Page 15 of The Family Across the Street
8
Katherine
‘Please just… please…’ says Katherine, because she has no idea what else to say. His hands are tangled in Sophie’s hair, yanking and hurting her.
‘What did you do?’ he spits. ‘What did you say to that nosy old woman?’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Sophie says, tears on her cheeks, her hands raised to try and stop him pulling her hair.
‘Let her go, let her go,’ Katherine says, trying to inject strength into her voice as she rises off the sofa, but he pulls her daughter’s hair harder, bunches it in his fist. ‘Sit down now,’ he says and he points the gun, not at her because it would be fine if it were at her. But he knows better than that. He points the gun at Sophie – small, struggling Sophie, whose tears are streaking down her cheeks.
Katherine feels her body sink back down onto the sofa, the blue sofa that she chose with such care and admired every time she came into this room. This is her favourite room in the house. She loves the family photos everywhere and the large window that looks out onto the garden. When the twins were babies, she and John would sometimes find themselves asleep down here next to two baby rockers vibrating the children to sleep as the sun rose on another day. This is where the twins watch their movies and where she and John binge-watch television series together.
This was her favourite room in the house.
She is fighting a surging anger at Gladys for coming over and making things so much worse, and at the same time she feels a small flicker of hope that the older woman might have been suspicious, might have picked up on what Sophie said, although she has no idea what that might have been. Would her daughter have known to tell Gladys to call the police?
He watches her, a ghost of a smile on his face. He is enjoying her pain. She can see that. He is enjoying all of their pain, and it makes her feel sick.
‘I’m sitting, see, I’m sitting,’ she says, even though it’s obvious. But she needs to distract him, to keep him focused on her. Her daughter’s brown curls are tightly gripped in his hands and Katherine watches Sophie’s hand open and close to try and stop the pain. Her child, her baby. She wants to leap off the sofa and scratch his eyes out, rip at his face.
‘She didn’t say anything,’ says George, quietly.
‘No one asked you to speak. And we all know she said something. Now, Sophie, listen to me,’ he says. ‘You’re going to tell me what you said to her or I’m going to rip all of your pretty hair right out of your head.’
‘I said I wanted chocolate cake,’ says Sophie, her voice thick with tears and pain. Katherine knows she is lying and she is proud of her little girl. Never mind what she has always told them about telling the truth. The rules don’t apply today. All the rules have already been broken.
But he believes her. ‘Stupid kid,’ he laughs and he lets go of her hair and shoves her back towards Katherine, who opens her arms and wraps them tightly around her daughter as she sobs. She feels George start patting Sophie on the back, desperate to help, to somehow make things better, and she reaches out and grabs him to her too.
‘Just shut up,’ he hisses.
Sophie gulps and swallows the last of her sobs. The room is beginning to smell. The air conditioner is old and doesn’t work well in here, not well enough for this terrible heat, and Katherine and her children are sweating out their terror.
‘They need something to eat,’ she says, a plan forming in her mind. If they can all get to the kitchen, if they can get there quickly enough, then maybe they can get out of the back door. ‘Please, let me take them and get them some food,’ she says again because he hasn’t said no, which she thinks means he is considering it.
He rubs at his face. They’ve only been in this room for hours but it feels like days.
‘Fine, they can get some food,’ he finally replies.
‘Let me go with them,’ she says, hoping that she has kept the eagerness out of her voice.
‘Why don’t you go alone and leave them here with me.’ He grins as though he has made a considerate suggestion.
She takes a breath, wondering what would happen if she did run. His anger is for her, not them, but… he will hurt them to punish her. He will. She knows he will.
‘No, no… George, you go, take Sophie, have some… some fruit before you eat anything else.’
George gets up. She catches his eye, stares and nods slightly at him. Will he know to just leave, to just open the back door and run? If George and Sophie are safe, then she can deal with this. She can stay here all day, all night. He can kill her. She doesn’t care. She just needs her children to be safe.
George nods back and he takes his sister’s hand.
‘Oh, and George,’ he says casually as they get to the door of the family room. Her son doesn’t say anything but he stops dead-still. ‘If you don’t come back in five minutes, I will shoot your mum in the head.’ He sounds so matter-of-fact. So cold. She cannot believe that this is who he really is. She doesn’t want to believe it.
George casts a quick glance back at her and she nods her head again, hoping that he will disobey and leave, just leave, but from the way her little boy looks back at her, she knows he’s made a decision. She drops her gaze and stares at her hands where she is twisting the simple gold band on her finger, twisting it round and round as though she could unscrew it from her very being.
‘They love their mum, don’t they?’ he says, sneering, when they’ve left the room.
‘You’re torturing them. How could you do this to them? I understand to me. I get it – but them? Please, I’m asking you again to just let them go. I will listen to anything you have to say. Just let them go.’
