Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
On, off. On, off. On, off. My mother hangs at the doorway to my bedroom, flicking the light switch as I, four years old, shrink underneath the mismatched covers of my single bed. On, off. On, off. On, off. Eyes black, shaking with anger now. She seems so tall. ‘You couldn’t just say one thing for me, could you? I’m so fucked now, because of you.’ On, off. On, off. On, off. My eyes are stinging and I shudder from crying hard all night. ‘Get out of bed, you little traitor!’ I’m so far beyond tired, it’s 12.30am. On, off. On, off. On, off. ‘Do you know what this means? We’re going to have to disappear.’
WHACK WHACK WHACK on the door. It’s him. Mum and I both freeze in the hallway, looking at oneanother. He is shouting and furious. I hear him kick the door really hard and it buckles a bit. Like an animal, I run for mum’s closet, open the glass sliding door, and slam it behind me. In the darkness I wait and listen. I can hear my father shouting ‘OPEN THE DOOR.’ I picture his red face and red ears on the other side of the thin door, veins on his reddened neck as he yells and slams his body and kicks and swears. Suddenly it stops. We hear the sound of his old, worn runners on the stairs, echoing in the stairwell. Several moments pass and we hear the wheels of his car screech away from the kerb and down the street. He’s gone, but he’ll be back any minute.
Suddenly the glass door of my sanctuary opens. ‘Get out, get out quickly. Put your shoes on. NOW.’ She scoops me up and carries me down the echoing stairs in high heels. In the street jumps into the car and shovels me onto the front seat beside her. There is no time to buckle up. She starts the engine and I spot his car at the end of the road, coming very fast in our direction. ‘LOOK Mumma.’ She sees him too. It’s too late to hope that he hasn’t seen us. She floors the accelerator up the hill. In seconds, he pulls out in front of us, but Mum swerves, very narrowly missing a head-on collision. I tumble to the floor of the car. We climb the hill as fast as we can out of Clovelly and he follows us. We continue to duck and weave through suburban streets. I can see his car in the rear view mirror and I dare to look back at his face, which is glowing red and sweaty and terrifying. I can see the whites of his eyes like he has turned savage. He is literally chasing us out of town.
After he has run out of petrol, we keep driving for several hours just to make sure he is gone. We pull into a motel and get into the double bed together and lie there, hearts hammering in the morning light. I didn’t know it then but I would never go back to my house and I wouldn’t see my family again for fourteen years.