purpose in my life. I wouldn't tell them to their faces, and I wouldn't have believed it myself if someone had told me a few weeks ago, but I feel like I belong with Church and Ruth. For all their faults. And you. Like we're coming from the same place.' She turned her head away, suddenly aware of her words.
'You do not have to be embarrassed by your feelings,' Shavi said gently.
'Yeah, I do, because if I let my real feelings out I'll tear myself apart.'
'Is that what you believe?'
'It's what I know. Blame my parents.' Her voice trailed off morosely. She expected Shavi to question her further, but when he didn't she couldn't contain herself. 'My loving mother and father have really screwed me up and I hate them for it.'
'Talk about it if you like.'
'I don't know if I can.'
'Then ignore it.'
'I can't.' She lay on her back and watched Ruth's owl swoop and soar in the sable sky, feeling the currents beneath its wings as if she were flying alongside it. And then she closed her eyes and she was there, in the dark, nursing the welts, smelling the iron tang of blood, too sore even to move. 'You know, religion is a dangerous thing. For strong people, it's just teaching, guidance, a few rules to keep them on the path for good. But weak people let it eat them up. There's so little inside them they can trust, they allow it to control them, like some devil on their backs, following what it whispers to them even when it's obviously wrong. Which is about as ironic as it gets. For them it's a class A drug and they should be treated like addicts, put on some religious methadone treat ment. Yeah, religion-lite. Wonder what that would be? The Church of the Soap Opera?' She laughed at the ridiculousness of the image. 'Anyway, guess which category my darling folks fell into.'
'Some people draw strength from it-'
'I have no problem with that,' she snapped. She sighed and added, 'Sorry. Raw nerves-a-go-go. My parents were Catholics gone mad. And like all fundamentalists, they believed absolute discipline was the only way. You know, you allow a little weakness in and suddenly the cracks are shooting up the wall. They were terrified of the chaos of life and they had to lock themselves away in their little religious fortress to stop them from going mad. But of course I was in that fortress with them. A sneaky little spy who couldn't be trusted not to let the enemy past the gates, so I had to be convinced to be a true patriot. The slightest misdemeanour and my mum would go crazy. It started off with just the back of the hand, but as I got older it developed to a rolled-up newspaper, belts, table tennis bats, just about anything she could pick up and thrash about with. And after she'd finished and got it all out of her system she used to lock me in the airing cupboard. Pitch black. So hot I was almost choking. I cried myself out pretty young.'
'Did you tell anyone?'
'It was all I knew from when I was a tiny kid. I thought it was normal, for God's sake. Stupid bitch. Now I know my mum wasn't wired up right. Yeah, crazy as a loon.'
Shavi examined her face carefully; her words were glib, almost dismissive, but her experiences were etched harshly in her features. 'Did your father-'
'My dad never laid a finger on me. He just condoned it when she did. He'd crawl away like some weak little mouse and read the paper, and for that I almost hate him more.' She closed her eyes and after a while Shavi thought she had fallen asleep, but then she said, 'I killed her, you know.'
Shavi waited for her to continue.
She laughed, her hand going to her mouth like a young girl. 'Nothing fazes you, does it?'
'Go on.'
'I realised my mum was going nuts when I was in my teens. I could see it in her eyes. Whenever she looked at me, they went all starey, like she hated me. I could see the whites all around them.' Her voice had grown more serious. 'And the more funny she went in the head, the worse she got with me. Somewhere down the line it went beyond punishment. I used to get burnt, cut. Once I spent a whole weekend in the airing cupboard listening to her say her Hail Marys outside the door. What do you expect? — I rebelled. I was drinking like some rum-sodden old sailor before I was sixteen, hoovering up any drugs that came near me. I wasn't exactly an angel when it came to boys. And the worse I got, the worse my mum got. Luckily I'd an aptitude for technology. Somehow I winged it through my exams and got a place at university. She didn't want me to go, the witch, but I was old enough to do what I wanted then so I just legged it. Of course, by that time they'd decided I was the Devil himself. I was no longer part of the family, as simple as that. Which, by me, was great. It was like getting let out of jail. Just call me Papillon.'
Shavi reached over and rested his hand on the back of hers. She didn't flinch.
'A couple of years ago I must have had a brainstorm or something,' she continued. 'I had a dream about her and thought maybe it was time I made my peace with her. Yeah, right. Like some stupid, gullible idiot I turned up at the old homestead. My dad was out. She answered the door and I knew straight away she'd fallen out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down. I was surprised she was still walking around. But she just smiled and invited me in like it was only yesterday she'd seen me. I had a cup of tea, tried to make small talk, but then she started spouting all that Bible crap, saying she'd been praying for my salvation. I thought, Here we go again. I got up to go and as I was walking through the kitchen she came up behind me and hit me with a fucking iron. Clunk. Big comedy moment, no laughs unfortunately. And when I woke up she'd done this.'
She rolled on to her side so her back was towards him and pulled her T-shirt up to her neck. In red scar tissue across her pale skin were the words Jesus loves you.
Shavi was overcome with such a deep pity for her he couldn't find any words to say. He reached out to trace the scars gently with his fingertips and this time she did flinch. But then she reached out behind her, caught his hand and held it against her side.
The psychedelics were swirling through her system now, releasing terrible memories, freeing the awful thoughts she had attempted to contain for so long. Under usual circumstances she would have expected the experience to induce levels of paranoia and terror that would have left her crumpled in a ball on the ground, but in that strange, charged environment all she felt was an immense sadness which she knew she had to expunge from her system.
'There's a place where you go when life's threatening to destroy you,' she continued in a small voice, without turning over to face him. 'Some kind of sanctuary in your head, and thank God it's there because right then I don't think I'd have carried on without it. She'd used one of my dad's razors. My back was in agony and I was covered in blood, vomiting from the shock. And she was still spouting Bible stuff and waving the razor around in this kind of dance. A stupid, childish dance. And at that moment I knew what a complete moron I was. I hated her and wanted her dead for everything she'd done to me in my life, but I loved her as well and I just kept asking her to hug me and make it all right. But she wouldn't listen.' A shiver ran through her, and Shavi squeezed her side supportively. 'A stupid fucking moron. Sometimes I hate myself.'
'You were just being human.'
'And then she came at me again. I tried to get out of the way, but she was crazy, thrashing around with the razor. I've got a great scar on my scalp under this perfectly styled hair. I was flailing around and somehow I grabbed this big wooden crucifix they'd always had hanging on the wall next to the fridge. I lashed out with it and it caught her on the temple. She must have hit me with something at the same time, or maybe it was just the shock of what I'd done, but I blacked out too. And when I woke up she was dead. I don't know if it was from me hitting her or where she'd gone down hard against the edge of the cooker, but whichever way you slice it, I killed her. There was blood everywhere-' The words choked in her throat.
Shavi moved in close to her, sliding his arm around her waist, pulling her into him. She went rigid at first, resisting the human contact, but then she relaxed against him, crossing her arms over his in a desperate yearning for comfort.
'My dad came back soon after and found me still sitting there. All I wanted was for him to hold me, but it was like I wasn't there. He started mumbling, 'We must call the police,' detached, emotionless things like that, and I was screaming, 'Dad, Mum's dead' over and over. I just wanted some reaction from him. Then he turned to me and said really coldly, 'If the police find you here they'll arrest you for what you've done. Get out.' It was like a slap in the face. I got up, washed the blood off and walked out. Later I found out he'd told the police he'd done it. Can you believe that?'
'He was trying to save you,' Shavi suggested.
