Sadler's Birthday Read online

And once the idea of asking her to come and see him had entered his mind, he found he didn’t want to wait any longer. Annie had been there in his mind ever since the day of the picnic. He prided himself that he had handled the situation with care, nice to her one day, gone the next. By now, he told himself, she wouldn’t know where she was with him. So the time had come to call.

  When she answered the door to him, she had her apron on and her hair was wet, tied up in a towel. She blushed when she saw him, started to take her apron off.

  ‘May I come in, Annie?’

  ‘Of course. My Dad’s over at Betsy’s, though.’

  ‘I came to see you. I found this.’ He held out the smock. ‘Isn’t Betsy’s, so I reckoned it should be yours.’

  ‘Yes. I left it in your porch, didn’t I? Won’t you come in? My Dad’s made me a fire in the front room, to dry my hair.’

  Joe sat down in one of the comfortable armchairs. Annie knelt on the hearthrug and began to unwind the towel from round her head.

  ‘You’ve been working hard, then?’

  ‘Oh, fairish.’

  ‘He’s quite a bit of land, hasn’t he, Mr James?’

  ‘Two hundred acres. I’ll be busier come harvest time.’

  ‘I love the harvest.’

  ‘You could come up and give me a hand then.’

  She looked up at Joe. Her wet hair was a dark, tangled mass. Joe likened her to a solemn little doll with twine for hair. He leant forward and twisted a strand of it round his finger, then he put his face very close to hers and began in a whisper: ‘Tell you what, Annie, I’ve been wanting to come and see you for a long, long time. And I was thinking, if you wouldn’t mind a bit of a walk one evening, it’d be nice to drink a glass of wine with you at home. Would you like that? You see, you know Betsy’s Mum’s very poorly and needs someone with her all the time, so my mother and father are up with her most evenings and I’m on my own …’

  Annie was very hot. She wanted to move away from the fire.

  ‘Yes, I’ll come,’ she said.

  She went to Mrs Collard’s the next day and bought herself a new dress. Blue, with a tight bodice. She couldn’t pay for it and, knowing she’d soon have to lie to her father, couldn’t ask him for the money. She paid ten shillings down and promised Mrs Collard the rest within two months.

  Then one evening she cleared away the supper things and went and put her dress on. She had bought some matching ribbon and she made a little knot of her hair at the nape of her neck and tied the ribbon round it. She came downstairs and tiptoed to the front door, then called out to her father that she was going over to Betsy’s and went out before he could answer her.

  It had rained that afternoon and it was quite chilly outside, but the clouds had moved on, uncovering stars in their wake. There was scarcely anyone about as she hurried down the main street, only old Harry Brown, Mr James’s bailiff, sitting on the stone cattle trough, sucking his pipe.

  ‘Evenin’, Annie,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Evening, Mr Brown.’

  But on past him, not stopping for a chat, knowing old Harry Brown would have liked a chat, living alone as he did. But walking faster, almost running with her heart racing under the tight bodice of her dress. Down to the Post Office, past the line of cottages at the end of the street, past the rectory with its lovely iron gates, skirting the churchyard railings and then crossing the road, noticing a light in Joe’s parlour window behind the red curtains and feeling suddenly very cold, starting to wish she hadn’t come.

  ‘You’ve come, then?’

  Annie was motionless outside the door, standing face to face with Joe and neither of them moving. Then Joe smiled.

  ‘Come in. It’s cold out, isn’t it?’

  He put a hand on her arm, bringing her inside.

  ‘You’re shivering.’

  ‘Oh it was quite chilly walking down. I didn’t expect it or I’d have put a coat on.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a fire going.’

  He took her hand and led her into the lighted parlour. The apple logs he was burning made such a strong smell that Annie’s girl’s mind likened it to incense, suddenly saw herself as the novice, head bowed, her mind a whirlwind of prayer, being led step by step to God. But what a fanciful notion, that! And how silly Joe would think her if he knew.

  He handed her a glass of sweet wine. Tiny little glass. Then he poured one for himself and gave her a smile as he took the first sip. Annie’s hand was shaking as it held her glass. She spilt a drop of wine on to the velvet covered couch as she tried to drink.

