Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  Ellie started at his voice. ‘I…’ Even though she’d half expected to hear him, to see him move, it was still a surprise. He was dead and somehow not. Somehow, he was still here. She looked at his face for an instant before dropping her gaze. He wasn’t moving.

  ‘Daddy?’ She walked over to the bed and sat on the edge, her eyes fixed on the carpet at her feet. ‘I’ve… I’ve got a plan.’

  ‘You!’ He laughed.

  ‘I’m going to take care of you.’ Her voice, still low, had an unfamiliar and surprising strength.

  ‘You, take care of me, humph! You can’t even take care of yourself.’

  Ellie raised her eyes and looked at him. His body was lifeless, but his voice, his laugh, his contempt, were real. She stood and reached for the fine-toothed plastic comb on the dresser, and saw her hand as if from a great distance, as if someone else was performing the act. With her other hand she tried to raise his head from the pillow. His neck was stiff and hard and Ellie watched her movements executed in slow motion. She tentatively lifted the greying strands from his forehead and began combing them back.

  ‘I can take care of you.’ The comb snagged on one of his large ears. He had kept his hair parted on the left for as long as she could remember and she tried to re-establish the line. His thick, bushy eyebrows retained some of the darkness his hair had once held, hair that had been thick, dark, and exotically glossy in the old black-and-white photos she had seen of him. His parents were fair; he had seemed out of place standing next to his own family.

  Ellie groomed her father with repetitive, deliberate strokes, much as she had watched Percival and the four cats who had preceded him groom themselves. The cheap comb did an adequate job and she hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed with her efforts.

  ‘There, that’s better.’ She had never touched or spoken to her father like this before. It felt confusing and wrong somehow, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. ‘It’s my turn to take care of you now. I’ll keep you safe.’

  Ill-dressed in her father’s oversized overalls, Ellie entered the lounge room. Perce was curled up on the sheepskin rug and although everything seemed to be in its right place, something was wrong.

  ‘What is it?’ Her gaze travelled around the room in a compulsive arc. ‘What is it?’ Percival opened his eyes and looked at her with his typical nonplussed feline poise. He didn’t bother lifting his head, but settled down further on the musty fleece. Something wasn’t right. Ellie left and checked her room. Everything was where it should be. She opened the door to her father’s room. He was still on the bed, his hair neatly combed. She checked the bathroom. Everything was where she had left it. The towel neatly on the rack, the ends matched up evenly, the bathmat drying on the side of the tub. She checked the kitchen. The tea towel was folded evenly over the oven handle, just as Daddy had insisted. She walked back to the lounge room.

  She knelt down on the floor and looked at the low shelf. There was a vacant space in the perfect rectangular line where the spine of the books sat. One of those old hardcover books that had valiantly held the same positions on that shelf her entire life was gone. The Boys’ Annual. Daddy’s book. Her breath caught in her throat. The clock on the mantle chimed and she stood, her hands fluttering at her sides. She hadn’t wound the clock. That was Daddy’s job, never hers. Daddy must have taken the book. Wound the clock. Last night when she was out. Her skin prickled and her hands felt clammy. It was true.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Ellie made herself some toast and another cup of tea, stirred it three times, and stopped. She threw the teaspoon in the sink and, when it clattered, instinctively turned her head towards her father’s room, waiting for him to come out with muttered complaints about her racket. But he didn’t. There was no mention of noise and neighbours. Nothing. Of course there was nothing, no angry voice, no Daddy. No one had been here; it was only her imagination. She must have moved the book the other day and not realised it. She was sure that if she walked back into the room now, the book would be back in its rightful place. But she didn’t want to check.

  She jumped as Percival leapt from the floor onto the table and sniffed disdainfully at her empty plate.

  ‘Get off, puss.’ She pushed the cat gently towards the floor. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  

  Living as close to the bush as they did, wildlife frequently entered the yard and sometimes the house. They often heard possums scarpering across the roof at night.

  ‘Blasted pests,’ Daddy would mutter. He would set up possum traps and then take the captured animals into the shed. Ellie would block her ears. She wasn’t sure what he did to those poor creatures, never wanted to know, and was too afraid to ask.

