Women on the Home Front

by Annie Groves

  ‘Connie!’ cried Gwen. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve been given a few days off,’ said Connie, avoiding her mother’s eye as she put the case down. She knew Gwen had a knack of knowing when she was lying.

  ‘How lovely,’ Gwen said taking her into her arms. ‘Oh, it’s so good to have you at home and Mandy safe and well.’

  ‘Are you all right, Mum?’

  Gwen pushed back at arm’s length and smiled fondly. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘That’s only to be expected, dear. Like you, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.’

  They hugged each other again.

  ‘Mandy is upstairs,’ said Gwen. ‘She’s awake now. She’s been sleeping and sleeping but I suppose that’s no bad thing.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ said Gwen. ‘She was asking for a glass of milk a minute ago. You can take it up to her, if you like.’

  Connie took off her coat and hung it by the door.

  ‘Those wretched birds have been at the milk again,’ said her mother as she poured a glass.

  Connie smiled. The milkman left the milk by the back door and if her mother didn’t take them in straight away, the birds would peck through the cardboard milk bottle top and drink the cream at the top. It was a marvel to Connie that they did it. Which bird was the first to discover the delights of cream and how long did it take him to work out how to get at it? The ingenuity and craft they deployed to get something they wanted was amazing and she couldn’t help admiring such determined thieves.

  ‘By the way,’ said her mother as Connie put one foot on the stair, ‘who is Mr Charles?’

  Connie froze, glad that she already had her hand on the banister or she may have stumbled. ‘Mr Charles?’ she said with a smile that she worried was a little too bright.

  ‘Mandy keeps saying she doesn’t want to meet him,’ said her mother barely noticing the effect the sound of that name was having on her other daughter. ‘I just wondered if you knew what she was talking about.’

  Connie pulled the corners of her mouth down and shook her head.

  ‘Ah well,’ said Gwen turning back to the kitchen. ‘Perhaps it’s some storybook character she’s been reading about at school.’

  Connie walked up the stairs anxiously. All her own problems paled into insignificance now. This was too much of a coincidence … seeing Stan Saul and the mention of Mr Charles again. Clearly something had traumatised Mandy in the woods. Connie may have deliberately blotted out the memory of the day it happened to her but she could never forget the revulsion she’d felt when she saw ‘Mr Charles’ for the first time.

  As she walked slowly up the stairs, Connie remembered how her head was banging like a drum and her mouth felt dry. ‘I need to go back to Kenneth,’ she’d said, and that’s when she’d realised that her words were all slurry. She had been confused and couldn’t understand why she felt so strange. Of course now, with an adult head on her shoulders, she realised that he had made her drunk. And yet when she and Kenneth had talked about it, they’d realised that neither of them had had enough to be drunk. Stan must have put something into the cider. Either that or it was exceptionally strong.

  Stan had pushed her into her bedroom and she stumbled backwards onto the bed. Full of trust, Connie had closed her eyes and relaxed. Her head had been spinning and she was desperate for some sleep but when she opened her eyes a second later, Stan had slipped off his braces and was unbuttoning his trousers. He was staring at her with a strange look in his eye and she didn’t like it. She remembered how much her stomach was churning and she knew she was going to be sick. As his trousers fell to the floor, she’d gasped. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Meet Mr Charles.’

  That’s when the fear kicked in. She’d tried to get up but he pushed her back down and yanked at her dress. ‘You’re going to love him.’

  As young as she was, it was at that moment that Connie knew everything was out of control. She didn’t know what he was going to do but it was too scary and she was helpless to stop him. ‘No. No,’ she’d begged. ‘Don’t.’ Even now, after all these years, thinking about it made her feel queasy. She gripped the banister a little more tightly and waited for the moment to pass.

  As she and Stan began a tug of war with her knickers, she’d become aware of voices downstairs. Her befuddled mind couldn’t make sense of it and her arms had little strength to resist him. Stan was much bigger than she was and he had a power which was overwhelming. He’d lifted her roughly further up onto the bed and pulled at her knickers again. They were coming off and she couldn’t do anything about it. She began to cry. ‘Please … don’t.’

