Annie's Promise (18 page)

They ate fish and chips on the floor by the light of hurricane lamps and laughed at the sight of Tom’s back which was white from the gloss paint he had leaned against.

They laughed the next day too, as the tables were put together and Rob asked where the union man was to have his office.

‘Union woman you mean,’ Sarah said. ‘Or hasn’t Uncle Tom told you all about the birds and the bees.’

‘No unions necessary here yet, lad,’ Tom said wagging his finger at Sarah.

‘No unions necessary at all,’ Annie said. ‘We’ve only got six workers and that includes Gracie and me.’

‘We’re all in it together – like a big family. There’ll be a bonus scheme with the profits. Some will be ploughed back, the rest shared,’ Tom added.

Sarah looked at Annie. ‘Well, we kids deserve a share too, look how hard we’ve worked.’

Annie looked at Tom and Gracie, then at Betsy. ‘We’ll see, when the weekend’s over.’

The electrics were finished at three, the tables too. Brenda’s husband had helped Tom without charge.

They moved in the machines, stacked the cloth, the trimmings, everything. Annie put up her stock-control charts and asked Tom about printing up some two shilling discount vouchers ‘off the next purchase’ to be put into each packaged order.

‘Good idea. They’ll come back to us. We can build it into the price to some extent.’

They moved in her rotary cutter, Tom’s design board. The carpenter erected a partition for Annie’s office. The phone would be installed on Monday. ‘I’ll ring round and tell everyone our new number then send a circular to all potential customers.’

They erected a partition for Tom’s design department. He
placed his board beneath the skylight, and asked for just one more shelf.

Betsy brought them flasks of tea at nine o’clock. ‘Bloody ambrosia,’ Tom said, drinking his in great gulps.

‘I’ve brought in a kettle, and put in a box of provisions,’ Bet said. ‘We’ll not be able to run a business without a good cuppa.’

Annie sat back on a table, took out her cigarettes, put one in her mouth, then looked up as a silence grew. Bet, Gracie, Tom, Rob, the carpenter, Sarah and Davy, even Brenda’s husband were all shaking their heads and she took it from her mouth, put it back into the packet and joined in the laughter and the conversation which swelled and continued until late into the night.

In the morning Annie told the staff that they were forbidden to eat or drink and especially to smoke at their tables. They could make tea in the restroom and smoke there in their breaks.

She told them of the revised Glasgow order which she had taken this morning when she rang the store. She pointed to the coupons which Joe had brought to the premises.

‘We’re still inundated but it’s getting better so there’ll be a new mail shot soon. Don’t worry, we can cope with the existing Manners’ stock, we’ll just be altering the trim to fill the first orders, and only then making up new ones. We are paying a basic wage – I don’t believe in piecework, as you know. And there will be a bonus as and when we are operating at a profit. Sadly the leasehold has tripled. It has swallowed our profit and we now have debts to repay but the direct and indirect orders are pouring in and growing all the time. Things will improve,’

She worked throughout the day, walking to the restroom frequently to light up, sucking the smoke in deeply, wishing the trembling in her hands would stop, and the headaches too. Brenda said, ‘It’s not fair you know, Annie, Jean smokes and she can’t keep leaving her machine.’

Annie nodded, ‘You’re right,’ she said and walked back to
her office, then to the cutting machine. She must keep her hands busy and her mouth shut. How had Tom stopped and not screamed at them all every minute of the day? Didn’t Brenda know what it was like to starve yourself?

Gracie took over in the afternoon and Annie visited Georgie with Sarah. As they walked up the stairs to the ward Sarah said, ‘When we were laughing yesterday I forgot Da, forgot he was in here.’

Annie nodded. ‘I did too, but that’s what he’d want. It means things are getting better. We’re not so worried. Soon he’ll be home.’

They walked down the ward, waving to the men, saying hello, waving to Georgie who was sitting up in his bed at the end of the row.

‘Cor, been riding up and down the ward in his throne today he has,’ Old Jed said.

Annie smiled, not understanding, then Andy called from the left. ‘Proper little Hitler. Telling staff to turn left, right and then fast forward. Come and have an apple, Annie, lovely they are, the Missus brought them.’

Annie moved across as Sarah ran down to Georgie. ‘Hello Mrs Ganby, how do you put up with this husband of yours?’ Annie took the apple, feeling Andy grip her fingers, pull her closer.

