Beyond All Evil

by June Thomson

  I came to a halt at the bus stop. I slid down the passenger window, and the noise of the rain and the street rushed into the car.

  ‘Ash!’ I said loudly to the figure with its back pressed against the Perspex wall of a shelter that was offering scant protection from the rain.

  He heard me and ducked down to look into the car, his face wet and wearing a look of puzzlement. He had only ever seen me in the shop. I was a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings. Then he recognised me.

  ‘Giselle?’ he said, a question mark in his voice.

  ‘Get in!’ I ordered.

  He pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat, shaking his head and spattering me with droplets. He brought with him the fresh smell of the outside.

  ‘Thanks, Giselle,’ he said, drying his face with the palms of his hands.

  He turned to me and smiled, and his eyes were shining.

  Like June said, both of us were drawn like moths to a flame. It was as if we couldn’t help ourselves.

  June: As far as Rab was concerned, it was as if I had never been away.

  ‘Not interested!’ Rab said. ‘Don’t care what you did when you were away. You’re back and that’s that.’

  We were sitting on an ancient, overstuffed sofa in the living room of Rab’s flat. The television was muted and I was trying for the umpteenth time to share with him the stories of my adventures in London. It had been six weeks since I had returned to the crushing ordinariness of life in Kilbirnie. London was a memory, one that I was now painting with a veneer of glamour it probably didn’t deserve. I had become something of a heroine to my circle of friends because I had escaped small-town life, albeit for only a relatively short period. They demanded that I regale them with tales of London life, which I was happy to do, and bask in the reflected glow of their admiration.

  Rab, on the other hand, seemed determined to obliterate my brief bid for freedom, ordering me to ‘shut up’ whenever I broached the subject. As far as he was concerned it was as if it had never happened, as if I had never been away. Any lingering sense I had of being special for having escaped the monotony was quickly stifled.

  I was here, we were together, and that was an end to it. Nothing and everything had changed since I had been away. Rab had also left Kilbirnie for a little while, travelling to the Highlands, where he worked briefly for the Forestry Commission. He, too, had come home, and with enough money to rent a one-bedroom flat. He had quickly got another job.

  Rab was a workhorse; he never shied away from labour, but he was too much of an outdoorsman to be dragged into an office or succeed in business. He had grown up on a farm on the outskirts of Kilbirnie. Like me, he came from a big family. He had four brothers and two sisters. His father, Alexander, was a successful businessman, with many interests locally.

  Compared with my upbringing, Rab’s early years appeared to me to have been privileged. While my father walked to work, Rab’s dad drove large, flashy cars. There did not seem to be any lack of money in the family, but, according to Rab, love was in short supply in his home and he claimed his childhood was miserable. His father, he said, had been tough and often brutal, thrashing him regularly with a horsewhip for any and all small acts of disobedience. I could never equate Rab’s description of his father with the jovial man whom I came to know. But as my granny – a woman who loved her homilies – was wont to say, ‘Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?’

  Rab also insisted that his mother, Helen, was a cold and unemotional woman. When I met her, I certainly found her to be undemonstrative and not the type to encourage a kiss or a hug. She was by nature reserved, a woman seemingly overly concerned with what ‘outsiders’ thought of her and her family.

  I could never be certain if Rab was telling the truth about his early years or whether they were the lies of the ‘black sheep’ of the family. That was certainly Rab’s place in the scheme of things. While his brothers and sisters did well for themselves, Rab was the one who never quite made the grade. His reputation, such as it was, was for being a very hard worker in a series of undemanding outdoor jobs. He had another, less respectable reputation for an explosive temper and a volatile nature. He fought with everyone: his brothers, his so-called friends, strangers in the street, in fact anyone who penetrated his thin emotional defences.

  I was now part of Rab’s world, for good or ill. I was sitting in his flat. It was inevitable that I, too, would soon be calling it home. Rab raised the volume on the television, signalling an end to our conversation.

  ‘Forget this London shite … what about my tea?’

  Giselle: Ash was swamping me with his kind of ‘love’.

  He asked if I liked the perfume.

  ‘I’m sure it’s lovely,’ I said, unscrewing the silver top from the clear glass bottle and holding it to my nose. Lemon, orange, mandarin and grapefruit exploded in a citrus burst.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I murmured, inhaling the fragrance.

  ‘It’s Happy,’ said Ash.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘It’s called Happy,’ he said. ‘By Clinique! I saw the name and I thought of you. You make me happy.’

  I laughed, caught between pleasure and self-consciousness. To my untrained ear, Ash’s compliments still sounded contrived, but what did I know? This was all new to me, being fussed over by a man. It was the fifth bottle of perfume Ash had bought for me in as many weeks since that night in the rain. The others were in the drawer of my dressing table. Ash and I were still a ‘secret’, even from my mother. Especially from my mother. She would go to town and her teasing would reach epidemic proportions. If she had anything to do with it, my burgeoning relationship would be the talk of the town.

  ‘I want you to wear it!’ Ash said, taking the bottle out of my hand and spraying perfume in the direction of my neck.

  I recoiled instinctively.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ he said.

