The Bone Clocks

“Thing is about my father, there were two of him. The public one, the pillar of the community. And the indoors one, who was a cruel, twisted, lying control freak, to put it nicely. Rules, he loved rules. Rules about dirt in the house. How the table had to be laid. Which way the toothbrushes faced. What books were allowed in the house. Which radio stations—we had no television. Rules that kept changing because, see, he wantedmy mother and me to break them, so he could punish us. Punishment was a length of lead piping, padded with cotton wool so the skin wouldn’t show it. After the punishment, we had to thank him. My mother, too. If we weren’t thankful enough, it’d be round two.”

“Bloody hell, Gwyn. Even when you were little?”

“It was always his way. His da’d done the same.”

“And your mum just … stayed put and let him?”

“If you’ve not been through it, you can’t understand, not really. Lucky you, I say. Control is about fear, see. If you’re afraid enough of the reprisals, you don’t say no, you don’t fight back, you don’t run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. Horrible, but normal. Horrible, because it’s normal. Now, lucky you can say, ‘Not standing up to him is giving him permission,’ but if you’ve been fed this diet since the year dot, there isno standing up. Victims aren’t cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a clue how brave you have to be just to carry on. My mum had nowhere to go, see. No brothers, no sisters, both her parents dead by the time she married. Da’s rules kept us cut off. Making friends down in the village was being neglectful of home, and that meant the pipe. I was too scared to make friends at school. Asking anyone home was out of the question, and asking to go and play at other houses meant you were ungrateful, being ungrateful meant the pipe. A lot of method in that man’s madness.”

Alan Wall’s gone in. His shirt and jeans hang, dripping.

“Couldn’t you or your mum report your dad?”

“Who to? Da sang in Bangor choir with a judge and a magistrate. He charmed my teachers. A social worker? It was our word against his, and Da was a war hero, with a commendation for bravery from the Korean War, if you please. Mum was a husk of a woman, on Valium, and I was a messed-up teenager, who could hardly string a sentence together. And his final threat,” Gwyn adds a note of false jollity, “on my last night at home, was to describe how he’d kill Mum and me, if I tried to blacken his name. Like he was describing a DIY job. And how he’d get away with it. I won’t spell out what he’d just done to me to bring things to that pass, but what you’re probably suspecting, it’s that. I was fifteen.” Gwyn steadies her voice and I wish I’d not started this. “Your age now, right?” I’ve nodded before I know it. “Five years ago, this. Mum knew what he did to me—it’s a small cottage—but she didn’t dare try to stop him. The day after it happened I left for school with some clothes in my gym bag, and I’ve not set foot in Wales since. Any more smokes, by the way?”

“Gary’s are gone, so we’re back to mine.”

“I much prefer Rothmans, if I’m honest.”

I pass her the box. “It’s Sykes. My name.”

She nods. “Holly Sykes. I’m Gwyn Bishop.”

“I thought you were Gwyn Lewis.”

“They’ve both got an iand an sin them.”

“What happened after you left Wales?”

“Manchester, Birmingham, semi-homeless, homeless. Begging in the Bull Ring shopping center. Sleeping in squats, in flats of friends who weren’t so friendly after all. Surviving. Barely. It’s one miracle I’m here to tell the tale, and another that I dodged getting sent back—until you’re eighteen, see, all Social Services’ll do is pass you back to the local authority you came from. I still have nightmares about my father welcoming home the prodigal daughter while the liaison officer looks on, thinking, All’s well that ends well, and then my father after he’s locked the door. Now, why I’m telling you this tale of joy and light is to show you how bad it has to be before running away is a smart move. Once you’ve fallen through the cracks, you don’t get out. It’s taken me five years until I can dare to think the worst is behind me. Thing is, I look at you, and—” She breaks off ’cause a boy on a bike’s skidded to a halt smack bang in front of us. “Sykes,” he says.

Ed Brubeck? Ed Brubeck. “What’re youdoing here?”

His hair’s spiky with sweat. “Looking for you.”

“Don’t tell me you cycled? What ’bout school?”

“Maths exam this morning, but I’m free now. Put my bike on the train and just rode over from Sheerness. Look—”

“You must reallywant your baseball cap back.”

“The cap doesn’t matter, Sykes, but we need—”

“Hang on—how did you know where to find me?”

“I didn’t, but I remembered talking about Gabriel Harty’s farm, so I phoned him earlier. No Holly Sykes, he said, only a Holly Rothmans. I thought it might be you, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

Gwyn mutters, “I’m saying nothing.”