Innocents (17 page)

Waiting for my answer, he'd regard me with a sharpness, an alertness, that I found discomforting.

I didn't care if he knew about us; not exactly. I wasn't afraid. Just slightly uneasy. I saw the way my jumpiness made you jumpy. You took to standing behind me as I sat reading, massaging my shoulders.

I screwed them up. I made them tense.

‘Okay?’ you asked.

‘What?’ I said, distracted.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Fine.’ On the spur of the moment, fine didn't mean fine at all. It meant stressed as hell. I was exploiting an important insight: the genuinely young and immature all have a burning desire to be thought of as grown up, to think of themselves as mature.

‘Tell me, baby.’

I made as if to read my book. ‘Nothing.’

‘It's not nothing.’ You stood awkwardly, obliged by your worry.

Thinking rapidly, I discounted the idea of pouting babyishly, and instead turned to face you for the moment of my declaration. ‘It's Mr Harrison,’ I said.

My line was soap-opera perfect: sharp, clear, dramatically delivered. Your puzzlement was exactly the right reaction, too.

‘What?’

‘He knows!’ I said, underscoring the intensity, the seriousness of the situation with the crispness of my concerns. The book lay forgotten on my lap.

‘He doesn't know.’

‘He gives me funny looks.’

‘You're imagining it.’

‘He's always
asking
me things. He
watches
me.’ I said it almost pleadingly, at last allowing the vulnerable little girl beneath the grown-up act to show through. It was a master stroke.

‘Oh, baby,’ you said. I just kept looking up at you with this uncertain expression on my face, as though to say, Tell me, tell me, I don't understand.

I decided to stand up. I let you fold me into your arms.

‘Oh, my darling.’

‘What?’ I allowed the sound of imminent tears to appear in my voice. I let my little body go rigid, quivering, in your embrace.

‘I told him about your parents.’

I pulled away. ‘What's
that
got to do with it?’

‘I shouldn't really …’ you demurred.

Scenting a secret, I instigated procedures to find it out. ‘What?’

‘I shouldn't say.’

I wasn't going to let you stand there with that look of abstract importance on your face while I floundered about in ignorance. ‘You can't not
say
! Not when it's this important! It isn't fair!’ Hands on hips, I stamped my foot.

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ you soothed me, worriedly. ‘It's nothing bad. It's nothing bad about you.’

‘I've been so worried!’ I insisted, gratified.

You took a deep breath. The look on your face was familiar—the tension of having to explain to a sheltered child about something terrible. I was on safe ground now.

‘
What?
’

‘He killed his sister,’ you said simply.

That surprised me. ‘What?’

‘He didn't
kill
her. He was driving and they had an accident. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt. It was ages ago.’

I thought, Ho-hum. So now he's got a weird thing about the children of car accidents. Simple.

I was very careful not to let this matter-of-fact emotion show in my reply. ‘So … you mean, he feels responsible for me?’ I said, wonderingly. ‘Because he was in a car crash?’

‘He feels responsible for a lot of things, I think.’

‘He doesn't seem like someone with a terrible burden.’

‘No. He used to joke about it. He'd apologise to us—we had to drive him everywhere. Someone would say, “I think we're gonna be late.” And he'd say, “Better late than dead on time.” Just stupid things like that. And we'd all laugh.’ Your eyes were troubled.

I moved to shift the focus of your sympathy back onto me, where it belonged. ‘I'd really rather’—my voice was the model of emotion mastered by a huge effort of will—‘you didn't say anything. To people. About …
you know
.’

‘Oh, darling—!’ I'd struck a rich vein of guilt.

Quickly, I added false courage to my act. ‘It's all right!’ I insisted, my lips twitching, belying the vulnerability beneath my bravery. ‘It's just a bit … y'know. I'm a bit sensitive about it. But then it seems wrong, doesn't it, to ask people for extra sympathy because of …? So I'd rather they just didn't know.’

My denial of any need for extra sympathy had exactly the opposite effect on you. I knew it would. You pulled me tightly to you, your fingers splayed across my shoulder-blades.

