short story
WRITTEN:
1994, 27 years
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I composed this for a short story competition run by a magazine. The word limit was either 3,000 or 5,000 and there was no set theme. I have trouble writing to a word limit as I like to explore assorted aspects of the characters and setting that appeal to me, even if these don't contribute significantly to the overall plot.
The characters are based on myself and a cousin as children, my mother and a friend of hers. The sisters each have some characteristics of myself and my cousin (ie overlapped), and I am not going to elaborate beyond that. The mother doesn't bear much resemblance to mine and the friend bears only superficial resemblance to her inspiration. The surrounds are based on a real house and a real beachfront community and on my childhood experiences there.
I'm really rather proud of this story, as I feel I have developed the characters to my satisfaction in spite of the original limitations. Shortly after I finished this I started writing a sequel, set in Julia's present (the narrative is a flashback, although I didn't want to make that too obvious in the writing), which unfortunately has gone AWOL, otherwise it would have been grafted onto the end of this to make a longer piece.
WEBMASTER'S NOTE:
There is an addendum to the background of this story, written a few years later, following someone's feedback to the author. As reading this additional background (largely comprising an explanation of the characters' underlying motives) would rather spoil the story, it has been included here as black text, rendering it effectively invisible. If, after you have read the story, you wish to read the additional notes, simply scroll back up to this point and highlight the left-hand column from the point after this paragraph. You will then be able to read the author's additional notes.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
I have a cousin, G, who is 18 months older than me. When we were kids, both her parents used to tour with an orchestra and she used to come to stay with us for weeks at a time, several times a year. Being somewhat starved of "quality time" with her own parents, G needed constant acknowledgement of her achievements and abilities and was constantly running to my mother to show her every little thing she did. Thus, when I sat down to write for the competition, I was thinking along the lines of using experiences gained in that part of my childhood and early adolescence I shared with G, and to couch it in such a way as to distance myself from it.
Julia manifests my childhood contempt for G in her contempt for Alyssa, but Alyssa is more like the timid child I was, a child who would keep her mouth shut for a lot longer than other kids, even in the face of extreme provocation, altho it is Alyssa who is the character clamouring for attention. But wouldn't you, if you had a sister like Julia and a mother like Mary?
Mary isn't much based on my mother at all. My mother isn't a table-rapper, nor does she smoke, tho she is a fairly "accomplished" drinker (in the same way as one would say "he is an accomplished flautist"). She doesn't speak Dutch but can manage reasonable German if someone slowly converses in it with her for a while first. My mother does have that irritating way of being dramatic and the "obsession with being nice", and my mother has a friend (on whom Joan was based) who has had a lifelong on-again-off-again drinking problem.
Once upon a time in my early childhood I had an accident which required me to be taken to hospital. My mother wanted to take me in a taxi; her friend, with whom we were holidaying, wanted to drive us there, but she had been drinking and my mother didn't want to blatantly say "we won't go with you because you've been drinking". Julia has some of my significant personal traits but also she's far more twisted than I ever could have been at that age. Julia, in case it isn't already blindingly obvious, is Unhinged.
Notice that Mary doesn't react with concern when she sees Julia deliberately hurting herself. All she can do is suggest Julia goes back to her therapist. Mary really doesn't want to "play mother" any more. She's one of those dreadful women who sees herself as being "nothing without a man", and she now rather resents being left with these two children to bring up by herself. If she had to choose, however, she'd rather have Julia, who is quite self-sufficient and the least likely to make demands on her emotional resources. Alyssa, on the other hand, who "should've known better" than to expect her mother to take an interest in the piece of driftwood, will never change and will constantly want attention.
Julia loves her mother so much she gives her a way out of the narrow, stultifying life she suddenly finds herself trapped in; despite how little respect she has for Alyssa, she gives her sister "a fighting chance" by doing up her seatbelt.
Julia knows that talking to her dead father is only something she does to comfort herself. She knows he's dead and he's not coming back. She knows that by "wanting to feel pain like the pain that killed [him]" she is working through her feelings in her own way, at her own pace. She knows other people see her as a child incapable of grasping the bigger picture, and she is extremely frustrated by this. She knows her mother doesn't know how to deal with her, and she knows her mother would rather not have to.
