Hannah was indignant. ‘How can you possibly compare being a prostitute to being married?’
‘Because I’ve been both. You, on the other hand have been neither.’ She patted Hannah on the knee. ‘When it comes down to it, they’re all just men. Most of them only want one thing. And my guess is Sam Henderson will neither be beating you up like my husband used to do to me whenever he’d had a skinful – which was most nights – or expecting you to do the kind of kinky stuff his father expects me to do.’ She got up. ‘Put it this way, love. I think you’ll be lucky if he gets it up at all for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if he manages to “do the dirty” with you at all, you’ll be doing well. I’ll bet if he can get you up the duff he’ll leave you in peace after that. Once he can show his father he’s produced a child. So you’d better hope that happens sooner rather than later. Now, I’m going to see if I can find you a nice nightie to wear tonight.’ She looked back and winked as she left the room.
Chapter Twenty
As soon as the Arklow docked, Will couldn’t disembark fast enough. His head was filled with thoughts of Hannah and eagerness to see her again and tell her that everything was arranged for her in Dublin. He wondered if she had tried to get down to see him before he sailed and imagined her arriving after the ship had departed. More often than not they were late setting off, delays caused by all manner of things, but this time the ship’s master had decided to cast off more than an hour earlier than planned, with the intention of avoiding the worst of the weather, forecast for later that day. As it happened, they’d hit the squalls anyway and Will had felt angry, frustrated and out of sorts until the kindness and practicality of the O’Connors had lifted his spirits again.
Now he was going to put all that behind him. He wasn’t going to be put off by all the talk of how monstrous Hannah’s father was. In fact, it made him more determined to get her away from him. Once he’d found out that Dawson had raped Elizabeth he wanted to tear the man limb from limb. Lovely Elizabeth, the woman who had lit up his life during those last years in Australia. If he could rape her and break her sister’s arm, what might he do to Hannah? No. It was right that he act fast and get her out of the country in the next few days.
After they were married he might even give up the sea. They could move to America, or he could take her home to Australia. He realised it was the first time since he’d left it eleven years ago that he had been able to think of Australia as home. Anywhere where Hannah was would be home to him from now on.
He tried to recreate Wilton’s Creek in his mind’s eye. The long low wooden house with its veranda, the eucalyptus trees, the scrub, the creek where he fished, the well-worn track leading to town. But the picture was marred forever by the memory of his brother grabbing at Elizabeth as she was hanging out washing, by the anger that had risen inside Will as he lunged towards Nat to pull him away from her, by the pain of a cold steel blade sinking into his body, by the blackness that followed. No. Even now, Wilton’s Creek was contaminated forever to Will as the scene of his father’s last moments of liberty before being led away to jail and his eventual fate.
Instead, Will thought of the canyon. The beauty of the blue haze that rose above the sea of gum trees that covered the craggy mountains and gave them their name. The sound of the waterfalls, tumbling down through rocks and ferns. The splash of colour from the rainbow lorikeets, a sudden flash of white or green from a parrot. The clean crisp unpolluted air. The sight of a possum disappearing up a tree, or a kangaroo, disturbed as it grazed, hopping away into the distance.
Now, here on the Liverpool docks, the air was heavy with the smell of diesel. All around were coal blackened buildings, the clank of the overhead railway as it thundered past, car horns, the rattle of trams, whistles and curses from the dockers as they went about their work, the long low lament of a foghorn and the feeling of damp and drizzle under his collar. He longed to be away from Liverpool and determined that he would convince Hannah to leave with him at once. Regardless of what she had told him, he was going to the house in Bootle now and he wasn’t going to leave without her.
* * *
Will sat at the table with his head in his hands. In the background he was aware of the rattle of cups and the hiss of a boiling kettle but all he could think about was Hannah. Lost to him forever.
Sarah returned with a tray of tea and poured it. ‘Here, drink this, Will. It will make you feel better. There’s lots of sugar in. Good for shock.’ She handed him the cup, then put the freshly-laundered handkerchief he’d lent her last time on the table in front of him.
