A Daughter's Duty (7 page)

‘Sit down, Marina, I’m just making a bit of dinner,’ Rose went on, going back to the enamel dish on the table where she was peeling potatoes before putting them into an iron saucepan.

Marina perched on the end of an old leather armchair by the side of the fire and watched her. She couldn’t think what to say for a moment. It was as though she were a stranger to this house.

‘I wondered if you were all right too?’ she said at last, keeping her voice low.

Rose glanced sharply at her and back to the potato she was peeling. She cut it in half and dropped it into the pan. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, I mean …’ Marina floundered. Because of last night, she wanted to say, because your dad had had a drop and was in a rage. ‘There’s your mam … it must be a lot of work. Me mam said she would help …’ (She hadn’t. What Kate had said was that she had offered twice, had taken along broth and had it refused by Alf Sharpe when he’d answered the door. ‘We’re not on the breadline,’ he’d growled, ‘so don’t poke your nose in here, woman!’ And she’d offered to do the washing but that offer had been refused too. ‘I’m not one to go where I’m not wanted,’ her mother had said to Marina when she came back, her face red with the snub.)

‘I can manage, Dad doesn’t like other folk in,’ said Rose. She cast an involuntary glance at the ceiling as she spoke.

‘But I’m your friend, Rose,’ Marina protested, forgetting to speak quietly.

There was a noise from upstairs and Rose dropped the potato she was holding into the dish with a little splash.

‘You’d best go now, Marina. I’ll tell Mam you were asking after her,’ she whispered urgently.

‘But I’ve only just come. I –’

‘Me dad will be getting up, and he’ll want some breakfast,’ said Rose. She was agitated, and Marina responded to her agitation though she didn’t understand it. She got to her feet and walked to the door. ‘Well, I’ll see you one of these days,’ she said vaguely. In her agitation, Rose had lifted a hand to her almost as though to hurry her on her way. Marina smiled again and went out. Normally the door would be held open until the visitor had disappeared through the gate, but when Marina looked round from halfway down the yard, the door was closed, the house as forbidding as ever.

‘Well? Did you find out how Sarah Sharpe is getting on? Did you go in and speak to Rose? How are the twins – were their clothes clean? Are they being looked after properly, do you think?’ Kate was waiting eagerly with her questions.

‘Oh, Mam, of course they are. Rose looks after them, did you think she wouldn’t?’ Marina was disturbed enough by the atmosphere in the Sharpe house, her mother’s questions irritated her. She wanted time to herself, time to puzzle out what was wrong.

‘No, I know she’s a good girl really,’ Kate replied, then changed the subject. ‘Come on, set the table, will you? The puddings are about ready.’

‘Was that Marina Morland in the house?’ Alf demanded. He walked into the kitchen from the stairs, braces hanging down, collarless shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

‘She just called to see how me mam was,’ Rose mumbled, bending her head over the turnip she was slicing. ‘She wasn’t here but a minute.’

‘Eeh, our Rose, she sat down in Dad’s chair!’ Michael asserted and she shot him such a look he blushed and ran through to his mother.

‘I had to ask her to sit down, Dad, it was common courtesy.’ Rose finished cutting up the turnip and put it in a pan, carrying it through to the pantry for water. She ran the tap on it, working mechanically, all the time intensely aware that her father had followed her to the pantry door and stood barring her way out.

‘Let me through, Dad, I have to make the dinner,’ she said at last.

‘I’ll let you through in a minute,’ he growled and caught hold of her chin with one rough hand, lifting it so that she had no choice but to look into his face. His pale blue eyes were bleary and bloodshot, there was a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and his breath stank of stale beer so that it turned her stomach.

‘Let me go,’ she said, but quietly. She didn’t want her mother to hear any of this, or the twins either come to that.

Alf ignored her plea, moving closer so that his body was just touching hers and Rose stood pressed back against the sink, feeling some of the water she had splashed soaking into her blouse at the back. ‘Haven’t I told you I don’t want anyone in here?’ he asked softly. ‘I don’t want your mother disturbed by anyone. I’ve told you that, haven’t I?’ He always used Mam for an excuse, thought Rose despairingly.

‘She wasn’t, Dad. Mam never woke up.’ Her father was only slightly taller than Rose and now he put a foot forward, trying to insinuate it between her two feet. She pressed her legs together. ‘Behave, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘Behave yourself or I’ll … I’ll …’

‘You’ve been naughty. Don’t you think you deserve a good hiding when you’ve done something I told you not to do? Or will I punish you in some other way, is that what you want?’

