by Emmy Ellis
“I can see why you need someone to talk to,” Barrows said, resting her can on her knee and twisting it around and around. “It has to be hard to be a police officer when your father did what he did. There you are, supposed to uphold the law, and I’m guessing you were torn as to whether to arrest him. Were you?”
“Uh, no.” Tracy blushed. Tell the truth for once in your goddamned life. “Yes.”
“Why? Because he was your father and you had loyalty to deal with? Some sort of moral obligation?”
“No, because if I arrested him, the truth would come out.” I’ve been selfish to the core for as long as I can remember.
“The truth?”
“About me. The abuse. I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Ah, you poor thing. I would have wanted to kill him if that were me. Did you?”
“What, want to kill him, or did I kill him?”
“Either.”
“I wanted to. I didn’t.” But I wish I’d had that privilege.
“Shame. You would have felt better if you had.”
No, I wouldn’t. I killed John, and I still don’t feel better.
“Or not…” Barrows said. “So, where are you now? Where are you at in your head?”
“I need it all to go away. I’ve locked it all up—or so I thought—but things keep creeping out. Not the abuse—Dr Schumer helped me with that, and if there are other incidents and abusers I can’t remember, I’d prefer not to at the moment. Although I do realise that the things I can’t remember are probably still festering somewhere and need to come out eventually. What I need to deal with for now is me as a person. I have to find out whether the abuse and my upbringing made me how I am today or whether I’m just using that as an excuse to act the way I want and get away with it, especially with my partner, Damon. He’s also my partner at work. I’m a bitch, quite frankly, and I don’t like myself. My several selves.”
“That’s normal, you know, to have different versions of yourself. We all have them, some more than others. For example, there’s the social self, where you become one type of person, all bubbly, the life and soul, and you act that out even when you don’t want to. Then there’s your reflective self, your judgemental self, your whatever self. There are so many. Some lucky people get away with just being two selves, but others… A self for every occasion, as it were.”
“That’s me. Sometimes I can be about four or five different versions in one day. It bothers me. I don’t think that’s normal, no matter what you say.”
“It is. Which Tracy do you want to get rid of the most?”
“The bitch. The one who says things out loud that should stay in her head. The one who thinks bad things. The one who hurts people with what she says. The liar.”
“Liar?”
“I tell lies all the time. To everyone, even myself. I have to, to hide what I’ve done.”
“Which is?”
“I’m not prepared to talk about that.”
“Perhaps not yet.”
“No, seriously, I can’t talk about that. To anyone. Not even you.” Only to Lisa, who knows everything.
“Okay. So how do you propose to get rid of the bitchy Tracy? Have you tried?”
“Yes. Damon has helped. He grounds me, points out when I’ve gone overboard, but at the same time I know he loves me—each one of me, he’s said so. I don’t know who I’d be now if I didn’t have him. Some extremely bitter cow, I think. Or more bitter, anyway, because I’m already a bitter cow.”
“Do you want to know what I believe?”
“Go on.” Schumer did this. Analysed me. Is it in their training to guess who you are based on a few minutes?
“That you’re a wonderful human beneath all the layers, you just can’t let yourself become her because you don’t feel you deserve it. You’ve been told somewhere down the line that you’re worthless—around the time you were solely the Tracy you want to be again, a child, an innocent, and in order to cope with the loss of that part of yourself, you created more sides—sides who can cope better—and eventually, the real you got lost, buried beneath not only the weight of your other selves, but the burdens you were forced to carry. Are forced to carry.”
Tears ran down Tracy’s cheeks. Hot. Surprising. She didn’t cry. Not anymore, yet here she was…
Shit.
