They’d been back from Middleton for two months when Mam had the baby – not Alexander at all, but a little sister, Susie. Rosie stayed at home while Mam recovered from the birth. For a week it was an enjoyable novelty, but Mam didn’t get better and Rosie remained in charge. In the freezing cold north-east winter Rosie shovelled coal from the pile in the shared backyard, carried pails of sick and urine down the steps to the nettie. She humped warm water from the stove to the tin bath to wash clothes; always, it seemed, she had a bucket banging against her bare legs.
Mam’s skin turned yellow. She pushed back the sheet to show Rosie her swollen belly. ‘Isn’t it strange?’ she said. ‘Like I’m expecting again. Do you think it’s another baby?’
‘It could be,’ Rosie said, keeping to herself the doctor’s explanation that the cancer had gone to Mam’s liver and all he could do was to try to ease the pain.
When Mam got really bad, she wouldn’t have Da in the bed with her, wanting her eldest daughter instead. Trying not to show her terror, Rosie lay beside her mother’s hot, wasting body. She stroked her hair as she vomited and told her she was getting better, though she was getting worse and worse. While Mam slept, Rosie lay awake listening for the laboured breaths.
Just before she died, Mam’s thin yellow fingers started plucking at the bed sheets. Then she lay still with her eyes staring, all effort concentrated on scraping air into her lungs. Da sent John for a priest. An hour later, Father Cleary came panting up the steps, took one look at Mam and started gabbling prayers. By the time he finished, she was dead.
At church, Rosie knelt before the statue of Our Lady, squeezed her eyes together tight and begged to see the sweet, tired face of the Mam she’d loved, the Mam who’d told her she was a good girl and a clever one; but she saw only the frightening woman Mam had become, with huge teeth and deep, deep eyes.
Things slid out of Rosie’s control, no matter how hard she worked. The precious glasses got broken; she couldn’t slap the twins, Alf and Robbie, hard enough to keep them out of the coal, which transferred itself to the walls and furniture. To make matters worse, Susie was sickly. When their father came home late, drunk, Rosie had to keep her away from him for fear he’d accidentally do her an injury.
Rosie fed Jean and the three boys their breakfasts, pushed bread and cheese into their mitts for their dinners and sent them to school. While they were gone she cleaned up their mess, shopped for food, cooked, washed, fetched, carried, and all with Susie hanging round her neck, because Susie cried nearly all the time. You couldn’t blame the poor bairn, but sometimes Rosie hated the baby and longed to shove her and her ever-whingeing mouth in the cupboard under the stairs, leave her there until she learned to shut up.
‘I want to go into the Army,’ Rosie told her father, the week she became eighteen. It was May, and a little sunlight filtered into the yard. Da sat at the top of the steps, whittling a piece of wood. ‘Don’t be stupid, girl. You’re needed here.’
Rosie pegged out some more nappies before trying again. ‘You can’t make me stay forever.’
Da threaded the smoothed piece of hazel on to a leather thong. ‘Tie it round her neck,’ he said. A teether for Susie. ‘Nobody wants people like us in the Army, and even if they did, the answer’s still no. I’m not having ye become a soft mat for a soldier.’
‘Mam wanted me to go. She trusted me.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll be back at five for me tea.’
Marrying Da had separated Mam from her own family, and the only relations Rosie knew were on her father’s side. A few of these, like her Aunt Betty, were settled, and had been just about respectable in Mam’s eyes, but there were others, living in dirty caravans, she hadn’t acknowledged: grey, tough women who smoked pipes and swore; dark men with dirty faces and glittering eyes, clattering their pony carts along the Gateshead streets shouting for old pots and pans, scrap metaaal!
Of course Da was Romany, not Spanish at all, and the brown-skinned men who sometimes arrived and insisted on occupying the chair until Da got back, were his relations, still on the road. There were ‘uncles’ that travelled with fairs and came every year to the Hoppings on the Town Moor, people who Da greeted in his own language and who gave them all a free ride on the Waltzer.
