When I woke up the morning was well advanced. To my astonishment the clock said nine-thirty. I listened with care but there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Please God, he had decided to go to work today and leave me alone. I felt frightened of his last words. What had he meant by them? My hope was that he had spoken in a drunken rage and his words were just so much hot air. I didn’t truly believe that he was as violent as Millie; not her sort of in-your-face violence. No, his violence was far more subtle and frankly a lot more frightening because he was intelligent and cunning.
I lay there and told myself that never, ever would I let myself get drunk again. My head was hammering and pounding, stomach heaving with nausea. What induced people to get drunk as if it was some kind of pleasure when this was the result the morning after? Plus that terrifying effect, the libidinous longing that it had aroused. Though I loved Ryan so much and often thought of how beautiful it would be to have sex with him, I had never before experienced quite the kind of unthinking lust of the night before when for a moment any man might have taken me, I wouldn’t have cared, so desperate was my desire to appease the raging need of the moment. Ryan had saved me, miraculously saved me. It was like Jane Eyre being saved by Rochester from the cold, hateful St John Rivers. I’d never have believed such a thing could happen – but it really had.
Pushing back the chest of drawers, I called Jim’s name but there was no response. I unlocked the door and peered out, glad to see the flat empty. He had gone to work – what a relief!
I washed and dressed, had a drink of water, then got my bags together. I wanted to get out as fast as I could. I didn’t have a lot of cash, that was my worry. How far could I go on what little was in my purse? I sat down for a moment to think about it. I didn’t have enough for the fare to Bournemouth. My plan was to go to Ethel’s place first and from there get in touch with Ryan and ask him to come and meet me when he next was ashore. Then we could decide what to do from there. Suppose Ryan didn’t want me any more! I had been so selfish, proud and unkind to him. The thought was too awful to contemplate.
Obviously keeping me short of cash like this was all part of Jim’s plan. I felt anger as well as fear rising in me at his scheming. Thank God, I’d kept the keys to the room in Portdown Rd and not given those to him as he had requested. I could go back there and wait for Luke McGraw to come home and ask for his help. I felt sure he would aid me. Jim wouldn’t think of looking for me there.
My mind relieved by this decision, I went to the front door. To my dismay I couldn’t open it. The bastard! He’d locked the mortise lock on going out and I was a prisoner. There was I locking him out and he’d turned the tables nicely and locked me in. I stood and screamed in panic but there was no one to hear me or if they did they ignored it. Did anyone live downstairs? And if someone did, how could they open the door without a key?
I sat down and wailed. He meant to keep me a prisoner. That was madness. He couldn’t keep me here forever. Maybe he just wanted to punish me, maybe he wanted to make me his sex slave. My mind reeled round a dozen different notions and none of them were pleasant. I felt truly frightened. Pulling myself together, I washed my face and told myself to stop bawling and work something out.
I looked around. There had to be a way to escape. Call someone in the street and get them to bring the police? I looked out of the window but the solitary passer-by with his dog was well down the road by now. It was such a tiny, quiet street, a culde-sac perhaps. I had no idea, hadn’t really taken much notice of where the street went as it wended in an arc and round the corner. Jim had mentioned playing fields but no one would be out there at this time of the morning. Someone must come by eventually but I dare not wait in case Jim was coming back. Anyway, they might think me mad if I said I was a prisoner and please fetch the police. It sounded like some bad B movie.
At the back of the flats the window overlooked a sort of lean-to affair which belonged to the people downstairs. It was intended to be a little sun-room and had corrugated plastic sheets on top to form a roof. It didn’t look very safe but I reckoned I could lower myself onto it somehow and at least it would break my fall. Sheets, that was the thing. I’d tie sheets together and get out that way.
I decided not to take all my luggage, just the essentials. Putting all these into a smaller bag that I found in the wardrobe, I knotted together as many sheets as I could find, slid them through the handle and lowered the bag onto the ground, letting one end go so that the bag fell the rest of the way but landed intact on the grass. Then tying the sheets tight to the leg of the bed, I began to lower myself down the side of the wall till I reached the lean-to and gingerly let myself onto it and from thence jumped the remaining six feet to the ground, rolling over on the grass and breaking half a dozen gladioli with my fall.
I expected some irate house owner to come charging out asking me what the hell I was doing, but no one appeared. Picking up my bag, I crept round to the gate that led out of the garden. In the kitchen I saw an elderly lady busy at the table, her back turned to me. She was obviously deaf as a post.
I took the bus to the Underground and from there to Archway. It made me feel strange to be back at Portdown Road, yet just now it seemed a lot safer than the flat I had escaped from. Letting myself into the house, I looked to see if Dixie Dean was around. I knocked at his door. His frightened old face appeared in the crack and I saw he kept the chain on now. Poor old man! I felt so sorry to have been the cause of making him miserable and afraid.
‘Wot you want?’ he quavered. ‘Ain’t you caused enough trouble?’
