Rosie (3 page)

Heather couldn’t help but view the whole family in a romantic light. Two boys as dark and handsome as their father, a little girl growing wild because she had no mother to guide her. She didn’t even think to ask Cole why he hadn’t been called up during the war, she was sure there must be some very good reason. When he asked if she would consider coming to look after them, she said she’d think about it, and give him her answer in two weeks’ time when he returned to London.

The two weeks seemed endless. Each day it became clearer to her that there was nothing for her in London. Her room was tiny and dark, she had no real friends, no family or boyfriend, and she felt she was too plain to ever find one. London was full of sad, painful memories too. Maybe in time she would forget the terror of the Blitz, the exact sound of a doodlebug or that pungent gas and plaster smell that hung in the air after a bombing, but she knew that whatever else might ease with time, her lost brother’s face would be as clear in her mind in another twenty years as it was now.

She had her bag packed with her few belongings two days before Cole arrived for her answer.

Heather was sitting outside in the sunshine drinking a cup of tea when Cole and Rosie came back. She had worked like a slave for two hours, and she was just resting while the floor dried. She still hadn’t gone beyond the kitchen. An unpleasant smell from behind the henhouse in the orchard directed her to the lavatory. It was quite the worse she’d ever seen, a stinking, dark, spider-ridden privy, but she hadn’t the strength to tackle that today.

Rosie came rushing through the gate, excitement in her periwinkle-blue eyes.

‘Dad got lots of special things because you’ve come,’ she blurted out breathlessly, sitting down beside Heather and sliding her hand into the older girl’s. ‘It took us a long time because Dad had to get some of the things from people he knows.’

‘The black market?’ Heather asked, looking up. Cole held a bulging canvas bag and a sack stuffed with something.

‘Kind of,’ he grinned. ‘Rationing don’t bother us too much round here, we got our own ways.’

Rosie disappeared into the kitchen but burst out again almost immediately, her eyes huge as millstones. ‘Dad! Dad! Come and see what Heather’s done. It looks real grand.’

Cole put his load down by Heather and went in to inspect. Like his daughter he came back grinning from ear to ear. ‘It looks like I got your number right,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘I ain’t seen it looking like that for many a year.’

Heather glowed. She felt certain that Cole was as unaccustomed to doling out praise as she was to receiving it. ‘I’ve put the curtains in to soak and those easy chairs need new covers,’ she said, but the questions she’d intended to ask him were immediately forgotten as she opened the sack beside her and saw two dead rabbits staring up at her.

She’d seen rabbits hanging in butchers’ shops of course, but she’d never imagined buying the whole animal and having to deal with skinning it.

Cole laughed at her horrified expression and fished them out by the back legs, dangling them teasingly in front of her face. ‘They’ll need to hang for a coupla days, but I’ll skin them for you, don’t you worry. Take a look in the other bag.’

Heather had never seen so much food outside a shop in her life. Flour, sugar, dried fruit, jam, margarine and bread, a parcel of fresh meat, butter in waxed paper, cheese and bacon, and a whole heap of vegetables. He had got cleaning materials too: more soap, soda, wire wool, Jeyes fluid and a tin of beeswax polish. She could hardly believe what she was seeing – the shortages in London were so chronic it would take a fortnight going from queue to queue to get just half of these items. She looked at Rosie helplessly and the child smiled.

With that one smile Heather knew she would grow to love this child.

‘We get the eggs from the hens,’ Rosie said. ‘I collect them up. I know all their hiding places, and I’ll show you an’ all.’

It was after eight that night when the whole family sat down around the kitchen table to eat the liver and bacon and mashed potatoes Heather had cooked. She was a bit tiddly as Cole had given her a couple of glasses of cider, but perhaps that was just as well because it took the edge off his two sons’ rudeness.

Their arrival at seven had shattered the peace. First the roaring of a motorbike, then the stamping of heavy boots across the yard. Both boys were filthy dirty with mud up to their knees and Seth, the older one, had slung two huge, still-wriggling eels into the sink before he so much as glanced Heather’s way.