A boy who claimed to be Rosie’s cousin took to rattling down their road in his pony cart, leaping off to talk to her when he found her pushing the pram. So desperate was she to escape, that when he asked her out to the pictures, she said yes. Da told her she had to be back at eleven or she’d get the clock in her face.
Even life with a tatter boy seemed better than her life, but the boy was boring; he wouldn’t let her watch the film, instead sticking his tongue in her ear, and on the way home he pushed her up against the wall and she had to struggle to get free. She got in at three minutes past eleven. Da was waiting in the scullery with the clock.
It was a wonder her nose was not broken. Her whole face swelled up and turned yellow and blue. She couldn’t show herself outside the house for three days. The letter for her father arrived on the third day. Because he couldn’t read, Rosie opened it. Mam’s brother, now living in Falmouth wrote that he wanted to mend bridges, had meant to do so earlier, after poor dear Susan had passed away, only his wife, Dottie, had also been ill. Now she, too, was dead and he needed help with the boarding house he ran – getting very busy with the war on. He’d thought how both households might benefit if Susan’s eldest girl could be spared. He was sure a little extra would not go amiss up in Gateshead, now things everywhere were so difficult.
That night, through swollen lips, Rosie read the letter to her remorseful father. Two weeks later, the day after a big bomb finally did hit Newcastle, Rosie picked her way over the broken glass to Central Station and started the long journey down to Cornwall.
Rosie felt she’d stood on the edge and stared into the abyss, but just as she was about to fall, an angel (dead Aunt Dottie, whom she’d never seen, but pictured in white and gold) had plucked her up and, after a long, cold and hungry train journey, had set her down in a large house in the seaside heaven of Falmouth, with what seemed like hours to herself each day.
Rosie carried the empty laundry basket back to the kitchen and carried on with her chores. She was in the living room, standing on the arm of one of the chairs and stretching to reach the highest corner with her piece of vinegar-soaked newspaper, when she saw Tucker coming up the path. She expected a delighted leer, but the face meeting hers was white. The front door slammed and without a word of greeting he ran heavily up the stairs. Rosie polished the glass and listened. When she heard him coming down she went into the hallway and saw with dismay he carried a heavy rucksack and another bag. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘This afternoon.’
‘All of you?’
Tucker nodded, looking at her with a help me expression, like Alf with a grazed knee, and although the thought he’s going, he’s going rang in her head, made her feel wobbly, she forced herself to respond. ‘Come and have a cup of tea before you go.’
He shambled after her into the kitchen, sat down at the table and told his story to the oilcloth. They were off. ‘Seemed pretty important stuff. Big, you know. Dangerous. We’ve got to write our wills. Course, only sensible, isn’t it? But there you are, when it comes to it you don’t feel so brave. Might not just be ta ta for now, but ta ta for good.’
Rosie put a hand on Tucker’s rigid shoulder, but her thoughts were with Philip. He’s coming back. I will see him again. Tucker turned and grabbed her around the waist, pushing his head into her breasts.
For a moment she was frightened. Her hands fluttered, not knowing where to put themselves. What an odd feeling it was, looking down on his big baby head, feeling him nuzzle into her like Susie had done, looking for a feed. But she felt a surge in her body that was new and not motherly.
‘Poor Edmund,’ she said, smoothing back a strand of his sandy hair. He gave a juddering sigh and relaxed against her. The kettle started to sing. Tucker lifted
his head and Rosie slipped out of his arms to busy herself with the teapot. She poured out and sat down at the other end of the table. He looked at her over the rim of his cup. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘I understand. There’s nothing to be sorry about.’
He dunked a biscuit into his tea. ‘Lovely shortbread,’ he said.
Five minutes later, Tucker left. ‘Tell Philip I’ll see him later. He’ll know where. Just don’t feel like hanging about at the moment.’ She watched him go down the path, saw the huge rucksack jag momentarily on the gatepost, and then he was gone.
