by Ann Morgan
You carry on staring at the wall, tracing the rip along the edge of the primrose-yellow paper with your eyes. The tinkle of an ice-cream van playing ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ drifts in through the window.
Mother shifts on the bed, jolting you. ‘You don’t see Helen missing school and running around snorting glue,’ she says. ‘She’s not out God knows where every night. She’s home at a sensible time, doing her homework, helping with Richard.’
‘Oh yes,’ you say in a pinched voice, imitating her for the amusement of the wall. ‘The golden child. Miss Perfect-Pants.’
‘Eleanor, don’t talk about your sister like that,’ says Mother. ‘All I’m saying is that maybe if you took a leaf out of her book things might be different. I can’t understand why you’d want to ruin everything now life is finally getting back on track.’
The nails relinquish their grip on your shoulder and scuttle up to tuck a stray hair behind your ear. ‘You could be such a nice girl,’ she whispers softly.
Throughout this speech, you narrow your eyes more and more so that the rosebuds on the wall become flies caught in the amber of the fury that boils up out of you to coat the room. You flip round on the bed and she gives a start.
‘This isn’t about Richard,’ you say in a hard, robot voice that seems to be speaking through you from somewhere else. ‘Or Dad. Or having my life stolen. Or even fucking Scoutmaster Twatface downstairs.’
You look up at her. The eyeshadow has collected in the creases around her eyelids and there is a clot of powder stuck in the line at the side of her nose. Her nostrils quiver.
‘I was raped, Mother,’ you shout. ‘Does that make sense of it all for you? I was raped.’
Mother blinks and touches a hand to her face.
‘Raped?’ she says uncertainly. ‘What do you mean, raped?’
‘I mean raped,’ you roar. ‘I mean a man took his penis and forced it inside me and—’
‘Shhhh,’ says Mother, flapping her hands. ‘Richard might hear!’
But you don’t care and you can’t stop and now it’s all pouring out of you in one big stinking gush, as tears flood down your face.
‘It was on Christmas Day two years ago,’ you say, gasping. ‘I went to the park. I didn’t know anyone else would be there. But he was. I didn’t understand what was happening and he made it feel like it was all my fault. Like I’d asked for it.’
You look at her. Mother is sitting with her hands clasped round herself, shaking her head in odd little jerks, as if trying to shift a headache.
‘It hurt so much,’ you say, your voice a whimper. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I—’
Mother looks at you. ‘Oh,’ she says, and this time there is no false stiffness in her voice. When her hand reaches for you it is soft. ‘My poor little girl,’ she says, enfolding you in a hug. ‘My poor, poor little thing.’
You lean against her and she rocks you gently as you sob, shuddering cracks in the loneliness and sadness and pain that have for so long walled you in.
‘I didn’t think you’d understand,’ you say after a while, wonderingly.
You sit back and look at Mother’s face and see a sorrow deep in her eyes that you’ve never spotted before. A dam breaks in your brain, sending realisation flooding through you. Images surge to the surface of your thoughts: a sad little living room, a line of false teeth.
‘That day at Grandma’s house,’ you say. ‘That thing she said… Uncle Albert—’
Mother’s arms drop away and she sits back, staring into the distance. Down the road, the ice-cream van starts playing ‘Yankee Doodle’. Mother gives a sour laugh.
‘Oh, yes,’ she says in a strange, hard little voice. ‘I see what you’re trying to do. You nearly had me fooled too. Mug that I am, I nearly fell for it. I might have known.’
You open your mouth to say something but Mother stands up and rounds on you, her face ablaze.
‘You little bitch!’ she spits. ‘You filthy, lying little toad. Making up stories as a small child is one thing, but this is disgusting. Manipulating, lying, because of whatever you might have heard – whatever rubbish you picked out of that old woman’s ramblings. You won’t get me that way. I won’t have it. Not after I’ve worked so hard to build a decent life. I won’t have it, do you understand? Disgusting! I won’t have this in my house.’
