Angel of the North (8 page)

‘Don’t I even get a kiss? I’ll be off tomorrow.’

She kissed him on the cheek with as much grace as she could muster.

He held her waist in two strong hands, and gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Will you come and see me off?’

‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow morning before you go,’ she said, turning her face away to evade a kiss. ‘I’ll just have time before I start work.’

She watched him get back in the car and managed to wave him off fairly civilly as he drove away, then went in and closed the door, not best pleased with Charles for taking Hannah’s side
when she was so clearly in the wrong.

Within half an hour she was in bed, desperate to get enough sleep to see her through her next shift at the hospital. Again sleep eluded her. There was nothing she could think of with an easy
mind; nowhere she could rest her thoughts and feel tranquil. Her mother had been transferred to the hospital in Beverley, and was out of danger, but still gravely ill. As soon as she was a bit
better the hospital would want to discharge her, and who was there to care for her but her daughter? She would have to leave work, and then what would they do for money? No, she couldn’t
leave work, she’d bring Pam back from the Stewarts to help, but that might not be easy. Pam had her feet well under the table there, and it was a better spread table than anything Marie could
provide. Pam seemed to belong more to the Stewarts now than to her own family. Never mind! If Pam was needed at home, she’d have to come home, and that was the end of it.

And that bloody woman Hannah, having men round while her husband was risking his life on the convoys. He might already be dead; hadn’t Mr Elsworth said that 700,000 tons of shipping had
gone to the bottom already? And God knows how many men. But that obviously didn’t bother Hannah. And poor little Jenny – left out all evening and then nearly getting her head knocked
off. Poor little scrap – somebody had to stick up for bairns like that.

But what rankled most was Charles. He’d been a dead loss, not only failing to back her up, but apologizing to that slut! ‘I’m sorry, Hannah, you’ll have to excuse
her,’ he’d said. Outrageous! Talking about her as if she were deranged! Her thoughts flitted back to Alfie then, crying and pleading to come home, and she pictured herself as hard and
cruel as Hannah, fobbing him off instead of comforting him, and then waltzing off and leaving him to the tender mercies of the widow and her son. Alfie wanted to come to the funeral, and it might
be soon – something else to face.

She got up and wrote a letter to Pam but left it unsealed. She’d finish it and send it as soon as she knew something definite. That done, she went back to bed to toss and turn, sleep
little and fitfully, and wake from time to time in the middle of dreams of attacks on defenceless children who changed from Jenny into Alfie and then back again, until they were one and the same.
She awoke at dawn to the awful realization that she truly was on her own. There was no one else to shoulder any of the responsibility for them all. Everything that had to be done would have to be
done by her, and her alone.

Hannah opened the door of the Elsworths’ house the following morning, and gave Marie one long, silent, hard-faced stare, but she had misjudged her opponent. Marie stared
straight back, boring right into her eyes, and Hannah was the first to look away. Then she turned her back and sauntered up the stairs. Marie stepped inside and closed the door after herself.

‘Hello?’ she called.

‘In the kitchen!’ Mrs Elsworth answered.

Marie walked along the hallway past the telephone on the polished table, and found her by the Rayburn, pouring steaming coffee into four cups.

‘You see, you were expected,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have time to drink this before Charles has to leave.’

Marie went and stood beside her. ‘I thought Hannah might have had her orders to register for employment in some government work by now,’ she commented.

‘If she has, she hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

‘Have you ever seen her daughter?’

Mrs Elsworth’s manner became guarded. ‘Once or twice.’

‘Did Charles tell you about last night?’

‘He mentioned something, very briefly.’

Marie gave her version, also briefly, and as dispassionately as she could.

‘I’m afraid I agree with Charles,’ Mrs Elsworth said. ‘I never get involved in other people’s family affairs. Hannah’s worked here for three years, and
she’s been very reliable. I really prefer not to know about her private life. It’s not my concern.’

Marie felt she’d been properly put in her place, and resolved to say no more – not here, at any rate. What would be the point? It was clear that she would receive no back-up from
this quarter.

Charles and his father provided a welcome interruption.

‘I’m glad you’ve come.’ Charles gave her a wide smile and pulled out a chair for her.

