Beyond the Veil of Tears

by Rita Bradshaw

  After buying a newspaper she had replied to two advertisements, one for a copy typist at the town hall and the other for a secretary to the manager of an engineering works just across the river, not far from the rope and wire works where May had once been employed. The town hall had written a polite letter saying they’d already been suited, but thanking her for her application, and the engineering works had granted her an interview the very next day. She had been thrown into a state of panic, and later that night when Jack had come round to share their evening meal – a regular occurrence twice a week, which was a source of mixed pain and pleasure for Angeline – he had found a very different person from the cool young woman he was accustomed to.

  He had recently passed the last of his examinations to qualify as a solicitor, but had been turned down by two firms in the town – probably, as he himself admitted, because he didn’t fit the middle-class image they were looking for. He was an oddity, working-class and proud of it, and not to be trusted. Consequently, and frustratingly, he was continuing in the same position as clerk to his present employer. That night, however, he had put his own disappointment and resentment aside and had risen to the occasion. He had been encouraging and reassuring, warm and even tender when Angeline had disgraced herself by weeping all over him and insisting she was out of her depth.

  For the first time since they’d met he’d held her close, murmuring that she could do anything she put her mind to. May had fussed about making a pot of tea. Angeline had been conscious of the controlled gentleness of Jack’s big male body, of the clean, soapy smell of him and of never wanting the moment to end. The strength of her feeling had terrified her, and as soon as she could she’d made the excuse of a headache and had retired to the front room to go to bed.

  The next day she had attended the interview and had been offered the job and a starting salary of twenty-five shillings a week, fifteen shillings more than she had been earning at the draper’s. It ought to have made her ecstatic, but all she could think about as she had walked home was how it had felt to be in Jack’s arms and what a terrible mess she had made of her life. She was living a lie. Grace Cunningham didn’t exist. Angeline Golding, on the other hand, was a married woman who was in love with another man – a man who could never know who she really was. Her career would have to be her life. She would grow old, childless and lonely, destined to be an aunt to any children May might have, but never holding her own little one in her arms. It was her bleakest hour.

  She had gone and bought a cup of tea and a cake she didn’t want in a dingy little cafe, returning home much later to find Jack and May waiting to hear how she had got on. She had accepted Jack’s congratulations with a polite smile, and when he had given her a brief hug she had stepped back quickly, her body stiff and her face tense. From that day to this he had never touched her again.

  Within weeks of May’s marriage, Angeline moved across the river. She had found a small two-up, two-down terraced house in Garden Street close to the engineering works, which she rented for four shillings a week. She had gradually furnished it the way she wanted, and with the new job proving to be interesting and absorbing, she told herself she was lucky. Sometimes, especially the nights when she didn’t work overtime and the evening stretched before her endlessly, she had to tell herself more fiercely than usual that she was lucky.

  May’s husband was a nice man and brought his wife to see Angeline once a week, taking himself off to meet up with pals at a public house in Newcastle so the two women could have dinner together and a good natter. After a while Jack had taken to joining them, ostensibly so that he could walk May back across the river and deliver her safely to her husband. It had seemed churlish not to invite him for dinner after he’d done this a few times, and thereafter a pattern had been set. Every Monday, without fail, the three of them would eat together and chat for a while, before Jack and May left to make their way across the bridge into Newcastle. Last week Angeline had told them she didn’t expect them the following Monday, it being New Year’s Day, but they’d both assured her they would come.

  Now she carried the tray of coffee that the three of them always had after their meal across the sitting room and put it on the coffee table, around which was placed a three-piece suite. It was a cosy room, and unusual in as much as Angeline hadn’t decorated it with the dark, serviceable colours most folks favoured; nor had she chosen a stiff horsehair suite and solid, heavy furniture, with the inevitable aspidistra in front of the window. Instead the walls were painted a pale yellow, the same colour as the flowery curtains at the window, and there were no starched nets. The sunny theme continued with the three-piece suite, which was made out of bamboo, with big, plump seats in gold brocade that were comfortable enough to doze in. A thick patterned carpet in the varying shades of autumn leaves covered the entire floor, and the bookcase and coffee table were also fashioned from bamboo. A large picture featuring a woodland scene sat on one wall and a gold-framed mirror hung over the small fireplace, but otherwise the walls were bare.

