Sadler's Birthday (5 page)

It was like this, half hidden by the brick pillars of the porch, that Joe Elkins first saw her. His head was damp with sweat from driving the horse and heavy old cart over bumpy roads and the sweat had begun to run down into his eyes, that and the strong sunlight doing their best to blind him. So, as he clambered down from the cart and caught sight of Annie sitting in the shadow, he wondered if she was really there. He rubbed his eyes and he saw her get up and come towards him, holding out some flowers.

‘Good morning,' Joe said.

‘I'm sorry . . .' Annie began, ‘Betsy just went up to her Mum's for a vase – for these.'

‘Oh?'

‘She won't be more than a minute or two.'

Joe smiled. ‘Left you on guard, did she?'

‘In a way.' Annie felt herself blushing. ‘I'm Annie Sadler.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Annie Sadler. I'm Joe Elkins, cousin Betsy's cousin.'

He'd come on ahead on his own. ‘Family porter, that's me,' he said nodding at the loaded cart.

‘But they'll be coming on, your Mum and Dad?'

‘Tomorrow afternoon. Mother can't be doing with any kind of muddle, has to have everything in its place before she'll sit down.'

He laughed. Annie looked away, knew otherwise she'd stare at him. He found the key to the front door and opened it. It led into a tiny hallway with rooms branching off and a staircase going straight up. Joe looked back at Annie who hesitated at the door.

‘Come and see,' he said, amused by her shyness. ‘It's quite a fine little house.'

She followed Joe from room to room. In each one he went to the window and opened it wide. ‘Air and sunshine,' he said, ‘that's important if a place is to be right.'

The rooms were square and small, smaller empty of furniture, and, to Annie, Joe seemed too big for the house. It wasn't that he was very tall, but he was sturdy with wide, strong shoulders and a mop of curly black hair that made his head seem large. Annie wondered how old he might be – twenty-three perhaps, even twenty-five. His arms, where his shirt was rolled to the elbow, were tanned and covered in soft brown hair. Noticing them, Annie wanted to touch them.

‘What do you think, then, Annie? It's a fair little old house, isn't it?'

‘Oh it's fine,' said Annie. ‘My Dad and me are at the other end of town; the houses aren't as fine there.' And she smiled.

‘How old are you, Annie?' Joe asked.

‘Sixteen.'

‘Ah.'

At that moment Betsy came back, clutching her vase, a vase much too tall and grand for the flowers they'd picked. She ran to Joe and he whirled her into the air, kissing her on both her pink cheeks.

‘What a time we'll have, eh Bets!' he said.

Then they began unloading the cart, piece by bulky piece of furniture, suitcases full of linen and china and dusty odds and ends that were all brought out and laughed over. Betsy complained playfully all morning.

‘Lor, Joe Elkins, anyone'd think we was dockside haulers, the way you make us fetch and carry.'

‘No one else to do it, Betsy.'

‘Well, what'd you have done without us?'

‘Done it all on my own.'

‘What conceit!'

So hot they all were by midday, and untidy and covered in dust and dirt and hungry and thirsty, that Betsy sat herself down on the bare floorboards of the front room and declared she'd lift nothing more till Joe fed and watered her. Annie flopped down beside her. ‘See,' said Betsy, ‘strike!'

So they sent Joe off to Mrs Bolton's General Store, sat and chatted while he was gone, even lay down flat on their backs on the dusty floor to have a rest and Betsy said she wasn't tired at all really, because if you were happy didn't Annie agree that you just didn't notice other feelings? Annie shut her eyes. She could smell the sunshine now, feel a breeze on her face, coming through the wide open window. She noticed that her mind had begun to feast on her image of Joe and that already it was constructing all the dimensions that it couldn't see, spinning a little web out from itself to him, along which she travelled like a fly.

‘You are silly,' Betsy said suddenly.

Annie jumped.

‘Why, Bets?'

‘Well, you know what should happen? You should make Joe be in love with you.'

Annie smiled. ‘He'd never be!'

