Brothers & Sisters

by Brothers

  ‘Is your father gone?’ she says, ignoring my question. I presume she is standing at her window looking at the tail light of the car as it leaves and it always irritates me when she asks a question I know she knows the answer to.

  ‘Yes,’ I answer.

  ‘Did he eat?’ she says.

  ‘Yes.’ I study the frown on my face through the hall mirror. I stretch my face and show my teeth. I shrug as I notice how small my clothes have grown on me. I could have asked for money to buy new ones, but it was easier not to.

  ‘Did you bring Patrick his?’ she says weakly from behind the door. I imagine her shuffling from the window across the carpet to the door, afraid of what’s on the other side.

  ‘No.’ I sigh deeply. ‘I’ll bring it down now.’ I imagine a conversation with her where I tell her what Patrick said the last time I was there. I grin at how ridiculous the notion of talking to this woman as a mother is. As if, I say to myself.

  ‘Rose.’ She pauses. ‘Don’t wait around. Come straight back.’ I don’t answer her but I notice in the mirror my eyes are squinting and small. ‘Else, he’ll be up here looking for it.’

  Silently, I mimic her, wagging my head and mouthing her words. I clench my fists and nod my head in anger at her weak attempts to talk to me. I amble back towards the kitchen, making sure to take one last look at my scorn in the mirror. I practise my scowl. I visualise my mother standing at her bedroom door, waiting to hear me leave and I deliberately take my time. There is small satisfaction in it, but satisfaction none the less. I know she listens till the house is silent before she leaves her room and I enjoy making her wait for me. I wonder should I wait till Tim returns like he warned me to but decide not to. I remember my reflection with my last year’s blouse and decide to wear my duffle coat.

  *

  It’s nearly twenty minutes since I arrived at the cottage. I don’t have a watch, nor can I see a clock, but I’m good at guessing time. It’s a trick I have never told anyone about, but it can be used anywhere, at home, in school, wherever. If there was a competition in time guessing, like when you have to guess the amount of jellies in the jar, I’d win. I have a list, you see. A list of things that I like and it takes sixty seconds for me to name them all. I usually go through my list three times when Sister Alphonsus gets a hold of me. That’s not so bad. But now, since Patrick has a hold of me, I’ve done my list twenty times. He has had me for twenty minutes now.

  I’m forever learning lessons. I’m learning that people say things for a reason. And most times they like you to figure the reason out for yourself. So not only do you have to listen to what is being said, but you have to figure out why they are saying it. I can figure it out now, but I think it’s too late and now I have to learn my lesson the hard way. Lessons are hard work. It would have been easier if my mother had said why she wanted me to come straight back or why she didn’t want Patrick coming to the house, easier if Tim had said why I was never to come down to Patrick’s cottage alone, but they didn’t and now I’m learning the hard way. I’m learning that my scorn and my wit is no match for his depravity. I’m learning that kicking and scratching doesn’t help. I’m learning that if I concentrate on my list, I can dull the hurt.

  ‘Jesus you’re a strong young one, Rose. That’ll teach you to answer me with cheek,’ Patrick utters smugly as he emerges through the bedroom door, zipping up his fly and buckling his belt. He lifts the kettle and prevents it from whistling.

  I stand at the bedroom door, afraid to move any further. My thin spindly legs are like jelly underneath my school skirt. My eyes hurt from fixing them closed. I can’t stop shaking. My whole body is numb.

  ‘Good girl, Rosie,’ Patrick says. He has his back to me, standing at the stove.

  I lean against the frame unsure how much longer I can stand. The smell of him lingers inside my nose. I look towards the door but am afraid to move, afraid to pass him by.

  ‘It’s okay, Rosie.’ His smarmy remarks make me want to cry. ‘I’m only teaching you how to grow up.’ He notices me shaking and starts to walk towards me with a mug in his hand. I flinch and he sees it. ‘You see, you can’t be like that when the boys come calling. Shaking with fear won’t get a girl married.’ He turns away from me and sits at the table. His legs stretch in front of me. To move past him I’ll have to step over them and I don’t think my legs could do it. I shuffle to my right, closer to the door. I can feel liquid trickle down my legs and I think I’ve wet myself. ‘I did the same for your brother, showed him how to grow up, what to do to the girls.’ He sniggered. ‘Mind you, I don’t know if it did him any good.’

