Sandra White

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

    I know that my sister killed our cat on Good Friday. Maybe she thinks the cat will rise on the third day, today, Easter Sunday, just like Jesus. But I know that cat isn’t coming back.
    My sister’s name is Charlotte. We call her Charlie because it was clear from the start that she was never going to be a Charlotte. The cat was also given a boy’s name even though it was a girl – Max – after Maxine Brown, a Sixties singer who my mother always said was underrated.
    My sister has an apocalyptic vision of the world. As in the Bible; you know, the rights and the wrongs of the world, fire and brimstone, thy kingdom come. She veers between the Old and New Testament, depending on what day it is.
    They stuff her full of rubbish at Sunday school every week. I refuse to go any more. I mean, she thinks the world was formed in seven days and shit like that. I’m sure my father only sends her there for babysitting, free childcare from God, but she seems to want to go anyway.

    Last night she came out of the bathroom with her hair slicked back from her face and swept down her neck like a seal that had just dived under water.
    I shook my head at the sight.
    ‘What?’ she said.
    ‘Your hair, my little seal girl, your hair.’
    ‘Don’t patronise me,’ she said. ‘You’re always patronising me.’ She has some big words for a ten-year-old.
    ‘I’m not always patronising you.’
    ‘You are.’
    ‘Am not.’
    This continued for a while before she said: ‘I’m as deaf as a post and I can’t hear a word you say,’ which apart from being annoying anyway, is really annoying because I started that game and now she’s stolen it and perfected it to a fine art. When I tried to say something she put her hands over her ears and sang: ‘La-la-la’ to drown me out. Then I pushed her, which made her so mad she knocked me to the floor and started bashing my face with her fists. That hurt, so I biffed her one. She yelped like a puppy and ran to her room crying.
    She didn’t tell. She’s not a dobber. Anyway, these days she never says anything about anything anymore, except for the God stuff, which I’ve told her I don’t want to hear.
    Most of out arguments are settled on the living-room floor, ‘The Ring’ as we call it. Even though she’s small, she’s wiry and strong. Just talking about it, I can almost feel her foot in my crotch, her favourite place to kick me when her back’s against the wall. My father says it’s not gentlemanly to hit a girl, especially your younger sister, but all I can say is he doesn’t know her like I know her.
    Anyway, it’s for her own good. With her temper she’ll be in fights for the rest of her life. Now I’m doing karate, I hide behind the door and practise sudden moves on her. I use the element of surprise to put her in a headlock. Then I say: ‘Hey, sis, get out of this one.’ This makes her go crazy, and even though she’s younger than me, and a girl, sometimes I can tell by the look in her eye that it would be better to let her go. So I do.

    I’m not exactly sure how the God stuff began. I noticed that she was getting pretty keen on Sunday school and that the Bible she’d been given years ago by a great aunt was in heavy use. Any time I’d been in her room lately there it was, laid open at some page she’d decided had special meaning at that moment, and beside it was a notebook with a few scribbled thoughts on it.
    Then there’s Dad to deal with. Well, he’d be a lot easier to deal with if he
was ever around. At the local court they call him the hanging judge because of the harsh sentences he hands out. After a day of playing magistrate and sending drunk drivers to jail, he likes to relax with beer, whisky chasers and his boozy friends. When he’s tanked up he catches what he calls a ‘blue light taxi’ home, which means some junior policeman from the local cop shop has to drive him home.
    These days he’s even drunker and later getting home. After Mum went off to the commune at Eumundi, everything fell apart. She left on a day when Dad was meant to be picking us up from the child minder’s, only Dad was at the pub and as usual was relying on Mum to take up the slack. She was meant to be at art class, but she wasn’t. She was being picked up by Dave, who was younger than her and had long hair and wore shorts and sandals all the time. Dad refers to people who look like this as ‘long-haired louts,’ but obviously Mum saw something in Dave because she got in his car and that was the last we saw of her.
    Dad, ten years older than Mum when they married, is even older in his ways. In the note she left behind she said she was tired of running around after him and waiting hand and foot on us all. Her note said she loved me and Charlie very much but she couldn’t live like this, she had to ‘find’ herself.
    I thought at first it would be great to live with Dad because he never used to tell us what to do, but after a while he got sick of nothing being done by anybody and started shouting just like Mum used to. But more than anything I think Dad was cut up that she’d gone off with another bloke.
    Then something really terrible happened. Six months after she left us, Mum died.
    We’d heard that she’d gone to the hospital for some tests. They called her in for treatment. Then she was there the whole time. She didn’t come back from the hospital, which was much worse than her just leaving because we’d all secretly hoped that she might come back. Because of the way things were between Dad and Mum, we never got to say goodbye. She went quickly, but the time after she died has gone very slowly.

