The Shipyard Girls, page 25
Of course, he must have expected to recoup that money when he’d caused his sister’s and brother-in-law’s untimely deaths, but again, much to his sheer frustration, he had been thwarted. The little which remained had been left to Rosie and had been immediately spent on Charlotte’s school fees.
It had taken over five years, but her uncle had finally won. He had succeeded in gaining his long-sought revenge, over the living and over the dead.
With this realisation Rosie gave up. She had nothing more left. No more fight. Part of her was happy for Raymond to take her life there and then and be done with it. Since her parents’ deaths, and the rape she’d suffered at Raymond’s hands, her life had been one long struggle.
Rosie watched Raymond push his lighter back into his pocket before picking up the welding rod from the top of the wooden workbench. She could hear the gentle murmur of the welding machine as he held the rod slightly away from the scrap metal. Once again he pressed himself against her back, pushing his face next to hers and whispering into her ear, ‘I could take yer here. Now. Just like I did before. But you’ve gotten too old, too used. Like a bit of tough old mutton, and yer know me, Rosie, don’t you? I like a nice bit of lamb. Much more tender. Much more tasty.’
Rosie could hear him draw a long wheezy breath before offering his pièce de résistance.
‘But before we say our final farewells, I want you to leave this world with the knowledge that very soon I’ll be gannin’ to pay yer little sister a visit. I want you to breathe yer last with the image in yer head of me havin’ my fill… feasting upon some succulent tender meat. Just like I did with you all those years ago.’
Now he struck the welding rod on to the scrap metal and once again ignited a sparkling cascade of white light.
‘No!’ Rosie screamed, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. All she could see was a dazzling fountain, and all she could feel was the stinging sensation of burning flesh. Her last desperate thought was for her little sister, her lovely innocent Charlotte. She closed her eyes and prayed. Please save Charlotte, she begged. Please.
As if in answer to her prayers, a woman’s voice boomed out across the quiet of the yard and over the buzzing of the welding machine. ‘Ger off her!’ Despite being on the edge of consciousness, Rosie recognised the harsh woman’s voice, with its hard northern accent. She had been around that voice every day for months now. It was Gloria.
Raymond automatically stopped welding and quickly turned his head around to look in the direction of the voice. He spotted the small circular glow of a torch bobbing through the fog, before seeing five figures walk through the mist. He threw the rod holder aside and grabbed his walking stick, which he had propped up by the workbench.
He wrenched Rosie’s head up and pulled her in front of him, creating a human shield. Her body was now like a rag doll, barely able to stand on her own two feet.
Gloria, Dorothy, Polly, Hannah and Martha stopped in their tracks.
‘Let her alone!’ Polly spluttered in disbelief at what she was seeing.
The women stared, each shocked to the core by the sight of their instructor, their workmate, their friend, her head bowed, her body limp. She looked half dead. Hannah let out a sob.
Rosie managed to lift her face and Dorothy drew a sharp intake of breath. Rosie’s face was blackened and spotted with small circular welts where she had been burnt. Part of her blonde hair was frazzled and burnt to the roots. Her eyes and nose were streaming and she was coughing, choking, unable to catch her breath.
‘Give her here!’ Dorothy demanded, but her voice came out childlike and high-pitched.
Raymond laughed. ‘What you all ganna do, squeak me into submission?’ As he spoke his hand moved around the top of his walking stick.
With a spark of recognition Gloria spotted the cane. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped as she heard a click and saw the bottom part of the walking stick fall away, revealing a thick, glistening knife. In the blink of an eye, Raymond had pressed the knife close against Rosie’s blackened cheek, the sharp point of the blade just piercing the skin so as to draw blood.
‘Are you really going to bother yourselves with this whore?’ he asked.
All five women were still rooted to the spot, not daring to move forward in case more harm was done to their friend. The mention of the word ‘whore’, though, threw them all – except Gloria. In a flash, little bits and pieces of information slotted together and formed a complete picture. The gossip in the shipyards. The rumours spread by this foul man through his mouthpiece, the surly timekeeper. The change they’d all noticed in Rosie.