You’re so shocked, you forget to be angry. You’ve never heard Mother swear before. ‘But,’ you say, your voice breaking like a small child’s, ‘but, Mother, it’s true.’
‘No,’ she says, backing away. ‘It’s not true. I won’t have it. We won’t discuss this. I will not have you raking up the past. I’m putting my foot down.’
‘But it is!’ you plead. ‘I really was raped. And it keeps happening. And I don’t know how to—’
Mother shakes her head, puts her hand out and opens the door. ‘No,’ she says again. ‘Absolutely not. This didn’t happen. Understand? This pollution ends today. It ends right now.’ She pauses, turns back, and looks across the room at you.
‘You’d better sort yourself out, Eleanor or whoever you are,’ she says. ‘You’d better learn to keep this under control. I will not have a monster for a daughter.’ And then she is gone, shutting the door behind her with a sharp click.
You stare at the space where she was, through a wash of tears: the yellow rosebud wallpaper and the cream door. For a second, the world stands still. Then the black eagle of rage flaps down on to your shoulders and sinks its talons in, enfolding you in its wings. You want to hit, to hurt, to kill. You want to take what is going on inside you and smash it and spread it all over the world. You grope blindly and your fingers close round the glass on the bedside table. This you hurl, stagnant water and all, at the place where Mother stood. Only you can’t even do this right: the glass veers off-course and crashes into the bookshelf at the foot of your bed, gouging the wood and showering the books there with droplets and glittering shards. You grip yourself, biting your knees, as the world folds in and the house crumbles and you are left completely alone.
25
A knock on the door in the hazy hours of the afternoon. Heloise standing there. ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered, contorting her mouth into improbable shapes. ‘Granny and Peeps are out. Come on!’
Bleary from just waking up, Smudge stumbled after her, past the closed door in the attic corridor and down the stairs to a playroom filled with toys. A child laughed hysterically in her head as Heloise thrust gadget after gadget at her: dolls that blinked and moved their arms, little hand-held video games, spinning tops carved out of wood to look like the playthings of yesteryear. As Heloise scurried from cupboard to cupboard in her blue pinafore dress and white hole-patterned socks, Smudge found she had to remind herself that this little girl was not Hellie and that the pair of them had not been sent up to amuse themselves in the bedroom of a rich friend’s house while Mother drank tea and crumbled biscuits in the sitting room below.
Heloise stood and regarded Smudge holding the toys limply on her lap.
‘Bored now!’ she announced after a moment. ‘Come on!’
She led her aunt through the house.
‘That’s Mummy and Daddy’s room. It goes up a spiral staircase,’ she said, pointing along the playroom corridor. Smudge stared at the shut door with a shiver, imagining Hellie, all made-up and pristine, standing on the other side.
They passed a hall table bearing a photograph of Hellie shaking hands with Tony Blair and another of her cutting the ribbon to open a children’s ward, and on through the kitchen to the garden.
(‘Well, this is a turn up for the books,’ snickered a voice. ‘A real big horrible surprise!’)
‘Get in,’ instructed Heloise, pointing at a big rhododendron bush.
‘What? In there?’ said Smudge.
Heloise folded her arms. ‘I won’t tell you twice.’
(‘Move your ass, you lazy scum,’ agreed another voice.)
So Smudge sighed, crouched down and wriggled her wa
y into the foliage to a hollow space inside. Heloise crawled in after her.
‘You see?’ she says. ‘It’s a secret place where you can be and no one knows. You can be in here for hours if you like and no one will find you. Safe.’ She turned and picked something out of the shadows. ‘And there’s this.’
It was a bird’s nest with fragments of blue shell and three wisps of feathers still clinging to the twigs inside.
‘Don’t break it,’ said Heloise. ‘I think it might have magic powers, but I haven’t worked out how to use it yet.’
She looked up at Smudge and then snatched the nest away and tucked it behind her.
‘But the best thing about this place is how you can be in here when guests come and shout things out to give them a surprise,’ said Heloise. Like you can shout “BOOO!” and “I CAN SEE YOU!” and then they’ll be surprised and maybe they’ll drop their drink and splash the red wine all down themselves.’
