‘You said you hated conchies,’ Catriona reminded him.
‘Don’t you ever mention that name in my house!’
‘Ruth’s a conchie.’
He guffawed and smacked his knees.
‘You’re jealous!’
She flushed.
‘I’m stating a fact.’
‘She’s a fine-looking woman. That’s a fact.’
She could not deny this. Ruth oozed beauty. Her black hair and her dark eyes gave her a kind of gypsy magic, and speaking to Melvin about Ruth only seemed to make him worse.
He seemed to take a pride in developing a noisy bantering relationship with the girl and sticking it out in front of Catriona like an impudently cocked thumb.
It cut her out as completely as if Melvin and Ruth were members of a secret society that she was not qualified to join. She kept telling herself that neither of them meant to do this to her and it was only her own distress that isolated her, but it was no use.
In between, attending to the children and doing the housework and cooking the meals, she snatched time to brush her hair and tie it up with a ribbon, and powder her face, and dab herself with perfume. It made not the slightest difference, but every time Melvin’s eyes lit on Ruth they bulged with delight and back came his old peacock swagger. He puffed out his chest when he spoke to her and every now and again he roared with pleasure at some flattering remark of Ruth’s. Ruth was good at the flattery, Catriona noticed.
Indignation mounted with the pain of her wounds until one day when she was alone with Ruth she blurted out:
‘Why don’t you ever go and visit your husband?’
Ruth’s smile vanished as if the words had smacked it from her face. She pouted.
‘Do you think I haven’t tried? They won’t let me, will they?’
‘Something must be wrong, Ruth. He’s been shut away for such a long time. I heard the other day about a conscientious objector who got out after six months.’
‘I know. I went to see the Quaker man, John Haddington. Remember I told you about him? He explained to me. He says they must be giving Sammy a whole lot of short sentences one after the other so that he’s always under detention. That means jail, doesn’t it? I didn’t understand all he said. Something about a court martial, I think. He’s going to try and see Sammy and he’s going to try and make them give Sammy a court martial.’
‘That doesn’t sound very good.’
‘It doesn’t, does it?’ Ruth played with a curl of her hair, winding it round and round her finger. ‘But Mr Haddington seems to think it’ll help. Anyway, he’s going to see what he can do.’
Melvin had gone to the bedroom to put on his slippers and when he returned, sucking energetically at his pipe, the conversation about Sammy was abandoned.
‘To hell with this pipe!’ he exploded at last. ‘I’ve gone off it as well. I’d rather have a Pasha.’ He ruffled Ruth’s hair as he passed. ‘Did you bring me up more fags?’
Ruth arranged her long legs, relaxing back and smiling up at him. ‘Did you think I’d forget? They’re on the table.’ Now for the first time, Catriona wondered if Melvin had told Ruth about ‘going off’ her. Her cheeks burned with shame at the thought and she slipped miserably from the room, longing for a breath of air.
Lizzie opened the door across the landing as Catriona closed hers.
‘It’s a disgrace. I don’t know what the street’s coming to!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Catriona queried sharply.
She had never had much patience for her neighbour’s daughter and had long ago discarded any pretence of liking her.
‘That conchie’s wife. She’s got no shame. I knew she was a dirty slut when I saw her carrying on with Baldy. I sized her up right away. And to think a woman like that is under the same roof as my wee Fergie.’
‘He’s not your Fergie now.’
‘No, and he’s not your Melvin either!’
‘I didn’t come out here to listen to your silly talk, Lizzie.’
‘Oh, it’s not my talk. It’s everybody’s talk. She can’t take her eyes off Melvin. Down in the shop, for everyone to see, they’re ogling at each other. It’s shameful. And the other night I caught them in the office when I was down looking for Da. Disgusting, it was!’
Catriona whirled round to her own door again. She knew her legs would never carry her downstairs.
‘The trouble with you, Lizzie,’ she said, fumbling with her key, ‘is that you’ve a dirty twisted mind.’
