‘Did he hurt you?’ said David.
‘Not very much. No, I’m fine. Really.’
She walked heavily out of the room, shielding her bare breasts with her arms, avoiding Ben’s eyes.
She lay in the bath for a long while, washing the smell, the horror off her, over and over again; then she climbed wearily out, pulled on an old nightdress and lay down on her bed, curled up, foetus-like. She felt exhausted, deathly weary, ached violently all over, not just her head where he had hit her, but every muscle, every tissue of her, as if she had walked for many days.
There was a knock on the door. ‘Grace?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s me, Ben. Can I come in? I’ve got you a cup of tea.’
‘Yes. Yes, do.’
She struggled to sit up; he came in, closed the door behind her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine.’
‘Your eye’s swollen,’ he said.
‘Yes. He hit me.’
‘I think we should get the doctor.’
‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘no, we shouldn’t. It’s perfectly all right.’
‘Grace—’
‘I don’t want the doctor. Or the police. Clifford isn’t—’
‘No, no, it’s all right. He isn’t. Yet.’
He sat down on the bed, took her hand. ‘I wish I’d killed him,’ he said, ‘I really do. Bastard. Great filthy bastard. He should be strung up—’
Usually so gentle, he was near to violence himself. It shocked her. ‘Ben, don’t—’
‘I just can’t face it,’ he said, ‘thinking what might have happened then, if we hadn’t come back.’
‘No.’
‘Did he – did he – well—’ His voice tailed off. He couldn’t quite say the words, was obviously embarrassed.
‘No,’ said Grace flatly. ‘No, he didn’t. You – well, talk about the arrival of the US cavalry.’ She smiled shakily.
‘Thank God. Thank God, Grace.’ He was pale, shaken himself. ‘Here, drink your tea. I put some honey in it. Good for shock, sweetness. They kept giving me sweet tea on the journey down to Cairo.’ He managed to smile at her. ‘All it did was make me want to pee all the time, which made things a bit difficult.’
He supported her while she drank it; she lay back on the pillows and looked at him. ‘You must,’ he said, ‘you must tell the police, get him locked up. He’s filthy, dangerous—’
‘I can’t,’ said Grace, in a low heavy voice that she hardly recognized, ‘I can’t because I feel so – horrible. So ashamed.’
‘You feel ashamed? I don’t see why, how—’
‘I’m sure Florence felt ashamed,’ she said, ‘I can see that now. It’s a sort of – contamination. You feel somehow responsible. As if it was your fault, as if you’d asked for it.’
‘Grace, that’s really stupid. We were here, we saw, nobody could think that.’
‘They would,’ she said, ‘they would, you know. And it would be awful, terrible, for everyone, everyone in the family, the children, for – Charles.’ She brought the name out hesitantly, as if it was a difficult word.
‘But what about you? And you talk about Florence, what about what he might do to her, to Imogen?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘I don’t think he’ll come back, not now. Poor Florence, I feel so ashamed of the things I thought and said.’
‘You’re crazy,’ he said suddenly and he sounded angry. ‘I just don’t get it. I’ve half a mind to go and sort him out myself. I wish I’d finished him off, finished him off for good, made him so he could never—’
‘Don’t talk like that, Ben. Please. It makes me feel worse.’
‘Sorry, but I can’t help it. I feel like throwing up. And I’m scared for you. Please, Grace, please report it, please tell someone.’
‘I can’t. I just can’t. It would be dreadful for the family. And I’d have to talk about it, over and over again, and who would believe me? He’d tell them all I – well, that it was my fault. And they’d believe him. About you and everything.’
‘What about me?’ said Ben.
‘He said – well, he said I was obviously – oh, you know. With you.’
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘Dear sweet Jesus.’
‘Is it that terrible an idea?’ said Grace and smiled. The tea and the fading of fear, of shock, had made her feel light-headed and slightly disorientated.
‘No,’ he said, looking away from her quickly, ‘no, of course it’s not. That’s not what I meant.’
