by Laura Powell
‘I’ve news,’ squeaks Mary when they are alone. ‘Aunt Irene found me a position. From next week I’m to be a telephone operator in Spoole. Fancy that? Me, a working woman!’
‘You’re not going to secretarial college anymore?’
‘No need. Mr Cripps’s other girls will train me up. He said I’m a natural.’
‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she says in a high voice and hugs Mary.
She wishes she was pleased inside too, but it is all happening so fast. Only three weeks ago they were at their school desks, whispering and planning this – their future. Now it has snuck up on her.
‘I’m pleased for me too. Isn’t it the best news?’
‘And how was your night out with Gray?’ says Betty.
Mary wrinkles her nose and gives a little shake of her head, just as George and Gray reappear. The microphone crackles and a man wearing a butter-coloured suit announces the start of the dance contest.
Betty tries to focus on the girl dancer’s trippy footwork and the boy dancer’s carrot orange hair, but George stands too close to her. Beads of sweat cluster on his brow. His hand reaches out and finds hers. It is wet and pudgy, like a toddler’s. She pulls away and clasps her hands behind her back. Mary whispers something to Gray but his eyes are on Betty too. Mary scowls.
‘I need some fresh air,’ Betty whispers to George and hurries to the beach doors before he can reply; something is squeezing closed the opening of her throat.
Outside the air is thinner and the sky is bruised with angry storm clouds. She inches her way down the verge, relieved to escape, and her breathing eases. She scans the beach: to her right is a shoulder of cliff that juts out into the sea, and to the left is a long worm of bleached sand, with a huddle of stick men on it. Two of the men break away from the pack and walk along the empty beach towards her, while the others clamber over the dunes to a dozen cars parked haphazardly on the roadside.
Applause wafts out of the hall and needles of warm rain pick down. She looks harder at the breakaway pair, their heads bowed in conversation. One wears a policeman’s custodian helmet and the other wears a fedora and long black coat that flows out behind him. Betty’s throat tightens again. She knows that coat. Mr Gallagher.
She hasn’t seen him since the pictures. Were his bedsheets not rumpled up every morning and his wardrobe not filled with a neat line of shirts, she would think he had left St Steele altogether. She has almost managed to block out their last confusing moment alone together but, now she sees him, it replays in her mind.
How he drove her home in silence after the film and they tip-toed back into the dark hallway of Hotel Eden. How the door to the big room was shut fast, but they could hear a drone of voices and clinked glasses from within. How he hung up his fedora and wordlessly leant forward as if to kiss her, then jerked away and strode past her up the stairs, careful not to brush skins. She still isn’t certain what she did wrong or why he has avoided her since.
‘Betty!’
She glances back and sees George making his way down the damp verge, his arms outstretched to keep his balance.
‘Come back up Bet, I want a dance.’
‘Soon, I just need some air.’
‘But I want to dance now. And a storm’s brewing.’
The wind sighs and seawater sprays their faces. George wipes his eyes. The pair of figures on the sand creep closer, Betty points at them.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ says George. ‘Napier just had a meeting with the newsmen. They wouldn’t all fit in the station and he didn’t think the cove was right, what with Maureen, so they came out here. That’s what Pa told me, anyway.’ He pauses. ‘So who d’you think the Cleaver is?’
‘I don’t want to think about it.’
‘Well, you’ve nothing to worry about. Not when I’m here.’
He steps closer to her so the hairs on their arms brush. She leans away.
‘I don’t bite,’ he says and jabs her middle with his elbow.
‘Go back up to the dance or they’ll be wondering where you are. I’ll come in a bit.’
‘Stop playing with me, Betty. I know you want me really.’
If he jerked forward another inch, his lips would touch hers, or perhaps her chin. She can smell his fish breath and see the jewels of rain clung to his horrible eyelashes.
‘Look, I know you’re nervous but I’ve done this before. Just let me show you.’
‘You’ll show me nothing, George Paxon.’
