Meg had already dressed him in his christening robe but now they wrapped him in the shawl knitted by Nellie then put on his hat and pinned a baby veil to it.
‘The shawl looks real nice, doesn’t it?’ Meg said. ‘And the veil should keep any smuts off his face.’
At the church Nellie made her responses clearly as the minister baptised the baby David Robert but Sam was grim and unsmiling, speaking only in a deep mumble.
Afterwards there was a small party at the house with a few of Bobby and Meg’s new neighbours, some of Bobby’s workmates and Nellie, Sam and Tommy.
‘Are you the only relations?’ Mrs Saunders asked Nellie.
‘Yes, Meg only had her father and he died just before they was married,’ Nellie said. ‘There was only me and Bob in our family.’
‘Funny, isn’t it? People have either got dozens of relations on each side or hardly any. Doesn’t your husband have no one belonging to him?’
She looked at Sam who was sitting quiet and morose in the corner and Nellie said quickly. ‘No. No one living.’ She was anxious to distract attention from Sam, until he had recovered from his surly mood, although she had no idea what had caused it.
Meg and Bobby had provided a sit-down meal and most of the guests stayed on for the evening. Tommy was the only young boy there and Nellie asked Meg if she would mind if he left.
‘He’s like a fish out of water with no other lads here,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind if he goes to his mate’s house? He can stay the night there.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Meg said. ‘Then you and Sam can stay as long as you like.’
Tommy went to say goodnight to his father and Sam growled, ‘How often does this go on? You sleeping out?’
‘This is only the second time,’ Tommy said. ‘But I’ll be home before you’re up in the morning, Dad.’
One of the young men had produced a mouth organ and everybody sang to the music. Bobby was going round refilling glasses and Nellie was alarmed to see how frequently Sam’s glass was refilled.
He had stayed in the same corner, not joining the group round the mouth organ player or joining in the singing, and Nellie was helping Meg to hand round snacks. As she passed Sam he caught her arm. ‘Come on. We’re going,’ he growled, ‘I wanna get down to the Volley and see me mates and I wanna talk to you too.’
Unfortunately the musician chose that moment to play ‘All the nice girls love a sailor’, and one young man who had tried hard to be the life and soul of the party said jokingly, ‘Hey, Sam’s a sailor, isn’t he? A girl in every port, eh Sam?’
Nellie smiled nervously but Sam said nothing and the young man went on, ‘Well, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, I say. How about it, Nellie?’
Everyone laughed but the next moment the young man was knocked flat on his back by a blow from Sam’s fist.
‘It was only a joke, for God’s sake,’ several people exclaimed and willing hands helped the young man to his feet.
Bobby confronted Sam and Nellie had never seen her normally placid brother so angry. ‘Don’t come the big fellow here, Sam Meadows,’ he said furiously. ‘I know you had a name round the pubs for fighting and our Nellie can’t move for your jealousy but by God you’ll behave yourself in my house.’
The two men squared up to each other and Nellie and Meg clung to them to keep them apart.
‘We’ll go,’ Nellie said, weeping with shame. ‘I’m sorry, Meg.’ She glanced at the young man’s cut lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.
‘It’s not you should be sorry,’ Bobby said and Sam turned back as though to fight again. Nellie hung on his arm and Bobby said angrily, ‘Don’t you come here no more, Sam Meadows.’
Nellie managed to draw Sam away and she wept bitterly as they walked down the street.
‘Aye, you might well cry, you whore,’ Sam said. ‘I can see now what you get up to while me back’s turned.’
Nellie stopped dead in amazement. ‘What did you call me?’ she said in disbelief.
‘A whore,’ he shouted. ‘You think I’m soft, don’t you? I’ll soon learn you I’m not. Leading that feller on.’
Suddenly Nellie was furious too. ‘Maybe you know your own tricks best,’ she said. ‘Maybe that feller spoke the truth about sailors.’
Sam staggered as he turned to look at her. He grabbed her arm and thrust his face close to hers. ‘Ya hard-faced bitch,’ he snarled, but before he could say any more they were surrounded by a group of men.
