Flowers on the Mersey (23 page)

She scowled. ‘He’s dead! Why do you have to behave like this? Couldn’t we at least try to please each other?’

Joshua opened his mouth and she waited but he did not speak, only shaking his head before sliding over her. ‘I’ll make you forget him. By Jove, I will!’ She tried not to tense as he crushed her beneath him but could not help herself. He began to bite her throat. Her fists clenched and she started to feel angry. Why did he have to hurt her? ‘Hit me,’ he mumbled. ‘Let’s make a fight of it.’

‘No!’

He stilled and sat back on his heels, frowning down at her. ‘Why won’t you? You want to hit me, don’t you? Emma often wanted to. She threw things. Hit me twice and cut my head open, the little Madam.’

‘It must be the Quaker in me coming out that doesn’t like fighting,’ she said with an edge to her voice.

‘Little Miss Quaker.’ He laughed and seizing her shoulders, shook her violently, causing her to bite her tongue. ‘Respond my sweet, or else!’

Rebekah wiped blood from her mouth. ‘No. You’ve brought Daniel into this, so I will. You want me to pretend in some twisted way that he can still be hurt by what you do. Well, I can pretend too.’

‘What do you mean?’

She smiled. ‘You’re so clever. Think.’

Joshua did not move but his mouth quivered and she thought for a moment he might cry. She waited for him to say something but he just reached for his cheroot case. He lit up and took deep lungfuls of smoke until the end glowed red. Then, before she realised what he was about, he stubbed the cheroot several times on her shoulder. She reared up, gasping with pain.

‘You will never get pleasure imagining that I am him. Never! Never!’ He got out of bed. ‘I think we’ll go home today. Get yourself dressed.’

She stared at him, her breasts heaving as she regained her breath. ‘But we’ve only just come.’

‘Now!’ he yelled.

Rebekah was out of the bed in a trice, scared in case he burnt her again. She was certain her shoulder was blistering but dare not look at it. What was she going to do? Keep her mouth shut and not provoke him would be the wiser course. Be sweet and nice and a dutiful wife. Oh God! What had she done?

She dressed hurriedly, trying to ignore his watching her as she placed a handkerchief over the burn, and thinking all the time that coping with Hannah had been easy compared with the future she now visualised.
Why hadn’t she given it more consideration? Because she had not been thinking realistically, she supposed, believing Joshua madly in love with her and incapable of hurting someone he loved. Money! He had married her for her money. When she looked back on their life in Ireland, when her mother had always seemed to be penny pinching, she felt slightly hysterical. What good had it done her father being thrifty? Suddenly she wanted to laugh and laugh, but instead she jumped when Joshua snapped. ‘What are you stopping and smiling at? You’ve got nothing to be happy about. Last night was only the beginning. Now move or we’ll miss the next train.’

Rebekah did not tell him her thoughts, only slipping her arms into her tan and cream dog-tooth checked jacket. She packed her nightdress and soiled underwear, then stood waiting for him to give his next order. At least, she thought, once back in Liverpool, you’ll be out all day. But the nights! The thought of all the nights she would have to spend with him made her fearful. Suddenly she remembered what she had said to Edwina about being miserable in comfort and thought how she seemed to go through life saying stupid things. Why had she not foreseen cruelty and fear? It was not as if she hadn’t come in contact with them. Little Mrs Rimmer, she had suffered both. ‘And survived,’ said a little voice in Rebekah’s head. ‘You’ll come through if you use a little commonsense.’

She stared at her husband as he picked up the suitcase, and smiled.

‘What are you smiling at now?’ he muttered.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You’d rather I went down weeping? I am a bride and so I’m supposed to be happy.’

‘Of course you are.’ He smiled unexpectedly. ‘Perhaps we should stay?’

‘That’s up to you.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘Whatever you want,’ she lied.

He put down the case and took off his coat. Still smiling, he unknotted his tie. ‘Take off your clothes. This time let’s see some activity. You can stroke, bite, suck – anything! If you hurt me, I don’t mind. A bit of pain heightens sensations, don’t you think?’

