A Daughter's Duty (22 page)

‘I saw it among the job opportunities in the main entrance this morning. When you said you’d worked a sewing machine, I thought of it.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Of course, you’ll have to have an interview but I’m sure it will be OK.’ He walked to the end of the bed before turning back. ‘And you’ll have to give them your real name. And if you don’t know where your identity card is, then you will have to apply for another.’

Rose had to give a sample of her sewing but she was good and fast from having to do piece work in the factory at West Auckland when she’d first left school. When she left the hospital, clutching a piece of paper with the address of what the almoner called ‘a good, clean lodging house’, she had the job.

‘Start next Monday, nine o’clock sharp,’ Mrs Timms said. She was the housekeeper, or domestic supervisor. ‘It’s mainly plain work, mending sheets and pillowcases and such, and keeping the uniforms in good order. We have a nice set of women here, friendly like. Two pounds ten shillings a week and your dinner.’

She had looked Rose over, noting her pale face, the shadows under her eyes. But Dr Morris had assured her that there was nothing really wrong with her, she just needed time and good food to build her up.

‘Mind, don’t you go gadding about this week, take it easy,’ she advised. ‘Some walks by the sea, that’s what you need. I’m a believer in good sea air. Well, I’ll see you next week, I haven’t time to be standing here talking.’ She had bustled off, keys jangling by her side, a round little woman with iron-grey hair pulled back in a bun that was fashionable three decades before.

Rose found the address on the paper easily. The room in the lodging house was tiny, up in the eaves of the old house near the docks, but it was clean and the narrow bed comfortable. The almoner had arranged for her to have an advance on her wages to be paid back at five shillings a week.

These first few weeks were going to be hard but she would manage. She had to. If only she had some assurance that Michael and Mary were all right. She felt so betrayed by Aunt Elsie, so alone. Yet surely her aunt wouldn’t let anything bad happen to the twins? She loved them, didn’t she? In bed that first night, in the strange room with the strange sounds from the sea and the docks, Rose cried a little. Then, determinedly, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and turned over to sleep. Worrying would get her nowhere and she needed her health if she were to be able to help the twins at all. But inside she couldn’t help weeping for them.

‘There’s a letter for you,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Though why you should have your personal mail sent here I do not know.’ He pretended to be stern but Marina knew him well by now, he was just a softie underneath. Besides, now she had the job on the tabulator and already had her sights on the next rung up the ladder, she was becoming quite an important cog in the accounting-machine department at least. After that, who could tell?

He picked up the letter and looked at the stamp. ‘London, eh? Who do you know in London?’ He caught her expression and, smiling, handed over the card. ‘None of my business, eh? No, of course it isn’t. Now we’d better get started – there’s a lot to do today. Salaries, grants for university …’ He sighed in mock sorrow. ‘No one ever gave me a grant. Money for nothing, eh?’

‘Yes, Mr Brown.’ Marina’s answer was mechanical. She was staring at the handwriting on the envelope, not taking in what was written at first. Waves of relief swept over her. Oh, thank God, Rose was all right, she was fine! She had to be or she couldn’t have written a letter, could she? Sometimes in the night when Marina woke or when she was feeling down, she had wondered if Rose was dead. Something could have happened to her. In the light of day she agreed with what Brian said must have happened: Rose had simply gone away, she was getting on with her own life. And here was proof. Marina tore open the envelope as she walked to her locker.

‘
I’m OK, Marina
,’ Rose had written. ‘
Living it up in London. I’ll write again
.’ Nothing else. No mention of Jeff or her baby or anything. No address. But she was all right, she said she was. Oh, praise be! Though as time had gone on the worry about Rose had faded into the background somewhat, it had still been there and now Marina felt as though it had rolled away. She couldn’t wait to get home and see Brian.

‘We’ll go through to Easington and tell Jeff,’ was the first thing he said. ‘We’ll go tomorrow. See, I told you she would be fine, didn’t I?’

It was Friday evening and the couple were in Kate’s kitchen. As usual Brian had called for Marina. They were off to the Majestic picture house where
The Greatest Show on Earth
was showing. The summer of 1949 was a warm one and Marina was wearing a starched cotton dress, white with red sprigs on it, and a red cardigan to match. She looked a picture, Brian thought proudly, her brown hair shining and healthy, cut in the shorter style now coming in with a fringe across her brow. She was so happy about Rose and it was good that she felt like that for her friend. Like himself and Jeff it was.

