Rebecca’s head was bowed, her short spiky lashes hiding her expression, as she muttered, ‘It’s just that . . . Willie . . .’
‘Yes? Go on.’
‘He’s . . . not normal.’
‘Not normal?’ Sarah let go of her, peering down to try and see Rebecca’s face as she repeated, ‘Not normal? You mean he’s—He likes men?’
‘Men?’ Rebecca’s head lifted now, and her eyes held something akin to surprise before they cleared. ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ she said distractedly. ‘He married me, didn’t he, and I’m expecting.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean . . .’ She couldn’t get sidetracked. ‘What is it then, if it’s not that?’
There was a pause when Rebecca’s head again lowered and then the whisper, ‘He likes doing things, unnatural things.’
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. What did she mean, unnatural? Her friend’s previous comment had revealed an innocence which had surprised Sarah, and now she found herself wondering if Rebecca, in spite of having been married for four years, understood all that was involved within the marriage bonds. But she must do. Of course she must.
‘Unnatural?’
‘He . . . he uses things, whips and ropes, and he’s made objects, horrible objects.’ Rebecca shook her head, covering her face with her hands as the tears spurted between her fingers. ‘He wants to hurt me, all the time, and sometimes he makes me—Oh, I can’t, Sarah, I can’t say any more.’
‘Oh, Rebecca, Rebecca.’
‘And all the time I’m frightened, all the time. I never know what he’s going to do next.’
They were both crying now, their arms round each other and their heads pressed close together, and it was some minutes before Sarah said, ‘You can’t stay with him. You know that, don’t you? You can’t stay with him, Rebecca.’
‘But he’s my husband.’
‘Rebecca.’ Sarah felt the muscles of her stomach tighten, and then, as the kettle began to sing, she said, ‘Look, I’ll make the tea and then we’ll talk properly, but you can’t stay with him. Is he still doing it now, even with you pregnant?’ And as Rebecca nodded once with her eyes closed, Sarah repeated, ‘You can’t stay with him.’
They drank the hot tea in silence, sitting side by side at the table, and it was after Sarah had poured them both another cup that Rebecca said, ‘He didn’t use to do things when his mother was alive. I think he was frightened she’d hear. Perhaps when the baby’s born he’ll be like he was then.’
‘Rebecca.’ Sarah stared at her, horrified. ‘You don’t believe that, now then, and if he’s doing things like . . . like that, there’s a good chance the baby won’t be born. You’ll miscarry or something. Think of your child if you won’t think of yourself. You have to get out of here. Now, today.’
‘But how can I, Sarah? He says I could never survive on my own, and he’s right, he is. I’m not like you, I haven’t got any looks and I’m not clever—’
‘Rebecca, what’s he done to you?’ Sarah’s voice was high with a mixture of anger and disbelief. ‘You don’t believe all that, you can’t, he’s been lying to you. Of course you could survive without Willie Dalton.’
‘And there’s the bairn.’
‘Now listen.’ She had leant forward, her tone urgent, but before she could say anything more a thick northern voice from the doorway brought both their heads swinging round as though connected by a single wire.
‘Well, well, well, look what the wind’s blown in.’
‘Willie.’ Rebecca’s white face blanched still further. ‘I thought you were going to the football match.’
‘Did you now? Aye, well I thought I’d be about surprisin’ me wife, especially when a little bird told me Lady Muck here was payin’ old Maggie a visit. No offence mind.’ The mean little eyes in the fat coarse face had been watching Sarah as she rose to her feet, but now they swung to Rebecca who hadn’t moved, and something in their depths made her say, ‘Sarah just called by. On the off chance.’
‘The off chance? Aye, maybe.’
‘Rebecca didn’t ask me to come if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Now how would you know what I’m a thinkin’, eh?’ Willie smiled at Sarah, revealing a set of surprisingly white, even teeth, but it was merely a stretching of his thick-lipped mouth and didn’t touch his eyes. ‘You bin commiseratin’ with her then?’
