War Babies (7 page)

Rachel’s heart banged in panic. She folded her arms across her, leaning forwards and shuffling as close to the wall as she could get.

‘You can go by,’ she said, looking down at the carpet, the dusty treads.

‘Oh ar – I’ll go by when I’m good and ready,’ he said. She could feel him staring at her. She felt very silly and vulnerable in her ankle socks, with her bare legs
and skirt not even covering her knees. The hairs on her arms were standing on end. She could just hear the tick-tick of the sewing-machine needle behind the door of the back room.

‘You waiting for me then, are yer?’

She had to look up. ‘N-no – I was just reading.’

‘Why’re you sitting on the stairs if yer not waiting for summat then, eh?’

‘I dunno. I just . . .’

‘
Eh?
’ His face was right up close suddenly. He stank of the wire works and of sour, oniony breath.

Rachel shrank back, staring down into her lap, the white cotton frock decorated with a pattern of little blue squares and triangles.

‘Well, I think you’re waiting –’ His voice was barely above a whisper. ‘You’re a little liar. Here you go then – I bet this is what you’re
after.’

He pushed his hand between her legs. She cried out at this hard, hairy arm forcing along the tender skin of her thighs. His fingers met the gusset of her knickers. She whimpered as he poked
about, hard, hurting her. Her mind could barely take in what was happening. After a few seconds he yanked his hand away and was off and away up the stairs. She heard him climbing up to the attic
– and his laugh, like a braying mule.

That was only the beginning.

That night, lying in bed, she thought she heard someone moving with secretive, stealthy steps towards her room. She stiffened in the dark. The adults had not yet gone up to bed
– it was too early.

The footsteps stopped at her door. There was a long silence. She strained her ears, hardly breathing. The bedcovers felt like ropes around her. Finding that her chest was almost bursting, she
took a gasping breath. The blood was banging round her body. Who was out there? Why didn’t they say something, or go away? The tension of not knowing grew unbearably in her. But she did know.
She knew it must be Sidney Horton.

The silence went on for so long that she began to wonder if she had imagined the noises. Maybe Sidney had gone up to his own room after all and she had misheard? Her blood began to slow
gradually. She dared to shift in bed, her eyes open into the dark. Gradually her eyes began to want to close.

There was a tap on the door, not loud, but definite. She jerked wide awake again, her body revving up in fear. Again it came, and then she heard him calling in a low, sing-song voice,
‘Rachel. Ra-a-achel . . .’ The tone was both mocking and cajoling.

There was no lock on the door. He must know that. And he must know that she knew that he knew it.

‘Rachel. You’re not asleep. I know you can hear me.’

She had no idea what he was about, what he wanted, but she was rigid with terror. There was a menace in him, in his horrible silky voice. She thought she might burst with fear. It was impossible
to move. She lay in bed like a stone statue while the blood continued to thunder round her body.

There was a little sound. The doorknob was turning. It was slightly loose and rattled when you touched it. She heard it move back and forth, waiting any second for the door to open. Her
breathing was a shallow flutter and her stomach sickened. Those seconds seemed to last for hours.

Sidney turned the doorknob back and forth several times. After what seemed an eternity she heard his footsteps moving away and he retreated up to his own room. She gasped for breath, shaking all
over. It took her a very long time to get to sleep, convinced that if she did she would open her eyes and find him in her bedroom. For what, she did not know, but the thought terrified her.

It became a hobby of Sidney’s to torment her. In the daytime, if they ever ran into each other in the house, he almost always laid a hand on her somewhere in passing. It might have been
only on her shoulder as she dashed past him, on her thigh at the table when no one else was looking, or a pat on the head. She never stayed long enough near him for him to repeat his first groping
up her dress. But it was as if every time he saw her he was warning her –
I can do what I like when I like. I’m biding my time and don’t you forget it.

Rachel was too young and innocent to have any real idea what he might do, but his air of threat sent her into a constant state of vigilant fear. One afternoon she could not bear it any longer.
She went to Peggy in the back room, and found her leaning over the table, cutting a piece of green cloth.

‘Mom?’

‘Umm – I’m very busy, Rachel, as you can see.’

‘I . . .’ Her throat closed with tears and she could not speak. As she stood at the door, wiping her eyes, Peggy looked up.

