After the Storm (32 page)

As they entered, Sarah handed Don the tray of cups to carry through to the sitting-room and Tom left the sketch of the house on the table and pushed the trolley, taking over from Val and making her go before him into the room. It clattered as he pushed it and the smell of scones was strong because Sarah had covered over the egg sandwiches with a bowl.

‘Annie’s eggs are beautiful but they are rather ripe when hardboiled, don’t you think?’ Sarah asked as she settled down by the teapot.

Annie watched as the boys took a sip of tea and had to bite her lip to stop laughing out loud. ‘It’s Earl Grey,’ she explained. ‘I like it now.’

Sarah looked up from her sandwich. ‘I’m so sorry, would you prefer Indian?’ She had flushed with embarrassment and Annie wished she had said nothing because underneath Sarah’s poise there was an uncertainty at times, one that was usually to do with her. She wondered, not for the first time, how she would cope if her home was invaded by a girl from a different background who endlessly upset the routine.

Tom had shaken his head but Don nodded. ‘Tastes like soap.’ He pulled a face.

‘I said you’ll get to like it,’ Annie snapped and took his cup to the kitchen and made another pot of tea.

‘How did you manage to leave the horses then, Don?’ she asked on her return, her voice friendly, her face stretched in a smile which was too broad. She was sorry for snapping, sorry for Sarah, annoyed with herself.

‘Just take a look at me, Annie. I’ve grown you daft thing. Too big for the horses now.’

‘So how long are you at Albert’s?’

She noticed how he poked his scone into his mouth all in one whilst she had cut hers into quarters. The butter dripped out of the corner of his mouth and ran in a greasy trail to his chin. There were crumbs in his moustache. She passed him a napkin to wipe his mouth but he opened it and tucked it in the open collar of his shirt and the butter ran under his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

‘He’s going to make me a partner. I’m in your old room.’

‘But how could you go in with him?’ Annie protested. ‘How could you even think of it? He’s a money-lender and he charges the earth.’

‘So what?’ He reached for another scone. ‘There’s more out of work, so more’ll need to pawn or borrow. We’ll do both.’

Tom put down his knife. ‘Well, you set your rates too high for the likes of Grace, you know; the likes of anyone round our way. We’re struggling with things as they are. They’re our people you know, Don. We grew up with them and you’re making mint out of their bad luck. We should be working together to try to sort it out, not gaining from it. They don’t like it, Don. It’ll lead to trouble.’

‘We run the shop as well,’ Don was sitting back now, sipping his tea, smiling as he savoured the rich brown brew. ‘Don’t forget that. And how is our Gracie these days? Still a wobble a minute, is she?’

Annie put her hand up to stop Tom who jerked forward. Tension had leapt into the air, sparking between the three of them as it had always done, but louder now, more serious than just the squabbles of children and Annie did not want his anger growing and souring her family. She loved them both.

Silence fell whilst Don sipped, his eyes cold on Tom, who glared.

Sarah cut in, her voice crisp and clear. ‘So things are bad, are they, Tom?’ And Annie settled back in her chair though she knew that trouble had only sunk to just below the surface and was ready to rear out, spitting, at any moment.

Tom explained that work was more difficult to come by because coal was just not selling; that poverty was increasing; that Grace’s family was finding it harder, like all the others and that the miners couldn’t do anything, they had no power now. Annie looked at the scones dripping with butter on the doily-covered plates, the sandwiches and the cakes, at the two pots of tea, and the dark streets seemed far away. It was easy to forget that Wassingham had rickets and consumption, bare feet and starvation.

Sarah had lit the fire when the tea had been poured and the heat was reddening Val’s cheeks as she sat with her hands on her lap near the hearth. Her eyes were nodding shut and Annie let the conversation wash past her now, thinking that soon, as it was every day, Val’s head would be on her chest. She knew also that later she would sit with her sewing-box darning over the wooden mushroom or altering dresses or making napkins out of old tablecloths and that Sarah would read the paper until nine-thirty when she would make the cocoa and call Annie from her homework.

Life had a gentle pattern these days. School with Sandy and Jenn and the walks round the gardens, then Val and Sarah. It was as though she had been ill and was slowly recovering, slowly finding herself whole again, but she must not forget what life was really like.

