‘What’s it to you?’ Marjorie’s face crumpled and the girl relented. ‘I dossed down at a friend’s house. Don’t know where I’m going to sleep tonight.’ She shrugged and carried on marking up the papers.
Marjorie made a decision. ‘Come home with me. We’ve got a spare room and you can stay with us until you get sorted out.’
Sandra looked up. ‘Do you really mean it?’ A grin spread across her face, lighting up her eyes and she did a little hop. ‘I won’t be a nuisance, I promise.’
Sandra returned to the shop at five and they cycled home together. The girl’s belongings hung from her handle bars in a couple of plastic carrier bags.
Marjorie dug out the blow-up mattress they had bought for a proposed camping trip that never happened and together they re-arranged the attic room and made up the bed. She hastily cleared out a couple of drawers in the old chest and said Sandra could put her clothes there. There was no wardrobe, but the girl had nothing to hang. Jeans, t-shirts, sweaters and trainers were all she had.
The porthole windows swung open only a couple of inches to allow fresh air and Marjorie found a lamp shade for the bare light bulb hanging from the rafters.
‘There,’ she said when they had finished. ‘How’s that? Will it do for a little while?’
‘It’s wicked,’ Sandra said. ‘Better than my room at home.’ She twirled around on her toes and then craned her neck to look out of the tiny window. ‘Long way down,’ she observed.
Over supper, Marjorie explained about Ron and his shift work. ‘He doesn’t know you are here yet. He won’t be in until late, so it’s best if you’re in bed by then.’ The girl nodded.
‘We’ll tell him tomorrow. He’ll still be in bed in the morning when we go. I tiptoe down the stairs, so as not to wake him.’ She looked at the girl, hoping she understood. ‘We can have our showers in the evening when we get in.’
Ron was in a good mood when he got home. She had cooked him liver and bacon, a favourite. He didn’t notice the way she jumped at every sound, real or imagined and couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the ceiling. His good mood prevailed through to the late news. Then, just as he switched off the television, they both heard the sound of the cistern. Marjorie flushed and wrung her hands. Caught!
‘What’s that?’ His voice sharp, brow furrowed, his eyes pierced hers. ‘There’s someone upstairs. You’ve got that girl here, haven’t you?’ He raised his right hand, fist clenched and she winced and put the sofa between them.
‘She had nowhere else to go tonight.’ Fear and panic caused Marjorie’s voice to tremble. ‘I couldn’t let her sleep rough. I’ve made her a bed up in the attic. She won’t be any trouble, I promise. Just for a few days until she finds some….’
He interrupted her, spitting the words out, his face red with rage. ‘I told you, no. We don’t want anyone else here, particularly some tyke of a girl. Get her out, she’s got to go.’
Perhaps for the first time in her life, she stood up to him. ‘I can’t turn her out tonight,’ she said, holding onto the sofa to control her shaking. ‘I’ll see if I can find somewhere else for her tomorrow.’
Ron stared at her, a long cold glare. ‘Make sure you do.’ And then he stamped off to bed.
When Marjorie plucked up the courage to join him, he turned his back on her and threw off her tentative hand on his shoulder, without speaking. Sleep was a long time coming.
Sandra and Marjorie rode together to the paper shop in the morning. Marjorie was quiet but the girl was singing as she rode.
‘I love my room, Marjorie. That bed is so comfortable and I could hear the birds singing when I woke up. When will I meet your husband?’
‘He’s on lates until the end of this week, then earlies next week, so he will be there when I get home from work.’ She said nothing to the girl about the scene with Ron. Sandra was so happy, she couldn’t bring herself to spoil her day by telling her she had to go.
Whether the girl went to school or hung around the town all day, she was there when Marjorie left the shop and they cycled home together. She hadn’t tried to find her somewhere else to live.
When they reached the cottage, there was a black dustbin bag outside the front door. It contained Sandra’s clothes. Marjorie unlocked the door and carried the bag back inside.
Sandra looked on the point of tears. ‘He doesn’t want me here, does he?’
‘Don’t you worry about it,’ Marjorie said firmly. ‘He’s not used to having anyone else around, that’s all.’ They went upstairs and Marjorie was not surprised to find the mattress deflated and rolled up. She blew it up, remade the bed and put Sandra’s clothes back in the drawers. The girl showered and joined her in the kitchen, her hair damp and curly, and her face pink.
‘Can I help you get supper?’ They worked together and for a while, Marjorie wallowed in the girl’s infectious high spirits, forgetting the scene she would face later that night. She had never had someone to help her with the household chores and it made the work fun. They laughed together and Marjorie knew this was what it could have been if she’d had a daughter of her own.
Ron didn’t speak to her when he arrived home and ate his supper in silence. He looked up at the ceiling when they heard the sound of water running, his face dark, and his lips tight.
‘Until the end of the week,’ he said. In bed, he again turned his back on her.