‘How’s it possible? Why so fast? Why didn’t she tell me it would happen so soon?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘None of us knew it would happen so quickly. I’d no idea he’d arranged everything. When the man and his father came here to meet her, we thought we’d still have some time. I told Hannah to get herself down to the dock to find you but she was too late. You’d already sailed. Then two days later while we were sitting here eating our breakfast he told us she was to be married that day.’
‘Couldn’t you have stopped it?’ He thumped the table in frustration. ‘Couldn’t you have stood up in church and yelled out an objection when they asked if anyone has just cause? You know how it works – I saw a film where that happened.’
Sarah dropped her eyes. ‘I wasn’t even there. At my own daughter’s wedding. I doubt they’d have asked that anyway. It was all done at the place where my husband worships.’ She stretched her lips into a narrow line. ‘They were married by her new husband’s father. He’s the minister.’
‘Is that even legal?’
She shrugged. ‘Apparently so. Not that it would stop Charles if it wasn’t.’
‘No, but it would be grounds for annulling the marriage. Wouldn’t it? Surely?’ He looked at her in desperation. ‘I’ve spent my whole adult life expecting to be alone and now that I’ve met the one woman I love she’s stolen from me.’ He slammed his fist into the table. ‘Where is she? I have to find her? I don’t care whether she’s married legally or not. I’m going to find her and get her away.’
Sarah shut her eyes. ‘I don’t know. All I know is the name of her husband, Samuel Henderson. She’s living with him and his father but I haven’t a clue where that might be. My husband refuses to tell me anything.’
Will squeezed his hands into tight fists, frustration mounting. ’For Pete’s sake, Sarah. How is this even possible? You’re her mother! You of all people should be allowed to know where she is.’
‘He says I can see her eventually when she’s settled into her new life. He said it would be “disruptive” for us to meet sooner. Says she needs time to adjust.’ Sarah began to cry. ‘Oh God! How could this be happening. My daughter.’ Her sobbing intensified, and Will pushed the clean handkerchief back across the table. While she wiped her eyes, he drank some tea, desperately trying to think of a plan.
‘When do you sail again?’ Sarah asked.
‘Tonight. But I’m not going. How can I?’
‘You must. There’s nothing you can do here. While you’re gone I’ll try to work on him. Try to find out where she is. I can surely find out the address. There must be directories. There can’t be that many Samuel Hendersons in Liverpool. But it will be his father’s name, won’t it? I don’t know what that is. Charles always refers to him as the pastor.’ She rubbed at her cheeks with the damp handkerchief. ‘I can find out. I’ll do it. You go to Ireland and I promise you, I’ll have tracked her down by the time you come back.’
‘I had a plan. I was going to bring her over to Dublin. I’d got it all worked out. Too bloody late – sorry Sarah. I didn’t mean to swear in front of you.’
‘Swear away. You don’t shock me.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘I’ve let that pig of a husband walk all over me and my daughters for too long. I’m getting my life back. And somehow I’m going to help you get Hannah back.’
* * *
; Hannah assisted Nance in preparing the supper – with the older woman making it clear that in future this would be entirely Hannah’s responsibility. ‘Shopping too. You won’t need any cash as there’s accounts at the greengrocer, the butcher and the general store, but mind you watch the pennies. His Nibs settles up at the end of the month.’
Nance evidently preferred not to use whatever was Mr Henderson’s Christian name. Hannah wondered what it was but decided not to enquire.
The two women stood side-by-side in the scullery, Hannah peeling potatoes while Nance slow-boiled a piece of ham and washed a cabbage.
‘I presume you know how to cook?’
‘I did it at home. But nothing fancy.’
‘Well, that’s great. Means I get my life back.’ She didn’t elucidate what that might entail. ‘And don’t worry – His Nibs don’t like fancy. Meat and two veg usually. Fish once a week but never on Friday as that’s Papist he reckons. He can’t abide Roman Catholics. I’ve never told him I was born one.’
‘Are you religious, Nance?’
