Rose couldn't stay awake.
It was the strangest thing.
She'd never cared for sleeping, not very much, not unless she was ill. Her aunt Polly used to tell her that when Rose first came to live in Watery Lane, she sewed bells onto the hem of her nightdress so she could hear her wandering the house in the middle of the night and retrieve her. There was no threat powerful enough to keep her in bed at night.
Now though...
Rose would drop off without any warning. She'd sit down on a chair and wake with a crooked neck, hours and hours later. Waking up in the morning was like extracting herself from a trough of treacle. Sometimes she couldn't remember walking into a room or why she'd wanted to be in it...if she'd wanted to be in it.
They'd gone back to the big house and Rose wasn't sure if this was making things better or worse. The place was so vast she'd wander off and fall asleep and no one would know where she was for ages.
Well, Frances wouldn't know where she was for ages...and Charlie.
No one else was looking.
#
It had all gone wrong.
Her father had carried her from the gin shed and sat her down on a crate somewhere outside and started running his hands all over her face and shoulders and arms. There were bruises on his knuckles and blood. There was blood on the cuffs of his jacket, too.
"Rosie. Rose."
She looked up. He's asked something, more than once most likely. She'd missed it.
"Yea?"
"Are you hurt?"
Rose didn't know how to explain just how hurt she was. It wasn't what her was asking after anyway. Tommy wanted to know if she'd been beaten. If they'd kicked her and burned her with their cigarettes. If she needed bandaging. She slowly shook her head.
"You sure you're orright?" He had her face in both of his hands now, searching her eyes. "They didn't touch you?"
"No," she said and felt something harden deep within.
He'd wrapped his arms around her then and held her and held her; but then Polly had come over and told him he was wanted inside. She'd sat down next to Rosie, pulled her close, held her hands and looked at her. For ages.
"What happened?" she finally asked in such a way that left no doubt that she knew something enormous had occurred.
There was no way to tell her. Rose didn't know for certain what had happened. So, for lack of better ideas, she shrugged.
"Nothing," she said. "Nothing happened. I'm orright."
To Rose's tremendous surprise, her aunt Polly had teared up at this, leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"When you're ready, you come and see me. Orright?" Polly squeezed Rose's hand. "When you've had a little time."
Just as she said it, Tommy had come back.
"She's orright, Pol." He'd looked at Rosie with an unfamiliar flash of fear. "Aren't you, Rosie?"
"Yea," she'd said quietly. "Right as rain."
"Good girl, Rosie," her father had never sounded so relieved in his life. "Good girl."
#
They'd gone back to the big house and had a party. The day after or a week after, Rose didn't know.
Everyone had been there. Drinking, toasting to the death of enemies. Rose had sat by the fire with Karl and Charlie, piles and piles of sweets on a platter between them.
"What're you doing?" Karl asked.
Rose didn't know if he was talking to her.
"Stop it." There'd been fear in his voice, panic almost. "Stop it. Mum! Stop it, Rosie. Uncle Tommy-"
Rose noticed a new smell in the room. Smokey and a bit like bacon.
Suddenly her father's hand was on her arm, pulling on it, shouting something over his shoulder. Her aunt Ada had come running with one of the silver buckets they used for the champagne and they'd plunged Rose's arm into it.
She'd pulled it back out and looked at it curiously as soon as her father let go off her. Her sleeve was singed and there were angry blisters all over her wrist and her palm.
"What's that?"
The way they'd looked at her. She still didn't know whether they'd been disgusted or terrified or both. Charlie'd been crying; Karl, too, nearly.
She'd gone upstairs, vaguely aware of her father watching her walk out of the room, certain he wouldn't follow.
#
He'd been off to somewhere, her father, but then he was back.
"You go in and see him," Frances said gently.
Charlie walked cautiously into their father's bedroom, Rose floated in behind him. Her hand was still bandaged and throbbing and when she stuck a finger between the gauze and her skin it came back slick with something like blood...but not blood. It worried her.
Tommy was on the bed, shirtless and with a bandage also.
"Did you hurt yourself?" Charlie asked timidly, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Just a bit of a scradge. It'll be right in no time."
Rose stood at the foot of the bed, looking. Her father was pale. There was a cigarette dying in the ashtray on the bedside table, next to a bottle and a glass. She angled her head a little and read the label.
"What's eradication?" she asked.
Tommy looked up at her, his eyes glassy enough for her to see herself in them. Two tiny Rose's leaning against the bed, staring.
"It means to make something go away completely," he said.
"Does it work?" she asked. "Does it eradicate sadness?"
"Are you asking 'cause you're sad, Rosie?" Her father sounded almost hopeful.
"No," she said, drifting back to the door. "I'm orright."
Part of her was already upstairs and in bed, or on the rug at the top of the stair if she got too tired. Her father was fine. The doctor had been with bandages. Charlie was there to keep him company.
#
There was too much blood inside her.
Rose woke feeling as though her body was made of lead. It was clear to her in a flash.
The problem was that there was too much blood, weighing her down.
It was a tremendous effort to roll onto her side and slide the bedside drawer open. The straight razor she'd nicked from her father back when she'd thought she could put up a fight, back when she thought the things she did mattered, was in amongst all kinds of debris. Wrappers and coins and gloves and things...toys, she supposed. Spinning tops. Marbles.
She lay back, opened the blade and ran it over the top of her bare arm. Once. Twice. Three times...it didn't hurt very much, nearly not at all.
Rose watched thin sheets of blood run down onto the sheet. The weight was lifting.
