Aunt May took the picture from Davy and said: ‘Redistribution of wealth, isn’t that what Wainwright said?’
Tom protested. ‘It was Annie sharing out the pies.’
Davy laughed and slapped him on the back before he remembered, ‘Sorry lad, I forgot. I wouldn’t mind taking this for a poster though because that’s what it is right enough. It’s a good one boy. Your Annie had the right idea.’
‘Davy, lad,’ warned May, ‘don’t start the boy off on your ideas. See where it’s got you, on the blacklist. No pit’ll have you now.’
Davy shrugged, his face closed and no longer smiling. ‘Someone’s got to say something.’
‘Leave it to the unions, Davy,’ his mother said as she cleared the jam from the table and gave him the knives and forks to put round. She waved Tom back into his seat. ‘You,’ she commanded, ‘sit down and don’t listen to this man. Eighteen and he thinks he knows everything.’
She flounced out to the kitchen and began to chop up the leeks.
‘Why are you out then, Davy?’ Tom asked.
‘Oh, the overman kept giving the best seam to his mates. It’s piece-work in these pits you see, Tom, or if you don’t, you soon will when you go down. And those in the better seams get pickings; more money. Should be done by ballot, by luck, not by favours. I told the overman, see, and he had me out.’
Tom looked at him as he finished laying the places and perched himself on the fender.
‘Why didn’t you leave it to the union then, Davy, like your mam said? You’re a union man.’
‘Because since the General Strike, the unions have no teeth, man. Now the owners can use the workers to get rich and get away with it more than ever before, and the overman can flex his muscles and do us rabble-rousers down, as your Mr Wainwright called us.’
Tom narrowed his eyes as he remembered the headmaster. ‘I don’t want to go back, Davy. He’s a bully.’
Davy looked at him firmly beneath his brows. ‘You’ll go back and stay until you leave to go to work. You don’t let bullies chase you away. Look at your Annie, she stayed with that bloody old bully Albert and now she’s free of him, thank God. I wonder if she’ll go on giving away pies to people?’ And he laughed.
Tom smiled and wanted to put the ache back where it had been, well below the surface.
‘What did Wainwright really mean by redistribution?’ He forced himself to listen to the answer, to keep his mind on things outside himself.
‘Sharing boy, that’s all it means.’
‘But why did he belt me?’
‘Because, I suppose, one way of doing it is to tax everyone harder on their incomes, that would take more from the rich, spread it about a bit. Makes those with money right mad to think of it. It’s sharing, like I said.’
‘And who were Marx and that other one then?’
Davy laughed. ‘No more questions, get on with your tea. You’ll learn soon enough when you’re working.’ He lounged out to the kitchen. ‘I’m just off to see someone about a heavy right arm, Mam,’ he said and May just nodded.
‘A warning, that’s all my Davy.’ Tom saw him nod.
He took a sip of his tea but it was cold.
May called through the door. ‘What about going to see your mam, tell her about Annie?’
‘She’ll already know,’ he replied and May shook her head.
‘She’ll like to hear it from you.’
He shook himself into his shirt and then his jacket. ‘Maybe I will, Aunt May, but I’ve to go and tell Grace first.’
‘Putting your girlfriend before your mother then is it?’ She stood in the doorway and grinned, shaking a spoon at him. He dodged round her.
‘I’ll be in for tea,’ he called, avoiding her blow which never landed.
He walked down the back alley, his hands in his pockets since it looked more grown up and did not jog his back so much. His girlfriend, Aunt May had said, and he wondered how Grace would take to that, her in higher school and him a year younger. But soon he would be a working man and she would like that. He felt as though he had changed today, grown up. He would not see Betsy, of that he was more sure than anything, because it was her fault that Annie had gone and he hated her even more now. If she had fought Joe and made him take them both he would not have gone to May’s and she would not have gone to Albert’s. They would have stayed together and Sarah would not have needed to come …
CHAPTER 11
At ten-thirty prompt, Sarah edged the bull-nosed Morris away from the front of Albert’s blank-faced shop, leaving the chattering groups to disperse once the novelty of a car like this, driven by a woman, for goodness sake, had been talked to death. Georgie was not there to wave to Annie.
