Once Upon a Time in England

by Helen Walsh

  The voices came again and this time panic strangled her. She dared not move and was hardly able to edge towards the window. Only the tender sight of Vincent, innocent, asleep, pushed her on. Heart whamming in her ears, she peeled back an inch of curtain. She couldn’t see a thing. The snow whirled around and a white crystal shimmer almost obliterated the window. She launched herself onto her tiptoes and craned her neck to spy out from the one corner of glass still free of the snowdrift, forcing her eyeballs as far right as they’d go, desperate for a view of the front of the house, terrified by what she might see. There was nobody there. But a blizzard of fresh footprints along her path confirmed her worst fears. She had not imagined it; there were people out there.

  She stood stock-still in the apricot flush of the room and tried to calm herself with best case scenarios. It was kids, fired up on Saturday-night hormones and drink. They’d get bored in a moment and go. Intuitively though, she knew no teens would stay outside for devilment on a night like this. She heard the voices again. This time further away, it seemed – and fewer of them. Maybe they’d stumbled into the garden on their way home, bursting to piss away the night’s beer. The sense of escape was fleeting though, immediately replaced by something much bigger, much worse. Robbie was still out there. He had not come home. The bomb had exploded.

  She sighed out loud and thought about the best way to carry Vincent upstairs when all her woe was blasted away by the shock of sheer terror. There was a face. A horrible face. Pressed to the fanlight above the door, a bald, shaved dome with piggy-mean eyes glared in. She wanted to scream, to shriek out loud but nothing came. A thud at the door. They were trying to charge it open. With her hands trembling wildly, Susheela struggled to clip the safety latch back on. She left it dangling and useless, and instead turned her attention to Vincent, a shattering pain splintering her back as she scooped him up. Crazed, she looked around her, took a step this way then changed her mind, stepped towards the bottom of the stairs, Vincent already starting to slip from her grasp. Boom! They were throwing themselves at the door. Her eyes fell upon the little cubbyhole under the stairs. She prised it open, heaving the vacuum cleaner to one side and laying Vincent down on the floor beside it. He stirred slightly, but did not wake. She closed the door and crept into the kitchen. Her head was racing, frantic. There seemed only one way ahead for her. With no telephone, she’d have to run out of the back door and scream until someone heard her.

  Head banging with fright as she ransacked drawers and cupboards for the back-door key, she was shocked rigid by the smash of the window pane. A gloved hand reached round for the handle. Her last and only chance was to hack at the hand with the bread knife, but Susheela couldn’t move an inch. She couldn’t breathe. The man came in through the back door, clamped her mouth and dragged her back in a headlock. Another man came in, then another. The kitchen seemed to be full of them.

  Enraged now, maddened at the invasion, she squirmed free and reached up for the frying pan. The first intruder – a stocky, ugly man – knocked the pan from her hand and dragged her back by the hair. The lino floor seemed to buffer the clang of the pan. Susheela found herself strangely grateful for that. She told herself that as long as Vincent slept through this, she would survive. She made up her mind to acquiesce, get it over with, get them out of here. Another arm held her at the belly while the pig-man squeezed so hard on her windpipe she could no longer breathe. She started to lose consciousness. She felt her eyes rolling like marbles across the ceiling, then nothing.

  When she came round, she was splayed out on the living-room floor. Her arms and head hurt. Through the blur of her vision she could make out four men. The main man, the squat, pig-faced one looming over her, slowly, ritualistically removed his gloves. One of his hands was scarred, horrifically burnt. He seemed to revel in her disgust, stroking her face with his gnarled, stumpy fingers. His dome head glowed hot from the fire. Standing behind him were two men decked out in identical attire – black lace-up boots and zipped-up black jackets. A fourth boy stood guard at the curtains. He was just a boy. He was wearing this crazed expression but his eyes were fixed on hers beseechingly, almost desperate for forgiveness. As her senses reorientated, she sourced out the pains in her arms. There was a fifth man kneeling behind her, pinning her with the weight of his knees. Slowly, the night flashed before her in crystal-clear chronology. Everything suddenly made sense. Robbie was dead. She could feel the infallible certainty of this radiating from deep in her soul. These men had done him in and now they’d come for her. She knew why too. She’d seen these thugs before, around and about the estate and hanging in packs by the shops. She’d watched them file onto her bus like a small army, glowering at her and Vincent with naked revulsion. That time, she’d got off at the next stop, too frightened to stay and endure their staring. She hadn’t told Robbie about it.