‘I just wanted to say how sorry I am you got accused of robbing me. I know who it was now, Dixie. I know it wasn’t you.’
‘I fuckin’ got framed,’ he said, ‘they should ’ang the bastard.’
‘I’m sorry, anyway.’
‘Fuck off,’ he said ungraciously and slammed the door.
I sighed but felt I’d cleared my conscience anyway. Clambering up the narrow stairs, I knocked on Luke’s door but there was no reply. Naturally, he was at work, one of the few people in the house with a regular job. I’d have to wait till he returned. I just prayed that Jim wouldn’t put two and two together and come here looking for me. He knew I had very little cash and couldn’t get too far. If only he hadn’t met Luke and I hadn’t kept going on about how nice he was. That might make him suspicious.
I left my bag in the room, made sure the door was locked, then thought with regret that I should have taken the spare keys in Jim’s mackintosh as well. Damn! On the other hand it would have been a real giveaway where I’d gone, so it was a risk all round. I went out for a walk and had some lunch at DeMarco’s. Queenie remembered me and smiled and asked how things were going.
‘I’m going home, Queenie,’ I said sadly.
She looked at me with sympathy. ‘You’re just a kid,’ she said, ‘shouldn’t be runnin’ about on your own. What’s your dad up to lettin’ you run about on your tod? I left home your age and wished I hadn’t. I’d have done better stayin’ in Bromley. Home’s best place for you, dearie.’
When she brought my meal she slipped me an extra roll and butter with a bit of ham in it. ‘Might be useful if you’ve a long journey ahead of you,’ she whispered. I felt tears come to my eyes again.
Returning to my room, I opened the door with some trepidation, my heart hammering in case Jim might already be here – but he wasn’t. I sat down and waited. At last I heard a step out in the corridor and peeped carefully round the door. It was Luke and my relief at seeing him was unbounded. I ran out to meet him.
He was astonished. ‘Miss Bridie!’
‘Oh, Luke … please help me, please say you’ll help me!’
He took a look at my distraught face and ushered me into his room.
Leaving the door partly open for propriety’s sake, a touch I found most old fashioned and reassuring, he told me to sit down.
‘What is it, what’s happened?’
I poured the story out to him, at least some of it. The details and background were not important. All he needed to know was that Jim had wangled it so I’d end up at his flat and tried to rape me and make me a prisoner.
Luke listened gravely.
‘This is a frightful story,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to help you, Miss Bridie. But how? If I try defending you, it’ll be his word against mine and you know who’ll win.’
‘No, Luke, I don’t want any heroics, believe me. I just want to get away from here, go back to my home in Bournemouth and find my fiancé. I just want to borrow enough for the fares. I’ll send you the money as soon as I get home or … ’ I broke off and removing the silver bracelet I always wore, a present from Ryan, I offered it to him. ‘Or you can keep this as collateral, if you prefer.’
He waved the bracelet away. ‘I will give you the money,’ he said. ‘I hate to see you in trouble. You’re a very nice girl and I’m honoured to think you came to me in a time of need.’
He gave me a ten pound note. Probably his week’s wages.
‘I can’t take all that.’
‘Take it. Who knows, maybe you’ll help me out some day.’
‘I hope I can, Luke. You’re a real gent. Tell me, what sort of work do you do? I keep wondering … you seem so… so well educated.’
‘I was trained as an accountant back home in Jamaica,’ he said, ‘I came here thinking, man, I’ll do really well here in Mother England. They promised all these good jobs. But they didn’t take account of how the people here would react to us “darkies”. One look at my face and my qualifications don’t mean a thing. So, I’m a bus conductor and that’s likely where I’ll stay.’
‘Don’t you ever want to go home?’
He looked wistful. ‘Don’t I just? You know, first time I saw fog I thought maybe this is the end of the world and started praying! Stupid but that’s how it was. I thought I’d come to a place clean, smart, rich and cultured. That’s how white people appear to us over in Jamaica, that’s how they all seem to be when they’re over there. But the reality is very different here in England. Poor white people look unhappy, scared and miserable here and I see my black friends getting that same look on their faces – pinched, dead like ghostly critters. But I have my pride, Miss Bridie. Back home they think I’m living in clover. I can’t disappoint them. And I still earn more than I would back there. There’s the old folks to think of and relations all looking forward to what I send them. Maybe some day … ’
We parted and I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.
‘I won’t forget you, Luke.’ I said. ‘I hope I can do you a good turn some day. I’ll write to you.’
‘I’d like that. Good luck, Bridie O’Neill. Be careful and keep away from London and seducers!’
‘Believe me, I’ll never come back again to the Big Smoke. I can’t wait to see the sea again. And my darling Ryan.’
I gave him a peck on the cheek and waving goodbye, left that house forever.
At Waterloo, I boarded the train to take me home to Bournemouth and leant back on the seat with the utmost gladness and relief in my heart. It had been mad of me to come. I was determined that I’d never have anything more to do with Jim Bosworth again in my life. I didn’t care if he lived or died.