by Guy Sheppard
‘I have a bad feeling about it,’ she called after him. ‘I don’t think we should be here. It doesn’t seem right, somehow.’
There. She had voiced it. That misgiving. That unease – which came of not being loved, only wanted.
TWENTY-FOUR
Thibaut squinted at the black wall of trees that crowded the roadside this far into the Forest – he pressed his face to the narrow gap in the lorry’s wooden slats for the best possible view as it chugged along. Each night he tried to memorise the route they took, but all signposts had been painted out or removed to thwart German spies.
He was bumping about in a box sixteen feet wide and six high whose rear ramp had been bolted shut and its canvas roof securely tied down. Only today had he noticed some faded letters on the driver’s door that read G.H. MONK & Co. Ltd. Cattle & Meat Salesmen, CITY MEAT MARKET, BIRMINGHAM. That had to be animal dung that he could smell on the floor – he was being driven along like a beast for slaughter.
His fellow workers did what he did and tried not to slide about whenever the driver cornered too sharply on the narrow road.
Silence ruled.
Like a heaviness in the air.
It was imperative not to give into the mind-numbing atmosphere – despondent, doleful, drowsy. Muscles ached. Joints protested. So abraded by copper wire were his fingers after his long day spent working in the factory that the tips of his thumbs had split apart. The deep clefts of hardened skin did not bleed, but neither did they heal. Just to touch anything was agony.
Kevin Devaney’s response had been predicable.
‘Should I worry? Not really. I don’t give a shit about your hands, Monsieur Thibaut.’
‘But I can’t work properly.’
‘Don’t tell me you want gloves?’
‘Yes, please. We all do. Nora has a rash on her palm.’
‘Fuck you, Frenchman. Who do you think you are?’
It was a question he asked himself every day. Fact was, they were all phantasms of themselves in this cattle truck.
Gradually, though, his mind filled with more pleasant tales from his childhood. Was it not in the similarly great Brecilien Forest in north-west Brittany that a fearsome Dame Blanche lived? This white lady loitered in narrow ravines or on flimsy bridges. There, any traveller who refused to dance with her was tormented by hobgoblins who took the shape of a dog or spotted pig. She guarded the great oaks ferociously and would do you many a courtesy before vanishing, but only if you came in peace.
His parched lips broke into a smile. Even now he fancied that the Dame Blanche’s spirit dwelt here among these mighty trees wreathed in white mist. Such a comely creature went in fear of hunters – she destroyed their traps, filled up their pits and ripped their nets to pieces. As much human as evil spirit in appearance, she was keeper and defender of this deeply wild place, who ate leaves with deer and slaked her thirst at ponds. It was her task to withstand men’s reckless destruction, misunderstandings and abuse of Nature. Perhaps every great forest needed a White Lady and her wild hog.
‘Thibaut, reveille-toi, putain!’
He raised his head and opened his eyes. It was Raoul, his fellow Frenchman.
‘We there already?’
‘Hurry up. You know how Devaney likes to bully the last one off the truck. Don’t let it be you.’
‘Sorry, I was dreaming.’
‘What of?’
‘I was back home telling a bedtime story to my sister.’
‘Oh yeah, which one?’
‘I was remembering the legendary Forest of Broceliande.’
‘That’s typical Thibaut.’
‘In French legend it’s considered to be the home of King Arthur.’
‘That won’t do you much good in this shithole.’
‘We can’t just forget everything we love.’
‘I’m trying to be practical here. Face reality.’
‘And me?’
‘You, not so much.’
*
The winter chill hit hard the minute they walked down the ramp at the back of the lorry. Thank goodness Raoul had woken him in time, thought Thibaut. Any worker who failed to fall into line was liable to feel the full force of a stock prod wielded by Kevin Devaney or his enforcer Danny Boles.
A gap-toothed cashier, who went by the name of Gordon Bates, stood ready to pay everyone their wages by the weak glow of a lantern.
Thibaut turned up his jacket collar and blew on his cold fingers as he moved up the queue.
‘Hey, Mr Devaney, when do we get some decent clothes?’
‘Shut up, Frenchman.’
‘But it’s freezing.’
‘It really isn’t.’
Cold mud chilled Thibaut’s feet. Were these not the same leather army boots in which he had come to England three years ago? Both had large holes in their soles now. What’s the betting his toes were turning blue? He saw Bates thrust a crinkly red banknote into his hand. The note was recognisable money all right, but it made little sense for all that.
‘Merde! Is this what I get for a week’s work?’
Bates’s face turned ugly. His eyes blazed with self-justified outrage; his cheeks reddened. He stole a look at Devaney who shot a look back. In that brief exchange there was a rapid understanding.
‘Can’t believe you just said that, Frenchman.’
Thibaut waved the single banknote in the air.
‘But it’s nothing.’
Bates scowled.
‘My condolences.’
‘I deserve more. We all do.’
‘I wish that were the case.’
‘You treat us like slaves.’
‘Good, that’s settled then.’
‘Fuck you, Bates, I quit.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘I didn’t risk my life to come to England to live in squalor.’
