After the Storm (58 page)

It was later, much later that Georgie opened his eyes. Her hand was on his head. He stirred and his movement lifted Annie’s heavy lids. He rose and took her in his arms, carried her to the window.

‘The rains are lighter now, my love,’ he said softly and she nodded.

‘I want to go home, Georgie. I must go away from the heat, back to my house, back to walls that are solid, pictures I know. I want to breathe again. I want space to breathe, that’s all.’

‘Aren’t I enough for you, Annie?’

Her mouth was dry and she touched his hands which had pulled clover and held it to her lips, stroked his arms which she had bathed when they were stung. Touched his mouth which had smiled when she turned somersaults on the bar and she smelt again the leeks wilting in the heat on that summer day.

‘You are too much for me.’ And she did not know what she meant. ‘I’m in small pieces and I want to go home.’

His eyes were reddened and pain was drawn into every corner of his face and she knew that all she wanted now was to be away from anyone who had ever pulled at her. And as he had done before, so long ago in Albert’s kitchen, Georgie made it easy for her.

The gangplank was gone, the sprawl of India was retreating; the smell was of the sea and for six weeks she sat or walked the deck, breathing easily now for the first time since she left the camp. Her hair was thick with salt and her skin was white-smudged with it too.

It was winter as they docked, and crisp. The bare-branched trees and darkened green fields first filled the train windows as she travelled towards the North and then fell away in the face of ploughed fields lying fallow.

The train embankments were blackened from sparks and stubble fires. Small fields and small horizons, Annie thought. The seats were the same; they still prickled. The pictures behind glass above the seats were faded as they had always been.

As she walked up the path to the Gosforn house, the privet leaf snapped as she bent it between thumb and forefinger, and then there was Val. She came down the path, her arms outstretched and Annie stood quite still as she laid her head on that familiar shoulder. She did not weep but stood silent as Val rocked her, then walked to the door and into the sitting-room. It was so very much the same and she put her case down and held on to Val’s arm.

‘I’m so glad I’m home.’ The fire was in the grate, red and crackling but Sarah was not there.

‘Let me take your coat, my dear,’ said Val and kissed her cheek as Annie handed over the Harrods mackintosh that Prue had given her to brave the English winter. Her hands were cold and her cheeks too but it was a good feeling.

She woke the next morning and there was no sweat-drenched sheet, just a slow awakening. The black box had stayed shut when she had pushed the lid down. Was it over? Was the
darkness over now that she was alone and at Gosforn? But she knew it wasn’t; it was just waiting.

She lay with her hands beneath her head and looked up at Val’s knock. The blue cup on the breakfast tray was the same as she remembered. She traced its scalloped lines with her thumb and sipped slowly. Val turned on the electric fire and drew back the curtains.

‘Misty again,’ she said and walked across to smooth the sheet down. ‘Why don’t you stay in bed today? You look so pale.’ She had her hair drawn back in a bun and it was very white now, but she was still rounded, still as soft.

‘Val, I love you. I’m as brown or yellow as a bunka wallah. No one could possibly call me pale.’

‘Well, I do and Sarah would too, if she could see you now.’ She folded her arms across her bosom. ‘You are pale.’

Annie shook her head and leant back on the pillows. ‘We’ve a great deal to do, Val. I want to start on the house, get the business going. You don’t mind, do you, if I change things here?’ She was restless and fingered the sheet. She wanted to be busy, not to have to think. ‘It’s not that I want to forget Sarah, I’ll never do that. It’s just something that I’d like to do.’

Val smiled and walked to the fire, flicking on the second bar.

‘Do what you think best, lass. It would look good with a bit of paint.’

‘Paper mostly.’ Annie said firmly.

Val was standing by the window, rubbing at the condensation.

‘Has it changed you very much; this dreadful business, I mean?’

Annie picked up her toast. ‘I don’t know, Val. I don’t know about anything very much, any more.’ The marmalade was tart, the toast crisp and the butter hard. That was enough to be getting on with and she would feed the hens soon.

Tom read the letter which arrived in the morning as he was cleaning his boots. It was his day off from the pit.

