Reach for Tomorrow Read online

  She flung the thick braid of shining brown hair that hung down to her waist over her shoulder, straightened her thin shoulders and narrowed her eyes as she glanced once more round the clean, cosy kitchen that signified home. This stage of her life was over, it was over for all of them and she had to let it go - there were three people depending on her now and it was no good crying for what used to be.

  But whatever she did, she’d continue trying to talk properly and learning about words as her schoolteacher, Miss Trotter, had encouraged her to do. Their Sam had understood about that when she had told him what Miss Trotter had said. ‘You could be a schoolteacher you know, lass.’ He had nodded at her, his eyes thoughtful, and in answer to her laughing, ‘Go on with you, our Sam,’ he had repeated, ‘Oh aye, you could, lass, I’m not jestin’. I can’t put me finger on it but you’re different to the rest of us.’

  Well, she didn’t think she wanted to be a schoolteacher, not that there was much chance of that now anyway. But a few things had clarified after those Sunday talks. She still liked the idea of being married, but not the sort of marriage where she had one bairn after another and lived her life within four walls in a daily drudgery that would have her an old woman at thirty like some of the women hereabouts. And she wanted her husband to have something better than a subterranean existence in the bowels of the earth with the pit controlling whether he lived or died. She wanted . . . Oh, she wasn’t sure what she wanted, that was the truth of it, but she would recognize it when she saw it.

  She turned, her thick plait whirling about her shoulders, and left the room without further speculation.

  Chapter Two

  It took Rosie a few minutes to get the fire going again the next morning, but eventually the glowing embers were persuaded into life and more of Davey’s coal, along with half a bucketful of cinders, began to make the burgeoning flames crackle and spit.

  After filling the big black kettle and putting it into the centre of the fire, Rosie stood close to the shining blackleaded hob for a few moments, soaking up the warmth. Not that the kitchen had had the bitter chill of the bedrooms, she reminded herself silently, holding out her cold hands to the blaze. There had been thick ice starring the inside of the bedroom window this morning and her nose had felt as though it was frozen over. The thought emphasized the poignant difference a mere three weeks had made to their quality of life.

  Since Sam, and then Phil, had joined their da down the pit they hadn’t had to worry about money, Rosie reflected. A good week, when both her da and the lads had worked the full five-and-a-half shifts - although that had happened less of late - had meant wage packets totalling nearly nine pounds between them after stoppages, according to her mother. Of course their Phil hadn’t earnt as much as their da and Sam, and the lads had still kept a fair portion of their earnings after they’d paid their board, but nevertheless her mam’s housekeeping had run to fires in the bedrooms from October to April, plenty of good food on the table, and warm winter coats and boots each year in spite of the way she and her sisters had shot up.

  Her mam doing up the front room had cost a fair bit, but her da had been happy to go along with it. He’d said her mam had had a bee in her bonnet about having a nice front room from when they were first wed and it was high time she had some new stuff instead of old hand-me-downs. But now . . .

  Her musing on the extravagance of the new suite and square of carpet and curtains in the mausoleum that was her mother’s front room was cut short by a gentle knock at the back door.

  ‘Davey.’ She stood in front of him, smiling widely. ‘I was just getting things ready before I get my mam and the bairns up.’ And then, a little flustered by the knowledge that she had shown her pleasure at seeing him too enthusiastically, she added more sedately, ‘Come in, won’t you, you must be frozen out there,’ as she stood aside for him to enter then shut the door quietly behind him.

  ‘It’s a raw mornin’,’ he agreed, as he turned round to smile at her.

  Oh, she was so glad to see him. The depth of her feeling made her heart pound and when he said, ‘You look flushed, are you feeling all right?’ she was glad she could say in all honesty, ‘It was the fire, it wouldn’t go at first,’ with a nod towards the range.

  He stood in the middle of the kitchen looking slightly awkward as he glanced round the silent room, and it was his faint bashfulness that enabled her to speak more naturally. ‘I was just going to make a pot of tea. Sit down there and I’ll have it mashed in no time.’

  ‘Ta, thanks.’

  Oh he was nice. He was so, so nice.

