by Mary Jaine
"Come on Bobby, we need to do some shopping; I spoke to the storage place early this morning and they're arranging to have all our stuff shipped up here for tomorrow morning, so we need to get this place ready, and we need a whole bunch of stuff, so you and I get to go shopping! Come on, it'll be fun!"
I grinned as I drank my coffee; having a pretty (no, beautiful) girl invite me out to have fun shopping was such a new experience I had no pre-programmed response except to nod foolishly and grin like an idiot! Shari ruffled my hair and turned to leave.
"Ten minutes, Bobby, we have to leave in ten minutes, so chop-chop, Big Sister's given you an order!"
I grinned as she threw the "Big Sister" at me yet again, thinking she may be my big sister, but she sure didn't look like it! I watched as she walked out of the room, captivated once again by the sight of her tight little bottom bobbling inside her tight jeans, with yet another moment of guilt for finding her bottom so cute, then jumped out of bed and ran into the shower. I took a cold shower out of habit, even though something told me hot showers were no longer going to be a luxury, and got dressed in double quick time.
Shari was waiting for me downstairs as I tried to get ready to go out with her without showing any unseemly haste; however, I'm not very good at either communicating with girls, never having actually spoken to one before, or understanding their expectations in even the most superficial way, so I think I came off looking more than a little pathetically eager to please her, judging by the small smile on her face. However, she was kind enough to not comment, and even helped me put my old jacket on properly, her eyes clouding when she saw how short the sleeves were; I'd had it since I was 17, and there'd been a couple of growth spurts since then, but it was all I had.
"We'll do something about that soon, Bobby!" she whispered, then straightened my collar and patted my chest in approval.
"Right, Bobby, now you look 100% adorable, let's show you to the world at large!"
Adorable? That word bemused me so much I just followed her out to the car, trying to work out where she was coming from; Shari and Yaz had happened to me so quickly I was still trying to carve out a 'sister' niche in my head to fit them into.
Rick seemed to have managed it quite well, his ease and easy manner with them proved that; he was obviously completely comfortable with suddenly having two sisters out of the blue; maybe he was just more adaptable than me.
I knew I had a lot to unlearn, and there was still a lot I was just unwilling to let go of just yet; it was still too soon, despite what the girls had said. Shari's touchy-feely attitude to me was still more than a little disconcerting; it was like she was trying to be my best friend, although her hugging me last night had been more than a little ambiguous, and certainly not what I thought was the way best friends behaved; no, I was troubled by all these sudden changes and revelations, and still a little wary when it came to other people.
Shari scrabbled around on her phone for a while, one of those Galaxy things, then tapped in a postcode on the Sat-Nav and started the engine. I asked her where we were going.
"Bobby, we agreed last night we needed more bed linen, plates, cups, cutlery, everything, so we're going to the Dunelm store on Castle Street to get some basic house wares; Ricky and Yaz are going to start getting the place ready; by this time tomorrow we'll all have some proper beds, chairs, blankets and duvets, home comforts. It's all the stuff out of our old house."
She stopped the engine and looked shrewdly at me.
"Bobby, I know you're still not feeling the love when it comes to Yasmin and me, but we really are your sisters, and we're not going to hurt you, I promise. Ricky wanted to come home, and we love Ricky, so we came with him; he offered us somewhere we could be safe, and be a family, his family, and yours too. I don't want you to feel like we're pushing our way into your home and your life, but the simple fact is, we feel safer with both our brothers than without them. I want to have my brothers around, I want to get to know them, and I want them to want me around, but if you can't do that, we'll go, and I mean that, truly; just say the word and we'll find somewhere else. I don't want to push you out of your home..."
Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, filled and then spilled down her cheeks. I was mortified; my mean suspicious nature had made this lovely girl cry, who'd done nothing to me except treat me kindly and try to make me part of a family again, to include me in her family. Without thinking I reached up to rub her tears away, wondering at the way she flinched as I touched her. Shari smiled tremulously at me as more tears spilled down her cheeks, and I suddenly realised she was terrified of me; she was probably waiting to see if I was my father's son, if I was going to get violent, and then I suddenly understood why she'd brought me out with her; it was to decoy me away from Yasmin in case I did become violent.
I couldn't really blame her; all she really knew of me was that I wasn't Rick, but that I was Robert Davies Junior, son of my father, the man who'd threatened to sell her and had beaten and battered her mother repeatedly, sowing the seeds of her death. All the "little brother" business had just been banter, she'd been scared of me the whole time, afraid I was the kind of man my father was. It horrified me to think that someone would or could expect that from me; I'd never carried out a violent deed in my life.
But there was no escaping that one fact; I was the son of a man who'd done those things as a matter of course, because it was part of his nature. Shari didn't know how much of him was lurking inside me, and so she had every reason in the world to be afraid of me. And now I understood; all the touchy-feelie had been to show me that she and Yasmin were no threat, and to defuse and deflect me, just in case I was readying myself to go off.
I opened the door and slid out, to lean against the icy metal of the car body; I felt sick; sick that someone could be that afraid of me, sick with the knowledge of what she thought I was, and finally believing what she and Rick had told me last night; the fear in her eyes right now, fear of me, was all the confirmation I needed. What kind of monster did she think I was, and more to the point, how right was she?
I tried to think straight, but all I could see was the fear in her eyes when she looked at me; she saw me as some kind of monster, how could I possibly convince her I wasn't? Short answer; I couldn't, because one day my nature was going to undo me, and take everyone with me...
"Bobby...?" a soft voice startled me out of my reverie, and I turned to see Shari standing a few paces away, just out of reach, I noted; probably a wise move from her point of view.
"Bobby, can we talk?" she asked me apprehensively, and I shrugged, still preoccupied with my own moment of self-realisation.
"Sure, if you think there's anything to say," I managed. "I know how you must see me, I just got it; I wish you were wrong, but I think you're probably right about me; I'm not Rick, I'm probably too much like our father to change, there's too much inside me that's bent the wrong way, my father saw to that; everything he couldn't put into Nicky, or Rick, he shoehorned into me, until all that's left is someone who can only make the same choices he did. I have to leave, I can never be part of your family, and you really don't want to be part of mine. Keep the house; it belongs to all his children, I suppose, so it's as much yours as it is mine, I'll get my stuff and be gone. You don't need to know where, just forget me, you'll be safer if you do."
Shari stared at me with eyes like saucers.
"Don't go, Bobby, please. I was scared of you, but I'm not now, just very worried about you; you almost fell last night, but we caught you; if you go away who's going to be there to catch you next time? Your place is with your family, with us. You've convinced yourself that you're the bad seed, the one that's going to turn into a carbon copy of your father one day, but if you can think like that it shows you know the difference between right and wrong. Robert Davies was a violent psychopath, but you're Bobby, scared, isolated, lonely and alone, but still just Bobby, not some axe-wielding lunatic, and you're not Robert Davies, murderer and amoral sociopath! Be par
t of your family, Bobby, we need you, and you need us!"
She stepped closer, coming within reach of me, but not tense and frightened now, concern and kindness in her eyes.
"Bobby, please don't go; I'm sorry for thinking what I did, but I had to know; Ricky told us how angry and bitter you were, he was sure you'd have grown out of it and be ready to accept your family, but I had to find out for myself; I've had to be the strong one for Yasmin, I was her only protection for so long, but she's been frightened all her life, and she needs her brothers, both of them, to stand up and stand over her. And so do I, Bobby. I've been scared as long as she has, but I couldn't let her know that; now I need my brothers too, I want so much to feel safe too...!"
