The Argument

by Victoria Jenkins

  ‘I’ll be back now,’ Michael says, unlocking the patio doors to go out to the garage.

  ‘Be careful.’

  When he’s gone, Hannah stands in front of the cupboards, the word LIAR screaming at her with a silent accusation that manages to pierce her eardrums with its noise. She studies the red streaks, like blood dripping down the cupboard doors. The choice of colour wasn’t an accident, she knows that, but just what was somebody trying to tell her?

  If Olivia has done this, Hannah thinks, then she has never really known her own daughter at all.

  And if her daughter thinks she’s a liar, just what does she think she’s lied about?

  4

  Four

  Olivia

  * * *

  When Olivia goes downstairs the following morning, her father is sitting at the kitchen table. He doesn’t so much as turn his head to acknowledge her as she enters the room. The kitchen smells of paint. Will he mention what happened here last night? she wonders. Will her mother? They must know by now that she isn’t going to speak to either of them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t talk to her and she knows her silence isn’t likely to deter either of them from badgering her, hoping to break her resolve. Her mother will want to know what she saw, what she heard. She won’t tell either of them a thing.

  This kitchen is her mother’s pride and joy. She would never admit to it, but Olivia believes that if Hannah was honest with herself, she would confess to loving this room more than she loves any member of their family. She has watched her on so many mornings, bustling from one task to another as though she is a woman with purpose, when really all she is a woman who is ensnared in the trappings of domesticity, a slave to the life she has buried herself in. Olivia cannot think of anything worse than this: this daily grind of repetition and routine. Is this all her mother wanted for her life?

  Olivia can just about recall what the house was like years ago, before the extension was built. She has memories of noisy builders and loud music played from a radio that was always crackly and her mother being in a state of constant stress; she was pregnant with Rosie at the time, and the work was completed during a sticky summer in which all Olivia can recollect of her mother is a huge stomach and a red, flustered face.

  The kitchen was doubled in size, and the garden - a large corner plot that seemed to Olivia the length of a football pitch when she was little - was still big even after a chunk of it had been taken to expand the house. The kitchen was designed in the style of a traditional country cottage, none of this glossy modern minimalism that her mother can’t stand. In so many ways, her parents are meticulously traditional, in their tastes and in their ways. Hannah has yet to reach her thirty-fifth birthday, yet Olivia believes she could easily pass for a woman fifteen years older. She is the kind of woman who still uses a recipe book to bake cakes.

  Olivia goes to the cupboard to get a bowl and glances at the patio doors. She wonders how her parents explained the smashed glass to Rosie, but she imagines that whatever excuse they have come up with, her little sister is guaranteed to have fallen for it. For a kid who prides herself on her intelligence, Rosie can be infuriatingly naive at times. Intelligence should ask questions, but Rosie just seems to accept her lot, blindly swallowing down any piece of crap their parents feed her. Olivia could shake her at times, though she knows that none of this is any of Rosie’s fault. She is too young to see her parents yet for what they really are.

  If Olivia wasn’t so hungry, she wouldn’t have come downstairs, but it is Sunday now and she hasn’t eaten anything since before the party on Friday night. She lay in bed listening to her stomach rumble for an hour after waking up, by which time she was forced to admit to herself that she was going to have to go downstairs and face whatever awaited her there. The silence she receives is not at all what she had expected. They are playing her at her own game now, though she isn’t sure what they expect to achieve by it.

  She pours herself a bowl of cereal and takes the milk from the fridge. She can feel her father’s eyes on her back as she prepares her breakfast, but she won’t be unnerved by him. After what happened last night, it should be he and her mother feeling unnerved.

