Lacey's House

by Joanne Graham

  Her clothes grow tighter and she adjusts them in the night but soon it isn’t enough, nothing will fasten and the panic rises like bile in her throat as she grows more afraid. She conjures up fairy tales to keep her safe, makes worlds within her world and she becomes uncertain of what is real, what is now. She is almost convinced that someone will ride to her rescue. And if not, what then? She will run away.

  She squirrels away little bits of money here and there, not much because there is little around, but she does what she can. It is pitiful but the action cushions her, pushing aside her fears. She feels the baby move inside her and it makes her think of dragonflies. She presses her hand to her stomach and wills her child to stay inside where it can’t be seen.

  It all unravels though, so fast, so frighteningly. Arrow sharp in her memory, she sees it all again, she sees it all the time and it never grows old. She will see that moment forever when she is in the garden, when she collects eggs, when she drifts.

  She is in the garden, seeing to the chickens, heading back to the house with the eggs when her father walks up the path. She moves to turn her back on him but she loses her footing, she stumbles and he reaches out his hand to steady her. How the Fates must have laughed to themselves as they conjured up this little catastrophe.

  She will always see the look on his face as his hand brushes her swollen abdomen. For just a moment he looks genuinely puzzled as if something simply doesn’t add up. But he reaches his hand out again and presses it hard and flat against her and she cries out as his fingers curl inward like iron claws and the truth falls over his eyes.

  His face grows stormy and dark, a hurricane threatening to sweep them both away, but it is gone as soon as it begins. She sees the calm descend as he takes a slow breath and reaches forwards gently to cup the back of her neck as he stares into her eyes and reads the questions there. His hand pulls back and punches her hard in the stomach and her knees go weak. She nearly falls, she would have but his other hand curls around her hair, holds tight, holds her up. She swings from the hand that holds her. Please father, please. And he slaps the words from her mouth. They break on the floor along with the eggs and she sees them there, swimming among the smeared yolk.

  Her mouth fills with blood and she spits. It hits him in the face and bloody saliva trickles across his lips, down across his chin. His face is cast from stone. She loses time as she stares at him, before he beats her to the ground where she curls up around her baby and hopes that if it has to be this way then they will die together.

  Chapter 35 ~ Rachel

  A week goes by during which I work, I paint, and I fail to write a letter that has waited for years. I go back to the beach again. I even go and stand outside the house we stayed in, it is painted a different colour now but I remember sitting inside and looking out into the sunshine.

  Whatever hold I believed the beach had over me was exorcised now, and I realised that it was only the people that held tight in my memory not the place, the place only mattered because of them. There was no inspiration for me here among memories, and so I returned to stare once again at the paper and will the right words to appear.

  I held the pen as it stayed still and silent in my hand. I became edgy and uncomfortable until I could stand it no longer. Grabbing my keys and pointing the car towards the city, I sought distraction in the shops and eventually, as the screens were brought down and people made their way home, I found myself outside the cinema. I decided to kill a few hours there before going home to the paper that was beginning to feel like a haunting.

  I can’t remember now what I watched; I stared blankly at the screen and tried to get lost in it, but all I could think about was the uncomfortable seat, the vague smell of body odour mixed with popcorn, the occasional cough and giggle. By the time I walked away with the handful of people I had shared the film with, it had started to rain and I felt more despondent than I had when I arrived.

  On the drive home I thought that I would just write the first thing that came into my head even if it was rubbish. It would be a beginning, a possibility.

  By the time I headed up the lane the darkness was complete, especially here beyond the circles of the streetlights. I pulled the car onto the verge outside my gate and stepped out. As I shut the door, I caught sight of something, something lighter that broke the darkness towards the head of the lane.

  I turned slowly towards it and let out a tiny scream, a short, sharp sound that broke off abruptly against the night sky. It took me a moment to realise that it was Lacey. She was looking towards me and I raised my hand in greeting, a smile growing on my lips. As I waved I could see her mouth moving.

  “Hush little baby, don’t say a word.”

  She stood so, so white against the darkness, the rain blurring her edges and as I moved closer to her and said her name, I realised that she was completely naked, her generous breasts and stomach hanging in folds. I could see scratches, black, ragged lines on her arms and ankles, and her eyes were staring past me, through me, into nothing as she swayed where she stood and sang her lullaby. I hurried to her, removing my cardigan so I could wrap it around her chilled shoulders and as I did so she urinated. It ran down her legs and before I could jump back out of the way it splashed onto my feet, where it was washed away by the rain.

  Chapter 36 ~ Lacey

  How long has it been? It could have been moments or hours, before a voice screams at him to stop. She hears the fear in the higher pitch of the words and she tries to look at her rescuer through swollen eyes. She is hunched on the floor still curled around her baby and so very scared for this little life inside her, this little heartbeat that gives reason for the blood in her veins. She feels the wind from his trousers as he passes, hears a door slam. She realises through the pain that this is the first time that anyone has stood up to her father, and then she realises that she is still alive and she wants to weep.

