Hannah Massey Read online

  It was Broderick, whose face wore a troubled look tonight, who tried to put things on a normal footing. ‘Well, lass, had a nice day?’ he asked her.

  Rosie went to the fire and held out her hands. ‘In a way, Da,’ she said.

  ‘What you been doin’ with yourself?’

  ‘Working. I’ve got a job.’ She smiled down at him.

  ‘Begod, you have?’ He screwed himself to the edge of his chair. ‘Where? In that factory? What doin’?’

  Rosie was conscious that her mother had stopped her bustling and had turned towards her as she answered, ‘My own kind of work. Shorthand typist, but not in the factory. It’s in a wholesale firm, just a small place. I’m the only one.’

  ‘I’m glad for you.’ Her mother’s voice, coming soft and controlled from behind her, forced her about. Hannah was smiling at her, the old apologetic look on her face. ‘I’ll get you some tea, lass,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  When Hannah walked quietly from the room to the kitchen, Broderick put his arm around Rosie’s waist and shook his head as he whispered, ‘She’s been through hell the day. She…she had the idea you were along of Hughie…You haven’t seen him?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering how he is all day. It frightened me last night, that concussion business. I’ll slip over to Dennis’ after tea and find out.’ She was whispering, and he whispered back, ‘No, no, I wouldn’t do that if I was you. Things are quietenin’ down; let them simmer, there’s a good girl, let them simmer.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Where is it? I mean, where in Newcastle is it?’ Hannah was coming into the room, talking now as if there had been no interlude between yesterday morning and teatime tonight.

  And Rosie told her where the warehouse was, what it was like inside and the type of work she was expected to do. And all the while Hannah fussed around the table, handing bread, pouring tea, pushing a tart to her hand; cutting a pie and placing a fish slice under a portion of it ready to be lifted.

  Then, ‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

  ‘Bunting,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Oh, Bunting. It’s a plain name. Is it young or old he is?’

  ‘About sixty I should say, and he’s got a slight cast in his eye.’

  At this Broderick let out a bellow of a laugh and cried at Hannah, ‘Are you satisfied, eh? Are you satisfied?’

  ‘I just wanted to get a picture of him in me mind,’ said Hannah, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all,’ said Broderick. ‘That’s all.’ And he laughed again.

  When Rosie had finished her tea she sat by the fire for a few minutes before she remarked in an offhand manner, ‘I think I’ll go to the pictures, I haven’t been for ages.’

  Hannah looked sharply at her averted face, and her eyes narrowed for an instant before she exclaimed, ‘Why! Those are the very words Arthur said, just afore he went upstairs. He said he thought he’d go to the pictures. I’ll call him an’ you can go along together.’ She was out of the room before Rosie could protest, calling, ‘Arthur! Arthur! Are you up there still?’ And when Arthur’s voice came to her, she called back, ‘Rosie’s goin’ to the pictures an’ all; you can go along with her.’ She came back into the room, saying, ‘Go an’ get yourself ready, go on now, a night out’ll do you good.’

  As Rosie went out of the room she knew that her father had grown quiet and was looking into the fire, and she knew also that Arthur would be cursing her upstairs. She met him on the landing coming along the little passage from the end room, his face glum, the corners of his mouth drooping, and she said to him aloud, ‘I won’t be a minute. Well, not more than five,’ but she accompanied this with a wagging of her head and a shaking of her finger, and the action drew the lines from his mouth and brought his head nodding at her.

  Upstairs she powdered her face and combed her hair and put on an extra jumper beneath her coat. Altogether it didn’t take her five minutes, and then she was down in the living room and her mother was spreading her smile over her and Arthur. It was like a blessing. ‘Where you goin’?’ she asked them.

  ‘Oh, likely the Plaza, Alec Guinness is on there. He’s always good for a laugh. What about it?’ He looked at Rosie.

  ‘Suits me. Yes, I’d like that. I like him.’

  As she let them out Hannah said, ‘I’ll likely be in bed when you get back, but enjoy yourselves.’

