colour a lie with a lie, with a lie
how much darker can you paint your soul?
Everyone Goes Your Way, Ella Eyre
'She was born with the winter already in her bones.'
Kate Atkinson, Life After Life
He was a monster, with a charming smile and a way of drawing people to him. He had this- she thinks she'd call it magnetism. And once you were in his orbit, you couldn't get out, it was like you were trapped, spinning and spinning forever.
But at the start he had this 'fuck the world' attitude that appealed to her, because she was young, and lonely, and angry and it seemed the best way to piss her parents off. In hindsight, it was a bloody stupid thing to do, to get involved with him, but like she said, there was something about him, Eddie; something she couldn't resist.
Maybe she could see the monster within, maybe she thought she deserved it. Maybe she did.
...
She met Robbie first. Same year at school, same lessons, same sense of humour, at least then.
He'd asked her out when they'd been messing about, walking home from school. She'd smiled, she can remember it so clearly now, and said, 'I thought you'd never get up the nerve,' and they'd laughed. A few days later they'd gone to the flicks, some cowboy film. That would have been '81, when they were fifteen, kids.
He was the first, her first. It wasn't glamorous, by no means, in his bedroom, fumbling around without a clue, sweaty palms and racing heartbeats, waiting for the slam of the front door, waiting to be caught. They were bloody idiots. But she didn't care, not then, she liked him, she really did and she thought that was all that mattered.
It went on for months, them fooling about.
She can remember one day, down by the river in the middle of winter. She liked winter, the darkness, the cold; it was her season. They were sitting on the bank, he had his arms round her, and they were mucking about, talking and laughing, and then he'd kissed her and muttered something under his breath.
She pretended not to hear. For years, she pretended not to have heard him.
'I bloody love you,' mumbled into the crisp air, clouds of his breath whirling away.
It wasn't long after that, when she got in a panic because she was late, and she was never late, and her mother had taken her to the doctors, with that look on her face - the one she can't forget; the mix of horror, and disappointment, and anger.
She dropped Robbie after that; her mother told her to and she hadn't argued. Maybe she should have. Oh well.
She stopped calling, and her mother turned him away when he knocked on the door, and that was that. She was out of school by then; recovering, her mother called it. She doesn't like to think about it, about what happened - about how one morning, there was a baby, a life, inside of her, and by the time she went to sleep, there was nothing, she was empty, all empty. She didn't even want the fucking baby – the idea of a child, a baby, someone who relied on her, scared her shitless - but still. It was there, then it wasn't. One moment; a flicker, a heartbeat, a choice.
It happened so quickly. When they took her in, all she could think about was the day they caught her and Robbie in the cricket pavilion. She'd bunked off double maths, the teacher was a knob, and when was she really going to need Pythagoras and his bloody theorem? Robbie had ditched his lesson too and they'd met up on the cricket pitch and they'd drunk cheap lager and messed around.
She can remember that they couldn't stop laughing after they'd been caught by the heads of Science and PE nipping out for a quick smoke. They'd been horrified, angry, one of them had stormed off to get the head, the other stayed, embarrased, as they put their clothes back on. Robbie's dad had come in, her mum, and the head had given them a bollocking and her mum went as white as a ghost. Robbie got off with a warning, he'd done nothing else before, but she was disruptive, a nuisance, so they told her to stay away for a week. She shrugged, didn't give a damn. Her mum never talked about it, she doesn't think she ever told her dad. It was mortifying for her, she thinks. It was awful.
She doesn't know why she thought about that but it was in her head, looping round and round; Robbie muttering 'shit, shit, shit,' under his breath, looking for his shirt, when they heard the footsteps. She couldn't stop laughing, and then neither could he.
She's not laughing now.
…
Robbie gave up on her.
It took him two weeks. She just wanted him to stop knocking, stop ringing. She didn't want to talk to him, didn't want to look at him. She's not sure she could have looked him in the eye.
She used to look out the window when he'd be knocking on the door at seven o'clock asking her mum if she was going to walk with him to school today. She'd hide behind the curtain, and hear her mum tell him no, every time, and he'd trudge away, and she wanted to run after him, but she never did.
And then he gave up. It was a relief, of sorts.
...
She went back to school after a while but she cared even less after that. Got through her exams, mind – made sure she did, for her parents.
She spent most of her days ignoring Robbie.
Maybe she should have said something, she nearly did, nearly asked him to town on a Saturday to tell him why she was being off with him, but she couldn't face him, didn't want to hurt him.
Anyway, he was knocking about with some other lass by then. She'd been replaced. It was better like that, maybe.