‘What?’
He had been watching her closely for her reaction, and when she started, her hand going to her throat as hot colour flooded her face, his eyes narrowed and then moved to Rebecca, who had jumped to her feet saying, ‘I - I didn’t, I didn’t, Willie. We were just talking.’
‘Commiseratin’ with her,’ he said again in a flat monotone. ‘About feelin’ under the weather with the bairn.’
‘Oh, oh I see. We didn’t get round to talking about that as it happens. I was telling Rebecca about my job and London and everything.’
‘Were you now? An’ have you finished tellin’ her about your job an’ London an’ everythin’?’ He parroted her words with a viciousness that was threatening, but the intimidation had the opposite effect on Sarah to that which he intended, and as her back straightened, her chin rose and her eyes narrowed into blue slits.
‘Willie, please. She’s only been here half an hour. Tell him, Sarah—’
‘Rebecca, this is your home too.’ The expression on Rebecca’s face stopped Sarah from continuing further, but she glanced again at Willie, her eyes cold as she said, ‘I merely called by to see Rebecca for a few minutes. I wasn’t aware that was a crime.’
‘I say who comes through that door an’ who don’t, understand?’
The squat thuggish body took a step or two towards Sarah, but she held her ground, even moving forward a pace herself as she said, ‘You don’t frighten me, Willie Dalton, you never have.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
Her cool disdainful voice and apparent unconcern seemed to take Willie aback slightly, but he recovered almost immediately, and his voice was loud as he said, ‘Think you’re above the likes of us, don’t you, eh? But you’re nothin’, nothin’. Even she’ - he gestured at Rebecca who was standing with her buttocks pressed against the table, her hands either side of her thighs as she gripped the wood - ‘even she knew who her mam an’ da were; she ain’t no bastard.’
Sarah heard Rebecca’s sudden intake of breath, but she didn’t take her eyes off the man in front of her as she said, in such a quiet tone that it took a moment or two for her words to register in the piggy eyes, ‘I might be a bastard by birth, Willie Dalton, but you’re one by nature which is far far worse. I wonder how many times your mother wished she’d had the good sense to remain childless?’
‘Why, you—’
‘Yes, what am I?’ As Willie’s raised arm hovered, Sarah stared him straight in the face, her eyes holding his and expressing none of the fear that was trembling in her stomach. ‘Or more to the point, what are you? But that’s easy, I can tell you what you are, what your mother thought you were if it comes to that. You’re nowt. A great big nowt. You always have been and you always will be.’ The northern word, scathing in its meaning, had come naturally to her lips, and now, as Willie’s drooping arm raised sharply again she cried at him, ‘You try it! Just you try it, Willie Dalton, and I’ll have you up before the bench before you can spit.’
‘Get out.’
‘Aye, I’m going.’ She was vaguely aware that in the heightened emotion of the last few minutes the cultivated veneer she had worked at over the last few years had been stripped away as though it had never been, and her northern roots were showing, but she didn’t care. ‘And Rebecca is coming with me.’
‘Sarah, I can’t.’
‘She’s me wife an’ she’s stayin’.’
‘She’s leaving with me now, and if you try and stop us you’ll regret it.’
‘Oh, aye? I’m shiverin’ in me boots.’
Sarah ignored him, walking over to Reb
ecca and putting her arm round the other woman’s sagging shoulders as she said quietly, ‘Listen to me, Rebecca. It’s not going to get better, it’s going to go on and on and you know it inside. Now go and pack a bag with everything you need while I wait here. It will be all right, I promise.’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘Which is more frightening, staying here with him or leaving with me? You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you, Rebecca. You are young, you’re going to have a child and you owe it to your baby to be strong now.’
Rebecca raised her head, the tears raining down her face as she whispered, her lips barely moving, ‘I won’t be a minute.’
