Dulcie made her tell her exactly what had happened, and as May haltingly related it, she could see the pain in her eyes and guessed this was why she’d told Rudie she was raped by a stockman – she had to unburden herself somehow.
Dulcie felt the pain herself. Maybe May was foolish to go into the park after dark with a man she’d only met that day, but she was so very young then, looking for the love that had been denied her. Sadly it seemed he’d smashed it out of her for good.
‘I’m so sorry, May,’ was all she could say.
‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ May said with a shrug. ‘It happened and I made up my mind then that no one would ever get me for nothing again. I reckon in some ways it’s better to be the way I am than the way you are.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dulcie asked. ‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing, that’s my point, you just dote on that mental cripple of a husband.’
Dulcie bristled. ‘How dare you! Ross isn’t a mental cripple!’
‘No?’ May smirked. ‘He’s like a box of ice. Oh, don’t bother to deny it. I know things about men, you see. I’ve made it my business.’
Dulcie looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms and felt bitterly ashamed that his mother should be admitting to such things. Yet even worse was that her sister of all people should have worked out that her marriage to Ross was a sham.
‘Put a clean sheet in the pram and I’ll put him back to sleep,’ Dulcie said to hide her confusion.
‘I haven’t got any clean ones,’ May snapped at her. ‘Do you see a washing-machine in here, a line outside to dry stuff on?’
‘Then take one of the pillow-cases off your bed,’ Dulcie said. ‘They might not be clean either, but at least they are dry.’
Once Noël was back in the pram, Dulcie drank her coffee and dried up the dishes May was washing. Beneath the sink was a bucket of soiled nappies, there was a mountain of dirty washing too in a cardboard box.
‘You can’t bring a baby up here,’ she said to May. The nappies still had lumps of faeces in them, and it turned her stomach to think her sister hadn’t sluiced them off in the lavatory before putting them to soak. She pointed this out to her, and asked if she boiled Noelës bottles and teats to sterilize them. May said she did, but Dulcie didn’t believe her.
‘You might get away with it now while the weather’s cold,’ she said. ‘But when the summer comes he could get seriously ill if you carry on that way.’
May walked a little way away from her, then turned, a sneer on her lips. ‘I won’t have him in the summer, I’m taking him to the Sisters. They can take care of him.’
Something just snapped inside Dulcie, she leaped towards her sister and slapped her hard across the face.
May reeled back and fell against the wardrobe.
‘You cold-hearted bitch!’ Dulcie roared at her, all restraint gone. ‘After all we suffered at the hands of those women, you’d take your baby and give it to them?’
‘They aren’t all like that,’ May said, but she was scared, shuffling along on the floor trying to get away from Dulcie.
‘Maybe they aren’t all like that. But there’s enough rotten apples in the barrel to spoil the good ones. A few minutes ago you were telling me what that witch of a woman at St Vincent’s did to you! How can you even consider putting Noël through that?’
‘I haven’t got any choice,’ May said, scrambling to her feet. ‘Look at this place! Look at what I am now!’
‘I’m looking at it and it makes me sick,’ Dulcie roared at her. ‘But if you think I’m going to let you hand over Noël to an orphanage you’re sadly mistaken. Who is his father? Is it Rudolph?’
She advanced on her sister, quite prepared to strangle the truth out of her if necessary. May backed further away, her eyes wide with fright.
‘Yes,’ she whimpered.
That answer momentarily stunned Dulcie. ‘But why did you leave him then?’ she asked after a moment or two.
‘Because he would have insisted on getting married right away.’ May began to cry. ‘It would have all come out then. I tried everywhere to get an abortion, but the doctor I went to in the Cross said I was too far gone.’
‘But Rudie’s a decent bloke,’ Dulcie said in bewilderment. ‘Why couldn’t you just tell him the truth? He might have been upset about the lies for a while, but he’d have got over it.’
‘You don’t see it, do you?’ May said, tears running down her cheeks. ‘I don’t love him, every time he touched me it made my skin crawl. It was as bad as Mother touching me. Was I supposed to live with that for ever, just because of him?’ She thumbed towards Noël.
Dulcie was at a loss now.
‘Didn’t you feel anything for him? Not even at the beginning?’
