I fingered the pages of the book in my pocket and removed the Distrustful slips. When I reached the sorting table, I added them to the disorder of Mr Crane’s workspace.
‘What is she doing?’ Mr Crane stood in the doorway of the Scriptorium, his features hard to make out against the afternoon light, but his slightly stooped frame and thin voice unmistakable.
Da looked up, startled, then saw the slips under my hand.
Mr Crane strode over and reached out as if to slap my hand away, but seemed to flinch at its deformity. ‘This really won’t do,’ he said, turning to Da.
‘I found them,’ I said to Mr Crane, but he wouldn’t look at me. ‘I found them near the fence where you lean your bicycle. They fell out of your satchel.’ I looked to Da. ‘I was putting them back.’
‘With all due respect, Harry, she shouldn’t be in here.’
‘I was putting them back,’ I said, but it was as if I couldn’t be heard or seen; neither of them responded. Neither of them looked at me.
Da took a deep breath and released it with a barely noticeable shake of his head.
‘Leave this to me,’ he said to Mr Crane.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Crane, then he took up the pile of slips that had fallen from his satchel.
When he had gone, Da removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
‘Da?’
He returned his glasses to their usual place and looked at me. Then he pushed his chair back from the sorting table and patted his knee for me to sit.
‘You’re almost too big,’ he said, trying to smile.
‘He did drop them; I saw him.’
‘I believe you, Essy.’
‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’
He sighed. ‘It’s too complicated to explain.’
‘Is there a word for it?’ I asked.
‘A word?’
‘For why you didn’t say anything. I could look it up.’
He smiled then. ‘Diplomacy springs to mind. Compromise, mollify.’
‘I like mollify.’
Together we searched the pigeon-holes.
MOLLIFY
‘To mollify, by these indulgences, the rage of his most furious persecutors.’
David Hume, The History of Great Britain, 1754
I thought on it. ‘You were trying to make him less angry,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
I thought I’d wet the bed, but when I pulled back the covers, my nightdress and sheets were stained red. I screamed. My hands were sticky with blood. The ache I’d been feeling in my back and belly was suddenly terrifying.
Da burst into my room and looked around in a panic, then he came to my bedside, worry all over his face. When he saw my bloodied nightdress, he was relieved. Then he was awkward.
The mattress gave in to the weight of him as he sat on the edge. He pulled the covers back over me and stroked my cheek. I knew, then, what it was, and was suddenly conscious of myself. I pulled the covers higher and avoided looking at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly.’
We sat there for an uncomfortable minute, and I knew how much he wished Lily was there.
‘Has Lizzie …’ Da began.
I nodded.
‘Have you got what you need?’
I nodded again.
‘Can I …?’
I shook my head.
Da kissed my cheek and stood. ‘French toast this morning,’ he said, closing the door as if I were an invalid, or a sleeping baby. But I was fourteen.
I waited to hear his footsteps on the stairs before letting go of the covers and sitting on the edge of the bed. I felt more blood leak from me. In the drawer of my bedside table was a monthlies box that Lizzie had made up especially, with belts and padded napkins she’d sewn from rags. I bunched up the length of my nightdress and held it between my legs.
Da was making a racket in the kitchen, letting me know the coast was clear. With the box under my arm, I crossed the landing to the bathroom and held tighter to the wad of fabric that stopped me from dripping.
No school, Da said. I would spend the day with Lizzie. My eyes welled with the relief of it.
We left the house and began the familiar walk to Sunnyside. As if nothing was different, Da told me a word he was working on and asked me to guess what it meant. I barely knew how to think, and for once I didn’t care. The streets stretched long, and everyone we passed looked at me as if they knew. I walked as though nothing I wore was a good fit.
There was a dampness between my thighs, then the trace of a single drop, like a tear running across a cheek. By the time we were on the Banbury Road, blood was running down the inside of my leg. I felt it seeping into my stockings. I stopped walking, squeezed my legs together, held my hand to the place that was bleeding.
I whimpered. ‘Da?’
He was a few steps ahead. He turned and looked at me, looked down along the length of my body and then around, as if there might be someone better equipped to help. He took my hand, and we walked as fast as we could to Sunnyside.
‘Oh, pet,’ Mrs Ballard said as she ushered me into the kitchen. She nodded at Da, discharging him of any further responsibility. He kissed my forehead, then strode across the garden to the Scriptorium. When Lizzie walked in, she gave me a pitying look then went straight to the range to heat water.
Upstairs, Lizzie removed my clothing and sponged me down. The basin of warm water swirled pink with my humiliation. She showed me again how to fit the belt around my waist and the rags inside it.
‘You didn’t make it thick enough, or tight enough.’ She put me in one of her night shifts and made me get into bed.
‘Must it hurt so much?’ I asked.
‘I guess it must,’ Lizzie said. ‘Though I don’t know why.’
I groaned and Lizzie looked at me with an expression of kindly impatience. ‘It should
