by Jane E James
‘Them?’ Jed doesn’t follow.
We are hugging our knees, watching the flashes of silent lightning, which intermittently light up the night sky over Little Downey. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the village was holding a firework display, to which everyone but us had been invited. While it is a pretty sight, I can’t always see Jed’s face due to the lights-on lights-off effect, but his arm, laid casually around my shoulder, is a constant presence.
‘Father. The villagers.’ I shake my head, not wanting to go on, all the while knowing I must. ‘But there was no funeral. No grave. Nothing. One day she was there, the next…’ I pause when another bolt of lightning illuminates his different-coloured eyes, which flash from blue to brown like multi-coloured fairy lights.
‘I think they did something to her,’ I finally admit.
‘And you think Frank was involved?’ Jed is incredulous.
We both get to our feet when we see car headlights approaching. My heart sinks when I recognise the familiar shape of the pickup truck hurtling along the lane.
Before it reaches the house, for a minute I think it is going to drive straight at us, the truck comes to a screeching halt. The revving of its engine is meant to intimidate. The next thing we see is a body being unceremoniously thrown out of the back seat.
‘Father.’
I try to run to the lifeless figure on the ground, he could be dead for all I know, but Jed holds me back. Hating to be restrained, I am about to stamp on his foot when I see the truck crawling towards us again and I realise that Daniel has not come alone. Bob Black and the ginger-haired lad is with him. While they laugh like hyenas, Daniel’s hate-filled stare zooms in on me, but I know his throat slashing gesture is intended for Jed, because I feel him tense beside me. I place a restraining hand on Jed’s arm, in case he should decide to challenge Daniel, but before he can shrug me off, the truck’s engine gives one last powerful rev, spins around, and reverses at speed towards the porch. Again, I think it is about to head straight towards us but at the last minute it changes course and tramples over my bicycle instead. When the truck has finished chewing it up, it takes off at speed down the lane.
I cannot remember the last time I touched my father’s face. Tonight it is swollen from where somebody landed a cowardly punch on it, yet I long for more injuries to nurse. Ordinarily, he would not allow me to fuss around him the way I am doing now, as if this is how things have always been between us, but his drunkenness leaves him temporarily helpless. He might wince in pain when I dab at his split lip with cotton wool and antiseptic, but he does not struggle or lash out.
“Never known the village turn on one of its own before.” Jed’s voice, loaded with scorn, comes back to haunt me as I tend my father’s wounds. Although I made him leave before my father regained consciousness, he is here with me in spirit and it is his voice I hear in my head. The fact that Jed was willing to protect me from a man like Frank speaks volumes, but I couldn’t risk the two men getting into a fight. Jed’s contempt for my father and the villagers took me by surprise until I remembered that this cruel sarcastic veneer of his was what I first glimpsed before I came to know the real person inside. This other side of Jed comes and goes as it pleases, like one of my father’s rats, I realise with sudden perception. You may not know him as well as you think you do, Natalie, my head warns, but as usual, because I do not like what I am hearing, I ignore it.
But what if Jed is right. What if my father is one of them?
‘I’m not one of them!’ Frank hollers suddenly, as if able to read my thoughts.
‘I’m not one of them, Natalie,’ he repeats miserably.
‘That’s enough,’ I urge, placing a restraining arm on his shoulder. But we both know it isn’t. Not after the way he has treated my mother and me.
As soon as I see my father sag with exhaustion, my hatred crumbles. His wretched sobs do away with the past and I feel my heart melting. Whatever happened out there tonight, between him, Daniel and Bob Black—the old Frank Powers has vanished for good. I feel it in my bones. All I am left with is a glimmer of the giant he once was.
Grabbing my hand, he presses it against his chest, lowering his voice as if someone might overhear. ‘You’ve got to believe me,’ he pleads.
He is so convincing that I do believe him, but rather than tell him so, I heed the unspoken warning in my head. Jed is the only person I trust. My father doesn’t come close.
