An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Reference to severe child abuse
• Reference to misuse of alcohol to make children sleep
• Description of the emotional aftermath of child abuse, including PTSD

Transcript

[WHIRRING, TICKING, CLICKING]
[ECHOING FOOTSTEPS]

APPRENTICE
No. No, no, no. This is— I started out here, this— Sir? Sir are you down here?!

[QUIET]

APPRENTICE
The shelves. They’re empty.

[FOOTSTEPS]

APPRENTICE
There’s nothing here. How am I supposed to— what do you want me to do if there’s nothing here?

[A THIN WIND BLOWS]

APPRENTICE
Hello, statue. Elio. If it’s you. If that’s what this…

[HE SIGHS]

APPRENTICE
I’m sorry.

[FINGERS BRUSH UNDER STONE]

APPRENTICE
It’s coming back to me in pieces. Bits and pieces. What you did. How you helped me. How you tried to help me more. I wish I’d let you. I wish… I wish. I’m sorry.

[A SMALL, BRIGHT CLATTER]

[APPRENTICE GASPS]

APPRENTICE
What’s this?

[HE PICKS AN OBJECT UP FROM THE FLOOR]

APPRENTICE
A bracelet. The beads are made of glass. The clasp is tiny, I can’t make it— ah.

[WHOOSH]

A big wave crashes into Gloria’s knees, icy cold. She keens sideways, knocking into Pam’s shoulder. The cold is a relief under the beating sun. Another wave crashes into to them and sends Pam sideways into the water, clutching her hat to her head. She grabs the hem of Gloria’s dress to keep from completely submerging. They’re both giggling.
‘Come on.’ Gloria pulls her friend to her feet. They’re both laughing as they run back to the part of the beach where the sand is still dry. Pam’s spread out a towel for them to sit on. Her mum’s sent her with sandwiches, and they share them, ignoring the crunchy grind of sand that’s worked its way into the bread.
Pam grabs Gloria’s arm, looks at the bracelet on her wrist. ‘What’s that?’
‘It was my mum’s,’ says Gloria.
‘Oh,’ says Pam. She shifts awkwardly on the sand. None of Gloria’s friends know what to say about the fact her mum is dead. Gloria thinks that’s fair enough: she doesn’t know what to say about it either.
After lunch, their other friends arrive. They leave the beach proper and hike across the dunes. There’s an old shed up there and it’s perfect for playing house. They draw straws to see who has to be the dad, and this time, it’s Gloria’s turn. She ties her dress between her legs to make it into trousers and uses a bit of rope they find in the grass to make her belt. She stomps her feet and scratches her belly and shouts and walks around with her hands on her hips and her friends laugh and squeal as she chases them for not keeping the house in order. She even gives Pam a big smooch on the cheek which sends everyone howling.
It’s a good day and by the time the sun goes down, Gloria’s throat is raw from doing her dad voice for so long. Cherry and Lilian bike back home, and Pam and Gloria walk together. ‘You’re good at being the dad,’ says Pam.
‘Thanks,’ says Gloria.
Pam’s house is one street over from Gloria’s, so she walks the last stretch alone. She finds herself dragging her feet. When she gets to the front garden, the living room curtains are open and the light is on inside. Gloria stops. George should have closed the curtains before he switched the light on. He knows that. It’s the rules. Leaving it like this means anyone can see inside, and Dad hates that, says all the neighbours are dying to stick their noses in because Mum’s dead. They don’t need them interfering, they’re doing just fine. Or, they would be, if George could stop breaking all the rules for five minutes.
Gloria sits on the front step and folds her hands in her lap. She waits for the sound of her dad’s belt to stop, then she goes inside. Dad is sitting at the kitchen table, breathing hard. He’s got a hand over his face so she can’t see him crying. He hates hurting George so much. She wishes he didn’t have to do it.
Gloria wets a flannel in the kitchen sink and takes it upstairs. George is curled up under his blankets. Gloria pulls them back, ignores when he tries to squirm away. She presses the cloth to the welts on his back. He hisses, and she shushes him, just like Mum used to do.

