Reach for Tomorrow

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘What does this “doing him harm” mean?’ Davey asked quietly when she finished speaking. ‘Knocking him about a bit, or worse?’

  ‘She didn’t seem to know.’

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘Of course I asked her!’ Davey’s voice had been sharp but Flora’s was more so, and now her small frame was bristling as she added, ‘What do you take me for anyway?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Davey reached out a hand and gripped one of hers, and as he felt her jerk at his touch, and then become very still, the sudden revelation as to why Flora hadn’t yet committed herself to Peter Baxter dawned on him. Why hadn’t he seen it before? he asked himself silently. But he had always thought it was Sam Flora had liked; or maybe it had been in those days? Whatever, a hundred little incidents that had occurred over the last months suddenly fell into place. And hadn’t he begun to think along the same lines anyway, and with Sam gone - and Rosie too, in a different kind of way - there was nothing to stop them.

  ‘What are you going to do about Shane?’ Flora’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Davey could feel her trembling now beneath his warm flesh and the depth of her feeling for him touched some deep ache of loneliness and need inside himself, even as he removed his hand from hers and settled back in his chair. He drew the air hard between his teeth before he said, his eyes narrowed on her face which somehow seemed small and pitiful, ‘But I agree with Mrs McLinnie that something needs to be done. That son of hers wants locking up and they should throw away the key.’

  Flora nodded. ‘When I think of his face on New Year’s Eve I wouldn’t put anything past him where Zachariah is concerned.’

  ‘But it’s not reasonable, is it, not any of this.’ Davey’s voice was perplexed. ‘Rosie and Shane were seeing each other before I left Sunderland and she didn’t go anywhere, it was him who left. What’s he got to gripe about now? It was years before she married Zachariah. He had his chance and he blew it.’

  Flora lifted her head which had been bowed over her teacup and looked at him. He was so handsome and she loved him so much. He would never meet anyone who could love him as much as she did, and surely that justified what she was about to say? ‘Perhaps men like Shane McLinnie don’t need a reason as such,’ she prevaricated in a small voice. ‘He’s always liked Rosie, right from when we were all bairns together - you know how it used to worry Sam. And Mrs McLinnie has never believed Shane actually chose to leave Sunderland anyway, she thinks there was some trouble and he was forced to go. Perhaps he expected Rosie to wait for him, I don’t know.’

  ‘But wouldn’t she have told you that, you being her best friend?’

  Flora shrugged. She should have told him the truth straight out when he first came back, she should never have started this lying. But it wasn’t really lying, she comforted herself in the next instant. More not telling the whole truth. ‘Rosie has never been one for wearing her heart on her sleeve,’ she said uncomfortably, ‘and perhaps she felt embarrassed, I don’t know. I’ve never liked Shane McLinnie, it might have been that?’

  ‘Maybe. Aye, maybe.’

  Flora’s face was burning with colour and in the light of his new understanding of how she felt about him Davey put her obvious awkwardness down to the fact that they were discussing the girl she knew he had loved.

  How long had Flora felt this way? he asked himself now. Right from when he had first come back to the town? He remembered the warmth of her greeting at that time and it brought a surge of warmth and compassion that surprised him. He’d been a blind fool the last year but it wasn’t too late, not for them. Suddenly everything he had been thinking about earlier fell into place and it set his heart hammering.

  Flora had always known how he felt about Rosie and yet she still loved him. He’d be a fool to throw that sort of devotion away, wouldn’t he? And his feeling for her was a kind of love, not the consuming desire he had felt for Rosie, admittedly, but then what had that sort of love brought him except misery and regret? Marriage was a composite of many things of which the physical side was just a part. He would be in control with Flora, he would never have to suffer the agonies of the damned with her.

  ‘Don’t worry, lass.’ He bent forward as he spoke, reaching out his hand and lifting her chin with one finger as he brought her eyes up to meet his. ‘We’ll sort this with Shane out between us, never you fear.’

  His face was warm and kind and it made Flora quiver inside. She knew she ought to say something, make a coherent answer, but it was beyond her.

