Closed Doors (18 page)

My granny thinks there is a storm coming for the McFaddens and I don’t like my granny for saying it because my ma will have caused that storm and won’t know how to calm the waters.

THE MCFADDENS ARE
back. Alice is beautiful and I can’t wait to sneak about with her, but her smile is smaller than it was before she left and she looks a little sad to be home. It is raining and so I don’t blame her at all. The new Mrs McFadden is ‘radiant’ according to Granny, and Da can’t help notice the ‘belly on her’. Mr McFadden is rolling his cigarettes and complaining about the food.

‘The baby didn’t like it either.’ The new Mrs McFadden smiles and pats her stomach. ‘Wherever is your Rosemary?’ she says.

‘Taking the dog for a walk,’ I say, which is a good lie until Frankie starts whipping about our legs showing us all up.

‘She must be back,’ says Da.

‘You all look really well. What a beautiful glow you have on you,’ says Granny.

‘Thank you,’ says the new Mrs McFadden. ‘I have a small gift for you all. I’ll bring it down later,’ she says.

‘Why don’t I pop round to your place?’ Granny says, trying to save the day.

Ma cannot see Mrs McFadden or she’ll die of guilt.

‘I’ll bring a nice cake and we can have a chinwag.’

‘Whatever you like,’ says the new Mrs McFadden but not without disappointment. She must notice Ma is never around when she is.

When the rain stops Alice comes out to hang around the Woody with her wellies on.

‘Hello,’ I say.

‘Oh hiya,’ she goes.

She has a stick and she’s running it across the grass.

‘Did you have a nice holiday?’ I ask.

‘Obviously,’ says Alice. She sounds like the old Alice, Dirty Alice, the girl who hates me and not the girl who rolled in the snow with me.

‘Make any friends?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘That’s great,’ I say.

‘A boy. Christos.’

‘Christos. Sounds like a girl’s name.’

‘Well, it’s not,’ she snaps.

‘So what did you do with Christos?’ I ask, even though I know what she’s going to say. My stomach feels sick with anxiety like Ma’s.

‘We’re friends and we’re going to write to each other, like pen pals. We had a good time.’

‘Is he your boyfriend?’

She doesn’t say anything for a minute and then she nods.

‘I like you too, Michael, but not like Christos. He’s more of a friend. You used to call me Dirty Alice and Christos doesn’t even know who Dirty Alice is.’

‘You’re Dirty Alice to me and always will be. So you can fuck off, Dirty Alice. For ever and ever. I’ll never say hello to you again and I’ll never look at you and I hate you more than anything in the whole world.’

Katie Calderwood shows up again. She is dumping a TV and all kinds of stuff. She hears me say ‘fuck’ again.

‘Is that you, Michael Murray, saying “fuck” again and in broad daylight? That’s it. I’m going to see your ma.’

And off she stomps. Now I know I’m for it. I walk home feeling sad and angry and fearful like Ma does.

Da answers the door and nods a lot at Katie. They both give me the dirtiest of looks. Katie walks away shaking her head in disgust. Da drags me indoors. He clips me about the ear. ‘Don’t be saying “fuck”, you hear me?’ I nod.

‘Can I go upstairs now?’ I say.

‘What do you want to go upstairs for?’

‘To play or something?’

‘Away you go but don’t be making any noise and enough with the bad words, OK?’ says Da.

‘OK,’ I say.

He goes to the kitchen and I hear him tell Ma and Granny I said ‘fuck’ to Alice. I hear Ma tell Da it’s his fault for having a mouth like a sewer. A little fight breaks out about who curses the most. No one wins although Granny wins a little bit because she goes to church and gets forgiven every Sunday for saying ‘fuck’ and ‘bastard’ and ‘shithead’. Da is forgiven because he sometimes goes to church, but Ma doesn’t go to church at all and is chosen as the worst swearer in the house with no one to forgive her.

I go to my room and feel so sad I could cry, but I don’t because that would make Dirty Alice the winner of love. I grab a pillow and shove my face into it so no one can hear me and yell, ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ I also punch the pillow as if it is her stupid Christos, who stole Dirty Alice from me. Then I see her Valentine’s card and her stupid talent show poster sitting side by side and I rip them up into a thousand pieces. I hate her card and I hate her poster. I hate Dirty Alice McFadden and hope she dies.

I am dizzy with all the punching and swearing and thinking of dying and I feel bad I hoped she would die. I don’t want Dirty Alice to die but I do want her to fall down or something and break a leg or hurt herself really bad and then she would need help with walking around and I wouldn’t help her. I would let her fall.

