‘Rosie, there’s a letter for your mam – it looks like Mona’s handwriting to me.’
Rose had just run down the stairs and was about to set off for work, with a hand on the kitchen door, when Mrs Kibble hailed her. She stopped short and beamed at the older woman, who was crossing the hall with a number of envelopes in her hand. ‘From Mona? Oh, thank God,’ she said devoutly. ‘I’ll give me mam a shout.’
‘It’s all right, she’s in the kitchen, we can go through,’ Mrs Kibble said. ‘I just hope it isn’t bad news.’
‘Well, nothing could be worse than silence,’ Rose pointed out, opening the kitchen door and going through it. ‘Mam, there’s a letter!’
‘From Mona? Oh, thank God,’ Mrs Ryder said, echoing her daughter’s words.
‘That’s right. Do hurry and open it, Mam, so’s I can get off to work wi’ a clear conscience. I’ve been that worried even my work’s suffered, so Patchett & Ross will be just as glad to hear Mona’s got in touch as we are.’
Lily Ryder took the envelope that Mrs Kibble was holding out and opened it with shaking fingers. She unfolded the sheet of paper, ran her eye quickly over it and gestured to the others to come right into the kitchen and sit down. ‘We might as well be comfortable,’ she said. ‘There’s a couple o’ pages.’
She made as if to chuck the envelope in the fire but Rose reached over and tweaked it out of her hand. ‘What’s the postmark? Oh, it’s London, posted the day before yesterday. Better hold on to it, though.’
Mrs Ryder gave her a bemused look but smoothed out the envelope, which she had crumpled in her hand preparatory to throwing it onto the kitchen fire, and took her own seat at the table. ‘It’s from Mona all right and tight,’ she said, turning to the last page. ‘Yes, it’s signed Mona Mullins. Right, here goes, then.
Dear All
I do hope you’ve not been worrying about me, because I’m doing fine. I followed Tommy down to London and we’re going to get married and make a home for ourselves down here, though he took some persuading at first! I’m sorry about borrowing money from you, Rosie, but I’ll pay it back just as soon as I can, I promise. And I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch, Aunt Lily, but I think you knew all along that it were Tommy for me, and I was sure, really, that he felt the same about me, so I followed him and found him, and all’s well that ends well.
There’s a lot more to say and to tell you, but I won’t do it until I can clear everything up, which will take me a week or two. In the meantime, we’re living in the same lodgings and very nice they are, too. We’ll stay here for a bit, because you earn good money in London, then we’d like to move further south, because rents are awful high here.
I expect you wonder why I didn’t write sooner. Well, Aunt, it’s taken me this long to find Tommy, plus a couple of days to make him see marriage my way, but now we’ve settled everything and I wanted to put your minds at rest. I am very happy, far happier than I ever thought I’d be, and Tommy seems to have a big smile on his face whenever he looks at me, which is good.
I won’t give you my address because we shan’t be here long, but as I said, I’ll be writing with a fuller story quite soon and in the meantime all my love to everyone.
Your loving niece,
Mona Mullins
‘Well, I’m blessed,’ Mrs Kibble said as her friend stopped reading. ‘She might have thought how you’d worry though, Lily. She could have dropped you a line earlier, even if she could only have said that she was in London hunting for Tommy and quite all right.’
‘I’m ever so relieved,’ Rose said in heartfelt tones. ‘I was so worried . . . but I should have known Mona wouldn’t do anything silly.’
‘Anything silly? What sort of thing? And why should she?’ Lily said at once. ‘I did wonder, when she disappeared like that without even a note to tell us she wouldn’t be home for tea.’
‘Well, I knew she were very fond of Tommy,’ Rose said, confused. ‘I mean ... it seemed so odd him disappearing one day and her the next. As you said, Mam, he were one step ahead of trouble over money with the Corporation and when Mona wanted to borrow some money . . . perhaps I should have guessed she wanted it for a train fare.’
‘You never mentioned the money afore,’ Lily said suspiciously. ‘Why not, chuck?’
‘Mona made me promise not to tell anyone,’ Rose said glibly. ‘But she will pay it back, I’m sure. Mona’s all right, really. I wonder what the next letter will say, though.’
‘Wait and see,’ Lily said rather grimly. ‘I just hope it don’t say that Tommy’s lit out in the night and left her high and dry, the same as he did us. But this isn’t the time to go speculating, queen, or you’ll be late for work, and that would never do.’
Rose got her light coat off the back of the door and tied a headscarf over her hair. She said goodbye to Mrs Kibble and her mother, then went out into the yard. Her bicycle was in the shed and she wheeled it across the yard and into the jigger, then hopped along beside it, gathering speed, and jumped neatly into the saddle. She would not be late, she reflected, because she always gave herself ample time for the journey, but she would not be particularly early, either. But since she was always the first to arrive, and in fact now had the office keys in her charge for opening up, no one would know that she hadn’t reached the office before eight thirty, her usual time.
