Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘I seem to remember it was in the local paper at the time.’

  Poker faced, Arthur looked George in the eye. ‘Bit of fuss over nothin’. It wasn’t that bad, after all.’

  ‘Do you see much of her?’

  ‘Nuh. Her and the ex-wife moved to Victoria years ago.’

  ‘That’s a shame, a real shame.’ George spoke as if he were measuring out his words in exhalations. ‘You should contact your girl; you could be a granddad. You never know what you’re missing out on.’

  Arthur didn’t respond.

  ‘Me, I love having the kids around, keeps a man young, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Arthur was sorry he’d encouraged George to come over.

  ‘Though I suppose a man gets used to the bachelor lifestyle.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I could drop in for some peace and quiet,’ he chuckled, ‘You should come round for dinner sometime. I see Harry, remember him from the mines? Yeah, we could all catch up, talk about old days.’

  ‘Ancient history,’ Arthur murmured, shaking his head as he took another long sip of beer.

  As George went to speak once more, Arthur gestured to an empty pool table.

  ‘Fancy a game?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I think you’re losing it, old chap. I said, want a game?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, Arthur, don’t mind if I do.’

  Arthur left after their game and headed back up the coast towards Coalcliff. The winding drive down the coast road, hugging the cliff, leading him away from the house, the yard, the empty dogs’ enclosure, the girl, gave him another life, a ‘normal’ life. The return journey drew him back in to reality. Specks of rain dotted the windscreen. He flicked the wipers on and allowed their rhythmic click and retreat to clear away the droplets.

  So old George had remembered a wife, a daughter, but Arthur thought he had deflected George’s curiosity nicely. Arthur had had years of practice, years of wearing his disguise. He could face the outside world with the falsehood melded to his skin, but when he came home and shed the layers the relief was palpable. An average life was not for him.

  

  Ellie heard a noise. It sounded like footsteps. She stopped digging. He was alive; he was back. Daddy was Lazarus and the world was unable to let him go. She held the shovel like a weapon and turned slowly towards the house.

  ‘Daddy?’ From inside the enclosure, her view was limited. Eyes fixed on the grassed area directly before her, she saw only shadows, shadows that had lengthened and stretched across the yard whilst she’d been digging. Now it seemed there were so many places someone could hide. She imagined his body coming towards her, an arm outstretched, a hand ready to grab her, slap her, his rasping voice calling her name. She let out her breath slowly, counting: one, two, three… If he came out she would hit him, she would kiss him, she would…

  ‘You imagined it, you stupid girl.’ The neighbours were out and Daddy was inside. She lowered the shovel to the ground and turned her back on the yard. If Lazarus had been buried properly, maybe he would have stayed dead.

  From the backdoor, it was ten steps to the side of the house. From there it was five steps, five deliberate steps, to the gate. One, two, three, four, five. She counted slowly, purposefully, imagining herself pacing, walking down to the driveway, to the street, to the shore. Each thrust of the shovel into the hard soil equalled one footstep. The turn and dumping of the shovel load, another step. Digging his grave was her job and this was how the job would get done. Left foot, dig, right foot, dump.

  She kept digging until her body couldn’t take anymore. The neighbours were at the beach. She wanted to go down to the beach too, and feel cleansed by the sea air, away from this yard, this house. Away from him. Down to the sand where the waves called and crashed in riotous discord, down to where the gulls called out and the living bush breathed with the rustled sounds of the night animals hunting and foraging. She wanted to go back to the memory of her mother on the beach, to feel the sand, to stand where her mother had once stood. To have again that time when Mummy had laughed, thrown back her head, beaming in the sunshine. Mummy had taken her by the hand and stood in the shallows where spume taunted their ankles.

  ‘Trust me, Ellie; it’s okay.’ Mummy had held her hand and taken her to deeper waters. When Ellie could only feel the sand on tiptoe, her mother had lifted her up and held her, never once letting her go. She had been safe. Held by warm hands, floating on her back, the ocean, the sky, all a happy delicious blue, the day filled with warmth, sand, and light. Ellie wanted it back. She wouldn’t have Mummy, but she could have the sea.

