Nance snorted. ‘I’ll take that as a no then.’
Hannah turned her back on her and carried on polishing the wooden dining table.
‘You do know he’s a queer don’t you? You must have worked that out by now. A nancy boy – though why they should call them after me I can’t imagine.’ Her laugh was like a little trill. ‘Although I’ve got nothing against them personally. Each to their own. I’m not one to judge. And I’ve always felt sorry for Sam, having a father who’s convinced him he’s going to burn in hell for ever. It must wear a man down in the end. Lower his spirits. I expect that’s why he agreed to marry you. No offence, mind.’
Hannah wasn’t going to rise to the bait. She moved over to dust and polish the sideboard.
Nance carried on regardless of her failure to produce a response. ‘I don’t believe in hell, but I’ll say this. If there is one, it won’t be the likes of Sam who’ll end up burning there – he’s never done anyone else any harm. Oh no.’ She shook her head in an exaggerated fashion. ‘The real perverts are the men like his father and yours. They’re very good at covering up their sins to the world. But if their God does exist, they can’t hide from him. He’s meant to see everything. Gawd knows why they choose to forget that in their own cases.’ She gave another laugh, a lower one this time.
‘What do you mean?’ Hannah’s curiosity had now won through.
‘When Amos Henderson asked me to go private and move in here, he suggested I take on your father too. Not a threesome, mind – His Nibs don’t like sharing. I think he was trying to do your dad a favour. But kinky stuff is one thing, pain and violence is another. I don’t mind a good spanking – so long as it’s on me bottom – although His Nibs prefers to be the one spanked rather than doling it out himself. He takes pleasure from being disciplined.’ She chuckled to herself. ‘I have to play the part of his mother and pretend he’s been a naughty boy. He likes me to hit him with a cane or a ruler until he gets excited enough to get his little dick up. But he’s not violent towards me. Not like your old man.’
‘I don’t understand? What about my father?’
‘Look, love, I know he’s your father but he’s a bleeding sadist, isn’t he? Makes me husband seem like a lamb in comparison.’
Hannah put down her duster. ‘How did you know he hit me and my mother? Who told you?’
Nance whistled. ‘I didn’t know, doll. I’m sorry to hear that. And glad you’ve got away from him. You’re safe here. Sam’ll never raise a hand to you. Nor the old man.’
‘So, what did you mean about him being a sadist? And about Mr Henderson asking you to take on my father too?’
Nance pursed her lips, sighed, then said, ‘All right. I may as well tell you. Your father used to be one of my customers – before I went exclusive for old man Henderson. At first it was all right. He were no worse than any other customer, although he liked to shout out passages from the Bible when he was coming. But that didn’t bother me. Whatever turns you on.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Then one night, he was sucking on my tits like a hungry baby, when he bit right into me. Nearly took my nipple off. Drew blood, he did. Couldn’t stop the bleeding for ages. I wasn’t going to put up with that. Not blooming likely.’
Hannah gasped, nausea rising up in her. She slumped into one of the chairs.
‘That was it. I wasn’t having any more of that. And I weren’t the only one. Every girl he went with complained. In the end he were banned from the place as no one would do him. Dunno where he goes now to get his end away.’
It was all too much for Hannah. In just a short space of time she’d learnt more about sexual perversion than she wanted or could imagine. The idea of her own father going to prostitutes was abhorrent. How long had it been going on? Did her mother know? Sarah had told her about him attacking their former maid but nothing about prostitutes and compulsive violence. No wonder her mother had been worried about the way he sometimes looked at Hannah. The man was evidently capable of anything. Was Judith safe under the same roof as him? She jumped to her feet, ran into the scullery and vomited into the sink.
* * *
That night Hannah cried herself to sleep, grateful that Sam was out late and not there to witness her grief.
After the men of the house had left the following morning, she told Nance she was going out to do the grocery shopping.
‘No, you won’t love. I’ve blooming well got to do it. His Nibs says you’re not to leave the house.’
Hannah gasped. ‘But there’s things I need to get.’
‘Tell me and I’ll add ’em to the list.’
‘You’re telling me I’m to be kept prisoner in my own home?’
‘I suppose I am. Strict orders. Just until you’ve had time to settle in.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I reckon he’s scared you’ll go running home to your family.’
Hannah felt herself blushing. Was it that obvious? Of course it was.
‘Mind you, you’d be a blinking idiot to try that on. You know your dad’s in cahoots with Henderson. And knowing what we all know about Mr Charles Dawson’s temper – I’m sure you don’t want to be on the business end of his fist.’
Hannah winced.
‘They’ll be watching your every move. My advice to you, duckie, is to learn patience until the buggers trust you, before you try anything on. That’s just supposing you still want to try anything on, which if you’ve half a brain, you won’t. You and Pretty Boy seem to be getting on well enough, and at least no one’s going to give you a good clobbering here. And don’t forget Ol’ Man Henderson has plenty of money that’ll come to Sammy boy one day. Gotta learn to play the long game, girl.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘Maybe it is. But that’s for me to know.’ Then she relaxed a little, her face breaking into a conspiratorial smile. ‘Actually, I’ve made sure there’s provision for me.’
