Sugar and Spice

by Ruth Hamilton

  We eat our fish and chips from the packaging in which they arrive. When we have finished, Susan delivers another shock. Still. Perhaps it’s best to have everything pushed into one day? After informing me that my husband’s car is now gone, she sits opposite me and we’re back at the clinic on that first day. I watch as she empties her face of all emotion. ‘They were all out,’ she tells me eventually. ‘Mam had gone the bingo, and I didn’t know where the rest of them were. Then he came back and . . . he raped me.’

  ‘Your dad?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head and informs me that her dad has probably suffered for years from brewer’s droop. ‘My brother.’

  And here I sit, putting crab lice into perspective. ‘So Stephen is your nephew as well as your son?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  There are some split seconds in life when the world shakes without the help of a fault in its structure. I can’t see properly, can scarcely hear. Adrenalin surges through me like an express train with failed brakes, and I need to kill someone. This young woman has raised herself, has made the best of the circumstances into which she was born. Say something, Anna, I tell myself as the earth crashes back into its proper place. ‘Does your mother know?’ My heart is threatening to jump out of my chest. I will kill him, I will.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does anyone know?’

  ‘Just you, me and him.’

  I can’t help myself. ‘Which one of your brothers?’ I ask.

  ‘The honest truth? I don’t know.’

  This information I find difficult to process.

  It pours from her. She has to spit it out quickly to get rid of the taste. In a dark room, she woke to find herself struggling to breathe, because someone had placed a pillow slip over her head and was tying it with a cord. In spite of this restriction, she managed to identify the attacker as one of her siblings. ‘They all smell of the same sweat,’ she tells me calmly. ‘And they’re all about the same size. When he’d . . . finished, he told me in a whisper that if I grassed, he’d kill me. It was my first and only time. Even their voices are alike, so the whisper meant sod all.’

  There’s a cold hand in my chest, and it seems to be trying to choke the life out of me. ‘What were you going to be, Susan? If Stephen hadn’t happened?’

  ‘A vet would have been out of my reach, so I was going to be a vet nurse. I was saving up – had a little job cleaning and another in a clothes shop. I’ve got ten subjects, and four of them are top marks. Then this awful thing happened. Mam and Dad turned on me – it was a nightmare. I put bolts on my bedroom door and lived in there. In the end, I was a skeleton with a big belly.’ She smiles at me. ‘Then you found me.’

  It’s a long time since I prayed. I thank God for sending Susan and Stephen to me. ‘I won’t say a word to anyone,’ I tell her.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Who was in the house after it was all over?’ I ask.

  ‘Nobody. It took me a while to move, because I had to untie the knots in my dressing gown cord.’ She hesitates. ‘I think it was our Gary. He had scratches on his face, said he’d been in a fight at a club in town.’ For the Hughes family, ‘town’ means Liverpool. ‘He brought them all round here to trash the place because he’s frightened that I’ll tell you. But I’m not a hundred percent certain it was him. Anyway, I think my son’s the real victim here. It’s like the Spanish Royal family from way back. They were affected because of inbreeding.’

  She’s a clever, well-read girl.

  And she hasn’t finished. ‘When he grows up . . .’ The four words hang in the air for a while, and I know she is omitting IF he grows up. ‘Well, he’ll have to be told, won’t he?’

  ‘Possibly,’ is all the answer I can muster.

  ‘He can’t go round having kids,’ adds Susan. ‘Because he could pass whatever it is along down the line. His genes are wrong, Anna. And it’s not his fault, yet I’ll have to tell him he’s not normal. The stuff goes round and round in my head all the while.’

  This is another factor that puts me in my place. I have worried myself to the edge of sanity because Emily seems to hate Lottie. But my kids are what Mrs Bee would term ‘all there’. They are developing physically and mentally, are vocal and capable of watching life and taking it in. Stephen just stays where he is put, and that’s a terrible problem. ‘You haven’t told the doctor that the child is your brother’s?’

  ‘No. Can you imagine what he’d think, Anna, if I said I don’t know which one? He’d probably decide I’ve slept with all of them – he might not believe the truth. Which one? I’m not sure, Doctor. Think about that.’

