Path to the Night Sea

By Alicia Gilmore

Alicia Gilmore, in her debut novel, weaves the riveting story of Ellie, confined to her house by her abusive father after she was brutally mauled by her father's hunting dogs. In their small coastal town, hidden behind locked doors and papered windows, Ellie grows up in a world devoid of sunlight and companionship, dependent upon her father for her every need. The memory of the past haunts her and sustains her. When the unimaginable happens, Ellie must find the strength to survive or remain lost to the world forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regal House Publishing
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780998839851

Alicia Gilmore

Alicia Gilmore has had stories published in Phoenix and Cellar Door, and was one of the contributing writers and lead editor of Burbangana. She was the recipient of an Allen & Unwin / Varuna Publishers Fellowship and was awarded a month long residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

Book preview

Contents

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Path to the Night Sea

Alicia Gilmore

Regal House Publishing

It had been four days since he had died, and still the old bastard refused to leave her alone. She could hear a muffled droning, a buzz, beyond her bedroom door.

‘I’m coming, Daddy.’

Copyright © 2018 by Alicia Gilmore

Published by Regal House Publishing, LLC

Raleigh, NC 27612

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN -13 (paperback): 978-0-9988398-4-4

ISBN -13 (epub): 978-0-9988398-5-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950107

Interior design by Lafayette & Greene

Cover design by Lafayette & Greene

lafayetteandgreene.com

Cover photography by Jaroslaw Grudzinski

/Shutterstock

Regal House Publishing, LLC

https://regalhousepublishing.com

For Elaine

Day One

Her finger traced a circle in the air. The sun. Ellie held her breath as she pushed aside the curtain and drew her hand closer to the window. As her fingers moved nearer the paper that covered the glass, a frisson of daring, a spark, pulsed through her, surging from her fingertip. She felt it, imagined seeing it, a flash of the sunlight she wanted to bring inside.

She let her finger touch the paper. Against her bedroom window, it was dry and cold. It was shaded on this side of the house where the light struggled to break through the trees that grew along the fence line. Stupid house. She mouthed the words. Ellie knew what a house should look like. Her house would be bathed in sunshine. She ran her finger down the paper in a straight line. A house needed walls. She stroked across—a roof, down again—a door. A door with a handle that only she could touch. Inside was a girl. Another circle for a head atop a thin, angular body with gangly, knobbly limbs. She stopped. She knew what lived inside; she wanted what was outside. In the Before there had been grass outside—grass, trees, flowers, birds and clouds in the sky.

She let her finger flick the edge of the paper where it met the window frame. The paper was starting to curl; it had been a while since Daddy had replaced it. If she moved the paper just a bit, scratched a tiny hole, maybe she’d be able to see. Then she’d know for sure it was all still out there: the sun, the grass, the outside world. But she couldn’t know. Could only draw invisible lines and imagine.

Ellie’s hands hovered and fluttered above door handles and window frames. She imagined an elegant flick of the wrist. One turning hand to unlock a door or slide one of those wooden frames up and she would climb into the world outside. Such a small movement to change a life. It would take so little, and so much. Too much. She let her hands fall to her sides. She always did. She couldn’t leave. She didn’t know how to survive without Daddy. He protected her, had kept her with him all of these years. Daddy loved her.

‘You’re mine,’ he had told her, ‘mine.’ She belonged to him.

He was out. The house was hers. Ellie stretched, stood on her tiptoes and reached her arms towards the sky. Her father’s old singlet pulled against her breasts. She wore the same underwear—plain cotton singlets and underpants—that he wore. ‘I’m not going out and buying bloody bras and women’s things. These are good enough for you.’ Ellie wasn’t quite sure what women’s things were. She had made do with his leftovers and she hadn’t complained.

Ellie bent down and dropped to her knees. She arched her back. I’m a cat. I’m Percy. I’m not a girl. I can purr. I can growl. I can kill. She stood up. No. She couldn’t. That was wrong. Killing was bad. For girls.

