by Dawn French
‘I wondered sometimes if me being quiet made him worse? It might have. His face was black with violence when it kicked off. He literally went from ruddy to cloudy in seconds. I offended him deeply. Just my nearness, he said. Everything about me was something for him to defile. But he still managed to overcome his repugnance to have me every soddin’ night. He could copulate his way through his repulsion, couldn’t he? He wanted to put his mark on me, so he hammered away at me and honestly Sil, I had to pretend it was like going to work every day to a grim job I had little to no interest in. Nothing was required of me really other than to be present and not resist. So that’s what I did.
‘Christ, sometimes these days, I make the mistake of lettin’ my mind wander back, and I imagine how many times I laid there, being violated like that. It was … bloody … loveless. Vile. I would close my eyes and try to not be there. Sometimes …’
Cat stands up and moves to the end of the bed, where she turns away from Silvia. Having her back to her somehow helps Cat not to feel so ashamed.
‘Sometimes … he would order me to move as if I was enjoyin’ it. To make sounds … y’know, to help him. I wouldn’t. Funny really, I could deal with him rapin’ me, but I couldn’t act for him. Well now, was he rapin’ me? I didn’t resist. I knew it was futile and would only hurt more. But when I wouldn’t do a performance for him, that’s when he was the most insultin’. He would call me evil names, punch me. Never where it would show, o’ course. Give it to him, he was skilled at that. I really … begrudged being attacked in bed, when I was naked. Just why clothes make such a big difference, I don’t know, but they really do. There’s something … childlike about being naked, so it’s somehow more of an outrage. More of an offence, to do that. To a naked person. To me. To a grown child. With no clothes on. Feeling feckin’ helpless. Awful.’
She walks to the window and although she is looking out at a bleak hospital courtyard garden, that is certainly not what she is seeing. She is entirely in her mind’s eye and revisiting those terrifying years. For the first time though, she is seeing herself there, as a spectator. She has managed to remember it all, but from the outside. She can see her own face, frightened and wary. She sees her own eyes darting about and looking closely at his face, trying to predict his next move, readying herself for another lash out. Constantly reading him and trying to anticipate his sudden astonishing changes in mood and temper. She is on a bed, naked and curled up, looking up at him, the tormentor. She sees the pleading in her own eyes and finds it pathetic, unbearable.
She snaps back into the now. She turns to Silvia. Her darling Silvia, who would never hurt her. Not physically anyway. Where is she? Why hasn’t she helped with all this? Being nearly dead isn’t how Cat wants her. Cat needs constant reassurance, and this isn’t it. She approaches the bed and looks closely at Silvia. She wishes she could feel more sympathy for her. Cat would only truly derive pleasure from the curing of her. That’s the doctor in her, she’s a solution-driven person.
The first and only time in her adult life she has ever stopped working, and allowed herself to feel something, was when she took Silvia to Connemara and fell in love with her. She tipped into that giant love very quickly and with massive brute force. It was like being at a bacchanalian feast when you have been starving in the desert. The small amount of love that Silvia could show Cat was the most she’d ever had. She was immediately hooked and wanted never to be parted from it. Silvia promised they never would be parted and now look.
So Silvia is a big fat liar.
‘Honestly Sil, I’m not really coping with all of this. Without you keeping the reins on me, I’m spinning again. Not sure which way is up at the moment. All these old bad thoughts keep floodin’ in, like a tsunami. I don’t seem to have the filter I need. You are the filter, aren’t you, for God’s sake. I keep trying to tell myself all the things you say. I say, “Calm down Cat, let yourself off the hook. Be gentle with yourself. Breathe. Breathe.” Stuff like that, but somehow, when it doesn’t come from your lips, it doesn’t work. I don’t believe myself.
‘And actually, sorry to say it, but I am bloody furious with you. Life was already complicated enough without all this. I have been through a lot for you. I mean … y’know … the feckin’ marriage may have been a sham yes, but it was a marriage and at least there was all the … the … respectability … that went with it, and in a small town like this, that goes a long way when you’re a GP, believe me. If he had gone ahead and … told people … about us, just as he threatened to, honestly Silly, I don’t think I would still be working. Well, not at this practice anyway.
