I Am Not Esther

by Fleur Beale

  A hand on my shoulder. ‘Kirby. It’s all right.’ Mum. And she wasn’t crying. She even sounded sort of calm and strong. ‘You’re allowed to hate me. Believe me, I’ve hated myself for more years than you’ve been alive.’ I couldn’t look at her. This is my mother who I’ve loved forever and now I’ve just told her I hate her.

  ‘But I don’t,’ I whispered. ‘I love you. I want you to get out of here and I want us to live together again …’ I couldn’t say any more because it wasn’t true. I did love her but I hated her too. And I didn’t want to live with her but if I didn’t I’d feel so guilty and be so miserable about it that I might as well go and live with her in the first place.

  She was talking. Saying something. ‘What did you say?’ The words didn’t make sense.

  ‘I said I don’t think we’ll live together again. Not for a while anyway.’

  A great gust of sheer rage burned through me. ‘So you’re dumping me again!’

  ‘Stop.’ That was Allan. ‘You are allowed to be angry, Kirby. But be angry at the right things. Right now, I’d say you’re using anger to cover up a feeling of guilt.’

  I turned on him, snarling. ‘What would you know about it? Since when did you get inside my head? Keep your smart remarks for my mother. She seems to love them.’

  ‘Kirby,’ snapped my mother, ‘I will not have you behaving like this! Sit down, shut up and do some thinking.’ She pointed at the chair I’d sat in.

  I stayed where I was. Let them do the I-know-better-han-you act. Let them think they could psychoanalyse me into a corner. What did I care?

  ‘Are you enjoying being in a corner with your back against the wall?’ Allan asked.

  I glared at him.

  ‘Answer the question,’ Mum said.

  I stared at her, but she didn’t look away and her chin was set with just as much determination as mine. I tried again to keep my mouth shut, but the words kept coming from somewhere inside me. ‘All right!’ I burst out. ‘You want it, you can have it! But just remember — you asked for it!’ I was panting and there was sweat pouring down my back; stinging my eyes. My hands were pressed flat against the wall again. ‘I don’t want to live with you! I need somebody to look after me. Me!’ I unglued a hand from the wall and thumped my chest. ‘Thanks to what you did to me I don’t know who I am any longer. I have dreams at night and I’m Esther again and I’m happy because I’m living the Rule.’ I rubbed my face, it seemed to be wet. ‘D’you know what that feels like? Do you? It feels like there’s a rope stuck round each of your ankles and they’re being pulled in different directions. And if I don’t have that dream, I dream I’m in a dark corner and there are people in black clothes and they’re damning me and cursing me to Hell.’ I sobbed for breath and my chest hurt. ‘That’s why I do things. That’s why I can’t stop. I have to be tired. I have to be tired so I’ll sleep.’

  Silence. Mum wasn’t crying. She sat very still but she wasn’t crying and she kept her eyes steady on mine. I looked away and worked at getting some air in my lungs.

  ‘What do you think about in the daytime if you let yourself stop?’ Allan asked.

  What the hell. It couldn’t get much worse than it already was. I slid down so I sat on the floor and let my head fall onto my knees. ‘I think about having a mother. A real mother. Like Nina is.

  The silence pounded around the room in time to the pulse in my head. I couldn’t look at my mother. I loved her so much and I hated her so much and now I’d probably killed her. How was I going to live with it? I’d be running so fast I’d burn out in a month. Or a day.

  ‘I want to know,’ I managed to say at last, ‘I want to know how you can love somebody but hate them as well.’

  My mother came and put her arms around me. ‘It is a miracle to me, Kirby, that you can still love me at all.’ She stroked my head. ‘We have a long way to go, you and I. But I think the running can stop now. For both of us.’

  I was so tired. It was all I could do to nod. My mind was stunned. I’d said all those awful things. The things I’d been so busy trying to keep out of my head, and they hadn’t killed her. She was the one comforting me. I couldn’t believe it. ‘You’re being a mother,’ I muttered.

  She gave a sort of choke. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time, my darling?’

  We sat there forever, Mum with her arms round me and me just leaning against her. After a long time, I lifted my head. ‘But I can’t let you live somewhere else. I just can’t do it.’

  ‘It’s not your decision,’ said my mother who’d never made a big decision as long as I’d been able to remember, ‘it’s mine.’ The love in her eyes soothed the sore places inside me. ‘I think I’ll need about three months to get really well again. We can make some decisions then.’

  So she went to board with a woman who’d once been sick like she had. We phoned each other every day. Often, she met us after school and came home on the train with us. While we cooked tea, she’d do some ironing or just sit and chat to us. At first she was a bit reserved around Jim until he started teasing her like he did us kids. One evening when we were having a barbecue with the whole family including Rory and Jenny, she said, ‘I never knew how great it could be to have relatives.’ Sometimes we went for walks, just her and me, and she told me what it was like for her as a kid.

  ‘I wouldn’t have understood before,’ I murmured. ‘I’d never have known why you just didn’t ’I spread my hands, unable to say more.

  She pulled her mouth down in a funny smile. ‘There’s nothing like walking in somebody else’s shoes to understand what makes them tick.’

  In June, she got a part-time job and moved into a flat. ‘Can I come and stay for the weekend?’ I asked. Part of me wanted to and part of me didn’t. But I went and we laughed a lot, but what was different was that she cooked and did the washing and looked after herself and me. She also told me to go to bed and video the rest of the movie to watch the next day. ‘Hey, you’re taking this mother-stuff a bit seriously!’ I grumbled, but I went off to bed grinning like a clown. It seemed I had a mother, I really did.

