Warriors

                             Warriors                                

“Eat it.”

He said the words quietly, in the low growl I had learned was more dangerous than the yelling. But the yelling came after. It always did.

The slice of bread stared up at me from the plate like an innocent bystander. I looked at it carefully, trying to find a part that wasn’t covered in green, furry mold. I flinched as he slammed his fist on the table making the plates and glasses rattle.

“All of it,” he bellowed as if reading my mind.

I didn’t look at him, keeping my eyes down as I reached for the slice of bread, holding it tentatively between my thumbs and forefingers as I lifted it to my mouth. It was the smell that hit me first. A yeasty smell; damp, musty, fermenting.  I nibbled at a corner as my mouth filled with the taste of wet dirt. My stomach contracted in protest followed by the acrid burn of bile hitting the back of my throat. I swallowed it back down.

I didn’t look at him, but I could feel his eyes on me as I ate. The silent pleasure as he watched me consume every last bite. Another pair of eyes, equally silent, watched fearfully from the corner. I knew she was trying not to cry.

“Good,” he said quietly when I had finished. “So what have you learned today Lisa?”

“Not to leave moldy food in the fridge,” I said.

“Very good,” he hesitated, “and?”

“I’m sorry.”

The chair scraped the tiled floor as he stood up. I glanced at him, quickly scanning his face for clues to his demeanor. This could go either way and I needed to be ready. From the corner, a whimper. I shot her a glance, imploring her to be quiet.

“Well I guess I’ll be having breakfast at McDonald’s,” he said with a sigh. He turned back to me, his lip curled into a sneer. “Mouldy bread!” he spat, “Useless bloody wife!”

“I’m sorry,” I said again, taking care to keep my expression neutral. Hope flickered in my chest as he grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, slung it over his shoulder, and walked towards the front door.

The air became suddenly still, heavy as if holding its breath. Cahira and I didn’t move, our eyes silently finding each other’s across the room until we heard the front door slam, the purr of the ignition, a blast of music, and a screech of tires as he drove away.

Clutching my stomach, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

When I came back into the kitchen Cahira was cross-legged on the floor, doll in each hand, talking softly in a sing-song voice. It struck me again how normal this was for her, that she could go back to playing as if nothing had happened.

“Come on sweetie,” I said, “time for school.”

“Can Esmeralda come?” she said holding up one of the dolls. It had a painted smile, disproportionately large eyes, and bright red hair.

“Of course,” I smiled.

Normally after dropping Cahira at school, I would go straight home and start my chores. Yesterday Ray had noticed a smudge on one of the windows, had made a show of breathing on it and rubbing it with his shirt sleeve as I stood frozen to the spot.

“I buy you a beautiful home,” he had muttered under his breath, “and you can’t even be bothered to keep it clean.”

“I’m sorry” I had said, keeping my eyes down, bracing myself for the slap, the shove, at the very least a tirade of verbal abuse, but there was nothing.

“I’m too soft on you Lisa,” he said as he pushed past me down the stairs.

Today I would clean the windows. I would clean the fridge. And of course, I would vacuum, dust the furniture, mop the floor, do the laundry, and make dinner. Like every day.

But I didn’t go straight home. I went to the park opposite the school and sat on a bench.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a different version of me once. Strong, independent, with dreams of my own. It was the summer of 2011, and I had a place at university to study nursing that September. I was sharing a flat with my best friend Steph, living a life of late nights, parties, greasy takeaways, and laughter. Lots of laughter. Ray used to come into the coffee shop where I worked. Every day he ordered the same thing. Bacon sandwich on white bread with ketchup and a flat white coffee. He always left me a tip. Sometimes I would catch him watching me when he didn’t think I was looking. One day he asked me out. “Can I take you out?” he said, “A coffee? Dinner? Anything you like.”

“OK,” I said.

Ray was older than me, the owner of a construction firm, and as he liked to tell everyone, a self-made man. He wore shiny shoes and drove an even shinier car. He bought me flowers and took me to restaurants with leather-bound menus, white tablecloths, and ice buckets. When I talked about my life or wanting to be a nurse he started looking around the room or fiddling with his cufflinks. Soon Ray was picking out my dresses and shoes, telling me to wear less makeup and to change my hair. Steph had a toy poodle called Bonnie that used to snarl at Ray every time he came round.

