by June Gadsby
The silence that followed her words seemed to deafen Billy. He hadn’t expected it, never dreamed love could creep up on him like that. There had been moments when he questioned his feelings for Bridget, but always he brushed them away as being false. For as long as he could remember, his heart belonged to Laura.
Now, it was Laura he was pushing away to the back of his mind. He had hardly spared a thought for her since the day he and Bridget left Jarrow. Perhaps even before that, Laura had ceased to be the centre of his hopes and dreams for the future. So, when did he start loving Bridget? It was too deep and dark a secret to delve into right now, for his desire was rising to such an extent that it blocked out all thought. If he did not have Bridget now he would explode into a myriad of pieces like a shower of sparks from a Catherine wheel.
Billy never made love before, but he found it surprisingly easy and natural the way he fitted into Bridget’s willing body. She knew he could wait no longer, so she didn’t hold him off. The first time was for him, quick and wildly passionate. The second time he entered her he was able to control his rhythm to a slow, sensual movement, pleasing her even more.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Billy muttered, as he lay back, exhausted, satiated and happier than he ever imagined he could be. ‘I suppose I’ve been in love with you too, Bridget, all this time, without knowing it.’
‘I damned well hope so, Billy Flynn, or I’ll send you and your big boots flying.’
* * *
Billy and Bridget did not return on the same train that carried the Jarrow marchers back home, their fare generously paid for them by the people of Leeds. But they did go to the station to see them off. It was the least they could do, Billy thought, after the high and mighty Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who had a job and money and food in his belly, refused to see any of the marchers’ representatives.
As they waited, with the disillusioned Crusaders, they listened to the stories the men had to tell. Some, it seemed, were still scratching because of the bed bugs they picked up in the local workhouses where they had been put up overnight. Others talked of the highlight of the trip – a visit to the municipal baths at Barnsley, where they bathed in water specially heated for them. There were some ribald comments, however, about the fact that Ellen Wilkinson, who had accompanied them on most of the walk, had been privileged to have the women’s foam bath all to herself.
‘Oh, I’d have liked that,’ Bridget sighed with longing and Billy gave her hand a squeeze, doing his best not to imagine too clearly what it would be like to see Bridget wallowing naked in sweet-smelling foam.
‘One day, Bridget, you’ll have all that,’ he told her; ‘Aye, and more, if I can provide it for you.’
‘Really? Oh, Billy!’ Her eyes were soft and dewy. ‘If any man can do well for himself, I’m sure it’s you.’
‘I’ll do it for you, Bridget,’ he said, feeling strangely emotional as his heart rose into his throat, choking him slightly. ‘It won’t always be poverty. I promise you that.’
They waved off the men, and then walked out into the morning sunshine, hand in hand. There was time to see at least a small part of the capital city before their train was due. It would be a pity not to make the most of it, as there was no telling if they would ever be able to return to London.
There was still enough money in Billy’s pocket, over and above the cost of their tickets, to buy a cup of tea and a bun, so he felt well off. It wouldn’t have mattered to him if his pocket was empty, as long as he had Bridget by his side. Oddly enough, he had always felt that way, but never recognized it as love. It wasn’t the same as it had been with Laura. That, he knew now, had not been love. Fascination, obsession even, but not love.
‘Do you think the king and queen are in there?’ Bridget asked as they stood peering through the railings that surrounded Buckingham Palace. ‘I’d love to see them.’
‘Would you like me to go and knock on the door, then?’ Billy grinned at the shocked look on Bridget’s face at the very idea of him doing such a thing.
‘Ooh, Billy! You wouldn’t!’
‘I might,’ he said, still grinning, but meaning every word, ‘If you asked me to.’ Then he slid an arm about her waist and pulled her tightly in to his side so that their hearts beat in unison. ‘I’d do anything in the world for you, Bridget.’
