by Maggie Hope
‘Rose?’ Marina called. ‘Rose? Is that you?’
Rose, who carried a basket over her arm with a library book in it and a newspaper-wrapped parcel redolent of fish and chips, paused and looked over to the bus stop. ‘Oh, hallo, Marina. Hi, Jeff. Brian,’ she said and nodded to the boys. She felt as though they were from a different world, a younger world somehow.
Marina glanced at Jeff, who for a change seemed lost for words. He was sweet on Rose, why hadn’t she realised it before? ‘Come on over a minute,’ she said. ‘We’re just going to the dance at the rink only the bus is late as usual.’
‘Well, I have the supper in the basket,’ Rose answered hesitantly.
‘Come on, a few minutes won’t make much difference to it. Anyway, you can shove it in the oven for a minute or two,’ Marina encouraged her. Seeing Rose had brought back the good times they used to have together. She didn’t know what had gone wrong and wanted to build bridges. She felt a small surge of triumph when her friend crossed the road.
‘You should have been coming with us, man,’ Marina said. ‘It’s Saturday night after all.’
‘Aye,’ said Jeff, recovering somewhat and assuming an American accent. ‘You and me could cut a rug, baby. We’d show them all how to jive.’
‘I can’t, Mam’s poorly, I can’t leave her for long,’ Rose answered. She gazed at him and even in the darkness looked forlorn, but only for a moment. Then she threw up her head and grinned, determined to be cheerful. ‘Anyroad, if we were going to jive I’d have to teach you first!’
‘Why you –’ Jeff advanced on her and took hold of her arm, lifting his fist in mock threat. She leaned back.
‘Mind, man, I’ll drop the supper!’ she warned. The bus, ten minutes late by now, was coming at last, and the headlights picked out the four of them, laughing and jostling each other, set apart from the queue as it surged forward to meet the bus.
‘Rose! What the hell are you doing? Get yourself over here this minute unless you want a belt on the ear!’
Jeff dropped his hand and all four of them turned to see Alf Sharpe standing on the corner, under the light. They could tell he was raging mad. Rose seemed frozen into immobility for a long second, the grin still on her face. Then, ‘I have to go,’ she muttered and walked across the road to her father, head down, chin buried in her collar.
‘If I catch you with your hands on my lass again, I’ll swing for you!’ shouted Alf as he grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him. Rose, aflame with embarrassment, realised he was just drunk enough not to care who heard him and felt like sinking into the ground with mortification as her friends, forgetting the bus now, stared at her and her father in consternation and the rest of the queue muttered to each other.
‘We weren’t doing anything!’ Jeff burst out. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘No, you randy beggar, you leave her alone!’ shouted Alf.
‘Come on, Jeff,’ said Brian, catching hold of his arm as though he feared his friend was going to start across the road to confront Alf Sharpe. ‘Come away, he won’t touch her. The bus’ll go, man. Look, let’s just go.’
Jeff allowed himself to be drawn on to the bus at the tail end of the queue, his face red, while Alf stood there under the street light and simply glared at him the whole time.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Rose said, ‘the fish’ll be cold for me mam’s supper.’ But he kept on standing there and all the passengers watched them as the bus pulled away from the stop and set off along the main road, springs groaning and with a loud grating of gears. Jeff and Brian had turned round in their seats; Brian was saying something to his friend who looked suddenly like a young schoolboy whipped for something he didn’t do. Rose looked away. She couldn’t bear his humiliation, let alone her own.
‘You never thought about that when you were carrying on with that lad, did you?’ her father was saying.
‘Oh, Dad, I wasn’t carrying on, I was just talking to Marina and the boys. They were at school with us, that’s all.’
‘Oh, aye. I know who they are, them two, they work at the pit. Useless an’ all, the lot of them. I have to watch them young lads like a hawk. Do you know, I caught one of them taking a cigarette and a couple of matches in the other week? And do you think I don’t hear them, with their filthy talk and jokes about the lasses? Why, if you heard them you wouldn’t speak to them again, I’m telling you. No, howay. How you could have left your mam on her own, I don’t know.’ He grabbed hold of her arm again and hustled her up the street, his grip biting into her soft flesh.
