Red Sky in the Morning (11 page)

All the time the heated exchange was taking place between the two women, Tony had clung to his father. Anna clutched her baby to her, patting the child’s back and trying to soothe her
crying.

‘If you’re so clever, then, Nurse Jessop, p’raps you’d like to tell me what’s really going on then with this girl here?’

‘Like he told you, Bertha. She was in the marketplace in town with nowhere to go and he took pity on her. That’s all.’

Bertha snorted. ‘If you believe that, then it’s you that’s the fool. Not me.’

She turned and held out her hand to her son. ‘Come on, Tony. You an’ me’s going home. You’re not to come up here again. You hear me?’

Tony cast a helpless glance at his father. ‘But – but we haven’t told him why we came.’ He glanced nervously at his mother, yet he was determined to speak out.
‘It’s the sheep in the barn. There’s one or two of them dropping their lambs. And one – well – you ought to come, Dad.’ His voice petered away as his mother
added, ‘Oh, he’s far more important things to do up here, Tony love. I see that now. And I also see why you tried to stop me coming.’

The boy hung his head and shrank against his father, but Bertha was holding out her fat arms towards her son. ‘But I don’t blame you, lovey. It’s not your fault. You’re
not old enough to understand. Come on, love. Come to your mammy.’

Eddie gripped the boy’s shoulder understandingly and then gave him a gentle push. ‘Go on, son,’ he said quietly.

‘But what about the sheep, Dad?’

Eddie nodded. ‘I’ll come down.’

With obvious reluctance, the boy moved towards his mother. She put her arm about his shoulders and drew him to her. Her eyes narrowed as she said, ‘You and your carryings on, Eddie, are
one thing, but involving your own son in your lies and deceit is quite another. I’ll never forgive you for that. Never.’

And then she was gone, out into the wild night, dragging the boy with her and leaving the three adults staring after her, mesmerized and beginning to wonder if it had all really happened.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Anna began. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have let you bring me with you that night. I’ll go.’

Eddie spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘You can’t go anywhere in this lot, love.’ He sighed heavily as he sank into the armchair, weary and dispirited. He dropped his
head into his hands as he muttered. ‘Wait till the weather improves and you’re feeling stronger, then we’ll see.’

The truth was that, deep inside him, he didn’t want her to go anywhere. Eddie wanted Anna to stay right here in his little cottage.

Pat seemed to recover her senses. ‘Get back into bed, love. Here, give me the bairn. There, there,’ she crooned as she took the crying child into her arms. ‘All that
shouting’s upset you, hasn’t it, my little love? There, there. It’s all over and your mammy’s going to feed you now.’

Anna climbed back into the bed and soon a comparative peace was restored as the infant’s cries were silenced while she sucked hungrily. But the cosy, intimate atmosphere of the little
cottage was gone, spoiled by Bertha’s bitter wrath.

When mother and child were sleeping, Eddie and Pat sat before the fire, their heads close together.

‘What are you going to do, Eddie?’

Eddie closed his eyes and sighed wearily. Then, as the baby stirred and gave a little snuffling sound in her sleep, he smiled. He seemed to straighten up as he glanced towards Anna lying in the
bed. ‘D’you know,’ he said, as if he was as surprised as Pat to hear himself saying the words, ‘I reckon I’m going to stand up to Bertha for once in me
life.’

Pat touched his hand. ‘Good for you.’

‘The lass and her bairn can stay as long as they want. If – if she wants to go – ’ Pat saw a fleeting expression of disappointment in his eyes – ‘then –
so be it. But if she wants to stay, then she can.’ He stood up and pulled on his coat. ‘I’d best be off and see to me sheep.’ He paused at the door and turned to say
solemnly, ‘There’s one thing Bertha was right about, though.’

Pat raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t think of a single thing that the vitriolic woman had been right about.

Eddie went on, ‘Tony. I shouldn’t have involved him. I’ll have to tell him not to come here any more.’

Pat smiled as she said softly, ‘You can try, but I don’t think either you – or Bertha – will be able to stop him.’

The snow ceased at last, but then came the thaw and, with it, the danger of flooding to the surrounding district.

