Behind

by Nicole Trope

  And then she got into her car to leave and I could see on her face where she was going. I felt like what I wanted and needed was being given to me right then. When the older woman turned up and her husband left as well, I couldn’t believe my luck. An old woman would not be able to stop me. She remained asleep, undisturbed by my entry into the house, but she wouldn’t have been able to stop me even if she had woken up.

  I didn’t know when they would be back. I didn’t know if they would be back.

  I knew I would call her phone when we got to the park. If she answered, I would tell her to come to me. If she didn’t, I would leave her child for her to find.

  That was the plan and it was very clear in my head.

  She answered.

  And now I will wait. Beth is walking slowly, practising patience, her eyes darting around the hidden dark patches in the park as she searches for the longed-for fairies.

  I know Rachel’s coming. I can feel her getting closer. I had a plan. I know that. I had a plan. A plan for justice and revenge, but now, now I’m not so sure. She is so little.

  It’s really cold now and I keep looking at her to make sure she’s warm enough. It’s a strange feeling, something I’ve never felt before, this worry and concern for someone else. Perhaps it’s because of her absolute trust in me. She assumes I’m going to keep her safe because every other adult in her life has always kept her safe. In her world adults can be trusted. I know without thinking about it too much that Rachel is a good mother. My mother was a good mother for the thirteen years that I had her. I never gave her credit for that. I understand that now, after all these years, after all these therapy sessions. I never gave her credit for the things she did do because of the one thing she wouldn’t do: leave him. But then she left both of us and I could only see her as worse than him. I could not forgive her.

  She was the mother who baked cakes and did your homework with you and read you stories and whose kiss could make a scratch heal itself.

  She was the mother who left her son. A truly good mother would not have left her child, regardless of what he was like. A truly good mother would have waited and would have taken me with her. Instead I was left at the mercy of the monster. And then she gave me up – she sacrificed me to save Rachel. The black sludge begins to rise and I caution myself to wait. I have to practise patience just like Beth does. She is waiting for something magical and I am waiting for my justice, for my revenge. I breathe the cold air into my lungs and imagine it going down to my feet, cooling the sludge so I can wait.

  I watch Beth as we walk towards the play area and I remember the day that changed everything.

  I came home the morning after they left to find him with a black eye and a giant bruise on his forehead. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, wouldn’t explain anything. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘We’re better off without them.’

  I believe that for a few days I thought this might be the case. He was quiet. He didn’t do room inspections or cook crappy food. He ordered takeaway and we watched television together. He took time off work and he took me to school and picked me up in the afternoon so I didn’t have to get the bus. It was a little like living with a zombie version of him, to be honest. After a bit I got used to it and I even thought, Maybe she was the problem all along? He was so calm once she was gone.

  But I was an idiot, of course. Around ten days after she left, and when his bruises had faded, he walked into my room, tossed everything out of the drawers and cupboards and said, ‘Clean this shit up in twenty minutes.’

  Everything had been neatly folded. My room was tidy. I was just lying on my bed reading a book. I had barely wrinkled the duvet. But it was a message, a warning. He was letting me know that he was ready to resume normal activities. And it just got worse from there.

  There would be whole weeks that went by without him touching me. Even if I messed up – like if I spilled something or my bed wasn’t perfectly made or if I left some washing in the machine – nothing would happen. He would just say, ‘Oh and don’t forget to empty the machine,’ or, ‘I straightened your bed for you.’ And I would feel my guts churn and I would start to sweat because I was sure that he was going to lay into me. But nothing would happen. He would sit on the couch and watch television or he would go and work in his study and nothing would happen.

  And every time we had a week like that, I thought – despite everything I knew – it was over. I thought we had reached a point where we were just going to live together, just get on with our lives. And every time I was wrong. The very next week, a rumpled duvet meant a punch in the stomach, unfolded washing meant a belt across my back. A spilled glass of water was a slap across the face.

  Eventually I worked out that it was my fear he was getting off on. I could never relax and that was what entertained him.

  Beth runs towards the swings. ‘Yay… will you push me, Bradley?’ she asks.

  ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ I ask as I help her up onto the swing.

  ‘I love secrets!’ she says.

  ‘My name is not Bradley. It’s Kevin, and do you know what else?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she says, her legs beginning to pump to get the swing moving.

  ‘I’m actually your uncle. I’m your mother’s brother.’

  ‘I don’t have an uncle, only an aunt… my aunty Lou. She’s the principal of a primary school and she has the best craft stuff in the world.’

  ‘Well, now you have an uncle as well. Isn’t that great?’

  She drops her head back, looks up at the stars and she giggles.

  ‘Push me, Uncle Kevin, push me.’

  And so, I do.

  37

  Rachel and Ben

  She giggles. ‘Push me, Uncle Kevin, push me,’ she says in the same commanding voice she uses for her parents. ‘Push me so I can go really high.’

  Ben starts to move again but something in Rachel tells her they need to wait. They can see their daughter, can see she’s safe. But if they charge out at him, if he is holding a weapon, he may hurt her. ‘Not yet,’ she whispers to Ben.

