Escaping Life (36 page)

“If only you
knew what she had seen, Elizabeth.”  His fingers dug into her shoulder.  She
was completely submissive.  She dared venture his words further.

“Daddy?  What
are you talking about?  What did Rebecca see?”

They hadn’t
heard me walk through the front door, but Mum
my
was expecting me.  It wasn’t unusual
for me to let myself in.  I still had a key and I always used it.  It had been
years since I’d moved out, but Mum
my
liked it when I still let myself in, like I did when I used to come home from
school, or from a late night out, before I got the apartment and when she
missed Elizabeth being around.  I did call out when I opened the door; I
shouted
‘
Mummy
’
, as I always did, but she didn’t
reply.  The kitchen door from the hallway was shut, but as I passed the grand
staircase that led up to the unnecessarily large number of bedrooms, and got
closer to the door, the muffled voices that I could hear on the other side grew
louder, and slowly they became so loud I could tell that they were shouting. 
It was hard to make out the words:  the kitchen was large and the door was pretty
solid. 
‘
Good old English oak
’
, Daddy had said when we’d moved into
the house when I was eight years old.  Granddaddy had died and the inheritance
had paid for part of it, apparently.  That’s what Mummy had said at the time: 
‘
Granddaddy has bought us a
big house so that we can live there forever!  Won’t that be wonderful?!
’
,
she had said, coaxing us to
the car as we sat on the steps, refusing to leave our old house that backed
onto our favourite stream and which was near to Kitty Winters, who lived only a
couple of houses away.  I never liked the new house; there were too many places
in it for people to get lost in.  There was too much isolation; you could walk
through five rooms before you found anyone.  I had much preferred the old one. 
Betty, too.

I stood pressed
up against the English oak door for a few minutes.  Mummy was screaming about
how something wasn’t important, that it didn’t matter.  I could hear the words ‘investment’
and ‘loss’ and ‘equity’.  They were familiar words to me; they could have been
talking about my job at the bank.  I couldn’t make out the whole conversation,
and there were many words too muffled to hear properly;  muffled like static on
a television when the programming ends, and all that’s left is the crackle of
the black and white screen.  I used to love that time of the day, as a child. 
If I woke up in the night, I would creep downstairs with my torch and make
myself a strawberry milkshake and a cheese sandwich.  I knew at this time that there
would be no television, no radio.  It was just me and the world and I would
pretend that I was a princess living in a huge house all alone, waiting for my Prince
Charming.  It was as if nobody else in the world was awake.  Sometimes, I would
turn on the television, just to check, with the volume turned down really low. 
The noise would hiss out of the speaker like an alley cat startled by a late
night walker, and I would sit on the settee clutching the remote control that
was connected to the television by a plug-in wire and flick through the
channels, just to make sure I was truly alone.  Sometimes, it was as if you
could make out words through all that static, as if somebody was inside the
television trying to talk to me.  That’s what this conversation sounded like. 

I could hear my
m
other’s words rushing from
her mouth in fits and starts, like an erupting volcano.  The entire time Daddy
was bellowing above her, as he had with me, when I’d dared to venture a counter
argument during one of our little chats.  That’s how I’d got the black eye, the
final time a chat like that was permitted.  I had heard them argue before, but
this was Olympic in comparison.  It sounded as if Mummy was crying. 

I dropped my
bag onto the hallway table in the middle of the room and where Mummy always
displayed freshly cut flowers.  Today there were daffodils, the first victims
to be cut from her garden, no doubt.  As I made my way through the double doors
that led to the living room, I pulled back the sliding doors that led through
to the dining room.  I couldn’t hear anymore shouting; the voices had stopped; the
television was playing.  It was a game show:  something unremarkable and
suitable for lunchtime viewing.  I was starving, and although I was worried
about the fight that I could hear, I was hoping that it hadn’t prevented Mummy
from making her famous fresh chicken salad sandwiches.  She always put too much
pepper in for most people’s taste, but I loved it that way.

