by Martina Cole
Susan smiled.
‘You are a wily old fucker. I’ll have to watch myself with you, won’t I?’
‘Coming from you, Susan Dalston, I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Later in his notes, he wrote: ‘Full of guilt, full of love for her children with whom she should be at home if there was any justice in the world.’
He knew the high ups hated him, thought him too liberal, too easy on the girls he dealt with. But that was what years of listening to sorrow and heartache did to you.
Wendy had woken with the familiar pain, a stinging sensation between her legs that made it impossible for her to wee without wanting to cry. She wished she was back in her room with her soothing cold calamine lotion.
This happened to her periodically, a legacy from her father and what he had done to her. He had given her a disease. Wendy sometimes wondered if it was a punishment from God. Her father had already had it when he took her, so God must have given it to him expressly so he could pass it on to Wendy.
She never could make sense of it.
She closed her eyes and dreamed her dreams. She imagined she was at home, with her mother and her sisters and brother. Her father had miraculously died in a car crash or a fire and they were all happy and fed and warm. They sat in the lounge and ate crisps, tomato sauce-flavoured, and drank cream soda to their heart’s content. They watched Bonanza on TV and little Rosie took turns sitting on their laps and being fed tit-bits.
Sometimes it had been like that, when her father was away with his other woman, in his other life. Then they could all really relax and be happy as if his absence made their lives more real. They could all feel they existed for other reasons than being bawled at or pushed out of the way.
Their granny Kate would visit them with packets of Rolos and Wagon Wheels and a Jamboree bag for Barry who loved flying saucers that cracked his tongue with the sharpness of their sherbet. Granny would talk to them all with her lovely voice and her kind words.
She was dying now, couldn’t even visit them. It had taken her hard, guessing what had happened that night. She knew in her heart what her son had done. Knew he was capable of it, which Wendy knew was much worse for her granny. ‘Blood will out’ careered around in her head and she forced it away. Forced herself to think of something else but now the pain was growing worse.
Wendy cried.
This was worse than any of the other times. She was so sore and could feel the blisters underneath her body as she moved. As if she had been burned there, by hot water or bleach.
She licked her lips with a dry tongue. What she really needed was some ice. Ice cooled it, made the hurt go away. Ice was good.
Mrs Eappen came blustering into the room, all hair spray and buttoned cardigan.
‘Are you thinking of getting up, child?’ Her voice was disapproving as usual, as if she automatically expected badness and therefore got it. Wendy hated to disappoint her and made a conscious effort to be bad if she could. She felt it cheered the woman up.
‘I really don’t feel well today.’
Mrs Eappen looked at her hard. She did look peaky, white and drained. She also seemed to be in pain.
‘Are you okay? Do you need the doctor?’
There was concern in her voice now and Wendy was ill enough to appreciate that.
‘It’s okay. Just my period.’
Mrs Eappen looked at her suspiciously.
‘You had your period not a week ago.’ She stared down at the girl on the bed.
‘I’ll get the doctor. Better to be safe than sorry.’
It was Wendy’s protest that made her phone in the end. The more the girl denied being in pain, the more convinced Mrs Eappen was that a doctor was needed. In her years in the service she had seen it all: home abortions with knitting needles and chop sticks, girls miscarrying in their nice clean beds with never a thought for the danger they put themselves in or the trouble they caused others.
The doctor duly arrived to find an hysterical girl who refused to allow him to examine her. Finally, Wendy was held by well-meaning arms and concerned faces stared down as the blankets were removed from her body and her terrible secret was exposed.
She heard the doctor whistle between his teeth and Mrs Eappen’s low cry of: ‘Dear God in heaven, what’s wrong with the child?’
Wendy was found out on a bright morning when she was at her lowest ebb. Suddenly she was deluged with people all wanting explanations of when and with whom she had had sex.
When being what they really wanted to know.
Especially Mr Potter, who looked miffed as well as annoyed. There was relief on his face and it galled her.
Wendy kept silent. She had not learned much in life, but what she had learned she had learned at her Granny’s knee. Granny Kate, who smelled of home baking and 4711.
‘People only know what you tell them, child. Remember that all your life. Only tell your secrets to people you know will keep them just what they are. Who will keep them as they were meant to be. Kept. Secret.’
Wendy understood now what getting old was all about. It meant you knew things other people didn’t know yet. It meant trying to warn them about the dangers of a life you were finished with. That was gradually winding down and emptying of everything but memories and secrets.
She lay in the bed and felt suddenly serene. She would tell them nothing. Let them guess the worst and they wouldn’t even scratch the surface.
Her father was gone, and she was glad. Nothing could ever really hurt her like that again. Not even this thing she had been given by him could hurt her as much as he had hurt her in the giving of it.
She looked at them all with her big wide eyes. But she answered them not one word.
She knew Mrs Eappen thought she had been shagging under their very noses. This knowledge gave her a small rebellious sense of smugness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Roselle was with a Soho hard man called Danny. No one knew his last name and no one had ever had the guts to ask.
