Tell Tale (23 page)

‘It’s all the good things God gave you,’ I replied as quietly as I could. Mr Leaby preached above us, his arms flying about in the pulpit. One of the male carers turned round and told me to shut up. I didn’t like him; didn’t even know his name.

‘But why do I have to count them?’

Betsy was nearly five. She knew some numbers and that B was for Betsy. She was slow to learn. ‘You just do,’ I told her. But she’d made me think. Why
did we
have to count our blessings? And what if we didn’t have any to count in the first place?

Then I saw Betsy peeling her fingers away from her palm, mouthing the numbers that she could remember. She stared up at the chapel ceiling, gazing at the dusty oak beams as she totted up her blessings.

‘How many?’ I whispered as the first hymn started.

She thought for a second and stared straight at me. ‘One,’ she told me. ‘I counted it over and over to make sure.’ She grinned.

‘One?’ I said into her ear. Her hair got between my lips. ‘What is it?’

‘You,’ she said.

The carers used the picnic as a week-long bribe to make us behave. After the service, if we’d been good and the weather was fine, we walked to the end of the bluebell wood where it opened into a patch of scrubby grass. Enough space for the girls to set out the rugs while the boys marked out a cricket pitch with their sweaters. If we were bad – and it only took one of us to step out of line – there were no tartan rugs, no packed-up food, no rustling packets of greaseproof paper to tear off the soft sandwiches, no plastic cups of squash that refused to stand up on the uneven ground, and no lazing around in the sun after we’d eaten. It would be at least another week until the prospect of fun loomed.

The picnics took place, I’d worked out, only about once a month. Lots of the boys were naughty, causing everyone to forfeit their fun. But when a picnic was planned, all the carers came along, even the ones that didn’t do much looking after. They were the ones who lurked in the rooms down the forbidden corridor, wearing dark suits, talking in deep voices, using words I didn’t understand.

‘What’s a conundrum?’ I asked Patricia.

‘It’s a mystery,’ she replied.

‘And what’s a predica . . . predictament?’

‘Predicament. That means a situation. Something you got yourself into. A pickle.’

‘And what’s assaulted mean?’

Patricia stared at me. She snapped closed the book she was reading as if I were the biggest nuisance out. She shook her head and went to sit under the oak tree along with some of the men carers I didn’t like. She whispered to them, glancing back at me.

Betsy crawled on to my lap and rested her head on my knee. She often slept after the picnic. Her belly was full of crisps and cake and all kinds of stuff that we didn’t usually get. They were happy days, those Sundays after chapel. As long as someone hadn’t been bad that week, as long as the weather was fine, as long as I could hear Betsy snuffling through the night, as long as no one was taken.

I’d never felt like this before. Was I ill? My head fuzzed up like cotton wool and my eyes wouldn’t stay open. It was sweets day. I’d only been able to eat a couple, and so stashed the rest in my cupboard. Soon afterwards I felt groggy, strange, as if I wasn’t me at all. I went to lie down on my bed. When I woke, it was the middle of the night. It was the music that stirred me. My belly ached and folded in from hunger. I’d missed supper. I’d missed the fuss and noise of bedtime, and I was still wearing my clothes. I sat upright. Had I heard someone in the room? In the half-light, I saw Betsy lying in the bed beside me. Breath puffed from between her lips. Her eyelids flickered.

‘Who’s there?’ A chink of light fell across the floor from the landing outside. The curtains were drawn, rippling slightly from the open window behind. I couldn’t see anyone.

There was music downstairs. A dull thud-thud. They were having one of their parties. Shrieks and whoops, overlaying the repetitive beat of the bass, pierced through the noise that we’d all learned to sleep through when the staff let their hair down. We liked it the next day, when they were all too tired and grumpy to be bothered with what we got up to.

The door suddenly opened and two figures were standing there, silhouetted by the light outside. I could see clearly that they were men. One had a bald head, one had shoulders the width of a house. I froze and my eyes stretched wide in the darkness, trying to see who they were.

‘Who’s there?’ I whispered.

A flashlight shone in my eyes, blinding me. Then a hand was over my mouth, forcing my scream back down my throat. His fingers smelled of cigarettes and his breath stank of beer. I was tangled in arms and strange smells as the other man helped hoist me from my bed. I kicked and pushed and would have bitten too, had my mouth not been smothered.

