Coronation Wives

by Lizzie Lane

  Everything was filled out in triplicate, stapled into files, and photographs attached to forms. Charlotte was still helping people just as she always had, only now she worked for the Bureau for Displaced Persons, a busy branch of the Home Office.

  The clattering of crockery and the slamming of the broom cupboard came from the kitchen, evidence enough that Mrs Grey had arrived and would prefer everyone to be out of her way before she started cleaning.

  Charlotte caught a quick glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror. Just enough make-up to make her look sophisticated rather than dramatic, and just enough grey among the chestnut to look distinguished rather than old.

  She was about to grab her handbag and leave before Mrs Grey found something to complain about, then wondered if her daughter, Janet, might want a lift to the hospital where she worked as a secretary.

  She peered towards the kitchen area. The coast was clear. Quietly, she began to climb the stairs then suddenly thought how absurd it was. Mrs Grey works for you! You don’t have to creep around your own house. Taking a deep breath, in an act of sheer bravado, she purposely avoided the Persian rugs on the landing and walked on the lino. You’ll regret this, she told herself. She knocked on Janet’s door. There was no response.

  ‘Janet?’

  Silence. She tried the handle. The door opened.

  A draught of chill air hit her face. She could see that the bottom half of the bedroom window was open, the curtains billowing in a stiff breeze. Beyond the window came a strange cry not normally heard in Royal York Crescent at such an early hour. Pulling the curtains to one side, she poked her head out. A hunched figure pushed a handcart laden with rags, old fire irons and a small, galvanized boiler streaked with the dried soap of a thousand washdays. His cry of ‘Ole rags an’ ole ferrule’ was almost lost on the breeze. Ferrule, she knew, meant ferrous metal. His usual haul would be iron bedsteads, brass curtain rails with rings the size of saucers, and iron ranges torn from their moorings and replaced with gas stoves in a pleasant shade of cream.

  The sound of footsteps made her turn round. Mrs Grey had discovered her and looked very put out. ‘I’m very vexed with Miss Janet, ma’am. Very vexed indeed.’

  Inwardly Charlotte sighed. Outwardly she smiled and said cheerfully, ‘I didn’t hear her leave this morning. Did she have any breakfast?’

  Mrs Grey’s chin seemed to curl upwards with indignation. ‘She crept out. She said she wasn’t creeping, but I know creeping when I see it. She was creeping.’

  Charlotte did a quick mental calculation as a means of taking a broad perspective of the situation. Mrs Grey had used the same verb a number of times, four in fact, but had not answered Charlotte’s question so she repeated it. ‘And no breakfast?’

  ‘None! Not even a slice of toast with a scraping of butter! But that’s not why I’m vexed,’ she said. ‘Creeping out so no one could hear, I can cope with. Giving away good clothes to the rag and bone man is quite another matter.’

  Charlotte attempted to help her strip the bedclothes, but got a disapproving glare for her effort. Mrs Grey liked to do things herself. Instead she asked, “Were they old clothes?’

  ‘Well, no, but that’s not the point …’

  ‘Did you want them for yourself? I mean, if you did I shall certainly ask Janet—’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  Charlotte stood helplessly, waiting to be enlightened. Whatever it was, Mrs Grey looked more agitated than years back when she’d found out two rashers of bacon equalled one-ounce ration allowance for the week. She’d been devastated then and didn’t look much better now.

  ‘They weren’t ever so best, but good enough to wear out weeknights or shopping or to the pictures – that sort of thing.’

  Charlotte went back to the window and glanced out again. The rag and bone man was leaving the crescent, his handcart loaded.

  ‘Pictures?’ she said casually.

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Mrs Grey.

  Charlotte got the gist of where this was going. For Mrs Grey, to be occupied in polishing, making beds and cooking, was akin to being divine. Pleasure, as opposed to work, was almost wicked.

  Her voice dropped as low as when she went to confession up at St Patrick’s just off Dowry Square. ‘She wore them the other night when she went to the pictures.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Charlotte wondering how best to make her escape.

  Gripping the window sash with both hands, she slammed it shut. Mrs Grey nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘Perhaps they’d gone out of fashion,’ Charlotte suggested.

  Mrs Grey looked extremely affronted. ‘Fashion is no reason for giving away good clothes.’

  ‘Never mind. I expect the rag and bone man will sell them cheaply to someone who really needs them,’ said Charlotte. ‘There are so many people out there with no clothes and not much of anything, Mrs Grey. And I have to get to my office and see what I can do for a small proportion of them.’

  There wasn’t time to fuss. She left Mrs Grey in Janet’s bedroom where she appeared to be taking her annoyance out on the feather-filled pillows and the unyielding mattress.

  The fact that Janet had given some old clothes away did not trouble her unduly. Perhaps she’d ripped them or perhaps they didn’t fit her any more. Her daughter must have had good reasons and she had no intention of questioning her motives.

  The clock in the hall struck quarter past. Neatly attired in a smart green suit and black suede court shoes, she was ready to leave.

  With the aid of the mirror in the hall, she fixed a trilby style hat on her head then headed for the front door. On reaching it, she called over her shoulder, ‘I must be off now, Mrs Grey. Would you take some tea into the doctor before he goes to surgery?’

