The Bonny Dawn Page 7

  When he stood before Joe his pals were already one on each side of him, and he stared at Joe through narrowed slits before he said, ‘What are you after here?’

  ‘After? Nothing.’ There was a trace of nervousness in Joe’s voice, and he looked to each side of him, then back to Sandy Palmer before adding, ‘Nothing…well, that is, the same as you, I’m goin’ to bathe.’

  ‘Bathe? What, in them!’ Ronnie Fitzsimmons flicked his forefinger up the sleeve of Joe’s jacket.

  ‘Where’s your towel and things?’ It was like an interrogation, and Joe, looking straight into Sandy Palmer’s tight face, said, ‘I’ve

  never used a towel, I let the water dry on me.’

  ‘He lets the water dry on him.’ Sandy Palmer was not looking at Joe now but at his pals, first at Ronnie Fitzsimmons, and then his eyes, leaping over the top of Joe’s head, came to Clarky Leach, and he repeated, ‘He lets the water dry on him.’

  Joe began to tremble. It was just a small reaction at first in his thighs, not noticeable in his face and hands, but it told him he was afraid. One of them he could have managed. With two of them he would have stood a poor chance. With three of them and Sandy Palmer in the lead he knew his position was hopeless. So he tried diplomacy. Forcing a smile to his face and an airy tone to his voice, he asked, ‘Is it cold?’

  No-one answered him. The two satellites looked towards their leader, and when he did not speak they took their cue from him, and Ronnie Fitzsimmons repeated, with the irritating stupidity of the dull-witted, ‘He says, is it cold, Sandy.’

  Sandy’s eyes were wide open now. They were brown, almost black-hued, and should have been bright and sparkling, if only because he had just come out of the sea, but there was no sparkle in them. They looked dull, opaque, as if light had never passed through them. They were eyes coloured with frustration. Whatever change took place in them was brought about by strong emotion only. The eyes darkened still further now as he said, ‘You’re a swab.’

  Joe made no reply but the trembling in his thighs moved downwards towards his knees.

  ‘D’you hear what Sandy says? You’re a swab.’ Ronnie Fitzsimmons accompanied this statement with a thrust of his elbow that, for a moment, knocked Joe off balance and took him a couple of steps away from them. Immediately they brought the distance between them back to what it was before.

  ‘What were you doing last night…all night?’

  ‘Last night?’ Joe blinked up at the tall naked figure before him, and paused as if he was thinking, then said, ‘I was walking.’

  ‘He was walking.’ Clarky Leach bounced his head towards his two pals and repeated, ‘D’you hear that, Sandy? He was walkin’…he was walkin’ all night.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Sandy Palmer continued to stare at Joe. Walking; he said he had been walking. Does a fella walk when he’s got Brid Stevens with him? The ache that had been in him for weeks now sharpened itself until he felt it like an actual stab under his ribs. The very thought of Brid caused an active boiling inside him, and he wanted to hit out with both his hands and his feet: he wanted to tear into shreds the smooth face confronting him. Brid had been with this fella all night…Ever since he had been at school he had wanted Brid Stevens. He had even played a game with himself, saying, ‘Aw, let her wait. There’s plenty of time, an’ plenty of others.’ And he had gone round with others. Susie Wright…he had gone round with her for six months solid, while all the time being conscious of Brid down the street. Then there came the actual moment when he realised he couldn’t play games with himself any more. It was time to make a move, for Brid had something that was attracting others. She hadn’t taken to his advances at all, but this only put an edge to his appetite. That time when, coming back from the club—yes, he had even left the club early to see her back so that her old man wouldn’t go on—he had made up to her and she had turned on him, hit out at him she had, and he had laughed at her. He hadn’t minded that; it proved she wasn’t easy. He was glad to find that she wasn’t loose-legged.

  That night, their Harry had passed them in the street, and after Brid had plunged into the house and he was going back to the club to get a dance in before twelve, their Harry had called from the garden, ‘Here a minute!’ and he had gone back.

  ‘Walk down the road,’ said Harry. And he had walked down the road in the opposite direction from the club.

  ‘You mad?’ said Harry.

  ‘What d’you mean, me mad?’

  ‘Brid Stevens.’

  ‘What about Brid?’

  ‘Are you plain bats?’

  ‘What’re you gettin’ at?’

