After the Storm

by Margaret Graham

  His uncle was close up to him now, his head near him. ‘It’ll not do us any good in the country, lad. The press’ll have a ruddy field-day and I don’t know as I’d blame them, it’s wartime, lad, and I don’t hold with striking.’

  ‘Aye, I reckon you’re right but you can’t blame the men. The pay’s lousy, the hours are longer and longer along with poorer maintenance and now there’s talk of drafting pitmen and their lads back here into the pits, just when the poor buggers thought they’d a chance for some to get away. Why should they be drafted back is what the miners feel, drafted back out of the factories and the war to be killed by coal and for a bloody pittance too? They’ve still got to support a family, Henry, for God’s sake.’ His voice was rising and his uncle pushed him along as the queue moved.

  ‘Keep your bloody voice down, lad, or you’ll end up being locked up like your pal Mosley and how would you like that?’

  Tom pulled at his lip and submitted to the match search before squatting on the floor of the cage. ‘Piece-work should be abolished an’ all.’

  His uncle glared as the men squashed close up to them laughed.

  As the cage sank, Tom was quiet. The stench was always the same, the thick dust on the floor of the cage, the dropping, the scream of displaced air and then the crunching of the cockroaches beneath their boots as they wound their way along the main seam, hearing the rats darting away as they approached. They turned off into the tunnel to the face they had been allocated.

  There was more than two inches of water today and, as they bent over to squeeze further into the flattening seam, his uncle cursed. ‘Picked a right one for us today, haven’t they, lad. Might do well to keep your mouth shut, if you ever could, that is.’

  The heat was stifling and Tom took the hewing this time with his uncle on the shovel. He lay down stiffly and angled his pick but work was slow and difficult. There were not going to be many trollies pushed down the seam today and it meant his pay would be down again and they’d not enough to cope as it was.

  He tugged and tore at a lump which had wedged itself. Thank God, Grace worked in the factory and could pass some over to her da. It was bloody good of Don to have put him in the shop while he was away, it gave him a bit of dignity as well as some wages, and between that and Grace, her parents would survive. He’d write and tell Annie about that, she’d be right pleased.

  He groaned as he shifted his weight off his back and his foot and hoped to God he didn’t get a chill through lying in the water. It gave that remaining kidney too much to do, said the doctor, but there was a fat lot he could do about it with an overman like his. He heard Henry ease up a pit-prop.

  ‘How many today then, Uncle?’ he panted, straining his head round to see.

  ‘Just the two again, lad, for each section.’

  Tom swore and went back to work listening to the sounds the props made, listening for a rush of dust, a creak and groan that would mean the coal had finally got him. They needed three props, three bloody props, not two. He turned on his side and heaved at the coal again. There had been two men killed yesterday and that had been less than the same day last week and it would go on if basic safety was ignored.

  Thank God, Annie was out of all this and the bombs, the cold and the hunger. She’d written that Singapore was out of this world with just the right temperature and just maybe she’d get to see Georgie. It was pretty close to India wasn’t it, he’d asked Grace, and she looked it up in the library and said he was right. Well, at least the bonny lass was in the sun, living like a bloody duchess and looking at the fabrics. Just as long as she was enjoying herself, that was the thing; she’d earned it, every bloody minute.

  CHAPTER 24

  Durban had been glorious with its surging and plummeting surf. Sun, sea and everything that England had been without for two years but Singapore was incomparably better, Annie thought as she and Prue sat at Robinson’s Hotel for coffee as usual on their day off. It was a pattern that had been quickly established in the three weeks they had been here, though it seemed longer because she had become so used to the life of ease and splendour.

  It was all so beautiful, so different to Wassingham that it was hard to believe the cold dark hardness of the mining town still existed when life could be as it was here. It was early December now and the sun was still so hot that Christmas seemed an impossibility. She and Prue would have tea at Raffles this afternoon and look for presents until then in the crooked streets which were full of shops and arcades and yellow or blue-white houses splashed with red Chinese lettering. Full of the noise of trading, of birds and fowls that squawked and fluttered in wooden cages, of motor horns and rickshaws and the revving of cars. There was colour everywhere, material which would have made Tom’s mouth water and silk which hung in bales in small shops and invited touching.

