After the Storm (3 page)

‘This room’s hardly changed at all, my dear,’ he said after a moment.

Sophie smiled. ‘But we have.’

They looked at one another and were comforted. She sat and beckoned Archie to the other fireside chair. He sat down
carefully as though he were a person who had been ill.

‘It was all such a rush last time,’ she murmured. ‘It was difficult to …’ she paused, searching for words, ‘to approach the future.’ She gestured helplessly. ‘I didn’t know how to help you.’

‘Sophie, it’s all right. I’ve sorted things out a bit now, made some plans.’ He paused. ‘They’ve grown so much. Don’s a real lad now, though it’ll be good to get him away from that shop.’

Sophie nodded, her eyes darkening. Archie continued.

‘It was a mistake. Albert is not the one to look after children. I was wrong to agree but he seemed to want it so much, but that’s in the past now. And Annie, well Annie’s so like Mary isn’t she?’

He leant forward resting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped tightly. Sophie watched the taut face with concern. The fire’s half-light accentuated the shadowed eyes.

‘Damn it Sophie, I still find it so hard.’

He pressed his fist to his mouth, his eyes dark and years away. She leant across and held his other hand, saying nothing, letting the minutes drift by along with her thoughts. She knew now that he had come for the children and logically, emotionally even, it was right that he should. Dear God, he had little else and he was a good man, but how broken was he, she wondered anxiously. She pushed the thought away to the back of her mind. Eric was still talking of Australia; it had been their alternative should the worst happen and there could be nothing worse than losing Annie. They had the money saved and they would go, go as soon as Annie was gone.

Her headache was throbbing and there was an ache which filled her throat, one which she knew would spread this evening and which would always be with her no matter whether they were here or in the heat of a new land. I must not think about this now, she told herself. I will think about it in small pieces, that way I can bear it. She forced her shoulders down, taking deep breaths, composing her body into a calmness which was essential for them all.

She wished Eric would come home soon, his shift must be nearly over. It would be so much easier if he were sitting on the settee, his hands held loosely, his eyes gentle and calm.

‘Tell me about your ideas, Archie,’ she prompted. ‘Will you stay in the army for a while. I never expected you to stay in after
the armistice. You could have been back two years ago. It seems strange?’

Ignoring what was really a question, Archie explained that he had finally left the service. ‘There was,’ he added awkwardly, ‘the chance to rent back one of my father’s shops.’

He brought out his pipe, knocking it against the hearth before he unfolded his tobacco pouch carefully, just as he used to, Sophie noticed. The pungent moist smell was one she had not thought of for six years. It had always been their Christmas present to him, a two ounce tin of Player’s Navy Cut.

He pushed the dark shiny fibre neatly into the bowl before lighting it, relishing the absorption of the task but knowing that he must speak to her of the things he had arranged. How to tell her that in what he planned there was no disloyalty to her dead sister since he dealt only in practicalities these days. Since the war had seen fit to pass him along to the end he had to exist but his survival made him bitter.

There was that time when he should have died, the day there was no wind to blow the gas across. The day he had been called a murderer by someone whose hand he could still feel clutching at his leg. He ran his hand over his face, snapping the shutter down. Would he never shake off that voice or this tiredness which now dragged at his heels? Though it must drag even more for those who stood on street corners, filling in empty days in this land fit for heroes. He, at least, had a job to go to now and it was all comparative anyway, he told himself briskly. For God’s sake though, it was hard not to think of the good years but the love of my life is not here any more so let’s get on with the next bloody lifetime.

Sophie was startled when he spoke, he had been silent for so long.

‘You see Sophie, this shop is owned by Joe Carter who bought it off us when we had to sell out. He’s had enough and wants to lease it.’

‘But what about the children?’ she interrupted.

‘I’m coming to that.’ He smiled nervously. She was so very much like her sister. ‘Elisabeth Ryan housekeeps for him.’

‘So you’ll employ her?’ she interrupted again.

‘Not exactly. You see it’d look bad, her being young and with the lad.’ He finished in a rush. ‘I’ve asked her to marry me.’

Sophie was stunned, then perturbed, at a loss for words.

She eventually asked slowly, ‘But do you love her Archie?’

