The Slaughter Man

by Parkin, Cassandra;

  “What? What, exactly, does it mean that he turned up and sat at the back of the church and then cleared off without even saying hello?” A sound from the strange man that could have been Rose, muffled by emotion. “No, it’s no good, Joe, you don’t get points for trying. You weren’t even bloody there for the last six years of her life, so why bother pretending you cared enough to say goodbye?”

  Willow feels a tingle of excitement, because she suddenly knows who this is.

  In her memories of Before, she finds a long bright afternoon a couple of years ago, when she and Laurel rummaged through the clots and clumps of paperwork that lived in the bureau. Tidying the bureau was a task her parents occasionally muttered about, but would clearly never attempt. Old bills and bank statements and fliers for double-glazing were crammed alongside family photographs and letters from long-dead relatives, no order or system other than the things that got dragged out and looked at tended to be closer to the top. Beginning with some vague idea of creating order from chaos and making their parents very happy, they’d grown distracted by the photos of their childhood. And among them…

  (They’d spent long breathless minutes remembering. “He gave us that ostrich egg,” Laurel said. “And he came for tea once and we asked him if we wanted jelly and he said he’d rather eat worms,” Willow replied. “But then…” And they remembered the arguments, held in the evenings when Laurel and Willow weren’t supposed to be awake to hear. An outbreak of muttered conversations, that stopped as soon as either Willow or Laurel went in. Their mother fizzing with tension; everyone walking softly around her. Their uncanny sense that she was desperately hoping they wouldn’t ask questions. Their terror that there was some dreadful news coming (maybe they’re getting divorced? Or what if we have to move away?), and the gradual easing of tension as the weeks and months went on, and nothing seemed to materialise. The slow realisation of who it was they weren’t supposed to ask about; and then, the gradual shameful forgetting that he’d ever been part of their lives.

  “Could you do that?” Laurel had asked her. “Could you forget about me and not see me for years?” And neither of them had been able to imagine it.)

  “Oh Jesus, listen to me.” Her mother again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so horrible.”

  Behind the door, Willow wonders if her mother’s apologising to her husband, or her older brother.

  “Stephen, can you stick the kettle on for some coffee? And Joe, I didn’t mean any of that. I know it was my fault as much as yours. I just… look, I’m glad you came. I am. It means a lot. And you’d have been welcome at the wake, you absolute prick. Give me a hug.”

  A pause. Laurel wishes she could see through the door and find out what’s going on.

  “So how was the journey?” That tone of voice again, that husband-to-wife instructional that she hasn’t heard for so long.

  “Oh. Um. Not too bad at all. No traffic really. Well, there was some, but it was all going the other way.”

  “That’s good.” Her father sounds as if he’s not sure of his lines. “Grab a chair, why don’t you? Dinner won’t be long.”

  “God, no, honestly. It’s fine, I don’t expect you to cook for me, you weren’t even expecting me. I’ll get a takeaway.”

  “Don’t you make me come over there and force you to sit down.” How strange to hear her father teasing this man whose face she can barely remember, as if they’ve known each other for years and might even have liked each other once. “So, are you, I mean, did you, will there be anyone else joining us, or…”

  A pause so awkward Willow can hear it through the door.

  “No!” Joe sounds alarmed. “Rose, please, you know I wouldn’t. I swear, it’s only me.”

  “Keeping the bed warm back at home, then? You two are living together now, right?”

  “Yes. No. Well, sort of. I mean, there’s this business trip to get out the way first, and then… Look, Rose, I was on my own at the funeral as well, I swear. I know how you feel and I wouldn’t—”

  “For God’s sake.” Her mother sounds exhausted. “What does it matter now?”

  “Tell you what.” Her father’s chair scrapes against the floor. “Do you want a beer?”

  “That’d be great.”

  “Rose? Just this once?”

  “No thanks.” A pause. Will her father make the joke he always used to make, telling her mother that if she changes her mind she’s not having any of his? “Actually, yes I will.”

