Public Secrets (3 page)

Emma buried her face in Charlie’s familiar, stale-smelling fur.

She remembered that she was in a different place. The place where the man from the pictures lived. Some of the fear vanished in curiosity. He said she could call him Da. That was a funny name. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried it, murmuring it into the dark like a chant.

They had eaten fish and chips in the kitchen with the dark-haired lady. There had been music. It seemed music played in the house all the time. Whenever the Da man spoke, it sounded like music.

The lady had seemed unhappy even when she had smiled. Emma wondered if the lady was going to wait until they were alone before she hit.

He’d given her a bath. Emma remembered that he’d had a funny look on his face, but his hands hadn’t pinched and he hadn’t gotten much soap in her eyes. He asked about her bruises, and she had told him what her mam had warned her to say if anyone asked. She was clumsy. She fell down.

Emma had seen the angry look come into his eyes, but he hadn’t smacked her.

He’d given her a shirt to wear, and she had giggled because it had come all the way to her toes.

The lady had come with him when he had put her in bed. She’d sat on the edge and smiled when he had told a story about castles and princesses.

But they had been gone when she’d awakened. They’d been gone and the room was dark. She was afraid. Afraid the things would get her, snap their big teeth, eat her. She was afraid her mam would come and slap her because she wasn’t home in her own bed.

What was that? She was sure she had heard a whispering noise in the corner. Breathing through her teeth, she opened one eye. The shadows shifted, towering, reaching. Muffling her sobs against Charlie, Emma tried to make herself smaller, so small she
couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be eaten by all the ugly, squishy things that hid in the dark. Her mam had sent them because she’d gone with the man in the pictures.

The terror built so that she was shuddering, sweating. It burst out of her in one high wail as she scrambled out of bed and stumbled into the hallway. Something crashed.

She lay sprawled, clutching the dog and waiting for the worst.

Lights came on. They made her blink. The old fear dissolved in a new one as she heard voices. Emma scooted back against the wall and sat frozen, staring at the shards of china from the vase she’d broken.

They would beat her. Send her away. Shut her up in a dark room to be eaten.

“Emma?” Still dazed with sleep, floating a bit on the joint he’d smoked before he and Bev had made love, Brian walked toward her. She curled into herself, bracing for the blow. “Are you all right?”

“They broke it,” she told him, hoping to save herself.

“They?”

“The dark things. Mam sent them to get me.”

“Oh, Emma.” He dropped his cheek to the top of her head.

“Brian, what—” Still belting her robe, Bev rushed out. She saw what was left of her Dresden vase, gave a little sigh, then crossed to them, avoiding the shards. “Is she hurt?”

“I don’t think so. She’s terrified.”

“Let’s have a look.” She took Emma’s hand. It was fisted, her arm taut as a wire. “Emma.” Her voice had firmed, but there was no meanness in it. Cautious, Emma lifted her head. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Still wary, Emma pointed to her knee. There were a few drops of blood on the white T-shirt. Bev lifted the hem. It was a long scratch, but shallow. Still, she imagined most children would have wailed over it. Perhaps Emma didn’t because it was nothing compared to the bruises Brian had found on the girl when he’d bathed her. In a gesture more automatic than maternal, Bev lowered her head to kiss the hurt. When she saw Emma’s mouth drop open in shock, her heart was lost.

“All right, sweetie, we’ll take care of it.” She picked Emma up and nuzzled her neck.

“There are things in the dark,” Emma whispered.

“Your daddy will chase them away. Won’t you, Bri?”

The Irish in him, or perhaps the drug, made him weepy when he looked at the woman he loved holding his child. “Sure. I’ll chop them up and toss them out.”

“After you do, you’d better sweep this up,” Bev told him.

Emma spent the night, the first of her new life, snuggled with her family in a big brass bed.

A
S SHE HAD
every day for nine days, Emma sat on the big window seat in the front parlor and looked through the mullioned glass. She stared beyond the edges of the garden with its nodding foxglove and bushy columbine to the long graveled drive. And waited.

Her bruises were fading, but she hadn’t noticed. No one in the big new house had hit her. Yet. She’d been given tea every day, and presents of sugar plums and china dolls from the friends who came and went so casually in her father’s house.

It was all very confusing for Emma. She was given a bath every day, even if she hadn’t been playing in the dirt, and clean-smelling clothes to wear. No one called her a stupid baby because she was frightened of the dark. The lamp with the pink shade was turned on in her room every night, and there were little rosebuds on the walls. The monsters hardly ever came into her new room.

She was afraid to like it, because she was sure her mam would be coming soon to take her away again.

