by Maggie Hope
Marina hummed to herself as she ran up the yard to the back door, pulling off her scarf as she went. ‘Hi, Mam,’ she cried, in the manner of the actors she had been watching on the screen, ‘it was a great –’ She broke off as she saw her father sitting in his fireside chair, head bowed, and her mother standing over him, her hands balled into fists. Kate was shouting something at him, her face red with the exertion.
‘I told you, Sam Morland, I told you!’ Her voice was hoarse with shouting.
‘What, Mam, what? What’s the matter?’ asked Marina, the fresh colour in her cheeks from the wind in her face beginning to drain away. Her heart began to thump as she looked from one parent to another. She hated these scenes which had occurred too frequently when she was younger.
Kate turned to her daughter. ‘What do you think is the matter? What is it always with your father? It’s the bloody gambling! Well, it’s done for us this time. I’m telling you, the last straw, that’s what it is. I’ll never be able to hold me head up in Jordan again. Never, I tell you!’
‘Oh, Mam, it cannot be that bad,’ said Marina, desperately hoping it wasn’t. ‘Come on, what have you been playing at, Dad? Pitch and toss behind the slag heap, was it?’ She gazed at him. He was sitting in a clean shirt, fresh from his bath. It was collarless and unbuttoned at the neck and his Adam’s apple was bobbing convulsively.
He avoided her eye, moved automatically to get a cigarette from the mantelpiece, changed his mind and sat still, staring at the slippers Marina had bought him for Christmas. He curled his toes up in them, forming bumps in the plaid wool tops, straightened them, curled them again almost in a reflex action.
‘I’m sorry, lass,’ he mumbled, a picture of humiliation.
‘Sorry? You’ll be sorry all right! I’ll make you sorry.’ Kate leaned towards him, almost spitting out the words.
‘I’ll tell you what he’s done an’ all.’ She turned to Marina. ‘He’s been betting on the horses again. We’ve had a visit tonight from Johnny Green and that runner of his. Lives over the other side, hangs about the street corner – you know him, the long string of nowt! On the doctor’s panel he is, supposed to have hurt his back. No doubt getting compensation for it too. Anyway, they reckon your dad owes them a hundred pounds. A hundred! It might as well be a thousand for all the chance he has of paying it! An’ that’s not all! He owes half the village, that’s what Johnny Green says. “So what were you doing letting him get in that deep?” I asked. Not that I got an answer but I’m not letting that nowt talk down to me.’
The long speech seemed to have drained Kate. All the anger went out of her. She sat down at the table and put her head on her arms. ‘Never be able to hold our heads up in this place again,’ she muttered.
Johnny Green, thought Marina. The bookie from the town. If it was bad enough to draw him out to the village to seek out her dad then it was very bad.
‘Mam, it’ll be all right,’ she said, feeling that it would be anything but. She cast around in her mind for something comforting to say. ‘What about Lance? Can he not help?’ She thought of her own savings. She had forty-eight pounds towards her wedding.
‘Lance? There’s no help there. He’s off to Australia. At least that’s what he said tonight. I’ll never hear from him again. Following our Robson he is, and you know we haven’t heard from him for years. On a ten-pound assisted passage Lance is going. Him and that lass of his, Joan. They’re getting wed and then off to Australia he said, only tonight. That was the first blow. Seems she’s in the family way. Lasses these days have no sense of shame … I blame the war, it changed everything.’ Kate held her head in her hands, rubbed her eyes. ‘Australia. It just swallows them up, it does.’ She sat up and wiped her eyes with the bottom of her apron. ‘Aye, well, they’re best out of it. Let them make a life of their own, I say. I’ll just have to get on with it, won’t I? Mothers don’t count for nowt, not when a lad gets wed.’
‘Oh, Mam, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Lance isn’t like that. He’ll write, you’ll see,’ said Marina, though she wasn’t too sure herself.
‘We’ll see, all right,’ said her mother, then turned round and caught Sam looking at her. ‘And now this. Oh, Sam, will you never, ever learn?’
He bent down suddenly and changed his slippers for the highly polished boots he always wore to go out in.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she demanded.
