Baba Lenka

by S E England

  I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Sores had broken out all over my legs now, too. I couldn’t eat, my hair was falling out in clumps, and black fungus was growing under my fingernails. Gastric flu had me clutching at my stomach as it racked and twisted. The fatigue was overwhelming. I really couldn’t carry on like this for much longer.

  “You’re not at all well, child.”

  I shook my head as another wave of colic took hold. I gasped for breath, tears running down my face. “I don’t know what it is. Food poisoning or summat. I don’t know.”

  She frowned. “Food poisoning don’t make your hair fall out, don’t give you sores, and it don’t turn your nails black—”

  “What’s going to happen to me? What shall I do? And where’s my mum? I don’t understand.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you what I think. I think you should go right now and tell your nanna you’re coming to stay with me for a while, and tell her why. Then come straight back here, and I will get you to a doctor.”

  My tears dried. “With you?”

  “You can tell her I’ve agreed and it’s so you and Nicky can study together for a year before college.”

  “College?”

  “Yes, college. You got to get some qualifications in this life. So, you can stay here until you’re educated – you’re a child and you have a right to be safe, do you hear me? So this is what we do – if your nanna objects, although she did say you had to go and get a job and live somewhere else, but if she does, then you tell her straight about your grandad and that you don’t feel safe in that house no more. If she refuses to believe you and threatens to tell Earl, then you tell her in no uncertain terms that you will go to the police unless she persuades him this is for the best. We’re calling her bluff with that one, but you focus on what you got to do and it will turn out just fine.”

  “Do you mean it? That I can come and stay here? Really, really, really?”

  She smiled a warm-honey smile. “You’re here most of the time anyway. And it will make my Nicky very happy.”

  I saw the wisdom of her words, saw myself repeating them to my grandma, and then I saw Earl’s face when he found out. He would rage and curse and deny it all, probably smash her in the mouth for telling lies. Would he come around here, too? Would he hurt Mrs Dixon? And Nicky?

  That could not happen. Would not happen.

  Dark shadows crept across Mrs Dixon’s bookcase then, eclipsing the television, crawling over the carpet…

  Give us work, Eva, give us work.

  “Mrs Dixon, can I ask you one more thing?”

  We both glanced at the clock. There wasn’t much time before Earl would be back for his tea and notice my absence.

  “Nicky once told me you did voodoo, and—”

  “Say what?”

  I loved the way she shrieked like that, and I almost laughed. “It’s just, I wondered, you see, I have this poppet. I got it in Bavaria when I was seven, and—”

  With her eyebrows almost in her hairline, she listened for all of thirty seconds while I tried to explain, before holding up her hand. “That Nicky Dixon’s got some answering to do. I most certainly do not practice voodoo.”

  “Oh!”

  “My sister and I once stuck pins in a doll we made at school because some girl was causing mischief, but we got badly scared after what we did. And I mean, real scared. You don’t ever mess with things you don’t understand, not ever. That girl got sick, see? She nearly died. And then we had some bad things happen to us, too – things I can’t ever talk about. Whatever it was we connected with was real, and, believe me – you don’t ever want to meddle with the black arts. Not ever, Eva. You got to burn that poppet, and you don’t bring it into this house, either, do you hear?”

  Shame filled me, and my eyes prickled.

  “Now don’t take on. But if you’re thinking of sticking pins into a poppet of your grandad and asking me if that’s okay, then all I’m saying is, tempting as that might be, don’t!” She ruffled my hair. “Now, go and speak to your nanna, child. Go tell her what he’s done to you and that you’re leaving.”

  “Mrs Dixon, do you know where my mother is?”

  “No, I don’t. But why don’t you ask your daddy?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when he comes to the house, Gran and Grandad are always there, and they’ve told me not to upset him and pester him. That she’s a sore subject.”

  “Go to his house and see him there. Ask him in private.”

  “I can’t. He’s in Leeds with another family now. I think they’re moving into a new house there.”