‘You’re hurting me, Dad! Leave me be, I’m coming,’ she protested, though what she really wanted to do was shout, ‘What do you care about Mam?’
‘Aye, an’ I’ll hurt you a lot more if you shame the family with one of those lads,’ he replied, nodding his head grimly as he pushed her up the yard and flung her into the kitchen.
‘Is that you, Rose?’ called her mother and Rose, regaining her balance, realised that her father had not come in himself but was stumping off down the yard again. She put the basket down on the kitchen table.
‘It’s me, Mam,’ she answered and unwrapped the fish and chips, putting them on a plate and into the oven to heat up a little while she pushed the kettle on to boil and spooned tea into the pot, all the while fighting back tears of anger and humiliation.
‘Did I hear your dad?’
‘No, Mam, he’s not here,’ Rose replied, and only then did she rub her arm, wincing as she felt the extent of the bruise.
‘Have you brought us chips, our Rose?’ Michael and Mary rushed out of the room where they had been playing on the mat beside Sarah’s bed.
‘Aw, I thought you would both be full up with birthday cake,’ said Rose. Their faces fell. ‘I’m only kidding, of course I brought you some chips. Now come on, you’ll get them when you’re both washed and in your pyjamas, ready for bed.’
‘Just a cup of tea for me, Rose,’ Sarah called, and Rose put her head round the door. Her mother lay back on the pillow, face white and exhausted, eyes red-rimmed.
‘Will I make you a cup of hot cocoa instead of the tea?’ Rose coaxed.
‘Anything you like, pet.’ Sarah closed her eyes as though the short conversation had been too much for her. She felt so deathly tired.
‘He’s a right blooming tyrant!’ Jeff was saying. It was half-time at the rink and he was sitting with Brian and Marina at the coffee bar which was tacked on to the end of the dance floor.
‘Forget about Alf Sharpe, Jeff,’ Brian advised. ‘Don’t let him spoil the night for you, man.’
‘But you know what he’s like at work! We can do nowt right for him. He’s just not normal …’
‘He’s all right with the others, they reckon he’s fair.’ Brian looked at Marina, who was sitting nursing her coffee cup pensively. Tonight wasn’t turning out as he’d thought it would. Instead of showing her a good time she was having to listen to Jeff’s troubles. Still the band was going back on to the stage. The saxophonist tootled experimentally and nodded to the others and they broke out into the ‘Twelfth Street Rag’.
‘You dancing?’ Brian stood up as Marina nodded and he held out his hand to her. They threaded their way on to the floor. He glanced back at Jeff guiltily. ‘Come on, there’s plenty lasses dying to dance this one!’
His friend nodded moodily and Brian shook his head in exasperation, but the music was compelling and he whirled Marina round in a quickstep, making his way to the centre of the floor where a few other couples were starting to dance. Marina marvelled at how different he was on the dance floor. So much more confident.
‘I can’t do this,’ she objected, though she was following him.
‘Aye, you can,’ he encouraged her, ‘anybody can. Just let yourself go with the music, I’ll guide you.’
They danced until they were out of breath. He was a natural, sure of his every move, different from the Brian she thought she knew and not in the least bit gauche. The music changed to a progressive bar
n dance and they stood in a big circle, going from partner to partner. She caught a glimpse of Brian holding a girl firmly in his arms and she was laughing up at him, saying something or other. He was popular with the girls, she realised, as a dancer at any rate.
‘Now then, Marina, you glad you came?’ It was Jeff bearing down on her, lifting her off her feet as he swung her round, smiling brilliantly, his depression seemingly forgotten.
‘Put me down, you daft ha’porth,’ she cried, and he laughed and was off to the next girl in line. Well, at least he seemed to have forgotten his troubles for the minute, she thought, hearing him laugh at something the girl said. But she couldn’t forget the scene with Rose and her father and couldn’t understand it either. It had really disturbed her. Maybe tomorrow she would call on Rose. Never mind what her friend’s father said, he couldn’t stop Rose being friendly with a girl, could he? Marina had a pang of doubt. Rose was so nervous of him, perhaps he could. Well, she’d see.
