Mill Town Girl

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘He shall have them all . . .’ Rose couldn’t do anything with Vivienne either. But Rose didn’t look well. She was pale and tired again.

  ‘Drop-ping-drop-ping-drop-ping-drop-ping . . .’ That’s better. He’ll not need to play it through twice. Only another row to do.

  ‘Hear the pen-nies fa-a-all.’ There was one little lad who asked if she took them up personally, the pennies – to Jesus – in that jar. She wished Cecil would leave her alone. It was becoming clearer to her every day that she would never marry him.

  ‘Every one for Je-sus. He shall have them all.’

  She ushered the children out on to the chilly, foggy street before setting off for home. Cecil was going to lock the chapel. He’d be back at night, preaching. She was going to go to St Michael’s. It had got that she never went to chapel when Cecil was preaching. She knew what they all thought. They thought she was going peculiar. They said that women of forty-five were likely to go off their heads. It made her laugh to think about it. She’d not been made to the normal pattern so she certainly wouldn’t become like the rest now.

  She felt unusually cheerful, walking along by herself, thinking that she wouldn’t see Cecil for a few more days though she didn’t think she had any right to be cheerful. There was nothing to be joyful about, not with eggs at three and six a dozen and cream banned by law. There were hardly any sweets in the shops, no biscuits, soap scarce, a paper shortage and Lord Woolton telling everyone to go carefully with the tin-opener.

  But she was cheerful. That medicine of Frank Carter’s was doing her good. She drank a bottle a week. He laughed now when he dispensed it. She’d asked him what it was and he’d smiled and said, ‘The Elixir of Life’, whatever that meant. As long as she never forgot to take a dose, for the effects wore off after an hour or two, the world looked rosy and she felt herself to be distanced from it. It didn’t do to think of the excitable, highly-strung state that lay beneath the surface. The medicine damped it down nicely.

  Winter suited her. It was very cold this afternoon, with that smell, that pleasant evocative smell, of rank, rotting leaves as she went alongside the park. The park railings had been taken down; the iron was needed for guns. She could hear ducks beyond the trees, squawking around the ornamental pond. It was still light. They weren’t going to put the clocks back this winter.

  The cheerful mood persisted when she arrived home. Vivienne had made the tea. The table was laid and a place set for her. They must have had theirs and gone upstairs. She wouldn’t disturb them. She would have hers then go upstairs to change into something smart for church. The service started half an hour before the chapel’s, so she’d have to hurry. But then she’d be out at least an hour earlier – especially if Cecil was preaching at chapel – and be home in time for the news.

  It had been a lovely service. She liked it all now; the order, the form. It gave a feeling of continuity, saying the same prayers week after week. She loved singing the ‘Magnificat’ at evening prayer though she was fondest of singing the ‘Te Deum laudamus’ at the morning service. You could really let yourself go on that one. The organist was the music master at the boys’ school and when it came to the last lines – ‘Oh, God. In thee have I trusted. Let me never be confounded’ – it made a shiver go through you.

  Carrie was humming the ‘Te Deum’ to herself as she let herself into the front door of the Temperance Hotel. Mr Tereschenko was standing, tall, grey in the half dark of the hall. ‘I have something to tell you, Mees Shrigley,’ he said, hardly giving her time to take her hat and coat off.

  ‘Well?’

  He didn’t usually come downstairs in an evening, unless it was for good reason. He looked serious and tight-lipped. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Please. Can we talk in your sitting room? I do not wish for your beautiful girls to hear us.’

  ‘Whatever’s up, Mr Tereschenko?’ Carrie demanded, her voice rising.

  ‘Upstairs? Please?’

  ‘Very well.’ She went ahead, up the stairs and opened her door. ‘Just a minute. I’ll pull the blinds before you put the light on.’ When she turned to look at him in the electric light she saw that he was worried and anxious. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You must tell me.’

  ‘Mr Ratcliffe, Cecil, has frightened Vivienne. He is very bad man.’

  He was waiting for her reaction. Carrie felt herself grow cold. What was this? He did not look as if he had made this up. She did not understand what he meant. ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Cecil. He makes passes at her. At Vivienne. He puts his hands on her . . .’

