by Maggie Hope
‘Are you finished? Come on, don’t hog the phone.’ A second-year nurse was banging on the door and Rose swallowed and came out, muttering, ‘Sorry’, not looking at the nurse. After buoying herself up she was all the more down at this disappointment.
‘Lily? Are you all right?’ Rose jumped. She had almost bumped into Dr Morris as she turned a corner in the corridor leading to the sewing room. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you, Doctor.’
Dr Morris studied her pale face and suspiciously red eyes. ‘Well, you look a bit under the weather to me,’ he observed. ‘Where are you off to now? Have you had lunch?’
‘I wasn’t going to bother, there’s a lot of work waiting –’
‘Nonsense, girl, you have to eat,’ he said tersely, though his hazel eyes were smiling. ‘Look.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s my half-day. So go and get your coat, there’s a good girl. We’ll go to the cafe over the road. I’m a bit peckish myself.’
Rose blinked. Doctors just didn’t go out with domestic staff. If anyone saw them the hospital would be buzzing with it, making a mountain out of a molehill too, no doubt. But it would be nice, he was such a kind man. And she did need something to cheer her up. Oh yes, she did indeed.
He saw her indecision and took her arm. ‘Come on, I’m going to see you get some good food into you, do you hear? You’re far too thin anyhow.’
Sitting opposite Dr Morris in the cafe, eating corned beef slice and chips and limp bread and margarine, Rose had to grin at him. ‘I bet you’d have eaten better in the doctors’ dining room,’ she remarked. ‘I would have, even in the canteen.’ They were both of them a little damp as it had begun to rain outside. He had laid her old coat over the back of an empty chair carefully, as though it were a Dior model. It was all very strange to Rose, his manners, everything about him.
‘Call me Bob, you’re not a patient now,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s good to get away from hospital food sometimes, even if it is just across the road here.’ He speared a chip on the end of his fork and dipped it into a blob of brown sauce on his plate and chewed it thoughtfully, watching her as he did so.
Rose put down her knife and fork and took out her hankie and patted her mouth. This wasn’t the sort of place where there were napkins or even paper serviettes. She glanced up and saw he was still watching her.
‘What?’ she felt compelled to ask, his expression was so quizzical.
He shook his head. ‘Nothing. At least not if you don’t want to tell me.’
It was warm in the cafe and Rose put a hand to her forehead. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ he asked immediately and jumped up and went over to the counter and came back with some. ‘You looked so worried, I was alarmed,’ he said.
He was so kind her resistance was worn down, and she had to talk to someone, she told herself. Except about that, of course. ‘It’s the twins, you see,’ she said, and then it all came out in a rush. How she didn’t know if they were with her aunt, how she couldn’t go and see, couldn’t let her aunt know where she was …
‘Why?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Why can’t you?’
‘I just can’t,’ she replied.
‘They’re yours? The twins, I mean.’
‘No, Michael and Mary are my brother and sister. They’re eight years old.’ He leaned his elbow on the table and put his chin in his hand, listening intently as she went on, and inevitably he realised it was the father who was the cause of her fear. How she couldn’t bear it if the twins were to go back to him. What was she going to do? If only she knew they were safe in Shotton …
‘Shotton? Shotton Colliery? Only as far as that? Why, that’s no distance away!’
‘I know.’
How could she tell him that it might as well have been a thousand miles, she daren’t go there, she was so frightened of her father. And she knew it was silly. Her father wasn’t even there, or at least she hoped he wasn’t. Oh yes, indeed, she hoped and prayed he wasn’t, for the sake of the twins. And yes, she was a coward, that was it, an out and out coward.
‘Do you not want to go on your own? Look, I have a free afternoon –’
‘No!’ She almost shouted the word and he was startled, it showed in his expression. ‘I mean, I have to work this afternoon. In fact, I must be getting back.’ She made to rise then sat down again. ‘How much do I owe you for the meal?’
He dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. ‘I can pick you up at five o’clock. I’ll go with you, Lily, be your moral support, if you like?’
