I Am Ella, Buy Me

by Joan Ellis

  Taking out her lipstick, she winked at you before renewing her special going-out smile. She pursed her lips together as she tweaked her curls, rearranging them to frame her face. I watched fascinated, as she sucked in her stomach, turning from side to side, admiring herself in her red dress, its clingy fabric accentuating the roundness of her hips.

  ‘What you looking at?’ I knew better than to answer back. ‘Give Mummy a kiss, Mark.’

  She offered you her cheek. As she stood on the first stair and bent over, her dress rode up to reveal her suspenders and the top of her white thighs. Standing there in my tartan trousers and thick woolly jumper, I remember thinking how cold she must be. She gathered you up in her arms, planting a Cupid’s Bow smudge on your forehead. When she saw what she’d done, she took out your hanky, the one with the letter ‘M’ embroidered in blue on the corner, then told you to spit on it before rubbing it gently against your skin.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, stuffing the hanky back up your sleeve.

  She sat on the stairs and settled you on her lap as she hugged you to her. I longed to feel her arms around me. My insides knotted together. I know you never meant to, but you came between us. If you hadn’t been there, she would have had no choice but to cuddle me. When you were first born, Mum and Dad made such a fuss of you, I wanted to put you in the bin. It seemed my parents only had so much love to give.

  ‘I’m off,’ she said opening the front door. ‘You’re in charge. Look after him.’

  I was seven years old.

  I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth again. Luckily, she didn’t hear, she’d already left. As soon as the door closed behind her you shut your eyes and put your fingers in your ears just like you always did. I sat beside you, my arm around you, trying to comfort you.

  Suddenly, you leapt up and ran into the kitchen. I followed and watched as you dragged a stool over to the sink, climbed up, turned on the taps and got a glass of water. Then, you reached up and opened the cupboard.

  ‘Don’t, Mark,’ I said as you grabbed Mum’s bottle of ‘sweets’, but you weren’t used to doing as you were told. She let you do whatever you wanted. Besides, you were too busy to listen to me. When you couldn’t unscrew the lid, you wrapped a tea-towel round it just like you had seen her do countless times before. I’ll never forget the look of triumph on your face when you finally got the top off.

  ‘Mum will be angry,’ I warned.

  ‘Don’t tell. Cross your heart and hope to die,’ you said. You were concentrating hard on removing the cotton wool stopper and tipping the pills into your hand. Too many for you to hold, you dropped some and watched as they skittered across the floor.

  ‘Damn!’

  ‘Ssch! That’s a bad word, Mark.’

  ‘Daddy says it,’ you replied, showing me your treasure. The sweets looked lemony, like they might taste of sherbet. Where was the harm? After all, Mum took them all the time and she was fine, sort of. Perhaps she said they’d make you ill because she wanted to keep them all for herself. I reached out to take one, my fingertips just brushing the smooth surface.

  ‘Dare you, Susan.’

  ‘No,’ I told you, standing back, knowing how cross Mum would be when she found out. ‘I’m not playing.’

  I’d like to tell you what happened next but I can’t, Mark. Whatever it was, is hidden, masked by too many memories. It’s the reason I’m talking to you; I need you to help me discover what went on.

  As I waited for Dad to come home, the only sound was the ticking of the clock, its black hands unstoppable, moving unstintingly around its hard, miserable face. I will never forget the exact moment he got home. The little hand was on the eight and the big hand just past the nine when I heard his key in the lock. Then I saw his face, which was one enormous gaping mouth when he spotted you on the floor and me curled up next to you, like a dog.

  ‘Mark’s asleep and he won’t wake up.’

  ‘What happened?’ he yelled from the hole in his face.

  I wanted to tell him, I really did but the words were stuck. I pointed to Mum’s ‘sweets’ scattered across the scratched Linoleum like yellow polka dots. Fists clenched into weapons, eyes wild, Dad stood in the doorway, staring down at you. I had seen him angry many times but never like this. He ran over to you, looked like he was going to kneel down but then walked away. He paced the room, his eyes on you the whole time. I started crying, begging him to do something to wake you up.

  ‘Shut-up!’ he cried dashing into the hall. I thought he was phoning for help but I didn’t hear him speak to anyone. After what felt like forever, he came back and flung himself down beside you, forcing his fingers into your mouth. When he brought them out they were covered in slime. He wiped the stuff on his trousers, then pinched your tiny nose between his thumb and forefinger and put his mouth over yours, like he was about to give you a kiss. You still didn’t wake up and I watched in horror as he placed his massive hands on you, completely covering your chest, pushing down gently at first but when you didn’t open your eyes, pumping harder and harder, faster and faster.

  ‘Don’t!’ I screamed running over to try to pull him off you. ‘You’ll hurt him.’

  He swatted me away and put his ear to your chest. Nothing. Silence. More silence than I had ever heard. Then our house filled with the sound of your name as Dad shouted it over and over until it didn’t sound like ‘Mark’ anymore just a terrible noise. You wouldn’t have liked it. You would have closed your eyes and put your hands over your ears. Dad went quiet and for a second I thought you must have opened your eyes but then he began to howl like next-door’s dog when it was shut out in the garden all night. Hearing him cry was even more frightening than seeing you lying there. At least you were peaceful. Dad wasn’t being Dad. He was on the floor, knotted into a ball, his fist forced into his mouth as far as it would go.

  ‘Mark! Wake up!’ I urged, terrified, kneeling down and gripping your hand.

  I didn’t like the way you felt, all cold. I gave your hand a squeeze to encourage you to do the same back. I kissed your forehead, whispered your name. Nothing. You looked peaceful, like you were asleep but you weren’t breathing. Even I could see that.

  ‘Please, Daddy, help Mark. Please.’