‘It’s bloody 2012 for feck’s sake, who you love shouldn’t matter. But it obviously does. Everyone knows everyone and it’s all so bloody insidious. Why? Why would lovin’ you make me any different or worse a doctor? I don’t want to leave my practice. I’ve spent years building up relationships there, and anyway, why should I? I had as much right to work there as him. Yes, he was the senior partner, but frankly, so feckin’ what?!’
Cat raises her hands in a huge resigned shrug, which renders her stationary for a moment, while she recalls the disturbing memories of the dreadful day.
‘So … but … maybe … yes, telling him like that, finally letting him know what a prick I thought he was, standing up to him, maybe I said some things … yes. I did. His eyes went really black, I’d never seen that in him before. He always had a look of … sort of … smug entitlement. Assured. Confident. This was the opposite of that. D’you know, Silv, if I had seen even a flicker of sadness or regret or something, anything to show he felt some … love … or something … it might have been different. Instead he travelled from shock to humiliation to boiling rage so fast that I felt like … I would burn like him if I stood too close. He was red and spittin’. His eyes. Christ Silv, his eyes. The hatred. Not hurt, just hatred.
‘It wasn’t about the marriage being over. I think he already knew that. It was that there was you. You, Silvia. You, a woman. That a woman could possibly, in the sleepy hours of the darkest night-time, make another woman utter those sounds he so desperately wanted to hear from me. His power diminished in the instant he realized that. In a second. So, he’s yellin’. “Don’t think you will walk away from all this, you boggy runt, you won’t! I will make one call, one pleading call to the right people, and you, you dirty bitch, you will be sectioned. Fact. Immediately. Sectioned. Locked up. And I will visit you, with my kindest face on, and everyone will pity me because my wife went mad. I might even weep. Watch me! Watch me bury you where no one will ever find you. In insanity. Of my making. And watch you be grateful for my visits, and watch you beg me to get you out of it. And watch me give you more tranquillizers to put you back in the confused fog of hell where you belong you perverted bitch …”
‘On and on like that Silv, ’til it wasn’t possible to listen any more. ’Til y’know, it wasn’t possible to let him live …’
Nineteen
Winnie
Monday noon
As Winnie whooshes into the room, she is wiping her mouth.‘Wha gwaan sistren! Sorry Silvia, mi no like fi nyam in front o’ you, but honestly, dis morning so busy, mi no haffi time fe food. No breakfass, no tea, no biscuits. Mi famish! Well, not really famish, like dem poor souls ’pon TV in Ethiopia an’ Somalia wid huge sad eye. I feel shame for alla us when mi see dat. How we come to dis? Why we nuh share alla de food for everybody de same? I see dem whole heap o’ huge bins at back of Morrisons on a Sunday marnin, heavin wid de out-o’-dates tings, still good to nyam. Jus fe you n’mi to know, mi haffi tek from dem bins sometime, when mi cheque run out. A true dis. Yu haffi dweet, if yu have a h’empty pickney. Evr’yone dweet. No shame in dat, but plenty o’ shame lookin at di eyes of dem mawga babies an’ dey big bellies dem. Proper shame in dat.
‘Some have so much, some have so lickle. We need fe get dose unfairness sort out, truss mi. If mi a queen o’ de world, mi would say the skinniest get most and the fattest get least. Surely dat got
to be right. Lord a God. Bless dem, and keep dem safe in hope. But h’anyway, sorry Silvia, fe stuffin mi face. It all gone now. Wasn’t even tasty, a muffin from dat h’ugly man at de coffee shop. One poun’ forty pence fe dat wortless cake! I only paid it fe hunger. Cyan’t believe it. I fill up mi belly so fass, I feel sick now. Cha.’
All the time Winnie is speaking, she is going about her work, monitoring Silvia’s current status. Her usual efficiency is tinged with a hint of edginess today. Her work isn’t compromised in any way, but she definitely has the air of someone distracted and irked. She starts to hum, which she always does when she’s concentrating, but the hum is the clue to her agitated state of mind. The hum is too loud and too vigorous. She doesn’t hum anything specific. It is a generic hymn, incorporating the random sounds of many hymns she knows. Winnie can’t possibly relax today because she is still stinging from the humiliation of last week.
