He had little control over his life now. He belonged to the army and had to go where he was sent and do as he was told, whether he liked it or not, but he could have some control over his sex life. When he saw women out alone in the blackout, shining their piddling little torches to light their way, he would feel his crotch harden, and the more they struggled the better it was.
But that was different. That was just a man getting his end away; this was his Lizzie and some bloody randy nigger. He didn’t know if he’d ever want to
touch her after this—dirty trollop. He began to wonder more about the attack. Was it the first time she’d been with the man? Maybe it had been going on for months and she’d tried to end it and he’d attacked and violated her. Funny that it had happened to no one else. She said extra police were drafted in, but no one was found, and as there were no further assaults they were stumped. Funny that. Jesus, he’d get the truth out of Lizzie when he got home.
And going on about some nigger bastard, as if he cared. He lit a cigarette and tried to control his shivering frame. He sat down on the bunk again and picked up the letter and read on:
I know you probably won’t understand this, I barely understand it myself, but I’ve found myself loving the child. I have called her Georgia Marie and she was baptised not long after she was born. The nuns don’t want a half-caste baby, and no one else would either. She would linger in an orphanage all her life, picked on because she is different. I’m not asking you to accept this baby, but I must bring her back to Birmingham, for I have nowhere else to go, for Mammy won’t let me go back to her house. Once I am in Birmingham, I will look around for lodgings somewhere and take a job to support us both.
Jesus Christ! Steve leapt to his feet once more. Was she stark staring mad? What loony bin did she think he came from? He knew if she was before him now he’d grind his cigarette out on her before beating her
to a pulp. No way was she bringing that nigger brat to Birmingham, and if she attempted to he’d break every bone in her body and that of the child’s too.
He shook as if from the ague as he began pacing the small room. God Almighty! Her mother wouldn’t let her home, well, neither would he. She could go on the streets for all he cared. In his mind she was already halfway there. But no way would she get near Niamh and Tom. She’d given up all rights to them and he’d not have them cared for by her, or associate with a nigger bastard. He’d talk to his mother. She’d take them on if he asked her to, and she’d said Birmingham was safe as houses now.
He shoved the letter into its envelope and put it under his pillow before he went outside into the brightness and blistering heat, for he was too agitated to stay in. His mind was full of his wife’s duplicity. How she’d played him for a fool. She’d gone one step further than the other cheating wives in the unit. At least they’d chosen white men. She’d chosen a nigger, and if the man was a stranger, as she maintained, and the attack as vicious as she described, would she want to keep the child? No way on God’s earth would she.
He was going over the letter he would write to her in return and didn’t seem to see his surroundings, or the comrades he passed, or those who called out to him. Some of them noticed his wild eyes, hair on end, his dishevelled appearance, and asked him if he felt all right. He didn’t answer them and two were concerned enough to go for Mike. ‘Not surprising really,’ Mike said. ‘He needs a break. God, we all need a break. I’ll see if I can find him and have a word.’
Steve by then had reached the outskirts of the city, where the watch had been positioned. He had no idea where he was going. His head was filled with roaring sounds and he saw Lizzie’s face before him and his fist pounding it over and over. ‘Hey, mate, what’s up with you?’ one of the watch stationed on top of a building shouted to him. ‘Don’t go no further. There was sniper fire just a while ago.’
Steve didn’t hear them. Didn’t even turn his head. He just kept on walking and the two on watch looked at one another horrified. They couldn’t leave their post, and anyway, it would take time to get off the roof. There was no one else in sight. ‘Must have gone off his rocker,’ one of the watch remarked to the other.
‘Wants to watch his rocker don’t get blown clean off his shoulders,’ the other replied.
The words had just left his lips when the rifle shot cracked into the still air. Steve jerked and fell to his knees. Another shot laid him out on the sand. The two watchmen swivelled around the machine gun and were soon pounding the area where they’d seen movement, but for Steve Gillespie their response came too late.
Mike was devastated by the news of Steve’s death. Although they walked with death daily, somehow this wasn’t the same. From what he was told, he just walked out into the desert as if…as if he was inviting death. But why? Steve loved life.