This is it,
I thought.
I am being taken by the night creatures. This is what it’s like.

I reached out for Betsy as I was half dragged and half carried past her bed. I cycled my legs, trying to break free. They strapped my arms round my body and manhandled me from the bedroom.

‘Thought you said she was dosed-up,’ one said. The other man grunted. His face was red and pockmarked from acne. He was young, maybe only nineteen or twenty. The bald one reminded me of my dad, and wheezed as he dragged me. His fat belly rolled over my legs as they carried me down the stairs and along the corridors. When we reached the forbidden passageway, the music got really loud. Some song I’d heard on the radio pounded my head.

‘No!’ I managed to scream as the hand on my mouth came away.

Then a sting as the hand skimmed my cheek. ‘Shut it, stupid,’ the older one said. ‘You want to get us all into trouble?’ They stopped walking and my legs dropped to the floor. I tried to run for it, but they still had hold of my arms. I ducked my head to bite one of them but I got knocked back against the wall. For a moment, I saw nothing; just heard a tingling in my ears, saw a bright light in my eyes.

‘Do as you’re bloody well told.’ He hit me again. I nodded frantically, praying he would stop if I did what they said. When the grip loosened, when they muttered between themselves, I legged it down the corridor, back towards the light at the end, back towards my bed.

Then I was on my face, tasting the dust on the floor. They dragged me back by my ankles. My clothes rode up and my belly burned as my skin rasped along the wood. I bumped over a door frame and was hurled into the room where the music was. I saw legs all around me, smelled the beer, heard the calls as I was rolled over, my top up around my shoulders. When I tried to pull it down, I was kicked in
the ribs. I froze, breathing in quick bursts. My eyes were unblinking, my mouth dry as chalk. I stared up and saw half a dozen faces peering down at me. Someone spat in my eye.

Then it all got muddled, out of order. I was suddenly naked, but don’t know what happened to my clothes. I stood shaking until my legs ached, worried that everyone was looking. I pressed my hands against my chest. I don’t know what came first – the laughing or the snap of the cane as my arms were hit down.

The chair was cold on my back and my wrists ached from the straps. I know I peed myself because I felt the warm pool settle under my bottom. The chair was tipped over, with me strapped in it. The wet ran up my back, soaked into my hair. Another few hits – some on my head, some on my shoulder, some from a boot. Some from a cane.

Then they ignored me. I was just left on the floor, bent through ninety degrees, the wood of the chair digging into my back. I shivered until my muscles ached. My eyes shot round the room, trying to take it all in, trying to figure out an escape. I saw Chef chatting with some other men. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. Why was he letting them do this to me? I thought Chef liked me. And there was the man from the village shop, where we sometimes bought sweets. The others blurred into anonymous faces.

Was this where everyone got taken when the night monsters came? I was sobbing; more scared than I’d ever been in my life. The straps cut into my ankles. The pain wasn’t pain any more. I wanted my dad.

They got on with their party. A
party?
I screwed up my eyes when I saw one of the men who had carried me from my bed kissing a woman. Patricia and Miss Maddocks weren’t there. I called out their names but got belted in the head.

Eventually, I gave up screaming, even when one of the men hauled me upright again; even when he removed the straps and forced me to stand. I couldn’t run. I was exhausted, groggy and fuzzy-headed. My legs wouldn’t work and I didn’t even care that I was naked; didn’t care about anything as the room spun around me. It was as if I didn’t have a body any more; it was just me in my mind, floating high above the room, wondering what was happening to that poor skinny girl down below as one of the men took off his trousers.

I saw her pain, watched the agony on her face. When she crumpled to the floor, he stretched her out again. The circle of onlookers clapped and cried out. There was blood. Her fingers and toes had turned blue, as if her veins had closed down. Her head flopped on a neck with no strength, and her heart struggled to beat slowly in her chest.

‘Don’t bring this one again,’ he said, zipping up. ‘She’s a menace.’

When I woke, I was back in my bed. Slowly, I turned my head to the side and saw Betsy’s profile – her little snub nose, the pout of her young mouth. I reached out and brushed my fingers through her soft hair. There they stayed, entwined in the locks, as I stared at the ceiling
through bruised eyes, counting my blessings as tears flowed silently on to the pillow.

