Polly's War (29 page)

On one such occasion as she came hurrying away in triumph with half a dozen sausages, her head down because it was raining, she ran straight into Michael. She tried to back away but her heart was racing, her insides ached with need for him and her body simply wouldn’t move in any direction but into his arms. He led her quickly under the railway arches where he wasted no time in kissing her, despite the rain having soaked both of them by this time.

‘God, I love you. I need you so much. Why do you stay with him?’

‘Because he’s my husband, the father of my children,’ she protested, craving more of his kisses, more caresses. She felt a crazy mix of emotion and divided loyalties swirling madly within her.

‘But you don’t love him.’ He slid a damp hand beneath her coat to softly caress her.

‘He’s ill. He needs me. How could I simply turn him out on the streets? It wouldn’t be right.’ Lucy took his hand and pushed it inside her blouse. The sensation of his cold wet skin against hers made her gasp and she missed what he said next, something about them being happy together for ever and ever. ‘I know,’ she murmured, teasing his mouth open with her tongue. Then he was grasping her by the arms, thrusting her from him and glaring fiercely into her flushed face.

‘We could go away together, you, me and the children. No one would ever find us. Ever.’

‘I can’t. I really can’t.’

Then his mouth came down on hers without mercy as, crushing her to him, he half lifted her from the ground and with her arms wrapped about his neck, Lucy hung on, as if every atom of her happiness depended upon this man. Which in truth it did.

She was crying as she hurried home but nobody could tell because of the rain. She saw Tom the minute she turned the corner into Pansy Street, standing there in the pouring rain without cap or raincoat.

‘You’ll catch your death,’ she said, but he didn’t reply, only grabbed her arm and marched her smartly down the street in full view of every twitching curtain straight into her mother’s house, just as if she were a naughty child. She could only feel thankful that Polly and Charlie weren’t home yet. Ignoring the fearful thumping of her heart, Lucy calmly apologised for being late, explaining that she’d been chatting with Belinda and forgot the time, her fingers crossed against the lie.

‘You said you’d be home by six and you weren’t. See you don’t let it happen again.’

‘Or what?’ she laughed, determined not to be intimidated.

His face as he turned towards her gave the answer. Never had she seen such hatred, such anger. Was this what jealousy did? Lord, what had she done to him? Shame bit deep and Lucy watched in silence as he pulled his soiled work shirt over his head, tossed it to the floor and reached for a clean one off the airing rack.

‘Are you going out?’

‘Aye. So look sharp. I’m hungry.’

Wisely saying no more, Lucy quickly made the tea, fed and washed the children and put them to bed, then sat quietly mending his socks on the darning mushroom while he shaved, tied a muffler about his neck and shrugged into his jacket.

‘Don’t wait up,’ he told her. Lucy agreed, with some gratitude, that she wouldn’t.

It was on the first night together in their new home that Tom decided the moment had come to exercise his ‘rights.’ The children had been put to bed after the entire family had enjoyed the treat of a bag of chips each, to celebrate this new beginning, and because with all the packing and unpacking, moving and sorting, Lucy hadn’t had time to cook.

After supper she deliberately took her time fussing over her few clothes, laying the children’s things away in their own drawers, interleaved with lavender mothballs to keep them fresh. They felt strange, having a bedroom of their own and she read them two stories before they settled. Even then Sean came downstairs for a glass of water the minute she left him. ‘Can’t I sleep with you?’ he asked, confused by the constant changes in his life.

‘No, love. You’re a big boy now.’

‘Or at Michael’s house?’
 

Alarmed that Tom might have heard, Lucy quickly picked up the little boy and carried him back up to bed. ‘Why would you want to do that when your dad’s here,’ she soothed. ‘He might even take you fishing, if you ask him nicely.’

The little boy brightened. ‘When? Tomorrow?’

