Reach for Tomorrow (29 page)
‘Oh aye, nice big bunch an’ all, an’ you know how tight he is. He’s got it bad, I’m tellin’ you, lass.’
Joseph Green and her mother. Well, hadn’t she been thinking the same thing? She had sensed they liked each other from that very first meeting. He’d be a kind stepfather to Hannah and the child had already taken to him without any reservations, and for her mother to have someone again . . . It would be the best thing that could happen. Joseph was strong enough to handle that difficult side of her mother without suppressing the capable element that was taking hold again.
The kitchen having been restored to gleaming brightness, Rosie had just placed the milk jug on the tea tray when both girls were arrested for a moment by the sound of the front-door bell. Rosie looked at Sally, wrinkling her brow as she said, ‘Who on earth . . . ?’ and then, with an eager note, ‘Oh, it must be Flora. I wrote her if she couldn’t make lunch she was welcome to come this afternoon with Peter. Let them in, Sally, would you, while I mash the tea and put two extra cups on.’
Rosie heard the sound of voices, one of which was unmistakably Flora’s, and as footsteps came along the hall she lifted a bright smiling face to the doorway, words of welcome hovering on her lips. But they were never voiced. She saw Flora pause in the doorway, her arm in that of a tall suntanned man. She heard her friend say, her voice nervous and high and giggly, ‘I didn’t know how to tell you, Rosie, but seeing is believing, isn’t that what they say!’ But the words were remote as though she was hearing them from a great distance. All she could focus on were a pair of achingly familiar hazel eyes set in a face that was older, much older, and unsmiling. She felt for a second that they were all suspended in space - each tiny detail of the frozen tableau crystal clear and bitingly sharp - and then the moment shattered into a million tiny pieces and the blood pounded into her head so fast it made her dizzy as Davey said, calmly, even stiffly, ‘Hallo, Rosie. It’s been a long time.’
She felt her fingers lose their grasp on the teapot and again it seemed to fall to the floor in slow motion, which was part of the strangeness of it all, but then, as the thick brown ceramic pot smashed and the boiling tea splashed over her feet, she let out a scream shrill enough to wake the dead.
From that point it was all action for a few minutes. Rosie was aware of Sally thrusting the two in the doorway aside so roughly Flora almost overbalanced, and rushing to her side, of answering shouts from the garden and following that, Zachariah appearing next to Sally, but such was the pain in her feet she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. ‘Wash the tea off, wash it off with cold water an’ then get some butter on her feet.’ This was from Jessie who had just joined them and taken in the situation with one glance, and after Sally had pushed her down onto a kitchen chair, and her mother had washed the tea off with a wet cloth before dabbing them dry, it was all Rosie could do not to give in to the feeling of faintness the pain was inducing. It was Zachariah who knelt at her feet and applied the butter gently to her burnt red skin, but light though his touch was she could barely stand it.
‘I’m sorry, Rosie, it was the shock, wasn’t it. I was the same.’ Flora was babbling away in the background and when Sally asked her what she meant, and Flora explained, there was a moment’s silence before Sally said, in her usual forthright way, ‘You stupid blighter, Flora,’ which summed up what everyone was thinking but no one but Sally would have dared to say.
For her part Rosie was urgently aware of Zachariah’s eyes on her face when the initial pain in her seared feet settled into a just bearable pulsating throb, and the words he had spoken on their wedding night were ringing in her mind. What she said and did over the next few moments would determine his peace of mind in the future, and it was this awareness that caused her to lean forward and touch Zachariah’s cheek with the palm of her hand before she did anything else. When she spoke her voice carried a soft intimacy that was not lost on the others present, and what she said was, ‘Thank you, my love, I’ll be all right, don’t worry.’ She smiled at him, keeping her gaze on his face for some seconds more before she raised her head and turned to embrace the rest of the room.
‘I’m sorry for all the drama, but it’s the first time someone has come back from the dead in my kitchen.’ She forced herself to smile, and her gaze swept over them all, not lingering on any one person. Then, when she finally allowed herself to look into Davey’s face, it was only for as long as it took her to say, ‘Hallo, Davey. You’ve met my husband before, haven’t you, when I first went to lodge at his house in Benton Street?’ and then she purposefully turned her eyes from hard challenging hazel to bright piercing blue.