‘Out.’
He wrapped his white scarf round his collarless neck and pulled on his old jacket. ‘I’m off, I cannot stand this.’ And he went.
Marina and her mother looked at each other. ‘Just like him. Spineless,’ Kate commented bitterly. ‘It’s me has to clean up the mess, always me.’
Marina shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Mam,’ she said. ‘You’re too hard on him. I think he was really upset.’
‘So he should be,’ her mother replied bitterly. ‘Well, I’m going to bed. I’m not waiting up for him.’
Someone was knocking at the door. A loud ‘ready money’ knock as Kate would call it, and on the front door, the one which was never used. Marina tumbled out of bed and groped for the light switch. She pulled a kimono over her pyjamas and put on her slippers.
The knocking came again, loud and insistent. ‘Are you in, missus?’ came the shout. Marina went out on to the landing, almost bumping into Kate as she came out of her bedroom.
‘It’s the polis,’ she said, eyes wide with fear. ‘Oh, my God, what has he done now?’
‘I’ll go, Mam,’ said Marina. ‘It’s probably nothing. Or nothing to do with Dad anyway. Where is he anyway? Is he not back yet? What time is it?’
‘Half-past four. No, he’s not back. Where can he be, Marina?’ She shook her head and headed down the stairs. Sam had gone off on other occasions similar to the one last night. He always came back in the end, when he thought the flak would have died down.
‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ she called as she went through the front room and tugged back the bolt of the door. It was indeed a policeman standing there.
‘Mrs Morland?’ he asked, stepping forward. ‘No, I can see you’re not. Is your mam in, ninny?’ he asked in a strong Geordie accent.
Wordlessly, Marina ran to the bottom of the stairs. Her mother had already come down, had heard every word.
‘What is it? Don’t keep him standing on the doorstep, our Marina, all the neighbours will be listening. Come on in, constable, and shut the door behind you.’ Kate led the way through the front room to the kitchen before turning to face him. ‘Well?’
‘Take a seat, missus.’
‘Never mind that. Just tell us what has happened, will you?’
The policeman cleared his throat and glanced at Marina before opening his notebook. ‘Are you Mrs Kate Morland?’ he asked. Kate opened her mouth to tell him to get on with it but he was before her. ‘You husband is – was – Sam Morland?’
‘Yes.’
The single word came out in a whisper for now Kate knew for sure what was coming. Marina moved to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you he was knocked down by a bus at half-past twelve this morning. He was killed outright, missus, wouldn’t have known what hit him.’
‘There aren’t any buses at half-past twelve, the last bus would go ages before that!’ Marina burst out.
‘I’m sorry, pet, but there was. It was the fore-shift bus taking men to Fishburn. If someone could come down and identify him for us …’
After the policeman had gone Lance came in, still in his pit clothes where they had called him out of the pit. Marina saw to his bath, made him some tea, did all the small homely tasks necessary. She felt numb and went about them in a daze, startled from it only when she came out of the pantry and heard what Kate was saying to him.
‘You won’t be going now, will you, son? To Australia? Not now this has happened?’
Lance didn’t answer directly. ‘We won’t talk about that now, Mam,’
he said. ‘Plenty of time for that. Howay now, you’d be better in bed and I have to go down and identify him. Come on, Mam, it’ll be a long day tomorrow.’
‘Aye,’ his mother said and stood up obediently.
‘I’ll go up with you, Mam.’ Marina moved to her side and put an arm around her mother’s shoulders, but Kate shrugged it off impatiently.
‘I can go by myself. I’m not senile, you know,’ she snapped. Marina and Lance looked at each other as she went out and up the stairs, talking as she went. ‘What a day this has been! Eeh, could anything else happen, do you think?’ She sobbed suddenly. ‘Aw, Sam, Sam! You know I didn’t mean it. Why did you have to throw yourself under a bus?’
‘He didn’t! It was an accident. Dad didn’t!’ Marina shouted, almost in unison with Lance. They had both jumped to their feet in shock. Marina ran to the bottom of the stairs. ‘It was an accident, Mam!’ she shouted again and Kate turned on the landing and looked down at her.
