didn’t even pretend. They refused to take it and when she insisted, stamping her young feet, they put it in the rubbish bin in front of her. To make her stop.’
You describe to me how, whenever our parents were out of the house, she would rummage through their cupboards, prise open their desk drawers with scissors, tear open their letters, and she would take the cane marks on her palms withoutflinching when they came home and discovered what she had been up to.
I stare hard at my hands. Are they the same shape as hers? I picture them with red weals crossing them like tyre tracks. My teeth chatter uncontrollably but I am not crying. I am far past that. I force my eyes to yours and see that they have changed from blue to a dirty colourless grey, the same non-colour as the balls of fluff under my bed. I am frightened by the alteration and want to ask you to stop talking, to stop dragging the past into my room, to stop plunging your words into my head. But I don’t. I can’t. My tongue is paralysed.
‘Sometimes she would get
me
to ask them,’ you say, and I can hear a smile in your voice. ‘That drove them mad. The cane came out for both of us then and those were the only times I heard her sob, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”’
‘To you? Or to our parents?’ I whisper.
‘Who knows? Maybe it was to you.’
I ache. All over. ‘Jessie!’ I bellow at the top of my voice. ‘Jessie!’
‘Shut up, Georgie. You’re not wounded.’
‘I am.’ I wrap my arms around my bony body. ‘I am, I am.’ I start to rock back and forth.
You leap from your chair and you throw your arms around me, squeezing me to your chest so hard I can’t breathe.
I scream, ‘Don’t touch me!’
But you are immensely strong. Fifteen years old and yet strong as a man. You are crushing me to death. I scream and beat your face with my fist but when your nose gushes blood over my hand I am sick over you. Blackness erupts in acrid patches in my mind, lights and bells flash and jangle behind my eyes, so that when the white-coats suddenly seize you and force you to the floor, I do not know if it is real or in my head. I call your name.
‘Tim!’
‘Georgie, fuck off, you stupid old thing.’
I beg them to let you stay. They come at me with needles but you beat them off, and somehow we are suddenly again sitting down, me on the bed and you on the desk chair, alone in the room. I am trembling violently and fear that the whole eruptionhas been one of my
episodes
, another war zone that exists only in my mind, except that I can smell the vomit on myself and I can see the dried blood and bruising on your nose and upper lip. But now we are quiet once more, sipping water like civilised people.
‘Go on,’ I say. It takes a huge effort of self control.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the strange thing was that when she reached ten years old, it all stopped. She no longer asked the question. She gave up.’
My heart folds up and dies in my chest.
‘I’ve never heard her mention your name again, not since that time,’ you continue, and thoughtfully you finger the damage to your swollen nose.
‘Why?’ I murmur, frightened.
‘I don’t know, Georgie boy. Maybe she decided to think of you as dead instead of shut away, maybe it was easier that way.’
Dead?
Anger churns the acid in my gut.
‘Of course she still had arguments behind closed doors with Pa and Ma over the years, but I rarely knew that they were about, and anyway that’s normal for someone growing up.’
‘Is it?’ I ask.
‘Yes. She’s seventeen now.’ You pick off a scab of clotted blood. ‘I’m sure she will leave home very soon. I’ll hate that. Being there … without Jessie.’
It had not occurred to me before, how vast the gap is between your life and mine. Mine goes in a straight line, like a short piece of string. Only the
episodes
leave it frayed and broken in places. Yours is a whole ball of string, all wound up and criss-crossing on itself,
You describe to me how, whenever our parents were out of the house, she would rummage through their cupboards, prise open their desk drawers with scissors, tear open their letters, and she would take the cane marks on her palms withoutflinching when they came home and discovered what she had been up to.
I stare hard at my hands. Are they the same shape as hers? I picture them with red weals crossing them like tyre tracks. My teeth chatter uncontrollably but I am not crying. I am far past that. I force my eyes to yours and see that they have changed from blue to a dirty colourless grey, the same non-colour as the balls of fluff under my bed. I am frightened by the alteration and want to ask you to stop talking, to stop dragging the past into my room, to stop plunging your words into my head. But I don’t. I can’t. My tongue is paralysed.
‘Sometimes she would get
me
to ask them,’ you say, and I can hear a smile in your voice. ‘That drove them mad. The cane came out for both of us then and those were the only times I heard her sob, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”’
‘To you? Or to our parents?’ I whisper.
‘Who knows? Maybe it was to you.’
I ache. All over. ‘Jessie!’ I bellow at the top of my voice. ‘Jessie!’
‘Shut up, Georgie. You’re not wounded.’
‘I am.’ I wrap my arms around my bony body. ‘I am, I am.’ I start to rock back and forth.
You leap from your chair and you throw your arms around me, squeezing me to your chest so hard I can’t breathe.
I scream, ‘Don’t touch me!’
But you are immensely strong. Fifteen years old and yet strong as a man. You are crushing me to death. I scream and beat your face with my fist but when your nose gushes blood over my hand I am sick over you. Blackness erupts in acrid patches in my mind, lights and bells flash and jangle behind my eyes, so that when the white-coats suddenly seize you and force you to the floor, I do not know if it is real or in my head. I call your name.
‘Tim!’
‘Georgie, fuck off, you stupid old thing.’
I beg them to let you stay. They come at me with needles but you beat them off, and somehow we are suddenly again sitting down, me on the bed and you on the desk chair, alone in the room. I am trembling violently and fear that the whole eruptionhas been one of my
episodes
, another war zone that exists only in my mind, except that I can smell the vomit on myself and I can see the dried blood and bruising on your nose and upper lip. But now we are quiet once more, sipping water like civilised people.
‘Go on,’ I say. It takes a huge effort of self control.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the strange thing was that when she reached ten years old, it all stopped. She no longer asked the question. She gave up.’
My heart folds up and dies in my chest.
‘I’ve never heard her mention your name again, not since that time,’ you continue, and thoughtfully you finger the damage to your swollen nose.
‘Why?’ I murmur, frightened.
‘I don’t know, Georgie boy. Maybe she decided to think of you as dead instead of shut away, maybe it was easier that way.’
Dead?
Anger churns the acid in my gut.
‘Of course she still had arguments behind closed doors with Pa and Ma over the years, but I rarely knew that they were about, and anyway that’s normal for someone growing up.’
‘Is it?’ I ask.
‘Yes. She’s seventeen now.’ You pick off a scab of clotted blood. ‘I’m sure she will leave home very soon. I’ll hate that. Being there … without Jessie.’
It had not occurred to me before, how vast the gap is between your life and mine. Mine goes in a straight line, like a short piece of string. Only the
episodes
leave it frayed and broken in places. Yours is a whole ball of string, all wound up and criss-crossing on itself,
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