Angel of the North

by Annie Wilkinson

  ‘You’d be welcomed by her grandmother, or she wouldn’t have sent to tell you when it was. And I want to go.’

  Aunt Edie backed Marie up. ‘Funerals are no place for bairns. Besides, you’ll be back in Dunswell.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Alfie demanded. ‘There’s only one day of school left, and then we break up for the summer. And if Danny can stay in Hull, I can’t see why I shouldn’t. I could live at his house. Mrs Elsworth would let me.’

  ‘You’re going to Uncle Alf and Auntie Dot, and that’s all there is to it,’ Marie insisted. ‘But I’ll tell you what. I can’t take you to the funeral, but if Uncle Alfred will bring you down on Monday, we’ll make two nice bunches of flowers. We’ll go and lay one on Dad’s grave at about three o’clock. Then when the funeral party’s gone, we’ll put the other one on Jenny’s, and say a prayer for her.’

  Not trusting Alfie’s state of health enough to send him back to Dunswell on his bike, Marie took him on the bus, and spent an hour with her aunt and uncle before the long walk back to Aunt Edie’s – with the customary and always welcome gift of half a dozen eggs.

  She went to bed that night and slept the sleep of the just – until twenty past one. Then the sirens went.

  Mass had just started at St Vincent’s when she sneaked in at the back of the church that Sunday. The unchanging ritual, the lilt of Gregorian chant, the familiar responses, were reassuringly the same in a world that had changed. The incense intensified the effect. For Marie, it seemed the very smell of sanctity. It calmed and soothed her. The church was packed, and she spotted Mr Elsworth in the congregation. When Mass was over and people were filing out she stayed behind and lit a candle, thanking Heaven for Alfie’s deliverance. Mr Elsworth came and stood beside her, dropped his money in the box, and put his candle beside hers.

  ‘It’s quite a conundrum, isn’t it?’

  ‘Devastating, I’d say, except for Alfie. With him, I feel as if I was waiting for the drop with the noose around my neck, and got the reprieve just before the trap door opened. Now I can breathe again.’

  They went out of the church together.

  ‘We haven’t seen you since the day before Charles left. How is Alfie?’

  ‘Much better. I took him back to Dunswell the day he was discharged.’

  He looked a mite wounded. ‘I thought you might have asked me for a lift. I wouldn’t have minded a visit there; there’s always something to learn from your uncle and aunt. But maybe you think I’d have been persona non grata.’

  She smiled. ‘Not at all. I was thinking of your petrol ration.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Her breathing’s a bit better. George helps me get her out of bed before he goes to work, and we put her back as soon as he gets home. She’s weary by that time, so if he’s late, Aunt Edie helps. Careful nursing, that’s what the doctor ordered. And thanks for ringing him, and paying his bill. I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘It’s not necessary.’

  They walked in silence for a while, then Charles’s father said: ‘He does love you, you know.’

  Marie gave a little laugh, and shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘He’s been a complete idiot, and he regrets it. Bitterly.’ “A man can hardly help himself,” he told me. Well then, there’s not much hope, is there?’

  Mr Elsworth hesitated for a moment, then he said, ‘You sometimes hear people say: the spirit’s willing but the flesh is weak. But with most men of his age, the flesh is strong, very strong. If it weren’t there’d be a lot less trouble in the world. But he has given her up, Marie, and honourable marriage to the woman he loves will keep him on the straight and narrow. I’m sure of it.’

  She stopped, and looked him frankly in the face. ‘There’s a child.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, with a heavy sigh. ‘I know. Come back with me for a cup of coffee. Marjorie would like to see you.’

  ‘I was coming anyway. I wanted to beg some flowers from the garden, if you’ve any to spare? You’ve probably heard they’re burying Jenny tomorrow. I won’t be going to the funeral, but I’m taking Alfie to the grave afterwards.’

  Mr Elsworth laced his coffee with condensed milk. ‘I’m getting quite used to this stuff now. It’s not bad.’

  Danny followed suit. ‘It’s all right on a slice of toast, as well.’