  Occasionally, bush rats and mice entered the kitchen searching for scraps. The odd blue-tongue lizard or snake had also made a rare appearance indoors, but it was the mice that interested Ellie the most. They were cute. She had tried to feed and befriend a mouse once, but had been caught placing tiny leftovers from her lunch on the floor. She hadn’t seen Maisie in the weeks since she’d been home from the hospital, but maybe this little creature would keep her company.

  ‘Dirty girl. Get up!’ Her grandmother had come up behind her and her steely eyes hadn’t missed the mouse scurrying behind the kitchen cupboard. ‘Encouraging vermin, you filthy girl. Filthy.’ Slapped and chastened, Ellie had been made to scrub the linoleum on her hands and knees until her grandmother had been satisfied. Arthur had listened to his mother’s recount of the day’s events when he had returned from work and had given Ellie an inscrutable look.

  ‘So you think it’s all right to put food on the floor, do you? Bringing pests into this house?’

  Ellie had stared up at her father mutely.

  ‘You think there’s enough food in this house to just throw away, do you? Do you?’

  ‘N…n…no,’ Ellie had stammered.

  ‘You think I work my arse off every day to earn money and buy food so you can give it to rats?’

  Ellie had shaken her head. It was a mouse, she wanted to say, but knew it would provoke him further.

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘No, Daddy.’

  He had smirked. ‘No is right. No more food for you. I’m not feeding vermin in this house.’

  Ellie had been banished to her room, where she had spent most of the evening rocking gently on the floor, trying to will away the growls of her stomach that threatened to overwhelm her. She had been too scared to leave her room and sneak into the kitchen, even when the house was dark and she could hear her father’s snores. Disobeying him would lead to something worse than missing a meal; she knew it. Her fear was more ravenous than hunger. The next morning, he had her make his breakfast and sit at the table while he ate it. Her stomach had rumbled so loudly he had heard it.

  ‘Shush,’ he said, and smirked.

  She had cupped her hands around her belly, wishing she didn’t feel so hungry, so faint. She was still sitting at the table thirty minutes later when her grandmother arrived for the day.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, child? Sitting there like a bump on a log.’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Didn’t you have enough breakfast?’

  Ellie shook her head.

  ‘What did you have?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ellie mumbled.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing, Grandmother Clements. Daddy wouldn’t let me.’ Ellie bit her lip. She had said something bad about Daddy and there was no telling how Grandmother would react. Her grandmother stared at her and then sighed.

  ‘Well, you have to eat something. Make some toast. Come on with you.’

  Ellie didn’t waste any time. Adults could change their minds in an instant. She made herself a piece of toast and ate it in big, clumping mouthfuls, barely chewing or pausing between bites. As Ellie ate, her grandm
other busied herself looking through the kitchen cupboards, behind the fridge, and along the skirting board before she pronounced, ‘There, I knew it,’ in a satisfied tone.

  Ellie watched, but did not speak.

  ‘Mice droppings. Found them.’ Her grandmother stood and washed her hands at the sink. ‘You’ll need to clean properly from now on, make sure everything is sealed up, understand?’

  Ellie nodded, her mouth crammed with the last pieces of toast. Her grandmother looked at her and sighed. ‘You’re not the brightest child, are you? Oh well, put the kettle on. Make us a cup of tea.’

  Hastily wiping the crumbs away from her face, Ellie obeyed, then watched in mute fascination as her grandmother took one of the kitchen chairs and moved it outside into a patch of sunshine in the backyard. Her grandmother returned for her cup of tea and settled into her chair. Ellie ventured as far as the screen door and looked out into the yard. She squinted against the light. She hadn’t been outside since she’d been home from the hospital, and that had been weeks and weeks ago. One month? Two? Her hair had grown back in itchy tufts that now covered the raised scars on her scalp. Idly, Ellie rubbed her hand over her new spiky hair. How long did hair take to grow? She only knew it had been too long since there had been fresh air and school and daylight.