‘No, I’m not going today, I have things to do …’
‘Come on, I’ll walk you back.’ He held her coat for her and she felt cherished. It was a rare feeling for her. The only other times she had felt cherished had been when she was with … Jeff. There now, and she had sworn to herself that she was not going even to think of him again. It was no good, he wouldn’t want her now. He would find another girl, one from a proper family, not a twisted one like hers.
‘Go today,’ Bob said as they stood on the pavement waiting for traffic to pass. ‘Come on, it’s the only way you’ll find out how the twins are. And surely, no matter what you have done, your aunt will not throw you out?’
‘But she will,’ Rose said. ‘I couldn’t go to the house. Oh, no.’ She was weakening though, he sensed it. But then she shook her head. ‘I might be seen.’
What had she done that she felt she couldn’t let her family see her? he wondered but asked no more questions. Time enough, he thought.
‘Think about it,’ he urged her. ‘I’ll meet you here at five. All right?’ He turned away and walked to his car which was parked at the other side of the hospital, before she could put forward any other objection.
‘Hmm,’ said Alice suggestively later as she paused by Rose’s machine. ‘I saw you and Dr Morris, sitting with your heads together in the cafe. Your secret is out, my girl.’
‘There is no secret,’ said Rose. ‘There’s nothing between us, he’s just interested in me as a patient.’
‘Is he now? But you’re not his patient, are you? If you were he would have to pass you on to someone else, the way he was looking at you …’
‘There’s nothing! Nothing!’ Rose was vehement in her denial and Alice backed down at once.
‘Nay, I was only funning,’ she said. ‘I meant nowt, lass. Take no notice of me. Not that I would tell a soul if there were something. Not if you didn’t want me to.’
Rose picked up a pillowcase which was torn down the seam and turned it inside out to mend. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about! Dear Lord, why didn’t anything go the same for her as it did for other girls? She thought of Marina. If her friend were here she could talk to her. Marina was the only one in whom she could confide. But she had effectively cut herself off from her friend now. Rose mentally shrugged her shoulders, recognising the mood as pure self-pity. And that was going to get her nowhere, nowhere at all.
Bob Morris wasn’t waiting at the gate when she came out at a few minutes after five and she was disappointed. Well, she had no right to be, she told herself, and decided she would walk to the lodging house. It was a lovely evening and she might as well save her bus fare.
‘Lily, come on, I’m here, get in.’ Bob was sitting in his car a short way up the road. He leaned over and opened the door on the passenger side. She looked quickly about her before climbing into the car.
‘You shouldn’t have done this, not so close to the hospital. People will talk,’ she said, thinking of Alice. Luckily there was no one around she knew but what about him?
‘Why? Do you think it should be kept a secret? Or that I should have met you in some out of the way place?’
‘No, not that.’ They shouldn’t have met at all, she thought. She would just tell him she couldn’t let him take her to Shotton, not let him get involved with her, it was all too nasty, too dirty. Oh, God, what would he think if it all came out? He wouldn’t be able to look at her then, would be horrified. That she had let her father … No, she wasn’t
going to think of that again.
‘Well, then,’ he was saying as he started the car and set off along the road inland. ‘I was thinking, you see. If you’re absolutely sure you mustn’t be seen, and you’re absolutely sure you must check if the twins are all right …You are, aren’t you?’
She nodded. She couldn’t look at him.
‘Well then. I thought you could sit in the car, perhaps a little way away from the house, and I could go there and ask after them. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?’
‘I … I don’t know.’ Why was he doing this for her?
‘Or I could ask after you, could say I was a friend of yours. That would be the truth, wouldn’t it?’
A friend. Heaven knew she needed a friend. ‘But what if I was seen?’
‘You won’t be. Or if you are, well, I’ve got sunglasses here, you can wear them. And pull your headscarf over your face. Oh, come on, you want to find out about the children, don’t you?’
Oh, yes, she wanted to know about the children. She was desperate for news of them. Her heart ached every minute of the day and she cried every night before going to sleep. The twins were her reason for living, the only reason she felt she had left.
