Reach for Tomorrow Page 10

  ‘So I wouldn’t feel right to take them now,’ Rosie said firmly. Hypocrite! The accusing little voice of conscience brought hot colour working up from her neck, but, she argued back, what else could she say? I don’t want to come to Robert’s do because your youngest son is a dirty beast of a man?

  ‘Father Bell will be there.’ Mrs McLinnie spoke as though the priest’s presence would turn the whole event into something holy, but then, when Rosie didn’t respond, she added, ‘But I understand, lass, aye, I do. Your da was a grand man an’ likely he’s right. There’ll be a few oilin’ their wigs I’ll be bound.’

  ‘The bairns could stay round your grannie’s.’

  ‘No.’ It was too abrupt, and Rosie’s colour intensified as she rose jerkily to her feet without any of her normal and natural grace. ‘No, Mam. I’ve told you, I don’t like the bairns staying there. Visiting for an hour or two with one of us maybe, but not staying by themselves.’

  She had been through all this with her mother the weekend before. There was something about one of her grandmother’s latest lodgers - a relatively young man who would have been good-looking but for his large, loose-lipped, wet mouth - that had unnerved her the last couple of times she had seen him with Molly and Hannah. It was the way he looked at her sisters, especially Molly. There was an element in his gaze that reminded her of the way Shane McLinnie eyed her, and she wasn’t imagining it.

  And Molly . . . Twice she had had to stop her sister from sitting on the man’s knee when he had come down to her grandmother’s kitchen, ostensibly to ask how they were all coping after the dreadful tragedy. Somehow Molly had always managed to sidle up close to his side. Of course, Molly was missing her father and her brothers, that was it. Rosie gave a mental nod to the voice in her head. She was just a little girl, an innocent bairn, and it was up to her mother and herself to protect the child. But therein lay part of the problem; her mother was so unaware these days.

  Even when Molly had dropped the sixpence out of the pocket of her pinafore that same night when she was getting ready for bed, and, under Rosie’s dogged questioning, eventually admitted that ‘Uncle’ Ronnie had given it to her, her mother had seemed quite oblivious to any possible implications.

  ‘He said I could spend it on bullets or taffy for just me,’ Molly had argued aggressively. ‘An’ anyway, I don’t have to tell you everythin’.’

  ‘No, you don’t, Molly.’ Rosie had looked down at her sister, at the deep sea-green eyes edged with thick lashes that curled like smudges of silk on her creamy skin, at the delicately arched eyebrows and luxuriant mass of golden-brown hair, and she had been afraid. ‘But sixpence is a lot to give to a little girl.’

  ‘That’s why he said I hadn’t got to tell.’ Molly stared at her defiantly. ‘He said you’d bray me.’

  ‘I won’t smack you but . . .’ Rosie hesitated. This wasn’t going to go down very well. ‘I don’t want you to accept anything else from Mr Tiller, Molly. Do you understand?’

  ‘His name is Ronnie, Uncle Ronnie.’

  ‘I don’t want you to accept anything from Uncle Ronnie.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Altogether the whole incident had left a nasty taste in Rosie’s mouth and it was back again now as she forced herself to smile at Mrs McLinnie and say, her tone as easy as she could make it, ‘I’ve just got to pop in and see Mr Price for a minute but I’ll be back before you go.’

  ‘No rush, lass, no rush. You know what me an’ your mam are like when we get jawin’. I’ll be here for a while yet.’

  Once outside on the cold landing Rosie stood quite still, her chin up and her eyes shut as she breathed in and out deeply, and then she raised her eyelids slowly, glancing round the sombre brown walls. She wasn’t going to let anyone dampen her feelings this morning - not her mother, not Shane McLinnie, not her grannie’s lodger, not . . . anyone. It hurt even to acknowledge Davey’s name. She had a job. It would be a struggle to manage on fourteen shillings less stamp - Molly and Hannah both needed their boots mending already - but they would get by somehow. She had already asked her grannie to look out for a cheap secondhand coat for Molly, who’d grown a good three inches recently, from the old market in the East End, and Hannah would have to make do with Molly’s coat which was still quite good. Her mother had paid a tidy bit for it not twelve months ago; she could afford to then, with her da and the lads all being in full-time work. Her own coat would have to be replaced before too long, the sleeves were halfway up her arms and the buttons were straining across her bust, but for the time being she would have to manage.

