Episode 16

Previously…

Then she saw her father and knew this was actually what it had been all about: the final confrontation. And he didn’t disappoint. He was full steam ahead, bearing down on them like a battleship.

Beulah stopped and waited for the inevitable, resigned to her fate. Samuel walked straight over to her and slapped her in the face…in public…in front of her boyfriend. She hardly flinched. In fact there was a faint smile of victory on her face, which turned Samuels’s blood to lava. Not wanting to kill his daughter, he turned and punched Jack in the nose and knocked the big jock on his behind.

And this was the moment she lost her innocence. This was the moment the old, childish Beulah died, and Beulah the hard-bitten bitch was born. 
And now...

To calm his fevered brain from the blood-letting nightmares ahead and behind, he sits and watches the old lady as she sleeps, her arduous breathing rattling through her ribs…in, out, in, out, each one seemingly her last. She is very precious to him.

Then, in what seems like no time at all, the messenger is up again and loading the camel. The night is still and he moves in whispers, trying to give the old lady a few extra minutes of sleep. But soon they are ready and have to wake her. Sleepily she allows herself to be hoisted onto the camel and clings to the saddle pommel. Silently they move off down the road, the sacrificial fires still burning brightly ahead of them in the pre-dawn darkness.

The boy walks next to the old lady's foot as it bumps against the camel’s side. He feels happy there. Warm. He can feel she is his only link to what he can't remember…to something he loves. He strokes the camel’s fur near her foot. It is amazingly soft. He listens mesmerically to the quiet puft, puft of the camel’s feet padding in the dirt and falls asleep on his feet.

When he opens his eyes he is in another world. It is daylight and they have stopped moving. In front of them stands the wall…a great, red, sandstone wall…and the biggest wooden gate he has ever seen. It is easily two hundred feet high and a hundred feet wide. On the door is painted from side to side, an eye. An eye with a pink eyelid, white and blue eyeball, and a black iris. It seems to stare them through and through. It stares unblinkingly at the whole land as if keeping watch for any intruders. The boy finds it very personal and unsettling, asking him questions he cannot answer, making him squirm under its all-seeing gaze. He tells himself he is being silly and purposefully looks away, concentrating on the structure above the door. The wall is so massive that on the huge arch above the gate there is a giant temple in the shape of a pyramid, built with snow white marble, that glints and glitters in the sunlight. It shimmers and shifts as if it is taking place in some higher realm. There are steps cut in the front and sides of the temple that slope upwards towards the peak. He shades his eyes against the sun and squints to try and see the top. The fires are still burning along the top of the wall, plumes of black smoke rising at regular intervals into the hot blue sky. There is one central column of white smoke twirling up from a brazier at the very top of the temple. This was no doubt to guide and assist the liberated soul on its journey upwards.

As he looks on, thousands of men dressed in long black robes appear along the battlements of the walls, their number stretching out of sight on either side. As one they lift their trumpets and send a blast of coppery noise out towards the little trio who stand dwarfed by the gigantic proceedings in front of them. Simultaneously a line of men in white robes appear on either side of the steps at the bottom of the temple and begin climbing upwards. A little swirl of white near the centre of the stone steps catches the boy’s eye. He sees it is a young girl in a diaphanous white robe, as light as a cloud, drifting up the central staircase. He feels a pain strike at his heart. She looks so beautiful, even from this distance. He turns to the messenger frantically.

“Is she the one? The sacrifice?”

“Yes.”

“You must stop them. She mustn't die for me. You must stop them.”

“There is nothing I can do. I told you. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it. It has been preordained.”

“But they are going to kill her.”

“She has been trained for this moment. For her it is a great honour to be able to give her life for one such as you. She has been looking forward to this moment for many years…preparing herself and keeping herself pure. She will bring much glory on her family and her name will live forever. She will become one of the immortals.”

The boy looks towards her again, his forehead wrinkled with anxiety.

“They mustn't do it,” he says and begins running towards the gate.

“Stop it!” He shouts, waving his arms to get their attention. “Stop it…..Please.” But they are too high and far away to hear, and would not have heeded his call anyway.

