Candles in the Storm

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘So if we’re all agreed the waitin’ time is over there’s only one thing for it as far as I can see.’ George cleared his throat, glancing at his wife Martha before he continued. By, this was going to break them all, him and Ron and Art, but what else could they do? None of them would be able to sleep at night if Tilly and the bairns and Daisy and their gran weren’t given a roof over their heads, although they’d be taking the food out of their own bairns’ mouths to do it. ‘We can’t pay two extra lots of rent as well as our own’ - George included Ron and Art in the sweep of his head - ‘so we’re thinkin’ Tilly an’ the two youngest can move in with me an’ Martha, the other three’ll bed down with Ron an’ Rose, an’ Daisy an’ Gran’ll go to Art an’ Olive’s. All right?’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, lad.’ Nellie, never one for tact, spoke up from the platform bed. ‘You’re hand to mouth as it is, the lot of you. Where are you goin’ to find the extra to keep us?’

  ‘We’ll manage.’ This was from Martha, and said with a weary smile.

  But they wouldn’t. Daisy gazed round the assembled faces, her mind racing. She knew for a fact that all three households were well behind with their rent as it was, the winter having been such a bad one. Even if she left the village and sought work in the town somewhere, that still meant her granny and Tilly and the bairns would have to remain and it wasn’t as if there was any spare room in her brothers’ cottages.

  George had six bairns, the two eldest big hulking lads, they were all squeezed into their place like sardines in a can as it was. Ron and Art’s cottages were no better for space. And then there were all the extra mouths to feed and the bairns to clothe.

  She rubbed her hand across her face, her stomach churning. If she married Alf he would take her granny too, there was no doubt about that. Her granny and Mrs Hardy would be tickled pink to live together most likely. Of course Tilly and the bairns would still have to be split up, which after everything that had happened was a blow to the family. The bairns would need to be close to their mam at a time like this and it wouldn’t be the same for them living in separate cottages. If she could find work she could help out a bit with bringing some extra money into her brother’s homes, she told herself, perhaps even enough to pay for Tilly and the bairns’ food, and their clothes and things like that. She knew what sort of work a bit fishergirl would get, down at the docks gutting and packing fish, or maybe something in one of the roperies clustered along the banks of the river. Either way it would be filthy, back-breaking labour among the coarsest of companions for a pittance in pay, and whether it was up the coast at South Shields or down at Monkwearmouth or Sunderland’s East End, she’d be treated as an interloper by her fellow workers without a doubt. But needs must. She couldn’t say anything now, not until she had seen Alf, but if she did marry him it would relieve the burden a little, wouldn’t it?

  They all continued to talk for a while longer. By the time her brothers and their wives finally left Daisy knew there was no other option but for everyone to be divided up amongst the different houses. Their landlord, the owner of the brick and tile works situated west of Cleadon, would soon want them out once he found out their circumstances, and as George had said, there was no way her brothers could afford to pay two extra rents of two-and-six a week, or even one for Tilly’s place. The rent man was fond of telling them how reasonable the villagers’ rent was compared to some he had to collect for his employer, but two-and-six was two-and-six, and at the moment it could be ten shillings for all the chance they had of paying it.

  Daisy looked round the cottage that had been the only home she had ever known, her heart heavy. They had enough food to tide them over for a week or so with her granny eating no more than a bird would, and with the wood and bits of coke and coal she’d collected from the beach the last couple of days they wouldn’t be cold during that time, there was that at least. A storm always provided plenty of fuel once it had wrought its destruction, she thought bitterly.

  ‘You all right, me bairn?’

  Daisy was standing at the range warming some broth for her grandmother’s supper. She turned quickly, stitching a smile on to her face. ‘Aye, I’m fine, Gran. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘We’ll get by, lass.’ Nellie’s voice was subdued and she wasn’t her normal chirpy self. ‘The Good Lord helps them as helps themselves, an’ we’ve never bin ones for sittin’ on our backsides in this family, have we?’

  Daisy was prevented from replying to this piece of homespun wisdom by a knock at the door. It was opened the next moment and Alf stepped into the room. She stared at him and he stared back. She found she couldn’t say a word and it was her grandmother who said, ‘Hallo, lad.’

  ‘Hallo, Mrs Shaw.’ Alf turned to look at the old woman, his face grave as he said, ‘It’s heart sorry me an’ Mam are for your loss. But you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye, lad, I know that.’

  Alf nodded and then his kindly eyes came back to Daisy. ‘I . . . I wanted a word, lass. Perhaps you’d step outside a minute?’

  She had known he’d come, but faced with the reality and the knowledge of what she was about to agree to Daisy wanted to run and hide.

  ‘Take your shawl, lass, it’s bitter out.’ This was from her granny, and Daisy knew it was the old woman’s way of telling her to hear what Alf wanted to say. For a second she felt a stab of resentment that she was being pushed into his arms and then she told herself not to be so silly, taking up her shawl and drawing it round her as she followed Alf into the night.

