Staying Safe

It was too cold to stay outside but I still had almost an hour before dinner would be ready. I sat on semi-iced mud where the grass had worn away and shivered, banged my knees together to keep moving, keep warm. My throat was dry and the wind froze my fingertips and parted the dead grass around me like hairs on a balding man’s head. I clenched my bottom cheeks and released them to keep movement going too.

And chew the inside of your mouth, otherwise nothing else will work, nothing else will keep you warm. I started to chew but I still felt as cold and I wanted to go inside but then my teeth chattered when she reminded me it wasn’t time yet, I had to stay out here, otherwise it would happen again. She hadn’t let me bring out my coat even though mum had told me not to play outside without it. She’d made me scream at mum and run out to the fields. I felt very upset, that she forced me to stay outside, stay cold, and I started to cry.

Remember why you screamed, it was because she keeps rubbing the itching powder into your coat; she wants to make you cry. I’m here with you so have fun! HAVEFUNHAVEFUNHAVEFUN! I stopped crying suddenly and smiled at what she said, giggled, went quiet as I looked out across the blowing dead fields.

‘Have fun’ I mumbled, repeating. I stamped my feet up and down and lifted myself up from the mud and jumped. I jumped and jumped; ‘havefunhavefunhavefun’ I mumbled again, breathless as I pounded my boots into the mud, eyes closed, smiling. And it was so funny that I laughed with her.

Later, I ran back home, across the fields. Mum had been watching for me and opened the door, squinting in the wind to see me clearly. I stopped in front of her and let her gather me into her arms and pull me inside and kick shut the door against the battering cold. She rubbed at my bare arms where my skin was purple, white, and goosebumped.

‘You’re frozen! Why did you do that? You could catch your death out there!’ Mum wrapped a blanket around me and held me close for body heat. I could hear her heart beating. I felt safe and better; I looked from where my head rested against her arm over at the china lined in racks along the open shelves. The plates seemed to bob like boats at sea. I stared in rapture until I saw mum’s face in front of me and felt her hands softly holding my shoulders steady. She was looking into my eyes and speaking, asking was I OK, was I warmer.

Yeah you’re warmer! Your skin’s alive! She’s been rubbing the itching powder into you with the blanket. She had it there waiting for you, for when you came back, to punish you. I swallowed and my face crumpled as I realised every inch of me was burning with the pain of needing to scratch. Tears burst from me and as I sobbed my breath caught and salty water filled my throat; I screamed into my mother’s face and thumped at her chest with my fists. I threw the blanket to the floor. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed and mum was backing away holding her hands over her ears and she was saying soothing things but I couldn’t hear them. I heard my breath come out then in a long, slow heaving rasp and my head fizzed like pins and needles and I felt soothed and light and suddenly better. I laughed gently, happy that at least I had my friend.

Let’s stop this from hurting, let’s scratch, she said, and we scratched at the itching and the relief made me moan with pleasure and I lay down on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor and let myself roll this way and that over the healing smooth stone.

When I woke up the wind had stopped and darkness held the house still and silent. I shifted into a seated position, leaning my head against a chair leg as I felt weak, exhausted. My body felt raw and sore. I tried to adjust my eyes to the gloom of the fading day inside the room until I was able to see myself. Then I gasped at the horror-movie scene that flashed in the half light. My legs, grated, bloody, as were my arms, my feet. I raised my hand and saw dark dry blood beneath my nails. Gingerly, I touched the flat of my now shaking palm against my cheek. When I moved it away and held it out before my eyes I saw bloody water; some eased slowly down my wrist, some had already congealed and pulled a sticky thread from my skin.

I heard mum’s voice and some voices that I didn’t know. I tried to stand but couldn’t find my feet; I realised a towel had been spread out on the tiles beneath me. Someone must have moved me onto it – no blanket - but I felt the central heating. Someone coughed. They’d heard me moving; they came into the room.

Ever since that night, mum’s been telling me to try to forget the bad things, and she lets me wash my own bedding, my own clothes, so that I can see she isn’t trying to hurt me. I take the pills and I feel better but I don’t get much time with my friend now, and I’m sad, but she still visits sometimes. She says she needs to, because she has to help me with my brother. He keeps trying to poison my food when I’m not looking, so she helps scrape my tongue clean when she knows it’s happened, to keep me safe. Sometimes I let her, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m not sure I believe her anymore; so I stop listening.