Doll House

by John Hunt

  They fed him, both Harry and Olivia drinking Coke and being unusually accommodating and nice to Frank. One of them was always ready to top up his plate with roasted potatoes, fork more meat on his plate and be up in a flash if he needed another drink. This served to provoke a squint-eyed suspicious gaze from Frank. Frank, leaning back and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin, said, “That was wonderful. Now that I’ve been fattened up, can you two schemers tell me what this is all about?”

  Harry said, “Schemers? What do you mean?”

  Olivia feigned shock with a raising of eyebrows.

  “For the past two weeks you’ve been trying to get me over for dinner. Even I know I’m not that likeable. And roast beef? Olivia hates it. She always has.”

  Olivia said, “I can’t believe you remembered something like that.”

  “I’m a genius. I remember everything. So, what’s this all about?”

  Olivia said, “Proclaiming yourself a genius doesn’t make it true.”

  Harry shot a reproachful glance at Olivia, his neck apple bobbing, and said, “We want to buy a house.”

  Frank held up his hands, “Whoa. We talking a loan? You know the interest rates are fluctuating like crazy right now. The market isn’t all that steady. I don’t have as much ready cash as people think you know and I don’t feel comfortable…”

  Harry said, “Not a loan. I can buy the house. That’s not a problem. The problem is it’s quite a fixer upper and I’m not much of a fixer. But you, you’re a successful businessman. A contractor no less!”

  Frank rolled his eyes, “Your flattery is transparent and ridiculous. So what? You want me to fix it up for you? How much free time do you think I have?”

  Harry said, “For now, all we want is for you to take a look at the place with us. Maybe we can knock a few more bucks off the price and then, you know, give us your opinion on what work needs to be done.”

  “What if my opinion includes knocking the house down and starting over?”

  “Then we don’t buy it and you save us a ton of cash. C’mon man, I never ask you for anything.”

  “Alright, alright! I’ll do it. Make the appointment for tomorrow. You’re lucky I have an opening in my schedule.”

  Harry said, “Perfect! Thanks Frank!”

  Olivia said, “Looks like you earned yourself some pie, Frank.”

  “Apple?”

  “Of course. With french vanilla ice cream.”

  Frank grinned and rubbed his hands together. Olivia stood and his smile faded. He said, “Just curious. Would I have gotten pie if I said no?”

  Olivia smiled and said, “Don’t be crazy Frank. Of course not.”

  . . .

  They all went to check out the house the next night when the temperature had the nerve to drop to -24 degrees Celsius. Harry ran out to the car, started it to warm it up and sprinted back inside like someone was chasing him. Once inside he said, “Damn it’s cold! My nose hairs froze immediately!”

  Frank sneered and said, “Pansy.”

  Olivia liked and disliked the cold weather. She liked it because she could wear a toque and mitts to cover her injuries and the purple toque and matching scarf was flattering to her skin tone. She disliked the cold because, well, because it was cold. But at least she was able to wear her knife around her waist without looking like a weirdo. Her bulky winter coat covered it nicely. She had cut a hole in the pocket just so she could reach it from the inside. She didn’t tell her dad because when she did it she thought it was a little paranoid and maybe it was but hell, she felt better with it like that so screw paranoia. It made her feel better to be able to get at it with ease. She kept touching it, a physical guard against the terrors of the outside world.

  The real estate agent wore blue eyeshadow. A lot of it. Her hair had been sprayed into a helmet. Olivia doubted a bullet could penetrate the shell of chemicals protecting it. What saved her from being full-on ridiculous was her smile. It radiated genuine warmth and Olivia could picture what she looked like as a child because of it. Following her aromatic trail of perfume and hairspray, Frank, Harry and Olivia toured the house. A bungalow featuring original hard wood floors and the cluttered, claustrophobic tiny rooms common in older homes, Olivia liked the place although it was apparent even to her eyes there would be a lot of work to do. The pictures on the real estate site exaggerated many qualities while hiding others. Since it was a single storey, she wouldn’t feel the fear of being trapped upstairs. To her, there would always be an escape route and if she had to jump out a window like an action movie star, the ground would be a lot closer to meet her. They followed the real estate lady, Grace?- to a set of double doors. Beyond the doors, the backyard stretched out before them. A surprisingly large lot. Unheard of in the city. Usually people were crammed on top of one another you could reach your hand out a window on the side of your house and touch the neighbour’s home.

  Olivia loved the backyard. A perfect size for what she wanted to implement next. Frank studied the structure of the house, feeling for drafts at windows, flushing toilets, kneeling down to peer at the floorboards. A study in concentration, he examined everything with a frown, causing Grace to peer at him from time to time, intuitively knowing the sale depended on his say so.