[WHOOSH]

Gloria’s brother is leaving with his rich girlfriend and she hates, hates, hates him. ‘How could you do this to me?!’ she wails.
George shakes his head just barely. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t stay here anymore.’
‘He’s not that bad!’
‘It’s not about Dad,’ says George, like a liar.
‘How can you even afford to move to London?’
George sighs. ‘Ruby’s parents have given her a bit of money, and there’s plenty of work down there for me to pay my way. I’m going to study so I can be a proper engineer.’
Gloria sniffles. ‘But what about me?’
George sits down on Gloria’s bed. ‘Think of it like this. You’ll have this whole bedroom to yourself, and the whole wardrobe will be yours. Your dresses won’t get all squashed and wrinkled anymore.’
It feels like something as torn it’s way out of Gloria’s chest. The sob that tumbles out with it hurts as it leaves her. ‘I don’t care about my dresses getting crumpled, George! I want you to stay.’
George pulls Gloria close. ‘You’ll be okay. Dad never gets angry at you the way he does at me. He’s been so sick, probably it’ll do him good to not have me around anymore. I’ll send money back if I can to help with groceries. I know you’ve got your job but—‘
Gloria flings her arms around George and holds him tight. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleads. ‘Mum’s gone. If you go too that’s half the family. Please, George.’
‘I’m sorry, Gloria. I have to.’

[WHOOSH]

It would all be fine if the baby would just stop crying. Then Gloria could get some sleep and tidy up and set the house to rights. But it won’t stop crying. It cries and cries and cries. Gloria’s father has been at the pub pretty much constantly since it was born and she doesn’t blame him. Doesn’t blame her husband for working late at the garage to avoid it, too. If she had a job she’d work late, and if she’d the money for the pub she’d have gone there instead, left the little screamer on her own. But she can’t leave it. and it won’t stop screaming. And she can’t sleep. And she can’t tidy. And the house looks like it’s been picked up and shaken.
Gloria’s tried feeding it but it cries even when it’s fed. It sleeps for a while but only for precious minutes at a time, barely long enough for Gloria to sit down, let alone rest herself. It doesn’t want to be rocked, doesn’t want to be set down. Hates it in the house and in the garden and in its pram down by the beach. She’s given up trying to take it anywhere but the house; people look at her and know right away how hard she’s failing. She’s a terrible mother, a terrible woman, a terrible person. If she wasn’t she’d know what was making the baby cry. If she wasn’t, it wouldn’t be crying at all.
How did her mother do this? How did anyone do this?! She has never felt more alone.
Four in the morning, Gloria pleads with it in the kitchen, and then hears a knock at the door. Her neighbour, exhausted, marches wordlessly into the house with a bottle of whiskey. She grabs a teaspoon, half-fills it with the drink, then drops it into the baby’s mouth. It wrinkles its tiny face, screwing up its whole body, shaking its miniature fists. But then, after a few belligerent squawks, it finally, finally sleeps.
The red begins to fade from the baby’s face, except her cheeks, flush and adorable.
Gloria bursts into tears. The neighbour clutches her shoulder, puts the whiskey down heavily on the table. ‘You’re welcome,’ she says, and then she’s gone.

[WHOOSH]

Gloria stuffs her son’s arms into his jacket. Betsy is skipping up and down the hall.
‘Put on your boots,’ Gloria instructs her.
‘But I want to wear my pretty shoes!’
‘No, it’s frozen out there, your toes will get so cold they’ll drop off.’
‘No they won’t,’ says Betsy.
‘They will. Ask your grandad, when he was in the war—’
‘But we’re only going to church.’
‘I know. But it’s a big walk up the high street, plenty of time for your toes to get frost bitten. And then what will happen in the summer and you want to wear your sandals, hmm? You’ll have no toenails to paint.’
Betsy considers for a moment, then sits down to put her boots on.
‘Good girl,’ says Gloria.
In his pram, Timmy is starting to fuss. Gloria grabs his dummy and a bottle of brandy. She sticks the rubber end into the bottle’s open neck and sloshes it upside down. Timmy suckles on it happily. He’ll be asleep before they get to the high street.

