After the Storm

by Margaret Graham

  CHAPTER 2

  Betsy leaned against the iron mangle, arching her back in an effort to relieve the ache which dragged at her body. The washroom was the last to be swept, scoured and polished and now the copper shone and she longed to run her hands over its round shine-splashed shape; it looked so warm to the touch.

  The ceiling was free of webs which had cocooned spiders all through the long winters but the drab green walls would never look as sparkling as they really were. The sun shafted in from the skylight but it was still dark in this basement section of the house. She could hear, but not see, passers-by as they hurried to where they were going. She straightened, rolling each shoulder in turn, proud of the stiffness of hard work and reached for the shawl which had been flung aside as the sweat had pricked then run down her back when the scrubbing-brush and hearthstone had whitened even the back step. She clicked at herself and said out loud:

  ‘For Pete’s sake, bonny lass, they’re only a couple of bairns arriving, not the princes of the land.’

  ‘Aye,’ she answered laughing at herself, ‘but they’re to be my bairns so they’re better than the King himself.’

  She winced as she dried her hands on her coarse apron, the sacking rasping and scratching her work-reddened and swollen hands. Her eyes were pale blue and her lips full and red. Her hair was brown and curled at the temples, the rest was drawn back into a bun and she tucked in the pins more securely. Her hands shamed her and she pulled her cuffs down, the same cuffs that she had nervously pulled this morning at the service. Thank the Lord there was no photographer she thought, and was relieved to see that they contrasted less against the blue cotton than they had against the stark white of her arms.

  She traced the raised veins with a puffy forefinger and shook her head. Barney had kissed them and called her the Queen of Sheba and promised her rings for her pretty soft fingers. Well, that’s a long time ago now she thought and it should have stayed at fine words but it had not so that was that. The clock in the upstairs hallway chimed but the number was too distant to register so she hurried up the steps, through the kitchen, then on up into the hall.

  ‘My God,’ she gasped. ‘Four and the buns still not in and they’ll be here soon.’ Her hands flew to her hair. She could feel the thick damp strands hanging heavy with sweat on her forehead, released from the bun by her rush up the stairs. Her nose and cheeks felt greasy with the shine of labour and there was no tea ready.

  She felt her body begin to shake and the hot waves of panic and fatigue swept her first to the stairs leading to the bedrooms, then to the front door until finally she rushed back down to the kitchen.

  ‘Calm yourself, girl,’ she urged. ‘Just get them buns on. Tom will do at Ma Gillow’s for a while longer, then when they come give them bread to toast on a fork, bairns like that.’

  She looked in the pantry. ‘There’s the ham and pickle, they can go on the plates now. And talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.’ She carried plates and breadcrumb-coated ham back to the table. Grey ash lay thick where there should have been glowing coals in the grate. The oven set into the left of the fire held barely any heat now and the hotplate on the right was only warm. Betsy shovelled coal on gently, trying not to spurt the ash up into the air only for it to settle on her polished and wiped surfaces.

  ‘Just a few for now,’ she breathed, then held up an old newspaper to try and provoke a draught. It was no good. ‘Oh God damn it,’ she swore and rushed to open the outside door, the paper flapping in her hand. At last there was sufficient air to try and suck the flames up the chimney and what did it matter that the cold raised goose-bumps on her flesh if only the coals roared enough to heat the oven. At last they did and before the newspaper could yellow with the heat she pushed it back into the kindling box, grimacing at the blackness of her hands, the smudges on her apron. She rushed to shut the door, confident that the fire would burn quickly now. She added more coal, still gently, then stood momentarily at a loss.

  ‘Come on, get ’em washed, then do the bliddy buns. And don’t you swear like that,’ she aped her mother, scrubbing her hands then rushing and spilling flour and water, almost in tears. The bowl was already on the table but the buns were soon too wet and stuck to her hands as she tried to mould them.

  ‘More flour, that’s all you need, hinny,’ she soothed herself but her voice was shaky and high in the chaos. ‘That’s right, take a deep breath and then bang them in the oven.’

