Heart of Coal (21 page)

AT FIRST SIGHT Henry cannot recognise Rose. When he goes to the door, in answer to the violent knocking, he sees someone wild and dishevelled, face streaked with black, hair plastered, shivering violently with the cold. In her arms a sodden bundle of clothes. She stands there, wordless, until he reaches forward to draw her inside.

Under the hall light he sees who it is.

‘Rose, Rose!’ he cries. ‘Whatever has happened?’

Water drips from her. Shudders rock her body so fiercely that any movement is scarcely possible. Henry thinks she is trying to speak. ‘No, no, no,’ he says. ‘Quick, come quick, we must warm you!’

He drags her into the kitchen, cursing that he has let the fire go out, dithering over towels and blankets and hot water, wondering aloud whether to undress her or wrap her up wet clothes and all, or
should he make a cup of tea first, until Rose, though half dead, cannot help a wan smile. She drops her bundle. She tries to undress.

‘Henry,’ she says through clashing teeth, ‘you will have to help me. My fingers won’t work.’

Henry has no idea what garment to tackle, or where, but finally has her stripped. He rubs her fiercely with a towel until Rose screams in pain.

‘A blanket, a blanket! Where?’ shouts Henry. It is hard to guess which one of them is more panic-stricken. He crashes into his bedroom, knocking over the oil-lamp in the process, hauls the blanket off his bed and rolls her up in it. Colour begins to creep back into Rose’s grey cheeks. Slowly the shivers subside.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘Oh, Henry, it is so good to see you.’

Henry nods. He has guessed that Rose has run away, but does not question her. Instead he busies himself at the coal range, riddling it into life again, and setting the kettle atop. From time to time he steals a look at her. She has changed so much! Where has the wide-shouldered, confident, irrepressible Rose gone?

Henry tugs his dressing-gown tighter around him, pulls up a chair next to Rose. She follows his every move with her eyes.

‘Tell me what happened.’

She shakes her head. Looks down at the floor where the drops have fallen. Henry notices how much smaller she looks when her hair is wet.

‘Where is Brennan?’ he says.

‘Oh.’ Rose won’t look up. ‘Down there still, I suppose.’

‘What about little Conrad? And the baby?’

‘Henry, I don’t want to … I don’t remember properly.’

Henry, watching her intently, thinks she does remember. A spark is returning to her eyes. Suddenly she looks straight at him.

‘You never wrote.’

‘What?’

‘Not one letter.’

‘Rose, you arrive here in the middle of the night, alone, half dead with cold and exhaustion, and you talk of letters?’

‘Letters might have helped. Why didn’t you write?’

Henry is at a loss. ‘Are you sure? I meant to —’

‘Not one word. You never wrote.’

Except for the hissing kettle there is a silence in the room.

‘Well, then, I am sorry,’ he says. ‘You know how forgetful I am —’

‘You cannot believe how badly I needed them.’ Rose sighs deeply. Twice she moves as if to speak but remains silent. At last the words come, but slowly. ‘Well, it is over now. I hit her, I think. And then ran. Bundled a few bits and pieces and ran. I had to come up here.’ A sound that is half cry, half bitter laugh catches in her throat. ‘I rode the Incline. That damned cableway must be my destiny! Henry, listen to me! I cannot think straight unless I am up here! That is the simple, irrational truth of it.’ Rose huddles deeper into her blanket.

Henry knows he must talk to her. This time he must. But the words elude him.

‘You hit who?’ He frowns and corrects himself. ‘Whom?’

This makes her smile. ‘Pedant! I hit his mother. Mary Scobie.’

Mary Scobie had answered Brennan’s call promptly. Always at her best in a crisis, she set to with mind-numbing kindness and efficiency. Within a week she had taken over running the household completely. Rose was treated as an invalid: urged to take long walks, bathe in salt water, join the local temperance group, write pamphlets. Meals were regular and nourishing, and little Con adored her. Mrs Scobie found a wet-nurse for the baby, who now beamed and burbled at all her admirers, and then slept all night.

When Brennan’s band won the championships Mary persuaded the mayor to throw a celebratory afternoon tea in the town hall. Rose went along with Mrs Scobie and the children, but could think of nothing to say to the hoard of unknown men and women, smart in their suits and hats, their gloves and handbags and smiles.

Brennan caught her as she was about to slip out a side door. ‘Rose, stay, please!’

His hand sat gently on her arm but there was a desperation in his voice. His need panicked her.

‘Bren, I can’t. I don’t know them.’

