by Frances Vick
‘OK. What did he do? Marc? No, wait.’ She held up one hand. ‘No. Second thoughts I don’t want to know.’
‘I’ll tell you though.’
‘No.’ Kathleen looked her hard in the eyes. ‘I don’t want to hear it. There’s no point. It’s over now, isn’t it? Whatever it was that happened to you, you survived it and it’s all finished with.’
Despite herself, pain welled. Old Jenny’s eyes widened, tears shone, nearly spilled before New Jenny stepped in, squashed it all down. She looked at Kathleen, silently. Fuck you Kathleen. Fuck you.
‘Yes, I survived it,’ she said after a while.
Kathleen smiled. ‘’Course you did. You’re tough as old boots. Like me.’
Jenny smiled back. Fuck you Kathleen. ‘I’m glad I’m like you, Auntie Kathleen.’
Touched, Kathleen smiled again, softer. She took her hand. ‘I’ll tell you this: if you let her go back, it’ll all start again.’ She gently rapped their joined hands on the table for emphasis, and sat back, looking expectantly at Jenny.
‘We won’t go back.’
‘Damn right you won’t. You’ll leave, go to another town, get another school, all that. If you don’t, then you’ll end up back there with him.’ Kathleen sighed. ‘I love your mother dearly, but she’s a stupid mare when it comes to men. She doesn’t have the sense she was born with. But you, you’ve got sense. You can sort it all out – you’re very capable.’ She paused, looked up expectantly, but New Jenny didn’t feel like giving her what she wanted right then. Instead, New Jenny let the silence lengthen, and watched as Kathleen become more and more uncomfortable. She thought she could buy her off with compliments like ‘You’ve got sense’. Stupid. Stupid patronising—
‘Jen? I said you’re very capable.’ It was interesting, New Jenny thought, how Kathleen really couldn’t cope with silence. Let’s see how she copes with non sequiturs, shall we?
‘My dad. What was he like?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Didn’t you go out with him, too?’
Kathleen looked rattled, confused. ‘What? Your dad? He was nice looking. Nice-looking man. Nice skin – his mum was from Dominica, I think? Anyway. Nice skin. Daft though. Why?’
‘But what was he like?’
Kathleen stared at her. ‘I just told you!’ she said.
‘I mean, as a person, what was he like?’
Kathleen rolled her eyes. ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Jen. I don’t know. Nice enough. Daft though. Liked football—’
‘Where is he now, then?’
‘Oh God knows? God knows. Soon as you came along he went. That’s what happens, isn’t it? Or sometimes they don’t leave and, believe me, that’s worse.’
‘I was just thinking how funny life is, though; I mean, it could’ve been you that had a baby with him, and not Mum. I could have been your daughter, and not hers.’ Jenny smiled vaguely. ‘I always thought you were a good mum.’ She watched Kathleen’s reaction, noted the confused irritation driven out by flattered gratitude, thought she might as well push it a bit further. ‘It sounds awful, but, you know, when I was little? I sometimes wished you were my mum.’
‘Oh Jen! Come here!’ Kathleen reached over for a brief, awkward hug. Her clothes smelled of cigarettes. Her breath smelled of pennies. ‘Listen, my love. You’re just as much a daughter to me as Maraid and Ros. OK?’
Who would have thought it? Kathleen – the dyed-in-the-wool cynic, this abrupt, unsentimental force of nature – rolled over if you stroked her ego the right way. ‘Tell me what to do, Auntie Kathleen? Please?’
Kathleen sat back, wiped her eyes. ‘Right. This is what I’ve always told my girls, so pay attention: women have to stick together. We’re all born strong, but life kicks it out of most of us, and the ones who are strongest have to help the weaker ones. Like carrying a toddler when they’re tired.’ She shook her head bleakly. ‘It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Sal’s like a baby, and it’s your job to carry her. It’s not fair, but fair’s got nothing to do with it. She’s your mum, and that’s what you do.’ Kathleen sighed again. ‘Men are always going to take advantage of people like your mum. They always have and they always will. But not you. It won’t happen to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m going to tell you now how to avoid it.’ Kathleen smiled craftily. ‘When it comes to men, they’ll always take advantage. It’s their nature, so you’ve got to do it to them before they do it to you. Take them for everything they’ve got – in a nice way, you know, and, if you can’t do that, then get the hell out of it. This Marc thing – whatever it was that happened – it taught you a valuable lesson.’ She crinkled her eyes in a conspiratorial way. ‘Don’t fall for the talk, the presents, none of it. Take them, say thanks, but don’t ever think you owe a man anything, and if they hurt you, hurt them back, worse. Do whatever you have to do. Does that make sense?’
