501

  Like when Katy said, in my first week at the factory, ‘You going to come to darts’ practice tonight, Pegs?’

  There’s a dartboard in the rest room and I’ve got a good throw. ‘An aptitude for the game,’ Katy says. It’s probably because Dad and I play some nights in the old railway hut that’s aged with creosote and dusted with cobwebs. We play for twenty pence a leg and Mum keeps the score and rolls the tuvs for Dad. She laughs every time he loses and the harder he tries, the more he loses, and the more she laughs.

  ‘I used to be able to del a shoshi at twenty yards,’ he says, and Mum laughs even more.

  ‘There used to be a lot of things you could do better,’ she says.

  And that look passes between them, that look that excludes me.

  At this workplace, Katy’s smiling at me and I’m thinking how nice she is and then, without being asked for, her unhappiness leaps at me, asks me to take a glimpse.

  ‘You going to come to practice, Pegs?’

  Katy’s puzzling as I’m stuttering an acceptance, as I shut the box, close the lid on something that unnerves me, something more that tries to peep from behind Katy’s eyes.

  ‘Look at me,’ it says. ‘Look at me.’

  But I don’t want to look, I don’t want to know.

  So I promise myself I’ll never, ever, look again at Katy.

  Or Dave Trinder.

  Or Irish.

  Anyway, what I see in Robins’ heart is black and cruel. He’s evil and he’s marking me down on his hate list. It does scare me a bit but he’s drunk and…

  …and there’s a crushing pain crippling his body, holding him fast with twisted muscles of metal. And then there’s the tang of hot plastic and a wisp of smoke.

  And then there’s the fire, the friendly dancing flames that wrap around him like a blanket.

  Behind the bar, Danny’s watching them on the CCTV. He watches them go through the door, around the side of the pub into the smoking area. Here they kick over a couple of chairs and a table, and fell an umbrella.

  ‘Prats,’ he says to the screen and then turns to me.

  ‘You all right, Pegs?’

  I’m all right. I take the drinks back to the girls and we sit and chat until Danny’s had enough of us.

  ‘Come on, you lot, ain’t you got any homes to go to?’

  So we say our goodbyes and Scottie Dog and I walk down to the end of the road together. It’s starting to rain and she says that perhaps I should have phoned my dad, but I’m thinking that Dave’ll be along any minute.

  And Dad doesn’t know about Dave, not properly. Not yet.

  So I leave Scottie Dog and her ‘Mind how ye go, Pegs’ for the gusting wind and the patters of rain.

  After the last streetlamp the road becomes a dark lane and here I pause for a minute, try to phone Dave, but it’s the answer service again.

  I give him the time and tell him I’m walking home and it’s wet and cold and could he bloody well hurry up. He’ll laugh at that.

  I don’t like this night, this dark walk. It makes me think of Gran and the things she saw, the things I see, in the corner shadows. She keeps pushing into my mind lately and it’s making me uneasy, like she’s trying to warn me of something.

  The last time, the real last time, I see Gran, she’s dressed in her favourite faded red dress and her hair is bunched under her headscarf. She’s sitting on the steps of her ruined vardo with her stringy jukal at her feet.

  ‘My Peggy,’ she says. ‘I want just a quick look round.’

  I don’t want to turn away, I want to hold her in my sight, in my life forever: my Gran.

  But my Gran stands up, stretches her old bones, comes to me, wraps me in her thin, thin arms and kisses me.

  And it’s not a kiss from the dead, it doesn’t taste of the grave. This is a kiss of love, of regret at having to go.

  Then she is gone, drifted away on a breeze of summer, leaving just woodsmoke and rose-scent in the air.

  So that’s why I don’t like this uneasy feeling as I walk on into the night, down through the deep hollow, along the straight by Tuckers field until, just four hundred yards from our atchin tan, I’m near the derelict cottage. I dread going by here. Once I thought I saw a face from a broken window, and the door’s always open like someone’s inviting you in.

  But I’m not going to hurry by this cottage because there’s a glow of a cigarette in the road, in the damp night.

  I’m thinking, hoping, that it must be Dad come to meet me.

  ‘Dad?’

