Sylvia blew her nose cautiously into a tiny cotton handkerchief with an embroidered motif in one corner and thought about the young Archie. She almost wanted to laugh when she thought of Archie then and Archie now. When she had first known him, he’d had a fine physique and he’d done his best to keep fit. Not like now, when he found the walk home from the pub up a slight incline something to moan about. She sighed as she thought back. How could anyone change that much? From the loving husband she had truly loved to the beast of terror who used her like a punchbag to the point where she had even thought seriously of leaving him. The odd thing was that, if she was honest, she still found him attractive. He had a certain something that could make her stomach flip somersaults. One glance and an electricity bolt could catch her unawares and rip through her with a hidden magnetism that she could never explain to her daughter. And on the odd occasion they’d been out for a drink together, even recently, she’d seen proof of how he continued to turn other women’s heads and beguile them with his glib, if unoriginal, lines of patter. Wasn’t that why she accepted his apologies every time he begged for her forgiveness for all his misdemeanours and forgave him when he swore he wouldn’t do it again? But she could no longer say that she actually loved him. He’d disappointed her far too many times for that.
‘I don’t suppose you ever saw his …’ Rosie hesitated. ‘His darker side?’ she said.
‘Not while we were in London, and once I’d moved up here I doubt anyone would have believed me if I’d told them. He was always so charming as far as they were concerned – you know how he can be. That’s why I never told anyone about …’ She stopped. ‘Nah, but it doesn’t matter.’
Rosie sat up suddenly alert. ‘Yes it does,’ she said. ‘What were you going to say?’
‘I was thinking of a funny story, that’s all. Well, it’s funny now, though it wasn’t so funny at the time.’
‘Go on, you must tell me now; you can’t leave it dangling like that now you’ve mentioned it,’ Rosie urged.
‘Hannah always called it the pawning tale and I think she was even more upset than I was at the time,’ Sylvia said, thinking back. She was not sure whether it was a story she should be telling her daughter, although she would have found it difficult to stop now that she’d begun. ‘It happened soon after we got married,’ she said. ‘We were having a difficult time making ends meet, like most young couples then. Jobs were scarce and money was even scarcer so your dad had to take my engagement ring and a few other little gold pieces I’d been given by his mother to a pawnbroker near our flat in Manchester. The ring was platinum with a very small diamond and none of the other items were worth a large amount, according to my mother-in-law, but the stone in the ring had an unusual cut so I suppose he got a bit more for that. Anyway, we were able to eat well for some time from the proceeds. It kept us going for a bit. Then, thank goodness, he landed his first job after the Great War and there was great excitement, as you may imagine.’ She paused and sighed. ‘The trouble was, he was so pleased to be earning money that he forgot about the jewellery and he left it in hock. By the time he remembered it was too late to claim the items back. His pawn ticket had expired and it seems the man had already sold the pieces.’
She gave a resigned smile.
‘So that’s why I’ve never seen you wear an engagement ring?’ Rosie said. Sylvia was about to nod but held her head still just in time. She didn’t want to add that that had possibly heralded the beginning of their problems, for she had never forgiven her husband for losing the ring in that way. And she didn’t believe him when he subsequently claimed that he couldn’t afford to replace it.
‘What did his mother say? I never knew either of my grannies but I presume she was still alive while all this was going on?’ Rosie asked.
‘Oh yes, though she was getting quite frail by then so we never dared tell her the full story.
‘Would you ever think to ask him now for another ring?’ Rosie wanted to know. ‘It would be a good way of getting some money out of him.’
Sylvia laughed, though she instantly regretted the painful movement which felt as if it engaged all the muscles of her face. ‘I did in the beginning but then I stopped. Somehow it doesn’t seem to be important anymore.’
‘What happened with you and Hannah?’ Rosie asked. ‘Did you fall out?’
‘Sort of,’ Sylvia admitted, though it was not connected to the pawning tale. ‘After our mum died we more or less went our separate ways. She never wanted me to marry Archie …’ She hesitated. She had no intention of trying to explain why Hannah had disapproved of Sylvia’s boyfriend, even though she’d never actually met him. There were things about Archie that had come between her and Hannah that Sylvia wasn’t yet ready to discuss.
Rosie looked surprised. ‘What about Hannah’s husband? How did you get on with him? Did you like him?’
‘Yes, we got on all right though we had very little in common.’ She remembered Ivan – harmless but dull were the words she’d always used to describe him and she wondered what he was like now. Archie had been so different from Ivan. Much more exciting. He had always been fun, though that was not a word she’d use to describe him anymore.
‘Who knows what he’s like now,’ Sylvia said out loud with a sigh. ‘People change.’
‘When you moved up here, did you and your sister write then?’
‘At first we did, though we were never great correspondents even in the early days, and it became even more difficult as time went on. Our lives were very different.’ I only have to look in the mirror to see how different, she thought. I can’t believe I was so madly in love with Archie. I wouldn’t hear a word against him and certainly not from Hannah or Ivan. To Rosie she said, ‘After our mother had died and we were on our own for the first time, I suppose we felt at first that we had to keep in touch, for her sake. But once the babies arrived it was more difficult for both of us and we had less time.’