The white robed priests have reached the top. They array themselves around the altar and wait for the girl to arrive. The trumpets strike another golden chord into the dawn, and simultaneously Clytemnestra bawls out her song of agony as if in sympathy. Senjur taps the boy on his shoulder and points behind them. There, not far off, is a burbling cloud of dust, churning its way towards them at an alarming speed. The camel hucks and bucks and frets at her bridle; mad, black eyes rolling in her head. She is nearly out of her mind with panic. The boy feels much the same.

He turns to look at the temple again. The girl has reached the top and a priest, for so he looks, being garbed in red and gold, is performing some kind of a blessing over her. Then, though he can only barely see this against the glare of the sun, the girl lets her robe drop to the floor and climbs onto the marble white slab of the altar.

“GGGAAAARRRRRRR.” The camel expresses the boy’s feelings absolutely. He is struck immobile and mute now…the terrible scene too much for his little mind.

A knife flashes in the sunlight but the boy falls to his knees and sees no more. He doesn't see the blood begin to flow down the chutes at the sides of the temple and run towards the pillars of the gate. He doesn’t see the blood drip down onto the ancient hinges. He doesn’t see the devil huntress riding hard through the cloud of dust behind them.

“It won't be long now,” says Senjur, holding the frantic camel fast. “We must get ready to run.”

With a great clang, the bolts slide back and the gates begin ponderously to open.  With one flowing movement, Senjur hoists the boy to his feet.

“Run. Don’t let her have died in vain.” The boy wipes his tears and moves towards the gate, but the camel has gone into meltdown. Her wobbly knees know not whence nor where. They are no longer connected to her brain. Her toes dig into the sand and she refuses to move. Undaunted, Senjur goes round the back of her and taking her tail gently in his hand he bites down hard. Clytemnestra takes off like a racing camel. Had the old woman not been wedged in between the humps she would have flown off the back. The camel outstrips the boy in mere yards, heading like hell for the gates of doom.

Behind them come the demon woman and her Gravidores, running at such a pace that the backwash of their saliva looks like a comet trail behind them, racing to get to the boy before he reaches the gate.

Episode 15

Previously…
 

With a last look in the mirror, Beulah hid her high heel shoes in her handbag and stood for a moment at her bedroom door, listening for any signs of movement outside the trench. She snuck out and was just going past Joshua's door when she heard voices within. Perhaps she thought it was Joshua. Perhaps she thought it was Alice with a boy in her room, but to tell the truth she didn't really think at all. She simply turned the handle and went in.

Then came the shock of seeing two people who shouldn't have been there. The dog shit story just fell out of her mouth before her father had time to get a good look at her, thank god. He was out of the room with Alice and Beulah in tight tow, winding their way down the stairs. He peeled off into the kitchen and Beulah peeled off out the front door and disappeared into the night. Samuel didn’t even hear the door close.

   And now...

They can see the fires from miles away…a long line of them across the horizon, lighting up the night sky with an orange glow.

“What is it?” asks the boy.

“It is the wall,” says the messenger. “This is the first of the great walls that was built to protect the inner sanctum. This is where the city ends. Beyond these walls lies the great desert. Beyond these walls, things are not the same as here. They are…..different.”

“How, different.”

“The normal laws of nature don’t work here. Things are different. Time is different. You will see.”

The boy stares at the distant fires.

“We should reach it sometime tomorrow morning. But we must stop now and sleep for a while.” Senjur stops walking and the camel sinks to the sands, groaning her last by the sounds of it.

They had been keeping up a blistering pace for days now, snatching only a few hours sleep at the coldest part of the night and at the hottest part of the day. Otherwise they had kept moving - only too aware that the demon huntress was on their tail – but with no idea of how far behind them she was. Even the boy, fit and young as he was, had felt the strain of the journey. The old woman had stopped talking days ago, trying to conserve her energy, and only just managed to stay in the saddle. The poor camel in her turn also complained at every step of the way, although at one point they had come upon a small brackish pool of water where there’d been enough for her to have a drink and to fill the leather flasks.

