Reach for Tomorrow

by Rita Bradshaw

‘Goodbye, Mrs McLinnie.’

  ‘Goodbye, lass. An’ watch how you go, mind.’

  Annie stood and watched Rosie walk carefully away on the icy pavement and she was no longer smiling. It was as she had said, she wasn’t blind, and she’d had a good idea all along what had made the little lassie stop coming round like she had since she was knee high to a grasshopper.

  Annie narrowed her eyes after the departing figure and breathed in slowly, the freezing air cutting her throat. Every time she saw Rosie it made the unease she felt about her Shane rise up as bile in her throat, the taste of it reminding her of the bitter pain and outrage she had felt the day he was conceived. But then it was always there deep down, nagging away at her in the night watches when the rest of the world was asleep and Arthur was snoring his head off beside her.

  But he was a good man, her Arthur. Oh aye, she could have done a lot worse than him. He had never looked at another woman to her knowledge, not even when she had had her bad spells after Shane was conceived and hadn’t let him near her for nigh on two years. He had endured it all without complaint and in his own quiet way he had stood by her. She knew some of them who were off to see the priest at the drop of a hat, demanding he come round and add the church’s backing to the man’s demand for what he saw as his ‘rights’. No, there weren’t too many like her Arthur, not round these doors leastways.

  Rosie had vanished from view now but still Annie stood there, her eyes unseeing as her mind returned to the problem that had become an ever-present torment in recent months.

  She had worried enough when her oldest six lads had been called up, leaving only Shane and John at home. By, she had fair gone round the bend at times with what her imagination had pictured. But this worry, this was different, and aye - worse somehow.

  She had learnt to live with the pain of Samuel, Jack and Hughie going, bad as it was she’d had no choice, had she. The war had taken them and that was that, and she did her grieving in private like many another mother. And she loved her Shane just as much as any of the others, aye, she did, but it didn’t shut her eyes to the fact that something had been passed down in the genes, something . . . unnatural. And - God help them all - he liked that little lassie.

  Annie turned abruptly, shutting the door and walking through the dark narrow hall into the snug warmth of the kitchen, there to find the two children sitting toasting their toes on the fender.

  ‘I’ve told you about rozzeling your feet afore, now haven’t I? You’ll be gettin’ chilblains the size of walnuts an’ then you’ll have summat to whine about,’ she warned darkly, as Molly and Hannah brought their feet jerking down onto the floor.

  They stared at her, and as she glanced their way she thought, The poor little blighters! Here’s their world been turned upside down and their mam gone all to pieces. If it wasn’t for that young lass just gone it’d be the workhouse for the lot of them, but Rosie won’t let that happen. She was born with steel in her backbone, that lass, and she’s been helping Jessie run the house and look after the younger ones for years, not that she’s ever got any thanks for it.

  ‘D’ye fancy makin’ a round of singin’ hinnie then?’ As she addressed the two girls their eyes brightened. ‘You, Molly, you get the flour an’ fat, you know where I keep it, an’ Hannah, there’s three pennyworth of currants on the shelf under the slab in the pantry. You fetch them, there’s a good lassie.’

  Aye, her Shane liked Rosie. As the children scurried away the thought was back. And there was something raw and ravenous about the liking. Eee, she was bad - wicked - to be thinking like this about her own son, may the good Lord forgive her. She walked across to the open fireplace and settled the kettle on the hob. She couldn’t always be watching him, waiting for her worst fears to be realized. He was just a lad when all was said and done, she could be wrong. And mothers were supposed to think the best of their bairns weren’t they? She turned to the girls, who were waiting with eager anticipation to make the scones, sleeves rolled up, and said, ‘Come on then, get them aprons on, there’s good lasses. Your mam’ll have me guts for garters if yer go back all claggy,’ and, putting all further thoughts of Shane out of her mind, fetched out her baking tins.

  As Sunderland had grown in the nineteenth century it had absorbed the small villages of Hendon and Grangetown, which had been a pleasant rural area with the charmingly named Valley of Love and the spa water of the spring on Hendon beach, and by the beginning of the twentieth century it had become heavily built up. However, there was still a strong village sense of community in the area, and most of the residents knew as much about their neighbours’ families and background as they did about their own.

