The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  After dinner Mum decided to get her clippers out. Unfortunately she can’t cut hair as well as she cooks fish pie. She only does one style, the Jotman Conscript — short back and sides and a bit off the top — with clippers so ancient they pull at the roots and make your eyes water. We all sport the Conscript, even Dad, but Dennis has a double crown and a cowlick, and no matter what Mum does, it always looks as if a cat has gone to sleep on his head.

  Pete went first. Afterwards, he threw the old towel off his shoulders and emerged smooth and sleek as a matinée idol. Pete always manages to look spruce regardless of anything Mum does. I shook his hair off said towel, wrapped it tightly around my neck, and perched on the stool of doom.

  “Everyone’s wearing it longer now, Mum,” I pleaded as she came towards me brandishing the clippers. “Can you not take so much off this time?”

  “I can only do short with these,” she said.

  “What about the scissors?”

  “The paper scissors are a bit blunt. Wait and I’ll get my dressmaking shears.”

  Ten minutes later and I look like a monk. Thank God she didn’t go the whole hog and give me a tonsure while she was at it.

  Pam doesn’t laugh, bless her, but just reaches up and touches the shorn ends at the back.

  “Liked you best before,” she says.

  Wish I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow.

  My key won’t open the back door. It’s bolted on the inside.

  Through the windows every light is blazing with a harsh glare.

  I bang on the wood with my fists. “Auntie Kath! Mimi!” I shout. “Let me in! It’s me, Cora!”

  I wait.

  Nothing.

  “Mimi! Where are you? Mimi?”

  I run back round the house to the sitting-room window. The curtains are roughly pulled across, but there’s an untidy gap of a few inches where they haven’t been completely drawn. I cup my face with my hands and press it to the glass.

  I can see Mimi’s fair head above the back of the settee, facing away from me, looking at the doorway, the padded folds of her eiderdown around her shoulders.

  I bang on the window.

  A jolt of fright shoots through her body. I hear a gasp.

  “Mimi! It’s me!”

  She turns in my direction, her eyes wide with terror. When she sees my face, she pushes off the cover, jumps down from the settee, runs towards the window, and jerks back the curtain, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Oh, Cora …”

  “Let me in! Unbolt the door!”

  I run back round the house, hear the bolt being drawn, thrust my key in the lock, and push open the door.

  Mimi throws her arms around me, burying her face in my coat.

  The house is so bitterly cold, our breath streams out white along the stone passage. I bend and cup Mimi’s chin in my hands.

  “What’s Auntie Kath doing? Where is she?” My teeth begin to chatter.

  “She’s gone,” Mimi says.

  “What do you mean gone?”

  “You know, like she used to do sometimes back in London. She came to collect me from school, and when we got back here there was this car waiting — a taxi to take her to the station, with … with all her stuff. She’s left a note for you — in the kitchen.”

  “Mimi, this is serious. What are we going to do?”

  “Will she come back, like she always did in Limehouse — you know, when Dad and her used to squabble?”

  I avoid the question.

  “Why’s it so freezing in here?” I say. “Has she taken the blimmin’ boiler an’ all?”

  “The radiators are stone cold.”

  I run my hand along every one I pass until I get to the kitchen — hoping, I suppose, to find one of them warm. Auntie Kath’s note is propped up on the table against the sugar bowl.

  Dear Cora,

  Gone back to London. I’m really sorry. I hung around for you as long as I could. I didn’t want to leave Mimi all by herself but I had to get the train and the taxi man was charging me for the waiting. There’s bread in the bread bin and some cheese. Your dad’s supposed to be coming back tonight. Tell him sorry but I’ll go up the wall if I stay here any more.

  Love Auntie Kath xxx

  P.S. I think the pilot light’s gone out in the boiler. I took the front off and had a look but I didn’t know how to fix it.

