He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. ‘I’ve heard the sheilas are red-hot for one,’ he said with a grin. ‘A bloke I know just came back and he said Soho was beaut, loads of night-clubs and boozers. He reckoned Perth was a dump compared to London, all we’ve got is the sun and the sea.’
May was stumped for a reply to that. Her only clear memories of London were walking from the Sacred Heart to school, and that didn’t set her heart beating any faster.
The sun was going down fast as they reached King’s Park, and Nev took her to a seat where they could watch it sink over the River Swan. Everywhere May looked she could see courting couples, and she found she didn’t mind being here after all, not with Nev’s arm around her as she admired the view.
Once it was dark, the city took on a magical quality she’d never seen before, millions of twinkling lights, the street-lamps like strings of brilliant diamonds along the dark slick of the river. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never seen it at night before.’
‘Not as beaut as you,’ he said, taking her in his arms to kiss her.
May felt as if she was rising up on a warm, fluffy cloud. Nev’s lips were so soft yet so eager, his fingers running through her hair made her feel so wanted and special. At last she felt she understood all the feelings spoken of in romantic stories, for it was as if they were the only two people left in the world, two hearts and bodies wanting nothing but each other. His kiss this afternoon had been thrilling, but it was nothing compared to the ones now. She could feel his hand on her side, hot through her dress, his thumb stroking the side of her breast as he kissed her, and suddenly she wanted him to put his whole hand over it, squeeze her nipples. It didn’t make sense to her, she’d hated it when Mother did it, but the need was so strong she found herself wriggling to make herself more available.
‘Let’s go further into the park,’ he suggested, kissing her throat, his lips moving right down to her cleavage. ‘Too many people come this way.’
She hadn’t been aware of other people, but she was willing to go anywhere with him now. He led her a few yards into the bushes, and leaning her against a tree he kissed her again and again, fondling both her breasts, pushing them up till they almost came out of her bra, and insinuating his knee between her legs.
‘Come on,’ he said a little later, taking her hand and leading her still further into the bushes. ‘Let’s find somewhere we can lie down and I can unzip that dress.’
All at once May was scared. The zip on her dress was on the side seam, and she wasn’t going to take it right off, not for anything. Sitting on a bench or even standing by a tree was one thing, lying down was quite another, and her instinct told her he wanted more than just kisses.
But she let him lead her, afraid of looking childish, though when he pulled her down on to the ground she panicked, from fear not just of what it might lead to, but of snakes and spiders, and her dress being spoilt.
‘I don’t like it here,’ she said in alarm as she felt something creep along her bare arm. ‘Take me back to where there’s people and lights.’
‘Aw, come on,’ he said mockingly, pushing her down with his body and kissing her throat. ‘This is where a bloke takes his best girl, I’ll look after you.’
‘But I’m hungry and thirsty, Nev,’ she pleaded. ‘I didn’t have any tea before I came out,’
‘I ain’t got enough money to take you anywhere to eat,’ he replied, nibbling at her neck. ‘I just want to eat you.’
To May that sounded as if he would have taken her somewhere else but for money. ‘I’ve got some,’ she said, grabbing her bag lying on the ground beside them. ‘I’ll treat us both.’
He snatched the bag from her and tossed it aside. ‘I told you I don’t take money from sheilas. Now, give me a kiss,’ he said, pushing her back on to the ground.
She submitted to his kiss, but without the earlier passion. He leaned up on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘What’s wrong? I really like you, May, half past six couldn’t come fast enough for me to see you again.’
The greater part of her was appeased by his statement and she felt she had nothing to fear. She had liked the way he had made her feel earlier, she wanted to lose herself again. Yet a small voice inside her head was whispering that she knew nothing more of him than his name, and she didn’t think it was right to be in such a secluded place on a first date.
‘I’m scared,’ she admitted in a whisper. ‘I just don’t like it here. There might be snakes.’
‘The only snake around here is this one,’ he said, taking hold of her hand and putting it on the bulge in his trousers. ‘But he’s not going to bite you.’