The next day there was a fall of snow and everyone began to talk about a white Christmas. Marina beat up Yorkshire pudding to go with the beef ration which was roasting slowly in the oven, a nice piece of brisket because you got more for your rations when you took a cheaper cut. And then she peeled the potatoes and mixed mustard and did all the other fiddling little jobs which went towards making a Sunday roast dinner.
‘I’m just going to pop along to see Rose,’ she said to her mother when everything was ready.
‘Oh? I thought you two had fallen out,’ Kate commented. For a minute it looked as though she was going to say something else, looking troubled, but all she did say was, ‘Go on then. Mind, be back for two o’clock. You know the men will be home from the Club by then, wanting their dinners.’
Marina pulled on her coat, for there was a sharp nip in the air, and slipped along the ends of the rows to her friend’s home. The house looked deserted somehow, the bedroom curtains above the yard drawn and the kitchen ones open only enough to admit the minimum of winter sunshine. Marina paused, uncertain, but then she lifted a hand and knocked at the back door. After a minute or two it was opened by Michael, who stood half behind the door looking up at her.
‘Is Rose in?’ she asked and he nodded.
‘Who is it, Michael?’ Rose’s voice came from somewhere inside the house.
‘Marina Morland,’ he called, without taking his eyes away from Marina or opening the door any further.
‘Well, can I come in –’ she was saying when Rose came to the door.
‘For goodness’ sake, Michael, let her in,’ she said and opened the door wide. Marina, whose imagination had been running riot since the scene at the bus stop the evening before, gazed anxiously at Rose for any signs that her dad had used her badly but there was no bruising, no black eye.
‘Hi, Rose,’ she said, and then, feeling that she needed to explain why she had come round, for after all relations had been somewhat cooler between them lately, ‘I just thought I’d pop in to see you, see how your mother is an’ all.’
‘Michael, go on in the room, stay with Mam,’ Rose said. ‘And be quiet, I don’t want her wakened.’ The little boy trotted off obediently, though looking back at Marina as he did so, as if anyone being there was a novelty. Mary had come to the middle door and was standing silently, her thumb in her mouth.
‘Sit down, Marina, I’m just making a bit of dinner,’ Rose went on, going back to the enamel dish on the table where she was peeling potatoes before putting them into an iron saucepan.
Marina perched on the end of an old leather armchair by the side of the fire and watched her. She couldn’t think what to say for a moment. It was as though she were a stranger to this house.
‘I wondered if you were all right too?’ she said at last, keeping her voice low.
Rose glanced sharply at her and back to the potato she was peeling. She cut it in half and dropped it into the pan. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, I mean …’ Marina floundered. Because of last night, she wanted to say, because your dad had had a drop and was in a rage. ‘There’s your mam … it must be a lot of work. Me mam said she would help …’ (She hadn’t. What Kate had said was that she had offered twice, had taken along broth and had it refused by Alf Sharpe when he’d answered the door. ‘We’re not on the breadline,’ he’d growled, ‘so don’t poke your nose in here, woman!’ And she’d offered to do the washing but that offer had been refused too. ‘I’m not one to go where I’m not wanted,’ her mother had said to Marina when she came back, her face red with the snub.)
‘I can manage, Dad doesn’t like other folk in,’ said Rose. She cast an involuntary glance at the ceiling as she spoke.
‘But I’m your friend, Rose,’ Marina protested, forgetting to speak quietly.
There was a noise from upstairs and Rose dropped the potato she was holding into the dish with a little splash.
‘You’d best go now, Marina. I’ll tell Mam you were asking after her,’ she whispered urgently.
‘But I’ve only just come. I –’
‘Me dad will be getting up, and he’ll want some breakfast,’ said Rose. She was agitated, and Marina responded to her agitation though she didn’t understand it. She got to her feet and walked to the door. ‘Well, I’ll see you one of these days,’ she said vaguely. In her agitation, Rose had lifted a hand to her almost as though to hurry her on her way. Marina smiled again and went out. Normally the door would be held open until the visitor had disappeared through the gate, but when Marina looked round from halfway down the yard, the door was closed, the house as forbidding as ever.
‘Well? Did you find out how Sarah Sharpe is getting on? Did you go in and speak to Rose? How are the twins – were their clothes clean? Are they being looked after properly, do you think?’ Kate was waiting eagerly with her questions.
