The man said, ‘What about it?’
Joe sighed, then looked at Brid. She still had that frightened look on her face. He wanted to put his hand out past the man and grip hers and say, ‘Don’t worry. Just let them try anything again, just let them.’ He wanted to say things to her that would take that look off her face. It was an awful look. Perhaps the man was right. If they went in and had a swim it might make things normal again, it might make her look less frightened. ‘All right,’ he answered, ‘as you say.’
‘That’s it.’ The man got to his feet, and as he was straightening up Joe’s head came up quickly and the words tumbled out of him: ‘I can’t. Well…you see…me trunks.’ He pointed to the ground where his trunks lay, the elastic band still supporting the ripped material. Then the woman, going and picking them up, said, ‘Oh, I’ll soon fix these. I haven’t any needle and thread with me but I’ve a packet of tiny safety pins in my bag. We’ll do a botching job. Wait till we come back; we won’t be a minute.’ She turned and ran towards the top of the clearing, and the man, after one look which he divided again between Brid and Joe, ran after her.
They were alone with a matter of three feet separating them. They did not look at each other but purposely watched the man and woman running. They watched them until they had dropped over the steep bank; and they both continued to look in that direction for quite some time after the couple had disappeared. Joe would have liked to lie back and just let his body relax. It was paining again. The pain had eased off a while ago but now it was back, the skin cut on his stomach was stinging and the burn seemed worse than ever. He wished he could look at it, examine it. What if it didn’t heal and spread…He turned quickly towards Brid and said softly, ‘I’m sorry for all this.’
‘What?’ The word sounded inane. She had looked slightly stupid as she spoke it; and she said again, ‘What?’ But now it didn’t sound stupid to him, for it said, Why should he say he is sorry? Look what has happened to him.
‘It’s all because of me.’
‘Don’t take it like that. Don’t look at it like that. He would have got at me for something else.’
‘He’ll not let up. I’ll have to…I mean I won’t have to—’
He didn’t let her finish. The man had said, ‘Go right through them, don’t be diverted,’ and so he interrupted her with rather more conviction than he felt.
‘You won’t have to do anything of the sort,’ he said. ‘You mean that you’ll stop seeing me, don’t you? Well, that’s what he wants,and he won’t get that satisfaction. You’re going to go on seeing me…aren’t you?’
He really didn’t want to be bothered talking like this, not at the moment; he wanted to lie down and rest, just rest. He felt sort of weak all over, shaken, like he’d never felt even during his worst moments in the pit. In this case, the shaking wasn’t only in his body and his mind, it seemed to have gone deeper. He couldn’t quite make it out. He told himself that his head was too muzzy to think, but he said to Brid, in a voice that he tried to make masterful, ‘The man said we came here to bathe and we did, didn’t we? And that’s what we’ll do. We’ll act as if nothing had happened.’
He turned slightly away and leaned rather heavily on his elbow. My God, that was a daft thing to say, even in an effort to take that look off her face. Act as if nothing had happened. That was wishful thinking all right, for he knew that when this muzziness left his mind his thoughts would be like those that had filled him during the moments of his ordeal; things would scream at him. Questions would scream at him; life would scream at him, life peopled with fellows like Sandy Palmer. And the main question would be: why were fellows like him allowed to get away with things? Short of murder, they got by.
By twisting round and leaning towards him, Brid brought his attention back to herself. She had one leg under her, and her hands flat on the ground supported her as she leaned forward. Her face looked even whiter than it had done before; she was looking scared beyond reason and she said, ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you. There’s something you should know. It’s about…about what’s happened, connected with it, like. It’s about Sandy Palmer.’
He felt the pain of the burn lessen, he felt his whole body go cool, even take on a degree of coldness, as if he had been pushed momentarily into an icebox. She wanted to tell him something about Sandy Palmer. Had she and Sandy Palmer…? Before he could stop himself he was saying in a low and agonised voice, ‘You haven’t been with him, have you…not Palmer?’
Her arms lifting quickly from the ground arched her body as if she were about to execute a backwards somersault. ‘Me been with him! Me? No! No! Not that!’
He was out of the icebox and his body began to burn again. Nothing mattered, nothing. If that wasn’t the case, nothing mattered. He could stand anything but that, anything. He didn’t think he could have stood that, he didn’t. No, he didn’t…Aw, well…
She was saying now, ‘You see it’s like this. His father—’ Her head moved downwards, she couldn’t say it.
He put out his hand towards her. ‘What is it? I don’t mind anything.’ And he didn’t. Nothing she could tell him would shake him so long as she hadn’t been with Sandy Palmer. He said, ‘You’re frightened about something, not only this the day. What is it?’ He remembered the odd way she had spoken of Palmer only a few hours ago, but now she was talking about Sandy Palmer’s father.