He drew on his pipe, tilting his chin as he exhaled. Her blue eyes were confused as he explained.

‘No, I don’t love her and I doubt that she loves me but without Joe she’s homeless. Not many want unmarried lasses with bairns these days; there aren’t that many men around any more. I want my children with me, then maybe I can make sense of things, and I can’t have them without help. Let’s just say we need one another.’ He looked at her seriously. ‘Barney, her fiancé, was killed at Ypres in ’15. I was there but later.’ His voice tailed away.

Sophie shuddered thinking of Eric’s leg which had been saved even though he had been in a Somme shell-hole for thirty-six hours after being shot. They said it was the maggots which had kept it clean, free of gangrene, but she preferred to consider it a miracle. A shaft of compassion for the girl went through her. At least she’d been lucky enough to have her man return and if Elisabeth had a child of her own she would know how to care for the children. She found it helped to concentrate her mind on the facts.

‘When will you take them?’ she asked, meaning when is my Annie to leave me.

He stood up. ‘I thought a week on Saturday might suit us all, I’ll have a word with Albert about Don. I can get moved in by then and Elisabeth has agreed to marry me that morning. Don’t want to close the shop longer than necessary; can’t risk losing custom. I must get on my feet you see.’

She saw his hands clench and unclench at his sides and nodded though suddenly she was unable to sympathise with his reduced circumstances because a violent spasm of outrage had gripped and held her. She fought to keep it from her face but she wanted to scream at this man for taking Annie from her, just because he was her father. And it was this word which cut through the anger and made her shoulders sag and her lips tremble. She forced herself to rise calmly, banking the fire carefully and repeating that word – father – because of course Annie was not her child. Annie was Archie’s. Replacing the shovel, she turned towards the door, still unable to meet his eyes but she repeated the question she felt she had a right to ask and which he had not yet answered.

‘But why have you stayed away so long?’

Her hand was on the doorknob; she would not pass through until she had an answer.

Archie paused a moment. ‘I couldn’t come earlier,’ he pleaded in a whisper, fearful that the children might hear the conversation, now that they were so close to the door. ‘I had to sort something out first, have something to offer the children.’ His long slender fingers sought her understanding. But inside he knew it was nothing so honourable, just a long blank series of weeks, months, years, where responsibilities were ignored, buried beneath the noise of ghosts. He was ashamed that it was still without any real interest that he had finally come to take up the pieces. It was simply that there was nothing else to do; he was finished as a soldier; the shaking and the nightmares were too bad. Now he needed to cling to something which belonged to him, to try to find a measure of peace. Therefore he had come to claim his family and rent his shop.

Sophie waited but he said nothing more.

‘Will you tell them your news or shall I?’ Her voice reflected her troubled doubts. Every breath was difficult now.

‘Perhaps we both could,’ he replied, laying his hand on her arm, delaying their entrance. ‘And Sophie, I will never be able to thank you enough for taking Annie in for these four years. There is a spark in those eyes of hers which makes me feel,’ he searched for the right word, ‘interested. Heaven alone knows what would have happened to them both without you to sort it out.’

‘Your cousin, Sarah, helped a great deal you know. She’s always been there, should I need her and she has, without fail, sent the children Christmas and birthday presents. I thought you should know.’

Archie smiled. He was not suprised. Sarah, the daughter of his father’s cousin, had always been a good friend to Mary since their marriage and to him as well.

Sophie continued. ‘One thing I haven’t yet done, although Annie asked so often in the early days, is to tell her how Mary died. She never mentions it now but one day she may hear from someone else.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps you should be the one, not some spiteful gossip.’

Glad that she had found the courage to say what she had long felt, but not hopeful about the result, Sophie opened the door into the hall and then walked through into the kitchen and the
throb of young life met them instantly, softening the tightness of their faces.

‘Anyone for scones,’ she called, smiling love as Annie won the last game of Jacks and Eric’s voice called from the yard.

Betsy leaned against the iron mangle, arching her back in an effort to relieve the ache which dragged at her body. The washroom was the last to be swept, scoured and polished and now the copper shone and she longed to run her hands over its round shine-splashed shape; it looked so warm to the touch.

