The Rainbow Years

by Bradshaw, Rita

  As she was buttoning her coat, her aunt appeared in the doorway. ‘Go the front way, it’s quicker,’ she muttered, taking Amy’s arm and leading her back into the hall as though Amy didn’t know where the front door was. Her aunt opened the door and virtually pushed Amy out into the street, stuffing a couple of peppermints into the pocket of her coat. ‘Tell Bruce and your uncle to suck these on the way back,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want them breathing all over Father Lee stinking of beer.’

  Amy fairly flew down the road. The pavements were shining with the drizzling rain that had begun to fall, and when she came to the corner where a group of children, her cousins among them, were playing some game or other, she called over her shoulder, ‘Eva! Your mam wants you all in and look lively, Father Lee’s called round,’ knowing that would move them quicker than anything.

  The street lamps were making pools of muted light on the wet ground as she turned in the direction of Fulwell Road and the Blue Bell Inn, and she had almost reached the public house when her arm was caught from behind and she was swung round with such force she ended bang up against Perce’s broad chest. ‘Where’re you off to?’ he said thickly, the smell on his breath and slurred voice suggesting it wasn’t only Bruce and her uncle who had been drinking. ‘Who are you meeting this time of night and in the dark?’

  ‘Let go, you’re hurting.’ She pulled away from him, her voice fierce. ‘Your mam’s sent me for your da, Granda’s been took bad.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ He didn’t seem to care and this was confirmed when he said, ‘I don’t want you working in that restaurant at night, you hear me? It’s bad enough you’re in the café in the day with lads ogling you and the like, and you in that dress an’ apron like a French maid in a promenade peepshow.’

  ‘What?’ She didn’t understand the reference to the French maid but she knew it wasn’t very nice because peepshows were mucky.

  ‘You heard me. And don’t pretend you don’t know what they want. Well, I’m not having it. You’re not taking that job.’

  ‘I am.’ He was blocking her way and when she tried to move round him, he didn’t let her. Her heart was pounding but she was angry as well as frightened, and her voice was loud when she said,‘Let me pass, I need to get Uncle Ronald. The Father is waiting at home for him.’

  ‘Let him wait.’ Suddenly he reached out and Amy found herself manhandled into the shadows, one beefy arm round her waist lifting her off her feet and his other hand across her mouth, stifling the scream that rose in her. ‘I said I’d give you time to get used to the idea you’re going to be my lass and I have, I’ve played it straight, haven’t I? But I won’t be messed about. You try playing fast and loose with me and see what you get,’ he said over her head.

  She struggled violently, her arms and legs flailing, but he was big and solid and could have been a brick wall for all the effect she had on him.

  ‘Aw, Amy, Amy.’ She found the trembling softness in his tone now more terrifying than his threats. He had her pinned in a shop doorway across the road from the Blue Bell Inn, and although the outside of the public house was lit well enough, they were standing in almost total blackness. He kept his hand across her mouth as he turned her round to face him, holding her captive by pressing his lower body against her. ‘Be nice to me, that’s all I’m asking. There’s plenty who wouldn’t have waited as long as I have. Them other lasses, they mean nowt, you know that, but a man has needs. That’s all I go with them for. But you, if you’re nice to me, I wouldn’t look the side another lass was on. I swear it. And we’ll do the courtin’ however you want it. I’ll tell me mam if that’s what you want.’

  When his hand moved she tried to scream but his mouth had already covered hers, wet and cavernous. His tongue forced her lips apart and his spittle made her want to retch. She bit down hard, causing him to swear as he jerked his head back, but again his hand covered her lower face. Wedging her with his legs, his other hand was now inside her coat, pulling at the buttons of her blouse. They gave way, accompanied by the sound of tearing and then his hand was on the small full mound of her breast, squeezing hard.

  Nearly mad with fear, she continued to fight, trying to twist and turn but she was like a rag doll in his grasp. His hand left her body to fumble with his trousers and then something hard was pressing against her belly. ‘You wouldn’t have it nice, would you?’ He was trying to yank her skirt up as he spoke, his breath hot on her face. ‘I wanted to do it proper but you wouldn’t have any of it.You’ve made me do this.’

  As he released the hold on her lower body with his legs just long enough to hoist her skirt up round her waist, she acted. From somewhere she found the strength to bring her knee up into his groin. He emitted a shrill sound, something between a scream and an animal yelp, before crumpling at her knees, his hands going between his legs.

  It had been instinct that had guided her actions and it was the same sense of self-preservation that made her kick out at him and send him sprawling so that she could jump over him. She felt him try to clutch at her but he was doubled up and groaning and in no state to chase her. For a moment her legs seemed too weak to hold her as she stumbled out of the doorway onto the pavement, but terror enabled her to run blindly across the road into the light. Her hand was actually on the door of the public house when she realised the state of her clothing. She turned to look back but the doorway was in blackness and she couldn’t see if Perce was still there or not. Certainly he wasn’t coming for her and that was the only thing that mattered.

