Shelter from the Storm (21 page)

‘If there was another woman dead up on the fell, could she have been there for twenty years and not have been found?’

‘Very possibly. There’s a lot of land up there, sir. It does happen.’

It was not much comfort, Joe thought, and he pushed away from him the idea that Esther Margaret might still be alive. It could be somebody else, yes, but the possibility was slight, it seemed, and he resolved to think of it no more.

That spring Vinia received a letter from a solicitor’s office in Durham to say that her father’s aunt, who had lived abroad for many years, had recently died and left her a hundred pounds. She did not often get letters, and when the thick white envelope dropped on to the floor she assumed that it was bad news, so to open it and find that it was not, indeed was such good news that she had to sit down, made her tremble with excitement. The only money she had ever had of her own was money she had made herself. To be actually given some without any reason was strange and wonderful. At first she wanted to tell Tom, who was asleep upstairs, and her second thought was not to tell anybody, and then she was suddenly aware that she was not alone. When she twisted around on the chair Dryden was in the room. She hadn’t heard him come downstairs. She clutched the letter to her but all he said was, ‘Any tea going?’

‘Yes. Yes.’ She stuffed the letter into her pocket and got up.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said, but she poured out the tea and all the time her mind ran round in circles. The shop in the main street that had been empty for so long was still there. She often walked past it, and sometimes she stopped and looked in at the window and wished and wished … A hundred pounds would do a great deal, it would get her started. Suddenly she was filled with excitement. She wanted to leap up and down, run around the yard and maybe
even down the back lane. Surely Tom could not object when it would be with her own money and she could start something that would belong entirely to her, something which, once it was set up, would make money. She would be a businesswoman, she would draw designs and make clothes and wear the black dress that she had perfected in her head, and there would be one woman or even two at the back of the shop with sewing machines and they would make up the clothes and all the best ladies in the district would come to her shop and she would be known far and wide. She could see her name above the door.

She gave Dryden his tea. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask about the letter she had so hastily concealed, and she was bursting to tell somebody but she didn’t. She went into the pantry on the pretext of getting something for the table and there she took the letter from her pocket and read it again, just to make sure that there was no mistake, that she had not imagined it, she really was going to get a hundred pounds. It was a fortune. She went back into the kitchen. Dryden had gone back upstairs. They had not been long off shift. He was going to bed.

She put on her hat and coat and left the house and walked as slowly as she could manage up the main street, and she stopped and looked in the windows of the shop, one on either side of the door. Everything was neat and clean inside. The shop belonged to Mr Samson, who lived upstairs on the premises. He had been a boot and shoemaker, the best in the district, but he was very old and his wife had died. She walked up the street until she came to the first opening, and then down the back lane until she came to the gate that led into the yard at the back of the shop. She took a big breath and let herself into the yard. She banged on the back door and after a while Mr Samson came to the door and she explained to him that she would like to look around with the intention of renting the shop from him. He looked surprised but he let her inside and a magic descended on her the moment she went in.

It was as though the shop had been built for her, or that the
moment had been fashioned with her in mind. The room behind was very big and had windows overlooking the yard, and the room at the front had two big windows which she had known looked out across the street, and it was hers as nothing had ever been before. There was a big wooden counter to one side. The room had been cleared but she could see it — fashionable clothes on show in the windows, elegant chairs for the ladies to sit in, rooms so that they could try the various dresses, designs for them to look at and magazines from London.

Mr Samson said she could take as much time as she wanted looking around. He went back upstairs and left her there and she lingered, not wanting to go back to a life that was nothing to do with this because reality had crept up on her here as it had not done when she got the letter. Tom would not be pleased, it was no good pretending to herself. On the other hand — she sat down on a small chair at the back of the shop and gazed out across the street where the spring sunshine made everything look better — she must do something. She was not apparently going to have a child, at least it didn’t look as though she was, and if she had nothing to do but the housework and the shopping and looking after two men the years were empty of anything she wanted and it was not enough, it was not nearly enough. She had yearned for a chance to do something like this for as long as she could remember. Perhaps if there had been a child it would have been different, though she was not sure that anything could dispel this need and feeling.

She thanked Mr Samson, who did not press her but said she could come back and look any time before making up her mind. He didn’t even ask her what she wanted it for, though whatever it was he could hardly mind — there was nobody in it and he must be glad of the money. She walked slowly back down the street and began her daily work. When she had to go shopping she managed to walk past Mr Samson’s empty shop four times.

Tom had his tea and went to the pub. Dryden sat at the table with a half-f teacup, staring into the kitchen fire and saying
nothing. She subsided into a chair with her teacup and saucer and looked at him.

‘Dryden, do you think that shop of Mr Samson’s is a good one?’

He turned his gaze from the fire.

‘What, the empty one? Aye, it was a good shop. He was the best bootmaker in the area for a long time. Pity he had to stop.’

‘But do you think it’s in a good position?’

‘For what?’

‘For a ladies’ clothing shop. Do you think there’s room for another?’

‘I don’t know. How can you tell?’

‘There’s only the Store and Miss Applegate and neither of them is any good. If it was a good one it might bring people in, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t see why not. The nearest would be Crook. Why? I thought you made your own stuff.’

‘I do and I could make things for other people.’

‘I suppose you could.’

‘I could open a shop.’

Dryden considered.

‘You always look nice,’ he said, ‘but don’t things like that take money?’

She could feel the letter in her pocket. She fished it out and handed it to him and when he stared at it she said, ‘Go on, open it.’

‘You got it this morning?’

‘Yes.’

He turned the envelope over twice and then took out the letter and perused it for what felt to her like a very long time and then he said, ‘A hundred pounds?’

‘Do you think that would be sufficient to start up a shop?’

He handed the letter back to her.

