‘What you doing down there? Get up! Lazy bleeding cow.’
He dragged her on to her feet, hit her so that she staggered sideways into the kitchen, hit her again as she grabbed at the table, and kicked her as she slid down on to the floor. The world shattered into jagged red points of pain. She was gasping and wailing and weeping.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’
Just when she thought it was bad, it became worse. Through a haze she could see Florrie, a blur of white with two pinpoints of black fury in her eyes and her teeth bared like a tigress.
‘You leave her alone, you coward, you bully! Leave her alone!’
For just a moment Archie hesitated, then he swung round on his daughter with a roar of fury.
‘No, no!’ Milly screamed.
There was something in Florrie’s hand. She raised it in threat.
‘That’s right, hit me,’ she challenged him. ‘Go on, hit me. Just you try it.’
He stopped in mid-flight, then turned back and lashed out at Milly again, the toe of his boot crashing into her ribs. She moaned.
Above her there was a movement, a flash of white, a crack. This time it was Archie who yelped.
‘You bitch!’
She saw his arm move to strike his daughter, but there was another crack first, and then he was falling, falling. He collapsed across her, knocking the breath out of her, leaving her pinned and gasping.
The silence was worse than the noise. Ellen could stay still no longer. She had to go and see if there was anything she could do. First she ran up to check on the babies, drawing strength from their peaceful sleep, then she slipped next door.
A frozen tableau met her eyes. Ida, Johnny and Bob were crowded in the kitchen doorway with their backs to her, as if not daring to move any further. Beyond them came the whooping sound of someone who had been winded trying to catch their breath, and there was the unmistakable choking smell of singeing hair hanging in the air. Nobody moved.
Ellen swallowed. ‘Is – is there anything . . .?’ Her voice came out as a croak.
Ida turned to look at her. Her mouth hung open in shock. ‘It’s our dad,’ she whispered.
Ellen walked forward and the three parted to let her through. There stood Florrie, like an avenging angel in her white nightgown, her hair flowing loose down her back, and her eyes wide and staring. Even as Ellen looked at her, the flush drained out of her face to leave it ashen. In her hand was a broken chair leg, the end clotted with blood and hairs.
‘Florrie, what . . .?’ But as she spoke, she knew. She looked down on the floor. The noise came from Milly, pinned beneath her husband. But it was Archie that everyone was staring at. It was his hair that was scorching. He lay across Milly, his back on the fender, his head against the range. His jaw sagged, and his eyes were half open and rolled up into his head so that only the whites showed. His chest was quite still.
One thing was clear to Ellen: somebody had to do something, and as everyone else was in a state of shock, it had to be her.
‘Get him off your mum. Let her breathe proper,’ she decided.
She bent down and started tugging at Archie’s ankles. Nobody else moved, so she looked up and said quite sharply, ‘Come on, lend a hand.’
Ida and Johnny reluctantly joined her. Ellen left them to the feet while she steeled herself to lift Archie’s bloody head up so that it did not drag over Milly. Between them, they pulled him clear and dropped him on the floor. Ellen shuddered. She held her hands fastidiously away from herself.
‘Now help your mum up,’ she said. ‘Get her a drink of water, or something.’
While the three younger ones did that, she looked at Florrie, who was still standing in silence with the chair leg in her hand.
‘Give me that,’ she said, and with swift decision thrust it into the range. The fire blazed up merrily.
‘Now . . .’ She cast about the room, not quite sure what to do next. One thing was certain, the truth must never come out. She was not going to see her best friend hanged.
Milly, hunched on a chair, was crying and moaning. The noise grated on Ellen’s nerves. She could not think straight.
Florrie’s lips moved. ‘I killed him,’ she whispered. ‘I killed him. He’s dead.’
Milly’s wails rose hysterically. Ellen closed her eyes briefly. She could not bear the sound of it.
‘Look, it was an accident – we all know that – a dreadful accident. He hit his head on the range,’ she said loudly. ‘That’s what happened. It wasn’t Florrie.’
