Reach for Tomorrow (17 page)
Rosie had wanted to ask Tommy why he was telling her all this but she hadn’t liked to. Something in his manner had stopped her. She hadn’t known quite what to say but had ventured, ‘Well, perhaps she will?’
‘No, lass, no.’ He had fixed his eyes on her. ‘I’ve known Zac all me life an’ there’s no changin’ him once he’s made up his mind about somethin’. I’ve got me own idea about why he finished it but Zac’s a deep one an’ he don’t discuss his private affairs with no one, not even me.’ There followed a pregnant pause when Rosie felt he was waiting for her to say something, and when she remained silent he had said, ‘Still, there’s nowt I can do about it, but it’s a cryin’ shame. Janie suited him.’
Rosie had pondered about the matter for days before putting it behind her, but since then it was as though a door had opened in her mind and she had been unable to see Zachariah in quite the same way. Before the incident with Tommy he had just been Zachariah - her friend, teacher and confidant too at times. But after Tommy’s revelation about this Janie who loved him she had begun to see him as a man and it had disturbed her. It was probably the conversation with Tommy which had prompted her to ask Mr Green about Zachariah’s parents shortly afterwards. She had never forgotten her employer’s comment about ‘the sins of the fathers’ at her interview. Mr Green had been embarrassed at first but he had told her briefly, and stressing that no one knew for sure, that it was the general opinion of folk hereabouts that Mary Price had never been married. ‘’Course she wore a wedding ring, and she liked to put it about she’d been wed across the water, in his country, but folk aren’t daft, lass.’ This second discovery had bothered her less than the first but it had all added to her disquiet.
Still, all that was Zachariah’s business, it was nothing to do with her. Rosie stretched wearily. But now he was back she’d go and ask him to keep an ear open while she went round her grannie’s. She couldn’t sit here another minute, but there needed to be someone available to let Molly in should her sister return while she was gone.
‘Are you barmy, lass? There’s no way you’re walkin’ the streets by yourself.’ Zachariah’s tone was adamant.
‘I’ll be quite all right.’
‘Aye, you will an’ all, because you’re not goin’. If there’s any lookin’ to be done I’ll do it. What’s the old lady’s address?’ And then, as he took in the stubborn line of her mouth, he added, ‘See sense, lass, now then. You’re no bairn an’ you know the sort of women who are out this time of night on their own, I don’t have to spell it out. It’s not goin’ to help the lass if somethin’ happens to you, is it? Give us your grannie’s address an’ I’ll be off, an’ ten to one she’ll be knockin’ on the door the minute I’m away.’
Rosie gave him the address and once Zachariah had left she sat without moving in the splendid red and gold sitting room, her knees tightly together and her hands joined on her lap as she stared into the glowing embers of the fire. Her mind had stopped questioning what Molly had been up to. She knew. Deep in her heart she had known even before she’d shown the dolly bag and its contents to Zachariah and seen the way his mouth had tightened. Had Ronnie Tiller actually taken her down? It seemed likely, but whether Molly would admit to it was a different matter.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone out tonight? But no, she couldn’t stay in every night, she just couldn’t. The weekly excursions to the Kings Theatre in Crowtree Road with Flora and Sally were her one indulgence, and they always brought back fond memories of the Saturday afternoon matinees when she was a child. Sam and Davey had taken her and Flora and any of the other children who had their pennies for the entrance fee to see the silent films, and they had all scampered up the stone steps to the top of the gallery, there to sit on low forms as they goggled at the film and watched the pianist banging away at one side of the theatre on the old piano.
And now both Davey and Sam had gone. She had scarcely been able to believe it that day - over two-and-a-half years ago now - when Flora had come round almost hysterical with the news that the ship Davey had been on had sunk off the Bay of Biscay. She hadn’t even known Davey had signed on. She’d often wished since that Flora had never started work in Baxter’s shipping office because then they wouldn’t have known. She could have imagined him out in the world somewhere, alive, happy, perhaps working towards buying that little farm he and Sam had dreamt of, without the shadow of the pit hanging over him.
