At ten o’clock Nellie sent the boy to bed, promising to call him if anything happened. He went obediently and lay awake straining his ears for any sound but time crawled by and he heard nothing.
Nellie sat downstairs thinking of Sam as she had seen him that morning but she blocked out the details of the rape from her mind. Strangely she felt no hatred or revulsion towards him for the attack on her. It all seemed too unreal, too completely alien to Sam as she had always known him.
She felt that a stranger had suddenly entered her bed and she believed what she had told Tommy, that Sam was suffering from the effects of his illness and the doctor’s treatment.
He wasn’t right from when he first come home, she thought. Even when he took them presents out he looked as though he didn’t know properly what they was. As if he’d forgot what he’d bought for me and Tommy. And to go drinking on his way home when he came ashore. He’d never done that before, always come straight home to them, yet he’d tried. Walking with Tom and standing up with her at the christening. Wearing his good suit and his white shirt as though everything was all right.
Poor lad, she thought. He must have knew something was wrong but been too moithered to know what. And something must’ve happened to his poor head last night, she thought, her mind shying away from any detailed memory. The picture of Sam as she had seen him last rose again in her mind.
The anguish of his expression as he looked at her and his involuntary groan of ‘Oh God’ before he fled convinced her that he had been possessed by something beyond his control when he attacked her.
She built up the fire and from time to time bathed her face in salt water. It made the wounds sting but she felt that it would make them heal more quickly. When weariness overcame her after midnight she lay down on the sofa, wrapping herself in her shawl, and dozed lightly, starting up at any noise from outside the house.
She had not heard Janey return but the following morning the old woman came into the kitchen from the parlour. She stared at Nellie’s face and Nellie said wearily, ‘All right, Janey. It wasn’t a gum boil. Sam battered me.’
She was determined that no one would ever know what had really transpired.
‘I never thought it was,’ Janey said, ‘but I thought me bottle’d do some good.’
‘It did,’ Nellie said, ‘especially the second dose I took. I was doped all day.’
‘The dregs is always stronger,’ Janey said. She went back into her room and brought another small bottle and a jar of ointment. ‘Where is he, the quare fella?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Nellie said. ‘He never come home.’
She knew that it was useless to try to conceal anything from Janey but the old woman only said, ‘Did you get your money out of his pay-off?’
‘Not yet,’ Nellie said. She was still hoping for Sam to return and she was sure that he would never leave her without money.
‘You’re a fool, girl. You shoulda made sure of it right off. Plenty round here who’ll help him to spend it,’ Janey said.
She drank her cocoa and left saying she would keep her ears open for news of Sam, and as soon as she left Nellie took the rags of her nightdress from the coal bucket and burned them. She knew that Tommy, who had stayed awake so long, had now fallen into a heavy sleep.
She had opened the evil-smelling jar of ointment that Janey had given her and closed it again, deciding instead to use Zam-Buk ointment on her wounds. It doesn’t smell much better than Janey’s stuff, she thought as she spread the pink ointment, but it helped to cover the smell of the burning rags.
From time to time as she pottered about she envisaged Sam as she had last seen him, with the look of anguish and horror on his face, and she regretted her instinctive recoil from him. She little knew then how often that picture of Sam would fill her mind in the years to come.
She drank frequent cups of tea but she felt too tense and tightly strung to eat. If only Sam would come home.
It was midday when Tommy woke and came downstairs. ‘Has me dad been home, Mam?’ he asked eagerly and his face fell when Nellie shook her head.
‘Maybe he was at the Seaman’s after all,’ she said.
‘But he’d be awake now though,’ Tommy said. Nellie made bread and dripping for him and a cup of tea without replying and Tommy said coaxingly, ‘I don’t have to go to school this avvy, do I, Mam?’
‘Good God, I’d forgot it was Monday,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘No, I could do with you here with me, lad.’
She longed to go out to find any news of Sam but she was ashamed to let her neighbours see her face, yet she dreaded waiting alone for news.
