by Gloria Cook
He was in a dream, wasn’t he? She was running her fingers up over his chest. Her eyes… her eyes had him. Not that he wanted to flee from them. From her.
‘I like your hair, Jim. It’s the fairest I’ve ever seen on a man.’
He felt her touching his shirt. She was undoing the buttons! Her hot palms were sliding up in under his vest. She was breeding something in him. Feelings. Of shame and desire and fear. Shame of the sort he knew three or four times a week when alone in his little room after dark. And she was breeding spirals of desire in him. The kind of desire that tormented him. Because the completion of each shameful event had left him wanting, discouraged, fearful of discovery and swearing to never succumb to the shame again. But he did. The fear intensified. His shame was obvious now. It seemed to please her.
‘Do you like this, Jim? And this? And this?’
He could only nod, and he forgot to breathe until the sense for survival locked in and the sudden intake of oxygen made him giddy. The shame was over but this time he was not left wanting. He felt embarrassment of the worst kind but it did not stop him meeting her eyes.
‘We’ll do something else now.’
The pressure of her hands was back on his flame-hot skin and she pushed him down on the bed. He was vaguely aware of the magazines tumbling to the floor. The twin orbs of burning violet were coming closer again. She put hard open kisses all over his young lips, put them under a barrage, and she moved his frozen juvenile limbs wherever it took her fancy.
‘Don’t shut your eyes, Jim. Look, see and learn.’
In a rush of panic he tried to sit up. ‘Your brother! The maid!’
‘Perry will think you’ve left by the back door. Mirelle won’t come upstairs. Not another word.’ Her hands crushed his face. It hurt.
Then came knowledge he should never have learned in the way he did. Of unimaginable pleasures coupled with intense pain.
A manhood was born, exploited and enslaved.
Chapter Four
Leaving the twisting ribbon of Ford Lane, Selina and Libby Bosweld stepped out on to the main thoroughfare that ran through the middle of Hennaford.
‘How charming it all seems,’ Selina said, while Libby looked about for any of the local children who in the last three days had turned up at the house with their curious, welcoming mothers.
Set back in a deep cobbled courtyard was the public house, the Ploughshare. It was whitewashed, with dark and sleepy small windows. A whistling deliveryman was unloading heavy barrels of ale from a dray. Almost opposite was the sturdy grey Wesleyan chapel.
They followed the road, which ran in a roughly straight line before climbing gently uphill, and which after leaving Hennaford behind passed through many a hamlet, then depending which turn was made, led on to Truro or Redruth. The opposite direction eventually led out of the county, which the locals referred to as ‘up-country’.
‘Oh, this is so quaint, Libby.’
Straggling either side of the road, without forethought for conformity or symmetry, was a range of homes and businesses. Cottages of stone or cob, some white or cream, others grey from neglect. Some were charmingly knobbly and uneven. Some had slate roofs that were slightly sunken, yet looked resilient enough to last another decade or two. Other roofs, like the Ploughshare and the ironmongers, were thatched. The little front gardens were overrun with crocuses and pansies. Selina was sure the back gardens would be planted with vegetables, and perhaps there would be hens or a pig or a goat.
Across from them was the little Anglican mission church, a late-Victorian addition to compensate for the parish church being over two miles away, in almost secretive isolation down the lanes, past Ford Farm. The forge was halfway up the hill, glowing devilishly from within and sending out loud echoes of clangs and bangs. Selina wondered if the blacksmith was young and brawny, gorgeously sweaty and grimy, with blackened, clever hands the size of dinner plates.
At the end of a row of cottages was Hennaford’s stores and post office. The place, apparently, that was the centre of the community. Over the road Selina and Libby went, then up the shop’s four wide, mismatched granite steps, sidling carefully past a sleeping tabby cat to open the broad low door, its glass smothered with faded advertisements. The doorbell tinkled merrily and they paused on the threshold to see what they could see, but Selina felt at once within these astonishing cavernous confines the atmosphere of calm, solidity and camaraderie. And newcomers were welcome to join in. If only one could bottle up this invigorating yet soothing mix and keep it close at hand for the dark, lonely times.
And so they wandered about, woman and child, eyes never so wide and bright, under the low ceiling, up and down the packed shelves, delving into all the enchanting nooks and crannies. Peaceful. Inspired.
