Reach for Tomorrow (37 page)
He had barely got the word out before Zachariah had uttered a sound resembling a low growl, which sounded more like an animal than a man, but as her husband made to throw himself at Shane Rosie held on to him with all her might, crying as she did so, ‘No, no, he’s not worth it, don’t you see? A fight is exactly what he wants.’
Arthur had lurched sideways and gone sprawling as Davey had let go of him to help Rosie hang on to Zachariah, causing Mick, who was still holding Arthur’s other arm, to stumble and slip on the frozen snow. In his flailing to remain upright he grabbed at Annie, with the result that all fourteen stone of her considerable bulk landed on top of him causing his breath to leave his body in a strangled wheeze.
Tommy Bailey and Joseph went to the aid of the tangled three on the ground, but Rosie was oblivious to everything but Shane as she hissed at him, her eyes narrowed and flashing fire, ‘You vile man! You get out of my sight. You’re not fit to be drawing the same air as decent folk.’
‘
Me, vile?
’ Shane’s voice was low and guttural. ‘
Me?
’
Me, vile?
’ Shane’s voice was low and guttural. ‘
Me?
’
‘Yes, you.’
The three on the ground had now been lifted to their feet, Mick and Joseph supporting the inebriated Arthur, and as Tommy came forward to assist Davey, Rosie let go of her husband and moved forward a step as she continued to glare at Shane. But Shane looked past her to where Zachariah was struggling to break free, and his expression was malevolent as he spat, ‘You! You. You see what you’ve done?’
‘Get in the car! Get in the car.’ Annie was beside herself, and as she brushed past Rosie and reached her son’s side she pushed him backwards. As Shane, with a lightning movement, turned his body towards her everyone thought he was going to strike his mother, but Annie held her ground, her glare matching Rosie’s, and after a long moment he turned towards the gate.
‘Here, give him to me.’ Annie took Arthur from Mick and Joseph who had followed her forward, and now she bodily whisked her small wiry husband down the path so fast his thin legs were dangling.
‘By . . .’ As the engine roared and the car drew off, Joseph turned to Mick at the side of him. ‘He’s a nasty customer if ever I saw one.’
A nasty customer. In the moment before Davey and Tommy released Zachariah and he reached her side the words vibrated in Rosie’s head. Shane McLinnie was more than a nasty customer. She had never seen such hate in anyone’s face as when he had looked at her husband. And then Zachariah’s arms were round her and the others were all talking at once as they drew them both back into the warmth and light of the house.
‘Eee, I never thought I’d live to see the day one of me own showed me up like that. What were you thinkin’ of, lad?’
Annie was in the back of the Morris Cowley, Arthur sprawled drunkenly in the front and already snoring his head off. She had decided to play dumb as to the underlying cause of the mêlée, not so much to spare Shane’s feelings or even her own, but because she was frightened of what would be said if Shane’s obsession with the lass was put into words.
Obsession.
She knew all about obsession. Hadn’t Shane’s father been filled with an unholy lust for her from when she’d been nowt but a bairn? Walter had first taken her when she’d been no older than Hannah; crept into her bedroom one night when she’d been sleeping the innocent dreams of a bairn and, with one hand over her mouth to still her screams and the other hoisting her nightie up round her waist, he’d entered her before she’d even known what was happening. That had been the end of her childhood. From then on her days had been filled with sick apprehension and her nights with terror. He had said that it was all her fault, that she had tempted him, led him on and, bairn that she was, she had believed him. He was her big brother, wasn’t he, and everyone had always said how nice it was the two of them was so close what with her mam’s other bairns all dying before any of them reached a year old.
Obsession.
She knew all about obsession. Hadn’t Shane’s father been filled with an unholy lust for her from when she’d been nowt but a bairn? Walter had first taken her when she’d been no older than Hannah; crept into her bedroom one night when she’d been sleeping the innocent dreams of a bairn and, with one hand over her mouth to still her screams and the other hoisting her nightie up round her waist, he’d entered her before she’d even known what was happening. That had been the end of her childhood. From then on her days had been filled with sick apprehension and her nights with terror. He had said that it was all her fault, that she had tempted him, led him on and, bairn that she was, she had believed him. He was her big brother, wasn’t he, and everyone had always said how nice it was the two of them was so close what with her mam’s other bairns all dying before any of them reached a year old.
