by Page, Ayla
Rowan In The Oak Tree
Ayla Page
Copyright © United Kingdom 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
©2013 KSJ Publishing
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 148410076X
ISBN-13: 978-1484100769
DEDICATION
It is with love and pure delight I dedicate this short story to my friend Lauren, who gave her name to one of the characters, and who, despite being a new friend, is a lovely friend I’m glad to have.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Miranda, who has helped me with so much before publication, and without whom I would have no blurb!
Thank you to Bryden, who made my cover readable with his constructive criticism.
Thank you to Louise, who has been my rock throughout, despite needing one herself and being occupied with university.
A huge thank you to my little girl, I write for you.
And last, but by no means least, thank you to Karl. Without you, I wouldn’t have ever released, despite wanting to for years. I couldn’t have done this without you, thank you for teaching me how, and for pushing the button!
*****
‘‘There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid.’’
Rowan missed her daddy. She hadn’t seen him in a very long time; her maman would not let her. At the grand old age of eight, Rowan had no pet name for her mother; called her ‘mum’ to her face. But ‘maman’ was the nickname she used behind her back. The woman was short and stumpy like a felled tree, and had a deep, booming voice, and a moustache she had to shave or bleach, so maman seemed apt, for mother she was, but she was more of a man, if you looked closely enough.
Rowan still called her daddy her daddy. In private again only though, for her maman had insisted her boyfriend be called daddy, for he provided the roof over her head, and tucked her into bed at night, and put the food on the table, whereas her daddy didn’t.
To Rowan, however, those things didn’t matter. On the rare occasions she’d seen her daddy, she’d felt like a princess; all the time and energy he’d spent was on her, he made her giggle, his car smelled like her favourite fruity cereal, his music was loud heavy metal, his smile was huge and infectious, and his hugs were like no other. Maman’s boyfriend was kind of bony and stiff, whereas her daddy was big and strong, and soft and squishy.
Rowan found herself daydreaming again about seeing her daddy while she was doing her chores for her maman. She was walking out of the gate at the end of the garden, through the Deep Dark Woods, and finding her way to his house by herself to see him. She was thinking of turning her daydream into a reality when she received a sharp clip to the back of the head.
“Quit yer mumblin’ gal, ‘n’ git on wi’ yer chores!” Her mother said.
Rowan shoved the laundry into the machine faster, and mistakenly pushed the heavy clothes too far back too hard, causing the heavy Hoover to rock, earning her another smack. Said smack sent her head ricocheting into the machine, and she banged her forehead on the door frame as a result, and bit her lip. It was all Rowan could do to not cry; maman wouldn’t like that ‘silly noise’, that ‘ridiculous racket’ and would only hit her harder.
Rowan kept her teeth wrapped around her bottom lip; if she tightened her grip she could cause herself more pain than maman ever could, and maman didn’t deserve to cause her pain. She couldn’t see for tears, but she blinked them away so that the evil tree stump couldn’t see. Continuing to put the clothes in the washer, Rowan kept her face averted from her maman. She shuffled over to the under-sink cupboard for the clothes-soap, and the foul smelling liquid that apparently made the clothes soft and smell like Swiss mountains, and decanted a portion of each into the drawer as she’d been shown years before, before switching the settings to ‘wash’ and pressing ‘go’. She muffled her snigger as she put away the Swiss cheese liquid and the powdered soap into the cupboard; maman had gotten bored with her already and had gone to sit down in front of the television in the other room. It amused Rowan how quickly the wrinkly tree would tire of her if she ignored her behaviour and tried not to show how much it upset her.
A soft nudge at her leg made her smile; Peyton looked up at her, his big brown eyes were sad inside his daft fluffy head. His soft, floppy ear rubbed against her hand and she rubbed her fingers over its comforting texture. Slowly, his tail began to wag. He’d known she was sad; had seen the taller human strike her the way she lashed out at him. He’d come to comfort her, as always, and as always, his presence reassured Rowan that soon she’d be a grown-up and she’d be able to escape this place, and move out and move on.
Rowan turned to face Peyton, and knelt down in front of the kooky cocker spaniel, not removing her hand from his ear. She brought her other hand to rest on the dizzy dog’s other ear, and smoothed the fur down, bringing her nose to the dog’s own. She wrapped her hands around the base of each ear, and scratched firmly with her nails into the back of the dog’s skull. She knew that Peyton loved it; his bum always fell to the floor sideways, and his tail wagged so hard it beat a crescendo on the floor. Maman in the other room couldn’t hear this, however, for the floor was solid concrete under the fancy blue tiles, and nothing made noise there like it did in the rest of the house.
Her best friend looked wistfully at the kitchen door; his need for the toilet had overcome his love for a good head scratch.
“Want a wee, Peyton?” Rowan asked him, to an answer of faster wagging and an escapee tongue. Her beloved dog was grinning at her at the idea of being let outside, if only to relieve himself.
