mask Mum Hates PAIN Mum hates pain Mum hates "What’re you writing?" She tears out the page, screws it up, slides it into her pocket. "Nothing." Breathing wisps of mist, he star-shapes in the doorway, sealing her escape, surveying the candlelit room as the lintel creaks. "Christ, it’s like a fridge up here. Arencha cold?" His head turns. She stiffens. Slides her fingers into the handle of her scissors. "Radio bloke sez they’ve closed’t M62. So bad out there you can’t even see next door’s house." In the mirror, she sees snow blurring behind the window. "Anyway Mum’s done us some stew. Son’t table, you coming down?" Pushing nail-varnish towards the mirror, lid taken off to catch the drops, she nods. Sees the bruise on her face. "In a minute." "It’ll go cold… Do you like cold stew?" (She watches the snow.) "Eh? Do you like cold stew?" (Wants to be out there, lost, in the snow.) He tuts and lets go of the framework. Some of it snaps off, he loses balance, one of his feet thumps over the line of the gripper-rod. She kicks back her chair, slams the scissors off the table, heaves up a fist-full of sheets. Shadows swerve across the walls. Between tight, amber eyes, an icicle breaks. Snow-dust blusters, falls. "Suit yourself," he murmurs, retracting his shoe. "But you’d better come down Lindsay alright, or I’ll tell Mum you’re being a pain." Rubbing his hands, he scans her. Picking his teeth, walks away. Shadows swing more slowly. Snow flakes whisper at the window. She stares when his watch clanks the banister. Blinks when his weight groans the boards. Muffled voices and laughter downstairs dispel her fears of him standing, waiting, behind the wall. (Mum hates.) She lets go of the sheets, hurries forward, pushes the door until it clicks. (Pain. Mum hates pain.) Scissors dropped, she extracts the crumpled paper, irons it onto the table with her palm. (Mum hates pain. He’ll do it again. And again. And again.) "Lindsay… Your stew’s going cold sweetheart, come on." - Mum, at the end of a long tunnel. Desperate to get there, she sits down in front of the mirror, sets to work on the bruise, constructing a mask, weaving a lie. But the darkness won’t fade, the powder won’t smear, the lotions only dribble and go sticky on her cheek. "Lindsay, did you hear me? Be careful when you come down, won’t you, the power’s still off." Candle wavering in one hand, skin-pen shaking in the other, an inch and a half from kissing her cold, reflected lips, she paints flesh, rubs away the dark and tilts her head. (Mum hates.) She brings the candle closer, dripping wax onto the table, and swaps the pen for a cotton wool bud. (Pain. Paint the pain. Hide.) Footsteps thud into the hallway. "Are you talking to me Lindsay or what?" Breathing! breathing! she knocks over nail-varnish; thick crimson pools around tubs. From the left there’s a lump, from the right it looks alright. It’s done. Not done but it’ll do. "For God’s sake Lindsay, why do you do this to me?" The bones of the house crack and groan. Mum’s slippers slam against the stairs. "It’s getting to be every bloody Sunday dinner time," (Closer, louder.) "You haven’t got a boy in there have you?" Breathing! she pulls her top drawer open, grabs the screwed-up message and crams it in. Corners stick out, hundreds of rejections make way. Hate Pain Help Why Please I'm going to Die She wipes her lips, slams the drawer. "You know, I ought to give you a bloody good crack for having me up and down like this… Why you can’t just… Bloody answer me, I don’t know." Standing at the door, wearing her mask, candles blown out, she turns and looks back at the streaming snow. And in that second, she knows the blizzard won’t stop - that she’ll never again tell the sky from the ground. Soon, when those final few houses and trees have disappeared, there will be only an endless white. Not a fragment of colour to be found. © Andy J Campbell 1998 |