Go Not Gently

by Cath Staincliffe

  There was silence for a while. The thick walls let little sound in from the outside world. I let my thoughts ramble. People at home would be worried about me. I’d left Agnes’ number but no address. How long would they wait until they called the police? And once they did, if they established the address they’d find an empty house and my abandoned car. No indication of where we might be.

  How long till morning? Was Maddie fast asleep now or unsettled by the atmosphere as the grown-ups made excuses for my sudden absence?

  ‘You have a daughter?’ Agnes asked. Had I been talking aloud?

  ‘Yes, she’s five.’

  ‘And you’re by yourself?’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not married. I’m a single parent but we live in a shared house.’

  ‘And the child, she’s happy?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. She’s never known anything else. She knows families come in lots of different combinations.’

  ‘Times change,’ she said, ‘and sometimes for the better.’

  I waited.

  ‘My sister, Nora, she had a baby. She wasn’t married and in those days it was a terrible thing. You were shunned, completely ostracised. There was no mercy.’ She smoothed the paper across her knees, running her thumb over creases as she talked.

  ‘Was that before she went to Kingsfield?’ I asked.

  ‘That was why she went to Kingsfield. Morally inadequate, they called it. Pregnant and unmarried so they locked her up.’

  ‘Oh God. But your parents…’

  ‘Signed the forms. There was little hesitation. There were many girls like Nora. Young girls. She was only sixteen, little more than a child herself. She had the baby, a little girl, taken from her at birth, taken to be adopted.’

  Agnes’ niece.

  ‘You never saw the baby?’

  ‘Oh, no. I visited Nora secretly. My mother thought it best to stay away.’

  ‘So Nora stayed there after she’d had the baby?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think they ever said exactly how long she was expected to be there. It was a punishment, you see, rather than treatment. She’d broken the rules. There was no compassion.’ She tore a little strip off the edge of her paper sheet and began to roll it into a cylinder in her fingers. ‘Nora had been seduced by an older man, a business connection of my father’s. He continued to do well.’

  ‘So, they didn’t find him guilty of moral inadequacy.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said ruefully. ‘It was cold, very cold, the last time I visited her. There was no snow but one of those easterly winds that cuts right through you. I’d brought her cakes and a ribbon. It was a harsh regime. Most of the girls worked in the laundry, Nora worked in the kitchens.’

  Her hand stole to the brooch on her lapel, kneaded at it through the paper, then returned to work at the frills of paper on her lap.

  ‘I arrived just after lunch. They’d finished clearing up. Someone suggested I try the dormitory. She had a bed by the window – huge great windows they had, covered in bars. If she wasn’t there I’d put the cakes under her pillow and hope no one stole them. It was quiet up there. The place was deserted.’ She cleared her throat.

  ‘Nora was there. She was hanging from the curtain rail. She’d torn her apron into strips and her dress. She just had her shift on. A thin cotton shift. I remember thinking she must be so cold up there, with her poor bare arms, so cold.’

  I shivered. I thought of all the mother’s daughters. Nora, whose mother had agreed to her incarceration; Nora’s girl child, who would never know the circumstances of her birth; Olive, who had died in infancy and who Lily had called for in her last waking moments; Tina, whose death had been sudden and brutal. And now in the depth of the night there’d be mothers bearing daughters and daughters mourning mothers, and those railing at each other’s shortcomings, and I wanted to be home and warm with my own daughter close by while we still had the chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  We talked a lot that night. Agnes told me most of her life story; we made ourselves hungrier fantasising about food. We talked about families, holidays, Manchester, politics, and tentatively about relationships.

  ‘I do get lonely,’ I said, ‘now and then. I wonder whether I’ll ever meet anyone. Wonder if this is it. If it’ll feel different the longer I’m on my own.’

  ‘I’ve been very happy,’ she said, ‘but then I had Lily.’

  I turned to look at her. Her dark eyes were soft, faraway.

