The Girl in His Eyes

by Jennie Ensor

  7

  Laura

  16 February 2011

  Water dripped from the bath tap. The splash against ceramic echoed around the flat like gun shots. Down the hall, her neighbour’s door slammed.

  Laura lay on the beanbag, listening. It was well past midnight, past the time she usually went to bed. However there was no point going to bed, she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She pulled the rug over her in an attempt to get warm. The flat was cold most of the time. It was on the top floor of the block and there were only two storage heaters, which she didn’t turn on often enough to try and cut down her electricity bill. Though it was described as a one-bed flat, the bedroom was more like a large cupboard, and the bathroom had no bath, only an erratic shower that squirted insufficient streams of tepid water.

  This room made up for those deficiencies, however. It needed maintenance and hadn’t been decorated in a long while, but it had a large sash window that let in the afternoon sun, and an ever-changing view of rooftops, trees and streets interspersed with church spires and big stretches of green towards the horizon. Sometimes, when she was really down, she’d stand at the window for ages, just watching the changing colours and shades and shapes as the day went on. It made her feel light and free again, like a bird in its nest, ready to soar.

  Her attention wandered among her sparse possessions, rendered sparser by the spacious, high-ceilinged room. Her laptop, earphones, The Sunday Times Magazine from last month, a half-eaten slab of Tesco finest chocolate, and other bits and pieces lay on the coffee table. On the other, not much bigger, table she ate at, an art deco lamp she bought from an antique shop in Durham, the first homey thing she’d bought while at university. A screen print, in the vague shape of an owl, from a charity shop. The vase Daniel gave her as a housewarming gift when she moved in. Three cherry-red, silk-covered cushions to brighten up the disintegrating sofa. That was about it. All the furniture had come with the flat, except for the bookcase her father had delivered, stuffed with paperbacks and textbooks from uni.

  Her life was emptying out, and it wasn’t exactly full to begin with. But now it was definitely thinning, a little less substantial every day. She thought of the day ahead, alone, indoors, scouring internet ads for jobs, the occasional, brief phone call her only contact with anyone. Work had been pretty crap, but at least it had provided some social interaction, some sense of belonging to the everyday world that other people belonged to. Rachel had vanished too. The relief after her revelation to Rachel had turned into an anticlimax, then a niggling sense that perhaps she’d done the wrong thing to confide in her friend. Rachel hadn’t called for a week and hadn’t returned her last message, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Her friend was always busy with something or other.

  Voices in the street outside interrupted her thoughts. Slurred words. Loud, happy sounding.

  It arrived then, that feeling of terrible isolation. As if she must have done something so very bad, her punishment was to be excluded from the world forever. Not comforting or deadening. It surrounded her like a flock of angry birds. Sharp, jabbing. She couldn’t take refuge in it and she had no faith that she could find a way out.

  Laura closed her eyes and began to hum.

  She’s at school, in the playground. A slender, serious girl with sad eyes. She’s sitting against the wall, separate from the others. Pretending to read, to be absorbed in her book. Anything to look busy, like she doesn’t care that she has no one to talk to, that she isn’t part of any group with their excited chatter, their games, their pranks and dares.

  She longs for someone to ask her to join them. But no one ever does. She doesn’t know how to ask, or maybe she knows they wouldn’t let her. Some of the girls jeer at her, some make snide remarks. ‘Why are you such a numpty? You’re a les, aren’t you?’

  Most of the girls just ignore her. They know she’s not like them. Something marks her out as different, something they don’t understand, that she herself doesn’t understand. It’s just there. As if her skin is green.

  Sometimes, one or two of them follow her around, calling out horrible things, and she has to walk over to the park to hide among the trees, or wander around the shopping centre. Other times, when it’s raining or she can’t get out of school, she locks herself in a toilet cubicle. Not for long, usually. Once, though, she stayed there for the whole of lunch break.

  When it all gets too much, she squeezes her eyes shut and hums softly to herself. Sometimes she sings the words too, very quietly.

  When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high …

  She knows the song by heart. It makes her more hopeful, less alone. Though not always. Sometimes she just wants her body to disappear. She longs to let go of everything she knows and for her body to evaporate, so she can be carried far away from this place.

  Laura hummed louder. Her heart beat loud and fast and the birds still swarmed about her, a dark, diving, fluttering cloud. She started to sing. The words came without striving, taking away the emptiness inside her.

  In an instant, she knew what she must do. She couldn’t keep it from him any longer. She would have to go to the source of her pain.

  On the way to her parents’ house, she realised it would be more difficult than she’d thought. She’d never confronted her father with what he’d done to her. He’d never alluded to it, or acknowledged it. Each year, this unspoken thing that lay between them had grown bigger and more intractable. Now it was so dense and heavy it seemed impossible to address with mere words.

  Around her, the signs of a normal weekday morning in Wimbledon Village. Joggers plugged into earphones. Shoppers hurrying along the street. Office workers slumped at walls, chatting over a cigarette. Mothers towing dogs and small children. Stylish women getting out of four-wheel drives, talking on their mobile phones.

  The day was cloudy, less cold than it had been. No wind, not the faintest flicker of a breeze. No green yet, even on the smallest trees.