  She drifts in and out of dark spaces as hands float in the air before her and reach out. She cringes away from the touch as pain lances through every part of her. How can this hurt so much without killing her? Maybe she will die after all. She waits for the release.

  When she opens her eyes she is in her room. The curtains are closed and the darkness is welcome. Not dead then. Her mother bends to her and she feels coldness against her forehead, feels water run across her cheeks and behind her ears. She lifts her hand and finds that even her fingertips hurt where they brush against her mother’s wrist. She meets her mother’s eyes and sees submission in them.

  “You silly, silly girl!” she says as she turns and places the cloth back into the bowl, as if she is berating her for nothing more than spilling the milk or breaking the eggs. She wonders where her father is. She is terrified that he might come in and start again. Her mother leaves and she lays there too terrified to move. Maybe if she lays still, the baby will be okay, maybe his fists missed, maybe his kicks landed wide. She stares at the ceiling and crosses her bruised fingers, telling her baby not to leave, she can’t lose him too.

  She lays there as her mother brings more water, as the evening fades to night and the owls begin to hoot. And as the minutes stretch and she breathes through her fear she feels a fluttering across her belly, a tiny movement that opens her eyes as wide as the bruises will allow. She curls her hands up around the baby and strokes through her skin until she falls into a sleep where she winces every time she moves.

  Chapter 37 ~ Rachel

  I guided Lacey’s unresisting body towards the gate leading to her home. I opened her front door, took her by the hands and led her inside.

  Lacey sat down on the hard wooden, floor. As I turned to shut the door, she was sat with her legs crossed, immodest in her nudity, rubbing absently at the deep, oozing scratches on her ankles. She rocked slightly back and forth and I tried to work out what I should do. As her fingers moved over the wounds they came away bloody, tacky and I searched for dressings that I could cover them with.

  I found kitchen towels near the sink, and
filled a bowl of water to begin cleaning her up. As I did so I smelt ammonia and dank earth and realised that if I could get her in the bath that would be a good place to start. I talked to her as I moved, as a mother would to a child. I wanted to get her comfortable, and then I would see if I could get hold of her doctor. I was scared for her, unable to work out what might have happened and how she had come to be standing naked in the lane, covered in scratches. Perhaps Charlie could shed some light on it.

  I opened the door to the living room. This was the first time I had been inside Lacey’s house and normally I would have loved the chance to look around. The lounge was in darkness and I rushed to the other downstairs room to check if Charlie was in there, but I found that was empty too.

  I looked towards Lacey, still naked, still rocking, and I grabbed a towel from over the radiator and placed it over my cardigan on her shoulders. I reached behind her and locked the door, worried that if I went upstairs she might leave the house. All the while my head was spinning with concern and a sense of helplessness.

  It was late now so perhaps Charlie was sleeping, it would explain why he hadn’t heard the movements from downstairs and come to investigate. As I took the steps two at a time I was surrounded by silence and the house felt empty around me. End Cottage had four doors upstairs, one more than my house. The first door I came to was closed but faint yellow light spilled from beneath it and I knocked gently. I opened it when there was no response. The light from a bedside lamp illuminated a pretty, airy bedroom with pale walls and a rose covered bedspread. The room smelt of lavender and fresh linen, it smelt of Lacey.

  I rushed over to a chest of drawers against the far wall and dug around until I found clean underwear and a pair of pyjamas. Stepping back into the hallway I paused, listening for sounds from beyond the other doors, from the hallway downstairs. I could hear Lacey humming tonelessly, a sound of fingernails tapping against a hard surface but other than that there was silence.

  The next door I opened revealed a small room filled with boxes, an old covered sewing machine, a tailor’s dummy. The next was a bathroom. I went to the last door and knocked lightly on it. There was no response. I knocked a bit louder.

  “Excuse me,” I said, my voice loud and jarring in the silence. I didn’t want to knock too hard in case the sound disturbed Lacey but there was still no response. I reached for the door handle and turned it. The room beyond was in darkness and I hesitated before pressing the light switch, feeling awkward that the sudden glare from overhead might wake Charlie up with a start.

  As I stood there at the threshold trying to peer beyond the faltering light from behind me, I could hear nothing but silence and my own heartbeat. There were no sounds of breathing, gentle snoring, no rustling of bed clothes. I flipped the light switch and blinked rapidly as a bare bulb illuminated the blue walls in the last of the bedrooms. It was empty. An unmade bed with a bare mattress sat against the far wall. A chest of drawers beneath the blue curtained window had lost their sheen beneath a film of dust. I walked to them and opened the top drawer to find nothing. There were no personal touches in the room, no books anywhere, no clothes on the bed or the chair in the corner. The room felt as though no-one had lived in it for a very long time.

  Chapter 38 ~ Lacey

  As the dawn breaks and the birds tell her it is morning her father comes in. She cowers, pulling back against the bed covers and curling around herself. He looks at her with disdain.

  “You will get up and go about your chores. Under no circumstances will you leave this house. Is that understood?” He doesn’t wait for an answer and she nods at his retreating back. He is hiding her away. She is sure it is not just because of the pregnancy that he is locking her inside, not just the shame of it. He is hiding away the damage that his anger has imprinted on her skin.