  The voices downstairs were getting louder but Stan didn’t seem to hear. He was in a hurry. He was fully aroused and needed satisfaction. What little gentle coercion he had used before had turned into an ugly rough-handling. He pinned her to the bed with one hand around her throat and finally tore her knickers off. ‘Come on, you little tease. Don’t fight me. It’s nice. You’ll like it.’

  Back in the present day, Connie swayed at the top of the stairs. She closed her eyes again and the memory, as vivid as if it were only yesterday, came flooding back. He’d prised her legs apart using his free hand and his knee and then mounted the bed. At the very same moment the door had swung open and her great aunt had come into the room. Ga gave Stan’s bare buttock a resounding slap and he leapt away.

  ‘Get out of here, you dirty little swine,’ Ga had bellowed, ‘and if you ever come into this house again, I’ll have your guts for garters.’

  Connie braced herself against the banister. She hadn’t thought in depth about that day for years but if Mandy was talking about Mr Charles, she had to find out if a similar thing had happened to her. Connie felt the familiar rage and indignation building inside her. That man had ruined her family and blighted her own life. Until Eugène, she had been unable to let any man get really close to her. Now that she was being honest with herself for the first time, that was the real reason she and Emmett hadn’t made a go of it. She’d always pushed Emmett away because she’d hated the thought of seeing his Mr Charles. Perhaps that was why she’d hesitated for so long about Roger.

  It was because of what Stan did that Kenneth had been sent away. Connie took a deep breath. She must not allow him to do it again. Stan or Graham as he now called himself, was obviously popular with Rev Jackson and the other people in the church but they were such trusting souls and Stan could charm the birds off the trees. She couldn’t let it go this time. Somehow or other, she had to find out what really happened on High Salvington. Connie took another deep breath. Stay calm, she told herself. Don’t frighten the child and take one step at a time. Then she slowly opened Mandy’s bedroom door.

  ‘Eva, Eva, open the door.’

  Betty’s banging was very persistent. Eva was dog tired and she had had a long day on the ward. In the end, after being sent off duty she’d been called back and she’d done the whole of Connie’s shift, finishing at 9 p.m. After spending a worrying time on High Salvington, Eva had managed to keep going all day but as soon as she’d come off duty, she’d downed a cup of tea and lay on the bed. Even though Betty’s knocking was urgent, Eva had been so dead asleep it was hard to make her body respond. She had been sleeping on her back and was aware of a dry crusted dribble down the side of her face. Her head was thick and frankly she felt awful.

  ‘Eva,’ Betty insisted. ‘This is important.’

  Eva dragged herself upright and shuffled to the door. Betty burst into the room and as soon as she saw the sight of her, Eva was alarmed. ‘Good Lord,’ she said pulling herself together, ‘whatever’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Connie,’ said Betty. ‘Eva, you’ll never believe this but she’s been sacked.’

  Betty was right. Eva didn’t believe it. ‘Sacked? No. You’ve got it wrong.’

  ‘She’s left us a note,’ said Betty waving a piece of paper in the a
ir. ‘All her things are gone.’

  Eva snatched the note. ‘Dear Betty and Eva,’ she read, ‘I have just come from Matron’s office and I’ve been asked to leave. There’s very little time to explain because I have to be gone within the hour and Home Sister is waiting outside the door. Someone reported seeing us in the lift with Mr Steppings. Don’t worry, I haven’t said anything. Destroy this when you’ve read it. Thanks for being such good pals. I shall miss you. Love Connie.’

  ‘Do you think Home Sister saw this?’ Eva asked anxiously.

  Betty shook her head. ‘She put it in my jewellery box. I only found it when I went to get my pearls. I thought she’d gone home for a couple of days … you know, after all that happened to her little sister. When I found the note, I looked through her drawers and everything has been cleaned out.’

  Eva opened her wash bag and wiped her face with the damp flannel. She still felt a bit peculiar but her brain was slowly coming back into gear.