  When May had first seen the newly decorated room she had secretly wondered where the tablecloths and runners, antimacassars and cushions, pot plants and vases and porcelain figurines were. And just one picture on the wall? A front room was a showpiece, for those fortunate enough to have one. She had been further surprised when it became clear that Angeline intended to use the room every day, and merely cook and eat in the kitchen with its big scrubbed oak table and four chairs. She had said as much to Jack, and when he had quietly replied that he thought the room was perfect, she had said no more.

  She glanced at her brother now as he sat with his legs stretched out, puffing on his pipe, his eyes half-closed. He appeared perfectly relaxed and maybe he was, but it was difficult to tell with Jack. There had been the odd occasion once or twice – just a handful of times in all – over the last years when May had thought he might be sweet on Grace. Not that Jack had ever intimated it, quite the contrary in fact, but nevertheless . . . She had said as much to Howard and he’d laughed his head off, before telling her she was imagining things. And maybe she was. Certainly Grace wasn’t interested in Jack, or any other man for that matter, and who could blame her after what she’d been through?

  May accepted her cup of coffee from Angeline with a smile, thinking how pretty she looked with a slight flush to her cheeks, no doubt from the cooking. It was a shame Grace would never have her own husband and bairns, though, even if she seemed happy enough with her job and her home. But then, she did have a husband. May kept forgetting that. They had decided early on that even when they were alone she should call Angeline ‘Grace’, it was safer that way, and as time had gone by, it had become second nature – to the extent that she didn’t think of her as Angeline any more, or that she was a married woman with a husband.

  Mentally shaking her head at her rambling thoughts, May put down her coffee cup. ‘I’ve an announcement to make, and seeing it’s the first day of a new year, it couldn’t be a better time.’

  Angeline was sitting with May on the sofa, Jack being in a chair opposite, and now she turned to her friend and said softly, ‘It’s happened?’

  ‘Aye, at last!’

  ‘Oh, May, I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘I know you said it would, but with the past an’ all I was beginning to wonder.’

  As the two women hugged each other, Jack said plaintively, ‘Have I missed something here?’

  Laughing through happy tears, May said, ‘You’re going to be an uncle, lad. Uncle Jack. What about that?’

  ‘You’re in the family way?’

  Jack was beaming, and it wrenched Angeline’s heart. He would make a lovely father one day, but oh, she couldn’t bear the thought of it. As if her friend had picked up on the thought, May now said to him, ‘’Bout time you settled down and thought about family life, isn’t it? What happened to that last lass you were walking out with? Esther, wasn’t it? She seemed nice enough.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘It wasn’t seri
ous.’

  ‘Not on your side mebbe, but she was fair gone on you – anyone could see that. Why do they never last for more than a few months with you, anyway?’

  He shrugged again. ‘I’m not the marrying type. You’ve hit it lucky with your Howard, but there’s not many who could say the same. I’d rather be miserable on me own than miserable tied to some lass or other.’

  ‘Oh, you!’ May flapped her hand at him before turning back to Angeline. ‘It’ll be born at the end of July, beginning of August, so a summer baby will be nice, won’t it? We told Howard’s mam an’ da yesterday, an’ they’re tickled pink – first grandchild and all that. Howard’s mam has already started knitting, and his da’s said they’ll turn that ramshackle cottage at the back of the mill round for us. Get it nice before the baby comes. Not that I’ve minded living with them, but it’ll be grand to have our own place whilst still being near to Howard’s mam.’

  Howard was the eldest of four boys and his mother had embraced May as the daughter she had always longed for. ‘You’re so lucky to have such nice in-laws, May.’

