A Whisper to the Living

by Ruth Hamilton

  Aunts and uncles fell, of course, into the same category. I would have to find somewhere to be alone, absolutely alone until my mother got out of the hospital. And, strangely, my desire to visit her had gone, because my body was dirty now, had been dirtied by Eddie Higson’s vile hands and I could not, as yet, countenance the idea of seeing my mother. She was alright. Dr Pritchard had said she was alright. So now, I must play for time, keep away from Higson, think things through.

  I bought a bottle of lemon pop, two candles and a box of matches from Connie’s Corner, then walked down the Ensign Street backs until I came to our old house. The gate swung open easily and I stepped into the tiny yard, just avoiding the corpse of a large rat that lay to the left of the empty midden.

  The air-raid shelter was unbelievably dark, yet I took a strange comfort from the blackness, was glad that I could now concentrate my thoughts without fear of disturbance or distraction. But however long I thought, whichever course my mind took, it was always circular in that it brought me back to the same point. I could not, would never be able to, tell anyone about what Eddie Higson had done to me and to my mother. He was evil, truly evil and if I were to seek help, then he would surely finish off both of us.

  And so the air-raid shelter became my home. I carefully rationed out my bread and cheese, anxious to save Eddie Higson’s money for a real emergency. But as night closed in, I became chilled to the bone and, huddled in my corner, I decided that I must have a blanket. This would be my goal for tomorrow – to acquire more food and some kind of warm covering for the nights. I slept little, merely dozing in the cramped cold, easing myself from one uncomfortable position to another, all the time tense and on my guard in case he came and found me.

  The next day I stole three flannelette sheets from the backs in James Street and a blanket from a line behind Cannon Street. My second night was, therefore, warmer but no more comfortable.

  After that, I never went out again. I had run out of food, drink and candles, but an apathy had descended upon me, my head hurt and was burning and I coughed almost incessantly. On about the fourth day, I knew I was dying and I didn’t care too much about it, even if my immortal soul was black from stealing. My head was filled with words and pictures all jumbled together and I slipped from time to time into blissful unconsciousness, only to be wakened by the coughing and the rasping noise of my own breathing.

  They found me and took me to the Infirmary, though I remembered nothing of my journey there. I had something called pneumonia and had Mrs Maguire not recognized my name in the Bolton Evening News, had she not remembered seeing me in the street, had she not instigated the search of the area, I might never have been discovered.

  My mother visited me in my ward and, as I got better, I went to see her in the other ward. Eddie Higson never came near, though I understood that he had been the one who had reported me missing. I told my mother nothing. In fact, once my illness was over, I began to wonder if I had imagined Eddie Higson’s attack on me, for I had had some strange nightmares in my delirium.

  My mother was allowed home before I was and she came to visit me each day, once bringing flowers from Mrs Cullen and Josie, another time a doll from Rita and her parents. The police questioned me, but I gave them no answers. I was dismissed with a telling off for being such a naughty girl and, towards the end of October, I returned home.

  He was there when my mother brought me in.

  ‘How are you, Annie?’ he asked, pretending to be pleasant.

  I stared at him and knew it had been no dream. Gripping my mother’s hand, I said, loudly and clearly, ‘You can go to hell.’

  My mother’s hand clutched mine tightly, but Higson merely chuckled, saying ‘I see she’s back to normal, then.’

  He turned to the sports page and carried on reading. And I knew there and then that whatever he did to me, I could overcome it. There was no way he could hurt me any more than he already had and I intended to emerge victorious. How little I knew!

  10

  New Pastures

  It happened again, of course. I was not always able to sleep at Rita’s house and he got to me whenever he could, each time putting me through the same sick ritual, though it varied slightly as the years went by and he began to collect and scrutinize my underwear, looking for the tell-tale sign of menstruation, waiting, as he put it, for me to ripen.

  By the time I was ten years old, I knew about sex, knew what Eddie Higson was planning for me, yet I managed to live with it, taking each day as it came, accepting, as children tend to accept, that things were far from right but that I could do nothing to alter or improve my situation.

  My mother withered again; of Ernie Bradshaw I saw and heard no more except I knew that he had left the mill.Whether or not he got his beating, I ceased to care. But now I felt sure that I could never tell my mother about what was happening between Higson and me.

  ‘You tell her, you tell anybody and next time I do you proper, ready or not – understand?’ I never answered him, just sat or stood wherever he put me and let it happen, whatever he did, I just let it happen.

  When I passed my scholarship, he said I could not go to St Mary’s but, for once, my mother put her foot down and got a grant for my uniform, a nasty set of brown and yellow clothing that was all several sizes too big so that I would get my wear out of it. The hat was a monstrosity, a wide-brimmed brown velour with a yellow band and a badge in the front. Even the knickers were brown and long in the leg while the coat looked like something rejected from army stock.

  We stood, my mother and I in front of her big mirror and she oohed and ahed over my appearance, her eyes glistening with pride and unshed tears.

  I felt nothing except revulsion as I looked at the sight of myself in the mirror, was aware of little except the soreness of my tiny breasts and the pain between my thighs.

