by Anne Bennett
Hannah, knocked dizzy by the blow, lay helpless as Arthur threw her nightie above her head and after a bit of fumbling about, entered her violently and without a word being spoken.
Hannah felt as if she had been ripped in two, for despite this not being her first time, she’d not been anywhere near ready. But she only allowed herself one little yelp of pain, remembering Josie next door, and bit her lip to stop herself crying out.
Josie had already heard the commotion in the room though, and the argument and then the skirmish and the punch and thud as Hannah’s body hit the floor. Had she not been so afraid and wary of Arthur, she might have gone in then.
And then she heard the one strangled cry and gave a sigh of relief. Thank God, Hannah was all right – well, not all right, but at least alive. She’d wondered when she’d heard that thud. And then she heard the rhythmic grunts of Arthur and knew what he was doing. You can’t live on a farm and not see animals mating, the stallion rising up to the mare, or the bull servicing the cows, or even the farm dogs mating with the bitches, not to know, but she didn’t want to hear it and she buried her head under her pillow to muffle the sounds.
Arthur’s grunts eventually stopped and he lay across Hannah, spent for the moment. So that was it, he thought, the thing talked about, that he’d wondered about, for so long. The sexual act and he’d done it. True, he’d had to hit Hannah, had to knock her down to enable him to do so and that had been regrettable. She’d asked for it in a way, but he’d never ever intended hurting her.
But now at least he’d achieved what seemed to come naturally to most people and he couldn’t see what the fuss had been about. It had given him no great pleasure and he was in no hurry to repeat the process, especially if it entailed hurting Hannah to achieve it.
He eased himself from her and slowly and painfully she got to her feet and made her way to the bathroom. Arthur let her go, for something was tugging at his memory from the books on sex he had read. He switched on the light and surveyed the floor with a slight frown on his face. There was no blood and he suddenly knew he wasn’t the first person to have sex with Hannah.
He was waiting for her when she came back. She avoided looking at him. She’d taken stock in the bathroom, looking at her bruised and swollen face and bottom lip oozing blood. In the past, Arthur had raised bruises on her arms from holding her too tight and across the top of her legs from the pressure of him on top of her. But he’d never before raised his hand to her and she wondered if this was going to be a new tactic he was going to employ and how she should deal with it if it was.
She knew separation was frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Divorce, of course, not to be contemplated at all, but she wouldn’t stay and be used as a punchball by any man. But where would she go and now with Josie’s welfare to consider too? Even Gloria might not welcome them back, because kind though she was, she strongly believed marriage was for life. Hannah had heard her discussing the moral decline of modern society many a time with Amy. She often said that war had brought a host of hasty marriages, often followed by disillusionment and divorce, and the number of fatherless children or those born to married women whose husbands had been away for years, would appear to be legion.
She never discussed these matters with Hannah, of course, that would be considered insensitive, but Hannah was well aware of her views on the subject. So her thoughts were in turmoil when she came back into the bedroom and she wasn’t prepared for the question Arthur threw at her so savagely. ‘Who was it?’
She looked up, perplexed, and he went on. ‘The man you shagged, or were there so many you can’t remember?’
‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’
‘Come, come,’ Arthur said, mocking politeness. ‘I’m no fool and you were no virgin.’
Hannah wondered for a fleeting moment if it was worth telling Arthur about the bittersweet love between her and Mike. She wondered if he’d understand how much she’d loved him and in the stolen moments they had during his short leaves how she’d ached to be kissed, held tightly, caressed and loved, and the one time when they’d both lost control. It hadn’t seemed wrong. They were engaged and due to be married and it had been just one more expression of that love.
But she knew with one glance at Arthur with his nostrils pinched tight in disapproval, his thin lips curled in disdain, and the manic light shining in his cold, brown eyes that he wouldn’t understand how it had been in a million years. She must deny it. At all costs, she must deny it. But it was too late, for her slight hesitation had been noticed and it told Arthur that he’d been right in his assumption and her spluttered denial and even indignation that he should think such a thing didn’t move him a jot.
