‘I’ll give you a lift home,’ Bob Danvers said.
A detour round the back of the cemetery and there, in the back seat of a particularly uncomfortable Vauxhall, he had his wicked way.
‘Come on, it’s only a little kiss,’ he said as he pulled the vehicle into a dirt track off the main road.
‘No, I’m not that kind of person,’ she pleaded unconvincingly.
Five minutes later they were naked, writhing, and uncomfortable, the buckle of the seatbelt in the back seat digging into Helen’s backside.
‘Hang on, I’m coming.’ He was so drunk he could barely maintain an erection, let alone climax. In the end, and with her in a state of extreme excitement and encouragement, being as it was her first time, he finally came.
The next day at the pub, Bob, by then sober, walked straight past her without acknowledgement.
There were to be two more years of Sally or another promiscuous female with their chubby friend. Two more years of drinking and drunken entanglements in the back seat of various cars where she was the runner-up’s prize.
By the time Helen reached the age of nineteen, the weight had started to come off and the looks, although not beautiful, were of some competition to all those that had befriended her.
It was during those last few months that she had met up with Tom Marshall. He had actually liked her for herself. She had a boyfriend, but he had a dark side: he was a drug addict.
‘Come on, Helen. It’s only cocaine. Everyone does it, it’s harmless.’ She resisted for a while but then succumbed. She liked it.
‘I want something stronger,’ she eventually asked him. It was only a matter of months before she finally injected herself with heroin. She was addicted.
He died of an overdose one Saturday night. Hooked on heroin and in need of a fix, she ended up on the streets down by the docks on the Sunday.
Her parents had despaired.
‘I need heroin,’ Helen, desperate for a fix pleaded with the drug dealer on the Monday. She hadn’t eaten, but the drug was more important.
‘You’ve no money, go away. I’m not a charity.’ He was rough and pushed her, face down, into the gutter with force. He was a businessman, interested in money, not some whining woman looking for a handout. However, he had to admit she was better looking than most of those that he saw hanging around.
‘I’ll do anything. Anything that you want.’
‘Okay, I may be able to help,’ he said. ‘Here, come round the back of the building and give me a blowjob.’ She did not want to; he was a short, fat, balding man with a ponytail who smelt of garlic.
She did what he wanted. She got the drugs; felt euphoria and then revulsion and guilt at what she had become.
The progression to selling herself to feed her habit did not take long. ‘How much do you charge?’ She had been standing on the corner down by the docks, an area frequented by drunken sailors and prostitutes.
‘Fifty pounds for a blowjob. One hundred for a root.’
There was no need for small talk. She had never been one for bad language, but it was not a conversation that her customers wanted. They wanted the price, the service and she, the drugs their money bought.
By her late twenties, she had been on the street for over ten years. Sometimes, there was some accommodation, some periods where the drugs had not gripped her so completely, but mostly she had been selling herself to keep her drug dependency fed.
At twenty-nine, she had fallen pregnant. The father was unknown. He would have been some drunk, staggering home at night, having spent the remaining money from his weekly pay packet for fifteen minutes of her time.
‘I know how to get rid of it. I’ve done it before.’ It had been two months since her last period and she knew what it was. Maisie O’Donnell was giving her advice.
They had shared the same street corner for some years, the same dosshouse when they could find a room. It was owned by a dirty old man in his seventies. Sometimes, he would take money, sometimes a blowjob or a quick screw behind the counter at reception.
Maisie was older, in her forties. However, it was not drugs; it was cheap whisky, cooking sherry, even methylated spirits. The meths had addled her brain and she was slightly crazy. She was the last on the corner taken by the drunks.
‘I could go to a hospital. They would deal with it.’
‘Yes, and they would put you into a drug rehabilitation programme and strap you down until you screamed,’ replied Maisie. ‘And then they would ignore you until you stopped the screaming.’
She was right. Helen was too dependent on drugs to even contemplate a hospital.
‘Here, drink this whisky,’ said Maisie. ‘The whole bottle, until you nearly pass out.’ They had found a room in a cheap boarding house for the night. It was rough, but it was cheap, and it was where the abortion was to occur.
Maisie, neither qualified nor competent, was suffering the effects of drinking two bottles of a particularly unpleasant cooking sherry the night before. However, she continued to swig from a bottle of whisky while performing the procedure. Helen had bought two, given one to her as payment.
Maisie, unsteady of hand, shaking and coughing, set to work with a knitting needle.
‘Just relax, it will soon be over.’
‘Stop,’ cried Helen. ‘The pain, I can’t take it.’
The aim was to break the amniotic sac inside the womb. Maisie kept missing the mark, and the pain was excruciating. Eventually, she made contact; the sac was breached, the miscarriage eventuated and the bleeding intensified. The drunken woman had perforated the uterus and infection soon set in. In fear of the hospital, Helen had resorted to massive doses of antibiotics. In a matter of a few weeks, the pain subsided, but she would never have children.
The abortion had triggered a change in her. Back on the street, and alternating between injecting drugs and smelly drunks lying on top of her while trying to tongue kiss her, she saw that her life had no purpose.
