Now it is finally happening, my commission that is, I can hardly believe it. The sergeants’ mess is celebrating every night but I wish they wouldn’t. My head won’t take it and they might be in for a disappointment.
I’ll talk of other things, it might be unlucky to go on too much about what I’ve dreamt of all these years which is coming home to you. If I get it, I’ll be sent to Woolwich for my training, see.
I’m pleased to hear that Don has finally popped the question to Maud. She looks a bit like him from the photo you sent me; fairly small the pair of them but his hair looks as though it’s getting a wee bit thin whereas hers is good and curly. I’ve sent them a silver tea-caddy.
Got a letter from Tom last month. He’s loved his time in London, hasn’t he; living the life of an artist and Grace with him too. A bit bohemian isn’t it, not being married? Bet Wassingham had something to say about that. Grace seems to have liked her job in the library and feels good at sending her ma and da some money each week. Tom says he’s about ready to start on the business but he has to finish this commission to paint a mural at a restaurant in Piccadilly first. Well, that sounds grand doesn’t it. He says it will give him a bit of capital to go with the money you’ve saved. I’ve a bit too, remember, which can help you get started.
It makes sense to start in the small way you’ve planned and the idea of it has kept him at his art instead of blasting off to Spain or anything daft like that.
Bob must have missed him badly all these years but Tom says he’s been right busy with the union, pushing for state ownership of the pits. There’s still not a lot of work up there, he tells me.
It’s grand to hear that things have settled down a bit in Germany but there’s talk here in the mess that Hitler won’t stop with Czechoslovakia. Will there be another war, Annie? It seems so far away here though we keep an eye on the Japs who seem to be pushing their way into China in the war they’ve started there.
We’re exercising down in the jungles of the Central Provinces since Burma would be the way into India for the Japs and this is similar terrain, but maybe they’re just game-playing.
There’s a great deal of trouble in India. They want us out, though Gandhi is doing his bit to make it a peaceful independence movement. I guess that Tom would approve.
The butterflies here in the jungle are beautiful, very different to the Camberwell Beauties that used to settle by your da’s shed, do you remember them, my bonny lass? There is one we call the Cruiser which is very fast and high-flying, it’s a sort of yellow brown and there is a really beautiful one called the Swallowtail which has a flash of blue across its wings. It seems very nervous and hovers over the petals of the lush flowers you get in this steamy climate. It’s bloody hot, sticky and humid and we go up to the hill-stations for a break. Darjeeling is the best. We ride horses up the trails and cool off a bit. I’ll take you there one day.
Well, my dearest little lass. I will close now and will write again as soon as I have any news. I have kept all your letters, there seem to be so many but then years have gone by since I last saw you. I can’t bear to think of that. I will love you always with all my heart.
Georgie.
Sarah passed it back, took out her compact and patted her nose with the powder-puff. She looked at Annie over the mirror, the back of which was studded with seed pearls.
‘I’ve watched you all these years, my dear, laughing and flirting and learning. By the way, how is Dr Jones, such a nice Welshman?’ But she did not wait for Annie to answer. ‘You were always waiting for Georgie though, weren’t you? How can you be so sure, my darling, that you are still right for one another, that he will ever come? I know he says he will, but after all this time, can it work?’
Annie picked up a knife and set it absolutely straight against the mat which was a view of the Manchester Ship Canal. The handle must be solid, it was so heavy, but surely it was silver plate? She listened to the strains of the Blue Danube and watched the cellist lean back and ease her shoulders. The mock palms were bright green.
‘He’ll come and we’ll be right for one another, don’t you fret.’ She tapped Sarah’s hand with her finger. ‘He knows me, knows my family, the streets, the pits. He knows that you have a walnut hall table, that your bathroom is posh. That Tom lost a kidney, that Don loves Maud and is the only one who can handle Albert. I don’t have to explain myself, that I’m not the posh person I sound now.’ She lifted an eyebrow at Sarah who laughed. ‘He knows me and I’ve never had to look after him, he looks after himself and I’m right proud of the lad.’ Her voice was soft now and she had slipped back into Geordie and she didn’t care.