Selina waited in the disorderly queue to be served with the patience she didn’t usually have, introducing herself and Libby to the shoppers and the loafers, content to chat and learn a little of each individual’s history, while still looking over the surprisingly, tantalizingly diverse wares. Her nose was gloriously assailed by the smells of wax candles, fishy glue, nippy paraffin, sealing wax, lamp oil, harsh soap, scented soap, cocoa, succulent ham. And toffee. Golden, ruby and dark brown toffee, shiny and inviting in the slabs. Perry must try each seductive taste.
‘ ’Tis a honour and a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bosweld, and the little miss,’ Gilbert and Myrna Eathorne, the middle- aged, cheerily red-faced, comfy-plump owners told her with gusto when finally she was next to be served. She declined the offer to sit on a strategically placed hoop-backed chair. A young, pink-faced, heavily pregnant housewife, her cloth bag already packed with her shopping, wearing a small straw hat and still in her pinny, was sitting on the second chair; silent, listening, almost half asleep, she seemed. Selina knew everything she was about to say would be spread all over Hennaford before midday, and she liked that thought very much. She squeezed Libby’s hand, felt her throbbing with the anticipation of receiving some of the divine sweets on offer, knowing her aunt would spoil her shamelessly.
‘Likewise, Mr and Mrs Eathorne. We’ve enjoyed every minute we’ve been here, haven’t we, Libby, darling? People have been so kind. Yes, that’s the brand of flour we like. Granulated sugar, please, and baking powder. Do you deliver? Excellent. I’ll place a regular order and one of us or the maid will pop along for extras.’
‘Most of us get on round here,’ Myrna Eathorne said. She nodded at the young housewife, who was content to lounge and beam. ‘This is my brother’s maid, Maisie, by the way. Her man, Jack – he was one of the few young men what came back safely from the front – works for Mr Ben Harvey. Can plough a furrow as straight as corduroy cloth, he can, can’t he, Maisie? She lives on top the hill, near the school. Got three young’uns going there. Mr Frayne’s a good ’master. Squire Harvey, now he’s a good man and no mistake, he’s not above sending his boys there.’
Myrna winked at Libby and reached into a glass jar and plucked out a fat, purple violet-flavoured sweet and plonked it into Libby’s grasping little hand. ‘The blacksmith’s dog just had puppies. He’d be glad to show ’em you, my luvver. You only have to ask.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Eathorne,’ Libby said, always polite, always as interested in news as any grown-up. ‘How many puppies?’
‘Five or six, wasn’t it, Gilbert?’
‘Yes, my handsome.’ Grinning a wide toothy grin, Gilbert sipped the tea Myrna had put three heaped spoonsful of sugar in, and then he got ready to fetch the next item on Selina’s list. Washing soda. Selina accepted a cup of tea; pleasantly strong. She automatically went into nurse mode on spying Maisie’s swollen ankles. ‘You really should keep your feet up as much as possible, you know, Maisie.’
Before leaving the shining sweetness and cosiness of the Aladdin’s cave, Selina and Libby were told, ‘We’re chapel, by the way, most of us folk in the village. Maisie here chars at the Manse. If you ever need extra help about the house, after she’s had her next little blessing, of
course, she won’t mind. Will you, Maisie?’ And finally, ‘Yes, we’re mainly a close, happy lot round here, aren’t we, Gilbert?’
Gilbert agreed.
Selina left thinking that if Myrna and Gilbert Eathorne weren’t two of the happiest people in the world then they deserved an immediate horribly painful death.
Outside on top of the steps Libby peeped longingly into the wicker basket over her aunt’s arm.
‘Go on, then,’ Selina stooped and kissed the little girl’s petite nose. ‘You can have the sweets I’ve bought you now. I’ll keep the peppermints Daddy said you can have for after lunch.’
‘Thanks heaps.’ Libby united with Selina in a conspiratorial smile then proceeded to jump down each individual step, making the tabby cat, obviously used to comings and goings, open one eye then close it lazily again.
‘Don’t let your face get sticky, Libby, or it will be a giveaway to Daddy over our little deceit and he’ll scold us both, particularly me. Oh, look, there’s some people drawing water from the pump, let’s go over and introduce ourselves.’
