Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge by T. Belshaw (i want to read a book .TXT) 📕

an effort to clear it, but he was on me, forcing my head into the mattress with one rough hand, and pulling up my nightgown with the other. I tried to close my legs, but his knees were already between them, I yelled in frustration and kicked my feet ineffectively, then he yanked down the front of his pants, and he entered me. Spittle dripped from his mouth onto the back of my neck, the smell of stale beer and new sweat assailed my nostrils. I tried to wriggle free, I cursed him, I wished death on him, I promised to kill him myself, but my face was pushed so deep into the mattress, and my threats were so muffled, even I couldn’t hear them.

In a repeat performance of our previous sexual encounter, the attack was brutal, but mercifully short lived. Less than a minute later, he groaned, stiffened, then collapsed on top of me, panting like he’d just run in the Olympic mile. I felt the pressure release on the back of my neck and I twisted my head to the side, taking in a big gulp of air.

‘Get off me, you bastard,’ I said, vehemently, and to my surprise, he did.

‘You asked for that,’ he said, as he pulled up his knee-length underpants, ‘You bloody well asked for that.’

I was determined I wasn’t going to cry in his presence, despite the severity of the attack. I reached down and pulled my nightdress over my backside while Frank sat on the end of the bed and pulled up his trousers. He stood up to fasten his fly buttons, managing to push two of them through the wrong holes, then, with his belt still hanging against his thighs, he got hold of my hair and yanked my head off the bed.

‘Look at me,’ he demanded.

I kept my face turned away, so he punched the back of my head and grabbed my hair, closer to the scalp, and jerked my head up again.

‘Look at me.’

I thought I’d better comply while I still had some hair left. I twisted my head to face him, my eyes wet but defiant.

‘I want you to remember tonight as long as you live. This is what happens when you shit on someone who has only ever tried to help you.’

I snorted at that, so he let go of my hair and punched me on the cheek. Lightning flashed in front of my eyes, my head bounced on the mattress as another punch rained down from above, this time hitting me with full force, on the ear. I curled up in a ball and waited for the next blow, but nothing came. I heard his footsteps as he stomped down the landing. He returned a few moments later with his bag thrown over his shoulder. I held my breath, holding back the sobs that were trying to break out from my throat, and waited for him to leave.

Martha, who had, incredibly, slept through the whole encounter, suddenly decided it was time to cry.

‘You haven’t seen the last of me,’ Frank shouted as the back door slammed against the kitchen wall.  I shushed, Martha, then curled up in a ball again as the tears fell, and the pent-up sobs escaped.

Chapter 76

August 1938

I desperately needed to talk to Amy. She’d know what to do. Why wasn’t she on the telephone? Her parents had often talked about getting one. I thought about going up to see her, she wouldn’t have minded, but it would have meant me suffering the extra pain and embarrassment of telling her parents why I was hammering on their door at three in the morning, so I ruled that out. Next, I thought about ringing Godfrey, but he would have to explain to his wife why he was consoling a sobbing woman, on the telephone, in the middle of the night.

The only thing I could realistically do, was to telephone the police. Frank couldn’t have got far. There were no trains until the morning, and as it was Sunday, there wouldn’t be that many running anyway.

I looked for numbers in the telephone directory and discovered the new, 999 emergency service. I dialled the three digits and after a few beeps and buzzes, a man answered.

‘Emergency line, which service do you require?’

‘Police,’ I said.

‘What is the nature of the emergency?’ he asked.

‘I, err, I’ve just been, err… attacked.’

‘Where did the alleged attack take place?’

I gave my address and he told me to hold, while he tried to contact the police house in my local area. A few minutes later he came back on the line.

‘I’m sorry, caller, but I can’t get a response from the police house. Is the matter urgent enough for me to contact the Gillingham police, or would you prefer to leave it until tomorrow morning, when you should be able to contact your local police sergeant?’

I didn’t want the Gillingham police. They came out to us a few years ago when someone stole some of our sheep. The theft occurred on a Wednesday night and they didn’t even turn up until the following Monday, by which time the sheep would have been sold, butchered and served up on Sunday dinner plates.

I decided to contact the local police sergeant in the morning. He might have sobered up, following his harvest night in The Old Bull by then. I told the operator that I would deal with the incident myself, and he hung up.

I spent the rest of the night in the kitchen with Martha. She wouldn’t settle at all; I think she was missing Miriam.

The next morning, at nine o’clock, I telephoned the police house. A grumpy police sergeant answered the call. I explained who I was, and gave a vague description of what had happened the night before. He agreed to come out to the farm later that day.

He actually arrived inside twenty minutes with a bored-looking police constable in tow. The collar of his uniform was too small for his