There was a silence: a long taut silence. Finally she said, ‘Is Imogen all right? And the boys?’
‘The boys are bathing her. She thinks it’s grand. They’re – well, they’re a bit upset, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh Ben, I’m so sorry,’ said Grace and burst into tears. Sobs tore at her, rising in her throat in great painful thrusts; tears streamed endlessly down her face.
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘don’t say you’re sorry. It wasn’t your fault, of course it wasn’t, you’re stupid to think it.’
‘But I do think it, I do –’ Her voice began to rise, she was close to hysteria. He looked at her, then suddenly moved near her, put his arm round her. ‘Here, come here. It’s all right, everything’s all right, there’s nothing, nothing to worry about any more. You just cry, it’ll help. Hush, love, hush—’
He put the other arm round her then, held her close; she found herself safe, enfolded in him, her head buried in his chest. Gradually the tears eased, ceased, the horror lessened. Her head felt very heavy, hurt where Robert had hit it; she stirred, trying to place it more gently, moved in his arms just slightly, shifted more closely against him. It felt very comfortable, very easy; she began to grow sleepy.
‘I think I should go to the boys for a bit,’ he said, settling her back gently on the pillows. ‘I think they need me.’
‘Yes of course. And then don’t you have to go?’
‘Oh, I’ll leave very early in the morning,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to leave you alone here tonight. Even with Sir Clifford.’
‘Ben, I’ll be all right.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’d rather stay. I want to take care of you.’
In their four-poster bed in the New Forest hotel, Florence clung to Giles, crying. ‘I can’t bear it,’ she said, ‘I just can’t bear it.’
‘There’s nothing to bear,’ he said, ‘if you would only be sensible.’
‘I can’t stay with you, Giles. Robert is trying so hard, he’s accepted Imogen, I just have to try again, give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m his wife and I owe him that.’
‘I shan’t let you,’ he said, ‘I shan’t let you go. I love you too much.’
‘You have to,’ said Florence, ‘you have to let me go.’
It was much, much later when Ben came back. Dimly through her drowsiness, the pain of her bruising, fighting sleep, she heard Imogen giggling, Daniel and David talking, unusually quietly, Ben’s voice reading to them, then him and Clifford moving about the house. Finally there was silence.
She had just given up on him, was considering going in search of some aspirin, when her door opened. No knock, it just opened.
‘Grace? Can I come in?’
‘Yes. Could I have some aspirin or something?’
He brought her some, and another cup of tea. She drank it slowly, looking at him thoughtfully. Something had changed, shifted between them, and she wasn’t sure what it was, how it had happened.
‘Everyone asleep?’
‘Everyone. Even Sir Clifford.’
He put out his hand, touched her swollen eye. ‘Your poor face. Does it hurt very much?’
‘Quite a lot, yes.’
‘It looks horrible.’
‘I’ll have to tell everyone Flossie did it, butted me.’
‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘there you go again. Why not the truth?’
‘I’ve told you why not.’
He looked at her, hesitated, then said, ra
ther slowly and carefully, ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d actually raped you. I couldn’t have stood it. I’d have gone mad.’
And then he went out again, closing the door behind him.
Grace knew precisely what he meant; and in spite of the horrors of the day, the physical pain she was in, she fell asleep smiling.
She woke up very early: at four o’clock. She was stiff, sore, her head ached; she got up and went downstairs very quietly, made herself a hot drink and took more aspirin. And then she sat by the boiler, huddled into her dressing gown, thinking.
Something had changed profoundly for her in the past few hours; she felt a new, a different person. She wasn’t quite sure how or what it was, only that she felt, against all the odds, stronger, more in control. There were two ways you could go through life, she thought: as driver or passenger, and she was by inclination and upbringing a passenger, accepting what she was told, doing the right, the proper thing, obeying rules, remaining within boundaries. But Robert’s attack, with all its shock and horror, the betrayal from so totally unexpected a source, had called everything into question, not least her submission to the rules, and had given her in some strange way the courage and authority to look past those boundaries, into the forbidden places beyond.