  There’s no answer and I stand stock-still. I can hear the drip of rain in the hedges, the gargle of water from a broken gutter. And I’m praying for the sound of Big Dave’s van, anticipating a sweep of headlights.

  ‘Dad?’

  But who answers? Who’s standing on my path? Jackman, that’s who.

  I can’t see him properly, not in this light, but the second I hear his ‘Why’s a pretty girl like you walking home alone?’ I go cold with fear.

  It’s afterwards, when I think about it, I’m sure that I must have heard something behind me. I must have. Maybe just a rustle in the grass or the scuff of a shoe on the road.

  That’s when I should have run. If I’d had run then, got past Jackman, nothing would have happened.

  But from behind me two strong, cruel arms grip me.

  Robins says, ‘You’re going to like this’ and a hand goes across my mouth.

  Oh, I kick. Oh, I struggle but in this dark night there’s the strength of both of them, and there’s not enough of me. They’re half dragging, half carrying me towards the cottage and they’re touching me all the time. Their hands are rough, coarse. They’re pulling, tearing at my clothes; inside my clothes. They’re groping, pinching at me, touching me there and there. I’m trying so hard to fight back but it’s like they’re animals, clinging, suffocating me. They get me nearly to the door of that cottage but I won’t go there. I won’t. I won’t go in that evil place for an evil deed. I get a foot on the ground, I get a grip on the door post, half-in and half-out of hell. Robins’ hand slips, paws again at my mouth. My feet are slipping, sliding, kicking and one of those kicks catches Robins between his legs.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ he roars and then before he hits me, as he must be drawing his fist back, I scream. I scream at all the terrors of the night, loud and hard and deep. And then he hits me and there’s a light in my head, stars in my eyes, and I’m lying outside that ruined house on the muddy ground, torn and dirty and hurt with blood in my mouth. But what’s happened to time? Where does it go? Where have they gone? I’m on my own, on my back, and the rain is falling on my face, into my eyes. There’s a throbbing rhythm of a motor in the air and…

  …and Dave’s bending over me, saying, ‘It’s all right, Pegs. It’s all right,’ as he’s lifting me up, holding me to him, carrying me out as if I was a chavi.

  ‘It’s all right, Pegs.’

  But it’s not all right. Now I’m kicking and screaming again in relief and hysteria and madness. I can’t control my limbs and I’ve wet myself.

  And this feeling of shame swamps me. It’s like the tide coming in. Powerful. Unstoppable. All the time I’m struggling with Dave, I’m thinking, ‘He won’t want me now. He won’t want me,’ and I kick and scream even more and we’re in the road and there’s the headlamps of Dave’s van lighting up the lane.

  What Dad saw was me with torn clothes, muddy, dirty, struggling with Dave. What he must have heard were the cries of his only child in mortal danger. That’s why I’m in Mum’s arms and, in the lights of the van, in the shadowed, drizzling rain, Dad’s hitting Dave and Dave’s hitting Dad and then they’re wrestling on the tarmac and I’m shouting at the top of my voice.

  ‘Stop. Stop. It wasn’t him, Dad. It wasn’t him.’

  They must hear but there’s so much anger in them, so much effort spent, that they’re at a standstill, panting in the road like two buffaloes, still eyeing each other as my words pierce Dad’s terrible r
age.

  ‘Wasn’t him?’ he says. ‘Not him?’

  He mouths his frustration; he roars it like a bull.

  ‘No, Dad, not him.’

  ‘Who, my Peggy? Who?’

  The names are in my mouth, ready to be thrown into the dark night but something, something stops me. It whispers to me, ‘Not now, Peggy. Not now.’

  And it’s because of him, because of Dad. Because he would kill tonight. So I scream out, ‘I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know.’

  Then Mum says, ‘The gavvers, Henry. You must phone the gavvers.’

  We’re sitting in Mum and Dad’s park home (Dad insists on calling it a trailer) waiting for the police. The rain’s drumming down thick and heavy now, smacking onto the roof. It’s like being inside a drum.