  Auntie Kath always came back before. She couldn’t stand being with her mother for too long, and we were only round the corner. She’d be gone for a day or so. I’d come home and she’d be doing dinner, as if nothing had happened. But this is different. She and Dad haven’t had a scrap, and we’re a long way from London. In the sitting room there’s a gap on the small table where her record player stood, and her stack of records has disappeared from the top of the sideboard. She never ever took all her stuff with her when she left us before in London — never.

  Mimi and I watch television squashed together under the eiderdown, our cheeks and noses numb, but I don’t take in anything that’s happening on the little grey screen. The worry wriggles around worm-like in my stomach.

  At half past eight we hear the crunch of Dad’s feet on the gravel outside. The back door opens. An icy gust of air sweeps down the hall.

  He will be so angry.

  I feel Mimi go taut. I can’t stop my own limbs stiffening.

  “Bloody hell, it’s freezing in here,” he says, coming in, rubbing his hands together. “Blimey, the pair of you look like a camel with two humps under that thing.” He reaches out and feels the radiator. “Flaming Nora, what’s happened to the heating? Has Auntie Kath been fiddling with the bloody boiler? And what’s she done for dinner? I’m starving.”

  I swallow. Mimi blurts it out — the heating’s broken down and Auntie Kath’s gone back to London — then she pulls the eiderdown up over our heads so we’re dark and padded while he shouts and thumps his fist against the back of the armchair.

  For the rest of the evening Dad spends a lot of time crouching in front of the boiler, cursing the pilot light and Auntie Kath. No sooner does the little flame flare into life than it goes out again. Three times he gets up and tries ringing her on the telephone, but judging by the swearing and the flinging down of the receiver into its cradle, she either isn’t there or doesn’t answer.

  The fourth time he speaks to somebody.

  “Tell her to bloody ring me. What do you mean Miss World’s on the telly? Sod bloody Miss World. Tell Kath to bloody well get up off her backside and explain herself. And don’t let her pretend she’s forgotten the ruddy number. It’s North Fairing 248. Write it down — no, not bloody 348 — 248! Put your hearing aid in when you answer the blasted phone!”

  Later, Mimi climbs into bed with me, but we can’t sleep for the cold, even jammed together. We keep our uniforms on, as we can’t bear to get undressed, though I make Mimi take off her tie in case she strangles herself by accident in the night.

  As I lie there, sleepless, my worm of worry becomes a great writhing, suffocating snake. What if Auntie Kath doesn’t come back and Dad keeps staying away?

  “There’s a bit of the curtain open,” comes Mimi’s little voice from out of the darkness.

  “For heaven’s sake, it’s only a tiny gap — and move your blinkin’ feet away. They’re like ice blocks.”

  “Please, Cora, please close it.”

  “Mimi, it’s freezing out of bed.”

  “Please.”

  I watched her coming and going over the bridge with her bags and boxes, slipping in her hard little shoes. The man stood impatient, grudgingly helped her, then took her away. She peered through the cloudy glass as she moved off, wiped a dark, wet smear with her glove, turned her face to where I was, misty against the scattered snow, and narrowed her eyes… .

  Exhausted, frozen, muscles stiff and aching from shivering, I force myself to get up and pull the curtains aside. They feel damp. Swirly ferns of grey frost curl across the inside of the glass. I blow on the le
afy patterns with my icy breath and rub them away with cold, stiff fingers.

  Turning, I notice that the plasterboard panel covering the fireplace has come away on the left. I pull at it, and the small pins on the right-hand side pop out one by one. I drag the whole panel sideways, and there is the old brick-lined hearth, just as I remember it.

  Some of the little bricks at the bottom have been taken out and are lying in a pile at the back, leaving a dark jagged hole, as if something that was buried there has been taken out, but the hole not filled in again.

  I lean the plasterboard up against the wall.

  “It’s coming off the ceiling an’ all.”

  Mimi is leaning against her pillow, each breath a spreading cloud.

  A furious cursing starts up downstairs. I begin to tremble. Has the letter arrived from Madame Mary Saint Bernard? I creep out onto the landing and lean over the banister rail. A frantic hammering echoes up the staircase. I blow out with relief. Dad is trying to nail the boarding, with its wallpaper still half attached, back over the panelling under the staircase.