‘Welcome home, Sam,’ one of the men called jovially and looking up Sam realised that they were outside the Volunteer. He hurriedly dropped Nellie’s arm and she averted her face and hurried away, while Sam went into the public house with his friends.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nellie was relieved to reach the haven of her own home, where she could weep in private and try to make sense of Sam’s remarks and behaviour. Calling me that word, she wept. It can’t be because of Ada Ginley’s gossip because he hasn’t seen anyone who would tell him.
He’s been in a queer mood ever since he came home, she thought, and then going drinking on the way home. He never done that before yet he gave me and Tommy presents. I can’t make him out.
She felt hot with shame as she thought of the scene at her brother’s house. What would Bobby’s respectable neighbours think of her and Sam? She was only thankful that Tommy left before the fight, but Sam disgraced all of us, she thought.
He didn’t like me saying he knew his own tricks best. Not that I think he carries on with other women but I don’t have nothing to do with other men, yet he’s always accusing me. That jealous and suspicious. It’s not fair. He should trust me like I trust him.
After a while she dried her eyes. I’m a fool, she thought. Sitting here crying me eyes out while he’s in the Volley enjoying himself and not worrying about nothing, but she was wrong.
Sam had been treating all his mates in the Volunteer and drinking with them, but the numerous drinks, added to those he had consumed at the christening, only made him more and more morose.
His mind was clouded and confused by the drink he had taken but he felt vaguely angry and hard done by. His resentment grew as scenes from the christening began to come back to him and he tried to remember all that had gone before.
He had been tricked, he knew, and he was angry with Ellie and he struggled to remember the details.
Madge Kenyon and Jimmy McGregor were in the Volunteer and had joined him as soon as he went in, but Sam retreated more and more into a world of his own as the night went on and he grew more drunk.
Suddenly he slipped to the floor and lay full length. Madge screeched and hung over him and Jimmy and another man tried to pull him to his feet without success. A barman came and effortlessly hauled Sam up and over to the door.
‘Better outside, lad,’ he said briefly and took Sam round to the side of the Volunteer. He propped him sitting on the ground, his back against the wall.
Madge and Jimmy had followed and Madge crouched beside Sam who lay with his head sunk on his chest, oblivious to what was happening.
‘Are you all right, Sam?’ she asked but he made no answer.
‘I’m going back inside. We can’t do nothing till he sobers up,’ Jimmy said but Madge said she would stay with Sam.
‘He’s got nearly all his pay-off on him. He might get robbed if we leave him on his own,’ she said.
‘More likely to get robbed if you stay with him,’ Jimmy muttered but he left her with Sam.
After a while, as Sam showed no sign of recovery, Madge filled her cupped hands with water from a nearby horse trough and threw it in his face. He shook his head in a dazed way then opened his eyes and looked at her.
‘Wharra—’ he began then staggered to his feet and over to the gutter where he was violently sick.
‘Oh God, oh God,’ he muttered and Madge steered him to the horse trough where he splashed his face and head with water.
He sat down on a nearb
y wall and Madge sat beside him stroking his leg. Jimmy came out again followed by two of his married brothers who had also been drinking in the Volunteer.
‘You all right, Sam?’ Jimmy asked.
Sam only grunted and Madge said brightly, ‘He’s been sick. He put his head in the horse trough, didn’t you, Sam?’
‘God, I feel bad,’ Sam groaned. ‘Must’ve been something I ate at that christening.’
Jimmy and his brothers roared with laughter. ‘More like something you drank, lad,’ said one brother. ‘You haven’t half had a skinful,’ but Sam had sunk into a daze again.
Madge had been sitting close to Sam brushing the pub-floor sawdust from his coat, but unseen by Jimmy and his brothers she had slipped her other hand to the inside of Sam’s thigh and was gently stroking him.
He was still sitting with his head hanging low and one of the brothers said to Jimmy, ‘Berra gerrim home, lad, he’s goin’ to go off again. Where does he live?’
‘Johnson Street, the end house,’ Jimmy said. ‘His wife’s named Ellie or Nellie.’
