The Rainbow Years Read online

  At first she’d tried to tell herself that being orphaned at an early age and brought up in the workhouse, he’d never known what tenderness or affection was. He had no family, no friends - she would be everything to him and show him nothing but care and consideration. This thinking had lasted a few months until, after a night of such degradation and bestiality she hadn’t thought she’d survive it, she had run home to her mother in Monkwearmouth. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her mother exactly what was wrong and Wilbur had come for her within the hour anyway. They had left with her mother’s admonition that she was a married woman now and under her husband’s authority ringing in her ears. Then had come a respite because within the month she’d discovered she was expecting a child and he hadn’t come near her for the whole nine months she had carried their son. After that she had prayed every day she would get pregnant again soon, but it had been eight years before she had fallen for Bess.

  As though the thought of her daughter had summoned Bess down, Muriel heard measured footsteps on the stairs. The slow gait brought the worry she had been feeling for weeks to the forefront of her mind again. The time was, and not so long ago either, the lass would have been down those stairs like a dose of salts even knowing Wilbur hadn’t yet left for work. There was something wrong with Bess. She’d lost her sparkle, the liveliness which had characterised her from a little bairn, but every time she tried to find out what was wrong, Bess would have none of it.

  ‘Hello, hinny.’ Muriel’s voice was soft as her daughter walked into the kitchen. ‘Come an’ have a bite before we start on the range.’ Every Saturday morning they cleaned and blackleaded the kitchen range together, larking on like a couple of bairns on occasion. But there had been none of that lately. Her voice softer still, Muriel said, ‘Shall I pour you a sup, lass?’

  ‘For crying out loud!’There was a harsh scraping as Wilbur pushed his chair back on the flagstones and stood up. ‘She can do it herself, can’t she? Getting above herself, she is, and you’re to blame. You,’ he spoke directly to Bess now, ‘your back stick to the bed, did it? And look at me when I’m speaking to you.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Bess had gone a shade paler.

  ‘You will be if you don’t move your backside sharper.’ He glared at her, his gaze moving to his wife’s wooden countenance a moment later. When neither of them responded by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, he made a sound deep in his throat which could have meant anything. He followed this with the sort of foul obscenity which could be heard down at the docks, snatched up his cap and bait tin from the table and left the kitchen, slamming the scullery door behind him.

  The air left Muriel’s body in a long sigh of relief but Bess continued to sit straight and still. Muriel looked at her daughter. ‘Eat somethin’, lass. You’re gettin’ as thin as a lath.’

  Bess’s big brown eyes stared into her mother’s anxious face. For as long as she could remember she had known her mother was frightened of her father. From a small child she had been vaguely aware of strange noises coming from their room across the landing some nights. Muffled whimpers and sobbing, moans, even the odd cry which had been instantly cut short. She hadn’t known what all this meant but it had terrified her nonetheless. It hadn’t bothered her brother, Ronald; he had always slept like a log in his curtained-off half of their bedroom before he left to get married five years ago.

  Since she had known Christopher she had come to understand the significance of the nocturnal sounds and it sickened her. Disgust had been added to her deep dislike and fear of her father. Before she had known she was expecting Christopher’s child, she had harboured the wild idea of renting a room somewhere for her mother and herself, a sanctuary where they could live until the end of the war when Christopher would come and marry her.

  Her mouth hardened, and she said, ‘I hate Da.’ Her hands clenched into fists on the oil tablecloth. ‘I’ve always hated him and I shall tell him one day.’

  ‘No, hinny.’ There was a note of panic in Muriel’s voice. ‘He’d go stark starin’ mad. Please, lass, promise me you’d never do that. You’re young an’ bonny, you’ll get married sooner or later an’ then you’ll be free of him.’

  ‘What about you?’ Taking her mother’s hand in hers, Bess looked down at the wrinkled skin. ‘Would you come with me?’

  ‘Oh, lass.’ Muriel was smiling but her voice held the catch of tears. ‘What a start to married life that’d be.You’d frighten any poor lad to death if you asked him to take your mam an’ all. But thanks for sayin’ it. The thing is, I married your da for better or worse an’ that’s that. An’ I’ve got you an’ our Ronald an’ his bairns to count me blessings for. I’m happy enough. Now come on, hinny. Eat your breakfast an’ then we’ll see to the range afore you go out with Kitty later.’

  The warm homeliness of the kitchen, the glow from the range and the love in her mother’s face were creating in Bess a desire to confide her secret. She’d felt this way more and more lately and now, to combat the dangerous weakness, she rose abruptly to her feet. ‘I need the privy. I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘Aye, all right, lass. I’ll make a fresh brew for when you come back.’

  Bess walked out of the kitchen without replying and through into the tiny scullery which was just big enough to hold the deep stone sink on one side and several rows of shelves on the other. She opened the door into the backyard. The September morning was chilly but dry as she made her way across the yard and into the privy. This was not an unpleasant place. Unlike some of the women in the street of two-up, two-down terraced houses, her mother kept their lavatory sweet-smelling with daily scrubbing and fresh ashes. Inside the brick box, Bess shot the bolt on the door and then sank down on the white wooden seat which extended right across the breadth of the lavatory.

