The Girl in the Mirror

  ‘I know, Dad,’ John cried, then: ‘For fuck’s sake, where the hell’s the nurse? It’s been twenty minutes.’ Storming from the bed he crossed to the desk to phone the nurse again. ‘It’s on fucking voicemail!’ he shouted and kicked the desk chair, sending it crashing to the floor. Grandpa started and then whimpered, upset and frightened.

  ‘That’s not going to help!’ Mandy snapped.

  ‘And what do you know?’ John yelled, rounding on her.

  ‘John?’ Grandpa asked weakly and tried to turn his head in the direction of the noise.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mandy soothed. ‘The nurse won’t be long.’

  She looked at John standing by the desk with the phone still in his hand. In the red glow of the lamp she could see his face set hard with fury and his eyes wide and staring. She saw his anger and knew at that moment he was out of control. Reason and rational thought had left him; he was capable of anything, and she needed to protect Grandpa.

  A few seconds later the doorbell rang. ‘Thank God,’ she breathed.

  John stormed out of the study, flicking on the main light as he went.

  ‘John?’ Grandpa asked again. He sounded frightened.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said soothingly. ‘John is upset.’

  ‘Because of me?’ Grandpa asked, his head still bent forward on his chest.

  ‘No, not because of you, love,’ Mandy said. And as she spoke the words she had the strangest feeling she’d heard them before. She could hear them being spoken, but when and by whom? John is upset…because of me?…No, not because of you, love…She couldn’t place them although she knew they were real. Like the other words and pictures that had come to haunt her they’d landed in her head without warning.

  John reappeared with the nurse. Evelyn hadn’t come downstairs this time; whether the bell had woken her or not, Mandy didn’t know. The nurse took the sterilized packages from his bag and shot some of the morphine into a tissue before injecting him. Mandy thought it was just as well Evelyn wasn’t here to see it. ‘If you can’t give Dad all of it,’ John said tightly, his anger just under control. ‘Can’t you give him something stronger?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Osborne, there really isn’t anything stronger. But I’ll come as often as required to top up the pain relief. I can be here in under half an hour if necessary.’ Mandy saw the look on John’s face and knew exactly what he was thinking: half an hour was an eternity when Grandpa was in acute pain.

  ‘I suggested a live-in nurse,’ John said quietly. ‘But Evelyn won’t hear of it. She promised her father she’d look after him.’

  The nurse nodded and Mandy looked away as he checked Grandpa’s incontinence pad, which he said was dry. He said he’d visit again at 6 a.m. unless he heard from them sooner. The anger had completely left John now Grandpa was out of pain; he thanked the nurse for coming and then showed him out. Mandy switched off the main light and returned to the armchair. She took her mobile from her bag and checked the time. It was 2.23 a.m.

  She was half expecting an apology from John, but when he returned to the study he went to the bed, checked on Grandpa, and then sat in the other armchair without speaking or even acknowledging her. Opening his laptop, he began scrolling and typing, so Mandy plugged in her iPod and closed her eyes.

  When she woke it wasn’t from Grandpa’s cries – she still had her earpieces in – but from a hand on her arm, holding too tight and tugging. She opened her eyes, at the same time taking out her earpieces. John was trying to pull her out of the chair. Although startled and disorientated, she was awake enough to realize Grandpa was sitting up in bed in pain. ‘What? What time is it?’ she mumbled.

  ‘Three fifteen. I want you to leave the room,’ John said, and propelled her towards the door.

  She resisted. ‘Why? Have you called the nurse?’

  ‘No, there’s no point. It’s only an hour since the last injection. He can’t do anything.’

  She jerked her arm free and stared into John’s face. His pupils were dilated and she could hear his breath coming fast and shallow. Grandpa cried out again and dry-retched. ‘I’ll call the nurse,’ Mandy said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ John hissed. ‘He can’t help any more. There is nothing he can do.’ He was standing in front of her, blocking her way to the bed and phone, his face too close to hers. ‘Look at him, Mandy!’ he demanded. ‘Do you want him to go on suffering? Look at him. It’s pathetic!’

  Mandy looked towards the bed as Grandpa screamed again. He was doubled up, his scrawny neck bent forward and barely able to support the weight of his head. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Do as I say, Mandy,’ John said. ‘Go into the kitchen and stay there until I tell you.’

