‘Have you read the papers?’
‘No.’
Sylvia handed over a newspaper. ‘It’s all over the front page,’ she said. ‘The evacuation. Small Boats Brave Fire and Shells. Taking the soldiers off the beaches.’
Rose noticed that Sylvia’s hands were shaking, though she hadn’t cried. Sylvia’s uncle had gone out with the British Expeditionary Force. They’d had no news of him. ‘Read on, Sylvia,’ she whispered.
‘Warships are standing off,’ she read. ‘The Royal Navy puts up a halo of fire.’ Her voice faltered.
Rose read it. ‘Please God,’ she said. ‘Let them all get back.’
At last the day was over and she went back to the Temperance Hotel and found Aunt Carrie waiting for her at the far side of the kitchen. She stood by the dining table, which was now placed in the big alcove. Mary and Vivienne, looking uncertain, stood by her, one either side. So they all knew.
‘I’m sorry, lass,’ Aunt Carrie began. It seemed to Rose that Aunt Carrie had rehearsed for this moment. She looked neither sorry nor distraught.
‘There’s no need to be.’ Rose had not meant to sound curt but the words had come out that way. Aunt Carrie had made it plain that she did not care for Alan. She need not pretend concern. ‘I know he’s alive,’ Rose said, louder.
Aunt Carrie was coming towards her, arms outstretched. She couldn’t bear it. She didn’t want comfort. She took a step backwards, towards the door she had just entered.
‘And I want you all to believe it!’ she cried, and turned, stumbling to reach the stairs and run to her room where, now there was no one to see, she fell on to the bed and cried herself into a short, fitful sleep.
She must have slept for about an hour. When she awoke she went to the washbasin, splashed her face with water and rubbed it vigorously with her towel. Then she took a deep breath at the open window. She could face them now. She went downstairs, calm and composed.
Mary and Vivienne were at the table with Aunt Carrie. The table, as ever, was covered with a starched, embroidered cloth. They all fell silent as she entered. They had stopped eating.
Rose pulled up a chair and forced herself to say, ‘Don’t look at me like that, all of you. I know he’s alive. I don’t want anyone to talk about it. That’s all.’
Mary pushed across the big china plate. Butter mixed with margarine was spread thinly over the thick slices of home-baked bread. She took a piece in silence then gave Mary a forced smile.
Vivienne handed the Wedgwood jar that was filled with Aunt Carrie’s blackcurrant jam. Rose took a spoonful, placed it on the side of her plate and nodded to Viv to take the thing away.
‘She never gives up,’ she thought to herself. No matter that there were only the four of them and that their tea consisted of bread and butter and jam and a piece of cake. The silver teapot was used, the second-best china service, starched white napkins and the four evenly-cut wedges of her homemade ginger cake were placed on a silver cake stand with a crocheted lace mat beneath them.
Sometimes she wanted to scream, seeing Aunt Carrie and all the silly consolations she surrounded herself with to make up for the great yawning gap in her life, which she had never filled with the love and affection she was capable of giving. ‘I hope I never, never get like that,’ Rose thought as she ate quietly under Aunt Carrie’s watchful gaze, ‘I could have relied on Mum to help me now.’ For, though she knew that Alan would come back to her, she felt inside herself something changing, stirring and sickening her and she did not know what it could be.
‘I don’t want a cup of tea,’ she said, putting out her hand to prevent Aunt Carrie from filling her cup. The mere imagining of its hot sweetness had turned her stomach. ‘I’ll just drink milk for now. If we’ve got enough.’
‘Yes. We’ve plenty,’ Aunt Carrie said quickly and eagerly, glad there was something she could do. ‘I’ll order an extra pint from Nat Cooper. You are three growing girls. You need milk.’
‘I’m already grown,’ Rose snapped. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
She saw and recognised the hurt look on Aunt Carrie’s face but she was unable to prevent herself from rebuffing all her aunt’s overtures.
Aunt Carrie got up from the table. Rose saw her straight, dignified back as she left the room and a sense of hopeless weariness descended upon her again.
‘There was no need to be rude to her,’ Mary said quietly when they heard their aunt’s footsteps in the corridor. They heard her take her coat from the hall stand; heard the front door slam. ‘We’re all upset about Alan. It doesn’t make it any easier.’
