The Bonny Dawn Page 4

  ‘Have you minded comin’?’

  ‘No; oh no. I’ve loved it. I’ve never seen anything like it in me life.’

  ‘Will you come again?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Do you swim?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, I can swim.’

  ‘Are you doing anything this afternoon?’

  ‘No. No, I’m not.’ They were looking at each other, unblinking.

  ‘Will we go swimming over there?’ He did not take his eyes from her but motioned towards the bay.

  ‘Yes. Yes, if you like.’

  ‘The tide should be right just about two.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I could manage it at that time. You see there’s Sunday dinner and…’

  ‘Oh, I know. Me mother’s the same; you’ve got to have the lot on Sunday. I’ve always thought that’s a bit funny. Me dad used to think it funny an’ all. He used to say that they could stew the guts out of bones all the week and half starve, but on the Sunday they had the lot. Six veg, some of them had. Aye, you wouldn’t believe it. Some in our street are still like that. But not me mother. Oh no; me mother’s a grand cook.’

  She was staring at him; she loved to hear him talk. There was a lilt to his voice, a sort of hidden laughter, and yet it sounded sad. She thought it was what could be called a deep rich voice. It seemed bigger than his whole body; like his head and shoulders, it didn’t seem to belong to the rest of him. She saw him look away towards the road where she thought she heard a car passing, but she didn’t take her eyes off his face. The sun was playing on his hair, and now it looked all silver.

  Joe had glanced towards the road to the lorry. It was too far away to make out whose lorry it was, but his attention had been drawn to it when he’d heard it stopping. If it had been racing past down the road it would have been gone in a flash from his view. But it must have been going slowly for a while. As he looked at it he could make out the shape of the driver in the cab. It actually stopped only for a second and went off again, and he brought his gaze and thoughts back to her. She was pretty. And not just pretty…there was something about her that required a name. He would have to think. It wasn’t beautiful. No, she wasn’t beautiful, not as girls are beautiful. Was it exquisite? Oh no; that meant something beyond beauty. No, it wasn’t exquisite. Homely? No, man, no, he said to himself, that was the other extreme.

  And yet she could be. Yes, she could be homely. He tried to see her in five, ten, fifteen years’ time, but he couldn’t. He could only see her now, and with sudden contradiction of his previous summing up, he thought: Yes, she is, she is beautiful.

  ‘Well, I’d better be going. I want to get back before six.’

  ‘You’ll make it. I’ll come part of the way.’

  ‘No, no.’ For some reason she didn’t want him to walk back with her. She wanted to keep the feeling of him in the dawn; the morning was coming up rapidly now and she didn’t want him to come into the morning. He was all light as he was now. She did not want him to become part of the grey tone of the morning…all mornings.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But look.’ He turned and pointed. ‘I’ll be along there. Don’t mind what time you can come, the day’s me own. Right at the end where the cliff levels out; just above that there’s a bit of woodland. It’s lovely up there. I’ll show you. The blackberry blossom is comin’ thick. It’s a week since I saw it, so it should be like snow now.’

  She had to tear herself away from his talking, for she found that she was waiting, waiting for him to say something unusual, strange, nice.

  ‘All right, bye-bye then.’

  Chapter Two

  She wasn’t forewarned in any way. The curtains in the front room were still drawn across the window, there was no life outside the house, none in the street, none in the town as yet, except for the milkman’s electric cart that had joggled past her as she came round by the school. She had so forgotten the unusualness of her morning jaunt that she did not prepare herself for secrecy until she had taken half a dozen steps up the path; and then she lifted her heels from the ground and made her way to the back door on tiptoe.

  There was a smile on her face as she stealthily turned the lock back, and then her loud cry of ‘Eeh! Oh!’ swept it away as her eyebrows lifted the whole skin of her face in shocked, frightened surprise. There sat her mother at the small kitchen table: she had her hands joined tightly together and they looked a dirty grey in contrast with the pale pink plastic covered top of the table. She was wearing a red dressing gown and it was open in a V down between her breasts. She was staring at Brid and she made no move from the table.

