Silent Child

by Toni Maguire

  Using her hand to push herself up, she moved towards the phone, though not fast enough for him. He spun round and stood in front of her, his bulk preventing her from moving any closer.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t, Betty! You just do what you do best, sit there, do nothing and listen to me,’ he instructed her.

  I saw her recoil at the sudden savage expression on his face.

  ‘Your family, I’m telling you now, they are no longer ours. Do you get it? What exactly have they ever done for us anyhow? And don’t say looking after that daughter of yours. They spoil her rotten so she gives me even more work to do. They refuse to accept she’s a complete retard and an embarrassment to you. She needs to do homework, but no, they let her watch those stupid television programmes instead. Well, no more of that! She’s old enough now to get herself back from school.

  ‘Do you hear me, Emily?’ he said, turning to me. ‘No more visiting that grandmother of yours.’

  But I could only stare at him. Nothing he was saying made sense – apart from what he really thought of me, that was. Hearing that part of the conversation, I felt as though a hole had been dug under my feet. I crossed my arms, pushed my right hand under my upper left arm and pinched the soft flesh as hard as I could.

  Feeling pain was preferable to crying.

  Not that Mum looked outraged by his opinion of me, it was the disagreement with her family that gave her concern.

  ‘You’re going to have to decide, Betty, it’s them or me.’

  ‘But, Carl . . .’

  ‘No buts, they insulted me.’

  ‘Carl, I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there, was I? I don’t even know who it was you were talking to.’

  ‘It was both your brother-in-laws. Your brother didn’t even bother to come to the house although I had asked him to. After all he said at our wedding, just puff! He sent a message saying he can’t help. I had explained earlier that I had a bit of a cash flow problem and asked if they could help, just to tide us over, so they knew exactly what I was coming for. They had told me they would have to talk it over with their wives first, your lovely sisters. So, when I went over, it was to go over the costs.

  ‘I’ve never asked them for help before. And if it was just for me, I wouldn’t have. But this was just as much for you. And our daughter, our little Maria.’

  The moment her name left his lips he looked down, his shoulders shook and pulling a hanky out of his pocket, he hastily blew his nose very hard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he added, ‘it’s just that even speaking her name chokes me up. I know I should have asked you to ask them, but I didn’t think you were strong enough.’

  ‘But you never told me there was a problem with money.’

  ‘No, well, I didn’t want to worry you at the moment. It’s just a bit of a cash flow problem, that’s all. I explained all that to them. There will be money in the coffers again next month.’

  ‘OK, Carl, but what exactly did they say? There must have been more to it than you’re telling me,’ she persisted.

  ‘If you must know, though I didn’t want to tell you, they said that they had helped you enough when you split up with Ted. This time they were not going to put their hands in their pockets, we would have to sort everything out ourselves. Anyhow, now you have it, that’s what they said.’

  I just wished I could go to my room, anything to get away from them. Surely none of this was anything to do with me?

  ‘Now, Betty, are you still saying you don’t believe me?’ he went on.

  ‘No, of course not, Carl, but I still don’t understand it.’

  ‘Well, I know they’ve never liked me, but I never thought they wouldn’t do it for you. I knew they always wanted to see us split up. They don’t think I’m a good enough stepfather for that stupid girl of yours, think I’m too strict with her.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Your mother, who else? But if it had been that girl needing money,’ he said, nodding scornfully in my direction, ‘trust me, their hands would have gone in their pockets all right! But then, she’s not my daughter, is she? So, don’t you go thinking that if you make that phone call, they will open up their cheque books. You’ll just be humiliated like I was.’

  I could see the tears running down my mother’s face at what he was saying. Every word was wounding her to the core. She must have been desperate to pick up the phone and talk to either of her sisters or her mother – there was no doubt they were important to her, something that Carl had resented ever since he came into our lives. As for me, I was just thankful that he had only used words as weapons when he had hurled that barrage of them in my direction. If he had asked me one question, I could not have uttered a word – I just felt numb. Not all of it had sunk in, but it would later on.

  ‘Carl, please let me speak to Mum at least,’ my mother said pleadingly. ‘I can’t believe that she wouldn’t help us!’

  ‘No need for you to call her and beg, Betty. I’ve already got the money,’ he said with what I detected to be a note of smugness. ‘Went to a friend of mine, a proper friend, who gave it to me straight away. And you know the only question he asked me? Was it enough?’

  Carl had watched any last semblance of defiance in my mother dwindle away and now he announced his rules for how we were to act towards everyone in her family.

  As soon as the funeral was over, they were to be cut from our lives completely.

  ‘So, you can go and visit if you like, Betty, but what would that tell me? That you’re not on my side, that’s what! For your sake, I will have to put up with them being there when we bury our daughter. If it had been up to me, I would have told them all not to come. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not welcome. But I understand that would cause you more distress.

  ‘If you want to pick up the phone and have your daily chat, feel free, but just remember what that will tell me – that you don’t mind how they spoke to me and how they humiliated me. So, what’s it going to be, you’re on their side against me?’