  Mrs Grey appeared at the top of the stairs with an armful of sheets destined for the laundry. ‘S’pose I will,’ she sniffed, then marched off along the landing.

  Bridewell, the central police station, was not far from the Odeon Cinema and close to the Broadmead Shopping Centre, which was still being built.

  A crime had been committed. It was only right that it should be reported. It didn’t occur to Janet as odd that she countenanced telling the police about it, but could not bring herself to tell her own mother. This thing had happened to her. It was an intimate thing, an invasion of her privacy, of her body. Telling her mother would intensify the effect of the violation. Reporting it to the police as a crime against her person was somehow different. They would go out, catch him and put him in prison and that would be the end of it. He would be locked away, just as the incident itself would be locked away in her mind.

  Before leaving home, she had dressed in a brown checked suit matched with a pale orange silk blouse and low, sensible shoes. After surveying herself in the mirror, she changed her mind. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark suit. Dowdy, she thought, he’s making you dress dowdy.

  No! She would not have that. Even now, just forty-eight hours after the event when despair had fought tooth and nail with determination, she would not let herself be intimidated by him. The brown suit came off. A red dress with a black patent belt and matching patent sandals made her feel much better. She found black button earrings and red lipstick too.

  When she entered the police station, she willed her legs not to shake as she took her place in the queue behind two other people. Stiffening her calves and gritting her teeth, she forced herself to concentrate on those in front of her. Their problems might take your mind off yours, she told herself determinedly.

  The first in line was a man in a tan overcoat that smelt of mothballs. The collar and shoulders were liberally speckled with dandruff and, despite the muggy weather, his belt was tightly fastened giving him the look of a badly packaged parcel. He was reporting the loss of his dog.

  ‘Black and white. Part collie. Part terrier. About this high.’ He bent down and indicated height from the floor with a flattened palm.

  She saw the raised eyebrows of the uniformed policeman behind the d
esk as he twiddled his pencil and said with a hint of mockery, “We’ll circulate the details, sir. What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Gloria!’

  The policeman, who she now saw from the stripes on his sleeve, was a sergeant, raised his eyes to heaven as if to ask relief from such suffering.

  ‘Her! Gloria!’

  As the man left and the woman in front of her shuffled forward, Janet felt a great urge to use the lavatory – or take flight.

  Feeling cold despite the full skirt and long sleeves of her dress, she wrapped her arms around herself, tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. She didn’t want to be here. She wished with all her might that she could change things. If only she’d caught the bus instead of walking.

  In her head she rehearsed the words she would say to the desk sergeant. He would probably get her tea and offer his sympathy. They might have a policewoman on duty. There were a few of them around nowadays. It might be easier talking to a woman, one who wouldn’t insist on telling her father, talking it through, analysing and dissecting every little detail until everything lay out on the table as opposed to being locked away in her mind. That’s what her mother would do: go over it again and again until it was all wrung from her like water from a dripping wet dress.

  The waiting room was dull, nothing to look at except an ancient clock and a few wanted posters with curling corners. Yes, she was doing the right thing. It would be best for the police to break the news to her mother. She could imagine it now, her mother serenely sitting in her armchair with a pink and green chintz cover.

  ‘Madam, we are sorry to report …’ Who else would they tell? What about the newspapers?

  Oh no, she couldn’t stand being front-page news in the Bristol Evening Post. For the first time since arriving at Bridewell, her courage began to fail her. What should she do?

  The woman in front of her was taking her time, relating in a very deep voice – the sort only acquired by smoking forty a day – of how some man had taken her purse when she’d set it down on a Woolworths counter in order to purchase a doll for her granddaughter.

  Janet looked down at the floor and caught a glimpse of the woman’s feet. She was wearing men’s black dancing pumps. They looked too small, the aged black leather digging into the woman’s thick-set ankles.

  The minute hand on the wall clock jerked forward. Janet gave herself a deadline. One more minute. If the woman went on for just one more minute … Two, then three went by. So much for setting herself a limit.

  ‘Next!’

  At last she was face to face with a representative of the local constabulary. His bulk filled the square opening above the desk. The opening was set in glass partitioning, a film of old dirt and the curling posters she’d observed earlier, obliterating clear observation of the room beyond the counter. Janet opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue seemed to shrivel up in her mouth.

  ‘Well, me dear?’

  Watery blue eyes fixed on hers. She glanced over her shoulder. How many more were in the queue and likely to listen to what she had to say? There was no one. She swallowed hard. ‘A man attacked me.’

  He immediately swapped his pencil for a pen. ‘Name?’

  ‘I don’t know his name.’

  The policeman sighed impatiently. ‘Your name, young lady!’

  She fiddled nervously with her handbag. It was black patent like her belt and sandals. The sweat from her hands had left moist patterns of palm and fingers all over it.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Janet Hennessey-White.’

  After dipping the pen into an inkwell and shaking off the residue he began to scratch her name in his ledger.

  ‘Is that your full name?’

  ‘Well no, it’s actually Janet Abigail Hennessey-White, and this man—’

  ‘How do you spell that?’