  What on earth would he think of the cathedral which they passed on their way into the centre from the nurses’ home? It was like some icing-sugar sculpture. He’d either like it or loathe it and she was pretty sure it would be the latter.

  In the narrow streets, washing hung out, not on washing lines but on bamboo poles hoisted across from window to window and fish dried on pavements amongst fowl that scattered as cars thrashed by; flies swarmed over everything. The odour and noise were always present.

  Annie smiled as she thought of the first time they had driven out to the suburbs. It was like her first view of Gosforn. A sense of space, of light, only far more so as the palatial white houses of the Europeans blasted back the light. Bougainvillaea, calla lilies and frangipani clustered in the grounds and were repeated in all the parks and their lushness made her want to stop and touch, bury her face in their colour and their warmth.

  The early mornings were the best though, she had decided, with the breeze flicking in off an ocean which was even bluer than Prue’s eyes. She stood each morning in the hospital grounds listening to the rattle of the palm fronds as they were disturbed by the freshness and again in the evening watching the birds as they settled on the telephone wires and wondered how she could be in amongst this and still have an emptiness, an ache which only Georgie could fill.

  She and Prue had only been out into the countryside once, and that was with a couple Prue had known in India, the Andertons, who were now happily settled in Singapore where he, who was moustached, neat and correct, held a post in Government House, and she, Mavis, wore head-hugging hats and presided at receptions. They had climbed into his open car last week and Prue had held firmly on to her hat but Annie had removed hers and let the wind rush through her hair, tumbling it around her face and cooling her.

  They had driven past mangrove swamps and coconut groves and she had seen again the coconut shies at the fair where they had slipped the lead coins and heard the lady with the varicosed legs. She had screwed her hands in the car and watched as though from a distance the rubber plantations with their latex smell and the jungle scrub which lay all around.

  They had driven past two reservoirs which were as large as lakes and then on past the Causeway before she had pushed her memories back into the box and nodded as Mavis pointed out the villages which were called kampongs. Changi jail was on their route and Annie wondered how anyone could bear to be locked away from all this sun, this life. Was Dippy Denis still in his cold dark prison?

  The port was chaotic when they drove through, horn sounding at the Tamil labourers who were everywhere around them, carrying goods into and out of the go downs which loomed high along the docks full of different wares. These warehouses were cheek by jowl with fuel tanks, offices and customs sheds and it had been a relief to relax on the verandah at the Anderton’s home that evening drinking pink gin brought by servants and talking of the war in Europe, talking of their good fortune at being where they were, in the peace of Singapore. But that was not what Georgie’s letter had said, Annie thought as she sat here in the sun with Prue and moved uneasily in her chair. That’s not what he had said at all. Get out, he’d insisted.

  Pru
e interrupted her train of thought.

  ‘Annie, these strawberries are scrumptious, absolute heaven.’

  She was licking her spoon and Annie saw strawberries against her white teeth. Her gold charm bracelet clinked as she put the spoon back into the crystal bowl and scooped out some cream. Prue closed her eyes as she swallowed and there were faint freckles across her nose.

  Annie grinned. ‘Not more strawberries surely, Prue? You’ll burst and I am not, definitely not, going to clear up the mess.’

  Prue opened her eyes languidly and looked about them at the other tables, then back at Annie. ‘Do stop being boring, darling. The fly boys bring them in fresh every day just for us and I should hate them to feel that we did not appreciate their efforts; and who is that gorgeous man over there with Monica?’

  Annie didn’t need to look; she knew it was Martin Edge who had come over with his battalion four days ago.

  ‘Nice, isn’t he?’ she grinned. ‘And I warn you that I shall remind you of the convoy’s zig-zagging and the storms if you eat very many more helpings. You’ve put all that weight on, you clot, and you were just talking of the new slim you the day before yesterday.’