Julia talks of herself as her father's "best girl" - is she seeing things that weren't there? Is she compensating post-mortem for the relationship she didn't have with him either? Alyssa was the "best girl" and Julia resented it tremendously. Alyssa is demanding with her mother because her mother never demonstrated affection or a desire to be a mother to either girl (seeing herself only in the light of being their father's wife); now that their father is dead, Alyssa doesn't know how to switch off the reaching-out business of being someone's child. Julia, on the other hand, knows exactly how to reach out to the father who could never relate to the independent older child - she wants to experience what he experienced in his last moments of life.
Alyssa is more aware of this than anyone realises, but Julia feels guilty enough about having some empathy with their father that Alyssa no longer has, and Alyssa not even having some compensatory relationship with their mother, that Julia makes the altruistic gesture with the seatbelt.
Julia can't bear to feel "the dirty happiness" because she has already made up her mind to kill her mother (in a way which leaves her blameless, of course), and she doesn't want to be made to feel guilty about it.
"Powell is coming for the summer and I'm so pleased, Mary, really I am." She said Powell but she meant Paul. I knew that, but Alyssa didn't, and it showed. I kicked her under the table. She scowled at me and mother rapped her knife on the table in front of us.
"Settle down, girls!" When she used that particular tone of voice we behaved. Alyssa looked down into her lap where she was slowly shredding her napkin. I stared rather vacantly over our mother's shoulder at a fat, brown cockroach that was making its way into the open breadbag on top of the fridge. I didn't mind cockroaches, but Alyssa hated them. I was wondering how long it would be before she saw the bug and started shrieking and wailing.
My eyes followed the roach's wavering feelers but my mind was elsewhere. It wasn't so much Powell as Pow'l. It was just Joan's correct German pronunciation, I knew, and was proud that I knew. I quite liked to listen to Joan talk about her friends in Germany. They had such exotic-sounding names, for one thing.
"...and Ütte is coming for Easter, Mary. Isn't that nice! She's bringing the children, though, which won't be so nice. Oh, I don't mean that, really, but, you know, they are so untidy..." Joan talked on about her German friends who would soon be overstaying their welcome as I watched the cockroach lose its footing and fall off the fridge. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Alyssa spinning her butter knife around on the table. I counted the seconds. I reckoned about five seconds before mother noticed. I wasn't disappointed.
"Alyssa! Don't play with your knife! How many times do I have to tell you! Why can't you be more like Julia! Julia can sit still and not fidget - why can't you?" Mother frowned and Alyssa pouted. I hoped she was going to cry, because then she'd be sent to bed early and I could stay up extra long to listen to Joan talk. Alyssa did not cry, but did look resentful. I felt sorry for Joan, whose own children (long grown up and left home) had been so well-behaved, and Joan so often had to be embarrassed by Alyssa's bad behaviour. Joan would often try to soften our mother's harsh words to Alyssa. With my maturity I fancied I could understand why, but I couldn't condone it. I tolerated Joan well, unlike most of my mother's friends, and so allowed her to indulge my tedious little sister.
"Alyssa, would you like to go for a walk along the beach with me?" Joan asked, hunching down against the table to bring her face level with my sister's. Joan's lank grey hair flopped down into her plate, and I watched glistening globules of oil from the dregs of the gravy cluster around her split ends, reminding me of a horde of starving mice fighting over a stray scrap of food.
The way Joan said Alyssa it sounded like a snake hissing. I thought that was appropriate.
"Alyssa, Joan asked you a question!" Snapped our mother, rapping the table again.
Alyssa nodded very slightly, supposedly timidly, I'm sure, but to me it just seemed conniving. Joan reached across the table and took her hand. They stood in unison and Joan led the little brat out the door and into the warm summer evening. I watched them skip down the path: Joan elegant like a whippet and Alyssa fat and clumsy like a beagle puppy. Some foul part of me ached to go with them, but I ignored it.
"Would you like me to wash up, mother?"
"That would be lovely, Julia. Just make sure you use lots of hot water; cold won't shift this congealed muck. Oh, I hate Joan's cooking, but I don't feel I can say anything. It's so kind of her to let us stay..." My mother let her voice trail off - something she would do because she thought it was dramatic. I always thought it was pathetic, but I would never have said so to her face.