‘I’m really unhappy for you.’
‘I want to work hard for a better future and I can’t do that on ten shillings a week.’
‘You get free bed and board, don’t you?’
‘Is this note even legal? Everyone else has the new mauve and grey money to deter counterfeiters.’
‘Always something!’
‘….’
Next minute a heavy blow caught Thibaut squarely between the shoulder blades. He didn’t know what it was precisely, only that Devaney had walked towards a shovel a moment ago. The ring of metal on bone was like a peal of bells and pile-driver all rolled into one. His eyeballs nearly shot out of his skull. Arms and legs shook. His tongue trembled. Teeth ached. Trees, people and caravans took off round him in a strange tornado in which he whirled. Into his ears came an awful bleat. It was the sound of his own wavering cry.
He was on his knees before a second blow struck the back of his head.
After that, total blackness and stillness.
*
Where he was he hardly knew. Something rancid tasted on his swollen tongue – it had to be the stifling atmosphere. Air he breathed was musty, old, foul. The smell of sweaty, stale bodies hit his nostrils. It was the rank stench of too many men cooped up in the confines of a former Gypsy van, Thibaut realised, as he opened his eyes very slowly.
More worryingly still, it was broad daylight. How was that even possible? His spine had grown horribly stiff, too stiff to stand with ease or even at all, during the night. Something had knocked the stuffing out of him. He felt as weak as a kitten.
And his head hurt like hell.
Somebody must have dragged him to this stinking mattress on the floor?
His eyes were all double vision.
No sign of the other men with whom he shared this squalid home.
It took all his strength to work his way along the length of the cluttered caravan to a bowl where he dipped his face in cold water. His face came level with the trailer’s grubby window as he rocked back on his heels. A white blur showed up among nearby oaks and b
eeches – it was creeping along amidst brown bracken. He opened the window’s curtains wider and it faded – drew them back again and it reappeared.
‘The hell!’ he thought and gazed harder at the surrounding Forest.
But the spectral presence did not re-emerge.
Instead Nora skipped frozen puddles on her way to his door.
‘You awake yet, Thibaut?’
‘Where is everyone?’
‘They’ve gone to work.’
‘What about me?’
‘No one could wake you. You just rolled your eyes and mumbled. Someone said you have concussion.’
‘My head feels fit to explode and I’m seeing things. It was the same when a shell exploded near me at Dunkirk. I can’t hear very well in one ear.’
‘That’s where he hit you.’
‘Who did?’
‘That bastard foreman. When you answered him back he felled you with his shovel.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Sit down, I’ve torn a strip off a shirt for a bandage.’
‘….’
To his surprise Nora pushed him about quite roughly.
‘Sit down, I said. I need to wash your wound.’
‘Why you?’
‘I’ve been told to keep an eye on you, stupid.’
It was another few steps before they made it as far as the caravan’s sofa, which in reality doubled as a bed.
‘Ouch. Be careful.’
‘Really Thibaut? Don’t be such a child.’
‘I can do it myself.’
‘But you’re still bloody.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘This will only take a moment.’
‘So you say.’
Each dab of her hand struck his scalp carefully but firmly. She was right: his matted hair was an awful mess of mud and gore, but that was not all that bothered him. It was clear as soon as he yielded to her touch that his heart missed a beat. His arms and legs trembled. A fluttering bird took wing in his chest – he was confused, agitated and excited all in one. Most of all he felt humiliated at the hands of his enemy Devaney.
Nora bustled about but was otherwise completely calm.
‘Poor Thibaut. How can this happen?’
‘I blame myself. I stepped out of line.’
‘Next time be more careful what you say.’
‘I wish I’d never left France.’
‘You mustn’t talk like that. You would have been killed had you stayed.’
‘I could have been killed last night.’
‘There’s no going back now.’
‘No?’
‘Not for me, either.’
Nora’s long dark hair and brilliant blue eyes continued to unnerve Thibaut. Their proximity was no less alarming than the pain she inflicted on him.
‘How bad is it?’
‘You’ll live.’
She gave him a grin, but his smile was not so bold as hers and he quickly averted his gaze again.
‘Thank you.’
‘I haven’t finished yet. Mr Devaney wants me to empty a bucket of shit from every caravan. I’ll start with yours.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘That’s not all. I have to clean his trailer until it’s spotless.’
‘Let me help you.’
‘What’ll you do? You can barely stand.’
‘I can’t let you do everything by yourself.’
‘Just like that?’
‘I can walk.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Let me try.’
Once outside the caravan, Thibaut emptied his stinking slop bucket among dead leaves at the foot of the nearest trees.
‘So tell me, Nora, how is it you ended up here?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I do.’
‘It’s not a pretty story.’
‘All the same?’
‘Well, it goes like this. I arrived in Liverpool a year ago and did what many people do, I tried to find someone to take me in. I had no money apart from the paltry sum I’d stolen from Mother Odile’s kitty in “St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home”. But the temporary work I found didn’t pay nearly enough to keep me in board and lodging. I wasn’t alone. I met a one-armed ex-soldier who worked as a caretaker in a local school, but he had to squat in churches every night because he had no home to go to.’
