The Girl Behind the Gates

by Brenda Davies

  ‘What about?’

  Her mother withdraws her hand, suddenly impatient. ‘Nora! This is the last time. Tell me the truth. Are you sure you can’t be in a family way?’

  Nora’s breathing seems to have stopped and yet her heart is racing as her stomach clenches and sweat beads on her brow. For the first time in many weeks, she finally looks at her mother, whose eyes shift through anger to frustration to worry, before settling on fear. All at once, the true extent of the anguish Nora is causing to her loved ones hits her – made worse by the knowledge of more to come. Tears fill her eyes and her lip trembles and slowly, finally, she nods.

  Time stalls, then fear, sadness and guilt tear at her heart as she watches her mother’s mouth fall open in astonishment. She freezes as her mother’s brow puckers, her eyes searching Nora’s face as though looking for anything that might prove that this is still the daughter she thought she knew so well. Nora turns away, no longer able to bear the agony of her mother’s disappointment.

  ‘But Nora, you don’t even have a boyfriend . . .’ she whispers, then she blanches as the thought that has haunted Nora occurs to her for the first time. ‘What will your father say? Oh, goodness.’

  ‘Please don’t tell him,’ Nora begs, clutching at her mother’s hands, but her mother moves them out of reach, her fingers flicking in a shooing motion, as though fending off contamination. A surge of confusion floods the gulf between them, love drowned in the whirlpools of fear spinning in Nora’s belly as she flounders in the horror of the possibility that her mother might not love her any more. She’d expected this kind of reaction from her father, but never her mother.

  ‘Mummy . . .’

  Her mother’s eyes finally meet Nora’s once more, their usual fire extinguished. She seems to Nora to have aged a decade in the last ten seconds.

  ‘Who is the father?’ Her voice wavers, balanced on the brink of collapse. Strands of hair that have escaped from her mother’s chignon hang untidily at her neck and down her jumper. Nora resists the urge to gather them up and tuck them back into their usual flawless arrangement.

  Nora lowers her head. ‘I can’t,’ she mutters.

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t? Tell me this minute. Who is the father?’

  But Nora’s jaw is set just like her father’s when he is determined not to be moved, and this seems to infuriate her mother all the more. In a silence more sinister than rage, she stands and sweeps from the room.

  Nora huddles on her bed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she gasps, the now all-too-familiar tears welling in her eyes once more.

  After a few minutes that feel more like days to Nora, her father’s voice bellows up from the hall below. ‘Nora, get down these stairs. Now.’

  She sits stock-still and huddles closer to herself. She looks down and sees as though from the outside that her hands, usually so steady, have begun to tremble.

  ‘If you aren’t down here in one minute, I shall come up there and get you.’

  Nora shudders and stands, smoothing down her dress. She has never heard him so angry – and that is saying something. She picks her way down the stairs, clinging to the mahogany banister for support, faintness threatening to overcome her. She feels strangely separated from her body. Her father glowers up at her from the hallway, then, without a word, points to the parlour.

  This room, which has held fun and laughter, bouncing children, afternoon teas and Christmas singing, feels foreign to Nora now. Her beloved piano stands quiet, withholding from her its music and its white-toothed smile.

  ‘Who is the father?’ he barks. A vague dismay settles over Nora – of course that’s all he cares about – before she sweeps it away. Even with the fear of what might come threatening to choke her, Nora knows she cannot tell. She hangs her head, silent.

  Her father advances on her and she flinches. He stops in front of her and brings his face ominously close to hers. ‘I’m asking you – who is the father? You will tell me.’ Even muffled by the effects of the quinine, the heat of his voice blasts into her, burning her cheek. She’s been here before, many times. The only thing she can do is remain very small and very still, but after what feels like a century, she risks lifting her head, just in time for his hand to make contact with the side of her face with a sharp cracking sound. She reels sideways, stumbling to keep her balance, her hand cradling her cheek.

  ‘Henry!’ Alarm laces her mother’s voice, but her father is already reaching for the leather belt that hangs from its hook by the fireplace – an ever-present reminder to the children of the consequences of misbehaviour. It’s been some years since he has used it on her, but Nora remembers well not only its bite but also the degradation that far outweighs the pain.

