Reach for Tomorrow (43 page)
Davey and Flora stayed on for an hour or so, but all four were more than a little relieved, for reasons peculiar to each one of them, when the goodbyes were said. Once the door had closed behind Davey and Flora Zachariah made sure it was locked and bolted, and the downstairs windows secured with the wooden shutters tightly fastened.
As was his wont, Zachariah tiptoed into his son’s room before he retired for the night, and he stood for a long while gazing down at the sleeping baby. He was glad Davey had told him about this latest, and although it might be nothing he would have it checked out.
There was a certain contingent down at the docks that were always ready for any sort of dirty work; they were nothing but scum, but scum could always be bought. For the right price they’d blab on their own grandmothers. Aye, he’d have it checked out, and carefully, because there was more than his own self to worry about these days.
Zachariah’s expression softened as he gazed on the small form in the cot, who - so everyone was fond of saying - got more and more like him every day, and there came over his whole body an enervating wave that carried fear in its depths. He adored Rosie, he worshipped the very ground his wife walked on, but this feeling for his son - it was unlike anything he had ever imagined himself feeling for any human being. He was unable to put a name to it, the simple word love didn’t even begin to cover the height and breadth of what burnt in his soul every time he watched his son smile and reach out with his chubby little arms and kick his fat legs; he knew that however many other children he and Rosie might have, and whatever their dispositions and attributes, this child would always hold first place in his heart.
‘I thought I’d find you in here.’
Rosie’s soft smiling voice from the doorway brought his head swinging round and now he returned the smile, his eyes warm as he followed her out onto the landing. Rosie put her arm in his and like that they walked into their bedroom. She needed Zachariah to make love to her tonight. She needed to feel him inside her, strong and powerful, as he took what was rightfully his. He was a skilful lover as well as a considerate and thoughtful one, and she knew she was lucky in that respect. Although it was never talked about openly in an explicit way, the odd remark by this woman or that, and the many conversations that had gone on amongst the housewives when they were waiting for their orders at the Co-op or just standing about gossiping in corners, had suggested that some men treated their wives with as much finesse as a rutting stallion. But even in the throes of passion, when Zachariah did things she blushed to think about in the light of day, he made her feel treasured. And she was grateful for that, she was. It would have been so much harder if that side of things hadn’t been good.
She didn’t let her mind dwell on
what
would have been harder, she never did, not since that moment on New Year’s Eve when her glance had locked with Davey’s and she had read what was in his eyes, and now in repudiation of the shadow of the thing she had to keep buried and dead, she said, ‘I love you, Zachariah. Come to bed,’ and he, reading what was in her face, didn’t need to be told twice.
what
would have been harder, she never did, not since that moment on New Year’s Eve when her glance had locked with Davey’s and she had read what was in his eyes, and now in repudiation of the shadow of the thing she had to keep buried and dead, she said, ‘I love you, Zachariah. Come to bed,’ and he, reading what was in her face, didn’t need to be told twice.
Since her marriage Rosie had come to rely more and more on Sally’s warm, uncomplicated friendship. It had been a means of brightening some of the dark moments her estrangement with Flora had caused before Christmas, but it was more than that. Sally’s tall thin body and ugly face hid a capacity for love and understanding that was quite remarkable, and so Rosie felt it all the more keenly when, the evening after Davey and Flora had told her of their engagement, Sally and Mick called by with the news that they were leaving Sunderland for Ireland.
‘I don’t want to go.’ Sally had wrinkled her nose as she spoke. ‘But him, he sees himself as a gentleman farmer now! Isn’t that right, Mick?’
‘Aw, go on with you. It’s daft you’re talkin’, so it is.’
‘See? I swear his accent has got ten times worse since he found out his grandda’s left him a smallholdin’ back in the “old country”. That’s what you call it now, isn’t it, Mick, the old country? An’ here’s him only been over “the watter” twice in his whole life!’
‘All right, all right.’ Mick was taking his wife’s ribbing in his usual goodnatured fashion. ‘I can’t help it if me grandda liked me the best of our bunch, can I? You oughta be glad you’ve married into wealth anyway.’