Libby wasn’t interested in the small group of villagers queuing in the court with pitchers and buckets round the decorative pump; another village meeting place. ‘It’s not a good thing though to have deceit, is it, Aunt Selina?’ Libby squinted back up at her. She was an inquisitive child and she never forgot anything her father taught her.
‘Not usually, darling, but we get so little time to ourselves because Daddy monopolizes you, so a little deceit won’t hurt for today.’
‘What does mono-polize mean?’
‘Well, it’s—’
Selina’s explanation was broken off by a sudden commotion at the pump. Her alert eyes took in what was happening. The voices were raised, pleading, quickly turning into angry demands over a huddled figure in the centre of the group, and the figure started up a high-pitched wail.
Taking Libby’s hand, Selina went across the road. Others were gathering in the court. As if sensing a drama was about to unfold, people were suddenly appearing at their doors and windows. Keeping Libby slightly behind her, Selina asked a housewife what was going on.
The woman, wearing a dress gone a rusty shade of black under her pinny, answered with the glee of a telltale, ‘’Tis poor Wilfie Chellow. He come back from the front mazed in the head and his poor mother do have some trouble with him. He scares all of we with his antics at times, this being one of ’em. My boy, who was with him back then was killed,’ she tagged on hastily and mournfully, as if she was the mother who deserved the most concern.
Selina peered over shoulders and past bobbing heads and saw a near-hysterical woman trying to prise the huddled man, presumably poor Wilfie Chellow, away from the pump. Wilfie Chellow, short and slight, was clinging on to it, shrieking and spitting, his feet scrabbling as if he was running for his life. The few words he was screaming out were indecipherable.
Glancing behind, Selina saw Myrna and Gilbert Eathorne were now on their top step, with Maisie and another shopper, all watching the drama with alarm. More spectators were fast approaching for a closer look or to join in with the struggle at the pump.
‘Time that boy was put away somewhere ’fore he hurts someone,’ the housewife whom Selina had consulted remarked indignantly to a newcomer.
‘Has he hurt someone before?’ Selina demanded to no one in particular.
‘No,’ a wizened old man, in a cloth cap that looked too large for his shrivelled head, croaked in reply. ‘But he ought to be locked away in his room for his own sake, if you ask me. He’s got a thing about the pump, only the Lord knows why, and if the mood takes him wrong he won’t let nobody get any water. What good’s that to the rest of us?’ Selina recognized the whine of helplessness.
Selina edged Libby to the outskirts of the gathering, where she could not witness any more of the grim spectacle. A quiet young woman was there, hanging back but watching anxiously. ‘Take my niece’s hand, would you, please? I think I know how to deal with this.’
‘Yes, of course,’ the young woman complied eagerly.
‘Aunt Selina, don’t be long.’ Reluctantly, Libby allowed herself to be relinquished to this new stranger, who gave her a friendly smile.
‘Don’t worry, darling. I’ll soon sort this out.’ Selina took a sherbet fizzer out of Libby’s sweet packet, then swept through the people with such decisiveness they immediately gave way to her authoritative bearing.
Someone shouted, ‘Pump the handle. A shock of cold water will sort the bugger out.’
She boomed back, ‘Don’t you dare!’
There was only Wilfie Chellow, muttering and gibbering, and his distraught, haggard mother left at the pump now. Selina took a position where she could see Wilfie’s face, pressed, almost crushed, against the hard iron. With feather- light fingertips she eased off his tattered cap and stroked his exposed cheek, bruised where someone had slapped him. ‘It’s all right, Wilfie, dear. No one’s going to hurt you.’
‘You’re wasting your time, miss,’ Mrs Chellow said in a choked voice with much sniffing, wiping tears from her prematurely wrinkled eyes. ‘He don’t understand nothing since he was brought back. He don’t even know who I am.’
Selina ran a gentle finger down the ragged, livid red scar on Wilfie’s temple. It stretched a long way back over his scalp and his hair no longer grew there. Like his gawping, fearful eyes, which Selina was sure were vacant at other times, it was a cruel reminder of the damage inflicted on his brain. ‘He understands kindness. Don’t you, Wilfie?’
Lowering her voice to encourage him towards calmness, she put her mouth closer to Wilfie’s ear and she stroked the remaining rough dark hair at the back of his head, and slowly, carefully, instinctively knowing when it was the right moment, she brought the sherbet fizzer up to his lips.
