Red Sky in the Morning

by Margaret Dickinson

  Alcohol fumes were wafting in her face, making her feel sick. She stopped struggling and lay quiescent. Slowly Bruce removed his hand and she breathed more easily. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she hissed angrily, but kept her voice low. She had no more wish to wake her mother and Douglas than he had.

  Bruce was pulling at the bedclothes, trying to climb in beside her. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Don’t! Go away. Go back to your own bed – you’re not getting in here.’ Her voice rose in fear.

  At once his hand was clamped back on her mouth. And then, suddenly, she felt something cold and sharp against her neck. ‘Shut up,’ he slurred. ‘Just lie back and enjoy it. You know you want it.’

  No, no, her mind screamed, but she was unable to utter more than a guttural noise.

  ‘Lie still and stop struggling, or you’ll get what that blasted dog of yours got.’

  Now her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. In the moonlight she could see his shape above her, but not his features. Buster? What had he done to Buster? She thrashed her head from side to side, tried to hit him, but now he was pinning her down, his whole body weight on top of her.

  Anna tried to resist him, tried to throw him off, but he was too heavy, too strong. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t summon up an ounce of strength now. Then she managed to get her left hand free and she tried to claw away his hand, but her fingers touched the cold thin thing that he was still holding against her neck. She winced as pain shot through two of her fingers. And then, in her mind’s eye, she saw the bayonet he had shown her that day down by the river. Bruce was holding the long, sharp blade close to her throat and threatening to do to her what he had done to her dog. Oh Buster, Buster! Where are you? What has he done to you?

  Bruce was flinging the bedclothes off her now and pulling up her nightgown. Then he was lying on top of her once more and she could feel his nakedness next to her trembling skin. Then, with his knees, he spread her legs wide and thrust himself into her. She felt a searing pain and tried to cry out. His fingers, still pressing on her mouth, slipped between her teeth and she bit down hard. He gave a yelp and reared up above her. He raised his hand and dealt her a blow across the side of her face that almost knocked her senseless.

  But she was still aware of the pain in her groin that went on and on as he rutted like a ram at a ewe.

  She must have blacked out completely for when she became aware of the pain once more he was gone. She was lying uncovered on her bed, shivering and weeping uncontrollably. Stiffly, feeling as if she had been battered, Anna crawled off the bed and lurched to the dressing table. With shaking fingers she managed to light a candle. She held it up and looked down at herself in horror. There was blood everywhere, on her nightie and on the bed. Most of it seemed to be coming from the deep cuts on her fingers. Sobbing, she pulled open a drawer and found a handkerchief to bind round her hand.

  Aching in every part of her body and bent almost double, she shuffled to the door. She was about to open it and call for her mother when she realized that Bruce could be still out there – waiting for her. Instead, she dragged a chair across to the door and wedged it under the door handle. Then she staggered to the washstand and, setting the candle down, poured cold water into the bowl. She washed herself between her legs, trying to cleanse away the stickiness and the smell of him. She scrubbed herself until she was sore, but however hard she tried she could never wash away what Bruce had done to her.

  Anna lay huddled in her bed for the rest of the night, alternately sobbing and falling into nightmarish sleep, only to wake with a start, imagining his weight on top of her and breaking into a cold sweat of fear and loathing. As dawn filtered into her room, she hauled herself off the bed and staggered towards the full-length mirror in the door of her wardrobe. A pathetic sight met her eyes. The left side of her face was swollen, her eye almost closed. Blood spattered her nightdress and drenched the handkerchief around her fingers. Bruises on her arms and legs pained her, but the worst pain was the dreadful soreness between her legs and in her groin.

  Once more she tried to wash herself, whimpering like a whipped animal. It was time to get up, to start the day. She should be downstairs by now in the kitchen, stoking up the fire in the range, getting the breakfast . . . But Anna could not bring herself to leave her room. She lay on the bed again, her knees drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped around herself, shivering and cowering in fear as she heard footsteps hurrying along the landing and stopping outside her door . . .