‘Why should I,’ I insist, ‘when you won’t tell me what happened to my mother.’
I watch my father’s eyes become more secretive. ‘Whatever I did, it was to protect you.’ He grinds his teeth.
‘You’re the one who had me locked away in a mental institution.’ I have never forgiven him for this, and never will.
‘It was the only safe place,’ my father wheedles. ‘Nobody could get at you there. They promised.’
‘Who did? Safe from what, Father? Why would anybody want to get at me?’
‘You’re safer not knowing the whole story,’ he whispers. ‘All I can tell you is that it’s what your mother wanted.’ I watch him wet his lips, then raise a finger to his mouth, shushing me as if I were a child. ‘She begged me not to let you come back here,’ he finally admits.
Earlier, I watched Jed leave, wanting to be sure he was safe, that Daniel wasn’t lurking in the shadows, waiting to take him down. In a typical Jed gesture, he left me with a conspiratorial wink that implied he wouldn’t be far away if I needed him. Noticing that my father’s eyes are returning to their familiar Little Downey blue, I drag myself over to the window again and become distracted by the menacing shadow of the whitewashed building, whose barred windows seem eerily to wink at me, in much the same way Jed did.
‘I always knew she was alive, that she was out there somewhere. All along I have felt her with me.’ I choke on my tears, finding it increasingly difficult to go on.
Then, anger takes hold, like a dead man’s handshake that won’t let go.
‘All this time, I thought I was mad. You let me think that.’ I spin around to confront my father, only to find that his head is bowed; he is sobbing once more. This time I feel no pity.
‘Take me to see her,’ I command. For the first time in my life, I am laying down the law. Natalie’s Law.
The Whitewashed Building
I cannot breathe. There is no room to move. No air. I seem to have lost my voice too because I cannot find any words for this moment. What we are about to do is terrifying, yet I wouldn’t have my father stop for anything. While I wait for him to find the light switch, a claustrophobic fear grips me, and I am once again reminded of the time I was shut in the freezer with the dead animals. Shuddering at the memory, I stay as close to my father as possible. It is incredibly dark in here. But he is not hard to locate. The smell of sweat and blood on his clothing is all the compass I need. My father’s breathing is like my own, heavy and out of control and when he eventually locates the cord above his head and a single bulb comes on, it casts eerie shadows on the whitewashed building’s concrete walls.
When he pushes the dusty old butcher’s block out of the way to reveal a secret trap door beneath, I am not as surprised as I should be. So this is where he has been hiding her. There are four heavy bolts holding down the door. Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure my mother cannot escape from whatever kind of hellhole is hidden below. I narrow my eyes at my father but he avoids my gaze; concentrates instead on undoing the bolts, the metal shrieking under his fingers as if warning us not to venture any further. When he finally lifts the door, it does not squeal off its hinges as it ought to, it creaks sleepily, and I guess this is because it has been used often over the years.
‘Don’t expect too much, Natalie. The years haven’t been kind to her,’ he advises.
Then, without warning, he disappears into the gaping black hole and I think I am about to pass out through sheer fright; that I won’t be able to go through with this. I have never felt more like running than
I do now. But I do not. I have been without my mother for sixteen years, and, while we might be strangers to each other, I will not abandon her, as she never really abandoned me. Whatever happened to make her stay away was nothing to do with her, I know that now, and everything to do with the villagers and my father.
After a few seconds, I make my way down the ladder, hating having to turn my back on my father, who is waiting for me somewhere at the bottom. I remain unconvinced by his claims that everyone but him is to blame for what happened. Time will tell I suppose.
Before I am halfway down, the smell reaches me. My God, the stench. I can only liken it to a revolting mixture of decaying flesh, vomit and human faeces. Taking my hand off the side rail to cover my nose and mouth, I feel the rungs of the ladder creak beneath me, from too much or too little wear and tear, I cannot tell. Stumbling awkwardly off the last rung, my feet hit a spongy surface and I guess, correctly, that this is natural ground where the soil has become compressed over time through constant use. I dread to think of how many times a day my mother must circle the confines of this cellar, prowling around it like a caged animal.