  ‘You must work hard,’ my mother was saying now. ‘Work hard and get them exams you do at sixteen, then you can stop on and do the others when you’re eighteen.’

  My eyes met hers in the glass. ‘I’d rather go to boarding school,’ I said. ‘I want to get away from him.’

  ‘You can’t, Annie. Anyroad, he never hits you now, does he? I mean, we’ve had no trouble since . . . well . . . since I lost the baby.’

  ‘Since he murdered your baby.’

  ‘Now, Annie love . . .’

  ‘Don’t defend him, don’t you dare. He’s a murderer and a wicked man.’

  ‘We’ve all got our faults, Annie. Look at me and how daft I was over that Ernie Bradshaw. I just pushed your Dad too far, that’s all . . .’

  ‘HE IS NOT MY DAD. My father is dead and that . . . animal is nobody’s father. He is not fit to be a father . . .’

  ‘Alright, Annie. Now get that lot off while I sew the nametapes on. Will I put one on your vest as well?’

  ‘No!’ I did not want to take off my vest, could not allow my mother to see the bruises. It was getting so hard, this business of protecting her.

  Just then Higson entered the room and I paused in the act of removing the gymslip, allowed it to fall once more around my calves so that I remained fully clothed.

  ‘What’s this then?’ he snarled. ‘Bloody fancy-dress parade?’

  ‘I’m just getting her ready for her new school, Eddie.’

  He threw himself onto the bed and lay there staring at the two of us, a wicked smile distorting his face. ‘I don’t see why she needs all that fancy book-learning,’ he said. ‘All she’ll do is finish up wed and then what good will her education be?’

  I turned slowly to face him. I knew I would suffer later, yet still I had to say it. ‘My education will keep me out of the mill. It will also make sure I don’t finish up married to a window cleaner.’

  He raised himself to a sitting position. ‘You’ll be lucky if anybody marries you.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll find somebody, don’t you worry. And I’ll make sure he’s a big man who can fight my battles.’

  He blanched and I knew
he was worried in case I came out with it all there and then in front of my mother. I decided to keep him worried.

  Gathering all my strength, I forced myself to sit at the foot of the bed and, keeping my tone light, I went on, ‘You see, there are people in this world I just don’t like. You know the sort – they say things and do things that hurt. Well, when I’m old enough to have a boyfriend I’ll give him a list and say “get them for me”. That’ll be good, won’t it?’

  He jumped up and stormed out of the room without a word.

  ‘Ooh, Annie, you shouldn’t upset him like that!’

  ‘Upset him? I wouldn’t dream of it, Mam.’

  St Mary’s was a Catholic Grammar School for girls. It sat on top of a mound between Daubhill and Deane Road and it turned out young ladies of varying abilities, many reaching Oxford or Cambridge, some becoming adequate seamstresses and housekeepers, others going on to be teachers, a few, a very few, entering the Passionist convent after several years’ constant indoctrination and brainwashing.

  Although this was, for me, a golden opportunity in educational terms, I felt like a little child again, especially on my first day when I travelled on the 39 with girls twice my size, sixth formers who, although they wore the same uniform, carried it with panache, with flair – a tilt of the hat, a tightening of the belt to emphasize a true womanly shape.

  There were six hundred girls in the school, most on scholarships, some fee-paying. Once again, I was back with the Passionist nuns, though many of the staff were lay teachers. The atmosphere in the school bordered on the sinister, was holy and serious enough to allow fear into the hardest breast among the ninety-odd new starters. Corridors were dark and occupied by a collection of plaster saints dotted around to remind us of the real reason for our being here. First and foremost, we were to become holy; education was secondary and incidental compared to this prime and vital objective.

  The Headmistress was a Mother St Vincent, four feet two of solid dynamite and with a tongue that lashed like a whipcord. There were rules, rules and more rules. Never run in the corridors, say grace before eating even a sweet, speak to a teacher each time you meet one in a corridor (the staff must have been exhausted after a day’s answering of a thousand greetings) keep your gym shorts long – to test the length, assume a kneeling position and measure no more than four inches from hem to floor – and so on.

  Each morning we lined up before Mother and sang Latin dirges after which we prayed, then listened for at least ten minutes to a lecture on behaviour and deportment before marching to the sound of an ill-played piano to our various and wide-spread destinations.

  As a first-year, I was destined for St Gertrude’s building, which was separated from the main school by a garden through which we were forbidden to walk, being forced instead to take a circuitous route past the tennis courts. During that year I spent much of my time sneezing because I was, more often than not, drenched through to the skin by that famous Bolton rain as I passed, with monotonous regularity, from building to building. Each time we changed buildings, we changed shoes, ‘indoors’ for inside and ‘outdoors’ for out. Uniform inspections were carried out after Mass Register (we had to account for our Sundays too) each Monday and scorn was poured on any poor girl who had lost the brown gloves or whose shoes were of inferior quality.

