The Bonny Dawn Read online

  The teacher’s wife now called, ‘Len! Here a minute! Help me,’ and he scrambled over the rocks towards her with a slightly drunken gait. He too was feeling tired, and sick.

  Brid was still struggling in the woman’s arms and talking incoherently, and when Len tried to restrain her struggles, she screamed louder. It brought Joe into full consciousness again, and he turned on his elbow and raised himself a little. When, between the jerking movements of her head she saw him, her screaming dropped into a whimper, and her struggles ceased and she said with a semblance of rationality, ‘Joe. Oh Joe. I thought you were…Oh Joe.’ She fell towards him and put her arms around him as she might have done if they were alone.

  Pulling himself up into a sitting position he held her, and Len knelt at his back and supported him. The woman stood up. She seemed thankful for a moment’s respite from Brid’s struggles and as she looked towards John Palmer he spoke to her quietly, his voice, again terrifyingly ordinary, saying, ‘I’m going on out; will you bring her?’ He did not wait for an answer, and she offered none, but she watched him slide into the water and wade towards the shore. The water now was below his chest. She looked at her husband and asked impatiently, ‘Where’s the other one?’

  He swallowed and for once was lost for words. The voluble teacher was lost for words. With a trembling hand he thumbed the tumbling foam behind him, and his wife put her fingers across her mouth as she muttered, ‘No! No!’

  Joe put his head well back now to look up at the teacher, and his words sounded as thick as those of a drunken man as he said, ‘You mean he’s…that he’s—?’ The word ended on a high note, right up at the back of his throat. And when the man did not answer him he drooped his head and stared at Brid. But she was not looking at him; she had her face buried in her hands, and her hands were resting on his knees. He couldn’t take it in. It couldn’t be true that Palmer was dead. Dead…Drowned. That’s what he had tried to do to him, drown him. He began to shake, trembling from the crown of his head to the nails on his toes. The experience that had been dimmed for a moment in semi-consciousness was back. He could feel the grip on his ankle, he could feel the two hands clawing at his legs. He looked over Brid’s head towards his feet. There’d be marks on his ankles. That grip would have surely left marks, but he couldn’t see them because of Brid’s head. He was shaking so violently now that his teeth began to chatter and a strange voice from behind him said, ‘You’ve got to get them in.’ When he was pulled to his feet Brid still clung to him and wouldn’t let him go, and when they tried to get her off him she yelled, and he said like a stuttering man, ‘Le-le-leave her b-be.’

  And like this, they waded slowly towards the shore.

  Meanwhile John Palmer was facing Tom and Alice Stevens, and, without any preamble, he said in a quiet, even deadly sounding voice, ‘Sandy’s gone, caught in the undercurrent.’

  ‘What!’ The word came screeching out of Alice. ‘What? Dead! My God! Olive’ll go mad. He was all she had.’

  ‘Yes; you saw to that.’

  ‘What!’ Again the screech. ‘You’re blamin’ me for all this, when it’s that damned lad, that maniac that got Brid out at four in the morning? My God! And poor Sandy dead…blaming me!’

  ‘Well, there’s one thing for sure. If he hadn’t drowned, he would have been in prison before long, on a charge of torture.’

  ‘Torture? What are you sayin’?’

  ‘I’m sayin’, this very afternoon he headed his pals and tortured that lad there.’ He thumbed to where Len was supporting Joe’s back against a rock. ‘They stripped him naked, tied him, spreadeagled, to trees, and my son burned him with a blazing cigarette. I leave you to guess where. Only God knows what would have happened if Brid had not arrived on the scene and her screams hadn’t brought that teacher and his wife up from the beach here, where they had been bathing. The wife, being a nurse, thought the best thing for them both was to get them into the water to calm them down, for they were both in a state.’

  ‘Huh! He couldn’t have been all that bad, when he could bash young Talbot as he did,’ said Tom Stevens.

  ‘Well, from what this man tells me, that happened later when young Talbot arrived, meaning to join the gang. What he saw was young Brid naked. She was with that woman behind a bush, getting into her bathing costume. And this lad saw him, and then went at him mad, like.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Alice said. ‘Anyway, she’s coming home,’ and she thrust past John and made for her daughter, where she was kneeling beside Joe.

