All in all there would be fourteen besides herself and Zachariah. Flora, Peter and Davey - if Davey came, that was, he hadn’t seemed too sure at Christmas - along with her mother and Hannah and Joseph Green. Sally and Mick were coming, and Beryl from the Co-op and her young man. Annie McLinnie and Arthur - Rosie would have invited the lads too, she hadn’t forgotten their kindness when Molly had disappeared the first time, but with Shane McLinnie at home that had proved impossible - and lastly Tommy Bailey and his lady friend.
She had wondered if Flora would prefer a quiet New Year’s Eve, the circumstances being as they were, but it had been her friend who had insisted the party go ahead. ‘I can’t hide myself away, I’ve got to face folk sometime so I might as well start now,’ Flora had said when Rosie had voiced her misgivings a few days before. Rosie agreed wholeheartedly with the overall sentiment, she just felt a party, with all the chit-chat and social niceties it entailed, could be a little much at this early date, but she had been happy to leave the decision to Flora.
Jessie, Hannah and Joseph Green were the first to arrive at just gone half past eight, along with Sally and Mick, and as Rosie opened the door to them Sally was jumping from one foot to the other in her excitement as she said, ‘Ask us how we got here, Rosie. Go on, ask us.’
‘How?’
‘Come and look.’ Sally couldn’t prolong the moment a second more. ‘Mr Green’s bought himself a car, what do you think of that?’
Rosie glanced down the frosted garden and beyond the gate, and although her voice was enthusiastic and she was smiling as she said, ‘It’s lovely, beautiful. Where did you get it?’ her stomach had turned right over. Joseph’s car was a Morris Cowley, identical to Shane McLinnie’s, and it made her feel sick. Twice since Christmas she had seen a similar car parked across the road outside the house, and only last night she had been sure the tall dark figure standing in the shadows when she had drawn the bedroom curtains at gone ten had been Shane. For two pins she would have gone down into the street and confronted him, but with Flora still so up and down she hadn’t wanted any possibility of her friend being involved in further upset.
She followed the others back down the path now, after calling for Zachariah and Flora to come and give dutiful homage, and as she looked at the car she made up her mind that once Flora was gone she was going to take the bull by the horns, go and see Shane and tell him to leave them alone. If nothing else, it would make her feel better.
‘This is grand, Joseph, grand.’ As Zachariah and Flora joined them her husband’s voice was hearty.
‘Aye, I thought it time I looked after meself a bit.’ Joseph’s eyes were soft as he looked across at Jessie, and everyone knew it wasn’t himself he intended to look after. And then his tone was faintly apologetic as he added, ‘There’s only been meself for nigh on fifteen years now, and there’s been nowt to spend me money on. I thought a bit of comfort wouldn’t go amiss.’ Joseph’s first wife had died after eight years of marriage and there had been no children.
‘I don’t blame you.’ Zachariah nodded his head several times as he thought, By, it’s a rum do when a bloke has to apologize for spending his own money, but that’s what it boils down to in this climate. It’s got so you can hardly pick up the paper or pay a visit to the pub without some strike or dispute or other staring you in the face. He’d heard they’d opened a soup kitchen in High Street West over Christmas so some families could at least have their bellies filled once a day. But now wasn’t the time for such sober thoughts, and he began to usher them all back indoors, saying, his voice jolly, ‘Come on, come on, the drink won’t come to you out here, an’ me wife has done enough food to feed an army in there. I’m goin’ to be eatin’ me way through ham sandwiches an’ mince pies till Easter if you don’t all tuck in.’
Annie McLinnie and Arthur, and Tommy Bailey and his lady friend, a small stout woman called Matilda who had a sweet face and rosy red cheeks, were walking along the street together having caught the same tram, as they turned to go back into the house, and within minutes Beryl and Reginald had arrived too.
