The Father's House

by Larche Davies

  Sarah took the guidance cane down from the hook on the wall and held it firmly.

  “When she gets home, use it,” the father had shouted down the phone. “She’s brought dishonour on our household. We’re disgraced.”

  Sarah agreed. She was appalled. The stick swished through the air as she tried to get the feel of it. What on earth had come over the child – the model child who prayed so dutifully? Never since she had arrived in Sarah’s kitchen all those years ago had she disobeyed, or answered back, or shown disrespect to Sarah, to the father, or to the Magnifico (other than with her constant questions). And now the humiliation of a whipping with the guidance cane in front of the whole school!

  All the aunts in the communes would have heard about it by now, and would be tut-tutting and wondering where Sarah had gone wrong. They would whisper behind her back when she went to the Wednesday night prayer meeting, and say she was unfit to raise the Magnifico’s children. They would say she should return to the commune and let some other more dedicated aunt enjoy the privilege of serving Father Copse in his own home.

  Paul ambled towards her and tried to take the stick from her hand. She put it on the bare wooden table and pulled him up onto her lap. He nestled against her, just as Lucy used to do before she started school, and she hugged him close. If they took him and Lucy away from her she would have nothing. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Rain started to patter on the window, and the kitchen grew dark. Sarah was as stern with herself as she would have been with Lucy. She must stop feeling sorry for herself and pull herself together. There was more reason to feel sorry for poor Lucy than herself because her soul was now in danger. She put Paul down and stood up wearily. Despite the privilege it sometimes seemed too much. There was still such a lot to do before she could lie down and sleep – the children to feed, the father’s and the tenant’s meals to prepare, Paul’s bath and bedtime and, horrible thought, Lucy must be punished.

  It was nearly six and Lucy should be back by now. Sarah was starting to worry that she might be too frightened to come home. As she began to peel the potatoes the front door clicked, and Lucy came slowly into the kitchen. Sarah looked at the white face and huge hurt eyes, and the hair in rats’ tails dripping with rain, and she longed to hold and comfort her.

  “You’re wet,” she said sternly. “Go and change before you catch your death.”

  Lucy crept to her room and rummaged in her drawers for dry clothes. She sat on the chair to pull off her socks but quickly stood up again because the backs of her legs hurt. Twisting round to see what she could of the strips of red, she felt sick. Slowly and carefully she pulled off her socks and her school tunic, and climbed gingerly into her trousers. They would rub, but at least they would hide the shameful marks. She wanted to lie down and sleep forever, but Sarah called her from the kitchen. Her food was ready on the table and she knew she would not be able to eat it.

  Paul was in his high chair, stuffing bread and jam into his mouth. He was pleased to see Lucy.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “Am I?”

  Sarah knew why she winced as she sat down. She remembered her own school days when one of the boys would step down from the stage with wheals up as far as the hems of his short trousers. She knew she could no more whip that child than fly to the moon.

  “Eat your food,” she said. “You’ve got your homework to do yet.”

  “Yes, Aunt Sarah,” whispered Lucy.

  David lay in the dark under the bottom shelf in the laundry cupboard. The remorse was eating him up. Why had he done it? What a fool! A cruel fool. It was a dare. Matthew had done it first and it had seemed funny to watch the girl in front of him tense up – but he’d never even thought about Lucy. Now he realised of course that she would have reacted somehow or other, her being so weird and everything, but it would never have occurred to him that she’d have laughed! Even Matthew had been shocked.

  He knew he shouldn’t have come here – he and Dorothy had agreed it was too risky for them both to use the linen cupboard – but he just couldn’t face anyone yet. Him and his stupid-trying-to-be-funny jokes! Funny to him and Matthew maybe, but not to anyone else. And look at the damage they’d caused.

  Gradually the heat of his shame subsided, and he started trying to think of how he could make amends. But there was nothing. She’d never speak to him again, and their plan to be friends with her had been totally destroyed. Serve them right. They could have seen that she needed a friend for the past ten years if they’d bothered to look. If they were honest, they’d really only wanted to use her.