“There’s something off about that Ray,” Steph said. “Dogs know these things.” But by then, I already loved him.

It was in mid-August that I discovered I was pregnant. I sat on the bathroom floor for an hour staring at the two pink lines wondering what to do.

“S’pose we better get married,” said Ray, so we did. A rainy registry office do with Steph as my bridesmaid and an old college friend of Ray’s as best man. Flowers and dinners soon became a thing of the past. Replaced by a drip-feed of criticism and barbed comments that soon turned to slaps and shoves. I was seven months gone when he kicked me in the stomach in a fit of rage about an unemptied bin. That night I sat alone on another bathroom floor for a long time before I realized the cramps were something more. The rest of the night passed in a blur. The scream of an ambulance, blue lights reflected in the paramedic`s glasses as he smiled a kind smile, myself drenched in sweat as a calm voice told me to push. The next morning it felt like a dream as they took me to see her, in a room of clear plastic boxes, bleeping machines, and endless tubes. I gazed in wonder at this tiny miracle in the incubator, at her translucent skin and beating heart, at her wrinkled fingers and screwed-shut eyes. I spent my days by her incubator willing her to hold on. Ray came to visit once, barely able to hide a sneer as he peered into the incubator as if examining a piece of gone-off meat.  “Can’t even produce a proper kid” he muttered before walking away. I called her Cahira which means “warrior” and she was. Small, feisty, and lightning-fast, at five she was now a whizz on the football pitch, belly achingly funny and the sweetest person I knew.

A laugh pulled me out of my thoughts, and I looked across the road to the school playground. It was alive with whoops, laughter, and excitable chatter as a stampede of children descended the steps for breaktime. I scanned the playground for her face, past the girls jumping rope, another pair playing with dolls, and a group of boys kicking a deflated ball. Then I found her. She was in the corner of the playground, half-hidden by bushes, hands on her hips as if engaged in some kind of standoff. Intrigued, I stood up and approached the school, using the bushes as cover so she wouldn’t know I was spying on her.

As I got closer I saw them. Three boys, a couple of years older and more than twice her size had her backed into a corner. The biggest, a chubby kid with a round face and mousy hair stood flanked by two skinnier boys. He said something I couldn’t hear, causing the skinny boys to laugh in unison. I crept closer, anger burning in my chest as the situation became clear.

“Giveusit!”

I stood behind the thickest bush, the leaves tickling my cheeks as I peered through the foliage.

Cahira drew herself up to her full height, folded her arms across her chest, and stuck out her chin. In her hand was one of the chocolate chip cookies we had made at the weekend. I had wrapped it in a paper towel that morning and put it in her lunch box beside her peanut butter sandwich and apple.

“NO,” she said.

“I want the cookie! Give me it!”

“NO!” she yelled again.

The biggest boy lunged toward her, as with lightning speed, Cahira jumped to the side causing him to lose his balance and land face down in the dust. The two skinny boys laughed. Cahira took a bite of her cookie, and chewed slowly, glaring at the boy as he got to his feet, spitting grit and leaves from his mouth, and brushing dirt from his knees. He scowled and lunged again, as she darted to the side sending him face-first into the fence. The skinny boys howled with laughter.

“Get her!!” one of them yelled and they leered towards Cahira who ducked in the nick of time making the boys crash into each other. She surveyed them coolly, chin tilted in defiance as she popped the last of the cookie into her mouth and chewed. The two skinny boys rubbed their heads where they had collided, the bigger boy, red-faced and flustered stared as he leaned against the chain-link fence trying to catch his breath.

“If you’d asked nicely, I would’ve shared the cookie,” said Cahira before skipping away.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake until the small hours, thinking. About me. About Ray. About Cahira. About when I had lost myself and let him take over. And what I had to do to get myself back.  

The next morning when Ray was at work and Cahira at school, I dialled her number.

