Father starts the service. He intones the prayers in his usual Christmas Eve-y way; he loves this service because so many people actually come, even if some of them are tipsy from the pub, and he makes his sermon extra long, probably to punish them for not showing up from one year to the next.
‘The birth of the Christ child is a moment of joy to be shared. We welcome you here to this service, to share in that joy. In all our lives the arrival of a child is a blessing of such magnitude that it can barely be expressed. But the
birth of the baby Jesus, come to redeem sinners, to pay for the heavy burden of humanity, is a gift beyond man’s understanding. To make the sacrifice of oneself, to be last, not first. That is what Jesus Christ the simple, humble baby taught and it is a lesson we all must learn.’
So he goes on, reaching forward to the congregation with his arms aloft. He usually manages to keep the devil out of it at Christmas, but this year he can’t resist. I think it’s especially for me because he fixes me with his stare as he licks his lips and continues.
‘So praise be to God for sending His child to save us from the devil within. Praise be that He came to save us from the allure of lust, from the glitter of greed and the sleep of sloth. Let us confess our sins as one here tonight and leave this church renewed in our faith, more determined to banish the devil and his desires from our hearts. Let us go forth and celebrate Christmas, deaf to the beat of the devil’s drum.’
He’s on a roll tonight. I think I’m going to be sick.
A few Amens are muttered and the choir launches into a hymn. My favourite’s always been ‘Away in a Manger’, I sang it once, a solo, but they’re not singing that tonight and I can’t join in. My lips barely move and nor do Rebecca’s. She grips my fingers tight in hers, as if there’s no point caring any more if he sees or not.
I don’t dare look round again.
When the choir eventually finishes the final hymn, I grab Mother’s hand and scurry out of the church before Pam
has a chance to descend on us. I can see that she’s clutching something bottle-shaped and guess that she’s brought it as a Christmas gift for my parents. Oh God. If she speaks to them then that’s it, our secret’s out and everything’s over. It’s too soon, I’m not ready. I haven’t packed or decided how to leave. And Rebecca, what will she do if I run away? I drag Mother with me, back to the vicarage, and Rebecca hurries along still holding my hand. But this is not right, this is not allowed, we ought to be outside the church bidding the congregation farewell and a Merry Christmas too, playing our assigned parts. Instead we cower behind the front door of the vicarage. Mother stares at me.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then what do you think you’re playing at?’ She pushes at me, trying to get past, but I stand firm.
‘Nothing.’
She turns to Rebecca. ‘What’s going on here?’
Reb stays silent and earns a sharp slap to the cheek. Then the front door heaves and I tumble to one side. He walks in. I can’t believe it, he’s smiling and my own mouth lifts for a second in relief. Then I realize what it really means and I shrink behind my sister, whose fragile body is braced like a shield. Behind him come Pam and Craig. We all stand together in the hall.
‘Maria, this is Hephzibah’s boyfriend, Craig, and his mother, Pam.’ Mother steps forward and takes her hand and smiles like a normal human being. I know he’s invited
them back just to make me shake a bit longer and I can’t bear it. I want them to go right this minute. I want to get my things and go with them. Rebecca can come too.
Pam is smiling at me, really pleased. She’s been desperate to meet them. Why wouldn’t they stay away, like I told them to?
‘Craig and Hephzibah have been seeing each other for quite some time, Maria, or so Pam tells me.’ I don’t dare look at my father. ‘You know, I thought something was going on – isn’t it funny, Pam! One’s children can be so secretive, but we parents understand them only too well.’
‘Oh, yes, Craig’s always been a bit like that too. But we love having Hephzi round, she’s a lovely girl. You must be very proud of her.’
‘Oh, indeed. Of course.’ Father smiles and looks at me. So does Craig. I think he wants me to say something and I wonder what it should be. Should I offer to go and put the kettle on? Get out a Christmas cake my mother has lovingly baked, just for an occasion like this? Not likely. Instead I try to smile back at everyone but it wavers into a grimace on my lips. Rebecca grips my hand even tighter. She’d said this would happen but I thought I could make my plan work.
‘It’s been delightful to meet you, Pam. We’ll see you again, I’m sure,’ Father says. They don’t hear the chill in his dismissal because they’re off down the path, calling Merry Christmas, waving goodbye.
