But he was there when we returned, waiting. I’d wanted to tell Gran to just drop us off at the bottom of the drive, but she’d parked and, determined, followed us inside.
‘What’s all this?’ He was ready.
‘Roderick, how are you?’ Her voice sounded normal except for a little quaver as she said his name.
‘Where’ve you been? Have you any idea of the time?’
‘Yes.’ She was still calm. ‘It’s half past four. We’ve had our lunch and had a nice day. Now the girls are back safe and sound. They’ll be ready for their tea soon.’
‘Who gave you permission to take my daughters out of this house?’ He made a step towards her.
Hephzi was already on the stairs, she’d slunk round the back of him, ready to run. The bag, containing the bra Granny had paid for and the pair of pink frilly pyjamas she’d had as an extra present from me (Granny had passed me the money in secret and winked, my co-conspirator in
the plot for Hephzi’s happiness), was clutched to her chest. The hallway smelled of danger, like spilt wine and burned flesh. The Mother was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a tea towel wrapped round her arm.
‘Thanks for a lovely day, Granny!’ I turned to my gran, copying her pretence at civility. I could do normality, given the chance.
‘You’re welcome, my love, my birthday princess.’ She bent to kiss me but I felt a hand in my hair and was dragged out of her reach.
‘Stop that! Don’t you do that!’
I tried to find Granny’s eyes with my own, to beg her to save me and to warn her to be silent, but her gaze blazed at The Father as she stepped towards him. The top of her head came barely level with his chest, she was hardly taller than Hephzi, but she squared her shoulders and stepped towards him again. He started to laugh.
‘Get out of here, you stupid old cow. And don’t come back.’
‘I won’t leave. Not until you promise me you’ll start treating these girls properly. I don’t like what goes on in this house, it’s time it stopped.’
‘Get out, I said,’ he screamed into her face, menacing her now, forcing her backwards.
‘You change your ways or I’ll be taking steps. I promise you that, Roderick.’
He gripped her neck and shoved her hard into the door. ‘Shut your face.’ His finger prodded at her face, furious,
frantic. ‘Shut your bloody face and keep out of this family. They’re nothing to do with you.’
‘I’m their grandmother. I have a right.’
I willed her to stop arguing. She should stop fighting and save herself, but she was too brave. I turned to The Mother, pleading with my eyes, but she turned her back and slunk off into the kitchen, leaving them to it.
‘Please don’t hurt Granny,’ I tried. ‘She didn’t do anything, honestly.’
That finished it for her. I should have kept my mouth shut but I’m stupid like that, always making things worse, and he threw her out of the door and on to the step, slammed and locked the door, barricaded it with his body and turned his face towards me.
Saliva hit my cheek as he snarled his hatred and spattered me with his disgust.
After that she disappeared from our lives; he made her vanish as if she were a genie forced back into its bottle. All that remained were a few whispered conversations on the telephone and once I found her Christmas card before he had the chance to destroy it. Her handwriting was faint and wavering, as if without Hephzi and me she was gradually disintegrating.
She never came back.
The Mother nudged me out of my dream and I stood again to say the final prayers. There were more people around than usual and The Father was standing by the altar
handing out chocolate eggs from a basket to the little children who clustered around him with outstretched hands. I’d never been entrusted with the basket; my face would frighten them. But Hephzi had liked doing that job and he’d let her.
She stole one once; it was around the time of our tenth birthday. I saw her unwrap it with nimble fingers and stuff it whole into her mouth and then watched as her face dissolved in ecstasy. We both realized at the same time that The Mother had seen her too. I thought for a second that Hephzi would cry, but she didn’t, she grabbed another egg, peeled off the glinting foil and popped it into our mother’s open mouth, making her complicit in the sin. The Mother didn’t spit it out. And she didn’t admit it later when he counted them up. Guess who got the blame?
And now I was trapped with him in the vicarage.
Happy Birthday, Hephz
, I whispered at the end of the day. She didn’t answer. But the wall behind her bed shifted and moaned.
Everything went quiet after Easter. No one in particular visited the vicarage and I didn’t go out. I counted the hours and did as I was told, hung my head in shame and learnt my lines well; I trod a path of pain and he laid down new scars on my heart. Whenever I could I played the invisible game and pretended I didn’t exist.