‘Oh, Mam, of course they are. Rose looks after them, did you think she wouldn’t?’ Marina was disturbed enough by the atmosphere in the Sharpe house, her mother’s questions irritated her. She wanted time to herself, time to puzzle out what was wrong.
‘No, I know she’s a good girl really,’ Kate replied, then changed the subject. ‘Come on, set the table, will you? The puddings are about ready.’
‘Was that Marina Morland in the house?’ Alf demanded. He walked into the kitchen from the stairs, braces hanging down, collarless shirt unbuttoned at the neck.
‘She just called to see how me mam was,’ Rose mumbled, bending her head over the turnip she was slicing. ‘She wasn’t here but a minute.’
‘Eeh, our Rose, she sat down in Dad’s chair!’ Michael asserted and she shot him such a look he blushed and ran through to his mother.
‘I had to ask her to sit down, Dad, it was common courtesy.’ Rose finished cutting up the turnip and put it in a pan, carrying it through to the pantry for water. She ran the tap on it, working mechanically, all the time intensely aware that her father had followed her to the pantry door and stood barring her way out.
‘Let me through, Dad, I have to make the dinner,’ she said at last.
‘I’ll let you through in a minute,’ he growled and caught hold of her chin with one rough hand, lifting it so that she had no choice but to look into his face. His pale blue eyes were bleary and bloodshot, there was a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and his breath stank of stale beer so that it turned her stomach.
‘Let me go,’ she said, but quietly. She didn’t want her mother to hear any of this, or the twins either come to that.
Alf ignored her plea, moving closer so that his body was just touching hers and Rose stood pressed back against the sink, feeling some of the water she had splashed soaking into her blouse at the back. ‘Haven’t I told you I don’t want anyone in here?’ he asked softly. ‘I don’t want your mother disturbed by anyone. I’ve told you that, haven’t I?’ He always used Mam for an excuse, thought Rose despairingly.
‘She wasn’t, Dad. Mam never woke up.’ Her father was only slightly taller than Rose and now he
put a foot forward, trying to insinuate it between her two feet. She pressed her legs together. ‘Behave, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘Behave yourself or I’ll … I’ll …’
‘You’ve been naughty. Don’t you think you deserve a good hiding when you’ve done something I told you not to do? Or will I punish you in some other way, is that what you want?’
‘Dad!’ She turned slightly and took a firmer grip on the pan handle. It shook and a splash of water came out and wet the front of her blouse. ‘So help me, I’ll hit you with this if you don’t leave me alone!’
‘No, you won’t, you don’t want to disturb your mam, now do you?’
He must still be drunk, she thought wildly. Oh, God, what was she going to do? He was edging into the pantry, trying to close the door behind him with one hand, but the place was so tiny there was hardly room. He pressed even harder against her and looked down to where the wet material of her blouse outlined the vee between her breasts. Rose tipped the pan and water and pieces of turnip cascaded down the front of his trousers. He still had one hand behind him, fumbling with the door, when suddenly it was pushed open so unexpectedly that he was taken off balance and fell past Rose into the tiny space before the end shelf.
‘Alf Sharpe, you hacky, dirty, filthy, bloody man! What are you doing?’ It was a screech rather than a shout and neither Rose nor her father could believe it when they saw Sarah standing in the doorway in her nightie, her hair in grey wisps all around her face which was beetroot-red, eyes almost popping out of her head, and all the while the lump on her neck was swelling and pulsing, evil and malignant. She was so mad with rage she had a strength far beyond her normal powers as she caught hold of Rose and pulled her out of the pantry and behind her.
‘No, Mam!’ cried Rose, starting back towards her. ‘No, it wasn’t anything. We just had an accident with the water. Come on back to bed, Mam, you’ll catch your death!’ Behind their mother the twins were standing, clinging to each other, screaming with fright. They jumped back, their cries even louder as Sarah Sharpe suddenly collapsed on to the brown polished linoleum which covered the floor, head back and eyes rolling. Rose bent over her, lifting her head and holding her fast. Her mother was breathing in sharp, shallow gasps, her face had gone from red to a pale parchment, but she was alive. She moaned slightly and her head rolled into the crook of Rose’s arm.