The Playground

by Jane Shemilt

  Melly swapped one tyrant for another, her father for her husband; it’s hard to know who caused the most damage, especially as she was hell-bent on damaging herself. When you are anorexic, it actually does something to your vision; you can’t properly assess what you see. I heard that on the radio yesterday and I wanted to tell her, but I’m not sure if that would help; not now.

  I was damaged by greed: my own. My grandfather told me that anything was possible; it wasn’t his fault that I believed him. I thought I could manage it all—work, marriage, kids, writing, being scared. That was wrong, or worse, half right. He forgot to add that anything is possible, but not on your own. He might have thought that was completely obvious; I grew up in an African village, after all. I should have asked for help when I needed it. He told me to walk slowly and he was right. I might have noticed what was there in front of me. You can’t blame Melly for not seeing things properly, when I wasn’t watching either.

  10. November

  Melissa

  Melissa wakes in the early morning, it’s still dark. She doesn’t move, moving seems impossible. Her face throbs with pain. Paul is snoring on his side, a meaty hand clenched even in sleep. What happened last night seeps back. She’d crawled upstairs, swallowing acetaminophen and ibuprofen from the packets in the bathroom cabinet. Then Ambien, which worked, though the blows, starting later, shocked her from sleep, hard punches landing on her face and body. She’d tried to shield herself but that only made it worse. Eventually he stopped. She can’t remember anything else.

  She gets up slowly, gasping with pain, still in yesterday’s clothes, though her pants and jeans are around her ankles. She pulls them up and stumbles into the bathroom; walking hurts, her hip joints are stiff. The damage is much worse than usual; a bruise lies along her left jaw like mauve paint, clumsily applied. Her cheeks are swollen. There is a split in her skin like a tear that runs from the edge of her left eye to her mouth. It is possible to open her mouth. She unzips her top; a deep red splash of blood under the skin extends across her chest. She rotates her shoulder, also possible. She slips her hand down between her legs; blood on her fingers, her vulva is tender. No wonder it hurts to walk.

  He’ll avoid her for a while, though he won’t apologize. He used to give her jewelry after episodes like this but he doesn’t do that anymore. She turns away from the mirror and limps to the stairs. She needs tea, hot, sweet tea, and then she might sleep again.

  The kitchen is shadowy in the early light; the luminous clockface reads six thirty. An empty vodka bottle lies on its side by the sink. She walks slowly to the kettle, trying not to jar her face; she switches it on, reaches for a cup, then stops. She can hear the soft sounds of breathing coming from the open door of the pantry. Lina’s boyfriend back again? A different intruder? She feels very calm; there is little anyone can do to make things worse. She doesn’t care. Paul has pushed her somewhere beyond caring: beyond anger, beyond sadness, and so far from happiness that nothing matters at all; though she is grateful, as she slides a knife from the rack, that Izzy isn’t in the house. Her daughter is safe. Whatever happens to her own body now seems irrelevant. She walks to the pantry, clutching the knife, and opens the door.

  A girl is curled in sleep on the floor, long hair covering her face, her dark limbs loose. Melissa is shocked to stillness. Her thoughts skate to another girl, a younger child—Sorrel curled in an attic cupboard or underground. This girl’s arms are thin, she has a sparkling bangle around her wrist, her hair is tangled. Someone’s daughter. She might be a friend of Izzy’s or Lina’s, given temporary shelter. Melissa puts the knife on the shelf, kneels beside the sleeping form, and gently touches her hand. The girl jolts awake with a gasp, lifts her head, and puts an arm across her stomach. Dark eyes scan hers, Lina’s eyes. Melissa’s bewilderment changes, deepens. Without the hijab, the thick makeup, and her disguising robes, Lina is a teenager, staring up in terror, her cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Lina?”

  Shame and fear struggle in those dark eyes. Melissa’s thoughts fly to Izzy sleeping peacefully, unaware of what is happening at home. Safe. She smiles at Lina as reassuringly as she can.