Sarah beckoned the waiter and asked for wine. It had to be white and chilled and he brought the ice bucket and set the bottle back in the crushed ice after he had poured them each a glass.
‘I’m just wondering, Annie, whether you love him because it’s safe to love someone who’s so far away, someone who won’t try and get too close? I wonder if you’re running away from anything?’ Her face was quizzical.
Annie looked puzzled, her thoughts slowed down and she watched the bubbles in her wine break through to the surface.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Sarah.’ She would not dig deeper into herself to try and understand her guardian; she did not want to disturb the black box.
Sarah smiled absently. There was a pause then. ‘Did I do the right thing, Annie, taking you away from Wassingham, from him?’ Her face was sad and tense.
Annie ran her fingers up and down the stem of her glass, then carved stripes down through the mist of the bowl. ‘You’ve not taken me away, Sarah. No one will take me away, that’s where I’m going now, back there for the wedding, back there with Tom, soon, to start my business. I couldn’t have done that without you and I would not have known you, had you not come, and that would have been intolerable.’
She leant back as the sole arrived. It was fresh but the sauce was not as good as Val’s. The mannequins were parading round the tables now, their backs arched and their legs going on forever. Sarah’s face had relaxed and she was flushed after Annie’s remarks. They smiled at one another.
‘What about the war if it comes? Your business? Georgie?’
Annie took a sip of wine, it was dry and light. ‘There won’t be a war surely, Sarah? Chamberlain’s sorting it out, isn’t he?’
She thought of Dippy Denis who had been led away and locked up in a place she had always imagined would not have windows. Would he still be there, she wondered? No, there could not be another war, not after the last one. The lettuce that accompanied the sole was crisp, the tomatoes fresh. And besides it was the summer and she could never imagine war on a summer’s day, with the sun out. It should always be wet and cold. Grey. There would be no war; no one wanted war. There were still too many damaged people from the last one, but she would not think of her da and his gas. She lifted her glass again.
Sarah had finished her meal and was studying her glass. ‘But if Chamberlain should fail, Annie,’ she persisted, ‘would Georgie come back? What about the business?’
Annie frowned. ‘I just don’t know Sarah. I really don’t. Georgie would still come home, surely, and I would stay in nursing, I suppose. They’d need nurses but it wouldn’t last long, would it, Sarah, so we could start the business when it was over.’
Sarah was pleating the thick starched napkin that lay beside her plate. Her fingers were steady, her eyes on her work. ‘We said that about the last one.’
‘But it’s different now, we have planes. It would be quick.’ Annie did not want to think any more about it.
Sarah continued however. ‘God forbid there is one but you could travel with a war, Annie, you could join the military nurses, even pick up ideas for fabrics from other countries and give Tom a run for his money on design.’ She smiled. ‘It’s got to be better than nursing here with that dreadful radium stuff dripping from needles stuck in those poor patients. Why you every transferred here in the first place, I
can’t imagine.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the waiter as he poured her more wine.
Annie laughed. ‘Hardly dripping, Sarah, and we do manage to save some of them you know. But only some,’ and her voice tailed away. She had moved to gain more experience and the pay was better which made Tom’s fees easier, but she was tired of suffering now, too tired to stay in for much longer. She was ready to start on the next stage and Tom was ready too. There must not be a war, not when they had people to help and a firm to set up.
They took a taxi to the station. Doors slammed and whistles shrieked and the compartment was full with people as they left the city and the low cloud which seemed to hang motionless sucking all the light from the city.
‘How can you live here, Annie? It’s always so wet and gloomy.’