As she cycled along, Rose pondered on her cousin Mona. She had been terribly frightened when Mona had failed to turn up that evening, but had been unable to confide in anyone. She had walked up and down the jigger, then up and down the road, and in fact, had it not been for Mr Dawlish, she would probably have gone up to the police station and admitted that she thought it was possible her cousin had done away with herself.
But Mr Dawlish had put the lid on such unfounded fears. He came up the road with his seabag over his shoulder and hailed her from afar. ‘Miss Rose! Nice to see you, though I can’t kid meself you’re waitin’ for me with such impatience. I suppose you’re waitin’ for Miss Mona – she’s off for a trip, I gather. I saw her in Lime Street a while back, wi’ a suitcase, waitin’ for a train. Where was she off to, then?’
‘I don’t know. A suitcase, you say?’
‘Well, a sizeable bag,’ amended Mr Dawlish, falling amicably into step beside her. ‘She looked excited, I thought. I did call out, but she didn’t hear me. She was just about to step into a carriage, so her mind was on her journey, I guess.’
At her urgent request, Mr Dawlish had repeated his story to her mother and Mrs Kibble, and it seemed to Rose that all of them slept sounder that night because of it.
But as the days passed and no word came, as the manageress of the flower shop came round indignantly to find out what had happened to Mona, Rose’s own particular worry began to resurface. Suppose Mona, in the grip of despair, really had decided to end it all? She might have chased after Tommy unsuccessfully and jumped into a river, or walked into the sea, or dived under a tram. Rose began to have nightmares and to spend time when she should have been working staring into space.
But that was all over now. Now they knew that Mona was safe, was with Tommy, and in due course no doubt they would be told officially that Mona was expecting a baby and – hopefully – that the two of them were about to marry. It’ll be odd, Rose mused, turning into Dale Street and slowing with a foot on the kerb, if Mona marries before me – and her so determined only to marry someone rich. Still, Tommy might well be rich, the way he carried on. And Rose herself, alas, was undoubtedly destined to be an old maid.
She reached the office and turned into the short passageway which the staff used to take their bicycles into the building. She unlocked the heavy door, wheeled her bicycle inside and padlocked it to the banisters, then she ran lightly up the stairs to the main office and unlocked that door also, feeling the familiar little buzz of pleasure in the responsibility of ‘opening up’.
Rose brushed her hair with great vigour to do away with the flatness caused by the headscarf, got out tea-pot, tea and cups, and went into the small reception area. She would remain on duty here, seeing to anyone who came up, until Miss Eastman, whose job it was to man the small telephone exchange and deal with customers, arrived.
Mr Garnett had recently purchased a large and rather fine parlour palm and an aspidistra for the reception area and it was Rose’s pleasure to water the plants once or twice a week, and to feed them occasionally with stuff from a bottle with a picture of evergreens on the front. She liked the plants and did not agree with Mr Lionel, who said he was running an import-export business and not a hmm-hmmed house of pleasure, so she took great care of the plants, even dusting their leaves each morning and polishing the aspidistra, and only when she had done that and opened the big sash window opposite the reception desk did she sit down on Miss Eastman’s swivel chair and pull a magazine out of the top drawer. It was a copy of Woman and she was following the serial story with great interest, so was speedily absorbed.
‘Morning, Miss Ryder,’ someone said presently and Mr Lionel came past her, arms full of the post since he did not trust Albert, the office boy, not to lose half of it on the stairs or half-landing. ‘Nice morning.’
‘Good morning, sir,’ Rose said politely. ‘Spring’s on its way, I think.’
There was a short wait, then a group of employees all came heavily up the stairs together. Rose greeted everyone cheerily and presently was relieved by Miss Eastman, who came and sat behind the desk with her hair all anyhow and her cheeks scarlet from running – she was a plump, pretty girl who found the stairs a trial – and told Rose that she would be grateful for a glass of water when Rose had finished taking round the tea.
Odd that this morning feels different, yet it’s just like every other morning, really, Rose mused as she made the tea and carried it round on the big black japanned tray with the exotic birds round the edge. But perhaps it’s just because spring looks like arriving at last – and perhaps it’s a bit because I know Mona’s all right now, for I guess she’ll have the baby and be happy, and probably marry Tommy.
But the thought of Mona marrying Tommy whilst she herself was not even seeing Colm was not exactly a happy one. She did not want to feel jealous of her cousin, but it was inevitable, she supposed, that the thought of Mona’s happiness should make her think how very different her own lot seemed to be. A future of working for Patchett & Ross until she was old and grey, looking after her mother and the tall old house in St Domingo Vale, going to church every Sunday, watching other people marrying, having babies, fulfilling their role in life ...
