After the Storm

by Margaret Graham

  Annie looked at the woman, at the sweat that lay in a sheen on her top lip. This was a new line, she thought.

  ‘Divorce is a sin, and to think that she was once at this school and now sends you here. It’s a disgrace. I saw her fetch you yesterday in her smart little car. I hadn’t seen her for years until then and she looks so young still; it’s not fair.’

  Annie felt her jaw set and picked up her music book and placed it in her case; anchored the metronome so that there was silence in the room and left. She was sure that she would never touch a piano again.

  ‘How was your day?’ Val asked her over dinner.

  ‘Is Georgie well?’ Sarah spoke before Annie could reply.

  ‘Yes, he is, Sarah,’ replied Annie as she cut up the beef which she had come to accept as normal. ‘And yes, Val, it was interesting.’ She kept her voice carefully neutral. ‘Miss Hardy went barmy.’

  The runner beans were stringy; Val must have cooked the edges again. Keeps you regular, all this roughage is what she would say if you dared complain.

  Val looked up, then laughed while Sarah wiped her mouth carefully with her napkin. ‘Would you care to improve on that remark?’ she asked.

  ‘After she started to prick my hands she went off into hysterics about not being married and those that were pushed it out of the window and became scarlet women. That divorce was a disgrace.’ Annie drew a deep breath and grinned. ‘And that she would never teach me again.’

  Val banged down her knife and fork. ‘Well, I never did, and she was at school with you as well, Sarah; always a mouse though, never any admirers.’

  Sarah rang the school after dinner and said that Annie would no longer be continuing with the piano since it would appear that she had no appetite for the subject. Another victim of the war, she had sighed, and Annie half knew what she meant. She would write to Georgie tonight, he would be glad her piano lessons were over.

  ‘Should I know about divorce, Sarah?’ she asked as her cousin poured the after-dinner tea with a steady hand. The cups were the white bone china which made the tea taste quite different.

  ‘I was married during the war but my husband left me two years after the armistice.’

  It was simply said and there was no tremble as she passed Annie her cup. Her face was quite calm, though her voice was very careful.

  ‘Why did he leave you?’

  ‘I suspect because I failed him. Now finish up your tea and do your homework or is it time for another letter to Georgie?’ Her smile was gentle as Annie nodded and told Sarah all his news.

  The drive out to the country was unexpected and so had been Annie’s excellent end-of-term school report. She had felt a smile grow and stay as Sarah read it to her.

  ‘We both deserve a treat, especially as the conservatory has seen you only once this term,’ she announced. ‘Look, one punishment mark, that’s all. Come on, put your jacket on, we’re off for some lunch.’

  They pulled into a country inn with a sweeping drive and a garden at the rear with a small patio on which tables were set; more spilled on to the lawns. Red and white cotton umbrellas shaded diners from the sun. As they sat down, Sarah pointed to the river running slowly past the bottom of the terraced lawn.

  ‘I’m told they catch trout here, but so far I’ve never seen any signs of success.’

  Annie sat back. They had no umbrella and the sun was hot. She raised her face and all she could see through closed lids was a blaze of yellow which distanced all sound. She thought of Georgie showing Tom how to tickle trout and how Tom had told her that the beck was now so dead with black sludge that the fish were gone.

  A man’s voice said ‘Good afternoon, Sarah. How are you?’

  Annie shaded her eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. The back of the inn was a glaring white, with dark beams sharply exposed and much nearer, standing by their table was a well-built man, rather like Georgie except that he was fair and had a pale moustache. Georgie was clean-shaven, or had been when she last saw him; she must ask him whether he still was.

  ‘Very well, thank you, Harold,’ Sarah was replying. ‘You haven’t met my ward, Annie Manon, have you? Mary’s child, of course.’

  Annie felt a quietness sitting on Sarah who turned to Annie.

  ‘This is Mr Beeston, Annie. Shall we order?’

  The tables were filling up now and Annie looked at Sarah as she sat against the sun.

