‘Where is he?’ I managed to croak.
‘Out visiting.’
I nodded and crept upstairs, falling into bed fully dressed.
She didn’t bring me a drink or any painkillers, I doubt we had any in the house, and I knew she wouldn’t call the doctor. They don’t like people coming round unless it’s on church business, when they can keep them downstairs in the front room and pass round Granny’s posh teapot. Occasionally I staggered to the bathroom and drank from the tap. Three days I lay up there alternately sweating and shivering. At the height of my fever, somewhere in the middle of one of those nights, I saw Hephzi sitting on the
end of my bed. She smiled, told me to be brave, then, waving and jolly, sank down into the floor, swallowed up by the carpet. I reached for her, to pull her back, but I was too slow and too weak. Again. I’d been begging Hephzi to come back to me and I screamed silently for her, but she’d gone and I fell back into my sweat-starched sheets, as the wall began to cry.
While I lay up there waiting for something to happen, he came. My eyes snapped open, startled out of a dream, to see The Father there in front of our wardrobe, his arms filled with Hephzi’s few things. Still as a statue I let my eyelids droop and willed myself invisible. He buried his head in her clothes, moaned, whimpered, crooned, then carried the bundle from the room, not once glancing my way. I was glad I’d hidden my favourite things, her blue jumper, her silver necklace. A tiny vial of perfume a woman in the chemist had given her as a tester when she’d admired the scent. If he was going to come creeping in here like that then I’d have to be even more careful. Nowhere was safe.
It’s hard to hide here. That’s why we play the invisible game. But The Parents have their secret amusements too, of course, and for a while I’d been a good specimen for him to practise on. But when my face stayed the same regardless of his ministrations he realized I wasn’t an adequate example of his power and that he couldn’t work miracles despite his hype. He started leaving me behind with Granny again but I can still remember how his special
services frightened me. I didn’t like to see the other children cry as he exorcised their devils. I wanted to hide. Like a medieval mountebank he travelled the country, peddling false faith and the elixir of eternal life. In the car on the way home The Mother would count their spoils and he would thump the steering wheel with his fist and shout,
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord!
His very own demon still comes in my dreams and I scream for release as it bundles me and burgles me and breaks me in two.
In the end someone put a stop to his little sideline but he still offered such services under cover of night. We played invisible then and tried not to hear the screams from downstairs.
Eventually I felt better and needed to eat. It was late morning and, pulling my cardigan tightly round me, I tottered downstairs. Sun filtered weakly through the hall window and made dancing patterns on the carpet and wallpaper. I would have some food and then go to college. Even before Hephzi had died I’d decided that if I had to go and study then I might as well try hard and let my exams be my passport out of the vicarage. I couldn’t live with them for the rest of my life and this might be a way to escape. The glares of accusation now made it even more obvious that I had to go.
With no one around I made toast and drank orange juice, pouring it shakily from the value pack I’d hauled
home from the local shop. The margarine tasted rancid on the bread that had charred in the toaster but I swallowed it nevertheless, not caring. Food was barely a necessity in this house and never a luxury. I stared at the old Formica units and cracked linoleum. The ancient, grimy stove and greasy walls blankly returned my gaze. Even if I had a friend, bringing them here would be out of the question. Hephzi had tried to make our room nice, she’d smuggled in a pot of paint she’d got from Craig’s mum, who’d been doing up her living room, and got halfway through painting one wall pale green. That was in the autumn. She hadn’t finished it before she died. I wouldn’t be taking up the task; I wouldn’t go near that wall unless I had to. As I chewed the toast I wondered
where The Parents were. The door had slammed about an hour ago. No one had been up to see me that morning and I knew better than to look for a note. If I hurried I would make period four. Maths. I couldn’t afford to fall behind in my least favourite subject and knew there’d already be tons to catch up on.
By lunchtime I was tired and took refuge in the library. It had become the place to which I’d retreat most days and the librarian looked up and smiled as I came in.
