Lay Low

Chapter Seven

My eyes flittered open as I felt someone's presence in the room. Tony was hovering over me. I jumped, fully alert now, and scrambled into the corner of the bed.    His eyes jumped at my movements, full of doubt. His gaze ran down my body, taking in the ripped t-shirt and following up to what he had done to my face.

"I was just getting Gary" He said picking Hannah's stuffed toy off the bed, where she must have left it. I noticed now that morning light shone through the curtains. How had I slept so long?

He started to walk away but paused and stared at me again.

"Look, last night..." he started, his voice soft, seeming to struggle with his words. "I didn't..."

"TONY" Mum's voice shouted out, breaking the mood. "We've got to go".

He looked towards the door. His face took back its usual form.

"Right, we are going to Church, you aren't to leave the house. Understand?"

"Yes sir" I creaked.

He walked out, leaving me huddled on the bed. I could hear the sounds of them leaving. The door closed and I heard the car start. As I heard them pull away, the pent up emotions came to the surface and I felt tears come into my eyes. Why did this happen to me? I let the tears flow down my broken face.

I lay back on the bed and thought about what had just happened with Tony.

There weren't many times that I had seen him remorseful, if that is what today was. Maybe it was fear because he had made a mistake –he'd have to keep me out of church and maybe school because he'd hit me in the face.

He wanted to be seen as an upstanding member of the community; a policeman whose job was to serve and protect. Ha! I knew that he had wanted to hit Mum last night; that I was just a vessel for the rage he couldn't inflict on her.

He was obsessed with her, consumed with trying to make her happy. He was her servant, and would do anything she wished. Last night was the first time I had seen such a fissure between them.

I suppose Tony hadn't always been like this with me. He only followed Mum's rising bitterness towards me as I got older. It was so gradual. As soon as Hannah was born, things began to change.

At first, I was mainly ignored. Not in the way a kid feels he is being ignored when a new baby comes along. I would be told to stay in my room and play. I would spend hours up there, bored.

Then they began to forget to pick me up from friend's houses, even school once. Little things like that. When Hannah got older, it became more obvious to my young self that I wasn't favoured. They would leave me in the house alone, while they took Hannah out. I didn't understand what I had done.

In those first few years that Mum and Tony were together, I would spend a lot of time at my maternal Grandmother's. Nanny Jen was probably my closest friend. She would take me out and do things with me. She would make sure that I had decent clothes and food. The saddest moment in my life was the day she died. She had a heart attack and died instantly. It was just before I started secondary school. Mum and Tony weren't best pleased to have to have me back on weekends. I spent a lot of time locked in my room for being 'naughty'.

Mum and Tony didn't really take any notice of me until I started to act out at school.

Looking back, I guess I must have been so confused and upset over the death of Nan and not knowing what I was doing wrong at home. I craved attention in any form. It was my first year at Secondary school and I had taken on the role of class joker; classic attention seeking behaviour I suppose.