by Louisa Reid
‘When they die. Or when we do, I suppose.’
She mutters the words quietly but her anger’s like a storm.
I reach out and put my arm around her.
‘Don’t be daft. We’ll be OK.’ Suddenly I’m the one doing the comforting and I wish I could give her a hug, but if our parents spot us there’ll be trouble. We go inside and get on with our chores – the dishes, the laundry, the never-ending homework – and then, just when we think we can relax, he summons us down. It’s one of the nights he wants us to sit with him. I try staring into space, forgetting I’m there, but he won’t leave me alone tonight. I kneel on the floor in front of him and he brushes my hair. I guess this is weird, it was sort of OK when I was little but now I wish he wouldn’t. He quizzes Rebecca about college but her answers are monosyllabic and I silently urge her to say a bit more because I can feel his body tense behind me. The less she says, the more she winds him up, and he digs the brush more firmly into my head with each word she doesn’t utter. I try to signal to her but she’s not looking at me either. Oh, Rebecca, save me, save me, I scream in my head and suddenly she swings round to face us and sees him with his hand tight on my neck and the other hand ready to swing the heavy hairbrush at my skull. I see my horror reflected in her eyes and want to vomit.
‘My Physics teacher told me I wasn’t working hard enough,’ Rebecca says, clear as a bell. ‘I’ll be in detention if I don’t pull my socks up.’
He drops me and goes for her. The usual words. Failure. Shame. Maggot. Filth. I cover my ears and run from the room, upstairs to hide. I wish I wouldn’t. One day I’m going to hide that hairbrush and the strap. I’m going to stop him in his tracks. But for now I let my sister take my beating.
What else has she taken for me over the years? What does he do to her while I run away and hide? Like millstones my parents grind at her, circling, pushing, relentlessly punishing her for sins we don’t even know exist. When I stop to look I see that each year she is a little smaller, as if a little bit more has crumbled away. One day there may be nothing left, just dust motes dancing on a scrap of light. Who will catch me then? Who will save me when I fall?
Finally it’s over and she inches up the stairs and across the hall carpet on her stomach, a dying moth. I help her up and on to her bed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. She nods and her eyes close. I can hear her heart pounding, see it fluttering against her ribs, but she gathers her clothes around her and buries herself in the blankets. She hides her body, even from me. I hate to watch her suffering and stare out of the window. He beats her harder than he would me and that’s another reason I should never have asked her for help, but I sit beside her and stroke her hair. Blood has clotted on her scalp and I fetch a cloth and try to wipe it away.
He never says sorry. He just pretends nothing ever happened. We’ve never dared fight back, not yet. I know what would happen if we did.
I remember being twelve and Granny is there. They’re fighting and shouting and he is holding Granny by the neck and screaming into her face, she’s telling him to calm down, pleading with Mother to call the police, and then he shoves her into the wall and pushes her out of the vicarage so hard she falls on the step in a heap, and he slams the door behind her. I don’t want to remember the rest.
Neither of us goes to college on Tuesday. Rebecca feels too bad and I don’t want to leave her alone. Usually he’s clever with his fists and never leaves a mark where it might be spotted, but this time, well, he didn’t seem to care. I think he was enjoying it too much to mind. He knows he can lie it all away, anyhow. He’s done it before. I ask if I can get her anything but she says not. By lunchtime I’m bored hanging round our room with nothing to do, and with Rebecca who’s lying mute in bed, so I sneak downstairs and poke around the kitchen for something to eat. As I’m rummaging Mrs Sparks bustles in.
‘Oh, hello, dear.’
‘Hi.’ I smile even though I don’t want to. Mrs Sparks is annoying.
‘I’ve just been helping your father with the church arrangements for this month. He’s popped out now. What are you doing at home? It can’t be study leave already, can it? You’ve only just started up there!’
‘Oh, I just wasn’t feeling all that well this morning. Nor was Rebecca, she’s up in bed.’