‘What made you move to Gloucester?’
‘One day, Mother Odile put the word out in Liverpool’s Irish community that she was pursuing a thief and child of the Devil. Suddenly I found her sitting next to me in church one Sunday. If I didn’t go back to Ireland with her she’d have me committed to a mental asylum, she said, or I’d be sent to the dreaded Magdalen Laundries for a life of never-ending drudgery washing clothes. Most of all she didn’t want me telling people what I’d suffered at her hands.’
‘But…’
‘Let me finish. There was no way I was going back to Mass at eight every morning and eating porridge for breakfast and tea. I wasn’t afraid to work hard, but I wasn’t going to polish any more floors for that bitch, so I hitched a lift on a train and came south.’
‘You’ve given her the slip ever since? Good for you.’
‘It was one thing to lock up and terrify unwed mothers like me with tales of hell and damnation, but it was quite another not to give my baby son a proper burial after he passed away in my arms. He was only six months old.’
‘You had a son?’
‘His name was Sean. He died from gastroenteritis on Christmas Day last year.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘The nuns bound him in a cloth and threw him into the old Victorian septic tank in the grounds of our home. He wasn’t the only one. Dozens of other severely malnourished and sick babies lie in those drains. Since when are nuns supposed to be experts on children, anyway? They don’t have any of their own.’
‘Honestly, I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s okay, I understand. I don’t expect you to have anything to do with me now I’ve had a child ‘on the wrong side of the blanket’.’
‘….?’
‘I still wake up at night hearing screams, whimpering and the murmur of prayer. The mother and baby home was a former workhouse. Its motto was “God Help To Those In Need”. Can you believe it?’
‘What about your parents?’
‘Family, neighbours, teachers, all turned against me. I had nowhere to go except the nuns. I was banished forever.’
Thibaut used a hose to wash out his bucket. The reek of human waste rose in a steamy vapour in the cold air, like a visible exhalation. The frost-covered Forest floor vomited it back up to the surface as he added more to the dung pile.
‘Everyone deserves a fresh start.’
Nora laughed.
‘Yet here I am, someone’s slave again. Okay, I couldn’t sleep much on the streets. Some nights I was crying, it was so cold, but I could survive. I lived for better times. I just needed a chance, not this hellhole. I took Mr Boreman at his word that he’d give me a decent job.’
They walked over to the biggest trailer on site and Thibaut waited while she unlocked its door. His heart sank. Had not Devaney said Nora was his? She clearly had favoured status to be trusted with a key. It was all coming back to him now, in detail. That quarrel last night had been about her, not a ten bob note.
‘Recently, in the factory, you asked me something.’
‘Did I?’
‘You know you did.’
Nora frowned. The neat slope of her nose, the roundness of her cheeks, the wild eyes – not to mention the lovely jet black hair – did nothing to deny her sudden look of feigned surprise.
‘It’s too soon.’
‘To help each other escape from this place? I don’t think so.’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, Thibaut, we have next to no money. It’s not as if we can walk to the
nearest train station and buy a ticket. Where would we go? It’s too dangerous for someone like me to sleep rough any more. At least here I’m not about to get raped.’
‘You sure about that? I don’t trust Devaney. He has designs on you.’
‘I’ll be okay. You’ll see.’
‘No you won’t, he’s a monster.’
‘So why doesn’t everyone else leave?’
‘Mary and Bridget are on the booze. Raoul and Nigel have been made nervous wrecks by the war. Why else do you think Devaney gives them endless black market cigarettes to keep them quiet? God knows what happened to Angela. We haven’t seen her for weeks.’
Thibaut’s voice died away as his eyes focused on the caravan’s extensive interior. Disbelief barely described it. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. Gradually he became aware of the good quality armchairs, curtains and carpets that furnished the foreman’s home. He was surely looking at the spoils of war?
‘Astonishing!’ he said, opening and closing the coal-fired stove on which their tormentor did his cooking. ‘Mr Devaney lives like a king compared to us.’
‘Just don’t ask where it all comes from.’
Thibaut peeped into a bedroom and admired its down-filled bed where its owner liked to entertain his women.
‘I’ve made up my mind. You and I are definitely leaving.’
Nora studied him hard.
‘Not until you come up with a plan.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘A plan. Do I make myself clear?’
Thibaut collected greasy newspapers and devoured a few dry chips left on a plate. At least Devaney and his floozies ate the same uninspiring food that he dished out to his workforce. His palate didn’t extend to anything else; he didn’t have the imagination.
‘It’s a relief, in a way, to know what I’m up against. First know your enemy.’
Not to be outdone, Nora sampled half a bar of milk chocolate from a shelf in the pantry.
‘Make the most of it. Devaney has gone to buy more beer and condoms from the American base not far from here. He’s taken his dog with him, but he won’t be long.’
‘What are you doing now?’
‘He keeps all documents that he confiscates from us in a lime green, Peek Frean biscuit tin. I once saw him carrying it about by its handle. This might be our only chance – we have to do it before he returns.’