She gave him an uncertain look. ‘I don’t know—’

‘My dear, you do. Now don’t waste time. And afterwards I’ll take you to the Cathedral. You’ll enjoy that. And we must get some ointment for the burn tomorrow. I’m sorry about that.’

With a sick feeling in her stomach Rebekah obeyed him, and he seemed to be satisfied with what she did, although he landed her a couple of blows in her ribs for pulling away too soon. Afterwards she would have preferred being alone and suggested that maybe he would like to read the Sunday papers while she went to the Cathedral, but he said certainly not.

As she sat in a pew staring at the intricately
carved stalls in the choir with Joshua beside her, she felt divorced not only from her surroundings but from reality. She was no longer the Rebekah she had been twenty-four hours ago, but felt a poor creature unable to stick up for herself. Surely this could not be what God intended when it had been written ‘Wives be subject to your husband?’ She was confused, deeply unhappy, and filled with dread.

It was just as bad for her that night but this time Joshua too seemed to be feeling no pleasure. ‘You’re holding back on me,’ he muttered, slapping her face. ‘You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?’

‘When you’re giving me pain, I can’t think of anything but that,’ she gasped.

‘As long as you’re not thinking of him,’ he said in a satisfied voice, and carried on hurting her. It was then she began to hate him.

The next day he suggested that he went shopping with her. ‘You’ll be bored,’ said Rebekah, powdering her face where a bruise showed, and desperate to be alone.

‘You don’t bore me, my sweet,’ murmured her husband, putting down the morning paper and picking up a silver-handled cane. ‘At least, not yet.’

He pulled her hand through his arm and it would seem to an onlooker that they were in harmony as they strolled in the direction of the medieval Rows that ran along Watergate, Bridge, and Eastgate Streets in the centre of the city. One had to go up steps
from the street to walk along the covered arcades with shops running along one side. Rebekah was in no mood for shopping but took the money Joshua handed her. Probably hers, she thought resentfully. She bought a new hat in pink straw with a deep crown and a dipping brim at the sides, a magazine and a bar of Fry’s chocolate cream. He did not ask for the change and she did not offer it. She decided then that she would save it for a rainy day.

They stayed two more days in Chester and then went back to Liverpool, Rebekah still suffering from a sense of unreality.

‘Welcome home, sir, ma’am.’ The maid, a smile on her red-cheeked face, bobbed a brief curtsey. ‘There’s a fire in the living room. I’ll make some tea and bring it in.’

‘Thank you, Janet.’ At least, thought Rebekah, she is pleased to see me.

And so it proved. Once Joshua went to work the next morning, the maid came in to discuss what was needed that day and to say how nice it was to have a mistress in the house after all these years. ‘One can’t count Miss Emma, if you don’t mind my saying, mam. She was no good at being in charge, always needed looking after. Very highly strung she was.’ She smiled. ‘I think, though, you and I can work together.’

‘I’m sure we can,’ said Rebekah, returning her smile. ‘First things first – food. I’m going shopping.
You can deal with the clothes we brought home that need washing.’

Janet looked surprised. ‘You’re not phoning the shops, mam?’

‘No, I’ll take my car.’ Joshua had given her housekeeping money that morning and she planned using Tin Lizzie to go into town and shop at St John’s Market, where she had often gone with Brigid. The dinner she planned would not cost as much if she bought there sometimes, and what was saved could be put in her hoard. She thought of Brigid and how she had spoken on the
Samson
of changing husbands characters. Only dynamite, she thought, would change Joshua. At that moment she had every intention of being a dutiful wife and housekeeper but she had vague thoughts about its not being forever.

Rebekah put petrol in the tank of her car and drove away from her husband’s house. Strangely, as she passed familiar streets, the feeling of unreality faded. Impulsively she decided to call on her aunt. The sun was shining and she would not be seeing Joshua for hours.

‘So thou’s back, is thee?’ grunted Hannah on opening the door.

Rebekah looked at her with something akin to affection. ‘Thanks for the welcome. Is my aunt in?’

‘She’s in.’ Hannah thrust her face close to hers. ‘We’ve been managing fine without thee. So there’s no need for thee to be always showing thy face.’