  I’m not close enough but with every word he utters, I’m reminded of the repugnant odour from his breath and the escape I imagined moments earlier with my list alludes me. My stomach gurgles and gags. I can feel a lump at the back of my throat, so big that I’m afraid the air won’t get through, but I’m determined not to let him see me weakening. He looks at me, looking at the door and I’m afraid of the look in his eyes. My body is torn and weak and my hair has fallen out of its clip.

  ‘And there’s no point in telling anyone, no one will believe you, there’s no evidence, nothing to show that you were here,’ he threatens. I glance at the dinner plate on the table. ‘Besides, if you do, I’ll say you were a right little goer.’ He sniggers.

  Faintly, I edge again one more inch to the door, away from the support of the frame. Blood drains, drip by drip, from my head and the contents of my stomach erupt from my mouth in repetitive reaches, taking every ounce of bile, oxtail soup and crusts of bread I had in me. I’m hoping that the remnants of his assault inside of me come out too.

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’ Patrick jumps upright to avoid splashes of yellow on his boots. ‘You stupid little bitch,’ he says. ‘What did you do that for?’

  *

  ‘Mother,’ Tim calls from outside her door. ‘Where’s Rose?’ Tim doesn’t wait for her to answer and rushes up the stairs. ‘Rose,’ he calls, becoming anxious with the silence. He bounds back downstairs to find the kitchen empty. ‘Fucking hell,’ he says and bangs loudly on his mother’s bedroom door. ‘Mother, where’s Rose?’ She doesn’t answer him. Tim turns the handle and bursts the door open. ‘Mother.’ Tim speaks slowly and loudly. ‘Where is Rose?’ His mother sits at the side of her bed whimpering. Her once pink dressing gown drapes on her bony shoulders and extends down her legs, opening slightly to expose her shins.

  ‘Dinner.’ Her voice is barely audible. ‘Patrick’s dinner.’ Her lips are dry and sore. She clenches her dressing gown closed. She’s not able to look her son in the eye.

  ‘You spineless bitch.’ Tim’s anger propels him towards her and she cowers away. He swipes the empty bottle on the dresser and holds it aloft. ‘You know she shouldn’t be down there on her own.’

  ‘Tim, no,’ she snivels. ‘I told her to come straight back, I did.’

  ‘You useless piece of shit.’ He steps away reluctantly. ‘If he has done anything to her, I’ll kill him first and then you.’ He leaves, slamming her door on its hinges.

  The cattle’s drone sounds deep and distant as he hurries past the sheds. Outside the cottage he notices Patrick’s boots on the step. He moves impulsively towards the window to the side, still clutching the glass bottle in his hand. Tim crouches lower to look through the half-drawn curtains. The wireless standing on the table in the corner is surrounded by mountains of papers precariously piled. The brown velvet curtains to the front of the room have been carelessly pulled across, scantily covering the bare night outside. A taste of bile rises rapidly from his stomach as he hears the door open. He freezes to the spot.

  *

  ‘You little bitch,’ Patrick shouts as I make a dash for the door. A pool of sick remains on his kitchen floor and he slips in it trying to stop me. I slam the door behind me. I’m glad. Glad he can’t catch me and glad that he is lying in it. I’m nearly away up the path, past the bushes and close to the sheds when I stop running. A rustling b
ack at the cottage makes me turn around. I focus and through the trees I’m sure I see Tim’s silhouette. Anxiously, I run back to him.

  ‘Tim, No!’ I cry quietly. ‘Not like this, Tim.’ My eyes dart to the cottage door. ‘He’ll kill you.’ My heart thumps wildly in my chest, making me breathe shallowly, every breath shorter than the last. ‘Please, Tim, don’t,’ I whimper.

  ‘Rosie, what are you doing? Go back to the house now,’ he whispers through his closed teeth. His grip stiffens around the neck of the gin bottle and even though my seventeen-year-old brother is not in the habit of being violent, instinctively, I know what he intends to do with it. His face is etched with fury and his muscles supersaturated with adrenaline. I can’t tell by the glassiness in his eyes if he is full of sadness or full of rage. I decide its equal measures of both. I panic; I don’t want him to get hurt as well, or worse still, to end up dead. I stare at him uneasily.