They stood stunned, as if in some kind of physical stalemate, not daring to move.
‘Ah, you all look so surprised. Yes, Rosie here, your instructor, Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt in Her Mouth. Well, newsflash, girls: she’s nothing more than a common whore, a prostitute, a slag, a slut—’
These last words were barely out of his sneering mouth when, like a bat out of hell, Martha barrelled forward and knocked Raymond flying. She had been partially obscured from his vision as she’d been standing behind the women. But on hearing his derisive words she had hurled herself forward and with both her enormous hands had pushed Raymond with such force she’d catapulted him backwards.
Raymond instinctively waved the knife away from Rosie’s face and at this colossal woman now bearing down on him. The blade glanced off Martha’s thick winter coat, slashing through to her overalls but no further. Raymond staggered backwards, still clutching his knife.
Dorothy and Hannah ran forward to grab Rosie, who had collapsed to her knees, while Gloria swiftly moved to Martha’s side.
Raymond’s face was twisted with rage. ‘You stupid bitches!’ he hissed. ‘You’ve no idea who yer messing with,’ but the confidence in his voice was contradicted by his movements as, with each word he spoke, he took a step back.
Martha and Gloria watched his retreat. He opened his mouth to utter more threats, but before he could he took one more step backwards. His foot landed perfectly on a thick metal rod that had been left lying on the ground, hidden by the low-lying mist. Raymond’s footing faltered and his arms flailed backwards as he tried not to fall flat on his back. He managed to just about stay on his feet, but he hadn’t realised how close he’d got to the edge of the quayside.
Gloria and Martha stood mouths agape. It was as if they were watching in slow motion as Raymond’s foot lifted up into the air, his arms swung back, and he desperately tried to catch hold of something to keep him upright.
But there was nothing there. Just wisps of fog. Raymond let out a strangled cry as he disappeared over the side of the dock.
A second later there was the sound of a heavy weight hitting the water’s surface. And then nothing but silence.
Gloria dragged her eyes away from the spectacle she had just witnessed and looked behind to check on the other women. Four faces, all white as a sheet, stared back at her.
The stillness was broken by the sudden sound of Rosie dry retching.
‘Are you all right?’ Polly asked her between gasps of air.
Rosie nodded her head as she put her hands on the ground and slowly lifted her body back into a standing position. Dorothy took one arm and helped to steady her. For once words seemed to have escaped her.
Hannah stood in front of Rosie and pushed burnt strands of hair away to get a clear look at her face. ‘Looks bad,’ she said, knowledgeably, ‘but will heal. You still beautiful,’ she added with tears rolling down her delicate face. What she didn’t say was that Rosie’s eyes looked badly bloodshot, her pupils were like pinholes, and Rosie didn’t seem to be focusing on what was in front of her.
Rosie knew her eyes were damaged. Everything was a blur, although she had still been able to just about see what had happened to Raymond. Now, though, she desperately needed to find out if her abuser had surfaced. She leant heavily into Polly and pointed to the quayside. With Polly and Dorothy on both sides and Hannah fluttering around them, they staggered the short distance to where Gloria and Martha were now standing.
All six women peered over the edge. Dorothy, who was still clutching her torch, shone it down into the river’s choppy, black water.
There was no sign of Raymond. Nor was there any sound of life below them, other than the slapping of water against the sides of the dock’s stone walls, and the sound of a couple of small wooden boats moored nearby, rhythmically knocking together. The women stood and stared in silence.
‘Is he all right?’ The group, their nerves frazzled, jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice.
‘Who?’ Gloria asked, as if she had absolutely no idea what he meant.
‘That bloke! The one I’ve just seen go over the side!’ Jack looked panic-stricken as he stepped between the women and crouched by the dock’s edge, staring down into the darkness.
The women all looked at each other.
‘Jack,’ Gloria said, her voice sounding softer and more gentle than any of the women had ever heard her sound. ‘Come here. Come away from the side,’ she cajoled him. ‘There’s no one there now.’
