We Can’t Even See the Staircase, Let Alone Start Climbing Fiction By Jay McKenzie CW: Language, Violence, Risky Behaviour, Mental Health, Disturbing Content
It’s raining when I arrive. Mum is jittery. Dad’s avoiding my eyes. They hug me, but it’s a muted homecoming. I live on the other side of the planet, and it’s been almost two years, yet nobody asks me a single question. “So, what are the birthday plans?” I ask. “Well, we’re having a joint thing. Cassie and Joe are going to celebrate their wedding, since they eloped and all.” “Right. And she has to do that at your birthday party, does she?” I picture slapping my sister, really hard. “She could have done something else,” I moan to my best friend Lisa. “Gatecrashing Dad’s party.” At the party, my sister arrives in her wedding dress and does a triumphal sweep of the room like the Queen. “She’s half-pissed,” Aunty Aye mutters. # Mum pours tea. “So, do you ever miss home?” Aunty Aye says. I kiss my niece Poppy’s little head. “Sometimes.” Dad’s on the phone, nodding gravely. “No worries, Joe.” He hangs up and beckons for me to follow him. “That was Joe.” He glances upstairs. “She’s been calling him at work, being abusive. He’s scared he’ll get fired if she carries on.” “What does he want us to do?” “Take her phone off her.” Like taking food from Cereberus. “She’s asleep, apparently.” She is. She is sprawled across Mum and Dad’s bed, slack jawed, a wet, guttural snore rattling in her throat. The covers are damp, stained, and a puddle of bile dries on the carpet. Dad plucks the phone from her limp hand and we head back downstairs, on a relieved collective sigh.
“And do you like your job?” Aunty Aye asks. I’m about to answer when the door swings, hinges squealing, smashing into the dresser. “Give me my phone!” “No.” “I said, give me my phone, you fucking cunt.” Aunty Aye drops her teacup. “Now hey…” “Fuck off!” Dad is on his feet. He looks calm, but there's a tremor in his fingers. He’s shrinking, and she looms over him. “Give me my fucking phone, now!” She shoves him, hard, two hands to the chest. He stands firm, but she pulls back, lining up her shoulder to butt him. I race around the table and wrap my arms around hers from behind. “I’ll kill you, you sanctimonious bitch,” she screams. “Great to be home!” I joke, but I’m shaking. She rams me back against the wall and breaks free, tearing into the kitchen. Poppy is crying, burying her face into Aunty Aye’s collarbone. In the kitchen, Dad and Cass are locked still like a sculpture from classical mythology. Cass holds a bread knife above her head with two hands, Dad gripping her wrists with both of his. What the actual fuck is happening here? Her grip is vice-like, but I peel her fingers apart and take the knife. “I’m going to kill myself then you,” she screams. Despite everything, I laugh. “How are you going to kill me when you’re dead, you idiot?” Dad says, “This is why we keep the knives blunt.” # We go out for dinner the night before Dad’s birthday. She’s passed out in Mum and Dad’s bed, exhaustion and debilitating inebriation carrying her off after the knife debacle. Dad and I poured all of the wine we could find down the sink. We hid the knives in a cupboard. We locked the front door. The food is good, but we’re just so tense. Still, we linger over dessert, then coffee: anything to delay going home. She calls Dad’s phone from the landline. “You fucking bastards went without me!I hate you all. You locked me in. I’m going to kill myself.” “Okay,” Dad says. “We’ll see you later.” They’ve kept a lot from me, but I didn’t realise how much. “She threatened Mum with a knife.” “She pushed Dad down the stairs. I thought he was dead.” I fire off a message to Joe. “Do something,” I write. “Your daughter needs you.” When the waiters start checking their watches and the rest of the patrons have left, we draw reluctantly to our feet. “Do you want to take your balloon, sir?” We look at the sad, deflating foil 70 swaying above our table. “No, thanks.” # I’m certain that Dad didn’t expect to spend his seventieth birthday shivering in a car parked under a coppery streetlamp. Sadly, he is unsurprised by the fact that this is exactly what we are doing. He checks his watch. “Give it five more minutes,” I say. Beside me, Poppy's lashes rest on her cheeks. Her hair has whipped itself into a fluffy halo, and I can't resist stroking her little cheek with a finger. “I'll go now,” Dad says. “Be careful.” I tap my phone. “Message when you're in.” When he closes the door gently, Mum starts to cry. I wrap my arms around her, press my face into her hair. “If she hurts him again, I'll kill her.” How fucking dare she? How dare she make refugees of my parents from their own home. I want to storm in there, shake her awake, throw her into the street and yell grow the fuck up.But I quietly hold my mum, try not to wake my sleeping niece and wait for Dad's text that it is safe to go home. # “She’s asleep. Safe to come back.” I read the message to Mum. “Just a few more minutes,” she says. She stares ahead at the deserted park where she used to take us as kids. The Victorian bandstand is still there, the one the newspaper photographer used as a backdrop to us in tutus surrounded by trophies. It’s the park I used to walk our Labrador-Collie cross too many times a day to escape the house. “This is abuse, Mum. You do know that, don’t you?” “Sometimes, I hate her,” she says. “Am I horrible?”