  ‘That was then. I met the most divine man last night, darling, who said he likes a real armful, so much more womanly.’

  Annie grinned as Prue finished the bowl and poured another coffee. She ran the cream over the back of the teaspoon which she held against the inner edge of the cup. It spread thickly over the surface and, when she drank, it left a white moustache on her upper lip until she dabbed at it with her napkin. Prue looked over at Annie, her eyes widely innocent as she set the napkin back beside her coffee cup.

  ‘Talking about self-indulgence, Miss Goody-Twoshoes, I noticed you tucking into the salmon at Raffles last night and who was that major anyway?’

  Touché, Annie thought as she lit another cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. She pushed away the silver cigarette-case, seeing the misting left by her finger.

  Yes, she thought dryly and lifted her cup to Prue who smiled. Yes, who was the major? Someone she vaguely knew, someone to talk to and dance with. She had not liked the feel of his body as they danced past the Palm Court Orchestra and had missed Georgie and wondered where he was, if he was safe? And if he was safe, would he be so next week, next month? She narrowed her eyes against the sun and looked across as a car narrowly missed a rickshaw while a Chinese child ignored the ruction and offered to passers-by a chicken which flapped hopelessly as he held it upside down by the feet.

  Sam Short had brought the letter. He had called in at the QA’s mess early this morning, suntanned and in shorts and had given her the white creased envelope which was soft and warm as she took it. Sam explained that Georgie had asked him to deliver the letter as she took it from him, eager and grateful; trying to think where she could take him for a coffee, a drink, but Australians were not allowed in the clubs because they were colonials, not Europeans. She burned with shame because she had not defied the rules and invited him anyway.

  He had stood there in his hat with the strap beneath his chin, his eyes wry with amusement. He was off up-country anyway, he had said, making the clubs safe for you people to enjoy and she had put her hand on his arm. We’ll meet by the harbour, she replied, have a walk, then you can tell me how he really is, but he had shaken his head and smiled and his eyes had crinkled more on the left than the right where there was a healing scar.

  He told that Georgie was fair dinkum and that they had been training together but that she must do what he says in the letter. I’m off to Penang he had said and the Japs are sure to come, Annie. He had stood there, his face in shade from his hat, his webbing and equipment hitched over his shoulder. His voice had grown suddenly urgent. Just do what he says, there’s a good girl.

  She had watched as he sauntered down the steps then and merged into the bustle of the city and without waiting to reach her room had peeled the flap of the letter back and she could see fingermarks on the envelope and hoped they were Georgie’s.

  ‘Penny for them, darling?’ Prue was shaking sugar on to another bowlful of strawberries and looking at her at the same time. Annie stubbed out the cigarette and caught Pruscilla’s look of distaste.

  ‘I’ve told you that I’ll stop smoking while you are eating as soon as you cut down on this appalling guzzling.’

  Prue ignored her and took the letter which Annie handed over.

  ‘See what you think of this,’ Annie said.

  November 1941

  Central Provinces.

  My darling love,

  I’m writing this quickly and then sending it with Sam. I’m off to Burma. The Japs are getting active and we think they’ll go for Rangoon and maybe into India.

  But I think they’ll also go for Malaya and Java and you too. Get out now. Go sick if you must but get to India. They treat prisoners badly. We’ve heard about them in China.

  Come out my love, bring Prue. The C.O. is working on it too. I’ll keep you safe here. I love you. Just come out on the first ship.

  I have to go. We’re moving out. My love always.

  Georgie.

  Annie watched as Prue scanned the letter once, then again and finally handed it back. Her hand was on the table, the sun glinted on the gold bracelet.

  ‘Well?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Look around you, darling. Does it look as though we’re in any danger? Has anyone even hinted that we might not be safe and besides the fleet came in last night, just in case there should be any trouble. There’s a difference between us and the Chinese anyway. Europeans would not be treated in the same way, would they, should the impossible happen, which it won’t.’

