The bare wood stairs were indeed steep and very gloomy, with a peculiar little twist three steps from the top that brought Rosie facing a small dark landing. She walked to the first door and opened it to reveal a room of perhaps eleven feet in length and nine feet wide. It was quite empty, apart from a small deep-set grate in the wall facing her which was enclosed within an iron framework that was unusually decorative. Two long, thin sash windows in the far wall overlooked the sloping roof of the kitchen and the small yard, and there were no curtains.
The second room was larger, encompassing the front of the house but on the same lines as the first, with an identical little fireplace and three sash windows this time. Again there were no curtains, but this room was brighter than the other one owing to the lamplighter having lit the street lamp that was positioned just outside the window. Rosie stood for a moment looking about her. Whoever the other occupants had been there wasn’t a trace of them left, the floorboards were swept clean and there wasn’t anything to say anyone had ever lived here. She shivered suddenly, the chill of the night making itself felt after the warmth of the room downstairs.
What was she going to do if she couldn’t get them set on at Bradman’s? Of course she could try the Northern Laundry in St Mark’s Road and all the shops hereabouts, but work was so scarce. But she couldn’t think of that now, she’d sort something out, she’d have to.
He was sitting waiting for her in exactly the same spot when she went downstairs again, and the sight of the small stunted legs dangling over the edge of the sofa brought such a rush of pity that she lowered her eyes quickly in case he saw it. ‘The . . . the rooms are lovely.’
‘Aye, well I wouldn’t go that far, but they’re clean an’ bug-free, lass, an’ that’s more than you can say in some quarters, however much they might whiten the step an’ bleach the pavement of a Saturday mornin’.’ He was grinning when she looked up, and gestured to the seat she had vacated by the fire as he said, ‘Sit yourself down, lass. You’re welcome to another cuppa but it’s syrup, not sugar, courtesy of the Kaiser an’ this bloomin’ rationin’.’
‘No, no thank you, I must be getting home.’ Rosie took a deep breath. ‘Could . . . could we move in at the weekend?’ Davey had said he could get the use of a coal cart and horse on Sundays and it would save paying for a flat lorry. ‘Would that be convenient?’
‘Aye, it’d be convenient,’ he said with a slight emphasis on the last word as though she had said something funny. ‘But don’t you want to know how much the rent is afore you decide?’
Oh she was stupid, she was. What must he be thinking? Her face flamed as she continued to stand awkwardly just inside the door and she knew she ought to say something cool and sensible, but all she could manage was a tight bob of her head as she kept her eyes on the handsome face.
‘Well I don’t charge as much as some, with it just bein’ the two rooms an’ all.’ He paused, his mind working rapidly. He could get six shillings or more from a family where the man was in work, but as far as he recalled Bradman’s weren’t over-generous to their lasses and there were the two little ’uns to clothe and feed. ‘How does three an’ six a week sound for now?’
‘Three and six?’ Her mother had said they’d been paying ten shillings to Mr Kilbride for Forcer Road, and here the netty and the washhouse were their own, along with Mr Price of course, and the room overlooking the street was perfect for a sitting room. Rosie nodded quickly. She had no idea how she was going to meet the first week’s rent, and if he asked for it up front like most landlords did . . .
He didn’t. ‘Right, we’ll take that as read then, lass.’ For some reason - and he couldn’t explain it, even to himself - Zachariah was finding that the sight of this young girl was paining him. In spite of the unusually mature way she had about her it was obvious she was little more than a bairn, her body was only just beginning to take on the first signs of womanhood and her eyes were as innocent as a five-year-old’s. The creamy-skinned oval face was pretty enough, and the dark brown eyes with their heavy fringe of black lashes were striking, but it would be an exaggeration to call her beautiful. And yet . . . there was something more than mere beauty shining out of this face, something warm and vital that was causing his guts to twist and his voice to sound abrupt as he said, ‘I’ll see you at the weekend if not afore then.’
‘Thank you.’ In spite of all the uncertainty before her Rosie felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She’d found them somewhere to stay and that was a start. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Price.’
‘Nothin’ to thank me for, lass.’ Zachariah had always considered himself a levelheaded, charitable man, and it was doubly disturbing to find he was already regretting the verbal agreement. ‘It’s business, that’s all. Straightforward business.’