  Emily delivers her usual performance, and I go to feed her. Susan comes in, face wet with tears. She tells me he never wakes to be fed, that she has to rouse him and force him to take milk. I tell her it’s none of her fault, that she’s doing her best, and I’ll work on him. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of the roof space, I have books on child development. The library might be better, more up to date. I am not going to tell Susan not to cry. She probably never cried at home, but she can let herself out here. Her problems outweigh mine, so I cannot return to work until things settle. Clearly, I shall require gigantic maintenance from the dear departed.

  ‘How can I thank you?’ she asks.

  ‘By being here and by being yourself. That caravan is still your own space. Use it when you want to get away by yourself.’

  ‘You’re my miracle,’ she says before speeding out of the room.

  Susan and Stephen, who are not my family, are precious dependants, and I shall carry them as far as possible and for as long as I am needed. I know how it feels to have not just a rug, but a whole fitted carpet dragged from beneath my feet, and that is why I understand her. My partially stolen childhood is reflected in the loss of her virginity, an act so cruel that I cannot allow myself to consider it for any length of time. I still want to kill Gary. He was the ringleader when it came to the destruction of my garden; he was the one who called me ‘lesbo’. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind. Gary is the rapist and the father of a child who probably has special needs.

  It’s a criminal family. The mother – our Marie – is bogged down beneath the weight of so many dysfunctional sons, and her husband’s a waste of space. Out of that compost heap has emerged an intelligent and lively flower whose nerves have been shattered by an animal. Animals. She likes them, doesn’t she? Dogs I have read about, and they are used for the blind, for the deaf, for the disabled. Stephen might respond . . . At last, I sleep.

  The most wonderful thing about Juliet Anderson is that she can make almost anything happen. She knows just about everyone in most professions, and can be depended upon for discretion. Her motivation when it comes to helping people originates in her genuine affection for the human animal, and I am happy to count myself as one of her favourites in that large category.

  She is my solicitor. At first, she probed gently with a view to finding out as much as she could about my needs, but, once furnished with the information that everything had to be top secret, she went to work in the dark and came up trumps within a week.

  The phone rings. ‘Can you talk?’ she asks.

  ‘Sort of. What is it?’

  ‘Where do you want him?’

  ‘My house.’

  ‘Thursday afternoon at two?’ she suggests.

  ‘Fine.’ I say goodbye and join my lodger in the sitting room. Now, I must begin. Susan has to trust me. If she doesn’t, the whole thing will have to be called off. ‘Susan?’

  ‘What?’ She is knitting a blanket for her son’s pushchair.

  ‘If you need to see a specialist, you normally go to your doctor for a letter. Right?’

  She nods.

  ‘I’ve . . . er . . . I’ve got round it, pulled a few strings, called in some favours. If you will allow it, a man called George will come on Thursday to assess Stephen.’

  She drops the knitting. ‘Bloody hell, Anna. You said you’d never betray me,
never let me down – now this? A bloody doctor coming to stare at my son because he’s a freak?’

  The child in question chooses this moment to lift his head from the pillow. He has never done that before.

  ‘George knows nothing,’ I tell her. ‘And, when he comes, you can go out or stay in. If you’re out, I’ll just say I’m concerned about the baby’s development. If you’re in, you tell him as much or as little as you like. I’m doing this for Stephen, not for you or me. Susan, I’m just a teacher. I don’t know a great deal of medical stuff. But I’ve read some journals in the library about children of incest – yes – it’s a nasty word – and, unless the behaviour goes back through generations, most of them are OK.’

  She blinks rapidly. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ I can’t say any more, because something is happening. He’s staring at me. He’s glaring, actually. It’s as if he’s telling to take my nose out of his affairs, to bugger off out of it and mind my own business. A miracle? Perhaps not, though it’s a definite happening. ‘A-bah,’ he pronounces before allowing his head to become too heavy to carry. I burst into tears. It’s another of those moments, isn’t it? Life throws up boulders, and they are either obstacles or stepping stones. I dry my eyes and walk over this one.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Give me a minute, Susan.’ She heard it, too. She’s grinning from ear to ear. I compose myself. ‘Remember the day we met?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  I swallow a lump of emotion. ‘Did you go out at all after he was born? Before we met, did you go out? Apart from the clinic?’