  And then, as her trembling became evident, Davey said quietly, ‘I’m glad you came tonight although I’d have wished the reason was different. But there’s been something I’ve been meaning to say.’

  She froze at his words; only her eyes moved as they searched his face, and his intuition told him she was expecting him to say he was going to leave and his compassion increased. He wanted to make this easy for her. It was the only thought filling his mind now as he continued, ‘I care about you, Flora, I hope you know that. I have cared about you for a long time.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say love. He wanted to - he knew it would please her - but he couldn’t.

  ‘I’m no great catch, lass, I know that, none better, but I can promise you I’ll look after you and endeavour to do my best by you.’

  As a proposal it wasn’t the most romantic in the world although Davey thought he had made himself plain, but when Flora gulped, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek as she moved back in her seat, her brow wrinkled, and said, ‘I don’t understand? What are you saying, Davey?’ he realized she hadn’t grasped what he was asking.

  ‘I want you to marry me, Flora.’

  ‘Marry . . .’ She looked utterly dumbfounded and for a moment he had the crazy notion she was going to refuse him, and then the old impetuous Flora was back as she, half laughing, half crying, said, ‘Oh, Davey, Davey! Yes, I’ll marry you! Of course I’ll marry you,’ her face shining like the sun.

  He almost expected a rush of panic as it dawned on him what he had done, a feeling that he had made a dreadful mistake, but it didn’t come. Instead relief filled him. This sealed the death knell on that other love: it was over; finished. He’d been in limbo for years, he had only fully realized it in the last few moments, but now his life could go on. He smiled at Flora, his eyes soft as he said, ‘Can I kiss you? Right now in the open?’

  ‘I don’t think an empty café is the open.’

  Her voice was eager and he knew that whatever else, they would have no problems regarding their coming together. She wanted him; desire was all too evident in her bright eyes and half-open lips, in the thrust of her breasts as she leant across the table towards him and the moistness of her flesh. She was ripe for marriage.

  She shivered as his lips took hers, and although her mouth was responsive he could tell she was still totally innocent. Again the feeling of compassion was strong, but threaded through with a new element, that of protectiveness.

  ‘I love you.’ As she sank back down into her seat her eyes were bright and her voice was husky. ‘And I’ll be a good wife, I promise you that, Davey.’

  ‘And I will be a good husband.’ He smiled as he said it, his voice almost light, and Flora wasn’t to know it was in the nature of a vow. She was his responsibility now; she’d had a rotten childhood from all accounts and the last six months had been the worst of all, but her life was going to change for the better. He would make sure of that.

  Chapter Twenty

  After talking the matter through again with Flora and remembering what she’d told him about the part Zachariah’s contacts had played in the rescue of Molly, Davey had no hesitation in going straight to Zachariah instead of approaching Shane himself. There was no love lost between him and Annie’s youngest, and although Shane’s mother had made the suggestion in good faith he couldn’t see McLinnie being frightened off by anything he, Davey, might say or do. This needed more force than he could bring t
o bear. Also, reading between the lines of what Flora had related, there was a possibility nagging away at him that put a whole new perspective on the strength of Shane’s enmity against the man Rosie had married. And it was this he broached immediately he was alone with Zachariah the following evening, he and Flora having called at The Terrace ostensibly to tell Rosie and Zachariah of their engagement.

  The first few minutes had been difficult but Davey hadn’t expected anything else. Flora had been bubbling with happiness, although, as always when the two of them were in Rosie’s presence, he detected a tenseness about her that manifested itself in her over-bright voice and inability to sit still.

  Zachariah had been hearty in his congratulations, kissing Flora on the cheek and pumping Davey’s hand like a piston engine. And Rosie . . . Davey hadn’t been able to gauge anything from Rosie’s warm felicitations and smiling face, other than the fact that not once in all the minutes before the two women disappeared into the kitchen to make a cup of tea had she met his eyes directly.