  Yes, yes, they said, they would enjoy themselves.

  When they reached the street they walked in an embarrassed silence for some minutes, before Rosie asked, ‘You weren’t going to the pictures, were you, Arthur?’

  ‘No. Were you?’

  ‘No. I was going to see how Hughie was.’

  Arthur didn’t say where he was bound for, he didn’t have to, but he did say, ‘Well, it isn’t much out of my way, I’ll look in on Hughie with you. But afore we get that far we’d better call at the Plaza and see the times of the pictures. You never know, she might start cross-examinin’ us the morrow night. We’ll get a good idea from the stills what it’s all about.’

  They examined the stills at the Plaza, and in the bus ride towards the outskirts of the town Arthur brought laughter to Rosie in giving her his version of the sequence of the story. Later, as they neared Dennis’ flat, he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Look, Rosie, I won’t come in now; if I do I’ll likely get stuck. You know what it is when we start talkin’ and especially if last night comes up. So I’ll go straight on, but I’ll come and pick you up, say…about ten?’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘About ten.’

  ‘So long then.’

  ‘So long, Arthur.’

  Dennis’ flat, Rosie had always considered, was bare when compared with her own home, and she never visited it, or her brother and his wife, without a sense of embarrassment. Her mother had at one time made her believe that Dennis was estranged from his family solely because of his wife, who was nothing but an upstart and a nagger. But the opposite was the truth, for on her previous visits, embarrassed as she was, she had sensed an odd something between them that she wasn’t able to define. It wasn’t until her return home last year that she realised that what had puzzled her between this husband and wife was a sort of friendship. She had never thought of friendship between a married couple. Girls of her acquaintance had married and for the first few months the husband and wife were seen about together, then the pattern changed. The man went back to his nights at the local club, and his Saturday afternoons at the football match, and if they were fortunate enough to possess a car they went out on a Sunday, very often accompanied by one set of parents. But that wasn’t Dennis’ or Florence’s pattern. They had always gone everywhere together, even to the football match. And Dennis didn’t belong to any club. Yet they argued, even violently at times. One ordinary word would start a discussion between them which often led to an argument but it nearly always finished with them laughing at each other and saying, ‘Well, we’ll work this out later.’ Before she had first left Fellburn for London, Rosie considered that Dennis and Florence were a funny couple. But now, as she entered their uncluttered sitting room, she knew that she envied her brother and his wife their way of life, and that she was jealous of Florence, not because she was the wife of her brother, or that she was happy, but because what had happened to herself would never, or could never have happened, to Florence. Florence would have used her mind and it would have guided her heart, whereas the power of her own mind became non-existent where her feelings were concerned.

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you’ve come, Rosie.’ Florence was leading the way into the room. ‘Hughie wondered if you would make it.’

  ‘Is he any better?’

  ‘Yes. Here’s Rosie, Hughie.’

  She went slowly towards him. ‘Hello, Hughie.’

  ‘Hello, Rosie.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ She was standing over him, where he lay propped up on the couch.

  ‘I’ve never felt so good before. This is the life.’ He patted the back of the couch. ‘Talk about being p
ampered. I’m going to make something out of this, I’m going to make it last as long as I can.’ He nodded up at her, then turned his smile towards Florence.

  ‘Look, take your things off and settle down.’ Florence pushed a chair forward towards the couch, and as she did so Hughie said to Rosie, ‘How long can you stay?’

  ‘How long?’ She glanced quickly back at Florence. ‘All the evening if you don’t mind. Arthur’s picking me up about ten.’ She looked back at Hughie; then down at her hands as she admitted, ‘We’re supposed to be at the pictures guarding one another.’

  A ripple of laughter passed between the three of them, then Hughie said, ‘Good. Now get yourself away, Florence. There’s a do on at the school’—he looked at Rosie, explaining, ‘Florence’s got the idea in her head that I mustn’t be left alone, and I don’t want to be.’ He smiled over Rosie’s shoulder. ‘But now you can go in peace, go on.’