‘Rebecca! I wondered where you’d got to. Are you all right?’ Her warmth wrapped me like a blanket and I nodded and smiled back, the feeling funny on my face. I hoped I looked vaguely normal. Once I’d practised in the
mirror in the school loo, trying to find the way to move my mouth to make it look less ghastly, but no matter how I tried, my jumble of teeth crowded the expression and I couldn’t disguise the ancient graveyard that hid ashamed behind my lips. I always smile with my mouth closed and speak as little as possible.
I made my way over to the back of the library to pick up where I’d left off, halfway through the Cs. I was determined to read every book on every shelf but it was taking me a long time. I couldn’t take the novels home and the only time I could read was in the library during lunch or in an odd free period. But I was determined not to give up. Once I was transported to Wuthering Heights or downtown LA I was happy, my world receded and for forty minutes reality hung suspended somewhere over the school like a black balloon waiting to pop as the bell for registration sounded. Today I was finishing off a Raymond Chandler and all through my illness I’d been wondering about the end, making up alternative versions of the story to keep my mind entertained in its more lucid moments. Hephzi hadn’t liked to read as much as I did, but sometimes at night if she couldn’t sleep she’d wake me up and ask me to
tell her a story and I’d fill her in on
Emma
or
Villette
and we’d both nod off again, content. Hephzi wouldn’t have liked this one though. She liked the romances and the happy endings. Murder and mystery weren’t her style.
On my way out of the library Mrs Larkin stopped me in my tracks.
‘Look, Rebecca.’ She was holding out a leaflet. ‘I saw this and thought of you straight away! It’s a summer school.’ Seeing my face, she thrust the thing more firmly towards me. ‘Here take it – it’s something for you to think about at least.’
I took the glossy-looking pamphlet and stared at the photograph of girls and boys sitting together on a green lawn under a beech tree. Their faces were as bright as their futures and they held books open on their laps. Some were reading and some were laughing. I didn’t recognize them. ‘Cambridge Summer Schools,’ the leaflet read, ‘for Gifted and Talented Students.’ I thrust it back at her, shaking my head.
‘Take it, have a think,’ she encouraged and, seeing disappointment crease her face at my refusal, I put the thing in my pocket. I’d bin it later. There was no point dreaming; the leaflet was nothing more than a glass slipper handed to the ugly sister. I would never fit in there even if they’d let me go, which was a fairy tale in itself. Mrs Larkin meant well though so I tried my tight smile again and wandered off to registration. As the teacher called names and handed out notices I pulled the leaflet out of my pocket. I couldn’t resist the glossy paper, the smiling, intelligent faces. The courses were all for sixth formers and the one Mrs Larkin had underlined jumped out at me immediately. But I wasn’t studying English. I did the subjects he’d chosen, things I’d never understand. The idea of studying Literature for a whole two weeks sent a shudder of fear
and
excitement running to my heart like a little electric shock. I pushed the leaflet into my locker at the end of registration; I would look again tomorrow.
Life at home without Hephzi was hard. She had been the cement which held the bricks of our family together. If you can call us that. I don’t like the word, not for us, saying it is like trying to swallow a stone. The Father sort of loved Hephzi. She could make him laugh at her jokes and indulge her whims, he was proud of her sparkle and prettiness.
I remember going carolling when we were eleven. Someone from the church choir had suggested we raise money for charity by singing our way around the village. Songs weren’t usually allowed, not for us, but the choirmaster had insisted.
‘Hephzibah has a beautiful voice, Vicar, she could do a little solo.’ He’d heard her singing as we polished the altar one Saturday. She’d clamped her hand over her mouth too late, only realizing her mistake when he’d stopped crashing out his chords on the organ and turned to listen. We’d hoped he wouldn’t tell, but he did.
Hephzi turned her face to The Father, glowing with the praise and excitement.
‘Please, Daddy, I’ll do my best, I promise, I won’t let you down.’
He had to say yes, he couldn’t resist, especially with the choir looking on and Mrs Sparks nodding so enthusiastically at his elbow, and so she was granted the chance. He
marched round with us – I trailed behind holding the tin for the money and Hephzi sang like an angel at every door.
‘How wonderful! How delightful! What a beautiful voice! Isn’t she sweet?’ people said and put their spare change in my rattling pot. Despite himself, The Father swelled up and basked in her glory. But it never happened again, even though she begged for another chance. It would lead her to sin, that was his view, and all songs ceased but for the psalms we chanted in church.