Jack turned to look at Gloria and his face relaxed. ‘What’s going on? Why are you all here? Who the hell was that bloke?’
‘I’ll explain everything later,’ she said, walking over to him and steering him away from Rosie and the women. ‘Are you here with anyone else?’ She looked straight into his eyes, demanding an honest answer.
‘No, no. I’ve just come from Frank’s wake, in the east end.’
Gloria could smell whisky on Jack’s breath and realised he was a little tipsy. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘Frank – the old-timer, the one in the welder’s office, the one you kept on.’ She hoped the effects of the booze would make it easier for her to distract him away from the women and from what had just taken place.
‘Gloria, I know I’m a few sheets to the wind, but I still know what I saw. I’m not blind. Tell me what’s going on.’ Jack touched her arm. ‘You’re shaking. Are you all right?’ He knew something had happened, and that it was serious.
‘It’s not good,’ Gloria admitted. ‘I think we need to chat, but we can’t do it here. Let me quickly have a word with the girls and then… Is there anywhere we can go where it’s quiet and warm?’
‘Yes, of course, we can go to my office. There’s a heater there, and I’ve got a bottle of whisky stashed away. You look like you need it.’
Gloria walked over to the women, who all looked expectantly at their workmate. ‘Right, first of all,’ she said, ‘Rosie, are you all right? Or as well as can be?’
Rosie nodded by way of reply. She couldn’t speak because her jaw was chattering and she had clearly gone into shock, although she was managing to just about stand up.
Gloria looked at Polly, Dorothy and Hannah. ‘Can you three take care of Rosie tonight?’
The trio nodded.
‘Yes,’ Polly said, ‘I can take her back to mine. She can stay with us for the night. My ma’ll patch her up.’
‘Good. Now, Martha, are you all right?’
Martha nodded, although her big bulbous eyes looked confused and perturbed.
‘Listen to me, Martha,’ Gloria said. ‘You did well there. You did well, you hear me?’
Martha nodded again, the worried look leaving her face.
‘I need to chat to Jack now. Not a word to anyone, all right?’
They all agreed.
‘Dorothy, that means you too. Not a word!’
‘Of course,’ Dorothy said. There was a second’s silence before she added, ‘On condition you all promise to come to see Gone with the Wind with me.’
Gloria looked incredulously at Dorothy. ‘They really did break the mould when it came to you, didn’t they?’ She shook her head before heading back over to Jack.
Chapter Forty-Five
After Gloria and Jack disappeared through the smog in the direction of the administration offices, Polly suggested they wait just a few more minutes in case Raymond’s body surfaced – dead or alive. The women agreed and stood stock-still, listening intently for any sound of a floundering body splashing about in the water, while Dorothy directed the faint beam of her little torch across the water.
After a while they decided that if Raymond had survived his fall into the freezing-cold river, they couldn’t hear or see him, and if his drowned corpse had floated back up they couldn’t spot it.
They were just getting ready to leave when Polly suddenly glimpsed a flash of shiny steel on the ground in front of them. ‘Oh my goodness. The knife!’ she panicked.
Dorothy immediately hurried over to the discarded dagger and carefully picked it up between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Urgh, how hideous,’ she said, holding it up with one hand and shining her torch at it with the other. The intricately carved ram’s head seemed to stare back at them all.
‘Just get rid of it.’ Polly’s voice was now trembling with nerves and cold.
Dorothy put her torch down, pulled her arm back, and like a professional javelin thrower hurled the knife out into the river. It disappeared into the darkness before the sound of a gentle splash could be heard in the distance. Dorothy then bent down and picked up her torch, before scouring the ground nearby. Within seconds the light had illuminated the rest of the walking stick. She grabbed it and tossed it into the women’s five-gallon barrel heater which was still glowing with the dying embers of the day’s fire. The wooden cane soon caught alight, creating a vibrant flame.
‘Come on then, Rosie,’ Polly said. ‘Let’s get you back to mine.’
