Читать книгу A Daughter’s Secret - Anne Bennett - Страница 7

TWO

Aggie recalled that walk home many times. She remembered how secure and protected she had felt. McAllister had his arm tight around her so that, despite the bleakness of the night, she felt glowingly warm inside.

He had been telling himself since they’d set out to go easy and have a bit of common sense, but the very nearness of Aggie was making him harden. He knew to touch her was madness. Hadn’t his wife threatened what she would do if ever she found him at it again, after that last time?

And he knew that if they hadn’t had the offer of the grocery store, and been able to flee to Ireland when they had, he’d have more than likely been laid out in a hospital bed, if not on a mortuary slab, as soon as the pregnancy of their neighbour’s daughter had become obvious. He remembered how she had pleaded with him for help and he had promised to think of something, even as they were making plans to leave. He had blamed the girl for her condition, though, claiming that she had teased him and flirted with him outrageously and that a man was only flesh and blood after all.

He had seen the telltale flush of shame steal over the girl’s face and she had even apologised for leading him on so. He had patted her hand and said she wasn’t to worry her wee head about it any longer; that he would deal with it.

How Philomena found out he never knew, but she had and she was not best pleased. Yet she made plans to leave at once and in the early morning before many were astir. McAllister had a fleeting flash of pity for the young girl left alone to cope, but it was gone in an instant and he had to admit he was relieved to be away out of it.

When Philomena saw this, however, she had snapped, ‘This isn’t being done to save your skin, so never think it. What you did to that young girl was disgusting and my heart goes out to her and the life she will likely have because of you. But I have my own weans to see to. It would not help them if you were dead or crippled, and I know you would be one or the other if we stopped here one moment longer than necessary.’

He knew she was right. He was also well aware that the girl would name him as the father, because if she wouldn’t tell willingly, her father was the sort to beat it out of her. Then he and the son would have come for him. Fear had crawled all through McAllister at that thought. His salvation, in the shape of a grocery shop in a remote part of Ireland, hadn’t come a moment too soon.

‘I appreciate it,’ McAllister had said to his wife. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘You’re always sorry,’ Philomena had replied scathingly. ‘And in the end it makes no odds. But I am telling you now, Bernie, I know that that girl was not the first, but she will be the last, for if this ever happens again, that will be the finish of us.’

‘It won’t, I promise.’

‘You’ve promised more times than I have had hot dinners,’ Philomena snapped, ‘but this time think on, because I mean it. Keep your hands to yourself and your prick in your trousers, and we will get along well enough.’

Philomena had meant every word. He remembered that she had kicked up shocking when he had suggested the dancing and music lessons.

‘They have no one to teach them,’ he had told her. ‘Surely you are not for them forgetting their heritage.’

‘It may surprise you to learn that we have a business to run, Bernie McAllister,’ Philomena had said. ‘If you have time and energy enough for this, then I suggest those energies would be better employed the other side of the counter.’

‘It would stifle me, woman,’ McAllister had protested. ‘A man has to have some outlet.’

‘Are you sure you are not up to your old tricks?’

‘For God’s sake, woman, are you crazy or what? Don’t you think I’ve learned my lesson this time?’

‘I certainly hope so.’

‘Look, I teach the music at the children’s own homes and the dances at the church hall in a group.’

‘Well, yes, I know,’ Philomena conceded.

‘Then trust me.’

And Philomena tried. She knew that Bernie was no model husband. He said the grocery shop bored him, and certainly he was seldom seen behind the counter. He also drank far too much, but all that Philomena could put up with. As the months and then years passed she even told herself that the flight to Ireland had at last seemed to cure him of his taste for young girls, so that when he told her he was selecting two of the older and better dancers for special tuition one evening a week, she had dampened down the suspicion that arose in her. When he said to her, ‘Look, Philomena, I know how you feel, and with reason, but I promise that I will never see either of the girls alone,’ Philomena’s fears abated somewhat.