  ‘I popped round on me way to work ’cos me mam had a bit of streaky bacon and a couple of sausages she thought you could use for the bairns’ breakfast.’

  Rosie glanced at the package he placed on the kitchen table and she could see there was more than bacon and sausages in it, and again her heart flooded with emotion. She knew exactly who had prompted Mrs Connor’s magnanimity. ‘Thank you.’ She turned fully to look at him as she spoke and his eyes were waiting for her.

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘I’m going into Hendon later to look for rooms.’ Rosie placed the big brown teapot on the table as she spoke before filling a pint pot with tea and pushing it towards him.

  He nodded his thanks before asking, ‘With your mam?’

  ‘No.’ She raised her head and looked at him again, and she chose her words carefully when she said, ‘She’s not well enough yet, she’s not up to it.’

  He didn’t like the idea of Rosie trudging round the streets by herself, and his voice reflected this when he said, ‘You watch yourself, lass.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ Her smile was bright but he didn’t respond to it, and now his voice was soft and warm when he repeated, ‘You watch yourself.’

  Their eyes caught and held, and Rosie was never sure afterwards how long they continued to stare at each other, but she read something in his gaze that lifted her spirit until she glowed. When she turned her eyes away from his she began to shiver inside, but it wasn’t with cold or fright or any other sensation she could put a name to.

  In the next few minutes before Davey left and Rosie took her mother a cup of tea the conversation was of an inconsequential nature, but he touched her face lightly as he made his goodbyes at the back door, and again there was a promise in the hazel eyes that made her tingle long after he had gone.

  ‘I don’t want to go to Mrs McLinnie’s, I want to stay here an’ look at the picture book Mabel Fanshawe lent me. Mrs McLinnie’s house smells.’

  ‘You are going.’ Rosie’s voice was terse. She had had more than enough of Molly in the last fraught ten minutes to last her all day, and her sister had managed to dispel the last lingering thrill of Davey’s unexpected visit with her tantrums. ‘Now get dressed like I told you and help Hannah to button her boots, I’ve brought the hook up for you.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Molly’s head was up, her lower lip thrust out. ‘Not if you say we’ve got to go next door. ’Tisn’t fair.’

  ‘Then you will go to school.’

  ‘I won’t!’ The last was a shout.

  ‘One more “I won’t” and you’ll feel my hand on your backside.’

  ‘Huh!’ Molly’s deep sea-green eyes were hostile as they stared into Rosie’s, and she shook the mass of golden-brown ringlets that fell to below her tiny waist as she said again, ‘Huh! You’re not Mam, an’ you’re not that much older’n me,’ before pouting peevishly.

  How could someone who looked so angelic, so ethereally lovely, be so awkward and stubborn on occasion? Rosie asked herself as she stared back into her sister’s angry face. But a large part of this was her mam’s fault. Her mother had consistently given in to Molly’s tantrums since the child was a toddler, so proud had she been of the small golden-haired daughter she called her ‘wee princess’. Well, the wee princess was going to have to knuckle down to it like the rest of them. There was nothing else for it.

  ‘No, I am not your mam,’ Ros
ie agreed grimly, ‘but until Mam is feeling better I’m as good as. Now get dressed.’

  ‘I like Mrs McLinnie.’ Hannah, who had been sitting in a corner of the three-quarter size iron bed she now shared with Molly - Rosie having steeled herself to remove the dividing curtain and take up residence in the other bed the week before - had noticed the glint in her oldest sister’s eyes, and recognized there could only be one outcome to this particular battle of wills. ‘She always gives us lardy cake an’ stickjaw.’ The plain little face beamed at the thought.

  ‘Aye, well I don’t know if there’ll be any cake or taffy today, Hannah, but you be quick, there’s a good lassie.’

  Rosie glanced at Molly’s grumpy face as she spoke and as a dart of compassion pierced her irritation - this was a bewildering and difficult time for all of them - she bent and hugged Molly to her for a brief moment, feeling a return pressure of thin little arms as Molly leant her head against her sister’s chest. Meanwhile Hannah was glowing with self-righteous obedience as she slipped from beneath the coarse brown blankets and pulled her calico-topped petticoat over the linen smock she slept in, her fingers hastily reaching for her woollen dress as the icy chill in the room hit warm flesh.