  “Let’s get you up.” She puts an arm around Lina and lifts her to her feet, bringing her into the kitchen. She sees a bruise on her temple, another on her arm, and something else, just as chilling, more perhaps. Lina is cupping her abdomen, but clearly outlined in her thin slip beneath the protective arm, the unmistakable swelling of a pregnancy that has only just begun to show. Melissa might have missed it if Lina wasn’t so slim. Melissa’s mind quietens as though the noise of years has faded away. Things do matter after all. She does care. She picks up the blanket from the sofa and wraps it around Lina as carefully as if she were another daughter.

  “Sit with me, Lina, please.” She touches the sofa beside her and Lina lowers herself gradually.

  “What happened?” She makes her voice as gentle as she can but Lina seems frozen with fear.

  “Did someone hurt you?”

  The dark eyes lower, she nods.

  “Who was it? Can you tell me?”

  Lina lifts her head and stares at her; in the shame of that gaze, Melissa understands. The truth had been waiting for her all along; she had only to look, she had only to listen. She puts her hand on top of Lina’s. The truth was hiding in sounds: the office door closing quietly each Saturday on pay day, the weeping in the pantry when the boyfriend was blamed; it had been in the way Lina’s gaze never met her own; it’s here, in the bracelet on Lina’s arm. A sorry present from Paul, like the ones she used to get. There are moments in life, not many, when you know with clarity that something has started or come to its end. At this moment she knows her marriage is over, that she will leave Paul, taking Izzy, and that her responsibility for Lina has begun.

  “We need to leave. It’s too dangerous for you here.” She can take Lina to safety and come back for Izzy within hours. Lina looks at her; her eyes are unfathomable.

  “We need to find somewhere safe for you until I can find a home for all of us, you, me, and Izzy.” A house of some kind or a flat, they’ll rent somewhere first. She could find a different school for Izzy if necessary. Anything is possible once you make up your mind.

  The dark eyes flare, hope or mistrust, she isn’t sure which. How much can Lina understand? It’s ridiculous that she doesn’t know still exactly how well they can really communicate. The kettle has boiled. Melissa makes a cup of tea, adds honey, then gives it to Lina. She sits next to her again, watching her sip and the color creep into her cheeks.

  All the questions she can’t ask jumble in her mind: How often did he hit you? How many times were you raped? Why didn’t you tell me? But she knows the answer to the last one: Lina didn’t tell her because she was ashamed, as she herself has been, for years. Lina’s hand is trembling, the tea almost slopping over. Melissa takes the cup and puts it on the table. Someone else will have to ask her those questions. She’ll give answers more easily to a counselor than to the wife of the man who hurt her.

  “Should we tell anyone that we are going? I know you split up with your boyfriend, but maybe there’s someone—?”

  At the mention of the boyfriend Lina shakes her head so violently that her hair flies about her face; perhaps he hadn’t been a boyfriend after all, but just the last in a line of criminals who handed her over to men like Paul. They might still be around, keeping watch, ready to track her down if she tries to leave. Lina needs to go somewhere safe, but has she the right to take her away from the place she knows, as if Lina were her property? Has she the right not to?

  “If I can find a place for you to go, would you allow me to take you there?”

  Lina stares at her, her eyes narrowed with concentration, the effort of taking it in.

  “There are places, houses, where women go when they’ve been hurt, where they couldn’t find you.” She can take her right now and return for Izzy later. “I’ll need to make a phone call, but if you’re okay with it,
we should leave pretty soon. What do you think?”

  Lina looks around the kitchen, the cupboards, the sink, the stove where she cooked, the window she’d gazed from, as if she’s saying goodbye. Her focus settles on the little cat, curled now in her basket. Melissa waits, her heart beating fast.

  “Lina?”

  Lina looks up at her. “Okay.” She nods slowly. “Okay.”

  “We may have to drive for a while. Can you put what you need in a bag, your passport and something warm to wear?”

  “Passport.” Lina shakes her head. “Your husband has.”

  Paul must have taken it for safekeeping, or more likely, to prevent her escape. “I’ll find it. In the meantime, would you like me to tell the police what’s happened?”

  Lina stares. Her eyes are full of fear; she might have no visa and no official permission to work here.

  “No police, okay. I understand. I’ll knock on your door in ten minutes.”

