip of the railing was not as sharp as had first seemed and it had flat edges which swept to a modest point.

‘D’you think if you fell on these they’d go right through you?’ she asked her father. ‘I mean so they come out the other side.’

He was on the step above her and seemed not to hear. His back was towards her, his face pressed close to the keyhole.

‘Don’t be daft Annie,’ mocked Don. ‘You’d have to be right tender and skinny to have them go through. Most people would have ’em stick halfway through and they’d wobble about with their eyes popping out.’

‘Until you knocked them off in three throws,’ Annie retorted. ‘Hey, that would make a good fairground game. Roll up, roll up, knock off the gentleman with the funny hat and win yourself a – a what, Don?’

‘Clip round the ear if you go on like this,’ he whispered, nodding his head and pointing it towards their father. They sniggered together and tried to count the railings from the bottom to the top even though the gloom made it difficult. Archie looked at them in confusion. They had forgotten him and he was glad for he hadn’t known how to react to their extraordinary conversation. He could not remember discussing impaled bodies with Albert as a child, far less attempts to dislodge them once they were ‘set up’ as these children of his had suggested. Mind you, he and Albert had never been close enough to discuss anything. The key was by now in the frozen lock though it was stiff to turn. Peering closer, working it backwards and forwards, he muttered:

‘I’ll have to get Elisabeth to oil this thing. It really is too slack of her.’

Annie wondered why he didn’t just breathe on it instead of bellyaching about what other people should have done. He’s got a pair of hands hasn’t he, she thought, and in her irritation could no longer be bothered to count the railings.

She moved her toes inside her boots, her feet ached with the cold but her toes were empty of feeling and seemed heavy in their numbness. She rose and fell, pressing all her weight on to them and longed to squeeze their cold dampness between warm hands. She felt Don close to her, his breath showing white as he blew on his hands. The door loomed large as they grew accustomed to the dimness and Annie’s eyes hurt as she struggled to follow the shadowed bulging shape hanging on the door which minute by minute seemed to sharpen and move even as she looked.

Well, she thought, fancy having a great big claw knocker on your door and then spending all night fiddling with the keyhole. She stood staring hard, until the knocker disappeared in a blur of cross-eyes and she felt triumphant at reducing the bunched brass to nothingness. As the door finally swung open she began to move with it. Don felt her sway and shook her arm.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he whispered in her ear and Annie felt the sniggers rise and shake her shoulders. Oh no, she prayed, don’t let me start again else I’ll never stop and she wondered where the giggles were coming from.

‘Come along then,’ their father directed, standing in the dark of the hall and the laughter drained from her and she held back. Why should she go first to be swallowed up by this strange dark house? Don could, the canny beggar. She twisted from his grasp and stood sideways, her eyes refusing to move until he had passed. Her feet curled in her boots for a better grip and her legs braced for battle.

‘Come along Annie,’ her father ordered shortly. ‘Ladies before gentlemen. Donald is quite right.’

Annie raised her chin in a fury of frustration which contracted her scalp but she could do nothing but obey. It was two against one. Turning she squelched hard down on Don’s foot, twisting as she did so and sailed in on his indrawn breath of pain and surprise. That’ll teach you, she thought, you canny little squid.

Inside there was no wind and it seemed much warmer and very quiet but for a loud tick and there was a strange sharp smell mingling with polish but no scent of cooking or arms outstretched. She stood quite still, her heartbeat loud in her ears, not wanting to move unless it was to touch something definite, to lean against something solid. She felt no friendliness
about her, just thick space which could hold endless horrors. She longed for the noise of trains clattering beyond their eyes but not their ears at Wassingham Terrace and the pigeons scattering in their loft as the cats screamed.

Here, in the dark, the ache was swelling. Closing her eyes, Annie tried to remember whether she had missed any black dogs on her way here. There was only the brown one she was sure but still she had held her collar until she had counted a hundred. She had not trodden on any cracks either so surely her wish would be granted. She’d also prayed to God each night, twice, but he had seemed to be deaf for quite some time. Nonetheless her father might just change his mind or even drop dead so that Sophie could walk over and take her back.

It would have been just bearable if Sophie and Eric had stayed in the town just half a mile from this shop but to pack up and go to the other side of the world seemed like the end. There would be no more stories from Eric, no more hugs and tickles from Aunt Sophie, no more drawing on the kitchen floor while Sophie and Eric held hands and talked at the kitchen table.

