All this flashed through my mind in a few seconds as Frank were kissing my neck and unbuttoning my dress. In that instant I knew – they’d been in on it together! Of course … the handkerchief, him running into the night all guilty-like …
It made me feel so sick – to be touched by a murderer! While he were down by my neck, kissing it, I took a gulp of air and shoved him so hard that he went toppling back. He twisted, trying to right himself, but there were a chest in the room, and he tripped on that. I heard his kneecap smash on the floor tiles as he fell to the ground. He didn’t know what were happening, and in a moment I were on his back, my legs wrapped round him as he tried to shake me off, and I were thumping and punching and slapping him, and riding him like he were some kind of unbroken pony.
And God, it felt good!
My screams was screeching all around me. My hair were getting in my face, but I couldn’t brush it back because my hands was too concerned with striking Frank. He were cursing as I ripped out clumps of his hair and raked my nails over his neck until it were bleeding. In all the commotion, I heard him asking what in hell’s name I were doing (there was more curse words in it than that), and I were so high on the violence, on the blood, and on the pain I were causing that I think I might have laughed.
‘Frank Adams,’ I shouted, panting and struggling. ‘Frank Adams. Murderer! Don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember the Blyths?’
I’d grown a bit weak by that point – my arms was starting to ache – so I tugged out the fork and I were ready to stab it into his neck. I were thirsty for it, to see all his blood spill out on the ground as he realised they hadn’t got away with it after all, but as I were getting the fork ready, I found myself flying, my feet off the ground.
I came down on the bed, which were probably for the best as even that felt like stone as I hit it. Something went crack, and later I realised that must have been my head against the wall because I had a huge lump there in the morning. Then Frank were hobbling towards me like a proper old gargoyle, and though there were a little blood trickling from the back of his neck onto his collar, the rest of him looked as if I’d not done anything but give him a bit of a ruffling.
He were too quick – or I were too slow – and he were on top of me before I could do a thing. His weight pressed down on the tops of my legs as he sat over me, and still I tried scratching at him. The prongs of the fork clawed close enough to his face that he jerked back in fright, and with a growl, he punched that fork right out of my hand. It skidded across the floor too far away for me to reach.
He were going to kill me. I could see it as I lay there underneath him. His face were red and shiny, and some of the veins was raised so that I could see his pulse twitching under the skin of his forehead. What a fool I’d been! Coming here with him like this with nothing but a fork and my anger and stupidity. All them years of thinking of how I’d save Ma, how I’d make it all right, how I’d put everything straight. And now I were just a weak little girl about to be murdered.
I started to cry. I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t stop it. I wanted my ma. I wanted Mrs Campbell. Hell, I would have been happy with Grandma! I wanted everything to go back to how it had been before, when Ma used to sing as she watered her pot plants in the parlour, when Pa used to kiss her and take me on his knee, when Mrs Campbell used to brush my hair and tell me how she wished she’d had a daughter like me.
I searched for the locket around my neck, held it close, and wept on it. I had my ma with me now, I tried to tell myself. I had her in that locket. And really, what were there to live for? If Frank finished me, I would be with Ma and Pa and Mrs Campbell; I’d meet them in heaven and spend eternity beside them. My tears turned from fear to longing. I went limp. I were ready for the pain that there surely must be in dying.
But Frank just sat on top of me, frowning. He got his breath back and wiped a bit of blood off his neck.
I were still sobbing. It were like something had broken inside me, and all of me were tumbling out. I couldn’t stop it. It kept coming and coming and coming, getting stronger, until it were strangling me. For a moment, I thought Frank had his hands about my neck, but when I touched myself there were nothing but my own skin.
I were dying.
Frank’s weight lifted off me, the mattress moved a bit, and he made me sit up. He pushed my head down between my knees and rubbed my back and told me to breathe and calm down. He stroked my hair and pressed up close to me in a nice sort of way, and I felt my lungs begin to fill.
After some full breaths, I fell back against the mattress with my head on Frank’s pillow and shut my eyes. God, I were tired! There were a soreness in my chest, and my tears slipped hotly over my face. Frank lay beside me.
‘Luella,’ he whispered, and his finger wiped some wet off my cheek. ‘I wouldn’t have known you.’
‘My ma’s dead because of what you and that whore did.’
He sighed, and I heard him rub his face, the whiskers scratching against his palm. ‘You’re not a widow, are you?’
‘She killed herself. She were in an asylum. Been in there three years.’
He cursed, but he said it so softly that it didn’t sound like it were a bad word.
‘You both made sure no one would believe a word what came out of her mouth after Pa. Not even her own ma. But she knew. She knew Pa were innocent. Want to know what she did to herself?’
He didn’t say nothing; he most likely didn’t want to know, but I were going to tell him anyway.
Three years I hadn’t spoke of that day; Grandma wouldn’t allow talk of it. It were like one of them awful family secrets except the whole of Bridgefield knew; it were this underlying thing what no one ever spoke about, but they showed their knowledge in the way they looked at you sideways or the way they chose their words too carefully.
