The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

Author:Lola Jaye [Jaye, Lola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2022-02-28T17:00:00+00:00


Lowra

1974

My eyes flickered open.

She’d left the light on. I was in there. The attic.

I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I hadn’t been downstairs in what felt like a very long time.

It was difficult to keep track of time in here because every day felt the same, the time passing fast yet slow. I only knew a day had gone because she’d walk in to change the bucket once in a while. I hadn’t noticed the sink earlier and didn’t have the mental space to decipher why a sink would be inside an attic and not a toilet, though I was grateful for the sound of running water. Any sound, because whenever she appeared, she never said much. Sometimes a mumble; other times a complaint which had nothing to do with me.

It was only when the stench from the bucket became unbearable that I realized she hadn’t been in for a while. Another clue to a long stretch would be leaving me more food than usual. An extra apple; half a loaf of bread instead of four slices. She was unpredictable with what she brought and that sometimes felt unsafe to me. Even more so than being inside that attic.

Luckily, along with my clothes I’d packed a book, a pad, a pen, and of course that picture of the three of us: my mum, Dad and me. I used to keep it under my pillow so I could feel close to them. Now, I simply wanted to be with them, for real. The three of us, together forever.

Sometimes I’d while away the time by writing poems or rummaging around some of the boxes. I found a briefcase. My dad’s briefcase! This was where he’d kept his ‘papers’ and ‘certificates’, as he called them. My mother’s passport was inside, her beautiful face smiling from the page. The stamped pages confirmed all the lovely trips we had made as a family, mostly to Spain. I wished I remembered them all – every little bit. But inside that attic, I had time to conjure possibilities of what they could have been like, and they were all perfect, of course. Sun-filled sandy beaches and kisses – so many kisses from my mum and dad.

I wrote a poem. I sang an ABBA track or a David Bowie song. Dad loves, I mean loved, David Bowie.

Dad.

When I closed my eyes and lay back on the attic floor, I could no longer see his face. Not clearly anyway. It was as if he was fading from my memory. Fading from me. Just like my mother had when I was six years old. I no longer knew what his aftershave smelled like; I could no longer remember how it felt to be in his arms. If it wasn’t for the picture, I would have forgotten about the flecks of light brown in his hair and how he smiled.

I didn’t think about much any more. I didn’t think about the past, and the future didn’t really exist for me.



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