Authors: Elise Alden
“How are things at Flintfire?” I asked, floundering for a topic.
James switched into boss mode. “Fine. Somebody else will accompany Greg and me to Valencia. Velma speaks some Spanish and wants to come.”
I
bet she does
, my mind said.
“I’ll be back on Monday,” I said firmly. “There’s a lot to do before we leave.”
“I don’t want to see you in the office.”
As ever, his dictatorial tone got my back up. “Well,
I
want to see
you
,” I retorted, instantly cringing at my words.
“Okay.”
Huh? I didn’t get to find out what he meant by that. In typical James fashion he’d made his pronouncement and hung up. I shook my phone, wishing I could whack him over the head with it for being such a...a...
Perplexing and considerate—albeit bossy—man you can’t stop thinking about even though you try so hard I’m forced to zap you into infinity
, my mind supplied.
I stared at the green fields beyond the old tombstones, a silly smile on my face. It faded though, as hopelessness and guilt battled for supremacy. Why the hell had I lied to James at his and Caroline’s wedding? If I hadn’t been drunk I would have kept to the truth and nothing but. Self-loathing mixed with despair. I could never come clean about Ryan and I could never be James’s friend—or anything else for that matter. I might as well bury my fledgling happiness in one of the tombs in front of me.
I was halfway back to my pew when I came face to face with Manuel, coming in the opposite direction. My mobile felt warm in my palm, almost as if I were holding a small part of James’s essence close to me. James hadn’t pitied me. He’d been protective, yes, but not because he thought I was a weakling; he didn’t see me as a poor little victim and he didn’t judge me.
He judged Manuel.
I stood straighter, lifted my chin and stared into Manuel’s dark brown eyes. The crowded church faded out until it was just him and me, and we were standing on a fault line between my past and my future. It was an opening chasm he would either drag me into or from which I would leap away, choosing a side on which to land.
There’s no changing the past and no cure for innocence lost, no safe hideaways and no fairy tale endings. The bad guys get you and then they get away. Full stop and end of story. It’s what you do after the end that matters.
You deal with it and stop the fucking whining!
my mind ordered.
As much as it hurt to enter Manuel’s darkness, I didn’t flinch. I’d finally learned a thing or two. Hope strengthens, fear kills. He might have got away with abusing me but he’d never get to me again. Never. Something in my face must have communicated my thoughts because Manuel’s satisfied smile disappeared. He dropped his eyes and looked disconcerted. Disappointed at my lack of fear.
Slowly, I became aware of the curious stares and of one enraged bystander in particular. Aunt Isabel’s face was pinched so tightly she looked like she’d implode. Narrowed eyes flicked between her husband and the niece she despised. She was in black from head to toe, red-eyed and grieving but not too stricken to cover her suspicious jealousy. She took Manuel’s arm and they headed to wherever they were going.
When I sat down next to Tarzan my knees were weak and I was shaking. He put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me close.
“Ghost from the past?” he said.
“More like a ghoul.”
I couldn’t concentrate during the service. I felt like a fraud, attending a mass for two strangers. Caroline was sobbing on her husband’s shoulder. Well, at least one of us could. My childhood had seen me cry for the lack of my parents’ love, my adolescence for the lack of their protection. My well had long since evaporated and all that was left was a sculpture in salt.
After the funeral, the church emptied of mourners. It became silent in the way that draughty old churches have of making even the air feel hushed. I looked around. It was just Jesus, the Virgin Mary and me.
Pain and sorrow and silence.
I walked up the aisle. When I reached the altar I stopped and stared at the caskets. Black and shiny, and one of them bigger than the other. Side by side. Each one was engraved with a gold crucifix in straight Romanic lines, rough underneath my fingertips. I pressed my palms to the glossy wood.
John and María
,
María and John
, my mind sang sadly.
I swirled their initials with one of my tears.
Chapter Eighteen
The Scale of Reason
I didn’t want to attend the burial and neither, it
seemed, did Caroline. I found her sitting on a bench behind the church, twisting
a daisy chain and watching two children play by my old tree. I hesitated, then
sat down and checked out the kids. The boy was dark haired and thin. I couldn’t
see the girl’s face but she had long blond hair.