October

India.

Dear Tom,

It will be early December when you receive this. Annie will be in England now. Look after her for me. She thinks I don’t understand but I do now. I love her you see, I always have and I always will. I want to come to her but won’t unless she decides she wants me. Her da comes between us, Tom. Makes her scared of loving me. Help me, Tom. Help her.

Georgie.

Tom put on his boots half cleaned and threw the letter on the table. Grace looked across from the sink, her sleeves rolled up, her hands red from washing.

‘We’ll not be going to Betsy’s for lunch,’ he told her as he took down his crash helmet and goggles. ‘Read the letter, bonny lass, then go and tell me mam we’ll be there this evening, Don too and that I’ll be bringing Annie round in the afternoon. I want to show her a few things.’ Bobby was playing by the table with bricks Bob had made and Tom had painted. He looked up at Tom and laughed as a pile fell over. Grace put the letter down again.

‘Be careful, Tom. You can’t go interfering in people’s lives.’

He turned as he went out of the door, his face firm and set. ‘It’s about time someone did,’ he said.

Annie stood by the wire. This new cock was as arrogant as the last had been. It strutted backwards and forwards just as the camp commandant had done. The wire dug into her hands and she made herself loosen her grip, rubbing at the deep red grooves it had made on her fingers. She didn’t hear Tom until he was almost by her side and then she turned and his face was grimy where the goggles had been.

It felt so good, so very good to have his arms round her, his blue eyes smiling down into hers. He was grey at the temples and he had far more lines than when she had last seen him. His
leather coat was cold against her cheek and she felt a calmness, a coming home. The hens were clustering at the gate and the cock was preening and flapping.

‘I was just going to feed the hens.’ She stood back and smiled at him. ‘You have always been such a bonny lad, Tom.’ She felt her voice begin to break so stooped and picked up the bowl, passing it to him.

He laughed. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come.’ He held open the run gate and stood with her and they threw corn from the bowl. He saw that she used her right hand, that her left had a finger which was crooked and misshapen.

‘So someone didn’t like your Ruby Red then, eh bonny lass? You and me is gimpy together.’ He tapped her hand gently and she smiled. The hens were pecking at the ground which was bare of grass now and hummocked like a bomb-blasted moor which had been rounded in the wind.

‘Is Don home yet?’ she asked.

‘Aye, we’ll be seeing him later.’

Tom lifted his head and tilted back his cap. He looked steadily at her but she turned from him, throwing the last of the corn to the furthest corner of the run.

‘Let’s go to the shed,’ he said softly and she nodded. They walked together past the laurel, its waxed leaves moving in the wind. She looked at her watch, it was nearly midday. The rice would be … She stopped herself and shook her head. Tom opened the door. Creosote still stained the wood but the smell was only there if you brushed close. The bike was rusted and the rubber grips had perished right through and lay on the floor. She moved to the window and rubbed at the glass and her finger came away grey. She looked out over the Thoms’ garden up into the sky.

‘So, my bonny lass, you came back. I always knew you would.’ Tom was squatting near the pile of sacks and dust rose in clouds as he picked at the frayed edges.

She nodded. ‘I wanted to come home. We have lots to do, Tom. I thought we could start on the house first. Try out some ideas, then go into production.’ Her breath was misting the glass and she rubbed at it but the moisture smeared so she pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped it dry.

Tom said nothing. Just sat on his haunches picking at the hessian and the smell was acrid.

She turned and his eyes were still looking at her steadily and this time she knew she had to answer the question he was asking her.

‘I had to come home without him. I needed to think, to get things sorted out.’

Tom still looked at her. ‘Get your coat on, lass,’ he said. His face was calm but firm. ‘We’ve some places to visit, you and me. It’s time we nailed this shadow, time you faced things once and for all. You can’t go on hiding.’

Annie stood rigid, gripping the cold steel handlebars of the bike. She squeezed the brake and it hurt her finger. She squeezed it again. She wanted the pain. It stopped her sinking beneath the fear which crept through her and lodged in her chest. Her stomach was tight and her shoulders rigid. She wouldn’t go. There was no way she would go back, even with Tom.