Sophie had said that she and Eric were young enough to start a new life in a new country and must go straight away. She’d said how she was 29 and Eric was 30 and if they didn’t go now, this minute, perhaps Australia would be too much for them. Annie had never thought of them in terms of years before and 29 seemed very old. It’s the same age as Sarah Beeston, Sophie had said, but Annie was not interested in other people, only in Sophie.

‘Come on in Annie,’ her father’s voice called and as she turned she remembered the feel of Don’s foot beneath her heel and her hands went still and her fingers filled with splintered ice. Oh no, she’d broken her good luck, just when she’d done nothing wrong but everything painfully right since that day in Sophie’s kitchen.

Her lip stung between biting teeth and she wanted to drop to the ground and beat it with her hands because now there was no way back to the old life. She wanted to screech to Don, to pummel him with her fists and hurt him as she was hurting. Why did you get at me and make me do it? Why didn’t you leave me be, she wanted to shout, and the hate spilled out from her eyes and Don was shocked and she was glad that someone else was feeling pain. Then in turn she was shocked and
frightened because she did not want the hate to remain. He was all she had if Sophie could not come for her and she didn’t want to be alone with just this dark angry hole left where people had once been.

‘Elisabeth, Elisabeth,’ her father called into the darkness but there was no reply. ‘That’s strange,’ he murmured almost to himself and the children stayed still. ‘I think we should go down to the kitchen and see how dinner is coming along. Get your bearings first though.’

He had already lit the gas lamp and now blew out the match; then shook his arms out of his coat, helping Annie with hers when he had finished. The elastic, which ran from one glove through her sleeves to the other, caught on her cuff and she had to scramble to free herself. She looked up at him. What big nostrils he had and why did he call tea dinner and dinner lunch she wondered. She sighed. And he had not called them bairns since that first day; it made him seem very far away. But now that the smell of the gas lamp was nudging at her it seemed, together with the light, to bring the house to life and that was a surprise for it had almost been as though nothing existed beyond the darkness.

The light showed steep stairs rising with a dark glossy conker-coloured bannister which curled and stopped like the doormouse and she could almost believe she was Alice. Ahead of her was a passageway with a strip of carpet laid on black and white tiles. It ran into the hall and was the same carpet which was laid up the middle of the stairs. It drew her feet far less than the stone of the pavements. She was feeling better now that the front door was shut and the Gladstone bags were lined up at the hall-stand. Now there was no decision to be made. She was here and must stay.

She looked round the dim hall and across to the clock which stretched from the floor to way above her head; much higher than the hall-stand which was now lumpy with coats. She followed the brass pendulum as it swung from side to side disappearing and reappearing with a regularity which calmed her. She had never seen anything like it before but the deep sure sound of the tick, unchanging and predictable, made her feel that here was something that would never surprise, never shock and she was comforted. She tried to reach fifty strokes in one breath. It was five o’clock.

The eruption of sound hit her full in the face and the bone buttons of her cardigan were pulled harshly on straining thread and she jerked back her shoulders in terror. Then, hickory dickory dock her mind raced and she laughed. You’ll not catch me again she challenged and it was to life she shouted.

Turning to Don, she drawled. ‘Don’t fret bitty bairn, it’s only a grandfather clock.’

Don caught her tone and cursed himself for leaving his mouth hanging. ‘Course I know that,’ he snapped but they both knew he hadn’t. He had been peering up the stairs, his back to the clock and the noise had been like a clap of violent thunder without a source.

They followed Archie down the passageway, Annie carefully treading on her toes to avoid the pattern. Don’s hiss of irritation as she veered into his path was a small price to pay for catching up on some luck. It was dark at the end of the passage and the door to the basement was shut. Annie pulled Don back against the wall. His head was well into the wallpaper above the wooden rail which divided the bottom paint from the flock wall-covering. Hers was part in both and they grinned at one another. She needed him and she had made him feel big again and their anger was gone.

When their father closed the basement door behind them there was silence again and it was cold and dim. The light from the gas mantle outside the kitchen door was the merest glimmer but there was now a smell of baking which was gentle on them. Archie was relieved, this was an important moment for them all and he had feared problems.

‘Come down these steps carefully now,’ he instructed, guiding them to the rounded wooden hand rail. ‘The ground drops at the back of the houses so the basement is at garden-level whilst the front door is at street-level.’