  Hannah’s shiver prompted Rosie to put Molly from her as she said, ‘Come on now, get dressed with Hannah, it’s freezing in here and the kitchen is nice and warm,’ her voice soft and persuasive.

  ‘All right, but I still don’t want to go to Mrs McLinnie’s.’ Rosie left them to it, but before going downstairs she popped her head round the door of her mother’s room. Jessie was lying in the same position she had been in earlier when Rosie had taken her the cup of tea, her body straight and still under the thick faded eiderdown and her face staring up at the patchy ceiling, her eyes unblinking. But she had drunk the tea, Rosie noticed.

  ‘I’m going into Hendon, Mam. Mrs McLinnie’s said she’ll watch the bairns.’ There was no answer or even an acknowledgement of her presence from the bed, and after a long wait Rosie said, ‘Mam? What we were talking about last night about finding rooms? We won’t be able to take everything with us, and we’ll need some money for the first week’s rent, so I thought . . .’ She took a deep breath. Her mother wasn’t going to like this. ‘I thought we could sell the sofa and the chairs from the front room.’

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘We’re not going to be able to have a front room where we’re going and we never use it anyway, it makes sense to--’

  ‘You’ll not touch me front room.’ Her mother had raised herself on her elbows under the covers and now she paused, dropping her head slightly towards her shoulder and screwing up her eyes before she continued, ‘You hear me, our Rosie? Not me front room.’

  ‘We might have to, Mam.’

  ‘Never, not while I’ve breath in me body. It’s took me years to get that how I want it an’ I’m not lettin’ that go for nothin’ or no one. Your da knew how I felt about me front room, aye, he wouldn’t hold with this. He’d tell you soon enough, so he would.’

  The mention of her father was like a sword piercing her through and that, together with the fact that Rosie had lain awake for a good part of the night tossing and turning as her mind had worried at the mountain of that first week’s rent - and the week’s after it - until the thought of the virtually new furniture in its hallowed holy of holies had come to her, made her voice tight as she said, ‘Face facts, Mam, please. It’s rooms somewhere or the workhouse, we’ve nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Eee.’ The curtains were still drawn and the room was dim, its dark brown paintwork and faded wallpaper making it even more sombre, but her mother’s eyes became pinpoints of light as she raised herself still further in the big brass bed. ‘For one of me own to threaten me with that, I never thought to live to see the day. By, things have come to a pretty pass.’

  ‘I’m not threatening you.’ Rosie’s stomach was trembling. ‘I just want you to understand how things are. We were all right a few weeks back, we had Da and the lads’ wages coming in, but that’s all gone now. We don’t have any money, Mam.’

  ‘Huh.’

  It was so exactly the sound Molly had uttered just minutes before that something of a revelation flashed across Rosie’s understanding, something that shocked her into leaving her mother’s room without saying anything more.

  It was her mam that Molly took after, Rosie acknowledged, as she stood on the landing for a few seconds before walking slowly downstairs to begin preparing the family’s breakfast of porridge and bread and butter. And she had never seen it before.

  Suddenly a hundred and one little incidents from her childhood, buried deep in the recesses of her mind, fitted together into one whole. Her da had always babied her mam, looked after her, even pandered to her at times, and on the one or two occasions he had denied her some whim or other there had been hell to pay for a while. It wasn’t that her mam was a bad person, and she had loved her da and the rest of them, but there was a - Rosie searched for the words to describe how she felt - a singlemindedness about her in some ways, a childish determination to have things her own way and get what she wanted regardless of circumstances or people. And Molly was the same. The pair of them were a strange mixture, a really strange mixture.

  Funnily enough, Annie McLinnie seemed to confirm that very thing when Rosie took Hannah and a sulky-faced Molly to her next-door neighbour after the two children had had their breakfast. Rosie had popped round first thing before the others were awake to see if the garrulous old northerner, who had a husband and five sons all in work at Doxford Shipyard - there had been three other sons too, but of the six who had been conscripted to fight in 1916, only three had returned after the war - could take care of her two sisters for a few hours, but Rosie hadn’t gone over the threshold then, mainly because the men hadn’t left for work.

