‘I’m taking him into the business as a partner.’
‘That’s unfair.’ Carrie spoke hotly now, her eyes burning. ‘You’re buying him, you’ve always tried to buy him.’
‘He hates the pit, Carrie. No, he doesn’t just hate it. It terrifies him, scares him senseless. For four years he has suffered the torment of the damned, and if I can take him out of it I will and damn what you or anyone else thinks.’ And then Alec grimaced. He reached into his jacket pocket and said, ‘Could . . . could I have a glass of water?’
‘You’re ill,’ said David as his brother pulled a small pill container out of his pocket. Carrie filled a glass and handed it to Alec who took a pill and gulped at the water. His face had lost all colour and it was a few moments before he spoke.
‘It’s nothing, it’ll pass.’
Was this a trick? Carrie would have liked to think so but in all honesty she couldn’t. Alec was ill, ill and broken. She stared at him, and when a vestige of colour returned, she said, ‘What’s wrong?’
Alec shrugged. ‘A number of things. They’ll ease in time.’
They said nothing more as Carrie mashed the tea and then poured each of them a cup. She placed the sugar bowl in front of Alec.
‘He will come round in time,’ Alec said. ‘I’ll make sure of it. Just . . . just give him a bit of breathing space for a while.’
‘A while? You mean you don’t want me to see him.’ Carrie stopped and covered her eyes with her hand, and when she heard David stand up she turned blindly into him, taking one of the twins while he continued to hold the other. ‘He hates me, doesn’t he?’ she said into David’s chest.
‘Of course he doesn’t hate you.’ Alec cleared his throat. ‘It’s just that he’s resentful and confused and needs sense talking into him.’
‘Then why won’t he let
me
talk to him and explain how things happened and why I did what I did?’ There was silence for a moment, and then Carrie made herself face Alec. ‘Will he be living with you?’ And when Alec nodded, she added, ‘And your mother?’ Fat chance of any reason coming to the fore while Olive was whispering in Matthew’s ear.
‘No, not my mother. She’s . . . gone elsewhere.’
‘Oh?’ This was from David.
‘I’ve put her in one of the terraced houses I own in town.’
‘I bet she’s as pleased as Punch about that.’
Alec raised wry eyebrows but made no comment on this. ‘A few months and Matthew will be looking at all this differently. A new job and a different kind of life will work wonders, you see if it doesn’t.’
When David gently agreed with his brother, Carrie almost rounded on the pair of them and spoke her mind. But she bit back the words. They wouldn’t understand. She felt as though Matthew had gone from her for good and right at this moment it was more than she could bear. At least before Alec had come here tonight her hate for him had sustained her in her worst moments of missing Matthew. She had found hate was very akin to love in its strength. But now she had seen Alec again, that support had been knocked away. This was not the same man who had left for the war. Even then, although Alec had been frightened out of his wits, there had been an arrogance that had reminded her of his indifference in the days and weeks after he had raped her. Now nothing of that remained.
As though to emphasise this, Alec said, ‘Carrie, I’m truly sorry. Please believe me.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask whether he was sorry about raping her or about Matthew rejecting her, but as she looked into the world-weary face she said nothing. She did not know it but she was experiencing a feeling similar to David’s, its main ingredient being pity.
But this was still Alec, change or no change. With this in mind she merely nodded tightly as she struggled to take control of her racing emotions.
She would think about all this later when David was asleep and there would be no one to see if she wept. For the moment she had to be strong. And if what she had begun to suspect this last week or two was true, she would need to be even more determined not to give in to her fears that Matthew would never talk to her again. Everyone knew that weepy mothers produced weepy babies. But she did so hope it was just the one this time.
Chapter Twenty-six
Over the next months many changes took place in Carrie’s life. Just six weeks before her next confinement was due, she and David invested all their savings in a property across the river in Holmeside.
The three-storey property, which consisted of shop premises on the ground floor and family accommodation on the upper two, needed extensive refurbishment due to war damage. Although this meant they acquired it at a reasonable price, they nevertheless had to take out a hefty mortgage. It took a little effort on Carrie’s part to persuade David to take the plunge. His motto had always been ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’, but she finally convinced him that a mortgage was quite unlike being in debt, more a way to advance their future and that of their children.
Continuing shortages meant that the basic food ration had not changed with the end of the war, but the government recognised the importance of nutrition in pregnancy and expectant mothers were entitled to an extra pint of milk a day, extra fresh eggs and a packet of dried egg every eight weeks. They also received an extra half meat ration and had first claim on bananas and oranges when they were available.
Some of this made Carrie feel rather uncomfortable, especially when she was pushed to the front of the queue if there were oranges in the shops. The extra nutriment must have paid off, however, because when Edward Walter Sutton made his way into the world, he weighed in at a hefty ten and a half pounds. When David came into the hospital room to see his new son, after several hours of pacing the hospital corridors and smoking his way through a packet of Woodbines despite the fact he didn’t smoke, Carrie informed him in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see another orange in her life.
They finished renovating the property and moved into their new home exactly four months after Edward was born. David did most of the work himself and took great satisfaction from it, while Carrie wielded a paintbrush with gusto and proved herself to be a dab hand with finishing touches.