Senjur begins unpacking and settles the old lady on the camel’s saddle in the sand while he goes about building a campfire and getting the food started. Immediately the boy sits down at her feet. She is shivering with cold…her thin cotton skirt hardly any defence against the desert night air. She pulls her threadbare shift around her shoulders and hunches forward over the boy’s head. Senjur completely understands the strange bond between them and accepts it for what it is. The boy takes her hand and rests it on her lap. He is getting bold now. Familiar. He can feel how thin her thigh bones are. She is as skinny as a rake. He lays his cheek against her bony knee and closes his eyes. Closer to paradise he has never been. She is his true love. To him she is a goddess, wise and wonderful, gentle and kind, patient and loving….never judging him, never correcting or criticising him. Who she really Is…or had been, has no relevance to him, nor her youth, nor the life she lost the day the desert dancers came.

The boy puts his other hand under her dress and rests it on her calf – but she does not stop him or pull away. She is quite comfortable with his advances and explorations. They sit like this quite contentedly until the food is ready.

After the meal the boy stares into the night at the fires in the distance. They fascinate him.

“Those are the welcome fires. Those fires are for you,” says the messenger matter-of-factly.

“Why? How do they know I’m here?”

“They know you are coming. They have been specially prepared for you. They are there to guide us. They have been waiting for us.”

“Why?” the boy asks again.

“There is a great gate we have to pass through, but for the gate to open requires a very special thing to be done.”

“What?” asks the boy.

The messenger looks at the boy, trying to evaluate how much information he can give him.

“There is to be a sacrifice. The gates cannot open unless there is a sacrifice…the blood of a virgin, to oil the hinges.”

It takes the boy a while to process this information…like a slow reader.

“A real one?” He doesn’t know how he knows about them…he just does. He remembers an altar…and a knife.

“A real one. With a real virgin,” replies the messenger.

“But why?”

“Virgins have immense power in this world.” Senjur shrugs as if it’s just a matter of fact.

“But I don't want anyone to be sacrificed for me?”

“It is not up to you. This has been prepared long ago.”

“But that's horrible.”

“No, it is beautiful. You do not understand. Things are different here.”

“But why me?”

The messenger looks at him with a puzzled expression as if he doesn’t quite know how to explain it in terms that the boy will understand.

“Because you are here,” is the best he can manage. But it is not enough.

The boy turns to look at the fires with worried eyes. Suddenly he is not so keen on going forward.

“We must sleep now,” says Senjur, getting up to help the old lady. She has fallen asleep sitting up, her food untouched in her lap.

But the boy can't sleep. Epic scenes of gory sacrifices run rampant through his mind…wild and terrible ceremonies burst out of the darkness at him…primitive dances and demented divas flinging themselves about in a frenzy of blood-lust…and as always, a vision of the demon woman hunting hot on his tail.

*

Samuel’s knuckles gleamed white by the light of the dashboard as he gripped the steering wheel. The old car smelt stuffy. He smelt stuffy with his old starched prison-blue pants and polyester shirt.

“You look just the same,” said Alice conversationally.

No reply from the driver’s seat.

“Did you think of me?”

Nothing.

Alice turned on the radio and found some Country and Western music. ‘Your cheating heart, will tell on you,’ sang the warbling cowboy. Samuel lent forward and turned it off.

“I think of you often,” she said.

She put her hand on his thigh and he nearly jumped out of the window.

“Don't do that,” he shouted.

“For god’s sake, I'm just being affectionate. Can't I even be friendly with you anymore?”

“Sorry. I'm not very comfortable with this. I got other things on my mind.”

“I know. I'm just trying to relax you. You’re wound up like a cheap alarm clock,” she said and rested her hand ever so lightly on his thigh again. Then she sat back in her seat and smiled to herself.

Alice watched the headlights searching the road ahead of them. So far they had lit up a cat that had bolted across in front of them at the last minute, causing Samuel to slam on the brakes, and a child's bicycle that someone had left lying in the road.

“I miss you, you know.”

Nothing.