‘Did you forget me drink o’ water, Miss Ryder?’ Miss Eastman said plaintively. ‘Only I aren’t half thirsty – I ran all the way from the tram stop on William Brown so’s not to be late an’ I’m fair parched.’
Rose’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, Miss Eastman, I must be going batty! I made you a cuppa and it’s not even on the perishin’ tray. Wait a mo and I’ll fetch it through.’
With Miss Eastman discreetly sipping the cup of tea that Rose slid into the top drawer of her desk – the partners did not approve of a receptionist who drank tea whilst on duty – she was free to go to her own desk and start on her work. The other girls were already ensconced when Rose sat down, took the cover off her typewriter, arranged her notebook, pencils and rubber neatly on the desk, and picked up the first piece of work to read it through before beginning to type.
An ordinary day ... so why did she feel so keyed up, so excited, as though something of immense importance was going to happen later on?
At six o’clock precisely Rose put the cover on her typewriter, slid her notebook, pencils and rubber into the top drawer of her desk, and went over to the central table to pick up the letters lying there. The office boy had stamped them and licked down the envelopes, and would be coming in a few minutes to pick up the whole lot and take it down to the postbox. Rose and Ella usually stayed until the boy had finished since Rose, the first one in, had to be the last one out, but as Ella still had not acquired a bicycle they only went a very short way together. Then Ella waited at her tram stop and Rose mounted her machine and pedalled away towards Everton, which, because it was uphill most of the way, took her twice the time it took to coast down every morning. ‘Ready, Ella?’ she said as her friend came back into the typists’ room, carrying both their coats. ‘Where’s that wretched Bertie, then?’
‘Mr Lionel’s got some personal letters he wants puttin’ into the box,’ Ella said. ‘Here he comes – I’d know them great thumpin’ boots o’ his anywhere.’
Bertie, hair on end, tie askew, entered the room at a canter and stuffed the letters into his canvas holdall. ‘Sorry I’s late, gals,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Mr Lionel wanted to mek some changes. Come on, ‘en, we’s ready now.’
‘Your grammar is vile, young Bertie,’ Rose said severely, helping him to shovel the letters into the holdall. ‘Let’s get a move on, because I’m on me bicycle, don’t forget. Every morning I whiz into work like a bird, and every evening I puff and pant and work me knees to the bone to get up the hills to the Vale. Still, it’s cheap and handy to have me own transport – and it’s healthy an’ all.’ They trooped out of the room and Rose locked the door behind them, then turned to Ella. ‘Has everyone gone, d’you suppose, I don’t want to lock someone important in and find their skeletons still sittin’ at their desk after the weekend!’
‘Oh, you,’ Ella said. ‘Have you checked, Bertie?’
Bertie assured them that he had and reminded Rose that the partners had their own keys anyway and would let themselves out and lock up behind them if necessary.
‘An’ ‘oo cares if a typist gets skellingtoned?’ he said cruelly, grinning at them. ‘I wouldn’t shed no tears, ‘specially if it were that Miss Fazackerly; not that she’d mek skellington in a weekend. It ‘ud tek a month.’
Rose smothered a giggle; Miss Fazackerly was plump as well as being sharp with the juniors. However, it would not do to let Bertie get away with remarks like that. ‘Less o’ your cheek, young Bertie,’ she said, running lightly down the stairs and rounding the bannister at the end at top speed. ‘You won’t get to be managin’ director by cheek, you know.’
She undid her padlock, slid it into her pocket and wheeled her bicycle out into the backyard, closely followed by Ella.
Bertie mounted his bicycle whilst still in the hall and whizzed past them, making a rude noise as he did so. ‘Sucks to you, Ryder,’ he shouted. ‘See you Monday!’
Rose, locking the back door, sighed. ‘Bertie’s unsquashable,’ she told Ella as they crossed the yard and entered the jigger. ‘Mr Edward’s really pleased with him, though. Says he’s fast an’ doesn’t make mistakes. Oh, my knees are trembling at the thought of the hills ahead.’
‘Go on, you love it,’ Ella said as they emerged onto Dale Street. ‘Come on, you can walk to the tram stop wi’ me and I bet you’ll beat me home.’
‘All right,’ Rose said, pushing her bicycle along beside the kerb. She glanced ahead of her as they reached William Brown Street, ‘Isn’t it light in the evenings now? I can see the Liver birds clear as clear.’
Even as she spoke there was a sort of rumbling roar and the two girls clutched each other. ‘What the ’ell was that?’ Ella squeaked. ‘Ooh, the ground shook beneath me feet, I swear it did!’
