Lovedrool, p.9
Lovedrool, page 9
Maybe she made a different sound on coming round, because he looked over his shoulder. His eyes and lips were sombre, pitying even. “How do you feel?”
There was a dull, nauseating ache somewhere up behind Splash’s eyes. “My head hurts.”
“I’ll give you an aspirin.” He reached down and laid a hand on her breasts, stroking one, then the other, through the fabric of Pauline’s summer frock, his touch was casual, as if he was merely enjoying the sense of their availability. His hand travelled upwards and caressed her cheek, still damp with his spittle. “I would like to make love to you. Very slowly, very tenderly. Please don’t imagine that brutality is an essential prerequisite of my erection. I can give a woman great pleasure.”
Splash said nothing and looked straight up at the ceiling.
“I’ll never take you against your will, you know. Ask Pauline. She has lain where you now lie and I said the same to her. I want you to give yourself to me, willingly, gladly, happily.”
“No way,” answered Splash, still not looking at him. “You make me sick. You like hurting people. You’re cruel, and you’re sick - and you’re old,” she said, and now she looked him in the eye. “You’re an old man hungry for young girls. That’s always disgusting.”
He grinned, and the corners of his mouth lifted up above the ends of his white moustache. “Pauline never said that. Wonderful courage, great beauty - even in your present condition.”
Chapter Five
“Are they ever gonna let me take a shower?” said Splash to Johnny as she shovelled horseshit under his supervision. He laughed, but not unsympathetically. It was early the next morning; Louise had taken Glory for a ride, and had left Splash to muck out.
“Depends how the boss wants you to smell,” said Johnny. He spoke casually, but with the mention of Mr Lovedrool a degree of curiosity came into his manner, as he leaned against the stable wall, his massive forearms folded together. “Did he hurt you last night?”
“He gave me an aspirin.”
“Louise took you to his room. I carried queer-arse to his and she brought Pauline. They weren’t half sick when they woke up.”
“Yeah,” said Splash. She loaded her spade with another two or three pounds of manure. As the muck was disturbed it gave off a fresh wave of its pungent stink, smack into Splash’s face. Thank Christ this job’s almost done.
“What’s America like?” asked Johnny, starting up the conversation again.
“It’s full of Americans. Anything else you wanna know?”
“Don’t get snotty with me,” he said, offended. “It’s not my fault you’re here, is it? I’m only trying to talk with you.”
“Well, don’t.”
A clear, freezing night had turned the snow in the courtyard to ice: there was a beaten track from the stables to the kitchen door, but its surface was slippery for even booted feet. It was safer to stamp and crunch through the virgin snow on either side. As they got into the kitchen, a bell was ringing. “What the fuck’s he doing up?” grunted Johnny. “Didn’t he take his pill last night?”
“Maybe he doesn’t need to when he’s come.”
Two more rings, quick, sharp, bad-tempered rings. “All right, you old twat, I’m coming,” said Johnny, in a low voice even though they were far from the sitting-room. He pulled Splash roughly after him, by a pair of reins clipped on to her restraints.
There was no answer when he tapped at the door and still no answer when he tapped again. He let out a soft grunt of annoyance, but didn’t venture to put his feelings into even muttered words. He tapped again; still no answer and after a moment’s hesitation pushed the door open.
Splash was just behind him. His broad back blocked most of her view and his head and shoulders were a long way up. She couldn’t see anything of what happened next; she heard a swift, high-pitched whistle, a vicious crack of something striking flesh and a scream of pain from Johnny. He staggered back and she realised another blow had landed. He fell over and she couldn’t get out of his way. They were both sprawling on the passage floor; one of her elbows had hit the polished wood. For ten or twenty seconds everything else reached her consciousness through a screen of sheer agony.
Lawrence had sprang out of the sitting-room, Lawrence dressed all in shining leather and studs: a short dress, a belt as wide as the one Splash was locked into, long studded gauntlets and huge leather waders with studs in rows around the tops. He wielded a whip with a short, thick tail and a big heavy metal handle; he’d lashed Johnny in the face as he opened the door and then clubbed him with the handle. As Johnny lay in the passage he clubbed him again and again, taking care to hit him around the temples. Neither of them spoke a word.
