But Jonathan’s eyes were still narrowed and he said, ‘You’re the idiot. Of course I understood. I meant what does it feel like, inside you, that sort of thing.’
‘What does happiness feel like?’ we asked Mama. She took us in her arms and said, ‘Like this.’
‘Warm,’ Jonathan declared, estimating that Mama’s body temperature was slightly increased. I pressed my nose into the cool between her neck and her shoulder. She smelled of meadow. Happiness feels warm, almost like a slight fever; it has a smell and a heartbeat that goes like the second hand on the kitchen clock.
We also discussed what a fright feels like, Jonathan and I. ‘A fright is like a slap in the face,’ Jonathan suggested.
‘Which comes as a surprise,’ I added.
And we were right. That’s exactly what a fright is like. And you can see it in someone’s face too. The eyes are big from the surprise and the cheeks turn red in a flash, as if they’ve been hit by a large, hard hand.
That’s exactly what Sister Ruth looks like right now. I screamed at her in my lion’s voice, ‘I don’t want the police to come and take Mama away!’
‘Hannah.’ Sister Ruth’s voice is now slightly squeaky. That must be down to the fright too. My first thought is that I have to tell Jonathan about this, we must remember it: fright = slap + surprise + squeaky voice. My second thought is that he’s at home at the moment, struggling with the carpet, then my third thought is that Sister Ruth said the police are on their way. Now I become sad, with tears.
Sister Ruth has probably noticed that I’m feeling a bit weak at the moment and so she’s forgotten the fright I gave her. Her chair scrapes across the floor when she gets up, then she walks around the table and presses my head into her fat, soft breasts.
‘I know all of this is a bit much for a little girl like you. But you needn’t be afraid, Hannah. Nobody wants to do anything bad to your mama or you. Sometimes families just need a bit of help, but they don’t realise this themselves. Is it possible that your family needs help at home, Hannah?’ She squats beside my chair and takes hold of my hands that are in my lap.
‘No,’ I say. ‘We know how everything works. We have our own rules, you see. It’s just that Mama forgets them sometimes. But luckily she’s got us, we remind her of them.’
‘But still she does silly things? That’s what you said earlier, wasn’t it? That she sometimes does silly things by accident?’
I lean forwards and make my hands into a secrets funnel. Jonathan and I invented the secrets funnel, but we’re not allowed to use it when Papa’s at home. Sister Ruth turns her head so that I can put the secrets funnel to her ear.
‘She wanted to kill Papa by accident,’ I whisper.
Sister Ruth’s head spins around. Fright, I can see it quite clearly. I shake my head, grab her face and turn it back into the right position for the secrets funnel. ‘You don’t have to tell the police. Jonathan is taking care of the stains on the carpet.’
Lena
He wants three, he says, as he gets to work on the onion. He very calmly removes the outer layer, which sounds like a plaster being ripped from the skin. It’s a painful sound to my ears. I’m standing right beside him in the kitchen, staring at the knife in his hand. A carving knife with a thin, serrated blade, sharp enough.
‘Are you listening to me, Lena?’
‘Of course,’ answers the woman who I’m beginning to hate with every fibre in my body. He gets everything from her; he grasps his opportunities valiantly and he has already helped himself plentifully. To her body, her pride, her dignity. Yet still she smiles at him. This woman makes me sick. ‘You want three.’
‘I always did. What about you?’
The woman always wanted three as well. I’ve never wanted any myself, but my opinion doesn’t count. Some days I wish I could get used to it. On others I know that it must never happen. I gather the last of my reserves, small shards of a broken will, memories and reasons, and hide them in a safe place. Like a squirrel burying supplies for the winter. I can only hope that nobody, neither he nor the feeble woman, ever discover my hiding place. The secret place where there is a sky and kitschy tablecloth weights.
‘Fancy a glass of wine?’ He places the knife he’s just quartered the onion with beside the wooden board and turns to me. The knife, just lying there. Half an arm’s length away, within reach. I have to force myself to take my eyes off it. To look him in the eye again with the inane grin on the lips of the feeble woman.
‘Yes, lovely.’
‘Wonderful.’ He smiles back, then takes a step towards the dining table, where the two brown paper bags with the shopping still stand unpacked. ‘Red or white? I got both because I didn’t know which you’d prefer with the spaghetti.’
Him standing there, slightly hunched over the bags, his back half-turned to me, his right hand already in one of the bags. The knife lying beside the board, just half an arm’s length away, within reach. Now! the inner voices cry.
‘Lena?’ The paper bag rustles as he takes out the first bottle.
‘If it’s up to me, then red.’
‘Yes, I’d rather red too.’ Content and with bottle in hand, he turns around again. The feeble woman is holding on to the worktop for support. One finger twitches pitifully for the knife. Only a few centimetres separate the two, yet it’s an impossibility. He cooks for me. We eat together and raise our glasses of red wine to my getting pregnant as soon as possible. He wants three children. We’ll be a very happy family.
‘Atrial fibrillation!’
Hannah
Sister Ruth left the room so quickly that she almost tripped. Because she said I should sit there quietly and wait for her, I don’t move. When Sister Ruth returns with a sketch pad and some sharp pencils, she says, ‘I’ve had a great idea, Hannah.’
I’m to draw something, okay. But I’m not sure whether it really is a great idea. The pencils are certainly lovely colours: red, yellow, blue, black, purple, orange, pink, brown and green. But they’re really sharp. I take the red pencil and carefully run my thumb over the tip – yes, really very sharp. We do drawing at home too, but with crayons. We write with crayons as well.
‘Why should I draw something?’
Sister Ruth shrugs. ‘Well, first, it’ll give us something to do to fill the time until you can see your mama, but also we can say we’re really busy when the police come and ask stupid questions. What do you think?’
‘So what should I draw?’
Sister Ruth shrugs again. ‘Hmm, perhaps you should just draw what happened today before you came here with your mama.’