by Maggie Hope
‘I knew. And it frightened me. That June Simpson always knew too much about other folk.’
‘But what has that to do … Rose Sharpe, you don’t mean …’ Suddenly the hints and innuendoes about Alf Sharpe which periodically went around the village came back to Marina. Bits of gossip, not actually saying anything outright, things she’d discounted as malicious rubbish. ‘Do you mean what I think you mean?’
Rose looked down at the ground, her face flushed a dull brick red. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘And the baby? The baby’s father is … no, it can’t be true!’
‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me.’ Rose stared at the ground, pale now.
‘Oh, yes, I do, Rose,’ Marina answered. She couldn’t bear to see such misery in her friend’s face. Impulsively she put an arm around her, shocked to feel how bird-thin she was. Dear God, Rose was skinny as a TB victim. ‘I’m sorry, of course I believe you. You’re my friend, aren’t you?’
Rose began to sob. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Marina, I don’t! I thought if I threw myself off the rock I would get rid of it. I thought if I hurt myself and you were here you would look after me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you into it.’
‘Rubbish! But I don’t think it would have worked, and anyway you might have broken your neck, man.’ Marina paused for a minute, horrified by what might have happened, what she might have had to do if Rose had succeeded in her plan. Poor lass, she must be out of her mind with it all. That rotten excuse for a father! But why had Rose let it happen, especially as she grew older? Marina stopped herself from asking.
She sat holding Rose, rocking her gently as Kate had done with her when she was younger and had hurt herself or was full of some childhood misery.
‘You have to get away,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t go when the twins went.’
‘I had to stay otherwise – well, Mary –’
‘No!’ So that was why. My God! ‘Is that what you meant about protecting the bairn? Rose, no, he wouldn’t … A little lass like Mary. No!’ A new world was opening up for Marina, a dark, horrible world she could barely believe existed. Yet here was Rose to prove it did: all the mystifying changes in her over the years, her dad’s attitude to her friends, and especially to boys. She’d thought Alf Sharpe was being protective, albeit obsessively so, when all the time it had been him from whom Rose needed protection.
‘Rose, no matter what, you have to go now. Surely you can see that? It’s all going to come out anyway if you stay.’
‘He’ll bring the twins home, he’s said he will, and he’s their legal guardian. How can I risk that?’
‘No, he won’t, Rose. Can’t you see? You can threaten him with the law.’ That was Marina, always going straight to the heart of the situation, always jumping straight to the obvious remedy. And this time she was probably right.
‘But everyone would know –’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rose, everyone will know if you stay. Don’t be so daft!’ In her agitation, Marina jumped up and strode about the fell, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. ‘Listen, I tell you what. We’ll go back now. Your dad won’t be in for an hour or two yet, I’ll bet. Get your things and I’ll go with you to Shotton, how’s that? You tell your Aunt Elsie, I’ll back you up.’
‘She didn’t believe me, you know, when I tried to tell her before.’ Rose was doubtful.
‘Did she not? The stupid cow! Everyone knows you don’t tell lies. Well, she’ll believe you now, I promise you she will. I’ll drum it into her.’
‘I’ll have to tell him.’
‘Leave him a note then. Tell the truth. He won’t dare follow you.’
Something about Marina’s certainty was beginning to make Rose think her friend could be right. Slowly, she nodded her head. They linked arms and walked down the path. Marina was a tower of strength to Rose. She had to be, couldn’t let her change her mind now.
Back at the yard gate, Rose turned to Marina. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘it’s good of you to offer but I think I’d best go on my own. Aunt Elsie won’t thank me for bringing in someone outside the family, d’you see? She’d be mortified. Even worse than she’s going to be now.’
‘You sure? Look, you’re going to go, aren’t you? Well, I’ll go to the bus with you.’ Just in case Rose got cold feet, she told herself.
