He thought he heard her murmur something that sounded very much like, ‘young windsnapper’, but she submitted to his examination without further protest, which in itself told him the old lady must be feeling pretty ill.
Rodney’s brow was creased when he had finished, and when she looked at him and said, ‘Well? I ain’t dead yet, am I?’ it was on the tip of his tongue to bite back, ‘But not for the want of trying,’ before he restrained himself. She was old and she was desperately ill, and she didn’t need him to tell her she had been silly, he thought compassionately.
There was nothing immediately pressing back at the practice, evening surgery still being two hours away, so he sat down and continued to chat with the old lady, knowing it would accomplish more for her general wellbeing than any prescription he could write.
He rose some time later when he heard her son-in-law return from his job as a clicker in one of the local boot and shoe factories, satisfied the old lady was looking better. He was going to have to have a word with Lena’s daughter and son-in-law, much as he disliked the idea, but the old lady was beginning to fail fast and it was only fair to prepare them in some small way for her demise.
He had enjoyed the hour sitting quietly by the glowing fire as much as his patient, he thought now, as he walked through to the hall, and of the two of them it had been a toss-up who needed it most. He had to sort himself out, he couldn’t go on like this, but what could he do? Richard needed him. Certainly, at the moment, Richard needed him. In fact he thought his brother might go mad if he didn’t have him to converse with in the evenings, and as long as they kept off the subject of the war, he could talk as much as Richard wanted him to.
The war . . . He shut his mind from the horror lurking just at the perimeter of his consciousness. The army psychiatrist had told him it would get better in time, that he would be able to let himself remember, bit by bit, and deal with the memories one by one, until the hatred and bitterness were slowly expunged. But then that psychiatrist hadn’t been in the Burma prisoner-of-war camp for two years.
But he was getting better. He knew, deep down, he was getting better. It was mind over matter most of the time, controlling his thoughts and emotions.
He tapped on the living-room door before opening it, and had just poked his head round to say, ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you both before I go?’ when there was a knock at the front door.
‘You tell Bert, Doctor, an’ I’ll be back in a tick.’ Meg, Lena’s daughter, had ushered him in, and herself out, and shut the living-room door behind her, before he had time to say any more.
By the time Rodney had finished gently explaining the situation to Meg’s husband he could tell the little man was upset, so when Mr Cole leant forward and said, ‘She’d ’ave bin a goner months ago if it weren’t for you, Doctor. Thinks the world of you, she does, Meg an’ all,’ he was touched.
When he opened the door into the hall again Rodney was still contemplating the effect her mother’s impending passing would have on Meg, and as he stepped through the doorway his surprise at hearing his name spoken - and in a voice that was definitely not Meg Cole’s - brought his eyes narrowing as he peered into the dim exterior. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t quite . . . ?’
And then the years dropped away, and he was back in Sunderland again before the war, staring into the delicately beautiful face he remembered so well which was the same and yet strangely different.
The child had grown into a woman . . .
Chapter Nine
‘Don’t give me that. Now, don’t give me that, lass. I might be in me dotage but I’m not that far gone. You walked into a door indeed!’
‘I did, Maggie.’
‘Never! Never, lass.’ In the nine weeks since Sarah had been down south, Maggie had never longed for her more, and the thought of the girl she loved like her own child prompted her to say, ‘What do you think Sarah is going to say when she sees you, eh? She never liked him, did she, an’ by gum she’s been proved right. The swine. It’s one thing to make allowances for the way he talks to you, like you’re a bit of muck, but if he’s started knockin’ you about—’
‘He hasn’t. He . . . he hasn’t, Maggie.’
‘An’ you carryin’ his bairn an’ all. Me an’ Florrie were wonderin’ why you haven’t been in the last day or two, an’ now I know. I dare say if Sarah hadn’t been comin’ for the weekend you’d have stayed clear until that had gone altogether, eh?’ She gestured at the bruise staining one side of Rebecca’s face which had also partially closed one eye. ‘There’s no excuse for a man hittin’ a lass, not in my book. What did you do?’
‘I didn’t—’ Rebecca caught Maggie’s glare and paused, gulping deep in her throat before she said, ‘I was late with his dinner.’
‘Late with his—Saints alive, I’ve heard it all now. By, I have an’ all.’ And then, as Rebecca’s plain little face crumpled, Maggie pulled her towards her bulk saying, ‘Aw, lass, lass, don’t take on so. You know me, mouth as big as a Sunderland tram.’
‘Oh, Maggie.’ The tears were streaming down Rebecca’s face, and after a minute Maggie led her to the worn leather couch that, together with two upholstered chairs, a small occasional table and a battered sideboard, comprised the room’s furniture. There was no linoleum on the floor, not even one clippy mat, but the thick, dark red curtains at the window - Florrie’s latest acquisition - and the blazing coal fire in the blackleaded fireplace, made the room cosy.
Maggie wouldn’t have cared if it was cosy or not; it was enough for her that for the last three years or so she had had a place of her own again, after all the years of being dependent on Hatfield Home. The fact that she and Florrie were renting the downstairs of the house, with a family of four occupying the upstairs and sharing the kitchen, didn’t bother her at all. Thanks to Florrie she was ending her days without being answerable to anyone.