‘Dunno . . . thunder?’ Rose said hopefully. ‘Oh, I know, it were an explosion. They have to blast their way through rock in the tunnel, Mr O’Neill’s told us so many a time. Yes, that’ll be what it was. Dynamite goin’ off.’
‘Well, I dunno . . .’ Ella was beginning doubtfully, when another, more subdued roar reached their ears. Fainter perhaps, but somehow even more threatening.
People turned to stare down William Brown Street to where the tunnel workings started and a man near the two girls said anxiously: ‘Were that comin’ from the bleedin’ tunnel? You often ’ears one ’splosion, but that were two. Mebbe there’s been a roof fall.’
A roof fall! Rose looked around her. People were going about their business in an orderly fashion, now that the noise had ceased no one was even glancing towards the tunnel any more, but ... a roof fall? Abruptly, hideous visions raised themselves in Rose’s brain, memories of mining disasters, of books she had read, of the terrible toll of deaths when there was an explosion underground – and Colm was there! Other men she knew, too, but it was only Colm of whom she thought. In the brief split second before she began to move she had seen it all in her mind’s eye – the darkness of the tunnel where lamps would have been extinguished by the fall, the great mounds of rock... and Colm, white-faced and bleeding, lying on the ground, pinned to it by a great rock fall.
Almost without thinking Rose mounted her bicycle and fairly flew down the cobbled street, losing her headscarf almost at once because she had only looped it round her neck and not pulled it up over her head. A rock fall, the one thing all the men dreaded. It did happen, of course, when explosives were being used, but they had been lucky, so far. Of course there were always accidents and injuries, but because of the careful preparation there had been no disasters in the building of the tunnel. Or not, Rose thought wildly, until now.
By the time she reached the end of William Brown Street she was going so fast that everything was a blur; people, pavements, buildings. She could not even see the tunnel entrance, nor the piles of material and machinery which surrounded it. She was sure, now, that there had been a fall and that Colm, the only man she would ever love, was badly, perhaps mortally hurt. She must reach him, must tell him that she had never suspected him of anything at all, that she loved him, that she was sorry, with all her heart, for the thoughtless, stupid things she had said . . .
She was unaware of people dodging out of her way, she never even saw a horse and cart past which she flew, yet something warned her when she was approaching the end of William Brown Street and the beginning of the tunnel approach. She swerved violently to her left, hit a great pile of rock and rubble and flew like a bird off her bicycle and up. She saw the world turning crazily but did not realise that she was actually somersaulting through the air. Then she plunged to earth. Hard objects battered into her soft, yielding flesh and darkness, blacker than any tunnel, descended. Rose lost consciousness.
Colm O’Neill was finishing his shift when the double explosion sounded. He looked back, and his friend Davy Porter came after him at a run. He was cursing and holding a handkerchief to his eye. ‘What’s up, Davy?’ Colm asked. ‘You been fightin’ again, feller?’ Davy was an Irishman from Connemara, slow of speech but quick when it came to a fight and always determined to hold his own. Now he shook his head, his uncovered eye gleaming with amusement as he caught up with his friend.
‘Fightin’? Not likely, me friend, I give rocks best when they t’umps me round the head, so I do. No, I was walkin’ along, mindin’ me own business, when a charge went off behind me, soundin’ like all hell were let loose. So I thinks something’s gone real wrong wit’ the charges – someone said one charge went a bit crazy and ’stead o’ startin’ on the left o’ the tunnel roof an’ goin’ round to the right in a circle, like, it shot out o’ the hole an’ lit across to the opposite charge an’ acourse that went off too. But anyway, I were a-runnin’ like a hare in spring, wit’out lookin’ where I were goin’, an’ I ran into the side o’ the tunnel at full speed like, an’ cracked me eyebrow open. See? An’ the blood ran down an’ made me t’ink I were killed.’
‘Oh, well, if that’s all,’ Colm said mildly. ‘Comin’ for a beer? I’m off shift but me daddy’s workin’ an extra hour today. They’ll serve us at the Trojan’s Head no matter that we’re a bit early, like.’
‘All right, old pardner,’ Davy said. He was a great cinema-goer and loved Westerns. ‘Let’s mosey down dere an’ have us a beer.’
The two men emerged from the tunnel, blinking in the daylight, though it was growing dusk, and began to climb the bank which would take them out of the works. Colm heard a sort of squeak and a shout and looked to his right – and saw, to his complete astonishment, a figure suddenly come flying over a large pile of earth and rocks, and somersault to a horrid stillness at the foot of the mound.
