Some Sunny Day
Page 20
Rosie thanked Mrs Harris for what she had done and gathered up the pillowcases.
The gaping crater left by the bomb looked somehow worse this morning than it had done last night. Rosie’s gaze was drawn inexorably to the spot where she had last seen her mother’s body. There was nothing there now, of course, but she still walked over to where Christine had lain. If her mother hadn’t been involved in an affair she would still be alive now. Rosie felt as though a part of her almost hated her for what she had done, even whilst at the same time she would have done anything if only she might still be alive.
Here and there in the tangle of roof beams, bricks and plaster she could see the charred and twisted remnants of pieces of furniture. Putting the pillowcases to one side, she started to search carefully through the rubble.
An hour later she was forced to admit that there was nothing to be retrieved, no keepsake or memento of her mother that she could find to bring her comfort, nothing for her to hold in her hand, just as she would never again be able to hold her mother’s hand either. All she would have to hold on to now would be her memories. Her memories – Rosie desperately did not want to have her last memories of seeing her mother alive. How she wished she had not heard what she had heard; not known what she had known. How she wished she could go back to the innocence of her childhood, when she had loved her mother unquestioningly, loving it when she acted daft with her and played with her. Those had been good times, happy times, the times with her mother that she would cherish in her heart, Rosie promised herself.
Picking up her pillowcases, she made her way back down the street to the house where Rob lodged. He had told her last night when he had walked her back to her devastated home that he would ask his landlady if she would rent out her other spare room to her. Rosie hadn’t paid much attention to what he had been saying then. She had been too distraught. But now she hoped desperately that he had done as he had said he would. She hated not having her own room and a decent bed to sleep in. It seemed too much to bear on top of everything else.
Rosie knocked on the Norrises’ door. Mrs Norris opened it almost straight away.
‘I don’t know if Rob has said anything to you…’ Rosie began uncertainly.
‘He has, but like I’ve already told him, I do not hold with a young couple who aren’t married living under the same roof,’ Mrs Norris said briskly, her expression softening slightly as she saw Rosie’s disappointment. ‘I’ve nothing against you, Rosie. You’re a decent sort of girl, even if your mother…’ Her mouth tightened. ‘You can see how it is, I’m sure. I’ve got my reputation to think of and I don’t want anyone saying that I’m encouraging the wrong kind of goings-on under me roof. Besides, your dad will be home soon and he’ll sort summat out for the two of you.’
She was closing the door already, before Rosie could say anything further, leaving her standing on the doorstep. How many more of their neighbours had been aware of her mother’s affair and would judge her because of it? Rosie wondered miserably. And more importantly, what was going to happen when her dad got back? Would they tell him? It was bad enough that he had to return to find his wife dead, without having to learn that she had been unfaithful to him as well.
Rosie straightened her shoulders. There were things that had to be done: formalities to be dealt with and arrangements to be made for her mother’s funeral. She needed to pull herself together, to be strong. It looked as if she would be spending another night sleeping in the church hall, since there was nowhere else for her to go. It was hard to accept that in another few days it would be Christmas. Rosie thought of the small Christmas presents she had laboured to make for her friends, the pretty lace-trimmed slip she had saved so hard from her wages to buy for her mother and the warm woolly socks she had knitted for her father.
She spent the rest of the day at the nearest WVS shelter, grateful for the help she was given by the women on duty there, especially the one who offered to take her pillowcases to her own home for her and wash what clothes could be salvaged. She also introduced Rosie to an undertaker and went through with her the necessary arrangements.
It was late in the afternoon as Rosie was helping to entertain a small group of children, like her made homeless by the bombings, when she looked up and saw her father standing watching her.
Clumsily she got to her feet, hesitating instead of running to him as she wanted to do as she wondered how much he knew.
‘Have you heard – about the bomb and Mum?’ she asked him, eyes brimming.
He nodded, and opened his arms, and Rosie stumbled into them.
