The Hunger Within Read online

  The Hunger Within

  J M Hewitt

  © J M Hewitt 2016

  J M Hewitt has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.

  This books is dedicated to the memory of my grandmothers; Daisy Wozny and Ivy Hewitt. Both avid readers who would have enjoyed my tale.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Chapter 1

  February 1981

  The garden. When they had moved in ten years ago she had such dreams about the garden. She was going to grow sweet pea and amaryllis in the spring, and freesia and hydrangeas in the summer. At the back, down near the railway track, she planned to grow seasonal vegetables and set up a swing or a slide for the children they would inevitably have.

  How young she had been back then. How stupid.

  As one year rolled into the next she had berated herself every time she stood at the kitchen sink and looked out at the garden. It was unavoidable to look outside; after all, she positioned herself in that spot at least twice a day to do the washing up. Eventually she had solved the issue of staring at the barren, concrete wasteland by purchasing some green material from town, borrowing her mother’s sewing machine and making a curtain. The green cotton was ideal. By squinting or half closing her eyes she could almost be looking at the lush garden paradise she had envisioned. She had never given the machine back, which had led her doing alterations here and there for people who were willing to pay. The pin money came in handy and whatever she made she kept concealed in the rear of the sewing machine, in the part where the back came off and you were supposed to store bobbins and reels of cotton.

  The curtain serves another purpose. When it is drawn across, not only does it prevent her from looking at the crudely cemented exterior, but also from her seeing her own reflection in the window. Bronwyn used to love looking at herself in the mirror, when she was a young girl, before her face got lined and her shoulders sagged with the weariness of life. Her hair is still long but it used to be sleek and as black as a raven’s wing. Now it’s dull, like her skin and her life. Preening, was what her mother used to say she was doing. Danny used to look at her looking at herself in the looking glass with an expression of satisfaction and pride. These days, the only looks he shoots her are glances of annoyance and distaste.

  It’s the kid thing, she thinks, the reason why they fell apart. Though they never prevented it no baby ever came. Dan refused to go for tests, an insult on his manhood or some such rubbish, so they just carried on. Barren, just like the garden.

  She can hear him stirring now and automatically she glances at the clock. It’s already dark out, almost 6 p.m and he’s only now getting up. He was out late last night and he has slept all day. She doesn’t know who he was with or what he was doing. He doesn’t offer up any information. She doesn’t ask.

  He thumps down the stairs and scuffs into the kitchen. She appraises him; she still looks at him. He is still a good looking man. The years have been kind to him and it needles her. They live the same life, eat the same food, smoke the same amount of cigarettes. He doesn’t exercise, but his arms are toned and his shoulders are muscled. She feels her lip curl.

  “Make us a tea?” he asks.

  She slings the tea towel into the sink. “Do you know what time it is?”

  He grunts, hawks something up in his throat and spits it into the sink.

  “Jesus,” she whispers, feeling her lip curling again.

  “What?” he rasps, opening the fridge and leaning into it. “Fuck sake, any chance of you going shopping sometime soon, Bron?”

  He emerges and she turns to the kettle, flicks it on and takes a deep breath. “With what? You need money to buy food. Have you got any?”

  He whips a T-shirt from the clothes horse standing in front of the three bar electric fire and pulls it over his head. Without another word, he snatches up his keys and slams his way out of the house.

  Chapter 2

  Across town Rose James hurries along the street. Head down, dark blonde hair shielding her face. She pauses and, pushing her fringe out of her eyes, she looks up at the sky. It’s a clear night, but bitterly cold. Winter will soon be drawing to a close and she longs for the spring warmth. Though with the new season comes more sunlight. The only good thing about these long nights is the darkness that she uses like a cloak. Less hours of twilight mean less time to spend with Connor, but she won’t think of that, not now, not on her way to see him. It’s hard though, hiding like this. And they shouldn’t have to sneak around, it shouldn’t matter, so what if she’s a Catholic and he’s a Protestant. They like each other, and neither of them goes to church anyway. But she knows everyone else won’t see it through rose tinted glasses the way she does. And now, as Rose hurries through the dark streets, glancing around lest anybody should see her, she wonders whether she is doing the right thing.

  “But you always wonder that,” she mutters to herself as she crosses the park. “And you keep on bloody doing it anyway.”

  She hates walking through here alone to meet him, but she will never tell Connor that. The dread starts as soon as she leaves her home, a tight ball in the pit of her stomach, convinced that with every step she takes one more person is looking out of their window or poking their head out of their front door, until eventually it seems that the whole of her neighbourhood has fallen into step behind her, knowing what she is doing, where she is going, who she is seeing. But then she’ll see him – Connor standing in the shadows, his handsome features half hidden in the moonlight, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, until she makes her presence known and then he grins, and she knows never, ever could she leave him, no matter what the risks.