Now with Hephzi gone he was more morose than he’d ever been. And bitter. That sharp, acid anger directed itself at me, the one who’d survived. The one who ought to have died.
They blamed me for bringing the spotlight on to the household and making it harder for them to do as they pleased. The Father hated me because the thing he’d liked to watch over, like a greedy vulture, was gone and now they had to be careful, extra vigilant, just in case any more questions were asked. But I blame myself too. I should have saved her. That was my job.
‘So you actually got up today, then,’ he barked at me when I returned home after college. I’d had to walk the mile home of course, and had struggled through the darkening afternoon, skidding my way over patches of black ice as my shoes soaked up slush. I’d had no lunch and just swallowed a few mouthfuls of water from the fountain by the nurse’s
office during afternoon break. My knees were trembling. All I wanted was to creep up to bed.
I nodded in reply, knowing better than to look up at him and meet his eyes. Just the sight of me could often enrage him.
‘You’d better get to the kitchen and help your mother.’ I’d been let off lightly and hurried away. The Mother was emptying canned carrots into a pan. A joint of meat sat in its tin, leathery and dry. She always overcooked things.
‘Can I help?’
‘Set the table.’ She glanced up briefly from her tasks and I noticed how washed out she looked, like one of the dish rags hanging miserably from the taps. Her eyes were the same pale blue as mine, the colour of the early morning winter sky, and I wondered if she’d ever noticed. Hephzi had had big, beguiling brown eyes and long lashes which scudded over her cheeks like fluttering wings. You wouldn’t ever have guessed we were twins and I could tell Hephzi had been glad. When it suited she could pretend we’d never even met.
She pinches me when I think things like that. I brush away her fingers and tell her not to deny it; she knows it’s true. I would try to make her talk to me later. If she was really here then I wanted her back properly, not just listening in then disappearing again, leaving me all by myself.
We ate in silence. I chewed my food carefully, trying to make it easier to swallow, but I could feel bits of tough meat and gristle lodging themselves in the crooked nooks
and crannies of my mouth. They would be impossible to dislodge. It was hard to eat with my mouth closed though, hard to be invisible. Every so often The Father looked up at me in disgust, ready and waiting to pounce. He stared at me, with that fixed gaze, so deep blue it was almost black, and I tried to be more silent, not to clatter my cutlery or slurp my drink, to masticate noiselessly. Eventually I decided to swallow the food whole to avoid the snarl and I could see The Mother do the same, cutting the pieces of meat so small they would slither down her throat. Tonight would be one of his nights, you could feel it in the air.
When he drank Hephzi and I had often been relieved. Sometimes it meant we could disappear out of range, go upstairs and whisper and giggle instead of being forced to remain under his vigilant gaze, reading the pieces of scripture he’d prepared earlier that day and then being quizzed and questioned on the obscure tenets of his faith. I don’t believe in his God. He’s never come to help me or my sister and that’s all the proof I need. And as for love. Well, if God was love then he’d died with my granny. As if The Father somehow knew my treacherous thoughts, he’d fire the hardest questions my way, pushing me and pushing me to say something I would regret. Then Hephzi would start to cry. She hated to watch when he started on me, and sometimes there’d be a reprieve. So when he was busy with his bottle we were usually safe. Usually.
Going to bed early was a good idea. If I’d had a key to my room I’d have locked myself in. The Father kept the
key. But at least he never came in. He’s always done his dirty business downstairs, as if that makes it OK. I pushed Hephzi’s bed against the door and hoped she wouldn’t be angry.
‘Is that OK, Hephz? I don’t want him to come in,’ I whispered.
There was no answer. Again.
So instead I imagined she was playing invisible and I joined in and we carried on like that until I went to sleep.
Before
Here’s what I think of college so far. Firstly, the work sucks, especially the homework. Thankfully Rebecca is doing mine for me, even though I can tell she hates it too. Secondly, the teachers are boring and have no idea what it’s like to be young and want to have fun. They drone on for hours and hours and hours which is basically my idea of torture. Lastly, my new friends are fantastic and I’m having the best time of my life. Hallelujah!