‘Poor thing. Do you need anything? Your mother’s out visiting, isn’t she?’
I see a chance.
‘Oh, yes, if it’s not too much trouble.’ I smile more honestly now. ‘We’re out of painkillers and Rebecca has an awful headache.’ This is no lie. ‘And we don’t seem to have much in for lunch either.’
She needs no further directions and hares off to bring back supplies. She’s amazingly quick, panting up the back steps with a Tesco bag full of goodies she’s garnered from her own kitchen and another bag bursting with an assortment of clothes and other bits and bobs. She thrusts them at me.
‘Here you are, dear. And you tell Rebecca I hope she’s feeling better soon. Pop over any time, won’t you?’
Barely pausing to thank her I run up to the bedroom with the booty, chucking the painkillers at Rebecca and emptying the bag of clothes. They flow on to the bed, manna from heaven, and I crow with delight as Rebecca looks on. I hear her tear open the carton of juice and take a big gulp and I stop worrying about her and start planning my outfit for Saturday night.
I feast on the contents of Mrs Sparks’ fridge and then we spend the afternoon lying on our beds, talking. Rebecca and I can talk forever and I doze off as she tells me one of her stories, the late autumn sun risking its last rays in our direction. I dream about the party, the dress I’m going to wear, about tripping up and everyone laughing, Craig kissing Daisy. When at last I wake I’m glad none of it really happened, but I feel trebly nervous now and confide in Rebecca.
‘There’s no way you can go.’ She folds her arms and sits up straight.
‘Why not?’ She can’t spoil this for me, but I know she’s going to have a damn good try.
‘Because the likelihood is you’ll get caught. How many times do I have to explain this to you?’
‘I didn’t get caught before.’
She makes a noise which is a cross between a snort and a scream.
‘That’s because I helped you! I’m not helping this time. You’re on your own.’
‘You have to help me.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do.’
This could go on for hours. We’re both stubborn but because I still feel bad I let the argument lie, for once letting her win, and change the subject.
‘Are we going back to college tomorrow, then?’
She’s still angry and won’t answer. I leave her stewing and go downstairs; being late to the table is a cardinal sin and I hear Rebecca shuffling behind me. He won’t mention what he did yesterday, he’ll act like nothing’s happened and we all will too. Maybe we should tell someone about him, we can’t go on like this forever, and I try to remind myself to ask Rebecca later what she thinks. We could tell a teacher or Mrs Sparks and then, if we could make them believe us, it would all have to stop and we’d be safe. I look at our mother and wonder what would happen to her if we told. She might get in trouble too, or she might deny having anything to do with it. She’s a good liar. The clock ticks loudly as we eat in silence. I feel Rebecca’s fear like a vice round my belly and know that time’s running out.
Rebecca
After
I wouldn’t be going back to college. I crouched on the landing, holding the banisters and straining to hear as he made the phone call and told them that I’d decided to quit my studies. By the time the Easter holidays were over no one would remember that I’d ever existed, that’s what he told me later.
If I didn’t go back to college then that meant no exams, which meant no qualifications, which meant no job. Which meant no escape.
No!
Yes.
OK, then, just give up. Just stay here and die, if that’s what you want. First it was Granny, then it was me. And you’re next, Rebecca, Hephzi sneers. But I’d seen what happened if you tried to get out.
He’d opened my envelope, the one with the letter offering me a place at the summer school, he’d discovered everything and then he’d smashed it all to smithereens. I wondered if it was possible for the punishments ever to end. One day I must surely grow too old or bold to remain an object of tyranny. I was almost seventeen.
It was April, nearly Easter, and we were so busy. Ostensibly I was on tea and toilets, but behind the scenes there were other parts for me to act. I was Vice to his Justice and as he directed his very own morality play I felt the scorch of his flame again and again. As I cowered my mind hung on all the books I’d never get to read, all the stories he was keeping from me. It wasn’t fair. Why should I have to stay in his prison, why should everything I’d ever loved be taken from me? If only I could get away. But how? It was impossible. If my sister had failed, my beautiful sister, then I had no chance. There was no one now who might help me.