…
It was that summer she met Eddie. He was through with school, had been a while. He'd been outside the school gates with his motorbike, waiting for Robbie one day after school and she'd come out, fuming at something or other.
He'd said something, made a comment, and she'd wheeled at him, screaming at him, flipping out. He was just some sad tosser at that point, she hadn't a clue who he was, but he started laughing and said: 'you're that lass that got caught shagging our Robbie in the cricket pavilion, aren't you?' And she'd flushed bright red and said 'who's asking?'
He'd introduced himself, asked her if she fancied going out on Saturday night. She thought that it would piss Robbie off, maybe that was what Eddie was thinking too, and he seemed like that kind of lad her parents would hate, and he was handsome and didn't seem to give a damn about anything, so she said yes.
…
He was the opposite of Robbie. Exciting, angry, dangerous, rough. She didn't care when everyone told her he was a bad 'un who'd never amount to anything. She was infatuated, she was in love with the mystery, the excitement.
She didn't even care when Robbie came up to her for the first time in months and told her she should sling her hook, leave Eddie alone. She told him to fuck off, that it was none of his business.
…
She was all set to do her A levels; French, English, Geography. She was bright enough.
First day, she didn't get past the gate. Robbie was there, and she hated the place, and she was shit at school anyway, and Eddie had done alright for himself without any qualifications, so she took the bus to town, put in for a job at the supermarket.
Her dad's face nearly sent her crawling back, but she stood her ground. The supermarket rejected her, but she kept going, got a job answering the phones and making tea in some stuffy, little office down Church Street near the station in Halifax. The boss was a creep but it paid alright and they didn't care she had no A Levels.
She'd sit at the desk, bored out of her skull, staring out the window. There was a garage across the street, they'd wolf-whistle her when she arrived in the morning and when she left at night.
She told Eddie once, when they were drunk and stumbling back home. She didn't think much of it. The next day, when she went into work, there were no calls, just angry glares and bloody noses and broken cheek bones. She asked Eddie later and he'd said he'd dealt with it. It was the first time she was properly scared of him, but she shrugged it off. He did it for her, she figured, she thought it proved how much he cared.
(she should have run then, oh god, she should have run)
...
Robbie tried once more to tell her to stop bothering with Eddie. They bumped into each other in the street. Eddie was in the shop, buying lager and cigarettes, and she was hanging about, watching his bike.
Robbie came over and said, 'He'll only hurt you. He can be a right bastard.' And she'd laughed and told him it was her own damn life and it wasn't her problem if he was bloody jealous because she had jumped into bed with his brother because he wasn't good enough, that he was crap in bed and Eddie was ten times better than him. She didn't know why she'd said it. It just happened. Maybe she wanted to hurt him. Wasn't that always the reason? But maybe it was because she was trying to convince herself that it was Eddie, not Robbie, she wanted.
He shook his head, muttered something under his breath she didn't catch.
'Yeah, well,' he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, looking away. 'Don't do anything stupid, eh, Gillian?' and then he'd walked away, back the way he'd come, shaking his head. She'd watched him go.
When Eddie came out the shop, she was still looking down the street, in the direction Robbie had gone.
'What's up?' Eddie asked, sliding on his helmet. 'You look like you've seen a ghost.'
She laughed. Put on the helmet. Climbed on the bike.
That was the night Eddie proposed, both pissed on cheap lager, three in the morning, lying next to each other in bed, her head on his chest.
She never liked to think about why she said yes, Robbie saying, 'I bloody love you,' that fucking freezing day down by the river, back before things turned to shit, when all she wanted was him, running through her head on repeat.
('I bloody love you.'
'I bloody love you.'
'I bloody love you.'
'I bloody love you.')
'Yes.'
…
Her mum didn't say a word – her dad, on the other hand.
'What on earth do you think you're doing?'
She shrugged.
'I'm not a child. I can do what I like. You can't tell me what to do.'
'When you live under my roof, I bloody well can.'
'Well I won't be living under your roof for much longer. Eddie an' I are getting a place. Together. I'm old enough, you can't stop us. I just thought I'd tell you before. Before the wedding.'
'Are you pregnant again?'
It was her mother, the first thing she'd said since she'd told them she was marrying Eddie.
'Shit- no.'
'Don't swear.' An automated response, instinctual. Her dad, hands on hips, frowning at her.
'Is he the… Is he the one? That, you know, last summer…' Her dad stumbled over the words.
'God no.' She didn't tell them that the 'one' was the brother of the man she was now marrying. Somehow, she felt it wouldn't go down well.
They argued for hours, going round in circles, again and again and again.
She stormed out in the end.
Her parents didn't come to the wedding. It was down the registry office on a Wednesday afternoon the year she turned nineteen. Dead romantic.
