The Bonny Dawn

by Catherine Cookson

  The tide was no longer lapping over the top of the rocks. Brid was sitting stiff and straight as she looked across the bay towards her family. There seemed to be coming over the water from them a density of feeling: all the hate, subtlety, pretence, anxiety, frustration that had existed between the two families for years came at her. Her own share of these emotions had been pretence and anxiety. Anxiety had become a recognised part of her existence. The feeling was so strong now that she wanted to retch into the water.

  Joe Lloyd swam up to her unnoticed, and when he put his hand on her knee she jumped as if his touch had burned her.

  ‘Don’t be frightened. What are you frightened about? You’ve done nothing. Come on. Come on back to them. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘No. No. I’m not going. Not now. I’m not going back, I’m not, I’m not.’

  ‘Don’t worry, don’t agitate yourself.’ It was the woman speaking. She put her hand on Brid’s shoulder and Brid turned to her swiftly as if to her mother and said, ‘They can’t make me, can they? They can’t make me.’

  ‘Nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to.’ She became concerned: the girl was terrified of something or someone, likely that Palmer individual. She looked towards the shore and she herself began to feel nervous. She wished Len would come back.

  The group on the beach waited.

  Alice Stevens said helplessly now, ‘What can we do if she won’t come?’ She was speaking to John but it was her husband who answered. ‘She can’t stay out forever, that’s a certainty, and I can wait.’

  At his words she drooped her head for a moment, then put her hand inside her coat and gripped at her breast. And then her attention was brought again to the strange man. The teacher was in the water up to his knees and was facing them. ‘What do you want her for, what has she done?’ he said. ‘Why can’t you leave her alone?’

  ‘Look here, you! This is none of your business. I don’t know who the hell you are, so keep out of it if you know what’s good for you. I’ve stood enough.’

  The teacher addressed himself solely to Tom as he answered, ‘I’d say it was my business, I’ve been thrust into it. I’ve told you. And my advice to you is leave her alone. She’s doing no harm. She’s having a swim with her boyfriend. Is there anything wrong in that?’

  The word boyfriend seemed to have an electrifying effect on Sandy Palmer, for it was at this point that he began stripping himself of his clothes, tearing them off, and his father, turning quickly and looking at him, said, ‘What are you up to?’

  Sandy was now stepping out of his trousers. He left on his short pants. His body was skinny yet appeared to be hard and wiry. He looked back at his father. ‘You want her out, don’t you? You came in a bus load to get her. Well, if she won’t come on her own, she’s got to be made to, hasn’t she? That’s all.’

  ‘Look; you stay where you are,’ John Palmer moved from the group and towards his son, and Sandy, backing from him, said fiercely, ‘You try an’ stop me—’ then under his breath, he finished, ‘you and her and him,’ and on this, he swung about and plunged into the water.

  At the first sight of Sandy Palmer stripping himself, the teacher had turned from the group and made rapidly for the rocks again. Alone, he was aware he would be no match for the Palmer hooligan, but with the lad out there, and his wife not a bad third, he would be able effectively to stop him scaring that girl to death.

  John Palmer was now standing in the water seemingly unconscious of his shoes being flooded. Then without looking at his feet he lifted his knees and, having loosened one shoe after the other, threw them back on the beach. He would have followed his son whether or not Alice Stevens had beseeched him, ‘Yes, you go, John. You go and fetch her. She won’t come for Sandy.’

  ‘Look here! If there’s anybody goin’—’ Tom Stevens moved towards the water’s edge, but the water had only covered the rims of his shoes before his wife’s scathing voice hit him and he knew that the situation had suddenly gone out of his control. Her voice even told him that he had never controlled any part of it.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody soft,’ she said; ‘you can’t swim an inch; you know you can’t.’

