Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  Her father had procured sleeping tablets and gave her first a quarter, then a half at night. She would lie there, trapped in a new nightmare as he stood over her and touched her, all while she was immobilised in the dark. That was how it began, in numbed, drugged unconsciousness.

  Ellie would wake those mornings after, haunted and sore. She felt sweaty, dirty, and wrong; broken. Grandmother Clements had come to supervise her during the day when Daddy was at work. Her grandmother held herself stiffly whenever she was close to Ellie and seemed to regard her granddaughter as a chore, those scars an insult. When Grandmother Clements spoke, she spoke of lies and wickedness and wrath and paying for your sins. Go play in your room, girl. Draw one of your pictures, read a book, leave me be. Anything Ellie could do quietly, provided she didn’t disturb her grandmother, seemed to be permitted, as long as Ellie was somewhere in the house where Grandmother Clements didn’t have to look at her. Ellie supposed it was because of her face. She had longed for a kind word or a gentle touch. Her hopes for love and warmth soon faded. She had soon understood—she was not worth these things.

  Ellie had tried to tell her grandmother about her father and the pain at night. She had handed her grandmother a drawing of a coal-black man leaning over a bed. Her grandmother had glanced down, then crumpled the paper in her hands. The lines on her face had momentarily deepened before they had straightened with a control that was fearsome. ‘No, child; don’t make up stories.’

  She had wished that Mummy were there. Mummy would have believed her. She had wished that Daddy would let her go outside. Perhaps then she could have gone next door to Maisie’s house and told Maisie’s mum. Maisie’s mum had always seemed nice. Ellie wished that she were still allowed to go to school; her teacher might have believed her. But wishing hadn’t made Daddy stop.

  It was many months before Ellie tried to tell her grandmother again. Something was wrong and she hurt. Down there. It had hurt the night before when Daddy had given her ‘her birthday present’ and it still hurt hours later. It hurt worse than ever before. She had gone to the bathroom and cried out in pain. Her grandmother had heard and pushed open the bathroom door.

  ‘Why the carry-on? What’s all this fuss? Anyone would think you were a baby, not seven.’ As brusque and hard as usual, but at least she was there. ‘What is wrong with you, girl?’

  Ellie had wiped a trembling hand across her face, smearing the tears and snot that had fallen. She had rubbed her hand on her dress and braved her grandmother’s disdain.

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down there…there’s blood.’ She had gestured with a broken whisper.

  ‘You’re too young.’ Grandmother Clements had shaken her head.

  Ellie had pulled up her dress, pulled down her plain cotton underpants and pointed to where it was sore. Her legs were bruised and there were traces of dried blood on her thighs. Her father had been drinking and he had been rougher than usual. Disgust, mixed with an emotion Ellie couldn’t identify, had dimmed her grandmother’s face.

  ‘No.’ Her narrow lipped grandmother had grabbed Ellie by one arm and an ear, and half dragged, half threw her into the bathtub.

  ‘Clean yourself up, you dirty girl. Filthy girl.’ She had thrust on the taps and Ellie had felt the hot water scald her legs. Ellie had screamed as her grandmother tore off her clothes whilst the tub filled.

  ‘Daddy did it; he does things.’

  ‘Liar!’ Her grandmother had slapped her across the face, fear and anger in her eyes. ‘Filthy little liar, just like Miriam.’ With that, her grandmother had held Ellie’s head under the water. Ellie had struggled and spluttered and choked and kicked until blood red filled her vision and she became limp. Only then had her grandmother’s hold released and Ellie had come to the surface, gasping and coughing.

  Her grandmother mouthed words that Ellie wanted to pretend were ‘I’m sorry,’ and even though water pooled all over the floor and grandmother’s cheap floral dress was dripping, her incomprehensible eyes remained far away. What had she meant? Who was Miriam? Miriam from the Bible who had sung about the sea? Her grandmother had straightened.

  ‘Clean up this mess, girl.’ With that, she had walked out and Ellie hadn’t seen her for another five days.