And so she had kept quiet, year after year she had kept quiet, until, with the onset of her periods at the relatively late age of fifteen, her body - which had been very small and thin and childish until then - had shot into womanhood, and in the space of a few months she had become tall and heavy and better able to defend herself against his attacks. And she had defended herself, by, she had, she’d even gone to the lengths of threatening him with a cut-throat razor she’d bought from the pawn shop. And then she’d met Arthur at sixteen, and - desperate to get away from home - had married him within six months. And they had been happy enough, in a way. He was not a particularly physical man and had been content with a routine weekly coupling after their night out of a Saturday, and he had left her alone altogether when she was carrying the bairns. Aye, she could have married a lot worse than her Arthur, and she’d grown fond of him over the years.
Shane hadn’t answered her or acknowledged that she had spoken, and Annie, sick with the shame and self-debasement that always accompanied thoughts of her brother, remained silent as her thoughts went on to the night Shane had been conceived. When Walter and his wife and their bairns had turned up on her doorstep that night twenty-five years ago, all the old feelings of guilt and pain and fear had kept her dumb at first as Walter had told the story of how they’d been turned out of their lodgings and they’d got nowhere to go until they left for Australia some weeks hence. Arthur had immediately offered them a roof over their heads as long as they didn’t mind kipping in the kitchen - the lads had had the two bedrooms in those days, and she and Arthur the front room - and she hadn’t had the guts to say anything different. By, she had paid for that act of cowardice sure enough.
It had been all right at first. Walter had been just as you’d expect a brother to be, nothing more, and the temptation to tell Arthur what had happened when she was younger - which she’d never breathed to a living soul - had faded as the days had gone by. And then one night, when her lads and his bairns were out playing, and his wife was at the shops and Arthur at work, he’d come up behind her when she’d been on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.
It had been a brutal rape and afterwards, when she’d crawled into her bedroom and jammed the blanket box against the door, she’d been hysterical for hours. She hadn’t come out that night and when Arthur called the doctor in the morning, and they had had to break the window and climb in from the street, he had diagnosed a mental and physical breakdown caused by overwork. Overwork! And so Arthur had got rid of Walter and his family, and Jessie and one or two other neighbours had looked after the bairns during the day when Arthur was working, and she’d lain in her bed and tried to hang on to what was left of her reason. And then she’d discovered she was pregnant.
It was only the fact that the baby could possibly have been Arthur’s that kept her from suicide. She would have been prepared to answer for her immortal soul, even that of a child conceived by rape and incest, but an innocent bairn born under the marriage vows? The Holy Mother would look on that as murder. She’d gone to confession and for the first time ever she had spoken of the unspeakable, and Father Bell had confirmed her fears. She would be damning herself for eternity if she considered taking her own life and that of her child. The good Lord would see her through this, hadn’t He known what it was to suffer degradation and humiliation at the hands of sinful men? He would strengthen her, she mustn’t fear. And He had, aye, He had, even when the bairn was born and she’d looked into Walter’s face, He had strengthened her, and - amazingly - put a love in her for the innocent product of a man’s wickedness. But there had been fear there too, deep, consuming, mind-numbing fear that the innocent had the seed of something abominable . . .
‘Did you know?’
‘What?’ Annie’s eyes shot to the back of Shane’s neck as his voice brought her out of the nightmare.
‘Did you
know
?’ he ground out through clenched teeth.
know
?’ he ground out through clenched teeth.
‘About the lass expectin’? Aye, ’course I knew, it’s no secret an’ bairns have a way of presentin’ themselves once two people are wed.’ She wasn’t about to tell him that Jessie had been round her door the minute she’d heard, all upset like. Not that Jessie didn’t like Zachariah, aye, she did, but a bairn? Like her, Jessie had thought they wouldn’t go in for children with him being the way he was, just in case. Things could be passed down in families from generation to generation, everyone knew that. Look at the MacFells with their trouble, one idiot after another they seemed to have, and there was the Wheatleys with each generation producing bairns with club feet. But she’d told Jessie not to worry, what else could she do? And it certainly wasn’t something any of them could speak to Rosie or Zachariah about.