“You're supposed to say you missed me too.”

“I'm looking for my daughter….”

“And she doesn't want you to find her and I agree with her. Just leave her alone. She's a big girl now. It's time she found out what's what.”

“She's not of legal age. She's still a minor…..”

“What is it with you and legal age? You and your obsession with the law and sticking to the rules. Is it because you were so naughty with me when we were young?”

She watched his knuckles tighten even more on the steering wheel. They had been more than a little fond of each other as children. When she was eleven and he, thirteen, he had shown her his penis. Of course she had shown him everything in return. She loved her brother. They had flirted on and off with each other until she had gone to university and he had got married. As children they had kissed and snuggled and basically been completely inappropriate with each other. They often slept together in the same bed, with much fumbling and bumbling and accidental touching…something they had been doing on that unfortunate night when Clara had come back unexpectedly. Alice had talked her way into his bed ‘just once for old time’s sake’. Sure, it hadn't been as completely innocent as they had professed, but Clara must've known that they really hadn't done anything, or else she wouldn't have continued living with him. And Samuel wasn't the man to lie about it.

But Alice hadn't been allowed to visit anymore. So when this opportunity had presented itself, she was determined to make the most of it.

Alice had become fixated on Samuel from a very early age and had never hooked up with anyone else. Her heart was booked, and her Goth façade was very good at keeping away unwanted flies.

As for Samuel, in his mind it was just innocent affection, but in his body he was hungry for her…and as the song goes, he had to ‘keep a close watch on this heart of mine’ – wrap it in chains and throw away the key - good jailor that he was. And speaking of prison talk, another phrase came to mind. ‘Dead man walking.’ He'd never really come alive with anyone but her. The rest of his life seemed to be a tedious treadmill.

Samuel slowed down to peer at a bunch of teenagers wandering along the pavement.

“I don't even know what this guy looks like.”

Alice kept very quiet by his side. They drove slowly down the main street until…..

“There it is. That's his car.” Samuel screeched to a halt next to a Camaro and peered inside. Nothing. The birds had flown.

“Let's have a look. They have to be here somewhere.”

“Sam wait. This is not the way to do it…..just for me….wait…”

But Samuel was out of the car and marching down the road before she'd finished talking. At that moment she saw Beulah and her boyfriend coming out of the churchyard gate a little way down the road. Samuel had seen them too and was walking towards them with murder in his eyes.

Beulah took one look at her dad and knew that her life, as she knew it, was over. It was over anyway. It had ended back there in the churchyard…a suitable place for a death.

Jack had thought it a suitable place for love making, having rejected the back seat of his car because he didn’t want to stain his leather upholstery.

‘Rather leave a stain on my soul’, she thought, God forbid. She wasn’t religious, went to Mass only at Christmas mostly, but this was serious cash – sex outside the bonds of matrimony – on holy ground. But the townsfolk had probably been doing it here for generations, and she suddenly wondered whether she had been conceived here…up against the church wall - and then baptised in the hall.

‘What a place to lose my virginity,’ she had thought as he had escorted her through the gate, on top of which was a statue of the Virgin Mary welcoming them with open arms. All this irony was lost on Jack of course as he practically dragged her into the yard, her high heels sinking into the soft turf. In the shadow of the buttresses she could make out other couples already on the job. Sex outside on Saturday night, confession inside on Sunday morning.

She trod on something slippery and nearly fell. When she leant over to take a closer look, she jumped back with a yell. It was a used condom. Looking around she saw many more littering the lawn.

“Oh dear Jesus, this is gross.”

The priest of the parish thought so too, for he had to go around early every morning and pick them up.

“There we go,” said Jack, flicking them out of the way with the side of his shoe.

“You want me to lie in that.” She was outraged beyond belief.

“Why not. No one’s complained before.”

“Who's no one?”

“Everyone. And why did you wear those stupid pants. It’ll take forever to get them off and you can't walk around here stark naked.”

Beulah turned and began walking away.

“Come on babe. Don't be such a prude.”

