Читать книгу Abandoned: The true story of a little girl who didn’t belong - Anya Peters - Страница 7

It’s after an argument. Mummy stands at the kitchen table counting out plates. It’s roast chicken, which means it’s a Sunday. And I know it’s after an argument because she calls Daddy ‘him’.

She runs through us all in her head, tapping out numbers against her palm, then slides that number of plates along the counter from the stack she has taken from the shelf.

‘Wait … who have I missed?’

I look up, nervous that it’s me. My two eldest sisters, Marie and Sandra, aren’t there that day so there should be seven.

‘Him, Michael, Liam, Stella, Jennifer, you, me,’ she says, counting us out again by name.

She always counts the plates out like that, in that order: almost by ages, except she puts the girls before me, and herself at the end. I like the way she puts me with her at the end, the way she says, ‘… you, me …’ Always like that.

Mummy never leaves me out; she treats us all the same, but every mealtime I’m waiting for the same thing, for there to be one plate short, or not enough of something to go around. And for my uncle, or even one of the others imitating him, to look around at me and say, ‘She can do without. She doesn’t belong here anyway.’

It’s what Daddy is always saying, screaming it out week after week in drunken arguments.

‘She’s not wanted here, right! She doesn’t belong here. I want her out.’

I feel my brothers and sisters stiffen on the settee beside me, rolling their eyes at each other. I know they’re all thinking the same thing: thinking that I’m the troublemaker; wishing I wasn’t there; that Daddy wouldn’t shout and argue half as much if I wasn’t, that they could watch TV in peace.

‘She’s not wanted. They dumped her over here with you because they didn’t want her over there and she’s not wanted here either. I want her out,’ he says, snapping open another beer, ‘she doesn’t belong here.’

I hold my nose to stop the tears, trying to lean back behind the others on the settee so he can’t see me, staring hard at the wires at the back of the TV, not daring to watch the screen in case something on it triggers my tears. He’ll hit me harder if he sees me crying. He always does.

‘She’s only a child; none of this is her fault. Leave her alone, you bully. Go and pick on someone your own size. She’s no trouble at all. This is my home, and if I want her here, she’ll stay,’ Mummy yells in the background.

I wish she would just stop, not argue back. Mummy is worn out trying to stand up for me – but usually she just makes it worse.

‘She’s wanted nowhere, right!’

‘Yes she is, you cruel drunk … Don’t listen to him, Anya.’

But I have to.

‘Why did they leave her over here then? Who wants her?’ he screams. ‘No one!’ he says louder, slamming the words into me.

‘Yes they do! I want her!’ Mummy hollers into the room.

I try everything to keep my tears in, but eventually they burst out, hiccupping as they come, my shoulders heaving, and he is over me, his fist raised, ready to give me ‘something to really cry about’.