I came back,
I said over and over in my head.
I’m one of the lucky ones.

The doorbell rang just as Nina finished tossing the salad. She would be cheerful, go some way to acting like a good hostess, for Mick’s sake. She would pretend she was busy in the kitchen, visit the toilet, hide in the bedroom for as long as she could get away with. The thought of socialising made her feel sick, even if it was going to help secure a better financial future. Mick had suffered the classic starving artist jibe for enough years now. He was good at what he did and deserved to be recognised. This was his chance. However wretched she felt, Nina refused to ruin it.

‘Right,’ she said, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She wouldn’t put the fish under the grill until they were nearly ready to eat. It would only take a moment to cook the thin fillets. ‘Set the table,’ she reminded herself.

She heard Mick let their visitor into the hallway. The man sounded brash as he greeted Mick – almost a shout. She heard the usual exchange of introductions, envisaged the handshake. But then it fell completely silent. Nina wondered if they’d gone to the living room, but when she peeked in from the kitchen, it was empty. Mick would be hanging up his guest’s jacket probably. She closed the door
again, not wanting to be watched while she was cooking.

Nina decided she would allow them to talk a bit more before she introduced herself. There was still enough to keep her occupied in the kitchen for another ten minutes or so. Then she heard voices coming from the living room, confirming they’d moved on. She hoped the dealer was looking at Mick’s paintings. There were several pieces hanging on the walls. Nina grew excited at the prospect of Mick selling work at prices he’d never imagined. They’d talked again of an extension, perhaps a new bathroom; even with everything that had happened, Nina held on to the dream. It was all she had left.

She pressed her ear to the closed door, straining to hear what was being said. They were talking so quietly – discussing time, passing years, she thought – but she couldn’t make out much. Mick was probably nervous, she guessed. He wasn’t the best at promoting his work.

‘Drinks right about now,’ Nina said, returning to the stove. She imagined Mick pouring from the decanter. She heard the chink of glasses and muttered toasts. ‘To Mick’s good fortune.’ She raised her own glass of wine. Something positive in all this mess, she thought.

Nina washed her hands just as Josie came into the room. ‘Will you set the table, love?’ She tossed some napkins at her daughter and opened the kitchen drawer. She rummaged through the bills, pens, and assorted oddments before finding her lipstick. In the mirror, she applied a coat of pale pink. It was Mick’s favourite. She wanted to bring him luck, even if she wasn’t having any of her own.

‘Do I have to?’ Josie grumbled, gathering the cutlery. She did it in spite of her protests, muttering that she’d only come down for some crisps, that she was talking to friends on Afterlife.

Nina stared at herself in the mirror and sighed. In the reflection behind her, through the door to the dining room, she saw Josie slowly arranging knives and forks on the table. A feeling grew in the pit of her stomach, a cross between rage, love and fear, and she had to clench her fists to stop herself lashing out. She wanted to smash everything up, destroy her life and everything in it before anyone else could. She shoved a hand into her pocket and pulled out the hairclip. She stared at it closely and then stuck the sharp end against the mirror. She dragged it hard against the glass.

‘Ow,’ Josie squealed as a knife dropped to the floor, jabbing her foot. ‘That hurt.’

Nina stuffed the clip back into her pocket, shaking, fearful, as if she had just caused her daughter’s pain. She glared at herself, trying to get a grip. ‘This is Mick’s night. Don’t ruin it.’

Mick paused in the kitchen doorway. Nina knew he was staring at her. When she turned, she thought he looked anxious, slightly pale. He was sweating.

‘Not going so well in there?’ Nina asked. She wondered if Mick was out of his depth, dealing with these London galleries.

‘It’s fine,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘I . . . I think we can
work things out.’ Mick reached for a glass and filled it with cold water. He gulped as if he hadn’t drunk for a week. When he’d finished, he said, ‘You look beautiful.’ He stamped a kiss on her cheek. ‘Thank you for going to so much trouble.’ He gripped her shoulders for a moment – the exact same gesture she had wanted to make to him – and went back into the living room without asking her to join them.