  When she struggles down the stairs, limping through the aches in her body he stands in the hallway with a blank expression. He points to her stomach and tells her that if it still lives, she will be heading up to Bristol, to a distant cousin who runs a convalescence home. She will stay there until the baby is born and they will take it from her, it will be adopted. She will be alone. And she will come home with empty arms. She will have nothing.

  She does not protest, but she knows in her head that she will run. When her baby is born, when it is placed in her arms, she will be gone. Scoop him up and steal him away and run far from here. She will make a new life for herself; create a new past, a different her. She could be a war widow in a strange place. They will understand, they will sympathise, and they will embrace her. No-one will take her child.

  She stares at her father, at the thin line of his mouth, the sharpness of his face and she hates him. He is a monster to her. An evil shadow. She lowers her eyes and says, “Yes, father.” He turns and leaves the house, his coat over his arm and his bag in his hand.

  She sits on the bottom stair and waits for the tears to come but her eyes stay dry. She feels her heart shrivel towards the parents that have made these decisions for her, that have stolen her life and given her a pathetic substitute. She knows that her mother, too, is at the mercy of her father, that she feels his cruelty, his coldness. But in that moment she hates them both; one for his malice, the other for her weakness.

  Within days her bruises have faded, become nothing more than shadows that are easy to overlook. She comes in from the garden to find her bags packed. Sitting on the train she imagines a female version of her father waiting for her at the other end of the line. But the truth is different. Mary is a dear thing, a middle-aged spinster who seems to find the charade delicious in its scandal.

  She decides almost immediately that she will stay in Bristol. Perhaps with the small amount of money that she has, she will find somewhere to stay, somewhere to work. Perhaps it will be somewhere her father will never find her. The thought comforts her as she becomes enormous and finds breathing difficult. She dreams of a little boy and cannot think of the baby as a girl after that.

  She screams through her labour, the pain so great that she feels removed from herself, as if she has stepped outside her body and has become little more than a casual observer. The midwife tells her not to make such a fuss but the pain seems to go on forever and her body is pulled apart inch by inch until she falls through the cracks and feels strange and distant. She watches herself push and push until he finally slithers out into silence and the frowning face of the midwife who reaches for a blanket and busies herself.

  The woman walks towards the door and she calls after her. At the doorway she turns and looks gravely at the exhausted woman on the bed, she shakes her head and walks away. There is a residual image in the space where she departs, a tiny bundle silent and unmoving, a little hand, pale and blue that is visible through the folds of the fabric.

  When Mary comes in, her cheeks are wet. She says that some things aren’t meant to be. Everything inside her dies right there, on the bed amidst the blood and waste. There is no pain, no tears. Everything is frozen and that is how it will stay for years to come.

  Chapter 39 ~ Rachel

  I placed my hands under Lacey’s chilled arms and helped her to her feet. She was compliant and allowed me to lead her to the bathroom like a meek lamb. There was a wet stain in the hallway that showed where the water had run from her skin as she sat and rocked. Her eyes stared straight ahead as we climbed the stairs, but her feet lifted as we went.

  She stood in the bathroom as I ran the water and checked the temperature before leading her to the edge of the bath. She was still humming beneath her breath, becoming sluggish in her movements as I encouraged her with a singsong gentle voice to get into the warm water.

  To my relief she lifted her leg and stepped gingerly into the bath and sat down. I picked up a sponge and washed her with the rose and lavender scented shower gel that I had found at the edge of the bath. Her eyelids became heavy, her song slower and quieter as sleep waited to grasp and pull her down. I finished quickly and reached for the towel, wan
ting to get her out of the bath before she fell asleep completely. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to wake her again.

  She stepped from the bath leaning on me for a moment, and I wrapped the towel around her. I led her to the bedroom where she sat silently on the edge of the bed. I rubbed her dry, casting frequent glances at her expressionless face.

  She lifted her arms and feet for me as I put her pyjamas on her. When I had finished she lay down without protest and I covered her with the duvet, her eyes once more growing heavy and beginning to close. Her breathing grew heavier as I tucked her in and she didn’t respond at all as I bent forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  I looked at the calm, relaxed face half hidden by the duvet and felt overwhelmed by a feeling of complete sadness. As I walked towards the door and reached for the light switch a whisper followed me, “Goodnight, Charlie.”

  I wondered at it and at the story behind it as I flipped the switch and pulled the door shut behind me.

  I wiped the floor in the bathroom, scrubbed at the wet patch on the hall floor, put the soiled towels into the washing machine and searched for some food to feed the increasingly vocal and attentive cat that seemed to materialise from the woodwork. By the time I finished I realised that my reserves of strength were totally depleted and tension banded across my forehead like a vice.

  I rubbed the palms of my hands against gritty eyes. I felt numb, uncertain as to what I should do next. I looked at my mobile phone and realised that it was almost midnight. I knew I couldn’t leave. Should I phone a doctor? Or could I leave it until morning now that Lacey was sleeping? It was too late to phone Jane for advice, too late for disturbing anyone it seemed.