‘Which one of us would do it?’
‘He targeted my daughter. It should be me.’
‘You’d really…?’
‘Could I actually just go in there and…? Let me think. Smother him? Yes, yes I could.’
‘We might not need to, Natasha. I’ve not been feeding him.’
‘You’ve been cutting back on his meals?’
‘I’ve not given him any food in seven days. Just water.’
‘He’s looking very gaunt, Annette. Do you mean you’ve been deliberately…?’
‘I want him dead. I hate him. This way we just say he wouldn’t eat, we say he…’
‘Refused food… we say he didn’t want to live any more with the pain of the cancer… we…’
‘We wait two more days. He can’t last out if we starve him.’
/
In his studio they looked at the paintings, many of them of themselves in the first flush of puberty, thin, uncomfortable, unhappy, all naked. Natasha remembered him painting Annette many times, then her turn came. She didn’t quite know what was going on. It’s art, darling, her mother insisted, keep still for Daddy and stop complaining. Her mother had practically pimped her. Creation from exploitation? That wasn’t art. Post-Jimmy Saville his reputation had crashed. Now he was reviled by many, his works removed from galleries. Quite right. Burn them all. A vile paedophile.
His sister though believed they had aesthetic value, said each haunted portrait revealed her mixed feelings: fear of her father and her unbreakable connection to him.
/
‘We’re free.’
‘I’ll never be free.’ Annette’s cheeks, hair, even her lips were grey. ‘Why would I have come back to care for him if I were free? My jailer.’
‘You have to move on.’
‘Like you? I suppose you’re a success in the eyes of the world.’
‘Screw the world. In my own eyes I’ve overcome my nightmares. I’m unchained.’
‘Yet you hate him as much as me.’
‘I thought he had changed, Annette. When he became older, he seemed gentler. But he kept his real self hidden. He was cunning, he fooled me. Just one occasion, just one, I let Louise out of my sight and he pounced. She was twelve. He didn’t do to her what he did to us. Just touching. Grooming her, you could say. Thank God she told me. She never returned to this evil house.’
‘I can’t trust men. I don’t want a relationship with anybody.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘You let your guard down for that brief moment. I can never relax.’
‘He’s dead.’
‘He’s in me. I’ve never wanted a child. I would’ve been scared of mistreating it, making an object out of it. He’s corrupted me.’
‘Listen? Hear them in the distance? Church bells.’
‘Welcoming in the new year.’
‘Make a resolution. This year find freedom, won’t you?’
The doorbell was ringing.
‘That must be the ambulance,’ Annette said nervously. ‘He wouldn’t eat. We tell them that. Agreed?’
‘Trust me. Just for once feel safe.’ Natasha touched her sister’s chilly hand, then went to the front-door.
