Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  Her mum had to work longer and longer hours at the betting shop just to make ends meet, so most days Mel would walk home from school and let herself in with the key she wore on a string around her neck. Her mum would have left a sandwich in the fridge for her (it was always cold and dry by four o’clock), and she would sit down and do her homework at the kitchen table. Sometimes, when she was finished, she would watch some telly, cuddled in a blanket on the sofa, but she had to be careful to watch the time and turn it off before her mum got home. Otherwise she’d get, ‘Oh, Melanie, do you think I’m made of money? Do you know what electricity costs these days?’

  She knew better than to put the fire on, even when it was very cold. She got used to putting on extra jumpers and socks and shuffling around in her slippers like a pensioner, trying to keep warm. One Friday afternoon though, she was squarely caught out. She was huddled on the sofa watching Morph and giggling, when she heard a key in the door. She looked up at the clock. It was only four thirty and her mum wasn’t usually home before six. Mel jumped guiltily to her feet and ran to switch the television off, but as she did it, she realised her mum would have heard it as she came through the door. Mel stood frozen in the middle of the living room, certain she was about to be yelled at. But instead, she heard something she hadn’t heard for months … her mother laughing.

  She stayed where she was, and listened. Her mum said something softly in the hallway and laughed again, and then Mel heard another, deep voice. A man. Who could it be? Her mum’s boss, Terry, from the betting shop? She couldn’t think who else it would be … They never had male visitors. Her mum walked into the living room then, still talking and laughing over her shoulder. Her cheeks were pink from the cold outside, and she was smiling. Mel remembered then that her mum used to be pretty, very pretty, before worry and grief had made her thin and pinched.

  The man with the voice followed her mum into the room. Mel had never seen him before, but she recognised his type: he was a big man, balding and red-faced with a neck as thick as his big head. He was twisting a woolly hat in his large fists. Without knowing how she knew, Mel was sure that the man was another long-distance driver, like her dad had been. He looked a bit like her dad had looked before he got sick, and he looked like his friends who had come for the funeral too.

  ‘And who’s this?’ he said, noticing Mel, who was still standing in the middle of the room. Her mum hadn’t seemed to have noticed her yet.

  ‘Oh, this is our Mel,’ said her mum dismissively. ‘Some tea, Phil? How about a little something to eat?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Phil. ‘Don’t want to put you out.’ And he winked at Mel, who smiled shyly.

  Her mum bustled into the kitchen and started banging frying pans and plates around. ‘Egg and chips all right? Maybe a fried slice?’

  ‘Got any beans?’ said Phil.

  ‘Course!’ said Mel’s mum. Mel looked at him open-mouthed. She would never have dreamed of asking for something extra for tea, and she’d have got a clip around the ear if she had. Phil smiled at her again, and opened his mouth as if to speak, but he clearly couldn’t think of anything to say to an eight-year-old girl, so he shut it and wandered into the kitchen to chat to Mel’s mum while she cooked.

  Who was this man? And why was he in their house? Mel was dying to ask, but she knew she would never get an answer. She’d learned very early on that the best way to find things out was to sit quiet as a mouse and listen when grownups were talking. They soon forgot you were there, and as long as you didn’t ask any silly questions, they would just keep talking. So over tea (the best tea she’d had in months), Mel learned that Phil had known her dad from the longdistance truck routes. He had been living in Newcastle, but something had happened with his wife (she wished she could ask what a ‘hussy’ was, but she knew it wasn’t the time). Phil had moved back into the area with his son (‘He’s a couple of years older than you,’ he said, turning to Mel. ‘Look out for him at school.’). He’d come to live with his sister, so she could help him look after the boy when he was away on the road. He’d thought he would look up his old friend, and was sad to learn Mel’s dad had died. However, when he found out his widow was working in the betting shop, he’d stopped by to pay his respects.

  She didn’t know what to think about Phil. He seemed a nice enough man and he tried very hard to be nice to her and was very nice to her mum. It was both good and sad to see her mum smile again, and laugh. Of course it was good she was laughing, but she was laughing for someone who wasn’t Mel, and wasn’t Mel’s dad. It seemed very strange to have another man at their kitchen table.

