Winners and Losers (43 page)

‘No!' Shipton blustered.

‘You attacked her,' Sergeant Martin repeated.

Shipton wrenched the door open so hard the hinges tore out from the rotting wood.

‘Why did you do it, Shipton?'

‘She was just like that other one, begging for it. Wainwright agreed. He had the knickers off the other slut. All I wanted was my share.' He turned and started running.

‘After him!'

Sergeant Martin and Gwyn Jenkins raced out of the hut. Shipton dived down a back street that led to the river. By the time they reached the bank, he had gone.

Even the doctor began to worry when Megan didn't wake the next day, or the day after that. On the third morning after Victor had carried her into the house, he opened his eyes to see that it was broad daylight. He'd slept for longer than he'd intended, but that was hardly surprising after two sleepless days and nights. Rain spattered against the window pane, signalling an end to the fine, warm spell of weather they had been enjoying. The light was grey, portending a damp, overcast day. He turned his head. Megan's eyes were open and she was looking at him.

‘Good morning.' The blank expression in her eyes terrified him and he could barely hear himself speak for the beating of his own heart. The doctor had given him so many warnings of potential brain injuries ... he held his breath, willing her to recognize him.

She looked from him to the room. Her bruised, swollen face creased in pain and from the desolate expression that filled her eyes, he saw that she remembered.

‘You're safe in our spare bedroom.'

She looked at her arm and saw that she was wearing one of her own nightdresses. ‘The yard ... my clothes ...'

‘Betty Morgan packed your things and brought them up. Sali and I have been looking after you.' He took a deep breath. ‘Did you see who attacked you?'

Tears fell from her eyes. ‘I ... tried to fight ... I tried ...' She fumbled at her neck. ‘My ring ...'

‘We'll find it.'

‘And if we don't?' she cried.

‘Then I'll get you another.' He laid his hand lightly, tenderly around hers. ‘I love you, Megs, I didn't realize just how much until I thought I'd lost you.'

‘Victor, was I -'

‘It doesn't matter, Megs. You're alive and we have each other, that's all I care about. We have one another and you're alive,' he repeated. He realized Lloyd was right. The only important thing was Megan.

‘Victor -'

‘Just get well, my love.' He brushed her forehead with his lips. ‘I can't bear to see you like this. Please, get well.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Two days after Megan woke, the doctor pronounced her weak but out of danger and told her that she could sit up in a chair in the bedroom if she felt strong enough. Before the relief had time to sink in, Sergeant Martin arrived to question her. The only times Victor had left the bedroom was when the doctor had examined Megan, and Sali had helped her to wash and change her nightgown, and he categorically refused to allow Sergeant Martin to talk to Megan in private.

Victor set a chair at the furthest point from the bed as possible given the confines of the room and, leaving the dressing-table stool for Sali, sat next to Megan on the bed throughout the sergeant's interview. He was quickly irritated by the sergeant's manner and his repeated assertions that Megan had to recall something about her attacker.

‘Megan has told you all she can remember, sergeant,' he broke in, when he could feel his temper rising. ‘It's time you went so she can get some rest.'

But even as the sergeant closed his notebook and returned his pencil to his pocket, he persisted in his interrogation. ‘You are absolutely certain that you never saw the man's face or anything else that could help us to identify him, Miss Williams?'

‘I am sure, sergeant.' Megan was holding Victor's hand with both of hers. ‘As I said, what little I can remember is confused and mostly pain, but I know that he hit me from behind and I never saw his face.'

Victor studied the sergeant. If he hadn't heard him declare that he would do all he could to track down and arrest Megan's assailant, he could have sworn that Sergeant Martin looked positively relieved at Megan's failure to provide any clues.

‘Miss Williams has had enough for one day,' Sali said firmly. ‘She needs to rest.'

The sergeant finally left the chair. ‘Thank you, Miss Williams, I know it couldn't have been easy for you to talk to me. Mr Evans,' he gave Victor a hostile glance.

Sali opened the door and stood rather pointedly holding it.

The sergeant stepped out on to the landing. ‘It's a pity, Mrs Evans. Miss Williams was a sweet young girl. I'm not ashamed to admit that I admired her myself. And now,' he shrugged, ‘she's absolutely ruined. Unfit for decent company.' He hadn't bothered to lower his voice and Sali fought the urge to push him down the stairs when he descended them, oblivious to Megan's sobbing in the bedroom behind them.

‘You understand why I had to visit you as soon as I heard Miss Williams was making a recovery, Mrs Evans.' The Baptist minister, Mr Walker, took the cup of tea Sali handed him and looked around as if he were hoping for food. Obviously conversant with the routine of strike affected houses, he had turned up on the doorstep just after she had lit the fire for the afternoon and Joey, Lloyd and Mr Evans, who had taken to walking as much as possible since he had been fitted with his artificial leg, had left to pick up Harry from school.