  The truth bent his shoulders for a moment and made him shrivel up, and he stepped back into line with her and watched his friend swimming after his son…

  Joe was still near Brid’s knees. When he stretched his toes down he could feel the bottom now; in a few minutes he would be able to stand up. With her and the woman he watched the teacher swimming towards them. He had heard the voices on the beach but could not make out what they were saying. But he saw clearly the figure of Sandy Palmer stripping off his clothes.

  When the teacher was alongside them he stood up and turned round to ascertain the distance that Palmer had yet to make before reaching them, and he drew a great gulp of air into his lungs before saying, ‘He means trouble. Now look.’ He cast his eyes up and back at his wife: ‘I don’t like the idea of us being stuck up there. The tide’s going down fast and if we can stand on our feet we’ll be able to manage him better. Come on.’ He held out his hand towards Brid. ‘Don’t be frightened. We won’t let him get near you. I don’t know what all this is about. Have you done something or other? Been up to something?’

  She shook her head swiftly, and then said, ‘Me?…Me? No. Nothing. I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, come down.’

  As his wife was slipping down from the rock into the water, he put up his hand towards Brid’s arm while Joe’s hand went out to take her other arm; but she pulled back quickly from them, saying, ‘No! I’m not going. I’m not going. I’m not going back while they’re there. I tell you I’m not.’

  ‘But you can’t stay here all the time.’ It was Joe speaking. He coaxed now, ‘Look, Sandy Palmer can’t touch us. There are other people there. He wouldn’t dare. And anyway he’s not got me alone now, the shoe’s on the other foot. Just let him try anything. Come on, come on down before he gets here.’

  She pulled her feet up from out of the water and under her, and edged further back on the flat piece of rock; and the teacher, speaking now with a touch of irritation and even anger in his voice, said, ‘Look, don’t be foolish. Come down off there.’ He even made to clamber up on the rock, when the grip of his wife’s hand on his arm turned him about and he followed the direction of her eyes to where Sandy Palmer was changing his course and was making for the rocks to the side of them. And as they watched him they knew his intention. Brid was on the rocks and that was where he was going. He had only to clamber up further along and if his feet could withstand the jagged edges he would presently be in an advantageous position. With this thought in both their minds, Joe and the schoolteacher immediately pulled themselves up beside Brid, although the woman remained in the water.

  When Sandy Palmer stood balancing himself on the sloping surface of rocks, he addressed himself to Brid, shouting as if she were miles away, ‘Well, are you coming back, or do I have to fetch you?’ She did not answer, but, scrambling to her feet, she stood up between Joe and the teacher, and it was Joe who answered for her. ‘Come and try and get her.’ A pause followed this, and then Joe added, ‘She doesn’t want to come out and if she doesn’t want to come out she’s not comin’! You understand?’ Joe was bending forward, his teeth bared. There was an overwhelming desire in him to bridge the distance with a leap, for he was feeling Palmer’s breath on his face once again and seeing the cigarette sticking to the skin of his lower lip. The burn under his trunks began to smart furiously.

  Sandy Palmer stared back at Joe and his words were carried on the dark gleam of his eyes. ‘I’ll deal with you after. In the meantime, shut your gob if you know what’s good for you. Haven’t you had enough?’

  ‘Get down off there!’

  The voice from the water startled them all except the woman, and they looked to where John Palmer was standing at the foot of the rocks, his feet on the sand and his head well above the
water now.

  ‘You keep out of this; it’s none of your business. I’ve told you.’ Sandy Palmer was bending towards his father, and they stared at each other for a moment before he added, ‘Aye, but I suppose you would say it was your business. But you’ve left it a bit late, eh? What d’you think? You haven’t had the guts to tell her…well, I’m goin’ to tell her.’

  ‘Come down out of that.’ John Palmer’s voice sounded steady, even untroubled, so untroubled that, under the circumstances, it was more frightening. For answer Sandy spat into the water, then moved towards Brid and the two men flanking her. So steady was his approach that he could have been walking on a flat surface, and his unhesitating advance caused a spasm of fear in both Joe and the teacher. Sandy Palmer was a bully, a coward at heart, and yet the teacher recognised in some inscrutable way that he was now being driven by a force of which bravery was the weakest element. Nothing could stop him from coming at them and getting his hands on this girl.