  They watch as he moves his hand from resting lightly on her neck to her back. He gives a mighty push and then steps back as Beth pumps her legs back and forth. Rachel stares at him, at her brother, trying to make out his features in the low light. He has their father’s broad shoulders, and his dark hair is cut short. He is huge in size, even bigger than her father was. He turns a little and she gets a better look at his face.

  ‘Bradley,’ she breathes.

  ‘What?’ whispers Ben, and she looks at him.

  ‘That’s Bradley Williams, our neighbour, the man I told you… told you about, but that’s not his name.’

  ‘I met him, he introduced himself, but I didn’t… How did you not know?’

  ‘I don’t know why I didn’t recognise him. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.’ It is obvious to her now. He stands with his legs apart, his shoulders back, just the way their father did.

  ‘You saw his face and didn’t know? How is that possible?’

  ‘I don’t… I was seven when we left and he was only thirteen. He has a beard and an accent. I didn’t think, I just didn’t think.’ It occurs to Rachel as she says this that Kevin would have probably felt mystified by this. Mystified and possibly angry. He gave her every opportunity to recognise him. He even handed her one of her dolls, he had the audacity to do that, but she didn’t really look at him, not really. She has been caught up in her own world, mired in grief over her mother, in disbelief over the dolls, shrouded in fear. But if he wanted to be recognised, why not just tell her who he was? Even as she thinks this, she knows the answer. She would have been terrified, would have slammed the door in his face. She would not have welcomed her brother back into her life with open arms.

  And then she remembers a conversation with her mother when she was eighteen. They were having dinner together at their favourite Italian restaurant to celebrate Rachel’s birthday. ‘It’s Kevin’s birthday next m
onth,’ her mother said. ‘He’ll be twenty-four.’

  Rachel didn’t know what to say, felt fear rise inside her at the thought of her brother older and bigger, stronger.

  ‘I wonder if now… now might be a good time to contact him,’ Veronica said tentatively.

  ‘Do you know where he is? What happened to him?’

  ‘I would have to—’ began Veronica.

  ‘Don’t… I don’t want to know, I don’t want to talk about him, he’s probably just like Dad.’ She dropped the fork she was holding back onto her plate and took a big gulp of wine, the butterflies returning in her stomach. ‘He’ll want to hurt us, to hurt me… he…’

  ‘Okay, okay fine… don’t worry, Rachel, don’t worry.’

  She had stopped her mother from contacting Kevin. First, she had told Veronica to leave him, had encouraged her mother to drive away that night. And then, when she was an adult and the spectre of her father had faded, she told her not to contact him. She didn’t want him in her life.

  But Veronica had given him up long before that. She had made a deal with their father. She had sacrificed one child to save another. Rachel is the one who was saved, so she cannot turn her heart against her mother, but what might the child who was sacrificed feel?

  Ben looks hard at the man because there is something familiar about him. And then he realises he has seen him at work, not just when he introduced himself as his neighbour. The man got into a lift with him, actually got into a lift with him, and Ben shivers at the thought that this man, Rachel’s violent brother, has been watching them both, stalking them both. Did he leave the picture? He must have been the one to leave the picture. And now he has his child.

  Rachel thinks about her mother as she watches her brother. Her mother is gone. Does Kevin know this? Will he care? He seemed to hate her at thirteen but what if he didn’t? What if, somehow, she got him all wrong?

  He is dressed in jeans and a jacket, and Rachel notes that her daughter is wearing a jacket as well as her beanie. He has made sure she will be warm. It’s not something she would have expected of him but then she doesn’t know him. She only knows who he was when he was thirteen – an angry young man who seemed set on the path to become the same violent and abusive person his father was.

  ‘Can you push me higher?’ asks Beth, and Rachel hears the creak of the chains on the swing, watches Kevin place his hand on Beth’s back and send her high into the air. Beth giggles again and Rachel lets out the breath she has been holding. They have only been standing in the park for a few minutes but it feels like they have been still for a lifetime.

  ‘Maybe I should go out alone to him,’ she whispers to Ben.

  ‘Good idea. I’ll try and go around. If you keep him distracted, he might not see me.’

  Rachel clenches her fists, takes a deep breath.

  ‘I like to go high,’ says Beth. ‘Do you like to swing?’

  Kevin doesn’t reply. Rachel waits.

  ‘My mum takes me to this park in the day,’ says Beth. ‘I’ve never been here at night. It’s kind of scary.’

  ‘You don’t have to be scared,’ says Kevin. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’

  ‘When are the fairies going to come?’

  ‘Soon, very soon. You’ll see fairies very soon.’

  Rachel wonders how he explained who he was and what he said to Beth to make her trust him.

  Then she realises that he isn’t a stranger at all. He is their new neighbour with a son named Jerome. Of course, Beth would have trusted him.

  ‘My dad keeps me safe,’ says Beth. ‘When did he say he and Mummy would be home from visiting my nana?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Kevin.

  ‘You can take care of me until they come home because you’re my uncle. I didn’t know my mum had a brother.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been away.’

  ‘I wish I had a brother. He would play with me. Did you play with Mummy when you were little?’

