The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  ‘You’re lovely, Carrie.’ He was holding her in the circle of his arms now, so close she could feel the pounding of his heart under his shirt, and she felt engulfed in the height and breadth of him. She shivered, and as he stroked her hair from her brow his voice was thick as he murmured, ‘You’re cold. Let me warm you, lass,’ and then he was kissing her again.

  Carrie knew she was being kissed, really kissed for the first time in her life, and at first the floating, dizzy feeling was all that registered. It was some moments before she became aware that his hands were moving all over her body and now the kissing was of such an intensity that it frightened her. ‘No . . .’ She tried to pull away a little. ‘Don’t, Alec, please. I don’t want--’ Her breath was cut off by his mouth which had become hard, grinding, and his leg was behind her knees as he twisted his body and brought her falling to the floor with him on top of her.

  For his part Alec was conscious of her struggling beneath him and of hands beating against his chest, but the quantity of alcohol in his system and not least Madge Patterson’s provocative teasing earlier had inflamed him to the point where he only knew he wanted release from the burning in his groin. He pressed one hand across her mouth and with the other fumbled for the hem of her dress. When it was up round her thighs he wrenched at her knickers with such force that they tore away from one leg.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.’

  His voice was like a chant, and in spite of her blind panic and fear Carrie could make no impression against the strength of the hard male body crushing her against the floor.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right . . .’

  But it wasn’t, for she was suddenly pierced through with pain, ravaged by it as he pounded away at her with hoarse groaning until, with one final convulsive thrust, everything became very still.

  Carrie wasn’t crying, the shock was too great. She lay wide-eyed, staring up at Lillian’s mam’s whitewashed ceiling, her mind numb but her body hurting. And then, as the head which had dropped to nestle in her shoulder moved, she came to life, pushing at Alec with shaking hands as she tried to hotch back away from him.

  He stirred again with a low groan, levering himself up on to his knees to adjust his clothing. When her legs were free of him Carrie rolled over on to her stomach and pulled her dress down. Then she realised she was without her knickers. Oh, God, oh, God, help me. He’d done it to her, Alec Sutton had taken her down. What would her mam and da say?

  ‘Carrie?’ It was tentative, but when she scrambled as far away as she could get before she turned to face him, his tone changed. His voice was rough as he said, ‘Don’t look at me like that, you wanted it same as me.’

  She was shaking from head to foot as she sat staring at him, her teeth chattering so much she found it difficult to speak. ‘I didn’t, you know I didn’t.’

  ‘Look, the first time is always . . . Well . . .’ He rubbed his hand across his mouth as he got to his feet, glancing down at the torn remnants of her underclothes before he said again, ‘You wanted it.’

  ‘Stay away from me.’

  The shrillness of her voice as he made a move towards her brought him to a halt, but now there was real aggression in his manner when he ground out, ‘Don’t come this lark, not with me. You can’t lead a man on and then leave him nowhere. Look, no one need know.’ He reached down and before she could blink he had thrown her knickers on to the fire where they flared briefly before being consumed by the flames. ‘There, it’s done with. Let that be an end to it.’

  An end to it? He had . . . Had he said an end to it? Was he mad? Carrie struggled to her feet, nausea and dizziness making the room swim. She watched him gather the mugs and gin bottle and disappear into the scullery again.

  She was still standing in exactly the same spot when he returned, and as he glanced at her white face and stricken eyes his voice was softer, with a wheedling note. ‘Look, it’s done now, lass, so don’t take on--’ And then he froze, his head turning towards the scullery as the sound of voices reached them. ‘Quick, out, it’s me mam.’

  Before she knew it Carrie found herself in the street with the front door closing against her, vaguely aware that he had pushed her out of the house after thrusting her coat into her hands. She stood, swaying slightly and making no attempt to put her coat on in spite of the raw east wind. He’d said she’d led him on, that she’d wanted him to do that to her but she hadn’t, she hadn’t. She stared down the dark street, her eyes dry but burning. She had wanted him to kiss her but not the rest of it, and he must have known. She had fought him, hadn’t she, struggled, tried to call out? How could he have imagined she wanted him to do it then?

  She began to walk, still holding her coat against her chest. When she reached the junction with Collingwood Street, she left the main road and skirted round to the narrow track running at the back of the houses. She needed to get to her backyard and go to the privy, she told herself numbly, waves of nausea making her feel faint. If she just kept putting one foot in front of the other she could get there and slide the bolt and be safe.

  The odd flake of snow was spinning in the icy wind; the biting cold and black night was all part and parcel of the desolation which had claimed her. Her father didn’t like her walking the back lane once it was dark, but tonight any shred of nervousness was gone. Nothing could be worse than what had already happened. She stumbled along, and it wasn’t until she was almost home that she thought to pull on her coat, shrugging it on with hands that were frozen and had little feeling.

  She had only taken one step into the backyard when the sickness claimed her, wave upon wave of retching culminating in an attack of vomiting which left her kneeling on the flagstones utterly spent, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Carrie? Carrie, lass, get up. Come on.’