  Ellie stared at her father’s armchair. This was where he spent his evenings, reading the local paper or listening to the wireless, his thoughts and silences all his own. She circled his chair. It looked as if it were waiting for him to sit upon its worn, plaid surface. She touched the stained headrest with a tentative finger. There was a darker, muted patch where his greasy locks had rested. Ellie let her finger trail down the headrest, along the arm of the chair, and took a deep breath. She looked at the sunken cushion. This was his chair, Daddy’s chair. Ellie sat down, feeling her buttocks sink into the hollow his had made. He would slap her if he saw her sitting here. Surely he would come out now. She tensed, anticipating a raised voice or swift hand, but neither came. She stretched out her legs and touched the sheepskin rug that lay in front of the gas heater. She had tactile memories of standing bare-footed in that rug, kneading it with her toes on those chilly winter mornings when Daddy had lit the heater, and she had sneaked out of her room to finish dressing in the warmth.

  Ellie leant over and turned on the radio softly. Voices spoke from faces she couldn’t picture, speaking of lives she couldn’t imagine. The words merged into a pattern of pitches and vibrancies. It was the sound of the voices she craved, not the words: they were unimportant. Other lives, their worlds; they weren’t real. The air felt impatient around her, as if the entire house were waiting for Daddy to wake up, to walk out of his bedroom, and return. She wondered if he would appear if she dared play one of his albums. She remembered a long-ago night when, unnoticed in the doorway, she had watched him tapping his foot in time to the music and crooning along.

  He had spotted her in the doorway and leapt up, coming towards her. She had cowered, but instead of the anger she had expected, he had grabbed her and spun her around the living room. He had swung her across the sheepskin rug and she had giggled, the laugh escaping her, the tension in her body relaxing in his strong hold. He had moved his hands from her arms to her waist. She had raised her face to meet his, but his eyes had remained fixed above her head, his open mouth singing the words with a smile. Ellie had joined her voice to his, but when her father had heard her high and thready attempt mingled with his own, he had dropped his hands from her waist.

  ‘Why do you always have to ruin it?’

  Chastened, she had slumped from the room. She hadn’t meant to ruin his fun; she had liked seeing this side of her father. She had only ever wanted to make him happy and for him to be happy with her.

  Percival leapt onto the headrest of the armchair, Ellie barely registering his lithe movement. On those days when the cat had been shut indoors with her, he had often slept on Daddy’s chair during the day, but never at night, never when Daddy was home. Perce slunk down the armrest and kneaded his paws into the junction of her thighs. He settled deep into her lap with a rare and drowsy purr. Ellie let her fingers play idly in his fur. When Percival was this calm she longed to sink a comb into his pelt, dragging its teeth through his thick coat, smoothing out any burrs. As if he had interpreted her thoughts, Ellie felt sharp teeth mouth her finger, a warning. She knew of what those teeth were capable.

  She had seen Percival toy with the animals, skinks or birds, that he occasionally brought inside. Ellie had watched him bat them, hold them in his mouth, and fling them in the air, taunting and teasing, ignoring, then stalking. He would eat some and let others go. The potential for cruelty was always there. It was familiar: the cold, narrow eyes of the cat and the dull, lifeless eyes of the lizards that hadn’t escaped. Those dead reptilian eyes were her father’s. Ellie gave Percival a last calming stroke, then let her arms rest along the chair, neither Ellie nor Percival stirring until
the sound of a car and the light from its headlights disturbed their peace. It was close, too close. Was it in their driveway? Who would come, and at this time? Ellie switched off the radio. The engine stilled and the headlights shut off. Ellie heard voices, car doors slamming. The neighbours were back. Maisie’s brother, now somehow a grownup with a family of his own. Ellie couldn’t picture Timmy as grown up. Daddy always said he couldn’t believe Tim kept coming back. Daddy hated the neighbours. Hated them turning up for holidays and the odd weekend. Hated their boy—‘that bloody brat’ whom he accused of throwing things into the yard and snooping. Now Daddy would get up and tell her she had to be super quiet, extra careful in the house, especially when he wasn’t home. Ellie waited for him to come out of his room, but he didn’t. She waited until the clock on the mantelpiece chimed its habitual note. Bedtime.