‘She jumped into the river. The children saw her do it and thought she were going for a swim, only she never came up for air. Some man dived in for her, nearly drowned himself. She were filthy when he brought her up to Grandma’s. She were crying, saying she just wanted to be with Pa. It were like I weren’t even in the room.’
Another tear swelled and spilled over. Frank brushed it away again.
‘You did that to her,’ I said. ‘Pa were her whole life. There were no reason for her to keep living if he weren’t beside her.’
‘You think I killed Nicholas Campbell?’
‘I know you did.’ I jerked my head away from him. ‘I saw you that night running away. You was in it together, you and that Bonnie woman. I know what you did.’
‘It wasn’t me, Luella.’
‘And it weren’t my pa, neither!’
‘I know.’
I were stunned for a moment; no one had ever agreed with me about it before – except for Ma, of course.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your father didn’t kill that man.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Bonnie.’
‘But …’ I thought of the murder, of all that blood. A gruesome end. A murder done by a man, so everyone said. Women don’t kill like that; they use poisons or something more ladylike.
I thought of Bonnie, only a girl back then, not much older than me now. I thought of how prim and proper she were in her pretty dresses and fancy hats and couldn’t imagine it. Maybe she’d planned it and had Frank do it for her, but I couldn’t believe that she did it all – that he were innocent.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That’s what happened.’
‘Why did you run then?’
‘She told me to go. I’d heard her shouting and I’d gone inside and found him dead. I wasn’t going to stick around after that, even though she said she’d been defending herself.’
‘Why? Didn’t you believe her?’
‘It’s hard to believe anything that Bonnie says.’
‘I saw you two’ – I rolled over so I could look at him properly – ‘in the barn, kissing. You was lovers, wasn’t yo
u? You was in it together from the start.’
‘It depends what you mean by lovers.’
‘Don’t joke with me! You was together. You lied to Mrs Campbell about yourselves.’ He was nodding as if he didn’t care. ‘You both killed Nicholas, and you both had my pa done for it!’
‘No. Bonnie killed him. It was Bonnie, Luella, not me. I just left before anyone could point the finger my way; you’d have done the same.’
‘I would not have let an innocent man hang!’
He chuckled at this and I hit him – that stopped him laughing. He faced me square on, all serious and frightening again. ‘You were going to kill me tonight if you’d got the chance. What would that make you, Luella? You’d be worse than me.’
‘I would have put things straight. It would’ve been justice!’
‘You’d have killed the wrong person.’ He cupped my face with his hand and came a little closer. The fog in his eyes from before had lifted, and his breath seemed a little sweeter. ‘You want justice? You need to find Bonnie.’
Chapter 9
I’d never had a pain in my head like it when I woke up. It were like someone were slicing into my brain every time I moved. My body, too, were stiff. My hands was sore, as if I’d sanded my skin off. And when I slowly rolled to one side, there were a snag in my private parts.
I didn’t know where I were for a while. I didn’t understand the shape of things: the great big chest in the room, the colour of the quarry tiles, the smell of someone strange.
Sitting up, the pain got worse everywhere. I had to put my hand to my eyes because it felt as if they might burst out their sockets. My tummy were tight, and I looked for the piss pot and had to make a dash for it. My God, it didn’t half burn as it came out! It were as if I’d been fair on torn apart.
And then it came back to me.
Frank. I’d been so tired, so sad. And he weren’t my enemy after all. I were in shock. And his kisses had started to feel nice on my lips. He were gentler than what he had been before when he thought me just some widowed whore, and though I’d been scared, I didn’t stop him.
He weren’t in the room now. I peeked through the curtain. Birds fluttered not far off the glass, some of them coming to the window frame to peck off a spider. Through the bushes what offered some privacy, I could see a patch of road and a donkey cart passing by. I could hear a bit of hammering nearby too and flinched each time the metal struck.
All the world were awake.
I thought of Grandma. I’d never been away before. Each morning had always started the same. I’d have been bent over the board by now, scrubbing away, cutting off slices of soap and rubbing them into someone else’s clothes. And here I were, just lingering in nothing but my shift, as if I had nothing to be getting on with.
I dressed myself quick and crept into the rest of the house. It were more pleasant with the sunshine coming in through the back windows, and the kitchen didn’t seem quite as poky as it had done the night before. The fire were going, the kettle had boiled once already this morning by the feel of it, and I set to making two cups of tea.
It were odd, wandering round a stranger’s kitchen, seeing bits of their lives in what they had and what they didn’t. Frank had a little food here and there, some of it green with mould. He must have plenty of money if he could let food grow shrivelled. There was a few iron pots and pans and one cracked bowl. The teacups was fair on dainty for a man like him; they wouldn’t have looked out of place in a lady’s parlour during afternoon tea, though the patterns on them had started to fade, and there was little sharp chips round the rims. But the main thing that Frank’s cottage didn’t have were the female touch.
