Words find my tongue and spill. ‘I’ve heard you and Nana. Talking about me.’
‘Had your ear against the wall, have you?’ she spits. ‘Sneaky little madam. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times. Curiosity killed—’
‘Listen to me, Ma.’
‘Ma, Ma, Ma. You sound like a nanny goat.’
I pick up a potato and check for eyes. ‘I don’t know who I am. I just want to understand. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘No idea what you’re on about,’ she replies in the sort of voice that indicates she knows only too well.
I turn the potato in my hand, rubbing its face with my thumb. I dunk it, rinsing away the mud and find a wound in the flesh where it was caught by the spade. It is mouldy through and through. I won’t be put off – not this time. I hurl the potato to the floor.
‘Don’t you go wasting food,’ she mutters.
‘It’s rotten.’
‘Don’t get testy with me, young … lady,’ she says with a pause before the word lady.
I toss the knife into the bucket of slops. Water splashes on to the floor.
‘Then give me some answers!’ I cry. It is a dangerous question, but silence never gave me anything. ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
‘I want nothing from you.’ She grips my elbow and marches me across the room to the mirror. ‘Look at yourself.’
I regard my reflection in the yellowed glass. I’m nowhere close to prettiness, not by a country mile. ‘Looks aren’t everything,’ I say uncertainly.
‘What mother could love a face like that?’ She shakes her head, the staccato gesture of someone bothered by flies. ‘No one, that’s who. It betrays everything about you that is unwholesome. Unnatural. I should have thrown you out with the rest of the rubbish.’
This is not going how I wanted. There has to be a key to unlock the door to Ma’s spitefulness. If I can find the right words, I can speak them; the spell will be broken and she’ll soften. She’ll love me. Pathetic as it is, I still yearn for her affection.
‘Ma. All my life I’ve tried but there’s no pleasing you.’
‘You could never please me,’ she says, and stabs my chest with the point of her finger. Through the reddened skin the bone shows white. ‘Never!’
‘What did I ever do to make you so angry? Was it Papa running off?’
Her eyes stretch so wide open I can see the white around the iris.
‘What?’ she screams, shrill as a mill whistle. She jabs me with two fingers, then three, poking at my chest over and over, bunching her hand into a fist. I hold up my hands to shield myself from the blows. ‘Want to know why we argue about you?’ she cries. ‘You want the truth? Here it is. I hate you. From the day you were born, you’ve blighted my life. I never wanted you.’
‘Ma?’ My voice trembles. ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘Can’t I?’ she sneers. ‘Want to know what’s wrong with this family? You.’
‘No,’ I whisper.
She shakes my shoulder. ‘I. Was. Cursed. With. You.’
‘No, Ma.’
‘Lord only knows I tried to get rid of you. Knitting needles didn’t work. You were stuck fast like a pigeon up a chimney and I’ve had to put up with you ever since.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Am I? Ask your sainted grandmother.’
‘What?’
‘That’s taken the wind out of your sails, hasn’t it? Go on, if you’re so clever. Run and complain how cruel I am. She only pretends to love you. She hates you too.’
And with that, she lets go of me. I crumple to the floor. She has said many things over the years and I’ve suffered her insults, borne her tirades. This is the first time she’s used the word hate. Like a child who picks at a scab until it bleeds, I’ve provoked Ma into spewing out the truth. It has turned to ashes in my mouth. This is the mystery I sought to plumb: hatred, pure and simple.
By the time I raise my head, the room is empty. I remain curled on the rug. I try to imagine myself a cat: a beast with no worries other than to lick its paws and sleep. My stolid imagination fails me. I am a repulsive girl, unwanted by my mother. Neither use nor ornament.
I lie there a while longer. Some grain of hope remains that Ma may relent and return. The house is silent, as if holding its breath: no shouting, no pounding of her feet up and down the boards. I wonder what she is doing, or rather not doing. I scramble to my feet and press my ear to the wall. I take a glass from the dresser and return to my listening post. I hold the glass to the brick and listen. There is a faint whooshing, like wind through trees.
‘I know you’re listening!’ Ma yells. I stagger backwards, dropping the glass with a crash. ‘I hate you, do you hear? Get away from me!’
Very carefully, I gather up the fragments. I can hardly put them on the shelf: Ma might cut herself. I stow them in my pinafore pocket.
‘I’ve broken a glass, Ma,’ I say timidly. No answer. The hush is unnerving, far more so than the sound of complaints. ‘The big one, with the blue ring around the top.’
I don’t know what to do. I want her to come and tell me off. The glass is a favourite of hers. I can’t remember a time when she did not have it. Gingerly, I shake the splinters on to the tabletop. If I can find some glue, I can mend it. But there don’t seem to be enough pieces to make it whole again. I can’t understand why the edges of each shard are red, until I look at my fingers and find the answer.
As I watch, a dreamlike sensation creeps over me. My fingertips are oozing blood, but seem unconnected to the rest of my body. There is no pain. There is no sensation of any kind. It is not unpleasant. With the same cool detachment, I notice that my pinafore is stained crimson. I will have to use cold water when I scrub it. Hot water sets bloodstains hard.
Time slips through my fingers. I stand there for hours, or a few seconds. I have no idea how to keep track of the minutes, nor indeed the point of such measurements. Questions cluster at the fringes of my consciousness. Why does Ma hate me so much? Why can’t I feel my fingers?
I glance at the half-completed jigsaw of glass, turn and leave the room. Walk down the corridor to the front door. Try to take my shawl from the peg. It snags on the hook, impossible to untangle. I step outdoors without it. I do not expect a stroll to solve any problem. I simply wish to remove myself from anguish.
I know it’s a mistake the moment my foot strikes the kerb. I’ve never known it so cold. Slush the colour of pewter slops underfoot, turning my toes to stone. It is neither night nor day, rather a time balanced between the two. I glance over my shoulder. The windows of The Comet twinkle with a cheery welcome. It is false. I’d rather cut off my own nose than creep back in. I press my face into the shrill edge of the wind and set out, whither I neither know nor care. If I am missed, Ma will think it a cause for celebration rather than sorrow.
Hulme is the nearest thing to quiet I’ve ever heard. Snowflakes tumble from a leaden sky; spears of ice dangle from the gutters. Clouds roll overhead, slow and black as coal barges. I think of us beneath: twisting our light-blind eyes upwards, necks bent beneath iron rain, and the wind sharp enough to pierce you right through.
I pass a smattering of folk swathed in thick coats, scarves drawn tight under the chin, their breath steaming behind them in a foaming wake. No one gasps at my bloodstained apron, or remarks that I should get to the infirmary sharpish, that I’ll catch my death. As I go, the sensation of cold lessens rather than intensifies. It is most curious. I wonder if I am