‘If you’re gonna go, you can go now with me boot up your backside, you little—’
‘Don’t you dare touch her.’ Willie was at least four or five stone heavier and twice as broad as Sarah, but as she pushed Rebecca towards the door and moved to stand eye to eye with him she noticed she was slightly taller than the enraged man in front of her, and it added to her natural authority when she said, ‘She is going to walk out of here with her head held high, which is more than you could ever do.’
The tone of her voice and the content of her words seemed to check him for a moment, but only a moment, because as she brushed past him into the hall and moved to the bottom of the stairs he followed her, his neck straining out of his collarless shirt and his shoulders back. ‘I’ll see me day with you, girl, you see if I don’t.’
And now she stared him fearlessly full in the face, her lip curling as she said, ‘You can’t frighten me, Willie Dalton, so don’t waste your breath.’ And as Rebecca came stumbling down the stairs, a bulging cloth bag in her arms, Sarah reached out and took it from her before saying, ‘You’ll be hearing from her solicitors shortly,’ and then she pushed Rebecca out of the front door.
‘You’ll be hearing from her solicitors.’ There was a touch of hysteria in Rebecca’s laughter as the two of them hurried through the icy twilight towards Maggie’s. ‘Oh, Sarah, the look on his face when you said that. It’s the only time I’ve ever known Willie lost for words.’
‘He’s a bully, Rebecca, that’s what he is. He reminded me of Mary Owen back there.’
‘Mary Owen?!’ Now Rebecca almost collapsed on the ground with her mirth. ‘He’d just love that, being compared to a five-foot-nothing little piece like Mary Owen who’s no better than she should be. She’s at it now you know - the whoring, like her mam. Jane too.’
‘No, I didn’t know.’ She wasn’t interested either; all her energy was directed at keeping Rebecca upright on the pavements which were like glass underfoot, and holding on to the big carpet bag with her free arm. ‘But he does remind me of Mary, anyway. They both are nasty bits of work and they both try to make victims of people, or at least Mary used to.’ She was a victim herself now it would seem, poor thing, Sarah thought briefly. She wouldn’t have wished a life on the streets of Sunderland on any girl, even her old enemy. ‘But he’s not doing it any more, Rebecca, right?’ Sarah’s voice was heavy with meaning.
‘Oh, Sarah.’ Rebecca stopped abruptly, looking up into the darkening sky from which the first lazy fat snowflakes were beginning to fall for some moments before she shut her eyes tightly, only to open them again immediately and say, ‘I can’t believe I’m free of him, I can’t tell you what it’s been like.’
‘You don’t have to. Just tell the solicitor.’
Then they were both giggling; nervous, faintly hysterical giggles, but therapeutic none the less.
It was quite dark when they reached Lea Road, and already the snow had begun to settle in a white mantle over the street, turning it into something beautiful, and dusting the rooftops with mother of pearl.
It was Florrie who answered the door, and even before she spoke, Sarah had heard Rodney’s voice from within the house, followed by Maggie’s deep laugh.
‘The doctor’s here?’ She glanced from Florrie back into the street as she ushered a now silent Rebecca into the hall in front of her. ‘Where’s his car?’
‘At his friends’. He wanted a walk apparently.’ Florrie answered Sarah but her eyes were on Rebecca, and in answer to the question in them Sarah said, ‘She’s left him.’
‘She’s left him?’
The words brought Maggie into the hall like a cork out of a bottle, and now her eyes skimmed over them all, moving to the carpet bag at Sarah’s feet, and she said, ‘Thanks be to God, thanks be to God. He’s answered me prayers the night.’
‘Sarah had a hand in it too.’ It was facetious, but Rebecca knew if she didn’t diffuse the charged atmosphere she was going to cry again, and she didn’t want to do that with Dr Mallard in the sitting room.
‘Come on, lass; you too, Sarah, you both look done in.’ Maggie was fussing, something she always did to cover emotion, and as they preceded her into the sitting room, Sarah saw Rodney rising from one of the armchairs which had been pulled close to the fire.