  This became evident to Rosie when, after taking the tramcar via Villette Road which passed under the bridge carrying the railway line between the South Dock and the Penshaw railway, she ventured into one or two shops in the area and received the same response when she enquired about the possibility of rooms in the district. ‘Rooms, lass? Oh, aye? You’re not from round these parts, are you?’

  It was after some kind soul had directed her to Hendon Road - ‘You go an’ have a look in the Co-op’s window, lass, they’ve got cards in there, an’ the London an’ Newcastle Tea Company, they have a few an’ all’ - that Rosie felt she was getting somewhere, but by then it was past two o’clock and she could smell the forthcoming snow in the bitterly cold air. But she had to try and get something today, she thought desperately as she hurried towards the first address in Robinson Terrace. Whatever her mother thought about Mr Kilbride, she knew better, and he wouldn’t be averse to turning them out into the street. They had stretched his magnanimity as far as it was going to go.

  She liked the look of Robinson Terrace, but the two rooms at the top of the house had long since gone, the somewhat surly man who answered the door told her. It was the same story in Bramwell Road, and now, as she hurried to the last address in Benton Street, Rosie found herself praying as she slipped and slid along the icy pavements. She needed to get somewhere close to the jam factory, there would be no spare money for tram fares and the like, and hard though it would be to leave Monkwearmouth it made sense to find rooms on the south side of the river. But not the East End. Anything, anything, would be better than her grannie’s.

  In spite of all her scampering a grey dusk was casting deep shadows over the dark slate roofs of Benton Street by the time Rosie reached the lengthy street of terraced, red-bricked houses, and the first delicate snowflakes were dancing in the wind. It would be quite dark soon and she was going to be much later than she had planned, she told herself silently as she walked somewhat gingerly along the narrow, frost-covered pavement towards number fifty-four. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting rooms somewhere.

  ‘Aye? What is it, lass?’

  When the door to number fifty-four had swung wide Rosie had had her opening line hovering on her lips, but on her sight of the man who was standing in the doorway her mind went blank. He was a good-looking man, very good-looking; his wavy white-blond hair and deep blue eyes suggested a Nordic genealogy and his massive shoulders and big barrel chest spoke of strength, but it wasn’t his handsomeness that caused her to gasp like a stranded fish. The top half of his body was magnificent, but it was carried on tiny, stunted legs that were no bigger than Hannah’s and his height was well under five foot.

  Rosie was aware she had to say something, anything - the poor man must have faced this sort of situation countless times in his life, but it was still awful for him - and she wetted her lips before she managed to bring out in a fairly normal voice, ‘Good evening. I understand you have rooms to let?’

  ‘Aye.’ The brilliant eyes had narrowed on her face, and somehow the broad northern accent made his appearance all the more incongruous. ‘By, you’ve bin quick off the mark, t’others only moved out this mornin’.’

  ‘Did they?’ She had to do better than this. Rosie took a deep breath and prayed her brain would unscramble. ‘I . . . I only started looking
today. There was a card in the window of the London and Newcastle Tea Company store.’

  ‘Put there at ten this mornin’.’ He nodded slowly. ‘An’ who would be lookin’ to live in the rooms then? Not just yourself ?’

  ‘Oh no, no.’ She had an almost uncontrollable urge to clasp her hands together and wring them, whether with pity or embarrassment she wasn’t sure. ‘No, my mother’ - it didn’t occur to her she hadn’t used the natural ‘mam’ - ‘and my two sisters, my younger sisters.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Something in his face relaxed and he nodded again, more briskly this time. ‘You’d better come in for a minute, lass. It don’t take much to have the curtains twitchin’ in this street an’ it’s enough to freeze your lugs off out there.’