‘You can deny that you’ve slept with another before me till you’re blue in the face,’ Arthur said. ‘But I know what I know. Incidentally, I didn’t mean to strike you tonight. I regret that and I’m sorry. It will not happen again, for although you are my wife and will be given full respect in public where we will appear as a devoted couple, the sexual side of our marriage is over. I will never touch you again. I don’t sleep with whores.’
What sexual side? Hannah was tempted to ask, but didn’t for she was just relieved that there’d be no more of it. The only deep disappointment she had was that in the travesty of a marriage she was in, there would be no child. Maybe that was the punishment she had to bear, she thought, and she thanked God for Josie.
But how could she begin telling any of this to Gloria looking at her in that kind concerned way, especially as she knew Josie would be back any moment. ‘Look at it,’ she said, ‘not two o’clock and almost as black as night. You shouldn’t have come out, not in this.’
‘Tom brought me,’ Gloria said. ‘He was coming to Erdington Village anyway, he had business in the bank, and I wanted to see you were all right.’
‘And now you see I am,’ Hannah said in a tight high voice and Gloria noticed her eyes shining with unshed tears. And because of Josie, who’d come back into the room, Gloria said, ‘Yes, I see you’re fine.’
Later that same evening she said something completely different to Amy. ‘Are you sure he’d hit her?’ Amy asked.
‘Certain and with a fist, I’d say,’ Gloria said. ‘She said she walked into a door. I ask you!’
‘Did she say how it happened, or why?’
‘She couldn’t say much at all with the child in the room.’
‘Oh no, of course not.’
‘I’ll get to the bottom of it, never you fear,’ Gloria said.
A few days later, Gloria got her wish, the snow stopped and the winds, and weeks and weeks of snows on roads and pavements that had blown into drifts began to melt. With a roar like an approaching express train, thawing snow slid from roofs to lie in sodden lumps.
It was just as hard to get around with the pavements reduced to icy sludge and many of the houses that had been just cold became damp as well. There were constant reports in The Despatch and Evening Mail about the flooding in various parts of the city.
You couldn’t wonder at it, Gloria thought, as they watched the streets turn into rivers of water and the lumps of ice or snow mingle with the rushing water. But despite the problems of the thaw, most people were glad the icy grip of that terrible winter, that did its best to paralyse the country, was coming to an end.
By the middle of March, people were on the move again, the guesthouse began to fill up, and Tom Parry went to tell Hannah she could come back to work. ‘How did she look?’ Amy quizzed Tom on his return.
He shrugged. ‘All right, I suppose.’
‘She didn’t have any marks on her?’
‘Marks?’
‘You know, marks, cuts, grazes. As if she’d had a bit of a knocking about?’
‘Oh no. Nothing like that.’
‘Well, did she look happy?’
‘Christ, Amy,’ Tom said, exasperated. ‘I only exchanged a few words with her. We didn’t touch on whether she was happy or sad.’
; ‘He’s useless,’ Amy complained to Gloria later.
‘No, he’s just a man,’ Gloria said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it all out of Hannah when she comes back to work.’
And she did. But she hadn’t any winkling to do, for Hannah told her; she felt she’d go mad if she didn’t tell someone. She told her everything from the honeymoon to what happened the night in February when Arthur knocked her senseless and was eventually able to copulate. ‘I think power and violence work him up,’ she said. ‘I mean, it was just like he wasn’t turned on by me or anything.’
‘Well then, girl, he needs his head looking at,’ Gloria said grimly.
‘One thing, though, Gloria,’ Hannah said. ‘He knew I wasn’t a virgin.’
‘God Almighty! Didn’t you deny it?’
‘Of course I did, but he didn’t believe me.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought he was that sexually experienced,’ Gloria said thoughtfully.
‘Well he isn’t,’ Hannah said. ‘Couldn’t be could he, even if he wanted to? No, I think he read about it. He had a book on the sexual act, I saw it when I was tidying his room.’