  When May opened the kitchen door, she looked round in surprise. No cheerful fire burned in the range’s grate. There were no breakfast dishes on the table, no smell of frying bacon. The room was cold and empty. She crossed to the back door and opened it. She stood listening. From across the yard she could hear clattering in the cowhouse. Morning milking was under way. She turned back, pulled on a pair of wellingtons that stood in the scullery and crossed the yard.

  Resting her arms on the lower half of the stable door, she called, ‘Morning, Jed. Is Anna here?’

  Jed glanced up from his place beside a cow. May was startled by the look on his face. The young man was unusually pale and there was distress in his eyes and a tightness round his usually laughing mouth. He rose, put the bucket of milk at a safe distance from the cow’s restless feet and came towards her. As he came closer, she could see that his left eye was half-closed and an ugly bruise was swelling around it. His lower lip was cut.

  ‘Whatever—?’ she began but Jed interrupted, ‘I haven’t seen her, but I need to as soon as I can. I knocked on the back door earlier, but there didn’t seem to be anyone about. I thought she – she’d maybe slept late.’ His mouth seemed to tighten even more. ‘I thought mebbe she – she’s with him.’

  He made no effort to hide the resentment in his tone.

  May stared at him. Trembling, she asked, ‘What – what do you mean, Jed? With him?’

  He sighed and then said, ‘We had a stupid bet on last night. Him and me – that we could drink each other under the table. Well, it got a bit nasty. He was saying things about Anna – things I didn’t like and then we got into a fight.’

  ‘Over Anna?’

  Jed lowered his head and mumbled, ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted to see her?’

  Jed shook his head, his eyes sad. ‘It wasn’t to do with that. I’ve found Buster.’

  May smiled. ‘Oh, she will be pleased. She was worried last night. He’d run off and . . .’ Her voice faded as she realized that Jed’s expression was grim. Her hand fluttered to her throat. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘He’s been killed. Someone’s – knifed him.’

  ‘Killed?’ May’s voice was a squeak.

  Jed nodded. ‘Yes. It looks like he’s been stabbed,’ he said slowly, his dark gaze fastened on May’s face.

  May gave a little cry of alarm. ‘Oh no!’ she breathed.

  No words were needed. They were both remembering the result of the post-mortem on Luke Clayton.

  Killed by person or persons unknown, stabbed with a knife or similar weapon.

  ‘I must go and find her,’ May whispered. She stumbled away, back across the yard and into the house.

  Wrenching off her boots, she ran through the kitchen, up the stairs and along the landing. Outside Anna’s room, she paused a moment to catch her breath, leaning against the door jamb. Then she tried the doorknob. It turned, but the door would not open.

  ‘Anna,’ she cried, hammering on the wood. ‘Anna, open the door.’

  Anna heard her name being called as if from a distance. Then she became aware of a banging on her bedroom door. For a moment she cowered lower beneath the bedcovers, but then, as the voice penetrated her distraught mind, she realized.

  ‘Mam! Oh, Mam.’ She struggled off the bed and stumbled across the room, pulling away the chair so that the door opened at once and May almost fell into the room.

  ‘Anna, what—?’ May began, but as she saw the state of her daughter, she stagger
ed and would have fallen had not Anna reached out and caught hold of her. They clung together until May led her gently to the bed and made her sit down.

  ‘The door,’ Anna whispered hoarsely. ‘Shut the door.’

  May did so, once more inserting the chair under the knob as Anna had done. Only then did Anna breathe more easily. May came and sat beside her and enfolded her in her embrace, rocking her to and fro like a small child. ‘Oh, my darling, what have I done? What have I done?’

  Anna lifted her tear-streaked face to look into her mother’s. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Tears were running down May’s face too now. ‘It is. It is. If I had only listened to your grandfather. He knew, didn’t he? He could see what they were like.’

  ‘What – what do you mean?’ Anna asked huskily. ‘They?’

  ‘Bruce did this to you, didn’t he?’

  Anna nodded.

  ‘Did he – I mean—?’

  Anna squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to blot out the nightmare. She nodded. ‘He held a knife to my throat.’ She held out her hand, still with its rough, blood-soaked wrapping. ‘I – I tried to fight him off, but I cut my fingers on the – the blade.’