Even in the dark, I recognise my father’s breathing, because like me, he is avoiding inhaling too much, due to the smell. It is so cold and damp down here, it crosses my mind that nobody could survive in such conditions. Surely it is impossible.
Then I hear somebody else’s breathing and I know that it is possible. Their breathing is unlike mine or my father’s, or anyone else’s in fact, in that it sounds rattling and diseased. What if I have found my mother only to lose her again to ill health? The thought is intolerable and so is being down here. I do not think I can stomach it a second longer and I am tempted to flee back up the ladder when I hear the strike of a match. Even before the flame of an oil lamp appears, I catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure darting to the furthest corner of the cellar. While my father encourages the flame to soar higher, lighting up the open trap door, which points to our way out of here, I stare in disbelief at the woman with balding hair and rotting teeth who scrapes at the concrete walls with broken fingernails.
‘Viv.’
My father puts down the oil lamp and approaches her, something I am incapable of doing. I can only stare in horror at the woman in front of me who is making an inhuman sound, something between a scream and a growl. Laughter lurks there also. I can feel its terrible tremble in the sound that she is making.
‘Viv.’ He speaks slowly, as if talking to a child, and she is in so many ways, but his voice is gentle too, a reminder that this creature is the woman he once loved. ‘Look who’s come to see you,’ he encourages, pointing me out as if he were introducing us for the first time.
When he gestures for me to move forward, I progress slowly so as not to frighten her, but that doesn’t prevent her turning her head away. It is obvious that she doesn’t know who I am and wants to hide from me. She is painfully thin, and her face is smeared with excrement. Good God, I will kill him for this, I think vengefully. As long as I live, I will never forgive him. I will put him down this hole myself and see how he likes it.
But my father is looking at me in a trusting way, as if he cannot conceive that I could be angry with him. One would think, judging by his ridiculous expression, that he feels something special is about to happen. He is a fool. Deliberately ignoring him, I take a hesitant step towards my mother.
‘Mother?’ I find my voice at last even though it doesn’t seem to belong to me. My words bounce off the walls, making them sound flat and cold.
‘Mother,’ I say again, after I’ve coughed and cleared my throat.
When I see the bloody scratches on the wall where she must have spent years trying to claw her way out, I glare at my father. Shaking my head in disgust, I creep closer. Now that she is aware of my proximity, she tosses her head and moans like an animal in labour. In all my life I have never seen another human being so distressed, not even at Thornhaugh where everybody was considered crazy.
‘Mother. It’s me, Natalie.’
As soon as I say my name, she freezes. I take this as a good sign, even if she does still refuse to look at me. Relieved that the terrible moaning has stopped, I place one hand against the crumbling wall and bend down to her level, but I do not attempt to touch her. She is so fragile, I think her bones would snap under my fingers if I did.
‘We’ve both been locked away, you and I, but I am here now,’ I tell her, no longer able to prevent my tears from falling. I want to be strong, for my mother’s sake, but I am destroyed by what has happened to her. I will have my revenge if it is the last thing I do, I promise myself. The desire to harm or kill another person is an entirely new emotion for me, but it feels like a missing friend, one who from now on will always be welcome at my door.
In the glow of the lamplight, I think I see a glimpse of recognition in my mother’s haunted face and this gives me the confidence to move closer. When her head moves stiffly to the side, the bones in her neck snap like a chicken’s carcass and her foul stinking breath wafts over me, but nothing will make me turn away from her. When I realise she is looking at me for the first time, I am so surprised I almost lose my balance. Her eyes are locked with mine, black on black, and I wonder if she recognises they are the same as her own. When her face creases with a frown, I can tell she is trying to figure things out. Clearly, she is not mad. Beneath the deeply etched lines on her face, there are signs of intelligence.
