‘You can start packing what you want to keep,’ her aunt answered sharply. ‘Have it sent down to the hotel.’
Rose took a deep breath. ‘I have decided not to,’ she said evenly. ‘We are going to stay here.’
‘You can’t.’
Aunt Carrie was going to be difficult. Rose must not give in. ‘I am going to get work,’ she said. ‘I’ve an interview at the Regional Bank tomorrow. Mary will get a job. I’ve got a bit in my savings . . .’
‘Don’t you tell me what you’ll do.’ Aunt Carrie’s voice rose. ‘I’m telling you. You are coming to live with me.’
‘Please see reason, Aunt Carrie.’ Her aunt had never been reasonable but at all costs Rose had to tell her that she intended to keep their own roof over their heads. ‘I don’t mind being responsible for Mary and Viv. We’ll be all right.’
‘You’ve no idea, girl. No idea what it takes to run a home and bring girls up.’
‘I want to try.’
‘You can’t stop here,’ Aunt Carrie said.
‘Why not? I can pay the rent.’
‘The landlord wants you out.’
‘Who is the landlord?’ Rose appealed to her. ‘I’ll go and see him.’
‘I’m the landlord.’ Aunt Carrie said it with horrible finality. ‘You’re to be out by next week.’
It had been a futile appeal. Rose made one last attempt. ‘But we don’t want to leave,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m eighteen. I can take care of everything. I’ll pay the rent if you need the money.’
‘That’s what happened to me,’ Aunt Carrie said, so bitterly that Rose believed she must have resented every hour she’d spent looking after Mum. ‘You aren’t going to go the same way.’
‘But Aunt Carrie,’ Rose said. It was useless. She saw fury on her aunt’s face.
‘Your parents appointed me your legal guardian,’ Aunt Carrie cut in. ‘You’re not stopping here. You’ve no money and you’re not entitled to Relief. I’ll have to pay for everything. I always have.’
‘I can . . .’ Rose started to say. But it was too late; Aunt Carrie would not be silenced.
‘So you either come to live with me or I’ll have you and your sisters put in a home,’ Aunt Carrie added.
It was as if she’d been slapped in the face. Aunt Carrie had always done this, dictated to them, attempted to control them. Did her aunt have the right to impose her will? Didn’t she and her sisters have any rights? She felt her face growing pale. ‘I am going to find out about this,’ she said coldly. ‘I am going to see a lawyer. Surely I have rights of my own.’
‘You have no rights to anything!’ Aunt Carrie’s eyes were ablaze.
Rose stood her ground against Aunt Carrie for the first time in her life. ‘You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.’
‘I have every right.’
Rose closed her eyes for a second so as not to see the high spots of colour, the blazing eyes of Aunt Carrie. ‘I know you were appointed our legal guardian but my father would never have done it if he’d known you were going to marry that – that man . . .’
‘What?’ Aunt Carrie was on her feet. ‘Who told you?’
‘I heard you. I heard you myself. Dad suspected. Dad would have changed the guardianship, given us to Uncle Patrick, if he had thought you’d marry Cecil Ratcliffe.’ Rose was close to breaking down but she could not stop herself, seeing Aunt Carrie’s face distorted with anger, glaring at her across the table. ‘My mother is dead . . .’ she started to say.
‘You fool!’ Aunt Carrie moved swiftly across the room. She took hold of her arms; shook her as if she were a rag doll then brought her face close to her own as she declared in a wild, furious voice, ‘I AM YOUR MOTHER!’
Aunt Carrie’s iron grip loosened the moment the fateful words were uttered. She let go of Rose, who momentarily lost her balance and steadied herself against the table. If she had felled her, the blow could not have been more shocking.
‘You?’ Rose whispered the words. ‘You? My mother?’ but she could not doubt it. Aunt Carrie had gone white and yet a change had come over her. She had softened, as if all her life she had waited to say it.
She pulled one of the dining chairs forward and sat down heavily, facing Rose. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t meant to tell you like this.’
A new feeling grew in Rose at that moment. She felt it – it was anger flowing in her veins. How could Aunt Carrie – she would never, never be able to think of her as a mother – how could she tell her the truth now?