  Ellie could dog-paddle and float, but she had never learnt to swim, not properly. Mummy had taught her how to kick her legs and keep her head above water, promising proper swimming lessons one day, but that had never happened. Ellie had dreamt of swimming though, of moving effortlessly through the waves, dreamt of light days and invitingly clear, aqua-tinted water that sang to her. In her dreams, she was young and scar-free, lured to the ocean’s edge by a tickling, summoning spray. There was freedom, there was space—no walls, no ceilings, no rough hands. Ellie of the dreams would float and dive, but inevitably the dreams always ended the same way: she’d be trapped under the surface where the water turned bitter and cold, a sulky sea that pulled her down into suffocating depths. Ellie would wake gasping and afraid, missing Mummy, missing the sun and warmth where the dreams began.

  That was the beach she wanted. And would have again. Tonight.

  

  ‘Nice titties,’ Daddy had said one night, squeezing them as she had winced. They still felt swollen and sore. She had started to get bigger and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t something she could ask Daddy about. Not today, not ever. Today he was making her scrub the grout with her toothbrush.

  ‘Disgusting,’ he’d said, pointing a finger at the shower, even though she had scoured it yesterday. She knew better than to argue. Just clean and do as he said. At least he was at work and she was alone.

  A rush of dizziness came over her and Ellie placed both hands against the tiles to steady herself. Something was different. She’d had cramps all morning, but they felt worse than usual. She cringed at the thought of telling Daddy she was sick. He wouldn’t want to know. She couldn’t talk about her body to him. She hated what he said about her body. Ugly, deformed, freak, cunt. Menacing, cruel words. She remembered the last time she’d cried in front of him.

  ‘Stop carrying on. It couldn’t hurt that much. You’re not a little girl anymore, you know.’ Ellie had tried to quell her fears and mimic her father’s blasé manner, unsure of exactly what type of girl she was.

  The spasms of pain worsened and Ellie staggered to the toilet, her shaking legs barely able to support her. With one hand supporting her against the wall, she braced herself to sit. It could have been minutes, hours, or days later when she was able to stand; Ellie had no idea. All she knew was that when she looked down in the toilet bowl, surrounded by bloodied water lay a tiny, misshapen, partially developed doll. Eyes closed, nail-less hands, all spine. No, not a doll. A baby. A foetus. That was what the encyclopaedia said not-grown babies were.

  It was slippery and despite its small size, Ellie needed both hands to grasp the bloodied form and tenderly place it on a towel. She patted it dry before wrapping it gently in the damp, stained towel to carry to her room.

  ‘My baby.’ She cuddled it tight, wishing it would breathe, open its eyes, and look at her. ‘Please, my darling. Please.’ Her body ached and blood still seeped between her legs as she lay on the bed and introduced it to Ever and the others. ‘I won’t leave you.’ Even when she heard her father’s car on the drive, she still hadn’t been able to move.

  ‘Ellie.’

  She sat up and placed the baby gently between the dolls on the bed.

 
‘Ellie, answer me.’

  ‘I’m here,’ she said, trying to move her unwilling legs.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ His eyes scanned her face, her body, the bed. She didn’t have to tell Daddy what had happened; he saw.

  ‘Oh, fuck, no,’ the pure revulsion on his face horrified her. ‘You fucking freak, fucking crazy bitch.’

  ‘She’s mine,’ Ellie cradled her baby against her chest, ‘mine. She’s going to stay with me.’

  ‘No!’ With a speed that surprised her, he snatched the towel-clad bundle and held it before him, arms outstretched, as if he feared contamination.

  ‘Daddy!’ She screamed, but he cursed her again, shoving her back onto the bed when she’d tried to take her baby back.

  ‘You stay in here, you…’ He’d left the room, slamming the door closed. Ellie stumbled to the doorway, wrenching it open, in time to hear her father close the back door. She half-staggered, half-ran down the hallway, her hands slapping uselessly on the back of the door, but it was too late. He’d locked it and taken her baby away. She slumped against the door, sobbing.