‘Yes. Yes of course.’ They stared at each other a moment or two longer, Rosie’s eyes faintly puzzled, and then she said, ‘I must go, my mother will be worried. I’ll let you know what time we plan to arrive on Sunday when I’ve had a word with her, if that’s all right?’ ‘No need.’ His voice was over-jolly in his desire to take the stiffness out of it. ‘I’ll be in all weekend, lass.’
As she turned in the doorway he slid off the sofa and followed her out into the cold hall, and perversely he found he was swinging his body so it exaggerated his shambling gait all the more.
It was quite dark outside and the snow was settling, a thin wispy layer covering the frozen pavement like a bride’s veil, and Zachariah, in an effort to dispel the awkward atmosphere, remarked, ‘Looks like we’re in for a packet this time.’
After stepping down into the street Rosie turned to face him again and now she found the six inches or so difference in their height was evened out and her head was on a level with his, when she said, ‘So they say but we’ve been lucky so far.’
‘Aye, just so.’ She could say they’d been lucky after what she had shared about her family’s circumstances? He looked into her sweet face caught in the light of the street lamp, the shadow of her hat turning her eyes into dark pools of velvet, and felt something tighten in his stomach. ‘Just so, lass.’ She was a fighter all right, this one, and he’d always taken his hat off to them that bit back. He found he was suddenly glad he had agreed to rent out the rooms. ‘So long, lass, an’ watch yourself, mind.’
‘Yes, I will. And . . . thank you again, Mr Price.’
Chapter Three
‘Here we are then, hinny, this is your stop. Watch yourself, mind.’
It was the third time today she had had the last words spoken to her, but Rosie smiled at the fatherly tram conductor as she stepped onto the pavement. The tram only took Rosie as far as the corner of Mapel Avenue, there was still the trek down Chapel Lane before she turned into Forcer Road and home. She stood for a moment in the feathery white silence as the tram trundled away, the two men and one woman who had alighted at her stop disappearing into the darkness. It was strange how the snow changed everything. Rosie lifted her head and looked up into the swirling blanket above, the big fat starry snowflakes settling on her eyelashes as she blinked against their coldness. It could even make Chapel Lane a thing of beauty.
‘Hallo, Rosie.’
When the shadow at the side of the wall of a house opposite the tram stop suddenly moved, Rosie actually squealed aloud before she took a hold of herself. ‘Who . . . ? Oh, Shane. What are you doing here?’ she asked sharply, her voice slightly aggressive with fright.
‘Waitin’ for you.’
Rosie found she couldn’t move as Shane stepped out of his hiding place, and then, when he was standing in front of her, that nervous, disturbed feeling was back tenfold. ‘Waiting for me?’ She eyed him warily. ‘How did you know I was coming on that tram?’
‘I didn’t.’ He was big and solid and his broad face under its shock of abundant fair hair was smiling. ‘I’ve bin waitin’ for an hour or more since me ma said where you’d gone. She’s given the bairns their tea an’ took somethin’ ro
und for your mam too.’
‘Your mother sent you to meet me?’ Somehow Rosie couldn’t imagine Mrs McLinnie doing that.
‘No.’ His voice was soft and low, and there was a quality to it that made Rosie want to start walking. ‘That was me own idea.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She was standing stiff, talking stiff. ‘Well you needn’t have.’
‘I wanted to.’ There was a slightly argumentative note to his voice now that reminded her of when they’d been bairns playing together and it was oddly reassuring, relaxing her enough to answer fairly normally, ‘Well, thanks, but it’s only a minute or two home.’
‘Aye, but you never know.’ His voice was casual now and his tone ordinary, and it relaxed her still more.
‘No, I suppose not.’
He was a tall lad, all of six foot and big with it, and when he took her arm and drew her along with him Rosie found herself thinking, he’s well set up, good-looking even, so why don’t I like him in that way? Nancy Brown does, she’s mad over him, so Flora said. And Lizzie Hetherington’s set her cap at him, apparently. Perhaps it was because she’d always liked Davey from as far back as she could remember? But no, her feeling for Davey didn’t really have anything to do with the way she felt about Shane McLinnie. Even if she had never set eyes on Davey she could never have contemplated walking out with Shane. Not that he’d asked her, of course, and there was no reason why he should. She’d heard tell he had a lass down Southwick way, and he’d been courting Mary Linney in Roker before that. There had been some trouble about Mary but Sam had never told her what, although it had been after that that he had warned her to stay away from Shane.