‘I’m not coming with you, I have too much to do here. The walls to strip.’ She thought of the cool green stripes for the dining-room but suddenly he was up off his haunches and standing before her. ‘Get your mac, hinny, you’re coming with me. We’ll take the Morris. You might as well come back as you left.’ He did not touch her, just looked and his eyes were dark and they saw right through her to the box and she knew there was no hiding from him.

The Morris breasted the hill and Tom drove it down towards Wassingham and there were the slag-heaps, bigger now but still with carts churning up the slopes showering dust on to the mountain which was growing each year. He drove her down into the streets which pressed together and shut out the pale December sun. There were no daffodils on window-sills to relieve the black-coated red brick and the windows were blank without the lights of evening shining out on the cobbled streets.

Down through the town, past Mainline Terrace and the bombed-out Garrods used goods shop. She and Tom had not spoken since they had left Gosforn. She did not want to. She was busy wallpapering the hall, but now as they rattled over the cobbles she could not hold the striped paper in her head. Could not hold the walnut table and the gong tightly to her. Women were walking with shawls over their heads, children were
playing football in the street and Tom stopped near the school, close to Wassingham Terrace, Sophie’s old street.

He switched off the engine and it jumped before falling silent. They sat and she rubbed her hands together. They were slimy and she ran them down her mac until Tom leant over and took them in his.

‘Don’t do that, bonny lass. You’ll wear out that posh mac of yours.’

She focussed on him then, on his warm hands as they held hers, on his eyes as they creased in his gentle smile, on her mac which Prue had given her. ‘I’m so very tired, you see, Tom.’ Her lids were heavy, she wanted to sleep, not to climb out in this place.

‘I know you are but this has to be done, my little lass. Out you get now. I’ll come with you.’

He took her to where she had first seen her father. She turned and looked down the street, bunching herself deeper into her mac, leaning back against the railings and their chill sank into her back as it had done that day all those years ago. It had been misty then and Don and a small man in a brown coat had come down the road, out of the mist. She saw them again, the boy and the man with his thin face and his hazel eyes; drawn and tired he had been, so tired. She held the railing behind her and it was so cold it hurt, but not as much as it had done on that cold winter day. There was no wind to chap licked lips today. She looked at Tom, her bonny wee bairn, but he was a man now, standing taller than her and holding her arm as the day turned dark and she saw the man and boy coming closer and closer through the mist.

‘It’s a fine day today, Annie,’ Tom murmured, and she saw the boy and the man stop and slowly go back into the mist which lifted as shadows of lampposts took their place and lay long across the cobbles and were crossed by the colours of the women who passed by them. She saw that two children were sitting on the kerb playing marbles; she heard the click as two collided. Tom looked at her and she nodded though she knew he had not yet finished.

The Morris started on the second try and Tom’s boots seemed too large on the pedals; she saw that one was shiny and one was dull.

‘Is this the new way of wearing boots these days, bonny lad?’
she asked, her voice strained, but he laughed as he steered the car away from the school and that misty day.

They stopped outside the front door. There were no railings now.

‘Gone for the war effort.’ Tom explained.

So Don and she would never know now whether they were sharp enough to pass right through someone. She sat still, wiping her hands, feeling the seat at her back hard along the seams where the leather was pulled into panels. Tom was out now and coming round to her door but she would not leave the car and go into her da’s house. No, that was too much of him to expect. He opened the door and the cold struck. She shook her head and he leaned in.

‘Come with me, we’re not going in yet, Annie. I have something else to show you.’ He smiled and his face was so dear that she pushed herself from the seat and held out her hand to him. He did not take it though, but took instead her arm since her distorted finger broke his heart almost as much as her eyes set so deep in her strained thin face.

They walked down the back alleys and although there was no frost it was almost the same as before but they were not carrying trays which stretched their arms and froze their hands. The smell of coal was in the air and decrepit back-gates hung in frames at the back of yards. Down they went, on through the lane which led out to the field, but it seemed so small now and there were only boys playing football in bright red shirts and they aimed at proper goals. She stood silent.