The Favourite Child (41 page)

‘You think they’d take Billy Quinn’s word against mine?’ She flung the words at him in a typical gesture of rebellion. It was brave, perhaps even foolhardy, Bella realised, as she noted how his handsome face darkened with anger, a white line of fury forming above the lips she’d once loved to kiss. But she was so very angry with him, and determined to call his bluff. ‘You think you can bully or blackmail me into obeying you? Damn it, you can’t. I’ll never belong to you, Billy Quinn. I didn’t entirely believe Jinnie when she told me what you’d done to her while she was still so young. Now I do believe her, every word. I would
never
go out with you again, not if you paid me.’

‘Oh, and isn’t that the shame of it because I’d be happy to pay, if’n it would help. I know yer finding money tight just now. Wouldn’t a new career be a good idea, in the circumstances? You’ve talent enough in that direction, I should think.’

Bella struck out. Driven to the ends of her patience, rather as Jinnie had before her, she flung back her hand and made to strike him right across his arrogant face. Sadly, she did not possess Jinnie’s speed, or her skill at fighting. Quinn easily prevented the blow long before it reached him and Bella recognised at once her mistake. With casual ease he thrust her back into the stinking clarts of filth and rubbish, holding her down with one hand while he slid the belt from his waist with the other. She gagged for air as desperately she tried to fight him off.

‘You’re a stuck-up little bitch, and isn’t that the truth! Yer no more’n a tart, like all women when ye want attention from some man, and then when ye’ve had yer bit of fun, ye bleedin’ well turn yer dainty nose up.’ In that instant Bella knew, not only from the tone of his voice and the hard light in his brilliant blue eyes but by the very fact that he swore at her, she was in desperate trouble.

She made not a sound when the first stripe of his belt came, full across her back. She curled herself into a tight ball, tense and fearful, burying her face in the reeking filth, protecting herself as best she could with hands and arms, resolving to survive whatever punishment he meted upon her. But she could do nothing to protect her back. Even as she thanked her good fortune at choosing to wear her thickest coat on this cold morning, the second stripe came, this time to the backs of her legs. She screamed as the pain struck home through the thin stockings she wore. With one fluid movement, he ripped off her boots and beat her feet and legs with the buckle end of his belt till her screams and cries were silenced only when Bella finally slid into unconsciousness.

It must have been the cries of a hungry and frightened baby which woke her but Bella opened her eyes upon darkness; cold, icy rain beating down upon them both. It was her concern for the child which gave her the strength to move but when she put her feet to the ground, she screamed as a searing hot pain shot through her. Leaning heavily on the bassinet she fought to gather her strength for a moment before slowly starting to push Holly, the child now screaming in open mouthed desperation, step by agonising step out of the entry and along the street, gritting her teeth against the pain.

How she managed to stagger even the few hundred yards to her own front door, she would never afterwards be able to explain. Somehow Bella reached it, where she crumpled to the ground once more into a dead faint. Had it not been for the goodness of her neighbour who sent her youngest boy running with a message to fetch Violet, she might well have remained there until she perished of cold.

By the time Violet arrived, puffing and blowing with exertion, her plump cheeks wobbling with concern, Holly had been fed and changed by the friendly neighbour and Bella was sitting with her feet in a tub of warm salt water, crying softly into her hands. Never, in all her life, had she known such anguish.

‘Jumping Jehosiphat, what the hecky thump’s happened here?’ Even Violet ran out of suitable epithets and exclamations as she examined the raw crimson stripes on the soles of Bella’s feet; the bruises and open wounds on the backs of her legs, even the tell tale ribbons of stockings heaped beside her on the rag rug. ‘Christ almighty, who’s done this to you?’

Bella told her everything, sparing herself not one shred of shame as she spoke of Quinn’s attempts at blackmail, and the reason he thought he could succeed with the threat. As she listened, Violet sucked in her breath so hard, that her mouth all but disappeared into the folds of flesh that comprised her round, usually jolly face. ‘By heck, thee’s in a proper pickle.’

‘I think that’s an understatement, Violet. I’ve been unbelievably stupid, and I really don’t know how to deal with it.’

‘Don’t thee worry about that none, not just now. What thee has to do is rest up them feet o’yourn. I’ll just pop back home for a bit of goose grease, that’ll happen cure it.’

‘Goose grease?’

‘It’s either that or iodine.’

Wincing at the prospect of either ‘cure’, Bella hastily suggested that Dr Syd might be called. Bella’s colleague came right away, so shocked was she by what she saw, that she insisted the police also be called.

‘And what good will they do?’ Violet scathingly commented, as she watched Dr Syd’s ministrations with critical attention. ‘They’ll class it as a domestic. A chap can do pretty well owt he likes to a lass, without complaint. There was a woman in our street got belted every day of her married life by her husband so she started seeing another chap, and nobody would speak to her. They called her a loose woman. You can’t win. Either the coppers get yer, or the gossips do.’

‘I really don’t want any fuss,’ Bella insisted. ‘Violet’s right. What good would it do. They couldn’t lock him up for ever, even if they were prepared to do anything at all. Once he was out, he’d take his revenge and I’d never be free of looking over my shoulder.’

Dr Syd continued to protest as she tended her patient but was firmly overruled on all counts. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ was Bella’s view.

Violet said, ‘Our Dan’ll sort out yon nasty piece of goods. Mark my words. He’ll be far more effective than any bobby.’

