Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  She stepped towards the doorway. She could see her father’s lower legs and feet on the bed. Perce let out an odd, guttural sound, then darted between her legs and into her father’s bedroom, tail flicking rapidly from side to side.

  ‘Perce, no. Get back here.’ She would be in trouble. Percival leapt onto the bed where her father lay, his eyes closed, yet his lips open as if he were about to speak. Ellie waited for the raised arm, for the rage, waited for the violence to come. Daddy would never tolerate the cat on his bed. He would be furious. He would kill Perce.

  He didn’t move.

  Ellie reached for the cat and he batted her hand away. Still Daddy didn’t move.

  ‘Daddy?’

  Arthur Clements lay on his faded chenille bedspread, hands clasped at chest height, clutching a small clock, the muted ticking a pale substitute for a pulse. Spidery veins and age spots punctuated the back of his hands. The pauses between those metallic clicks throbbed with a suspended silence, dark pauses that seemed to last forever. It soothed her somehow, this imitation heart that pumped its rhythm in soft, forgotten chimes from the womb. Ellie heard the kettle whistling in the kitchen and pictured it boiling away, steam misting the air.

  ‘Daddy, your tea.’

  Percival sniffed at Arthur’s still form, and with graceful paws kneaded a place next to her father on the worn chenille. He purred, rhythmically, loudly.

  The whistle became a scream.

  Was Daddy playing a game with her? Toying with her the way she’d seen Perce toy with the small skinks and other animals he occasionally brought inside? It was a trick. It had to be. He was waiting to see what she would do. Ellie rose hesitantly. She had to make that god-awful noise stop, but how could she leave him? What if he were sick? The pitch was excruciating. The kettle would boil dry eventually, but that flame would keep burning underneath.

  ‘Please, Daddy,’ she said, ‘Please.’ He wouldn’t move. Once, he had been sick, really sick, and it had been hard to wake him, but he had woken. He had breathed.

  ‘It’s a trick.’ Daddy was pretending. He was faking sickness to test her. To see if she would pass. If she remembered all of the lessons he had taught her. Don’t stand near the windows, don’t go outside, don’t make noise, don’t ever answer the front door or the phone. A cup of tea, the same time each day.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She was failing his test. That noise. The tea.

  ‘Come now, Daddy, it’s time for tea.’ She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that—he’d accuse her of nagging—but she had and he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t waking up. Should she touch him? Her hands fluttered above him before she gently touched his arm. ‘Daddy?’ He didn’t move. Ellie moaned and backed out of the room, pulling the door towards her until it almost met the frame, leaving a gap for Percival to slip through. Perce shouldn’t be in there, but he was and Daddy wouldn’t wake up and that noise, the kettle… It had to stop. It all had to stop.

  Ellie staggered against the hallway wall, her fingers compulsively flicking the faded and peeling wallpaper. This wasn’t meant to happen. This couldn’t happen. She ran to the kitchen and reached through the steam to grab the handle of the kettle. Steam scalded her forearm, but the pain barely registered.

  Tea. It was time for tea. She would make the tea, and Daddy would come out of his room laughing because he had tricked her or angry because she was stupid and had done the wrong thing. She didn’t know what the right thing was but Daddy did and he would tell her and she would understand, and everything would go back to how it should be. The whistling died away, and she placed a tea bag into his cup. What was left of the water inside the kettle seemed to rattle as she tried to tip it into his cup. Her arm was shaking and water spilt onto the bench. He was going to be so mad at her. So mad. She was so stupid she couldn’t even boil water and make a cup of tea.

  Tea bag, water, milk, two sugars, stirred three times, and a single tap of the teaspoon against the rim. She took her father’s cup of tea and placed it at his seat at the head of the table. Tea’s ready, she mouthed. Tea’s ready.

  He didn’t appear. She felt oddly alone, even though she knew he was in the house. He was lying on his bed. He was in there. She had done something wrong; she knew it. Ellie looked down at his cup and saucer. The biscuit! The biscuit was missing. Of course: she was so stupid. He would come out when she had everything ready. She grabbed a biscuit from the tin and placed it on his saucer, to the left side of the cup, just the way he liked it. Now he wouldn’t be angry. Everything was okay now, just the way it should be, and he would come in soon…

  Ellie waited and watched the steam spiral out of his cup towards the ceiling. She licked her lips. There was enough water in the kettle left for half a cup. She followed the same procedure to make her own tea. This is how you make tea, girl. She had learnt her lessons well.