They went and got pissed after. So pissed Eddie passed out on top of the covers when they finally rolled in, and she'd sat and watched him breathing for hours, too wired to sleep.
She thought it was a joke, she thought it was a good idea. She loved Eddie, or at least was in love with the idea of him, and she thought he loved her. She thought they'd be happy.
She thought a lot of things that were crap.
…
She walked out of her job in the stuffy, little office on Church Street not long after the wedding.
She just couldn't take being treated no better than shit on a shoe by her creepy boss and his creepy friends.
She walked straight across the street to the garage where they all hated her and asked the boss for a job.
He looked at her, warily.
'We don't take on lasses,' he said, shortly. 'Especially ones who've got no experience, and whose fella put three of my lads in hospital a while back.'
She shrugs.
'But,' he said, eyeing her carefully. 'You've got balls, I'll give you that. So yeah. I think I might take you up on that. You could teach the morons here a thing or two I bet.'
He smiled at her. She smiled back.
…
It wasn't long after she got the job at the garage. Her and Eddie, dinner at her parents.
Rebuilding broken relationships, slowly.
Eddie was on his best behaviour, no drinking, no swearing, nothing coarse. He was charming, he could be charming if he wanted to.
By the time they left, her dad was shaking Eddie's hand, saying they should come back soon. Her mother was waiting in the doorway, and Eddie went on ahead, back to the car with her dad. Her mother held her close and spoke quietly, barely a whisper, into her ear.
'If anything happens, love, I'm here.' She'd pulled away by then, still in her mother's embrace but confused.
She let it slide, walked away.
(now she thinks her mother could see past the charm, to the monster within, but maybe not far enough, because she never saved her, did she?)
…
He was pissed to high heaven the first time.
She'd just come in from a shift, buzzing because it turned out she was pretty good at it after all.
Eddie had been drinking all afternoon, cheap lager and whiskey. He'd been sacked from his job, he was angry.
She shouldn't have kept going on about clutches and engines and how the boys were finally accepting her as one of the lads. It was cruel of her. But Eddie hadn't told her and she wasn't a mind reader, but it didn't matter.
It left a dirty purple mark across her cheek, startling in its colour, a black and blue smear across her cheekbone, that stayed for weeks. She'd stood open mouthed, her head ringing, her vision blurred, trying to comprehend what had just happened.
(she shouldn't have said a word, she should have just walked out on him then, but, oh, she didn't, she didn't – instead, she said: )
'What the fuck, Eddie?'
But he was passed out on the sofa by then.
…
In the morning, she realised he hadn't a clue what he'd done.
She figured that meant he wouldn't do it again, that it was a one off, that he was drunk, a mistake, that it just wasn't him.
(but she didn't know him, didn't she?)
…
A month later, the bruise on her face had finally healed.
She came in from her shift at the garage, it was Eddie's birthday. He was sulking already because she couldn't get off work earlier so they could celebrate. He'd probably had a bit to drink already but she wasn't sure. They went out, for dinner, and he'd snapped at her and drunk too much and it was bloody miserable.
When they got in, they were arguing, bickering. She was in the kitchen, getting a drink of water or something, and she heard him clattering towards her and she'd turned, a sharp retort to his words caught in her throat.
The only thing she remembered was how cold the kitchen tiles were.
…
Things go from there. Fall into a pattern.
Sometimes, things settle, and he stops and she hopes, but she always crashes straight back down to reality, with a slap, or a punch or a kick. Years go by, and things stay the same.
…
Eddie brought up the idea of the farm, he saw the advert in the paper.
It's a way of getting her away from the garage, from other people. Isolation. There's power in that and Eddie always liked to have power. But she didn't know that then, did she? She thought it might make him happy and then he wouldn't have to hurt her anymore.
(she's oh so wrong)
They put in an offer, sell their place, buy the farm, and the sheep. Eddie tells her it'll be fine, despite the fact neither of them are farmers, and it's true they are. They take to it like ducks to water.
But it means he can do what he wants and there's no one to ask questions. No one at all.
…
He puts her in hospital on her twenty fifth birthday.
She didn't sort the sheep out quick enough apparently.
He tells the paramedic she fell down the stairs, when in truth, she'll be having nightmares for weeks about his fists and his feet smacking into her again and again whilst he spits about rubbish, calling her a bitch and a whore and good for nothing.
A broken leg, six broken ribs and a shattered wrist.
She's good for nothing for months after that.
…
When she finds out she'd pregnant, she cries.
She doesn't tell him, thinks about getting rid of it, but she can't, for so many reasons – Eddie'll never let her out, and would probably kill her if he found out, and anyway, she can remember the last time, how empty she felt last time.
