What You Wish For (5 page)

‘Thanks.’ She blew her nose and sniffed. ‘Are you all right to go on?’ Marie asked. Sally nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’

‘We understand,’ Marie said.

Sally blew her nose again and continued her tale. ‘The creatures, the aliens, stood around me and then a larger creature came into the room. He had the same head but he was taller. His uniform was blue and he was obviously in charge. He came up and looked down at me and said something to the others. Well, I assume he did because they started to scuttle about, but I didn’t actually hear him. Then he looked at me and I heard his voice in my head. It was a nice voice – soft and deep.’

Andrew nodded enthusiastically.

She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘He said, “It’s time to take back the gift.” I didn’t know what he was talking about but then I realised. He was talking about my baby.’ Sally knotted her fingers together. ‘I started to get panicky. I found I could talk back to him, using my mind. Like, telepathy? I said, “No, it’s mine. You can’t take it away.” The creature said, “It’s only half yours. Really, it belongs to us. Thank you for lending us your body, but this baby must be taken back to our planet.” I shouted, “No!” and he shook his head like he was sad, and then I blacked out.

‘When I woke up I was back in my bed and there was blood all over my thighs where they hadn’t cleaned me up properly. My baby was gone.’

She sobbed now, deep, anguished sobs that were distressing to listen to. Marie held her and Andrew patted her arm. I got up and left the room. I sat in the kitchen with the cat. I could hear Marie and Andrew talking to Sally, and then, about thirty minutes later, she left. Andrew drove her home.

Marie came into the kitchen, her eyes moist but with a little smile on her face.

‘What are you smiling about?’ I asked, unable to hide my anger.

‘She’s so lucky,’ Marie said. ‘She was chosen by a representative of the Chorus to have his child. One day they’ll be reunited and then they’ll be able to live together in happiness. Oh Richard, it’s so exciting.’

I was horrified. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? She’s had a miscarriage and to deal with it she’s dreamt up some fantasy about aliens stealing her baby. She needs psychiatric help. And you and Andrew do nothing but encourage her. You’re going to damage her even more than she’s damaged already. Can’t you see that?’

Marie’s eyes widened with shock. ‘I should have known,’ she said.

She turned and stomped through the hall and out of the front door, slamming it hard, making the glass rattle. I ran to the door and pulled it open. I looked up and down the road but couldn’t see her.

I went into the living room, followed closely by Calico, who jumped onto my lap when I sat down. I regretted my outburst. I should have been calmer, shouldn’t have shouted. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t angry. What right did Marie and Andrew have to encourage Sally’s delusions? Couldn’t they see how much harm they might cause? I grappled with myself – my love for Marie and my distaste for this aspect of her beliefs. All the time she was UFO-watching and surfing the internet, it was all harmless. But this was different. I would have to talk to her about it when she came home.

At eleven, as I sat with a sleeping Calico heavy on my lap, the front door opened and I heard Marie come in and go straight upstairs. I pushed the cat aside and jogged up the stairs. Marie sat on the bed. She smelled of alcohol and cigarettes.

‘Where have you been?’ I spoke softly.

‘I went to see Kathy.’

Kathy was one of her college friends who lived on the other side of town. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s fine. She was nice to me.’

I tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. ‘Marie—’

‘You don’t understand. You think I’m a fucking lunatic.’

‘I don’t.’ I knelt on the bed and put my arms around her and kissed the tear-tracks on her cheeks. She didn’t push me away.

‘We don’t want to hurt Sally,’ she said. ‘Or anyone. I know she’s had a traumatic experience. Andrew’s going to help find her a counsellor to get her help, to help her to deal with what’s happened to her.’

‘By which you mean that aliens took her baby, not that she had a miscarriage.’

She glared at me defiantly.

‘I know it’s difficult for you to understand, Richard.’ She paused. ‘I’m going to tell you something now. Maybe it will help you understand better.’

I waited.

She breathed in. ‘When I was fourteen my dad left home. He disappeared. He didn’t leave a note. He didn’t tell anyone he was going, not his friends, his boss, no one. He just vanished. Like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘My mum went out of her mind. For months she searched for him, tried everything she could think of, but she never found him. And do you know what? I was glad. It was what I’d prayed for. Night after night I’d lie in bed, eyes squeezed shut, hands clenched, praying.
Please take him away. Please. Please. Let him die. Anything. Just get him out of our lives
.’

I held her hand. I felt sick.

‘My dad was scum. Sick, violent scum. He used to beat us. Mum at first. She always had bruises and marks, burns where he’d lean across while they were watching TV and casually stub a cigarette out on her arm. He threw boiling water at her. He punched her in the face, knocked her teeth out, cracked her cheekbone. He broke her arm once. And she took it. She told everyone she’d had a fall – that old fucking chestnut. She cut herself off from all her friends, out of shame. She lived in terror, frightened to say the wrong thing or cook the wrong thing or make a noise when he wanted silence. And she insisted that she loved him, even when he started beating me.’

She spoke softly, evenly, like she was telling somebody else’s story. But I had no doubt that she was telling the truth. I could see it in her eyes.

