The Nature of Cruelty (8 page)

He touches my ankle again. “Tell her, Lana, don’t all women like a nice big erection for dessert?”

I can’t help laughing. “Um, not that I know of.”

The problem with Robert is that he can be so utterly funny and charming at times that I almost forget his past treatment of me.

Sasha takes off her sunglasses and flings them at his head. “Ow, that hurt,” he whines.

“Shut it now, Rob. We’re trying to relax here.”

“Fine, fine,” he says, tossing the sunglasses back at Sasha. “I’ll be as silent as…someone who’s taken a vow of silence.”

I close my eyes and soak up the heat, trying not to think about how Robert is lying perpendicular to my body at the other end of the blanket, his head resting just by my feet. Half an hour goes by, and I can tell Sasha’s dozed off because she’s breathing too deeply to be awake. I think I feel the hem of my dress move, but it must have been an insect or a strong breeze, because when I open my eyes there’s nothing there. I feel it another time, but again when I open my eyes there’s nothing.

The third time it happens I get irritated, and my eyes snap open to find that Robert has lifted the end of my dress ever so slightly and is looking right up it. I stifle my scream, not wanting to disturb Sasha, and sit up immediately, tucking my legs beneath me.

I expect Robert to burst out laughing, but he just lies there staring at me, his face serious. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I quietly hiss, pulling my dress down over my knees to cover as much of my legs as possible.

Sasha stirs but doesn’t wake up.

“What did it look like?” he asks, sitting up to face me now. His confidence makes me crazy. Only Robert could come across so justified in looking up a woman’s dress.

“You…you can’t just do things like that! It’s inappropriate.”

“I like your underwear. What kind of lace is it?” he asks, leaning closer and ignoring my outrage.

“Oh, my God, you’re a pervert, Robert.” I stand and storm into the house. He follows.

“Come on, Lana, it was a joke,” he calls after me.

I turn around to face him. We’re in the front hallway now. “Does it look like I’m laughing?”

“Clearly you didn’t get the joke,” he replies, deadpan, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, excuse me if I don’t understand the humour in violating someone like that.”

Now he laughs. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. I didn’t violate you. Violating requires an action. I was simply enjoying the view.”

“You lifted up my dress. That’s an action, Robert.”

He scratches at his jaw. “Well now, you have me there. Aren’t you flattered? I know some women who’d be over the moon to be violated by me.”

“You’re an amazing bloody prick. Why don’t you go ahead and find some of those women, because I’m certainly not one of them.” My heart beats hard and fast as I turn and hurry up the stairs. He doesn’t follow me this time.

I pause and sigh, calling back to him, “And go wake up Sasha. She’ll burn if she stays asleep out there much longer.”

I hear him laugh, and then he peeks his head back around the banister. “You do realise you just ruined your snappy put-down, don’t you?”

“Yeah, well, I sacrificed it for the sake of your sister’s health.”

“So noble, little red.”

“Oh, don’t you dare think about making that a new nickname,” I tell him indignantly.

He gestures with his hands and smirks. “It’s not a nickname, it’s a term of endearment.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Let’s not pretend I’m in any way dear to you, Robert. Now just go wake up Sash.”

At this I continue up the stairs before going into my room and flinging myself down onto my bed. The fact of the matter is he had no right to do what he did. But, and I hate to admit this, the scary thing is that I can’t deny the tingles I’d felt as he lay at my feet, staring at me hotly and asking what kind of lace my underwear is. He’s the one scratch I have that won’t stop itching. The thing is, I’m getting the feeling that I’m an itch he very much wants to scratch.

Interlude I
– Robert

August, 2002.

Gormanston, Co. Meath, Ireland.

I
stare out the window of the taxi that collected us from Dublin airport forty minutes ago. Already I want to go back home. This is my first time in Ireland, and so far all I’ve seen are fields, motorways, and a handful of industrial estates. We passed through one town before arriving at the village where my mother grew up, and there’s piss-all to be seen: a big old boarding school and a scattering of houses, shitty bungalows mostly.