  ‘Tha - thank you.’ She didn’t know if she wanted to go in. The ‘for a minute’ hadn’t sounded too hopeful, besides which this had suddenly turned into something quite out of her sphere. Nevertheless, and mainly because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, she climbed the two steep steps and moved past him into the hall, following him down the passage once he had shut the front door and into a second room on her right. He walked quickly but with a shambling gait as he swung his big shoulders to compensate for his small strides, and again pity was at the forefront of her mind, but as she came fully into the room and glanced about her she forgot everything in her surprise.

  It was a living room, that much was plain, but one the like of which she had never seen before. There was a carpet on the floor, and not just a square but a whole carpet stretching into each corner, and the swirling pattern of red and gold seemed to make the room glow. Two big armchairs, high-backed and deeply cushioned in a dark red material that matched the carpet, were drawn close to a blazing fire, and the gold velvet drapes at the window were pulled against the chill of the night and reached right down to the floor. A glass-fronted cabinet, complete with little figurines of shepherds and shepherdesses and the like, stood in one recess to the side of the fireplace, and in the other was a piano, its dark wood gleaming in the flickering light of the fire. Along the wall opposite the fire and five feet or so behind the chairs stood a big sofa with little occasional tables either side of it, and above the sofa there was a massive gold-framed mirror with fancy scrollwork and elaborate beading at the corners. A long bookcase, which reached to the ceiling and was crammed full with leather-bound volumes, stretched all down the wall that adjoined the room which overlooked the street, and the gold lettering on the spines of the books glowed in the soft light.

  Rosie gaped, she couldn’t help it. This room was a wonderland, a fairy tale, something you would read about in a bairn’s book but never imagine seeing in real life. Her mother’s prim, cold front room with its uncomfortable horsehair suite and small square of carpet was one thing - such rooms were a status symbol for those housewives fortunate enough to be able to spare the space in the cramped, overcrowded houses where families of twelve and more were not unusual - but this was so far removed from that as to be incomparable.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  Rosie came out of her stupor to realize the man was watching her, his eyes intent on her face, and she knew she was blushing as she sat down gingerly on the very edge of one of the chairs. But she needed to sit down, she was feeling very strange. Whether it was the heat of the room after the bitter cold outside, or the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything since the few spoonfuls of porridge first thing, she didn’t know, but suddenly the palms of her hands were damp and perspiration was pricking at her armpits.

  ‘Thank you.’ She could hear the wobble in her voice but she couldn’t do anything about it. ‘I’m sorry, but could I have a drink of water? I’ve been looking at rooms all day and . . .’ Her voice trailed away as she fought the faintness, panic high. She couldn’t faint, not here, not with him.

  She was vaguely aware of him leaving the room but such was her physical distress that it barely registered. But then a cup of steaming liquid was thrust under her nose and a deep voice said, ‘It’s tea you need, lass, you look all done in. Get this down you while it’s hot, eh? I’d just gone an’ made a pot when you knocked at me door.’ She opened her eyes, which had been tightly shut against the nausea, to find him by her side, his face just above hers as he looked down at her with kind eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She had taken several gulps of the strong hot tea and was feeling more like herself. ‘I never have turns.’

  ‘Nowt to be sorry for, lass.’ He hadn’t joined her by the fire but had seated himself on the sofa across the room, and Rosie couldn’t help feeling he had sensed her initial reluctance to enter the house and understood the reason for it - even if she didn’t fully understand it herself.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s the heat after the cold outside, and I’ve been out all day. Not that it isn’t lovely in here with the fire, it is,’ she added hastily, in case he should misinterpret her words as criticism. ‘I’ve never seen a room like this in all my life.’

  ‘How old are you, lass?’ His voice was soft now.

  ‘Fourteen.’ Well she was nearly, give or take a few days.

  ‘An’ why are you wantin’ rooms?’

  ‘We’ve got to get out of our house, Mr Kilbride’s got another family moving in.’ She was gabbling, this was no good, she needed to start at the beginning. Rosie took a deep breath and began again. ‘It’s like this . . .’

  He listened without saying a word, the blueness of his eyes expressing nothing, and she told him the whole story, but with a bit of embroidering about the jam factory, feeling if she didn’t say they had already got the jobs there was no chance at all of the rooms.