  The smart of the oven heat on her tender raw hands made her gasp and two of the buns lurched on to the flag-stoned floor whilst she saved the others only by steadying her arm against the open oven door. The searing white pain brought everything to a stop. The spreading whiteness of the dough at her feet barely registered and tiredly, mechanically, her panic cut through as though sliced from her by a cleaver. She slid the tray, hard and real between her thumb and forefinger, into the dark of the oven. The door clanged shut and carefully she slotted the latch home.

  The earlier satisfaction had vanished and her arms ached with a weariness that seeped throughout her body and emptied her mind of even her nervousness. She pulled her coat from the back of the chair and slumped into its clammy heaviness and sat looking round a kitchen which was, from now on, her own. She felt no elation.

  It would all have been so different but for the war. Then she would have married Barney and had Tom. Done things the right way round, her mother had hurled when Barney had died, and soon after his son was born. Look at the mess she had just made of a room she had spent hours cleaning and polishing; what a talent she had for little messes; and yes, her mother had said that too. Her hands lay throbbing one upon the other and the harsh pain of the tightening burn across the softness of her upper arm was almost a comfort. It was something which belonged to her and on which she could focus. She had been burned before and knew the course of the pain and that was all she wanted to know at this moment. Her head hung to one side and she lifted her shoulder to rub her cheek and that caress was better than none.

  Barney Grant had been a strong young pitman but how gently he had led her to the slopes of the slag after he had arrived home on leave. She pressed her cheek closer now, deep into the cotton of her blouse and she could feel the heat of her skin and she remembered the smell and the feel of the body of her man.

  Again and again they had promised that they were different, that lovers who opened their mouths to one another and knew such pleasure in one another could not be touched by war, by death. But his eyes were deep with thoughts that were his own, that he would not share and later he had cried and worried for her in case there should be a bairn, my bonny wee lass he had whispered.

  She had laughed then because next week they were to marry and no God would defy her love. And he had nodded and kissed her hand fit for bloody diamonds he had said again.

  They had all been recalled the next day in a rush for the next big push. His mates had told her he had felt nothing but she knew it had been raining, raining, raining because that’s what the papers had said of Ypres and he hated the rain on his face.

  He wasn’t found for days. Wipers was such a stupid name for a grave she thought and wished she could have cleaned the mud from his eyes and carried him home, warmed him and, in time, shown him his son.

  She stared dully at the fire. Here she was then, living in the same house where she had worked since she was 14 but now it was to be with a man who had today given her a name and a family, not just a job. She should be grateful but her scream for Barney sounded so real that she snapped upright and could not tell whether it had pierced the air or just her mind. The fire was solid red now, God knew how much time had passed, she must be mad to sit as though life was a holiday. She pressed her fingers to her forehead, nervous at the thought of Archie coming home before all this was straight, but she had to fetch Tom, she was already late.

  Betsy straightened her coat, drew the latch and the cold of the early evening caught her again. It cooled her even as it caught in her
throat and she reached for the bairn’s blanket. He’d need it over his face in this chill, then she’d just have to be back in time for them to arrive. Yes, that was it, be quick and there was nothing to worry about she urged herself, thinking as she went that he was such a cold one there was no knowing how he would take a mistake. God, she thought as she undid the gate, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of tea.

  Archie led the way up the four steps and fumbled for the keyhole.

  ‘The shop is over there,’ he told them over his shoulder and Annie nodded though all she could see were dark forbidding shapes in the dim light. She grasped the peak of one of the railings which lined the steps to the front door and through the thickness of her glove she could feel the flakes of old paint first stick into it and then give way beneath her restless thumb. The tip of the railing was not as sharp as had first seemed and it had flat edges which swept to a modest point.

  ‘D’you think if you fell on these they’d go right through you?’ she asked her father. ‘I mean so they come out the other side.’

  He was on the step above her and seemed not to hear. His back was towards her, his face pressed close to the keyhole.