He had arrived at ten and had stood quite still, in the doorway of the kitchen, his cap held loosely between slack hands. He had looked at Annie steadily and her eyes had held his and had answered the question they held from the deepness of her life.
Worldlessly he had turned and leant against the wall, one foot wedged against his bike. He had taken out his cigarette paper, rolled it round tobacco teased along its centre while she had stood close enough to touch the length of her body against his as he licked and lit the cigarette. She breathed in the scent of sulphur as he sucked in the smoke. She opened her lips as he slipped it from his mouth to hers and she felt his moisture as she had done before, so long ago and they remembered without words those months and weeks and every minute between then and now.
He had not kissed her but had cupped his hand about her cheek and laid his face against hers. I’ve still to teach you to hang by your arms on that bar, he had said, and she had whispered, I’ll love you all my life, my love.
And now she was gone from him, leaving him and while Sarah peered through the windscreen, steering the car clear of tram-lines, she looked back as the juddering cobbles changed to asphalt and the car climbed the hill out of the town. She could see the slag creeping ever nearer to the houses which looked as though they were banked against the black advance. She could hear in her memory the whine of the cages which were swaying as they lurched and climbed steadily higher up the coal-dust mountains to discharge at the peak a dense choking black cloud.
She looked to the front, to the hill which was unfolding as they, in turn, climbed and wanted to wrench at the door handle and fling herself back down to Wassingham while she still had the time because, once you left, you never came back, never truly came back. The crest was drawing nearer, the car engine was groaning, then it hesitated, as Sarah changed into a lower gear. Now, her mind screamed, now, but the crest was here and they were over and the world was in front of her in a burst of light. Sweeping fields and trees flicked past faster and faster and her knuckles were white on the door handle. She turned and looked back but now could only see the hill, not the town which clutched Georgie and Tom in its grip. It’s too late, she told herself, and the tearing inside seemed quieter. It’s too late now, she repeated to herself.
It took two hours to travel to Gosforn through rolling countryside that was dotted with pit villages and ironworks that belched foul smoke onto sprawling mean streets. Sarah pointed over to Newcastle on the left but Annie could see nothing of the city with its bright lights and theatre drapes, just grey smoke bulging from pencil chimneys into a late August sky. She could not yet speak to this woman who had stirred her into betraying Georgie, betraying Tom.
Sarah’s house was not joined to another, none of the houses were, Annie saw, and the light seemed to pour through the gaps lightening the whole road.
There were gated front gardens which ran down to the pavement and Sarah’s was shielded by a clipped privet hedge. The car jumped as the engine died.
Sarah set her hat straight and gathered up her bag.
‘Take your things then, Ann, and you do not need those sandals any more, they are far too small.’
‘I’m keeping them,’ replied Annie as she clutched them to her and slammed the car door. She lifted the latch on the wooden
gate and walked up the path to the front door past the privet hedge which sported pollen-heavy flowers and separated this house from the neighbours.
Inside, the brown and white tiles looked crisp and cold and her boots clicked loudly as she walked along behind Sarah, past the hall table. She stopped to look at the large gong which stood by it. There was a brush on the table and a few letters stacked in a neat pile. She put her cardboard suitcase down and brushed her hair in the mirror. It was still the tangled mess it had been this morning.
‘I usually brush my coat with that,’ said Sarah gently. ‘You might find it full of fluff.’ She stood in the doorway to another room and Annie hurriedly put the brush back.
Sarah spoke again. ‘That table is walnut, it has a nice grain hasn’t it? Incidentally we ring that gong twice for meal times. It’s a bit like a race and goes back to my father, I suppose. Once means on your marks, twice means it’s on the table and things are going to get a bit frosty if you are not waiting for it.’