Rebekah drew back, not wanting anyone to look too closely at her. ‘I’ve come to take her out,’ she said promptly. ‘I thought we’d go to town and then for a trip in the country.’

‘Her knee’s bad,’ said Hannah, folding her arms across her thin breasts. ‘Got to rest it.’

‘You told me that she should keep on the move,’ retorted Rebekah, and pushing past the maid went up the lobby to steal her aunt from Hannah’s clutches.

‘This really is good of thee, Becky love,’ said Esther, holding on to her hat as her niece drove along a road in Formby-on-Sea which led to the coast. ‘I’ve never been this far out of Liverpool.’

‘I thought you’d enjoy it.’ Rebekah glanced at her. It was curiosity that had taken her in this direction and they would have to be turning back soon if Joshua’s meal was to be on the table by the time he returned home. She glanced about her, not sure what she was looking for, and then suddenly saw it. There was a set of imposing wrought iron gates and through them she could make out a large building. There was a notice which read ‘Asylum for Mentally Afflicted Gentlefolk’. She went a little further up the road and then turned round.

Rebekah often thought of Emma in the weeks that followed, questioning what Amelia Green had said to her the day of the wedding, not only about Emma and her mother, but Joshua too. War unsettled men, she had said. Had war inflicted on her husband the peculiar fascination he had with pain? There were times when she did not know whether to be glad or sorry that the tweeny slept out and Janet’s room was
so far from the large bright bedroom overlooking the park that she and Joshua shared.

She did most of what he asked her without comment but she would not use the cat o’ nine tails. Something inside her would not allow her to vent her hatred in that way. Perhaps it was because she knew that was exactly what he wanted – for her to show passionate response to his mishandling of her. She suffered his calculated assault on her body without a struggle. Only once did he hit her with the whip and afterwards he astonished her by crying at the sight of her blood and saying he was sorry. She just could not understand him.

There were evenings when they entertained some of his associates and he gave her money for a new dress, telling her just what he expected of her. She would go to Bold Street and buy a new gown, never spending the amount he gave her, and what was over she put away.

If she stayed in, the days seemed endless. Her job had finished when she married but she still went to visit Mrs Dodd. ‘You don’t look well, girl,’ she said, staring at Rebekah. ‘Have you been caught?’

‘You mean, am I having a baby?’ she murmured, bobbing Lily on her knee. ‘No.’ She would have added, Thank God, but that would have meant explanations and she had no intention of telling anybody what she suffered at Joshua’s hands. Not even Edwina, who had been a VAD during the war and was now a member of the Red Cross. She was suggesting that 
Rebekah, who had been a junior member in Ireland, should come along to the meetings and be useful.

In the end she agreed to go along, and life seemed very real and earnest during the weeks when spring turned to summer. Civil war was threatening in Ireland. Edwina and her father went on holiday. Her aunt also went away on some peace conference. Joshua mentioned that he might have to go to New York on business. She prayed that he would go but the days passed and he did not mention it again.

One afternoon she was in town, having left the car at home because she wanted to save money on petrol, when she noticed that there was an Ethel M. Dell film on at the cinema. Earlier in the year Ethel had got engaged to a Colonel Savage. The paper had said that her books had made her a fortune. Rebekah wished that she could get her hands on her money so that she could leave Joshua.

The film was guaranteed to melt the stoniest hearts and Rebekah came out of the cinema feeling a little better for it. She paused to pull on her gloves but a poke in the back caused her to stumble. A hand at her elbow prevented her from hitting the ground.

‘Are yer all right, luv?’

It was a voice Rebekah recognised. ‘Joe?’ She turned and saw him with Brigid. Unexpectedly, tears filled her eyes.

For a moment neither of the women spoke. Then Brigid said faintly, ‘Yer not going to cry, are yer?
What have you got to cry about? Didn’t yer get just what yer wanted when yer married his lordship!’

Rebekah blinked back the tears. ‘So you know about that?’

‘I saw it in the
Echo
, and I saw it coming anyway.’ Brigid squared her shoulders. ‘But there wasn’t any need for yer to leave Ma’s party the way you did without a word of explanation. Although our Pat told us what happened.’

Rebekah’s expression froze. ‘Your Pat? I suppose that’s why you never answered my letter? You took his side.’