“What you need to understand, Tracy, is that you are a product of someone else’s making. Their actions meant you became who you are to protect yourself. If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t have had to become these other versions. You are not at fault. It’s in-built in us to survive the best way we can despite the circumstances, and yours, which were undoubtedly extreme, meant you had to be extreme in building personas who enabled you to cope. With your father gone, those barriers should have crumbled, perhaps disappeared by now, or at least be tucked away in your head somewhere, forgotten. But they haven’t, so there is either something going on where you still need that protection, or you’ve become so used to being who you currently are, you’re afraid to let her go because she’s kept you safe for so long.”
A lump formed in Tracy’s throat. She tried to swallow it. Couldn’t.
“Tracy, what was done to you isn’t who you are. It’s a part of you, yes, something that’s shaped you, but it doesn’t define you. Your real self is in there somewhere, that trusting, innocent person, and you can find her again—if you allow yourself to do so. Breaking the pattern of your other sides coming out from your habit of relying on them can be done, and I will help you to do that.”
A sob barked out of Tracy, and she didn’t even raise her hand as she usually would to hide her ugly-cry mouth.
“Would you like a cuddle, Tracy?”
She stared at Barrows through the mist of tears.
And nodded.
Chapter Twenty
It’s my usual night off, and I’ve caught up on all the sleep I lost over the Mrs Roberts thing. I phoned Zello earlier to ask if she really did blame me for what had happened—it’d been playing on my mind, see. I needed the truth—or the truth as she saw it anyway. I’d entertained thoughts of her poisoning everyone’s minds, getting them to think it was my fault, and imagined going back to work and having no one speaking to me.
I don’t want that to happen again. It’s lonely when no one except your mother talks to you.
My childhood was spent with no friends once Mother pulled me out of school and decided to teach me herself. Once she died, I became a different version of me and went to college, university, then trained to be a nurse. Now I’m working at Blooming Age, it means I have some friends. All right, we don’t meet up after hours for coffee or anything, or ring each other, go clothes shopping and whatnot, but we get along fine—Nurse Matthews is my favourite—and I can pretend I’m part of the gang, even though I’m not really. I’ve never fitted in anywhere, so I’d be kidding myself if I thought I could in the proper sense. I’m the loner, the outcast, still walking around with those name tags attached, but it isn’t as obvious as before.
I’ve learnt to hide behind a façade.
“No, Chrissy, I don’t blame you,” Zello had said. “I’ve decided it’s a joint responsibility thing, me included. I’ve had time to think about it—that Collier woman sowed some rather spiteful seeds, making me take a good long look at myself and my role in this…this awful thing. But she was right to do so, even if what she implied hurt me somewhat. Everyone fell asleep, not just you. Plus, I’ve realised your hours are ridiculous. I’ve spoken to the owner, and we’re going to restructure working times so all the night staff get more of a break between shifts. When you think about it, you have a weekend of being zonked out most of Saturday. Sunday you get up at a normal time, then you’re back in for a twelve-hour stint that night, effectively losing eight hours of sleep. It messes with the body clock, so no wonder you all dropped off.”
I hadn’t expected her to be so understanding. “But will my hours be less? Won’t that alter my pay?”
&nb
sp; “This is what we need to look into. We don’t want to reduce wages, not when you’ve all got used to what you earn and have bills to pay.”
Relief had all but knocked me off my damn feet. Okay, I don’t have a mortgage or rent to fork out for, but the electricity bill is high, what with this place being so big. Old Victorian efforts tend to have heat seeping through gaps in the window frames.
I should sell this house really.
I sigh and rub my palms over my face, and that knocking comes again. It’s occasionally during the day when I’m actually here, but mainly in the evenings before I start work, or in the middle of the night when I’m not at Blooming Age, and it wakes me up whenever it happens. It’s as though the rats doze all day and only venture out when it gets dark. I don’t want to go down there and see what it is, but if I don’t, the rats could be doing all sorts of damage, couldn’t they?
I take a deep breath and unlock the cellar door with the dull-grey key that used to be slightly shinier when I was a kid. The end poking out of the keeper is intricate filigree; maybe the key is an original from all those years ago. It’d stuck a bit when I’d twisted it just now—rust most likely—and I think about getting a new one cut, although there really isn’t any need. I don’t like going down there and avoid it as much as possible, but it seems I have to go now.