He didn’t throw out her clothes again, or deflate the mattress. He simply didn’t speak. Marjorie knew the real test would be the following week when he would be at home when they got back from the shop. In the meantime, she enjoyed every minute of her time with Sandra, feeling happier than she had in years. The joyous hours with the girl made up for the temporary coldness of the marital bed.
There was no sign of the trouble that Sandra had caused her parents. Oh, the girl flirted with the other paper boys and once, Marjorie saw her hanging out with some older guys in the town. Sandra waved and Marjorie went on her way with misgivings. The girl was voluptuous for her age and could easily be in trouble with the wrong crowd. But she seemed content to stay in each night and apparently attended school during the day.
Ron worked that weekend so a confrontation was avoided. The following Monday, however, his car was there when they got back from work. Marjorie’s mouth was dry, her limbs weak, as she opened the front door. Ron was watching television in the sitting room. She went in to greet him, but he ignored her.
‘Would you like to meet Sandra?’
‘No,’ he said, continuing to watch the screen. ‘When is she leaving?’
Marjorie made no reply but joined Sandra in the kitchen and they prepared supper together.
‘Would you like your meal in here,’ she went in to ask him, ‘or will you come and eat in the kitchen with us?’
He shook his head. She went back to the kitchen and prepared a tray for him. Sandra stepped forward and took the tray.
‘Let me take it,’ she said, ‘he’s got to see me sometime.’
Marjorie reluctantly handed the tray to her. She waited for the angry voice, but heard only the television. Seconds later, Sandra came out smiling.
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. I said I’m Sandra and I hope you enjoy your supper.’
Marjorie shook her head in amazement at the girl’s courage. Suddenly, they were giggling together, albeit quietly, as they sat down to eat.
Days passed and Ron maintained his hostile attitude towards her. He continued to eat alone in the sitting room and Sandra continued to take the tray in to him. That she was trying to coax a response, Marjorie knew, for she heard the girl talking.
‘Did he speak?’ she would ask. The girl always shook her head.
A breakthrough of a sort came the day Sandra’s bicycle developed a punctured tyre overnight. They left it behind and Sandra ran alongside her to work before borrowing Marjorie’s bike for her round. When they arrived home that evening, the tyre had been repaired.
The two of
them looked at each other and shared delighted grins. When Sandra took his supper in that evening, Marjorie heard the girl laughing. She felt a rush of joy. It was going to be all right.
Sandra spent longer with Ron each time she took his supper and Marjorie heard the murmur of his voice, too. She felt pangs of jealousy at being excluded and told herself not to be silly. She had looked upon Sandra as her companion. Was she unwilling to share her with Ron? Or was she jealous because, while he talked to Sandra, he was still cold towards her?
It didn’t change her relationship with Sandra, though and they continued to cycle to and from the shop together and giggle in the kitchen as they prepared supper each day.
A week later, Ron was on nights and Marjorie slipped home at lunchtime. She usually ate lunch in the backroom of the shop or in the park across the road if the weather was nice, but she had forgotten to buy bread the day before and knew Ron would want a sandwich when he woke up.
Sandra’s bike was propped against the side of the house, which surprised her. Worried her, too, in case the girl made a noise and woke Ron. She entered the house quietly and put the bread in the kitchen, before tiptoeing up the stairs. She would remind Sandra to be extra quiet.
She passed the closed bedroom door where Ron was sleeping and started up the stairs to the attic. She heard Sandra laugh. She must be on her mobile. As she took another step, the murmur of a man’s voice reached her. Had she brought someone home with her? Ron would certainly kick her out straight away if she had. Just when everything was going so well. Or was it a radio?
She reached the door, but before she opened it the man spoke again.
‘You’re my baby, aren’t you, Girl? Oh, yes, yes, you’re…my…baby…yes, yes, that’s… lovely… baby, yes... You’re… my… baby… You’re … mii-iine..’. It was a shout of triumph and she heard the girl cry out, a long loud wail, as if in pain.
Marjorie shuddered, her whole body trembling as intensely as if she too had just climaxed. She sank down on the stairs, her legs gone to jelly. The girl who could have, should have, been her daughter was lying in there with her husband, the man for whom Marjorie had denied her deepest desire, the longing to have a child of her own.
She heard Sandra laugh again and felt as if a knife had pierced her heart. Hot despair rose up the back of her throat. She leaned her head against the banisters and felt wetness on her cheeks. How they must be laughing at her stupidity, at her failure to see what was going on between them.
It mustn’t go on. The girl was under-age! If it became known, Ron would be in trouble, could even go to prison. She wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
She clumsily rose to her feet, clinging to the banister for support until her legs regained their strength. Embarrassment and fear for what she might see or what they might say prevented her from confronting them, so she crept down the stairs as quietly as she had climbed them.