She heard a noise and froze. Something touched her leg. Percival. Just Percival. She touched his head. Hello, she mouthed. Hello, my baby. She looked around her and tried for the words.

‘Hello, Perce.’ Her voice was a rasping scrape of sound. She cupped a hand over her mouth. She’d spoken out loud, without being spoken to. That wasn’t permitted. Not when Daddy was home. But he was out. The motley-coloured cat nudged her hand in return. She wondered if Percival could read her mind. It’s okay. Daddy’s out, baby boy. Percival sauntered towards the kitchen. He wasn’t really a baby. He wasn’t young at all. But he was hers.

‘Are you hungry?’ His replying grunt came close to a purr. He didn’t make a sound when Daddy was home, unless it was to hiss. When Daddy was home, there were no snacks for Perce. No meals except for dinner. When Daddy was home there were no snacks for Ellie either. There were meals when Daddy had his meal. Daddy knew how the day should be ordered.

Ellie followed Percival through the kitchen and into the adjoining laundry. He gave a plaintive miaow and she did his bidding, spooning a little food into his bowl. She bent down to pat him and he growled.

I’m not taking your food, silly boy. I’ve got my own. Still, she backed away and left him alone. She turned at the doorway and closed her eyes. She didn’t need to see to know where everything was. One step, two steps, three… She put out her hands and touched a chair. She heard it scrape on the floor. Her eyes opened. She looked at the chairs around the kitchen table and straightened the one she’d bumped. They had to be even. The same distance from the table and from each other. She checked again, just to be sure.

Satisfied, she moved through the doorway and into the lounge room. Here, everything was in place. There was an old globe in the corner and, when Daddy wasn’t home, she loved to touch it, tracing fingerprints around the world in endless circumnavigations. She wondered if it were really true, that there were lines that criss-crossed the Earth and other people in countries over the waves. It was tantalising, this idea of a world outside. Maybe one day she would run far away and find one of those distant lands on the globe. She picked at the skin on her back of her hand. That was a wicked thought. Wicked thoughts were wrong. Leaving Daddy was wrong.

She looked down at the electrical cord that extended from the wooden pedestal and trailed the worn carpet below. The cord was frayed and Ellie wondered what would happen if she plugged it in. Would the globe still glow, illuminating the U.S.S.R in soft crimson hues? It wasn’t the U.S.S.R anymore—she knew that from the radio—but she liked to place her hands on this mark of the past. She had heard on the radio many names of places she struggled to remember, and some she had found on the globe. It always amazed her when the voices on the radio knew of these places printed in little black letters that she could touch.

‘Ellie lives here…’ She placed her finger on the coast of New South Wales and let the globe spin, ‘…not in Far Away.’ Ellie let the globe spin once more. Some lands were far, far away. Away. She mouthed the word. Far from here.

Had her father imagined adventures far beyond the dwindling seam lines of the coal coast that had reared him? Did he harbour long-buried dreams of journeying far from these dreary walls and threadbare carpet? No. He didn’t need to travel the world when he held it here.

Taped very carefully to the inside of her closet door was Ellie’s world. She had drawn her own map long ago, with her memories of the house, the driveway on one side, the narrow path and gate on the other, Maisie’s house and yard, their street, and further down the hill, the path to the beach. She remembered there was a corner and Mummy had always held her hand when they crossed the road.

Ellie looked over at the radio on the mantelpiece. She wasn’t supposed to touch it without Daddy’s permission. Did she dare? If she had it playing ever so softly, she could turn it off when she heard him return, quietly enough to hear the sound of his footsteps on the path and his key in the door. She touched the dial, slightly greasy from her father’s fingertips. Tentatively, reverently, she turned it until she heard a click. A little more and the soothing sound of the announcer’s voice entered the room. Some words she didn’t understand and then music. Beautiful, beautiful music. She clapped her hands and ran from the lounge room and into her bedroom. Ellie reached into her wardrobe and rummaged underneath an old woollen sweater until she felt smooth, cool tin under her fingertips. Her tin of treasures. She opened it, grasped something, and skipped back into the lounge room. Uncurling her fingers, Ellie gazed at the small, coloured-glass bottle cupped in her palm. Could she? Yes. Ellie turned the volume up. In this bottle, in this song, there were lingering traces of laughing nights warmed by candlelight, of unspoken promises, a princess dancing with her prince. Stories from the radio. A perfume bottle stoppered tight. Delicate, yet strong enough to survive.

