A Woman's War

by S Block

  ‘Your views on unwarranted intrusion are well established, Frances,’ said Sarah impatiently. The air was starting to chill and if they had decided to leave she wanted to be on her way before it started to rain.

  ‘I’m going to conclude by asking Pat to telephone me so we can arrange another time to come and visit, and ask her when she’s likely to be back in the saddle vis-à-vis the branch . . .’

  Frances signed her name at the bottom of the page.

  ‘There! Note complete!’

  Frances read it back to herself, then tore the small sheet of paper out of the notebook and folded it in half. She then wrote ‘FAO Dearest Pat’ on one side, and popped it through the letterbox.

  The three of them stood for a moment and looked at the house, top to bottom, each hoping they might suddenly catch a glimpse of Pat in one of the windows, responding to the sound of the letterbox snapping shut. But Pat didn’t appear. No one did. They vainly looked back along the road to see if Pat might be returning from an errand they had supposed she might have been on. But she didn’t.

  Frances decided there was little more they could do, and began walking back the way they’d come. Sarah and Alison looked at the house for a few moments longer, trying to size it up.

  ‘Looks like a great deal of work to keep clean,’ said Alison.

  Sarah nodded. ‘It does, doesn’t it. A large garden too – no doubt for Pat to keep in order while Great Paxford’s own Dickens hammers out his genius.’

  Sarah sighed with considerable disappointment at not having been able to see her old friend, then slowly turned and ambled with Alison towards her sister already making her way back to the bus stop along the road.

  *

  Throughout her friends’ attempt to see her, Pat had sat on a chair in the master bedroom she shared with Bob.

  When Frances, Alison, and Sarah had knocked on the front door and called through the letterbox, every fibre in Pat’s body was prepared to propel her out of the bedroom, along the upstairs landing, down the stairs, and across the hall to the front door. Though Pat’s flesh had been willing to make the dash, her mind dared not give the instruction to get up and run, lest it trigger Bob to burst from his office across the landing and knock Pat to the floor before she reached the stairs. She momentarily considered screaming for help, but couldn’t guarantee her friends would hear. And if nothing came from screaming, Bob would punish her severely for the attempt.

  And so, instead of running to her friends, Pat had sat in the chair in silence, hoping they would leave quickly before their presence provoked Bob, who never liked to be disturbed while he worked unless it was with fresh supplies of food and drink.

  Pat sat with her chin almost resting on her chest, eyes closed against the mind-piercing rattle of Bob’s fingers crashing against typewriter keys in his new office, pounding out a synopsis for a new book. Her head throbbed painfully around her left eye socket, where Bob had punched her four days ago, after discovering her writing a Mass Observation report.

  Unused to the acoustics of the new house, Pat’s customary caution had been disengaged, and she simply hadn’t heard Bob leave his new study, and enter their new bedroom, where Pat had been writing on the bed. By the time she realised Bob was in the room it was too late to hide her work and pretend to be doing something else.

  And of course, too late to stop Bob snatching up and reading what she had been writing.

  After a few moments, Pat had attempted to launch herself at her husband and grab the pages from his hand, desperate to prevent him from reading what she had written about her continued devotion to Marek and her tolerance of Bob for as long as his good behaviour was sustained.

  The combination of these two had provoked Bob’s initial punch, sending Pat reeling backwards across the corner of their new bed and crashing into her new dressing table.

  Pat had sat stunned on the floor, her head swimming, in no position to defend herself against a man who had once vowed to honour and cherish her.

  By the time Bob had finished reading what Pat had written she knew his red mist of old would now descend like a thick curtain over whatever passed for his decency, and a beating would begin.

  By the time Bob had finished with her, Pat’s face was swollen and bloody, and she was sure two ribs – one either side – were either severely bruised or cracked. In addition, two fingers of her writing hand were left in agony – possibly fractured – after Bob stamped on them in a final flourish of intense spite against her writing.

  Long after Frances, Sarah and Alison had returned to Pat’s beloved Great Paxford, Pat continued to sit in her bedroom, immobile, cowed, listening to her own blood softly thud-thud through the blood vessels around her head and heart.

  With eyes closed she was at least able to transport herself back to the fields where she and Marek used to lie in each other’s arms, gazing up at the sky, with no thought of Bob in her head. These had been moments she cherished, like vital sustenance, to keep her soul alive. They helped her conjure Marek’s voice, and his distinct, earthy aroma within the private recess of her innermost mind, and felt reassured that everything might yet be all right. Whatever Bob did to her physically or mentally, she and Marek had embarked on an act of faith under the canal bridge during that wet, windy night after the WI meeting, and that would continue until they were reunited.

  Pat thought of Marek now, putting his life in danger hundreds of miles away, standing up to Fascism. She felt emboldened by his courage. She lifted her head and looked at the closed bedroom door before her.

  It’s not locked. The only thing keeping me here is my fear of him. That’s all he needs. And I sit here and wait for his instruction like the pathetic servant he would wish me to be.

