Escaping Life

by Michelle Muckley

  “Daddy? What are you talking about? What did Rebecca see?”

  Thirty four

  They hadn’t heard me walk through the front door, but Mummy was expecting me. It wasn’t unusual for me to let myself in. I still had a key and I always used it. It had been years since I’d moved out, but Mummy liked it when I still let myself in, like I did when I used to come home from school, or from a late night out, before I got the apartment and when she missed Elizabeth being around. I did call out when I opened the door; I shouted ‘Mummy’, as I always did, but she didn’t reply. The kitchen door from the hallway was shut, but as I passed the grand staircase that led up to the unnecessarily large number of bedrooms, and got closer to the door, the muffled voices that I could hear on the other side grew louder, and slowly they became so loud I could tell that they were shouting. It was hard to make out the words: the kitchen was large and the door was pretty solid. ‘Good old English oak’, Daddy had said when we’d moved into the house when I was eight years old. Granddaddy had died and the inheritance had paid for part of it, apparently. That’s what Mummy had said at the time: ‘Granddaddy has bought us a big house so that we can live there forever! Won’t that be wonderful?!’, she had said, coaxing us to the car as we sat on the steps, refusing to leave our old house that backed onto our favourite stream and which was near to Kitty Winters, who lived only a couple of houses away. I never liked the new house; there were too many places in it for people to get lost in. There was too much isolation; you could walk through five rooms before you found anyone. I had much preferred the old one. Betty, too.

  I stood pressed up against the English oak door for a few minutes. Mummy was screaming about how something wasn’t important, that it didn’t matter. I could hear the words ‘investment’ and ‘loss’ and ‘equity’. They were familiar words to me; they could have been talking about my job at the bank. I couldn’t make out the whole conversation, and there were many words too muffled to hear properly; muffled like static on a television when the programming ends, and all that’s left is the crackle of the black and white screen. I used to love that time of the day, as a child. If I woke up in the night, I would creep downstairs with my torch and make myself a strawberry milkshake and a cheese sandwich. I knew at this time that there would be no television, no radio. It was just me and the world and I would pretend that I was a princess living in a huge house all alone, waiting for my Prince Charming. It was as if nobody else in the world was awake. Sometimes, I would turn on the television, just to check, with the volume turned down really low. The noise would hiss out of the speaker like an alley cat startled by a late night walker, and I would sit on the settee clutching the remote control that was connected to the television by a plug-in wire and flick through the channels, just to make sure I was truly alone. Sometimes, it was as if you could make out words through all that static, as if somebody was inside the television trying to talk to me. That’s what this conversation sounded like.

  I could hear my mother’s words rushing from her mouth in fits and starts, like an erupting volcano. The entire time Daddy was bellowing above her, as he had with me, when I’d dared to venture a counter argument during one of our little chats. That’s how I’d got the black eye, the final time a chat like that was permitted. I had heard them argue before, but this was Olympic in comparison. It sounded as if Mummy was crying.

  I dropped my bag onto the hallway table in the middle of the room and where Mummy always displayed freshly cut flowers. Today there were daffodils, the first victims to be cut from her garden, no doubt. As I made my way through the double doors that led to the living room, I pulled back the sliding doors that led through to the dining room. I couldn’t hear anymore shouting; the voices had stopped; the television was playing. It was a game show: something unremarkable and suitable for lunchtime viewing. I was starving, and although I was worried about the fight that I could hear, I was hoping that it hadn’t prevented Mummy from making her famous fresh chicken salad sandwiches. She always put too much pepper in for most people’s taste, but I loved it that way.

