Unbind (48 page)

“A moment after deciding to leave and forget I ever saw his car there, I saw a woman in a doorway with only a loose robe covering a silk slip. Her arms around a man, she kissed him goodbye with a great smile on her face. I’ll never forget that look she had, not a care in the world. No idea that the man’s daughter stood across the street watching.

“I got going before he turned around, so he didn’t see me… but I knew it was our father. He was wearing that wax jacket he had, you know, the country gent one. I knew from the dark hair to the way he stood it was him.”

Claudia had always known their parents weren’t happy but it was still a shock to see him with his mistress in broad daylight, not a shred of shame. The young girl she was turned down a corner of that road and hid against a gate so he wouldn’t see her as he drove away.

“When I knew he’d left, I went home and tried to pretend that what had happened hadn’t happened. I couldn’t contain it, though. I went straight to Father one night while Mum was out with her friends at the bingo. He was smoking in the parlour and I asked if I could join him.

“In short, I asked him if he had any lady friends he kissed in doorways and he stared down as if it were nothing. He said it as if it was no big deal… that it was getting harder to lie. He admitted the whole thing, saying Mum was a cold woman who had been difficult to live with ever since she’d given birth to the both of us. I said I found her to be difficult too but that for our sakes, shouldn’t he try to make it work? Or be honest with her?

“You might remember, that was the night that he told her he was leaving. That he was in love with someone else and was leaving. It was the night she throttled him for it and sent him packing without a shirt to his name. That was the night our lives as we knew it ended.”

“I remember,” Jennifer recalled dolefully.

“That isn’t where it ended for me, the repercussions I mean.”

“Repercussions?” Jennifer appeared fearful.

“We know it got hard after Father left, money was tight. She was miserable, unable to work, nobody to help. The rheumatoid arthritis… it took from her, like it has taken from you too, but where you never gave in she did… to depression. Dark, bitter, horrible depression. For me, the decision I made to tell Father didn’t end with that. There’s things about Mother you need to know.”

“What things?” Jennifer appeared defensive, twisting her hands in her lap, the reminder of their shared condition a difficult one. Jennifer and her mother had once been people who used their hands but had that liberty taken away from them.

“She blamed me for everything. When you weren’t around, she’d tell me that it was alright until I stuck my beak in. She’d known about the affair but me telling him I knew had pushed him to finally leave. She said it was all going well until me, the stupid little bitch, got involved and ruined everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said, wiping a tear, breathing hard.

“That’s not where it ended,” Claudia hastily added. “When times were bad in Brixton, she started turning tricks. I interrupted her one day when I came home from school sick… and she knew I caught her. She spoke to me after the man went and said that it was my fault, that I had made her start doing these things. I screamed and said it was her fault for not seeking medical help… even suggested she could get a job that didn’t require any physical exertion. You know? I don’t know… a docent or something! She beat me with her shoe until I was black and blue and after that… after that… on the nights when you were at hockey practice, she had men over and she made me stand in her closet and listen to every sordid grunt and groan. Sometimes I’d get so scared as the men slapped or fucked her, I couldn’t help but watch to check she was okay.”

Jennifer’s look was one of horror; she’d been totally oblivious to it all.

“The sights made me so physically sick sometimes that I had to will myself not to make a sound while she was dealt with badly. Each time the man went, she showed me what these men had done to her and blamed me. Always blamed me. ‘This is what you have done, Claudia,’ she would say.”

“No,” Jennifer whispered, tears falling from her eyes.

“I know you don’t want to believe it but it’s true. It’s all true.” Claudia stood and lifted her shirt to show her sister the ribs that had never healed. She stretched the skin to show her. “I lost count of the amount of times she broke them. Remember those shoes she used to wear, those wedge platforms? She was wearing them every time.”

“No,” she asserted again, in denial, her eyes blazing with rage.

“Yes, yes, she kept you ignorant so she could at least let herself believe she got one thing right. I kept you safe too, in not telling you. If you’d known, you’d have been dragged into it.”

“No,” Jennifer repeated, not willing to have her view of their downtrodden mother wrecked by that awful account.

“Yes, sometimes there were even two men if she needed to get us new uniforms or pay the rent. She got extra for two at a time.”

“No,” she shook her head.

“I started getting into trouble at school, remember? Do you remember? So they sent me to a counsellor. I told them and they said I was insane… for suggesting such things… for suggesting my own mother did that to me. They even hauled her in, sat her down, and she denied all of it. That’s when I went away that time to a mental hospital… that’s when things happened. That’s when I started thinking about ways out… ways out of my own head. In and out… I was in and out, wasn’t I? In and out of hospital… they did things. It got scary when I couldn’t remember certain periods of time.”

“You’ve always been ill, Claude. Now I see. Now I see, you truly
are
ill!”

“Yes, and now you know why.”

“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “Mum would never have done that! Never!”

“I don’t care what you believe. It’s true. It happened to me… and I carry the scars! Me! So when you come into my house, don’t judge me and how I live my pathetic life. It’s a wonder I’ve lived
this
long.”

“She sacrificed everything for us!”

“Oh yeah, you thought she did… didn’t you? You thought she was working at her sewing machine all day when actually, she was earning via another method. As far as I know, the only thing she sacrificed was what little dignity she had and the young daughter who knew no better.”

“You could have… just left! Gone! We’d have been fine without you!”

Claudia stood and growled terrifyingly loudly, “Don’t you see, you stupid girl! She’d have turned to you next! You stupid girl! I was protecting
you
!”

“I don’t understand!” Jennifer began pacing while Claudia sat down on the window seat once more.