  On Sunday night, she sat me down at the table. ‘By Christmas, Kirby, I should be working full-time again. And I want you to come back home.’ She looked steadily at me. ‘You belong with me and I want you.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. I’ll come.’ It was that easy. I knew I’d miss living with Miriam and Daniel, Nina and Jim. But I belonged with Mum. And she wanted me. She didn’t need me. Not now. But she wanted me. Suddenly we were grinning at each other and she flung her arms round me and we didn’t know if we were laughing or crying.

  In July, there was a thing on one of those current affairs programmes on telly about The Children of the Faith. I was scared and part of me didn’t want to watch it.

  ‘Why not?’ Miriam demanded, when I told her and Daniel as we caught the train to school. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘What if it turns me into Esther again? She’s gone now. I haven’t had the dreams for ages.’

  Daniel looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe it’ll finally bury Esther forever. I’m looking forward to it. I hope they show the children. And Mother.’ I didn’t blame him for not wanting to see Uncle Caleb.

  ‘It won’t make you howl your eyes out?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably. But I’ll put up with that for the chance of seeing them again.’

  That night, Mum came over so we could all watch the programme together. Jim set the video and we put the new tape in that we’d bought specially.

  The reporter stood in front of the Place of Fellowship. ‘Twenty-three families who worship here,’ he gestured behind him, ‘are today packing up and moving to Nelson. The Children of the Faith believe that true salvation lies in following the teachings of the Bible literally. They live by what they call the Rule, they have no telephones, television or radios. They do not read books or newspapers. They keep their thoughts turned to the Lord. Their women are modest, their men devout and their children obedient.’ H
e walked towards the door, with the camera following him. ‘Their leader is Ezra Faithful.’

  Old Baldy’s face jumped out at us. The camera zoomed out to show him in long shot, dressed in his dark suit and shiny shoes. He was on the stage of the Fellowship Centre and he had his arms raised and his eyes closed. There was a voice-over of the announcer explaining about the Rule and how they wanted to live apart from the iniquities of the world. ‘We are not permitted to speak to any of the members of the Fellowship,’ the reporter said, ‘but the Elders have kindly given permission for us to film the exodus, as they are calling it, to Nelson.’

  The next sequence was of Charity’s family packing belongings into boxes. Charity was wrapping crockery in plain white paper. No newspaper allowed. Then the camera showed Thomasina and her baby. A boy with big ears, and he wore a long gown. The camera lingered on Thomasina’s face. She looked so young. Another shot of Talitha and her family singing after dinner, boxes stacked neatly round the walls behind them.

  ‘They’ve got to show them!’ Daniel muttered. Miriam was biting her lips.

  But the next shot was of a convoy of laden cars and a sign that said, WELLINGTON. Then we saw them driving onto the ferry. Old Baldy came out on deck and The Children of the Faith followed him.

  ‘There’s Luke!’

  But it was only a fleeting glimpse. They all gathered round while Old Baldy prayed for a safe crossing. ‘Praise the Lord.’

  The camera shifted to a view of a grey sea with tossing, white-capped waves. Then it came back to the ferry and there they were. Aunt Naomi in her long skirt and head scarf stood looking back at the city. What was she thinking? What was behind that calm expression? Was she thinking about the children she’d lost — about Miriam and Daniel? Maybe even about me?

  The children came to stand beside her. Rebecca carried Zillah all wrapped up in a beautiful shawl, and Rachel held Maggie’s hand. Zillah cried and Maggie touched her cheek, spoke to her and the camera zoomed in for a close up of Zillah laughing up at Maggie. Rachel and Rebecca smiled at both of them. Abraham and Luke’s eyes were everywhere but they stayed quiet, beside their mother.

  We sighed as the shot faded.

  The ferry moved out into the harbour and the camera zoomed in to show a close up of the couple standing at the rail. It was Damaris and Gideon, together, but not touching. Her beautiful face filled the screen for several seconds. I looked at her and all I felt was pity that her life would be so narrow, that she wasn’t going to be able to think for herself, that she lived by a Rule which said thou shalt not rather than you can — give it a go, try it and see what happens.

  The final shot was of the ferry sailing through the heads.

  Esther wasn’t there. Daniel was right. She was dead.

  About the Author

  Fleur Beale is the author of more than 30 books published in New Zealand, the US and the UK. She has won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book twice, with Slide the Corner in 2007, and I am not Esther in 2009. She has also won the Esther Glen Award in the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards twice with Juno of Taris, the first book in the Juno series, in 2009, and Fierce September, the second, in 2011. Fierce September also won the prize for Young Adult Fiction in the 2011 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

  Fleur was inspired to write I am not Esther when a student at a school where she was teaching was beaten and expelled from his family for going against their religious beliefs.

  Other books by Fleur Beale

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  please go to www.randomhouse.co.nz

  Copyright

  First published with the assistance of Creative New Zealand

  A LONGACRE BOOK published by Random House New Zealand 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

  For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

  Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group New York London Sydney Auckland Delhi Johannesburg

  First published in 1998 by Longacre Press Ltd. Reprinted 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008.

  This edition first published 2012

  © 2012 Fleur Beale

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 86979 907 6

  This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Design: Carla Sy

  Cover image: Irene Lamprakou/Trevillion Images

  Printed in New Zealand by Printlink

  This publication is printed on paper pulp sourced from sustainably grown and managed forests, using Elemental Chlorine Free (EFC) bleaching, and printed with 100% vegetable based inks.