  ‘All right, then, I will.’ Florence protested no further. ‘We’ll be back before you go, Rosie.’

  Dennis’ voice now came from the hall, calling, ‘Is that you, Rosie?’ The next moment he appeared in the doorway, naked to the waist, rubbing his head with a towel.

  ‘Hello, Dennis.’

  ‘You made it?’

  ‘Yes, I made it.’

  ‘I’m coming with you; Rosie’s going to stay until we get back,’ said Florence.

  ‘Good.’ Dennis flicked the towel towards his wife. Then turning to Rosie again, added, ‘This problem of babysitting is difficult…and if you do well tonight we’ll book you for later on.’

  ‘Go on, get yourself ready.’ Florence was pushing him into the hall.

  When the door closed behind them Hughie looked at Rosie and asked quietly, ‘How’s things?’

  ‘Oh, very subdued, Hughie.’

  ‘How about last night when you got back? I was worried…At least I was worried today, last night seems very hazy to me now. There’s a blank between when I left the kitchen and when I woke up here on the couch. The only thing I seem to remember is that you were with me all the time, and then this morning when my head cleared…well, I wondered what happened when you got back.’

  ‘It was all right, she was in bed.’

  ‘And she didn’t say anything to you at all?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘Well, just a parable.’ She smiled faintly at him. ‘The bedroom door was open and it was thrown at me as I passed.’

  ‘Just a parable?’ he shook his head as if in disbelief. Dennis came into the room now, putting on his tie, and looking at Rosie, asked, ‘Well, what have you been doing with yourself all day?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘Working!’

  ‘I’ve got a job.’

  ‘What, already? Where?’

  ‘At a little wholesale place called Bunting’s in Newcastle. I think I’m going to like it.’

  ‘Well, well, you haven’t lost much time…What do you think of that, Hughie?’

  Hughie jerked his head to the side but he said nothing.

  Florence now came into the room fastening up her dress at the back. ‘Do this top button for me, Dennis, will you?’ She turned her back to him.’

  ‘What do you think? Rosie’s got a job already.’

  ‘You have?’ Florence screwed her head round.

  ‘In her own line too.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad. Where is it, Rosie?’

  ‘In Newcastle.’

  ‘Are you going to travel or get digs?’

  ‘I’m going to get a room.’

  ‘Have you told her?’ asked Dennis.

  ‘About the job, not about getting a room.’

  ‘Coo!’ Dennis closed his eyes. ‘I would get yourself built up before you spring that one…Well’—he put his hand on Florence’s arm—‘if we want to get there in time we’ll have to be off. Be seeing you.’ He nodded towards Hughie and Rosie.

  As Florence was hustled towards the door she called over her shoulder, ‘Make some coffee, Rosie. And there’s plenty to eat in the pantry.’

  For some minutes after the front door closed they sat without speaking, until the silence made itself felt and Rosie said, ‘Do you think you’ll be able to go on Monday, Hughie?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Yes, I’ll be quite fit by then. I should be all right by Saturday. The doctor said two or three days.’

  ‘Did he…the doctor, ask how it happened?’

  ‘Yes, an’ I told him some bairns threw a snowball with a brick in it.’ He laughed weakly.

  ‘Oh, Hughie.’

  ‘Well I couldn’t say I was walloped with a dish of peaches, could I?’ He was aiming now to make her laugh, but didn’t succeed.

  She said quietly, ‘I’m going to miss you when you’re gone. I…I seem to have got to know you more these last few days than during all the years we lived together…Funny, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, it’s funny, but it wasn’t my fault that we didn’t know each other better.’ He lay back against the head of the couch and stared towards the low ceiling as he said, ‘I once bought you a birthday present. You were sixteen. It was a bunch of anemones. They were all colours and very bonny, and I had them in me hand when she came into the kitchen. She didn’t ask who they were for; she knew, an’ she took a big gully and sliced the heads off them as clean as a whistle, there in me hands.’

  ‘Oh, Hughie.’ She lowered her head.