  Her father was standing near the sink. He was wearing only his trousers; the sparse hair at the back of his head was standing up as it did when he was agitated, for when he was agitated he would run his fingers through it. The hair on his chest was thicker than that on his head, and it was black and curly. He too stared at her, his mouth open as if it were jammed wide.

  Willie, in a pair of mauve-coloured pyjamas, was standing near the door. He looked big, even massive in his night attire and more attractive than he did during the day. His round face was pink-hued and sleep was still in his eyes, but his face was tight as if he was holding back an outburst. Next to him stood Harry Palmer. Harry was still in his working clothes; the three-quarter length jacket that he wore on long journeys remained buttoned up to his neck, although the morning was already warm. He was the only one not staring at Brid; he had his cap in his hands and his heavy masculine face was bent towards it.

  ‘Well?’ It was her mother speaking, but it was a different ‘well’ from that with which she greeted the men: there was no light scorn in it; her anger left no room for that. ‘What have you been up to?’

  Brid cast her eyes swiftly from one to the other, her mouth at the same time half open in protest. She was indignant at the implication in the ‘Well?’ and the attack in the last words. ‘Why, Mother, I’ve—’

  ‘You leave this to me.’ It was her father speaking. He was moving from the sink towards her. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  Her head swung two or three times backwards and forwards in the automatic movement of a doll before she exclaimed, ‘I’ve just been along—’ her hand went out now and wagged towards the kitchen window, and she swallowed and finished, ‘along the top of the cliff.’

  Her father was standing in front of her, glaring at her as if he hated her. Ever since she was a child she had had the impression that he didn’t like her. She had once said this to her mother and her mother had laughed and said, ‘Don’t be silly; your dad thinks the world of you.’

  ‘Who was the fella?’ he now demanded.

  ‘You…you wouldn’t know him, he’s not from here. He’s…he’s…’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘His name is Joe Lloyd.’

  ‘Joe Lloyd?’

  ‘He…he lives over in Johnson’s Cross.’

  ‘Is he going to marry you?’

  ‘Marry me?’ Her voice was crawling up the back of her throat now. ‘Marry me?’ There was a frightened choking sensation in her chest and it jolted into her mouth and made her cough as her father exclaimed, ‘I said marry you, you dirty little bitch, you!’

  ‘I’ve done nothing, nothing I tell you. I only went out—’

  ‘We know what you did.’ He was wagging his hand within an inch of her face, so close that she had to bend backwards away from him. ‘You came in from the dance at eleven. Oh aye, I heard you, you dirty little sod, you. And then you slipped out, didn’t you, when we were all snug asleep, an’ he was waiting for you outside?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t…Mother—’ she looked past her father and appealed to her mother; and her mother staring back at her, pityingly now, said, ‘It’s no good, Brid; Harry saw you.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have; I didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything. We were only sitting on the top of Stockwell Hill. We went to see the dawn.’

  ‘My God…be quiet, girl!’
The words were groaned out. Her mother was looking at her joined hands again.

  ‘I tell you we were. I don’t care what you think you saw, Harry Palmer, that’s all we were doing.’ There were tears in her voice now, an indignant yet pitiful sound, as she glared at Harry Palmer.

  Harry Palmer bowed his head again. He wished he was in hell, this minute. He had never meant it to take this turn. His headlights had picked out the shape of entwined couples at intervals during the night, some in cars too clagged together at that time in the morning to be married. One couple, so young they looked like lost children, were asleep near a rick. It had just got light when he saw that pair. Not long after that, he had been so startled that he had nearly swerved off the road, when, with the sun on her face and her head back, he had seen young Brid standing close to a fella and gazing at him as if she were entranced. It had given him a gliff. What could he do? By the time he had reached the depot he was thinking that he must have been seeing things. Yet he had scampered home, gone straight into the Stevens’ garden and lifted the prop and tapped on Willie’s window. This was the usual signal for getting him up without disturbing the house. He had beckoned him down and told him what he had seen. Willie had dived upstairs and, sure enough, he had returned to say her bed was empty. What could he do but rouse his parents? He was sorry, sorry to the heart that he had to be the one to give her away for, in spite of everything, she was a decent kid, was Brid…At least he had always thought so.

