WHO BELIEVES IN THE DEVIL ANYWAY?

WHO BELIEVES IN THE DEVIL ANYWAY?
© Mollie Kay Smith

I’m only eight years old and I know I should be asleep, but instead I’m squatting on the landing at the top of our bedroom steps. It’s only a bit wider than the bedroom door, but like my Dad says I’m little for my age so there’s plenty of room.

It’s dark. I’m frightened, and I’m waiting for the shouting to start again.

The voices come up to me through the closed downstairs doors. How can they get up the stairs? Voices don’t have legs. But they do come, every time, pushing themselves through the air to turn my own legs to jelly. I wonder whether tonight my trick to stop them will work.

Shivers crawl over my skin. It feels like spiders. I’m frightened of spiders because you never know which way they’re going to run. My bedtime Horlicks is climbing up my throat like the voices up the stairs. It was nice when I had it, but now its like sour milk in my mouth - like when I was sick that time after eating too much chocolate.

I’m trying to pull down the top of my Snoopy pyjamas. They’ve been washed a million times and hardly fit me now. Cold air is freezing the bottom of my back so I wriggle across the carpet trying to get away from it. I try not to make any noise as I stare down into the darkness. Mum says I’m too old to suck my thumb now, but I let it creep into my mouth anyway and bite on it with my teeth.It's comforting, but not a lot.

The landing’s covered with a threadbare stair-carpet, it’s wooden surround varnished dark brown. Everything’s hidden in the dark now and even though I know it's there I feel as if I’m floating in mid-air. It's like sitting on a flying carpet. Maybe if I reached its edge I’ll tumble off.

Heights frighten me and my stomach flips. A scream almost escapes, but I manage to gulp it down. Better not let them know I’m out of bed. Not just yet anyway.

I can't really see the landing wall-paper even though the night-light, left on low in my bedroom, is casting a glow behind me. I can just make out the blurred orange, brown and red colouring. It’s flowers but not real flowers, fronds of ferns which are not ferns. It makes me think of jungles and monsters so I close my eyes and imagine it's not there.

I listen hard. The voices have started again. Mum and Dad are quarrelling in the kitchen. It’s worse than it's ever been. What can I do to stop it? I’m only little and they are so....

First it's my father’s voice, heavy with anger, then my mother’s, tearful and whining. They don’t really sound like themselves at all. Few words come my way, just the violence in them. The cash, the empty box, spent on food, squandered, never enough, and where were you, never here and the booze.

Quarrels terrify me. My imagination plays tricks as I imagine raised hands. Can I hear slaps? Will Mum and Dad end up in a real fight and will I be helpless to do anything about it? I don’t think Dad ever actually hits Mum, he just threatens to wallop her if she doesn't shut up. He certainly never raises a hand to me. I think he’s a softy really and I play on it whenever I can, lying like mad just to get him to love me. Telling me off is left to Mum and somehow she never seems to have enough energy to bother.

Actually he leaves most things to Mum and now the word lazy floats up to me as her voice grows even shriller.

I shuffle a few steps down the stairs. The rough carpet scratches through the thin pyjamas as I carefully lower myself downwards: step by step, feet searching unseen edges ahead of my bottom.

If I didn't get much telling off I didn't get much affection either. When I saw the other girls snatched up by their mothers at the school gates, and the rain of hugs and kisses they received, I sometimes wondered what it was about me that made my mother not love me.

It seems that in our house life is not meant to be enjoyed. I'm told I must be a good girl, a clean girl, a tidy girl, a no bother girl. And I try, I really do try. That's how I’ve learned to tell lies. I'll say anything if I think it’ll help. Everybody says I've turned into a real little actress.

I count the steps as I slide down. Four, five, six. The staircase is nothing but a black pit leading down in the dark. I’m terrified of the dark. That's the reason for the light in the bedroom. It doesn't help really because the moving shadows it casts on the walls climb and hover like ghosts and shrink and disappear only to return again a moment later.