Ellie imagined herself dancing with a faceless man. She spun and twirled around the room until the room spiralled and the song ended. Bracing herself against the mantelpiece, Ellie kept the bottle cradled safe against her shirt as she turned the volume down. She lifted the dainty bottle and inhaled her imaginings of her mother.

She couldn’t picture her parents ever dancing, but she’d heard stories on the radio, she’d heard songs, heard their crazy, magical words of love and romance, of wine and music and handsome admirers. Had her mother dated and danced before Daddy? With Daddy? It seemed pre-post…? Preposous? She knew there was a word but she wasn’t sure how to say it. Prepost-arous? Erous? Still, Mummy had kept this little bottle.

These were the moments when Ellie forgot she was hideous. When she forgot that Eleanor Clements was scarred, unloved, and unwanted. Dancing to the songs on the radio or in her head, or drawing on the scraps of paper Daddy let her keep, she was free. Listening to the sounds of the waves, the gulls—sounds she could hear when she stood so still and quiet inside the house—Ellie would imagine herself flying and soaring into a crisp, blue sky over a crystal sea. These weren’t the only times she remembered the ocean. She travelled there in her mind, some nights. Pictured herself on that shore, in her mind always heading to the ocean, looking out to the horizon, far beyond this little house fenced in by the bush and towering cliffs. There was space, freedom, on that beach. Ellie wanted to believe there was freedom elsewhere, that there was something beyond the trees and the cliffs behind the house; she wanted it to be true. The bush couldn’t go on forever. It couldn’t just be trees and rocks and cliffs with nothing to break up the barricade that lay between her and the rest of the world.

‘What’s out there?’ she had dared to ask her father once.

‘Huh? What crap are you on about now?’

‘Over, over the cliff, over the trees.’ She knew the beach was beyond the front of the house, but what was at the back? Ellie had stumbled over the words and waved an arm towards the kitchen window where the setting sun had made the paper glow.

‘There’s nothing there.’ He had jabbed at a piece of potato with his fork. ‘Just bush out west, ocean to the east. Nowhere for you to go; don’t even think it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t leave…’

‘You can’t. You’re only safe in here, with me.’

Ellie heard a car and froze. Stupid girl. She hadn’t been paying attention. He was back. With clammy fingers she switched off the radio, ran to her bedroom, and stopped before the closet door. The sound of the car faded as it continued on its way. She exhaled. It wasn’t him. She remembered then. He hadn’t taken his car. He’d walked. Silly girl. Foolish girl. She pinched the skin between her thumb and fingers until there were only two deep crescent moons indented against the white skin. Stupid. Stupid. She could hear the familiar words in her head. She’d wasted time this afternoon; she’d spent too long playing. He could be back at any moment.

She placed the perfume bottle gently back into the tin next to a blurred black and white photo. She touched a fingertip to the contours of the faces, the hair, the lips. It had been taken at the beach, so long ago. Ellie and her mother were both smiling at the camera. Ellie closed her eyes, remembering the scent, the sounds, the feel of that beach. Of that day. It had been hot. One of those scorching summer days when you thought you could melt in the sun and if you took more than mere seconds to run, laughing and skipping, to the water’s edge, your feet would fuse to the scalding sand. There had been a downpour in the afternoon, a storm that pierced the thick humid air and broke the heat. Ellie remembered threading her way to the shore through twisted coastal trees and whip-smooth grasses that slapped sunburnt legs. Her mother’s voice, a snippet of an overheard conversation, ‘Sometimes you see a person in the water and all you can do is watch them drown.’ Ellie hadn’t thought of those words in years.

