‘Elizabeth. She’s getting worse.’
They mounted and turned the horses towards the lane that ran to the shore between ploughed fields of rich dark earth whose beech hedges were sprinkled with russet leaves amongst the dense branches. Over hedge tops the sea could be seen as they went slowly at a walk down the rutted, stone-strewn lane, the horses’ breath blowing like white steam ahead of them. Mike asked, ‘Did she have a fit?’
Ruth answered drily, ‘No. I managed to avert one.’
‘You are good for her,’ he said. ‘Is Gordon coming home today?’
‘Tonight. He’s bringing a couple of officers with him.’ His voice had an edge.
‘For you? The officers?’
‘Who knows?’ Was Mike Hamilton afraid of losing her? They rode side by side as far as the bank of buckthorn bushes that grew thick, wild and in such random abandon that a walker could wander lost for hours, unable to get down to the beach below. But the horses knew their way through the maze, though there was space on the tracks for only one at a time.
‘You go first,’ Mike said, and they cautiously picked their way down to the beach. He was not motivated by courtesy. He liked to watch her seat – liked the view, as he’d often said – liked to see the shape of her rear as she lifted out of the saddle.
She was on the beach now, signalling to him with her riding crop, calling over her shoulder, ‘Shall I kick her off? Race you to the old slipway?’
‘I’ve told you a hundred times to warm her up slowly. She doesn’t need the whip,’ Mike said, though it was doubtful if she listened. He pulled up beside her. ‘Ye’ve a cruel streak, Ruth.’
‘Me? Cruel?’ Their horses were stamping, impatient.
‘When I declared meself, ye said the only creature you love is your horse.’
Ruth snorted a derisive laugh. Mike was wrong in thinking that animals needed a gentle hand. Horses, like humans, needed to be mastered.
Mike repeated, ‘Warm her up slowly, I keep telling you.’
She gave him a bold look. ‘Canter down and race back?’
He shrugged. ‘Aye. Off ye go.’
Ruth urged Heather into a trot and kicked in her heels hard to send her into a canter, the easiest pace, the steadiest movement. The mare moved like silk under her, responding to her every command. She was in control, and how good it felt. She heard the creaking saddle and rasping breath of Mike on Major behind her and laughed out loud, knowing that the strenuous ride and her rear view would inflame Mike. She stood in the stirrups, the weight in her heels, no contact with the saddle, knees out, the searing cold air against her glowing face, blowing back her thick blonde hair. The scent and salt of the sea was on her tongue and her lover was riding close behind her, obeying her siren call. It was as near to control of another human being as she could wish for.
Last night, instead of going to his cold bed, Mike had taken her, stripped bare, over the saddle stand in the heat of the ammonia-scented stables, with the horses snorting behind the iron grating of their stalls. He had been wild, demanding, forcing himself roughly on her. He knew her needs; knew she needed his strong hands to hold her down when she writhed and twisted. He knew she liked him to make marks in hidden places, to bruise her so that her daily activities were a secret, painful and exciting reminder and foretaste of the pleasures of the night.
Even now as she rode she could feel the ache in her wrists and ankles. Last night when Mike had released his own first need, she told him to shackle her at the ankles, wide apart like a mare at stud. When she was immobilised he tied her wrists to an iron wall ring so that her only support was her feet and her elbows against the rough wall, then he teased her, at first lightly with a riding crop and afterwards firmly and slowly with his fingers until she cried out for him and he entered her hard and violently from behind while he grasped her breasts in a clenching tight grip.
They had reached the rotten boards of the slipway under the cliff, and Ruth yanked Heather’s head round and brought her to a halt. She saw Mike wince at her action as he pulled up beside her without any visible signal to Major. She was breathless. ‘Race back?’
‘If ye’re entertaining tonight, then how about this afternoon?’ he said. ‘Stables or bed – wherever.’
‘We’ll see,’ she said. She would make him wait. She was the leader in this game. ‘I have to make a phone call this afternoon. I’m going to invite the doctor to the dinner party.’ She leaned forward over Heather’s neck, gave a fast, sharp flick of the reins, shouted, ‘Go on!’ and they were away, racing down the beach, sand flying under pounding hooves, the horses’ necks stretched. The ride was so thrilling she could think of nothing else.