  Olivia takes her cereal outside and sits on the patio slabs. Rosie is curled in on herself at the foot of the tree that sits at the end of the garden, her willowy frame like that of a woodland fairy. Whenever Rosie can’t be found inside the house, there’s only one other place she is likely to be: sitting beneath this tree, her legs crossed, her head bowed over the pages of the latest book she has borrowed from the school library, her red hair drawing a curtain around her that shuts her off from the world. She seems to think it makes her superior, that she knows more for having spent so many hours of her young life immersed in make-believe, but Olivia thinks the opposite is true. While Rosie is lost in stories, she doesn’t see what’s going on in the real world, what’s happening right in front of her. She feels sorry for her. When the truth of what their parents are hits her, Rosie won’t have been expecting a thing.

  Their mother appears from the patio doors carrying a basket of washing that has just been pulled from the machine. She casts Olivia a glance but does not allow the look to linger, instead resting the basket on the table outside while she sets about lowering the washing line. Olivia wonders why she is bothering; the sky is still grey and heavy from last night’s rain and looks as though it is ready to burst open a downpour.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ her mother asks, directing the question at the washing line.

  It takes Olivia a moment to realise her mother is talking to her. She finds her calmness unnerving. She’s not sure why it should unsettle her so much; her mother has never been prone to verbal outbursts or bouts of anger. Her placidity is ingrained within her, a taught behaviour Olivia suspects may not have come naturally to her. One thing is for sure, Olivia is nothing like her mother, not in looks or in temperament. Her mother is tall and copper-haired like Rosie; Olivia is shorter, heavier, brunette. If she was able to scream and shout – if she could tell her mother in one long frustration-fuelled rant exactly what she thinks of her – then Olivia knows she would revel in doing so, that it would be exactly the kind of outburst her mother avoids. As things are, she must say nothing, bite her tongue; wait for her mother to do something that will shatter the invisible glass that has been placed between them.

  Olivia spent the previous day reminding herself that she wasn’t to reply when either of her parents spoke to her. It took a surprising amount of concentration to remember not to speak but already it feels so much easier, to not have to think about staying silent before offering no response. She thinks her mother will leave her alone now, but she doesn’t; instead, she leaves her task of hanging out the washing and goes over to Olivia, squatting on her heels to join her near the ground.

  ‘I don’t know whether your father has said anything to you,’ she says quietly, her face too close to Olivia’s, ‘but you do not mention anything about last night to Rosie. Understood?’

  Her mother waits; she won’t leave her alone without some form of response. She is too close, close enough that Olivia inhales the sickly-sweet perfume that has been sprayed upon her mother’s throat. Her make-up has been applied; she can see the evidence of foundation in the lines at her eyes and around the corners of her mouth. Regardless of everything that has happened, the mask is back in place and the show must go on.

  Her mother is going to leave until Olivia has offered an acknowledgement of her words, and so she nods, the most she is going to offer her.

  ‘Whatever you think of me,’ her mother continues, ‘Rosie hasn’t done anything. I don’t want her being upset or frightened by anything.’

  She stands and leaves, and Olivia feels the breath she has been holding since she swallowed a lungful of her mother’s perfume leave her in one long exhalation. It is typical of her mother, she thinks, to worry about Rosie and not give a shit about her. What about all the times she has been upset or frightened?
Who cared about all those times?

  Olivia would never do or say anything to frighten Rosie unnecessarily, though her mother doesn’t need to know this. Perhaps it is better that she lives with the uncertainty that at any moment Olivia might pull the rug from beneath her feet and tell Rosie everything, exposing their parents for what they really are. She feels powerful when she considers it, just how much control she has; control she never acknowledged before. She doesn’t need to do anything. Sooner or later, when Rosie grows older and wants to start living her own life, she will see for herself what their parents are really like.

  When she has finished her cereal, Olivia takes her bowl into the kitchen, washes it, dries it, and replaces it in the cupboard. She feels her father watching her again; she waits for him to speak, yet he says nothing. She goes back outside and heads to the end of the garden to sit with Rosie. As predicted, when she turns back to the house, her mother is at the patio doors watching her, her face as bleak as the skies above them, darkened with a silent warning, the kind that Olivia has seen so many times before. Olivia holds her stare, trying to keep her expression as vacant and as difficult to read as she can.

