The Crying Game

by June Hampson

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

The Crying Game opens in 1944 and tells the story of Trixie – a girl who has only ever known turmoil. As a teenager, she covers up the terrible truth of her father's death and she and her pregnant mother go on the run. Little does she know that fate has more cruel twists in store. Determined to build a life for her herself, Trixie becomes a singer in the pubs and clubs of Gosport - but her heart is still set on finding the little brother she had to leave behind years before. It will take Trixie many years and many tears before the truth can finally emerge - but will it finally give her the courage she needs to fall in love? (web)

Release date: April 11, 2013

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 346

Sample

‘Shut that noise!’

Trixie’s father’s thunderous voice accompanied the well-aimed kick at her heavily pregnant mother sprawled helplessly on the floor, petrifying Trixie.

At the same time, ‘Leave ’er alone!’ Teddy screamed, heaving his skinny arm backwards and throwing with all his might.

The chopper seemed to embed itself in the side of Dad’s head then drop like a stone to the floor. Dad buckled at the knees, a look of great surprise on his face, and then he concertinaed down to lie face up over the axe, as though hiding the terrible instrument of his death.

Silence filled the sparsely furnished scullery. Even Mum, huddled on the floor near the fireplace, where she’d been trying to shield herself from Dad’s heavy leather workboots, stopped her dreadful screaming. Her unblinking eyes took in the still form and the blood oozing from Dad’s head. A glassy look filled her watery blue eyes as though she’d suddenly become unseeing. Outside, on the street, footsteps and voices could be heard. The siren had wailed, announcing the moment for people to make their way to Portsmouth’s air-raid shelters and safety from the bombs.

Trixie looked across the room at her brother, now sheltering behind the upturned ragged sofa and making hideous sounds as he cried and hiccupped into the torn sleeve of his jumper while muttering, ‘I didn’t mean to ’urt him, just to stop him.’

Trixie cautiously stepped towards the figure on the floor and looked down, half expecting her father to open his eyes, maybe even to leap up and clout her one. Her heart was beating fast. His blood had trickled across the floor, its brightness at odds with the dull pattern on the worn lino. He was quite still.

He looked peaceful. The red kerchief that all the boatmen wore gave her father’s handsome face, tanned by the open air, a rakish look. Although sweat stained, its colour was brighter than the blood.

A sudden spark bursting noisily from the applewood fire burning in the grate made Trixie jump and its noise brought her back to reality.

Teddy had killed their dad.

She knelt down and listened to his heart through his thick navy blue crew-necked jersey, but all she could hear was her own thumping against her chest. Another spark crackled loudly from the firewood as it jumped to the lino. Trixie stood up and put her foot over the burning splinter, her haste causing her sandal to kick against a tin mug with drops of weak tea inside. A piece of potato nestled next to a lump of carrot trodden into the rag rug. She could still smell the remains of the meatless stew that was to have been their supper even though the saucepan lay empty and upturned on the floor where Dad had thrown it.

She looked over at Teddy. Her brother had stopped sniffling.

They had to get their father’s body out of the house. To leave him here would cause all kinds of problems.

‘Is he dead?’ Teddy’s voice was shaking.

Trixie felt all the air leave her body as she looked down again at the man who had made their lives a misery. Never again, drunk or sober, would their father ever beat any of them. A feeling of thankfulness stole over her.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘he’s dead.’

‘What’ll we do? The police’ll take me away!’ Teddy was rocking his body backwards and forwards and staring at her as though she had all the answers. Trixie looked at her mother, slumped against the wall, thin hands clutching her swollen belly, supporting its heaviness. Her eyes in her wax-like face were blank.

Her mother needed help. The beating she’d received had stunned her.

And ten-year-old Teddy was out of his mind with shock at what he’d accomplished with one thoughtless action.

Trixie felt her brain flood with adrenalin. It was up to her to protect her mother and brother.

‘Grab Dad’s legs, Teddy. We’ll drag ’im downstairs to the winkle barrow and get ’im out of ’ere.’