‘So he’s moved out of the bedroom then?’
‘Oh, aye. That next day he did that, bought a new bed and a wardrobe and tallboy, all utility of course. They couldn’t deliver them till the thaw began, so he slept on an old palliasse he found in the loft. Like I told you, he said he doesn’t sleep with whores.’
‘He doesn’t know about the baby you had?’
‘No, and he’ll never need to know either,’ Hannah said. She gave a shudder of apprehension at the thought of Arthur finding out about the illegitimate baby she’d been forced to give away years earlier. But even as she thought back to that painful time she felt a thrill of excitement run through her. She had news for Gloria. It was too early to be sure, but oh God, if it should be true! Anyway, early or not, she couldn’t keep it to herself a minute longer. She turned to face Gloria and said, ‘Oh Gloria, do you know what else? My period is late, only five days, but usually they are as regular as clockwork.’
‘God, if you are, how do you think Arthur will take it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said, ‘and I don’t care either. I’m so happy I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.’ She grasped Gloria’s hands and said, ‘Don’t you see this is one baby that won’t be taken from me, one baby I can hold in my arms and one I’ll see grow up. I can put up with anything to have that,’ and she spun the older woman around the room. Gloria shared in Hannah’s excitement and happiness. She looked at the light shining in Hannah’s eyes and thanked God that sexual problems or no sexual problems, Arthur was able to perform once and that that was hopefully enough.
Arthur was more than delighted, he was ecstatic. He’d never had much time for children before; he’d accepted he wouldn’t marry, so he never envisaged himself as a family man. But now, to think in that one attempt at proper sex, he had developed a little person, a baby growing in Hannah’s womb, was to his mind almost magical.
That was the only jarring note, that Hannah with her loose morals might have any input into this child, this innocent baby. Well, he’d do his best to see she had as little as possible to do with it when he or she was born.
Reg Banks was delighted to hear that Arthur was going to become a father. It certainly cleared up some of the lingering doubts he had about the man which were obviously unfounded. Now Reg put it to his wife that he take Arthur into a managerial position. After all, Arthur did make it to work almost every day of that awful winter, walking the whole way more than once. Loyalty like that should be rewarded.
Elizabeth thought of Arthur’s beautiful wife that she’d so taken to and agreed. ‘We’ll ask them to dinner and you can tell them then,’ she said. ‘There will have to be a hefty rise, too. Babies need so many things.’
So Arthur and Hannah, who barely spoke at home, went to dinner with the Banks. ‘Can we bring Josie?’ Hannah had asked Arthur when he’d come home with the news. ‘I hate to leave her here by herself.’
‘Of course you can’t bring her. Reg Banks just asked you and me.’
‘Well, they probably don’t know Josie’s here.’
‘She’s not going and that’s final,’ Arthur snapped. ‘Ask old Emmerson to have her.’
Hannah did and Josie was glad for she didn’t really like going anywhere with Arthur, he was so cross all the time. He didn’t seem to like Gloria any more either, but then he didn’t like a lot of people.
Arthur was resentful about Gloria because he assumed she knew all about Hannah’s past, and had been laughing up her sleeve when she pushed her at him and he took the bait. He’d have liked to have gone up to her house and throttled the names of Hannah’s lovers out of her.
At the Banks’ house that night, few would have guessed at such thoughts teeming around Arthur’s head. His manner was almost meek and he was politeness itself, solicitous of his wife’s welfare to the extent that Hannah wanted to hammer him with her handbag.
‘Are you well, my dear?’ Elizabeth asked when the men had adjourned to the study to discuss business.
‘Very well, thank you.’
‘And are you excited about the baby?’
‘Very,’ Hannah said. ‘Arthur is on at me to give up work, but I don’t want to yet. It’s early days and I would be bored at home. I mean Gloria won’t let me do anything heavy and babies are so expensive.’
‘I don’t think you need worry about that, my dear,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Reg has a very inviting proposal to put to your husband.’