Shortly after two o’clock Katy called. She made no comment about Nellie’s face but only asked Tommy to go to the corner shop for her.
‘I wanted him out of the way,’ she said quickly when the boy had gone. ‘Sam wasn’t home last night, was he?’ Nellie shook her head and Katy took her hand. ‘Listen Nell. I hate telling you this but I think someone should let you know. You don’t want to hear it in the street.’
‘Hear what?’ Nellie asked fearfully.
‘Me mam got told Sam was on Lime Street Station last night with that tart of Jimmy McGregor’s,’ Katy said. ‘He was paralytic drunk and some fellas helped her to get him on the train to London. He had his bag with him.’
‘Sam? You’re sure it was Sam?’ Nellie asked.
‘Me mam said the feller knew Sam what told her,’ Katy said sadly.
Nellie sat in stunned silence for a moment then she said in a bewildered way, ‘But Sam. With that woman. He never knew her.’
‘She met them off the ship and they was drinking together in the South End,’ Katy said. ‘Her and Jimmy McGregor was in the Volley with Sam on Friday night. He got put out and they brought him home.’
Nellie sat twisting the edge of her apron in her fingers, unable to speak. Sam. Sam with another woman. She couldn’t believe it.
Katy looked anxiously at her. ‘I thought you might have knew, Nell, and I’d be talking out of turn, but we’re mates. I didn’t want you sitting here not knowing nothing or getting it thrown at you by the likes of Ada Ginley.’
‘I know. Thanks, Katy,’ Nellie murmured.
‘She’s a real bad lot, that Madge Kenyon,’ Katy said. ‘She come here with Jimmy McGregor when he put in to another port before he came home but she hung on here after he’d went back to sea. Me mam said she was a pro but she was up to her eyes in debt and she had to scarper. God knows why Sam went with her though. Mind you, me mam said he was that paralytic he was very near lifted on to the train.’
Nellie knew that her friend was rambling on to give her time to recover, but her mind felt paralysed and she sat in silence. She realised that Katy was looking at her face and she felt that she must think of a story which excused Sam but her mind was blank.
She was glad when Tommy arrived back with Katy’s message, to distract attention from her, but the boy began to tell Katy about Sam’s seabag.
‘I want to go to the Seaman’s to look for me dad,’ he said. ‘But Mam won’t let me.’
‘Better not, lad,’ Katy said gently.
‘But me dad’s sick. He needs us,’ Tommy said.
Nellie roused herself. ‘It’s all right, Tom. We’ll sort it out. Go out and play, lad, while I talk to Mrs Rimmer.’
When the boy had gone Nellie said quietly, ‘I seen you looking at me face, Katy. Sam done it on Saturday night but he didn’t know what he was doing. I’ve never seen him that drunk but I think it was more than that. There’s something wrong with him, Katy. That illness while he was abroad or whatever that doctor done to him. He was out of his mind, like.’
‘It wasn’t like him to do that,’ Katy said. ‘Or to get mixed up with that bad lot. Jimmy McGregor was saying she was supposed to be his girl but his brothers told him he was lucky to be shut of her and he said she’d tried to get him to marry her but he wasn’t having any. Maybe that’s why she latched on to Sam.’
‘Sa
m bashed a fella at the christening,’ Nellie said. ‘Our Bobby was round here swearing vengeance on him.’
‘Maybe Bob could find more out for you,’ Katy said, ‘although, mind you, no one’s better at that than me mam. She hardly moves out of the house but she gets to know everything that goes on.’
‘I’m glad to know what’s happened although I can’t believe it,’ Nellie said. ‘Sam with another woman. He’s never looked at anyone else, not even women in ports, like. But there’s nothing worse than sitting here waiting and wondering. Thanks for telling me, Katy.’
‘I’m only sorry it wasn’t better news,’ Katy said. She stood up and kissed Nellie impulsively. ‘Chin up girl,’ she said. ‘You’ve still got plenty of good mates.’
When Katy had gone Nellie was suddenly taken by a fit of trembling which made her shake like a patient with St Vitus’s dance. Gradually she managed to control it, gritting her teeth and gripping the arms of her chair, but she felt weak and drained.
