A Daughter's Duty (12 page)

‘Charlie? Come on, we’re going to be late.’

Beside her, he stirred and turned over on his back.

‘OK, I’m coming. Give me ten minutes,’ he called, and there was the sound of footsteps retreating down the stairs.

Ten minutes? thought Marina. She had nothing on, her skin felt sticky, and where were her clothes? She had to go. She sat up in bed, looking for her pants and bra. They were on the chair by the bed.

‘Come on, love. I’m sorry to hurry you but I’ve made arrangements for this evening,’ said Charlie. He was pulling on his trousers now, running a hand through his hair. She looked at her watch. It was only half-past six, they must have slept barely half an hour. She was suddenly angry with him. What did he mean by rushing her off as soon as he’d finished with her?

‘I wanted to talk,’ she said.

‘What about? Oh, come on, love, we can’t talk now. If I’d known you were coming …’

There was a tiny silence. ‘I need the bathroom,’ Marina said flatly as she reached for and fastened her bra. She pulled on her coat so that she was decent going into the corridor, bundled up her other clothes and went to the door.

‘Don’t –’ he said, and stopped as she turned and stared at him.

‘What?’

‘Don’t be long,’ he went on, dropping his eyes, having the grace to look sheepish. ‘Look, I’m sorry, love. I really do have to go.’

In the bathroom Marina cleaned herself up and combed her hair. She looked at her reflection and took her lipstick out of her bag to outline her lips. ‘I love him,’ she said aloud, almost in apology to herself. She felt used.

Charlie was waiting when she got back to his room.

‘Ready now?’

‘Yes. When will I see you again?’ She hated herself for saying it. How spineless she was.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Look, I really have to go now, I’ll be in touch.’

‘I love you, Charlie.’ It was the first time she had ever said she loved anyone except her parents. He paused and looked over his shoulder at her, already at the top of the stairs.

‘Don’t be so intense, Marina. Look, I’ll meet you after work tomorrow. In the cafe in the market place?’

She nodded and followed him out into the dark January night. His friend was waiting at the door and they went off together. She watched them go for a minute but Charlie didn’t look back.

‘I’m going to the pictures with the girls from work tonight,’ Marina said to her mother in answer to Kate’s raised eyebrows when she’d appeared dressed for work in her best blue tweed suit, the one with inverted pleats in the skirt. The jacket was nipped in at the waist and flared out over the hips.

‘I don’t know, Marina, you lasses are always gadding about nowadays,’ grumbled Kate, and sighed. ‘Still, you might as well enjoy yourselves while you can. Mind, I think you should spare a thought for Rose Sharpe. Weren’t you two best friends for years? Now you scarcely have any time for her, and by the look of her she could do with a friend.’

Marina was smearing marmalade on a slice of toast. She stopped and looked over at her mother. ‘Oh? I thought she had her aunt there?’

‘No, Elsie’s gone and taken the twins with her. There’s only Rose and her dad. I don’t know why she doesn’t get a job, there can’t be that much for her to do in the house, not with just the two of them. But she hardly goes out these days and you know what Alf Sharpe’s like – he hates visitors.’

Marina felt guilty that she hadn’t been to see Rose since the funeral. But Mam was right, Alf Sharpe was so awful, no manners at all, no wonder people had stopped going to visit Rose. No one liked to be insulted. ‘I’ll pop in to see her tomorrow, I promise.’

Charlie was not waiting in the cafe when Marina left work at five o’clock. Disappointment was like a great weight pressing down on her, even though in the back of her mind she had not expected him. She walked up to Elvet bridge, looking back every few minutes, and forward into the scurrying crowds in between.

‘Hey there, I’ll walk to the bus station with you,’ a voice said at her side but it was only Doris.

‘Sorry, I’m going the other way,’ said Marina and sped off to the left and up New Elvet hill. She could catch the bus from New Inn at the top. It was further to walk but at least she would be on her own. Doris was left staring after her, mouth open in affront.

She wasn’t going to go chasing after Charlie any more, Marina told herself. No doubt he had gone back to Yorkshire. After all, it was Friday. He’d probably intended to all along. He’d only said he would meet her to get rid of her. She burned with humiliation. And anger. She’d never speak to him again, she vowed. The bus came along on its way from Sunderland to Bishop Auckland and she climbed on to the top deck and went right to the empty seat at the front. Staring out into the dark night, she summoned up anger, wanting it to consume the humiliation. Oh, she would never, never speak to Charlie Hutchinson again, not if hell were to freeze over!

