‘Thank you.’ She could hear the wobble in her voice but she couldn’t do anything about it. ‘I’m sorry, but could I have a drink of water? I’ve been looking at rooms all day and . . .’ Her voice trailed away as she fought the faintness, panic high. She couldn’t faint, not here, not with him.
She was vaguely aware of him leaving the room but such was her physical distress that it barely registered. But then a cup of steaming liquid was thrust under her nose and a deep voice said, ‘It’s tea you need, lass, you look all done in. Get this down you while it’s hot, eh? I’d just gone an’ made a pot when you knocked at me door.’ She opened her eyes, which had been tightly shut against the nausea, to find him by her side, his face just above hers as he looked down at her with kind eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ She had taken several gulps of the strong hot tea and was feeling more like herself. ‘I never have turns.’
‘Nowt to be sorry for, lass.’ He hadn’t joined her by the fire but had seated himself on the sofa across the room, and Rosie couldn’t help feeling he had sensed her initial reluctance to enter the house and understood the reason for it - even if she didn’t fully understand it herself.
‘It’s . . . it’s the heat after the cold outside, and I’ve been out all day. Not that it isn’t lovely in here with the fire, it is,’ she added hastily, in case he should misinterpret her words as criticism. ‘I’ve never seen a room like this in all my life.’
‘How old are you, lass?’ His voice was soft now.
‘Fourteen.’ Well she was nearly, give or take a few days.
‘An’ why are you wantin’ rooms?’
‘We’ve got to get out of our house, Mr Kilbride’s got another family moving in.’ She was gabbling, this was no good, she needed to start at the beginning. Rosie took a deep breath and began again. ‘It’s like this . . .’
He listened without saying a word, the blueness of his eyes expressing nothing, and she told him the whole story, but with a bit of embroidering about the jam factory, feeling if she didn’t say they had already got the jobs there was no chance at all of the rooms.
There was a deep silence when she finished speaking, and it seemed to grow and stretch before he said, ‘An’ your name is . . . ?’
‘Oh. Rosie. Rosie Ferry.’
‘Do you want to look at the rooms then?’
‘Can I?’ Her voice was eager. Suddenly the idea of rooms in this house was desperately appealing.
‘Aye, you can look, but afore you do I’d better explain how things are. There’s two rooms upstairs, an’ I live downstairs in this room, me bedroom, an’ the kitchen.’ He pointed to the far wall. ‘The netty is outside in the yard an’ each house has its own in these parts. The hatchway is cleared by the corporation at night, but I’d expect you to keep it clean when you use it. There’s a fireplace in both the rooms upstairs, an’ water for drinkin’ an’ washin’ will need to be carried up from the washhouse where there’s a tap an’ a boiler for washin’ beddin’ an’ the like.’
Rosie was impressed. At Forcer Road the tap was in the yard and regularly froze in the winter, needing pieces of burning paper pushing up its spout before it would oblige with a trickle of water, and the two washhouses were shared between ten households. Of course, here she would be lugging water up and down the stairs, but Molly would help, she’d have to. And they would have to bring hot food in when they wanted it, but again they’d have to manage. Her da used to say you could get used to anything when you had to.
At least she would be spared the paraphernalia of the weekly wash with the neighbours, she’d always hated that. The violent pummelling with the scrubbing boards and washing dollies always seemed endless, along with the mangling of the wet clothes and the constant chatter. Her mother enjoyed the communal wash though, along with the gossip and backbiting that always went on from the first firing of the boiler to the last item being hung in the yard or on the long rope her da had nailed across the kitchen for when it was wet outside.
‘Right. Thank you.’ She didn’t know what else to say to the man. ‘That . . . that would be fine.’
‘Me name’s Zachariah, by the way. Zachariah Price.’
‘Zachariah?’ She knew there was a Zachariah somewhere in the Bible, she remembered that name from Sunday School, but she’d never known anyone who was actually
called
that, and again it served to make him even stranger in her sight.