She replaced the lid on the tin, hiding it back in her wardrobe. Could you drown inside a house? Could the air feel so thick that one day you wouldn’t be able to fight it anymore and you’d just let go? Sink beneath the carpet and floorboards and never be seen again? It couldn’t be impossible… Some days she felt this house had swallowed her whole. Ellie looked down to make sure that the tin was completely hidden and closed the closet door. Safe inside where no one could touch it. Hidden inside, just like her, where only Daddy could touch her.

She opened the closet door and checked again that her clothes were folded neatly, the sweater at the back plumped up so no hint of the tin was showing. Ellie shut the door, frowned, and opened it once more. The tin was hidden, but she refolded the sweater and realigned the clothing on the shelf in front of it. Her hands fluttered in the air as she mouthed the word Okay. She closed the door and stepped away. It was okay. It would be okay. She looked around her room. Her bedspread was pulled tight, her dolls propped in their accustomed places, guarding her bed. Ellie smiled at their tenderly stitched faces. My babies. Everything was in its place.

He would come home soon. He had said he was going for a walk. Not to the pub for dinner. Just a walk. It had been different when Daddy was still working. She had known he would be out for hours. Delicious hours when she would be free of his presence, although for a while, there had been Grandmother Clements and that had been almost as bad. Ellie shuddered. Stop it, silly girl.

Daddy would be home and he would want his cup of tea. She walked to the kitchen, filled the kettle at the sink, and set it upon the stove. The burner would not be lit until he said so. She wasn’t to waste the gas.

Ellie took his blue-and-white cup and saucer from the cupboard and placed them on the bench. She knew the routine. When the water had boiled she would make his strong, milky tea (two sugars, stirred three times, clockwise), place one plain biscuit on his saucer, and deliver it to him at his customary seat at the head of the table Once he had taken his first sip and deemed it acceptable, then she would be allowed to make her own. Exactly the same as his. For that was how tea was made.

She took a teaspoon out of the drawer and held it up to her face. She could just make out a bulging, blurred mass, no nose, an eye, some hair, all morphing into an odd, bulbous creature. Flipping the spoon over, she squinted and tried to make sense of the upside-down shrunken head. It wasn’t a face. At least, not one she could recognise. It didn’t match that long-ago girl in the photo. Ellie put the spoon down next to Daddy’s saucer. She wasn’t supposed to look.

Ellie straightened the spoon, ensuring it remained two thumb-widths from the saucer. Everything in its place, Daddy always said. He knew how everything should look, where everything should go.

Where had she been today? Her pulse quickened and she scratched at the back of her hand unconsciously. Where, where, where? Daddy’s room, her bedroom, the lounge room, bathroom, kitchen, laundry. The whole house. She could retrace her steps. Start at the beginning and make sure everything was perfect. He would notice if it weren’t. She had checked and re-checked but she had to check again. He would be home soon.

She had made her father’s bed this morning. Ellie moved to the front bedroom and opened the door. Daddy kept the door to his room shut so the cat wouldn’t go in. ‘Blasted animal,’ Daddy usually called him. ‘Feral bastard’ was another favourite. Ellie smiled her shy, crooked smile, one lip curled upwards, the pull of damaged nerves and muscle giving her a lopsided look. She loved her blasted animal. More than she loved Daddy. No. She bit her hand. She couldn’t think like that. It was wrong. When she dropped her hand from her mouth she could see the teeth marks almost parallel to the marks her nails had made. Pain was a reminder. Bad thoughts had to be punished. Ellie closed her eyes. She loved Daddy. Daddy loved her. And he would be home soon and she had to make sure the house was perfect for him. She had to show him that she was good.

Ellie opened her eyes and looked inside his room. She only entered when she had to. The bedspread was smooth, but was it enough? Ellie walked in and pulled the bedspread taut. A hair dropped on the bed and she brushed it away. There were white hairs now among the long coppery strands on her head, wirier, wavier, and more determined than her hair had ever been before. She didn’t know how old she was. They hadn’t celebrated birthdays or the onset of new years. Time was something that could be stretched or squashed. Celebrations of time passing were for other people. For Ellie, life was a series of cheerless days, to be borne again and again. She’d spent so long in this house that memories and time jumped, merging together in waking dreams and all-too-slowly passing hours.