It was not light enough to see whether it was male or female, but Colm ran towards it. The dull thump of the impact made him fear that more damage had been done than a few bruises and he was first on the scene. It was, he saw, a girl and quite a young one, too, with thickly curling dark hair and ... and it was Rose! His Rose!
Colm was still bending over her, trying to make her speak to him, when another man came round the mound of earth. He knelt opposite Colm, looking anxiously down into Rose’s milk-white face. ‘What ’appened, mate?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Poor little bugger – did ’er bleedin’ brakes fail? She were comin’ down the ’ill like a runaway ’orse when the bike ’it that mound of earth an’ she simply shot into the air, turnin’ over an’ over. My, but that’s a nasty wound on her forehead. Is she dead? Is she breathin’? We better send for a doctor, I reckons.’
Colm pulled himself together. He tried to gather Rose into his arms – his Rose, his Rose! – only someone else came over and bade him leave well alone. ‘If she’s broke bones you could do damage, movin’ the gal,’ the newcomer said. ‘There’s a first aider comin’ in a mo, ’ang on till ’e gives you the say-so.’
Colm reluctantly laid Rose’s slender body back upon the ground. She was breathing and her heart was beating, he had felt it for a second as he held her. But the gash on her forehead was both long and deep, and the blood that ran from it looked dark and sinister to him. Apart from the forehead, he could tell nothing, but he knew she could have broken her neck, her back, anything. He looked up and saw that they were now surrounded by a circle of wide-eyed faces, one of them Davy. He fixed Davy with his steeliest glance. ‘Go an’ get someone, we’ve got to get her to hospital,’ he shouted. ‘It’s me girl, Davy, the one I’m going to marry! Get a move on, or I’ll . . . I’ll break every bone in your miserable body.’
Davy didn’t answer but he disappeared, and Colm sat back on his haunches and began to pray and to curse by turns. He cursed his pride and pigheadedness which had not allowed him to accept Rose’s apologies nor to let him at least go up to the Vale and speak to her. And he prayed, harder than he had ever prayed in his life before, that the good God would let his little love live. She might be a lifelong invalid, she might never walk again, but he found that was secondary indeed to his desperate need and longing for her. She must live, so that he could tell her what a blind, obstinate fool he was, so he could tell her the real truth – that he loved her, knew she had never meant to hurt him, was sorry for the pain he had caused her.
Presently he saw Davy come pounding back and push his way through the crowd. ‘There’s a doc on the way and an ambulance,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Tell ’er it’s goin’ to be awright, Colm. Go, talk to ’er. I ‘member in me first aid classes when I were in school that they said folk could often ’ear before they could move a muscle. Tell’er it’s goin’ to be awright.’
They took her away from him once they arrived at the hospital. Colm would have followed as his love was put on a stretcher and rushed off down a long corridor, but a nurse stopped him. ‘They’ve taken her for a thorough examination,’ the young woman said gently, taking his arm. ‘It will be a while before they can tell you anything definite.’ She looked at him, at his stained and dirty overalls, at his calloused hands and the big, earth-clodded workman’s boots. ‘Do you know her next of kin? The doctor’ll mebbe want a signature before they can operate. Why don’t you go and tell her family what’s happened, then you could go home and get cleaned up. You can be back before they take any serious action, I’m sure.’
Colm thought of getting all the way to Everton from the Royal Infirmary but got to his feet anyway. There were taxis ... and he was filthy, too. He could get a message to Mrs Ryder, clean himself up and get back here in no time at all, if he just put his mind to it. ‘All right, nurse,’ he said, turning towards the hospital’s swing doors. ‘But I won’t be long. If ... if they need to operate, they’d not delay ’cos there was no one here to sign t’ings or tell ’em to go ahead?’
She smiled at him. She was stocky and plain, with protruding teeth and a poor complexion, but her smile transformed her into a beauty so far as Colm was concerned. ‘No indeed, if they need to do anything they’ll do it, never fear. Is she your young lady?’
‘Yes,’ Colm said baldly. ‘She’s me sweetheart. We’re gettin’ married when we can afford it. Nurse, is she ... will she ... ?’
‘We’ll all do our very best,’ the nurse assured him. ‘When you come back go to the reception desk and ask where you can find Miss Ryder, tell them Sister Bostock knows all about you. They’ll see you get to the right place.’
‘T’anks,’ Colm breathed. ‘Me name’s Colm O’Neill. I won’t be long Nur ... Sister, I mean.’
He dived out of the hospital and was running along the pavement towards his lodgings, completely ignoring other passers-by, when someone grabbed his arm. ‘Colm, me boy – how is she? Your pal Davy telled me which hospital they’d took her to an’ I come along as fast as I could. Where are you goin’, son?’ It was Sean, looking grim and worried but – oh, so dependable and sensible.
