Goodnight Sweetheart

by Pam Weaver

  Lyman leaned towards Romare. ‘You can go now, boy. And keep your filthy black hands off white girls, d’you hear me?’

  Romare pointed to the badge on his arm. ‘I think I outrank you, soldier,’ he said, his voice as cold as ice.

  Lyman’s face went the colour of puce and, as he squared up to Romare, one of the organisers came bounding over to the table. ‘Now come along, lads,’ he said firmly. ‘None of that nonsense here, if you please. We’re all in this together, aren’t we?’

  The two men separated but as a gesture of defiance, Lyman tossed the chair over as he turned to leave. Romare pulled up another chair and sat at the table. Frankie turned to her friend.

  ‘Doreen, do you remember I wrote and told you about a man I’d just met? Well, this is him. Doreen, meet Romare, Romare, meet Doreen, one of my oldest friends.’

  The pair of them shook hands but in no time at all, Doreen was back on the dance floor with another black man. They were so good at the jitter-bug that just before the interval, rather than share the floor with her, people peeled back to the edges of the room to watch her and her partner. When the music stopped everybody clapped and Doreen and her partner took a bow.

  Frankie and Romare hardly noticed. They were busy catching up with each other. ‘That Lyman Spinks seems a pretty nasty piece of work,’ Frankie remarked. ‘I can’t believe he spoke to you like that.’

  ‘Spinks and I go back a long way,’ said Romare.

  Frankie was surprised. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Romare. ‘His family owned the cotton fields my family worked on as slaves.’

  ‘Your family were slaves?’ Frankie squeaked.

  ‘Way back,’ Romare said. ‘As soon as my great-great-granddaddy was freed, the Spinks family made him a tenant. They gave him one mule and two acres of land.’

  ‘My aunt and uncle have a smallholding,’ said Frankie. ‘I know how hard the work is.’

  Romare nodded. ‘By the time my grand-daddy worked the land they realised that they had swapped one form of slavery for another. They bought the seed and the fertiliser; they maintained the farm buildings and planted. When the crop matured, they harvested it but then the landlord took half.’

  ‘What!’ Frankie cried. ‘You’re joking.’

  Romare’s face had a far-away look. ‘There was little to spare so the corn store offered them credit.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Frankie said crossly. ‘The corn store belonged to Spinks.’

  Romare nodded. ‘For a long time it seemed like we’d never be free.’

  ‘But you made it,’ said Frankie, her admiration making her eyes sparkle.

  ‘It was touch and go,’ Romare admitted. ‘When I left for Washington my daddy said “Be sure and hide your railroad ticket. You don’t want old man Spinks taking it from you.”’

  Their gaze drifted towards a group of white Americans who seemed to be deep in conversation.

  ‘Lyman’s father?’ Frankie asked.

  Romare nodded again. ‘When I got to the railroad station, Lyman’s car drew up. I can see him now. “Where you goin’, boy?” He knew where I was going. It was the talk of the town. The black folks were proud of me. “Did you heared that? Romare Delaney got a scholarship.” But the white folks was mad. “He aint nothin’ but another uppity black-toed pigeon,” they said. “Who does he think he is?”’

  Romare stopped talking and lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m spoiling your evening. I shouldn’t rake all this up again.’

  ‘No, no, it’s okay,’ said Frankie. She sensed that he needed to get this off his chest. ‘Go on,’ she encouraged.

  ‘Spinks demanded to see my ticket,’ said Romare with a shrug. ‘“You need a ticket to get on the train,” he told me. “You got a ticket, boy?”’

  ‘I hope you refused to show it to him,’ said Frankie.

  Romare laughed sardonically. ‘I knew better than that. Even if I looked him in the eye I’d be frogmarched to the nearest police station. They’d lock me up on some trumped up charge and I’d miss my train.’

  Frankie stared at him open-mouthed. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I gave him a ticket,’ said Romare.

  ‘And?’ Frankie asked anxiously.

  ‘He tore it up.’

  ‘Oh Romare …’ she whispered.

  Romare leaned back in his chair. ‘Don’t you fret, little lady,’ he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘As soon as he’d gone, I ran like hell to the depot.’