‘You can’t stay here. You’ll have to go into the village,’ Eddie told Anna. ‘Pat’s said she’ll have you and the bairn. I’ll take
you—’

‘No!’ Anna’s voice was sharp and determined. She was up and about now and able to care for herself and her child and even the puppy, but she was not yet fully recovered from
the birth and had not ventured outside the cottage except to visit the privy. ‘We’re going nowhere. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’m well enough to move on. To get right
away.’

Eddie spread his hands. ‘But this cottage lies almost at the lowest point in the vale. The stream will overflow. There’s no doubt about that happening, and when it does the water
could back up as far as here. It’ll get into the cottage—’

‘Then we’ll go upstairs.’

‘You can’t do that. The whole place would be damp. You wouldn’t be able to keep the bairn warm. You can’t light a fire up there.’

‘Can’t you bring me a paraffin heater, or something?’

‘I could,’ Eddie agreed reluctantly, ‘but it would hardly keep you warm enough up there.’

‘We’ll be fine.’

‘You might be, but what about the baby?’ He eyed her thoughtfully. She seemed to have come round now and to be caring for her child properly. Pat had no worries, but Eddie
couldn’t stop the dreadful suspicion that the girl was just biding her time and that perhaps she still hoped something would happen to the child. To both of them, if it came to that. He lay
awake at night, alone now in the spare bedroom to which Bertha had banished him, thinking of the young girl in the cottage and wondering . . .

‘Maisie’ll be fine,’ Anna was insisting now. ‘I’ll keep her warm.’ She must have seen the anxiety in his face, for she added, in her soft, husky voice,
‘I promise.’

As the snow melted and the earth began to show through in brown patches, it was still too wet for the sheep to find grazing, even though they were out on the hillside again.
Each day Eddie brought hay for his sheep, but each night Anna still found them huddled against the cottage wall, as if asking to be let in. And each night she would open the door wide and usher
them into the room, comforted by the sound of their soft bleating in the middle of the night.

‘The stream’s overflowing like I said it would. I’ve brought you some sandbags, but I don’t reckon it’ll hold the water from getting into the cottage.’

Anna nodded. ‘I saw. I went out for the first time today. I took Buster for a walk.’ She laughed. ‘But he doesn’t like getting his paws wet.’

Eddie smiled, though the worry never quite left his eyes. ‘He’s only little.’

‘I’ve got everything ready in the room upstairs.’

‘I’m sorry now that I didn’t get Joe Wainwright up here to the roof afore Christmas.’

Anna shrugged and smiled. ‘One room’s all right. That’s all we need.’ She glanced at him, teasing. ‘I wasn’t thinking of taking the sheep up there an’
all.’

Eddie laughed. ‘No, I don’t think they’d manage to climb the ladder. Not even with Rip barking at their heels.’ He watched her for a moment. It was the first time that
Anna had said something light-hearted and now he saw that she looked better – calmer, he thought, and not so afraid.

‘Are you happy here?’ he asked before he stopped to think. To his chagrin, the smile faded from her face and the haunted look was at once back in her eyes. She returned his gaze, but
avoided answering his question directly.

‘I’m very grateful for what you’ve done for me, Eddie.’ Suddenly, she was on her guard again as she added, ‘I’ll – I’ll always be grateful to you,
but I can’t stay here for ever.’

‘Why? Why not, love? You said you’d nowhere to go.’ He paused, then when she did not answer he pressed on. ‘Or is it different now you’ve had the bairn? Is that it?
Are you going home—?’

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, she had spat back. ‘No, no. Never.’ Then she faltered. ‘I – I have no home.’

‘All right, lass, all right.’ He spread his hands, trying to placate her. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you and I’m not trying to pry. It’s just that –
’ he took a deep breath – ‘it’s just that I’d miss you if you did go and – and – well—’ He was floundering now and the words came out in a
rush. ‘If you really haven’t anywhere special to go, you’re welcome to stay here.’

‘What about your wife?’ Her unusual dark eyes were regarding him steadily.

He shrugged. ‘She’s said no more about it. The only thing she has done is to stop Tony from coming to see you.’ He forbore to tell Anna that his wife had also banished him from
her bed. Not that it was any great loss. She had not allowed any ‘marital relations’, as they called it, for years, he thought bitterly. The only thing he did miss was the warmth of her
bulk next to him on a cold night. But a brick heated in the oven, wrapped in a piece of blanket and shoved into the bed was a good substitute! Now he smiled mischievously. ‘But I don’t
expect for one minute that she’ll be able to stop him sneaking over the hill to see you now and again. That lad will find a way, if I’m not much mistaken.’

