Angel of the North

by Annie Wilkinson

  Terry hesitated, the caressing glances in his blue eyes telling her what his own ‘strictly as pals’ had forbidden him to say. ‘All right, then. I’ll call again, in a week, just to see. Hope she’ll be a lot better by then.’

  Then gradually, day after day, her mother slackened her hold on life. George took on the little there was to do at the allotment, now that most of the produce had been harvested. Other than for trips to the post office and local shops, Marie was completely housebound, seeing nothing of anybody except Alfie, who came down at the weekend and a couple of times during the week.

  When her mother’s breathing became difficult, Marie sent for Dr Thackeray. ‘How long can it go on?’ she asked, when he’d completed his examination.

  ‘Not much longer, I think. She might be better in hospital, in a cardiac bed. It might make her breathing easier.’

  ‘She wants to stay here, and what difference will it make, really? Will it save her life?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She stays here, then,’ Edie said.

  Her mother, sweating and struggling for breath, managed a smile for her friend.

  Marie spent the night in the armchair.

  ‘It’s a pity . . . you can’t like George,’ her mother gasped, at about three o’clock in the morning.

  ‘I do like George,’ Marie said, taking a cloth to wipe away the sweat that stood on her mother’s face and neck.

  ‘Marry him, then . . . and look after Alfie, and Edie.’

  It was the last time she spoke. She died at five o’clock.

  Dressed in slacks and a blouse, Marie was ready to go to Dunswell before George came downstairs at seven. ‘My mam’s gone. Tell your mother, will you? I’ll phone the doctor on my way. Can I borrow your pushbike? I want to get there well before Alfie goes to school.’

  Alfie was just at the gate, school cap in hand, when he saw her approaching on the bike. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ he said, when she was within earshot.

  Marie nodded, and drew to a halt beside him.

  ‘I blame our Pam,’ he said. ‘If she’d come when she said she was coming, Mam wouldn’t have gone downhill so quick.’

  ‘You don’t, really. You told me she didn’t want to get better before ever Pam came – and you were right.’

  ‘I do, though. She started to pick up while Pam was here, and if she’d stayed, she might have got better, instead of just giving up.’

  ‘Come on,’ Marie said, wheeling the bike through the gate. ‘Let’s go in and ask Auntie Dot to put the kettle on. I don’t think there’s much point in you going to school today.’

  When Marie got back from Dunswell she found Aunt Edie smoothing her mother’s fair hair back from her face with one hand, and holding one lifeless hand with the other. ‘Oh, dear me,’ she kept sighing, ‘oh, dear me, I’ve lost my last good friend. Poor Lillian. She always had so much life in her, she used to run rings round me. I can hardly believe she’s dead, but she must be – she feels so cold. She had a rough time of it at the end, poor lass, but I really believed she’d get better.’

  ‘I can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for her,’ Marie said. ‘You were the best friend she could have had. And George – I think he’s done more than any other man on this earth would have done.’

  ‘We used to have some grand times together, when my husband was alive,’ Aunt Edie said, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth at the remembrance. ‘Those parties your mam and dad used to have, every New Year’s Eve; the pranks your dad got up to, he’d have us laughing till our sides were sore. And now there’s only me left.’ Aunt Edie’s face lost its animation, and her eyes their light. She turned and gave Marie’s hand a squeeze. ‘You did right by her, anyhow. She couldn’t have had a better daughter, and don’t feel as if you’ve got to move, because your mam’s gone. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. For ever, if you want.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Marie returned the squeeze, then stood looking at her mother with her arms hugging her own waist, holding the void that had taken the place of her stomach. ‘And now I’ve nothing to do but wait for the doctor to come and sign the death certificate, so I can set about arranging another funeral,’ she said. ‘Oh, I’m so weary of it all, Aunt Edie. I sometimes think there’ll be no end to it.’

