Morgan

I’m lost somewhere between this wooden spoon and the stew I’m stirring in the pot. I add pepper. And more. And more. My abdomen cramps. I’m the one on the rag, but Mum’s the one who’s sulking. I can feel her heavy sulk all the way through the ceiling, from the room above this kitchen.

My parents aren’t even trying to fit in. The height of our house – two floors above ground – makes it too exposed. It creaks in the winds. Our house was built by my parents, with wood salvaged from a shipwreck. People must have died in that wreck. My parents didn’t care; they just wanted the planks. The people who live on this island must have wanted the planks too, but they will all get good solid coffins – and Dad will provide them with decent burials, given time.

Dad dragged the wood here, plank by plank, up the hill from the shore. As always, he was wearing his suit. Mum waited for him with me, in the shack they’d made next to the foundations of this house. It was so cold in there, I didn’t even find any spiders. No one who lived on this island came to visit us in the shack. I thought I heard whispers, but each time I said so, my mother croaked. That scared all the whispers away.

Croaked like a toad, hunched her back, but kept her eyes fixed on me.

I slice up an onion and four cloves of garlic and throw them in the bubbling pot. I’m cooking in the wrong order today. I chop up the chicken meat. The smell of the flesh makes my stomach clench. Does marrow need to be salted? I can’t remember. I look out of the kitchen window. The tall fence blocks out any kind of view. All Mum said when she built the fence was, ‘I’ve always wanted a picket fence around my home,’ and got on with it. I remember her hammering the slats deep into the ground.

That’s a bitter taste.

More flavour … I slash parsley with a gleaming knife.

I’ve heard people on the other side, laughing at it as they pass by. Why wouldn’t they? It’s ridiculous, but Mum thinks it’s the best thing that’s ever been made. This was my mother’s dream, the home she’d always wanted. A picket fence was the final touch, and it was the final touch that sealed us in.

Mum built her picket fence thirteen feet high. And painted it bright pink.

I draw bread from the oven and it fills the room with the smell of warm yeast. It collects Mum’s sulk from the air in this kitchen, pummels it down and flattens it on the floor. The tiles feel damp under my bare feet.

I open the kitchen door, call out ‘Lunch!’ The cramps in my abdomen almost buckle me over.

No reply, and Mum’s sulk is still thickening in the air out here in the hallway.

I go back into the kitchen and set the table for five. Lunch isn’t really anywhere near ready yet, but no one ever comes when I call, and they’ll be longer than usual, when they’ve got to pass through the remainder of Mum’s sulk.

I go out of the back door into the garden, draw a bucket of water from the well and carry it to the door. I lift the grille off the drain, pour the water in and it flows away. The rice has gone down. It’s not blocked. Another day, I’ll block it up. Stuff something thicker than rice down there. A bedspread, maybe. A tablecloth. Some of her clothes. Or his. Not the twins’.

Another day soon, I’ll annoy Mum much harder. Get her to want to unlock the padlock and send me away. But not today. Not with these cramps settling in. I put the bucket on the floor in the kitchen, stand at the back door and look at the pink paint peeling on the fence.

Mum stood in this garden and stared at her fence when she’d finally finished building it.

Dad said to her, ‘Come inside.’ He waited. He touched her arm.

She didn’t move.

He put his hand on her shoulder.

She didn’t speak.

The stars came out.

‘You’re safe,’ he said. ‘Please stop running now.’

The moon shone down.

‘I’ll go to bed,’ he muttered, and disappeared into the house.

I stood here in this kitchen doorway and watched her. She stood there and the sun rose. Dad came back, watched her for a while, made himself some tea and went away. The sun set again and still Mum stood there, her back to me and her face to the fence. The wind blew, her brown hair whipped into tangles, but still she said nothing. Not a word, till the moon was at the highest point in the sky, and she finally spoke: ‘That’s just perfect. Just right. I think I’ll have a nice cup of tea. Can someone make me one please? I have blisters on my hands.’ And she pushed past me into this kitchen, blisters outstretched and sat at the table to wait for the tea to be put down in front of her.

Of course, I made it. Just the way she likes it. Nettle tea. Three spoons of honey, not too strong but just strong enough.

I wrapped up her hands with an oatmeal poultice and white linen bandages.

She said she didn’t like the colour of the bandages and tore them off.

I don’t like the colour of my rags either. Blood on bright red cloth is difficult to see to soak off. Mum gave me these rags, after she’d finished building the fence. When it was just the two of us in the kitchen in the middle of the night, drinking tea in silence.

She glanced at me. Nodded. Stood up, went off to another room and came back in with the red squares of fabric flapping in her blistered hands. Her cheeks were almost as pink as the fence. She said, ‘Stuff these in your knickers and keep yourself clean.’ I hadn’t started my periods yet, I was too young. But I knew about them. My parents brought a lot of books with them. I read about mythology, psychology and biology, as well as picture and storybooks. I’ve learned what I need to. I know that snails don’t have periods, nor do young girls or old women, toads or moths or spiders.

I asked her, ‘Does it hurt, bleeding?’

She told me about her first period and how she’d come home from school because she’d been in so much pain she thought she was dying. Her mother had said that all wounds bleed, and she must shake off the pain and get back to school. Mum said she thought she was wounded then, that she had to bandage it and not let the pain show. She said, ‘I felt so much, so much …’ She searched for the word, her eyes wandering over her blistered hands. I said, ‘Shame?’ and she flashed her sharp eyes at me and said, ‘No. Not that, never. I was never ashamed.’

I didn’t believe her. After a long glaring silence, her eyes were shining and she said, ‘Even now, my periods aren’t any easier.’ I swallowed hard. She glanced at me and when she spoke her voice was quieter. She said, ‘You’re pale. Yours won’t be as sore as mine. Mine were always the most painful, more than anyone else.’ I felt hopeful, because I thought she’d noticed I felt scared. I wanted to have my period then and there all over the kitchen chair, just so she might keep noticing how I felt. I thought if I was an adult, a woman like her, with pain to bind us, she’d know how I felt. But I checked, and there was no blood.

Soon I’ll be out there, on the other side of that fence and across a long stretch of water, in a place I can call home. I’ll hang my red rags off some other washing line, with no pink fence to hide them from view.