The Year of the Virgins Read online

  ‘I’ll not go to sleep, Dad. I never do when I’m with Don. Do I, Don?’

  ‘No, you don’t. You’re a good watchdog.’

  ‘There you are, Dad, I’m a good watchdog. And do you think, Dad, that the snow will lie and there’ll be enough to play snowballs in the morning?’

  ‘I doubt it. But then you never know, it’s cold enough. Well, if you want me you know what to do: ring the bell. I’ll be in the kitchen for a little while.’…

  He had expected to find Maggie still up, but apparently she had already retired, for the kitchen table was set for the breakfast and the fire was damped down. He took an enamel pan from the rack and held it in his hand for a moment, staring down at it. Then thrusting it onto a side table, he went out of the far door and along the short corridor. And after first tapping on Maggie’s sitting-room door he pushed it quietly open.

  The room was in darkness, although there was a light coming from the bedroom door, which was ajar.

  ‘Maggie.’ He was holding on to the handle of the door as he gently pushed it further open and quietly stepped into the room.

  She was sitting up in bed and her voice was a whisper as she said, ‘Something wrong? You need me?’

  He was standing over her now looking down into her face as he said, ‘Yes, Maggie; I need you. Let’s not have any more talk.’

  Swiftly he threw off his dressing gown and pyjamas and, pulling the clothes aside, he lay down beside her and took her into his arms.

  Eight

  It was barely ten minutes later when the large, white-coated figure emerged from the kitchen garden and groped its way along by the low wall that ended at the beginning of the courtyard. It slunk past the two stables that were now used as spare garages, then turned and crossed the yard towards the door of the glass-fronted storeroom. Knowingly, a hand went up onto the low guttering and pushed the snow away until the fingers came in contact with a key. The door was unlocked and pushed gently inwards, and the figure groped forward.

  When it tripped over some wellington boots it kicked them to the side and went on until it came to a further door. When it entered the wood room, the figure put its hand out towards the stacks to the right of it and guided itself towards where a light was showing beneath the bottom of a further door. Here it stood listening for a moment; then quickly swung round and groped at the top of the woodpile until it found a longish piece of wood, and then, gripping it tightly, moved towards the streak of light.

  With its free hand it flung the door wide, and almost sprang into the room, only to stop dead.

  Winifred Coulson surveyed her kitchen. It was as she had seen it day after day, year after year: everything neat and tidy as she had demanded it should be.

  She moved swiftly across the room to the green-baize door, opened it, then stood with her back to it for a moment looking through the muted light coming from the standard lamp at the far end of the hall.

  For one so big and heavy, for her bulk had not diminished over the past months, she ran up the stairs, past the room that had been hers, to stop outside her husband’s room. Slowly she put her hand on the knob of the door, then with a jerk she flung it open and burst into the room, only to come again to a standstill.

  The light was on but the room was empty. She took in the fact that his shirt and pants were lying on a chair, his trousers laid over the back of it, and on the floor to the side of the chair were his socks. She took a step forward as if to pick them up, then stopped. She had never been able to stand untidiness; it was a fetish with her: everything had to be straight, even handkerchiefs had to be laid in straight-edged piles in the drawers. She stood now, the piece of wood across both hands as if she were weighing it; then, swinging round, she went out onto the landing and made for the stairs. But before she reached them a thought seemed to strike her and she ran quickly back and thrust open her bedroom door. She snapped on the light, thinking perhaps to find him in her bed, but this room was empty too, and tidy. Everything was just as she had left it, except that the cheval mirror was gone…She had smashed that.

  In the corridor again she made for the stairs; but instead of running down them, she crept slowly and softly, and when she reached the hall she turned in the direction of her son’s room.

  At the door she stood listening, but when no sound came to her her hand went to the knob and, turning it, she thrust the door open. Then yet once more she was standing still.

  Seemingly taken aback that she was not being confronted by Daniel, she stood, her mouth agape, one hand gripping the piece of wood held at shoulder height and for a moment deaf to the silence coming from the two beds in the room; just for the moment, for Don had raised himself on his elbows and exclaimed in a voice no louder than a whisper, ‘Oh my God!’