‘Thanks, Chas,’ she smiled back, using the nickname more as one in the eye for Mrs Elsworth than because she felt much friendlier towards him. He dropped a kiss on the back of her
neck as she sat down. His father carried two of the coffee cups to the table, and pulled a chair out for his wife. Mrs Elsworth brought the other two, and put one down in front of Marie, her lips
compressed into that increasingly familiar thin line of disapproval.

When the coffee was finished Mrs Elsworth took the cups to the sink. Charles got up, and putting his arms round his mother, gave her a squeeze.

Marie saw the tears start to her eyes. ‘Come back safe,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t come to the station. I’ll say goodbye here, and here’s where I pray
I’ll see you again.’

She followed them to the door, brushing tears away with a lawn handkerchief and Marie regretted her childish insistence on her pet name for Charles. She was just about to say so when Hannah came
downstairs with her yellow duster and thrust herself into the gathering.

‘So long, Charles,’ she said, with a knowing wink. ‘When you’re at that camp, and they bring a lorry load of Land Army girls in for you to dance with, don’t do
anything I wouldn’t do!’

Marie’s jaw dropped at the cheek of her, and Charles gave Hannah an unfathomable look. ‘I certainly won’t,’ he said.

Mrs Elsworth stopped crying in an instant, her face taut and her manner icy. ‘You’ll find some washing-up in the kitchen, Hannah, and the floor needs mopping,’ she snapped.

Nothing daunted, Hannah sashayed down the hallway singing a snatch from an Andrews Sisters number about a boogie woogie bugle boy. ‘Da daah – da da – daah da!’ she
bawled. ‘Da daah – da da – daah da!’

‘We’d better be off,’ Mr Elsworth said.

He tactfully said his own goodbyes when he dropped Charles and Marie at the station.

Beneath her all-sweetness-and-light exterior Marie was still smouldering about Charles’s failure to back her up with Hannah, but now was not the time to bring it up and spoil their last
few moments together.

He was happily oblivious, or pretending to be. ‘I’m sorry I have to go and leave you to deal with this mess with your parents on your own, Marie,’ he said, and the hazel eyes
gazing into hers had a truly troubled look. ‘If I had any choice in the matter, I’d stay and help, but I haven’t, so I’ll have to do it by proxy. Dad’s promised to run
you up to Beverley whenever you want to visit your mother, as long as the petrol ration stretches to it.’

‘I should think his petrol ration will stretch a lot further with you away,’ she said.

‘Ha ha. Anyway, keep him to it. I was thinking that if we got married on my next leave, you could get the allowance. At least it would help towards paying the rent and other expenses.
Until then you might be able to get some help from the government. Dad will look into that for you, as well.’

She looked up, startled. ‘Is that a proposal? We’re not even engaged!’

Charles pulled a tiny box out of his inside pocket. ‘That’s your fault. We might have been engaged yesterday, if you’d asked me in. What do you say, Marie? Shall we make a go
of it?’ He placed the little box in her hand.

She flipped the lid open. On a cushion of deep blue velvet lay a beautiful gold ring. Three bright diamonds twinkled up at her.

‘Oh, Charles, I’m sorry.’

His face fell.

‘I mean, I’m sorry about last night,’ she said. ‘But why on earth didn’t you back me up with Hannah?’

‘Let’s forget last night; it’s water under the bridge. Does that mean yes? Do you like the ring?’

She slipped it onto her ring finger. ‘It’s a dead fit. I like it better than Nancy’s. It looks real nice, doesn’t it?’

‘Does that mean yes?’

She looked up and laughed. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Don’t go overboard, will you?’ he grinned and, pulling her towards him, gave her a long, lingering kiss before releasing her and looking deep into her eyes. ‘I’ve
got some plans for us, my beauty, when the war’s over. Wider skies, and broader horizons. We’re going to spread our wings and fly.’

‘Hull’s got pretty wide skies and broad horizons,’ she said. ‘The countryside’s flat for miles around.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I do, but I’m needed here.’

‘I know. I understand what a terrible time you’re going through, Marie,’ he said earnestly, ‘but it won’t last forever. I wish I could be with you but I
can’t, so I’ll help in the only way I can.’ He put two five-pound notes into her pocket. ‘Keep them, just in case. I don’t want you to be stuck for money.’

‘I’ll take it, but I won’t spend it unless I absolutely have to. I’ll hand it back when I see you again, if I can.’