Bob, Ida and Johnny all nodded. Milly sobbed.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Ellen yelled. The others gaped at her. ‘Why don’t you get her to bed? She’ll be better off there. Get her to bed and – and put cold compresses on the cuts and bruises. Yes, that’s best.’
Once again the three younger ones did as they were bid. They were more than happy to accept Ellen as the leader, and doing something useful made them feel better. As they escorted their mother upstairs, Florrie and Ellen were left staring at each other over Archie’s body.
‘It was an accident, Florrie,’ Ellen repeated.
Slowly, Florrie nodded. ‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ she said. Her voice was toneless.
Neither of them knew quite what to do next. Ellen had an idea that they ought to call in the police, but the very thought of it terrified her. Once they arrived, her friend could be carted off in handcuffs. The front door rattled, and they both started. Ellen bit back a scream. She half expected to see a burly policeman come in. Both girls went limp with relief when they saw that it was Harry.
‘What the hell’s –’ He broke off, taking in the scene.
‘I hit him. He’s dead,’ Florrie explained in the same flat voice.
‘It was the range, it was that what killed him, not Florrie,’ Ellen put in.
Between them, interrupting, contradicting, they explained what had happened. Harry ran his hands through his hair, until it stood up on end.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘It wasn’t Florrie,’ Ellen repeated vehemently.
‘Yeah, I know that, you know that, but are the police going to believe it?’ Harry asked.
Neither girl could answer him. Despite the warmth of the room, Ellen felt cold.
Out of nowhere, the solution came to her.
‘We could throw him in the river.’
There was a long silence as all three of them considered this.
‘Yeah,’ Harry said slowly, working it out as he went along. ‘It’s a real pea-souper out there. Can’t see your hand in front of your face, hardly. He could’ve lost his way and been set on. We could say he never come home. We could go to the police tomorrow morning and report him missing, all worried-like. So long as we all stick to it –’ He broke off as an important point struck him. ‘Noise! It must’ve made one hell of a row. Someone would’ve heard. You heard, Ellen.’
‘But there’s nobody else in, except the babies. The men are all out.’
‘Right.’ Harry nodded. ‘And Granny Pierce next door never hears nothing. She wouldn’t hear if the Day of Judgement arrived.’
‘There’s Mum,’ Florrie said.
‘Ah.’ That was a problem.
‘Could you get her to agree to it?’ Ellen asked.
Neither Harry nor Florrie was sure.
‘You never know with her. She might break down if they ask her questions,’ Harry said. ‘But then, she’d do the same if we just said it wasn’t Florrie’s fault. She could come out with the fact that she hit him. No, we got to do it your way, Ellen. It’s the river.’
Bob, Ida and Johnny came creeping in, their faces showing how glad they were that their big brother was back. Harry briefly explained what had been decided upon.
‘It’s the only way,’ he said. ‘Are we all agreed? Because we all got to be together in this.’
He looked from Ellen to his brothers and sisters. They all nodded.
‘Good.’ He glanc
ed at the clock. ‘We got to get moving – they’ll all be rolling home from the Puncheon any minute. You go back next door, Ellen. Just act like nothing happened. You never heard nothing, it’s been quiet all evening. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘You get me a bit of sheet or an old shirt or something, Ida, to wrap his head up in. You and me, Johnny, will take him down to the river. The rest of you better clean up all this mess and get rid of what’s left of that chair. And somebody’s got to get it into Mum’s head that he never came home tonight. Everyone know what they’re doing?’
Silently they got to work.
Ellen left them to it. She let herself in at the front door and stood in the parlour, listening to the scrabblings and shufflings going on at the Turners’, her heart still beating nineteen to the dozen. Her hands were shaking. She looked at them and realized that they were stained with Archie’s dried blood. Her stomach lurched in revulsion. Just in time she ran to the scullery and hung over the sink, retching and groaning as if to bring up all the badness in a wicked world.