The salt foot baths were repeated at regular intervals throughout each day, then layers of Dr Syd’s salve were plastered over the wounds to protect against the possibility of infection and to prevent the peeling of too much skin. After that, Bella’s legs and feet were bound up in clean strips of cotton, making her feel rather like an Egyptian mummy. She might have laughed at the incongruity of it all, had it not been for the excruciating agony she suffered.

Even on that first day, Violet offered no opinion or judgement upon Bella’s behaviour. She took Holly away with her, since Bella was no longer capable of properly caring for the child. Bella was anxious to speak to Dan though, to explain that nothing untoward had taken place. Despite what his mother might say, she’d no wish for him to get involved with Billy Quinn. She was disappointed and somewhat puzzled when he did not call to see her that day, nor the one after that. By the time he did come, some three days after the event, Bella was so depressed, so filled with shame and remorse that she could hardly bear to open her eyes and meet what she expected to be his condemnatory gaze.

‘Bella, are you awake, love?’ he tentatively enquired as he tapped softly on her bedroom door and crept into the room. Bella kept her eyes shut fast, breathed softly and evenly and, thinking her asleep, he crept silently away. He did not come again.

It was two weeks later that Jinnie brought her the news. Dan had challenged Quinn to a bare knuckle fight. Bella accepted this grim piece of information as if she had known it all along. Perhaps, in a way, she had. Apart from Dan’s odd reluctance to visit, and her own to speak of the attack, Bella had observed the way even the frank and honest Violet had recently avoided direct eye contract with her. Deep inside, she had guessed that something was afoot.

‘When?’

Jinnie looked away, unwilling to answer.

‘It’s tonight, isn’t it?’

There’s nothing you can do about it, love. Leave them to it. Dan’s a big chap. He can handle himself.’

‘And Billy Quinn? Would he fight fair, do you reckon?’

The two girls looked at each other, a knowing anguish in both their eyes. ‘When has he ever?’ Jinnie admitted, in a small, quiet voice. ‘Perhaps that’s why I thought you should know.’

Bella pushed herself up from her chair. It had taken the best part of a week for her to feel well enough to put on her shoes and stockings but she hadn’t once ventured out doors, still wouldn’t if it weren’t absolutely necessary.

Jinnie was appalled. ‘You weren’t thinking of going?’

‘I just need a little practice, a walk in the sun. If I manage that without falling down, I’ll be there tonight, come what may.’

Jinnie helped her to dress because she was perfectly certain that Bella meant every word and would do it anyway, with or without her help. Once outside, Bella breathed a huge sigh of relief. She walked out of the confines of the narrow court, leaning only slightly on Jinnie for support and on to Liverpool Street, smiling and nodding with pleasure at familiar faces, responding to cheery greetings. It felt good to be able to move about freely and taste the soot-tainted air of dear old Salford. Bella pushed her fingers through red-gold locks and shook them free, as if brushing the staleness of her confinement out of her head.

Somewhere in the distance she heard the sound of a ship’s hooter, which brought back her concerns over Dan. Turning to walk back to her little house, she tightened her grasp upon Jinnie’s arm. ‘If anything were to happen to him, I don’t know what I’d do.’

Not for one moment did Jinnie imagine she was speaking of Quinn.

The room where the fight was to take place was situated in the beer cellar of one of Quinn’s favourite haunts. The vaulted ceiling was shrouded in gloom and the smoke from a hundred cigarettes. The place stank not only of beer and baccy, but of unclean drains and male sweat. Len Jackson stood at the door, charging threepence per person for everyone who entered. Trust Quinn to try to make money out of this. Bella could see that Len was also taking bets, continually licking the point of his pencil before scribbling numbers in his little pocket book.

And where was Quinn himself? Where was Dan? She scanned the crowd of shabbily dressed men who’d come along tonight to add a bit of excitement to their dull lives, not in the least interested in the reason behind the fight, only its outcome.

‘There he is.’

Dan was standing on the edge of a group of men who all seemed to be fussing around him, offering advice, massaging his shoulders and arms, flexing his fingers. Bare to the waist where a thick leather belt was strapped tightly around dark trousers, Dan’s bulk seemed impressive, glistening with a pale but robust beauty in the light of the ascetaline lamps. Bella couldn’t tear her eyes away, she loved him so much. If anything were to happen to him this night, she would never forgive herself. It was all her fault that he was in this situation. She should have known better than to involve herself with the likes of Billy Quinn. As if knowing instinctively that she was there, he turned his gaze to hers, gave her a cheeky wink, the flicker of a smile, as if to reassure her all would be well before turning away again to take careful note of his comrade’s instructions.

Quinn was nowhere in sight.

‘Perhaps he isn’t going to show up,’ Bella whispered to Jinnie, the two girls clinging to each other for moral support. Without her friend beside her, Bella thought she might well have been tempted to turn tail and run. Edward too was with them, not because he condoned the fight, or Bella’s insistence on being there, but because he felt it his duty to be there to protect them. Bella appreciated his uncritical, solid presence.

Jinnie was saying, ‘Not a chance. He’ll turn up all right, like a bleedin’ bad penny.’

‘We could leave now,’ Edward quietly informed them. ‘We don’t have to go through with this. It’s primitive, evil, illegal.’

‘If Dan is going through with it, I must be here for him.’

‘Talk to him then. Make him change his mind. It’s not too late.’ But Bella shook her head, knowing that Dan would never back down, much as she might want him to. How could he without losing face? But before she had the chance to say any of this, a great roar went up from the watching crowd. Quinn had arrived. Space was made for him as he swaggered in, deliberately late in order to make the greatest impact. He looked what he was, a mean, lean, rat of a man who would as easily strike a mate dead as shake his hand in friendship.