by Anne Bennett
Violet had her arms around Lizzie, holding her close as Celia said to her, ‘Tell him how it was, Lizzie?’
Lizzie shook her head. She had no intention of exposing the life she’d endured to this stranger. Instead, muffled against Violet’s shoulder, she said, ‘I don’t want you here any more. You’ve had your say, now get out!’
‘I can’t just walk away.’
‘Oh yes you can,’ Lizzie cried. ‘You can’t help me. In coming to find me and telling me it was your brother who attacked me and why, you have probably destroyed any shred of reputation I had still clinging to me.’
‘The child is my niece. I feel some responsibility.’
At that, Lizzie’s head shot up and she pulled herself from Violet’s embrace angrily and leant forward, so her face was level with Scott’s.
‘Now, listen to me,’ she hissed. ‘Georgia is nothing to you. Do you hear that? Nothing! She is my child, the child I had no love for while I was carrying her, the child forced on me, the child I was going to give up for adoption until she was born half-caste, the kind of child no one wants. But I want her and love her and she has no need of you, nor any of your family.’
Behind the angry words, Scott was aware of the deep, deep hurt reflected in Lizzie’s large and beautiful eyes. Maybe if he knew everything he could find a way of easing things a little. ‘Please tell me how it was?’ he said.
Lizzie shook her head vehemently. Violet looked from Scott to Lizzie and back to Scott. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said.
Lizzie opened her mouth to tell Violet not to say a word, but when she tried to speak the tears gushed from her eyes like a torrent and her body shuddered at the wretchedness of it all. Violet put her arm around Lizzie again, and though she cried too she patted Lizzie’s back, saying, ‘Come on, girl. You cry it out. It’s about bloody time you let go.’
Scott got up and paced the room, embarrassed by the scene. Was he doing any good by staying? ‘Maybe I should leave?’
‘And maybe you shouldn’t,’ Violet snapped. ‘You and your bloody family have brought this on. Sit down and I’ll tell you.’ And with her arms still around Lizzie’s shaking shoulders, Violet told him how it was, going back to the raids in the war when the children had been taken to Ireland. She didn’t know what happened after Lizzie’s panic-stricken flight to Ireland when she found herself pregnant, but Celia did. Her own eyes were glistening as she told Scott of life in the Magdalene Laundry.
As Celia spoke she saw his horrified eyes widen and stretch, almost in disbelief. But he didn’t disbelieve her; no one could disbelieve the passionate way she recounted their story. Every word she said was like a hammer-blow of guilt and shame in his heart. The woman left nothing out, from the rigid and unforgiving nature of Lizzie’s parents to the reactions of neighbours when Lizzie brought the child she’d refused to condemn to a life of misery back to Birmingham.
Celia spoke of the insults levelled at them, the shouts and jeers, and of those who spat at them. She told of the daubing of filth on the wall and the shit pushed through the letter box, and lastly of the attempted rape by Steve’s brother and two friends.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Scott said at last. ‘How to convey…’
He knelt before Lizzie as Violet moved away and took her hands in his. Lizzie would have pulled her hands back, but she hadn’t the energy. She looked up at him, her face awash with the tears still trickling from her eyes, and he said, ‘I swear to you now, I will do all in my power to right some of the wrongs dealt you.’
‘How?’ Celia demanded, when it was obvious Lizzie still couldn’t speak.
Scott had been thinking it over. ‘Firstly, I will go to the police and give them Matt’s letter, so that file at least will be closed. And then I will write to your parents, explaining everything.’
‘Not her parents,’ Celia said. ‘Her parents might easily throw any letter you send in the fire. Her brother Johnnie would be the best one to contact. He’s believed Lizzie from the beginning and I’m sure he’d be glad to get some concrete proof that the attack and rape really did take place to lay before the parents. I’ll give you the address.’