God…
I swing the door wide, and a revolting smell wafts out—piss, shit, mustiness, possibly damp and mould—and the former two remind me of work when the oldies have accidents. I pinch my nose and venture down, the cement stairs cold on my bare feet, and at the bottom, I stand still and listen. The light from the hallway above doesn’t reach this far, the shaft at the top bright, fading with each step until it bleeds into the darkness and becomes one with it. I strain my ears for signs of rats scurrying, trying to find a way out having sensed I’m here. But there’s no shushing of little pink paw pads and the scrape of gnarly claws on the floor, no swish of tails brushing it, nothing except…
Breathing.
My stomach churns, and I suck air in, my mind spinning. Are the rats so big I’d pick up on something like their breaths? I’ve heard they can be as large as cats, but even so…
It comes again, that breathing, quick, uneven, like I’d sounded as a child when frightened. I need to turn the light on, to see what’s making that noise, but I’m scared of rats. Should I call the environmental health department and let them deal with it?
No.
So I don’t talk myself out of it, I flick the switch on the wall beside me, and the room floods with light while my body overflows with dread. In the corner isn’t a rat. It isn’t a cat-sized lump of vermin that’s been knocking into the furniture like I’d thought. It’s a woman, a skinny woman, dirty, her face streaked with God knows what—it can’t be shit, can it?—a filthy rag tied around the lower half of her face, between her pale, chapped lips. Her wide eyes fill with tears, and she snorts from her nose, snot flying, and the exhalation doesn’t even shift the greasy black hair hanging over her cheeks in strands.
What on earth is she doing here?
I glance at the table in the middle, the one I used to sit at before Mother died and I stored it. There’s a few syringes and some small bottles of clear fluid. I recognise the labels on the medication—it helps people to sleep. Mother’s old stuff? Why didn’t I put that away? Throw it away?
Reluctantly, I turn my attention to the thing in the corner. “How…how did you get in?” I can’t get over this. I can see her, she’s definitely there, but my mind doesn’t want to process it.
She lifts her hands, and the wrists are bound with those cable ties, like the ones I bought a while back to hold the stems of my wooden flower arrangement in place. They’re the same colour, too, bright yellow, and I frown, trying to work out why she’s here, why those ties are here, why her ankles are held together with them.
And why she’s naked.
I want to take the gag off her, but she looks feral. What if she bites me? Lashes out if I cut those ties off?
Should I call the police or what?
No.
My forehead hurts from frowning, and I stare at her. She stares back then flits her eyes to the side, like she’s trying to tell me something. Oh God, is someone else with us? Someone in the other corner? The person who put this woman here?
I don’t want to look. I want to run upstairs, lock the door, and forget I ever saw her. But what if she dies? She’ll smell after a while, and the neighbours will come round, asking if my waste pipes are blocked, and they might call someone in, and this…this person will be discovered, and I’ll get the blame, like I did at first over Mrs Roberts.
This isn’t my fault. This isn’t anything to do with me.
Fear scuttles up my spine, and it morphs into what I imagine is an entity that roves its ghostly hands over my skin, bringing out goosebumps and the need to cry and cry and cry until all my tears are gone.
She whimpers, that huddle of skin-and-bone scruff, and snaps her head to where she’d been silently asking me to look.
Don’t make me do this.
My heart hurts, pounds so hard, my pulse womb-sounding in my ears, and I feel sick, so damn sick. Bile rears its bitter-tasting head, and I swallow it, clutching my stomach as if that will stop my dinner coming back up.
And I turn my head.
Women stand there—oh my god…what the fucking hell…who are they?—but they don’t seem right. It’s like they’re distorted, and I blink, thinking it’s my eyes playing tricks on me. It isn’t. There they are, faces skewed, eyes bulging, skin sagging in places—on the cheeks and chin—and they’re watching me, standing stock still, staring, staring, staring.