Once the
shouting died down a little, I decided it was safe to go into the kitchen.  As
I swung open the door, I couldn’t help but scream.  All common sense would have
told me to shut up and back away as quietly and as undetected as I had remained
during my entrance.  He was straddled on top of her and her foot was shaking. 
My first thought was, what has this intruder done with my
f
ather?  Where has he put him?  Has he
already hurt him?  Why isn’t Daddy here beating him off?  He must have hurt him,
I thought.  The thoughts raced through my brain at the speed of lightning.  He heard
my scream and immediately turned round and saw me standing there staring at him
on top of my
m
other.  It was then that
the bolt from the lightning hit me.  It
was
my
f
ather; it was
him
on top of
her, his hands in front of him and not visible to me, those very hands that had
wiped my tears and held me tight as he bounced me on his knee when I was small
and before Elizabeth was born, yet his face was full of rage and his long bony
nose was pointing angrily in my direction.  His eyes were wild and fixed, like
the eyes of a lioness with its prey in its mouth, its jaws shaking whilst its
next meal twitches and dies slowly underneath her, all the while her jaws constricting
and squeezing.  He pushed his hands quickly and sharply into her neck with me
just standing there watching, stiff like a plank and waiting to be walked all
over.  Suddenly, and in one sharp movement he was up like Goliath, my
m
other the slain victim beneath him,
limp and lifeless and her clothes crumpled up from where she had fought for her
last breaths.  My next thought was to run.  I had only to make it through two
rooms and I would be back out in the street, but as I stepped back, the heel of
my shoe caught on the rug and I slipped backwards.  He dragged me through to
the kitchen by my hair and dumped me forcefully next to her body, her open eyes
staring at me as I turned to look at her.  I didn’t struggle much, or make a
sound; I had hit my head on the floor as I fell.  I felt faint, like there was
a whirlwind in my head as the world whipped by in front of me.  Anything real
or solid passing me by would have surely ripped my arm clean away from my body
if I had tried to snatch at it.  I watched him as he paced back and forwards,
panting as he walked first left, then right.  He would stop and stare at me,
and on a couple of occasions he started to walk towards me.  I was so frozen
with fear, I couldn’t move.  I could barely feel my body, the only part of it
working my eyes, as they followed him back and forth.  I kept thinking:  he killed
my
m
other
,
he killed my
m
other, my
f
ather killed my
m
other.  Then he was coming at me
again, and he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled my shoulders up off the
ground.  He spoke slowly, his saliva spraying my cheek as he spat his words out
at me with the same harsh venomous spite of a Black Mamba, his deathly black
eyes hollow pits against his grey white skin.  He grabbed my chin gripping it
tightly, and pushed it in the direction of my dead
m
other.  His face was as close to mine
as it could be.  I could feel his breath on me and could smell the coffee he
had drunk only an hour before, when my
m
other and I still had believed that if
my
f
ather was around, no other
person could harm us.  I guess in some way that was still true.

“You see what I
will do?”  It was my
f
ather speaking.  It was his
voice.  But there was an evil inside of it that I had never heard or imagined
possible before, not even when he’d struck me on the side of the head and given
me a black eye.  “You best keep your fucking mouth shut, otherwise that
precious little Betty of yours…..”  He held the sentence long enough to make
the implication.  He felt me squirm underneath him and I felt the grip of his
fingers on my face tighten and the pressure of his knee as he dug it into my
side.  He didn’t need to say anything else, but he said it anyway:  “I’ll choke
the fucking life out of her just like I did to this bitch of a
m
other of yours!”

There wasn’t a
bone in my body that didn’t believe him.  I had just watched him throttle her
as she’d kicked and twitched beneath him.  I didn’t doubt his promise. He told
me not to go anywhere.  He told me that Betty was safe as long as he was.  I
crawled into the corner of the room.  I held on tight.  I didn’t know what else
to do.

