A Song of Isolation

by Michael Malone

  ‘Hungry?’ he asked, his eyes showing his pleasure at the thought of feeding her.

  ‘I could eat.’

  ‘C’mon through to the kitchen and I’ll rustle you something up. I’ve got some tomato soap and I got some fresh bread from the deli down the road that you like.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘And then we get out the biscuit barrel.’

  After she finished her soup he asked, ‘You staying over?’ and something in her curled up against the hope in his voice.

  ‘Nah, Mum doesn’t know I’m…’ The thought of being away from her kit drove her response; in truth her mother would have been fine with her staying over at Dad’s. Provided she let her know, of course. ‘But I can stay till bedtime if you want?’

  ‘I always want,’ her father replied and pulled her into another hug. She felt the pressure of his head on top of hers. ‘Not sure if that sounded right.’ He laughed. ‘I have some work to catch up on.’ He pointed to a laptop resting on a little table to the side of the sofa. ‘Give me an hour and I’m all yours?’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Is your tablet charged?’

  He nodded, jumped off his stool, left the room and returned a moment later carrying his tablet. Holding it out to her he said, ‘The pass is…’

  ‘I know your pass, Dad.’

  ‘You do?’ he asked mock sternly.

  They settled down to some electronic time. Her father clacking away on the keyboard of his laptop, while she positioned the tablet in a way he couldn’t easily see what she was looking at.

  It wasn’t the first time since his release that she’d googled Dave Robbins. If her parents knew how often she brought up his face on her phone they would probably confiscate the thing from her.

  A row of images of him appeared on her screen. She touched one and it enlarged. There was a sign behind him suggesting this was taken as he was released from prison. He looked smaller than she remembered, thinner, and his complexion was grey. This was not how she remembered him at all. Her memory presented a moment in her garden. Dave leaning down to speak to her, his complexion tan and eyes bright with good humour.

  She screwed her eyes tight against it.

  He’d hurt her, hadn’t he? And the ghost of the bruising on her upper thighs and between her legs momentarily ached as if they’d only just healed.

  ‘Got to go, Dad.’ She shut down the screen and jumped to her feet.

  ‘What?’ Her dad’s face was a picture of confusion.

  ‘Forgot about something.’ She was at the door now. She waved. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Damaris ran almost all the way from her father’s to her mother’s, a trip that would normally require a short bus ride. She didn’t know what she was running from. The past, or the present.

  Chapter 56

  Her sleep was fractured and fevered that night. She woke up several times, twisted in the quilt, a pool of sweat in that tiny bowl of skin at the bottom of her neck, between her collar bones.

  Dreams presented her with many faces; Mum, Dad, Dave, Amelie, and a strange woman sitting in her old living room. She was nice. Caring. And she kept sending her mum out of the room so she could talk to her without interference. Did that really happen?

  There were so many questions. Cringy questions that made every part of her want to curl up into the tiniest ball. If only sitting incredibly still and very quiet actually made you invisible. But the questions kept coming. For hours.

  ‘But it was the bike. My wheel caught in the wire thing and I fell,’ Damaris said. At first.

  The questions kept coming.

  ‘I know this is confusing.’ A warm hand on hers.

  ‘He touched you where he shouldn’t, didn’t he?’

  ‘You know it’s called a penis, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s alright, you can tell us. We need to know so we can help other little girls.’

  ‘Hey, you don’t need to feel ashamed. This is all on him.’

  This woman was a grown-up. Mummy said she was an expert. She had to know the truth, right?

  At breakfast, while she pretended to eat, she was aware of her mother’s scrutiny.

  ‘What?’ she demanded.

  ‘Swirling the cereal around the plate like that doesn’t fool me, D. You need a good breakfast. Eat it up,’ her mother replied.

  Damaris took a mouthful. Chewed. Swallowed. Then jumped to her feet.

  ‘Oops, I’m late. Got to go. And I’ll be at Dad’s after school.’

  All day at school the words falling out of her teachers’ mouths came at her as if through a fog. At one point, in the loos, Chrissie pulled her up.

  ‘What’s with you today? You on something?’ She pulled at Damaris’s lower eyelid.

  ‘Hey. Leave me alone,’ Damaris said, shoving her away.

  Eventually the bell rang; the last class of the day was done. She gathered her things together and rushed out of school, past the gates and down the road to her father’s.

  ‘Two days in a row?’ As always he was delighted to see her. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘A daughter just wants to hang out with her father. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  ‘Speaking about yourself in the third person? Is that a thing now?’

  Hoping the turmoil of her thoughts weren’t obvious to him she brushed past him and made her way to the kitchen. ‘I hope that biscuit barrel’s full today.’

  After a meal of soup and crusty bread, and some biscuits, they sat in companionable silence while her father finished up some work on his laptop and she did some more scrolling on his tablet. After several minutes she became aware that her father had edged closer to see what she was doing.

