North Sea Requiem (33 page)

“It's nighttime.” Mae knew it was day because Moira was due to deliver the clean bucket and the water and the sandwiches for their evening meal—never anything at lunchtime. Mae lied because she couldn't tell Joanne they were locked up in a narrow, semi-underground sarcophagus in the darkest dark.

When the noise of padlock and chain and scraping furniture awoke Mae Bell from her more and more frequent spells where nothing penetrated, not even the boy's humming, this time she was prepared to attack the woman; Joanne's head wound was dangerous, perhaps fatal if they were not rescued soon. And her friend's condition gave Mae an added incentive to attack—if only she didn't feel so lethargic, if only her legs would move when she told them to, her arms lift without effort, her fingers not fumble with simple knots. Most of all she wanted her eyes to clear, the red clouds, the clear film swimming over the eyeballs, to disappear.

The door opened. Moira Forbes was illuminated in the fingers of light coming from the gaps in the sheeting over the window in the main part of the shelter. One hand was holding the small bottle out to one side. With the other she was putting a small brown cardboard box inside the door.

Moira, her voice kind, almost apologetic, speaking as though it was a completely normal conversation, was saying, “There's sandwiches in the box but stay in the corner please till I've gone or I'll have to throw the acid in your face.” It was as though she was warning a child not to go too near the fire.

Mae knew Moira would throw the acid without hesitation. She could still see the wild, staring eyes, the saliva leaking from a corner of her mouth as the woman had held up the bottle,
when Mae was first captured, saying, “You'll get the acid in the eyes, not in the throat like the nurse. That shut thon busybody up, didn't it?”

Mae would never forget how Moira held out the blue glass bottle, saying, “It will make a fine mess of your face. Burn your hair off, too.”

That day—Mae thought it was ten days or perhaps two weeks ago—Moira Forbes had come home from her doctor's appointment early, the queue being long, the wait an hour, so the receptionist had told her.

Mae knew that Moira was part of the clique who went to the dances held in the air base canteen. Mae now knew that Moira had known Robert. She knew Moira was already married to Mal Forbes, with a daughter, but that didn't stop her flirting with the airmen. She had found out that both Mal and Moira were working at the air base at the time of the plane's disappearance. Mae was convinced something had happened.

Then Moira had caught Mae Bell trying to pry the metal off the air raid shelter window. Mae Bell was trying frantically to reach whoever was crying bitterly, from pain or from fear. Moira had come up behind her, unheard because of the sobbing from the shelter, and grabbed Mae Bell by the hair, yanking her backwards onto the grass.

Moira was sitting on top of Mae Bell, straddling her. She started pounding up and down on Mae's torso like a frenzied perversion of sex, knocking the wind from Mae's lungs.

“What are you doing in my garden?” she'd said, the voice direct into Mae Bell's ear, not loud, more a hissing noise. And spitting. Mae felt the saliva running down her neck and longed to wipe the evil off her skin, but with both arms pinned to the ground, she could barely move. She was kicking, squirming, trying to bite, then decided on calm. She went slack. She would use her
voice. Moira was too strong; she had the strength of a gymnast—or a woman possessed.

“You know what's in here.” She took a bottle from her pocket, and without taking off the lid, she terrified Mae. She was waving it in Mae's face. “I'll pour it into yer eyes, see if that stops you being so nosy.”

“Hey. Let's talk about this. I'm sorry. If you let me up . . .” Mae tried to talk to Moira the way she would talk to the old horse that lived out the back of her late grandmother's place in the country. “I'm sorry,” but Mae found it hard to say more than “sorry.”

The continuous keening of the voice in the shed was disturbing, heartbreaking. Mae couldn't compete. She went stiff. The terror in her eyes was clear to Moira.

“That's better. Now I'm going to get up and you're going to go into the shed. Then I'll bring us all a nice cup o' tea.”

Mae had done as she was told. She went into the shed. At first she did not see whoever was in there with her. She sat on the floor, handed over her handbag; she had done everything Moira Forbes told her to do—the flat blue bottle hypnotizing her.

