The Lost Valley

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

For Emma, the next week felt like some sort of living death. She would give her boss what he wanted. What choice did she have? Life had backed her into a corner. But she would make him wait out the week he’d given her, and she would never think of him as Monsieur Dupont again. He was Melvyn to her now, though she didn’t dare say it to his face. Melvyn Spriggs from Fingal; a sad, loathsome little coward who did not deserve his place on this good earth.

On the seventh day Melvyn confronted her. ‘Have you made a decision, mademoiselle?’

‘You leave me no choice,’ she said. ‘But before I agree, you must guarantee my mother will have her nurse, and my brother will have his job. Nothing happens until those arrangements are in place.’

Melvyn breathed hard, stared at her chest and licked his thick lips. ‘Of course, my dear. I give my word. Whatever you want.’ His tone was no longer commanding. It was eager, fawning even. So, she still had some power. He’d gone from bully to beggar. The change surprised her.

Melvyn was true to his word. Jack left, excited by the prospect of a steady job and his first trip across Bass Strait to Melbourne. Emma couldn’t help but be pleased for him. A qualified nurse duly arrived and moved into Jack’s old room. Emma hadn’t expected round-the-clock help. Elsie Hopkins was a plump, matronly woman with a broad smile and sunny disposition. She’d come highly recommended by Dr Dennisdeen, and proved to be a godsend. Not only was she a dedicated and capable nurse, but she was also the sort of person who couldn’t bear to be idle. Elsie cheerfully cooked up delicious, nourishing meals with the fresh produce that Emma could now afford. She tidied up while Emma was at work, and did some of the washing.

Best of all, she didn’t treat Mum like she was unconscious or mentally deficient. Not like some people – Jane sprang to mind. Instead Elsie cheerfully chatted away as if they were best friends, telling Mum about her grown daughters in Sydney, and the grandchild she hardly ever got to see. Showing Mum the baby clothes she was knitting for the Red Cross, asking her opinion on colours and patterns.

‘What do you think, Eileen? Lemon or white? And the bonnet … striped or plain?’

Elsie was an enthusiastic member of the local library, and read aloud to Mum every day: Agatha Christie mysteries, The Little House On The Prairie series and the latest blockbusters like Gone With The Wind. Emma recalled Dr Dennisdeen’s words. For all we know Eileen’s mind is unaffected. Emma prayed this was true, but the horror of her mother being prisoner of a paralysed body remained. If Mum could indeed hear and understand everything going on around her, what a blessing Nurse Elsie’s cheery company would be.

Emma missed Jack, but she didn’t miss him constantly asking for money, and thrusting her into the role of parent, even though she was two years younger. Life at home was much happier and more peaceful than before.

There was nothing happy or peaceful about work however, or her despicable arrangement with Melvyn Spriggs. One morning, a week after Elsie arrived, Melvyn had called her into his office. ‘Is the nurse I sent you working out?’

What to say? If she deemed Elsie unsuitable, she might put off the inevitable for a short time, while Melvyn arranged somebody else. But it would be a postponement, not a reprieve. And anyway, she loved having Elsie.

‘The nurse is most helpful.’

‘And the lad? Jack, your brother. He has taken up his traineeship?’ She nodded and Melvyn stood up straighter, sucking in his belly as best he could. His fingers formed a steeple. ‘I hope you’re satisfied that I’m a man who keeps his promises.’ He handed her a key on a silver chain set with a small opal, and lowered his voice to a whisper ‘At five o’clock, go upstairs and let yourself in. Go to the bedroom where you’ll find a garment laid out. Put it on and wait for me.’

Melvyn reached for her hand, and she forced herself to let him. Raising it to his flabby lips, he began to kiss her fingers, one by one. Filled with revulsion, she snatched her hand away.

‘Ah.’ He seemed undeterred. ‘My little coquette likes to tease. No matter, you will be mine tonight.’ He leaned in close. Close enough for her to smell his pipe tobacco breath. Close enough to see his wrinkles and enlarged pores and stained teeth. ‘Don’t worry. I will see that you have a good time, mademoiselle.’

At five o’clock Emma climbed the back stairs and let herself in. Melvyn’s flat was crowded with lavish Parisienne-style furniture – or at least what Emma thought was Parisienne style furniture, based on the glossy French magazines downstairs. High pelmets, rich red drapes that pooled on the parquetry floor and an oversize gilt mirror. Cubist lamps, bronze figures of naked women and an art deco copper-and-glass chandelier. Fabulous art on the walls: prints by Matisse and Picasso. Emma liked each piece separately, but together they were too much, too fussy. Too try-hard.

She wandered around the overblown rooms, including the bedroom with its lacy scrap of cream silk lying on the gold damask counterpane. Was that what Melvyn expected her to wear? What was the point? She may as well be naked. Yet the thought of losing her job and Elsie was enough to persuade her.

Emma took off her dress, hung it up carefully, put on the lace teddy and looked in the mirror. She shuddered to think of Melvyn seeing her like that. A memory flashed by, of another day when she was standing in her underwear. A day with Tom looking on, making her blush. Tom, with his brilliant brown eyes, blazing with an overwhelming, irresistible vitality. Why couldn’t she be waiting for him instead?

Time dragged on. This must be how Marie Antoinette felt before her execution. Then, the sound of the front door opening. Emma froze. Before she had time to think, Melvyn was upon her. He tore off the teddy without a word and shoved her back on the bed. She closed her eyes, trying to block out his hot, clammy hands kneading her breasts and the ragged sound of his panting breath.

Every instinct screamed to fight him off. To gouge her fingers into his eye sockets, knee him in the groin and escape. But she couldn’t. She was paralysed, just like her mother. So instead Emma lay, still as death, going deeper and deeper into shock. He flopped his fat belly on top, forced Emma’s legs apart with his knee, and tried to shove himself into her. Grunting and sweating. Harder and harder, and harder still until he forced his way inside. She felt a distant pain, as if through a thick fog. A pain that didn’t belong to her. And as she lay suffocating under Melvyn Spriggs flabby, bucking body, she thought of Tom and began to cry.