Agnes Owens

by Agnes Owens

  The years dragged on. I became the leader of a writers’ group and wrote a short novel about a man who murders a doctor for no apparent reason. It wasn’t a great success but sold well enough to make me know I’m made my mark on the world, which was all I ever really wanted. The group and I parted company when a member accused me of copying a well-known novel I hadn’t heard of. I was so upset that I went home and hardly ever left the house except to buy food and other necessities. After living like that for a year I decided enough was enough and again made preparations for my death, this time making sure there were no hitches. I had the plastic bag ready, the aspirins, the bottle of whisky, the rope, and then the doorbell rang.

  A young woman stood on the doorstep. She said, ‘I’m from Care in the Community and I was wondering . . .’

  My heart sank but I heard myself say, ‘Do come in,’ and resigned myself to the inevitable.

  The Moneylender

  Before giros came by post I remember my Da saying we should all start walking to the broo to save on bus fares, since now we were in the hands of that heartless Tory Thatcher woman. Marlene, my older sister, said he could go and take a fuck to himself, she wasn’t going to walk. My brother Danny said he didn’t mind walking as long as he had enough fags to last all day without having to borrow from our mother. I was still at school so didn’t have to say anything. Danny was a dab hand at borrowing money from Mother, always promising to pay her back with an extra pound. I don’t think she ever got that extra pound, but he always wore her down by begging until she went to fetch her purse from the freezer where we all knew she kept it. Danny told me he was training to be a moneylender, since it was the only occupation that paid well. My sister was training to be a hairdresser, but I wasn’t training to be anything. I’d sit in my room with lipstick on, staring at myself in the mirror and trying to convince myself that I wasn’t bad-looking, but when I went outside I could only recollect a tall skinny girl with long straggly hair.

  My main entertainment in those days was waiting up for Danny to come back late and give me the low-down on what he’d been doing. Some of it was a laugh and some of it, from my point of view, very worrying, but I never criticised him. He was the only company I had.

  ‘Can I come with you?’ I once asked, knowing the answer would be no. He said, ‘Who ever heard of a girl in a gang?’ and I suspected he didn’t want me to know everything he did. Then he brought a girlfriend home and I was really cheesed off.

  ‘I don’t like her,’ I told him afterwards. ‘You don’t have to like her,’ he said, ‘and don’t go waiting up for me any more.’

  I was so shattered I cried myself to sleep, and next morning told him he needn’t worry, I wouldn’t ever wait up for him again.

  ‘What’s the matter with you two?’ said my mother, who was usually blissfully unaware of anything outside our livingroom where she reigned like the Queen of Sheba.

  ‘Nothing. He just makes me sick.’

  ‘It’s because she wants to know everything I do,’ said Danny.

  ‘Like what?’ said my mother, suddenly becoming alert.

  ‘Who I go around with and that.’

  ‘He goes around with a slagheap,’ I said. ‘You should see her.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘She’s already in Danny’s bed.’

  ‘What?’ she shrieked, and turned to Danny. ‘If your father finds out he’ll have a stroke. He’s a very moral man and he won’t put up with people having sex under his roof.’

  ‘Then he should look the other way,’ said Danny. Mother swiped him with a dishtowel then said, ‘Watch your step, boy. What’s her name?’

  ‘Pearl Hunter.’

  ‘Send her through.’

  When Pearl entered the kitchen we all looked at her critically except Danny, who I supposed was used to looking at her. She wasn’t all that good-looking and had a sharp, cheeky manner that no doubt got her places if you counted Danny’s bed as one.

  ‘They tell me you’re hanging about with our Danny,’ said Mother, tactless as usual.

  ‘I’m going out with Danny if that’s what you mean,’ said Pearl, casting me a sideways glance. I knew her from school. She’d been one of the older ones.

  ‘So when are you getting married?’ said my big sister, staring at Pearl’s stomach which was flat as a pancake.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Danny. ‘We’re nowhere near getting married.’