‘Dad!’ She turned slightly and took a firmer grip on the pan handle. It shook and a splash of water came out and wet the front of her blouse. ‘So help me, I’ll hit you with this if you don’t leave me alone!’

‘No, you won’t, you don’t want to disturb your mam, now do you?’

He must still be drunk, she thought wildly. Oh, God, what was she going to do? He was edging into the pantry, trying to close the door behind him with one hand, but the place was so tiny there was hardly room. He pressed even harder against her and looked down to where the wet material of her blouse outlined the vee between her breasts. Rose tipped the pan and water and pieces of turnip cascaded down the front of his trousers. He still had one hand behind him, fumbling with the door, when suddenly it was pushed open so unexpectedly that he was taken off balance and fell past Rose into the tiny space before the end shelf.

‘Alf Sharpe, you hacky, dirty, filthy, bloody man! What are you doing?’ It was a screech rather than a shout and neither Rose nor her father could believe it when they saw Sarah standing in the doorway in her nightie, her hair in grey wisps all around her face which was beetroot-red, eyes almost popping out of her head, and all the while the lump on her neck was swelling and pulsing, evil and malignant. She was so mad with rage she had a strength far beyond her normal powers as she caught hold of Rose and pulled her out of the pantry and behind her.

‘No, Mam!’ cried Rose, starting back towards her. ‘No, it wasn’t anything. We just had an accident with the water. Come on back to bed, Mam, you’ll catch your death!’ Behind their mother the twins were standing, clinging to each other, screaming with fright. They jumped back, their cries even louder as Sarah Sharpe suddenly collapsed on to the brown polished linoleum which covered the floor, head back and eyes rolling. Rose bent over her, lifting her head and holding her fast. Her mother was breathing in sharp, shallow gasps, her face had gone from red to a pale parchment, but she was alive. She moaned slightly and her head rolled into the crook of Rose’s arm.

Rose looked back at her father. ‘Help me get her into bed,’ she shouted at him. Alf, who had been standing with his mouth open, seemingly numb with shock, came to her and between them they carried Sarah through to her bed in the other room.

‘Get the doctor, Dad, go on!’ Rose shouted as she pulled the covers over her mother’s rigid form.

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll go now,’ he replied, a meek, frightened little man now. He pulled a coat over his wet clothes and pushed his feet into his boots and fled out of the front door, across the garden to the path which was a short cut to the main road and the doctor’s house.

Rose felt her mother’s face with the back of her hand. Oh, God, it was so cold. She put coal on the fire from the scuttle by the side. The children crowded round her, crying softly now.

‘Rose, Rose!’ they cried, and after a moment she put an arm round them both and hugged them to her. All three of them stared at their mother’s face, willing her to open her eyes.

‘It’s because she got out of bed, isn’t it, Rose?’ Michael said. ‘She’ll be all right when she’s had a sleep, won’t she?’

‘The poor woman’s had a seizure,’ Kate said to Marina. She lifted her half-eaten dinner out of the oven where Marina had put it to keep hot when Mary Sharpe had come running up the yard, crying her heart out.

‘Rose says can you come, Mrs Morland?’ she had gasped.

‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Kate was rising to her feet even as she asked. ‘Is it your mam?’

Mary had nodded, and wiped the tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand. ‘Me mam … she’s bad,’ she had said, and hiccupped and sniffed together.

‘I’ll have to go.’ Kate was already halfway to the door.

‘Why, man, what about your dinner?’ grumbled Sam. ‘You’ll make yoursel’ bad next, running after folk.’

Kate ignored that as did Marina. ‘I’ll keep your dinner hot, Mam,’ she said, and tried to persuade Mary to stay. ‘I’ll give you a plate, too,’ she coaxed, but Mary didn’t even hear. She was out of the door in front of Kate and away like the wind. Kate didn’t even take off her pinny, but followed as she was, even to her house slippers.

Marina, her father and Lance were left to eat their meal and speculate on what was wrong.

‘Mind, she must be bad for Alf Sharpe to let anybody in. The man’s going off his head,’ Lance commented. ‘On the booze, no doubt.’

‘Nay, he couldn’t hold down that job if he was a boozer,’ his father returned. ‘I know he gets a skinful on a weekend but he doesn’t drink when he’s going to work. He’d soon get the boot if he did.’

‘Aye, well, the day may come,’ said Lance. ‘But anyroad, if he ever treats me like he treats the young lads he has under him, he’ll soon know the feel of my fist.’