The bus stopped at Spennymoor and someone slid into the seat beside her. Marina hunched her shoulders resentfully and stared out of the window, to find herself staring into the grinning reflection of Brian Wearmouth.

‘You not speaking to me now, Marina Morland?’ he asked.

‘Hallo, Brian.’ She smiled brightly as she turned to him. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there. What have you been doing in Spennymoor?’ She looked into his eyes as though he was the only boy in the world, and indeed, she realised, he was a good-looking lad now all right, with his dark eyes sparkling and his hair slicked back in a quiff. He’d become a man, in fact, broad-shouldered and tall, while his skin, the scourge of his schooldays, showed hardly a blemish.

By the time they had got off the bus in Bishop Auckland and were walking to the local stop for Jordan, he had told her how he had been to see Jeff who had gone to work at Easington on the coast because he couldn’t get on with his overman at Jordan. ‘Anyway, Easington’s a big pit, a man has a future there.’

Brian took Marina’s arm as they crossed the street and his grip was firm and warm and the way he looked down at her and smiled was balm to her rejected soul.

‘How’s he getting on?’ she asked.

‘Well, I think. He’s got a good lodging with a nice family.’ Brian pursed his mouth and shook his head slowly. ‘At least … he’s getting on all right at work and mixing with the folk there but he’s not happy, Marina. He misses Rose.’

She was surprised. ‘But I didn’t know –’

‘What, that they were a couple? They weren’t. But Jeff would like to be. You know how it is, he’s good fun, a right comedian, but he’s always carried a torch for Rose. At one time I thought she liked him an’ all.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her enquiringly as though she knew the answer.

‘Rose’s changed, Brian, especially since she lost her mother and then the twins having to go away like that. She never goes out, I don’t suppose she has much time for boys.’

‘And then there’s her dad,’ sighed Brian. ‘Bad cess to him, that’s what I say.’

Marina said nothing, there was nothing to say. They got on the bus to Jordan and after a while Brian enquired, ‘Have you got a boyfriend, Marina?’

‘No.’ She immediately thought of Charlie. Oh, God, when was she ever going to get over him?

‘I don’t suppose you fancy going out with me, do you?’ His voice was suddenly eager. ‘I mean, we could go to the Majestic in Darlington tomorrow night. My dad has a car now and I’ve taken my test. He lets me borrow it sometimes.’

Marina started to shake her head then stopped. Why not after all? She was finished with Charlie, finished with men really. She was going to concentrate on work, better herself, aim for Margaret’s job. But she could still go to a dance, couldn’t she? Everyone needed time off.

‘No strings,’ she said, and Brian opened his eyes wide.

‘Oh, no, no strings,’ he replied, sounding light-hearted. He grinned at the conductor as they got off the bus and he looked after them speculatively.

‘Mind, I didn’t know those two were courting,’ he remarked to Mrs Holmes as she followed them off the bus.

‘Me neither,’ that lady replied. ‘But maybe they aren’t. You know what the young ’uns are like nowadays. Some of these lasses go from one to another – shameless hussies they are.’

‘Eeh, man, I think Marina Morland is a decent enough girl,’ he protested.

‘Hmm,’ said Mrs Holmes, pursing her lips as she scurried off through the cold evening to the warmth of her kitchen fire.

Brian was whistling to himself as he washed and shaved to go to the dance: ‘
Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon.
’ Annie, his young sister, popped her head around the door and sang along with him. The song was all the rage on the radio at the minute.

‘Where are you going, our Brian?’ she asked. ‘All dressed up an’ all.’ He was. He had on his new blue suit with the narrow trousers and single-breasted jacket. As she watched he took up a comb and carefully smoothed back his quiff then eased it forward with his hand to just the right prominence. Putting the comb down, he checked himself once again in the looking-glass and turned to grin at her.

‘Never you mind, little girl. You’re too young to know.’ He took her in his arms and whirled her round the tiny landing, Annie giggling as her thin little legs dangled in the air.

‘Have you got a date?’ she persisted when he put her down. ‘Have you?’ But he just laughed and ran on down the stairs and into the kitchen-cum-living-room.

‘It’s bed you should be going to,’ his mother observed as she put a plate before him, piled high with sausages and potato and turnips. ‘You were out all day yesterday, and only a couple of hours’ sleep last night before you went on fore shift at the pit and then a couple more this afternoon.’