4
IT WAS FOUR days before they fished Archie out of the river; four days in which all the Turners and Ellen had time to wonder if they had done the right thing. The Sunday was the worst. Harry went to the police in the morning and reported his father missing. They did not seem overly concerned. People went missing all the time and most reappeared after a couple of days. Fully grown men were able to take care of themselves. Particulars were taken and Harry was told to inform them when he turned up again.
Meanwhile the others waited at home, trying to keep Milly calm. It was decided that she should stay in bed until the latest lot of bruises had faded, since they had to keep up the fiction that he had not been home at all. Bob was allowed out in the street to play, after being made to repeat the story three times over. Johnny sloped off with his friends. The girls were left with their mother.
Next door, Ellen fidgeted around, trying to act as if nothing had happened but wondering all the while how soon she could go in and see how they all were. In the end she hid the last of the tea, pretended great annoyance at not having remembered to buy any and shot out of the front door to borrow some.
Ida greeted her with cries of relief. ‘Oh, Ellen, am I glad to see you! Ain’t it horrible? I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’
‘Neither did I. Is everything all right? How’s your mum?’
Ida cast a glance towards the ceiling and dropped her voice. ‘Ever so poorly. She just keeps crying and saying how she’s been a wicked woman and now she’s being punished. We dunno what to do with her, Ellen. I mean, it wasn’t like it was her what hit him. My mum’s not wicked. All she ever done was try to look after all of us proper. I dunno what she means.’
No more did Ellen. ‘I suppose she’s just upset. What about Florrie? How’s she?’
‘Oh, well, you know our Florrie. She don’t say a lot.’
Ellen knew only too well. ‘Tell her I’m here, Ida.’
Florrie had that all too familiar frozen look about her. Ellen put an arm around her shoulders.
‘You mustn’t blame yourself, love. It wasn’t you what killed him, I know it wasn’t.’
Florrie turned a hard little face towards her. Her eyes were steely. ‘Yes it was. I done it, and I’m glad.’
It sent a chill through Ellen’s body.
‘I don’t believe that, and neither do you, not really. And you’re never, ever to say it to anyone else. The important thing is that we all stick to the story. We’re all in it together now.’
‘That’s the only thing I’m sorry for. I never wanted to drag all you lot into it. But not for hitting him. I’m not sorry for that.’
Ellen did not know what to say. In all the years they had been friends, she had always felt inadequate when faced with Florrie’s problems.
‘Well, if there’s anything I can do, you know I’m always there next door,’ she said. It sounded very feeble to her ears.
‘Thanks, Ellen. You’re the best pal anyone ever had.’
Warmth stole briefly across Florrie’s face. She returned her hug.
When Harry returned, they debated what should be done about Milly.
‘Do you think she’ll stick to the story?’ Ellen asked.
‘God, I hope so. If she don’t, we’re all sunk,’ Harry said.
‘What are we going to say to the neighbours? It’ll look funny if we don’t say nothing, and once it’s out they’ll all be over here. They’ll see she’s odd. I mean, you can’t miss it. She’s acting ever so strange,’ Ida said.
‘Aunty Alma’ll be over here anyway. She always does of a Sunday,’ Florrie reminded her.
‘Yeah, and you won’t keep her out of Mum’s bedroom.’
‘You’ll have to say . . .’ Ellen was thinking aloud. ‘You’ll have to say that she was so upset your dad never come home that she went and fell down the stairs.’
The others looked at her.
‘That’s it! They’ll swallow that, all right. And it’s only natural that she’s still funny now, ’cos he’s still not come back,’ Ida said. ‘You are clever, Ellen.’
‘And Ellen can tell the neighbours, too. If you don’t mind?’ Harry said.
Ellen shook her head.
‘Then it looks natural. She’s come in here now –’
‘To borrow some tea,’ Ellen told him.
‘To borrow some tea. Give her a bit now, Florrie, so’s we don’t forget. Then we tell her all about Dad not coming home, and she tells her lot and anyone else she runs into.’