I filled the sink with steaming hot water and immersed the plates one at a time before adding a dribble of mint-scented detergent. I'm eleven, a nearly grown-up girl, and my mother lets me wash up other people's dirty plates I thought proudly, knowing little Alyssa was never awarded such honours.
I scrubbed each plate carefully, relishing the sting of the hot water each time my hands sank in search of the next plate. The oily gravy dregs had floated to the top of the water and they swirled and eddied in such interesting patterns. I trailed a finger around and around in the sink for a few seconds, just to watch the grease bubbles dance, then scrubbed the next plate carefully, relishing the sting of the hot water on my hands.
I had just finished drying the plates when Joan and Alyssa returned. Alyssa's cheeks were flushed rosy red and she was excited about a piece of driftwood she'd found on the beach.
"Look, mummy, we found this bit of wood, and it looks like a bird, don't you think?" She held up the bleached white wood for our mother to inspect. I'd have thought she'd have known better. Joan gestured at mother, so mother, with obvious reluctance, gave the piece of wood a very cursory glance.
"Yes, Alyssa, I suppose it does."
"Of course it does! Look, Mary, here's the wing and the eye, and here's the other wing - I suppose it must have one eye closed, isn't that right, Alyssa?" Joan was good with children, I had to concede. Mother wasn't so good, and I was glad that I was never so callow as my sister, proud that I didn't need encouragement and attention every moment of my life.
Mother sat in the big armchair by the window, sipping warm red wine and smoking. Alyssa sat on the floor and zoomed the driftwood around over her head. I began to put the plates away and Joan came to help me. For a few seconds I felt immensely happy, felt as though everything was as it should be, but then the happiness became strange and I wanted to smile at my sister, so I pushed the feelings down, down, down, and deliberately skinned my knuckle on the bare brick wall beside the dish cupboard.
I turned away from Joan so she wouldn't see my injury. Joan would fuss and cluck, treating me like a child, and Alyssa would come running across the wide room to see the blood, then would say Yaa-huck! in that baby way she thought was so appealing. My injury wasn't for them, it was for me, to protect me from the dirty happiness that I had nearly felt. It was important, I knew, not to feel that happiness, because that would be betrayal.
"Julia, come and look at the lights, they're so pretty." Mother called to me softly. Alyssa started to get up but mother dismissively waved her away. I crossed the room, kicking at Alyssa as I passed her. She clutched her knee but didn't cry.
Mother had positioned the chair at an angle to the window so as to have the widest view down to the beach. We could see wavering lights that we knew were white-hot lightbulbs in lamp stands and recessed fixtures, made hazy and indistinct by the gauzy curtains and mosquito screens between the light inside and the dark outside. Down at the beach the streetlamps dizzy-flickered their orange glow onto the sandy road, and some of this light was caught and reflected up from the wet sand at the water's edge. Very far out to sea we could just make out the lights of a passing ship.
I breathed the warm night air and smiled down at my mother, who smiled up at me, lazy curls of smoke drifting away from her nostrils. I liked to watch my mother smoke. It made her look like a glamorous lady spy from a black-and-white 1940s detective movie.
Joan was making coffee. The aroma of the crushed beans mingled with the cigarette smoke to create a smell that empowered me. Dad used to smoke while he brewed coffee, and I couldn't help but feel good when I had that particular combined smell in my nostrils. When I was younger I used to imagine that if I took a really big breath I could store the smell in the flesh of my lungs, to retrieve and savour at a later date, one precious whiff at a time, like a rare sweet. I used to cry because it didn't work, but I was only a baby then.
"Coffee, Mary?"
"Yes, thanks, Joan."
"Can I have some coffee too?"
"Don't be stupid, Alyssa! Coffee isn't for little girls!"
Alyssa at last began to cry. Joan left the coffee pot to bubble and simmer while she put Alyssa to bed. I was disgusted. I had been able to put myself to bed when I was seven.
Mother stubbed out her cigarette, leaving the "cherry" to burn out by itself. Dad didn't do that. Dad smoked his cigarettes right down to the filter, then mashed the filter into the ashtray with such force that the paper split and the filter wadding fluffed out into the ashes. I had a few of his cigarette butts in a tin box under my bed. It was one of only three things of his I'd been allowed to keep.