    My best mate, Billy O’Hara, says Charlie’s a bit cracked. I shoved him when he said it, but I know it’s true. Charlie doesn’t have friends really and after Mum died she started keeping to herself a lot more. Maybe she hasn’t got the time. Apart from all her wanderings, there’s all the praying in the morning and evening, then lots of Bible study. She’s taken to leaving the Bible open on particular pages because she knows I’ve been snooping round her room. She’d left it open at the chapter in the book of John about faith being tested: ‘…perfect love casts out fear… he who fears has not been made perfect in love.’ She’d written in the notebook next to it: ‘Faith will chase away fear.’
    I wrote under her note: ‘I might be scared too, but I don’t see God anywhere. Do you?’

    Dad’s paying our neighbours, the McPhersons, to look after Charlie after school but they don’t seem interested in stopping her roaming; though they’re interested enough in taking the money Dad gives them. I know Dad is worried about Charlie, but in the end nothing ever gets solved.
    ‘I don’t know how any child of mine could have turned into such a God-botherer,’ my father has said more than once and loud enough so Charlie can hear it, and comments like this haven’t exactly helped their relationship.
    ‘Keep an eye on your sister,’ he says, but though I’ve tried to explain how difficult that is, I don’t think he realises how bad things are.
    It’s a thankless job looking out for that girl. After my last note she wrote a message saying I should be sorry for doubting God and circled the bit in the Bible that says: Except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish (Luke 13:3). That scared me.
    I was trying to think of something to write back when she rushed into the room.
    ‘Say you’re sorry,’ Charlie yelled at me.
    I wasn’t taking orders from any brat sister and held the notebook away from her. Charlie went mental and tried to snatch it back.
    ‘Say you’re sorry,’ she shouted again.
    I decided to tease her a bit.
    ‘Sorrr—’ I began and deliberately didn’t finish the word.
    ‘Say it properly!’ She was almost hysterical by now.
    ‘Sss—’ I hissed.
    Her face went completely red. ‘You think you’re smart, but you’re not!’ she screamed, then ran out of the room. I thought this was funny at first, but I felt a bit bad about it later.

    This morning I heard the front door slam and I knew Dad was back.
    I stayed in my room.
    ‘Anybody there?’ he called upstairs.
    I didn’t answer. I did want to see him, but I was angry because he hadn’t been around for so long, and was never around at the right time. I wanted to talk to him, but then again I didn’t.
    There was no sign of Charlie. She was probably doing something weird at her cubby-hole down by the river. She was becoming more and more distant, and sometimes I wondered what thread was holding her to anything at all. There was no sign of the cat, either. I hadn’t seen it for days.
    ‘Tom… Tom!’ My father’s voice was becoming more insistent, and I could tell that ignoring him was not an option.
    ‘Yes, what?’ I yelled back.
    ‘Come downstairs, please.’
    He was standing in the kitchen wearing his standard uniform of a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and khaki trousers and brown lace-ups. The shirt needed ironing and the trousers, even by my standards, needed a good wash. He might have been paying Mrs McPherson to do our washing, ironing, cleaning and cooking, but if he’d have bothered to ask me I would have told him he was not getting his money’s worth.
    ‘I want you to come with me to visit Aunty Liz and Uncle Bob and we’ll give them some Easter eggs,’ he said.
    Aunty Liz used to be Mum’s best friend. She’s married to Bob, in theory at least. I don’t know why I have to come along today, maybe because it’s Easter Sunday, since Dad usually prefers to visit her by himself and when Bob’s at work. I’m not sure if there’s something going on between them or if it’s just Dad trying to rope Liz in to help with his domestic problems.
    I’m just thinking that if that’s adulthood I may as well stay where I am when Dad almost pushes me into the car and starts the engine.
    Dad swings out of the driveway and our heavy old car jolts over the dirt road. Because it’s been dry lately, every pothole seems exaggerated. As soon as we’re there, Dad’s wasting no time getting in the door and saying to Bob, ‘Happy Easter mate, we thought we’d drop by some Easter eggs for you.’
    ‘What’s this ‘we’ shit, Lone Ranger,’ I think to myself. And since when have Liz and Bob been on the Easter egg list?
    Liz thanks us but has a strange look on her face. She goes into the kitchen to make some coffee. I like Bob and Liz and I like their home, which overlooks the river and is designed in a modern way by Bob, but I’m not happy with Dad, which I show by slouching in the chair and staring out the window.
    We are sitting in the sunken lounge; you know, all bricks and shag carpet. There’s also a fireplace, I think for decoration because the weather’s way too hot and there’s a pot plant stuck in it.
    Liz puts the coffee down on the table in front of Dad slightly awkwardly.     ‘Thanks, Liz,’ he says loudly, not looking up. I’m sure he’d prefer a beer, but it’s 11 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday, after all, and he’s trying to impress.
    Bob is going on about the new tower block he’s designing and Dad’s pretending that he’s interested. The windows in this place are huge. Looking down at the river from here, I can see that the tide is going out.
    Perhaps my sulk is having a bad effect (good), because pretty soon Dad is saying, ‘Tom, would you like to go and look for Charlie and take her home.’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘It’s not a request, Tom,’ he says.