It became clearer to Mike when he read the letter. As Steve’s mate, he was asked to collect his effects to send home and he read the letter that Steve had left. As he read he found he had to sit down, for his legs
trembled so much. He cried then for the mate he’d known all his life, who’d almost gone as far as taking his own life because he’d not been able to stand the shame of Lizzie coming home to Birmingham with a black bastard child she’d given birth to.
Steve had loved Lizzie with a passion in his own way, though he had never been faithful to her, but carnal desire was not something he imagined ‘good’ women, the sort men married, had in abundance.
He knew Lizzie had been attacked, for Tressa had written and told him, and it had been an horrendous assault by all accounts. But what if it had happened to Tressa instead and she’d carried and given birth to a child she wanted to bring home, as if it was the child born from a loving relationship? He’d not stand it, not even if the child was white. He’d never understand why Lizzie would want to keep such a child.
She wasn’t stupid and she knew the manner of man she’d married. How had she imagined he’d react when he got that letter? God Almighty, he thought, Lizzie killed Steve just as if she’d pulled that damned trigger.
But then, he thought, at least Lizzie hadn’t given herself freely to the man. Clearly he had been unhinged. Added to that, Mike liked Lizzie and knew Tressa thought the world of her.
Steve was dead and nothing would alter that fact, but Mike thought little would be gained by letting Lizzie take the blame for Steve’s death on her own shoulders, as he knew she would if she knew he’d read the letter before he died. In many ways she had been suffering for months herself, and Mike replaced the letter and sealed the envelope carefully so that it didn’t
look like it had ever been opened. Then he got to his feet, wiped his eyes and began to collect his mate’s stuff together for the last time, already composing in his head the letter he would write to Tressa about the whole business.
What consternation there was when it was discovered Celia had vanished. It was immediately suspected she’d climbed into the laundry van, for that had been done before. It certainly wasn’t connected to Lizzie leaving that day, for the girls had covered for Celia well and it was some time before her disappearance was noted. Lizzie was well gone by then, and most girls thought if Celia had managed to sneak away too, then good luck to her.
The laundry van had almost finished distributing the laundered clothes to those in the town who took up the convent’s services, and Sister Maria and Sister Benedict were despatched to find the girl and bring her back.
The day was cold and blustery and the rain continued to fall as the nuns walked quickly. They were none to happy in their errand and promised themselves Hetty would pay dearly for it when they did find her.
The laundry-van driver and his mate were none too happy either. Since the one girl had sneaked into the van they had been more vigilant. ‘There was no girl in our van.’
‘It’s been done before.’
‘Aye, but it hasn’t been done this time.’
‘Did you check?’
‘We didn’t need to check. We were at the van all the time.’
‘The van’s near empty now,’ the driver said. ‘Have a look if you like.’
‘She’ll hardly be there now,’ Sister Benedict snapped. ‘If she managed to get into the van, she’d leave it when you were delivering.’
‘I tell you…’
‘And I tell you, the priest will take a very dim view of anyone helping that girl escape, or anyone harbouring her in the town,’ Sister Maria said. ‘And she’ll be found, don’t doubt it. Such a girl, with a shorn head and in convent clothes, will stick out like a sore thumb, and some God-fearing soul will feel it their duty to tell us if they see her. I just hope it is not linked back to you.’
‘It won’t be,’ the driver said, mentally casting his mind back to any time the van had been left unattended, even for a brief second. But he displayed no doubts before the two nuns glaring at him accusingly, nor was he prepared to argue the toss any more. ‘I’ve said all I intend to about the matter,’ he told them. ‘But now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job of work to attend to.’
They didn’t believe him of course, but had no option but to return to the convent. They were angrier than ever, wet to the skin, and their thoughts about Hetty bordered on the murderous.
They waited all day and evening for someone to arrive at the convent and tell them they’d seen one of their girls, or even someone to use the phone, but nothing happened. The girls, who knew full well Hetty had climbed in no laundry van, were questioned but claimed they knew nothing and had seen nothing. If
the chance had been given to them to leave that accursed place, they would have grabbed it, and they’d give the nuns no information to help them track Hetty down.