  It happens now, as she reaches the most easterly point of Church Street and sees him sitting on the wall of one of the back gardens. He holds up a hand in greeting and she steps up her pace and waves back, her heart beating ever faster and a ridiculous grin on her face.

  She pulls up sharply six feet away from him and his smile fades. What is it? She asks herself, silently, as there is something. Footsteps? Voices in a hushed whisper? She doesn’t know, but something is off. She is about to call to him to come to her and then they appear behind him, suddenly and silently, as though they had been there the whole time. Black clothed apparitions, their intentions already clear to her from the ski-masks that they wear.

  She sees her hand come out, as though to reach over to him and pull him across to her. Instead, the world tilts and she swings her arm to her left until the cold brick of a garden wall scrapes her fingertips.

  “No!” Sh
e thought she yelled it but she hears the replay in her mind and it was a whisper, snatched away by the wind.

  She hardly notices one of the three men running towards her, but there he is, at her side, his right arm gripping her slim waist, his left hand roughly holding her face at such an angle that she has no choice but to see.

  A dreadful howl rings through the silent night as a shot blasts from somewhere, from someone. Rose honestly doesn’t know if it were her or Connor who screamed so terribly.

  The shooter speaks to Connor, his voice low and guttural, too quiet for Rose to hear his words.

  He stands, turns towards Rose.

  “Keep a hold of her,” he says, louder this time, and as he moves towards her he kicks at Connor’s inert body.

  Thoughts of her best friend, Bronwyn swirl around her head and fear lends her a strength that she didn’t know she had as she twists out of the man’s grasp, aims her foot high like Bronwyn had taught her, and catches the lad where it hurts him most with her boot.

  As she runs her feet barely skim the pavement as she rips through the gardens and back alleys she has come to know so well. Over low level walls she leaps, not daring to stop, almost feeling the breath of her pursuers on the back of her neck, tearing through the washing that hangs on the lines, not caring when she got caught up in frost laden stiff sheets and they trail across the gardens behind her. She is literally running for her life.

  Finally she stops and slumps to the ground behind a dustbin. Tears sting her eyes and she heaves as the horror of what happened replays in her mind.

  Connor has been shot! Had he been shot? She heard a gun fire, she thinks she recalls wisps of smoke, curling from a barrel, but at that moment she doesn’t know what is fact and what is fiction in her ever hopeful head.

  But Connor doesn’t own a gun, the masked men always do and she knows the way it works, he would have been left there, in the road, all of the time losing more blood.

  She pushes herself up and staggers back to the fence that she had just hurled herself over. No longer having any regard for her own safety, she starts to make her way back to the border.

  *

  A curtain is moved aside and a pool of light falls onto the street where the three lads are working Connor over.

  Curtain twitching is not an uncommon occurrence, and the person who dared to look normally did not approach, even if it were one of their own. But this time the curtain belongs to Connor’s mother, Mary, and as she realises that it is her boy on the cobblestones she lets out a strangled cry. Memories of another incident in another time pulse through her head as she struggles with the catch, recollections tripping over themselves in her head, crushing her thudding heart in her chest. At the same time as the window flies open the emotions tear up her throat and, with no words forming in her mind, she leans out of the window and screams hard and long into the night.

  The three men simultaneously look up and pause. Mary continues to scream, and her inability to find her power of speech eventually frightens her into silence. For a long moment they look at each other, then, as Connor rolls over and raises his head, they all look down at him as he speaks hoarsely.

  “Ma, don’t you come out here.”

  Mary Dean either doesn't hear or heed her son's warning; all that matters is stopping the three men before they kill him. The man who holds the shotgun appraises the situation rapidly. He seems to decide that the woman in the window is no threat and turns back to the task at hand. Mary, shocked to her core by the past memory that mingles into the present day, grabs onto the terrible night that happened over twenty years ago that she never lets herself think about. She drags it into the forefront of her mind, makes herself visualise it, though she doesn’t need to because it’s happening again, right now in front of her. But this time it’s happening to her son and it’s all she needs to make her body obey the commands that her brain is issuing. She pulls herself up onto the window ledge and swings her legs over. As if encouraged by Mary's bravery, several more windows open in the neighbouring houses. The three men look at each other and with a silent communication born from years of practice they know it is time to leave. Their work done anyway, they melt away into the night as Mary hurries over to Connor.

  *

  When Danny climbs into bed, Bronwyn stirs.

  “It’s only me,” he whispers. His voice is soft and contrite, so unlike the normal, barking tone he uses with her these days that she reaches over to switch on the lamp.

  She blinks as her eyes became accustomed to the light.

  “What’s that on your face?” she asks, before looking away.

  He swipes at his cheeks and peers at his fingers. “Shit,” he swears softly, and gets back out of bed.

