How the Light Gets In

by Hyland, M. J.

  ‘We’re going to a party,’ says Tom. ‘Around the corner.’

  ‘Has Lou told her host-parents she’ll be out late?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They know I won’t be home until ten o’clock.’

  Tom’s mom takes the lid off a dish of carrots. ‘That doesn’t give you very long. Why don’t you ask if you can stay the night here?’

  I blush. ‘I don’t think they’d be into that idea.’

  I notice that before Tom’s dad takes food from his plate, he turns it round until the food he wants to pick up with his fork is at the bottom of the plate, at six o’clock.

  ‘What a shame,’ says Tom’s dad. ‘It’d be so nice to have you for breakfast.’

  I laugh, but it seems I am the only one who finds this amusing.

  ‘They’re pretty strict,’ I say, ‘not like you.’

  Tom’s mom is pleased with this comment.

  ‘Well, some people are just more old fashioned than other people.’

  The cook goes home during dessert and nobody says goodbye to her. I’m fascinated and horrified.

  After dinner I can hardly believe my ears when Tom’s mom says that we should retire to the drawing room.

  We talk about school and Betty’s painting classes. I wonder if she and Margaret would get along, since they share painting in common. Gerald doesn’t say much. He has a book on his lap, which he holds over his groin, turning it slowly, anticlockwise, in the same way he turned his plate during dinner.

  After having not spoken for what seems like an age, Gerald clears his throat. ‘It really would be fine for you to stay the night, Lou. If you like I could call your host-parents for you. With a bit of persuasion, I’m sure they’d agree.’

  Margaret and Henry have been explicit on this point. Under no circumstances am I to stay out overnight. If I do, I’ll be sent straight home. It’s not that I believe them, but I’d rather not call their bluff (or have them call mine – I never have been sure how this works).

  ‘I’m afraid they are very strict,’ I say. ‘You’d be amazed. They have an absolute rule against staying out after ten p. m.’

  ‘What a shame,’ says Gerald. ‘We have so many rooms and so many of them are empty. It would be nice to see somebody emerge from one of those doors in the morning.’

  When my sister Erin first stayed out all night, she was fourteen. She came home on a Sunday morning. I was vacuuming the lounge-room. My mum was in the kitchen doing the washing up. Erin looked awful: puffy and bruised under the eyes. She was wearing a long, grey jumper, stretched and thin. It looked as though it belonged to a very tall man and hung crook edly around her thighs, over her loose black stockings. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Mum.’

  I was incredulous. ‘But she waited up all night for you,’ I said.

  Erin grabbed me by the wrist and twisted my skin so that it burned. ‘Well, it’s not night now so what does it matter? If you say anything I’ll rip your hair out.’

  ‘I will tell her,’ I said. ‘You’re too young to have sex and stay out all night.’

  Erin put her hands around my neck.

  ‘If you do I’ll make you so scared you’ll smell like shit.’

  When Erin had been in her room for a few minutes I went to Mum in the kitchen. I said, ‘I just checked Erin’s room and she’s sound asleep. She must have snuck in hours ago.’

  My mum ignored me, acted as though she hadn’t heard me, and used a tea towel to wipe breakfast scraps from the table. As I was leaving, she said to the table, ‘I mustn’t have heard her,’ she said. ‘I must be going deaf.’

  By the time Tom and I get to the party, which is in a loft apartment, it’s half-past eight. The loft is the home of a college student who I’ve never met before. She comes to the door and greets Tom by licking his face. She has a shaved head and the largest eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Tom and I sit in a cushion-filled circle with a group of college students and drink beer for a while. I’m getting tipsy and feel quite nice, when somebody turns the music up loud and brings out a tray with small white piles of what I suppose is cocaine or speed.

  I look at my watch. It’s nine-thirty. I don’t have time to get high but I desperately want to.

  Tom leans over. ‘Are you going to have any?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  He winks at me. ‘Sure thing, Mrs McGahern.’

  The tray gets passed around and I watch what people do. It only takes a minute to snort the powder and it doesn’t appear to do anybody any harm except make them laugh a bit too loud. I could take a little bit and just go home and feel a little high.

  The tray reaches me and Tom takes it for himself. I watch what he does, and do as he has done. He doesn’t try to talk me out of it.

  When I’m finished, Tom passes the tray to the next person. Then he stands up and tells everybody that we are getting married. People start singing ‘Going to the Chapel’. I laugh, but I’m starting to worry about the time.

  Once I get high, I want to dance. ‘Just for five minutes,’ I say. ‘Then I better leave.’

  I feel like a god. I feel perfect. I dance in front of people without fear, and after dancing for a while, I want to sing. There isn’t much Tom can do to stop me and he doesn’t try. He just keeps calling me Mrs McGahern and I am quite sure, all of a sudden, that I am madly in love. I have never felt this happy and all that matters to me is that I should continue to feel this way. I don’t want to leave the party.

  Tom walks me to the front door at ten past three. I know the exact time because I have spent ages staring at the green light on his digital watch.

  ‘You should stay at my house,’ he says, ‘you’re going to be murdered.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I say.