Once inside she leaned against the door for support. She could hear Melvin and Ruth laughing in the kitchen.
Suddenly she hated Ruth. If only Melvin had carried out his threat and flung her out. But soon his leave would be over and he would be gone.
‘I’ll show them yet,’ he had vowed. ‘I’ll show them!’
Melvin was sitting on the arm of Ruth’s chair, turning the pages of a photograph album on her knee; and Ruth was giggling as each page turned as if Melvin were touching her instead of the album.
‘You’ve seen all these photographs before, Ruth,’ said Catriona.
‘Have I?’
‘You know you have. I showed them to you weeks ago.’
Melvin glowered across the room.
‘So what? Why are you talking so nasty all of a sudden? It’s my album. She can look at it again if she likes.’
She ignored him.
‘It’s a while since you’ve taken a look at your nice wee house in Springburn, Ruth,’ she said.
‘It reminds me of Sammy when I go over there.’
‘But you should keep your husband in mind, surely? I always keep my husband in mind all the time he’s away,’ she said with more emphasis than truth.
Ruth flushed a deep scarlet but her chin tilted up.
‘I meant that it made me sad because Sammy’s in prison. Anyway, the house is sublet now, isn’t it? Have I offended you in any way, Catriona?’
‘Oh, no!’ Catriona replied, furiously offended.
How dare this stranger, this conchie’s wife, how dare she come here and make herself so much at home and behave so disgracefully.
Ruth got up.
‘I think I’ll go through and write to Mr Haddington again,’ she said.
‘A very good idea,’ said Catriona, too angry to look at her.
Melvin laughed incredulously as Ruth left the kitchen.
‘What was all that about?’
For a minute or two she stared at him uncertainly. Then she went over and sat in Ruth’s place.
‘I’ve an awful sore head, Melvin,’ she murmured, like a child, leaning her head down on his knee. ‘I’ve a sore back, too. I don’t feel at all well. I’m so glad you’re here.’
Melvin laughed again but this time he sounded pleased.
‘You want me to make you better, eh?’
‘You’ve always been stronger than me.’
‘That’s true.’
‘You’ve always been an unusually strong man.’
‘I know.’
‘You still are.’
‘Of course I am! Why shouldn’t I be?’
She waited for his usual display of physical jerks, the wrenching and hunching and twisting and swelling up of every muscle in his body. Instead he placed his fingertips on either side of her temples and lifted her head up.
‘Do you feel that?’ he said, his stare bulging with excitement. ‘Do you feel that, eh?’
She eyed him cautiously.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘That strength, that power sizzling from me through my fingertips into you?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Your headache’s going away, isn’t it? You feel electric shocks sizzling from my fingers into your head, burning the pain away?’
Impulsively, she grabbed him round the waist and hugged him as tightly as she could.
She would order Ruth from the house if necessary. She could not stand her any more. How could she lie under the same roof as som
eone she no longer trusted, someone who had tried to steal her husband away. The wickedness of the woman, after all she had done for her! She had been nothing but generous and kind to Ruth Hunter from the time she had taken her in. Hunter! She was well named. A huntress, that’s what she was, a horrible plundering female.
‘I could hypnotise you as well.’
Melvin’s eyes bulged and he waggled his fingers in front of her.
‘Pain, pain, go away!’
She was suddenly reminded of a jingle from her childhood.
‘Rain, rain, go away!’ she sang out merrily. ‘Please come back another day!’
‘Bend over my knee and I’ll massage your back. Where is it sore?’
Her heart began to palpitate but she did as he suggested.
After a long silence, he said:
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
‘Let’s go to bed, Melvin. Ruth or Da or somebody might come in.’
‘It’s early yet,’ Melvin laughed. ‘Don’t rush me.’
‘No, it’s not, Melvin. Come on, dear. Let’s go to bed.’
‘You go through just now then. I’ll do some exercises first. I’ve been neglecting my physical jerks. It’s a mistake to get lazy like that. Physical jerks is what keeps a man fit.’