  ‘False memories? Why are you looking up something like that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s for a school project.’ She feigned boredom and closed it down. ‘I swear our teachers are weird.’ She paused and looked out of the kitchen, down the length of the garden to the little shed at the end. The real reason she was here today. Her father stored some of her old toys inside it, still reluctant to throw them out. Something had been nagging in her head all day, telling her she needed to get in there. That something inside would help make sense of whatever was going on in her mind.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘You still got my old stuff in the shed?’

  He followed her gaze. Smiled. ‘Yeah. Haven’t had the heart to chuck any of them out yet. Was working up the courage to give it all to charity. Want to go have a look?’

  In the garden, as they walked down the long path to the shed that backed onto a tall conifer hedge, her dad kicked at a small stick and asked, ‘Has your mum got a new man yet?’

  She gave him an assessing look. Why did he want to know that? Didn’t he have a new girlfriend? ‘There’s been one or two dates recently. Nothing serious, I don’t think.’ As Damaris answered she had a mental image of her mother returning around midnight, creeping into her bedroom, slightly drunk, and sitting on the edge of her bed as she slipped off her high heels. ‘You awake, babes?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Am now.’ Damaris rubbed at her eyes.

  ‘Men are a waste of space,’ Claire said. ‘Wide berth, sweetheart. Give ’em all a wide berth.’ Then she’d creeped back out again, leaving her shoes behind her. Damaris told her father none of this. It would have felt disloyal.

  They walked into the shed and over in the far corner Damaris saw a small bike leaning against the wall under the window.

  The bike. Now she realised why she had to get into this shed.

  ‘My bike,’ she asked while her stomach twisted. ‘You’ve still got this?’ She moved over to it, plucked it from its resting place and forced herself to sit on the seat. It was the first time she’d been on any bike since that day. ‘Why did I have a boy’s bike?’ she asked.

  ‘You remember your big cousin, Ricky? Ricky Hirst?’

 
; She shook her head. ‘Vaguely.’ She remembered an uncle. Her dad’s brother who had died of a heart attack when she was little. The family had moved away shortly after. ‘Why don’t we keep in touch with them?’

  ‘They moved to Australia. They send emails and Christmas cards and stuff. Anyway –’ he cleared his throat ‘– you kinda doted on Ricky, thought he was so cool…’

  Damaris had no memory of whoever this boy might be.

  ‘And when he grew out of this bike and got a new one you de­manded he give it to you.’

  ‘I did?’

  So much of her life felt like it had happened to someone else. A fictional someone else.

  ‘Dad?’ She gripped the handlebars. She had to ask, while sim­ultaneously hoping her father would change the subject.

  ‘Yes, honey?’

  ‘That day…’ She didn’t need to explain any further which day she was talking about. ‘What really happened?’

  Chapter 57

  Dave was in the social worker’s office for his weekly assessment – criminal justice social worker to be more precise. Giving the woman the benefit of the doubt, he guessed that she might even be a nice person underneath the dust of her occupation. Besides, whose attitude wouldn’t be curdled by working with dangerous and disturbed men every day?

  But the questions set his teeth to grind, and brought bile flaring up in his gullet.

  ‘Have you had any sexual intercourse over the last week.’

  He crossed his arms. ‘No.’

  ‘How many times have you masturbated?’ She asked this with a tone that someone might bring to a discussion about dishes being left in the dishwasher.

  ‘None.’ It was truly the last thing on his mind. He doubted he’d ever have any sexual feelings ever again.

  ‘You’re sure?’ She didn’t believe him. Nor did she quite believe him every other time she’d asked.

  ‘I think I’d know.’

  She scribbled something on her notebook.

  ‘Let’s go through your movements this week. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve barely left the house.’

  ‘Aren’t you working for your father?’

  ‘Yes, but he brought me an office laptop and a bunch of files to work on so I don’t have to leave home.’

  That also went in the notebook. ‘I’ll need to have a look at that laptop.’

  ‘Fine.’ He’d already had one unscheduled visit from a social worker at the house, but that was before the laptop arrived. ‘Understood.’

  She looked at him as if checking for sarcasm. Then satisfied there was none she continued. ‘You say you barely left the house. When you did leave where did you go?’

  ‘Just to the corner shop. For some bread and milk.’

  ‘Did you meet or speak to anyone?’

  ‘Just the old guy behind the till.’

  ‘There was no one else in the shop?’

  ‘A woman was leaving as I walked in. I didn’t get her name.’ He paused. See, I can do sarcasm. ‘Other than that, no one.’

  ‘Must be lucky to stay in business if they’ve no customers.’

  ‘They open at six am. That’s when I went.’ He still wasn’t into a proper sleeping pattern so it wasn’t an issue to be up and about that early, and, besides, he’d calculated that there were likely to be fewer people around at that time. And even less likely that there would be any children.

  He’d be avoiding them for the rest of his life.

  He couldn’t face public transport so he got a taxi to take him back home.

  When the taxi drew up at the bottom of his drive, with a start he saw that there was an ambulance parked by the front door.

  ‘Oh God.’ He threw some money at the driver, jumped out, and ran up the drive shouting for his father.

  The brake lights went on in the ambulance and a man in a green paramedic suit stepped out of the driver’s side.