Who’d have thought it? Maggie asked herself now, pressing Rebecca gently down onto the couch and then sitting at the side of her and taking the sobbing girl in her arms again. Who would have thought ten years ago that she and Florrie would have hit it off like they had? But something had broken in Florrie that time when Sarah had nearly died. Maggie nodded in agreement to her thoughts over Rebecca’s dark head. Aye, and after Florrie had seen the bairn in the hospital, Sarah had had Florrie in the palm of her hand, right enough. If she had to say who loved the lass more - her or Florrie - she’d have a job.
And this one here was like a daughter too, but a worry. Aye, Rebecca was a worry. She had none of Sarah’s fighting spirit, that was the trouble, and if anyone needed a bit of backbone in dealing with their man, Rebecca did.
The thought prompted her to say, ‘Lass, you don’t have to put up with this, now then.’ Rebecca shook her head slowly, and Maggie moved her back a fraction and looked into the tearstained face before she said, ‘Was this the first time? That he’d gone so far as to hit you?’
‘He . . . he doesn’t make a habit of it.’
‘So in other words it weren’t the first time then?’ Maggie shook her head slowly before she said, her voice soft, ‘Oh, Rebecca, lass. Why didn’t you tell me afore now?’
‘What good would it do, Maggie? It won’t’ - a hiccuping sob checked the words before she continued - ‘it won’t change anything. He’s my husband.’
‘Aye, lass, just so, he’s your husband, but that don’t mean you don’t have no rights, now does it? Get it into your head, Rebecca, that you’re as good as Willie Dalton any day. A darn sight too good for that scum if the truth be known.’
‘Oh, Maggie . . .’
‘Now don’t “oh, Maggie” me. I’m tellin’ you, you’re as good as him.’ Maggie’s voice was deep and guttural. Good as him? She was worth a hundred of that dockside scum. There he was, barely twenty-five, and with a beer belly on him the like of which she hadn’t seen in many a long day. A big bag of nowt, that was Willie Dalton. Why the lass had married him she’d never know.
‘Maggie, don’t tell Sarah, will you?’
‘Don’t tell Sarah?’ In contrast to a moment before Maggie’s voice was high. ‘You don’t think that story of walkin’ into a door would fool Sarah, do you? She’ll cotton on the minute she sets eyes on you, lass.’
‘I’ll . . . I’ll stay away this weekend then.’
‘An’ have her round your place? If his lordship should happen to come home she’ll likely do for him.’
‘You could say I was ill or something, couldn’t you?’
‘Aye, I could. I could, lass, but such is Sarah’s feelin’ for you that she’d be round all the quicker if I did. No, just let things take their course, that’s all you can do.’
Let things take their course. Rebecca stared back at the woman who, along with Sarah and Florrie, constituted the nearest she had ever known to a family. Her own mother had died within weeks of giving birth to her, and ten months later, when her father had married again, she’d been placed at Hatfield. But then she’d had Sarah, and through Sarah, Maggie, and then Florrie. She wished she lived with them now, here, oh, she did. These two rooms seemed like paradise to her, but if she said that they’d all think she’d gone barmy. It wasn’t many round these parts who had what she did - her own place, and furnished too. Willie’s da had been a dockside foreman for a good few years before he was killed in that accident, and he’d got his place round nice. The three-up, three-down was right bonny - that’s what she’d thought when she’d first seen it.
‘Did he try it on afore his mam died?’
‘What?’
‘Willie. Did he knock you about afore old Ma Dalton died?’
‘No, no he didn’t.’ And he hadn’t, but with his mother’s passing, nine or ten months ago now, Willie had changed. No, not changed, she corrected silently. She had already known there was something there under his skin, waiting to break out - like those great boils he had all over his back. But never in her worst nightmare had she guessed at the sickness, the need to hurt, that drove him. With his mam living with them, and her a right old tartar herself, he hadn’t dared to let go. But he’d made up for it once she’d gone. Rebecca shut her eyes for a split second as her stomach quivered. How he’d made up for it.
‘No, I couldn’t see the old lady standin’ by an’ allowin’ that. Used to rule Willie an’ his da with a rod of iron, she did. She married beneath herself you see, when she took Bill Dalton, her da bein’ high up at the docks. It was her that got Bill set on as foreman, or her da any rate. Aye, everyone knew. But Bill was a good-lookin’ bloke in them days an’ he had a way with him; hers wasn’t the only head that turned when Bill Dalton walked by.’
She knew what Maggie was thinking, knew it as clearly as if the old woman had spoken it out loud. Bill Dalton was one thing, but his son?
How could she even begin to explain how it had been, let alone how it was now? She looked at people like Maggie and Florrie, the neighbours, ordinary people she met in the shops or down in the laundry, and she remembered when she’d been like them. But now she was someone else, someone she didn’t like and didn’t want to be - consumed by fear and panic most of the time, and guilt. Aye, guilt. He made her feel as though she had failed him in some way.
