The Sister(46)

Jackie struggled to keep up with her two friends; on legs like lead weights, her whole body felt heavier than normal in the searing heat. She cursed her plumpness.

‘Oh, Jackie, it’s because you’ve developed better than they have,’ her mother’s voice whispered to her through the mediums lips. The old insecurities stirred; she felt strangely depressed. She knew what would come next. She saw herself looking up the steep path; they were already at the top. They didn’t even look round.

‘They don’t even care if I’m all right down here,’ she muttered. Their voices, like a distant radio play; blew towards her on the breeze. ‘Harry Solomons.’ Those words, she made out distinctly. The voices cut out suddenly, as the ridge above interfered with the wind’s transmission. Jackie picked up the pace, as she tried to catch up, straining to hear what else they were saying, ‘...with him behind the bike sheds.’ What was that about the bike sheds? Their heads and shoulders disappeared from view as if they were going down invisible stairs on the other side. Shrieks of laughter pierced the air.

She never did find out exactly what they'd been saying, but she remembered the sadness she’d felt at that moment, left out and alone.

Karen and Gilda were so similar that inevitably, they always kept her on the outside. The other two girls homed in on her insecurities and never let up, driving tiny wedges of doubt into every crack they could find in her fragile make-up. ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd,’ her mother whispered. Jackie’s heart grew heavy at the thought they weren’t truly friends.

Through Sister, her mother chided her. ‘Why don’t you ever stick up for yourself? You only have yourself to blame if you let people treat you like that! If you don’t ever fight back, they’ll know they can get away with it, and they’ll end up walking all over you!’

She started a conversation in her head that she had never had in reality. ‘Yes, Mum, I should start with you. You never have a good word to say about me. You criticise me, when all I am, is what you made me.’ The recollection of her frustrations stung her to tears.

She realised her mum had made her a scapegoat for her own failings, made her feel that she was somehow responsible for them. She in turn one day would pass her own low self-esteem to her daughter.

Jackie’s legs gave up on her, and she let the others go on. In a minute, they'd stop to let her catch up, she’d find something funny to pipe up with – get the other two laughing, and for a while they'd all be close again. Those happy moments were what she lived for. Life for her was a cycle of reward and failure, always struggling to please someone. Her mother’s distant personality had created that in her, now Jackie recreated it in her relationships. All her friends ended up treating her the same as her mum did.

‘Is this how your life will always be? Always the victim, always victimised? No, that’s not going to be me,’ she said to herself, and with new determination, quickened her step, trying to catch up with the others. Their faint voices carried on the wind towards her. Sister’s breathing whispers became ragged, and she couldn’t make out what she was saying, her eyes no longer green, slowly turned brown. Jackie knew exactly what was coming next.

She reached a flattened off area, a narrow wild flower meadow below the top. She’d decided to shortcut the distance between them, by moving along parallel to them from below, the grass each side of the path was up to her waist. The field was sunny, dried out greens and yellows, seeds from faded heads stuck to her clothes as she brushed past. Time slowed down, spent blooms bobbed, she thought herself in tune with nature. She remembered how so much more alive she’d felt, more than ever before, how she wanted to cry out with happiness, or sing. Her arms thrown out, hands outstretched level with her shoulders, she’d spun like a whirling dervish, letting go of her emotions, her long black hair flew out around her. The widest of smiles hurt her face. It didn’t hurt for long.

A powerful hand clamped across her mouth from behind. The hand reeked of sweat and tobacco. It all happened so fast. He was holding a knife, and he’d forced her to the ground. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she whispered. Her vulnerability sent him into a frenzy, pulling hard at her clothes, ripping them from her.

‘Don’t look at my face!’ he commanded.

Shaking with fear, whimpering, she squeezed her eyes shut.

He was on her panting and sweating; he smelled like an animal. Something popped inside as he drove himself roughly into her; she gasped. She’d always imagined there would be more pain. Then came the awful realisation; she’d become involuntarily wet as she continued receiving him, she felt that she’d betrayed herself. She kept her face turned away; his sweat dripped onto her; its foul saltiness found its way into her mouth; she gagged dryly as if invisible fingers had forced their way down her throat. Jackie became aware she had a witness sharing her ordeal, she watched transfixed as the medium retched at the precise moment she did, eyes bulging as his foul sweat poisoned her, too.

‘So I make you feel sick do I?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. His hands tightened around her throat, squeezing the life out of her. Sister grasped at her own neck, helplessly reliving Jackie’s ordeal alongside her.

The rapist picked up a beat, thrusting up and down rapidly like an engine piston, gathering momentum. He shuddered as he spent himself inside her, lay atop her motionless a moment before pushing down with all his might; he began to crush her throat.