Annie's Promise

by Margaret Graham

  He looked for Annie. She was there, watching him, smiling.

  ‘I wish they’d cut the bloody thing off,’ he groaned, wanting to touch her, but not being able to bear the pressure.

  ‘They have, my darling,’ she said.

  ‘No they haven’t, I can feel my toes. Why don’t they cut it off?’

  The morning came and he woke again and there was Tom with Annie and he was holding her hand. Georgie was glad someone was.

  ‘It hurts,’ he said to Tom. ‘If they took it off the pain would go.’

  Tom looked at Annie. ‘They have bonny lad, they’ve taken it off.’

  ‘That’s what Annie said, but they haven’t because it still hurts.’

  The nurse told Annie she must get some sleep that night and Tom insisted too, and she fell on to the bed and slept though she dreamt of the camps, of Prue, of Lorna, of the parade ground.

  Again Georgie woke and there was the nurse, and the light, but no sun. It was night then. His mind was clearer, the pain was less, wasn’t it? Yes, a bit less, he felt different, stronger. He turned his head. Annie wasn’t there.

  ‘Is she sleeping?’ he asked the nurse. She nodded.

  He lay still, thinking of Annie’s face, her eyes, her laugh, her voice. What had she said? Tom had been here too, holding her hand, talking. He’d been talking. What had he said? Georgie looked up at the ceiling, floating, drifting in and out of pain. Oh God, why didn’t they take it off?

  Then he remembered what Annie had said and Tom too, so it must be true, but what did it matter – there was still the pain, which was swelling, growing, taking him back into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 8

  Georgie improved a little that night, more the next day, the greyness went from his face and the pain eased though they still injected pain killers to calm his tortured nerve endings. He didn’t ask again about his leg, so Annie just waited.

  At the end of the week he told her that she shouldn’t be sitting here while Tom and Gracie did all the work and he smiled at her. ‘Get on, or there’ll be nothing for me to do when I get back on my feet.’

  Annie felt despair. He still didn’t know. She looked at the nurse, who shook her head. So she grinned. ‘OK slave driver, I’ll be back at four.’

  ‘Make it six,’ Georgie said, ‘Then I can have me tea in peace.’

  He watched her go, seeing the looseness of her clothes, the tiredness in her shoulders. It would give her time to eat hers in peace too. He lay back on the pillows and now, with just the nurse there, he lifted the sheets. Yes, they had taken his leg off. He really was a cripple. They had been telling him the truth and he wept the tears he had not wanted any of his family to see, knowing that they must be hidden again by this evening.

  Annie sewed most of the day, then checked the Glasgow garments which Brenda and the homeworkers had been sewing. Oh God, there was still the smell of smoke on Meg’s and they needed to be packed tonight. Annie walked round to Meg, standing on the step, asking her if she’d work in Annie’s house because if there was no time to air the clothes now, what would it be like when the mail shot began next week – if it worked that is, and it had to.

  That afternoon she talked to Tom, checking that last month he had put in for planning permission for Briggs’ warehouse. He had. ‘We should know if it’s been granted this week, then we’ll be set up for when we need to take on the premises.’

  ‘Thank heavens for that. Well done, Tom, we’ll have to take it the moment we can. It’s going to be chaos next week, absolute chaos.’

  ‘We hope,’ Tom said.

  ‘It’s just got to be. It’s going to sink in soon about his leg and he’ll need something to get hold of, to work at.’

  Georgie listened to Mr Adcock telling him that losing a leg was a great inconvenience but not fatal. ‘Mobility can be obtained with a false leg and of course, wheelchairs. We’ll be getting you along to physio soon, and then to the special unit where we’ll fit your leg.’

  Georgie nodded. He smiled until Adcock left, then sank back on to the pillows, slept again and dreamt that he was running across the sand with Sarah, chasing Annie, catching her, pushing seaweed down her neck.

  He smiled again when Annie came, kissing her, smelling the summer on her hair, her skin. He’d forgotten about seasons, it was just dark or light in here. He listened as she talked of the last minute preparations for the mail shot and Meg’s sewing machine which they had installed on the kitchen table.