‘I wish you hadn’t,’ she said. ‘I truly wish you hadn’t.’
Aunt Carrie had not seen, or chose that moment not to believe that Rose had spoken the truth, for she went on, with a self-pitying air, ‘I couldn’t bring you up, love. I should have done. I regretted it . . .’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Rose heard herself shouting. She put her hands flat against her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’
‘I want to explain.’ Aunt Carrie began to tap nervously with the palm of her hand on the table top.
‘Don’t explain!’ The words were choking in her throat. ‘My mother is dead! You are nothing to me! Nothing! Don’t ever say that you are my mother again.’
Aunt Carrie got to her feet and placed an arm around her shoulder. ‘You will understand one day,’ she said.
The angry redness had gone from Aunt Carrie’s face. She was pale and tears were sparkling in her eyes. But rage, impotent fury was still boiling within Rose. It was a new emotion. She had never felt it before. She wanted nothing so much as to hit Aunt Carrie, to hit her until she withdrew the terrible, the terrible truths she had been telling. She had no doubt at all that it was the truth and that Aunt Carrie wanted her to acknowledge it. Instead, she pulled back, out of her aunt’s hold and stared, unmoved. ‘I don’t believe you. My mother is dead.’
‘Jane wasn’t your mother,’ Aunt Carrie said. ‘I am.’
‘Exactly what kind of a mother are you?’ Rose spat out the words, contempt in every syllable. At that moment she hated Aunt Carrie.
Chapter Fifteen
Pilot Officer Alan McGregor floated above the airfield, waiting for his signal from Control. ‘Hello Red Four. All clear to land. Runway Two Seven.’
He was coming in well; down to nine hundred feet. He slid back the Perspex hood and put on his helmet and goggles, raised the seat, leaned out for a quick look and started the circuit of the aerodrome.
Losing height . . . reducing speed . . . a hundred . . . the tail was lowering nicely. Ninety . . . eighty . . . a few feet from the ground now. There, she was down.
The small wheels of the Spitfire touched the runway and began to squeal and tear at the grass as he braked. The long, raised nose of the little fighter blocked the forward view and he had to steer a zig-zag course, following the signalling flags until he taxied in behind Martin Forsyth and George Jeffreys.
Switch off. Brakes on.
The rigger put the chocks on as Alan released the side flap and unfastened his harness. He edged out of the cockpit on to the wing, dropped easily to the ground and pulled off the leather helmet. Cool air rushed against his sweaty scalp. He always had the same feeling; a feeling of relief with a tight thread of tension that would not be broken. The others had it too. The tension on the one hand begged to be broken and on the other made him want to get back into the machine; to climb skywards and feel the steady throb of the Merlin engine and the swift, responsive controls.
So far their guns had not been used in battle. They had practised; firing at a towed drogue or a white marker on the sea. Daily, they expected the call to action. For himself he was also nervous, and afraid that he was alone in this. The others seemed louder and bolder than he was. Martin was thirsting for battle.
‘Flight Lieutenant wants to see you, Alan!’ Martin called to him as he headed for the Ops room.
‘Right-o. It’ll be about my leave.’ Alan ran, heavy footed in the flying boots, across the grass to his frie
nds. ‘You haven’t forgotten? The car?’
‘No. She’s all yours. It’s outside the mess with the hood down,’ Martin said. ‘You’ll have a good run home in this weather.’
The other pilot, George Jeffreys, caught up with them. ‘How long will it take you to reach Macclesfield?’ he asked.
‘Five hours if I average forty.’
‘What are you going to do? Sleep?’ Martin asked.
‘No! I’ll spend a day with my farmer friend – and the others with my girlfriend,’ Alan said.
‘Are you still seeing the one you brought to Edinburgh?’ Martin grinned at him.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s she like?’ George wanted to know.
‘Like Rita Hayworth! She’s got red hair and a figure that would knock you cross-eyed.’
Alan laughed at the expression on Martin’s face. They had been to see Fallen Angel last week for the flying scenes.
‘Go on!’ George evidently thought he was joking.