“Neither did I, but it happened. I’m not lying. You know… when Willem offered us work, she refused to let us go… stating we were too young. Do you want to know the real reason why we weren’t allowed to go, huh? Do you want to know?”

“Just tell me then! Tell me!”

“Because she needed me for the family firm to stay alive, that’s why!”

Jennifer turned on Claudia with a look in her eye, one that reminded Claudia of their mother. She spat, “I. Do. Not. Believe. You. I. Hate. You.”

Past

CAI HAD BEEN hiding beneath the window seat. Tears slowly rolled down his cheeks as his mother told her sister the sad story nobody ever imagined. He sure never imagined it either. His mother sat above him, stifling the air around the tiny box he now struggled to get his frame into.

He never knew fear until that day, nor pity, or sadness.
How did these things happen to her? Why?
He wanted to raise these questions and beg for answers but he was terrified of showing himself, of admitting being curious about what went on.

Some of the conversation he pretended he didn’t hear. It didn’t escape his understanding though—the reason why his mother was always trapped in a closet while his father was engaged with other women. Something about that still didn’t seem black and white, but it went some way to helping Cai understand why his mother might have let Philippe have his sex games—just so long as she didn’t have to participate in them.

How will I ever be able to talk to anyone about this?

About the things they did to each other and the reasons why?

Even with Claire and Dirk, who must have had their own thoughts on what transpired between his parents, he felt embarrassed just at the thought of how he might ask them to explain certain idiosyncrasies of his parent’s lives.
Why do adults take part in these games?

Cai’s father, dead—he wasn’t there to answer questions, not anymore. A part of Cai realised he never knew his dad and now never would. He couldn’t even mourn his death because for so long, Philippe seemed to be a contributor to Claudia’s illness.

“I hate you,” Jennifer repeated again, in a gravelly voice.

So many must have pinned the tortured artist label on her, but it was never as simple as that.

“You don’t know what hate is, Jennifer. If you ever experience it, which I hope you don’t, you’ll suffer for the feelings so close to love that are tainted with rage and denial. Hate… hate? I hated our mother yet I loved her. Hated what she’d become, yet still loved her. I put up with her because of that. I wanted her to change and be the mother to me that she was to you, but she never was. She couldn’t put aside her feelings to see that I was just a child, too. So, no, Jennifer, you don’t know what hate is when the only thing you’ve ever really loved is yourself!”

“You’re spiteful, just spiteful! I don’t believe it… I can’t! If you loved me at all, you’d have kept this to yourself!”

“Can’t, or won’t… those are two very different things.”

Cai heard Jennifer’s difficult breathing as she moved nearer the window seat once more. He wished he had the guts to respond to what was going on, because if he did, he’d tell Claudia that it didn’t matter anymore—they’d get her the help she needed and he’d be there for her. He’d never leave her side and she wouldn’t ever have to fear being alone again.

“She’s dead in the ground and so is our father. They can’t answer for the things they did but you, you’re still alive, and you can make up anything you like, can’t you? You can say or do anything you like, just as you always did. Any excuse! Claudia the rebel, Claudia the freedom fighter, the campaigner. You know… I always envied you your freedom, your artistic expression… your, god, your beauty and your talent. Me… I’ve had to work for everything I got, you know? While you, huh, you,” Jennifer breathed hard, “you never even had to try, did you? You got this place,” she drawled sarcastically, “you got a hot man, you got a son and a ton of money—”

“Shut up, will you? Don’t be the airhead you’re not, Jen. Come on! You have the whole world at your fingertips. You’re going places, you have respect! I’m just a madcap artist they love to poke fun at. Do you know how hard it is to live with the fact that I will never fulfill my true potential, do you? Do you know how incredibly difficult it is to live with that… to know that I can’t be who I want to be because when I walk down the street, I feel dirty and wrong. I feel like nothing, like I don’t have any worth. I don’t feel like a person or anyone who’s worth anything. I’m nothing, just nothing… the worthless daughter who was forced to watch her mother sell her body… and then… I was forced to do it, too!”

His mother’s shrill, screaming words echoed throughout the room. He put his hands over his ears and as he did, he felt just how many tears had gathered in his hair.

Some minutes passed and he regained the courage to take his hands away from his ears again. He smelt strong perfume and realised Jennifer sat above him once more, accompanying his mother in the window seat. Jennifer cried softly while Claudia remained quiet.

Cai ached inside for his mother and at the same time, hated that she was the mother he got given. So many other boys and girls had caring, loving mothers, but his had always been distant and cold. Now he knew why, but it didn’t really help at all.

“Philippe… did he know any of this?”

“Pieces,” Claudia admitted. “Not the whole truth.”

“Huh,” Jennifer retorted. “Then what you’ve told me stays in this room. You be a good girl and start painting, and we can all be happy. I can begin my new job at the magazine… and you can start fresh, maybe even get a nice man for a change. You’re pretty enough, you could have anybody.”

“Sweep all this under the carpet then, yeah? Protect our precious careers?”

“You’re clever, you’ve always been clever,” Jennifer jeered.

Claudia’s tone was harsh, “Not going to happen. Nope. This ends, now. Cai doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need a mother like me.”

“Just pop your damn pills and stay alive, for your son’s sake at least!”

Cai was just too frightened to reveal his presence.
What if they say I am a coward for always hiding in cupboards, beneath windows, behind doors, around corners or under hedges? What if they tell me that I am as crazy as her and that I need help too?

“He’s better off without me and we both know it. We know it, Jen. He’s a strong boy, he’ll be fine. He has enough talent and wherewithal to be whoever he wants to be. I have every faith in him and his abilities. He’s not even had one single, decent parent… and look at him. He’s beautiful and kind and thoughtful.”