Back in the kitchen she cleared, folded the oilcloth and rubbed linseed oil into the wooden table. Quite unnecessary, she thought, her body remembering the weight of his head on her breasts. Particularly as she was getting so behind, she thought. The beds would have to be stripped now, and there was the shopping to do. She would change first. Slowly, her hand enjoying the satin surface of the banister, she made her way upstairs.
5
Falmouth, 8 March 1942, afternoon
Philip wanted some peace to think about death. Death. How did he see death? He thought of the brown skeletons dancing beside the living in medieval paintings. Not like that. It was a clinging, heavy thing that settled on your back. A slimy, silent, eyeless thing. A clay-coloured child with throttling hands and no face.
He felt the crisp folded paper in his pocket. Who was there to mention in a will apart from his parents? Who loved him? Whom did he love? Could he describe the mixture of pity and irritation he felt for his father as love? For his mother, always so severe, so disappointed with everything, he felt very little at all. He imagined the telegram arriving. His mother summoning his father from the vegetable patch to deliver the news. She would sound grief-stricken of course, but in her voice there would also be a touch of relish. She so loved reporting bad news. He pictured his father shrinking a little further into his shapeless cardigan, returning to pray hopelessly among the sprouts.
Unexpectedly, he was pierced by that image. His father down on his knees in the damp soil, crying for his only son.
He walked along the stone harbour wall. On top of a jumble of wooden boxes a savage-looking bird, a skua, Philip thought, was digging out a slimy remnant of flesh. The place smelt of rotting fish. A small boat, loaded with orange lobster pots, chugged towards him. On board was an old fisherman of about sixty, and a younger chap more his own age, twenty or so. Philip felt envy as he looked at the young man with his thatch of sun-bleached hair. Why couldn’t he have been born a fisherman, or a farmer, or some other person with a protected occupation?
Sitting on the edge of the quay, Philip dangled his feet over the water, watching the boat as it bumped gently against the wall and the young fisherman began to throw lobster pots up. He would be doing that next week and the week after that; there was the promise of long life in the densely freckled arms. The older man sat in the stern of the boat slowly filling a pipe with tobacco. He squinted over towards Philip for a moment.
Thatch approached along the quayside, carrying a pot in either hand. ‘All right for some,’ he said, in the round west country accent of the area. The accent that made people sound stupid, however unfair that was. Philip got to his feet.
‘Want a hand?’
‘Oh no. You stay where you are. Don’t want to go spoiling your nice uniform.’
But Philip walked back along the quay to pick up two more pots. In the bottom of the fishermen’s boat, lobsters and crabs crawled about in a water-filled metal tank. The old man opened a penknife and, carefully lifting out a crab, sliced through the tendon behind its huge claw. Philip watched as he picked up a lobster. That was dealt with more humanely, each of its two sets of claws being tied together with rubber bands.
The pots were like huge baskets, but much heavier than Philip had expected, he supposed because they were weighted. Nevertheless, he felt he could have hurled one into the sea with ease, and he realised how strong the training had made him. Reaching a battered pickup truck, the young man dumped his load and turned to wait. ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said.
‘Where are you taking them?’
‘Back home. These are the ones that need repairing.’ He thrust a hand into one of the pots, exposing a large hole in the wicker work. ‘Can’t keep the buggers in with that, can you?’
‘I’ll give you a hand with the rest if you like.’ They walked back towards the boat together.
‘Off to the front soon?’
It seemed an odd, rather antiquated question. Philip wondered if he imagined the fighting taking place in trenches as in the Great War.
‘Yes.’
‘I wish I could be of more use. But what with me father…’ They watched the old man slowly climb up the ladder, carrying something wrapped in a piece of netting in one hand. ‘I got to stay here.’ His voice was thick with misery.
Philip saw himself momentarily in the boy’s eyes, tall and manly in his uniform. The jealously was mutual, then. The older man put out his spare hand to his son to be pulled up. Exhausted, he struggled for his breath, his eyes liquid. He stood beside them and slowly the wheezings and chunterings of his chest subsided. Taking a pipe out from a pocket in his jacket, he clamped it between his teeth and nodded at Philip, stretching his mouth a little by way of a smile. Then he grunted something at his son, and waved them on with their task.