She reached out hesitantly and stroked my cheek, her touch almost seeming to burn me, her fingers still trembling. I admired her bravery; she'd been frightened of me, literally quaking in her boots, and yet she'd still decoyed me away from her younger sister, making herself a target should I turn out to be what she most afraid of. Her courage more than anything was what drove me to finally believe in her, her resolute bravery in facing me alone even though she was sure I would turn on her.
I'd never come across anything like that, and it shamed and humbled me that I'd never been called on to show that kind of inner steel, that I didn't even know how. I had nothing and no-one to defend like that, had never even had any reason to feel like that, but now, now I felt it for my sister, knowing somehow that when I needed it, she would defend me like that if I let her; and right now that's just what I wanted...
I reached up and took her hand as gently as I could, and kissed the back of it. Shari smiled, blinking the tears out of her eyes, and an abstract part of me wondered at how the tiny droplets glinted and sparkled in her long, sooty eyelashes even as I began at last to connect, really connect, with my (slightly!) older sister. Shari came closer, and finally hugged me; there was no artifice or testing this time, all she was doing was hugging her brother and welcoming him back. I held her close, enjoying the feel of her, understanding at last what being part of a family, a real family, could mean.
After what seemed like an eternity, Shari pulled away to look up at me, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands as she smiled.
"So, Bobby, are you coming shopping with your big sister?"
I smiled back, surprised at how easily it came after the talk we'd just had, but her quick gesture as she brushed an errant lock of hair out of my eyes told me she wasn't afraid of me or what I might do; now she believed in me the way I believed in her.
We spent most of the morning buying basic crockery, silverware, a new kettle, and a complete set of saucepans; I only had a couple, and they were old and battered, but more than adequate to heat soup or baked beans.
When we got back to the house, Rick had tinkered with the boiler and managed to turn the heating back on, and the place was warm for the first time since the end of summer; at first I was inclined to protest; how did he expect me to pay for it? Then Shari caught my eye and I subsided; of course, we could afford to heat the place now...
Rick and Yasmin had been busy, clearing the rooms ready for the arrival of the furniture on Sunday, although clearing really meant picking up the random litter of two years of neglect, the kind of detritus that accumulates when a place lies empty for so long, and giving the place a good dusting.
We'd stopped off at the local fried chicken place and bought a bucket of chicken and sides, again, something I never realistically expected to eat anytime soon, and we had an impromptu picnic sitting on the newly-swept floor of what had been the sitting room when we'd had something in there to sit on!
Once again I noticed Rick and Yasmin's closeness, the way he picked out for her the pieces he thought she'd like, or picked the juiciest pieces from his own portion and gave them to her, split his French fries with her, and teasingly spooned Coleslaw salad into her upturned mouth, laughing as he dabbed her chin where some of the mayonnaise had dripped.
I noticed they sat close together, cross-legged on the floor, with their hips touching, seeming more like boyfriend and girlfriend than brother and sister. Shari seemed not to notice; her attention seemed to be concentrated on drawing me out, chattering about London, about working with her mother and Rick over the last two years or so, asking me about my job, girls, probing, but done skilfully.
When I told her I'd never had a girlfriend, nor kissed a girl, she seemed taken aback, given my age. When I confessed that she was actually the first girl I'd ever had a conversation with, she looked sad, her hand immediately coming up to cup my chin then stroke my cheek.
"We'll have to see about changing that, won't we, Bobby!" she smiled, her eyes appraising me as I blushed in embarrassment.
We spent the rest of the day cleaning and dusting, the girls exploring the house as we worked our way from room to room. They were fascinated, and not a little saddened, that I'd lived alone in this empty, echoing barn for almost two years. I'd done what little maintenance I was capable of, mainly checking the windows were tight, the attics were dry, and the roof wasn't leaking, but for the most part I'd done nothing except close all the doors and lock most of the shutters to prevent the sun fading the fine Burmese teak floorboards, something my father had been almost paranoid about.