But he grabs her wrists and pulls her towards him.
‘Stop it.’
‘You’re such a cocktease,’ he snaps.
‘No, let me go.’
‘Yes,’ he insists.
His lips pucker in a comic book sort of way. He moves forward slowly; so slowly, she is certain she would have time to run to the other end of the beach before his lips reached hers, were he not holding her wrists so tightly. His eyes are squeezed shut.
He inches closer. Suddenly a cough cuts in. George’s head jerks back. His eyes open and he looks around, releasing her wrists.
‘I’m afraid this area is out of bounds,’ says a voice.
Betty looks up and sees Gallagher in front of them. His trench coat is belted and a notebook is poised in his hand.
‘Dreadfully sorry, Inspector,’ says George in a formal voice. ‘Part of the investigation, is it?’
Betty waits for Gallagher to correct him.
‘That’s right,’ says Gallagher with a stern look. ‘Make your way inside.’
George holds out his hand to help Betty up the grass slope that is slippery with new rain.
‘Actually I’ll need a minute with the young lady,’ says Gallagher.
She tries not to smile and searches Gallagher’s face but he still doesn’t look at her.
‘Of course, Inspector. And you’ll see her safely back up to the dancehall afterwards?’
Gallagher nods. Betty watches George struggle up the verge. He loses his footing and steadies himself with his hands, looking back sheepishly. She almost feels sorry for him.
‘Why do I get the impression I saved you from a sticky situation back there?’ says Gallagher when George is indoors. His eyes are all crinkled up and twinkly.
‘Nothing I couldn’t manage.’
‘There, that’s the spirit.’
She stares at him, confused by his friendliness.
‘You’re cold,’ he says tenderly.
‘I’m fine.’
Gallagher unbelts his coat and arranges it around her shoulders. She lets him, holding her breath in case she smells fishy like George. Why are you being so kind to me, she wants to ask.
The raindrops fatten. They watch the real policeman pace across the beach towards the jutting cliff.
‘They’ve questioned Forbes and released him for now,’ says Gallagher. ‘I thought you might—’
‘No,’ she cuts in. ‘I’ve told you, I’m not your source.’
She is pleased at having stood up to him but he gives a grim smile.
‘I was just going to tell you what Napier told me after the others had gone… That whoever killed Maureen probably knew her. She was expecting. He suspects that she and Forbes were a couple; that the child was his.’
Betty looks at him stunned, but she swallows the hundred questions that are ready to leap out of her mouth. She should get back to the hotel. Mother will be crushed when she finds out.
‘No one knows,’ adds Gallagher, as though reading her thoughts again. ‘Napier told me in confidence.’
‘Why would he tell only you?’
Gallagher shrugs.
‘I suppose I’m decent to him. Not like those dogs,’ and he nods at the patch of beach where the other reporters had been.
‘Did you pay him too?’ she asks.
He looks hard at her.
‘No, Betty. I didn’t. And if I’d known it would upset you that much, I wouldn’t have offered you a penny.’
His arms wrap around her, and her f
ace is pressed against his chest. It is firm. She sucks in her tummy and her head fugs up with the smell of his bitter soap and cigarettes and Brylcreem. She would like to stay in his warm arms, not caring if anyone sees them, but then there is a bleat of trumpets in the dancehall and Gallagher drops his arms to his sides. Betty glances back at the doors.
‘I ought to go back up there,’ she says.
‘Why?’
‘He’ll want me to dance with him.’
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
‘You don’t know my mother,’ she says and lets out a halfhearted laugh.
She would like to add that there is nothing she would like to do more than stay in the rain with him but she is terrified of saying something wrong or foolish, so it is safer to leave him now before she spoils everything.
The rain comes harder. Betty clutches a bunch of her wet dress to keep her hem from the grass.
‘You’ll need a walking stick to make it back up the slope,’ he says, handing her a fallen tree branch.
She reaches forward for it and skids. Gallagher steadies her.
