Rebecca Connell - Told in Silence

‘Oh, Violet,’ my mother says, her tone exasperated and brittle. ‘You’ll meet plenty of boys in Manchester.’

I picture them: spotty youths with stripy scarves and flat Northern drawls. ‘He’s not a boy, ’ I spit out. ‘He’s a thirty-year-old man with his own flat. And I love him, and I’m not leaving him. Some things are more important than—’ I stop. I want to say ‘than education’, but it sounds wrong. It’s not a question of importance, but one of necessity. I can’t leave him. The thought twists a fist in my stomach, tensing my whole body in desperation.

‘Oh, Violet,’ my mother says again. She clasps her hands in front of her, and I see the ancient engagement ring glinting on her finger. When I was younger I had thought it was the most beautiful ring in the world, but now it looks dulled and tarnished, just like everything else in this house. ‘This sounds like a crush to me. We’ve all had them, but really, a thirty-year-old man is not going to be interested in a young girl like you.’

I feel a surprised bark of laughter rise in my throat. How can she be so naive? ‘I think you’ll find he’s very interested in me,’ I say, my voice shrill and loud, battling against the television’s merry clatter. ‘I’ve been with him for the past three days, not that you’d care.’ For a wild moment, I want to shock her further, push her over the edge, tell her every detail of what we have done. Forbidden words crowd into my mind, making me breathless.

‘What?’ my mother says, louder now. ‘But this…this is outrageous. I don’t know what’s been going on here, but whatever it is, it’s ridiculous. You need to go and pack. We’ll be leaving at ten a.m. tomorrow.’

‘You’re right,’ I shout. I am on my feet now, towering over her on the sofa, my fists clenched impotently with rage. ‘You don’t know what’s been going on – you never have. I love him, and I’m not going. I phoned the admissions office today and told them, so there!’ The last two words slip out, and I want to bite them back; even to me they sound silly and childish, but I stand my ground, glaring.

For the first time, my father raises his head and looks at me. He seems faintly puzzled, grooves of confusion etched into his brow. ‘You did what?’ he asks gruffly.

‘I phoned them up and told them I’m not coming,’ I repeat. I find that I’m shivering with adrenalin.

My father wipes a hand slowly and deliberately across his mouth before rising to his feet. He’s not a tall man, barely a few inches above me in his socked feet, but right now I have to fight the temptation to shrink before him. He puts one hand on my shoulder, but not in comfort. I feel my muscles tense, wanting to shrug him off, but I keep still. He peers forward, into my eyes, as if he is searching for the person he wants to see inside them. But she’s not there. I have never been his vision of me. I am somebody else, and all at once she is fighting to get out.

‘You have a choice here,’ he says. ‘Either we call up the admissions office first thing tomorrow and we forget about all this and we take you to Manchester, or you get out of this house and don’t come back.’

‘David…’ I hear my mother say behind him, floating there worriedly like a ghost. I can sense her there, but I can’t look at her. My eyes are fixed on my father’s.

‘No, Jessica,’ he interrupts. ‘We’ve done everything for this girl. Everything for you, ’ he says to me. ‘If you don’t like it, you’re not welcome here.’

For a second I am rigid with shock; then I move back, out of his force field, my arms folded across my chest. The hurt and disbelief that wash over me feel strangely familiar, as if they are already a part of me. ‘OK,’ I say, just to fill the silence. I turn his words over in my head. All I can feel is confusion, incomprehension at how he can believe that eighteen years of what has sometimes felt like near-total indifference amounts to doing everything for me. My mother’s face swims into view, her mouth half opened in shock or indecision. She’s no better; some days can barely rouse herself enough to care whether I’m dead or alive, for all her protestations when it suits her. I have tried for too long now to pretend that this is how things should be – to be content with this hollow parody of a family. I feel fury rise inside me again, making me heady and nauseous, but I don’t speak.

I turn on my heel and leave the room, pounding up the stairs to my bedroom. I let the door swing open, revealing the tatty single bed, the piles of books scattered around it, the childhood knick-knacks that I haven’t used in years crowding the dressing table, leaving no inch of space. I step forward and pull my largest suitcase out from under the bed. My blood is pumping in my head. I am not sure what I am doing, and I don’t want to stop and think. Quickly, my hands shaking, I start stuffing things into it, almost at random. I force myself to make a list in my head. Clothes, make-up, a few favourite books, the charger for my mobile phone. I zip the bag up easily; it’s only half full. There must be something else I need. I look around the room, my eyes darting from corner to corner, taking in the piled-up possessions that don’t even feel like mine any more. There’s nothing.

I run back down the stairs, dragging the case behind me. They’re waiting for me in the hallway. I see my mother’s eyes narrow in uncertainty, wondering whether I have been packing for Manchester, or for somewhere else.

‘I’m going,’ I say, and through my anger, to my own shock, I hear my voice crack even though my eyes are dry. ‘Thanks for…for everything. ’ I sound hard and bitter, but I don’t care. My father’s face is stern and set, betraying no emotion. I’ve seen him more animated in front of the TV.

‘There’s really no need for this, Violet. This isn’t like you,’ my mother says. I am silent. Again she looks to my father, and finds no encouragement. I see her grasping for words. ‘Perhaps a couple of days away will help you get things in perspective,’ she says. ‘When you’ve calmed down, then…Well, be in touch soon in any case, won’t you? Let us know where you’re staying.’ She sounds as if I’m going on holiday. Already I can tell that she’s reframing the incident in her mind, trying to force it within the bounds of acceptability, unable to cope with the reality of what is happening. She has always been a coward. I won’t turn out that way, not if I can help it. This is my chance to stop it happening.

I move towards the door, put my hand on the latch, hesitate for an instant. Now that I am on the point of leaving, it feels so surreal that I almost laugh. The fight threatens to drain out of me as I stand there. How much easier it would be to do as they want. I glance back and see my parents’ faces, and for a second they seem different, older. I look at the tiny wrinkles around my mother’s eyes, the sprinkling of grey in my father’s hair, and my heart contracts unthinkingly, taking me back to a time when I loved them so much that I couldn’t bear them to be out of my sight. It’s so long ago, but I can barely understand how we have got from there to here. I want to scream with the unfairness of it. I want those people back – not these two painted dolls who no longer know anything about me. It seems that in the past few years we’ve peeled apart so subtly that I’m no longer sure where the threads between us are, and now it’s far too late to stitch us back together, ever again. I have spent eighteen years following in their footsteps, and somehow I know that unless I act now, I will spend the next eighteen doing the same.

Sometimes the biggest decisions are made in a split second. In the half-light of the hall, I think I see my father’s face start to change and sag with sorrow, and I can’t watch. I open the door into the dark and pull it shut behind me. A light drizzle is beating down on to the ground beyond the porch, splattering wetly on to the gravel. I step out into it and start to walk. In fifteen minutes I will be on a train to London; in a little over an hour I will be with Jonathan again. Unless he offers me one, I no longer have a home.