Dad helped himself up and looked down on me, his eyes narrowing, his mouth pressed firmly together. ‘Now that is enough,’ he said, keeping his voice firm. ‘I am your father.’
I snorted. Even laying there naked, I made no effort to cover myself, only laid myself bare so he could look at the thing he’d ruined over the years. ‘Look at me,’ I said, staring back at him. He kept his eyes on my face, and it sickened me, that he refused to look at me now when in the darkness, in my room, he saw me with his hands.
‘Just stop it,’ he said. ‘We’ll get you up, we’ll get your chair, we’ll get your cuts and grazes seen to, get you dressed...and then...then we’ll figure all of this out. We’ll get you a proper doctor, none of these therapists anymore, but someone who can really help you. Get up, Ellen.’
‘No,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Look at me.’
‘Ellen, I have had enough.’ He held out his hand. ‘You take my hand and we’ll get you sat up on that step. Take my hand, Ellen.’
‘You look at me!’ I hissed.
He grabbed my arm but I slapped him, clear across the cheek this time. He came back at me and grabbed me tighter, but before he could pull me up I snatched a handful of his hair and twisted his head to one side, forcing him to let go.
‘You keep your hands off me, you ugly little man.’ I shouted in his ear, shook him, and let go. He staggered back, cupping the side of his face, looking hurt and stooped as ever. ‘You touch me and I’ll tell. You’ve had enough of me, have you? Well I’ve had enough of you.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, but it came out as more of a plea, a whimper, a cry, than a threat. I had him now.
‘You know I will,’ I said. ‘And I can be stronger than you, dad, believe me.’
He bowed his head, looking up under his grey eyelashes, his whiskery face drooping like a shamed animal. ‘What do you want me to do, Ellen?’ he said, his eyes filling up with tears.
I thought about it a few moments. What did I want, after all? What had I been wanting for years, and had been searching for, ever since that night three years ago?
That interview I’d seen on TV came to mind. I remembered the woman, darkened and confined to just a shadow, telling her story.
‘And what did you feel when you saw his face?’ said the female presenter. ‘It must have been hard knowing that his family were present and could see your reaction.’
‘Yes, I mean, it was strange really...I sort of felt...relieved. I could be sure that he was gone forever,’ said the guest. ‘It was like you said, you know, closure. Seeing him dead helped me accept things.’
I drew in a sharp breath, my eyes widening, as I realised all of a sudden what it was I wanted — no, needed — to do. But I couldn’t do it on my own.
‘I’ll tell you what I want you to do,’ I said, watching his eyes grow darker as he braced himself for my proposition. We both knew this was serious now, and there was no way of going back. ‘I want to see him,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘Who?’ he said, a tear falling onto his cheek.
‘You know who,’ I said. ‘I want to look at him. I want to know he’s there, down there in the ground.’
‘Stop it,’ spat dad, wiping the tears from his face. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘You’ll help me get dressed and in my chair, like you wanted, and then we’ll get everything ready. We’ll go in your van in the early hours.’
‘Ellen, this is madness,’ he said, but his eyes were bright, alert and fearful now.
‘It’s what I want,’ I said. ‘I have to see him, and I don’t care how.’
‘Ellen, when a body has been dead for that long it—’
‘I know all that,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand.’
Dad laughed. ‘No, you don’t understand, Ellen! He isn’t there, it isn’t him anymore. What do you think you’re going to find, eh? Your handsome little boyfriend, all pretty like the last time you saw him?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I know he isn’t there. He’s in me.’
‘What? Oh Ellen, you’re being silly and melodramatic—’
‘Who’s silly? Me? We’ll see what the police think when I tell them everything.’
Dad pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘You are my daughter and I won’t let you leave this house without my supervision, period. You won’t use the phone, you won’t see anybody, and that’ll be that.’
‘You can’t do that to me,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t. You love me. You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?’
Dad’s face weakened again. The finger he held out to me softened, and he withdrew his hand. ‘Of course,’ he said, his voice soft and sulking as a little boy. ‘I just want things to stay the same, that’s all.’ At that he looked away, ashamed of himself. We both knew what he was really saying.