The sharpness of anger broke in on her thoughts and there were her two brothers clashing again. Don sat upright and stabbed his finger at Tom, speaking with scone in his mouth.

‘Albert’s got a right to make a living like everyone else. He’s all right. You just want a revolution, you and that Davy of yours. He’s always stirring things, he is. What’s wrong with making a profit?’

‘You shouldn’t make a profit at the expense of your neighbours, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t do it, man, don’t follow that old bugger and go against your own. You’re too good for that.’

‘He’s not an old bugger,’ Don stormed and Annie looked to Sarah who was not remonstrating, just listening. Val had her head up now.

Don continued. ‘He’s giving a service you know and if you treat him proper he’s all right to be with. He’s me uncle after all, me da’s brother. He’s family, isn’t he?’ There was a hard set to his face now.

‘Our Annie treated him proper,’ Tom was shouting now, ‘and look what happened to her and it was because he was your da’s brother he did that. He told her that an’ all. You’re on the wrong side, Don.’

Annie felt a knot tightening in her stomach again, her hands gripped the arm of the chair as the voices went through her.

Don leant forward. ‘Our Annie rubbed him up the wrong way if I know anything about her. He didn’t have to take her on, did he?’ He jerked his thumb at her and Sarah went white. Val was poking the fire loudly.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ hissed Tom and put his hand on Annie’s arm.

Don stabbed at Tom again. ‘If you don’t like the facts of life, boy, why don’t you get out, like she’s done, like Georgie, and have your revolution somewhere else? You’ve got no one to keep you in Wassingham. I’ve got me uncle.’

Don turned to Annie now, ignoring Tom’s sudden silence. ‘Gone in the Army, Georgie has, did you know? I heard from his mam when she came in.’ He put up his hand as Tom began again. ‘To buy some fags it was, not to borrow, so keep your holier than thou shirt on.’

Annie nodded, angry at him for throwing Tom’s family in his face, angry at him for throwing Albert at her as though he was a saint, wanting him to stop making her feel as though she deserved to be belted and screamed at, wanting them both to think the same way, to stop quarrelling, to stop what she feared had become hate. Wanting most of all for him to stop talking about Georgie, but needing to hear more.

‘He’ll be all right, will Georgie. Uniforms bring in the girls, they do, and he’ll be all for getting his leg over if I know him.’

Tom was on his feet now, his face white. ‘Well, you don’t know him do you, so that’s enough.’ But Annie pulled him back down although she felt cold with shock and everything seemed impossibly far away. Don did not know about her and Georgie,
so it was not his fault, none of this was his fault. It was because of Albert that he was like this and was it, she wondered, something about her that inflamed him?

She watched as Sarah patted her mouth with her napkin with a hand which shook. How strange, Annie noted with detached surprise; she had never seen that before.

‘That’s quite enough of that language please, Don,’ said Sarah in a voice as cold as ice. ‘You’ve obviously been around horses too long.’

Annie stroked butter on to a teacake, then cut it carefully in half, then quarters, watching as the butter flowed over the knife. Tom was sitting stiffly in the chair beside her; she saw that his fists were clenched, that he was breathing quickly. No one was speaking. The fire was crackling though and Val used the brass tongs to put two logs either side of the grate.

‘Could you help me with my embroidery, Tom?’ asked Annie desperate to break the tension. She put down her plate and looked across at Val. ‘Could you pass it from there please, Val?’ Her voice sounded strained, high-pitched but it was better than the silence.

Strung across a frame was the hassock material. Annie nudged Tom. ‘I have to enter this competition.’

‘What’s the prize?’ asked Don, drinking his tea again.

She ignored him. Tom rose and took the frame from Val.

‘I can’t bear the flowers as they are. I want something different, Tom, but it must be easy.’ She laughed and slowly felt as though she was more in touch with the room. Sarah was looking at her, smiling her approval.

‘Something Art Deco do you think?’ suggested Tom, sitting down again, keeping his eyes on her work, away from Don.

‘Art what?’ queried Annie and Sarah cocked an eye at Tom.

‘What do you think of Art Deco then, Tom? I’m not sure myself.’

‘It’s different right enough, but I like the geometric lines.’ He turned to Annie, his face less red, his eyes concentrating on his thoughts, not flashing with frustration as they had been. ‘Makes me glad I did a bit of geometry at school. It grew out of the Art Nouveau movement which showed that art could be used in an industrial age and Art Deco tries to unite design and industry. They say that it can enter into the design of anything, even a cinema. So why not a hassock?’