It did make sense. It made a lot of sense. Jenny took her hand then, felt her hot, dry fingers. She said: ‘I love you, Auntie Kathleen.’ And, right then, she meant it.
Outside, Kathleen buttoned up Jenny’s jacket for her, and back at the refuge she hugged her again – two hugs in fifteen years and both in one day.
‘You’re a good girl, Jen,’ Kathleen managed, dabbed her eyes, stepped back. ‘Now, remember what I’ve said, all right? You’ve got to do it to them before they do it to you. All right. Call me whenever you want, OK? Promise?’
Sal wasn’t in the room when she got back. The bedclothes had been shoved aside and the pillow was cool.
‘Mum?’
A horrible certainty was edging into her mind.
Sal was standing with her back to the street, in a lone phone box just behind the refuge. She must have picked it because it was so secluded. That was the thing about Sal – she was cunning in that way. She even had Kathleen fooled on that one. Jenny crept up behind her, closer, closer until she heard Sal’s breathy telephone voice on their old answer machine: ‘And if you will leave your number, I will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.’ Sal took a breath, about to speak. She was already crying.
Jenny grabbed the hand holding the receiver and smashed it against the toughened glass. Then, breathing heavily, grabbing Sal’s injured arm, she dragged her out into the cold still air and all the way back to the refuge. Sal cradled her arm, whimpered: ‘You’re hurting my bad arm, grabbing me like that’, but that only made Jenny dig her fingers in more, pull her along quicker. When they got back to the refuge, she marched her up the stairs to their room, propelled her towards the bed, all without saying a word.
Sal curled up and kept on crying. It was almost like she was enjoying herself, savouring it, cuddling and cooing to herself on the bed like a big baby, while Jenny, silent, watched, and as minutes ticked, she found herself understanding Marc, thinking, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t all his fault… Sal loved being the victim, the child, just as much as Marc loved being the bully, the Man. The more pathetic she got, the more contempt he had, and the more contempt he had, the happier she was. He hit her because she deserved it. Because she asked for it. She fucking loved it. That was what kept them together, and that’s what would make her go back, again and again, unless Jenny stopped it. But pleading wouldn’t work. Speaking sense wouldn’t work. There was only one thing that Sal understood.
And so Jenny watched her mother’s genuine tears stop and the fake ones begin. She watched her rock herself like a baby on the rumpled sheets, muttering to herself that she was so lonely and so sad and only wanted her stuff back and just thinking about you and how’d we end up here and why do bad things happen to good people and…
Jenny crossed to the bed, knelt at her feet. Sal looked up, hopefully, pathetically, through damp eyelashes. ‘You don’t know what it is to be lonely, Jen. You don’t know—’
‘Fucking shut up,’ Jenny told her quietly.
‘Don’t say that.’ Sal’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t talk to me like that—’
‘Here’s what’s happeni
ng. We’re moving away. You’ll never see him again. If you behave well, I’ll get your stuff back, but you’re never seeing him again, all right?’
‘But—’
‘No,’ Jenny said. ‘Listen to me now. I’ve had it. I don’t care how you feel. I don’t care any more. I’m doing this for me, and you’re not going to fuck it up.’
Sal’s mouth pursed. She looked like an angry baby. ‘Selfish—’
Slowly, almost dreamily, Jenny pulled one arm back. Sal watched her fist warily. ‘What’re you—’
Then Jenny slammed her fist into Sal’s quavering chin, paused, then did it again. Paused, then did it again, and again, until her bunched knuckles hurt, and her arm felt weak. Sal fell back, crying now with real pain.