My sister Sasha sits beside me in the back seat. She’s almost as unenthusiastic about the move as I am. Mum jabbers on to the taxi driver about how she travelled to England when she was twenty, married my dad, and lived there for the better part of seventeen years, only to be cast aside for a younger model. He nods and acts like he’s interested in her story, but I can tell he couldn’t give a flying fuck about her troubles. It seems like she’ll tell every person who has ears to listen about how Dad was messing around behind her back, and with his secretary of all people. She likes to add in that part just to emphasise how much of a cliché the situation was.

In the back of my mind I know she’s not to blame for all this, but I don’t get why she had to ship us to a whole other country just because she and Dad are getting divorced. She could have simply moved to a new house in London and let us go to see him on the weekends. Now I’ve had to leave all my friends behind, and I’ll only get to see my dad during the summer holidays.

The driver takes a right turn off the road and onto a sandy path that brings us to a vast green field, beyond which there’s a decline that leads out to a long, golden beach. It looks appealing enough right now since the weather’s sunny, but I can imagine it will be miserable as sin during the cold, rainy winters.

Our new house is a small, white-washed bungalow, across from which is another small bungalow of a similar fashion. At least we’re going to have neighbours and not be completely isolated. Although, given the location, the neighbour will probably be some hermit old man with a dog who only ever leaves the house to sit on his front porch and stare suspiciously at the people who pass him by.

Once the car stops, I get out and reluctantly help Mum pull our bags from the boot. There’s a van coming in a day or two with our furniture and the rest of our things.

“Oh, my God, wicked!” Sasha exclaims. “Look at the beach. There’s a tonne of people on it, too.”

I glance down to see that there is a good crowd. All the same, her excitement feels like a betrayal. If we ever want to convince Mum to move back home, then we both need to be on the same page about it.

“It’s only like that during the summer months,” says Mum. “There’s never many around in the winter.”

Well, there’s my suspicions about the depressing, lonely winters that are ahead of me confirmed. Mum pays the driver and he pulls away, disappearing back down the sandy path. Mum opens the front door as I carry in two large suitcases, and my immediate impression is that the place is way too small and smells kind of musty. I scrunch up my nose in distaste.

“A bit of an airing and it will be fine,” says Mum, noticing my reaction.

“I hope you’re right,” I reply moodily, dropping the suitcases in the hallway and going back out to retrieve the rest.

“You can lose that tone immediately, young man,” Mum calls after me. I ignore her.

Sasha is lingering by the front gate, still staring excitedly down at the beach.

“Are you going to help or what, you lazy cow?” I call to her.

She turns around and scowls, just as laughter can be heard from a group coming up the path from the beach. It looks like a family. There’s a really old woman with grey hair, wearing a dark blue swimsuit and a long sarong (eww), another redheaded woman about Mum’s age, and two redheaded girls. One of them is around five or six years old, and the other is just a little younger than me, twelve or thirteen maybe. She’s laughing at the little girl as she bounces a ball around, throwing sand up all over the place, but the main thing I notice about her is that she’s got the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Dark and light all at the same time.

“Mummy!” shouts the smaller girl. “Look! It’s the new neighbours.”

“Okay, Alison, calm down,” says the mother, taking the ball from her so she can’t kick up any more sand.

The girl, Alison, runs up to Sasha, thrusting her hand out in greeting. Sasha laughs and says hello, while the older girl comes up and introduces herself, too. My sister beams at her, immediately enthralled, probably by her crazy red hair and accent. It takes a particular type of person for Sasha to want to be friends with them, and by the looks of it, this girl is one of those people.

She and Sasha immediately hit it off; they stand chatting by the gate as her mother and (I presume) her grandmother continue on with her little sister to their house. I put down the suitcase for a moment to go and get Sasha. Even though this girl has such a pretty face, I can’t help being pissed off by her. I don’t want Sasha making friends, because if she does she’ll get happy here, and then she won’t want to leave.

She sees me approach. “Hey, Rob, come and meet Lana. She lives in the house across the way.” She turns back to Lana. “This is my twin brother, Robert.”