‘Wealth!’ Sally’s voice was scathing. ‘A bit farm with a few pigs an’ cows, an’ chickens that don’t know which end to lay an egg by the sound of it.’
‘You don’t want to listen to all me brothers say, now then. It’s jealous they are, the lot of ’em. Me grandda’s farm was a nice little place from what I remember of it.’
‘Aye, from what you remember of it. An’ how old was you on your last visit?’ his wife asked caustically. ‘Refresh me memory.’
‘Old enough.’ And at her raised eyebrows, ‘All right, ten.’
‘I rest me case.’
‘Aw, come on, Sal. Don’t be takin’ it like that, lass.’
‘An’ there’s all the trouble out there, an’ it’s got worse, not better, since the Free State treaty. Tell him, Zachariah.’ Sally flung her arms wide as she appealed to Zachariah. ‘Tell him we’ll wake up to find we’ve been murdered in our beds.’
‘An’ you call
me
Irish!’ And then, as Sally went to say some more, ‘Look, I know you’re worried, lass, but me grandda’s place is in a nice quiet spot in Southern Ireland, added to which there’s plenty of me mam an’ da’s family still livin’ near. We’ll be goin’ to family an’ that makes all the difference. An’ our own place, lass. Think of that.’
me
Irish!’ And then, as Sally went to say some more, ‘Look, I know you’re worried, lass, but me grandda’s place is in a nice quiet spot in Southern Ireland, added to which there’s plenty of me mam an’ da’s family still livin’ near. We’ll be goin’ to family an’ that makes all the difference. An’ our own place, lass. Think of that.’
Sally was clearly unconvinced but just as clearly resigned to the inevitable, and as she looked into Mick’s large rough face, his eyes bright with anticipation, she shook her head slowly before saying, ‘Oh well, where thou goest, I goest.’
It wasn’t what Mick expected and as he stared at her, his mouth slightly agape, she turned to grin at Rosie and Zachariah as she winked and said, ‘See? I can still knock him bandy.’
Oh she’d miss Sally. Even as she laughed with the others Rosie felt a dart of pain at her forthcoming loss. Things were going to change and they would never be the same again. Her mother and Hannah were spending more and more time at Mr Green’s little house on the outskirts of Hendon, close to Hendon beach. Hannah loved playing on the sands with Mr Green’s next-door neighbour’s children, and although her sister’s timid disposition - so unlike Molly’s - made her frightened of the sea, the stream running through Backhouse Park that went into the culverts, or cundies as they were known locally, in the Valley of Love and then came out on the beach, kept her down on the sands with the other children all day long.
Then there was Flora and Davey engaged to be married and already they were talking about moving away. Davey had made out the night before that it was due to the rising unemployment in the area caused by the increasing stranglehold on the mining communities and the steelworks by the government, but even she knew it was the same the whole country over. All right, maybe the north was being hit worse than most by the depression, but he and Flora would be comfortable enough with the money her parents had left her and all. But then, wouldn’t it be better in the long run if they left for the south? Yes, it would. It most certainly would. Her thoughts were emphatic.
And now Sally and Mick were going too, and she couldn’t blame them. Mick was right to go. Even the Co-op had cut back on its staff lately, and who knew who’d be the next to go? And Mick would find it impossible to get work if he lost his job there. There were a hundred or more men to every job nowadays, some of them having walked miles in the vain hope they might get set on. And it wasn’t just the older men, the ones past working age, who hoarded their Woodbine ends in little tin boxes and raided the tips in the dead of night, digging for cinders to hawk about the doors at twopence a bucket. No, it was the young ones too now, some only in their twenties, but a white-faced wife and hungry bairns had made them swallow what little pride they had left after months and months out of work and do what they would have considered unthinkable just a couple of years before.
