The Pretender- Escaping the Past

by C R Martens

  “One night I had been dropped off at the babysitter’s house in the middle of the night. I woke up the next morning feeling excited about my new sister or brother. With only half the day gone at nursery, Karen came to get me as someone was there to collect me. With a knot in my tummy, I ran to the wardrobe full of excitement, thinking it was my mum and the new baby. I was surprised to find John standing there.

  “‘You have a baby brother,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you happy?’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, not quite sure of him. ‘Can I see him?’

  “‘Yes, we are going to the hospital now,’ he said. ‘Get your bag and let’s go.’

  “I followed with a little run; I couldn’t wait to be with my mum again and of course to see my new baby brother. John smoked all the way in the car, it made me feel a little sick again, I hated it, but I kept quiet. Finally we arrived at the hospital, we went up the lift to the 9th floor and down a long corridor then turned left and stopped at the fourth door to the right. I always took notice of any route I was taken on as I never knew when I might need to escape. John looked down at me.

  “‘I don’t want you to be loud or play around or disturb your brother.’ He frightened me, I all of a sudden felt nervous going in. ‘And don’t touch anything.’ What if I did something wrong?

  “John opened the door and walked in, I followed a little timidly and then I saw my mum’s smiling face. She was lying in bed with my new brother in her arms.

  “‘Come and give me a hug,’ mum said. ‘I need it.’ I looked up at John who nodded, and then I hurried over to the bedside and crawled up to mum. I had missed her.

  “‘Say hello to Henry,’ Ruth said.

  “‘Hello, Henry.’ I giggled as I watched the little baby boy scrunch up his face. I was happy to have a brother, someone to share my life with. I sat there next to my mother for five minutes making funny faces at my little brother.

  “‘Okay, we should go,’ John said. ‘Say goodbye to your mother.’

  “‘Already?’ mum asked. ‘You just got here.’

  “‘I don’t have time to stay here,’ he said annoyed. ‘I had to leave work early yesterday, remember? I have stuff to catch up on at home.’

  “I froze completely. “Aren’t you coming with us?” I looked at mum.

  “‘Of course they aren’t,’ John said. ‘Get your bag and let’s go.’

  “‘Bye, darling, we’ll be home sooner than you can imagine,’ Mum said. ‘I love you.’

  “I felt a bad panic inside. I had only just gotten there, and all I needed was my mum just a little longer. I could hardly get the words out of my mouth. ‘Bye, Mummy.’

  “I fought back the tears as we stood in the lift, I wasn’t about to show John I was scared of him; I had never been alone with John. He had never babysat me, not even when Mum was doing something else. My mum had always dropped me off at a friend’s house or the sitters. He didn’t want to take care of another man’s child. ‘That is not my chore,’ he had said, one afternoon. ‘Call her dad.’

  “‘I can’t call her father,’ Mum had said. ‘I don’t know where he is. Please, Grace is ill and can’t have her.’

  “‘Call someone else,’ he said, coldheartedly sipping from his second drink. That was the end of that discussion.

  “John made dinner for me first – a toastie, even though it was still early in the afternoon and there was an hour until our usual dinnertime. He put the plate and glass of milk in front of me, spilling the milk, and then he went and poured a drink and sat across the table from me. I looked at him and he looked straight back. There were no emotions, he had a blank expression, he didn’t care about me. But I didn’t care about him either. In fact, I hated him and he knew it. I didn’t look away; I wanted to learn as much as I could from that face, from his eyes and his posture. But then he broke eye contact and left the table to drink his stupid drink in peace.

  “‘Finish your dinner and go to bed.’ He got up and went to sit on the sofa. I sat in silence and ate my dinner, I sat there staring at the wall in front of me in the dim-lit brown room. When I had finished I pushed my chair out, took my plate and walked towards the kitchen.