  Puzzled, Frankie frowned.

  ‘I had my ticket in my sock,’ he grinned.

  ‘But I thought you said …’ Frankie began.

  ‘A couple of weeks before, I’d picked up a railroad ticket on the floor in the corn store. Somebody dropped it. It was no good. That was the ticket Lyman tore up.’

  They made eye contact and they laughed.

  ‘There will now be an interval for twenty minutes,’ the organiser called out, ‘so get your raffle tickets now.’

  Frankie explained what the raffle was and then noticed that Romare already had a strip of tickets in his top pocket. He raised an eyebrow and she laughed out loud. He was so easy to be with. ‘There’s a pair of stockings on the table,’ she told him confidentially. ‘I haven’t had a new pair in ages.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘Your wish is my command, my lovely English rose,’ he said, giving her a mock salute.

  The line sounded a little corny but as their eyes met, she felt the colour rise to her cheeks. He had meant every word.

  Doreen was back, this time with a man in tow. His skin glistened with perspiration. ‘This is Henry,’ she said. ‘He’s a terrific dancer. Sit down, Henry, and rest your bones.’

  Henry snapped to attention. ‘Sir, permission to sit, sir.’

  Romare gave him a lazy smile. ‘Sit, soldier,’ he said. ‘We’re off duty now.’

  Henry draped an arm around Doreen’s shoulder and sat next to her.

  The interval came to an end and the raffle started. Sadly none of their tickets came up but, as luck would have it, Spinks won the stockings. The night was almost over by the time they all went back to the dance floor and Frankie was already feeling anxious that she would soon have to say goodbye. Romare held her close for the last waltz, his mouth and warm breath close to her hairline. Her whole body tingled with desire and then the lights went up.

  ‘That’s it, folks,’ the organiser called out. ‘Thank you for coming and be careful to observe the blackout as you leave.’

  Doreen and her partner were kissing on the dance floor. Reluctantly Frankie fetched their coats from the ladies’ cloakroom and while Doreen went outside with Henry, Romare helped her put her coat on. ‘I’m in this area for a while,’ he said. ‘If we can both get leave we could see each other again?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ she said.

  They were interrupted by a terrible scream outside. While everybody looked around in stunned surprise, Doreen burst back through the doors. ‘Oh please, they’ve stabbed him. You’ve got to come. There’s so much blood. Please, please help him.’

  Thirty-Two

  It was gone one in the morning before Frankie got back to her billet. Terrified that her landlady, Mrs Evans, would refuse to let her in, she had allowed Romare to accompany her to the door. He had insisted on bringing her home himself. They knocked on the door twice. Eventually Mrs Evans opened the door and stood with her arms folded over her ample bosom. One look at her angry expression told Frankie she wasn’t going to believe anything she said.

  ‘Mrs Evans …’ she began.

  ‘I run a respectable house,’ Mrs Evans interrupted tartly. ‘I don’t hold with girls who stay out half the night with men, especially coloured men.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Romare said quietly, ‘I should hate for you to think ill of Miss Sherwood. My name is Doctor Delaney and Miss Sherwood was assisting me in an emergency at the hospital.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give you ten out of ten for origina
lity, young man,’ Mrs Evens sneered. ‘I’ve never heard it called that before.’

  ‘Miss Sherwood,’ said Romare addressing Frankie, and ignoring her angry landlady, ‘if you would like to get your dress professionally cleaned, you can send the bill to the hospital and I will personally see to it that you are reimbursed for any expense.’ He saluted smartly adding, ‘The United States of America is grateful for what you have done tonight to assist one of her citizens and so am I. Goodnight, Miss Sherwood, and goodnight to you too, Ma’am.’ With that he walked swiftly to his jeep and drove off.

  Frankie could tell that Mrs Evans had had the wind taken out of her sails but she still wasn’t entirely convinced. The doorway was darkened because she had automatically drawn the blackout curtain before she’d stepped outside, but once Frankie was indoors she could see the state she was in. There were blood stains from just below her bust line down onto the skirt. Her hands had been washed (she’d done that in the ladies whilst she waited to hear what had happened to Henry) but there were still definite smears of blood on her upper arms.

