Darling Girls, page 19
Alicia stared at her. ‘But . . . she’s hurt.’
‘I said, Put. Her. Down.’
Alicia couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t her, or Norah, or Jessica. Amy was a baby. She was innocent. She was hurt. Crying! What kind of monster wouldn’t want her to be comforted?
Miss Fairchild took some paper towel and wiped her lip, which was bleeding. ‘Now, Alicia.’
After a glance at her sisters, Alicia lifted up the little girl and put her on the floor. Immediately Amy tried to clamber back onto her lap, wailing loudly. Alicia pushed her away. She’d never hated herself more. Miss Fairchild loomed over her, watching. Alicia wondered if she was enjoying herself.
Amy was now lying on the floor, red-faced and screaming. Every instinct urged Alicia to comfort the child, but she refrained for fear that it might lead to trouble. Not for her – for Amy.
‘See, Amy?’ Miss Fairchild said. ‘This is what happens when you kick Mummy. You have to learn that your actions have consequences.’
After what felt like an age, Miss Fairchild left the room, and Alicia scooped the girl up again. Her sisters huddled around them and together they held Amy while she sobbed. When at last her tears had dried, they all pretended to be clumsy horses, crawling around the kitchen on all fours, crashing into things. Only when Amy started giggling was Alicia able to exhale.
They were now entirely indebted to this child, she realised. She wasn’t sure how or why or when it had happened. All she knew was that protecting Amy had become their life’s mission. They might not be able to save themselves, but by God, they were going to save her.
‘If you hug Miss Fairchild, I’ll give you this chocolate,’ Alicia said to Amy, waving the Freddo Frog at her. Norah had earned it in exchange for doing someone’s homework at school, and it appeared chocolate was a language Amy understood.
‘Choc-at,’ Amy repeated, eyes wide.
‘Shh. It’s our secret.’
‘Seek-rit.’
‘Go on. She’s coming.’
It was shocking how effective it was. Amy turned and ran at Miss Fairchild, throwing her arms around her legs.
‘Oh!’ Miss Fairchild looked so pleased, Alicia almost felt guilty. ‘What a lovely hug.’
‘I wuv you.’
She glanced slyly at Alicia, who gave her the thumbs-up.
But the problem with toddlers was that they didn’t appreciate the importance of consistency. Some days Amy didn’t feel like making a happy face when Miss Fairchild played a game with her. Other days, when the girls left for school, she stood at the front door and sobbed.
‘How will you survive without your darling girls?’ Miss Fairchild would say crossly.
Each day they went to school with a heavy feeling in their hearts. And though they didn’t talk about it, Alicia knew that none of them could relax until the moment they turned into the driveway at the end of the day.
‘What do you think happens to Amy when we’re at school?’ Alicia said one day as they walked to school.
‘I check her for injuries every day,’ Norah said. ‘I haven’t found anything since the day she hit her head on the highchair.’
But Norah sounded as uncertain as Alicia felt each time they left Amy alone at Wild Meadows. They should have listened to that uncertainty. When it came to Miss Fairchild, their instincts were seldom wrong.
*
‘That’s weird,’ Norah said, as they walked up the driveway after school one day. ‘Is Miss Fairchild in the pool?’
She held her hand across her eyes to block the glare from the afternoon sun. They followed her gaze. As they reached the top of the driveway they could clearly see a person in the water, and two beach towels on the grass nearby. It was weird. No one had used the pool in years, not since Alicia had arrived at Wild Meadows. And it wasn’t even a particularly warm day.
‘Why is she in the pool?’ Alicia said out loud.
That was when they noticed that Jessica was running. Jessica had never been particularly athletic, but now she was flying down the driveway, red dust rising up from her heels.
Alicia felt the alarm ring through her even before she understood what was happening. As Norah took off after Jessica, Alicia scanned their surrounds. In the lower paddock, a tractor rolled by. The horses were having a run while Dirk looked on. Everything seemed normal. But when Alicia looked back at the pool, she realised. There were two towels by the pool.
So where was Amy?