  Bronwyn lies down and listens to him in the bathroom.

  A thousand questions run through her head. Where has he been? Who has he been with? The same questions she has most nights, repeated on a loop. But she’ll never ask him because he’ll never tell her.

  Bronwyn slides out of bed and pads silently to the bathroom where she peers through the crack between the hinges of the half open door. In the harsh lighting she sees Danny as he scrubs at his face with a towel. He strips his clothes off and crumples them up, throwing them to one side. Though he stands naked, she lets her gaze drift over to the balled up clothes. A murmur from him snaps her attention back and she inhales sharply as Danny smiles at himself in the mirror. His hands move down his body, stop, and in the reflection she sees him take himself in his hands. Covering her mouth, she hurries back to the bedroom.

  Chapter 3

  February 1981

  This house is cold. It’s so cold that even doubling up the duvet and wrapping myself in it like the Michelin man doesn’t warm me up.

  “Bron,” I call, and wait, but she doesn’t reply.

  I root around for last night’s socks but pulling them on makes no difference so I grab Bronwyn’s pillows and heap them on top of me. I’m so sick of living like this, in a cold house with an empty fucking fridge. Maybe it’s time for Bronwyn to go back to work.

  She wasn’t ever going to work. When we got wed it would only be a matter of time before the kids came along, so there didn’t seem much point in her starting up anywhere. I was earning an okay wage as a pipe fitter. Money was tight, but back then we didn’t need much. We had each other. Fuck, what happened to that? What happened to those days when I would come home at the end of a shift and she would ask me what I wanted for dinner? I would tell her, fuck dinner, and I’d fuck her instead.

  We had a real fire back then and on Sunday afternoons in the winter we would walk through the Guillion forest and collect bits of wood. We didn’t think we were allowed to do this so we’d stuff as many pieces as we could into out bags and get the bus, running home from the bus stop, giggling like little kids. We bought an electric fire one winter and stood it in the hearth. We stopped collecting wood after that.

  I’m no warmer and I curse this fucking house. It’s an end of terrace, if we’d got a middle one we’d have heat from the dwellings either side, and to make it worse our bedroom is on the side that has no house next to it. Maybe we should move our bed into the second bedroom. We were saving it for a nursery but there’s not much chance of needing it now. Not that I mind, kids get on my nerves anyway and Bronwyn hasn’t got much interest in the whole family thing anymore. She doesn’t need babies hanging off her; she’s got me, and I’m enough for any lass.

  The second bedroom is smaller, but at least it would be warmer.

  Jesus, I don’t want to get up yet, but I can’t sleep in this chill. I poke my leg out and bang on the floor with my heel.

  I’ll get Bronwyn to bring the kitchen fire up and plug it in. That’ll warm me up.

  But no matter how much I thump the floor with my foot and shout for her to bring me the fire and a cup of tea, she doesn’t come.

  Chapter 4

  February 1981

  Rose is still two streets away when the flashing b
lue lights fall upon her, creating long blue shadows that fade in and out over the road. She quickens her step until she arrives back at the spot where Connor had been shot and stares aghast at the crowd of people surrounding the ambulance. For a moment she hesitates before forcing her feet to move. She skirts around the crowd, back and forth, unable to find an opening. Panicking, with tears streaming unchecked down her face, she elbows her way through and, as Connor is being lifted into the ambulance, she runs up to the door.

  He has an oxygen mask on and she clutches at the door of the ambulance, needing to feel something solid in a world that is tipping on its axis. A virtual river of blood from his leg has left a trail on the ground and, for a heart-stopping second, she thinks that he is dead. But he wouldn’t have an oxygen mask on if he’s dead, she tells herself.

  He opens his eyes, they focus on her. She smiles through her tears, but it smiles when he doesn’t respond. Finally, he lifts a hand in her direction. Is he waving her away, or beckoning to her? She can’t tell but she puts a foot on the step and a strangled, thick sounding cry escapes from her as she is suddenly pulled back. For a moment she believes the crowd has her in their clutches, they have turned on her, are holding her responsible for the shooting of their neighbour. She wrenches herself free and spins around, gulping for air against the sobs.

  “What are you doing? Who are you?” A tall lady with fire in her eyes that match her red hair shouts down into Rose’s face.

  “Ma, please…,” Connor pulls the oxygen mask off his face. “Leave her alone.”

  Mary glances at her son and looks back at Rose.

  For a moment the two stare at each other, the crowd are silent though their hostility is palpable. Rose slowly edges back towards the ambulance. Gritting her teeth she hauls herself up and in and moves up to Connor’s head. Mary looks at them both for a moment and Rose holds her breath. She knows about Mary Dean, Connor has told her all about Mary. How strong she is, protective and loving. When he talks about his mother the light shines from his face and Rose always feels a pinch of envy. Her own mother could never be described like that.