  ‘I hope so,’ he says, holding me tight as though I’m about to go on a long train journey. ‘I don’t want you to get in trouble. You’re the love of my life.’

  ‘How can that be?’ I say. ‘You’ve only had a bit of a life.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he says, pulling away to look into my eyes. ‘I know I’ll never be with anybody like you again.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know for lots of reasons. I know because of your eyes, for one. They’re so beautiful.’

  ‘So?’ I say. ‘I didn’t choose them.’

  Tom lets go. ‘All right, you’re too high to talk. Go home. I’ll see you at the dress rehearsal. Sleep well.’

  ‘I feel so good,’ I say.

  ‘I know you do,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, I need twenty dollars.’

  ‘You just love me for my money,’ he says, taking a bunch of notes out of his wallet.

  ‘I love you and I love your money,’ I say, laughing like an idiot.

  I clatter through the front door. Margaret and Henry are sitting at the dining room table with two empty bottles of gin between them.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, wondering if they’ve been having a party. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I didn’t want to get driven home by anybody who’d had too much to drink.’

  Henry stands up. ‘Florence Bapes is on her way over and your suitcases are packed. We’re sorry, but you’re leaving tonight. We don’t know what else to do.’

  I don’t believe him. I think he’s having a joke and I smile and consider giving him a hug.

  Margaret picks up a bottle of gin. ‘We searched your room and found these under the mattress. Perhaps you wanted to get caught. Perhaps you were crying out for help. We hope you get that help, Lou. We really hope you do.’

  As soon as I realise they mean business, I am filled with rage. Whenever I’m caught red-handed, it’s the same. I get furious.

  ‘I asked you for fucking help,’ I say, ‘and look where that got me!’

  I collapse onto the divan in the entrance hall and cry.

  ‘Will I get to say goodbye to Bridget and James?’

  Henry comes over and kneels by the divan. He doesn’t hold my hand or comfort me,
he just kneels, with his hands awkwardly on his knees as though touching me now would breach some unwritten code of the exchange program. ‘No, we think it’ll be better if this is a clean break. Better for you, too.’

  ‘But what about the musical? It’s going on in a few months. I promise I won’t go out or drink again. It was –’

  Margaret rushes from the dining table across to the divan and slaps me hard across the face.

  I do more than cry. I gyrate and convulse and speak deranged gibberish; a kind of disorganised, unconvincing speaking in tongues.

  I’m not sure why I do this, since it can’t possibly help my cause, but I feel intensely melodramatic and want to attract the maximum amount of attention and sympathy. Perhaps I want to create the impression that there is something beyond my control at work here; that it is not me that’s bad, rather some demon I am possessed by.

  Perhaps I want to suggest that what’s really required is an exorcism. I flail around on the divan, fall to the floor and shudder about in a frenzy of upset, using language that’s filthy and disturbed. Margaret and Henry leave the room and close the door emphatically behind them. Even then, I continue to rant and spit and fling my body against the furniture. The fact that I am covering myself in bruises comforts me. I will be injured tomorrow.

  Flo Bapes comes in holding a wad of paperwork. Outside, the sky is becoming blue.

  Two officers from the Organisation are with Flo – one tall, one a little shorter, both with beards. I stare at them, as though in a daze. They look so alike standing side by side, their beards and moustaches almost identical, and as they look at me, they lick their lips simultaneously, like twins, or as though they have decided to look the same because they are secretly in love.

  I stare at the slightly shorter man who wears a brown tracksuit and hasn’t had time to brush his hair properly. I decide I will find him a brush when I go upstairs.

  I am sent up to my room to gather my things. ‘Effects’ is the word Flo uses.

  She says, with something close to relish, ‘Lou. You’d better go upstairs and gather up your personal effects while we sort out the business side of things down here.’

  I sit on the landing for a while then knock on James’ door.

  He is awake. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about all this.’ I sit on the edge of his bed. He moves his hand to turn the lamp on.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘I’ve been bawling my eyes out.’ He sits up and moves across in the bed to make more room for me. ‘I better not stay long,’ I say. ‘They’ll be coming up to get me in a minute.’

  James isn’t sleepy.

  ‘Are you leaving tonight?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes. Flo Bapes is here. They’re doing all the paperwork now.’

  ‘I was in the kitchen when Mom and Dad found the bottles. They called Flo from Dad’s mobile but I could hear everything. They say you’re an alcoholic.’

  This pisses me off.

  ‘I’ve just been drinking for rehearsals. There’s a big difference. Alcoholics drink before breakfast and beat their dogs and wives.’

  James laughs.

  ‘The understudy will get your part now. She’s pretty boring compared to you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Do you think Bridget will be awake? I want to say goodbye to her.’

  ‘Probably. There was a lot of yelling going on earlier. It’s the first time I’ve heard Mom and Dad yelling at each other. Mom thinks you’ve been using us all along and Dad totally disagrees. He says we didn’t look after you enough. He says we didn’t understand you enough. Mom was pissed about that and gave him a bit of a blasting.’

  ‘Shit,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry. Well, I better say goodbye to Bridget.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d better talk to her at the moment. She’s totally on Mom’s side. She told me earlier that she’s furious with you. She also thinks you must have stolen money to buy the gin. But I’m not mad with you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, and squeeze his hand.