  “What’s going on?” I call down.

  “Bloody hold this!” he shouts, his hair tumbling over his forehead.

  I run down, spread my hands out over the panel, and push hard against it. Dad is using a long three-inch nail to pin the corner down, but with each stroke of the hammer, it seems to bounce back out again.

  “What’s the bloody matter with it?” he grunts. “Hold it better! Don’t let it slip about!”

  “Try a different place,” I suggest.

  “I’ve tried all over the flippin’ thing!” he yells, dealing the chipboard such a hefty kick at the bottom that it slides off the panelling, ripping the wallpaper even more. “I’m going to have to bloody well start again,” he says. “Help me lift it up.”

  “Dad, I’ve got to go to school.”

  In an explosion of temper, he punches at the board with his fists then kicks it twice more with his right foot. The small thread of paper tears completely and the panel falls forward, wedging itself against the opposite wall. In a burst of rage, he pulls it free, stands it up against the wall, then kicks it again.

  My eyes slide to the panelling. There they are, the marks of the past — the long, deep scratches made by Lankin’s nails when Roger, Pete, Mimi, and I were in the priest hole under the stairs; the jagged gashes in the wood where Auntie Ida splintered it with the axe — and over them Mr. Blezzard’s bit of rough patching-up with some strips of ply.

  When I get back from school, Dad has got the boiler working, apparently with a great big kick. He’s in the sitting room, restless, tapping the wooden arm of the chair with his fingers.

  “Are you all right, Dad?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” he says. “I’m flamin’ mad with Kath, just waltzing off like that. Won’t even ruddy well come to the phone, and her bloody mother’s pretending to be deaf.”

  “She — she’s always come back before,” I say.

  “Look, I’m going to pop up to London, first thing in the morning, to bring her back. You’ll be all right with Mimi for a day or so, won’t you.”

  “I expect so.”

  He reaches out from the chair, I think to put his arm around my waist, but I sidestep and he drops it. He coughs awkwardly. “You know, er, you know I think the world of you and Mimi, don’t you?”

  I stare at the floor.

  “I … er, I know you didn’t want to come out here,” he adds.

  The light from the table lamp shines across the scar running down the length of his right cheek, a thread of shadow showing up the slightly raised edge. I gaze at it for a while, at the little white dots where the stitches were.

  “Um, did they ever get the man who did your face?” I say.

  He lifts his hand and runs a finger down the white line. “Nah.”

  “I thought you knew him.”

  “Yeah, well — doesn’t mean you can grass on someone, does it? Can open up a whole tin of worms, that lark.”

  His fingers go back to tapping the wooden chair arm. “Sorry if things have gone a bit skew-whiff,” he says, trying his smile. “I’ll come back with Auntie Kath. Promise.”

  “Lay on the charm, will you?”

  “Do my best.”

  “There isn’t much in the cupboard, Mimi. We’ve got to go down the shops,” I say, walking into the sitting room. “Dad’s left us five bob. Go and get your coat.”

  She looks up, an odd, almost guilty expression in her eye, quickly closes her exercise book, and takes it with her. She spends so long fetching her gabardine mac, I know she’s hiding the book somewhere.

  I hear the clatter of the letter slot and go into the hall.

  On the carpet by the front door is a large cream envelope addressed to H. Drumm Esq. in perfect sloping handwriting. I turn it over and pull open the flap embossed with Wrayness Abbey School.

  I run my eyes down the long letter, catch a few words, then rip the piece of paper into shreds, even trying to tear the pieces that are too small to tear anymore. I don’t notice Mimi is standing there until she speaks.

  “What you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  I stuff the bits of paper into my pockets and we leave the house. I notice Mimi’s eyes searching the garden before we turn the corner, bracing ourselves against the cutting wind.

  “Let’s make some snow,” I say as we cross the bridge. I give Mimi some of the paper scraps from my pockets. When we’re a bit farther up the Chase, we hold up our arms, open our hands, and let the wind take all the little pieces. Off they whirl, soaring and spinning through the scraggy trees to scatter themselves on the marshes.