*

After that, Mr Harrison's history was obvious in every step he took. I watched him parading ridiculously around, locked within his own private Santa act, working every moment, arranging shelter for the boy whose parents kicked him out of home and introducing a remedial maths course and attending the endless mediocre school drama productions, clapping loudly after every scene.

I could smell it. I could taste it on my tongue.

It was interesting to watch; but, to me, slightly ludicrous, faintly appalling. Imagine allowing just anyone to see inside you, to see how you worked. He was like one of those toys where you can see the clockwork, and you know how every last cog turns.

I couldn't believe how close to the surface you adults wore your griefs. If I could hear echoes of this death in his every word, what must his secretary see?

I knew you had a secret too.

I was watching you every minute.

Even as I pranced around, pretending to be a carousel horse, singing to myself at the top of my uninhibited voice, I was monitoring you with all my peripheral senses. I was waiting for the incomparable sensation of those green eyes burning into me, seeking solace, seeking comfort.

We had been playing Trivial Pursuit on the living room floor. You were letting me win—hinting outrageously, and giving me three guesses at every question. I lay with my chin on my forearms. My bare feet dug around at the edge of the rug. My toes played with the fringe.

‘How did Marie Curie die?’ You sat rather stiffly on the floor, your back against the sofa.

I knew the answer perfectly well. I pursed my lips and pretended to be figuring things out with slow movements of my lips. ‘She … blew herself up with an atom bomb.’

‘No, my darling. Think about … nuclear accidents.’

‘Stop hinting! She—she she she—was getting up one morning when she slipped on a banana skin and fell over and impaled herself on a Geiger counter.’

‘Very, very close. Think about Chernobyl.’

‘Bipp … bipp … bipp, bipp, bippbippbippbipp …’
I imitated the Geiger counter with my hand too, tickling you under the arm. Your cheeks grew round and coy as you giggled, slapping at my hand.

‘Stop that! How did Marie Curie die?’

‘I dunno. Radiation poisoning? Leukemia?’

‘Clever baby! A piece of pie for you!’

The telephone rang.

You reached easily across to the little low table on which it sat, and fished up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

Your attention was irrevocably elsewhere. I laid my head on your thigh.

‘No.’

With my cheek, I felt your leg tense.

I lay and strained myself, listening, alert for any clue.

‘No,’ you said again, and hung up.

You acted normal, but there was an edge to you, a distance, that drove me mad.

A few nights later, as you climbed into bed next to me, I awoke from a feigned sleep, and took my thumb out of my mouth.

Sucking my thumb was my new gimmick. I'd been planning it carefully while you sat watching a French film downstairs: how you would enter the room, tiptoeing heavily, trying not to wake me. How you'd see me curled into a ball, thumb in mouth, and smile at my sleeping form. How I'd awaken gradually, stretching. How I'd look at my thumb, embarrassed to be caught in so flagrant an act of babydom. How you'd be charmed.

Childishly, I rubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands.

But some beast outside was spoiling my performance. A dull caterwauling drifted up into our bedroom from the street below.

You sat, frozen, head cocked, listening intently.

I yawned expansively. ‘Hey, baby,’ I said, sitting up a bit, so that you could see my breasts. The sight of my perfect, unashamed nakedness often stirred you to a display of affection. I held my shoulders back carefully.

You smiled at me, but you were distracted.

Somewhere outside, footsteps shuffled along concrete. They were too obscure and monotonous to locate. Your eyes darted this way and that, like goldfish in bowls. You weren't looking at me. Your attention was elsewhere. Some passing party guest was ruining my show.

Suddenly, you started violently. From outside came the sound of glass shattering, and a river of guttural, undefinable oaths.

‘It's just someone going home from the pub,’ I said.

‘Mmmm.’ You were hardly listening to me, all your attention concentrated on the darkness outside the window. In the lamplight, you were agleam with tension, like a deer that's caught the scent of dogs.

There was a shuffling and a scuffling, but they were quieter now.

‘Or some drunk old man.’

You nodded briefly, still listening. The strange noises receded into the night.

‘I'm going back to sleep,’ I announced, lamely.

‘Mmmm,’ you said again.

I really did drift off. I was very tired.

Uncertain hours later, I woke fleetingly in the night. You were lying stiff as metal, eyes wide open. You didn't try to touch me with an extended hand or leg. You didn't press your flank against mine as you usually did, keeping alive our contact even through our separate sleeps.

