After the Storm (19 page)

Annie felt the weight of the crystal solid in her hands and observed with mild interest the speed at which it dropped on to the floorboards. The nuggets of shattered glass exploded about her feet and were pretty as they reached the corners of the room. A room which was so beautifully silent now that she was able to watch the spreading stain loose it’s amber tone and merge into the darkness of the floorboards in perfect peace. Tom flung down his napkin and left the table which was now beginning to seethe with outraged mutters.

‘Don’t worry, Annie.’ He took her hands and understood her look of satisfaction as she stepped over the remains. He squeezed her hands.

There Da, she shaped. There is nothing left of you but a mucky floor and you never liked mess did you?

Her eyes were dry as they had been since his death and left Tom and looked beyond him at the table as she moved towards the door. Ma Gillow’s mouth had fallen open. Albert was
taking more sherry. Don was glowering at the loss of the family heirloom, she realised. God was still stroking his moustache and Sarah Beeston met her eyes and nodded her approval.

She started up the stairs. No loose ends now, Da, eh. There’s even the redemption ticket for Don to reclaim the watch, but what about the running sore that twisted and clung throughout her body and wept with no sound. She walked along the passageway to the bathroom, looking curiously in the mirror at a face which had not changed. It was the same as last week and it should be so different.

Next morning her limbs were still heavy and her face was still stiff as though it had never been used. Even speech was an effort. Annie stood in the yard and heard no sounds beyond the yard gate, not the laughter that was pitched high by the crisp snow which she had watched falling throughout the night nor the scrunch of boots as they packed soft whiteness beneath their concerted march. She heard only the snuffling breath of the pony and saw the white vapour disperse gradually into the vast space beyond their two figures. The sun was bright and sharply etched the gables and the water tub, like one of Tom’s charcoal drawings. The ice was loud in its breaking and reared sharp-pointed before settling in patterns around the rim. There were several shards, clear as diamond splinters, in the tin which was used to ladle water into Beauty’s trough.

It had been difficult to pass from the crook of warmth against the pony’s side not because of the cold but because her feet would only move if dragged forward by a demand she found she was reluctant to form, but the restless shift of Beauty’s weight forced her.

His coat was dry but not unyielding and she stood again with her arm along his mane, her face pressed into his smell and his snorting and bubbling filled her world and she found a satisfaction in the sweep of his neck, the stretch of his throat as the water protested and swirled but was drawn in nevertheless. Even the ice was gone and all that remained was a long slick of saliva which hung from the left side of his mouth as he raised his head but this too lengthened and snapped as he coughed and shook.

‘Bit cold was it, my pet?’ she murmured. ‘Sorry, lass.’

And she felt her voice begin to shake and at last there were tears in her eyes, then coursing down her cheeks. She should
have warmed the water and she hadn’t and now she wept, racking sobs which she knew were only partly for the pony and mainly for that lonely, wretched man who had been her father. In spite of herself she could feel his despair as it must have been, his hopelessness, but to leave her, to leave them all as he had done was not a clean death. She could not grieve for him properly because it was ruined by anger at his wanting to go and leave them all behind to continue a life he had found unbearable. She gripped Beauty’s mane, gulping in air. Trying to stop. I am in despair too, she cried, but I want to go on living, fighting, getting out of here to something better. I just don’t understand how you could do it. The pony pawed the ground and moved backwards, unsettled now, and Annie lifted her head from his neck, sniffing hard, forcing herself to smile, taking in a deep breath until the shuddering ceased. It seemed to take forever. She rubbed the pony’s nose.

‘I’m going today, Beauty, going to Albert. Tom’ll take care of you. Probably do him good, give him something of his own. His Aunt’ll let him come on his way to school. He’ll want to see Betsy anyway.’ Her lip trembled again as she remembered how Betsy had wept when Tom had left; she had leant on the door and sobbed a moaning sort of crying that went on and on until Annie had left the room. She knew that Tom had been crying too, from the set of his shoulders as he passed down the street, walking next to the cart that took his bed and mattress and a bundle of clothes. May’s was only two streets away but to Betsy it must have seemed like the end of the world.