  But now he came to the matter in hand, brushing away Zachariah’s opening conversation on the concern that the recent developments in the coal strike were going to lead to riots, and saying, ‘I need to ask you something, something personal, Zachariah, and bear in mind when you answer that I’m asking for a damn good reason and that it will go no further than these four walls.’

  Zachariah stared at him for a moment and then settled back more comfortably in his chair before he said, ‘Ask away, man.’

  Davey raked back his hair from his brow, then rose abruptly and walked over to the ornate mantelpiece, where he stood looking down at the elaborate dried-flower arrangement in the empty grate for a few seconds. Then he turned, looking straight into Zachariah’s waiting eyes as he said, ‘When Shane McLinnie left Sunderland just after me in 1920, did you have anything to do with it?’

  ‘Aye, an’ again atween these four walls I’m proud of the fact.’

  There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation and that made it easier for Davey to say, ‘Can you tell me how you did it?’

  Zachariah spoke swiftly and concisely as he outlined the events that had led to Shane’s ignominious departure and when he had finished Davey nodded slowly. ‘Well, I think he’s rumbled it was you.’

  ‘Impossible.’ Zachariah shook his head decisively. ‘The men I used would let their tongues be cut out afore they let on.’

  ‘Maybe, but a careless word . . .’

  ‘Never. They’re used to sailin’ close to the wind an’ keepin’ their mouths shut, besides which they’re friends of mine from the old days. They wouldn’t let on, I’m tellin’ you.’

  ‘And there was no one else you told? You didn’t mention it to Rosie? Anyone? Think, man. It’s important.’

  ‘Rosie an’ me weren’t close in them days, I was still seein’--’

  Zachariah stopped abruptly. And then, ‘No, she wouldn’t, not Janie.’ And to Davey’s enquiring gaze, ‘I told a lass I was seein’ at the time but she wouldn’t have said anythin’. Anyway, she’s dead now, died a while back.’

  ‘Before or after Shane came back to Sunderland?’

  ‘Not long after.’

  ‘So it’s possible he might have heard something from her?’

  ‘No, I’m tellin’ you, Janie was a good lass.’ Zachariah now stood up himself and repeated, ‘As good as gold. I admit she was a bit upset when we called it a day, but we never fell out or anythin’. She wouldn’t have dropped me in it, not Janie.’

  ‘A woman scorned, maybe? People can do funny things when they’re bitter.’

  ‘No, not Janie, she wasn’t like that, an’ if anyone had cause to be bitter with what they’d had to put up with, Janie did. Her husband was a swine. But she wasn’t bitter, it wasn’t in the lass’s nature.’ And then, as Davey shrugged, Zachariah narrowed his eyes, coming closer and lowering his voice as he asked, ‘What’s this all about, man? What’s afoot?’

  ‘It could be something or nothing. Sit down and I’ll tell you.’

  Out in the kitchen Rosie was finding it hard to make conversation as though this was just another night. Engaged. He had asked Flora to marry him. They were going to be wed. It was drumming in her head, along with the warning, Act natural, be glad for her, talk, laugh. She couldn’t spoil this for Flora and hadn’t she, at the bottom of her, expected just this thing for months? Aye, yes, she had.

  Her plans to move further afield, to Lanchester maybe, or even Castleside or beyond, ostensibly to give Erik and any future bairns an upbringing free from the stench and noise of the town, had been partly rooted in this very thing. Not that she hadn’t always longed for a rural life herself, but in the last months the need had become urgent. A smallholding or little farm somewhere, a place where she and Zachariah and their family could all work together.

  There were times when she felt all their lives - hers and Zachariah’s and Flora’s and Davey’s - were perched together on the top of a powder keg, and it would need only one little spark for the fuse to light and blow them all apart. And she knew what that spark could be. And life was good - it was - for all of them. She and Zachariah had each other and Erik, and Flora had Davey. It was the best thing, it was. That was what she had to tell herself. And before Flora and Davey’s wedding she would make sure she and Zachariah had moved right away. And then, pray God, she would start to know peace of mind again.