  She shut her eyes tightly. Today was the day. Her heart began to pound so violently she put her hand to her chest. By tonight it would all be over and she could get on with her life once more. Her mother had talked of her getting married but she would never get wed, she knew that now. Men were men the world over and she would never trust one again; she did not want to risk tying herself into the sort of misery her mother endured.

  She swallowed hard, the well of emotion she had kept banked down since reading the letter threatening to spill over. She mustn’t cry, she told herself, not yet. Not till it was over. And even then it would have to be in the privacy of her bed so no one would know.

  She sat a moment more, willing herself to rise and go back into the house and laugh and joke with her mother as though it was a normal Saturday morning. And then she felt it. An unmistakable flutter deep inside the faint swell of her belly. She froze, her mouth a little O of surprise and her eyes wide.

  No, no. The shout was deafening in her head. It wasn’t the baby, she was imagining this. Instinctively her hand went to her stomach over her clothes. Then she hoisted her skirt and petticoat up, pushed down her drawers and placed her hand on the warm, soft skin of her belly. When the strange little flickers came again, a quiver passed over her face. It was the baby. It was alive, it was letting her know it was alive.

  She didn’t become aware she was crying until she felt a drop of moisture fall on the hand still placed over her stomach. Once started, she couldn’t stop. How long she sat there before she heard her mother’s footsteps in the yard she didn’t know, but still she couldn’t pull herself together, not even when her mother became distraught and began banging on the door.

  Eventually she managed to say, ‘Wait . . . wait a minute, Mam.’ She fumbled with her clothing, fished her handkerchief out of the sleeve of her blouse and wiped her face with it before she opened the lavatory door.

  ‘Landsakes, hinny, whatever’s wrong?’ As Bess almost fell into her mother’s arms, Muriel’s voice held real fear. ‘I knew there was somethin’, I’ve bin askin’ you for weeks, now haven’t I? What is it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you inside.’ Bess’s voice was low. Kitty’s parents were l
ovely, salt of the earth, and she liked every one of her friend’s brothers and sisters but they all had cuddy’s ears. And Mr and Mrs Griffiths, the old couple who lived next door the other way, were worse.

  Once they were in the scullery, Bess slipped the bolt on the back door before she followed her mother into the kitchen. They stood facing each other and as Bess looked into her mother’s anxious eyes she didn’t know how to start. In the event she didn’t have to.

  ‘It’s not that, lass, is it?’ Muriel’s voice was faint and tremulous. ‘You’re not in the family way?’

  ‘Oh, Mam.’

  Bess’s tone was answer enough and Muriel sat down abruptly on one of the hard-backed chairs, all the colour draining from her face. Her mouth opened a few times before she was able to say, ‘How far gone are you?’

  Bess gulped hard. ‘About nineteen weeks now.’

  ‘Nineteen?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mam, I’m sorry. Oh, Mam . . .’ Bess’s face was as stricken as her voice and when she flung herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, her head buried in her mother’s lap as her arms went round her waist, Muriel only hesitated for a second before she began to stroke the dark head.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, hinny? Why didn’t you say somethin’ afore now?’ Her voice cracked. ‘Nineteen weeks. Saints alive.’

  ‘I . . . I was going to see someone. One of the women at work knows this woman in the East End—’

  ‘You’ve told ’em at work?’

  ‘No, no. Just this woman. And . . . and Kitty. That’s all. No one else knows.’

  ‘An’ the father?’ Muriel asked heavily. ‘You told him?’

  ‘He’s dead.’ It was stark and flat.

  ‘Dead? Oh, lass.’

  ‘He was killed in the war, the Somme. But,’ Bess took a deep breath, ‘he was married. I didn’t know,’ she said quickly as she felt the hand on her head make an involuntary movement. She raised her face to look into her mother’s and what she saw there made her protest, ‘I swear, Mam. I didn’t know. He’s not from round these parts, he . . . he was a gentleman.’

  Muriel rubbed her hand across her face and it was shaking. It was a few moments before she said painfully, ‘So there’ll be no help from that quarter then?’ And when Bess slowly shook her head, the two of them stared at each other.

  ‘I felt it move, this morning in the privy.’ Bess’s lips quivered. ‘I was going to see this woman later, she lives in the East End and . . .’ She couldn’t finish. ‘But now I’ve felt it move it’s different.’

  ‘You can’t do away with it.’ There was a note of horror in Muriel’s voice and she sat up straighter, motioning for Bess to rise. She patted the chair beside her. ‘Come and sit down, hinny, and let’s have no more talk like that ’cos it don’t help no one. It’s a mortal sin to even think such a thing.’

