Annie's Promise by Margaret Graham Read Free Book Online

when the bomb goes off. Be gentle with him, Annie.’ Tom was smiling at her. He looked pleased but nervous, as he used to when he’d pinched one of Bet’s scones and knew he’d get a walloping.
    ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, looking from one to the other, then calling after Tom. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘I’ll tell you in a minute – have another look,’ Georgie said.
    She smiled, shook her head, tugged at his arm and drew him back to the window, peering in, telling him how wonderful he was, how clever, telling him it looked so clean, but would need painting, wondering if the old oven was still in the back room, deciding where they would put the walnut table, their pictures, hearing his voice as he told her that he hadn’t known how much he’d missed Wassingham until he’d talked to the bloke at the garage. And now she looked at his reflection in the window, his eyes, his face, his happiness – but there was something else too – there was nervousness and she felt his hand steer her round now to face the street.
    She listened to his voice, now so quiet as he cupped her cheek with his hand. ‘Look at this, Annie, hear it, smell it.’ He paused, then continued. ‘It’s me roots see. All this, even though Mam’s taken the boys to the pits at Nottingham, all this is still me home, me roots, your home, your roots.’
    She listened closely now, hearing the Geordie back in his voice as though the years away had not existed, hearing something else as well and now fear took hold.
    ‘Tell me what you’ve done, Georgie. Just tell me.’ She was no longer looking at the street, no longer listening to itssounds. She could see Tom, standing by the corner of the street, just standing, waiting.
    ‘Just tell me what you’ve done,’ she repeated.
    ‘You heard me say I was born a pitman, Annie. You were going to marry one, remember, you were going to scrub me back for me as me mam did for me da. Well, I’m going back down the pit, you’re running the business, that’s what we’ve been fixing up this morning.’
    Annie watched Tom, still standing, waiting. She looked at the woman who was polishing her letter box, a boy who was riding his bike over the cobbles, his cheeks juddering, just as her heart was doing, and her mind. Where were the words she needed, and the breath to speak them?
    ‘Are you mad?’ she asked quietly at last. ‘Or just stupid?’ She stopped, the boy was turning the corner, the sun was shining on the slag, the filthy dirty slag. ‘Don’t you remember Gracie’s da, and Tom’s marrer?’ She was no longer quiet, she was shouting, gripping his arm, pointing to the winding gear, the steam house, the slag heap. ‘It kills, it takes arms, legs. You’re joking or irresponsible, I said I’d nurse didn’t I, what are you talking about?’
    ‘Yes, you said you’d nurse. I didn’t say I agreed. Neither did Tom.’
    Annie couldn’t speak, what could she say to this man who had given her Sophie’s house and then taken her nursing and perhaps his life from her? There were no words of her own in her brain, or in her mouth. She could only roll his around and around, trying to absorb them, trying to grasp them as more came and now he was holding her hand and telling her that he’d been to Bigham Colliery with Tom, smelt it, seen it, heard the shift going down, the other coming up.
    ‘It’s a club. They need one another to survive. They’re a team, like the Army. I know the life, it’s in me bones. It’s what I want, I know that now. I knew it when I stopped the car but I think I’ve always felt it.’
    Annie found words at last, pointing to the slag, asking why anyone should want to go down some bloody great hole,asking what was the matter with him, telling him he would go down the mine over her dead body and didn’t anybody care what she wanted?
    She felt his kisses on her face, his breath as he said, ‘But you see, I do want to go down that bloody great hole, bonny lass, so you