  Her mother gave a deep-throated groan of despair. ‘Oh, my darling, my baby.’ They clung to each other, seeking solace, but there was none they could give each other.

  Forty-Nine

  ‘What did you mean when you said Grandpa knew what “they” were like?’ A little later, when they had hugged each other and tried to reassure each other, Anna was calmer.

  Silently, May drew back from her and pulled up the sleeves of her blouse. Anna gasped as she saw the bruises on her mother’s forearms, one purple, a recent injury, and two now yellow and fading.

  Anna gasped. ‘He – he hits you? Douglas?’

  May nodded. ‘When something doesn’t suit him.’

  ‘I knew there was something wrong. I knew it. But I could never seem to get you alone to talk to you. He always seemed to be in the way.’

  May nodded, tears in her eyes. ‘I know. He made me promise not to tell you. Told me that it would be the worse for me – and for you – if I did. But I was going to tell you, if only we could have had a few moments alone.’

  ‘How long has it been going on?’

  ‘It started just after I’d bought the house. He was fine before we got married and afterwards, until – until . . . Oh, Anna, I gave him all of the two thousand pounds your grandfather left me. After that, once he’d got it all, he – he started being nasty. Oh, what a fool I’ve been.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Anna whispered.

  May sighed, shrugged helplessly and said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Leave him. Come and live here with me. Oh Mam, come home.’

  ‘He’d never let me alone, Anna. He swore he’d never let me go. I married him, didn’t I?’ she added bitterly.

  They sat together until they heard footsteps pass by the bedroom door and go downstairs. They held their breath.

  ‘That’s Douglas going down for his breakfast,’ May whispered. ‘He’ll get a shock, won’t he? No fire, no dutiful wife waiting to serve him.’

  ‘You’d better go down. I don’t want him going for you again because – because of me.’

  At that moment a bellow came from the bottom of the stairs. ‘May? Where are you?’

  May jumped at the sound, but did not get up at once. ‘What are you going to do? Do you want me to stay here with you? I’ll see if I can get them to go back to town without me.’

  ‘I want to get in the bath, then I’ll come down. Where’s – where’s Bruce?’

  May shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ Now she did stand up and held out her hand. ‘Come on, I’ll help you into the bathroom and make sure you’ve locked the door before I go down.’

  ‘Where on earth have you been, May? And where’s my breakfast? Where’s Anna?’

  Her anger emboldened May to say, ‘You might well ask where Anna is.’

  Douglas frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Your precious son forced himself on her last night. He raped her, Douglas, there’s no other way to put it. Your Bruce raped my little girl.’

  Douglas stared at her for a moment and then threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s my boy. I never thought he had it in him to go through with it. So that’s why he went to the pub – to get a bit of Dutch courage.’

  Now it was May’s turn to stare at him, aghast. Her voice trembled as she said, ‘What do you mean “go through with it”?’ You can’t mean – oh you can’t – that he – that you planned it?’

  ‘Well, not rape exactly, only that he should seduce her.’

  ‘Why? In God’s name – why? She liked him. She really liked him. But now—’

  ‘Mmm.’ Douglas’s eyes were calculating. ‘Yes, I see that. Maybe he’s gone a bit too far.’

  ‘A bit too far?’ May’s voice rose hysterically. ‘Do you have any idea what it means for a woman to be violated like that? Especially a young girl. A virgin!’

  ‘Oh, come now, May. Don’t be so melodramatic. She’s led him on. You can’t deny that. And when a young feller’s blood is up—’

  ‘How dare you? How dare you suggest that it’s Anna’s fault?’ she screamed.

  Now Douglas’s eyes were glittering. ‘Oh, I dare because that is what happened.’ He grabbed her by the shoulders, his strong grip bruising her. ‘Do you hear me? That is what happened.’

  May gasped and stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  ‘And now,’ he said ominously, ‘they’ll have to get married, won’t they?’

  ‘Married?’ May’s voice was a squeak. ‘Oh no. Not now. She’ll not marry him now.’

  ‘Oh, but she will, May,’ Douglas said calmly. His quiet tone was far more menacing than if he had been shouting. ‘Anna will marry Bruce and then, one day, this farm will be his.’