  ‘What do you want?’ Rosie asks, not looking up from the pages of her book.

  ‘Charming,’ Olivia mumbles.

  ‘Oh…you’re talking to me, then?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Well, you’re not speaking to Mum and Dad, are you? I heard them talking about it earlier.’

  ‘You shouldn’t eavesdrop. What were they saying?’

  Rosie tuts. ‘Well, if I wasn’t supposed to be listening, I shouldn’t really repeat it to you then, should I?’

  ‘Rosie,’ Olivia hisses through gritted teeth. She sighs and put a hand on her sister’s leg. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, regretting taking her frustration out on her.

  ‘It’s fine.’ Rosie stretches a leg in front of her. She is wearing black leggings that manage to make her stick legs look even thinner than they are. ‘They were just saying you were going through a phase, that’s all. That it’ll all blow over soon enough.’

  Olivia feels her heart rate quicken as anger pulses through her. Is that what they think of her, she wonders, that this is all some phase; that she’s just some silly girl who will snap out of it when she gets bored of playing her little game? They underestimate her. They don’t realise how much she knows or just how far she is prepared to take this.

  ‘You’re just like Dorothy,’ Rosie says, ambiguously.

  Olivia rolls her eyes and pulls her hand from Rosie’s leg. ‘Who’s Dorothy?’

  ‘The Wizard of Oz. Mum’s always saying how restless you get. But just remember, Olivia –’ And Rosie raises her hands and makes inverted comma marks with her fingers, the gesture managing to irritate her sister more than she could have anticipated. ‘There’s no place like home.’ She taps her heels together and gives Olivia a look that lingers longer than feels normal, some silent communication passed between them. Olivia knows what she is saying. She knows that Rosie understands. She smiles, but Rosie has already returned her focus to her book.

  Olivia glances back at the house, thinking that Rosie’s statement couldn’t be further from the truth. And yet, perhaps in some ways she is right. Maybe there really is no other place like this one?

  ‘What are you reading, anyway?’ Olivia reaches for Rosie’s book, ignoring her cry of protest. ‘A Dog’s Life,’ she says, looking at the cartoon on the book’s cover. ‘Bit babyish, isn’t it?’

  Rosie snatches the book back and gives a smug smile. ‘I’m enjoying it,’ she says, returning to her page. ‘It’s very educational, actually.’

  Olivia narrows her eyes. She shifts on the grass and looks over Rosie’s shoulder, her eyes darting to the top of the page. The Boyfriend is typed in the page’s header. Her eyes scan the contents of the page: he was everything she had been dreaming about and more…he threw stones at her window, waking her from her sleep…it didn’t matter that it was dark, when they kissed a million stars lit up the sky above them…

  ‘Give that here,’ Olivia says, taking the book back and pulling off the dustsheet. She smiles at the cover that lies beneath it, impressed by Rosie’s cunning. Perhaps her sister isn’t so daft, after all.

  Rosie smiles, proud of herself and the way she’s managed to fool their mother; she takes the book back again, returning the cover of A Dog’s Life to conceal the book hidden within. ‘How long are you going to keep this up then?’

  ‘Keep what up?’

  ‘Mum and Dad. When are you planning on talking to them again, then?’

  ‘I’m not.’ Olivia stretches her legs out in front of her. She is wearing jeans and a jumper, but she still feels cold. She wishes it was warmer. Rosie shuffles her bum to sit alongside her, copying her position by placing her legs alongside her sister’s.

  * * *

  ‘I’m almost as tall as you,’ Rosie says, tapping her left foot against Olivia’s ankle.

  ‘No, you’re not. We’re sitting down, it doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Why won’t you speak to them then?’ Rosie asked, refusing to let the subject drop.

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘You’re complicated, you mean.’