  When he finally came back inside, he had to push the door open against her weight.

  ‘I told you to stay.’ The low, angry tone should have frightened her, but she was beyond fear, beyond caring. What could he do to her now? Her baby was gone. She didn’t resist as he dragged her down the hallway to her bedroom. ‘Stay.’ He’d pushed her inside, shutting the door.

  Ellie knew it was the nights with him that had done it. Knew from the words she had read in the Bible. Knew that when a man lay with a woman, like Lot and his daughters who had gotten him drunk just to lie with him, knew that was how babies came. Hers hadn’t come out properly though, probably because she was so bad, so wrong. Because inside, just like on the outside, she was rotten.

  Drained, Ellie fell asleep that night thinking of Maisie, but Maisie had changed into another girl. Call me Miriam, she’d said. I see... Ellie didn’t know what she meant; in the Bible Miriam watched from the reeds, but here there was no one who saw Ellie, only Daddy. She wished she had someone real to talk to, who could tell her that it would all be okay, that these endless days and nights would stop, that Daddy would stop hurting her, but there were only the dream figures of Maisie and Miriam. Ellie had tried telling Ever and the dolls about Daddy, but they remained mute. She had prayed her mother would reappear and take her away from here, away from Daddy, but she never came. Mummy had left her here, alone with her father. Mummy didn’t care, didn’t love her, had left her here to be the mummy.

  ‘Bitch.’ The whispered word tasted sour in her mouth, in her gut. ‘You left me. Everybody leaves me.’ Ellie finally understood. It would always be her and Daddy. She would always feel shame—ashamed of her face, of her body, and of the nights spent with her father. She could never tell. Her own grandmother hadn’t believed her. There was no one else to tell.

  

  The ivy formed a filigree pattern in the night shadows. Something plunged overhead and she saw a young owl land in one of the trees that ringed the yard. If she hadn’t heard the sound of the bird in flight and caught the movement of its broad wings, she never would have been able to make out its shape in the dark. It blended perfectly into the recessed gloom of the branches. The owl turned its head and eyed her patiently, before its head turned to inspect the backyard. A low rumble at her feet alerted her to Percival’s presence. He was too old and slow now to chase birds, and the owl would have been too much for him even in his prime, but his hunting instincts remained. The owl gave a mournful cry, waiting for a distant reply that never came. It spread its powerful wings and was gone in a charcoal-grey swoop. Percival growled, either in satisfaction or disappointment—Ellie wasn’t sure.

  Ellie turned and faced the direction of the gate. She knew how many steps it was; she remembered from last night. Some things were endurable when you counted. She had learnt that at an early age.

  She felt in her pocket for the plastic bags she had brought to collect the shells and pebbles. She imagined Daddy would be horrified if he knew how his body would end up—not because he would be buried with the dogs; he’d probably like that—but weighted down under rocks and shells from the shore. She shouldn’t be venturing that far from the house for a start, he’d say, and the shells? He’d think she was being a fool, mistake her foraged offerings for some kind of sentimental nonsense, no doubt, an unnecessary and unwanted affectation. But it’s what I want to do, Ellie realised with some surprise. It’s what I have to do. It felt right to her. Enough of those pebbles and shells would surely ground him to the earth. They would keep him buried. Keep him down.

  Leaving the house this night had been easier. She’d checked on Daddy, made sure he was lying peacefully, before she’d crept down past the laundry to unlock the back door. Those steps from the back door to the side of the house seemed to have taken no time at all. The path down the side of the house had been wider than the night before; it had opened up before her. The gate had moved a little more easily on its hinges. She had edged down the driveway past the front yard and across the nature strip.