  ‘Henry, don’t.’ Nora’s mother steps in front of her. ‘No, Henry.’

  Her father pushes her mother out of the way and grabs Nora’s arm, ignoring the silent tears running down his daughter’s face. The blows come in rapid succession, striking her back, her arms, her legs, her head – whichever part of her the belt can reach. Nora tries to block it all out, focusing instead on his heavy breathing that becomes almost a series of grunts as he tires. She learned long ago how to get out of her body and curl up in a safe corner by the ceiling until it’s all over. She watches her poor body as it twitches and crumples until, exhausted and spent, her father finally pushes it to the floor.

  ‘Do you know what we’ve sacrificed for you?’ he bellows. ‘Have you any idea? And this is how you repay us. Your life as it could have been is gone. Do you hear?’ Nora looks up into her father’s face. It is ugly in anger and his eyes hold no remorse, only fury. ‘I’m finished with you,’ he spits, and the break in his voice deepens the one in Nora’s heart. He turns and storms out of the room, his belt discarded on the carpet beside Nora’s beaten body. Nora lies still, unable to move or look away from the tears staining the carpet at her mother’s feet.

  The front door slams. The clock ticks off small portions of time and, somewhere inside her, Nora knows that her life will be similarly ticked off, bit by bit, by some unseen hand. She knows, somehow, that she will have ample time to regret how she has killed her parents’ dreams, their pride in her and, seemingly, their love for her.

  When Nora finally awakes to her surroundings once more, her mother is gone from the room. The clock strikes eight thirty. She pushes herself to her feet gingerly, the pain of the beating renewed with every movement. Slowly, she climbs the stairs to her room and collapses, finally tearless, onto her bed.

  Chapter Three

  Nora’s eyes search the blackness for any clue as to the time. Everything feels arrested, its natural rhythm stilted by the horror of the last few hours. Untethered from the life she had blithely looked forward to, she is adrift, her bearings lost. There is no safe harbour in sight. She listens to the silence and it fills her with foreboding.

  With careful fingers she examines the tender swelling on her cheek, then gingerly explores the welts on her arms and her back. She’s aware of soft, cushioned sounds as she shifts in bed, and pauses. She shakes her head and hears the friction of her hair against the pillow. Closing her eyes, she listens to her own shallow, stuttering breaths and closes her eyes in gratitude at the return of her hearing.

  The floor is cold as she tiptoes out to the bathroom, pausing on the landing to listen. Then alarm clutches her throat with icy fingers: she is alone. She feels her father’s belt’s work with every step down the stairs to the hallway, where again she stops to listen. The only sound is the comforting ticking of the grandfather clock. Hardly breathing, she edges over to the doorway of the parlour. Silence. Blackness.

  A tiny sound emerges from the darkness and she stops still. As her eyes adjust, the figure of her mother emerges out of the darkness, sitting limp and motionless. And then there’s light, her mother’s hand withdrawing from the lamp she has just switched on.

  Each of them freezes at the sight of the other. Nora can hardly bear to see the face she loves so pale and d
rawn, the narrow nose blue at the tip, the eyes that seem to have sunk into their sockets during the last few hours. Things have irrevocably changed, though a new order isn’t yet established, and both Nora and her mother languish in the void – the no man’s land of shock.

  A familiar sound, usually joyful, now terrifying, startles them both. A key turns in the front door and Nora presses herself back into the wall. In the slice of hallway she can still see, her father leads a parade of men into the parlour. Fear grips her heart and roots her to the ground with the vain hope that she could become invisible.

  ‘Mildred?’ Her father’s voice is cold, insistent. Nora aches, watching her mother’s struggle as they seek out each other’s eyes in the full knowledge that they can protect each other no longer. Nora shrinks, taking refuge in some inner corner of her being to which she still, mercifully, has access. ‘Where is Nora?’