  Mrs Elsworth gave a grimace of disgust, but made no comment. They took their coffee into the garden, peaceful and with only the buzzing of insects and the chirrup of small birds to break the silence. A seagull soared overhead in a clear blue sky.

  ‘They must have had a lively time of it in Central Fire Station, the night after Charles left,’ Mr Elsworth remarked when they were seated. ‘It sounds as if the whole of East Hull and Victoria Docks were demolished. They got Reckitts again, and Ranks flour mill, and Spillers . . .’

  ‘And another air-raid shelter on Holderness Road got a direct hit,’ Marie said. ‘Poor people! I haven’t seen Terry, but George says quite a number of bombs fell round the fire station as well. One of them didn’t go off, so the station had to be evacuated except for the control room staff. I didn’t sleep a wink after the sirens went, even though we got none of it, and East Hull got the lot. I’m just glad Alfie’s back in Dunswell, out of the way of it,’ she said, and then blushed. The Elsworths were keeping Danny at home, and she hoped they didn’t think her last words a criticism.

  Mrs Elsworth got to her feet. ‘If any of us go, I hope we all go together,’ she said, ‘so there’ll be nobody left to grieve, or struggle on alone. I’ll fill a bucket of water, and then you can come and help me pick some flowers, Marie. Most of them are going to seed, but some of the roses are still good.’

  They almost stripped the garden and then took flowers into the kitchen to wrap in newspaper.

  ‘I suspected there was something going on,’ Mrs Elsworth said, when they were alone. ‘I wish I’d confronted them, but I was so afraid I might be imagining things, like some dirty-minded old woman. It’s so difficult to accuse people of something like that. All my time was taken up with the WVS work, and the last thing I wanted was to have to do the housework myself, or even to look for another cleaner. And I suppose I didn’t want to believe it. Other matters kept putting it out of my head, as well. I let it slide, I’m afraid.’

  ‘By the time you suspected, it was probably too late anyway,’ Marie consoled her.

  ‘Rosemary for remembrance,’ Mrs Elsworth sighed, adding several sprigs to the three bunches of flowers she was making. ‘That poor little waif. Oh, Marie, she’s having Charles’s baby! My first grandchild! My grandchild, and what you said about the way she treated Jenny! I can’t bear to imagine what sort of a life he’ll have. And the most terrible thing is we’re so helpless. What am I going to do?’

  What made her so sure the child would be a he, Marie wondered. Maybe the fact that both her own children were boys made her think of babies that way. She racked her brains to find a glimmer of hope. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘he’ll be clean. She’s a good cleaner.’

  Mrs Elsworth turned back to her task. ‘That’s a great comfort. He’ll be half starved, and half dressed, and left to roam the streets all night while she’s out with God knows who, but really, compared to being clean, what does any of that matter?’

  Marie started wrapping the flowers, the red roses against the newsprint impressed vividly on her eyes as a wave of anger rose within her. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘Hannah’s sure the baby will be a boy as well. No reason why Charles shouldn’t marry her, now her husband’s dead. Then the baby would at least have one good parent, as well as decent grandparents.’

  At that suggestion, Mrs Elsworth’s whole body seemed to slump. ‘There’s every reason why he shouldn’t. He’d be miserable for the rest of his life. He doesn’t love her at all, and he’d probably end up hating her. But the most important thing of all is: he loves you.’

  ‘If he does, it doesn’t seem to have got through to Hannah,’
Marie said, starting on the second bunch. ‘If you’d seen her at the hospital, you’d have thought he was already her property. She’ll soon be presenting him with his firstborn son, and she’s absolutely crowing about it. Judging by her hefty childbearing hips, I should think she’s capable of bearing him a whole tribe.’ Sheer anger made Marie’s wrapping swift and deft.

  ‘God forbid,’ Mrs Elsworth shuddered. ‘One’s more than enough to worry about.’

  Danny came into the kitchen as Marie started on the third bunch.

  ‘Let me know when you’re going, and I’ll walk with you. I’m going to call on a friend on Sunnybank.’

  She discovered Danny’s ulterior motive as they neared Clumber Street, and the Maltbys’ house, when he stopped and turned to her.

