A Little Rain Read online

  She runs over to Rob, “Daddy! Daddy!” she says crashing into his legs, arms outstretched.

  I walk cautiously into the bedroom. “Marcia?” I say wary, unnerved by the pair of bare bodies I’m facing.

  “Hey Ella,” she says dreamily. “You’re early! I haven’t done her bag. Sorry I’m not up. Heavy night, you know, sorry.”

  “Err, ok... Don’t worry... So, Sunday night yeah? Five o’clock ok?” I say quickly, I think I’m too repulsed to get angry.

  “Yeah, five’s fine. Have fun.” Jamie stirs and stretches an arm over Marcia and they snuggle up. Ugh. I actually think I’m going to be sick. Rob hasn’t come in any further. Thank God. I want to make a quick retreat now. I come out in the hall and shut the door. As I’m walking away, I think we can’t just go without taking any of Ruby’s things. She usually has clothes, of course her bunny Sparky and maybe a few other toys. I think I can’t just take her with nothing, but then maybe it’s ok. It’s only a couple of nights but no, she needs Sparky at least.

  “I think we should take Sparky?” I say cautiously, opening the door slowly again, but it’s too late. I should have just left. Why did I wait? Rob is now right behind me alone. Ruby must be in the car.

  “What’s the hold up?” he says over, my shoulder. He says again, “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Come on let’s go!” I say, pushing my body weight against him. He does not move. I don’t want him to see what I’ve just seen. I just want to get out, now.

  “Have you got her bag?” Rob says, seriously.

  “It’s not ready, let’s go.” I urge. Impatient. Unsteady. Fearful of what might happen next. Rob turns his head and looks at me, then at the door. He bursts through.

  Maybe they thought we were gone. It didn’t take long. Rob instantly changes from Loving Daddy to Incredible Hulk. I can see the veins pulse in his neck. He explodes into the room. “Lazy fucks! Too lazy to sort out Ruby’s bag but time to get your dirty fucking freak on. You disgust me.” How I agree, but how I wish I had just left without her bag. At least now Ruby’s out of earshot, just as well. I start to heave at Rob’s arm and try to drag him out of there.

  “We can go and buy Ruby some new stuff, toys, whatever...” I say my voice high-pitched, unsteady. “Let’s just go!” We just have to get out of here. Somehow, I don’t know how, either with my own strength or if Rob just chose to follow, we end up outside. As we’re out of the front garden and on to the pavement, it happens without warning. Jamie is there, out of bed, shirtless in shorts. He runs at Rob. POW!! You can almost see the word in colour, Batman-style, as his knuckles connect with Rob’s chin. I can hear Ruby in the car start screaming. She can see it all.

  “Daddy. No! Jamie. No! Ellie, Ellie!” I open the car door and unbuckle her. She jumps out and hugs me. The maniacs behind are swinging wildly for each other. Holding her tight, I spin her round and round, trying to ignore the ruckus I see going on in stomach wrenching bursts over her shoulder. Her cuddles are some cold comfort. I walk away trying not to panic. I hold Ruby’s face down, deep in my shoulder. I don’t like to look back as I walk away. I am calm and slow. It is my business but there’s nothing I can do right now. Leave the men to fight. Ruby is my concern. What good would it do just standing there screaming at them like children, when it’s the real child that’s caught in the middle? I walk. I know Rob will find us. I have faith in him. I don’t look back.

  Next thing I know someone tugs on my shoulder. I look round, about to be relieved to see Rob, but no, oh no, it’s not Rob. It’s Jamie. Oh God. “Give me her.” There’s no maybe about it. Ruby clings to me like a limpet. I think Rob could be lying in a puddle of blood somewhere so I think it’s no good now if I get beat up too. I wouldn’t put it past Jamie. He is big, must be six foot at least. I can barely see past him. How could I do anything?

  “Just give it up,” I say. “It won’t last.” Ruby screams and cries as Jamie wrenches her from me. There’s nothing I can do right now, not without Rob. My heart is now broken too. Where the hell is he? Ruby is not my responsibility anyhow. Hell no, I know I don’t mean that. I just stand and stare as Jamie carries her off, crying still. I reach for my phone and ring Rob. My heart is pounding. He doesn’t answer. I ring again. He still doesn’t answer. I know wherever he is he’s going to be furious, sitting somewhere raging, kicking a fence or punching a wall. Either that or he’s out cold. I just don’t know. This is all just so surreal like a film with a fight, a screaming child, and the hot felt rage of the total injustice of it all, not even a happy ending in sight. The hero lost somewhere, maybe injured, dead, maybe not, probably not, hopefully not. I cannot think of that impossibility.