  ‘Geoff smokes, that’s why I used to hang them on the airer, I just didn’t want to tell you but of course you’d have understood.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said as she bathed him, washing his arms, his chest, his leg.

  ‘I know about my leg,’ he said then, quite quietly, casually, and he was proud of himself. ‘I know and it doesn’t matter, I can learn to walk again, it’s just an inconvenience.’ He looked at the ceiling, at the wall, and then at her. ‘It’s all right, Annie, tell everyone it’s all right.’

  She touched his face, kissed his lips gently. ‘Inside you must be destroyed but I shall tell them because it will be. I promise you it will be.’

  He wouldn’t talk about it any more and so Annie told him of the greenfly which were annoying Bet, of the kids’ gang and the carts they were making out of old prams, of the world which seemed a million miles away to him and he was glad he was here, hidden behind the nurses and these walls, out of sight of that world which hadn’t yet seen him as he was now and into which he must one day stumble.

  Annie came in over the weekend with Sarah, dressing his stump and she didn’t speak then, just concentrated, as he should have done, he thought.

  ‘Where did you get the capital for the advertisement?’ he asked when she had finished, when he could trust his voice not to shake from the pain.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Annie said, taking the bowl from the room. But couldn’t she see that he did worry? But then he felt tired again, so tired and the agony that was his stump took all his energy.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ he asked Annie again when she returned.

  ‘The profit from the Glasgow deal,’ she replied because she had had time to think in the sluice.

  But he didn’t hear, he was asleep.

  ‘He’s just not thriving at the moment,’ Staff Nurse told Annie. ‘It often happens when they discover the facts. Just keep on as you’re doing, it’s fine.’

  The advertisement appeared on Tuesday and the first orders came through that morning.

  ‘They must be from the newspaper staff,’ Gracie said, opening the envelopes, stamping the coupons, passing them to Annie who entered them into the book, packing up their orders, stacking them under the window, going out to bank the cheques, to wait for them to clear before sending the orders off.

  On Wednesday there was a deluge of mail, and they opened the envelopes, stamped coupons, filled the orders from stock, and told the homeworkers to keep on with the traders until their orders were filled and only then moving on to the mail shot, since they had enough in stock.

  That evening Annie delivered the traders’ stock on her way to Georgie, grateful that they didn’t ask for sale or return any more – smiling when they asked how Georgie was.

  ‘Coming on, he’ll be riding a bicycle soon,’ she laughed. That night she told Georgie of the two hundred orders already received, that she needed him alongside them, longing to be able to lift the darkness which hung behind his eyes.

  He was even quieter tonight, feverish and he wouldn’t eat. ‘Ring me,’ she told the staff. ‘I must know if he’s any worse.’

  ‘It’s because he knows, he’s trying to adjust, he’s depressed, but you’re doing fine.’

  She sewed all night, without rest, she had to re-order from Glasgow, she had to write up the schedule for the homeworkers. She rang the hospital at dawn. His fever was down and his spirits too. Is it any wonder, she thought. ‘Shall I come?’

  ‘No, he’ll only start fretting because your
nose isn’t actually on the grindstone. He needs some time to himself to accept things.’

  At eight-thirty the postman knocked, emptied his sack on to the floor. ‘Mrs Norris is right glad you warned her of this,’ he said, pushing back his cap. ‘Me wife sews you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, get her to bring round a sample, Joe, today if possible.’ One of the homeworkers that Tom had picked out had moved with her husband to Nottingham last week.

  Annie packed, stacked, then cut and sewed until lunch, then checked through the girls’ work, approving Joe’s wife’s sample, keeping her in reserve. She drove with Sarah to see Georgie in the evening, her head aching, her eyes and fingers sore, but her smile was warm though he looked no better – and so quiet.

  They sat and she knitted because he liked it, but her hands were sore as the wool rasped and rubbed. She dressed his stump again, soaking the old dressing, easing it, feeling his pain as though it were her own. Her hands were trembling, the air was heavy, the smell of healing flesh strong. She tried not to breathe, then to take shallow gasps. Don’t rush, you’ll hurt him. Don’t rush, whatever you do don’t rush. There, it was done.