Annie looked along the passageway which went on past Sarah, down to a closed door. She looked back again at the brush and felt the heat from her reddened cheeks. It all seemed very strange and she felt so alone.
‘Come along, my dear,’ Sarah beckoned to her. Once inside the room, it seemed slightly darker than the hall but not much because the windows were large and stepped out from the room. The air was heavy with beeswax and the dark red chairs were like train seats, but not quite so prickly. Annie sat upright, her skirt tucked under her knees to stop the irritation.
‘I remember using a dog’s brush once to do my hair, when I was in a strange house,’ Sarah said, removing her hat and putting it on the table next to her fireside chair.
Annie did not answer. She watched as Sarah smoothed stray hairs back into place. Her hair looked smooth enough now, she thought, and shining as though it was a copper that had been burnished. It was short with crisp waves. Sarah sighed and sat back.
‘It’s so nice to get home …’ And then she stopped and frowned. ‘I am sorry, Ann, that was tactless.’
Annie sat as she had been doing. She was not going to show this woman that she had felt a flush of longing, a loosening of tears; that she wanted to run back down this light street, down the miles of road and then over the hill that led back to the pits, to the streets, to the people she knew.
‘Me name’s Annie, not Ann,’ she said.
‘But I think Ann is more mature,’ Sarah replied and walked to the window. ‘Tomorrow,’ she continued, ‘we have an interview at a school nearby. It is one of my choice since I know the Reverend Mother quite well, we play bridge together and, of course, it was my old school. She is prepared to accept you and coach you for your examination, old though you are. There is a bicycle in the shed for your journey to and from school and school uniform can be obtained from a shop in the centre of town. We will equip you there if there is a successful conclusion to the interview.’
There was an anger growing in Annie.
‘I’m not living with a gaggle of bloody left-footed penguins.’
The prints on the wall were of the sea. Grey and blue they were, not a drop of colour anywhere. Georgie would look for birds, Tom would check the perspective and Don would wonder how much they would fetch. There was a white marble clock on the mantelpiece with a gold slave hanging all over the top of it. Bet he had a shock everytime it chimed, thought Annie, and pictured their father’s clock which had made her jump but she was not going to think of Wassingham until tonight.
‘You are quite correct,’ Sarah was saying. ‘You are not. You will be living with me and leaving any excess of religious zeal that you may acquire within the walls of the convent when you depart at the end of the day.’ She paused as she looked at Annie who was watching the clock creep towards one o’clock; anger was mixed with helplessness now.
‘It’s a strange clock isn’t it, Ann?’ She did not wait for an answer but went straight on. ‘It’s one my father brought home one day, quite why my mother and I could never understand. It’s perfectly hideous, don’t you think, but it keeps excellent time.’
Annie looked at her, then back at the clock.
Sarah spoke again. ‘My father was a shopkeeper too, you know, so it runs in the family.’
Again Annie just looked at her and then back to the clock. She would wait for it to chime and then she would not be able to run out of the house, back to Georgie. Once it chimed she had to stay here, as long as it chimed before she could count to one hundred. As she finished fifty, the clock reached one and a chime rang out, and she sat back in her chair, on her hands to lift her clear of the bristles. She had to stay now, she thought. She had to stay because the clock had chimed before one hundred and it was not her fault that she was still here, it was the clock’s; but was the clock enough? She felt herself begin to sweat.
She looked again at Sarah, who was watching her closely. Through her confusion Annie saw that it was a nice face, quite old though, she must be in her middle thirties.
‘These nuns, Ann,’ Sarah resumed, ‘are neither penguins nor left-footers but are a protestant order with an excellent academic record and reputation.’
‘I’ve not understood a word you’ve said.’ Annie moved only her lips as she spoke, her voice was terse.
‘That, my girl, is precisely why you are here,’ Sarah riposted and enjoyed Annie’s fleeting grin. ‘Any other points you wish to discuss?’
