Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

Roberta’s eyes, heavy-lidded under their protective folds of fat, were fi xed but unfocused on her sister. Her lips worked convulsively. The fingers of one hand flexed. “It was music. Loud. He would take off my clothes.” And then the girl’s voice altered. It became honey-toned, insinuatingly persuasive, chillingly male. “ Pretty baby. Pretty baby and Time to march, pretty baby. Time to march for Papa . And he would…it was in his hand… Watch what Papa does while you march, pretty baby .”

“I left the key for you, Bobby,” Gillian said brokenly. “When he fell asleep that night in my bed, I went to his room and I found the key. What happened to it? I left it for you.”

Roberta struggled with information buried so long beneath the weight of her childhood terrors. “I didn’t…didn’t know. I locked the door. But you never said why. You never said to keep the key.”

“Oh God.” Gillian’s voice was anguished. “Are you saying that you locked the door at night but in the day you left the key in the keyhole? Bobby, is that what you mean?”

Roberta drew her arm across her damp face. It was like a shield, and behind its protection she nodded. Her body heaved with a repressed cry. “I didn’t know .”

“So he found it and took it away.”

“He put it in his wardrobe. All the keys were there. It was locked. I couldn’t get it. Don’t need keys, pretty baby. Pretty baby, march for Papa .”

“When did you march?”

“Daytime, nighttime. Come here, pretty baby, Papa wants to help you march .”

“How?”

Roberta’s arm dropped. Her face was quickly shuttered. Her fingers picked and pulled at her lower lip.

“Bobby, tell me how,” Gillian insisted. “Tell me what he did.”

“I love Papa. I love Papa.”

“Don’t say that!” She reached out, grabbed her sister’s arm. “Tell me what he did to you!”

“Love, Love Papa.”

“Don’t say that! He was evil!”

Roberta shrank from the word. “No. I was evil.”

“How?”

“What I made him…he couldn’t help…he prayed and prayed and couldn’t help…you weren’t there… Gilly knew what I wanted. Gilly knew how to do me. You’re no good, pretty baby. March for Papa. March on Papa .”

“‘March on Papa’?” Gillian gasped. “Up and down in one place. Up and down.

That’s nice, pretty baby. Papa big between your legs .”

“Bobby. Bobby .” Gillian averted her face. “How old were you?”

“Eight. Mmmmm, Papa likes to feel all over. Likes to feel and feel and feel .”

“Didn’t you tell anyone? Wasn’t there anyone?”

“Miss Fitzalan. I told. But she didn’t…she couldn’t…”

“She didn’t do anything? She didn’t help ?”

“She didn’t understand. I said whiskers… his face when he rubbed me. Didn’t understand. Did you tell, pretty baby? Did you try to tell on Papa? ”

“Oh God, she told him?”

“ Gilly never told. Gilly never told on Papa. Very bad, pretty baby. Papa needs to punish you .”

“How?”

Roberta gave no answer. Instead, she began to rock, began to return to the place she had inhabited so long.

“You were only eight years old!” Gillian began to cry. “Bobby, I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I didn’t think he would. You didn’t look like me. You didn’t look like Mummy.”

“Hurt Bobby in the bad place. Not like Gilly. Not like Gilly.”

“Not like Gilly?”

“ Turn over, pretty baby. Papa has to punish you .”

“Oh my God!” Gillian fell to her knees, took her sister into her arms. She sobbed against her breast, but the girl did not respond. Instead, her arms hung limply at her sides and her body tensed as if the proximity of her sister was frightening or distasteful. “Why didn’t you come to Harrogate? Didn’t you see the message? Why didn’t you come? I thought you were all right! I thought he left you alone! Why didn’t you come?”

“Bobby died. Bobby died.”

“Don’t say that! You’re alive. Don’t let him kill you now!”

Roberta shrank back, freeing herself fi ercely. “Papa never kill, Papa never kill, Papa never kill!” Her voice grew high with panic.

The psychiatrist leaned forward in his chair. “Kill what, Roberta?” he asked quickly, and pressed the advantage. “What did Papa never kill?”

“Baby. Papa didn’t kill the baby.”

“What did he do?”

“Found me in the barn. Cried and prayed and cried.”

“Is that where you had the baby? In the barn?”

“No one knew. Fat and ugly. No one knew.”

Gillian’s eyes were transfixed in horror, not on her sister’s face, but on the psychiatrist. She rocked on her heels, a hand at her mouth, biting down on her fingers as if to keep from screaming. “You were pregnant? Bobby! He didn’t know you were pregnant?”

“No one knew. Not like Gilly. Fat and ugly. No one knew.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“Bobby died.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“Bobby died.”

“What happened to the baby!” Gillian’s voice rose to a scream.

“Did you kill the baby, Roberta?” Dr. Samuels asked.

Nothing. She began to rock. It was a rapid movement, as if she were hurtling back into madness.

Gillian watched her, watched the panic that drove her and the unassailable armour of psychosis that protected her. And she knew. “Papa killed the baby,” she asserted numbly. “He found you in the barn, he cried and prayed, read the Bible for guidance, and then he killed the baby.” She touched her sister’s hair. “What did he do with it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did you ever see it?”

“Never saw the baby. Boy or girl. Don’t know.”

“Is that why you didn’t come to Harrogate? Were you pregnant then?”

The rocking slowed to a stop. It was affi rmation.

“Baby died. Bobby died. It didn’t matter. Papa sorry, pretty baby. Papa never hurt again. Pretty baby march for Papa. Papa never hurt again .”

“He didn’t have intercourse with you again, Roberta?” Dr. Samuels asked. “But everything else stayed the same?”

“ Pretty baby march for Papa .”

“Did you march for Papa, Roberta?” the doctor continued. “After the baby, did you march for him?”

“Marched for Papa. Had to march.”

“Why? Why did you have to?”

She looked about furtively, an odd smile of twisted satisfaction dancing on her face. And then began to rock. “Papa happy.”

“It was important that Papa be happy,” Dr. Samuels said refl ectively.

“Yes, yes. Very happy. Happy Papa won’t touch…” She cut the words off. The rocking increased in intensity.

“No, Bobby,” Gillian said. “Don’t you leave. You mustn’t leave now. You marched for Papa to keep him happy so that he wouldn’t touch someone. Who?”

In the darkened observation room, the terrible realisation cut like a sword’s swath down Lynley’s spine. The knowledge had been there before him all along. A nine-year-old girl being schooled in the Bible, being read the Old Testament, learning the lessons of Lot’s daughters.

“ Bridie! ” he said savagely and understood everything at last. He could have told the rest of the story himself, but he listened instead to the purgation of a tortured soul.

“Papa wanted Gilly not a cow like Roberta.”

“Your father wanted a child, didn’t he?” Dr. Samuels asked. “He needed a child’s body to arouse him. Like Gillian’s. Like your mother’s.”

“Found a child.”