Bev had driven her in the pretty car to go shopping in a big store with bright clothes and beautiful smells. She had bought bags and boxes of things for Emma. Emma liked a pink organdy dress with a frilly skirt the best. She’d felt like a princess when she’d worn it the day her da and Bev had been married. She’d had shiny black shoes with little straps as well, and white tights. No one had scolded when she’d smudged the knees.

The wedding had seemed very strange and solemn to Emma,
with everyone standing out in the garden and the sun fighting off clouds. One of the men everyone called Stevie had worn a long white shirt and baggy white pants. He’d sung in a husky voice while strumming a glossy white guitar. Emma had thought he was an angel, but when she’d asked Johnno, he’d only laughed.

Bev had worn a circle of flowers in her hair and a flowing multicolored dress that had swept her ankles. To Emma, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. For the first time in her young life, she had been struck by true envy. To be beautiful, and grown-up, and standing beside Da. She’d never be afraid again, or hungry again. And like the girls in the fairy tales Brian was so fond of, she would be happy ever after.

When the rain had started, they had gone inside to have cake and champagne in a room with fabric books and flowers and fresh paint. More guitars had been played and people had sung along and laughed. Beautiful women, in slim short skirts or flowing cotton dresses, had roamed the house. Some of them had cooed over her or patted her head, but for the most part she’d been left to herself.

No one noticed that she’d had three pieces of cake and smeared icing on the collar of her new dress. There had been no other little girls to play with, and Emma was too young to be dazzled by the names and faces of the luminaries of the music business who had wandered through the house. Bored, a little queasy from cake, she’d gone off to bed, lulled by the sounds from the party.

Later, she’d woken. Restless, she had dragged Charlie out of bed to go downstairs. But the heavy scent of pot smoke had stopped her. She was familiar with it, too familiar. Like the stink of gin, the sweet scent of marijuana was firmly linked in her mind with her mother, and the shakings and beatings that had come whenever Jane had crashed from her highs.

Miserable, she had huddled on the steps, cooing reassurances to Charlie. If her mam was here now, she would take her away. Emma had known she would never again wear the pretty pink dress, or hear her da’s voice, or go into the big, bright stores with Bev.

She’d cringed when she heard the footsteps on the stairs, and waited for the worst.

“Hello there, Emma luv.” Soaring, at peace with the world, Brian had dropped down beside her. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.” She’d curled tighter over the stuffed dog. She made herself small, very small. If they couldn’t see you, they couldn’t hurt you.

“It’s quite the party.” Leaning back on his elbows, he’d grinned at the ceiling. Never in his wildest fantasies had he believed he would one day entertain giants like McCartney, Jagger, Daltrey, in his own house. And his wedding, too. Good Christ, he was married. A married man with a gold ring on his finger.

Tapping his bare foot to the beat of the music that crashed its way up the stairs, he’d studied the ring. No going back, he’d thought comfortably. He was Catholic enough, and idealistic enough to believe that now that the deed was done, it was forever.

It was one of the biggest days of his life, he’d thought as he’d fumbled in his shin pocket for the pack of cigarettes he’d left downstairs. One of the biggest, he’d thought again with a sigh. And if his father had been too drunk or too lazy to pick up the bloody tickets he’d sent to Ireland, what did it matter? Brian had all the family he needed right here.

He’d pushed thoughts of yesterdays out of his mind. From now on there would only be tomorrows. A lifetime of them.

“How about it, Emma? Want to go down and dance at your da’s wedding?”

She’d kept her shoulders rounded and barely shook her head. The smoke twining mystically in the air had made her temples throb.

“Want some cake?” He had reached out to give her hair a gentle tug, but she’d cringed away. “What’s this?” Baffled, he’d patted her shoulder.

Already queasy, Emma’s stomach had rolled with a combination of terror and too many sweets. After one hiccup, she’d lost her cake and tea ail over her father’s lap. Wretched, she managed a single moan before curling back over Charlie. As she lay too sick to defend herself from the beating she was certain was coming, he’d begun to laugh.

“Well, I imagine you’re feeling a good bit better.” Too high to be disgusted, he’d staggered to his feet then held out a hand. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

To Emma’s amazement there had been no beating, no cruel pinches or sudden smacks. Instead he had stripped them both down to the skin in the bathroom, then hauled her into the
shower. He’d even sung as the water had poured over them, something about drunken sailors that had made her forget to be sick.

When they were both bundled in towels, he had woven his way to her room to slip her into bed. His hair had been wet and sleek around his face as he’d fallen over the foot of the bed. Within seconds, he’d been snoring.

Cautious, Emma had crawled out from under the covers to sit beside him. Gathering her courage, she’d leaned over and pressed a damp kiss to his cheek. In love for the first time, she had tucked Charlie under Brian’s limp arm, and gone quietly to sleep.