  Betty still seemed confused. ‘What does she mean about Mr Steppings?’

  Eva told her about the night she and Connie became friends. ‘His hand fell off the trolley and bopped me on the bottom,’ she said. ‘Connie made a joke about it being his last chance to touch a pretty girl, that’s all.’

  ‘But if all this happened while you were alone in the lift, who could have seen you?’

  That was puzzling Eva as well. They had been alone in the lift when the incident took place. By the time they’d reached the ground floor, the pair of them had been careful to look as dignified as possible. Of course they had repeated the story to umpteen people since then. They’d meant no harm. It was part of the black humour of the hospital. No offence was intended and the nurses were always discreet in front of the patients, but joking about incidents like that between themselves helped to lighten some very dark moments.

  There was a soft knock on the door and Eva opened it. Several other girls stood outside. ‘We heard you talking,’ said one, ‘and we guessed it must be about Connie. Isn’t it awful?’

  ‘I was with her on the ward today,’ said another. ‘None of us can believe this has happened.’

  ‘Come on in,’ said Eva. They squeezed into the small room, some sitting on the bed and the others on the floor. Everyone was upset and a few of them were crying. The big question was, what on earth could they do about it? What Matron said was as unalterable as the law of the Medes and Persians. With odds like that stacked against them, what hope did they have of getting their friend reinstated?

  Thirty-One

  His mother stared at the washing basket. Stan’s trousers were covered in mud and his shirt was very dirty. She didn’t want to think about it, but she was beginning to feel uncomfortable. When he’d come home on Monday night, he’d told her he’d been playing hide and seek with the children on High Salvington but it was odd that his things were so messy. She wouldn’t have bothered about it if it weren’t for the fact that almost as soon as he’d come through the door, he’d taken himself straight up to his room. She knew better than to follow him or disturb him once he had shut the door but she remembered the pattern from when he was a little boy. He usually shut himself away when he’d been up to mischief and he couldn’t face her. He didn’t come out again but she could hear him listening to the radio. She’d called up the stairs at supper time but when he didn’t appear, she’d left some cold meat and salad on a tray outside the door.

  Later, when she’d come up to bed, he’d eaten everything and left the tray outside on the landing but that unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach was getting stronger. She’d spent a restless night but by the time she’d got up this morning he’d already left for work.

  It was Ethel Durrent from next door who made the connection with Mandy. ‘They say they were up half the night looking for her,’ she said, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘Wasn’t your Stan there too?’

  His mother put her fist into a ball, hardly daring to listen. Why hadn’t Stan mentioned this when he came home last night? ‘And was she all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ethel, ‘but she was under a bomb.’

  Mrs Saul relaxed. So nothing else. Thank God for that. The missing child was nothing to do with Stan.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, dear?’ Ethel was obviously waiting for some kind of reaction. ‘She was down a hole with a dirty great bomb on the top of her.’

  Mrs Saul shook her head and looked suitably alarmed. ‘Poor kid. How awful. So what happened?’

  Ethel Durrent gave her a blow by blow account but in truth, she wasn’t really listening. What sort of a mother was she when her first thought was an accusation against her own son? Rev Jackson trusted Stan. All that rubbish about using his second name. He needn’t have bothered. Rev Jackson said he was a wonderful pianist and he was so grateful when Stan, or Graham as he now wanted to be called, had volunteered to go with Jane Jackson on that outing. There weren’t many men who were willing to help out. Most blokes thought it was unmanly to be running around with a bunch of Sunday school kids, but then, Stan wasn’t like most men. He bought her cut flowers and he’d mowed the lawn for her. He was a good boy, was Stan.

  But when she’d emptied the washing basket and seen the trousers and the shirt, something didn’t sit right. The old worry was back again. Supposing … Had Stan … What if …? His mother shook the bad thoughts away. Jane Jackson would have kept a close eye on those children and Stan would have been in plain sight of everyone. She’d managed to convince herself it was her imagination, until she went through his pockets and found a bright red hair ribbon.