When she finally works up the nerve, he's all smiles, kissing her and holding her and telling her he loves her.
For eight months, he doesn't lay a hand on her. She thinks, maybe, they've turned a corner, that things'll be okay. He was just troubled, things will be okay.
(or not)
The night they brought Raff home, he hit her across the face because the baby wouldn't stop crying.
And it began again.
…
It was when Raff was four months old. She was cooking, when Eddie came in from the pub, smelling like a brewery. He was smoking and he staggered towards her, wrapping his arms around her.
'Eddie,' she said, trying to swat him away. 'I'm cooking,' she said, but he just held on tighter. She tried to get away but he twisted her around so they were face to face, so that she could smell the booze on his breath, felt it radiating off of him.
He ran his hand across her face, mumbling 'You're beautiful,' as he gripped her wrists tight.
He took a drag on the cigarette. 'How long till t'tea?'
'Half an hour.'
He looked at her, at the fag, and back again.
She knew what he was going to do before he did it, tried to lurch away, but he was too strong and he was holding her like a vice, so she just stood there, struggling, screaming, as he ground the cigarette out on her neck.
White hot pain rushed through her, and she almost missed him speaking.
'Wrong answer, love.'
…
When Raff was three, she found out she was pregnant again.
She spent days, sitting in the sofa, her mind racing, rushing at a million miles an hour.
She couldn't have this baby, not here, not like this, she told herself, again and again.
She woke, sometimes, in the dead of night, Eddie slumped across her, his heavy weight suffocating her, the stale stench of lager sickening, and she'd be gripped by the sudden fear that Eddie was going to hurt their son. Most of the time, she convinced herself Eddie wouldn't lay a finger on her boy, he was good with Raff, read him bed-time stories and tucked him but in the depths of night, she had trouble convincing herself.
She didn't care about dying herself, not really. There was a sort of inevitability about it, all in all, that she'd slowly come to terms with over the years. It still scared the shit out of her, but that didn't do anything.
But if he put a fucking hand on Raff...
She couldn't live in fear for another child. She couldn't.
…
There was a time, before her boy, before, when she nearly left him.
She worked out a plan, but then he calmed down, stopped doing things to her, and she hated herself for thinking it.
And then, of course, he started up again.
It was different, now. The plan is still there, she'll flee to her parents with Raff early in the morning, when Eddie's out with the sheep.
And it so nearly worked. Raff kept asking where they were going, as they packed as quickly as they could, one or two sets of clothes - more could always be bought, later - Raff's teddies, the car keys and they were ready to go.
But then she opened the front door and there he was. She faltered, and watched as he looked from her to Raff.
To their things, clasped in her shaking hand.
And then Raff spoke, his voice, so young, so innocent: 'Mummy says we're going to Granny and Granddads.'
And that was that, she was so tired.
Eddie sent Raff upstairs, then nearly killed her.
There was no baby after that, no hope for the future either. So much blood, her blood, everywhere. No hope, just the revelation she would never leave Eddie, or this fucking place, and she would die in these four walls, probably when her son was upstairs, innocent.
…
She was in the bath.
Eddie was drunk, stumbling in.
'Lets' 'ave another baby!' he announced and she looked down at her knees.
'No.'
As quiet as a mouse, as quiet as snow on grass.
'What the bloody hell do you mean, no?'
'No, Eddie.'
He lurched towards her, grabbed her round the neck. 'You,' he said, pushing her head under the water as she spluttered, 'don't get to say no.'
He held her under and her eyes stung and she thrashed and fumbled for some sort of hold to drag herself out and she needed to breathe and she needed air and oh, fuck, this was going to be it.
And then suddenly:
'Mummy? Daddy? Can you come and tuck me in?'
It was muffled by the water, and by the screaming in her chest, but she could hear him.
She could hear him. Her boy, her Raff, the only thing she lived for.
She could hear him.
Eddie froze. Let go.
She rose out of the water, gasping and choking and everything was screaming.
Eddie took a contemptuous look at her, like all of this was her fault, and then he left, calling as he went.
'Daddy's coming Raffy.'
She sat, in the tub, unable to move, no energy, listening through the walls to Eddie tucking their son in; happy, jovial, kind.
She made a decision then. It couldn't go on. It was either her, or him.
It's him.
…
There was so much blood, on her, in the machine, everywhere. Everywhere.
A log-splitter, it seemed, was a bad way to go, but she didn't feel anything. She hasn't felt anything in a long time. She was numb.
She had blood on her hands, now. She was a murderer, now.
Murder. Wrong, so categorically wrong. She'd crossed a line.
But she was alive, and so was Raff.
And he was a monster.
A monster.