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ Rose said, her eyes still on the open door. She was sorry, but she couldn’t go to Aunt Carrie. She couldn’t have run after her to apologise. Not with Alan lying injured somewhere and Aunt Carrie wishing him ill.
‘Then I think you should say so. She’s done nothing to hurt you,’ Mary added.
Mary was so like Mum had been, always seeing good in everyone. It made Rose feel worse about her own behaviour. Mary was also, like Mum, quietly determined to see that justice was done. Mary had taken on Mum’s role of peacemaker.
Vivienne jumped up from the table saying, ‘I’m glad she’s gone out. She keeps getting everything wrong. Everything I say to her is wrong.’
Both sisters looked at her flushed, angry face. Mary put her lips together firmly as Vivienne flung down her napkin. It was impossible to be self-absorbed with Vivienne around, Rose thought. Vivienne, selfish and wilful as she was, brought everyone down to earth with her one-sided, dramatic personality. When Vivienne acted, her audience sat up and paid attention.
‘What’s Aunt Carrie done to you now?’ Rose asked.
‘She’s not gone rushing out because of you anyway,’ Vivienne said. ‘She’s gone to a rehearsal at her precious Sunday school. The Choral Society, what’s left of them, are giving a concert at the weekend. Her beastly man told us.’
‘Has he been round again?’ Rose asked. ‘Cecil Ratcliffe?’
‘He’s always round here in the daytime. School’s on half days don’t forget!’
Mary and Rose looked now at the outraged look on their sister’s face. Vivienne, wearing Rose’s scarlet jumper over her own green gymslip, looked like a furious Irish fairy, only taller and startling in her prettiness. ‘Don’t laugh!’ she ordered. ‘I’ve lost some of my best things because of that man.’
‘What things?’ Rose asked.
‘You tell her, Mary,’ Vivienne said.
‘She thinks Cecil Ratcliffe has stolen some of her dressing-up things,’ Mary began with soothing patience.
Vivienne’s eyes were alight now. ‘It’s not my dressing up clothes, Mary,’ she cut in. ‘It’s my French knickers and my Kestos.’
Vivienne had developed earlier than either she or Mary had. Unlike herself and Mary who were, they believed, a bit top-heavy, Vivienne had high, round breasts. She said they needed the support of a Kestos. Aunt Carrie always referred to it as a bust-bodice. In fact it was nothing so much as scraps of pink silk seamed down the middle to which were attached ribbons and long, elastic button straps. Rose had decided to buy one for herself. ‘Where did you lose them?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t lose them,’ Vivienne insisted. ‘I wash them every other night. You know I do. And I hang them there.’
She pointed with a theatrical gesture to the empty rails of the wooden, drying rack, high above the fireplace.
‘Quite blatantly, if you ask me!’ Mary said. Mary thought such things should be kept out of sight. Mary always professed shock at the sight of the underwear; French knickers hanging by their gusset with the brassiere dangling from its shoulder straps beside it.
‘What on earth would Cecil Ratcliffe want with them?’ Mary asked. ‘The reformatory girls don’t dress up or have concerts you know. Really. It’s not as if it’s a theatre or anything. Sometimes you try my patience, Vivienne.’
‘He steals them for himself,’ Vivienne said, her face still red and furious. ‘You don’t
know. You really don’t!’
‘Don’t know what?’ Rose said. ‘What don’t we know?’
‘You don’t know what that man gets up to,’ Vivienne said eagerly. ‘Flo Gallimore said he’s a . . .’
‘Viv!’ Rose interrupted sharply. ‘Don’t talk like Flo Gallimore. And don’t listen to her.’
‘No,’ Mary agreed. ‘And don’t upset Rose. Not today.’
‘Sorry.’ Vivienne went to the door that led to their stairs then turned what seemed to be a look of sympathetic sorrow on them. ‘You are so innocent. You two.’
‘Come back,’ Rose said. ‘Finish your story.’
Vivienne came across the room to them again. ‘I’ve got to tell you this,’ she began passionately. ‘Flo Gallimore told me that Cecil Ratcliffe . . . goes to Dog Lane! To Lily Streeter’s!’
They stared at Vivienne; astonished by her vehemence.
‘It’s a brothel!’ Vivienne added, unnecessarily.