“A prude? Are you crazy. This is disgusting. How could you even think of bringing me here?”  And it wasn’t only condoms that littered the lawn. The smell of dog shit came back to haunt her for the lie she had told her dad.

Her dream had popped like a cheap balloon. This is what it had all been about? All her fights with her dad? All for a furtive little f*** up against the church wall….and she was obviously not the first. What had she been thinking? He'd seemed….he'd seemed exactly who he was. She had just dressed him up differently in her mind. She had so wanted him to be the one…perfect lover.

“Hey wait. We can go somewhere else if you want,” he said, catching up with her. She ignored him and walked on, hardly able to see where she was going through the tears. She'd never had a blow to her pride quite like this one. She felt cheap and dirty. How could he think…..”

“Listen. I'm sorry. I don't know where to take a girl like you.”

“What do you mean ‘like me’?”

“Well, proper. Nice. I can see now that this isn't your thing. It's a bit crappy in fact. So I'm sorry.”

Beulah kept on walking, his words hardly filtering through.

“I like you, I really do. You're not like the other girls.”

“You mean the other girls you bring here,”

“Alright. Yes. But you gotta understand. I'm the top jock. It’s expected of me.”

“What? To fuck all the cheerleaders?”

“Not all.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“But they didn't want to go out with me, you know, on a regular basis. They only wanted to brag about it at school, afterwards. If I asked them out later they would just make excuses. You're different. You like me. Liked me,” he corrected himself.

“Then why did you treat me the same as them?”

“I don't know what else to do. You wanted to go somewhere…you know…special…and this is the only place I know”

Pause.

“I feel like such a dork. I'm sorry.”

Then she saw her father and knew this was actually what it had been all about: the final confrontation. And he didn’t disappoint. He was full steam ahead, bearing down on them like a battleship.

Beulah stopped and waited for the inevitable, resigned to her fate. Samuel walked straight over to her and slapped her in the face…in public…in front of her boyfriend. She hardly flinched. In fact there was a faint smile of victory on her face, which turned Samuels’s blood to lava. Not wanting to kill his daughter, he turned and punched Jack in the nose and knocked the big jock on his behind.

And this was the moment she lost her innocence. This was the moment the old, childish Beulah died, and Beulah the hard-bitten bitch was born.

Episode 14

Previously…


My darling boy is in a coma so I’ve got nothing more to lose. I don’t even care about you and Samuel anymore. I used to. And that’s how you could get under my skin. But not anymore. You can have him for all the good he does around here. The two of you are welcome to each other. Evil twins that’s for sure. Go ahead and do your worst. I don’t give a shit. Animals, both of you. Rutting animals.”

Alice purposely didn’t deny that, a point not lost on Clara.

“And speaking of which, you can take that slobbering dog with you….in case Samuel doesn’t feel up to it, you got something to fall back on.”

“Oh my. You really do have the hump.”

Clara struck out with all her bottled-up fury. The side of her little hand connected high up on Alice’s cheekbone and knocked her flying into the wall.

“And don’t you ever talk to me like that again. If you are anything less than polite to me I will make sure that no man ever looks at you again.”

Alice bit down the automatic retort on its way to her lips. Clara was the bigger woman, and she had righteous fury on her side. Alice felt like she’d been hit by a brick. She also knew she had a mammoth black-eye on the way.

In the silence there bloomed a new-found respect for Clara. ‘The woman had balls after all,’ thought Alice.

And now...

‘How could things go so wrong? Was God punishing him, like his mother had promised? Was he not worthy of a happy life? A life? Just any life?’ Samuel traced the pattern on the kitchen tablecloth with his finger. Clara had just gone off to the hospital in a huff, leaving him with several standing ultimatums. It seemed he was just making things worse for her, and he felt very sorry for that. But what could he do? How had this all happened? He had tried the best he could to make a home for them. Provide for them. They never had to go without. And what did he get for all his troubles? Everyone shouting at him as if he was to blame. Alright they had their reasons…but he was human too. He also keenly felt Joshua's collapse. Even felt a little guilty for shouting at him…but it wasn't really fair to blame him for the whole thing. He was just doing his best.

