Tears of Gold: Tears of Ink #3

by Bloom, Anna

  “It’s okay. I know you guys are used to more conceptual work from me.”

  “Faith.” I don’t want to meet his eyes.

  “Don’t you dare look at me with pity, Damien.”

  “Are you loco, Faith? I’m looking at you like you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.” He nods his head to the pictures. “But this, it’s different for you. Your work is raw and fluid; this is structured, controlled.”

  “And you hate it.” I start to gather up the pictures.

  “No.” He stills my hand. “I love it. But how does it fit in with what you are doing? You are going to be filming for the Tate. How does it work?”

  My shoulders lift and then fall with the weight of a hundred-ton brick. “I have no idea. It’s the first thing that’s come to me for ages.”

  “You create from your heart. Can you do more of this?”

  “Shit, Damien. I don’t bloody know.”

  “It’s you though, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “How else can you tell your story? What else do you have to say?”

  As is usual when I think about art projects, my mind goes utterly blank. There is nothing there. I can’t force a damn thing.

  I stare at the image of the girl, blinded by her hands, unwilling to see. What comes after seeing? Talking. But I don’t talk. It scares me more than anything.

  A tear rolls down my cheek, splattering the glossy paper.

  “I don’t know.”

  Damien pulls me into a hug. “Find it.” He wipes at the tear mark. “This could be something powerful. Imagine if this was in the Tate. Imagine if thousands of people saw this a year; if thousands of people knew your tale and it inspired them to remove the hands from their own eyes so they could see what went on around them.”

  “Damien.” I shake my head. “That’s not a good plan. I am no sort of role model, unless you want to know how to fuck up your life in royal proportions.”

  “Babe, you are my role model every damn day. Look at this.” He lifts his shirt, untucking it from his skinny fit trousers. Across his stomach, in a delicate hand I’m vaguely jealous of, is one of my blue glass flowers tattooed in permanent ink. “What else could you achieve?”

  We finish up and I pop my pictures back in my bag. I leave, more confused than ever. What else can I do and where the hell am I going?

  I want to talk to Eli so bad it almost burns my throat. On a whim I pull my phone and dial his office number.

  He answers on the second ring and my legs shake at the echo of his voice down the line. “Faith?”

  “I’m sorry. I know you walked away, but I wanted to hear your voice.” I take power from my acknowledgement. I would never have said this before, but this is what he wants, open honesty and no more secrets.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the baby?”

  “I think he or she will like roast potatoes.”

  There is silence but I tell myself I can hear a smile in its depths.

  “Take care of yourself, Faith.”

  “I love you.”

  The phone line goes dead and my heart crumples with it. I really have messed up this time. There is no going back from this.

  I was going to call Angela, but instead I head home and run up the stairs to my bedroom and root though my underwear drawer.

  With the piece of paper scrunched in my hand I head back up to the attic, only to find it tidy and organised once more. When I’ve moulded the clay, warming it with my touch so it is compliant to my demands I rock back and think about how to talk. How to speak. How to make my voice heard. Then before I can change my mind, I call the number on the paper.

  Twenty-Six

  Francine Harrington settles back in her chair. Between us there’s a low table holding two untouched glasses of water. The office is nothing fancy; in fact, I walked past it twice trying to find it.

  “So the police have dropped your case?”

  “Yes. Someone has come forward with a statement that conflicts with my claims.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Like I want to punch my father in the face.”

  If Francine is alarmed at my violent threat, she doesn’t let it show. “Your father?”

  “Yes, I’m sure it's him. He's upset I inherited some money he believes is his. I think this is payback.”

  “Your father didn’t believe your abuse claims?”

  I shrug. “No. He asked if I was sure about what happened. I said I was, and he told me I must be mistaken.”

  She watches me intensely. I hadn’t thought she would be able to fit me in this side of forever. Maybe I was secretly hoping she wouldn’t—or not so secretly. Her expression gives nothing away.

  “When did you start your artwork on your own body? Was it after you told you father or before?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? It was before.” I frown. I didn’t come here to be judged on the markings on my skin.

  “Do you think his reaction was fed by what he was seeing you display?”

  I sit a little straighter. “What do you mean?” My gaze falls to the climbing flowers I have along my forearms. “I grew up in a tattoo shop. It’s hardly a surprise I look like this.”

  “So you think if you work in a tattoo shop you should wear what you are selling?”

  “If I worked in Monsoon or some other clothes shop, I’d wear their clothes to work,” I shoot back.

  “But wouldn’t you take them off at the end of the day? Take the uniform off so to speak?”

  “I can’t take my ink off; it doesn’t work that way.”

  “If you could, would you?”

  “No!”

  “What made you call me this week?”

  "I didn’t realise there was a time limit on when I could call?”

  She meets my gaze, unflinching. “There isn’t.” She doesn’t say anything else, letting the awkward silence work for her.

  “My fiancé left,” I blurt. “I can’t tell him everything and he says he can’t live with secrets.”