Two nights later, on a cold wintry night in a momentary period of lucidity, she jumped into the Mersey River. The intense cold of the water as she went under brought back memories, thoughts of what her life could have been. She realised this was not the solution. She struggled to swim and, somehow, pulled herself up on the bank.
‘Oh, my dear, let me help.’ Edith Smith had found her sitting on the riverbank, cold, wet, and shivering. She realised it had been an attempted suicide.
‘Please, come home with me. Let me get you dry and warm,’ she said.
‘I jumped in, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why, I wanted to.’
A kindly, pious and devoutly Christian woman, Mary had been taking her dog, Benny, for his nightly walk when she had seen an unusual shape by the water’s edge.
She did not know why she had offered to take the woman home instead of calling the Police. She was of a nervous disposition, but something in Helen’s face made her feel safe.
In the years to come, Mary would say it was God’s will that she was there that night.
‘We’ll soon get you out of those clothes and warm. I have a warm fire at home. You will have to share it with Benny, though, he likes to hog it.’ The dog was a sprightly little Jack Russell terrier, and he already loved Helen. He kept licking her.
Mary was in her sixtieth year and lived in a small, terrace house several blocks away from the river. There was nothing distinctive about it; it looked like every other house within a square kilometre, but to Helen it was heaven.
The back bedroom she had been given was cheery and bright, and she slept for twenty hours straight. Mary had made sure she had a cup of tea and a good feed ready for when she woke up. Sitting in front of the fire, she realised that the craving for drugs was still there, but it was manageable.
Three weeks passed and she rarely left the house, although she sometimes took Benny for a walk. She phoned her parents after two weeks. For a number of years estranged from her parents, they had tried to help, but it was too difficult for
them. They could only handle the situation by keeping away.
‘Mum, I am okay. A lovely lady is looking after me. There is nothing to worry about. Let’s get together in a week or so. Tell Dad I love him.’
They were delighted and, that night, they celebrated with a bottle of wine they had been saving for such a phone call.
In all the time spent with Mary, she found the desire for drugs continued to lessen.
‘I am going to my Church tonight. There is a presentation on missionary work in Africa. Would you like to come?’
Mary was a keen Baptist. Helen, although she had been raised Catholic, was not religious. Mary had asked before, but this time she said yes. She was not sure why, but the subject appealed to her.
There was a small gathering of about fifty people in the little hall alongside the Baptist Chapel. Tea and cakes served to all on arrival and, promptly at seven, Pastor Thomas Stewart stood to speak. Scottish, judging by his accent, he spoke at length about life in Africa, the challenges, the lifestyle, the people. He interspersed his talk with pictures.
Helen saw it as the life for her. It was alien from all she had known in her mainly troubled life, but she felt an affinity, a longing to travel to Africa.
At the end of the meeting, Helen with Mary had taken the Pastor to one side to discuss missionary work in Africa. Everyone else had gone home by then.
‘I am sure. I would like to go and assist.’ Helen was adamant.
With Mary’s assistance, she quickly phoned the various people and she was accepted as a candidate for mission work. However, they required her to undertake some training in the religious aspects of the Missions, but she was not religious. She wanted to help, not preach. She decided to go anyway and soon decided on the Mission where she would go to first.
‘I’m going to Africa next week.’ Delighted as Helen’s parents were to see her, the revelation shocked them. They had met at a local café near Mary’s house. She still showed the effects of a life on the streets, but she was calm, certainly fresher looking than the last time they had seen her.
‘Africa!’ her father exclaimed.
‘Yes, it’s all arranged. I’ve had my vaccinations, I have a visa, and I know where I am going. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘And the other issue?’ Her mother could not help but enquire about the other issue, the other issue being drugs.
‘I am fine,’ said Helen. ‘I do not feel the need, and I don’t think I will ever again. I cannot explain why, but there it is. Can you take me to the airport in Manchester next Thursday?’
‘Are you certain?’ It was a typical comment from concerned parents. At least the sun will do her good, they thought. They had never travelled and imagined she would be in the sun by the sea.
Thursday duly arrived and Helen bid them farewell. Mary came as well and they waved as she boarded a British Airways flight to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
Chapter 2
Pastor Zebediah had hoped that the Conakry Baptist Mission would last for another few years before they returned home to Mississippi. Mary was ageing; it was clear that she would need the medical facilities back home at some stage. The request had come unexpectedly from the Baptist Head of Mission in Nigeria to reactivate the mission in Maiduguri after it had been neglected for several years. The previous Pastor wife had passed away and he had retired back home to Florida. Zebediah could see no reason not to agree; he had to admit that the local team in Conakry was doing a fine job, more than capable to carry on the good work.
Three months later, they arrived in Abuja, the capital city of the oil-rich country. It was soon clear as to where the wealth was concentrated as they left on the three-day trip north to the mission. The cities, the villages and the people progressively poorer the further north they ventured. The temperature in the blistering sun nudged forty degrees centigrade, the cabin of the truck at least ten degrees hotter. It was unpleasant, uncomfortable, but no one complained. Years of trials and tribulations had inured Zebediah, Mary and Duncan, to what was always euphemised as ‘local conditions.’
