Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [40]
Harry went upstairs and brought down a sheet from the divan bed. Binny thought he was going to say it was a disgraceful colour, but he made no comment. He tore it into strips and sat Edward under the bulb in the kitchen. Binny felt possibly the government would give her money to buy new linen – there must be some kind of compensation for a situation like this, unless it came under an act of God.
Edward’s legs were tied together at the ankles. He found himself smirking with embarrassment as he helpfully stretched his feet in front of him. There was a moment, he realised, when everything was too late, but he couldn’t be sure which moment it was. It may already have passed. It would be foolish to be beaten insensible for nothing. They tied his wrists behind his back and finally he was tethered to the chair itself with several bands of sheeting.
‘Move about,’ said Ginger.
Edward did as he was told.
‘More,’ Ginger commanded.
Red in the face, Edward lunged obediently backwards and forwards. The chair fell apart. As he jerked his arms involuntarily to save himself from hitting the floor, the cotton bandages gave way.
‘Christ Almighty,’ cried Ginger. His grip tightened on his gun.
Edward wet himself.
13
B inny woke thinking she heard children crying. She remained for several seconds with eyes shut, cheek pressed to the rumpled tablecloth. She identified the sound as that of cats yowling somewhere beyond the back yard. Still, her heart continued to beat fast with terror. She thought of a little girl, in the dark and afraid, standing in ankle socks on brown linoleum, wailing for her Mummy. Tears came to her eyes. When the children were younger and one of them had a feverish temperature, she was reduced to the same state of mind as if the child were already dead. If they were late home from school, dallying at the ice cream van, she imagined them lying in the centre of the road, vanilla cones upended in the dust, stricken down by some heavy vehicle. Sometimes she would torture herself with images of small coffins heaped with flowers and find herself at tea-time standing at the window, staring mesmerised at the bright blue sky, humming fragments of hymns learnt long ago on Sunday afternoons. When in the first years of her marriage she had confided these unhappy thoughts to her husband, he hadn’t understood. It was like wading through mud to reach him. ‘Don’t be silly, love,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t be morbid.’ Finally, worn down by such graphic descriptions of her maternal feelings, he had laughed uneasily and called her a neurotic bitch. She was sure he was right.
Raising her head, she looked emotionally about the room. Alma and Muriel lay upon the sofa, wheezing as they slept. As if hurled from a fast-moving train, they sprawled in grotesque disorder, pale legs entwined, sunk within the hollow of the couch. There was no sign of Edward or Simpson.
Earlier, Ginger had lined them up along the hall and allowed them to go singly into the bathroom. He’d kept the door ajar. Edward, for whom it was too late, had remained in the kitchen. When herded again into the front room, Binny had wanted to lie down on the floor with him and rest, but he’d refused. ‘I stink,’ he’d said forlornly. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘I don’t care,’ she’d cried. ‘You’re fragrant as apple blossom to me.’
‘For God’s sake,’ he’d said, and turning away had sat down beneath the shuttered windows with his back to the radiator and closed his eyes.
After a time Simpson had joined him. They slumped shoulder to shoulder, heads lolling, and drifted into sleep. Edward’s pipe had fallen to his lap. Binny had placed it carefully on