Lily Poole

by Jack O'Donnell

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sorry doesn’t cut it.’ She shook her head and wouldn’t look at him. Her fag finished, she stabbed it out in the ashtray and sighed. She bent forward to get up and leave him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was scared as well. I love you and I thought I was goin’ to lose you.’

  She slumped back into the seat. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘I was scared.’

  ‘No, the other bit.’

  ‘I thought I was goin’ to lose you.’

  ‘Emm?’

  ‘Love you. Satisfied?’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘Love you. Satisfied?’

  ‘Again. I’ll never be satisfied hearing that. And I can never hear it enough.’

  She squealed and flew into his lap and kissed him, not caring that they were in the middle of the day room.

  ‘Love you right back,’ she said, when they got their breath back. Her bum wiggled, drilling his body into the chair.

  ‘How in the hell are we supposed to go out for a drink?’ John said, breaking for a mouthful of air.

  ‘That’s easy-peasy,’ she said, biting at his chapped lips. ‘Leave it to me.’

  Day 28

  Cigarette tip glowing, Janine’s pale hand was a beacon in the darkness of the night. John slept at a crooked angle beside her, his sweaty feet loosely entwined around hers. Another slippery wrestling match; two falls and an easy submission were enough for one night. Maybe one more bout would have been nice, but she had already decided to give him a rematch in the morning. Some dirty grappling would help wake her up and slow her down. She felt as if she was hurtling towards or away from the men in her life. Teasing a leg out from under his, then the other, she sat on the edge of the bed, watching him breathe and rousing herself to move.

  She reckoned the cold space of her own bed might allow her to sleep, but a tingling behind her eyes and the fear of falling into the same kind of dream, over and over again, kept her awake. The details differed, but it always began with the smell of blood. Sometimes she would be a little girl. Sometimes an adult. Rarely, she would be the age she was now, or older, a suggestion that she would be able to escape from the event, but never the nightmare.

  Red handprints daylight could not fade. Fingers, a fan-shaped curve, motionless, on the lower panel of the flaking, forest-green, paint of the front door. Her breath a Gobi Desert in her mouth. Unable to swallow until she pushed the door open. A woman’s voice. A voice on the fall into extinction. It was Mum’s voice drifting in a slow-moving fog down the hall. All she had to do was push the door open. Her hesitation meant she missed what the man said, what Daddy said, the brief adult conversation gave her time to clatter down the close stairs and into the safety of Mrs McGilvery on the bottom landing. The door creaked as she pushed it open.

  ‘Run,’ whispered Mum.

  The police report said that it was impossible. Mum had been dead for hours. Little Paulie dead in his cot. Lily dead in the living room. All that blood lapping onto the good piece of rug at the fireplace and ruining it.

  Daddy could not die. He was lodged in her disbelief but escaped every night, flew straight into her dreams, catching his hand round her mouth, shutting her up before she screamed. He was a big man, worked as a butcher for Nairn’s, and he picked her up like discarded victuals. Biting down, she tasted the meaty flesh of his hand beside his thumb. He jiggled her like a baby rat, covering her face and mouth, he carried her over Mum’s naked, eviscerated body, her right breast a flapping wound. Her hair, her beautiful blonde hair, running red, rusting red. None of that mattered. All that mattered was she could finally breathe.

  Daddy did dreadful things to her, left her a whisper from death. The police report said vaginal and anal penetration, bite marks on her shoulders and neck, multiple contusions, bruising around the windpipe and throat. Her body stuffed down the side of the couch. Daddy sitting next to her laughing, looking into the unlit fireplace.

  Night brought its own terrors for those trying to care for her. She screamed herself hoarse at bedtime until she spat blood. No relative could hold her or help her. No foster parents could tame her. The battlefields of children’s homes hardened her, taught her not to show emotion, but she never slept, not for years, unless she was in school at her desk or on the bus – safe places. Hospital. Hospital was home. Drugs let her sleep without dreaming. To be half-alive and move through the murky shadows of the day was the real nightmare. She leaned over and pecked John, smacking her lips, licking the salty damp of his cheek and nuzzling into his neck. He was a real puppy of a man, she thought, bumbling about full of energy and good will. Completely harmless in his own way.