  Feverishly she straightened her skirt and pulled her gaping blouse together over her torn petticoat. Two or three buttons were still hanging on and her stiff fingers made hard work of slipping them through the buttonholes but eventually it was done. As she fastened her coat and pulled the belt tight she saw a shape emerge from the doorway, still half doubled up. Her eyes wide, she stood poised to dash into the Blue Bell but he didn’t attempt to come towards her; he stood still for a minute before stumbling away in the opposite direction. The relief was so overwhelming she felt faint.

  She stood for a few moments more until she was sure he had gone, her teeth chattering and her head beginning to clear as the raw panic diminished. Her hat. As her hair wafted about her face she realised her hat had to be in the shop doorway where it must have fallen some time during the struggle. She couldn’t go back over there. Everything in her rebelled at the thought. But if she went home without her hat her aunt would be bound to ask where it was.

  In that moment Amy acknowledged she wasn’t going to tell anyone about Perce attacking her. It was too shameful, too horrible. Everyone would look at her differently, and if Perce denied it they would believe him and not her. Everyone would be thinking about her mother and what had happened. The words Perce had thrown at her the year before still burned vividly in her mind: ‘I’ll deny it and guess who they’ll believe? Blood’s thicker than water, they’ll say. She’s like her mam but she’s started even earlier.’

  Would Mr Callendar think like that? She rubbed her hand across her face as she admitted to herself it was his opinion of her that was important. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he did. She leaned against the wall of the pub, only vaguely conscious of the drone of conversation from within and the odd laugh.

  She had to get away from Perce, she couldn’t live at Uncle Ronald’s after this. She’d ask Kitty if she could live with her, it was the only solution. If her grandma got upset, she’d have to get upset. Amy shivered convulsively. There’d be ructions all round and hell to pay but it couldn’t be helped. Nothing would make her stay at home now, not after this.

  Walking across the road and retrieving her hat was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but once it was in her hand and she had dashed back to the Blue Bell, the panic subsided. She brushed the felt down before putting the hat on, and, taking a deep breath, opened the door of the public house and stepped inside.

  The next day Amy learned that there was something which had the power to persuade her to
stay at Ronald and May’s house. Wilbur Shawe died shortly after Ronald arrived at the house in Deptford Road and Ronald had proposed that Muriel come to live with them.

  ‘She can have the front room,’ he suggested to an outraged May who had sat waiting up for him, along with Bruce and Amy. The six younger children were asleep. Perce had come in late and after a cursory word with his mother in the kitchen had gone straight to bed. Amy had been in the sitting room at the time and although the sound of his voice had made her tremble inside she hadn’t had to set eyes on him, for which she was thankful. ‘We still have the sitting room and no one ever goes into the front room unless it’s when the Father calls.’

  ‘I won’t have it.’ May was white with fury. ‘Do you hear me, Ronald? I won’t have it. You know how I’ve got everything just right in there and all my best bits in the china cabinet Da bought us. There’s no room for a bed.’

  Ronald didn’t shout or protest. He simply stared at his wife for a moment before saying quietly, ‘Have you thought what everyone will say if her only son doesn’t offer her a home? There are hundreds of families with ten and more in two rooms in this town and they take in their old ’uns without a word of complaint. How do you think the Father and the rest of them round these doors will view us if they hear we couldn’t make room for my mother here? You chew on that, May.’

  May did chew on it and it nearly choked her, but the upshot was the next morning it had been decided that the frail old woman would be brought by taxi to Fulwell at the weekend to take up residence in May’s hallowed front room.

  Amy was on tenterhooks all day at work,Verity’s coldness barely registering on her, and as soon as she could she left the building in the evening and made her way to Deptford Road. Her uncle had said the night before that the Prices had offered to take care of her grandma until the weekend when she could be moved.

  At some point during the day Amy had accepted that her plan to move to Kitty’s house was over. If she did that, it would most likely mean that she wouldn’t be able to see her grandmother again because her Aunt May would be furious at her going or, more accurately, she thought grimly, at the prospect of the money she brought in suddenly stopping. Either way, one thing would be certain, she wouldn’t be welcome at her aunt’s house any more.

  The front-room door was open when she entered her grandmother’s house by the back door and went through the kitchen into the hall, and she heard Mrs Price saying, ‘Now get that out of your head, Muriel, do you hear me? Landsakes, woman, no one knows what you’ve had to put up with from that man. It’s relief you’re feeling and no wonder. I don’t hold with this notion where immediately folk die they become saints. Father Fraser might say Wilbur was a good man but he didn’t live with him, did he? And when all’s said and done, his passing is God’s will, lass.’

  Amy had paused in the hall, uncertain whether to make herself known, but then she pushed the door wider and stepped into the front room. As two pairs of eyes turned towards her, Mrs Price said immediately, and with some relief, ‘Amy, lass. I thought you’d come the night. I said to you, Muriel, didn’t I, she’d come as soon as she could. Now you sit with your grandma, hinny, and I’ll get a sup for you both. She’s a bit upset,’ she muttered to Amy as she passed her. ‘Talk to her, lass.’