Just the touch of that hard thing brought all her fears sharply into focus.
‘No,’ she said pushing him away with both hands. ‘I want to go.’
He moved so quickly it took her by surprise. One minute he lying beside her leaning up on one elbow, the next he was on top of her, and his hand was groping up her thigh.
‘Stop it,’ she shouted. But his mouth came down on hers and he thrust his tongue into her mouth at the same time as his fingers were pulling her knickers to one side.
The combination of the slug-like tongue and his finger insinuating its way inside brought back all the nauseating memories of Mother. She bucked under him, got her mouth free and screamed. But he clamped his hand over her mouth and stifled it.
‘You know why you came up here with me,’ he growled at her. ‘And you’re going to get it. Scream and I’ll land you one.’
It was like being held in a vice, his whole body was pressing down on her, and even though she managed to get her hands free, she couldn’t push him off. Worse still, she found he had opened his trousers at some point, for she could feel his penis hot, hard and smooth against her leg, and as she tried to buck under him, he thrust it hard against her.
‘Open your legs, you bitch,’ he muttered at her, and letting go of her mouth for a second, he grabbed her legs, pulling her knickers off, and then prised them apart, managed to force it inside her.
May did yell out, but only momentarily, for he clamped his hand back on her mouth and bit into her neck as if to remind her he’d hit her. It hurt so much, stones were digging in her back, she felt like she was being crushed by his weight, and still that gigantic thing of his was boring into her as if it was tearing her apart. ‘Poms are all shit,’ he hissed at her. ‘The men are faggots, the women are slags. I knew you were a slag the moment I saw you, so I’m giving you what you wanted.’
May was so stunned by the rapid progression from loving attentiveness to this brutality that she stopped fighting him. She felt the same way she had done that night in the Dark Place, rigid with fear, hurting inside and out and unable to understand why her actions warranted such a brutal punishment.
He was making loud grunting noises that appeared to be getting louder all the time. Then he let out a kind of low bellow and was finally still. He rolled off her immediately, and May just lay there transfixed with horror at what had happened. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, just the white of his shirt and a flash of his teeth, which suggested he was grinning at her.
But in a second he was up on his feet and looking down at her, and in that moment she realized he had her handbag in his hand.
‘So let’s have the money you wanted to flash around,’ he said, and she heard the clasp click open.
May tried to get up, but every bit of her hurt, and she wasn’t fast enough. She saw him snatch something from her bag, then he flung it back at her.
‘Pom slut,’ he snarled, and with that loped off into the darkness.
May crawled on her knees to her bag, and as she moved she felt something wet and sticky run down her leg and all at once she fully understood what it was he had done to her.
It was that thing which made babies! She had heard the girls at St Vincent’s giggling about it so often, smugly believing she knew so much more about it than they did because Mother had told her. But Mother hadn’t said it was ugly and shameful, or that a man could force it into her against her will, she’d wrapped it all up with pretty stuff, like love, weddings and honeymoons.
Blinded by tears, May staggered back in the direction they’d come earlier and once she came to a path and a lamp she opened up her bag to look inside. He had taken the roll of pound notes, but the key of the front door was still there, and her small-change purse with about five shillings in it. Her cigarettes were there too, and she lit one immediately to try to stop shaking.
She looked down at her dress and saw it was badly crumpled and stained with grass and dirt. What was she going to do?
Slumping down on to a seat, she dragged desperately on the cigarette and tried to think. She was used to feeling very alone, she’d been that way since Dulcie left St Vincent’s. But this was worse, much worse, and her mind was woolly, the way she felt the time she’d had a tooth taken out with gas. She sat there crying for some time, hoping that someone would come along and she could tell them she was hurt. But no one came and eventually she began to walk on down the path to the road.
Once she’d got there, she recognized it was the same road the buses ran along to and from town. She had also come to see that asking someone for help would only make her predicament worse. They would call the police, and what would they think of her if she said she went off into the park in the dark with a man she’d only met that day, and that the only thing she knew about him was his Christian name? They would want to take her home too, and once Mrs Wilberforce knew she had lied about where she was going that evening, she’d be bound to sack her. That was likely to mean she’d be sent to the reformatory, where they sent all troublesome girls. Or worse still, she’d be sent back to Mother.
