‘It’s no good, you’ll have to wrap them in something. You sound like a load of brass monkeys, jingling about like that.’ She could barely talk for laughing.
Don glared. ‘Will you shut up with your daft remarks. Go on then, find us something.’ But there was nothing here or further down by the entrance to the street so they retraced their steps hoping that no one was watching from the houses which faced the plot. They searched for old sacking in the shed but there was only dried disintegrating newspaper that crumbled as they touched it. There wasn’t even a dock leaf with its moist expansiveness.
‘You’ll just have to keep your hands in your pockets and stifle the noise until you can belt up to your rooms. Will your ma be in, Georgie?’ Annie asked.
‘O aye, but she’ll not notice over the noise of the bairns.’ The grass stem was still in his mouth. ‘Go on Don, you’ll be late,’ he chivvied. ‘We’ll meet in the usual place.’
Annie ran on, turning to look at them following her. She held out her hand to Tom and clasped his free one. It was hot and sticky. She was laughing so hard her stomach banged against her ribs.
Betsy turned as they stumbled in the door, the laughter making her long to be out with them and ten years younger.
‘Just look at you,’ she scolded, turning Annie round. ‘Your skirt is filthy and screwed up in your knickers. You’ve dripping round your mouth. You’re worse than Tom and he’s no bleeding angel.’ She turned to Tom. ‘And you can wipe that smile off your face, that’s nothing to be proud of.’ Tom straightened his face and Annie saw Betsy smile as she turned away.
‘Come on now, all of you, clean up and then sit down, your da will be here in a minute. Come on, Don, don’t hang about outside, and leave that door open, it’s too hot as it is with the fire on. Get your hand under the tap and sort yourself out.’
Don caught at the door as it swung shut and pulled it open again. The water spluttered as Annie twisted the tap. She waited for Tom to wash first then held her hands under the spurting water.
‘Go on with your pocketful,’ she mouthed under cover of her splashing. She was thirsty and her tongue ached with the thought of a cold clear drink but she knew she would have to wait until she was clean before Betsy would allow it.
Tom was on his way and Don moved with him.
‘I’ll just nip upstairs for a moment, Betsy.’ He was nearly at the door, having side-stepped round the laid table when he stopped dead-still as their father entered.
Tom sat down in his seat, he had been just behind it, gripping both pockets.
‘Come along, Don,’ their father said. ‘Sit down or I shall assume you don’t want to finish your meal in time for the fair.’
Annie’s eyes widened and she half turned, splashing water down the front of her dress. Don was stranded halfway to the door and had to return to the sink without rattling and giving everything away. She coughed, again and again and Don bolted over to the sink, gave himself a quick splash and moved, stiff-legged, to the table.
‘For goodness sake girl, have a drink. Don’t stand there looking helpless.’
‘Sorry, Da.’ She reached for the enamel mug and filled it. Avoiding the black chip she looked over the top to see if Don was safely seated. He was. ‘I should have had a drink earlier,’ she tossed at Betsy and scuttled to her seat as she caught the look in her step-mother’s eye. It would be a clip round the backside if she wasn’t careful. She pressed her leg against Tom’s as she sat down.
Betsy looked at Annie and then at Tom. His wide-eyed look betrayed him. Just like his da when he’s up to mischief, she thought. Ah well, let them have some fun, thinking all the time of the unpaid invoices she would have to deal with this evening and the partnership papers that Albert was coming to sign, though what good it would do to pool their meagre profits she could not understand. If there was no work, there was no money for traders. Even those in the pits knew they could be working today and not tomorrow so were being canny with the pennies, especially with wages going down, not up.
She shivered, looking at the rashers she had put before the family and worried about the future. For the moment they were just about fed and clothed. But for how long? She sighed. It must be time for another of Ma Gillow’s readings. Maybe the tea leaves would be clearer this time. She lowered herself heavily on to the chair and played with her meal; the fat had congealed and a thick whiteness coated the bottom of her plate and she had little appetite.
‘Your knife is not a pen, my dear,’ remarked Archie.
Automatically Betsy shifted her grip, no longer stung to a retort. At least the bugger had been right about one thing she thought; she wouldn’t know what to do if she had a string of bairns hanging off her skirts as her mother would have said. At least she did not have to suffer a husband’s beer-breathed Saturday night demands and Archie’s pale hands on her body. Betsy wiped her forehead with her arm. The thought of her belly full with Archie’s child made her feel sick.
She stretched back in the chair. Her hands were swollen and aching again from the beer kegs and they would be worse tomorrow and the next day and for as long as she had to drag and hammer and cork hop-reeking barrels.
Again Archie broke into all their thoughts.
‘I’ll just get along to the study and make out Bert’s invoice. He’s coming along later to settle.’ He rose. ‘Now, be in by ten all of you and no mischief.’ He looked particularly at Annie before leaving and laughed at Don who said:
‘As if we would.’
They all watched as he reached the door. He seemed to hesitate, then passed through. Betsy pursed her mouth in frustration; wouldn’t we all like a study to hide in, she thought, but at least this time he’d given her lad the same as the others. Annie and Don nodded to Tom to follow as they slipped from the table and made for the door.