Chapter Three
Summer 1938
The reformatory, Dr Guthrie’s School for Girls, as it was called, loomed large and forbidding above the houses and shops on Liberton Brae that warm summer night. Flora, grown tall and well developed after nearly two years in the institution, sat on the windowsill of the dormitory, where girls slept ten to a room. Outside the birds sang, and on the street behind the high wall that enclosed Guthrie’s, people were strolling just as they pleased. Young children played in the fields and ran free as air in the enchanting Edinburgh evening light. It would not start to grow dusk until half past nine, yet the Guthrie girls had to be in their nightgowns by nine. There was no arguing with it; the excuse of fear of locked places could not be made. They would be locked inside and Flora’s stomach tightened into a knot of fear. But she dared not let it show. To say you were afraid was to ask for trouble.
She eased herself to sit upright, and spread the voluminous flower-sprigged nightdress wide over the sill to conceal her actions, whilst behind her back she felt with nervous fingers for the screwdriver she had taken from the tool drawer in the sewing room. There was one last screw that held the retaining bar. She was going to steal her papers, at night, from the headmaster’s study before escaping over the wall.
Across the room the others were gathered round Cissie Kerr, who was wearing outdoor clothes. She had absconded a month ago and tonight had been brought back by the police. Cissie undressed while the girls questioned her.
‘Where d’ye get tae, Cissie?’
‘No’ far. Leith.’
‘Why didn’t ye go home?’
‘I’d rather be here than hame.’ Cissie stepped out of her underslip and pulled the regulation nightgown over her head.
Flora didn’t trust any one of them, nor did she believe that a girl, even one as hard as Cissie, would prefer to live in Guthrie’s than with her own family. But she had to pretend. ‘Where in Leith?’ she asked.
Flora was the tallest girl in Guthrie’s, and because of this, though she was one of the youngest, she looked older, more mature than the girls who encircled Cissie. They couldn’t know that her insides were shivering jelly even as she gritted her teeth and felt the blade at last get purchase on the rusty screw head. ‘Did you find Jessie? Did you say I’m asking after her?’
Cissie gave Flora a cold stare. ‘I found her. She says to tell you she’ll find ye work when you’re oot.’
Jessie Fairbairn had been a good friend to Flora. Sentenced to a year in Guthrie’s for living rough and stealing food, she had redeemed herself and found a place with a watchmaker’s family. The screwdriver slipped into the soft cushion of Flora’s thumb. She caught her breath, ignored the pain and, looking blankly at the girls, said, ‘I’ll be out soon.’
‘How long did you get?’ someone shouted to Flora.
‘Two years,’ she said. ‘I’ve nearly done it.’
‘Miss McNair says ye’ll go to hell. She says ye canna be trusted. Ye’ve run away once too often, Flora Macdonald.’
She had run away from Guthrie’s twice, trying to be brave like Gran. Twice she’d tried to get back to the place she belonged, but each time she’d been caught and had a few extra weeks added to her sentence, the first time by the very same magistrate who’d sent her here. Next time, he’d warned her, she’d
be old enough to go to prison. It would not happen again. She had it planned. She was going to find work and save money so she could make her own choices.
‘Miss McNair’s a fat old cow,’ one of the girls was saying as the screw gave under the screwdriver that was engaged in the rusty slot. Miss McNair was a tall, skinny woman with not an ounce of fat on her, but Flora nodded her agreement while giving the screwdriver a quick, snatching twist. Her fingers were slippery with sweat but she felt the screw loosen.
‘Aye, so she is. A fat old cow.’
‘I hate her an’ all.’
‘And me.’
‘She’s got her knife into Flora. Flora never gets into cookery. She’s aye toilin’ in the laundry.’ The girl who said this added, ‘you didnae want the laundry work, did ye, Flora? An’ it’s only the ones Miss McNair hates that she puts in the laundry.’