By the time Alicia started running, Jessica was diving into the pool fully dressed. Miss Fairchild waved and yelled uselessly as Norah dived in right behind her.
Alicia reached the pool as Jessica emerged with Amy in her arms, coughing and spluttering.
‘You were drowning her?’ Norah screamed at Miss Fairchild.
Their foster mother scoffed. ‘I was teaching her to swim.’
The timing, Alicia realised, was interesting. She knew they’d be arriving home at this time. This performance wasn’t for Amy – it was for them.
Dirk must have heard the commotion because when Alicia glanced towards the horse paddock he was looking right at them.
‘Like you taught me to swim?’ Jessica cried.
‘Well . . .’ Miss Fairchild looked amused. ‘You learned, didn’t you?’
The woman wasn’t even trying to deny it. She found it funny.
Amy coughed, then began to vomit water. Jessica carried her to the side of the pool, patting her back as she clung to Jessica’s neck. She was so little, so vulnerable.
They couldn’t just hope that things would turn out okay, Alicia realised. Not anymore. The stakes were too high.
They would have to act.
THE OFFICE OF DR WARREN, PSYCHIATRIST
When I arrive for our next session, Dr Warren smiles at me. It is concerning, considering where we left off our last conversation, and where he suggests this session should begin, but it isn’t for me to judge.
‘So he let you out of the basement. What happened then?’
‘Home life became a game of trying to figure out how to exist without upsetting John. I’d clean, go to church and not talk back. Most of the time, I didn’t talk at all. I tried to stay out of John’s way, but there were days when, even without saying a word, I could invoke John’s wrath.’ I re-create these moments in my mind, watching them play out like scenes in a film. ‘It might have been that he decided I hadn’t cleaned something properly, or I’d used the wrong tone when speaking to him. On a few occasions it was simply because I needed to understand who was in charge. When it happened there was no discussion, no opportunity to defend myself – he just grabbed my ear and dragged me to the basement.’
I think about what Dr Warren said last time, about how I’d blamed my mother when John mistreated me. It brings furious tears to my eyes. ‘My mother always stood by silently. The fact that she didn’t even try to intervene was worse than being locked in the basement. After a while, my hatred of her became an outlet for my pain. A focus. A place to channel it.’
‘How did you channel it?’ Dr Warren asks quietly.
I shrug. ‘It was pretty easy. Every morning, while John was sleeping, my mother ironed him a shirt and left it hanging from a hook in the bathroom. Naturally, John was as fastidious about his shirts as he was about everything else. Before my mother married John, I doubt she’d ever ironed a shirt in her life. She certainly never ironed one for my father. So she’d had to learn quickly. Oftentimes, while he ate breakfast, John would scold her because his collar wasn’t starched enough or his sleeves were rumpled. Criticising her homemaking skills was a favourite pastime for John. At first, I’d been indignant on her behalf, but after a while I came to enjoy it.
‘One day, while my mother and I were preparing breakfast, John stormed into the kitchen and flung a shirt onto the table with such force it knocked over a water glass. He shouted at my mother: “Look what you’ve done, you stupid woman!”
‘My mother stared at him in confusion. Then she reached for the shirt and held it up. A large, iron-shaped burn mark could be seen on the lower back.
‘Mum was so flummoxed. “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t realise . . .”
‘I busied myself with cleaning up the spilled water.
‘“You didn’t realise because you’re lazy and you don’t pay attention. That’s why you never do anything properly.”
‘John was positively wild with fury. I hadn’t heard him shout at Mum before. I wondered if he was going to take her by the ear and throw her in the basement.
‘“This was a brand-new shirt,” he cried. “Who is going to pay for a replacement? Are you going to get a job and start working? No – who would hire a lazy stupid woman like you?”
‘“I . . . I’ll pay for it out of my housekeeping,” my mother stammered.
‘Her housekeeping allowance was barely enough to buy food. If she had to buy a shirt, we’d all be living on fresh air for the week. At least, Mum and I would. But it would be worth it.
‘“Iron me another shirt,” John said, storming from the room.
‘I managed to give Mum a tiny smirk before she hurried after him.