By the end of the year they knew the business was going to succeed and prosper. Every time Carrie tucked the children into bed at night, she thanked God that her two youngest sons would never know what it was to work miles beneath the earth. They had a family business now and she was determined it would go from strength to strength. And she never ceased to ask the Almighty to soften Matthew’s heart towards her. Although Alec kept them informed via Lillian of all he and Matthew were doing, the boy still refused to relent and come and see his new siblings and herself, not even at Christmas or on New Year’s Eve.
At the end of January the temperature all over Britain plummeted. Snow fell continuously, accompanied by vicious gale-force winds from the east. Twenty-foot drifts transformed the landscape, turning the country into a huge, white maze. The River Thames froze over, coal boats were icebound in north-eastern ports and snow closed roads and railways as effectively as if they had been bombed.
Where the armies of Hitler had failed, the forces of winter succeeded, bringing the country to its knees. Three hundred major roads became impassable, cutting off England from Scotland and the north from the south. The RAF dropped food supplies to the shivering and starving inhabitants of isolated communities, and in Sunderland the streets were plunged into darkness as electricity failed. The young and fit raided the nearest coke tip or walked out of the town into the countryside where they foraged for logs in the frozen woodland.
With electricity to households turned off between 9 a.m. and midday, and again from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Carrie’s main concern was keeping her three children, especially little Edward, warm and comfortable. They all moved into the sitting room of the flat above the shop to live, eat and sleep, in an effort to keep that one room warm. Although the three bedrooms, like the sitting room, all had open fires, there just wasn’t enough coal to go round. Timber of all kinds, from old furniture and pallets to disused railway sleepers, became highly sought after as fuel. Water had to be collected from a tap in the road, and sometimes Carrie queued for more than half an hour for two bucketfuls.
At long last, on the ides of March, the thaw began. But the ice and snow melted into torrents, rivers overflowed and flooded homes. A great storm in the middle of March spread the floodwaters far and wide, and although the property in Holmeside was not affected, Carrie heard through Lillian that Alec and Matthew had had to move out of the house in Hendon for a short period.
The harsh winter was followed by a cruel spring and everyone suffered, but in April the New Look burst over Britain like a fashion bomb as Christian Dior unveiled his unashamedly romantic ‘corolle line’.
Carrie was captivated by the full mid-calf skirts, wasp waists, plunging necklines and batwing sleeves, and she gambled that there were plenty of women who had worn service uniforms or factory overalls, or who had donned the thick socks, sweaters and breeches of the Land Army, who were now sick of utility clothing and the make-do-and-mend ethic.
She commandeered Lillian, who was still smarting at losing her job at the steelworks now that the war was over and the men were back, into working for her full time, and asked her mother and Miriam to increase their hours. And then she went into overdrive, producing modified versions of Dior’s designs at various price levels.
She knew the venture was risky and she wasn’t sure if Sunderland was ready for chic fashion, but she was as sick as anyone of serviceable and practical clothing. All her married life she had worked her fingers to the bone, first with home work from the firework factory, then working for Horwood’s and at the nursery, along with continuing to make cheap items from home and building her reputation as a good seamstress with neighbours and friends.
And that had been fine then. It had given her a good grounding for what she intended now, and also provided a standard of living they’d all benefited from. But with the purchase of the shop which had more space than they’d ever hoped for, she wanted to see if she could achieve a dream which had always been on hold in the back of her mind - that of opening her own dress shop.
She didn’t intend it to be purely an exclusive and pricey one like some in the town, although the upper range of what she would sell would be both those things. She wanted anyone and everyone to be able to afford something, and for those who wanted to be dressed for a specific occasion, she would start by selling them a good foundation and work outwards.
By the end of the summer, which had been as hot as the winter had been cold, she knew the gamble had paid off. Women from all walks of life knew what they wanted, and it was to surrender to the delicious rustle of taffeta or the caress of silk and lace. They had worked hard in all sorts of occupations during the war and had proved that women were every bit as good as men, hadn’t they? And there was more to life than leaving school only to become a housewife, Britain’s new breed of working women told themselves. It was high time to take a step away from the kitchen sink. Those who wanted to spend their lives scrubbing and donkey-stoning the front step were free to do so, but women had brains and ability and it was not unfeminine to use them, as they’d been told in the past.
David’s side of the business, although not as financially productive as Carrie’s, was also doing well. The children were all happy and healthy. They saw plenty of Carrie’s parents, along with Billy and his family, and Lillian and the bairns. Danny and Len were engaged to two sisters and due to have a double wedding the next year. Everything in the garden was wonderful, in fact, Carrie told herself at least once a day, and she could make herself believe it if she didn’t think of Matthew. But she did. She thought about him a great deal.
She knew David was worried about her. He was forever telling her to slow down and take time off, but by packing twenty-five hours into every day and working so hard she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, the worst of the ache in her heart was kept at bay. Every time she went into town or to the beach with the bairns, or to the cinema, her eyes searched for one face. It was never there.
And then at the end of September two things happened in quick succession, the first having a direct bearing on the second. Late one Saturday afternoon, when David had taken the children to the park and Carrie had just sent everyone home and shut up shop, Veronica came to see her. A very grown-up and remote Veronica, with hard eyes and a somewhat brittle smile, and clothes which Carrie could see immediately were both expensive and well-cut. Renee’s daughter had not come back to Sunderland after the war but had made her home with a Land Army friend, whose parents had a big house in London.