She’d guessed this morning that the crucial issue would lie with Nathan’s parents, but now, clearly, it was something about Jeb. Dana wished she had more on Jeb. Mike had started things and Rainer was chasing more background, but that wouldn’t help her right now.
‘They’d come back down around dark. They wouldn’t have made a sound up there. I had no clue what they were doing. I only knew that nap time meant the three of them went upstairs and came back a few hours later. I was too scared of Jeb to go looking for answers.’
He reached for the cup without turning around. Dana slid the handle into his fingers and he took a swig, more to give his breathing some order than to assuage thirst.
‘This went on for months. Months. I had no clue what it was about. Now I know, I wonder if I’d ever have been able to stop it. I don’t think so. Just finding out about it nearly got… well, finding out was the worst thing I could have done.
‘One day Jeb called nap time and sent our parents upstairs. But this time he didn’t go with them. I must have frowned, or looked puzzled. He started smiling and told me he’d show me something I’d never forget.
‘I was confused, Detective. I didn’t understand. Whatever it was had been private between the three of them. None of them ever spoke about it or referred to it. I knew I wasn’t allowed to ask anything. There was this big secret the three of them held, and now I was supposed to be a part of it?
‘Something in me was certain I shouldn’t have that knowledge. Maybe I thought that, if they were so silent up there, it couldn’t be a good thing. Jeb’s idea of fun wasn’t mine. It usually ended with me hurting and him laughing. I couldn’t see how this would be any different.’
Dana scribbled Pitman without once taking her eyes off Nathan. The air conditioning hummed.
‘I thought it was a trick. I thought he’d get me upstairs and lock me in a cupboard or something. I told him it was a trick, and he looked at me funny. No trick, he said. Science.
‘That jolted me. I wasn’t expecting that word to be coming from him. Jeb knew nothing about science. I didn’t think what he did for work involved science.’
Nathan put down the cup and the used tissue. He squirmed.
‘Then he got mad and grabbed at my arm. I clutched at the staircase, but he was way too strong. He could still drag me around like a little teddy bear. After he slapped me I gave in and he pulled me up the stairs by the collar. Nothing I could do. Our parents’ room was at the end of the landing. The door was slightly open and I could tell the curtains had been drawn. It was the middle of the day. I wanted to run, but Jeb was behind me with his hands on my shoulders. His fingers dug in – he knew exactly where the nerves were and he liked making me spasm like that.
‘Closer, closer, closer: until we were right outside the door. Even as an adult, I never went in my parents’ room: I always knocked and waited and they’d open the door a sliver to talk to me. Yet here I was, with Jeb telling me to push it open. I touched the handle but I was too scared. Jeb thumped on my wrist and the door shuddered open.
‘At first, all I saw were crosses, statues of Jesus. Dozens of them: maybe half of all the icons in the house were in their room. Across every surface, crowded on every wall – Jesus and God, and the idea that this place was holy, safe and pure. It proved to be the opposite of that. I’ve never got that image out of my head, Detective. Never.’
Me neither, thought Dana. That contrast never fades; it simply bites.
‘Inside, Father was sitting in an armchair. One of those tall, upright ones; butterfly chairs, I think they’re called. His hands were tight on the arms of the chair – rigid. Terrified. I could see it in his eyes. He stared at me, and up at Jeb, and he shook his head slightly. Just a little. Jeb told him to shut up and he dropped his eyes.
‘I looked across to Mother. She was lying on the bed, eyes closed, her arms across her stomach, like she’d died. I could barely see her chest rise and fall. Utter silence. Jeb marshalled me to the side of the room, next to a radiator. He walked into the centre of the room, took a glance at each of them in turn. He put a hand in his pocket, turned to me and said, “Look what I can do.”
‘I wanted to run. I felt so wretched. I could feel the pee running down my leg, hot on my skin. It was so… personal. Whatever they were doing, so personal. I didn’t get it. I didn’t comprehend. It never occurred to me that only one of them was playing. It wouldn’t, would it, Detective?’
Nathan looked up at her with wet, horrified eyes. Dana shook her head silently.
‘Jeb moved over to Father, who flinched. The movement made Jeb smile. Flinching always made him smile. He slid Father’s shirt up past the elbow and Father started shaking. His feet lifted and he had to concentrate to put them back down again: like when the dentist hits a nerve. He’d wet himself, too. I didn’t know what was going on but I could sense the pain. It was so apparent – the humiliation. I could see a tear roll down his cheek. He didn’t want this, but he couldn’t stop it. He wasn’t in charge.
‘Jeb took a needle out of his pocket. A hypodermic. It shone in the lamplight. I remember the glint made the liquid look like metal. He put it quite carefully into Father’s arm, then pushed the plunger without even looking. He’d done it so often before, I suppose. Jeb was facing me. I must have been wide-eyed, fascinated; everything and nothing at once.
‘When the liquid went in, Father kind of sagged. He lost the tension in his muscles, flopped down in the chair. His head fell sideways but he carried on staring at me, without blinking. At me, Christ, at me. Like I was causing this; like it was my fault and not Jeb’s. Or maybe, like I could stop it. But he surely knew I couldn’t do that. There was nothing I could do, except be an audience for Jeb.
‘Jeb said I’d never seen Pop like that, had I? Father looked like one of those tranquilised animals on nature programmes: he was just a body, a bag of skin with no one in it. He looked… dead, Detective.
‘That’s what I thought. That Jeb had killed Father. Right there, in front of me. Jeb noticed, must have read my mind. Jeb told me he wasn’t dead. He was… more helpful. That’s how he put it, Detective: more helpful. As if Father wanted this, was trying to assist Jeb somehow.
‘Jeb moved across to Mother. I wanted to run. Don’t know where. Towards Jeb and knock the needle out of his hand, maybe. Or away, out of the door and find someone to tell. Or something. Or not be there any more. Be any place but that, looking at anything but that. He held Mother’s hand when the needle went in. She never liked needles. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t shouting, fighting. She just lay there. Lay there while it happened.
‘The silence deepened. It went from no sound at all to something thicker, stronger. I don’t know how to describe it. Like the air was so full of despair, no sound could get in. Jeb nodded to himself, like he’d done well. It was hideous. It was so ugly, and so wrong. I didn’t get exactly what he’d done, but I knew it was wrong. So why wasn’t I shouting? Why wasn’t I running? Why wasn’t I doing anything? I was so weak, Detective. I’d never understood what rooted to the spot meant until then. You could have set me on fire and I still wouldn’t have moved a muscle.
‘Jeb turned back and tapped Father’s cheek with a finger. Then he glanced at me and said, “Watch this.” He slapped so hard, Father’s head rocked to the other side and clouted the chair. You could hear the slap, then the thud. But like I said, Father was gone. He wasn’t in there any more, I was sure of it. He dribbled a bit. “Ooh,” Jeb said, “better tidy you up, Marty, don’t want you to lose your dignity.”