Often I have nightmares about dark places where demons hide. They tell me I about them at the chapel Sunday School and teach me about the
rewards of sin. All about hell and damnation, and of being cast into darkness for eternity. My picture books show what that’s like; my imagination does the rest. I’m frightened to death of meeting the devil ‘cos I tell lies. I'm just waiting for him to drag me down to hell.

Seven, eight, nine. The steps leading downwards are invisible. I'm careful to make no sound as my bare feet seek the step edges. I push my arms out and touch each wall so that I know I'm keeping in a straight line and won’t fall.

At last the doormat behind the front door stings my feet. A narrow shaft of light leaks out from under the living room door. I should be glad of it because it shows me I've arrived, that I'm now safe. But I don't feel it.

Behind the door the quarrel is growing worse. They are screaming at each other and sound as if they are trying to find out who can shout loudest.

I wait. Is now the right time to interrupt? Is it too soon? Should I wait a bit longer? Sometimes I think they must know my breaking into their quarrels is not because I really need a drink of water. But they have never said so. And I usually get away with it.

A glass of water, a little pat on my bottom from Mum. 'Get back to bed. It's time you were asleep.' I dare not say it's their quarrelling that’s keeping me awake or ask them to stop it.

Now I realise this quarrel is about something different, not cash or Dad's laziness.

'Who is she? I know you've got another woman, so don't lie.'

'Don't be daft. You're just imagining things.'

'I haven't imagined the blonde hairs on your jacket. Nor her smell on you when you crawl into bed half way through the night.'

'It's not what you think...'

'Yes it is. You've been seen. And more than once. Do you take me for a fool?' She's really screaming now. But still I wait.

I must pick the right moment. In my waiting I seem to be cut off from everything. It’s as if my head is turning over every option. Now? No, wait a bit. Now, no, listen first? Now? Wait! What's that Mum’s saying. 'Put that thing down. I'm telling you...'

I decide now is the time. My hand clutches the smooth brass door-knob. It’s cold and hard and for a moment I continue holding it before I turn it and push. Then as I do I realise all inside the room is now silent. Perhaps I needn't have come down after all. I gulp in air. I’ve held my breath too long. My words squeak when I finally get some words out.

'I'm thirsty, Mum. Please can I have some water?'

Then I see her. Well, not all of her, just her feet and legs ‘cos she's lying on the floor just inside the kitchen. And there’s blood. A lot of blood. She's lying in a puddle of it.

'What're you doing down here. Get back to bed. And remember you've seen nothing. And heard nothing either.' Dad is really angry this time and even a little actress like me wouldn't be able to charm him.

I scuttle back upstairs like a rabbit chased by a dog. In bed again I persuade myself it was only a nightmare, that I never went downstairs, that in the morning all will be as it ever was.

But when I come downstairs, I find the house is full of policeman and I know it wasn’t a dream. One of them asks if I'd seen or heard anything. I lie, of course. He’s a kind man and holds my hand whilst he speaks to me, kneeling down so that his head’s only a little bit higher in the air than mine.

'Was there a quarrel, Betty?’

'No, I don't think so. I was asleep. Anyway nobody quarrels here.'

'That's not what Mrs Briggs next door says. Are you sure you don't know what happened last night?'

'Don't know. Dad went out and I went to sleep.'

'Did you hear any people talking that you didn't recognise?'

'How could I when I was asleep?'

Perhaps I didn't get away with it that time because later that day I was sent to a home and then fostered out. I was twelve before they told me Dad was in prison and why.

***

I'm fifteen now and the woman somebody told me is a case-worker asks more questions. 'Do you like living here?'

'Yes, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. My Foster-Mum is great.'

I’m not stupid. I know which side my bread’s buttered on.

I hate her really, but it’s better here than the children’s home. Anyway, I'm only waiting 'til I'm old enough to get out and go to London and become a real actress. Won't be long. I can tell a few more lies ‘til then. These days I'm better at it.

And who believes in the Devil anyway?