For a long time I used to fantasize about moving to live with Granny or Auntie Melissa and Uncle Simon. My aunt and uncle were there at Hephzi’s funeral, back at the start of the year, almost four months ago, and I guess they drove away with a sigh of relief on their lips. Maybe I should have spoken to Auntie Melissa when she’d tried to talk to me. Their names are never mentioned and they haven’t tried to see me since. I suppose I don’t blame them for staying away, it’s dangerous interfering in what goes on in this house. Look at what happened to Granny.
The Father had stopped me from living for almost seventeen years, but he couldn’t stop spring from coming and day by day I watched it. It was tempting me out. I pulled the heavy curtains in the back room a little to one side to see the tree blossom, big candles of cream and yellow dressing the garden ready for summer. The grass was growing, green and wild, and I hoped he’d let me out to cut it soon so I could smell the fresh scent and feel the sun on my skin. In the bathroom mirror I looked paler than ever and wondered if I might lift off sheets of skin and peel like ancient paper. I guessed my body would crumble to dust before the ink of my future had the chance to dry.
The clock ticked so slowly even though there was so much to do. I had to keep on my toes. Perhaps he’d test me; he liked to ask me questions to be certain I had been listening to his sermons, and there were a lot of them right then.
I was sick of listing sins. I was sick of repeating his mantras.
Other days I worked for The Mother; they pushed me between them like a mouse between two cats.
There was no way to protest so I draped myself in the garb of The Mother’s misery and set to with the scrubbing brush and bleach. We had to get everything spotless, Easter is a big deal and there are usually visitors. She has been cleaning all her life but this house never changes. Dirt is ingrained in its pores. Still we scrub every day, harder, longer. I wondered what would happen if one day she were to awake and find every surface shining as if it were freshly made? Perhaps, the spell lifted, she’d smile and break free, fling open the front door and run off through the green garden to be swallowed up by the sun. Or maybe she’d vanish in a puff of smoke, or melt into a puddle on the polished parquet floor. I dunno. We only do downstairs and the church. I’m not allowed in their room, and she won’t come into mine. Not after what happened. I’m glad she keeps out, it’s better like that. And if she saw the wall now, if she knew what was hiding in there and growing bigger every day, she might hurt us all over again. She can’t look after a child – you certainly couldn’t trust her with a baby.
Usually we wouldn’t speak as we worked. In fact, I couldn’t remember our last conversation. Then suddenly, early on Good Friday, she started.
‘Why did you do it? Why did you lie?’
It took me a long time to think of the right answer and even then it was wrong.
‘I knew you wouldn’t let me go.’ I kept my voice low, I didn’t want him to hear us.
‘Of course not, you betrayed us. You’re a sneak who can’t be trusted, just like your father’s always said.’
‘I just wanted something else … I can’t stay here forever. It was a chance to try something new.’
‘You lied. The story about church camp. It was all a lie.’
I nodded.
‘I was going to ask for you. I thought you might go.’
She was the one lying now and I stopped following her lips and trying to hear.
‘You’re a wicked creature, Rebecca.’ She stood up to leave. ‘It should have been you.’
My parents have their own special definition of good and bad. In the Church our father’s a man of God, round about the village he’s a paragon of virtue, and in the vicarage I was evil because I had been marked. That’s what they told me as soon as I was old enough to understand.
Later that day I sat in the church, beside The Mother. The Good Friday service had begun and it would be long. I didn’t want to listen to a word he said. His theme was pride and I’d transcribed his nonsense for him and heard the words a hundred times.
‘The proud are the devil’s trumpeters!’ he declaimed. ‘When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, for all of you sinners, the Sin of Pride was defeated. But the pride of an ungrateful child is a thorn in the side of the Lord our God …’
I dropped my eyes and tried to vacate the present.
