‘Daddy.’ What if she’d finally made her father so angry he had gotten up? She ran to her father’s bedroom and shoved open the door, half convinced, half terrified she would find his bed empty with an indentation where his body had lain. Ellie didn’t switch on the light. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that vacant space. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the light seeping in from the hallway.
He was there. The position of his body was unchanged. Ellie dropped to her knees and crawled over to the bed. He’d hurt people, killed them, but he’d said he would always keep her safe. He’d promised. She placed her hands on the bed as if she were praying.
‘You were right, Daddy.’
He didn’t answer. But he was here. He had always been here.
‘It’s dangerous out there. In the world.’
Could he see she was sorry? Peering across the bed, she stared at him. His skin seemed to have darkened and developed a greenish tinge, and the smell that emanated from every pore had worsened. The relief she’d felt was slowly replaced by a burgeoning horror. He would always be here. Ellie choked back a sob as her eyes travelled along his still form. Had it moved with an exhalation? She stared. In this half-light, it looked as if his cheeks were moving. She blinked. Her eyes were playing tricks. That was it, it had to be. A trick of the light. Of the shadows. She imagined him sitting up, saying, Ellie, where’s my tea? Imagined those sunken eyes opening to reveal a milky stare, his pale, mottled hand patting the bed beside him, his mouth widening and releasing a foul, rotting stench. Come lie down with me, Ellie. You know what to do. You know what men and women do.
She had a vision of him sitting in his armchair. She could hear him singing, his hand slapping a rhythm against his leg. His deep voice, which started off as a rumble in his chest, travelled through the air to course through her body. He sang of fire, a ring of fire. He was always happier when he sang. She tried to hold onto this memory of Daddy happy. If he was happy, she was safe. She started to sing the chorus, but she had no fire. Her voice was weak.
A cry—not human—sounded outside. Something brushed against the plants at the side of the house and thumped on the ground. Ellie stopped singing, her mouth open, the note reduced to a whimper.
‘Daddy, what should I do?’ He didn’t answer. He couldn’t help her now after all. Shutting the door on her father, Ellie walked to the kitchen. There was a scuffling sound, and she saw a shadow move in the gap between the door and the floor.
I want fire, she thought. I want the song. I want to be brave. She put her hand on the door handle. Daddy’s song would keep her safe. Daddy was never scared. She opened the back door a fraction and jumped back as the door was pushed from below. Something furry raced past her legs and stopped with a thud in the middle of the kitchen floor.
‘Perce.’ Percival, his eyes glinting in murderous satisfaction, looked back at her, a squirming, bloodied form between his teeth. He dropped his catch and eyed it coolly as it unfurled and tried desperately to crawl away leaving bloody smears behind it on the floor. A baby possum. Ellie brought her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh.’
The tiny creature dragged one of its legs behind it, its small, clawed paws scrabbling against the linoleum. Percival let it crawl for a second or two, then pounced, whipping its helpless body up in his mouth and flinging it into the air, watching it land centimetres away. His tail lashed the air behind him as he crouched down, ready to pounce again.
‘No! Get out!’ Ellie screamed. ‘Bad cat, bad cat, bad cat. Out!’ Percival ignored her. Woman and cat circled the baby possum on the floor. Ellie didn’t want to touch it, but she didn’t want Percival to keep torturing it either.
‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, casting her eyes around the kitchen for something she could use. She didn’t want to feel that tiny, bleeding body in her bare hands. Her eyes lit on a worn, cotton tea towel and she draped it across the small, grey form. She tried to ignore how the cloth moved and she cupped her hands around the shaking creature. Sharp claws attempted to scratch her through the thin cotton and she held the struggling form out before her, hissing at the cat at her feet. If she released the possum into the back yard, would it have the energy to flee? She didn’t want it in the house. She was still standing in the middle of the kitchen when she heard another noise from outside. Her hands clenched and she crouched on the floor. She was so stupid. She’d yelled, she’d left the door open, she’d forgotten the neighbours had come back. She’d broken the rules. Again. Unconsciously, her hands twisted, clenched, and twisted again. She could hear a scraping, trundling sound. She exhaled harshly. Bin night. It was someone next door taking out the bin. Daddy always took the bin out. Who would do it now?