He pulled her close and kissed her, then said: ‘You know, I’d trust you with my life, never mind ten pounds. It’s there for you to spend, if you get stuck. You’re the
most honest, decent, unselfish girl I’ve ever met, but don’t let that brother of yours con you into having him home. He can’t look after himself, and you’ll find
you’ve made a rod for your own back. When your mother comes out of hospital get Pam back instead, and let her make herself useful. She’s old enough to do her share. It shouldn’t
all land on your shoulders.’

‘I’ll have no choice if I want to carry on working, but I don’t think she’ll come willingly.’

‘Then make her come however it has to be. I do love you, old thing. Did I ever tell you that?’

‘Once or twice.’ He looked expectantly into her eyes, and she softened enough to say the words she knew he was waiting for: ‘I love you too.’

And it was the truth. She did love Charles. She watched him go, certain they would marry and longing for the day when the war was over and she was settled with him, with a couple of miniature
Charleses clinging to her skirts, but she’d lied when she’d said she was sorry about last night. She wasn’t sorry at all, either about having a go at Hannah, or sending Charles
home after he’d failed to back her up. He’d let her down, and he deserved to be made to feel it.

‘What did you think to the play?’ Nancy asked.

‘All right,’ Marie said, suppressing a yawn and longing for the end of her shift so that she could collapse into bed.

‘Only all right? I thought it was real good. So did George.’

‘George? I wouldn’t have thought he was the play-going type.’

‘He’s not really, but a couple of the actors are lodging at my mother’s, and they said it’s the best production they’ve ever been in, so I got him to take me. Thank
goodness we didn’t have an air raid to ruin it for us.’

‘How much does she charge them – the actors?’ asked Marie. ‘If I have to leave work to look after my mother, taking a couple of lodgers might help with the
housekeeping.’

‘Never asked,’ Nancy shrugged, ‘and Mam wouldn’t tell me anyway. But actors are ideal, she says. They never stay too long. One of them’s gorgeous, though.
He’s been offered a job in the films.’ Nancy tilted her head back and gave a self-conscious, tinkling little laugh. ‘He says the only thing stopping him from taking it is
he’d never see me again.’

‘He’s got it bad, then,’ Marie said sardonically.

Nancy looked ecstatic. ‘He has,’ she replied, oblivious to the sarcasm. ‘He says he’ll only take the job if I promise to move down south with him.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Marie said, suddenly wide awake.

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘You’re telling me you’re going to chuck a man like George – who you’re
engaged
to, by the way – for a slick-talking fly-by-night you’ve known
about half an hour? Yes, Nancy, if I were in your shoes I’d certainly think about that, long and hard. I’d think about it until I’d thought myself back into some sense. George is
a good lad. He’s a qualified engineer, and he’s dead keen on his job. He’s got good prospects, Nance.’

‘Well, you’re not in my shoes, and prospects don’t set anyone’s pulses racing.’

‘And the actor chap does, I suppose?’

‘Yes, he does! And how do you know Monty hasn’t got good prospects?’

‘Monty!’

Nancy blushed. ‘Yes, Monty. His real name’s Montgomery Holmes.’

‘I bet that’s not his real name, Nance. Don’t let him kid you.’

‘It’s his professional name, then. And it’s a very good name for a film star, if you ask me. And he’s good company. He took me to a restaurant on my day off, treated me
like a queen. He thinks I ought to have drama lessons. He says Hull’s got the best-looking women in England, and I’m the best-looking woman in Hull. He says I’m pretty enough to
be in the films.’

‘He’s got a hell of a lot to say, by the sound of it. What’s he after – or has he already got it?’

Nancy tossed her head, very miffed. ‘What a rotten thing to say! He’s not after anything – and he hasn’t got anything, either. Can’t anybody pay anybody a
compliment, without being after something? You’re in a nasty mood today, Marie.’

‘No, I’m not. You’re talking about doing the dirty on George, and I’m being honest, telling you it’s ten to one you’ll regret it if you do. I can’t help
it if you don’t like the truth.’

‘I could tell you some truths, if I wanted to, that you wouldn’t like,’ Nancy flared. ‘Are you sure you know Charles as well as you think? There might be a lot about him
that you don’t know.’