  She held his gaze and panic gripped her. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Don’t ask, Mandy, just do as I say. Go into the kitchen and stay there. If Evelyn comes down, keep her there too.’ The study door suddenly opened in front of her and she felt his hand in the small of her back. With one small push she was in the hall and the door closed firmly behind her.

  Twenty-Five

  Don’t ask. Just do as I say. Keep quiet and you won’t be hurt.

  Her legs trembled and she leant against the work surface in the kitchen for support. Don’t scream or I’ll have to kill you. She could feel her chest tighten as the words spun in her head. She couldn’t breathe. Someone was lying on top of her, crushing the air out of her lungs. Don’t ask. Just do as I say.

  Then her two worlds collided and she remembered

  It was John, John’s voice, then as now. Don’t ask. Just do as I say. Keep quiet and you won’t be hurt. Close, too close – his face pushing into hers, and the pressure of his chest forcing the air out of her lungs. She was on her back, arms pinned to her sides, and John was on top of her. She could smell his sweat mingled with the soap he used, the heat of his body, the stubble on his chin as he tried to kiss her. She was lying helpless in the dark, too frightened to cry out, having woken in the night to find him on top of her, forcing her legs apart, trying to drive himself inside her. She knew now what had happened. Since arriving she’d known something was wrong, something was trying to free itself from her subconscious, something that had to be remembered. And John’s words now, nearly identical to those spoken ten years ago, had brought her two worlds together and made her remember. The monster had tried to rape her! And now he was alone with Grandpa!

  Her chest heaved, bile rose in her throat, and her head felt as if it was about to explode. She wanted to run, run from the house and never stop, but she knew she had to stay to protect Grandpa. Pushing herself away from the work surface she hurtled across the kitchen and into the hall. Without hesitating and ignoring John’s warning to stay out, she flung open the study door. ‘Don’t touch him!’ she cried. ‘Keep away from him. I know now! You monster!’

  John looked up, startled. He was leaning over the bed with a pillow in his hand. ‘Get away from him!’ she cried, raising her fist and rushing towards him. John straightened and took a step back. Grandpa’s eyes were closed and he lay very still. She couldn’t see or hear him breathing. ‘What have you done?’ she shouted. ‘What have you done to him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ John said, shocked and confused. ‘I couldn’t.’ The pillow slipped from his hand and fell to the floor. She heard Grandpa take a breath.

  ‘Bastard!’ she hissed, turning to John. ‘I hate you! All this time and you never said a thing. You sat in here night after night, knowing what you did and pretending nothing had happened. I thought I was going mad – seeing and hearing things. But I wasn’t, I was remembering! Something so dreadful my mind had blocked it out, until now. You evil bastard! I was just thirteen and you tried to rape me!’ Opening her fist, she slapped his face hard. His hand went instinctively to his cheek as he stared at her. She went to slap him again but he grabbed her wrist and pushed her arm out to one side. ‘Mandy?’

  ‘Let go, you monster!’ she shouted, and kicked his leg.

 
He flinched. ‘Mandy,’ he gasped. ‘It wasn’t like that. You’ve got it wrong. I loved you and I –’

  ‘Bastard!’ she cried again before he could finish. Wrenching her hand free, she fled the room.

  She ran along the hall, tears streaming down her cheeks, praying he wouldn’t come after her. Where to go to be safe? She was in a monster’s house. She ran into the cloakroom, pulled on the light, slammed the door and turned the key. ‘Bastard!’ she wept. ‘Fucking bastard!’ She leant heavily against the door. How dare he say he loved me? How could he? He was my uncle and I trusted him. I looked upon him as a second father. All those nights in the study, caring for Grandpa together, with him knowing and me beside him. How could he! How dare he! She thought of the naked photographs of her on his laptop and her stomach lurched. Words and phrases came flooding back, their meaning obvious now, but buried so successfully she hadn’t understood at the time. Mrs Pryce had known. She’d been there when her father had rushed her from the house. Mandy could see her standing in the hall, comforting Sarah, as her father raised his hand in fury at his sister: If you ever come near my family again, I’ll have the lot of you arrested!