  Then I think Rob can look after himself. Ruby is the innocent stuck in this mess. So I have no choice really. Even though I’m not the hero I have to follow Jamie. First I try and ring Rob a third time. He answers, finally. “Is she with you? … Well?” He hangs up. He knows what my answer’s going to be. I ring him again. His phone is off. My feet are barely moving along this cold, so close, yet so unfamiliar street and life suddenly feels a whole lot emptier. I feel like I’m going to slump on the floor and scream and cry, not that I’d ever do something like that, not me. I have to find Rob. He is what I need right now. I head back to where I came from and when I get back to their place, Jamie is already back inside, with Ruby gone, the door firmly closed. I don’t see Rob anywhere. Panicked I go into the middle of the road and start running up the street, calling out, looking left, looking right, between the cars. Then I see him in the gutter, sitting on the kerb. His head is so low it’s almost between his knees. My insides turn over and over and I feel like I might fall down. I slowly walk over to stand by him, where he sits. “Hey... Get yourself up. Come on. Let’s go back and get Ruby.” I say, trying to be brave, when I could just collapse and cry any second but I won’t. He is silent. “Come on. Please. We can’t stay here. We have to move.” Not a flicker. “Rob!” He looks at me. I could cry just from the pain I see in his eyes. His hands are bright pink. His eyebrow is cut ever so slightly. I know that’s not what’s hurting. Blood trickles to his mouth, not even smeared.

  “He had a knife.” I blink back tears. My throat tightens. I choke a little. I can’t hold back. I close my eyes and tears fall down my cheeks. I go and kneel with him. I hug him with my life. He doesn’t move. I cry and little tears from me fall down over his shoulder. The thought of losing him! I hug him like I’ll never let go. I don’t know how long it takes before he unhooks my arms from round him as he moves to stand. His eyes move back to the middle distance. He starts moving like a robot.

  “Rob?” I say, but he doesn’t answer, he just walks towards the car. “ROB?” I say nearly shouting at this point. I notice someone walking on the other side of the street stop and look. I’m still at the kerb. Rob’s getting in the car. In fact, time is so disjointed now he’s already shut the door and started the engine too. The car is now moving slowly. “Hey… WAIT!” I scream from the pit of my lungs. He’s not picked up speed yet so I run as fast as my feet will kick. My muscles burn with pain as I run like I never have before in my life. He can’t do this. He can’t just leave me here now. The car is moving away but I’m catching up and luck has fixed it so the passenger door is on my side. I’m fast enough. I get there. I hook my fingers in the door handle and throw myself through the open door while the car is moving. My legs are dangling out of the door. I don’t think he’s slowing and I’m more scared now than I ever have been. If I fall I get hurt. I don’t even want to think about letting go now. Oh God. With all the strength in me, burning pain in my arms, I heave myself through the door and twist round so I’m seated. Somehow, I’m oblivious to the all-new terror situation of leaning out and shutting the car door at a dangerous speed. “Jesus!” I say with an ounce of breath I find and manage to put into words. My pulse is racing from the adrenalin surging through me. My mouth is dry, wide open, gasping. I must take seven or eight fast deep breaths before I find it in me to ta
lk again. “You could’ve killed me!”

  I think Rob is now going to talk. He does, but not in the way I was expecting. Nah-uh. All new shock waves ripple as all he says is, “Shut up or get out!” A voice in my head tells me to shut up. What have I done? I just sit as we drive. It seems we’re going home or to mum’s maybe, though I don’t even want to ask him that. For the first time in my life of being with Rob I don’t feel safe. Something has changed. Something is very very wrong.

  2

  Voices

  I’ve always heard voices in my head. Well not strictly voices but thoughts. Loud intrusive thoughts like, you shouldn’t be doing this or you better get a move on. Stuff like that. Other stuff too sometimes but I just pass it all off as thoughts.

  That afternoon, after I nearly died, we drove the short distance on to mum’s place. Our beautiful mummy, Marguerite Roman lives in a boxy block of flats, three storeys high on the third floor. Rob moved out when he got too big for the place. Not long after, I moved out too and went to live with Rob. I think the flat got too small and I got sick of my nephews. Our dear departed auntie’s thirteen-year-old twins live with mum. Stupid and Doofus I call them. They are the rude boy terrors that slap my face and ping elastic bands at me every time I walk in or out of the door. I suppose they’re my relations but they’re not like my brother Rob. He’s my real family, like a dad, brother and soul-click, all in one.