‘Have you thought of telling Alf Sharpe?’ asked Kate, and at Marina’s blank look added, ‘Well, don’t you think he would be interested? He is her father, after all.’

‘We should tell him, Marina,’ said Brian quietly.

‘Oh, you tell him if you like, I’m not going near the old toad,’ she said flatly. ‘Now, are you ready?’

‘You’re not going on the back of the motorbike dressed like that, are you, my girl?’ demanded Kate, and Marina pulled a face but caught up her duster coat and took it with her.

She loved riding on the Norton, her arms around Brian’s waist, her head pressed into his back and her hair wound up in a scarf against the wind. Passing the bus as it trundled its way into town was great. And it felt like they were flying down the last hill and then up again the other side, the engine loud in her ears as Brian revved up to reach the top.

They parked opposite the cinema and he took her arm as they crossed the road. He bought her Maltesers at the kiosk inside the foyer for at last sweets were off the ration. They sat in the back seat of the balcony and Brian put his arm around her shoulders and Marina felt warm and happy as they watched the main feature and ate the chocolates.

‘We would have had to walk home if we hadn’t had the bike,’ she remarked as they came out into the moonlight. ‘The last bus will have gone by now.’ She lifted her wrist and peered at the watch which Brian had bought her for Christmas.

‘It would have been great walking through the fields,’ he said, grinning. ‘No one else about. We could have got up to all sorts of things …’

‘Oh, you!’ said Marina and felt that familiar pang of excitement mixed with apprehension. Brian must have guessed there had been something between her and Charlie when he saw them together the afternoon of the wedding; that she and Charlie had gone ‘all the way’ as they said. Surely he had? But nothing had been said about it since then. Would he care that she was no longer a virgin? All the girls said a man could tell … Sometimes it had been hard to resist Brian when he kissed her, put his hands on her. Her body had leaped in response. But she had always managed to stop him before things went too far, fearful he would realise she was experienced. Experienced! She didn’t feel experienced, it was a daft word to use.

Oh, what the heck! she told herself. She wasn’t going to think about it. Brian started the bike and waited for her to climb aboard and she threw her leg over and tucked her skirt in decorously before leaning in to his back, hugging him to her. And away they went down Tenters Street and along the main shopping street to the road for Jordan. Brian stopped the bike at the yard gate and kissed her goodnight. Both of them had work to go to in the morning.

Marina hummed to herself as she ran up the yard to the back door, pulling off her scarf as she went. ‘Hi, Mam,’ she cried, in the manner of the actors she had been watching on the screen, ‘it was a great –’ She broke off as she saw her father sitting in his fireside chair, head bowed, and her mother standing over him, her hands balled into fists. Kate was shouting something at him, her face red with the exertion.

‘I told you, Sam Morland, I
told
you!’ Her voice was hoarse with shouting.

‘What, Mam, what? What’s the matter?’ asked Marina, the fresh colour in her cheeks from the wind in her face beginning to drain away. Her heart began to thump as she looked from one parent to another. She hated these scenes which had occurred too frequently when she was younger.

Kate turned to her daughter. ‘What do you think is the matter? What is it always with your father? It’s the bloody gambling! Well, it’s done for us this time. I’m telling you, the last straw, that’s what it is. I’ll never be able to hold me head up in Jordan again. Never, I tell you!’

‘Oh, Mam, it cannot be that bad,’ said Marina, desperately hoping it wasn’t. ‘Come on, what have you been playing at, Dad? Pitch and toss behind the slag heap, was it?’ She gazed at him. He was sitting in a clean shirt, fresh from his bath. It was collarless and unbuttoned at the neck and his Adam’s apple was bobbing convulsively.

He avoided her eye, moved automatically to get a cigarette from the mantelpiece, changed his mind and sat still, staring at the slippers Marina had bought him for Christmas. He curled his toes up in them, forming bumps in the plaid wool tops, straightened them, curled them again almost in a reflex action.

‘I’m sorry, lass,’ he mumbled, a picture of humiliation.

‘Sorry? You’ll be sorry all right! I’ll make you sorry.’ Kate leaned towards him, almost spitting out the words.