By the time the Guards had been called, black night had fallen, and by then Lizzie, Celia and Georgia were aboard the mail boat to take them to England, where Lizzie would be safe from the nuns, but exposed to ridicule, scorn and prejudice. She knew Johnnie would be on the quayside till the ship pulled away, but in the darkness she could barely see him.
There were few passengers travelling at that time of year and Lizzie didn’t wonder at it, for the cold ate into a person, and as soon as the engines began to throb causing black smoke to escape from the two funnels with a shriek, she took the baby inside. Celia followed with a sigh of relief at leaving her native land behind.
Later she was to tell Lizzie that even the seasickness was worth it. They kept to themselves as much as possible, not wishing to draw anyone’s attention, glad of the small numbers travelling with them. They were thankful too of the darkness of the boat, as it was approaching the north Wales coast where blackout restrictions were in force, and Lizzie knew that without Celia it would have been a lonely and miserable crossing.
The shaded lamps in the station at Holyhead barely pierced the gloom of the place, and they were glad to get off the draughty platform and on to the train. Even there, the carriages were only dimly lit and the windows had thick blinds drawn across them, but Lizzie sank on to the seat, suddenly aware of how tired she
was. She closed her eyes but dared not sleep, for she had Georgia in her arms. ‘Give her to me,’ Celia said, seeing the fatigue etched on Lizzie’s face. ‘You’ve barely recovered from the birth, no wonder you are worn out.’
Lizzie passed the baby over thankfully and was soon fast asleep. Celia sat taking comfort from the feel of the baby against her and knew with every clatter of the train’s wheels the distance between her and that accursed convent increased. She felt the weight between her shoulder blades ease.
Lizzie woke as the baby made little complaining snuffles prior to waking properly. ‘Where are we?’ she asked as Georgia fastened on to one of her breasts.
‘How would I know?’ Celia replied. ‘When I did peep past the blind a while ago, the station name was blotted out.’
‘That was done to confuse the enemy,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Particularly after Dunkirk, when the whole country seemed to be perched on the edge of invasion. People were told to disable cars, and bikes too, and hide maps, and were discouraged from moving far at all, particularly on the trains, which were for the troops. Posters screamed at you: ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ I tell you, Celia, with the station names blacked out, some signposts removed totally, and the stop-start nature of the wartime train service, you’d go nowhere unless it was a matter of life or death.’
Celia laughed, though she sympathised. ‘It must have been hard for you all.’
‘You sort of get on with it,’ Lizzie said. ‘I mean, everyone was in the same boat.’ She changed the baby
to the other side and said, ‘Anyway, it can’t be long now.’
‘But what if we go past the station?’
‘We won’t go past it,’ Lizzie assured her. ‘Remember, I am a seasoned traveller on this route and I’ll not miss the station even in the dark.’
And she didn’t, and later, outside in the velvety darkness, Celia stood and looked about her. There was nothing to see, just blackness and a sooty sour smell in the air, and it was so cold it was making her teeth ache. ‘We’ll have to take a taxi,’ Lizzie said. ‘No buses will be running.’
‘Have you money enough?’
‘Aye, Johnnie gave me some,’ Lizzie said. ‘I have my Post Office book too. I’ll see about it tomorrow. I’ll have to get new ration cards, mine have expired anyway and we both need to register with a grocer. We’ll do it all tomorrow.’
There was no traffic on the roads and there wasn’t a soul on the streets at that very early hour in the morning. The taxi drove effortlessly, its headlights catching the odd shuttered shop windows. It was eerie, like a ghost town, Celia thought, and she felt suddenly apprehensive of what lay ahead.
The ride was short, and when they were on the pavement again Lizzie bitterly regretted not asking Johnnie to bring a torch for them. Oh well, she thought, I didn’t and that’s that. ‘Come on, Celia,’ she said. ‘Touch the walls and you’ll know when you come to the end.’
The end of what, thought Celia, waving her arms forward.
‘There’s an entry here,’ Lizzie told her, but quietly, knowing how sound carried in the stillness of the night. ‘I’d hold your arm, but I can’t with the bag and the baby.’