‘Welcome to Maiduguri,’ the driver said. A small town in Borno state, it was neither attractive nor pleasant. It was, however, where the mission was located. As they entered through the gates of their new home, they were not filled with joy.
There were several run-down and neglected mud brick buildings with corrugated iron roofs. Substantial sections of the roofing were missing, the elements had claimed some, the locals the rest.
‘There is a lot of work for you here, Duncan,’ Zebediah said, aiming to maintain a sense of humour.
Duncan relished hard physical work. ‘I’ll soon get it sorted out.’
The main building was a large, rectangular structure with three bedrooms, living room, and a rudimentary kitchen. It was basic, unloved, but it was all that the Pastor expected and required. Electricity was a hit and miss affair and, whereas some in the community would have a diesel generator, he knew they would not, at least not on the meagre budget the Baptist Missions Board had allocated. The compound contained a small chapel and, judging by the numbers of seats, the attendance had never been more than a few dozen. There were more birds roosting under the partially collapsed roof than there would be devotees of Pastor Zebediah’s teachings.
There were some outhouses, some broken chairs, miscellaneous tools of varying quality for maintenance, and some cans of paint, so old that Duncan would very quickly dump them in the nearest tip. On one side of the compound was a solid iron gate, wide enough for a vehicle to move through; the road outside, a dusty track.
‘We need a horse and cart.’ Zebediah was trying to communicate with a local supplier whose premises were not far from the mission. They had found no vehicle; there was meant to be an old truck, but it was gone.
‘Sorry, I do not understand,’ replied Yabani in the local language. He spoke English perfectly adequately, any businessman did, but he was not going to let on; it would only weaken his bargaining position. He was a purveyor of horses, and the animal that the Pastor was interested in was old, beyond its use by date. Its kindly disposition, the limit of Zebediah’s expertise in the purchase of horses, secured the sale.
Zebediah felt he had got a bargain, Yabani knew he had not. Thirty minutes had transpired on the transaction. Twenty minutes later, Sammy and cart arrived back at the compound. It was a silly name for a horse, but Mary felt it looked like a Sammy.
In a matter of weeks, Duncan had managed some essential maintenance and the main building, as well as the chapel, was useable if basic. Zebediah offered a prayer thanking Duncan at the first service in the small chapel.
‘We thank thee, O Lord, for the humble surroundings that we find ourselves in. We thank Duncan for his good and hard work in the last weeks to allow us to use the chapel in the reverence of God.’
‘Will you say a few words for Sammy?’ Mary asked.
We also thank Sammy for his friendship and willingness to help us in our work.
Zebediah was as equally fond of the horse as Mary.
The horse was a friend, who would happily spend all day taking them where they wanted to go and then bringing them back. When they alighted in the small town, he would wait for their return. All he wanted was food to eat, water to drink and a few kind words. He had not been treated well during his life. A dumb animal understands kindness when it is given.
Surviving the first few months had been a battle. They had barely enough money, and the local traders were constantly overcharging. In time, the locals came to realise that these were good people, not of their faith, but nonetheless decent people and the overcharging ceased.
Services at the Chapel were held regularly and usually a few local Christians would come. However, as the insurgency of Boko Haram increased in intensity, the numbers dwindled. By the third year, nobody from the local community attended.
‘We’ve been promised a truck from our fellow missionaries down in Lagos,’ the Pastor announced after their fourth
month. ‘I am told it is rough and in need of some serious repairs. It sounds like a challenge for Duncan.’
‘I’ll fix it up, regardless of its condition,’ Duncan proudly announced.
Sadly, the vehicle never made the trip north. What happened was to remain a mystery. Had it been dumped by the road, maybe the driver took it for himself? Whatever the reason, they were to remain without motorised transport for some time.
At the conclusion of their first year, the Pastor, his wife, and their devoted follower were more than content with their simple life in the north. The local people invariably acknowledged them in the street and offered words of encouragement and goodwill.
‘I am disappointed with attendances for my Sunday services,’ said Zebediah, expressing his disappointment to Mary. He had ten once, but three to four was the average.
‘The Lord preached to fewer numbers in the Holy Land two thousand years ago,’ she replied.
‘Maybe I should not be so disappointed. The Lord achieved success in time.’
‘Apart from Conakry, we were always in predominantly Christian countries,’ Mary said. ‘Here, it is more extreme. The people are scared of the terrorists.’
***
‘I have travelled from England to join your mission.’ Duncan could barely understand a word that she was saying.
‘Sorry, you will have to speak more slowly.’
‘I have travelled from England to join your mission.’ She tried to enunciate, but her English was not understandable to Duncan. Helen Campbell spoke scouse, a peculiarly Liverpudlian accent while he spoke with a strong American accent – and a Michigan accent, at that. He talked fast, slurred words and invariably dropped the last letter of every other word. Both spoke fluent English, both unable to understand the other.
Terrorist: Three Book Boxed Set Page 70