The party was in full swing at ten o’clock when Peter Baxter arrived, full of apologies for his lateness which had been caused by an emergency at the shipyard. One of Zachariah’s more ostentatious presents to Rosie, a modern gramophone enclosed in its own wooden cabinet, was blaring out one of the hits of 1925, ‘Show me the Way to Go Home’, with ribald accompaniment and much merriment from the assembled company, and Peter soon found himself singing with the best of them.
Rosie and Flora had been making more sandwiches in the kitchen when the knock had sounded at the front door, and Rosie had let Flora answer it, knowing it would be either Peter or Davey. When Flora re-entered Rosie lifted her head from her task, forcing a lightness to her voice as she asked, ‘Who was it?’
‘Peter.’ Flora’s voice was flat.
‘You had better go in there with him, he doesn’t really know anyone very well.’ Rosie inclined her head towards the shrieks of laughter. ‘Get him a drink and a sandwich, Flora, and I’ll bring this lot through in a minute. And the second bowl of punch is ready, could you ask one of the men to come and carry it through? And check if we need more beers while you’re about it, would you.’
‘I’d better get Sally to eat something too, she’s already three parts to the wind.’ The two women smiled at each other but Rosie didn’t voice what she was thinking, namely that she hoped Sally continued on form and kept everyone laughing. Sober she was funny, tipsy she was hilarious, and Rosie had a feeling they would need Sally’s outrageous sense of fun. Well, she certainly did anyway, she thought wryly.
It was as she was mixing tinned salmon with vinegar to add to the already buttered bread that Davey’s voice sounded just behind her. ‘The door was open so I let myself in. I hope that’s all right?’
She froze for one moment, her heart stopping and then giving a mighty kick start that brought it up into her throat, and then she turned carefully, keeping her voice very steady as she said, ‘Of course it’s all right, you know that. Peter has only just arrived and Flora couldn’t have shut the door properly. It’s a funny latch that one, you think it’s shut and then it opens again.’
Davey nodded but he didn’t speak, and as the moment stretched and tautened their locked gaze became painful, and it was Rosie who smiled, as naturally as she could, and said, ‘Flora will be pleased you’ve come, she was beginning to think you’d changed your mind or got buttonholed by some neighbours or friends. There are always so many invitations flying around on New Year’s Eve.’
‘I couldn’t get away from the Rileys. Douglas came over with his wife and bairns, and then some of the neighbours came in. You know how it is.’
Why hadn’t it been Shane McLinnie?
The words were so loud in his head that for a moment he thought he’d voiced them out loud. He would have taken her away from Shane McLinnie, aye, he would, and without a second thought, whether she’d been married or not.
‘Yes, I know how it is.’ Rosie’s voice was prim-sounding as she turned back to the table. ‘Well now you’re here perhaps you’d like to take that bowl of punch through, they’re waiting for it.’
‘Right.’ And then his voice was soft behind her as he said, ‘Don’t be frightened of me, Rosie.’
‘What?’ She swung round so quickly she almost overbalanced and his hand came out swiftly to steady her, only to pause within an inch or two of her arm before dropping to his side again. The denial she had been about to make hovered on her lips but then she was looking into his eyes, and a softening, a melting of her mind and body rendered her dumb. She forgot that he hadn’t been there when she had needed him most, that he had walked away from her and Sunderland without a backward glance and stayed away for five years; the look in his eyes depicted what was in her own heart and it thrilled her even as it terrified her.
‘Don’t.’ It was a whisper but he seemed to understand it because he nodded slowly, taking a great intake of breath and then wrenching his gaze from her white face to the bowl on a side table. ‘Is this it?’ he asked gruffly, walking across to the table as he spoke.
How could he look at her like that? How could he? Rosie was fighting the feeling that had taken over her body and her mind with all her might. He had looked at her like that once before, when she had been a young naive lass of fourteen and desperately in love with him, but his subsequent actions had proved that what his eyes had said was not real. And she didn’t want it to be real, not now, she
didn’t
. She could control this feeling deep inside, this elemental core of her, if he didn’t care for her. But if he did . . . She breathed hard through her nose. It couldn’t be loosened, it couldn’t become tangible. Even recognition that it was real was a betrayal of Zachariah.