  Back at mum’s place, on walking quickly through the front door, it smells of warm spicy food. In the living room though it smells strongly of furniture polish. The pale blue carpet looks pristine. I hope there is no dirt on my shoes. She asks me how I’m keeping and I say well and don’t breathe a word of what just happened. The carriage clock ticks quietly on the mantelpiece in the silence. She knows better than to ask about Rob’s cuts. She cares, obviously, but doesn’t want to hear the truth. When she asks after Ruby, Rob tells her she’s with Marcia. She says the twins are at school. Hmm... Seems some teachers are working today.

  Looking at mum, she does not look too well, so I make her a cup of sweet tea and bring her bourbon biscuits on the mint green saucer. She tells me again about her sickness. How she has no energy at all, not even to go shopping any more. I tell her the terror twins should shop for her. “Or I’ll go shopping for you,” I say. She smiles at me. I sit and drink my tea from my bone china cup with the green and golden brown frogs painted on it, resting my feet on the floral upholstered footstool, watching TV. Rob skulks around for a bit. I hear him rustling about in the kitchen cupboard. He lets the door go bang and quietly curses. Not long after, like an old man, he can’t control his tiredness. He crashes in the twin’s bedroom, like some kind of monster on the bottom bunk, sprawled on the BMX bedspread, extremities dangling. He soon begins to snore.

  Mum asks me how college is and I tell her it’s going good. We talk about the terror twins raising hell. I tell her how she should whup them into line with a kick or a slap. She tells me they beat each other. We talk about Ruby and Marcia a little. We don’t mention Jamie or Tony, even with Rob asleep. I don’t mention any of just now either, although it burns within me to say. Instead I make us some lunch. My tummy has rumbled, telling me it’s time. I make a big bowl of pasta for all of us, with lots of tuna and mayonnaise, ground black pepper, lemon juice from the bottle, cucumber cut into squares, cubes of fresh green and yellow peppers, half a red onion chopped finely, a few thin slices of green chilli, just a few, completed with a slosh of mum’s favourite garlic and chilli oil. I leave Rob’s food in a blue plastic bowl I cover with some cling wrap. We eat off plates on our laps on the sofa. When we finish, mum sighs, yawns, closes her eyes, and sleeps.

  I make more tea, watch the news on TV and yawn a little too. I start looking at a picture on the mantelpiece. A photo of Ruby, Rob and Marcia. The sky is blue. The sun is shining. A spreading cloud behind them like fine, torn lace. Both girls so pretty, they make Rob look ugly. I see the same sparkle in Ruby’s eyes that I see in Rob’s. There’s no sparkle in Marcia’s dark eyes even though she’s kind of smiling. She looks hardened and cold, very much like Mrs. Diaz today. Just then, I swear the picture frame moves but half a second later a fight breaks out in the flat next door that shakes the wall.

  I realise it’s getting late and dark I might be late for Benny if I don’t get a move on. I don’t wake Rob. I will leave him be. Best not to disturb him. He’ll phone me when he’s ready. I kiss his forehead goodbye and breathe him deep. I don’t make a sound. I go back to mum to say to call me or text me, if she needs anything. I hug her, and quietly whisper goodbye and she softly squeezes my hand as she dozes in her chair. Back in the kitchen, I wash up my cup and put the blue plastic bowl in the fridge. Regretfully, I leave.

  I trip-toe down the dark stairs. Bounce bounce, bounce bounce, down the thirty two stone steps. I’m not getting in the lift again. It smells like a men’s toilet, although sometimes the stairwell doesn’t smell too fresh either. I can tell it is cold outside. I can see the rain is light and misty. I can smell the damp of the concrete walls. I’m not quite down the stairs when my phone rings. It’s Benny. I answer. “Hey. Where you at babe?” I’m a little shocked. He’s in a good mood.

  “Just getting to see you of course.” He doesn’t ask me how college was. He doesn’t care.

  “So you coming over?” he says.

  “Want to pay for my cab?” I cheek. I’ve got money. He’s richer than me though. He doesn’t say anything. It’s raining harder now and I just know the son of a gun would rather make me walk.