‘How did you find me?’ she sniffed. ‘Have you been home…?’
‘Not yet. Young Rob Whittaker had left a message down at the docks for me, saying what had happened and where you were. So I came straight here. I’ve bin given compassionate leave whilst everything gets sorted out.’
‘They said that Mum wouldn’t have known anything. She wasn’t…she just looked like she was asleep…’
She saw the look of anger that crossed her father’s face and asked him, ‘Dad, what is it? I did not mean—’
‘It isn’t you, lass. You shouldn’t have had to deal wi’ summat like this. I should have bin here with you. Aye, and happen if I had your mother might still be alive. She was allus on at me to give up the navy…Where’s your things?’
Rosie explained about the pillowcases and the kindness of the WVS woman.
If anything, her father looked even more savagely angry. ‘You mean you’ve got nothing? No clothes, no roof over your head? You’ve had to sleep here?’
‘Everyone’s in the same boat, Dad. Or at least those who’ve been bombed are. I was talking to a young woman last night and she’s been homeless for six weeks.’
‘Mebbe so, but that’s not going to happen to you. Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To your Auntie Maude’s, of course.’
Rosie hung back, remembering how unwelcome her aunt had made her feel the evening she had gone to visit her, and knowing she couldn’t cope if she bad-mouthed her mother even now, but her father had enough to deal with, without her complaining to him about his sister.
An hour later her father was knocking on his sister’s door. Rosie watched as her face lit up when she saw him, only to frown again when she realised that Rosie was with him.
‘We’ve come to throw ourselves on your charity, Maude,’ Rosie’s father announced. ‘A bomb hit the house last night.’ He paused and then finished quietly, ‘Christine was killed in the blast.’
There was not a word of shock or sympathy over her mother’s death, Rosie noted, as her aunt instructed them to come in.
‘It’s a mercy it was bombed before you got home, Gerry. What time did it happen, only I should have thought that Christine would have been at that job of hers at the factory, seeing as the siren didn’t go off until after tea.’
‘Mum hadn’t been feeling very well.’ Rosie felt obliged to protect her mother’s honour even if she was well aware herself that it was a sham. ‘I was on fire-watch duty, otherwise I would have been with her.’
‘Don’t go asking the lass any questions now, Maude. The poor girl’s had it all to bear and no one to help her.’
‘Well, she could have come here if she’d wanted to, I’m sure.’
‘We’d been trying to save Holy Cross church so I didn’t find out until late on about…about everything…It was Rob who told the WVS woman and somehow or other I ended up at the shelter. They were very kind there – helped with…with everything…and then when I went back this morning Mrs Harris from three down had been out and salvaged what she could for me. Not that there was much, and what there was was covered in soot and dirt.’
‘I’ll get the kettle on. You’ll be ready for a cup of tea, our Gerry. Rosie, don’t you go sitting down on one of my clean chairs in that dirty fire-watch suit. I must say I don’t approve of the way you young women are wearing such clothes in public.’
The
re could not have been a more marked difference between the affectionate way her aunt spoke to her father and the harsh rejection with which she addressed her, Rosie recognised, as she exchanged looks with her father.
‘Have a heart, Maude. The poor kid hasn’t got anything else,’ he defended her immediately. ‘I reckon she’ll feel much brighter once she’s had a bath and got some clean clothes on. Lucky I brought you a few things home with me from New York, Rosie.’
‘A bath, is it?’ Rosie heard her aunt sniff disdainfully. ‘And where does she think the hot water’s going to come from for that, may I ask? A stand-up wash is what she’ll have to make do with.’
‘She needs a bath, Maude. If heating the boiler’s the problems then I reckon I can get you a bit of extra coal. There’s a few chaps down at the docks owe me a favour or two. You go up, Rosie, and take your time, lass.’
Rosie could hear her aunt’s sharp voice protesting to her father as she took advantage of his ability to win over his sister, and hurried up the stairs. Normally her pride wouldn’t have let her accept the cold charity her aunt obviously did not want to give, but right now she couldn’t afford to listen to her pride.
