by Carol Rivers
‘Well, at least I can drive you.’ Miss Keene pushed her gently down on the bench. ‘My car is parked at the back of the school. I’ll bring it round to the gates.’
Rose held her arms around her as she waited and tried to stop shivering. It wasn’t cold, but inside her there was a terrible chill, a coating of ice that prevented her from feeling. The last thing she remembered was her head being pulled back and then darkness. Had she fainted or had Norman Payne struck her again? She couldn’t remember. Her head was aching terribly. She put her fingers up to her cheek and yelped. Was there a mark there?
‘Oh, Eddie,’ she half sobbed, ‘where are you when I need you?’ Then she saw a small black car drive up to the playground gates and tried to pull herself together. She had to keep up the pretence that she had collided with a car. Miss Keene would only try to persuade her to go to the police if she told her the truth. And after what she’d learned about Inspector Williams, the police were the last people she wanted to visit.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?’ Miss Keene queried several times on the journey home.
‘No, I just want to go home.’
‘I’ll get the caretaker to put your bike in the boiler house tomorrow morning.’
‘It’s probably not worth repairing.’
‘Probably not, but at least it took the impact. Did you see what make of car it was?’
‘No. It happened too quickly.’
‘And it just drove off?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was despicable,’ Miss Keene said heatedly. ‘There’s no doubt you must tell the police.’
‘I will,’ Rose lied, ‘after I get home and see the children.’
‘Would you like me to wait for you? It’s no trouble.’
Rose shook her head. ‘Benny, my neighbour, will take me.’
Miss Keene looked at her doubtfully. ‘I really don’t feel happy to leave you like this.’ She pulled on the brake of her small Austin Ruby.
‘Thank you for the lift.’ Rose tried to push open the door.
‘Wait, I’ll help you.’ She dashed out and grabbed Rose’s arm. The door of number forty-six opened before they could knock on it.
‘Rose!’ Em gasped, her mouth falling open. ‘What’s happened to you?’
‘She’s had a little accident,’ Miss Keene volunteered as the two women helped her inside the house. ‘A car knocked her off her bike and I found her in the school playground. There are no bones broken but she really should see a doctor first and then the police.’
But Em wasn’t listening. She was staring at Rose with shocked eyes. ‘Oh, Rosy, what have you done to your hair?’
Rose lifted her shaking hands. Her fingers searched for the soft waves that hung around her shoulders. She felt none. They had cut it all off.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘You didn’t really get knocked off your bike, did you?’ Em tipped the final saucepan of boiling water into the big, battered tin bath. Because Rose had been shaking so much Em had insisted she lie in hot water and warm up. The fire was burning in the hearth and the front room was aglow with a cosy, flickering light. Rose was sitting on the couch with a blanket round her shoulders.
‘No, not really,’ Rose admitted, knowing this story wouldn’t fool her sister for very long.
‘Well, I don’t know what’s happened but when I saw your face and hair I knew Miss Keene was talking rubbish.’
‘I’m sorry I worried you,’ Rose apologized, wondering what she looked like as she hadn’t had the courage to look at herself in the mirror. She didn’t want another shock, but she could tell by everyone’s expressions that she was a sight.
‘Well, in you get then.’
Rose stood up. Her legs were still feeling spongy but at least she hadn’t made a complete fool of herself and blurted everything out to Miss Keene. And luckily the girls had been in bed and dozing when she’d come in and Will was still camped out in the tent oblivious to her late return. When the girls asked why she was late she’d made an excuse that she’d gone to the hairdressers and her bike had broken down afterwards, which in a way it had, and that Miss Keene had been on hand to give her a lift home. Luckily they hadn’t noticed the burgeoning bruise on her cheek.
‘The hairdresser didn’t cut it very nicely,’ Donnie had commented sleepily.
‘It’ll be better when I’ve washed it,’ Rose said selfconsciously as she kissed them goodnight.
‘You never go to the hairdressers,’ Marlene observed as she struggled to keep her eyes open.
‘Well, it’s about time I did. Now God bless and sleep tight.’