Anna’s small smile chased away some of the guarded look on her face. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘I’d like to stay for a while longer, but I don’t want to cause
you any more trouble.’

‘You won’t,’ he said briefly and silently added to himself:
No more than I’d already got afore you came
.

The snow continued to melt and the rushing stream became a torrent, which overflowed its banks and flooded the land. Nearer and nearer it crept to the cottage and Anna was
obliged to move upstairs, though she could wade through the water if she needed to in her wellingtons. Eddie helped her take her bedding up the narrow ladder and lift the armchair onto the table,
so that it would not get soaked.

‘I still wish you’d go and stay with Pat Jessop. She asked about you again yesterday.’

‘That was kind of her,’ Anna said carefully. ‘But we’ll be fine up there, specially now you’ve brought us that little stove. As long as I can keep Maisie safe and
warm and fed, we’ll be all right.’

‘But can you?’ Eddie asked worriedly.

Anna regarded him steadily. ‘If I can’t, Eddie, I promise you I’ll give in and let you take us to Nurse Jessop’s.’

‘That’s all right then, lass.’ He smiled with relief. ‘And now I’d better get these sheep onto higher ground.’

‘How’s the lambing going?’ Anna asked. ‘I wish I could be more help to you.’

‘Considering what we’ve had to cope with, very well, really. I’ve still several ewes to drop, but I’ve already got a good few healthy lambs.’ He raised his hand.
‘Must get on, lass. See you later.’

‘’Bye,’ Anna murmured as she watched him whistle to Rip and begin to round up the sheep that had been her companions for several days. She was sorry to see them go.

The water was now lapping at the walls of the cottage and against the sandbags across the thresholds. As Anna sat on the floor at the top of the ladder with the puppy beside
her, the water began to seep into her home. Buster yapped excitedly, as if he could drive back the thing invading the cottage. They watched tiny rivulets creep beneath the door and spread out,
until the whole of the earth floor was covered. And still the water kept coming.

She felt a moment’s panic, imagining it rising so high that it engulfed the whole cottage and drowned them.

And suddenly she wanted to live. She no longer felt the craving to lie down and let a welcome oblivion overtake her. Now she had something, or rather someone, to live for. She had another human
being dependent upon her. She hadn’t wanted the child. It had grown within her against her will and she had hated it. Hated the thing inside because of how it had come to be there.

But now the child was no longer an ‘it’. Maisie was a tiny human being in her own right, already with a character that was evident when she bellowed for attention. Anna smiled fondly
as she glanced over her shoulder to where her child lay sleeping in a Moses basket that Pat Jessop had brought. Where had she heard the phrase ‘They bring their love with them’? Well,
it was certainly true of her Maisie. Now Anna loved her daughter with a fierce, protective passion. And, ironically, it had been Bertha Appleyard who had made her see that.

If only – Anna’s face clouded – the child had not been born with red hair.

She glanced down again at the water, still rising below her. Rationally, she worked out that, because of the lie of the land, the water could not possibly rise above a certain depth. Up here,
they would be quite safe.

That night Anna lay down on the soft featherbed mattress on the floor and cuddled her child to her.

Though the water lapped beneath them, she felt safer than she had done for weeks. Cut off from the outside world by the flooding, no one could find her.

‘Still visiting ya little bastard, are ya?’

Eddie sighed deeply and cast a sideways glance at Tony sitting at the table, head bowed and toying with the food on his plate.

‘Bertha, the child’s not mine. How many more times—?’

Bertha snorted. ‘She’s got brown hair. Just like you. I saw that much that night.’

Holding onto his patience with a supreme effort, Eddie said, ‘No, she hasn’t. It’s red. Ginger. And her eyes are blue.’

‘That’s nowt to go by. All newborn babies have blue eyes.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘Its eyes’ll be brown and its hair’ll go darker. Like yours.’

Bertha pursed her small mouth until it almost disappeared into her fat face. She banged Eddie’s dinner onto the table in front of him and then took her place opposite, beside Tony.

‘Don’t you worry, love.’ She patted her son’s arm. ‘You’ve still got me, even if your dad is so taken up with his new daughter that he hasn’t any time
for you now.’