Hush

by Sara Marshall-Ball

  They didn’t speak much on the way home. Marcus hadn’t asked too many questions, but he’d been surprised that she hadn’t taken longer to make her mind up. ‘It wasn’t right,’ Lily had said, not seeing what further explanation was needed.

  ‘But couldn’t you have given it a bit more time?’ he’d asked.

  She’d looked at him blankly. ‘Why?’

  When they got home she went straight upstairs. She listened outside her mother’s door, but heard no sign of movement. And then, tiptoeing, she crept down the corridor and into her own room.

  The room was dark. She eased the door closed behind her and flicked the light on, wincing at the sudden harsh illumination. She moved quietly through the room, not wanting her parents to hear her. Got down on her hands and knees and crawled under her desk. Groped with a hand until she found what she was searching for: the loose skirting board, the rustle of paper beneath her fingers.

  She pulled out a bundle of letters, maybe four or five of them, still in their envelopes. She held them for a minute, pressing them against her face. Then carried them to her bed; sat cross-legged in the middle and spread the letters around her. They were all from Connie, all with the same neat scribble on the envelope, the same exotic postmark. She picked up the most recent one, which she’d only received two days ago. She hadn’t told her parents about it. She didn’t see the point any more: they both knew Connie was alive, and the letters were private.

  Lily read the letter twice. In tone, it was exactly the same as all the others had been. It was light, detached, not meaningful. No mention of why she’d gone. No mention of when she was coming home. And no hint that she might be missed – that maybe her selfishness had directly impacted on the situation at home, had made things even worse.

  Lily found it hard to decide whether she missed her or whether she wished she’d disappear for good.

  now

  When Richard awoke on Christmas Eve, it was to find the bed empty, and Lily’s imprint on the sheets still warm. He curled into her space for a moment, burying himself in her pillow; let the rays of sunshine that would usually wake her through the gap in the curtains creep across his face. He’d never even noticed the gap before, and he marvelled, momentarily, at the strangeness of familiar things seen from an unfamiliar perspective. He realised that Lily must wake like this every day, with sunlight brushing her eyelashes and coaxing her into consciousness.

  He could hear her moving downstairs; hear the kettle boiling, the familiar clattering sounds of the kitchen being used. He wondered why it sounded so strange, and then realised: she hadn’t been in the kitchen alone since they’d moved here. Or at least, not when he’d been around to hear it. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed the sound of cupboards swinging open and shut, water running, crockery tapping cordially together. It reminded him of childhood somehow; of waking up to find the world already going, his parents making breakfast and the radio chattering in the corner: a swirl of activity, all ready for him to slot into. And it made him think of the rare times he had awoken before anyone else: of creeping around downstairs in the dark, afraid to turn the lights on, feeling sure he would be caught out, sent back to bed. He’d had no place in the world that was his, then; everything he had was given to him by his parents.

  He swung out of bed, pulled on jeans and an old wool jumper, and went in search of socks. They still hadn’t got round to covering the bare floorboards with anything more than a scattering of rugs, and the floor was freezing in the winter morning air. Lily frequently wandered around barefoot, making him shudder; he hated being cold. She’d laughed at him when he’d first mentioned this, and said her feet must have been hardened by spending her formative years in a carpet-free environment. For some reason her mother had been obsessed with the idea of bare wood.

  He bounded down the stairs, and then hesitated in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her. She hadn’t heard him, and she was side-on at the sink, facing slightly away: his movement in the hallway had gone unnoticed. She was humming to herself quietly, up to her elbows in soap bubbles, her dark blonde hair swept away from her face but escaping in clusters from its tie. A row of bubbles gathered in the front strands of her hair, where she’d brushed them away from her face with the back of her wrist. She was focused entirely on the job at hand.

  He stood silently for nearly a minute, watching her, wondering. And then she looked up, and smiled, and the spell was almost broken. But not quite.

  He walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. She hugged him awkwardly, with her elbows, trying not to get bubbles all over his clothes. Turned her head slightly, so he could kiss the side of her mouth. Richard squeezed his arms closer around her waist. Buried his nose in her neck. And knew that there was nothing in his future but her.

  ‘Lily?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Will you marry me?’

  She laughed, turning her head as far as it would go, but not taking her hands out of the sink. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because I love you and I can’t imagine life without you.’ He slipped a hand into the water, and found Lily’s hand. Entwined his fingers around hers, causing her to let go of the plate she was holding. Squeezed her hand in a familiar sequence: one short, one long, two short.

  I love you.

  She smiled. I love you too.

  He leaned closer, so close he could feel strands of her hair slipping between his lips when he spoke. ‘So?’

  She tilted her head, demonstratively thinking. And then smiled. He felt her answering squeeze in the lukewarm water.

  Yes.

  The boys had been awake and driving Connie up the wall since six. Nathan, with his irritating ability to sleep through any amount of noise, had stayed in bed until nine, and so the majority of last-minute things that Connie had been planning to do hadn’t been done. There were Post-it notes flapping at her like little yellow hazard signs from every surface: take these, cook this, DON’T FORGET THESE!!, and so on. But there was none of the sense of calm she had hoped to cultivate through the illusion of being well-organised, and by eleven o’clock they were still nowhere near leaving.

  ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower and I’ll get the boys ready?’ Nathan suggested, his voice exaggeratedly calm and reasonable. Connie was flushed and wide-eyed, covered with flour from her early-morning attempts at Christmas baking (the boys had joined in with enthusiasm, and nothing much had been achieved), and she was concentrating so hard on scribbling things in a notepad that at first she didn’t hear him.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I said, why don’t you have a shower? I’ll get the boys ready. You’ll feel much more prepared once you’re properly dressed.’

  ‘I need to take the mince pies out of the oven in a minute.’

  ‘Did you set the timer?’

  ‘Um…’ Connie chewed her bottom lip, still concentrating on her notebook. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then it will go off when they’re done, won’t it? And I can get them out of the oven.’

  ‘True.’ She crossed something out, scarring the pad with a deep black line.

  ‘There’s really no need to worry, you know. It’s not as though they’re expecting us at any particular time.’

  ‘I told them we’d be there at lunchtime.’

  ‘Ah. That most specific of meeting times.’

  ‘Fuck off, Nathan.’

  Nathan looked up at the boys automatically, but they were deeply involved in a computer game, and didn’t notice their mother’s unusually harsh language. ‘The kids?’

  ‘They weren’t listening.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘You swear in front of them all the time, so don’t get all sanctimonious on me.’ She finished writing whatever it was that she’d been concentrating on, and put the notebook down on the table. ‘I’ll go and shower, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Connie glared at him. ‘For w
hat?’

  ‘I don’t know. Being reasonable. Not shouting at me and telling me you don’t need a shower. I…’ He stopped, seeing the look on her face. ‘I’m sorry. You’re just all agitated and it’s Christmas Eve and I want you to be happy.’

  ‘Why? So we can pretend everything’s fine and not upset anyone?’

  ‘Well, kind of. Yes.’

  ‘Things can’t just go back to normal because it’s Christmas.’ She picked her notebook up again, as if she was considering using it as a shield. ‘In our family, especially so.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why our family particularly?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean you.’

  Nathan’s features bunched in towards his nose, furrowing in confusion. ‘Why… Oh.’ His eyes widened as he realised what she meant. ‘Shit. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘No, it really isn’t. I’ve just been really distracted, with everything that’s been going on between us… I didn’t think.’

  ‘It really is fine. Honestly.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Shh.’ She walked over to him and placed a finger on his lips. When she looked up at him there was sadness in her eyes, but also warmth, without the glimmer of anger that had almost become a permanent resident. She looked, almost, like the Connie he had fallen in love with.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve messed everything up,’ he said softly.

  ‘Yeah, you should be.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll be okay?’

  She looked down at the floor, exposing the top of her head, with its dusting of flour. He brushed her hair, lightly, and a sprinkling of white dust flew into the air around her face.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said, talking to his shoes and not to him.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  She tilted her head up, and there was a half-smile on her face, an expression of not-quite-sadness. He moved his hands on to her shoulders, feeling the fragility of her bones beneath the skin, and squeezed lightly, wanting to take her in his arms but not sure she’d allow it. ‘Truce, then?’

  She laughed, suddenly, out of nowhere. ‘Like the Christmas armistice?’

  ‘Sort of, I suppose.’

  ‘And we can go back to killing each other on Boxing Day?’

  He laughed. ‘If you really want to.’

  ‘Okay, then.’ She twisted her head and kissed his knuckles, softly, before heading upstairs to have a shower.

  then

  Both Lily’s parents were already up and making coffee in the kitchen when she got up on Christmas Eve. Her mother had been almost her old self for the last couple of weeks: out of bed every day, making dinner, demanding conversation. It was unnerving, to see such an abrupt return to normality: as though she’d just swept the past six months under the carpet and was no longer going to talk about it. Marcus was following suit, acting as if everything was suddenly fine again. Neither of them mentioned Connie.

  They turned in her direction when she entered the kitchen, festive smiles plastered across their faces. ‘You’re up,’ her father said, pointlessly. She nodded.

  ‘Do you want breakfast?’ her mother asked. ‘I was going to make pancakes.’

  ‘Sure.’

  They ate in near-silence, cutlery clinking deafeningly on plates. Lily wrapped her pancakes into sausage shapes and drowned them in lemon juice, floating them in sour yellow pools and then dissolving spoonfuls of sugar into the liquid. Her mother watched with an expression of distaste, but said nothing. It was Christmas Eve, after all.

  After breakfast they sat in the living room. It felt oddly overcrowded with the three of them sitting there. Lily read while her parents watched a film. Every few minutes her mother would lean over to inspect the book, or nudge her and say, ‘It’s good, is it?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Lily would reply dully, not looking up from her book.

  After the third time this happened, Marcus turned round and snapped, ‘If you’re so interested, why don’t you read it yourself?’

  ‘I’m just trying to engage with my daughter. Involve myself in her life. Is that a problem?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Would you mind doing it more than once a year?’