  ‘May I have chicken salad, please?’ Annie asked. It sounded quite normal and Sarah ordered the same. The man smiled tightly and left.

  Sarah said nothing as they waited for their meal, just smiled with her mouth until Annie asked, ‘Why did you come?’

  Sarah did not answer immediately but sat thinking quietly, then said, ‘Oh Annie, I don’t know really. A need to beard the lion in his den perhaps. To assure myself that I have a full life which gives me great pleasure, especially now that I have you. I suppose it’s a laying of ghosts and besides, my dear, they do have such excellent food.’ She turned and thanked the waitress as she brought their meal.

  They both sat back in their chairs and Annie did not taste her food, she was too busy with her thoughts. A laying of ghosts, Sarah had said, and she envisaged her own ghosts as they trampled through her room at night. Don who seemed intent on stirring up hatred, Tom who sank down into the pits each day and had so far come up each time, but for how much longer? She almost hoped he would lose his job like the rest of the poor buggers. She thought of Georgie and wondered if he had moved to the Himalayas yet, of her father who had begun all this. She stirred restlessly. She was still not free of memories and fears and remembered how she had clung to Betsy and told her that she would be free, would not be like her. Annie rubbed her eyes; thank God she had written to poor Betsy, but she had not heard back because Grace said she could no longer write with her hands as they were.

  Sarah spoke again. ‘I rather fear I emasculated poor Harold. I had changed you see from the girl I was before the war when he knew me through my family. I had wanted female suffrage and I fought for it. I then drove an ambulance during the war. I was financially independent even before my father and mother died. I was a person in my own right and I thought we married on that basis. What I did not realise was that he had in his mind this picture of me as I was when I was your age and living in Gosforn; an age when I did not even know he existed other than as a friend of the family.’ She sighed and then continued. ‘He, poor man, had a vision of me soft and malleable. He’d had the bad war that everyone had and came home to a wife that he soon found threatening.’

  Annie looked at her. ‘Threatening, what do you mean?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘I mean that I was independent in thought as well as means. I didn’t need him in those ways but what he could not understand was that I loved him dearly and needed him emotionally. I was distraught when he left and I lost the child I was carrying.’

  Annie felt a flood of feeling; she wanted to rush round and hold this woman tight and instead she covered her hand with hers and looked at the face which seemed softer now than when she had first known her, her hair was in gentle waves round her face, her clothes were less severe.

  ‘Did he know about the baby?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘Oh yes, he knew, but he didn’t care. I repulsed him with my personality, I suppose, and that is something that I hope will never happen to you.’

  She gripped Annie’s hand and looked hard at her.

  Annie smiled, her face was older she knew, more mature and her hair suited her cut shorter. Her eyes were more considered in their glances. She felt absolutely sure, as she said:

  ‘Georgie would never treat me like that. He would know I needed to be free.’

  ‘But it might not be Georgie, Annie. It could be so long before he is back that you find someone else.’

  Annie shrugged. ‘It might be a long time and there might be others before he comes but it will always be him in the end.’

  ‘Oh my dear, don’t be too set on that.
You should always remember that choice is going to be there for you. It is a great freedom.’

  ‘Freedom to me is leaving all the darkness behind, forgetting everything you want to forget, releasing yourself from responsibility for others being, oh, I don’t know, unmarked, I suppose.’ Annie leant forward, a frown drawing up between her eyes. She could talk to Sarah now, trust her because with her job, with her hens, she felt almost without debt to her; almost but not absolutely, but that would come. But here she sighed. There was still the business course after her exams to be paid for and she felt a flash of frustration as Sarah laughed and tapped her hands. A slight wind was drifting up from the river and the frill of the umbrella on the next table was wafting in the breeze.

  ‘That freedom is a dream, Annie.’ She gathered up her handbag and smoothed down her skirt where it had creased as she sat. ‘Come along, it’s time we were on our way. I do so enjoy tipping that pretty little blonde thing at the till.’