  Laura stopped on the pavement at the turn into Elgin Drive.

  ‘It’s going to be alright,’ she said aloud.

  She put her hand over her heart – it was pumping furiously. She took a few sips from her water bottle before carrying on.

  This was a stupid idea. What good could it possibly do to confront him now? The past was the past and nothing he could say would change it. He would try to downplay what he’d done. He might blame her for everything, ask why hadn’t she spoken out at the time, even say she’d wanted it. He might say all sorts of things. And if he was up to something now, he wouldn’t simply admit it, would he? Whatever she said to him he was bound to have an answer, a story that would justify everything.

  She wasn’t a coward, though. She couldn’t just turn around and go home. This was something she had to do, she knew in her heart, even if it ended up a dismal failure. This time, she had to stand up to him. For how could she blame her mother for never standing up to him, if she couldn’t do so herself?

  The house was opposite her now. It looked taller and seemed to frown at her. Her father was in there somewhere, alone.

  She walked to the front door and drew in her breath. She’d called his mobile earlier to check her mother would be out, told him she had something to ask him, in person. Her mother would be having lunch with a friend in Sussex, and wouldn’t be home till around 4pm. It was only 11.30am – there was plenty of time.

  After a few seconds, she pressed the bell.

  ‘Hello, Laura.’ Her father looked taken aback for a moment, then he beamed at her. He wore one of his unending supply of grey suits, the tie removed and the top button of his shirt undone. In this suit, he was a successful businessman, a man whom everyone respected. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. How are you?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  Laura stepped past him into the hall. A tang of floor cleaner overlaid with garlic. She took in the familiar mahogany chair and drop-leaf table, the brass ship’s clock on the w
all and the framed sketches by her grandmother – the arty one on her mother’s side, not the stern one on her father’s side who she’d never met. Further along, a row of her father’s morose Lowry prints alongside her mother’s Georgia O’Keeffe White Rose. More stuff in this one space, she thought, than in the whole of her flat.

  Her father touched her arm. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said warmly. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Laura gripped the banister, draped with her mother’s yellow mohair cardigan. Her heart was thumping like crazy.

  ‘Why are you seeing so much of Emma?’

  The question came out of her mouth awkwardly, without warning. This wasn’t what she’d planned. She hadn’t even taken off her jacket.

  He shuffled his feet before replying.

  ‘You know why. I’m helping her with her swimming. I take her with me to the pool on Saturdays. Come and sit down, we can talk in the kitchen.’

  With a jerk of his head, her father turned and strode into the kitchen. She followed him, waiting as he poured a tumbler of Bell’s, which he put on the table.

  ‘Anything for you?’

  ‘Water’s fine.’

  He handed her a glass. The kitchen was neater than the last time she’d visited, all its objects back in their rightful places. Herb bottles, pill bottles, recipe books, empty envelopes, a pack of parking permits. The worktops had been cleared, except for a garlic clove and a sprawl of dark red tomatoes beside the cooker. The cactus on the windowsill had faded to a yellowish hue. One of the orchids was strewn with purple bumps close to flowering. Her gaze snagged on her mother’s Pagan Love Goddess fridge magnet, decorated with a reclining, scantily clad woman.

  Her father lowered himself into his usual place at the table. Reluctantly, Laura pulled out a chair opposite him.

  ‘What do you get out of it exactly, Dad?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ His face was a picture of perplexity.

  ‘You know what I mean. Are you doing this just so you can have time alone with Emma?’

  A scowl crossed her father’s face, erased moments later by a smile – the sort of tolerant smile one might give to an old woman who’d farted at a vicarage tea party.

  ‘I want to help her, that’s all. I’ve taught her how to swim properly. She enjoys herself, she’s getting a lot out of it. Things are tough for her at home – her mother’s worn out from work and her little brother gets all the attention. All she needed was for someone to show some interest in her.’ Casually, he added, ‘I would never do anything that might harm her. You know that.’

  As if she were dotty for having thought of such a thing. As if she’d imagined everything that had gone before.

  ‘So, you’re not planning to do the same to Emma as you did to me? Or have you done something to her already?’ Her heart was thudding loudly enough for him to hear.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laura.’

  She wanted to hear him admit what he had done to her – and why – and find out whether he was a danger to Emma. Now the moment had come, though, her confidence was leaking away. She picked up her glass of water, trembling as she brought it towards her mouth. She put it down quickly and took a deep gulp of air, clasping her hands firmly together.

  ‘Why did you have to do those things to me? I don’t understand. I’m your daughter. I loved you. I trusted you to look after me.’

  His fingers fluttered around his glass. On his face was confusion, and then something else, but she wasn’t sure what. Not fear. A disturbance to his composure, tinged with hostility. In the silence that followed she concentrated on letting each breath come and go, trying to overcome her body’s manic reaction, trying to push down her fear as far as it would go.

  ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t love you, Laura,’ he said, very softly. ‘You must understand. I loved you too much.’

  ‘You loved me so you thought you could do anything you wanted to me?’