‘From then on, finding ways to make John angry with Mum became an outlet for me when things got tough. It wasn’t hard. I’d go back to a spot on the floor that Mum had already cleaned and walk on it with dirty shoes. I’d use their bathroom and “forget” to dry the soap, so that it congealed. I’d take a few dollars from the tin where he hid his money.’
Dr Warren’s pupils had dilated with pleasure.
‘Mum never told him it was me. Maybe that’s why I kept doing it.’
‘To get her back?’
I consider that. ‘More to prove to myself that she had some feelings left for me,’ I say. ‘Anyway . . . now that John’s attention had shifted to her, I had more freedom. I still had to clean, go to church and refrain from talking back, but as long as I did these three things John didn’t really bother me. He didn’t seem to care what time I came home from school, or who I hung out with, or what kind of grades I got.
‘It was around this time that a boy in my class named Troy started to notice me. Troy wasn’t particularly attractive or charismatic, and he had an irritating habit of saying “anythink”, but he had one important thing going for him: he liked me. When you feel like nobody likes you, it’s hard to overstate the thrill of that. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like him back – or, indeed, that I actively disliked him. His interest in me was intoxicating.
‘And so, we’d meet before school and hang out near the sports equipment shed on the oval and kiss. He’d pass me notes and letters torn from the pages of his school diary, saying he thought about me all the time. After school, we’d hang out as a group with some of our classmates, or sometimes it was just the two of us at his place, in the garage that had been converted into a rumpus room. We’d roll around in our clothes, kissing and fondling. And after a while we took our clothes off.
‘The sex wasn’t great; in fact, it was on the dull side. But I enjoyed being a normal fifteen-year-old, roaming the streets with my friends, riding on the handlebars of pushbikes and shoplifting from the general store. Troy was always by my side, like a faithful puppy dog. When the sun began to set, we said our goodbyes and went back to our own homes. Usually I’d find Mum cooking and John reading the newspaper or a book in the living room. But one day, they were waiting for me at the door. I recognised John’s demeanour. His gaze was sharp, his jaw tight. The veins in his forearms bulged. My mother stood silently beside him as always.’
‘“Where have you been?” he asked me.
‘I hated that I was nervous. “I was just hanging out with my friends.”
John’s eyes narrowed. “Friends? Or a boyfriend?”
‘I didn’t reply. My mother lowered her gaze, as if this all had nothing to do with her.
‘“Answer me!” he roared. “Do you have a boyfriend named Troy?”
‘Troy. He knew his name. I wondered how. “I go to school with a boy named Troy, but he’s not my boyfriend.”
‘John’s eyes widened dramatically. “He’s not? Then perhaps you can explain to me why you were kissing him behind the fish-and-chip shop this afternoon?”
‘Now there was nothing to say. But John was happy to fill the silence by calling me names. Slut. Whore. Trash.
‘“From now on, you come straight home after school. No going to friends’ houses. No after-school sport. School, home. That’s it.”
‘He grabbed my ear, wrenching it painfully, and with my mother watching on he dragged me to the basement.’
‘Are you okay?’ Dr Warren asks.
My eyes well up. ‘It was just so unfair. I had no one. My father was dead. My own mother chose John. Then I couldn’t have a boyfriend . . .’ The tears spill over. ‘Every human being needs someone, don’t they, Dr Warren? One person that’s in your corner. One person who’s yours?’
Dr Warren’s gaze is fixed on mine, his mouth slightly open. He gives himself a little shake. ‘I . . . would say that’s true.’
I nod, wiping tears from my face. ‘And if someone doesn’t have that one person?’
Dr Warren’s gaze drifts from my face as there is a knock at the door.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘That’s it for today.’
But he looks a little sad that I am leaving.
35
ALICIA
BEFORE
‘Miss Fairchild did that to me,’ Jessica whispered. They were in Jessica’s bed, lying side by side like a row of sardines under the blankets in their shortie pyjamas. Jessica was in the middle and Alicia and Norah each rested a head on her shoulder. ‘In the pool. She “taught me to swim”.’ Jessica grimaced as she said the words. ‘She told me she would catch me. She promised. Then she let me flail around under the water until I blacked out.’