  She took the soiled dressings to the sluice, putting them in the waste, the dishes in the sluice, leaning against the wall, then putting water on her face, more and more. She was tired, that was all.

  She sat with him, knitting, always knitting, until eight-thirty.

  ‘Sarah must get to bed, she has school, my love,’ she told him, though he was sleeping again.

  ‘He’ll be all right, you’re doing fine,’ Dr Smythe told her and she wanted to scream because if she was doing fine, why wasn’t he improving?

  She worked when Sarah was in bed, and the same again the next day, but only after her visit, and the next, and still the orders were pouring in and she should have felt excited, pleased, but she didn’t because still he was not thriving and exhaustion was clawing at her. Now she couldn’t get the smell of the dressings out of her head, and when she grabbed at an hour’s sleep she dreamt and woke herself up chanting ichi, ni, san, yong.

  On Saturday there were more orders, many more orders, and they opened, stamped, entered, banked, then Tom sent her to the hospital because they could sew, package and check between them, he said.

  ‘Now scoot.’

  As she drove she talked to Sarah about the fields of ripening wheat they passed, of the villages they drove through, of Bill Haley’s new song which Sarah loved, of the need for a catalogue that they could send out with the orders to save on advertising costs.

  ‘I must get Tom to design some more sets. We could extend our range.’

  ‘I wonder how Dad is?’

  ‘Better, much better I think. Do you think we should have a catalogue?’ Annie asked because she didn’t want to think of Georgie’s despair which she couldn’t touch, or the dressings she must do yet again.

  ‘Oh I don’t know, Mum, I just want to see Dad.’

  There was silence in the car. Yes, I want to see him too. I’m just tired, she thought and her hands felt slippery on the wheel. She wiped her left one on her skirt.

  It was as though the car drove itself now, down the drive, parking near Adcock’s reserved space. It was as though her feet knew their own way to his room, it was as though her smile flicked on independently as her eyes took in the darkness in his, the flatness of his voice. Her hands became busy and they were nothing to do with her, soaking the dressings, peeling them, redressing. They washed themselves in the sluice, again and again, then dried themselves, again and again.

  She walked back to the room, but they were still not dry. She rubbed them down her skirt, putting on her smile, walking into the room where Sarah was sitting, where the nurse was taking his temperature.

  ‘Fever again today, Annie,’ Staff Nurse said, ‘and he won’t eat you know. Can you try him with some ice cream?’ She handed the bowl to Annie who sat down by the bed.

  ‘I’m not a child,’ Georgie said faintly. ‘Just not hungry.’

  Annie held the spoon in her hand, then dug it into the ice cream, lifting it, carrying it to his mouth. ‘Into the hole then,’ she said, ‘the rabbit wants to go into the hole,’ and the room was so hot, her hands so slippery and it was Prue that she saw there, the light of madness in her eyes. It was the sound of the guards, shouting and screaming that she heard and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move and then she turned, looked at Sarah.

  ‘Feed him,’ she said thrusting the bowl at her, walking from the room, down the corridor, down the stairs, not the lift, out into the air, breathing in deep gulps, clearing her head of images, of sounds, gripping her own arms, holding herself tight.

  She sat on the bench, feeling its cool hardness and then she heard the gulls, saw the dark brick of the hospital, felt the cotton of her dress, looked at her hands. They were quite dry. She looked at them again, they were scored with needle marks, they were sore from opening envelopes, from entering, from stamping. They were sore from knitting, God damn it.

  She rose then, walking back to the entrance, taking the lift, going back into the room, taking the bowl from Sarah.

  ‘He won’t have it, Mum.’

  ‘Oh yes he damn well will.’ Annie said because there was no time for either of them to sink, they had a future to get on with. ‘Oh yes you will, my bonny lad. Open up.’

  Georgie looked at her. ‘I don’t want any.’

  ‘Well I want you to have some, because until you start really getting better, my love, we can’t have you home. We need you there, for us, and for the business. We can’t manage without you, so come on, eat up.’

  Staff Nurse came back into the room but Annie didn’t care.