[WHOOSH]

George’s baby is silent in his pram. He’s not sleeping; his eyes are wide open. But not crying. Not even moving. He’s just lying there. It’s like he knows what he did. That he killed his mother coming into the world, and he knows it. But he’s not sad. He’s not upset. He’s silent. Unrepentant.
Gloria picks him up. He looks at her with his big, dark eyes. Why doesn’t he cry? He should cry. But he doesn’t. In the three weeks since she brought him home, he’s cried only when he was hungry, and once when his nappy was so wet it had started to seep into the sheets. She took him to the doctor, explained what was going on. The doctor checked him over, but said there was nothing wrong with him, except that he was a little thin. Gloria’s tried to help with that. When she took him, she’d been breastfeeding her second son for three months and had plenty to go around, but now her nipples have broken out in sores and she’s struggling to nurse her own child. It’s him, this boy. He’s killed his own mother now he’s making a start on Gloria too, sucking the life out of her, leaving sores on her nipples, killing her own son as he goes. And it’s like no matter how much milk he takes, how much pain it causes Gloria, the boy just will not put on any weight. He takes and takes and takes.
‘Supplement Edwin with cows milk stirred with sugar,’ he tells her. ‘It’ll help him fill out a bit and hopefully give him some more energy.’
Of course, Gloria shan’t be doing that. If she gives him sweetened milk, he’ll never want anything else. Bad enough she’s bringing up some other woman’s child, she won’t be raising him to be a brat.
‘There’s too much of his father in him,’ says Gloria’s dad.
Gloria looks at the boy. She doesn’t see much of George in him at all, only that skinny slip of a girl that squeezed him out. His hair is dark and curly like all of her family’s. Not a single cross in the whole house. Heathens. She’d not have taken him at all if George had not looked so bedraggled and heartbroken. He promised to send half of everything he earned up to Wales to go towards the boy’s care. At this rate, she’ll need every penny of it.

[WHOOSH]

The boy is sitting on a step. He won’t meet Gloria’s gaze. They’d just wanted to get some nice family photographs, Gloria, her husband, Betsy, Timmy and Joe, but Edwin just couldn’t help himself from butting in. She’d told Jack they should have just left him at home, but he didn’t want to leave him alone in the house that long. Gloria can’t blame him. Who knows what trouble he’d get into without supervision?
Instead of sitting quietly with his book as instructed, he’d started chasing the chickens out the back of the photography place, and he’s fallen and skinned his knees. There’s gravel and straw sticking to the oozing skin he’s dabbing at ineffectively with a cloth the photographer’s wife gave him.
Gloria snatches it, cleans the wounds with a single firm swipe. Edwin yelps. Gloria catches him by the collar of his shirt. ‘Quiet,’ she says. She checks to wounds again; clear of debris. She gives them another once-over just to be sure, and the boy throws up on the ground next to his feet.
‘Disgusting,’ says Gloria.
Edwin is glaring at Gloria. He looks ridiculous, fury in his eyes as tears stream down his blotchy cheeks and chunks of his lunch cling to his lips.
‘If you think that means you’ll get an extra sandwich, you’re mistaken,’ Gloria tells him. She finishes his medicine out of her purse, pours a capful and makes him drink it. She keeps a hand over his mouth so he can’t spit it out and waits for him to swallow. After a few minutes, his eyelids are drooping. She should have given him more before they got out of the car and saved everyone the trouble.
The next day, Gloria takes him back to the fancy doctor she’s been relying on ever since Edwin started walking and getting into trouble. ’The pills aren’t working. He’s still running around like a mad thing.’
‘At this point I don’t know what else I can do,’ says the doctor. ‘He’s already on as much paraldehyde as I can safely give him. There’s not much literature on morally disturbed children, so our best defence is to rely on good, old fashioned discipline. You’re taking the time to correct his behaviour, yes?’
Gloria’s cheeks flush. ‘I do what I can.’
‘Maybe you’re being too gentle with him. When he’s playing up, you need to give him a shock. Children’s minds are still developing so there’s a chance to train this abnormality out of him by getting him to connect bad behaviour with punishment in his mind. If you’re struggling to do this effectively at him, it may be worth considering sending him away to school.’
That would eat up all the money George sends Gloria for Edwin’s care. Yes, the brat would be out from under her roof, but he’d still need feeding and clothing in the holiday.
‘Are you sending me away, then?’ Edwin asks on the bus home. He doesn’t talk like a four year old should talk. Too well spoken, to precise in every word. He thinks he’s better than Gloria and his cousins. Thinks he’s so much smarter than Jack he can’t keep himself from correcting his words. Nasty little thing.
‘Fat chance,’ says Gloria. These schools could be strict, Gloria knows, but they likely don’t have the resources to have an adult on him at all times. She can’t guarantee they wouldn’t let him run riot. He needs a short leash, constant supervision. ‘You’d probably burn the place down, wouldn’t you?’
Edwin turns and scowls out of the window.
When they get home, Edwin stands in the kitchen and waits for his medicine. She gives him an extra half spoonful because he’s breathing so hard and his nostrils are flared and he’s looking at her with the devil in his eyes. Without a word he hold out his hands, staring Gloria down. A challenge. She strikes his palms with the handle of a wooden spoon until the skin begins to split and he’s shaking with determination not to cry.
‘Now, get to your chores,’ Gloria tells him.