Lucy tucked her son back beneath the sheets, kissing Sarah Jane again, so she didn’t feel left out. ‘Not another word. Go to sleep this minute,’ and the pair screwed their eyes tight shut, still giggling as she slipped out of the room. At the bedroom door she paused and whispered, ‘Don’t forget now, I’m only in the next room if you need me.’ As she rather hoped they might. Then leaving the door ajar she drew in a shuddering breath and went to wait for her husband.

She felt sick with nerves. This was worse than she’d imagined, worse than a new bride on her wedding night. At least then she’d been panting with love for him. Now here she was, lying rigid in the old sagging bed which Tom and Benny had moved from number 32 and all she felt was dread. She could hear Tom downstairs, raking the coals, sliding the bolt on the back door. He’d already had his shave while she was fussing over the children, his description - not hers, so any minute now he would climb the stairs and get in beside her, and she didn’t want him to come, she really didn’t.

Then he was pulling back the bedclothes, the weight of the mattress sagging still further and his body lying alongside hers, not touching, not speaking. He lifted one hand to switch off the light with the chord that hung over the bed-head. Darkness engulfed her and she could see nothing but Michael’s face, luminous in her imagination. Lucy wondered if she would be able to hold on to this image during what was to follow. Too late now to regret allowing things to get this far.

She heard Tom clear his throat and took comfort from that. Perhaps he was as nervous as she. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said.

She agreed, her voice faint, hardly above a whisper. Then she felt him turn towards her, his hand came to rest on her stomach and she tried not to flinch away. Could he feel her heart beating?

‘I’ll not hurt you,’ he said as he pulled up her night-dress. She wanted to put out her hand and stop him, to jump out of the bed and run but some instinct told her to hold still, that it would be less of an ordeal if she surrendered with as good a grace as possible. He was her husband. She’d promised to give their marriage a chance, for the sake of the children. He started to kiss her but Lucy felt none of the excitement in his kisses that she once had. As if sensing her lack of response, he gave up. She could feel the swollen heat of him pulsing hard against her, and the urge to push him away and escape was overwhelming. But ignoring the fact she was neither ready nor willing, he drew her resisting legs apart and thrust himself inside her. Lucy knew she was both dry and tight with resistance, but when she cried out in appalled shock, he pushed harder, pounding his frustration into her.
 

‘Next time,’ he told her when the agony was finally over and he’d withdrawn to his side of the bed, ‘you’ll put a bit more effort into it.’

She turned her face to the wall and lay staring into the darkness, silent tears rolling over hot cheeks, dampening her pillow. She hardly dared to breathe until she heard the even rhythm of his snores. Only then did she get up and creep downstairs to the kitchen where she bathed her sore body with warm water and a soft flannel. It was as if he were not her husband at all, as if he were a stranger who had violated her. Yet that was nonsense of course. The fault must be entirely hers as he had said, for not even making any effort.

Chapter Nineteen

If Lucy had been unhappy before, she was utterly wretched now. Every day dawned grey and empty, devoid of hope or happiness. Try as she might she could not banish Michael from her thoughts and Tom’s continued criticism that he deserved better than a frigid wife after all these years away, began to seem highly justified.

It was Belinda who rescued her by suggesting they re-establish their regular trips to the cinema. It would be good for them both, she said, an opportunity to escape the confines of increasing domesticity. ‘These last weeks have seemed endless for me too. This baby feels like a lump of clay in my stomach, using up all my energy and managing to govern my life completely.’
 

Rebelliously ignoring Tom’s rules, Lucy left the children with good old Doris-from-next-door and the two girls went to their favourite cinema, the Gaumont. It was the first of many such outings. Sometimes she left them with Uncle Nobby and Aunty Ida, who were always happy to have the children they said, telling her young folk should enjoy themselves. ‘Isn’t that what life is all about?’

Lucy eagerly snatched the opportunity to put on her glad rags, as Uncle Nobby called them, and if the matriarchs of Pansy Street gave her fiercely censorious looks, then she paid them no heed. Anything was better than stopping in night after night, living in dread of her husband wanting sex. Let them paint her as a scarlet woman, if they’d a mind. She was young still, and life was for living. If she couldn’t live it with the man she loved, at least she could have some fun going out with her friend.