Rose had stood outside their room on the landing, closing her eyes and leaning against the wall for support. It had taken all her energy to pretend everything was normal. She wanted a minute to compose herself before going down to Em where she would have to explain what happened. She felt a bitter wave of resentment sweep over her as she thought of her lost hair, her crowning glory. Why had Norman Payne cut it all off? As if tying her up and hitting her wasn’t enough! Rose began to tremble again at the thought of Norman Payne’s hands on her body. Her memory was coming back in little bursts. After she’d refused to cooperate he’d hit her again and knocked her out. It must have been then he’d cut off her hair.
‘I’ll just boil one more saucepan,’ Em said, bringing Rose back from her troubled thoughts. When her sister had gone she removed the blanket and began to undress. When she was naked she looked in the mirror above the hearth. She clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. Big clumps of hair hung over her ears, all jagged and uneven. Her heavy brown locks were gone as if a knife had been used to tear them. Her face was like a papier-mâché mask formed from paper, water and glue instead of skin, the gruesome purple bruise on her right cheek growing like a barnacle on a ship’s hull. She prodded it carefully and jumped. In the morning it would be swollen and puffy. Her golden brown eyes were hidden behind bags of exhaustion and her top lip was slightly swollen.
Rose turned away. She didn’t want to look at herself. But when she climbed in the bath she was forced to gaze at the faint red marks around her white ankles. Fortunately they weren’t as prominent as the circles around her wrists. These still looked like red bracelets and she wondered if Miss Keene had noticed them.
Rose put her hands over her mouth again to stop herself from crying out. She didn’t want to think about what had happened. When she heard Em in the kitchen she hurriedly splashed herself, then slipped down slowly, letting the hot water take effect and soothe her battered body.
‘Now, mind yourself.’ Em returned with a saucepan full of boiling water. ‘Mum was always worried we’d be scalded,’ Em reminisced as she bent over, her face hidden in clouds of steam. ‘She used to make sure Dad poured the hot water from a jug, very carefully, against the side.’
‘I never wanted to get out,’ Rose sighed as the warmth at last penetrated her aching bones.
‘No, but we had to because Mum and Dad went after us. Lord only knows what the colour of the water was like in the end.’
‘The girls don’t seem to care who goes first,’ Rose said distantly, trying to keep her thoughts from wandering back to Norman Payne. ‘Your poor Will, he’s not used to Spartan conditions. You had such a lovely bathroom in Eastbourne.’
‘You don’t hear him complain though,’ Em said, suddenly very matter of fact. ‘He’s never been so happy as he is now.’ She squared her shoulders tightly. ‘Now, enough of memory lane, Rosy. What happened today? I was so worried when you didn’t come home. I just kept telling myself you had to work late. I was giving you half an hour more and then I was going to ask Benny to go and look for you.’
Rose bathed herself slowly, putting off the moment when she had to recall what had happened, and she reached slowly for the soap placed on a saucer by the bath.
‘Oh, love, what happened to your wrist?’ Em gasped as her eyes landed on Rose’s outstretched arm.
‘It’s a long story.
But it begins with the brown car. It knocked me off my bike as I was cycling home.’
‘The brown car?’ Em asked in a shocked whisper.
‘Yes. I was cycling home and it drove up beside me. I panicked and went the wrong way and found meself down by the docks. No one was around, just a few men, but they disappeared and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air and on to the ground. These two men picked me up and bundled me in the car.’
‘Couldn’t you scream or something?’ Em gulped.
‘Maybe I did. I was so terrified I don’t remember. I think I was dazed by the fall.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I was blindfolded, so I couldn’t see where we went. And then they drove me somewhere and tied me to a chair.’
As she continued to tell her sister what had happened Rose thought Em was going to faint. Even in the glowing shadows of the fire, she looked pale, all the colour draining from her face. ‘Oh, Rosy, I knew we should have gone to the police.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped. This man – Norman Payne, he told me who he was – boasted that Inspector Williams is in his pay, which explains why they charged Eddie with assault when he was only trying to protect himself.’
