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‘Don’t,’ she replies in the same strangled squeak. ‘Don’t make me talk about this. I can’t. We are shameful. We are cursed!’
‘We are not cursed. I don’t know why you insist on this idiocy. You know the truth, plain as your head and toes and everything that lies between.’
The truth? I tremble. My questions are about to be answered.
‘Don’t you dare speak to me and – and—’
Ma’s words stutter to a halt. I see an impossible thing: Nana wraps her arms around my mother. She bears it a moment only. Like a fly trapped by a spider, she flails until she breaks free and dashes into the back yard, slamming the door behind her. I return to my bed and bury my head under the pillow. Awful words fill my head: thick as a ditch, lazy, shameful, cursed. Papa didn’t die. He ran away.
Next morning, I wake with knots in my hair and dirt beneath my fingernails as usual. I can’t go on like this. What’s more, I shall not. This morning will be different, I tell myself bravely. I am almost fourteen and I need answers. I will have them, if it’s the last thing I do. My hand trembles as I brush my hair. After tidying myself as best I can, I make my way downstairs.
Ma is out, as is Nana, which leaves me somewhat deflated. Lacking anything better with which to fill the time until they return, I peel potatoes for dinner. A while later, Ma comes in, knocking ice off her boots.
‘It’s coming on to snow,’ she remarks, somewhat unnecessarily. She removes her hat and slaps away imaginary flakes, not that one would be so foolhardy as to settle. I continue peeling. The stubs drop into the bowl and pile up like wet leaves. I clear my throat. I don’t know what to say, but I have to say something.
‘Ma,’ I begin.
‘What?’
Words find my tongue and spill. ‘I’ve heard you and Nana. Talking about me.’
‘Had your ear against the wall, have you?’ she spits. ‘Sneaky little madam. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times. Curiosity killed—’
‘Listen to me, Ma.’
‘Ma, Ma, Ma. You sound like a nanny goat.’
I pick up a potato and check for eyes. ‘I don’t know who I am. I just want to understand. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘No idea what you’re on about,’ she replies in the sort of voice that indicates she knows only too well.
I turn the potato in my hand, rubbing its face with my thumb. I dunk it, rinsing away the mud and find a wound in the flesh where it was caught by the spade. It is mouldy through and through. I won’t be put off – not this time. I hurl the potato to the floor.
‘Don’t you go wasting food,’ she mutters.
‘It’s rotten.’
‘Don’t get testy with me, young … lady,’ she says with a pause before the word lady.
I toss the knife into the bucket of slops. Water splashes on to the floor.
‘Then give me some answers!’ I cry. It is a dangerous question, but silence never gave me anything. ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
‘I want nothing from you.’ She grips my elbow and marches me across the room to the mirror. ‘Look at yourself.’
I regard my reflection in the yellowed glass. I’m nowhere close to prettiness, not by a country mile. ‘Looks aren’t everything,’ I say uncertainly.
‘What mother could love a face like that?’ She shakes her head, the staccato gesture of someone bothered by flies. ‘No one, that’s who. It betrays everything about you that is unwholesome. Unnatural. I should have thrown you out with the rest of the rubbish.’
This is not going how I wanted. There has to be a key to unlock the door to Ma’s spitefulness. If I can find the right words, I can speak them; the spell will be broken and she’ll soften. She’ll love me. Pathetic as it is, I still yearn for her affection.
‘Ma. All my life I’ve tried but there’s no pleasing you.’
‘You could never please me,’ she says, and stabs my chest with the point of her finger. Through the reddened skin the bone shows white. ‘Never!’
‘What did I ever do to make you so angry? Was it Papa running off?’
Her eyes stretch so wide open I can see the white around the iris.
‘What?’ she screams, shrill as a mill whistle. She jabs me with two fingers, then three, poking at my chest over and over, bunching her hand into a fist. I hold up my hands to shield myself from the blows. ‘Want to know why we argue about you?’ she cries. ‘You want the truth? Here it is. I hate you. From the day you were born, you’ve blighted my life. I never wanted you.’
‘Ma?’ My voice trembles. ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘Can’t I?’ she sneers. ‘Want to know what’s wrong with this family? You.’
‘No,’ I whisper.
She shakes my shoulder. ‘I. Was. Cursed. With. You.’
‘No, Ma.’
‘Lord only knows I tried to get rid of you. Knitting needles didn’t work. You were stuck fast like a pigeon up a chimney and I’ve had to put up with you ever since.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Am I? Ask your sainted grandmother.’
‘What?’
‘That’s taken the wind out of your sails, hasn’t it? Go on, if you’re so clever. Run and complain how cruel I am. She only pretends to love you. She hates you too.’