May shook her head. ‘I just used him, same as I’ve always done with men. I don’t feel anything but nausea with any of them. It was even worse with him, because he wanted the whole love thing. I can stand being fucked by almost anyone, providing they make it worth my while, but I can’t bear someone wanting to own me.’
Dulcie began to cry, even though she’d told herself she wouldn’t under any circumstances. May had to be mad, surely every girl wanted what Rudie was offering?
‘Don’t start crying on me for God’s sake,’ May said, grabbing a cigarette. ‘It’s bad enough having him doing it all the time.’ Again she thumbed towards the pram. ‘Go away, leave me alone. I can’t take all this emotional stuff, I never could.’
‘Do you love Noël?’ Dulcie asked, through her tears.
‘Not in the way you’d like me to,’ May said, her voice cool and measured. ‘I wouldn’t harm him, but I’m no good to him. Guess I’m just like our mother. History repeating itself.’
Dulcie could only stare at her sister in horror. Vivid images of their mother danced before her eyes, May was just like her in almost every way, looks and character. That bold, cold stare, the inability to put anyone before her own selfish needs.
‘I understand now why Dad killed her,’ May said. ‘I push men to the edge like that too.’
‘He didn’t kill her, she fell,’ Dulcie said.
‘He did, Dulcie, and you know it,’ May said. She tapped her forehead. ‘It’s all up here, I can remember everything about that night, only it took years to understand what I’d heard.’
Chapter Twenty-two
May’s words brought that terrible night so many years ago into sharp focus for Dulcie. She could feel May’s small, warm body next to her in the darkness, see the chink of light around the bedroom door and hear her own heart thumping too loudly as she listened to her parents shouting at each other out on the landing.
She was thrown into confusion at reliving the scene. She had always firmly believed May was asleep at that point of the argument between her parents, yet as she had claimed so many times to have heard
May’s not your child,
it was feasible she had heard the rest too. But Dulcie had kept her father’s words to herself for so long she had no intention of admitting them now. ‘You didn’t hear anything that night. You were asleep,’ she retorted defensively.
‘Oh yes I did. Dad said he was going to kill Mum. I heard him perfectly clearly, just like you did.’
‘Rubbish,’ Dulcie snapped. ‘You’ve just invented that. The only thing you ought to remember about that night was that because of it two small children ended up in an orphanage. That must never happen to Noël.’
May shot her a defiant look. ‘I can’t give him anything but misery. So if you think you can improve on that, you take him!’
‘You can’t just give him away,’ Dulcie said in horror.
‘I’ll take him to the Sisters then.’
Dulcie slumped down on to the chair, unable to believe anyone could be so callous. ‘But you’re his mother!’ she exclaimed after a moment or two’s thought. ‘He isn’t a stray dog or a bit of unwanted furniture, he’s your own child! How can you be so unfeeling?’
‘Our mother was unfeeling too. She didn’t give a toss about us,’ May said, tossing her untidy hair out of her eyes. ‘You were more of a mother to me than she ever was.’
‘Never mind about our mother and trying to put the blame on her,’ Dulcie snapped. ‘Just tell me, if Noël was to be taken away from you, what would you do then?’
‘What would I do?’ May looked fleetingly puzzled at the question. ‘I’d get out of this flea-pit for a start.’
‘I meant with your life,’ Dulcie said impatiently. ‘What sort of work would you get?’
May sniggered. ‘What I’m best at. Only I’d be a bit more selective and pick the men myself.’
Dulcie’s jaw dropped. ‘May, you couldn’t! Surely you’d want to get a decent job?’
May just laughed. ‘What, bang away at a typewriter all day and earn ten quid a week if I’m lucky? I could earn more than that from just one screw.’
Dulcie looked at her sister in utter horror. Maybe Reverend Mother and the rapist had been responsible for twisting her morality in the first place, she could very well have been forced into prostitution after Noelës birth, but her attitude wasn’t one of a victim, it sounded very much as if this was her chosen path.
She asked May point-blank when she’d first taken money from a man.
‘Back in Perth,’ May said airily. ‘Remember those two men we had dinner with? I got fifteen quid off one of them after you’d gone, and my taxi fare home. He wasn’t the first either.’
Dulcie turned from her. She wanted to rage, tell her she didn’t want to spend another minute with her. Yet a tiny part of her still clung to the hope that it was all bravado and soon May would admit as much and ask for help. ‘I wondered how you could afford such nice clothes,’ she said weakly.