I feel horrible about Dirty Alice and I don’t know what to do and so I go to my ma’s room and think I will take one of her pills to make me less anxious and scared and fearful like she does and all the other things that go away when you take one. I sneak into their bedroom.

The pills are in an orange bottle and Ma has left the lid off. They have her name on them. Rosemary Murray. The bottle says, ‘2 times a day or as needed’. I think I need a lot and so I pour maybe four into my hand but then I think I see Ma only take one and so I take one for my first try and then another and then another and then another. I put the rest back, that’s when Ma shows up and sees me holding her bottle with the lid off. She starts to scream for Da.

‘Brian!’

Da knows the scream well and is pounding up the stairs followed by Frankie, who gets kicked out of the way. I hear him yelp.

‘What’s going on?’ yells Granny.

‘He’s taken the pills. Oh dear God,’ says Ma.

‘How many did you take?’ growls Da. He grabs at the bottle. He checks the contents. ‘Michael, for the love of Jesus how many did you take?’ He grabs my mouth, opens it and can see I’ve already swallowed whatever I’ve taken.

‘Two. Three,’ I cry. ‘I don’t know.’

‘We have to get him to hospital,’ says Ma.

‘Call Kenny’s da,’ says Granny.

Ma runs down the stairs followed by Frankie. She almost trips on him. ‘Would someone throw that fucking dog outside?!’ yells Ma.

Granny runs down and throws Frankie out the back, saving him from careless feet and boots up the arse.

I start to feel sleepy and my mouth feels dry. My legs go wobbly. I have to sit on the ground.

‘Get up, Michael. Get up!’ yells Da.

Da lifts me into his arms. ‘Stay awake, son,’ but I can’t.

The next thing I remember is throwing up into a bucket and I have a tube in my nose. It feels horrible and it hurts. I hear Ma crying like a baby and when I look up I see Da and Granny looking worried and a doctor looking angry. He is the new doctor. We call him Dr Mainland because he’s from the mainland and everyone hates him. Everyone preferred Dr Robertson, but he retired last year and is now living with his sister in Glasgow. He had been our family doctor for my whole life and gave us all lollipops whenever we came to see him.

‘You can’t leave those things lying around. That’s what medicine cabinets are for,’ growls Dr Mainland.

Paula Leighton who Ma went to school with is the nurse helping with the tube removal and silver buckets of vomit. She smiles awkwardly at Ma.

‘Will he be OK?’ Ma asks Paula.

‘He will,’ whispers Paula.

‘It’s fortunate for us all he didn’t take the whole bottle. I am referring this case to the social services. There’s something very wrong here. I’ve seen this boy twice in the past year and I am concerned for his welfare.’

Dr Mainland scribbles something on his clipboard.

‘He took a few pills by mistake,’ says Da. ‘What’s the big deal?’

‘And what I want to know is why? He’s twelve years old. He can read. He must have known what was in the bottle was forbidden. I’m sure you told him at some stage during usage.’

‘I was suffering from anxiety,’ I croak.

‘Anxiety? You see, this is what I’m talking about. What does a twelve-year-old have to be anxious about and what does he know about the word anyway? It’s not right. These pills are your responsibility and they’re certainly not something I’d prescribe.’

‘I get them from Greenock,’ says Ma.

‘Greenock?’

‘My doctor is in Greenock,’ says Ma.

Dr Mainland is suspicious. ‘It’s a very strong drug and the dosage is high. May I ask why?’

Dr Mainland pauses at Ma’s red face.

Ma looks to Da, to Granny, to the doctor and finally to Paula Leighton. She sighs.

‘I was raped.’

Dr Mainland’s face changes colour and I’m glad.

‘Would you like Nurse Leighton to take your son into another room, Mrs Murray?’ he asks and in a voice very different from the one he had been using on us before.

‘Michael knows everything. He shouldn’t know but he does. He can stay.’ Ma gives me a gentle look as if she’s sorry for everything in the whole wide world. I want to tell her it’s OK. Telling is for the best. Dr Mainland looks uncomfortable. I want to snigger at him for trying to send me away like I’m some big baby when I know it all.

‘I was coming home from work. I took a short cut through the park and that’s where he attacked me. I was in hospital here. I was badly beaten. There are pictures in my medical file. I made everyone think my husband did it, but he didn’t. It was a dirty bastard crawling through the park looking for stupid women like me taking short cuts in the dark. I got the pills from a doctor in Greenock. They help me sleep.’