  Sandy Palmer stopped when he was just over a yard from them, and his father’s voice beat at him now as he made ready to spring. ‘Sandy! D’you hear me?…Sandy!’ As John Palmer pulled himself onto his knees on the rocks just to the side of the teacher he almost fell back into the water again, for Brid let rip a scream. The next moment she had jumped backwards. It was like a child doing hopscotch, and her legs meeting with John’s head as he made to rise sent her sprawling. Within a split second and another scream she was in the frothing water on the ocean side of the rocks.

  The tide all the time had been gushing, rushing and hissing through the crevices. The surface of the water behind the rocks was bubbling and churning and creating a froth. They knelt on the rocks and strained and reached out to her, but when she went whirling and dizzying from them Joe stood up, then dived. But there was no accountable period of time between his outstretched arms hitting the water and those of Sandy Palmer.

  Joe had hold of Brid. One minute he was seeing the white faces capping the black rocks and the next minute the far horizon was bobbing before his eyes. They went twisting and turning time and again before his efforts brought them anywhere near the rocks. He wasn’t conscious of Sandy Palmer being in the water until the hands came down from the rocks and grabbed at Brid. It was when he was relieved of her weight that the hand clutched his ribs, and he was spun round and down. For one terrifying moment all the churning, boiling water in the sea seemed to be racing down his throat, and when, spluttering and coughing, he slit the surface he could see nothing for the salt in his eyes. But he knew that Sandy Palmer was near him. He thrashed at the swirling water, and as his vision cleared and he saw the rocks before him he felt the grab again, at his leg this time. As he twirled and twisted and kicked out there was a fearsome screeching terror ripping through him in all directions. Sandy Palmer was trying to drown him. He came up again, and now he was quite near the rocks and there were hands outstretched to him, and he grabbed at them and caught them. But the hold was on his legs once more, like being in the grip of a revolving steel hawser. His body was being stretched again. It was like torture, just as it had been when he was tied to the trees. This was his lot. This was the end. Palmer was going to make sure of him…Oh, Christ!…An almost insufferable agony went through his brain as his hair was gripped and his scalp pulled upwards. There were nails digging into his shoulders; there were hands around his throat. His face was close to the rock and he was being torn in two. Then the steel girder snapped and he was free, and his body was catapulted up the face of the rock and he was lying gasping and panting and spluttering on top of the teacher and his wife.

  John Palmer was still kneeling on the rocks. He was breathing hard as if he himself was actually battling with the current. When he saw his son’s head appear amid the froth, the words, like a prayer, were wrenched from the depth of his bowels and he cried, ‘Oh God, if only he would drown.’ But it was a futile prayer, for his son could swim like a fish. What was more, he had always been able to stay under water for long periods. Hadn’t they just witnessed what he could do under water? He had stayed down long enough to attempt to pull another lad to his death. No-one would ever have any proof. Even this teacher fellow and his wife could not say that it was his son’s hand that had held the lad down. They could think as much, and surmise as much, but only he would know. For was it not he himself who had first introduced him to this water game, diving under him and tweaking his toes? Sandy was about seven at the time. When he was ten he could turn the tables effectively and haul him under, as big as he was.

  Sandy was yards out now from the rocks. Strong swimmer that he was, the submersion under such conditions had taken it out of him. He made for the rocks again, swimming hard against the pull of the water, and when he was within a couple of breaststrokes from them he looked up to see his father staring down at him, and he twisted into a position of treading water. Even in this turbulent spray he had the control to do that. It was only for a flashing second that he saw the look in his father’s eyes, but it was long enough to tell him there were no secrets of any kind between them any more.