  ‘No, it was just …’ His gaze flitted about the kitchen. ‘There was something about you. I longed to be close to you. When you were small, I loved how you listened to me, you didn’t judge me, you forgave me for things. You were what I needed, it was like … like I’d fallen in love with you.’

  A shudder went through her. What sort of explanation was that? She couldn’t bear to be in the room with him any longer.

  Her father was staring at the floor. He cleared his throat then took a gulp of Scotch before speaking again.

  ‘Maybe I went a little too far—’

  ‘A little too far? What you did to me was abuse. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I think you’ve exaggerated things in your head, it was a long time ago—’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You put your hands all over me. You forced me to …’ She couldn’t say the words.

  ‘Whatever I did, or didn’t do, Laura, you must know this. You were special. I will never feel those things for anyone else, ever again. Not anyone.’

  He was earnest, as earnest as she’d ever heard him. Could he be telling the truth?

  ‘Why should I believe you? You couldn’t control yourself with me, and I’m your daughter. You didn’t care what you did to me, how much you hurt me. I meant nothing to you.’

  ‘You’re wrong, you’re so wrong. You meant the world to me.’

  ‘Then why couldn’t you love me like any normal father? That’s all I wanted, Dad. Was it so much to ask?’

  He stayed silent.

  ‘You forgot I had feelings,’ she carried on. ‘You made me keep quiet so I had no one to turn to. You didn’t care what happened to me.’

  The rest was waiting to burst out of her mouth.

  I’m not like other girls, do you know that? I don’t trust men, I can’t let them love me. I try not to feel anything, because I know deep down I’m only a girl for guys to fuck. That’s what you did to me.

  Nothing came, though. He was waiting for her to run out of steam. He knew she would.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I tell Mum, right now, about everything you did to me?’ She heard the edge of anger in her voice, her words losing their firmness. ‘How you stalked me around the house, waiting for a chance to get your hands on me. How you showed me those disgusting pictures, and what you made me do that time.’ Her heart began to race at the onset of the memory, even now, all these years later. The rest came out in a whisper. ‘Don’t you think she has a right to know the truth?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Laura. You’re confused, you’re getting things mixed up. I was affectionate towards you, yes. I loved you so much, it was hard for me. I’d never experienced that intensity before. I may have crossed the line sometimes, I admit. But I never meant to hurt you.’

  ‘No, that’s not how it was.’ It was what she should have expected, surely, that he would downplay or deny everything she said.

  He carried on as if she’d said nothing. ‘I wish I’d been a better father to you, I’ve wished it a thousand times, but you shouldn’t feel you have to tell your mother all these things you’re convinced happened, just to get back at me.’

  ‘That’s not the reason I have to tell her.’ Her voice sounded weak, irrelevant. ‘She should know who she’s really married to—’

  ‘Laura, there’s something you should know.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘Do you remember that time your mother went to stay with her friend in the New Forest? After Richard died. It wasn’t just a trip away. She had a breakdown. She didn’t want you and Daniel to see her in the state she was in. She was crying all the time, knocking back tranquillisers and sleeping pills, you name it. When she got back she started to see a therapist.’

  ‘A breakdown?’ She blinked at him. Of course, her mother had been upset when her brother died of a heart attack after a routine game of squash – Richard had been in his mid-forties with apparently no serious health problems. She’d heard nothing of any breakdown.

  ‘She didn’t want to admit it was so serious,’ her father went on. ‘But that’s what the therapist told her. He said she had
difficulty coping with sudden change – the loss of loved ones especially – probably because of the trauma she suffered as a small child when her father drowned.’ He paused for a few seconds, jiggling his glass. ‘The point is, Laura, mentally she’s very fragile. Another severe shock to her system could trigger another breakdown. It could be much worse next time.’

  He drank the rest of his Scotch.

  How convenient, she wanted to say. This is all ridiculous. My mother’s not like that. But shock was seeping into her brain, jumbling her thoughts. A breakdown. Her father wouldn’t lie about something like that, would he?

  ‘Laura, I understand why you feel the need to say something to her. She’s your mother, after all. But think of the consequences.’ His tone was calm, rational. He had seized on her doubt, turning it to his advantage. ‘What’s the point of dragging up the past now, after all these years? What good could it possibly do? I’m not going to do anything to harm Emma or anyone else.’

  She sat, fixed to her chair, a rigid block, unable to move or speak. The last of her self-possession was leaving her body. He’d turned her into a child. Once again, he was exerting his paternal authority over her and she could do nothing.

  ‘Your mother and I have been together for twenty-five years. We’ve built a life together. Do you want to take all that away from her? Everything would be tainted; her happiest memories would count for nothing. Imagine what effect it could have on her. It would always be on your conscience.’

  Before he could say anything else, she got up from the table and hurried towards the door, nearly stumbling in her effort to get away from him. He still had his power over her, even now she was a grown woman. Yet again he had taken control and turned everything around.

  On her way home, she remembered her words to her father.

  I was your daughter, I loved you.

  She sat on the Tube to West Kensington, not noticing the jerking and swaying of the train, or the people seated around her. Her throat clogged up and tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away, too proud to let herself fall apart in public. But she wanted to howl, to cry until she had run out of tears, on and on.