Maya - chapter 9 (The truth?)

His car was the most prominent thing about him and the vision that everyone associated him with whenever his name was mentioned. I guess that was his intention. God, it really was impressive at the time: elongated and statuesque, sharp in its square corners with the gold, circular Mercedes icon beaming proudly at its head, and glowing a glistening bronze colour into our tawdry avenue of dirty, cream, semi-detached council houses with the usual collection of carelessly thrown bicycles, broken plant pots and overgrown grass on the small front lawns. Like a village god-mobile, that car shone glory from every surface. No wonder from the ritual soaping, rinsing and endless buffing it received. I would bear witness to it each Sunday when, with bucket of soapy water, sponge, cloth and spray in hand, he would visit the altar of mechanics and pray to it on hands and knees. I sat in that car on quite a few occasions at the beginning, when he was still playing the jovial benefactor role but as I grew older, past fourteen, I don’t recall wanting to go near it. Now when I envisage its leather seats, I can feel the rip of my skin on their stickiness, like masking-tape being ripped from hairs.

His presence brought an array of new games and toys into the house which Julie and I were both nervous and excited about, not knowing quite what to make of suddenly getting the video game that we’d coveted for so long and only ever played at friend’s houses. Our living room floor became littered with Barbie and Cindy dolls, a Cindy’s Kitchen Café, Girl’s World style sets, new games of Snakes and Ladders, Operation, and Buckin’ Broncho. Of course we revelled for a while in this new excess of play but even at our young ages, we knew such extreme buying was part of a well drawn up manipulation process. The gifts were always given with one of his forced smiles as he crouched down to us cautiously, like one lowering themselves to pet a small dog. Despite my age of almost 13 and Julie’s of 10, he regarded us as though we were toddlers, to be feared and at the same time placated.

His arrival had been like a genie, a puff of smoke materialising him, legs outstretched on the erectable footstool of dad’s arm-chair, by the TV. ‘He’s an old friend,’ was the only explanation I received from mum who claimed he was a ‘god-send’, just ‘the tonic’ for her at the moment, a ‘bull’ and not like that ‘weakling of a mouse,’ which was how she began referring to dad after he left. ‘Little man,’ ‘snivelling wreck,’ and ‘deserter’ were the other commonly used names she threw at his absence. She’d become even more brittle in the days since his departure. Gone were the illusions of normality that had been present before; she’d dispensed entirely with sewing, cooking and cleaning and the house was often a mess although Julie and I attempted to tidy things from time to time, although the life-span of that task was usually short lived. One distinct change had occurred within the house, a role reversal of sorts was in action with Mum going out on a regular basis and him, who seemed to have become a permanent part of the furniture, staying at home, The Sun spread out across his stomach and a black coffee forming a ring beside him on the side table.

This new forthright nature of hers to visit the outside world was strange and I didn’t know what to make of it at first. Partly I was happy; I saw that it could be a good thing since nothing great had come of the previous, home-bound routine. Now when she went out, each outing was planned like a military operation to construct her appearance like I’d never witnessed before. Her hair, naturally a mousy colour had been dyed a lighter shade of brown and she tied this back carefully, sometimes into a French Pleat, sometimes into a tight chignon with countless pins and several squirts of cough-inducing hairspray holding it together. Powder was dusted over her skin with a large, soft sponge and the illusion of health was swept onto her cheeks with repeated strokes of a flat, blusher brush. She finished by lining her puffy eyes with brown kohl pencil and stretching out her lashes with blue mascara. The final step in her routine was to check her bag for cigarettes and gin. Occasionally, I watched her from the doorway, anxiously chewing on my nails. She’d ask me what I wanted. I had no response aside from ‘nothing’ and would have to walk slowly away as she strode past me, down the stairs and out through the front door.

It was her returns to the house which gave the biggest indication that these weren’t simple, straightforward outings. It was generally late but not always. She’d crashed in through the backdoor when we’d been watching Grange Hill or Coronation Street a few times, swaying dangerously from side to side, sections of hair sticking up perilously on top of her head, no remnants of blusher remaining on her pale, sunken face and stinking of that putrid mixture of cigarettes and alcohol. Mostly though, it was late when she arrived home, certainly past midnight and into the early hours. These instances, for the most part, were heard rather than seen through the door of the bedroom Julie and I shared. The fumbling of keys in the lock of the front door, then the bang as it swung with a heavy handed crash onto the wall, the trip over the step into the hallway with hands feebly grasping the walls for support and then the throwing of shoes from sore feet onto the stairs. Not that she always came home with her shoes.

There was one night I know for certain that she wasn’t always wearing shoes. I think it was a Thursday; an episode of Tomorrow’s World flits into my head alongside this recollection when I crept downstairs and saw no sign of shoes by the doorway, on the stairs or in the hallway. And she couldn’t have been wearing them on the way home because her foot had been cut. The blood glistened on the front door step and flat patches of it made a path towards the kitchen. I don’t know why I decided to depart from my bed that night. The noise of her coming in had woken me, but then it often did and I stayed, safe with Julie, in my room. Curiosity, an urge to pee, stupidity – call it what you will – the fact is that I got up and crept away from the warmth of the duvet and heavy breathing of my sister to peep my head through the cracks of the banisters and look into the kitchen beyond.

He was standing leaning against the worktop next to the sink, arms folded across his ribs, one leg wrapped, almost hugging the other. His face was difficult to read, perhaps because of the distance my lookout created between us, perhaps because of his coldness, his business-like demeanour. One arm had begun to outstretch towards the centre of the room and the fingers unfurled. The arm hovered there for several moments while my eyes followed the tips of his fingers towards where she slouched against the table. Her upper body was doubled over onto the wood surface, the arms crouched underneath like frightened children sheltering from the oncoming storm. Only half of her hair remained pinned to her head this time. The other half was plastered down her neck and across her forehead. The synthetic shirt she had been wearing was unbuttoned to the waist. My eyes travelled down her body, past the straight skirt, crumpled into material gatherings around her thighs down to her knees where, stretched out like a safety blanket, her beige underpants rested.

My first conscious thought was that his outstretched hand would hit her, that he was furious, that he would march from the house, disgusted and ashamed to have become involved with this mess. But his fingers beckoned and he said something I couldn’t hear. Slowly, like a terrier slowly returning the ball to its master, she reached into the waistband of her skirt and pulled out a wad of twenty pound notes. As she handed them to him, his arm whipped back to place them in his own pocket and he turned, switched on the kettle and stalked into the living room. She slumped onto a chair, gave in to the weight of her body and threw her whole being down onto her outstretched arms.

In the morning, when I awoke for school and cautiously tip-toed towards the front door, I peeked over my shoulder with trepidation, expecting to see her still slumped there on the kitchen table. No clue to last night’s dreadfulness lingered. She was in bed. I guess he must have put her there.