A Place of Hiding

She’d had to tell Henry. There was no other choice when Cynthia couldn’t be talked out of the road she was traveling. And now there were the consequences of telling him, hanging over her like the blade of a guillotine that waits for the signal to be released. She picked her way through the sad debris of the fanciful front garden. Henry’s car was parked to one side of the house, not far from the barn where he made his glass, but the barn itself was shut and locked, so she went to the front door. There she steadied herself for a moment before she knocked.

This was her brother, she told herself. She had nothing to worry about and even less to fear from him. They’d weathered a difficult childhood together in the home of a bitter mother who—like Henry himself in a repetition of history—had been deserted by a faithless spouse. They shared more than blood because of this. They shared memories so powerful that nothing could ever be more important than the way they’d learned to lean upon each other, to parent each other in the physical absence of one genitor and the emotional disappearance of the other. They had made it not matter. They had sworn it would not colour their lives. That they had failed at this was nobody’s fault, and it certainly wasn’t for want of determination and effort. The front door swung open before she could knock, and her brother stood before her with a basket of laundry balanced on his hip. His expression was as black as she’d ever seen it. He said, “Val. What the hell do you want?” after which he stalked to the kitchen, where he’d built a lean-to that served as a laundry room.

She couldn’t help noticing when she followed him that Henry was doing the washing as she herself had taught him. Whites, darks, and bright colours all carefully separated, towels comprising an individual load. He saw her observing him and a look of self-loathing flitted across his face. “Some lessons die hard,” he told her.

She said, “I’ve been phoning. Why haven’t you answered? You’ve been home, haven’t you?”

“Didn’t want to.” He opened the washing machine, where a load was done, and he began shoving this into the dryer. Nearby in a sink, water dripped rhythmically into something that was soaking. Henry inspected this, dumped a splash of bleach in it, and stirred it vigorously with a long wooden spoon.

“Not good for business, that,” Valerie said. “People might be wanting you for work.”

“Answered the mobile,” he told her. “Business calls come there.”

Valerie swore silently at this piece of news. She hadn’t thought of his mobile. Why? Because she’d been too frightened and worried and guiltridden to think about anything but calming her own ragged nerves. She said, “Oh. The mobile. I hadn’t thought of the mobile.”

He said, “Right,” and began tossing his next load of laundry into the washer. These were the girls’ clothes: jeans, jumpers, and socks. “You hadn’t thought, Val.”

The contempt in his voice stung, but she refused to let him intimidate her into leaving the house. She said, “Where’re the girls, Harry?”

He glanced at her when she used the nickname. For an instant she could see past the loathing he wore as his mask and he was again the little boy whose hand she’d held when they’d crossed the Esplanade to bathe at the pools below Havelet Bay. You can’t hide from me, Harry, she wanted to tell him. But instead she waited for his answer.

“School. Where else would they be?”

“I suppose I meant Cyn,” she admitted.

He made no reply.

She said, “Harry, you can’t keep her locked—”

He pointed his finger at her and said, “No one’s locked anywhere. You hear me? No one is locked.”

“You’ve let her out, then. I did see you’ve taken the grille off the window.”

Instead of answering, he reached for the detergent and poured it onto the clothes. He didn’t measure it and he looked at her as he poured and poured, as if challenging her to offer advice. But she’d done that once, only once, God forgive her. And she’d come to assure herself that nothing had resulted from her saying, “Henry, you’ve got to take action.”

She said, “Has she gone off somewhere, then?”

“Won’t come out of her room.”

“You’ve taken the lock off the door?”

“No need for it now.”

“No need?” She felt a shudder run through her. She clasped her arms round her body although the house was not the least bit cold.

“No need,” Henry repeated, and as if he wanted to illustrate a point, he went to the sink where the water was dripping and he used the wooden spoon to fish something out.

It was a pair of woman’s knickers that he held up, and he allowed the water to run off them and pool on the floor. Valerie could see the faint stain that was still upon them despite the soaking and despite the bleach.

She felt a wave of nausea as she understood exactly why her brother had kept his daughter in her room.

“So she’s not,” Valerie said.