  ‘Please, Tim, no, come back with me now. I need you.’ I place my hand on his jaw, almost frightened by its sharp edge. I pull at his arm to follow me, but he doesn’t. His eyes seem black and his body feels like stone, solid like a wall. I bury my face in my hands and for one breathless second, sobs escape from my core. Tim is startled by the sound.

  ‘Shhh.’ He glances hastily at the cottage door. ‘Come quickly.’ He leads me quietly from where we stand. ‘Before the old bastard hears us.’ We pace the pathway back by the sheds and return across the yard. ‘He won’t put his hands on you ever again. I can promise you that.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I plead, wrapping my arms around my body, I’m feeling cold. I close my eyes and will away the burning pain inside of me. But it doesn’t work. ‘Please, Tim, leave it so.’ I can’t stop the stream of tears washing down my face.

  ‘What did he do to you?’ Tim stops me from walking and places his hands on both my shoulders so I stand squarely in front of him. He towers over me. I don’t have any words. I don’t know what to call it. I know that Patrick grunted and groaned and I know that it hurt. ‘Jesus, Rosie.’ Streams of tears flow quickly now and he wraps me in his arms before I can see his. I don’t need to say any of the words; he can hear the answer in my eyes. ‘I’ll kill him, with my own bare hands. I swear, Rosie.’ Tim is exploding before me. White lines of anger stripe across his face like war paint. His nostrils flare and his chest inflates. He paces back and forth in front of me, chewing the inside of his mouth. The trickle continues slowly like a snail on the inside of my legs. I wonder where my father’s shotgun is. I worry that Tim will find it.

  ‘Tim.’ He stops in his tracks and comes to me. His tightened expression loosens momentarily as his eyes meet mine. ‘I need to get home. I want to clean myself.’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ he says and takes me by the hand. He squeezes tight. We have never held hands before and it feels odd but reassuring. He walks me to the back door. ‘I’ll be in shortly.’ He angles his arm to encourage me inside without him.

  ‘No, Tim, don’t leave me on my own.’ I know he’s planning on going back and I don’t want him to. ‘I’m afraid,’ I say. He softens and has no choice but to come with me.

  ‘Just answer me one question.’ He sits me down on the kitchen chair and closes the door to the hall. We both suspect my mother will be listening from behind her wall. He hunkers in front of me and lowers his voice. ‘Has he done this to you before?’

  I shake my head, unable to meet his gaze, mortified at what has happened and even more mortified to have to talk about it to Tim.

  ‘I need to know, Rosie. I need to know.’ He notices my discomfort but insists on me answering anyway.

  ‘No.’ My voice is low and raspy. He grabs the blue and white stripped tea towel and dries my face gently. He stands up and leans on the table. The stillness of the evening jars with the chaos in our lives.

  ‘Look at me.’ He pulls my chin upwards with his hand. ‘He will never touch you again. I can promise you that, here and now.’

  I believe him and I’m worried, I wonder if it would be easier to endure my uncle than to watch Tim do battle with him. I feel shame.

  ‘Never again,’ he repeats.

  We take a moment for it to sink in. My body feels battered and bruised and the tops of my legs feel swollen and tender. My hips feel dislocated. I pull myself upright, feeling every muscle contract on my way. My legs are too shaky to hold me so I sit back down. I can feel wetness in my knickers.

  ‘I need to wash, Tim,’ I say quietly. ‘Help me upstairs.’ I stretch my arm over his shoulder and he walks me to my room. As we pass my mother’s door we exchange a glance. We both know, without uttering a word, that she could have stopped it. Neither of us is surprised that she didn’t.

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday Morning – 2016

  Snatching a second look and catching her breath, Marie lunged for the television remote. ‘Jesus, that was quick.’ She spoke at the television as images of their Estate flashed across the screen while the brunette newsreader spoke.