  Back then, I was young enough to believe Dad could do anything. He had always been your hero. You were both so alike. With your dark hair and brown eyes, you were a Wheeler through and through, unlike me with my freckled skin and fair hair.

  When Dad tried to get to his feet, his legs buckled. After a couple more attempts, he stood up and set off unsteadily, hanging onto the furniture for support as he stumbled back into the hall towards the telephone.

  ‘Ambulance,’ I heard him say.

  I had never heard him speak so softly. It frightened me more than all his shouting. He was talking so slowly he sounded like one of his records when he accidentally played it at the wrong speed.

  Mum arrived just before the ambulance. I will never forget her face when she saw you. Collapsing on the floor beside you, her tears coloured by mascara, like black diamonds falling into your hair.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Dad told her.

  He was still angry; I could see that. His words hung like lifeless flies in a spider’s web. I understood what he meant. You had gone and I would never see you again, like when Dennis-from-across-the-road died from an asthma attack and after that, there were never enough kids in our gang to play Cowboys and Indians. But you weren’t Dennis. You weren’t dead. You couldn’t be. You were my brother. Perhaps it was just one of the many things Dad said to Mum to upset her.

  ‘You killed him,’ said Dad grabbing her by the arm and hauling her up. Her knees buckled but he yanked her about like a puppet on a string, revealing her laddered stockings and coat buttoned up all wrong. What had happened? She had left the house looking perfect.

  ‘You killed him,’ he repeated, letting her drop to the floor as he picked up the empty pill bottle and hurled it across the room. ‘You a
nd your bloody tablets.’

  To my surprise, the brown glass bottle didn’t break but ricocheted off the wall and skimmed the floor, until it eventually struck the skirting board and stopped. Mum melted down the wall, clawing the wallpaper with her painted fingernails.

  ‘I loved him,’ she insisted as if the feeling belonged to her alone.

  ‘You loved men more,’ he replied, sounding just like Dad again. ‘You left two kids alone in the house. What were you thinking?’

  Somehow, Mum managed to get to her feet, her body swaying, her eyelids flickering. I thought she might faint but instead she stood there and threw up over her shiny shoes. It splashed up her legs and stank like sour perfume. Luckily, it missed you. Mum wiped her mouth on her coat sleeve.

  ‘No…Mark, not my Mark!’

  Dad slapped her. Her hand flew to her cheek. Then, she flew at him.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted running between them.

  ‘This is your fault, you were supposed to be looking after him,’ Mum told me, her face red and running with black tears.

  ‘Mummy, I didn’t mean…’ but before I could finish, she opened her mouth and roared. Her breath smelt of sick and her body gave off a horrible musky odour. I didn’t like it and ducked into the hallway just as the bell rang. Suddenly our box of a council house filled with strangers, all swarming around you, asking Mum and Dad questions, writing things down. One man even took photographs. All those people were there for you but not one of them noticed me. A man with no hair was talking to Dad, and Mum was telling anyone in a uniform she had just popped out and had only been gone five minutes. Dad opened his mouth to say something but she grabbed his hand.

  ‘Please, don’t. No more pills, no more drink, I promise,’ she whispered.

  ‘That’s two out of three of your vices,’ he hissed. ‘I told you and I’ll tell them; you killed him. You and your bloody tablets.’

  ‘I only take them because of you.’

  The Man with No Hair looked at them and scribbled something down.

  ‘Shut up, you mad cow,’ said Dad, licking his lips.

  Confused, I ran from one to the other but I was invisible, dead to them. A lady in black swooped in and grabbed me. I pulled away but The Crow Woman gripped me in her talons, her face twisted into a smile that was not a real smile. Then the Man with No Hair spoke and everyone listened. Even Dad paid attention but I could see he hated it. For once, I agreed with him; I wanted everyone to go away. The only person I wanted was you. Once the man stopped talking, everyone started shouting at one another again. Why? Even I knew words would not wake you.

  It was odd. All these people were there because you weren’t. I was alone. No more Mark. No more eating biscuits together in bed, in secret. No more sneaking into Mum and Dad’s bedroom, taking out her roll-on flesh-coloured corset and sniffing its rubbery smell. No more coming second to you. Now, it was my turn to feel sick. My tummy ached but this time I knew the pain would never go away.

  Dad was shouting and Mum was crying all over you. The Crow tugged at my arm and her pretend smile disappeared. The room went quiet. I looked round. You had disappeared. I screamed. Mum ran out of the room, crying for her baby. Hands reached out to grab her. Dad said nothing. Someone picked up the empty pill bottle and showed it to the Man with No Hair before dropping it into a clear plastic bag. Everyone was making a big deal about a small bottle. The same bottle you had watched Mum open every day.

  ‘Markie, get Mummy a drink,’ she would ask, tipping two of the yellow sweets into her palm, before popping them into her mouth.

  Like a good boy you did as she said, dragging the stool to the sink and clambering on, before filling a glass with water from the tap.

  ‘Clever boy,’ she would say, taking the tumbler from you and gulping back the water. ‘These are Mummy’s sweets, not Mark’s… not for little boys. You mustn’t eat them. Don’t want you getting ill, do we? Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  You would nod obediently. Then she would take your hand and draw your finger across your chest in a criss-cross motion. It must have tickled because it always made you laugh.

  But that day, you broke your promise.

  And that’s why I’m talking to you now because I need to understand what really happened. Was it my fault? Could I have done more? It’s important, Mark.

  You see, I’ve got a son. He’s called Billie. He’s just a baby but he doesn’t like me. I can tell; always mewling in his cot, turning his face away when I go near him, screaming the place down when I go to pick him up. Luckily, his Dad is good with him. I want to be good with him too. The thing is, I can tell the baby doesn’t trust me. I don’t blame him.

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