‘Nellie Meadows? I’ve heard about her,’ one of his brothers said. ‘The missus heard she’s on the game with Dusty Miller’s wife.’
The three men tried to get Sam to his feet but they were all small men and Sam was a dead weight. They let him slip back again on to the wall and one of the brothers said, ‘To hell with this. I’ve left me drink and some bloody minesweeper might’ve swigged it.’
‘Aye, he’s out for the count, we’ll never shift him,’ the other brother said and they went back into the Volunteer.
Sam had heard the man’s words about Nellie without comprehending them at first but as his head began to clear a little his rage grew. ‘I knew it. I bloody knew it,’ he muttered. ‘On the game. The lad sleeping out.’
He struggled to his feet and with Madge and Jimmy supporting him on either side he began to make his unsteady way home. Jimmy had Sam’s arm round his neck and was so engrossed in keeping him on a straight course that he was unaware that Madge, although she was holding Sam’s arm, had also slipped her other hand to Sam’s crotch.
‘Don’t worry, lad,’ she was whispering in his ear. ‘Why shouldn’t you have a bit? She’s on the game.’
When they were a few doors away from his house Sam stood up straight.
‘All right. I’m all right,’ he said thickly. ‘You can – you can go back.’
‘OK, as long as you’re all right,’ said Jimmy.
Madge reached up to kiss Sam, pressing herself against him and skilfully opening his lips with her tongue.
‘Here, you’re my girl,’ Jimmy protested, dragging her away.
She took his arm, saying soothingly, ‘Only being friendly with your mate, Jimmy.’
Nellie had meant to wait up for Sam but the stresses and upsets of the two days had exhausted her. Her head ached so much that she felt unable to keep her eyes open and finally she left the door open for Sam and went to bed.
She was lying in the darkness half asleep when she heard stumbling footsteps on the stairs and Sam lurched into the bedroom.
‘Is that you, Sam?’ she asked nervously.
Her innocent question seemed to be all that was needed to bring Sam’s fury to a head. All the years of subconscious doubt, the taunts of his shipmates, the revelation by the doctor, the words of Jimmy’s brother and his feeling of being tricked and betrayed, added to the poison dropped in his ear by Madge as she skilfully aroused him, came to a head to burst like a boil, and brought him mad with humiliation and the desire to wreak his vengeance on the body of his wife.
‘Yes, it’s me. Who did you expect?’ he snarled, throwing off his trousers and flinging himself on the bed. He seized Nellie and shook her then tore her nightdress from her and fell upon her.
‘Sam, Sam!’ she screamed now fully awake and terrified.
She struggled to push him away but she was helpless beneath the weight of his heavy body as he forced himself upon her, his lips bruising her mouth and his teeth biting her neck.
Nellie lay helpless, shock and fear depriving her of the power to speak or struggle. This was worse, far worse, than the rape by Leadbetter, because this was Sam – but a Sam she had never known or dreamed existed, snarling obscenities and saying over and over again, ‘Am I Soft Sam? Am I Soft Sam?’ as he thrust himself upon her like a madman.
Finally he turned away from her and fell on to the floor and Nellie lay moaning and shuddering, feeling as though she was living through a dreadful nightmare, yet knowing by the searing pain of her body that it was only too real.
Presently Sam began to snore and Nellie, feeling like an old, old woman crept from the bed trying to gather the rags of her nightdress around her. She listened fearfully for a change in the rhythm of Sam’s breathing as she drew another nightdress from a drawer and crept downstairs.
She locked herself in the scullery and shivering uncontrollably she tried to wash away evidence of the rape. She was shaking and crying so much that in the end she lifted the bowl to the floor and sank down beside it. Her body felt on fire from all that Sam had inflicted on it, yet her teeth chattered with cold and she could scarcely hold the flannel.
I’ll never get over it, never, she cried as she covered her face with her hands, weeping as though her heart would break. That Sam, Sam, could do this to her. She felt as though the solid ground had opened beneath her feet. It was the shock and humiliation that affected her far more than the physical pain.
