‘And if I hadn’t have got the police involved, what then? They said you were getting the worst of it and they only just arrived in time as it was. You could have been
murdered
, Zachariah.’
‘How could I know it’d turn out like that, lass? I thought we’d be all right with Alec’s men to hand, it was all supposed to go like clockwork.’ ‘Clockwork! You expected it to go like
clockwork
?’
It was four o’clock in the morning, and Rosie and Zachariah had just got home, courtesy of Joseph’s Morris Cowley. Jessie’s beau had been marvellous. It had been Joseph - once Zachariah had asked the police to contact him - who had driven Jessie over to Roker so she could stay with little Erik while Joseph took Rosie to the Sunderland Infirmary. He had waited while Zachariah and Davey had their respective wounds stitched; Zachariah had a nasty cut from his temple down to his right ear, and Davey had a deep gash over one eye.
Then the police had taken statements from Alec’s men, both of whom had lost a considerable amount of blood but were not in any danger, and Zachariah and Davey. Following that, Joseph had driven Davey home - Alec’s men would be in the hospital for a few days yet - before taking Rosie and Zachariah back to Roker and collecting Jessie.
Zachariah looked at Rosie. He had known the woman he had married was one in a million, but he still found it hard to believe she had managed to make cohorts of Alec and the police, but as he - and maybe a couple more besides - might well be lying in the morgue tonight but for Rosie’s intervention, there was very little he could say. ‘I’m sorry, lass.’ He suddenly sounded like a little boy and this impression was strengthened when he added, perfectly seriously, ‘But it wasn’t my fault, Rosie. I thought I was doing the best thing in keepin’ it from you, I didn’t want you worried out of your mind, lass. Besides.’ He tried an appealing smile. ‘You shouldn’t listen to private conversations.’
Rosie didn’t smile back. She stared at him unblinkingly as she said, ‘Oh yes I should where you are concerned, Zachariah. You could have been killed tonight.’ And Davey too. Yes, Davey too. The both of them. She would have gone mad then, knowing it was over her; and it was, at bottom. Was she glad Shane McLinnie was dead? The answer wasn’t slow in coming, and it made her want to cross herself for protection against the punishment God would surely inflict for being glad someone was dead.
‘But I wasn’t.’ The smile turned into a grin, his blue eyes brilliant in the muted lighting in the sitting room. ‘An’ I’m ready to admit me wife knew best in this instance. Now, I can’t say fairer than that, can I? An’ I swear on the bairn’s life that I’ll never keep anythin’ from you again, whatever the circumstances. How about that, lass?’
‘Zachariah, I know when I’m being soft-soaped.’ But she couldn’t help smiling. She had never known anyone who could turn on the charm like Zachariah.
‘I love you, lass.’ They were sitting on the sofa and he took her face in his big hands. ‘I just wanted to get things straight for you an’ the bairn. That man was hangin’ over this family like a big black cloud an’ it couldn’t have gone on. Maybe it never would have been settled for good until one of us was dead, thinkin’ about it now.’
‘I believe that,’ Rosie said a little shakily. ‘After what Davey repeated to the police about what Shane had said, I know he’d never have given up until he had settled the score with you, and in his book that would have meant murder. He was a disturbed man, Zachariah. Looking back he always has been, even as a young boy. But I feel sorry for Annie. Whatever else, he was her son and she loved him. I must go and see her in the morning.’
‘Aye, you do that, lass. I’ve nothin’ against the rest of that family, far from it. It’s amazin’ to me that Shane’s related to ’em. When I think of the way he wielded that knife . . .’
As Rosie began to weep for the first time Zachariah recognized the tears were remedial and held her tight in his arms. After a while they went upstairs and lay, fully dressed, on their bed as they continued to hold each other close.
‘I love you so much, Zachariah.’ Dawn was casting a pale pink glow across the room as Rosie spoke and neither of them had been to sleep. ‘When I look back over the last few years I don’t know what I would have done without you and that’s the truth. You . . . you’ve been my salvation.’