‘Wait till you’ve met her,’ Alan said.
Martin gave him a broad wink as they went to report on the morning’s duty. In the office a few minutes later Alan snapped to attention and saluted.
‘You’ve four days’ leave, McGregor?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Flight Lieutenant ran his finger down the desk calendar in front of him. He looked up. ‘Due back Tuesday, the fourteenth of May. Twenty-three hundred?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The senior officer smiled. ‘Sit down, Alan.’ He pushed cigarettes and lighter to Alan who relaxed, long legs stretched out beneath the desk. ‘It looks as if things are moving. You and another six men from this squadron are going into action when you get back.’
Alan felt the bubble of excitement that lived in the pit of his stomach begin to grow. ‘Good show, sir.’
The Flight Lieutenant smiled back. ‘It’s confidential, Pilot Officer. Tell your family you’re going to another unit. That’s all.’ He stood up and Alan rose to his feet. ‘Good luck. Enjoy your leave.’
Alan went to the hut, threw his spare uniform into a case and, thirty seconds later, dropped it on to the back seat of Martin’s Riley. It was his same 1928 model, converted from a saloon to soft top, with spoke wheels, a raised bar in front of the radiator and a long leather strap holding down the hinged bonnet. But it went like a dream when it was warm and Alan could feel the wind whipping his hair back as he headed out of camp, north to Macclesfield, his father and Rose.
Nan Tansley would have his suit and flannels pressed and ready. She’d be glad to do his two uniforms as well.
‘Tralaa, tralala, tralala, tralalaaaaah,’ he sang. In his wallet were two tickets for Manchester Opera House and a performance of La Traviata. He hoped his letter had reached Rose and that she was expecting him.
He was glad not to be spending another evening in the mess. He joined in with the others in the boisterous sessions; he could balance a pint of beer on his head and do the backwards crawl. He could roar with oafish laughter at the dreadful jokes. He enjoyed it all. But he also understood the clinical, the psychological, reason for this unnatural behaviour. He knew what lay behind the hilarity and he often felt envious of the men who went home at night to a wife or girlfriend. He’d find himself lonely in the midst of the fun. He’d find himself longing for Rose, his studies and normality.
He’d been back only once since the beginning of the year and that at short notice. He’d contrived to meet her, but it had been on the day of their removal from Wells Road to the Temperance Hotel and they had not been alone together. But he’d seen in her eyes and knew from her letters that she was beginning to miss him and he believed now that at last he could declare his feelings.
He smiled to himself, thinking about her. Rose was unaware that, when she walked by, men’s eyes followed her. She didn’t know that men hoped for a smile from the wide mouth or a glance from deep blue eyes that could delight with their look of quick intelligence or make a man weak with longing at the unconscious look of invitation.
He’d known for a long time that one day, when he qualified, he’d ask her to marry him. But now, with a war to fight and his medical training postponed, could they afford to wait? And would she have him? A good number of the men he knew were marrying, making the most of the only time they were sure of – the present. ‘Good God,’ he thought realistically, ‘I’m thinking about marriage and I’ve only kissed her twice.’
He raised his hand in a derisory gesture as he overtook an army lorry and he laughed aloud at the driver’s two-fingered salute and blast of the horn.
‘Tralala, tralala, tralalaaaah.’
The three spires of Lichfield Cathedral were behind him. He’d be home by five. Tonight he and Dad would have supper and a couple of bottles of wine at Lincoln Drive. Dad was going to volunteer for Coastal Command, if they could use him, he’d told Alan. It might be their last few days together for a while.
By four-thirty the Riley was skimming the last few miles to the Cheshire boundary under a clear, warm sky. Alan slowed to a snorting rattle behind a queue of traffic that waited to take the narrow bridge over the river Bollin, then started the steep climb up Mill Street.
The market square was busy. A policeman waved him into Chestergate, narrower than Mill Street and lined with shops. He passed the Picturedrome and turned uphill again into Chester Road.
There was nobody he knew outside St Alban’s, though he saw the back of Father Church disappearing into the presbytery.