With her heart beating so loudly she was sure her brother could hear it, Trixie bent forward and slid her arms beneath the big man’s shoulders and heaved. The smell of damp cloth and beer rose strongly to greet her. The bile rose inside her as her fine blond hair fell forward to mingle stickily with the bloody wound at the side of her father’s head.

Trixie, fifteen years old, was faced with disposing of her father’s body so that her brother wouldn’t be taken away for murdering him. She shook her head to dislodge her hair from her father’s congealing blood and screwed her eyes tightly shut, willing herself not to lose her courage to protect those she loved.

When she opened her eyes she saw the scullery with its dresser and a few precious blue and white plates still sitting on its shelves. She saw the overturned table and mismatched cutlery spread across the lino and she saw Teddy hadn’t moved except to continue rocking backwards and forwards.

Anger suddenly swept through her. ‘I can’t do this all on my own. You’ve got to help me,’ she cried. Teddy looked at her, tears welling in his eyes. He’s just a kid, she thought; he’s just a kid.

Somewhere near, in Pompey’s city, a bomb exploded. Trixie jumped. The building quivered and dust shook itself in the room then began settling like snow. Red and orange flared against the blackout curtains. The shadeless bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling swung crazily, moving in a dance of its own creation.

Teddy too was scared by the closeness of the explosion. The boy’s face was as white as parchment, his eyes wide as he thoughtlessly babbled, ‘I didn’t mean to kill ’im. Don’t let them take me away. I didn’t mean to kill ’im.’ Trixie sprang forward and delivered a sharp slap that echoed round the scullery. Teddy’s hand went to his face and it was as if the force of her smack had wakened him from a dream. Trixie, satisfied he had regained his senses, snapped, ‘Thank God the All Clear hasn’t sounded. When he’s found, people will think he got caught in the raid. With a bit of luck we’ll be out of the city and on our way by then.’ She watched and sighed as Teddy scratched his dirty blond head; the nits were biting again. No matter, she thought, how many times their mother washed the buggers out, they came back to haunt Teddy. Tears had flooded the little boy’s eyes. She gathered him to her thin body and felt him relax against her. ‘I know you didn’t want to hurt him,’ she murmured. ‘You just wanted to stop ’im beltin’ ten bales of shit out of our mum.’

A soft moan from their mother caused Trixie to look towards the hearth where she was huddled.

‘Chucking the axe at Dad’s head wasn’t the right way to stop the bugger, though,’ Trixie said. Pushing him away, she knelt and picked up the faded patchwork quilt from the floor and went over to stand looking down at her mother. Already bruises of blue and welts of blood red were appearing on the thin woman’s face and neck. ‘Got to go out, Mum,’ Trixie said softly, bending and tucking the quilt snugly around her. ‘I won’t be long.’ She kissed the woman’s damp forehead hung about with wispy bits of fair hair. Trixie could see her mother wouldn’t move while she was gone, might even welcome the peace after the aftermath of the row. ‘You,’ Trixie looked towards Teddy and her voice became firmer. ‘Help me.’

The noise from falling bombs hadn’t let up as Teddy tried grabbing hold of his father’s feet. Together, this time, they managed to manoeuvre the weighty form down the scullery steps and pull him into the yard. Tipping the hand cart Trixie was able to hoist the body on to its flat bed. She quickly covered her father with a tarpaulin sheet.

The smell of cordite and the bright flashes from the bombing cut through the mist from the sea and the haze of bomb dust. Trixie stood with her fingers on the handles of the winkle cart.

God, how she’d feared this bully of a man, she thought, but fearing him didn’t mean it was right to throw him away like a discarded fish and chip newspaper. But what else could she do? She must keep the family together. Teddy mustn’t be taken from them.

Suddenly the buildings about her rippled with the aftershock of yet another bomb dropped by the German Luftwaffe. It barely missed the target of the Portsmouth Dockyard that supported the Royal Navy with dry docks big enough for the world’s largest and most powerful battleships. Thousands of men and women worked there, at the base, and in the victualling and armament yards overlooking the murky waters of the Solent. Teddy’s voice cut into her thoughts.

‘I didn’t mean. I thought he was goin’ to kill her.’