  ‘Don’t I know it! After me own mam an’ da, I thank God every day for Howard’s. Like I said to Howard . . . ’

  As the two women chatted on, Jack sat quietly watching Angeline, his feet resting on the gleaming steel fender of the fireplace, and curls of smoke from his pipe wafting over his head. He had been chary about lighting his pipe in her bright, clean house at first, but she had assured him that she loved the smell of pipe tobacco because it reminded her of her father. She hadn’t elaborated on that and he hadn’t asked her to; he’d learned in the past that any questions about her previous life would be met with monosyllabic answers or evasion, or just cold silence.

  What would she say if he told her he lived for the few hours each Monday when he could be in her presence? But then why ask the road you know – she’d run a mile, and thereafter the door to this house would be closed to him. Once he could admit it to himself – and it had taken a long time, he thought wryly, his mouth curling in its lopsided smile – he had known he had fallen in love with Grace the moment she had stood on his landing asking for his help. It had been as quick and as deadly as that. He hadn’t been in love before that day, in fact he hadn’t known if he believed in the forever-after kind of love between a man and a woman, not having seen much evidence of it in his life. Oh, there was the passionate, heady kind of love, where all that mattered was bedding a lass and having your way with her, but he’d seen too many of his pals fall for that and live to regret it, once the first thrill faded and they were stuck with a wife and a handful of bairns. And some marriages were plain hell – like his own mam an’ da’s. Of course there was the odd couple who seemed to get it right, like old Mr and Mrs Benson who’d lived a few doors up from them when he was a bairn. Done everything together, they had, and he’d fair worshipped the ground she walked on and there’d been no one like him for her. He remembered going into the two rooms that were their home when he was a bairn and wanting to stay there forever, such was the sense of peace and happiness there.

  ‘ . . . be nice to see them, don’t you think, Jack?’ He came out of his reverie to find both women looking at him and realized he hadn’t heard a word May was saying.

  ‘Sorry.’ He sat up straighter. ‘I was daydreaming.’

  ‘Still dozing off the effects of your shenanigans last night, more likely,’ said May with sisterly disapproval. ‘I was saying that they’ve got some more fireworks tonight over at Castle Leazes, the football-ground end near St James’s Park. Me an’ Howard are going to see them when I meet him; why don’t you and Grace come, too? Howard can give you a lift back to the bridge after, in the horse and cart, and you could walk Grace back here.’

  Anything that meant more time with Grace was fine by him. Jack nodded. ‘I’m game.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Oh, come on, Grace. You missed the fireworks and fun last night, and it’s not every day a new century happens. By tomorrow everything will be the same again – it’s just one night.’ May played her trump card. ‘It can be a celebration of the baby, how about that? They’ll have the travelling fair there, and the hot potato man and everything. Please come, for me? Please?’

  Against her better judgement, Angeline gave in. The evening would be bitter-sweet, as any time with Jack was, but the thought of being out with him, almost as a couple, was as thrilling as it was scary. Scary, because she would die a thousand deaths if he ever guessed how she felt about him. Thrilling, because in the seven years she had known him she had never been out with him in this way, even if it was as a foursome.

  And then she checked the thought swiftly. It wasn’t a foursome, not in that sense. May was his sister, and she was May’s friend. That was all.

  Later, though, when she excused herself and went upstairs to get ready and looked at herself in the bedroom mirror, her eyes were bright and her heart was racing. Shutting her eyes tightly for a moment, she murmured, ‘Stop it, calm down. You know he barely likes you; if you weren’t May’s friend, he wouldn’t give you the time of day; and even if he did like you, it’s impossible. It was May who suggested this. It means nothing.’

  Nevertheless, when her hand reached for her winter coat, it paused and then moved to the new coat she had recently treated herself to, but not worn yet. The colour was a little daring, being a deep cherry-red, but it had suited her so well in the shop she hadn’t been able to resist it, and the fur-lined hood complemented the slim fit of the coat beautifully. She had bought a neat little hat in the same colour, along with black leather gloves and stylish black boots, even though at the time she’d told herself it was an indulgence, as she had nowhere to go to show the outfit off.