***
A passer-by called the fire brigade. White and trembling when he spoke to the firemen, he said that despite the noise of the flames, he had heard banging coming from the top of the house and loud screams that he would forever have nightmares about. He had seen a terrified face pressed against the little round window at the top of the house. The firemen used their hoses and erected a ladder, but to no avail. They couldn’t get into the house for the ferocity of the flames.
They came to see Marjorie in the shop and made her sit down before they told her. He didn’t have a chance, they said. It still wasn’t safe for them to go in to recover the body. Would he have been alone?
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘He was on nights. He would have been fast asleep.’ Then she wrapped her arms about herself, rocked in her chair and sobbed for her terrible loss.
***
She would never tell anyone of what had happened in that attic room; nor would she reveal how, before returning to the shop, she had first collected newspapers and matches from the kitchen together with the wooden door wedge.
She’d tiptoed upstairs again, alert for any sound, fearful of discovery. All had been quiet. The heavy attic door opened outward because of the roof beams. She’d pushed the wedge under the door as firmly and as quietly as she could. In their bedroom, the one in which Ron should have been sleeping, she had opened the windows to create a draught. Crumpling the newspapers, she’d pushed them under the edge of the bed, leaving them touching the cotton valance. She had lit a match. It had caught and she’d done the same on the other side.
Flames had leapt up the bedding, fanned by the breeze. She’d crept silently downstairs and closed the front door softly behind her. Then she had cycled back to the shop. She’d only been gone half an hour. She’d been eating her sandwiches in the park and feeding the ducks, she would tell them if they asked.
Freewheeling down the hill, she hadn’t looked back and was in the shop by the time the flames were shooting out of the windows and screams were coming from the attic.
***
Shirley Blane is the author of The Widow's Revenge, now published as an e-book with Amazon. She has also written several prize winning short stories and is currently working on a sequel to her novel. Find her on Twitter @BlanethePain333
Sin + Virtue = Love
By SJA Turney
Matthew shrugged off the coarse, brown robe, his naked flesh chilling in the dark of his small room. Carefully folding the robe, he brushed off the lint – cleanliness is next to Godliness, after all – and folded it, placing it on the single, simple chair in the room. His young, hazel eyes, filled with a short life of pity, pain and self-loathing, fell upon the crucifix hanging on the wall.
“Dimitte me, Dominus.”
The sad, brown eyes dropped demurely, and Matthew reached for the box beneath his simple, single cot, rummaging through the meagre contents until his hand fell on the knotted rope. He pulled out the object with a wan smile and examined it. Some of the others had similar ones that had been constructed professionally, but Matthew was happy with the flagellum he had constructed himself.
The heavy twine handle gave way to three individual ropes, each knotted every three inches along its two foot length, and each knot had attached a small piece of shattered glass, shard of pottery or piece of sharp metal.
He turned to look down his back over his shoulder and smiled at the two dozen or so small scars he could see gleaming in the glow. That was just one shoulder. There must be hundreds over the rest of his back that he’d never seen.
Each tiny mark represented lost blood, searing pain, enough tears to drown an angel, and precious, precious forgiveness, sorrow and redemption.
1 John 4:8 - Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
The first barb struck, tearing pieces of flesh from the back just beneath his left shoulder, the metal, glass and pottery barbs gouging deep rents in the young, pink skin, creating new wounds across old, shiny scars.
“But I cannot say for certain that I have ever loved, Lord. Other than thy divine self, of course. Those that I live amongst and those that I speak to love their families, or siblings, or the Lord, or even, as forbidden as it might be, a girl or a boy. But the only thing I have ever loved is you, Lord. But without loving anything else I have no frame of reference. How can I say I love you when I cannot be sure that is love, because I have never experienced it in any other form?”
The next blow brought a tiny piece of white shoulder blade to light through the pink and red.
“And if I cannot be certain that what I am experiencing is love, because I have no frame of reference, then I cannot be certain that I love. And as John says, if I cannot be certain that I love, I cannot know God.”
The third blow sent a small trail of blood whipping through the air. That would require scrubbing later to clean up. And he was always so careful!
1 Corinthians 13:13 - Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
“But if I can be sure that what I feel is love, and I’m not sure about that, t
hen the only entity for whom I feel this overwhelming passion and heat is you. And surely that means that my faith is paramount – and I have always strived to make my faith paramount. But would that not mean that my faith and my love are on a par, since they are one and the same?”
Shrrrraaaaaap! A metal barb ripped out a piece of flesh beneath his left armpit, causing him to whimper a little as the blood droplets fell to the tarpaulin that protected the floor from the worst of the mess. Matthew felt extremely disappointed in his weakness.
“And some of my fellows argue that it is ridiculous to worry about whether my faith and my love are equal, just because you say that love is the greatest, but they do not understand you like I do, Lord. You are infallible. If you cannot be wrong, then I must be. Logic used to its own destruction.”
Tortured Hearts - Twisted Tales of Love - Volume 2 Page 5