‘Viv!’ They both chorused in alarm.
‘It’s true!’
Mary let out a long-drawn breath. ‘She’s no business saying things like that,’ she said. ‘He’s a town councillor.’
‘Aunt Carrie says he’s the most respected man in Macclesfield,’ Rose said as calmly as she could, though she could not keep the anxious note out of her voice.
‘You know they call it Streety Lil’s?’ Vivienne went on.
‘Course we know.’
Vivienne put her shoulders back, waited a second; waited for them to appreciate fully what she was saying. ‘He goes there. Dressed as a woman!’
Rose didn’t know whether to laugh off Viv’s nonsense or to take it seriously. ‘It can’t be true, Viv,’ she said at last. ‘Flo Gallimore’s lying. Everyone would know – in a place like Macclesfield – if a town councillor went about doing things like that.’
‘How would they know,’ Vivienne was indignant, ‘if he went in disguise? Dressed as a woman?’
‘Listen Viv,’ Rose said as calmly as she could. ‘Why would a man go to a . . . to Lily Streeter’s dressed as a woman?’
‘So that men will – instead of women – some men do it with other men!’
‘I don’t believe it.’ It sounded quite incredible to Rose.
‘That’s filthy talk, Viv!’ Mary said. ‘Is that the kind of thing Flo Gallimore talks about?’
‘And other things.’
‘Like what?’ Mary asked.
‘Like Cecil Ratcliffe used to do wrong things to his own daughter.’
‘Vivienne!’ Rose was shocked. ‘That is sick. Really sick talk.’
‘Can’t you imagine it? Can’t you see him doing things like that?’ Vivienne herself was almost crying now in her impatience to get them to believe her. ‘Every word he says. Every move he makes! Oh, honestly!’ She flung herself into the railed armchair in a paddy of exasperation.
They fell silent. They could imagine it.
‘Does Aunt Carrie know?’ Rose asked quietly.
‘Of course she doesn’t.’ Vivienne had turned her face away from them, towards the wall, hiding her tears. ‘Aunt Carrie’s never had anything to do with men. How would she know?’
Rose got up from the table and went to her. ‘Go and look for your things, love,’ she said gently. ‘If they are not in the bedroom then maybe they fell off the rack into the fire. You’ve got another Kestos haven’t you? And plenty of knickers?’
‘Are you going out Rose?’ Vivienne asked in a small, normal voice.
‘No. I’m going to bed. I want to think.’ She went back up the stairs. She was tired, sick and frightened. She undressed and got into bed.
There was nothing she could do to stop Aunt Carrie from walking right into Cecil Ratcliffe’s trap. He was a wicked, evil man and Aunt Carrie had not recognised the menace in him. Now, in a way, she was relieved to find that her sisters shared her revulsion for him. It meant, without a shadow of doubt, that Cecil Ratcliffe was not her father.
Aunt Carrie could never have loved – never have wanted to marry a man like Cecil Ratcliffe. She would have seen right through him when she was young. But she would not want any advice from the three of them. And they could not give it. Her prayers were a jumble of pleas: for Alan’s safety for she knew he couldn’t be dead – and for forgiveness for her own ingratitude and unkindness to Aunt Carrie and for her aunt to see the danger she was in with Cecil Ratcliffe.
It was not to the Sunday school that Carrie had gone. She had been told by Mrs Bettley that morning that Douglas McGregor’s son was missing. After tea she headed for the Swan.
She had put on her navy-blue coat and hat. They seemed appropriate things to wear though it was warm and sunny and she would normally have gone out in her light dress. She stopped, breathless, halfway up the Hundred and Eight steps where Churchwall Street intersected them. Was sleeplessness going to be joined with heart-trouble or something?
She had never ailed in her life before now and here she was, at only forty-five, panting and gasping like an old woman.
She leaned against the iron handrail to get her breath back. Perhaps it was the old feeling of panic come to torment her again. She hadn’t had an attack since Jane and Danny had died. She had never been good in emergencies.
A bird was singing its little heart out above her head somewhere. Churchwall Street was quiet. Everyone who had a wireless would be listening to the news. She’d get back for the nine o’clock. Lately, since Jane and Danny had died, she believed, she didn’t get comfort from her things. All her lovely pictures and ornaments were packed away; crated and stacked in the cellar in case the bombs or the Germans came. And she hadn’t even missed them.