‘Shut up, Teddy.’ Her voice was weary. She stared at the snail-like smears of blood trailing down the stone steps. ‘When we get back we’ll clear up. Leave the place looking as though nothing happened. But now you get the barrow outside the yard and into the street and don’t let anyone see you. Make sure you put the blackout curtain back against the door while I take a last look at Mum.’

Trixie ran back up the steps to the scullery. Broken crockery littered the floor and underfoot the sticky mess of food caused her sandals to cling limpet-like to the lino. The meal had been meatless, because her father had drunk away the money for food and rent. The letter from the landlord, giving them notice to quit for rent arrears, lay on the floor where it had fluttered from her father’s hands after he had read its fateful news. Trixie picked it up and slipped it in her pocket. The ensuing row between her parents had ended with her trying to hide behind the battered sofa, her mother broken and bloody on the floor and Teddy throwing the axe he’d been using to split tomorrow’s firewood at his father’s head.

Trixie didn’t think she’d ever forget the look of surprise on her father’s face as the weapon found its mark. He’d crumpled to the floor like a stone down a well. It had all happened so quickly.

Trixie went over to her mother; it was as she’d thought: eyes closed now, the woman was sleeping.

She turned and made for the stairs. Disposing of her father’s body was the next thing to do. And then they must leave this place, their home opposite the Portsmouth ferry where her father worked as a boatman on the small, squat tugs that plied passenger trade between Portsmouth and Gosport. Albert True would be missed. Despite his heavy drinking he never missed a day’s work and like most bullies, he was an affable man in public.

Teddy wouldn’t be able to cope with the questions that would be levelled at him about his father’s disappearance. To lie would be anathema and sooner or later everyone would know he had killed his own father. Teddy would be taken away, put into care, possibly never to see his mother or her again. He wouldn’t survive, neither mentally nor physically.

She switched off the electric light. They would find another place to live. Night flittings during the war were commonplace with bombs destroying homes. Thank God their school was closed. One of the classrooms had been hit during a night-time raid. There were no casualties but it did mean that both she and Teddy wouldn’t be missed until the school reopened and possibly not even then. They would have a new address, a new school for Teddy and new lives for the three of them and the coming baby. And freedom from Dad’s fists. Trixie closed the door behind her. She must make the new beginning happen.

‘Ain’t you frightened of the bombs?’

Trixie looked down at her brother. Despite the blackout she could see the tear streaks on his face. His big blue eyes were opened wide and he lifted a grubby hand to scratch at his head. His other hand was clenched tightly on the handle of the cart that was solidly built with wooden wheels that trundled noisily over the cobbles of the Hard.

To make money they helped their mother when the tide was out, picking winkles from the rocks that fringed the jetty and pontoon where the ferry-boats landed. Cockles, too, could be teased from the sand and mud at the shoreline. After their mother had washed and cooked the delicacies, leaving the scullery smelling freshly of the sea, Trixie and her brother would sit on the bollards near the gates of the Dockyard and wait for passers-by to approach the barrow. Cockles or winkles placed between slices of fresh bread and marge was a delicious meal and soon all the fruits of the sea would be sold.

‘Not much point. I reckon if one of Hitler’s bombs ’as got my name on it, it’ll find me, won’t it?’

He gave her a nod. ‘Where we takin’ ’im?’

‘I reckon the railway embankment is far enough, don’t you?’

The boy nodded again.

‘I want to get back to Mum as quickly as we can,’ Trixie said. ‘I think she’s in a bad way this time.’ Trixie feared for the unborn child. Her mother lacked energy. Trixie remembered when Teddy had been born her mother was always happy and busy.

For a while, apart from flares lighting up the skies and the steady thwump of far-off bombs finding targets, the ominous silence was punctuated only by the barrow’s creaking wheels as they pushed their heavy burden along the narrow streets. Without the usual busy crush of people, the Hard had an eerie, misty presence.

‘The air-raid shelters in Queen Street will be filled with people hoping to save their lives,’ said Trixie. ‘We’ve got to get this done before the All Clear sounds.’

Across the playing fields flickering searchlights lit the skies as bombs fell from the growl of planes.

