Annie's Promise Read Free

said, leaning across Annie, refilling the kettle. ‘Just one more cup, eh, lass?’ She smiled at Annie, who kissed her cheek.
    ‘I told you then and I’ll tell you now, that was a bloody silly name for a gelding. God knows what Da was thinking of, giving it to you. He should have sold it and put the cash into the shop. But then he didn’t know what he was thinking of most of the time – bloody dead loss he turned out to be.’ Don’s voice was loud, terse and Annie felt her shoulders tighten.
    ‘Don’t let them get you down, Don lad,’ Georgie laughed. ‘They’ve got an idea they can change the world, so what’s a pony’s sex? And they will change it, you know, or Wassingham anyway, just you wait and see. This business is really going to take off.’
    Annie felt her shoulders relax. Only she and Tom would have recognised the anger in Georgie’s voice, but he had saved her from exploding. She looked out into the yard again. God damn you, Don Manon, you always were a miserable little tyke, never comfortable, never understanding, always pinching my wintergreen when we were kids, always spoiling things, always belly-aching. You’re still belly-aching, misunderstanding. But then she hadn’tunderstood either for a long while, had she? She watched a sparrow perch on the gutter of the stable.
    Poor Da, how had he felt, coming back from the trenches, having to start all over again with his off-licence business destroyed, his fine house gone, the mother of his kids dead? He’d felt hopeless, that’s what he’d felt but she hadn’t understood that then. None of them had – or his suicide. She had realised though, after her own war. In fact she had very nearly followed him.
    She looked back, round the kitchen they’d grown up in, smelling boiled tea towels, imagining the round shine-splashed boiler. Thank God they were all wiser now, tested somehow, more able to make the future work.
    ‘Where are those plates then, Tom Ryan?’ she called, turning round, seeing Maud still sitting at the table, polishing her long red nails, and she remembered that Don had been easier for a while but it hadn’t lasted. Perhaps Maud was the reason why. You’d never think she’d come from a back to back in Wassingham too.
    ‘Hang on, Gracie needs another tea towel and then I’ll be there. Work, work, work, but worth it. That was a canny lunch, Mam.’ Tom threw a tea cloth to his wife and then brought the plates to Annie who called to Maud. ‘We’ll bring gloves next time shall we, then you can help?’
    Tom grinned at Annie and muttered, ‘You’ll be lucky, can’t be breaking a nail, can we?’
    ‘I’ll break something of hers soon and it won’t be a nail, bonny lad,’ she murmured back.
    Betsy called from the stove. ‘Tea’s brewed, Annie. Leave those to drip, you as well, Gracie. Come and sit down and have a last cup. Those bairns will be glad of a bit more time.’
    Betsy smoothed her apron with hands that were still gnarled from shifting Da’s kegs, but they were not as swollen as they had been.
    ‘Are you happy Bet?’ Annie asked quietly, sitting down beside her.
    ‘Aye lass, I was before, you know with my bairn living in the top of the house and his bairns rushing through my kitchen to get to the yard but now it’s even better – there’s your Sarah with them too, and you.’
    Annie touched the elderly woman’s hand. ‘I know what you mean. There’s a continuity, isn’t there?’ She watched Georgie bring the teapot to the table, then looked round, seeing her brothers, their wives, Betsy pouring the tea, pushing the mugs out to each of them. Where had the years gone – did she really have as many lines as Gracie? She knew she had.
    ‘Could have given us more notice of course.’ Don’s voice was cold. ‘Had to get out of the house in a bit of a hurry didn’t we?’
    Annie looked at him. Here it comes – wind him up, let him go. Not many lines on your visage my lad are there, but then you