‘I can walk by myself,’ she says flustered, making him grin.
She tries to step forward but her foot slides again and he catches her arm to keep her upright, taking the branch from her. He presses the tip of it into the muddy grass to steady himself and arches forward.
‘Jump up,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘On my back. Jump up, I’ll carry you to the top.’
‘No you won’t.’
‘Do you see a better way of getting up there in those silly little shoes of yours?’
Betty doesn’t think about it. She propels herself forward and lunges onto his back. Scared of tumbling straight back off again, she wraps her legs around his waist. His hands sit under her thighs. They are warm, even through the taffeta. She panics. It is wrong somehow. She unwraps her legs again and pushes her hands against his back, struggling to get down.
‘Put me down!’
Gallagher loses his footing. He topples forward and the two of them tumble down the grass verge, Gallagher on his front, Betty over his head. They land on the beach, inches apart and just a few feet from the foamy waves that beat the sand. Betty’s mouth is gritty with wet sand. She blinks, winded. Her tongue tastes of metal. Pain shoots through her right arm. Gallagher hauls himself upright and brushes sand from his coat, his face stormy. Betty can still feel the broadness and heat of his back, pressed to her thighs. Mortified, she tucks down her chin to her chest and hobbles away.
The rain pounds and liquid mud dribbles down her dress. The sky cracks with lightning. She wipes her eyes and glances back at Gallagher. His face is twisted in a strange grimace and his skin is white. She marches on towards the paved pathway that leads back up to the dancehall. She reaches the top and winds her way around the building, pausing near the front door. Her cheeks are scalding with embarrassment.
Gallagher catches her up. He stops too and gazes at the window. Dancers whisk past and music wails out. Betty wishes she could read his thoughts. He is probably looking at one of the pretty girl dancers, and she is gripped with a strange balled-up angriness. Their eyes meet in the glass.
‘You don’t have to go back in there,’ he says, his voice brittle. ‘We could just drive.’
There is another growl of thunder, louder this time. You’re his cheap source, she reminds herself. He only wants you so he can squeeze another article out of you. As if someone like him would really notice a silly girl like you otherwise. Betty turns and runs back indoors.
Mary stands on the corner of the dance floor, her arms crossed and her face stony. When she sees Betty’s dripping hair and dress, soiled with sand and mud, she sniggers but then remembers her anger.
‘You all just basically left me,’ she cries. ‘You ran off goodness knows where, George went off to the bar with some blonde and I haven’t seen him since. And Gray…’ she groans.
Betty is about to reply but Mary cuts over her.
‘Do you know how tedious it is? Being taken to a dance, then abandoned by your three friends – or so-called friends. You don’t, do you? No one would dream of abandoning you.’
A trumpet wails and the man in the butter-yellow suit taps his microphone.
‘I tripped down the verge,’ says Betty weakly.
Mary rolls her eyes. The butter man screeches something and the band fires up.
‘All he talked about was you,’ shrieks Mary over the music.
‘Who did?’
‘Gray,’ she cries. ‘When he took me to supper the other week. You’re so greedy Betty. You encourage them, and it’s just not fair on me.’
She stamps her foot and is about to continue but George appears with two cups of orange juice. He hands one to Mary, not looking at Betty.
‘Your little friend’s gone then?’ snaps Mary but George doesn’t hear.
‘Want a dance?’ he says and Mary nods eagerly.
She shoves her cup in Betty’s hand and glides off with George. Betty is glad to be alone – her back aches, her knees are grazed and her hair is still dripping. She drains the last of Mary’s orange juice and wonders how to explain to Mother that Mr Forbes loved Maureen. She will be broken, but better she hears it from Betty than the newspapers or gossipmongers.
Betty is looking for somewhere to set down the cup when a scream cuts over the music. The piano stops. The trumpet belches and dies. A second later, the dancers all stop whirling and the hall falls silent but for murmurs and gasps. Mary tucks herself in George’s arms and Gray appears at Betty’s side. Every head turns towards the beach doors where the scream came from.
