Annie's Promise (2 page)

‘Come on, let’s get on with it,’ Rob called, ambling over towards the bar. Sarah watched as Davy followed and saw Teresa look at them with a tremble to her lips.

‘I’ll get you some sacking from the shed,’ she offered. ‘You go on. I’ll catch you up.’

The shed was dark and dusty and smelt good. She could see the runner beans through the window and as she picked up the frayed hessian she wondered how long her mother would be. She was hungry and fed up and she wanted to punch Terry on the nose again.

Annie and Betsy walked through the narrow streets, black grimed from the coal. The doors were closed on the ritual of Sunday lunch. Annie smiled. ‘You didn’t have to come, Betsy, those kids won’t need any dragging you know, my Sarah especially.’

Betsy laughed quietly, her arm tucked in Annie’s. ‘That they won’t but I just wanted to be with you, bonny lass. I can hardly believe you’re back, see. It seems just yesterday to me that you were getting scruffy round the runner beans yourself.’ She became serious again. ‘Sometimes I wondered if you’d ever want to come back again after all you’ve been through.’

Annie felt the cobbles uneven beneath her feet as they crossed over, away from the shadows. Oh yes, she’d always wanted to come home again. But Betsy, she thought, squeezing the other woman’s arm, it doesn’t seem like yesterday to me. She dug her other hand deep into her pocket, smelling the coal which pervaded every inch of this small town as it had always done.

Annie had been fifteen when Sarah Beeston, her godmother, had taken her away from here driving over these same cobbles to middle-class Gosforn and a different life. Georgie had left Wassingham too then, feeling the loss of Annie as much as she had felt the loss of him, leaving the darkness of the pit for the hardships of the Army. But soon everyone had felt some hardship as war had erupted.

What was it Sarah Beeston had said as she had driven her from Wassingham? Ah yes. ‘I’ll educate you, so that you can make choices about your future, it’s the least I can do now your father is dead.’ Annie had chosen nursing. She smiled wryly, looking up at the cloudless sky. ‘You can travel with nursing my dear,’ Sarah had said. ‘You can expand your horizons – decide whether you do still truly want to marry Georgie.’ Well, her horizons had expanded all right, right up to the wire of a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Thank God her beloved Sarah Beeston had died by then.

They were approaching the allotment now and Annie could hear the children’s whoops of laughter. They stopped, listening, smiling, relishing the moment.

‘You’re giving your Sarah what you didn’t have, my dear,’ Betsy said. ‘A steady homelife and a good mother.’

‘I won’t have that talk, Betsy,’ Annie’s voice was fierce. ‘I mean, look how you stuck it out with Da in that Godforsaken shop, hauling those barrels of booze around. You were as good a mother as anyone could have been, living like that. You never treated Don and me differently to your Tom, and I don’t know how you did it.

‘We love you, all of us and we’re back now, for good. Georgie’s out of bomb disposal, I’m up to my ears in plans for the new business, the
family
business, and it’s all going to be great.’ Annie kissed Betsy’s soft warm cheek and together they walked down the lane, both of them comforted, seeing the children now, swinging over the bar.

Betsy laughed. ‘Well, wonders will never cease, it looks as though they’re all getting on. I thought Teresa might be a bit prickly.’

Annie nodded. ‘Yes, it was more than a possibility. She’s just so like her father. Why’s
he
so tense today.’ They paused again and Annie brushed her hair back from her face. ‘I mean, he’s my brother but I feel as though I’m more part of Tom, not him.’

Betsy nodded. ‘It’s his nature. He’s always been the same. You have your da’s depth, he has your Uncle Albert’s – oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?’

‘Tight arse, I think,’ Annie whispered, looking at her stepmother and now they laughed.

‘I should clip your ear for using language like that but maybe you’re right, lass,’ Betsy said at last, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘No wonder the old skinflint left him his pawn business – and lord knows what else. But I reckon it’s the fact that you’re back that’s bothering Don today. He’s liked being the only Manon around and of course, you’re taking back Sarah Beeston’s house. He won’t think
you’ve been right kind to let him have it free all these years, he’ll just be sour because he can’t go on having it.’

Annie nodded then looked up as she heard Sarah calling to her, beckoning her forward. ‘We’ve made a gang, all of us and we could eat a horse.’

Annie heard Betsy’s chuckle and felt a surge of relief at the laughter of the four children. At least there was no tension here.