‘Oh dear –’ Her tone lay somewhere between sympathy and impatience. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘It’s . . .’ It was hard to find the right words for the nightmare of her bedroom hours now. ‘It’s Sidney,’ she blurted. ‘He keeps . . . He keeps coming
and bothering me.’

‘Sidney?’ Peggy was listening now, the scissors held down at her side. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘He keeps coming to my bedroom.’ Nothing could capture the terror of it. Her words seemed tame. ‘Saying things.’

‘What – into your bedroom?’ There was a note of alarm.

Rachel shook her head. ‘No, but he keeps saying things.’

‘Oh –’ Peggy was a bit puzzled – none of this seemed serious. ‘Well, he’s your brother now, sort of. You’ve never had brothers to deal with before.
I’ll ask him not to tease you too much – but you need to toughen up a bit, dear. Girls who have brothers get used to this sort of thing.’

Did they? Rachel wondered. How did Mom know? She had no brothers. And Lilian didn’t have to get used to this, did she? Her brother was only little.

‘Just tell him to stop teasing you. He’s a silly boy that one.’

Rachel could see her mother’s eyes drawn back to the cutting out. She drifted away, with a desperate, lonely feeling inside.

She realized that her bedroom door opened inwards and using every bit of strength, when she went to bed, she managed, bit by bit, to haul the end of the chest of drawers up close to it. Every
morning she had to shift it again but it made her feel safer. At least he could not get the door open.

But it did not stop him standing at the door, tormenting her.

‘Rachel – I’m here. You can hear me, I know you can.’ There would be that rattle of the doorknob. ‘Shall I come in? You want me to, don’t yer? You’re a
dirty girl – I know you are. Shall I come in and play some games with you?’

The names he called her got worse. She often didn’t know what he was talking about but his talk made her feel sick and soiled. She was being accused of things, labelled with things. Was
she dirty? What did that mean?

‘You’re a dirty girl, aren’t yer? Eh? A dirty little ho. I know what you’re up to . . . I’m going to come and show you what’s good for yer . . .’ On and
on he rambled, night after night, his hand on the doorknob, turning it as if he was about to break into the room.

This went on, most nights, for almost three weeks. And one night, at about nine o’clock when Peggy and Fred were still downstairs, he did try to come in.

‘Are you there, Rachel?’ He had been standing at the door for some time, his low, wheedling voice going on and on. It completely wracked her nerves, even though she had the chest of
drawers in the way. ‘Well, Rachel,’ he said, as she lay, tense and silent. ‘I think it’s time I paid you a visit.’

Rachel gasped. The handle turned and there was a bang as the door hit the side of the chest of drawers. Foul language came from outside. Sidney could not seem to make sense of why the door would
not open. He was losing his temper. He pushed on the door again and again.

‘Whatever’s going on up there?’ Rachel heard Fred Horton’s voice down in the hall, followed by her mother’s: ‘Is everything all right, Fred?’

They were both coming up the stairs. Light appeared on the landing.

‘What’s all the banging, lad?’ Fred demanded. Evidently Sidney had not run away upstairs. ‘It sounds as if someone’s trying to knock the house down.’

Peggy came straight along and tried to get into Rachel’s room. She was met with the same obstacle.

‘Rachel? What’s this blocking your door?’

In the background, as she climbed weakly out of bed, Rachel heard Sidney making excuses about ‘the kid having a nightmare’ and him trying to get in.

‘Rachel?’ Peggy’s voice was high with annoyance.

Rachel pulled on the chest of drawers with her whole weight, shifting it enough to get out through the door. Her mother leaned in, switched on the light and looked around.

‘The chest of drawers – what’s it doing there?’

‘I moved it.’ Rachel felt very small with the three of them staring at her. She tried to control her shivering. Looking at Sidney she said, ‘He tries to get in.’

Sidney let out a guffaw of laughter. ‘I was trying to get in because she was yelling,’ he said.

‘Was it a bad dream?’ Fred said in a sugary voice.

‘No,’ Rachel said mutinously. ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

‘You can’t keep shifting the furniture about like that,’ Peggy admonished her. ‘What if there was a fire? Come on now – we’ll move that back to where it
belongs and you get into bed again.’