  It wasn’t until that evening that Connie finally sat down with her mother and Clifford to talk about Mandy. Ga was out. It couldn’t have worked out better for Connie. They were alone in the house. This wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done.

  Clifford sat with his newspaper and Gwen sat concentrating on her knitting, a complicated Fair Isle patterned waistcoat in 3 ply wool for her husband.

  ‘I need to talk to you about something that happened a long time ago,’ she told Gwen.

  At the end of her row, Gwen looked up uncertainly. Clifford folded his newspaper and stood up. ‘I think I’ll just go outside and check on the greenhouse,’ he began.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Clifford,’ said Connie, ‘I’d prefer you to stay.’

  He lowered himself back down into his chair.

  ‘This is hard to talk about,’ Connie began, ‘but it is important that you both know what happened.’

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ said Gwen, putting her knitting on the arm of her chair.

  ‘I don’t mean to, Mum,’ said Connie, ‘but please try not to interrupt while I do it. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  So she told them. She told them about that meeting with Stan Saul on Long Furlong twelve years ago. She told them how she and Kenneth had brought him home to the house in Patching. She told them about the cider he’d given them and how Kenneth had fallen asleep with his head on the table. Then she told them how she had ended up upstairs with Stan and how he’d got undressed. Clifford stared at the floor in shocked surprise and Gwen at first put her hand to her throat and then reached for Clifford’s hand when Connie described her fear and panic as Mr Charles was revealed.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Gwen whispered faintly. ‘So you think …? And Mr Charles …? Oh no, no …’ Connie nodded and her mother began to cry softly.

  Clifford looked helplessly from one to the other. ‘Am I missing something here?’

  ‘It’s Mandy,’ said Gwen. ‘She keeps saying she doesn’t want to see Mr Charles.’

  It took a second or two for the penny to drop then Clifford leapt to his feet, his face white with fury. ‘Tell me who this bastard is,’ he demanded. ‘Where is he? I’ll bloody tear him limb from limb.’

  Connie put her hand on Clifford’s arm. ‘Clifford, I know you’re upset …’

  ‘Upset!’ he bellowed.

  ‘Shh,’ said Connie, looking anxiousl
y up at the ceiling. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let Mandy hear you.’

  He forced himself to lower his voice but he was still white hot with anger. ‘Then tell me where he is,’ he spat.

  ‘Clifford, the man needs to be behind bars,’ said Connie. ‘If you go after him, you’ll be the one in prison.’

  ‘Tell me or I swear I shall see Ga and make her tell me.’

  ‘No!’ cried Connie and Gwen in unison.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t do that,’ said Connie. ‘You’ll do more harm than good. It took every ounce of courage for Mandy to tell me and if you tell Ga, she’ll go up there like a bull in a china shop.’

  ‘But you can’t expect me to do nothing,’ he cried helplessly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gwen. ‘No,’ said Connie at the same time.

  Shocked, Connie stared at her mother.

  ‘I don’t want my child being interrogated by the police,’ said Gwen. ‘That’s what it’ll mean, won’t it?’

  Clifford put his hands to his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘We’ll be gone soon,’ Gwen said, taking hold of his arm. ‘A few more weeks and we’ll be on our way to Australia. Don’t you see? It’ll blow over. It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Mum,’ said Connie, ‘I understand how you feel but believe me, this won’t blow over. Mandy will need help. Right now she thinks it’s her fault. She thinks she fell down the hole because she wouldn’t do what he wanted.’

  Clifford moaned in pain and turned around in a tight circle.

  ‘And if Stan did the same to me all those years ago,’ Connie continued, ‘it stands to reason that he’s been doing it to other little girls in between. He has got to be stopped.’

  Gwen looked at Connie as if seeing her for the first time. ‘I didn’t know,’ she apologised. ‘Oh Connie, why didn’t you say something at the time? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because Ga told me not to,’ said Connie. Her mother’s expression hardened. ‘Actually, I think for once in her life she did it for good reasons. To protect me, just like you want to protect Mandy, but it has to end here. How many other little girls has that monster frightened out of their wits in between? We can’t let it go on.’