Dolly was shamed to her soul by Mum seeing what was happening in front of the fire. Her face, her whole body, burned with embarrassment and guilt that her mother had seen her doing the bad thing with Dad.
What Dolly expected was that Mum would shout and scream, that she would cuff Dolly around the ear, and she deserved that . . . but none of that happened.
Dolly would never forget the image of that room: the hot fire blazing, her mother standing on the bottom step, staring; and Dad’s head slowly swivelling around as he saw Dolly’s horrified face turned toward where Edie stood.
Sam Farrell stared at his wife, and said nothing. After long, long moments Edie simply turned and went back upstairs. Dad sat back in his bath. And Dolly fled the room.
Dolly thought that after the bath thing Edie would talk to her husband, angry words would be exchanged; but again she was let down. If anything, Mum seemed to withdraw even more, only sometimes Dolly caught her mum staring fixedly at her, saying nothing, just looking at her daughter as if she was looking at a stranger.
Then one Saturday Dad came in from the pub. Mum was in the kitchen in her usual seat, staring at nothing in particular, and the kids were out playing. Dad came in, weaving a little on his feet, slightly drunk, and looked at his wife slumped there. His expression was one of impatience and disgust.
‘Going to sort out the box room,’ he snapped at his wife. Then he turned to Dolly. ‘Come on, Doll, you can give me a hand.’ And he headed for the stairs.
Dolly looked at Mum, but Edie’s eyes remained resolutely on the floor. What was he talking about, the box room? The tiny room was a tip, everything went in there, all the shit in the entire world it seemed, so why was he talking about sorting it out? Dad never bothered himself with stuff like that.
‘I said come on – you deaf?’ Dad snarled at Dolly from the bottom of the stairs.
Confused, Dolly followed him up. But instead of going left to the box room, he went into the bedroom he shared with Mum. Her heart suddenly in her mouth, Dolly hesitated at the door and he took her hand, pulled her inside, shut it. He passed a hand over his face and she thought she saw a flicker of something like despair there before it was gone, quick as a flash, and then he was smiling.
‘You’re my best girl, ain’t you, Doll?’ he said, and his voice was almost whining, almost pleading, as he led her to the bed.
‘What about the box room?’ Dolly blurted out in terror, her face red with shame because she knew what he was going to do, he was going to do the man-and-woman thing to her, she knew it . . .
And Mum knew it too.
That thought cut into her, sharp as a knife. Mum was sitting downstairs letting him do this, because it kept him away from her.
‘That’ll keep. Lay down there, Dolly, there’s a good girl.’
What could she do? This was wrong, but it was Dad, and she loved him, of course she did. So she lay down on the bed and when he lay down next to her she didn’t bolt for the door. It took willpower not to, but this was her dad. He loved her. She had to keep reminding herself of that, she had to.
Down in the kitchen, Edie heard her daughter’s piercing scream.
‘Oh Christ in heaven,’ she said, and as Dolly screamed again she put her hands over her ears and rocked backward and forward in her chair, crying. ‘Forgive me,’ she moaned. ‘Please forgive me.’