Every now and then Mrs Sparks popped in and it was always a relief to see her. They hated her coming but she
never got the message and just kept on turning up, surprising us all. When she was there he had to be nice.
She’s what they call a churchwarden and she bustles about, lists in hand, pen at the ready, on call to do service wherever and whenever she can. I’ve known her all my life. Mrs Sparks likes The Father. He impresses her with his long words, pontificating about God and His wishes for His flock. She flirts with him, smoothes her hair and offers to do the flowers for the church even when it’s not her turn. She has no idea. Anyway, she cottoned on to the fact that I’d left college pretty quickly once all the other kids in the village went back to start the summer term at the tail end of April, and her sharp eyes fastened on me as I quietly brought her sweet tea. She raised an eyebrow.
‘Why aren’t you at college, Rebecca? It’s exams soon, surely?’
I didn’t dare answer her.
‘I’m sure you’re terribly useful around the vicarage, dear, but really, it’s a terrible burden on your parents, having to keep you at your age. Really if you’re not going to bother with your studies you ought to find a job.’
The Father nodded and pretended to agree with her assessment, protesting that I was too shy even to try, but the next thing I knew I’d been let out on day release. Thank you, Mrs Sparks.
Instead of living out the rest of my existence in the vicarage, I was to go next door.
The care home next door is a place for all the people no one wants any more. If you lollop and your face is twisted, if your voice comes out slurred and you can’t really hear, if you’re old and have forgotten how to remember, then that’s where you’ll end up. And that’s where I was going.
‘You’ll fit right in,’ he said when he told me, late that night as I lay in bed, before he laughed and slammed the door.
At first it was hard. The smell of hours lived out in lingering resignation stayed on my clothes and I carried it back with me to my room at the end of every day. I didn’t like to look at those faces; I don’t want to feel the way I know people feel when they see me.
Hephzi wouldn’t come, she told me so, there was no way she was setting foot in that place.
It stinks of piss
, she says,
and those weirdos freak me out
. I sighed and went off alone. Anywhere was better than the vicarage.
On my first day the woman in charge, Mrs Sweet, handed me cleaning stuff and I set to work in the bathrooms. It was hard work and I tried to daydream as I scrubbed the dark yellow stains from around the rim of the toilet bowl. Remembering where I was up to in
Middlemarch
before The Father ripped it up kept my mind off the past and I finished the story in my head. The stench and the stains on the loos refused to be masked but at least I didn’t need to fear footsteps in the hallway, adumbrating pain. By lunchtime I was sweaty and stinky; I would have
to try to sneak to the chemist and steal a deodorant, like Hephzi had done. I could just imagine her pulling faces at me and holding her nose when I got back later. The carers ate with the residents in the sunny day room and I felt my stomach knot up as I watched the messy business get underway. I looked them over, for once I was the one doing all the
staring, and it was strange to see these people, their faces creased with life, wearing plastic bibs and sipping through straws held by patient, younger hands. Guiltily I looked down at my plate and shuffled the bits of salad. I couldn’t eat the soup, not when I’d watched it slide down so many faces and be mashed into so many fists.
I didn’t mind the work. It was easier there than in the vicarage. The Parents were leaving me alone and although I didn’t trust their silence it was a relief. The pattern repeated itself, day in, day out. I cleaned, I wiped, I helped to dress and change and feed. Hephzi still kept away when I was there and I didn’t really blame her. No one really talked to me, although they smiled. The other carers and cleaners were mainly foreign workers, from Eastern Europe or the Philippines, but it didn’t matter if they didn’t understand the residents since none of them made any sense anyway.
It was another Friday but I wouldn’t be going out, I was in my room and it was almost clean. I knew the stains had been growing and I’d been avoiding looking at them, but it was getting so that if I didn’t at least try to clean them away then they might burst. The hoover belched and
groaned and once I’d cleaned the floor I scrubbed at the marks on the walls by Hephzi’s bed. They wouldn’t come off even though I used bleach. Even as I worked it seemed they were growing, bulging like pregnant bellies over the paint she’d hopefully slapped on the wall.
You’re going barmy, Reb!
Hephzi laughs and I nodded and tried to think of other things. But they stayed in the corner of my eye wherever I moved. I hoped I would not be here when they exploded. Hephzi laughs when I explained. She tells me to grow up and stop being such a scaredy cat.