“Daddy?”
Elizabeth repeated, more cautiously this time, her voice quivering like jelly
at a birthday buffet.  “Tell me what she saw.”  He stood over her, his grip
still rigid on her shoulder, which was beginning to throb like a thumb whacked
with a hammer.  He wasn’t speaking anymore, but she was sure that he was
crouching over her, closer now.  She thought about pushing him back.  The oven
was behind her and surely, if she could just push him hard enough he would
smack his head on the glass door and that would give her enough time to either
run out through the front door, which she was pretty certain was unlocked, or
get out of the back door and make it round to the front of the house before he
could get up and follow her, or cut her off. 
Yes, the door is definitely
unlocked at the front of the house.
  But she knew that she wasn’t strong
enough to push her
f
ather back; he was a big
man. 
Impossible. 

Perhaps, she
thought, if she could kick his legs out from the side of him with enough force,
surprise him like he had done so to her a few minutes ago, strike like a snake
hidden in the bush camouflaged by her own supposed weakness of stature, she
could make him stumble just enough for him to loosen his grip on her shoulder
and she could break free and run for outside.  She could lose him on the cliff
top path.  She remembered his sweaty beetroot face, puffing and panting when
they had climbed the stairs to get to the godforsaken flat that Rebecca had
been living in.  She knew that she could outrun him, and she knew the ground
well.  There were hiding places all along it.  Perhaps she could kick him
between the legs? 
Yeah, that would stop him!
 She had used that trick
before, when a high school fumble had got too sure of himself, and he certainly
hadn’t raced after her.  The trouble was, he could see her thinking, and he had
already dropped to the ground, his full weight on top of her, her legs crushed
by his hips and her flailing arms doing nothing to subdue his strength. 

“You want to
know what she saw?  I’ll show you what she saw!”  He was moving his knees and
his free hand was grappling for her arm as it swung back and forth in a panic. 
He struck, and her wrist was caught firmly in his grip.  He pushed her hand
down and secured it with his left knee.  His right hand was still gripping her shoulder
and his knife-like fingers, as they pressed into her flesh, were enough to keep
that arm in place long enough for it to become trapped by the other knee.  She
was stuck; he had her pinned down.  She was trapped.  Her throat was dry and
scratchy and her heart was still pounding along.  ‘BOOM’.  ‘BOOM’.  ‘BOOM’.  It
beat at a faster and faster pace as it raced along. 

“Help!” she
screamed, loud and shrill and as powerfully as she could.  “Help!” she repeated,
coughing because she was screaming so loudly.  He was talking over her,
ignoring her cries.  She wailed and wailed, interrupted by spluttering coughs
as she yelled out her screams.  She wasn’t listening to him, and every time her
screams got louder, he would just talk over her.
  His weight was making it hard to
breath.

“You wanted to
know!  You wanted to know what she saw!  I’m showing you what she saw!”

“Help!  Help me,
pleeeeaase!”  She didn’t hear him speaking.  She didn’t want to know what
Rebecca had seen anymore.  She just wanted to get away.

“They won’t
hear you.  Who do you think …”

“Heeeeeelp!”

“… is coming? 
Who Elizabeth?  Who will hear you?” 

“Heeeeeelp me,
pleeea…!” her words trailed off into tears, her throat dry and bruised from
screaming so hard.  He could hear her squeaking and sobbing underneath him. 

“You weren’t
listening to me,” he said, his words laced with aggravation.  “Have you calmed
down yet?”  He was talking to her in the calmest of fashions, her body limp
underneath his weight and no longer fighting.  Her arms were still compressed
underneath his knees, her hands blue from the pressure of retained blood.  He
saw this and eased off his knees slightly.  “There you go, that’s better,
yes?”  She didn’t feel the difference.  “Your
m
other told me that she would tell the
truth, Elizabeth.  Your bitch
m
other would have told the
bank.  We would have lost everything.  The house, the car, Rebecca’s apartment
- everything would have been gone!  I couldn’t let her tell the truth.”  She
was listening, albeit intermittently through her own tears.  It was almost
unbelievable. 
Was she really supposed to believe this?
  “Rebecca was
never supposed to come home that day.  I didn’t know she was coming to meet
that bitch.  I thought she was dead too.  Imagine that, Elizabeth.  Having to
believe that your own daughter killed herself because of you.  Imagine it.  Are
you listening?  I said, we would have lost everything!”