‘Aye. It means “the Lord has remembered”, so me mam told me when I was a bairn,’ he said quietly, and then, his voice taking on what could be described as a lilt, he added, ‘but He forgot more than He remembered with me as you can see, lass. I’ve always thought He must’ve bin halfway through makin’ me when He was called away to somethin’ more important, an’ He forgot to come back an’ finish the job.’
Rosie was utterly lost for words. She had met other people who were handicapped before but none of them had had such a wicked trick of fate played on them as this man, and certainly none of them had made light of their disability. And then, as she looked into his face and past the twinkling blue of his eyes, she recognized something - a plea, a need, an unexpressed groan from deep within to be treated as just another man - and it was in answer to that that she said, as she managed a slight smile, ‘It just shows that even them at the top can need a poke in the ribs now and again.’
He stared at her for a moment and then he laughed. His head back he gave a great guffaw of laughter that suited his massive chest, and Rosie found herself smiling in response, naturally this time. She liked him. He might be a bit strange - and she didn’t mean his physical appearance here - but he was a nice man for all that, and this amazing room suited him somehow.
‘You go up an’ see what you think then.’ He was wiping his eyes as he spoke, his mouth still smiling. ‘I only use the stairs when I have to; they’re a sight too steep an’ narrow for my likin’.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Rosie rose hastily, smoothing down her thick serge coat that had become too small in the last six months as her figure had begun to develop, and pulling her felt hat more securely about her ears. He would find the stairs difficult, of course he would. There must be hundreds of things he found difficult. ‘I won’t be long,’ she added awkwardly.
‘Take all the time you need, lass.’ And then, as though the pop-pop-pop of the gas mantle had reminded him, he added, ‘You’ll be wantin’ a light, it’ll be dark up there by now.’ He levered himself off the sofa and waddled out of the room, returning a few moments later from the direction of the kitchen and handing her a lighted oil lamp as she stood waiting in the doorway.
The bare wood stairs were indeed steep and very gloomy, with a peculiar little twist three steps from the top that brought Rosie facing a small dark landing. She walked to the first door and opened it to reveal a room of perhaps eleven feet in length and nine feet wide. It was quite empty, apart from a small deep-set grate in the wall facing her which was enclosed within an iron framework that was unusually decorative. Two long, thin sash windows in the far wall overlooked the sloping roof of the kitchen and the small yard, and there were no curtains.
The second room was larger, encompassing the front of the house but on the same lines as the first, with an identical little fireplace and three sash windows this time. Again there were no curtains, but this room was brighter than the other one owing to the lamplighter having lit the street lamp that was positioned just outside the window. Rosie stood for a moment looking about her. Whoever the other occupants had been there wasn’t a trace of them left, the floorboards were swept clean and there wasn’t anything to say anyone had ever lived here. She shivered suddenly, the chill of the night making itself felt after the warmth of the room downstairs.
What was she going to do if she couldn’t get them set on at Bradman’s? Of course she could try the Northern Laundry in St Mark’s Road and all the shops hereabouts, but work was so scarce. But she couldn’t think of that now, she’d sort something out, she’d have to.
He was sitting waiting for her in exactly the same spot when she went downstairs again, and the sight of the small stunted legs dangling over the edge of the sofa brought such a rush of pity that she lowered her eyes quickly in case he saw it. ‘The . . . the rooms are lovely.’
‘Aye, well I wouldn’t go that far, but they’re clean an’ bug-free, lass, an’ that’s more than you can say in some quarters, however much they might whiten the step an’ bleach the pavement of a Saturday mornin’.’ He was grinning when she looked up, and gestured to the seat she had vacated by the fire as he said, ‘Sit yourself down, lass. You’re welcome to another cuppa but it’s syrup, not sugar, courtesy of the Kaiser an’ this bloomin’ rationin’.’