  ‘Look what I’ve done.’

  ‘Won’t show, will it? Same colour as the chair.’

  Joe sat down on the couch and rubbed the drop of wine with his finger.

  ‘See.’

  Annie smiled. Joe held out his hand to her.

  ‘Come and sit down by me, Annie.’

  She sat down and Joe looked at her. He had been right. There was a kind of beauty in her. With the firelight – or perhaps it was the walk she’d just had – giving her cheeks a fine colour, her face looked rounder, softer. Joe closed his eyes. He couldn’t talk to her, didn’t even want to try. And yet he was conscious of the silence, of the clock ticking and knew that unless he talked to her she might be afraid, she might be so afraid that she would leave, just drink her wine and go home.

  She was staring at the fire. Joe put his glass down and turned to her, taking her two hands, lifting her glass from the tight grip she had on it. Then he put his arms round her and kissed her forehead. Tiny beads of sweat glinted there and in the parting of her hair. He held her against him for a moment, then he kissed her mouth, tasting wine on her tongue. She clung to him, not moving, just clinging with her arms round his neck and her eyes wide open, staring into the firelight, full of wonder. Joe carried her gently off the couch and laid her down on the rug in front of the fire. Looking at her eyes, he felt afraid, dreaded to think what thoughts spun behind them, what fancies she lay conjuring. But he couldn’t stop now. He had to have her now.

  He undid her bodice, quickly, deftly, not looking at her face, then brought his head down between her breasts. So terribly still she lay, seeming to move when he looked again at her with the firelight dancing over her but not moving. Only her little hands clutching at the shirt on his back.

  ‘I won’t hurt you, Annie,’ Joe whispered. ‘I promise I won’t hurt you.’ Promise her ahything, he thought, promise her his soul, all for this moment.

  ‘Joe!’ Annie cried, ‘say you love me.’

  So he did.

  On the last day of July, Betsy’s mother died. Annie was there, sitting with Betsy, arm-in-arm by the window. They were talking in low voices, Betsy telling Annie about the job she was taking, working for Mrs Collard at ten shillings a week.

  ‘It’s quite good money, you know,’ she was saying, ‘and it’ll be quite fun, won’t it, doing a proper job?’

  Mrs Elkins was lying on her back, sleeping. Her breathing was very loud. Then Betsy came to the end of her sentence and the two girls turned to look out of the window. It was the middle of the morning and very quiet in the street. But almost at the same moment they became aware of a sudden total silence. Betsy turned and looked at the bed, then buried her face in Annie’s shoulder.

  ‘Annie, she’s dead! I can’t look, Annie, help me!’

  ‘It’s all right, Bets.’

  Annie cradled her friend’s head, looked over it to the sleeping woman. She seemed exactly the same. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was open. Her breath was gone, that was all.

  Annie led Betsy from the room. ‘Mr Elkins, please come!’ she called.

  They buried her a few days later, all the men in their Sunday black, and Joe, his hair cut for the occasion for some reason, looking much as he had looked that day in church. But not a word to Annie. Just a nod when he saw her standing there with her Dad. The merest nod, not even a smile. Annie’s heart was cold. For just a few days Joe had been her lover, and now he had found a
nother girl.

  Greg knew. He had never asked any questions, never once inquired, when he found Annie didn’t go to Betsy’s house, where she went in the evenings looking neat and pretty. She’ll tell me in her own time, he thought. But he’d met Joe a couple of times and had been struck suddenly by the size of him, much too big and broad he seemed for Annie. Joe was very friendly, very polite to him and told him on the second meeting: ‘Annie and me’s best of friends, daresay you heard, Mr Sadler.’ Greg said he had.

  And when it was over, Greg attached no blame anywhere. If that was the way things had happened, then that was what they’d have to settle for. There was no changing those kind of things, no going back.

  The death of Mrs Elkins seemed to cast a shadow on the street. By the time August was half through, autumn winds shuffled the plane trees. A summer that had visited them early, early left. And Annie, because of the cold she said, took one of her mother’s old shawls out of mothballs and began wrapping herself in it.