    As I walk towards the river, my anger driving my legs down on the path like pistons, I think of how Charlie refuses to get in the car with Dad any more because he’s always crashing into things after he’s been drinking. Charlie’s new hard-line attitude must cut him up. After all, Charlie’s always been his favourite, and now she’s AWOL all the time and as mad as a cut snake to boot.
    A bit further away from Liz and Bob’s house the river is quieter. With the tide going out you can see the roots of the mangrove trees exposed in the muddy bank. It smells a bit, kind of like rotting plants, and there’s a few mozzies and sandflies about.
    Thinking about Charlie I remember her telling me about the last time she and Dad went anywhere together, the day he bogged the car. He’d decided to take a load of rubbish to the dump and had somehow persuaded her to come along. He can be quite charming, so I guess it must have been one of his charming days.
    Anyway, the dump is at the end of a long, winding dirt road at the back of nowhere. It had been raining that day and the orange soil had turned into a slick of deep-red mud. Since he chooses to drive such a big car ‑ picked up second-hand at a government auction ‑ and the road was so wet, he quickly became stuck. Charlie said the harder he pressed the accelerator to get out, the deeper the hole he was in. Then he was in a rage and started swearing, and thumping the steering wheel with his hand. Charlie said she felt scared and made a move towards the car door and he shouted: ‘Don’t get out!,’ which made her try to do just that. She was halfway out the door when he grabbed her and pulled her back.
    ‘I said stay there!’ he yelled.
    She sat there, really scared, she said, until some guy driving along saw them and took pity on them and pulled our car out with a bit of rope tied to his bumper bar and with a lot more swearing on Dad’s part.
    So now Charlie and Dad’s relationship is at an all-time low. I know Dad’s sorry, but he’s no good at apologies and there’s no way Charlie’s backing down.

    The mangrove is beginning to thin out as I get closer to Charlie’s den. This bit is harder to get across because it is part of the rocky outcrop at the river mouth. The rocks around here are large and jagged with big pools of water between them. The headland is rough and windswept and I feel almost inhabited by the wildness of Charlie. I can see why she likes it here. This is the place where she knows she will be alone. A wide open place. I helped her to build this hideaway in the rock cave by the sea and now I’m less sure than ever that this was a good idea. I creep towards the entrance of the cave.
    Charlie is there with the cat. She must have carried her here in a basket or something because there’s no way Max would come this far with her by herself.
    The crunch of my shoe on a loose bit of rock startles Charlie and she looks up. Her eyes are blank, her expression dazed.
    At first I’m not sure what’s going on but the cat is limp in her arms, and there’s an explosion of dried blood down its chest.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I’m sorry, Max,’ she is saying over and over.
Charlie’s right in front of me, but she’s gone to a place where I can’t reach her. She’s unwrapping what looks like one of my old T-shirts, except now it seems more like a shroud, from around Max’s body.
    I wonder if Charlie is beginning to understand that the cat won’t be resurrected.  If this is what faith is, then it must have taken a lot of faith to carry this out. And I can see if there’s one thing Charlie has tried to keep, it’s faith.

* * * * *

Biography

Sandra White was born in Brisbane, Queensland, and grew up in coastal south-eastern Australia. She moved to London in 1992 and is a journalist with The Times newspaper. She is currently a part-time student on the M.A. Creative Writing programme at Goldsmiths. She lives in north London.

private: sandrawhite1@yahoo.co.k
work: sandra.white@thetimes.co.uk