Having them again now, she frowned and strode across the room to her brother, hands bunched into fists. She had the desire to punch the shit out of him. He always had that effect on her. She sniffed in a deep breath to curb her temper. It smelt of hops in here, of too much alcohol and not enough air freshener, but since that day she hadn’t had the inclination to clean unless she absolutely had to. It brought back too many memories, and not just of the video either. No, memories of farther back. Ones involving her mum and dad doing similar things as that donkey woman.
Nellie felt sick.
“What are you staring at?” She poked Leonard on the shoulder.
It took a while for him to look at her. When he did, his eyes were rheumy, and he appeared as though he hadn’t had much sleep lately. Perhaps he hadn’t, what with the threat of them losing their livelihood. Then again, he’d always gone through life thinking everything would be fine. That something would turn up. Except nothing ever had.
That was another thing that wasn’t fair.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m not thinking anything.”
Sub-standard answer from a bloody sub-standard man.
He hadn’t done much with his life, preferring to trail around after her from the minute he’d been born. Grabbing her leg for her to pick him up because their mother had been far too busy working alongside their dad, expecting Nellie to feed him, dress him, take him to school. Always wanting something from her, and he was still at it all these years later. Neither of them had been destined to find love, to continue the family line. It would stop with their deaths.
That was another depressing thought.
“Don’t you think you ought to do something with yourself instead of sipping the black stuff all day long?” She poked him again, harder this time. “It can’t be doing your liver any good—nor does it help our finances. And it’s always me, isn’t it? ‘Oh, it’s all right, Nellie will clean the place, Nellie will make sure everything’s okay, Nellie will work it out. Nellie, Nellie, Nellie.’ Well, nothing is going to be okay anymore, not with how things are going at the moment. We’ll be forced to sell this place and get something smaller, but we both know that isn’t an option. Not with what’s out there.” She jabbed her thumb towards the back of the room.
“We won’t have to sell. And no one will know what’s out there until we’re dead.” He nodded. “We’ll be all right now.” He blinked up at her from his usual chair, a ratty old thing their dad had sat in all of his adult life when he’d had a moment where he wasn’t working.
“What, we’ll be all right because of what’s happening later today?” She laughed—too hard and for too long—then wiped her eyes and cheeks. “Oh, you’re a funny one, Leonard, you really are. It won’t help at all and you know it. Things will happen exactly as they have before, and we’ll be left here not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
He sighed. “I told you what to do.”
She sighed back. “And I told you that isn’t the solution.”
“It worked before with our mum and dad.”
“Don’t, Leonard.”
Nellie turned away to the fire, giving it the poke she wished she was giving her brother. Hot, mean, and nasty. Something that would leave a bruise and remind him of who was in charge here. Flames jumped to life out of glowing embers, and she went down on her knees to add some scrunched-up paper. It had come to them using newspapers and twigs that she scavenged from the forest that butted the end of their back garden. Coal was too expensive.
We’ll die old and alone, cold, with no one realising we’ve even gone.
She thought of Matilda and how, if she died, everyone would know about it. One of her adoring family members would let themselves in through her back door and find her, stiff as a bloody board.
Nellie giggled.
“Share the joke?” Leonard smiled. “I could do with a bit of a laugh.”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s private. Like your donkey video.”
She’d brought that up on purpose. It always shut him up—and him being silent was what she wanted.
I’d shut him up for bloody good if I had my way. Like Mum and Dad. They’d gone on and on, and look where it got them. Out in the garden, buried under the strawberry bushes.
Nellie glanced across at Leonard and thought about what they’d done to their parents. It had solved a problem or two, and Lord knew they had problems again. But surely they were too old to do that sort of thing now, weren’t they? Nellie was pushing sixty, and Leonard was an old fifty. He appeared eighty most of the time, what with his white hair and wrinkled skin. His knuckles protruded, too, like those really ancient people who had arthritis. She thought about the donkey video and where his hand would be while he watched it.
Shudder.
“You’re a filthy, filthy boy, Leonard, do you know that?” She got to her feet then stood before him, hot poker in hand. “Do you need punishing?” She waved the poker. “Do you need to visit the strawberries?”
He turned fearful eyes on her—just as she’d intended—and shook his head.
“No. Please, no. Not
