‘I think I know what happened to you,’ I say softly.
She says nothing.
‘Do you remember what we were talking about, downstairs at the bar?’
Still she’s silent, but I know she’s listening. I take a deep breath.
‘I know, Gloria. I know why you couldn’t tell Sam,’ I say, trying to keep my voice strong, although it wants to crack. ‘Why you couldn’t tell anyone.’
She doesn’t say anything, or look at me. I reach for her hand, and she lets me take it.
‘It’s not fair,’ I say, and I try to blink away tears because she’s spent so many years, almost a whole lifetime, not crying about it. I don’t have the right.
I can hardly bear to think about it. Her grip on my hand tightens a little. ‘No,’ she says at last. ‘It’s not fair.’
And when I look at her, a single tear has slipped from her eye onto the pillow.
I open the door quietly, even though I know no one will be there. I close it and smile into the quiet of the house. I will go and get changed out of my school uniform and then I’ll meet Sam just as I have done for the last three weeks. I can’t believe I’ve got away with skipping school to see him for this long; I was sure someone would have worked out that I’d forged the letter from Mum about the hospital appointments. I knew there’d be hell to pay when Father found out but I didn’t care.
I pick up the hand mirror Mum keeps on the hall table and look at myself in it. It’s a pretty mirror, gilt with flowers round the edge, and I smile at my reflection in it.
And then, behind me in the mirror, I see feet coming down the stairs out of the shadows. The feet are wearing black brogues, polished so that they shine. They are Vinnie’s shoes.
I don’t want to meet his eye. He always makes me feel uneasy, as though he’s thinking things about me I don’t really understand. There’s always a little smile playing on his lips when he speaks to me. He makes my skin crawl.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say, trying not to sound as irritated as I feel.
‘I could ask you the same question.’ He smirks, as if he knows.
‘They let us out early,’ I say.
‘Really,’ he says. ‘Well, that’s lucky, isn’t it? Nice for the two of us to get to spend some time alone together for once.’
It occurs to me that I’ve always avoided being alone with Vinnie. I’d never really thought about it before. ‘Gwen asked me to drop by and pick up something for her.’
He makes no attempt to make it sound as though he’s telling the truth.
‘Really?’ I say. ‘What was that?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘Just curious,’ I say.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ he says. ‘You don’t try to pick holes in my story and I’ll do you the same favour. I’m not sure either of them would stand up to scrutiny, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’ I say.
‘It’s just Brenda Onions happened to mention to me that she could have sworn she’d seen you come home early last Friday as well. And the Friday before, too. And the one before that. They letting you out early every Friday, are they? Or might you be telling me fibs?’
I try to push past him.
He catches my arm just above the elbow, gripping it tight, and I drop the mirror.
It falls onto the tiled floor and shatters.
‘Look what you’ve done now!’ I say.
‘Oh dear,’ he says. ‘Seven years’ bad luck, so they say.’
‘Let go of me,’ I say, trying to struggle free, but he grips my arm tighter.
‘Ow!’ I look at him, surprised and annoyed. Not scared. ‘That hurts.’
He smiles.
‘Does it?’ His face is close enough to mine that I can see the sweat glisten on his skin, and that he’s got something grey caught between his teeth. I can smell stale smoke on his breath, mixed with the sickly sweet smell of hair pomade.
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to wrench my arm free. ‘What are you doing, Vinnie? Let go, will you. It’s not funny.’
I’m still feeling more annoyed than scared. I’d been looking forward to this afternoon all week. On the bus on the way here I’d thought about nothing but Sam and meeting him again: the smell of him, the way he listened intently to everything I said as though it was the most interesting and important thing anyone had ever said, the feel of his lips on mine.
Vinnie laughs, but in his eyes I can see that he doesn’t really find it funny either, and he tightens his grip on my arm so that now it really hurts. I think of Gwen’s cardigan that she’d worn even on that glaring hot day, the bruises underneath that she’d tried to laugh off. I think of Ursula the bear. ‘Daddy loves Mummy. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’ Something twists in my stomach.
‘Come on,’ he says, pulling me through into the living room. ‘I just want a little dance.’
He pulls me towards him and presses my body against him with one hand, still gripping my arm too tightly in the other. Then he lets go of my wrist and presses my head in against his chest and he sings as he moves me from side to side.
‘I’ve always liked you, Gloria, you know that. Always said you’d be a beauty when you grew up, didn’t I? And now look at you.’ His eyes slide down my body in a way that makes me want to cover myself up more, even though my school uniform covers me almost completely. ‘All grown up.’
‘I mean it, Vinnie,’ I say, trying to twist and wriggle free. ‘Don’t be a bloody idiot. Why would I want to dance with you?’
He puts his hand on the back of my neck.
‘You’re disgusting!’ I say. ‘I wish Gwen had never married you.’
And then his face changes. He isn’t laughing any more.
It comes from nowhere before I’ve realized what’s happening: a flash of white light and pain through my head and it takes me a few seconds to understand that he’s hit me, hard, across the face. I lose my balance and my bearings, stumbling, and when I come to I’m pressed up against the wall and Vinnie’s holding me there with his body. I try to push him away but he grabs my wrists and pushes his face close up against mine so that I can feel the moist warmth of his breath on my skin.
