Terry makes me hold the phone
and record every moment of him
beating the crap out of her.
That’s my job,
though I never applied for it.
I could throw it at him.
I mean,
I could use the phone to crack his skull open,
smash his brains to bits,
instead of recording what he’s doing –
beating Mum
with such steam
you’d think it was an Olympic sport he was training for.
I gag
a little bit
whenever he glances into the lens.
Or maybe he’s looking at me,
making sure I am
holding the phone steady,
doing my job.
I don’t want to let him down,
or I can guess what’ll happen:
it’ll be my belly under his foot,
my face against his fist.
Or worse,
Mum’ll get it again.
Afterwards he goes out,
down the pub
to his mates,
who all think he’s a right laugh,
a right geezer
for having a bird who cooks and cleans,
wipes his arse
if he asks her to.
And Mum?
She heads for the bathroom,
locks the door and cleans herself up,
then into the bedroom where she
covers the bruises with a turtleneck and too much foundation.
That’ll make him mad too.
Can’t she learn a lesson?
When she comes into the kitchen
I’m sitting there
at the table,
pretending to finish off my French homework,
verbs drills,
lists of words
that start the same
but end
differently
depending on who’s doing the talking.
And I wonder whether my life could be like verb
endings,
whether things here would be better if Mum
weren’t such a
wimp all the time.
Like,
if she was someone braver,
would Terry give up and go away
and hurt someone else instead?
Would we get to have happy endings
sometimes
instead of a constant stream of shit?
‘You want some toast? Cereal?’ she asks,
really gently,
and I hug her,
scared it’ll hurt her,
but so sorry for not stopping Terry.