  Anna gasped. ‘How dare you?’

  Marcus muted the TV. ‘What do you mean, how dare I? You’ve barely left your bed in months.’

  ‘I’ve been ill.’

  ‘Yes, I realise that. But you haven’t done much to make yourself better, have you?’

  ‘I can’t believe this. I’m finally improving, starting to feel like a normal person again, and you’re attacking me. Why?’

  Marcus glared at her. ‘Because you’re talking to Lily like she’s an idiot.’

  Lily shrank in her chair as both of her parents turned to look at her. ‘Is that true?’ Anna demanded. ‘Do I talk to you like you’re an idiot?’

  Lily looked from one to the other, with no idea what to say. She shrugged.

  ‘Speak, for pity’s sake. Do I talk to you like you’re an idiot?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Lily said eventually. Then she stood up and walked out of the room.

  The sound of their shouting followed her up the stairs. She closed the door on the noise, and heard her mother storming up the stairs a few moments later. She froze, expecting her to knock on the door. But there was only the sound of her mother’s own bedroom door slamming.

  Two minutes later, her father knocked quietly, then poked his head around the door. ‘Want to go for a walk?’

  They put on coats and hats and scarves, and bundled out into the cold. The sky was low and grey, the streets silent. They turned right and headed down the lane, towards the fields that clustered around the house. The air was dry, biting at Lily’s gloveless hands and the tip of her nose. She plunged her hands into her coat pockets, finding an assortment of old tissues and loose change. She scraped a nail along the bottom seam of the pocket, and brought away a small cluster of fluff, which she balled up and threw into the air. It flew briefly, before tumbling to the ground behind them.

  ‘Do you know why Connie ran away?’ Marcus asked, without preamble. His voice was quiet, and Lily was surprised that he’d asked. She’d thought they were still pretending nothing had happened.

  ‘No,’ she replied, truthfully. She was quiet for a moment, and then a thought occurred to her, and she asked, ‘Do you?’

  ‘No.’ His voice was heavy, and he sounded older than usual. ‘I wish I did. I just thought she might have told you something.’

  Lily said nothing, waiting.

  ‘Sometimes I think this family is cursed,’ Marcus continued, his voice absent-minded, as if he wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying. ‘Ever since that day…’ He trailed off, suddenly realising who he was talking to.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Do you know what happened?’

  Marcus looked at her sharply, but didn’t stop walking. Lily kept her eyes on the distance, where the expanse of fields was broken by a line of trees. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘Do you?’

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

  ‘So. Your mum’s theory that you’re silent because you’re keeping everyone else’s secrets is shot to hell, then,’ he said, laughing bitterly.

  ‘She thinks that?’

  He nodded, and sighed. ‘Yes. I told her you wouldn’t keep quiet about things that were important, but she thinks you’re stubborn enough to take everything to your grave.’

  Lily pondered this. ‘Is that why she’s angry with me?’

  ‘Partly. She’s also angry because she thinks she’s failed as a mother.’

  ‘Why would she take that out on me?’

  ‘Because if she tried to take it out on herself she’d end up in hospital.’ His voice was harsh, and sad, and there was a bitterness that Lily had never heard before. She knew they were angry with each other, but she hadn’t realised her father could sound so unkind.

  ‘Dad?’


  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you wish you weren’t married to her?’

  There was a long pause, so long Lily thought he wasn’t going to answer, as he looked at the sky with an expression which seemed to hold all the sadness in the world. ‘Yes,’ he said, finally, looking down at her with an apology in his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t give up you or Connie for the world, but I don’t want to be with her any more.’

  Lily nodded, and they walked on in silence. After a while she pulled her hand out of her pocket and placed it in his, finding his much larger hand clenched around his keys. She peeled his fingers away from the metal until they relaxed, and then pushed her hand inside his, folding his fingers around her smaller ones. She kept it there until they got home.

  The atmosphere in the Emmett household was just as tense on Christmas Day as it had been the day before. Anna had spent most of the day in her room, not talking to either of them. Lily and Marcus had combated the atmosphere by turning the radio up and cooking dinner with the aid of Christmas songs and exaggerated dancing. Marcus sang along tunelessly, proffering wooden spoons and spatulas in Lily’s direction to use as microphones, in case she got the urge to join in, though she didn’t take him up on the offer. Mariah Carey was being drowned out by Marcus’s warbling when Anna came downstairs, her features arranged in her standard expression of irritation.

  ‘I was trying to sleep,’ she said, by way of greeting.

  ‘And we were trying to enjoy Christmas,’ her husband replied, recklessly. He’d opened a bottle of wine, and was halfway through his second glass by the time Anna appeared. He never drank much, and his cheeks were unusually flushed, his eyes over-bright. Lily stood back, blending into the background as best she could.

  ‘Well, I’d enjoy it a lot more if I’d had a decent amount of sleep,’ Anna said.

  ‘And we’d probably enjoy it a lot more if you just stayed upstairs,’ Marcus retorted. ‘You don’t always get what you want.’

  ‘Why are you being such an arsehole today?’