  The man standing over her unzipped his jeans, and now her fate spun out in front of her, hurling her headlong towards its horrible and inevitable conclusion. What about the baby? They’d kill them both, Susheela and the baby, if they went through with this. She thought of Vincent growing up alone. No, no, no – not Vincent, he wouldn’t make it; he wasn’t strong enough, he was too soft for this world. But then her panic was obliterated and replaced by something far more ferocious – what if Vincent woke up? What if they found him? Surely there was no limit to the barbarity of men like these. She squeezed shut her eyes and made a bargain with God. She offered up her life and that of her unborn baby’s in return for Vincent’s safe and undisturbed passage through the horrors ahead.

  The skinhead dipped a hand inside his trousers, pulling out a fat, limp dick. Unabashed in front of his accomplices, he kneaded his member, stretching it out and playing with it until it was harder. Whoever was squatted behind her laughed, and as he spoke she could feel the sour waft of drink in her face.

  ‘Fuck d’you call that, Evo?’ he scoffed. ‘Just stick it in the bitch. Be the best she’s ever had, anyway.’

  There was a dull crack as pig-face, Evo, as she now supposed, leant forward and smacked him hard across his cheekbone. ‘You prick! Names!’ he hissed, his hot, fat head glowing red with ire. Susheela felt brief relief as his victim, the man who’d been kneeling on her arms, jumped up in pain and anger. He stormed to the other side of the room, holding his face. A young lad, who she now saw had a wound to his nose, dried blood clogging his nostril, went to his aid. A fourth lad with a spotty face stepped between the two parties.

  ‘Come on,’ he tried to reason. ‘Fuck all the silly shite off. Gypo Fitzgerald’s gonna be back any minute. Let’s just torch the fucking joint and get out.’

  Susheela squeezed shut her eyes in gratitude. Robbie was safe. He was on his way back to her. This would all be over soon and if God willed she came through it, she promised that things would be different. From now on, things were going to be good – always.

  Evo stood back, his piggy eyes gleaming. ‘Better and better. We’ll give the IRA cunt his, too.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, Evo.’

  ‘Names!’

  The young kid hung his head. The spotty youth spoke up. ‘Fitzgerald’ll fucking murder us and you fucking know it.’

  Evo shook his head slowly, disappointed at the mettle of his men. ‘None of you twats is going anywhere till we’ve taught this filthy little slag a lesson.’ He kicked Susheela in the side.

  She bit down hard on her lip.

  ‘Oi! Open your eyes you fucking Paki bitch. Open your fucking eyes.’ He kicked her again. Two of his mates winced and turned away. ‘Look at me.’

  He pushed his penis towards her face. She forced her eyeline upwards. He smiled, horribly. ‘Now, see this white cock. Take a good look at it. There, good girl. That’s a white cock, that is. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? Would you like to kiss it?’ He looked to his gang, waiting for them to laugh. One or two of them managed a sneer. He turned back to Susheela.

  ‘Now listen, you slag. Listen good. What I’m going to d
o now, is I’m going to teach you a lesson. And you must learn this lesson. You hear me, Paki? Because if you …’ He stepped back to reinforce his sermon with another hard kick to the groin, sending a shock of pain ripping through her abdomen. She groaned, tried to swallow it, anxious not to make any noise at all. Surely Robbie would be home soon now. Surely? Evo crouched now, pushing his face up to hers. ‘If you and your horrible gypo so-called husband carry on swamping this estate with your fucking mongrels, I will knife your fucking womb right out. So take a good look at this pure English cock, and make fucking sure it’s the last time you ever see one.’

  With a thin, psychotic smile he dropped to his knees, dragged down her pyjamas. With his coarse, hairy gut grazing her pregnant belly, he entered her hard and began fucking her, fast.