  They had stopped at the far corner of the street under a lamp-post, and Harry had peered at him, then whispered, ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Know what? What the hell is it I should know?’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘What the hell you good-Godding for? What’s up with you? What should I know?’

  ‘Well, I thought you knew about the old man.’

  ‘Which old man? Brid’s old man or our old man?’

  ‘Our old man.’

  ‘Well, for Christ’s sake! What’s wrong with him? Spit it out.’

  ‘Don’t be such a dim bugger. He fathered Brid; she’s our half-sister. That’s what all this business has been about for years: me mother bein’ bad all the time and old Stevens driving everybody daft…Don’t look like that; I thought you knew. And when I saw you with her, well, I—’

  ‘Shut up! Shut your flaming mouth!’

  He had turned and run until he was puffed. Then he had walked for a long time, all the while thinking, not of Brid, but of his father, and the desire to kill him was stronger than any feeling he’d had in his life before.

  After that, he hadn’t kept out of Brid’s way but had tormented her every time he saw her, until he realised that, half-sister or no half-sister, it made no difference to his feelings, and he would have to do something about it…Something. But what? He had been groping in his mind about the something when he came downstairs this morning and his mother, brighter than usual, had imparted the news to him: ‘There was hell let loose in the Stevens’,’ she said. ‘That Brid has been out all night with a fella.’ He had wanted to hit his mother. He had known without being told the name of the fella. It was Joe Lloyd. He had come to the club two Saturdays running and had been in George’s a number of times during the last couple of weeks, and each time she had sat nattering to him. And now, right here, dead plonk in front of him, was Joe Lloyd, and he had been out all night with Brid.

  Like a flash of lightning, his hands went out and grabbed a fistful of Joe’s jacket lapel, tie and shirt. The impact was so sudden that Joe would have fallen over backwards had not the grip on his clothes steadied him, and he put his hands up to his collar and strained his neck as he cried, ‘Give over! You’re choking me. Give over!’

  ‘You had Brid Stevens with you, hadn’t you? Come on, hadn’t you?’

  ‘No…No, only this—’ A vicious shake, which jerked his head backwards, cut off the remainder of his words and he choked, then coughed and gasped. When he was again steady he was breathing as hard as if he had run a fast mile across the fells, and he just heard the tail end of Clarky Leach’s remark coming from way back, high in his nose: ‘With Brid Stevens?’ And he knew that whatever knowledge Sandy Palmer possessed was not shared by his two mates, because Ronnie Fitzsimmons was now verifying it: ‘Coo! You little stinker, you. Fancy that. Him and Brid out all night. Coo! You dirty little bastard.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’ Joe gasped. ‘We weren’t. Not all night. We—’

  ‘Just long enough to have some fun, eh?’ He was being shaken again; but this time he did not suffer it. For a moment his fear fled and righteous anger took its place. With a sudden tug he freed himself from Sandy Palmer’s grasp.

  He had got his release through the element of surprise, and it was shown on the boys’ faces as he confronted them. He was a couple of yards away from them now but bending towards
them in a crouching movement, and his voice was no longer conciliatory.

  ‘You lay your hands on me again and you’ll see what you’ll get. That goes for all of you. Now mind, I’m tellin’ you. Don’t think you can come your gang warfare on me. It’s like you to go around in threes; you’re frightened to tackle anyone single. I’ll take you on any day of the week, Palmer, alone, if you’ve got that much spunk.’

  ‘Listen to him! Listen to him!’ In a sideward glance, Clarky’s eyes came to rest on Sandy Palmer, who was standing as still as if he had been frozen to the spot.

  Clarky was waiting for a cue from his leader, and in the next second he got it.

  ‘Get him!’

  Like three wolves, the boys pounced on Joe, who was instantly borne to the ground, and quickly his struggles were checked by Sandy Palmer sitting on his legs and by the other two holding his arms spreadeagled on the ground. They were all panting, and Clarky gasped, ‘What you going to do with him, Sandy?’

  Sandy was staring down into the now blazing face of Joe and he said quietly, ‘You’ll see. Take his clothes off.’

  Joe made an attempt to struggle again, but finding this useless, he used the only weapon left to him, his voice. With a bellow that even shook his attackers, he yelled, ‘Help! Help!’ and as his lips framed the word ‘Police!’ Ronnie Fitzsimmon’s hand clapped across them. ‘Where’s something to stuff in his mouth?’

