Алекс Баркли - I Confess

Helen’s breath caught.

Patrick nodded. ‘What kind of prick would I be if I killed the Birthday Girl? In the wheelchair? With...’ He looked around. ‘The candlestick?’

Helen followed his gaze to two tall, gold candlesticks on the cabinet inside the door, each with a gold hummingbird perched half way up. Patrick looked down at the wrapping paper on the floor below it.

‘Was that your present from Edie?’ said Patrick.

Helen nodded and cried.

‘Why?’ said Patrick.

Helen didn’t reply.

‘Why hummingbirds?’ said Patrick.

Helen said nothing.

‘I know why,’ said Patrick. ‘Beauty and healing. You and Edie.’ He paused. ‘Do you know the parable about the hummingbird? And the forest fire? When all the rest of the animals were standing around staring at the fire, panicking, this one tiny hummingbird flew back and forth to the flames, carrying a single droplet of water in his beak each time. No matter how seemingly limited his impact could be, no matter how open to ridicule he might have been, he fought the big fight. Moral of the story? Fire puts the shits up everyone.’

He reached over to the bedside table and picked up Helen’s tenth-birthday photo. ‘Haven’t we all done things in our childhood we’re not proud of?’ he said. ‘What do you think? Should we still be held accountable when we’re older? Aren’t we all different people now?’ He pointed to the key rack in the photo — mounted on the kitchen wall behind her. Then he slid his finger back and forth under it. ‘I wonder would any of these unlock a mystery?’ He stopped at one key.

Helen went very still.

‘Say you did something terrible as a child...’ said Patrick. ‘Should that one thing define you for the rest of your life? Stop everything. Helen is done. Or Patrick is done.’

Helen didn’t reply.

‘Or,’ said Patrick, ‘is it as simple as some people are born evil? But then... define evil. What one person might call an act of evil, someone else might call an act of survival. And that survival impulse is strong.’ He smoothed down Helen’s cover. ‘Here’s what I think about evil. Evil is like cancer. We’re all born with the potential for it, but it doesn’t flare up in some people. Until something happens. Do you know that feeling when you do something terrible and it’s like a clock stops? You are no longer that pure person you used to be, and you know you never will be again. And you can tell yourself you were the victim first, and what you did was only in response to someone else’s actions. But that’s not very spiritual, is it?’

Helen’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Spirituality is all about the self, isn’t it?’ said Patrick. ‘So no matter how much you delude yourself, no matter how well you perform for the people around you, you know in your soul... in your SELF... that you have been destroyed... by your... self. And then the flood gates go down... to hold back the lifetime of tears you won’t be able to bear crying. Or — and this is what I’m getting at — for some people, different flood gates open. And they’re the ones that release those microscopic cells into your body. And no light and no love and no hopes and no prayers can change a fucking thing.’

Saturday, 30 July 1983

The Night of the Rape

He was a masked man, and he was in my kitchen. The back door was open. The back door was always open. My parents were out. I’m old enough to be left on my own, but Miriam’s babysitting. She thinks I’m too old for a babysitter too. So sometimes she goes out. Not tonight. Tonight, I think she’s sneaked a boy into the guest room. She lets me use her Walkman if I don’t tell on her.

She’s not in the kitchen. But the masked man is. I fought him off. I fought really hard. And it’s all so quiet. It’s like the sound of slaps. Lots of slaps. And breathing that I know only I can hear. I’m fighting him. I’m strong. But it’s only pyjama bottoms, and then it’s only pants, and it’s all just elastic to pull down. And he does. Far enough. And he tries to... he tries.

‘You frigid fucking bitch,’ and it’s a whisper but he’s glancing up at the door behind me snarling at me in my ear the whole time. His eyes are bulging inside in the black mask. I don’t know those eyes. I don’t know who he is. He smells so bad. He smells of sea salt, and fish, and stale raincoats. He raises his hand to hit me, and then he stops, and jumps up, and jumps back away from me.

‘Jesus Christ — look at you!’ he’s roaring. ‘Look at you. You’re after soaking yourself. You little bitch.’

He’s standing at my feet, trying to zip up his pants.

‘Shut the fuck up, will you? Shut the fuck up.’

I don’t even know I’m crying. I don’t even know. I can’t hear anything except him, roaring. I can’t even feel tears. Nothing. I can’t feel my body.

‘Get the fuck up,’ he says. ‘Get the fuck up off that floor.’

I do, and he comes right up to me, grabbing my arms, shaking me, shaking me, and my teeth are knocking together, and my head is loose on my neck.

‘If you open your fucking mouth about this,’ he says, ‘I’ll come back, and I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll come back and I’ll kill your father, and I’ll rape your fucking mother, and I’ll kill her too. And I’ll stab you all t’fuck! There’ll be blood all over this floor. And I’ll kill all your little friends and I’ll bury them in the woods. And I’ll rape you the next time. So you keep your fucking mouth shut.’

I’m nodding so much and he tries to shake me but I’m stiff as a board and it’s only my head that’s knocking back and forth.

‘I’ll have my eye out for you the whole time,’ he says. ‘I don’t miss a trick, girl. I’ll be watching you when you go out that door to school in the morning, and I’ll be watching you all the way home.’

He stares at me with those bulging eyes.

My head is floating, and I don’t feel well.

He turns to the wall and sees the key rack. There’s a line of hooks in a piece of timber, with bunches of different keys. Mam used to write the names or the numbers on the little tag to keep track. He’s looking at them and I try to run, back into the hall, to get to the front door, to get out, to get away, and he launches at me, and he grabs my wet leg, and he drags me back, and I fall, and he flips me over. And he’s disgusted with me. He yanks me up, so I’m half-standing, and he shakes me a few times until I’m standing straight, and his eyes again, burning inside the holes. And they’re absolute madness.

‘Stop whingeing t’fuck!’ he’s saying, shaking, shaking, shaking me. ‘I fucking told you,’ he’s saying. ‘Do you hear me? I’ll kill the lot of you. I’ll kill the fucking lot of you.’

I can hear the rattle of the keys this time. I’m thinking it’s my parents back. My parents aren’t back. He’s the one with the keys. He took them from the rack. He dangled them in front of my face. I can see the little boat, the blue boat, and I know what it is, I see it on the side of Clare’s dad’s trucks. I know who works there.

‘Are these from next door?’ he says to me. ‘Kevin Crossan’s place?’ And the little boat is swinging back and forth, making me sick. ‘Where your little friend lives? That skinny little dark-haired one?’

I couldn’t say no.

Patrick reached over and pulled a fistful of tissues from the box beside Helen’s bed and handed them to her.

‘How did you know?’ said Helen. ‘How could you possibly have known that?’

‘Sister Consolata told me,’ said Patrick.

‘What?’ said Helen. ‘How did she know? Why would she tell you?’