neediness, crying piteously when she didn't get her own way. She shit-stirred between the children, rumor mongering and passing on distorted comments. When anyone tried to stand up to her she cast herself as the victim and rallied the other children to her support, causing schisms. Liam said she had a rota written up somewhere and victimized the children in turn. It had worked better when they were younger: Maureen and Liam only pretended to buy into it all now, faking shock at Una's unkind comments about Maggie, pretending to care when Marie said Maureen would never recover from the hospital. But Una still played along fully and if Maureen didn't go and see Winnie today then, as sure as a fight at a wedding, she'd get a worried phone call from Una tomorrow, asking her why she was avoiding Mum, what had Mum done, couldn't Maureen see she was upsetting her.
There was a time when Very Drunk Winnie was the best of a bad choice for Maureen: it was a straight fight and she could take it because Winnie didn't know anything about her. She had been careful never to discuss the things that mattered to her in front of the family, Liam excepted. She told her friends that she didn't have a phone and wouldn't let boyfriends come to the house. She lied about where she was going at night, she even lied about her 0 grade subjects. So when Winnie went for Maureen's jugular she was slagging her about fictitious habits, friends and events. What happened between them in hospital had changed all that. Now Winnie had more to cast up to Maureen than the rest of them.
Winnie behaved strangely during the hospital visits. She brought an endless succession of inappropriate presents like earrings and makeup and fashion magazines. She monologued about the neighborhood gossip, who had died, what was on telly last night. She wouldn't acknowledge the fact that they were in a psychiatric hospital or talk to the staff. But Maureen was bananas at the time and lots of things seemed strange. Leslie had read up on familial reactions to abuse disclosure and said that it was normal for the non-abusing parent to feel incredibly guilty, maybe that's what was wrong with Winnie.
Maureen didn't have a lot of time to think about it: the memories of the forgotten years were coming back thick and fast, through dreams, in flashbacks, over cups of tea with other patients. She became a compulsive confider. Looking at the fading bouquets of flowers on the wallpaper above the bedstead, counting and counting and counting until it was finished.
Standing in the bath waiting to get out and Michael, her father, leaning over with the towel and looking her in the eye. The door was shut behind him.
Him sitting on the bed afterward, crying, Maureen patting his hand to comfort him as the pee stung her legs. His hand was as big as her face.
At the caravan in St. Andrews, the sea lapping over her black gutties. The rest of them were on the beach, out of sight, behind the rock, and Michael was coming after her. She scrabbled over the rocks on all fours, trying to get away, trying to look as if she wasn't running, scratching her knees on the jagged granite.
The panic when he saw the blood dribbling down her skinny legs. He'd slapped her on the side of the head and, lifting her by her upper arm, put her into the cupboard, locking it and taking the key with him. She could smell the blood as she sat in the dark cupboard and she knew what it was. She hoped she would die before he came back. It was his fingernail that had cut her, it was his nail.
Winnie crowbarring the cupboard door open and pulling Maureen out by her ankle. Marie standing behind her, twelve years old and already crying without making a noise, silent because she knew no one was listening.
She tried to piece it all together but some elements of the story were confusing: she couldn't remember when Michael left them or why certain smells prompted panic attacks or whether any of the other children had showed signs of abuse.