But it was clear Rosie hardly had the strength to stand, never mind walk anywhere. Martha stepped forward and ever so gently took hold of Rosie’s arm and slowly positioned it around her own neck. She then wrapped her thick, muscular arm around her instructor’s waist so that she was able to more or less single-handedly carry Rosie back across the yard. By the time they all reached the ferry landing, Rosie barely had the strength to even move her legs, and her feet were practically dragging along the ground.
A few workers, obviously the worse for wear, were leaving the pub and making their way home.
‘Pretend we’re drunk,’ Dorothy commanded them all. Playing the role of a gaggle of intoxicated women was not hard – they all felt as though they were not quite of this world anyway after the evening’s surreal events.
‘Make sure that one doesn’t throw up on deck!’ the ferryman ordered the women during the crossing. Rosie’s head bobbed about as she coasted in and out of consciousness.
‘Thank goodness it’s Saturday night,’ Hannah muttered to Polly as a group of merry workers broke into song. The attention was off the women.
Within twenty minutes they had made it back to Agnes’s. When Polly opened the front door and shouted out, ‘Ma!’ Agnes came hurrying down the hallway, alerted by the seriousness in her daughter’s voice.
‘Why, you’re back earlier than expected…’ Her voice trailed off when she came face to face with the women and saw the state of Rosie, whose legs had now totally buckled, giving the impression she was a puppet hanging from Martha’s large frame. ‘Oh my Lord. Come on. Bring her in here.’ Agnes directed Martha and the rest of the women into her bedroom, just off the hallway at the front of the house.
Polly was thankful for her mother’s practical and matter-of-fact approach to the drama she had brought into their home.
‘Put her on the bed and let’s have a look,’ Agnes commanded as they all crammed into the front bedroom. She quickly checked the blackout curtains were tightly shut before switching on her bedside light.
Martha gently laid Rosie down on the bed, and Agnes told Dorothy and Hannah to take themselves and Martha into the kitchen and for one of them to bring her a bowl of boiling water and her first-aid box from the scullery. ‘And make a big pot of tea for everyone,’ she added.
The women did what they were told while Polly stayed with her mum. While Agnes inspected Rosie’s injuries, Polly briefly ran through the events of that evening: how they had gone back to the yard to look for Rosie when she hadn’t turned up at the pub and had found her looking as if she’d been battered and tortured within an inch of her life, with her attacker forcing her head over a live weld.
‘That explains the burns,’ Agnes mumbled as she inspected the welts on Rosie’s face.
Rosie was now only semi-conscious and kept calling out ‘Charlotte’.
‘Charlotte will be fine, love,’ Agnes reassured her, even though she had no idea who Charlotte was. Her gently spoken words seemed to do the trick, and Rosie’s body finally relaxed into the comfort of the bed.
As Agnes trimmed the black, frazzled ends of Rosie’s singed blonde hair, she noticed an egg-shaped lump had erupted on her head where she’d been smashed with Raymond’s walking stick. Agnes grimaced and asked Polly to find a small pot of arnica she had in the back of one of her cupboards. She then put Rosie’s badly swollen wrist into a splint in case there were any broken or fractured bones, before tending her facial burns. ‘She’s going to have quite a few little scars,’ Agnes thought out loud.
When Bel arrived back home from her late shift, Martha, Dorothy and Hannah were just coming out the front door. ‘Have I missed the party?’ she joked, before seeing the women’s tired and worried faces.
Dorothy managed to keep up appearances, jesting that there was some of the ‘hard stuff’ left in the kitchen in the form of a strong pot of stewed tea. She knew Bel would find out soon enough what had happened, but it wasn’t their place to tell her.
Standing outside on the pavement, before heading off to their own homes, Dorothy, Martha and Hannah gave each other a big hug.
‘Now, listen,’ Dorothy said, trying not to get too emotional, ‘we should all get home around the time we would’ve done if we had actually gone to the flicks. There’s no reason for anyone to wonder where we’ve been. So,’ she stressed, ‘remember – not a word about what’s happened tonight. Say the film was “fantastic”, and that you’re shattered and need to go to bed. Okay?’ Dorothy looked down at Hannah and up at Martha.