  The two men were having a conversation about nothing more controversial than Sunderland Football Club’s successful last season, when Dave Halliday’s forty-two goals had meant the club continued to be a force to be reckoned with, when Rosie and Flora entered the room again.

  Davey and Flora stayed on for an hour or so, but all four were more than a little relieved, for reasons peculiar to each one of them, when the goodbyes were said. Once the door had closed behind Davey and Flora Zachariah made sure it was locked and bolted, and the downstairs windows secured with the wooden shutters tightly fastened.

  As was his wont, Zachariah tiptoed into his son’s room before he retired for the night, and he stood for a long while gazing down at the sleeping baby. He was glad Davey had told him about this latest, and although it might be nothing he would have it checked out.

  There was a certain contingent down at the docks that were always ready for any sort of dirty work; they were nothing but scum, but scum could always be bought. For the right price they’d blab on their own grandmothers. Aye, he’d have it checked out, and carefully, because there was more than his own self to worry about these days.

  Zachariah’s expression softened as he gazed on the small form in the cot, who - so everyone was fond of saying - got more and more like him every day, and there came over his whole body an enervating wave that carried fear in its depths. He adored Rosie, he worshipped the very ground his wife walked on, but this feeling for his son - it was unlike anything he had ever imagined himself feeling for any human being. He was unable to put a name to it, the simple word love didn’t even begin to cover the height and breadth of what burnt in his soul every time he watched his son smile and reach out with his chubby little arms and kick his fat legs; he knew that however many other children he and Rosie might have, and whatever their dispositions and attributes, this child would always hold first place in his heart.

  ‘I thought I’d find you in here.’

  Rosie’s soft smiling voice from the doorway brought his head swinging round and now he returned the smile, his eyes warm as he followed her out onto the landing. Rosie put her arm in his and like that they walked into their bedroom. She needed Zachariah to make love to her tonight. She needed to feel him inside her, strong and powerful, as he took what was rightfully his. He was a skilful lover as well as a considerate and thoughtful one, and she knew she was lucky in that respect. Although it was never talked about openly in an explicit way, the odd remark by this woman or that, and the many conversations that had gone on amongst the housewives when they were waiting for their orders at the Co-op or just s
tanding about gossiping in corners, had suggested that some men treated their wives with as much finesse as a rutting stallion. But even in the throes of passion, when Zachariah did things she blushed to think about in the light of day, he made her feel treasured. And she was grateful for that, she was. It would have been so much harder if that side of things hadn’t been good.

  She didn’t let her mind dwell on what would have been harder, she never did, not since that moment on New Year’s Eve when her glance had locked with Davey’s and she had read what was in his eyes, and now in repudiation of the shadow of the thing she had to keep buried and dead, she said, ‘I love you, Zachariah. Come to bed,’ and he, reading what was in her face, didn’t need to be told twice.

  Since her marriage Rosie had come to rely more and more on Sally’s warm, uncomplicated friendship. It had been a means of brightening some of the dark moments her estrangement with Flora had caused before Christmas, but it was more than that. Sally’s tall thin body and ugly face hid a capacity for love and understanding that was quite remarkable, and so Rosie felt it all the more keenly when, the evening after Davey and Flora had told her of their engagement, Sally and Mick called by with the news that they were leaving Sunderland for Ireland.

  ‘I don’t want to go.’ Sally had wrinkled her nose as she spoke. ‘But him, he sees himself as a gentleman farmer now! Isn’t that right, Mick?’

  ‘Aw, go on with you. It’s daft you’re talkin’, so it is.’

  ‘See? I swear his accent has got ten times worse since he found out his grandda’s left him a smallholdin’ back in the “old country”. That’s what you call it now, isn’t it, Mick, the old country? An’ here’s him only been over “the watter” twice in his whole life!’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Mick was taking his wife’s ribbing in his usual goodnatured fashion. ‘I can’t help it if me grandda liked me the best of our bunch, can I? You oughta be glad you’ve married into wealth anyway.’