“Who? What…?” My voice isn’t mine. It belongs to the child I once was, hoarse from all the crying I used to do, broken and jagged, hitching on a sob. The urge to run is strong, fight or flight overcoming me, but my feet won’t move. I gawp at the tied-up woman then, unable to stand looking at the other two any longer. I ask her with my eyes: What’s going on? Who are you all? Why are you all here?
She doesn’t answer—can’t, can she—and gazes back at me with what I think is pleading: Help me.
No.
I back up to the bottom of the stairs, slap at the light switch, the darkness erasing everything from sight but not from my mind. No, not from there—it’s seared into my brain, something I’ll never forget, and panic takes over, sending me breathless. I scrabble up and burst out into the bright hallway and clutch my chest, struggling to lock the door. The fucking key is sticking again, and my shaking hand doesn’t help.
“Lock, damn you. Lock.”
It does, and I press my back to the door, snapping my eyes shut, tight, so tight, willing my breathing to calm the hell down.
What do I do? I can’t leave them all down there. That’s a crime, keeping people against their will. Who put them there? Why are they there?
I don’t know, I don’t bloody know, but blackness creeps into the edges of my vision, and I know I’m going to faint. I can’t stop it, even by talking to myself, telling the me who is full of fear that I must remain awake, and I slide down the door, closing my eyes, my mind mercifully going blank.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Past
“What the hell have you done?” Mother screams at Father.
She stalks across the room and flaps an envelope in Father’s face. Hers is flushed, and she looks ever so angry. Angry enough to hurt someone.
They don’t notice him. He cowers in the corner—it’s best he keeps out of their way when they’re like this. They always fight, or it seems so anyway. He needs a wee but doesn’t dare get up. That means he’ll have to walk past them, and she’ll notice, his mother, and bring him into the argument: “Tell your dad what came in the post today. That thing I showed you,” that’s what she’ll say. And he doesn’t want her to. Doesn’t want to hear those words.
“I haven’t done anything,” Father says, and bright spots o
f colour slink onto his cheeks, and that always means he’s lying.
“You’ve been at it again, haven’t you?” Mother waves the envelope even more; it crackles with each flutter.
He knows what’s inside, and it hurts, that knowledge. Isn’t he enough? Isn’t his mother enough for his father?
“You opened my mail?” Father stares, his eyes wide, his jaw dropping. A big bubble of spit grows at the corner of his mouth, and it pops, coating his skin in a glistening sheen. “You said you wouldn’t do that again.”
“And you said you wouldn’t do certain things again, yet you did them anyway. You’ve been acting funny lately, like you did before with that bitch, and I told you back then: one more time, and we’re finished. Over. And it seems you’ve done it regardless; otherwise, why the letter? Why would she be sending you messages through a solicitor to leave her alone if you haven’t been doing anything?”
“Shit.” Father rubs a hand over his face, but he’s peeping through the gap between two fingers.
“I can see you,” Mother says. “Staring at me. Hiding your face won’t make the crime go away.”
“Crime?” Father lowers his hand and frowns.
“It’s a crime to have sex with someone while you’re married,” she says, folding her arms over her belly.
“No, it isn’t,” he says. “It really isn’t.”
“Oh, so you’ve looked it up have you, in one of your encyclopaedias that cost a damn fortune—a fortune we couldn’t afford at the time? Or have you asked around, let other people twig what you’ve been up to? My God, you’re something else, you are.” She opens the envelope, pulls out the letter, and reads in silence. Then, “Listen to the wording this fella here has put about adultery. ‘Physical contact with an alien and unlawful organ’.” She laughs, and it sounds bitter, her face screwed up as if she’s eaten something sour. “Unlawful. You hear that? The organ, the alien—called Irene, let’s not forget that—is unlawful.”