  She told him. The tip of his tongue wavered at the side of his mouth as he wrote her name. She couldn’t believe it. Was he really more interested in getting her name right than finding her attacker?

  ‘Address?’

  A draught of air came into the waiting room as the door to the street opened behind her. Nervously Janet glanced over her shoulder again.

  A uniformed constable smiled and nodded at her then opened another door and disappeared.

  Thank you.

  The sergeant scratched her address line by line. Janet bit her bottom lip as her eyes followed the slow progress of the pen to inkwell and back to the ledger. Her nerve was slipping and if someone did come in, she might lose it completely. She had to hurry him up.

  ‘My telephone number is—’

  His response was immediate, like a bird of prey suddenly spotting an easy meal. We don’t need that. Not everyone has got a telephone, you know. Only them that can afford it.’

  Janet hugged her handbag. ‘I only thought—’

  He stretched to his full height – far too tall for the opening through which he was speaking. He appeared cut off at the neck. ‘You don’t need to think, miss. That’s what we’re here for. You’ve lost something or had something stolen, and we know how to go about looking for it. Now!’ he said, sliding his wooden handled pen into a groove in the counter. ‘Let me guess. You’ve lost something, though not your handbag I see.’ He pointed to the black patent bag that was looking positively dull with perspiration.

  ‘I’ve already told you. A man attacked me.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He sounded unconvinced and eyed her cautiously.

  Janet was disappointed. Somehow she had expected him to spring into action, take quick notes and order a bevy of police constables to scour the streets – and that before she had given a description of either the man or what had happened. The rest of her words came tumbling out.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  Please, don’t let anyone come in. Please don’t let anyone hear this.

  At last she found her voice. ‘A man dragged me onto the waste land and then he …’ She fought to say the word, half-hoping that he would say it for her. He did not. He was unsmiling.

  She managed to blurt it out. ‘He raped me!’

  Sounds from the world outside, traffic, footsteps and the cry of ‘Evening World and Evening Post’ came in with new arrivals. She was vaguely aware of a brightly coloured dress, a man smelling of pipe tobacco and stale sweat. They took their place in the queue behind her. The door opened again. Someone else joined the queue, then another, and another. The place was filling up.

  The sergeant glanced at the door each time it opened before turning his attention back to her. ‘So where and when did this alleged offence happen?’ He stressed the word ‘alleged’, so it sounded almost criminal.

  ‘On Friday night when I left the Odeon. I decided to cut up through—’

  ‘What time was this?’

  Having caught the gist of the sergeant’s questioning, the newly arrived were silent. She could feel them watching her and passing instant judgement based on what the policeman was saying.

  She couldn’t stop her voice from shaking. ‘After ten – about ten thirty.’

  The sergeant let out a heavy, knowing sigh. ‘Right! It was after ten, getting dark and you had decided to walk home alone and a man forced his attentions on you in a sexual manner. Don’t you think you were asking for it?’

  He had not lowered his voice. Janet felt the colour racing up her neck and onto her cheeks. She could feel the gazes of those behind her piercing into her back.

  ‘No!’

  ‘An old boyfriend, was it?’

  ‘No! Of course it wasn’t!’

  Her face was on fire. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry, but most of all she wanted to get out of here, away from his accusations and those of the people standing in the queue.

  His expression smug, he leaned on the counter, brawny hands clasped before him. He eyed her up and down as though wearing red and being attractive was a far bigger crime than the one she was reporting.

  ‘Girls like you ruin a
lot of blokes’ lives, so before you go making accusations I suggest you consider your own actions very carefully indeed. You were walking home in the dark all alone. What were you hoping for?’

  She couldn’t believe what he was insinuating. ‘I’m not a tart!’ Angry tears filled her eyes. If she didn’t get out of here they’d soon be running down her cheeks. She mustn’t let it happen.

  A pin could have dropped and sounded like an atomic bomb in that dingy room. Ears were straining, eyes watching with avid interest. The Bristol Old Vic would be hard pushed to present something as dramatic as this.

  The sergeant smiled, as much in response to the avid attention of his audience as for her benefit. ‘Perhaps not, but no respectable woman should be out alone after ten o’clock at night. Now go home, forget what happened and be a good girl in future.’

  Her patience snapped and she stamped her foot. ‘How dare you! I’ll have you know that my parents have influence in very high places.’

  The sergeant, his features leaden, slammed his ledger shut. ‘I don’t care who they are or where you’re from. High class you may be, but there’s an old saying … the colonel’s lady and Rosie O’Grady are sisters under the skin …’

  Janet was speechless. She turned and fled.

  Outside, fresh wet air slapped against her hot face. An overcast sky had burst with rain and water dripped from her hair, down her face, from her nose and trickled down her neck. Pavements empty of pedestrians shone with water. Such was her anger that she never thought to question where everyone was. She simply ran through the downpour, oblivious to the headscarves and umbrellas barricading shop doorways.

  Her headlong flight might have continued except that a small figure bounced out of the entrance to the Arcade, an enclosed avenue of semi-derelict shops that connected one street with another. It provided a little shelter even though most of its roof was missing.