Authors: Ava Bloomfield
Once, when I
was ten and mum had been gone for six months without so much as a phone call, I
found my dad crying in their bedroom. The blinds were drawn, and it was about
two o’clock on a Saturday — one of our “family” days. We never did many family
things, except watch re–runs of
Frasier
and
Roseanne
and a whole
bunch of other shows that my parents used to watch before I was born. Other
than that, the Saturday supermarket run and the Sunday walk to the park and
back was about all the family things we did.
There was
school, but my parents weren’t much help with that either. Mum went out every
evening and dad wasn’t good with numbers, so I usually did my homework alone.
That, or I stuffed it down the toilet and read one of mum’s magazines instead,
or one of her trashy romance novels. We were a pretty quiet family.
It got even
quieter when mum ran away with her new guy. When I found dad crying, I wasn’t
sure how I could cheer him up. We never really played any games together, and
seeing as I’d never really liked mum much I never cried like he did. I’d be
lying if I said I missed her, but I did miss watching
Frasier
and
Rosanne
,
and I did miss snatching her magazines.
I stood in
front of him in my nightdress, the silver strands in his hair shining in the
half–light. ‘Dads can cry too Ellen,’ he said, breaking the silence. He wiped
his tired eyes and looked at me. ‘Don’t be scared.’
‘I’m not,’ I
said. I took a strand of my tangled hair — I wasn’t good at brushing it myself
— and toyed with it while I thought of something to say. I couldn’t think of
anything to say about mum to make dad feel better, so I tried to think of
things that I liked about mum. I could only think of one thing. ‘Can we get one
of mum’s magazines at the shop?’
His eyes
widened, his unshaven mouth hanging open. ‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
‘You always liked reading those after her, didn’t you? Yeah.’ He nodded his
head slowly, his eyes wandering about the room. When they wandered back to me
again, he got up and took my hand, and we went straight downstairs and out the
front door to dad’s van.
He fitted
aerials at the time, so the van had a big
Enfield Aerials
slogan on the
side, and even though my dad didn’t own the company I liked to think he did. In
mum’s magazines, the dads always owned their own companies and the mums always
worked in offices and the kids always wore clothes from
John Lewis
or
Mamas
and Papas
, and no child was ever alone because they had brothers and
sisters to play with.
I only had me,
and now dad only had me. I didn’t even think it was weird that he was wearing a
grubby T–shirt and a pair of boxer shorts outside, or that he was taking me with
him by the hand without asking me to brush my hair, wash my face and change out
of my nightdress.
Looking back,
I was an incredibly naive child. In mum’s magazines, ten year olds rode their
bikes to school and caught the bus to town with their friends for the first
time, and went to the park in groups at the weekends. I didn’t do any of those
things. I just followed my parents from room to room, and now that mum was gone
I was following dad.
Dad’s eyes
were glazed over like pickled onions, and he didn’t even wear a seatbelt or ask
me to wear one either. We drove to the big supermarket just a few miles down
the road. I remembered feeling so exposed under those halogen lights. I
remembered dad tugging me through the store and, as I saw all the other kids in
their knitted jumpers and long socks and bobble hats, it dawned on me that I
was different. We weren’t a
Cosmo
family.
I was a grubby
ten year old in my night dress, and the whole world could see it. Dad couldn’t.
He just kept on tugging me around the store while the mums looked in disgust
and the kids laughed at me.
First, we went
to get his favourite pack of lager. ‘We can both have treats for ourselves, eh?
You can have your magazines and I’ll have my drink.’ Dad smiled, his tired face
awfully red and sagging in the clear light of the shop. My heart thudded. This
wasn’t right. I looked around at all the other kids with their girly picture
books and cartoons on their T–shirts and my heart ached so, so much and I
didn’t know why.
Then dad was
pulling me around to the magazine aisle. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Pick whatever
you want.’