‘I hope you’re not becoming imprecise in your old age, Sarah. It is often wet but not always.’ They leant into one another and laughed and then their hours were their own and Sarah slept while Annie felt the effects of the wine make her limbs easy and she watched cities merge into country. The noise of the train must be the same as any other but it seemed to rush and lurch and she could not sleep and then they were there and it was the same station they had flown across with Da to find the Newcastle train, but now it was small and she was helping Sarah as she stepped from the carriage to the platform over no gap at all. Sour coal was heaped high in the sidings outside the station as it had been when she last saw it, as it had been the day she and Georgie rode their bikes here for their day by the sea. The slag-heaps were bigger. Oh God yes, they were bigger and still the cables churned the carts up until they tipped more slag on to the top.
They took another taxi, this time to the church which was darkened by soot though the windows were lit by the lights inside. Their heels made sharp sounds as they walked to the front and Don turned and smiled. He was sitting with Albert who was best man and whose face hung even more than usual from his brows. Always the same ray of sunshine, thought Annie, and squeezed Don’s shoulder. He turned and grinned but he was nervous and had bunched his handkerchief in his hand and was kneading it.
‘Like your hat, bonny lass, and like seeing you even better,’ whispered Don and she was back again amongst the life they had lived together, one that she had avoided until now, but why, she wondered? She glanced at Sarah who nodded.
‘Nice to be back, is it, little Annie?’ she asked and squeezed her hand. Yes, thought Annie, and realised that the veneer of speech and polish was thin indeed. Sarah was looking along the pews searching for Val who had come up from Gosforn separately. There was a wave across the other side and there she was, in pale blue with her handkerchief out, sitting with Bob who was smiling.
‘Oh dear, she’ll cry,’ she whispered to Annie who giggled and waved across to the plump woman.
‘Tom couldn’t make it after all, then,’ Annie breathed into Don’s ear.
‘They’re still in London. Tom’s mural is almost finished but not quite.’ He pulled a face. ‘He’ll see us when he gets back.’
The pews were dark brown and the hymn books wobbled in their binding. The blue stamp of St Mark’s Church was faded on the flyleaf and she was glad that Don had chosen ‘Eternal Father’; it was Da’s favourite. She had not been inside a church since the convent and here, today, there were no chrysanthemums but dahlias; red, yellow and purple. There was no incense either to laden the air but Albert’s stale smell was just the same. Thank God for Sarah’s Chanel. Maud was late and Don fidgeted.
The vicar came out from the side chapel. God almighty, she thought, it’s the same vicar who buried me da but without the dewdrop this time and then the organ stirred them and Maud arrived. The vicar still said ‘Gond’ and Annie wanted to laugh.
The reception was at Merthyr Terrace, at Maud’s home, but the neighbours would have their doors open for the overflow as always. They walked along the streets and Annie talked to Bob about Tom and thought how much older he looked. ‘It’s the men,’ he explained to Annie, ‘still no work and now perhaps the war.’ She talked to him of Grace and whether she and Tom would every marry; she did not want to talk of that subject, the one which the papers ran as headlines. It was the wrong time for war. This was to be her time; Tom’s time.
The ham was pale pink on the table which was stacked high with plates and salad bowls and punch. Betsy stood near with Joe, hand in hand, and Annie kissed her and shook Joe’s hand.
‘Are you well, Betsy?’ Annie knew that she was. Her face was relaxed and her eyes were soft and Joe laughed as Annie said, ‘And your lad’s coming back soon, then.’
‘Oh aye,’ said Joe. ‘He’s always got a room with us, they both have, Grace and him.’
Annie nodded. ‘And how’s May?’
Betsy smiled. ‘Her other boys are back so she’s happy. Made me a patchwork quilt for our bedroom. It’s lovely, isn’t it, pet?’ Joe nodded his reply.
Betsy looked over towards the table with the drinks, then handed her glass to Joe. ‘Get me a barley-water would you, pet?’ He smiled and moved away.
Betsy looked up at Annie, almost shyly. ‘I’d never have thought I’d be this happy, you know.’
Annie looked after Joe. ‘Is it because of him, Betsy?’
‘Aye it is, lass.’ She paused and searched for words. ‘I had to do something a long while ago that I thought would make me unhappy, but it hasn’t. It was gradual, see, very gradual but I love him now. But I still keeps me own name and he still pays me for doing the housekeeping. I don’t want to get back to being a skivvy, see.’ She looked confused and defensive and Annie held her arm and looked into her eyes.