She wasn’t sure how much he had heard, but he was going to have to know about it within the next few minutes anyway - Maggie was not renowned for her patience or her tact - and so she said, ‘Hallo again. I’m sorry, you seem to have caught us in the middle of a domestic crisis. Rebecca is going to stay with Maggie and Florrie for a bit.’
‘I can’t think of anyone nicer to stay with.’ His voice was soft, and he smiled at them both before saying, ‘Hallo, Rebecca. It’s nice to see you again after all this time.’
‘Hallo, Dr Mallard.’ Rebecca’s voice was strained, but then she smiled back as she said, ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’
‘Really? I’d like to believe that but I think you’re being kind. Now, I really must be making tracks—’
‘Oh no, please don’t go.’ It was Rebecca who responded to Rodney’s tactful withdrawal. ‘I mean it, really. I’m sure you come across this sort of thing all the time in your work.’
‘That’s very true.’ Rodney nodded easily, but he had noticed the massive bruise covering one side of Rebecca’s face, and it was an effort to keep his voice in neutral. The swine had been hitting her?
‘Florrie’s gettin’ us all a cup of tea, lad. Stay an’ have a sup to keep you warm on the walk back.’ Maggie added weight to her words by flopping down on the sofa as she spoke, drawing Rebecca down with her and continuing, ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, hinny, for worryin’ about you.’
Rodney stood uncertainly for a moment more before he said, ‘Come and sit here by the fire, Sarah. You look frozen.’
‘It’s starting to snow.’ She smiled at him by way of thanks as she took the seat he offered, and then, to cover what had become an embarrassing situation, made small talk until Florrie reappeared with the tray of tea.
Rodney drank his tea quickly, standing with his back to the fire, and immediately he had finished, he said, ‘Well, I really must be off.’
‘I’ll see you to the door.’ Sarah waited until he had made his goodbyes and then followed him into the hall, shutting the sitting-room door behind her.
‘I’m sorry about all that.’ She waved her hand towards the closed door, her voice soft. ‘But there was really nothing else to be done.’
‘He’s been hitting her?’ Rodney asked grimly.
Sarah nodded. ‘He’s a brute, he always has been - coarse and horrible.’
There was coarse and there was coarse, Rodney thought to himself. He’d known plenty of men in his time who could turn the air blue when they chose to, but were as gentle as lambs with their wives.
‘I’m glad you got her out of there. Once they start that business it’s downhill all the way. Her husband wasn’t around then?’
‘Oh yes, Willie was there.’ She gave him a bare outline of what had transpired, and his face was dark with anger by the time she had finished.
‘But he didn’t touch you?’
‘No, no. He’s a coward at heart, like all bullies.’
She’d got some guts, he’d say that for her. She might look as fragi
le as Meissen porcelain, but there was pure steel running through that slender backbone. It brought back memories of the child Sarah with such poignancy that it stirred him to say, his voice soft, ‘You don’t change, do you?’
‘Don’t I?’ She knew it was a compliment and blushed furiously.
‘Not inside, where it counts.’ He could just imagine her facing that thug of a man like a lioness protecting her young, and then, his voice becoming brisk, he said, ‘Any more trouble from the fellow and you get the police involved double quick.’
‘Oh, I would, and I shall tell Florrie to take Rebecca along to a solicitor next week, to start the ball rolling. At least she’s safe here with Maggie now.’
He nodded, even as his mind asked: But for how long? He didn’t want to discourage Sarah by voicing his doubts, but he had seen too many Rebecca and Willie scenarios in his time not to feel uneasy. It was the mental control these men commanded that was the worst thing and the hardest for the women to break away from. He’d built up a sixth sense after a time about who would make it, and who wouldn’t - most doctors did, he supposed - and he’d found there were some women who were born to be victims. Rebecca was a classic case with all the right background history for a disaster. But he could be wrong; he hoped he was wrong.
Alone Beneath The Heaven Page 18