But the only memory that came to me was one of the saddest I have. When Granny died they took us to see her body lying in that cheap coffin, dressed in her old pink nightie. I wanted to kiss her goodbye. The room was terribly cold and the flowers which stood and nodded their sad heads in the vases on the sideboard would soon die too. The bruise on Granny’s forehead was green and yellow and her face had fallen away. She’d had such a lovely smile and liked to pull funny faces to make us laugh.
Before we’d got there I’d been crossing my fingers and hoping that it might not be true and that my granny might still be alive after all. Someone could easily have made a mistake, I thought. I stood watching, straining to hear her breathe.
It was pointless. She looked so much older than she had when we’d last seen her. Old and defeated and sad. She had gone. And I knew that she died because he wouldn’t let her love us, I knew she died because he shut her out. Whatever they said about her falling down the stairs, I knew it was his fault really.
I jolted out of the memory when Hephzi yells in my ear to stand up for the readings, everyone else was already on their feet and he was staring at me and waiting.
After the final prayers I followed The Mother from the church, back to the vicarage, and took one last gulp of the world outside as she shut the doors behind us.
I cry for Granny and for Hephzi late at night when no one can hear. I wouldn’t cry at their funerals, even though I knew it made me seem odd, because I never let The Parents see my pain. I keep my hurt hidden, remember?
I woke early on Easter Sunday, before I was even needed. I wanted to talk to Hephzi and give her my gift. I’d always given her something on our birthday. This year it was a flower. A snowdrop I’d picked months ago, so fragile that I cradled it in my hands as if it were made of dreams. I’d pressed it for her and saved it all this time, hidden in the floorboards. I placed it on her bed and waited.
Soon we were back in the church to make sure everything was in order. The bells were ringing and it was sunny and bright outside but the green day receded as we shut the door behind us. By the time the service started I felt like sleeping; I hid my yawns behind my hands and pretended to pray. He was hoping for a good turnout and had been composing his sermon for weeks. I knew I should quit prodding and poking at the scars on my heart but I couldn’t stop myself from drifting off again into the past, although it’s not always safe there either.
The last time we had seen our granny had bee
n on our twelfth birthday.
We’re seventeen today! Hephzi cries. I nodded and told her to hush.
Back on that birthday Granny arrived early to collect us and The Mother let us go with her, nervously twitching at her blouse and reminding Granny over and over again to be back before four. We’d only been allowed to go in the first place because Hephzi had cried and pleaded and thrown the biggest tantrum I’d ever seen.
Granny reassured The Mother that she would bring us back safe and sound. ‘Of course I will, you silly thing. Now go and get some rest, stop all this rushing about. I’ll look after the girls, you know I always do.’
We’d run down the drive with her holding our hands, she’d been beaming at Hephzi and then at me, laughing at nothing.
She’d asked what we wanted to do and Hephzi had chosen first, so of course it was the shops. I remember touching the clothes, holding the dresses up against my body, smelling their newness and inhaling excitement. Granny had bought me a T-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it, grey and red. Even Hephzi said it was nice. We’d gone to the underwear department then and Hephzi had chosen her first bra and new pyjamas.
‘Your turn soon, love,’ Granny had said to me, but I wasn’t jealous. I didn’t want to grow like Hephzi; I didn’t want The Father’s eyes to fix on me like they fixed on her.
After that we stuffed ourselves with burgers and chips and cake and ice cream. I crammed the food into my mouth so fast that Granny looked worried and told me to slow down, I would be allowed as much as I liked. Even though I felt sick I kept going, as if the flour and sugar and sweetness would fill the hole in me that was growing so fast I was afraid it would swallow me up.
Our twelfth birthday. Hers were the only presents we received; hers was the only kiss, the only smile, the only laughter. I chose the bookshop for my treat and we sat in there for ages. I pulled out a pile and surrounded myself with stories. I could have stayed there all night. Granny laughed and bought me two new books to stay at her house, waiting for me when I next came, heavy hardbacks with glossy covers which I carried carefully, like treasure or a stick of dynamite.