Chapter 23
Christmas 1943
Florence turned up the next day to collect Imogen, heavy-eyed and pale; Nanny Baines had sent her down. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion, flat and dull, ‘sorry you had to look after her.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Grace.
‘You look terrible,’ said Florence, rather absently, ‘absolutely awful. What on earth have you been doing?’
‘I – well, you see, Florence, the thing is—’
How did you begin to tell someone their husband had tried to rape you, had beaten you up? Even if they didn’t love him, didn’t even like him any more.
Florence as usual was not listening to her. ‘Imogen looks a bit odd,’ she said, ‘What on earth is she wearing?’
‘An old jersey of Daniel’s,’ said Grace. ‘I ran out of clean clothes.’
‘Couldn’t you have washed something of hers?’
‘No, Florence,’ said Grace, irritated in spite of herself, in spite of her rather illogical happiness, ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Well, never mind. Grace, I want to talk to you.’
‘Oh. Yes, well, I want to talk to you too. Perhaps I should go first. You see—’
Florence interrupted her. ‘What I’ve got to say is important. So please listen. I know you think I shouldn’t have – well, had the affair. With – with Giles. And you were right, you were absolutely right, I shouldn’t. The only excuse I had was that I was very unhappy, but – well, running away is never an answer. The thing is, I have been with him, with Giles, these last two days.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘yes, I know.’
‘How do you know?’ said Florence, staring at her.
‘Florence, if you’d just let me explain—’
‘In a minute. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to tell you that I have actually given him up. Giles, I mean. I’m going back to Robert. He’s been trying really hard to turn over a new leaf, all that sort of thing. And he seems very fond of Imogen. And he’s been very patient and loyal. So that’s what I’m going to do – well, I have done.’ She stopped and looked at Grace rather wildly, her face set, her eyes swimming with tears.
‘Florence,’ said Grace, putting her hand out gently, ‘Florence, there’s—’
‘No, don’t start giving me any sympathy. I don’t deserve it and I can’t stand it,’ said Florence. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more, just get on with it. I think that’s what life’s about, don’t you? Getting on with it.’ She scowled fiercely at Grace in an effort to control her tears, swallowed hard, threw back her head and closed her eyes; she looked, Grace thought, exactly as she had in the throes of childbirth.
Imogen walked towards them, clambered into her mother’s lap; holding something tightly in her small fist; Florence clasped her to her as if she was some kind of lifeline.
‘Oh darling, it’s so lovely to see you. Even in that awful jumper. Whatever have you got there?’
‘Snake,’ said Imogen, smiling up at her. ‘Dan’s snake.’
‘Yes, well, Dan can have it right back again,’ said Florence. ‘Whatever is it? Oh God, it’s the most enormous worm.’ She took it from Imogen, went over to the window and threw it out with a shudder. ‘Honestly, Grace, those boys are a nightmare, I don’t know how you stand them.’
‘Florence—’
‘You do look absolutely terrible, you know. What did you say you did to your face?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Grace.
‘Well, you should try and cover it up a bit at least. Anyway—’
‘Florence,’ said Grace, in desperation, ‘Florence, for God’s sake listen to me.’
‘All right, all right, there’s no need to shout. What is it? I don’t suppose you’ve got any alcohol in the house, have you? I could even face some of that foul elderberry wine you make.’
‘No,’ said Grace, ‘your father’s drunk it all, as usual. Florence, just sit down and shut up, will you?’
Florence looked at her, startled, and sat down; Grace told her what had happened. When she had finished, Florence stood up, her eyes very bright, her pale face flushed. ‘Can I use your telephone?’ she said.
‘Yes of course.’
Grace listened to her asking Mrs Babbage to get her a number in Southampton, and then tried not to listen as she told whoever it was at the other end that she loved him, that she wanted to be with him for ever and ever and she had no intention of having anything to do with her husband ever again. It was a very long conversation.
She was glad Florence was happy, but it would have been nice, she thought, if she had at least said she was sorry about Robert’s behaviour and asked Grace if she felt all right.