You were thinking of something else.

On my way to school next morning, I saw shards of green glass catch the sun like ragged emeralds scattered along the side of the path.

All day, I burned with curiosity and wild jealousy. I couldn't bear you to have this retreat, into your preoccupation. I needed all your attention.

That evening, I jumped the side wall and let myself in through the back door, as usual.

It was obvious in an instant that something was badly wrong.

In the lounge room, you were sitting on the floor, your back against the couch, long legs flung out before you anyhow. Your suit was rumpled. One trouser-leg had ridden up almost to the knee. Your leg between the sock and the suit looked skinny and juvenile.

You weren't exactly crying. You had one knuckle in your mouth though, and your eyes darted with terror.

There was a scratching knock on the front door. There was a
tap-tap-tapping
, like mice in the roof.

‘Aren't you gonna let me in?’ wheedled someone on the outside.

You looked down into the palm of your other hand, lying on your knee. You were white-pale, trembling. You shifted your hips against the couch, willing the room to swallow you.

I was on my knees and by your side in a second, whispering ‘Who is it?’

You couldn't say. Your wise mouth wouldn't open. You couldn't meet my eye. I looked on your bent head—on the locks of hair falling over your face—and wondered what this could mean.

The tinny scratches turned suddenly violent. Thud thud thud went a fist on the thick wood.

‘Let me in!’ The voice was deep now, demanding.

‘Who's at the door?’

You turned red despairing eyes on me. Your voice was hoarse. ‘Don't let him in.’

‘Okay.’ I was calm. I was serene. I took your cheeks between my hands and brought my face right up to yours. I whispered fiercely three times, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you’—making the words holy with my deliberateness. They were an invocation. They were a solemn promise.

Then I went to the door and opened it.

On the step, one fist upraised to knock again, stood a middle-aged man whom I disliked on sight. His face was whisky-weak. His eyes criss-crossed with vodka lines. His jowls descended to his collar. He wore a St Vincent de Paul suit, threadbare, faded in patches. He was a mass of flab, standing to unnatural attention. He was like a slug that had been on a deportment course.

He looked me up and down before he spoke. ‘Hello.’ He sounded like the stranger offering lollies in the playground.
Hello, little girl
. ‘Where is he?’

I was relieved to find myself unafraid. ‘He doesn't want to see you,’ I said, crossing my arms, leaning against the door-post, barring the way.

‘But I want to see him.’ He threw the words over my shoulder into the house, aiming them at your invisibility like spitballs.

‘Go away.’ I was as unflinching as a fishwife. I looked him in the eyes. He wasn't my problem. He wasn't
my
nemesis. He wasn't
my
childhood nightmare, come gloating from the past.

He pursed his lips at me, blowing wet carp-kisses towards my face. ‘Don't be like that,’ he wheedled. I smelled sourness, old clothes, old man, alcohol. ‘I just want to
see
him. I just want to say
hello
.’ There was a pouting petulance to his words. He reminded me of an ageing drag queen.

‘Look,’ I said, mustering all the obstinacy in my face, ‘you can either fuck off now, on your own. Or you can wait until after I call the police, and leave with them.’ Some clinging vestige of a long-forgotten television drama made me add, ‘Got it?’

‘Oooh-hoooo.’ His face mocked my stance:
Think you're tough, little girl?
But his fat fingers crawled into fists and the fists crept into his pockets, where it was safe. He shuffled backwards. Again he aimed words past me. ‘I was just paying a
social call
.’

I was a stone bureaucrat, reading him his rights. ‘Right. That's it. I'm calling the cops.’

I'd never said ‘cops’ before in my life.

This time, he took two steps backwards, to the edge of the porch. ‘Okay,
okay
.’ A high nervous giggle snaked out from between his big lips. ‘Just tell him I said
hello
. If it's not too much
trouble
.’

He turned then, and ambled down the path. His back was insolent, his plump rear waggling ostentatiously.
Fine then, I'll go
. His steps, however, were hurried. His footsteps stuttered. One of his shoelaces trailed stupidly behind one of his shoes, like a string of tin cans rattling behind a hearse.