He was big, black as coal and handsome in a bald-headed, muscle-bound way. The hostesses loved him and he loved them. Though only for a night here and there. He was harder to catch than syphilis off a vicar as the girls put it to each other.
He didn’t talk much either, which suited them. They talked all night in the club, talked crap. Crap for men with dreams of perfect womanhood which were as far removed from real life as the moon was from the earth.
But they played the game and enjoyed Danny. His quiet strength, his lovely smile, and most of all his cock which was like a baseball bat or a cricket bat depending on who you talked to. He laughed at their jokes, understood their unhappiness and gave them a few hours of unpaid sex.
Roselle, however, knew him better than anyone. They went back years and when she needed a job done, he was the man she’d call. Now he sat in her car, all dark brooding looks and secret smiles, and she filled him in on the situation.
‘When we see the man I want, you bring him bodily to the car but don’t let passers by or anyone else guess anything’s going on, right?’
He nodded. He did this all the time. He was the acknowledged master of the take.
‘Then me and you are going to put the fear of Christ up him.’
Danny really grinned then, looking forward to it.
‘If he’s a nonce, surely I get to kick him in?’
Roselle laughed gently.
‘Oh, he’s a nonce, all right, and you do get to scare him. But let’s see how he reacts before we start the pain. Sometimes the fear of a kicking is a much worse punishment. We’ll see.’
Danny relaxed. He liked Roselle. Unlike most women she thought like a man. She was a loner like himself and understood the mechanics of fear.
Alfred Potter walked out of his flat at just after eight-thirty in the evening. He worked as a volunteer at a local youth club and was late tonight. He had just had a visitor, a girl called Leyla, eleven years old and well developed for her age. She was als
o educationally subnormal. His type of girl in fact. Her parents thought he was great the way he helped her with lessons and took her on days out. After all, he was a social worker and knew what he was doing. They could trust him.
Leyla, for her part, was a quiet, amicable girl. She understood the world only as feelings and thoughts. If she pleased people she experienced a feeling of well-being. If they were angry she cried. If she pleased Mr Potter she got shop-bought cake and Pepsi, things she never had at home.
Mr Potter and Leyla had had quite a long session that evening and he had forgotten the time. As they left he put her in a taxi cab and waved until she was out of sight.
Then, pleased with himself and feeling indestructible, he buttoned up his jacket and walked jauntily along the pavement, smoothing down his sparse hair.
The black man, he noticed, seemed to glide towards him. No expression on his face, nothing. It wasn’t until he was in a vice-like grip and actually hearing the man talk that the danger he was obviously in occurred to Alfred Potter.
By then he was also in a rather dashing car.
His neighbour, Mrs Henderson, waved at him and he waved back. Because the black man informed him if he didn’t act normally his gonads would be ripped off and put through his letter box.
He believed the huge man with the yellowing whites to his eyes and the impossibly white teeth. At least, he reasoned, he had no reason to disbelieve him.
Now the woman, very good-looking and well dressed, pulled away from the kerb and still waving to Mrs Henderson Alfred was driven away at a fair speed, though not so fast as to attract attention, and told to keep his mouth shut until he was spoken to.
He was terrified. Which was exactly what the two people with him wanted him to be. He did not disappoint them. He started crying before they left his road, and he was sobbing when they hit the motorway. If only they would say something, tell him what he had done.
But not a word was spoken by anyone and he wasn’t going to risk incurring the black man’s wrath for anyone.
Roselle found she was actually enjoying herself.
‘Another night in nick, eh? What a thrilling prospect.’
Matty’s voice was going right through Susan’s head. It was as if she was determined to talk herself to death.
‘Look, Matty, why don’t you listen to me letter? See what you think.’
Matty nodded. She stopped her pacing and sat on Susan’s bunk.
‘Go on then.’
She cleared her throat and began to read.
‘ “Dear Peter” . . . that’s his name.’
Matty sighed. ‘Well, I hardly thought even you would get that wrong.’
Susan cleared her throat and started again.
‘ “Dear Peter, it was lovely to hear from you. I was pleased to hear from you. I hope you are well. I am as well as can be expected in the circumstances. The kids are all well. I think they miss me, but then I miss them as well.
‘ “What is happening with you? How is Australia and the ship? What is it like living on a big ship? What do you do on your days off on the ship? Are there any women on the ship - women sailors, I mean? Ha ha. Please write again soon, as it was so nice to hear from someone from my other life. From happier days.
‘ “Write soon. Love from Susan Dalston.”
Matty put her hands over her face and threw herself backwards on the bunk. Susan bridled in annoyance.
‘It ain’t that fucking bad, is it?’
Matty hauled herself up.
‘Susan Dalston, that’s the worst letter I have ever heard. You sound like a moron.’
Susan was getting really cross now and it showed.
‘Not so much of the fucking moron, you. You’re the moron. You don’t understand anything about anything. I think it’s a nice letter. It asks questions and answers queries.’
Matty wiped her eyes with her hand, a habit she had when annoyed. ‘If you’re interested in Peter, don’t send that letter. I’ll write you one to send.’
Susan shook her head vehemently.