Goodbye, Craig
, I think.
Goodbye
.
The door shuts ever so quietly behind them. Father turns round. He takes us in, standing there in a row before
him. There is a silence that is stiller and blacker than night and we wait for the bomb to explode. I am ready to run. The bottle Pam gave him hits the wall behind us and shatters; wine drips and runs like blood and all is noise at last. He doesn’t pause to ask questions. Nothing could ever justify the infringement of his rules and he’s not interested in hearing my excuses. No. He’ll cut straight to the punishment. Christmas is come at last.
In the night I wake, it’s too soon to be morning and for a moment I wonder what’s wrong with me. Then I remember the beating and feel my swollen cheek, rotate my wrenched shoulder. Those pains are familiar; it’s not that which has woken me. Then I feel the hot wetness between my legs. My period, finally, I think, and try to roll out of bed to clean myself up before the mess gets any worse. But then there’s suddenly another great gush of it all down my legs and I hold myself right where he kicked me in the stomach as I double over in pain. Immediately Rebecca is beside me.
‘Hephzi? Are you all right?’
‘No.’ I can hardly speak or breathe and I crumble on to the floor. I hear her gasp as she switches on the lamp and sees the blood. I hear her demand I tell her what she should do, but all I know is the pain. I wonder as I lie there why she doesn’t go for some help, I’m sure she should, but I know she’s afraid and as I bleed I wonder what is happening to me and what he has done.
‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘It’ll be over soon.’ I don’t know how she can know that when I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. I think I ask her, but she just tells me to shush, I think I hear her say that it’s only a baby and that I’m not to worry, but I’m not sure how that could be true. She fetches a cold cloth to hold on my face and I wait to feel better.
But the pain gets worse and the dark night only grows longer as cramps creep down my legs. My bed is covered in towels and I lie there, beached and bleeding. I must be dying. No one ever said that this is how you die. I start to shiver and beg Rebecca for more blankets. She hovers over me, her face a tiny star somewhere near heaven.
I dream a bit of driving too fast with Craig and screaming as his bike tips and we topple towards a great black abyss. The dream jolts me awake again and I’m sweating and hot now and throw off the covers. When I vomit Rebecca is there holding me, telling me I’m OK. I know I’m not. She brings me water but I vomit again.
The night is so long.
‘Reb, please, help me,’ I say.
‘What shall I do?’ she asks again, but I need her to take charge. She’s always protected me before. Why not now?
‘Shall I call them?’ she asks me and I nod. She disappears and then returns again but still alone. I cry because of the pain and because of everything else and then I forget who I am and where I’m going. Once I think I hear Craig’s voice outside, shouting for me, and I sit up, startled,
but it’s only Rebecca holding water to my lips, begging me to drink as she mops the sweat from my face.
Daylight comes, grey and dull. We never did open a stocking, I think suddenly, not once. I hear them hollering for us to come, to get downstairs and go to church and Rebecca throws on her clothes, kisses me quickly and leaves. The bells are ringing, oh come all ye faithful, and I hear them leave without me. When the door slams and the house is empty I cry and wonder if I’ll see her again.
It drags on. The blood keeps coming. I feel tired and weak and can’t speak any more. I try to find a cold patch on my mattress, I need to rest, I need peace. Rebecca is back; she tends me. When night falls again a shadow drops over my bed. My father. I reach out my hand to him, look up into his face and whisper for help. He turns on his heel and leaves me there.
Someone calls an ambulance, I hear it wailing from far away.
She died of an infection. That’s what they said. The blood she’d lost, the baby she’d left on our bedroom floor, that hadn’t been what killed her. It had been the poison that had taken root inside and attacked her until she couldn’t fight on. No one blamed The Father. No one interrogated The Mother. No one asked why they hadn’t brought her sooner. If I hadn’t called the ambulance she never would have made it to the hospital at all. I think she was already dead by the time it arrived.