‘I despise the way they treat us in this place,’ Flora said. In fact she was scared stiff. It was her looks, her carriage and the quiet manner she had developed to cover her shyness that saved her from being treated like a down-and-out offender, in the way the weaker girls were.
‘Despise? Think you’re clever?’ Cissie spat the word out.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Flora said quietly. And teachers such as Miss McNair knew it too – knew she had done nothing wrong. They resented it, wanting her to be grateful for her very life; wanting her to bow and scrape, to apologise for being in need. Flora quickly turned the screw with her fingers. It came out. She pushed it and the screwdriver into the corner of the sill. Then she slid to the bed to lie on her blanket.
‘Then why were you sent to Guthrie’s?’ Cissie started across the room towards Flora’s bed but stopped at the sound of the door being unlocked by the night duty woman, who shouted ‘Close the curtains. Into bed.’ She came in. ‘Anyone out of bed in five minutes’ time will get an order mark. No talking.’
Flora pulled the curtains behind her before anyone else could do it, then slipped down again under her sheet, her eyes with their opalescent whites glancing from bed to bed and back to the door. The duty woman slammed the door and turned the key, and the frightened, sick feeling that a locked door always brought swept over Flora. She had to fight with herself to control these fears. The others were silent, afraid that the woman would burst in, find them talking and put them on orders.
Orders were severe. A girl who fell foul of the staff might have all privileges taken away; home visits, if she had a home, would be stopped for a month. In Flora’s case, having no access to the outside world, if she were on punishment, the three evenings on which they were allowed to play the wind-up gramophone and have singsongs would be spent in solitary silence, reading and memorising improving works.
She lay still and watchful for two hours until the night staff had done their rounds and gone down to their quarters. In the dormitory, now, the only sounds were the deep breathing and light snoring of the girls. Flora heaved herself up to look through the window. The moon was full and the silvery light lit up her side of the building as clear as day. If anyone were watching Guthrie’s windows she’d be caught before she had a chance. There were no lights showing in the houses opposite. The temptation that came from weakness and fear was to leave it for another night, but Do it now or you’ll never escape, she told herself. It’s a perfect night.
She crawled on to the sill and closed the curtains silently behind her, then, kneeling, began to work the lower sash, inching it upwards. She had been rubbing a candle end over the sash ropes so that when the time came the window would slide easily. Sweat broke on her forehead as she worked. It was so slow … so slow …
Suddenly the sash shot upwards with a groaning sound and a blast of cool night air rushed in. ‘Oh God!’ she whispered. With trembling hands she eased the curtains back and peered into the dormitory. They slept on. Go on! she urged herself. You can do it. The wrought-iron side support of the sewing-room balcony was four feet below the window. There was a hiding place between the railing and a huge potted plant. The second part of her plan was to hide her papers and belongings there, ready for her escape.
She was out on the sill, sliding a bare foot over the edge, turning, sliding the other foot and now hanging and finding that her arms were not strong enough to hold her and slipping with the roughcast harling tearing against her shins, knees, thighs and inner arms until with a sickening, painful jolt she landed crumpled and winded on the balcony. She bit her lip to stop herself crying out, got to her knees and then to her torn feet, flexing her legs. Nothing was broken.
The sewing-room window slid upwards silently and easily and she was in, padding to the door; the tearing sound of her bloodied soles, sticky across the linoleum, and the rapid beating of her heart sounded to her like thunder in the silence. Her hair, dark burnished copper, clung damp with sweat to the back of her neck as she opened the sewing-room door. The headmaster’s study was three doors away. She reached it in two terrifying seconds, turned the door knob and slipped inside, and in the ghostly moonlight went straight to the fourth drawer down of the wooden drawer cabinet. It slid open under her shaking hands and she began feverishly to search the brown cardboard folders for her papers – the court orders and her birth and Gran’s death certificates.
Here it was. Flora Macdonald. She took out the papers, pushed the folder back into place and, with her heart thumping in her chest like a wild animal, ran back to the sewing room. She climbed on to the balcony rail, found purchase for her foot and hauled herself on to the dormitory windowsill. Slipping her hands under the gap, she felt the window slide up easily. She crawled in. They were all still asleep. She had done it.