“Lisa?” She answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting for me to call, though it had been over five years.

“Hi Steph,” I said.

We talked a bit about normal things. She’d moved to a flat in East London. Was working in a bar. Bonnie had died. It was a while before I told her. About Cahira. About Ray. About all of it.

“I tried to keep in touch,” she said eventually, “I was worried about you Lis.”

I remembered the arguments in the beginning. The endless silences. Ray didn’t like Steph, he said. Women like Steph were lonely and bitter. She was jealous of me, he said. Wanted to break us up, to make herself feel better. In the end, it was just easier not to return her calls.

“I’m sorry Steph,” I said.

“What are you going to do?” she said.

When we had finished talking I deleted the call, just like I deleted all our other calls. I deleted all the calls to my lawyer too, and my browser history. I set up a new email he knew nothing about. Every week I squirrelled away money from the housekeeping. £10 here £20 there, keeping them rolled up in a boot at the back of the wardrobe. One I was no longer allowed to wear.

The lawyer was a woman called Jane. We met in her office on the other side of town, where I wouldn’t run into Ray.

“You have rights, Lisa,” she told me, “You`ll certainly get at least half the house and custody of Cahira if not more.” She smiled at me, “You can start again.”

It was six months later that I got the email confirming my place at university. My smile was so wide, I had trouble hiding it as Ray sat opposite me at breakfast. But he didn’t notice.

It was almost a year later that I stood in my kitchen, my mouth dry, my stomach churning and my heart doing backflips in my chest as I waited for him to come home. I had spent the day packing, loading the suitcases into the boot of Steph’s car, and strapping Cahira into the back seat before Steph drove off to wait around the corner.

“Come now Lis,” pleaded Steph through the driver's window, “Let`s just go. Let your lawyer deal with him.”

I shook my head. This was something I needed to do myself.

I stood rooted to the spot as I heard his car pull into the driveway, lively music floated into the room followed by an abrupt silence as it was switched off. I listened to his footsteps approach, the jingle of his keys in the lock. The tap of his shiny shoes on the polished linoleum floor. The kitchen door flew open.

He stared at me.

“What are you doing just standing there?” he said flinging his keys onto the counter. “Where`s my dinner?”

“I haven’t made you dinner Ray, “I said.  

“Well you better get on with it,” he growled, putting his briefcase down on the table,  “I`m bloody starving.”

“No.”

He stared at me as if he had been slapped, “What did you just say?”

“I said no.”

He glared at me.“ Make. My. Dinner. Now”

“No.”

I watched as Ray`s neck began to turn pink, the colour rising to his chin and spreading upwards towards his cheeks before turning a deep shade of puce.

It was then that he noticed it. The large manila envelope in my hands. “I`m divorcing you, Ray,” I said, holding it towards him.

“You wouldn’t dare.” He lunged towards me, his hand flying up and around my throat in seconds as he shoved me back against the kitchen counter. We were inches apart, so close I could smell the cheese and onion crisps on his breath. Images flashed into my mind. Cahira, tiny and pink in the incubator, fighting for every breath. Arms folded, staring up at a bully twice her size. A single word, “No.”

 I looked him dead in the eyes.

“My lawyer says I`ll get the house,” I said, “and full custody of Cahira, and of course child support.”

He snorted a laugh, “You`ll be lucky..”

“I`ve kept a journal for the past year, I`ve documented every insult, every slap, and every shove. I`ve kept every abusive text. I`ve photographed every bruise.”

His grip around my throat loosened. He took a step back, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

“Lisa, come on….” His voice was soft now, his eyes pleading. He lifted his hand and I flinched as he gently stroked my cheek.

“ I know I`ve got some anger issues, “ he continued, “I`ll get help. Please. Let`s go out for dinner eh? Like we used to. We can talk about this.”

“No,” I said.

Placing the manilla envelope on the table, I kept my eyes focused on the kitchen door, my heart pounding, and my knees about to buckle as I walked away. I kept walking. Through the polished hall and out of the front door. Down the narrow path and through the garden gate. Along the tree-lined street and around the corner until I reached Steph`s car.

I didn’t look back.