Bia's War (17 page)

“January moved slowly into
February, with no let-up in the horrendous weather conditions. The
snow still lay deep on the ground and bitter frosts froze the water
supplies and made walking a nightmare on the slippery ground. If
you went outside you were wrapped up in so many layers of clothes
that movement was almost impossible, yet the cold managed to get
through to your bones and made them ache as though you had climbed
mountains. I didn’t want to have to go outside, but one day I got
word from one of the dock labourers that a ship from America had
arrived, with a consignment of meat on board. He had kept some
aside for me and wanted me to go and move it into my
warehouse.”

“I knew I would have to go,
because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity of having good meat
to sell, but Peter wouldn’t be able to go with me because he was at
the dentist’s. He had been having a lot of trouble with one of his
back teeth and Annie had wrapped his face in a warm scarf and
bundled him off to the dentists to get it removed. I hesitated
about going down the docks without Peter, but it was the middle of
the day and I had never had any trouble whenever I had gone there
before, so I went on my own. I left a message with Hannah for Peter
to follow me down when he got back from the dentist and set off on
my own.”

“At the dockside, the labourer
was waiting for me with a pallet of meat and, because I was alone,
he happily helped me carry it into my warehouse and store it in the
large cupboard I used for keeping meat. Then he left, taking with
him some meat pies and ginger beer I had brought for him and his
mates and the payment for the consignment of meat. I was alone in
my warehouse; checking through my stock and collecting a couple of
small items which I wanted to take back to the shop. It was only
seconds later that I heard the outer door slam and I shouted to
Peter that I was in the cold-store area. He didn’t reply, but I
heard his footsteps as he crossed the floor towards me, so I turned
to ask him to take some of the items I was holding. It wasn’t Peter
who was standing there, but Butcher Dennison, grinning evilly at my
discomfort. It took me a few seconds to recover from the shock of
seeing him there, but I managed to croak a perfectly respectable
‘Good day to you’.”

“‘It is a good day, Mrs
Drinkwater,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been waiting for just such a good
day to come along for quite some time and now it’s happened. You
and me, here together and alone. I have been anticipating this
since I bought the warehouse from old Sanderson. You’ve kept me
waiting a long time, Mrs Drinkwater.’

“I’ll admit it; he was
terrifying me, blocking my exit from the warehouse and standing far
too close to me for comfort. I shivered at his smug tone and I
didn’t miss the leer on his face as he spoke to me, but I wasn’t
going to let the bully get the better of me.”

“’I’m unlikely to be alone for
very long, Mr Dennison,’ I said, hoping my voice wasn’t betraying
the fear I was feeling. Had it wavered as I spoke to him? ‘Peter is
on his way here as we speak, so we won’t be alone for very
long.’”

“I hoped that the mention of
Peter would make him think again about whatever it was that he had
planned, because it would have been obvious to a blind man that he
had something in mind.”

“‘Long enough for what I want to
do, Mrs Drinkwater.’ He said, as he moved towards me and grabbed my
head in both his hands. I was totally unprepared for this and he
drew me, unresisting, into his arms while he kissed my cheeks and
then my mouth, all the while whispering in my ear.

“‘I know you want this as much
as I do. That armless wonder won’t be doing much for you, now that
he’s come home. Anyone can see that a red-blooded woman like you
needs more than that snivelling excuse for a man in your bed and
I’m here, ready and willing to step in where he fails. You need a
real man like me to keep you happy.’”

“I was rigid with the shock of
what was happening at first, but then the anger within me boiled up
so that my rage was white-hot and I found I suddenly had the
strength to free my arms. I grabbed hold of his coat to steady my
hold and then I brought my knee up into his groin with as much
force as I could muster. The shock and the pain from the blow made
him bend over towards me but he didn’t loosen his grip of my head
and, as he straightened back up, he pushed me up against the wall
of the cupboard and banged my head two or three times against the
wooden planking. I saw multi-coloured stars explode around the
edges of my vision and then a blackness began to draw in and I
think I nearly lost consciousness at that point. It was the pig
butcher’s voice that brought me back to full awareness, as he began
to whisper into my ear once more.”

“‘Do you like to fight for it
then, Mrs Drinkwater? You like to have a bit of a rough about
before you get down to the nitty-gritty, do you? That’s fine by me.
A little, delicate scrap like you can’t do much to hurt me, you
know, but it’ll be fun while you try.’”