‘Here, I think.’ Trixie pulled the barrow to a halt and put her hand on top of the tarpaulin to stop the body from sliding. Bushes and privet hedges at the base of the embankment made a shelter for the cart. Trixie looked about her. The railway line loomed above. There seemed to be no one on the road.

Teddy’s voice sounded reedy in the darkness. ‘Shall I hold the barrow still and wait for you to tip it so he slides off gently?’

‘Don’t think it matters to him one way or the other,’ she said, ‘whether he falls carefully.’ But she was moved by Teddy’s thoughtfulness all the same.

Together they watched as the heavy form slid, then fell to the earth to lie lumpen as a log. Trixie picked up the tarpaulin, folded it and set it back on the upright barrow.

Teddy was staring at his father’s body. ‘We can’t just leave him. Shouldn’t we cover him or say a prayer, or something?’

Trixie narrowed her eyes. ‘We can’t tuck him up like he’s sleeping. It’s got to look like he crawled in there and died.’ She let out a huge sigh. After all the unhappiness this man had caused them, Teddy’s kind heart pricked at her conscience. ‘You can pray if you want.’ Her voice was snippy. ‘He’s leaving Mum with her mind half gone and I’ve been thrashed so many times to within an inch of me life I couldn’t care less.’ Teddy snuggled against her. Her heart melted. ‘Go on then, you say what you want and I’ll sing along with you. But we daren’t linger. When the siren goes there’ll be people everywhere. We need to hurry back to Mum.’

After they had both recited the Lord’s Prayer, Teddy started singing, ‘There is a green hill far away.’ Trixie’s eyes filled with tears. It was the only hymn he knew all the way through. She joined in, careful not to let her strong voice ring out in the darkness. Then, as the last notes died away she said, ‘That was a nice thing for you to want to do. You’re a good boy.’ She put her hand beneath his chin, tipped it up and looked down at him. ‘I want you to run home now as fast as you can. I think we’ve left Mum for long enough. I’ll bring the barrow back.’

Teddy looked down at the still form on the ground. ‘We gonna just leave him?’

Trixie nodded. ‘Best thing,’ she said. ‘Scoot.’

He lingered, looking at the body. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt him.’

‘I know. But Mum needs us now,’ she said. ‘Buzz off.’

When she was sure he was gone she bent down and, though hating to touch him, rifled through her father’s pockets. She didn’t want Teddy seeing her search her father for money, money that he might have left on his body from his foray into the pub. Besides, she needed to be alone, to think over all that had happened and to be sure the next steps she took were the right ones, not just for herself but for Teddy and her mother.

The hymn they’d sung ran around her brain. Forever now, she knew, when she heard that music she would remember the reason she and Teddy had sung it. As a child, when she had helped her mother around the house, the two of them had sung happily in their pure, clear voices. But as the years had flown and the bitterness had grown her mother’s voice had become silenced by the hate and drink that fuelled her father’s temper.

Not so Trixie; she had often found herself humming or singing a piece of music whenever she felt unhappy. At first she didn’t realise she did it. Singing softly in times of loneliness, or after her father had hit her and she’d escaped to another part of the house to be away from his pounding fists. The music lifted her thoughts, stopped the tears and helped her forget the pain of an empty stomach or the weight of her father’s hands on her body. In her head the songs and their stories of love, sadness and happiness gave her hope to cling to as she envisaged herself as the heroine of the songs. She could be a costermonger, laughingly telling the world about her bunch of coconuts; she could be a serviceman talking about his love, the Rose of Picardy. The music gave Trixie the chance to escape from her miserable surroundings and be anyone she chose for the duration of the song. But she wasn’t singing now as she searched her dead father’s pockets.

Her collection of money from her father amounted to very little. ‘Damn,’ she said quietly. They needed as much cash as she could find and she prayed she might discover more in the house.

Standing, she looked down at the man who seemed to bear no relation to the smiling person in the photographs she had seen in the worn shoebox her mother kept solely for all important documents.

One snap Trixie clearly remembered was of the handsome moustached man looking proudly down into her mother’s eyes. His hand was on her shoulder and his face was full of love and longing. How had it happened that the love her father so clearly felt then for her mother, had been replaced by disgust and violence?