‘Just for a while. Take my arm.’

‘I’m not dressed right.’

Brennan gripped her elbow. ‘When did that worry you, Rose? Come and meet the mayor.’

But Rose could see how oddly she stood out. A rainbow among dark stormclouds. She felt the eyes of these strangers steal a curious look at the bright ornament in her hair, then slide off before they were caught staring. Whispers began to roar in her ears — this is the strange woman who strides alone around the streets; this is the bandmaster’s wife who can’t cope; whose mother-in-law had to be called in; who neglects her babies.

The dark roar of the gossip filled her head. She could feel the warm pressure of Brennan’s hand on her arm. Not enough. Not nearly enough against this wall of disapproval.

‘Bren!’ she gasped, ‘I’m truly proud of you. Truly.’ Then pulled away and dashed for the door.

When the others arrived home she had tea on the table, the stove lit, the kettle boiling. The little coal heart, Brennan’s first present to her, warmed the skin at her throat like a tiny fire. Rose cut bread, passed the corned beef, endured Mary Scobie’s silence. When Con was asleep, and Mary had taken Alice across the road to
the wet-nurse, Rose spoke to Brennan. The need to scream nearly overcame her, but she touched the little heart gently with her forefinger, spoke the words she had rehearsed.

‘Brennan, I must go back. You know it. I am no use to you here, or to the children.’

Brennan listened but said nothing. His misery was palpable, thick as treacle. Rose shut her eyes and ploughed on.

‘This is what I plan. No, listen — I have thought about it carefully. I will sell the log house. We could build our own fine place close to the new road. You could travel down often. You could easily find work on the Hill. Maybe we could start our own business. I have some savings. More than you think —’

‘No.’ Mary Scobie stood dark in the doorway. ‘No, Rose, no. You cannot run his life.’

‘Oh!’ Rose turned on her. ‘And who has been running all our lives these past few weeks?’

Mary cut through Rose’s words as easily as a steamship cuts through an ocean swell. ‘Rose, you have been sick. You are still not well. We must take care of you and the children — down here where Brennan has good work.’

Brennan’s eyes begged Rose to agree. He looked from one woman to the other but said nothing. Rose could not plead her cause against this solid block of mother and son. Her own voice sounded thin; it buzzed like a fly against Mary Scobie’s will.

‘Brennan,’ she said, ‘Brennan — my good friend — at least try. We were happy enough before. Remember those times? Come back with me.’

‘No.’ Again it was Mary who spoke. ‘No, Rose, it is no use to plead. Brennan’s future is not up on the Hill. He knows that. I know it. His father would say so if he were alive. None of my sons will ever go back there. It is a black place for our family.’

Brennan lifted his head at that, turned to his mother as if to speak. But Mary Scobie’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder, holding him in place.

That heavy controlling gesture broke the last shreds of control in Rose. ‘Leave him alone!’ she cried. ‘Let him decide, you evil woman! Go away! Go away!’ She rushed at the older woman, her arms flapping as if a stray chicken had entered her vegetable patch. Cups flew off the table, a chair overturned, Brennan jumped up in alarm. But before he could restrain his wild wife, Rose had reached his mother.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ Rose placed her hands on that woman’s stout bosom and tried to drive her out of the room.

Mary Scobie lost her balance and fell to the floor.

‘Rose!’ shouted Brennan, the first word he had uttered in all this fracas.

But Rose was already in the bedroom, tying a bundle of clothes together. By the time Brennan had picked up his dazed mother, Rose was out the back door and away, running north as if her life depended on it.

ROSE stops speaking. She cradles a mug of sweet tea, watches its surface as she tips it this way and that. Her hair is drying, the curls springing out again from her face. Henry has re-lit his pipe and its fragrance fills the tiny kitchen. He clears his throat. Begins to speak, then clears it again.

‘I have a question,’ he says at last. ‘In fact, two questions.’

‘Mmm?’ Rose is sleepy now.

Henry’s arm jerks and he knocks his pipe to the floor. He curses, retrieves it, sweeps up the ashes. Finally the question arrives. ‘Has Brennan spoken to you of Michael? … Of his death?’

Rose frowns. ‘Henry.
No one
speaks about Michael’s death. Not
you, not Brennan, not anyone. Michael’s death is an empty space that everyone skirts.’

‘Just so.’

‘Which leaves me there in the empty space too. Being skirted.’