‘That’s a bit ripe, lass.’ He turned towards her and looked into her face as he continued, ‘But it’s the way I feel about you so I won’t say you’re exaggeratin’. I never thought to have a family, bairns an’ such. The way I am . . . well, to tell you the truth, I was scared to try in case history repeated itself. An’ then you came along an’ suddenly it was worth tryin’.’
‘If Erik grows up to be half the man his father is he won’t go far wrong.’ Rosie’s voice vibrated with the depth of her emotion and for a long minute they looked into each other’s eyes, and whatever Zachariah read in Rosie’s must have satisfied him because he smiled the sweetest smile she had ever seen and settled down into her arms, his head against her breasts.
‘We both need a bit of shut-eye, lass. There’s a bairn not far from here who’ll take no account of his mother’s exhaustion come feed time. Mind you, I don’t blame him. If I was feedin’ where he’s feedin’ I’d yell me head off for me rights an’ all.’
‘Oh, Zachariah.’ She nudged him with her arm, kissing the top of his fair head where it rested under her chin as she did so before shutting her eyes and settling down herself.
She must have slept, and for once Erik didn’t demand his feed dead on the dot of six o’clock, because it was nearly eight when she heard his first wah of a cry. She stretched carefully - Zachariah was still in exactly the same position cradled in her arms against her breasts, and her arms were cramped - before gently easing his head back onto his own pillow. And it was only as his head lolled that she took in his complete stillness.
‘Zachariah?’ It was a whisper, and then louder, ‘
Zachariah?
’
But there was no answering lift of his eyelashes to reveal those piercingly blue beautiful eyes, or the soft ‘Good mornin’, me darlin” that had characterized all the mornings since her marriage.
He lay, a slight smile still curving his lips, as handsome in death as he had been in life, and even as she sank down and gathered him in her arms again, smothering his face in kisses as she frantically willed the breath back into his body, she already knew it was too late. He had gone, and nothing could bring him back.
After the post mortem and other necessary legal technicalities they buried Zachariah on the morning of August 18th. This was the day the miners reopened negotiations with the government to end their three-month-old strike, but the bitterness of the soul-destroying dispute was pushed to the background as Wearsiders, young and old, lined the route the hearse took. The ornate, flower-covered carriage was drawn by two fine black-plumed horses and the cortège was a long one - Sunderland had been shocked by the facts that had emerged over the young husband’s death.
It was widely acknowledged that Shane McLinnie had killed Zachariah - he might not have plunged a knife into his heart but the blow that had caused the massive bloodclot was murder, nonetheless - and the papers were full of it for a few days. Some folk thought it odd that the mother of the murderer should ride in the same carriage as the deceased’s wife and mother-in-law, and that two of his brothers should be among the six men who carried the coffin into the church. Rosie didn’t care what they thought. She had done what her heart had told her to do and she knew Zachariah would have approved of her actions.
Zachariah. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t going to see him again. There had been times over the last few days when she had awoken with a start from one of the catnaps that were all her exhausted mind could take refuge in, and imagined she was hearing his distinctive-sounding footsteps; and others, especially when she was seeing to the child, when she’d thought she’d heard his voice calling her name. She hadn’t told anyone of this, fearing they would either assume she was going mad or start pressing her to take the medicine the doctor had prescribed. And she didn’t want to sleep all the time, she wanted to
feel
her agony and desolation, it was the last thing she could do for him.
‘I found myself thinking it would be worth dying to have you cry like that for me.’ The words he had spoken on their wedding night, and which had never left her, were at the forefront of her mind all the time now, and often when she paced the floor at night, stifling her sobs so she didn’t wake her mother and Hannah who were staying with her for the time being, she found herself ranting and raving at Zachariah through the pain.
It was unreasonable, she knew that in the sensible part of her, in her brain, but her emotions were a different thing. She was so
angry
at him for leaving her, she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t wanted to cry for him, she had wanted to
live
for him. She had told him that, hadn’t she?
