One Blue Moon (17 page)

‘Thank you,’ her voice dulled to a cracked whisper.

‘And don’t bother to come in tomorrow.’

‘Don’t ...’ her heart beat unnaturally quickly, and her throat went tight.

‘I get girls in here every day looking for a job. The likes of you are ten a penny. This afternoon on my way to the bank, I called into the Labour Exchange.’ He smiled maliciously, savouring the power he wielded over her. ‘There was a girl there,’ he continued gloatingly, ‘just sitting, waiting for something to come along. Sharp young thing. Prepared to work five and half days a week for five shillings. And turn up on time every morning,’ he finished pointedly.

‘Mr Springer, I’m sorry,’ Diana was too panic-stricken to cry. If she lost her job she wouldn’t be able to pay Aunt Elizabeth her lodging money for more than a few weeks. And she wouldn’t get any help from the parish. All they’d see was a young, single girl without ties who could take a domestic job anywhere in the country. They wouldn’t take into account her need to be near Will, or Cardiff prison. ‘Please Mr Springer. Please, it won’t happen again I promise you,’ she begged abjectly. ‘Please. I’ll make the hours up I missed. Give the shop a good going through on Sunday ...’ Her voice faded to a whisper as she tried to think of other ways – any ways – to make him change his mind and keep her on. He studied her for a moment. There was a peculiar smile hovering at the corners of the mouth, and she smiled weakly too, hoping against hope that the smile meant he was considering her offer. That she’d touched his pocket and instinct for a bargain, if not his heart.

‘I’ll work for five shillings a week, Mr Springer,’ she begged swiftly, all sense of pride evaporating as the spectre of unemployment, real and terrifying, hovered at her elbow.

Ben continued to smile. He was wondering just how far she would go to keep her job. He eyed her up and down, noticing how the buttons of her tight cotton blouse strained over her bust. She was what he termed a ‘ripe piece’. Plump in all the right places, a nice change from most of the scrawny, scarecrow women around town. And a lot more attractive than his wife, who had left plumpness behind for obesity more years ago than he cared to remember.

Diana realised he was eyeing her, and swallowed hard. She knew exactly what that look meant. When she’d left Pontypridd for Cardiff she’d hoped to put her mother’s tarnished reputation, and the kind of advances it encouraged from men and boys, behind her. But events had soon led her to the conclusion that it must be something within herself that attracted the wrong sort of attentions, and made men see her as a loose woman, who was good for one thing, and one thing only.

Ben took a step towards her. Lifting his hand, he reached out, slowly, deliberately, and squeezed her left breast hard. She backed away, knocking over the pile of boxes that she’d heaped on the stool.

‘I’ll just pick these up.’ Taking care to keep him within her sight, she crouched down and began to pick up the boxes. He squatted beside her. Sliding his hand up her skirt, he rested his damp fingers on the welt of her stocking top. His touch burnt through the lisle to her leg. She could smell his sweat, feel the unhealthy sexual excitement rising within him.

‘Just a little touch ...’ His hand slid higher.

‘No.’ The voice was so resolute, so loud, Diana barely recognised it as her own.

‘You
do
want to keep your job, don’t you?’ he leered as he moved his hand higher. Pushing up the elastic on the legs of her bloomers he stroked her naked thigh. ‘Have you ever had it?’ he murmured, lifting her skirt to her waist with his free hand.

‘Mr Springer, please!’ She jerked awkwardly to her feet, dropping the boot box she was holding on to his toe.

‘That hurt,’ he protested, rubbing his foot.

‘It was meant to.’

She tugged down her skirt. Forgetting about her job, forgetting everything except the need to get out of the shop and away from Ben Springer as soon as possible, she ran into the stockroom to get her coat and bag.

‘That’s clever of you, Diana.’ He followed her into the long, thin, windowless cupboard, and slammed the door hard behind him. She heard a dull thud as he leant heavily against it. ‘It
was
too public out there. Where are you?’ He clicked on the electric light. She was holding on to her coat and bag, gripping them as though they were lifelines. ‘Don’t stay all the way over there,’ he murmured. ‘Come closer.’

‘No!’ Panic set in as she realised she’d boxed herself in with no avenue of escape. He was leaning against the only exit. There was nowhere for her to run.

‘Still pouting,’ he laughed, displaying two rows of chipped, yellow and brown stained teeth. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, only give you what you want. What you’ve been after ever since you walked through that door.’