It seemed the spectators were holding their breath. All were frozen in amazement as Wilfie stuck out his tongue and the white-furred tip tasted the sweet. There was an immediate retreat but after an instant, in which the rest of his body stopped jerking, he licked the sherbet. Selina knew his limited perception had already robbed him of the hazy instinct of where he was and why, and she also knew that the slightest untoward word, touch or gesture would plunge him into panic again. Keeping up the soothing words she caressed each one of his white knuckles clenching on to the pump. She ran her fingers from each of his dirty broken nails on to the backs of his hands, following the paths of bulging purplish veins to his taut wrists where she could feel his pulse still thundering from the fright. When the dreadful beat had at last eased, she was able to peel away one finger at a time off the pump.
By the time Wilfie had eaten the sweet out of her hand, Selina had got both his hands off the pump. His eyes went completely blank and expressionless. He had poor balance: one of his arms was curled up awkwardly and the leg on that side was twisted in at the knee. This was the shambles of what was left of a young man not yet twenty-five. Supporting him, she put on his cap and motioned to his mother to come and claim him. ‘Do you live in one of these cottages, Mrs Chellow?’
Mrs Chellow wrapped one arm round Wilfie’s waist and he was safe in their double embrace. ‘Just behind us, miss.’
‘Let’s take him home.’
To sentences of wonder and congratulation and then a spontaneous outbreak of clapping, they got Wilfie inside the front door, which led directly into the one living room of an end dwelling.
‘Thanks, miss. Well, I know you to be Miss Bosweld, newly come among us, and thank God for it,’ Mrs Chellow said, her eyes wet from a different emotion now. Some of the haggardness seemed to have dropped off her. ‘I can see to Wilfie now he’s in.’
Selina rested a hand on the woman’s stooping shoulder. ‘I know how hard it must be for you to see your son like this, to have him as not man or child. To think about what might have been for him if there had never been a war. All you can do is to love him, Mrs Chellow, and be proud of the sacrifice he made.’
‘All I’ve e
ver wanted since he was brought back was for some round here to show him respect, to treat him with dignity. God bless you, Miss Bosweld. I’ll never forget what you’ve done this day.’
* * *
Perry Bosweld was in the back garden of Ford House. His family’s belongings were arranged satisfactorily inside, he had brought his charity work up to date and now it was time for leisure. To indulge in the sport denied him for several weeks due to packing up and moving house.
The lawn was perfect to set an archery lane up on, shooting south to north, the second distance for male competitors of fifty-six yards. He looked with pleasure at the canvas-faced target, up on a buttress of firm straw-packed sacking, a low buttress owing to him being in his wheeled chair, the central steering handle folded down, the quiver slung from the side of the chair. In quick, easy succession, well inside the maximum tournament time of four minutes, he shot an ‘end’ of six arrows, all marked with his initials and light blue markings from his longbow.
‘Bravo!’ he congratulated himself. Four arrows were in the inner red scoring zone, the zone nearest to the gold centre of the target; the other two arrows were in the gold centre, giving him a score of fifty-six out of a possible sixty. His elation was blemished by disappointment. It would have been more of a triumph if there had been someone to witness the feat.
He made to start another ‘end’. He laid aside the longbow and peeled off his finger protectors, exposing his long, sensitive fingers. He stared at his smooth, pale right hand as if he had never seen it before, flexed it and turned it round, and round again. It looked as steady as iron. He had taken up archery after recovering from the explosion that had caused so much destruction to his body, and there had been no weakness in operating a longbow and shooting the arrows. Hours and hours of slavish practice had raised him to peak standard. He had won many competitions. So why could he no longer wield a scalpel or stitch up a wound? He turned his hand side on, brought it up close to his eyes. There it was. The long, thin white line, the scar that told of the tiny injury that had robbed him of absolute steadiness, that made it just a little bit difficult to hold his fountain pen. It took him twice as long to produce a letter now. So why go on pretending it didn’t? And hoping that some day the steadiness would return and he’d be able to practise his skill again? The only profession he had ever wanted to be in. It didn’t matter if he missed a target, but it would if he made a fatal mistake while venturing inside a patient’s body. Stupid optimist! Stupid pretence! Stupid hope.