‘I assume you came here to enquire after Megan's health, Mr Walker.'

‘Of course,' he agreed, a little too heartily for sincerity. ‘She is a member of our chapel and as her spiritual adviser it is imperative that I see her in her time of trouble.'

‘The doctor has forbidden her to receive visitors for the time being so she can rest.' Sali was aware that the doctor's decision had been based more on Megan's devastation at the sergeant's remark and the gossip circulating around Tonypandy than any medical necessity.

‘I have to caution her about staying in this house, Mrs Evans.'

‘You don't think I'm qualified to take care of Miss Williams, Mr Walker?' Sali challenged.

‘Your father-in-law is an atheist, his sons practising Catholics.'

‘Only his younger sons. My husband holds the same views as his father,' Sali interrupted, incensed that the minister considered religious conventions more important than Megan's health.

‘This really is a most unsuitable house for a Baptist to reside in.'

‘You think it would have been preferable for Megan to remain in the lodging house where she was brutally attacked and raped, Mr Walker?'

‘There is no need to use that word, Mrs Evans,' he rebuked.

‘It is the unpalatable truth, Mr Walker. Megan was beaten and raped. She has not yet recovered from her injuries and she will remain here, under my care, until she does.'

‘I must warn you, Mrs Evans, her father will not be pleased at your attitude or the thought of his daughter residing in this Godless house.'

‘You have written to him?' Sali was already regretting that she had stretched the household rations to give the minister a cup of tea.

‘I have no doubt that he knows of the misfortune that has befallen his daughter.'

‘Misfortune is hardly the right word,' Sali said hotly.

‘I advise you, most strongly, to return Miss Williams to Mrs Palmer's lodging house as soon as possible.'

‘That is out of the question.'

The minister finished his tea and handed her his cup. ‘If you will excuse me, I have others in my flock to attend to.'

‘I know Mrs Palmer would appreciate a visit, Mr Walker. She, Mrs Morgan, Megan and Constable Davies have found it very hard to come to terms with Lena Jones' death. Her funeral is to be held tomorrow.'

‘A self-murderer can command no Christian mercy, Mrs Evans. They have broken one of God's most important commandments:
Thou shalt not kill.
And the Bible informs us that they are condemned to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity.'

‘Mr Walker,' Lloyd walked into the kitchen with Harry, ‘You have come to enquire after Megan?'

‘I came to give sound advice, Mr Evans, which your wife has seen fit to ignore.' The minister picked up his hat and went to the door.

Lloyd saw the minister out and returned to find Sali pouring tea for him and Harry. ‘I've taught you well, sweetheart. You've finally learned how to upset chapel ministers.'

‘Mr Walker doesn't think that a den of atheists and Catholics is a suitable place for a Baptist to convalesce.'

‘Let me guess, he threatened to write to Megan's father?'

‘He told me that Mr Williams is already aware of what's happened to her.'

‘So aware that he hasn't written to enquire after her. How is Megan today?' he asked.

‘Quiet. Victor went back up after the doctor's visit and hasn't left her since. Apart from helping Megan to wash and change and taking sandwiches, and after I lit the fire, tea up there, I've left them alone.'

‘I wish there was more we could give them than privacy, but if there is I can't think of it.' He looked at Harry, who was sitting cross-legged on the hearthrug. He had set out his toy soldiers around Joey's old homemade fort and the new, small one Victor had made him and was engrossed in a pretend battle. ‘Have you tried talking to her?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I know how she feels. She needs time to come to terms with what's happened, and Victor's the best person to help her.'

‘There's gossip in the town,' Lloyd divulged.

‘I know. Connie called. She told me some of the things that people are saying.'

‘Don't listen to them, sweetheart. Tomorrow they'll have Lena's funeral to talk about and next week they'll move on and crucify someone else's reputation.'

‘I know you're right.' She went to the sink and lifted a pan of potatoes that she had peeled on to the stove. ‘I only hope that while they are still talking about Megan, no one says anything in front of Victor.'

‘Can I get you anything else, Megan?' Sali emptied the bowl of water she'd used to wash Megan into the slop bucket beneath the washstand.

‘No, thank you, Sali. You're so kind ...'

‘Kind nothing,' Sali patted her ‘bump'. ‘I'm looking for you to return the favour when this one decides to put in an appearance.'

‘If I'm still here.' Megan fought back tears.

‘And where else would you be, Megs?' Victor walked in, smelling of soap, his hair brushed and his dressing gown over his arm.

‘If you need anything in the night, shout,' Sali kissed Megan's forehead before leaving the room.

‘Victor, do you really want to carry on sleeping with me?' Megan asked, as he hung his dressing gown on the hook on the back of the door.

‘You don't want me to?' He was clearly upset at the thought that she didn't.