And with that, she lets go of me. I crumple to the floor. She has said many things over the years and I’ve suffered her insults, borne her tirades. This is the first time she’s used the word hate. Like a child who picks at a scab until it bleeds, I’ve provoked Ma into spewing out the truth. It has turned to ashes in my mouth. This is the mystery I sought to plumb: hatred, pure and simple.
By the time I raise my head, the room is empty. I remain curled on the rug. I try to imagine myself a cat: a beast with no worries other than to lick its paws and sleep. My stolid imagination fails me. I am a repulsive girl, unwanted by my mother. Neither use nor ornament.
I lie there a while longer. Some grain of hope remains that Ma may relent and return. The house is silent, as if holding its breath: no shouting, no pounding of her feet up and down the boards. I wonder what she is doing, or rather not doing. I scramble to my feet and press my ear to the wall. I take a glass from the dresser and return to my listening post. I hold the glass to the brick and listen. There is a faint whooshing, like wind through trees.
‘I know you’re listening!’ Ma yells. I stagger backwards, dropping the glass with a crash. ‘I hate you, do you hear? Get away from me!’
Very carefully, I gather up the fragments. I can hardly put them on the shelf: Ma might cut herself. I stow them in my pinafore pocket.
‘I’ve broken a glass, Ma,’ I say timidly. No answer. The hush is unnerving, far more so than the sound of complaints. ‘The big one, with the blue ring around the top.’
I don’t know what to do. I want her to come and tell me off. The glass is a favourite of hers. I can’t remember a time when she did not have it. Gingerly, I shake the splinters on to the tabletop. If I can find some glue, I can mend it. But there don’t seem to be enough pieces to make it whole again. I can’t understand why the edges of each shard are red, until I look at my fingers and find the answer.
As I watch, a dreamlike sensation creeps over me. My fingertips are oozing blood, but seem unconnected to the rest of my body. There is no pain. There is no sensation of any kind. It is not unpleasant. With the same cool detachment, I notice that my pinafore is stained crimson. I will have to use cold water when I scrub it. Hot water sets bloodstains hard.
Time slips through my fingers. I stand there for hours, or a few seconds. I have no idea how to keep track of the minutes, nor indeed the point of such measurements. Questions cluster at the fringes of my consciousness. Why does Ma hate me so much? Why can’t I feel my fingers?
I glance at the half-completed jigsaw of glass, turn and leave the room. Walk down the corridor to the front door. Try to take my shawl from the peg. It snags on the hook, impossible to untangle. I step outdoors without it. I do not expect a stroll to solve any problem. I simply wish to remove myself from anguish.
I know it’s a mistake the moment my foot strikes the kerb. I’ve never known it so cold. Slush the colour of pewter slops underfoot, turning my toes to stone. It is neither night nor day, rather a time balanced between the two. I glance over my shoulder. The windows of The Comet twinkle with a cheery welcome. It is false. I’d rather cut off my own nose than creep back in. I press my face into the shrill edge of the wind and set out, whither I neither know nor care. If I am missed, Ma will think it a cause for celebration rather than sorrow.
Hulme is the nearest thing to quiet I’ve ever heard. Snowflakes tumble from a leaden sky; spears of ice dangle from the gutters. Clouds roll overhead, slow and black as coal barges. I think of us beneath: twisting our light-blind eyes upwards, necks bent beneath iron rain, and the wind sharp enough to pierce you right through.
I pass a smattering of folk swathed in thick coats, scarves drawn tight under the chin, their breath steaming behind them in a foaming wake. No one gasps at my bloodstained apron, or remarks that I should get to the infirmary sharpish, that I’ll catch my death. As I go, the sensation of cold lessens rather than intensifies. It is most curious. I wonder if I am truly walking down the street or if I’m dreaming the whole thing. Perhaps I am still at home, this very moment.
Home. I laugh out loud, to a flurry of turned heads. I no longer have a home; that has been made clear. I walk on through frigid sludge, numbness rising from my ankles to my knees. Gradually, the snowfall peters out and I find myself at the gate of Whitworth Park. I peer through the bars. The paths are streaked with ruts where mothers pushed perambulators earlier that afternoon. Snow cloaks the lawns and piles in heaps upon the bushes, transforming it into a strange, smothered landscape.
How I scale the locked gate I have no notion, but in the blink of an eye it is behind me. The clouds peel away, leaving the sky clear. I make my way into the park, ploughing through the drifts. I find myself lying down. I must have slipped and fallen. My shoulder and elbow shriek. It appears that I can feel pain, after all.
I struggle to my feet and continue walking, trailing my fingertips along the hedges. Without any warning, I am on my knees. I must have fallen again. I don’t remember. My memory is as full of holes as a tea strainer. I examine my arms, sleeves rolled to the elbow from when I peeled the potatoes. The flesh is bluish. There is no longer any sign of bleeding.