Scott nodded. ‘I’ll be guided by you. I can’t do anything about that damned laundry place, I don’t think. I didn’t know such places existed and the whole thing should be exposed, but that might rebound on both of you and you have already suffered enough. As for the neighbours, I’ll tell them. I’ll also go straight back to Moorcroft’s when I leave here and tell him. That, I should imagine, is the quickest way to spread the truth of that awful night.’
‘And the priest,’ Celia said. ‘A letter to him wouldn’t come amiss.’
‘I’ll see to it, never fear,’ Scott promised. ‘As for the men who attacked you, I wish I had them before me this minute. However, if the situation ever presents itself for me to meet them then I will not forget, I promise you.’
Lizzie felt ill, truly ill, as if she might faint, and she willed herself not to. She had so many thoughts battering inside her head, she felt as if she might be going mad. She needed to be alone to think. She didn’t want to talk, and least of all to Scott McFarland. She pushed him away and stood up, as if she were some kind of zombie, and said in a flat, expressionless voice, ‘I need to go away.’ And without another word to anyone, she crossed the room and mounted the stairs.
Violet looked across at Celia and said, ‘Shock. Can’t wonder at it really. Best place for her is bed. I’ll take her up a cup of well-sugared tea and fill a hot-water bottle too. She was shivering as if she had the ague.’
Scott got to his feet and said, ‘I must take my leave.’ He smiled ruefully at Celia and added, ‘This will be another black mark against the family, for my visit surely brought this on.’
Celia didn’t deny it, but she did go on to say, ‘Well, the point is, Lizzie had to be told, because no one likes blanks in their lives and she’s wondered since it happened just why she was attacked.’
However, Scott wasn’t sure he had done any good at all.
Lizzie, worn out by the emotion of it all, slept all the rest of that day and all night, and by the next morning she felt refreshed and better able to cope. ‘For a time yesterday,’ she confessed to Celia, ‘I really thought I was losing my grip on sanity. But now I must accept what’s done is done and I will get up and see to things and not lie in bed and feel sorry for myself.’
‘What about Scott?’
‘What about him?’ Lizzie said. ‘I owe him nothing, and for all I know we might never see him again.’
And Celia said nothing, for Lizzie could be right, and the man hadn’t asked if he might come again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lizzie had wondered if Scott’s story would be believed, a coloured man and a stranger speaking out about a neighbour and a Dunkirk veteran, claiming he was a rapist. It had totally shaken her. To go with other women was one thing, but to force himself on someone else—especially a person he’d met but twice, and one who, according to her letter, had made it plain she was not interested—was an entirely different matter. It made her feel sick to think about it, though she knew if she had ever refused him he would probably have forced her. But that was different. A wife had to submit to her husband.
She lay back in bed and remembered Steve’s tender moments, when he would tell her he loved her and kiss and caress her, raising her to heights of passion, and then go on to strive to please her as well as himself. She wondered where that kind and gentle man had gone.
Sometimes she would worry too that Shirley’s attack was partly her fault. Maybe if she had complained to Steve about his dalliances, told him how it made her feel, involved the priest if necessary, he might have seen the error of his ways, and this incident with Shirley might never have happened.
But, in reality, she knew she couldn’t really have changed Steve. He was as he was, and she had to accept him as that. He was a man’s man, popular and well-liked, and she wondered if the revelation that Scott was
about to make would make things worse for her rather than better.
It might have been that way with the women, who were, in the main, unaware of Steve’s philandering, but as Gerald Moorcroft served the men their cigarettes and baccy and newspapers the next morning, he told them of the coloured man that had come into the shop with an amazing story. ‘It’s almost unbelievable,’ one said. ‘And yet Steve had always been that way inclined.’
‘Aye, and marriage never changed him none either,’ another put in. It were shameful the way he treated his missus.’
‘Yeah,’ another agreed. ‘God, if I tried any of that malarkey, my old girl would have laid me out.’
‘Lizzie just put up with it,’ Gerald said.
‘Maybe she d’ain’t have no choice, like.’
‘And you believe this coloured man?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Course, Steve weren’t never the same after Dunkirk. Bound to change a man, summat like that.’