“Yours?” I asked.
“They’re adopted. My husband can’t have children.”
I waited for Caroline to gloat that I had lost Ryan or taunt me
about my addictions and rage about her wedding. But all she did was glance at
her children, shoving me off balance with her eerie silence.
Maybe Kahlu was right. In her country they say that weddings
bring out the worst in people and funerals the best. I could put a tick to my
name on the wedding bit, of course. But could Caroline do the same for funerals?
I didn’t think I could stomach any more confrontations.
I stood up. “Goodbye, Caroline.”
“I hated you before you were even born,” she said flatly.
I sat my arse back down.
Caroline’s face was stony. “From the afternoon Mum announced
she was pregnant and Dad hugged her. The whole family was rejoicing because of
you. Even our grandparents were happy. They didn’t want a divorce and they’d
involved Father Martin. He’d urged another baby, saying it would heal their
relationship. You were the golden child, the proof John and María Benton could
start their marriage over the right way, as they put it.”
She flicked away an imperfect daisy and plucked another one
from the grass. “You have no idea what it was like, being the reason they were
forced to marry. I was four when I first understood why they hated each other.
At five and six I’d lie in bed at night and listen to their rows. Dad would
shout that he’d married Mum so I wouldn’t be a bastard and she’d shout that she
hated him. Then he’d hit her. She’d sob, screaming that she wanted rid of me,
that she wished I had died in childbirth—herself too.”
Caroline’s voice shook. “I’d sit drawing and Aunt Isabel would
bemoan how I’d ruined Mum’s life, right in front of me. Our grandparents barely
looked at me when they visited. I drew better pictures, made sure I excelled at
school and was generous to other children but they never noticed. Nobody wanted
me. But you? Mum and Dad awaited your arrival eagerly. “This baby will be our
pride and joy,” they’d say, shaking their heads at me because I was to blame for
their unhappiness. And when they brought you home, chubby and perfect, I hated
you even more.”
My hand flew to my open mouth. “I worshipped you when I was
little. I wanted you to notice me, play with me—
Her laugh was harsh, broken. “And I wanted to push your pram
into the road, poison your food and make you ugly. Make them forget about you. I
couldn’t, so I decided to show them I was the only daughter worthy of their
love.”
Bitterness flooded my voice. “You succeeded.”
“Yes,” she said musingly. “After I lied about Manuel.”
I drew in a shocked breath. There she sat, finally admitting
what she’d done to me, and yet I didn’t feel the vindication I had imagined.
Where were my scathing words, the things I’d planned to say to her if she ever
owned up?
All I felt was overwhelming sorrow and a sense of hopelessness.
Pity. My parents had visited their hatred of each other on a small, helpless
child and she had turned it on me.
My heart clenched painfully. I didn’t want to feel sorry for
Caroline but I did. It wasn’t right to let my pity for the child overcome my
hatred of the woman, not after what she had done to me and what I had done to
her. After all, I had to live with the consequences of my actions but Caroline
would never be punished. I would never get justice.
It wasn’t
right
that I should pity
her, damn it! It didn’t stand to reason. Even so I was unable to muster my
hatred, because what is “right” anyway? Or “justice”? How much does hatred weigh
against pity on the scale of Reason?
I looked at her pale face. “You let your childhood hatred grow
up with you, Caroline. You nurtured it until it almost destroyed me, and you
could have chosen differently. You could have loved me or at least tried.”
“I was in love with Manuel.”
The garden tilted and then righted itself and for a second I
thought I had heard her wrong.
She looked me over dispassionately. “Ever since the day he
married Aunt Isabel I wanted him to notice me. He was always playing with you,
tickling you when you were small. When your body started filling out he followed
you with his eyes but he never paid me the same attention. You were nothing.
Nothing! A troublemaker we had to put up with. I was more intelligent, more
beautiful and accomplished. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want me.”