  Yet his crayon drawings of the girl, and the likeness to her sister Lily, disturbed her in ways that made her dumb. He had got her daddy’s eyes right. The depth of the black holes where his eyes should have been. Psychiatrists and psychologists had talked about his delusions and explained to her about Capgras syndrome. How her dad believed his wife an imposter that had to be taught a lesson and his children were aliens sent to listen to his thoughts and kill him. Janine had learned to agree, to be moulded by the professionals’ superior arguments. To ooh and ahh at their brilliance; it was more than her life was worth to disagree. They had not seen his eyes, the void that they held was the darkness into which she did not want to fall.

  She learned a strategy for avoiding the holocaust haunting her life. When lured deep down into the hard place in her dream, her hand on the door, her mum’s voice heavy in her ears, she did not have to push. In her dream she could stand, waiting, Daddy on the other side, talking in that low voice, words she could not quite hear. He was waiting too. Waiting for her to push open the door. She imagined this was what purgatory was like. The distance between uncrossed territories. But purgatory was always better than hell.

  The hallway in the ward was like easing on a com­fortable pair of slippers, stepping onto familiar turf, temporarily denuded of people, but full of muted and comforting hospital din. She crept back to her room and stood by the window, looking out into the night. Out there was a girl that was the dead spit of her sister Lily, and had eyes like Daddy’s. She held the key to locking away the devil that was their dad; the link to what happened that day; and most importantly the key to how to fashion an escape from hell. ‘I double-dare you. Go and ask her,’ she said, kissing the glass on the windowpane. A faint trembling flickered through her body, her mind slithering past something, or someone, standing behind her, moving just out of vision.

  Hunted, running in his dreams, disorientated, scanning left and right; John’s eyes blinked rapidly and opened. He concentrated on the scabby seat and desk at the window. A crock-necked stiffness told him that his arm had been a pillow. Outside, rain lashed down, made the day greyer and more difficult to tell what time it was. He rubbed his face and pawed the sheets searching for the warmth of Janine, but a frigid space existed where she had been. The murmur of the ward reached him through a closed door. He needed to pee, and pulled on a pair of sniffy Y-fronts, denims and a blue T-shirt shaped like an upside down sack. The need to get some clothes from home also became apparent, or he would be wearing Janine’s print dress, or cast-offs from the wash-bin and their near relations.

  He conditioned himself not to expect Janine to appear for breakfast or even lunch. The idea of them meeting later brought a hard-on, and he hurried to the toilet stalls. After breakfast he shot a couple of rounds of pool with Derek in the games room. His hair was silver-grey and flopped unevenly around a face that ducked and squirmed left and right to avoid being directly looked at.

  Not providing chalk for the tip made every shot an adventure. The green baize was marked and scored, some of the pool balls were missing and the cue had a curved bow Robin Hood would have been proud of. The table had a tendency to run balls down the left-hand side off the bulk cushion and into the bag. Derek used this to his advantage for the first of several games.

  The care assistant Jo
hn had seen the day before stood for a few minutes watching and listening to the faux-ivory ricochet of ball. He looked as bored as a statue in a public park, and tutted after John missed an easy re­­spotted ball. ‘I’ll go on next,’ he said. ‘Play the winner.’ He let go of the door handle and slipped into the room.

  John lost again. A sneaky black down the left-hand side bag sinking him. Derek’s eyes flicked towards his, corroboration that the game was over and he had won again. John retreated to the door, far enough out of the way so the players circling the table were not jabbing the spear of the cue backwards into him as they played their shots. The new challenger used his big hands as a triangle to rack the balls. ‘Right, Derek,’ he said, ‘you’re in for a right good whopping.’ The care assistant played well and shook Derek’s hand when he beat him.

  ‘I’m Jocky.’ He nodded his head towards John, a rough acknowledgement that he was playing him next.

  Jocky set the balls up in the same way, but before cueing off, came round the table to shake John’s hand, as if it was a match tournament.

  ‘I’m John.’