  The cat stretched and jumped off her lap. Perce knew the nightly routine as well as Ellie. She knew to be even quieter, if the neighbours were back. Though if they heard anything at all, they’d think it was Daddy. Daddy who lived alone.

  Ellie walked to the bathroom, used the toilet, and brushed her teeth, before taking slow steps towards her bedroom. Her hands, scarred yet youthful from her many years indoors, tenderly touched the faded faces of the fabric dolls propped on her bed. Isaac, Ruth, Sarah, and Jacob-I-have-loved.

  She cleared her throat. Her voice was brittle and weak from underuse. She often stammered and coughed when she did speak, nervously twitching and sweating. Some days the words clamoured to get out, pushed themselves frantically against the roof of her mouth. Other days there were no words; there was nothing at all.

  ‘Spit it out, girl,’ Daddy would snap, annoyed by yet another example of her multitude of failures. Some days she never made a sound; there were no whispers to her dolls, no songs, just unpunctuated, suspended silence. Ellie cleared her throat again. Tonight she would speak. Tonight she would sing.

  She crooned to them, a whispering, lilting tune of memory and want. ‘Good night, my babies; Mummy loves you very much.’ She reached under her pillow to clasp the last doll. Of her, there was nothing left but a cracked, porcelain head.

  ‘Good night, Ever.’ She stroked the porcelain lovingly. She had named her Ever because that was how she would stay with her: For Ever and Ever, Amen.

  Ellie undressed and reached for her nightgown. She fingered the soft, threadbare fabric where it smoothed against her thighs. It was one of her father’s old flannelette shirts, but she liked to pretend that it was new and pretty. She lifted the multi-coloured crocheted rug her grandmother had made for her bed. Ellie draped it around her shoulders and let it cover her body. She switched off the light and made the journey down the hallway to her father’s room. The air was still in here. She lay down next to his cool, stiffening body and arranged the rug over them both.

  ‘Good night, Daddy.’

  Day Two

  Sometime during the night Ellie had woken, her heart racing. A south-easterly had sent the branches outside dancing against the window, and they had flickered uneasy shadows across the cold, still form beside her. Daddy was so cold; he had always said he ran hot. She had to make him better. Chilled and shivering, she had kicked to escape the rug that had tangled its way around her legs. Ellie had taken sleep-heavy steps back to her own room to grab another blanket, telling herself she would return to her father’s side. She wouldn’t leave him on his own. Not like this. But the blanket on her bed had been tucked in so tight; in her drowsy state she hadn’t had the energy to tug it free. Daddy had always demanded the bed be made precisely the same way each day—sheets and blankets stretched tight, no wrinkles or creases allowed.

  Her single bed had felt so welcoming. I’ll lie here for a minute, just for a minute; I’ll get warm and then I’ll go back to Daddy… But as she had sunk into her familiar cocoon, she had fallen asleep. She had left him, cold and alone.

  She was a bad, bad daughter. Ellie dressed, strode down the hallway to his room, and switched on the light. A raw, sickly smell drenched the air. Ellie stood transfixed at the doorway, and stared at the motionless figure on the bed. A brownish stain discoloured the chenille cover. Ellie stepped closer. The odour was unmistakable. Her father had, had… pooed. She stifled a grin. Sometime during the night the shitty mass had seeped through his clothes and onto the bedspread around his buttocks. She placed a hand on his arm. He was cold and hard to touch. She placed both hands on his body and, grunting, she rolled him over. The brown stain had worked its way along his lower back and thighs.

  Poo. She giggled. Shit. ‘Shit, poo, crap.’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. She shouldn’t have laughed. She wasn’t allowed to laugh at him. And she had said bad words. He never liked her to say bad words. ‘Sorry, Daddy.’

  She felt a giddy relief that she hadn’t been with him when it had happened and had ended the night in her own bed after all. Something buzzed near her head and she shooed away a fly. Relief turned to guilt. She couldn’t let him lie in this mess. His mess. She had had bed baths in hospital; now it was Daddy’s turn.

