Betty plunged her hands into the hot bubbly water and tried to ignore the terrible dread crouching in the very corners of her mind. She had wrapped the leftover picnic food and stored it in the fridge and was now washing the dishes by hand. She had purposefully ignored the dishwasher. She wasn’t entirely sure how it worked; new-fangled technology made her feel old, but more than that, she wanted to be busy. She wanted a simple, comforting task to quell all the unspoken, unexamined memories wakened during the conversation in the garden. She also wanted to be alone. She very much wanted that. She had sent a protesting Dina to bed for a nap, ‘You’ve been slaving in that kitchen all morning on that wonderful picnic. Go and lie down, please, Dina. Leave the tidying to me.’ Then, she had pointedly asked Esther to take Dilys for a walk around the village. ‘It will save Dina a job later and it will be lovely for you to see the village again,’ Esther had given her shrewd look, but had left without complaint. She had, however, when they were alone in the hallway together, asked in a hushed tone what Dina meant when she said Rose knew about the evil in the colliery.
‘I’ll tell you, Esther. I just need to get my thoughts in order first,’ Betty had promised as she ushered the girl out of the door into thick air that crackled with the promise of thunder.
The sparkling, steaming dishes were stacked on the draining board. Betty looked for a tea towel but could not find one and momentarily felt lost, adrift. Thoughts and memories were coming quickly now. Unfettered, they scudded through her mind like storm-clouds rolling across a swirling sea. She felt quite breathless. A boom of thunder shook the house. Betty could feel its vengeful energy creeping through the cold stone floor, coursing through her body. She sat down. She relented. It had won. She would remember. All of it. She would remember.
Cinderella. That’s what Betty’s nickname had been in the colliery when she was first married. Arthur had not only gained a wife, it appeared that his mother and Rose had gained a servant. Whatever jobs Betty did in her own house in Seventh Street, from changing beds to washing windows, whatever meals she cooked, she was expected to do, without complaint, at Twelfth Street. Dina had married Peregrine and had moved to the countryside and given birth to twins. Bill had already moved to the village with Winnie and had his own family. Arthur was working down the pit, long shifts, backbreaking work and Rose had her evening job at the Rialto. By some unspoken edict, decided at a family meeting she had not been invited to, it appeared that Betty had been elected to the role of general dogsbody. Oh, Arthur was sympathetic and Betty made it very clear that once they had children of their own, the situation would most certainly have to change. She tried not to be resentful, not to let hatred or bitterness into her heart, but sometimes the situation was more than she could bear.
One afternoon when sweeping and swilling out the back yard at Twelfth Street, Rose had appeared, dressed for her shift at the cinema. Rose would never usually dream of leaving home through the back door, but she had been into town that day and had bought a new black crepe dress and high-heeled shoes in a rich, redcurrant suede. Rose loved an audience and had obviously expected Betty to coo and swoon over her new outfit. Betty heard the back-door open and shut. She heard the frivolous tottering of heels on concrete. Out of the corner of her eye she even caught an opulent flash of redcurrant suede against the drab grey yard. She did not turn to look at Rose. She set the yard brush against the wall and then she calmly picked up the bucket of grimy, gritty water and sloshed it over her preening sister-in-law's feet.
‘Oh goodness! I did not see you there, Rose. I am so sorry. Oh, your lovely shoes. Are they ruined, do you think?’
That night in bed, she had confessed all to Arthur. ‘I don’t know what came over me. The devil took me. I am so ashamed, Arthur.’
Arthur roared with laughter. ‘Betsy, oh my Betsy. You are one in a million. Redcurrant suede. Serves Her Majesty right.’
In the vicarage kitchen, Betty smiled to herself. Maybe she hadn’t always been the meek little church mouse people had thought. She looked out of the window at the darkening day. Thunder drunkenly cracked and roared. Jagged forks of silent silver lightening darted like accusing fingers in an atomic sky. And yet no rain fell. The sultry heat of the day was spent. A metallic chill had seeped into the vicarage. Betty hoped Esther and Dilys were hurrying home, that they’d make it before the downpour began. She made herself a cup of tea and wrapped her hands around its nurturing warmth. Another memory was jostling its way to the forefront of her mind, crying for attention like a needful child.
The mouse that roared?
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