Alicia felt a tear from Jessica’s face hit her cheek. It invoked a swell of fury in Alicia. She clenched her fists.
‘That’s fucked up,’ Norah said.
‘Yes,’ Alicia agreed wholeheartedly. ‘So fucked up. It’s child abuse. It’s . . . it’s attempted murder.’
‘She wouldn’t have let me drown,’ Jessica said. ‘Or Amy. She would have grabbed her eventually.’
‘Jessica!’ Alicia cried. ‘Tell me you’re not still defending that woman. Who cares if she would have saved her – or you?’
Jessica’s expression was tragically, desperately uncertain. ‘I guess you’re right.’
‘We have to tell someone,’ Alicia said. ‘A teacher. The police.’
‘She’ll just deny it.’ Jessica sniffed and propped herself up on her elbows. ‘And even if they do believe us, what then? We’ll have to leave Wild Meadows. We could end up anywhere. What are the chances that they’ll let us stay together?’
They’d talked about this before, of course – and each time they’d decided to keep quiet out of fear of being separated. But this time was different. They all knew it.
Alicia glanced at Norah, who stared determinedly at the ceiling.
‘It’s a risk we have to take,’ Alicia said. ‘I know it’s scary, but . . .’
Jessica wiped her face with her forearm. ‘Just slow down, Alicia. We need to keep a closer eye on Amy, that’s all. Maybe we can take it in turns to stay home with her, like we did with the other babies?’
‘And if she doesn’t let us stay home?’ Alicia said. ‘What then? We can’t protect Amy if we’re not here.’
Alicia looked at Norah again. Her face was carefully blank, but Alicia saw the effort it was taking to hold back her emotions. They all knew there was no one more terrified of them being separated than she was.
‘I agree with Alicia,’ Norah said, her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. ‘We have to tell. We’ve already waited too long.’
Amy’s face lit up when they entered the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. She dropped the piece of toast she’d been smearing all over the tray of her highchair and began waving her hands about.
Miss Fairchild huffed. ‘Great. Now she’ll never eat her breakfast.’
‘Hello, Amy,’ Norah said brightly, picking her up out of her highchair and spinning her about. Amy giggled hysterically.
‘Norah,’ Miss Fairchild cried. ‘I’m the only one who –’
‘Wheeeee!’ Norah cried, ignoring her and spinning Amy faster.
It would have been funny seeing Miss Fairchild’s confusion, had Alicia not worried it might tip her off that something was wrong. Jessica must have had the same thought, because she chose that moment to say, ‘We’d better go, guys.’
The moment she said it, Amy broke into heart-rending sobs. ‘Nooooooo,’ she cried, betrayed. ‘No go!’ She looked at Norah and Jessica imploringly, her face desperate.
‘We’ll be back after school,’ Alicia said, as the child put her chubby arms around Alicia’s leg.
‘That’s enough,’ Miss Fairchild said, prising her away. ‘For goodness’ sake, what a fuss!’
‘Bye,’ they said to her inadequately, then they hurried from the house so quickly that Jessica forgot her schoolbag and had to run back for it.
As Norah and Alicia waited for her, they consoled themselves with the fact that with any luck, after today, they’d never have to do this again. Of course, if they were wrong, it meant they’d be making things worse for themselves. And not only that, they’d have made things a whole lot worse for Amy.
They didn’t talk at all on the way to school. Not one single word. What they were doing felt too important. They needed to focus.
Norah walked with her head down, sombre and stoic, like a prisoner on her way to death row. Jessica fought tears, and occasionally shed them. As Alicia walked alongside them, the idea that they could be separated today finally settled upon her chest. The last couple of years hadn’t been happy, not at all. Compared to her life before that, with Grammy, they had been a nightmare. And yet. At least she’d had these two – her sisters. As Norah said the day Alicia found out Grammy had passed away, it wasn’t nothing. On the contrary, Alicia realised now, it was everything.