  ‘Oh, I suppose she was right. I suppose in her way she was right. To her mind I had raped her eldest daughter and she was making sure it wasn’t going to happen with her youngest.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’ She screwed up her face at him. ‘It sounds awful…you would never have…’

  ‘How do you know, Rosie, what I would have done?’ They were looking fixedly at each other, and it was some seconds before he went on, ‘She had made me almost petrified of girls; but not you, you were easy to talk to; you were the only girl I could talk to, although you always appeared like a child to me, and even from a baby you were extraordinary beautiful…and good…the goodness shone out of you. I saw you the day you were born, and it was evident then. I had just turned thirteen the day you were born.’

  She looked for a moment longer at the warm, tender expression on his face. He was looking at her as she had seen people look at the statue of the Virgin Mary in church, almost in rapt contemplation; it was unbearable. She sprang up from the chair and walked towards the gas fire in the far wall, where his voice came to her, contrite, saying, ‘I’m sorry, Rosie, if I’ve upset you.’

  ‘Hughie’—she paused and cleared her throat—‘I’m…I’m not a child any longer, or even a girl. I’m a woman. And…and I’m not good.’ She had her head back on her shoulders as she spoke, staring at the picture above the gas fire. It was the only picture in the room and it showed a scene of sea and sky with no dividing line between them.

  ‘It all depends on what you mean, Rosie.’ His voice was low and his words slurred as if he were thinking hard, but about something else. ‘Nothing you could do in the world would ever make me think of you as bad.’

  ‘No?’ She was still looking upwards.

  ‘No, Rosie.’

  Her eyes were moving over the picture as if she was searching for the horizon line as she said, ‘When I left home, Hughie, I thought I knew all about men, good men and bad men. I was Rosie Massey, brought up among a horde of men and with a mother to whom the word delicacy was unknown. I grew up with the feeling that every conception of hers had been a public affair.’

  ‘Don’t, Rosie.’

  ‘Am I shocking you, Hughie?’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘You couldn’t shock me, but still I don’t like to hear you, above all people, talking like that.’

  ‘Not if I think like that? Have always thought like that?’

  ‘You don’t think like that, you’re upset inside.’

  There followed a stillness, and it was broken by him saying tentatively, ‘You said the other night that if you could tell anybody what was t
roubling you it would be me.’

  She turned from the fire and looked towards him; then coming slowly across the room again, sat down by the couch facing him, and crossing her feet she joined her hands around her knees and began to rock herself. Leaning forward he put his hand across hers and stilled the motion. ‘Try me,’ he said.

  She looked into his face, close to hers, now. Hughie was nice, kind. That’s what you needed in a man, kindness. But that’s what had trapped her, hadn’t it…kindness? When she shuddered he straightened himself and lifted his hand quickly from hers and as quickly she grasped at it, saying, ‘If I tell you and…and you think I’m dreadful, don’t show it, will you, Hughie? Don’t show it, I couldn’t bear it.’

  He looked at her solemnly, ‘I tell you nothing you could do could alter my opinion of you, so go ahead.’

  ‘Hold my hand,’ she said; and when he gripped her hand and rested it on his knees she began.

  It was quarter to eight when, with her eyes cast down, she had started talking. It was half past eight when she finished and she hadn’t raised her head once. When she ended and slowly and stiffly straightened her neck it was she who spoke again. Her green eyes looking almost black in her white face, she stared at him as she said, ‘You’re shocked, aren’t you? Shocked to the core?’

  ‘No.’ His voice sounded husky as if he hadn’t used it for a long time, then clearing his throat he repeated, ‘No, only…well’—he wetted his lips—‘hurt to the heart for you…Oh, Rosie!’ He looked down at their joined hands.

  ‘You won’t tell Dennis or anyone?’

  ‘No.’ They remained quiet for some moments. Then letting go her hand, he said, ‘Whatever happens you’ll have to keep this from…from your mother. Don’t ever feel there’ll be a time when you could confide in her.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said. She moved from the couch and began to walk about the room, round and round. Then stopping quite suddenly, she asked, ‘Would you like some coffee?’