  Her mother doesn’t respond, but she cannot help the sharp dart of her eyes that reveals Nora’s whereabouts. Her father spins round and stares at her, his eyes so cold they burn. Nora stands perfectly still. She yearns to help her mother, who makes one final plea to her husband with fearful eyes while hauling herself onto shaky legs. She pauses briefly, righting her balance, before leaden steps take her straight past the huddle of men and towards Nora.

  ‘Good evening, Mildred.’ Dr Rayne, their family practitioner, holds his trilby in front of his chest, as he might if he were offering condolences. Her mother looks around, her eyes wary. ‘Father Matthews,’ she rasps, lowering her eyes.

  Dr Rayne steps aside and, using his hat as a pointer, introduces the other man – small, squat, and with a pompous air that swells him up like a turkey. ‘This is Dr Mason from Hillinghurst Hospital.’

  ‘Hillinghurst?’ her mother gasps.

  Nora has heard this dreadful word from time to time around the village, and has sensed the garland of shame and fear that always accompanies it. Her eyes bore into the man, who oozes a sense of power that is almost palpable – a power that could silence the clock from its ticking. Yet when he reaches out his hand towards her mother, she ignores it, leaving it to drift back and hang foolishly by his side. Even at this hour, he looks as though he’s just arrived freshly bathed and groomed, his hair plastered to his head with a knife-edge parting – a Brylcreem advert for the older male. Nora watches her mother shrink as though she, too, were preparing for a beating, and her own blood runs cold. ‘What are you doing here?’ her mother demands of the man, a lioness defending her cub. Nora’s eyes fill with silent tears: her mother must still love her, after all.

  ‘I think you ought to speak with your husband, Mildred,’ Dr Rayne says, his voice soothing. He holds a hand out in an attempt to support her, but she recoils from him as though he were a snake. Dr Rayne’s eyes flit from her mother’s face to that of Father Matthews, whose agonised expression speaks of the war between compassion and duty that rages inside him. Nora shifts, her movements stiff and painful, and the frozen tableau cracks.

  ‘Henry,’ Dr Rayne says hesitantly. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Surely there’s another—’

  ‘I’m quite sure. There’s no choice.’ He turns to Nora, not quite meeting her eye. ‘Go upstairs and wait.’

  Nora cowers on her bed fully clothed, her hands tucked under her armpits and her cheeks flushed with crying. Slowly, she rises and hobbles to the mirror. The swelling on the side of her face is red and angry, and her hair looks like the bird’s nest she found in the garden last summer. As her trembling hands work to right it, her thoughts frantically search for an answer to the question that has plagued her now for weeks: what can she do to prevent herself from being the source of any further pain or shame for her parents and her family? Panic rises in her and she casts her eyes around the room. She bites her lip again until she can taste the blood, but even that might not be enough, then her eyes spring open. Her sewing kit! There are needles and pins and scissors . . . She opens her chest of drawers, retrieves the box and scrabbles through its contents. She takes out the scissors and pushes up the sleeve of her jumper.

  There’s no pain. She’s beyond that now. But as she pushes down harder, she’s both curious and surprised that it’s actually quite difficult to cut through skin. She changes hands and tries her other wrist, but all she manages are a few red marks and, here and there, a tiny, sprouting droplet of blood. She tries again with more urgency, more pressure, and finally manages to cut through, releasing a little more blood to the surface and, with it, a strange, welcome relief.

  A sound just outside the door startles her. Her heart races and her breaths come in short gasps. The anaesthetic effect of shock lifts abruptly and her vision clears. She hurries to sit on the bed and hides the scissors under her thigh, wincing at the flare of pain in her wrists. Stupid girl for thinking it would help. She tugs her sleeves down to cover the evidence of her foolishness. Her fingers trace the swelling on her face – that’s sore too. Her father and his belt did their work well.

  All at once her mother is in the doorway, looking like a ghost version of herself. ‘You’d better come downstairs,’ she mutters, holding open the door, but Nora remains on the bed, her eyes downcast.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nora murmurs, blushing at the inadequacy of the word in the face of her parents’ ruined lives.

  ‘You must come down, Nora,’ her mother urges. She begins to turn away, but stops suddenly, her eyes fixed on the counterpane. ‘What have you done?’ Her mother’s whisper sounds like a scream in disguise.