  Olivia knew Harry liked it too. He walked around wide-eyed with his cheeks curved upwards. What did Frank think? Hard to tell when he wore his professional, unreadable face like he did now. Did he hate it? She hoped not. She touched the handle of the knife through the hole in her pocket. In times of stress, the knife provided comfort. She wanted this house. It possessed potential, this little house on a huge lot. It would be nice to knock down a few walls and open the place up. She thought she could do it. Even without Frank’s help, she found she wanted to do it. The idea of building and creating brought on a pleasant feeling. During the entire brief tour, which to Olivia lasted an eternity because she really, really wanted the place, Frank merely grunted, nodded or frowned. He scribbled furiously into a notebook while Grace expounded on the finer points of the older home situated conveniently within the city. He didn’t speak to them until they were in the car and headed for home after promising Grace they would call her soon. Harry had to prod him, producing loud sighs as he drove and glaring at Frank expectant of some sort of comment. Frank kept quiet until Harry elbowed him in the arm while reaching for the radio, trying to sell it as an accident. Olivia smiled in the back seat.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for?”

  “Sorry. I was reaching for the radio.”

  “The radio is over there. My arm, which you dug your womanish elbow into, is right here.”

  “Womanish? Can an elbow be womanish?”

  “Yes. Yours is distinctly feminine.”

  “Hmm. Yeah. So what’d you think of the house?”

  “Oh. You should definitely buy it.”

  “Really?”

  Olivia straightened in the back seat and leaning closer to hear, felt the seatbelt tighten on her shoulder.

  “For sure. What it’d cost to repair you’ll more than get back from resale. All in all, it’s not bad off. Some rewiring needs to be done, some plumbing, and there are quite a few areas with water damage. Have to get in behind the walls to see if the wood is rotten but relatively inexpensive for what you’d get back from it. Oh, and the roof looks suspect.”

  “Relatively inexpensive? Is that because you’re giving me the family discount little brother?”

  “Huh? Discount?”

  “Yeah. A significant discount.”

  Frank’s mouth tightened as though he had bit into a lemon. He said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s winter. Not many jobs going on. It’d be good to have income comin
g in.”

  “Are you telling me you are intending on charging me full price?”

  “Well, maybe not full-full price.”

  “What? Like five percent off?”

  “I was thinking two-point-five percent.”

  Harry’s hands kneaded the steering wheel. His lips disappeared into a line. Olivia knew the look. It was the look she got when she arrived home late from a high school party or the time he found a joint in the pocket of her jeans. Harry was going to blow his stack. Frank could see it too and he shifted in his seat, positioning himself further from Harry.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? I know you can be a bit of a robot, which is probably why you’re so successful but this is too much. I never wanted to bring this up. I never thought there’d be a situation in which I would have to. But Frank, you’re going to do this for free. I’ll pay for the supplies, at cost, for what you get them for and you’re going to do the work for free. You owe me, Frank.”

  “But that’s-”

  “You owe me! Who gave you the money to start your business, huh? No bank would give you the money, remember that? It was me Frank, me working two jobs, going to school and I gave you all my savings. Did I charge you interest on it? Did I complain about it even though I went into debt on the student loans? I didn’t work two jobs to go into debt, Frank! I worked two jobs to pay for your school! I did that for you! Now, here I am, asking for help and you sit there, wanting to make a fucking profit off me! No way, man! No fucking way. You’re gonna do this. And by God, you’re gonna like it!”

  They drove in silence. Olivia could see her father shaking. Harry didn’t get mad often so when he did, he released a few years worth of anger. Frank kept his face turned towards the passenger window. The streetlights flashed in his hair.

  Frank said, “Okay. I can do that.”

  Mollified, Harry’s shoulders dipped down. He said, “Good.”

  “Well, when you’re right, you’re right.”

  The wheels turned underneath them and the winter wind pushed against the windows. Olivia exhaled, glad the tension had passed and ecstatic they were going to buy the house.

  Frank said, “Did you say, ‘by God, you’re gonna like it.’?”

  “I might have.”

  Olivia said, “You definitely did, dad.”

  Frank flashed teeth and said, “Do I really have to like it, Harry? Really?”

  Struggling to keep a straight face, Harry said, “Damn right you do.”

  -23-

  Jen’s reality had been knocked loose of its moorings while in captivity. Being returned home, free from torture didn’t return her to her former self. That person died in their house. At home now, she would pass hours in a fugue. Sitting in the kitchen, a coffee forgotten in her hand, her breakfast untouched before her, she would be aware of her family moving around her. They would speak to her, ask her questions yet their voices took forever to reach her. She answered her mother’s question, of whether she wanted toast with jam for breakfast to realize her mother was no longer in the kitchen, the question having been asked hours before. She didn’t wonder if she had lost her mind. She knew it. She had lost it in the pink room where all her illusions of safety and the privacy of her own body were stripped from her by men in animal masks. Voracious men with salacious and limitless appetites. Men who made a meal of her flesh. How to return from that? You can’t. Every time the stump of her hand entered into view it reminded her of the room and those men. Physically, she came home and was welcomed with tears and hugs from her parents and her two sisters. Mentally, she never left the cotton candy room.