Em looked flabbergasted. ‘But you only see that sort of thing on the films.’
‘Well, this time it’s happened in real life.’
‘You must have been terrified.’
‘I couldn’t believe I’d been kidnapped in broad daylight.’
‘But why are they doing this, Rosy?’ Em asked faintly.
‘Can’t you guess? They want Eddie. They won’t let go of him.’
‘But he’s in prison!’
‘Norman Payne tried to make me persuade Eddie to work for him when he comes home. I said I’d rather Eddie stayed in prison than get mixed up with him, but that didn’t go down very well and that was when he hit me. I think I must have blacked out for a while.’ Rose decided not to mention the way Norman Payne had touched her.
Em knelt down by the bath. ‘He’s a monster, hitting a defenceless woman.’
Rose shrugged dismissively. ‘I angered him by refusing to do what he wants.’
Em squeezed out the flannel. ‘Hold still, I’ll bathe your cheek.’ She carefully dabbed the injury.
‘Ouch!’ Rose flinched.
‘I’ve got some witch hazel in the cupboard, it’ll bring the bruise out.’
Rose dredged up a smile. ‘I don’t think I want it to come out. I’d prefer it to stay where it is.’
‘You’ll have a black eye tomorrow.’
‘Then I’ll keep up the story I was knocked off me bike.’
‘Oh, Rosy, this shouldn’t be happening to you. It’s hard enough as it is with Eddie away. I just don’t know where Eddie’s brains were in getting mixed up with such people. And if we can’t go to the police, who can we go to?’
Rose had been wondering that herself. All policemen couldn’t be bent, but how did anyone know who the straight ones were?
Em shook her head despairingly. ‘Can you remember how you got to the school?’
Rose frowned as little pictures began to flash up in her mind. She flinched at the memory of Norman Payne’s fist flying across her face. He’d tried hard to make her submit and might even have had some success if those children’s voices hadn’t disturbed them . . .
‘I remember now,’ she burst out as the foggy events suddenly became clear in her mind. ‘There were children’s voices and the sound of people moving hurriedly around me. Someone untied my ankles and then my wrists. The voices came nearer. They were shouting, calling – just like they do when they play on the debris. When the boys make camps – it was the children who saved me!’ Rose stared into the fire, at the flames and concentrated, trying to hold on to her fleeting thoughts. ‘I . . . I was dragged to a car and forced down on the seat with my face pushed into the leather.’
Em inhaled deeply. ‘Oh, Rosy, thank God those kids disturbed them.’
‘I don’t know what might have happened if they hadn’t. Next thing I remember is the crash of my bike beside me and Miss Keene’s voice.’
‘They must have had your bike in the boot of the car.’
‘It was a warning, wasn’t it? They can smash up me bike, watch the children at school, threaten us, do anything they want.’
‘I won’t let the kids out of my sight,’ Em said determinedly, though Rose could see she was terrified.
Rose rubbed her sore cheek. She hadn’t realized how painful the punches were until now. She was amazed that Norman Payne hadn’t broken a bone in her face or even her jaw.
Em was sitting back on her heels and staring at her. ‘They didn’t . . . you know . . . they didn’t do anything else to you, did they?’
‘I think cutting off all my hair and knocking me senseless was enough for one day.’
‘I don’t know how you can joke about it.’
‘Well, I’m certainly not going to cry. There isn’t another saucepan going is there?’
Em stood up. ‘I’ll put some on.’ She pushed the poker into the coke and bright scarlet tongues twirled up the sooty chimney. ‘That’ll keep you warm whilst I boil it.’
The heat of the fire stung her face and she slipped as far down underneath the water as she could just like she did as a child. Bath nights with Mum and Dad in attendance were always warm and cosy. She felt a lump of nostalgia form in her throat and swallowed it away.
Norman Payne had done his best today to scare the living daylights out of her in order to gain control over Eddie. But his violent methods had only made her more determined to fight him. She needn’t tell Eddie about what happened, need she? The bruise on her face would be gone by the time she next visited and her hair would have grown into shape at least. Rose gazed into the fire and decided, as she had done many times before, that what Eddie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. What could he do in prison but worry?