The darkness that the thought of Davey’s death always produced came over her and Rosie shrugged it away impatiently as she jumped up from her seat and began pacing the floor. No dwelling in the past. That brought weakness and she needed to be strong now more than ever. She was going to continue to try to hold this family together no matter what was hurled against them, and there were plenty of others worse off than them these days with more and more men being sucked into the deadly mire of unemployment and despair.
She still had to watch every penny, with the four of them to clothe and feed and the rent to pay, but with the extra two-and-six a week the supervisor’s job had brought, and the other rises she’d had since starting work, she was now managing to pay Zachariah five shillings a week rent - something she had insisted on despite his vehement objections that he didn’t want a penny more than the original three-and-six. Of course most weeks she was robbing Peter to pay Paul out of her eighteen shillings less stamp, and the long hours, six days a week, could be exhausting on occasion, but she had been fortunate, so, so fortunate, to get set on at the Co-op and she knew it. If she’d got work in a factory she would have been lucky to clear ten shillings, and the laundries and such paid no better.
A sound from the street caused her mind and her body to stop, but when there was no knock at the door Rosie resumed the pacing, but now all her energy and will was concentrated only on her sister and she was praying.
Some miles away Molly too was praying, but it was to her sister, not her Creator, that she was calling. Oh, Rosie,
Rosie
. She was walking blindly through the dark night and she had no idea where she was going. Rosie, tell me what to do, tell me what to
do
. . .
Rosie
. She was walking blindly through the dark night and she had no idea where she was going. Rosie, tell me what to do, tell me what to
do
. . .
It had been all right at first when she had got to her grannie’s. Ronnie had been waiting for her like he always did when she managed to make it on a night he knew her grannie and the others would be out, and they had gone straight upstairs. She liked it better when they did it at her grannie’s, she always felt scared when he met her somewhere else and they went to the waste ground at the back of the chemical works or walked down past Ryhope to the sands or the fields. She didn’t mind what she did at her grannie’s so much, but some of the things he still wanted when they were out . . . You couldn’t, you couldn’t do things like that in the open. Well, she couldn’t.
Ronnie had said she was beautiful, that she was his own bonny lass and that he’d wed her as soon as she was old
enough and take her away from these parts, but it had all been lies.
enough and take her away from these parts, but it had all been lies.
She rubbed her hand across her wet salty face as she called out to her sister again, but the vivid pictures on the screen of her mind wouldn’t go away. She had been sitting on the side of Ronnie’s grubby bed - she hated that about her grannie’s, the smell of the bed and the general filth and squalor - and she had just finished dressing when the door had opened. She had been frightened they had been found out by Fred or Gerry, the two men Ronnie shared the room with, because she knew they would tell her grannie and her grannie would tell Rosie, but she had never seen the three big men who were standing in the doorway looking at her. She had glanced at Ronnie, and he’d had a funny little half-smile on his face, his eyes bright, and then she had known - even as she hadn’t quite been able to believe it - and a terror so great as to be paralysing had gripped her.
He had watched. Ronnie had watched the whole time. Molly made a tortured little gasping sound but her footsteps didn’t falter. He had
enjoyed
seeing what those men did to her. And afterwards, when they had all put money on the bed and told her to buy herself something nice and that she was a good little lass, she had wanted to die. She had pulled on her flannel petticoat and her dress and coat, but she hadn’t been able to find her drawers or one of her socks, and after pushing her feet into her boots she had half fallen down the stairs in her desire to escape. And then she had started running.
enjoyed
seeing what those men did to her. And afterwards, when they had all put money on the bed and told her to buy herself something nice and that she was a good little lass, she had wanted to die. She had pulled on her flannel petticoat and her dress and coat, but she hadn’t been able to find her drawers or one of her socks, and after pushing her feet into her boots she had half fallen down the stairs in her desire to escape. And then she had started running.
‘You all right, hinny? You shouldn’t be out this time of night, where’s yer mam or yer da?’ The old man was bent and thin, and the wrinkled face was kind, but the sight of him was enough to send her running pell mell down the long narrow alley and further into the web of back streets and passageways surrounding the docks.
