Preview of Monarch Memoir

Prologue

Some things are so bad, and you don’t want them to have happened so hard, they break your mind, and you can’t remember them, even if they happened just a few moments before.

Chapter One Leaving Halfway

Behind me, one of the caged birds scrapes its beak against a perch. I cup the back of my head, trying to keep my arms out of the afternoon sun blazing through the French windows. A rocket of cramp shoots up from my bottom.

“Mum, may I get up to use the loo?”

Mum’s sprawled in the corner of the sofa in the shade. The turning page of her newspaper sounds like cool water over smooth stones. One of the dogs at her feet sleepily scratches his belly but misses and another jumps up with sharp yelp. Mum growls and kicks.

“In your bed.”

“Mum. May I go to the loo? Mum? Mum.” My thigh has a blotchy red pattern from the sun. “Mum. Mum.”

She looks up, frowning.

“What?”

“May I go to the loo?”

“Have you emptied your plate?”

The meat’s gone grey and is stiff where it’s curled, sad yet threatening. Long Pork.

“Not yet.”

“There’s your answer, then.” She licks her lips and stares into my eyes.

I match her stillness.

She shrugs, “No skin off my nose. Sit there all day again, if you want.” She resumes reading her paper.

The knife and fork have a pattern of roses up the handles and I crack a white crust that used to be gravy, hard enough today to pile at the edge of the plate.

Remembering Alex’s advice, I cut up the wobbling fat. It’s like sawing a slug. I push parts under the heap of peas. I check if she’s looking and bring an empty fork to my mouth, noisily fake chew and swallow. I rearrange the peas.

When I feel her eyes prickling the side of my face, I chew four peas as though I don’t notice her, they suck the moisture from my mouth. The place where my shoulder meets my neck is on fire.

Her voice is sweet, “That’s it, eat it all up. Chew it, properly.”

Almost anything can be swallowed if you do it quickly and don’t think about what it might be. I take a deep breath and shove some in, right to the back, swallowing even while the fork’s in my mouth. I chew air and retch. My water glass is empty.

“Open your mouth.”

I open wide to show her.

She almost smiles, “Go on. And the rest.”

The sun burns like a slapped cheek.

“May I have some more water?”

“Drinking’s not going to help if you want a wee.”

Fireworks shoot up from my nooks and crannies in flaming spikes. I hide peas under the cracked fat pile, long-pork under the pea pile. I let a pea drop to the floor by mistake, another under my plate. I push fat under the curve of my resting fork. Lick the dregs of water from my glass. Wipe my forehead which was sweating but is now dry.

“May I please go to the toilet?”

“Is your plate empty?”

“Ymostly.”

“I guess you better, then. Stay in your room ‘til I call you for tea.”

I don’t question her turnaround. When I stand, the room spins and the plate wobbles dangerously as I lift it.

“Leave that, I’ll deal with that. You’ve done quite enough, already.”

I didn’t have to eat most of it, so it should feel like I won.

Upstairs, the owl clock watches me stare out the window. No-one’s walking their dog on the Green. No-one’s bouncing a football against the garages. The roads are very empty and very still.

There’s no breakfast because of a planned, special dinner.

“Celebratory dinner,” Mum corrects.

“Celebrating what?”

“A surprise.”

I don’t mind much because hunger turns itself off but when Uncle Victor’s late and Alex has a dripping peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich because he’s a teenager and a growing boy, unfairness is a toad in my belly.

Alex pauses in the doorway.

“What time’s Victor coming?”

“Uncle Victor. Dinner time.”

But sometimes lunch is dinner and dinner is tea.

It starts with shouting. Perhaps because Uncle Victor hasn’t brought his family or perhaps because he’s brought a young, blonde lady, instead.

I sit alongside Dad and Alex as Mum screams at the lady guest and hurls words like tart and floozie. I wish the sofa would swallow me.

Also, Victor can’t stay because he’s late and doesn’t have time.

Mum decides to pack a suitcase.

“It’s not necessary, Nicky,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I told you, just sandwiches for the journey, mun.” But, weeping, Mum insists and takes me upstairs.

She packs a scarlet, cardboard case that gapes open on my bed. It’s a dolls case, a toy case, big enough for nothing more than an overnight stay but I watch with a held-underwater feeling.

She folds my nightie, “Be good and do everything you’re told.”

“Won’t you be there?”

“No, just you.”

The owl clock watches her pack two pairs of knickers.

“What about the special dinner?”

“We’ll have it tonight.” She smiles, “To celebrate.” She presses down a nightdress and teddy bear and flips the lid.

“Celebrate what?”

The catch of my suitcase clicks as she brings her face close. Her eyes shine like coins.

“You. Going.”

Monarch Memoir is available now