  No one’s talking, Mum’s making a cup of tea, Dad’s got his arm around me and I’m trying not to look at Dave. He seems dazed. He’s got a split lip and a cut on his eyebrow. But it’s as though he’s out of place here, sat among the gypsies. Not just because of what happened but because unease has settled on him. He’s unsure of what’s what. He keeps glancing at Dad, like he’s expecting to go another couple of rounds, but Dad’s beyond action, beyond words. I get up, I need to go to the bathroom, and while I’m in there I suddenly can’t stand the touch of my clothes, these tainted clothes, against my skin. I turn the shower on full blast, pour a bottle of shampoo over myself. Then I peel off these soapy clothes, drag them off, screw them into a wet heap of laundry. I stand under the shower and try to wash the night away and I can’t hear the shower above the drowning noise of the rain on the roof.

  No one can hear the shower.

  So I try to wash Jackman and Robins out of my world with hot water and soap. And I wish them dead. With all my heart I want them smashed and dead. I want that fire and the pain and a death that’s lingering.

  There’s me naked in the shower soaping the parts of my body that they touched, my top, between my legs. I’m wishing them dead and my anger is red-hot, burning, and I’d do anything for revenge. But all I can do is curse them. I curse them with the secret words that Gran taught me.

  And the words are so hot they burn in my throat.

  Mum raps on the door as I’m scavenging out the laundry basket, slipping into yesterday’s clothes.

  ‘Peggy, the police are here.’

  The gavvers, a WPC and a DC taking up too much space in the small room, take a together look at me and then at each other.

  The WPC says, ‘You haven’t had a shower?’

  Mum says, ‘She was soaking. Poor girl.’

  The WPC says, ‘But we need… how can we..?’ She doesn’t finish.

  I realise then that I’m clean, that I’ve washed Jackman and Robins off my skin, off my clothes.

  And that I might have washed them off the charge sheet.

  So in this small room, in Mum and Dad’s trailer, the investigation starts.

  Dave Trinder says, ‘I saw her in the headlights, she was lying on the ground.’

  Dad says, ‘She was struggling, least I thought she was, with the mush. Him.’

  Mum says, ‘My little girl was muddy and bleeding and you must get those two bastards.’

  It’s weeks later that Mum says, ‘Someone knocked on the door, you know, That Night.’ (She always calls it That Night.) ‘Dad went out to see and that’s when he heard you.’

  When she tells me this, the image in my head is of my Gran on the vardo steps, the last time I saw her.

  So now I’m at the police station for an interview in the incident room.

  I’m with DC ‘Call me Mike’ Williams and WPC ‘Call me Sue’ Davies.

  I’m here but I’m not here. It’s like I’m outside myself, like I’m watching myself sitting at a table with my head in my hands, in a room with no windows. I’ve been through the examination, the stripping of the secrets of my body, the taking of samples that will show nothing because they didn’t get there. Not there. Not properly. Nothing will come out of this except bruises and lies.

  I know this – they know this – as little old me, poor quiet Pegs, sobs into her hands as all those questions, over and over again, beat about her head.

  I’m hearing my voice, my stumbling answers, my replies that don’t sound convincing out loud. And then…

  …and then, powerful and ice-cold with anger, the Gift comes to me, takes my voice.

  And then it’s so clear to me. I know what they’re thinking, those gavvers.

  Mike Williams, the one who’s been so nice, is saying one thing to me but meaning another.

  ‘When did you realise Mr Trinder was there?’

  The voice in his head is saying, The pikey girl and her bloke had a row, had a fight.

  ‘I don’t know. It was dark and wet.’

  ‘Your blood is on his shirt.’ It got out of hand and now she’s lying, trying to protect him. Doesn’t want her Dad to know.

  ‘Why did you have a shower?’

  ‘I was dirty. Muddy. I didn’t think.’ Like fuck.

  ‘You must have known that would wash evidence away.’

  ‘I didn’t think. I was dirty.’ Like fuck again.

  ‘You must have known.’

  ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘Why did you change your clothes?’ You knew what you were doing. Had a bit of rough sex, did you?

  ‘Why didn’t you think to phone your dad?’

  ‘Because Dave…’

  ‘Because you were meeting Dave?’ Clear as glass. She had a ruck with him. It got out of hand and she’s blaming those two lads from the pub.