‘You’re right, Betsy, absolutely right.’ The people were pressing round them and Joe was back with Betsy’s drink and Annie thought of the way her father had treated Betsy and the old anger was back again, though it had never really gone and she swallowed it down as she always seemed to be doing.
‘I tell you what, Betsy,’ she said taking herself in hand telling herself that she would think about it some other time because, try as she might, it was something she could not throw out completely as Georgie had said she should. It just wouldn’t go but lodged inside the black box, waiting. She shook herself. ‘I tell you what,’ she repeated. ‘Tom and I will make you some matching curtains for your bedroom when we’re in business, how about that?’
Joe shook his head. ‘I reckon that might have to wait, lass. We’ll maybe have a war.’
Sarah had found Albert over by the food. He was drinking beer by himself.
‘Well, Albert,’ she said planting herself in front of him. ‘You didn’t destroy Don, then, like you promised you would. It was the destruction of Annie though to begin with wasn’t it, but they’ve both escaped. So Archie wasn’t destroyed either, was he?’ She hated this man for what he’d done to Annie.
Albert sipped his beer. ‘Just an old dried-up prune you are, Sarah Beeston.’
She wanted to tip his beer out all down the front of his suit but just smiled.
Albert turned from her and looked at Don. ‘He’s a good boy, that one. He’s not like his da, not a high-flier like the girl. He’s been all right to me and I’ll be all right to him, so let’s leave it at that.’ He moved from her, into the other guests, his eyes hooded and she heard him say into his beer. ‘Like me own son he is. A good boy that one.’
And she felt moved and saw him as he really was, lonely and unsure.
Annie had moved on from Joe and Betsy, waved to May, talked to Bob and then saw Ma Gillow peering into her cup of punch. Good God, she’s trying to read the bloody fruit, she thought, and felt the laughter well inside.
‘She’s trying to read the fruit then, is she?’ and he was there, just like that, a glass of beer in his hand and her breath caught in her throat. ‘You’ve changed a bit, bonny lass.’ Georgie was so close she should have been able to sense him there, should have known he was within a mile of the place, and then he turned her to him. Tears were caught on the l
ids of her eyes and her lips were tight together and she could not see him unless she blinked and if she blinked the tears would loosen and weave downwards like the rain on the train windows.
‘And where the hell have you been, you little bugger?’ she said and he wiped his thumbs beneath her eyes and held her head between hands which were still the same only broader, stronger.
‘Waiting for today, bonny lass,’ he said and kissed her lips and eyes and hair and she heard no one, saw no one, just him as he held her and drank her in.
Then Don was there, standing in front of them. ‘I see you remember one another,’ grinned Don. ‘About time too, lad. She was turning into an old maid before our very eyes. Like the khaki, like the pips.’
She saw then the Sam Browne belt, the pips not stripes and felt his arm tighten round her and the hardness of his straps against her.
‘Took too long getting them though, Don,’ Georgie said, but Don was away again and his eyes were the same brown as he asked. ‘Did I, hinny, did I take too long?’ His skin was brown and his smile white and one-sided as it had always been.
‘Never too long to wait, not for you.’ She stroked his face and then the speeches began and the toasts were drunk in sparkling wine and beer was pulled as afternoon turned to evening and the dancing began but all she noticed were his hands as he held her, his arms round her strong and certain; his voice as he talked and his eyes as he listened, his lips as he kissed her. All she felt was her body wanting his, because her love was the same, only stronger.
Ma Gillow bumped into them as she wove her way through to the punch again. ‘Told you you’d do well,’ she smirked, ‘but it should be with Tom. You mark my words, it will be with Tom.’
Annie laughed and Georgie grinned. ‘It will too Mrs Gillow, just wait until the lad gets back up here.’
‘But there’s the war, isn’t there?’ And Georgie’s face grew still.
After the Storm Page 35