  Mrs Pryce knew, her father (and presumably her mother) knew; John, Evelyn, Sarah, even Gran and Grandpa knew – and all of them had colluded in a conspiracy of silence that had lasted ten years. The only person who hadn’t known was she: the victim. She felt utterly betrayed – betrayed by her family, the very people whom she should have been closest to; whom she should have been able to rely on for their openness and honesty. And John! Bastard! Did he really think she wouldn’t remember eventually, and that when she did it wouldn’t matter! Through her tears she now thought how she’d been driven away in the back of her father’s car on that last night. Now it all made sense. A sickening, depraved sense.

  Heaving herself away from the door, she pulled a tissue from the box and blew her nose, then looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red, her skin was blotchy and pain was etched across her face. But as she gazed it wasn’t a woman of twenty-three she saw, but that girl of thirteen. With her hair tied in a ponytail and her cheeks wet from crying, Mandy saw her distress and felt her guilt now as then, for surely her childish crush had encouraged John, and she was partly to blame. But it had only ever been a fantasy, nothing more. He wasn’t even supposed to know, let alone do anything.

  Taking another tissue from the box, she blew her nose and flushed it down the toilet. There was no way she could face John now, and maybe never would again. Perhaps she should phone her father and ask him to collect her, but she couldn’t face seeing him now either. Her head was spinning and she needed time to think – decide what to do for the best. Perhaps she could phone Adam and ask him to collect her, but she doubted she had the words to explain right now. The comment Adam had made on Sunday flew at her like an arrow from a bow:…at Uni the word was you didn’t date, which was why it took me so long to ask you out. There was a feeling…you’d had a bad experience with a bloke and didn’t want guys near you.

  She went cold and her legs shook. Clearly Adam, and others, had seen something in her that she had not; something she’d been totally unaware of – something unclean. Sullied.

  Leaving the cloakroom, she crossed the hall. With her hand gripping the banister she started up the stairs, listening and looking for any sign of John. She would go to her room and try to think what to do. Grandpa was here, she didn’t want to leave him, she really didn’t, but how could she stay? She supposed John had now phoned the nurse who would be on his way with another injection, which would last another hour.

  It was quiet upstairs; Evelyn must have slept through her shouting, and Gran never heard anything without her hearing aid. At the top of the stairs she turned right and went along the landing, but instead of going into the bedroom she was using at the back of the house, she stopped outside the door on her right. This led to the Pink Room, which Evelyn had said she’d used when she stayed as a child, and which presumably she’d been in on her last night – when John had come in.

  With her mouth dry and heart pounding, she placed her hand on the doorknob and, slowly turning it, pushed open the door. It was dark inside, but not as dark as it had been on that last night when the curtains had been closed. Now, with no one using the room, the curtains had been left open. Through the window came a faint glow from the lamp on the driveway. Enough to see the wardrobe and chest of drawers to her left, the bookshelves beneath the windows in front and the bed on the wall to the right. All as it had been ten years before.

  Taking a step in, she closed the door quietly behind her and, instinctively knowing where the switch was, clicked it on. Colour flooded the room. It was pink, all pink – the reason for its name. The walls and ceiling were emulsioned light pink, and the carpet and curtains were a darker shade of rose. Mandy remembered that as a child pink had been her favourite colour and her aunt had had the room decorated especially for her. It was her room when she stayed. Sarah had liked blue, and the room next door – the Blue Room – had been hers. Sometimes they’d slept together; then they stayed up half the night giggling or telling horror stories and scaring themselves silly. But if they’d had little sleep one night Evelyn always insisted they slept in their own rooms the following night, otherwise they were like ‘bad-mood bears’, Mandy remembered her saying. She also remembered that when Evelyn and John were in bed Sarah had stolen into her room with midnight feasts. They were good times and even now she remembered how happy she’d been until…

  Standing by the door she confronted the room. The furniture had not changed, and it stood in the same place as it had on that last night. The bed wasn’t made up, but a pink candlewick bedspread was draped over it. The top of the chest of drawers, where Mandy had kept a few soft toys, was empty. The bookshelf beneath the window was also empty, apart from three small china ornaments arranged on the middle shelf. From the distance of the door, Mandy stared at these, and then shuddered with a stab of recognition, powerful and bitter-sweet.