  On Monday, Mel went to school as usual. She had completely forgotten about Phil’s son, and in fact, hadn’t thought again about Phil. But at lunchtime when they were queuing to get their food, her friend Gillian nudged her and pointed. ‘See the new one in the fourth year?’

  Mel craned her neck and peered. There were a lot of big fourth-year boys close to the front of the lunch queue. As soon as she saw the boy, who was laughing and punching another boy on the shoulder, she realised he must be Phil’s son. He was very big for his age and chunky like his dad, tending a bit to fat. He had very red hair, which was cut very short, and the same thick neck and round face as his dad. But where Phil was a sort of gentle giant, this boy just looked mean.

  Mel’s first impression of Phil’s son was right. It was hard for anyone to start in a new school, where everyone had known each other for years, and probably much harder to come in halfway through the fourth year, so Patrick (that was his name) had obviously decided he wasn’t going to win anyone over by being friendly or clever or good at sport. He decided to be the biggest bully, and win respect through fear and intimidation. He was easily the biggest boy in the school (rumour had it he had been kept back at his old school and he was actually nearly thirteen), and he used physical force on a daily basis. He punched anyone who argued with him, extorted money and food out of smaller children and soon gathered a sniggering cohort of other boys who had muscles and violence to offer rather than brains. The school had always been quite rough, but now, if you were small, or clever, or not good at keeping your mouth shut, it was just plain scary.

  Mel was all three. She was tiny for her age and always had been. She was also fiendishly smart and had been an avid reader since she was four, so she was streets ahead of many of her classmates and always top of her class. It meant she was viewed as a bit of a freak, and to make up for it, she’d become the class clown. She was well liked in her year. It was always such a relief for her to come to school, after being so good and quiet at home, and she loved being a show-off to her classmates. But under Patrick’s reign of terror, she was a natural victim.

  Their first encounter happened when he and his friends were loitering in a corridor after lunch one day. Mel had to walk past them to get back to her classroom, and she kept her head down and tried to be inconspicuous. Patrick lazily stuck out a foot to trip her up, but she saw it and hopped over it like a little rabbit. She was about to break into a run and escape into an area where an adult might be, but Patrick lunged out and grabbed her arm roughly. ‘Oi, little smart arse,’ he said into her face, and she recoiled from his cheese-and-onion-crisp breath. He stared at her closely with his beady little eyes. She had no idea whether or not he knew who she was, or that their parents knew each other. It seemed not, because he came out with his standard request. ‘Got any money?’

  ‘Not that I’m giving you,’ she said defiantly. She didn’t know why she said that. It wasn’t as if she ever had any money.

  ‘Gimme.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t pick you up and shake you till it falls out.’

  ‘Because you’d have to get your knuckles off the ground and engage your slug brain, and by then I’ll be gone,’ spat Mel. Patrick’s moronic mates laughed at this, and he turned furiously to challenge them. In that moment of inattention, Mel shook off his grip, ducked under his sweaty, beefy arm and
ran. The angels were on her side, because as she rounded the corner, she ran into Mr Scribbins, the fourth-year teacher, a stooped, gloomy man. He caught her by the shoulders, ‘No running, girl!’ he barked, and Mel was sure she was in for a punishment, but in the next moment, Patrick came thundering around the corner after her. He stopped short. Scribbins was well known to be an extremely quick-tempered man, dealing out swift discipline with the edge of a wooden ruler, and even Patrick would not have wanted to endure that. He stood stock still and did his best to look innocent. But Scribbins had been a teacher for a long time, and he assessed the situation in an instant. He pushed Mel around behind him and gave her a little shove. ‘Get to your room before you’re marked late,’ he said gruffly, but not unkindly. ‘And Watkins … you and I will need to have a word in our room.’ He grabbed Patrick by the collar, and headed off at speed. Mel caught a glimpse of Patrick’s face as he went. He was furious, and she knew she hadn’t seen the last of him.

