Simon Lelic - A Thousand Cuts

Do you wanna know how my real mum died?

It’s okay, I don’t mind saying. My brother killed her. Not Sam. My other brother. But he’s dead too, he died at the same time. He didn’t mean to kill her but he did. He killed her with complications. I was eight.

Do you wanna know what Sam did when she died? He burnt her clothes. Her dresses and her trousers and her jumpers and her skirts. He took em out of her wardrobe and he made a big pile in the garden and he burnt em. My dad and me, we found him. My dad did really but when he started shouting I found the both of em too. When I found em, though, my dad had stopped shouting and he was hugging Sam instead. Sam was crying. I could see he was crying but he was hitting too. He was hitting my dad, on his back and on his arms, but my dad was just hugging him. I watched. The fire went out after a while and Sam stopped hitting but he didn’t stop crying. Him and my dad, they just stood there. There was smoke. There was lots of smoke.

After Dad died, we got taken away. They took us from our house and I thought we were coming back but when we left that was it. I had this necklace, it was my mum’s, I left it there and they said they’d fetch it but they never did. I cried about that necklace. I cried about that necklace almost as much as I cried about my mum, which is a silly thing to do, I think, that’s what Annie would say if I ever told her. Now when I cry I cry about Mum or about Dad, not about the necklace. I don’t cry as much as I used to though. I have Annie and she’s like a mum. I have necklaces too, other necklaces, although not one of em is as pretty as my mum’s was.

Sam and me, we were in the same place but we slept in different rooms. He slept with the boys and I slept with the girls. So we were in the same place but it didn’t feel like we were. We didn’t talk to each other hardly ever. I don’t reckon Sam talked to anyone hardly at all, not if he could help it. That’s what got him in trouble. That’s why they moved us. It was Sam they wanted to move, for his sake, they said, but cos he was my brother they moved us both. I didn’t want to go. I told em, move Sam, don’t move me. Just cos he’s my brother. Just cos he can’t stand up for himself. But they moved us both.

It was the same at the next place. It was the same at every place. Sam sat and Sam read and Sam always got into trouble. He ruined it. He ruined things. I made friends but cos of Sam we were always leaving. I told him once, I said, why do you keep wrecking things, why can’t you be normal, and he called me simple, he said I was retarded, he said I was the one who wasn’t normal. I hit him and he hit me back. He hit me harder. He had a temper. Most of the time he didn’t show it but he showed it in front of me. They gave us these dolls at one place. They were rubber and you could bend em and twist em and try to snap em but you couldn’t break em. They told us, use em when you’re angry, use em when you’re stressed. But Sam didn’t use his. Sam used me.

Do you wanna know what he did once? He cracked my head against a wall, against a corner. This was in the third place we were at. We were in my room, I can’t remember why but I remember we were arguing. He’s calling me simple again, saying he can’t understand why I like it here, in this place. I say to him, what’s wrong with here, at least it’s somewhere, at least it’s where we are, not some place where we’re going. And he says, what are you talking about, stop talking nonsense, you shouldn’t talk at all if all you can talk is nonsense. I say, it’s not nonsense, it’s sense. I say, I just like being where I am and I don’t like moving and I wish just for once he wouldn’t ruin things. Cos he was already having trouble and we were already thinking we’d be moved again, which now I come to think of it is the reason we were arguing in my room. And I was only talking, that’s all I was doing, but Sam, he decides to hit me. So course I hit him back and then he hits me again and then we’re fighting and grabbing each other and falling over and wrestling like they do on TV and the next thing I know I don’t know nothing. When I wake up I’m on a bed and one of the wardens is looking down on me. He’s putting something on my head and it hurts. Also, I know then that we’re definitely gonna be leaving again and that hurts almost as much.

It left a scar. I needed stitches so it left a scar. You can see it if I move my hair. Here. No, wait, it’s this side. Here. See? Sam did that.

When he went away I was glad. He was sixteen and he wanted to go to college and they said they’d pay but he’d have to move again, to another place, where there wouldn’t be space for me. That suited him and it suited me. He said goodbye but only by accident, only cos he ran into me on his way out the door. I say to him, you going somewhere, and he says, yes. I say, see you then, and he says, see you. That was it. Summers he came back but two years later he was leaving again, this time to university. I didn’t care. I did better without him there.

When I turned eighteen they moved me to another place. It was like all the other places really cept they gave me my own room. There was a lock on the door and I had the key. At first I didn’t like it there, I couldn’t sleep being on my own. But I got used to it. I stayed there a while and then they moved me here cos it’s closer to the Tesco where I work. Now I only have to get one bus and in the mornings I can usually get a seat. And I have Annie.

I don’t know. I suppose about six weeks ago. He visited, just as though visiting’s what he always did. He’s at the door and he says, hello Nancy, and I say, it’s you. I say, what do you want? He says, nothing, I don’t want anything, I just wanted to say hello, and he’s smiling and I’ve never liked his smile. I let him in though. He follows me in here and he sits where you’re sat. We’re quiet for a while and then he says, do you have any tea, and I say, no. He says, oh. He says, never mind, I’m not actually thirsty. He says, how have you been? I shrug. He says, this is a nice place. I shrug. I nod. He says, do you have any help? I shrug. I say, I have Annie. He says, Annie is it, that’s good, is she nice? I shrug. I nod.

What do you want? I say.

I told you, he says. I just wanted to say hello.

Why? I say.

Why? Why do you think? Because you’re my sister.

No I ain’t, I say. And I’m thinking of Annie and how she’s like my mum even though she’s a different colour from me and how Sam and me are the same colour and the same blood and the same second name but the truth of it is we’re barely brother and sister at all.

Of course you are, says Sam. What do you mean?

You left, I tell him. You left and you didn’t call and you acted like I didn’t exist.

You could have called. They would have told you where I was.

You left, I say. You’re the one who left.

And he just shakes his head. He sits there and he shakes his head. Then he says, you’re okay though. Right? You’re okay. And I nod and he says, good. Good.

After that he’s quiet for a bit. I’m quiet too. I’m just watching him. He’s looking at his hands. He says, Nancy, and I say, what? He looks at me. I wanted to say something, he says.

I wait.

I wanted to say something, he says again, about before. About when we were younger.

I wait some more.

About the way I acted sometimes. About how you and me, the way we used to fight…

What? I say and he looks at me. He looks at me and then he’s looking back down at his hands.

What? I say again cos I’m getting annoyed. He used to do this. He always used to do this. Start saying something and get you interested and then stop before he’s said what he was gonna.

Never mind, he says. It doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t actually matter. Not any more.