The Words That Fly Between Us

by Sarah Carroll

  ‘That,’ she says, ‘I can do.’

  She goes back to the kitchen and I stay where I am, staring at the girl and the woman.

  Until I hear Dad’s voice.

  Before I can even begin to think of how to hide a twelve-page drawing, his tall frame fills the doorway. ‘Well?’ he says. Then he sees it. ‘Jesus.’ He walks up, but not all the way, and he throws his eyes over it. ‘That must have taken you all day.’ But he doesn’t say it the way Mum did. ‘It’s well for some.’

  He leaves the room but his unspoken words stay right here. Waste of time.

  I feel tears. I don’t want them. So I force my eyes open, abandon my drawing and go to the kitchen. Mum’s frying onions and reaching out for the spice rack with one hand. Dad’s bent over, his head stuck in the fridge. When he stands straight, he has a beer. He twists the top off, takes a swig, and watches Mum.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’

  Mum grinds pepper over the pan. ‘Spaghetti bolognese.’

  Dad takes another swig. ‘Again? Didn’t we have that on Monday?’

  Mum stops grinding. She slowly lifts her head until she’s facing the wall. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ he says.

  ‘No. We had lasagne.’

  ‘Right,’ Dad says. ‘So mince and pasta in a different formation?’

  He’s staring at her back and the words he doesn’t say spread through the kitchen, Go on. Answer. I dare you.

  She’s watching the wall. The steam from the pan crawls up her face. She doesn’t answer and the silence grows and the steam seeps over her shoulders and fills the space between us until it’s smothering us all.

  But then Dad sighs, and the steam pulls back. ‘Guess I’ll get changed and go eat in the Local.’ He drains his beer, slaps the empty bottle on the counter and leaves the room.

  Mum grinds pepper. And I know exactly what she’s thinking. I can see it in the way she tongues her cheek and shakes her head. She’s thinking, He always eats in the Local on Thursdays.

  We listen to the sounds of Dad going through the rooms above us. Then his heavy feet trounce down the stairs. The front door slams, it rings through the house, then fades away.

  The house exhales. He’s gone for the evening.

  Mum looks up at me and she raises her eyebrows and somehow, as they lift, they carry the heaviness of the room away with them. ‘Well, I, for one, am looking forward to bolognese,’ she says. The bounce in her voice is as surprising as if she ran after Dad with the wooden spoon. I come closer.

  ‘And loads of garlic bread?’ I say.

  ‘And coleslaw,’ she says.

  ‘And a glass of milk,’ I say.

  ‘And a side salad,’ she says.

  ‘But not too much salad,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘We have to leave room for cake.’

  ‘With whipped cream.’

  ‘And we’re eating it in front of the TV,’ she says.

  ‘A movie,’ I say.

  ‘First of two,’ she says.

  ‘There’ll be popcorn later,’ I say.

  Mum smiles. ‘Sounds perfect,’ she says.

  And it is. After dinner we put on slippers and lie across the couch with our hands on our bellies and Mum says the first movie is my choice. As we watch it, Mum laughs and strokes my hair and wraps her arm around me and it’s perfect.

  Then it’s her choice and she says, ‘Erin Brockovich.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ I say.

  ‘It’s about a woman, an environmental activist, who takes on these big companies in America that have harmed people and wins.’

  ‘Now you just told me the ending.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not about the ending. It’s how she gets there. Who she is. No one expects her to win but she keeps going.’

  Mum hops up and rummages through our drawer of DVDs that she took with her from our old house.

  ‘Mum? Did you like working for the bank? Back when you worked?’

  She has around five DVDs in her hand when she looks up. ‘God, no. I wanted to be Erin Brockovich. Or like her. Use my degree to work for a charity or something.’

  ‘So why didn’t you?’

  Mum shrugs and goes back to the drawer. ‘I got offered a great job, everyone said I should take it. Your dad was thrilled. Then I got pregnant and your dad was even more thrilled. We both were. There it is.’ She has the DVD. She puts it in the old machine and sits back down. She doesn’t press play though. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking lately of doing just that. Getting a job with a charity. What would you think of that?’

  ‘I think it’d be great.’

  ‘Really?’ She looks like she’s asking my permission.