  ‘Come away from there; you’re coming home.’

  Brid sprang to her feet, yelling, ‘I’m not! I’m not! Never! Not to you three!’

  The men were now lined alongside Alice, and Brid cried again, ‘I’m not! Never! You’re filthy…rotten, all of you!’

  ‘Rotten we may be, but I brought you up.’ This was a bark from Tom. ‘I’m your father…’ he was saying, only to be thrust back by John’s arm, and his yelling, ‘You’re not her father, and she knows it. I’m her father, and from now on I’m acting like it, and if she says she doesn’t want to come back among us rotten lot, she’s not comin’ back, she’s goin’ her own road.’

  ‘By God, she’s not!’ Alice’s arm was thrust out to make a grab at Brid, only for Len and his wife to react together to shield her, the while John, gripping Alice by the shoulder, thrust her well back.

  The three stood staring at each other, and for what was next said, they could have been in the privacy of one or the other’s house, for in that odd quiet voice John said, ‘This is final. It’s the finish; and not before time. We are movin’—’ he was staring at Alice. ‘I should have done it years ago. You, Alice, are like a disease that has to be hidden, and it gets worse with the years. You blackmailed me because of Brid; and you, Tom, like a worm, you took it. Oh, don’t put your fists up at me! I could have floored you years ago; and I could do it this minute, not because I’ve detested your guts, but because of the weals that are showing up on my daughter’s shoulder and neck. And they are not strap weals, they were caused by chains.’

  ‘Yes, they’re from chain,’ Tom Stevens came back at him. ‘I, too, should have done it earlier. I wish I had now.’

  John Palmer remained quiet for a moment. His teeth were clenched; then he said, ‘Try practising it on the one who deserves it. And good luck to you, for you’ll have only each other now, for what you mightn’t yet know is, the two lads are setting up on their own; they’ve taken a flat. Yes, as Brid said, we’re a mucky lot.’

  Alice Stevens was standing now, her eyes wide, her lips stretched from her teeth, her whole body taut as if ready to spring. ‘You swine, you!’ She had brought out the words through tight lips. ‘I could kill you meself, this very minute. You’re a dirty, cowardly swine.’

  ‘Yes; yes, perhaps I am. It seems I’ve always known that. But there was your laugh. Laugh everything off, that was your motto, wasn’t it, while you drove your poor bugger of a husband mad. The only thing I’ll say in my defence now is, I am not proud of that part of it.’ He cast a rather pitying glance towards his one-time pal, before saying, ‘You can take her home now because I’m goin’ to see that Brid goes where she wants to, and that’s with that lad.’

  He was about to turn away when he paused and said, ‘By the way, it’ll be in the papers the morrer that my son was drowned while trying to save a fellow swimmer. That’s, of course, if the lad agrees to it. If he doesn’t, all the muck will come out, and you wouldn’t like that, would you, Alice? So be careful what you say when you get back there.’

  John now turned and addressed himself to Len, saying, ‘Have you a car?’

  Stiffly, Len replied, ‘Yes, I have a car; it’s behind Morgan’s garage.’

  ‘Well, I would get it, and get the lad home.’

  For a moment, Len did not reply; but he turned to his wife and said, ‘Bring their clothes down, and anything else you can carry. Then go and get the car.’

  The woman nodded, but before
obeying her husband, she ran towards a group of small rocks where she picked up a linen skirt, into which she stepped before pulling on a sleeveless blouse. And with this, John Palmer turned to Brid, where she was again kneeling by Joe’s side, and he said quietly, ‘You want to go with the lad, Brid?’

  Her face had worn a grim, defiant look, almost of hate, as she looked at him, but his kindly tone softened her reply: ‘Yes, I do, and…’ she paused, ‘for always.’

  ‘Good enough. There’s nobody goin’ to stop you. I’ll see to that.’

  Then turning to the Stevens’, he said, ‘I’d get away if I were you, because I’m not movin’ until they’re in that car.’

  ‘Twenty-eight,’ Joe called from the back seat of the car, where he and Brid were sitting close and supporting each other; and Mrs Morley, looking out of the car window, said, ‘Yes; it should be the next one,’ and straightway she said, ‘Here, Len!’