  She can hear her father’s footsteps as he goes to the fridge. Her parents used to drink quite often in the evenings, but now the same six beers and single bottle of Chardonnay have sat untouched in the fridge for months. Willow takes a deep breath and holds it, afraid her father will hear her through the door. Someone must have started cooking. She can smell ginger and garlic frying. Then there’s the deeper sizzle of something being added to the pan, and finally the scent of mango and tomato and spices creeps around the edges of the door. She presses her hand to her stomach, afraid it will growl and give her away.

  “Thanks, mate.”

  The click of bottle tops being popped off reminds her of the day when she and Laurel turned thirteen. To celebrate, they stole a bottle of beer each, and drank them in the bathroom. She can still remember seeing her own expression on her sister’s face; their disappointment at the sourness, their determination to drink it anyway and plumb the depths of this mystery. She can feel the warmth in her belly, and the giddy feeling they both imagined was drunkenness. They’d laughed until they cried, and eaten a whole bag of mints to cleanse their breath afterwards.

  “Rose, please talk to me. How are you really?”

  “We’re fine.” Her mother’s voice is a closed metal shutter. Nothing getting out; nothing getting in. Nothing to see here. I’m fine. The lie they’ve all been telling since it happened. How many times have they all said this, to teachers and counsellors and friends and colleagues and each other? Maybe it’s the weight of this lie that’s stopped the words in Willow’s mouth.

  “We’re not fine.” Her father, correcting her mother once more.

  “We’re fine,” her mother repeats, and Willow can hear all the things her mother isn’t saying, because they’re the things Willow never says either. I don’t want to talk to you. This pain is mine, not yours. It’s all I’ve got left of her. I don’t want to share it. Not with anyone. “What good does it do to talk about it? Especially not to him.”

  “Please don’t say that. I’m your big brother, I’m supposed to look after you. And I know I’m not a parent so I can’t begin to understand, but—”

  “That’s right. You can’t understand. So don’t try. And be glad you’ll never have to.”

  “We’re not fine.” Her father’s voice is low but penetrating, determined to be heard. “No, Rose, I’m not going to shut up, don’t even bother trying. We’re not fine and we’re not coping and we don’t know what to do. Well, I don’t, anyway. We’re falling apart. All of us. And none of us know how to make it better.” The chair scrapes, and she hears the small sounds of her father standing at the cooker. “So that’s how we’re doing. Can you sort the rice out?”

  “Yes, of course. Where is it?”

  “He means me.” Her mother, sounding weary. “Sit down and drink your beer.”

  “It’s all right, I want to help.”

  “Well, guess what? Helping doesn’t mean crashing around a strange kitchen looking for stuff you’ve got no chance of finding because you never come here.”

  “Rose, please.” Nobody argues with her mother when she’s in this mood. Is he doing it because he’s her brother and he knows better? Or doesn’t he know her well enough? “Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”

  “Do you want another beer?” Her mother’s voice is brittle, on the verge of cracking into something sharp and dangerous. “We must owe you quite a few drinks to make up for six years, don’t you think?”

  “Look, if you want to me to say it was all my f
ault, then I’ll say that, okay? I shouldn’t have tried to make you accept us as a couple, that was stupid and selfish of me. I should have come to see you on my own. I’ll regret that for ever. But I want to—”

  “Oh, it’s always got to be about what you want!” The blaze of her mother’s outburst is terrifying. “You think you’ve got anything to offer my family? You? It’s my job to deal with situations like this, it is literally my job to help my poor girl get through this, and you know how I’m doing with that? Willow’s a mess.”

  But I’ll get better, Willow thinks desperately. I will. I promise.

  “She doesn’t speak, she can’t go to college, she doesn’t eat properly, she sleepwalks. She’s broken every mirror in the house—”

  No, I haven’t, Willow thinks. Have I?

  “She wets the bed, for God’s sake. Seventeen years old and she sleepwalks into her dead sister’s room and gets in her bed and wets it, and then she gets up again and puts the sheets in the wash because she thinks we won’t notice.”

