The Argument

by Victoria Jenkins

  She hadn’t heard him arrive back at the house, though her sleep that afternoon seems to have been unusually heavy. It often takes Olivia an age to just find sleep, and when she does, she is rarely submerged fully in it. She assumes it must be the alcohol, and the memory of it brings back the awful taste it left in her mouth. She thinks again about what she did, wondering whether the deed will be recognisable somehow, worn in the guilt of her expression. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be visible. Sometimes it feels to Olivia as though her father can read her thoughts, and that nothing is kept secret from either of her parents.

  He knocks again, a slow, repetitive beat played out on the bedroom door.

  ‘I’m going to come in, okay?’

  She doesn’t answer him; it isn’t really a question.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  If he knows she went to the party last night, he isn’t giving anything away, not yet. His calmness makes Olivia suspect that her mother hasn’t told him that she snuck out from the house, though she’s not sure why she wouldn’t. Her mother loves playing tell-tale to Olivia’s father, letting him know just how awful she is. Yet in this case, Olivia thinks, perhaps her mother doesn’t want to admit what happened. Telling him what happened last night will mean confessing to her own ineptitude, and why would her mother want to do that?

  The bed sinks to one side as her father sits on the edge of the mattress. Turned to the wall, her back to him, Olivia cringes.

  ‘Come on, Liv, what’s this all about?’

  She hates it when he calls her that. Her parents think she’s stupid, but she’s not ignorant enough to miss the irony of the shortened version of name they chose for her. Liv. Live. Exactly what she’s not doing, not while they keep treating her like a little kid and trying to rule her life.

  ‘Your mother’s upset you won’t speak to her.’

  Olivia doubts that very much. Her mother doesn’t get upset, she’s far too emotionless for that. Olivia can’t remember having ever heard her shout, let alone seen her cry; every reaction is controlled and measured, as though her mother can’t allow herself to respond with her heart and not her head. There have been times when Olivia would have appreciated being shouted at, if only to have felt that her mother cared.

  She wonders what her mother has told her father, what explanation she has provided for why Olivia is refusing to talk to her.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day out there,’ he says, though Olivia is sure that this is also a lie. When she came home the night before, the sky was black with the heavy threat of rain. She could smell it in the air, dank and strangely cleansing.

  ‘You should get out in the garden.’

  She rolls her eyes with the irony of his suggestion. The garden isn’t far enough; if she goes outside, she wants it to be somewhere far away from here. He can stay here for as long as he likes, can talk as much menial chit-chat as he wants, but she won’t speak to him. She has nothing to say to either of them, not now; not ever again.

  ‘I brought some cake home with me,’ her father continues. ‘I picked it up from the bakery in town, that lemon drizzle they do. I know you love that one. Come on, love, what do you say? Slice of cake and a cup of tea?’

  She used to like that cake once, when she was about twelve, when she had hips that were wide enough to balance plates on. Olivia hasn’t eaten cake in over a year, but her father obviously hasn’t noticed that. It seems he only pays attention when he wants to stop her from doing something. One look at a slice of sponge and she seems to pile on five pounds. It was her parents’ fault she was an overweight child, too chubby to ever be involved with the pretty girls’ conversations and too slow to ever be chosen for a team during PE lessons; they were forever trying to tempt her with treats and snacks, always bribing her with food to get her to behave in the way they wanted. They wanted her to be fat and ugly, just like they never want her to have any fun.

  ‘Your mother loves you,’ he continues, ‘and so do I. We’ve only ever tried to do our best for you.’

  Olivia rolls her eyes. She waits for whatever comes next – the ‘after everything I’ve done for you’, or the ‘there are children in the world who’d give their right arm to have your life’ speech. Emotional blackmail seems to be her parents’ default setting; without it, she wonders how many arguments they would believe they win. Because that is how this feels now; not a game, but a battle. It is her against them, and someone will have to lose. At this moment, silence is her most powerful weapon. She wishes she had armed herself with it sooner.

  The comment she waits for never comes. Instead, her father goes to the bedroom doorway, where he turns to her. ‘Call if you need anything. You’ll have to speak to us at some point, Liv.’

  But he is wrong. He is so wrong. She never has to speak to either of them again.

  * * *

  Three

  Hannah

  * * *

  The afternoon passes quickly, household chores keeping her occupied enough to stop her mind from lingering too long on Olivia’s persistent silence. Olivia stays in her bedroom for the whole day, refusing to speak to anyone and declining all offers of food. It is a dry day, a little chilly but the sun is struggling to make itself visible in infrequent bursts, so Rosie has taken herself to the end of the garden, the hood of her cardigan pulled up over her head, red curls escaping at her neck and her mind lost in the pages of the book she is reading.

  Hannah takes a glass of orange juice out into the garden but stops at the start of the lawn before Rosie notices her there. Legs crossed and hood up, her younger daughter is like a little pixie at the bottom of the garden; she is picture taken from a book of fairy tales, magic spun in the air around her. Hannah smiles. If she could freeze time, keep Rosie in any way, it would be this.