[WHOOSH]

Gloria tries to settle on the train, but she keeps looking at the empty seat next to her. When the ticket master comes to check her tickets, she hands him the boy’s by mistake. Gloria feels her entire face turn red as she hands over the right on instead. She’s worried the ticket master will ask where the boy is, but he just punches both tickets and moves on to the next row of seats.
She’ll tell Jack he’s gone to stay with other relatives. Yes. That makes sense. Gives a reason for George to have called them down to London like that. No need to actually bother George with this at all, he’s got enough on his mind, being shipped off to war. The boy will find his way home, anyway. He always manages to. Granted, when he’s run away before it’s only been in the village, and this time he’s somewhere in London. The boy might be a brat, but Gloria can’t deny he’s clever. If he knows what’s good for him he’ll find his way home. Who could help Gloria find him anyway? Half the police force has gone to war and the whole city is in a state of chaos.
Gloria chews her lip. He’s also smart enough to cause her trouble, though. Say he does find the authorities and tells them she turned him out rather than that he gave her the slip? If that gets back to her, if the authorities suspect it’s true, then they could try to take away her children like they did to poor Mrs Bennet.
No. It won’t happen. The police will spend ten minutes with the boy and know he’s a little liar with a criminal mind. If they call Gloria, she’ll put them on the phone with his doctor and he’ll tell them how he’s been a problem since he could speak, and it’s only got worse from there. No way they’d believe the boy over both Gloria and a doctor. No. It’ll be fine. Good, even.
She’s done everything she can to correct him, but it’s all been for naught. He’d even tried to refuse to go to London. Gloria had to beat him so hard his skin split just to get him to agree to get dressed. She gave him extra medicine so he’d behave on the train and had to get Jack to carry him on board. An old lady had said what an angel he was. Gloria had wanted to scream. If she only understood how difficult he really was, how he insisted on attention at every junction. Always staring and sulking about, expecting praise, but causing trouble at school. Trying to worm his way into every family occasion as if he was one of Gloria’s own children. Screaming the house down every night until Gloria went in and spanked him. What did he have to have nightmares about? He wanted for nothing. He had clothes on his back and food in his belly and a warm bed to sleep in. They took him to the fancy doctor every month to try to get on top of his insolence but there’d been no luck so far. All the medicine made him easier to deal with but the moment it wore off, it was back to his nonsense, running about, causing trouble, staring Gloria down with a silent fury that made her stomach hurt.
No. If police picked him up, they’ll send him away. They have prisons for children. She’s managed to keep the boy under control enough to keep him out of them so far, but perhaps it’s the best place for him. Yes. Good. No need to tell George. No need to worry him. Enough on his plate. Fighting a war, doing important things. That’s probably why the boy ran in the first place, his incessant need for attention. Yes. That’s it. He’ll be fine. It will all be fine.

