Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - Sixty-Four

Sixty-Four

King? What did Mother mean? The King of England could not be here! My eyes widened as the tall man lifted Mother up and whirled her around, Mother’s dark brown eyes sparkling, wide open.

“Oh Goodness, oh God, my Issy. My Issy. I thought I would never see you again!” The man was sobbing, head buried in Mother’s hair, arms around her waist.

They were shaking and gazing at each other as if they were the only people in the world.

“Grandfather, w-w-who is that?” Mary whispered, and I pressed my hand to my mouth, another wave of nausea rolling in my belly.

“Your mother’s uncle.” Mother and ‘King’ turned abruptly to see us all staring down the corridor in horror.

A few minutes later, we were all seated again. Mother couldn’t stop staring at ‘King’ with shining eyes. The colour in her cheeks, I noted, had risen. It didn’t seem proper that one should be grinning uncontrollably when their mother has just died.

I swallowed down the sick in my throat. Here was the uncle Mother had laid with. Father had attacked her and Susanna because of this man. Susanna. I gulped again. I wanted to loathe this man- but his watery blue eyes were full of kindness. I analysed him further, determined to hate him- perhaps his thin pink lips were slippery prawns to kiss, perhaps his handsome nose was so long because he told lies like Pinnochio?

“Elsie, stop scowling.” Mother’s eyebrows flew up, but her annoyance quickly dissipated as she looked adoringly at ‘King’. King- what a stupid name. He behaved like a King, bedding mistresses behind his wife’s back.

“These are your daughters? Such pretty girls.” Mary and I shared an alarmed look, recoiling.

“Goodness gracious, what have you told them about me?”

“Oh King, they know, they know about us.” Mother spoke in this breathless voice, as she held his hands.

“Oh.”

“You used the spare key to let yourself into the house, I assume?” Grandfather asked, tight-lipped, changing the subject. King nodded, turning to Mother.

“But Issy, why are you here? After last time…”

“Oh King, I’m so sorry.” She took his hands into her lap, biting her lip. Her shoulders sagged, and he suddenly noticed her round belly, and pressed his hands to it. They stared at each other, and I had to turn away.

“Your sister Mary, my mother, is dead.”

“Well it’s nice to know who I was named after,” my sister Mary muttered to me, and I squeezed her hand underneath the table.

“Yes, that’s right. And Elsie was named after named after Elsa King, my mother and King’s mother,” Mother tried to sound breezy, plastering on a fake smile.

“My mother died giving birth to me. And Mary is dead, my big sister, Mary. H-h-how d-did she d-die?” King howled. Mother patted him on the back, looking at us all uncomfortably. Mary fled from the room.

I followed her, to make sure she was alright, and to escape myself. I found her in our grandmother’s room, curled up like a cat on the windowsill. The coffin lay on the bed, and I shuddered, walking over to my Mary. I stood there for a while, my arms around her, looking down onto the blanket of gold, evergreen and russet leaves covering the ground, and the pond- a pond…

I swayed a little, imagining Natalya and Ludmilla drowning my brother Benjamin, Ludmilla who I had murdered, and Natalya who had tried to stab my grandmother, for reasons still unexplained to me. I stared at the pond more closely, at the smooth round stones around the edges, and the bushes along the sides of the garden that I had… played hide and seek in... I let out a little gasp.

“Benjamin died here, and no-one ever told me.”