But Rose packed her things, throwing her clothes higgledy-piggledy into a cheap cardboard case, the only one in the house. ‘I’m ready,’ she said. Now she couldn’t wait. Her nerves were screaming and she wanted to scream with them: Let’s go! Let’s go! He could come home any minute, there was no telling.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, do something with your hair first,’ Marina said, looking her up and down. ‘And look, you’ve got your coatbelt twisted. The bus doesn’t go till one o’clock anyway.’ It was a quarter to the hour. She fiddled with Rose’s belt, waited while she combed her hair.
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Rose at the last second and found a scrap of paper in the press and wrote a note: ‘Gone to Aunt Elsie’s.’ That was all. Her heart beat painfully in her chest so that she felt it would burst.
‘I know I said leave a note but why bother? He doesn’t deserve it,’ said Marina. Rose shrugged. Within ten minutes of entering the house, they were on their way to the bus stop. As it chugged up the bank towards them, the two girls hugged each other.
‘You’ll write?’ Marina felt like crying now the moment of parting had come.
‘Of course. And you’ll come to see me later, in a week or two?’ The conductor helped Rose on with the case.
‘A bit late to be going on a holiday, isn’t it, love? Blackpool, is it?’
Rose mumbled something in reply, managed a smile. She found a seat near the front. The bus was half-empty, it being a Sunday. Marina was fluttering her handkerchief outside as the driver set off, Rose too full of suppressed emotion to wave back.
Chapter Sixteen
‘You look like death warmed up, lass!’ Aunt Elsie exclaimed after she’d greeted Rose. ‘Come on in and I’ll heat you some dinner up, we’ve had ours.’ She opened the door wide for Rose to bring in the suitcase, dripping wet it was now and looking in imminent danger of falling to bits. The day had darkened with a sudden autumn storm. On the way from the bus stop at the Throstle’s Nest, on the edge of the village, the rain had sheeted down. Everything about Rose was soaked.
Elsie eyed the case but said nothing about it. ‘If I’d known you were coming I would have kept the twins in. They’ve gone to a party, one of their friends has a birthday today. Now come on, get those wet things off and dry yourself in front of the fire, you’re shivering like a jelly.’ She paused and looked sideways at her niece. ‘There’s nowt the matter at home, is there? Alf’s all right, I mean?’
‘He’s OK.’
Rose stripped off her things and nothing was said for a while as Elsie bustled about putting a plate of dinner to warm in the oven, pushing the kettle on to the glowing fire, spooning tea into the brown betty teapot. It was only when Rose was once again in dry clothes with warmth seeping back into her bones and was seated at the table before the steaming food that her aunt poured herself a cup of tea and sat down opposite her.
‘What’s wrong, then?’ she demanded. ‘Come on, out with it!’
‘I’ve left home, Auntie. Can I stay with you for a bit?’ Rose turned her fork in a pile of mashed potato, making a channel as she used to do when she was little, watching the gravy run into it like a miniature river. She didn’t look at her aunt. She was dreading Elsie’s asking the reason; now that moment was near she didn’t think she could tell her. She might not believe her, might send her away. Rose rushed into speech to hold off the moment.
‘I can get a job – there’s clothing factories quite near here. I won’t be a burden, Auntie. I can help you with Michael and Mary, too.’
At the mention of Michael and Mary, Aunt Elsie relaxed. Her expression softened. ‘You miss th
em, eh? Of course you do. I know I would.’
‘That’s it.’ Rose seized on it as the perfect reason for her coming. It was true, too. ‘I miss them an awful lot. I do, Aunt Elsie.’
‘Aye. They’re little angels, they are. Well, sometimes they’re little demons but there would be something wrong if they weren’t, wouldn’t there?’ She laughed, leaning back in her chair, her delight in having the twins shining out. Then her manner changed. She put her cup down on its saucer and leaned her elbows on the table.
‘But what about your dad? Who’s going to look after him?’
‘I have a right to a life of me own!’ Rose burst out, her lip quivering. ‘He earns enough money, he can afford a housekeeper. I want to be with the kids!’
Aunt Elsie sighed. ‘I know, I know. Don’t think I haven’t seen how unhappy you are. I noticed the last time you were here. You’ve changed, lass, turning into an old woman before your time. And so skinny … you were such a plump, jolly bairn.’
‘Can I stay, Auntie?’
