After the Storm (44 page)

Sarah shook her head. ‘It’s no use me saying don’t, so what I will say is that you can pay me back when you are able to. There’s no hurry because we’ll be jogging along for years yet.’ Annie looked down the corridor, at the nurses who pushed trolleys or backed into kitchens and sluices, at a world that she felt a part of and turned to Sarah. ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have had all this.’ She leaned forward and kissed her.

‘Nonsense. You would have made it happen somehow. And how’s Georgie, while I remember?’ She was embarrassed and tucked her arm into Annie’s and listened to the news that he had been on exercises and had also written about the walnut trees and Sarah’s hall table.

When Tom was close to going home in August and the ward was quiet with the lights low above the beds, Annie straightened his sheets and then they sat for a while, listening to the sounds of the ward, the coughs and muted conversations, the laughter. It was then that he told her of a conversation he had held earlier with Bob. He told her of her father, of the man who dragged at his leg, of the still air that made the gas fall, of his heartbreak over her mother and Annie felt her skin grow cold and she took her hand from his but he took it back.

‘You must forgive him some time, Annie, for your own sake. Try and understand.’

But she could not because the hate was too strong. After all, her father had killed himself and left them as though they were nothing, but she didn’t tell Tom that, just nodded and said that she would be qualified in two years, he would be finished in four, which took them to the back end of 1938.

‘So you see,’ she said. ‘1939 will be our year. We’ll give you a year to produce some designs and earn a bit of money for capital. I’ll probably be a Sister by then and will have saved a bit and in the meantime I’ll keep my eyes on the administrative procedures and see how things are run.’

She put the thermometer in his mouth to stop him bringing up her father again.

‘It’ll be grand, lad, to do something for the people here. Give them an alternative to coal or steel. It’s exciting, isn’t it, Tom?’ He shook his head and pointed at the thermometer and she laughed, taking and checking it. ‘The rudest of health, my lad.’

She put it back in its container.

‘And what about Georgie?’ he asked.

She leant over him and tucked the sheets in around him. ‘He’ll be here when he’s ready and I’ll be waiting for him. He’s the man I love, the man I’ll always love.’

She reached over to turn off the light. He was looking better these days, the pallor was gone but he’d be weak for a while yet. London would do him good and Grace would go with him, though they neither wanted to marry yet and Grace’s da didn’t seem to mind. She pictured him laughing at the pink mice all over the floor.

‘So, 1939 it is, then,’ Tom whispered and she nodded.

‘The back end,’ she said. ‘When the summer has gone and the nights are drawing in. It’s my favourite time of year.’

Tom laughed. ‘See you in September, Annie Manon.’

Annie remembered Miss Hardy and piano lessons today. It was August 1939 and newspapers spoke of war over the Polish crisis but she could not believe it. There had not been war over Czechoslovakia last year so why should there be one this year? She shrugged the thought aside and walked towards the bus-stop which would take her from the Manchester Cancer Hospital where she now worked to the restaurant where she was meeting Sarah.

Don was to be married this afternoon in Wassingham and Sarah had promised to buy her an early lunch on her way back from the Lake District where she had been holidaying. They could then travel up to Wassingham together.

She took the lift up from the bottom floor of the department store and was shown to Sarah’s table.

‘My dear,’ said Sarah, kissing her and patting the chair next to her. ‘You look so well and I do like your hat.’

Annie smiled and touched the net with her fingers. ‘And you’re looking pretty grand yourself, Sarah. It takes a wedding to bring the smart ones out of the cupboard, doesn’t it? I hope mine doesn’t smell of moth-balls.’ Sarah looked better for her holiday. She had come to the nurses’ home when she travelled through, two weeks ago, and Annie had thought she looked tired. Her hair was now very grey and her skin was pale and translucent but she’ll be 50 in two years’ time, Annie thought, and wondered where the years had gone because, as she had reminded herself just last week on her twenty fifth birthday, she was no chicken any more. Sarah had sent her a five pound note and Georgie had enclosed a piece of Indian silver in his letter. She showed it now to Sarah, her face alive and full of hope. She knew it off by heart.

January 1939

Central Provinces.

My darling lass,

Well, it looks as though it could be any day now. My transfer to the Engineers has been accepted and my C.O. is supporting my application for a commission. By the way, did I tell you his daughter is nursing in England?