‘I’m leaving!’ she announced, fear lending her false courage, but her bravado didn’t extend to walking as far as the door. After what had happened in the shop she was afraid to move close to him.

‘You do want to hang on to your job, don’t you Diana?’ he cooed softly. ‘The six shillings a week that keeps body and soul together.’

‘Not any more!’ Terror heightened her voice to a screech.

‘Such temper.’ He stepped away from the door and swung round in front of her, trapping her in a blind cul-de-sac. The coat hooks were at her back, and shelves ranged either side of her. They lined the entire storeroom, even running above the door, narrowing the free space to a corridor of little more than two feet. Diana backed away, still holding her coat and handbag like a shield in front of her. He stepped closer and she cracked her back painfully against a hook.

‘All I want is a good look,’ he murmured thickly.

‘Please Mr Springer, let me out,’ she pleaded, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life before.

‘Please Mr Springer,’ he mocked cruelly. ‘That’s all you’ve said for the past ten minutes, girl. Please Mr Springer,’ he repeated in a strained, high-pitched voice. ‘Well now it’s my turn to
please
you. Come on, you want it, you know you do. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have worn that tight skirt and blouse every day, or looked at me as coyly as you did, every chance you got. You would have sewn that button on tighter.’ His hand darted across the front of her blouse, flicking open a button, exposing the valley of her breasts above her bust shaper. She lashed out and hit him, but her arms were hampered by her coat and handbag. He responded, slapping her soundly and squarely across the face and sending her reeling sideways into the shelves. The sharp edges bit into her forehead and cheekbones, she crumpled. Sliding down towards the floor, she fought frantically to remain upright. She opened her mouth, tried to scream, but terror muted her voice to a pathetic whisper. He laughed.

‘If you find your voice, go ahead, scream,’ he taunted. ‘There’s no one out there to hear you. You wouldn’t be heard in the shop, let alone the street.’ Releasing her hold on her coat and bag, she summoned all the strength she possessed. Heaving herself to her full height, she grabbed the bottom box of a pile, and tugged at it, meaning to throw it at him. But so little stock had moved out of the shop since the closure of the pits that the boxes were jammed tight against the ceiling. She screamed again, loudly this time, but her voice echoed hollowly around her, muffled by the layers of boxes. He laughed, and she went berserk, fighting and spitting like a cornered alley cat.

‘Let me out, let me out of here you ...’ she lashed out with her nails, ripping the skin off his right cheek. He lifted his hand, saw blood on his fingers, and his smile dropped as fury burnt in his eyes.

‘Why you little bitch.’ He clamped his hand over her mouth and, using his body as a weight, pressed her down on to her back. Her abdomen and limbs were crushed by the weight of him, her nostrils full of the rancid smell of his unwashed body. She tugged his hair, twisting the thin, greasy strands around her fingers in an attempt to get a tight grip. He heaved himself upwards, she took a deep breath as the pressure on her chest relaxed slightly, but the respite didn’t last long.

He made a fist with his right hand, and using all the momentum he could gain in such a confined space, slammed it hard into the side of her head.

She was aware only of a wavering black smoke that blotted out most of the glow from the naked light bulb. Then the blackness was superseded by a crimson mist that carried with it an agonising awareness of pain. Bile rose on a turgid tide out of her stomach, but as she hadn’t eaten anything that day, not even breakfast, there was nothing for her to bring up.

She lay back, stunned and sickened, her head and face burning with pain, utterly helpless as he plundered her body. The sharp sound of tearing cloth resounded in her ears as he caught the neck of her blouse and ripped it downwards, exposing her underclothes.

‘Don’t,’ she mumbled weakly, through bruised and battered lips, as she felt his fingers clawing at her bust shaper. ‘Don’t!’

‘You little slut, you’re enjoying every minute of this. Girls like you enjoy it day and night. You can’t get enough of it, you fuck because ...’

She tried to close her ears to the string of obscenities that poured from his mouth. He was kneeling astride her, pinning her arms down with his massive calves. She struggled, succeeded in lifting her legs – a little. He used the opportunity to pull her skirt to her waist. Gripping the elasticated waist of her bloomers he heaved on them until she screamed from the force of the elastic cutting into her back. Finally it snapped. He thrust his hand between her legs, making her squirm.

‘That’s it, go on,’ he slavered, saliva drooling from his mouth on to her naked breasts as he played with them. ‘Struggle, fight, go on girl, move ...’ Tears fell from her eyes as she realised he had her trapped. She wasn’t going to escape. And her pitiful attempts to defend herself were only exciting him further. Crying at her own feebleness, vulnerability and impotence, she finally closed her eyes and fell still.