  This was silly. Horrible. There must be some mistake.

  ‘Mr Tereschenko,’ Carrie said, lowering her voice so that they would not be heard, ‘is this some kind of a joke? You are not serious?’

  He didn’t answer her for a moment and then he came towards her and put out his hand to offer comfort to her. ‘You did not know. I was sure you did not know. But Mees Shrigley, that man, these men I have seen before. They are a danger to young girls – and to yourself.’

  The room was very still. There was a strange taste in her mouth and clear, cold steel in her head. Her mind was all of a sudden sharp, as it used to be. ‘Just what has he done? Tell me!’ she demanded.

  ‘Vivienne – that lovely talented girl – Vivienne was screaming. I heard her. I ran downstairs. I saw him. I saw Cecil run from the house. I found Vivienne crying as if her heart would burst.’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘No. I will tell you. I ask her, Mees Shrigley. But there was no need to ask. Her dress was torn. There was blood on her neck, on her little bare breast.’

  ‘When? Stop! When was this?’ Carrie grabbed his arm.

  ‘Two hours ago.’

  She pushed past him to the door and ran down the stairs into the kitchen. ‘Vivienne, Vivienne,’ she called as she ran up the girls’ stairs. Their door was locked on the inside. She beat her hands on it. ‘Open up. At once! I must know.’

  There was only a muffled crying coming to her through the door.

  ‘Tell me!’ She shouted and slammed on the door. ‘What has he done to you?’

  ‘Go away. Oh, please, please go away, Aunt Carrie.’ The voice was muffled. And it was Rose’s.

  But she was crying and shouting. ‘Is it true? What has he done?’

  ‘Vivienne isn’t hurt. She’s just frightened. Go away.’

  Carrie ran down the stairs and back into the hall. He would be at the chapel. They would be coming out in ten minutes’ time. She’d kill him. What was there to hand?

  On the hallstand was a selection of walking sticks. The heaviest was made of hickory. It had a sharp-angled hand grip. It would do her very well.

  She ran through the cold, clear and frosty streets, her feet pounding the pavements, unseeing but for the red-hot haze that swam in front of her eyes. She ran all the way. Her hair had come free and was falling wild across her face, strands flying into her mouth.

  She was there. The chapel doors were open; the congregation beginning to pour out on to the dark street. ‘Cecil Ratcliffe!’ She heard herself screeching the words. ‘Come out here!’

  They stood back, mesmerised, as he came towards her. It seemed that they were turned to stone. Nobody came forward to help him.

  Wild, uncontrollable rage erupted in her. She brought the stick down upon his skull and he dropped to his knees.

  ‘You vile beast! You’re worse than a beast!’ She raised it again and smashed it down across his back. He fell, face down, groaning, on to the street.

  Carrie turned to the chapel members. Now they were crowding around. ‘Do you know what he’s done? Do you?’ She was screaming and crying as she fell on him and took his head into her hands. She was going to smash it down on to the street but someone had hold of her. They were pulling her away.

  ‘He has raped her. That sweet little girl. One of my children,’ she was crying. ‘Let me go. I want him to die.’

  They pulled her upright. Someon
e lifted him to his knees. Blood was pouring out of a cut in his forehead but he was alive. He looked dazed.

  She tore herself free and stood before him. ‘You will pay for this, Cecil Ratcliffe. I’ll have you arrested. I am going straight to the police.’ Then she spat. Full in his face. Like some cheap little trollop.

  It went right into his open mouth. ‘Don’t think I don’t mean it,’ she shouted. ‘I’ve done it before. You’ll get life for this.’ She struck him across the side of his head, turned and ran back as fast as she could.

  She would go to the police tomorrow. She would take Vivienne with her. She knew that much. First she’d go to the girls, cast herself at their feet. How could she have let it happen? She was sobbing as she went into the kitchen.

  Rose stood there, as white as death, wrapped in a great check dressing-gown she’d found in the attic. ‘She’s gone,’ she said in a voice of ice. ‘Vivienne has gone. She’s run away.’

  There was a pain in Carrie’s chest. A tight band was closing around her. She dropped into the chair, her breath lurching in her throat as she let her head fall into her hands. ‘Oh, Rose.’ She began to babble now. ‘Go for the doctor. Tell him I think I’ve killed someone. Oh, the pain; the pain . . .’