  ‘Good Lord!’ Mrs Evans exclaimed. ‘Whatever happened?’

  ‘A man was attacked after the dance,’ Frankie said quietly. She had become aware that the other girls were gathering on the landing upstairs.

  ‘There’s no hot water in the tank,’ said Mrs Evans. ‘You’d better come into the kitchen and get cleaned up.’

  The other lodgers took that as an invitation to come downstairs and Frankie was surprised to see that Doreen was with them. ‘Miss Toms is here just for the night,’ said Mrs Evans, clearly having no idea that Doreen had already been kipping on the floor in Frankie’s room for two nights. ‘She missed her train.’

  Everyone gathered around the table as Mrs Evans put the kettle on. ‘So tell us what happened, dear,’ she said, her tone of voice completely changed and far more sympathetic.

  Frankie hesitated. It had been so terrible she struggled to find the words.

  ‘We thought the poor man had been stabbed,’ she said looking directly at Doreen, who had come back with the other girls while Frankie went with Henry and Romare to the hospital, ‘but it was much worse than that.’ She saw Doreen put her fingers to her lips, her eyes widen with apprehension.

  Mrs Evans put a bowl of warm water onto the table. Frankie slipped out of her dress and stood in her petticoat. Pressing her hands under the water, she began to wash down her arms. All at once her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh Mrs Evans,’ she said brokenly, ‘they’d cut his thing off.’

  She heard a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room.

  ‘Cut his thing off?’ Mrs Evans repeated. ‘But why?’

  Frankie’s voice was small. ‘Because he’d danced with a white girl.’

  Doreen cried out and ran from the room. One of the other girls followed her and the group could hear the sound of crying in the hallway. Mrs Evans stood with her back to everybody, her hands braced against the sink. ‘Well, I don’t hold with our girls going with coloureds, but nobody deserves that.’

  Frankie continued to wash her arms as silent tears wet her own cheeks. Nobody spoke. They were all in shock. The kettle boiled and Mrs Evans made some tea. Frankie dried her arms and sat.

  As she pushed cups of tea around the table Mrs Evans said, ‘Will the poor man be all right?’

  ‘Doctor Delaney said he’d have difficulty in spending a penny,’ said Frankie, ‘but the main problem is the loss of blood. He was haemorrhaging pretty badly when we found him.’

  Doreen, puffy-eyed and as white as a sheet, came back into the room. ‘Will he die?’

  ‘At the moment he’s holding his own,’ said Frankie using the stock phrase so favoured by hospitals. Nobody knew what it meant but it gave people a vague understanding of the seriousness of the moment.

  ‘I suppose it means he can’t have children,’ one of the other girls said.

  Doreen made a small sound in her throat.

  Frankie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Doctor Delaney said he’d been quite damaged down there but I’m not exactly sure what that means.’

  ‘So how come you were involved?’ Mrs Evans asked.

  ‘I was with him in the back of the jeep on the way to the hospital,’ said Frankie. ‘I just held him.’ She closed her eyes remembering how Henry had wept and cried for his mother and howled in pain all the way to the American hospital in Kingston Lacy. It was an image she would carry in her head for a long time. ‘He was in a lot of pain.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Doreen whispered.

  ‘No!’ Frankie said fiercely. ‘Don’t you dare think that. Henry was having a wonderful evening. It’s the fault of small-minded racists. It’s the fault of people who think that because they are white they are somehow superior. It’s the fault of their parents for bringing them up that way. It’s the fault of their jealousy and bigotry …’ She choked on her words and then burst into tears. A couple of the girls comforted her as best they could.

  After a few minutes Mrs Evans cleared her throat and said stiffly, ‘Well, girls, I think you should all go back to bed. Some of you are on duty in the morning.’

  Miserably they all filed out of the kitchen and made their way upstairs.

  ‘Frankie,’ said Mrs Evans as she walked out of the kitchen, ‘I may not share the same views as you but I’m sorry for not quite believing you.’