‘I didn’t buy many of those, I used to nick them,’ May said, shocking her still further. ‘Remember the radio I gave you? I took that and put it in my bag right in front of you.’
Dulcie’s eyes widened, she felt she couldn’t take any more shocks. ‘Why?’ she gasped, remembering how touched she’d been by May’s generosity, and how much pleasure she’d had from the gift.
‘Why?’ May repeated. ‘Because I wanted to give it to you.’
‘But I’d have hated it if I’d known you’d stolen it,’ Dulcie retorted. ‘How could you? If you’d been caught you’d have been sent to the reformatory.’
‘I didn’t get caught because I was so good at it,’ May smirked. ‘Anyway I was just taking back what was owed to me.’
‘Owed to you?’ Dulcie held her head in her hands despairingly.
‘Yes, owed. I was deprived of everything as a kid. They took my toys and clothes, half starved and beat me too. I see taking money from men as evening up the score with everyone in those orphanages who hurt me, including Mother and the man who raped me. But for them I might not be the way I am now.’
‘They might be responsible in part, but you can’t spend your whole life taking revenge on innocent people,’ Dulcie implored her. ‘I had just as tough a time as you. You can’t imagine what I went through at my first job. But I haven’t let it make me hate everyone.’
‘No, but you’ve become a martyr,’ May laughed scornfully. ‘I think that’s worse. You’ve married that dag Ross because you felt sorry for him and because you think that’s all you deserve. You work like a crazy woman on that farm, bend over backwards for them all. What do you get out of it?’
‘My self-respect for one thing,’ Dulcie said hotly. ‘And I didn’t marry Ross because I felt sorry for him.’
‘Oh yes you did,’ May said with laughter in her voice. ‘You know you’re a worse liar than me! You might not spin yarns to other people, but you lie to yourself. I reckon that’s even worse.’
‘I don’t, I don’t,’ Dulcie insisted, beginning to cry. ‘How can you be so nasty to me?’
‘Because you ask for it,’ May said, insolently folding her arms across her chest. ‘I bet you would take Noël too, and look after him until your dying day as another act of martyrdom. You’d expect to get your reward in heaven, no matter what hell your life on earth was because of it.’ She paused, giving her sister a knowing look. ‘Ross would give you the hell, because Noël would be another reminder of his own failure in that department. Don’t try to deny it either, I knew your little honeymoon was a failure. I could see it both in your eyes and by the way you were with each other.’
‘That’s not true.’
May laughed again. ‘See what I mean about you believing your own lies? I reckon you’re still a virgin.’
Dulcie jumped to her feet, intending to run out, never to see May again and leave her to face what was coming to her. But as she glanced down at Noël in his pram her heart contracted painfully. He was sound asleep sucking his thumb, one finger curled round his tiny nose. All at once she knew she would carry that picture with her in her mind, she wouldn’t be able to forget the propped-up bottle, his red-raw bottom, and she’d be haunted by imagining him alone and crying while May was out looking for men.
‘Go,’ May said, seeing her hesitation. She moved to a position between Dulcie and the pram. ‘For God’s sake get out of here and forget us. He’ll be all right, I’m going to put him in care and they’ll put him up for adoption.’ Her voice was harsh in the stillness of the room. ‘I’m a thieving, lying tart, rotten through and through, but there’s just a little bit of me that’s decent enough to want a real mother for him.’
‘Couldn’t you
try
to be a real mother?’ Dulcie took a step nearer her sister, suddenly wanting to embrace her and try to love her out of all this wickedness, yet knowing full well she’d be rebuffed. ‘You could get help from a Welfare worker, they’d move you somewhere, get you money. Rudie would help too, I know he would.’
May shook her head. ‘There’s always strings attached to help from Welfare workers, we of all people know that. You can’t trust them. As for Rudie, I couldn’t bear to even see him again, let alone accept help from him. But I don’t know why you are bothering to argue. You know I’m no good, you know it’s better for him to be taken from me.’
Dulcie heard the truth in what May was saying, but her honesty suggested her sister cared for Noël a little more than she was letting on.
‘What if I took him with me, just for a few days, to see how you feel?’ Dulcie said impulsively. ‘A little break so you could think it over.’
Surprisingly May’s eyes welled up, it was the first time she’d shown any sign of emotion. She took a step nearer to the pram and looked down at Noël.