I’d never
chosen anything from the magazine aisle before. I glanced at all the
kiddy–looking ones with cartoons and free gifts on the front, to the older ones
with girls on the front, then over to the ones with horses and puppies and
kittens all over them. My heart ached even harder. There was a big princess
sticker book, and even as I stared at its sparkling cover I could just imagine
peeling each sticker off and decorating my mirror with them, or one of my
notebooks.
I looked up at
dad’s face, and he had seen my longing glances at the children’s magazines. He
picked up
Cosmo
and
Marie–Claire
and
Red
, then
Heat
and
OK!
And a whole bunch of others, tucking them all under his hairy armpit
with the dark crescents of sweat beneath.
‘You wanted
your mum’s magazines,’ said dad. ‘You’re too old for all that lot. You were
always more like your mum, weren’t you, love? You always wanted to be like your
mummy.’
‘Can’t I just
have some of those as well and less of these ones?’ I asked, pointing to the
girly mags with stickers and lip–glosses and girls on the front. I hugged
myself around the waist, suddenly ashamed of my nightdress, wondering what the
hell me and dad were doing there, showing ourselves up.
‘No, no,’ he
said. ‘We’ll pay for these and get out. We’re getting funny looks.’
The paying
queue was the worst part. Two little girls were in fits of laughter, looking at
my clumped–up hair and my bare legs with their downy hairs. I’d never felt so
dirty in all my life. As we walked from the shop, stones and bits of plastic
got stuck in my heels while everyone watched and stared and clucked their
tongues. I knew then that dad was going crazy.
It wasn’t
until we got home that I found out just
how
crazy. He opened one of his
cans in the kitchen and took a good long swig, before wiping his stubbly mouth
and looking at me. I was clutching my magazines, my knees shaking, while dad
looked me over.
‘Do you miss
your mum?’ he asked, holding the can up by his lips.
I knew he
wanted me to say yes, but I just couldn’t. I tried to think of the things I
missed
about her. ‘I miss smelling that perfume she wears, and her lipstick.’ I didn’t
know what else to say. When I thought of mum, that was all that came to mind.
She had cigarette breath sometimes, but I never liked that.
‘Yeah,’ said
dad. ‘I miss those things too.’ He frowned, staring down into the black hole of
his open can. ‘Would you like to try some of mummy’s clothes and make–up on?
Would you like that?’
I thought of
those girls with the lip–gloss on the front of the girly magazines and my heart
leapt. ‘Yes!’ I said. I might not be able to look like all the other girls, but
that didn’t matter. I was going to dress up like a real woman. How many kids got
to do
that
?
I was so
excited that when I went straight upstairs and rifled through the clothes mum
left behind, I didn’t find it strange that dad followed me. I didn’t see
anything weird about him getting our video camera out and positioning it on the
dressing table, and even while I changed out of my nightdress and stood there
in my knickers, I didn’t think anything was strange about it at all.
But you don’t
when you’re a kid. Everything is normal. You take things at face value, even
when the thoughts behind the ‘face’ are more sinister than you could ever
understand.
I chose a long
black dress with sleeves and found a pot of mum’s blue eye shadow, which she
never used because she said it look too tacky. She used to call it “Midnight
Harlot”.
I blew kisses
at the camera and twirled around in the dress. I even put mum’s voice on and
told dad off, wagging my finger back and forth. I didn’t think it was strange
that he was laughing and crying at the same time.
It didn’t feel
weird when he left the camera and went to the bed to watch me playing, and
nothing seemed weird when he pulled me on his lap and looked at me for what
seemed like hours and hours and hours.
Nothing seemed
weird when his hand moved up my leg and the other pulled down my sleeve.
Nothing seemed
weird when he started crying harder, his hands crawling all over me like ants,
while the camera was still watching. Dad wasn’t laughing anymore.
And neither
was I.
When the
rapping came at my door, I scrunched my arms and legs up so tight that he
couldn’t prize me open. Instead he put his arms around me and cried.
I hated it
when dad cried. It seemed so unnatural. None of the husbands in
Comso
or
Marie Claire
did things like crying, although I supposed my dad wasn’t
in those types of articles. He was a different species of his own.