  Sandy Palmer motioned to Clarky Leach, saying, ‘Go and get our things.’

  Within a minute the clothes were being dumped down to the side of Joe, and Sandy Palmer said, ‘Pass me me hanky here. Joe bit ineffectively at the hand that rammed the handkerchief into his mouth. Then his trousers and his short underpants were torn off, and Ronnie Fitzsimmons exclaimed, ‘Look! He’s got his trunks on. He was going in all right.’

  Suddenly, Joe became still; the fight went out of him, and the trembling now reached every pore of his body.

  ‘He’ll go in all right.’

  The words brought to Joe the quality of danger attached to this part of the coast. He had never before sensed it so clearly. What would they do? Dump him over the rocks into the gut?

  Suddenly, he began to pray, the prayers he had learned at Sunday school. God of mercy, God who gave to the world his only begotten Son, have mercy on me…Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  ‘Look out and see if there’s anybody down below.’ Sandy Palmer jerked his head in the direction of the beach, and Clarky Leach ran to the end of the copse, then came back again panting. ‘You can’t take him down there, Sandy. There’s a man and woman lyin’ just along on the sands, not far. They’re picnickin’ an’ the fella’s been in; he’s sunbathing.’

  Sandy Palmer stared into Joe’s sweating face for a moment, then looked about him as if searching for an idea. And seemingly he found it. ‘You got any string, Clarky?’ he said.

  ‘String, Sandy? No.’

  ‘You, Ronnie?’

  ‘Might be a bit in me bag on me saddle.’

  ‘Skip an’ see.’

  ‘What? Like this? I’d better put me clothes on; the bike’s near the road.’

  ‘Put ’em on, then! Here, give him to me.’ Sandy Palmer took over his pal’s position and his grip was fiercer on Joe, so much so that Joe’s face screwed up with the agony of his cramped muscles.

  When Fitzsimmons was dressed in his scanty attire of tight trousers, tight singlet and anorak, he scuttled through the trees to his motorbike, and within a few minutes returned with three pieces of cord of different lengths.

  ‘These do, Sandy?’

  After glancing at the cord, Sandy said, ‘Hang on here again until I get me things on,’ and again they changed over. But all the while he was dressing he kept his eyes on Joe. Next he gave the order to Clarky Leach to get into his things, and again, when his grip took over from Leach’s, Joe’s body writhed in agony.

  There was an unrestrained terror in Joe now; he was whimpering inside, gabbling to himself in his fear: God! God! What would they do? Oh, Mam! If only somebody would come. He’s a fiend, a fiend. Hellish! But what’s he up to? He can’t take me down to the bay.

  His thoughts were jostled as he was dragged to his feet, and when he realised that they were going to tie him to a tree his eyes almost popped out of his head; and he made one final effort. Supported by his fear, he curved his back and heaved his stomach upwards in an effort to wrench himself free from them; but he succeeded only in straining himself. When they pulled him straight again he found he wasn’t against the big tree but between two slender young ones. He struggled madly as the other two held him while Sandy Palmer tied one of his wrists and an ankle to one of the trunks; but his struggling ceased when Sandy Palmer, with an upward lift, wrenched his other leg toward the second tree, for the scream that tore through his body even penetrated the gag in his mouth, and for a moment he felt nothing and saw nothing.

  ‘Coo! Look, careful, Sandy; he’s passed out.’ A thrust from Sandy Palmer’s fist under Joe’s chin showed that he had not quite passed out, and when the long, thin fingers clamped his cheeks inwards, Joe opened his eyes and looked dazedly at his tormentor.

  ‘What if somebody comes?’ There was just a trace of apprehension in Clarky Leach’s voice now.

  Sandy Palmer took no notice of this question. He seemed deaf to the fear in his pal’s voice and blind to everything but the youth in front of him. And now words squeezed themselves up through his neck and between his teeth: ‘I’ll larn you to take a young kid out all night. I’ll larn you. You won’t do it again, will you?’ The hand shook viciously, and Joe’s head with it. ‘An’ what were you doin’ crawling along here with these on, eh?’ He pulled out the elastic on Joe’s bathing trunks with his forefinger and let it snap back viciously into Joe’s stomach. ‘Goin’ to meet her, eh? An’ goin’ for a bathe together, eh? To wash out last night’s business, eh?’ The elastic band was pulled forward again, this time with such force that the woollen material of the leg was split, although the band remained. Then with a flick of his wrist Sandy Palmer drew out a knife from his back pocket and the blade seemed to present itself of its own volition. And when it was thrust under the band to split the elastic, the point seared the skin just as it was meant to. Each pore in Joe’s body screamed in response and the groan again came through the handkerchief.