  ‘Hallo, lass. You want the missus?’ Arthur McLinnie had been eating his breakfast when she had opened the back door after knocking once, and his cheerful, gnome-like face had broken into a smile on seeing her. Rosie liked Mr McLinnie, he was small and wiry and possessed of a geniality that was indestructible, and the four oldest brothers were all right - big, rough, a bit over-boisterous at times but kind - but the youngest son, who was the same age as Sam and Davey, made Rosie feel . . . funny. He had a certain way of looking at her, she couldn’t explain it, but when Sam had told her a few months before not to be alone with Shane McLinnie, Rosie hadn’t argued, despite the fact that she had played with the McLinnie brood from a bairn and treated their house like her own.

  ‘You’ll have a sup of tea afore you go, hinny?’ Annie was all alone now in her kitchen, which had none of the scrubbed cleanliness of next door but nevertheless was warm and cosy after the bitter chill outside. ‘An’ I’ve a nice bit of fat bacon if you’ve a mind for a bite?’ She indicated a large cut of meat lying amidst the havoc of what was obviously the remains of the men’s breakfasts, and as Rosie glanced at the glistening white mound, on which there was only a thin streak of pink, she just managed to suppress a shudder.

  ‘No, no thank you. We’ve just had porridge.’

  ‘A sup then?’

  ‘I’d like to, Mrs McLinnie’ - it was true, she would like nothing more than to sit and talk with this old friend who had been like a second mother to her ever since she had first toddled into her kitchen as a tiny bairn, until Sam’s warning to her in the summer - ‘but I’ve no end to do, and I want to be back home before dark.’

  ‘Aye, hinny, all right. The bairns’ll be looked after, you know that, an’ I’ll look in on your ma after a bit.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The kindness had a weakening effect. It cut into the armour Rosie had to put on daily to cope with her private grief and pain whilst taking care of her mother and Molly and Hannah and trying to sort out the wreckage of their lives. She swallowed deeply before she said again, ‘Thank you.’

  When she opened the front door the air was bitingly cold and there was a raw wind blowing that spoke o
f snow. Annie followed her onto the doorstep, glancing into the frozen street as she exclaimed, ‘By, by, it’s cold, lass. You go careful mind, it’s a sheet of glass out there. An’ Rosie?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs McLinnie?’

  ‘Don’t you take the world on your shoulders, you know what I mean, lass? Your mam’s a friend of mine as you well know, but it don’t make me blind neither. I know it’s early days an’ she’s still reelin’ under the shock of it all, an’ that’s understandable, but Jessie’s never bin one for facin’ what she don’t want to face. You get my drift? Your da had to be firm with her at times an’ weather the storm to sail into calmer waters.’

  Rosie stared at the blunt northern face and the weakness assailed her more strongly, causing her to blink a few times before she could say, ‘She’s finding it very hard.’

  ‘Aye, an’ so are you, I’ll be bound. There’s some folks who’re givers an’ some takers, an’ that’s what makes the world go round when all’s said an’ done, but it’s as well to recognize the fact, lass. It needn’t make any difference to the feelin’ you have for ’em, just the way you deal with ’em, eh, hinny? An’ while we’re talkin’ like this, I don’t know what’s made you a stranger to me door, an’ I don’t want to pry, but . . . is it anythin’ I’ve said or done, lass? I haven’t upset you in any way?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs McLinnie.’ Rosie didn’t know what to say. ‘No, no, it’s not you, of course it’s not you. It’s just . . .’ She didn’t know how to go on, but she didn’t have to.

  ‘That’s all right then, pet, enough said.’ Annie patted her on the shoulder, her rough, flat-nosed face breaking into a wide grin. ‘I’m not nosy, lass, an’ I dinna want to know the ins an’ outs of an old mare’s backside, it’s enough there’s nowt wrong atween us. You go an’ see what’s about in Hendon, an’ I’ll be sayin’ a little prayer that the good Lord’ll guide your footsteps.’