  Her voice shot up another octave. “Leeds? Leeds? Who told you that?”

  “Er…”

  “Eva, I see that man all the time. If he’s in Leeds, how come he uses the same paper shop I do? The nursing home is at the end of the main road, and he lives round the corner. Ten minutes from here!”

  “No…yes…of course, yeah, I knew that…”

  When I stood up, the room was spinning. My face in the mirror over the mantelpiece was as tiny and pinched as a grey, deflated balloon, the eyes hollow. The whole fabric of my life was fraying at the edges. Soon there wouldn’t be a single fragment of reality left.

  Outside, someone was bouncing a ball up the pavement, getting closer.

  “That’ll be Nicky,” said Mrs Dixon, standing up and smoothing down her skirt.

  Nicky played netball for the school team. I was useless at sports, but she was quick and agile, strong too. I imagined her sunshine smile when I told her I was going to be her sister for the next year… We could have so much fun. I could live again…

  But the whole room was shrouded in gloom, as if there’d been an eclipse. Couldn’t Mrs Dixon see it? Why wasn’t she shivering like me? Goose pimples rose and spread across my back, my skin like ice.

  Give us work…come on, Eva. Say yes…

  A good life could still be mine. It could happen. But not like this, not weak and ill, with my hair falling out, sores all over my body, poleaxing headaches and permanent stomach pain.

  “Okay, I’m going to go and tell Gran now, Mrs Dixon. I’ll be back in about an hour with my things, is that all right?”

  “Is what all right?” said Nicky, bursting in.

  “Eva’s going to come and live with us for a while. I’ve asked her and she’s agreed.”

  Nicky stared at us, from one to the other. Then, throwing her arms around me, she hugged me and jumped up and down all at the same time. “Oh, that’s ace. Brilliant! We’re going to have such a—”

  Abruptly she broke away, frowning. “Eva, what is it? You’re shaking and you look awful. Are you okay? Has something happened?”

  “Well, yeah—”

  She peered at one of my eyes, then zoomed in close. “What’s happened to your eye?”

  I touched the one she was looking at. “Nothing, why? Is it bruised?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t mean around it. I mean in it. Like there’s something growing inside the pupil – a big black smudge. Go look in the mirror – it’s really weird.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty

  Gran was in the scullery, elbow deep in suds, when I broke the news. She listened, continuing to wash out smalls while I told her what her husband had done and that there was no choice but to leave.

  What could she say? What more could I say in response? You can’t allow the same pattern to play out again and again, can you? When it’s over, it’s over. So I left her there, staring out of the window into the backyard. To think.

  Besides, I felt too ill to stand there any longer. And despite what Mrs Dixon had said just minutes before, Uncle Guido’s nightcap was on my mind.

  Earl – I could no longer refer to him as Grandad – had a habit of cutting his toenails while he watched television, leaving them to fester. As soon as I remembered that, I went straight into the front room and knelt in front of the hearth to ferret around. Yes, th
ere were quite a few dry, crusty yellow crescents stuck in the cracks of the tiles. They would serve the purpose. Quickly retrieving half a dozen or so, I wrapped them inside a tissue and sped upstairs to pack.

  Today was the day this ended, and he was going to pay and pay and pay. Why should I suffer this horrific pain while he laughed and joked in the working men’s club, drinking beer and playing snooker? I’d seen all those pornographic newspaper cuttings on the walls, heard the way they talked about women, knew they had strippers perform while they sat there in a nicotine fog, jeering and swearing.

  Deep inside, though, a nagging voice conflicted with my shadow self. What about my grandma? She’d done her best with a troubled young girl not her own. Guilt snagged at my resolve for a moment, and I slumped onto the bed. To make it all so much worse, every kindness she had ever meted out now flashed before my eyes – from the soldiers of toast with treacle, to the games of whist and the freshly pressed school uniform.

