Jennie Ensor - The Girl in His Eyes

She longs for someone to ask her to join them. But no one ever does. She doesn’t know how to ask, or maybe she knows they wouldn’t let her. Some of the girls jeer at her, some make snide remarks. ‘Why are you such a numpty? You’re a les, aren’t you?’

Most of the girls just ignore her. They know she’s not like them. Something marks her out as different, something they don’t understand, that she herself doesn’t understand. It’s just there. As if her skin is green.

Sometimes, one or two of them follow her around, calling out horrible things, and she has to walk over to the park to hide among the trees, or wander around the shopping centre. Other times, when it’s raining or she can’t get out of school, she locks herself in a toilet cubicle. Not for long, usually. Once, though, she stayed there for the whole of lunch break.

When it all gets too much, she squeezes her eyes shut and hums softly to herself. Sometimes she sings the words too, very quietly.

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high…

She knows the song by heart. It makes her more hopeful, less alone. Though not always. Sometimes she just wants her body to disappear. She longs to let go of everything she knows and for her body to evaporate, so she can be carried far away from this place.

Laura hummed louder. Her heart beat loud and fast and the birds still swarmed about her, a dark, diving, fluttering cloud. She started to sing. The words came without striving, taking away the emptiness inside her.

In an instant, she knew what she must do. She couldn’t keep it from him any longer. She would have to go to the source of her pain.

On the way to her parents’ house, she realised it would be more difficult than she’d thought. She’d never confronted her father with what he’d done to her. He’d never alluded to it, or acknowledged it. Each year, this unspoken thing that lay between them had grown bigger and more intractable. Now it was so dense and heavy it seemed impossible to address with mere words.

Around her, the signs of a normal weekday morning in Wimbledon Village. Joggers plugged into earphones. Shoppers hurrying along the street. Office workers slumped at walls, chatting over a cigarette. Mothers towing dogs and small children. Stylish women getting out of four-wheel drives, talking on their mobile phones.

The day was cloudy, less cold than it had been. No wind, not the faintest flicker of a breeze. No green yet, even on the smallest trees.

Laura stopped on the pavement at the turn into Elgin Drive.

‘It’s going to be alright,’ she said aloud.

She put her hand over her heart – it was pumping furiously. She took a few sips from her water bottle before carrying on.

This was a stupid idea. What good could it possibly do to confront him now? The past was the past and nothing he could say would change it. He would try to downplay what he’d done. He might blame her for everything, ask why hadn’t she spoken out at the time, even say she’d wanted it. He might say all sorts of things. And if he was up to something now, he wouldn’t simply admit it, would he? Whatever she said to him he was bound to have an answer, a story that would justify everything.

She wasn’t a coward, though. She couldn’t just turn around and go home. This was something she had to do, she knew in her heart, even if it ended up a dismal failure. This time, she had to stand up to him. For how could she blame her mother for never standing up to him, if she couldn’t do so herself?

The house was opposite her now. It looked taller and seemed to frown at her. Her father was in there somewhere, alone.

She walked to the front door and drew in her breath. She’d called his mobile earlier to check her mother would be out, told him she had something to ask him, in person. Her mother would be having lunch with a friend in Sussex, and wouldn’t be home till around 4pm. It was only 11.30am – there was plenty of time.

After a few seconds, she pressed the bell.

‘Hello, Laura.’ Her father looked taken aback for a moment, then he beamed at her. He wore one of his unending supply of grey suits, the tie removed and the top button of his shirt undone. In this suit, he was a successful businessman, a man whom everyone respected. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. How are you?’

‘I’m okay.’

Laura stepped past him into the hall. A tang of floor cleaner overlaid with garlic. She took in the familiar mahogany chair and drop-leaf table, the brass ship’s clock on the wall and the framed sketches by her grandmother – the arty one on her mother’s side, not the stern one on her father’s side who she’d never met. Further along, a row of her father’s morose Lowry prints alongside her mother’s Georgia O’Keeffe White Rose. More stuff in this one space, she thought, than in the whole of her flat.

Her father touched her arm. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said warmly. ‘Can I get you anything?’

Laura gripped the banister, draped with her mother’s yellow mohair cardigan. Her heart was thumping like crazy.

‘Why are you seeing so much of Emma?’

The question came out of her mouth awkwardly, without warning. This wasn’t what she’d planned. She hadn’t even taken off her jacket.

He shuffled his feet before replying.

‘You know why. I’m helping her with her swimming. I take her with me to the pool on Saturdays. Come and sit down, we can talk in the kitchen.’

With a jerk of his head, her father turned and strode into the kitchen. She followed him, waiting as he poured a tumbler of Bell’s, which he put on the table.

‘Anything for you?’

‘Water’s fine.’

He handed her a glass. The kitchen was neater than the last time she’d visited, all its objects back in their rightful places. Herb bottles, pill bottles, recipe books, empty envelopes, a pack of parking permits. The worktops had been cleared, except for a garlic clove and a sprawl of dark red tomatoes beside the cooker. The cactus on the windowsill had faded to a yellowish hue. One of the orchids was strewn with purple bumps close to flowering. Her gaze snagged on her mother’s Pagan Love Goddess fridge magnet, decorated with a reclining, scantily clad woman.

Her father lowered himself into his usual place at the table. Reluctantly, Laura pulled out a chair opposite him.

‘What do you get out of it exactly, Dad?’

‘Excuse me?’ His face was a picture of perplexity.

‘You know what I mean. Are you doing this just so you can have time alone with Emma?’

A scowl crossed her father’s face, erased moments later by a smile – the sort of tolerant smile one might give to an old woman who’d farted at a vicarage tea party.

‘I want to help her, that’s all. I’ve taught her how to swim properly. She enjoys herself, she’s getting a lot out of it. Things are tough for her at home – her mother’s worn out from work and her little brother gets all the attention. All she needed was for someone to show some interest in her.’ Casually, he added, ‘I would never do anything that might harm her. You know that.’

As if she were dotty for having thought of such a thing. As if she’d imagined everything that had gone before.

‘So, you’re not planning to do the same to Emma as you did to me? Or have you done something to her already?’ Her heart was thudding loudly enough for him to hear.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laura.’

She wanted to hear him admit what he had done to her – and why – and find out whether he was a danger to Emma. Now the moment had come, though, her confidence was leaking away. She picked up her glass of water, trembling as she brought it towards her mouth. She put it down quickly and took a deep gulp of air, clasping her hands firmly together.