She shouted through to the living room that she was letting the dog out for a wee, so the stump would know who had opened the door. Upon hearing a grunt of acknowledgement, she let her dog out, and stepped out into the chilly autumn evening with him. He didn’t need accompanying; he knew how to escape the garden but never would. He loved Rowan too much to try and leave her. Rowan followed him into the back garden to watch him have a run around and a ‘mad arf arr’, as her daddy-long-legs called it. She watched with a half-hearted smile as Peyton picked up his favourite tennis ball and began to run around in circles with it. Her smile turned to a beaming grin when he bounded over to where she stood and proceeded to drop the slimy, slobbery yellow fuzzball at her feet. With her thumb and forefinger she picked up the ball and waved it in the air.
“Is there something you want, Puppy-Peyton?” She cooed, mimicking her daddy-long-legs. ‘Daddy-long-legs’ was the private pet name she had for her maman’s boyfriend, for he was much taller than both her and her maman at over six feet. She didn’t call him this out loud, however, so as to keep the peace; she didn’t want to suffer her maman’s wrath for she knew that the man wasn’t her daddy dearest, and it upset her to call him such. She feared that if she lied too much, one day she’d believe it, and forget her own daddy.
Continuing to wave the mangy, slobbery ball around in the air, she span in front of the dog, whose eyes followed it as though it were a pork chop treat. Lowering it in fro
nt of his nose for him to sniff, and snapping it away out of his grasp before he could snap his jaws around it, she skipped in front of him. She turned away from him, her back to the large yellow house in which she lived, and did her best cricket bowl impression.
For a split second, Peyton made to chase the ball, until he realised he’d been hounded, again, by the cruel joke that she’d made. She’d not thrown the ball at all, and was looking at him with a cheeky, childish grin on her face. Peyton sat down heavily, making to sulk, and put his paw over his nose. This was all part of their game, and they’d play it whenever he was let out to toilet by his faithful little madam. She stepped calmly over the honey-coloured head; and stage-crept up the garden path to the gate at the other end.
Leaning against the wooden gate, she paused. This gate led to the woods behind her home, out to Horsforth and beyond, and somewhere at the other side of these woods lived the rest of her family; her aunty and uncle with her two cousins, her other aunty and uncle with the huge garden and bonfire dug-out. She absentmindedly picked at the peeling, weatherproof blue paint on the gate as she waited for her puppy to get up and start jumping around in circles, wanting the ball.
As if on cue, a golden head peeked over the hiding-rangers at the front of the garden, and Peyton began to bounce. Rowan curled her arm back behind her head, just as her daddy-long-legs had shown her, and unfurled the ball from her arm with a flourish. A Catherine-wheel of spittle and yellow felt, the ball flew through the air at a surprising speed for such a small hand, and bounced hard off the wall above the kitchen window with a satisfying, if hollow, thud.
Peyton watched and chased eagerly as his favourite toy careered around the garden, bouncing off first the house, then the frame of the old wooden swing in the middle of the lawn, before finally ricocheting down the alley at the side of the house. He sprang after it and was back at Rowan’s side within moments for another turn.
With a sigh that expressed grief and pain beyond her young years, Rowan patted the canine’s head.
“You know it’s only once, puppy, only once.” She said to him sadly, bitterness seeping into her voice as she glared at the house. “Do your business, kiddo, we’ve got to go back inside.”
Smart as a wolf, Peyton understood. It was always the same. A short game, a quick burst of energy, then a ‘widdle piddle’ as his little madam used to call it, and they’d be back inside. He’d have to sit in the kitchen on his cushion next to his water dish, and she’d get to run up and down the house instead.
He went to the corner of the grass nearest the wall at the back of the garden where he’d been trained to toilet, and went. Once relieved, he joined Rowan as she entered the house again. The loud woman didn’t seem to notice how long they were gone, or even that when they came in they were out of breath. He couldn’t see her anywhere, but his tail remained between his legs as they entered the house. He went straight to his tattered cushion in the corner by the fridge, and sat down heavily, his big brown eyes watching his little madam as she stood on the stool by the sink to wash her hands of his drool before washing the dishes.
*****
Her maman threw the door open and came into the kitchen, a whirlwind of anger and noise, complaining that Rowan was washing up too quietly and therefore could not possibly be doing a proper job of it.
Peyton, already cowering behind the door, cringed as the big woman hit his madam repeatedly about the head. Rowan started to wash faster, hoping it would make the right amount of noise desired, but her maman only hit harder.
“Yer gonna brek ma things if yeh throw i’ ‘round like tha’,” another blow landed on Rowan’s left ear, her neck snapped to the right. “Do it propeh or yer straigh’ in yer bed.”
It was all Rowan could do not to look at the oven clock to see what time she’d be sent to bed tonight. She bent her head towards the sink, face nearly in the bubbles so short was she, and scrubbed the dishes in what she hoped was a quiet fashion, but not so quiet as to be accused of not doing a proper job. She swallowed her sobs with a miserable gulp, and washed the last plate. Putting it on the drainer, she reached for the tea-towel in order to dry her hands.
“Don’t yeh go drying yer hands, yer not finished!” The volume of her maman’s voice seemed to know no bounds.