  Mum tried to protest, not that Carl had any interest in listening to her arguments. Instead, he carried on ranting for at least another hour until she was totally exhausted. In the end she capitulated, murmuring gently, ‘Your side, of course.’

  One down and one to go was how Carl must have looked at this victory when he finally turned his attention to me.

  ‘As for you, Emily, the same rules apply,’ he told me. ‘I’ll take you to school and you can now bring yourself home. You know the bus route, don’t you? So, no more pally-pally with that Ben you like so much. No doubt he or your grandmother will be down that school, looking for you. So, if I hear you’ve been meeting them, or going to your gran’s house, I think you know what punishment you’ll be in for. You understand me?’

  I did.

  ‘So, now you know what it is I want you to do when either of them turn up?’

  The feeling of dread that was beginning to curl around my heart told me the answer he wanted to hear from me, but still, I waited for him to say it.

  ‘You are to walk away, you understand me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘That’s your mother’s wish as well as mine, isn’t it, Betty?’

  ‘Yes, Carl,’ she said softly, but those two words did not convince me. I could tell by the tears prickling her eyes that she just wished this was not happening.

  ‘Carl,’ she said hesitantly, interrupting this tirade, ‘how are we to act at the funeral? We’ll just have to pretend everything’s all right, won’t we? It would look really bad if we didn’t.’

  I held my breath, waiting to see what he would say.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘And you,’ he said, turning to me, ‘you just keep that mouth of yours shut when you go to school tomorrow, OK? No repeating what you’ve just heard. I’ll find out all right if you have! I’ll pick you up from school. Just tomorrow, mind. Don’t expect me to do that often.’

  I didn�
�t.

  That was the end of the conversation.

  Carl had finally got what he wanted.

  I wonder now just when he had decided to put that plan into action and how he could bring himself to use his own child’s death to achieve it. There’s no doubt in my mind that he was completely aware of my mother’s fragile state and took full advantage of it.

  She was simply devastated by the death of Maria. I had seen those damp patches on her blouse that night when he let forth all his venom. Then I didn’t know what they were. Now I know that she was still producing milk for a baby who was no longer there, one she had never been able to breastfeed. Carl would have known that too. I imagine she cried every time her breasts leaked the nutrition her baby had never needed. She was simply incapable of making decisions or standing up for her family, me or herself. But that was how Carl’s mind worked – no one else in our lives had to matter.

  I can remember when Mum and I first moved into what was then our shabby flat. Outside was a small playground with a couple of swings and a climbing frame. She used to let me play there, and before he came I was out there all the time. Mum and I got friendly with one of the neighbours. We both really liked her, but he didn’t. He said she was common and that all she did was drink coffee and smoke – ‘A bad influence on Emily’ – and he didn’t want us mixing with her.

  And that was that – we just never saw her anymore.

  Nor did I play outside again.

  Chapter 36

  What do I remember about the funeral? I’ve been asked. Nothing, I was not there is the short answer. I have no idea what happened when my mother met her family – I guess she was too upset to show anything but grief for the death of her baby. That doesn’t mean I don’t have clear pictures in my head of some parts of that day. I can still see my eight-year-old self, almost in tears at being excluded from the funeral. She was trying not to protest at Carl and her mother’s decision that she was too young to attend a funeral. But still, despite Carl’s warning, she managed to blurt out that Gran and the family would expect to see her there.

  She knew it was the wrong plea when Carl’s eyes darkened.

  ‘And what did we discuss just a couple of nights ago?’ At those words, which brought that night sharply back into focus, all she could do was not let those tears out. The dreadful things he had said had kept her awake for most of the night, although the reality hadn’t really sunk in yet. She had heard him explode before and then it was all forgotten.

  Surely this time would be the same? Not that that made everything he had said to her go away.

  I can still see him standing between Mum and me, hurling those wounding words around the room; I could even hear the underlining tinge of triumph in every syllable. Another picture suddenly came into my mind, one that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up: Carl on his birthday, standing across the lawn from us and staring daggers at Ben and me, and all we were doing was chatting. Both of us had seen the thunderous expression on his face when he thought no one was looking. We had recognised the fact that he disliked seeing us together, but neither of us had thought of what his reason could have been.

  Remembering that incident caused a glimmer of suspicion to float into my thoughts, a glimmer that before the day was out had crystallised into a full-blown belief.

  Maybe Carl was scared that I would confide in Ben, if I met him at the funeral. He would not have been able to keep me glued to his side all the time, would he?

  A couple of his business friends were attending – ‘to give me support’. He had also implied that it was one of those men who he had borrowed the money from, so he would have had to spend some time with them. And he wouldn’t have wanted to appear to be acting strangely by insisting I stayed by his side – not with those friends of his there.

  I might not have had the vocabulary at that age to put my understanding of his actions into words, but I knew instantly what Carl was really up to: he resented not being the only person of importance in Mum’s life. But more than that, he didn’t want anyone else to have any influence either. Likewise, he didn’t want me to become closer to my cousins, especially one who was several years older.

  Just what might I tell him, given the opportunity? And maybe, just maybe, Mum and I would have found out that he had lied.