  But the cry that Stephen gave was loud. He had jumped from the bed and was standing near Don now, crying, ‘Go away, Mam! Go away, Mam!’

  She didn’t appear to see him as she walked towards the bed, because her eyes were on her son. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded.

  His breath coming in gasps, Don said, ‘Mam! Mam! Sit down.’

  ‘Your father; where is he?’

  Don was unable to answer, for his breath was choking him, and it was Stephen who said, ‘D…ad, is in…in the kitchen.’

  ‘He’s not in the kitchen.’

  She was still staring at her son, all the while brandishing the stave.

  ‘He is. He is, Mam. Go on, go away. Get out! Leave Don alone.’

  Like a child now he put both hands out to push her away, and the next moment he was screaming as she brought the piece of wood down on his shoulder. She had aimed for his head, and she tried again, but his arms were up. Thwarted and like a wild beast now, she sprang at him, flailing him with the stave. And when he fell to the ground, still covering his head with his arms, she took her foot and kicked him, and he stopped crying out.

  She now turned to Don, who was lying back, deep in the pillows, his arms hugging his chest as he fought for breath. His face was contorted with pain, and she stood over him, her eyes boring into his, and after what seemed an age she said, ‘You never loved me, did you? You never loved me.’

  He made an effort to speak; but finding it impossible, he groped for the pills on the table at the other side of the bed.

  Like a flash, her hand went out with the piece of wood held in it and with a swipe she overturned the table, and the pills and the medicine fell almost soundlessly onto the carpet.

  ‘You’re dying, aren’t you, and in pain? Well, now you can suffer as you made me suffer. Yes you did. Yes you did.’

  It was as if he had contradicted her. ‘And you’ve got a daughter, they tell me. Well, she’s a bastard. You know that? She’s a bastard. And she’s not yours, she’s big Joe’s and the daughter of a bastard.’ She smiled now, a terrifying smile, as she said, ‘You are going to die, you know, and slowly, because there’ll be nobody to come to your aid this night, not when I’m finished with them. You’ve all hated me, all of you, you even made the servants hate me. That Maggie running my house!’

  She lifted her head back now as if listening: then she said, ‘That Maggie. Yes, that Maggie. John wouldn’t take me, would he? He said he didn’t know the address. He could have asked her, couldn’t he?’ She looked down on her son again. Don’s eyes were closed, his hands lying limp at each side of him. She pulled herself back from the bed, looked down at the twisted form of Stephen, then turned and left the room.

  When she reached the hall the phone was ringing. As if none of the events of the past months had happened, she lifted the receiver and in a quiet tone said, ‘Yes?’

  A voice at the other end said, ‘May I speak to Mr Coulson?’

  ‘He’s…he’s not available at present.’

  ‘This is important. Could you please get him or someone in the household. Who’s speaking?’

  She paused before saying, ‘This is the maid.’

  ‘Well, try to find somebody in authority and tell them that
Mrs Coulson has got away. We don’t know how. She is not in the grounds, so he must be on his guard. Will you tell him that?’

  ‘Yes; yes, I will tell him that at once.’

  She put the phone down and kept her hand on it for a moment, and as she looked at it she squared her teeth, and her lips went back from them as if in a snarl, and she said, ‘Yes, I’ll tell him that at once.’

  Quietly now, she crossed the hall and went through the door into the corridor leading to the kitchen, stopping outside Maggie’s room. Very quietly she turned the handle of this door. There was no light on in the small sitting room, but there was a light coming from the bedroom, and also a murmur of voices. She went to the partly open door through which, by standing to the side, she could see her husband and her housekeeper in bed.

  She had always been light on her feet, but the spring she made from the doorway to the bed could have been likened to that of a panther onto its prey.