‘I think one of you better go over and tell your aunt Alma,’ Ellen said. ‘After all, you’d do that, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t just sit in here by yourselves, worrying. First thing you’d do is go and see her. And Maisie too – you better go round and see her.’
And so the story spread. By midday most of the street knew. The Turners’ house was filled with sympathizers. Florrie slipped next door and volunteered to take Ellen’s babies for a walk. Ellen, recognizing her friend’s need to get away, tucked them up in the pram.
‘Take as long as you like. I only just fed Teddy so he won’t need another one for three or four hours.’
‘Thanks, Ellen.’ Florrie gave a tight smile.
Her knuckles were white on the handle as she marched off down the road. It was a long Sunday afternoon for Ellen, wondering how Milly was holding out next door and listening to first Gerry then Alma speculating as to where Archie might be.
Milly was the weak link. All the rest, even Bob, realized exactly what the price of truth would be. But Milly was unpredictable. Harry stopped outside the door as he set off for work on Monday morning. Ellen was scrubbing the step.
‘Ellen?’ He glanced up and down the street. Other women were already cleaning, people were going out. ‘Can you pop in and see to my mum sometime? She’s still – you know . . .’
‘Yeah, right.’ Ellen knew exactly what he meant. She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. ‘Don’t worry, Harry. I’ll see she’s all right.’
She did not feel as confident as she sounded. The moment Gerry and the lodgers were out of the house, she went next door. Milly was still in bed. This roused twinges of alarm. Usually they had difficulty in getting her to lie down; she dragged herself around, getting the family off in the morning, however badly Archie had beaten her.
‘You feeling poorly, Mrs Turner?’ she asked. ‘Like me to make you a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t want nothing.’ Her voice was totally expressionless.
‘Well, how you feeling? It’s cold up here. How about coming down into the kitchen? Florrie made the range up before she went and it’s burning nicely now.’
‘No – no – I couldn’t.’
‘But it’s much warmer downstairs.’
‘I couldn’t – not there. Not in there . . .’ Milly’s chin trembled.
Ellen began to understand. ‘You got to come down sometime, Mrs Turner. You can’t stay up here for ev
er. Come on, now. It won’t be so bad once you done it. Get it over with, eh?’
‘No.’ Tears began to course down her cheeks. Milly made no attempt to wipe them. She just lay there, weeping.
‘Oh, Mrs Turner, don’t take on. I know it’s dreadful but . . .’
But what? But it’s a good thing he won’t be coming back to knock you around any more? Somehow, Ellen knew that this was not how Mrs Turner saw it.
‘But crying ain’t going to make it any better,’ she substituted.
Nothing she could say seemed to make any difference. Milly refused to move, refused to eat or drink. Ellen did not know what to do. She was relieved when she heard the front door open and Maisie calling up from below. She left Milly in the charge of her daughter, but spent the rest of the morning worrying. Supposing Milly told Maisie what had really happened? Maisie, of course, would say nothing to endanger her sister, but Ellen was sure that the fewer the people knew the truth, the easier it would be to keep the secret. She went back next door again in the afternoon, to find Milly much the same.
‘You do know we mustn’t tell anyone, don’t you, Mrs Turner?’ she said. ‘He never come home Saturday night. You must remember that.’
Once again the tears stood in Milly’s eyes.
‘It’s all my fault, all my fault,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t never have happened if it weren’t for me. He’d be alive now.’
‘But it ain’t your fault, Mrs Turner. It was just a dreadful accident.’
‘I’m a wicked woman. It happened because of me.’
It was fixed in her mind. Milly was not listening to reason, and Ellen ran out of arguments.
She still had not faced the kitchen when the news came that a body matching Archie’s description had been found. By great good fortune, it was evening and Harry was home. He persuaded the policeman that his mother was too ill to get up, and went to identify the body. Even though he had seen drowned people before, even though he had hated his father, it still made him feel sick. He took one glance at the bloated features with the empty eye sockets and looked away.
Trinidad Street Page 36