  She was helped to her feet by Rose and Mr Tereschenko, helped up the stairs to her room, still babbling, assuring them that Cecil Ratcliffe was alive though he didn’t deserve to be, crying for Rose and Vivienne to forgive her.

  They brought her tea and hot bread and milk. They gave her three tablespoonsful of her medicine and stayed with her until she slept.

  Rose filled a hot-water bottle for herself when Aunt Carrie was asleep. She was hungry. Tears dropped down her face on to the bread-board as she cut herself a wedge of bread. She felt awful. There were two patches of cracked skin at the corners of her mouth. Her tongue was sore and that, too, had a split at the tip.

  Vivienne had gone from the house not, as Aunt Carrie believed, simply because of Cecil Ratcliffe, though he had behaved like a maniac, tearing Vivienne’s clothes off her. He had caught her packing all her dressing-up clothes and dancing costumes into Aunt Carrie’s case. Vivienne was going to join a concert party. They came for her in the afternoon; telling her that they were a dancer short and they were booked to perform at army camps all over the country.

  Rose knew that she too would have to leave. She could only just fasten the corsets round herself. The baby could be born in six weeks’ time. She couldn’t stay here any longer, that was certain.

  What if she had the baby in the bed one night? What if she woke up and found she’d had the baby? Could it happen like that? What was a labour? How long did it last? Ten minutes? A week? It was painful. She knew that much. She had seen it at the cinema: people running upstairs with kettlesful of boiling water; the father pacing the floor, shouts from the mother, her perspiring brow being dabbed.

  But what happened? She knew how it got out. But would it be so bad, the pain, that she’d be shouting and pulling on towels tied to the bedhead? The last film she’d seen that showed a birth had scared her to death.

  There was some of Aunt Carrie’s blackcurrant jam in the cupboard. She went to open the cupboard door and as she did so the infant kicked her – hard. It had never kicked so hard before. She looked down, opened the dressing-gown and watched, fascinated, as her swollen belly seemed to move its prominence from the left to the right under the kicking little heels she could feel beneath her ribs.

  She had been amazed that nobody had guessed her condition. Pamela said she was ‘carrying it all round’ and that tall girls could get away with it for longer. And it was winter and cold. Coal was scarce and everyone was expected to wrap up well, indoors as well as out. She had learned to lean forward slightly, letting her thick jackets and coats hang loosely in front. But there were only six weeks to go now. She could not hide it any longer.

  A month ago she had handed in her resignation at the bank. They were not expecting her to go to the bank again. The next hurdle would be the journey to Manchester. Pamela would wait to hear from her, that she had arrived at the Mother and Baby Home. If Aunt Carrie was recovered she would go tomorrow.

  She poured boiling water into a glass on to a spoonful of Aunt Carrie’s blackcurrant jam. She’d been longing for oranges for weeks now. Quite ridiculous it had been since there were none to be had. The drink was hot and sweet and a reasonable substitute for an orange. She carried upstairs a plate of bread and jam and the hot drink. She could get her knitting out now, with Vivienne gone. She had only to do the button band on the matinee coat and the second set was finished. She would watch the baby moving for a while, as well.

  She must have slept very deeply because the first thing she was aware of, the following morning, was Aunt Carrie shaking her shoulder gently.

  ‘Here’s a cup of tea, love,’ she said. She looked white and grim-faced but spoke with great kindness. ‘I’ll bring a tray up. You looked tired yesterday. I think you ought to stay in bed again today.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. I’m all right.’ Rose sat up, drawing the covers up to her chin. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ Aunt Carrie answered. Then she added in a bitter voice, ‘I’m half sorry that Cecil Ratcliffe will survive, though.’

  Rose took the tea and began to drink.

  ‘Maggie Bettley said he’d left a message, first thing,’ Aunt Carrie said. ‘I burned it. It said, “Called away. Friends in Cumberland want me to live with them.” That’s so I won’t be able to send the police after him.’

  ‘Will he come back?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Not if he’s any sense,’ Aunt Carrie said. ‘He’s had a lucky escape.’