‘He’s been in the wheelchair today. He was faint, frightened. He’s not himself,’ Andy said quietly.

‘Thanks, Andy.’ Annie touched his hand, smiled at Mrs Ganby, took the apple across to Georgie, watched his empty smile as they talked, his shoulders which were straight and tense. She told him of the move, of the help that Sarah had been.

‘You can see from her hair,’ she laughed.

His laugh was strained.

‘The girls are busy. Everything’s set up, there’s a new order from Glasgow and there’s talk of another from Edinburgh.’

Georgie nodded, she waited, listening as Sarah told him of her new cart, the latest Elvis Presley, Bill Haley’s
Rock
around the Clocks
, of Annie’s quick temper now that she wasn’t smoking, then there was silence.

‘So, how are you, darling?’ Annie said.

‘Fine, just fine.’

Staff Nurse took his temperature, his pulse, straightened his sheets, caught Annie’s eye and gestured towards her office. Annie nodded, she would stop and talk when visiting ended.

‘You look better, you’ve some colour.’

‘So I should, I’ve been having my exercise. I’ve been having my constitutional. I’ve been pushing myself up the ward in a wheelchair, practising to be a cripple.’

Sarah’s face went blank with shock, she turned to Annie as the bell rang and the wives bent to kiss their husbands, squeeze their hands, tuck in their blankets. Annie did all these, then took Sarah’s hand and his, saying to both of them. ‘There will be days like these but it will improve. You’ll be frightened now, it’ll seem strange to be upright, to have to be helped. You’ll feel faint but just remember, you’ll come home and pick up your life again and that’s what we want more than anything else because we love you, we admire you.’

She held Sarah’s hand as they walked down the ward, turning to wave at Georgie, feeling her own tears but knowing he must never see them fall at the thought of him in a wheelchair.

Georgie watched them go. God, she looked so tired and Sarah so small – he must be crazy. ‘Annie, Annie,’ he called but she was gone and he hadn’t told her that he’d wanted to cling to the bed, stay where it was safe, that he hadn’t wanted to look down once he was in the chair and see the gap where his leg should have been. He hadn’t wanted to be pushed down the ward so that everyone could see it too. He couldn’t tell her that he loved her, wanted her to hold him, make him better, bring back his leg, take him to a time before any of this had happened.

He couldn’t tell her that they would be moving him to the special unit now that his stump had healed sufficiently for a leg to be fitted. He would practise walking again and then he could come home and pick up his life. He couldn’t tell her that that thought frightened him more than death, because what sort of a life would it be? They had all moved on without him.

Georgie wheeled himself down the ramps on to the grass of the special unit. It was his first morning and the scent of roses hung in the August air. All around were other patients in chairs, wheelchairs and on crutches. It made him feel at home.

He sat and watched the breeze ripple the lake.

‘You’ll be able to walk down there soon,’ a passing nurse called. ‘I’m telling you, just you wait and see.’

He looked after her, watching her stride across the lawn towards the building. Could she also tell him how to join a firm which had not existed before this had happened, a firm which he had had no hand in, which had only thrived once he had gone?

Could she tell him how to show his body to his wife, make love to her? Could she tell him how to break free of this great black bird of depression which hovered over him, day and night?

The next morning he wheeled himself down corridors which did not shine as they had in the hospital. ‘Don’t want you all slipping and sliding about do we?’ the nurse said, walking behind him.

He eased himself up on to the bed, hitched up his dressing gown and watched as a man in a white coat smiled at him and then slipped a thin sock over his stump.

‘Taking a cast for the pylon,’ he said. ‘I’m Bill by the way.’ Bill whistled through yellowed teeth as he slapped plaster on.

He needed his white coat Georgie thought, as the plaster splashed him, we all need a bloody white coat, as some landed on his own lapel.

In five minutes it had set.

‘OK. I’ve got a pair of your shoes, haven’t I? Come back in a week, same time, same place, I’ll be waiting.’ Bill grinned. ‘I’m not as tempting as Marilyn Monroe but who cares.’

It took a week to build up his strength – a week of physiotherapy and exercise, a week without Annie and he was glad because then
there was nothing to remind him of the world outside.