The men drifted away. Peggy shifted the chest of drawers back and Rachel got into bed. Peggy stood looking at her, arms folded. ‘This has got to stop,’ she said sternly.

‘But Mom . . .’ Her voice was high and desperate.

‘No more silliness and making up stories, all right? It’s not nice.’ She was turning away.

Rachel looked up at her, silenced. She knew that whatever she said, Peggy was not going to believe her. In that moment the wedge that was beginning to force itself down between her and her
mother slammed in deep. Peggy would hear what she wanted to hear.

Rachel lay down and closed her eyes, feeling as if her chest might burst with hurt and anger.

‘Now you get to sleep – no more nonsense.’

As soon as Peggy had gone, she leapt up and with all her force, moved the chest back against the door. She couldn’t rely on Mom. She was on her own.

The next day when Sidney came home, Rachel was in the kitchen, standing around as her mother cooked, hoping to catch her attention. Peggy had got rid of the maid, saying that
she ate money and her cooking was terrible. Dealing with her, Peggy had said, was more trouble than it was worth. She would do the cooking herself.

Rachel saw Sidney outside and she fled out of the kitchen and up the stairs. But he had seen her.

As she reached the top few steps he was up, taking them two and three at a time.

‘Oi, you – where d’yer think you’re off to? Running away from me, are yer?’

She was forced against the banister, the rail hard against her back. They were both standing on the top steps of the staircase. Rachel started to feel that her legs would not hold her much
longer. But her hatred of him put steel inside her for just long enough. Her face contorting with loathing, she said, ‘You’re bad you are. I’ll tell them.’ Even as she said
it she knew it was hopeless.

Sidney stood back, giving an exaggerated shrug and laughing as if she was the village idiot. ‘Tell them? Tell ’em what? Eh? They’re not going to believe a little babby like
you, are they?’ He moved his face close again, the way he liked to bully her. ‘Dain’t believe yer last night, did they?’

Shrinking inside, she knew he was right. Mom hadn’t believed her. She made herself look back at him. She couldn’t think of anything else to say and Sidney stared her out until she
was forced to look down.

‘Huh.’ He made a contemptuous sound and she thought he was going to move away upstairs. But as she looked up again, he was up close, a mocking expression on his face. He reached out
and rubbed one hand across her chest, her flat, undeveloped breasts, then drew his hand back with a gesture of disgust.

‘Wasting my time there,’ he said scornfully. ‘Flat as cowing pancakes, yer little runt.’

He strode off then and she heard him whistling as he went along the landing.

Every night after that she moved the chest of drawers against the door. But he didn’t try to get in again.

November 1938

Whenever she could, Rachel escaped to the Davieses’. They lived in a small two-up two-down terrace and it was the loveliest house she had ever seen. The Davieses did
not have much money, but they knew how to make a home. Mr Davies had a job in a factory. Mrs Davies had lost one husband and had lived in a run-down house on a yard before. She knew when she was
well off.

‘This is my little piece of heaven,’ she’d say. ‘Me and Bill have been given another chance. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am.’

Mrs Davies, slender and energetic, kept her newly acquired corner of heaven immaculately clean and was forever scrubbing, dusting and polishing the furniture and the little knick-knacks she
liked to collect. One day there might be a new china bird on the mantelpiece in the front room, some paper flowers or a picture of somewhere deep in the countryside, with streams, meadows or
bluebell woods. Bill, unlike the men who had gone to war in France and returned – if they returned, changed and ruined – had been in the factory throughout. He was small, birdlike and
jovial, who always came in with a chirpy greeting – ‘All right, wenches – noses still on yer faces, are they?’ – which never seemed to require any answer but a smile.
He would go and pick up little Bobby and fling him about as he gurgled. He was a man who had also been widowed young and like his new wife knew he was in luck.

Mrs Davies still cooked on a range in the back kitchen. She was not in favour of ‘those new-fangled gas contraptions’. The room was always very hot and usually smelt of something
cooking. When the girls came back there after school she would get out the toasting fork and hold wedges of white bread in front of the fire until they were amber coloured and crisp; then she
scraped butter onto them and held out a plateful. Rachel could always feel a pool of saliva collecting in her mouth as the smell drifted towards her from the fire. Occasionally Mrs Davies bought
crumpets and they were the most delicious of all.