  ‘You’re a liar, Harry Palmer, whatever you say. It’s lies, lies. We were just looking at the sun coming up.’

  ‘Shut your silly trap.’ Her father’s hand was raised, the back towards her face ready to skelp it when her mother cried, harshly now, ‘We’ll have none of that! You leave her be.’

  Her voice indicated that she was about to take charge of the household once more. But Tom Stevens was not taking any of that this morning. His face blazing with anger, he turned on her: ‘Leave her be, eh? Leave her be? Aye, you can say that. There’s been too many in this house let be, that’s the trouble. Leave her be? Aye, I’ll leave her be after I’ve stripped the flesh off her bones. She’s one I’ll cure of her whoring.’

  ‘Shut your mouth! You’ll have the place raised.’ Alice Stevens’ voice was low as if it were coming from deep in her bowels. She and her husband were facing each other as if they were alone in the kitchen, enacting one of their usual rows. Then quite abruptly she turned to Harry Palmer and said quietly, ‘Thanks for coming, Harry.’

  It was a dismissal, and the young man shrugged his body from one side to the other heavily before moving away, and as he reached the door he looked at Brid for a second with a shamefaced look and muttered something below his breath, which sounded like, ‘Sorry it had to be me, Brid. Sorry.’

  When the door closed on Harry, Brid, her eyes stretched, her mouth trembling, watched her father glare at it and speak to it; saying, ‘Aye, that’ll give them something to chew over. We’ll have the big fella along here in next to no time wanting the facts. And why not, eh? Why not?’ He had, as it were, thrown these last words at his wife, and she said again deeply, ‘Shut your mouth!’

  Brid felt sick in her stomach. Her father had referred to his lifelong friend and pal, the man she called her Uncle John, as if he were a stranger, or at best a neighbour whom he didn’t like. He had referred to him as ‘the big fella’ and he had put hate into the name.

  She went to move quietly across the room when her father’s arm shot out and barred her way. ‘No, you don’t! We’ll get to the bottom of this or I’ll bloody well know the reason why.’

  ‘There’s nothing to get to the bottom of, I’ve told you.’ Her head bounced at him, and he stormed on her now: ‘Nothing to get to the bottom of?’ he cried. ‘You’re another one who can treat it lightly. It comes of practice, eh? How many times have you done this afore? You little tart, you! Sneaked out on a Saturday night, eh? Come on, out with it.’ He had gripped her shoulders and was pulling her back towards the table, when Willie, who so far hadn’t spoken, said quietly, ‘Enough of that. You can get to the bottom of it without any rough play.’

  ‘You an’ all stay out of this,’ his father quickly warned him. Then changing his tone as if he were continuing a reasonable conversation, he said, ‘You know what I’m gettin’ at. You know what it’s all about, don’t you? So leave me to deal with this.’

  ‘You’re not the one to deal with it; you’re too prejudiced.’

  ‘Prejudiced!’ Tom Stevens’ tone had changed again, and he glared at his son as he cried, ‘You call me prejudiced after what I’ve had to put up with; another man would have—’

  ‘Yes, another man would have…another man would have…’ Her mother’s lips were curling right back from her top teeth, and the gesture exposed this man for what his wife and son and herself knew him to be: a man who was all talk. A fearful man. Fearful in the sense that he dreaded losing the one person who was nothing to him now but a form of torture, but without whom he couldn’t hope to live.

  Brid felt her father’s exposure like a deep cut from broken glass. She closed her eyes against it. Then the next moment they were flung wide as, stung into retaliation, he cried, ‘You’ve gone too far. I’ve told you you would go too far. I’ll throw her out, I’ll throw her along the road where she belongs, but, and bloody damn you, not afore I’ve left me mark on her!’