  ‘Come on out; nothing’s going to bite you.’ Ellie flinched, and her grandmother gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘Not anymore.’

  Ellie hesitated, then pushed the door open. Was this a trick? Grandmother Clements knew the rules. No outside for Ellie. That’s what Daddy had ordered. But if this was real, this was her chance. She could go to her secret letterbox and see if there was something from Maisie.

  As her grandmother slurped watery tea against the chipped edge of her cup, Ellie took one step, then another. The daylight hurt her eyes. Squinting, she could see blue veins and bruises beneath her own white skin. She’d moved closer to her grandmother, though careful to remain out of arm’s reach.

  ‘Skittish, skinny little thing, you are, aren’t you?’

  Ellie didn’t know what to say. She decided on nothing. Nothing was safe. She wanted to skip, she wanted to run, but these first steps into the yard were tremulous enough. Ellie held her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. Beneath her eyelids she saw red and felt the warming light coursing through her. She wanted to capture the sunlight on her skin, forever. She smiled. Grandmother Clements voice broke her through the bliss.

  ‘No one’s home next door, I checked. So no one will see you, but,’ her grandmother’s eyes were fixed upon her, ‘we won’t tell your father. Understood?’

  Ellie nodded rapidly.

  ‘Speak, child.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’ Her grandmother didn’t look satisfied, but she sat back in her chair, ‘Right.’

  Ellie could hear the sea brushing against the shore and birds whistling and calling to each other, sounding so much louder and fresher out here in the open air, sounding so much more alive. She wanted to giggle and skip with the joy of it. She wanted to play. She wanted to stay outside forever. Venturing closer to the overgrown garden beds, she held her breath as an orange and black butterfly landed on a leaf almost within arm’s reach.

  ‘Pretty.’ She considered going back inside to grab her pencils to try to copy the pattern on those delicate wings. The butterfly flittered before settling on another leaf and she weighed up her choices. If she didn’t go grab her pencils and paper, she might not be able to remember what it looked like. But if she went back in, she would lose the glorious outside. Grandmother might change her mind and lock her back in the house. Ellie decided to stay and try her hardest to remember what it looked like and draw later. She held out a finger, but let it drop. She didn’t want to hurt it. Butterflies could get hurt, just like people. In the encyclopaedia there had been pictures of butterflies and instructions on how to fix them in place with pins. Ellie shivered. If you had wings, you should be free.

  She watched the butterfly hover over one plant then another, and pictured herself flying. She saw human-sized wings growing from her spine, could feel her shoulder blades rising, extending, allowing her escape. She could fly away.

  ‘Yes.’ She tried to imagine herself anew, a world away from this hidden yard and prison house. She lifted her arms, then let them drop. Daddy would never let her go. The butterfly flew away and loneliness descended upon her. Nothing stayed. Mummy had gone and she hadn’t seen Maisie since before the dogs… Maisie. Ellie looked over at her grandmother, who had her eyes closed, her head back, face tilted towards the sun. If she were quiet and quick…

  Ellie ran inside and reached under her bed, her heart thumping.

  ‘Quick, quick, quick,’ she whispered. Daddy let her draw on the pieces of paper he didn’t want any more and she had drawn a picture for Maisie, for their secret letterbox, hoping that one day she would have the chance to deliver it. She kissed the drawing and skipped down the hall towards the back door.

  Her grandmother was sitting in the same position, cup in hand, her eyes still closed against the sunshine. Ellie leapt off the back step and ran past her, straight towards the overgrowth alongside the shed and dove into it as if the dogs were chasing her. She had to deliver her drawing. She had to let Maisie know she was home.

  There was a strong, sickly odour around the shed. Ellie wrinkled her nose in disgust. Maybe Daddy had put something on the garden, or added to his compost of their leftover food. It smelt bad. She didn’t want to look. She wriggled through the overgrowth and found the gap between the palings that had been their secret spot. She folded up her drawing and slid it carefully through the gap. When Maisie found this, she would know that Ellie was here. Ellie smiled. Even the sound of her grandmother yelling, ‘Girl!’ didn’t bother her. Maisie would know that Ellie hadn’t forgotten her. Maisie would know that Ellie was her friend.