  Frankie acknowledged her apology with a nod of her head and made her weary way up to her room.

  Doreen lay wide eyed on the floor between the two beds. As Frankie undressed and climbed into her bed she whispered, ‘I can’t believe that happened.’

  ‘I know,’ Frankie whispered back.

  ‘I couldn’t do anything to help him,’ said Doreen. ‘That big man pulled my arm right back and I fell over. I saw the three of them grab Henry and then he screamed.’ She began to cry again. ‘I didn’t realise, Frankie. I didn’t know. I thought they’d just cut him.’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done,’ said Frankie.

  Doreen blew her nose. ‘Henry was a lovely man. Do you think I could go and see him in hospital?’

  ‘I think you’d best stay out of it,’ said Frankie’s room-mate in the other bed. ‘Those Yanks are big trouble.’

  ‘But I’ll have to tell the American military police what happened, won’t I?’ Doreen murmured.

  ‘Please yourself,’ said the girl, ‘but you’ll probably make things a whole lot worse for him.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Doreen gasped.

  Frankie’s tone was bitter. ‘Because it was one of the snowdrops who did it.’

  The heavy wooden doors swung open and two military policemen, one black, the other white, both wearing the army issue white helmets which had given them the nick-name of ‘snowdrops’, strolled down the centre of the hospital ward. Henry sank back against the pillow in a vain effort to make himself smaller. He was more comfortable now. The pain was less acute since the doctor had given him that shot. He could feel tears coming again as he remembered what they had done to him. What sort of a man was he now? A man with only half a pocket-rocket. And what about Erma? They’d already got three kids and she’d told him she don’t want no more but what sort of a husband would he be from now on? What if he couldn’t get what was left up, and how could he satisfy her even if he could? How was he going to tell her? The snowdrops were coming his way and his blood ran cold when he saw that one of them was Sergeant Spinks. Dear God, he hadn’t come to finish the job, had he? As they marched towards him, Henry was only too well aware that Spinks was a stickler for respect but he hadn’t the strength to leap from his bed and stand to attention. Besides, the blood transfusion equipment was in the way. He pulled his body straight and stared up at the ceiling.

  ‘At ease, soldier,’ Spinks said in his distinctive southern drawl as he removed his helmet. ‘We just come to ask you some questions about Saturday night. This here is First Sergeant Giles.’

  Giles leaned over the
bed and shook Henry’s hand. ‘I’m real sorry this happened to you, soldier,’ he said.

  Spinks pulled up a chair and sat. ‘I hope I can rely on you to tell this officer the truth. We none of us want to waste time.’

  Although he was more senior in rank, First Sergeant Giles, a black man, was left standing. He looked around for another chair and spotted one on the other side of the room.

  ‘The First Sergeant is going to be taking some notes,’ Spinks went on as the black officer walked out of ear shot. ‘We aim to do all in our power to catch the bums that did this to you.’

  As Spinks made eye contact with him, Henry’s eyes grew wide and his heart was thumping in his chest. What was his game? Before the black officer returned, Spinks leaned close to Henry’s ear and whispered, ‘I hope you’ve learned your lesson, boy.’ Henry trembled.

  ‘So,’ said Giles, sitting down and getting out his notebook, ‘you were at the dance all evening.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you get involved in a fight or annoy someone?’

  Spinks, who sat turning his ring on his finger, glanced up and Henry shook his head vigorously. ‘No sir.’

  ‘You went outside with a girl, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Spinks tut-tutted as he took a silver case from his top pocket and took out a cigarette. He tapped it on the case then put it between his lips and lit it with his lighter.

  Giles was still scribbling. ‘And what was your intention?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Just a kiss goodnight, that’s all. I is a married man.’

  Spinks shook his head in a disapproving manner.

  ‘Then what happened?’

  By now Henry’s eyes were as big as saucers. ‘I ain’t too sure, sir. All I knows is, somebody grabbed me from behind.’ He turned his head away as if ashamed to voice what happened next. ‘They pulled my pants down and then I felt them cut me …’ His eyes filled with tears then he blurted out, ‘They cut my dick right off, sir.’