  It happened so quickly that she could only instinctively shield her face against him. Pinto’s lead always hung on the nail to the side of the kitchen door. It was half leather and half chain and it was the chain that caught her shoulder and lifted her screaming from the ground. She was cowering over the table, her face buried in her arms, as the struggle went on behind her. When her mother’s arms came above her and lifted her, the room was quiet. She knew that her father and Willie were standing somewhere near, she could hear their deep shuddering breaths, but she did not look at them. Her mother led her towards the door into the hallway, and there she drew her to a momentary halt, and her sagging breasts were dragged upwards as she turned to look back at her husband. And when she spoke, her words were guttural and deep with threat: ‘My God! I’ll take it out of you for this, you see if I don’t!’

  There was a deep moan engulfing Brid’s body. It was from a variety of pains. She was holding her hand over the place where the physical pain was most keen, the thick part of her neck at the top of her shoulder where the end of the chain had caught her; there was the pain from her mind where the thoughts, breaking the skin of years, were forcing their way through into the daylight; there was the pain of her spirit, humiliated, brought low, made to feel guilty; and there was the pain which came from she knew not where, the pain of the severed blood-tie. Above all the other pains, this was the worst. It had to do with her father’s dislike of her, and her Uncle John’s liking of her. Her father had put into words that which for years now she had dreaded to hear. Her father had never done anything in the whole of her life to make her like him, and he had just struck her. He had, she knew, always wanted to strike her, and now he had done it. Yet still she could not hate him, she could not even actively dislike him, because she still wished he was her father, her real father. She didn’t want her Uncle John for a father, because her mother wasn’t married to her Uncle John, she was married to Tom Stevens, the man who should be her father.

  Her mother was gently taking off her dress; her hands were soft and warm. She should turn to her and fling herself on her gaping bosom and get the sympathy that she knew was waiting for her, but she didn’t. If there was anybody she disliked at this moment it was her mother. Yet her mother had always been kind to her. Her mother was kind to everybody with the exception of her father. She was known as a good sort, her mother was. An intruding thought told Brid that life would have been different had her mother distributed her kindness a little more evenly, then her father wouldn’t have been so bad. She still thought of the man downstairs as her father. She would always think of him as her father. L
ife would have been happy, even joyous, had her mother been faithful to him, for her father could have been a nice man. He still could be a nice man, and it all depended on her mother. But her mother would never give him again what would make him into a nice man. Time had done too much to them.

  As her mother pressed her gently into the pillow she felt in an odd way that her father had not really hit her, he had hit her mother.

  ‘Lie still. I’ll go and get some of me cold cream and rub it on. The skin isn’t broken, but you’re likely to have a mark there. But never you mind, I’ll take it out of the sod for this. I’ll make the bugger squirm.’

  ‘Mother.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t do anything. He didn’t mean it; I know he didn’t mean it.’

  ‘He meant it all right. He’s a vindictive sod, always has been. Well, you’re old enough now; we’ll have to have a talk, and soon.’

  Although the movement was painful Brid turned her entire body away from her mother and stared at the wall.

  Looking down at her daughter, Alice Stevens sighed. Well, she had to start some time, she supposed, but she’d had the idea that Brid was a bit different, that she’d wait until she married. She herself had known all about it long afore she married Tom Stevens. And it was just as well she got her fun in first, for it would have been a poor lookout after. Why in the name of God had she to go and pick a fellow like Tom? One-woman man all right, he was. She could have stood it if he’d gone off the rails, even before she herself had started. But God almighty! This till death us do part business got on her tripe. And what had he expected her to do, with him away in the services? Do tattin’? It was himself who had said to John ‘Look after her,’ and John had looked after her…and how! And he would have been looking after her still were it not for Olive. Duty be damned! Why the hell must he keep yarping on about Olive and his duty. He should have left her and come away when Brid was born.