  There was urgency in his voice, an edge that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  ‘Of course I like it,’ I said, pushing away a sudden sense of unease.

  He smiled and seemed relieved.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I replied, taking the bottle from him and spraying perfume onto my wrists.

  I didn’t particularly like the fragrance. I preferred floral perfumes.

  He was looking at me intently. I sprayed more perfume, this time on my neck.

  ‘See,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely!’

  It just seemed easier to please him. He relaxed. I replaced the top on the bottle and slid it into my bag.

  ‘That smells nice,’ said a new voice. A waiter had materialised at the side of the table.

  We were in the dining room of a small hotel on the outskirts of the city. Our relationship had thus far been a series of such assignations. When Ash finished work in the evening, I would be waiting for him in the car, somewhere nearby where we couldn’t be spotted from the high flats. We had just slipped into this way of doing things. On the night I had rescued him from the rain we had gone for a drink in a bar near where he lived. With our coats sheltering our heads, we had sprinted from the car to the welcoming warmth of the little pub. Every eye looked up as we swept in through the doors, breathless with laughter.

  For the first time in my life, I had been devoid of self-consciousness. I was happy. Free. Giselle Ross, aged 32-and-a-half, was on a date. It may have come about by default, but it was nonetheless a proper, grown-up date.

  If I had bumped into Ash on the street, on a sunny summer’s day, I would have offered him a timid ‘Hi!’ and walked on. On that rainy night, my natural inclination to help had emboldened me to offer him a lift. We were together now. How could I believe that this was anything other than meant to be?

  Within an hour, the handsome man from behind the glass partition of the post office had emerged as a real person. He was no longer just the joker who teased me, no longer the aloof shopkeeper so disliked by many of my neighbours. I
learned about his life, how he lived with and cared for his mother. He told me of his dreams and aspirations, and of how he was going to be ‘somebody’ some day. By the time I had dropped him off at his home later that evening, I felt exhilarated. Was this what it felt like to fall in love?

  In the weeks following, I would learn the answer to that question. He overwhelmed me with flowers and tokens of his affection, the latest of which had just disappeared into my handbag. I placed the bag under the table and looked up at the waiter.

  ‘Would you like to order now? Madam?’

  ‘She’ll have a medium steak, with salad,’ Ash said, adding, ‘Bring me the same.’

  He closed the burgundy-red leather menu and handed it to the waiter, without looking at the man.

  ‘To drink … Madam?’ the waiter asked, looking at me.

  ‘Diet Coke,’ said Ash. ‘And can you bring a jug of water? I’ll have a large vodka and lemonade.’

  The waiter was still looking at me. He smiled, closed his order book and walked away. Ash’s eyes followed him.

  ‘Do you know him?’ he asked.

  I looked in the direction of the retreating waiter and said, ‘No. I’ve never seen in my life before. Why?’

  ‘It was just that he was looking at you,’ Ash said.

  June: I should have walked away the moment it happened.

  The back of Rab’s left hand, enlarged to the size of a dinner plate, smashed into my face, his knuckles connecting with my nose.

  My head snapped back and I heard rather than felt the sound of the blow. I was momentarily plunged into darkness. When the fog cleared, my hand was on my face, blood pouring through my fingers. I could taste metal and for a few seconds I could not fully comprehend what had just happened. His lips were close enough to my face to spray spittle on the back of the hand that was pressing on my nose.

  ‘Fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he growled.

  ‘Wha …’

  I couldn’t even finish the word.

  ‘You fucking ever look at another man, you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

  He was furious. Tears were running down my face, mingling with the blood. We were in Rab’s car. It was raining outside and the windscreen was smeared. I couldn’t tell if it was the effect of the rain or if I was still disoriented. Voices from outside wafted into the car and I saw five of my workmates walking through the gates of the factory where we worked.

  And then I remembered. Rab had come to pick me up and I had just got into the car when my colleagues appeared. All of them were men. I rolled down the window and shouted to them, telling them to have a good weekend. I waved as they returned the greeting. I had just rolled up the window and was turning towards Rab when he hit me.

  No one else had seen what he had done. I slumped down in the seat as Rab drove through the gates, passing my workmates, who waved in the direction of the car. I was frozen with shock. I could see the puzzlement on the men’s faces because I hadn’t responded. The rest of the journey passed in a silence pregnant with menace. I didn’t dare utter a sound.

  Rab seethed. I had retrieved a handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed my nose. I pulled down the sun visor, and looked in the small vanity mirror. My reflection revealed a blood-stained face. The blood was caked around my nostrils and mouth. My blouse was splotched with dark stains. I didn’t think my nose was broken, but an angry weal stretched across the bridge. My teeth ached.

  Rab glared at me, silently daring me to say a word.

  I said nothing. I was terrified. This was the first time he had struck me. I had witnessed his rages, seen his fists flying, but they had never been directed at me. My mind raced. Shock, anger, and a sense of betrayal and fear competed with each other. Every instinct told me to remain silent. We came to a halt outside Rab’s flat, where we were now living together.

  ‘Get up the fucking stairs,’ he said.

  I pushed open the car door, trying to keep my head still. I felt that if I moved too quickly it would fall off. I walked painfully, slowly, pausing at the door of the flat to allow Rab to unlock it. He loomed over me. I was intimidated.