Samuel was the kind of man that could bear most things…and although he was a bit rough and ready, he was a constant rock of support in all weathers. But he couldn't bear them if he didn't have Clara’s support. She was his guiding light. Nothing seemed worthwhile if she wasn't there. With her turning against him so rabidly he felt like there was a huge hole in his life: a huge hole where his future should have been. Now there was nothing. This was a new and horrible feeling to him, whose life had been so ordinary and predictable. To try and shake it off, he got up and walked around…looking around at their house. He loved the kitchen. It was warm and friendly. That was why every one congregated there. And it smelt like baked bread…although Clara had never baked any in her life. He went into the hall but caught a glimpse of Alice in the lounge, obviously waiting for him, so he headed upstairs and found himself opening the door to Joshua's bedroom.

Samuel sat down on Joshua’s bed and thought about the boy. He’d never meant to be cruel to him. He was just doing what he thought a father should do. He looked around the room. It was all neat and tidy. Clara had seen to that. Comics on his homework table…next to his school satchel. Samuel smiled at that. It’s true though, he and Joshua hadn’t spent much time together lately. The boy had become very quiet and withdrawn…which in its turn had made Samuel more loud and on his case. In hindsight he could see that didn’t work. He’d have to find another way of making friends with him…if he ever woke. What a heartache that was. His own boy. His life. He felt so powerless…that something like this could strike them all down. It just ripped the family apart.

And then there was Alice. Disaster number two. Alice’s arrival had just made things worse…driven Clara further away and provided Beulah with a co-conspirator against him. Those two seemed forever to be whispering in some corner or another. To make matters worse he daren’t turn to her for support. Alice was a tricky business. There was no way out of those quicksands once he stepped in them.

There was a soft knock at the door…so soft he almost didn’t hear it. He looked up.

“Hi Sam.” She was the only one that called him that; the only one who referred to him affectionately.

“Hi,” he said with a tired smile. “Come in.”

She was such a singular sight, but he accepted her for who she was. That he had succumbed to conventionality did not bother her either. That was Sam. They seemed to form a perfect yin and yang. They were the opposites in every respect, that balanced each other and made them a harmonious whole, this incongruous pair.

“You alright?

“Sure.”

Alice sat down on the bed next to him and pretended to look interestedly around her. She picked up a photo of Clara on the bedside table.

“She doesn’t understand about us, does she?”

Samuel watched her as she ran her thumb over the photo. He wasn’t sure he understood about ‘us’. He was an old fashioned man with old fashioned values, a man with a will of iron. But he had his Achilles heel like everyone, and his Achilles heel was Alice.

He was fond of Alice, loved her even, but what frightened him was that she excited him. She excited him when she was near…like electricity…chemistry. His body seemed to perk up of its own accord. The trouble was, that when she was away he forgot about that and only remembered it too late, when he had already invited her into the house. Now he had to deal with that as well.

She sighed, put the photograph down, and turned to him. He felt the cloud of her perfume envelope him as she did so. She lifted her hand and lovingly touched his hair…setting it right. He tried to push her hand away, but she slapped him down, taking sisterly liberties with him.

“Behave. I’m not going to eat you. There that looks better.”

“Alice, I…” but he just couldn’t find it in his heart to tell her he wanted to be alone, to wallow in his gloom for a while. He stared down into his lap.

Alice looked at his hangdog expression for a while, then stuck her finger under his nose.

“Wanna smell?”

He laughed and pushed her hand away.

“Stop it.” It was obviously an old joke between them.

Alice licked her finger and stuck it in his mouth.

“Gimme a kiss,” she teased him, only half in jest as they roughhoused on the bed.

“Alice. For Christ’s sake,” he said trying to feign seriousness.

“Sorry,” she said poutingly. “I was only trying to cheer you up. Make you forget for a bit. That’s not a crime you know.”

“Sorry. No. I suppose not.”

Silence.

“God I’m so worried.” He hung his head and began to cry.

Gently she put her arms around him and pulled him to her, her little boy again, and let him cry until his sobs subsided.