‘Provision?’
‘In his will.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘A nice little nest egg and a small allowance to get me started. Enough for me to buy a little place by the sea in Southend.’ It was a moment before Hannah realised where she meant as Nance pronounced it ‘Sarfend’.
‘Is that where you’re from?’
‘No, but I went there one day with me ’usband before the war, when we was courting. Beautiful it is. There’s a pier they say’s the longest in the whole country – goes on for miles right over the sea. Me and our Alf had cockles from a stall. Maybe that’s what I’ll do – open a cockle stall. I could go round the pubs at night selling them. Nice little earner.’ She blew a series of smoke rings, then grinned. ‘And no more blooming sex!’
Hannah offered to make another pot of tea.
‘Oh go on then, doll, twist me arm!’
When they were drinking the fresh tea, Hannah leaned forward and said, ‘Can I ask you a special favour, Nance?’
‘Depends what it is? Answer’s no if it involves letting you out of the house, girl.’
‘It doesn’t. Is there a library nearby?’
‘How the hell would I know that? Do I look like someone who wastes their time reading books?’
‘Maybe not, but you must have gone past one near here. Please think.’
Nance closed her eyes, stubbed out her cigarette and reached to pick up the pack and take another one. ‘Mmm actually, now I think about it, maybe I do know where there’s one. It’s got them fancy pillars outside. Walk past it when I go to bingo. Why?’
‘I was wondering if you could get some books out for me.’
‘Books? He don’t like books, His Nibs. Won’t have them in the house. He found Sam had a stash hidden down the back of the airing cupboard and he threw a real fit. You’d think the airing cupboard was Sodom and Gomorrah. Threw the lot of them in the fire.’
So, burning books was a passion Henderson shared with her father – and Adolf Hitler. She shivered.
‘I was hoping you’d hide them in your bedroom for me. You said he doesn’t go in there.’
Nance
sucked on her cigarette, thinking. ‘What’s in it for me, then?’
Hannah looked blank. Everything had a quid pro quo in Nance’s world – although she’d likely describe it as ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. She said, ‘I don’t know. What do you need? What do you want me to do?’
‘I’ll ’ave to ’ave a think about that. Just remember you owe me one. Now how do I get a book out the library? Just go in and take it?’
‘You’ll need to be a member. You have to fill in a form and they’ll give you a ticket. I can write a list of the books I want and you give it to the person behind the desk and she’ll tell you where to find them.’
‘I must be nuts taking that kind of risk.’ She thought for a moment. ‘One book at a time. I’m not tramping back up the hill with a bagful of heavy books.’
‘I read fast. You’ll be going back and forth all the time.’
‘No, I won’t. You’ll make do with what you’re given and you’ll have to read it again if you finish too quick. I’m not your lady’s maid. And if he finds it I’ve had nowt to do with it. Understand?’
‘Of course. But he won’t find anything. I’ll be careful.’
Later that afternoon Nance returned with a copy of The Weather in the Streets, which Hannah fell upon like a starving crow on a small animal. After waiting so long, at last she’d be able to finish it. Life would be marginally more bearable.
* * *
At breakfast the following morning, the pastor addressed Hannah directly.
‘You have had time to settle in, now you must do the work of God.’
She put down her piece of toast and waited, curious as to what he was about to propose. Her housework couldn’t possibly be of an insufficient standard. The house now gleamed, polished brass, well-buffed wood, windows you could actually see through, thoroughly beaten carpets, and not a cobweb in sight. The bed linen and towels had been boil-washed and bleached. Surely the pastor couldn’t be dissatisfied with the quality of her work – although not even the shining white bath had elicited any comment from her father-in-law.
‘Women, of course, are unworthy vessels, designed for the pleasure and service of men, and are not capable of fully understanding and explaining God’s teaching. They all carry the sin of Eve.’ He was addressing her but, as usual, made no eye contact, projecting his words into the middle distance. ‘God’s teaching is the work of men. Only we are capable of the level of knowledge and the depth of understanding to communicate the scriptures and spread the word.’ He leaned back in his chair, savouring his own words as though they were fine wine. ‘The role of the woman is to serve God by serving man.’
He coughed, his face reddening, and they waited for him to recover and finish speaking. ‘I have decided you will take those leaflets and go door-to-door in whichever neighbourhood I select, each day.’ He indicated a bundle on the sideboard behind him. ‘Starting tomorrow, you will knock at the door, ask for the lady of the house, recite the verse I have selected, and instruct the woman to deliver the pamphlet into the hands of her husband and master.’
‘What do the pamphlets say?’ She asked the question expecting him to rebuke her for failing to mind her own business. To her surprise, he nodded and waved a finger in the air.
‘Good question. They are invitations, requiring the men of the neighbourhood to attend a service at my meeting hall so they may find out how to save their immortal souls from eternal damnation.’ He handed her a leaflet. ‘You may read one. Although not now. First you must ready yourself by learning the verse I have chosen for you.’
At last, here was her opportunity to get away from this house and call on her mother. She could easily dump the flyers in a rubbish bin and she still had the ten shillings Sam had given her for bus fare.