‘We’ll see, we’ll see. Now howay, stop playing with your food, I don’t make a good dinner for it to be wasted.’ She poured a cup of tea for Rose. ‘By the way, I expect you told your dad what you were doing? Did he say it was all right?’
‘I left him a note.’
‘Hmm.’ Aunt Elsie looked sceptical but she held her peace.
Rose felt as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders. Aunt Elsie hadn’t said she could stay but she hadn’t thrown her out either. At the very least it was a breathing space. What she would do when she found out about the baby was another thing.
Later, with Michael and Mary home, the evening passed in seeing to them, giving them supper, getting them ready for bed. In the way of children they didn’t question Rose’s presence, just accepted her with joy, both trying to climb on her knee at once. And afterwards, when Michael and Mary were in bed, the women busied themselves laying out their school things before settling down before the fire to listen to the Light Programme on the wireless.
‘You’ll have to sleep with Mary the night,’ Aunt Elsie said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll seek out the camp bed from the attic. It’ll do until we manage to get a better one.’ And Rose felt a surge of gratitude to her. She was going to be allowed to stay. What would she do without Aunt Elsie? Tomorrow would be soon enough to tell her aunt the truth. Or even perhaps later, when she had found a job, was at least earning her own living.
Then there was Jeff. The thought of him hurt her inside. How could she possibly tell him? Yet how could she not? There was one thing for sure: he would be finished with her altogether when he learned the truth. Of course he would, what lad wouldn’t? She was dirty, used, soiled.
‘A good thing an’ all,’ said Kate when Marina told her that Rose had gone to live with her aunt in Shotton Colliery. ‘Why she didn’t go when the twins went mystifies me.’
Marina gazed at her mother. What did she know? What did the rest of the folk in Jordan realise about Alf Sharpe? All of it. Or if they didn’t know, they had suspected the truth. Everyone but herself. So why hadn’t they done something about it? Marina’s childlike faith in her elders had taken a blow. In the ordinary way it was natural for a girl to stay at home and look after her father if he was on his own, that was what usually happened. She put the question to her mother.
‘Isn’t a girl expected to look after her father if he’s on his own? After all, Rose isn’t the only one in the village.’ She wasn’t, there was one other girl at least in that position, living on the other side of Jordan.
‘Not if the dad’s like Alf Sharpe, they’re not,’ snapped Kate.
‘How?’
‘For goodness’ sake, lass, stop going on! You’ve got eyes in your head, haven’t you?’ And she would say no more.
There was a letter for Rose from Easington on the following Monday.
‘What are you going to do with that?’ asked Kate, scrutinising the envelope. ‘I suppose you have her address?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s all right then, you can send it on.’
Marina had other ideas, though. She was owed a lieu day at work, she would go in tomorrow and ask if she could take the afternoon off at least. Shotton wasn’t far from Durham City, no more than half an hour on the bus, she reckoned. And she couldn’t wait to see how Rose was getting on; if her aunt had believed her and taken her in.
Alf Sharpe took a taxi to Shotton. It cost half a week’s wages and was the highlight of the week for the taxi driver who came out from Bishop Auckland to pick up his passenger. Alf had drunk a bottle of cheap whisky on Sunday afternoon after he came in from the Club already half-cut and found no dinner ready and the fire out. After a few minutes yelling for Rose, he found the note she had left on the kitchen table but which had been brushed to the floor as he walked past.
He had lain for twenty-four hours on the mat before the range, waking up stiff and cold, with a mouth like a cesspit and a black fury inside him that couldn’t wait for slow buses to get him where he wanted to go.
It was a messenger from the manager of the pit who had knocked and knocked and finally woken him, for Alf had missed his shift.
‘Mr Harris wants to know what’s the matter, Mr Sharpe?’ It was a young clerk from the colliery office, trying not to gag at the stench of stale whisky. Alf stood in the doorway, holding the door and swaying slightly.
‘I’m bad. Can you not see I’m bad?’ Indeed he was red-eyed and unshaven and looked like a tramp, thought the boy, who was from a Primitive Methodist teetotal family and shocked to the core. He stepped back from the door out of range of Alf’s breath.