She knew that it was the result of shock and that if she was not to break down completely she must close her mind to all that had happened. She would tell Tom his father had gone then refuse to discuss it any more.
When Tommy came in he found his mother busily cooking eggs and bacon for their meal. She turned to him.
‘Your father’s gone. He’s took a train,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to hear no more about it. It’s over.’
‘But, Mam,’ Tommy began and Nellie thrust her face close to his.
‘Not another word, I said. It’s over. Behind us,’ she hissed at him, her eyes glittering.
Shocked and frightened the boy ate his meal without speaking again, darting nervous glances at his mother. Was she going out of her mind too? he wondered. Nellie’s lips were still swollen and obviously it was painful for her to eat but she doggedly chewed the bacon and ate slices of bread and butter.
For once she was pleased to hear the thump of Janey’s fish basket being put down but when the old woman came into the kitchen she said nothing about Sam. She seemed engrossed in her own troubles, crouching close to the fire and complaining bitterly about the cold weather.
Nellie poured her a mug of tea and Janey took a bottle of rum from her fishwife’s pocket and poured some into the cup. ‘You wanna try some of this, girl,’ she said. ‘Do you the world of good. Get rid of yer troubles.’
‘Maybe I will, then,’ Nellie said grimly. She dished up the bacon and eggs for Janey and the old woman peered at her face. ‘That looks better. Was it me ointment? Did you take me jollop?’
‘No, I’ll take the lot tonight,’ Nellie said. ‘Knock meself out.’
Janey could only eat a little of the eggs and bacon Nellie cooked for her and soon decided to go to bed. Nellie filled her hot-water bottle and made her a hot toddy with some rum and for once the old woman seemed grateful.
‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. ‘You don’t deserve none of these troubles.’ She was wheezing as she breathed and Nellie looked at her anxiously.
‘Will you be all right, Janey?’ she asked. ‘I’ve built up your fire.’
‘Aye, I’ll be all right,’ Janey said. ‘I’ll sweat it out of me. Be all right in the morning.’
Nellie sent Tommy to bed early and soon followed him. No matter how she tried to close her mind to all that had happened thoughts of Sam with Madge Kenyon kept breaking in.
Sam with another woman. All her compassionate thoughts of him, her belief that his illness and treatment had unbalanced his mind and caused him to act out of character, were forgotten and she was filled with a primitive bitter rage.
Sam unfaithful, after all she had put up with over the years because he had unjustly suspected her of what he was now doing himself. The rows because of his jealousy and the way she had always tried to soothe him although she had never looked at another man.
Was that why he had been so angry when the young man at Bob’s house had made a joking remark about sailors and girls? Perhaps even then he was planning to run off with this prostitute. I’ll never forgive him, never, she thought.
She drank the whole of the contents of the bottle Janey had given her, feeling that if she could not soon find oblivion she would go mad, and suddenly fell deeply asleep.
Janey slept too in her frowsty bed, drugged by the rum, but Tommy lay awake. He knew now that something had happened, something that meant that his father would never come again, although his mother refused to talk about it.
He loved his father so much and had looked forward to his return for so long that now he was filled with grief and disappointment. The shock was all the greater because he had always looked up to his father and now it seemed his father had done something which made his mother so angry that she refused to speak of him.
And it’s all my fault, Tommy thought. It was me made my dad so mad that he did whatever he did. Mam had told me not to talk posh in front of me dad, and I didn’t when I went for the walk with him, but at the christening I did it just to show off.
That’s what made me dad mad. That started it all, him punching that fella in Uncle Bob’s, then getting drunk and belting Mam. It’s all my fault.
Guilt and misery brought tears to his eyes and although he felt that at ten years old he was too old to cry he was unable to stop the tears and he cried himself to sleep.
The following morning Nellie went about the kitchen tight lipped and grim, frying bread for Tommy’s breakfast and making cocoa for Janey, who had come through from the parlour as usual.