  They heard someone in the passage, and then George popped his head round the door, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Can’t stop,’ he said. ‘We’re on our way up to North Hull. I just wanted to tell you that that bugger’s in court next week! He tried to get the hearing moved to Brighton, but the police checked the address he gave. His wife and her parents live there all right, but he doesn’t! And he’s not likely to be living there again, by the sound of it. So he’s been bailed to appear at the Guildhall!’ He burst into guffaws of laughter and left, whistling a snatch of ‘The Spaniard that Blighted My Life’, his face alive with unholy glee at the thought of getting square with Bill Pratt and Nancy.

  ‘Well, fancy!’ Aunt Edie exclaimed, in tones of outrage. ‘Whistling and carrying on, and your poor mother just gone.’

  ‘He did the best he could for her while she was alive, Aunt Edie,’ Marie said. ‘That’s all that matters.’ And in spite of the circumstances, Marie felt the corners of her mouth lift. It was good to see George so cheerful, for a change.

  ‘How is she?’ Terry asked, when he stood at the door that evening.

  Marie shook her head. ‘I was at the undertaker’s this afternoon. That’ll tell you how she is.’

  ‘You won’t be feeling much like dancing, then.’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t mind a walk, though. I should be dead on my feet after being awake all night, and racing about all day, up to Dunswell, and then to the registrar’s and the undertaker’s, but I can’t keep still. I feel like a cat on hot bricks.’

  He offered her his arm. ‘Come on then, let’s be off.’

  She called a goodbye to Aunt Edie and George, and took it. She felt drawn to Terry. He’d had his young wife torn away from him; he had suffered that massive blow and survived it, and she looked to him for some hidden knowledge, some deep wisdom to help her through her own grief. They walked rapidly up to the park and along its pathways, saying little, and then Marie flung herself down on the same bench she’d last shared with Chas, and wept.

  Terry sat beside her, saying nothing at first. When the tears abated, he said, ‘Your mother’s troubles are over, Marie. Nothing can touch her now.’

  ‘I’m not crying for my mother. I’m crying for myself.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Well, isn’t that the truth! We all cry for ourselves; first time I’ve ever heard anybody come straight out with it, though.’

  She pulled a handkerchief from her cardigan sleeve, and blew her nose. ‘Isn’t it stupid to think of yourself as an orphan at the age of twenty-three? But that’s just how I feel.’

  He put his arm round her and she rested her head on his broad shoulder.

  ‘It’s not stupid,’ he said. ‘Get your crying over, and then – don’t look back. It’ll break your heart.’

  Was that the best he could do? That wasn’t what she’d hoped for from him. She wanted to look back. The future seemed to hold nothing but pain, and fear, and uncertainty. Back was where happiness and comfort and love and laughter were, and she wanted to hold on to it. She wanted to keep what was past, to regain all the wonder and hope and beauty of her young years, to retrieve all the loving and all the caring and the security of those times, and the people who’d provided it all. But the mother and father who had nurtured and protected her from her birth, the custodians of her life and her history, were gone. She wanted not only to look back, but to go back, to everything that had slipped away from her, and stay there, safe for ever in her cosy little home, in her beloved and unspoiled city.

  Chapter 32

  Pam’s face looked white and pinched, and apprehensive. She looked into the coffin, saw her mother’s scarred face and burst into angry floods of tears. �
��I hate them. I hate Auntie Morag and Uncle Alec for doing this. Oh, my poor mam! I’ll never forgive them. I never asked to go to Cromer. It was all their idea. I’d have come back to see my mam if it hadn’t been for them, interfering and arranging it all behind my back. I’m never going back there.’ The anguished face that looked towards Marie was the face of a child, admittedly a spoiled child, but a child, for all that.

  Aunt Edie’s eyebrows went up slightly. George gave Marie a grim smile over Pam’s head. Alfie gave a contemptuous snort, and stared out of the window.

  Marie looked at Pam in her new and flattering mourning clothes and thought how well the Stewarts had cared for her. They obviously had plenty of money, and few other demands on it. Pamela had been treated like a fragile piece of Dresden china, since she’d been with them, and she’d loved it. Now there was nobody who needed Pam’s help, nobody who could be hurt by her defection, and it was pointless for her to cut herself off from them and their cultured way of life, and all the good that they could do her and her family could not.