  “What secrets? You have everything out in the open now, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I stare at my fingers picking at my nails. “I guess maybe I didn’t want to think about some things myself.”

  Again with the silence.

  “We are having a baby and I am happy about it. Now. But Elijah wants me to tell him everything… but I just can’t. He thought I’d never been pregnant before. I’ve never mentioned anything otherwise to him.”

  “But you have?”

  “It was being pregnant that made me speak out about my abuse. I found out I was pregnant, and I hated the thought it had come from something so vile and violating.”

  “If Elijah had told you he’d got another girl pregnant at some point in his past how would you have felt?”

  I twist my fingers. “Jealous, I guess. But it wasn’t like that for me. I hated it, hated the fact that he’d managed to put something inside me. It was revolting.”

  “But you never told Elijah those things?”

  “No.”

  “Why? He’d understand, wouldn’t he? He loved you.”

  My skin prickles with sweat. “Because I always think a baby is put there out of choice; it’s a decision, an act of love.”

  “Is that how the baby you are carrying now was made? Did you make a conscious decision to get pregnant?”

  “No. It was a surprise.”

  “Were you conceived out of love, Faith?”

  “I love Elijah and I want our baby, more than anything.”

  “I don’t doubt that at all.” She crosses her legs. “But were you born out of love?”

  I reach for my glass. “I don’t know. I never met my mother. Well, if I did, it’s an early memory that I can’t recall.”

  “So, you don’t know. You have nothing to base your appraisal of motherhood on, nothing to base your understanding of how babies come into the world on,
just what you’ve told yourself.”

  Well fuck. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t even think I want to.

  “Why didn’t you tell everyone about what your brother was doing earlier?”

  “He’s not my brother.”

  “True.”

  “Because I thought they wouldn’t believe me.” My throat tightens and I hate it.

  “Why? You were hurt, scared, why would no one believe you?”

  “He made me think it was okay because my body reacted to his.”

  “The body is a machine, it’s meant to react. If it’s cold, it tells you. If it’s too hot or uncomfortable it sweats.” Yeah, I got the memo on that one. “If it’s touched, it will react.”

  “That’s not the way he made it sound."

  “Tell me, Faith. Did your father hug you a lot when you were young?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, I can’t even remember.”

  “What about friends?”

  “Abi and I always hugged, you know like girls do, back before I withdrew from her. Dan has always hugged me like a big brother. Al, my uncle, would always…” My throat squeezes tight. “Would always give me these bear hugs that would puff the air out of my lungs.”

  “But you don’t remember your father hugging you. You grew up without affection until a boy who was supposed to be your brother touched you.”

  I don't think I can sit here much longer. “I don’t know what this has got to do with anything.”

  “Do you think you are to blame for what happened?”

  “What?!” I almost jump out of my seat, but I knock over the glass of water on my way up, my shin hitting the table and making me wince.

  Francine doesn’t look at the water. “Do you think you were to blame for what happened?”

  “No. He abused me.”

  “But you said yourself you weren’t used to affection. You didn’t know what affection really felt like. It’s only natural you would blame yourself. You must have been to blame if you didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

  “No.” Tears well up, stinging along my eyelashes. “No.”

  “Were you to blame for letting his sperm through your cervix to fertilise an egg?”

  “No.”

  “But did you let Elijah’s?”

  “Whose side are you on? Why are you saying all this stuff to me?”

  Francine leans forward and places a hand on my knee. My body stiffens, but her palm is warm on my skin.

  “Do you blame yourself for not knowing the difference between good affection and bad? Or for not knowing what affection is either way?”

  I can’t answer. I can’t look in her eyes.

  "Is your way of choosing sexual partners as a grown up, your way of controlling the affection you receive? Stopping it from being too much, keeping yourself from the risk of being hurt, or not knowing what’s good and what’s bad?”

  Again, my words don’t come. I don’t have any left.

  “Do you keep your secrets inside because you are scared what people are going to think? Or because you are worried they are going to think the same as you?”

  “I want it all to never have happened.”

  “But it did.”

  “Because of me.” A tear rolls down my cheek. Then another.

  Francine gets up from her chair and comes next to me, her hand pressing lightly onto the top of my head. “Faith. Not because of you. Don’t fear what others will think, only be scared of what you believe.”

  “But my father didn’t believe me.”

  “Didn’t he? Or did he not want to admit his own faults? That he left you vulnerable. That for some reason you grew up without a mother. That he left you exposed and at the hands of a monster. Is he not hiding from what he thinks he did, the way you are hiding from what you think you did?”

  “I told him no. I remember it clearly. The first time he was inside me, I told him no.”

  “I believe you. Now you need to believe you, too.”

  Five hours later I stand outside a black shiny door. It opens and I hold in my sob as he leans against the doorframe, hair messed up, dark shadows under his eyes. Those blues, so deep and searching, sweep over me.