[WHOOSH]

It’s absurd that the lawyers won’t let Gloria have the money she’s owed. She spent years raising the boy. How many hours did she spend nursing him, tending him? By rights, that money should go to her. But no. They won’t hand it over.
They tried to make her send back what she’d had over the last few years since he’s been gone, but they’ve dropped that whole drama now, at least. What a nuisance. Unreasonable bastards.
It’s not like they can prove anything anyway. Nobody’s found the brat. She’d have probably pulled him out of school to save them having to deal with him anyway, and that doctor, he wasn’t helping fix the boy’s criminal mind, so why would she have kept taking him to him? For all they know, he’s been with her until they came to check the house three months ago. They can’t prove a thing.
It’s all the more insulting given they didn’t even send a proper solicitor to check on the boy. They just sent their assistant, and the poor lad was utterly clueless, looked around at Gloria’s house as if it were an exhibit in a museum. She supposes it must look strange to him, that he probably grew up in a fancy house down in London, very well-to-do. He’s kind, affable, but apologises and tells her that no, she can’t have the money—

[THE APPRENTICE STRUGGLES FOR BREATH]

You were dressed in your best clothes, lipstick meticulous like lawyers. The picture of a perfect wife, a perfect mother. Your granddaughter sleeping soundly in her pram next to the kitchen table, a little angel in a crocheted blanket you’d made for her yourself.

Did you ever knit me a blanket, Gloria? Not a single photograph of me on her shelves, just my birth certificate, propped up in front of the books next to the frames. She’d not even bothered to try to dress it up. A little bear she’d claimed was mine but I think must have been my cousin’s, a little VE Day ribbon loose around its throat.

[MOTHS FLUTTER]

You didn’t even know me.

I tried to so hard to be good. I did. I tried so fucking hard and it never worked and I— fuck. I still dreamed of you. So often I dreamed about you. After you’d give me that medicine and put me to bed, you’d get me into my pyjamas and your hands would be so soft. I’d think about how soft they were whenever you beat me. I must’ve have been so bad, I thought, to make someone with such soft hands be so rough.

[MORE MOTHS]

I dreamed about you, and that day you didn’t even know me. That bracelet on your wrist, you were so careful with it, taking it off every time you had a bath, carefully putting it back on afterwards. A beautiful thing. You gave it to your daughter the day she got married. Something old and something blue, all wrapped into one.

Sometimes the dreams weren’t so soft. Sometimes I’d wake up in a puddle of my own fucking piss already hearing you shouting, like you always shouted, and I couldn’t get myself to breathe again until I’d—

Until it hurt.

[MOTHS LOUDER NOW]

I needed to learn. I had to learn. That was it. That’s what you told me, Gloria, wasn’t it? That I needed to learn. I was smart, you said. If I just let you teach me how, I was smart enough to learn to be good and I tried so hard and— but I was so fucking scared and so fucking angry. Why didn’t you want me? Why didn’t George?

And my mother. I killed her. Murdered her. Sucked the life right out of her just like you said. A killer from the day I was born.

Did you think of me until that day I came to you? I hoped you’d know me when you opened the door. That you’d be proud of how far I’d come, despite all the defects you saw in me. You’d see I’d learned to be better and I was. But you didn’t know me. You looked at me like a stranger and you made me a cup of tea and offered me biscuits and…

[SO MANY MOTHS]

I had felt a lot of things for Gloria before that day, but I think that was the first time I hated her. And I did. I hated her.

I wouldn’t find out she died until years afterward. She’d never stopped sending letters to Cratchet and Pocket. Never stopped asking for the money my father had left for me, the remnants of that stipend his wife’s parents had paid him to cover her care before she died. I—

I gave it to her grandson. His mother had named him George, after the uncle she’d never met, who had been a war hero. His middle name? Edwin. Named after me. A cousin she believed had died of polio. That boy, he never knew who it was standing in front of him. Thought I was some stranger.

I don’t recall what name I gave him, only that it wasn’t mine.

Honestly, what is? My mother had wanted me to be Erwin and my father got it wrong. I was Edwin, then Edward, then Basil, Perry, a dozen other things.

I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.

[MOTHS LOUDER AND LOUDER, ALL CONSUMING]

He calls me Apprentice.

[THE MOTHS CONTINUE TO FRENZY]

[END]