‘But why? I mean, why are you doing this?’ she asked.
‘Let’s just do it.’ He leaned across her, still looking out of the windscreen, found the sunglasses in the glove compartment and handed them to her. He was turning into the Shotton road, now past old Shotton village to the later pit village of Shotton Colliery. And then they were running by the ends of colliery rows, past the street when Aunt Elsie had moved to from the new site because she liked the friendliness of the old rows. Rose looked down the back street eagerly but there were no children outside playing kicky off chock or chanting skipping games. The brick-lined alley was deserted. Of course, it was teatime, the main meal of the day. The twins would be sitting up at the table, eating. Corned beef hash if Michael had his way, that was his favourite. A lump formed in Rose’s throat.
Bob was parking the car further up the road, round a corner, out of sight. He turned to her. To lighten the atmosphere, he said, ‘My, you do look strange in that get-up! Like a character from a murder mystery.’
She glanced in the mirror. The glasses and headscarf obscured most of her face. Rose huddled down in her seat, feeling more confident.
‘Righto then,’ he said. ‘I’ll go. Just sit tight, I won’t be long. What number did you say?’
‘Fourteen,’ she whispered.
‘Fourteen it is. See you in a minute.’
Chapter Twenty-two
Elsie had the pan in her hand, all ready to serve the hash to the children, when the knock came at the door.
‘Heck!’ she said, exasperated. ‘Who can that be now?’
‘I’ll go and see, Aunt Elsie,’ said Michael, sliding from his chair at the table. A knock at the door was exciting, it meant it was a stranger for the neighbours usually called out, ‘Are you there, Elsie?’ and walked right in.
‘Go on then, pet.’
Michael opened the door then stood tongue-tied, staring at the tall young man standing there. He hung on to the doorknob, unsure of himself, and it was Mary, looking over his shoulder, who said, ‘Hallo. Do you want Aunt Elsie?’
Bob smiled widely. One of Lily’s problems was solved already. Here were the twins, gazing up at him with Lily’s eyes, and as far as he could tell at first glance, both fit as fiddles.
‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’
They stood back from the door wordlessly and he walked into the kitchen-cum-living-room, which was typical of most of the miners’ cottages in the area. This one was spotlessly clean and shining, he had time to register. The woman was in her forties, he surmised, standing with a pan in her hand almost as though she had forgotten it was there. But the thing he noticed most about her was her expression. Apprehension, it was, rather than surprise. And, seeing her attitude, the two children stood closer together and gazed at him with big, solemn eyes too.
‘Hmm … good evening,’ he said, kicking himself mentally for he realised he couldn’t address her properly. Had forgotten to ask Lily for her surname. Was it the same as Lily’s? Her real name was Rose Sharpe, he had found that out from the office. ‘I hope you don’t mind my coming in. Miss Sharpe, is it?’
‘My name is Mrs Brown.’ It was just above a whisper. Elsie was still holding the pan and now she turned and put it down on the bar of the fire. She stood for a second or two with her back to him then turned round to face him. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m Dr Morris, how do you do?’ He held out his hand and after a slight hesitation she responded; her hand was limp and cold despite the heat in the kitchen. Something wrong here.
‘And these are?’ he asked, indicating the children.
‘I’m Mary and me brother is Michael,’ the little girl piped.
‘Hallo, Mary. Hallo, Michael.’
‘I asked if I could help you,’ said Elsie, sounding a little less frightened.
‘I hope so. I’m looking for a Miss Sharpe. Rose Sharpe?’
‘Our Rose? That’s me sister, mister!’ said Mary. ‘She doesn’t live here any more.’
‘Mary! Michael! Go on into the front room. Go on now, play with your toys.’ Elsie was white and pinched-looking, her voice urgent, almost a shout. Michael’s lower lip trembled but he took his sister’s hand and pulled her away.
‘I haven’t had me tea,’ Mary protested as she went.
‘Go on now, you’ll get your tea in a minute,’ insisted Elsie. After they had gone she turned back to Bob. ‘Why? What do you want with her?’