  When the car stopped opposite the green-painted door, Len and Phyllis got out quickly. While Len was helping Joe to alight, his wife was knocking on the house door.

  When Mrs Lloyd opened the door and saw her son standing there, being supported, it would seem, by a strange man, and a tousled-haired girl being assisted by a woman, she exclaimed, ‘Oh! Dear God, what’s happened? What’s happened to you?’

  ‘It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right.’

  As his mother banged the door closed behind them, Joe did not make for the kitchen door, but turned his shaking steps down the short passage and led them into the sitting room and, staggering, he made his way to the chintz-covered couch and dropped onto it.

  Lying back, he closed his eyes for a second, and said on a gasp, ‘Brid…rest. Sit down.’

  As Phyllis helped Brid lower herself into an easy chair, Mary Lloyd kept repeating, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ And she bent over Joe now, saying, ‘Where are you hurt?’

  When Joe did not answer, Len put in, ‘There’s been a bit of trouble, Mrs Lloyd. I’ll explain presently.’

  ‘Mother’—Joe’s voice was pleading—‘go and mash some tea. Take…take my friends with you.’ He hadn’t paused on the use of ‘friends’, but added, ‘They’ll explain.’

  ‘But…but—’

  ‘Mother; please! I’m all in at the moment. I’d…I’d like a cup of tea. Go on now…go on.’ He gave a weak wave of his hand after pushing her off, and she backed slowly from him as if reluctant to go. She then looked at the two strangers and said weakly, ‘Will you…will you come this way?’

  When the click of the door came to Brid, where she was leaning her head in the corner of the high-back chair, she opened her eyes and looked across at Joe; then pulling herself up from the chair, she dropped onto her knees beside the couch, whispering now, ‘Oh, Joe…Joe!’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all over,’ and he put an arm around her shoulders, and she laid her head on his chest for a moment. But her tenderness did not quell the terror and shivering that was in his body, and of which he imagined he would never be free, for he could still feel the snakelike grip of Sandy Palmer’s hand on his ankle, dragging him down, round and round, dragging him deeper and deeper, never to rise again. He had thought he could never experience greater fear than when he had lain for seven hours behind a fall in the pit, and he’d had company there; three others were with him. But the terror of the time he had been in that maniac’s hold was beyond anything he could explain in words.

  As if Brid had picked up his thoughts, she now whimpered, ‘I’m still terrified, Joe. I know he’s dead, but I can’t stop shaking inside. I’m frightened now that, in some way, she’ll come and take me back.’

  He made an effort and pulled himself further up the couch so that he could hold her with both arms; and his voice had the comfort of his old assurance: ‘Oh no, she won’t,’ he said. ‘That man…the other man who said he is your father, he won’t let them. He’s different. Anyway, I’ll see that they don’t come near you. You’ll never need to be afraid any more. Here you are, and here you’ll stay.’

  ‘But…but your mother.’

  ‘She knows all about you. I told her before I left the house this afternoon that you were for me.’ And now he added, ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Joe. Yes, Joe.’ She put a hand on his cheek. ‘I…I love you. I seem to have known you for years. But where will I stay until—?’

  ‘You’ll stay here, my love…here, until we’re married. And that can be soon.’

  ‘Will your mother not mind?’

  ‘No; she’ll be glad. Now she can marry her grocer. She’s been waiting to do so, but I’ve been the stumbling block. She wouldn’t leave me here on my own. Now she’ll go to his house, and we’ll live here.’

  ‘Oh, Joe! Joe…I…I can’t believe it.’

  ‘You can believe it all right, my Brid.’

  On these last words his mother came back into the room. She had one hand tightly over her mouth; she had been crying. And when she came to the couch, he held out his hand to her, and she took it. Then she lifted her eyes from him to the kneeling girl, and put her other hand on Brid’s head, and stroked the still damp hair.

  They looked at each other, and in their gaze, they both saw the years ahead.

  And now, looking at her son, Mary Lloyd said, ‘I’ve mashed the tea. Your friends are staying for a cup. They are a nice couple. Do you think you can make it to the kitchen? Come along, lass.’ She held out her hand.

  The End