Page 178 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
I’m not really sure about a lot of things.
But I think I came to her because of the pictures she showed me. I haven’t forgotten about them—quite the opposite, actually. I’ve thought about them everyday since. I wished she had shown me them earlier. I wished she would’ve let me understand her from the beginning.
I wish for a lot of things and regret a lot of things and hate myself for a lot of things and I’m unsure about a lot of things and confused about a lot of things. But aren’t we all? If we didn't, wouldn't we just be aliens? Soulless and dull and boring? Isn’t that just what being alive is? There isn’t a guidebook to life. You’re just thrown out into the world and told to get on with it. How do you expect anybody to be perfect?
I knock on the front door a couple of times until my mum answers, standing there in her satin kimono.
But there are people who make it better. There are people who brighten your days like the sun does on the hottest day, apart from, people aren’t seasonal, they’re there to brighten your days even on winter nights and isn’t that beautiful?However, because you’re human, you sometimes let them go and that isn’t so beautiful.
“Phoebe?” She frowns. “What are you doing, darling?”
She ushers me in, pulling the empty bottle out of my fingers and the second she wraps her arms around me, I crumble like a tall building. She picks up the elephant resting on my chest and chucks it away just like she did a few years ago when she found out about my self harming and do you know who told her? Arthur. Arthur told my mum about it.
I was in year thirteen. It was a week after something happened between Arthur and I. I think one of our arguments was caught by the press and they posted about it and I was upset. People were commenting horrible, ugly things about me.
I stayed in bed for days, Arthur came round to check on me but I pushed him away. After that, he must’ve gone downstairs, worried, and told my mum.
When I came home from school one day, the second I put my bag down by the door, she walked out of the kitchen and stared at me.
“Show me your arm.”
My stomach dropped because I’d been caught. “What?” I laughed as if I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Show me,” she nodded at my covered arm.
“There’s nothing to show. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining. If there isn’t anything to hide, show me.”
I pulled the defense card out from the deck and through it right at her. “Are you checking Freddy’s arm, too? Or is it just mine? You’re being ridiculous and I have homework.”
I walked past her, up the stairs and into my bedroom where she followed right after me.
“Show me!” She shouted, blocking my door.
It was over, the deck had fallen and now all the cards were scattered on the floor. I couldn’t hide it anymore. I started to cry.
“No.”
She took a deep breath. “Fucking show me, Phoebe.”
“Please.” I shook my head, begging but she was already walking over to me, ripping up my school jumper. “Mum, I—”
The way she looked, it made me feel sick. Guilty. Ashamed.
She shook her head, covered her mouth and quietly cried as she stared down at the fresh cuts scattered up my arm. I couldn’t look. I glanced away, my arm caught in her grasp and my dignity flushed away. I felt naked. I felt so unbelievably exposed and disgusted.
I remember that feeling well and I’ve never felt it since. I needed to wash from the inside out. My heart was pounding. I could hear it through my clothes. I wanted nothing more in that moment then to pack my bags, run away and never come back. I was embarrassed, I think. A girl of my societal level doesn’t do that. It was taboo, unheard of and to my mum, the worst thing in the world.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” She whispered, guiding me to sit on my bed beside her, arm resting in her lap.
I went mute for that entire evening.
I remember, she took me into my bathroom, ran my bath and cried while I got undressed and sat inside it. She washed my hair and the feel of her fingers racking through my strands, was probably the most out of control I’ve ever felt.
I’m not a big hugger and I’m not overly keen on showing any member of my family affection. I don’t know why. I just feel gross and embarrassed. There aren't any hidden meanings behind that, by the way. I wasn’t abused or touched. Just deeplyuncomfortable in my own skin, I guess. I don’t hate my family, either. I’m really not sure what it is.
But as my mother crouched over the bath and rinsed my hair, I felt the most clean I ever have in my whole life. It was like a rebirth. She wrapped me in a big, white Terry cloth towel. And suddenly, my insides felt clean. It was like she washed away all the disgust I had about myself—in that moment.