  ‘It’s a peasouper.’ He had stopped just beyond the cottage and Daisy nodded a reply as she joined him. The air was salt-sticky and opaque, the muffled sound of a foghorn echoing across the water somewhere. Daisy had always hated the murky grey fogs which fell swiftly and with blinding intent, but tonight the feeling was such that it caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to prickle.

  When she was a child, her grandmother had told her that the poor lost souls of those drowned at sea who hadn’t made their peace with God before they’d died were abroad on such nights. They were looking for folk who were silly enough to be wandering about, her granny had said, folk the spirits could lure to their deaths and thereby earn their own release from Hades. Daisy had been ten years old before she’d realised her granny’s story was a ploy to keep her indoors out of harm’s way when it was foggy, but the old woman had done her job well and the eerie sensation she always experienced made her uneasy.

  ‘I know I said I’d give you time, lass, when we talked last, but things are different now.’ Alf’s voice was quiet as he stood close to her. ‘You see that, don’t you?’

  Daisy nodded again, but then, as his arms went out to pull her towards him, she found herself stepping back a pace. He hadn’t got blue eyes. What a ridiculous thing to come into her mind at such a time but it had, and with it the confirmation that the feeling she had for Alf was not the marrying kind. He was her friend, and she loved him in the same way she did her brothers, but that was all. He would never be able to make her head spin or her heart race. The thought of kissing him, of lying with him, seemed wrong, even distasteful. He deserved better than that in a wife and she couldn’t marry him just to put a roof over her head. But then, this wasn’t just about her, was it? There was her granny and the others to think of too. But she had to be honest with him, she owed him that at least. She couldn’t pretend, make on she felt something she didn’t.

  The look in his eyes made her want to reach out and stroke his face, but knowing he’d interpret the gesture of comfort and concern as something else, Daisy said, ‘I’m sorry, Alf. I don’t want to upset you but I don’t feel the same as you, and it’s only fair you know that.’

  ‘You don’t love me,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I do love you but not in . . . that way. You’re the same as a brother to me, don’t you see?’

  ‘I don’t want to be your brother, Daisy.’ The look on his face was paining her. ‘Whatever else, not that.’
/>   ‘I know.’

  ‘You just need time, that’s all. All this with your da an’ Tom an’ Peter has knocked the stuffin’ out of you.’

  ‘Alf, what if I can never love you like you want me to?’

  ‘No.’ His voice was harsh. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t, lass, because I can’t bear it.’

  Oh, Alf, Alf. Daisy was out of her depth. She was hurting him and he was the one person in all the world she didn’t want to hurt. But she couldn’t lie to him, not over something like this. If he took her as his wife, he had to take her knowing the truth. She had her hand to her face, pressing against her mouth, but couldn’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks.

  ‘Look, you go in now.’ His hand came out as though to touch her then fell back by his side. ‘It’ll all work out, trust me.’

  Daisy brushed her hand across her face before she said, her voice small, ‘Do you want to come in for a minute?’

  ‘No.’ He began to back away, his eyes still holding hers as though he was loth to break the contact. ‘You’re upset, lass, an’ I can understand that, anyone would be with what you’ve gone through the last few days, but it’ll get better, aye, it will. Things’ll get back to normal by an’ by.’

  Normal? She watched him go until the mist swallowed him and still she stood there in the curling darkness, all thoughts of ghosts and goblins forgotten as the pain of the present made everything else unimportant. What was normal? Her da and Tom, the hard but happy life the four of them had led, that was normality and that was gone for ever, the sea had seen to that. Should she marry Alf? Should she? It was the easy option, and everyone - her granny included - would tell her it was the right thing to do.

  So why didn’t she feel it inside, in her heart, where it mattered? She stumbled over to the wall of the cottage, shutting her eyes, but couldn’t shut out the image that was burnt into her mind. It was a face, a strange face but a beautiful one. Yes, beautiful.

  How long she remained outside Daisy wasn’t sure, but when she realised she was shivering and the moisture was dripping off her face and hair she walked slowly to the cottage door, opening it quietly.

  Her granny had propped herself on her elbows in an attitude of expectancy, and made it clear what she had supposed when she said, ‘Where’s Alf? Hasn’t he asked you?’

  Daisy walked across to the table, pulling out one of the hardbacked chairs and sitting down before she said, ‘Yes, Gran, he asked me.’

  After a moment’s pause and a successful attempt to sound matter-of-fact, Nellie said, ‘An’ you said no.’ Daisy raised her head, staring into her grandmother’s eyes. ‘Not exactly,’ she said quietly. ‘How could I with things as they are? But I had to let him know the truth. I couldn’t pretend. Alf is too good a man to be treated like that.’

  ‘An’ the truth bein’ . . . ?’

  ‘That I love him as a brother but that’s all.’

  Nellie leant back against her cushions. ‘I bet that fair made his night,’ she said wryly. ‘But if I know Alf he’ll come to terms with it an’ ask again, an’ what’ll your answer be then? Like you said, hinny, he’s a good man. You could do a lot worse.’