Mother crossed the room and made pre-coffee preparations. I sidled closer to the coffee pot and put my hand near the side of it to feel the heat. Mother seemed to be ignoring me. Deliberately. I moved my hand closer and closer to the side of the pot, then quickly pressed my palm to its enamelled surface. At first there was no sensation, then a quick, biting burn. I resisted the reflex to pull my hand away and held it there for about two seconds. Some of my skin stuck to the side of the pot.
I looked at the wound I had created. The flesh was so pink and bright! Tears spilled from my eyes and I hated them, knowing my body was reacting involuntarily, beyond my control.
Mother looked at me, then at my hand. She turned back to the cups before her and carefully measured one quarter teaspoon of sugar for herself and two heaped for Joan.
"Julia..."
I waited, cradling my injured hand in the crook of my left arm, savouring the sensation of my skin pulling tight, imagining I could see each tiny scale of skin shrink and split. Mother sighed, but put the sugar away in the cupboard before turning to me with a weary look on her face.
"Julia, sweetheart, you can't bring him back."
Three rooms away, Joan was singing a German lullaby to Alyssa. Mother and I both listened for a few seconds, our heads cocked like faithful dogs anticipating their master's approach.
"Julia, I think you should start seeing Dr Cole again."
I looked down at my burned hand. My arm was going numb but the hand still hurt fiercely.
"Julia?"
"I don't want to see him. I'm going for a walk."
"Ju-"
I closed the screen door gently and skipped down the steps as though I'd never had a problem and didn't expect ever to have one. My hand was tingling and I flexed my fingers to restore the pain to its earlier sharpness.
I went around to the back of the house and peeped in the window at Alyssa. Joan was tucking her in. She'd put her in my bed again. My bed. The one with the view of the lagoon. Joan was so stupid sometimes! Joan was stupid because she drank. I wasn't supposed to know, but I'd heard her telling my mother that she wanted to stop but couldn't. I'd also seen the empty wine flagons out the back, hidden in the long grass behind the shed, and knew that Joan would, if it were not for us staying with her, drink nearly a whole one of these each day. I knew that mother hated Joan's drinking, but mother was weak and obsessed with being nice, so I also knew she would never make Joan stop drinking.
I went down the path to the shed and kicked at the empty flagons. There were twelve. Joan would only put them out after public holidays, so people would think she'd had a party. Joan didn't want the neighbours to know she was an alkie. I smiled in the moonlight, picturing Joan drunk on cheap flagon wine and driving somewhere in her little yellow car. Joan drunk and driving in her little yellow car, Alyssa beside her, giggling as they swerved and skidded and clipped other cars. Joan drunk and Alyssa giggling, and neither of them wearing seat belts...
Because we were staying, Joan was only drinking good wine from normal sized bottles. These bottles she put out once a week. The neighbours knew she had people staying, so it didn't matter if she put out ten normal sized bottles every week. Of course, the neighbours didn't know it took my mother over an hour to finish one small glass of wine.
I picked up one of the flagons with my good hand and strolled down the track to the beach. No-one questioned or stopped me even though there were a lot of people on the track and several late swimmers at the beach. Maybe they thought I was going to get some sea water for a fish tank, but no-one stopped me.
When I got to the bottom of the hill I looked up until I picked out the lights of Joan's house. I could see my mother standing against the window, holding a mug in both hands, then throwing her head back in laughter.
I walked to the far end of the beach where the rock pools were and casually dropped the bottle, then picked up the neck. No-one paid any attention to me.
I looked up at the stars. This is for you, dad. I miss you. I wish you were still here. I miss you. I love you, dad. I wasn't so stupid as to think he heard me. He was dead, and I didn't believe in any of that God or Heaven rubbish. I just wanted to say it.
I'm a nearly grown-up girl of eleven, dad. I know that Joan drinks too much and I know that mother wants to send me off to a hospital and I know that Alyssa hates me because I'm prettier than her and smarter than her and she'll never have what I have. I'm a nearly grown-up girl of eleven, dad, but I still miss you.
I sat down with my feet in one of the rock pools and dangled my burnt hand in the still-warm water. Pain shot up my arm and my eyes watered. I put the back of my burnt hand on a sandy patch and brought the jagged bottle neck down on the palm as hard as I could.