Henry sighs. She sees things with such clarity at times, he thinks, and is ashamed of his own evasions. He tells her what he believes. That Michael loved Brennan deeply and without hope. The words come easily. Henry realises how ridiculous he is to have made such a monster of a young boy’s moment of despair. It is almost a pleasure to speak of it.

Rose narrows her eyes. Puts her cup down carefully. ‘You told Brennan this? When?’

‘Oh …’ Henry scratches his wiry hair. ‘Oh, years ago.’

‘And I never came into this cosy equation?’

Henry is taken aback by her vehemence. He plucks at the cord of his dressing-gown. ‘I assumed Brennan would —’

‘Brennan,’ says Rose fiercely, ‘would be embarrassed, yes? Ashamed, yes? How much easier for you to tell me. Oh, Henry, for pity’s sake, Henry,
why didn’t you?
’

Henry sees, in her lowering eyebrows, a sudden look of her true mother, Eva. Rose is as single-minded in her demand as a striking miner. His eyes crawl over the floor, searching for a crack. He brushes imaginary ash from his knee, picks up his empty mug and then puts it down again. Outside the rain lashes. Rose watches him.

He cannot say it.

‘Oh, Henry,’ says Rose, but her voice is gentler. ‘You fool. You cannot imagine how important — how good — it is to know that. Poor Michael.’

‘Yes.’

There is silence in the cramped little room. The rain has turned to sleet. Rose watches the watery ice slide down the window,
melting before it arrives at the sill. A kind of peace — or is it exhaustion? — is dragging her under.

‘What is your second question?’ she asks. Her eyes are closed.

Again Henry skirts the main issue. ‘Have you asked yourself why you have to come back? To this bleak spot? A woman with all your array of talents?’

‘Of course I have!’ Her gesture seems to brush at cobwebs; an odd, defensive movement. She sighs. ‘Of course I have, Henry. It is a matter of safety, I think.’

‘Safety! You would spit in the eye of safe and careful people.’

Rose is awake now. ‘Yes! But only from a position of safety. I don’t know! I have never understood it, but the fear is as solid as rock. You are the theorist, Henry. Can you explain it?’

Henry clears his throat, removes his pipe. It would be possible at this moment to speak about the past, as Bella suggested. Possible, yes, but wise? Rose is clearly puzzled by her behaviour, but is Billy Genesis really the cause? Henry suddenly doubts he can say the right words, and even if he could, who knows whether opening an old wound would heal it?

He looks at Rose. Her eyes are fixed on him, as if she would suck information from his very marrow. He looks away. Whether from wisdom or prudishness or even — it must be said — from self-interest, he remains silent.

Rose smiles, and then laughs out loud. ‘Henry,’ she says, ‘you old prude. I can see the thoughts creeping around behind your eyes.’

Henry shoots her a look of alarm, then smiles too. Here is the old Rose back again! Someone to spar with. ‘Well then, what am I thinking?’

‘You are thinking of when I was small. That terrible time with Billy Genesis. You are thinking I was damaged. You are curious, but you are too much a prude to question me.’

Henry’s mouth drops open. His pipe clatters to the floor. Will this extraordinary woman ever cease to amaze? ‘You remember that time?’

‘I was six — almost seven! Of course I do. It was not a time one forgets.’

‘Bella thought …’

Rose frowns. ‘Enough, Henry. Please. Bella thought I had forgotten. It was easier — simpler — to let her think that. The truth is I
chose
not to remember. I still choose. What else? If that … time … If that contributed to my problems, so be it. Better to forget when I can. The problems are still there.’

Henry nods. He looks at her with a kind of love. This tough survivor! She is wiser than all of us — and with far less reason.

‘Rose,’ he says, ‘we must take better care of you.’

Rose stretches. Gives him that wide smile that Henry has always considered manipulative. ‘Well then,’ she says, ‘why not start by letting me stay the night? I will sort something out tomorrow.’

‘You won’t go back to Brennan and the children?’

‘No. They must come here.’

There is no shred of doubt in her voice. Henry sighs.

‘You are happy on the Hill, true,’ he says. ‘Goodness knows why. It has not always treated you well. Perhaps you are right and safety is at the core. An isolated place like this is necessary to you.’

‘And you.’

‘Me?’ Henry sits straighter. ‘Oh no, I could leave and survive perfectly well. I simply …’ His voice trails away and he sighs. ‘Ah well, I expect you are right. We both need the Hill. Yes, yes, you see, Rose. A tap-root. Or perhaps an anchor.’ He nods sagely and points his pipe-stem at her. ‘A sheet-anchor. To stop you swinging too much in the storm.’