‘I’ll tell you what he’s done an’ all.’ She turned to Marina. ‘He’s been betting on the horses again. We’ve had a visit tonight from Johnny Green and that runner of his. Lives over the other side, hangs about the street corner – you know him, the long string of nowt! On the doctor’s panel he is, supposed to have hurt his back. No doubt getting compensation for it too. Anyway, they reckon your dad owes them a hundred pounds. A hundred! It might as well be a thousand for all the chance he has of paying it! An’ that’s not all! He owes half the village, that’s what Johnny Green says. “So what were you doing letting him get in that deep?” I asked. Not that I got an answer but I’m not letting that nowt talk down to me.’

The long speech seemed to have drained Kate. All the anger went out of her. She sat down at the table and put her head on her arms. ‘Never be able to hold our heads up in this place again,’ she muttered.

Johnny Green, thought Marina. The bookie from the town. If it was bad enough to draw him out to the village to seek out her dad then it was very bad.

‘Mam, it’ll be all right,’ she said, feeling that it would be anything but. She cast around in her mind for something comforting to say. ‘What about Lance? Can he not help?’ She thought of her own savings. She had forty-eight pounds towards her wedding.

‘Lance? There’s no help there. He’s off to Australia. At least that’s what he said tonight. I’ll never hear from him again. Following our Robson he is, and you know we haven’t heard from
him
for years. On a ten-pound assisted passage Lance is going. Him and that lass of his, Joan. They’re getting wed and then off to Australia he said, only tonight. That was the first blow. Seems she’s in the family way. Lasses these days have no sense of shame … I blame the war, it changed everything.’ Kate held her head in her hands, rubbed her eyes. ‘Australia. It just swallows them up, it does.’ She sat up and wiped her eyes with the bottom of her apron. ‘Aye, well, they’re best out of it. Let them make a life of their own, I say. I’ll just have to get on with it, won’t I? Mothers don’t count for nowt, not when a lad gets wed.’

‘Oh, Mam, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Lance isn’t like that. He’ll write, you’ll see,’ said Marina, though she wasn’t too sure herself.

‘We’ll see, all right,’ said her mother, then turned round and caught Sam looking at her. ‘And now this. Oh, Sam, will you never, ever learn?’

He bent down suddenly and changed his slippers for the highly polished boots he always wore to go out in.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she demanded.

‘Out.’

He wrapped his white scarf round his collarless neck and pulled on his old jacket. ‘I’m off, I cannot stand this.’ And he went.

Marina and her mother looked at each other. ‘Just like him. Spineless,’ Kate commented bitterly. ‘It’s me has to clean up the mess, always me.’

Marina shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Mam,’ she said. ‘You’re too hard on him. I think he was really upset.’

‘So he should be,’ her mother replied bitterly. ‘Well, I’m going to bed. I’m not waiting up for him.’

Someone was knocking at the door. A loud ‘ready money’ knock as Kate would call it, and on the front door, the one which was never used. Marina tumbled out of bed and groped for the light switch. She pulled a kimono over her pyjamas and put on her slippers.

The knocking came again, loud and insistent. ‘Are you in, missus?’ came the shout. Marina went out on to the landing, almost bumping into Kate as she came out of her bedroom.

‘It’s the polis,’ she said, eyes wide with fear. ‘Oh, my God, what has he done now?’

‘I’ll go, Mam,’ said Marina. ‘It’s probably nothing. Or nothing to do with Dad anyway. Where is he anyway? Is he not back yet? What time is it?’

‘Half-past four. No, he’s not back. Where can he be, Marina?’ She shook her head and headed down the stairs. Sam had gone off on other occasions similar to the one last night. He always came back in the end, when he thought the flak would have died down.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ she called as she went through the front room and tugged back the bolt of the door. It was indeed a policeman standing there.

‘Mrs Morland?’ he asked, stepping forward. ‘No, I can see you’re not. Is your mam in, ninny?’ he asked in a strong Geordie accent.

Wordlessly, Marina ran to the bottom of the stairs. Her mother had already come down, had heard every word.

‘What is it? Don’t keep him standing on the doorstep, our Marina, all the neighbours will be listening. Come on in, constable, and shut the door behind you.’ Kate led the way through the front room to the kitchen before turning to face him. ‘Well?’