I'm a nearly grown-up girl of eleven, dad. Mother lets me wash other people's dirty dishes. She doesn't let Alyssa do anything.
Dr Cole always said that I had to learn to accept that my father was dead. He thought I was a stupid baby. I hated going to see him every week. Alyssa didn't have to see him, or anyone, because Alyssa cried and cried when we found out and kept crying for weeks afterwards. I never cried when anyone else was around, and because of that, everyone thought that I didn't believe he was dead.
This is for you, dad. I know you're dead and you're not coming back. That's why I keep hurting myself. I know you understand. I want to feel pain like the pain that killed you. I'm your best girl, dad. I miss you.
I pulled the glass out of my hand. I couldn't feel anything, but there was lots of blood.
I took my time going back to the house. There were fewer people on the track but still no-one said anything to me. This made me mad, and I nearly stomped into the house, but stopped myself in time. I stood in the shadows on the verandah for a few minutes, preparing myself, holding my bleeding hand over the balcony so Joan wouldn't know that I'd stood there, waiting. I went in when I was ready.
"I've cut my hand."
Joan was closer. Behind her, mother allowed herself a particular smile. Mother knew she could rely on me.
"Oh! Julia! Mary! Look!"
Joan took my arm at the elbow and trickles of blood ran down her arm, staining the sleeve of her silk dress. Mother felt out of place. I could see it on her face. I was pleased that I'd put her out, disrupted her evening. This is for you, dad.
So they woke Alyssa up and then mother and Joan had to argue about who would drive me to the hospital. Alyssa wouldn't look at me so I shoved my hand in her face and smeared blood in her hair. She didn't wail. I was surprised.
Mother gave in. Joan drove us, weaving all over the road in her little yellow car. This is for you, dad.
To distract me from my pain, Joan asked me questions in imperfect German. I answered in kind.
"Was hast du am deinen Geburtstag gemacht?"
"Wir sind am Strand gegangen."
"Was hast du am Strand gemacht?"
"Ich... schwimmen? Es tut mir leid, aber ich weiße die Wörten nicht..."
"Isn't she doing well, Mary! Such a clever girl."
At the hospital I told the doctors I'd fallen on some broken glass at the beach. They said I was very brave because I hadn't cried. They treated me like a baby. I hated them because they didn't say anything about the burn underneath the cuts. Afterwards I had to mind Alyssa while Joan and mother went to a chemist for some antiseptic. That's what Joan said, but by the way mother insisted on going with her I knew that Joan was going to try to find somewhere she could get a drink.
I left Alyssa to look at a tank of tropical fish and went to wait by Joan's car. By the time they found me, mother was crying. I smiled. Mother told me off and Alyssa stuck her tongue out at me. Joan smelled of whiskey. I said so. Mother slapped me. I kept smiling. Joan told mother off, slurringly. Joan said I must be in shock. Mother muttered something that I didn't quite hear, then Joan and mother started arguing in Dutch. Joan slapped mother. Alyssa started screaming. Alyssa attacked Joan, biting and clawing at her. Joan burst into tears and sat in the gutter, telling us all what a bad person she was.
I walked away a little. I looked up at the stars. This is life without you, dad, and I love to make them hate me. I'm a nearly grown-up girl of eleven and look what I can do to them. I'm your best girl, dad, aren't I. Yes. I am.
"Are you finished? I don't know what's got into you, Julia, but it had better stop right now." Mother grabbed my arm, not caring that it wasn't my good arm, and dragged me back to the car. We wavered around the car park for several minutes, then swerved all over the road. Mother kept telling Joan to pull over, let her drive. Joan would not.
Alyssa had fallen asleep. I hugged her and she woke up, a whinge on her lips, but I stroked her hair and she went back to sleep. I did up her seatbelt, leant forward and gently unbuckled mother's. Joan wasn't wearing hers. I buckled mine and sat back, my good arm around Alyssa's shoulders.
We swerved all over the place. Mother was crying. I miss you, dad. I don't think Joan saw the truck at all. I remember that night really well, although they keep saying that I couldn't possibly remember it. But I do. I'm a grown-up girl of nearly eighteen and I remember perfectly well what happened that night when I was a nearly grown-up girl of eleven.
And I'm still dad's best girl.