  They walked arm in arm in the weakening sun to the counter, the breeze chilling the coffee of those who still remained.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Beeston.’

  Sarah smiled sweetly. ‘Another culinary delight. Do give my compliments to the chef, Mr Beeston.’ And she walked past, her eyes full of something which looked like defiance, Annie thought.

  CHAPTER 16

  Tom shut the backyard gate behind him and joined the stream of men walking down to the pit. It was a warm morning and would be a fine day, not that he would know about it until this afternoon when his shift was finished. He sank his hands deep down into his pockets, his boots making the same noise as those walking in front and behind. Uncle Henry was on the afternoon shift at the same pit and was still asleep and Davy had started work at Lutters Pit yesterday; he too was on the late shift but if Tom and Henry had been able to do anything about it he would still be going to the library and kicking a ball around with his mates.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t want him to work; they did, anywhere but bloody Lutters. Tom kicked a stone hard against the wall as he turned into the cobbled street that led down the hill to the pit. That Lutters wasn’t safe, he knew it wasn’t safe. It had been unworked for far too long but Davy had insisted. It was the only pit that would take him with his reputation and the means test that the government had just introduced to try and cut down money given to the long-term unemployed had made him take the risk.

  Tom nodded to two of his mates, shambling on past him.

  ‘See you tonight then, Tom, at the meeting.’

  He nodded. He would be there because they needed to talk more about this new test but before he went there he had Don to sort out.

  He pulled his scarf round his throat and stuffed it down inside his jacket. He didn’t need the warmth of either now but he would when he came up out of the heat and dark when the hooter blew for the end of the shift.

  There were too many curtains still drawn on the houses he passed, too many men still in bed, still without jobs. Too many starving bairns and again he thought of Don. He’d have to go and try and knock some sense into the bugger. Annie had spoken to him but he just called her a bloody bolshie. Tom scowled as he passed through the colliery gates and rubbed the back of his head. If what he’d heard in the pub was anything to go by, our Don was going to get told good and proper about overcharging on loans but it wouldn’t be with words.

  He’d been with his back to the next table with Davy arranging the meeting for tonight since it was no good leaving it to the union rep; he was a flaccid little tyke who kept out of everyone’s way. Even if there was an accident you had to chase round after the little bleeder to make sure he got to the hospital to deal with the owners’ offer of compensation, if there was one.

  Tom waited by the cage door, his head down. He didn’t want to talk, he wanted to think. But it wouldn’t do any good, he had said to Davy about the meeting. There could be no strike; they had no clout with the unemployment and low union funds. But at least the men could talk and that was better than nothing, Davy had argued.

  They’d heard the men behind them then in the snug, saying that they were going to get Don. Bad as a blackleg, one of them had said. The sort of bloody bugger that’d do our job when we were out on strike. We’ll get him, we’ll beat his bloody head in for leeching the blood out of his own people with his bloody rates. Tom had not been surprised; he had been expecting something of the sort. The cage was up now and it was no easier today than when he had started to go down two years ago. It was still the same iron cage lined with wooden planks blackened by inches of dust that stank raw and filthy even before you plunged down into the black heart of the pit.

  Don was forgotten, Davy too, as he crushed up against the next man, his bait-tin digging into his hip. He clenched his nostrils against the smell of coal and looked away from the last sight of the sky to the back of the man in front and waited, his mouth dry with a fear he could never conquer, a hate he could never master.

  Then down they went, screaming through pitch-black cold rushing air and his legs felt as though they would never catch up with the base of the cage but stay forever two inches above it as it plummeted down the shaft. The cold made his skin crawl and always he wondered if they would not slow but instead hurl against the shaft end in a tangle of wreckage and shattered bodies but, at last, there was a slowing, a stopping and his legs felt firm again as though they were at last bearing the weight of his body.