  ‘No. We stayed in the cupboard. I didn’t want to see anyone in that house, so I made myself scarce.’

  She had made Stephen scarce, too. For the last few days, he has been out of prison and is now listening, seeing, copying Emily’s ‘a-bah’. We need to teach him how to play. The little lad has become used to the idea that no one expects anything from him, that he can remain a newborn with no need to do the growing up bit. I suppose I understand him. Life grabs at us the minute we emerge from the womb, and it can get hard. He’s had a rest, but I intend to make damned sure that he catches up. In this moment, I am incredibly happy.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?’ Susan asks.

  ‘We won’t need George,’ I tell her. ‘Not just yet, and hopefully never. But you’ll have to get him moving, love.’

  It is clear that Stephen has a good sense of timing, because he chooses this moment to break wind and kick at his blanket. I am going now to cancel George.

  We have four babies. The last of the quartet arrives at ten minutes to six exactly one week after the Battle of the Bulge. He is rather large for a pram, but he has clearly thrown all his toys out of the playpen and wants them back. Now.

  As soon as he appears, Susan takes herself and the other three babies through the French window, across the huge lawn and into the caravan. She’s a clever girl – she can carry three at once. I’d send her the fourth, but she doesn’t deserve him. ‘Well?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ve changed all the bloody locks.’ It’s strange how I’ve never noticed before that his thick, lower lip is rather slack and wet.

  ‘Yes, I’ve changed the locks. What do you want?’

  ‘I want my house back.’

  ‘The house is for the children, Den. When they’re eighteen and have finished school, we’ll talk about the house.’

  ‘What?’ The Paul McCartney eyes are round and shocked. ‘Where the bloody hell am I supposed to live? This is my house, and I’ve worked hard for it.’

  I fold my arms. ‘For the bricks and mortar, maybe. But I made this a home – I worked, too. Anyway, none of that matters, because I am going for full custody, and no judge on earth will throw out the twins. It’s their turn, Den. It’s their house, their home.’

  He staggers back. ‘Can’t I just live here? I’ll sleep in another room.’

  ‘So that people will see how OK your life is? So that no one will talk?’

  The man nods. ‘That’s it. That would suit me.’

  ‘Oh, bugger off, will you? I can’t be bothered – talk to your lawyer.’

  ‘Yes,’ he screams. ‘And you got Juliet, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did.’

  And it just happens. One minute, I am standing at the front door; the next finds me on the floor in the hall with him on top of me and his hands closing around my throat. It’s true. Your life does flash before your eyes, and I am back in a cold kitchen with a dead woman, then up in the countryside, teaching a class, giving birth. A sudden, desperate surge of adrenalin allows me to move my own hands and tear at his face. Blood drips. It tastes metallic.

  He jumps up, blinks stupidly and runs away. ‘You’re not worth it,’ he calls over his shoulder. He means I’m not worth a life sentence, I suppose.

  His car roars off the drive, and I remain on the floor. Those small pinpricks of light that arrived with strangulation are beginning to disappear. Susan dashes in. I can’t speak. She screams, weeps, then dials 999. I listen while she demands an ambulance and the police. ‘Get a bloody move on,’ she shouts, ‘because she’s been half killed.’ When she passes by to get back to the children, she gives me a wide berth. ‘You’re a crime scene,’ she says. She’s been watching too much television of late.

  Susan has clearly been working hard and going through my phone book, because once I’m at the hospital Juliet turns up and bursts through the curtains. She hasn’t done her hair. Never before have I seen Juliet Anderson dishevelled. Am I dying?

  ‘Anna—’

  ‘You didn’t even knock,’ I say huskily.

  After a few ‘Oh, my Gods’, she asks me how I am and what happened.