  ‘We’re too young,’ said Pearl.

  ‘One is never too young,’ said Mother. I noticed Pearl spoke through her nose in a way that might eventually annoy most people, including Danny, I hoped.

  ‘Go and get Pearl a cup of tea,’ Mother told him. ‘There should be one left in the pot.’

  ‘I don’t drink tea,’ said Pearl primly, ‘nor smoke either.’

  ‘What do you do then?’ said my big sister.

  ‘She fucks,’ said Danny. ‘That’s the main thing.’

  The rest of us were shocked but Pearl didn’t turn a hair.

  ‘Mind your manners,’ said Mother angrily, ‘and while we’re on the subject, I don’t want any bastard child in this house.’

  ‘Where do you want it then?’ said Danny but his jokes had worn thin.

  ‘And you don’t go to bed with Danny in our house either,’ said Mother, ‘or I’ll put his Da onto you and he’ll soon sort you out.’

  ‘And he’s got a beard down to his kneecaps,’ said Danny, ‘so you wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Pearl with a sickly smile and walked out the door.

  Our Da wasn’t bad-looking when he shaved, which was seldom, but I liked him.

  ‘Do something with yourself,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t be like the rest of this family, all mouth and no go. Get a job.’

  ‘Where will I get one?’ I’d ask, but he’d have fallen asleep, having a habit of falling asleep halfway through conversations.

  ‘It’s all the drinking he does,’ said Mother. ‘It’s rotted his brain.’

  I asked her if I should put my name down to train as a hairdresser but she said, ‘No way. You get lice off other people’s hair,’ so after school I stayed at home and helped with the housework. Pearl never came back so I got pally with Danny again. He said, ‘She was always moaning about something and I’ve got better things to do.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Like minding my own business.’

  But he couldn’t resist telling me he was becoming a moneylender in a big way.

  ‘Look what I’ve got so far!’ he said, showing me a ten pound note and some silver. I didn’t think that was much, but he seemed pleased so I asked him about the bigger moneylenders we had already. They might not be happy with another, and might do him in. He laughed and said I had seen too many films. This did not cheer me up but I was glad we were talking again. One day I asked him, ‘Why don’t you settle down?’

  ‘What, at my age?’

  ‘Settle down in bed with a hot water bottle.’

  This was my idea of a joke. Danny laughed and said he would have to remember that one. It is one of the good memories I have.

  The next thing that happened was four young guys in Danny’s room, half of which was mine. They sat with glazed eyes on the edge of his bed. I asked what was wrong with them.

  ‘Stoned,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, they’re alright,’ then he fell across my bed as if he was stoned too. The youths slept all night on the floor and I never slept a wink. Danny was in my bed and I didn’t want to disturb him. A few days later I told him I wished I had a boyfriend, and did he think I could go out with one of his mates?

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ he said. ‘Anyway you’re too young to have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t intend to have sex,’ I said in a lofty tone, trying to appear grown up, but Danny got angry and said, ‘Don’t let me hear you say that word again.’

  ‘What word?’

&
nbsp; ‘Sex!’ he very nearly shouted. At that my Ma came in and asked what the devil we were talking about.

  ‘She says she wants a boyfriend,’ said Danny, ‘that’s what we were talking about. I told her she’s not getting one. She’s too young.’

  Ma hugged me as if I had an illness: ‘You’ll get one soon enough. When I was your age I was going out with your Da. And look where it’s got me.’

  I said, ‘I don’t want anybody like my Da,’ and Ma took the huff and said, ‘What a bloody little snob you’ve turned out to be.’

  Danny and I made faces at each other, then we burst out laughing, and maybe that was the last time I saw him properly, because of the money lending.

  He had once explained to me, ‘If I lend out ten pounds I get two pound interest on it, and if I lend out five I get one pound.’

  ‘What if you only lend a pound?’

  ‘I don’t lend anything less than a fiver. Less is more bother than it’s worth.’