  “‘Thank you for dinner,’ I said. John just lifted his drink, didn’t say anything. If he had asked me if I was full, I would have said, ‘no’. I was still very hungry; one toastie wasn’t enough for a growing child who hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch at nursery. I went into the kitchen and put my plate in the sink. I stood at the top of the stairs leading down into the basement. It was dark, the lights hadn’t been turned on. Stretching as high as I could, I could just about reach the light switch with my fingertips. The dim lights turned on, but the brown wood panels seemed to soak up all the light and just made it gloomy. I took a deep breath and then I walked slowly down the stairs, as far up against the wall as I could, imagining all the grim things hiding down there, just waiting to grab me. All the monsters of my imagination. My thoughts grew more and more wild and when I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t help it. I ran as fast as I could over to the bathroom, closed the door and locked it too. I took my time brushing my teeth, anything to postpone the return trip up. This time I ran quietly all the way up the stairs, closed the door to the basement stairs silently and walked over to the living room.

  ““Goodnight,” I said. John sat smoking and drinking; he just nodded, didn’t even look at me. I walked into my room. I closed the door and wished I had a key to lock it too, but I didn’t so I did the next best thing I could think of, I put a bunch of toys in front of the door. If I couldn’t lock all the monsters, beasts and John out, at least I could make it painful for them to walk through the room. If I had had my way, I would only open it again when Mum and Henry had come back home again. I spent three days without Mum – three days of being hungry, three days of being invisible. Three days of moving quietly around the house, going mostly unnoticed. I stayed in the shadows, I liked it there, I felt safe there at least when my mum wasn’t there. For someone that young, I had to learn a lot about adult behaviour and adult problems. Things I shouldn’t be thinking or worrying about filled up my life.” Eve sat, as usual, waiting for the psychologist to respond to what she had just said. And, as usual, she waited in vain.

  “Alright.” He closed his notebook and looked at her vacantly; he had no clue what psychology was about. Everything in Eve was telling her to listen to her instincts, but she trusted the rules of the firm and went along. “Same time next week.”

  “Sure, it’s not like I have a choice.” Then she walked out of the room conscious of her surroundings, uneasy that some things were never going to change. There was never going to be a point where Eve could let down her guard, not back then or now.

  ***

  Life was very different with a baby in the house. When Henry was two and a half months old, he moved into Eve’s room. She was excited, not because Henry was moving in, though that was nice too, but mainly because she was moving up to the top bunk. Ruth made the bottom bunk into a cot bed for Henry. It was early for a baby to leave his mother’s bedside, but Ruth had to go back to work after only three months’ maternity leave. Eve was ready for Henry, she didn’t know it, but Henry was what Eve had been waiting for all her life. He would be her companion, her best friend, the one she would contemplate running away with.

  It was May, the days were getting longer and brighter and the air was getting warmer. Eve and Henry had shared a room for two weeks, but it hadn’t been all fun to have a baby in the room; Henry was a hungry baby and like clockwork every night at around 2 am he wanted a bottle.

  Then one night it wasn’t Henry who woke her. No, it was the alarming sounds of a disturbance in the living room. There was a big thud and Eve could hear the struggle, the muffled cries of her mum. With her heart in her throat and shaking, Eve crawled out of bed. But this time it wasn’t to run to her mum’s aid. No, it was to go to Henry’s. She looked down at Henry who was wide awake and on the brink of tears
, Eve smiled calmly at him and then she put her hands over his little ears; she knew that she was the only one who could protect him. He didn’t have to hear what was happening; he was too young. Eve kept looking in his eyes as she shielded his mind. She hummed a little song mostly for herself as Henry couldn’t hear. She didn’t want to cry but she couldn’t help it, she knew the sound all too well. So, while putting on a brave face for Henry, she felt the warmth of her tears. She knew she couldn’t protect both her mum and her baby brother. Only three months old and the peace and calm had gone, back was the darkness. It seemed to last forever. Eve, the five-year-old girl, fought back the fatigue to stay awake for her brother. Henry had fallen asleep again, but she was scared to move her hands from his ears. What if the noises woke him up again? The last thing he needed to hear was his father beating his mum. Then there was quiet, an eerie quiet. Footsteps passed by the door and down the stairs and then there was even more quiet. Eve removed her hands from Henry’s ears. He made a little sigh and swung an arm over his head. He was sound asleep, blissfully unaware of what had transpired. Eve sat at the end of his bed, looking at him, thinking she had saved him. But who was going to save her? She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, though she didn’t make a sound. Eve was pale-faced from exhaustion and there was a darkness around her eyes – this was not the face of a five-year-old. Eve kept thinking she should walk over to the door and go look for her mum, but she felt as if she was paralysed. She wanted her mum, but she was too scared of what she might find if she walked out of that room. A few minutes later, the door opened and Ruth came in. She was badly beaten, again. She limped over to Eve and sat next to her on the bed. She took Eve’s little hand and cupped it in hers. They both knew that this wasn’t right.