It was lucky that a bus came along very quickly, and as it was almost empty she slunk into the first seat, and using the small mirror in her bag checked her face. It surprised her to see it didn’t look any different, she had expected the horror she’d been through would be reflected back at her. There was a mark on her neck where Nev had bitten into her, but her hair covered it for now, and she thought her uniform dress would come up high enough to conceal it.
But when she thought what that evil bastard had done to her, white-hot anger flowed through her. She’d trusted him, yet he’d humiliated her in the worst possible way and robbed her. And he’d got away with it.
As the bus got nearer to Peppermint Grove, she also remembered with horror that he might very well have made her pregnant too. ‘I’ll kill myself if that’s the case,’ she thought, tears starting up in her eyes again. ‘It’s bad enough being a little bastard myself, without giving birth to another one.’
It was four days later when May found that she wasn’t pregnant. When she saw the usual monthly blood, she sat down on the toilet and cried with relief and even offered up a hasty prayer of thanks.
She had been through hell, trying to work and respond as normal to Mrs Wilberforce, while all she really wanted was to stay in bed and hide from the world. The fear of pregnancy had expanded in her mind till she couldn’t think of anything else, and when she tried to go to sleep at night she would relive the ordeal over and over again.
The worst of it was the self-recriminations. Maybe if she hadn’t lied to him about who she was, he might not have been that way. Or maybe he knew she was lying and he did it to teach her a lesson? Why wasn’t she strong enough to say she didn’t want to walk in the park? And surely she wasn’t a slag just because she’d spoken to someone on the beach and bought him a couple of glasses of orange squash?
Yet even though she felt relieved that at least she wasn’t pregnant, the hurt inside her wouldn’t go, it had cast a black shadow over everything. Everything seemed as soiled as her pink dress – her body, her mind, the view of the garden from her bedroom window, even food didn’t taste or smell the same. Ugly thoughts kept popping into her head, she wanted to lash out at someone, and she felt even more alone than she had back at St Vincent’s.
She found herself hoping something bad had happened between Dulcie and Ross, or that one of the Wilberforces’ sons would meet with an accident, just so Mrs Wilberforce would look as miserable as she felt. She stole a five-pound note out of one of her friends’ handbags one afternoon. The group of women came round every Monday afternoon to play whist in the dining-room, but they all went out in the garden for a while, leaving their bags by the table. May opened them all and looked inside, and a nice crocodile one contained so many notes she guessed it wouldn’t even be noticed. It didn’t wipe out the misery inside her, but at least she felt she was striking back in some way. She made up her mind that no man would ever hurt her again, and that in future she would always have the upper hand.
Chapter Seventeen
‘You shouldn’t have to be doing this for me,’ Betty said as Dulcie prepared to give her a blanket bath. ‘I could ask Bruce to get a nurse in, or get them to take me into hospital. I’m spoiling your life.’
Dulcie assumed Betty was thinking about her postponed wedding. ‘Don’t be so daft,’ she laughed, as she folded back the towel covering Betty and began to wash her chest, neck and arms. ‘We aren’t in a tearing hurry to get married. I’m only just twenty-one, remember. Besides, you’d hate it in hospital, and I doubt we could get a nurse to stay out here. And I like taking care of you.’
Betty had become ill fifteen months earlier. At first it was just mild stomach pains, loss of appetite and listlessness, then the pains got worse and finally she was taken into hospital in November for tests, where they found she had cancer of the womb. A hysterectomy was performed immediately, and she returned home in December. Knowing she would need careful nursing for some time, Dulcie put off the wedding, and although Betty made a good recovery from the surgery, later in the year it was found the cancer had spread throughout her body. Now it was January again and there had been no celebrations for the New Year of 1959, because they all knew that she had only a couple more months to live.