“The revulsion I felt for him
was stomach-turning and I was very nearly sick there and then. I
didn’t have the breathe to say anything to him and I could feel my
legs turning to jelly as he continued to whisper in my ear and
breath in my face. I struggled again, trying to free my head from
his hands so that I could pull away from him and breathe clean air
instead of his fetid breath, but he banged my head against the wall
again and this time I did black out. It was only for a second but
long enough for my legs to give way completely and I slipped down
the wall.”

“The pig butcher thought I was
acquiescing to his demands and aided my descent to the floor by
kicking my feet out from under me, never letting go of his hold on
my head. I landed awkwardly onto my shoulder and the pain was so
intense, it cleared the fuzziness in my head and I became fully
aware of my surroundings again.”

“Dennison threw himself on top
of me, squashing the breath out of my body and compounding the
injury in my shoulder. He let go of my head but put one of his
hands round the front of my throat, squeezing hard enough to cut
off the bulk of my air supply while he tugged at my skirts, trying
to pull them upwards with his other hand. I tried desperately to
struggle, but he was so heavy that I was pinned to the floor and
couldn’t even raise one knee. He began whispering into my ear
again; saying such horrible and vulgar things that made me feel so
sick and dirty and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. His hand was
winning its battle to pull my skirt up to my waist and then he
grabbed hold of my underclothes, to try and separate them from my
body.”

“His cheek was touching my face
as he concentrated on what he was trying to do and the smell of him
was so unspeakably foul that I could feel the nausea rising in my
throat and that made me panic. I knew that if I was sick I wouldn’t
be able to even turn my head to the side to expel it and there was
a good chance that I would choke. The anger I was feeling was
turned into white-hot fury that he could dare to do this to me and
I reacted as an animal would if it was cornered.”

“As he continued whispering into
my ear, he rubbed his filthy unshaven face against my cheek and I
opened my mouth and bit down on the only part of his anatomy that I
could reach – his earlobe. I could taste the iron-like flavour of
his blood as I clamped my jaws together and he let out a
high-pitched squeal that would have rivalled any that came from the
pigs that he slaughtered. He bucked about on top of me as the pain
he was feeling reached a crescendo but I didn’t let go. I was being
ruled by a purely atavistic savagery that had risen in me because
of what he was trying to do to me and all I wanted to do was cause
him as much pain as I could. The blood from his ear was dripping
into my eyes and across my face as I clung grimly on and it ran
into my mouth as I continued to bite down as hard as I could. I
didn’t let go until he was lifted bodily off me and I could see
Peter behind him. Peter was holding Dennison as though he was a
human battering ram and he used him as such, banging his head two
or three times against the warehouse wall, in much the same way as
the pig butcher had slammed mine.”

“Peter had been in a great deal
of pain with his rotten tooth and I think he took all of that pain
and frustration out on Dennison. I scrambled to my feet, righting
my clothes as I did so and then gently placed my hand on Peter’s
arm, speaking to him in as soft and gentle a voice as I could
manage at that time. Peter always responded better if people were
calm and quiet with him, but it took a tremendous amount of
self-control not to scream at this point.”

“‘That’s enough, Peter” I said,
‘that’s enough. Put him down on the floor, there’s a good
lad.’”

“Peter stopped using Dennison as
a battering ram and looked at me, puzzlement clouding his eyes and
his mouth drooping in case he was going to get into trouble. He
didn’t put Dennison down though and I knew it would take very
little to push him over the edge and start him attacking the
butcher again. I had to calm him down so that he didn’t kill
Dennison and then get arrested for murder. As it was, I wasn’t sure
if Dennison was still breathing, Peter had put a great deal of
effort into the force he had used to bang Dennison’s head against
the wall, the pig butcher’s eyes were closed and he hung limply in
Peter’s grasp.”

“‘Put him down, Peter.’ I
repeated, as calmly as I could, given that every nerve-ending in my
body was screaming at me to stop Peter murdering the butcher. I
lowered my voice even further and found the strength from somewhere
to smile at Peter.

“ ‘Put him on the floor, lad, so
I can check if he is still breathing and, if he is, we’ll take him
back to his own warehouse and leave him to recover on his
own.’”