His hands sought and gripped hers. Pulling them above her head, he pinned them down together using only his left hand. He stretched out on top of her. Sliding his right hand between them he undid the buttons on his fly. She screamed as he thrust himself into her. Continued to scream the whole time he violated her. Until in the end she almost believed that she only existed as an extension of the pain, degradation and misery that he was inflicting on her.

Chapter Sixteen

Diana lay on the floor of the stockroom and cried. Her tears weren’t slight or silent ones, but great racking sobs that threatened to tear her lungs apart. Even Ben, who had retreated to the far side of the stockroom to button his fly and tuck in his shirt, was unnerved by the primitive, bestial sounds she was making. He combed his hair back from his face with his fingers, staring in horror when he saw blood on them. He touched his cheek tentatively. It was wet. Was the blood his or hers? He yelped as he found a scratch she’d given him.

He looked at her, disgusted with what he saw. A weak, sordid, crumpled heap of flesh. There were great rents in her blouse, blood on the bloomers that lay, torn and discarded, beneath her.

‘Stop whining, you stupid cow,’ he demanded, using the adjective he applied to his wife when they had one of their frequent rows. ‘Pull yourself together. You know you wanted it.’

Diana felt too used, too broken and too dirty to contradict him. She even began to wonder if she had wanted ‘it’, as he called the eternity of rough, banging, bruising and degrading violation. She’d wondered and dreamed about love and marriage for so long. Well now she knew exactly where all the sweet songs, tender words and poetry led.

Laying her head down on the musty-smelling floor, she closed her eyes. How could any woman want to do anything like that willingly? How did married women cope? Did they have to put up with it night after night or only sometimes?

‘Cover yourself, girl,’ Ben commanded abruptly as he opened the door into the shop. She heard him leave the cupboard. The noise diminished; she didn’t even realise she’d been making it. Tugging down her skirt, and clutching the tattered remnants of her blouse in her fist, she curled into a ball, faced the floor, and wished herself dead.

The pain between her legs was agonising. His sweat, now cold and damp, clung to her bare skin. The stench and the brutality of him permeated every inch of her. She heard the stockroom door open again, but she kept her face turned to the floor. It didn’t matter whether he was there or not. Nothing mattered any more. She just wanted to die where she lay. It would be bliss to sink into nothingness, not to feel anything, not ever again.

‘Here.’ He leant over her and she screamed. It did matter after all! She might not die quickly, and she couldn’t bear to repeat what he’d put her through. She wouldn’t be able to stand it ...

‘It’s your coat,’ he announced irritably, dropping it on top of her. ‘For God’s sake girl, you can’t lie around naked. Put it on.’ She struggled to her knees. Careful to keep her face averted from his, she did as he asked. He caught her roughly by the elbow and yanked her to her feet. She stared down at the floor. Her bloomers lay there, torn and stained. He picked them up and tried to ram them into the pocket of her coat, but she screamed again when he stepped near her. Only this time she didn’t stop. She just kept on screaming and screaming, until the noise in her head blotted out everything else. Even his presence beside her.

He slapped her across the face. Hard. Her cheek stung. The imprint of his hand stood proud and crimson on her skin, but he failed to silence her. He lashed out repeatedly. She went crashing into the shelves again, hitting her head where she’d hit it earlier. He grabbed her arm and propelled her out through the door before she had time to fall to the floor.

She was aware of a cold draught. Looking down, she realised that the front of her coat was open, exposing her breasts. Her thighs were cold, wet and naked beneath her skirt. Her stockings were damp, stained with sweat and blood. Turning her back to the window, she hit away his hand. Trembling like a leaf she began to fasten her coat buttons, slowly, one at a time. Her fingers were huge and swollen; stiff and suddenly arthritic, they refused to obey her commands.

The huge brass till clanged open. Ben walked towards her. ‘Here –’ he held out a five-pound note – ‘Here, take it,’ he commanded impatiently, thrusting it at her. ‘After all, you earned it,’ he jeered.

‘You ... you ...’ finding her voice at last, Diana could not find adjectives foul enough to express her opinion of him.

‘See you, same time tomorrow?’ he asked calmly.

‘I’ll never set foot over this doorstep again as long as I live,’ she hissed. ‘But you’ll see me in court. I’m going to the police. I’ll tell your wife. I’ll tell –’

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. Diana hadn’t been the first assistant he’d had in the stockroom, and in his, granted somewhat limited, experience, he’d learned that they were generally all right when they got to the threatening stage. And experience had also taught him how to handle the threats.

