Free Black Sheep by Susan Hill Page B

kind of a man I married.’
    Ted stopped her arm as it reached for another plate to dry. ‘Did he beat you?’
    â€˜No, no. I’d have left long since. I would never let a man be rough to me, you should know. I’d have come home and . . .’ Tears came without warning. ‘Told Dad. Told Clive or Jimmy.’
    â€˜Told me.’
    â€˜You weren’t here to tell, you were over the hill on a farm, weren’t you?’
    â€˜It’s not across the sea, Rosie. I would have come. I’d have had his head off if he’d touched you.’ He crushed an eggcup in his hand. It snapped off its stem. ‘What will you do?’
    â€˜Look after Mam, look after you.’
    She saw Ted, the small brother grown a man and her grandfather an old one grown small again. Charlie’s face and hands and hair were not coated with coal grime, looking after him had not been like looking after a man such as John Howker and the brothers had been. And now Ted. Lem was a pitman, looked after by a landlady, which could not be the same and did not seem right.
    â€˜I don’t say you have to stay with a man who doesn’t do right by you,’ Ted said slowly, as if working it out before he spoke, ‘but I don’t say you should be seen with any other.’
    â€˜You know nothing about any of it.’
    â€˜No. I expect I don’t. But I know you, Rose, and I want you to keep your good name. What will you and Charlie do? Divorcing is a terrible thing.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Ted shook his head, not able to give words to the momentousness of it.
    â€˜So I’m to stay at home for ever?’
    He did not answer.
    â€˜Charlie won’t be long on his own. He wanted me out, he’ll want someone new in, and there are plenty who would go. He’s a manager. He stays above ground. He stays clean.’
    Evie had gone to bed. She went to bed in the daytime often now, being unable to bear the living breathing world. She slept with the covers up over her face, hour after hour, and slept again through a long night. Reuben slept too, the black Bible slipping off his knees onto the floor with a thump that never disturbed him into waking, though sometimes he gave a little moan, or a sob.
    â€˜I wish you weren’t down the pit,’ Rose said quietly. ‘I fear for you every day.’
    Ted shook his head. ‘We’ve had our turn.’
    â€˜Doesn’t follow. Wouldn’t you rather be up there, out in the open with the sheep?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then you should go back.’
    He left the room without a word. But when Rose went out just after eight o’clock that Friday night, he stood at the window watching her go and nursing a dark tight fear inside himself, because she was meeting Lem Roker and he believed that she would flaunt herself with him carelessly at the Institute rooms. He had known little of Charlie and that little he had not greatly liked, but he wanted order in a world which had so recently been blown apart and scattered and his sister’s marriage represented that order.
    Just before half past eleven he went out. The night smelled cold and the trails and whorls of stars were mirror bright in the dark sky. The music of the band came up the terrace through the open windows and door. Ted leaned back into the shadows when it stopped and almost at once people started to come out, talking and laughing. There were plenty before Rose and Lem Roker and then they came out, sidling past a gang of others who were singing. The man’s hand was on her arm. Ted waited. Watched. Followed. And then they were out of sight, somewhere away from the rest and shielded by the darkness.
    He did not know what to believe. If Rose had told him the truth, then he had no worry and he should not be following them. If she had not, what could he do? But he felt it keenly that he was the only man in the Lower Terrace house now, the only one to defend his sister against