  The only other time I had felt like was when Rab tore to shreds a brand-new black cat-suit I had bought. In the few months we had been together I had learned that Rab had very specific ideas about how he liked me to be dressed. A slinky, figure-hugging one-piece suit was not acceptable. Whores dressed like that, he insisted. When I had first seen the cat-suit in the shop I had fallen in love with it. I couldn’t wait to wear it for him, to show it off. I had spent hours doing my hair and make-up.

  When he saw me, he said, ‘Take it off!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Take that thing off.’

  ‘Why?’ I pleaded.

  ‘Take off that fucking whore’s outfit or I’ll take it off,’ he shouted into my face.

  He followed me into the bedroom, and I was still struggling to get out of the suit when he grabbed it and began tearing it apart. He was utterly furious, enraged, for no reason I could understand.

  Now, as I sat on the bed, nursing my battered face, I wept silently for fear that my tears would provoke more anger. My best friend’s words came back into my mind. Wilma had warned me, ‘Stay away from him, he’s a pig!’

  I remembered my defiant response.

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s lovely. I’ll show you all. I’ll change him.’

  How could I go crawling back now and admit that they were right – and I was wrong? I could hear their words of comfort and see their told-you-so expressions. Granny had warned me often of lying on beds of my own making. I lay back now – on Rab’s bed – closed my eyes against the light and tried to shut down the turmoil in my head. I heard a sound at the bedroom door. Rab had come into the room. He looked down on me and I felt my stomach lurch.

  ‘We should get engaged,’ he said.

  Giselle: His mother knew we were getting married – before I did.

  ‘We should get married,’ Ash said.

  We were sitting in my car, looking out at Kelvingrove Park, the most beautiful of Glasgow’s many open spaces. The red sandstone of the magnificent Victorian museum and art gallery was darkening with the setting sun. I was overwhelmed.

  I didn’t reply right away. We had known each other for only a matter of months and he had yet to meet my family. He knew Ma and my sister, Katie, and Katie’s daughter, Giselle. He knew of my father, but only through the post office. Ash hadn’t ‘officially’ met any of them, and now he was asking me to be his wife.

  ‘We’ll have a large house, a lovely garden, big cars in the drive, and I’ll be an important lawyer,’ he said.

  By now I was beginning to wonder what it was that Ash actually wanted to do with his life. He was forever dreaming of grandiose schemes. In the short time I had known him he had wanted to be a businessman, a bank manager or, it seemed, any profession which had status and attracted ‘respect’. He was nearly 40, and he had a perfectly good job as the post office manager in the local shop.

  I had certainly not put any pressure on him to be anything other than what he was. Ash drove his own extraordinary ambitions. He talked incessantly about how his father had left his mother years earlier and how it had become his duty to care for her. It was an attitude I found admirable. After all, I had spent most of my life doing the same thing for my own parents. Apart from the revelation about his father, I knew little about his background, other than that he had been born in India and had spent part of his early life in London. He also had a sister who lived in Oxford. He said she was a businesswoman and I always got the impression that Ash was jealous of her success. It was as if he craved something that always seemed to be just out of his reach.

  He had become the perpetual ‘student’, combining his day job with one educational course after another, none of which seemed to be leading to any career destination. Ash had already told me that he had gone to Oxford University and claimed to have a ‘number of degrees’ and ‘letters a
fter his name’. I didn’t care one way or another. I loved him and, if it made him happy to strive for something more than he had, then so be it.

  ‘Mum’s given me money so we can get married,’ he said.

  I felt as if cold water had been thrown on my face.

  ‘What?’ I said sharply.

  ‘I told her we were going to get married. She gave me money,’ he went on.

  ‘Why would you tell your mother you wanted to marry me – before you had even asked me?’ I said.

  ‘I knew you would want to marry me.’

  I did love him, but the length of our relationship could be counted in weeks.

  ‘I’ve seen a dress for you,’ he said.

  ‘What? You’re choosing my wedding dress?’

  ‘It’s beautiful. White, long, with a lengthy train. It’s in a shop in Glassford Street. You’ll look beautiful.’

  I was dumbstruck.

  ‘It’s awful soon,’ I said, trying to buy time. ‘I’m still living at home. There’s my mum and dad to think of. And I’ve only just met your mother. You haven’t even officially met mine, or my father, or my brothers and sisters.’

  Ash took my hands. He looked into my eyes and said: ‘You love me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Well then, why don’t we just get married and have a long and happy life together?’

  ‘Ash …’

  He silenced me by placing a finger on my lips.

  ‘Just think, Giselle … We’ll have such beautiful babies.’

  Chapter 4

  Rings on Our Fingers

  ‘If they were ever to break away, it would have to be now – it would soon be too late.’

  Ian Stephen

  June: I was so desperate to be loved.

  I slipped the ring onto my finger and held it up to the light. The blue sapphires gleamed. They were surrounded by a circle of glittering, ice-white diamonds that appeared to have been planted in black velvet. I was mesmerised. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

  ‘Is that the one you want, then?’ Rab said. His voice was weary.