  She knew her parents worried about her. She heard them talking in the night, wondering what to do. She wished she could tell them something, anything to relieve them of their pain. Jen found it difficult to differentiate between the real world and the bunkhouse of her inner mind. The place she created where she could disappear from the men. The floaty plane where at times, it seemed she hovered above her own body, witnessing transgressions against her flesh that her mind couldn’t dredge any sympathy for. As though she were watching it on TV and the director failed in developing empathy for the main character.

  Her sisters had been overjoyed to see her. They talked to her as though she were the old Jen, using jokes and sarcasm to communicate. She wasn’t the old Jen and their words didn’t reach her and they were young and did not have the patience or ability to break through the shell she constructed and soon found themselves back to their old routines, hanging with friends, going to parties, essentially doing all the things they did before, and during, Jen’s disappearance. Jen, cognizant of her siblings distancing themselves, couldn’t do anything to stop it nor could she summon the energy for the effort. Better to float along passively than to participate in the rest of her life.

  Her parents didn’t know what to do so they did nothing but do their best to make her feel loved and safe. They were stunned and overjoyed to have her back and had been convinced she was dead and they were still getting used to her being home and alive. For years after she disappeared her parents would lie in bed comforting each other, whispering kind platitudes about their daughter being alive while believing with dread certainty their daughter mouldered in a shallow grave in a field of nowhere. It was a new and welcome experience to have her home and safe. Most of the time, her mother spent the day sitting beside Jen, nearness being the only company her mother craved.

  It had been two months since she had been freed from her nightmare and although she hadn’t been captive for as long as Olivia, she did endure over two years of cruelty under both their hands and she felt dirty, guilty and not yet part of the normal world.

  Jen loved having her mother near her. She wanted to tell her that but by the time the words passed her lips she would see shadows pooled in the room and she would be alone, her mother having left hours ago.

  She had seen the Jackal in her hallway once wearing nothing but the mask and winter boots wet from the snow. An illusion. She knew it to be so because more often than not, the Gorilla would be right behind him, grunting while squeezing his erection in his fist. The Gorilla couldn’t be there. Olivia had killed him. Even the cops said so. When they appeared from her imagination to stand before her, her eyes would widen and her remaining hand would caress the hard and puckered skin of her stump. She would blink and they would be gone. Not even the wetness from their boots remained on the floor.

  Sometimes, at night, she would hear breathing from her closet. As she watched, the door would creep open on noisy hinges. The clothes jiggled on the hanger and then the head of a Jackal would emerge from the darkness with red eyes glaring at her from behind the mask. She would whimper, go to the place in her head and in a flash of time, it would be morning and her stump would be red and chafed from where she rubbed at it all night. The visions would come upon her at any time. She had no control over them. How could she ever feel safe or get past what happened when at any moment her tormentors appeared before her? She needed help. This couldn’t go on forever or she would visit the room in her head one time too many and never return from it, comatose and unresponsive to the loving administrations of her parents.

  In the back of her house past her backyard the trees crowded together, their leafless branches holding hands to form a dense line. Snow provided a white floor with the scattered detritus from the trees marring the otherwise pristine surface. The land behind their home was owned by the government and was intended to remain a green-space, never to be developed. It was the main reason her parents bought the place years ago. They declined putting a fence up along the back so they could walk from their back door and into the woods. She loved the woods before she had been taken. Spent many hours tracking through it, following paths, squatting down to examine animal tracks. A few square ki
lometres, it would be almost impossible to get lost inside. If you just walked in a straight line you would end up on a road or walking into another suburban area. She felt at home in there at one time. Not anymore. She couldn’t even conceive of leaving the house. Not without her parents. Even then, she would shake and tremble as her eyes darted everywhere, examining every dark corner and shadow waiting for a vision or the real Jackal to appear and strike her down. Better to stay home. Jen spent most of her time in her bedroom staring out the window, overlooking the woods. In those dark spaces beyond her window, she saw the Gorilla and the Jackal the most, their shadows emerging from the outline of the trees.

  Too often she would catch sight of them, along the edge of the forest their heads craned up to watch her, unmoving. She would gasp, close her eyes and open them and sometimes they would still be there even though they weren’t real. She wished her mind believed it. They had done terrible things to her. Said hurtful and evil words. After a time, the urge to fight them faded. Instead she created the special place to escape to and let them do their thing while she exhibited the participation of a corpse. Terrible as it was, the minuscule defiant part of her railed against this thought but she couldn’t push it away. She began to believe she deserved what they had done to her. They did their best to convince her of it. A mixture of harsh words and kind tones and in a sick way, after a time their words made sense to her. How could this happen to anyone if in some way they hadn’t earned it? They broke her down. She knew it, she had seen enough movies and read enough books about domestic violence to understand it. Their constant barrage of degradation wore at her armour. And once she decided she deserved whatever they did to her, it became easier to submit. Participate? Never. Stop fighting them? Absolutely. The ghosts of their cruelty haunted her and appeared to her in her house, in her closet and most often from the woods. They had no corporeality. The only substance they possessed is what she gave them in her mind.