‘Tell them what, dear?’ he taunted. ‘That you stole five pounds out of the till, and when I asked you about it you tore your clothes and threatened to cry rape? Your word against mine, and we all know whose word everyone will believe.’

‘You hurt me,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I’m bleeding.’ She looked down at her stained stockings.

‘Everyone knows that a girl like you has a different boy every night. I’ve seen you myself in the café talking to the Italian boys. Not to mention Wyn Rees from the sweet shop. Now there’s an odd one for you to make a beeline for,’ he taunted. ‘More woman than man. One word about him will be enough to set the magistrate thinking about your tastes in the bedroom department. And then there’s that fair boy you wave to whenever he passes.’

‘He’s my cousin!’

‘There’s cousins and cousins. And things are not always what they seem.’

‘You swine. You bastard ...’ the words she couldn’t think of earlier tumbled out one after another.

He caught hold of her wrists and twisted them painfully. ‘One more sound out of you and I’ll spread it from the Graig end of town to the Common that you’re nothing but a common prostitute. Only being your mother’s daughter, you fancy yourself. Set your price higher than the vulgar herd who pick up their customers in station yard. A fiver as opposed to the bob they charge for a quickie in a shop doorway.’

‘I suppose that’s why I work here for six bob a week ...’

‘A girl without visible means of support soon gets picked up by the police. Your mother would tell you that if she was around,’ he sneered. ‘But then she didn’t get it right either, did she? It wasn’t enough that she was Harry Griffiths’ whore. She had to steal as well. Like mother, like daughter. Thief and whore, just like Mam. That’s what you are, a thief and a whore,’ he spat the words at her. And there’s no one who’ll see you otherwise, Diana Powell. Not when I’ve finished talking to them. No one.’

His laughter and his threats followed her as she ran sobbing out of the shop and down Taff Street clutching her coat over her naked bosom. A couple walking towards her stopped and stared. She ducked into the doorway of an empty shop. There were no lights there, so she felt safe, hidden by the darkness. She took a deep breath, made an effort to still the tremblings of her body, and smoothed back her hair.

As soon as she was able, she walked on, checking her reflection in the shop windows as she passed. She couldn’t catch a bus or a tram. Not looking like this. If she walked up the Graig hill slowly, sticking to the shadows and the side-streets, it would give her time to calm down. Maud wouldn’t be needing her blouse for a while. She could dump it together with the rest of her clothes over the mountain. If she was quick and careful she could run into the house and straight up the stairs. Change into her nightie before her aunt had a chance to see her. Whatever happened, she daren’t let anyone, especially Will, find out about this. He was hot-headed at the best of times. He’d give Ben a good hiding, and then Ben would see him put in jail too. Better she go into service and away from Pontypridd than that. Better anything than that.

‘I didn’t know you came down here.’ Eddie rolled around to the side of the rink where Jenny was sitting talking to Tina, Gina and Will – who had mysteriously disappeared ten minutes after inveigling him into spending sixpence of the money Charlie had paid him for working on his meat stall – in the roller-skating rink in Mill Street.

‘First time I’ve been here,’ Jenny smiled, taking the opportunity to move away from the others. Will and Tina were getting on her nerves these days. Always flirting with one another every opportunity they got.

‘Haydn picking you up?’ Eddie asked.

‘No,’ she said quickly. Too quickly.

‘No, of course not,’ Eddie murmured. ‘This place must close a lot earlier than the Town Hall.’

‘I thought you went training every night,’ she said, changing the subject.

‘I do. I’ll probably go down the gym later. I just came with Will after we’d finished on the market.’

‘You working on the market now, then?’

‘No. Only today. After ... after ... well it was too late to take the cart out,’ he finished tersely.

‘I heard about Maud. I’m sorry Eddie,’ she said softly. ‘But as my mother said over tea tonight, you can never tell with lung disease. The doctor told my Aunt Phoebe she wouldn’t live to see her eighteenth birthday,’ she smiled impishly, and Eddie noticed, not for the first time, what a beautiful smile she had. ‘Well Dad says that he’s sure my Uncle Arthur wishes Aunt Phoebe never proved the doctor wrong. According to Dad, he only married her because his family was nagging him to find a wife, and he finally settled on Aunt Phoebe because he didn’t think she was long for this world. They’ve been married thirty years this year, and now she’s twenty stone, and –’ she lowered her voice and put her mouth close to Eddie’s ear, ‘– a right old nag.’ she confided secretively.