Jenny walked slowly down the stairs into the kitchen to get some water. One of the residents, a woman called Karen, with rivulets of scar tissue running down her face where an ex had thrown boiling fat on her, stood by the window sipping tea.
‘You all right, darling?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, well, Mum’s got a migraine. Stress. She’s really depressed.’
Karen’s ridged scars contracted, rippled. ‘Oh, poor love. I’ve got some painkillers – you want some?’
‘Oh, really, you can spare them?’
‘Oh, I’ve got loads. Take ’em like Smarties.’ She laughed a little sadly. ‘They’re strong though – dihydrocodeine? She won’t do much but sleep if she’s not used to them.’
‘I want her to sleep, to tell the truth. She needs it.’
‘Oh, bless you.’ Karen’s ravaged face was gentle. ‘She’s lucky to have you, she really is. Come with me.’ She led Jenny to her room, dark and humid. Pictures of her children – all of whom were now fostered – had been tacked up on the wall above the bed in the shape of a heart. Beneath them, in careful, tumbling letters, she’d written ‘My Angels’ in lipstick. She gave Jenny the pills, almost a full packet. ‘You only get one Mum, don’t you? Got to look after her.’
Jenny nodded. ‘I know. She’s my best friend.’
Back upstairs, Sal had stopped crying, and was sitting on the bed, watching the door expectantly. She had a bloodied tissue in one hand.
‘I’m sorry, Jen.’ Her speech was slurred with blood – two teeth had loosened and she’d bitten her tongue.
‘Don’t make me do that again.’
Sal shook her head, grave as a child.
‘Because I will. You know I will now, don’t you?’
‘Yesh.’
‘Say you understand then.’
‘Yesh. Yesh I unnerstand.’ A thin trickle of blood ran down her chin.
Jenny shook out two pills. ‘Take these.’
‘Whudardey?’
‘Painkillers.’
Sal took them, and obediently lay down. There was a look of dazed gratitude in her eyes. It was the same expression seen on the faces of released hostages, facing the cameras after years in captivity.
54
Sal stayed supine. She signed where she had to sign, called who she had to call, and did it all under Jenny’s supervision. Only once did she speak up – leave the city? All her friends? But Jenny silenced her with a look. One of Kathleen’s admirers, a jolly man called John, drove them up to their new house in his car. Their belongings barely filled the boot. Kathleen kept up a brisk and cheerful commentary as the fag ends of the city slid past the windows in muddy daubs. It was lovely where they were going. You’ve been there, John? Haven’t you?
‘Oh yes. Lovely. It’s like something out of Miss Marple up there. Very picture-squeue,’
‘“Picture-squeue”. You’re funny, John,’ Kathleen said perfunctorily.
Jenny smiled, nudged Sal, who smiled too.
Those first few weeks were rocky, but Sal seemed to have learned her lesson. It helped that Marc died so soon after they moved. She lost all interest in going back to the city. She lost interest in everything, while Jenny thrived. She was a clever girl, pretty, popular enough. When she got a place at university, Sal told her she was proud, and Kathleen sent her a novelty mug from Tenerife – where she’d moved a few years before – with ‘Don’t Mess with this Tough Bitch!’ on it. The design melted off in the dishwasher within a week.
Things fell apart at university, though. Living in Halls of Residence mirrored and magnified her sense of difference. The other students drifting together in little eddies and tides of privilege made her… angry. They were more rooted than she could ever be; they had a kind of animal sense of security that Jenny thought she’d managed to achieve by moving to the village, and now understood that she’d never had at all. Maybe it would have been easier if she was with Freddie, but he was in London having a great time at his own university. When they spoke, she tried to sound cheerful, but afterwards she always cried.
She was out of her depth here. Not such a Tough Bitch after all.
She only lasted two terms. One afternoon, in a tutorial on the developmental effects of neglect, she felt something inside her switch, as if her response system had short-circuited. She stared around the table and nothing made sense – the earnest, pale children in the room seemed alien; the words were only words; the whole exercise was witless. When she tried to speak to the tutor afterwards, she couldn’t make him understand why she was so upset, and she could see that her emotions frightened him, which made her hate him.