  Once the shouting died down a little, I decided it was safe to go into the kitchen. As I swung open the door, I couldn’t help but scream. All common sense would have told me to shut up and back away as quietly and as undetected as I had remained during my entrance. He was straddled on top of her and her foot was shaking. My first thought was, what has this intruder done with my father? Where has he put him? Has he already hurt him? Why isn’t Daddy here beating him off? He must have hurt him, I thought. The thoughts raced through my brain at the speed of lightning. He heard my scream and immediately turned round and saw me standing there staring at him on top of my mother. It was then that the bolt from the lightning hit me. It was my father; it was him on top of her, his hands in front of him and not visible to me, those very hands that had wiped my tears and held me tight as he bounced me on his knee when I was small and before Elizabeth was born, yet his face was full of rage and his long bony nose was pointing angrily in my direction. His eyes were wild and fixed, like the eyes of a lioness with its prey in its mouth, its jaws shaking whilst its next meal twitches and dies slowly underneath her, all the while her jaws constricting and squeezing. He pushed his hands quickly and sharply into her neck with me just standing there watching, stiff like a plank and waiting to be walked all over. Suddenly, and in one sharp movement he was up like Goliath, my mother the slain victim beneath him, limp and lifeless and her clothes crumpled up from where she had fought for her last breaths. My next thought was to run. I had only to make it through two rooms and I would be back out in the street, but as I stepped back, the heel of my shoe caught on the rug and I slipped backwards. He dragged me through to the kitchen by my hair and dumped me forcefully next to her body, her open eyes staring at me as I turned to look at her. I didn’t struggle much, or make a sound; I had hit my head on the floor as I fell. I felt faint, like there was a whirlwind in my head as the world whipped by in front of me. Anything real or solid passing me by would have surely ripped my arm clean away from my body if I had tried to snatch at it. I watched him as he paced back and forwards, panting as he walked first left, then right. He would stop and stare at me, and on a couple of occasions he started to walk towards me. I was so frozen with fear, I couldn’t move. I could barely feel my body, the only part of it working my eyes, as they followed him back and forth. I kept thinking: he killed my mother, he killed my mother, my father killed my mother. Then he was coming at me again, and he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled my shoulders up off the ground. He spoke slowly, his saliva spraying my cheek as he spat his words out at me with the same harsh venomous spite of a Black Mamba, his deathly black eyes hollow pits against his grey white skin. He grabbed my chin gripping it tightly, and pushed it in the direction of my dead mother. His face was as close to mine as it could be. I could feel his breath on me and could smell the coffee he had drunk only an hour before, when my mother and I still had believed that if my father was around, no other person could harm us. I guess in some way that was still true.

  “You see what I will do?” It was my father speaking. It was his voice. But there was an evil inside of it that I had never heard or imagined possible before, not even when he’d struck me on the side of the head and given me a black eye. “You best keep your fucking mouth shut, otherwise that precious little Betty of yours…..” He held the sentence long enough to make the implication. He felt me squirm underneath him and I felt the grip of his fingers on my face tighten and the pressure of his knee as he dug it into my side. He didn’t need to say anything else, but he said it anyway: “I’ll choke the fucking life out of her just like I did to this bitch of a mother of yours!”

  There wasn’t a bone in my body that didn’t believe him. I had just watched him throttle her as she’d kicked and twitched beneath him. I didn’t doubt his promise. He told me not to go anywhere. He told me that Betty was safe as long as he was. I crawled into the corner of the room. I held on tight. I didn’t k
now what else to do.

  Thirty five

  “Daddy?” Elizabeth repeated, more cautiously this time, her voice quivering like jelly at a birthday buffet. “Tell me what she saw.” He stood over her, his grip still rigid on her shoulder, which was beginning to throb like a thumb whacked with a hammer. He wasn’t speaking anymore, but she was sure that he was crouching over her, closer now. She thought about pushing him back. The oven was behind her and surely, if she could just push him hard enough he would smack his head on the glass door and that would give her enough time to either run out through the front door, which she was pretty certain was unlocked, or get out of the back door and make it round to the front of the house before he could get up and follow her, or cut her off. Yes, the door is definitely unlocked at the front of the house. But she knew that she wasn’t strong enough to push her father back; he was a big man. Impossible.

  Perhaps, she thought, if she could kick his legs out from the side of him with enough force, surprise him like he had done so to her a few minutes ago, strike like a snake hidden in the bush camouflaged by her own supposed weakness of stature, she could make him stumble just enough for him to loosen his grip on her shoulder and she could break free and run for outside. She could lose him on the cliff top path. She remembered his sweaty beetroot face, puffing and panting when they had climbed the stairs to get to the godforsaken flat that Rebecca had been living in. She knew that she could outrun him, and she knew the ground well. There were hiding places all along it. Perhaps she could kick him between the legs? Yeah, that would stop him! She had used that trick before, when a high school fumble had got too sure of himself, and he certainly hadn’t raced after her. The trouble was, he could see her thinking, and he had already dropped to the ground, his full weight on top of her, her legs crushed by his hips and her flailing arms doing nothing to subdue his strength.