  Her plucked eyebrows were raised and there was a faint smile on her lips. Annie looked round at the elegant Europeans who sat as they had done for the last hundred years and would continue, it seemed, to do so for the next one hundred with not a hair out of place. But they were flesh and blood weren’t they, they would still bleed, just as the Chinese were doing? She shook her head to clear it of these thoughts, her irritation at Prue’s snobbery.

  Singapore was taking precautions, she reasoned as she drew out another cigarette. The air-raid sirens went off each Saturday morning and searchlights still danced over the harbour at night but anyway everyone knew that the Japanese could not fly planes with their slant eyes, or so Mavis had said a few nights ago at the dance they had held; she had worn full evening dress and sipped champagne. It had been dry and delicious. Should slanted eyes prohibit flying, she wondered and rather doubted the sense of that sort of reasoning.

  ‘Why has he written it, then?’ she mused aloud.

  Prue put down her spoon, her bowl empty. She rubbed her hands together. ‘That’s easy. He can’t get you to marry him any other way.’

  Annie watched the rickshaw drivers and traders, coins glinting and clicking with each transaction and pencils waving as each chit for goods was signed.

  ‘Thought royalty were the only ones not to soil their hands with filthy ackers,’ she said to Prue who answered:

  ‘Let’s face it, darling. Here we are almost royalty. Look around, ducky: an awful lot of Indians and not many chiefs.’

  Thank God that just this once Annie Manon is out there on top, Annie thought, trying to push Prue’s remark about Georgie away. How long was it since she had done any washing for herself or an evening without dancing until the early hours under crystal chandeliers?

  ‘So,’ Prue persisted. ‘So, why didn’t you marry Georgie after all the years of waiting, of missing? Then, when you could have married and stayed together, you didn’t.’

  Annie collected her cigarette-case and lighter together, putting them into her bag. The lighter smelt of petrol and there was a smudge on the silver.

  ‘Annie, are you scared to commit yourself to anyone? Does it suit you to have him at arms length, there in the background to love and miss but not too close in case he manages to touch something inside you?’

&
nbsp; She wouldn’t think about what Prue was saying. She talked too much, always she talked too much. She breathed deeply to release the tension in her stomach, in her shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Prue, shift yourself. Let’s go and admire the good old Prince of Wales, everyone else seems to be.’ Prue shook her head.

  ‘You’ll have to face it sometime, Annie Manon, whatever it is that comes between the two of you, because he’ll ask you again.’ Prue groaned as she pulled herself to her feet.

  The sun was hot on Annie’s feet and the harbour was crowded and she pushed Georgie out of her mind, and Sarah too because the pain of her death had surfaced suddenly.

  The Prince of Wales looked glamorous against the blue sky, strong and firm and all that was good about the Royal Navy. There was a buzz of well-being at the arrival of the Far East Fleet and the woman on Annie’s right was explaining breathlessly to her neighbour, ‘Nice to think she’s here, even though Singapore is invincible.’

  ‘Will you be at the dance tonight?’ Prue asked as she waved her gloved hand in front of her face to ward off the persistent flies.

  Annie shook her head, she felt irritated now, off balance and confused. She could not forget his letter and she opened her bag and fingered it. Where was he, she thought again, was he safe and how could she leave when no one else was worried?

  The air-raid sirens woke Annie four nights later, on Sunday. She heard the wail through her sleep; Don’s watch said it was four in the morning, for God’s sake, had the ARP wardens gone mad practising at this time of night? She walked across the cold tiled floor and looked from the window at the street lamps lighting the road below and at the searchlights sweeping the sky. She was tired and walked back towards the bed, then heard the guns thump and the dull drone of aeroplanes. Then there were the crashes and bangs of bombs and her room shook as she clutched at the bed. She threw herself to the floor, her hands pressed to her ears but the vibrations shook the building and she felt and heard the explosions even though she was trying not to. Nothing was stable and she could smell the smoke and feel the rug beneath her where it was damp from her dribble of fear.