‘Before you go, please make sure you wrap those lead bits in cloth,’ Betsy had spoken softly, smiling as she caught the clink when they stopped abruptly.
Annie swung round, her mouth open.
‘And don’t think you were the first to work out that fiddle.’ Betsy laughed. ‘Just make sure you’re not the first to be caught.’
Don and Tom dodged out of the door. Annie remained, looking closely at Betsy who stood with her back to the light but there was enough from the fire for her to really see her and she was shocked. Her step-mother was not really old, she realised. In fact she was young where the lines hadn’t dug in and spewed out wrinkles. She must once have been a child and laughed in the sun, and pity twisted inside her and drew her across the room, back to the bowed shoulders and cruelly worked hands.
Betsy was now looking at her with gentleness in her eyes. Annie touched her hands which were like the sausages in Fred Sharpe’s window, blotchy and glistening. How could Betsy bear to leave behind the things that she and Tom knew. The smell of blackberries as they burst, ripe segments between thumb and forefinger, the pink mice from the corner shop. Leave them behind for this. She thought of the cooking, the washing with arms deep in water again and again as she dollied and scrubbed the same clothes week after week. The house was a prison to be escaped at all cost and so was the shop with its smell of beer and a man who never looked at you as you cleared up behind him.
‘How can you bear not to be free?’ she asked looking up into her face.
She allowed Betsy to place her hands on her shoulders and pull her into an apron which smelt of bacon.
‘Nobody is free,’ she replied. ‘We all have our place and you have to make the best of it.’
Betsy was comfortable to lean into, Annie realised with surprise.
‘Come on, Annie,’ called Don through the door, his tone strident with impatience. ‘We’ll be late.’
Annie stayed. She felt that if she went now she wouldn’t quite keep this moment, wouldn’t be able to find her way back to it.
‘I said, come on.’ Don called again.
Annie pushed back from Betsy’s arms then, thrusting away the feeling that th
is was important, then was gone, but not before she said. ‘I’ll be different, I’ll be as free as the wind.’
Betsy stood empty, now that she had gone, but still aware of the warmth where she had been. I love her, she nodded to herself, but there never seems enough time to show her.
Archie sat in his study, arms loose and hands dangling. It was cool in spite of the heat of the day and little of the soft evening light penetrated, though the street sounds were a constant murmur and he welcomed them. There was noise but nothing discernible, nothing he had to note or which demanded his attention. That was why he liked the prints on the far wall. Framed in mahogany they were so discoloured that the views were merged into the paper; totally indecipherable. His pipes were set in their stand, each in order. The paper-knife at right angles to the letter-rack. His chair was placed in the middle of his desk and the whisky was in the decanter; all could be reached without conscious thought.
The decanter stood out now like a jewel and he treasured it as such with a sensuality which was usually reserved for a smooth-skinned woman, but that was because Mary had given it to him. It was all that he had left of her now.
He set his lips as he turned to the invoices and went yet again over the last four years’ trading. It seemed impossible to make any headway, there simply wasn’t the money any more with the depression biting harder.
If only the war hadn’t happened. It had destroyed overseas markets for the old industries because other nations had been forced to produce their own coal and steel, and now, where could the North sell their wares?
He went over all the alternatives for his own survival again, knowing that this was what he was fighting for, not any longer his dream of middle-class status. Perhaps with a family partnership one store could keep the other afloat.
To merge with Albert went against the grain somehow, though. He took a pipe from the rack and filled it, tamping down the tobacco. He did not feel easy with the man though, for God’s sake, he was his brother. Was it unnatural he thought to dislike Albert, to feel nothing but irritation at his surliness; at the way he pressed close in order to use his larger size to intimidate?
Above all, was it normal to resent entering into a partnership of equals when he had always felt superior? His father had encouraged that of course, grooming him to run the business whilst sending Albert into one of his shops.
He should have objected then, told his father it was unfair on Albert, but he had not. He enjoyed too much the position of power and Albert had never objected, never complained. Even when they were at grammer school together and Archie had always beaten him in the exams, he had never appeared to register the fact. They had just grown up ignoring one another. Albert was like Betsy, Archie thought, not aware of anything very much.
The irony was, of course, Archie sighed to himself, his father had groomed Albert to succeed in the world they now found themselves in whilst he was sinking rapidly. The golden boy was going under and, what’s more, he doubted if he really cared.
He struck a match and sucked until the vapour entered his mouth and the tobacco was alight. He kept his hand half covering the bowl and turned to the window. He knew he needed more customers but where were they to come from. There were so many men on street corners making their woodbines last all day and not having a beer at all as they wondered when the air would be filled again with the noise of the pits, but there was no more work here than in the docks. At least the bloody war had kept the men off the streets, he had heard a vicar say to his companions as they waited to cross the road in Newcastle the other day. Makes it untidy for you does it, he had wanted to say. Should have finished a few more off, should I, while I was out there. As his hands began to tremble he clenched them between his thighs. His pipe was still gripped between his teeth but he had forgotten, he was falling back into the darkness again.