  ‘You don’t get it,’ Olivia says, moving her sister’s legs away from her so that they are no longer touching. ‘You think you’re smart, but you don’t get anything.’

  ‘I get that you don’t do what you’re told,’ Rosie says, and there is something so annoyingly smug in her tone that Olivia feels like ripping the book from her hands and tearing up the pages. She wouldn’t. No matter how infuriating her little sister is at times, Olivia hates it when Rosie cries. She is the best friend she has – the only friend she has – and she wishes they were closer in age, that they had more in common they could share with each other.

  Olivia pushes herself back along the grass and sits up, crossing her legs beneath her. ‘Neither do you, by the looks of things,’ she says with a smile, gesturing to the book. ‘And is that we’re supposed to do, is it? Just do as we’re told?’

  Rosie scrunches her mouth and looks up to the sky as she considers her answer. A mass of black clouds is rolling towards them from the east, chilling the air that circles them. ‘We’re just kids. So, I suppose so, yeah.’

  ‘No,’ Olivia corrects her. ‘You’re just a kid. I’m fifteen. In a few months I’ll be able to leave home. I could get married if I wanted to.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ Rosie says, taking obvious pleasure in the opportunity to correct her. ‘You’d have to have mum and dad’s permission. Unless you went to Scotland. I think you could get married there at sixteen. But you don’t even have a boyfriend, so I don’t think you’ll be getting married any time soon, will you? You can borrow this after me, if you like,’ she adds, waving the book in the air. ‘Maybe you’ll pick up some tips.’

  Olivia grits her teeth, trying to push back the irritation that her sister so often tries to spark in her. She can be so annoying, always having to prove herself right, taking enjoyment from making her older sister look small and stupid. Everyone in the house does this to her. Olivia feels like an outsider here. She always has, ever since she was just a little girl. Her mother and father would deny it, but they have always loved Rosie more than they love her. Sometimes, Olivia questions whether her mother loves her at all. She can’t put a finger on what she does exactly, but her mother just isn’t the same with her as she is with Rosie. Olivia has always been treated differently.

  She is different, she knows that. Olivia just hasn’t worked out why. And no matter what else may happen, she won’t let them turn Rosie against her.

  As though sensing the nature of her sister’s thoughts, Rosie reaches for Olivia’s hand. ‘You won’t go anywhere, will you?’

  Olivia looks down at their interlocking fingers, wondering why Rosie goes out of her way to annoy her when they so obviously need each other.

  ‘Of course I won’
t.’And despite everything she feels towards this place – despite the fragility that holds their life here together - she knows this is one promise she can make with certainty.

  * * *

  Dear Diary,

  I have met a boy. Well, not a boy, actually – he’s a man. He is handsome and funny and generous. I can’t stop thinking about him. Mum would kill me if she found out I’d been talking to him, but if I do things the right way then she never has to know. It will be like living a double life – how exciting is that?! I wonder how long I can get away with it. I’m glad I can tell you about him – there’s no one else to talk to. I wish I had a friend, a female friend, someone I could share my secrets with, but it doesn’t seem to matter so much now. I’m not alone anymore. He loves me and I love him. He might be able to help me escape this place, but in the meantime, he can stay our secret, just you and me.

  5

  Five

  Hannah

  * * *

  On Monday morning, Hannah walks the girls to school before returning to an empty house. Michael always leaves by 7.30am on weekdays, and by 9am Hannah is back at home, the rest of the day stretched out in front of her. Some days, these school hours pass as quickly as a weekend, her time filled with household chores and maintenance of the garden. She takes a pride in her home, and there is always something to be done: clothes to be ironed and put away, surfaces to be dusted; windows to be cleaned. Hannah has never been religious, yet she understands the phrase ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’. She couldn’t live a life of disarray; it would simply cause her too much stress. Hannah likes things to be structured and orderly; she likes to know where things are so that they can be easily located.