  A mortal sin. Bess felt years older than her mother and it was a strange feeling. Here was her mam talking about mortal sin when there was her father to be faced. Whatever was going to happen in the hereafter couldn’t be as bad as the here and now. ‘I’m not going to do away with it, Mam. I couldn’t, not now. But . . .’ She stopped abruptly. She had been about to say her change of mind was nothing to do with the Church or Father Fraser but this would just cause her mother further distress. ‘But there’s Da,’ she said instead.

  Her mother said nothing to this, she didn’t have to. They both knew what it would mean.

  ‘If there was somewhere I could go until it’s born, I’d do it,’ Bess said in a low voice. ‘But there’s not. Nowhere except the workhouse, that is.’

  ‘You’re not going there, hinny. Not while I’ve breath in me body.’

  ‘But I can’t stay here, Mam. Not with him.’

  Muriel’s face was as white as a sheet as she endeavoured to stay calm. She stood up and cleared away the crockery. She placed the contents of Bess’s plate and that of her own into a bowl which she carried to the pantry, slipping it on the cold slab beneath the newspaper-covered shelves. Even in this crisis the old adage of ‘waste not, want not’ held firm.

  She returned to the table and poured herself a cup of warm, stewed tea. Bess declined one with a shake of her head. It was only after Muriel had drunk her tea straight down that she said, ‘Father Fraser will have to be here when you tell him.’

  ‘No, Mam.’ It was short and sharp.

  The fire in the range made a little spit and crackle in the silence that had fallen. It was a minute or two before Muriel leaned towards her daughter, her voice firmer than it had been throughout when she said, ‘He won’t do anythin’ if the Father is here, you know how he likes to keep in his good books. The priests are your da’s gate to heaven, that’s the way he sees it.’

  ‘I don’t want Father Fraser knowing.’

  ‘Lass, everyone’s goin’ to know afore long,’ Muriel said very quietly.

  Bess dropped her head, her shame deeper than it had ever been when confronted with her mother’s lack of condemnation. If her mam had denounced her and heaped reproach on her head she could have stood it better than this gentle acceptance. But that was her mam all over, so loving, so kind. It had probably been those very qualities that had made her father single her out when they were young; he’d known he could bully and frighten her.

  ‘I’ll put me coat on later an’ nip an’ have a word,’ said Muriel resolutely. ‘He knows it’s your da’s half-day on a Saturday; mebbe he’ll come back with me an’ we can break the news afore your da goes to the football.’

  Bess looked at her mother’s wrinkled face and tired eyes. Her mam had had a rough deal in life and here she was adding to her troubles a hundredfold. Any further protest about the priest being brought in died on her lips.

  When Father Fraser entered the house by the front door, Muriel following respectfully on his heels, he walked straight down the hall and into the kitchen without pausing. Bess stood at his entrance, their eyes meeting for a moment before she dropped her head.

  The priest did not speak immediately. He took the chair Muriel fussily pulled out for him and nodded to her offer of a cup of tea. He did not ask Bess to be seated and she did not presume to do so without his permission.

  ‘So, Bess?’ The thick fleshy lips in the fat face paused. When Bess didn’t raise her head or attempt to reply, the priest allowed some ten seconds to tick by before he said,‘Sit down, girl. We have some talking to do.’

  Her colour high, Bess sat, and Muriel - beside herself with agitation - said, ‘Would you have a couple of girdle cakes with your tea, Father? Freshly made this mornin’.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Shawe.’ The priest did not take his gaze from Bess’s face which, now the flush of colour had subsided, was as white as lint. His small beady eyes examined the young girl in front of him with a coldness which was habitual.These young lasses! Father Fraser settled his ample buttocks more comfortably on the hard wooden seat, lacing his podgy fingers over the mound of his belly.This was what came from giving slips of girls a man’s wage. It never ought to be. He cleared his throat before saying sententiously, ‘When were you last at confession, Bess?’

  Her head rose and big brown eyes met his. ‘Over two months ago, Father.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t remember.’

  Muriel placed a steaming cup of tea and the sugar bowl in front of Father Fraser. Her voice held the obsequious note it always did when addressing the priest as she said, ‘Do help yourself, Father.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Shawe, but I have resolved to do without sugar in my tea until this terrible war is over. We all need to do our bit, don’t we?’ He reached for the plate of scones which had followed the tea, finishing one in two bites and sliding another onto the side of his saucer before he said, ‘This is a sad state of affairs, Bess. A grievous state of affairs. God’s holy order of things will not be mocked. You are aware of this, aren’t you? Aware of how greatly you have sinned?’ The second scone went the way of the first. />
  ‘She is, Father.’ When Bess didn’t immediately answer Muriel’s voice was rushed.‘You are, aren’t you, lass?’ she added, not waiting for a reply. ‘She’s heart sorry, Father, but . . . but like I said, she was led on, fooled by this man. He—’

  ‘I think Bess can speak for herself, Mrs Shawe.’

  Bess’s chin had fallen again, her eyes on her hands in her lap, but now her head shot up at the icy tone. Her cheeks flaming once more, she said, ‘All sin is equally grievous to God surely, Father? Isn’t that what the Bible says?’