The Night Brother. Rosie Garland
I shrink into the bed as far as I can, curl against the wall. There is no further I can go. I don’t know why Ma is so furious. She is strict, but not like this: wild, white-faced. I want the mattress to open its mouth and gobble me up.
‘It was all Gnome’s idea!’ I squeal. ‘He made me go with him!’
It’s a terrible lie. The air freezes, pushing ice so far down my throat I can’t breathe. Ma seizes my shoulders and shakes me.
‘He’s not real! Say it!’
‘No!’ I wail.
‘Say it!’ she roars.
My head jerks back and forth, my neck as brittle as a bit of straw.
‘Say it!’
Roaring in my ears. Dark, sucking.
‘He’s not real,’ I moan.
‘Louder!’
‘He’s not real!’ I whimper, the thin squeal of a doll with a voice box in its chest.
‘What’s all this to-do?’ booms Nana. She can barely fit into the tiny room beside Ma, but fit she does. She throws a quick glance the length of my body and turns to Ma. ‘Well, Cissy?’
Ma’s face contorts. ‘Lies. Nightmares,’ she spits. ‘She says she’s been to the fireworks. With – no. No! Her and her wretched imaginings. It’s enough to try the patience of a saint.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Nana pertly. She lowers herself on to the mattress and huffs a sigh that matches the springs in weary music. She pats the blanket. ‘Come here, Edie.’
I shake my head the smallest fraction and cling to the bedstead.
‘No one is going to punish you.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ growls Ma.
‘Pipe down,’ snaps Nana, throwing her a glance that could burn toast. ‘Now then, Edie,’ she says very carefully. ‘Why aren’t you in your nightdress? You’ve not a stitch on.’
I shake my head again. It seems to be the only thing of which I am capable.
‘Filthy little heathen,’ says Ma.
Nana continues in her soft burr, coaxing me out of my funk. ‘You’ll catch your death. Here.’ She plucks my nightdress out of thin air, or so it seems to my fuddled brain. I clutch it to my chest. ‘I think we could all do with some sleep,’ she adds.
I nod. My head bounces, broken and empty. Nana turns to Ma and frowns.
‘Look at her. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. Be gentle with her. As I was with you.’
‘Since when did any of that nonsense do any good? She’s tapped. I’ll have her taken away, I will.’
‘Hush. You’ll do no such thing. You’re frightening the child. If you let her play out rather than keeping her cooped up, she wouldn’t need to make up stories.’
‘Who cares about her? What about my nerves?’
Nana ignores her and returns her attention to me. ‘You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Edie love?’
‘Yes?’ I say uncertainly.
‘So you haven’t really been to the fireworks, have you?’
Ma glares over Nana’s shoulder, eyes threatening dire punishment. I am afraid of lying, terrified of the truth. My heart gallops like a stampede of coal horses.
‘No,’ I squeak.
Ma smirks; Nana does not. I have satisfied one and not the other. I have no idea how to please them both.
‘Was it a nightmare, Edie?’ Nana purrs.
I can tell the truth, if that’s what she wants. But I no longer know what anyone wants. ‘Yes,’ I lie.
‘Well, then,’ she says. ‘You were dreaming. That’s all.’
Ma storms out of the room, grumbling about my disobedience. Nana pauses, screws up her eyes until they are slits. I have the oddest notion she’s trying to see through me and find Gnome. She leans close.
‘Herbert?’ she whispers.
‘Shh,’ I hiss. ‘He hates that name.’ She gives me a startled glance. ‘I’m sorry, Nana. I didn’t mean to be rude. But he likes to be called Gnome.’
She looks over her shoulder, as though worried Ma is watching. I did not think grandmothers were afraid of their own children.
‘Quiet now,’ she murmurs. She kisses my brow. ‘Let’s have no more of this talk. Not in front of your mother. You can see how it riles her.’
‘But he’s my brother.’
‘No, he’s not.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I can’t explain. You’re too little. One day. Just don’t say his name again. A quiet life. That’s what we all want.’
‘Can we run away, Nana?’
‘Hush, my pet. Do you want your ma to come back in here?’
She pinches my cheek. It is affectionate, but her eyes are desperate. She slides away, taking the light of the candle with her. I lie in a darkness greater than the absence of flame. I’m afraid. If Nana is too, there’s nowhere I can turn. Through the wall I hear them argue, voices muffled by brick.
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ wails Ma. ‘She’s ruined everything.’
‘She’s ruined nothing. She’s the same as you and me, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? I raised her to be normal.’
‘Cissy, for goodness’ sake …’
‘It can’t be true. I won’t let it be.’
‘You can’t alter facts. We are what we are,’ says Nana, over and over. ‘We are what we are.’
I smell home in all its familiarity: a stew of spilt beer, pipe smoke and damp sawdust. And something else: my hair, reeking of gunpowder. I crawl out of bed. Underneath is a pair of britches, ghostly with warmth from the body that wore them. Beside them are my boots, mud clumped under the heel. I press my finger to it: fresh, damp. Ma says I was lying. Nana says I was dreaming. If I didn’t go out, I must be imagining this as well.
I tiptoe to the window. I can’t be sure if I opened it or not. I peer through the glass. I would never be brave enough to climb down the drainpipe, not in a hundred years. My thoughts stumble, stop in their tracks.
‘Where are you, Gnome?’ I sob. ‘I need you.’
However many times Ma’s told me off, I’ve always been able to find his hand in the dark and hang on. He’s always been there. But tonight, there’s no answer. Something emptier than silence.
I try to make sense of the senseless. Ma says Gnome is all in my head – a nightmare. Nana says he isn’t my brother, that he is imaginary. They would not lie to me. Grown-ups are always right. I am the one who is wrong. I am a naughty girl. I tell lies. I make things up.
I must have been asleep. I must have dreamed the whole thing. I will be a good girl. I will scrape his name from the slate of my memory. If I say what Ma wants then it will be the truth and she will be happy. She won’t be cross any more.
I double over in agony, as though I have been split in half and my heart torn out. I squeeze my nightdress, expecting to find it soaked with blood. All is dry. In the faint light I examine my chest, searching for wounds. My skin is whole, undamaged. I am just a girl, on my own.
I throw the marbles out of the window; hear them click as they roll down the privy roof, and the fainter thud as they fall into the dirt. There is no such thing