‘I hope Maud lives to see herself married for thirty years,’ Eddie said sombrely. ‘You’re not having me on, are you?’ he demanded suspiciously, always on the lookout for people making fun of him.

‘I wouldn’t, Eddie,’ Jenny protested seriously. ‘Not about something like that.’

‘Want an orange juice?’ he asked, looking longingly at the wooden trestle table set out against the back wall where a woman was dispensing drinks into small glasses, and selling bars of Five Boys chocolate from a cardboard box.

‘I’ve used my free ticket,’ she said shyly, referring to the one that was handed over for the sixpence that also bought entrance and boot hire.

‘So have I, but Charlie paid me today. I’ll treat you,’ he offered generously.

‘All right, if you let me buy the chocolate.’ They sat side by side on the fringe of the area set aside for roller-skating, and took off the skates they’d hired.

‘My feet feel wonderful,’ Jenny beamed as they walked over to the counter. ‘Like I’m walking on air.’

‘I know just what you mean.’ He pulled two pennies out of his pocket. ‘Two glasses of orange juice please, Mrs Williams.’

‘And two bars of Five Boys,’ Jenny added, digging into her own purse.

Eddie dumped his skates under one of the small card tables dotted around the room and went back for the orange juices. He’d expected Jenny to sit opposite, but she sat beside him. Resting her elbows on the rickety table, she wrapped her long, thin fingers round the glass. Her perfume was the same one Maud and Diana used. He found himself staring at her hair. It was blonde, but lighter than Maud’s, almost white in colour.

‘So?’ Jenny questioned tremulously. ‘What’s big brother doing these days?’

‘Haydn?’ Eddie looked at her in surprise. ‘You’d be better placed than me to answer that question.’

‘Not any more.’ She unwrapped first the paper, then the silver paper from her bar. Staring at the faces stamped on the squares, she concentrated on the boy who was crying. He looked as miserable as she felt.

‘You saying you and our Haydn aren’t courting any more?’ Eddie stared at her, dumbfounded.

‘Haven’t seen him in a week,’ she said with a studied carelessness that she hoped concealed her pain.

‘Oh I know you two,’ Eddie coloured in embarrassment. ‘You’ll soon get back together again.’

‘Not this time.’ She snapped the miserable boy off the chocolate bar and ate him. It was most peculiar: she felt happier as soon as she’d swallowed the last trace of chocolate in her mouth. ‘But then,’ she gave Eddie a totally artificial smile, ‘there’s plenty of other fish in the sea.’

‘So they say,’ he muttered, thinking of the chorus girl Daisy, and the romp they’d enjoyed in Pontypridd Park. Pity there weren’t more around like her, but then, he didn’t often have the kind of money in his pocket that he’d spent on her, and he had the feeling that the likes of Daisy wouldn’t be interested in a man with only two bob. He looked at Jenny’s empty glass, remembered the orange juices and amended two bob to one shilling and ten pence. What the hell, may as well make it one and nine. ‘Want another drink?’ he asked, nursing his remaining half-glass of juice.

‘Only if you take me home afterwards. I promised my mother I’d be in by nine.’ She hadn’t realised just how handsome Haydn’s brother was until now. He was still young, a whole year younger than her, but he’d lost the scrawny boyish look that a lot of boys carried, even into their twenties. She noticed his muscles rippling under the patched jacket he was wearing. And in contrast to Haydn he was so dark. At that moment she felt his deep brown eyes and black hair would outshine the looks of any number of blonde Adonises.

‘Are you sure I should?’ Eddie asked earnestly. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to,’ he added quickly as an odd expression crossed her face. ‘It’s just that if Haydn should find out ...’

‘Even if he did find out, it’s nothing to do with him any more. I told you. Haydn and I are finished. He doesn’t want me.’ Jenny fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, and dabbed her eyes with it. ‘He doesn’t even talk to me any more. If he sees me he crosses the street. And I swear he walks down the hill along Leyshon Street and the steps into Graig Street rather than pass the shop.’

‘I can’t see our Haydn doing that,’ Eddie protested half-heartedly, suddenly remembering his brother’s recent sullen moods.

‘Look, the last thing I want to do is come between brothers, Eddie,’ Jenny said quietly. ‘It’s just that ... that ...’

‘What?’ he demanded curiously.

‘Oh nothing.’ She put away her handkerchief and broke off another piece of chocolate.