  ‘Come on, Georgie, you’re not doing justice to yourself. Get this down you, get yourself sorted out and come home.’

  Annie held the spoon, looking into his face, into eyes which were still dark and dead.

  ‘Mum,’ Sarah shouted. ‘Stop it, how can you, he’s ill!’

  Staff Nurse said, ‘He’s not ill, he’s better now, or he could be, your mother’s quite right – just you remember that my girl. It doesn’t do anybody any good to spoil them. We’ve been waiting for this to happen.’

  She stood behind Annie and neither of them looked up as Sarah ran from the room.

  ‘Come on, Georgie,’ Annie said again. ‘I can’t do it all on my own. I need you to get better, to come home.’

  He opened his mouth then and his eyes were brighter, she fed him once, then gave him the spoon. ‘Come on then, you know you like strawberry.’

  ‘I like you better, Annie Armstrong,’ his voice was still faint but now there was a smile and it lit up both their eyes.

  They managed to keep their supply level-pegging with demand and Annie pinned up a series of coloured stock control boards giving an instant picture of availability. These she updated as the garments came in and went out. They needed to set on another homeworker, to set up another design, plan for the next mail shot, sort out that catalogue.

  ‘We need some coverage too, I’ll chat to the newspaper, tell them of our success, try and swing it this time, they weren’t interested for the first one. Talk to the nationals as well can you, Tom? See if the fashion page will mention it in The Mail since we’re placing the advertisement with them. We’ll set Joe’s wife on, isn’t her name Jean?’

  They received requests for outsize and filled them – it was surprising how little sleep a person really needed, Annie thought, brushing aside her headaches, her trembling hands.

  She asked Mr Adcock to move Georgie into the general ward and Staff Nurse concurred. ‘He needs company, he needs to be eased into other people,’ Annie said.

  Adcock agreed and asked her if she’d like a job. She thought he was joking but he wasn’t, or only half.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve got to get this lot on the road,’ she answered because she didn’t need to prove anything any more did she, she had pushed back the shadows, hadn’t she?

  ‘We’ll
send out a catalogue with the next one or two, shall we?’ Annie asked Georgie the next day as he sat up in bed, squeezing his hand round rubber balls, trying to build up his strength.

  ‘Yes, let’s sort that out, it’s a good idea. By the way Don’s been in, talked quite a lot. I told him about you, and the business. He was surprised, I was proud.’

  ‘Did Maud come?’

  ‘Towards the end. Still flashing her nails. Thought I’d be in a room on me own, she was quite put out – all these beds, all these people and no one quite knowing where they’d been.’

  ‘Nice of them to come. Did they eat your fruit?’ Annie looked at the spidery grapeless stalks. Georgie nodded and they laughed.

  ‘Left me some chocs though, take them home, pig yourself, you’ve got too thin, bonny lass.’

  Annie left them in the cupboard, ‘Share them with this lot,’ she said, looking round the ward, grinning at the other patients, and visitors.

  Georgie nodded. ‘I’ll lick all the nut ones first though. What about the tour, are you going?’

  He didn’t look at her as he said it. Annie looked out across the ward.

  ‘Couldn’t, I’ll need to be home when you get back. I shall expect to be snatched up and tangoed down the street, just to shock the neighbours.’

  He laughed. ‘Maybe a waltz.’

  ‘I’ll settle for that and we shall picture Tom presenting his knicks and bras to all the female buyers. They’ll love it.’

  Two days later they received another large order from Glasgow and they were tripping over one another in the diningroom, trying to check, trying to pack, snapping at each other, making errors, and in the kitchen there was nowhere for Annie and Sarah to eat because Meg’s sewing machine was on the table and her garments had to be moved from there each evening or they smelt of the food they cooked.

  The mail-shot coupons were still arriving in sacks. Annie ordered a further roll from the supplier. He was pleased, surprised.

  ‘Really taking off then?’

  ‘It’s wonderful, and we’ve a buyer’s re-order from Glasgow too, so stand by your phone in the autumn after the tour, we’ll need more, if your prices are still competitive, Jack.’ Annie laughed, knowing that word would travel fast via Jack, or Big mouth as he was known in the trade.