  Susheela clenched her fists, willing her senses to shut down, feel nothing. All that was left was sound. As he thrust and thrust and thrust, a strange, high-pitched whimpering came from him. There was an awful slurping from between her thighs. A violent contraction deep in her womb. Her head lolled sideways as she felt herself starting to slip away. So this was it, then. They were not going to kill her after all. Robbie was still out there, alive. Susheela was already dead.

  Six

  Susheela told him it had been a break-in. Reflexively, instinctively, she knew her young husband would not be able to cope with, would never recover from, the horror of a rape. So she bought some time – Ellie’s birth saw to that – and got her story straight for Robbie and the police: she’d been upstairs, removing her make-up. She’d heard a noise from outside. She came down, expecting to see Robbie. There was an intruder in her living room. He was wearing a balaclava. Fearful for her small boy, she confronted the intruder. He manhandled her, but fled. The shock had precipitated her into labour.

  Robbie took it from this that she blamed him, resented him for not being there. In the days and weeks that followed, he never told her how close he got to the big time that night. What would be the point? She’d dredge up some residue of enthusiasm from what remained of her soul. She’d smile through the fear and pain, badger him, nag at him, force him out to meet his fate and make their fortune. But how could he leave her like that? Like this. She was terrified to be left on her own. How could he put on a show, knowing his frail wife was cowering in the dark back home? And even if he did tell her, told her about Dickie Vaughan’s offer, would it make things better? He couldn’t see it. To Susheela – and who could blame her? – it was black and white. If Robbie had got back home on time, the burglar would not have struck. It was as plain as that, and Robbie wore it on his heart like a scalding cross.

  He was almost right. Susheela did blame him. She resented the part that Robbie played in her night of horror, but it was nothing to do with his coming home late. What she wanted was to be with him. She wanted, always, to be by his side. That night she should have been there at St Stephen’s, if not only to stave off the come-ons from the local women, then at least to try and make friends of them. But instead what was happening, more and more, was that he shut her away – she was sure of that now. She understood. He wanted to protect her. And it suited him not to have to challenge all the questioning stares. If she wasn’t there by his side, he didn’t have to set his face hard, scare off the monsters before they struck. And the more she stayed indoors, the more she understood it had ever been thus, with her and Robbie. Those trips out to the countryside – she wouldn’t change a thing about her early trysts with the love of her life, but he was able to love her out there, love her properly, because there was no one there to stop him. It was the path of least resistance. So she stayed in. She stayed indoors and wished she’d never let him fall for her. On her own, she’d be fine. She always had been. For a young man, though – for a feckless kid with all the will and the power of his own dreams – this was all too much. Could she run away and start again and set him free? But as soon as she thought it, she was crippled with doubt and grief. She could never see herself apart from Robbie – not now. But could they ever make this work? That was the part she really couldn’t see at all.

  Robbie sweated salt and blood to keep house and home together. It was him who got up through the night to tend to Vincent’s night traumas and Ellie’s feeds, it was him who bathed them and put them to bed and indulged them with enough love and fun to compensate for their mother’s melancholy. Then when Susheela’s maternity leave elapsed and she made no gesture to return to work he maintained a silent and supportive front. Her irrational clinginess demanded that she was not left alone after dark and so, unflinchingly, he gave up his residency at St Stephen’s. It had been a tidy little earner; nice money for days out, clothes for Susheela and takeaways but with another mouth to feed it formed an indispensable part of their income. Its absence meant longer hours for Robbie on the factory line. He swapped his eight-hour shift for a twelve-hour one. He worked six days a week. Robbie was exhausted. More than once, as he cycled to work in the morning, he’d be jolted out of his torpor by the white blare of a wagon as he drifted off and strayed into the other side of the road. And by the time he reached work he was too sleep starved to perform the same auto-function he’d performed for seven years. Twice in one month he’d added the incorrect ratio of treatment to the powders he presided over, causing the whole three floors of the Metso plant to stutter to a halt. Tiredness soon usurped his every bodily need. It overrode the unbearable build-up and longing in his groins, it leached away hunger causing his lean, brawny body to soften, his muscles to atrophy. His appearance and hygiene deteriorated. His bus-red hair grew lank and dull and days-old stubble sprouted in unruly spokes across his chin. His olfactory compass shut down so he could no longer smell his daughter’s sick curd on the cuffs of his overalls or the fetid rot of his own tired breath. He felt himself held in suspension, waiting for some impulse to jar him from the dehumanised pulse of his life. His quiet, industrious resolve was nothing short of miraculous. Only the cruel unrealised conclusion of that night came close to breaking him.