  I heard the car first. My stomach lurched and I staggered to my feet. ‘He’s coming.’ I wriggled out of the paper that rustled around me and took my position by the door, the fire extinguisher between my feet ready to be lifted. Agnes divested herself of paper and settled the dummy body across her knees. I saw her take a steadying breath. She smiled at me. I swallowed. I could hear the shutter door being unrolled. What if it wasn’t Goulden? Perhaps it was the caretaker opening up. Maybe it was morning. My heart leapt with hope. We’d be safe. We could go home.

  Footsteps across the concrete floor. My ears were buzzing with the strain of concentration. The scrape of a key in the lock. I could feel my pulse in the roof of my mouth. I prayed, a wordless, soundless plea for help.

  The door swung open. Stopped a couple of inches from hitting me. My knees bent, my hands grasped the black handle at the top of the cylinder.

  ‘Get up,’ he said quietly.

  Come into the room, step forward.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Agnes, her voice thin and reedy. ‘It’s Sal, I can’t wake her. She’s collapsed. I don’t know what’s wrong.’ Her words were laced with panic. I was convinced. But Goulden?

  ‘Christ!’ he swore.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Agnes went on, ‘I can’t lift her. She’s too heavy for me. I don’t have the strength.’

  I heard the tap of his shoe as he stepped nearer. I swung the extinguisher up and myself out from behind the door.

  He must have caught the movement out of the side of his eye. He wheeled round, instinctively lifting his arm to protect himself.

  I clung tight to the handle as the cylinder plunged down, the weight was so great I lost control, no opportunity to aim with any accuracy. It skewed to the left, wrenching my wrist. It slammed his arm back and cracked his head. He folded under the impact, tipping forward. Blood spurted, from his head, bright, metal-scented. It hit my leg, hot and wet.

  I fought the impulse to flee, cut off the growing sense of horror at what I’d done.

  He lay face down, arms and legs splayed awkwardly. Blood bubbled out of his head. I pulled my sweatshirt off, bundled it over the crimson fountain. The copious flow made it impossible to see what damage I’d done. Head wounds always bleed a lot, I tried to reassure myself.

  Agnes was at my side. I was kneeling in his blood, which was pooling around him, congealing quickly in the cold air.

  ‘I’m going to try turning him over,’ I said, ‘check his breathing. Keep this pressed down.’

  She put her hands on the sweatshirt, I arranged his limbs and hauled him on to his back. I bent low, my ear by his mouth and nose listening, my eyes watching his chest for motion. It was hard to tell. I turned my head to look at him. His eyes flew open and his hand grabbed my throat. I screamed and scrabbled to get away, clawing at his hand with my own. His grip weakened and I pulled free. I scrambled to my feet, slipped in his blood and nearly fell on him. I regained my balance and fought to slow my breathing. His eyes were shut again.

  I struggled to remember first aid. There was something about raising the wound above the heart – or was that only legs and arms? ‘I’ll go for help,’ I said. ‘Here,’ I pulled my jacket from the dummy and fashioned a cushion, ‘lift his head, put this underneath. Will you be all right?’

  Agnes nodded, her face was blank with shock. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  It didn’t take me long to establish that there were no offices in the warehouse, no phones. Outside dawn was breaking, the light hurt my eyes. I could see Goulden’s car and across
the yard the main building. Steel shutters covered all the doors and windows. No one was at work yet. There was a heavy dew, the world was soaked and there was a powerful smell of fertiliser.

  It was hard to think straight. Where could I get help? Looking about I could see fields, trees and pylons but no other buildings. The land was flat, the sky dominating most of the view, grey to the east where the day was beginning but still dark behind me. I listened for traffic. I thought I could make out a distant drone but I couldn’t tell if it was in my head or out there.

  If I’d had my wits about me I might have taken his car or used his car-phone to summon help but I’d lost all sense somewhere in the fear and the bleeding, and the only thing that occurred to me was to walk until I found someone.

  I set off jogging slowly down the narrow road that led to Malden’s. It was laid with white gravel, like the stones that Hansel dropped. I wanted to lie down and sleep. I wanted to hide somewhere far away where they’d never find me.