She came back home at Christmas to find that, in the few months she’d been away, Sal had changed, and for the better She looked years younger, had lost a stone, and hadn’t had a drink in weeks. Jenny found this more unsettling than welcome. It meant that she was the only broken person in the house. She retreated to her little pink bedroom that felt like a used womb.
And weeks became months until Sal asked her to leave. She wasn’t going back, was she? Face it. Why not sign up with temping agencies? You can’t stay here on no money, you know. Why d’you want to stay here anyway?
So, Jenny, in a fit of masochism, moved to the city – the same city she’d left when she was fifteen and had never been back to since. Too many bad memories. Strangely though, once she was there, she liked it. She never came across old faces; she never went to their old area. The centre had been gentrified enough to (almost) make it seem like a different city to the one she’d lived in and left.
The menial jobs she took were strangely soothing. Simple, transactional work, with no grey areas and no reason to think. Jobs where she was obviously the cleverest, the quickest. It did wonders for her self-esteem. This strange hibernation lasted for two years, until Freddie finished university, came back, and took it on himself to drag her out of her burrow. It was good to have him back, even though he tended to bully her into self-improvement. She was so bright! For God’s sake, don’t sell yourself short! Therapy? Why not? Jesus Jen, you can’t go on like this!
And so she’d let herself be talked into seeing Cheryl, and the thread of her life untangled, smoothed and strengthened. Over the months that followed, Cheryl made her understand that what had happened at university was in many ways an inevitability. It all came down to her childhood – the chaos of living with Marc, the pain of being a parent to a parent, the crushing pressure Kathleen had brought to bear at that pivotal point of assumed escape – look after Sal, carry her, That Is Your Role. How on earth could she come into her own with Sal always waiting in the wings, ready and willing to ruin Jenny’s successful Second Act?
Each week, Cheryl picked up Sal, turned her over like some dead crab on the beach, stinking of rot, and she and Jenny would let rip… A terrible mother. A selfish mother. A damaging person; toxic. And so what if she’d stopped drinking? So what if she was fine now, had a job, was independent? Why did she wait until Jenny left home to turn into a functioning adult? Jenny had every right to take her desires as reality, just so long as she truly believed in the reality of her desires.
Jenny revelled in this power that was both intoxicatingly novel and strangely familiar. Later, she realised that she’d had the s
ame fleeting feeling once before, when her fist had connected with Sal’s jaw all those years ago.
Then, something happened that changed her life for ever.
Ryan Needham.
There was something weird about that guy. She didn’t trust that guy. He was too perfect. Freddie was just too nice to see it, but Ryan was playing him. Manipulating him. After a particularly invigorating session with Cheryl, on a whim, Jenny messaged Ryan – if he was even called Ryan – and, feeling like she was in an episode of Catfish, told him she knew he was a fake. And it felt good. It felt really good to… win. To call a man out on manipulation, watch him squirm, watch him try and fail to defend himself.... he’d only done it to get close to her, and he was so sorry… it was pathetic. For the next few minutes she was content to watch him tie himself in knots over Messenger. Oh, they went to school together did they? Like she gave a shit. He was sorry, was he, and he didn’t mean to hurt anyone? Well, he might not have meant to, but he had – leading someone on like that for months on end. Jesus. Then she asked for a photo. If he was fool enough to send her one then he really was as stupid as he seemed.
When he did send her a photo, she laughed aloud again. Now she had a face to go with the name, she recognised him straightaway. David Crane: that creepy boy who’d dropped out of school. Who, she faintly remembered now, had stopped her in the graveyard once and made awkward conversation about World War Two. He’d got better-looking in the last few years, but still. He was back in the village, looking after his mum. That rang a bell – that big house. The cleaning company Sal worked for, they cleaned it. Mrs Hurst had told her... Rich. They were the richest people in the village.
This put a new complexion on things.
And so she kept the conversation to herself. She made ‘Ryan’ disappear from Freddie’s life, nursed Freddie through his (frankly, over-the-top) grief, while keeping in touch with David. After all, it wasn’t often that a rich, easily controlled man came along. He cried out to be cultivated. Kathleen would have been proud.