  She turns and glances back to the house, looking up to the closed curtains of Olivia’s bedroom. She wishes both daughters were the same, though she knows that two siblings are rarely alike. What trouble will Olivia bring them in the future? She has worked so hard for this family, doing everything she can to make a safe and secure home for them all. How is she to be thanked for everything she has done for them?

  Hannah walks down to the bottom of the garden and holds out the glass to Rosie. ‘Can I have a look?’ she says, gesturing to the book.

  Rosie takes the glass of juice with one hand and passes her mother the book with the other. Hannah joins her on the grass and sits cross-legged; it takes her back to her school days and assemblies in the small and over-heated hall in which the whole school would gather every morning to listen to the monotone drone of the head teacher’s voice. She studies the cover of the book: A Dog’s Life. A forlorn looking Labrador stands near a wooden gate at the edge of a field peppered with buttercups, glancing out at a distant sunset.

  ‘Any good?’ she asks.

  Rosie shrugs. ‘Okay so far.’

  Hannah reads the blurb on the back, which describes the story as a heart-warming tale of one girl’s journey to find her missing puppy. It seems young for Rosie’s reading ability – she was able to read books aimed at teenagers by the time she was eight - but Hannah likes the fact that her younger daughter has retained her childlike innocence. If she was able to, she would bottle Rosie as she is now, delay time from moving on any further; she would keep her daughter at this age, this size, with this same level of sensitivity. She has longed for the same with Olivia in the past, knowing that such hope was futile and would only lead to disappointment. In her heart, she had always known how she would turn out.

  She hands the book back to Rosie, who offers her a small smile.

  ‘Enjoy.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Hannah rubs a hand on Rosie’s arm before standing and returning to the house. Glancing up at the window of Olivia’s bedroom again, at the curtains that remained pulled shut, blocking out daylight, she wonders how long she will stay there. She can’t kee
p this up forever, Hannah thinks. Not even someone as headstrong and stubborn as Olivia is can maintain this silence for too long. She will get bored or decide she wants something, one of which will prompt her into speaking to either Michael or her. All they need to do is wait out this little temporary drama.

  When she returns to the house, Michael is in his office finishing his end-of-week paperwork. He likes to be alone in silence when he works; it allows him to get things done quicker so he can return to spending time with the family. Hannah realises she should probably enjoy these quiet, peaceful moments when her chores are completed and the girls are at home, but she isn’t sure that she does. When the girls are at school and she is home alone during the week, she often plays music, losing herself to old nineties classics while she gets on with whatever needs doing that day. The house is quieter at weekends, as Michael prefers it, but where there is silence there is time to think, and thinking is something that has never ended well for Hannah.

  She had planned to bake a cake that afternoon, but Michael brought some home with him, and as Olivia has refused to eat any of it there is some left over. Instead of baking, Hannah finishes the ironing she started the previous day then dusts the house from top to bottom, deciding not to disturb Olivia by entering her room. If it is silence she is after then that’s what Hannah will give her, though it seems to her that solitary confinement should be the last thing Olivia wants to subject herself to. By 9pm Rosie has gone to bed and Michael still hasn’t emerged from his office. She makes him a cup of tea and something to eat before taking it down the hallway, knocking the door and waiting for him to respond before entering.

  ‘I made you a sandwich.’

  ‘Thanks, love. Just leave it there,’ he says, not turning to her. ‘I won’t be much longer, just wanted to get this lot finished so I don’t have to do it tomorrow.’

  She watches him for a moment, his back to her, wondering when he had started to look different and how she hasn’t noticed until now. His thinning hair is sparse at the top of his crown, and he has filled out around the waist, the onset of middle age catching up with him early.

  ‘Okay. I’m going to go to bed though,’ she tells him. ‘I could do with an early night.’

  ‘Okay,’ he replies, his attention still on the screen of his laptop.

  She waits a moment longer and sensing her still at the door he swivels around in his chair. She sees the man she fell in love with still there in his face, in the light of his eyes and the tilt of his mouth, and she feels a surge of gratitude for this life that they have built together, that cocoons her in all its comforts. She feels guilt for her recent doubts, doubts that have plagued her sleep and continued to haunt her during her waking hours.

  ‘See you in a bit.’ He gives her a smile she’s unable to read before turning back to his laptop. Hannah eases the door shut before hearing him call her back.

  ‘Go to Olivia’s room,’ he tells her.

  ‘I thought we were leaving her for a while?’

  He shakes his head and turns away from her, the conversation over. Hannah goes upstairs and does as he has requested of her. Olivia pretends to be asleep, her body turned to the wall, though Hannah knows when she is faking it; she can tell from the way she is lying. Olivia sleeps on her back; she always has done since she was a baby.

  She goes into the room briefly, her movements swift as she adjusts Olivia’s duvet over her feet. She waits for some sort of response or reaction, but Olivia lies inert, continuing in her defiant silent protest, not so much as pulling her legs up to move them away from her.

  ‘Night, Olivia,’ Hannah says softly, but there is nothing offered in return.