Inside these walls she was his baby, his girl, his woman. Her body was heavier now and foreign. It didn’t match that of the little girl she’d been in those few black and white photos. It didn’t match the body of the little girl who had gone to kindergarten, who’d played with her best friend Maisie, or who’d gone to feed the dogs one long-ago afternoon. She wasn’t quite sure who or what she was anymore. She was only sure of one thing. She’d always be Daddy’s girl. He’d told her so.

Checking that Daddy’s few personal belongings were in their proper places on his dresser, his little alarm clock by the bed, she turned and stepped back to the door, pulling it shut. Almost directly opposite was the entrance to the lounge room. There were sliding doors and, unless it was winter, Daddy kept them open. Ellie ran her eyes over the furniture. There were his armchair, the sofa, the rug on the floor in front of the heater. The mantelpiece with the clock that only Daddy could wind and, on the shelf below, the radio which she played ever so softly and secretly when Daddy was out. Using her sleeve, she rubbed her fingerprints off the globe and made sure that all the countries were back where they should be. New Zealand had to point towards the carpet. Daddy would know if the globe had been moved. She wasn’t supposed to touch his things.

Everything in its proper place, she continued down the hallway. From here it was nine steps to the bathroom. Ellie stood in front of the towels and checked that they hung evenly. She nudged the bath mat with her foot, stepped back, and nudged it again. Daddy would be happy.

She crossed to the laundry. Her gaze moved from the washing machine, small sink, and open cupboard on one side, across laden airing racks, to the dusty, closed blinds covering the windows. The room itself was heavy with damp clothes and dulled light. There was an ironing board propped against the wall and a wicker basket beside it at the far wall. Breathing in the clammy air, Ellie took a step towards the blinds. If only Daddy would let her open a window, their clothes wouldn’t take so long to dry. If only some light, real sunlight, could enter. The temptation to peek beneath one of the blinds was almost physical. She realised she was scratching, picking at the skin on the back of her hand, and she clenched her fists. She shouldn’t touch. Not herself and never the blinds. She couldn’t even dust them. He would know. He always knew.

Daddy had taken swathes of brown paper and covered every windowpane years before. There was no way for her to look out, nor for anyone to look in. Daddy checked the paper daily. He would know if it was torn. The cats had scratched at it, more than once, and had earned her a beating each time. The papered glass served an additional function. It prevented her from catching a glimpse of her reflection, whether by accident or design. She wasn’t to look. She was not worth looking at.

She longed to move one of the blinds, to tear a hole in that paper and peek into the backyard, but that was forbidden. She’d heard strange noises from the house next door, a tinkling, singing sound that drove her father mad when he was home. Bloody wind chimes, he called them, but Ellie thought they sounded beautiful. She wanted to know what they looked like. She wanted one for herself, another secret longing. It was no use though, wishing for things that could never happen. Daddy said what happened; Daddy made things happen. Not Ellie. She shook her head.

One night she had pleaded with her father to let her out, to let her see the sky, the moon, to breathe fresh air. He had mocked her whispery pleas.

‘Oh, please, Daddy, please.’ He’d attempted a breathy falsetto and it had repulsed her. His eyes had flared. ‘You want to go outside? After all I’ve done for you? Well, get out then, but you’ll get nothing from me.’ He’d grabbed her by her shirt and yanked it over her head. She had heard the sound of a button pop and roll across the floor. ‘Not the clothes I’ve given you, nothing.’

She had fought him, ‘No, no, stop… I didn’t mean… no.’

He had slapped her. ‘I’ve given you everything, and you want to leave me?’ He had raged as he had ripped and torn her clothing from her body, leaving her naked and shivering before him. He had looked her up and down with a sneer. ‘So leave then.’ He had half-carried, half-dragged her towards the back door, opened it, and pushed her out into the night. Ellie had crouched to the ground, quivering and terrified.