  “I covered his ears, Mum,” Eve said, looking with her big blue eyes at her mummy. “I kept him safe.” Ruth started to cry, she kissed her little girl’s forehead and held her tight, then she helped Eve up the ladder to her top bunk and tucked her in. She stroked Eve’s head until she had drifted off to sleep, even though Ruth’s body ached when she stretched over the top bunk. Gone was Eve the child, but what had replaced her?

  ***

  “One moment,” Eve said, her throat was dry from all the talking. They had been at it for the last hour already.

  “Of course,” he said. She took a long sip of water and a deep intake of air, giving him a little extra time to catch up on his notes. They had extra time today, the fake psychologist and her, because of last week’s short session.

  “Summer had come and in front of us was a four-week long holiday at the summerhouse,” she said, starting her story again. “However, the trip itself had already caused an argument and a swollen and bruised lip. Mum’s only request to John had been that she wanted us to be back home for my birthday, which meant returning home three days earlier than planned. John wouldn’t have it, nothing was going to spoil his holiday, let alone a child that wasn’t his. So, I had my birthday there in the summerhouse, no guests, just the four of us, six years old – the biggest I had ever been. I was sad, though, because as much as my mum tried to make it a fun and happy day, all I wanted was to have a party. It was just one more thing I wasn’t allowed to have. It was my last summer of nursery, come August I would start school. I looked forward to school, I liked books and to have stories read to me. I even liked making up my own stories, they became my escape.”

  “Six years?” The psychologist interrupted. This was the first time ever that he had stopped Eve in her story to ask a question. “That’s late to start school. Was there a reason?”

  “Yes, there was.” Eve looked at him, thinking that out of every horrifying thing she had told him, this is what he picked up on. “In Denmark you don’t start school until you’re about six years old. Our countries are different, just like we as people are different too.”

  “Right, I just assumed,” he started.

  “Assumptions are often prejudices, at least to ordinary people, but they are downright dangerous and fatal in our line of work. Do yourself a favour, don’t ever assume, know your facts when engaging with your target, no matter how small the assignment is.” Eve’s little lecture hadn’t, to her surprise, fallen on deaf ears.

  “Right.” He sat numb across the little coffee table from her; his glasses had dropped to the very tip of his nose. A few moments passed before he pulled himself together. “Please continue your story.”

  “As I said, I was overly excited about starting school, but that feeling of excitement soon drifted away as school wasn’t the sanctuary away from home the same way nursery had been. I was destined to have a bad start at school. It was one week before everything changed again. Dad called; it had been almost two years since I had stood there at the train station waiting for him to show up.

  “‘Dad called me at work today,’ Mum said, looking a little solemn. ‘He says he is better and that he wants to see you again.’

  “‘Why?’ I asked. Why would I want to see him? I had enough problems in my life without potentially also having to deal with him. But I didn’t say that, I was just a child. What did I know? Really?

  “‘Well, you don’t have to,’ Mum replied. ‘He says it’s completely up to you, I have his number and we can just take our time figuring out what we want. He says he has been sober for six months but that he wanted to get a job and a flat before he reached out to you.’ I could see and hear from her voice that she wanted me to see him – why, I didn’t understand.

  “‘Fine. I’ll see him,’ I said reluctantly. I knew that Mum was putting her trust in my dad; she hoped he would stay well for my sake this time around. It was autumn and I had been at school for a few months when the day came to meet with my dad. I was nervous and uncomfortable, I felt I was doing it to please everyone else but me.