  Nora follows her mother’s gaze and sees the smear of blood on her bedspread. Her heart sputters. ‘Nothing,’ she says, but her hand betrays her as it moves to cover her wrist.

  ‘Let me see,’ her mother commands, grabbing at Nora’s arm. Her mouth falls open as she examines the cuts, then her eyes dart to Nora’s. ‘Nora . . . No . . .’As Nora shifts to hide her wrists, the quinine bottle is dislodged from under the pillow and she gasps. Her palpable fear alerts her mother. Time stops. They look at each other, then at this tiny bottle, which holds the power to blow their lives apart completely and possibly for ever. Nora moves quickly, trying to push it under the pillow again, but her mother grabs it and squints at the label. A groan escapes into the boundless space that now separates them.

  ‘Where did you get these?’

  Nora looks away, silent.

  ‘Nora, where did you get them?’ her mother demands.

  ‘I bought them,’ Nora mutters, steeling herself to maintain eye contact.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Her mother pauses, as though gearing herself up to ask the impossible. ‘Have you taken them?’

  Nora lowers her eyes.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night.’ Tears begin to course down her cheeks again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobs.

  ‘Nora,’ her mother hisses, ‘that is not only a sin against God, but it’s a crime for which you could go to prison.’

  Nora gasps, her eyes wide and her hands trembling. ‘Oh, I didn’t know . . .’ But her mother is already leaving and Nora stares after her, desolate.

  Nora stands stock-still, cut off from everything including her own thoughts, but aware that somewhere the world is continuing without her. She glances around the room, trying to make sense of this new reality in which there seems to be nothing she can depend upon any more. She reaches out her hand and clutches the chest of drawers to steady herself, her heart drumming a beat in her ears, the room swaying about her. What have I done?

  Her body seems to move of its own volition. Her hands pull down her sleeves. Her legs walk to the door. Her eyes lead her to the top of the stairs, but her legs refuse to take her any further. Her lungs draw a painful breath. Her heart still pounds in her ears, and slowly she forces one foot to move onto the first of the stairs, her hand clutching the rail for support.

  Father Matthews looks up and clears his throat, looking sick with shame. Nora’s eyes are flat and dull but dry as, like many a mar
tyr before her, she walks into a nest of vipers. This is what it must feel like descending into hell. Father Matthews looks at his fellow conspirators, his eyes darting from one to the other, seeming to search for something to break this impasse. ‘Maybe this is for the best,’ he offers weakly. ‘You know what people are like in a small place – lots of rumours and . . . Well, there’ll be no peace for you here now, Nora. It’s better that you disappear for a while.’ His voice quivers.

  Nora looks at him blankly until he drops his eyes, self-disgust painted on his face like a mask. Her father stands in front of the ashes in the fireplace, while her mother, trembling, sinks onto the sofa and pulls her cardigan around her. The parlour is chilly, now that the fire has died. Nora moves to stand in the centre of the room at her father’s silent command, her eyes cast down, feeling like a defendant in a murder trial. She eyes the fire screen that stands to one side. The usually bright, cheery roses her mother patiently embroidered are now open, screaming mouths. Dr Rayne clears his throat and steps forward. ‘Nora, your father came to see us this evening and told us of the situation, which, you must be aware, is very serious.’ Nora drags her eyes away from the accusing roses and focuses instead on her own clasped hands. She must trim her nails – it’s irritating when they tap on the piano keys. ‘First we need to be sure that there actually is a pregnancy, so I have to examine you.’

  Nora flinches. She’s known Dr Rayne all her life. He delivered her in her parents’ bedroom upstairs. He examined her throat when she had tonsillitis. He listened to her chest that year when she had bronchitis that seemed to take for ever to go away. He stitched her leg when she fell on some glass. But he’s never examined her intimately. She looks up at her mother, her eyes glassy with fear and shame.

  ‘Your mother will be with us.’ Dr Rayne’s voice is strangely soft. Perhaps he does pity her, then. ‘Mrs Jennings, where can I do the examination?’

  ‘Maybe in Nora’s bedroom,’ she says, her voice low with defeat.