‘Me ma says you’re lookin’ to move to Hendon?’
They were walking down Chapel Lane and the snow was coming down thicker than ever, almost obliterating the houses on the other side of the road.
‘Yes.’ There was an inflexion in his voice that made her tone defensive as she said, ‘We’ve got to.’
‘Don’t give me that, you don’t have to.’
‘What?’ She turned to him, her mouth wide, even as a separate part of her mind was saying, Don’t argue with him, don’t annoy him. Just agree with everything he says until you’re home and you can shut the door on him.
‘You want to get away, don’t you? From Forcer Road, from me.’
She felt her stomach begin to flutter, but her voice was firm and steady when she said, ‘Don’t be daft, Shane, of course I don’t. We’re moving because we need to be close to Bradman’s. We . . . we’ve got work there, me and Mam.’ Eee, he was the second person she’d lied to about the jam factory. She was pushing her luck here, it’d serve her right if they didn’t get the jobs.
‘Bradman’s?’
‘Yes, Bradman’s.’
‘Since when?’ he asked a touch belligerently.
Frightened as Rosie was she wasn’t going to put up with this. ‘Look, what’s the matter with working at Bradman’s?’ She forced an equally belligerent note into her voice. ‘You know how we’re placed now Da and the lads have gone. Money doesn’t grow on trees.’
‘Aye, aye, I’m sorry, lass, I didn’t mean . . .’ His voice trailed away and for a moment the boy Shane was back, the little lad who’d always made time for her even when Sam and Davey hadn’t. Shane had never sent her home with a ‘You go back an’ play with the lassies, there’s a good girl’, or refused to let her go freshwater shrimping when the lads would skinny dip and the girls would watch them, wide eyed. No, even then Shane had treated her different and, bairns being bairns, she had played on it until the uneasy feeling she’d had since she was around ten or eleven had grown into something approaching fear.
They were about a third of the way down Chapel Lane and normally at this time of night the street would be thick with children dangling on makeshift swings they had strung together from the jutting iron arms of the lamp-posts, or playing tip the cat and bays - a northern form of hopscotch - with thick glass counters called pitchy dobbers, but tonight the near-blizzard conditions had them all indoors.
‘You got anywhere in Hendon then?’
‘No.’ The lie was spontaneous and immediate and made Rosie realize just how much she didn’t want Shane to know her new address.
‘Aw, Rosie’ - he stopped, taking her arm and swinging her round to face him - ‘you know how I feel about you, lass. You do, don’t you? You’re nigh on fourteen, you’re not a bairn any more, an’ there’s that Davey Connor forever sniffin’ about.’
She was shivering inside and the dark street, mute and silent under its thickening white blanket, seemed terribly impartial to her plight, but she forced her voice to sound cool and matter-of-fact as she said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. Davey’s a friend of mine, he was Sam’s best friend--’
‘Aye, aye I know that an’ all, same as I know your Sam told you to steer clear of me. I’m not wrong, am I?’ He peered down at her, the thick snow covering his hair and the shoulders of his cloth jacket making him seem even more at one with the pale muffled world she found herself in. ‘Just ’cos Mary couldn’t keep her big mouth shut, an’ there were others she gave the eye to on the quiet asides me. There’s any number of lads who could’ve fathered her bairn whatever she says, the fat dirty trollop.’
He had given Mary Linney a bairn? As Rosie attempted to start walking again Shane’s hands came down on her shoulders, and it took all her willpower not to react. But she had to remain calm and show him she refused to be intimidated, she felt her safety depended on it. ‘Sam didn’t say anything about you and Mary, Shane, and I have to get home--’
‘Oh aye, an’ pigs can fly.’ His hands tightened as he bent slightly towards her. ‘Mary Linney, huh! There was no way I was goin’ to be saddled with a fat plain piece like her, an’ you know why, don’t you? There’s only ever bin one lass for me, Rosie. One lass I’m prepared to give me name to.’