Her aunt’s bathroom was Spartan and cold, just like she was, but Rosie was too appreciative of the opportunity to wash off the accumulated dirt of her night fire fighting to care.
Standing in the bath, she flannelled off the worst of the dirt before running what little hot water she dared into it to enable her to soak for long enough to get her cold body warm as well as clean.
She had just stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in a towel when she heard a knock on the door and her father’s voice calling out, ‘Rosie, I’ve left you some things outside the door. They were meant to be for Christmas but I reckon you need them now.’
When she opened the door there were two large, beautifully wrapped parcels outside it. Picking one up, she started to unwrap it. Inside she found some underwear in silk and satin, and as she smoothed her fingertips over it, Rosie knew immediately that this had been a gift her father had intended for her mother. She hesitated, remembering how the undertaker had asked her about clothes for her mother to wear and how she hadn’t known what to say or do, but then the practical side of her nature, hardened by the experience of war and shortages, reasserted itself and she reminded herself that currently she was without so much as a change of knickers. Also inside the parcel were stockings, scent and a lipstick, and finally a twinset in her mother’s favourite shade of red.
Tears pricked her eyes again. She wondered if the lovingly selected gifts had been meant as a peace offering, as a sign that he wanted to start over.
In the other parcel Rosie found what she guessed had been her father’s Christmas present for her: stockings, a lovely soft tweed skirt and a bright red sweater, along with some scent and a pair of lovely soft kid gloves.
Once she was dressed, Rosie went back downstairs, feeling a bit self-conscious in her new clothes, especially her new underwear.
Ignoring the disapproving look her aunt was giving her, she went over to her father and kissed the top of his head.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said softly.
‘I hope that you’ve left my bathroom properly clean,’ her aunt demanded.
‘Of course she has, haven’t you, Rosie?’ her father answered for her. ‘She’s a good girl, is my Rosie, and the two of you are going to get on a treat. Why, I reckon the next time I come home on leave you’ll be telling me, Maudie, that you can’t imagine life without my girl.’
‘We’ll have to see about that. Christine was never much of a housewife – or any kind of wife at all so far as I could see – and I doubt that she’s taught Rosie the way I’d have taught a daughter of me own how to go about things.’
‘That’s enough of that, Maude.’ Rosie was surprised at how very stern her father suddenly sounded. ‘I’ll not have you speaking ill of the dead. My Christine’s gone now, God rest her.’ Rosie’s own eyes filled with tears when her father stopped to withdraw his handkerchief from his pocket and blow his nose fiercely. ‘Christine did her best and I don’t want to hear another bad word about her.’
Rosie could see her aunt wasn’t very pleased.
‘Well, you’ve always bin a loyal husband to her, Gerry. But there’s something else I am going to have to say,’ she continued defiantly. ‘We have standards up here in Wavertree so there’ll be none of that getting overfamiliar with young men I’ve heard goes on in some places these days.’
‘Rosie’s young man is a very good sort, Maude. You’ll like young Rob.’
‘He isn’t my young man, Dad,’ Rosie protested, red-faced. ‘He’s just a friend, that’s all.’
‘Well, whatever he is, if he comes calling round here you’ll only see him under my supervision. Now what arrangements have been made about the funeral? It’s going to be very difficult to do things properly with it being Christmas.’
Rosie had to fight hard to hang on to her temper and to keep the hot words she longed to utter to herself for her father’s sake.
‘The undertaker told me that they were busy, on account of the number of deaths caused by the bombs,’ she told her aunt expressionlessly. She turned to her father. ‘I didn’t know what you’d want, Dad, so I’ve asked if Mum could be buried at the church where I was christened, seeing as you and Mum married in Manchester.’
‘Aye, lass, that’s a good idea.’