  Their daughter is completely comfortable, unaware that she might be in danger.

  ‘I… sometimes I wasn’t very nice to her.’

  ‘Why? She’s nice to everyone.’

  ‘Is he nice? Your dad?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Does he get angry at you?’

  Rachel looks out behind Kevin and sees movement. She knows that this is Ben moving around to the other side. She prays that Kevin doesn’t see or hear anything. She will give Ben another minute and then she will step out into the light so Kevin can see her, that way they can rush him from both sides if he becomes violent. At the thought of anything happening to Beth, Rachel feels her stomach churn. She can’t let anything happen to her child. She won’t. She feels herself stand up straighter and taller. She won’t let anything happen to her.

  ‘Sometimes he gets angry,’ says Beth finally.

  ‘And what does he do when he gets angry?’

  Rachel can feel Kevin waiting for Beth’s answer, waiting for her to tell him some terrible truth about her father because all he has known about fatherhood is anger and violence and cruelty. What might their father have done to Kevin without Veronica around to bear the brunt of his terrible anger? From what she can remember, he was always easy on Kevin as long as he did what he was told and kept his room neat. He got hit, but not as often as her mother did, and she knows that at seven she had somehow understood that one day she would be hit, just like her mother was.

  How bad would things have gotten as her father processed her mother leaving, as he realised that he had lost control of his wife and daughter? That’s what her father thrived on, control; even at seven she understood that.

  The guilt that is always there, that she has been carrying for years and years, brings tears to her eyes. They left him. She told her mother to leave him, and while she knows that she was a child, she also knows that Veronica was incapable of thinking anything on that terrible night they packed their bags and disappeared. She wonders at the guilt that Veronica has carried all these years, at not just leaving her son behind but at making a deal with the devil in order to save her daughter. It would have been an enormous, unfathomable burden.

  ‘One time when I touched his computer and made all the words go away, he made me have a time out. I had to sit on a chair in the kitchen for ten whole minutes and then I had to write a note to say sorry.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘I gave him the note and he gave me a cuddle and said not to do it again.’

  ‘He sounds like a good dad.’

  ‘Is your dad a good dad?’ Beth asks.

  ‘My dad is dead, but no – he wasn’t good.’

  ‘We can share my dad. You’re big but we can still share.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Kevin says and Rachel thinks she hears something in his voice, something breaking, the holding back of tears. She nods, knowing that Ben will be watching her, so he understands it’s time for him to move and she steps forward, away from the protection of the wall of the bathroom block.

  ‘Kevin,’ she says.

  Her brother is standing behind Beth, and when he hears her voice he starts and then steps towards the swings, lifting his hands to grab Beth. He hauls her backwards off the swing.

  Rachel darts towards him. ‘Please, Kevin,’ she says.

  ‘Ow, you’re holding too tight, put me down,’ says Beth, her legs kicking.

  ‘Get back or I swear I’ll hurt her,’ he says.

  ‘Please,’ says Rachel. ‘Please, Kevin, just put her down. Please, I’ll do anything, I’ll give you anything, just tell me what you want. Put her down and let her go to her father.’

  Ben steps forward out of a shadow on the other side so Kevin and Beth are now between the two of them.

  ‘Put her down, mate,’ he says quietly. There is, in his voice, a sense of quiet menace, of threat, and Rachel almost doesn’t recognise him for a second. He is standing up straight with his shoulders back and his arms away from his sides. He looks threatening, even to Kevin, who t
akes a step backwards, his head turning from her to Ben and back again.

  Rachel is glad she has never seen this side of Ben, and at the same time glad that he has this side and that he is here to help her. She knows he has always felt like he has to protect her, and perhaps she shouldn’t have let him, but after a life of fear she needed protecting. Ben has no idea how dangerous she can really be, no idea at all, and as she watches her brother, she thinks that he probably has no idea either. Beth will not be hurt, even if others, including herself, have to die.

  ‘You’re hurting me, Uncle Kevin,’ says Beth softly as though she knows that she needs to speak gently, that she needs to stay calm.

  Kevin sets Beth on the ground, and for a moment Rachel thinks that he’s going to let her go, but then he holds her little arms behind her back with one hand and places his other hand around her neck. His big fingers encircle her small, fragile throat and Rachel’s heart feels like it might explode.

  ‘Do you see, Little Bird? Do you see what I can do?’ he sneers.

  ‘No, Kevin, no please,’ she whispers because she cannot make the words come out with any more force. She is only a few feet away from him but she knows that he could snap Beth’s neck in an instant. His hand is huge against her frailty, and Beth’s eyes bulge with fear.

  ‘Please, Kevin,’ she says again. ‘I’m begging you, please just let her go.’

  Kevin’s hand tightens, enough to force an intake of shocked breath from Beth. Rachel takes a step forward.

  ‘Move back or I’ll do it. Move back, both of you,’ he growls.

  Rachel holds up her hands. He’s going to hurt her. He’s going to hurt their little girl and she’s not going to be able to stop him. Adrenalin surges through her body. Her heart races and her palms sweat as she struggles to take a proper breath. He’s going to hurt her.