‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Miss. Nothing.’
So that was Friday and I did not want to go back to that place again, not ever. Hephzi keeps telling me to act normal, to put on some lip gloss and to try to be nice. She reckons I need to get over myself and that all my problems are in my head. Well, she’s changed her tune, because that’s not what she used to think. When she was alive she would nudge me and whisper, ‘They’re staring at you,’ or, ‘Stand over there, pretend we don’t know each other.’ She knew what it meant to be me, she just didn’t feel it like I did and like I always will.
I didn’t think anything could get worse after that. I was sure I’d reached the lowest point possible and when I got back to the vicarage all I wanted was to crawl upstairs and sink into forgetfulness. But they were waiting for me again. His face was ghastly and The Mother bobbed there at his shoulder, flushed with anticipation. For a second I didn’t understand, I couldn’t think what it could be, and then I saw what he held in his hand. A glossy brochure, sheets of typed paper. I glimpsed my name on the large white envelope. He had the proof, there would be no need for a trial.
Before
By Friday Craig still hasn’t added me on Facebook and I feel rubbish. I’ve got my period too and a massive spot on my chin. No way am I going to risk going to the pub tonight. Daisy told me I could sleep over at hers but I told her no, said we were going away.
‘How can you be going away? Doesn’t your dad have to do all his vicar stuff at weekends?’
‘Oh yeah, he does. But me and Mum and Rebecca are going to our gran’s.’ See, I told you I could lie.
‘OK. Your loss. See ya Monday.’
She flounces off and I jog to catch up with Rebecca and we walk home together for the first time in ages. I think about my lie to Daisy.
‘Hey, Reb, remember when we used to go to Granny’s?’
She nods. She hates talking about it.
‘Why’d they stop us?’
Rebecca looks at me like I’ve just asked her the colour of grass or whether the world is really round.
‘He hated her.’
‘Yeah, but why though? What did she ever do?’
‘Hephzi, don’t be thick. She took us out for ice cream. She bought you a bra. She told us not to believe his lies. He couldn’t stand it. And he thought she’d tell someone what he did to us, he knew it was only a matter of time.’
‘I miss her.’
‘Me too.’
It’s raining and our jackets aren’t up to the weather so by the time we get back we’re both soaked. I go straight upstairs and lie on my bed, my stomach cramping and my wet hair plastered in soggy strands around my neck. Rebecca comes in and offers me a cup of tea. I shake my head.
‘You should take your wet jacket off. And your jeans.’
She’s right. The heavy denim is claggy round my thighs. But I shake my head again.
‘What’s the matter?’
I bury my head in the mattress and eventually she goes away and sits on her own bed, humming and muttering. I scream into the blankets, wondering if I’ll ever be able to stop.
Before we started college I always used to just lie in bed when I had my period. Mother won’t buy us sanitary towels so I’d stuff my knickers full of toilet roll, itchy cheap stuff, and just lie there until I felt better. It’d usually be a few days. All day today I’ve sat in lessons with my pants stuffed with loo roll praying that it would hold and I wouldn’t leave a mess anywhere. My thighs are chafed from walking home like this. I cry into my mattress some
more. Rebecca sits down on the side of my bed and pokes me in the shoulder. I shrug her off.
‘Here,’ she says.
‘Go away.’
‘I got you something.’ I turn and look. She’s holding a sanitary towel and two painkillers.
‘Where’d you get that?’
‘Her drawer. Right at the back. It was the only one, sorry.’
I roll out of bed, grab the stuff and go to the bathroom to sort myself out. I splash my face with cold water and look in the small mirror. It’s so cracked and clouded that it’s hard to make myself out, but I can tell that I’m all blotchy and red-faced. Ugh. Sitting on the side of the bath I wonder what I’m going to do.