  Rosie’s shoulders slumped slightly at the thought of her threadbare coat, and then she straightened herself almost angrily. What was a coat anyway? There were others a darn sight worse off than her, and not so far from home either. Look at the wounded soldiers’ victory procession last July - she had sworn to herself she would never forget that. All those men, lads some of them, sitting in the line of horses and carts and some of them missing limbs or eyes or both. She hadn’t been the only one crying as the parade had gone by. She had her arms and legs and all her faculties, she was rich - rich - compared to them, poor things.

  And then there was Zachariah. Her eyes looked downwards as though they could penetrate the floor and see into the room below. She had never once heard him whine or bewail his lot, although heaven alone knew he had cause. But it was funny . . . She had started to walk to the top of the stairs but now she paused, her chin coming down into her neck as her eyes narrowed. When you got to know him, when he started talking and making you laugh, you forgot all about his legs.

  Funny that.

  ‘What do you mean, she’s not comin’?’

  ‘Just that, she’s not comin’.’

  ‘Because her da wouldn’t have liked it? That’s what you’re sayin’?’

  Shane McLinnie had been feeling more than a little pleased with himself before he had entered the kitchen of ninety-five Forcer Road. He’d done a fair bit of business over the last few weeks, he always did when the Danes were over. They were hard to deal with at times, liked all the profit on their side and to hell with everyone else, but he was a match for them. Aye, he was that. He liked what he did, that was the main source of his strength. He enjoyed the excitement, the thrill of outwitting both the customs and excise and the foreigners he dealt with, for whom he had scant respect.

  ’Course there were some who were more dangerous than others, but he had been watching his back since he had first got drawn into the game as a bairn of twelve. And on the whole they liked him, the big, fair-haired, blue-eyed sailors from across the sea. They thought he was like them, that was the thing, and it was an image he had deliberately fostered over the years. They drank or gambled their profits away most trips, half killed each other outside the bars down in the docks some nights, and he drank enough, gambled enough and fought enough - just enough - to be counted as one of them. But he wasn’t one of them, he was canny. He used them all but they couldn’t see it, played them off one against the other and then sat back and watched the results. And all the time they thought they had the upper hand.

  Aye, he was canny all right, and now another stack of notes had been added to the bulging tin box under the loose floorboard in the bedroom he shared with his brothers. He hated, loathed that room almost as much as he despised the other four inmates. He saw his brothers as big, stupid, blundering individuals without a grain of real intelligence between them, and the packed room, where every inch of space was taken up and the smell of human inhabitants was at times overpowering, disgusted him.

  And to think he had once run himself ragged trying to get accepted as one of them. The thought slashed at him, bringing a hundred inexpressible, deeply buried emotions to the surface for a split second. Why had he always felt like a stranger looking in on this family? Why?

  It didn’t matter. He breathed deeply, mastering the resentment. The box under the floor was his get-out and a means to an end, and that end was Rosie. When he married
her she was going to have her own home with its own privy and washhouse, and not one of the two-up, two-down hovels round this part either. No, he had the better part of Roker in mind for Rosie, perhaps even something in The Terrace overlooking the promenade.

  He’d always fancied himself living in The Terrace ever since, as a lad of twelve new to the game of acting as a runner for one of the sea captains, he had delivered a package under cover of night to a house there, and been asked to wait in the hall by a uniformed maid while she fetched her master. By, it had been a revelation that night on how the other half lived. And after he had relinquished the booty, he had received a florin for his trip and been taken to the kitchen by the said maid and given a plateful of cold meat and potatoes and a glass of foaming beer, and the size of the room, as well as the gleaming brightness and warmth and general air of affluence, had set something in his heart. And Rosie would fit in fine at The Terrace; nothing was too good for her, nothing.