  “‘Hi, Eve,’ Dad said. He had come to the house, something John had been against.

  “‘Hello,’ I said very formally and shook his hand. I recognised his face, but other than that he might as well have been a stranger.

  “‘I am sorry for what I have done.’ He hesitated, but before he could continue, I interrupted.

  “‘Why did you?’ I asked, glaring sternly at him.

  “‘I can’t explain that,’ Dad said, offering no other explanation for his absence.

  “I prepared myself for my next question, but when it came to it, I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.

  “‘Am I not enough?’ My voice broke in half and the tears started to well up in my eyes, but I tried to hide it, looking away from him. ‘Can’t you stay better for me?’

  “‘It’s not something I can control,’ he said. ‘And I can’t promise it won’t happen again.’

  “It wasn’t what I wanted or needed to hear. I wanted someone to tell me that of course they’d do this for me. I wanted that little white lie. I didn’t want the truth, I saw the truth every day. I was completely lost. Lost between two lousy realities and not one of them could promise me just a little protection or a place to breathe and be a child.

  “‘Can I go?’ I looked at my mum.

  “‘Sure, where to?’ she asked.

  “‘The garden.’ I didn’t want to tell Dad that I didn’t want to stay with him, especially when I didn’t know why I had to. ‘Bye, Dad.’

  “‘Bye, Eve.’ I walked out into the hallway and put on my raincoat and wellies. Autumn had been a windy and rainy affair. Dad didn’t leave straight away; I saw him watching me through the patio doors; I had hidden behind some bushes in the back of the garden and looked right back at him, without him knowing it, trying to figure him out. It wasn’t until Mum called that I knew it was safe to return.

  “‘You didn’t feel like talking with Dad?’ she started.

  “‘No,’ I replied.

  “‘Dad really wants to make up for lost time,’ she said, trying to get eye contact.

  “‘I don’t want to spend the night,’ I yelled at Mum. If I had to see him I wanted it to be on my
terms. ‘I really don’t. And I don’t know why I have to?’

  “‘He’s your dad, he wants to be a part of your life. Dad had an idea that maybe you could stay with your gran over the weekends that he has you until you are comfortable to come stay with him,’ my mum said.

  “If I didn’t want to stay with Dad, then why would I want to stay with her? I thought. She never cared about me and I certainly didn’t care for her. She was a bitter old woman who sat around all day listening to the radio, binge drinking coffee and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day – probably more. But I was six years old and didn’t have the words to explain why all of this was so wrong. I didn’t have the wisdom of age to defend myself with words and I wasn’t old enough to understand why I felt so sad. So, I just let Mum arrange things and I did as I was expected to. Two weekends later, I was waiting at the train station for my dad to come get me, only this time I was hoping he wouldn’t show up. I was always good at following orders, doing as I was told.”

  Eve stopped talking and just sat there for a moment, taking in her own thoughts. “Then John found out my dad had been at his house. Usually it would take a couple of drinks to release his rage, but not this time. His reaction was instant and, just like that, we weren’t even safe during the daytime hours. I stood next to Mum when the first punch landed right in her face, the blood from her nose sprayed down over me and my body jerked violently. Mum fell backwards, her body hitting the floor hard and John flew down over her with his fist pulled back ready for the next punch. I had no control over what happened next, it was pure instinct that made me react. I started to punch him. I lunged myself at him with all the strength I had in my six-year-old body. I dug the fingers of one hand into his face like a claw and with the other I grabbed hold of his fist. His screams of pain echoed from the living room into the hallway but I didn’t let go. I had nothing left to lose and with Mum knocked out on the floor it felt like I was fighting for our lives. I kept my fingers clawed into his face until he flung me off his back. I flew a good few meters and the landing knocked all the air out of my lungs. Lying on the floor gasping for breath, John walked over to me. Covering his face with one hand, he grabbed my ankle with the other and with a ferocious pull he dragged me into my room. As I started to catch my breath, I got up on my elbows and saw John dragging Mum in. She had started to moan and looked hazily around. He dropped her hard on the floor next to me, and without a word spoken he left the room, locking the door behind him. He didn’t unlock the door until the next morning.