As Cole had already said, the boys were so alike they could have been twins. An inch taller than their father, but with the rangy slenderness of youth, they shared the same black hair and eyes, olive skin and razor-sharp cheek bones. But although they were undeniably handsome with their tanned faces and perfect teeth, somehow the special something which Cole had, that sparkle which drew the eyes and warmed Heather’s heart, was missing in his sons.

‘So you’re the bint from London?’ was Seth’s first remark to Heather, his cold black eyes travelling up and down her body making her squirm inwardly like one of his eels. ‘Shouldn’t think you’ll take to it here.’

Norman wasn’t quite so unpleasant. He remarked on how nice the kitchen looked and told her not to worry about the eels because he’d skin them later. But even he gave her the impression that he was fearful of how a woman in the house would interfere with their freedom.

Heather asked them both nicely if they would mind taking their boots off out in the porch, but they ignored her and flopped down in the two easy chairs regardless of their muddy trousers.

‘Rosie, take Heather upstairs,’ Cole snapped and Rosie, who had been helping peel the potatoes, jumped to it, grabbing Heather’s hand and leading her to the narrow winding staircase in the corner of the kitchen.

‘Dad’s going to blast them,’ Rosie said as she led Heather into the small bedroom they were to share. It contained nothing more than a double wooden bedstead and a small chest of drawers. There weren’t even curtains at the window and the bed was unmade, grubby sheets exposed. Yet the room pleased Heather for she had been just a little anxious that a country man like Cole would think a housekeeper should share everything with him, including his bed.

‘Blast them?’ Heather repeated; for a moment she thought the child meant Cole was going to take the shotgun she’d seen in the porch to his sons.

‘You know, bawl them out, clout them,’ Rosie said nonchalantly. ‘He just don’t want to do it in front of you.’

The walls and floorboards might have been thick enough to blot out the row that ensued, but the windows and doors were wide open and Heather heard every word.

‘We don’t want some cockney tart bossing us around.’ Seth’s voice was sullen.

‘This is my house and I’m master in it,’ Cole roared. ‘Heather ain’t no tart, and if you don’t like her being here, then you’s can just piss off out of here for good.’

‘But Dad,’ Seth was whining now. ‘We was gettin’ on just fine on our own.’

‘We lived like pigs, and you two were wallowing in your own filth. But I didn’t bring Heather here for your benefit, I brought her here for our Rosie. I don’t want my daughter growing up like you two ignorant beasts. Now get those boots off, and put them in the porch, wash up and go and change your clothes before supper, or you’ll get nothing. And take those blasted eels outside, they’re enough to terrify anyone.’

The sudden silence in the kitchen then the splash from the pump in the back yard proved that the boys were obeying, however reluctantly.

‘Are your brothers always like this, or is it just because of me?’ Heather asked. Even before the boys came home she had been apprehensive about them. Rosie had shown her their bedroom and it stunk worse than a stable, of a mixture of stale urine and sweat. Rosie had airily explained it away by saying Seth often wet the bed when he’d been drinking. Heather hoped she wouldn’t be expected to wash his sheets; she drew the line at grown men’s messes.

‘Norman’s not so bad, when you get him on his own,’ Rosie said, anxiously touching Heather’s arm as if afraid she was about to run off. ‘But Seth’s horrible. I’ll be glad when he gets his call-up.’

Heather’s cooking pleased all three men. They wolfed it down and mopped up the gravy with thick slices of bread. Heather didn’t like the way the boys ate with their mouths wide open or their many belches, but at least they seemed more kindly disposed towards her. Whether this was due to ‘the blasting’ or just satisfied hunger, she didn’t know, but Seth said she was a good cook as she cleared the table, and Norman invited her outside to see him skin the eels.

They were still alive, wriggling and squirming even though Seth had cut their heads off.

‘It’s just like peeling off a girl’s stockings,’ Norman said with a lascivious grin and proceeded to run his knife down one of the eels’ underbelly and show her what he meant. ‘Ever eaten eels?’

‘Jellied ones,’ she said, thinking she’d never eat another one as long as she lived. ‘Is that what you’re going to do with them?’

‘No, these are for a mate of mine, he smokes ‘em. Me and Seth don’t like ‘em much. We only catch ‘em to sell ‘em. You wait till the nights we go for them proper. We catches hundreds on the right night of the year when they’re trying to get back towards the sea. We can make fifty quid from a good night’s work and Dad takes them up for the Yids in London.’