  The feeling that John Palmer had for his son at this moment went beyond hate and horror. It went beyond self-analysis. What this boy possessed was what he had put into him. Not in a moment of passion—he could in a way have understood it then—but in a duty-filled moment, a Friday night habit. That fact at least should have bred some sort of ordinariness, should have bred a boy cut out to a decent pattern. Bred out of duty, and without passion, and brought up respectably. Nor had he known hardship or want, the two spurs that made men different, that created so many different urges. Sandy had known none of these things and yet he was different, frighteningly different. Scaringly different. Repulsively different. Hatefully different.

  John Palmer was oblivious now to the turmoil on the rock. The commotion going on to the side of him seemed to be of no concern to him. He stared at his son, who was now making to swim with the current and towards his right, where the rocks were more easy of access. His gaze followed him. Without moving his body he kept his eyes on him. He knew what he was going to do once he had him up on top. He felt his fingers moving into a fist. He could already feel the shock going through his system with the contact of his knuckles between his son’s eyes, and that would only be the beginning. Although he was aware that he could never knock out of his son what was in him, he knew he would have to make a show of trying. He saw that he was now about fifteen feet away to the side of him, and not more than two yards away from the rocks. One minute he was watching him swimming, the next he was watching him bobbing and splashing and thrashing with his arms. Then he saw him spin round. It was as if someone had got hold of him and was twisting his body into a corkscrew. He uttered a sound that was like the screech of a terrified animal. It was cut off abruptly, smothered in the twisting.

  When John Palmer saw his son twist again in that odd way he sprang up from his knees and jumped along from the top of one rock to the other until he was opposite him. He saw him spin again, helplessly now, and he flung himself flat on the rock into a position from where he could stretch out his hands to him. There was a split second when his long arm could have reached the flailing arms of the boy, but it passed. His fingers seemed locked in the crevices of the rocks below his chest. He remained motionless, as he watched Sandy’s body being whirled away over the gut to the quicksands beyond.

  When he heard the groan to the side of him he knew it came from the teacher fellow, and he dropped his face forward until his chin touched the rock, and he did not lift it even when the man yelled at him, ‘Can’t you do something? Look, I’ll go in, hang on to me.’

  Then John Palmer’s fingers were released from the rock and he grabbed at the region of the man’s ribs, then worked them upwards to his arm and gripped it. And when he spoke there was froth around his mouth. ‘It’s no use, it’s…it’s the undercurrent; you’d only be sucked in.’

  ‘God Almighty!’ The teacher had had a final glimpse of the face of the
boy who had given him the name of Farty Morley. It was a terrified face. White, bleached, horrible, already without flesh. It showed for one second longer and then was gone. There had been no shouting or crying. The fear that Sandy Palmer had instilled into others had turned on him and he had gone under, paralysed by his own weapon.

  ‘Oh God. Oh God Almighty!’ The teacher forgot that he hated Sandy Palmer; he could only think of him being sucked down by the undercurrent. And again he said, ‘Oh God. Oh God,’ and the sound of his voice seemed to echo across the water. As he looked at the sun almost blinding him with its reflection on the waves, he thought, it can’t be, it can’t be. The whole thing, the whole day, had taken on an atmosphere of nightmare, and it wasn’t until the man at his feet groaned that this feeling was dispelled.

  John Palmer was standing now and looking into the frothing surface of the water. There was no hole left to show that his son had passed through that surface…And the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation. Well, there would be no chance of a third or fourth generation through Sandy, he had made sure of that. A thought hit him with the shock of a bullet in the chest: he could have saved him, he could, he could. But he had let him drown. The rising panic in him was quelled by a steadying voice which said, Better so, better so. He was no good. He would have done for her; one way or the other he would have done for her. I’ve always known that, he thought. He brought his head slowly round and looked along the jagged pinnacle of rocks. He could see the lad lying flat on his face and the woman next to him, and she had her arms about Brid and Brid was yelling. His daughter was yelling and struggling. He brought his gaze back to the strange man who was looking at him, his face convulsed with pity, and as he was about to speak, John Palmer put out his hand and said, ‘Say nothing…not now. Say nothing.’