Free A Daughter's Duty by Maggie Hope

‘Hadaway, lass,’ he said. ‘She’s past talking, she’s not budged a muscle.’
    Rose stood up straight and glared at him. ‘You don’t care one bloody jot, do you?’ she demanded.
    ‘Aye, I do,’ he asserted. ‘She’s me wife, isn’t she? Me an’ your mam, we used to have some good times, you know, years ago.’ He dropped his eyes and rubbed his nose with his forefinger then walked from the room. Rose heard the armchair by the fire creak as he sat down in it. She pulled the bedclothes up to her mother’s shoulders and dropped a kiss on her pale cheek then she too left the room. Her father was leaning forward, pulling coals down from the shelf at the back of the fire with the coal rake.
    ‘We all used to have good times, Dad,’ she said. ‘What happened? Why did you change?’
    ‘Me? I didn’t change,’ he replied. ‘It was you, you and your mother, both of you. Neither of you want me now. You never touch me, you never run and give me a kiss when I come in from work, you never give me a bit of loving …’
    Rose could only stare. He looked really badly done by, his tone pathetic. Good Lord, he really believed what he was saying. For the first time she had an inkling that he thought his attitude towards her was natural, not wrong at all. But he wasn’t ignorant, he knew enough to be secretive about his ways, keeping folk out so there were no prying eyes seeing what went on. And he was frightened Mam would say something …
    Rose shook her head to clear it of the dark images which crowded in on her. She opened the oven door and took out the two plates of dinner which Kate Morland had put in to keep hot for her and her father. The gravy was dried and the meat kizened and curled up at the edges but when she set it on the table for him, Alf ate his way steadily through it. Rose herself ate a few mouthfuls before giving up. They sat in silence, the door to the room open, Rose listening keenly, eager to hear even the slightest sound from the bed.
    ‘We’ll try to make a bit of Christmas for the sake of the bairns,’ Aunt Elsie said to Rose. ‘Have you got anything put away for them?’
    ‘Oh, yes, what I could get. You know what it’s like.’ Toys and small luxuries were slowly coming into the shops, though the export drive took the best.
    Aunt Elsie had arrived on the half-past-five bus, wasting no time when she got her brother’s message. ‘Well, you know how it is, I’ve nobody but meself at home now,’ she had said when Rose had expressed surprise at her speed. Uncle Tom Brown had been killed in the pit before the war and Aunt Elsie lived in a council house on what the locals called the ‘new site’ on the edge of Shotton Colliery. The family used to visit her there at one time, but during the war, when Elsie worked in the munition factory and Mam had begun to fail, the visits had dropped off, probably because of Alf. But here she was now and Rose was grateful for it. She felt as if the load she’d carried for weeks was at last being shared.
    ‘Now then, our Alf,’ was Elsie’s only greeting to her brother. She made no attempt to kiss his cheek or anything like that.
    ‘How are you doing, Elsie?’ he responded and managed a thin smile.
    ‘Champion,’ she said. ‘In the room, is she?’ She had put her weekend bag on the table and gone straight through to see her sister-in-law. Rose followed behind her and watched as Aunt Elsie stood by the side of the bed and studied Sarah, before shaking her head. She looked round at her niece.
    ‘By, Rosie, it’s a bad do, this,’ she said, and drew her lips down at the corners. Rose felt the tears suddenly prickle at the back of her eyes. She turned away, just in case her mother should be able to see from her blank, open eyes, and went out into the kitchen, empty now for her father seemed to have abandoned his responsibilities to his sister and gone out. Though where she couldn’t think. He wouldn’t be able to get a pint until the Club