I’d read once
about a girl who had been ‘groomed’, they called it, by her own uncle. I was
about twelve at the time, and I remembered feeling really sorry for the girl
because she had been so naive to think that uncles weren’t allowed to do that
stuff to their nieces, when I knew that they could. By thirteen, I’d read
enough articles to know I was the naive one. I also learned that every time it
felt so horribly, horribly shameful and wrong, there was a very good reason
behind it — because it
was
all those things.
But then, what
could I do? What does a girl do when all she has is her father, and nobody else
to take care of her? I just did what the girls in the magazines did. I followed
their advice with men — take control, treat ‘em mean, all of that. And I
thought it was going to pay off someday.
Wasn’t that
every girl’s trouble? How to figure out how to get everything she wants?
All I wanted
was for dad to get the hell out of my room and leave me alone to think about
Peter. I was searching for him on the cliff top, searching for his shadow to
come out and walk where we used to walk together, but nothing came.
‘Get out now
dad,’ I said, my voice hoarse. ‘That’s enough now.’
‘You’re a
bitch,’ he said, crying against my shoulder. ‘One day you’ll miss me when I’m
gone. And what will you do, eh? What will you do without your dad?’
‘Find a
replacement,’ I said. ‘Like mum did.’
His face went
cold against the skin of my shoulder. ‘Don’t say that. You’re my little flower,
you know that.’
‘I don’t
care,’ I said, shoving him by the shoulders. My knee throbbed, making me grit
my teeth. ‘You’re hurting me.’
‘You’re
hurting
me
,’ he hissed, his hand grasping for my face. When he got a
hold of me he jerked my head to one side and stared and stared for ages, just
breathing, his eyes searching mine. Eventually he let go and went back to his
own room.
At about three
in the morning I woke and saw Peter Denton standing over me.
I yelped and
struggled up, scrambling back against the headboard, kicking so hard my knee
clicked and sent a fierce pain soaring up my leg. I cried out, but I was crying
to thin air for, when I looked around, I couldn’t see Peter anymore.
My cries
turned to sighs and panted breaths, my palms sweating, but as minutes passed I
calmed myself down enough to think about what I had just seen. A dark room, my
wardrobe beyond, moonlight filtering through the curtains and, in front of me,
the silhouette of Peter watching me sleep.
Shaking, I
pulled the covers up to my neck, knowing I would never get back to sleep that
night. That’s when my body started getting colder, so cold I couldn’t feel my
hands, or even my painful knee anymore.
I wanted to
call out for dad but I just couldn’t, because my mouth felt frozen too, the
words a million miles from my mouth. I didn’t know something was happening
until my blood rippled under my skin and something started to
move
inside
me. My limbs stiffened and un–stiffened, and my hand grasped the blanket of its
own accord, my entire body flexing, and there was nothing I could do.
I screamed
and screamed but no sound came out. My throat was seizing up.
My vision
blurred; I became delirious. An image of Dennis floated to the surface of my
mind. His shaven head and big, sad brown eyes staring ahead. My legs swung out
of bed of their own accord, my knee squealing, yet feeling nothing.
I was trapped
in my own body, my breaths muffled behind someone else’s skin, and even if I
screamed my mouth wouldn’t move because it wasn’t mine anymore, it was someone
else’s.
In my delirium
I knew it had to be Peter. I was inside Peter.
No, no, that
couldn’t be it. It was still my room; still my legs moving in their nightdress,
still my screaming, painful knee. I wasn’t
inside
Peter, and I wasn’t
dreaming.
Peter was
inside
me
.
We moved
through my bedroom, stopping and starting, shuffling, sometimes struggling
against my own willpower, but it was no good fighting. Peter was too strong for
me. My fingers curled up and stiffened as I screamed inside, terrified, and when
I saw my face float by the mirror it was just one great big smudge of white,
anonymous now, lost to myself.
