Hello, Emily? Come down right now, somethings happening, her fathers voice crackles over the phone, panicked and pleading. Emily snorts, then asks what the emergency is.
The neighbours are in a drunken brawl again. The blokes shouting hell kill her, shes screaming hes trying to get me out, and now theyre pounding on the door, Emily! Theyll kill me, I swear
When they actually try to kill you, give me a call. Do you need a lesson in common sense? Prop a chair in the door, maybe they wont drag you out on a whim.
Dont
Dont be youre a proper lad, you know that. If I dont suit you, you can go live with your favourite son and let him foot the bill and cater to your whims, she mutters sarcastically.
They both hang up before Emily can think of a retort, though she certainly could have found one.
Emily grew up in what most would call a respectable, modest family. Her mother died when she was very young, so her father John, a competent turner, raised her alone.
On paper the family seemed ordinary, but hidden in the wardrobe were a few skeletonswell, more like a buried past. The main one was Emilys grandmother, Mary, Johns mother.
Mary, after whom Emily is named, is a rather peculiar character. In Emilys eyes shes an old selfobsessed hag, though proper young ladies would call her eccentric instead.
Her eccentricity lies in the fact that, despite being well past pension age and having no medical diagnosis, she behaves as if shes in the final stage of dementia. She never gets out of bed, does her business on the mattress, and if circumstances force her to smear it on the wall, shes furious when relatives tile over the spot and lay a waterproof sheet beneath the sheets.
She loves food, but only the bestmeat, fish, and, of course, chocolate. Not those cheap cocoa tablets that pensioners used to buy for tea back in Emilys childhood, but genuine Belgian chocolate, which isnt cheap.
John earns a decent wage as a machinistnothing extravagant, but enough to keep the household afloat. Almost all of it goes to pamper Mary and satisfy her endless cravings.
They live together in a cramped council flat with four rooms: one for Mary, one for John and Emily, plus a pair of Polish migrant tenants and another ordinary English family.
The neighbourhoods own set of problems comes from the usual rowdy locals. They love a pint and a good ruckus, then either confront neighbours or try to make peace. No one dares to visit Marys room after a nasty incident with a neighbours targeted artillery left them scarred; they swore never to cross that threshold again.
Emily, however, is often bullied. The drunken lads have no children of their own, so after a night of heavy drinking theyre keen to lay a hand on someones kid. When Emily starts pulling away from Aunt Lindas company, they can slap or pinch her. She complains to her father, who merely tells her to stay out of the hallway, prop a chair in the door, and either sleep or watch TV until he returns from work.
One night she does as told, using an old flower pot to do her business. The loving dad pot tips over and smacks her on the head. Its not the worst thingEmily cant even approach Mary, the neighbours arent drinking every night, and the house always has food on the table.
She does feel slighted that John buys the finest treats for Mary while she, his daughter, subsists on cheap pasta and bargain sausages. But everyone else in the building lives similarly, so she never raised a serious complaintat least not as a child.
When Emily turns thirteen, John decides to revive his personal life and brings Claire into the flat. Claire immediately starts rearranging things, insisting that only she and John occupy the master bedroom. You cant have a love life with a child sleeping in the next room! she declares. Its also improper for Emily to share a room with her father; a grown man and a teenage girl ought to have separate spaces.
John moves Claire into the spare roomMarys old room. Mary greets the newcomer cheerfully, never expecting that Emilys toughened school fights would make her react violently the first time someone tried to splash her with a smelly liquid. Emilys warning, delivered with a cold grip on the neck and a whisper, Try me, you old witch, and Ill strangle you in my sleep, scares Mary so much she never complains to John again.
Claire, meanwhile, continues to enjoy the delicacies John brings home. Her own income has risen, and she can afford clothes, cosmetics, and café outings with friends.
Which class are you in now? Stop school, get a job, and look after your mother, John says, echoing the oldfashioned expectations. Emilys protestsshe wants to study and earn a proper qualificationare met with a sarcastic demand to leave the house if shes unhappy.
At sixteen, Emily forges her fathers signature to enroll in college. She works hard, making sure no one ever feels the need to call parents to school, and keeps the lie hidden. She tells everyone her dad works overtime to pay for Marys care. She cleans floors at a nearby shopping centre at night to earn a stipend boost.
From her first salary she finally tastes the Belgian chocolate shed never had before.
After college she builds a career, unexpectedly finding her calling in accounting and analytics. Over the next twentyplus years she becomes a respected professional and amasses a solid nest egg.
She marries, has a son and a daughter, and lives the life the older generation would call welldone. She never thinks of her father during all this. One and a half years ago, a gaunt, older John shows up at her doorstep, having lost his home after a botched property transfer to his son from a second marriage, divorced from Claire, and buried Mary.
His new son, now an estranged adult, tells him he doesnt need his father, and John, desperate, turns to Emily for help.
Emily assists, but only enough to settle the old debtsnothing more, nothing less. She finds a modest flat that she and her brother inherited from their mother. Her brother, halfway unstable, refuses to sell his share or buy hers, so she lists the place at a low price to cover the downpayment.
Ill take it, she says brightly.
Are you sure? A respectable woman like you what will you do with it?
Im not buying for myself, she tells the estate agent, and a week later she moves John and his few belongings into the perfect little home, saying, Make yourself comfortable, this is now your house.
A dark, vengeful satisfaction settles in her as she hears Johns complaints and watches him fume over the different treatment he receives from her compared with his late wife.
Emily calls her motherwho, unlike the nightmarish grandmother of her childhood, never exploits relatives time or moneyand chooses expensive birthday gifts for her, even sending her and her husband on a weeklong overseas retreat.
I raised you, Emily. I taught you what I could, John complains.
And Im supporting you now, Dad, just as I can. Heres the same grey pasta you fed me while your wife ate fancy ham, and the twopack of cheap sausages on saleI thought of you, see how caring I am? Unlike you, you still have a pension you can splurge on, Emily retorts.
You ungrateful John sighs, glancing at the sausage packets.
She doesnt fling them at him. She knows if she shows the same arrogance he showed in her youth, shell end up penniless, and the little inheritance she carved out for him would vanish.
Im grateful, Dad. I return the favour tenfold, she says.
Friends say shes too kind to a treacherous father and should just leave him to rot on the street. But Emily never wished her father dead; he never abandoned her to a childrens home and, at the very least, cared for her. She now treats him as she was taughta rare, begrudging kindness, reserving love and care only where theyre deserved.