  Lina stands up, still wrapped in the blanket, and disappears swiftly up the stairs.

  The National Domestic Violence helpline springs up on the screen in Paul’s study when Melissa taps Women’s Aid into the keyboard. She jabs the number into her phone with fingers that fumble with haste. A brisk voice answers. She explains she is calling on behalf of her maid, giving an account of how she found Lina, what she saw.

  “Yes, the perpetrator has access to her.”

  Unwise to name her husband, they might suspect an agenda. Lina can fill them in.

  “Sixteen, maybe younger.”

  No one could have guessed; Lina was never without makeup and obscuring clothes.

  “Syria. My husband said we were doing a favor for a friend by taking her on.”

  I never suspected he was lying, which was stupid; he’s lied to me so often.

  “Bruising. She’s pregnant.”

  Paul would want to get rid of it, remove the incriminating evidence.

  “I haven’t asked specifically about rape.”

  I’m certain, though. He raped me, for years.

  “She doesn’t want me to involve the police.”

  I wish I hadn’t mentioned the police to her, she was frightened.

  “Can I bring her now?”

  The woman explains that Lina would be welcome to seek immediate refuge but that she will need more details from Lina and she must ask for refuge herself. That’s crucial. They have translators if language is a problem—women in many shelters speak Arabic, though it will depend which dialect she speaks: Levantine, Bedawi, or Mesopotamian, for instance; there are many others. Funding will be necessary; normally there’s a process of application for money.

  “I can pay, whatever it costs.”

  She’s advised it’s best to travel a distance from the abuser, out of London if possible; is there anywhere that she might like? Melissa stares at the map on the wall above Paul’s desk, scanning cities at speed: Oxford, Brighton, Guildford, Chichester. The little red circles blur and jump: Reading, Swindon, Bath, Salisbury. The circle steadies.

  “Would Salisbury be possible? I’ll be working nearby, so I can visit. Yes, of course; I’ll wait.”

  Melissa puts her phone on silent and creeps into her bedroom. Paul’s mouth is open, his arms flung wide. He looks unconscious. She retrieves his keys from the floor by his side of the bed where he dropped them. When her phone vibrates, she tiptoes from the room to answer. Lina will be welcome in the Salisbury shelter, she is told, provided she asks for herself. One of the clients is Arabic—she speaks in Mesopotamian dialect but is familiar with some others—hopefully they will be able to communicate. She is given the number, which she puts into her phone.

  “Lina will call on the way; we need to leave now. Thank you, thank you.”

  The clock on Paul’s desk reads seven A.M. They’ll reach Salisbury by nine depending on traffic. By the time she returns, Paul will be at work. She’ll pack then, and collect Izzy from Eve’s after school; their new life will start.

  The large white filing cabinet in Paul’s study is locked. She opens his desk drawers in turn, leafing fast through papers, documents, bills, envelopes. In the bottom drawer she pushes two empty whisky bottles aside, finding the red woolen pouch Izzy knitted him when she was a child for his most important, secret things. The keys to the filing cabinet are inside as she thought they would be; he always does what Izzy tells him to.

  The passport is in the third drawer down in the filing cabinet. Dark blue, a phoenix stamped in gold on the cover, Lina Lahood. A young, hopeful face stares up at her. Fifteen years old. Fifteen. Melissa hunts through the other drawers, feeling sick. There’s no sign of a visa or a permit of any kind. She locks the drawers and replaces the key in the pouch and the pouch in the drawer, rearranges the desk as it was and turns off the light. Passport in hand, she tiptoes up the stairs to the third floor. The door to Lina’s room is closed.

  She knocks softly.

  No answer. Lina must be hunting through drawers as well, trying to decide what to take, what to leave behind.

  “I’ve found you a place to stay,” Melissa whispers.

  She waits for the sound of a drawer closing, footsteps approaching the door, but the room is quiet.

  She knocks once more, whispers more urgently, “We have to leave right now.”

  Silence.

  “May I come in?”

  She pushes the door open.

  The bed is neatly made, the blanket from the sofa folded at the bottom.

  Lina has gone.