‘Those babies being me and this … Claire?’
Sylvia nodded.
‘When we first got a telephone we tried to talk occasionally, but we were on a party line so we couldn’t always get through. And then it was a trunk call and even though evenings and weekends were cheaper it was still very expensive. You can imagine your father didn’t like me making long-distance calls, so it wasn’t long before we stopped communicating at all.’ Sylvia got up painfully, and slowly went over to the drawer in the table where she pulled out the envelope. ‘That’s why this letter felt like a bolt from the blue,’ she said. She stared at it as though she was seeing it for the first time. She had tried to sound blasé about what she had related to her daughter and it had been a huge relief after all the years of silence telling Rosie even part of the story, but she was still no clearer about how she was going to tell Archie of its contents. She could only hope he would accept her niece and not give her cause to have to explain his behaviour while Claire was there.
But it was too late to worry about that now, for at that moment she heard a noise coming from the shop that she guessed was Archie coming home. She moved as quickly as she dared to return the letter to the drawer and, grasping Rosie’s hand, whispered urgently, ‘We still haven’t resolved the question of Claire coming to stay. We’ll have to talk again tomorrow, for I’ll have to get back to Hannah as soon as possible. In the meantime, I think we’d better get off to bed.’
‘And what about Dad? When will you tell him about the letter? After it’s all been agreed and settled?’ Rosie whispered back. ‘How do you think he’ll react to that?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it’, Sylvia said the urgency sounding in her voice. ‘But enough for now. I’ve talked a lot more than I intended. Now let’s get going upstairs.’
Rosie needed no second bidding; she flew up the stairs and out of sight. She had no wish to meet her father again tonight. Sylvia, however, was still in pain and moved too slowly. She put her foot onto the bottom step and screamed as she felt someone tugging
at her hair and yanking her back into the sitting room.
The following morning, Sylvia opened the shop at the usual time. She wasn’t surprised when Archie didn’t appear for breakfast. Rosie was on the early shift so had already left the house, leaving Sylvia alone with her husband. But for once she didn’t feel afraid, not if the state he’d been in when he returned home the previous night was anything to go by. It would no doubt take him some time to sleep off all the effects of what appeared to have been a steady night of drinking and she felt sure that he would be in no state to attack her again. She rarely felt afraid the morning after, firstly because Archie was usually the worse for wear and secondly because he was always so contrite. This morning what she felt was anger. Anger when she looked in the mirror to see what her husband had inflicted on her. Anger when she checked the till and confirmed her suspicions that Archie had helped himself to the whole day’s takings the night before. Anger at herself for never having had the courage to leave him.
‘I hope you don’t have too many customers today questioning where you got that shiner.’ Sylvia swung around at the sound of his voice, surprised to see he had come up quietly behind her without her knowing. But what she saw reassured her that he didn’t appear to pose any kind of threat. His hair was tousled and the dark shadow of growth on his face picked out his hollow cheekbones so he looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. His dressing gown was tied ineffectually across his oversized belly, the two sides straining to meet. Overall, he looked as though he had been thrown the loser’s gown after having gone twelve gruelling rounds with one of the world’s boxing champions.
‘Shall I tell them the truth?’ Sylvia turned to face him as she spoke so he could see the full effects of his handiwork. ‘Or should I be blaming the cupboard door again?’ she said, feeling emboldened by Archie’s obviously weakened state.
‘Are you saying it was me?’ For a moment Archie sounded incredulous and Sylvia felt another flare of anger, but before she could say anything he rushed on. ‘Look, if it was me, then I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it. It was the drink, not really me. You know how things can get when I’ve had one too many.’
Sylvia bit back the instant retort that sprang to her lips. It was always the same, but maybe this time she could manipulate the situation so it worked in her favour. He seemed sufficiently repentant, as he so often did, that she decided to take a chance and use his moment of contrition for her own purposes. She would tell him about the letter.
‘It was you well enough, as you no doubt know. But let me assure you, you won’t be able to do any such thing ever again.’
‘Oh? What does that mean?’
‘It means that in the future there will be someone else here,’ she said, to test his mood, ‘and I’m sure you won’t want to show yourself up.’
‘Someone else? Like who?’
‘Like the guest we’re soon having to stay. A guest who’s likely to be here for quite some time to come.’ Then she briefly outlined the contents of Hannah’s letter.
‘What? The daughter of your snooty sister in London wants to come here?’ he began defiantly. ‘The same sister who was too posh to even meet me, despite the fact that we lived only a simple tube ride away? Why would I want to entertain her kid?’
‘You wouldn’t have to entertain her at all; that’s the point,’ Sylvia said, determined to press home her advantage. ‘You would hardly need to see her, come to that, for she’ll sleep in Rosie’s room and work in the shop with me during the day.’ She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers for luck behind her back. ‘Besides, I’m only telling you as a matter of courtesy because I think you owe me at least one small favour.’ She put her hand up to her eye, wincing as it came into contact with her swollen cheek. He turned away and Sylvia smiled. She seemed to have made her point successfully enough, but she couldn’t help wondering if she had only given him another excuse to stay away from home.
