The Darker Half ~ Chapter 8

        

The Darker Half ~ Chapter 8

By Janet Baldey

CHAPTER EIGHT

ANNA

It had started to snow as she walked home from school, fat soft flakes drifting down from out of a polka dotted sky. It was still snowing now, she could see blobs of white sliding down the bare windows of the workshop. She shivered, it was getting colder, there would be icicles hanging from the eaves by morning. As if he’d read her mind, her father put down his book, opened the doors of the wood burning stove and fed its hungry red mouth with another log.

“That better?” He glanced at her, his eyebrows raised.

She nodded, listening to the fire spit as it devoured its meal then she went back to her homework, trying to concentrate. It was maths and she hated maths. She gazed at the page for so long, the figures started to blur but she just couldn’t understand it. Her Dad was good at sums, perhaps he could help.

“Dad,” she began, then stopped as she heard something. Her head cocked, she listened. A few seconds later, it came again, a soft scrabbling sound.

“Have we got mice?”

Her father removed his pipe and grinned. “Wouldn’t be surprised, but don’t tell your Mum. She’d have a blue fit.”

Then there was a different sound, a soft tap at the door and this time they both heard it. Her father looked thoughtful.

“But mice don’t usually knock to come in…”  

He got up and walked towards the door. Anna heard a sharp intake of breath as he pulled it open, then he disappeared. Oy”, she heard him call. When he returned, he was holding a cardboard box, one that rocked from side to side as he carried it to the table.  “What have we got here then?”  Opening the lid, he peered inside. “Oh-oh, looks like someone’s given us an early Christmas present.”

“What is it Dad?”

“This”…her father reached inside and turned round to show her.

A kitten! Anna stared, blinked, glanced at her father and stared again.  She just couldn’t believe it. It was so sweet!

A tiny scrap of silver-grey fur, it lay dwarfed by her father’s hand. He looked closer. “Poor little mite. Still got its eyes closed. Should never have been taken away from its mother. Doubt if it will survive, love.”

Anna’s sight blurred. She reached out with a finger and gently stroked the kitten’s fur. It felt as light and silky as dandelion fluff and underneath, she could feel its fragile body vibrating like a tiny motor. It was as if she could feel every one of its delicate bones and suddenly it shivered.  She looked up at her father.

“I think it’s cold, Dad.”

“I’m not surprised. Run inside and get me a couple of towels, some milk and a small saucepan.  Be quick now and don’t disturb your mother. Okay?”

Anna didn’t need to be told twice. As she slipped into the kitchen she could hear the opening jingle of “Some mothers do ‘ave ‘em” coming from the living room and she breathed a sigh of relief. Taking a quick peek through the open door, she saw her mother and Alec curled up together on the settee; it was one of their favourite programmes and she knew they wouldn’t stir for at least half an hour. Grabbing what she needed, she rushed back to her father.

Lining the box with a warmed towel, her father placed it and the kitten underneath the stove.

“Right, that should keep it warm.  I wonder if it’s hungry.”

He poured a little milk in the saucepan and set it on top of the stove until it was tepid.  Testing it with his finger he grunted with satisfaction.

“That should do it.  Now…….”

Gently, he pulled the box out from under the stove, dipped his finger into the milk and held it in front of the kitten. Anna held her breath and watched.  She saw its tiny nose quiver and immediately afterwards a flash of pink tongue darted out of its mouth and licked at the milk. Her father repeated the process until the kitten was sucking at his finger greedily. At last, it closed its eyes and yawned and Anna caught a glimpse of tiny pointed teeth. Curling itself into a tight ball, it went to sleep.

“Well, that went better than I thought. Maybe it will make it after all. Just a minute love.” 

Her father replaced the box under the stove, straightened and went out of the door.   When he came back, his face was grim. 

“There are some footprints in the snow outside but I can’t tell where they go.   Not that it makes any difference. That poor little scrap was surplus to requirements anyway.”  He shrugged. “Oh well, at least someone cared enough to let us know it was there.”

“Is it ours now then Dad?”

Her father sighed and looked at her.  “Anna, you know how your mother is about animals. She’s allergic to them sweetheart, remember?”

