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I just stare. Yes, I remember. Obviously.
‘We… we went into the kitchen and my father was… Your father and my father… They were kissing.’
I scrunch up my face. ‘What?’
‘Well, more, my father was kissing Patrick, and he – your father – was trying to… get away.’
I blink. I still don’t understand.
‘My father saw us and we ran. He came after us and he… he pushed me into a wall and he punched Tristan in the face and kicked him in the ribs. He’d never done that before.’
She smooths her hands down her thighs and takes a breath. Her voice lowers. ‘We didn’t even say anything to him, but he said we were disgusting for thinking what we were thinking. That we hadn’t seen what we thought we’d seen and we were vile for thinking we had. And I think he was going to keep beating up Tristan but I kind of got in the way and we ran out and Tristan just fled, his face all messed up, and I couldn’t keep up and then you found me.
‘Later on, he – Father – kind of switched and said your father was… “divergent”. That Patrick had come on to him and we would never go to yours again.’
I feel my forehead creasing. ‘But why did that make you bully me?’
She shakes her head and her lips waver. ‘I don’t know, Georgia. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was scared of my parents splitting up – even though I wanted them to.’ She looks at the ceiling. ‘I just associated your family with this horrible thing, and Tristan, he just went, I don’t know, he started saying you and your family were all “divergent”, that gay people were evil and they shouldn’t be in our town, that your mother knew all about your father and was, I don’t know, helping him be evil.
‘I don’t know, Georgia. We were confused and lashing out – and at the time, I went to church a lot and my father had been pretty consistently telling us how evil gay people were and I didn’t want my father to be evil – even though I think I knew he was evil anyway and being gay had nothing to do with it. I was tearing myself up, and your family were tied up with a version of him I didn’t want to believe in and I never ever thought it would go so far.’
‘Love is love, Frances.’
She glares at me. ‘I think I said that, Georgia.’
I frown. ‘I still don’t get it.’
‘My therapist called it textbook.’
For once – yes, I’m capable of self-deprecation – I’m lost for words.
‘It’s all – all of it – my father’s fault. And he’s the only one still out there, walking around like he’s guilty of nothing. Even though he was the one who paid off all those women for Tristan, really, if you trace the money back. He says he didn’t know, but of course he did.’
‘How is it all his fault? I’m not saying he’s a great guy. But it was your mum and brother who attacked my mother.’
‘I think you have to consider people’s motivations, their degree of agency, when you make judgements about right and wrong.’
‘Big Dave wasn’t there. And it’s not even their fault my mum’s dead. I believe I can thank my very own dad for that.’
She nods. ‘I know you think that. But your father wouldn’t have been in that position if your mum hadn’t already been left for dead.’
‘So?’
‘No, you’re right. What he did was…’ She puffs out her cheeks. ‘But did you not hear what my mum said on the tape? She said, “David would never forgive me.” That’s why she tried to kill your mum. You know – I told you what my father was like, when we were children.’
‘He was strict. You spent a lot of time locked in dark rooms. He shouted.’ Tears prick despite myself. I’m minimising. Belittling her pain because I’m angry with her.
She shakes her head. ‘Maybe I wasn’t clear. He had rules. For everything. He was a sadist. He would think up ways for us to be in pain without having to lift a finger.’ Her eyes begin to brim. ‘He made me go for a three-mile walk when I had pleurisy. Had me wipe my tears with my fingers after he knew I’d been chopping chillies. He’d throw my toys on the fire if I was late for dinner. The examples are endless.
‘And the way he treated my mother… One time she had to clean the water tank before it was even drained. She had to climb in and swim down and scrub with him watching. One time he screamed in her ear so loud her eardrum burst. She had to take a tray of burnt biscuits from the oven without any gloves on.
‘I’ve tried to ask her about it, about what would happen after he’d… order her upstairs, but she won’t… define it. She won’t press charges. Tristan and I, we would always see them. After church, he’d corner her, and she would submit, and then he’d push her up the stairs and follow her.
‘She won’t admit that by the time she found herself in that classroom, looking down at your mother, there was no way for her to make a good decision. All she ever did by that point was act in fear of what my father would do if she didn’t get it right.
‘And why do you think Tristan was so violent, so twisted, at such a young age? Where do you think Tristan learned it was okay to treat women like that? I think… I honestly think that if my father had just let himself be gay, maybe he wouldn’t have been like that.’
‘You talk about him like he’s dead.’