‘It can,’ I lied, making him look at me again, hopeful. ‘If you do this for me, it will all stop, I’m sure of it. I need to see him. Think about it. Think about what you want.’ I stared at him and saw the changing in his eyes, the change in him that he couldn’t stop despite himself; that urge overtaking him.
I had him now.
‘Now think about what I want, and just do it. You know we can.’
Dad covered his mouth with his hand and didn’t speak, just thought about it, his corrupt mind ticking over. ‘We’ll get caught,’ he said eventually.
‘Not if we’re careful,’ I said. ‘We’re a team, aren’t we, you and me. We stick together. We always have.’
Dad’s eyes filled with tears and he sighed deeply.
‘Aren’t we?’ I said.
He nodded slowly, his stubbly mouth trembling, hunching over as he cried. ‘Yes.’ He whimpered.
‘So you’ll help me? You’ll do it?’ adrenaline stirred up inside me, making my skin twitch.
‘Yes,’ he said.
In the early hours, I waited in my chair, huddled in one of dad’s fleeces while the sounds of his shovel scraping the earth broke the silence of the graveyard. I clutched my elbows tight, anticipating it, waiting for the sound of metal hitting wood.
At every sound from the road, dad looked up, terrified, his eyes searching the dark. The night was cool, and all around us the graves waited, patient, for that certain sound just as we did. The scent of damp earth was overwhelming, and with every lump of earth that dad pulled away, my heart leapt. With every lump of earth, I was getting closer to Peter.
When the sound came, I gasped. Dad’s filthy hands came up out of the grave and took mine as I, trembling, slid out of the chair onto the ground. I winced at the pain in my knee, but I paid no mind, no mind at all, as I peered down into the darkness.
Dad clicked on his torch and showed me the scuffed, dented, caved–in surface of the wooden casket.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, looking up at me.
Nodding eagerly, never more sure of anything in my life, I said, ‘Yes.’
Rocking back and forth, my hands clasped together, my eyes stinging and unblinking, I watched and waited. I didn’t dare tear my eyes away as dad, with the head of his shovel, stuck it in the weakened crease of the coffin, and cracked open the splintered lid.
Chapter Twenty–One
I didn’t sleep for two days, and was stuck in a constant, wakeful exhaustion, re–imagining the coffin lid folding open over and over again in my mind. I spent hours sat by my bay window, overlooking the harbour, thinking of Peter as he once was — fresh, and handsome, and...unfinished. That was all I could describe him as, now — an unfinished piece of art, a man not fully grown, forever and ever.
But what I saw had not been the lost boy I’d been dreaming of, and feeling inside of me since returning home to Mevagissey. It was something tarnished, muddied, collapsed and unrecognisable.
Thinking about it, a shiver overtook me, and several times I convulsed in my chair, crying, heaving. I’d never felt more alone.
At about one o’clock Thursday there came a hammering on the door while dad was out at work
. I peered out of my bay window, half–crawling over the seat to get a better view. It was David.
My breath caught in my throat. What could he want, I wondered? Had he come to apologise? Perhaps he’d seen me from his fishing boat, waiting in the window, and wondered if it was Lauren he was seeing?
I knocked on the window with my fist, and he looked up, his hair whipping about his face in the wind. It had been a grey and drizzly sort of day, but it hadn’t stopped him. He was waiting in the rain for me.
As I wheeled to the stair lift, stick in hand, I wondered if he had come to his senses after all — if he now looked at me and saw what Peter had seen, and felt what Peter had felt. Perhaps he was ready to admit he was wrong about me. And then, knowing this, I could slam that door in his face. The notion was delightful. I’d been waiting years for this.
I smoothed down the front of the plaid shirt I’d been wearing for days, tucked my hair behind my ears, and rolled toward the front door. When I opened it, David forced himself in and slammed it shut.
‘I need a word with you,’ he said, nostrils flaring. He looked me over, his brow wrinkling. ‘What the heck do you look like?’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, offended. ‘I thought you’d like my new hair.’