And how could a man of his breadth and stature justify knocking his children about so that some days she and Teddy had bunked off school for fear their bruises and welts would be seen by their peers or the teachers and commented on?

Trixie tried to hold back her tears. Whatever pain this man had inflicted upon them, he was still her father.

‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said. ‘I wish things could have been different.’ The sound of her voice brought her thoughts back into focus.

The barrow. She must get the cart back to the house so they could start loading it with their belongings. At any moment the All Clear could sound and it wouldn’t look good, her being discovered with her father’s dead body.

After slipping the coins into her pocket she hoisted up the handles of the cart and began pushing it back towards the Hard.

The All Clear sounded its mournful cry as she was within sight of home.

Immediately Portsmouth’s streets became a hive of activity again with doors opening, blinds rolling up from shop windows, people running – some laughing, some serious. Most were praying as they emerged from the shelter, hoping to find their homes still intact. No one glanced her way or took any notice of the schoolgirl pushing an empty barrow, until she reached the pub.

‘Hello, Trixie, love. Bit late for you to be out selling, ain’t it?’

Trixie’s heart began thumping faster. ‘Not selling winkles, Rosa. Our Teddy left the barrer out.’ There it was, the first lie. To Rosa, the barmaid from Nelson’s, the public house where her dad regularly drank his ale. The blonde was dusting off the windowsills with a bedraggled ostrich-feather duster. Trixie noticed one of the lines painted in eyebrow pencil up the back of her shapely legs was crooked.

‘Can’t leave valuables about outside, love. That cart could walk during the night.’ Rosa’s ample figure swayed as the duster danced in tune to the wireless and the melodic voice of Bing Crosby singing ‘Swinging on a Star’. Always a cheerful body, Rosa stopped dusting and said, ‘Didn’t see your dad tonight.’ A waft of heavy flowery perfume floated towards Trixie as Rosa continued, ‘He was in earlier. Him and Mickey Payne was ’aving quite a disagreement about them new buzz bombs raining down in Britain.’

‘Dunno nothin’ about that.’ Trixie shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation that could force her to tell more lies. She began moving the barrow forward to show her part in the conversation was over.

‘Nice man, your dad,’ called Rosa thoughtfully.

‘Night,’ Trixie called. When she reached their yard door she used the front of the barrow as a battering ram and pushed it through, over the step, and into the yard. The stone steps were wet, the blood washed away. She could smell carbolic soap. Teddy had been working hard.

Up in the scullery, Teddy was washing the floor where his father’s body had lain. He looked up at her. She nodded at him, then turned towards their mother, who hadn’t moved.

‘I thought it best to wait for you to come back before getting stuff together.’

‘You did well, Teddy.’ Trixie’s voice was soft.

She knelt down beside the woman and picked up her cold hand, warming it with her own. ‘I’m going to wash the blood off your face, Mum.’

Teddy had come up behind her and now thrust an enamel bowl of warm water towards her. Trixie took it from him.

‘I put the kettle on the fire, figuring we’d need hot water,’ he said.

‘She’ll need a good strong cup of tea and I wouldn’t mind one meself.’ Trixie smiled, then turned back towards her mother before slipping the clean piece of rag that Teddy had found into the water. She gently raised her mother’s chin and with the gaunt face towards her, dabbed at the dried blood with the cloth.

‘It’ll be all right, Mum,’ she said as the woman winced. Bess True was a bag of bones. She opened her eyes and stared at Trixie.

‘He’s gone then?’ Her voice was weak.

Trixie nodded. ‘He can’t hurt us any more.’ Bess closed her eyes again but not before Trixie had seen the relief in them. She went on gently wiping at her mother’s cut skin and the water in the bowl quickly became red. Bess was like a child, unmoving now and allowing Trixie to do her will, screwing up her eyes in pain only when the warm flannel rubbed against a particularly tender part of her skin. ‘Listen, Mum,’ said Trixie, staring into her mother’s bloodshot eyes until the woman focused upon her again. ‘Where does Auntie Joan live?’

Bess took a while to digest the question.

‘Gosport,’ she said.