  ‘It’s too late, Pam. There’s nothing to keep you here now,’ Marie said. ‘Nothing! I can’t help you; I can barely help myself, and I’ve got no home to offer you. Alfie can’t do anything. Uncle Alf and Auntie Dot would do their best, but there’d be no piano, and no music, and no music college, and you’d have to get a job.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said, between sobs. ‘I don’t care about it any more.’

  ‘You say that now, because you’re upset. But stay with Uncle Alf and Auntie Dot for a while, until you make your mind up, and when you get there don’t mope about saying there’s nothing to do. There’s plenty, so do your share, and think about things.’

  Alfie whipped round to face her, eyes wide and expression horrified, probably at the thought of having his sister billeted with him. Uncle Alf and Auntie Dot’s eyebrows also rose slightly at her presuming on their good nature, but Marie had no qualms of conscience about being so liberal with their charity. They wouldn’t be troubled for long. Now that her pangs of remorse and sentiment had had a proper airing and the blame for her sorry showing as a daughter had been placed firmly elsewhere, Pam’s hard-headed self-interest wouldn’t be long in reasserting itself. If she stayed with her rough relatives in Dunswell for even half a week it would be a miracle.

  ‘You know what somebody said to me, not very long ago?’ Marie continued. ‘He said, “Get your crying over, and then don’t look back.” So if you decide to go back to Bourne go with a goodwill, and bear no grudges – they’re poison, and they’ll poison you. The Stewarts have treated you like a daughter, so be a good daughter to them. You’ve got no other parents, now.’

  Pamela was already drying her eyes. ‘You’re right,’ she sniffed. ‘They have been good to me. I think it would break their hearts if I didn’t go back.’

  The sun was low beyond the Humber, gilding the ripples on its muddy waters. ‘I think we’ve seen the last of her. I don’t think she’ll ever come back, now,’ Alfie said, as they stood together on Corporation Pier after the funeral, waving Pam off on the ferry that very same evening. The Stewarts had bought her a return ticket, and as Pam had said, it would have been a pity to waste it. And she didn’t know anything about working on a smallholding, so she would just have got in everybody’s way. Would Marie and Alfie give her apologies to Uncle Alf and Auntie Dot? Besides, Uncle Alec would be waiting for her in Lincoln, and missing the ferry would have meant having to telephone him.

  Unlike Marie, Pam had no need to look backwards for a sense of comfort and security, and with the Stewarts her future looked rosy. The past had few charms now for Pam. Marie had no illusions about her sister’s self-centredness, but she had given her a fierce hug before she boarded the ferry, and felt a terrible sadness at parting with her.

  ‘Just you and me then, Alfie,’ Marie said. ‘Out of a family of five, just a brother and a sister, still together.’

  ‘If you can call it together, with you in Hull and me at Dunswell. I think we should still get together every Sunday, though, and go and put some flowers on the graves.’

  ‘So do I. But I might not always be able to manage it. I’ll have to go back to work.’

  ‘Where? The infirmary’s been bombed.’

  ‘They’re still using it as a first-aid post. I’ll have to go and see Matron. There’s sure to be somewhere they can put me to use.’

  Chapter 33

  ‘You ought to go and spend a morning in the police court sometime when you’ve got nothing better to do,’ Nancy said, as they were walking to the pictures on Anlaby Road the afternoon after the court case. ‘Some of the people you get in there, well, it’s an eye-opener. I was terrified when I first went in, but when you’ve sat through hearings about somebody pinching two bottles of milk off somebody else’s doorstep, and people up on child neglect charges for not feeding kids when they’d no food in the house, and no money to buy any, and then – hark at this – they get fined for it – well, it just puts things into perspective. I think Billy Pratt was the only real criminal they had in there all day. Probably all week.’

  ‘I’ve already been to the police court,’ Marie said, as soon as she could get a word in edgeways. ‘They had me up for breaching the blackout, remember?’

  ‘Oh. Was that when I was in London? Anyway, I’d forgotten.’