When her hands reach out to touch my hair, it is my turn to freeze. I feel her bony fingers wind a lock of my hair into a curl, and my heart breaks. How could I have forgotten sleepy Sunday mornings cuddled up in bed with my mother who used to love playing with my hair. I feel such overwhelming love for her and equal amounts of hatred for my father and anyone else who might be responsible for my mother’s lost life that I don’t know how I am ever going to handle such strong emotions. Surely I am too damaged for that. I cannot bear to think of her being down here all these years. How could this happen to someone like her, who loved life and was once thought so beautiful? And how is a girl like me, who lost her mother, only to find her again, meant to react to such a discovery?
‘Natalie. My Natalie?’
Her voice comes out as a pathetic croak, as if she has forgotten how to use it, but I recognise it all the same and a sob escapes me. Before it has finished echoing around the cellar walls, my head is resting where it has longed to be these last sixteen years—against my mother’s bony chest. She pats me, awkwardly at first, like one would a dog. I’m home at last. The hand stroking me might smell of excrement and blood, but I do not, will not, recoil from her. The fast beating of her heart is soothing, and I feel my eyelids close. It is only when I hear my father shuffle from one foot to another, an irritating reminder of his unwelcome presence, that I open them.
Feeling like I never want to see or hear from him again, for as long as I live, I narrow my eyes at him, but when I realise that he has been moved to tears by our reunion, I am not sure what to think. His story will have to be good. But hear it out I will, when the time is right. For now, he can crumble all he likes. I will not comfort him.
When I turn back to my mother, I see that her expression has changed. She is looking at me blankly and her eyes have clouded over like grey marble. The face I am looking at is a mirror image of the woman I first glimpsed through the bars of this building.
‘Mother? Are you all right?’
I cry out when I feel the first sharp tug on my hair but when she takes a fistful of it in her hands and viciously yanks it, I scream. The pain is indescribable. I try to pull away, but she has turned into a demon and is clawing at my face. I do not know what has happened to cause this sudden and alarming change in her, but I want her off me.
‘Whore! Whore!’
As I try to protect myself from her insistent fingernails, I dare not do more for fear of hurting her, she continues to scream abuse into my face. Her eyes are ablaze with a kind of hatred I have never witnessed before, and I try
to convince myself that she doesn’t know what she is doing or saying, but when a drop of foul-smelling saliva drips from her toothless mouth onto my face, I find it hard to feel any compassion for the thing she has turned into.
‘I’ve seen you. My bed. My sheets!’ She screeches wildly, jabbing a proprietary finger at my father. ‘My man.’
Snarling like a wild animal, she comes at me again, raining blows down on me this time. I put up my hands to defend myself but she catches the side of my mouth with her fist and I taste blood. She laughs at that, but just as she is about to lash out again, she is thrown up against the wall. Dizzy from the unprovoked attack, it is a few seconds before I realise that my father has intervened; that he has my mother pinned by the arms, where she continues to spit and snarl in his face. She can struggle all she likes, but she is no match for him.
‘Natalie, are you all right? I’m so—’
I do not wait to hear my father’s apology. I am out of there, already halfway up the ladder. Only when I reach the top rung, do I take one last fearful look back down; at my mother, whose wild eyes, a bloodshot yellow, burn into mine.
‘Whore! Whore!’ she screams again.
I climb out of the cellar, gasping for clean air, with my legs almost giving way beneath me. Trembling from head to toe, I do not think I will make it out of the building without collapsing but when I hear blows being delivered below, followed by my mother’s pitiful sobs, I run from the place as fast as I can.
The House By The Sea
I feel as if I have gone back in time, because here we are again—back at the kitchen table, where I was often made to sit as a child, so my father could berate me. He is standing straight backed in his usual place, with his back to the sink, looking down on me, and I am sat in mine, with my head bowed. But unlike then, I am not sobbing my eyes out and my nose isn’t running with snot. Tonight, I am an adult with grown-up problems. To cure my trembling, I take a large slug of the whiskey my father has placed in front of me. I like how it burns my insides, where rage also lurks.
