The Girl Who Cried Wolf(32)
The room is shrouded in darkness, but a low glow from a brass lamp casts shadows. I avert my eyes from where they lie on the grand bed, and see a wedding dress discarded on the dusty floor, its beautiful silk layers crumpled and creased and smudged with dirt. An almost full bottle of champagne stands on a circular table aside two crystal glasses, and the bubbles still dance a little around the rims, untouched and untasted.
I hear her whimpering and cannot stop myself from looking back to her. His hand is pressed firmly over her mouth and tears fall silently from her once radiant eyes as he pounds roughly inside her.
I wonder why I am being shown this untrue vision. My father would never behave this way. He gives a final painful thrust, stifling her scream and pulls quickly away from her, a look of distaste on his handsome face, as he wipes her tears and coral lipstick from his hand.
‘Well?’ he says as he straightens the clothes he hadn’t bothered to take off. ‘Was it worth making me wait till we were married?’ He laughs nastily and continues, ‘Don’t fuss like that every time, you’ll have to become accustomed if we’re to have a child.’
My mother says nothing but has pulled the blanket up over her breasts with trembling hands. He looks at her with a cold stare. ‘You’ll get used to it, I’m sure, unless you want to go back to your little caravan?’ He laughs. ‘Get dressed. I need cigarettes then I’ll take you for dinner.’
‘Children?’ she whispers, her eyes widened with shock. ‘I’m only nineteen. I haven’t finished my studies, Malcolm.’
He steps towards her and she pulls the blanket up further in haste. ‘You’re my wife, Lillian, not a damn student – A wife who will take care of my home and give me a family to come home to – Isn’t that what you wanted? When I showed you Elm Tree and you danced and sang and told me how our beautiful children would play in the meadow? How we would be so happy. You said you wanted that, are you to break your promises after a few hours of marriage? Shall I send you back to Granny with no money and no Elm Tree?’
I can see my mother is still in shock, that the man who probably smiled down at her a matter of hours ago as he said his vows, who had offered her the life she had dreamed of as a child, turned suddenly into this tyrant.
‘I do want to have a family one day …’
‘What you want,’ he interrupts her loudly, making me jump, ‘is of no great consequence, Lillian. You are married. For God’s sake get dressed, and sort yourself out. You look like a slut.’ He curls his lip in disgust and she flinches involuntarily. ‘I want your hair tied up from now on, and we’ll get you some decent clothes. You need to look and act like the wife of a successful merchant. Things are going to be a lot be different if this is to work.’
He straightens his moustache in the dingy mirror and leaves the room, the slamming door making her start.
I cry with her as she swings her legs over the bed, walking unsteadily to the dressing table, and I flinch at the sight of blood on her pale thighs. She reaches for a silver-backed paddle brush and scrapes her beautiful long hair into the familiar chignon she wore the last time I saw her.
‘Oh, Mother,’ I whisper, and her frightened face turns towards me, but her glassy eyes do not meet mine. She is alone.
***
My legs are trembling a little and I cannot process what I’ve just seen. The corridors open and close around me and I feel as though I am in Wonderland once more as I feel myself falling through a vast nothingness, lost and afraid.
I jolt to a halt and see that I’m now standing in our hallway at Elm Tree; I know my parents have lived there since they were first married, so I’m not surprised to see my mother sitting on the bottom steps of the grand stair case, her hands clasped in prayer and a suitcase beside her. Her body is thinner than the Lillian I saw moments ago on her wedding night, and her face is drawn and pale. Perhaps only a year has passed, because she still looks incredibly young. Vulnerable and afraid, on the stairs of the home she had dreamed of. She looks dishevelled, and her hair is falling from its clasps.
My father runs down each step two at a time and as she jumps up and begins to run forwards, he grabs her trailing hair so her neck jolts painfully back.
I try to close my eyes or turn my head but my entire being is frozen as I watch him spin her around and punch her in the mouth. Blood pours from the gash and her face is distorted. ‘Just kill me!’ she screams at him. ‘I have nothing to live for. I’ve lost my baby because of you!’
My father lets go of her and his face turns ghostly white. ‘What?’
‘I was pregnant, Malcolm. When you thought I was sneaking off to see someone I was going to the doctors. I wanted to be certain before I told you.’
‘Then why didn’t you tell me, Lillian? I thought you were acting differently. I thought you were going to leave me.’ He begins to sob uncontrollably and drops to the floor. ‘Please forgive me, my love. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for us. A family to fill this big house, to keep you busy when I’m not here with you. A boy …’ He chokes on the word and brings his hands to his face. My mother curls her broken lip as he blows his streaming nose into his fist. ‘A strong boy, to carry on my name.’
He looks at her with more urgency and takes a moment to compose himself. ‘You can’t leave me; we have to put this right. It can’t be my fault, I barely touched you. If you didn’t do such stupid things and make me angry …’ His eyes open wider. ‘We’ll try again and this time it’ll be perfect. I’ll never hurt you, I promise. We’ll be the family we dreamed of.’