  The next snapshot that comes into my mind of that day of the funeral is Carl and my mother walking into the sitting room, dressed all in black. Not only was Mum wearing a knee-length skirt and a short boxy jacket, she also had a black pillbox hat with a veil that hid her eyes perched on her head. It was new and I suspected her sisters must have taken her out shopping.

  Carl had arranged for one of his friends’ wives – another blonde in a tight dress and high heels – to sit with me. What was it with these wives? Why was it so hard to tell one from the other? And it was always apparent that they were all a lot younger than their husbands.

  ‘Hello,’ she had said, ‘I’m Sally. I’m going to keep you company. Anything you would like to do?’

  Yes, go to my room and ignore you.

  ‘We could watch television,’ I told her as brightly as I could manage, thinking at least I would not have to make any conversation then. To be fair, she did her best. She asked me to choose what I wanted to watch, not that I really had any desire to watch anything – I wanted to be at the funeral where I could say goodbye to my sister.

  Sally made me some lunch and tried her best to chat with me. And I, realising the despondent mood I was in was not her fault, made a little effort too and thanked her for making my lunch.

  I can remember when they came back, though. Mum was weeping uncontrollably, her whole body shaking with grief. And Carl seemed to be holding her up and with his arm around her, led her to the bedroom. Sally made a hasty exit and that left me alone with him.

  He told me that it was Mum’s family who had organised all the food and drinks for the mourners. ‘That’s the last time I will have to talk to them,’ he said with that smirk that repulsed me.

  I mean, how two-faced was that? Letting them supply all the food and drinks when he was planning to make them all disappear from our lives within a few hours?

  ‘Now, you remember what we discussed the other night, don’t you, Emily?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Of course, I had hoped that this proclamation was just a show of temper and he would relent, but his next sentence told me there was no chance of that.

  ‘I expect you to obey those rules completely, starting from tomorrow. Have I made that clear enough?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  And as he said it, he smiled at me – the one that showed his teeth, but never quite reached his eyes.

  ‘I know this has been hard on you, Emily, and very hard on your mother too, but we will get through it, we are still a family.’

  I kept my face as blank as I could.

  Had he forgotten what he said about me such a short time ago? He might be able to dismiss it, but I couldn’t.

  And I never did.

  I went to my room then. Lay on the bed dry-eyed with my fists clenched hard, wishing the next day would never come.

  After some lapse of time, he called out to me, saying he had left some food out and it was on the table – he was just going to see how my mother was. I didn’t want any food, but knowing it would infuriate him if I ignored him, I tiptoed out.

  So, I ate alone on the day of my sister’s funeral. Then I washed my plate and took myself to bed, that I remember. But not as much as I have perfect recall of what came later. I was reading with my bedside light on when I heard his footsteps coming down the hall: he was still awake. Quick as a flash, my light went off, the book I had been staring at disappeared under my pillow and I curled up as tightly as I could.

  If he looks in, he will think I’m asleep, I thought to myself.

  I heard the click of my bedroom door opening, then I smelt the waft of his aftershave and with a shudder, I knew he was in my
room. Oh, please, I said to myself silently, please don’t tell me to get out of bed and take a shower with you. Even at eight, I already knew that taking me into the bathroom had little to do with getting clean. It was all about power, wasn’t it? Not that I understood that when I was still that little girl. All I knew was that Fear had also entered the room alongside the man who, with his beatings and threats, was responsible for it seldom leaving me alone.

  It was that little demon who made me obey Carl’s commands and place a smile of enjoyment on his face when, without a murmur, I obediently followed him into the bathroom. He took great delight in watching me, my face burning with shame, standing naked before him; he enjoyed touching me everywhere, and not always through the towels either. I’d seen that gloating expression on his face when he saw how I tried to avert my eyes from looking at his body with that ugly red thing sticking out, felt his breath quicken against my neck when my body was pressed tightly against him and sensed his approaching excitement as he ground himself harder against me. I just hoped he would believe I was asleep and go away if I lay completely still and tried to breathe deeply.

  None of that fooled him.

  ‘I know you’re still awake, Emily,’ said his voice coming from above my head and I knew my wish had not been granted, he was not going to leave.

  ‘You can’t fool me, can you?’ his voice told me, and I felt cold air against my back and then the mattress seemed to be sinking as he lifted the duvet and crawled in.

  ‘Thought I would spend some time with you. You’ve been on your own all day, haven’t you?’

  I wish.

  ‘Your mother’s taken a sleeping pill. She won’t wake up until morning and I think we both need some company.’

  But it wasn’t company he wanted – well, not like a social chat. He wasn’t going to ask me what I might want to talk about, was he? He could have asked if I wanted to hear about the funeral, not what they had to eat afterwards. If he had, I could have used my imagination to picture the coffin being lowered into the ground, heard the minister’s prayer and watched as my mum threw a soft toy into the grave to keep her company. Then, with that image in my head, I might have said my final farewells. But that was not what he had in mind: he had neither interest nor compassion for my own grieving, the only people who would have understood were the very ones I was now forbidden to talk to.