It’s quiet when Mum and I edge back into the house. I’ve got Poppy in my arms and she is dozing on my shoulder. “She’s passed out in our bed,” Dad tells Mum. “I’ll sleep down here.” “Can Poppy and I come in with you?” We manage to strip Poppy back to just a nappy and settle her into bed, taking up a position either side of her. “How long’s it been this bad, Mum?” We’re whispering in the dark. “A few years.” “Are you scared of her?” Mum hesitates. “Terrified.” # “Give me my fucking phone!” I’m dragged from sleep by the yell and vinegary breath. She’s silhouetted by the light outside the door, her fists balled, ready for a fight. “Shut up,” I hiss. “Your daughter’s asleep.” Mum says, “Go back to bed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” “Like fuck we will,” she screams. “Give me my baby.” Cass grasps the sleeping toddler by the arms. Her long fingernails press into the baby rolls on Poppy’s arm. Poppy wails and reaches for me, but I’m not fast enough. Cass streaks from the bedroom and downstairs, bawling infant in arms.
“Give me my phone you cunt.” She’s standing over Dad slapping him, Poppy on the floor wailing at her feet. I grab my sister’s arm. “Stop it! You’re hitting a pensioner. It’s deranged.” Cass turns on me, eyes blazing. “Well, we can’t all be as perfect as you, you smug bitch.” Then her hands are round my throat, squeezing. I manage to get a finger between my neck and her palm, but it’s not enough. I’m gasping by the time Dad prises her hands apart, neck throbbing. “You’re psychotic,” I tell her. She slumps onto a chair. “I’d rather be a psychotic than a barren cunt. I can get pregnant whenever I want, you stupid bitch. I’m better than you with your shit, withered uterus.” It’s so deeply insane and hurtful and bizarre that I laugh. “Go to bed,” I tell her. And weirdly, she does. # “She seems fine now,” the police officer says. “She says she’s sorry, it just got a bit out of hand.” “Have you seen my neck?” Purple bruises sprout like a cruel mockery of a love bite chain all around my throat. “Yes,” the officer sighs. “That does look sore. But she’s your sister.” “So if a stranger had done this, you’d have arrested them?” She shrugs. “You live on the other side of the world. You can’t really press charges because you’d have to go to court. They probably wouldn’t bother.” “I want a restraining order so that she can’t come near my parents.” She sighs again. “Yeah, can’t really do that either.” “Disgraceful.” # My cousin Dan bundles Cass into the car to take her away. None of us ask where. “Don’t bring her back here,” we instruct. Poppy snuggles into Mum as the car pulls away. I’ve got eight hours until my flight leaves, and no idea when I’ll next be back. I hug Dad tightly to me, trying to line up our heartbeats. “Happy birthday, Dad.”
Jay McKenzie has won numerous short story awards, and her debut novel will be published in 2023. Instagram: @jay_writes_books