  ‘Mum! I don’t need you to work from home any more.’

  Mum grins and pulls my feet up onto her lap. ‘Well, I might look into that, then.’ And the way she says it makes me smile too. Because she means it. ‘I wouldn’t make much money, mind you.’

  ‘We don’t need more money.’

  She laughs. ‘What if we lost it all? Had just my income?’

  But I shrug. ‘I like drawing,’ I say. ‘Drawing’s free.’

  ‘Tell you what, you enter the Young Artist competition again this year and I’ll look for a job.’

  ‘Deal,’ I say. Mum makes me shake on it. Then she leans back and presses play.

  An hour and seventeen minutes into the movie, we hear his key in the door. Mum takes her feet down and sits forward, like she’s ready to stand up.

  Did it go okay in the Local? Did he find an investor?

  He strolls into the sitting room and stands in front of the TV. Then he turns to us. His eyes are like fat frogspawn so I know that he has drunk a lot. ‘What’s on?’

  ‘Erin Brockovich,’ Mum says.

  ‘Surely you’ve seen that?’

  He watches her. She doesn’t answer. She leaves the room.

  He comes up to me. ‘Shove over,’ he says and plonks himself down. ‘Mind if I switch on the rugby?’ He doesn’t

  He leans back and watches the TV.

  I stare at him with the words, We were watching that, queuing up inside me.

  Will they fight later? Or tomorrow? What’ll I do when it gets from bad to worse? Tell him I have evidence that he broke the law? But I can’t even say, We were watching that. So I know what I’d do. Nothing.

  Quietly, I leave, and go to my room. I pick up Of Mice and Men. I start to read. When I turn the page, I realize that I’ve no idea what was written on the first. Because I’m not really reading. I’m waiting.

  In the next second, I fling the book across the room. It crashes against the wall and three pages drop out. And the first thing I think is, he’s heard me and he’s going to storm up and demand to know what’s wrong. And I hate myself so much for worrying what he thinks that I want to smash up the whole room.

  Looking at the ripped pages, I feel so completely useless that I want to cry. Then I notice the handwriting. They aren’t pages from the book. They are Mrs Cusack’s two notes, and the homeless girl’s.

  Standing, I go pick up the girl’s note.

  I hope you feel safe all day.

  I trace the letters with my fingers.

  ‘That’s what I want, Dad,’ I say out loud. ‘But I don’t feel safe all day. Because I’m waiting for you to come home. To see what mood you’re in. To see what will happen. I’m always waiting.’

  Taking the note back to the bed, I turn it over and over in my hands. It’s going to get worse and I can do nothing but wait.

  Mum’s in the kitchen. Dad’s sitting in front of the TV. I’m up here. And between us, the silence simmers.

  I place the note on my bedside locker. Then I take my phone from my pocket and put it on top of the note.

  Next time.

  What use is the audio clip next time? Next time they fight. Next time he goes to hit her.

  Because it will happen, and when it does, I won’t be able to stand up to him.

  I look
up. Count the ceiling panels.

  What if I didn’t wait? What if I did something right now to force him to change?

  I slide open the drawer in my locker. My laptop sits there. I lift it out.

  Because I could do something. To force him to change. And he’d never know that it was me. Not if I set up a fake email address. And that’s easy to do.

  It doesn’t seem real, just how easy it is to do, but it only takes me a few minutes and I have an anonymous email address in a fake name. My heart starts beating faster as I do a search for the journalists at the Times and the Independent and the Herald. Anyone who writes about finance. By the time I find their names on articles, and go to each newspaper’s website and look up their profiles, my heart is thumping in my ears. For a few of them, their email addresses are listed.

  After less than half an hour, I have three names and addresses. I paste them into the address bar of a new email from my fake account. I attach the audio clip. Dad’s bank statement.

  My finger hovers over send. I don’t click. Instead, I pick up the note again. I hope you feel safe all day. Turning it over and over, I think to myself, nothing will change, nothing I do matters.

  But then I think of his raised fist. I have to do something.

  I take a deep breath.

  Send.

  FRIDAY

  CHAPTER 24

  What have I done?

  It’s the first thing I think when I wake. I sit bolt upright, get dressed in a heartbeat and run down the stairs. Their bedroom door is open, the bed already made.