Rosie could hear the emotion thickening her father’s voice. As bad as this was for her, it must be so much worse for him. She reached out and took hold of his hand, ignoring her aunt’s disapproving glare, glad that she had done so when he returned her gentle touch with a warm squeeze of his hand.
‘They…they asked me about clothes…but…I’m to go tomorrow to the shelter and the WVS woman said she’d bring our things back then, washed. She did say that they have some secondhand clothes but—’
‘Don’t you worry about it, Rosie. I’ll make sure it’s sorted out and that your mum has something pretty.’
Rosie gave her father a grateful look.
‘I’ll put you in the front bedroom, Gerry. Rosie, you’ll have to sleep in the boxroom.’
‘Maude, why don’t you give Rosie the front bedroom? I’m only here for a few days. I can manage in the boxroom; it will be bigger than I’m used to on the ship.’
Rosie could see that her aunt wanted to argue but before she could say anything they heard knocking on the door.
Her aunt got up to answer it and when she came back she had Rob Whittaker with her.
‘I’ve just explained to your friend, Rosie, that I would have preferred it if he had called first during the daytime.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rob said, red-faced, his embarrassment making Rosie feel angry with her aunt and protective towards him. The sight of his familiar face was such a welcome relief after the turmoil of the last twenty-four hours that she reacted far more emotionally to seeing him than she was used to. Now she could really see how much she cared for him, how kind and compassionate he was. But could she love him? That was a different matter.
‘There’s no need to be sorry, lad,’ Rosie heard her father reassuring Rob. ‘I’d have thought the worse of you if you hadn’t come round just as soon as you could to see how Rosie is. I wanted to thank you as well for making sure they knew what had happened down at the shipping office.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, but I was on duty. How are you, Rosie? Mrs Norris said you’d been round. I’m sorry about…about the room and everything…’
‘That’s all right, Rob. I quite understood.’
‘What’s all this about then?’ Rosie’s father demanded warily.
‘Rob suggested that I might be able to lodge with his landlady, but she wasn’t able to help. There’s so many people homeless now,’ Rosie answered him vaguely and, she hoped, diplomatically. But she could see that her father was frowning and looking upset.
‘Why would you go asking stranger
s to take you in, Rosie, when you’ve got family nearby?’
Rosie avoided looking at her aunt as she said quietly, ‘I thought it best not to bother Auntie Maude, Dad, and…and…well, at least with Mrs Norris I’d have been nearer to home and to…to Mum.’
‘Aw, lass, I’ll never forgive meself for not being there with you,’ her father told her emotionally.
‘It’s not your fault, Dad.’
Father and daughter looked tenderly at one another and then fell silent.
‘How is everything…the arrangements and that? I mean, if there’s anything I can do…’ Rob broke the sad silence awkwardly.
‘A funeral is a family affair, young man, and I’m sure that my brother doesn’t need any help from outsiders to do what’s proper.’
‘Now then, our Maude, there’s no call for you to go speaking to the lad like that. I appreciate your offer, young Rob, and I’d appreciate it too if you wouldn’t mind doing what you can to help Rosie when I have to go back to sea.’
‘You don’t have to ask, Mr Price,’ Rob answered immediately. ‘There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Rosie.’
‘Rob…’ Rosie protested, but she could see that her father was relieved.
Typically, her aunt didn’t invite Rob to sit down or offer him a cup of tea, and when Rosie got up, intending to see Rob to the front door, she stood between them in a very pointed manner until Rosie’s father shook his head and said gently, ‘Let them have a few minutes on their own, Maude. Rosie’s a good girl.’
‘Well, if that’s true it will be a wonder with that mother of hers as an example,’ Rosie heard her aunt mutter as she escaped from the parlour with Rob and went with him to the front door.
‘I’m right sorry about Mrs Norris refusing to take you, Rosie,’ he whispered fiercely when Rosie opened the front door. ‘She didn’t mean anything personal by it.’
‘But now that Dad’s home he’d have wanted me to come here to my auntie’s anyway.’