Da sits on a nearby chair as if he might faint or something. I am stuck on a gurney with Granny holding my hand.

The promise has been broken, but Ma is the one who broke it. The secret is out.

‘Does anyone else know?’ asks Dr Mainland and with a true gentleness in his voice.

Ma shakes her head.

‘Did this rape happen before or after Louisa McFadden’s attack?’ asks Paula.

‘Before, a long time before,’ says Ma.

‘Then why didn’t you come forward?’ snips Paula. She’s all frost now.

‘I was afraid,’ hushes Ma.

‘Afraid?’ says Paula. ‘We’ve all been afraid. Every woman on this island has been terrified to death.’

‘That will be enough, Nurse Leighton, you can leave now,’ says Dr Mainland.

Nurse Paula leaves and with a bit of drama on her heels. Da holds Ma’s hand.

Dr Mainland taps his pen on the clipboard. ‘You know you have to tell the police, Mrs Murray.’

Ma nods and for the first time since the attack she does not cry when talking about it. Her heart is strong. Her mind is able. She is ready to tell. It’s over, I think. My ma has told the truth and everyone will know my da is not a wife-beater and what happened to Mrs McFadden also happened to my ma, but I am also afraid because Ma should have told sooner than this. She should have warned people and she didn’t; now I don’t know what will happen.

MA AND DA
come home late from the police station and miss their dinner. I am with Granny drinking hot chocolate in the kitchen because I have been in hospital and can do what I like.

Granny makes them something to eat straight away. Ma and Da tell her a special policeman from the mainland came over to talk to them. I can tell Ma and Da are very tired. No one even minds I am there and I am very quiet because I don’t want to remind them. It is a sad story they tell and I don’t know who to feel bad for the most because when Ma left the police station Mrs McFadden was waiting with Mr McFadden. They were being interviewed too about the rapist, but when Mrs McFadden sees my ma she walks right over to her and slaps her hard in the face.

‘She did not,’ screams Granny.

‘“We’ve all suffered here,” I told her,’ says Da.

‘“Fuck you, Brian,” McFadden says to me. “No one else would have suffered at all if your Rosemary had just told the truth. Women on this island would have known to keep themselves safe and my Louisa would never have been attacked. Shame on you, Rosemary Murray. Shame.”’

‘And who is he to talk of shame when he was living in sin with a pregnant woman?’ yells Granny.

‘Don’t, Shirley. It’s not the same,’ says Ma.

Ma sits down and reaches for the teapot. She pours Da a cup and then herself. Her hands are shaking. She offers the pot to Granny but Granny has had enough tea while she was waiting for them to come home and tell us the news. She pees a lot. Ma and Da both look like they have something to say but it’s Ma who says it.

‘They have him,’ says Ma.

‘Have who?’ says Granny.

‘The rapist. Who do you think?’ nips Da.

I am shocked to death.

‘Up in Glasgow. He’s killed two prostitutes already and left one barely alive. I’ve to go to Glasgow and identify him.’

‘And did the police tell anyone about the prostitutes? No they fucking didn’t!’ screams Granny.

‘It was in Glasgow, Shirley. No one knew he’d come here.’

Da rubs his face with his hands.

‘It’s the gold bracelet, you know. They kept going on about it. The weight of it. The feel of it. Then they brought out lots of other bracelets for me to look at.’

‘Did you see it, Rosemary?’ says Granny.

Ma nods her head. ‘I did. It had charms on it.’

The doorbell rings. It is Tricia Law on the doorstep. She knows everything on account of Nurse Paula Leighton being her first cousin and unable to keep her trap shut. Tricia grabs at Ma and hugs her like mad.

‘You should have told me,’ cries Tricia.

‘I couldn’t tell anyone,’ cries Ma.

Tricia stops hugging Ma and turns her attentions to Da.

‘Why didn’t you say something?’ nips Tricia. ‘I could have helped her.’

‘How?’ yells Da. He turns from Tricia and heads to the living room. He has no time for Tricia Law any more. I don’t blame him. Tricia breaks up families and fights with short skirts and black knickers at parties. Worse than that, she comes to your house and almost spits in your da’s eye.

‘I brought you some Juicy Fruit, Michael,’ says Tricia. I take the chewing gum but I don’t say thank you or give her a big smile like I used to. I follow my da and close the door behind me.