  James looks at the pattern on his quilt, ‘Can you say goodbye to me properly. I feel like hell now. Couldn’t you say goodbye to me properly?’

  Little schmuck, I think.

  He reaches out for my shoulder. He wants to hug me, and then more.

  I’m wearing a blouse under a jumper. I lift my jumper and blouse up, under my chin, just enough so that James can see my breasts. His hand lifts, trembling, and reaches out. I move back a little so he can’t quite touch me. He stares hard, his face flawless and clean in the half-light, just like the night we stared at one another in the back of the van.

  I close my eyes and think of Tom while James silently jerks away under the blankets as though using a pump to fill a bicycle tyre. When he groans, I feel aroused and foolish and squalid. I stand up. James repulses me but I am not able to turn him down. I cannot abide him, but I cannot turn my back on him. The way I feel about him confuses the hell out of me.

  Flo screeches from downstairs, with no regard for the fact that people might be sleeping.

  ‘Lou, come down! We’re all waiting for you!’

  James stops and grabs hold of me. ‘I don’t want to be sick,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to be dirty. I just want to be nice with you.’

  I tell him I understand exactly what he means. I tell him that purity between people is what I always want and what I’ve always wanted between him and me. I tell him that my real family is foul; that my sisters and parents are foul and that the whole point of me coming here was to purify myself and that I never want to see them again.

  I tell him that I wanted to be different, that I am different, and that’s why I’m here. I tell him I wish we didn’t have bodies at all. I tell him that I don’t know how to live.

  ‘I don’t know how to live properly either,’ he says, pushing tears out of his eyes so that they are easier to see.

  I lean over and kiss him softly on the forehead.

  I tell him to make a wish about our futures; something pure, something to do with love. Nothing to do with sex.

  He reaches out to touch my breast and I sit again to let him do it. He puts his hand under my shirt, feels my breast, and closes his eyes. I pretend that I like it because I wish I did.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he says.

  Flo is coming up the stairs.

  I lean with my back against James’ bedroom door so she won’t be able to open it.

  ‘Did you make a wish?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Can I tell you what it was?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wished we could meet again when I’m eighteen and you’re nineteen.’

  ‘I wished we could meet again too,’ I say, lying.

  ‘Oh my God,’ says James. ‘I’ll go mad waiting.’

  ‘I hope you do,’ I say.

  ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘Goodbye.’

  I open the door and Flo takes me by the elbow.

  ‘Just let me see my room one last time,’ I say.

  ‘Well hurry up then,’ she says.

  I begin to sob when I see how little remains in my room. There’s nought but a pile of letters tied up with string; they are all the letters and stories and short plays that I have sent to Margaret and Henry and James and Bridget. The rubbish bin is full of sweet wrappers and shop receipts. The bed has been stripped and the cupboard is bare. There is an oil burner on the desk, its small white candle purifying the room. I slam the door and go back downstairs.

  Flo Bapes hands me two copies of a document and gets my signature. Margaret is clearing cups from the table. Flo has already called my mum and dad.

  I am angry now. ‘Do I get to know what’s happening next?’

  She tells me that my mum and dad have given their consent to have me placed with a new, temporary host-family. What happens to me next is up to her, she tells me, not Margaret or Henry, and certainly not me.

  ‘All right,’ says Flo, ‘we better get going.’

  Henry puts his hand on his throat, and speaks softly, ‘
You’re being taken to the home of an intermediate host-family a few miles from here and then you’ll be sent …’

  ‘Sorry, Henry, I’ll have to interrupt you there,’ says Flo, in her best officious voice, concerned not to let too many cats out of the bag at once.

  ‘We don’t know what will happen from here. What happens next partly depends on Louise and partly on the rules which, as you will understand, I didn’t have enough warning to read, considering the very grave circumstances.’

  Henry is angry now too, for having been put in his place by an ignoramus. He walks towards me, winks, and picks up one of my suitcases. ‘I’ll help you out to the car with these if that’s all right with the rules.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  Margaret doesn’t come out to the car. She stands in the doorway, crying, holding a piece of paper to her chest. She doesn’t look at me as I leave. Henry waves at me from the kerb. I wave back, like the Queen waves, and wonder if he’ll get this terrible joke.

  Part Three

  17

  I sit in the back seat of a black car with one of the bearded men. Flo is driving and the other bearded man is in the front passenger’s seat. When we have driven a few blocks, Flo tells me that I’m going to Chicago to stay in a ‘hostel for wayward exchange students’, until a decision is made about my ‘long-term future’. She tells me again that my parents have given her permission to take custody of me and that I am now in her ‘charge and care’.

  ‘I thought I was going to stay with a new family or something?’

  ‘No,’ says Flo, ‘you’re going to stay in secure accommodation.’

  She loves this.

  ‘You mean a prison,’ I say.

  ‘No, young lady. It’s secure accommodation.’

  ‘Then you lied to Margaret and Henry,’ I say.

  ‘They’ve suffered enough,’ says the bearded man sitting next to me.