‘Oh, no, you won’t. I don’t fancy him and he don’t fancy me. We’re just mates. Old mates from school. He’s stuck on a ship and I’m stuck in here. We just want to hear a word from another mate, that’s all. Why does everything have to be about sex and fancying and blokes all the time?’
Matty shook her head and grinned.
‘Because that’s what makes the world go round. Women and men, men and women. It’s what it’s all about.’
Susan snorted and lit a cigarette.
‘All the men I’ve ever known have caused me nothing but fucking hag. You can keep all that malarkey for people like yourself. For me a mate will do. Stuck in here, the last thing I need is a head full of nonsense. Romance is for prats, Matty. Prats like you and Sarah and the others who think that once they’re out they’ll be okay.
‘Well, listen to me, I’m about to give you a wake up call. This will stay with you all your life. If you ever get another bloke, he’ll always be wondering if you’ll kill him and all. The sooner you realise what you’ve done, what you’ve caused, the better off you will be.’
Matty stared at her in that way she had. A hard stare without any kind of feeling in it whatsoever.
‘You’re wrong, Susan. We’re victims and will be seen as victims by decent people.’
Susan shook her head in derision. Then in a temper she said something she should never have said.
‘You ain’t a victim, you admitted as much to me the other week with the vodka talking. None of us is really a victim. We marry these men and even when we see what they are we still stay with them. We’re trapped but we trapped ourselves. Barry was me father, love. I married me father, the man I hated most in the world. I was a victim, all right. I was a victim of trying to get away from home, of trying to put some distance between me and my old man. That’s all. There’s no great plan, no big ideal. Fuck all but the truth - and that, as we all know, fucking hurts.’
Matty was staring hard now. She looked frightening. Susan realised she had gone too far, but Christ Matty annoyed her at times.
‘What did I say then, on the vodka?’
Her voice was flat, eyes watchful, and Susan regretted mentioning it.
‘Not a lot. I just sussed out the truth of it, that’s all. But don’t worry, I’m the last person to talk, ain’t I?’
Matty stood up, and as small and petite as she was, she looked seriously menacing. Susan stood also and the disparity in their height and weight was obvious to them both.
‘Listen, Matty, what you do is your trip, right? It’s nothing to do with me. I have enough on me plate keeping body and soul together, looking out for me kids and trying to write letters. If I was going to use what you said I’d hardly have told you about it, would I?’
Matty saw the sense in what the other woman was saying and relaxed.
‘I say a lot of silly things when I’m drunk, Sue. It doesn’t mean they’re true, does it?’
Susan shook her head. The tension had left the cell and Matty was smiling again.
‘Well, I know what you’re saying there, mate. I can’t remember that much about it to be honest. Now give me a hand with me letter, eh? I bow down to your superior vocabulary.’
The storm had passed but Susan realised just how close to the wind she had sailed. She also realised that Matty Enderby was a dangerous person. It was far better to have someone like that as a friend than an enemy as her own husband had found out.
Alfred Potter was standing in a cold wood, far from home, and without his clothes. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life.
‘Jesus, but that’s a small prick! Wouldn’t you agree, Dan?’
The black man nodded silently.
‘It’s much too small for a real woman, Mr Potter. Is that why you have a penchant for little girls?’
Roselle’s voice was loud in the gloom and he realised exactly what was going down and was silent.
Danny grabbed him with o
ne meaty fist and shook him.
‘Answer the lady when she talks to you, man. Okay?’
Mr Potter really did not know what to answer so he shook his head vigorously.
Roselle laughed loudly.
‘So you’re calling me a liar, are you? You’re not a beast, a predatory piece of shit who goes after the most vulnerable children in our society. Children in care, children taken from their homes for no other reason than their parents fucked up. You think it’s quite all right to do that, do you?’
Mr Potter wanted to cry, he felt so vulnerable, so frightened and so powerless. Naked and cold, he was at the mercy of strangers, two people who obviously knew about him. About his quiet times with the children, as he called his little games.
‘I wouldn’t ever call you a liar, madam.’
He hated himself for the pleading tone in his voice. Get me out of this, God, he prayed, and I will never go near another child as long as I live.
Roselle grinned.
‘How does it feel to be so exposed, to have strangers looking at you - strangers who could make you do anything they wanted? Because they are stronger, more evil, more vicious than you.’
He still couldn’t answer. There was no answer.
‘Is that what turns people like you on, eh? The fear, the defencelessness of the girls you abuse? Because it is abuse, you know. Abuse of the worst kind. You consciously work with children, pretending you are taking care of them. Like the little girl in Wales, now what was her name?’
She pretended to think hard, as if the name had escaped her.
‘Was it Karen? Yes, Karen. The little girl with the pigtails. You still have photos of her in your flat. We’ve been in your flat, Mr Potter. Me and my friend here. We have been through all your things. Seen all your books, and your videos and your other crap. We know you better than anyone now.’
She was serious, hard-voiced and hard-faced.
‘You left Wales, didn’t you, Mr Potter? And the place in Newcastle, and the place in Leeds. You always leave before they throw you out, don’t you? Before you can get caught. You keep it among yourselves, don’t you? There are loads of people like you around.