Tommy was afraid to speak and Nellie said nothing until she said curtly, ‘Get off to school.’
Tommy escaped thankfully. It seemed that the previous morning when they had comforted each other belonged to another age.
Katy came and offered to do Nellie’s shopping but she refused help.
‘I’ll go myself,’ she said. ‘I’m not the first round here with a black eye and I won’t be the last.’
She went to the shops wrapped in her shawl, her head high, looking so forbidding that no one dared to ask any questions. Even her friends felt unable to offer help or comfort because they were intimidated by her manner.
The shock of hearing of Sam’s flight with another woman seemed to have suddenly changed Nellie from the gentle timid girl she had been into a grim hard woman. Over the following days she seemed to withdraw into a world of her own, brooding on past incidents to fuel her feelings of anger and betrayal.
Her outrage at the thought of Sam with another woman hardened her so that she seemed to become encased in an inflexible shell. She rejected any offer of sympathy and rarely spoke even to Tommy or Janey.
Tommy was bitterly unhappy. He felt that he had lost his mother as well as his father and blamed himself for all that happened.
He stopped going to Miss Helsby’s classes and spoke as roughly as the most neglected urchin and soon began to look like one. He rejected all the training in cleanliness and manners and pride in himself which Miss Helsby had taught, feeling that the lessons had been the cause of the trouble.
Withdrawn into her own misery and indifferent to all that was happening, Nellie failed to notice the change in Tommy and nobody dared to point it out to her. Messages sent to his mother through Tommy were thrown away as soon as he left the school.
Nellie’s only concession was to watch eagerly for a letter from Sam, which might have explained his flight, but as the days passed it was clear that this was a vain hope. She often thought of a phrase quoted by Mr Ambrose, ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’
A letter had arrived from Meg shortly after Nellie’s quarrel with Bob. Meg wrote that she was sorry about the quarrel and although she must stand by Bob she would always be grateful to Nellie. It was clear that she would not be visiting Nellie but to Nellie, immersed in her larger grief, it was unimportant. She put the letter aside indifferently.
Later she heard that Meg had been found to be suffering from tuberculosis and she and Bob and the baby had returned to Yorkshire but
Bob had not contacted Nellie before they went.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two weeks had passed since the fateful Saturday night when there was a loud knock on the door and Nellie opened it to find a policeman standing there.
‘Mrs Meadows?’ he asked.
Nellie’s hand flew to her heart and she said faintly, ‘Sam.’
‘Does a Jane Hitchmough live here?’ the policeman asked.
Nellie looked at him stupidly then as her mind adjusted she said with relief, ‘Yes, old Janey.’
‘She’s collapsed in the street and been took to Belmont Road and she’s given you as next of kin,’ the policeman said. ‘Will you want to go and see her?’
Nellie nodded and he told her that Janey was on an urgent note and could be visited at any time.
‘So she’s bad, then?’ Nellie said.
The policeman shrugged. ‘Well, an urgent note, missus,’ he said. ‘What relation is she?’
‘No relation but she’s lodged here since my ma lived here,’ Nellie said.
‘Better not tell the sister that,’ the man said, ‘She’s a Tartar. Mightn’t let you in.’
It was eight o’clock at night and for the first time Nellie realised that Tommy was not in and that she had no idea where he was. She called a boy and asked him but he could tell her nothing. ‘If you see him tell him I’ve had to go out and to go to bed,’ she said. The decision to keep her affairs to herself was instinctive but totally different to Nellie’s attitude before her troubles.
Belmont Road was a workhouse hospital and Janey was in a long bleak ward with the beds very close together. The sister confronted Nellie. ‘What relation?’ she snapped.
‘Niece,’ Nellie said, remembering the policeman’s warning.
‘Then you should be ashamed of yourself,’ the sister snapped. ‘My nurses had to take a scrubbing brush to your aunt. She was in a filthy state.’
‘How is she?’ Nellie said, ignoring her remarks.
‘Very ill. Very little chance of recovery,’ the sister said triumphantly.
A Wise Child Page 34