Gently she kissed the top of his head.

“It’s alright,” he said, drying his eyes and pulling away. “I worry about Clara. She’s taken this very hard.”

“I know.”

There was a long pause.

“I missed you,” said Alice.

When she said things like that it made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a precipice. But she always made him feel alive.

“Are you…” she started, but changed her mind. “You know there’s never been anyone else.”

“Alice look…” She put her finger on his mouth to shoosh him

“I miss you Sam. I don’t want anything from you…you know that…but I get lonely sometimes.”

“Alice, I’m not…”

“No, don’t speak. I know all that. You’ve already said it all. It’s just that I have tried, but I can’t seem to forget – to put it aside as easily as you have,” she said, looking into his eyes to see if the barb had gone home. It had.

“I couldn’t just close the door on you.”

“People grow up Alice. Those were just children’s games.”

“Not to me. To me they were real. I was in love with you.”

“And I with you. I still love you.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“But we grew up,” he carried on regardless. How many times had he said this? “We didn’t know what we were doing.”

“Sam,” she said, taking his hand gently. His instinct was to pull it away but he didn’t want to be cruel. Sam in all conscience couldn’t deny her. He knew he should. He knew she had no real hold over him – except that he loved her – and that after their parents had died, he was all she had – and she knew that and played it for all she was worth. After all, she was the one with nothing, but she was also the one with nothing to lose.

“I thought it was forever. Didn’t I give you everything?”

“I was just a kid.”

“Stop saying that. How can you say that it mattered then and that it doesn’t matter now? Tell me truthfully. Haven’t you ever wanted it back? Weren’t those the happiest days of your life? Tell me honestly.”

“We’ve been through this before.”

“Yes, but say it again.”

“Stop it Alice.”

“Tell me then that you don’t love me. That you don’t want…”

“You know I love you. I love you…”

“Tell me you don’t want it again. Tell me and I’ll leave you alone…forever. Go on. Tell me.”

Gazing into his eyes lovingly, she lifted his hand up to her breast and Beulah walked in.

All credit to Alice that she didn’t panic and rip her hand away guiltily. Somehow she managed to make it seem like she was innocently holding her brothers hand in a comforting, sisterly kind of way.

Beulah saw the transition but she was not sophisticated enough yet to pin it down. She almost believed her eyes, but Alice’s sleight of hand fooled her. Alice was a seasoned snake who could change her skin right in front of your eyes and you wouldn’t even notice. This was how she kept Samuel in thrall.

“How you doing?” she said to Beulah, casually letting go of Samuel’s hand.

“The dog has shat in the kitchen,” blurted out Beulah.

“Dammit, I forgot about him”

Samuel got up swiftly, thankful for an excuse to leave the room.

Alice followed him. Beulah followed them both, her tight jeans exaggerating every curve of her plump adolescent thighs and baby-fat bum.

Those jeans were a work of art. Two hours earlier she had been lying flat on the floor next door in her bedroom, struggling to pull on the more than skin-tight jeans, easing them on, centimetre by centimetre over her hips until she was finally squashed in like a sausage in a skin. She had spent another five minutes trying to zip them up and nearly tearing off her fingernails, and another minute or two trying to get up off the floor without splitting them at the seams.

Normally this was a job that her mother or Joshua would have helped her with, so it had taken her longer than usual. But it made her feel more like an adult woman, doing it all by herself. And indeed, this was serious business. This time she was stepping out into the grown-up world. This was her first real, tentative step outside the home. She stood as it were for the moment in between two worlds…between the hell of her childhood...and the heaven of unbridled adulthood. Her heart beat with unusual excitement and trepidation at the thought.

But there was only one problem. Joshua. He hung over her parade like a dark cloud. She found it very difficult to get the picture of him lying in the hospital bed out of her head. Everything was confusing. Beulah was still, like the rest of her family, in a state of shock. She couldn’t get her head around what had happened. It was too big for her; she was too young to understand all the implications. All she could do was focus her mind on the ordinary things just to keep going, but she was having a hard time coming to terms with how callous it was that she could dismiss him so easily.