‘Why?'

‘He just wouldn't.'

‘If you married him, you'd be my cousin too, in a way.'

‘So you would, Annie.'

They sat up. Joe was standing laughing in the doorway, holding a bag of groceries and a jug of cider. Annie blushed to think he'd heard their chatter, but Betsy was unconcerned.

‘I was telling Annie,' she said, ‘she should marry you, then my two nicest people would be in one house.'

‘Know what, Bets,' said Joe, ‘I do believe you always did think everyone should make their plans to suit you.'

Betsy wished she'd taken off one of her little brown boots so that she could throw it at him. ‘Where's my picnic?' she whined.

‘Come on,' said Joe, ‘whoever heard of a picnic
inside
?'

So out they went, up into one of Farmer James's big meadows, the one where two old oak trees stood side by side in the middle, giving them welcome shade. Joe spread the food out.

‘Pork pies! I might have guessed,' said Betsy.

Joe looked bewildered.

‘We should have told him not to get pork pies, shouldn't we, Annie?'

Annie smiled.

‘Don't you like them?' asked Joe.

‘Of course we don't like them. Everyone in the whole town doesn't like them any more.'

Annie explained about the factory.

‘I'd have thought you'd have heard about it,' commented Betsy. ‘We're famous for that.'

Joe apologized, promised to eat the three pies himself and give them all the bread and cheese.

‘That's not fair,' said Annie, ‘I might try a pie, anyway, I've not had one for so long, it'd make a change, wouldn't it, Bets?'

‘I'd be sick,' said Betsy, ‘especially on a day like this.'

‘Have a drink of cider, then,' suggested Joe, ‘then you can go to sleep.'

‘I don't want to go to sleep.'

‘I want you to.'

‘Just so you can say evil things to my friend Annie.'

‘Impossible.'

‘Why?'

‘She's too nice.'

‘How d'you know, Joe Elkins?'

‘I know.'

‘She's much nicer than me, everyone says so, don't they Annie?'

‘Only you, Bets.'

‘No. They say it inside themselves, I can hear.'

‘Serve you right for eavesdropping,' said Joe, and Betsy laughed. Then she cut herself a large chunk of bread and some cheese and lay down on her back while she made an elaborate sandwich of it. Annie watched her and Joe leant back against the tree, enjoying his pie and watching Annie.

He liked her shyness. There was, in his opinion, too fleeting a moment in a girl's life when she had that kind of shyness and whenever he came across it, it amused and excited him. It was, he decided, a kind of covering that could play as seductive a role as a petticoat. His man's mind judged as inconsequential the things that girls talked about, but when they didn't talk much, blushed now and then, hid the brightness of their eyes, then he found them interesting.

Annie fitted exactly the concept he had of ‘girl'. Her face was long but he found it appealing, her body was enchanting – small breasts whose firmness he had already glimpsed in his mind, slim legs and neat little hips. He could imagine that Annie's tongue was rather small and pointed, that when he kissed her it would touch his nervously, reluctantly until, little by little, he'd taught it what to do.

They'd eaten most of the food. Joe had had two pies and the big loaf of bread was nearly gone. Now they drank the cider, passing the jug round from one to the other, and Annie's body was, for the first time that day, completely relaxed. She wanted to lie down, but wouldn't let herself. To lie down so near to Joe was a temptation she felt she had to fight. Like looking at him. She only allowed herself to look at him every now and then. Annie closed her eyes. The sun had moved round a bit and was now on her face. She listened to the sounds in the field, letting them fill her head like a favourite piece of music.

It was two weeks before Annie saw Joe again. So busy, Betsy said he was, settling himself and his Mum and Dad into the house, that he'd had no time for calling, especially as he wanted to see the house straight before starting work with Mr James. Secretly, Annie was disappointed. She'd gone home very tired that Monday evening, unable to hide from her father the excitement she was feeling, confident enough that she'd be seeing Joe again very soon to tell Greg all about him. Greg beamed with pleasure as Annie recounted her day, couldn't resist saying ‘Well, I'm glad something's come along to cheer you up.' And the next day, Annie put on a smarter dress than usual, just in case Joe called. But he didn't come.