Then why hadn’t he allowed Aggie to go home that night; even sent word to the house and told her not to bother coming out? He knew why full well. The madness was coming over him again and the blood was coursing through his veins at the nearness of the girl tucked in beside him so tightly he could hear her heartbeat.

When she gave a sigh, snuggled closer and said, ‘I love being here with you like this and I am so grateful for you leaving me home,’ he knew he had lost any shred of reason that might have been attached to him. Overpowering lust had taken its place.

‘How grateful are you?’ he asked Aggie huskily, as he pulled her to a stop and turned her to face him.

She smiled as she said, ‘Lots.’

‘Grateful enough to give me a kiss?’

Aggie hesitated. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘I thought you were grateful,’ McAllister said reprovingly. ‘Fine way to show it. What harm is a kiss between two people who like each other?’

‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Aggie had to admit.

‘Well, then?’ McAllister said, opening his arms wide.

Aggie couldn’t remember the arguments for feeling it wrong to kiss McAllister, especially when she wanted to so much. She went into his arms willingly. This time, though, McAllister prised her mouth open with his tongue while his other hand fumbled underneath her shawl. Aggie was totally startled and a little afraid. She struggled, but even with one arm McAllister held her fast with ease, and the groan she gave of dismay and distaste he thought was one of pleasure.

Then the shawl fell from her shoulders and McAllister’s hand began to caress her breasts.

‘Please, please stop,’ she said when she eventually pulled her mouth away from him and struggled to free herself. ‘Let me go, Bernie. Please, for God’s sake.’

McAllister took no notice. There would be no stopping him now. His whole body was on fire to taste the delights of Aggie and he was also impatient. When he couldn’t work out how to unfasten her dress, he took hold of the neck and ripped it down the front.

Aggie felt the night air hit her bare skin. She gave a yelp of terror and tried to twist from McAllister’s arms as she cried, ‘Please, Bernie. We can’t do this, really we can’t.’ She felt the tension running all through him and she was desperately frightened. ‘What’s come over you?’

‘You, my darling girl,’ McAllister said. ‘God Almighty, you have bewitched me totally.’

‘Let me go, Bernie. Please! I am begging you,’ Aggie cried.

‘Let you go? No, my darling girl. I am going to show you a good time.’

‘I don’t want it. Really I don’t. I just want to go home.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ McAllister said almost harshly. ‘You want it as much as I do. Why else were you snuggling in so close?’

Aggie was mortified by shame. Had she brought this on herself? ‘I didn’t mean … not this … I meant it just as a friend.’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me,’ McAllister said. ‘You were ripe for it right enough. Almost begging for it, you were.’

Aggie was so frightened she had trouble drawing breath to speak, but she knew she had to make McAllister see he had made a mistake, and with a supreme effort she pulled herself away from him, panting as she faced him. ‘If I did show you that I was willing and all,’ she gasped, ‘then I am heart sorry. I didn’t mean you to think that, but I see that I probably am at fault as well, so shall we say no more about it and I will go on home by myself from here?’

‘Just who are you trying to kid?’ McAllister said. ‘You stand there half naked and say words your whole body is denying. You are so craven with desire you can barely speak.’

‘No,’ Aggie said. ‘I can’t speak because I am so feared.’

McAllister shook his head as he might at a naughty child. ‘It’s not fear you are displaying, but pure carnal lechery, which I am going to satisfy before you and I are much older.’

‘No, Bernie,’ Aggie said, backing away.

‘Ah yes, Bernie, yes,’ McAllister said. He made a grab for her, grasping her so tight she was unable to break free. ‘That is what you will be saying before the night is done.’

He pulled Aggie down to her knees, still clasped tight in his arms, and then pushed her with such force that her head hit the ground with a resounding crack. For a moment or two her senses reeled and McAllister took advantage of that. His hands shot beneath her clothes and he pulled off her knickers and stockings in one swift movement, and so roughly his fingernails scored deep scratches down her legs.