It was no accident that she hadn’t got pregnant before his mam had died; he had left her alone for months at a time before that and taken his pleasure down in the whorehouses at the docks. And she hadn’t understood it, she’d wanted him to come to her bed . . . The quivering started again as the nausea rose. But then, when his mother died and he’d stayed home at nights she’d learnt why their marriage had barely been consummated in the years before. He reached sexual satisfaction by inflicting pain, and his years in the brothels had got it down to a fine art. And now there was no one to hear her scream. Oh, oh what was she going to do? She shivered, her hand clutching her mouth, then rose swiftly to her feet and rushed to the scullery at the end of the house where she was shudderingly sick into the deep white sink, the baby, Willie’s baby, moving inside her as she retched.
‘Come on, lass, come on.’ Maggie’s touch was gentle as she wiped Rebecca’s clammy face with a piece of old towel, before helping the shivering girl back into the room they had just left and settling her in front of the blazing fire. ‘There’s plenty took the way you are with the first, but it passes, hinny, it passes.’
It passes. Rebecca turned now and faced Maggie on the couch next to her. She swallowed hard, then brought out in nothing more than a whisper, ‘I’m . . . I’m frightened, Maggie.’
‘Frightened?’ Maggie stared at the white-faced girl for a long moment before saying, her tone flat, ‘Why, Rebecca? Why, exactly, are you frightened, lass? It’s him, isn’t it? That no good husband of yours?’
‘I - I -’ She wanted to get the words out, needed to tell someone. Not all of it - there were some degradations too deep and too humiliating to put into words - but just enough for Maggie to understand. She twisted on the seat, her hands damp with sweat and fear, but the words wouldn’t come. He would kill her if she talked to anyone. He had said so and she believed him.
‘Come on, lass. You can tell old Maggie.’
But she couldn’t. Rebecca blinked twice. She knew now she couldn’t. As Maggie herself would say, she’d made her bed and she had to lie on it. With . . . with him.
‘It’s just nerves.’ She was clasping and unclasping her hands without being aware of it, and now Maggie took her fingers and held them as she answered, ‘Aye, lass, I know it’s nerves. What I want to know is what you’re scared of.’
‘The - the baby, the baby coming. Everyone says it’s painful, that you can hardly bear it.’
‘Oh, you bear it, lass, same as women have borne it from Eve’s time.’ Maggie continued to gaze at her, and then she said, very softly, ‘So you’re not going to tell me then?’
‘I . . . I did. I’m just a bit jittery, that’s all.’
That wasn’t all, not by a long chalk was it all, Maggie thought grimly. The lass had been as miserable as sin from the day she married Willie Dalton, but the last few months or so she had been . . . How had she been? She turned her head to one side, biting on her lip as she lumbered to her feet. ‘I’ll make us a nice sup of tea, lass. You sit by the fire an’ take the load off your feet for a bit.’
But even while she made the tea, the analogy that had sprung to her mind wouldn’t leave Maggie; a sick kind of anger, mixed with pain and amazement, made her clumsier than usual. There was a look in Rebecca’s eyes that reminded her of a dog her da had brought home one night when she was just a bairn. He hadn’t told them the full story, just that he had found it tied up in the back yard of the Fiddler’s Elbow where he drank most nights. But she knew the landlord of the Fiddler’s Elbow, all the bairns did, and steered well clear if they saw him coming down the street. The dog had been half crazy with fear and pain, and it had taken her da nigh on a week before it would let him touch it, and the look in its eyes - the look in its eyes was a reflection of what was staring out of Rebecca’s. ‘Oh, blessed Virgin, Mother of our Lord, let me be wrong.’ Maggie rested her elbows on the kitchen cupboard as she prayed in the way she had been taught as a child. But she wasn’t wrong, she knew she wasn’t wrong.
She straightened slowly, her mind saying, I’m too old for all this. I am, I’m too old, even as she countered with, to hell with your mortal state, what about the lass? But Sarah would be here soon. She seized on the thought, hugging it tightly to her. Aye, her lass would be here the day, and there was no one like Sarah as far as Rebecca was concerned. She had a way with her, did Sarah. There was something in the lass that drew people, especially them with troubles. Sarah would get to the bottom of what ailed Rebecca if anyone could.
Chapter Ten
Sarah, her fingers nervously smoothing imaginary creases out of the skirt of her wool dress, said to the man at her side, ‘It’s really very good of you to give me a lift all this way.’
‘Nonsense.’ Rodney didn’t look at her
as he spoke, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. ‘I’m glad of the company on a drive like this, and as I told you, I’ve people I need to see in these parts and one weekend is as good as any other as far as I’m concerned. It would have been ridiculous for you to travel all the way up to Sunderland one week, and me another, when we live within virtual spitting distance of each other.’ He did glance at her then as he smiled, a brief look which said nothing.
She had grown into a stunningly beautiful woman. The thought had been with him since he had seen her at the Coles’ house, and he had found it difficult to put her out of his mind for more than a few hours since then. He was aware he felt disturbed in her presence, but he wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it was the fact that seeing her again had brought a whole host of memories of that time before the war to the fore? A time when he had been young and idealistic and full of nationalistic fervour. He had changed since then. How he had changed . . .
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