‘Come on then,’ she called to them. ‘The Yorkshire pud will be just right by the time we get back.’ Annie turned to Betsy. ‘Don’ll be all right after Tom and I tell him about our business ideas. I haven’t explained anything properly to him yet. I thought I’d leave it until after lunch. We wanted to ask him face to face to be the financial director, then it’ll be all of us in it, just like I’ve always planned. Everything will be all right, Bet. I know it will.’

Betsy was laughing as the children came running up to them, their faces eager, pulling at them to hurry. ‘Nothing can go wrong now that you’re back, Annie. It’s all going to be just wonderful,’ Betsy said.

The Yorkshire pudding
was
wonderful, the gravy rich and smooth, the beef tender and there had been little conversation from the children, from any of them as they ate. There had just been the sound of knife against plate, laughter as Sarah’s carrot had skidded from beneath her fork and landed on the table. Don’s wife Maud had tutted, but then she’d tutted when she’d seen Teresa’s dusty dress.

There had been banana custard for pudding and Annie had wanted to kiss Betsy when she’d sprinkled a sheen of sugar on Sarah’s to prevent the formation of skin.

They drank tea when the meal was finished and nodded when the children begged to go and play in the allotment again, though Maud would not allow Teresa to swing on the bar. ‘Let her wear a pair of Sarah’s dungarees,’ Annie had suggested and had thought Maud would faint at the mere thought.

Annie stood at the sink now, her arms covered in suds as she waited for Tom to bring the last of the dirty dishes from the table. She looked out across the yard where geraniums lolled in cut down rain-butts. The stable was empty now, Black Beauty was long gone.

‘Do you remember Beauty, darling?’ she called to Georgie who was putting the bowls in the dresser over against the wall. She heard him laugh, heard Tom and Grace laugh too.

‘Remember?’ Tom called. ‘Bye, she kept us in sweet money with her plops. “Does wonders for your rhubarb,” you’d say to people. “Better than custard.” Your da would have died if he’d known.’

‘She was a bonny pony,’ Betsy said, leaning across Annie, refilling the kettle. ‘Just one more cup, eh, lass?’ She smiled at Annie, who kissed her cheek.

‘I told you then and I’ll tell you now, that was a bloody silly name for a gelding. God knows what Da was thinking of, giving it to you. He should have sold it and put the cash into the shop. But then he didn’t know what he was thinking of most of the time – bloody dead loss he turned out to be.’ Don’s voice was loud, terse and Annie felt her shoulders tighten.

‘Don’t let them get you down, Don lad,’ Georgie laughed. ‘They’ve got an idea they can change the world, so what’s a pony’s sex? And they will change it, you know, or Wassingham anyway, just you wait and see. This business is really going to take off.’

Annie felt her shoulders relax. Only she and Tom would have recognised the anger in Georgie’s voice, but he had saved her from exploding. She looked out into the yard again. God damn you, Don Manon, you always were a miserable little tyke, never comfortable, never understanding, always pinching my wintergreen when we were kids, always spoiling things, always belly-aching. You’re still belly-aching, misunderstanding. But then she hadn’t
understood either for a long while, had she? She watched a sparrow perch on the gutter of the stable.

Poor Da, how had he felt, coming back from the trenches, having to start all over again with his off-licence business destroyed, his fine house gone, the mother of his kids dead? He’d felt hopeless, that’s what he’d felt but she hadn’t understood that then. None of them had – or his suicide. She had realised though, after her own war. In fact she had very nearly followed him.

She looked back, round the kitchen they’d grown up in, smelling boiled tea towels, imagining the round shine-splashed boiler. Thank God they were all wiser now, tested somehow, more able to make the future work.

‘Where are those plates then, Tom Ryan?’ she called, turning round, seeing Maud still sitting at the table, polishing her long red nails, and she remembered that Don had been easier for a while but it hadn’t lasted. Perhaps Maud was the reason why. You’d never think she’d come from a back to back in Wassingham too.

‘Hang on, Gracie needs another tea towel and then I’ll be there. Work, work, work, but worth it. That was a canny lunch, Mam.’ Tom threw a tea cloth to his wife and then brought the plates to Annie who called to Maud. ‘We’ll bring gloves next time shall we, then you can help?’

Tom grinned at Annie and muttered, ‘You’ll be lucky, can’t be breaking a nail, can we?’