  When David’s voice sounded above her head she made no effort to move, and kept her eyes tightly shut. They would say she was bad now if anyone found out, a loose bit like Eva Barber or Muriel Price who went to pubs together and painted their faces. Only last week she had seen Mrs Gray and Mrs Weathergill from a few doors up spit at Eva as she’d passed them, and when she’d told her mam and da about it over dinner that night, her mam had pursed her lips and shaken her head, saying, ‘I’ve no sympathy for the lass. Anything she gets she’s brought on herself and that’s a fact. Different lad for every day of the week and staying out all night as often as not. She’ll be the death of her poor mother, you mark my words.’

  And when Billy had winked at her and said casually, ‘Eva’s not so bad, I was thinking of asking her out myself,’ their mam had rounded on him, her voice tight as she’d said, ‘Over my dead body, lad. Over my dead body. You’ll have a decent lass, pure, untouched, or she won’t be welcome in this house.’ Billy had laughed then and patted their mam on the hand. ‘Keep your pinny on, I was only funning. I wouldn’t touch Eva with a bargepole. Who’d want other men’s cast-offs anyway?’

  And now, thought Carrie, she was like Eva, defiled, dirty. She could still feel where Alec had touched her, hurt her, and she was all sticky between her legs, and with all that lot in the house she couldn’t even have a washdown.

  ‘Carrie, come on, lass, get up out of it, you’ll catch your death.’ David was kneeling beside her and he reached out to help her up.

  Carrie surprised them both by the fierceness with which she said, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t you dare touch me.’

  David froze and for a moment there was absolute silence, only the sound of faint laughter and voices from within the house breaking the stillness. ‘What’s the matter, lass?’ He spoke very quietly. ‘Someone hurt you?’

  Oh, she mustn’t let him guess, she mustn’t let anyone ever know. She forced herself to stand up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I . . . I was silly, it’s my own fault. I had a drink, sloe gin, and it’s made me feel bad.’

  He had risen with her, and now, in the shadowed night, she was aware that
he was peering at her and she was glad it was too dark to see clearly. ‘Is that all?’ he asked quietly after some seconds.

  Carrie drew in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Aye, yes.’ She pushed her hair back from her face with a shaky hand. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  David frowned. There was something wrong here, something not quite right. She might have been drinking but . . . ‘Look, lass, if there’s something else, you can tell me. We’re friends, aren’t we?’ He didn’t make the mistake of trying to touch her again.

  Carrie nodded slowly, her chin deep into her neck. What would David say if she told him what was in her mind at this moment? That lads, men, were a race apart, possessed of the power to so hurt and destroy that she didn’t feel she could ever refer to one as her friend again. ‘It’s just the drink,’ she muttered, willing him to go back into the house or to the privy which he must have been making for. ‘That’s all.’

  David stared at the bowed head and wished he could see her face. She was shivering so violently it was like someone with the ague but she didn’t seem to be aware of it. And it was obvious she wanted to be alone. But how could he leave her out here in this state? ‘You’re cold.’ He slipped off his suit jacket and placed it round her shoulders, careful that his hands made no contact with her flesh.

  The small act of kindness was nearly Carrie’s undoing. She gulped once and then again, her body aching and her heart sore. How could this have happened to her? It was Renee’s wedding day, it was supposed to be a happy day, wasn’t it? She licked her dry lips, her head pounding, and then visibly flinched as the back door opened. But then her father’s voice said, ‘Carrie? Is that you? Your mam an’ me was wonderin’ where you’d got to.’

  ‘Da.’

  It was a soft whimper, and immediately the small stocky figure was at her side. ‘What is it, lass? What’s wrong?’

  For a quivering moment she almost blurted out the truth but something outside herself, born of humiliation and shame and guilt, warned, don’t say a word, not a word about Alec. Blame it on the drink. Just the drink.

  ‘I . . . I feel bad.’

  ‘Bad?’

  She reached out to him, clinging like a child to the one man she could trust. ‘We . . . it was Granny Sutton’s sloe gin. I’ve been sick.’

  She was still trembling violently in spite of David’s jacket and she felt her father stiffen, but his voice was matter-of-fact when he said, ‘You go in an’ lie down, lass, get yerself to bed, eh? That lot in there are makin’ moves to go so it won’t be long afore it’s quiet, an’ you’ll feel a mite better in the mornin’.’

  ‘Da--’

  ‘Go on, lass, go on.’ When she would have said more, Sandy put her gently from him, pushing her towards the back door. ‘I’ll be in in a minute an’ you’ll be better in the warm.’ He took the jacket off her shoulders and handed it to David without a word.

  The door had barely closed on the slender, bowed figure when Sandy ground out, ‘I ought to bash your face in, David. She’s not sixteen yet an’ you’re plyin’ her with sloe gin? What’s your game?’