  ‘You’ll have to marry Charles now,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter about Hannah. He saved Alfie’s life.’

  Marie took a moment or two to consider this piece of reasoning. ‘I’m very grateful to Charles, but think about it for a minute, Danny. If an eighty-year-old hunchback had saved Alfie’s life, would I have to marry him?’

  Danny flushed. ‘Of course not. That’s silly.’

  ‘And George saved my life. Does that mean I ought to marry him?’

  ‘No, but you were never engaged to him in the first place.’

  ‘Well, it just goes to show that the fact that anyone saved your life, or anybody’s life, is not a good reason to marry them. The only reason to marry anybody is because you love them so much you couldn’t think of marrying anybody else.’

  ‘And do you love him so much?’

  She turned, and walked away. ‘It doesn’t matter about Hannah,’ Danny had said, but nothing could be further from the truth. Chas had carried on his affair with Hannah right up to their engagement. He’d two-timed her for months, and although she still loved him, Marie was sure of one thing. She meant to have a one-woman man, or none at all.

  The sun was scorching her skin and a warm and gentle breeze lifted her hair as she walked with Alfie under a clear blue sky down the pathway of Northern Cemetery to her father’s grave. Wood pigeons cooed and a seagull soared silently overhead.

  ‘It’s really peaceful, isn’t it, Marie? A nice place for them among the trees and flowers. I thought that when we came to see Dad’s grave.’

  Marie nodded. In the distance they saw the covering being dragged back from the grave as the funeral party arrived: not a great many people, just Hannah and a few of her relatives, Trudie and a few of her family, the vicar, and the bearers with their little burden.

  Marie stooped and pulled dead flowers out of the holder on her father’s grave. ‘Take these to the bin, Alfie, and fetch me some water. Try not to stare, there’s a good lad.’ She pulled a trowel out of her bag, and occupied herself in digging out a few weeds.

  When the graveside ritual was over, and the people were going, Trudie came over to speak to them. ‘I thought I recognized you. You’re Alfie. Yes, I saw you in the hospital, and the ward sister told me all about you. You’re a brave lad.’

  Alfie gave her a wan smile, but didn’t speak.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Marie said. ‘I couldn’t come to the funeral. I don’t know if you know the full story, but it would have been very awkward.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know the full story,’ Trudie said, ‘and I didn’t really expect you. But you tried to help our poor Jenny, and I just wanted you to know, it’s broken my heart, losing her.’

  Marie squeezed her hand. ‘We’ve brought a few flowers.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  They followed her to the graveside. Alfie gazed down at the little coffin deep in the gloom of the earth, cut off from the drenching sunlight. After a minute or so he looked at Trudie, and thrust the flowers into her hand.

  ‘She was running to me,’ he said. Tears welled into his eyes and he sniffed hard, fighting desperately to hold them back. ‘She was running – to me.’

  Trudie pulled him towards her, and held him close, murmuring: ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry,’ while tears streamed down her own face.

  Marie felt choked. Trudie dabbed her eyes and then left them to catch up with her own party. Marie tried to lead Alfie away, but he stood his ground. ‘You said we were going to say a prayer.’

  She thought for a moment, then recited: ‘Grant unto her eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.’

  ‘Amen,’ Alfie said, then added: ‘She didn’t want eternal rest, she wanted love, and sunshine. It’ll be our mam next, you watch. Then that’ll be the end of our family altogether.’

  ‘No it won’t,’ Marie protested. ‘She’ll probably get better, and anyhow, you’ve still got me.’

  ‘I don’t think she wants to get better, and I won’t have you, because you’ll be married to Chas.’

  ‘I doubt it. There’s a lot that you don’t know, Alfie.’

  ‘If you mean about Chas and Hannah, I do know,’ he said.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘What does it matter? People talk, and if you keep quiet they don’t even realize you’re there.’

  ‘Danny told you.’

  ‘What does it matter, anyway? You’ll still marry Chas. I know you will.’

  ‘You mean you think I’ll marry him because he saved your life.’