Why wasn’t there anyone about? Why had Mrs McLinnie let him come out? Oh, she wanted her mam.
‘Say you like me, Rosie, just a little bit, eh?’ She could feel him trembling through his hands on her shoulders, and his voice was a hoarse whisper, his breath hot on her chilled face. ‘I’d be good to you, lass. I promise you I’d never look at another woman, not if I had you. You’d want for nothin’, I swear it.’
‘Let go of me, Shane McLinnie. I’m warning you--’
‘I can’t think of anythin’ but you, it fair burns me up at times. That with Mary, that was nothin’, just an easin’ of meself.’ He was muttering thickly as much to himself as Rosie. ‘It’s always bin you, lass, from when you was a wee bairn.’
He had drawn her against him in spite of her struggles, his big muscled body subduing her as easily as if she was still the wee bairn he had spoken of, and even through the layers of their clothing she could feel his arousal. His knees, his thighs, his stomach, she could feel it all as he held her pressed to him, one hand in the small of her back and the other clasping her right buttock as he moved her against him, slowly exciting himself still more.
Fear had frozen her vocal cords but then, as he endeavoured to move her backwards into the shadow of the gable end of a house, she opened her mouth to scream, only for his to clamp down on hers in a wet thrusting kiss that almost covered the lower part of her face. Rosie was fighting in earnest now, her small fists battering the solid wall of his back as she twisted and kicked with all the strength of her slight, slender body, but at eighteen, and after four years in the shipyard, Shane McLinnie had the physique and strength of a man twice his age.
When she tore her mouth from his long enough to emit one desperate strangled scream the hand on her buttocks came across her face to stifle the sound, but her cry seemed to bring him to his senses. ‘Whisht, Rosie lass, it’s all right.’ He was still holding her so close she could feel every inch of him, and the hand on her mouth was forcing her head back until she felt her neck would crack. ‘I’m not goin’ to hurt you, not you. Dinna panic.’
Don’t
panic? Rosie could feel the bubbling hysteria and she fought it with all her might, she couldn’t afford to weaken now. But don’t panic, he had said, when she felt he had been eating her alive.
As the hand clamped across her mouth released its pressure Shane said, ‘Now dinna scream, Rosie. Dinna, lass.’
‘Let - go - of me.’ Again she twisted and writhed.
‘Aw, lass, I dinna mean anythin’, not really. Pure as the lily you are, I know that, not like some of ’em hereabouts who’re at it the minute they’re off the breast.’
Pure as the lily? But she had seen what was in his eyes and he hadn’t been going to stop at kissing her, Rosie thought sickly. He had wanted to take her down, she knew it.
‘I’ve got to get home.’ She tried to push against the bulk of him but he wasn’t ready to let her go. ‘Please, Shane.’ Please, dear God, please help me. Please, please . . . And then, as if in answer to that unvoiced prayer, she heard something and said, ‘There’s . . . there’s someone coming, listen.’
They were standing close to the wall of a house without touching it and now, as Rosie saw the portly little man and even portlier little woman emerge out of the thick veil of snowflakes, she wanted to call out to them. But she didn’t dare. Whether it was fear of what Shane might do, or the equally strong fear that the result of such an action would bring her respectability - the importance of which her mother had impressed upon her from when she was knee high - into question, Rosie didn’t know. Whatever, she watched the couple hurry past, her eyes desperate.
And it was only as the white silence surrounded them again - Shane using the momentary distraction to his own advantage as he moulded her firmly against him, fitting her slight body into his with an ease that spoke of practice as he groaned her name before devouring her mouth - that Rosie felt a strength she hadn’t been aware of before flood her limbs. It wasn’t nice, it was dirty - horrible - that thing pressing and prodding against her belly. As the thought hit she pushed savagely at his chest, catching Shane totally unawares and almost sending him sprawling into the gutter. As he staggered back a step or two Rosie was vaguely aware of a dark shape on the perimeter of her vision, but in the next moment as her head swung fully round it was gone. Someone had seen them? Oh no, please don’t let anyone have seen them. And then, as Shane made a move towards her again Rosie hissed, ‘You stay away from me, Shane McLinnie. I mean it.’
Reach for Tomorrow Page 5