  The kitchen aunts were clattering away below. It must be nearly supper time and he’d have to get moving, but first he had work to do. They were bound to be gossiping about the latest scandal. He rolled over with difficulty in the confined space and put his ear to the listening corner.

  When the father arrived home at seven o’clock Lucy was struggling to concentrate. The words in her text book stared up at her meaninglessly. As she heard the heavy footsteps enter the side door something gripped her chest and she could hardly breathe. She shrank into her chair as Father Copse turned the key to the door that led from the lobby to the kitchen. He strode in, but didn’t look at her.

  “Did you use the guidance?” he asked Aunt Sarah.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How many strokes?”

  “Seven.” She mentally asked the Magnifico to forgive the lie.

  The father turned to Lucy. “You mocked the Magnifico and disgraced this house.”

  He grabbed the back of her collar and pulled her to her feet and shook her. Her head felt as if it would fall off. He dragged her into the hall and opened the door to the coal cellar. The wooden steps disappeared down into a black hole.

  “Get in there and stay there till I say you can come out.” Picking her up with both hands, he threw her down the steps and shut the door. The key turned in the lock.

  Lucy lay where she fell. Her back and shoulder hurt and her legs were stinging. She lay very still. Everything was so black she didn’t dare move in any direction. She closed her eyes and opened them but the blackness didn’t go away. Her ears strained for the sound of rats, or beetles, or monsters, and her skin prickled. Her hair was still wet from the rain and felt like a cap of ice. For a while she lost consciousness.

  When she came to her eyes seemed more used to the darkness. Looking up she could see a faint ring of light in the roof at the far end of the cellar. Stiffly she rolled over onto her hands and knees and groped her way towards it. Something scuttled away from her. She knocked against boxes and bits of wood. Her hands and knees crunched into fragments of coal, and the smell of mould and damp coal dust filled her nostrils. As she approached the ring of light the shapes beneath it became faintly visible, and she could see that the floor rose upwards into a steep slope. She lay against the slope, her arms outstretched, searching for a grip on the rough concrete.

  A push with her left knee and then the toes of her right foot took her part way up towards the light, only to slip back grazing her legs in the process. She sat on the floor and felt around for something to climb on. Her frozen fingers sank into a damp mass of cardboard. The smell of mould was overpowering. Her fingers scraped against the splintery side of a wooden crate. Before she had time to pull it towards her she heard the key turn in the lock and the cellar door opened throwing a beam of light down the rickety steps.

  “Come on out wherever you are,” called the father.

  She crept towards him. Her hands, face, legs, and her clothes, were black.

  “Get yourself cleaned up and then go to your room and pray for forgiveness,” said the father. “To mock the Magnifico is a deadly sin. Those who cannot be forgiven must perish.”

  Lucy pulled herself up by the rail of the wooden steps. With her head so bowed that she was almost bent double, she skirted round the father and stumbled down the corridor towards Aunt Sarah.

  “The same again tomorrow night
, and the next,” he said to Sarah as he departed through the kitchen and into the lobby, locking the door behind him.

  Sarah longed to hold Lucy, coal dust and all. But that was forbidden. She fetched clean towels and started to run the bath. The water was cold, as always.

  “Make sure you rinse your hair thoroughly.” She closed the bathroom door and went back to the kitchen to prepare the dinner trays for the upstairs flats.

  Lucy couldn’t sleep. She lay on the bed and shivered. Her mind raced round and round reliving the nightmare day. The trip into the cellar was nothing when she thought of the assembly and the public humiliation of the guidance cane. She didn’t blame David. It was her own fault for losing self-control. Why on earth hadn’t she used the reminder straight away? But even now, when she thought of David’s words and visualised the deadpan innocence on his face, a hysterical splutter escaped her.

  In the middle of the night when the house was very still and the distant traffic over on South Hill had ceased to rumble, she climbed out of bed and silently opened the door to the hall. Moonlight sparkled through the coloured glass in the front door and made patterns on the herringbone floor tiles.