‘Then let’s go home, Billy,’ she told him, giving him a peck on the cheek, ‘and you can start proving it. London’s a fine city, but it’s too grand for me. I can’t wait to get back to Jarrow.’
‘Aye, love. Me too.
Chapter Twelve
It was late in the evening when Billy and Bridget tumbled sleepily off the train and hitched a ride on the back of a lorry travelling from Newcastle to Jarrow. The night was cold and cheerless with a misty rain falling that fell on the couple like shards of icy glass.
By the time they reached Jarrow and were put down by the lorry driver outside Christ Church, the very spot where the Crusaders had set off from, they were too tired to talk. They walked the rest of the way in companionable silence, but had just turned the corner into the street where they lived when they were jolted into life again. There was a light burning in the window above Billy’s cobbler’s shop and somehow, it being after midnight, it didn’t seem right.
‘It’s not like Laura to be up at this time of night,’ Bridget said.
‘Maybe she just forgot to turn it off,’ Billy said, though as he spoke he felt a warning twinge in his gut and quickened his step.
‘I hope she’s all right,’ Bridget was trotting behind him, trying to keep up as he broke into a run.
The front door was wide open, hanging limply on the one hinge that had not been shattered. Billy stopped at the foot of the stairs, holding a hand out to prevent Bridget from rushing up them to check on their friend. From a room above their heads they could hear a deep-throated muttering. In response there was only a female whimper that they recognized as Laura.
‘My God! What’s happening?’ Bridget whispered hoarsely as she latched her fingers tightly into the back of Billy’s jacket.
‘You stay here, Bridget,’ Billy said, starting up the stairs, but she went with him, keeping as close as she could without tripping them both up.
The voice that had been a low rumble suddenly erupted in an angry explosion of expletives. There was the sound of a slap and a pitiful cry as something thudded heavily on the floor.
‘Stupid bitch! You know where they are. You’d better tell me or I’ll kill ye right here and now.’
‘I don’t know...’ The voice was now clearly that of Laura, and her attacker was Patrick Flynn. ‘They left...went to London. They’re not coming back.’
‘I don’t believe ye!’ Another thud and a groan from Laura.
‘I wouldn’t tell you if I knew,’ Laura said with obvious difficulty. ‘But I will tell the police that you’re back, you murdering brute. I’ll give evidence against you and I know who they’ll believe.
Billy heard the floorboards creak as Patrick shifted his weight. He waited no longer, lunging into the room and grappling with the man that was half again as big as he was. Patrick gasped with the force of the assault and looked surprised as he toppled over and hit the floor like a two-ton ox. He lay there, winded for a moment then started to fight back.
Helpless against this giant of a man, Billy felt ashamed as he was lifted bodily into the air and thrown to one side like a rag doll. But, as lithe as he was, he was up on his feet again in an instant before Patrick had time to raise himself to his knees.
‘So it’s you, Little Billy Big Boots, eh?’ Patrick growled out the words. ‘I didn’t think you would be far away. Stop that snivelling, bitch!’
He raised his fist and whipped around, intending to bring it down across Laura’s bruised and bleeding face. At the same time, Billy leapt between them and caught the full force of the blow on his temple. He felt the pain, saw stars and, for a fleeting moment everything went black. He hit the floor
and heard screaming.
It was Bridget making all the noise, but Billy was having difficulty focussing his eyes. When he did he saw something that amazed him. Bridget was riding Patrick’s back like a cowboy on a bucking bronco, holding onto his hair in an attempt to pull him back. In a blur, Billy struggled to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Laura. She was lying slumped in a corner of the room and if she wasn’t dead, then she wasn’t far off, judging by the state of her.
There was no real warning of what was about to happen. Billy was staggering forward, shouting at Bridge to let go, but she was too incensed to listen. She was the epitome of an avenging angel and he knew what was going through her mind as she pummelled, kicked and bit the big, ugly excuse for manhood that had raped her, murdered her mother, tried to murder the man she loved, and caused untold misery to countless other people.