The bedroom
door swung open and the landing waited before me, shrouded in darkness. Even
the silence seemed absent, for there were no sounds to compare it with; I
couldn’t even hear the sounds of my own breath.
I strained and
cried but it didn’t work; I wasn’t me anymore. My hand reached out and touched
the banister, and all the while I was thinking
Please Peter please Peter
please
Peter please Peter please don’t
, but if he could hear me he
wasn’t listening.
It all
happened so fast that I stopped breathing, as if Peter had his hands around my
throat. How, I couldn’t tell; his hands were now my hands, and when I glanced
down — it was all I
could
do— my hands were a blur just like my face;
warped and unrecognisable.
When I looked
up again I saw the stairs coming toward me, rapidly fast. I was flung deep down
into the dark stairwell as if by a great invisible shove.
As I fell, my
body flooded with warmth and I could feel again, but it was too late, it was
too late.
The stairs
were coming for my face, and I was crying, I was crying,
I was crying.
And Peter was
floating to the bottom of the ocean, and the red cloud was all around me, and
my leg stung so hard.
And Peter was
falling away from me, and—
It all just
happened so fast.
I saw dad’s
face above me, crying, and then he disappeared again.
I saw Peter’s
face above me, just watching, and then he disappeared again.
I woke up and
I saw Melanie’s face watching me at my bedside. I closed my eyes.
I opened them.
Melanie was still there.
‘Hello Ellen,’
she said, looking down at me beneath a halo of red hair.
I remembered
what had happened to me, and I knew she’d want to know too. But I just didn’t have
the energy to explain. I was sore and numb and heavy, a whole burden on my
shoulders, and I couldn’t take the weight of another. I just knew that I did
not
want Melanie to be here, because Melanie, like every counsellor, meant bad
news.
‘Hello,’ I croaked.
I looked around and saw my bedroom, not the hospital like I feared. I should
have known that, seeing as hospitals weren’t dad’s style. It was habit he’d
picked up from after mum left, never taking me to doctors, or police, or
teachers, or anyone who might pinch and probe and ask a lot of questions.
Not until
Dennis, anyway, but that was another story. And it was never dad’s idea.
‘How are you
feeling?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.
Hurting,’ I said. ‘How long have I...You know, how long?’
‘Oh, you’ve
been checked over by the doctor — I insisted it. You were awake long enough for
the doctor to perform a couple of simple tests, and he thinks you’re going to
be fine,’ said Melanie, patting me on the wrist.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Your father
called me in a panic. I expect he was in shock, because if he had have been
thinking clearly he would have called an ambulance himself. Thankfully, you
woke up.’
‘So I haven’t
been to hospital?’
‘No, there was
no need. You woke up bruised and a bit delirious, according to your dad. He
took you back to your bedroom and called me this morning, worried. I suggested
the doctor. You clearly don’t remember any of it!’ She laughed, her big teeth
impossibly white.
‘No, I don’t,’
I admitted, feeling the back of my head. It was bruised, but I would live. ‘Why
did dad want you to come?’
She smiled the
fake smile, the one where her eyes were dead even though her mouth was
grinning. ‘Dad said it might be nice if somebody came to talk to you. Don’t
worry, we don’t have to talk about it right this second. I thought I’d see how
you are first.’
‘Why do we
have to talk about it at all?’
Her eyes
darkened. She folded one leg over the over and picked up the coffee mug resting
on my bedside table. ‘Well, we need to know why you ended up falling down the
stairs at three in the morning,’ she said, taking a deep sip.
Well officer,
I mean ma’am, my old best friend, yes the dead one, came into my room and
possessed me, then he flung my body down the stairs. If truth be told I quite
liked it, because at least he thought of me as much as I thought of him, even
if he wanted to hurt me.
I was
shivering all over and I felt so incredibly nauseas that I thought I might
vomit on Melanie’s ugly brown suit. Somehow I still preferred that to really
thinking about what had happened, let alone talking about it. It was better to
react than to think, sometimes, because it was easier. Especially when you
thought your dead boyfriend might have tried to kill you.