There were only six more pots to take over to the truck. They took two each and then wandered slowly back. The old man nodded to his son and handed him the mysterious parcel of netting.
‘Dad said to give you this,’ the young man said, when Philip had lifted the last pot onto the truck. He proffered the parcel, unwrapping the netting a little. ‘Lobster, this ’un.’
Philip peered at the creature. It was a beautiful speckled green. ‘I can’t really. I’ve got nowhere to cook it.’
‘You can find a saucepan, can’t you?’ He looked determined on generosity, as though the lobster was their contribution to the war effort.
‘It’s very kind of you.’
The boy grinned. ‘All you do is stick it in a pan and boil it. Twenty minutes should do it.’ Philip watched him carefully re-wrap the lobster. He was gentle, but Philip thought how the creature must hate to be swaddled in the coarse twine. He would put it back in the sea later, he decided. But then he felt guilty about rejecting what was a precious gift. Give it to Rosie at the digs. That would be the best thing.
The old man sat on a pile of fish boxes, his head bent forward a little, his hands planted on his knees. Philip raised a hand in farewell, feeling his own burden lifted, as though he had passed it on for a while. Slowly, a hand was lifted in reply.
Thatch smiled. ‘All the best, then.’
‘Thanks. And to you.’ They shook hands and Philip walked away.
‘No more than twenty minutes. Spoil it else,’ the voice came after him.
He turned again to wave. The two figures were staring after him, still as people in a painting; part of a clutter of colour at the corner of a great silvery seascape dotted with small craft and with larger boats, their forms hazy in the strong sun. Philip wished he could paint, could capture this glorious day, the silver sea, the flutter of wind that parted his hair and filled a distant sail. He turned again towards the lumpen shapes of the town, but the prospect didn’t depress him. The weight was gone. He felt the blood warm in his veins, the spring in his legs, the power in his arms and back. He was young, strong and he was going on a great adventure.
Ahead of him was a pile of wooden boxes, making a barrier four feet high in his path. He ran towards it, leapt high and cleared it easily. Hoping the young fisherman had seen him, he ran on into the town.
6
Falmouth, 8 March 1942, afternoon
Philip stood in the hallway for a moment, wondering what to do with the lobster. Where was she?
‘Rosie?’
He peered down the dark corridor that led to the kitchen and called again, but there was no response. He w
ent upstairs to the bathroom on the first landing, put his package on the floor and slowly unwrapped the netting. The lobster was very still, so that for a moment he thought it was dead; then one antenna rose feebly into the air. Philip ran some cold water and lifted the whole hammock of netting into the bath.
He and Tucker had rooms on the top floor, under the eaves. He climbed the stairs, stepping over a pile of dirty linen on the way, aware of someone moving about above him. When he pushed open the door to his room he saw Rosie stripping the bed. She was pulling the pillowcase from the pillow, a frown of concentration on her face. She looked different. He realised her dark hair, normally pulled back into a long plait, was loose.
She jumped, gave a little squeak of fright. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said. Normally she wore an overall, but today she was dressed in a soft blue-grey skirt and cardigan.
‘Are you going out?’
‘I was. Well I am. Only shopping.’
She sounded breathless, upset about something. ‘Mr Tucker told me you were going. He said sorry but he couldn’t wait, and that he’d meet you later. That you would know where.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You look nice. Different.’
She stared at him for a moment. He wondered why he’d never noticed before that her eyes were blue. Blue as cornflowers.
‘Less like a skivvy, you mean?’
Her anger hung inexplicably between them. Philip felt hot, his tongue suddenly huge in his mouth.
‘I never thought of you as a skivvy.’
‘Well you should of. A skivvy is what I am, after all.’ She smiled at him and the remark would have been humorous were it not for a slight tremor beneath it. She had a low voice with a northern accent, very pleasant on the ear. She looked down at herself and brushed a tiny feather off her breast.
The War Before Mine Page 4