Rosie had always bought a bucket or two every time they called until, with a mountain of virtually unusable cinders piling up in the cellar, Zachariah had told her he would start answering the door. Word had got round she was an easy touch, he’d said, and it had become ridiculous. So she’d let him go to the door, and the mountain had continued to grow. ‘Them poor blighters.’ Every time he had doled out another shilling or two he had come and found her, his eyes screwed up with pity. ‘By, no man should be reduced to bein’ without hope.’ Rosie had been thinking the same thing herself, and along with her plans for the move into the country she had been wondering how many jobs a little farm could provide. Her contribution might be a drop in the ocean in the mass unemployment gripping the north, but to the men they could give work to it would be the difference between holding their heads high or grovelling in the gutter.
Just before ten Sally and Mick rose to leave, and Rosie stood too, saying, ‘I’ll walk with you to the tram stop, I could do with a spot of fresh air.’ She called up to Zachariah to tell him where she was going and that she would only be a minute or two - he was nursing Erik back to sleep, the baby having awoken earlier with teething pains - and shut the front door behind her as she followed Sally and Mick down the garden path and out onto the pavement.
They were laughing as they strolled arm-in-arm to the tram stop at the end of the street, Sally at her best as she regaled them with the latest stories from the Store, and as Rosie lifted her face to the cool salty breeze she was conscious of thinking, Things are only going to change, not necessarily be
worse
. I’ve got to be positive, that’s the thing. And then the next moment she heard Zachariah’s voice and turned, her arms still linked in Sally’s and Mick’s and her face smiling, and saw her husband tearing along the street as fast as his awkward gait would allow, Erik clutched tightly in his arms.
worse
. I’ve got to be positive, that’s the thing. And then the next moment she heard Zachariah’s voice and turned, her arms still linked in Sally’s and Mick’s and her face smiling, and saw her husband tearing along the street as fast as his awkward gait would allow, Erik clutched tightly in his arms.
‘What is it?’ She had wrenched her arms free and met Zachariah a few feet from the tram stop, her stomach turning over at the look on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’
She couldn’t hear what Zachariah said at first - Erik was howling enough to wake the dead - but then, when he repeated, ‘You should have
told
me you were leaving the house, I don’t want you out here by yourself,’ she stared at him in absolute amazement.
told
me you were leaving the house, I don’t want you out here by yourself,’ she stared at him in absolute amazement.
‘I’m not by myself, I’m with Sally and Mick.’ She indicated the other couple who were standing some distance away, clearly bemused by the turn of events. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’
He didn’t answer her, saying instead, ‘Here’s the tram.’
‘
Zachariah.
’
Zachariah.
’
‘Later, I’ll tell you later. Say goodbye to Sally an’ Mick.’
The tram had barely pulled away when Rosie turned to Zachariah, having taken Erik from his arms as she tried to soothe the baby with meaningless nonsense, and said over the fair downy head, ‘Well?’
‘It’s nothin’. I just don’t want you out here in the dark by yourself, that’s all. Next time you’re leavin’ like that give me a bit of warnin’.’
‘Nothing?’ Rosie’s voice was too shrill and as Erik began to wail again she lowered it an octave or two as she repeated, ‘Nothing? Zachariah, you frightened me to death, and as for it being dark, it’s hardly that.’ She indicated the dusky twilight with a bob of her head. ‘There’s still plenty of light and it’s really warm.’
‘I don’t want you out here by yourself, Rosie. That’s all.’
‘It’s not all.’ She clutched at him as he made to turn, her eyes enormous in the dim light. ‘Something has happened, hasn’t it? I want to know, Zachariah. Tell me.’
‘It’s nothin’.’
Her brows came together. ‘Nothing? With you racing down the street yelling your head off?’ She bent her body towards him and her voice, although low, was weighty as she said, ‘I’m not a child, Zachariah, neither am I stupid.
Tell me.
’
Tell me.
’
Zachariah stared at her. They had been so happy the last few months, so marvellously, gut-wrenchingly happy. And if he told her, if he related what was no more at bottom than an old woman’s fears and imaginings, Shane McLinnie would once again have an insidious and prominent place in their lives. And he didn’t deserve it, the scum simply didn’t deserve it, damn him. But if he didn’t tell her, how could he stop her doing things like this? Natural, ordinary things, but things that just couldn’t be done while there was the faintest possibility of that scab skulking around.
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