The ceiling was free of webs which had cocooned spiders all through the long winters but the drab green walls would never look as sparkling as they really were. The sun shafted in from the skylight but it was still dark in this basement section of the house. She could hear, but not see, passers-by as they hurried to where they were going. She straightened, rolling each shoulder in turn, proud of the stiffness of hard work and reached for the shawl which had been flung aside as the sweat had pricked then run down her back when the scrubbing-brush and hearthstone had whitened even the back step. She clicked at herself and said out loud:

‘For Pete’s sake, bonny lass, they’re only a couple of bairns arriving, not the princes of the land.’

‘Aye,’ she answered laughing at herself, ‘but they’re to be my bairns so they’re better than the King himself.’

She winced as she dried her hands on her coarse apron, the sacking rasping and scratching her work-reddened and swollen hands. Her eyes were pale blue and her lips full and red. Her hair was brown and curled at the temples, the rest was drawn back into a bun and she tucked in the pins more securely. Her hands shamed her and she pulled her cuffs down, the same cuffs that she had nervously pulled this morning at the service. Thank the Lord there was no photographer she thought, and was relieved to see that they contrasted less against the blue cotton than they had against the stark white of her arms.

She traced the raised veins with a puffy forefinger and shook
her head. Barney had kissed them and called her the Queen of Sheba and promised her rings for her pretty soft fingers. Well, that’s a long time ago now she thought and it should have stayed at fine words but it had not so that was that. The clock in the upstairs hallway chimed but the number was too distant to register so she hurried up the steps, through the kitchen, then on up into the hall.

‘My God,’ she gasped. ‘Four and the buns still not in and they’ll be here soon.’ Her hands flew to her hair. She could feel the thick damp strands hanging heavy with sweat on her forehead, released from the bun by her rush up the stairs. Her nose and cheeks felt greasy with the shine of labour and there was no tea ready.

She felt her body begin to shake and the hot waves of panic and fatigue swept her first to the stairs leading to the bedrooms, then to the front door until finally she rushed back down to the kitchen.

‘Calm yourself, girl,’ she urged. ‘Just get them buns on. Tom will do at Ma Gillow’s for a while longer, then when they come give them bread to toast on a fork, bairns like that.’

She looked in the pantry. ‘There’s the ham and pickle, they can go on the plates now. And talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.’ She carried plates and breadcrumb-coated ham back to the table. Grey ash lay thick where there should have been glowing coals in the grate. The oven set into the left of the fire held barely any heat now and the hotplate on the right was only warm. Betsy shovelled coal on gently, trying not to spurt the ash up into the air only for it to settle on her polished and wiped surfaces.

‘Just a few for now,’ she breathed, then held up an old newspaper to try and provoke a draught. It was no good. ‘Oh God damn it,’ she swore and rushed to open the outside door, the paper flapping in her hand. At last there was sufficient air to try and suck the flames up the chimney and what did it matter that the cold raised goose-bumps on her flesh if only the coals roared enough to heat the oven. At last they did and before the newspaper could yellow with the heat she pushed it back into the kindling box, grimacing at the blackness of her hands, the smudges on her apron. She rushed to shut the door, confident that the fire would burn quickly now. She added more coal, still gently, then stood momentarily at a loss.

‘Come on, get ’em washed, then do the bliddy buns. And don’t you swear like that,’ she aped her mother, scrubbing her hands then rushing and spilling flour and water, almost in tears. The bowl was already on the table but the buns were soon too wet and stuck to her hands as she tried to mould them.

‘More flour, that’s all you need, hinny,’ she soothed herself but her voice was shaky and high in the chaos. ‘That’s right, take a deep breath and then bang them in the oven.’

The smart of the oven heat on her tender raw hands made her gasp and two of the buns lurched on to the flag-stoned floor whilst she saved the others only by steadying her arm against the open oven door. The searing white pain brought everything to a stop. The spreading whiteness of the dough at her feet barely registered and tiredly, mechanically, her panic cut through as though sliced from her by a cleaver. She slid the tray, hard and real between her thumb and forefinger, into the dark of the oven. The door clanged shut and carefully she slotted the latch home.