  We stopped seeing him. He had always stayed out late but now he never came home. I began to worry and so did Mother. She said, ‘I don’t like when he disappears. I don’t know where he is. He could be anywhere.’

  Sometimes I got up at night in the dark to feel for him under the sheets but there was only the damp coldness of an empty bed, and I couldn’t get back to sleep again.

  ‘I hope he never comes back,’ said my sister. ‘He’s the talk of the place.’

  ‘What do they say?’ asked my mother.

  ‘They say he’s a moneylender and carries a knife.’

  ‘That’s only to make folk who owe money pay up,’ I said.

  ‘Honest to God,’ said my sister. ‘With that attitude you’ll likely become a moneylender yourself.’

  But on one occasion Danny did show up in our bedroom. He woke me and put a finger to his lips, whispering, ‘Don’t tell Ma I’m here. I need to sleep first before I can face her.’

  Then he fell into a deep sleep and I climbed in bed beside him to keep him warm for he was as cold as the bricks on our outside toilet. When I woke up he had gone and I would have cried and cried but I had to keep it secret. It would have upset Mother to think he’d been in the house without letting her know. Days after that she burst into the living room and told Da to get up off his arse since his son was fighting a gang of scumbags outside the shops and looked as though he was getting the worst of it.

  ‘No fucking way,’ said my Da huddling close to the electric fire. ‘He likely had it coming.’

  In the end my sister, myself and my mother marched to the shops, Marlene holding a sweeping brush that was hardly a dangerous weapon. Surprisingly the gang ran off when they saw us but Danny lay on the road near the morning traffic. We managed to get him onto the pavement then dragged him back to our house. Nobody helped except an old guy who said he’d been in the war, but he wasn’t much use. We finally got Danny laid out carefully in bed but he didn’t become conscious so we sent for an ambulance. When it left Mother said, ‘He’s in safe hands now,’ but I wasn’t sure because of blood on the pillow. I got a taxi and we all went to the hospital except Da, who stayed huddled over the fire, crying and too drunk to be useful. At the hospital one of the doctors told us Danny was dead.

  It’s been six months since he was buried and I hardly ever leave my room that was half Danny’s. Mother keeps looking in to see if I’m alright. I’m supposed to be a suicide risk because I tried slashing my wrist, but though I’m alright now she thinks I can’t be trusted. I saw a shrink once a fortnight until he said I didn’t need to come back because it’s up to me now. Honestly, I don’t know what he got paid for if it’s up to me. Still, I shouldn’t complain. The social paid for the visits as well as the funeral.

  ‘They’re not bad that way at times,’ says Mother.

  The Phantom Rapist

  My stepfather Joe McAndless was a terrible drunk. No one guessed it who didn’t know him well. He had a stern handsome face that seldom smiled but gave an appearance of knowledge and kindliness. In the pub he was the most generous of men, buying drinks all round for acquaintances but giving my mother the smallest possible part of his wages, and nothing at all to me. After my father died he had visited our house without being invited. My mother told me later she was so lonely in those days she would have welcomed anyone. I was with them at the Registrar Office when they married and afterwards accompanied them for high tea at the City Bakers. I was only eight then and thought my stepfather a decent enough man. By the time I was ten I hated him. There were occasions when he tried to keep in with me by offering a drink from his bottle. I sometimes took it to shut up his slushy voice while my mother sat by the fire moaning and shaking her head. As soon as he went out she would rush to the licensed grocers for something to calm her nerves and I’d go out on the rampage with my pals, which meant running through hedges and banging on doors. Despite McAndless I believe I was happy in those days. As I grew older I became less happy. I was always sore from the beatings he gave me for stealing from the Pakki shop, though everybody stole from the Pakki shop. Even the Pakkis did it. Then came events that put everything else in the shade. A phantom rapist appeared among us.