  They both screamed at the terrible apparition above them, but it was too late for Daniel to escape the blow to the side of his head. It was as if his ear had been wrenched off. In attempting to pull himself out of the bed, his hands went towards his wife and she brought the stave across his arms, all the while her mouth spewing out obscenities. Maggie had jumped from the other side of the bed and, screaming, she made for the door, only to be stopped by a blow on the back of the neck that silenced her screams and brought her to the floor.

  Returning now to her main target, Winifred Coulson almost threw herself onto Daniel, who had struggled from the bed, his naked body bent forward, one arm supporting his blood-covered face, the other hanging limply at his side.

  When she came at him he brought his hand from his face and flung it around her neck. But when she used her knees and her feet on him he crumpled up by the side of the bed. And now she flailed him with the blood-soaked stave until he lay quiet. Then her body heaving, she stood over him and turned him onto his back, and her lips curling at the sight of his nakedness, she lifted the stave again and was about to bring it down onto his loins when she heard a distant voice, crying, ‘Dad! Dad!’

  Wildly, she gazed around the room as if looking for a way of escape. The next minute she was running through Maggie’s sitting room, pulling the door to as if hiding what she had done, hurrying through the kitchen and out the way she had come…

  Stephen was half lying on the bottom step of the stairs. He had stopped calling ‘Dad! Dad!’ and was now crying, ‘Peggie! Peggie!’ then changed to ‘Maggie!’ And his whirling mind hanging on to the name seemed to give him the urge to pull himself up from the stair and to stumble, zigzagging towards the kitchen door, and when in the room he leant against the table, crying again, ‘Maggie! Maggie!’ his face awash with tears.

  He was about to sit down on a chair when he stopped. Where was his Dad? Maggie would know.

  He went from the kitchen into the dark corridor. But there was a dim light streaming out from Maggie’s sitting room.

  ‘Maggie, where’s Dad? Maggie?’

  He stopped at the bedroom door and stared at the naked, bleeding form of his father and the huddled body of Maggie. He did not move towards either of them, but there escaped from his lips a thin sound that could have come from a weary, pain-filled animal. And now, at a shambling run, he made for the hall again.

  In his present state of mind he deduced that, having to climb the attic stairs to Peggie’s room and then to waken her, for she slept so soundly, it might be too late to help them all. But there was the phone: yet he didn’t know numbers, for he had never tried to ring anyone on the phone; although somewhere in his mind he recalled an adventure story in Children’s Hour where the clever boys had caught the thief because they had used the telephone and rung the number nine.

  He had the receiver in his hand. He pressed his shaking finger in the dial and turned it to nine. But nothing happened: nobody answered.

  It was nine, he told himself; or was it two nines? Or three nines? Again he stuck his finger in the dial and turned it to nine twice. Still no voice came to him. Almost angrily now he swung the dial for a third time. There was a silence and then a man’s voice said, ‘Yes, can I help you?’

  Holding the receiver from his face he now cried, ‘Will somebody come; my Mam’s been here.’

  The voice said, ‘Speak up, please. Can I help you?’

  He brought the receiver close to his mouth and yelled, ‘Mam’s been here! She’s killed them all!’

  ‘Tell me your address.’

  He paused a moment before he said, ‘Wearcill House.’

  And a voice said, ‘Wearcill House? Now where is that? Which road?’

  ‘Fellburn.’

  ‘Yes, but which road?’

  ‘Oh, Telford Road runs at the bottom.’

  The voice said, ‘Wearcill House, Telford Road. Don’t worry; somebody will be there very soon.’

  He went and sat on the bottom stair again and stared towards the front door. He knew he should open the front door to let them in, but if he did his Mam might come in again.

  It seemed a long time that he sat there, but it was only ten minutes before he heard the car draw up outside; yet not until the knock came on the door did he move to open it.

  There were two policemen standing on the step, and as they came in he backed from them. They were looking at his bloodstained face and hands. The taller policeman said in a quiet voice, ‘Are you the young man who phoned?’

  Stephen didn’t speak but just nodded his head.

  ‘Well, tell us what happened? You said your mother was here.’