This brought Aggie to her senses and, though whimpering with fear, she began to fight like a wildcat.

‘So that is the way you want to play, is it?’ McAllister asked almost in amusement, catching hold of Aggie’s flailing arms and pinning them down across her body with one hand.

‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream,’ Aggie said fiercely, though even as she said it she wondered what good it would do. The wind would snatch away the sound of any scream, and who would be around to hear it anyway? There were no houses near and few would be abroad at that time of night.

McAllister threw himself on top of her. ‘Scream away then, though I might have something that will take away any desire to struggle at all.’

Aggie looked at him in terror. In all her fifteen years she had never seen a naked man, but she had seen the mating of the animals and so she knew what she was feeling between her legs. ‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged again. ‘Let me go now and I swear on my mother’s life that I will not mention this to a soul.’ Then seeing that had no effect, she said, ‘What of Philomena and the children?’

‘What the bloody hell is it to do with them?’ McAllister asked. ‘Come on, we have prevaricated more than enough,’ he went on irritably. ‘My bloody cock is ready to explode, I can tell you.’ He drew a fresh hip flask of poteen from his pocket as he spoke.

‘I’m not having any of that,’ Aggie said, ‘so don’t think it.’

‘Oh, but you are, bonny girl.’ McAllister lifted the flask to her lips. But Aggie threw her head from side to side so that the dribbles of poteen spilled from her mouth and ran down her neck.

McAllister was furious. He gave Aggie a punch in the face, causing her eyes to go out of focus and her nose to pour with blood, and she cried out in pain and terror.

‘Now look what you have made me do,’ McAllister said. ‘Just because you weren’t being a good girl and doing as you were told. Now open your mouth and swallow this nice and easy, or I will make you swallow it.’

Too frightened not to obey, Aggie opened her mouth a little and McAllister put the flask to her lips again. To make sure she would swallow this time, he held on to her bruised and smarting nose. Aggie gulped at the fiery liquid, feeling it burning her throat as it went down and then hit her stomach like a ball of fire. But far more worrying, the more of the stuff she drank, the less she wanted to fight off the man lying on top of her.

When Aggie’s useless arms fell to the sides of her body and stayed there, McAllister smiled, knowing that now she would be unable to prevent him doing what he wanted. He took the drained bottle away and let his hands trail over her body.

Part of Aggie knew she should protest at this, but she didn’t seem able to. It was as if it was happening to someone else and she was out of her body, looking down on herself. The moan took her by surprise. McAllister heard it and knew she was drunk enough to pose no resistance at all.

When he slipped his hands between her legs and began to caress her, she burned with shame for what she was allowing him to do to her, and she knew she should at least try to protest. She opened her mouth, but what came out made no sense at all and McAllister looked at her and laughed.

‘You are spouting nonsense, bonny girl,’ he said. ‘Just lie back and enjoy it.’

Aggie stared at him. She knew she was wicked because she should be pushing McAllister off and at least attempting to fight, but she seemed unable to, and she was too frightened to enjoy anything.

He entered her forcefully and she gasped as he whispered in her ear, ‘Now, my little wanton, are you not gagging for it?’

Aggie didn’t even try to answer as a sudden, stabbing pain shot through her and she cried out in alarm, but McAllister took no notice and continued to pound into her. Each thrust caused her such discomfort that she bit her lips to prevent herself crying out, afraid of inflaming McAllister’s anger and giving him cause to hurt her further.

When it was all over McAllister said, ‘Jesus Christ, Aggie, but you are wonderful. In fact you are absolutely bloody marvellous and we’ll take care to repeat that experience very soon.’

The words seeped into Aggie’s addled brain and so did the realisation of what she had done. She knew it was the very worst sin a girl could commit, and she didn’t know how in the world she had allowed it to happen.