‘Daddy, it’s you! She’s hurt bad, they want her mammy to know, they sent me out ’cos they’ll be examinin’ her for a while, they said to get cleaned up. Can you go back to the Vale, tell Mrs Ryder, get her here somehow?’
‘I can,’ Sean said, not bothering his son with a lot of useless questions, Colm thought gratefully. ‘Don’t go back to your lodgings, though. Nip into the public lavatory an’ clean up there, then go straight back. Don’t worry, I’ll be in the Vale before you can say “St Domingo”.’
He hurried off without looking back and, blessing his father for his good sense, Colm shot into the nearest block of public lavatories, stripped off his overalls and scrubbed himself down, put the overalls back on inside out – they were cleaner that way – took a hasty drink from the little fountain by the doorway and left to hurry back to the hospital as fast as his weary legs would carry him.
She lay in bed, the covers pinning her arms to her sides, the huge wound on her forehead covered, now, with clean white lint and bandages. Her face was as white as the pillowcase and her eyes were dark-shadowed, but because she was clean and had been put into a hospital nightdress she looked better somehow, more normal. Just like any other patient who had fallen asleep at the end of a long day.
The curtains were drawn round her bed, creating an illusion of quietness, though it was only an illusion; beyond them the big ward buzzed with low voices and clicking feet, as visitors came to see their loved ones, and quiet, quick treads as nurses went about their business. Colm found a long stool underneath her bed and pulled it out, sat on it. Then he leaned his chin in his hand and just let his eyes feast on her small, chalk-white face.
Sister Bostock had been as good as her word. The moment he got back to the hospital he had been directed along quiet corridors, turning first right, then left, then mounting stairs, threading his way towards the Sister’s own ward. She had recognised him at once and smiled. ‘That was quick, Mr O’Neill! Well, Miss Ryder has suffered a broken arm, a couple of broken ribs, some damage to the patella – but we now think it is only heavy bruising – and of course the wound to the forehead. That has been cleaned, disinfected and stitched. One of the theatre sisters told me that the patient seemed about to come round just before she was put under for her arm to be set and the patella – that’s the kneecap, Mr O’Neill – to be gently bound into position, so that’s a good sign. Now, of course, she’s still sleepy from the anaesthetic, but you may sit with her on condition that you call me as soon as there is any sign of her coming round. Do you agree?’
Colm agreed. He would have agreed to anything which allowed him to stay near his Rose, watch that small, obstinate, much-loved face. ‘But ... will she get better, Sister?’ he asked, as the nurse propelled him gently towards Rose’s bed. ‘Is her mind ... all right? Did the blow on the head injure anything inside her head?’
Sister Bostock chuckled. ‘She’s fallen off a bicycle with some violence, Mr O’Neill. That’s the sum total of it. She had a soft landing, too, from what I’m told – on a mound of earth, not on a tarmacadamed surface, nor on cobbles or concrete. She’ll do very well, I’m sure. Now off with you, or I’ll have to send a member of my staff to sit with her until she comes round, and we’re mortal busy, as you can see. Visitors make a deal of work but occasionally’ – she smiled at him – ‘occasionally one can come in useful.’
He said nothing more but left and took up his position beside Rose’s bed. And began what he hoped might not be too long a wait.
Rose was floating in a blue sky, speckled with small white clouds. Now and then she saw one of the clouds approaching and could not prevent herself from entering it, and it was cold and wet inside, and made her feel weak and unsafe. But the clouds were small and the blue sky large, and most of the time she floated in golden sunshine, warm and comfortable and secure.
Presently she saw a cloud approaching and decided to try to float around it. She moved her arms and legs gently, but found it difficult, and as soon as she exerted real effort, it seemed that the cloud approached faster and enveloped her. She remembered reading Alice in Wonderland in school – or was it Through the Looking Glass? Whichever it was, there had been a path down which Alice had trod which, if she kept her eyes on her destination, seemed to give a wiggle and a twist which sent Alice off in the opposite direction. The clouds were like that, Rose decided. If you tried to miss them you immediately entered one. Perhaps if you headed for one as hard as you could, you would circumvent it.
Accordingly, she stared and stared at the nearest cloud and tried very hard to float right inside it . . . and suddenly, horribly, she became aware that the blue sky had disappeared, along with the gold sunshine. She was lying on something hard, which hurt her aching limbs, and staring at a huge, huge cloud, all white and cold, which seemed as big as the blue sky had been and as limitless.
Hastily, she tried to look away from the cloud, to find again the gentle blue sky, but she could not. Her eyes were wide open and fixed on ... on a ceiling. Where was she? What on earth had happened to her? When she tried to move arms or legs it was as though she were enveloped in warm but viscose treacle, which would not allow her to move so much as a finger.