  I stop at the bottom of the stairs. Someone’s down here, I can hear movement. But whether it’s Mum or Dad, I don’t know.

  What will happen when the journalists open those emails this morning, will they ring Dad and ask for a comment? Have they already?

  Maybe no one cares. It’s not news. It doesn’t matter. And I can’t believe it, but I realize that’s what I hope, that they don’t care and that nothing happens. Because I suddenly have the feeling that I’ve just made things a whole lot worse.

  There’s no one in the kitchen. I go through to the conservatory.

  There he is.

  Head tilted to the side, sipping coffee and looking at something. Not something on the table or something outside. Something on the wall. And I get the image of a detective, studying the evidence of a case, going through it in his head, Whoever sent that document had access to my computer.

  Dad sees me and turns slightly. He raises his coffee cup. He’ll see it. On my face. In the shaking that runs from my hands to my heart. He’ll know.

  ‘You know?’ he says and he squints the way he does when he’s about to say something profound. ‘It’s not half-bad.’ Then he goes back to studying the wall and I nearly crumble with relief, because I’ve no idea what he actually means, but I’m pretty sure that it’s nothing to do with emails.

  Stepping into the conservatory, I understand. My twelve-page drawing is now taped to the wall. Did he put it up?

  ‘Gets a bit repetitive, here.’ He points at the identical rooms in the girl’s sterile house. ‘Could use some interior décor. But it’s not bad at all.’

  I hear myself say, ‘Thanks.’

  He looks at me again. ‘Really. You’re getting good.’ He gives me a solid nod before turning his back to the drawing and studying the garden instead. He drinks his coffee and says, ‘Aaahh!’

  He likes my drawing. He actually likes it. For a second, I feel butterflies of happiness. But then they sink down to the pit of my stomach, and instead I just feel angry at myself for caring what he thinks. From the kitchen, the radio sounds like mice in the cupboards, the voices are so small. But the morning is quiet enough to hear the words, ‘. . . looks like it’s set to be the hottest day of the year so far.’

  ‘Great,’ Dad says. ‘And I’ll be stuck in an office all day.’

  Behind me, through the open door of the conservatory, I see Mum come into the kitchen. She pours herself a coffee before noticing me. Sipping, she wanders over. She gives me a kiss, then flinches when she notices Dad, but she goes to the table to sit down.

  Dad looks from me to Mum. ‘Hottest day of the year, so they’re saying.’

  No one says anything.

  ‘And here’s me, stuck in the office all day.’

  I don’t speak. Because all I can think is, Why did I do it?

  Mum doesn’t reply either. Dad looks from her to me, and already my heart’s beating faster and I’m edging away towards the kitchen before I’m forced to say the wrong thing.

  I have no idea any more why I thought it was a good idea to send those files. Just because Dad was in a bad mood last night? He’s better now. He’s happy. And he’s probably on his way out to finish a deal and pay back his loans and then everything will be fine.

  Or would have been.

  I kept thinking that he was going to hit her. But he didn’t, did he? What if I was wrong?

  I could mail the journalists again, tell them it was a joke or something.

  ‘It’s a day for the beach,’ Dad tells me.

  I nod.

  ‘This is probably the last sunny spell we’ll get.’

  Is it? I can’t think straight. Does he want me to tell him there will be more?

  ‘When are you back to school?’ he asks.

  ‘Monday,’ I say and my voice sounds as small as the mouse in the radio.

  ‘Really?’ The look of confusion on his face confuses me until I realize I’m wrong.

  ‘Week,’ I say. ‘I mean, a week from Monday.’

  He looks from Mum to me. From me to Mum. Then he smiles. ‘Sod it,’ he says. ‘Let’s take the day off.’

  Mum raises her head like someone waking up. Slowly and carefully.

  ‘Let’s all go down to Sandymount pier and jump off the old swimming hut.’

  Mum faces him properly now and Dad’s grin spreads.

  I don’t want to. Not any more. It’s what I would have wanted yesterday. Now, I just want to hide from what I’ve done.

  ‘I’m mitching off,’ he says. ‘And so are you, young lady.’ He means Mum. ‘An old-school family day at the beach, that’s what I need!’