‘Think you’re clever, don’t you? Think you’re better than the rest of us?’
He shakes his head, and smiles in a way that makes me think he’s going to hit me again. ‘There’s nothing special about you, Gloria,’ he says, with such force that flecks of spit fly out and I feel them land on my face.
I think maybe he’s going to kiss me and I brace myself for it. He must be drunk, I think. And then I realize he’s undoing the buckle of his belt with the hand that isn’t pinning my wrists to the wall, and with his leg he forces mine apart, and it’s then that I start to understand; it’s then that I panic.
‘No!’ I say, and although I’m scared I’m angry too. Angry that he hit me, angry that he thinks he can touch me, angry that he’s laughing at me. ‘Get off me!’
I try to twist my arm so that I can elbow him, try to lift my leg and knee him in the private parts but I can’t. He’s too strong.
‘Pretending to put up a fight?’ he says, his voice sneering and breathless. ‘I like that. But we all know what girls like you mean when they say no.’
I can’t move. I’m trapped, and his hand is where it shouldn’t be and I gasp with the shock and disgust and intimacy of it and now, only now, do I realize how scared I should be.
I understand, looking into Vinnie’s eyes for a moment, that he hates me, and I’d never realized that what he’s about to do could be an act of hate. It’s not until he’s pulling the buttons of my school shirt apart and I feel his hand up under my skirt that I know how powerless I am. He watches me realize; I see the triumph in his eyes and I want to scream, but the fear numbs me so that I can’t speak or move.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Just like all the others underneath.’
Even now I don’t really know what’s about to happen, because for all I act a
s though I know everything there is to know about men, I’ve only a very theoretical understanding of what sex involves. Sam and I have never done anything much more than kiss, much as I’ve wanted to. ‘Don’t you want to?’ I’d asked him. He laughed. ‘Of course! But you’re special. I love you, Gloria. I want it to be right.’
And this isn’t anything like what I’d imagined with Sam, which would have been gentle and loving and thrilling and maybe a little awkward.
‘So you’ll do it with that darkie but you think you’re too good for me, is that it?’ Vinnie says as I struggle. And there’s so many things in my head I can’t get them all out.
It’s not like that, I want to say.
I’ve never.
I love Sam.
I love Gwen.
Why?
Please don’t.
Please stop.
But all that comes out is a crying sound, and then he shoves his tongue in my mouth and I can’t breathe. He’s pulling. And then there’s pain like I’ve never felt before, deep inside me, like being ripped apart.
He’s not looking at me now. My face is pressed into the shoulder of his suit as he pushes inside me, crushing me again and again into the wall. I stare up at the place on the wall opposite where the wallpaper join doesn’t align and focus on that, on nothing else that is happening. I feel myself leave my body, separate off from it. I understand at last why my mother does it. Sometimes it is the only way to escape.
It stops eventually. I sink to the floor, the wall behind me holding me up, and I wonder if I will be sick.
‘So you were a virgin,’ Vinnie says, looking at me appraisingly as he pulls out a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket, which is hanging from the back of an armchair. ‘Oh well.’ He half smiles as he lights one. ‘Not any more.’
He winks at me as he goes.
‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ he says, smiling. ‘It can be our little secret, eh? After all, we don’t want Gwen to know what a little whore her sister is, do we? ‘It’d be a bit of a shock for her, and we don’t want to give her a shock, do we? Not in her condition.’
I stare at him. In her condition? Does he mean a baby?
‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Gwen’s expecting. She’s so happy, Gloria. It’s what she’s always wanted. Nice house, nice husband, nice baby. We’re going to be a real family at last.’
He says it mockingly, laughing at Gwen’s naivety and trust and hope, at her love for him. I feel sick thinking about Gwen, about the fact that she must be doing something right now, while I am here, stockings laddered, the skirting board digging into my back, as Vinnie smokes and laughs at her. Gardening perhaps; she loves her garden. Sweet peas and roses, carrots and runner beans in the vegetable patch. Or baking in that shiny fitted kitchen of hers. Cooking Vinnie’s tea most likely, ready for when he gets home.
I feel sick thinking of her happiness as she does it, the secret smile, the hand resting for a moment on the apron that covers her skirt, because of that hidden, tiny, longed-for life that is growing inside her.
I feel sick to think that she is carrying a baby who will be Vinnie’s child.
‘Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ he says.
He looks at me, still sprawled where he left me with my back to the wall. I try to do up the buttons of my blouse, to cover myself beneath his gaze, but my hands are shaking so much I can’t do it.
He laughs. ‘See, Gloria,’ he says. ‘You’re nothing special. You’re no different from anyone else.’
I don’t move, even when he is gone. I don’t think I can, or that I ever will be able to. I sit with my back against the wall, my legs splayed bare in front of me. I want to cover them up but there is nothing within reach and I can’t contemplate standing up or even crawling. All of me hurts. I feel fragile, as if moving might break me, limbs snapping off, nails cracking, teeth falling out until I am just a pile of bones.