She would have liked to look around, too, or to call out, but when she tried to move her eyes the lids simply got so heavy that she could not keep them up and she found herself verging on a dazed sort of sleep. And her voice would not, could not, function. Her lips moved a little, her tongue trembled against them, but no sound would emerge. She gave a violent heave at her lids and for a moment they actually lifted, allowing her to see it was not just a white ceiling above her, she was entirely surrounded by white. Her arms and legs were held captive not by treacle but by some sort of white ice, which gripped her whole body and would not let her move.
Fear came them, a fear which made her heart pound violently, her breath begin to come in little, painful gasps. And every time she took a breath a terrible sharp pain stabbed at her chest, making her give a tiny kitten’s cry of protest. She was a captive, in pain, cold as ice itself and unable to see about her . . . she was so terrified that she almost stopped breathing, nearly ceased trying to understand what was happening to her.
Then she heard the voice. It was soft, deep – a voice she loved. It was saying, over and over, ‘You’re all right, alanna. You’ve broke a bone or two but you’re all right. You’re goin’ to get well again, so you are, so’s you an’ me can get married, an’ live happily ever after.’
It was a lovely voice and the things it said, though they did not make very much sense, were lovely things. And then the best thing of all happened. A weight lifted off one of her arms and a hand, warm, strong, infinitely comfortable and solid, took hold of her frightened, cold fingers. The hand smoothed and gentled her fingers until they, too, began to feel the first little thread of warmth, and the voice went on repeating that she was all right, that she had broken a bone or two but would be all right ...
She tugged desperately at her eyelids; she would open her eyes, she would! She could see light now, bright light, and the soft mound of white that lay before her ... it was a bedsheet, taut and tightly tucked, holding her into a perfectly ordinary bed. There was no ice, no clouds, no loneliness, not whilst the voice spoke and the hand held her own.
Rose gave a little sigh. ‘Colm?’ she whispered. She had meant to speak out boldly but it seemed a whisper was the only thing available right now. ‘Colm? Are you cross?’
The voice began to say that of course it was not cross – and broke. She heard a sort of sob and then there was a face next to her own, a warm, familiar face, pressed against her cold cheek. She felt warm tears, whether her own or another’s she could not tell, trickle across her skin, then lips kissed along her jawbone, up the side of her face and down across her small nose. She tugged even harder at her eyelids, which she had allowed to close as soon as she spoke, and saw a huge, dark eye, tear-filled, and a dark, arched eyebrow and a strong, familiar jaw-line, much in need of a shave.
‘Rosie, me own darlin’ girl. Oh Rosie, you’re goin’ to be all right, you are, you are!’
Colm’s voice was wobbly with relief and love, but Rose, bathed in the warmth and security of his love, noticed nothing. She simply snuggled her cheek into the pillow and slept.
The next time she woke, Colm had gone, but a woman’s figure sat on the stool beside her. Slowly and carefully, Rose moved her head. ‘Mam! Oh, Mam, I can’t seem to ... I’m in the hospital, amn’t I?’
‘That’s right, queen,’ her mother said gently. ‘Colm’s been with you all night until I come over. He’ll be back in a minute. He’s gone out for a breath of air an’ to stretch his legs because once you came round he weren’t so worried, like.’
‘Good. We’re getting married soon,’ Rose said vaguely. ‘Mam, what happened? I remember talking to Ella and hearing a bang, an explosion, then ... then I don’t remember anything else until I found Colm bending over me and I were in this bed.’
‘I don’t rightly know meself, queen,’ her mother admitted. ‘Colm did say something about two charges going off and a pal of his being slightly injured, then he said you bicycled down the hill like a runaway horse, went front-wheel first into a great old mound of earth and rocks, and soared into the air like a swallow, landing on your poor head, which is why it’s all bandaged, I suppose. Did you think something bad had happened?’
‘I did,’ Rose said slowly. She was beginning to remember her mad flight down William Brown Street, bouncing over the cobbles, pedalling like a mad creature, because she had feared for Colm’s life, down there in the darkness and damp in the great Mersey tunnel. ‘Oh Mam, I thought Colm might have been hurt bad and if he was, I wouldn’t never have telled him that I knew wi’ all me heart that he’d never take nothing that weren’t his. Why, he’d no more take a necklace he’d found in the street, let alone one that he knew were owned . . . oh, Mam, I’ve been such a fool.’
‘No bigger fool than me,’ a voice said and Colm slid through the curtains. ‘My poor little darlin’ Rosie, I don’t know what made me march out like a donkey, ‘stead o’ listenin’ to you. But all that’s behind us now, alanna. Right?’
‘Right,’ Rose agreed, smiling. ‘Mind you, I’ve got a cut head – you may not want to marry me when you see me out of me bandages.’