  Yet she’d done nothing when his fist cracked across my eight-year-old skull. And she’d been lying all this time about Dad and probably about my mother, too. She knew Dad lived just down the road and never said! She wouldn’t even tell me what had happened to Sooty, despite my crying and pleading. I put my head in my hands. Everything ached, every single part of me – from the sprained ankle to the swollen cheek to the oppressive, pounding headache. Why had everyone lied? Why?

  Her mouth had worked like a fish in a bowl, bewilderment in her eyes. She was who she was, beaten down, utterly reliant on a violent man for basic survival. Really, I knew nothing about Maud. Only that her parents had both been killed in the First World War.

  I was fluctuating wildly, picking at one of the sores on my arm, all the fire of moments ago now doused with guilt.

  This illness really could be food poisoning, and all the other symptoms due to stress and malnourishment. And maybe Dad’s house purchase had fallen through or something? Or he and this woman had separated? My mother was probably ill in some mental hospital…and my crazy dreams were because I was…well…crazy! I’d been crazy since I was eight years old, and it was all because of what I’d seen at that funeral. That was it. It’s what any adult would say by way of explanation. Well, maybe they wouldn’t use the word crazy – but whatever they said, it would amount to the same thing.

  What was real and what was not? That was the difficult bit.

  The sore oozed with blood when the scab broke off, and the release of that felt good. But even as that one popped, a fresh batch itched and rose on my back, spreading like the pox.

  These sores were real enough. Being raped was real, as were the bruises to prove it. Being slapped hard across the head by an iron-fisted man twice my size was real. My dad living around the corner when he’d said otherwise was real. That he’d left home at sixteen because of his father’s violence was also real, and the fact he’d abandoned his daughter to the same fate, knowingly, and never come back as promised. All real. Mrs Dixon had said it – this wasn’t food poisoning.

  What about the voices, then? The whispers and shadows, the nightly visions of a life not my own, the people, cities, towns and languages all foreign in every way yet implicitly understood? Total madness?

  Ah, the poppet! Of course, yes. The poppet was proof. From under the bed, I pulled out the rucksack used for a school trip and tipped out the crow doll. Still here. Solid. Real. My mother had seen it, confiscating it to burn. So, yes, the Bavarian funeral had happened – I had been there and flown over that mountain with the hut clinging precariously to the jutting rock at the top. In addition to that, I’d done well in school and had a true friend who loved all the same things I did. I was no crazier than anyone else. The difference, the only one, between me and most other people was the legacy. The magic.

  The poppet seemed to purr and throb when stroked, like a warm, sated cat. The tiny amethyst glittering on its chest glinted in the light, the feathers silky, fluttering gently as if caught in a breeze.

  I wondered, though… Could this theory be taken a step further, if only to satisfy my own mind that I was not insane but truly in the possession of a spiritual gift?

  In my rattan sewing box were hair ribbons. One tied around the poppet’s neck would turn it into a pendulum. Well then, here was a surefire way to see if an external force really did exist – a test to decide once and for all. Was this illness due to demons, or had I inherited nothing more than a legacy of madness?

  The use of a pendulum had been brought to my attention by a gang of girls at school, way back when we were about thirteen. This gang, they would huddle together, plotting the downfall of other girls as a way of life. Nicknamed ‘The Coven’, they’d succeeded in frightening the entire third form. Each could fix an evil stare, and mutter under her breath about how your card was marked, thus instilling both terror and control. One girl in my class wet herself just from one look! They had not one jot of supernatural power, I can vouch for that, but their rule was unquestionable.

  The trick was to stay off radar. But one day, in the cloakrooms, my eyes met those of the coven’s leader.

  “What the fuck you looking at?”

  A bitch.

  She stared back for the longest time. The other two flanked her, and the three of them manoeuvred me against wall.

  Around that time Lenka had been telling Heinrich about projecting thoughts into someone else’s head, so while the coven leader glared and jabbed at my shoulder, saying my card was marked, I sent her an image to think about – really just to see if it worked. Next day she was subdued, not quite herself. And shortly after that, when I walked into the girls’ toilets and the three of them were in there, intimidating whomever was inside the cubicle, well, it was clear the little high priestess wasn’t well.