Of course they blamed me. They told everyone I’d kept it a secret, kept her locked up there and pretended she had a touch of the flu to protect her because there’d been a row. Just a normal family spat, you know the sort. Of course they’d nipped in to check on her and she’d seemed all right and then, once they’d realized the situation, well, after that it had all been too fast, everything they’d done to try to help had been a moment too late. I watched The Mother shed her crocodile tears as she pointed the finger my way and the doctor shook his head and placed his hand on her shoulder in comfort. It was a tragedy, no one could have predicted how soon she would go, she really mustn’t blame herself.
The morning after she died we went back to the vicarage and I cleared up the mess. The towels soaked in the bath, turning its grimy white porcelain red, flower after flower of crimson stained the floor and my hands as I dragged the sheets and the bedding across the hall and into the bathroom. He drank downstairs as I scrubbed. She sat in the kitchen worrying her prayers. We left Hephzi there in the morgue, cold and lonely, without even her baby for company. I wanted to creep back and stay with her, to hold her hand and tell her a story, but I didn’t dare. Instead I waited out the hours in our room, my room, wondering if it had been a dream. A week after she died they held her funeral. They made me wear her dress and they cried sham tears. Everyone knew I was the one to blame.
No one ever told me and Hephzi about babies. We both found out the hard way.
I should have guessed she was pregnant when she was sick all the time and didn’t get her period. Perhaps I did, but I was hiding it from us both. The funny thing is Hephzi liked little kids. I always thought they were annoying. When we’d been younger one of our tasks had been to mind the little ones while their parents were at one of The Father’s prayer meetings or services. One of the mums usually hung around to keep an eye on us, it made them uneasy to see me touching their children, although they always talked to Hephz.
‘You’re good with babies. How about babysitting one
night for us?’ one lady said. She was fairly new to the village and didn’t know how things worked.
‘Oh, thanks, that’d be great.’ Hephzi was daft enough to think it was actually a possibility. My sister could hope for England.
‘D’you want little ones, when you’re older, you know, when you’re married?’ the woman continued. I tried not to roll my eyes.
‘Maybe.’ Hephzi paused. ‘I don’t know though. How’d you get a baby?’
The woman smiled a funny little smile. ‘Oh, you should ask your mum, she’ll tell you all about it.’
I guess she thought eleven-year-olds ought to have known the facts of life. But she must have told The Mother about their chat because later she scrubbed our mouths out with soap, making us gag and retch, as he looked on, and told us never to speak about that filthy business again. Hephzi hadn’t been satisfied with that and she’d wondered and wondered. Maybe Granny would have told us if she’d had the chance. By the time we went to college everyone knew everything there was to know and no one thought to share the nitty-gritty. That was old news. Not to Hephzi though; we’d never studied Biology, never practised putting a condom on a banana. My mouth had dropped open when Archie told me about how they’d done that in Year Nine and how he’d even laughed about it later with his mum and dad.
All Hephzi knew about was the dirty thing, the thing
the Mother said we mustn’t do because if we did we’d go to hell. The same with our periods. It was the devil in us that made us bleed every month. The blood was there, the devil’s sign, to remind us, like my face, that we were rotten. I’d believed her for a while until Hephzi found out from a girl at a church group that it was all normal and just part of growing up. They’d whispered about it in the toilets during a meeting. Hephzi might have known she was going to hell for doing what she did with Craig but she didn’t know she would have a baby. Poor little thing. Craig still has no idea and I’m never going to tell him.
After I escaped from the vicarage and made my mad dash to the care home, an ambulance came and took me to the hospital. Perhaps it was the same one that had taken my dying sister, six months before. Danny came with me. I clung on to his hand but he prised my fingers away and placed me on crisp, white sheets and let them give me medicine, bandage my body and put in a drip. They would keep me alive and I would survive. Hephzi should have made it here. She would have too, if only I’d called for help just a little sooner.
The nurses asked me questions but I kept quiet; there was no need to tell them, they wouldn’t believe me, why should they? I’d seen it all before. Danny came back and I asked him not to leave me alone again and he nodded. Unless Danny was there The Father would turn up, he’d
take me back to the vicarage and I’d never escape again. I think he understood that this was my only chance.
Danny said he was going to call the police but I shook my head so hard and told him I’d kill myself if he did, so he subsided into his chair like a great bear retreating back into its cave. He said he supposed it could wait, just until I felt better.