“But, mummy –”
“Do’t yeh ‘but mummy’ me! Yeh git those pans done, an’ afta tha’ yeh can clean th’ oven, then sweep an’ mop th’ floor where yeh and yer mangy dog ‘ave been rollin’ ‘round on it, yeh filthy whore!’!
The insult flew over Rowan, like water off a duck’s back, but only because she knew nothing of what she was being called. She knew it was an insult because of the vehemence and venom with which her maman said it. Rowan was too tired and too upset to point out that she’d swept and mopped the floor only that morning, and that she was always told to leave the pans ‘because they are Le Creuset and you will drop them on your toes’. She declined also to mention that before now she’d been told to leave the oven as she couldn’t reach it properly to clean it all, and it was a gas appliance so it was unsafe for her to go near, in case she pushed one of the buttons by mistake.
Rowan had thought to herself that her maman did secretly care when she’d given those warnings, but now she’d been given the jobs to do, she felt like her maman did not care for her at all. She didn’t feel grown up for being asked to do a ‘grown-up’ chore. She felt like a slave, like the girl in the children’s movie she’d been allowed to watch one time when she was ill, and wished for a fairy godmother of her very own to come save her.
Unlike other girls her age however, Rowan knew that dreams didn’t come true, and wishes weren’t granted, and that she would never be invited to the ball, much less be able to go. She put her hands back in the dirty dishwater and picked up the cloth. Looking at the heavy pans, she resigned herself to her job, and lifted the first pan into the water carefully so as to wash it clean of the previous night’s dinner.
Each pan was bigger and heavier than the last, and her maman watched with a scrupulous eye as she struggled to lift each cast iron weight over the edge of the sink without bashing it on the side. Once finished, she got down from her stool and moved it to one side to better access the cupboard under the sink where the bleaches and cleaners and other foul smelling chemicals lived, and pulled out the oven cleaner. She’d not seen the cream used before, and was starting to read the label with her maman snatched it away from her.
“Yer’ll not be needin’ that! Yeh wa’ naugh’y, so yeh can do it th’ ‘ard way!” She handed Rowan an old butter knife with a sinister smile and stormed out of the kitchen, cussing and swearing as she went.
Rowan watched after her with a confused expression. How was she to clean the oven with a butter knife? Would it be the same as sweeping the patio with a toothbrush?
She moved her stool close enough to the oven so that she could open the door and reach inside. Somehow she was going to need to get to the back of the oven to clean the mess up back there. With the oven being on the wall this wasn’t going to be an easy task.
She jumped as she heard a creaking noise; the door to the hallway from the kitchen had moved. Upon seeing Peyton’s glistening black nose peeking through the gap between it and the fridge, she smiled. Her daft puppy’s eyes shone in the dark shadows behind the door and the smile on Rowan’s face spread into a grin. Peyton was very good at encouraging her stubborn streak, and his shiny deep brown marbles had given Rowan an idea. She got down from her stool and crept across the kitchen dramatically. She knew she didn’t need to creep for her maman would never hear her footsteps, but to do so made her feel much better, like she was playing a game. She lifted up a dining chair with the ultimate stealth, and leaned back to take the weight of it on her chest. Wobbling with the effort, she carried it across the kitchen to the oven, where in slow motion she put it on the floor, trying so hard not to make a sound. The chair was easily twice the height of her stool, so standing on it would make the oven easier t
o clean. She climbed up on it carefully, and grabbed the knife from where she’d left it on the sideboard next to the oven tower. Leaning against the tower she reached into the oven to start scraping at the crud on the surfaces. When the metal of the knife’s blade hit the burnt-on food, it was very loud, but when the blade touched the metal inside the oven, the oven floor and sides, it was so loud that she flinched, expecting her maman to come in any second and shout at her. When no one came, Rowan pressed harder with the tool and pushed the edge underneath the charred bubbles, bringing them off the surface with a hollow ‘pop’. The release of each bubble brought with it an intoxicating wave of smells; bacon, chicken, sausages. The smells of her maman’s cooking, the smells of food she dreamed to eat herself instead of the beans on toast made for her when her maman could be bothered.
Once all the bubbles of burnt fat were free, she swept them into her left hand with her right, and slowly got down from where she teetered on the chair. After putting them in the bin, she sneakily patted her pretty puppy on the head and made her way to the sink to get the cloth so she could wipe out the oven and make it sparkle.
After wringing out the cloth into the sink to the best of her ability, for her young hands were not strong like an adult’s and could not do a proper job, she carried it across the kitchen to the chair, dripping as she went. She had climbed one-handed onto the chair and leaned right into the oven to start wiping from the back when Peyton started to whine softly.
Knowing it meant the wrinkle was coming, Rowan dropped the cloth in the oven bottom, jumped off the chair with silent feet and hurriedly carried it back across the kitchen. She put it down as quietly as her hurried hands would let her, and ran back to take her place on the stool, picking up the cloth to scrub just in time.
“Aren’t yeh done yet, yeh stupid baby?” Her maman demanded, looking inside the oven.
