Page 24 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
I know this is Annabelle’s greatest fear; that she won’t be loved. Even worse, that she won’t be noticed. So while I don’t have any idea whether what I’m saying is true, I know it’s the kind thing to say. That it will put Annabelle’s mind at rest a little.
‘You’ll visit soon, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’ I will, later this same month, but I won’t enjoy it, and Annabelle will spend the entire weekend with the new friends she’s made, and I’ll feel left out. After that, we will mostly see each other when Annabelle is home for holidays and looking to pick up shifts at the pub to earn some extra cash.
But for now, neither of us knows how that will go, and I stand in the street with one arm in the air until my friend’s car is out of sight. I feel a hollowness that comes from not having had enough sleep, and not knowing what the future will be like. All I know, about my future, is that I want it to be as different as possible from the life my mum has led. A nagging voice asks why I am following my mum into bar work, if that’s the case, but I push it down, like I always do. This is the work I know, the work I’m good at. People like me, at the pub. People want to know how I’m doing and whether I’ll be around for a drink later. It is at home that the problems lurk.
I have something to do, something to say. I’ve been building up to it, and I promised Annabelle, and myself, that I would do it by the time Annabelle left. So I can’t put it off any longer. I am moving out of home. I am leaving Mum and Mick and Granny Rose behind. Mostly I feel great about it, but I still long for those days when it was just the three of us, when the love was uncomplicated, when I wasn’t afraid. The truth is, Mum hasturned a blind eye to Mick’s treatment of me. It’s not possible that she could live in the same house and not know. So I feel let down by the person who was supposed to protect me. I know Mum loves Mick, for some reason, which muddies things. But I can’t forgive it.
On the walk back home, I run over different ways to bring it up. I’m going to sit them all down, do it in one go. But when I get there, I find I can’t, because Mick isn’t at home. Mum says he’s ‘gone to see a man about a dog’.
‘Okay, well, I’ll just tell you two then,’ I say.
I’ve successfully rounded up Mum and Granny Rose, and we are all in the kitchen. I have lined up three mugs and the kettle is whistling to a boil.
‘I’m moving out,’ I say, not looking at them. Looking, instead, at the mugs of tea I’m making.
‘Where are you going?’ Mum asks.
‘There’s a room in a house in town. I went to see it and I’ve put a deposit down. It’s mine from next week.’
There is a moment of stillness, of silence. I know that there is nothing they can do to stop me, and I’m not sure they’d want to, anyway. I am eighteen years old, an adult. But I am changing the dynamic that has been in place for a number of years, and I am nervous about it. To my knowledge, Mick has never been violent towards Granny Rose, but what if he starts, once I am gone?
When I turn, a mug in each hand, I see that Granny Rose is sitting quite still, but there is a tear tracking its way down her cheek. It’s just like all the times the two of us hid away in her bedroom, when Mick was in one of his tempers. I feel like I can’t bear it, like it’s too hot suddenly. I take off my jumper but it’s not enough – I want to claw off my skin.
‘Don’t cry,’ I say.
I know it’s a ridiculous thing to say, and yet it is the only thing I can think of. I sit down, watch the way the steam rises from our mugs. None of us reach out for them.
‘Well,’ Mum says. ‘It’s your decision, of course. I’m happy for you. And I’m glad you’re not going too far.’
I nod, wait for my grandmother to say something. Anything. And then she does, but she’s not talking to me. She’s looking directly at her daughter, so there’s no confusion.
‘If you let her go, you’re choosing him over her,’ she says. ‘Your own daughter. You’ve been doing it for years, but you could stop it, right now. You could kick him out, and she would stay. Wouldn’t you, Shell?’
Hearing Granny Rose’s pet name for me undoes something inside me. Sometimes, on trips to the beach when I was a child, Granny Rose would say ‘She sells seashells on the sea shore’ and pull me to her and kiss the top of my head, and I hadn’t realised it at the time, but I recognise now that I felt so protected and loved in those days, and I haven’t felt that way for a long time.
Mum stands. ‘She didn’t say that, Mum. She didn’t say that’s why she’s going.’
But we know, all three of us, that it is. That it doesn’t need to be said. Mum can pretend all she likes, but she knows.
‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say, because suddenly the room is too airless and I don’t know where to look. I pick up my tea, but then Mum puts a hand on my arm to stop me, and it makes me spill a bit, and Granny Rose gets up to fetch a cloth.
‘Is it true?’ Mum asks. ‘Is it because of Mick? Because of the things he says and does to me?’
Granny Rose snorts. ‘It’s not only you,’ she says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘God, open your eyes. You’re not the only one trying to cover up bruises with cheap makeup and hiding away the emotional scars.’
Mum looks shocked, and I can’t believe it. How? How can she not know?
‘Is that true?’ she asks.
I nod, the gesture swift and small.
‘What about you?’ Mum turns to Granny Rose.