When Molly reached the docks themselves she stopped running. As always at eleven o’clock on a weekday night the waterfront was populated with a collection of ne’er-do-wells, and there were men who called out to the enchantingly beautiful girl as she passed, but Molly ignored them all. Indeed it was doubtful if she even heard them. It was the dark black water that was drawing her on to the edge of the quayside.
She couldn’t go home again, not after what had happened. The thought spun in her head as she looked down into the faintly swishing water. They would want to know where she had been and she couldn’t bear to tell them and see their faces. She shuddered violently. No, she couldn’t go home.
‘Bit close to the edge, ain’t you, lass.’ She froze at the sound of the deep male voice just behind her and then, as a pair of burly arms went round her waist lifting her off her feet, she began to struggle and scream. The sailor’s companions were offering increasingly ribald suggestions as to what he should do with her, and he had just clamped one big paw across her mouth stifling her cries, when another voice said, and quite quietly, ‘Let go of her.’
She was free in the next instant, and as the sailor was saying, ‘Aw, Charlie man, I was only lookin’ out for the lass, she was a sight too near the edge,’ one of the two women standing with the said Charlie reached out and drew Molly to her.
‘You’ve had yer fun so sling yer hook.’
Again the voice was very quiet but the sailor and his pals didn’t need to be told twice.
‘You all right, hinny?’ Molly had seen Charlie nod at the woman who had her arm round her, and when the woman - who was dressed very brightly and had lots of hair piled up high on her head - bent down and looked into her face her voice was soft as she continued. ‘You come with us, pet, me an’ Jessie’ll look after you.’
Molly blinked at her.
‘Jessie?’ The name registered through Molly’s shock. ‘Me mam’s called Jessie.’
‘There you are then, lass.’ And as Charlie gestured again the two women moved either side of Molly and began to walk her along the quay with the man bringing up the rear as he limped behind them.
It was only a minute or two before they entered a house near the docks and there were more women sitting in the room immediately off the street, but her new friends led her past them without speaking and into a smaller room. This room was warm, even cosy, with a big coal fire and thick rugs on the floor, and when the woman called Jessie pushed her down in an armchair in front of the roaring flames and said gently, ‘Come on, lass, you tell old Jessie what you’re doin’ here this time of night, ’cos I can tell you’re a nice little lass,’ the tears began to flow again.
‘I . . . I’m not nice.’
‘Oh aye, aye you are, hinny. Now you tell me what’s wrong an’ we’ll see what we can do about it. Won’t we, Lil?’
Lil nodded, her bleached hair looking as though it would crumple like dried-out grass if it was touched.
It was after Molly had related the events of the night that the man appeared again, as though he had been waiting behind the door, but he didn’t approach her, merely handing Jessie a tray on which reposed three glasses of what looked like wine. He touched one of the glasses with his finger as he said, ‘Get the bairn to drink that, it’ll do her good.’
The cherry wine was very sweet and Molly drank it with the two women sitting either side of her as they talked soothingly, and with the warmth from the fire and the feeling that she was safe again she suddenly began to feel very sleepy. So sleepy she just couldn’t keep her eyes open . . .
Every time Zachariah paid a visit to the East End he found himself reflecting that he wasn’t surprised Sunderland still had the highest infant mortality rates in the country.
How was it, he asked himself as he loped as fast as he could through the cobbled back lanes with their oozing lavatory hatches and heaps of rotting rubbish, how was it that the wealthy shipbuilders and mine owners - most of them patrons of the arts and architecture - could shut their eyes to the way whole communities were forced to live? But they did, oh aye, they did all right, and with over one-and-a-half million men unemployed nationwide, and it getting worse by the day, the outlook was bleak for Geordies.
It was all well and good for the Glasgow socialists to send MacDonald that congratulatory telegram on his election as Labour leader saying ‘Labour can have no truck with tranquillity’, but would they be living in filthy, stinking slums while they made their fine speeches on the Opposition front benches?
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