He circled me, taking in every detail. ‘You’re like a skeleton,’ he said, softer now, his face screwing up in a look of disgust. When he came back round the front of me, he appeared startled, like he’d just seen...well, a corpse.
‘And what is that horrible smell? It’s like damp, sweet...urgh, it’s like something rotting. It’s you!’
‘I can’t smell anything,’ I said, ‘Do you like my hair or not?’
‘What? Oh sod your hair; I think your hair is pathetic. Look, I don’t know what you’re up to—’
‘Nothing,’ I said firmly. ‘As usual I haven’t done anything wrong to you.’
He laughed. ‘Oh really? That’s funny. This morning Lauren came to my house in tears, Ellen. Absolute bloody tears. You know, you’ve always been a weird—’
‘Wait, wait, what does this have to do with me?’
‘You know bloody well what,’ said David, practically spitting the words at me. ‘You’re disgusting. I’m going to call the police.’
I froze, numbed instantly. ‘Why? What have you seen?’
‘What do you mean, what have I seen? This revolting thing you put through Lauren’s letterbox!’ he pulled a long, square parcel of tissue from his coat pocket, and slowly, with shaking hands, he began to unravel it.
I couldn’t say how I knew what it was, but I did. Inside the tissue was a piece of dark, leathery, red–brown material about the size of my palm. My mouth watered and my stomach churned as its smell came to my nostrils, making me wretch. I’d seen something of its likeness very recently.
It was skin.
‘What is it, Ellen? Some sort of sick joke, I’ll bet. I don’t even know what it is, and neither does Lauren. Something from an animal, maybe? Eh?’ he offered it to me, sticking it under my nose.
‘Stop it,’ I said, reeling away from it, wincing. David offered it closer still, his mouth pressed firmly together in a long, jagged line across his face.
‘Now somebody put this through her letterbox this morning, and someone has still been ringing her house. Who do you think that was, Ellen? Because all of this started since you turned up.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, wheeling myself backwards, away from the ugly piece of skin. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Really? Because Lauren thinks it is you, and so do I. She thinks you need help,’ said David, folding the skin up in its tissue again and pocketing it. ‘I’m taking this to the police.’
‘What for?’
‘When I complain about you I’ll need evidence. Oh, and they’ll probably want to know where this thing came from. Where you got it from.’
‘No!’ I said, panicking, thinking of the grave. I couldn’t afford anything to lead it to us. Who knew what that kind of investigation could lead to?
‘Ah, well you see, I don’t have anything to lose. You’re a nutcase, Ellen. You always have been.’
‘Shut up,’ I said, glaring up at him. ‘You’ve always been jealous of me and Peter.’
‘Well Peter isn’t here anymore,’ said David, pointing a finger at me. ‘And there’s nothing you can do about it. Do you think he’d want to be anywhere near you, if he could see you now? If he could smell you, and see you as this emaciated, bony cripple? Christ, Ellen, did he even know that you sent his dad away to prison?’
‘Just shut up,’ I said, covering my ears, trying to think through all the noise.
‘No! I want my answers. I mean just look at you! What do you get out of tormenting my girlfriend, eh? Attention? I suppose that’s what you always wanted, wasn’t it? Well, I might not have the facts, but I know there’s something very dodgy going on here.’
He saw my face change, and a wicked expression spread across his face. ‘Oh, I’ve hit on something now, haven’t I? I’ll tell you what I think — I think Dennis was always innocent. In fact, I think there’s something funny about your dad, if anybody. I see him you know, creeping about, driving his van, not speaking to anybody. He’s a nonce if ever I saw one. Then there’s you, doing stuff like this.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘Just get out, will you? Just leave me and my dad alone.’
‘No, you leave us alone, Ellen. Look at the state of you. You’re even copying her looks now. You know she’s left me, don’t you? She’s decided it’s too much and she wants a break. We were happy before you came along.’ He pointed at me again, stabbing the air with his finger.
‘That’s not my fault,’ I said. ‘Maybe she’s sick of you going around bullying people.’
‘Oh, I’m the bully? What do you call that thing in the post, and all the phone calls then, eh? If it’s not bullying, what is it?’
