After the Storm Read online

  When their father closed the basement door behind them there was silence again and it was cold and dim. The light from the gas mantle outside the kitchen door was the merest glimmer but there was now a smell of baking which was gentle on them. Archie was relieved, this was an important moment for them all and he had feared problems.

  ‘Come down these steps carefully now,’ he instructed, guiding them to the rounded wooden hand rail. ‘The ground drops at the back of the houses so the basement is at garden-level whilst the front door is at street-level.’

  Annie loved immediately the long-grained smoothness of the rail and tried to stretch her hand round it, finger to thumb but failed. She laid her hand lightly on its surface instead and had double value by running it backwards and forwards as she followed the darkness of her father’s back. He smelt of hair oil and she thought of his voice which she decided she liked, though it was different to everyone else’s that she knew. It had a pattern which kept nudging at a shadow in her mind. She wished he would call them pet or hinny though, since it sounded like love.

  As he opened the door, the light burst out at them, warm and tasty, and she and Don followed him quickly through. There was no one there. The fire was low but still red hot, almost clinkered and the table was covered in flour with a bowl in the centre. A boiled ham lay on an oval dish. The floor was smeared with white trails and plopped against the hearth were two dough lumps and the kettle was bubbling its head off on the hotplate.

  She looked at their father who just stood there, saying nothing but feeling something because his face was pale and his top lip had thinned. She moved closer to Don who looked nervous in the mounting tension. Annie looked at the white blobs and then at Da; they were the same colour and hysteria rocked inside her.

  ‘Well, I dare say there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,’ he managed and picked up a tea towel from the peg to lift the kettle on to the table. The steam made his hand red and wet but the rattling ceased and suddenly it was quiet.

  They all stood there staring in silence at the black kettle as though it was the most interesting thing, Annie thought, since Ma Henry’s teeth fell out when she sang ‘God Save the King’, last Empire Day in front of the flag-pole. Why doesn’t he just get on and make us a cup of tea like Eric would have done? She changed her weight to her other foot. At the sound of running footsteps in the yard, she stepped back; the door burst open and Betsy spun to a halt. Her laboured breath was loud in the room and she held Tom close, glad of his warm weight against her body, glad that she had a shield against the group.

  The frost had turned her nose red and her face white and her hands were still swollen with cracks of deeper soreness opening. More hair had fallen from her bun and hung loosely over and around her face and there was a drip teetering on the end of her nose. Annie shrank as it dropped on to the bundle in her arms and widened and sank into the worn blanket. She saw that it was not a baby but a child with holes in its boots.

  ‘I’m sorry, Archie,’ Betsy gasped, her breath still shallow and fast. ‘I fell behind and then had to fetch Tom from Mrs Gillow.’ She drew away the blanket as the child began to squirm and pull to one side.

  ‘There now, Tom,’ she soothed. ‘Say hallo to your new brother and sister.’

  Betsy smiled and drew two chairs close to the fire and then Tom’s which was cut down.

  Annie smiled at Tom as he sat on the small chair. His eyes were a deep blue and his hair as brown as the bannister upstairs and she’d never seen that colour eyes with dark hair before. Tom ducked his head and looked at her under his brows. He was smiling.

  ‘Come on then, pet,’ Betsy coaxed Annie. ‘Come on and sit by the fire. And you lad.’ This was to Don. ‘Are your toes frozen? Then warm them gently or you’ll start chilblains.’

  Annie moved to the chair nearest the fire taking advantage of the fact that Don was further away and unable to get there first without pushing and shoving and he was hardly likely to do that with her father standing there looking as though he had sucked a lemon. Her Da still hadn’t said anything and she stretched her legs to the warmth, trying to ignore the tension he was creating. It made her feel as though she had a clenched fist in her stomach. Betsy leaned past her and shovelled more coal on the fire and the noise was welcome and familiar.

  Don stepped to one side as Betsy crossed the room to the guard which she had moved against the wall as she cleaned. It was heavy and the strain showed on her face as she attempted to drag it back to the hearth.

  ‘Don’t want you falling on to the coals,’ she said in a voice taut with effort.

  Annie looked at Da; he was gazing into the fire. She looked at Don, he was looking at his feet, so Annie rose and moved to take the other end and together the two of them brought it back to the fire. By then Don was sitting in her chair, as she knew he would be. He did not move as Annie took her end past him, brushing close to the oven. Breathing hard with the effort she let it drop down, now that it was in position. She heard the thud as it hit Don’s boot and she smiled, knowing that she had judged it to a nicety and that it was heavy enough to bruise a toe, even through thick leather. She heard his gasp and trod on his other one as she stepped over him to what should have been his chair.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, as he hugged his foot. ‘Chilblains?’

  ‘Chilblains, did you say?’ asked Betsy as she hung her coat up on the peg at the back of the door. She had noticed nothing but Tom had. He buried his face in his hand and tried to stifle his laughter. Annie grinned at him and winked, he was a bonny lad with his eyes so full of warmth.

  ‘We’ll have a winter-green party, shall we later?’ Betsy laughed. ‘Or at least when I’ve sorted out something to fill your bellies.’

