The Darker Half Chapter 5

The Darker Half ~ Chapter 5

ANNA

By Janet Baldey

She was sitting perched on the edge of a worn armchair, munching a custard cream. A tune was running through her head and she hummed in time with it, accompanied by the rasp of a saw as her father worked on a piece of oak.  Slowly, she realised that, although she was certain it was her father’s workshop, somehow it was different.  It was the wrong shape for one thing and smart when it should have been shabby. Her father wasn’t right either. He had always been a big man, heavy featured with muscular forearms and bristles of stubbly black hair bursting out of his ears and nose, even sprinkled on the joints of his fingers. His chest and back were hairy too and, in the summer, when he took his shirt off in the garden, she thought he looked like a big black bear. But this man was thin, almost like a skeleton and a big curved nose protruded from his face making his head look too small. He didn’t look a bit like her father although somehow she knew he was, just as she knew she was nine years old and still at primary school. She didn’t even need to look down at her woollen school skirt to confirm it.  Plus, she knew she was in the right place at the right time. She always made straight for her father’s workshop when she came home from school, preferring to be with him rather than with her mother and brother. She’d long ago decided that sitting at a table with Alec was like picnicking on top of a red ant’s nest.  She particularly hated it when her mother, usually toasting her legs by the fire, deep into a ‘True Romance,’ got her to “do the honours”.

“Pour your brother some milk Anna and butter ‘im some bread.   You know ‘ow he likes it.”

At first, she’d carefully pour the milk and wait for the creamy foam to settle before topping up the mugs so they were exactly equal. She knew Alec’s beady eyes scrutinised the levels closely and if there was the slightest difference, he’d whine and grizzle until her mother was forced to heave herself from the chair, lumber over to the table and like as not, clip Anna’s ear.  She’d learned her lesson and from then on, she automatically put an extra slurp into his mug so he couldn’t complain. Foiled, Alec had obviously thought about it. The next time he quickly gulped a few mouthfuls and then complained.

“Mum, Anna’s got more than me.”

“No, I haven’t Alec. You’ve drunk some of yours.”

“I haven’t.”

“You have Alec. It’s all around your mouth.”

This was a mistake on Anna’s part. Hastily, Alec had wiped away his white moustache and, his eyes wide with innocence, appealed to his mother again.

   Then, there was the time that he had deliberately jogged her arm as she passed him his mug.

“Mum….Anna’s spilt my milk and it’s all over the tablecloth…”

After that, Anna gave up. As soon as she came in from school she said she wasn’t hungry and made straight for her father’s workshop, grabbing a biscuit or two from the kitchen as she passed through.

It was soothing being with her father and she liked the steady buzz of the saw, the sweetish smell of linseed and the ringlets of planed wood littering the floor. Here, she could be herself. Never a great talker, her dad didn’t quiz her about her day or scold because she’d got mud on her socks 

         Still, things weren’t right and that tune was still running around her head. She screwed up her eyes and tried to think of its title….something about a dog. Her friend Janet had been singing it all day at school but they rarely had the wireless on at home so she didn’t really know the words.

         “Anna….”  At the sound of her father’s voice, she looked up.

         “I could do with another cup of tea love…” He pushed his empty mug towards her.

         She nodded obediently and reached out for it. As she did, he grasped her arm.

         “What’s this then?”  He frowned at the bracelet of red marks circling her wrist.

         “Nothing,”  she tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her.

         “Bet that nothing hurt though, didn’t it?  Was it Alec?”

         She shook her head not wanting to lie out loud but he wasn’t fooled.  His face grew stony and anger danced in his eyes. “Right”, he muttered, straightened and headed for the door. Her vague sense of disquiet deepened into a mounting terror. “No” she screamed inside her head. “You mustn’t. It’ll make things worse, much worse.” She tried to run after him, to pull him back but her legs seemed glued to the floor and she couldn’t move.  But she knew that he mustn’t go outside, he mustn’t cross the yard and go into the house and above all, he mustn’t go into the bathroom. And, it wasn’t about a dog, that song.  It was about a cat.  At the thought, her head seemed to explode and she was catapulted back from the past into her own bed where she sits bolt upright and gasping, sweat trickling down her body.

         It takes a while for her breathing to steady. When it does, she notices a thin grey light is slipping through the cracks in the curtains and she hears the faint twittering of birds. It’s morning, so she must have slept a bit.

         She lies back down again unable to get the dream, or nightmare or whatever it was, out of her head. Why has that terrible time surfaced after all these years?  Perhaps some things are just so awful you never forget them, the memory just lies dormant. But why now?   It was a long time ago and a lot of other bad things had happened since then.

Copyright Janet Baldey