Peter’s face
came to mind and suddenly I just felt like crying.
I gripped the
pillow tight and forced myself to remain calm. The last thing I wanted to do
was tell Melanie what had really happened, because she’d put it down to some
kind of delusional suicide attempt and it just wasn’t true. Then she’d start
probing and she’d bring up Peter’s death and then she’d bring up Dennis, and I
just couldn’t handle that right now. I just wanted it all to stop.
‘I’ve been
sleepwalking,’ I lied.
‘Oh?’ she
said, putting the cup down and flipping open her pad of paper. ‘How long has
this been going on?’
I shrugged,
then winced. I must have been pretty badly bruised. I supposed I was lucky to
be alive.
‘A while,’ I
said.
Melanie cocked
her head to one side. ‘You’ve never mentioned this before. Has anything been getting
you down lately?’
‘I didn’t
think it was important enough to mention. No, I haven’t been down about
anything; I’ve just been getting up a lot at night. I don’t know why.’ I made
sure to drop the tone of my voice towards the end and look at the floor,
because it made me look sad and a little pathetic.
I’d hoped she
might leave me alone if she thought she was bothering me.
‘Well,
sleepwalking can happen as a result of stress. Have you been thinking about
anything in particularly since you came here? Things about Peter, or things
about De—’
‘No,’ I said,
cutting her off. ‘I haven’t thought about them. I’m just trying to get settled
in that’s all. Settling in
is
stressful.’
‘Of course it
is,’ said Melanie. ‘And you have been trying to reach out to people, haven’t
you?’
I frowned. ‘If
you’re talking about David then don’t bother. I know you don’t like the things
that have been happening between us. It’s none of your business.’
‘No, no, I’m
not saying that. I just wonder if perhaps we’ve all been a bit too hard on you,
hm? Perhaps you’ve been finding it harder than we thought to get settled in.’
I didn’t like
where she was going with this at all, so I just shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ I said.
She looked at
me, seemingly deciding something. Her eyes flitted around my face, her lips
together. Then she said, ‘Would you like it if you had a couple of visitors,
Ellen? Some friends to come and cheer you up?’
‘What, like
David?’ I said, hopeful. If anything could get him to stop being so hostile
towards me, surely this would be it. He was my last link with Peter and I
couldn’t let him go, no matter how he treated me. He was only one man. He
couldn’t help it.
64% of
women...
‘Yes, why
not?’ said Melanie. ‘And Lauren too. Perhaps all you need is a bit of an
icebreaker to get to know them and make friends. You all got off on the wrong
foot, that’s all.’
‘Mm.’
‘Right,’ said
Melanie, slapping her notepad. ‘I’ll try and get that arranged for you. Perhaps
they could pop round, or you could go and see one of the local bands together?’
I felt
suddenly deflated. Lauren? Why Lauren? I didn’t have time for her, and besides,
she was the one getting in the way. I could hardly talk about Peter with her
sniffing about. She never knew him, after all.
When Melanie
left, Dad came in and sat on the edge of my bed, looking timid. ‘Don’t give me
those big cow eyes, dad,’ I said. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘What am I
thinking?’ he said, his eyes welling up with tears. He looked even more pitiful
than ever, pigeon–chested with knobbly elbows and his scrawny thin ponytail.
It was no
wonder he looked so frail; not like a real man at all. At dinner times he
barely touched his food, even though he insisted I had to keep eating. I
obliged, but only because I could get to the bathroom before it was too late to
undo all the damage.
‘You’re
thinking I attempted suicide or something ridiculous. I told Melanie and now
I’m telling you. I was sleepwalking,’ I said, keeping my voice firm.
I was using my
‘mum’ voice, the one that always made the hairs on the back of dad’s neck
prickle up. I could tell by the way he seemed to rise up on his hackles
whenever I used that voice. It was necessary at my age to have some authority.
‘You’ve never
mentioned that before,’ he said, his voice thinning to a whisper as he choked back
more tears. ‘I’ve never heard you getting up—’