  There was a deep silence when she finished speaking, and it seemed to grow and stretch before he said, ‘An’ your name is . . . ?’

  ‘Oh. Rosie. Rosie Ferry.’

  ‘Do you want to look at the rooms then?’

  ‘Can I?’ Her voice was eager. Suddenly the idea of rooms in this house was desperately appealing.

  ‘Aye, you can look, but afore you do I’d better explain how things are. There’s two rooms upstairs, an’ I live downstairs in this room, me bedroom, an’ the kitchen.’ He pointed to the far wall. ‘The netty is outside in the yard an’ each house has its own in these parts. The hatchway is cleared by the corporation at night, but I’d expect you to keep it clean when you use it. There’s a fireplace in both the rooms upstairs, an’ water for drinkin’ an’ washin’ will need to be carried up from the washhouse where there’s a tap an’ a boiler for washin’ beddin’ an’ the like.’

  Rosie was impressed. At Forcer Road the tap was in the yard and regularly froze in the winter, needing pieces of burning paper pushing up its spout before it would oblige with a trickle of water, and the two washhouses were shared between ten households. Of course, here she would be lugging water up and down the stairs, but Molly would help, she’d have to. And they would have to bring hot food in when they wanted it, but again they’d have to manage. Her da used to say you could get used to anything when you had to.

  At least she would be spared the paraphernalia of the weekly wash with the neighbours, she’d always hated that. The violent pummelling with the scrubbing boards and washing dollies always seemed endless, along with the mangling of the wet clothes and the constant chatter. Her mother enjoyed the communal wash though, along with the gossip and backbiting that always went on from the first firing of the boiler to the last item being hung in the yard or on the long rope her da had nailed across the kitchen for when it was wet outside.

  ‘Right. Thank you.’ She didn’t know what else to say to the man. ‘That . . . that would be fine.’

  ‘Me name’s Zachariah, by the way. Zachariah Price.’

  ‘Zachariah?’ She knew there was a Zachariah somewhere in the Bible, she remembered that name from Sunday School, but she’d never known anyone who was actually called that, and again it served to make him even stranger in her sight.

  ‘Aye. It means “the Lord has remembered”, so me mam
told me when I was a bairn,’ he said quietly, and then, his voice taking on what could be described as a lilt, he added, ‘but He forgot more than He remembered with me as you can see, lass. I’ve always thought He must’ve bin halfway through makin’ me when He was called away to somethin’ more important, an’ He forgot to come back an’ finish the job.’

  Rosie was utterly lost for words. She had met other people who were handicapped before but none of them had had such a wicked trick of fate played on them as this man, and certainly none of them had made light of their disability. And then, as she looked into his face and past the twinkling blue of his eyes, she recognized something - a plea, a need, an unexpressed groan from deep within to be treated as just another man - and it was in answer to that that she said, as she managed a slight smile, ‘It just shows that even them at the top can need a poke in the ribs now and again.’

  He stared at her for a moment and then he laughed. His head back he gave a great guffaw of laughter that suited his massive chest, and Rosie found herself smiling in response, naturally this time. She liked him. He might be a bit strange - and she didn’t mean his physical appearance here - but he was a nice man for all that, and this amazing room suited him somehow.

  ‘You go up an’ see what you think then.’ He was wiping his eyes as he spoke, his mouth still smiling. ‘I only use the stairs when I have to; they’re a sight too steep an’ narrow for my likin’.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Rosie rose hastily, smoothing down her thick serge coat that had become too small in the last six months as her figure had begun to develop, and pulling her felt hat more securely about her ears. He would find the stairs difficult, of course he would. There must be hundreds of things he found difficult. ‘I won’t be long,’ she added awkwardly.

  ‘Take all the time you need, lass.’ And then, as though the pop-pop-pop of the gas mantle had reminded him, he added, ‘You’ll be wantin’ a light, it’ll be dark up there by now.’ He levered himself off the sofa and waddled out of the room, returning a few moments later from the direction of the kitchen and handing her a lighted oil lamp as she stood waiting in the doorway.