When Monday comes I do my best to put on a good face. It’s been a miserable weekend but Rebecca did my homework last night so I could rinse my hair and clothes. I’m running short of things. I’ve worn everything I own twice already and soon Daisy will notice. I returned her stuff the other day and she just screwed up the top and jeans into a ball and stuffed them into her bag like it was nothing. Mrs Sparks sometimes brings us things and I hope she’ll be round soon. Or I could go and see her, just to give her memory a little prompt. I’ve been wondering if she’s guessed something’s up. I need more sanitary towels, so on the way to school I persuade Rebecca to distract the chemist with one of her many
ailments while I nick some. I’m not a good thief; I get nervous, especially when I think of what would happen if I were spotted. But I can’t go back to using loo
roll, or even wearing old rags in my pants, washing them out and hanging them to dry in the bedroom. They never got clean, the stains stayed put, dark reminders of the pain. For once Rebecca does quite a good job on the chemist and I’m out of the door and hurrying further up the High Street without her. We’re going to be late for registration now but who cares? This time I don’t wait for my sister, I can’t let people see us together too much, and I hurry and sign in and go straight to the study centre; I have a free first thing, and want to check my messages. There are loads of Facebook posts and I scroll through them, reading what the rest of the college was up to while I was stuck in the vicarage with Rebecca and my parents. This weekend Rebecca and I did the usual chores and then did penance, kneeling on the cold stone church floor for six whole hours. That was our punishment for failing to answer his questions about his sermon to his
satisfaction. I wonder if I should post that as a status update.
But my heart lifts when I see that Craig has finally accepted my friend request and that he’s sent me a private message. Blushing and grinning I click on it.
Where were you this weekend? You missed a good night. Party at mine this Saturday. Be there.
I think I might be sick. This is the most exciting thing ever. I’m going to that party if it’s the last thing I do, which if my father finds out it probably will be. This has to be proof that Craig likes me as much as I like him. It has to be. Daisy appears at my shoulder and I can tell she’s straining to look at my screen. I quickly minimize it.
‘Hi!’ She sounds happy to see me and I smile back at her.
‘Did you have a good time at your gran’s, then?’
I remember the lie quickly enough to answer without a pause, ‘Oh, yeah, it was OK.’
‘We had such a good night on Friday. You really missed out.’
I shrug, what do I care?
‘Yeah, we all ended up back at Scott’s – his parents were out and it was a bit of a party. His older brother was there too with all his mates. Oh my God, this one guy, Billy, he was like, so fit …’
I nod as she tells me her story, not really listening but thinking instead what I’m going to need to do to escape on Saturday. I gather that of course Daisy got off with one of the older guys and is seeing him this weekend. She’s full of it and I’m glad, at least it means she’s not after Craig any more and maybe I’ll have more of a chance.
‘So will you bring him to Craig’s party, then?’
‘What?’ For a second Daisy looks unsure, then smiles widely, tosses her hair and shrugs. ‘Maybe, if we can’t think of anything better to do.’
I eventually go to class and sit daydreaming through the experiment we’re supposed to be doing in Physics. Luckily I’m partnered with Jack and he’s such a keeno that he’s more than happy to do all the work for me. It’s easy to keep him sweet. I only have to smile and he blushes to the roots of his hair. He probably fancies me, most science geeks are lucky if a girl gives them the time of day, let alone tells them how great they are, so I keep on ladling out the compliments and he keeps on doing the hard graft. I think the relationship’s working well for both of us. Rebecca disapproves of course, she says I’m taking advantage and that it’s OK to do it to her but I should have more respect for other people. She can be such a bore sometimes. No wonder she’s got no friends.
Anyway, I find Samara and Daisy at lunch in the common room and they’re bitching about Craig’s party.
‘So how come you got invited and we didn’t?’ Samara folds her arms and looks at me hard with her head tipped to one side.
I shrug. I actually have no idea.
‘D’you reckon you could get us an invite, then?’
Again I shrug. ‘I suppose I could ask.’ I can’t help the reluctance creeping into my voice and I know it’s really obvious that I don’t want to.
‘Don’t you want us there or something?’ Now Daisy sounds mad, and that’s the last thing I need.
‘Of course I do, it’s just that I’m not sure I know him well enough to, well, you know, ask for favours.’
‘But Craig knows me!’ Daisy is still cross. ‘I’m not just any old person, it’s not like you’re asking to bring that mongy sister of yours, is it?’
For a moment my head reels and spins. I thought that Daisy was my friend. I thought she liked me. I don’t know why this hurts so much, I knew what she thought, of course I did. But she shouldn’t have said it. I can’t laugh it off.
‘You ask Craig yourself if you know him so well, Daisy.’ I stand up, just about, and walk away. Sorry, Rebecca. That was the best I could do.