  Pat thought of her friends knocking at the front door earlier. She imagined them returning to Great Paxford to excitedly get ready for the WI meeting that evening, just as she normally would on the first Thursday of each month. In the pit of her stomach she felt a sense of yearning for life beyond her new house bubble to the surface.

  If Marek is prepared to put his own survival in peril to protect our way of life, how can I sit here and just give in to Bob? Didn’t Marek once say that this was my war? Then I should fight it. Live as best I can.

  She blinked slowly, her resolve forming.

  I’m going to go to the meeting.

  Pat slowly got to her feet, feeling the fatigue in her knees from sitting for so long in one position while she waited for Bob to give her permission to move. She carefully shuffled to the door and grasped the handle, turning it slowly. She pulled the door open and looked out onto the empty landing. The sound of Bob’s typing continued to fill the house from top to bottom.

  Tentatively, Pat stretched out her left leg and stepped onto the landing. The rug shifted slightly under her weight as she found her footing, sliding ever so slightly on top of the old floorboard beneath, which suddenly creaked loudly.

  The sound of typing stopped behind Bob’s office door.

  Pat froze as she considered stepping back into the bedroom and closing the door, hoping Bob would think he had misheard, or put the creak down to an old eave in an old house groaning against the wind outside.

  But just as she withdrew her foot to retreat into the bedroom, the door of Bob’s office slowly opened, and Bob stood there looking at Pat from across the landing.

  They stood looking at one another for several moments, each trying to decide what their next move would be.

  It allowed Pat time to remind herself that it didn’t always pay to cower before her husband when he was angry. Occasionally, if he was tired or simply not in the mood, a sudden burst of anguished fury could be enough to put Bob on the back foot and send him stomping off into his office, or to the Black Horse pub.

  Pat didn’t feel she had the strength for anger at this precise moment. She felt weak, exhausted, and in severe pain. Her whole body was telling her to go back into the bedroom and sit down behind the closed door. She opened h
er mouth to speak, but Bob pipped her to it.

  ‘Did I say you could leave the room?’ he coldly asked.

  Pat knew of old this was a trick question, with no answer that would allow her to avoid some form of reprimand, and punishment.

  ‘It’s WI night, Bob,’ was all she could say.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I want to go to the meeting,’ she said, without sounding like she was asking permission even though they both knew she was. Bob gave it barely a second’s worth of thought.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you said when we moved I would still be able to go to the WI,’ she said.

  ‘That was before, when I thought you had changed.’

  She looked at him, blinking slowly through blurred vision in one eye.

  ‘I want to go to the WI. I want to see my friends. I have friends, Bob. They miss me. And I miss them.’

  ‘You don’t need friends. You only need me. Now get back in the bedroom until I say you can come out.’

  Pat didn’t move. She felt her chest slowly inflate and then deflate, the expansion and contraction of her rib cage sending jabbing spasms of pain around her chest.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he said sharply. ‘Get back in that room!’

  ‘I’m going downstairs to get ready,’ she said, and stepped out onto the landing proper.

  It was all the trigger Bob needed. He shot from his office doorway towards Pat to drive her back into the bedroom.

  Ordinarily, he might have expected Pat to flinch and step backwards of her own accord as he advanced, but as he approached the top of the staircase he saw Pat bra-cing herself against the doorjamb, preparing to make a stand. It didn’t matter to him which method he had to use to get his way, as long as he got it. He’d tried nice, and for what?

  At close quarters Bob reached out to grab Pat’s arm. He failed to register that she was mustering every last drop of energy she had to repel him as forcefully as she was able.

  If I have to go down again it won’t be with a whimper . . .

  ‘I am going to the WI!’

  Pat screamed into Bob’s face as loudly as she could, trying to give him pause. Her own face was twisted in fear and fury.

  In the same moment, Pat closed her eyes tightly, turned her head away from Bob and lashed out at him with her right arm to repel his advance.

  Her hand crashed clumsily against his shoulder, suddenly arresting his forward momentum, causing his bad leg to buckle slightly.

  His left foot slipped forward and the rug came free of its moorings, sliding forward on the floorboards.

  In less than a second, Bob found himself falling backwards on to the top tread of the staircase. He desperately reached out to grab anything he could to arrest his fall. His hands flailed uselessly. He bounced off the top tread with another cry of pain, then continued over it and down. Crying out angrily, Bob ricocheted off each tread until he landed head-first at the very bottom of the stairs. He reached the bottom with a crack that filled the house.

  Silence. Complete and utter silence.

  After a few moments, Pat slowly opened her eyes and looked out upon an upstairs landing that had no Bob in view. She looked at the floor and saw the rug, bunched up violently at one end by her feet, where it had come to rest. Pat’s attention then slowly turned towards the staircase.

  She crept forward, and looked down.

  Bob lay on his back at the bottom of the stairs, his arms and legs bent at awkward angles. To Pat, he looked like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut. She waited for Bob to move, and reveal the ruse he was clearly planning to spring on her.

  But he remained still.

  From her vantage point at the top of the stairs Pat couldn’t see if Bob was breathing. She took a deep breath of her own and began to slowly descend. When she had reached the mid-point of the staircase she stopped. He still hadn’t moved, but was he breathing? She tried to focus on his chest.