She said in a whisper that he could only just hear, ‘My mother and his father—’ But she couldn’t go on, she couldn’t say, Sandy Palmer’s father is my father, I’m his half-sister; she didn’t want to admit that anything that was in Sandy Palmer was in her. At this moment, it was this thought that was terrifying her as much as anything else: that in a way she was part of Sandy Palmer, the same Sandy Palmer who had tied Joe in that way to the trees, who had stripped him naked and burnt him on…and burnt him on the…She gulped on her thoughts again and her head drooped further, and Joe’s hands squeezed hers as he said, ‘Look, Brid; it doesn’t matter to me what your mother’s done, or Palmer’s father. They are nothing. Look, it’s just us. Don’t you realise that? It’s just us.’ Things were galloping much faster than they should have done. He knew where he stood in relation to her, but nevertheless things should have been taken in stages with a sort of…well…wonder. But now the pace was being forced and there was no wonder in it.
Her head was still down, and she muttered, ‘It isn’t only that. I…must tell you—’
‘Well, here we are!’ The woman’s voice came from the brow of the slope, and when she fell forward on to the ground from a too forceful push from her husband she laughed as the things spilled out of her arms, and she called across to Brid, ‘Come and give me a hand, will you?’
Brid rose slowly to her feet. She was feeling stiff and tired and yet relieved, as if she had been saved from disaster. Yet she knew the relief to be only temporary, for Joe would have to know sooner or later.
‘All this paraphernalia,’ the man Morley said. ‘We seem to move house every weekend. The car’s like a covered wagon…There now!’ He dumped his armful of utensils and clothes almost at Joe’s feet and jocularly said to him, ‘Take on a bet? How many minutes before you get a cup of tea, eh?’
Joe did not respond to the jauntiness; he could not, but just moved aside and the man said, ‘Five minutes from now,’ and then like an agitated ant he began darting here and there, picking out things, erecting this, discarding that, while his wife smiled tolerantly at his antics as if at a child showing off.
Phyllis Morley loved her husband because she understood him. Up to a point, she guided and ruled him…but only up to a point. Her mother had said to her the night before she married, ‘If you remember that all men are little boys you’ll get along all right.’ After nursing men during the war she knew all about the little boy side of them, but it wasn’t the same little boy side as her mother and those like her prattled on about. She knew that the juvenile side was really a handicap, something that put a spoke i
nto their maturity. The side that wanted to lash out with fists when their tongues would have been more effective, the little boy side that could shy away from responsibility. At one time, the teacher had taken the load, then the mother; only then came the turn of the wife. But what happened when the little boy became the teacher and the bulwark for other little boys? A war was bound to break out. Her Len was a good man, and a good teacher…A good teacher had to like boys, and he had liked them…up till then? She couldn’t remember the exact date, but she could remember the name Sandy Palmer. It was from the time she first heard this name that Len’s nights became restless, when he would shout out in his sleep. And she had never heard him use a really heavy word until then. She did not know all the ins and outs concerning the trouble Len had had with this boy, but she did know that he was never the same from then on. His temper became brittle, his nerves taut. It was because of this that she insisted they spend every available minute of his free time in the open, walking or swimming. When it was fine, like today, they would come down to the beach before breakfast and make a day of it. Len was always better afterwards, at least for a time. She wanted to feel resentful about the intrusion of this hated name Palmer into the day, but she couldn’t, for in some peculiar way she felt that what that Palmer boy had done to this boy here had helped Len, sort of given him a form of release. Here was the little boy again. Another boy had suffered at the hands of the bully and he was no longer alone. Things weren’t so bad when shared. Although her husband did not realise it, he was, in a way, glad of what had happened to this lad. She could gauge this from the boisterousness of his manner. She did not like being possessed of this knowledge.
She hastily picked up Joe’s trunks and began effectively to pin a seam in them.
It was almost the same moment when the man with a cry of triumph said, ‘There! Water boiling. Tea mashed. What d’you think of that for smartness?’ that the woman, throwing the trunks into Joe’s lap, added, ‘And how’s that for smartness too? They look as if they are decorated with gold thread, don’t they?’
‘Thanks.’ Joe handled the trunks, and the woman said, ‘Shall we have a cup of tea before you change, or after?’
‘Oh, let’s have it now,’ said her husband.
‘Well, give it time to draw,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’ve put enough tea in to hold a knife straight up. Come on, where are those cups? D’you mind the top of the flask?’
Brid shook her head.
‘There! And with two teaspoons of sugar in it.’ The man handed the cup to Joe, then added, ‘Oh, I didn’t ask you if you took sugar, but I suppose you do.’
Joe said, ‘Thanks.’ He did not mention the fact that he never took sugar. It didn’t matter. He put his hands round the cup and held it to his mouth. It tasted good. Different from the tea he had at home, but good, and warm. Although his body was burning again, inside he felt the need of warmth, for, somehow he didn’t feel over-good.
‘Have another one?’
He handed his cup to the man, and received it from him again with another ‘Thanks,’ and they all sat drinking in silence for quite a while. Then with a sudden bound Len Morley was on his feet again. ‘Well, now!’ he said; ‘we don’t want to wait until it’s low tide, although it doesn’t matter so much down in the bay. Only it means you’ve got to go practically to the rocks before you get out of your depth. Well, what about it? Going to get changed?’
Brid rose slowly to her feet. She didn’t want to get changed, she didn’t want to bathe, but as she stood undecided the woman said, ‘There’s a good place over here. Come on.’ And she rose and walked away to the left towards a clump of bushes, and Brid followed her.