‘I'm better than I was. I don't need anyone to sit up with me.'

‘Megs, I haven't been sitting up with you. We both slept reasonably well last night, or at least I did. Didn't you?' he asked anxiously.

‘There's your father, brothers and Sali –they must think it strange. We're not married ...'

‘They're not hypocrites, Megs. We're engaged, they know what we got up to, and although there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage, you're still very weak and it makes sense for one of us to sleep with you. And,' he smiled, ‘as Lloyd and Sali are used to sleeping together now, and my father has been suffering from insomnia since his accident, that only leaves Joey and me. Now which one of us would you prefer as a bedmate?'

Megan winced as she turned on to her side. She watched him unbutton his shirt. ‘Victor, you do know that it can't ever be the same between us. Not after what's happened. That man -'

‘Ssh!' He held his finger over her lips. ‘I don't want you saying another word to me about what happened. I told you, it doesn't matter.' He sat on the bed, gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair. ‘You did all you could to fight back, Megs. You have to keep remembering that it wasn't your fault. You –we –have to forget it.'

‘And if I have a baby?' Her eyes rounded in fear as she looked up at him. ‘I asked the doctor if I could have a baby. He said he didn't know ... that I wouldn't know until ...' She burst into tears. ‘How can you bear to be near me? I'm not fit to be with decent people. I look at Sali and Lloyd, so happy about their baby, and I wonder how I'd feel if I had to carry the baby of someone who did that to me ...'

‘First, we don't know that you are having a baby and if you are,
you
won't be having it.' He swallowed hard, desperately trying not to think of the father. ‘
We
will be having it.'

‘You'd bring up the baby of a man -'

‘Like the doctor said, love, let's wait and see. If it comes, it won't be easy to cope with, and I won't pretend that it will. But first we have to get you well again, and once you are, we'll take the rest one day at a time.'

‘You deserve someone better.'

‘I want you, Megs. And no more talk like this. I love you, I need you and we are both going to get a good night's sleep. And, apart from the funeral tomorrow, I am not going to leave your side until I have to go back to work.'

‘And then?' She looked up at him apprehensively.

‘We'll live our life one day at a time until we can marry. It's the only thing we can do, and I promise you now, they'll be happy days. Very happy,' he reiterated forcefully in an attempt to make her believe every word he'd said.

Annie O'Leary walked into the Evanses' kitchen the following morning, to find Joey, Lloyd, Mr Evans and Victor milling about in their best suits, getting under one another's feet as they took turns to comb their hair in the shaving mirror.

‘I'll be glad when you all get back to work and start shaving and bathing in the cellar again,' Sali grumbled good-naturedly.

‘Anything special you want me to do?' Annie asked Sali, who was pinning a jet mourning brooch into the neck of her black silk blouse.

‘Nothing apart from keep an eye on Megan and Harry. He's enjoying his summer holidays from school, aren't you, poppet?' Sali stroked her son's cheek as he knelt in front of the easy chair reading the book he'd laid out on the seat, much to Joey's amusement. He could never understand why Harry always put the book in pride of place instead of himself.

‘You're always good for Auntie Annie, aren't you, Harry?' Annie asked.

Harry smiled up at her.

‘I hope everything goes well at that poor girl's funeral,' Annie said quietly.

‘As do we all,' Sali breathed fervently. ‘I doubt we'll be long. I've a feeling it'll be a short ceremony. Megan's up and dressed but we made her promise to stay in her bedroom until we come back. We don't want her to tire herself.'

‘I'll just go up and say goodbye to her ...'

‘Again!' Joey reprimanded Victor. ‘You've been up there ten times in the last ten minutes. You'll wear out the stairs.'

‘If we're going, let's go,' Billy said impatiently, picking up his hat. He shouted, ‘Goodbye,' up the stairs as he walked through the hall.

Megan left her chair and tottered unsteadily to the window to watch them leave. Victor was the last out of the door. He looked back at the house, saw her and waved. She returned his wave and sank weakly on to her chair.

It was odd how she felt so at home with Victor and his family. Her hand went to her throat and she fumbled at her neck, automatically looking for her engagement ring. It was ridiculous; she had only worn it for a few months, yet she had become accustomed to having it. She was furious with herself for having to fight back tears –again.

She had Victor's love, and like he said, the ring wasn't important, only what it stood for. Their relationship was as strong, if not stronger than it had ever been, even though her injuries meant that they couldn't make love. She cried so easily these days. She really felt that it was high time she made more of an effort for Victor's sake.

Half an hour after the Evanses had left to attend the funeral there was a banging on the front door. Annie lifted Harry and the book she had been reading to him from her lap and went to open it. The chapel minister, Mr Walker, Sergeant Martin and a small, wizened man she'd never seen before were standing on the doorstep.