  Jocky’s handshake was a brief and brawny contest, a way of showing how tough he was. He nodded and laughed. Like Derek, he didn’t say much. They played until lunchtime and John still hadn’t won a game. Jocky and John both lost interest at the same time when they rubbernecked at Janine’s pink-spotted blouse ensemble parading past. Her hair was tied tightly back, giving her a severe schoolmarm look, but she had her full war-face make-up on, which added glamour. John bolted from behind the door in the games room and caught up with her in the day room.

  ‘Missed you.’ He crashed down in the seat next to Janine.

  Her eyes flickered towards him, but she chose not to answer. She gazed straight-ahead, cigarette smoke wafting towards him.

  ‘I did whit you said,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Her voice was as flat as a Monday morning.

  Leaning across, he whispered in her ear. ‘I palmed those pills they gave me.’

  ‘What pills?’ She frowned, but with a shake of her head she perked up a bit. ‘What did you do with them?’

  He sneaked a look left and right, waited until Jocky had passed out of sight and taken a seat with the other patients behind them, before he made his move. He delved into the right hand pocket of his denims and edged up a bit of white toilet roll.

  Her eyes drifted down then back up at his face, her expression locked in neutral. ‘You’ve stole some bog roll?’

  ‘Nah,’ he spluttered. ‘It’s those tablets they gave me at breakfast time.’

  ‘Give me them here.’

  He checked again nobody was watching, curled his wrist and slipped the rag of paper into her hand. She unpicked them from the tissue and popped both in her mouth. Her chin tilted up, stretching her thin neck as she swallowed.

  ‘Jesus.’ His voice bubbled up in shock and admiration. ‘I thought you were goin’ to gie them to somebody.’

  ‘I did. My head’s pickled.’ She stubbed her fag out on the low tabletop, letting the dout fall onto the floor. ‘I just need some time off from myself.’

  ‘But you said you wanted to go out. Go for a walk or something.’

  ‘That was yesterday.’ Her head turned, and she glowered at him like a stranger. ‘Haven’t you got things to do?’ She shut her eyes.

  ‘Whit’s the matter?’ He patted her knee through the denim. It was a skirt with a wide slit that made it look as though she was wearing flared trousers. Her breathing was regular as if she was feigning sleep. He worked his hand up and under the slit, fondling the skin on her thigh.

  Her eyes opened and she turned her head ‘Is that all you want? Well, fuck off and go and have a fucking wank then.’ She whipped her knee away, his knuckles banging against the arm of the seat.

  Dim Denny’s feet shuffled over to where they were sitting. He had a peculiar walk, one leg shorter than the other, compensated by the black iron of a built-up shoe. He doubled over and picked up the fag end, slipping it into a side pocket of his dress trousers and scuttled off in a wayward diagonal across the day room.

  Her words were scalpel sharp. He lacked the armoury of her cutting ways and could not talk to people like that. He stumbled to his feet and followed Dim Denny out of the day room. Turning back to snatch a look at her, he spotted Jocky had stolen into the seat he’d vacated. He ghosted away to be alone in his room.

  Hands tucked behind his head, he lay on top of his bed and, even though it was stupid, let maudlin tears run down his cheeks. He wanted to go home. Then a thought, a kind of panic, made him sit up. Janine had colonised his life. But the little girl, Lily, would be stranded. She had been depending on him, as a bridge, to get her wherever it was she needed to go. Maybe drugs did that, he thought, made you forget about everything but yourself.

  Day 29

  The girls’ bedroom door hushed slowly open. Mary had been sleeping as soundly as Joey’s snores allowed her to, but her body was as attuned to the bracing noises of their house at night. She sat up straight, listening to what was on the other side of the wall – footsteps. She scrambled out of bed. Standing in the empty hall, her breath a puffy cloud, the linoleum was cold underfoot, and street light filtered through the window above the front door stretching the darkness into long blocks, and leaving gaps for an active imagination to fill. She heard the click of someone sneaking the sneck up on the front door, and the Yale lock giving, which scattered her thoughts and made her scurry round the corner to catch the culprit.