  Nevertheless, I settled to my various tasks, took to French, Latin and English Language and Literature like a duck to water, coped, just about, with maths and hated history right from the start. Sister Olivia, who had a severe speech impediment which caused her to spit as she spoke, was our history teacher. We mocked her with the usual viciousness of youth and those of us who sat on the first four rows talked of bringing in umbrellas (brown, of course) to protect ourselves from Sister’s leaky mouth. I felt sorry for her, but this pity of mine did not endear me to her subject which I dismissed as pointless, as everybody was dead and I could not see the virtue in learning lists of battles and treaties that nobody had respected anyway. I knew enough about Chamberlain now to realize that bits of paper promising peace were a waste of ink.

  The science facilities were poor, as science was not quite ladylike or pretty and was definitely not holy. But we still managed to create a fair amount of mayhem with a couple of bunsen burners, one or two pipettes and the odd sheep’s eye or earthworm.

  My chief regret was that Josie Cullen had failed to gain a place and was destined, therefore, for another school – St Anne’s, which was a secondary modem and churned out mill-fodder or, at best, waitresses and shopgirls. Josie was clever – I knew that – and I was annoyed with her for not trying. But, in Josie’s book, St Mary’s girls were a ‘right soft lot’ and she was determined to be a ‘hard case’ and earning by the age of fifteen.

  For my own part, I began to excel, particularly in English and French, in which subjects I came out top of the class on most occasions. My essays were often read out to the whole school, an honour I learned to accept without blushes. When it came time to produce the school magazine, I wrote almost all the first-year contributions, selling my pieces to the other girls for pocket money.

  In my second year, a shocking thing happened, a thing that caused me to pull myself up and assess my situation anew. Sheila Davies, my friend from those hopscotch and skipping-rope days, who had also gained a place at St Mary’s, died of kidney failure. The school choir sang her requiem and I sat staring at the small light-wood coffin in All Saints Church, my heart and mind filled with grief and sadness. She had been so alive, so vibrant. Now she was gone, gone for ever. What if this were to happen to me? If I were struck down in this way, then I would not be given the chance to work out how to make sure Eddie Higson got his just deserts in this world.

  As the coffin was carried out past us, I made my decision. Surely here, in this holy place, I could get help? Surely a priest, a man of God would come to my aid and rescue me?

  But I would not speak to Father Sheahan of this parish, or to Father Cavanagh from my own; better, in this case, the devil I did not know.

  After much deliberation, I chose St Patrick’s, as it was far enough away from both the churches I knew so well, yet near enough for me to reach for tuppence on the number 45.

  I sat in St Patrick’s the very next evening, waiting until every sinner had passed through the confessional, making sure that I would be the last. I wanted to know that no believer lingered to listen to what I must say once I got inside the box.

  It was a pretty church, stone-built and with beautiful stained-glass pictures in the arched windows. I gazed at the Stations of the Cross, vivid portrayals of Christ’s suffering that lined the walls of this and every Catholic church. The scent of incense lingered in the peaceful air. For a few moments, I began to understand why people came here, because the tranquillity was somehow hypnotic and comforting. Then, at last, it was my turn. I genuflected as I left my pew, hesitating for just a second or two before entering the confessional.

  I closed the door quietly behind me and knelt on the deliberately uncomfortable plank near the floor, making the Sign of the Cross on my forehead, chest and shoulders before beginning. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is three weeks since my last confession.’ The priest, a dark shape at the other side of the grille, yawned audibly. I was, after all, the last of a very long queue of penitents. ‘Tell me your sins, child.’

  ‘I have taken the name of the Lord in vain twice – I said God when I was angry.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I laughed at Sister Olivia because she was spitting when she talked and she can’t help it.’

  ‘We must not mock the afflicted, child. Go on.’

  ‘I tell lies. I honestly can’t remember them, Father, but I do tell fibs. I stole a sixpence from a girl at school, but I put it back in her desk the next day.’

  ‘Good girl. Anything more?’

  ‘I listened to dirty talk at school, but I didn’t join in.’ I hesitated. I had to do it now. It was now or never . . .


  ‘Go on, my child.’

  Seconds passed. I could feel the sweat dripping down my forehead, running along the bridge of my nose and I wiped my face with the sleeve of my blazer. He sounded kind and gentle like Dr Pritchard. Perhaps God was real after all, perhaps He had sent me here so that He might perform one of His miracles. I found myself praying, really praying, begging for God to intercede on my behalf, to show me the way, to show this hidden priest the way . . .

  ‘What is troubling you?’ asked the tired, pleasant voice.

  ‘I . . . I do not honour my . . . stepfather and I can’t honour him. Ever.’

  ‘Oh, I see. And why is that now?’

  I paused, then passed a piece of paper under the grille. ‘That is my name and address, Father. I am not of your parish, but I want your help.’

  The shadow behind the partition picked up the paper then straightened in its seat.

  ‘In what way can I help you . . . er . . . Anne?’

  I cleared my throat before continuing, ‘The man who is married to my mother has been . . . well . . . doing things to me for about four years. I want it stopped.’

  A brief silence followed. ‘What sort of things, Anne?’

  ‘Dirty things.’

  ‘You’ll have to be more specific.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘He touches me where he shouldn’t. He says if I tell anyone, then he’ll kill me and my mother. He already murdered my mother’s baby before it was born. My mother was in hospital because he’d kicked her half to death.’