There was the sound of a door opening.
‘Is everything all right?’ called Nick.
‘Oh fuck,’ muttered Smudge.
She crawled to the edge of the rhododendron and looked out. Nick was standing at the doorway to the wacky hut at the end of the garden. She sighed and wriggled out on to the lawn.
‘Yes,’ she said, stumbling to her feet and brushing the soil off her knees. ‘I’m sorry. I hope we’re not disturbing you. Heloise was just showing me—’ she caught sight of Heloise scowling and shaking her head as she wriggled out of the bush ‘ – something. I didn’t realise it would be so loud.’
‘Oh no,’ he said, waving a hand vaguely behind him. ‘It’s just work. It’s not important.’
There was a pause while they stared at each other. Then both of them tried to talk at once.
‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘You go.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘No, please. You.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to say sorry about what happened and thanks for putting me up. For everything really. I know it’s a difficult time and the last thing you needed was to come and bail me out. Particularly with Mother and, er, Horace here. To be honest the last few days are a bit of a blur.’
She stopped. It felt weird to hear herself trying to conduct a grown-up conversation: stilted and unnatural. For a moment, she had the unnerving feeling that the two of them were actors on the set of a bad, old-fashioned play, performing for an invisible audience. She shook her head to dismiss the thought.
(‘You little toerag-chewing worm,’ sneered a voice.)
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I can go any time. I can leave this afternoon if you need the room.’
He held up his hands. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘You’re not going anywhere until you’re fully recovered – and until we get that benefits nonsense sorted out. It was all my fault in the first place – the head injury, at least.’
She stared at him. The breeze blew a whisper into her head that there was something wrong here, that it didn’t make sense that he was being so nice. She shrugged the paranoid thought away and winced a smile.
He reflected it back at her. ‘How are you anyway?’ he said. ‘Are the pills helping?’
She thought of the unopened packet lying on the bookshelf.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Much better.’
He looked doubtfully at her forehead. ‘Hmmn,’ he said. ‘It still looks quite inflamed.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said loudly, through the anxiety starting to rise up around her like mist from the grass. (‘Imbecile! Lech!’ heckled a voice.)
‘Why are you being cross?’ said Heloise, sidling up.
‘I’m not being cross,’ said Smudge. ‘I’m being firm. There’s a difference.’
Heloise stared at her. ‘Oh fuck,’ she said.
For a moment, time lurched and Smudge was back in the garden with her old self all those years ago, about to creep into the house and shoehorn herself unwittingly into another life. She put a hand to her mouth and took a faltering step backwards.
‘Heloise!’ said Nick.
‘What?’ said Heloise. ‘She taught me it!’ And she broke away to zoom about the garden making a ‘nee-naw’ sound.
‘It was an accident,’ said Smudge. ‘It slipped out. I didn’t mean—’
Nick waved her explanations away. ‘She likes you,’ he said.
‘Does she?’ said Smudge, embarrassed suddenly, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘You should have seen how she behaved when Margaret and Horace arrived – she hid in her bedroom for three days. Poor Horace couldn’t even climb the stairs without her starting to scream.’
Smudge swallowed a smile. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It was a difficult time. It is a difficult time.’
The breeze sent a leaf whirling down on to his shoulder. He twitched it away with an awkward gesture.
Smudge coughed. ‘How is—?’
Nick puffed out his cheeks. ‘Oh, much the same,’ he said. ‘Bit of a chest infection, I think. Apparently that’s normal for coma patients – something to do with the fluid on the lungs building up because of lying still.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘Actually, they’re thinking of moving her. To some specialist neurological hospital in Putney. They’re waiting for a bed.’
Smudge nodded. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Specialist care and all that?’
Nick sighed and shook his head. ‘Do you know what the original name of that hospital was? The Hospital for Incurables. They’ve got patients there who’ve been in comas for years. Vegetables. They’re giving up on her, Ellie. They don’t think she’s going to get better.’