  Ally, with her back to Mary, pulled open the door. She wore her royal blue school blazer, her grey skirt and white socks smartly pulled up to her knees. It was a virtue she usually seemed incapable of. One sock would be up, the other down. Some kind of sock semaphore signal that the effort of equilibrium was too much for a little body to take on board. Ally’s hair was in tight bunches and the pink baubles that tied her hair were a mystery – Mary could not remember seeing them before. Her thoughts jumped, Jo must have brought them home and helped Ally bunch her hair. It was the only explanation, yet it defied common sense. Jo could not have helped her, would not have helped her because she was too grown-up, a granny in an adolescent eleven-year-old body. Mary caught a flash of Ally’s face. Her eyes were closed as she pulled the door shut. She had not seen her. She was blind as a new-born. Ally was sleepwalking the same way her son had. Mary thanked God that at least her daughter was fully clothed. Threadbare slippers were a hindrance, but she followed her daughter into the garden.

  ‘Chooks. Chooks.’ She called after Ally as if she were a sparrow cornered in a cage. She had heard stories of people taking heart attacks when suddenly wakened. She could just make out the sheen of Ally’s hair on the other side of the hedge and walked towards her.

  Mary wrapped her arms round her chest to keep ­herself warm. Frost bit into unprotected toes. The streetlight at the shortcut cast a glow. She craned her neck, and turned to listen. Muffled feet rebounded in the dank bloom of night fog. The fence at the bottom of the shortcut rattled and there was a thump as something fell. Mary followed, slipping on the steepest part of the path, banging her knee and rolling into a jaggy bush, her nightdress snagging and ripping. She sprang up. No time for decency or pain. Her legs regained a semblance of strength, and her shoulders heaved as she breathed in snorting and wheezing gasps. She knew the chain-link fence had a gap in it, but the fog grew a thick skin and her fingers only found connected threads. Her hand banged against the diamond-shapes, imprinting them on her soft flesh; she could have wept. The nightmare of her young daughter waking, and being out there cold and alone, kept her moving, kept her searching. The gap was there, and she fell against it, twisting her ankle as she landed.

  Hobbling on her good leg, car headlights picked out the road and pavement in front of her as it scraped downhill. The driver was wearing a white top, cigar burning bright, clenched in his teeth. She wanted to cry out, to warn him to be careful of her child, but knew her voice would be like tha
t of a rattling crow, coming too little and too late. The car turned by slow degrees at the corner, the arc of light picking out a blur of blue. Evidence enough for Mary that Ally was nearby. Her hand floated above the line of privet, and helped orientate her as she traced the path of the gardens bordering Shakespeare Avenue. The edge of the pavement came as a jolt and she almost slipped crossing the road. The strained ankle would take its toll the next morning, she was sure. ‘Ally, little Ally are you there? Mummy’s here. Mummy’s here,’ she shouted. ‘I love you very much ­darling, please, please wait for me.’

  ‘Here, Mummy. Here.’ The voice came from near Kerr’s gate.

  Mary staggered across, arms waving and floundering searching for her youngest child. Her hand found a head and hair, and she drew Ally into the snug of her torso. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘You’re ice cold.’

  Hoisting her up onto her hip and shoulder, Ally grabbed onto Mary, her stiff wintery fingers making a choker of her neck. Mary shuffled back up the hill, as fast as her ankle and freezing fog would allow. Ally’s breathing was soft and regular as a Persian cat’s on her cheek and neck. Her daughter sank into slumber, heedless of their halting journey. Mary’s thoughts turned to hypothermia – whether she should dial 999 at the phone box or warm her up with hot toddies, hot water bottles and plenty of blankets. Ally roused as she carried her up the shortcut, her head banging against Mary’s cheekbone.

  ‘I’m cold, so cold,’ Ally murmured.

  Mary hirpled faster. ‘Soon be home.’

  ‘Promise you’ll never leave me.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Never?’

  Mary held her closer. ‘Never.’

  ‘I’m cold, so cold.’

  The front door was wide to the world. Indoors felt as cold as outdoors. Mary knew the electric boiler would take two hours before there would be enough hot water to fill a teaspoon. Ally needed her own bed and to be covered with the warmth of every available sheet, blanket and towel in the house. As Mary shoulder-barged through the door to the girls’ room, Ally sprung down from her arms like a kitten.