Fiona Mozley: Elmet

I suppose it is normal for little boys to tell little girls that they are not allowed to play with them but I suppose most little girls know what the answer will be from the start and do not bother to ask. Cathy, of course, did ask, and was told. She asked again and she was told again. She said it was not fair but was told by Gregory Smowton that it was his ball so he could choose who played and who did not. She tried to play anyway. She placed herself on the field in what seemed like the right position and when the ball came near she ran for it. She got it. But then what happened next was more difficult. She was not on either of the teams and so had no idea which direction to take, to whom to pass, nor which goal to run for. I remember her just standing there with the ball and the boys standing too, not knowing too whether to tackle her or to ask for a pass, and her looking startled then suddenly realising that she did not want it anyway.

Part of me still wishes that she had run with it somewhere, ducked and dived round all the lads and kicked it straight past the goalie between the rucksack posts. In my mind she would have been a footballing sensation. But in the event nobody ever saw her play. She stood there by the ball then she walked away. Walked away over to the other side of the field. She told me later when I asked her that she knew it would always be their game. Even if she played, and even if she played well, it would always be their game.

She had caught their attention though. She had riled them. For the rest of that term they sought her when she was alone. They took her aside and punched and kicked her and sometimes strangled her and she ran away or resisted quietly. She pushed their hands off or blocked their blows when they came at her. But she did nothing decisive. Nothing that would end it. And because the boys had no ultimate reason to stop, and because it was fun and made them feel better, they continued. Several weeks passed and they would still chase her behind the bins and beat her or find her in the park between the school and our house or sometimes down at the beach where she and I would wade about in the rock-pools.

There was a trigger though. Something shifted in her mind. I do not know whether it was the particular action or whether it was that I was involved, but it was something.

It was a Friday. It was the Friday before Good Friday. School had broken up for the Easter holidays the day before. The first day we had to ourselves was dry but there was such a strong wind coming in off the North Sea that the air was wet with salty water. It whipped our faces so that they were near red raw and the salt combed our hair and dug under our fingernails.

We went down to the beach to look for hermit crabs. We picked up shells and tried to see if there was one inside. When there was we looked for a moment and placed it back then looked again, creating a map in our minds so as not to disturb the same creature twice.

We both saw the boys coming from a long way off. They made no attempt to disguise themselves. They stretched out their bodies and swung their arms as they walked. I could tell Gregory from his red hat. One of the others had a football. He kicked it hard and the ball scuffed over the sand and stopped twenty metres away for him to lazily walk after it and meet it. It splashed through shallow saltwater puddles and tossed dark wet sand this way and that.

Cathy saw them too but she did not stop. She picked out a beautiful little shell and asked me with a steady voice if I had seen it before. I told her that I had not and she turned it over to look inside. There was nothing there. The animal that had grown the shell was long dead and no little crab had crawled into its grave. She bent down and placed it back amongst the seaweed.

The salty gusts were hitting hard from over the North Sea. Cathy’s hair, black as Whitby jet, whipped about her as she stood up to face the boys. The toggles of her coat beat against each other, sounding the sweet wooden pulse of a marimba being struck by the wind. I watched her the whole time. I could not take my eyes off her. I was ever her witness.

Adam Hardcastle ran in and knocked her to the wet sand. She put her arms back to break her fall but did not make to get up and he soon had her held down. Callum and Gregory walked over, casually.

None of them seemed to notice me though I had been standing right beside my sister. I was younger and small for my age so I knew I could not have done anything except get help. I turned and started running across the sands. Daddy was not in town but I could tell Granny Morley and she could get word to him or else to other people she knew, other people who were a bit like Daddy.

I had not gone twenty metres before Callum caught on to the neck of my sweatshirt and pulled me back. Gregory had begun slapping my sister gently across the face. He then reached down to the bottom of her polo shirt and pulled it up and placed his left hand on the right side of her chest, on her nipple. She was just a girl and there was nothing there but bone and muscle but perhaps he thought this would bother her. He held his hand there and she just stared at him. There was no reason to her why this was worse or different from what had gone on before. She had no idea that Gregory was acting out a kind of play, taking his cues from things he had either seen or heard, doing something that he thought would be worse for her — the worst thing of all. But she did not know. She had not been told yet. She was not in on the game. All she felt was a cold wet hand on her skin that was no worse than a kick in the teeth.

Gregory challenged her on it. ‘Aren’t you bothered?’ He could not understand why she remained unmoved. ‘Slut,’ he said. She stared at him. ‘You should be bothered by me touching you here,’ he said.

It was not working. He turned to me. I was hanging limply in Callum’s arms.

‘Dunk his head in that pond,’ said Gregory. Callum laughed cruelly and dragged me over to a rock pool.

The first time he pushed my head into the cold water I saw a single sea anemone clinging desperately to the side of the jagged crevice, infringed upon on each side by a colony of chipped barnacles.

The second time I saw two distinct types of seaweed and what I thought was a razor clam.

I remember these things. These were the things I promised myself I would remember.

The third time my head did not reach the water. Behind me, my sister had risen up from the sand kicking and screaming my name and their names and her name. She had fought them all and won and they were now legging it back to town with their football left behind. She pulled me up and told me to run all the way home. She told me to run home and stay there and to tell Granny Morley that she would not be long but that it might be a good idea to get Daddy. She wanted Daddy. She left me there and ran off behind the boys. She chased them down and I knew she would catch them all. Her legs were longer and stronger than theirs in those days. I turned and ran home and did what she said.

The boys were fine. After she was finished with them they were bruised and tender but they were not seriously hurt. She did not know how to cause too much damage to a human body and their wounds healed quickly. In school for the weeks that followed they kept themselves away from Cathy and for some time they kept away from everybody. When the new term came they were more or less as they had been before, in the way they walked and the way they spoke to people. If there was any more humility than before or any more regard for other people, it was hidden.

In the immediate aftermath of the fight one of the boys told his mother about what had happened. Or part of what had happened. He told his mother that he and Adam and Gregory had been set upon by that feral girl with the strange, absent father. His mother had gone into the school to tell the headmistress.