Splash rolled aside to avoid being trodden on. Johnny raised his hands to try and guard his head, but it seemed Lawrence had been waiting for him to do that; there were a pair of handcuffs on his belt and he swiftly clicked a cuff on to one wrist, twisting the arm around, behind Johnny’s back. For a few seconds they wrestled, but Lawrence was on top and had all the advantages of treachery. Johnny’s hands were cuffed together behind his back.
Lawrence stood up, panting for breath. He looked about him for the whip, retrieving it from where it had dropped. “Right ... Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” each snarled repetition of the word helped to drive home a blow, either a lash from the whip or a kick from a boot, distributed to Johnny’s face, back, crotch and legs, where the blows landed being seemingly unimportant now that he was helpless.
Then Lawrence began kicking him repeatedly in the backside. “Get up! Get into the sitting room!”
Johnny kicked back, catching his knees and calves. “Get off me, you fuckin’ queer-arsed bastard!”
Lawrence grabbed his feet and withstood a few hard kicks while he unlaced Johnny’s boots and dragged them off. He threw the empty boots aside with force, they flew yards before hitting the floor with a noise that resounded down the passage. He dropped to his knees, between Johnny’s legs and caught hold of the flies of his trousers. “Get offf meee!” bellowed Johnny.
Lawrence laughed. “Enjoy it, baby.” He dragged Johnny’s jeans and shorts away, both together. “After all, who are you calling a queer? Nobody’s ever been up my arse! Do you know that, Splash?” he said, laughing down at her. “Father fucked him! He enjoyed that! He can’t do anything with girls! I can and he can’t.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” shouted Johnny, louder than ever, as if he was trying to drown him out.
“I can and you can’t! I can and you can’t!” jeered Lawrence. “Get up!”
Hands cuffed, naked from the waist down, his face bleeding from that first surprise cut, Johnny struggled to his feet under kicks and whip strokes. Lawrence drove him into Mr Lovedrool’s sitting-room. Mr Lovedrool was evidently not there: as she sat and leaned against the passage wall, Splash could hear furniture being knocked over.
She sat up. The pain from her elbow was wearing off. It came to her that for the first time in three days, she was neither immobilised by bonds nor under somebody’s eye. She got to her feet and moved away down the passage. A deep, terrible scream came loud and clear through the wide open door of the sitting-room.
Splash broke into a run and left the noise behind, until the silence of the house was disturbed only by the thudding of her own biker boots. She ran on.
She reached the kitchen unopposed; probably Mr Lovedrool was still in bed and Pauline was still recovering from last night. The back door stood wide open and let in an icy draught, but it was a welcome sight. Splash’s arms were chained to her body at the wrists and elbows, she was alone in a foreign country, she was wearing nothing under a thin cotton dress and outside it was sub-zero, but if she got outside the grounds of the house she’d run and run and thank God.
And then she felt sick.
There, maybe a hundred yards away, somebody had just come out of the stables and was coming over, striding confidently up the slippery path. Louise was back from her ride.
Splash flung herself backwards into the kitchen, knowing she’d escaped being seen immediately. But in less than a minute Louise would be there. She looked wildly from cupboards into corners, searching for someplace to hide, but there was nowhere safe enough because she didn’t have the nerve to stay. There were three places to go: back the way she’d come, to the daytime rooms, to the laundry room, or to the dining room, where Louise was least likely to walk in first thing. She fled up the connecting passage.
By daylight the big hexagonal room was dim and shadowy. Splash closed the door gently behind her and put an ear to one panel. “Johnny!” called Louise from the kitchen. “Johnn-ee!” she called again, affectionately. The thought of meeting her eyes made Splash want to wet herself.
There was no sound of footsteps approaching the other side of the door, but there was no telling whether or not Louise remained nearby. If she’d been certain that Louise was gone from the kitchen quarters Splash might have ran back, to get out into the open at all costs. As it was she stood there and kept quiet, paralysed by uncertainty and the awareness that a wrong step could be disastrous. Time went by; she wanted to move, but didn’t dare.