  Ellie made her cup of tea and left it on the bench. She refilled the kettle, then let the cold water from the tap run over her reddened forearm, soothing the raw skin. She wondered why Daddy wasn’t yelling at her—How much water are you putting in that kettle, girl? I’m not made of money. She dried her arm with the tea towel and took her cup over to the table. Ellie sat in her usual seat and looked at her father’s teacup and the milky tea within. She had made it just the way he liked it. And she had remembered the biscuit. But he wasn’t here. He was still in there. Her head turned in the direction of his room. She pictured his body on the bed—he was resting.

  The news. He would want to hear the news. If he heard the radio—the wireless—he would wake up and come out and have his cup of tea. He would be angry that she had touched the radio without his permission, but he would get up. She turned it on. She could hear dim voices so she turned it up louder, then louder again. Loud voices saying words that made no sense, useless talk in a lonely room. How could there be the voices and words of the evening news without Daddy sitting with her to hear them? She turned it off.

  ‘Daddy, I made the tea.’ Ellie waited for an answer. None came. Perhaps he was really, truly sick. He didn’t get sick very often but when he did, he needed his rest and he would be so bad tempered with her if she disturbed him.

  She returned to her seat and took a sip of her tea. He didn’t appear, even though he was meant to sip his tea first. Perhaps she could leave him lying peacefully on his bed. Resting. Sleeping. Maybe that was what he wanted. She took another sip of tea.

  Percy. She had to get the cat out of there. When Daddy woke, he’d kill Perce if he saw him on the bed. She jumped up.

  Percival was lying next to Daddy on the bed. Daddy still hadn’t moved. Perce opened his eyes and raised his head as she entered the room. He had to get off the bed; he had to leave Daddy alone.

  ‘Come on, puss.’ She could hear him purring as she approached the bed, could see his tiny frame rising and falling. But Daddy’s chest wasn’t moving. Daddy wasn’t breathing. What was she supposed to do? She had heard talk of ambulances on the radio, of people who came and helped. But she couldn’t call. There were secret codes needed to use the telephone, codes that only Daddy knew. He had said she didn’t need to know. She had not been allowed to watch when his stained fingers had dialled. If only she knew the codes, she could call a doctor to come and make him well again. But she didn’t know any doctors. Ellie hadn’t seen a doctor since the hospital, since the dogs… She shuddered.

  ‘Daddy, please wake up.’ This wasn’t a good joke. He could yell at her, hit her, he just had to wake up. Ellie realised she was still shaking. What if he wasn’t sleeping, what if he wasn’t sick? What if Daddy was…dead?

  Ellie sank to the floor. The shafts of late afternoon light that defiantly broke through the Venetian struts and papered glass struck her as something mystical, magical. Here were her lines of latitude, dividing this room, this life, into negative spaces and light. Half-life. Half-light. Ellie could hear a ticking. The contours of a life measured in tiny, ar
tificial heartbeats. An artificial life.

  She had to know. Ellie ran to the laundry, grabbed one of the needles from her sewing tin, and returned to her father’s bedroom. She looked down at his immobile form and hesitated. Could he really be sleeping this heavily? His chest still wasn’t moving. His hands were still holding his alarm clock. He didn’t look alive, but how could that be? Daddy wouldn’t have gone like this, without a word. He wouldn’t have left her alone. He had said they would be together forever.

  She touched his arm. Wake up, wake up, she willed him, but he stayed so still.

  ‘Daddy, wake up.’ She pushed again at his arm and his whole body rocked gently on the bed. With a disgruntled flash of teeth, Percival sat up next to her father’s body. ‘Sorry, puss.’ She reached out again and patted her father’s arm. ‘Are you dead?’ The cat jumped off the bed.

  She had to know. Ellie removed the small clock from his hands and placed it back onto the bedside table where it belonged.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy, but this is going to hurt.’ Where should she stick him? Hand? She knew how much it hurt when she pricked herself when sewing. She pressed the needle against the back of his hand. He didn’t flinch. She pressed harder, piercing the skin. A tiny pinprick of blood appeared, but still he didn’t move.