Worried, she got up.
‘You won’t stay long, will you?’
‘Don’t rush me, I said.’
Out in the hall she hovered anxiously, her eyes creased, trying to discern Ruth’s door in the darkness, then made her way reluctantly to bed, her eyes still straining towards the sitting-room, her feet hesitating as if the floor could no longer be depended on.
She lay stiffly on her back clutching the bed-clothes up under her chin, eyes wide, ears alert. Time seemed to stretch on like a never-ending road and when Melvin did at last appear, she started nervously.
The yellow saucer of light from the bedside lamp left the rest of the room in darkness but she could hear his big noisy gasps for breath. The bed tossed her from side to side with the weight of him clambering in beside her. Then she saw his scarlet face and his moustache puffing and flurrying out in agitation.
‘I’ll maybe spare you a few minutes.’ The words shuddered out from heaving lungs fighting to grab in air. ‘We’ll see!’
Chapter 25
Cell 14, the punishment cell, was upstairs. Sammy had come to know it very well. He hung against the wall, his arms stiff above his head, his wrists handcuffed to the bars of the small window.
To be manacled like this was not a punishment created solely for his benefit. Countless soldiers had been handcuffed to these same bars over the years. He wondered what it had done for them. Had it made them into good soldiers?
He would be damned if anything he had experienced so far in Maryhill Barracks would change his mind about being any kind of soldier. He would see the whole army and all their barracks burn in hell first. Everything that had happened had only heaped fuel on his hatred and redoubled his resolve to be as uncooperative as possible.
The punishment had been more commonplace at first, going round the parade ground at the double with full kit, or being on half or quarter rations. Eventually his diet shrank to bread and water alone.
The corporal’s truncheon had been used. Long periods of solitary confinement had been tried, too. Now it was the manacles.
He shifted restlessly, changing his position as best as he could. The handcuffs sliced scarlet rings round his wrists. He shifted again, his face contorting with the agony of pulled shoulder muscles and bones hot and dry.
The cell door opened and one of the guards unlocked the handcuffs. Sammy viewed him with a dislike shared by most of the prisoners.
At first, he remembered, before all his ‘privileges’ were taken away, he and the other prisoners had been allowed an hour from seven to eight o’clock each evening in a special room where they could talk and smoke one cigarette. During that hour there had always been murmurings against certain of the guards.
‘A couple of right gets,’ somebody said. ‘One dark night, after I’m out of this lot, I’m going to enjoy putting the boot in them!’
‘At the double! At the double!’
A truncheon jabbed Sammy back to the present and kept on jabbing until he reached the parade ground.
Time for PT now, and he knew what would happen.
He would refuse, as usual, to obey orders. Nothing, but nothing, was going to make him jump to their tune. The guard would report him to the sergeant-major and he would be summoned to Spack’s office.
‘You again, Hunter?’ the sergeant greeted him. ‘You’re a right one, you are! We can’t have any more of this, lad. No more messing about. You’re in the army now. It’s time the army taught you a lesson.’
This cheerful speech bounced off Sammy’s stony silence and the sergeant gave a brisk nod to the corporal who hustled Sammy away.
What, he wondered, without much interest, was going to happen next.
He did not care. All he worried about was Ruth. No physical suffering could compare with the mental anguish he felt by being out of touch and not knowing what was happening to his wife.
Perhaps she was ill. Maybe people were victimising her because of him.
His mind was still trying to tune in to distress signals from Ruth when all the cell doors were opened and everyone ordered out into the main hall for tea.
He ate automatically, not knowing or caring what went into his mouth, and when the meal ended he rose with the others to return to his cell.
‘Not you, Hunter!’
Still obsessed by thoughts of Ruth he looks round at the corporal.
He keeps on looking.
All the other men disappear. Iron doors clang shut. Keys turn in locks.
Silence.