“You vicious little bastard, you’re gonna come with me and you’re gonna look for her!”
It was Louise again, coming back from somewhere, screaming with rage. Lawrence spoke in reply, a few quiet words of contempt.
Oh Christ, how long would it take them to find her? The big round table was the only substantial object in the dining room. Splash almost obeyed an impulse to duck beneath it and wrap herself around its solid stem; but with her mind freed by the urgent need to act, she remembered that there was a better hiding-place ready to hand. She stole across to the corner, the one where she’d sat tied up in the chair.
She found the special carving on the wall, the one that turned. The concealed door opened, and Splash slipped through. She was left in the dark once she was shut in the secret passage, but that didn’t matter.
Somebody came into the dining room. “Well, she’s not here,” said Lawrence as if stating the obvious. “I tell you, it’s a certainty she’s bunked out of the house. She was willing to go without her things before.”
“Who helped her that time?” spat Louise, her boots stamping across to the other door. Lawrence followed. They were gone and Splash breathed more freely. She slid to the floor, doing her best to sit down without moving the upper part of her body, burdened as it was with noisy chains. Her eyes grew used to the lack of light and pure black broke up into a shifting mosaic of grey dots, in which floating shapes could be discerned and strange faces like the man in the moon. But the unheated air chilled her as she sat without moving and her ass was frozen where it touched the floor. It got to ache under her till she had to shift for a moment’s relief, though the chains clinked softly. No watch, no task to engage the hands or brain, no sound; it was safe, but it was hard to endure. She curled up into a ball to keep warm, knees pressed against her breasts, clutching the tops of her boots. Her mind filled with colour and texture as she recalled the contents of her bag she’d left on the back of her cycle: shoes, clothes, diary, personal stereo ...
Voices were speaking all at once, feet were treading: Splash distinguished the click of Pauline’s heels. They were all out there, arguing: Louise shouting, Lawrence laughing, Johnny growling, Pauline murmuring but evidently not masked.
“Be quiet, all of you!” roared Mr Lovedrool.
A silence fell. “It’s all his fault,” said Louise sullenly.
“What does it matter if she has gone?” said Lawrence.
“Just you wait, Lawrence. It won’t be long before you get out of the mood for that gear and then me and Johnny’ll have you.”
“Quite right. One ought not to confuse the magical powers of costume with one’s own innate strength. On the other hand, Louise, when Lawrence loses the thrill of power and cruelty, he gains the sensuous delight of suffering at the hands of others. He will want you to hit him harder, tie him more tightly, insult him more brutally. In practical terms, it’s very difficult to punish him, so I don’t try anymore.”
“Splash might be hiding somewhere,” said Pauline.
“Where, fart face?”
“It’s possible,” said Mr Lovedrool. “We shall search the house systematically, from top to bottom - beginning at the top, as it’s likely a fugitive would be drawn by all those empty rooms. Do you not agree, Louise? Come on, children.”
*****
A tiny spot of light had appeared, somewhere up above Splash as she sat on the floor.
She’d been left undisturbed in the dark for a long, long time, most of that day she was sure. She had a plan, now: simply to wait until it was so late she could be sure they were all gone to bed and then emerge from her hiding-place. If they were going to find her here they’d have done it by now, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they? The calculating, reasoning part of her mind said that her chances were good and getting better; but to wait in uncertain hope is hard on the emotions, even in comfort and warmth. When the light came on, her first reaction was alarm; it was unexpected, it was a sign of danger.
But it wasn’t. Crockery and cutlery rattled, Louise grunted orders to Pauline, Splash’s vision of the secret door being thrown open and the whole bunch of them looking down at her faded. They were getting ready for dinner. There was a spyhole into the dining-room, through which the electric light shone now that it was turned on. That tiny bright spot drew Splash’s eyes upwards, irresistibly and her mind, starved of visual stimulus for so long, gradually began to entertain a dangerous, unnecessary, but attractive thought: get up and look at them! Even as she told herself not to be so stupid, she calculated how slowly and carefully she’d need to move in order not to make a single sound and clutched her chains tightly in her fingers. She got up.
