M. Arlidge - Pop Goes the Weasel

Eileen Matthews marched into the room. She clearly had a speech prepared, but Helen wasn’t in the mood to be lectured.

‘Where’s Ella?’ Helen barked, nodding at the framed photos on the living room walls.

‘I’m sorry?’ Eileen retorted.

‘I see photos of you and Alan. Lots of photos of the twins. And Carrie – at her confirmation, her wedding, holding your first grandchild. But I don’t see any photos of Ella. You and your husband were very big on family. So I’ll ask you again – where’s Ella?’

It was as if she had just punched Eileen in the face. She was temporarily robbed of speech, her breathing short and unsteady. For a moment, Helen thought she might faint, but then finally she replied:

‘She’s dead.’

‘When?’ barked Helen, incredulous.

Another long pause. Then:

‘She’s dead to us.’

Helen shook her head, suddenly furious with this foolish, bigoted woman.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t have to answer these quest-’

‘You do and if you don’t start talking right now, I am going to drag you out of this house in cuffs. In front of your boys, in front your neighbours -’

‘Why are you doing this to us? Why are you making -’

‘Because I think Ella killed your husband.’

Eileen blinked back at Helen twice, then slowly collapsed onto the sofa. In that moment Helen knew that whatever else she’d concealed, Eileen had never even considered that her daughter might be involved in Alan’s murder.

‘I didn’t… is she even in Southampton?’ Eileen said eventually.

‘We believe she’s living in the Portswood area.’

Eileen nodded, though how much she was taking in was hard to say. A long, heavy silence followed, which was suddenly and inopportunely broken by the sound of Helen’s mobile ringing. Harwood. Helen rejected the call, then turned her phone off, before seating herself on the sofa next to Eileen.

‘Tell me what happened.’

Eileen said nothing, still in shock.

‘We can’t bring Alan back. But we can stop others dying. You can do that, Eileen, if you talk to me now.’

‘She was always the bad seed.’

Helen flinched at the phrase but said nothing.

‘She was a sweet girl when she was young, but when she was a teenager, she changed. She wouldn’t listen. Not to me. Not even to her father. She was rebellious, destructive, violent.’

‘Violent to whom?’

‘To her sister, her brothers, kids who were smaller than her.’

‘So what did you do about it?’

Silence.

‘What happened to her after these incidents?’ Helen continued.

‘She was disciplined.’

‘By whom?’

‘By Alan, of course,’ she replied, as if confused by the question.

‘Why not you?’

‘Because he’s my husband. The head of the family. I am his helpmeet and I support him in any way I can, but it’s his duty to correct us when we require it.’

‘ “Us”? He disciplined you too?’

‘Of course.’

‘Of course?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Eileen replied defiantly. ‘I know the modern world frowns on physical punishment but we and the other members of our church have always believed that beatings are necessary if people are to learn -’

‘And is that what Ella received – beatings?’

‘To begin with. But she wouldn’t learn. When she was a teenager she would get into fights, go with boys, take drink -’

‘And what happened to her then?’

‘Then Alan disciplined her more firmly.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning he hit her. With my blessing. And if she still refused to be contrite, Alan took her down to the cellar.’

‘And then?’

‘He’d make sure she learned her lesson.’

Helen shook her head, stunned by what she was hearing.

‘You may shake your head,’ Eileen suddenly erupted, ‘but I have three healthy, obedient children who know right from wrong, because of their upbringing. Because we brought them up to respect their father and through him -’

‘Did Alan enjoy punishing his children?’

‘He never shied away from his duty.’

‘Answer the fucking question.’

Eileen paused, stunned by Helen’s sudden outburst.

‘Did your husband enjoy punishing his children?’

‘He never complained about having to do it.’

‘And did he enjoy beating you?’

‘I don’t know. It wasn’t about “enjoyment” -’

‘Did he ever go too far? With you?’

‘I… don’t -’

‘Was there a time when you asked him to stop and he wouldn’t?’

Eileen hung her head and said nothing.

‘Show me the cellar.’

Eileen resisted at first, but the fight was going out of her, and a couple of minutes later she and Helen were standing in the freezing-cold room. It was desolate and dark, four walls of rough brick, almost entirely empty except for a stacking chair in the middle and a locked plastic crate in the corner. Helen shivered, but it wasn’t the cold making her shake.

‘What’s the chair for?’

Eileen hesitated and then said:

‘Alan would secure Ella to the chair.’

‘How?’

‘With handcuffs, round her ankles and her wrists. Then he’d use a whip or a chain from the box.’

‘Beat some sense into her?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Sometimes?’

‘You have to understand what she was like. She wouldn’t obey him. Wouldn’t listen. So sometimes he had to use other methods as well.’

‘Such as?’

Eileen thought for a moment.

‘It would depend on what she’d done. If she’d blasphemed, then he would make her eat excrement. If she had stolen, he would fill her mouth with coins and make her swallow them. If she’d been with boys, he… he would beat her between her legs to make sure she wouldn’t do it again -’

‘He tortured her?’ Helen roared.

‘He corrected her,’ Eileen retorted. ‘You don’t understand, she was wild. Ungovernable.’

‘She was traumatized . Traumatized by your bully of a husband. Why didn’t you intervene, for God’s sake?’

Eileen could no longer look Helen in the eye. For all her conviction, without her husband present, nothing seemed certain any more. Helen continued in a more emollient tone:

‘Why her and not the others?’

‘Because they did as they were asked.’

‘Ella – how old was she when she got married?’

‘Sixteen. She finished her schooling, then married a good man.’

‘From the church?’

Eileen nodded again.

‘How old was her husband? When they married?’ Helen continued.

‘Forty-two.’

Eileen suddenly looked up, as if searching for Helen’s disapproval.

‘Young girls need discipline -’

‘So you said,’ Helen interrupted firmly.

A heavy silence followed. This room had been so full of misery, so full of vitriol, hatred and abuse. How powerless must the young girl have felt down here alone with her bully of a father, whilst he abused her physically and verbally. It conjured up images of her own childhood long since buried, which Helen pushed away forcefully now.

The twins were getting restless, calling down to their mother. Eileen turned to go, but Helen caught her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

‘Why did she leave?’

‘Because she was lost.’

‘Because she wouldn’t give up school and marry a guy old enough to be her father?’

Eileen shrugged, resentful now of Helen’s presence and the judgement it brought.

‘She wanted to study, didn’t she? She wanted to be a doctor. In spite of everything that had happened to her, she wanted to help people?’

‘It was the school’s fault. They put ideas in girls’ heads. We knew it would end in tears and it did.’