  ‘Don’t be daft Annie,’ mocked Don. ‘You’d have to be right tender and skinny to have them go through. Most people would have ’em stick halfway through and they’d wobble about with their eyes popping out.’

  ‘Until you knocked them off in three throws,’ Annie retorted. ‘Hey, that would make a good fairground game. Roll up, roll up, knock off the gentleman with the funny hat and win yourself a – a what, Don?’

  ‘Clip round the ear if you go on like this,’ he whispered, nodding his head and pointing it towards their father. They sniggered together and tried to count the railings from the bottom to the top even though the gloom made it difficult. Archie looked at them in confusion. They had forgotten him and he was glad for he hadn’t known how to react to their extraordinary conversation. He could not remember discussing impaled bodies with Albert as a child, far less attempts to dislodge them once they were ‘set up’ as these children of his had suggested. Mind you, he and Albert had never been close enough to discuss anything. The key was by now in the frozen lock though it was stiff to turn. Peering closer, working it backwards and forwards, he muttered:

  ‘I’ll have to get Elisabeth to oil this thing. It really is too slack of her.’

  Annie wondered why he didn’t just breathe on it instead of bellyaching about what other people should have done. He’s got a pair of hands hasn’t he, she thought, and in her irritation could no longer be bothered to count the railings.

  She moved her toes inside her boots, her feet ached with the cold but her toes were empty of feeling and seemed heavy in their numbness. She rose and fell, pressing all her weight on to them and longed to squeeze their cold dampness between warm hands. She felt Don close to her, his breath showing white as he blew on his hands. The door loomed large as they grew accustomed to the dimness and Annie’s eyes hurt as she struggled to follow the shadowed bulging shape hanging on the door which minute by minute seemed to sharpen and move even as she looked.

  Well, she thought, fancy having a great big claw knocker on your door and then spending all night fiddling with the keyhole. She stood staring hard, until the knocker disappeared in a blur of cross-eyes and she felt triumphant at reducing the bunched brass to nothingness. As the door finally swung open she began to move with it. Don felt her sway and shook her arm.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he whispered in her ear and Annie felt the sniggers rise and shake her shoulders. Oh no, she prayed, don’t let me start again else I’ll never stop and she wondered where the giggles were coming from.

  ‘Come along then,’ their father directed, standing in the dark of the hall and the laughter drained from her and she held back. Why should she go first to be swallowed up by this strange dark house? Don could, the canny beggar. She twisted from his grasp and stood sideways, her eyes refusing to move until he had passed. Her feet curled in her boots for a better grip and her legs braced for battle.

  ‘Come along Annie,’ her father ordered shortly. ‘Ladies before gentlemen. Donald is quite right.’

  Annie raised her chin in a fury of frustration which contracted her scalp but she could do nothing but obey. It was two against one. Turning she squelched hard down on Don’s foot, twisting as she did so and sailed in on his indrawn breath of pain and surprise. That’ll teach you, she thought, you canny little squid.

  Inside there was no wind and it seemed much warmer and very quiet but for a loud tick and there was a strange sharp smell mingling with polish but no scent of cooking or arms outstretched. She stood quite still, her heartbeat loud in her ears, not wanting to move unless it was to touch something definite, to lean against something solid. She felt no friendliness about her, just thick space which could hold endless horrors. She longed for the noise of trains clattering beyond their eyes but not their ears at Wassingham Terrace and the pigeons scattering in their loft as the cats screamed.

  Here, in the dark, the ache was swelling. Closing her eyes, Annie tried to remember whether she had missed any black dogs on her way here. There was only the brown one she was sure but still she had held her collar until she had counted a hundred. She had not trodden on any cracks either so surely her wish would be granted. She’d also prayed to God each night, twice, but he had seemed to be deaf for quite some time. Nonetheless her father might just change his mind or even drop dead so that Sophie could walk over and take her back.

  It would have been just bearable if Sophie and Eric had stayed in the town just half a mile from this shop but to pack up and go to the other side of the world seemed like the end. There would be no more stories from Eric, no more hugs and tickles from Aunt Sophie, no more drawing on the kitchen floor while Sophie and Eric held hands and talked at the kitchen table.