And at that moment, Arthur was staring at his boss, his mouth actually agape. Reg explained his new duties, the office he would have of his own and the secretary he would share, the expense account and the Ford Prefect car that would be at his disposal, plus the hefty rise and bonus scheme.
‘I’m … I must admit I’m staggered, sir.’
‘You’re a good conscientious worker, Arthur, and I’d like to see you get on. A family man needs a car and babies, children, are expensive little devils.’
‘Yes,’ Arthur said. ‘And the money will be useful. I was hoping to engage a nurse when the baby is born, just until Hannah is on her feet.’
Reg looking at him thought again how he’d misjudged the fellow. Really, he was a husband to be proud of, cock-a-hoop at the thought of becoming a father and considerate and loving towards his wife. ‘You’ll need a first class nursing home too,’ he said. ‘People say the National Health System will be in next year where no one will have to pay for any damn thing, but it won’t be in time for this child’s birth.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘Book up a good place,’ Reg urged. ‘Early mind, for they fill up quickly. I’ll pick up the tab on that.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ Arthur protested. ‘You do enough.’
‘Nonsense! Tell you the truth, Elizabeth has really taken to your wife. She would like to think of her being looked after properly. You must let us do this for you,’ Reg said, offering Arthur a cigar.
Arthur allowed Reg to light the cigar before he spoke. ‘Very well, sir. If that’s what you and Mrs Banks wish to do. But it’s very kind of you and Hannah and I will never forget it.’
He was aware that though he did work hard, he hadn’t climbed so far or fast in the firm until he brought Hannah to meet his employers. He imagined Elizabeth Banks had great influence over her husband and she’d really taken to Hannah. Not a hint of scandal about the state of their marriage must ever reach their ears and Hannah must realise that. If ever she felt the need to unburden herself to Elizabeth Banks, she would be cutting off her nose to spite her face for they’d all suffer.
But Arthur needn’t have worried. Hannah was quite embarrassed at the amount she’d told Elizabeth the last time they met and steered the conversation into safer waters. She did tell Elizabeth, though, of her upbringing in Ireland and how she’d been raised by her sister and how she was doing the same for her young orphaned niece.
‘And how old is the child?’
‘Josie is ten now.’
‘And is she pleased about the baby?’
‘I haven’t told her yet,’ Hannah confessed. ‘Nine months is a long time. I’ll have to soon of course, pregnancy is something you can’t hide.’
Elizabeth leant forward and squeezed Hannah’s hand. ‘I envy you, my dear,’ she said. ‘Your first child. You’ll be entering a journey of discovery. Oh, Hannah, I predict you and Arthur have such a rosy future ahead of you.’
Ah yes, Hannah thought, but was wise enough not to say, ‘But my path is strewn with thorns.’ In fact, she was wise enough to say nothing at all; Elizabeth was quite satisfied with the smile she gave. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘They’ll be out in a minute and Reg will start roaring for coffee,’ and Hannah followed Elizabeth into the kitchen.
Chapter Seven
The first months of Hannah’s pregnancy brought to mind the last time she’d been pregnant and how different it had been. For a start, she’d loved Mike, loved him with all her heart and soul. She had met him in the spring of 1941 at the Hippodrome in Leeds where she’d gone dancing with Tilly, the young northern girl who shared her bedroom. He told her he joined up when he was nineteen and had been one of the lucky ones rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk. But that was the last evening of a very short leave and though Hannah liked the young soldier very much, she wasn’t sure what he thought of her, yet the fact that he was Catholic and of Irish descent like herself had drawn them together. And the man was so handsome, with his blond hair and startling blue eyes. He had full lips and a determined chin and skin slightly tanned from the outdoor life and Hannah readily agreed to write to him.
However, the letters, which started off in friendship, grew more ardent as Mike and Hannah got to know each other better and when they met, over a year later, Hannah was sure she loved him. But it wasn’t until the summer of 1943, when he was invalided home, that Hannah realised the full strength of her feelings and she knew then that Mike Murphy was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.