  ‘Eeh! Sandy, man, lay off; you’ll split his guts. Look, he’s bleedin’.’

  Again the leader made no response, but he calmly took a cigarette packet from his hip pocket and, standing close to Joe, he extracted a cigarette and lit it. It was at this point that a screaming began in Joe’s mind. He knew what this meant. The word Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, raced around inside his head, intermingled with, Help me! Save me! Oh God. God save me. Bring somebody. Oh, Mam!

  He closed his eyes tightly as he waited, and when the warm smoke wafted over his face he did not think of Sandy Palmer and his intentions, but strangely he was reminded of the last time he was in church. It wasn’t his own church, but a high church in Hexham. His mother was with him; they were on a trip; and it was only her presence that had kept him in his seat, for as he listened to the preacher prattling on about Christ crucified, he was saying to himself, What good is this going to do me? I’d get much more good out of a tramp across the fells. And when the censer was being swung he had felt faint and wanted air. Outside, his mother had remarked, ‘It was a very good sermon,’ and he had answered, ‘How I’m making it out now is that there’s been more than one man crucified. They seemed to do it every day during the last war. I’ve been reading about Belsen,’ which had shocked his mother, and she had come back at him straightway with, ‘It isn’t the same. He was different.’

  The smoke was hot now on his face, and behind the racing, screaming matter that was now his brain lay a quiet section, and it was still occupied with that Sunday he had been to church. His mother had said, ‘He felt like a man, but He was God.’ Now the screaming penetrated the quiet section and it hollered, ‘Anybody who goe
s through this comes out qualified to be a god.’ It might seem impossible to make sense out of anything he was thinking, and yet he understood: nobody going through this would be the same again, not to themselves or to anyone else; nobody afterwards would think the same of them because they would only have to look into their eyes to know they had qualified to be a…‘Go-d!’

  The scream, denied full utterance through his mouth, poured itself out through his skin; when the cigarette touched his flesh his nerves screamed themselves into sweat.

  ‘Eeh, Sandy! God, man! You’ll maim him…Give over…Look; I’m off.’

  ‘You stay where you are.’

  The copse became quiet. The two boys stood away from the stretched figure and their leader. Their eyes were fixed on the quivering, seared flesh between the naked loins. They gazed in petrified fascination, yet their bodies were half turned as if for flight; and then Clarky’s quick ear caught a sound. It was a scraping of a foot on the rocks and he jerked round and ran to the edge of the clearing. There he saw a bent figure scrambling up the bank and his mouth dropped into a wide gape. The next second he was with his pals again.

  ‘Sandy, it’s her! It’s Brid! She’s here.’ Clarky flung his arm backwards as if to indicate Brid.

  Sandy Palmer did not even glance towards Clarky, but, his eyes darting once more over Joe, he called quickly, ‘Out of it!’

  The other two needed no second warning; they were off and would have made for their motorbikes but that Sandy’s arm waved them down behind a clump of bushes, and there they waited.

  And Joe waited. His whole body was crying with pain. His mind was screaming with a mixture of anger and fear and the tears were running down his face. As he waited he looked away sideways in the direction of the sea. In the dawn of this morning he had felt a man. He had sat on a hill and looked at the dawn, and at his side had sat the girl who not only his body but also his spirit had told him was for him. He had wanted her to see him as somebody different, not as the little meek chap Joe Lloyd, not the open-air chap Joe Lloyd, not the chap who talked poetry but couldn’t write it. He wanted her to see him as the man, Joe Lloyd. The man who she would feel was for her. A man of strength despite his size, a man of beauty despite his size, for his limbs were smooth and compact, and his skin was warm and sunburned from his feet upwards to the top of his thighs and upwards again from his navel. But how would she see him now, trussed like a drying rabbit skin, stark naked and with his privates still quivering from the burning cigarette end? His spirit bowed itself down low under the humiliation. It too was crying.