Why Aren't They Screaming? by Joan Smith Page B

track, he turned and jabbed two fingers obscenely in Clara’s direction. ‘I’ll be back!’
    â€˜Seven... eight...’
    He disappeared down the track. Clara shook her head, and turned to Peggy, who was hugging herself with both arms, apparently oblivious to the trickle of blood running down her face from a cut over her right eye.
    â€˜My poor girl,’ Clara said, moving to embrace her. ‘Let’s take you back to the house and clean you up. Loretta, are you all right?’
    â€˜I think so.’ Loretta felt her head gingerly. ‘Clara, you were magnificent.’
    Clara shrugged, dismissing the incident, and began to lead Peggy along the track to the road where the car was parked. Loretta climbed in the back after Peggy, who was whimpering quietly; when Loretta took her hand, Peggy held it tightly.
    â€˜Take her in while I park the car.’ Clara stopped outside the front door of Baldwin’s and handed Loretta the keys. Loretta opened the door, returned the keys to Clara, and led Peggy inside. She drew a chair from under the kitchen table and helped Peggy into it. Peggy folded her arms on the table, put her head down and started to sob. Loretta placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and then, as she became calmer, went about the business of putting the kettle on. She returned tothe table, took a seat opposite Peggy, and waited.
    â€˜He’s me husband.’ Peggy looked despairingly at Loretta.
    â€˜I guessed he was.’
    â€˜I don’t know how he found me. The women at the place I was staying, the refuge, they
promised
they wouldn’t tell.’
    Loretta spotted a box of tissues on the windowsill and leaned across to offer them to Peggy. Now she had time to take a proper look, she could see that the cut over Peggy’s eye was superficial.
    â€˜You were in a refuge?’ she asked gently, wanting to know more but unwilling to press her.
    â€˜Yeah. He hit me, see. It wasn’t me I minded about – well, not much. It was the kid. She’s only two. I don’t want her to grow up with that – seeing her dad lay into me every time he’s been drinking.’
    â€˜What’s her name?’ Loretta asked, wondering but not daring to ask where the child was.
    â€˜Maureen,’ Peggy said. ‘After me mum. That’s where she is now, with me mum. D’you wanna see a picture of her? Oh, you can’t – it’s in me bag, it’s up at the camp.’ She started to get up.
    Loretta leaned across and placed a restraining hand on Peggy’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, we can get it later. I’ll go up there, or Clara. Just sit quietly for a while.’
    Peggy sank back into her seat. ‘I didn’t know where else to take her,’ she said, returning to the child’s whereabouts. ‘When I left him last month, I took her to this place for battered women, but I didn’t wanna keep her there, there wasn’t room to swing a cat. And I knew he’d find me somehow. So I took her to me mum. She’s got a sister in–’ Peggy stopped, glanced nervously at Loretta, and looked down at the table. ‘Her sister lives up north. Mick won’t find them there, he never took no notice of me mum. I thought he might see sense after a bit and I could have her back.’ She clasped her hands together and stared blankly into space.
    â€˜So how did you – why did you come to the peace camp?’ Loretta asked, wondering whether Peggy’s presence at Dunstow had more to do with her need to hide from Mick than her opposition to nuclear weapons and American bases.
    â€˜Oh, I was in the refuge when they bombed that place, youknow, Libya,’ Peggy said. ‘When I heard it on the radio, I thought, Christ, that’s the last straw. I can get the kid away from Mick, but how can I save her from these bombs? I didn’t know much about it before, but in the refuge everyone was talking