Mae waited first for Moira to return with the cup of tea. That didn't happen. She waited for the person whom she could hear breathing noisily through mucus-filled nostrils to calm down and speak.

Mae met the boy in the dark, dank shelter. Immediately she saw him in a chink of light; when she saw him, she knew he was Robert's child. For days and nights he cowered in the corner and wouldn't speak. It was like taming a wild animal. Moira must have put something in his food, because at night the boy slept for twelve hours, barely moving. In the daytime he was restless, lethargic.

It was after hearing the distant voices of strangers in the house that Mae and the boy were moved to the underground part of the former air raid shelter; from a dark, damp, but
not pitch-black room to the semi-basement of a dirt-floored, narrow, coffin-shaped space at the end of the original shelter. Normally the boy was in the house during the day, but after whoever it was had visited, no more daylight for the lad.

It's like those atom bomb shelters people in the States are being told to dig,
Mae joked to herself.

Her sense of humor was now exhausted along with every part of her body. It was Mal Forbes who had dragged Joanne in. Mae had been hoping, praying, he didn't know of his wife's madness and would release her when he found out she was being held prisoner. The sight of Mal holding Joanne by the arms, ignoring the blood from her head, ignoring the obvious—that she was injured, unconscious, in need of a doctor—made all hope vanish.

Mae Bell had tried to reason with Mal Forbes. “Help me. Help Joanne.” He didn't answer.
It's as if he can't see or hear me,
she thought.
As if he's hypnotized.

Moira was now removing the empty food containers. Then she took out the bucket that was near the door. Next she passed in a pail of fresh water—all the while holding out the bottle of vitriol.

“You must get help for Joanne.” Mae was trying to keep her voice calm. “No one will miss me, but you can be sure the police and everyone else will be looking for Joanne.”

“No one cares about Mrs. Joanne Ross.” Moira put in an empty toilet bucket before taking out the full one, as calm and organized as a farmer cleaning out the pigpen. “That woman's nothing but a hoor, living wi' a man she's no' married to.”

The boy was moving, swaying, muttering, not words, only sounds but increasing in volume. “Muuum. Reeen.” He hated the smaller room, the one he was always locked up in when he tried to get out into the garden and the light. He hated having to share with two big people, the space so tight he couldn't move around. He tried to stand.

“Get back!” Moira shrieked.

He moaned. Mae tried to grab his leg but missed. His moans became louder. Mae was horrified that even in these wretched, torturous conditions, he was reaching out to the woman saying, moaning,
Mum. Muum
. Reaching out for a touch from this monster. This demon he called Mum.

“Go on, get in there. I promise I'll be back for you soon, ma wee man. Just wait till we're rid o' them two, then you 'n' me'll be thegether again.”

That phrase sounded like a death sentence—
just wait till we're rid o' them;
it paralyzed Mae Bell. She knew what she'd said was true; there would be a major search for Joanne. Apart from the police, and her colleagues, she was absolutely certain McAllister would never give up until he found Joanne.
The man is in love. He is intelligent. He will do all that it takes to find her. But will he be in time?

“Let us out or you'll be the one locked up!” Mae Bell had summoned all the strength she could to threaten the woman, but Moira Forbes shut the door and all Mae could hear was the rattle of chain and padlock, the moving of furniture, and silence.

She felt across Joanne's body and held her fingers lightly against her temple. The pulse was faint. She tried the wrist. Very faint. The bleeding had stopped. Externally anyhow. Internal bleeding was another matter she tried not to think about. Her hearing was keen, and the lightness of Joanne's breathing, the shallow in-and-out, worried her most of all.

Joanne spoke—or rather breathed, single words, minutes, half hours, hours apart, throughout the day; consciously or unconscious Mae could not be sure.
McAllister. Water. Father. Nits. Water.

Mae was unsure of the last word but the boy said,
nits,
and scratched his head with both hands, saying,
nits, nits.

Mae told him, “We don't need nits right now.”

The boy smiled, the whiteness of his teeth creating a flash in the pitch black. “No nits. All gone.” He reached out and touched her lightly, and the touch of his wee hand on her leg made her almost weep; but she didn't. Knew she mustn't, knew if she started she would not be able to stop.