Now it is finally happening, my commission that is, I can hardly believe it. The sergeants’ mess is celebrating every night but I wish they wouldn’t. My head won’t take it and they might be in for a disappointment.

I’ll talk of other things, it might be unlucky to go on too much about what I’ve dreamt of all these years which is coming home to you. If I get it, I’ll be sent to Woolwich for my training, see.

I’m pleased to hear that Don has finally popped the question to Maud. She looks a bit like him from the photo you sent me; fairly small the pair of them but his hair looks as though it’s getting a wee bit thin whereas hers is good and curly. I’ve sent them a silver tea-caddy.

Got a letter from Tom last month. He’s loved his time in London, hasn’t he; living the life of an artist and Grace with him too. A bit bohemian isn’t it, not being married? Bet Wassingham had something to say about that. Grace seems to have liked her job in the library and feels good at sending her ma and da some money each week. Tom says he’s about ready to start on the business but he has to finish this commission to paint a mural at a restaurant in Piccadilly first. Well, that sounds grand doesn’t it. He says it will give him a bit of capital to go with the money you’ve saved. I’ve a bit too, remember, which can help you get started.

It makes sense to start in the small way you’ve planned and the idea of it has kept him at his art instead of blasting off to Spain or anything daft like that.

Bob must have missed him badly all these years but Tom says he’s been right busy with the union, pushing for state ownership of the pits. There’s still not a lot of work up there, he tells me.

It’s grand to hear that things have settled down a bit in Germany but there’s talk here in the mess that Hitler won’t stop with Czechoslovakia. Will there be another war, Annie? It seems so far away here though we keep an eye on the Japs who seem to be pushing their way into China in the war they’ve started there.

We’re exercising down in the jungles of the Central Provinces since Burma would be the way into India for the Japs and this is similar terrain, but maybe they’re just game-playing.

There’s a great deal of trouble in India. They want us out, though Gandhi is doing his bit to make it a peaceful independence movement. I guess that Tom would approve.

The butterflies here in the jungle are beautiful, very different to the Camberwell Beauties that used to settle by your da’s shed, do you remember them, my bonny lass? There is one we call the Cruiser which is very fast and high-flying, it’s a sort of yellow brown and there is a really beautiful one called the Swallowtail which has a flash of blue across its wings. It seems very nervous and hovers over the petals of the lush flowers you get in this steamy climate. It’s bloody hot, sticky and humid and we go up to the hill-stations for a break. Darjeeling is the best. We ride horses up the trails and cool off a bit. I’ll take you there one day.

Well, my dearest little lass. I will close now and will write again as soon as I have any news. I have kept all your letters, there seem to be so many but then years have gone by since I last saw you. I can’t bear to think of that. I will love you always with all my heart.

Georgie.

Sarah passed it back, took out her compact and patted her nose with the powder-puff. She looked at Annie over the mirror, the back of which was studded with seed pearls.

‘I’ve watched you all these years, my dear, laughing and flirting and learning. By the way, how is Dr Jones, such a nice Welshman?’ But she did not wait for Annie to answer. ‘You were always waiting for Georgie though, weren’t you? How can you be so sure, my darling, that you are still right for one another, that he will ever come? I know he says he will, but after all this time, can it work?’

Annie picked up a knife and set it absolutely straight against the mat which was a view of the Manchester Ship Canal. The handle must be solid, it was so heavy, but surely it was silver plate? She listened to the strains of the Blue Danube and watched the cellist lean back and ease her shoulders. The mock palms were bright green.

‘He’ll come and we’ll be right for one another, don’t you fret.’ She tapped Sarah’s hand with her finger. ‘He knows me, knows my family, the streets, the pits. He knows that you have a walnut hall table, that your bathroom is posh. That Tom lost a kidney, that Don loves Maud and is the only one who can handle Albert. I don’t have to explain myself, that I’m not the posh person I sound now.’ She lifted an eyebrow at Sarah who laughed. ‘He knows me and I’ve never had to look after him, he looks after himself and I’m right proud of the lad.’ Her voice was soft now and she had slipped back into Geordie and she didn’t care.