  ‘Sir.’ He held a hand up. ‘Before you go any further can you tell me your name?’

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ Dave felt his panic rise.

  ‘Are you Mr Peter Robbins’ son?’

  ‘I’m Dave.’ With a sense of dread, Dave walked closer to the back of the ambulance. He put a hand out to pull the door open, but the paramedic put his hand on his.

  ‘Dave.’ His voice was heavy with a warning. ‘We got a call from a neighbour. There were photographers. A bunch of them. Ap­parently your dad came down to try and get rid of them…’ His father must have been trying to clear them away before he arrived home from his social-work visit.

  ‘Is it his heart?’ he asked, hand over his own.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dave.’

  In that moment Dave realised that was why there was no siren. That was why the man had taken the time to speak to him rather than drive off in a rush.

  It was too late.

  Chapter 58

  Damaris ran all the way home, thundering along the street, fuelled by fury.

  Her father had reeled away from her when she asked the ques­tion. He’d stared at her with his mouth hanging open, as if he’d mentally prepared for this moment for years and still couldn’t figure out what his response should be.

  Then a tear began a slow slide down his cheek.

  He put a hand out towards her. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She stepped out of his reach. ‘Don’t.’ She held a hand up to ward him off. With those three words and the look of shame on his face he’d confirmed her worst fears.

  ‘Honey…’

  She was holding herself so rigid it felt as if a whole mix of un­nameable emotions were fusing her bones together.

  ‘I only just persuaded myself that everything was fine,’ Roger said. ‘When Dave Robbins got released. But it’s not. It never will be.’ His eyes searched hers. For what? Forgiveness? A sense of what was going on in her head?

  How could he read any of that if she didn’t know?

  ‘I … I…’

  She was in shock. Her tongue was gummed up, lying in the bed of her mouth as if cut off from her brain and her ability to reason. Her father reached for her again. She moved towards the door of the shed, staying beyond the span of his touch.

  ‘Honey, it was a despicable thing to do. If I could take it back. If I could turn back the clock…’

  ‘So, he didn’t touch me?’

  Roger shook his head.

  ‘The bruising between my legs was from the bike, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I saw Selina … watched her and saw what she was going through, I didn’t feel any of that. I’ve never felt any of that.’ When she realised she was thinking aloud, she put a hand in front of her mouth.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to bash her head on the wall. She never wanted to see her father ever again.

  When she finally arrived home, legs aching from the unaccus­tomed effort, breath a harsh rasp in her throat, she threw the door open and marched into the living room. Her mother was in the act of getting to her feet, her phone to the side of her head.

  ‘Honey…’ Claire said. She knew. Damaris guessed her father was on the other end of the call.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Damaris demanded.

  ‘It’s not how it looks.’

  ‘How is it then? Tell me.’

  ‘He did hurt you. That man.’

  ‘How? By playing with me when you were too busy?’

  ‘There was the bike … and you were crying and hurt and I was angry and…’

  ‘And what, Mother? You saw a chance to make some money?’

  ‘That’s not what happened.’ Claire reached for her. Gripped her arm.

  Damaris wrenched her limb free. ‘Tell me the truth, Mum. Please. I deserve that, don’t I?’ Damaris became aware she was crying, and hated herself for it.

  Then her mother
started crying too. ‘I love you, baby. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘You don’t get to play the teary mother. Tell me the truth. What happened?’

  Claire’s crying hiccupped to a halt. She slowly sat down, and Damaris could see that she was preparing some sort of speech.

  Forcing herself to be calm, Damaris sat beside her mother, unsure where this version of her was coming from, when all she wanted to do was smash everything in the house. She had to get to the facts, and something told her this was the best way to achieve that. She could go on a rampage later.

  ‘Mum, you need to tell me exactly what happened, or you and I…’ She paused and poured as much determination into her ex­pression as she could. ‘Or you and I are finished. I will never see you again. I’ll never come and visit. I’ll never speak to you ever again.’

  ‘You can’t say that. Where will you go? Where will you live?’

  ‘Cammy will help. I’ll live with him.’ A thought. ‘Unless he was in on it.’

  Claire shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know anything.’

  Something she’d heard from her bedroom door all those years ago sprang into her mind. ‘But he helped you steal some of Amelie’s money, didn’t he?’

  ‘How…?’ Claire’s eyes were large with surprise.

  ‘I was eleven, Mum, not moronic.’ Damaris got to her feet and pointed towards her bedroom. ‘I heard you guys talking.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re some sort of superspy now?’ Claire bristled.

  ‘Really?’ Damaris stared her mother down. ‘That’s the response you’re going with?’

  ‘I’m human. I made a mistake. A mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.’

  ‘The rest of my life, Mother. You made the mistake.’ She imbued that last word with as much sarcasm as she could muster. ‘I’m the one who’ll pay the price. Me and that poor guy, Dave Robbins.’

  ‘Och, he’ll be fine.’ Claire waved a hand in the air, as if dismis­sing any concern on that score. ‘A couple of years in the clink. It’s nothing. In fact, it will be the making of him.’