Annie's Promise by Margaret Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

his skin, wondering how much more torn it would become when he started in the pit on Monday. He had passed his medical which she had prayed he would fail. He did not need to retrain because of the apprenticeship he had already served. She must see to it that the business thrived because he must get out of that pit and stop playing these stupid games.
    In the morning Annie did not look back at the Jaguar which was pulling in behind them. She did not look back atthe home which she had shared with Sarah and Val but reached across and held Sarah’s hand.
    ‘We’re going home then, bonny lass.’ She felt her daughter’s hand tighten on hers.
    ‘It’s going to be so good, Mum.’
    When they were scrubbing the kitchen floor the next morning Annie looked across at Sarah, hearing Georgie’s hammering, his curse, a crash.
    ‘Bet you didn’t think it was going to be as good as this, did you?’ she laughed, settling back on her heels, dragging the hair from her eyes.
    Sarah’s hands were red from the water, her dungarees were splashed and dirty. ‘This isn’t good, this is awful. Davy’s out playing, Mum, it isn’t fair. They’re going up to the farm after lunch, said we could go too.’ Sarah dropped the brush back into the water. ‘I bet you didn’t have to do this when you lived here.’
    Annie nodded. ‘It’s as well we didn’t have money on that, my girl. I scrubbed, brushed, washed dishes, fed the pigeons …’
    There was another crash from upstairs. Annie raised her eyebrows. ‘You’d better go up and see if you can hold something. He’s trying to put up a shelf in your room. You can put my father’s paper knife on it.’ She smiled as Sarah leapt to her feet, throwing the brush back into the pail, dodging the spray. ‘I hope you thanked Betsy for it too.’
    ‘I did, Mum. She’s going to the farm too, please can we go, please?’ Sarah was hanging on the door, her face flushed and then there was another crash. ‘Goddamn this bloody thing,’ they heard again.
    ‘Perhaps we’d better if the house is going to survive. Go and tell him he has only another half an hour.’
    Annie finished the floor, carried the pail into the yard, tipped the water down the drain, sat on the step feeling the sun on her face as she looked at the pigeon loft, remembering Uncle Eric banging, crashing, cursing as he repaired it one year, remembering the cooing of the birds, the gentleness ofhis hands, his leg which had been irreparably damaged in the trenches.
    ‘That dreadful war,’ Aunt Sophie had said. ‘It ruined so much.’
    Annie leaned forward now and touched the lavender plant she had dug up and brought with her from Gosforn. So, Sophie, has Eric got a smithy at some mine or in an outback town, or are you in Melbourne, or Sydney? Oh God, I wish I’d kept in touch, I wish I’d written back.
    She remembered the old railway prints on the wall, the best white table cloth, and then the tears Sophie had cried as Annie left to go to the shop with Da.
    Annie’s shoulders tightened at the memory. She had never seen an adult cry before and it was as though the ground had lurched beneath her feet, as though there was no safety, no certainty left in the world, and she shook off the memory, watered the lavender, swept the step, polished the mantelpiece and the fireguard which was still as it had been when Sophie had hung her tea towels on it to dry.
    When she and Betsy were walking together past the oaks later that day, she asked her if she had heard anything of Sophie, but Bet had not.
    ‘You could try and find her though, lass. Not all that many people in Australia you know. Mind, she’d be getting on a bit, in her seventies, and Eric too. Lovely they were, kind to me, kind to you.’
    The sheep grazed around them as they walked up the hill and the wind took their breath as they breasted the rise. The sky was light in the distance, over the sea, the rocks cut through the scant soil, the gorse-bushes, yellow spiked,