The hot weather stayed. After a week of it, people in the town were beginning to grumble, just as they grumbled about the cold or the rain for most of the year. Betsy called once, to say her mother was very poorly, but not a word about Joe, except to say he was busy.

‘How are they settling in?' asked Greg.

‘Oh, all right, Mr Sadler. It takes a while, that do, to get things in order.'

‘Well, you may tell your aunt and uncle and your cousin that if they'd like to drop by for a glass of rhubarb wine or even for one of Annie's best steak and kidneys, they'd be more than welcome.'

‘I'll tell them,' said Betsy, ‘but they're that busy.'

A few days later, a chilly morning surprised the town as it drew its curtains. Annie looked for her thick green smock to put on and for the first time remembered where she had left it, under the little stone seat in the Elkins's porch. She asked herself at once if she'd have the courage to walk down and collect it. She didn't know, she decided, she'd have to see.

She didn't go that day or the next, but on Sunday morning she thought, I'll go to church and make that my reason for being that end of town. It was fine again, warm but not too hot, with a sun that came and went as the clouds chose. Annie put on a brown dress, made sure her hair was as tidy as it could be and then, just as she was about to leave, heard her father say he'd fancy singing a hymn or two and that he'd come with her.

‘Hurry, then, Dad, and change or you'll be late.'

‘What's the time, then?'

‘Twenty to.' Annie lied by ten minutes, knowing he hated hurrying.

‘Oh you go then, girlie. I can't fancy rushing about on a Sunday morning. You go on.'

So she picked up her hymn-book and went out, noticing as she closed the front door that her hands were shaking.

The church was full. Years afterwards, when Annie remembered that church, she saw it always full of people who listened eagerly, sang loudly, prayed with their eyes shut. She liked to sit at the back, near the organ. ‘Just so you can criticize the playing,' Greg teased. ‘Oh no,' Annie said, ‘I like to watch the other people.'

She sat now in a pew opposite the door, opened her hymn book and started to read through the words of the first hymn, but each time the door opened she looked up. Because, living just across the road, it had occurred to her, Joe's family might feel obliged to come, even if they weren't churchgoing people. She'd had a good look round, of course, and they weren't there yet, not that she could see. But it was only five to eleven and living so near they'd be sure to hurry in at the last minute.

But the service started and the door stayed shut. Joe hadn't come, so she'd have to make the smock her excuse for seeing him after all. Annie started to sing the hymn:

Then she heard the heavy latch on the door lift again, glanced up and saw Joe come through the door. She looked down again at her hymn-book, but the words were jumping on the page and she couldn't sing. He slipped into the pew beside her and put his broad hand over hers that held the hymn-book.

‘Forgot my book,' he whispered.

Sitting at the parlour window, smoking his pipe and watching the people going into church, Joe had suddenly caught sight of Annie going down the path and he made a quick decision to put on a tie and the black jacket he kept for best and follow her in. Thinking about her as he changed, he counted almost a fortnight since the day they'd met. He'd been holding her in reserve, thinking about her now and then, letting the days pass till the right one should arrive for a second meeting. Because he was sure, was Joe Elkins, that whatever beauty he had chosen to see in Annie Sadler was being lovingly cared for and that in her mind it now existed only for him.

Feeling, smelling him standing close to her, letting her hand be held, Annie loved him. But, half afraid of where that love would take her, sensing that what she felt was unconnected with any of the notions she'd had about love as she'd sat dreaming in Greg's front room, she began to drag it on to safe soil, saw herself marrying Joe in this very church, saw her father smiling as he poured wine for them afterwards, taking Joe by the arm and telling him he was glad. She saw her dress, expensive silk from Mrs Collard's drapers shop, bought from weeks and weeks of savings, but so soft next to her skin that she hardly felt it at all . . .