Crying in the toilets doesn’t help much. I make it through the afternoon without talking to anyone and I can’t look Rebecca in the face as we walk home. She thinks I’m still upset about the weekend.
‘One day things’ll be better, Hephz,’ she says.
I manage a laugh. ‘Oh, yeah? When’s that?’
We’re nearing the vicarage and she stops and stares up at the house. It looks meaner than ever.
‘When they die. Or when we do, I suppose.’
She mutters the words quietly but her anger’s like a storm.
I reach out and put my arm around her.
‘Don’t be daft. We’ll be OK.’ Suddenly I’m the one doing the comforting and I wish I could give her a hug, but if our parents spot us there’ll be trouble. We go inside and get on with our chores – the dishes, the laundry, the never-ending homework – and then, just when we think
we can relax, he summons us down. It’s one of the nights he wants us to sit with him. I try staring into space, forgetting I’m there, but he won’t leave me alone tonight. I kneel on the floor in front of him and he brushes my hair. I guess this is weird, it was sort of OK when I was little but now I wish he wouldn’t. He quizzes Rebecca about college but her answers are monosyllabic and I silently urge her to say a bit more because I can feel his body tense behind me. The less she says, the more she winds him up, and he digs the brush more firmly into my head with each word she
doesn’t utter. I try to signal to her but she’s not looking at me either.
Oh, Rebecca, save me, save me
, I scream in my head and suddenly she swings round to face us and sees him with his hand tight on my neck and the other hand ready to swing the heavy hairbrush at my skull. I see my horror reflected in her eyes and want to vomit.
‘My Physics teacher told me I wasn’t working hard enough,’ Rebecca says, clear as a bell. ‘I’ll be in detention if I don’t pull my socks up.’
He drops me and goes for her. The usual words. Failure. Shame. Maggot. Filth. I cover my ears and run from the room, upstairs to hide. I wish I wouldn’t. One day I’m going to hide that hairbrush and the strap. I’m going to stop him in his tracks. But for now I let my sister take my beating.
What else has she taken for me over the years? What does he do to her while I run away and hide? Like millstones my parents grind at her, circling, pushing, relentlessly
punishing her for sins we don’t even know exist. When I stop to look I see that each year she is a little smaller, as if a little bit more has crumbled away. One day there may be nothing left, just dust motes dancing on a scrap of light. Who will catch me then? Who will save me when I fall?
Finally it’s over and she inches up the stairs and across the hall carpet on her stomach, a dying moth. I help her up and on to her bed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. She nods and her eyes close. I can hear her heart pounding, see it fluttering against her ribs, but she gathers her clothes around her and buries herself in the blankets. She hides her body, even from me. I hate to watch her suffering and stare out of the window. He beats her harder than he would me and that’s another reason I should never have asked her for help, but I sit beside her and stroke her hair. Blood has clotted on her scalp and I fetch a cloth and try to wipe it away.
He never says sorry. He just pretends nothing ever happened. We’ve never dared fight back, not yet. I know what would happen if we did.
I remember being twelve and Granny is there. They’re fighting and shouting and he is holding Granny by the neck and screaming into her face, she’s telling him to calm down, pleading with Mother to call the police, and then he shoves her into the wall and pushes her out of the vicarage so hard she falls on the step in a heap, and he slams the door behind her. I don’t want to remember the rest.
Neither of us goes to college on Tuesday. Rebecca feels
too bad and I don’t want to leave her alone. Usually he’s clever with his fists and never leaves a mark where it might be spotted, but this time, well, he didn’t seem to care. I think he was enjoying it too much to mind. He knows he can lie it all away, anyhow. He’s done it before. I ask if I can get her anything but she says not. By lunchtime I’m bored hanging round our room with nothing to do, and with Rebecca who’s lying mute in bed, so I sneak downstairs and poke around the kitchen for something to eat. As I’m rummaging Mrs Sparks bustles in.
‘Oh, hello, dear.’
‘Hi.’ I smile even though I don’t want to. Mrs Sparks is annoying.
‘I’ve just been helping your father with the church arrangements for this month. He’s popped out now. What are you doing at home? It can’t be study leave already, can it? You’ve only just started up there!’