‘It’s a lot of money,’ he said.

Vinia waited for him to say something else, and when he
didn’t she began to describe the inside of Mr Samson’s shop. She even thought it might be good for him to distract his mind from Esther Margaret, because he said so little that she knew he must be thinking about her all the time. Talking about the shop was almost as good as walking around it had been. She left out no detail, and she told him too about the designs she had made and the ideas and ambitions she had.

‘Have you got them?’

‘What, the designs? No.’

‘You didn’t throw them away?’

‘Tom … Tom put them on the fire.’

‘Why?’

Vinia didn’t want to tell him about it; it made her feel sick.

‘He wants a baby,’ she said. ‘When we got married I thought I would go on working at Miss Applegate’s but Tom wouldn’t hear of it. He thinks I should be here, looking after him. He doesn’t like … he doesn’t want me to do anything else.’

Dryden didn’t say anything to that and eventually she prompted him.

‘Would you feel like that?’

‘I don’t know. I would give anything for my wife and bairn now that it’s too late.’

Vinia got up.

‘There’s no point in worrying about it,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s happened yet.’

They were brave words but when she went to bed that night she felt sick again and as the days went by she couldn’t put from her mind the hundred pounds that might alter her life, and she wished that she had never got the letter because then the shop would have been nothing but a safe dream, something that would never happen. Dreams that came true had a nasty edge to them; this one was particularly uncomfortable.

The weeks went past and nothing happened. The weather warmed and sometimes Dryden went to the pub with Tom but apart from that they carried on just the same. Then she had
another letter from the solicitors. She knew it was them because it was the same thick white envelope and when she opened it she discovered that the money was hers.

That day Tom and Dryden were on the day shift and were coming in at teatime. Her hands shook all day but she went to see Mr Samson again and talked to him about how much he wanted for the shop and what he would allow her to do, and she could not contain her feeling of exhilaration. It lasted all afternoon until the two men came home, and then it died. She thought, with a sinking heart, that she would have to fight Tom for this and she had not won one of their fights yet, but then nothing had been this important.

She gave them their tea, and before Tom was about to go out to the pub she said, ‘I want to talk to you.’

He looked surprised, as well he might, she thought. It was a good moment to catch him because Dryden had gone upstairs and she wanted to say this to him in private.

‘I’ve had a letter from some solicitors. My Great-Auntie Cissy has left me some money.’

Tom looked merrily at her. She thought he had been happy of late; he had sorted out the dispute with his mother, though she still didn’t come to the house, and he had got his way, having Dryden there. If only she was pregnant Tom’s cup would be full.

‘I didn’t know you had a Great-Auntie Cissy,’ he said.

‘I’ve never seen her. I suppose if my father had still been here he would have got the money.’

‘Is it much?’ Tom said.

‘A hundred pounds.’

‘Nice. What are you going to do with it?’

Astonished that he should say something like that, Vinia was struck dumb.

‘You’ve never had any money of your own before and … I don’t always manage to make good money. You should do something you want.’

Vinia couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy.

‘Yes, I … I thought I might.’

‘That would be lovely,’ Tom said and, assuming that the discussion was over, pushed his cap on over his dark hair and would have made for the door.

‘I have actually done something about it.’

‘Really? But it’ll be some time, won’t it, before the money comes to you. Isn’t that how it works?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then.’ He went to the foot of the stairs and shouted up, ‘Are you coming, our kid?’

‘No,’ Dryden shouted back.

‘Oh, howay, man. You’ll be taking up knitting next. Have you heard this about my wife? She’s rich!’

Tom, I went to see Mr Samson. I went to look round the shop.’

Tom came back into the room.

‘The bootmaker’s?’

‘Yes. A hundred pounds would start me up.’

The good humour left Tom’s face.

‘Do we have to go through this again?’ he said.

‘I want to do it. I want to have a shop. It’s what I want more than anything in the whole world. Please, Tom, let me try. Mr Samson says I can have it very reasonably and it would make money, once I got it going, I know it would. We could have somebody in to help and you wouldn’t be made uncomfortable and—’

‘No,’ Tom said. ‘I’m not going through all this again with you. We’ve been through it again and again and I’m sick of it! We are not having anybody in the house and you are not going to have anything to do with shops. It’s a stupid, ridiculous idea. I don’t want to hear any more about it.’

From somewhere Vinia found anger.

‘You are going to hear more about it because it won’t do. I don’t seem to be able to have a child and I’ve got nothing to do all day but clean and shop and I hate it—’

‘You should have thought about that before you married me,’ Tom said.

‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’

‘Like what?’ Tom said. He sounded dangerous and she recognised the signs — the lack of light in his eyes, the way that he seemed big enough to fill the room.

‘That I wouldn’t be able to do anything I wanted, that there would be no child.’

‘Is that supposed to be down to me?’

‘I just want to try to do something myself. I know I could do it if I tried.’

‘You’re my wife,’ Tom said.

‘I want to be other things besides your wife!’

‘Maybe you should try getting good at that first. Nobody is coming in here to do anything and you are not going anywhere. That’s my last word on the subject, do you hear?’

Vinia knew him very well by now. To push any further would be madness.

‘I can’t give it up,’ she managed.

‘Can’t you?’ Tom said, and he got hold of her by the hair and slapped her face. He did it twice before she heard Dryden clatter down the stairs.

‘Tom—’

‘You keep out of this,’ Tom advised him flatly. ‘Either go back upstairs or go out.’

The grip on her hair and the smarting of her face had brought so much water into her eyes that Vinia could see neither of them, but she could hear Dryden move nearer.

‘Tom …’ he said again, and the hand on her hair gripped tighter and brought her hands up in protest.

‘I told you,’ Tom said.

‘You won’t mend it like that. Let go,’ Dryden said.