On Sunday she came with Sarah and they walked across the lawn towards him, Annie so thin, so tired, Sarah so eager and it was at Sarah he looked, at Sarah he smiled because she wouldn’t see that behind the smile there was only uncertainty and fear.

They drank tea and watched the ripples on the lake and the glitter of the pale afternoon sun and talked of the following week, when he would begin to walk.

‘At last, darling,’ she said, ‘you’ll be up on your feet, and soon we’ll have you back terrorising the neighbourhood. Remember that waltz you promised me?’

They could only stay for one hour because the drive back was long and besides, Sister Barnes had said that he was tired, depressed, and needed his peace.

She watched Sarah and Davy crouching on the grass making daisy chains and Annie remembered how Georgie had made one for her at the beck when they were children, his strong brown fingers sewing the stems through the eyes, his fingers lifting her hair as he settled it round her neck, and the smell of his skin had hung between them.

‘She’s growing so much,’ Georgie said.

‘I know, the time just seems to rush by somehow, one minute they’re babies, the next they’re singing rock ’n’ roll.’

‘I don’t want to talk about time,’ he said quietly, his voice flat and empty.

Annie put her hand on his, wanting his firm grasp but there was nothing and so she talked of Brenda because that at least was safe.

‘You see, Georgie, she feels one girl should just sew seams, another the gusset and so on. Apparently it’s how it was done in her old workshop. I don’t agree, I think there’s a pride to a finished garment. What do you think? You’ve such a steady head on you. I wish you were back – we need you.’

Georgie looked at the trees. The leaves had already begun to change and soon there would be a chill in the air. Sarah and Davy were down by the lake now, running round it, counting how many times they could do it before they had to give up, out of breath.

He looked at Annie. What did he know about gussets and seams? It was a world away. He shrugged. ‘You’ll sort it out.’

Annie drove away from the white building with its columns, its sloping lawns, its roses. The gravel crunched beneath the wheels, the children chatted in the back. She looked in her rear-view mirror hoping to see him waving but he had turned and was pushing his way back to the lake. He hadn’t been interested in her, or in the business, but it was only uncertainty, she knew that, she was a nurse, goddammit, and she knew that his battle was not nearly over, that he was in danger of drowning and that she could do nothing to help.

Georgie wore trousers down to Bill’s. The sister had pinned his empty leg up. ‘Tidier,’ she’d said.

We must be tidy, he thought, remembering how he’d told his men this. For God’s sake be tidy or the bomb could blow. Isaacs had told Annie that. What was it – be tidy or Georgie Armstrong will mess it up?

Sister held the swing doors open and he wheeled himself through and there was his leg standing against the wall, shiny, new, tidy, covered in rivets, nuts and screws, wearing his sock, his shoe.

‘Shapely, don’t you think?’ Bill said, lifting the leg,
pointing towards another set of swing doors. ‘Come into the Palais then, just don’t jive the first day.’

Georgie’s hands were damp as he pushed himself through into a whitewashed room with a large rubber mat on the floor and a huge mirror hanging at the end of low parallel bars.

Bill steadied him as he heaved himself from the chair on to a stool. He wriggled his trousers down as Bill asked, feeling unsafe, glad of Bill’s help as he lifted first one buttock then the next, easing his trousers from beneath him, removing his shirt. ‘Good, Sister said she’d told you to wear a vest. Leave it on, you’ll need it. The harness is a bit like a new pair of shoes which rub your heels – have to wear them in a bit.’

‘I knew there was a good reason to lose a leg,’ Georgie smiled, nodding at his false leg. ‘No blisters to worry your heel any more.’

Bill laughed. ‘That’s the spirit. Gets some people down, this does.’ Bill pulled on a short woolly sock over the stump then eased the deep socket of the pylon over the leg, buckling the leather belt which was attached to it round Georgie’s lower abdomen, then buckling his leather braces to the body-belt. Georgie felt helpless, uncomfortable, ugly. ‘It’s like harnessing up a bloody horse,’ he said.

‘Not a bad comparison – you’re going to be working like one in a minute and if you’re good you can have a carrot,’ Bill said rechecking the harness. ‘Now listen to me, there’s a hinge in the knee and the instep to “give” when you walk. It’ll all feel very strange and you’ll have no strength in that stump. Upsadaisy now, time to take your partners for a glide across the floor – you’ve drawn the short straw – two blokes.’