Page 111 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘Do you joke about such evils?’ he demanded, coming a step closer. I must have flinched, for Dante’sarm tightened. Pa looked at him and said: ‘I see she has fooled you, but I will tell you what she is!’
‘Your daughter? The one you cruelly abused and traumatized when she was a child?’
‘It is no crime to try and take the devil from the child. It was retribution – in the cradle she was the very image of the man her mother lusted after.’
‘No, no, Samuel!’ whimpered Ma.
‘Yes! Did I not come backfrom my preaching tour to find you lusting after him? Did I not find the photographs in your drawer, the records hidden in the attic?’
‘No, no!’
‘Yes, and the devil sent this child made in his dark image to pervert my own innocent babe, my Jane. Devil’s Spawn!’
‘Rubbish,’ Dante said crisply. ‘If you weren’t clearly demented I’d knock you down for what you did to Cass. And you!’ he turned toMa. ‘How could you let your child be shut in the dark for hours, punished for something she didn’t even understand?’
‘She couldn’t help it, Dante!’ I whispered. ‘She couldn’t stand against him – look at her!’
‘The woman and man are as one,’ Pa declared. ‘I did what was necessary, what was right. But I do not stand here arguing with you if my daughter is not here.’
‘One daughter is,’ Dante saidquietly.
‘No child of mine. She will burn – and you with her. It is clear to me now,’ he added heavily, ‘that you are her match in iniquity. Evil! Evil! I must guard the pure flame! I must—’
‘Go before I kick you out?’ Dante said pleasantly, but there was that in his voice that caused Pa to shut his mouth on his final words, turn on his heel and stride regally off.
Francis gave me a comicallook and plunged after him, but Ma was halted in her tracks by Dante’s voice: ‘Mrs Leigh!’
She paused, half-turned like some timid creature unused to daylight. Her eyes flickered to me and away.
Dante pulled me towards her. ‘Don’t you want to look at your daughter after all these years? To wish her well, with me?’
‘She is not mine – the devil’s,’ whispered Ma.
‘You know very well that isn’tso,’ Dante said more gently. ‘Your husband is out of earshot, so tell me the truth about this man he said you were lusting after. Whoisthe dark sinner he sees when he looks at Cass?’
She stared at him, then at me: ‘Perhaps she is the devil’s way of tormenting me for my sins? For Ididlust after him for a time, it is true: he was like a fire in my soul.’
I stared at her. ‘Did you have an affairwith another man, then, Ma?’
Ma took a slow step back, her eyes fixed on Dante’s face.‘No: but in my lustful heart I was guilty. He was dark like you,’ she added, looking at Dante. ‘The King.’
Now I knew she was as mad as Pa. Can insanity be catching?
‘Elvis,’ Dante said. ‘Of course! You had a crush on Elvis!’
‘Elvis?You mean I was punished because my mother had a crush on Elvis Presley?’I exclaimed indignantly. ‘That was all it was about? And I don’t look anything like him!’ I added.
I could see Dante’s lip twitching in that way that meant he was finding it all highly amusing, but I seemed to have had an acute sense of humour failure.
‘No – she wasmypunishment every day, reminding me!’ Ma cried.
Something in my head blazed like a great light and I exclaimed: ‘In my dream– Elvis was the awful thing in the cupboard I wanted to escape from and never could! I remember touching you, Ma, when I was too small to understand what I was reading in your mind, and you were looking at me and thinking of this great, dark, sneering monster in a glistening white suit: and you hated both of us!’
‘Not hated,’ whispered Ma.
‘Sarah!’ bellowed my father. ‘Sarah!’
Ma took two moresteps backwards, still not looking at me, though my arms were stretched out towards her like she might suddenly touch me with the love she had never ever shown to me, only to Jane.
Then she turned and ran jerkily after Pa and Francis.
‘All those nightmares,’ I said disgustedly. ‘And after all, it was only Elvis in the cupboard!’
‘Let’s hope he has now left the building,’ Dante said with a straightface.