This was no marriage of convenience. Davey experienced an actual physical pain in his chest the moment Rosie turned away. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that. And the devil of it was, he had liked Zachariah when he had met him five years ago.
Damn it all, what was he doing hanging around these parts anyway? He should have gone as soon as he had found out how things were. It certainly wasn’t the shipyard that was keeping him, that was for sure. He was grateful enough to Peter Baxter for giving him work when it was denied the milling throng of casual pieceworkers who stood outside the shipyard gates each morning, but the last few days had been hell on earth, with the deafening banging and hammering that was a constant background to the exhausting, filthy and dangerous work in Baxter’s yard. It was addling his brains and sending him barmy. Or perhaps it wasn’t the shipyard that was sending him barmy.
He gritted his teeth and then, as Jessie urged them all through to the garden, took Flora’s arm and followed the others out of the kitchen, leaving Rosie and Zachariah together.
‘It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it,’ said Rosie quietly.
It was nine o’clock that evening and everyone had gone home. Zachariah was sitting on their bed fully dressed next to Rosie who was in her nightie on top of the covers, the windows open to capture the cool night breeze.
Rosie’s feet were paining her, but it wasn’t her sore and blistered skin she was thinking of. Flora and Davey had only stayed a short time, but the others hadn’t made their goodbyes until a few minutes ago. Rosie hadn’t had a chance to talk to Zachariah about Davey’s reappearance with the company still present, but she knew it had to be done promptly and without any equivocation.
‘Aye, you could say that.’ Zachariah’s voice was grim. He had been furious with Flora about the accident and it had taken him all his time to be civil to her in the twenty or so minutes she and Davey had stayed. ‘If that lass wasn’t such a good pal of yours I’d have bin very tempted to put me boot up her backside.’
‘Oh, Zachariah.’ Rosie leant against him for a moment. If she were to speak the truth she would have to admit she hadn’t understood Flora’s behaviour today. In fact it wasn’t too extreme to say that the girl who had arrived and left with Davey Connor had been a stranger to her.
Davey Connor.
He was alive,
he was alive
. She still found it hard to believe, but then the whole half an hour or so had been surreal. Flora had been nervous and animated and skittish, and Davey had been so
different
- self-assured, cold even - viewing them all as though they were insects under a microscope. She felt it had been a relief to everyone when the two of them had left.
Davey Connor.
He was alive,
he was alive
. She still found it hard to believe, but then the whole half an hour or so had been surreal. Flora had been nervous and animated and skittish, and Davey had been so
different
- self-assured, cold even - viewing them all as though they were insects under a microscope. She felt it had been a relief to everyone when the two of them had left.
And she couldn’t understand why Flora hadn’t given her some prior warning - a note, anything - when she of all people should know how much of a shock Davey’s resurrection would be.
Oh, Davey. For the first time since she had seen him standing in the doorway of the kitchen Rosie admitted the depth of the feeling which had assailed her and her stomach turned right over. But she loved Zachariah too, she did, and he must be wondering about all this. And he must not wonder. He mustn’t be afraid. She would rather die than hurt him. That thought brought a measure of relief and perspective into the situation that had suddenly exploded into their lives, and was an echo of the declaration she had made to herself in the kitchen earlier.
‘I love you, you know.’ The words came easy now as she turned to him, lifting her face in a manner that invited him to kiss her.
When he withdrew his lips from hers he didn’t say anything for a moment, and then his voice was very soft when he said, ‘Love seems too weak a word, too well used an’ ordinary to express how I feel about you, but if ever your feelin’ for me changed I’d want you to tell me, lass. I mean that.’
She was lying very still, cradled in his arms, and she kept her gaze on his face when she said, ‘It won’t, it couldn’t.’ And then she further emphasized her words as she knelt up in front of him, ignoring the pain in her feet the movement produced, and cradled his face in her hands as she said again, her voice urgent and low, ‘I mean it, Zachariah. There is no one and nothing that could change the way I feel about you. I’m so proud to be your wife.’
‘Aw, lass, lass.’ And his mouth came down on hers again.