‘Me? You’re cracking jokes! I reckon God gave up on me when I had to go on the game. And I gave up on him when he let the bastard I was wed to beat the living daylights out of me night after night. What about you?’
‘My father is one of the brethren who follow Mr Henderson’s ministry. I’ve been familiar with the Bible since I was a toddler. The only book allowed in the house.’
Nance didn’t show any surprise. ‘You believe all that stuff?’
‘I believe in God. Well most of the time… sometimes I find my belief gets tested rather too much.’
‘Like now?’
Hannah nodded.
’So which one’s your father? What’s ’is name?’
‘Charles Dawson.’
Nance gave one of her signature long whistles. ‘I’d never have guessed that.’
‘You know him?’
‘Oh, yes, I certainly know him.’ Nance looked as though she were about to say something but changed her mind. Eventually she said, ‘He’s been here to the house. Henderson sometimes has meetings here. They’re friends.’ She put the lid on the pan of ham, turned the gas down low and told Hannah to keep an eye on the supper. ‘I’ll see you later. I’m going for a nap. He likes it on the table at seven o’clock sharp. Except Fridays when it’s six-thirty. Cutlery’s in the drawer over there.’ Then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Henderson senior arrived home punctually before dinner that evening. He took his place at the head of the table, with Nance seated to his left. There was an empty space to his right where the absent Sam was to sit. Hannah took the chair beyond that.
When she put his plate in front of the pastor, he said, ‘You’ve met my sister-in-law then?’
‘Yes.’ She thought it a stupid question.
‘Do as she tells you. She’s in charge. Don’t go getting ideas or trying to throw you weight around.’
He began to eat, masticating loudly. Hannah was nauseated. He was a big man, jowly and clean-shaven with beetling eyebrows, cavernous nostrils, steel grey hair that was cut long so it went over his collar, and cold grey eyes. Sam must have inherited his mother’s looks. Hannah wondered how Nance could bear to share a bed with him and shuddered to imagine what were the acts she was expected to perform with him. It wouldn’t surprise her if one day Nance enlightened her – but she hoped that day was a long way off.
After a few minutes, Henderson looked up from his meal and spoke directly to Hannah. ‘Where is my son?’
‘I don’t know, sir. He’s not returned from work yet.’
‘Make it your business to know. Now that he’s a married man I expect you to ensure he’s home at the appointed hour. It’s your responsibility as a wife.’
She swallowed, bewildered by her new situation and baffled as to how she could be held responsible for the late arrival of the husband she didn’t know at all.
The three of them ate the remainder of the meal in silence, the ugly brass carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticking loudly, as though to underline the absence of conversation.
Hannah was washing up the supper plates in the scullery when Nance came in. She jerked her head up at the ceiling. ‘Time for me to go to work.’ Winking at Hannah, she added. ‘If Sam’s not in by ten o’clock, you can go to bed, but you’d better start praying he is or there’ll be hell to pay and I’m not taking bets as to who’ll get the blame for that. I’ll give you a wee clue: I’m looking at her right now.’
Hannah sat in the parlour drinking a cup of tea. Above her head she was unable to avoid hearing a range of noises, from furniture being moved, to suppressed cries and groans, deep moaning, then after a while the sound of loud animal grunting and eventually the rhythmic creaking of bedsprings and a sound that she realised must be the headboard banging loudly and rapidly against the wall. The whole noisy episode lasted over an hour. When it finished, there was a long silence then the sound of a flushing toilet and a series of doors opening and closing.
Her situation was bizarre and intolerable. If her father knew what kind of immoral things went on under this roof, he would surely never have expected her to marry into the Henderson family. She had to escape. What was to stop her walking out of the house? Now. Before Sam returned and while her new father-in-law and Nance were sleeping. No matter that she’d no idea how to get home. If she walked for long enough and kept heading in a downhill direction she had to reach the Mersey eventually and she could find her way home to Bootle from there. Once she’d told her father what was going on here at The Laurels, he’d have to agree that she couldn’t stay with the Hendersons, and since the marriage was unconsummated, he could arrange for it to be annulled. Filled with a sense of purpose and hope, she got up from the table, washed her teacup and saucer and tiptoed from the room.