And now the man, looking down at Joe, said seriously, ‘It’ll do you good, you know. It’s funny what the sea does to you; it seems to wash away all your troubles. At least while you’re in it.’ He put out a hand and patted Joe’s shoulder. ‘Which school did you go to?’
‘Telford Road.’
‘Where are you working now?’
‘The pits.’
‘You mustn’t let what’s happened affect you too much. We must have a talk. I’m a teacher. By the way, for your information, I once taught Sandy Palmer.’ Their eyes met and held, and the man nodded. ‘I know Sandy Palmer only too well. You must come and have tea with us one night. Bring your friend.’ He looked towards where his wife and Brid had disappeared behind the bushes, and he added, ‘She’s nice. A nice girl, I should say. I’ll give you our address before we leave. And now come on, come on up.’ He helped Joe to his feet, then said, ‘I’ll leave you to find your own dressing room. Can you manage by yourself?’
‘Yes; yes, I can manage.’ Joe’s steps were rather unsteady, not drunken, but were just as if he had indulged in a few pleasurable pints. When he stood up his head felt muzzy and he shook it vigorously as he walked in the opposite direction from Brid and also towards a clump of bushes.
The patch of bush he chose screened him effectively from the clearing but only partly from the rest of the copse. It was as he pulled his shirt over his head that he heard the sound of a motorbike stopping. It arrested the movement of his arms and he pushed his head upwards through the neck again and looked out in the direction of the road, his body now stiff and erect and for a moment painless. It was a good many seconds later when he actually pulled his shirt off and his limbs relaxed and he felt the pain again, but as he dropped his trousers on to the ground he thought, If I saw one of them now, I’d kill him.
Chapter Four
Charlie Talbot had not been able to go swimming with the gang that morning because he had had to take a message to his granny in Morpeth. The ride to Morpeth and back was nothing, but once his granny opened her mouth she forgot to shut it again, and she always yapped and yapped to keep him till the last minute. He would have left right away and to hell with her, but she was always good for a few bob, even a pound or two when she was buttered up a bit, and he had done some buttering this morning. By, aye, he would say he had! He was in need of a few quid. He wanted to treat the gang to something special, Sandy and them. It was mostly Sandy he wanted to treat. He felt that if he had some money to splash about he might take the place of Ronnie or Clarky in Sandy’s affections. Sandy, he knew, held him of no account, and Ronnie and Clarky followed his example. He was a member of the gang only on sufferance. Of this he was well aware. Perhaps this was because he didn’t look tough. But he could be tough. He could make himself tough. He’d buy another knife, one of the latest, and he would bet his mother wouldn’t get her hands on that one…His mother! He moved his head impatiently on the thought of his mother. He had given her some lip before leaving the house this morning, although he had had to run for it. ‘And if you’re not back in time for your dinner, I’m not keepin’ it!’ she had yelled. His dinner. She could keep her dinner, she knew what she could do with it. He laid the bike against the bank and moved into the trees. Perhaps they hadn’t gone home yet; they might be still on the beach. Perhaps their bikes were further in the copse. Clarky had had his lamp pinched recently. There were sods who’d pinch your granny’s upper plate when she was yawning. Coo! That was a good ’un. He’d have to tell Sandy that one. As he threaded his way forward his small eyes widened and brightened as he saw the slant of a bare arm above the bushes. Coo! He was lucky; they were still here. He put his hand to the hip pocket of his tight jeans to where his wallet was bulging. What would they say when he showed them this little lot? Ten quid he had now with the three pounds he had borrowed from his granny. He stretched his nose as he thought of the word borrowed. None of them had as much as this left after they paid the instalments on their bikes and this and that. He hadn’t paid his instalment for a fortnight now. The thought of his mother came to him again, and he answered it with a movement of his shoulders as he went forward, saying almost aloud, ‘Well, let her find out, she can only shout.’ And it was as though the word was a prompt, for he shouted, ‘Sandy! I’ve made it, Sandy. You—’ He had ca
ught sight of a naked figure through a screen of bushes to the right, and it wasn’t Sandy’s. Quickly he moved his head, endeavouring to get a better view; and then his mouth fell into a long wide gape…It was a lass with nowt on.
He was about to turn his gaze questioningly towards the bushes to the left of him where he had first thought Sandy Palmer was, when he received the shock of his short and useless life as somebody hurled himself at him, and before he could even gasp a bloke was lathering into him with his fists. As he automatically hit back in a vain effort to stave off the blows he shouted all kinds of things. ‘Help! Help! Give over! What’s up? Look…Look here a minute! Give over, will you?’ And then he was rolling on the ground crying out in agony as a fist rammed into his eye. Maddened with the pain, he now tried to bring his knee up into the fella’s stomach but all he could manage was to defend his face. Then, of a sudden, the fella was wrenched off him and he lay on the ground panting and looking up through narrowed vision into a face he knew. It was Joe Lloyd, the fella that had started coming to the club and George’s and looked as if he was going soft on Brid Stevens. He was being held now by a man in a bathing costume.
The Bonny Dawn Page 9