‘Oh, nothing for you to concern yourself with, Mrs Brown,’ he said smoothly, watching her with a doctor’s eye. She was frightened and there was something else – defensive, that was what she was. She had a guilty look to her.
‘Well, I don’t know where she is. Rose went off on her own. Just left, without a word.’
‘I wonder why?’ he asked, as though to himself. He pursed his lips and played with his driving gloves, smoothing them over his hands.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Elsie suddenly flared. ‘I have enough to do looking after those two bairns, haven’t I?’ Her eyes narrowed. Now she was over her shock she was becoming suspicious of him, he realised. ‘Where do you come from anyway? Bishop Auckland, is it? Jordan? Why have you come all this way?’
Bishop Auckland? And Jordan was a village near Bishop, he knew that. Well, he’d found out something at least.
‘Yes, that’s right, Bishop Auckland,’ he fibbed. ‘Look, it was nothing important. I was just passing by and I knew Miss Sharpe had come over this way to live so I thought I’d call … Well, goodbye, Mrs Brown, I’m very pleased to have met you.’
He was out of the house in a minute, before she had time to ask any more questions. He practically ran down the back street and along the road to the car. He passed Mrs Todd, on her way to the fish and chip shop for a piece of haddock for her supper, almost bumping into her as he rounded the corner, avoiding her at the last minute.
‘Hey! Watch where you’re going!’ Mrs Todd shouted after him. She followed him with her eyes, saw him get into a car parked just inside the alley of one of the rows. As she passed the end of the alley she had to stop as the car pulled out and she glared into it. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat wearing dark glasses and a headscarf. As the car pulled away she took off the glasses and turned to the young man.
‘Do you know,’ Mrs Todd said to her husband as they ate their fish and chips later on, ‘I thought I saw that Rose Sharpe tonight, in a car.’ She shook her head as she picked up the teapot and poured the tea.
‘Did you?’ he asked absently, uninterested. ‘You forgot to get mushy peas, lass.’
‘You can do without mushy peas for once, can’t you?’
Mrs Todd put a piece of crunchy batter into her mouth and chewed t
houghtfully. Rose Sharpe. She hadn’t seen her since that night she went off with her father, back to Bishop, she supposed. She and the father had just left those two bairns to be looked after by their aunt. Funny family. Mrs Todd shook her head and reached for the jug she’d brought the brown ale in from the back door of the pub. ‘A drop more, Matt?’ she asked, the jug poised over her husband’s glass.
‘They’re there. The twins, I mean. Michael and Mary.’ Bob watched the woman teetering on the kerb, just in case she decided to cross in front of the car, decided she was waiting for him to go, and set off for the Hartlepool road.
‘Oh, thank God,’ whispered Rose, and took off the glasses and closed her eyes for a minute.
‘Put them back on, we’re not out of Shotton yet,’ Bob admonished, and she hurriedly obeyed. Then she sat forward and peered at him through the dark glass. The sun had gone down and evening shadows were adding to her difficulty in seeing.
‘Are they all right? Michael hasn’t got a summer cold, has he? He had a terrible one last year –’
‘He looked fine to me.’
‘Oh, good. And Mary? Was she all right?’
‘Mary too. They look fit and healthy and just about the right height and weight for eight- or nine-year-olds. And that’s a professional opinion. That enough for you?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you, Bob. Oh, thank you. I’m ever so grateful, I am.’
‘That’s all right, R— Lily.’ He caught himself almost saying her real name and glanced at her but she didn’t appear to have noticed.
Rose was happy. The twins were still with Aunt Elsie. No matter how rotten Elsie had been to her she would never hurt the twins, Rose told herself for the thousandth time. No, never.
She felt quite light-headed with relief. Until she thought, suddenly, suppose her dad was there? Suppose he was living with them? Suppose he was at Shotton, had left his job at Jordan? Suppose …
‘Was there anyone else there? Their father, I mean?’
‘No, no one else.’ Not her father, Bob noted, the children’s father.
‘He could be living there, though, couldn’t he? I mean, if he was out at work or something.’