No nits,
she was thinking, but the itching, the crawling sensation on her skin revolted her. She tried rubbing her hands and arms and legs with cold water and the edge of the filthy sheets she had lain in for . . .
How long? Two weeks? Less? More?
She rubbed the dirt off in small granules, pellets, making her feel slightly cleaner. She stank but could no longer smell herself.

She was so hungry she was no longer hungry.
Don't need to use the bucket as much,
she said to herself, taking comfort from small mercies. It was the clumps of hair coming out in fistfuls when she scratched her head that upset her the most.
Robert loved my hair.

“A real blonde,” he said when they first spent the night together.

Not so much anymore,
she thought.

“Nits.” Joanne spoke clearly this time. “Nurse Urquhart . . .” she faded again.

Next night when the door opened, it was dim outside, northern long gloaming dim. With the toilet bucket removed, and the water bucket full, Moira put a tray with bread, cold potatoes, digestive biscuits, and a lump of cheese inside the door. The cheese, although tasty, with bread and biscuits and not enough water, made Mae Bell thirsty. But the boy liked it. He also had extra rations.

“Some nice ham sandwiches for you, ma wee lamb,” Moira crooned at the boy. “Thank you, Mummy,” he said. He'd learned good manners meant treats. “Good boy, Mummy. Can I play with Maureen?”

“Maureeen,” Joanne echoed in a voice so low it came out as an elongated keening.

“Get her a doctor, you bloody madwoman.” Mae was struggling to stand. “Throw your dammed acid but get her a doctor.” She fell backwards, landing on Joanne's foot. Joanne jerked, gave a cry, then passed out.

This time, when Moira Forbes once again dragged the cupboard across the door and they were left in the dark so black that the air itself felt heavy like a woolen wartime blanket, this time, Mae started to sob.

She shook. Her body convulsed with sobs so deep, she felt she would never have the strength to take the next breath. The little hand patting her, small regular pats on her back, slowed the sobs.

“There, there, dinny cry.” His accent an exact echo of his sister's, the gesture the same. He patted Mae Bell, his father's wife, his father's love, until her breathing became regular. Then she slept.

And when both women were deep asleep, he pressed up against the door and whispered,
Maureen, Maureeen.
He whispered at irregular intervals for almost an hour. He breathed the chant,
Maureen, Maureen, Reen, Reeen, Reeeen
. He stopped. Listened.

He heard movement but not the moving of the cupboard. It was too heavy for Maureen to shift, but she could whisper to him. The old door her dad had used, when he blocked off the space at the end of the shed with the two leftover sections of timber from the fence, did not fit. There was a good four inches at the bottom, wide enough for Maureen to pass a banana, a packet of shortbread, three gobstoppers, and a comic through. It never occurred to her that he could not read. Nor see in the complete dark.

“Crying,” he said. “She's crying.”

“Don't worry. She'll be gone soon.”

“New lady's sick.”

This puzzled her. She knew Annie's mother had disappeared.
She had heard her father shouting at her mother: “Moira, I can't protect you this time. The police are already suspicious.”

Could it be . . .? No. Why would Mum
 . . . ? She tried desperately to work out what was going on. She had heard her father make odd noises. He sounded like he was crying.

“Moira, Moira. What were you thinking?” he'd asked.

For Maureen, this was the worst part—her father crying. She felt helpless. She felt lonely. And really scared.

“I have to go,” she whispered through the gap in the door. “Night-night, Charlie, see you tomorrow.”

“Nigh-nigh, Reen.”

As she crept back to the house, taking care to keep to the shadow of the fence so her mother would not see her, she thought about it.
The lady would be gone soon; her dad said so. But what about Annie's mother? Is she in there too? And how will the other lady leave? Will she catch the train? Will she keep the secret about Charlie? Will the welfare come and get him like Nurse Urquhart threatened?

Maureen knew it was all her fault. Her mother had told her after Nurse Urquhart came to visit that it was all her fault.

“Why did you tell her you have a brother?” Moira shouted. “We've told you never to mention him. Now they'll take him away.”