One of the corporals has black cropped hair and skin of coarse grained leather and is called Morton. The other man’s head is khaki and his name is Dalgliesh.
Morton stands legs apart, shoulders hitching, neck stretching forward, hands jerkily beckoning.
‘Come on! Come on!’
Sammy stared at him in disgust.
‘Away and play soldiers with somebody else. You make me want to puke.’
‘Frightened, are you, eh? A right cowardly bastard, aren’t you?’
Sammy eyes Dalgliesh who is already clomping towards him.
‘It takes two of you, doesn’t it?’
‘We’re going to teach you how to fight.’ Dalgliesh laughs, enjoying himself. ‘F— conchie bastard!’
Dalgliesh’s hands shoot out, smack-grab down on Sammy’s shoulders. Before he can burst free Dalgliesh’s head cracks like a rock against his nose.
Blood messes across his face and fills his mouth.
He heaves up his arms and breaks the shoulder grip. He aims through flashing coloured lights until a jarring of his wrist gives pleasure. But only for a moment before he doubles up with a scream as a boot digs kidney-deep.
‘Give the bastard to me, mate!’ Morton rumbles. ‘Let me have the f— yellow-belly!’
Morton’s fist catches him under the chin, lifts him straight, reels him back. The floor thumps up.
Dalgliesh gouges a boot full-force into Sammy’s groin.
Sammy’s scream heightens with rage and he punches with both fists. He feels the rhythmic crunch-crunch of his fists as they keep slamming away at their target until the skin bursts from his knuckles.
Noise from everyone and everywhere and everything, joins in. All the prisoners kicking and battering and clanging and banging at cell doors.
The leather face bounces off the table. The table does a noisy somersault and Morton disappears. Fountains of chairs spurt through the air. Dalgliesh grabs one and axes it across Sammy’s chest before swinging at him with first one fist then the other, weaving him backwards to the left side, then the right, then to the left again.
‘F— conchie bastard.’
Sammy hits the wall and bounces back to Dalgliesh and
hangs on to him, blood hosing from his mouth over Dalgliesh’s shoulder as they struggle.
Morton heaves the table away, staggers up and gets the boot in again. Sammy wrenches Dalgliesh round and the next boot-blow mistakenly finds Dalgliesh’s face.
They both come at him now. Morton’s fist hits him like an iron hammer and explodes teeth in his face.
He hangs on to Morton until he manages to wrench out his truncheon. The success in getting the truncheon acts like a slug of whisky. He swings about like a madman. The truncheon cracks through the air. Crack - crack - crack.
He cannot stop. He staggers about still wielding the truncheon, slower and slower and slower.
He can no longer see the hall. His spine bumps blindly against cell doors, moves along an iron wall until the wall opens and he is sucked in. He falls backwards like a parachutist tumbling into nothing.
In slow motion he heels over, knees floating up, arm floating too, gently surging in a patient effort to catch the bed.
The bed is no use. The mattress is doubled up with all the blankets folded neatly on top. Orders are that they should not be touched before eight o’clock.
To hell with army orders. The floating arm claws at the mattress until it is flat and he is stretched over the top of it, blood wetting it, and warming it.
Until a whiplash of icy water hits him and from somewhere he hears the sergeant’s voice.
‘You vicious bastard! You’ve nearly killed my men. Good men, Hunter. Worth a score of your kind. We won’t forget this. Don’t think you’ll get away with it. You won’t. You’ve nearly smashed their skulls in, Hunter. Some bloody pacifist!’
The cell door clanged and he was left with pain closing in on him. He struggled to ignore the pain, to concentrate on his mind instead of his body.
‘Some bloody pacifist!’ The sergeant had accused. What was a pacifist! He knew his dictionary definition off by heart. A pacifist was an adherent to and believer in pacifism. Pacifism was the doctrine, theory, teaching of the necessity for universal or international peace, and the abolition of war as a means of settling disputes; pacifism was systematic opposition to war and militarism.
The Breadmakers Saga Page 35