Ben was coming for Christmas. Grace found herself looking forward to it as if she was a child again. She and the boys decorated the house with paper chains made out of brightly painted strips of newspapers, and she dug up a tiny conifer tree from Thorpe Wood and decorated it as best she could. She had plenty of baubles and tinsel from the school storecupboard, but although Clifford struggled for a whole evening, he couldn’t get the fairy lights to work. The tree looked rather dull but then Mrs Babbage turned up with some old Christmas tree candleholders and a few tiny candles for them: ‘Mr Babbage and I won’t be using them, we’re going to my daughter’s.’
Elspeth’s father came over a few days before Christmas looking gloomier than ever with a large chicken tucked into his coat.
‘Died,’ he said lugubriously, ‘just died, three of them did. Last night. Don’t know why. May be a bit tough, that’s the only thing.’
‘Thank you so much, Mr Dunn,’ said Grace.
She had heard there had been quite a few mysterious chicken-deaths in the village the week before Christmas.
Presents were as usual a problem, but she managed to get Daniel a clockwork train and a few feet of track at the Christmas bring-and-buy. The paint was very scratched and worn, but it did work and she thought Ben would be able to smarten it up a bit. David was more of a problem; in fact she was in despair, but three days before Christmas she was rummaging through the loft looking for some blankets and came across a rather strange contraption standing on Charles’s school trunk. She took it down to Clifford. ‘What’s this?’
‘Good Lord,’ he said, taking it from her as if it was some priceless treasure. ‘It’s an old cat’s-whisker radio set. I’d forgotten he’d had one.’
‘Could I give it to David, do you think?’
‘Of course. Wonderful old things. I remember the year I gave that to Charles. He was so—’ He stopped abruptly, his brilliant blue eyes very sad. Grace said nothing but she gave him a hug. It must be terrible, she thought, to have a beloved son who
was not only far away and in considerable danger, but who never wrote or communicated with him in any way.
She had entertained the faint thought that Charles might get leave at Christmas; she crushed the rather shocking realization that it was only a thought, rather than a hope, told herself that she felt that way because it would have been so difficult with the boys and Ben and Clifford, wondered and shied away from, for the hundredth time, how she was going to feel about Charles, about everything, when the war was over.
Two weeks before Christmas she got a letter from him: he was still in Italy, reporting on the appalling chaos there, telling her as always that he loved her, missed her, confirming that he would not be home for Christmas. ‘But next year perhaps,’ he finished. ‘I think the end is certainly in sight.’
It was, for him, a very philosophical, almost poetic letter, thought Grace. He had clearly changed. Suppressing determinedly the sense of relief that there was absolutely no question of his suddenly arriving home, she focused her mind on Christmas and tried not to think beyond it.
Ben’s leave started on 23 December; he was arriving on the train and she and the boys were going to meet him. She hadn’t seen him since the day of Robert’s assault, although he had phoned several times to check that she was all right, and that the boys had recovered from their own shock. The whole thing had now receded into the shadowy area of a nightmare. Aware of it lurking obscenely at the back of her mind, Grace had firmly set herself not to forget it, but to be aware of what it had done for her, what it meant to her and her life: a turning point, a watershed. It wasn’t always easy, but it certainly helped to rid her of the horror.
She was physically nervous now, though, as she had never been before, afraid that he would return. Strange noises made her jump, she locked up almost obsessively, worried about the boys, and couldn’t confess this to Clifford or Ben in case they insisted on after all involving the police.
The boys had been subdued for a few days; the trauma of their sudden confrontation with events they had only been aware of from sniggered reports in the school playground, the vaguest explanations from their elders, involving one of the people they loved best in the world, had been seriously upsetting for them. Ben had sat them down and talked to them gently, honestly that night, and that and Grace’s apparently blithe disregard of the episode had helped them considerably, but they had nevertheless lost a degree of innocence and trust through it, and Grace knew that and it grieved and worried her.
Forbidden Places Page 44