Again Annie felt the confusion of feeling, the pain that gave way again to rage this time because her da had killed himself and she and Tom had nowhere to live. He should have made sure Joe would have them before he did it. Then Tom wouldn’t have to leave Betsy and she wouldn’t have to go to Albert who couldn’t wait for her to start, which filled her with foreboding because she had always felt he loathed her guts.

She heard the knocking on the gate and hid her face against Beauty as it opened. She did not want anyone to see that she had been crying.

‘What are you doing there, lass? It’s your death of cold you’ll be catching.’ Ma Gillow hurried on past. ‘Come on in, for the love of God.’ The kitchen door slammed behind her and her footprints were clouded by the scuffing of her long black skirt.

‘Silly old fool. She’s a witch you know, Beauty. Wears long skirts and reads tea leaves. I reckon the greedy old fag just fancies food and drink she hasn’t paid for.’

She felt shaky still but more in control.

The back door opened again. ‘Will you get in here now, Annie. Albert doesn’t want no germs in his house and that’s all you’ll be taking him if you stay out there much longer.’

Annie heard the words but let them carry past her and disappear into a sky she now saw was blue. How strange to see that she thought. It was like seeing Grace’s mam’s primroses in the window-box telling you that spring had come. The streets wouldn’t tell you in any other way.

‘If you don’t come in here, lass, I’ll come out there and belt your hoity-toity backside. Thirteen and she thinks she’s a bloody princess. It’ll be the Prince of bleeding Wales she’ll be escorting to the races next.’ Raucous laughter greeted this sally and Betsy slammed the door again. There’d been more in Betsy’s mug than tea this morning, Annie realised.

The long mane hairs caught round her fingers as she moved away and Annie was glad at their resistance to her going.

‘I’ll be back one day, my love,’ she whispered.

They were bunched over the table as she had known they would be. Elbows planted and hands possessing steaming cups which they dropped their heads down to in a way which would have tightened her da’s mouth but here her thoughts snapped shut and she fought against the sweat which seemed to swamp her body and the trembling which laid her open. Why couldn’t Tom be here? Why couldn’t Don have stayed a little longer? Don’t think, don’t think of anything except this minute. Look, there’s Betsy staring at Ma Gillow.

She had passed her cup across and now her lower lip hung red and full and looked as though it would drool as it often did and Annie hoped it would not since the bread was just beneath her and she had not eaten yet. Quickly she slid on to the chair opposite Betsy and moved the bread but Ma Gillow was too close so she moved the chair further to the end, bringing the loaf with her. There was no hunger in her but it was important to prove she was untouched by sorrow. The bread was dry and her throat small but no one was watching anyway.

‘What do you see, then?’ Betsy breathed. Ma Gillow rotated
the cup, tilting it away, then setting it down. She pursed her mouth.

‘Times is hard,’ she announced and glanced at Betsy who sat back in her chair.

‘You don’t need to see that in the tea leaves, just step outside that door.’ Betsy shifted with irritation. ‘What about something special?’

‘Nothing special today, Betsy lass,’ she said flatly, pouring herself another cup.

Betsy pulled at her lip and wiped away a streak of ooze. She looked round the table. ‘Well, what about Annie here? What about the skivvy job with Albert. Keen to have her he was, thank God. That Sarah Beeston didn’t like it but he’s family, you see. Is she going to do well? Tell you what, see if the School Board’ll find out she’s left before time. Should have done another two terms by rights but she’s a big strong girl, ain’t you, lass? Here, take another piece of bread.’

She broke off a piece of crust and pressed it into Annie’s mouth. Annie felt sick.

‘Give the lass a mug of tea, then we’ll see.’

It was just half a cup and easily finished. Anything to be left in peace, Annie thought.

Ma Gillow looked at the leaves, turned the cup about and checked again. Her face was puzzled.

‘Oh aye, she’ll do well,’ Ma Gillow murmured. ‘Won’t be with Albert mind. It’ll be with your Tom, it will.’

