Helena

Helena led him upstairs, the tears slipping down his pale face, sweat plastering his long black hair to his scalp.

“Just keep out of the way” Lucas told me, “He’s just out, so he’ll want to spend time with her”

But Lucas had gone to Gran’s, leaving me alone downstairs with Gerard’s sobs wafting through the floorboards. I could hear snippits of their conversation. Helena reassuring him that it was over and she would take care of him. She had made the same promises the last time, and the time before that. Every time Gerard got out of prison there would be a few days of tears, followed by weeks of the two of them disappearing underground music venues and spending the nights in the cemetery. But this was different, he had been out for almost a month and we still hardly saw him. He wouldn’t go near his own home; I doubted his mother had spoken to him since he was released. He wouldn’t talk to Lucas, not the way they used to, both of them with their feet on the coffee table shouting over the din of all the animals. He didn’t talk to me; my memories of both he and Helena gently pressing orphaned bats into my hands became more distant. He just sat in Helena’s room, sobbing until he gagged, Helena holding him tightly. The only time he really left the house was to sit at the side of the road outside, vehicles dangerously close to his skinny legs, rain soaking through his black clothes.

I thought back to that evening’s dinner. Helena had been determined to make it a more pleasant affair than dinners had been since Gerard got out. The table was set, tall gothic candles burning as Helena passed around bowls of soggy potatoes and something limp and vegetarian she’d spent all afternoon preparing. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d all sat around the table, but it was warm with the candles and one of Helena’s black kittens wound around my neck. I began to relax, chewing the mystery dish absent-mindedly. Even Gerard seemed happier, uttering a small whisper of response whenever I attempted to make conversation. But everything went wrong before we’d even started on pudding. In the midst of what felt almost like old times, Gerard suddenly set down the bowl of potatoes with a loud thump. Piles of the creamy substance leaked from the quickly forming cracks, soaking through the table cloth.

Gerard’s face flushed deep red, then drained to chalk white. He closed his eyes tight, gripping Helena’s hand until his knuckles were as pale as his face.

“Get a sponge or something” Lucas whispered to me.

I didn’t move. I sat, glued to my chair, waiting to see what was going to happen. It was an odd feeling, like my routine had been disrupted because of the peacefulness of dinner. I had been waiting for things to erupt again.

“They had plastic bowls” Gerard croaked, “In the jail, so you couldn’t bash somebody’s head in with the earthenwear. There was this one guy…Max. He had a hamper sent in at Christmas, full of stuff on plates. He’d put the plate on your head and hammer it into your skull with his fist”

I held my breath. I’d never heard Gerard talk about the prison before. He’d kept that for the long hours spent in Helena’s bat cave. Somehow it felt as though one reality was invading another. Gerard’s horror was not supposed to lurk in our kitchen. My entire life turned upside down as images of this Max flew through my mind.

“Alright Gerard” Helena whispered, “Its okay, calm down”

It was then that she had led him upstairs, drenched in sweat and shivering at the memories. Lucas had left for Gran’s shortly after, to pick up some piece of homework he said.

After hours of Gerard’s sobs drifting throughout the house, Helena emerged from their bat cave, blinking in the harsh light of the candles still burning from the ruined dinner. I stared at her, wanting to burst into tears myself. Instead, I did what Lucas had told me to do, to behave like an adult.

“How’s Gerard” I asked

Helena slipped an arm around my shoulders and led me into the lounge. I sat nervously on the patched, sagging sofa and waited for her response.

“He’s upstairs” she said softly, “He’s very upset”

She seemed to think I was too stupid to understand. Suddenly, I couldn’t act like an adult.

“I know where he is” I snapped, “And I could tell he was upset. Is he going back to prison?”

She shook her head slowly, wrapping her arms around me again. It was a comfort, knowing Helena understood.

“He isn’t going back” she said, “He’s just very…frightened”

She pulled me closer, her bony chin resting gently on my head, her breathing strained in my ear.

“Listen to me” she said, “We’re a family. You, Lucas, me and Gerard. We’ve always managed mine, just the four of us; and we’re going to get through this together”

I pondered this. Gerard had always treated me as his brother and equal. I knew he might one day marry Helena, if we ever scraped together enough money for a wedding. But I loved him, just as I loved Helena, Lucas and all the animals. He had been a part of my life since I could remember.

“I want to see Gerard” I said

Helena released me from the hug, her gloved hands scratching at my face as she drew back.