  May felt as if the breath had been knocked from her body. ‘No,’ she managed to gasp at last. ‘Never! Over my dead body.’

  Douglas laughed, but without humour. ‘And even that, my dear May, can be arranged.’

  At once the vision of Buster’s still form came into May’s imagination and then a more horrifying picture pushed its way to the forefront of her mind.

  The memory of her father, Luke, lying on the ground, stabbed and bleeding to death.

  May closed her eyes and groaned. ‘Oh no! No,’ she moaned more to herself than to the man who still held her in his grasp. ‘Don’t let it be true. Not that. Oh please, not that.’

  Douglas let go of her suddenly so that she staggered and almost fell. She put out her hand and steadied herself against the kitchen table.

  ‘Now, how about getting me some breakfast and when Bruce and Anna show themselves, we’ll begin to make arrangements. Maybe we can get a special licence. If not, then it will have to be the next time he comes home on leave.’

  May moved woodenly towards the range and took up the frying pan, wishing she had the temerity to hit him over the head with it. But she didn’t. She was weak. She despised herself now. It had been her weakness – her need to have a man to love and protect and care for her – that had led her beloved daughter and herself into this mess.

  She cooked breakfast for Douglas, wishing she had rat poison handy. Douglas sat at the table and opened his newspaper as if nothing untoward had happened.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said sarcastically, as she banged the plate of eggs, bacon and fried bread in front of him. He glanced round the table. ‘Where’s the tomato sauce?’

  Obediently, May fetched it from the pantry. She poured a cup of tea for him and one for herself, but couldn’t bring herself to eat anything. Revulsion against this man and his son choked her.

  The kitchen door opened and a tousle-headed, yawning Bruce appeared. ‘Morning,’ he muttered and dropped into a chair at the table.

  May stared at him in astonishment, then crashed her cup into the saucer.
Bruce winced at the sudden noise and, frowning, glanced up.

  ‘Do you have to make such a noise?’ he grumbled. ‘My head’s fit to burst.’

  May gaped at him. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she murmured. Was she dreaming? Was this all some terrible nightmare that no one else but herself was experiencing? But no, it was true. At this moment Anna was in the bath trying to scrub away all traces of her attacker – the young man, who sat so calmly before her now, waiting for his breakfast . . .

  May sprang to her feet. ‘How can you sit there,’ she shrieked, ‘as if nothing’s happened?’ She shook her head in bewilderment as Bruce gaped up at her, uncomprehending. ‘Don’t tell me you can’t remember? That you were so drunk—?’

  ‘Can’t remember what?’ Bruce glanced at his father. ‘Do you know what she’s on about?’

  ‘It seems,’ Douglas drawled, ‘that Anna is accusing you of raping her last night.’

  Bruce stared at him. He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment the door opened and all eyes turned to see Anna standing there.

  For a moment, they all seemed turned to stone. The bruise on the side of Anna’s face was swollen and darkening and the two fingers on her left hand were wrapped in a clean white handkerchief.

  May moved suddenly and rushed to put her arms around Anna and draw her into the room. ‘Come and sit down, darling.’

  Stiffly, her gaze fastened on Bruce’s face, Anna moved across the room and stood on the hearth rug. Facing the two men defiantly, she said, ‘Leave this house. Both of you. My mother’s staying here with me and—’

  As if catapulted, both men sprang up and faced them.

  ‘Oh no, she’s not,’ Douglas said.

  ‘Mam,’ Anna said quietly, ‘go and fetch Buster.’

  ‘Oh darling,’ May said tearfully, ‘I can’t. He – Jed found him. Someone killed Buster.’

  Briefly, Anna’s gaze swivelled to look at her mother. ‘Killed him? How?’

  ‘With – with a knife.’

  Anna stared at her and then slowly her gaze came back to Bruce’s face. ‘You! You killed him. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?’ Suddenly Anna launched herself at him, her arms flailing, but Bruce caught her easily and held her wrists. She kicked out at him, catching him on the shin, but he wound his leg around her and brought her down in a crude tackle. He pinioned her arms to the floor and straddled her body. ‘Want some more of what you had last night, do you?’