  In that first year, Patrick showed he would have done well in a regime specialising in torture. He wasn’t academically clever, but he was immensely sneaky. Once he had set his sights on tormenting Mel, he found ample opportunity to corner her where nobody else could see and to hurt her physically in ways that left no marks. When he didn’t hurt her physically, he liked to intimidate her and make her constantly jumpy. School became a source of terror and tension. Her marks began to drop, and she got very anxious. She couldn’t sleep at night, and because she was too scared to sit and eat her school dinners, she started to lose weight. She knew there was no point in telling her mum about it. She wouldn’t believe her and would say she was looking for attention. And she wasn’t a sneak, so she wasn’t going to go to a teacher or the principal. She stuck it out through the winter term and into spring, gritting her teeth and enduring each frightening day. She became adept at hiding from Patrick, and she kept reminding herself that unless he was even more boneheaded than she suspected, after July he would be off to the secondary school in the autumn. It was the only thing that kept her going, and she ticked off each day until the end of term in her diary.

  The day the summer holidays began, Mel could have jumped for joy. She wouldn’t have to see him every day now. After the holidays, he would be in the comprehensive, which was all the way over on the other side of town, and he would no doubt find a new victim. Or maybe there would be some much bigger boys who would give him a taste of his own medicine. Mel planned to spend her summer holidays in the garden at home. She had an enormous stack of books to read, which she’d got from the library, and she was determined to teach herself to juggle. It was going to be a wonderful summer.

  But a week into the summer holidays, she was lying on her stomach in the garden, reading The Hobbit, when she heard the front door close and voices in the house. For the second time, she heard a deep male voice and her mother’s lighter tones. She knew at once that it was Phil again. She felt sick. Had he brought Patrick with him? She jumped up, smoothed her shirt and shorts and slid her copy of The Hobbit under the rug she had been lying on. She knew from experience that Patrick liked to damage books, and it was a library copy she would have no way of replacing.

  Her mum came out into the garden smiling and laughing, followed by Phil, who had Patrick trailing in his wake. Mel shifted from foot to foot, and when her mum asked her to get something for everyone to drink, was grateful to run into the house. She paused only to snatch up the book and the rug. She put the kettle on, and while it was boiling, ran up to her room to put on some jeans and shoes and hide her book under her pillow. As she turned to leave her room, she jumped with fright. Patrick was standing in her open doorway, staring at her.

  ‘Did you watch me change? Pervert,’ she hissed at him. She didn’t really know what a pervert was, but she knew it was rude. She’d heard girls at school saying it. Patrick lunged at her, but she skipped out of his way and ran down the stairs. She was pretty sure he couldn’t hurt her in her own house, not with his dad right there.

  Her mum cooked a nice tea and they all sat around the kitchen table to eat it. Patrick scoffed everything on his plate and asked for more, and Mel’s mum said something about how lovely it was to feed a boy with a good appetite. Patrick sneered at Mel across the table. She could barely eat a bite. She kept trying to wind her legs around her chair legs, drawing them in as close as she could, because he had already kicked her viciously in the ankle, twice. The first time she winced and jumped, and he said, ‘Oh, sorry!’ in a smarmy voice, as if it had been an accident. The second time she didn’t react, even though his shoe scraped hard against her ankle bone and she was pretty sure he had made it bleed.

  After they had finished dinner, Mel’s mum suggested that Mel and Patrick watch some television. She and Phil stayed in the kitchen. Mel sat on an armchair, and kept a sharp eye on Patrick. The kitchen door was open, so she knew he couldn’t hit her or hurt her, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Surely he and his dad would have to go home soon? But after her mum had done the washing up, the grown-ups came into the front room. ‘We thought we might go down to the pub for a quick one,’ said Phil. ‘Will you two be all right on your own? Patrick will look after you, Mel.’

  ‘No!’ gasped Mel without pausing to think. ‘I … I’ve got a horrible stomach ache. Please, Mum.’ She looked at her mum, trying to show with her eyes how desperate she was. Her mum looked hard and unmoved, and Mel thought she might have to burst into tears. But Phil came to her rescue.

