talking about? Have you for –’ and then broke off, looked down, and said. ‘No, Momma, you weren’t.’ Hedda placed her finger, thick as the sausage she had just had for dinner, under Tully’s chin and lifted up her daughter’s face. And must have seen the fear.
They looked at each other for a few moments, until Tully tried to drop her gaze again.
Hedda’s voice was calm, almost reasonable.
‘Is that what you wanna do tonight? You want some boy? Any boy in particular, Tully, or are you…mmm…not particular?’
‘Momma, really, honestly, I just wanted to look attractive. But I’ll wear something else, I swear.’
Tully noticed her mother had stopped clenching her fists and was cracking her knuckles again. Kneading each finger tensely, twisting and turning them until the sound came, the sound of logs popping open in the fireplace. Crack.
Nowadays, Hedda did not lose her temper often; Tully would attest to that. Most of the time it was difficult to get Hedda to notice Tully was in the same room. But when Hedda did blow, it was always prefaced by this knuckle cracking. Last time Hedda lost her temper was the night of the condoms. The time before that was when Tully was thirteen and got caught kissing some boy outside the front door. When Tully was younger, Hedda’s loss of temper was like Tully’s hunger: sometime during each day, Tully would feel hunger. And sometime, during the day, Hedda would lose her temper. Mother was probably trying to get used to living life on her own with an uncommunicative and unattractive child (‘Come here, you dumb dog! Come here, you unloving cow, and tell me about your day!’), and loss of temper was as random as clouds. Didn’t sweep the floor in the corners, left the frying pan on, broke a table (left too often on her own, Tully once decided to turn the coffee table into a slide), didn’t feed the cat (it died eventually; nobody fed it), pulled up Aunt Lena’s dress just for fun, didn’t take a shower for three days, and so on and so on.
Sweat trickled from Tully’s forehead steadily now, like syrup. When she was younger Tully had become inured to Hedda’s fury the way she had finally become inured to persistent lack of sleep. But in the last few years, she hadn’t seen much of Hedda and had forgotten a little. Now, too frightened to wipe off her sweat, Tully sat immobile in the chair and watched her mother.
(How did your daughter break her nose, Mrs Makker? By walking into a door, was her mother’s reply to the hospital nurse, and two years later, when Tully was nine and had her nose broken a second time, Hedda didn’t take her to the doctor and the nose healed on its own, though not well. Didn’t take her to the hospital again after that, not even when she chipped Tully’s front tooth with a phone receiver.)
‘Mommy, please,’ whispered Tully. ‘Please, I am so sorry, Momma, please. I don’t want any boy, I just want to see my friends, be there for Jen’s birthday, I’ll wear anything, please, Mom!’
The fist flew out and caught Tully square across the jaw, snapping her head backward. The other hand bloodied her nose. Tully’s only reaction was to wipe the blood off with the sleeve of her red shirt. She did not look up, and she said nothing. Hedda panted, hovering over Tully.
‘Do you know what your trouble is, Tully?’ her mother said through gritted teeth. ‘You don’t learn. That’s the trouble with you. You don’t learn at all. All your life, you knew exactly the things that make me so angry, but you still defy me. You know what makes me very angry is this sort of thing, this slut way you have about yourself, and still, after all this time, you throw it at me, you parade in front of me like the tramp that you are, flinging yourself in front of me, to say, “You can beat me, you can punish me, but I’ll still do exactly as I please, because I am a slut.”’
Hedda paused for breath. Tully said nothing but wiped her nose again.
‘Say it, Tully. It’s true.’
‘I won’t say it! It isn’t true.’ The fist came out, knocking both Tully’s hands from her face, striking her cheek and mouth, making her nose bleed again.
‘Say it, Tully. Say, “I am a slut.” Say it!’ Every letter enunciated.
Tully remained mute.
Another slap, this one with the other hand; her head snapped sideways, her ear and eye hurt; and another, hard on the temple and the ear again; Tully put up her hands to her face to protect herself and only succeeded in having them rammed into her bleeding nose. Then another, another, another –
‘All right, Mother, all right,’ said Tully inaudibly. ‘I’m a slut.’
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘SLUT!’ Tully screamed. ‘I am a slut! SLUT! SLUT! SLUT! SLUT!…SLUT!’
Hedda Makker carefully, watchfully, looked at Tully with her lifeless swamp eyes. Her gaze was hard at first, but then it softened; Hedda seemed satisfied.
‘Tully, there’s no need to scream, but all right.’ She looked at Tully’s swollen face and said, ‘Go and clean yourself up. And put on something decent.’
Hedda reached out to touch her daughter’s cheek. But Tully flinched, and Hedda saw it. She drew away and left the room, rubbing her hands together.
Tully stood up and stumbled to the bed. For a few minutes she cried a dry, choking cry, then tried to wipe the blood off her face, shaking in her effort to calm down.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she chanted to herself. I must get ready. I’m allowed to go. Now get yourself together, Tully Makker, and go! Get up, Tully, just one push, you are up off the bed, you are okay, forget it, sit up, pull your knees up to your chin, bury your head and rock back and forth, back and forth and forget, forget, it will all go away, it will all go away, it will it will, rock back and forth, it will; just go on, Makker, go right on. Go on, Tully, don’t give up. Don’t give up because of her, Natalie Anne Makker. You really want to give up, don’t you? What? Do you think all the rest of your life will be an encore of this life? Well, if you think that, then give up, Makker. JUST GIVE THE FUCK UP. Or you can just count your sheep, Tully, one sheep two sheep three sheep. I understand: how can a bad pseudo-Catholic girl like you not give up finally? But cut this pathetic self-pity and get up and get dressed and go see your best friend Jennifer on her eighteenth birthday.
Tully stopped rocking eventually and breathed slower. No one to watch over me but me, she thought. Go on. It’ll be all right. This is the last year. Next year…just think! Hang on, Tully Makker, ignore her and hang on, until next year.
Tully came down the stairs wearing no makeup, a black loose skirt, a beige baggy sweater. All old. All worn a hundred times. She walked quietly past the sofa where her mother and Aunt Lena sat watching TV. Aunt Lena did not look up at Tully. Tully was not surprised. Aunt Lena usually did not look up after hearing the scenes from upstairs.
Tully put on her only coat: brown, gabardine, torn, worn.
Now she had to ask carefully what time to be home.
Aunt Lena looked up. ‘Tully! You look wonderful!’ she said. Tully didn’t answer. When taking into account Aunt Lena’s impression of the visible universe, Tully always reminded herself that her aunt was registered as legally blind. However, Tully very quickly remembered an episode three weeks ago when she was just about to go over to Jen’s for a barbecue and Aunt Lena asked her when she would be back.