  Guilt. Fear. Had Tina Achebe’s killer felt it? Had he been drenched in blood. Beaten to death she’d been, how many blows? She was a tiny woman, nothing like Goulden with his broad shoulders, his big bones. Had Tina’s murderer used a weapon or just his fists? There’d never been anything in the papers about a weapon. Had her head burst like Goulden’s?

  To the rhythm of my steps I chanted a mantra: Don’t let him die, please, don’t let him die. He may have been a grade A dickhead but I didn’t want to be his murderer.

  The road led to a T-junction. A quaint black and white signpost told me that I was five miles from Northwich and one and a half from Little Leigh. One and a half. Waves of pity nudged me. It wasn’t fair. How could I walk another mile and a half? I was tired and thirsty. So thirsty. I had a sudden vivid memory from childhood, morning walk to school, trailing my fingers through the privet hedges sucking dew from my fingertips.

  I stepped up to the hedge. Full of hawthorn and brambles. I felt like throwing a tantrum. There was a little grass growing beneath the hedge. I ran my hands through a clump, washing away the worst of the rusty bloodstains. Then I found a fresh patch and ran my hands through it, licking the droplets of dew from my palms and fingers. There was a large spider’s web in the hedge, strung with silver beads of dew, diamonds. Perfect. I got to my feet shivering. Aware again of how weak I felt, how much I ached. A mile and a half then.

  I pushed myself again, tried to establish a rhythm, the air in my windpipe burning with each gasp. Please don’t let him die, please, don’t let him die. I could taste my lungs. Past, the tall tree on the left. Cows to the right, huge Friesians, like cartoons, black and white against the lush grass. Another gate. Please don’t let him die.

  Then I saw the man and his dog.

  There’s always a man and a dog, isn’t there? While the rest of us luxuriate in the final hour in bed the dog walkers are up and out, rain or shine, discovering the dark deeds the night has spawned. Stumbling over shallow graves, corpses.

  He was a small man, middle-aged, glasses and a neat moustache. He wore a waterproof jacket and a woolly hat. He looked shocked when he first saw me, then concerned as we drew closer. You couldn’t blame him. Clad in a T-shirt, smashed-up face, spattered red. The dog was small, brown, nondescript, friendly enough. It tried to lick the blood off my leg.

  ‘Get an ambulance,’ I said to the man, ‘and the police.’

  ‘Has there been an accident? Are you all right?’ He pushed the dog away from me gently with his foot. ‘Get down, Shep.’

  Shep! I felt a giggle inflate in my belly. ‘Yes, please hurry. Tell them there’s a man with head injuries, up at Malden’s, you know where…’

  He nodded. ‘Come on, Shep.’ He began to run, really run, the dog at his heels. I turned back for Malden’s.

  Above me I heard the roar of a plane ascending from the airport. The sky was too cloudy to see it but I could hear it climbing. Full of passengers bound for sunny holidays. Up for hours already, they’d have been. Stomachs sour with lack of sleep and food at funny times, wondering whether to risk the curdled eggs and the strange sausages on the in-flight meal.

  I leant over the road and retched. Thin, foamy bile.

  Don’t let him die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Agnes was still beside him, pressing my sweatshirt to his head. He was still breathing, just. I sat beside her, told her help was on its way. I closed my eyes and waited.

  A second ambulance was summoned by the first. Goulden was given immediate emergency treatment before being moved. The police took initial statements from us. The bare bones of the story that had brought us here, leaving us shocked and bloodied. We were wrapped in blankets and led blinking into the bright daylight to the ambulance.

  At the casualty department people came and went checking pulse and temperature. They let me ring home. Ray answered, relief catching at his voice. I told him where I was and that I’d be home as soon as they’d checked me out. I didn’t tell him what had happened. I wasn’t sure. Had I killed a man? Brain-damaged him?

  I couldn’t get warm. They took my clothes and left me a paper gown which was open at the back and one cellular blanket. I asked for more blankets. They never came. There weren’t even any rolls of paper sheeting I could make use of. We were waiting again, for an X-ray, for a doctor, for a diagnosis, for ever. Shock dulled my comprehension but I didn’t dare sleep.

