Ghosts in the Morning - By Will Thurmann Page 0,11
know you’re big enough to be alright on your own, but some of the nosey bastards round here don’t see things the way we do, right?’.
As soon as I heard the key in the lock, I flicked the television off and went upstairs to read my book. Mum never let me read much, there was always some washing-up I had to do, or some cleaning. Besides, it was safer to go to my bed, I didn’t want to risk falling asleep on the sofa, it was best to be out of the way when they’d been drinking.
A few hours later, I had woken up with my book across my face. I heard my Mum and Uncle Peter shouting at each other in the kitchen, so I hurriedly turned off my bedside light. Then I heard Mum stomp upstairs, tripping over some of the stairs and cursing. Another ten minutes or so passed, then I heard Mum snoring. The walls were paper thin in that house.
Every house has its own set of creaks and groans that emanate at certain points of the night, sometimes it’s as if the house itself is rolling over to go to sleep. But when you have lived in the same place for a while, there are always certain noises that you know for sure aren’t just the house resting. One of our stairs – the third one from the top – was loose. Whenever you stepped on it, it would creak and then slap back down like a muffled clapboard. I always stretched my legs and missed out that step when I went up or down the stairs. It was habit. Even Mum had done it when she had stomped up the stairs earlier.
I heard the third step creak and then the dull slap as the wood fell back down. I closed my eyes tight, and felt the air shift. My nose twitched as it was hit with the pungent smell of alcohol, laced with tobacco. I tried to force my eyes to stay closed, tried to will my breathing to sound relaxed, to simulate sleep, but a creeping fear grasped my eyelids and slowly prised them open.
Uncle Peter was standing at the edge of my bed. ‘You alright, love, you had a good night in front of that telly?’
His body was swaying slightly, but his eyes remained still, staring at me. The hint of moonlight that sprinkled through the curtain made them yellow, matching the teeth that were visible in his ugly attempt at a smile.
Everything happened really fast and really slow then. I remember scrunching up my eyes as tight as I could, willing myself to unconsciousness, so I could pretend it was all a dream, but I couldn’t, it hurt too much. Like a freezing fire between my legs. He told me not to scream, but I couldn’t help it. His hand was over my mouth the whole time, though, so the scream stayed silent. His moustache was the worst, its bristles scraped my face, my neck, my back...
Afterwards, I didn’t cry much - I’m sure some tears fell, but mostly I remember hugging my knees to my chest and rocking back and forth, and wondering what my Mum would make of the blood on my sheets. I didn’t go to school the next day, I told Mum I didn’t feel well. I think she saw the sheets and assumed that my periods had started, so she gave me some sanitary towels and asked if school had explained about ‘that monthly stuff’. She hadn’t waited for an answer.
From then on I didn’t sleep very well. Uncle Peter would rape me at least once or twice a week. It was almost worse on the nights that he didn’t come to my room. Almost. I would lay wide awake all night, staring at my bedroom door, shaking with fear. I would clasp my hands together so tight, praying to God to make it stop. After a few nights I stopped that, and I have never prayed again. I wanted to tell my Mum, or someone, but I was too scared. Every single time before he did it, no matter how drunk he was, how slurred his words were, he would hiss the words again at me, the words he had said on the first night. ‘Don’t tell anyone, love, yeah, you know what will happen, don’t you? I’ll kill your mother. And then I’ll kill you.’ Sometimes as he said it, he would pinch the