  Third time’s the charm. She knew where it would hurt the most. She grabbed one of his hands and thrust the needle under his thumbnail. She dropped his hand, the needle still poking out. Nothing.

  Ellie pulled out the needle and stabbed her own thumb. ‘Ow!’ A bright, swelling bead of blood emerged and she stuck her thumb in her mouth, licking the blood away. Pain was real. Today, she was real. And somehow, Daddy wasn’t.

  She moaned, sucking her thumb as if she were a child. She had never spent a night alone. When she was little, Mummy and Daddy had always been there. Then there was the hospital with its constant noise and people, nurses doing rounds, odd smells and sounds, cries and snores from other beds and other patients. And the pain tempered by medication that made her want to sleep and sleep until the pain went away. When she had returned home, Mummy was gone, but Grandmother Clements had come during the day, for a little while at least. Daddy had always been there at night. Until now.

  ‘Daddy,’ she spoke softly into the vacant air. ‘Where are you?’ He did not answer.

  Could it be true? Had he really left her? He’d said he never would.

  Who was she without him?

  ‘Daddy? I’m sorry; come back.’

  The silence ghosted around her and Ellie started to cry.

  

  Ellie swiped at her face with her sleeve and returned to the kitchen, her legs unexpectedly weak as she entered the room. Percival appeared on silent paws to weave and thread his way through her shaking legs. She reached the sink and held on to its edge for support. The meat she had gotten out earlier had thawed; a pink trickle bled from the plastic bag and ran down the side of the stainless steel. Perce jumped up onto the counter and eyed the defrosted steak. It was for Daddy. She was to have two sausages. He always decided what they were to eat.

  Nothing goes to waste. She heard his voice as if he were standing behind her. Grandmother Clements had said it too. ‘Grandmother Clements’: that was what Ellie had had to call her, all formal and cold. She didn’t know if wasting things was just one of their rules or if it was a proverb. Grandmother Clements and Daddy knew the Bible and could quote biblical phrases but Ellie had never known either one of them to go to church. Daddy once said he had gone as a child, but something had happened. Something that made his and Grandmother Clements’ mouths purse when she had dared ask.

  ‘Get off, puss, your dinner’s coming.’ Ellie brushed Perce off the bench and onto the scuffed linoleum floor where he landed with a haughty look. She knew what to do. Grandmother Clements had taught her how to cook, how to cook for Daddy.

  ‘You know the routine, Perce.’

  While the meat cooked under the grill and the vegetables bubbled away in their saucepan, Ellie set the table. A tablecloth, two plates, two glasses of water, two forks, two knives. A side plate with butter knife for the bread—Daddy always liked a slice of bread and butter with his meals.

  ‘Dinner’s almost ready.’ There was no answering reply or grunt from his room, no sound of slippered footsteps or of running tap as he went to wash his hands in the bathroom. Ellie dished up both plates and looked across to the empty chair at the head of the table.

  ‘Daddy, it’s ready.’ She shifted her weight from foot to foot. She wasn’t supposed to sit before her father was seated. She had to be ready to serve him, in case there was something she’d forgotten. Something he wanted.

  The smell was making her mouth water. She decided to sit. She looked around the room. He wasn’t here. Could she break the rules? She patted the tabletop gently.

  ‘C’mon, puss,’ she whispered. She wasn’t meant to speak during dinner. Only to say grace. It was safer that way—she wouldn’t make him mad. Percival leapt up and cautiously sniffed around Ellie’s and then her father’s plates, circling to look back through the doorway in the direction of the bedrooms. The cat dropped his gaze and licked tentatively at the meat.

  ‘Wait. We must say grace.’ She bowed her head. ‘Daddy, thank you for the food you have provided for us. Amen.’ She looked at Perce, sneaking bites of her father’s steak, trying to pull it from the plate. Daddy would not like this one bit, but he wasn’t here. He was in there… She focused on her plate

  ‘I guess it’s just us tonight, puss. Just us.’