  ‘What?’ David stared at the man he had known and respected all his life and for whom he had genuine affection. He had umpteen uncles on his father’s side and several more on his mother’s, but he’d always known that if he was in trouble and couldn’t get to his da, Sandy McDarmount would be the next best thing. He had been working on the screens - the conveyor belts that sorted the splintered coal and stones from the main coal - for six months before he got to go down the pit, and but for Sandy taking him under his wing that first day he doubted he could have stood it. From the moment the cage had begun its mad descent, tearing faster and faster into the bowels of the earth as though it had gone out of control, he had been scared witless. When the gate of the cage had clashed open with such a bang he’d almost filled his pants, it had been Carrie’s father who had guided him along the roadway to his place of work, saying all the right things to a terrified lad of fourteen who had just fully realised he was a hundred-odd fathoms or so beneath the ground. He hadn’t known at that point he would have been considered soft if his own father had looked out for him but that it was acceptable for someone else to take a newcomer on. He had just thanked God for the gravelly-voiced, ginger-haired little man staring at him so fiercely now.

  With the past in mind, David’s voice was even and controlled when he said, ‘Hold your horses, man, this is not what you’re thinking. Let me explain.’

  ‘Explain be damned! No explainin’ would take away what I’ve seen with me own eyes. That was your jacket round her, wasn’t it, eh? An’ I don’t see no other blighter here with us.’

  ‘Now look--’

  ‘No, you look, lad. She’s little more than a bairn an’ as good as gold, my lass. There’s plenty in that street out there’ - he thumbed in the direction of the road - ‘who are ready and willin’ for some sport, but my lass isn’t one of them and she’s not tasted liquor afore neither. You’d better stay out of my way for a while, I’m tellin’ you straight.’ And with that Sandy turned and stomped back into the house, ignoring David’s appeal for him to stay.

  This was rich, this was. David glared after the older man, anger and irritation vying for first place as he pulled on the jacket that had provoked the accusation against him. All he’d done was to try and comfort the lass, and now he was being blamed for it all. Should he follow Sandy into the house and have his say? Pride said yes, reason said no. Carrie’s father was upset, and thinking what he did he might well be inclined to act first and ask questions later. It was Walter’s wedding day, and any unpleasantness would mar the occasion. No, he would wait until he saw Sandy on the Monday morning shift, by which time Carrie would probably have set her father straight anyway.

  After standing for a while longer, David walked out of the backyard into the narrow lane beyond, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He wasn’t thinking about Sandy now or the unfairness of what he had been accused of, his thoughts were centred on the young slip of a girl he had loved all his life, or that was what it felt like. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling there had been more to her evident distress than having too much to drink; the way she had gone for him for example, that wasn’t the Carrie he knew. Had something happened?

  His stomach muscles tensed and he halted, oblivious of the snowflakes swirling in the wind. For a moment back there he had thought she was frightened of him, and there had been what he could only describe as a haunted look about her.

  He began walking again, the knowledge of his inadequacy to measure up to the occasion that had presented itself rising like bile in his mouth. He had to face it, he was nothing to Carrie McDarmount, nothing beyond a friend and hardly that if the truth be known. Once you got to a certain age it was accepted you didn’t have friends among the opposite sex. You were either walking out with a lass or you weren’t and there was an end of it. And he very definitely wouldn’t be courting Carrie if her reaction to him tonight was anything to go by.

  Damn and blast it. He stopped, turning to look back the way he’d come. For two pins he’d go back and have it out with Sandy and to hell with them all.

  He could hear old Sep Heslop cleaning out his pigeons on the other side of the wall as he stood hesitating, talking to them as if they were bairns. Lived for his pigeons, did Sep, them and his pipe and baccy. Winter and summer Sep would choose to be out in his backyard with the birds rather than trapped inside with his wife and ten bairns. And there were plenty like Sep if the talk down the pit was anything to go by.

  For some reason the thought of the old miner diffused his anger, sadness settling on him instead. He wanted more from marriage than a hot meal on the table when he got home from work and a body beside him in bed. He’d as soon cut his throat and be done with it if he thought he’d have to endure what his da had put up with for years.

  He took his cap off and banged it against his leg to clear the snow, ramming it back on his head as he turned and walked on.
Maybe it was as well he’d had his answer from Carrie without even having to ask the question. He could start to make plans now, and come spring he’d be ready to move down south or maybe even further afield, America perhaps or New Zealand. His da had a cousin in New Zealand. He could make his fortune and then come back and show Carrie McDarmount what she’d missed out on. That was what he’d do. The world was bigger than Sunderland and there were more fish in the sea than Carrie. Life was what you made it, wasn’t it? He repeated this to himself several times before he reached his own backyard, and his face was grim.

  Chapter Three

  It was at the end of January when the gnawing fear Carrie had been trying to put to the back of her mind ever since the night of Renee’s wedding was confirmed.

  She had told herself that the non-appearance of her monthly over Christmas was down to the shock of what had occurred, but on the last Saturday in January something happened which made it clear she couldn’t pretend to herself everything would return to normal in time. She felt she’d been living in a vacuum the last weeks, making the right responses and striving for normality when in fact she had been screaming inside and terrified she might bump into Alec Sutton.