Told in Silence. Rebecca Connell

      I unlock the door and push it open as quietly as I can, feeling it snag and scrape against loose carpet. As I slip into the dark hallway, I hear the low static noise of the television coming from the sitting room. I move towards it, the familiar smell of must and musk flooding my nose and mouth as I do so. If I stay in this house too long, it starts to cling to my hair and my clothes, infecting everywhere I go. It’s the same with the mess; even when I’m not here, I can see it in the back of my mind, weighing me down. Now, coming from Jonathan’s immaculate flat, it hits me even harder: boxes piled up against the hallway wall containing God knows what, stacks of old yellowing newspapers, a heap of ironing that never seems to get done. I have long since passed the stage of seeing these things as charmingly bohemian.

      I creep to the sitting-room door and stand there, peeping through the chink. The room is dark but for the television, light bristling off it like an eerie aquarium, and a small floor lamp throwing dim shadows against the back wall. The backs of my parents’ heads are there, popped up above the sofa and framing the television, motionless. I know they will have heard me come in, despite my efforts to be quiet, but they don’t turn around. I push the door open and come into the room, go and sit opposite them on an armchair that sighs and whines when I settle myself down on it.

      ‘Nice of you to join us,’ grunts my father, and for a few moments we’re just sitting there silently, all of us together, our eyes trained on whichever stupid quiz show they’ve been watching for however many minutes or hours or days. The pictures dance in front of me, blurring meaninglessly into blobs of coloured light. I think of Jonathan, the hot sharp smell of sweat and sex in his bedroom. Already I can’t wait to see him again.

      ‘Are you all packed, dear?’ my mother asks idly. I have told them that I have been staying with a friend, Gemma, for the past few days. It seems they haven’t bothered to check. From anyone else this question might be barbed – if she had bothered to set foot in my room, my mother would know that no packing had been done – but from her, it denotes nothing but ignorance. I look at her, her calm and indifferent face. In a minute I will make that mask crack. I can feel my hands growing hot and damp; I wipe them slowly against my skirt.

      ‘No,’ I say. ‘I haven’t packed, because I’m not going to Manchester.’

      The change, in my mother at least, is instant. Her head jerks up and she shoots a sharp glance at my father. He just stays slumped in his seat, watching the television, looking bored and faintly contemptuous. He has heard this before, of course, but he doesn’t know what has changed.

      ‘We’ve been through this, Violet,’ my mother says in a voice that might be meant to be compassionate, but just sounds hard and impatient to my ears. ‘It’s difficult going to university at first, but you’ll be fine. You’ll make friends. You’ll manage with the work.’

      ‘I’ve met someone,’ I say. ‘We’re in love.’ Saying the truth here, in this faded room with its threadbare rug and peeling walls, makes it sound totally unreal, a little girl’s fantasy. I dig my fingernails into my palms and will myself to remember. I won’t let these pedestrian surroundings crowd him out. Still, the echo of my words around the room sounds hollow even to my ears. Quietly, my father snickers, a low, unimpressed chuckle that makes me so angry I have to close my eyes briefly, seeing bursts of red pumping across the dark.

      ‘Oh, Violet,’ my mother says, her tone exasperated and brittle. ‘You’ll meet plenty of boys in Manchester.’

      I picture them: spotty youths with stripy scarves and flat Northern drawls. ‘He’s not a boy,’ I spit out. ‘He’s a thirty-year-old man with his own flat. And I love him, and I’m not leaving him. Some things are more important than—’ I stop. I want to say ‘than education’, but it sounds wrong. It’s not a question of importance, but one of necessity. I can’t leave him. The thought twists a fist in my stomach, tensing my whole body in desperation.

      ‘Oh, Violet,’ my mother says again. She clasps her hands in front of her, and I see the ancient engagement ring glinting on her finger. When I was younger I had thought it was the most beautiful ring in the world, but now it looks dulled and tarnished, just like everything else in this house. ‘This sounds like a crush to me. We’ve all had them, but really, a thirty-year-old man is not going to be interested in a young girl like you.’

      I feel a surprised bark of laughter rise in my throat. How can she be so naive? ‘I think you’ll find he’s very interested in me,’ I say, my voice shrill and loud, battling against the television’s merry clatter. ‘I’ve been with him for the past three days, not that you’d care.’ For a wild moment, I want to shock her further, push her over the edge, tell her every detail of what we have done. Forbidden words crowd into my mind, making me breathless.

      ‘What?’ my mother says, louder now. ‘But this…this is outrageous. I don’t know what’s been going on here, but whatever it is, it’s ridiculous. You need to go and pack. We’ll be leaving at ten a.m. tomorrow.’

      ‘You’re right,’ I shout. I am on my feet now, towering over her on the sofa, my fists clenched impotently with rage. ‘You don’t know what’s been going on – you never have. I love him, and I’m not going. I phoned the admissions office today and told them, so there!’ The last two words slip out, and I want to bite them back; even to me they sound silly and childish, but I stand my ground, glaring.

      For the first time, my father raises his head and looks at me. He seems faintly puzzled, grooves of confusion etched into his brow. ‘You did what?’ he asks gruffly.

      ‘I phoned them up and told them I’m not coming,’ I repeat. I find that I’m shivering with adrenalin.

      My father wipes a hand slowly and deliberately across his mouth before rising to his feet. He’s not a tall man, barely a few inches above me in his socked feet, but right now I have to fight the temptation to shrink before him. He puts one hand on my shoulder, but not in comfort. I feel my muscles tense, wanting to shrug him off, but I keep still. He peers forward, into my eyes, as if he is searching for the person he wants to see inside them. But she’s not there. I have never been his vision of me. I am somebody else, and all at once she is fighting to get out.

      ‘You have a choice here,’ he says. ‘Either we call up the admissions office first thing tomorrow and we forget about all this and we take you to Manchester, or you get out of this house and don’t come back.’

      ‘David…’ I hear my mother say behind him, floating there worriedly like a ghost. I can sense her there, but I can’t look at her. My eyes are fixed on my father’s.

      ‘No, Jessica,’ he interrupts. ‘We’ve done everything for this girl. Everything for you,’ he says to me. ‘If you don’t like it, you’re not welcome here.’

      For a second I am rigid with shock; then I move back, out of his force field, my arms folded across my chest. The hurt and disbelief that wash over me feel strangely familiar, as if they are already a part of me. ‘OK,’ I say, just to fill the silence. I turn his words over in my head. All I can feel is confusion, incomprehension at how he can believe that eighteen years of what has sometimes felt like near-total indifference amounts to doing everything for me. My mother’s face swims into view, her mouth half opened in shock or indecision. She’s no better; some days can barely rouse herself enough to care whether I’m dead or alive, for all her protestations when it suits her. I have tried for too long now to pretend that this is how things should be – to be content with this hollow parody of a family. I feel fury rise inside me again, making me heady and nauseous, but I don’t speak.

      I turn on my heel and leave the room, pounding up the stairs to my bedroom. I let the door swing open, revealing the tatty single bed, the piles of books scattered around it, the childhood knick-knacks that I haven’t used in years crowding the dressing table, leaving no inch of space. I step forward and pull my largest suitcase out from under the