She kept her calm until they got home. Then she unleashed her rage. First with the piece of electrical cord, then afterwards with her fists and feet, while Nigel and Brendan watched like caged monkeys from the upstairs landing, their faces pressed silently against the bars.
It wasn’t the first time she’d beaten him. She’d beaten them all at some time or another — mostly Nigel, but Benjamin too, and even stupid Brendan, who was too scared of everything to ever put a foot wrong — it was her way of keeping them under control.
But this time it was something else. She’d always thought him exceptional. Now, it seemed, he was just one boy. The knowledge must have come as a shock, a terrible disappointment to her. Well, that’s what blueeyedboy thinks now. In fact, he must have known even then that his mother was going insane.
‘You lying, malingering little shit!’
‘No, Ma, please,’ whimpered Ben, trying to shield his face with his arms.
‘You blew that exam on purpose, Ben! You let me down on purpose!’ She grabbed him with one hand by the hair and forced his arm away from his face in readiness for another blow.
He closed his eyes and reached for the words, the magic words to tame the beast. Then came inspiration —
‘Please. Ma. It’s not my fault. Please, Ma. I love you—’
She stopped. Fist raised like a gauntlet of gems, one eye levelled malignantly.
‘What did you say?’
‘I love you, Ma—’
Back then, when Ben had gained some ground, he needed to consolidate his position. He was already shaken, already in tears. It didn’t take much to summon the rest. And as he clung to her, snivelling, his brothers still watching from the top of the stairs, it struck him that he was good at this, that if he played his cards right, he might just survive. Everyone has an Achilles heel. Ben had just found his mother’s.
Then, from behind the bars of the staircase he saw Brendan’s eyes go wide. For a moment Brendan held his gaze, and he was suddenly convinced that Bren, who never read anything, had read his mind as easily as he might read a Ladybird book.
His brother looked away at once. But not before Ben had seen that look; that look of understanding. Was it really so obvious? Or had he just been wrong about Bren? For years he had simply dismissed him as a fat and useless waste of space. But how much did Benjamin really know about his backward brother? How much had he taken for granted? He wondered now if he’d made a mistake; if Bren wasn’t brighter than he’d thought. Bright enough to have seen through his act. Bright enough to present a threat —
He freed himself from Ma’s embrace. Bren was still waiting on the stairs, looking scared and stupid once more. But Benjamin knew he was faking it. Beneath that drab plumage his brother in brown was playing some deeper game of his own. He didn’t know what it was — not yet. But from that moment, Benjamin knew that one day he might have to deal with Bren —
Post comment:Albertine: Are you sure you know where you’re going with this?
blueeyedboy: Quite sure. Are you?
Albertine: I’m following you. I always have.
blueeyedboy: Ah! The snows of yesteryear . . .
8
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine posting on:
Posted at: 20.14 on Monday, February 11
Status: public
Mood: mendacious
Yes, that’s where it starts. With a little white lie. White, like the pretty snow. Snow White, like in the story — and who would think snow could be dangerous, that those little wet kisses from the sky could turn into something deadly?
It’s all about momentum, you see. Just as that one little, thoughtless lie took on a momentum of its own. A stone can set off an avalanche. A word can sometimes do the same. And a lie can become the avalanche, bringing down everything in its path, bludgeoning, roaring, smothering, reshaping the world in its wake, rewriting the course of our lives.
Emily was five and a half when her father first took her to the school where he taught. Until then it had been a mysterious place (remote and beguiling as all mythical places) which her parents sometimes discussed over the dinner-table. Not often, though: Catherine disliked what she called ‘Patrick’s shop-talk’ and frequently turned the conversation to other matters just as it became most interesting. Emily gathered that ‘school’ was a place where children came together — to learn, or so her father said, though Catherine seemed to disagree.
‘How many children?’
Buttons in a box; beans in a jar. ‘Hundreds.’
‘Children like me?’
‘No, Emily. Not like you. St Oswald’s School is just for boys.’
By now she was reading avidly. Braille books for children were hard to find, but her mother had created tactile books from felt and embroidery, and Daddy spent hours every day carefully transcribing stories — all typed in reverse, using the old embossing machine. Emily could already add and subtract as well as divide and multiply. She knew the history of the great artists; she had studied relief maps of the world and of the solar system. She knew the house inside and out. She knew about plants and animals from frequent visits to the children’s farm. She could play chess. She could play the piano, too — a pleasure she shared with her father — and her most precious hours were spent with him in his room, learning scales and chords and stretching her small hands in a vain effort to span an octave.
But of other children she knew very little. She heard their voices when she played in the park. She had once petted a baby, which smelt vaguely sour and felt like a sleeping cat. Her next-door neighbour was called Mrs Brannigan, and for some reason she was inferior — perhaps because she was Catholic; or perhaps because she rented her house, whilst theirs was bought and paid for. Mrs Brannigan had a daughter a little older than Emily, with whom she would have liked to play, but who spoke with such a strong accent that the first and only time they had spoken, Emily had not understood a word.
But Emily’s father worked in a place where there were hundreds of children, all learning maths and geography and French and Latin and art and history and music and science; as well as fighting in the yard, shouting, talking, making friends, chasing each other, eating dinners in a long room, playing cricket and tennis on the grass.
‘I’d like to go to school,’ she said.
‘You wouldn’t.’ That was Catherine, with the warning note in her voice. ‘Patrick, stop talking shop. You know how it upsets her.’
‘It doesn’t upset me. I’d like to go.’
‘Perhaps I could take her with me one day. Just to see—’
‘Patrick!’
‘Sorry. Just — you know. There’s the Christmas concert next month, love. In the school chapel. I’m conducting. She likes—’
‘Patrick, I’m not listening!’
‘She likes music, Catherine. Let me take her. Just this once.’
And so, just once, Emily went. Perhaps because of Daddy; but mostly because Feather was in favour of the plan. Feather was a staunch believer in the healing powers of music; besides, she had recently read Gide’s La Symphonie Pastorale, and felt that a concert might boost Emily’s flagging colour therapy.
But Catherine didn’t like the idea. I think now that part of it was guilt; the same guilt that had pushed her to remove all traces of Daddy’s passion for music from the house. The piano was an exception; even so, it had been relegated to a spare room, where it sat amongst boxes of forgotten papers and old clothes, where Emily was not supposed to venture. But Feather’s enthusiasm tipped the balance, and on the evening of the concert they all walked down towards St Oswald’s, Catherine smelling of turpentine and rose (a pink smell, she tells Emily, pretty pink roses), Feather talking high and very fast, and Emily’s father guiding her gently by the shoulder, taking care not to let her slip in the wet December snow.