On Saturday, there were three weddings at Winnie’s church, the Word of God Church, near St Stephen’s Park. It used to be St Stephen’s Church but when it was about to close down due to low attendance, Winnie’s pastor suggested her church took over and with growing support and constantly rising attendance figures, the church has flourished.
The only problem Pastor Saul faces is the dilapidated state of the poorly old building. He has received an estimate of nearly two hundred thousand pounds just to secure the integrity of the exterior. This figure is beyond the belief of anybody in the congregation, but they must believe it, because it is true. Pastor Saul tells the truth, and the builder who has given him the estimate is one of his flock, so he is also telling the truth. Two hundred thousand pounds to raise. Astonishing. Shocking. That’s before they refurbish anything inside the church. To do that, there would have to be a second push on fund-raising. Pastor Saul has asked everyone to think of ways of raising the money. He himself is going to pray. A lot. And possibly arrange a car boot sale.
Despite their worries for their church building, the choir keep their spirits up by rehearsing for the weddings. Winnie finds the commitment to the rehearsals quite wearing, and she feels guilty about having more time away from Luke, but this is church work, so not up for debate. Plus, honestly, Winnie finds great solace in the singing. She is one of the stronger voices, she knows that. Brother Claude often encourages her to take a solo, and she seizes that opportunity with relish. Her voice is her gift from her God, and she wishes to return her thanks to him when she lifts it up in his name. It’s with that intention that she strives to be the best singer she can be, and she attempts more and more difficult arrangements.
When she is singing, Winnie is truly Winnie. She is free from all other restraints. She is no one’s daughter, mother, nurse or anything else. She is the channel through which God’s word is sung. She closes her eyes, breathes deep into her soul and lets the spirit flow out of her in reverent and supreme worship. It flows like rivers of love and Winnie communes with that love and feels it ’til it fills her up. Sometimes the sheer exquisite pleasure of it causes Winnie to weep with joy.
Yes, she knows how to speak to her God through song, and it matters very much to her, which is why it was so upsetting when Brother Claude ruined it all last week, at the final rehearsal for the weddings. When she thinks of it now, she hums louder to mask the embarrassment.
The rehearsal was going well, although the church was cold and Winnie could see her breath in front of her face. She was wearing the fingerless gloves Luke gave her for Christmas. He had saved his pocket money for weeks and bought them on the market for her. Her favourite colours too, pink and purple together. The only problem with fingerless gloves is that they are fingerless, and it’s your fingers that get cold, so what is the point of them? Luke bought them because he thought Winnie could wear them at work and still operate intricate machinery and so on, but sadly, nurses aren’t allowed to wear germ-gathering gloves on the ward. Winnie didn’t tell him that of course. She kissed his dear head on Christmas morning and thanked him profusely for his kindness, telling him how proud she was that he is such a beautifully generous boy. In her head, Winnie had put the phrase (unlike your father) in brackets, but she didn’t say that out loud either, because she too is kind.
The choir had been working hard and it was time to stop for a quick tea break. Claude had said five minutes, but since most of the choir are Jamaicans, they operate on Jamaican Time, which is different to Greenwich Mean Time, which is truly MEAN. Five minutes accepts thirty minutes in Jamaican time and ‘come for ya dinna at one o’clock’ accepts turning up at 6pm and it’s all perfectly alright. This all leads to an interesting domino effect of later and later weddings on a Saturday. It’s advisable to be the first wedding of the day, then at least you can set your own agenda for the tardiness and not be at the mercy of others!
So somewhere in the twentieth minute of the five-minute break, Claude sidles up to Winnie, who was checking messages on her phone. There were none, actually, but no one knew that and checking the phone makes you feel efficient, Winnie always feels. It makes you appear to be connected to a rich tapestry of a world. Winnie was actually connected to a Sudoku app she had downloaded. She turned the phone away as Claude approached.
‘You OK deh, Sista Winnie?’
‘Oh yes tank you Brother Claude. Very good tank you.’
‘You soundin very good tonight. Very strong, very pyure.’