She tried to tell McAllister how she felt, but it was as if her brain and her mouth were unconnected, and he just laughed. She beat at him with her fists, but there was no power in the blows and he laughed again. But at least he rolled from on top of her and left Aggie shivering in abject fear and helplessness.

‘Cover yourself up, for Christ’s sake,’ he said almost harshly, pulling her to her feet. ‘Put your shawl around you at least.’

But Aggie seemed incapable of anything. She staggered and would have fallen had he not caught hold of her.

‘For Christ’s sake, get a grip on yourself.’

Aggie said nothing, but stood swaying and staring at McAllister until he picked up the shawl from the ground, saying as he did so, ‘Don’t look at me that way. You wanted it as much as I did and you can’t deny that now, can you?’

Aggie shook her head but it seemed to be filled with cotton wool and she couldn’t form any words. She could remember the sexual act, though. It seemed etched in sharp relief on her brain and she imagined it always would be.

‘And whatever you think now, it was bloody marvellous,’ McAllister said, ‘in fact so good that if you don’t get dressed soon, I may begin all over again.’

Those words sent Aggie scrambling for her torn dress, though McAllister had to help her put it on. She was able to put on her own knickers but the stockings befuddled her altogether until she gave up on them and, holding them in her hand, pushed her bare feet into her boots.

McAllister tucked the shawl around Aggie’s shivering frame and said, ‘Will you be all right from here?’

Aggie looked at him wordlessly. She was having trouble standing and didn’t know if she would be able to put one foot before the other, but McAllister seemed interested only in himself.

‘Philomena will be wondering,’ he said, as if he had just remembered that he had a wife.

Aggie wanted to beg him not to leave her drunk and alone, and to give her some idea how she was going to get into the house unseen, or tell her what tale she could tell her mother to explain any of this, but she knew she could never manage to say any these things.

She could hardly believe it when McAllister just melted into the night and left her totally alone and so drunk she had trouble standing up. She wanted to call to him to come back and not abandon her in this way, and she actually tried to follow him, but her legs buckled, she fell to her knees and wept.

When McAllister reached home, Philomena, worn out by four weans to see to and a grocery store to run, had taken herself off to bed. She had left the lamp on low and, as McAllister turned the wick up to throw more light into the room, she woke from her semi-doze and watched him undress through narrowed eyes.

He had a look on his face that she had seen before, like a cat that has had the cream. As he nipped out the lamp and slipped in beside her she smelled the sex on him, even overriding the ever-present smell of poteen.

She felt her heart plummet to her boots and wondered who had had his attention that night. She knew it was his night for taking the two older girls and hoped to God it wasn’t one of those he had taken down. Dear Christ, they were little more than children, and neighbours into the bargain.

She would confront him – ask him outright. But what would that achieve? She knew he would deny it and she would get angry and so would he, and the shouts and roars of them might waken and frighten the weans and resolve nothing …

However, McAllister had noted her slight movements. ‘You awake, Phil?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, now don’t be like that,’ he said coaxingly. ‘Isn’t this your darling husband, come to give you a bit of loving before we both settle down for the night?’

Philomena gave a shiver of distaste, knowing her ‘darling husband’ had just come from a sexual encounter with another. ‘Not tonight, Bernie. I am tired, so I am,’ she said.

‘Tired be damned, woman,’ McAllister snapped angrily, grabbing for her. ‘You are my wife.’

‘Aye, poor foolish sod that I am,’ Philomena might have said. But she didn’t. She knew him well and felt his tension like a coiled spring that night. If she were to inflame him in that state she might well come off the worst for it. Instead, with a sigh, she submitted to him and, after pawing and groping at her, he had his way, as she had known he would.

Fully satisfied, he had fallen asleep almost immediately. Philomena listened to his even breathing and felt so degraded that she cried herself to sleep.

Tom was concerned. Aggie was usually home long before this and he wondered if some accident had befallen her. He couldn’t go and look for her because he was alone in the house, apart from Nuala and Finn, in their beds and fast asleep, and he couldn’t leave them unattended.