Rosie could only manage cool politeness to Davey on the day of the funeral. She hadn’t realized until then that she was holding him partly responsible for Zachariah’s demise, and again she knew it was unfair but she was as angry with him as she was with Zachariah. Her son would grow up without ever really knowing the wonderful man who had given him life, and it could all have been prevented. It was the one thought that filled her mind night after lonely night.
And yet with Annie she felt nothing but deep compassion. Shane had been buried a few days before Zachariah, and according to Jessie Annie had told her that only she and Arthur had been present at the graveside. Even Shane’s brothers had refused to attend. Rosie felt no satisfaction in this; her emotions were strangely numb and frozen regarding Shane.
Rosie began to visit Annie fairly regularly in the days following the funerals - maybe it was their shared misery that drew her to her old friend’s side, she wasn’t sure; she only knew that in Annie’s little kitchen she felt the odd moment of respite from the constant pain of her loss. That Annie herself was suffering was obvious. She was now skin and bone and her clothes hung on her as if on a broomhandle, but although Rosie encouraged her to eat Annie seemed to get thinner with every week that passed.
Sally and Mick left for Ireland four weeks after Zachariah had died, leaving behind scenes of riots and disturbances by striking miners, ever-increasing dole queues and a thick blanket of utter despair that had settled on Sunderland’s working class.
In spite of this, Sally hadn’t wanted to go; she had been all for cancelling the arrangements and staying in Sunderland for as long as she felt Rosie needed her, but Rosie had added her weight to Mick’s arguments that they had to leave. This was a wonderful opportunity for the pair of them - a once-in-a-lifetime chance - and they must grab it with both hands, Rosie had told a tearful Sally. She owed it to Mick to go, she knew she did at heart, and Rosie would visit them as soon as she felt able to. She promised.
Rosie had meant every word, but once the boat had sailed she felt quite bereft and terribly alone. Her mother and Hannah and Joseph were now a family unit, and that was fine and how it should be. Jessie and Joseph were planning to marry at the end of the year and move into Joseph’s neat little house and Rosie was glad for them. And Flora had Davey. There were no marriage plans as yet but it was only a matter of time, Rosie told herself quite frequently. She rarely saw Davey now but Flora called in regularly and spent time with Erik as his favourite honorary aunty.
Rosie had hoped his real aunty would make an appearance at the funeral, or at least write - something - but there had been no word from Molly and Rosie felt it keenly. Molly was always there, in the back of her mind, and when Valentino - Molly’s idol - died just five days after they buried Zachariah, Molly was the first person she thought of on hearing the news.
A week after Sally and Mick’s boat sailed Zachariah’s solicitor called at the house. He took tea with her in the sitting room and sat and talked to her as though she was little more than a child, but she didn’t mind. He was a kind man and Zachariah had liked him. Her husband’s will had been very simple, he informed her gently. Everything was left to her. This house, the one her mother was presently occupying, some more properties in another part of the town she had only been vaguely aware of, it was all hers, along with a considerable amount of money and other funds tied up in bonds and such.
Zachariah had been something of a speculator - Rosie got the impression at this point that the solicitor had privately disapproved of such foolhardiness - but he’d had something of the Midas touch. Did she realize she was a very wealthy young woman? No, she had replied, she didn’t, and if she was being truthful she didn’t much care at this moment either. And he had patted her on the hand, clucked into his tea and told her he would write a full report so she could peruse it at her leisure when she was feeling a little better. For the moment he would arrange for a substantial sum to be paid to her each month for household expenses and so on, and she must contact him if there was anything she required, anything at all. He was
totally
at her disposal. And then he had drunk his tea and left.
When Rosie looked back on the weeks following Zachariah’s passing she realized for most of that period she had been working on automatic and had little recollection of them. She had visited the Maritime Almshouses to assure them of her continuing patronage, knowing that was what Zachariah would have wanted, and dealt with other necessary duties, but most of her days seemed to have vanished into a shadowy never-never land where dark confusion reigned.