She wanted to cry. She’d forgotten to take her medicine.
She found herself near to crying unless she took it regularly. It was daft to cry over Rose’s spurning of her. She knew why she did it.
When she listened to the terrible stories Mrs Tereschenko told. And Mr Singer – of people being dragged from their homes in the night. Of old Jewish men being forced to scrub the gutters. Mr Singer’s daughter – they’d had no news of her. Jo Tereschenko, the only son of that nice couple, taken prisoner by the Russians whom the Polish people feared more than they feared Hitler.
And now Alan McGregor. It didn’t bear thinking about. She had been nasty to him. He was all Douglas McGregor had. And the poor lad was dead. Hot tears smarted her eyes. She rummaged in her bag for a handkerchief. Now everything was blurred. Carrie snatched the glasses from her eyes. She could see as well without them, near to.
It was a blackbird singing. It swam into her vision as soon as she’d wiped her eyes; perched high on a wild lilac tree that overhung the steps’ wall. It gave her a strange feeling, to think that the little fellow knew nothing of men and wars and cruelty. She took a deep breath. The sweet, heady scent of the blossom and the birdsong had rallied her. She stuffed her glasses into her silver-hinged glasses case and continued on her way.
In the old days she would never have crossed the threshold of a tavern but now, as she crossed the empty square and entered the public bar of the Swan, she was conscious only of the need to give what comfort she could to Douglas McGregor.
She saw him speak to his assistant as she went over to the bar, then he lifted the bit of counter at one end and ushered her into his parlour.
‘I’m sorry, Douglas,’ she said as soon as the door was closed. ‘So very sorry about your Alan.’
‘Sit down, Miss Shrigley.’ Douglas led her to one of the armchairs by an empty fire grate. ‘Let me get you something to drink.’
‘No.’ Quickly, to cover any embarrassment her refusal caused, she added, ‘If you had some pop? Or orange squash?’
Douglas left her for a moment and it was as she turned her head to watch him go that she saw the photograph. It was a wedding photograph. And Patrick, standing stiff and straight, a flower in his buttonhole, best man at the other side of the bride She could recognise Patrick even without her glasse
s. They had not heard from him for months. She couldn’t let on she’d seen it. It made her want to cry.
Douglas returned with their drinks. ‘There is still hope, you know,’ he said as he handed hers to her. ‘Nobody saw Alan bail out but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t.’
She swallowed the great, welling lump in her throat before she could sip the orange squash. ‘Did you know he’d asked Rose to marry him?’
‘I did. I was delighted for them.’
‘I wasn’t. But it wasn’t because I didn’t like your son, Douglas. I thought they were too young.’ She put down her glass, took out her handkerchief again and blew her nose. ‘I’m that sorry, now.’
‘Rose is very courageous,’ Douglas said. ‘I saw her at the bank.’
‘She doesn’t believe he’s dead.’ Her voice didn’t sound right at all and she’d wanted to give comfort to him.
‘Let’s pray she’s right,’ Douglas added. ‘She gave me hope.’
‘Douglas?’
‘What?’
‘Will you be singing on Sunday? At St Michael’s? With the Choral Society?’ Carrie asked. This was something she could cling to. Singing at St Michael’s was beginning to mean a lot to her. The Church of England did it best, the singing and music. Their hymns were better than anyone’s. They had a great organ with pipes going almost to the top of the vaulted roof. It was lovely – spiritual – singing to a great organ, much better than the wheezy harmonium at the chapel.
‘I will. It will be my last day in Macclesfield.’
She looked up, shocked. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Into the services. Coastal Command. I served in the last war.’
‘I know.’ She didn’t want to think about the last war. ‘Have you seen what we’re singing?’
Douglas nodded. ‘I’m singing Mendelssohn – “If With All Your Hearts”, from Elijah.’
‘I mean the duet.’ She could ask them to change it if he didn’t want to do it.
‘What is it? Is it you and me?’
He didn’t know, then. ‘It’s Handel, “Almighty Ruler of the Skies”. Can you sing it? After all this?’
‘Aye,’ he said softly. He had a terrible, sad expression on his face.
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