Later, when Zachariah had gone downstairs to lock up for the night, Rosie walked over to the bedroom window with careful, tentative steps which was all her sore feet would allow, and standing with the palms of her hands resting on the windowsill she breathed in the salty night air through the open window.
Her eyes narrowed on the view that The Terrace residents enjoyed - the wide road, the stone-slabbed pavement beyond with its lantern-style street lamps, and then over the neat, chest-high stone wall the unending vista of sand and sea. She would keep the unspoken promise her mouth and her body had made tonight. This other thing, this wild, ecstatic, terrifying other thing, had to go back into the dark secret regions it had sprung from, and it must never, never be talked about. She was going to make Zachariah happy, whatever it took, whatever it needed, she was going to make him happy.
But, oh - she straightened, her arms going round her waist as she hugged herself, her eyes tightly shut now - that moment of wonder, of paralysingly fierce joy she had felt when she had seen Davey standing there. He was alive - alive and warm and breathing. She swayed slightly as her heart thumped and raced. What was it about him that made her feel this way? She didn’t understand it. She didn’t
want
to feel it, she didn’t, but somehow he was as much a part of her as her own flesh. But she couldn’t afford to think like this, not even for a minute. He was part of her past, an old friend, and that was all he was.
That was all.
want
to feel it, she didn’t, but somehow he was as much a part of her as her own flesh. But she couldn’t afford to think like this, not even for a minute. He was part of her past, an old friend, and that was all he was.
That was all.
Rosie stood at the window for some minutes more until the swiftly deepening twilight and Zachariah coming upstairs sent her back to bed, and it was only then that a tall shadow some twenty or thirty yards down the nearside pavement and almost completely obscured by the high brick wall and hedge of the front garden of the house it was sheltering behind moved.
It began to walk down the street, passing number seventeen with just a casual glance as though that house held no more interest than any other in this pleasant salubrious part of Sunderland, but although the face would have been just a white blur to any passerby, the eyes, and the black satanic emotion they held, would have stopped them in their tracks.
He thought he had won, that little runt. He actually thought he had won, and he was in there now, holding her, touching her . . . The muscles of the hard square jaw worked, teeth ground together. But he could be patient. Oh aye, he could, he’d had years of practice hadn’t he, and all at the hands of that conniving scum if his suspicions were right, and he would bet his last penny they were.
How much had Price paid to get his dirty work done and then for his cohorts to keep quiet about the set-up? A small fortune; it must be a small fortune because all his bribes had brought forth nothing to date. Mind, Price might have something on them, it might be blackmail he’d used, that was always more effective than pounds shillings and pence, as he knew to his own advantage. He’d turned the screws on many a man in his time because of what he knew about them, and it was amazing what you could learn if you knew how to handle folk.
He might never have clicked on how Price was behind him having to leave if the little fellow hadn’t made the mistake of marrying her. But looking back in the light of the present it was clear - oh aye, crystal clear. But he’d found out one piece of useful information in all his digging and he was working on the result of that. Did Price’s ex-fancy woman know anything? Maybe. And if she did he’d get it out of her, she was already eating out of his hand. Shane McLinnie paused, looking back the way he had come before turning and walking on towards Monkwearmouth as he fought the frustration that drew him to The Terrace every evening and kept him awake half the night. He’d left a nice thriving set-up in Glasgow to come back to this dead stinking hole, but he could always go back when he was ready. And he wouldn’t go alone this time either. He was damned if he would.
Rosie was used merchandise now. The thought stuck in his throat and caused him to breathe harder. No better than some of the whores that worked the docks and the back streets. He’d take it out of her hide, by, he would, her giving herself to that - that
runt
of a man. No. No, he wouldn’t. He shut his eyes tight against the knowledge and leant against the gable end of a house for a moment, his legs limp. He wouldn’t harm a hair of her head, not Rosie. She was a sickness with him, she was in his blood, his marrow, he’d been born wanting her.
runt
of a man. No. No, he wouldn’t. He shut his eyes tight against the knowledge and leant against the gable end of a house for a moment, his legs limp. He wouldn’t harm a hair of her head, not Rosie. She was a sickness with him, she was in his blood, his marrow, he’d been born wanting her.
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