Eventually she managed to dry herself and put on the clean nightdress then she went into the kitchen and flung her shawl around her. She had wrapped the rags of her other nightdress in newspaper and was about to put them in the fire she had stirred up, but she thought that the smell of them burning might bring Janey out to investigate.
She hid them in the coal bucket instead and made herself a cup of tea, crouching over the fire, still weeping and shaking. Her only consolation was that Tommy had been out of the house and had seen nothing. Would Sam have restrained himself if Tommy had been at home, she wondered, but she felt that it would have made no difference. Sam was beyond reason, as though he had suddenly gone out of his mind.
The tea restored Nellie and she began to think more rationally. What had happened to make Sam like that, she wondered? He had been angry when he left her outside the Volunteer but nothing like the lunatic who had arrived home.
At the thought of what had happened her fragile calm deserted her and she sat moaning and sobbing, rocking herself back and forth distraught with grief and horror.
Time passed unnoticed until she heard sounds from the parlour and realised that she would soon have to face Janey. She rose stiffly and looked into the mirror over the sink. Her face was bruised and swollen, her mouth distorted and one eye almost closed.
Desperation made her think quickly. She kept clean rags in a drawer as bandages for Tommy’s frequent cuts and grazes, and she took one of the largest out and tied it round her face, under her chin, tied on top of her head.
She drew her shawl over her head and when Janey emerged she was sitting by the fire, her hand to her face.
‘Good God, girl, what’s up with you?’ Janey exclaimed.
‘A gum boil,’ Nellie said indistinctly. ‘I’ve been up half the night. Outa me mind with the pain.’
‘I’ll give you something,’ Janey said, going back into the parlour and returning with a small black bottle.
‘That’ll deaden it, girl, but you won’t be right till it bursts.’
Nellie thanked her and asked her to get her own cocoa before she went out, still crouching over the fire with her hand to her face.
‘He he, your wits must be addled,’ Janey cackled, ‘It’s Sunday, girl. You’d better go and lay down till that works.’
‘No, I’ll stay here until Tommy comes in,’ Nellie said.
Janey pottered about making her cocoa but eventually she went back into the parlour and Nellie heard her shoot home the bolts inside the door.
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Nellie lay back in the chair feeling dazed, either due to the dose from Janey or to shock, her mind empty of thought. Presently the bandage round her face irked her and she took it off. Tommy might arrive at any moment but he would be easier to convince about the gum boil.
She felt sleepy, as though the dose Janey had given her had not only dulled the pain but had drugged her, but she was determined to stay awake until Tommy came home. There was no sound from the parlour and she thought Janey must have gone out.
She closed her mind to all thought of Sam or the bedroom and she was taken by surprise when there was a sound on the stairs and he suddenly appeared. She sprang to her feet, cowering away from him in terror, her shawl falling back from her head to show her bruised and swollen face.
Sam stared at her in horror. ‘Oh God,’ he said, then stumbled through the scullery into the yard. She heard the back gate open and his uncertain heavy footsteps receding and she sank into her chair trembling and weeping bitterly.
Tommy had still not arrived and presently she dragged herself to her feet and up to the bedroom. Whimpering with pain, and with horror at the state of the bed, she managed to take off the soiled sheets and roll them into a bundle.
She felt too weak to make up the bed and only drew the bedspread over it, then stumbled downstairs. Fear of Tommy returning gave her the strength to fill the dolly tub with water and immerse the soiled bedding in it then she returned thankfully to the chair.
She was sitting there in a daze when Tommy returned.
‘I’m sorry I’m late, Mam,’ he was saying as he came in, but he stopped, gasping in horror, when he saw her face.
Nellie had drawn her shawl close and snatched up the bandage to hold to her mouth when she heard him but he could see enough of her bruised and swollen face and her almost closed eye to alarm him.
‘Mam, what’s happened? What’ve you done?’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s a gum boil, lad,’ Nellie said indistinctly, ‘like poor Elsie in me last place.’
‘Will you have to go to the dental hospital?’ he asked.
‘No. Janey’s give me something to make it burst,’ Nellie said. ‘I’m going to take the rest of it and lay down. You see to yourself, son.’
A Wise Child Page 32