  A collection of reporters and journalists had descended on their little sleepy enclave purposefully, looking to unfold the shady mystery they imagined of the forty-six-year-old remains in their two-minute or two-column segments. The cheekier ones had jumped her gates and knocked on her door; the more respectful ones only intruded by phone. As a consequence, her electric gates remained firmly closed to stop any rambling reporters calling at her door. It was a plague of story grabbers that had descended upon them.

  ‘Where’s your daddy?’ Marie said urgently as Jack spooned the last few clumps of his scrambled egg into his mouth. She scooped her long blonde hair and looped it in a messy bun on top of her head. The old raggedy grey oversized T-shirt she wore for sleeping in had seen better days.

  ‘He’s gone over to the sheds, I think,’ Jack muffled, with his mouth full and his eyes half shut. He was like a carbon copy of his daddy, with big brown pools for eyes and blond curls flopping uncut around his ears, he was already taller than her and only eleven years of age.

  With the volume still on mute she studied the images, scanning for evidence of their life.

  ‘Will you run over for him, as quick as you can, good boy?’ Marie turned up the volume to hear the narrative. ‘How the bloody hell did they get that?’ she said out loud at the image of their new black jeep leaving through the electric gates. She couldn’t make out who was driving.

  She jumped to the window and peered outside, paranoid that reporters were still hovering around her property. Conscious that she was barely dressed, she pulled her T-shirt longer to cover her bare legs.

  ‘Can I have two plaits instead of one?’ Eve jumped down from her seat. ‘Fiona always has two and she said that my mum is no good at doing plaits, so I want two plaits please?’ Eve rooted in the drawer for matching bobbles and a brush while she spoke. Her wavy blonde hair was a warren of knots and a nightmare to tame, a little bit like herself.

  ‘What, yes, sure.’ Marie was distracted as her hands began to shake. She heard the words, ‘Murder’, ‘Michael McGrath’ and ‘Timothy Fitzpatrick’ all uttered in quick succession as she tried to catch up on the storyline. She wondered what else they knew. She couldn’t decide whether to increase the volume or to press mute. She opted for mute, just until little ears were out of hearing distance.

  ‘Or will I have one plait, do you think?’ Eve was undecided. She didn’t want Fiona to think that she was doing it to copy her, although it had become quite fashionable to have two French braids at pony camp and she didn’t want to be the only one without. ‘I think I’ll have two,’ she decided.

  The back door opened and Michael rushed inside.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Michael’s normally sallow skin was flushed red from his run. Panic was etched on his face and his boots were still on. It was the same panic that Jack mimicked, as he ran in behind him. ‘Are you okay? Is Evie?’ His questions were as short as his breath. Slowly, his breathing settled as he looked from Marie to Eve and back to Marie again, reassured b
y seeing both of them.

  ‘We’re fine.’ Marie winced as she realised how worried he was. She might have given Jack the wrong impression. She should have known better than to spook him, he was such a sensitive little soul. ‘Did Jack tell you there was a problem?’ Marie said, her forehead scrunching apologetically. In the fifteen years since they married, Michael had never known her to be dramatic; as a matter of fact she was usually quite the opposite, a stoic, ‘everything will be just fine’ type of girl that wasn’t frazzled easily. It didn’t matter that she was ten years younger than him; she was still far more mature than he ever was. ‘We’re both fine,’ she repeated reassuringly.

  ‘Jesus, Marie, I thought something had happened,’ Michael said, sighing with relief. He cleared his throat, thinking about the potential of things going wrong. He couldn’t have coped if anything had happened to her, or the children. He looked at her, grateful, she was okay. Standing barefoot in his old, oversized grey T-shirt, no make-up, she looked vulnerable, younger almost. ‘I just got the wrong end of the stick,’ he said, aware that his last response might have been snarky. ‘You normally don’t send Jack running for me,’ he explained, trying to justify his reaction, his breathing just about normalising. ‘I was in the middle of the milk count.’ He hadn’t got the numbers freeze-branded onto the tail end of the cows so was trying to remember the numbers from the cow’s ear tags. When he was interrupted by Jack, he ran disregarding where he was at in the count and now, everything would have to be re-done.

  ‘I could hardly run across the yard like this.’ She held out the frayed hem of the T-shirt, his old T-shirt, and smiled. ‘It’d give the lads a heart attack,’ she said.