The trouble was that he had known nothing about gas, he pleaded silently, he had just been sent along to fill a gap. But had he known about wind? He nodded to himself. There was no excuse, he had known about the wind. God damn it, everyone knew about wind. The bloody generals knew about wind. How there had to be wind.
The shuddering in his hands was violent now and this was transmitted down the length of his legs. His pipe was cold. He had told them though, he had told H.Q. There was no wind. He had shouted it over the sound of the bombardment which preceded the attack. He was sure he remembered shouting but it had made no difference and he had obeyed the order. His eyes were open now, his head jerked back, he drew in deep breaths, he could hear again the murmur of the streets in place of the scream of shells, of men. He knew a lot about gas now.
His hands were finally still, he was too tired now to even relight his pipe, which he placed on the desk in an exact line with the paper-knife. He heard faintly the sound of the fair organ as the breeze blew up from the wasteland and he envied his children who lived every moment joyously. What did they know of 1924 and the way things were coming apart at the seams?
The shadows deepened in the room and he leant over and lit the lamp, hearing heavy footsteps on the stairs and knowing that it was Albert and he was not alone, for there were lighter, quicker ones in his wake. That would be Bob Wheeler who was coming as witness. He was a good man and worked at the colliery in the office but spent most of his time on union affairs. Archie had only met him once, briefly, but had liked the man. There was an intelligent look about him.
Albert didn’t knock, just came straight in as Archie rose. He covered his irritation by reaching for his pipe and striking a match. He waved to a chair while he relit his pipe.
‘Not late, am I,’ said Albert. It wasn’t a question. He was late and relished the fact, it was clear from his voice which had more than a hint of belligerence, Archie thought.
He turned to the man who waited in the doorway while Albert slumped into a chair. He was small and wiry in a well fitting but old dark blue suit. He held his hat in one hand and smiled as he waited to be invited in.
‘Come in,’ said Archie, bringing another chair up to the desk. Albert grinned.
‘You know Mr Wheeler, don’t you, Archie? I brought him along like I said. Equal partners at last, eh, Archie!’
Archie felt his face tighten. He nodded and turned to Mr Wheeler.
‘Good of you to come. Sit down, won’t you.’
Wheeler’s handshake was firm but there was a slight tremble as he took the whisky that Archie offered. War, Archie wondered?
He poured one for Albert.
‘Bit more in that, Archie, this is a celebration.’ Albert leaned forward and grinned again. His long face looked heightened with pleasure. His large body still seemed as though it had been tipped into dirty clothes but there was an air of expectancy about him, almost a lascivious pleasure.
Archie forced himself not to visibly recoil as he poured more Scotch into his glass and listened to Albert.
‘Wonder what the old man would think of this then. You and me equals. He’d turn in his grave and I don’t see you laughing all over your face either Archie, me lad.’
Archie was surprised. So, he thought, I’ve underestimated you, all these years have I, and now the question is, how deep is the grudge, for he felt sure that there would be one. He felt curiously detached; not worried, not frightened since there was little anyone could do to hurt him any more. He just felt surprised. He watched as Albert settled himself back in his chair, his shirt open at the neck, his chest hairs crawling up his neck. He really did despise the man. He turned to hide his eyes.
‘Let me take your hat,’ he suggested to Mr Wheeler but he refused.
‘Call me Bob,’ he said to Archie.
‘Right we will then, Bob,’ Albert said, annoyed by this instant familiarity, knowing that Wheeler had for two years preferred to stay on formal terms with him. ‘Let’s have another drink then, Archie.’
There was sweat on his upper lip; this was not his first drink of the day, thought Archie, but then it isn’t mine either. He poured anot
her for Albert but Bob had drunk hardly any yet. Archie noticed the tremble of his hand as he took another sip. It must be the war, he thought again.
But it was not the war, though Wheeler had been through that too. It was merely a family trait passed down from father to son along with all the other failings Bob Wheeler’s mother had listed on many occasions, always with a smile. Wheeler’s father would snort in reply and his son grin. His mother knew really that the hours spent discussing the latest leader in the newspaper were not wasted. After all, it had helped Bob to form an articulate argument.
Together they read under the dim light of the oil lamp in the cold front room of the small house, well away from the airing washing and the endless mashed tea. His mother might have swiped at his head with a towel when he was too lost in thought to shift himself to help her but it was as much her wish as his da’s that their son, Bob Wheeler, should get some learning under his belt and go into the offices of the colliery not the darkness of below ground which had stifled his father’s urge to improve their lot, and the lot of their fellow workers. He had been too physically broken within a few short years but from those offices they knew that their son would keep a clear head and a vision beyond the blank coal-face. Bob Wheeler frequently thought, though, that vision was one thing and progress quite another, for how could you get blood out of a stone? It was satisfying trying nonetheless.
And that was it, he was completely satisfied with his work to the extent that he never missed not having a wife or family of his own, even now with his parents dead. His mother had died of flu the doctor said, but Bob felt it was a broken heart after his father had died of black spit. What he did miss, though, were his conversations with his father and he wondered whether this man, Archie Manon, might prove to be something of a substitute. He looked as though he saw beyond the confines of the Wassingham streets.
After the Storm Page 6