  “I’m not staying, and I’m not asking to come in.” I cough and clear my throat. “I went to get help today and I know I need more. Elijah,” I trip over his name, but persevere. “I want to tell you everything, but I have to understand it for myself first. I haven’t only been keeping secrets from you, I’ve been keeping them from myself, too.”

  He nods and his Adam's apple bobs up and down.

  Stepping back, my heart beating so wild in my chest I can barely control it, I edge away from the door I so desperately want to walk through. “I hope you’ll be ready to listen when I get there.”

  There’s a long pause, filled with a million whispered promises neither of us have been able to keep until this point. “I will.”

  I smile and step away, walking back down the narrow Mews with my head held high. When I’m back out on the main street I lean against a wall and catch my breath. My legs shake and knock together.

  When I’ve calmed down, I pull my phone out of my bag and call Angela. She answers, her tone hesitant.

  “Angela, can we talk?” I ask.

  “Why did I know this was coming? I knew as soon as I saw that newspaper article the other day.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Wine?”

  I chuckle nervously. “I can’t have wine, but you can.”

  There’s a pause. “Oh my god, are you pregnant?”

  “Yep, nearly thirteen weeks.”

  “Bloody hell, in the time I’ve known you you’ve been dumped, engaged, and now pregnant.”

  When you put it like that it seems crazy. “I don’t do things by half apparently.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s why I think you are the most awesome person I’ve met.”

  “Yeah, right. Now, are we meeting? I want to talk to you about the show.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t pulling out?”

  “You want me to stay?” I can’t hide the surprise in my tone. “Even though right now me and the Faircloughs are definitely not together?”

  “Of course I want you, and the Tate wants you.”

  “Friday?”

  “Friday. Let’s meet at the wine bar, and I shall drink all the wine.”

  I chuckle, but this time it’s lighter, free. “I shall very much look forward to not having that headache.”

  We end the call and I start to make my way back to Chesham Place. I need to pack my bag. I can’t stay there. Not right now, not until I make this right with myself, and that’s even if I can.

  Miss Beesley cried, but I promised I’d stay in touch. It seems ironic to be walking back to the flat I bought with money from ink, when I think my ink might have been my problem all along. I keep thinking back to what Francine said. “Wouldn’t you take it off at the end of the day?”

  I chose my ink to cover my fears. I know that now. Every time something or someone hurt me, I covered it up. Even when I hurt myself.

  I let myself in, surprised to find the place in darkness. Tabs has left a note on the kitchen work surface.

  I’m sorry about you and Elijah. You will always be my sister. You’re the warrior I look up to. Tabitha.

  I’m no warrior but I appreciate her sentiment. I grab my phone and shoot her a quick message telling her where I am and that I’m okay.

  There’s flashing voicemail but I ignore it. I need to focus on what I came home for; finding out exactly who I am.

  I start with the first bit of ink. My lightning bolt. Al had refused at first. I’d only been seventeen, but that idiot Drew had burned me with the way he’d used me and thrown me aside. Too late of course I’d realised he was a friend of Aiden’s and it was all a game.

  So I’d had the lightning bolt to stop myself from ever trusting someone more than once. To never have sex with someo
ne more than once.

  I kept that rule until I met Elijah.

  Why?

  Who was I protecting? Me?

  Was I protecting myself from being hurt? Or was I protecting myself from admitting I didn’t understand how love and affection was supposed to work? Was Francine right? Was I so starved, so confused, that I was left at the mercy of others? Left to be blinded by touch and then think it was my fault because I was so desperate to feel—to feel anything.

  I run my finger along the lightning bolt. It had hurt, more than I’d been willing to admit to Al, but it hadn’t hurt as much as the turmoil on the inside. Not as much as the nagging self-doubt that I was dirty and perverted. I’d let Drew sleep with me. I’d laid back and let it happen. He didn’t take advantage, but I’d willingly submitted.

  My mind spins to another night only months before. Elijah and I in his hallway at the Mews. His hand around my throat as he became mad with the passion between us. Later he’d cried, thinking he’d hurt me.

  He hadn’t. I had nothing to hurt. I’d submitted. Again.

  Slowly I work my way through every single drop of ink on my skin. It takes forever but it’s okay. I don’t have anywhere else to be.

  Through every mark and score I find only a pattern of loneliness and detachment. There are no memories here to be smiled at. When I’m naked and standing in front of the mirror, I look at the heart between my ribcage. The only ink I care about. Ink borne of hope. It’s larger than the lightning bolt, larger than the roses that first drew Eli and I together.

  When I’m done and still no closer to understanding who I am, or why I am, I climb into my bed. I could tell myself I never expected to be back here. But didn’t I? With my hand on my tummy, I shut my eyes. Beneath my closed lids is a glimmer of hope.

  Twenty-Seven

  I stretch when I wake. I slept deeply which I wasn’t expecting, dreaming of Elijah and children with blue eyes. I grab my phone and check the time. I need to contact Reggie today and find out what it is happening with the case. If it’s been dropped then I need to find a way to deal with it, find some closure and move on.