  At last someone offered us tea. Oh, yes, yes! When it arrived, pale grey in Styrofoam cups, I nearly wept with disappointment. It didn’t even seem to help my raging thirst. More police came. They spoke to Agnes and me together.

  They managed to note down the main points of our story and our conspiracy theory without too many incredulous looks. I asked about Goulden. He’d been taken to another hospital; there were no intensive care beds free at this one. They didn’t know how he was.

  The doctor checked us over, pronounced our X-rays clear and agreed we could be discharged. They cleaned us up first. They decorated my nose with seri-strips, which looked stupid, and strapped up my wrist. Agnes had badly bruised legs from the kicking she’d received. They dressed them for her. We were both given some painkillers to take with us, a poorly photocopied leaflet on hypothermia, shock and concussion and what to look out for, and our choice of old clothes from the Hospital Friends Box. I was going to ask about my own clothes until I realised with a rush of fear that they might constitute evidence of my assault on Goulden. Did they need evidence when I’d told them all about it?

  It was well after lunchtime when we were escorted to Agnes’ in a police car. I insisted that someone go in with Agnes and check the house out.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

  ‘Your phone’s cut off,’ I said. ‘Your door was open half the night, anyone could have been in.’

  ‘It’s best we check it out, madam,’ said the driver, and he and his partner got out.

  ‘I’ll ring BT,’ I said, ‘order a repair.’

  ‘No,’ she objected.

  ‘It’s no trouble.’

  ‘Sal, I’m perfectly capable of going next door to use my neighbour’s phone to do that. I don’t need looking after,’ she admonished me.

  ‘Sorry.’ I made a note of the neighbour’s number in case I needed to contact Agnes and the police did the same when they returned and pronounced the house secure. She watched us go from the doorstep. I turned to keep her in view as long as possible. I had an urge to run back and stay with her. Agnes and I, we’d been somewhere terrible together; no one else could ever really know what it had been like. And we’d survived. I took a deep breath and sat back in my seat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Digger was inordinately pleased to see me. Made me feel guilty as hell seeing I have so little regard for the animal. Still, unrequited love doesn’t seem to faze him.

  Ray paled when he saw me and he fussed round me until I gave him something to do. ‘Ray, please, I want a pot of tea, strong. And porridge, loads, with golden syrup.�
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  ‘I know how you take your tea,’ he retorted.

  He’d contacted the police when I’d failed to return. The police had found my car but had not got any further in their efforts to find me.

  Sheila arrived back from lectures as I was eating the first mouthful. ‘Oh, you poor thing. Is it broken?’

  ‘No, just bruised.’

  ‘You’ve got black eyes.’

  ‘No,’ said Ray, ‘more like purple. Prettier than last time.’ He put down my tea, pulled out a chair.

  ‘Has this happened before?’ Sheila was aghast.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said Ray.

  ‘That was a gun,’ I said, ‘this was a fist.’

  ‘You were hurt,’ he raised his voice, ‘you were hurt then and you’re hurt now.’

  ‘I know. Don’t shout at me. I don’t like being hurt, I don’t try to get hurt. It frightens me too.’

  For a beat or two the unspoken argument hung in the air. We’d been through it before. Ray would never like the risks the job brought with it and would never understand why I persisted in it. But I loved my work. In spite of the bad breaks and the dull days there was nothing else I could imagine being halfway happy doing.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘What?’ I swallowed a mouthful of tea, then another. Bliss.

  ‘From start to finish. I’ve been up all night worried sick, talking to police, trying to convince them I wasn’t being neurotic, covering for you with the kids, imagining you floating down the Mersey or crumpled into a wheelie bin somewhere. The very least I expect is a blow-by-blow account of what’s been going on.’

  He got it. Sheila too. And the telling of it helped relieve me of some of the awful tension that had my shoulders up near my ear holes and my guts like macramé. They were suitably appalled at the central image of people being given diseased brain matter as a means of pushing forward the search for a cure for Alzheimer’s. I finished with an account of our planned attack on Goulden.