  I can’t be bothered. I love Juliet like a sister – well – not like my real sisters, because they don’t deserve much, but that injection they gave me is sending me to sleep. The last thing I hear is Juliet saying, ‘We’ve got him now, Anna. The divorce will be a cinch. He may not be prosecuted, but there was a crime, and that crime is registered with the police.’

  No dreams. Perhaps injections stop a person having dreams. I wake in the morning with a headache, a sore throat and a thirst that needs Niagara. Then I go home.

  Being looked after is a terrible thing. People come with flowers. Mrs Bee is all poultices, beef tea and eggs chopped up with butter and soft breadcrumbs. Her visits are short, because she has a duty to perform; her real job pro tem is to use her telephone to blacken my husband’s name left, right and centre.

  ‘There’s a man on the phone,’ says Susan. ‘Says he’s a colleague and he’s heard about your trouble,’ she adds with the air of a mother about to berate her teenage offspring. Mrs Bee’s smoke signals are clearly working well if the news has travelled all the way to Hesford Junction.

  ‘Tell him thanks, and we’ll talk when my vocal chords get back to normal.’

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Who?’

  She jerks her head in the direction of the phone. ‘Your fellow.’

  ‘He’s a fellow teacher, I suppose.’

  Susan lowers her tone. ‘Have you had it off with him?’

  Two can play this game. ‘What off?’

  ‘It. Thingy. Sex.’

  ‘Go and ask his name.’

  ‘Geoff Schofield, I think he said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘Yes I’ve had it off with him.’

  She sniffs before going away to inform him about my vocal equipment, only to return immediately. ‘He says can he come round.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Er . . . do I give a reason?’

  ‘No.’

  She stares at me open-mouthed for a moment before going to do my bidding. When she has settled back in her chair, she starts to giggle. Between fits, she tells me that she has seen more of life in the last three weeks than in her previous nineteen years. We’ve had a riot, an attempted murder, hospital, parsnip wine, poultices and signs
of improvement in her son.

  ‘And chips from the chippy,’ I remind her. ‘We don’t often have chips. And listen, you. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen crazy stuff at your house. They all live on the cusp of criminality.’

  ‘Oh, I kept out of trouble,’ she answers airily. ‘Women can rise above all that sort of thing.’

  Perhaps she did rise above it, but one of her brothers rose above her, didn’t he? That same cold anger settles in the pit of my stomach. It isn’t the sort of rage that visited Den when he tried to strangle me; his was a hot fury and was totally out of character. Mine is icy cool and ready to plan. I don’t know where or how to start planning, but revenge is a satisfying dish with no calories. So I have to work at it, because I don’t know the recipe. Yet.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ I ask.

  ‘I put them in the oven – the gas helps knock them out.’

  I love this girl’s answers.

  ‘They’re in three prams. Emily’s on one.’

  ‘On one’ is, I believe, Scouse for in a bad mood. ‘I do hope she grows out of it.’

  Susan looks at me hard and long. ‘She’s like you. She’s stubborn and she knows what she wants. Lottie has your sweetness, but Emily hasn’t shown it yet. I do think Lottie will fight back, though, because she’s got you in her as well. When they start walking, we’ll need eyes in the backs of our heads.’

  She’s right. Arrangements will have to be made, and nothing will be ideal. I suppose ideal would be two separate continents for them, but I can hardly engineer that. And they have to be together. Here I go again – echoes of childhood when I insisted that Kate, Beckie and I should be together. A great deal of trouble might have been avoided had we been separated, but . . .

  ‘Glass of parsnip 1974?’ she asks.

  I throw a cushion at her. ‘You,’ I say, ‘are getting on my bloody nerves. Put the kettle on and behave yourself.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  Lists. I carry on with my scribblings. Hang onto house. Get a good monthly income from him. Get Gary. Evening classes for Susan. Write a book. Try those disposable nappies. Hurry divorce. Burn his old clothes. Borrow a different car, follow him. Yes. If I follow him, I’ll find him with one of his local ‘business associates’. Then I’ll get a name. A name is better than a couple of dozen dead crab lice in a matchbox, photos of a bruised throat, plus adultery with person or persons unknown. Shall I cite Round Table? Because for Den, charity never did begin at home . . .