The snow is as thick as a mattress and as inviting. Without thinking overmuch about what I am doing, I lie down and sink into feather softness. I cannot recall ever feeling so content. I wonder if this is happiness. If so, it is very agreeable. I will stay here. There is no shouting. No loneliness. No confusion. No pain. No hate.
I close my eyes. A distant part of myself knows I ought to feel cold. If anything it is the opposite. Something that is not precisely warmth, but very much like it, steals through my limbs. It is unbearably sweet. Tears spring, forming icicles. My head draws away from my body, my limbs also. I lose sight of them. I do not care. I am at peace. It has all stopped. All of it. So simple.
My heart beats. The thumping grows in intensity until my body is shuddering. I am a door and someone is knocking so furiously I am being shifted off my hinges. I smile at the peculiar idea. In the thunder I hear a voice.
You! You! Get up!
‘Leave me alone,’ I mutter and stick my fingers into my ears. If I can’t hear him, he’ll have to go away. I’ll be able to hide. I will, I will.
You can’t do this! he yells. Edie!
All I want is to fall asleep. But this creature won’t let me.
‘Let me stay here,’ I say.
Not a chance.
‘I’m happy.’
You’re not.
‘Am so,’ I whine. ‘Just a little longer.’
Bloody get up! he screams. We need each other. There is a pause. I need you, Edie.
A longer silence follows, so profound I can sense each snowflake in the quilt beneath which I lie.
It’s not fair. You can’t do this to me.
‘You’re not real,’ I mumble.
I’m Gnome, you idiot. Have you forgotten?
A chill cuts to my core, far icier than the burrow in which I’m buried. I shake my head.
‘No. You are all in my mind. Gnome is a bad memory. Ma says …’
My brain is being dragged awake. I try to ignore its spark and fizz, try to slip back into the delicious lassitude, but it nags and niggles and will not let me lie. I hardly know if I pull myself or am pulled out of the snowdrift, but emerge I do.
Now, I feel the bitterness of the weather and wish I didn’t. I look over my shoulder at the soft bed I have just left, but the voice lays on the whip and drives me forward. Each step is like walking barefoot on broken glass. I stagger to the gate of the park and this time, climbing over is torture.
I lurch along the street, shivering. People throw sideways glances, wrinkling their lips at this guttersnipe straight from the pages of a cautionary tale told to warn girls of what they’ll be reduced to if they stray.
There is nowhere for me to go but The Comet. It is not home, not in the way the world takes the word, but it is all I have. By the time I turn on to Renshaw Street it is past closing time and the windows are dark. My fingers are so stiff I can barely open the door. I cower in front of the kitchen range and listen to my teeth chatter, oddly loud in the quiet house.
The broken glass has been cleared away, the plates and cups on the shelf rearranged. There’s no sign it was ever there. The only proof I left The Comet is my sodden pinafore. Did I really lie down in the snow? Was I really waiting for – wanting to – My mind gutters like a cheap candle.
I can’t stay here for Ma to trip over me come morning. I tiptoe through the public bar. Papa observes me from behind his glass.
‘Did you leave because of me?’ I whisper. ‘Who are you, really? Who am I?’ He lifts a hairy eyebrow. I’ve always taken his expression to be sympathetic, but after this evening, nothing is certain. ‘Why am I talking to you?’ I sigh. ‘You’re a photograph.’
I climb the stairs. Nana calls out a sleepy greeting. I peel off my filthy clothes, promising whatever guardian angel is listening that I’ll wash them tomorrow. I crawl into bed. Arguments rumble through the wall. The sound is almost comforting.
‘Why me?’ Ma whines. ‘What did I ever do to deserve this?’
‘You’re a hard woman, Cissy. The child is going out of her mind.’
‘So she should be.’
‘A secret is one thing. Hatred is another.’
My door opens. I hear the smoky wheeze of Nana’s breath. The mattress shifts as she lowers herself on to the end of the bed.
‘You shouldn’t rile your mother, child,’ she sighs. ‘She takes care of us all.’
She speaks carefully, and I know it is because Ma is eavesdropping.
‘Yes, Nana,’ I reply. I lower my voice. ‘Why does Ma hate me?’ I whisper.
‘What sort of foolish notion is that?’ she replies, but will not look me in the eye.
‘Am I so horrible?’ I say, words thick with misery.
‘Lass. There is nothing horrible about you,’ she replies with great tenderness.
‘Then why …’ I sob.
‘Your mother has a difficult time of it,’ she continues. ‘She’s not strong, not like you or me.’
I’m strong? It is a strange idea. Nana stretches out her arms, draws me into the safe harbour of her lap and begins to sing.
‘See how she runs, she tumbles and falls,
She catches the sunbeams that come through the door.
