Maggie Gee - The White Family

Later, much later, she counted them and marvelled. Could he hand out three hundred pounds just like that? Even if he could, she wasn’t going to spend it. Maybe when Alfred was better, they could take a little break … Nearing the red sign, she was suddenly uncertain, patting vaguely at her bag in the whipping rain. It didn’t feel fat enough to hold the money. Had she gone and forgotten it? Old, stupid.

Ignoring the rain, which was dripping down her neck, she shoved her gloved hand inside the bag’s hard jaws. But her big metal comb hooked on to the wool, and she shook her hand, irritably, to get the damn thing off and suddenly everything was clattering downwards, all caught together in some ghastly muddle, purse, notebook, mirror, change — and finally, just too fast for her, the bundle of notes went spinning downwards, and as she gasped and reached out desperately to catch it, May herself went sprawling, foot turning and slipping on the greasy pavement, and as she fell, she dropped her whisky. The crash of the glass sounded very final.

First she registered she wasn’t much hurt.

Winded, stung. But she could move her ankle.

Then she began to scrabble for her things.

But someone was coming, two feet in Nike trainers, big black and white trainers moving quiet and fast, and she looked up to see an enormous black man looming out of the rain, panting, gasping, his golden eyes boring into hers, and she shrank back, covering the money with her skirt, as the pantherish face swooped down towards her.

‘Help,’ she cried feebly, still out of breath, and then ‘Help,’ louder, but no one would hear her, and she thought, in that instant, knowing she would die, please God take care of Alfred and the kids.

We were nearly always well-behaved, as children, well-mannered, hard-working, not answering back. Darren, being the oldest, had tried it on. He staged his rebellion and had it crushed, brutally, wrestling hand to hand with Dad, because Dad was tough, he was small but tough, he was very fit from his life outside. The women stood in the kitchen sobbing, me and Mum, with our arms round each other. ‘Call the police,’ I begged her, as they shoved and grunted. ‘He’ll kill my brother. Call the police.’ ‘He won’t kill him,’ she said, but she didn’t sound sure. There were horrible sounds of fist on flesh, bone on wood, thumping, yielding, sounds I have never been able to forget. ‘I’ll break you,’ I heard Dad shout, insanely. All of a sudden, they stopped exhausted. Darren knelt on the floor, wiping dribble from his mouth, sobbing, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, I’m sorry.’ Then he ran from the house. I ran after him because I thought he would never come back, because I thought he would kill himself: ‘Darren, Darren!’ I couldn’t catch him. I could never run fast and I had the wrong shoes and no coat in winter and people looked at me as though I was crazy. I probably was crazy, with fear and grief.

How did we ever get over that? How do families ever recover? And go on to seem normal. A lovely family. People congratulated Dad on his family …

‘Madam?’

‘Sorry, I was dreaming. A cappuccino. And if you could bring some cakes?’

‘Certainly, madam. With grated chocolate?’

‘Oh plenty of grated chocolate, thanks.’

When Mum had another baby late in life I wanted to protect him, the little blond scrap, his thin pale face and his frightened mouth, from what had happened to the rest of us. Poor little Dirk. Is that why I loved him?

‘Leave him alone!’ It was suddenly easy to stand up to Dad on Dirk’s behalf. So perhaps that was the gift Dirk gave me. Perhaps it wasn’t all one way.

He had spilled Dad’s beer. An accident. It was his second beer, it was Sunday lunch. That second beer had often spelled trouble. I stood up to Dad. My heart was bursting –

‘Coffee, madam. Excuse me.’

I hadn’t heard the waitress. She stands there smiling.

‘Your cakes are on their way.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ — Nearly twenty years later, my voice is still shaking.

My father hit me in the mouth. ‘You mind your own business, how dare you,’ he yelled, beside himself, insane with temper.

Then Dirk was crying and begging him. ‘Please don’t hit Shirley, please don’t hit Shirley, it’s my fault, Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry —’ Lying on the floor. Submission posture. Trying to make his father less angry. I had learned about that in psychology, I was studying then, I was different then, I thought I was going to be a teacher, before things went wrong, before my life went wrong, but perhaps it had already all gone wrong, being brought up in that house of torture.

And Mum in the kitchen, her low frightened voice. ‘Don’t, Alfred. Please don’t, Alfred. She’s only nineteen. He’s only seven.’ But very quiet. Too scared to speak up. Too scared to come into the living-room and help us.

Later she crept upstairs after me and stood on the landing outside the bathroom. Dirk had been sent to bed for making trouble. Dad had slammed out of the house for a walk, off to the Park where he always went after there was a row, as if he couldn’t bear it — But it was all his doing, wasn’t it? He made the rows, didn’t he? It was his fault. If he didn’t enjoy it, couldn’t he have stopped it? This time he left in the middle of things, so the horror wasn’t over, the lump in the throat, the lead weight in the belly, the fear of worse to come. Mum hissed at me through the rickety door. ‘Shirley. Darling. Are you all right?’

I didn’t answer. I was sponging my face, pressing cold water against the bone, where I felt so bruised, where I felt so hurt, for he’d never before hit me in the face. It was too personal; it almost felt sexual –

‘Shirley. Please.’

‘Just go away.’

‘Shirley, dear. I have to see.’

‘Come in and see then.’ I flung the door open. There was a little cut, from his watch, I think, and a red-blue mark was steadily deepening. ‘I hate him, Mum. I’ll have to kill him. How dare he hit me. I’m nineteen , I’m grown up!’

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ She took the flannel and gently pressed it against my skin.

‘It hurts.’

‘I know. You shouldn’t get involved.’

‘Oh great.’ I turned and pushed her away. ‘So I let him hurt my brother, do I? That’s your policy, never get involved.’

‘It is his house. You might be better away.’

‘Then who would stand up for my little brother? Not you. You’re … disgusting. You’re hopeless. You’re a coward.’ I spat it at her, tears bursting, flowing. At that moment I hated her as much as him.

And then of course Mum started crying. She sat beside me on the edge of the bath, and I pushed her away, but she held my hand, held on to it grimly as I tried to shake her off, and then I gave up, and we sat there crying.

‘I think you could cover it with make-up.’

‘Yes.’ Cover things up; we always did.

‘I’m sorry, Shirley. I feel afraid.’

‘It’s all right, Mum.’ I was sorry for her. Sorry for her, for Dirk, for all of us.

We went together to peep at Dirk. ‘Do you want some milk before your father gets back?’

He was under the blankets, curled up in a ball, his blond hair sticking out on the pillow, and then he uncurled, we saw his red blurred face, streaming with snot, a baby’s face, the face of a boy turned back into a baby by having his courage beaten out of him — (I would never hit a child; never, never. Perhaps it’s as well that I’ve never had one. They say you always pass it on.)

‘I’ll kill him,’ he sobbed. ‘I hate him. When I’m bigger, you wait, I’ll smash him’ — but that was my father talking, you see. Those were Dad’s words, when he got mad. Dad liked to think he could smash people. People were things when they got in his way.