‘I know it’s Gosport. But where?’

‘Prefabs. She got one of them new-fangled prefabs near Haslar.’ The talking seemed to exhaust her. Bess closed her eyes again.

‘Teddy, help me get her off the floor and on to the sofa.’

‘Clayhall.’ The woman’s bony fingers gripped Trixie’s hand.

The body of their mother was as light as a feather as they gently lifted her and laid her on the sofa.

Teddy noticed the blood first. ‘She’s bleeding; is it the baby?’

Trixie saw the damp, dark stain on her mother’s clothing. ‘Mum, you want me to look at you down there?’

Bess shook her head. ‘I’m all right. I can’t feel any pain. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

Trixie wasn’t going to argue with her. The sooner she got the three of them away from Portsmouth and to the safety of her mother’s sister’s house, the better. Once more Trixie tucked the patchwork quilt around her.

‘How we going to get anywhere with Mum like that?’ asked Teddy. Worry spilled from his eyes. ‘Shouldn’t we get a doctor?’

‘No!’ For such a frail woman their mother’s voice was strident. Agitated, Bess tried to sit up. ‘No. No doctor. What if they take me away from you? I’m all right. I just need to rest. Get me a cloth an’ I’ll see to meself down there, later on.’

‘She’s right,’ said Trixie to Teddy, then to her mother. ‘Don’t upset yourself, Mum. Anyway I doubt if we could find a doctor who’d come out for a pregnant woman, not after the air raid and the damage the bombs leave behind.’ Trixie was thoughtful. ‘We’ll use the cart,’ she said. ‘Pile it with whatever we need and tuck Mum up on it, nice and warm. We can walk to Gosport around the harbour.’

‘Why do that when we live opposite the ferry and just the other side of the water there’s a bus station and a bus that’ll take us to Clayhall?’ Teddy was frowning.

‘With Dad working on the boats we can’t go anywhere near them. His mates will know we’ve crossed the harbour. When his body’s found and they come looking here for us, the next place they’ll go asking questions is his workplace. The bobbies’ll be all over Gosport like ants on a piece of cake if they know we travelled there. Anyway, we don’t have the money to squander on boat and bus fares when we need to eat.’ Trixie took the coins out of her pocket. ‘This is all we’ve got unless we can find some more while we’re packing up our goods.’

‘There’s nothing in my purse,’ Bess murmured.

‘Well, if we get to Auntie Joan’s, she’ll take us in, won’t she?’

Bess shrugged her thin shoulders at Trixie’s question. ‘Years ago, we was close. She got married. I got married. Your dad wouldn’t let me go near her or her husband. I only know Joan’s at Clayhall ’cos I met an old friend of hers.’

‘Well, she’s our only chance,’ said Trixie. ‘Teddy, go and find some cardboard boxes. I know there’s a couple down in the shed.’ She waved a hand towards the steps. ‘Then come back and we’ll start gathering our stuff together.’ None of them possessed many clothes.

‘Can I take my drawing stuff?’ Teddy’s voice was small.

Trixie smiled at her mother but Bess had dozed off again. She turned to Teddy. ‘Of course you can.’ His face lit up.

Teddy spent hours down on the Hard near the Dockyard gate sketching the boats and gulls that flew screeching overhead. Any spare paper suitable to draw on he carefully saved along with his charcoal and assorted bits of pencils that he kept in a lozenge tin. Trixie reckoned he was talented.

‘All this is my fault and—’

‘For God’s sake, Teddy,’ she said. ‘It was an accident.’ She put both her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. ‘An accident,’ she repeated, enunciating the words. But even as she said them she knew Teddy would never be able to put his father’s death to the back of his mind and get on with his life. Teddy would always brood about this night. Always.

‘We’ll make a fresh start,’ said Trixie. ‘And look after each other. But leave no trace.’

‘I’ve been cleaning this place as best I can,’ Teddy said. ‘But I don’t want ever to touch that thing again.’ He pointed to the axe and began shivering. ‘I keep seeing it hit Dad.’ Teddy’s mouth began quivering and Trixie put her arms around him. Was Teddy’s fear of t. . .