‘A hassock’s not industrial,’ objected Annie.

Sarah laughed. ‘But why not borrow the idea? It would shake Sister Maria up a bit.’

So, guessed Annie, you still haven’t forgotten the first day of school, and laughed, but made sure that Sarah thought it was at the idea of Art Deco hassocks, not at her in this instance.

Tom had taken out his pad and was drawing a rising sun design but Annie told him it had to be a flower motif, so he altered it to a sunflower. She passed it to Sarah.

‘Could I do that in satin-stitch and cross stitch?’ She grinned at Tom and then, stiffly, at Don. ‘It’s all I can do.’

Sarah passed it to Val for her opinion.

‘Should be fine,’ agreed Val. ‘As long as she keeps it tidy at the back, she won’t disgrace herself.’

Annie heard Don grunt and showed it to him but he did not react. She took back the design and heard Sarah ask Tom why he didn’t go into textile design. ‘It would combine art with manufacturing.’

And bring him out of the pits, Annie thought, and watched the lad as he leant back and looked at Sarah, his expression thoughtful.

She looked around the room, then at the curtains and then the wallpaper. ‘Hey, what if the curtains and the wallpaper matched. That’d look good. What do you think Tom?’ She felt a stirring of excitement.

Tom grinned. ‘It’s a good idea. Does anyone make them like that?’

‘No one round here anyway,’ Val commented.

Sarah leant forward. ‘Make them yourself then, Tom.’

Suddenly the room was alive again, full of ideas and thoughts and words, though Don would still only sit and drink his tea. The fire died down as the time strode past and Tom said, ‘What do you think, Don? Would you want to come in too, if we could get it off the ground?’

‘It’s funny,’ said Don, ‘bloody funny. There you are, shouting your mouth off at me because I lend money and here you are, you and Annie, talking of setting up a little capitalist empire.’

‘No, Don, that’s just what we’ve been saying,’ Tom enthused. ‘We’re thinking about a cooperative. Then the men share the profits; if productivity rises, so does their money.’

Annie took his arm and pulled him back into his chair.

‘Just a minute, Tom, remember that day at the beck when I said I’d lead me swarm out? Well, if I came in with you I’d want half the work-force to be female.’

She looked at him in triumph as Sarah and Val laughed and nodded. Don settled himself against the back of his chair and said, ‘That’s the end of that idea then, Tom.’

Annie lifted her chin. ‘Just why is that?’ she asked.

‘The men wouldn’t wear the lower wages. If you employ women, the wages would have to come down to match theirs.’ Tom was tapping his fingers on his knees.

‘That’s no problem,’ said Annie airily. ‘You bring the women’s up and they have same share of the profits.’

Tom and Don burst out laughing. ‘There’d be a riot from firms elsewhere,’ Don argued.

Tom nodded. ‘We’d be setting a precedent. The unions wouldn’t like it.’

Annie would not give in. She was determined now. Here was something she could build up. It would get Tom out of the pit eventually and maybe Don would come in and get away from Albert, be closer to them. There would be a place for Georgie and for Grace and for all those women.

‘Then they’d have to lump it. Look at Sarah, why should she be paid less for doing her job than a man would? She has to keep a house. If I don’t marry, I would have to. It’s not fair, is it, Sarah? Surely you can see that Tom.’

His face was thoughtful and she could see that he was trying to sort it out. ‘You can’t be a socialist and not care about the women too,’ she insisted, and listened as the talk swirled round the room again and soon the scones were finished and the cakes too.

Then he nodded. ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right. We’ll make the women equal.’

And he took a cup of warm tea from Sarah and gulped it down, his mind busy, and Annie was thinking that she would find Georgie and bring him back. They could go to the Lancashire mills for the cotton. Then Don said, ‘You’d need to go to Art College, wouldn’t you?’

The words cut across the excitement, the thoughts of the future, and the dreams disappeared, but then Sarah said, ‘That’s no problem. I will fund the Art College training.’ Annie
looked up at her and Tom spun round. His face had fallen into hopelessness but now was alight with hope. He looked at Annie, then back at Sarah. She leant forward and switched her table lamp on and it threw the light on to her face and showed her enthusiasm.