Something opened up inside her. What was it? Hope? Joy? A strange kind of pain? She didn’t have time to examine it – he was watching her too closely.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That must be—’
He scratched his ear. ‘Look, I don’t suppose—’
The anxiety started back into life and began to rev angrily. She held up her hands, backing away.
‘Please don’t ask me to go and see her,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘You don’t understand.’
He shook his head. ‘Actually it wasn’t that,’ he said. ‘Not today anyway. It’s just, well, I wouldn’t normally ask this, but I’ve got to go out. It’s a work thing – some crisis with this big project we’ve got on – and Margaret and Horace aren’t here. Would you mind keeping an eye on Heloise until I get back?’
She felt almost high with relief. (‘Silly sausage,’ crooned a voice.)
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
‘Thanks so much,’ he said, and hurried into the house.
She turned back and found Heloise standing in front of her. They stared at each other for a while until the front door slammed and Nick’s footsteps receded down the path.
An awkward feeling settled on Smudge. She walked into the kitchen with Heloise trailing after her.
‘What shall we do now?’ said the child with a hint of a whine.
‘Ummn,’ said Smudge, looking around for inspiration. She thought of the stack of boxed games in the corner of the playroom, some of them still in their cellophane wrappers. ‘What about a game of Hungry Hippos?’
‘Hungry Hippos is boring!’ said Heloise in a rising wail. ‘I want to do something better!’
Smudge massaged her temples against the fizzing and popping beginning in her brain.
(‘Rambunctious!’ shouted a voice. ‘On the razzle!’)
Heloise tugged at her sleeve.
‘I want to do something better!’ she moaned again.
Smudge rounded on her with a snarl. ‘FUCK OFF!’ she screamed. ‘Just fuck right off! There isn’t anything better! There’s fuck all! All right?’
She collapsed, panting, into one of the chairs at the kitchen table as Heloise scampered off up the stairs in a blur of blue and green. Smudge’s brain raced and her gaze flitted about the room. On the table in front of her was a big pad of creamy-white paper and a pack of colour
ed pencils. She pulled them towards her and began to draw absently: the long, sharp profile of a crooked nose and a protruding chin. She sketched on. As the minutes ticked by on the kitchen clock, she forgot the house and Nick and Heloise and Mother and Akela, and Hellie lying somewhere in her hospital bed. Her breathing slowed and she became absorbed in watching the figure emerge from the page in front of her, as though the image had lain just below the surface and she was merely uncovering it piece by piece. The old confidence began to take over.
‘Is it a witch?’ said a voice at her elbow.
She turned to find Heloise huddled there, staring up at her with curious, half-fearful eyes.
Smudge looked back at the crone on the page.
‘I suppose it must be,’ she said. And then, as the memory of her outburst hit, bringing with it a surge of guilt: ‘Here, why don’t you come and help me?’
Heloise dragged up a chair. ‘Give her a hat then,’ she instructed. ‘And a cauldron.’
They worked on, creating the witch’s world, shadowing in a broomstick and cobwebs looped from a rusty chandelier.
At one stage Heloise looked up at Smudge with narrowed eyes.
‘You’re very good at drawing,’ she said suspiciously. ‘Why are you so good?’
Smudge shrugged, brushing back a strand of hair from her eye. ‘I used to be an illustrator,’ she said, leaning in again to work a sense of movement into the witch’s cat’s tail.
‘What?’ said Heloise. ‘Someone paid you just to do pictures? What kind of silly were they?’
The witch’s magic room grew in size and stature. Shelves bearing books and bottles lined the walls and bundles of mysterious leaves lay heaped across the rough floor.
‘Now you start the colouring in,’ said Smudge. And she showed Heloise how to trace round the object first to avoid going over the lines and to darken the shading to suggest shadows and depth. Heloise worked with the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, intent.
They were both so absorbed that they didn’t hear the front door. It was only when the footsteps came clattering down the basement steps that they became aware that someone else was in the house. Smudge looked up, flushed with achievement as the figure rounded the bottom of the stairs, anticipating Nick’s pleasure at their work.