The Colour of Words

2.

I got to the house late that night. After school, I’d wandered around town, at first with Tally, then on my own, prolonging the inevitable. The lights were off when I walked up the drive, so I knew he was asleep. I could never work out if it was better when he was asleep or not, but at that time I felt relieved.

I fished the key out of my bag and slowly slid it into the lock. Even though I knew Fenny wouldn’t be there, I still couldn’t stop my heart fluttering just a tiny bit in the hope that she might be. As I swung open the door, I knew she wasn’t. She could never be. Not any more.

The smell hit me like a knock on the head. I reeled for a few moments, then stepped in, making sure to pull the door shut behind me as quietly as possible. I tried to use my blazer as a shield across my face from the stench, but it was too strong.

I sighed quietly to myself. It was already ten o’clock, so I knew I didn’t have much time to spare.

I carefully picked my way around the house, careful not to disturb him. Mouse-like, as Fenny would have whispered. I could almost feel her words tickling my ear as a side-stepped all the trash that lay around on the floor. Long shadows fell onto every surface. A stream of moonlight poured through a chink in the curtains. They were closed but not because he’d bothered to close them, I knew, but because he hadn’t bothered to open them. A faint snoring was coming from the living room. He always slept in there. Never in his room. Their room. Never. But first things first, clear up this mess.

I soon discovered the source of the stench; he’d been sick again. All over the kitchen floor. More than once by the looks of things. I got to work.

It took me over an hour to clear it all up, and by then I was almost falling asleep where I was standing. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, not being able to turn on the lights, but I was still squinting from fatigue. When I had finally finished with the bleach and disinfectant, taking so much care not to make a sound that I felt more like a fairy than a teenage girl, I was so tired that to finish the clearing up, washing, scrubbing and binning, I had to result to story-telling, something which I had promised myself I’d give up long ago, ever since he found out.

It used to be alright. Before the illness, before the depression, before the endless bottles of wine, before all the shouting, the yelling, the affairs, the black eyes in the evening that had turned puffy red by the morning, it used to be alright. Then when it wasn’t, I would try to believe myself back into the past. Re-write my future. Now my present.

Until he found out. Then I stopped. On paper. But every now and again, I find myself playing make-believe.

It was at the beach. We’d been looking forward to this for weeks, well, me and Fenny at least. He had just mumbled and grumbled along with us, good-naturedly at first, but getting more and more annoyed by the day.

When the day eventually arrived, we spent a whole three hours getting ready, packing and re-packing the picnic -Fenny having bought so much food you could have fed our whole street- deciding what to wear, making sure we had everything, trying to get into the car… By the time we left, it was nearly lunch and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is what started his anger. It’s the only thing that makes sense, but, then again, he never was a very logical person. Finally, we left off, with him driving, Fenny beside him and me in the back. It took two hours to get there. It was the middle of summer, and as we got closer and closer to our destination, the temperature seemed to get higher and higher. Everyone seemed to have the same idea as us, and the roads were filled with holiday-makers, windows open, boots full, music blaring, and some even with inflatable boats strapped to their roofs.

That’s when it started to go wrong. Downhill. Bad. I could feel the tension in the car as he tried to drive at the same time as deciphering the map, Fenny having no map-reading skills whatsoever. She was oblivious to his anger as always. She was always oblivious to everything. Chattering on about nothing, getting more and more over-excited by the minute. Even back then, I felt more like the adult than she ever was. But that was only half the problem. I knew that any minute it was going to happen, he was going to snap. Just one false move…

That's where it starts to go wrong. To be honest, the events were a bit of a blur, but I understood the end product fine. Just fine. Totally fine. Except it wasn’t, not one bit. So I make it up. Simple as. The only problem is, imagination can only stretch so far.

When I had eventually restored the house to a clean state, I could do nothing else but stagger up the stairs. But even in my half asleep mind, I still knew not to make a sound, so when I accidentally knocked an empty bottle perched precariously on the edge of a stair with the tip of my toe, and it rolled down the stairs so loudly that in the silent house it seemed to echo on and on forever, I immediately froze, and glanced backwards in terror at the living room.

I don’t know how long I stood there, fixed to the spot, balancing on one leg, not daring to breathe. Eventually though, I reasoned with myself that if he had woken up, he would have done something about it by now. For certain. That much I always knew.

When I reached my bedroom I collapsed, fully clothed and exhausted, into my bed, pulling the duvet over me as a shield, more than the fact that I needed it for warmth. I tucked my feet under me and the next thing I knew it was morning, and the salt on my lips was the only reason I knew that I’d cried myself to sleep yet again.