  ‘Probably because you were too busy planning your elopement and worrying about Monty, as we knew him then.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. The judge more or less called me an absolute fool in front of everybody in the court, and George was sitting there looking like a terrier at a rat-hole. I was really upset, until my mam said: “Well, that should make it easier for you to get maintenance money off him when he gets out of gaol,” and it will, so I felt a bit better about it, then. I’m not going to wait until he gets out of gaol, either. I’m going to see about it as soon as the baby’s born. He pleaded guilty, so that made it a lot easier. Oh, yes, he’s going to pay me, whether George ever gets a penny back or not, and frankly, I’ve stopped caring. Has he said anything about it – the court case, I mean?’

  ‘Not to me. I haven’t seen him. He was out with a woman called Eva last night, and he didn’t get in until after I’d gone to bed, and he was off to work just as I was getting up this morning.’

  Nancy seemed slightly taken aback. ‘Oh! He’s gadding about a bit lately, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘I suspected him of being after you at one time. I wouldn’t have put it past him, just for one in the eye for me. But I’d have thought you’d have gone back to the Elsworths, now your mother’s gone.’

  ‘Well, Aunt Edie says I can stay with them as long as I like, so there’s no rush, and I’m still thinking about the Elsworths. If I went there, it would look as if it were a definite thing between me and Chas, and I’m still not a hundred per cent sure. Anyway, I’ll be going back to work soon, so I’ll probably be living in a nurses’ home, depending where they put me. But I expect George will be bringing Eva home to meet his mother before long, so it might be just as well if I’m somewhere else.’

  ‘Huh. Bloody good luck to Eva, then,’ Nancy said. ‘She can expect a good prying-into from his mother’s blind eyes.’ After a short pause she dismissed thoughts of George with a shrug of her shoulders, and was back on the subject of Bill Pratt. ‘I’d love to see “Monty” in his new stage costume, trimmed with arrows! I hope he’s breaking rocks by now.’

  ‘You said you wanted him sewing mailbags.’

  Nancy’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth contracted into a grim little smirk. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Mailbags are too good for him. Oh, I’m glad it’s over and done with, Marie. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I’m glad it’s over with. I’m sorry about your mam, by the way. Sorry I couldn’t come to the funeral, but it wouldn’t have done, would it? Not with George and his mother being as spiteful as they are. Did you give her a good send-off?’

  ‘Not as good as the one we gave you,’ Marie said. ‘Ther
e was no expense spared on that one. We just had a few close friends and relatives. Not the whole neighbourhood, this time.’

  ‘You’re a sarky bugger, aren’t you? You do like to have a dig, now and then,’ Nancy said.

  Marie and George walked home from the allotment on Saturday carrying two heavy bags of potatoes each. The days were shorter and cooler with the approach of October, and she had wanted to get most of the potatoes up before she went back to nursing. When George nipped into the newsagents on Newland Avenue to buy a paper, she wasn’t sorry to put her burdens down and rub her hands back into life while waiting for him.

  Back at Aunt Edie’s, they deposited their bags on the kitchen floor, Marie feeling very pleased at being the giver, for a change, rather than the one accepting help. ‘There’s enough to fill two more bags still in the ground, and cabbages, parsnips and turnips, as well, and Brussels later on. You should hardly have to buy any veg all winter. You’ll have to ask George to get the rest up, once I’m back to work – if I have to live in, that is.’

  ‘Don’t live in, then,’ Aunt Edie said.

  ‘I might have to.’

  ‘Well, go and sit down, and I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  The settee and the wireless were back in place in the front room. Although still crammed with furniture, it had a horribly empty feel now that her mother was gone, and her sickbed had been taken back upstairs. Poor Mother. Marie switched the wireless on, for a bit of the cheerful music or banter from the comedy shows to banish the cloud of despondency descending on her.

  George sat on the settee, and began avidly scanning his newspaper. ‘Here it is,’ he said, folding the paper at the page and jumping to his feet again to call his mother from the passageway. ‘Hey, Mam! Come in here and listen to this.’

  Auntie Edie came in, looking puzzled. ‘What’s up? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Sit down and just listen to this.’

  She sat in one of the armchairs.