  Sarah’s room was at the front of the house, on the opposite side of the hall from Lucy’s, and she paused outside the door to listen carefully. There was no sound. She tiptoed to the kitchen, took the torch off the shelf, and returned to the hall. The cellar door was shut and the key was still in the lock on the outside. She turned the handle. The door gave a little creak as it opened and she stood for a second, her heart in her mouth.

  She switched on the torch. The click sounded like an explosion, and again she paused and listened. Then, standing on the top step, she shone the beam down to the far end of the cellar. On the right the floor sloped upwards till it touched the ceiling just beyond the circular plate that was letting in the light. A wooden crate and a pile of disintegrating cardboard lay near the base of the slope. There were other crates and boxes, a chair with only two legs, a heap of old clothes, and what looked like a piece of rolled-up rug.

  Lucy tried to take in the position of every item. Then she closed the door silently, crept back to the kitchen, and put the torch in its proper place on the shelf. She stood at the side window for a while looking over to her right at the huge lime tree. On one side its branches stretched over the high brick wall into the next-door garden, and on the other side they spread across the lawn and disappeared behind the wing. Lucy glanced over to the left. The ladder was still propped up against the garage. She remembered the rat and tiptoed back to bed.

  The next morning it was cold. Lucy put on school trousers instead of her tunic. They rubbed against her sore legs. She was stiff all over and had bruises on her arm and shoulder where she had fallen down the cellar steps. The walk to school was more difficult than usual.

  The lollipop lady smiled. Lucy managed a sort of smile back, and went miserably on down to the lights. She was a pariah to be despised, not worthy of kindness – she who had mocked the Magnifico. Looking neither left nor right she climbed the school steps, her head bowed.

  “Welcome to the guidance club,” called a cheerful voice behind her.

  Dorothy caught up with her and smiled.

  “What do your legs feel like?”

  “Sore,” said Lucy.

  “You’ll get over it. I did. Stop shrinking in to yourself like that. Stand upright and show you don’t care. Be proud. That’s what I do.” She demonstrated by tossing back her dark curls, straightening her shoulders, and giving a cheeky wink. “What set you off?”

  “David.”

  Dorothy stopped in her tracks and stared. “What?”

  “It wasn’t his fault. My reminder didn’t work. I didn’t use it in time.”

  In the playground other children looked at Lucy furtively, too embarrassed for her to say anything. She sat on her own behind the bike shed during the break. The pain inside her was worse than the pain on her legs, and she wished Dorothy would come so that she could ask her how long it would take to stop hurting.

  Dorothy didn’t come. Lucy could see her in the distance looking bored and fidgety as she joined in the eternal game of rounders. When Aunt Mavis clapped her hands Lucy crept out from behind the shed, and joined the queue to go in. The other children shuffled away from her, as though they might catch some of her pariah disease. She’d been like them once. Now she knew what it felt like. David surreptitiously passed her a note in class saying, ‘Sorry’. She nodded, but the threat of the cellar hung over her, and by this time she couldn’t smile at all even though she tried.

  George was in his front room looking out into the road. He waved at Lucy but she didn’t wave back. A few moments later he came running up behind her, shoelaces undone and one arm through a sleeve of his anorak.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “I want to talk to you.”

  Lucy pretended not to hear him. If she were seen talking to a non-follower in the street the three nights in the cellar might be increased to four.

  “Why are you so snooty?” he panted, pulling on the other sleeve.

  Lucy stopped and stared at him. How could a pariah be snooty?

  “Why should I be snooty?”

  “Because you won’t cross with us with the lollipop lady. Because you go to private school.”

  “What’s private school?”

  “It’s where you go. Anyone can go to our school, but not to yours. So it’s private.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that.” She started walking on. George followed her.

  “I mustn’t talk to you,” she said, not looking at him.

  “See! That’s what I mean. You’re snooty.” George nodded his ginger curls in vigorous emphasis.