The room is silent. I stare at the place on the wall where the paper is wrong for a long time. My eye throbs where he hit me, it’s closing up and I can’t see properly out of it. Everything goes a little out of focus and fades.
Time has passed, I realize. I don’t know how much, but the sunlight coming in the window has turned to shadow, the sun has moved. I have to move before anyone gets home. As slowly as I can, I push myself up onto my knees, and I grip onto the back of the wingback armchair to pull myself up. I cling to it to stop myself falling down. Awkwardly I shuffle towards the kitchen, the pain between my legs making it almost impossible to walk without crying out.
When I get to the sink, I drink water straight from it, letting it run down my chin, spitting it out, trying to rid myself of the taste of him. Then I rinse all trace of Vinnie from between my legs with water from the tap. I want to scrub the skin; I would peel it from me to get rid of his touch, to obliterate him completely from my body. But how can I remove him from inside me? It is not possible.
I am bruised and swollen and cut and I have to stop myself from crying out as the water touches me. I splash water onto my face and dab iodine from the tin Mum keeps under the sink onto my closed eyelid, as I have seen her do to her own face countless times, her expression blank. When I have finished, I stand and stare at the plates draining at the side of the sink, my feet bare on the cold lino. All this I do under the gaze of Jesus with his burning, sacred heart. I can feel him there, watching, but I cannot meet his eye. I am shivering. My teeth chatter.
There is no fire burning in me. It has gone out.
When I am done I make my way slowly back into the sitting room to pick up the discarded clothes that lie on the floor and I go upstairs to change them. As I pass through the hall I pick up the hand mirror from the floor. The cracked glass deforms my face, but even so I can clearly see my closed eye red and purple already. My skin and lips are pale. My open eye is empty-looking, Already I am inventing a story about how I jumped from the back of the bus while it was still moving, how I caught my foot on the kerb and fell onto the pavement. I can hear myself telling it, laughing at myself, describing the rather dashing man who picked me up and dusted me down, lent me his handkerchief like a gent to clean my eye. I see Gwen not sure whether to laugh or scold. ‘Trust you,’ she’s saying. I put the mirror face down on the sideboard and, like I used to when I was a child, clamber upstairs on my hands and knees. I collapse onto my bed, but sitting is too painful, so I lie down, my face against the candlewick counterpane, facing the wall with the pink-flowered wallpaper that I have traced with my finger since I was a little girl.
It is only now, when I think about Sam waiting for me at the gates of the park, expectant, waiting and waiting until he realizes I’m not coming, but still waiting just in case, as the shadows lengthen, that I begin to cry.
After she has told me I hold Gloria’s hand until her eyes close and her breathing slows. I watch as she sleeps. My head is so full of what she’s told me that I can’t think straight. Vinnie – my own grandfather – he’d done that to Gloria. He’d done that while Nan was pregnant with dad. I can hardly breathe with the shock of it, with the anger and sadness.
There’s a quiet knock on the door and I get up to answer it. It’s Reuben.
‘Is everything okay?’ he says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not really.’
‘What is it?’
‘Gloria,’ I say. ‘She’s pretty upset. It’s a long story.’
‘You look upset too,’ he says.
‘Yes.’
He pauses uncertainly.
‘Look, about earlier, about what you told me—’
‘Reuben, I can’t do this now. We can talk in the morning. I’m too tired and I just need to be with Gloria. She’s sleeping but I don’t want to leave her on her own in case she wakes up.’
‘Can I come in anyway?’ I look doubtful. ‘Come on, Hats. I’ve come all the way from Greece on an overnight budget airline packed with drunk people and annoying kids to see you—’
‘And your
mum.’
‘Well—’
‘And to get away from your ex-girlfriend—’ I stop and shut my eyes for a minute. ‘Look, I don’t want to have an argument.’
Gloria and everything she’s been through is raw in my mind; it hurts to think about it. My mind is working on it feverishly, trying to make sense of this thing, this awful thing that she’s lived with for so many years that no one knew anything about.
Our journey has ended so differently from how I thought it would. I can’t quite get my head around it.
And now I need to think about me, about what I’m going to do. But I can’t. Not with Reuben here.
I look at him. Despite the tan he looks rough, with stubble that’s too long but not quite a beard, dark shadows under his eyes. I remember, fleetingly, waking up next to him in the house in Norfolk, the early-morning sunlight streaming in through the windows, the curtains we failed to close. I want to reach out and trace his cheekbone with my finger as I did then, to rest my head on his chest so that I can feel the beat of his heart. I realize I am crying. It’s the hormones, I tell myself. And it’s been a long day and I’m tired.
But it’s not the hormones making me cry.
I’m not crying because I’m tired.
I’m not even crying because I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’m crying because I am in love with Reuben.
I have been in love with him since the first time I saw him. Completely and utterly and with all my heart and I have never admitted it, not even to myself.
And I am crying, too, because he is not in love with me.
‘Hattie,’ he says, reaching out to me, but I turn away back into the room. He follows me.
How Not to Disappear Page 28