I shook my head, looking at my hands. My nails were bitten down to stubs, my fingers long and thin and skeletal. He was right. I was disgusting. All that kept me going was the thought that if only Peter were here, things could have been so different. Better. I thought of us leaving to start our lives together, going to London, or staying here, in a damp, dark little cottage of our own...
‘You know what you’re doing, and you’re going to stop. You’re going to stop because I’ll make you, got it?’
I looked up at him, at his pale, pock–marked face, his scrawny neck, his ugly, protruding Adam’s apple. Something about him made me feel queasy, unsettled. It was like looking at the pathetic face of my own father. ‘You can’t make me do anything. You’re a snivelling little man. No wonder Lauren doesn’t want you.’
‘You don’t know anything about my Lauren. She’s worth a million of you. I mean look at you, what are you? I remember the first time I saw you, stuffing your face, looking revolting. You know Pete felt sorry for you, don’t you?’
‘Shut up,’ I said. I gripped my stick, which I’d balanced over my lap, and raised it. ‘Get out or I’ll hit you.’
David sniggered, covering his mouth with his hand. ‘You couldn’t do anything to me. That’s the really sad thing about you. You’ve always been so desperate to control everything, to get everybody’s attention, when the truth is you’re beyond helpless. You’re a bloody cripple, Ellen. I could do anything to you, anything I wanted. Do you think people would believe you now, after what you’ve been doing to Lauren? And what about that counsellor of yours, eh, Melanie? Do you really think she’s on your side?’
I was quaking all over, unable to shut his words out. My skin prickled, my swollen knee shaking inside the grimy bandage I’d wrapped it in, my hands glued to the stick. ‘Don’t you dare threaten me.’
‘Think about it,’ he said, gripping the arms of the chair. He stooped so his face was level with mine, so close that his hot, sour breath was upon me when he spoke. ‘Nobody’s here, and nobody likes you, and nobody cares. You want to go around shouting rape about in
nocent blokes, do you? Well I could do that right now, and nobody would even care if they heard you scream.’
A cry escaped my lips, but while David laughed, staring into my face, my muscles tightened and the tingling sensation crawled up my fingers and toes. The hallway had dimmed, and I hadn’t noticed while David was speaking, but my flesh and skin had grown so cold, so cold I could hardly feel my hands.
He snatched my wrists, my hands still clutching the stick, and he brought his face so close to mine that our noses almost touched. ‘I could do anything, do you understand me? You’re spoiled goods anyway. You’re a throwaway girl.
‘You know, this close, it’s the strangest thing...’ he’s eyes darted between mine, studying them, his lips parting and brow creasing as if he’d seen something within them that disturbed him.
‘You’ve got eyes like him,’ he said finally, his voice less threatening now but curious. He stuck out his tongue and pressed it to my cheek, drawing it along, wet and cold, making me tense up and give a whimper.
I was gripping the stick so fiercely, and yet my hands were so, so numb that I couldn’t move, could only sit there and wait for it, despite myself, despite everything. But when I opened my eyes and looked at David again, and saw him gasp and look afraid, I knew those hands weren’t mine anymore.
I shoved him in the abdomen with my stick, forcing him back against the front door. He clawed the wall with his fingers, his mouth agape, teeth showing, eyes wide and fearful. Short, sharp breaths escaped his mouth as he felt his way around the wall, keeping as far from me as he could, before staggering backwards into the kitchen.
I got up out of my chair, my body engulfed in the numbness, immune to pain, and pursued him. When I found him in the kitchen, he was cowering against the sink, one of his hands desperately feeling around for the knife left on the draining board. ‘It’s you,’ he said, repeatedly, almost whispering it. ‘How...how is it you? What are you going to do to me?’
He finally grabbed the knife and, screaming as if in agony, launched himself at me. I stood my ground, numb to it all, watching him through new eyes. In what seemed a split second I dropped my stick, and as he lurched at me, knife protruding, my hands grabbed his arm, twisted it in on itself, and David’s abdomen collided with the long, thin blade of the knife.
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