  Sophie had said that she and Eric were young enough to start a new life in a new country and must go straight away. She’d said how she was 29 and Eric was 30 and if they didn’t go now, this minute, perhaps Australia would be too much for them. Annie had never thought of them in terms of years before and 29 seemed very old. It’s the same age as Sarah Beeston, Sophie had said, but Annie was not interested in other people, only in Sophie.

  ‘Come on in Annie,’ her father’s voice called and as she turned she remembered the feel of Don’s foot beneath her heel and her hands went still and her fingers filled with splintered ice. Oh no, she’d broken her good luck, just when she’d done nothing wrong but everything painfully right since that day in Sophie’s kitchen.

  Her lip stung between biting teeth and she wanted to drop to the ground and beat it with her hands because now there was no way back to the old life. She wanted to screech to Don, to pummel him with her fists and hurt him as she was hurting. Why did you get at me and make me do it? Why didn’t you leave me be, she wanted to shout, and the hate spilled out from her eyes and Don was shocked and she was glad that someone else was feeling pain. Then in turn she was shocked and frightened because she did not want the hate to remain. He was all she had if Sophie could not come for her and she didn’t want to be alone with just this dark angry hole left where people had once been.

  ‘Elisabeth, Elisabeth,’ her father called into the darkness but there was no reply. ‘That’s strange,’ he murmured almost to himself and the children stayed still. ‘I think we should go down to the kitchen and see how dinner is coming along. Get your bearings first though.’

  He had already lit the gas lamp and now blew out the match; then shook his arms out of his coat, helping Annie with hers when he had finished. The elastic, which ran from one glove through her sleeves to the other, caught on her cuff and she had to scramble to free herself. She looked up at him. What big nostrils he had and why did he call tea dinner and dinner lunch she wondered. She sighed. And he had not called them bairns since that first day; it made him seem very far away. But now that the smell of the gas lamp was nudging at her it seemed
, together with the light, to bring the house to life and that was a surprise for it had almost been as though nothing existed beyond the darkness.

  The light showed steep stairs rising with a dark glossy conker-coloured bannister which curled and stopped like the doormouse and she could almost believe she was Alice. Ahead of her was a passageway with a strip of carpet laid on black and white tiles. It ran into the hall and was the same carpet which was laid up the middle of the stairs. It drew her feet far less than the stone of the pavements. She was feeling better now that the front door was shut and the Gladstone bags were lined up at the hall-stand. Now there was no decision to be made. She was here and must stay.

  She looked round the dim hall and across to the clock which stretched from the floor to way above her head; much higher than the hall-stand which was now lumpy with coats. She followed the brass pendulum as it swung from side to side disappearing and reappearing with a regularity which calmed her. She had never seen anything like it before but the deep sure sound of the tick, unchanging and predictable, made her feel that here was something that would never surprise, never shock and she was comforted. She tried to reach fifty strokes in one breath. It was five o’clock.

  The eruption of sound hit her full in the face and the bone buttons of her cardigan were pulled harshly on straining thread and she jerked back her shoulders in terror. Then, hickory dickory dock her mind raced and she laughed. You’ll not catch me again she challenged and it was to life she shouted.

  Turning to Don, she drawled. ‘Don’t fret bitty bairn, it’s only a grandfather clock.’

  Don caught her tone and cursed himself for leaving his mouth hanging. ‘Course I know that,’ he snapped but they both knew he hadn’t. He had been peering up the stairs, his back to the clock and the noise had been like a clap of violent thunder without a source.

  They followed Archie down the passageway, Annie carefully treading on her toes to avoid the pattern. Don’s hiss of irritation as she veered into his path was a small price to pay for catching up on some luck. It was dark at the end of the passage and the door to the basement was shut. Annie pulled Don back against the wall. His head was well into the wallpaper above the wooden rail which divided the bottom paint from the flock wall-covering. Hers was part in both and they grinned at one another. She needed him and she had made him feel big again and their anger was gone.