She kept squeezing repetitively as she waited for the sound of the neighbour’s door closing. Her hands loosened and she realised the shaking had stopped. She unwrapped the tea towel. The baby possum was dead, lying limp in her hands. She bowed her head.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’ She hadn’t meant to kill it. ‘I don’t like dead.’ She stroked its head before wrapping it firmly back up in the tea towel, pushing away Percival who was yowling at her feet. ‘Shush, you naughty cat.’
Ellie cradled the possum in her hands. Her bad hands that had killed. ‘I know where the dead go.’ It couldn’t stay in the house. Percival wouldn’t leave it alone. She cradled the tea-towel-covered bundle. She was afraid of going back outside into the world. Outside there were dogs and strange men and voices and headlights in the dark. She ran a finger along the side of striped cloth. ‘I killed you. I can do it for you.’
When she was sure there were no more noises from next door, Ellie ventured into the back yard and, keeping as close as she could to the side of the house and the shadows, made it inside the dogs’ enclosure. She placed the tea towel and its occupant on the ground. Tomorrow she would bury it. This would be her own graveyard.
Daddy wouldn’t want to be buried with a possum. Not one of those ‘bloody rodents’ he’d sworn at and set traps for. But she didn’t care what Daddy wanted. Would have wanted. He couldn’t keep her safe now; he couldn’t tell her what to do. This was her choice. This was what she wanted. She didn’t need Daddy’s song to be strong. She would do it by herself.
After making sure that the tall wire gate was closed, Ellie went back inside, shutting the kitchen door firmly behind her. She had had enough of the outside world tonight. No more dogs or noises from next door or innocent creatures being dragged into the house. She would stay in with all of the doors and windows locked, despite the putrid smell from Daddy’s room. There was the box she had found in the shed to look through. She would not go back in her father’s room tonight. Ellie sat on the sheepskin rug and pulled the box before her. Percival strode past her, tail erect, emitting an almost human wail.
‘Bad cat,’ she said, and ignored him.
The musty box contained a small book and some photos. The book had a long list of meaningless numbers scrawled down the pages. These weren’t numbers she knew. She could count steps and measure half a cup, a quarter, a pinch. She could tell o’clock—that was when the big hand pointed to the twelve. Years of staring at clocks and listening to Grandmother announce times in an impatient voice, Ellie had waited for the day to arrive when it would all make sense. There were hands that didn’t look like hands, lines that moved slowly or quickly that sometimes looked like a star. She liked it when they made a straight line. That was six o’clock, tick tock. That time she understood. But big numbers and the rest of mathematical learning that the encyclopaedia had hinted at were unnecessary. Daddy had declared it so.
‘No need for you to learn this stuff, Ellie. Girls are no good at maths, and you’re good for nothing,’ he had told her. She dropped the book of numbers and grabbed a pile of photographs. The colours had faded on the top photograph, giving everything an unnatural hue, but the memory returned vividly.
There was a single mattress on
the floor of the bedroom and two impish girls perched on its end. Perched like a pair of chattering birds. ‘Chatter bugs’ and ‘galahs’ Mrs Tillett had called them. Her laughter wasn’t hurtful like Daddy’s. When Mrs Tillett laughed, her eyes crinkled up with little lines and she was kind. Ellie stroked the photograph. There was Maisie Jayne with her exploding bubble of a face, her eyes aglow in lighthouse fashion, illuminating the world. A young, scar-free, smiling Ellie sat next to her on the mattress and it was easy to remember how it had been, how close they had been, their warm bodies almost touching. They all rolled over and one fell out, roll over, roll over—the words from the childhood rhyme sang in her head. It wasn’t a fancy or rich bedroom—you could tell that by the photograph—but here was everything, safety and love. A sleepover with her best friend.
On the wall behind the two heads was a crayon drawing. Stick figures dancing in a kaleidoscopic storm of flowers and butterflies, all spinning in a riotous sky of colour. There were no clouds. Those were the days before clouds, before the sky had disappeared and been replaced by a tobacco-stained ceiling. Days before daylight had been replaced by locked doors, blinds, and papered windows.