She slid the papers under her mattress and then lay in bed, heart hammering, the metallic taste in her mouth turned to sweetness, legs, feet and arms stinging, but she was proud of herself. ‘I’m making my ain choices, Gran,’ she whispered.
There was no hope of sleep for the rest of the night. Dawn was breaking and Flora lay alternating between fear and hope as she made her plans. The next stage was to offer to sweep the sewing room after the lesson and conceal on the balcony her belongings, which she would have to wrap in brown paper. In case it rained she would slip her papers into the pocket of her mackintosh and turn it inside out. Then, when the time was right, on a quiet black night she’d go through the window again on to the sewing balcony, only this time she’d have to leap out six feet onto the wall. Then she’d run as fast and as far as she could – not to Haddington and the old home ground, but towards the city and anonymity.
Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta 1938
At eight o’clock in the morning, with a subtropical climate outside, Stoker Mechanic Andrew Stewart was hotter than he’d ever been in his life. Sweat ran down his broad, muscular back under his boiler suit as he crouched, cramped, in front of one of the eight oil-fired boilers that drove HMS Rutland, a 10,000-ton, three-funnel cruiser. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising in anticipation of his superior’s arrival.
Stoker Petty Officer Pearce had come through the steel door from the deck down the iron steps, to make his inspection in the second engine room. He was an ugly devil, with leery, bloodshot eyes and a misshapen nose that had been broken in a fight. Andrew had become used to receiving a clout across the ears in training and to the rough justice of life on board, and he was not unduly bothered by physical violence, but Pearce was mean and nasty. From Andrew’s first day he had found fault with everything he did.
Pearce was standing behind him. ‘Show me the burners. If they aren’t clean there’ll be no shore leave for you, sailor.’
Stopping shore leave was beyond Pearce’s powers but he could hold them back for hours with these tactics. Andrew had only just cleaned and replaced the heavy steel burners but he removed the first one from its housing and held it out. Pearce took it to the bench, inspected it minutely, turned and said, ‘Take them out. All of them. Clean them. Or I’ll put you on a charge.’
‘I’ve just done them, Pett
y Officer.’
‘Do them again.’
Andrew bit back a reply as his dark eyebrows drew together. Not only could Pearce make a stoker’s life a misery but he could also bring a charge of dumb insolence. Behind Andrew, his oppo, Greg, a boy from Edinburgh who had joined up and been with Andrew from the start, went white with anger as Pearce turned on him, saying, ‘You too. You won’t get a run ashore until those burners are clean.’
Greg gave Pearce a murderous look. It would take them three hours to clean all eight burners and replace them. But four hours later they sauntered, smart in number sixes, bell-bottom whites, under the blazing heat of the Maltese afternoon. If they had gone ashore in shorts they’d have to be back on board by sunset and they had no mind to do that. They were going towards the harbour bars, following three sailors from the Devonshire, which had docked ahead of them.
‘I’ll have to find a girl,’ Greg said. ‘Haul my ashes. It’s been weeks …’ Greg was ahead of Andrew in experience but Andrew wanted to be thought of as a man of the world, so, referring to the ‘goobers’, the rubber protection that sailors were ordered to use against the punishable offence of catching a disease, he said, ‘Did you ask for your free issue?’
‘Aye,’ said Greg. ‘You ought to ask for them. You never know …’
Andrew grinned. He did know. He’d never go the whole hog with a girl – not until he was married. It wasn’t religious scruples that held him back, or the worry of disease. It was Ma. He’d never let Ma down.
Greg was his mate though. And they had a plan of action. When one of them found a girl and thought she looked promising, he would say to the other, ‘Look at the time. You’ll be late for your date …’ But now Andrew could not wipe the smile off his face, for they were approaching Straight Street, the dark, narrow street known to sailors as The Gut, famous for its brothels and dives.
‘Let’s start here.’ Greg jerked his head towards the first seedy bar they came to. ‘We’ll have a quick one then try the others. Order two Blues.’ Blues were the local beer. Already they were learning the lingo.
Flora's War Page 6