  Eve

  Eve’s head jerks from the kitchen table as the sound of banging grows louder. She must have fallen asleep for a few minutes though she didn’t mean to, hadn’t thought it would be possible.

  Eric crosses the room to the door, stumbling a little as he hurries. He hasn’t slept properly either. She hears his footsteps in the hall, the bolt sliding back, and the door opening, then voices, low-pitched, serious, female. Eric enters the kitchen again, looking about the room as if lost and finding his bearings in an unfamiliar place.

  “Igor’s refusing to open his door to the police; they want him for questioning again. They’ve asked me to go and calm him down.”

  “Igor?”

  The shock is sickening, like a blow to her face. Igor. A second later she is surprised by her surprise; it makes terrible sense. The man who had watched her, or seemed to, must have been watching Sorrel all along. He must have looked at her from behind the trees in the garden, or through the lit windows of the house in the dark, waiting for the moment when the family was distracted. What better distraction could he have hoped for than the death of her little brother?

  She follows Eric to the hall. Four policemen are waiting by the door, two men, two women.

  “Why do you need Igor?” she asks the Indian woman. “What’s he done?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t share that information yet.” She looks genuinely sorry. Eve feels her own face tighten. She pulls on a coat with clumsy hands as Eric shoves his feet into boots. She watched Igor put Sorrel on his shoulders after a fall; those small legs dangling on either side of the bull neck; even then she’d felt uneasy. If Igor has hurt her daughter she will kill him. She fastens her coat and runs to join the others, her slippers slithering on the icy ground. The dark air seems tinged with red. If he is guilty, she will find a gun and fire it at him. The bullet would make a neat wound in that vast chest. She would fire twice, no, many times, and walk away without a second glance. She follows the little group, hardly aware of the direction. The bungalow is beyond the barns; the place is screened from the house by a strip of pines, the lower branches shaggy and brown. She has walked past without looking for months, years even. The policeman holds the gate open; once inside the trees, the quiet deepens, as though they have stepped underground. The lawn is cut, the path looks swept, even the soil in the beds is as evenly granulated as cake crumbs. The order is menacing, like a prison yard enforced by some obsessive guard; what obsessions drive Igor?

 
Eric knocks at the door. “Igor, it’s me, Eric. Don’t be scared.”

  The door is opened a few inches; Igor’s frowning face appears. It’s all Eve can do not to shove him aside and run past him, screaming her daughter’s name.

  “It’s all right,” Eric says quickly. “There’s been a mistake.”

  “Igor Kowalski,” the largest policeman intones, “we ask you to accompany us to the station to answer some questions in connection with the disappearance of Sorrel Kershaw.”

  Igor opens the door a little farther, still frowning. He looks fatter in his pajamas, his paunch revealed by the soft cloth. His stubble is orange against the pallid white of his skin.

  “I’m sure we can clear this up quickly.” Eric steps in front of the policeman and puts a hand on Igor’s shoulder. “I’ll come to the station with you.”

  Igor takes in the group on his doorstep; his bulldog face sags. He looks uneasy, guilty even. Eric places his own jacket carefully around his great shoulders. Eve shudders at the thought of those muscles, their brute capability. Eric clearly believes in his innocence; a man is innocent until proved guilty, he would tell her in his measured tone, but it wouldn’t make any difference to the way she feels—Igor looks guilty because he probably is.

  “I’m coming too.” She steps forward, puts her hand on Eric’s arm. “I have to be there; I want to know the instant he tells them—”

  “You need to be here for Poppy, keep things steady for her,” Eric replies quietly. “I’ll phone as soon as I find out anything.”

  He’s right, she knows that. She must stay here. Poppy will need to know her mother’s at home, not where she’d rather be, beating on doors in the police station, begging for information. She watches Eric hurry after Igor as he is led away by the policemen, stumbling in his loose slippers. She might have known. It’s what people always say, that the criminal is someone close to you, someone who has been there from the start, inside your home or nearby. She attempts to enter the bungalow, but the Scottish policewoman steps in front of her, shuts the door, and stands with her back to it. “I regret you are not permitted to enter.”