The Red Slayer

The ten-foot high walls of Montgomery Road conceal the large, fancy houses from the outsiders, only visible through their locked gates with CCTV cameras to see who approaches. This neighbourhood isn’t one for street parties and would rather coop the children up like hens than let them play out on their bikes. Ice cream vans don’t come down here because they wouldn’t get any business when kids have whippy machines in their shiny kitchens.

My next-door neighbour’s gates open as I reach them. Mrs. Whats-Her-Face reverses her mini-van to take her four kids to morning swimming lessons. The youngest looks out and waves at me. I smile and wave back until Mrs. Whats-Her-Face throws me a death glare. She cannot drive away sooner. What her problem is I have no idea, I don’t look any different from your average early morning jogger.

I brush off the encounter and continue towards my house, longing for shower. The last thing I’m expecting is to find the front gates wide open with Dad sitting on the front steps in his dressing gown, playing fetch with Ariel, our labradoodle. Officially she’s our therapy dog, she has enough love for both of us.

‘Hey there, Iorwen,’ Dad says casually. You’d think I nipped to the corner shop for some milk – if this neighbourhood had corner shops…and if I drank milk. He stands up as I come up the cobbled path. Ariel gallops up to give me cuddles.

‘When did you find out I was gone?’ I ask, giving Ariel belly rubs.

‘An hour ago. Why, have you been out longer?’ My silence is all the answer he needs. He sweeps his uncombed hair out of his eyes and kneels down next to me. ‘I know you threw up last night.’

My head droops. Dad puts an arm around me and Ariel rests her head in my lap. ‘You don’t have to be ashamed of it,’ he says softly. ‘You had trouble eating when you were eight. Do you want to start seeing Dr. Clarke again? I can give her a call later today.’

I nod. ‘What are we gonna do?’

‘We may not have to do anything. Michael Hughes is nothing now.’

I bite my lip and sigh several times; Ariel licks my arm to keep me from tensing up. There’s no nice way of saying, ‘I wish he had died in prison.’

‘I’m surprised he didn’t actually,’ says Dad. ‘Child abusers are prime targets for prison violence.’ He gives me a pat on the back and helps me to my feet. ‘Let’s forget about that now. You have the show to get ready for.’

‘Maybe being pissed off at my uncle will help,’ I say, and force out a laugh.

‘I’ll make breakfast while you shower.’ He looks at the sweat marks on my shirt. ‘Have you been running a marathon by any chance?’

‘You’re not angry with me?’

‘Angry? Should I be?’

I give him a puzzled look. ‘Weren’t you wondering where I was?’

Dad shrugs. ‘I knew you’d be back before I had to drive you to the theatre. Your mother used to do the same thing when she had a lot on her mind.’

This doesn’t do anything for my confusion. His fourteen-year-old daughter snuck out in the wee hours and came back sweating head to toe. I know my father isn’t the strictest, but this doesn’t warrant a, “Young lady, where have you been?” Most girls at my school aren’t allowed male friends or able to go shopping without supervision. I have two male friends, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gone to Oxford Street on my own.

Dad leads the way back into the house, with me and Ariel following. ‘Can I have a swim before breakfast?’ I ask.

‘All right, but take it easy.’

‘I will.’

***

When Ariel senses that I need her, she never leaves my side. It makes bathroom visits a little awkward, but otherwise it’s adorable. She trots up and down the side of the pool as I do lengths. She hasn’t wrapped her head around the fact I can swim, so if I go too close to the centre, she jumps in, takes my hair in her mouth, and pulls me to “safety”. Each time I kick off, I shoot to the bottom, touch the blue and white tiles, then resurface and continue the lap.

Whoever Dad hired to design this room deserves a medal. I don’t remember much about the planning or construction. I spent most days at my friend’s house, believing we had an asbestos problem.

Dad had the pool made for a reason. Most in this neighbourhood are members of a private gym with a indoor and outdoor pools. The problem, you can barely paddle in them. What’s the point of a pool you can’t dive into or see how deep you can go before your ears pop? There’re leisure centres in Kensal Green which offer diving and ear popping, but they keep to strict timetables, and are usually too crowded when I’m actually allowed in. These reasons are bad enough, but one thing both the private clubs and leisure centres have in common is people who stare.

People, especially little kids, stare to an uncomfortable degree when something strange contradicts their worldview. And their mums go out of their way to protect them from it. I am that contradiction, and not because I’m ginger.

From the base of my neck, past my shoulder blades, right down to my hips, my skin is marked with dozens of long, ugly, red scars. I don’t know how many there are. I’ve never looked long enough to count. When they wheeled me into hospital, lying face down on the gurney, I needed over a hundred stitches and a transfusion. A nurse tried to make light of how they ran out of thread. I wasn’t laughing.