  ‘I think you have, too,’ Rose said softly. She wanted Aunt Carrie to know that she was on her side. Soon she would have to deal her aunt another blow, by leaving her, and she was sorry, so sorry that their wounds had never healed.

  ‘I wasn’t going to marry him,’ Aunt Carrie said. ‘I had no heart for it. But I didn’t know . . . I never thought he was the kind who’d do those . . . those sick . . .’ she was fighting back anger and tears, ‘. . . those vile things to an innocent child.’

  ‘Vivienne was going anyway,’ Rose told her. It was not fair to let Aunt Carrie think that she was to blame. ‘She’s gone to join a concert party. They were one short. To dance for the troops.’

  A little relaxation came to her aunt’s face and Rose was glad that she had brought some comfort to her. ‘Are you sorry you won’t be marrying?’ she dared to ask. But Aunt Carrie’s reply took her right back in her memory to the time she had asked the same question, on holiday, all those years ago.

  ‘Marriage? I’m not sorry.’ The words came sharp and biting. ‘Apart from Jane and Danny’s I’ve never seen a happy marriage.’

  ‘Mine will be.’

  Aunt Carrie looked at her now with pity. ‘I hope you’re right,’ she said. ‘But the Kennedy family seem destined to make a poor job of it.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Rose asked, defensive now. ‘Who else is there?’

  ‘Your Uncle Patrick. He married the wrong woman once. And he’s married again.’

  ‘Uncle Patrick isn’t married.’

  ‘He is. I saw a wedding photograph.’

  Aunt Carrie began to go towards the door. It was as if she wanted to end this conversation. But Rose felt, all at once, that she must defend the family honour. ‘He is not!’ she said hotly. ‘John McGregor was married. Uncle Patrick is being sent to Scotland. Alan told me so.’

  ‘When did he tell you so?’

  ‘In his letters. Before he went missing.’

  Her aunt had stopped, her hand on the door. Two bright spots of colour burned now in her pale face. ‘Are you sure?’ she said in a voice high with agitation.

  ‘Absolutely. I am absolutely sure. That’s why we haven’t heard from him for ages.’ She turned proud eyes towards Aunt Carrie. ‘So you have no cause to say we are a faithless lot.’
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br />   ‘I’m sorry, then.’ Aunt Carrie stood as if shocked. It was a few seconds before she pulled herself together and then she appeared to fumble for the door handle before she could go downstairs.

  But Aunt Carrie seemed to be in a world of her own half the time. She swore that she could see better now she no longer wore glasses and yet she had missed all the signs of what was going on around her: the lecherous looks Cecil Ratcliffe gave to them all, the fury and scorn on Vivienne’s face, the worry on Mary’s and her own steadily increasing girth.

  She came back twenty minutes later; carrying a tray that was beautifully set – embroidered cloth, a little china teapot with matching cup and saucer, boiled egg, warm, crisp toast and her home-made marmalade. ‘Here you are,’ she said breezily. ‘Sit up.’

  She puffed up the pillows behind Rose. ‘Now. What about the doctor? Shall I call him to you? You don’t look too well again.’

  ‘Don’t do that!’ Rose said quickly. ‘I mean,’ she went on in a softer tone, ‘I’m feeling a bit better again. I’ll be getting up tomorrow.’

  ‘Good,’ Aunt Carrie said. She was all efficiency now. She went, quick and light footed, from the bedroom.

  Rose sank back against the pillows in relief. Aunt Carrie was all right after her ordeal of yesterday. Rose felt dreadful, knowing that tomorrow – there was nothing for it – she would put her aunt to a great deal more grief when she found her gone.

  All her things were in the bag, under the bed. They could not be seen and it would be a simple matter to slip out of the house unobserved when Aunt Carrie was asleep tonight. There was an eleven o’clock train to Manchester and she had bought her ticket in advance. She would sit in the ladies waiting room at the Manchester station until six o’clock the next morning when a taxi would take her to the Home.

  In spite of her nervousness the day passed quickly. Aunt Carrie appeared at regular intervals, bearing trays of food and hot drinks and Rose took them gratefully, hiding her body beneath the heaped up eiderdown and padded quilt.