  Annie had been standing looking at her son, and as always she found herself wondering what was going on in his mind. But now she shrugged nonchalantly, turning away from him as she said over her shoulder, ‘Whether it’s ’cos her da wouldn’t have liked it or not, the lass isn’t comin’, Shane, an’ that’s that. Let it alone.’

  Rosie liked his mother. Shane’s eyes slid over Annie’s broad back and his upper lip curled. He had often watched the pair of them having a crack in this very kitchen, but he was damned if he could understand the attraction. His mother was as coarse as any of the old fishwives down at the docks, she hadn’t a thread of refinement in the whole of her bloated body. By, he wouldn’t shed any tears the day he walked out of this filthy hole. But in the meantime, he might need her influence with Rosie, and it paid to keep her sweet.

  His thoughts prompted him to walk across the kitchen to where his mother was standing stirring a big pot of thick rabbit stew hanging like a witch’s cauldron over the open fire from a massive hook which swung out from the grate and, forcing a jocular note into his voice, to say, ‘All right, arsey Annie, all right. Keep your pinny on, woman,’ as he slapped the well-padded backside.

  ‘Eee, you’re askin’ for it, lad, you are.’ But Annie was smiling as she turned to face her youngest son. ‘An’ someone gave it to you an’ all, didn’t they, lad,’ she added slyly, as she nodded at the black eye he had been sporting for days. She hadn’t believed his explanation that he had walked into a door.

  Shane grinned back at her, his broad face open and innocent. He could handle his mam. All it ever took was a bit of effort and she was all over him. The thought wasn’t warming or even comfortable. It had ceased to be that a long time ago when he had started asking himself why she treated him differently to the others. Oh, she wasn’t aware of it maybe, and she would certainly deny it if it was put to her, but there was something - something he couldn’t put his finger on. It wasn’t favouritism, not in the normal sense anyway. He had seen that in other families where one of the parents, or both of them, made meat of one child and fish of all the others. No, this wasn’t that. It was almost as if - his mind struggled for a definition - as if she was grateful when he did or said things she would expect as par for the course from the others.

  Oh, what was he griping about? He turned as he heard the others outside and made his way to the kitchen table as the back door opened. It gave him an edge, didn’t it, and that wasn’t to be sneezed at. He was just more canny than the rest, that’s what it was, he could sense things the other blockheads were too thick to notice. Like with Davey Connor, he’d known exactly how to make him squirm with that story about Rosie. Connor had been putty in his hands. And Rosie steering clear of him with this excuse about the wedding, he’d sort that. He’d go round and see her himself. With Connor out of the picture the road was clear. A feeling of power broadened his chest. Aye, there was no one standing between him and Rosie now.

  Chapter Six

  ‘An’ who is it that’s askin’?’

  Shane McLinnie at a hefty six foot was a good fifteen inches taller than Zachariah, but as he stood in the street looking down at the smaller man, who had one hand firmly on the half-open front door, it was Shane who dropped his eyes from the piercing blue gaze as he answered, ‘Me mam’s a friend of her mam’s. I’ve . . . a message for her.’

  He was lying. Zachariah regarded the other man steadily and kept his voice even and pleasant when he said, ‘Aye, that’s as maybe, lad, but you understand with them bein’ women on their own I don’t allow no visitors upstairs. Don’t look too good to the neighbours an’ they’re nosier than most hereabouts.’ Zachariah had never cared about the opinion of his neighbours and he wasn’t about to start now, but he did care about Rosie, and there was something about this big strapping fellow in front of him he didn’t like. ‘Why don’t you give me the message an’ we’ll go from there, eh?’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘No? Personal like, is it?’

  Zachariah saw his words register in the pale blue eyes and knew the other man was itching to knock him into next weekend - it was there in the flare of red under his cheekbones and the tightening of his wide mouth - but he also knew that with Rosie upstairs this big lad would hold his hand. He was after her, even the way he had said her name betrayed it, and she might have something to say on the matter if her landlord was duffed up. The thought amused him.