  ‘Girl? Where are you?’

  ‘Here,’ Ellie crawled out from behind the shed and walked over to her grandmother. ‘Here I am.’

  ‘Come here,’ her grandmother frowned and picked a stray leaf off Ellie’s top. ‘Stay where I can see you.’

  Ellie nodded and sat on the grass at her grandmother’s side.

  ‘It’s not natural to be inside so much; children need sunshine.’

  Ellie looked at her, unsure whether she was expected to speak.

  ‘It’s not right, but what can I do? I never could tell him anything. When his father died, I had to rely on him.’ She paused and took another noisy sip. Ellie moved closer. She could see the discoloured stain that rimmed the inside of the cup. She’d have to clean that off before Daddy saw it.

  ‘I’ll say this much for him, he worked hard and he gave me his pay each week. I couldn’t have survived without him. What choice did I have?’ She glared at Ellie then, her eyes accusing and defensive. Ellie reared back. ‘What choice did I have? Miriam…’ Her hand shook and the cup rattled in its saucer.

  ‘Grandmother?’ Ellie’s whisper became lost in the air between them.

  ‘I couldn’t even go to church anymore,’ She spat the words. ‘Couldn’t show my face, oh no, not even later with a dead husband. With a disgraced daughter and a son who’d stolen from the house of God. Stolen and accused another. The Sunday school teacher’s son no less.’ She snorted. ‘Everyone knew what he was,’ she raised her eyebrows, ‘but that bloody pious woman made it impossible. No Christian bloody charity from her, oh no. There were no miracles for the faithful around her, no bloody miracles for the Clements family…’ Her voice trailed off and she flung the remainder of her tea onto the grass. Ellie jumped up.

  ‘She got her come-uppance though. And I did what I had to do. Arthur supported me, see, so I had to support him.’ Her grandmother looked at her as she stood, resting one hand on the back of the chair. Ellie had watched as the familiar frown resettled on those thin lips.

  ‘I’ve
said enough. Get back inside, girl; he’ll be home soon.’

  When her father arrived home from work, Grandmother Clements stuck to her word and never mentioned their outdoor excursion. After all the dinner things were washed, Daddy had called Ellie back to the kitchen table where he pulled a couple of small contraptions out of a box.

  ‘Do you know what these are?’ he’d asked.

  She had shaken her head.

  ‘Traps, mousetraps. To stop the little bastards getting in.’ He’d fiddled with the one before him.

  ‘These are your responsibility now, Ellie. You put the scraps here, set them,’ he’d demonstrated, ‘and catch the buggers.’ He had triggered the mechanism with a knife. The resounding smack of the metal and brush of air past her ear had made her jump. Her father had laughed.

  ‘I’ll be checking these traps, girl. I only want to see dead mice, not live ones in my house.’

  He had placed a couple of traps on the kitchen floor. One tucked away in the corner between the oven and the wall, another hidden behind the fridge. The snap of a trap late at night sent icy shudders down her spine and she would clench her hands to her chest. She saw herself trapped and helpless, her back broken by a metal bar. The mice that hadn’t died immediately upset her the most. The ones who flinched and flailed, whose limbs still moved, blood leaking from their nose or eyes.

  The only time she had failed to reset a trap, she had thought he hadn’t noticed. The next day he had held her down on the floor, her nose centimetres away from the spring.

  ‘That look right to you, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘No,’ she said louder, trying to pull her head away.

  ‘I think it’s missing bait, don’t you? Huh?’ He had pushed her face closer until she had felt her eyelashes sweep across the trap’s wooden base.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ll fix it, I promise.’

  He had held her head there for another second or two before releasing her.

  ‘You’d better.’

  ‘You should get a cat.’ Grandmother Clements had grimaced one day as she’d watched Ellie trying to spring a bent, lifeless body from the mousetrap. ‘We always used to keep cats, good mousers.’ Ellie remembered her grandmother’s words and wished there was a way to convince her father.