When she woke again, the room was flooded with sunlight and her arm was stuck to the sheet with dried blood. Rose took the waterglass from her bedside table, smashed it against the side of her bed and told Frances she didn't remember waking up thirsty.
#
Her father wasn't going into the office anymore.
It took Rose a little time to realise, because he'd been in bed with his bandages, recuperating.
Charlie would go in and sit on the bed, bring a fistful of soldiers and stage battles on Tommy's chest until Frances coaxed him out.
Rose didn't visit. Not a lot.
She did sit outside the door though, sometimes; sometimes she fell asleep there.
"Rosie?"
She uncurled herself and sat up carefully.
"Come here."
He didn't have the big bandage anymore, only a small one over on his side. He was patting the mattress next to him, but Rose couldn't sit there. It was too close. It was impossible.
"Are you better?" she asked, lingering at the foot of the bed again.
"I am, thank you."
His frown was so deep, it could have held one of Charlie's soldiers in it. Two even.
"Why aren't you working?"
Rose flexed her good hand on the bedframe, making sure it wouldn't go through the wood.
"I'm having a bit of a holiday."
"Lovely."
They were like boxers, Rose realised. Dancing around each other. Tapping gloves, pulling punches, feeling each other out.
"Are you better, too, Rosie?"
She looked directly at him now, her chin raised a little. Her left hand was patchy with all the colours skin could have, coated in sticky salves and bits of bandage to keep the bits between her fingers from ripping apart. Under her left sleeve hid lines and lines of cuts in various stages of healing. She couldn't make it through one day without randomly falling asleep.
"I'm grand, thank you."
"Good girl."
She couldn't believe it.
"D'you think you're up for going back to school?"
Perhaps she'd left something of herself on the floor in the gin shed. Not a big part, necessarily, but the one that made her visible. Not Rose, the body, but Rose, the girl.
"Yea," she said. "That's orright."
#
She'd hated her school, the fancy one. She'd hated it for always and forever.
If it had been up to Rose, she'd have stayed at school in Saltley, where she'd gone with Alice and James ever since schooling had been deemed necessary.
Unfortunately, it hadn't been up to her and she'd been sent off to St. Paul's with instructions to behave and not to tell anyone she'd not had her first communion.
The uniforms were horrible. The girls laughed at her because of the way she talked.
She'd not been since just before Christmas.
When she got there on Monday morning, Rose found she'd left another bit of herself at home. Rose, the body, was now invisible also. She went through two hours without any of the girls even glancing at her, not even in secret.
By the time her French teacher came into the classroom, Rose was convinced she'd turned into a ghost.
It seemed like altogether good news, really.
Rose stood, left her bag where it was and sprinted up the isle between the desks, headed for the green on the other side of the wall. She ran into the wall beside the blackboard with such force she gave herself a concussion, the sister half a heart attack and the girls something to talk about til the end of days.
School wasn't brought up again.
#
With nothing to occupy her days, Rose felt herself unmooring from whatever it was that kept her where she supposedly should have been.
"Charlie?"
He opened his eyes and sat up sleepily.
"What?"
"Can you see me?"
"Yea."
He was too small for this, but there was no one else to ask.
"Charlie?"
"Yea?"
"Can you...can you look at my back for me?"
Charlie frowned but nodded. Rose turned around and pulled up her nightdress.
"Is there a hole?" she asked, terrified to hear his answer.
"What hole?" he asked back, sounding just as scared.
"From a bullet coming out."
"No." Charlie's answer was surprisingly firm. "Nothing. No hole. Just your back."
Rose dropped her nightie down.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"That's orright."
"Go back to sleep."
She tiptoed back to her room and sat on her bed. Five minutes later she could feel blood running down her back. Again.
#
Rose made a list of the things normal people did. It turned out to be very short. They ate, slept and walked around a bit. She could do these things. It couldn't be that hard.
#
"Frances is worried about you."
Rose tore herself away from the window and turned around slowly.
"Why is she?"
Her father was a little drunk, she suspected. He was holding himself especially tall and straight, making a conscious effort. It seemed to her he was doing this more often than not lately.
"She says you're not yourself."
Rose cocked her head and looked at him. Tommy, the body, was still and strong; but Rose could nearly see Tommy, the man, ricocheting around inside it.
"Yea?"
There it was again, that strange flinch in him.
"You're orright, Rosie?"
"Sure. Are you?"
She'd been hearing him at night. Dreaming. Shouting. Drinking and banging things.
"Of course."
"Enjoying your holiday still?"
He stared at her for a moment.
"Just behave yourself, ay?" he said. "Frances means well."
#
Charlie was at her door in his pyjamas, white as a sheet.
"What's up?"
"There's something wrong with our da," Charlie said shakily.
"He's probably just drunk," Rose sighed.
"I don't like it."
"It doesn't matter."
"It does."
"Why?" Rose asked with genuine interest.
"Because there isn't anyone else."
Something slid into place. Rose couldn't put her finger on it.
"Charlie-" she got off her windowsill and walked over to him. "Charlie, listen. I'll fix it, orright?"
"Can you fix it now?"
"Yea," Rose said lightly. "But it might get a bit loud. There might be some shouting and...things."
"Why?"
"Because."
"I don't like shouting."
"Just pretend like uncle Arthur's visiting, orright?" Rose put on what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "But don't come down, yea?"
"What're you goin' to do?" Charlie asked nervously.
"I told you, I'll sort it."
Rose left her brother, who didn't look at all convinced, and went downstairs.