  Stephen now shook his head, saying, ‘She’s gone. She’s gone. She hit me with the wood.’ He put his hand to his head. ‘But she’s killed Don and my Dad and Maggie.’

  The policemen now exchanged glances; then one said, ‘Show us.’

  Stephen looked one way, then the other, as if wondering who was most in need, then when he said, ‘They’ve got no clothes on,’ the policemen again exchanged glances. Who had they here, a big fellow talking like a child?

  It was the shorter policeman who said now, ‘Come and show us where your Dad is, lad.’ And Stephen moved shakily to obey him.

  When the two men entered the room, just as Stephen had done before, they stopped dead for a moment, and one of them muttered, ‘God Almighty! Somebody’s been busy.’

  The shorter policeman knelt down by Daniel’s side, put his hand on his bloodstained ribs, waited a moment, then said, ‘He’s still alive. What about her?’

  ‘I don’t know if a pulse is there, it’s very faint. Go and ring for an ambulance.’

  Then rising from his knee, he said to Stephen, ‘Is there anyone else in the house?’

  ‘Don. I tried to save him but she hit me.’

  ‘Where is he…Don?’

  ‘At the other end, in his room. He’s bad, he can’t move. His legs won’t work.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Stephen.’

  ‘Stephen who?’

  ‘Stephen…Coulson.’

  ‘Coulson.’

  The policeman now raised his eyebrows as if he was recognising some thought, and he said, ‘Oh, yes, yes; Coulson. Come and show me where the young man is.’

  As they passed through the hall the other policeman had just put the phone down, and he said, ‘This is the Coulson place?’ And his companion nodded, adding, ‘Yes, it’s just come to me.’

  When they reached Don’s room one of them said, ‘God! It looks as if she’s finished this one off an’ all.’

  ‘This is her son; the one that had the accident, remember? On his wedding day.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Aye, yes.’

  They turned now and looked at Stephen. ‘Is there anyone else in the house?’

  ‘Peggie. But she’s asleep.’

  ‘Asleep through all this? Show us where she is.’

  Stephen had to be helped up the second flight of stairs; and when Peggie, shaken out of a deep sleep, saw the two policeme
n staring down at her, she let out a high scream. And one of them said, ‘It’s all right, miss, it’s all right.’

  ‘Wh…at…wh…at do you want?’

  ‘We want you to get up. Come downstairs and see what’s happened in the time you’ve been asleep.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ She was now staring at Stephen and his bloodstained condition and she cried, ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It was Mam. It was Mam, not me.’

  ‘All right, old fellow, all right.’ The policeman was patting Stephen on the shoulder now.

  Looking at the policeman, Peggie said, ‘Couldn’t be her, she’s…she’s in the asylum.’

  ‘Apparently she got out of the asylum, miss. Now will you put something on and come downstairs and prepare yourself; there’s one or two nasty sights.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  They were turning from her when one said, ‘Is there anyone else about we could get in touch with?’

  ‘There’s Lily and Bill in the lodge. But oh’—her head bounced back—‘they’re in Newcastle. They’ve gone to a show and that, it being Friday night, their night out. And John…Dixon, he’s a gardener and handyman, he lives out.’

  ‘No other friend of the family?’

  ‘Well’—she blinked her eyes—‘Mr Joe is in London at Mrs Jackson’s wedding and young Mrs Coulson, she’s just had a baby; she’s in hospital. That’s the lot.’

  ‘Well, get something on and come down.’

  They were making for the door when Stephen turned round and in a high voice cried, ‘You thought it was me, Peggie. That was nasty. I’ll tell Maggie about it.’

  ‘It’s all right, son. It’s all right.’ They both put their hands on his arms and led him out.

  A few minutes later, when Peggie entered Maggie’s room, she let out a squeal, putting her hand over her mouth and closing her eyes and almost collapsing.

  ‘Come on. Come on.’ The tall policeman led her from the room and, seating her on a kitchen chair, he said, ‘Now, tell me where we can get in touch with this other member of the family, the one who’s gone to London.’