  Hannah goes to Rosie’s room. The door is ajar, and she pushes it open gently, poking her head into the room to listen to the sound of her younger daughter’s breathing. She goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take off her make-up, just a thinly applied layer of foundation and a flick of mascara on each eye. She tries not to linger on her face for too long in the mirror, on the new lines that crawl from the corner of each eye and the dark circles that rest beneath them, concealed until now beneath the creamy foundation she wears like a shield to protect herself. She has an outbreak of spots on her right cheek, a condition that always afflicts her whenever she suffers any stress.

  In the half-light of the bedroom, Hannah changes from her clothes into a nightdress. She slips beneath the duvet and closes her eyes but finds herself unable to sleep. She doesn’t want to read – reading has never relaxed her but seems to have the opposite effect, awakening her mind rather than calming it – and she doesn’t want to disturb the girls by turning on the bedside radio. When it starts to rain, she listens in the darkness to the pattering of the downpour against the windowpane until the sound is broken by Michael at the bedroom door, having finally finished whatever work he was doing.

  She listens as he undresses in the dark, wondering whether she might pretend to be asleep. She has always been useless at it.

  The bed shifts as he climbs under the duvet beside her.

  ‘Thought I could do with an early night as well.’

  He presses his body against hers, the heat of his skin warming her, and now she knows what that smile in the office was all about. When his hands pass over her thighs and push up her nightdress, she feels herself flinch at his touch. She is being unfair, she knows she is; it’s not him, it’s her. Sex hasn’t been appealing in a long time; in fact, she can’t remember the last time they were intimate. She can’t even explain to herself what causes it but there is something in Hannah that throws up a barrier every time the opportunity for physical closeness arises. He has been patient with her, understanding, but she is sure there is only so long he will wait for her. And yet, he has waited for her before.

  His hands run over her waist and reach her breasts. He kisses the nape of her neck and she responds by tilting her head back, trying to block the negative thoughts that have crept into her brain like a mass of tiny spiders. She tries not to focus on her weight as he touches her: the extra flesh around her thighs; the loose skin that sags at her stomach. She loves being a housewife, a stay-at-home mum, but she knows that she has let herself go and is old before her time. Being a grown-up had once felt safer, so much steadier than the uncertainty of her youth, but in recent years she has felt differently towards it.

  The sex is functional; she imagines that he enjoys it more than she does. When he is done, Michael turns on to his back and places a hand on her shoulder; Hannah stays where she is, lying on her side, turned away from him, knowing she should feel differently but unable to explain to herself why she doesn’t, and why she can’t. She waits for him to say something, and when he doesn’t speak it comes as a relief to her. She feels his hand on her shoulder, a wordless goodnight gesture, and before long he falls into sleep, his breathing becoming heavier and more laboured. He only snores when he’s had a drink, and as he’s not much of a drinker those occasions are few. In some ways, she wishes that he did snore. It would break the silence, give her something to focus on other than her thoughts.

  Hannah drifts in and out of sleep, her mind restless and her dreams vivid. She wakes at around 2am, this time unable to fall back into her slumber. She thinks she might have heard something, but she can’t be sure whether it was the noise of a dream, too real and too loud within her own head. And then she hears something else, a sound like a smash, distorted by the lethargy of her sleepless state. She is a light sleeper, she always has been, and when her thoughts aren’t already responsible for withholding her from slumber it takes little to pull her from her dreams. She pushes herself up on an arm, her eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room. The bedroom door is open slightly – she got up earlier to go to the bathroom and didn’t click it closed for fear of disturbing Michael and waking him – but there are no lights on, just a sliver of a glow from a streetlamp that pushes through the crack in the curtains to help her make out the familiar shapes of the furniture.

  Ther
e is another noise, a bang. Hannah sits up now, her heart pounding painfully beneath the thin cotton of her nightdress. Sometimes the fridge makes noises that are loud enough to wake her; it has been doing it for a while now, this increasingly noisy clanging and clunking, and she is certain it won’t be long before it needs replacing. Yet this sounded different, not like any noise she has heard in the dead of night before. There is someone downstairs, someone in their home.

  ‘Michael,’ she says, putting a hand on his bare shoulder and shaking him. ‘Michael.’

  He has always been a deep sleeper; she has known him to sleep through storms that have felt to her as though they have shaken the house from its foundations. Hannah has always envied him the deep, restorative sleep she never seems to be able to find.

  She waits a moment, listening to make sure she hasn’t imagined it, but she knows that she didn’t. There is silence, but she senses that whoever is down there is trying to be quieter now, having realised his mistake in having made so much noise. Hannah feels her heart continue to thud, a blend of adrenaline and fear sending her pulse into overdrive.

  ‘Michael,’ she says again, gripping him this time and hissing in his ear. ‘There’s someone downstairs.’

  He grunts and puts an arm behind him, groping in the darkness for her. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks through sleep.

  ‘There’s someone downstairs,’ she repeats.

  He couldn’t have heard her the first time, as this time he sits up and turns to her, putting a reassuring hand on her arm to try to calm her down. ‘Were you dreaming?’