But she’d had this guilty feeling for a long time now, because Beulah, unlike Alice who had stayed loyal and loving to her brother when she hit puberty, Beulah had dumped her immature brother for boys who were more in line with her new and urgent needs. She was no longer his friend, or playmate. She was too grown up and he embarrassed her. She had become an adult, leaving Joshua all alone down there in the valley of childhood. But the devil drives where needs must, and Jack wasn’t going to wait forever. She and Jack had come to a crucial stage in their relationship…a defining moment. She couldn’t use Joshua as an excuse to delay him yet once again, because Jack wasn’t obliged to be that interested in her life yet. He didn’t even know that she had a brother. He didn’t, truth be told, even know what her last name was. They weren't ‘a couple’ as yet. But tonight was a status-changing kind of night. If she missed this she wouldn’t get another chance. Jack had more than just hinted at that. She just hoped Joshua would understand. She was starting to get miserable thinking about it all so she pinched herself painfully in the soft part of her inner arm and sharpened the focus on her beautifications. After all, it wasn’t as if he was dead…or badly injured. He could just wake up at any moment…or never, but she couldn’t put her life on hold forever.

Beulah surveyed the result of her recent exertions in the mirror and was immensely satisfied with her buxom profile. Tonight was the big night, and if that didn't pull him in, nothing would. But she was by no means making it easy for Jack. A more efficient chastity belt than these jeans was hard to find. She wanted him to take his time unwrapping the package, appreciating and admiring the view as he went. She wanted it to be special…..the first time, and tonight was the night. She'd strung him out as far as possible, but she didn't want him to lose interest because there were queues of girls waiting in line to take her place if she got boring.

The next hour was dedicated to her hair and makeup. Finally she took a long critical look in the mirror. Yes. She looked like a million dollars. And so she should. Her beauty products were the most expensive on the market. It was a pity though that she had been caught shoplifting when she had been a newbie. Her dad had never lived that one down, having to spring his own daughter from the local police station where he used to work. With great embarrassment he had watched his old colleagues smirk behind their hands. He never forgave Beulah, and he never let her forget…always watching her suspiciously.

Since then she'd learnt the ropes. Together with her two best friends they had worked out a constantly evolving system of distraction and extraction. Two girls misdirected the store assistants while the other collected a carefully prepared shopping list. They didn't steal just any old rubbish.

There. She was ready. Two and a half hours of preparation, primping and plumping…..and it showed. She was fast becoming a contender for the best looking girl in the school, and tonight, with a bit of luck, she was going to snag the prize bull.

Jack, in her eyes, was the alpha male. He had the plumage and the pose – that nonchalant couldn't-give-a-fuck attitude. That he was an absolute moron when it came to schoolwork only added to his allure. His disdain for academia she took as a sign of his superiority to the vulgar mundane. He knew everything…..without knowing anything. All balls and no brain.

But his brutish bravado (and his ten second attention span) was merely a compensation for a childhood insecurity that had been carefully nursed into fruition by his botanically ignorant parents. With his father’s clouts ringing in one ear, and his mother's nagging, whining voice in the other, he unknowingly had much in common with Beulah, and in fairness to her, was probably one of the things that attracted her to him unconsciously. So they tried to escape into each others arms, blissfully unaware of the other’s baggage…so lovingly packed by their parents.

With a last look in the mirror, Beulah hid her high heel shoes in her handbag and stood for a moment at her bedroom door, listening for any signs of movement outside the trench. She snuck out and was just going past Joshua's door when she heard voices within. Perhaps she thought it was Joshua. Perhaps she thought it was Alice with a boy in her room, but to tell the truth she didn't really think at all. She simply turned the handle and went in.

Then came the shock of seeing two people who shouldn't have been there. The dog shit story just fell out of her mouth before her father had time to get a good look at her, thank god. He was out of the room with Alice and Beulah in tight tow, winding their way down the stairs. He peeled off into the kitchen and Beulah peeled off out the front door and disappeared into the night. Samuel didn’t even hear the door close.