After the Storm Read Free

if she could have fought harder at the funeral to prevent Albert from persuading Archie to allow him to take Don when he was 8, but he seemed so determined, almost obsessed by a need to have one of Archie’s children. Was it just that he wanted a messenger boy or did he really care for his nephew? Somehow Sophie doubted this.
    She rubbed her face with her hands, trying to shake the past from her head and moved first to the fire to add more coal, and then to the window searching with strained eyes through the mist and, dimly, they came, three figures emerging so sparingly from the dark of the street that it nearly broke her heart.
    The years since 1914 had made a mockery of so much shining promise, she thought savagely, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Her impotence drew back her tension, her headache increased, but she drew herself straight and moved to the front door, spilling the light into the thick darkness and drawing the now recognisable figures into its beam.
    Annie blinked, warmed by the promise of familiarity and the scones which she could smell even as she crossed the stone step that clicked against her father’s shoes as he followed her into the glinting hallway.
    ‘Go through, Annie love,’ Sophie coaxed as she kissed the hair which was cold and hung with minute droplets of evening chill. She pushed the thawing child gently from behind, only patting Don on the shoulder and smiling. He had told her last time that he was too old for kisses.
    Annie, relieved that tea was as usual in the kitchen and not in the starched and strange front parlour, hurried past. She grinned and, shrugging herself free of her coat, flung it and the now lifeless leather glove onto the airer by the range and lolled kneeling against the guard. Her cheek pressed against the linen towels and the smell of boiling was still deep within them. With her face protected from the heat her knees and feet roasted themselves free of numbness until the itch of chilblains drove her further back to the chair in which she usually sat.
    She glanced quickly at Don who had taken her place. His thin face was blotched with cold and his brown eyes were half closed. His light brown hair was dry now and flopped down towards his eye. She reached for the winter-green from beside the clock on the mantelpiece. Its tick was loud close to, but once back in her seat at the table it became lost in the hiss and spit ofthe fire. The mirror above the fire reflected the gas lamps which spluttered on the walls and the pictures of Whitley Bay that Eric had found wrapped up in old newspaper on a train.
    ‘D’you think,’ she pondered, her voice muffled as she drew her leg up and pulled off her sock, ‘I should let a claggy skunk like you have any of this?’ She held up the winter-green and dared him to reach for it. She hoped it would gain a response and it did.
    ‘It’s that or a damn good clout,’ he murmured, scratching his throbbing toes and making a lunge.
    ‘Now, now, Don lad,’ she taunted him, her voice full with laughter, her mouth rounded into posh. ‘Is that any way to treat a young lady especially when her father is outside ready to save her.’
    She rolled her eyes and clutched her hands to her breast and was helpless to beat off Don’s attack which came and soon they were both tingling with suppressed laughter.
    Don tossed it back for her to put away, as Annie knew he would. Bye, she’d get the beggar one day she vowed, happy that he was here and that, for this moment, he was as he had been before he went to Albert’s. She leant her mouth against the knee she liked to hug. The smell of her skin was pleasing to her and she resisted the temptation to make a bum of it between her fingers. He might walk in.
    In the pause they heard the lowered voices in the hallway and it drew their eyes to one another.
    ‘D’you remember him, Don?’ she whispered. ‘And why is he here?’
    Don shook his head, his finger to his lips. ‘He says