  “You want to know what she saw? I’ll show you what she saw!” He was moving his knees and his free hand was grappling for her arm as it swung back and forth in a panic. He struck, and her wrist was caught firmly in his grip. He pushed her hand down and secured it with his left knee. His right hand was still gripping her shoulder and his knife-like fingers, as they pressed into her flesh, were enough to keep that arm in place long enough for it to become trapped by the other knee. She was stuck; he had her pinned down. She was trapped. Her throat was dry and scratchy and her heart was still pounding along. ‘BOOM’. ‘BOOM’. ‘BOOM’. It beat at a faster and faster pace as it raced along.

  “Help!” she screamed, loud and shrill and as powerfully as she could. “Help!” she repeated, coughing because she was screaming so loudly. He was talking over her, ignoring her cries. She wailed and wailed, interrupted by spluttering coughs as she yelled out her screams. She wasn’t listening to him, and every time her screams got louder, he would just talk over her. His weight was making it hard to breath.

  “You wanted to know! You wanted to know what she saw! I’m showing you what she saw!”

  “Help! Help me, pleeeeaase!” She didn’t hear him speaking. She didn’t want to know what Rebecca had seen anymore. She just wanted to get away.

  “They won’t hear you. Who do you think …”

  “Heeeeeelp!”

  “… is coming? Who Elizabeth? Who will hear you?”

  “Heeeeeelp me, pleeea…!” her words trailed off into tears, her throat dry and bruised from screaming so hard. He could hear her squeaking and sobbing underneath him.

  “You weren’t listening to me,” he said, his words laced with aggravation. “Have you calmed down yet?” He was talking to her in the calmest of fashions, her body limp underneath his weight and no longer fighting. Her arms were still compressed underneath his knees, her hands blue from the pressure of retained blood. He saw this and eased off his knees slightly. “There you go, that’s better, yes?” She didn’t feel the difference. “Your mother told me that she would tell the truth, Elizabeth. Your bitch mother would have told the bank. We would have lost everything. The house, the car, Rebecca’s apartment - everything would have been gone! I couldn’t let her tell the truth.” She was listening, albeit intermittently through her own tears. It was almost unbelievable. Was she really supposed to believe this? “Rebecca was never supposed to come home that day. I didn’t know she was coming to meet that bitch. I thought she was dead too. Imagine that, Elizabeth. Having to believe that your own daughter killed herself because of you. Imagine it. Are you listening? I said, we would have lost everything!”

  She heard him alright, but she just couldn’t quite believe it. Was her father really telling her that he’d killed their mother? That his actions banished her sister? Now here she was, lying underneath him, feeling not so far away from being the next victim. She dared to look at him, half expecting and wishing for him to laugh, help her up and say it was all a big joke, and for Graham to jump out of the cupboard, video camera in hand. Even that, as sick as it would be, would be better than this.

  “I did lose everything.” Her words almost a whisper, she didn’t know whether from fear, her screaming or a mixture of both. “I lost everything when you killed her!” He shook his head laughing; the most horribly patronising laughter.

  “You had Graham, and a life. I thought you’d be alright. I thought it was over. Then she calls me, out of the blue. Tells me to meet her at the bus station. Just like her mother, obsessed with the truth. She’s decided that she’ll tell you. Says she is coming back to tell you everything. She even knew where you lived! Then you went and got that letter in the paper. Thought everything would be alright when she killed herself. Thought that cop had done me a favour when he told you the case was closed. Then he goes calling you up constantly. I knew something was up. You wouldn’t just let it lie would you?” There was a moment of silence. Her hands were throbbing and her shoulder felt as if it had been dislocated. Her legs were still lying amongst the sharp shards of ceramic blades of the broken mugs and she could feel lines of blood trickling down her legs.

  “You did it! You did it! Not them! You killed them!” Her breathing was frantic and patchy. “Please, don’t kill me too!”