  Amy went and sat on the edge of the bed and she could see at once her grandmother had been crying. She asked a question that most people would have found strange in the circumstances but she knew how things had been between her grandparents. ‘What’s the matter, Gran?’ she said softly as she took her grandmother’s hand.

  Muriel’s sunken eyes swam with tears again and for a moment she couldn’t answer.Then she said,‘The Father called round earlier.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I . . . I was havin’ a cup of tea an’ a bite of sly cake Sally had brought in an’ we were laughin’ about somethin’ she was sayin’, I can’t remember what now. He . . . When Sally had gone he said I ought to ask God’s forgiveness for not showin’ proper respect an’ that marriage was holy an’ I was mockin’ God’s order of things. Wicked, he called it.’ Muriel couldn’t go on.

  Amy put her arm round the bony shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Gran. It’s all right.’

  ‘He said he’d pray for my immortal soul as though . . .’ Muriel gulped hard. ‘As though he thought I wouldn’t get into heaven. An’ the thing is, hinny, I can’t put me hand on me heart an’ say I’m sorry your granda’s gone. He was a devil of a man.’

  ‘I know he was, Gran.’

  ‘He sent your poor mam to the grave as sure as if he’d stuck a knife in her.’

  The door opened and Sally Price was back with a tray holding two cups of tea and a plate of teacakes. Her voice loud, she said, ‘I’ve told your gran she has to take all he said with a pinch of salt. There’s priests and priests, in my book, and I’m not afraid to say,’ she crossed herself, ‘Father Fraser is one on his own. Now Father Bell at St Jude’s or Father Skelton are different again. Grand, they are.’ She handed Amy her cup and then leaned over to give Muriel hers, patting the old woman’s veined hand as she did so. ‘He only sees what he wants to see, Father Fraser. Now haven’t I said that before, Muriel? So don’t fret. When our Patrick was a bairn he had nightmares for weeks after the Father caught him reading a comic and put the fear of God in him.’

  ‘Sally, lass, he’s a priest.’ As far as Muriel was concerned that said it all.

  ‘I know, I know, but all I’m saying is don’t let him scare the wits out of you. Look, you’ll soon be with your Ronald. Have a word with Father Lee.’ She straightened. ‘I’d best get back and see to me dinner. I’ll be bringing yours in a bit later.There’s plenty for you if you want a bite, lass,’ she added to Amy.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Price, but I can’t stay too long.’

  ‘Oh, lass, don’t rush off.’ Muriel clutched at her granddaughter’s hand. ‘They know you’re comin’ here, don’t they?’

  Amy nodded. The look on her grandmother’s face was heart-rending and for a moment she had the weird feeling that their positions had been reversed, and that she was dealing with a distraught child who was scared of the bogeyman. If confirmation had been needed that she couldn’t leave home, it was there in her grandma’s eyes. ‘I’ll stay,’ she said softly, a weight compounded of love and compassion and obligation settling on her shoulders.

  Somehow she would deal with Perce. Somehow.

  PART FOUR

  1933 The Proposal

  Chapter 9

  Muriel lay staring into the deep glow of the fire which May had recently banked down for the night with wet tea leaves. The household was asleep but she had been dozing on and off all day, something she was prone to do these days, and now she was wide awake.

  It was the first anniversary of Wilbur’s passing but not a soul had mentioned it. It might be out of respect for her feelings but she didn’t think so. She was sure they’d all simply forgotten.Wilbur would be turning in his grave but she didn’t think anyone missed him or would wish him back, not even Ronald. As for her, the last twelve months had made her appreciate what a prisoner let out of jail unexpectedly must feel like. She shifted her position against the pile of pillows behind her back which kept her upright day and night and enabled her to breathe more easily.

  Her eyes moved to the put-you-up positioned a few feet away. She could just make out the shape of Amy’s head on the pillow in the dim light. From the first night she’d taken up residence in her son’s house her granddaughter had insisted she wanted to be close at hand once she was home from work, and although she’d protested Amy shouldn’t be a nurse-maid to an old woman like herself, she had to admit it had been heaven on earth to have the bairn close.They had some right good cracks together but then they always had. She smiled to herself in the darkness. Ray of sunshine, Amy was. The only ray of sunshine in this house.

  Her smile faded as her mind returned to the worry which occupied most of her waking hours. She hoped she was wrong, oh
, how she hoped she was wrong but the suspicion that Ronald was seeing another woman just wouldn’t leave her. He’d been different the last little while, happier in a - she searched her mind for a word to describe her son’s demeanour - secret way.That was it, secret. Not quiet as such or calm, like folk become when they’ve made peace with themselves and their lot and gain a measure of joy from life because of it. It wasn’t like that. Mind, could anyone be joyful married to May? Or May and her da more like because if ever there were three in a marriage, there were in Ronald’s. Terence O’Leary had a lot to answer for in her book.

  Muriel moved restlessly, her chest getting tighter as she got more agitated. Forcing herself to breathe evenly and slowly, she tried to relax. It wouldn’t help no one if she was took bad with one of her turns.