  Slinking down the moonlit street, Ellie’s footsteps sounded heavy and intrusive in the still air. She clumped along, her steps butting against the natural sights and sounds, the chirrups of crickets or grasshoppers and the ever-present call of the ocean. She stopped and looked up. The moon, haloed by clouds, was not quite full. She was closer to the houses on the adjoining road now. From one of the houses a woman’s laughter burst out in a rising trill. Ellie startled and wondered if she was the cause of that raucous laugh, but the curtains were drawn. Light flickered blue and white at the edge of the window. She kept walking. She could smell the sea and the earth beneath her, the grass and leaves, their scents sensuous and rich. The night was calm, waiting. She was alone, but felt as if she were being watched.

  Ellie turned a full circle and the vacant street stretched before her, a patchwork of shadows and shapes. She stared hard into the front yards, squinting at bushes and shrubs, expecting a figure to appear. Daddy was the only one who could look at her, the only one who had, but he was at home, dead and done and gone. She scanned the street. No one was watching her now. Daddy was gone.

  She resumed her careful steps and quickened her pace, trying to keep to the gloomy spaces by trees and parked cars, eager to get to the beach and start her collection. She had secreted away simple objects for years, small things she’d hoped Daddy wouldn’t notice were missing, things he had thrown away, things she could hide in her tin or in her room and call her own. She had stowed away the items she had found, hoping they would sing to her one day. She had created a little bower beneath her bed when the tin in the closet had become too full. Scraps of fabric that could have been her grandmother’s. A plastic comb, just like the ones Mummy used to wear. Her treasures. Tonight she’d be collecting for Daddy.

  Ellie spend her third night alone on the beach amongst the granite pillows that the sea and the cliffs had hurled upon the shore. Her third night feeling orphaned, though she didn’t know if her mother were dead or alive. If Daddy had known, he had never told.

  ‘All gone,’ she whispered to the night. ‘It’s just me now.’

  On the beach, she shivered as the salt spray dried and chilled her skin. Her goose bumps were ignored and forgotten as she watched the mesmerizing rise and fall of the waves. Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. The ocean was talking to her, welcoming her back.

  Squatting on her haunches, she let her hands and feet sink into the damp, gritty sand, rocking gently forward and back. The world was shadowed rocks and waves, all merging into grey. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift with the surge of the tide. Come, the water called. The sound travelled along the shoreline, the deeper undertones and currents throbbing within her. Come. You’re home.

  

  They had come on a picnic one humid Saturday afternoon, wandering down the hill wit
h Maisie and her family. She remembered her mother looking beautiful in her sunglasses and swimming costume. Mummy had laughed and called it ‘daring’. Her father had sat stiffly upright on his towel when everyone else had lain down. Her mother had smiled and joked with Maisie’s parents. Ellie remembered white zinc cream smeared across her nose, squealing with Maisie as they had played in the little inlet, splashing each other as they had tried and failed to jump across, daring each other to go further and further out to where the real ocean began, but never venturing out of sight of the grownups.

  Ellie and her parents had returned home, sandy and sweaty, and before the front door was even closed, Daddy had shoved Mummy into the wall.

  ‘Whore. I saw you with flirting with him.’

  ‘I didn’t…I wouldn’t…’

  ‘Bitch.’

  There had been sounds, slaps, a punch, and Ellie had run to her mother’s side, wishing she were taller, bigger, and able to defend her mother against Daddy’s fury. He had pulled her away, his fingers leaving a claw-shaped bruise on her shoulder. Ellie reached for her mother again.

  ‘Get away from her.’

  ‘Go, Ellie,’ her mother had whispered, ‘Go.’

  ‘I’ll show you how my wife should behave. You’ll learn how to be a wife, God help me, Dolores, you’ll learn.’ Ellie had cringed against the wall as her father’s words had matched his fists, striking in vicious waves.

  ‘Go to your room, Ellie, now.’ Mummy’s voice was thick with tears and pain, but Ellie had obeyed.

  Ellie had heard the sobs and grunts coming from the kitchen and had tucked herself into a ball. Curled up on the floor of her bedroom, she could still feel the salt and sand sticking to her skin. Closing her eyes, Ellie pictured the beach, saw one of the rock pools and herself shrinking down into the miniature world. She grew fins, a tail. She was safe. She could swim away. Ellie kept her eyes squeezed shut until the house was silent.

  