  He shot back in a flash of bewilderment. “Kill you? I could never want to kill you!” She felt her pulse rate slacken slightly from the worst white knuckle ride of her life. She breathed in the first full breath for the last few minutes. “But you know the truth now, Elizabeth. What am I supposed to do?”

  She saw her chance. A chance for negotiation. Keep him talking. It was too early for Graham, but maybe somebody would have to come to the house. Maybe there would be a delivery and she could scream her lungs out at the first ‘ding’ of the doorbell. Maybe Nancy would stop by, or Mr. Madden would stop by with some milk as he had promised. They would come straight round to the back and would see them. They would call the cops. Maybe, just maybe, Jack was on his way. He had called so many times. He must have realised; he must know. That’s what has driven him to this, she thought. I just have to hold on.

  “You could let me go, like Rebecca. You didn’t kill her.”

  “That’s not the same thing, Elizabeth.” His argument was as casual as if he were debating a holiday in Spain or the Caribbean. Just one of life’s trivialities. “You and Rebecca were not the same.”

  “Why? Why could you let her go, and not me?” He thought about his answer and then laid it out very clearly as if discussing the local temperatures and cocktail menu.

  “She had a weakness. You do not. You are strong.”

  “No I’m not! I’ll not say anything! I’ll pretend this never happened! I’ll just keep it to myself!” She knew that it was a lie and she hoped again that he couldn’t see through her thin veil of truth. He was laughing again; that same sharp and blistering laugh. If she hadn’t been so terrified, she would have smacked him in the face.

  “I don’t have a weakness like she did?” The question was written all over her face: What weakness? He leaned in closer still. She could smell his breath, just like Rebecc
a had, that day in the kitchen. She could smell sweat and cigarettes because he hadn’t showered. “You, Elizabeth. You were her weakness and I knew it straight away. One word that you were in danger bought her silence.”

  So she had her answer. The letters from the paper came flooding back to her: ‘I never stopped missing you. I’m so sorry that I had to go away. It’s time to learn the truth. I had to get away. I had to save you. I was scared for you. You will find the answers. You have to learn it for yourself to believe’. It all made sense now, as her own father loomed above her. He had used her. He had used her to silence Rebecca.

  “It’s because of you I lost Rebecca! It’s because of you I lost my mother!” Her words were not brittle anymore, and she felt the life back in her body as it began its fight to free itself.

  “They both chose their fate, Elizabeth, just like you have chosen yours!”

  “Bullshit! You’re a fucking liar! You’re crazy!” She felt the pressure on her wrists again as he began to push her back down. “Let me go!” she yelled. “Let me go!” She was writhing underneath him and all of a sudden, as if from nowhere, she was free. She had a moment of freedom as he got up, and in a split second she told herself to run. Get up! Run! But the surprise had stunned her. Before she could regain her composure, he had grabbed her again. He grabbed a huge clump of her golden blonde hair and dragged her along the floor, her face and hips bouncing over the step to the garden and smearing fresh blood along the floor. As he dragged her outside, the bump over the step pushed the ceramic shrapnel further into her flesh, making her wince in pain. She snatched at the patio table as he pulled her past it. Her hands found the chairs too, pulling them over on top of her. She dragged her nails along the ground, collecting dirt and mud, and fragmented bits of nail snapped away until blood flowed from the tips of her fingers and she couldn’t hold on any more. He dragged her through the wet sheets as they blew in the wind that rose up and over the cliffs and as she clung to them, they pinged away from the washing line. She was helpless and he was dragging her towards the fence. With one push and a shove of his foot she saw the fence pass by above her and she knew that she was on the other side. With one hand on her arm and the other on her throat, he hauled her to her feet. She could see the bay below; there were people in the streets. She could see Nancy’s shop and she wished more than anything to be sat on her little balcony eating sandwiches and watching the tides as they rolled in and then out again. Mr. Lyons was asleep in his car park, enjoying the last days of summer and there were people on the beach making sandcastles. Somebody was flying a kite. She screamed as loudly as she could, but the only thing she heard in response was the echo of her own voice, carried teasingly back over the sea cliffs and towards her and her father, his grip the only thing between her and a twenty metre fall into the powerful waves and sharp-edged rocks beneath her.