Off the two would go, arm in arm, giggling like young girls again, dreaming of their celluloid heroes and a fish supper afterwards. At least the picture house was warmer than Belinda’s flat, and she got to rest her swollen ankles. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in
Brief Encounter
proved to be one of their favourite movies. They saw it three times in two weeks and still came out of the cinema surreptitiously drying away tears.

‘What a soppy pair we are,’ Belinda chuckled. ‘So deliciously sad. Do you think Laura meant to kill herself when she ran out to meet the express at the end?’

Lucy sighed, and it was a deeply unhappy sound. ‘Rather than live without him you mean? I don’t know but I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad she went back to her husband.’

‘Heavens no, what a bore he was. Far better to go off with her lover and be happy.’

‘But would she have been? Happy I mean,’ Lucy argued, her friend’s answer more important than she dared to admit. ‘They were both married. How could they be so selfish? It would have destroyed their love.’

‘Utter rubbish. They might have made one person happy instead of making two miserable.’ Lucy couldn’t help but laugh because it all sounded so simple when Belinda put it like that.

Following one such happy evening, Belinda arrived home to find her front door not only locked but with slats of wood nailed across it. The icy February weather had changed to a thin drizzle, and stacked against the rough stone wall of the shop were the few sticks of furniture which she and Benny had managed to collect; the kitchen table and two chairs, a broken box which held a few knives and forks and a blackened pan. Even the bed and mattress, once a haven for their loving, lay in shaming view for any passer-by to see. Belinda could hardly believe what her own eyes were telling her, that all her worldly goods had been thrown out on the street as, it seems, had they.

Somewhere in the next street she could hear a vendor calling “hot peas and puddings,” and felt thankful that at least her stomach was full and warm from the fish supper she’d enjoyed with Lucy, the days of near starvation long gone. She thumped on the door again in disbelief, though she knew Benny was at the pub with Tom so there was no one to hear her. Who could have done such a thing and why? It made no sense.

She was shaking with cold and knew she couldn’t stay here, on the damp pavement, railing at injustice.

Lucy would be in, of course, but Pansy Street suddenly seemed as far away as the moon. Nevertheless she set off, her back starting to ache with a vengeance from the effort it took just to walk in the chill of the increasing downpour. It was as she took a short cut through Nelson’s Ginnel, that Belinda felt a rush of warm liquid between her legs. Staring down at herself in horrified fascination she saw a puddle of water forming at her feet.

She cried out in shocked surprise, then sank to the wet cobbles, sliding into a heap of dirty snow on a gasp of sudden pain. She glanced desperately about, only to discover the ginnel deserted, black dark with not a single lamp lit. Freezing rain hammered and bubbled up on the glistening setts, gushing from the broken guttering of the roofs above her head and within seconds she was soaked. Belinda neither noticed nor cared as she became swamped by pain, fierce shots of fire slicing through from her lower back to her belly, emerging as wailing screams that seemed to be swallowed up and spat out by the icy rain as it heedlessly drummed on dustbin lids and washed the scarlet stains from Benny’s son. She just managed to bring the baby to her breast inside her coat before darkness overwhelmed her.

Benny took some comfort from the fact that he came home early from the pub that night, leaving Tom to his self-pity and his moans. Finding the shop door boarded up he realised at once that the eviction notice had still been carried out even though he’d found a solution and would have moved his family out anyway within a few weeks, business permitting.

Cold fear clamped his stomach. Ignoring the heap of new furniture getting soaked on the pavement, his one concern was for Belinda. Where the hell was she?

‘Belinda?
Belinda!’
He screamed her name into the teeming rain and began to run.

He knocked on every door, asking if anyone had seen her, was she there taking shelter? When he finally found her, in Minnie Hopkin’s house on Pansy Street of all places, it didn’t take the presence of the officious doctor or the grim-faced midwife to tell him the news was not good. He could sense it the minute he set foot across the threshold.