  Dimly lit by lights every few yards, the main seam throbbed with men, the smell of coal, the rumble of the trams as they were pushed back with coal from the headings to be taken to the surface. There was the hammering of the picks as they heaved and tore at the face. In each tunnel, in each hole, miners attacked the face.

  Millions of tons of coal pressed close on top of the workings and Tom removed his jacket in the heat. Their boots clumped and they edged sideways where the heading narrowed, careful always of the tram-lines and their cargo which could take off a foot. The men pushing the trams did not look up, their heads were down into their shoulders, their bodies streaked in black sweat. In the narrow entrance to their heading, away from the lights, they felt their way along, their lamps scything through the darkness, cutting a beam in which the black dust danced.

  Tom was bent double now as the seam reduced in size and then he crawled, with Frank, Davy’s marrer, who had been put with him today, going on ahead, until they reached the face.

  Frank was quick with his pick, hammering with short sharp blows while Tom heaved the broken lumps. They worked in silence changing jobs to ease the tearing muscles of shoulders, back and stomach, lying down and throwing the pick-head deep into the coal and, when straining thighs could take no more, they squatted. And however much coal was moved, more was always there, waiting.

  It was there above him too, Tom knew. Hanging there with its miles of height and weight. It grew grass on the top and grazed sheep but hung waiting over the ants of men which picked and irritated its great bulk here below. It had chosen not to fall yet, not on him but he was reminded each day that it was only waiting as a fine coal-dust spewed down all the time and lay in every crease of skin, every pore; filling nostrils, mouth and lungs. Oh yes, Tom ground out, as he heaved at his pick and pushed back the coal to Frank, kicking the slag to the sides as he worked, you remind me you’re there, you bugger. Even when I eat me bait, when I drink me tea, you’re there crunching in me teeth, reddening me eyes, falling in me cuts.

  He never counted the hours, just lay, crawled, squatted and picked at the coal, grabbing a sip of tea now and then; smelling the coal, the excrement, hearing the rats and he longed for the end of the shift, longed for the end of fear and screaming muscles. He tore his shoulder as they edged and crawled back towards the main seam when they had no more strength and it was, thank God, the end of the shift. He felt the tear but could not see the blood; it ran down his back and dripped on to the ground as black as the sweat which joined it.

  His legs always shook as they wal
ked down the main heading which was brick-arched and busy. But there was soon to be air, air and light and the coolness of a breeze. The clean, clean air; until tomorrow of course. He breathed and coughed, breathed and coughed as he slumped towards home, towards the water which would sluice him clean; his body and his mind.

  May had set the buckets out in the wash-house as Tom had done for Davy and Uncle Henry, and Frank and Edward before they had gone to the Midlands and the factories.

  Inside the wash-house, he could feel the stiffness of his clothes as he dropped them on to the floor. He leant against the inside of the door, the trembling still in his limbs, his arms too tired to raise the buckets. Let me be for a minute, he moaned to himself. Just let me be, I’m so bloody tired, so bloody scared. He stood naked, his head thrust back on the door and felt the roughness of the wood against his shoulders and buttocks. He fingered the raised untreated grain, traced it up and down and slowly the panic subsided, slowly the steam from the buckets looked inviting, looked normal. He took the first and poured it over his head, his body; gasping as it covered his face and then on down his chest and back. He lathered the soap and, still standing, ran it over his face, the whole of his body, eager now to remove the taint of the coal. Another bucket, another soap and then another so that the water slopped over his feet before running across the floor into the gutter which ran to a drain in the corner.

  He scrubbed until his flesh felt raw and at last the coal was nearly gone. He could see his own colour, his own flesh and now he stepped into the bathtub, easing himself down into and under the water, his hair floating, his muscles easing into looseness.

  ‘I’m ready, May,’ he called and waited as she came from the kitchen. Much thinner now she was, but still a smile, though with Davy at Lutters it didn’t reach her eyes. Her scrubbing was hard across the back and shoulders, as it had to be, and the knots between his shoulders eased and he saw the blackness float past his hips and cover the water right up to the edge of the bath.