There were monsters in the dark. Ellie knew that now. She looked down at the photo she’d been clutching. Those two little girls had thought they’d known. ‘Beware the boogie monster!’ They had thought they’d understood, but they hadn’t, not then. Ellie shuddered, lost within the past and the present, Maisie alive and Maisie dead.
‘Bastard.’ The word slid into the night. ‘Old bastard.’ He’d killed her best friend. He’d killed Maisie, yet Daddy had loved her, hadn’t he? He had kept her with him when her mother had left. Had protected her, lain with her. Her mind wheeled with confusion. She loved him; she hated him. He was here and he was gone. She missed him, she needed him. How was she supposed to know what to do, what was right and what was wrong now that he wasn’t here to tell her? Was she the monster? Was that why he had removed all of the mirrors? In case looking into her reflected eyes, she would turn to cold, hard stone, just like him.
The evening passed in meditation of her new objects. Percival had long given up mourning the loss of his possum and, bored of sticking his nose into each new pile, had settled deep into the sheepskin rug before the heater. It had taken her a couple of tries to light it and Ellie wondered how long it would be until the heat was cut off, or the lights. Bills had used to arrive. Daddy had complained about them, grumbled, but paid. How long did she have before these autumn days would turn to winter and she’d be stuck in the cold? Days? Weeks? She sucked on her lower lip.
Ellie touched each new object reverently, despite the mildewed, mouldy smell. These clothes that could never be worn and the fragile papers in jeopardy of being shredded by her clumsy fingers were all hers now. She stayed up later than usual, unwilling to leave her newfound treasures, until jerking awake, Ellie realised she’d fallen asleep with one of her mother’s blouses draped across her lap. Ellie groaned as she moved her stiff and painful neck. Rolling her shoulders back, she felt as well as heard something click into place.
‘Bedtime, Perce,’ she said, gripping the armrest of her father’s chair as she got to her feet. ‘You’re coming with me.’ She would shut him in her room tonight. She wasn’t going to leave him in here and risk him damaging anything.
Restless sleep brought bad dreams. Ellie dreamt of the bones, those skeletons in the moonlight, as ghostly driftwood dancing past her. Maisie, bleeding maroon threads, buttons falling between fingers that reached out for Ellie, Ellie’s babies… vivid dreams right up to the second Ellie woke, panting and afraid. There had been more than one tiny body crevassed between her legs. Until yesterday, she hadn’t known what he had done with them, but she’d guessed it had been bad. After that first time, she had realised what the cessation of monthly blood had meant, the swelling, the strange sensations. Another one inside her.
She had begged and screamed her pleas, despite knowing that any resistance only made his bullying and belittling worse. He hadn’t listened to her pleas. Was it that he couldn’t have borne to share her with someone else?
‘Oh, my babies. Daddy…our babies.’
Day Five
It had been four days since he had died, and still the old bastard refused to leave her alone. Ellie awoke to a sound prickling the edges of her consciousness. A muffled droning, a buzz, beyond her bedroom door. She lay in her own bed, slowly stretching out the aches and stiffness of the previous day’s digging, with that ceaseless humming disturbing her thoughts. Ellie sighed.
‘I’m coming, Daddy.’
As she walked towards his room, the noise grew louder. She opened the door. The stench of decay that pervaded the house assaulted her anew. Ellie gagged and covered her mouth and nose with her hands.
The body on the bed was no longer still. Flies crawled over its surface, congregating around the eyes and mouth. His lips had stubbornly fallen open and refused to shut. Something white squirmed within. Repulsed but unable to resist, Ellie moved closer. Maggots twisted between those lips. The flies had wasted no time in finding their target. Something crawled beneath one of the eyelids and caused it to twitch as if Daddy were merely sleeping, lost in dreams. A fly flew at her and she brushed it away, disgusted.
I know where you’ve been, she thought, and laughed hysterically. Another fly landed on her cheek. She swatted it and backed for the door, pulling it shut behind her. Could she catch anything from them? From his body?
The maggots had always been there, she decided, had been there his entire life, living within him and thriving beneath his skin. She wasn’t the only Clements rotten inside. Her mind raced; what was she to do? He couldn’t be buried today; the grave wasn’t big enough, wasn’t deep enough. Besides, she needed to know what else was down there. Who else was down there. His victims. She knew it in her bones. She had to make sure they were all out. All safe. She wouldn’t have them share the grave with Daddy. They deserved more.