‘Don’t talk so soft, lad –’

Marina’s thoughts wandered off. Somehow she couldn’t finish her meal. She got to her feet and took her plate through to the sink. She scraped the food into the scrap pail and rinsed the plate under the tap before going back into the kitchen and lifting the rice pudding out of the oven and serving it to the men. Afterwards she took the scrap pail down to the allotments to where ‘Farmer’ Brown, a neighbour and her dad’s friend, kept a sow and litter. Farmer, as his nickname implied, loved working with animals and on the land. The fact that he dug coal for a living was some joke of the gods, according to Sam.

Peeping down John Street, she saw the doctor’s car outside the Sharpe house. Should she go along after her mother and see if she could help? No, she’d only get in the way. But she felt so sorry for Rose, and after all she was her friend. Marina could think of nothing else for the next hour until her mother got back. By then the men had gone up to bed for their time-honoured Sunday afternoon nap.

‘A seizure?’ Marina said now. ‘Is that like a stroke?’

‘Aye. Just a fancy name for it,’ said Kate. ‘I offered to take the twins but Alf wouldn’t have it. Said he’d telephoned the post office at Shotton, his sister lives near to it. “She’ll be through on the next bus,” he said. And practically pushed me out of the door.’

‘I didn’t know Rose had an aunt,’ said Marina.

‘Aye, well, she has evidently. Let’s hope she’s not as queer as her brother. After all, I helped Rose change her mother’s bed, I combed Sarah’s hair for her and plaited it out of the way, and I fed the bairns. And all that man could do when I’d finished was glower at me and push me out of the door. I tell you what, our Marina, he might be an overman at the pit but he’s pig ignorant. Though I will say for him, he looked worried to death about Sarah. Kept standing right up close to her. The doctor had to tell him to move so that he could examine her.’

Marina nodded. ‘Did the doctor say anything else? I mean, I thought he’d have sent Mrs Sharpe into hospital –’

‘Not him. Says she’ll be all right looked after in her own home. Though, mind, when I think about it, she’ll likely be happier at home.’ Kate looked sombre. ‘If you ask me, she hasn’t got long at all. That lump on her neck’s getting bigger every day. I reckon the doctor thinks the same as me. Let her stop in her own home, like. Anyway he gave her an injection, though as far as I could see she was out like a light, wasn’t feeling a thing.’

‘That’s a blessing then if she has no pain at least,’ said Marina. Poor Rose, she thought, what must it be like to lose your mother? And poor twins an’ all, they were only six.

Alf Sharpe certainly looked like a man frightened out of his skin. As soon as the doctor and Kate had gone he was back in the room by his wife’s bed, muttering something to her even though she had barely opened her eyes and had failed to respond so far to anything anyone had said.

I’ll tell him in a minute, thought Rose, I’ll tell him to leave me mam alone. I know what he’s doing and why and I’ll tell him so. She had just come down from taking the twins to bed. Michael had cried himself to sleep and Mary was white-faced and quiet, too quiet. Rose went in and stood at the foot of her mother’s bed. Her father was right by the pillow, head bent to Sarah’s, whispering harshly. She just caught the words.

‘You saw nowt, Sarah, nowt at all. What did you want to get out of bed for anyway? I tell you, you saw nowt and now look what’s happened.’ He was practically eyeball to eyeball with his wife.

She was staring up at him and as far as Rose could see there was absolutely no expression on her face at all.

‘Oh, you agree now she got out of bed and came to see what you were doing, do you, Dad?’ Rose asked acidly. ‘I thought you told the doctor she just fell by the bed?’

‘Well, it’s all the same!’ Alf twisted his head round and glared at her. ‘An’ don’t you contradict what I say neither or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Well, come away from her now. You leave her alone, do you hear me? Because I might not have said anything to the doctor, but by heck I will say something to Aunt Elsie. I will, I’m telling you!’

‘You’ll say nowt!’ snapped Alf. ‘There’s nowt to say. I don’t know what you’re talking about sometimes. Anyroad, I won’t have her staying here. She can take young Michael home with her. You can manage Mary and your mother.’

‘You’re not going to separate the bairns?’ cried Rose. ‘You’re not! I’ll –’ She stopped abruptly as something about her mother caught her eye. A flicker of … was it consciousness? It was definitely something, a ripple of emotion, something, crossing Sarah’s face. Rose rushed to the head of the bed and shoved her father aside.