Desperately she tried to blank out what he was doing, moving her hand up and down, faster and faster until his whole body stiffened and she thought he must be having a stroke or something. She hoped he was. Then the hard thing went soft, and finally Dad sighed and relaxed and let go of her arm.
‘You’re my special girl, ain’t you?’ he murmured, lying back, eyes closed.
Dolly hugged her arm, which felt bruised. She let the flannel drop into the soap suds with a shudder of horror. Then she turned, and saw Mum standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching them.
Dolly was shamed to her soul by Mum seeing what was happening in front of the fire. Her face, her whole body, burned with embarrassment and guilt that her mother had seen her doing the bad thing with Dad.
What Dolly expected was that Mum would shout and scream, that she would cuff Dolly around the ear, and she deserved that… but none of that happened.
Dolly would never forget the image of that room: the hot fire blazing, her mother standing on the bottom step, staring; and Dad’s head slowly swivelling around as he saw Dolly’s horrified face turned toward where Edie stood.
Sam Farrell stared at his wife, and said nothing. After long, long moments Edie simply turned and went back upstairs. Dad sat back in his bath. And Dolly fled the room.
Dolly thought that after the bath thing Edie would talk to her husband, angry words would be exchanged; but again she was let down. If anything, Mum seemed to withdraw even more, only sometimes Dolly caught her mum staring fixedly at her, saying nothing, just looking at her daughter as if she was looking at a stranger.
Then one Saturday Dad came in from the pub. Mum was in the kitchen in her usual seat, staring at nothing in particular, and the kids were out playing. Dad came in, weaving a little on his feet, slightly drunk, and looked at his wife slumped there. His expression was one of impatience and disgust.
‘Going to sort out the box room,’ he snapped at his wife. Then he turned to Dolly. ‘Come on, Doll, you can give me a hand.’ And he headed for the stairs.
Dolly looked at Mum, but Edie’s eyes remained resolutely on the floor. What was he talking about, the box room? The tiny room was a tip, everything went in there, all the shit in the entire world it seemed, so why was he talking about sorting it out? Dad never bothered himself with stuff like that.
‘I said come on – you deaf?’ Dad snarled at Dolly from the bottom of the stairs.