Lana’s eyes drift to me, and when they do they widen and a blush colours her cheeks. Yeah, she likes me, I can tell. Lots of the girls back home like me, too.

“Hello, Robert,” she says shyly, her voice low. I’ve never really enjoyed my mother’s Irish accent, to be honest; it’s too loud and boisterous, always nagging at me, but Lana’s accent I could get used to. It’s soft and sweet, like music. I pull myself away from these thoughts. I can’t let myself like anything about it here, especially not this girl.

“Uh, yeah, whatever,” I reply, rolling my eyes to show her how unimpressed I am. Then I grab Sasha by the hood of her sweatshirt and drag her back to the house.

“I’ll call over to see you later,” Sasha says, and the girl nods and smiles. When she glances at me her expression falls, like she’s upset about how rude I was to her. Well, she’ll just have to get over it.

Once we’re out of view, Sasha gives me a punch in the gut for my behaviour with Lana. “You didn’t have to be like that. She was nice,” she says irritably.

I try to catch my breath, because for a girl Sasha punches hard.

“Ugh! You like it here, don’t you! Have you forgotten our plan to convince Mum to move back to London? We’ve only arrived and already you’re making friends.”

“Look, Rob, you need to get it out of your head that Mum’s ever going to forgive Dad for what he did. It might not be the same as back home, but this is where we live now. I don’t know about you, but I plan on making the most of it.”

She flips her hair over her shoulder and saunters into the living room to Mum. I glance back out the open front door to see Lana making her way across the grass to her own house. Her presence is making Sasha think she could come to like it here.

And I hate her for it.

Part Two

Cruelty Is Hard to Forgive

Five

I
manage to spend the rest of the evening re-reading a few chapters of the
Iliad
in my room, in effect avoiding any further encounters with Robert. Sasha goes out to see one of her “celebrity gossip informants” or whatever you’d call them, and doesn’t get back until late.

The next morning I get ready for my first day at work. My shift starts at ten, so again I manage to bypass seeing Robert, who leaves for work at seven-thirty. I make sure I have my tube map and the Oyster card I ordered online safely in my bag before I leave, as well as my packed lunch and my insulin.

I memorise my route as I walk toward the Tube station. I have to get the northern line to Kings Cross and then the Piccadilly line to Knightsbridge. The station is so stressful when I get there, full of people hurriedly dashing this way and that. It’s definitely a new experience for me, since I’m used to the easy-going country life. The last time I was here Sasha drove me everywhere, so there was no need for me to take the Tube. At one point I slow down a bit, trying to figure out if I’m heading towards the correct platform, and a woman knocks harshly by me, muttering her annoyance under her breath.

After one more little panic when I think I might really be lost, I finally make it safely to Baccino’s by five to ten. Sasha told me that I’d have to wear a black pencil skirt, black ballet flats, and a white blouse as my uniform, so I bought several sets of the same outfit last week before I left. I smooth down my skirt and open the door, which is stylishly made entirely out of glass. In fact, the whole front of the restaurant is just one big glass window. There are also tables for dining outside.

Alistair is the first person I see. I’m coming to realise that he’s a bit of an unusual character, especially when he introduces me to a girl with short, black hair and a nose ring called Danni, but instead of speaking the introduction, he sings it. Danni tells me he sings everything when he’s in a good mood. I tell her it must make for an interesting work environment. She’s got this great East London accent and a talkative personality, and man, does she know her cheeses and her wines.

After an hour or two I’ve absorbed as many varieties of cheese as I can possibly fit inside my brain:
fiore sardo
(light cheese with a dark skin),
caprino
(all white), mountain gorgonzola (pale with blue bits),
parmigiano reggiano
(pale and crumbly),
bosina rabiola
(light with a white exterior), and on and on it goes.

I try to remember which ones are which, but some of them are so similar-looking that I don’t know if I’ll ever get the hang of it. It’s a good thing I worked as a waitress for a while during my first few years of college, so everything else comes fairly naturally.

“You’ll get it with practice,” Danni reassures me (about the cheeses). “You can go take a quick break before things get busy.”