‘Yes, I can, Mr Sharpe, but the manager’ll want to know what’s the matter.’
‘I’ve got the flu,’ he improvised, then, noticing the boy’s instinctive recoil, ‘I’ve taken a drop to ease it, like. Now damn well get out of here, that’s all you need to know.’
‘But Mr Harris’ll want to know when you’re coming back.’
‘When I’m better!’ Alf slammed the door and leaned against it, fighting the waves of nausea which threatened, the deafening pounding in his head. The din receded at last, his stomach settled and he tottered to his chair by the empty grate and lit a cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs so that the cigarette burned down half its length in one drag.
Rose wasn’t going to get away with it, the bitch was his! He would go to Shotton and bring the kids home, the kids or her, he swore he would. He’d told her he would, that night she’d come into the kitchen and offered the deal, and he would do it, she’d better believe it. And Elsie would make her come home. She was besotted with those two brats, would give up anything but them. Even Rose.
That morning, Rose had dressed in her good suit and announced she was off to the Labour Exchange as soon as Michael and Mary had left for school. She felt a rush of optimism. This was the start of a new life. She’d had a good night’s sleep, free from the worry of waiting for him to open her bedroom door, and the shadows under her eyes were lessening already.
‘There’s no rush, Rose,’ Aunt Elsie said, ‘give yourself a few days’ holiday, pet. You look as though you could do with it.’ She had the oilcloth cover off the kitchen table and was sorting clothes on the white-scrubbed wood. In the yard, the setpot boiler was just beginning to emit little puffs of steam as the water heated up.
Rose hesitated. Maybe she should stay and help her aunt with the week’s washing. She offered but Aunt Elsie would have none of it.
‘No, no, I didn’t mean that. I can manage fine. No, if you want to go now, that’s all right by me,’ she said. ‘Mind, I’d look in the Echo first if I was you. The Sits Vac column.’
‘I did that. There wasn’t anything.’
Rose had more luck at the Labour Exchange. She was there for half an hour and when she came out had a card in her hand for a job at the raincoat factory, Ransome’s, on the newly built industrial estate near the colliery.
‘West Auckland
Clothing factory you worked at? Have you a reference?’ The personnel officer looked over his glasses at Rose.
‘No. Well, I left a while back. My mother died and I had to look after the house,’ she replied.
‘I see.’
He glanced at her application form but hesitated for only a minute; he was chronically short of machinists. And he knew Elsie Sharpe, who was a respectable woman.
When Rose came out of Ransome’s, she had a job on the sewing-machine belt, earning two pounds a week basic and more if she was fast enough. The machinists were on piece work.
‘I start tomorrow, Aunt Elsie, making raincoats at Ransome’s,’ she cried as she came in the back door, flushed with success. And stopped dead, the smile wiped from her face when she saw who was standing in front of the fire, his hands folded in front of him, face red and blotched with anger.
‘No, you bloody well don’t,’ said Alf, his voice not raised but harsh with the strength of his rage.
‘Your dad’s here for you,’ said Aunt Elsie, coming out of the pantry, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She looked anxiously from one to the other. ‘Now, Alf, don’t be hard on the lass,’ she said. ‘She missed the bairns, that was what it was.’
‘I’ll not be hard, I’m a reasonable man,’ he replied, not looking at his sister but at Rose. ‘She said she would stay wi’ me, see to my needs, and I let the twins come to you. It was agreed.’
‘I cannot stay any longer, Dad,’ Rose managed to say, though her throat felt as if it was closing up. She was strangling with fear and revulsion. Waves of heat washed over her. For a while, a very short while it had turned out to be, she had thought he wouldn’t have the nerve to follow her in case she told and someone believed her. But that was only a dream, she saw that now.
‘Can you not? Well, then, mebbe the twins can’t stay here any longer either. What do you think of that?’ Rose sat down suddenly, before she fell.
‘Alf! What do you mean? You can’t take them back now, they’ve settled in, they go to school here. Alf, be reasonable, man!’ Elsie paled and screwed up her face in anxiety.