  “No chance.” He says. So I call a cab anyway. I cannot be bothered to get soaked in the rain. I light up a cigarette while I’m waiting in the smelly stairwell. In less than three minutes some dude pulls up in a silver saloon busting some fat reggae beats that rattle the glass even before he bibs his horn for me. I soon realise how he got to pick me up so fast. Benny lives about a ten minute drive away from mum. This cab driver does it in five.

  Rob’s flat is not far from mum. It is near shops. Benny does not live near shops, which is just typical, as Benny is a man who keeps no food at his home. Not like my mum, who has a packed fridge-freezer and cupboards full, packets of crisps burst out of the doors whenever you open them, tins of beans roll on the floor. Benny never has food. I am always hungry. The instant coffee and custard creams I hide in the shoe box in the wardrobe are mine. I think sometimes he just doesn’t need to eat. He is one skinny mashup. He is very cute and I love the way his skinny hips duck in under his six-pack. His jeans have trouble staying up. I don’t have a problem with that. He’s not that tall, five six, seven maybe. His hair is shaved very short. When he grows it, it gets all thick and bushy but he knows I wouldn’t go near him if he grew stinky dreads. His skin is the colour of caramel, like sticky toffee sauce. Although he’s short and skinny, he has the face of a pretty boy, sharp edge jaw and cheekbones. He has yellow-green eyes like a dragon, slit pupils, unblinking.

  We met at school when I was a shy girl. I hung out with the trendy kids, but was always the quiet one. I didn’t think schoolwork was important. I failed my exams at 16 and had to retake them all. I eventually left school a year later. My friends had moved on. They didn’t wait for me and went their separate ways, getting jobs, doing A-levels and planning their futures. When I got kept back a year, so did Benny. He was one of the cool crowd too, only before then I was too shy to speak to him. When we were put in the same boat we were forced together. I think he liked that I was a bit different, that I started going raving and drinking with my brother at 17. In fact, I think he was jealous of Rob from the start. It’s a shame Rob didn’t like him either, thought he was a waster with no manners and no respect. When Benny did leave school he had no plans to do anything but his dad made him get a job. His uncle hired him and he works as a mechanic now. Rob had higher hopes for me, unrealistic hopes. I think he wanted my first boyfriend to be a brain surgeon, or maybe just a hard worker, or at least have ambition. Benny is like a tadpole, happy to say in
the pond forever. He never wants to grow legs and become a frog. Rob works in security, and is out day and night, up at all hours. I know he is not happy with his lot. He just wants better for me. When I lost my school friends and gained a boyfriend, I thought I didn’t need anything else. With Benny and my brother, I had everything and nothing, all at the same time. I had Benny’s friends too.

  I get to Benny’s flat and bound up the stairs and ring flat number 3. Bzzzzzz. He clicks me in. I smell his trademark aftershave and a hint of eau du cannabis. He’s looking pretty fine today. Although he’s thin, his hugs are quite warm. He doesn’t let go for what feels like three seconds. He kisses me with cold lips. I ask him why. He’s been out in the rain he says, fixing his car up again. It’s broken down right now.

  “Why didn’t you do it at work?” I say. He doesn’t answer. This makes me think he called in sick today. I look up at him. He doesn’t say a word. He just takes my hand and leads me inside. In his bedroom, it’s business as usual. We’re cuddling afterwards but I’m not comfortable. Benny’s holds me, cigarette in hand, ash falling on my shoulder. I look over at the bedside table to the clock-radio telling the wrong time. It says 6:32pm.

  Almost as if I asked it to my phone starts ringing. I think please God don’t be Rob, not now, though of course I would be happy to hear from him. It’s not, it’s the pub. I work there at least one night a week, two sometimes. It’s easy money to make, so if they call me on a weekday, I’ll skip college and go in as well. Sometimes I do the Saturday or Sunday shift, though that’s rare. It’s an eight-minute run from Rob’s flat, from Benny’s it’s further. When I finish late at night and Rob’s not around to pick me up, he insists I get a cab or wait for a lift home. Sometimes I brave the walk, but I would never tell him that. I think I’m pretty smart. I can run most of the way, holding each of my keys between my knuckles, a spiked fist ready to punch out at anyone who comes too close. It’s only really dangerous over the railway bridge, where no one could hear you scream and there are no doors to knock on. I don’t run all of the way. Keep something in reserve, just in case I need to run for real. Rob once told me if you ever do get grabbed, stamp on their foot or kick them hard in the shin if you can. So when he grabbed me messing about that same day, I did both. He almost cried. Now I know it works, I’m not scared. I’ve got eagle eyes, and cheetah feet, booted.