Patrick suddenly rose up, his massive frame stretching, his mouth opening in a great roar of rage. Billy was still seeing double through a fog, but every sound was deafeningly clear and so were his thoughts. If he didn’t do something now, Patrick would surely kill Bridget.
As the thought entered Billy’s pounding head, Patrick swung around, dislodging Bridget from his back. He grabbed a fistful of hair and started to drag her across the room. Billy caught sight of Bridget’s stricken face and all he could think of was that he had lost so much because of Patrick Flynn that he could not tolerate losing the one person that meant more than life to him.
He was still unsteady on his legs as he looked around him for something to hit the big brute with. The scullery door was open and he veered towards it, thinking that the cast iron skillet that was hanging above the stove would make a likely weapon, but it wasn’t there. What his fingers did grip was his mother’s old carving knife had been among the meagre belongings he had brought with him to Bridget’s after his mother’s suicide.
‘No, Patrick!’ Billy screamed out to a man he could no more call father than he could call God the Devil Incarnate. Patrick was the Devil Incarnate. ‘Enough! Take your dirty hands off her.’
Patrick looked at him, a sordid sneer twisting his moist red lips. He did not loosen his hold on Bridget’s hair, but reached over and took hold of a gin bottle he had obviously brought in with him. He smashed it against the edge of the table and the end broke off, leaving jagged points of glass glinting lethally in the gaslight.
He stepped forward, parrying like a swordsman, jabbing the bottle into Billy’s chest. Billy felt the sharp points of the glass pierce his shirt and penetrate through to his flesh. He didn’t stop to think how seriously he was hurt. All he did was follow his natural instincts and lunged forward, just as Patrick did the same. The knife was pointed and sharp from many years of kitchen usage. Without any help from Billy, the blade entered Patrick’s chest and went up to the hilt, scraping on ribs as it went.
Billy looked in horror at what had happened, then gazed, mesmerized, at Patrick’s warm blood flowing over his hand, which still gripped the shaft of the knife. Then he was forced to see Patrick’s face as he sank to his knees. The leery expression was still there, frozen in time. The weight of the man’s body forced Billy to let go of the knife and Patrick fell to his knees, then rolled over on to his side spilling blood onto the rug which Bridget had bought from the pawn shop and brought home so delightedly.
There was no question that Patrick was dead. He was as dead as any beast hanging from a hook down in the slaughterhouse where he had started his working life. And his long history of violent crime.
* * *
Billy stood in the dock, aware of only three things. His thudding heart, Bridget’s sweet face, and the words of the judge ringing in his ears like a deafening peel of reverberating bells.
‘William Flynn, the jury have found you guilty of manslaughter, but have asked for clemency, given the appalling provocation that led to the killing of Patrick Flynn. I therefore sentence you to not more than eight years confinement....’
‘No! Oh, please...you can’t!’ Bridget screamed out and there were other voices in agreement with her. ‘It was self-defence. Patrick Flynn was no good. He was a beast, a murderer! Billy’s a good man. You can’t put him in prison, you can’t!’
The judge looked across the courtroom, peering at Bridget from beneath wiry white eyebrows. His thin lips were sucked in tightly and for a moment it looked as if he might change his mind, but it was a false hope.
‘Take him down,’ he said, then with a swirl of his robe, he left, disappearing through a rear door to his chambers.
As Billy was led away, he gave one last hungry glance in Bridget’s direction and saw her sink down on a bench, her face pale, her eyes full of disbelief and awash with tears. Standing beside her was Laura, equally shocked. She still bore the scars of Patrick’s attack that almost killed her a year ago. It had taken that long for them to bring Billy to trial, so long had it taken to find an unbiased jury.
Before he took that last step into the highly guarded regions of the courthouse, Billy caught Bridget’s eye and tried to smile some encouragement to her, but he feared that all he managed was a tight grimace. She jumped once more to her feet and reached out to him as if trying to pluck him from the scene by magic.