  ‘If the little one’s not well …’

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Mel’s mum shortly.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Mel quickly. ‘It’s very sore.’

  ‘Another time,’ said Phil. ‘Maybe we could get my sister to watch them both. Come on, Patrick. Home time.’

  He put a gentle hand on Mel’s mum’s back and guided her to the door so they could say goodbye. Patrick got up to follow, stopping briefly to give Mel an agonising Chinese burn on her wrist. Mel huddled in her chair. Her stomach did hurt now. She’d be in no end of trouble with her mum. And she’d seen how she had looked up at Phil, and his expression when he’d looked down at her. Phil would be back, and Patrick with him. She trudged upstairs to her bedroom, hoping she could pretend to be asleep before her mum came back. When she got to her room, she found the copy of The Hobbit on her bed. He had ripped it in half.

  That was the end of Mel’s perfect summer. She never knew when Phil and Patrick would be coming around, so she lived each day in a state of apprehension. When they were there, she tried desperately to stay in the same room as her mum and Phil, but as they were trying to get to know each other, the last thing they wanted was a nine-year-old girl watching their every move. Her mum kept shoving her out of the room, telling her to go and watch television or play in her room. She didn’t dare go to her room when Patrick was round, because he saw it as a place to hurt her where the adults couldn’t see or hear, and he took particular delight in breaking her things.

  Thankfully, the adults never again suggested going out and leaving Patrick and Mel alone together, but about once a week they’d all walk around to the house Phil and Patrick shared with Phil’s sister. She would keep an eye on the kids while Phil and Mel’s mum went to the pub. Those were the best times for Mel, because Phil’s sister, Gloria, seemed to be the only person who wasn’t taken in by Patrick’s smarmy insincerity and saw him for the bully he was. The first time they were both in her care, she waited until the door had closed behind the adults and then stood both kids in front of her. ‘Right,’ she said, folding her arms over her large, forbidding bosom, ‘I’m going to do the ironing. Melanie, if you like, you can sit in the kitchen with me and watch the little telly or read a book. Patrick, you get yourself out in the garden. I know what you’re like with littler ones, and let me tell you, it’s not happening in my house. All right?’

  Patrick opened his mouth and started to whine about how unfair that was, but Gloria lashed out and gave him a sharp clip on the ear, which had him howli
ng. He trudged upstairs muttering blackly under his breath. Mel knew she’d pay for that when he next got her on her own, but for now, she was safe. She loved those quiet times, sitting in Gloria’s kitchen, reading or drawing while Gloria got on with her household tasks. She wished with all her heart that her own mum could see what Gloria did quite plainly, but it was not to be. Her mum was sugary sweet to Patrick all the time, trying to keep on Phil’s good side. Patrick was very good at being smoothly polite and sucking up to adults. Phil seemed to have no idea at all about who his son really was. He treated him with a kind of vague distance, and seemed to think any kind of hands-on parenting should be woman’s work and therefore not his concern.

  Mel wasn’t going to let Patrick crush her spirit though, and she kept studying hard. She remained top of the class in most subjects. There was a small choir at school and she joined, loving the camaraderie of singing together. After the circus came to their town, she was inspired and taught herself to do the splits and Arab springs and to walk on her hands. She was popular at school, and enjoyed performing for her friends and in school shows. In contrast, Patrick was barely scraping by academically, and his dad and teachers all seemed sure he would simply leave school at sixteen and get a job. The contrast with Mel’s academic success and popularity seemed to enrage him even more.

  Over the next couple of years, her mum and Phil got closer, and one evening they came back from the pub breathless and laughing. Her mum held out her hand to show Mel her brand new sparkling engagement ring. What could Mel say? She smiled thinly and gave her mum a hug. They set a date for the wedding within just a few weeks: as it was the second time for both of them, it was just going to be a registry office do with a few sausage rolls and sandwiches in the pub after. Mel went along with all the preparations, and submitted to the scratchy taffeta dress her mum chose for her. She even sat quietly in the hairdressers the day before while they wound rags into her hair to make ringlets.