  In Ottery Lane, as we draw near to Mrs. Aylott’s shop, I pull my scarf up over my nose.

  “What’s the matter? What you doing that for?”

  “Don’t know. I’m cold.”

  “Don’t you want people to know who you are?”

  I don’t answer her. Of course I don’t want Mrs. Aylott or the huddle of women who always seemed to be in there before to remember us and look sideways. And what if we were to see Roger, or Pete? What would I do?

  I glance quickly through Mrs. Aylott’s window — just a couple of women inside, and a boy in blue National Health glasses.

  I pull my scarf up even higher so that only my eyes show, and push open the door. At the tinkling of the bell, the two women at the counter turn and look, let their eyes linger on us for a moment, then carry on chatting with Mrs. Aylott.

  I stare at the floor while we wait.

  All at once the boy’s voice rings out.

  “Hello, Mimi! You come back, then? You’ve got big.” He comes out of the corner towards us.

  “Hello, Terry!” cries Mimi. “Yeah. We’re at Auntie Ida’s again.”

  In a blur of shock, I am aware of the women swiftly turning and Mrs. Aylott looking up. Grabbing Mimi’s hand, I pull open the door and drag her out. She runs beside me as I march her back up Ottery Lane.

  “What’s the matter? We didn’t get no food!”

  My eyes look straight ahead.

  Mimi hasn’t forgotten at all — any of it.

  We are almost at the top. A bus is coming from Daneflete on its way to Hilsea. We stand on the verge and wait for it to rumble by.

  Then I feel the pull of someone’s eyes and see the two tall women who followed me down Old Glebe Lane on Bonfire Night standing motionless at the bus stop, turned in our direction. The taller one is clearly older than the other. Again I am reminded of scavenging birds — billowing coats flapping out like wings, high shoulders curving backwards, the older woman’s beak-like hat under the black hood. She turns to say something behind her hand to the other woman, whose large round glasses glint in the light; then she seems to make some kind of curved sign with her hand in the air.

  My fingers clench inside my gloves.

  Then I see they appear to be looking hard at Mimi. I glance down and catch her mouthing something and moving her
hands. Her eyes flicker up to mine. She quickly drops her hands, presses her lips shut.

  The bus growls to a halt between us and the two women.

  A man and a boy step out from behind it and cross for Ottery Lane. The bus moves off. The women have gone.

  “Mimi, who are they — those two women?”

  She is watching the bus move away towards Hilsea, doesn’t look up at me at all.

  “Mimi, say something!”

  She starts to cross the road.

  “Mimi!” I call after her. “Why do you always do this? Why don’t you flippin’ well say anything?”

  Terry runs through the back door and dumps a shopping bag on the table.

  “Guess who I just seen, Pete.”

  “Popeye the Sailor Man.” Pete is leaning over the kitchen sink, picking the dried mud off the studs of his rugby boots with a meat skewer.

  “Guess again.”

  “Mrs. Droopy Drawers.”

  “Nah — guess really.”

  “Rin Tin Tin in a dress.”

  “Stop it! You’re a big nit!”

  “You’re a big nit!”

  “You are!” Pete wipes his boots with the dishcloth and throws it back in the sink, then pulls his blue-and-white-striped socks and shirt off the airer, stuffs them in his kitbag, and leaves the kitchen.

  “You are!” Terry calls after him. “Guess who I just seen, Roger!”

  “A giant tortoise called Prince Philip.”

  His lower lip begins to wobble. “I’ll hit you on your arm!” he cries.

  “Don’t care.”

  “Don’t care too.”

  Terry goes into the sitting room. “Mum!”

  “What is it, Terry?” I hear her ask.

  “Guess who I just seen.”

  “Who did you just see, sweetheart?”

  “That girl who was here before — that girl who used to play with me — but she’s got bigger — that girl with the big sister.”

  I can almost see Mum sit up in her chair.

  “What?”

  “She said she was down at her Auntie Ida’s again.”