He had to be gone. His spirit, his ghost, whatever he was. His voice. His body. Those bodies… She shivered, picturing the maggots squirming behind the door. She had to dig deeper, harder; she had to get him out of the house. He could fester in the soil and the house would be free of his stench, his rotting corpse, and the flies. She’d be free. A fly buzzed past her ear and she waved her hand in the rank air that had followed her out of his room. She couldn’t live with the flies. Or him. That body. It looked like him, but that wasn’t Daddy anymore. He’d killed them. Until this week, he had been the only one who’d ever entered the dogs’ enclosure. He’d killed them and he’d buried them in the dirt. He’d killed Maisie. He’d killed her babies. Anger rose in her as another fly buzzed past her in the corridor.
‘No, no more.’ She stormed into the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink, rummaging along the shelf that held the cleaning products: dishwashing detergent, some old rags, and the spray. She knew it was in here. She made the list for Daddy before they ever ran out of anything. He’d double check and re-write the list. Ellie grabbed the canister of fly spray in her hand and scanned the label. Fast Acting, Pine Scent. It would smell, but it would smell better than Daddy.
He had killed. He had buried them in the dirt. She held her nose as she went back into his bedroom.
‘I hate you.’ She took the lid off the canister and shook it.
‘Don’t you dare,’ her father growled at her. ‘You bitch.’ She shook her head. Not real. Shaking the can, she fired a few swooping movements into the air, letting the spray waft down over the body in a fine arc. A few flies buzzed and moved in lazy circles. She pointed the spray at his face, directed it towards his mouth, and pressed the nozzle hard. Those lips that had yelled at her, sung to her, abused her, kissed her, were moving again. Moving with tiny bodies of maggots that couldn’t escape. His lips were coated now in silvery-white droplets of spray. He looked like he’d been drooling a slick, sickly saliva. The ins
ensible squirm writhed and her stomach recoiled, but she kept her finger firmly on the nozzle. She grabbed his chin with her left hand and aimed the fly spray right at his mouth.
‘You killed Maisie. You killed my friend, my best friend. You killed my babies.’ She coughed and released his jaw, covering her mouth and nose with her left hand. Her right arm swept the air as if she were conducting a symphony and the spray settled across the body, the bed, the window, and the air, that rank, repugnant air. Some of the small bodies flew, but others continued on their burrowing way. She aimed at his face once more. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’
‘How dare you!’ Daddy’s voice was indignant.
‘Die, damn you, just die!’ The can felt lighter in her hand; she’d nearly emptied it. The chemical pine scent fought with the odour of decomposing flesh. ‘Just stay dead.’ She spoke through gritted teeth. She didn’t know if she were speaking to the insects or her father and realised she didn’t care. They could all die. The can spluttered out the last remaining droplets. She let her finger come off the nozzle. As long as he stayed in this room, he would torment her. Dead or alive, he wouldn’t let her escape.
‘You killed Maisie. You killed my babies.’ Ellie threw the now empty can of fly spray at his head. The can bounced and rolled onto the floor. ‘You fucking bastard.’
Maisie’s and her babies’ bones had been soaking overnight and the water in the bucket had become black and viscous. Ellie opened the back door. The sullen morning was overcast, heralding the darker days of late autumn yet to arrive. She pulled her father’s beanie down over her ears and tucked her hair beneath it. Carefully looking around her, Ellie carried the plastic bucket from the laundry out to the patchy grass in the backyard. Even that small effort caused the muscles in her shoulders and arms to tighten in warning. She was exhausted already, and the day was just beginning. She reached into the bucket and felt for those driftwood-like curves. A dark, muddy stain marked her hands and wrists. She tipped the water out in thick, slow chunks and collected the remaining bones that floated out. Ellie laid them out around her in a macabre mandala before she grabbed a tea towel from the kitchen and started to dry the bones with gentle strokes. She picked up one of the two infant skulls, cradling it in her left hand as she polished the unjoined fontanelles with her right.
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