The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
PART I
1
I was ten when I made the decision to kill Jemma.
Her family – parents and an older sister – had moved from London to our small country village six months before. The first morning, Jemma had waltzed into our class completely unfazed by the wide eyes and audible whispers that followed her progress like sunflowers to her sun.
Our teacher, Miss Dryden, a tall willowy woman with steel grey hair and watery blue eyes, held a hand lightly on her shoulder and introduced her. ‘I know you’ll all be delighted to welcome Jemma to the class and help her to settle in.’
She was the first new girl to have joined our primary school class and she brought with her an air of city sophistication that easily dazzled us. Her clothes, hair, shoes, even her schoolbag were all a little bit exotic. To us girls who desperately wanted to grow up, she appeared to have reached heights we only aspired to.
It wasn’t long before she became the girl everyone wanted to be friends with, not long before I, and others like me, discovered that the girls who surrounded her were arranged in a distinct hierarchy. There were the best friends, limited to four; a larger circle of girls who were allowed to join in the chat on occasion; a wider group who were allowed to peer in; and then a final group who were deemed unworthy of any access. For an individual or group to prevail, there needed, after all, to be another for them to lord it over. A group they could all be superior to.
I was in this latter group. I don’t know why. Perhaps the pairing of the slight frame I’d inherited from my mother, with the overlarge nose and mouth inherited from my father, didn’t present a beguiling appearance. Perhaps that was all it took… to look different.
Despite my appearance, school had been a happy place for me before her arrival. Inclusion was taken for granted. When it began to fade away, I was confused and bewildered.
The name calling started first, a mere week after Jemma’s arrival. At first, I didn’t understand, didn’t know they were referring to me, when I heard one or more of her inner circle shouting watch out here comes Jaws, or, have you been telling lies again, Pinocchio. Each time they would fall around themselves with laughter, as if the sobriquets were amusing rather than mean… and painful… and confusing.
I wasn’t the only victim. There were four other members of my unpopular group who received an equal share of this new unwanted attention. If only we marginalised group of five had gathered together, if we’d found strength in our common woes and learnt to fight back, but that never happened. Perhaps we were afraid of confrontation, or was it that we regarded each other with as much disdain as Jemma and her cohorts did. Whatever the reason, we stayed individually isolated in our roles as victim.
Over the following months, the bullies seemed to grow taller and bigger. I was the perfect victim, smaller and thinner than my tormentors, too easy to push around. They took more delight in their ‘fun’ with every passing day. When I didn’t react, they’d close in, jostling me, grabbing my schoolbag, plucking at the sleeve of my coat.
That day, I didn’t see whose hand had sent me flying. When I turned to challenge the act, I knew it was useless, so I picked myself up and walked away as quickly as I could. The stinging damage to my hands and knees brought tears to my eyes, but I refused to let them fall till I was a street away. On my own, overwhelmed by confusion, sadness, and frustration, one heaving sob started a free-for-all. I was barely able to see as I walked the short distance to my home.
My knees were skinned, the palms of both hands scratched and bloody. The band that kept my long thin hair back from my face had been lost. Tangled strands fell forward, catching in my tears and the bubble of snot that vibrated from one nostril with every pathetic hiccupping cry.
The back door was open, and I saw my apron-clad mother busily stirring something on the hob. ‘Hi,’ she said, without looking around, my noisy sobs lost in whatever was bubbling in the pot. It was silence that made her turn, one finely plucked eyebrow arching higher in a question she didn’t need to ask when her eyes took in my dishevelled appearance.
She dropped the wooden spoon on the counter with a clatter that sent beads of sauce flying in a messy circle. Then I was in her arms and clasped to a bosom almost as flat as my own. ‘Lissa! What happened?’
‘One of the girls pushed me.’
Through my tears and pain, I saw my mother’s horrified face and head shake of disbelief. ‘No, darling, I’m sure it was an accident.’ She bathed my wounds as she muttered reassuring words, convincing herself, not me, that her version of my story was correct.
There was so much pain in her eyes that I couldn’t help it, I relented. ‘I remember now, I tripped and fell.’
I was rewarded by a warm comforting hug, by the relief on her face that she didn’t have to confront something nasty, cruel and mean.
Young as I was, I knew she was emotionally fragile. If her world didn’t run on happy lines, she’d retreat into herself, hiding away until the wave of whatever outrage had occurred, had receded. Once it had, she’d be back, full of loving smiles, ready to be the best mother a lonely, sad goblin of a child could want.
So it was better to lie. To keep the nastiness from seeping into our home.
Young as I was, I tried to protect her, but I couldn’t stop the world turning…
2
As an only child, I was the sole focus of my parents’ attention, and due to this nurturing, or perhaps my inherent nature, I was a bright child. I took delight in excelling, and before Jemma’s arrival I was easily, and by a large margin, top of the class. My parents didn’t hide their pride in me. ‘We need to start putting money away for university,’ my mother would say to my father as every monthly payday came around.
He was a big man, and tall, and he’d laugh, grab her around the waist and kiss her. If I was there, I’d try to squirm between them desperate for my share of his affection. Sometimes, if I tried hard enough, he’d swing me up in his arms and I’d hold on to the moment for as long as I could, lost in his love. Whether it was me or my mother he was hugging, he’d dismiss her concerns in the same way. ‘Don’t worry about that now.’
At ten, university was almost two lifetimes away. I was more concerned with what was happening the following day. Perhaps, I should have discussed my worries with my father, the name calling, pushing and shoving I was being increasingly subjected to. But when he was home, the conversation was always bright and bubbly, each of my parents outdoing each other with cheerfulness. Their mutual love spilling over and… sometimes… including me.
My father was a sales representative for a medical company. His territory covered the south-west of England including the cities of Bath and Bristol. The workload had meant he’d often had to spend a night or two away, but when the company had expanded four years before, that had changed. Now he was working away three to four nights a week and every second weekend. The absence was hard on my needy, emotionally fragile mother. If they rowed about it, if she begged him to get a different job, one that didn’t entail so much time working away, I never knew. In all the years, I never remember hearing a raised voice or an unkind word. When my father was home, he was funny, charming, loving. The best, most indulgent, adoring, attentive husband. He’d take mother out for dinner; they’d go for long walks in the countryside and lunches in country pubs.