  But now she had. She looked at herself in the mirror, once she was dressed in the coat and hat. She looked different – more like Angeline than Grace – and for a moment she almost took the coat off. Almost. But it suited her too well and something inside, a recklessness, wanted to make Jack notice her tonight as a woman, rather than as good old Grace, May’s pal.

  She felt ridiculously shy as she joined May and Jack who were waiting in the hall, brushing off May’s oohs and aahs as her friend enthused about the coat, and being deliberately brisk as she marshalled them out of the front door into the bitterly cold street beyond. It had been snowing on and off for weeks, but with each fall had come a period of thawing before more snow had come along, the severe weather that had been forecast for after Christmas holding off. Now it was snowing hard again, and as she stepped down into the street after locking the front door, Jack raised her hood and dropped it over her head so that it framed her face. ‘That’s better,’ he said, very softly. ‘You look like the spirit of winter, like the rosehip berries. I love to see those specks of scarlet shine in the barrenness of a desolate countryside, don’t you? They’re like a promise of what’s to come.’

  May spoilt the moment by snorting derisively. ‘Poetic, aren’t we? You’ve definitely still got the effects of last night’s carousing in your system, our Jack.’

  He smiled, tucking one of May’s hands and one of Angeline’s into the crook of his elbows. ‘Not at all. Do you know the month of January is named after Janus, the two-headed god of vigil? It’s appropriate, because January looks back on the old year, yet at the same time advances towards spring.’

  Another snort from May followed as they began to walk along the frozen pavement. ‘All I know is I’m in danger of ending up on my backside. These pavements are like glass.’

  Jack chuckled. ‘You’ve no soul, lass. That’s your trouble. Haven’t you ever marvelled at the beauty in a frozen landscape? It intensifies every colour and shade, from the wisps of silver in a winter sky to the purple and bronze of the bramble bushes. I’ve often wished I was a painter. I’d love to capture what I see and hold on to it.’

  ‘Huh, if you seriously think you could sell paintings of old bramble bushes, you’re dafter than I thought.’

  �
��May, May . . . Have you nothing of the artist in you?’

  ‘Since when did paintings of bramble bushes provide bread for the table? There’s more beauty in one of my Howard’s sacks of flour than all your silver skies and what-have-you, my lad, so think on.’

  Angeline listened to their good-natured bantering as they walked, but inside her Jack’s words had stirred the ever-present ache into an actual physical pain. How often had she seen what he saw? Hundreds of times. And this other side of him, the side that saw beauty in such natural, everyday things – springtime primroses; wind-racked elms beyond a corn field shimmering in a summer’s haze; a grey winter’s landscape grizzled with sleet and many other things he had talked about in the past and which she had held close to her heart – this hurt her more than anything. It was the antithesis of the determined, even ruthless campaigner and reformer, the fierce individual who insisted that nothing less than radical social change was called for, whatever the cost to the individual.

  Not that she didn’t agree with him, for she did; but it was the militant, even aggressive side of things she baulked at. Unbeknown to anyone, she had investigated for herself the beliefs and values of the Socialist Party that Verity had believed in, along with other political organizations, and not least the female suffrage movement. Gradually she had sorted out where she stood on many issues, and with that had come a desire to do something. As her father would have said, she wanted to get her hands dirty, not attend this or that meeting or join one of the Socialist sects. She wasn’t a political animal, that much was for sure, but exactly what she wanted to do wasn’t clear. Or even what she would be allowed to do, as a young, supposedly unmarried woman.

  ‘You’re very quiet.’

  Jack looked down at her, a smile on his face, and suddenly instead of the polite remark she had been about to make, she tilted her head at him and spoke in an accent as broad as May’s as she said, ‘Aye, well mebbe that’s because I can’t get a word in edgeways, with you two jawing on, m’lad.’