He was in Lincoln Drive at last. He parked the car at the top of the short driveway, stretched muscles that had been tense for hours and ran up the six wide steps of his home.
Rose shared a bedroom at the Temperance Hotel with her sisters. Aunt Carrie said that in case of air raids they would be safer downstairs and they had persuaded her to let them have the big room that would have originally been the servants’ quarters. It was reached by a narrow staircase from the back porch, beside the kitchen door.
It was Saturday morning, a few days before her nineteenth birthday and she was dressing for the half day of work. Mary had gone to the mill. Both she and Mary would be home at midday. Vivienne was asleep. As she pulled the hairbrush through her thick hair Rose looked in the mirror at the reflection of the sleeping Vivienne. She could hear Aunt Carrie in the kitchen.
She could not think of her aunt as anything other than she had always known her. Certainly not as a mother. Rose had known from the moment her aunt said the words, that she had spoken the truth. She knew, too, that Aunt Carrie had expected a very different response from her. What did Aunt Carrie expect?
Over and over it went in her mind; the same questions, the same reasoning. ‘How can it matter now? I was brought up by Mum and Dad. They were my parents. I can’t transfer all those feelings to Aunt Carrie. Is that what she wants? Is that why she wouldn’t allow us to stay in Wells Road? We had a right to live there. If Aunt Carrie had given Mum an allowance then it was no more than Mum would expect since she was bringing up Aunt Carrie’s child. Bringing me up. Me!’
And again; ‘What is the good of telling an adult – telling me “I am your Mother!” A mother is loved unconditionally when her child is young. Did Aunt Carrie expect me to fall down and worship at her feet because she gave birth to me? Has Aunt Carrie confessed because she wanted to unburden herself? Am I to share Aunt Carrie’s guilt and carry my own burden of secrecy? I cannot tell anyone and she has told no one but me.’
She picked up the clothes brush from the windowsill and swept it over the black jacket she wore to the bank and tucked her blouse firmly inside the waistband of her grey skirt.
She could not bear to think about it any longer. If she accepted her new, secret status then she could not logically leave it there. Too many questions remained to be answered and she did not want to confront Aunt Carrie again with the one she had refused, on the fateful night, to answer . . . If Carrie was her mother, who was her father . . . ? Was it the man
she had once professed to want to marry? It could not be the soldier who was killed at the Dardanelles for she, Rose, had not been born until 1921.
Surely it had not been Cecil Ratcliffe? He was showing a lot of interest in her and her sisters, trying to ingratiate himself. There was also a part of her that did not want to know; a part that told her that it would have been better never to have been told; a part that could not countenance any more revelations.
When it seemed she would be left alone with her aunt she left the room. She could not risk her aunt’s tempers. The day would come when they told one another all that was in their hearts, but not yet.
Now, she and Aunt Carrie treated one another with watchful politeness. And neither Mary nor Vivienne had noticed the difference. She took a last look in the mirror. She looked all right. Then she ran as quietly as she could down the stairs through the door that led into the hall and out on to the pavement in front of the Temperance Hotel, to wait in the May sunshine for the postman. She did not want Aunt Carrie to know how many letters she received from Alan.
She tried to keep the paperboy talking until the postman rounded the corner from the steps.
‘Daily Express and War Illustrated.’ The lad handed the papers to her. On the front was a photograph of Nazi soldiers taking cover from Norwegian sharpshooters, yet the battles of Norway were over. Last night’s news had been of the advance of the German army against the Netherlands and Belgium. She’d prayed, as she did every day, that Alan was not in danger.
She tucked the papers under her arm and looked over the boy’s shoulder at the postman who had stopped at their door. ‘Anything for us, Tom?’ She tried to sound casual but the old man must know; he’d brought her two or three letters every week since they’d come to live here. He’d seen her slip them into her pocket before her aunt’s suspicions could be roused.
‘Two for Miss Shrigley,’ he said.
He was teasing her, she knew. Tom put his hand inside the canvas satchel and produced the hoped-for letter with a wink and flourish. Rose took it from his hand and slid it inside the wristband of her white blouse before retreating behind the heavy oak door.
Mill Town Girl Page 24
