Half Bad Read Free Page A

asleep the baby is horrible and ugly, with its puny little body, grubby-looking skin, and spiky, black hair.
    “The woman asks, ‘Does he have a name yet?’
    “‘Nathan.’”
    Jessica has already found a way of saying my name as if it is something disgusting.
    “
The young woman asks, ‘And his father . . . ?’
    “
Mother doesn’t answer. She can’t because it’s too awful; she can’t bear it. But everyone knows just by looking at the baby that its father is a murderer.
    “
The woman says, ‘Perhaps you can write the father’s name.’
    “And she takes her clipboard to Mother. And Mother is crying now and she can’t even write the name. Because it’s the name of the most evil Black Witch there has ever been.
”
    I want to say “Marcus.” He’s my father and I want to say his name, but I’m too afraid. I’m always too afraid to say his name.
    “The woman goes back to look at the sleeping baby and she reaches out to touch it . . .
    “‘Careful!’ the Hunter warns, because even though Hunters are never afraid, they are always cautious around Black witchcraft.
    “The woman says, ‘He’s just a baby.’ And she strokes its bare arm with the back of her fingers.
    “And the baby stirs and then opens its eyes.
    “The woman says, ‘Oh goodness!’ and steps back.
    “She realizes she shouldn’t have touched such a nasty thing and rushes off to the bathroom to wash her hands.”
    Jessica reaches out as if she’s going to touch me but then pulls her hand away, saying, “I couldn’t ever touch anything as bad as you.”

My Father

    I am standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at my face. I’m not like my mother at all, not like Arran. My skin’s slightly darker than theirs, more olive, and my hair’s jet black, but the real difference is the blackness of my eyes.
    I’ve never met my father, never even seen my father. But I know that my eyes are his eyes.

My Mother’s Suicide

    Jessica holds the photograph frame high to her left and brings it down diagonally, slicing the edge of the frame across my cheekbone.
    “Don’t ever touch this picture again.”
    I don’t move.
    “Do you hear me?”
    There’s blood on the corner of the frame.
    “She’s dead because of you.”
    I back against the wall.
    Jessica shouts at me. “She killed herself because of you!”

The Second Notification

    I remember it raining for days. Days and days, until even I am fed up with being alone in the woods. So I’m sitting at the kitchen table, drawing. Gran is in the kitchen, too. Gran is always in the kitchen. She is old and bony with that thin skin that old people have, but she is also slim and straight-backed. She wears pleated tartan skirts and walking boots or wellies. She is always in the kitchen and the kitchen floor is always muddy. Even with the rain, the back door is open. A chicken comes in for some shelter, but Gran won’t stand for that, and she sweeps it out gently with the side of her boot and shuts the door.
    The pot simmers on the stove, emitting a column of steam that rises fast and narrow and then widens to join the cloud above. The green, gray, blue, and red of the herbs, flowers, roots, and bulbs that hang from the ceiling by strings, in nets, and in baskets are blurred in the fog that surrounds them. Lined up on the shelves are glass jars filled with liquids, leaves, grains, greases, and potions, and some even with jam. The warped oak work surface is littered with spoons of all kinds—metal, wooden, bone, as long as my arm, as small as my little finger—as well as knives in a block, dirty knives covered in paste lying on the chopping board, a granite pestle and mortar, two round baskets, and more jars. On the back of the door hang a beekeeper’s hat, a selection of aprons, and a black umbrella that is as bent as a banana.
    I draw it all.
    * * *
    I’m sitting with Arran watching an old movie on TV. Arran likes to watch them, the older the better, and I like to sit