‘You’ve got two black eyes an’ all,’ Colm said, grinning. He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘But I’ll put up wit’ that, just to be back in me room at the Vale.’
Mrs Ryder clapped a hand to her head. ‘To think I forgot! You’ll never guess what come through the post this morning, you two.’
‘Tell us,’ Rose said sleepily. With her hand firmly held in Colm’s warm clasp and his eyes lovingly fixed on her, nothing else seemed to matter. ‘Is it nice or nasty?’
‘Nice,’ Lily said firmly. ‘It were a pawn ticket. And a bank note.’
‘What! Who sent it?’ Colm said, instantly alert. ‘Have you had a chance ...’
‘Yes. I went to the pawnshop an’ handed over the ticket an’ the banknote and I’ve got me gold necklace back, as good as ever. Can you guess where the pawn ticket come from, though?’
‘Tommy Frost,’ Colm said. Rose realised, with incredulity, that his voice sounded almost sad. ‘I did wonder ... but he was a nice feller, so he was, I didn’t want to believe ill of him.’
‘But you thought I believed ill of you,’ Rose mumbled. She tried to sit up in bed but the movement made her head swim and she lay back on her pillows. ‘Oh, Colm, will you ever forgive me?’
Colm moved up the bed and put his arms round her, then laid his cheek against hers. ‘There’s nothin’ to forgive,’ he murmured. ‘As soon as you’re out o’ this we’ll start makin’ plans for our weddin’, so we will. We’ve both got good jobs, we can afford a bit of a room ...’
‘You can have the attics; we’ll convert the girls’ big room into a nice bed-sitting room, and we’ll clear the jumble out of the box-room an’ make it into a kitchen,’ Mrs Ryder said eagerly. ‘You’ll have to share the bathroom, of course, but you’ll be better off than many another young couple. Poor Mona and that Tommy ... but mebbe he’ll turn out all right, wi’ a good woman beside him.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Rose said. She had told no one about the baby and thought, on the whole, that she had better continue to say nothing. ‘We shouldn’t do anything in a rush, should we? We always said we’d save up first, not do anything foolish.’
At these wise words, however, Colm looked mulish. ‘Haven’t I seen meself almost lose ye?’ he enquired. ‘Life’s too short to waste, alanna. We’ll go home to Ireland this summer so’s you can meet me mammy an’ Caitlin, an’ we’ll marry in September. Is that too soon for you?’
‘No.’ Rose sighed. ‘I think you’re right; we’ve wasted enough time.’
‘Well, since you seem to have made your mind up, I think it’s time I went home an’ told Mr O’Neill what’s brewing,’ Rose’s mother said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll come an’ see you again tomorrow, queen, unless they’ve sent you home by then, of course. The doctor seemed to think you’d mend fast, now you’ve come to yourself.’ She slipped out between the curtains and Rose closed her eyes for a moment – or so she thought.
When she opened them again, however, the curtains had been pulled back from around her bed and the ward was in darkness save for one light over the door at the end. She sat up on one elbow, her heart bumping, and immediately a nurse in a starched white apron came rustling up the ward. She came over to Rose, smiling. ‘Your young man left not five minutes ago,’ she whispered. ‘You were sleeping so soundly that I told him he’d just be a nuisance if he stayed. Now, could you fancy a nice cup of tea? I’ve just made a pot in the ward kitchen.’
‘Oh, I’d love a cuppa,’ Rose said longingly. ‘I’m hungry, too, Sister.’
‘I’ll fetch in some biscuits,’ the nurse said, smiling. ‘You’ll sleep all the better if you’ve taken food and drink. Why, very likely you’ll be home in a couple of days, because you’ll heal faster there, I dare say.’
‘I’m sure I’ll get better quicker at home,’ Rose said contentedly, when the tea arrived and was being deliciously sipped. ‘My feller – the one who was here just now – is a lodger wi’ me mam, so of course I’ll get better quicker when I’m wi’ Colm. We’re getting married as soon as I’m well enough, but we nearly split up for good an’ all ...’ and she began to tell the nurse all about the gold necklace and her terrifying ride which had nearly ended so tragically.
‘It’s like a story out of a book,’ the nurse said, sipping her own tea and keeping her voice low so as not to wake the other patients. ‘You’re a very lucky girl all round, Rose Ryder.’
‘I know it,’ Rose said. ‘Oh, don’t I know it! I’ve been give a second chance, Nurse, an’ I’m grabbing it wi’ both hands.’
And presently, when the tea was finished and the biscuits crunched down, Rose snuggled under the covers, careful to keep her injured arm away from her body, and was soon fast asleep – and dreaming, in the happiest way, of Colm O’Neill.