  She glanced at Archie who had stood silent since she entered and ran her hands over her apron, remembering too late its black smudges. She smiled nervously at him, moving over to collect the kettle from the table and realised that she must have left it on the range while she fetched Tom and flushed. Oh God, it must have been bubbling its bloody head off, she thought.

  He was looking at her flushed greasy face and eyes which were smudged beneath with shadows and he turned from them and left the room.

  Betsy stood and looked at the closed door and listened to his tired footsteps as he climbed back upstairs and knew he would be going to his study. She also knew that she had not fancied the flash of distaste before he had left and it hurt. What had she done that was so terrible, why had he made her feel like a gormless slaggy?

  ‘Mam,’ called Tom, ‘Your buns is burning!’

  Annie and Don helped her as she rushed to open the door and snatch them away from total disaster. As she tipped them onto the table, bits broke and Annie looked sideways at Betsy, her mouth rushing with saliva at the hot sweet smell and Betsy nodded and they both laughed. They were spicy.

  ‘They’re not half good,’ Don said and Annie agreed as she pressed some into Tom’s mouth, watching Betsy wash her hands, and felt a slackening of tension. She had a thing about snot her Auntie had said.

  ‘How old is Tom?’ Annie asked, sitting back in the chair which, this time, she had managed to reach first.

  ‘I’m 5,’ Tom replied. ‘I’ve got ears and a mouth, you know.’

  Annie laughed then, loud and long. Her feet were against the guard and not yet burning. The smell of mashed tea was thick and her hands, round the mug Betsy handed her, felt in place. Betsy’s eyes were kind, she thought, but had the same blackness beneath as Aunt Sophie’s. She felt sorry for her; it must be hard to be old and have sore hands with no one to pour cream on to cupped palms and no one to put the stopper in or stroke coolness into heat.

  She had tried to do it herself once but the cream had run all over the table as she upturned her hand putting the top in the bottle. She ran her tongue along her teeth wondering if her da would do it for Betsy and the thought of him stroking anybody seemed daft. She remembered the look she had seen on his face and shook her head. She was g
lad he had left because the stiffness had gone with him. He looked as though he had moved from sucking a lemon to finding a nasty smell under his nose, especially when he looked at Betsy, but she didn’t really smell, she just looked sweaty.

  Anyway, Annie thought, holding the toasting-fork, Betsy was full like Sophie and spoke kind words with laughter in them. It made her feel floppy and her jaw sagged. Maybe it was going to be all right after all.

  CHAPTER 3

  Archie sat in the cold of his study. It was not heated in any way, though there was a fireplace set into one corner. He did not notice the temperature but sat in the mahogany carver chair which had remained, together with the desk, when he had leased the premises from Joe. Bellies, he thought. It was too much. This room was naturally cold set as it was on the north side of the house and, now that it was evening, he had automatically drawn the curtains across the window when he had crossed to the desk, not completely though, because he never liked to shut out the light altogether. It was a relief to eliminate some of the down-draught from the ill-fitting sash-windows. He had hung the curtains himself as they were ones which Sophie had given him from the attic where she had been keeping them. Bellies. He tore his hands through his hair and made himself think of other things. The curtains.

  They were ones which Sophie had rescued from the sale of the house on the hill and they were his and Mary’s first purchase for that house. They had chosen a heavy damask drape. Oh yes, he remembered now how he had explained to Mary when they had been delivered to the house that damask was the name originally given to a rose from Damascus, hence the colour, whilst she was a rose from Wassingham. It sounded trite now in retrospect, but she had lifted her hand to his cheek and stroked him. She was so soft he could hardly feel her touch though the heat of her reached him.

  The maids had hung the curtains that day in spite of the fact that they were really too heavy for that achingly hot June, the one that blazed just before the world went mad. At least, he recollected, the farmers were able to reap their harvest in time to feed the troops who were quickly blasted away, so more came to eat the supplies the others were no longer hungry for and I was one of them. Balance and counter-balance, he thought, picking up the paper-knife on his desk, that’s what most things amount to. He ran his fingers either side of the blade.

  The ivory handle, carved in the image of some long forgotten Indian god was as cold as it always was. It was too dark by now to see clearly but he knew its contours intimately. It had been his father’s, made from the tusk of an elephant that he had shot himself when on one of his frequent forays to the Raj. Archie had always refused to go; he couldn’t bear the heat and he wondered whether Albert had ever been asked.

  His father had not liked Albert; not from the same mould, he had grumbled, can’t think what went wrong there. Just like your mother’s father, like a pot of cook’s gravy. Thick and slow. I wonder if Albert noticed, Archie pondered, but dismissed the memory as unimportant to him. Blood sports had disgusted him but the knife had always appealed. It was so impervious to human warmth, to friction. So totally detached.

  He turned in his chair, running the blade gently down the curtains. His ivory against her damask, his pale cold skin against her soft warmth. It was too much. He flung the knife on to the desk, burying his face against the faded worn curtains as she had done but that had been on the day when they were vibrant and new.