‘Lots weren’t the same, but they d’ain’t all go round shagging black women.’
‘That’s true an’ all.’
And then Alice Cotterell came forward. She was no street woman, and with three children to see to she’d taken a job at the local chip shop. She’d been returning one night when she was set upon and raped by a drunken Steve Gillespie. There had been no repercussions to this and she had done nothing about it. Her man was overseas and she knew that any allegations she made would be relayed to him when he was not in a position to do anything. Anyway, she’d heard of women who claimed they’d been raped, but the men had said they’d asked for it, were willing partners, and they’d often been believed. She’d not put herself and her children through that, have that doubt lodged in people’s minds. Best say nothing at all.
The second woman, Clara Guildford, was single and respectable and worked as a barmaid. She’d been raised in an orphanage, had no family, no support, and knew no one would take her word against Steve’s. So although the assault was a violent one and the rape brutal, as soon as she realised there were to be no results from it she decided to keep her head down and say nothing.
But when these women heard of the rape of the young coloured girl that had led in the end to the attack on Lizzie Gillespie and the birth of a half-caste child, they came forward independently and told of their experiences. Gradually, the tide of opinion began to swing in Lizzie’s favour. She was grateful that more spoke to her and were sympathetic towards her, though she was greatly affected by the new allegations about Steve and felt such shame that she had been married to a man who could do things so heinous.
‘I feel a sort of responsibility to those women,’ she said one day to Celia and Violet. ‘As for Steve…well, it feels like I was married to a stranger, a man I don’t recognise. I mean, you can blame the war, the things he saw, or any damned thing you like, but he had to have that bad seed inside him in the first place. Those poor women suffered in silence, just as I would have done if I hadn’t found I was expecting.’
The women down the yard were incensed on Lizzie’s behalf. ‘We all said he was different after Dunkirk,’ Minnie commented. ‘And he was always yelling at Lizzie for summat.’
‘She said she was glad when he went back to his unit,’ Ada said. ‘So I know she found him hard work.’
‘Hard work is one thing,’ Gloria said, ‘but rape…’
‘The old Steve would never have done such a thing,’ Minnie put in. ‘According to my Charlie he was always getting his end away. Not faithful to Lizzie, like, and never had any trouble getting a woman.’
‘She must have known.’
‘Probably. Never said owt, but then you wouldn’t, would you? I wouldn’t. I’d have been dead embarrassed.’
‘I would an’ all,’ Minnie said. ‘But Charlie said after Dunkirk you couldn’t look at Steve wrong or he’d land you one. He was thrown out of The Bell a few times for fighting. As for drinking, well, he’d always liked a pint, but we all heard the state he was in many nights when he came home.’
‘And Lizzie never said a cross word to him,’ Ada remarked. ‘Violet said he’d be shouting and bawling at her sometimes and she was always calm, trying to soothe him, like. Violet heard it all through the wall.’
‘She never even moaned to us after, either,’ Gloria said. ‘And then there was the times he’d go off to his mate’s and sometimes not come back for a couple of days or more. I think the woman is a bloody saint.’
‘Yeah, at least thanks to that coloured bloke she’s had her name cleared,’ Ada added. ‘That’s summat, anyroad.’
Eight days after Scott had appeared at Lizzie’s door the priest preached a gospel about not judging others, citing the woman taken in adultery and who was to be stoned to death until Jesus suggested that the man without sin should be the first to cast a stone. Lizzie wasn’t there, but there were plenty to tell her about it. ‘He might as well have said your name, like,’ Minnie said. ‘It’ll make a difference, you mark my words.’
Lizzie was glad to see Scott the following Saturday because she wanted to thank him for keeping his word. She had more to thank him for too, as he’d brought with him tins of fruit, peaches and orange segments that made Lizzie’s mouth water to think about. He also had three bars of chocolate, but what really made her cry out with delight were the nylons for each of the women. Nylons were like gold dust to get hold of and Lizzie’s gratitude was sincere. She realised how much she owed Scott. He could have disregarded his brother’s wishes. She’d never have known.