Grandma, for all her sins, had paper decorations what she’d carefully cut out of newspapers and strung across the shelves. The Queen were forever staring at me in Grandma’s cottage from above the fireplace, all toity and judging. We had rag rugs to stop the chill of the earth floor. Most of the time there was sheaths of herbs hanging off the beams and drying and making the air smell nice, and always we had an old jug sprouting flowers from the garden what we’d picked ourselves.
Frank had none of that. Everything seemed hard. If it had no purpose, you wouldn’t find it. And there were a layer of dust over everything what made you feel as if you needed a good wash.
I didn’t think about washing (I didn’t think about the dirt what were on me and inside me because if I did, I think I might’ve screamed) as I poured the tea and went in search of him. I kept close to the house, not wanting to be seen by nosy folk, and found that the hammering were coming from the smithy. I had the sudden fear that I’d walk into it and find a host of men staring back at me, so I peered round the opening, ready to run at any minute, but it were only Frank inside. He were almost black already, and his sleeves was rolled up to his elbows showing the muscles in his forearms, and I had a thought that them arms, them hands, had been all over me last night. My face felt as hot as the white metal he were striking. I watched him for a good few minutes with all these funny feelings tumbling about inside me before he put his hammer down, wiped his brow, and looked up and saw me.
‘Morning.’ He did a proper big smile what showed all his teeth and made the lines round his eyes get even longer.
I stepped inside, making sure I didn’t knock anything over or catch my dress on something, and gave him his tea. Then there were silence between us, because we was strangers to each other, after all. I watched my tea and the ripples when I blew on it.
‘Nice day,’ Frank said, going to the opening of the smithy and leaning on the wooden frame to look outside.
‘Grandma’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘Do you care?’
‘Not really.’ She’d give me a thrashing when I got back if she could catch me. And then I suddenly realised something. ‘I can’t go back. I mean, I’ll get my things, but I can’t stay there.’ The thought of my life stretching out the same as it had done these last eight years made me sick.
‘What will you do?’ He glanced over his shoulder at me, and I could have sworn he looked almost hopeful.
I just shrugged. It were too early to go talking about what were really on my mind.
‘You can stay here.’ He faced the view again, and when I didn’t reply he said, ‘At least until you know what your plans are.’
‘Thank you.’
I went over to him and I were shaking – though I’d never admit to it – as I kissed him on the cheek. I think he blushed, but it were hard to be sure, what with all the grime on his face.
‘I need to think,’ I said, and ducked under his arm to return to the house.
I passed most of the day just sitting at the kitchen table and watching the birds play outside. It seemed a nice place, Ulstone, quiet but for the coaches what came through every so often and the shouting of the seagulls. It were a good place to do some thinking, and as I were thinking, I cleaned off Ma’s locket with some vinegar and salt until the rust came off and the pewter had a bit of a shine to it.
Frank came in, and I made him tea and cut us bread and cheese for dinner, like we was some kind of married couple, until the sun had fallen out the sky and he came in for the last time. He said he went to the pub for his supper most nights but tonight he would stay in with me, and again we ate bread and what were left of a bit of hard cheese, and Frank opened a new bottle of whiskey because he’d finished the other one last night.
He watched me as we ate. If ever I caught him looking, he didn’t try to hide what he were doing; he just smiled.
‘So, you was with that Bonnie?’ I said as I were chewing my last bit of crust. He went a bit shifty at the mention of her name.
‘Still am.’
I didn’t think I’d heard him right. The bread turned stale in my mouth, and though I tried, I just couldn’t get it down, so I spat it on to my plate.
‘Not properly. I don’t love her, Luella. It’s been a long time since I’ve loved her.’
‘Then what do yo
u mean, you’re still with her?’
‘We have an … arrangement.’
I really did think I might have spewed all over the table. I had to have a little walk round the kitchen to stop myself from going for him again.
‘Calm down, love, please.’ He went to touch me as if it were just a tiff we was having: a married couple’s tiff. I flinched away from him, and taking the kettle what had been heating over the fire, I thrust it at him like it were a weapon. God knows what I’d’ve done with it, but I must have looked threatening enough because he backed off.
‘All right, all right.’ He brushed his hand over his face. ‘Let me show you.’
Well, you’d never’ve believed it if you hadn’t seen it – the amount of silver and gold and jewels and bits of porcelain what was in that trunk in the bedroom! Bursting with it, it were. Getting on for three feet deep of the stuff. I just stared at it, my mouth hanging open as Frank presented it to me.
‘For my silence,’ he said.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s all from Bonnie.’
‘Where does she get it from?’
‘Old women who thinks she’s their friend.’
As if I hadn’t been feeling sick enough! ‘Mrs Campbell?’
He nodded, and I really did curse Bonnie then. The language what flew off my tongue! My dear Mrs Campbell, bled dry by a leech like Bonnie.
‘You took this, Frank. You’re just as bad.’
He didn’t have the cheek to deny it, and I were at least grateful for that. ‘I know what I am, Luella. I was a boy who never had anything, and I won’t say no to things that I never stole in the first place if they can make my life easier. And it’s not all for me anyway. She sends it to me thinking we’ll live on it one day, that we’ll go abroad and live like kings on her thieving.’
Convenient Women Collection Page 12