  Then one morning in September Greg came down to the kitchen to find Annie sitting there, her face white and sweating, her body shaking with sobs. She had been sick on the floor.

  ‘Lord, Annie love, why didn’t you call, girlie?’

  Greg took out his clean handkerchief, ran it under the cold tap and, putting his arm round Annie, very gently wiped her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Annie sobbed, ‘I’ll clean it up.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, darling. You’ll come straight upstairs and into bed.’

  Greg helped her up, almost lifting her. She leant heavily against him as they went upstairs and she couldn’t stop crying. Somehow, the comfort she drew from her father’s safe arm weakened her and she wept uncontrollably.

  Tucked up in her narrow bed, she closed her eyes and her crying gradually ceased. Greg stroked her forehead.

  ‘You just lie there quiet a minute while I clear up downstairs, then I’ll bring up a pot of tea and we can have it together.’

  ‘You’ll be late for work, Dad.’

  ‘No work to do today,’ Greg lied, ‘one job late this afternoon.’

  ‘You’re dressed for work.’

  ‘Just so as I won’t have to change later on.’

  Annie smiled. Then she summoned breath.

  ‘Dad …’ she began.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘I’m having Joe’s baby.’

  Greg looked at her, wondering what courage she’d needed to tell him. ‘So that’s what it is,’ he said, ‘wrapping yourself up in your Ma’s shawl.’

  He made tea and brought it up to her. They talked and made plans, grateful for the tea that steadied them both and Annie knew that whatever might happen to her, she was fortunate in being Greg’s child.

  Greg’s kindness, his cheerfulness, even the little jokes he occasionally made about Annie looking much prettier now that she was fat, sustained her through the tedious winter. He was very busy round Christmas time of course, as he was each year, but the extra money he earned went to buy things for the baby – a wooden cot and a little blanket, a couple of shawls and some flannel nightgowns. By the time the New Year came Annie looked forward to the April that would give her her child. Joe was remote now, gone long ago, left the house with the yellow windows as soon as Betsy told him about Annie’s child.

  ‘What else can I do, Bets?’ he asked.

  ‘You could marry Annie.’

  ‘Oh Betsy.’

  ‘Why not? Why couldn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve someone else now.’

  ‘To marry?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘She’ll come with me and we’ll see.’

  She was called Arabella. She followed Joe to a job on a farm in Essex and in February her grandfather died and left her some money. So Joe deliberated a week or two and then decided to marry her. All the Elkins made the long trip down for the wedding, but it was worth it, they said, because the bride and groom looked a picture.

  As March began, the first snow of the winter fell.

  ‘You’d call that spring, March, wouldn’t you?’ Betsy remarked one morning when she called to see Annie on her way to work. ‘And just look at it.’

  But Annie liked the snow. Not to walk about in any more, just to watch, to sit at the parlour window in the warm house and watch it falling and drifting. She’d open the window from time to time and throw out crumbs for the birds.

  Then, doing her shopping one morning, Annie slipped on the icy pavement and fell down, the potatoes in her basket rolling away into the gutter. She scrambled to her feet, helped by passers by and a little boy who appeared from nowhere who went round and round picking up all the potatoes. Annie was all right, only a bit white from the shock. But by the time she got home, the pains had begun, so she wrapped herself up again and trod a careful path to the doctor’s house. She was shaking, with fear mostly, she decided, or from shock, she didn’t know which. And the doctor was enigmatic; his face told her nothing.

  ‘How many weeks is it?’

  He found his own answer by consulting a green card in one of his files. ‘More than probable it’ll be all right,’ he said.

  When Greg came in from work, the house had an unfamiliar smell about it, like disinfectant. And it was deathly quiet.

  ‘Annie!’ he called. But there was no answer. Then someone came tiptoeing down the stairs, a smiling fat woman in a blue overall.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘She’s sleeping now.’

  Greg sat down on the uncomfortable chair in the hall. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes. The baby’s fine. Six and a half pounds. A boy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Greg, ‘oh.’