‘What letter?’ said Brigid, frowning.

‘The one I sent, saying that Pat was getting too serious and I didn’t want that. We’d agreed just to be friends. I supposed he gave his own version of the story so you weren’t prepared to believe mine.’

Brigid exchanged glances with Joe, who shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. I know nothing about it.’

‘I never received any letter,’ said Brigid earnestly. ‘I would have answered it if I had.’

‘Well, I sent one.’

Brigid shook her head. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t answer it but I thought you’d finished with us because of his lordship.’

Rebekah stared at her. ‘We were friends.’

Joe’s glance took in Rebekah’s expression, then Brigid’s. ‘Listen, luv, I’ll go and have a pint over the road. I think you two have some talking to do. I’ll
give yer a quarter of an hour and then meet you at the tram stop.’

‘All right.’ Brigid did not watch him go. Her gaze was fixed on Rebekah. ‘Yer can see why I believed our Pat. I knew that his lordship wanted you when we were in New York. When I read about the wedding, I was convinced yer’d chucked Pat and ended our friendship because of him.’

‘It’s not true!’ Rebekah cleared her throat.

There was a short silence before Brigid said fiercely, ‘But yer married him! Where does that leave all yer talk about loving Daniel and never forgetting him?’

‘I haven’t forgotten him! But he’s dead.’

Brigid’s eyes flashed. ‘He’s dead but our Veronica thought she saw him the other day.’

‘She couldn’t have,’ said Rebekah, feeling as if her heart had suddenly sunk into her stomach.

‘That’s what I said. But it’s funny all the same.’

‘I don’t find it funny.’ Rebekah suddenly could not bear being still and almost ran across the cobbled road to the tram stop. She turned and stared at Brigid who had followed her. ‘I’d like to believe it! If you’d said you’d seen him, I probably would, even though it’s impossible.’

‘I know.’ Brigid sighed. ‘I bumped into his brother the other day down at the Pierhead. After all this time I thought that queer. I asked him how he was and whether he’d been living in America. I said how
sorry I was about Daniel being drowned and how upset you’d been at the time.’

Rebekah’s expression barely concealed her emotions. ‘I’m surprised you spared a thought for me if you believed I’d just walk out without a word. Besides, you’d be wasting your time if you expected Shaun to weep for me. He hated me. So you probably made his day!’ She dug her fists deep into her jacket pockets. ‘What was he doing in Liverpool anyway?’

Brigid shrugged. ‘I didn’t ask. I presumed he was over here seeing his cousins, but when I mentioned him to Maureen she said that she hadn’t seen hide nor tail of him.’

‘Probably up to no good,’ said Rebekah politely. ‘Remember the telegraph wires being cut on the Wirral? They got Sinn Feiners for it? I bet he’s been up to something like that! Some Republicans are still at war with the British.’

‘You mean – he’s a terrorist and was making a quick getaway on the Irish ferry?’ Brigid’s voice rose to a squeak.

Rebekah stared at her and the hurt that Brigid’s words had inflicted caused her to say, ‘He’s a troublemaker! And for all you know the police might have been watching him and now could be watching you!’

Brigid’s mouth fell open and she crossed herself quickly, glancing about her. At the sight of a policeman standing on the other side of the road she darted behind Rebekah. It proved too much for her
when she had had nothing to laugh at for ages, and she burst out laughing. ‘You idiot! Nobody’s going to arrest you!’

For a moment Brigid did not move then she smiled. ‘You thing! Yer had me going then!’

Rebekah’s eyes still wore a warm expression. ‘You hurt my feelings. I do still care for Daniel, but I wanted to please my father and I wanted children. It’s all right for you. There’s your Pat and your Kath and her kids. Then there’s your other sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles. I only have Aunt Esther.’

For a moment Brigid was silent. ‘Veronica misses you. Why don’t yer come round some time? Our Pat’s home at the moment, but he left Green’s and does long trips to Australia now. He’ll be sailing in a day or so.’

Rebekah’s expression softened. ‘Thanks. Perhaps I will.’

‘Do yer love his lordship?’ asked Brigid tentatively.