  In the laundry, she filled the purple plastic basin with hot water. She gathered soap, a face cloth, and towel from the bathroom and carried it all back to where her father lay. Slowly, methodically, she began to undress his stiff form, struggling to remove his clothes. She had never undressed another person before.

  His body was so heavy and difficult to move that she thought about giving up. Please help me, she inwardly begged the silent body. Or I’ll leave you like this. The smell hit her again.

  ‘Oh God, I can’t…I can’t.’ Gagging, she ran out of the room and leant against the wall of the hallway. The smell had followed her. Ellie started pacing. It was horrible. She didn’t want to do it, but wouldn’t be able to bear this stench in the house. She had to help him. He was relying on her now. ‘I have to.’

  Ellie took a deep breath and re-entered Daddy’s bedroom. She started to undo the buttons on his shirt. One, two, three, four, five. White and wiry chest hairs poked out from beneath his singlet. He always wore a singlet under his shirt, even on the hottest summer days. This one, like so many others, had been white once, but was now grey and stained, aged like the rest of him. Ellie fought with his arms as she tried to remove his shirt.

  ‘You could help me, you know,’ she muttered. Seeing him like this, she was becoming braver. She was speaking without being spoken to, without permission. She had to be strong. Daddy needed her. Ellie grunted as each movement of his torso caused the lower half of his body to squelch, spreading the sickening mess further. Just when she thought she would have to get the scissors to cut the shirt from him, she managed to yank it off and throw it onto the floor. The lower section of it was tainted brown. She swallowed the bile that had risen to her throat.

  She wrenched the singlet from him, the thin fabric tearing easily. She expected him to yell, “I’m not made of money, you know!”

  ‘I know, Daddy, but I have to.’

  Feet next? He had taken his slippers off when he had lain down so Ellie just had to roll off his black cotton socks and ball them up tight. She dropped them on the floor next to the shirt. She looked back at her father. He still hadn’t moved.

  ‘Damn,’ she whispered. ‘Damn, poo, shit.’ Her voice raised on the final word. She would have to take his pants off. Her hands trembled as she unfastened his belt buckle—she had a vision of him, one arm raised, the belt looming and whooshing through the air towards her—and with hands still shaking, she pulled it free of his thin, polyester pants. She felt the weight of the leather in her hand and pictured herself whipping her father’s body, leaving raised welts to match the scars that crossed her back. She flung the belt to the carpet where it lay, a black leather snake, ready to strike.

  ‘You won’t hit me again.’ Ellie’s voice was weak but, as she looked down at the belt, she felt something within her harden. ‘Never again.’ Her voice was firmer this t
ime and she kicked the belt towards the closet. Turning back to the bed, Ellie grimaced as she unzipped his fly. More images came to her—her father, naked, erect, forcing her down, ignoring her cries, pushing her face, scarred side down, onto the pillow. She grabbed the waistband of his pants and tried to pull them down. The stench hit her afresh and she heard a sucking sound as the fabric dragged free of his buttocks. She groaned. Ellie pulled and tugged with slow, awkward movements until his pants finally slid free of his legs, dragging his underpants down too. She dumped his soiled clothes on the floor, covering the belt. She didn’t want to see it again.

  Ellie closed her eyes, unable to look at his exposed body. Revulsion lurched in her stomach. I hate your body, your naked body. I hate you. She opened her eyes.

  ‘No.’ You’re my daddy. I love you. I have to love you. Ellie reached for the face cloth and dipped it into the basin of water. ‘You took care of me. Now it’s my turn to take care of you.’ Wringing out the excess moisture, she forced herself to look at his withered form. He seemed so pitiful now, all of his strength, his anger, gone, leaving this weak shell. It took a couple of attempts before she managed to roll him onto his side and could start to wipe the mess off his buttocks and back. The water and face cloth quickly turned a sickly brown. Retching, she forced herself to continue. Her pale hands were stained too; she could feel the faeces gathering under her fingernails and the scent of shit enveloped her.

  ‘Urghhh.’ She wrung the cloth into the basin and kept washing him.