Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen (ap literature book list txt) 📗

and so does the blanket in the cot and all the dirty clothes on the floor. Even my dolly’s hair has a stinky smell, and sometimes I can’t get to sleep because of the stench that hangs in the air after Daddy uses the bucket late at night.

There is a glass dish next to Mammy’s bed that’s piled high with ash and the end bits of cigarettes, and I can still smell the smoke from last night. It mustn’t smell that bad to Mammy though, because she never empties the bucket or the ashtray, even when they are full, and she always sleeps very deeply, like nothing bothers her at all.

I stare at her face. Some days her cheeks are red and puffy, but Mammy always puts bright-red lipstick on at night to sit in the chair and have a drink, or to do her knitting while she listens to country and western music or watches the news. This morning she’s still wearing her lipstick. It’s a little bit smudged, like the way it looked when I put it on my dolly once, but there are no sores spoiling Mammy’s face today, so that’s good.

There was a fight downstairs last night.

This one began like lots of others, when Daddy came in from the pub. It was very late when I heard his key in the lock, but I was still wide awake. I couldn’t sleep because my head was really itchy, and I couldn’t stop scratching it.

I felt scared when I heard the front door creak open, wondering what would happen. I held my breath, listening to see if Mammy and Daddy would start shouting or hitting each other.

‘You’re a selfish bastard!’ Mammy yelled, and my heart went cold. ‘You’re a good-for-nothing lazy bastard!’

I heard her race across the room into the hallway and hit Daddy lots of times with her fists. I think he slapped her across the face, because I recognized the sound it made from when Mammy slapped my face. ‘Fuck off, you mad whore!’ Daddy yelled. ‘Get away from me, you madwoman. Go back to your sherry.’

I didn’t want to hear any more. It made me so sad and afraid, and I wanted it all to stop for ever. Even though Mammy isn’t ever kind to me, and Daddy doesn’t seem to notice me, I want them to be happy. Then maybe I will be happy too.

I buried my head deep under my blanket, held my hands tightly over my ears and said a little prayer. ‘Please God, can you make everything nice and quiet? Amen.’

I think He might have heard me, because when I woke up, Daddy had already gone to work, and Mammy was fast asleep under the coat.

Now the house is ever so quiet. All I can hear is the birds and the rustling of trees in the breeze outside the window, and Mammy breathing deeply.

When I hear the rag-and-bone man outside, shouting, ‘Any old rags! Any old rags!’ I climb out of the cot and peep through a tiny crack in the side of the blanket on the window to catch a glimpse, making sure I don’t let too much light in and wake Mammy.

I scuttle around quietly in my bare feet, knowing full well that if I make any noise or knock one of Mammy’s holy statues off the sideboard by mistake there will be big trouble.

I watch the rag-and-bone man for ages, longing to run down the street after him. I see him give a little girl a bright-yellow balloon and wish I could have one too. Mammy won’t let me open the front door or go out on my own.

Sometimes we didn’t have enough money to pay the rent or the milkman, so Mammy never let any of us kids open the door, in case it was someone ‘knockin’ for money we don’t have’.

Even when I was allowed to play in the street with the older ones, all of us had to use the back door.

Today, I can see other little ones out for a stroll with their mammies, but my mammy never takes me anywhere. A neighbour goes by. She has lots of little kids but still looks like a teenager, she’s so fashionable in her patterned mini skirt with her hair all piled up. She’s holding hands with two of her children as they walk to the shops, all of them chattering and laughing.

Mammy doesn’t like her. ‘Look at her - she looks like an ol’ whore! A prostitute!’ she said the first time she ever clapped eyes on her. ‘No married woman should dress like that!’

I wondered why Mammy said that and what it all meant. The neighbour was a very nice mammy. I wished my mammy would get herself washed and dress up in nice clothes. I wished she would take me for a walk with her hair all done and talk to me and make me laugh, but she never once did. My mammy wore dirty dresses with cigarette ash spilled down the front, and she hardly ever left the house.

We had a television downstairs, but if anybody asked what was on, the answer was usually ‘on the bloody blink’. I wasn’t allowed to touch anything like that while Mammy slept. Sometimes Peter and I made up games with a couple of dolls that had been scribbled on with biro, or some old wooden blocks. We made the dollies whack and kick each other to pass the time.

It was always cold in the house in the daytime, because the fire was never lit until Mammy got up. My bare feet stung every time they hit the ice-cold lino, and you could see your breath in front of you on winter days.

Sometimes I would root out some old clothes from under the stairs. There were always loads of bags of stuff. Daddy brought them home after there had been a jumble sale at the town hall, and seeing as we didn’t have wardrobes, it all