A girl stands in the doorway. Her long raven hair is drenched and her dress is muddier than Betty’s. She screams again, then crumples into a heap on the dance floor. Betty squeezes the orange juice cup. It cracks. Whispers rustle across the dance floor. The pianist crosses the room and cradles the raven girl. He says something that Betty can’t hear. The girl sits upright.
‘On the sand,’ she bellows, her voice shaking. ‘I just saw her.’
‘Saw who?’ says the piano man.
‘Blood still coming from her neck, I just saw her,’ repeats the girl.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I don’t know but she’s out there. She was dancing earlier, I don’t know her name but she could have been any of us. She’s dead.’
Gray presses his lips to Betty’s ear.
‘I just saw George’s father parked outside, let’s get you home,’ he whispers but Betty is transfixed by the girl.
‘Dead,’ she wails again. ‘I’ve never seen so much blood.’
Someone screams. There is a wail and another whimper. Mary pulls away from George and lunges at Gray.
‘You left me,’ she shrieks. ‘It could have been me. You all left me, all three of you, especially you Gray. I could have died too. You wouldn’t have even noticed. Or cared!’
Mary beats Gray’s chest, crying and snivelling, until George pulls her away and hugs her.
‘Let’s get to the car,’ says Gray gravely, wrapping an arm around Betty.
Betty nods this time. The crowd of dancers disperse, some to the beach doors where the raven girl is still sobbing loudly, others to the main exit. Betty and Gray are carried out with the crush.
‘You all left me,’ Mary is still saying somewhere. ‘It could have been me, just at the start of my new job and my new life in Spoole.’
They pass from the stickiness of the dancehall to the sheets of cold rain outside. Betty looks around for Gallagher but he has disappeared. For a strange moment, a picture bubbles up in her head of his red-stained knuckles and his face, all taut and white. She pushes it away – his nose bled, she reminds herself, and she glances down at the beach.
‘Don’t look at her,’ says Gray sidling up.
At first she doesn’t know what he means but then the crowd on the beach parts and Betty sees her: a Sleepi
ng Beauty figure spread out on the sand. She is half covered with a crimson shawl but her grey feet poke out beneath it. A halo glows above her head, but when Betty squints harder, she sees that it is the girl’s bright golden hair fanned out and beneath it, a horseshoe of sand soaked red.
Chapter 6
Fifty years later
Mary sits in the box listening to his slow, steady breaths. It is dark and empty inside, just a splintered bench and velvet curtain and lungfuls of dust. There is something comforting, though, about being swallowed up and stowed here, with no doctor’s letters or newspapers or husbands to worry about.
She listens harder to his breathing. It is slow and even, though he has been waiting for her to speak for more than ten minutes. How can anyone be so patient? She would like to ask him that, but it is not what she came here to say. She digs her fingernail into the bench and considers where to begin; where it began. Old varnish curls up behind her nail, pushing into her skin.
‘When you’re ready,’ he murmurs from the other side.
She stops picking at the varnish.
‘Thank you,’ she says. A pause. ‘But now I’m here, I’m not sure where to start.’
‘It’s all right. Take your time.’
‘I saw a newspaper and I needed to tell someone… It happened so many years ago and I was convinced I’d done the right thing, but after seeing his face again…’ She gulps. There is another pause. ‘I should probably tell you that I don’t go to church. I’ve never done this before.’
‘Everyone is a child of the Lord, Mrs Sugden.’
Her name surprises her, as though she had forgotten she carried it with her into this dark box.
‘You said you had something to bring to confession,’ he continues.
The word knifes her. Confession.
‘Have you ever had to make a choice?’ she begins. ‘One of those horrible life-changing choices between two people? Like those dreams where you can either save your husband or your daughter… I don’t suppose you have children. Or a husband,’ and she half laughs nervously. ‘But you know what I mean?’