Creeping along the dark hallway she fumbled in the vestibule for her coat and slipped it on. She reached for the large doorknob and turned it but the front door didn’t budge. It must be locked with a deadbolt and there was no sign of a key. She went back along the hall, treading softly, shoes in her hand, and through into the scullery where she tried the back door. The same. Locked and no key. All the downstairs windows were painted closed and she couldn’t shift the sashes. She pulled open the kitchen drawers and cupboards, hunting for the keys. She looked underneath the tea towel hanging on the back of the scullery door thinking they might be on the hook there, but nothing. A search of the hall and vestibule produced nothing either.
Returning to the kitchen table, she sat under the canopy of Nance’s now dry stockings still dangling from the wooden drying rack, and wept her heart out.
Sam Henderson let himself in through the front door at a quarter to midnight. Without coming through to the back of the house where Hannah was sitting, he went straight upstairs and she heard the creak of the bedroom door. What should she do? Follow him up there? Stay down here all night?
She waited for half an hour in the darkened parlour surrounded by a deathly silence, then, exhausted, crept up the stairs. Sam must surely be asleep by now. After quickly undressing in the dark, she pulled the flimsy night dress Nance had lent her, over her head and slipped into the bed beside Sam, trying not to disturb him.
His whispered voice sounded eerie in the darkness and made her jump. ‘You were still downstairs then? I thought you must have gone.’
She told him she’d been waiting up for him in the back parlour.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to come home tonight. I’ve nothing against you, Hannah. You seem a nice girl. I just don’t want to be married to you. Well, to anybody.’
Hannah thought they must look like a pair of Egyptian mummies lying side-by-side on their backs, motionless, both staring up towards the now invisible ceiling in the pitch-dark bedroom.
‘I don’t want to be married either,’ she said.
‘Well, we understand each other at least.’
She hesitated then said, ‘I did try to lea
ve tonight. After your father had gone to bed. But the doors were all locked.’
He twisted onto his side in the bed beside her. She could feel his eyes on her but the room was too dark for them to see each other. ‘He’ll have guessed you’d try to do that so he locked them. It’s usually just on the Yale. Lucky I had my full set. What would you have done if you’d got out anyway? Where would you go?’
‘Back home. To my family.’
She heard him snort. ‘You can’t do that, Hannah. You need to get used to the idea. We’re stuck with each other.’
‘Where did you go tonight? Your father was angry that I didn’t know. He told me it was my job to know.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He rolled onto his back again. His voice was a disembodied whisper. ‘Look, I have a proposal to make to you. I promise to leave you alone if you’ll cover for me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When I go out at night.’
Hannah was completely bewildered.
‘Look, I can’t be a proper husband to you, Hannah. Do you understand what I’m saying? You do know what we are supposed to do as husband and wife?’
Hannah said nothing, too confused to answer.
‘I’m talking about how babies are made.’ He sounded as embarrassed as she felt.
‘Yes,’ she whispered into the dark. ‘I do know.’
‘If you cover for me and say I’m at evening school when I go out in the evenings, I promise to leave you alone. I think that’s what most women prefer don’t they, given the choice?’
‘I don’t know. Do they?’ She wanted to cry but swallowed and bit her lip to hold back the tears.
She wanted to be home in her bedroom with Judith beside her instead of this peculiar man. Even more, she wanted to be lying beside Will Kidd. Somehow, she knew that being ‘left alone’ by Will was not something she would want – even if her lack of knowledge of the finer details of what they would do was sketchy. She just knew she wanted him. To be close to him. Wrapped around him. To have him holding her and loving her. But she was never going to lie beside Will. Never feel his arms around her. Never discover what it would be like to make love to him. Now, it seemed she wasn’t even going to discover what it was like to be with a man at all. Hannah didn’t know whether to be grateful or sad. Marriage to a man who didn’t even want to father a child with her. Who didn’t want to touch her, caress her, kiss her.
Storms Gather Between Us Page 21