“Not tonight” she said softly, “It’s late and he’s tired. I’m just going out to get him some sleeping pills from the twenty-four hour supermarket”

She glanced out of the window at the rain pelting the pavement outside. Lorries from nearby factories rumbled past, their wipers sliding furiously back and fourth. I knew what she was thinking, that when Gerard wandered outside, he was often in a complete trance. And with things as they were, wandering under the enormous wheels of those vehicles would be fatal. I didn’t need her to tell me that sitting with Gerard until she returned was a good idea.
Yet once I reached the top of the stairs, my insides felt tied in knots. The door to the bat cave, with its surface almost hidden by posters of bands who frightened me to death, seemed colossal and forbidding. I knocked it gently.

“Gerard” I called, “Can I come in?”

There was a small grunt of response, which I interpreted as a yes.
Pushing open the door, I gasped in fright at the sight of Gerard. His eyes were almost swollen shut from crying, bald patches in his matted black hair evident, where he’d obviously been tearing at his head in terror. His fists were clenched under the blanket I presumed Helena had wrapped around his shoulders. And he was trembling all over, staring into space in the darkness of the bat cave.

“Are you okay?” I asked

It was a stupid question, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. On receiving no response, I sat down in an old chair Helena had decorated with artificial black roses. Its seat was torn, though Gerard had patched it up with material decorated in silver bats. I shifted uncomfortably on the lumpy surface and looked again at Gerard. He looked so lost, nothing like the person I’d grown up believing would protect me until I died.

“Where’s Helena” he asked, speaking at last.

His voice sounded odd, high with a strange twang to it, rather like an instrument out of tune.

“She’s gone out” I replied, “She’s getting sleeping pills for you”

Somewhere in the blackness, one of the animals whimpered, probably in fear at the change in its master. Then there was silence for several minutes, Gerard looking out of the small, filth window with the moonlight illuminating his tear streaked face.

I ran my hands down the arms of the chair, turning over a roll of masking tape in my hands. I had wanted to see Gerard, but now that I was alone with him as he sobbed silently I prayed Helena would hurry back.

“Give it here” Gerard whispered, signalling towards the tape.

I handed it to him, his hands shaking uncontrollably as he reached towards me. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding where he’s bitten at them, a spiky leather bracelet wound around his left wrist.

Slowly and deliberately, he ripped two piece of tape from the roll and shakily stuck them the length of his wet, swollen face on either side of one eye. I clutched at the arms of the chair, my fingers entwined in the roses plastic stems as he reached for a tub of jet black face paint I’d bought the previous Halloween. Wordlessly, he retrieved a thick paintbrush from Helena’s cluttered table and dipped it into the paint.

“What are you doing” I asked, “Helena will be back soon, are you going out or something?”

My heart was racing. Gerard may have been scrawny, but he was twice my size. I was powerless to stop him if he decided he wanted to go and stand in front of one of the lorries outside.

“Here” he croaked, “Come and do this for us. Just fill in between the tape. I can’t keep my
hand steady”

It was the most he’d said to me since he’s been released, and I decided to do everything possible to keep him safe in the bat cave until Helena returned.

“Right…okay” I gabbled, taking the brush from him. My own hands shook slightly as I attempted to fill in the designated strip of his face. His eye was closed tight, but he winced in pain as I ran the bristles over his swollen skin. Staling for time, I went over and over the paint.

“Let me have a look then” Gerard said after a while.

There was a mirror leaning against the wall, and he got up shakily to look in it. He was like an old man, hunched over, with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. When he reached the mirror, he sank to his knees awkwardly, as though praying.
“I look like a freak” he said sadly, “A proper fucking weirdo”

I shook my head furiously.

“You don’t” I protested urgently, “You look just like you always have. Mysterious…and dark. I like when you put the stripe on your face, and so does Helena”

In truth it was extremely disconcerting; the milky paleness of his skin with the deep black streak painfully obvious, his bloodshot eyes peering out from a mop of hair. He began to cry again, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth in front of the mirror. The paint, smudged by salty tears, dripped from his chin and ran down his neck onto the black shirt he’s painted with bones and bats. I didn’t know what to do. More than anything I wanted to run to the room I shared with Lucas, to crawl under my bed and press my hands over my ears to drown out his gut-wrenching sobs.

Instead I knelt beside him, blinking furiously to keep back tears of my own.

“Gerard” I whispered, “It’s alright, Helena will be back in a minute”

His shoulders heaved with sobbing, his bleeding hands reaching out for mine. He gripped my hand tight, until I could feel the bones beneath his pale skin shudder in terror.

“What is it?” I asked, “You’re not going back, are you? Helena promised you wouldn’t”

His grip tightened until I feared my bony fingers would snap. He looked into my eyes, his features heavy with fear.

“Do you know what they do to guys like us in prison?” he said…