‘I’ll sleep tonight, Mam, don’t fuss.’

‘Brian’s got a date,’ Annie cried.

‘Have you?’ Mrs Wearmouth gazed at her son. He wasn’t one for going out with the girls much and since Jeff had gone to live at Easington rarely went anywhere except the pictures now and then. She reckoned he’d always leaned towards Marina Morland though. She’d seen his face when he looked at the girl.

‘Marina, is it?’

Brian looked up, startled. ‘How did you – oh, Mother, I never said I had a date even. How did you know?’

‘I have my ways,’ she said and turned back to the oven to take out the rice pudding and stewed plums. She was smiling to herself. Oh, aye, her lad was growing up, he was a man now, taller than his dad. And he was quiet and manly and she was proud of the way he’d stuck up for Jeff when he’d had to leave Jordan pit and go over to the coast, especially with Jeff having no family of his own. He’d been brought up by his gran. Brian’s dad had told her all about it. Apparently Alf Sharpe had needled Jeff all the time, goading him until the older men had taken it upon themselves to haul Alf into a corner and tell him to leave the lad alone.

‘He’s useless,’ Alf had replied sourly.

‘He’s not, he’s a good worker,’ Mr Wearmouth had insisted.

‘Well, he’s after my Rose,’ Alf had blurted out then and the men looked sideways at him. He saw it and knew they were thinking there was something funny going on … after all, Rose was of an age to go courting, it was only natural. Alf was a bit more careful after that but it was too late. Jeff gave in his notice and went to work at Easington. He fancied getting right away, according to Brian, joining the Air Force even. Some of the lads he had gone to school with were doing their National Service, quite a few of them as far away as Germany. They came home on leave with an air of new maturity. But the Coal Board wasn’t too keen on letting a skilled miner go so for Jeff it had had to be another mine.

‘You have a good time, Brian,’ Mrs Wearmouth said now. ‘Enjoy yourself.’ She was thankful it hadn’t been her lad who’d had to go away. Poor Jeff, what with his mother running off to London at the beginning of the war and then his gran dying last year.

‘I will. See you later, Mam,’ he replied, and dropped a kiss on her head and patted Annie’s cheek on his way out.

‘Well,’ she said as the door closed behind him, ‘he’s with a nice girl, no complications with
her
family.’

‘What do you mean – complications, Mam?’

‘Never you mind.’

She was thinking of Rose Sharpe, of course, though she discounted some of the whispers going about as being altogether too preposterous. Rose was all right, though she did seem a bit low these days. But that wasn’t to be wondered at after losing her mother and the twins going away and that father of hers …Alf Sharpe was likely just too protective, that was all. Life hadn’t been good to him lately either. Nothing had actually been said about him, or not openly. It was just the way people hinted at things unmentionable. She couldn’t believe them, really she couldn’t, felt guilty at her own dark thoughts. Maybe she just had a nasty mind.

‘Come on in, Brian,’ said Kate as she opened the door to him. ‘Marina won’t be but a minute or two. She’s been visiting Rose Sharpe this afternoon and stayed on a bit. Rose misses the bairns, you know, and her mam.’

‘Aye, well, she will,’ said Brian. ‘But how are you, Mrs Morland?’ He was a little pink but quite self-assured and Kate smiled to remember him as a young boy. So painfully shy, he’d been.

‘Canny,’ she replied, then, courtesies over, motioned him to a chair and sat down opposite him, wiping her hands on her apron. She studied him frankly. He was all grown up now, she concluded, and a fine figure of a young man, clear-eyed and broad-shouldered. Their Marina could do worse than him. In fact she had been relieved when the girl had said she was going out with him. For a while there Kate had had a suspicion that Marina was up to something with someone she didn’t want to tell her family about. Dark thoughts of married men had hovered to worry Kate, tell herself as she might that their Marina was a well-brought-up lass and had more sense than that. Yet sometimes when she came in late from work there had been a look about her. And there were all sorts of folk in Durham City, what with the university and all those office workers at Shire Hall.

Well, she needn’t worry any more. Brian was a nice lad, she’d known him since he was a baby and he came from a clean-living family an’ all. Kate watched as her daughter came down in a black taffeta dress with a velvet motif on the bodice covered with red and white sequins. Black! To go to a dance an’ all. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. After all, it was fashionable. She’d seen similar in the shop windows in Bishop Auckland. And judging by the expression on Brian’s face, he thought her daughter looked a knockout.