  It’s so beautiful, all of it, she had said, her voice muffled by its folds, and he had reached out, taken her shoulders, feeling her flesh beneath the light cotton day-gown and had drawn her to him. I love you so much he had murmured, his mouth in her hair, then on her neck, his hands seeking and finding her breasts, full now with her pregnancy. He could remember still how she had leant into him, pressing her laden womb against him and he had felt her down the length of him. The sounds of the summer which had filled the room through the open windows had disappeared and all that was left was her; hot, soft, urgent, leaning into him, her unborn child thrusting against him as though in protest.

  I love you, I love you, she had whispered. My cool ivory blade. I want you in me and she had coloured then, hiding her face in his shoulder, embarrassed at speaking words like these in the daylight, in the drawing-room with Annie curling and turning deep inside her.

  He had gripped her black hair which hung loose down her back, pulling her head so that her face lifted from him, kissing the damp strands which had caught on her forehead and finely boned cheeks. Some swept across her half-open lips and he had kissed her mouth and then her body.

  He stirred in his chair, rose and paced the floor.

  She had tapped a heat in him that he had not known existed. From the moment he had seen her in his father’s office, she had stirred in him a response that no one else ever had. He could at last relate to another human being. Her cool ivory blade she had called him because they both knew that this ivory could only be warm near her source of heat.

  He drew the curtain back so that he could see out over the dark yard and then the passageway which ran down the rear of the terrace and looked for the stars but there were none. She had risen to the big house, moved up from Wassingham as though it was natural to her. There had been no bellies from Mary. He felt the pain and then his breath grew shallow and he fought to control the rising panic that increasingly sprang from nowhere. He knew he must push all thought of her away. He must breathe deeply, steadily. Pull into his mind the image he had built of his life from today. He repeated his words in time with the slow breaths he forced himself to make. Cling … to … the … image … he … had … built … of… his … life … from … today … Again and again he said it until his hands which had been gripping the arms of the chair became gradually less tense, his breathing more normal. His mind uncoiled. How much time had passed this time, he wondered, feeling drained.

  It usually worked. It had worked when they went over the top, following the white guide-tapes. It had worked when the whizz-bangs fell too close. It worked during the long nights without her, sometimes. He would have liked to thank the captain who had shown him how it was done but his head had disappeared when he’d been on his third breath. They’d heard the shell a fraction later. And of course there was the gas, but even the breathing couldn’t help with that.

  I was the only one who could have helped with that but I did not. I went ahead and gave the order. He flinched then and bunched a fist, bringing it down sharply on the desk, against the edge because he wanted it to hurt, wanted it to stop. He put his head on the desk, rolling it backwards and forwards waiting for the trembling, which would have built up in his body by now, to explode into his hands and when it came he thrust them between his thighs to contain them. It was quite a little routine now he thought. I’m really becoming quite good at dealing with myself and my rather peculiar habits.

  His breathing was becoming normal and his hands were still enough now to light the lamp on his desk. The wick burned blue then yellow and the smell of oil pervaded the room. Gas did not reach above the ground floor so at least he was spared that reminder.

  Calmer now, he was able to think of the children and determined again that those four years which took everything else were not going to rob him of the people his children should have been. They were not going to be guttersnipes, they were going to climb out of this shop, back to the top with him and that would include Betsy’s bibelot, but my God, there were going to be some changes. God blast it – bellies!

  Archie Manon was not going to have a wife behaving like a damn skivvy with buns all over the floor and hair all over her face and street-talk falling from her sloppy mouth. Next it would be the children if it wasn’t already. The work was going to be hard, why else did he marry her, but there was no way she was going to look as though it was. He lowered the wick now that it was burning steadily. Barney would no doubt have been happy with bairns, bellies and buns, but there was no way he would ever accept it. He flung himself back in the chair. Damn the hospital, damn their inc
ompetence. How dare they take my Mary from me and he bit on his hand to save himself from calling aloud.

  He finally heard the repeated knocking and, forming a tight smile, he rose and walked towards the door. His movements were deliberate and he paused momentarily before he opened it, preparing himself to face the present. It was Betsy.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he murmured, his voice level, controlled. ‘I remembered I had to sign some papers.’

  She nodded, not believing him.

  ‘Tom is tired now, Archie,’ she apologised. ‘Shall we eat without you?’ She no longer wore her apron and her hair was newly brushed and coiled.

  ‘Not at all, I’m on my way now but just one moment.’ He turned and doused the lamp, replacing the paper-knife at right angles to the letter-rack before returning. He held out his hand to guide her down. ‘But perhaps we could be a little better organised in future.’ It was not a question but a command and one he gave without even looking at her.

  Betsy had expected something of the sort but still the gall rose in her throat and she burned with anger. He had said nothing of her hours of effort and she turned to say as much but his face was closed to the subject and she lost her thoughts in a mesh of clumsiness. Perhaps, she thought as they entered the kitchen, perhaps she could draw nearer when they spent their first night as lovers.

  Lying as far under the hot bath-water as possible Betsy felt tea had been better than she had feared. The children had eaten well though they’d been sent to bed early by Archie, and Betsy smiled, grateful for his eagerness.