So, this time she asked Scott to take a seat and made tea and sandwiches for them both, as Celia had gone to the park with Georgia.
Scott told Lizzie something of his family and his home, which he said he missed sorely at times. ‘You never married?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Never found the right girl,’ Scott said. ‘Never really had the time to go looking either. The whole burden of the house and business was on my shoulders and I wanted to see the kids through school and college if they wanted it. Didn’t work with Matt of course, but Carla went on. She’s married now, though her husband’s been drafted.
‘Ben’s a fine boy, only seventeen and due to go to college next year. I pray he’ll make it and can then defer the draft till he graduates. I’d like to keep him out of this lot if I can.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Lizzie said with feeling. ‘I’d rather fight the Germans and Italians any day before the Japanese. Somehow they don’t seem quite human.’
They were silent, both thinking of Singapore, said to be impregnable, that had fallen to the Japanese in February. There had been terrific loss of life and seventy thousand allied troops had been forced to surrender. It had shaken the world and they realised Japan was a formidable adversary.
Eventually, Scott broke the silence to say, ‘I think it’s very good of you to agree to see me today. Many women in your position wouldn’t want to have anything to do with anyone connected to Matt’s family.’
‘You can’t be held responsible for what your brother did,’ Lizzie said. ‘I used to be like that once. Guilty about every damned thing, even about Steve’s mother being committed to a mental home. In reality, though, she couldn’t have borne this news and stayed sane, because she really did think Steve could never be at fault. And whichever way you look at it, when you take the catalogue of things that have happened to me right back to the beginning, it began with Steve not being able to keep his hands to himself.’
‘In a way you’re right.’ Scott agreed. ‘But there’s no excuse for what Matt did to you.’
‘No, but grief can do funny things to people,’ Lizzie said. ‘I thought once it would end my worries if I was killed in an air raid. But there were my other children to think of.’
‘Which you’re not allowed to see?’
‘No.’
‘Your parents can’t stop you seeing your own children.’
‘I’ve been through this,’ Lizzie told him. ‘And yet maybe now…The reason I di
dn’t think I’d ever have access was because of Georgia. If the courts thought I was living an immoral life, for example, they might take them off me altogether. But if you were to write the letter you spoke about…’
‘I wrote it the same evening I first told you,’ Scott said. ‘You should be getting a reply any day now.’
Ironically, while Lizzie and Scott were having this conversation, so Johnnie was facing his mother across the kitchen.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘You know full well, Mammy,’ Johnnie said. ‘You’ve read the letter from this man Scott as well as me. If anyone is to blame for this it was Steve, and if anyone’s blameless it’s Lizzie. She tried to tell you that, but you wouldn’t listen. She’s been to hell and back.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘You didn’t try to find out,’ Johnnie retorted. ‘Out of sight, out of bloody mind.’
‘What can I do?’ Catherine cried. ‘Especially now that you say she’s kept the child.’
‘Yes, she has, and I’m glad you accept that it is a child and not a Martian from another planet,’ Johnnie said. ‘And if you want more on your conscience, take two sick children, for that’s what Niamh and Tom will be if you try and keep them away from their mother much longer. If you won’t have her here, let me take them there. Don’t look like that,’ he yelled in anger as he saw the curl of Catherine’s lip. ‘Georgia is their half-sister, and Niamh and Tom have a perfect right to see their mother.’
Catherine looked at her grandchildren in the fields outside. She knew that they were unhappy. It oozed out of them, and neither ate enough to keep a bird alive. They were fading away before her eyes, and suddenly she knew she couldn’t deny them what they craved any longer. She was punishing them and Lizzie for something that was not their fault.
‘All right,’ she said at last to Johnnie, ‘do as you please.’
Johnnie immediately wrote to his sister suggesting he bring the children over to see her for a wee while as the summer holidays had begun. But before Lizzie received Johnnie’s letter, the sirens blared out on the morning of 27th July. There had been no raids for a year and people looked at each other in trepidation—was it all beginning again?