  Oh God, Willow thinks. They know. All this time they’ve known.

  “And every night I think, I won’t take the sleeping pill tonight, this time I’ll be awake when she starts wandering, but every single night I give in and take it, we both do. Because we can’t cope either. We take pills so we can get through the night and then we let our little girl deal with her own mess all by herself, because we can’t bear lying awake in the dark. I can’t even work out how to tell her that. No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say any of that. No, Stephen, don’t, I can’t stand it.”

  “I only want to hug you.”

  “I don’t want a hug. I want Laurel back.”

  “Do you think I don’t?”

  “Look,” says Joe, sounding as desperate as Willow feels at her mother’s sudden naked outburst, “why don’t you let Willow stay with me for a bit?”

  Willow feels the surprise hollow out her chest.

  “What?”

  “I mean, if she’s not going to college anyway, why not? It might do her good. Give you all a break.”

  Tucked tight against the door, Willow lets the idea settle on her shoulders. She could go somewhere else. She could wake up in the morning and see a room and a house that Laurel has never been in. The mirrors that reflected her face wouldn’t remember that there was once someone else who peered into them and looked exactly the same. Would that feel better, or worse?

  “God, no.” Her father this time. “We appreciate the offer, but there’s no way we can—”

  “Of course you can. Rose, look at you, you’re a mess. Don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. You need to take care of yourself too. You can’t carry on like this.”

  “Yes I can. I can do whatever Willow needs. I’m a mum.”

  “And how much good will you be to anyone if you go to pieces?”

  Her mother’s laugh sounds as if she’s burning to death under the desert sun. “How can anyone, even you, possibly think that taking my daughter away would—”

  “Stephen, what d’you reckon? Just think about it. I have to do something to help, I’ve got to. She won’t have to meet anyone you don’t want her to. I’m on my own for the next eight weeks.”

  “Eight weeks?” She can picture her dad shaking his head in respect. “Blimey.”

  “Tell me about it. Big investment project in Perth. It’s not an imposition, you’d be doing me a favour, keeping me out of trouble while I’m on my own. And I’ll look after her, I promise.”

  They’re talking about me like I’m a dog that needs boarding. Is anyone going to even bother asking me what I want? Willow pushes open the door.

  They’re not quite in the positions she pictured them. Her father isn’t standing over the stove but sitting at the table, and her mother’s clutching the kettle like a weapon, ready to drown the still uncooked rice waiting in the saucepan. And there’s her Uncle Joe, looking a little older but not so much that she doesn’t recognise him, standing awkwardly by the back door.

  Before she came in, she’d been determined to speak, ready to tell them all off for talking about her as if she has no desires or thoughts or opinions of her own. I am actually a person, you know, she wants to say. I get a say in this too. You need to talk to me about what I think.

  But then her parents turn to look at her, faces gaping with guilty shock, and she feels the terrible weight of their gaze and their love, pressing down on her until she feels she might buckle beneath it. Speech is out of the question. She can hardly breathe.

  I’ve got to get away from you, she thinks, or I’m not going to survive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Willow leaves the house in a haze of tears that merge into the steady relentless rainfall, the battering of droplets against the windscreen counterpointed by the steady swoosh and thump of the windscreen wipers. She settles awkwardly into the passenger seat – a seat that’s been positioned and adjusted for someone much taller than she is – and distracts herself from the discomfort by trying to make sense of how this has actually happened.

  It took six days for everything to fall into place, and each of those days had been bursting at the seams, crammed with more discussions, more phone calls, more tears and more arguments than she’d known a house could hold. She’d watched as the three adults argued back and forth, whether Joe could or could not be trusted to take care of Willow, whether it would be helpful or damaging. The things they said (It’s too much to ask / She doesn’t know you well enough / It’s too far away / What if something happens), and the things they didn’t (I know better than you do / Then how come she’s not getting better / I hate you / I hate you too) had echoed off the walls and the inside of her head. She’d watched, disbelieving, and waited for someone to remember they ought to find out what she wanted. When her father finally asked her if she thought some time away might help, she nodded, then doubled over with silent shuddering sobs that shocked her with their suddenness and intensity.