  One dark evening old Mrs Leadbetter was pushed to the ground on her way to the library and raped, but refused a medical examination: ‘Not at my age!’ she said. Then Rita Johnstone, a loose type of woman aged about thirty, was apparently dragged into a close and raped before the eyes of a guy from the pub next door – he had gone there for a quick piss because there was a big queue at the pub toilet. At different intervals after that three elderly women were raped but refused to be interviewed by the local newspaper, though they all agreed that the assailant wore a long black coat and smelled of peppermint. This information was no use to the local police. Women of any age became afraid to go out alone and membership of the bingo hall went down at an alarming rate. My stepfather said this was a punishment for those who indulged in carnal sin, a remark that seemed aimed at my mother who hardly ever left her seat by the fire. One night when he put on his long black coat to go to the pub it struck me that he could be the rapist, especially when he asked me if I would like a mint imperial. I refused, saying I did not know he liked mint imperials. He said he got them for his throat as he was always coughing. I said, ‘I never heard you coughing.’

  We looked at each other for a moment and I was sure his eyes flickered away first.

  From her seat by the fire my mother said, ‘Don’t be drinking too much.’

  ‘Do I ever?’ he asked.

  When he left I decided to follow him. This was not easy. I stood for ages outside his usual drinking den until at last he came out surrounded by cronies and well-wishers shaking his hand, but I saw no females and trailed homeward behind him. We never passed a soul so my mission had been pointless. I was in a bad mood when I entered the house and saw Joe in a chair apparently asleep with his black coat still on. But he opened one eye and said, ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘None of your business,’ I said, at which he sprang up and kicked my leg. This was not unexpected and even welcomed. It increased my hatred of him and added strength to my convictions.

  ‘Get to bed,’ he said, ‘and watch your step in future for I’ve got my eye on you.’

  Next morning my mother excitedly told us there had been another rape. Joe said he knew all about it. How could he know? I wondered. We had not read the morning paper yet and I had left him the night before settling down in his chair again. As if reading my thoughts he said, ‘It was on the radio.’

  ‘Did they catch him?’ asked my mother, clutching the tea cosy to her chest as though protecting herself.

  ‘Of course not,’ said my stepfather, ‘and I bet they never catch him.’

  I looked at him intently. He seemed to enjoy the fact that they’d never catch the rapist, but I supposed that proved nothing.

  ‘By the way,’ he added to my mother, ‘your son was in later than me last night. I think he needs to be taught a lesson
.’

  ‘Is that true?’ she asked in a quavering voice, and I wished she would stand up for me sometimes. He made to unfasten his trouser belt and suddenly I couldn’t take that any more and said, ‘Touch me and I’ll kill you.’

  That made no impression on him. He knocked over a cup of tea lying on the arm of the sofa and said, ‘Outside boy.’

  ‘Outside yourself!’ I said, ‘And don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.’

  I don’t know why I said that. Perhaps it was desperation because I had no chance of resisting a man like my stepfather who was all pure muscle, but he let the belt dangle and his face went pale.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Never you mind,’ I said, unsure of what I meant. Maybe I was right about him but I had nothing to prove it. But I must have knocked the fire out of him because all he said was, ‘I’m going out and you’d better not be here when I get back.’

  ‘I’m going out too,’ I said reaching for my jacket with a bravado I did not feel.

  I spent another wearisome time hanging around the pub in the cold. I noticed a woman on the pavement opposite, thought she might be waiting to be picked up by someone and considered telling her to go home and not put herself at risk. I didn’t because I was too shy. I began pacing up and down to keep warm, and to pass the time even walked round the block. Noticing that the woman had gone I decided to leave too because the chances that my stepfather was the rapist were becoming less and less and I was beginning to feel the biggest fool on earth. Then the pub door opened and a crowd of men crushed out because it was closing time and I hadn’t even noticed. I was about to leave before McAndless saw me, but a hurried glance showed he wasn’t in that crowd. I waited instead, and when the street was empty went to the pub door and looked through a chink at the side of the blind in the side of the glass panel.