  Dad turns his eyes on me. I nod. He claps his hands together and rubs them, the way he does when a plan comes together. ‘I love it when a plan comes together,’ he says. ‘Right! Grab a picnic, Alice. I’ll make a few calls and we’re out of here in half an hour.’

  We’re going to the beach.

  And somewhere in the city, three journalists are having their morning coffee and sitting down to open their emails.

  ‘You know, I don’t feel like I’ve done this for years,’ Dad calls as he gets out of the sea. The water is really shallow on the beach, but by the old swimming house, halfway down the pier, it was deep enough to jump off. And we all did, even Mum. Just like years ago. The picture-perfect family day at the beach.

  Now me and Mum are lying on the sand. Mum’s actively sunbathing, if there is such a thing. Her eyes are closed and she hasn’t moved as much as an eyelash in half an hour. I’m lying here, actively worrying.

  Dad comes up, right above us, and shakes himself like a dog.

  ‘Declan!’ Mum mumbles, but only because she’s supposed to.

  He grins. ‘Seriously, how long since we had a beach day?’

  Mum sighs at the effort of having to talk. But she doesn’t go as far as to not answer. ‘Too long,’ she says.

  ‘Too long is right. For the first time in months the knots in my neck are loosening.’

  Are we pretending to have a happy family day at the beach or are we actually having one? I can’t tell any more. Can Mum and Dad really be happy together when the words, Go on, I dare you, are still following them like a dog’s growl? Maybe they can and I have it all wrong.

  Dad sits down beside me and rolls his neck out. He leans back. ‘As soon as The Old Mill is flipped, I’m taking a break. Family holiday somewhere hot, what do you say?’

 
‘Mmmmm . . .’ Mum says.

  I say nothing. Just bite my lip and look away.

  He sits up again, sighs, and looks around him. ‘This is great, isn’t it? Just sitting here?’ Then he looks behind him. ‘Ice-cream van, score!’ He jumps up. ‘Come on, let’s get some ninety-nines,’ he says to me. ‘Alice, want one?’

  All that moves are her lips. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Flake, toppings?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘Come on, you,’ he says and then he’s off and I have to drag myself up like a bag of wet cement.

  As we go over the grassy sand dune bit between the beach and the pier, we pass a tent. It’s obvious from the rucksack and all the shopping bags and empty beer cans, that whoever sleeps in there has been here for a while. Dad tuts. ‘This sort of thing should not be tolerated,’ he says.

  We queue. The sea breeze is cool. But I feel like a hot, sweaty mess. I need to say something or he’ll know there’s something up. And tomorrow, or the next day, when a journalist calls him, he’ll remember and he’ll say, You were awful quiet at the beach, was there something on your mind? But I can’t think of a single thing to say.

  ‘Nervous about starting your new school?’ he asks.

  My mouth is welded closed so I nod.

  Even if he doesn’t get arrested, what will happen to his business if people find out he’s been misappropriating funds?

  ‘I remember when I started your grade, all I wanted was to get on the rugby team. Nothing else mattered. You see, your old man was convinced he’d make the national rugby squad.’ Dad does that thing where he lifts one eyebrow and gives me a half-grin, as if to say, How stupid was I? and if I was Oly, I’d probably join in. But I’m not Oly. So I keep my mouth shut.

  ‘Yeah?’ the guy in the ice-cream van says as the people in front of us leave. He’s young. His face looks like it’s gone too close to the sun and has burst out in hundreds of blisters. I’m not looking forward to getting spots.

  ‘Three ninety-nines,’ Dad says. ‘All with flakes, and one with strawberry sauce for the little lady here.’

  He hasn’t called me little lady in years. It makes me think of standing in line to see Santa when I was young. That song was playing, he’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice. A few days before, I’d stolen something from my aunty’s room. I was worried that Santa knew. So I asked Dad, what if Santa thought I was naughty and didn’t bring me any toys? Dad said Santa would definitely bring me toys, but I wasn’t convinced. So he kneeled in front of me and said, Tell you what. If there’s a toy Santa forgets to bring, I’ll get it for you. Anything you want, little lady. I relaxed then, because I knew that Dad would.