‘Aye, mebbe,’ she said. ‘Mebbe it was.’
It was a full week before the funeral could be held. There had to be a post-mortem and an inquest. ‘Accidental death’ was the verdict. ‘I told you,’ Marina said to Kate. ‘The coroner said it was an accident.’
‘Aye,’ said her mother. ‘But him saying it doesn’t make it so.’ She sat in the corner of the fireplace, saying little and eating less. In the week since Sam had died, the flesh looked to be falling from her. Marina worried about her. She knew her mother was still blaming herself, going over and over that last scene with Dad.
‘It’s the shock, that’s all,’ Brian tried to comfort her. ‘She’ll come round, you’ll see.’ He was a rock in all this, Marina thought, and found herself leaning on him more and more.
The funeral was small and private. Kate had insisted on that even though Sam had been a popular man in the village in spite of his propensity for gambling and borrowing money. Normally every man off shift would have gone to the chapel service at least. Marina knew why, though. Her mother was worried he had owed more money to the neighbours; it wasn’t just sorrow which kept her head bowed; she was ashamed. At the chapel service she looked neither to left nor right, acknowledging none of her neighbours or friends, imagining they were pointing the finger at her and her family. She barely answered the minister’s condolences. And afterwards she sat by the fire, eating nothing, occasionally wiping her eyes with a handkerchief which she had rolled up in her hand.
That night, Marina and Brian were sitting quietly in the front room, Kate had gone to bed and Lance had disappeared – to his girl’s or to the Club, Marina didn’t know or care. Before he went he’d confided his plans in Marina.
‘I haven’t told Mam yet,’ he said, ‘but we’re going the week after next. We decided today. Just a quiet register office wedding next week then we’re away, out of here.’
‘You decided today, when it was Dad’s funeral?’ Marina was shocked into saying. Sometimes she felt Lance was not her brother at all but a stranger. She couldn’t understand him. Not like the big brother who had looked out for her when she was small, almost a second father to her.
‘Don’t look at me like that, you know we can’t put it off,’ he retorted, and a minute or two later he had gone out.
Marina leaned her head against Brian’s shoulder and sighed. ‘You know, I wish I could just leave everything, forget all about Jordan, get away to a place where everyone doesn’t know our business,’ she cried. ‘We could make a fresh start just like Lance and Joan. I don’t blame him when I think about it, he does right to get away from here. It’s horrible, full of busybodies, always talking about us.’
‘Aw, come on, it’s not so bad,’ Brian protested. ‘The folk aren’t so bad either.’ He grinned, trying to lift her out of her mood. ‘At least, me and my family aren’t bad, are we?’
Marina leaned back against his arm. She felt so tired. The emotions of the last week had drained her, the tiny surge of resentment which had given her the energy to say what she did had died. ‘No. But you know what I mean,’ she said weakly, and stared into the fire.
Aunt Hetty and Penny had come to the funeral. Aunt Hetty was Mam’s cousin, family, but somehow Marina hadn’t thought of them coming. When they had walked in the door her heart had jumped in anticipation of seeing Charlie and this in spite of her misery over Dad. But he wasn’t with them and she was glad, she told herself now. She couldn’t have coped with seeing him, not today. She could hardly speak to Penny, but thank goodness her cousin had smiled in understanding, obviously thinking it was because Marina was so upset over Dad’s death. They had gone straight after the service, kissing Kate and Marina and promising to keep in touch. No thanks, Marina had thought.
She closed her eyes and Brian, ever observant, saw and eased his arm from under her.
‘Come on, bed for you,’ he said. ‘It’s been a hard day for everyone. I’ll go now.’ They got to their feet and he kissed her gently. ‘Tomorrow is another day,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll see you then. I’ll always be here for you. I love you, Marina.’ She had never doubted that.
Her mother called out as she trailed wearily up the stairs, ‘Brian gone home?’
‘Yes, Mam.’
‘He’s a lovely man, our Marina,’ said Kate. ‘And you’re a lucky girl to have him.’