But it was to Albert that Annie first went. Into the kitchen with its rank odour of damp and unwashed dishes and then systematically through the rest of his house which was behind and over the sweet-shop, for that was all he sold now, that and cigarettes. It was a shop that smelt of nice things. Liquorice that could be unwound from its shoelace packet and rewound round fingers. Good for bowels, Betsy would have said and nodded her approval. Sherbet which frothed and stung the tongue on lazy allotment afternoons. Victory cough-drops which burnt out the back of your throat making it impossible to cough or even breathe. No wonder they worked, Georgie had gasped one winter. They clear out the cough by burning out the whole of your inside. Nothing left to make a cough, is there?

The smells did not creep beyond the thick oak door which divided the shop from the house. Here there was a parlour along
from the kitchen. It would only need a quick flick since the curtains stayed drawn to keep out the cold and Albert grunted that he never used it anyway. The outside privy was quite another matter though and the torn newspaper strung on an upturned hook broke through the grey apathy.

Skinflint, that’s what you are, she seethed inwardly. Black ink on me bum as well as chilblains! He was no longer with her but had passed back through the kitchen without a word and then on through the door which opened on to cupboard stairs which wound up to the next floor. There was no light and no carpet and Annie felt her way up following the squeak and creak of his boots. We’ll be a pair of Wee Willie Winkies up and down these stairs, holding a bloody candle, for there was no gas up here and she hadn’t yet seen an oil lamp.

‘Here’s where I sleep and I likes it clean,’ he wheezed.

It was a bare room looking out over the street with yellowed net curtains suspended halfway up on a horizontal wire. Nothing much else, just a bed and a chest with an oil lamp, thank goodness, and a hairbrush on top, though from the look of his thatch he wouldn’t be needing that much longer.

Annie wondered how long the long-stroked strands would stay swept over the balding patch once a wind got up. She was standing close to him and disliked the old man smell which lingered wherever he was.

‘Your room’s up those stairs. I’ll have tea at six when locking up’s done, me supper’s at nine and breakfast is half past six. I like it in a warm kitchen, mind.’ His stare was hard and then he was gone.

There was another door on the half landing which, when opened, showed a further set of stairs. The plaster was crumbly beneath her touch and damp with spots of green and black mould, thicker at the bottom than the top. Tom would think this was one of his abstract masterpieces, she thought.

Annie quite liked the room with its small window which overlooked the street and a ceiling which followed the line of the eaves and ended halfway down the walls. Like her uncle’s room, there was little in it, not even a net curtain or a chest. Not that anyone would be peeping in up here unless they were very desperate, she thought, or blind. The bed was small and not made up, but so what, she shrugged. Her bag took little room and she could put her da’s watch on the floor. She had not
wanted it but Don had left it in her room. It’ll get nicked at the stables, he had said. She wanted nothing of her father’s she had raged, but its usefulness overrode her anger and she was ashamed that pain could accommodate practicalities with such ease.

He was waiting for her in the kitchen, sprawled out in front of the fire in a chair. He kicked with his foot towards the coal-bucket. ‘Put some more coal on and then fill the bucket.’

She leant over and dug the rusty shovel into the coal and tipped it on to the fire. She was aware of him watching, grinning. His lips drawn in a hard line which slightly opened over long yellow teeth. Like one of those pub dogs, she thought, but there was no smell of booze on Albert. So that makes a change, she thought. She began to pick the bucket up but Albert said:

‘I’ll have a cup of tea first.’ She washed her hands, which were still winter raw, in the sink that had green slime beneath the tap where it dripped.

‘There’ll be no pay for you of course.’ He was tapping his knee. ‘Your keep and sixpence every two weeks. That’s more than enough spending money for a bairn of your age.’

She wouldn’t look round, she told herself and set her shoulders in a straight line.

Albert watched her. ‘You’ll get used to being a skivvy, looked down on wherever you go.’ He licked his lips. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you.’ His voice was rough, violent suddenly, and Annie turned, making herself do it slowly.

He was looking at her with a look of satisfaction.

‘Looked down on all me life I was, by the likes of you and your da. And look where he ended up. Down the bloody spout leaving everyone to sweep up his messes.’

‘I’m not one of his messes. I’m me own person,’ Annie retorted hotly, her back to the sink. He surged forward in his chair, his face ugly. A strand of his long hair slipped off his pate. She gripped the draining board, determined not to flinch. Bloody old fool, she said to herself, trying to control her fear. He was so big.