‘Can I have me dinner?’ Perhaps if she was rude enough, Sarah would send her back. If she did not, then she, together with the clock, had decided for her.
She felt the sandals on her lap, the cracked straps that had dug in at Sally’s party, that she had not worn since but that she would always keep because they brought every minute back sharply the moment she saw them.
‘You may have your lunch. If you insist on asking for dinner when I’m quite sure your father explained the difference to you, you will, presumably, be quite happy to wait until eight this evening.’
Her hands sat in her lap and her face stayed still round her eyes and all Annie heard was the deep tick of the clock.
‘You’d better show me the kitchen then,’ she said, unable to think of a retort. ‘I’d better get on with it.’
Sarah looked at her more closely then and there was movement across the brow.
‘Come with me, Ann, there are some things I must show you and others I must explain to you.’
Annie followed her through the tiled hall to the door at the bottom which led into the kitchen. An elderly plump woman in a red apron was putting some cold meat and hard-boiled eggs on to plates. The white was blue next to the yolk and she could smell it as she entered. The meat safe was tightly shut, its cream paint was chipped and one piece was hanging. Annie pulled it off as she stood next to it.
‘Ann, this is Val who helps me to run the house. Val, this is Ann, my ward, who will be living here as I’ve already explained to you, from today. We have prepared the back bedroom for her, haven’t we? It gets so much sun we thought you’d prefer it, my dear.’ Sarah looked at Annie and smiled. She turned back again to Val. ‘Lunch in half an hour, I think.’
Val smiled at Annie and her eyes squeezed to slits above round cheeks. Her arms were pink and dimpled and there was no sign of any bones. Annie followed Sarah from the kitchen to the bedrooms, up a staircase with a turned banister and more prints on the walls. So, thought Annie, she hasn’t sent me home, and she didn’t know if she was relieved or not.
Sarah turned towards the back of the house and opened a dark panelled door on the left of the landing. She did not go in but stepped back and urged Annie forward. She was still clutching the sandals and her hands tightened as she walked into the room.
‘This is your room, Ann. You will hear the gong in just under half an hour. We will be ready to sit when we hear it the second time. The bathroom is next door to your room. You will find a few things in the drawers. I bought them for a fifteen-year-old but a few sizes smaller would
have been more apt. A clean pair of knickers every day please and also a bath. There is a linen-basket in the bathroom. I know little about godliness but cleanliness is just plain commonsense.’ She pointed to the bathroom.
‘Incidentally, in this house there are no servants. I work as a legal secretary at Waring and James, Solicitors, in order to keep myself. Val works in order to keep herself. Ann Manon will work in order to one day provide for herself. In this house we are all members of a household which will only thrive if we all play our parts. We are all people in our own right, no one should have to suffer another.’
Sarah shut the door quietly and perhaps went downstairs but the carpet was so thick Annie could not hear.
She had not understood the last part of Sarah’s speech, for that was what it was, Annie decided. She talked as though she ate a book for breakfast every day.
The sun had filled the room with warm light, her suitcase was on the carpet by the bed. It was a carpet which ran to the walls and her feet sunk in with each step and when she removed her boots she felt the softness beneath her soles and the tufts which rose up between her toes. She traced the swirling pale blue pattern with pointed foot and ran her hand along the smooth sleek quilt. She had not known such comfort existed.
There were no gas lights, just a switch on the wall. She flicked it and the light came on and she knew that this was electricity because it was so quiet.
She stroked the quilt again and wondered if this was what silk was like and sat on top of the bed which sank effortlessly beneath her weight. The curtains were pulled back and the polished window-sill held a vase with just one white rose.
Annie walked across and the rose smelt thick and rich, caught against the leaded window. She looked closer at the tight corners; they must be a pig to clean she thought.
The garden was grassed with rose-bushes edging a lawn that looked smooth enough to lie on and she stretched herself instead full length along the carpet, her hands running to meet one another, collecting carpet fluff which lifted before her passage. The bed was high and beneath was an enamel potty.
After the Storm Page 20