His father had left just after evening milking. He had closed a deal on a bull that afternoon and had gone off to Buncrana to seal the sale over a few pints, as was the custom. Tom knew from experience he wouldn’t be back for hours yet.

His mother, though, could be in at any time, for she had gone to help a neighbour who was having a baby. Aggie wasn’t long out of the house when the Lannigans’ eldest boy came over and said his mammy was took bad and had been like it all the day. Biddy knew she was expecting but the baby wasn’t due for a few weeks yet.

‘I must go up and see what’s what,’ she had said to Tom, ‘for all I’d like to seek my own fireside this night. Sadie’s man is away in England working and she has three weans to see to. I’ll take Joe with me in case I have to send for the doctor. You wait here with the wee ones until Aggie comes home.’

But Aggie hadn’t come home and if she didn’t return before her mother, she would probably feel the sting of the bamboo cane kept by the side of the fireplace.

Tom crossed to the window and looked out. He was almost certain he saw a shape at the head of the lane and it certainly wasn’t his mother, who would in all probability come across the fields anyway as that had been the way she had gone. It must be Aggie. Then why didn’t she just come on down to the house?

Sudden apprehension that something was very wrong caused the hairs on the back of Tom’s neck to rise. He took his jacket from behind the door and left the house.

Aggie had eventually pulled herself up by holding on to the hedges. She ached all over and the pain between her legs was almost unbearable. Shambling and unsteady, she slowly made her way forward by holding on to the bushes, though she fell to her knees more than once.

At last she stood unsteadily at the head of the lane, looking down on the cottage where the lamp shone brightly in the window. She didn’t know what to do next. Only one thing was certain and that was that her mother would beat the living daylights out of her when she saw the state of her. Her insides crawled with fear of going home and of not going home, and tears seeped from her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

When Aggie saw Tom appear before her it was as if her last vestige of strength oozed out of her and she sank to the ground with an anguished cry.

‘Oh, Tom!’

‘What is it, Aggie?’ Tom cried, going forward, and then he was nearly knocked back by the smell of poteen. He recoiled and gasped almost in disbelief, ‘Aggie, have you been drinking?’

Aggie nodded and, concentrating hard, she said, ‘Lots.’

Her words were slurred and indistinct, but Tom understood and he was shocked to the core that his elder sister was in such a state. She clutched at him and began to cry.

‘Hush, Aggie. Come on now,’ he said almost impatiently.

‘But he took me down, Tom.’

‘Ssh,’ said Tom, looking about anxiously. Words carried in the night air and those were not words to be said where any might overhear. He hoped to God it wasn’t true, that it was the ramblings of a girl in the throes of drink, but a dead weight seemed to settle in his stomach. ‘Come on, let’s get you up to the house,’ he said.

‘I can’t, Tom. Mammy will—’

‘Mammy isn’t there,’ Tom said and, in an attempt at light-heartedness added, ‘You have chosen the right evening to go on a bender. There is only me and the wee ones home because Mammy is at Sadie Lannigan’s, as she was took bad, and she took Joe along with her. So let’s away in before they are back and you can tell me all. Can you walk if I support you?’

Tom almost carried Aggie, and was very glad to reach the cottage and lower her gently into a chair. There he surveyed his sister properly and gasped with horror. He noted the slack mouth and vacant eyes of the very drunk, but he also saw that the eyes had been blacked – by someone’s fist, by the look of things – and tear trails were visible on her cheeks, mixed with dried blood smeared across her face. Her shawl was earth-stained, her dress ripped so that it was almost indecent. He saw too that her legs were bare and that her knees were grazed and had been bleeding. There were two deep scratches the length of her legs and she held her stockings screwed up in her hand.

He could barely speak he was so angry, but he was also not quite sure what to do. He knew before all else he had to try to sober her up so that she could tell him who had hurt her, but he was terrified that any minute his mother would burst through the door. If she saw Aggie in this state she would surely kill her.