‘Yes, Mam,’ said Marina. And she was, yes, she knew she was.
‘Sam was a lovely man an’ all,’ said Kate and choked on a sob. ‘Your poor dad.’
‘Yes, Mam.’
Marina paused on the landing, wondering whether to go in to her mother but Kate called, ‘Goodnight, pet,’ and Marina went into her own room and closed the door. That wasn’t what her mam had called him only a short week ago.
Chapter Twenty-one
The work was easy, that was one thing about it. Oh, the sewing room was busy enough, always bed linen to mend, uniforms to alter to fit as staff came and went in the hospital. But there was no piece work, nothing driving her to go faster and faster all the time. Not as there had been in the factory. Rose would have been contented enough in the small world of the sewing room were it not for the worry about Michael and Mary always nagging at the back of her mind.
‘Another batch for you, Lily,’ said Alice, dumping a pile of torn sheets on the table by her side. Alice was the boss of the sewing room, under Mrs Timms of course. She was a bustling, middle-aged woman, always cheery, working alongside Rose and the other girls.
‘Thanks, Alice,’ said Rose, and picking up the first item began the meticulous patching and mending for which she was beginning to get a reputation among the sewing-room staff. She applied herself to the job, taking pride in the neat patching and darning, and by elevenses had a good pile on the table of neatly mended and folded bed linen.
The other women gathered in a bunch but Rose sat on alone by her machine. As she drank her tea she reflected that Marina should have got her note by now, so at least she would know Rose was doing OK. It had been a good idea when one of the girls had been going to London last week to ask her to post the letter for her. If Marina let it out to Dad he would never dream she was so close, only twenty-odd miles away, and only about five miles from the twins and Aunt Elsie.
Aunt Elsie … Rose couldn’t think of her without feeling betrayed. But Aunt Elsie wouldn’t hurt the twins, no, she loved them too much for that. But did she still have them with her? Oh, dear Lord, let it be so.
‘Lily?’ At first Rose didn’t answer. She was thinking about the past and didn’t realise Alice meant her. She had to repeat herself. ‘Lily? Now then, stop your day-dreaming, it’s time we were all back to work. Besides, Mrs Timms will be in any minute.’ Alice put a hand on her shoulder, kindly but firm, and Rose put her cup back on the tray and switched on her sewing machine.
Of course Rose had had to get a replacement identity card and the hospital authorities, including Mrs Timms presumably, knew her correct name. But it was assumed that Lily was the name Rose went by, for whatever re
ason, and no one commented on it. And she was grateful for their lack of curiosity. She was even becoming used to being called Lily. Most of the time, anyway. Were it not for Mary and Michael …An idea occurred to her. She would ring the junior school at Shotton. Surely they would tell her if the twins were still pupils there? Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
The time dragged after that, but at last it was one o’clock and dinnertime and she could slip along to the telephones in the main entrance and for once her luck was in. There was a directory hanging by a string from the shelf in the booth.
‘Shotton Colliery Junior School. Head mistress speaking.’
For a second or two Rose couldn’t speak. Her throat closed up, her pulse began to race.
‘Hallo? Can I help you?’
‘Emm … Can you tell me … I think you have Michael and Mary Sharpe in the school?’
‘Well?’
‘I mean, do you have Michael and Mary Sharpe as pupils there?’
There was a brief silence. ‘Who’s speaking? Who wants to know?’
‘I’m a relative, I –’
‘I’m afraid I can’t give out information about the children on the telephone, especially when I don’t know who you are.’ The voice was hardening, becoming suspicious, Rose could hear it over the wire. She bit her lip, not knowing what to say.
‘Well, if that’s all, I have work to do. Goodbye.’ The line went dead. Rose stood there, tears springing hot to her eyes. She had really banked on finding out where the twins were this way, or at least if they had left Shotton and Aunt Elsie.
‘Are you finished, caller? I’m afraid the party has hung up. Do you wish me to try again? That would be another fourpence, please.’ The operator’s voice was bright and impersonal.
‘No, thank you,’ Rose blurted and hung up. She leaned against the wooden partition of the booth and closed her eyes.