Excerpt of Black Sheep by K E Stokes

Gem left school with no qualifications, ambition or sense of self, violated by a woman who saw her as an open wound over which to pour salt. She was broken, demoralised and void of trust, as was the foundation of a damaged individual. Thoughts of leaving home had crossed her mind many times, but with no money and little knowledge of life beyond the front door, freedom could only ever be a daunting prospect.

Each day mirrored the one before and began with the preparation of her mother’s breakfast – muesli followed by a round of toast with two eggs and a large mug of gorilla-strength coffee to swill it down. Gem was then expected to hover around the table to clear away dirty pots while trying not to hear the sound of her mother clacking and slavering like a pig at a trough. Dinner was much the same, unless mother was out with the ‘Cross Dollies’ at the village café, and during such times Gem would inevitably miss out on lunchtime scraps. The woman’s ever-increasing waistline evoked a constant dread of one day having to soap her copious flesh with a wet flannel and hoist her to a nearby piss pot.

Even though the house was aesthetically worn, with peeling paint and scuffed wallpaper, Hattie insisted the place was wiped down and swept daily, lest lingering spider webs inflame her arachnophobia. Gem was dusting down the main window bay and caught a glimpse of the paper windmill in the neighbour’s garden through a gap where the curtains didn’t quite meet.

“Get your nose out of there,” Hattie said, banging her fist on the wall.

The thump startled Gem and, as she edged back, she accidentally knocked Lily – a beloved china doll – onto the floor, where it smashed into a trillion pieces. Just as the stinkiest shit was about to hit the fan, Fran flounced in through the front door and miraculously diffused the hostility. The imitation queen feigned an air kiss on Hattie’s cheek, false eyelashes flickering to accentuate the exaggerated gesture.

“It’s so nice to see again, my lovely,” Hattie said.

“Hey, guess who’s moving to the London office?” Fran said. “And why is Lily in bits on the carpet?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Hattie said, flapping her hand as if to swat an invisible fly. At least it wasn’t the insidious ‘Daisy’ – a piece of porcelain ugliness that had reigned over the mantelpiece for years.

Following the usual shallow chit-chat over tea and broken biscuits, Fran crept out of the lounge and down the hallway while Hattie slept on the sofa. It was always the reason for an impromptu visit, but Gem was privy to Fran’s purposeful delving through her mother’s belongings as if they were her own. The sound of rustling echoed in the distance as she rooted through cupboards, drawers, and boxes filled with old documents and paraphernalia.

“You’re looking in all the wrong places,” Gem said, poking her head around the bedroom door.

“Shush,” Fran said, pressing her finger against her Revlon lipstick. “The old bitch has ears like a shithouse rat,”

“Okay, have it your way.”

Such misdemeanours were blindly ignored anyway, just as Hattie disregarded countless visits from the constabulary during Fran’s teenage years. It was to hell with the golden girl’s longstanding criminality, subsequent embarrassment, and the personal loss it caused.