“Slowly, as if he might change
his mind at any moment, Peter lowered Dennison to the floor and
then stood back, staring at me.

‘He’s hurt you, Bia, you’re
bleeding,’ he said, pointing at my face where I could feel the pig
butcher’s blood drying on my skin.”

“‘No, I’m not hurt, Peter, you
arrived in time to stop him hurting me. This is from Dennison’s ear
because I bit him when he knocked me to the floor.’”

“Peter’s face creased and he
laughed at the thought of me biting Dennison’s ear and making him
bleed. I could have screamed in frustration because he had no idea
that we were in danger every moment that we had this body on the
warehouse floor.”

“‘Is this what he meant about
teaching you a lesson, Bia?’ Peter asked. ‘You know, I heard him
say that you had a lesson to learn the day he bought the
warehouse.’”

“‘Yes, yes it is what he meant,
but I’ll explain it all later.’ I said. ‘Now, I’ve got to check to
see if he’s still alive, Peter. You go and look out of the door and
see if there’s anybody about. We don’t want anyone to see us moving
Dennison back into his warehouse.’”

“With a mumbled ‘Ok’ Peter
crossed the warehouse floor towards the door and I crouched down
next to the prone pig butcher. He was still breathing, although his
eyes were closed and his heartbeat, when I checked that, was as
steady as a rock. He obviously had the constitution of an ox. I
straightened up as Peter came back to report that the coast was
clear.

“‘Can we carry him between us?’
I asked. ‘If you take hold of him under his arms, I’ll lift his
feet and we should be able to get him back next door.’”

“‘No need for you to try, Bia.’
Peter said. ‘I can carry him on my own.’ And he pushed his arms
under Dennison’s prone body and lifted him easily off the floor,
setting off for the door so quickly I was almost left behind. I ran
to catch him up, so that I could check that the coast was still
clear outside before we went out into the open. There was no-one
about and the snow was falling again from a darkened sky. For the
first time that winter I was pleased to see the snow, knowing that
it would deter anyone from hanging around outside and possibly
seeing what we were doing.”

“It only took seconds for Peter
to cross the space between the two warehouses, kick open the door
and dump Dennison’s inert form onto the floor. I made one last
check that he was still breathing and that his pulse was normal
before I followed Peter back into our warehouse.”

“‘Are we going home now, Bia?’
Peter asked. ‘I’m hungry and I can eat now that the pain has gone
out of my tooth.’”

“‘In a minute, Peter.’ I
answered, wearily. ‘I’ve got to get rid of the bloodstains on the
floor, so that no-one will know what happened in here. Then we can
go home and you can have the biggest pie in the shop for what
you’ve done for me today.’”

“Peter’s face split into a huge
grin and he lugged a bucket of water across to the cold store and
scrubbed at the floor to remove the bloodstains. Meanwhile, I
dipped the end of my shawl into the bucket and scrubbed at my face
to eradicate the crusted blood which had pooled around my nose and
run down my neck. The dried blood on my blouse could wait until
after we got home; I could cover that with my shawl. In any case,
in the blizzard that was blowing outside no one would be stopping
to look at other people. If there was anyone out in this weather,
they would be head down and as intent on getting home as we were.
As soon as the floor looked as normal as was possible, I checked
outside again and Peter and I set off for Queen Street, with me
holding on to Peter so that the strong wind didn’t blow me
over.”

“I felt as weak as a kitten, as
though I had done ten rounds in a boxing ring with a prize-fighter,
but I had to keep going so that we could reach the safety of the
shop. As I had expected there were very few people about on the
streets; the blizzard had seen to that and Peter and I reached the
safety of our back alley without having to stop. I didn’t dare go
in through the shop in case there were any customers in there who
might be able to see the bloodstains on me in the lamplight. We
went in through the back yard gate and entered the kitchen with a
cloud of snow billowing around us until we could close the back
door against it. Annie and Simon were sitting at the kitchen table
where she was encouraging him to eat his tea. One glance showed her
that there was something wrong and she quickly herded Simon up the
stairs to settle him in his bedroom with a toy before coming back
downstairs to find out what had happened. The only other person in
the kitchen was Sammy as Hannah was serving in the shop and,
thankfully, William had brought Simon home from school and then
headed straight for the Red Lion.”