Then he had gone away. Only days after the wedding the big car had come, and two men had carried out luggage. He had kissed her and had promised to bring her a present. Emma had only been able to watch wordlessly as he’d ridden away, and out of her life. She hadn’t believed he was coming back, even when she heard his voice over the phone. Bev said he was in America where girls screamed every time they saw him, and people bought his records almost as fast as they were made.

But while he was gone, there wasn’t as much music in the house, and sometimes Bev cried.

Emma remembered Jane crying, and the smacks and shoves that had usually accompanied the tears. So she waited, but Bev never hit her, not even at night when the workmen were gone and they were all alone in the big house.

Day after day, Emma would cuddle up on the window seat with Charlie and watch. She liked to pretend that the long, black car was cruising down the drive, and when it stopped and the door opened, her da came out.

Each day when it didn’t come, she became more certain it never would. He had left because he didn’t like her, didn’t want her. Because she was a nuisance and bloody stupid. She waited for Bev to go away too, and leave her alone in the big house. Then her mam would come.

W
HAT WENT ON IN
the girl’s mind? Bev wondered. From the doorway she watched as Emma sat in her now habitual position on the window seat. The child could sit for hours, patient as an old woman. It was rare for her to play with anything except
the ratty old stuffed dog she’d brought with her. It was rarer still for her to ask for anything.

She’d been in their lives now for almost a month, and Bev was a long way from resolving her feelings.

Only a few weeks before, her plans had been perfectly laid. She wanted Brian to succeed, certainly. But more, she wanted to make a home and family with him.

She’d been raised in the Church of England, in a calm, upper-middle-class family. Morals, responsibilities, and image had been important parts of her upbringing. She’d been given a good, solid education with the idea that she would make a sensible marriage and raise solid, sensible children.

She had never rebelled, mostly because it had never occurred to her to rebel. Until Brian.

She knew that although her parents had come to the wedding, they would never completely forgive her for moving in with Brian and living with him before marriage. Nor would they ever comprehend why she had chosen to marry an Irish musician who not only questioned authority but wrote songs defying it.

There had been no doubt that they had been appalled and baffled by Brian’s illegitimate child, and their daughter’s acceptance of her. Yet, what could she do? The child existed.

Bev loved her parents. A part of her would always desperately want their approval. But she loved Brian more, so much more that it was sometimes terrifying. And the child was his. Whatever she had wanted, whatever her plans had been, that meant the child was now hers as well.

It was difficult to look at Emma and not feel something. She wasn’t a child who faded into the woodwork no matter how quiet and unobtrusive she tried to be. It was her looks, certainly. Those same elegantly angelic looks of her father. More, it was that sense of innocence, an innocence that was in itself a miracle considering how the child had lived the first three years of her life. An innocence, and an acceptance, Bev thought. She knew if she walked into the room right now, shouting, slapping, Emma would tolerate the abuse with barely a whimper. That struck Bev as more tragic than the miserable poverty she’d been saved from.

Brian’s child. Instinctively Bev laid a hand over the life she carried. She’d wanted so desperately to give Brian his first child. That wasn’t to be. Yet every time she felt resentment, she had only to look at Emma for it to fade. How could she resent
someone so utterly vulnerable? Still she couldn’t bring herself to love, not as unquestioningly, as automatically, as Brian loved.

She didn’t want to love, Bev admitted. This was another woman’s child, a link that would forever remind her of Brian’s intimacy with someone else. Five years ago or ten, it didn’t matter. As long as there was Emma, Jane would be a part of their lives.

Brian had been the first man she’d slept with, and though she had known when they’d become involved that there had been others for him, it had been easy to block it out, to tell herself that their coming together had been an initiation for them both.

Dammit, why had he had to leave now, when everything was in upheaval? There was this child slipping around the house like a shadow. There were workmen hammering and sawing hour after hour. And there was the press. It was as ugly as Brian had warned her it would be, with headlines screaming his name, and hers, and Jane’s. How she hated, how she detested, seeing her picture and Jane’s on the same page of a paper. How she loathed those nasty, gloating little stories about new wives and old lovers.

It didn’t fade quickly, as she had prayed it would. There was speculation and questions about the most personal areas of her life. She was Mrs. Brian McAvoy now, and public property. She had told herself countless times that because marrying Brian was what she wanted most, she would be able to tolerate the public dissections, the lack of freedom, the smirking headlines.

And she would. Somehow. But when he was away like this, thousands of miles away, she wondered how she could bear a lifetime of being photographed and hounded, of running away from microphones, of wearing wigs and sunglasses to do something as ordinary as buy shoes. She wondered if Brian would ever understand how humiliating it was for her to see something as intimate as her pregnancy splashed in headlines for strangers to read over their morning tea.