‘I was only five or six when he started hitting me. I think I’d drawn on one of his books. He collected books on old motorbikes. He loved them more than he loved me. Anyway, he picked this book up and looked at where I’d scrawled across it in red crayon. I grinned up at him. I didn’t know I’d done anything wrong. He took the book – it was a heavy hardback book – and hit me in the face with it. I remember screaming, blood spurting from my nose, and him shouting, and my mum shouting at him, and then he dragged her into their room and I heard her crying. I thought it was my fault.’

‘Oh, sweetheart . . .’

‘It went on for years. And the worst thing was that between the beatings he could be so nice. He was so unpredictable. It was like you could never relax. Even when he wasn’t there, we were afraid of our own actions. You never knew how he would react. Like when we got Calico. A kid at school had kittens they were trying to find homes for. I wanted one so badly I said I’d have one, without asking my parents, and I took the kitten home, feeling elated but utterly sick and scared, part of me convinced that he would throw it out, or kill it. I tried to hide the kitten but it was too noisy. My dad heard it immediately. I braced myself, but he bent and picked up the kitten and stroked it and said, “What are you going to call him?” I was so relieved.’

I stroked her hair. I tried to imagine how she had felt. There had never been any violence in my home. Quite the opposite. Ours was a placid, repressed home, hidden emotions and feelings. Still, that was infinitely preferable to brutality.

Marie looked up at me. She reached into her shirt pocket and took out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. She lit one and exhaled slowly.

‘When I was twelve my mum announced that I was going to have a baby brother or sister. I was delighted. I was past that age where I’d be jealous of another child in the house and I really started to look forward to having a baby brother – I was convinced it would be a boy – to look after. The whole atmosphere in the house changed. My dad seemed to mellow; he fussed around my mum and started turning the spare room into a nursery. They asked me what names I liked.’ She smiled. ‘I really thought things had changed. I was wrong. I was fucking wrong.’

She took a hungry drag on her cigarette. ‘Because I was twelve, they thought I was old enough to be left alone without a babysitter and one night my dad took my mum out to the pub. I sat and watched TV. I remember it really well because
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
was on. It was the first time I’d seen it. It was almost finished when the door slammed and they came in. Almost as soon as they got through the door my dad pushed my mum against the wall and started shouting at her. He kept shouting, “Is it his? You slut!” All this shit. He said she’d looked at some man in the pub like she fancied him. He yelled all these accusations at her. I tried to run over to protect her and he punched me in the face. My mum screamed and he punched her, right in the stomach. I can see it now. I tried to jump on him and he kicked me away. Then he kicked
her
. He was shouting. Whore, slut, bitch . . .’

‘She lost the baby?’

Marie nodded. ‘The police came and tried to get a statement out of her but she refused. I was too young to do anything. When she was lying in the hospital bed I begged her. “Please don’t make us go back there. Let’s leave. Please.” But we went back anyway. And he was OK for a while. I guess he felt sorry. Then it went back to exactly how it was before. I just completely withdrew. This was when I first got interested in UFOs. When I came to believe. I kept praying that aliens would come and take my father away. Dump him somewhere with no atmosphere.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘So when he did disappear . . .’

She started to cry, the pain of telling making her convulse, pushing sharp tears out of her, like Sally just a few hours before. She looked up at me through her damp fringe. She said, ‘Hold me.’

A little later she said, ‘I would never take a miscarriage, other people’s suffering lightly. Do you understand that?’

I nodded. I still thought she was wrong to encourage Sally in her belief that her baby had been taken by aliens. But at that moment I was more focused on Marie’s pain. I resolved to talk to her about Sally another day. But I never did.

Life went on. The summer got hotter. My love for Marie got stronger.

Some nights we would go up onto the hill and lie on the grass, looking at the sky, Marie teaching me the names of the constellations. During the days, she accompanied Andrew on trips to visit the sites of corn circles. They visited fellow believers. I tried to distance myself from her professional life, as if it was a job I didn’t have much interest in. She didn’t bring any more ‘abductees’ home, so there were no more arguments about that. In fact, I didn’t really have much idea about what she got up to during the day.

Marie urged me to do something about the dead end my career was stuck in. ‘You need to pursue your dreams,’ she said. ‘Contact the big news sites and magazines, send them your work. Hustle. You’re good enough. Too good for the
Herald
.’

Spurred on by her encouragement, I set up a new online portfolio of my work and began to send links to picture editors. The fire of my ambition was rekindled.

The only blight in my relationship with Marie, apart from the submerged disagreement about her work, was that she wouldn’t let me take her photo. I tried to cajole her, asked repeatedly why. She refused to give an answer. I pointed a loaded camera at her and she put her hand up like a celebrity being pursued by the paparazzi.

‘If you ever take a picture of me, I’ll leave you.’

I smiled like she must be joking.

‘I’m being serious, Richard. I promise you. I’ll leave you.’

I lowered the camera. ‘But—’

She turned and left the room.

I didn’t understand it. All I wanted was one photo, just something to put in my wallet and look at when she wasn’t around. Something to show other people, all the other people who kept asking about this new woman in my life.

I sighed. I was sure, in time, I could persuade her.