  If there was a definite point when the mood shifted from Joe that’s really kind but there’s no way you’re taking Willow away with you to Okay now how do we actually make this happen, she couldn’t identify it. Perhaps it was like the tide turning. You looked at the waterline and suddenly realised it had retreated, and the change must have come some time ago, while you were staring at the seagulls or throwing stones at sandcastles.

  But the turning of this tide had unlocked a whole new set of actions. Clothes were washed and sorted. Books were packed into boxes. Long lists of instructions, from her mother to her uncle, as if Willow was once again a baby with no voice or will of her own.

  Yesterday, she’d sat at the top of the stairs and hugged her knees as she listened to her father on the phone to the college. She needs some time off, she won’t be in for the rest of this term. She could fill in their questions from his responses. No, we don’t have a doctor’s note. No, I appreciate that, but we’ve bought her some workbooks and found some tutors, so you don’t need to worry about it, and gradually, his irritation building, Let’s be honest, being in a familiar environment and keeping to a routine’s not done much good so far, has it? Then, in a magnificent crescendo, I need you to understand, I’m not asking your permission here. I’m just letting you know. You do whatever you feel you need to, but Willow won’t be in college until next term and I expect you to keep her place open for her and that’s how it’s going to be, are we clear? Yes, you do that. Indeed. Have a wonderful day.

  And then he slammed the phone down, and started laughing to himself, and her mother came in from the living room and put her arms around his waist and murmured to him, You know, if you wanted to frighten them you could have gone down there with a gun, and they held onto each other for a minute and then suddenly kissed, rough and sloppy and open-mouthed. She knew she shouldn’t be watching, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  What are they doing now she’s left them alone? Are they relieved or sorry that she’s gone? She can still feel the tig
ht press of her mother’s goodbye hug, but she can’t imagine what might come next. She’s not at all sure this is really happening, that she’s really leaving. She steals glances at Joe’s profile as he peers into the rain and mutters about the traffic and curses occasionally at lorries, and wonders what on earth she’s done. Apart from anything else, she suspects Joe may be the worst driver she’s ever got into a car with.

  “Shit and corruption,” he mutters, and hauls the steering wheel over to the right so he can tear past a caravan. Behind them, a lorry honks a horn like a cruise ship and flashes its headlights. “Sorry about that. I hate hanging around. Can’t stand drivers who dawdle.”

  (And if you want to come home, her mother began as she held Willow close, and her voice broke. Oh Willow, what if you want to come home? How will you let us know?

  Say something, Willow told herself fiercely. Come on. Speak to her. Say something. This is the last chance you’ll have for weeks.

  But no matter how hard she willed it, the words wouldn’t come.)

  In the seat beside her, Joe takes a perilous moment to look away from the road.

  “Are you okay there?” he asks. “Sorry, I know you can’t… I mean, if you want to stop or anything, give me a sign somehow. Maybe grab the wheel or something. That’s a joke, by the way, please don’t actually grab the wheel.” She smiles at him, not because she thinks it’s funny but because he’s trying, and she wants to try too. She needs him to like her. She needs them both to be right about this. She needs it to work.

  (We don’t have to talk face-to-face, her counsellor coaxed her at their last session. You can make me a recording on your phone if you like, and email the file to me. Or you can write down what you’re thinking and I’ll read it. But you do need to start communicating if you want to get better. A shrewd pause. Willow, do you want to get better?

  Yes, she’d thought, of course I bloody want to get better, how can you think I… But no matter how hard she strained to get the words out, something stronger pushed back. Her fingers refused to grip the pencil or to touch the keyboard. When she started the recording on her phone, the sight of the face staring back at her from the screen, Laurel looking out from behind her eyes, was too much to bear. So now she’s running away. What if this doesn’t work either?)