‘I’ll break something of hers soon and it won’t be a nail, bonny lad,’ she murmured back.

Betsy called from the stove. ‘Tea’s brewed, Annie. Leave those to drip, you as well, Gracie. Come and sit down and have a last cup. Those bairns will be glad of a bit more time.’

Betsy smoothed her apron with hands that were still gnarled from shifting Da’s kegs, but they were not as swollen as they had been.

‘Are you happy Bet?’ Annie asked quietly, sitting down beside her.

‘Aye lass, I was before, you know with my bairn living in the top of the house and his bairns rushing through my kitchen to get to the yard but now it’s even better – there’s your Sarah with them too, and you.’

Annie touched the elderly woman’s hand. ‘I know what you mean. There’s a continuity, isn’t there?’ She watched Georgie bring the teapot to the table, then looked round, seeing her brothers, their wives, Betsy pouring the tea, pushing the mugs out to each of them. Where had the years gone – did she really have as many lines as Gracie? She knew she had.

‘Could have given us more notice of course.’ Don’s voice was cold. ‘Had to get out of the house in a bit of a hurry didn’t we?’

Annie looked at him. Here it comes – wind him up, let him go. Not many lines on your visage my lad are there, but then you weren’t down the mine like Tom, in the jungles like Georgie, in the camps like me. Oh no, you were in the Supply Depot, building up your contacts, lining your pockets, not your face. She clamped her mind shut against these thoughts, put down her mug and answered calmly.

‘You’ve had my house for nine years, without charge Don. Please remember that I wrote to you telling you of Georgie’s discharge months ago. I think I made it clear that we would want to come home.’

Maud put down her tea which she had been drinking left-handed. Annie knew it was because their lips had used the other side. She caught Tom’s eye and grinned – they were back, what did all this matter?

‘That’s all very well, Annie,’ Maud said. ‘But we’ve put a lot of work into Sarah Beeston’s house. We’ve hung a chandelier and redecorated you know, got rid of all that dreadful bamboo.’

Annie breathed deeply as tension clenched every muscle of her face. She forced herself to look steadily at Betsy’s patchwork cushions.

Think of the stitches, the thread. Please God, let me be
angry and not afraid – let the past be over. She felt Georgie’s hand on her thigh, she felt its warmth, his nearness and she waited and could now hardly breathe because she feared so much that she would smell the stench of the camp hospital, the pleading of the patients, the helplessness of the nurses. She feared she would see Lorna’s execution, feel the pain of the guard’s boot thudding into her own body, or the rope around her wrist which had tethered poor mindless Prue.

She waited, barely breathing, feeling the silence, the grip of Georgie’s hand but there was no pain, no darkness, there was just irritation, just the words ‘Stupid bitch’ in her mind, just a normal reaction to a silly woman. At last she relaxed, even as Tom leaned forward, slopping his tea, banging his mug down.

‘You did what, after all Annie went through with those bloody nips. For Christ’s sake, the thought of decorating Sarah’s house kept her going, you bloody knew that. It helped her to actually do it when she returned.’

Annie reached out to him, shaking her head, relishing her own response but not his. ‘Maud’s right you know, think about it. That design wouldn’t appeal to others, it was personal, it grew out of me, it was therapeutic. Business people have got to produce the goods the market wants, not just what we like, or what comes from our past.’

She looked from Tom to Georgie but their faces were set. She spoke again. ‘Look, please, all of you stop worrying about me. I’m much better – I keep telling you. Yes, the bamboos might have been a trigger – I was unprepared but I’m fine, Maud’s done us a favour. It’s proved to you that it’s all behind me, just as I’ve been saying all these months.’

Annie took her husband’s hand in hers and kissed it but though he smiled when she looked into his eyes she saw only anxiety.

She said softly, ‘I promise you, my darling, it’s over. This just helps to prove it. Please listen.’

She looked from one to another. Oh God, would they never understand that the past was gone, finished? Yes, she’d had a breakdown in India, where Georgie had taken her after the war. Yes, she’d tried to kill herself there too, but they had come home and slowly she had recovered, couldn’t they accept this? What more proof did they need?

‘So, you’re still going ahead with this business idea then?’ Don asked.

Annie smiled, grateful for once that her brother had no heart. There was no concern in his eyes, or those of his wife. There was only a flicker of interest at the thought of the business they were embarking upon and she replied calmly, holding Georgie’s hand tightly as she did so, willing him to believe.