  Not such a god-forsaken world, then, for little Jack Sadler’s beginnings. A young mother who kissed him often and looked after him with infinite care, and a kindly man, aging a bit now, but still earning enough to keep the family going, who sat him on his knee and laughed to make him laugh. He was warmed and fed, he was given a plaything or two, he had a little patch of grass to crawl on. If he could have remembered his first months, he would have counted them happy. Annie was the centre of his universe, but Greg’s was the gentle hand that kept the universe spinning. Greg knew that without him, mother and child would have been cast helplessly adrift.

  This thought began to nag and worry him. They had no savings. Only eighty pounds in the bank, that was all. And they didn’t own the house they lived in, had paid rent for it all those years. No amount of thinking of it as theirs could make it so. Greg began to lie awake at nights, blaming his lack of foresight. I never thought, he accused himself, not far enough ahead. We could have saved years ago when things weren’t so dear and bought a place, but I’d never manage it now.

  He began to travel greater distances each week, to find more work. He told Annie they should cut down on things for themselves, think of the future. But Annie’s world had stabilized once more. Joe was gone, but she was watching her baby grow and she was perfectly happy. She refused to think of what the future might hold.

  ‘What’s the sense in it, Dad? We’re well now and living, aren’t we? And whatever happened, I’d manage.’

  Greg had nightmares about her. He saw her carrying her baby in the old grey shawl and begging in the street. And one by one his real worries seemed to accumulate. Supposing I go deaf, he thought, I couldn’t carry on if I was deaf. And he took himself to the doctor’s to have his hearing tested.

  ‘You must expect a certain loss,’ the doctor told him. ‘You’re sixty, aren’t you? Bound to be a certain loss at your age.’

  And that was all he could say, nothing to reassure him, nothing to take away this particular fear. And so it grew.

  The same year, 1901, Queen Victoria died. People wept. And one morning in a big house where Greg arrived to tune the grand piano, he noticed that the whole household were wearing little black armbands.

  ‘A death in the family?’ Greg asked the butler.

  �
��Oh no,’ the man explained, ‘it’s for Her Majesty.’

  Greg nodded, felt ashamed just for an instant that he hadn’t got one on, and yet thought to himself how remote they all must have been from the tiny, plump Queen in her widow’s mantillas. Never even seen her, probably, unless they’d gone with the crowds to the Jubilee or to a state opening of Parliament. And yet they mourned, kitchen maids and all. He supposed that the death of Victoria made them feel insecure, they wore their armbands like a uniform, proud to be soldiers of her army and crossing the line of the twentieth century in uncertainty. Greg felt sad for them. What wouldn’t he have given to cross over into a new age with years of vigour and work inside him. But he was old. His era was over.

  And he couldn’t work well any more, with all this worry. He stood at the piano with his ear pressed down, tapping and listening, tapping and listening, listening but not hearing, not like he used to, hearing with a certain loss, normal at his age, quite normal … But it wasn’t just sound that was slipping away, it was his life.

  As he sat there looking at the ivory keys, he tried to direct the rage he felt towards himself. For where else could he spend it? Not with God. God was a doctor he had never been able to afford. The door had stayed shut. Other patients came and went and sometimes they came out smiling. But not him. He cursed himself over and over for what he had failed to do. Music might have saved Annie, he thought now. Why hadn’t he helped her and encouraged her, found her a new teacher? Where might she be now, had he done that?

  So Greg shouldered a burden of guilt, a burden he’d never thought would be his to carry. He had always been so certain, so wise, he believed, so sure he was doing and saying, undoing or not saying, all for the best. Just shows, he thought.

  For what could his Annie do? She was skilled at nothing but her music and it was a long time now since she had practised. She wasn’t even a very passable cook. Couldn’t lay a fancy table. And her sewing, they’d taught her sewing at the school, but it had never been a thing she was competent at. She might find work in a shop, like Betsy, but whatever would she do with little Jack? I’m sorry, dear, Mrs Collard would say, I’d like to take you on, but a little one of that age, grubby fingers into all my braids and elastics … No, I’m sorry, Annie, but I couldn’t have the liability …