  ‘Bob?’

  Silence.

  ‘Bob?’

  Silence.

  Pat crept all the way to the last stair just above where Bob lay, and looked down at him. His eyes and mouth were open, but there was no movement.

  ‘Bob?’ Her voice was querulous.

  At that moment, Bob’s eyes slowly swivelled in their sockets and looked at Pat, holding her uncertainly in their gaze.

  Pat was momentarily startled and instinctively took a step back up the staircase. Bob made no other effort in her direction.

  ‘Bob, can you speak?’

  Silence.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Silence.

  Pat regained her nerve and slowly crept back to her position, and looked down upon the man who had been the scourge of her life for so many years. For all the scorn and contempt he had heaped upon her with his words, fists and open palms, at this moment it was he who was helpless.

  Pat suddenly thought she must telephone for an ambulance. With a swiftness that surprised her, it was almost immediately answered with another thought.

  What if I don’t?

  Pat sat on the step above Bob and looked down at him. He continued to look up at her. His mouth slowly opened as if in preparation to say something. His chest was barely moving, his breathing was increasingly shallow. Pat then saw a dark pool of blood gathering beneath his head, oozing from his left ear.

  ‘Whatever you think of me, Bob,’ she whispered with the utmost solemnity, ‘I never meant this. I never meant to push you down the stairs, only to push you away from me. You must have slipped on the rug . . .’

  Pat stopped talking. It seemed perfectly clear what had happened and no further explanation was necessary. She continued to look at Bob’s face, her eyes meeting his. His eyes moving less and less. Pat could see the life-force ebbing out of her husband in a steady, red trickle.

  Is he looking at me? Is he imploring me to call an ambulance? I should. I should. And then what? They come and take him away and make him better? And then-—

  At that moment, Bob simply stopped breathing. His eyes ceased all movement, and came to rest looking straight up, over Pat’s left shoulder, toward the ceiling.

  *

  It took several moments for Pat to realise he was finally gone.

  It took three more hours for Pat to realise she was finally free.

  The moment struck her as she set out towards Great Paxford in the late afternoon. Living several miles from the village and being less quick than usual because of back pain, Pat left in good time to arrive at the WI before it started, not at the very last minute as was customary under Bob’s jealous eye.

  She had taken the time to do her hair and make-up exactly how she wanted, ensuring her foundation covered any lingering trace of bruising on her face.

  She had instinctively called out ‘Goodbye, Bob,’ as she closed the front door – as if they were a perfectly normal, loving couple, and this was any other WI day.

  I’ll call the police after I return from the meeting. I’ll enter the house and be stunned to find him dead at the bottom of the stairs, the victim of a tragic household accident.

  As she approached the village, Pat realised she no longer had to account to anyone. Not to Bob, and not to the police over Bob’s death. Everyone knew Bob had been unsteady on his feet following his injury at Dunkirk. They had seen him hobbling around the village on his stick often enough. All the women knew about the WI rug upon which Bob had slipped on the upstairs landing, because they’d all been there when it had been presented to Pat.

  I’m free . . .

  She had only pushed him away in self-defence – the rest had been entirely out of her hands; a fatal combination of rug, Bob’s instability, and a proximal staircase.

  Pat checked her watch as she walked past St Mark’s, and sped up.

  She looked up at the great tower and crossed herself. As she passed in front of the cemetery she instinctively looked towards the oldest headstone, where she and Marek had left messages of love for one anothe
r. She then glanced across at the remains of her old house next door to what was left of the Campbells’. The downed Spitfire from the fateful afternoon when Marek had been transported out of the area with the Czech contingent had been removed, but the ruined houses had been left untouched.

  They’ll be demolished after the war, I suppose. Replaced with something better.

  Pat could scarcely imagine that she and Bob had lived out their terrible drama in such small spaces.

  As Pat turned the corner onto the High Street she heard the introductory bars of ‘Jerusalem’ rising from the village hall. She nodded at the men standing outside the Black Horse, supping their pints, humming along to the music from the hall.

  ‘Get a clip on, Mrs Simms! They’ve started,’ said one as Pat passed, causing her to break into as much of a trot as she could manage as the women launched into the first verse.

  ‘And did those feet, in ancient time, walk upon England’s mountain green? And was the Holy lamb of God, on England’s pleasant pastures seen?’

  Pat reached the hall and slipped in just in time to join in with the second verse, standing behind her comrades at the back of the hall. No one noticed her lift her head and sing.

  ‘And did the countenance divine, shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills?’

  A dark, satanic mill. That’s what my life was like with Bob. He couldn’t change. I was horribly mistaken . . .

  ‘Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear, oh clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!’

  Tears suddenly welled in Pat’s eyes as she sang, and spilled uncontrollably down her cheeks.

  A vast weight seemed to rise from her shoulders, and they pushed back and her spine straightened. This pushed her head back and allowed Pat to sing with greater passion, ignoring the lingering pain in her ribs from Bob’s final assault.

  She sang loudly, with crystal clarity, hitting every note with perfect pitch.

  ‘I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.’