‘You want to be outside?’ he had hissed. ‘You think you can survive without me? Go on then, fuck off.’ He had kicked her, and unbalanced as she was, she had tumbled off the cold cement path and onto the damp grass. The short spikes tickled her skin; the shock of the night air caused her flesh to erupt with goose bumps. The dark, open space was overwhelming.

‘Daddy, please…’

‘Daddy, please,’ he’d mocked. He had switched off the hallway light. His shadowy form loomed before her. ‘You wanted to be outside. Go on then. Go.’

Ellie had trembled and crawled back towards him. Bindies pricked her hands and knees. Daddy let the screen door swing shut as he slammed the wooden back door. Ellie cried out. Still on her knees, she had run her fingers across the screen door, trying to find something to cling to. She had wrenched it open and laid her palms against the wooden door, pushing against it. It didn’t budge. No, no, no. She couldn’t be outside like this, naked and exposed. Molten tears had choked her as she curled her body into a ball to hide her shame.

‘Daddy, please.’

He had opened the door and looked down upon her. It had only occurred to her much later that he hadn’t locked it. He hadn’t left her. He hadn’t walked away from the door. From her.

‘Please,’ she had whispered.

‘Please, what?’

‘Please, Daddy.’

‘Say, Let me in, Daddy. Say, I can’t live without you.’

‘Let me in, Daddy. I can’t live without you.’

‘Say Pretty please.’

‘Pretty please.’

He had pretended to consider it for agonising, indeterminable seconds before he had sniggered, opened his legs wide, and gestured. ‘Look who’s crawling back.’

She had crawled through his legs and, as she had passed beneath him, he had stuck his fingers in her, propelling her forwards. Ellie had whimpered as tears and snot ran down her face.

‘You’re nothing without me, girl; you belong to me, in here. And don’t you ever forget it.’

She hadn’t.

A movement caught her eye, a drop into a glint of water on the floor and Ellie realised where she was, when she was. A puddle had formed directly below the dense fabric of her father’s pants, the legs darker at the hems where moisture gathered. The towel, where was her old towel? She grabbed it and fell to her knees, frantically trying to mop up the water. If Daddy came home and saw this, he would be angry. He would know she hadn’t been careful; she hadn’t taken care of his house.

Ellie heard footsteps, the sound of the screen door creaking open, then the sound of a key in the back door. She gave the floor a last wipe and tried to stand, but knocked the rack with her head. It swayed and started to topple. Letting go of the towel, she stretched out her hands, flailing at the sodden clothing that slapped across her face. She heard the door open and straightened, trembling hands grasping wet fabric. Ellie turned towards the doorway. It seemed to shimmer and widen as she pictured her father in the short corridor between the back door and the entrance to the laundry.

She listened to the sounds that heralded his arrival, the closing and locking of the wooden door, followed by the sounds of his taking off his shoes and dropping them to the floor. A pause. She knew he was lining them up. His shoes were never as filthy as his work boots had been but habits, like rules, were not made to be broken. Shoes went by the back door. Slippers were worn indoors.

Ellie hastily tried to rebalance the airing rack and stiffened as a chronic wheeze and stale tobacco scent permeated the air, announcing her father’s approaching presence. Ellie lowered her gaze as his feet, encased in thin black socks and checked slippers, appeared in the doorway.

‘Well, what are you doing just standing around?’

Ellie made no movement. Her eyes were fixed upon those slippers.

‘Well?’

‘Nothing.’ The word was spoken in a barely audible whisper.

He grunted. ‘What’s that towel doing on the floor?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Pick it up. Jesus, do I have to tell you every little thing?’ She nodded as she bent to the floor. When she stood again, he had gone. Ellie exhaled. Daddy was home.



Arthur walked into the kitchen. She had gotten his cup and saucer out. That was good. She was prepared. She hadn’t been lazy. He had trained her well.

He had not wanted a lazy child. He hadn’t wanted her to sit around all day, not when there were chores to be done, a house to be kept in order. She had to earn her keep. And it had cost him a lot to keep her—wasn’t that the truth. The God’s honest truth, he smirked. Who had said that? Jack’s God-fearing, preaching mother.

