Thornhill by Pam Smy
For my husband
February 8, 1982
I knew it was too good to last. She is back. Without even looking I knew it. I heard her laughter echoing up the stairwell, the usual thumping on each of the doors in the corridor as she made her way back to her old room. I froze as I heard those sounds. Fear tingled into my neck and down my back as the old feeling seeped into my bones.
I don’t believe it.
What will I do now?
February 9, 1982
I’ve decided to lock myself away. Now that she is back it is the only way I can keep myself safe. I’ll tell them I am ill or something. They’ll probably not even notice I’m not down there anyway. As long as I don’t have to see her. As long as I don’t have to face her, look her in the eye, hear her voice. Yes, locking myself away is the answer.
It’s great up here, actually. I am the only girl with my own sink and bathroom. I love having the highest room in the whole building, being able to look up at the topmost branches of the trees outside. I can watch the birds skim past, fast and free. Carefree.
And from up here I overlook the houses where the real people, the regular people, live. Sometimes I watch them sleepily opening their curtains in the mornings, heaving out their garbage bags in their bathrobes, letting out their cats, feeding the birds. In the summer they have friends round and there’s noisy laughter and tinkling glasses in the gardens, and on hot days I watch the squealing children splashing in wading pools or squabbling over tricycles. You know, regular, real people with regular, real families. Of course, sometimes that is all a bit much and I have to shut them out too.
Yes, it’s not bad up here. Locking myself away won’t be hard at all.
February 14, 1982
I started to make another figure today. I have molded the body, arms, and legs. I am making it small, like a child. Not sure who it will be yet.
So far, I seem to be getting away with staying up here. I am going down when I know the others are all in front of the TV and Kathleen is bustling around in her apron, clearing up the dining hall. She knows. She knows I am not coming down to eat with the others and that I’m bringing down yesterday’s tray and restacking it with bread rolls, packets of biscuits, yogurts, and apples. She watches me, gives me a wink, and lets me get on with it. I like Kathleen. She’s nice.
Even stealing downstairs for those five minutes each day makes me sick with fear. My palms prickle with slippery sweat, my heart pounds in my ears, and even when I am safely back up here it takes a while for my hands to stop shaking.
It is a feeling I haven’t had for months. When she left to be fostered last time, I could breathe again. I felt as though I had been holding my breath for years. The other girls weren’t exactly friendly after she left, but it’s just that they left me alone. They don’t speak to me because they don’t get a reply, so mostly they act as though I am not there. Invisible. That can feel lonely, but I am used to that. Loneliness is nothing compared to the crush of fear I have when she is here at Thornhill.
I can understand their adoration of her. If you were to describe us the first words would be the same. Both blond, blue-eyed girls of thirteen. But my hair is long and limp. Hers bounces in natural ringlets. My eyes are small with dark shadows under them. Hers are big and round and pretty. I’m always frowning. She looks like a rosy-cheeked doll. The others follow her like puppies, desperate to catch some of her beauty, impress her so that she rewards them with one of those beautiful smiles.
Luckily for me, though, I haven’t seen her yet—I think she is leaving me alone. Sometimes I hear her walking along the hallway below, the familiar stomp and howls of laughter if she is with her old friends or, if she is on her own, the thump, thump, thump on each of the doors she passes. I shake then too. Sometimes I wake up in the night, that noise filling my head. That thump, thump, thump fills me with terror—even in my dreams. Thump, thump, thump. I lie there cold with fear and remembering.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
February 16, 1982
Getting a bit fed up with bread rolls and yogurt.
February 17, 1982
I started rereading The Secret Garden today. I read it years ago, but I had forgotten loads of it. The girl in it is called Mary too and her parents die right at the beginning of the story, so she is on her own, like me. But she can speak whenever she chooses, so I guess she isn’t like me. She is supposed to be the heroine, but for a main character she isn’t very likable. Sickly looking. Yellow, pasty skin. Sharp features. Always cross with people. I rather like it that she isn’t one of the usual type—those pretty ones who are always kind and patient despite the terrible hardships they face. Life just isn’t like that. Mine isn’t anyway.
This Mary is picked on by the other kids too. They chant a nursery rhyme, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” at her and she just ignores it. To be fair, even I could probably ignore a bit of name-calling.
I have decided to make my new figure into Mistress Mary Quite Contrary. Right after school I curled up on the floor under the window and worked away at the clay, pinching and sliding it around until a head began to appear. It was quite tricky to shape the face as I imagined it—sharp pointy nose and chin, sunken little eyes. I enjoyed it, though. It is strange how the evening slips by when you are absorbed in something.
I often wonder what my life would be like without my puppets. I think about the other girls who don’t have a passion for making or imagining and wonder what they do with their time. I wonder if they are bored. I am never bored. I am learning all the time, not just about different types of puppets from around the world or in history, but about the making of small bodies and figures and clothes and hair and eyes and shoes. And I love that I am surrounded by the things I have made. They sit on shelves above my bed, on my bookcase, suspended from the ceiling, balanced on my windowsill—my puppets are like friends that sit and keep me company. They watch me as I make their companions or add new ideas and designs to my sketchbook. I think that some people would find it creepy having all these little eyes watching them—but I don’t. When I go into the dining hall and see all those old photos of the unnamed girls who have lived here over the last hundred years, all lined up in ghostly groups—that’s scary. But my dolls are my comfort. In some way, even though I am often on my own, with my puppets about me, I don’t feel so alone.
February 25, 1982
My luck has run out.