It was two weeks later that Claire stood on the concourse at Manchester’s London Road station and hoped she was in the right place. She had never been out of London before. She was used to the local underground trains and managing all the interchanges, but to travel on a steam train on her own to another big city was both exciting and scary at the same time. She kept reminding herself that at almost twenty years of age she was not a child and she was perfectly capable of finding her way around the country, yet she had to admit that the journey had been fraught. Trying to keep one eye on her luggage while travelling in a confined space with a compartment full of strangers had been unnerving and the younger travellers had been mostly boisterous and noisy so she’d not been able to relax. And now, having arrived at what she trusted was the correct meeting point on the station concourse, she felt no less unsure and as she looked about her she could only hope that even if she wasn’t immediately able to identify her cousin, her cousin would at least be able to find her.
Under the clock, her aunt’s letter had said, and that was where she was standing. Directly underneath the enormous overhead clock face, looking about her for someone who answered to the description of her cousin Rosie. She trusted Rosie was looking for her although there was no one holding up a sign that said Claire Gold. No one with a blue fedora-style hat with a prominent feather in it like the letter had indicated. Claire had not wanted to sound boastful when she described the fashionable suit with the flared skirt and pinch-waisted jacket that she intended to wear, though she realised now that because the fine wool worsted was grey it could easily be overlooked in a dismal station. But she had emphasised the fact that the crimson lining opened into reveres that sat on the lapels – a feature too striking to miss. She had also described the matching crimson beret she had decided to wear at a jaunty angle, and that it would be pinned to her shoulder-length fair hair with an unmissable Charles Horner pearl-ended hatpin. It had all sounded so straightforward, down to the black patent-leather clutch bag that matched her black patent-leather slingback high heels, but what her aunt’s instructions had not accounted for were the hundreds of other people who would be milling about on the concourse at the same time. There was no sign yet of cousin Rosie.
Claire took a deep breath and tried to keep calm as she searched for someone in an official uniform so that she might ask for some kind of help, but even as she approached them they seemed to be more concerned with other matters and ignored her. She was on the verge of tears and tempted to walk away from the designated spot and widen her search for Rosie when she finally spied someone sporting a feather in a saucy blue hat running across the forecourt, her eyes wildly searching as she shouted blindly into the melee, ‘Claire!’
Claire saw the young woman pause to catch her breath and gave a wave with her gloved hand to indicate that she had seen her, and when she saw the young woman give a tentative wave back with a sigh of relief she began to move towards the running figure.
‘My mother will kill me!’ was the first thing Rosie said when she finally reached Claire. ‘You’ve got to promise not to tell her I was late.’
‘N-no of course not,’ Claire said. ‘You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’ She gave a nervous laugh.
They stood for a moment while Rosie caught her breath, ‘Thank you so much for letting me come to your home,’ Claire said, the words rushing out. ‘Mummy was getting really anxious every time she turned the radio on and it seemed like the war and bombs were more and more likely to happen.’ She hung her head. ‘And I must admit I was getting worried too.’
‘You’d better grab your suitcase and make sure you haven’t left anything,’ was all Rosie said in reply and she began to lead the way out of the station, indicating by her hand signals the direction they were heading to catch their bus.
‘Mummy said you live in the country,’ Claire said after several minutes of silence. She was a little breathless as she hurried to keep up with Rosie. Her suitcase was heavier than she’d thought.
‘Well, it’s not exactly the country,’ Rosie said, ‘th
ough you can see the moors from the bedroom window.’
‘How very exciting,’ Claire said.
‘I don’t know if your mother told you, but you’ll be sleeping in my room,’ Rosie responded immediately. ‘We’ll be sharing a bed.’
There was something about the resentful way she said it that made Claire feel uncomfortable and she made a mental note to make sure to take up as little space as possible. Suddenly she felt awkward and she looked down at her suitcase which looked unnecessarily large. Had she brought too many clothes? She began to worry. Was Rosie trying to warn her about the situation she would find? She thought she had been careful about what she’d chosen to bring but what if there was nowhere for her to put everything? She tried to sneak a glance at Rosie whose mouth had set into a hard line and worried that she might be starting out on the wrong foot. She had hoped so much to be able to blend in and had promised her mother she wouldn’t be any trouble.
‘Is Greenhill far from here?’ Claire asked as they left the concourse and headed down the station approach towards what looked like a main road.
Rosie shrugged. ‘We’ve to catch a trolley bus and then a local bus. It’ll take about an hour – longer if we have to wait for a connection.’
Claire tried not to register her surprise. She was used to travelling distances to get across London but she had imagined Manchester to be so much smaller that bus journeys would take no time at all. She suddenly realised she was hungry, though she didn’t want to admit that to Rosie. But thinking back to the station clock it must be well past five o’clock by now. It seemed like a long time ago that she had eaten the sandwich her mother had made for her.
The Postmistress Page 7