  ‘I know, Gran. Alf’s grand.’ It was an answer in itself and their eyes held for a moment longer before Nellie gave a satisfied sigh just before another knock sounded at the door.

  ‘Not someone else on a night like this?’ The old woman’s expression of surprise was comical. ‘By, lass, if we was one of them houses with the red light in the window an’ no better than we should be, we couldn’t do more trade the night.’

  ‘Gran!’ Daisy was truly shocked and it showed. Nellie gave a little chuckle that produced an answering smile in Daisy as she walked across to the door. Her gran! You never knew what she was going to come out with next, but she wouldn’t be without the old lady for all the tea in China.

  It had run through her mind that it might be one of her brothers or their wives returning to chat some more, or Alf to fulfil her grandmother’s prophecy and say he would take her on any terms, so when she opened the door and saw a small slight girl with the fairest of colouring and without a hat or coat, she was too taken aback to do more than simply stare.

  ‘Is . . . is this where Tom Appleby lives, please?’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Aye, they said’ - the girl turned slightly, pointing back towards the first of the cottages - ‘they said he lives here.’

  It was only when the slight figure gave a convulsive shiver that Daisy’s tongue was loosened, and she said, ‘Oh, come in, come in. You must be frozen.’

  The girl stepped into the living room past Daisy who shut the door behind her. Daisy saw her glance towards the platform bed but she didn’t speak, merely rubbing her hand across her mouth, drops of water from her sodden dress falling on to the flagstones.

  ‘You’re soaked through.’ Daisy had noticed that her granny was too surprised to say a word, which was a first. ‘Come near the fire an’ I’ll get you a sup of somethin’ warm. Here, have my shawl round you.’

  Whether it was the kind words or the action of the shawl being drawn tenderly round her shoulders wasn’t clear, but suddenly the girl was weeping, great shuddering sobs that seemed to be pulling her apart, and had slid down on to the cold flagstones at Daisy’s feet.

  After one stunned moment Daisy drew the slender - too slender - figure into her arms, cradling her as she would one of Tilly’s bairns and making the same sort of murmurings as she said, ‘There, there, it’ll be all right. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right. Don’t take on so.’

  The tears continued to rain down the girl’s face for some minutes and by the time they had eased to hiccuping gasps the front of Daisy’s dress was damp from the sodden clothes pressed against it.

  ‘Look, lass, you sit by the fire a minute an’ I’ll get you a sup tea, all right? An’ then we’ll see about gettin’ you into somethin’ dry, you’ll catch your death like this.’ Daisy had reached out with one arm and drawn one of the straightbacked chairs from the table. Now she pushed the girl down on to it.

  This had to be the lass she had heard Tom mention to her da once, the lass from Whitburn. And now the girl herself confirmed this when she said, ‘I . . . I’m Margery Travis. Has Tom told you about me? I . . . I live in East Street,’ in between the gulps and sniffles.

  She couldn’t say no, not with the lass in this state. Daisy compromised by saying, ‘He mentioned he’d got a lass in Whitburn but that was all.’ She had to find the words to tell Margery what had happened but it was going to be a terrible shock, and she looked none too good already. What on earth was wrong with her?

  Nellie, decades older and wiser in the ways of the world, was already fearing the worst, her mind racing as she thought, Oh, no, not that. Not that now with the lad gone. Tom wouldn’t have been so daft, would he? Fear prompted her to say, and so abruptly that Daisy glanced across at her grandmother in surprise as she placed the kettle on the hob, ‘What’s brought you out on a night like this, an’ without a coat or hat?’

  ‘I need to see Tom. He was going to come last night but I waited and waited . . .’

  Margery’s voice tailed off. Both Nellie and Daisy had noticed that this girl spoke a little differently from them. The northern inflexion was less noticeable and she pronounced her Gs, but not in a manner that seemed forced in any way.

  ‘I have to tell you something.’ Daisy left the teapot and cups and knelt down in front of the wan figure on the chair. ‘Tom . . . him an’ me da an’ some others’ - the big pale-blue eyes were enormous now and fixed on Daisy’s face - ‘they were caught in the storm a few days ago. They didn’t come home, lass.’

  ‘I . . . don’t understand.’

  The stricken expression on the girl’s face told Daisy that Tom’s lass understood only too well, but she gentled her voice still further as she said, ‘They’re gone, all of them. Me da, Tom, me other brother Peter--’

  ‘No! No!’ The words were desperate and then the
girl bent forward, folding her arms round her waist as she began to moan softly.

  ‘How far gone are you, lass?’ Nellie’s voice, in contrast to how she had spoken before, was quiet and sad-sounding.

  The words hung in the air. Daisy blinked, looking first at her grandmother and then at Margery who had frozen and was now sitting in silence with her head hanging down.

  A bairn? Tom had given this lass a bairn? He couldn’t have, not Tom. And then a separate part of her brain which seemed to be working outside the situation said, Why not Tom? He was a man, wasn’t he, and this thing she had glimpsed staring out of Alf’s eyes once or twice, this hungry urgent thing, could easily take over if two people loved each other. She could understand that now, since the day of the shipwreck.