That’s what her mother said, but Anna thought it was really just because she didn’t like them. “Can’t be bothered with them…a tie”, she’d said. Anna had badly wanted a puppy once but her mother had refused totally, even though Alec had also been keen and he usually got his way with Mum.  Looking back on it Anna thought it had been a good thing.  Alec would have teased the puppy to death and she couldn’t always have been there to protect it.

But this time, she pleaded. “Just for a little while, Dad. Just until it gets stronger.”   Then, she had a brainwave. “Anyway, Mum never comes in here. If we’re careful, she need never know.”

“Don’t think that’s possible, love.”

But Anna knew how to get around her father and at last he agreed, partly because she suspected his heart had been touched by the tiny creature licking his finger so trustingly. He’d always been a big softy when it came to animals, if it wasn’t for Mum she thought, they’d have a house full of strays.

“It’ll need a lot of looking after, you realise. For the first few weeks, it’ll need feeding every few hours, night and day. I can do most of it but you’ll have to do your share”.

“Ok, Dad. I will don’t worry.” She jumped up and down with excitement, she’d got a pet at last and she also realised it was here to stay. Although Dad liked a quiet life and left the running of the household mostly to Mum, he could be stubborn when he wanted. He’d stand up to Mum if she demanded they get rid of it, she was quite certain of that.

But when, many years later, she was forced to remember what happened, she realised that neither she nor her father, had given any thought to Alec.

***

Anna rubs her arms and searches for her dressing gown, but when she slips it on she feels no warmer. A chill has frozen more than her body, it has seeped into her marrow and she can’t imagine ever being happy again.  She draws back a crack of the curtain and peers outside.  It’s still dark and there’s no-one about but sleep has vanished she has dreamed that dream again and it would take a lot to make her close her eyes.

She goes down to the kitchen, perhaps a cup of tea will help.  She sits sipping it staring at the same window through which she’d seen his face. Alec, her beloved brother.  All through her life people have told her how lucky she is to have a twin.  At school it had been – “You’re lucky, you’ve always got someone to play with.” This last remark mostly came from “only” children who didn’t understand how difficult it was trying to play with Alec.  Ever since she can remember he’d wanted whatever she had, the same colour crayon, the same book, the same toy, whining and grizzling until Anna was forced to give way.  He’d also cheated unmercifully at board games, flying into uncontrollable rages if she didn’t let him win. But what really hurt was how people always assumed that being a twin meant that you had some sort of special bond.  An empathy that was virtually mystic. That had never been the case, in fact quite the reverse.  At some level, she’d always understood that he hated her and eventually she grew to understand why.  But, what she hadn’t realised until relatively recently, was how profound that hate was and to what lengths he would go to pay her back. She shudders and pushes the memory away. Not yet. Baby steps, she thinks, baby steps. That’s what her therapist tells her.  

“Treat your past life like an onion but peel the layers away in reverse order, from the inside out. Then examine each layer, minutely. Take your time, mull it over and try to come to some sort of understanding, that way that particular part of your history will lose its power to hurt you.” 

At the time, she’d thought the advice ludicrous and had no intention of rooting around in her personal version of Pandora’s box. Okay, stuff had happened. Bad stuff.  But that was in the past, safely padlocked away at the back of her mind. And anyway, since she’d had Romeo, everything had changed. With his help, she’d survived the trial and its aftermath and at last was feeling free to re-build her life. But with shocking suddenness, that pipe dream had been shattered. Who had said “It’s not strangers you have to fear but those to whom you give your trust?”   She gives a little push with her mind; that’s a layer of the onion she hasn’t got to yet.

Sometimes it seems to Anna that her whole life is a series of disasters. One catastrophe after another bridged by brief periods of happiness. Now, once again, she is on the brink and feels a brief ripple of rage – she’d thought all that was behind her. She shivers as she thinks of her recurring nightmare. Was it meant to tell her something?  Maybe her shrink was right and the only way to secure the future is to confront the past?

She sits at the kitchen table sipping her rapidly cooling tea and watching as the morning sky pales by increments. Slowly, she reaches inside her mind and with a delicate precision, worthy of any surgeon, begins to probe the outer layers of her memory reaching inside towards its green and tender root.

Copyright Janet Baldey