Bloody hell! I had to rewind, process her words and read her
eyes before I could tell myself that yes, I had understood correctly. A wave of
nausea made me glad I had nothing to hurl in my stomach except horror.
Caroline pursed her lips, affronted by her memories. “I flirted
with him, asked for his help with my studies. Anything that would bring us into
close contact. When I came home after my first term at uni I worked up the
courage to kiss him. He rebuked me so I went to his house and tried to seduce
him.”
Sorry Francesca
,
but circumstances being what they are...
“That is seriously fucked up.”
She turned to face me, her eyes full of wrath. “He rejected me,
laughing at my attempt. You were only twelve but I could tell he desired you. He
was always whispering in your ear and touching you. I suspected what was going
on but it was only when I came home early that day and saw him in your bedroom
that I knew for sure.
“After convincing you to come forward it was easy to make you
out to be a liar. You were brazen, always going out behind Mum’s back and
getting into trouble. You got what you deserved.”
My heart pounded painfully and I shut my eyes against her
righteous face. She had suspected Manuel’s intentions and done nothing to help
me. The funeral wasn’t bringing out the best in Caroline but it was bringing out
the truth. I dropped my face into my hands. The sound of her daughter’s high
peals of laughter jerked it up again.
“Keep her away from Manuel,” I said darkly.
“I will.”
I reached out and gripped Caroline’s chin so I could read her.
I had to know if she meant it. She tried to twist away and then gave up and met
my gaze reluctantly. She was telling the truth but I was caught by her other
truths and pulled in deeper.
Looking into her was like being thrown into a cauldron of
bubbling oil except it was guilt, self-hatred and anguish making me writhe and
scream. I’d never read anything as painful and debilitating before. I couldn’t
breathe and I couldn’t break away, sucked in by the crushing weight of her
remorse.
She pulled away and I slumped back, dazed. Free of her tortuous
emotions I felt insubstantial, as if my body were rising, the molecules
separating and floating above the trees. I watched the children play while I
fused myself back together and all the while Caroline twisted her daisies.
Hatred and love. Anger, jealousy, vengeance and guilt.
Truth and lies.
Her daughter fell over and started crying, and both children
ran up to the bench.
“It’s all right, sweetie,” Caroline crooned, giving her a
tender kiss.
“Gosh, Elizabeth, you’re such a baby,” the boy said.
Elizabeth?
Caroline didn’t meet my incredulous stare. And then I got it.
My throat tightened and I let out the breath I’d been holding. My sister still
hated me. Not in the old way so much but in the way that some people come to
hate those who they’ve harmed. Her sea was leagues deeper than mine, her chains
heavier and her truths far uglier.
But she had a plan.
She was going to give this small, innocent Elizabeth the love
she had never given me, protect her like she should have protected me. Cherish
her and pretend that
I
had never existed. And maybe
someday she’d find redemption.
Yeah well
,
good luck with that.
Caroline fit the daisy chain on Elizabeth’s golden head. “I
bought Mum and Dad’s house from the council a few years ago. The spare key is at
the Radomskys’. Anything of yours still there is going in the skip on
Monday.”
They’d kept some of my things? It didn’t matter. I had no
intention of returning to my parents’ house, so she could bin whatever she
liked. I nodded and stood up.
Caroline didn’t look at me. “I hope I never see you again.”
I took a deep breath. “Ditto.”
And if my voice wasn’t entirely steady, it was free of
hate.
* * *
A few hours later I discovered that I did, indeed, want
to go to my parents’ house. Why I wanted to revisit the backdrop to so many
painful memories eluded me. Maybe I wanted to see my old things, remember the
girl I used to be and feel relieved I was no longer her. I figured I might as
well pack in as much trauma in as few hours as possible, then leave it behind me
for good.
Tarzan’s take was that I felt compelled to “open that front
door” so I could “process the pain” and “find closure.” Well, after waving
Tarzan off I opened that front door and found myself in Brighton’s version of a
Stepford
Wives’ house. The inside of my parents’
council home looked like something out of a Laura Ashley decorating shop. Gone
were the stained grey sofas and swirly brown carpets. The Virgin Mary altar and
my mother’s collection of cheap trinkets were nowhere to be seen.