  Nothing goes to waste. Cutting up the remains of the steak and an uneaten sausage she hadn’t been able to stomach, Ellie thought about her father’s oft-spoken words. Leftovers for lunch for her and Perce tomorrow, she decided as she placed the meat inside the fridge. I am not a wasteful girl. Ellie washed the dishes and dried them, stacking them in their correct positions as she did every night. It was her job; ‘women’s work,’ Daddy had called it. Percival had paced through the house and was now miaowing at the back door, but Ellie couldn’t let him out. Daddy usually kicked him out at night, told him to piss off and go hunt. But Daddy had locked the back door and Daddy had the key.

  Only the kitchen light was on, yet the rest of the house was ambiguously alive in the dark. Shadows fell in each room, breathing. Shuffling footfalls sounded behind her. Ellie turned, but no one was there.

  ‘Daddy?’ She walked to the lounge room and switched on the light. Nothing. No one. She walked back into the kitchen. What was she supposed to do? The cat butted against her leg, and she jumped.

  ‘What?’ It was more a sob than a question. Her father remained silent in his bedroom and Perce just looked back at her with golden, implacable eyes. There was no one to answer her; no one who cared; no one who knew she existed.

  ‘You didn’t leave me, Daddy.’ Ellie moved to her father’s room and looked at him lying motionless on the bed. Talk to me, she begged silently, Yell at me; come back to me. He didn’t move. How could he be here and not here?

  She rushed into the lounge room and found the vivid emptiness looming larger than ever before. Footfalls sounded behind her. He was up. How was it possible? Ellie had spent countless nights listening for his footsteps down the corridor to her room. That clunky tread had induced feelings of resentment so fierce they had burnt her gut raw. So many times she had wished he would just stop, that he would go away, that he would die.

  His love had hurt so much. There had been blows if she had tried to resist. There had been too many nights of coarse-haired skin, sweaty stickiness, and heat, the whispered beat of insect wings against papered windows. His breath and body both reeking of the beer and tobacco he adored.

  ‘C’mon, baby, roll over.’ To make eye contact was to make an accusation. Unhallowed nights tilted into awkward angles and toxic air. Begging him to stop, crying out that he was hurting her, had never worked.
She supposed this was what all daddies and their daughters did. Sometimes it even felt good, hot and ticklish down there, but other times, it was as if he could no longer hear her or he just didn’t care. Sometimes in the dark she could still make out his enlarged pores and short, spiky eyelashes, all the intricacies of intimacy. The wayward hairs that had, over time, begun to grey, striking out on his chin and upper lip, the cloying, crouching, musky scent, mingled with more fetid odours. And the actions that he rarely allowed himself to succumb to in the uncompromising light of day.

  On a few occasions, he had told her he had had another woman. He had told her about women. About whores.

  ‘This is what men and women do, Ellie. This is what women are for.’

  Ellie didn’t understand. Did some women live just for this? Had her mother been like one of those women? Had her mother cried out? Had he done those things with her? She would never know. Her mother had left, had left her, hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t loved her. Not like Daddy loved her.

  She loved him and she hated him. He loved her and he hurt her. She had wished him gone so many times, and now he was. Was it her fault? Those days when she had heard the waves fighting the shore, days she had been desperate to go outside and bathe in that salt-impregnated air, desperate to see if the world she remembered in flashes and fragments was real, instead of being trapped inside this house, his house.

  ‘Don’t go outside.’ The echo of his words struck her anew. ‘Don’t ever answer the door, don’t go near the windows, don’t make any noise.’ Don’t, don’t, don’t. Don’t talk to people— people were cruel and Daddy was the only one who could keep her safe; Daddy who was not sleeping; Daddy who was dead.

  She knew about sleeping and what the night brought. She would wake frightened, gasping, clasping at the sheets and blankets twisted around her. Her thin arms, scarred and damaged from when she had put them up in defence, from where she had hurt herself, now battled bed linen; memories reborn in sleep of her right arm, birdlike and fragile in a dog’s wide and clenching jaw. That crunching, snapping sound of splintering bone and biting, mauling teeth: muscles, bones, teeth clicking and connecting, pulling, tearing, and destroying. Night terrors, the doctors at the hospital had named those inescapable dreams. Two little, meaningless words. She was six; she would grow out of it, they said. They were wrong.