  Moving silently and slowly over the carpet, she crossed the room for a closer look. The ornaments were of dogs, a poodle, collie and King Charles spaniel, each sitting in its own little wicker basket with a small tartan rug. She’d known the names of the breeds of dogs even as a young child. She’d loved dogs and had wanted one of her own. Mandy remembered how Sarah and she had saved up their pocket money and had bought the china ornaments from the village shop. Sarah had collected horses and she had collected dogs. These three were part of a larger collection. The other eleven were on the bureau at her flat, and until now Mandy hadn’t been aware any were missing. Now, she realized that in the chaos and outrage of that last night she’d forgotten to pack these three – her most recent purchases. Here they’d sat, unremembered, her mind having blocked out their existence as successfully as it had blocked out everything else connected with the house. Until now.

  Straightening, she turned and looked at the bed. The memories and fear came flooding back. Terrified at being suddenly woken in the night, she’d tried to push John off but he was too heavy, and the weight of his body had kept her pinned to the bed.

  ‘Don’t scream or I’ll have to kill you,’ he hissed close to her ear. ‘This is our secret, Mandy. Cry out and I’ll kill you.’ Yet despite her fear she found the courage to cry: ‘Sarah! Help! Help me, please!’ She felt the sting of John’s hand as he slapped her across the face. Sarah appeared in the doorway and screamed. Then Evelyn appeared beside her and screamed too. John fled. But Sarah and Evelyn’s shrieks were so terrible that they made her more afraid than ever. She clutched the sheet to her chest, rigid with terror, and wept helplessly. Then Mrs Pryce, who, unlike Mrs Saunders, lived in, arrived, and for a moment the three of them were silhouetted at the bedroom door. She could see the horror on their faces as they stared at her, and she lay paralysed with fear, clutching the sheet to her chin and sobbing uncontrollably.

  Mrs Pryce took control and told Evelyn to see to Sarah and phone Mandy’
s parents. She switched on the main light and came over and sat on the bed. ‘It’s all right now,’ she said in a gentle but firm tone, stroking Mandy’s forehead. ‘You’re safe with me. Nothing can harm you now. There’s no need to be frightened any more.’ Eventually the words of comfort and her cool, soothing touch reached her and slowly, very slowly, Mandy was persuaded to release the sheet. Mrs Pryce took her in her arms and held her close, cradling her like a baby. Mandy remembered the soft, reassuring warmth of her body after the cold, harsh rigidness of John’s. She buried her head in the fabric of her dressing gown and clung to her for all she was worth. Gradually her tears began to subside but she kept tight hold of Mrs Pryce. When she finally dared to raise her head Evelyn and Sarah had gone from the door. Mrs Pryce sat on the bed beside her and comforted her until her father arrived.

  She heard the wheels of his car crunch on to the driveway below. ‘That’ll be your father,’ Mrs Pryce had said gently.

  The front door slammed below and they heard his voice shouting angrily in the hall. And his anger, after Mrs Pryce’s calm reassurances, made Mandy afraid again; that and the look on his face when he finally came into the bedroom.

  ‘Get your things,’ he said brusquely.

  Mandy clung to Mrs Pryce, not wanting to leave the safety of her arms. ‘It’s all right, love,’ she reassured. ‘You’re going home. You’ll be safe there.’

  Mrs Pryce told her father to wait outside while Mandy got dressed, then she helped her into her clothes and packed her belongings. Mandy remembered holding tightly on to Mrs Pryce’s arm as she carried her case to where her father waited on the landing. Passing him the case, the three of them went down the stairs in silence, her father first and she still clutching Mrs Pryce’s arm.

  Evelyn and Sarah were in the hall in their dressing gowns, crying. John was nowhere to be seen. Her father took her arm and began hurrying her towards the front door. Fast, too fast, almost dragging her away from Mrs Pryce, Sarah and Evelyn. She threw off her father’s arm and ran into the cloakroom where she bolted the door and sobbed. She clutched the hand basin for support and stared at her distraught reflection in the mirror, tears streaming down her face, as her father hammered on the door. ‘Open the door, Amanda,’ he demanded. ‘Now! We have to leave.’ Too afraid to disobey him and aware they had to go, she unlocked the door and allowed him to lead her down the hall and to the front door. As he opened the door he paused and, turning, raised his clenched fist in anger at Evelyn: ‘If you ever come near my family again, I’ll have the lot of you arrested!’ And his shouting, their crying, and the knowledge that she was to blame were more than Mandy could bear. By the time they’d arrived home, two hours later, she was already blocking it out.