Winnie felt flattered and happy that Brother Claude should be so pleased with her. He knew his choirmaster stuff, and Winnie was a relatively new recruit to the choir, since it had taken a while for her to muster the courage to ask to move from her place in the pews with the rest of the congregation to a seat in the choir, in the revered front row of the choir, no less. Winnie still felt a little in awe of Claude and Claude’s wife, Odine, who was his deputy in effect and a formidable woman you wouldn’t want to argue with. Odine is always in charge of the refreshments at the tea break. She bakes ginger cake and then overcharges the choir for each slice, and for each cup of tea. Winnie finds this unfair, and expensive, and so has started to bring her own flask and her own munchies from home but that has not escaped Odine’s eagle eye which is massively disapproving.
Winnie feared that perhaps this is what Claude had come to talk to her about. Apparently not.
‘Seemin very clear to mi, Sista Winnie, dat you have de chops to be a bit of a solo star, yes?’
‘Really? Me? Sorry, Brother Claude, how you mean exactly?’
‘Well now missy, I’m tinking you know h’exactly what I mean.’
Winnie started to feel strangely uncomfortable and looked to see where the rest of the choir were. They were all gathered by the huge warm tea urn right at the back of the church, nowhere near enough for Winnie’s liking at this particularly awkward moment.
‘I … h’enjoy dis music you’ve chosen Brother Claude, very much … and I tank you for letting mi sing a solo sometimes …’
‘It hasn’t h’escaped mi notice, Sista Winnie, dat you operatin solo mos’ o’ de time, yes?’
‘Well, yes. Dat is true. Sorry, y’mean the singin? … Or what, sorry?’
‘Mi jus’ tinkin you might be needin some company from time to time … das all … a man remin’ you how fine you look, how h’attractive. Y’know, you definitely the mos’ pretty in dis ya choir.’
Winnie’s good heart fell into the pit of her stomach. How disappointing. ’Til this moment, she had looked upon Brother Claude as an upstanding man. An honourable, God-fearing man, and yet here he was, yards from his wife, making Winnie feel nervous – as he flirted with her. What a cheek. Winnie had to be sure she wasn’t misreading these signals, she didn’t want to jump to any wrong conclusions and she didn’t want it to be true that it was happening at all. She knew she would have to be bold to be sure.
‘Is you sayin, Brother Claude, dat you could be my time-to-time company? Is you sayin dat, I’m wonderin?’
Claude leaned in towards her, as close as he could get without alertin
g the others. Close enough for Winnie to smell his wife’s ginger cake on his breath.
‘Perhaps. You could get special one-on-one attention for yuh solos. If you lucky gyal.’
Something about the arrogance of him made Winnie want to gag, she found it so offensive. How dare he assume she would be lucky to have his adulterous attentions? She’s felt lucky and grateful before for this kind of paltry offering, and look where that got her. It might have behoven Winnie to have held her tongue a few seconds more until she had thought through the consequence of what she next said. But she didn’t.
She leaned in close to him and hissed, ‘Wha di blouse an’ skirt you tink you doin? Wid ya wifey a stan’ over deso? Wha fuckery dis? You tink I dat cheap? You tink I a dyam fool? Go an suck ya mudda before I box ya face. Move yuh bumbaclaat backside! Cha!’
With that, she pushed heftily past him, and nearly knocked him into the next pew. Winnie rushed to the toilet where she sat quietly for the next few minutes, composing herself and taming her racing heartbeat. She couldn’t believe she had unleashed her potty mouth so impetuously, but she couldn’t entirely regret it either. She wished very much that none of it had happened, and especially in the House of the Lord. She felt shame about that.
Eventually, when she heard the music start, she knew it was time to return to the rehearsals. It was a long walk for her to return to her place and she took comfort from the fact that none of the other eight singers took the slightest bit of notice, so she deduced that no suspicions had been raised, thank goodness.
Her torture began when she realized that Claude was hell-bent on ignoring her. He made absolutely no eye contact with her and even turned his back when her solo came, and started a conversation with the pianist, Nat. He was singularly rude and Winnie felt that he may well be stupid enough to draw attention to something that hadn’t even happened, if he persisted, but she carried on as normal, hoping everything would settle down when Claude had had enough time to consider the error of his ways and lick his wounds.