Trinidad Street (45 page)

In the early days when they were first married, and for quite a few years afterwards, she had taken a certain pride in her bruises. After all, it only went to prove that he loved her. But as time went by, childbirth, miscarriages and sheer hard work weakened her and the attacks became more vicious. It was no longer a case of a couple of punches and some bad language. He would fling her against the wall, throw furniture, kick her when she was down. The pride degenerated into a dogged endurance. That was the way he was. She simply accepted it.

She had just put her foot on the stair when she heard the Billinghams’ door bang open. She stood still, listening. A couple of minutes later it slammed shut and her own flew open. She wanted to run upstairs, but could not. She just stood there, waiting.

Archie staggered across the parlour, knocked into a chair, picked it up and threw it aside. It broke. Milly whimpered.

‘What are you staring at?’ Archie demanded.

She shook her head, speechless.

‘Wassermatter? Cat got your tongue?’

In two staggering steps he was across the room and grabbing at her. She cowered back against the stairs, but he just reached out and got hold of a handful of blouse, and jerked her up till her face was only a couple of inches from his. His contorted features swam before her. His breath made her faint.

‘Wassermatter, eh? Eh?’ he was shouting.

She tried to answer. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. Whatever she did was wrong. If she said something, he was sure to take exception to it. If she stayed silent, he did not like that either.

‘Stupid bleeding cow. All your fault. You brought it all on me, didn’t you? Eh? Didn’t you?’

Sweat broke out all over her. She could feel it standing on her forehead. Her body was clammy with it. The blood was thudding in her ears so loudly that she could no longer think. Hardly knowing what she did, she nodded.

‘Thass right. Proud of it. All you fault.’

He had hold of her shoulders and was shaking her. She fell back against the stairs and her head hit the riser with a crack, but there was no merciful loss of consciousness. She let out a wail. It was her one defence. Once, she had bitten back the screams for fear of upsetting the children. Now she screamed and cried out from the first, for this was what he wanted. He liked to hear her. The sooner he knew he was really hurting her, the sooner it was over.

‘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 glanced 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.

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.’