  Lucy stopped again.

  “I’m not snooty,” she said crossly, “It’s just that I’m not allowed to talk to strangers in the street.” She carried on walking, and George tagged along beside her.

  “Why are you bothering me?”

  “It’s because you belong to that sect,” he said. “I wanted to see what a person from a sect talks like.”

  “What’s a sect?”

  “My dad says it’s a bunch of nutters who don’t let girls have jobs and shut them up to have babies and pray for the rest of their lives. And he knows everything.”

  “Go away,” said Lucy. “I don’t like you.”

  “I’m just curious, that’s all. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence.” He didn’t sound at all offended, but to Lucy’s relief he turned back.

  She hurried as fast as her sore legs would let her, up the hill then left through the little lane, and over the common towards the father’s house – supposedly her home. It was not her home. A home was a haven. This was simply the place where she lived. Turning to look at the cheerfully painted backs of the houses on South Hill, Lucy stood and counted three down from the lane. That was where George lived. He had a mother and father and little sister in a pushchair. His house was a home.

  There was no light on in the hall as she approached the father’s house. Aunt Sarah and Paul would be in the kitchen. The father wouldn’t be home yet. Perhaps a miracle would happen and he’d never come home, and they’d have the house to themselves. There’d still be the tenant on the top floor, but that wouldn’t bother them. She wondered briefly what he (or she) did all day, but she didn’t really care.

  She walked reluctantly up the front path, pausing only to look at the coal hole cover with an interest she’d never felt before. Her indignation at George’s remarks was banished by the dread of the evening to come.

  Aunt Sarah had made a cake for tea, and Paul was already picking crumbs off his plate and asking for more. Cake was normally something special for birthdays and holy days, but today Lucy couldn’t eat it.

  “Eat up,” said Aunt Sarah. “I made it especially for you.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Sarah,” Lucy whispered, but the crumbs caught in her throat.

  Her homework stared up at her from the page but refuse
d to jump into her head, and her ears strained for the sound of the father’s arrival. At seven o’clock he passed the kitchen window and entered the lobby, and Lucy heard the stairs creak as he went up to his flat. A few minutes later the footsteps creaked downwards and she cowered over her school books. The key turned in the lock, and his huge frame appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Get up.”

  Aunt Sarah turned away towards the kitchen sink, and started to run the tap over the children’s teatime crockery. Lucy stood up and meekly made her way towards the cellar door. She did not wait to be thrown down, and clutched on to the wooden rail as the door closed behind her. Sitting on the steps she listened as the father’s footsteps returned to the kitchen. He said something to Aunt Sarah, and then the door to the lobby slammed shut.

  Lucy closed her eyes and when she opened them the darkness gradually softened and she could see the ring of light at the far end of the cellar. Clinging to the rail and feeling each step carefully with her foot before treading firmly, she reached the bottom of the stairs. The smell of mould and damp and coal dust was as oppressive as ever. She fixed her eyes on the ring of light and stumbled forward, her hand outstretched to the wall on the right. Her fingers scraped through cobwebs and her legs knocked against unseen objects.

  As her eyes grew used to the darkness the ring of light gave shape to the concrete slope below it. Sinking to her hands and knees she felt around for the wooden crate, and dragged it to the base of the slope. She pushed herself up with one knee as her hands scrabbled to get a grip on the concrete. Pausing to gather all her strength, she pushed with her toes and then the other knee, and up. As she stretched out one arm to touch the ring of light, she slid back onto the wooden crate.

  She sat down on it to think. What she needed was something to give her a grip. She looked around at the faintly visible shapes around her. Her hands were numb with wet and cold as she groped past rotting cardboard and musty clothes and touched the rubber underlay of a piece of old rug. She laid the underlay flat up the slope and wedged the crate against the bottom end to hold it in place. She put a smaller wooden box on top, and climbed up. At that moment the father’s booming voice and Aunt Sarah’s faint response floated through from the kitchen.