  It was kind of hard not to smile. Bloody hell, it had worked! I’d sent her a black mamba. Had it slither under her bedroom door just as she was dropping off to sleep, muscling over the floor towards her bed, where she lay paralysed with fear as it climbed up the pale pink sheets, forked tongue flicking in and out towards her face and her hair…

  She wasn’t sleeping, had terrible nightmares. So we eyed each other that day. My lips twitched ever so slightly; I couldn’t help it. And she paled. Somehow she just knew. They didn’t pick on me again, anyway, and Nicky never had her blazer ripped again either. But I couldn’t be sure I had the power – it could just be I’d had the nerve to eyeball her back – and there was this thing, a caution, if you like, about how black magic rebounded. Threefold. Or was it tenfold?

  But to get back to the pendulum. I was walking home through the woods one afternoon when I caught them using one. All three looked up and glared.

  “Fuck off, Ginger Spaz!” That little high priestess – God, she was terrified. The pounding of her heart was nearly audible.

  They’d been asking it yes or no. If the answer was affirmative, the pendulum would swing side to side, back and forwards if negative, and if not known, it was to spin around in a circle. The question had been whether Gary Nicholl from the fourth form fancied the little high priestess or not.

  It did nothing. The one with the Suzi Quatro haircut made it swing, but anyone could see she was forcing it.

  All three glowered at me. “Piss off! You deaf?”

  “Okay, I’m going. Although the answer, if you want it, is yes – he does!”

  Oh, how they’d wanted to know more, but pride forbade it. Three kids from neglectful homes, two of them with violent fathers. How badly they’d wanted to find some kind of power in a world in which they had none. But they were dangerous, too, because they were damaged, merciless and just as cruel as the bullies who’d taught them the rules.

  “How did you even know the question?” Suzy Look-alike shouted.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Dunno.”

  “She’s a witch,” the little priestess said. “Don’t pick a fight; she’s a fuckin’ witch, I’m telling yer.”

  Would the pendulum work for me now, th
ough?

  Whatever it was we connected with was real, and, believe me – you don’t ever want to meddle with the black arts. Not ever, Eva. You got to burn that poppet, and you don’t bring it into this house, either, do you hear?

  I closed my eyes and held the poppet in the warmth of my hand until our spirits merged, my life force pulsing into the inanimate object. Then, keeping my hand steady, I dangled it on the ribbon until it settled.

  My heart rate picked up a little. The room was still, the house silent. Had Grandma Hart rushed out to find Earl? Or was she sitting downstairs rigid with shock? It seemed a little too quiet.

  “Okay – side to side for yes, back and forwards for no, circles if you don’t know… Spirit please tell me – shall I curse my grandfather for what he has done?”

  The poppet did nothing. It hung inert, exactly the same as for the girl with the Suzi Quatro hair.

  Ask it an easier question!

  The advice came as a thought insertion, nothing more. But I was learning to act on those. “Is my name Eva?”

  The poppet twitched but not enough for affirmation. Look, if nothing happened, I was a lunatic, pure and simple – a badly disturbed teenager who needed to get well and get a grip. I had a future planned – it was just a case of getting healthy. Mrs Dixon was going to sort out a doctor and… But even as my thoughts raced, the blisters rose and spread like plague buboes, and my whole back began to prickle.

  Offer it drink – liquor!

  Now that was a crazy thought but an insistent one, so in the absence of a better idea, I crept downstairs. No one was in, after all. So she had gone to find him, then! Right, well, time was now of the essence. His whisky was in the Welsh dresser along with some miniature glasses for liqueurs. Quickly I poured out a small measure, then ran back upstairs.

  “The drink is yours. It’s on the desk!” The poppet dangled, swinging lightly before stilling. “Okay, now here’s an easy one – is my mother’s name Alexandra?”