  He looked surprised. ‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’

  Marie frowned and shook her head, utterly perplexed. ‘What on earth makes you think I’ll marry him, then?’

  He shrugged. ‘Everybody knows. It’s obvious you’re dead keen on each other.’

  She laughed aloud. ‘How?’

  ‘It’s a way you try not to look at each other when other people are there,’ Alfie said, with another shrug. ‘And then you steal a glance at him, and he catches your eye, and then you smile and look away, and he smiles and looks away. And he does the same thing.’

  Marie smiled again, but briefly, at the memory of the first few months of their courtship. ‘That was before you were evacuated.’ It was also before she got to know about Hannah, but she didn’t mention that.

  ‘You’ll marry him,’ Alfie repeated.

  ‘Even if I did, you could still come and live with us.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll stop with Auntie Dot and Uncle Alf Pam’ll stop in Bourne, and she’ll never come to see us. You’ll be married, and that’ll be the end of our family.’

  Again she protested, but she had a horrible feeling he might be right. Alfie was facing it better than she could face it herself. This 11-year-old lad in his short trousers had suddenly become a man.

  She went upstairs to bed that night feeling heartsick – and sick of feeling heartsick. She was wearied with all this grief and misery and pain. What was the point of living if there was no pleasure in life? She tossed and turned for hours, dreading the wail of a siren that never came. At daybreak, suspended between sleep and wakefulness, she dreamed of going home. The door was locked and barred against her, and try as she might at every door and window, she couldn’t get in. She could see the battered brown leather suite, the small table and the lamp that stood on it in the shape of a wooden helm with a parchment sail, both made by her father while in hospital after the Great War. A fire burned merrily in the grate, and she could smell the lavender polish on the lino surrounding the carpet square. Alfie’s train set was laid out on the carpet, and his aircraft recognition weeklies were piled on the settee, beside his cigarette card album, his shrapnel collection and his bag of marbles. It was vitally important to get them back, and Marie hammered desperately on the window. Jenny stood inside with her hands on her skinny hips, mouthing: ‘It’s my house now.’

  ‘Wanna play battleships?’ she heard Alfie’s voice, but faint, and followed by an awful silence. Her heart stopped. She awoke with an empty, hollow feeling inside her, a hunger, a desperate craving for home and everything home had meant.

  Terry knocked on the door the following afternoon, quite jaunty, desp
ite the inferno of Thursday night. ‘Fancy going for a jig before they drop the next lot of bombs?’ he asked. ‘There’s sure to be a dance on somewhere.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to see you all in one piece. It took me hours to stop shaking after the last raid, even though it was all East Hull, and we got none of it.’

  He gave a sardonic little chuckle. ‘It certainly kept us jumping. Eighty-nine fires we had to tackle, and the biggest was at Spillers grain merchants in Cleveland Street. A silo with thirty-odd thousand tons of grain – we could have lost the lot. We daren’t risk dousing it, because if it had swollen and burst the walls of the silo it might have ended up in the river. Imagine it – it could easily have stopped the traffic altogether. So we had to let it burn, just damp it a bit and get it away from the bottom of the silo.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any nerves at all, Terry?’

  ‘Enough to keep me awake. To make matters better, a bomb had burst a water main, so we had to run the hoses to the river. But we managed to save most of it,’ he added with a self-satisfied little smile, ‘just so you can have your bread and jam.’

  ‘Spillers would have been well named, then, if it had all spilled,’ she said. ‘I think ours is the only city that’s had such terrific raids since the Germans goose-stepped into Russia. They can’t leave us alone. Is there some strategic benefit in killing us, or are we just the handiest target?’

  ‘A bit of both, I think. What about it, then? Are your ribs better? I fancy going out for a dance before the next onslaught.’

  ‘My ribs are all right, but – on a Tuesday? You find a dance anywhere, and I’ll come. I could do with a change of scene.’

  ‘He’s here again!’ George teased, when Terry called for her that evening, brushed, polished and clean shaven. ‘Well, don’t think you’re going to hog her all to yourself, it’s my turn next. I’m claiming the next outing.’

  ‘What about Nancy?’ Terry said, slightly taken aback.