Jack. His mate, his first and only best friend, the one he had longed to impress a lifetime ago. He could still picture Jack, aged fifteen, a tall boy with quick eyes and quicker hands. Jack’s mother had been their disagreeable Sunday school teacher, a tall, overbearing woman with wiry hair that had probably been that particular shade of pallid grey her entire life. That stern imposing figure could never have been scrunched into the form of a child. He smiled. He and Jack had taken it in turns to steal from the collection plate, even as they had veered between fearing the wrath of God and the evil eye of Jack’s mother. Those church takings had funded many Sunday afternoon trips to the cinema, the occasional ice cream, or hand-rolled cigarettes.

God, that church. Arthur could still remember those interminable family Sunday mornings when he was forced to endure the droning minister and his sermons intoning the books of Genesis, the Apostles, Revelations, and the Book of Job. Job had interested him at least. Suffering and punishment. Retribution. Arthur figured he had a fair bit in common with Job, Arthur, too, had had more than his fair share of suffering. Yet, with all of the trials that God and Satan had put Job through, Arthur was convinced that none of Job’s daughters would have looked anything like Ellie. Mangled and mangy like her flea-ridden cat. Job had been spared that shame.

‘Daddy?’

He started at Ellie’s voice. He hadn’t heard her enter the room. ‘What?’ He forced himself not to wince. She was looking straight at him. His steely gaze settled upon her and she bowed her head. Her hair was loosely captured at the nape of her neck, but the small elastic band she had looped around it couldn’t contain all of the wild bronze strands that descended over her flecked top. She had inherited her mother’s hair. It was what had attracted him to the woman in the first place. He stepped closer to his daughter. From her good side, if her head was turned far enough, her features gave the illusion of being strong and straight, as if a sculptor had breathed life into marble. But from the other side…

‘What?’

‘I…I was, um, was wondering if you wanted your tea, um, now?’

She spoke so softly he could barely hear her. The timidity in her tone simultaneously pleased and irritated him. He coughed and abruptly turned away from her. ‘Not yet, it’s not time.’

He headed towards his bedroom and swore as he trod in a sticky, congealing mess.

‘Ellie! Bloody cat’s been sick again.’ He swore again, storming back into the kitchen, one slipper in hand. He thrust it at her. ‘Clean up after the fucking thing. Now!’

‘Yes, Daddy.’ She mouthed the words at him, her voice lost in his anger. It wasn’t Perce’s fault. Don’t yell and scare my boy, she wanted to say, but never would.

Arthur glared at her unmoving form. ‘What are you waiting for? Fucking move.’ She slunk in the direction of his bedroom. Dumb bitch. He had to tell her every little thing. Well, now she could bloody well clean it up. He spied the cat lurking around the laundry.

‘Out.’ He chased it towards the back door, aiming his foot at the cat. It was too quick for him. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered as he unlocked and opened the door. It took off into the yard before he could make contact. Arthur kicked off the remaining slipper and thrust his feet into his shoes. He stepped outside and pulled the wooden back door closed behind him.

The scurfy exterior walls of the house flaked off in desiccated sheets. He looked at his house in disgust. It was as if the long, disappointed years and ill humour had permeated every aspect of his life—his body, his spirit, and his home. He’d always thought he’d have more. Be more. Arthur swiped a lank strand of hair off his face, another one of those greasy tufts that lingered stubbornly in thinning patches above his large ears. Time had wrought unwelcome changes to his body. He had watched his gradual decay in the small shaving mirror he kept locked in the drawer in his room, away from Ellie’s eyes. He had spared her the knowledge of her reflection. His rules had saved her from that. A mercy she had never appreciated.

Arthur turned and surveyed the yard before him, his fingers strumming the edge of the screen door. Weeds poked through the shoddy garden bed that ran along the left side of the backyard, the side that led to the dogs’ enclosure. Old bricks were haphazardly stacked against