One week later, a visiting order arrived.
Her heart sank as she read the two words from Eddie, scrawled hastily across a single sheet. ‘Come soon.’
She showed the note to Em. ‘I’ll go, of course. Me black eye’s nearly gone.’
‘Do you think he knows?’
‘How can he?’
Em looked fearful. ‘It sounds urgent. I’ll ask Bobby to take you.’
‘I can’t keep pestering Bobby. This time I’ll go by coach.’
‘But you’ll have to change at least twice.’ Em looked worried. ‘What will you say about your hair? Eddie always liked it long.’
‘I’ll say it’s the fashion and I went to the hairdressers.’
Rose had decided her hair was the least of her worries. She had got used to the short style now, though it could hardly be called a style. Em had trimmed it with the scissors managing to even up the edges over her ears. Rose felt the loss of her thick brown waves but she felt lucky to have survived the encounter with Norman Payne, though the sensation still persisted that someone was watching her.
In the mornings she caught the bus to Kirkwood’s with Kamala Patel’s eldest, Nima, who worked at the sugar refining plant. Em called for Jane Piper and her kids for school and walked in a crowd to St Mary’s. At five o’clock Rose joined the girls from the flourmill and waited at the bus stop for the number fifty-seven. There was always someone on it she knew and she was never alone until she turned the corner of Ruby Street.
Bobby turned up at the weekend with a second-hand Hoover. The machine had a great shiny dome and a black cloth bag that blew out like a balloon when switched on. ‘I don’t want anything for it,’ he assured Em. ‘It’s on its last legs and needs a new armature. But if you can stand the racket until it finally dies, you’re welcome.’
‘Does it suck up the dirt?’ Em asked sceptically and, Rose thought, a little ungratefully.
‘Of course. It beats as it sweeps as it cleans,’ Bobby intoned and gave them a demonstration on the square of almost threadbare carpet in the front roo
m. The boards vibrated with the noise but the cleaning was a success.
‘I’ll see if I like it,’ Em said off-handedly, ‘meanwhile, we’ve got better things to plan. Rose is seeing Eddie on Wednesday.’
‘I’ll take you,’ Bobby insisted immediately.
Rose frowned at her sister who didn’t hesitate, it seemed, to make use of the kind young man. ‘No, Bobby, not this time, thanks all the same. I’m going by coach.’
‘But it’s no trouble, honestly.’
Em tilted her head and walked out of the kitchen as Bobby stared after her like an abandoned puppy. ‘You could do without the hassle of a long coach journey after what you’ve been through.’
Bobby was as sympathetic as ever thinking she’d been knocked off her bike as everyone else did. ‘She’s right, Rose. Let me take you.’
Rose shook her head. ‘It isn’t fair. Wednesday’s your only day off.’
‘So what else would I do with myself?’
‘I’ll pay for the petrol.’
‘No need.’ He grinned boyishly. ‘But Sunday dinner would be nice.’
‘You’re welcome anytime,’ she shrugged, throwing a glance to the kitchen, ‘though I don’t know what reception you’ll get—’
He put a finger over his mouth. ‘I know what you’re going to say. But I have to keep trying.’
‘You don’t have to win me over in the process.’
He grinned again. ‘You’re already spoken for, else I would.’
Rose smiled, but at the moment she felt like a bit of winning over, a bit of pampering. She was upset with her sister for not knowing how lucky she was to have such a gift in Bobby Morton. She was upset with Eddie for not being at her side with his sword and shield ready to slay all the dragons, one dragon in particular by the name of Norman Payne. And she was annoyed with herself for running down Ruby Street every day when she got off the bus for fear of that bloody brown car driving up alongside her again.
‘I bought this,’ Bobby whispered, quickly taking something from his pocket. It was a small deep blue box and he glanced over his shoulder as he opened it.
‘Oh, Bobby! It’s beautiful.’