‘No, no thank you, I must be getting home.’ Rosie took a deep breath. ‘Could . . . could we move in at the weekend?’ Davey had said he could get the use of a coal cart and horse on Sundays and it would save paying for a flat lorry. ‘Would that be convenient?’
‘Aye, it’d be convenient,’ he said with a slight emphasis on the last word as though she had said something funny. ‘But don’t you want to know how much the rent is afore you decide?’
Oh she was stupid, she was. What must he be thinking? Her face flamed as she continued to stand awkwardly just inside the door and she knew she ought to say something cool and sensible, but all she could manage was a tight bob of her head as she kept her eyes on the handsome face.
‘Well I don’t charge as much as some, with it just bein’ the two rooms an’ all.’ He paused, his mind working rapidly. He could get six shillings or more from a family where the man was in work, but as far as he recalled Bradman’s weren’t over-generous to their lasses and there were the two little ’uns to clothe and feed. ‘How does three an’ six a week sound for now?’
‘Three and six?’ Her mother had said they’d been paying ten shillings to Mr Kilbride for Forcer Road, and here the netty and the washhouse were their own, along with Mr Price of course, and the room overlooking the street was perfect for a sitting room. Rosie nodded quickly. She had no idea how she was going to meet the first week’s rent, and if he asked for it up front like most landlords did . . .
He didn’t. ‘Right, we’ll take that as read then, lass.’ For some reason - and he couldn’t explain it, even to himself - Zachariah was finding that the sight of this young girl was paining him. In spite of the unusually mature way she had about her it was obvious she was little more than a bairn, her body was only just beginning to take on the first signs of womanhood and her eyes were as innocent as a five-year-old’s. The creamy-skinned oval face was pretty enough, and the dark brown eyes with their heavy fringe of black lashes were striking, but it would be an exaggeration to call her beautiful. And yet . . . there was something more than mere beauty shining out of this face, something warm and vital that was causing his guts to twist and his voice to sound abrupt as he said, ‘I’ll see you at the weekend if not afore then.’
‘Thank you.’ In spite of all the uncertainty before her Rosie felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She’d found them somewhere to stay and that was a start. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Price.’
‘Nothin’ to thank me for, lass.’ Zachariah had always considered himself a levelheaded, charitable man, and it was doubly disturbing to find he was already regretting the verbal agreement. ‘It’s business, that’s all. Straightforward business.’
‘Yes. Yes of course.’ They stared at each other a moment or two longer, Rosie’s eyes faintly puzzled, and then she said, ‘I must go, my mother will be worried. I’ll let you know what time we plan to arrive on Sunday when I’ve had a word with her, if that’s all right?’ ‘No need.’ His voice was over-jolly in his desire to take the stiffness out of it. ‘I’ll be in all weekend, lass.’
As she turned in the doorway he slid off the sofa and followed her out into the cold hall, and perversely he found he was swinging his body so it exaggerated his shambling gait all the more.
It was quite dark outside and the snow was settling, a thin wispy layer covering the frozen pavement like a bride’s veil, and Zachariah, in an effort to dispel the awkward atmosphere, remarked, ‘Looks like we’re in for a packet this time.’
After stepping down into the street Rosie turned to face him again and now she found the six inches or so difference in their height was evened out and her head was on a level with his, when she said, ‘So they say but we’ve been lucky so far.’
‘Aye, just so.’ She could say they’d been lucky after what she had shared about her family’s circumstances? He looked into her sweet face caught in the light of the street lamp, the shadow of her hat turning her eyes into dark pools of velvet, and felt something tighten in his stomach. ‘Just so, lass.’ She was a fighter all right, this one, and he’d always taken his hat off to them that bit back. He found he was suddenly glad he had agreed to rent out the rooms. ‘So long, lass, an’ watch yourself, mind.’
‘Yes, I will. And . . . thank you again, Mr Price.’
Chapter Three
‘Here we are then, hinny, this is your stop. Watch yourself, mind.’