All the downstairs doors had fairly new locks, courtesy of Nicky, who'd been forced to replace them all one summer, so the house was as secure as I could make it. My own room used to be a lady's dressing room back when the house was built in the early nineteenth century, an adjunct to one of the bedroom suites, and I used it because it was right in the middle of the house and only had a small window, so draughts were minimal, and it was small enough to keep warm fairly easily. The main bedrooms were huge, draughty caverns, with tall windows and high ceilings, not the kind of place I relished spending a cold winter evening in.
As we worked from room to room, I once again noticed Rick and Yasmin; something about their behaviour didn't seem quite right, not a usual brother/sister thing, but with my limited knowledge of how things worked or were supposed to be, I couldn't put my finger on it, or understand the things they weren't saying.
What I could see was the two of them almost completely wrapped-up in each other, and I began to resent that; why should he have something that was so far out of my ken, but which he could be so at ease with. Shari eventually noticed my building resentment, and pulled me unobtrusively to one side to talk to me.
"Let it go Bobby; Yaz needs Ricky, he's good for her, and she needs him; he was her big brother before you came along, just give her time; she'll soon be able to be as close to you as she is to Ricky. It's good to see her trusting someone other than me, please don't do anything to hurt that!"
I hung my head in abashed shame at that; she was my younger sister, he was my younger brother, if they were close it must be a good thing; at least they had each other, hell they probably needed each other right now, all these changes must have taken their toll on both of them, and here I was, letting my father do my thinking and resenting for me all over again.
I looked at Shari in apology, and she smiled as she smoothed my hair back out of my eye.
"Don't take it to heart, Bobby," she murmured, "I felt exactly the same when Ricky first showed up, but I soon realised she needed him just as much as she needed me, but in a different way. She'll soon think of you the same way. She already admires you tremendously, you know!"
I must have looked more than a little skeptical, as Shari smiled at me and smoothed my hair back once again.
"Oh yes, Bobby; you lived here all alone in this great, empty, creepy place, working your heart out for a pittance, struggling to keep a roof over your head, and succeeding, eking out a living by eating barely enough to keep yourself alive, no-one to care for you or care about you, lonely and alone, but never giving up or giving in; oh yes, she admires you, her big brother! So do I...!"
I smiled in embarrassment at that, and Shari grinned back at me, again flipping that pesk
y lock of hair out of my eye.
"I need a haircut!" I grinned, glad of the opportunity to chage the subject.
"No, don't do that, I like doing this!" she smiled, once more sleeking my hair back into place, making me smile once again.
"You really should smile more, Bobby!" she said seriously, "You really are gorgeous when you smile, much better looking than Ricky!"
Gorgeous? I'd been called a few things in my life, especially by school kids as I shovelled up the filth out of the gutters and off the pavements, but 'gorgeous' wasn't one of them, and I could feel my cheeks burning as I flushed. Shari reached over and patted my knee.
"Maybe after tomorrow you'll have more to smile about, eh? Don't worry Bobby, things have a way of working themselves out, you'll see; until then, you have me, and Ricky, and Yasmin. She'll start talking to you soon, she knows you've changed, she just has a little more to be wary of, so give her time."
My ears pricked up at that, and my curiosity was piqued. What was she wary of? I had to know.
"Shari, what do you mean, why is she more wary? I know you both had to watch what my father did, what happened to her that made it so different?"
Shari leaned in and whispered in my ear, and what she told me nearly made me vomit as the full sick impact of it burned into my brain; my father had tried to rape her, he'd actually tried to rape his own youngest daughter while he was drunk, to 'break her in' as he put it, so his friends could enjoy her, and it was only through sheer luck she'd managed to get away; how could he do that? Truly he was a psychopath, or a sociopath, or a fucking demon, or something equally non-human, because no normal man would even contemplate that, let alone threaten it, and to try to do that to his own daughter...
Shari nodded at the pair of them as they sparred and laughed together, oblivious to our conversation.