surface. Every time he thuds drunkenly against the wall, it will feel instead like someone shoving him. When his father is this drunk, everything feels like a shove to him. Everything is against him.
The boy hates him.
A shadow drifts across the base of the door.
Pauses.
The boy, already not breathing, somehow holds his breath deeper still.
BANG BANG BANG.
His father’s fist, rapping on the door.
From the corridor, there is a laugh, and then the shadow passes. He listens as, further along the hall, his father shoulders the wall again—or, as he will experience it, the wall shoulders him.
The boy lies there in the darkness for a time, picturing him. Yes, he is Father , never Daddy . He cannot remember ever hugging him. He cannot picture his father smiling. His face is an ugly thing: red and weathered, like a troll in one of the storybooks on the shelf. His hair is brown and curly; he wears fluffy old paint-stained jumpers and brown cords. His body is small and slumped. The only big thing about him any more is his forearms and his knuckles, like an ape. All the failures and disappointments of his life are there to see.
At the far end of the house, the bedroom door slams.
The boy wants to lie there, but he can’t. He sits up in the dark and rests his bare feet on the carpet, clenching his toes against its wiry texture. And when the noises start—the other slamming, his father’s raised voice, his mother’s muted shouts and cries—the little boy pushes his fists into his eyes and rocks back and forth, concentrating on the sensations of his feet.
He begins crying silently, the way he’s learned to cry over the years, limiting the inward breaths to hide the sniffles from his thick nose.
After a while, he realises his older brother is sitting beside him. He had not even noticed him clamber down the red step-ladder. But John puts his arm round his shoulder, leans into him. They are both very small, hugging each other in the dark.
The policeman listens carefully to this story, and although the boy’s face betrays no obvious emotion—no sign of either sincerity or guile—he finds himself believing that this much is the truth. Having met both boys, and seen the house itself, he can picture them sitting there like that together. He can imagine the desolation and fear.
He says, ‘And then what happened?’
For a long moment, the boy does not reply. But then he gathers himself. And once again there is something there in his expression. Something that seems older than the child.
‘And then what happened?’
The boy begins to tell him.
This is the point, looking back, when the policeman will be convinced the lies begin.
DAY SIX
Seventeen
D AVID BARRETT IS SWEEPING his yard.
For many people, this would be a mundane, boring task—but not for him. Behind him, lit bright by the sun, is the farm he has built over the years. It began life as a detached house, two up, two down, with a scratchy field and dirt land attached. Even back then, it was expensive to buy, but it had always been his dream to own a small farm, and the property was ideal. In the decade since he and Kate moved in, he has extended the house itself to one side and carefully cultivated the land around. They have chickens and sheep. They have rows of crops. For most things in life, they are self-sufficient.
And it is lovely.
Swish. Swish.
The broom makes a comforting noise as he methodically pushes the dust from the front of the house. It billows across the quiet road outside the property, cast into gentle rolling swirls by the warm breeze. Swish. Swish. Other than that sound, the world is almost entirely silent.
And then—
‘Mama!’
He glances up to see that Robin is running across the field on the far side of the road, arms and legs working in what seems to David more of a controlled fall than a run. His son is a little bundle of energy, and it often threatens to overtake him. He is still discovering the bounds of his small body, and
The boy hates him.
A shadow drifts across the base of the door.
Pauses.
The boy, already not breathing, somehow holds his breath deeper still.
BANG BANG BANG.
His father’s fist, rapping on the door.
From the corridor, there is a laugh, and then the shadow passes. He listens as, further along the hall, his father shoulders the wall again—or, as he will experience it, the wall shoulders him.
The boy lies there in the darkness for a time, picturing him. Yes, he is Father , never Daddy . He cannot remember ever hugging him. He cannot picture his father smiling. His face is an ugly thing: red and weathered, like a troll in one of the storybooks on the shelf. His hair is brown and curly; he wears fluffy old paint-stained jumpers and brown cords. His body is small and slumped. The only big thing about him any more is his forearms and his knuckles, like an ape. All the failures and disappointments of his life are there to see.
At the far end of the house, the bedroom door slams.
The boy wants to lie there, but he can’t. He sits up in the dark and rests his bare feet on the carpet, clenching his toes against its wiry texture. And when the noises start—the other slamming, his father’s raised voice, his mother’s muted shouts and cries—the little boy pushes his fists into his eyes and rocks back and forth, concentrating on the sensations of his feet.
He begins crying silently, the way he’s learned to cry over the years, limiting the inward breaths to hide the sniffles from his thick nose.
After a while, he realises his older brother is sitting beside him. He had not even noticed him clamber down the red step-ladder. But John puts his arm round his shoulder, leans into him. They are both very small, hugging each other in the dark.
The policeman listens carefully to this story, and although the boy’s face betrays no obvious emotion—no sign of either sincerity or guile—he finds himself believing that this much is the truth. Having met both boys, and seen the house itself, he can picture them sitting there like that together. He can imagine the desolation and fear.
He says, ‘And then what happened?’
For a long moment, the boy does not reply. But then he gathers himself. And once again there is something there in his expression. Something that seems older than the child.
‘And then what happened?’
The boy begins to tell him.
This is the point, looking back, when the policeman will be convinced the lies begin.
DAY SIX
Seventeen
D AVID BARRETT IS SWEEPING his yard.
For many people, this would be a mundane, boring task—but not for him. Behind him, lit bright by the sun, is the farm he has built over the years. It began life as a detached house, two up, two down, with a scratchy field and dirt land attached. Even back then, it was expensive to buy, but it had always been his dream to own a small farm, and the property was ideal. In the decade since he and Kate moved in, he has extended the house itself to one side and carefully cultivated the land around. They have chickens and sheep. They have rows of crops. For most things in life, they are self-sufficient.
And it is lovely.
Swish. Swish.
The broom makes a comforting noise as he methodically pushes the dust from the front of the house. It billows across the quiet road outside the property, cast into gentle rolling swirls by the warm breeze. Swish. Swish. Other than that sound, the world is almost entirely silent.
And then—
‘Mama!’
He glances up to see that Robin is running across the field on the far side of the road, arms and legs working in what seems to David more of a controlled fall than a run. His son is a little bundle of energy, and it often threatens to overtake him. He is still discovering the bounds of his small body, and
Similar Books