‘Presentin’ themselves!’ Shane laughed, a high mirthless laugh, and then there followed something so crude and base that Annie’s eyes stretched wide and her jaw sagged, but only for a moment and then she said, her indignation not at all feigned, ‘I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, lad, an’ remember who you’re speakin’ to.’
‘Don’t push me, Mam.’
It was for all the world as though she had been the obscene one, and again Annie’s voice reflected her umbrage as she said, ‘It’s not me doin’ the pushin’, lad. To barge in there like that an’ then to say what you said, an’ on New Year’s Day of all days. What must they all be thinkin’--’
‘I don’t care what they’re thinkin’, get that through your thick head. An’ nothin’ I could say can compare with what she’s done.’
‘What?’ Annie rubbed her hand across her mouth where the beads of perspiration had gathered. ‘I dunno what you’re on about, I don’t straight. They’re married, for cryin’ out loud.’
‘Not for much longer.’
Annie pulled herself up straight, there had been something in his voice that went far beyond the rage and fury of the moment. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ And when there was no immediate answer: ‘Shane?’
‘You work it out. You seem to have all the answers.’
‘Now look, lad--’
‘No!
You
look.’ He stopped the car so suddenly that Arthur, who had been gently snoring and muttering to himself, would have shot forward into the windscreen but for Shane’s arm restraining him. ‘You look, Mam.’ Shane turned in his seat, ignoring his father’s ‘Wh . . . what is . . . it? What . . .’, as he said, ‘All me life I’ve held me hand with her, all me life, an’ where’s it got me? But no more.’
You
look.’ He stopped the car so suddenly that Arthur, who had been gently snoring and muttering to himself, would have shot forward into the windscreen but for Shane’s arm restraining him. ‘You look, Mam.’ Shane turned in his seat, ignoring his father’s ‘Wh . . . what is . . . it? What . . .’, as he said, ‘All me life I’ve held me hand with her, all me life, an’ where’s it got me? But no more.’
He swore again, the sound ugly, but this time Annie didn’t admonish him, and her voice was a whisper when she said, ‘What are you sayin’? By all that’s holy, lad, what are you sayin’?’
He stared at her hard, and she at him, and then as Arthur’s snores began to reverberate in the narrow confines of the car once again Shane turned, very slowly and with measured control, and started the car.
Chapter Eighteen
Rosie was aware she needed to be strong as she sat facing Robert McLinnie over a pot of tea in the small café in a side street in Bishopswearmouth. It was the second Thursday in January, and he had written to her two days previously informing her he had some news about Molly but that it was imperative she told no one before she had spoken to him.
She watched him now as he swallowed the contents of his cup, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat before saying, his voice very quiet, ‘You didn’t tell no one you were seein’ me?’
‘No. You asked me not to.’
‘Aye, aye.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘It’s on account of me mam you see, an’ Connie, of course. I don’t want them gettin’ the wrong idea . . .’ He straightened in his chair, screwing his buttocks into the seat, and in that moment Rosie realized he was highly embarrassed and wishing himself anywhere but where he was.
She bent forward, and now her voice was as quiet as his when she said, ‘Robert, whatever you have to tell me will be between you and me if you want it that way, but of course I would like to tell Zachariah too.’
‘Aye, aye I can understand that, but this can’t be dealt with like a bull in a china shop.’
By that she surmised that Robert - who she had heard through Jessie who had heard through Annie had been more than a little affronted at being left out of the rescue of Molly years before - was referring to Zachariah’s all-guns-blazing approach at Charlie Cullen’s establishment.
Robert rubbed his face now as he said, ‘Look, Rosie, I don’t know quite how to put this, lass, I don’t straight, but it’s bin drivin’ me barmy the last few weeks an’ I need to get it off me chest. I remember you an’ Molly as little bairns see, we was all brought up together in a manner of speakin’, weren’t we?’
‘Yes, yes we were.’ She looked at his red face for a moment and then said quietly, ‘It’s about Molly, you said?’
‘Aye.’ And then he began to speak rapidly. ‘I happened to be in Newcastle afore Christmas with a couple of pals of mine. We’d had a few jars, you know how it is, an’ one of ’em suggested visitin’ a house he knows.’
‘A house?’ And then as Rosie looked into his eyes she said quickly, ‘Oh yes, I see.’ Annie had told her things were very bad again between Robert and his wife.
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