There’s nothing funny about these scars. Trying to ignore them is like trying to ignore the fact that my mum is dead. It changes nothing, and people are dicks whenever they find out. In the few times I went to a public pool, the kids who saw them would recoil as if they were shingles. They told their parents, and they threatened to call social services on Dad. He gets blamed for them, but he did nothing.

The poolroom is probably renovated from a ballroom, but Dad isn’t social enough for balls. He’s been modernising the house’s Victorian roots bit by bit. The poolroom is all glass, except the walls connected to the house. The ceiling can be opened for sunbathing. We have a diving board, and a slide, a very, very deep end, and the best part is no one need see my scars. I tend to invite my class over on my birthday for a pool party, but I wear a t-shirt over my swimsuit that says, “Birthday Girl” and no one suspects a thing.

My exercise done, I ignore the ladder and lift myself out of the deep end. Ariel fetches a towel from the chrome table where Dad is setting down a tray with three meals. He’s put on his causal navy suit with his Don’t Panic! apron.

I’m glad I can hold down food again. Dad has gone all out with my proteiny breakfast. Char-grilled bacon, poached eggs caught in that gap between runny and solid, spinach leaves and giant mushrooms that taste of steak. There’s also a blueberry and banana power smoothie to take with my anti-anxiety meds. He’s cooked pretty much the same for him, except wrapped into a tortilla with a dollop of guac. He has a cup of tea alongside his pills. He has more than me. The third meal is a big bowl of dog food for Ariel.

‘Feeling better?’ asks Dad.

I nod. ‘I’m ready for anything now.’

‘Do you remember all your lines?’

I nod again. I would prove it, but To be or not to be doesn’t carry the same impact with a mouthful of mushroom.

Dad smiles. ‘Should I make you a sandwich to take with?’

I shake my head, swallow, and reply, ‘No thanks, Olga and Luke are bringing me a Chinese before the evening show.’ A grin creeps across my face because the promise of egg fried rice and crispy duck gives me another reason to enjoy my day.

‘What do you want to after? We can go out to a restaurant.’

My lips purse. It does sound ideal. If the show goes successfully, I can reward myself with a massive pizza. Then again, I’ve been up since four o’clock, and I’ll probably use that pizza for a pillow before I can eat it.

‘Let’s eat at home,’ I say, ‘I’m going to be really tired.’

‘All right. Let’s do something at the weekend to get our minds off the whole Michael thing. We can go up to the country if you like.’

‘We’ll see,’ I say. ‘All I can think about is getting through today.’

Once my plate is empty, Dad takes it from me. ‘You will be great, Iorwen.’

I sigh and slouch. ‘You have to say that because you’re my dad.’

‘Have you seen the stage mums we’ve come across? If I say it I mean it. And if your mother were here, she’d say the same thing.’ He checks his watch. ‘Now go get dressed. We’re leaving in half an hour.’

Once again, Ariel sticks by me, fetching whatever I need. Usually I take pains in what I wear, but since I’m spending most of today in costume, it doesn’t matter. I have a comfy yellow jumpsuit with daisies and a rainbow shirt to wear under it.

Dad’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs when I’m ready and offers to carry my backpack the ten paces to the black Honda. I proudly keep it on my shoulders until we get in the car. Ariel is fitted with her blue vest and jumps in the back. She braces her paws on the armrest between the front seats and barks every time we stop at a crossing and people go by.

It is so normal. I’m just a red-haired girl with a dog being driven into town by my dad. If people notice us through the tinted windows, they never would guess that we were different. No one knows about my dad’s anti-depressants, or the grotesque scars on my back.

We pull in to Tottenham Court Road where there’s a perfect drop-off space outside the stage door of Dominion. My drama teacher, Ms. Elliott, is standing by it to sign in the cast.

‘Good morning, Irene,’ she says as I get out.

I try my damndest not to frown. I love Ms. Elliott, but she never gets my name right. To be honest, very few can. It’s pronounced Yor-wen, but most people say it as it’s spelt, I-or-wen – even I’ve been guilty of that. It’s a Welsh name, and we all know how easy Welsh is to pronounce. I brush off my teacher’s mistake and wave Dad goodbye, leading Ariel inside.

While the ensemble has to share one big room, the main cast get our individual rooms with our names on the door and everything.

D1 – Tara St. Germaine, Ophelia

D2 – Robbie McDonough, Laertes

D3 – Lewis Taylor-Thomas, King Claudius

D4 – Iorwen Davis, Hamlet

© Alice of Sherwood, September 2019