Pirates. Treasure. Pain. Such pain. I was dying. This had to be the end. My mother had not saved me. Eddie had taken her memory from me. I had nothing left. Nothing nothing nothing.
I stood. Blood and wee slid down to my white ankle socks. He had lit a fire inside me. My hair was matted with sand. My blue school blouse was ripped. I was seven years two months and twelve days old.
I walked out onto the beach. It was quiet. It was dark. Too dark. The lighthouse was still. No eye. No yellow eye. No green and orange little men. No one was watching. I climbed the one hundred and twenty steps. I did not touch the green handrail that wove next to the steps. I had to keep stopping. Doubled in pain. Difficult to breathe. Difficult to carry on. I walked myself over and along the main Coast Road. The lollipop lady had gone home. I walked past the Dewstep Butchers that doubled as the New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a garnished pig’s head in the window. Past New Lymouth Primary School. Past New Lymouth Library. Past Brian’s Newsagents. Stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Past the detached homes which housed the professional types. I walked to my mother’s house. Eyes never looking left or right. I hoped that a car would hit me. I walked slowly. I had ripped clothes but my brown parka covered them. I had a single line of blood trickling down my inside thigh. Inside my brown parka. I was covered in sand. Nobody stopped me. Nobody asked me what had happened. People looked away. Neighbours called their children in from play. Nobody. Nothing.
A greedy decision. A need for shiny fifty-pence pieces. A greedy need. I was saving to buy a globe. One that lit up with the flick of a switch. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had gotten one last Christmas. I needed fifteen pounds. That was a lot of money. A greedy need. Misguided trust. My whole life stepped onto a path. I stepped onto a path. I sometimes imagine that my palms were smooth and blank. Right up until that week. That precise week. That my palms had promise. I still had a future. That I still had exciting challenges and a glossy journey ahead of me. With my decision. With my greedy need. The lines appeared. Abracadabra. Hey presto. The lines were engraved. Tattooed. Forever. Scraped in a web of complications. My palms told of the self-destruction that lay ahead.
I never bought the globe.
Sand
In my pants.
Itchy itchy sand monster.
Sand
In my tummy.
Sand
In my head.
Nasty nasty sand monster.
Sand
Make me vomit.
Sand
Make me die.
Naughty naughty sand monster.
Never to be gone.
Dirty dirty sand monster.
I used my key. It was tied to a piece of string and fastened with a safety pin inside my brown parka. I fumbled with the pin. My hands were shaking. Sand and blood poked from the tips of my nails. I was dirty. Sand clung in between my fingers. Dirty dirty dirty. I needed to wash my hands. I needed to scrub and scrub and make my hands clean again.
I let myself in. Wiped my feet on the welcome mat and slowly climbed the ruby carpeted stairs. Each tiny footstep sent a flame up my inner thigh. Rita and my father were in the kitchen. My movements were slow. I wanted them to come out. I wanted them to see my pain. I had no voice. Eddie had stolen my voice. I could not speak. No energy. No power. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. A tiny skulking mouse. Pain flicked with each step. My father shouted a hello and then turned his attention back to Rita. They did not come out to me. She was giggling again.
Alone in the bathroom. I took off my school uniform. Blood damp socks and ripped school shirt. I neatly folded my soiled clothes and placed them beneath the radiator. A perfect pile.
Undressed. Exposed. Naked in the centre of the small square room. Too late to cry. I did not cry. I had not cried. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry. My father and Rita had moved into the lounge. I could hear their laughter. The cackles and giggles and boom boom booming. They were drinking from their tin beer cans. Their laughter glided up the red stairs and squeezed under the locked bathroom door. Their joy rebounded between the ceiling and linoleum floor.
Bounce
bounce
bounce
bounce.
As I stood stark naked. In the centre of the bathroom.
I faced the bathroom cabinet. Focused on a perfect thumb print smeared on the bottom right hand corner of the mirror. I forced my eyes to fix on the girl who was hidden beneath that smudge. Through the smears. I stared into myself. I saw my blue eyes. My mother’s blue eyes. I stared at my matted brown hair. Dirty dirty hair. I needed the sand off me. Get off me. Get off me. Nasty nasty sand. It was everywhere. It was swallowing me up. I opened the bathroom cabinet. I took out a pair of scissors. They were sticky and blunt. I tugged at my hair.
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
Clumps fell into the sink. A nest of hair. Grooming and nurturing collected and then plunged. Congealed feathers over onto the linoleum floor. I didn’t have my mother’s skill. Long strands clung to my gluey fingers, mingled with the knotted blood and sand. I needed to be rid of the sand. I wanted it off my skin. I wanted it out of my hair. It clung. Sticky sticky sand. I yanked. I tugged. It had climbed my hair and grafted onto my scalp. I wanted to scream. I wanted rid. Get off me. Off off off.
I turned the chrome taps. Hot and cold. I waited in the centre of the room. I climbed into the pea green bath. The water was cold. Rita had used all of the hot water. Rita liked a hot bath. The bath had not been cleaned. An orange ring clung to the slippery sides. I climbed in. I gasped. I was numbed. Pain pain go away. Pain pain go away. I lay stiff. I was rigid. Straight. Head bobbed. Ears submerged into the rising cold. Muffled reality. Frozen sounds. Arms stiff. Blue feet. I dared not move. Sand began to sink onto the bottom of the pea green bath. Floating in my sea. Sailing in my dirt. Away away for a year and a day. I drifted. I danced by the light of the moon.
The water needed to enter me. To wash away his dirt. I stung. The fire roared. I dared not move. I could not let the water in. The fire roared. And roared. And roared. Tiny white body. Flat and smooth. A swarm of bruises erupted from my veins. Gobbled up my skin. Decorated my secret places. Pain pain go away.
I heard my father calling. I sat to attention and listened. He was going to the pub with Rita. A swift half. Then they would be back. A swift half and then I would tell him all about Eddie. I had to tell him. I didn’t understand why, but I knew that it didn’t feel right. I needed my father to make everything better. He would know what to do.