‘Don’t ask daft questions.’

Brigid burst out, ‘Are you happy?’

‘I’m as miserable as sin. If he pops off, I won’t grieve.’

Brigid stared at her. ‘Yer terrible!’ She started to laugh.

‘Aren’t I just?’ Rebekah’s laugh was hollow. ‘I want to leave him.’

‘Yer what?’ The laughter died on Brigid’s face.

‘You heard me. He’s a real – monster.’

‘What d’yer mean, he’s a monster?’

Rebekah shrugged. ‘I can’t tell you everything now. Joe’ll be back in a minute.’

Brigid scrutinised her face. ‘We’ll have to meet again,’ she said. ‘Soon.’

Rebekah nodded. ‘When does Joe go back?’

‘In a couple of days. We can meet on Friday. I have a half day.’

‘Right.’ Rebekah freed a shaky breath. ‘You can’t know how glad I am that I went to see Ethel M. Dell.’

‘I do,’ said Brigid, and hugged her. ‘Here’s yer tram. I’ll meet yer outside the new Palladium on West Derby Road at one.’

Rebekah nodded and caught the tram. Her mood was buoyant as she travelled home.

Joshua was there before her and her spirits sank at the sour expression on his face as he looked up from his newspaper. ‘You’re late.’

‘I went to Cooper’s in town to get that special cheese you like.’ Impulsively she put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. ‘How are things in the shipyards now that the engineers have returned to work? Will you be getting that ship converted?’

‘Probably.’ He looked at her, an arrested expression on his face, then folded the newspaper and put his arm round her waist, squeezing it. ‘That trip I mentioned to New York – I’ve got to go in a couple of days. I could be away for a few weeks.’

For a moment Rebekah could not speak for joy
but she schooled herself not to show her true feelings. ‘I’d go with you but I think I’d find it too upsetting still,’ she said, infusing a touch of regret in her voice. ‘It’s only now that I can think of Mama and Papa without it hurting. Memories would come flooding back and we don’t want that, do we, just when I think I might be forgetting the past.’

‘You’re talking about O’Neill?’ He pulled her against him and frowned into her eyes.

‘Who?’ she said lightly.

Joshua smiled. ‘I told you I’d make you forget him.’ He stroked her shoulder, and his fingers wandered over her breast. ‘He could never give you all what you have here with me.’

‘No.’ She forced herself to press her lips against his. ‘You aren’t too angry at me staying at home?’

‘I understand. Although you’ll have to make up for it tonight. Perhaps tonight will be the night. I would have thought you’d have started having a baby by now.’

‘I’m not.’

A disgruntled expression settled over his face and she kissed him quickly, knowing that it was going to be difficult because she had a period.

Rebekah closed the door and her dancing footsteps echoed round the hall as she spun round and round with Moggy in her arms. ‘He’s gone! He’s gone!’ she whispered in the cat’s flickering ear. ‘And he won’t be back for weeks!’ Perhaps she should leave him now
before she did start having his baby? She had saved forty pounds and Joshua had left her money to live on. She could get a job. Any job! And if she pawned a few things that would bring in extra money. The white fox furs could go. They reminded her of that honeymoon in Chester. She thought of how Joshua had spoken of his hatred for Daniel and then shook her head to rid herself of the memory, considering instead how Veronica had believed that she had seen Daniel. Perhaps she had mistaken him for Shaun? They were brothers after all and Shaun might have grown more like Daniel over the last couple of years. She would mention that, and about pawning the furs, to Brigid whom she was meeting in an hour’s time.

Brigid shook her head uncomprehendingly and stroked the white fox furs. ‘I know men can be cruel, but to hit you and want to beat you … I don’t understand it.’

Rebekah tucked her arm in Brigid’s. ‘I haven’t told you the half of it, and I’m not going to,’ she said lightly. ‘But you do see why I want to leave him?’

‘Yes. Although – don’t you think he’ll come after you? The law would be on his side, you know? He could make you go back and he’d be mad at yer, wouldn’t he?’

‘I know.’ Rebekah felt cold and sweaty at the thought. ‘That’s why I have to get away now, before he comes back. Can you pawn the furs for me?’