He brought Aggie a drink of water from the bucket by the door and gave it to her because it was all he could think of. She drained it thankfully and he brought her another. Again Aggie took the cup and drained it.

Then Tom said, ‘Who did this to you?’

There was no point in lying. Aggie looked at her brother steadily. ‘Bernie McAllister.’

Her words were indistinct and little above a whisper, but Tom understood her and felt himself burn inside. He was just a boy and so he said to Aggie, ‘Daddy will trounce him when he hears this.’

‘Tom, Daddy is to know nothing,’ Aggie said, clutching his arm. All the way home, the one coherent thought in her head was that she had to keep silent about the whole thing. She knew McAllister would say she was willing and then she would be the one being trounced.

‘He has to know,’ Tom insisted. ‘Didn’t he bash your face up and all?’

Aggie nodded. ‘He made me drink. He held my nose.’

‘Well, then. If you tell Daddy that …’

Aggie’s heart began to jump about in panic. She knew she had to make Tom see the reason for secrecy. She concentrated and said, ‘McAllister will say I took the drink of my own free will, and that I was more than willing for sex, and they will believe him,’ she said sadly. ‘You know they will.’

Aggie didn’t understand herself why a stranger was believed over a family’s own flesh and blood, but that’s how it was. It always seemed to be the woman’s fault. She knew the cruelty of McAllister now. A man who could make her drunk so she was incapable of preventing him violating her, and then abandon her in the dark and freezing cold when she had been barely able to stand, would have no qualms in telling everyone the wanton that Aggie had become that night.

She could almost hear him say that she had become addled with the drink she had begged from him and had offered her body for sex and enjoyed it as much as he had. She knew once he told this tale, faster than the speed of light she would be locked up in one of the convents for bad girls that she was supposed to know nothing about.

Tom was still shaking his head. He couldn’t understand this. In his book, you did wrong and you were punished. That was how things worked.

‘It’s wrong that he should get away scot-free,’ he said.

‘I am not prepared to run the risk of telling our parents, are you?’ Aggie asked bitterly.

Tom looked into Aggie’s eyes and saw the fear there, and even understood some of it. He shook his head; he felt completely helpless. He said, ‘Shall I make you a cup of tea, Aggie? I have the water boiling and people say it’s good for shock.’

Aggie gave a sigh. ‘That would be good,’ she said. ‘And then I need a bowl of warm water. I need to wash all over.’

‘I will fetch your nightdress from the room,’ Tom said, ‘and then sit in there until you are done. But be quick. Mammy may be in any minute.’

With Tom out of the way, Aggie began to wash herself as fast as she could from head to foot, dabbing at the bruises on her face and legs but being more fierce altogether with the dried blood on the inside of her legs. Once ensconced in her nightdress, and with a cup of tea inside her, Aggie felt a little calmer though she could still feel her heart thumping.

She said to Tom, ‘I think it will be better if I am in bed when they all come back, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ Tom said fervently. ‘I’ll say you were feeling badly and you pretend to be asleep whether you are or not, and face the wall so Mammy won’t catch sight of your face.’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Jesus, haven’t we enough to worry about today?’ Tom said. ‘Let tomorrow look after itself.’ And then as Aggie still hovered, he urged, ‘Go on, get yourself away. I’ll clear up here.’

‘All right,’ Aggie agreed, getting to her feet. ‘Thank you, Tom, for all you have done. There is just one more favour I must ask of you.’ She lifted her ruined dress from the floor as she spoke. ‘Will you burn this? It wouldn’t do for Mammy to catch sight of it.’

Later, before Tom thrust the dress into the fire, he examined it and gave a low whistle. He imagined a lust-driven Bernie McAllister tearing it from his sister and was angry that he would go unpunished. He shook his head, for hadn’t they already been down that road? To protect Aggie they both had to stay silent. He pushed the dress into the fire, poking at it almost savagely until the flames had devoured every vestige of it.