As she did, she almost gasped aloud at the cramp in her unbent knees and back. She had to stand on tiptoe. But it was worth it, because the solitary star in her darkness came nearer, turned into a hole, a little round hole which held a lens that gave your eye a full view of the room.
They were all sitting down to dinner. Lawrence was still dressed in leather and grinning behind his makeup. Next to him, Pauline was still unmasked and grinning too. By contrast, Louise’s mouth was turned down into a scowl of undischarged anger. Johnny sat with his shoulders hunched and his chin against his collarbone. An ugly reddish-brown slash of a mark ran diagonally across his face, from above his right eye across the bridge of his nose and down his left cheek. Mr Lovedrool sat between the two couples. “There’s a matter that has to be settled and I’d like to discuss it with you all,” he said.
“What’s that?” asked Pauline.
“It’s the question of what should be done with Susan’s belongings. She has left us, but almost everything she brought remains here. I thought it would be pleasant and may help to reunite the household after today’s unpleasantness, if we were to divide them amongst ourselves, each of us taking some particular item. Has anyone any especial claim to make?”
Nobody spoke. “Very well, here is how I would distribute them. Since she’s taken a dress belonging to Pauline, you, Pauline, ought to receive her clothes, most of which will fit you. Have you ever worn leather trousers?”
“Ooh, no!” giggled Pauline.
“Well, now you shall. As well as clothes, her bag contained a diary, which I have been reading and shall keep for mine. A pity she’s gone, I was going to interrogate her about the people and places mentioned in it. She also owned a personal stereo and a selection of cassettes, which I thought would make an agreeable gift for Louise and a rather beautiful religious medal and some solid silver bangles, which I think would look well on Lawrence when he’s in a gentler mood.”
“I don’t mind,” said Lawrence.
“I don’t want her fucking tapes,” snapped Louise.
“And last but not least - far from it - there is her motorcycle, which I believe is an excellent machine of its kind. Certainly its value outweighs that of all her other possessions put together, but I’m sure none of us would harbour any jealousy on that account; on the contrary, let it be a gift from all of us to Johnny.”
Mr Lovedrool concluded with a magnificent wave of his hand and all eyes, including Splash’s eye, turned in Johnny’s direction. He didn’t raise his head, but glanced up and nodded clumsily. “Thanks.”
Louise touched his arm. “Come on, Johnny, it’s a motorbike.”
He nodded again and mumbled, as if apologising for his inability to show pleasure.
“You’ll be able to ride out on it when I go out on Glory. We’ll have fun.”
“A whole new experience,” agreed Lawrence. “Something throbbing between your legs.”
Pauline giggled again, Johnny cringed and Louise spun round in fury. “Tell him, dad! Tell him to shut up!”
“You’ve won a victory today, Lawrence. Why not be merciful?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in mercy, father.”
“Hoist by my own petard. Very well then, shut up,” smiled Mr Lovedrool. “Johnny, the motorcycle is yours and I’m sure you’ll be in more of a mood to enjoy owning it tomorrow. Tonight, let’s raise our spirits and heal our discontents by dancing.”
*****
The turquoise record player and armful of scratchy old LPs were brought in and some other things; with a jolt of recognition, Splash saw the clothes she’d worn when she came to the house and her bag, taken from the back of her cycle. Louise shuffled through her cassettes, dismissing most of them as ‘crap, tossing them aside one by one, each hitting the table with a loud plastic clatter. Mr Lovedrool was disappointed to learn that you can’t plug a personal stereo into an old mono record player so that everyone can listen. Pauline got half undressed in front of the assembled company and pulled on Splash’s leather jeans; Lawrence unlocked her ankle straps so that she could take off her shoes. Having fetched the things, Johnny sat in a chair by the wall and wouldn’t speak; Mr Lovedrool gave him a couple of commands, but when they went ignored he passed no remark. Louise put an arm around his shoulder. “Come on, baby. Lawrence didn’t mean to hurt you.”