‘Billy!’ she cried, her voice cracking; ‘Billy! Billy!’
* * *
From that moment on, Billy’s life became something of a blur for a while. His days consisted of jangling keys, clanging metal doors, scraping bolts and the sound of other prisoners’ tramping feet, the chink of a chamber pot and groans and screams through the long, dark, unbearable nights.
He told himself he ought to be afraid, only he was too numb to feel anything at first. There was a stream of solicitors who came and spoke to him, telling him that they were sure they would be able to get an appeal, but then they didn’t come back and were replaced by others who were equally enthusiastic, but less experienced.
Billy imagined himself growing old with nothing but iron bars and thick cement walls for company. He soon found that friends and family became sparse when they knew what had become of him. Bridget visited when she could, but it was a long way on the bus from Jarrow to the prison and it cost money she could ill afford. Laura wrote to him, once. Her words were friendly enough, but restrained, telling him all the things he knew already – that it was not his fault he was in prison, that she was very grateful to him for saving her life, and that she hoped he would one day be pardoned and free to live a life without the physical threat of Patrick Flynn hanging over him.
Bridget had delivered the letter for Laura and sat watching him closely as he skimmed the lines of neat writing.
‘Well, what has she got to say for herself, then?’ Bridget’s voice was a little harsh and he guessed that relations between the two women in his life were not as good as they might be.
‘Oh, just the usual type of things,’ Billy told her with a lift of his shoulder ‘There’s nothing much she can say, really, is there?’
‘She could come and visit you,’ Bridget said. ‘After all, if it hadn’t been for her you wouldn’t be in here.’
‘If it hadn’t been for her, Bridget,’ he said with a sad smile, ‘I would be dead. Patrick Flynn would have killed me the day I was born if Laura hadn’t stopped him.’
He heard Bridget’s impatient sigh and saw her glance from side to side, scrutinizing the other visitors who were chatting through the bars to their friends and loved ones. He knew that these visits of hers took a lot out of her, draining her emotionally as well as financially.
‘Look, Bridget, love...’ How he wished he could reach through to her, take her in his arms and hug her until she begged for mercy, but that was never going to happen. ‘I don’t think you should come in to see me again.’
‘You trying to get rid of me, Billy?’ She was immediately up in arms, her eyes slashing at him like sabres. ‘The day I stop coming to see you will be the day the daisies grow on my grave, do you hear?’
‘Well,
that’ll be tomorrow, because I don’t want to see you here anymore,’ he said with a sudden show of anger, though what he was feeling inside was despair. Despair at being responsible for making Bridget unhappy. It was time for her to get on with her life without him. He would only bring her down. Even if she waited for him, what kind of life could he offer her? He would be an ex-prisoner, a lag. Nobody would want to employ him. Life would be unbearable.
‘That’s a horrible thing to say, Billy!’
‘Bridget, go away, please. This godforsaken place is no place for you.’
‘God might have forsaken you, Billy,’ she said, shivering and pulling her coat around her as she got to her feet. ‘But I won’t. I won’t ever forsake you and that’s a promise.’
‘You shouldn’t make promises, Bridget. They’re not always possible to keep.’
She had simply shaken her head at him and left without a further word. He had spent a long time, sitting in his cell, mulling over that conversation, his heart alternating between swelling with love for Bridget, and sinking miserably at the thought of how he was to spend the next few years incarcerated with men who were hardened criminals. And what they did to each other, and to him, didn’t bear thinking about.
That last meeting with Bridget was the most memorable in Billy’s mind for more reasons than one. It was the third day of September, 1939, and war had just been declared against Germany.
* * *
‘Don’t you ever get tired, Bridget?’
Bridget threw a glance in Laura’s direction, but went on scrubbing the kitchen bench with her usual vigour.
‘Tired of what?’