  During those first few weeks Vaughan had chased him like a lovelorn teenager, calling him at work, snowing him with promises of cruises and studio sessions with producers, all with glib showbiz names – Mikey Vegas, Don Emmery, Louis Lavelle. He talked about the possibility of a tour with Matt Monro and Shirley Bassey, and a season at the Talk of the North. He promised him all his aching adolescent dreams and more, and Robbie’s heart warred. All of these things involved time – time away from work, time away from his babies, time away from his needy, splintered wife. But if he could just fan Vaughan’s enthusiasm long enough for Susheela to pull herself together …

  But Susheela showed no sign of improvement and gradually, inevitably, Vaughan’s enthusiasm began to wilt under the weight of his own impatience. There was only so much chasing a man of his calibre could do, and when he turned up unannounced at St Stephen’s one night and discovered Robbie was no longer performing, he gave up the chase. Whatever his reasons, however sick his wife, the lad wasn’t devoted enough. And in the brutal and capricious world of show business, devotion was everything.

  Robbie accepted his fate and backed off too. He conceded that his big moment had come and gone and cast his dreams loose to the wasteland of his youth, barely grieving for them before they shrivelled and rotted into poisoned stumps of memory. And though his heart ached for her, Robbie couldn’t help but feel resentful. He simply could not come to terms with Susheela’s zombie-like response, the way she wrapped herself in this punitive pall, rarely stepping outside the coop of the house. So many times he would arrive at the front door, already bent to the screams of his baby daughter inside as his key grated in the lock, her backside raw from the sting of her sodden nappy while her mother lay catatonic on the couch.

  What hurt most was the gradual grinding down of any magic in their lives until what remained was drudgery, duty and work, that killing routine of early start, long days at the conveyor belt and deadly nothingness back home. He felt for her, he
wanted to make it go away. But she was doing it to herself – the grudging, laboured way she toiled through motherhood, seldom smiling, rarely even seeing her children. Truly, she was a shadow of the girl he’d fallen for.

  Even her accent changed. It was as though she was now looking to provoke contempt. For as long as he’d known her, Susheela had dressed like the girls she worked with. He knew she didn’t love it, but she’d eat the same diet of fish fingers, mince and potatoes, Sunday roast. The more time they spent together, the more she absorbed his parochial ways. He recalled with affection the time he’d found her in front of the mirror, combing her hair, practising her local accent. The flattened vowels stretched her face so tight she looked demented – like a soprano practising her arpeggios. ‘Aye-yoh, luv. Ow are yoh?’ She altered the elastic pucker of her lips for the reply. ‘Oh not bad yuh know. Ow about yuhself, luv?’

  Robbie had thrown his head back at that and roared with laughter. But in the wake of the break-in, her adorably exaggerated colloquialisms went into retreat. Back came the sing-song staccato of her Malay-Tamil English. Her voice swooped up and down like a plucked sitar, placing its emphasis on the wrong stress – deliberately, he sometimes thought. So her favourite programme was ‘Sella’-britee Squares. Birthday cake was birthday cake. He knew it – she was making her point. She was needling him – the man who had failed to protect her.

  He watched on helplessly as she receded into a world that was alien to him. She reclaimed the kitchen as her lair. She’d disappear into its cache for long brooding hours, fussing over huge cauldrons of rank-hued food that she ate in her hideout in silence. She refused to see any of the neighbours who dropped in with gifts and warm wishes for the new addition, yet she always made time for Mrs Ling. Robbie could hear them above the TV, clanging pots and muttering in some garbled language. Occasionally he would hear laughter and his heart would skitter with hope. But alone, she could barely muster a smile for him. The food she cooked would fester on the stove for days, sweating from the walls, fouling her breath, staining her fingers. Bubbling oil slimed vapours onto the neighbour’s windows. She fed it to Vincent, served cold between two slabs of bread. He could taste it in the teat of Ellie’s bottle, taste it in his toothpaste. It made him ill.