It’s only damp, silly, that’s all
, she claims.
But I didn’t want to see her baby. I didn’t want to see it lying there on the floor, like jelly, no eyes or mouth. I knew I had to get out – the house was full of ghosts.
On Friday nights Hephzi used to sneak out. It was her big night out with Craig, every week. She wouldn’t come back until the early hours; I’d know because I’d be awake, waiting and worrying. When Hephzi was alive I didn’t want a boyfriend, the thought made my insides curdle, but now.
Now
. Maybe I could find someone. Someone who could look at me and see more than my face.
Hephzi used to climb out of the window; it’s a cliché but it worked for her. There’s an obliging old tree that bends near our room and she somehow found a way of getting down without breaking her neck. Craig would wait on the road just outside the vicarage and she’d jump on the back of his moped and I’d strain to hear them putter
off up the High Street. I moved over to the window and pushed up the bottom sash. I leant over and looked out. The night was still and quiet and I breathed in the fresh sweet air and caught the half-light on my face.
How did Hephzi manage to be so brave? How did she risk it, night after night? I ask her to tell me, to give me some of her courage and some of her heart, but she won’t say a word.
Gingerly I climbed up on to the sill, hoping the window wouldn’t fall and guillotine me in two. I used to hold it tight for Hephzi. For a long time I sat there, half in, half out. When it was really dark and getting cold I climbed back inside and sat on my bed, staring at the bulging wall opposite.
Before
The next day I make it in to school although Rebecca’s still too poorly. She’ll have to stay in the vicarage until she’s fit to be seen. But one of us has to go to college, Mother says, or there might be talk. I feel guilty for feeling free as I bomb out of the house and up the road in record time. Craig is there by the gates, smoking, cute with his hat pulled down over his forehead. I slow down, matching cool with cool.
‘All right?’ he asks as I get closer. With a flick of my hair I shoot a quick smile in his direction and keep walking as if I’m going to go past without pausing to chat. Craig moves into my path to stop me and I realize how tall he is now we’re so close and I look up into his eyes, which are as dark and sexy as I’d imagined.
‘Hi!’ Where did that voice come from? I sound like a little girl.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’
‘Registration?’ I inflect my voice, grinning with my eyes but making a face of mock disapproval.
‘Waste of time. Let’s get out of here.’
This is it. Crunch time. It had to happen sooner or later, he had to find out that I’m a total loser. Any other day and I’d have been out of that school like a shot, but if I disappear now and my parents find out then Rebecca will be punished again. Me too. On the other hand I know that if I don’t go with him this time then Craig probably won’t bother asking in future. This could be my only chance. He smiles a little smile and touches my waist. I’m on the verge of capitulating.
‘Sorry, I have a test. Can’t miss it.’ Reb’s asked me to get the homework for her too.
He steps back, shrugs, looks over his shoulder and is already gone, loping off, destination anywhere but the science block. I force my legs to carry me in the right direction and flunk the test.
But when I check Facebook at lunchtime there’s a message. Craig.
Hope you won’t bottle it on Saturday.
I guess that means he’s still interested. I confide in Samara and she agrees and says I did totally the right thing.
‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen, girl. That’s what it’s all about.’
Nodding, I store that one away for future reference. I thought I’d learned most of the rules, seems I still have a long way to go. After lunch we both have free periods and I go back to Samara’s, she puts on MTV and I make mental
notes. Daisy’s clearly watched some of these videos way too many times; I remembered her dancing in the pub. She has all the right moves and all the right clothes. All the swagger. I sigh. Craig will never look at me while she’s around. Samara says that’s not true and that I’m just as pretty. I can’t help but smile. I’ve always wanted to have a friend and it feels better than I imagined, rich and warm in my tummy and throat, like the hot chocolate Granny would give us after we’d been to the park. Samara’s mum bustles in and out with drinks and snacks. She grins widely at me and invites me back; apparently if I’m the
vicar’s daughter then I must be a Nice Girl, not like Daisy, who’s a Bad Influence. That’s what Samara whispers to me as I leave in a flurry of further invitations. We giggle and I swing my bag on to my shoulder, promising to see about asking Craig if she can show up at his party, and head off, feeling better than I have in ages.