  ‘Aye, you could say that.’ It was Shane’s eyes that slid away again and he shifted from one foot to another before he said, ‘Well if I can’t go up you’d better call her to come down, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Aye, that might be possible if she’s not seein’ to the bairns. Why don’t you give me your name, lad, an’ we’ll go from there.’

  Zachariah watched the other man hold on to his temper with some effort before he rapped out, ‘Shane McLinnie.’

  ‘Shane McLinnie.’ Zachariah moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘I don’t recall her mentionin’ the name.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Right, I won’t be a minute.’ And the next followed through on his gut feel. ‘You don’t mind waitin’ out here, do you, lad, what with the neighbours an’ all.’ He shut the door before Shane had a chance to open his mouth and then stood for a moment staring at nothing before he turned for the stairs.

  Once on the landing Zachariah knocked on the sitting-room door and asked to speak to Rosie away from the flapping ears of Jessie and the children, and by the time he had finished Rosie was standing with her fist pressed against her mouth, causing him to add, ‘What is it, lass? You in trouble of some kind?’

  ‘No, no, it’s just that . . .’ Rosie’s voice trailed away, before she said in a rush, ‘I hate him, Zachariah, he’s - he’s a horrible man.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ Zachariah sucked in his lips as his mind grappled with how to phrase the next question. ‘Has he bin botherin’ you, lass?’

  Rosie didn’t answer him directly but said instead, ‘He used to live next door to us, his mother visited my mam today.’

  Zachariah nodded. He had seen Jessie’s visitor and thought she seemed nice enough.

  ‘She’s lovely, Mrs McLinnie, but Shane . . . I think he’s always liked me but when my da and the lads were alive he didn’t do anything.’

  ‘An’ has he tried to do somethin’ since?’

  Her face was all the answer he needed and Zachariah felt a murderous rage sweep over him that was quite at odds with his small stature. ‘You leave him to me, lass. I’ll--’

  ‘No, no.’ As Zachariah turned Rosie caught hold of his arm, her voice urgent. ‘No, I’ll see him, Zachariah. Please, I’d rather do that. And . . . and I shall just tell him to keep away.’

  ‘An’ you think he’ll listen?’

  No, but if she started running away now she’d be running from Shane McLinnie all her life. ‘Yes, I’m sure he will.’

  ‘Well just remember I’ll be in me sittin’ room, an’ you shout if you need me, all right?’

  ‘All right, th
ank you.’

  Rosie went down the stairs first, knowing instinctively that Zachariah wouldn’t want her to witness him bumping down on his rear end, and it was that same instinct that told her she had to convince Shane McLinnie, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that she didn’t want anything to do with him. If she didn’t, if she wasn’t strong enough now, he would continue to pester her and lie in wait and she wouldn’t know a moment’s peace. She didn’t know how she had come by the gut knowledge but it was there, along with the fact that he was dangerous, at least where she was concerned.

  Once Zachariah was in his sitting room and the door had closed, Rosie took several deep breaths, her heart thudding and her stomach sick, and then she straightened her shoulders, pulling open the door with a determined flourish. ‘Yes?’ He was there in front of her at the bottom of the steps and such was his height that his eyeline was still above hers. ‘Is anything wrong, Shane?’

  ‘Hallo, lass.’ His voice was soft, and now her heartbeat pumped her blood in gushing booms as she willed herself to stand still on legs that were threatening to shake. ‘How are you doin’?’

  ‘We’re fine, but I’m just heating some water to wash the bairns.’

  He nodded, and then gestured with his head towards the dark hall behind her. ‘Aren’t you goin’ to ask me in for a minute?’

  ‘Mr Price doesn’t like visitors.’

  ‘That’s not what me mam said this evenin’.’ He smiled but it was only a movement of his mouth. ‘She said he was a nice little man.’ He stressed the ‘little’, and there was the sort of laughter in his voice that invited her to join in his mockery.