I stood in the middle of the sitting room, rotating slowly as I
took in the delicate flowery wallpaper, the plush cream carpet and sofas, and
the perfectly coordinated accessories. This place didn’t even smell like my
parents’ house anymore. The rose and lily potpourri made my nose itch.
Who the hell had lived here? It couldn’t be John and María
Benton yet there they were, smiling in photographs on top of a sleek oak
bookcase—with books in it! And not just any books either, classics like Dickens
and Dante, though they didn’t seem to have been read. I skimmed the titles,
looking for Cervantes, but came up empty.
I stood at the shiny double-glazed window. The tatty net
hangings may have been replaced with style number 43 but they covered the same
bleak view I’d grown up with. I swung around and compared the middle-class
sitting room with my memories, feeling displaced.
And cheated.
This was supposed to be where I ticked the “profoundly deep and
meaningful foray into the past” box and walked away triumphant. That is, right
after I smashed the Virgin Mary altar to pieces and destroyed my father’s sports
memorabilia.
Just kidding—I think. I guess I had some issues about my
childhood, but Caroline was the only Benton psycho and I told myself it would
stay that way. I also told myself it didn’t matter if the house felt cheerful,
but it was no use. There were memories I had wanted to see, touch and smell.
Masochistic, I know, but I had wanted to all the same.
And then there was James. Hadn’t I stood in this very spot,
confused and exhilarated by my reaction to him? I couldn’t see him on the
expensive, pristine sofa. Or in the new, expensive kitchen. The kitchen had been
extended and was now ultra-modern, with granite countertops and a beautifully
tiled (cream!) floor.
Had I really drawn pictures, studied and baked my first biscuit
in this room? And had my parents raged at me for being pregnant standing right
over there? I’d been back-handed by my father in front of the sink, but it
wasn’t there anymore.
In its place stood an expensive American-style refrigerator.
Nobody had emptied it and I zoomed in immediately on the Heineken. One,
two...eight small green bottles but I’d be happy with one, wouldn’t I? Just one
to take the edge off my bad day.
I shut the fridge door. Opened it. Shut it with a bang that
made it shake. I was so drained I wanted to drop onto the glass top table and
lay there like Snow White, eyes shut. An image of James looking down at me
flashed across my mind. I heard the echo of his insults, saw him walk to a
Formica countertop and kiss Caroline on the cheek.
I dragged myself out of the kitchen and stood at the bottom of
the stairs, undecided. I headed up, framed pictures of spring flowers
accompanying my every other step. After a look inside my parents’ pristine room
I went to Caroline’s. Unsurprisingly, more delicate florals dominated the
décor—roses in red and pink on the walls, a faux-antique bed, and a pale pink
duvet set.
Had James and I really made love in this room? I caught a whiff
of rose-scented perfume and shut my eyes. Soft sighs, hoarse moans and firm, hot
flesh in pitch-black delight. This was not a memory I wanted to see, touch or
feel.
Liar
, my mind whispered
.
I shut the room away, sealing in my memories. The shiny white
door at the end of the corridor was closed. I took a deep breath, steeled myself
for more Laura Ashley, and walked in.
My old bedroom was a time warp.
The dingy blue carpet was as frayed as I remembered and the
faded wood chip on the wall just as dull. The same metal bed frame with a wonky
right foot stood against the wall, and although the duvet smelled clean it was
threadbare. My second-hand books were in the bookcase and the Apostle’s
calendar, marking big red X’s up to Caroline’s wedding day, still hung on the
wall.
Most people can’t remember as far back as when they were one or
two but I’m not most people. There was my mother, kissing my cheek and telling
me a story and there was my father, picking me up and showing me the world
outside my window. Anger and sorrow made me want to bring them back, force them
to
see
me and ask them why they had abandoned me. In
spite of everything a part of me still loved them.