Sarah beckoned the waiter and asked for wine. It had to be white and chilled and he brought the ice bucket and set the bottle back in the crushed ice after he had poured them each a glass.

‘I’m just wondering, Annie, whether you love him because it’s safe to love someone who’s so far away, someone who won’t try and get too close? I wonder if you’re running away from anything?’ Her face was quizzical.

Annie looked puzzled, her thoughts slowed down and she watched the bubbles in her wine break through to the surface.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Sarah.’ She would not dig deeper into herself to try and understand her guardian; she did not want to disturb the black box.

Sarah smiled absently. There was a pause then. ‘Did I do the
right thing, Annie, taking you away from Wassingham, from him?’ Her face was sad and tense.

Annie ran her fingers up and down the stem of her glass, then carved stripes down through the mist of the bowl. ‘You’ve not taken me away, Sarah. No one will take me away, that’s where I’m going now, back there for the wedding, back there with Tom, soon, to start my business. I couldn’t have done that without you and I would not have known you, had you not come, and that would have been intolerable.’

She leant back as the sole arrived. It was fresh but the sauce was not as good as Val’s. The mannequins were parading round the tables now, their backs arched and their legs going on forever. Sarah’s face had relaxed and she was flushed after Annie’s remarks. They smiled at one another.

‘What about the war if it comes? Your business? Georgie?’

Annie took a sip of wine, it was dry and light. ‘There won’t be a war surely, Sarah? Chamberlain’s sorting it out, isn’t he?’

She thought of Dippy Denis who had been led away and locked up in a place she had always imagined would not have windows. Would he still be there, she wondered? No, there could not be another war, not after the last one. The lettuce that accompanied the sole was crisp, the tomatoes fresh. And besides it was the summer and she could never imagine war on a summer’s day, with the sun out. It should always be wet and cold. Grey. There would be no war; no one wanted war. There were still too many damaged people from the last one, but she would not think of her da and his gas. She lifted her glass again.

Sarah had finished her meal and was studying her glass. ‘But if Chamberlain should fail, Annie,’ she persisted, ‘would Georgie come back? What about the business?’

Annie frowned. ‘I just don’t know Sarah. I really don’t. Georgie would still come home, surely, and I would stay in nursing, I suppose. They’d need nurses but it wouldn’t last long, would it, Sarah, so we could start the business when it was over.’

Sarah was pleating the thick starched napkin that lay beside her plate. Her fingers were steady, her eyes on her work. ‘We said that about the last one.’

‘But it’s different now, we have planes. It would be quick.’ Annie did not want to think any more about it.

Sarah continued however. ‘God forbid there is one but you
could travel with a war, Annie, you could join the military nurses, even pick up ideas for fabrics from other countries and give Tom a run for his money on design.’ She smiled. ‘It’s got to be better than nursing here with that dreadful radium stuff dripping from needles stuck in those poor patients. Why you every transferred here in the first place, I can’t imagine.

‘Thank you,’ she said to the waiter as he poured her more wine.

Annie laughed. ‘Hardly dripping, Sarah, and we do manage to save some of them you know. But only some,’ and her voice tailed away. She had moved to gain more experience and the pay was better which made Tom’s fees easier, but she was tired of suffering now, too tired to stay in for much longer. She was ready to start on the next stage and Tom was ready too. There must not be a war, not when they had people to help and a firm to set up.

They took a taxi to the station. Doors slammed and whistles shrieked and the compartment was full with people as they left the city and the low cloud which seemed to hang motionless sucking all the light from the city.

‘How can you live here, Annie? It’s always so wet and gloomy.’

‘I hope you’re not becoming imprecise in your old age, Sarah. It is often wet but not always.’ They leant into one another and laughed and then their hours were their own and Sarah slept while Annie felt the effects of the wine make her limbs easy and she watched cities merge into country. The noise of the train must be the same as any other but it seemed to rush and lurch and she could not sleep and then they were there and it was the same station they had flown across with Da to find the Newcastle train, but now it was small and she was helping Sarah as she stepped from the carriage to the platform over no gap at all. Sour coal was heaped high in the sidings outside the station as it had been when she last saw it, as it had been the day she and Georgie rode their bikes here for their day by the sea. The slag-heaps were bigger. Oh God yes, they were bigger and still the cables churned the carts up until they tipped more slag on to the top.