  I’m thinking of all these questions, all these answers, time and time again. He doesn’t believe me; they don’t believe me. I can see Jackman and Robins with made-up alibis, with washed-off and washed-out clues on their side, walking free. They’ll swagger the streets of the town, dirty my name, spoil my life because these two gavvers don’t believe me. They’ll conduct a half-hearted investigation because they judge me the gypsy liar.

  ‘Tell him,’ the Gift says. ‘Tell the gorgees.’

  And then me, gentle little me with all that anger that no one ever sees, tells that gavver what’s in his head, that he thinks I’m making it up.

  And then I tell him that his girlfriend, the policewoman sat beside me, isn’t really interested in what’s going on; she’s counting the minutes to the end of her shift when they can drive up to the common.

  He’s stunned, his mouth drops open and he starts to say, ‘You dirty-minded little gipo. I can see why your boyfriend gave you a good slapping. I can see why…’

  Policewoman Sue is rewinding the tape. She’s scarlet with anger.

  ‘How dare you,’ she says. ‘How dare you. I’m a married woman.’

  And I dare because I know this is as far as the investigation will go. The rain will have drowned traces, clues of evidence, into the ditches. Like I said, there’s no evidence to find.

  There’re other visits, of course, more questions, a social worker with a bulging briefcase and the manner of a missionary. She speaks to me in slow, deliberate words, like I’m thick, like I’m a dinolow. Like I made it all up.

  She asks about Dave – she knows he’s been in trouble.

  ‘Have you seen him since…’ She pauses and almost whispers it. ‘Since the incident?’

  I tell her no; I haven’t seen him. There’s not been a word, or a quick phonecall. Nothing.

  Mum says men don’t understand things like that. She says that they think a woman must be asking for it; must have sent out the signals.

  I tell her that I didn’t, that Big Dave Trinder is the only boy who ever kissed me.

  And then I cry. I cry for what happened and what I’ve lost.

  Mum holds me, comforts me.

  But she’s not Gran.

  The social worker, long skirt, long hair, long cardigan of a long-ago era, says, ‘We can help you through this. You can talk to a psychiatrist, clear your head.’

  But I
don’t need to clear my head. I know what happened; I know what didn’t happen. I know that Jackman and Robins have alibis, have sleazy friends who cover their backs, who belong to the brethren of the immoral.

  All I want now is for it to be over. I want Dad to hitch the trailer onto his truck and for us to pull out onto the drom one early misty morning. I want all this to be left far behind, but I look at Dad and I can see a snake of hate twisting in his stomach. He holds me and I can feel this sap gathering itself to strike.

  So at night I wish and dream for the smell of burning, for fate to hurry on, because my dad has a killer inside him, and my dream must come before that killer breaks out of prison. Before Dad somehow finds out.

  He asks me sometimes, asks me who it was, and I tell him I don’t know. I lie to my dad because I’m so frightened for him.

  I don’t realise it’s Monday until it is Monday. We’ve had a quiet day and it’s not until seven and Emmerdale is on the telly that, from habit, I brush out my hair and crayon on my lipstick in the mirror over the stove.

  Dad says, ‘What are you doing, Peggy?’

  ‘Getting ready, Dad.’

  ‘Getting ready?’

  ‘For the kitchema: darts.’

  Mum says, ‘You can’t go, Peggy.’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  If I don’t go now, I’ll never go again. I’ll shrivel up and die.

  And then Dad looks at me like he knows why I’m doing this. He says, ‘I’ll take you.’

  He takes me but I won’t let him come in with me.

  Now I don’t know what to expect when I walk into the George, but it’s just like any other dart night. There’s no pause in the hum of the pub. No sidelong glances. No whispering behind hands. No one knows. Yet.

  But why would they?

  The only mention in the local paper was, ‘Alleged assault on young woman’. There were no names, no description. Hardly anything. Like they knew it was leading nowhere.

  But in the background, so faint that I can hardly hear them, the jungle drums have started to slowly beat.

  We’ve got an easy game tonight against the Fairmile Madams. They’re triers but none of them are much good. They’ve propped up the league for the last two years and have only won a single game all season.