Heather looked down at the two skinned eels still wriggling in the basin and shuddered. She had a feeling that before long she’d be witnessing many more country skills that would make her want to run back to the civilization of London.

‘What about having a bath and letting me wash yer ‘air?’ Heather suggested to Rosie after the men had disappeared off to the pub. She had gathered that this pub was some two miles away, and she had a feeling the men wouldn’t return until after closing time.

She still hadn’t given Rosie the fairy story book she’d brought with her from London. Cole had said Rosie was a good reader and she’d already demonstrated this by reading out something from the
Picture Post.
Heather almost wished she hadn’t brought the book now, as it would mean she’d have to admit she couldn’t read any more than the simplest words herself.

‘But Sunday is bath night,’ Rosie said, her blue eyes wide with astonishment. ‘It’s only Saturday.’

‘Where I come from we ‘ave a bath when we’re dirty,’ Heather said. ‘And I don’t believe that ‘air’s bin washed since Christmas.’

‘It has,’ Rosie said indignantly. She didn’t feel intimidated by Heather; she was nice, and it was good to have company – the evenings always seemed very long on her own.

‘Well I fancy a bath ‘an all.’ Heather decided she must make certain she didn’t embarrass the girl. ‘So let’s lug it in, shall we? I’ll let you go first!’

As Heather sat beside the tin bath washing Rosie, she was reminded poignantly of her mother, and all she had taught her. She could remember being bathed like this herself, her hair washed, then rolled up in rags, and being made to clean her teeth with a little salt. Heather’s clothes had been just as shabby as Rosie’s and she’d often gone without shoes too, but her mother had instilled in her the need for hygiene, and that was one thing which was badly lacking in this household.

Heather lit the oil lamp before taking her turn in the tub. Rosie was sitting on a chair wearing a too short tattered nightdress. Her damp hair looked so beautiful in the lamp light, spring-like coils of burnished copper bouncing on her thin shoulders and framing her pink and white face. As Heather washed herself she became aware that the little girl was looking curiously at her.

‘Will I get those big things?’ Rosie said at length.

Heather giggled. ‘Of course you will, luv, all girls do when they get to thirteen or fourteen.’

‘Why?’

Such a question saddened Heather: it showed just how much Rosie had been deprived of by losing her mother.

‘They’re for feeding your baby when you get married.’ ‘

What, like cow’s udders?’

As Heather had never seen a cow before today, and that only from the truck, her knowledge of their anatomy was limited. But as milk came from them she assumed they did serve the same purpose. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. They fill up with milk after you ‘ave a baby. Up till then they are just like mine. Ain’t you ever seen a mother feeding her baby?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘What’s the hair for on your tummy, then?’

Heather didn’t know the answer to that and said so. ‘It just comes around the time you get breasts, it’s all part of turning into a woman.’

Rosie was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Why do Dad and the boys have those dangly things then? We haven’t got those.’

Heather blushed. At Rosie’s age all she’d known was that Thomas’s thingy was called his ‘Johnny’ and hers had been called her ‘Millie’. She certainly hadn’t had any idea why they were different, or what they were for. She had eventually found out from girls at the laundry during the war, and most of that seemed very rude. It didn’t seem right to try and explain any of it to someone so young, certainly not on her first night.

‘They’re connected with ‘aving babies,’ she said. ‘But you are too young for me to explain any of that just now. I’ve got a book in my bag for you. Let me get me nightie on and this water chucked out, then we’ll look at it.’

Rosie was still awake long after Heather had blown out the candle and fallen asleep beside her in the double bed. The window was wide open and a full moon was shining right into the room. She wished it was bright enough to read some more of the lovely book.

She was really glad her dad had brought Heather back with him. She was lovely. Funny, chatty and kind, even if she couldn’t read. She hoped very much that Seth and Norman wouldn’t upset her, and that Dad wouldn’t get into one of his tempers and frighten her.

Three months later on a warm September evening, Rosie was up in the hayloft in the barn at Shank’s farm in Burtle with all the other young children from the surrounding villages. She felt like a princess in the new apple green dress with puffed sleeves and smocking across the bodice that Heather had made her. She had no intention of getting into any rough games which might spoil it.