She was trying to bring some sort of answer regarding the punch to her lips when the volume of noise beyond the kitchen swelled, indicating the sitting-room door had been opened, and as she turned back to the sandwiches without speaking Flora came hurrying into the kitchen. ‘They’ve gone barmy in there, Rosie. I don’t know what you’ve put in that punch but Sally and Mrs McLinnie are--’
There was a moment of deep silence, and Rosie nerved herself to turn, her voice airy as she said, ‘You left the door open earlier, Flora, so Davey let himself in. He was just going to bring the punch bowl through.’
‘They’re ready for it, and those beers, Rosie.’ Flora recovered almost immediately, and when Davey said, ‘Hallo, Flora. How are you feeling?’ she answered, ‘Oh, you know, bearing up,’ as she turned to smile at him.
Rosie handed Flora the plate of salmon sandwiches and let the other two go through to the sitting room while she busied herself slicing up the ham pie, but once she knew she was alone she stopped what she was doing, leaning heavily on the table as she lowered her head and shut her eyes tightly.
Flora knew.
No, no, she couldn’t know - there was nothing
to
know, was there? Flora had just been surprised to see Davey in the kitchen, that was all. And Flora liked him. She had set her cap at him, they both knew it, so she was just jittery in his presence. But there had been recognition in that one glance Flora had given her when she had taken the plate, an awareness of the atmosphere that had existed between her and Davey when her friend had entered the kitchen. She wasn’t imagining it.
Zachariah, oh, Zachariah. He must not be hurt, he mustn’t have a moment’s unhappiness through her. Rosie opened her eyes, staring blindly down at the cluttered table, and in that moment she found herself wishing fiercely and vehemently that Davey
would
ask Flora to marry him. Flora would satisfy that physical side of things that men especially found so important, and once there were bairns that would widen the gulf between them. Her hand moved unconsciously to her stomach.
She loved Zachariah, she did, so much, but if
she
didn’t understand how she could love him and still feel this way about Davey, how would he ever comprehend it? He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t understand how she could love them both.
But no,
no
, she didn’t love Davey. She would not let herself love him.
‘You all right, pet?’
When she raised her head to see Zachariah standing in the doorway it was almost as though her thoughts had brought him to her. She nodded slowly, holding out her hand as she sank down onto one of the hardbacked chairs at the table, and indicated with an inclination of her head for him to come and sit beside her.
‘I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’ She smiled as he reached her side and sat down, and then, when he took one of her hands and chafed it gently between his palms, she added, ‘It’s been a difficult couple of weeks or so, hasn’t it?’
‘We’ll take that as the understatement of 1925, lass.’ He grinned at her, his beautiful blue eyes warm and loving. ‘An’ you’re doin’ way too much at the minute, you’ve bin on your feet since six this mornin’--’
‘
Zachariah
.’
The look on her face cut off his words like a knife.
‘Zachariah, I felt it. I felt it kick.’ And then, as he stared stupidly at her, she said, ‘Oh, there it goes again. It’s really kicking, Zachariah.’ She reached for his hand and placed it on the mound of her stomach. ‘I’ve had these sort of flutters for the last few weeks but this is different. Feel it.’
‘By, lass.’ His face told her he was stunned.
It was making its presence felt all right, and the wonder of the new life they had created washed over them anew. They stared at each other for a moment, his hand still pressed to her flesh, and then they grinned and then laughed, before falling together as he hugged her tightly.
They remained like that for a minute or two, and then, as Rosie drew away slightly, she said, ‘I want it to be just us again, do you think that’s horribly selfish?’
‘Probably, aye probably, but it does me heart good to hear you say it nonetheless, lass. Me happiest times are by me aan fireside with me aan wife an’ the rest of the world shut outside.’ He stroked her shining hair as he added quietly, ‘But we’ll do what we can to ease Flora’s path, I know you wouldn’t be content with less.’ They continued to sit closely together for a few moments more and then Zachariah said, ‘I’ve asked Davey to be first foot. He’s the only dark one among us.’