‘I will be testing you, Hannah Henderson, as well as the various neighbourhoods and the verses I give you each day.’
‘Testing me?’
‘By results. The power of mathematics. Each day we will see how many men come along to hear the truth of God and bear witness. I will know which roads and districts prove the most fruitful and which Bible verses the most effective. I will also know whether you have been fulfilling your mission as directed.’
‘How?’
‘What do you mean, woman?’ The word woman was spoken as if it were a curse.
‘How will you be able to tell the difference between the different districts, the verses and my own role? If every day I call on a different neighbourhood, reciting a different verse how can you tell which factor was most influential? And how will you know if other things might dissuade people from coming on a particular night – such as whether there’s a sporting fixture or a programme on the wireless that no one wants to miss?’
‘I will know because I am God’s instrument. God will guide me,’ he thundered. ‘And how dare you presume to compare the chance to bear witness to God and hear my preaching of his word with a football match or a wireless broadcast. Has your father taught you nothing? The wireless, the cinema and the library are all creations of the devil. God will punish you for saying such things, for bringing your sinful thoughts under this roof and casting shame upon my son!’ He thumped the top of the table with his fist, scraped back his chair and left the room. A moment later the three of them heard the front door crash.
‘Blimey, love, you ought to know better by now.’ Nance shook her head and went into the scullery to stick the kettle on again.
Sam gave Hannah a meaningful look and got up from the table. ‘Don’t provoke him. It will only come back to make things worse for you. You’ll never win by trying to be clever.’ He went into the hall, to put on his coat and hat and collect his briefcase, then stuck his head back round the door. His voice low, he said, ‘Don’t do anything silly, Hannah. Bide your time.’ Then he was gone.
She went over to the sideboard and saw there was a piece of paper with the chosen verse, from the Book of Malachi, written down.
Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.
The next morning, Henderson demanded that she recite the rote-learned verse. In spite of feeling self-conscious and foolish she correctly recited the verse.
‘Use more enthusiasm,’ he said. ‘You make it sound as though you don’t believe it. If you are to persuade the women of the urgency of their husbands answering the call of God, you must speak with conviction.’
‘But they’ll think I’m crazy if they open their doors and I just start incanting the words. Can I say something else first?’
‘Do as I tell you. Say the verse then hand them the pamphlet and instruct them to give it to their husbands so that they might be saved by the Lord.’ His face telegraphed his impatience. ‘Are you stupid, woman?’
‘No. Of course I’m not. But—’
‘Then do my bidding for it is God’s bidding.’ He looked at his watch. ’Time to go. Bring the pamphlets.’
Hannah followed him out of the room and out of the house, the bundle of leaflets in her arms.
They began a few streets away in a road of terraced houses, each with a front ‘garden’ that was little more than a strip of concrete or soil less than a couple of feet wide. Low walls provided somewhat extravagant boundaries, separating these meagre plots of land from the pavement in a symbolic aspirational gesture.
Henderson indicated the first house she was to call on.
‘You mean I’m to do it alone?’
‘I will be watching.’
She was about to answer back, then decided her best option was compliance if she were to earn the trust of this man and so be allowed to do the missionary work alone. Detaching a leaflet from the bundle, she approached and knocked at the door.
Almost immediately, it opened. A woman wearing an apron appeared. Her hair was in rolle
rs under a head scarf, stockings rolled down to her ankles. ‘Yes?’
Hannah launched into her Bible recitation. Before the first sentence was finished the door was slammed in her face. She turned back to the pavement. Henderson swept his hand forward, indicating she was to knock again. Mortified, she complied.
The door opened again. ‘Piss off. We’re Catholics. And if you knock on this door again you’ll get a bucket of water in your face.’
The reception was similar in the next house, and the one after that. Humiliated, embarrassed and wanting to run a mile, Hannah turned to her father-in-law. ‘Please, Mr Henderson, this is pointless. No one is interested. It’s clearly a Catholic district.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘“Many are called but few are chosen.” This is God’s work. Hold up your head and do His bidding.’
They trudged the streets for several hours. As door after door was closed in her face, Henderson told her to push the pamphlets through the letterbox. She asked him if it might be better to do that in the first place and cut out the door knocking, which was raising hostility.
‘Women don’t want to be interrupted while they’re doing housework. If I just posted the leaflets through the doors, it would be less likely to antagonise them. They’d probably read them out of curiosity, whereas if they’re annoyed they might throw them in the bin.’
He glowered at her but must have acknowledged the truth of what she said as while he didn’t voice his agreement, he didn’t object when she started to put this plan into action. Eventually, all the flyers posted, they returned to The Laurels.
* * *
The following morning there was no mention of distributing more leaflets. The pile remained on the sideboard. Perhaps Henderson didn’t want to spend another morning tramping the streets with her and wasn’t ready to allow her to go alone without his supervision.
After the men of the house had left, she told Nance she was going to carry on with the missionary work today.
‘He didn’t tell me that.’ Nance was clearly suspicious. ‘Never said owt.’
Storms Gather Between Us Page 25