Matchstick

His fist came at her jaw with speed, knocking the smell of beer out of her nose.

“What did I tell you about asking that?” he shouted, red faced and shaking, the bottle in his hand spilling onto the floorboards. He grabbed the bread knife off the table.

“No, Papa!” Marcie shouted. “Please, don’t use the knife.”

Papa stared at her for a moment, his blue eyes piercing. He threw the knife with a clatter and left.

Marcie could taste blood and felt something hard on her tongue. She spat out her last baby tooth, coated in red.

Her vision was blurry and unnaturally colourful, but she forced herself out of the house and into the unforgiving heat. The sun was harsh on her swelling face.

She slumped down on the hot porch step. To take her mind off the pain pulsing in her mouth, she started lighting matches against the dry wood of the shack. Mama said that if Marcie carried on playing with fire, one day she’d burn the whole house to the ground. Marcie wondered if that was such a bad idea.

She heard laughter. Two girls were walking through the hot grasses wearing matching blue uniforms. All Marcie wanted was to go to school and make friends. But she was outside of town and outside of life.

Schooling costs money, Papa had growled.

She couldn’t blame Papa for being cruel. Marcie felt no kindness towards herself and she didn’t expect it from him. But her tiny helplessness had morphed into hatred. She couldn’t take it out on him without receiving worse in return. The hatred had to find a new focus.

Those girls in their uniforms. How suddenly she despised them. How she wanted to see them catch fire beneath the wasteland sun.

Marcie started to follow them through the grasses. She imagined what it would be like to hit them, like Papa had hit her. She wanted to see someone else bleed.

Two miles through the dust and the girls met some friends in the town. They walked through the doors of the schoolhouse, leaving Marcie alone.

They hadn’t noticed her. Not once.

Marcie felt self-conscious, barefoot and bleeding in the street.

Music and shouting distracted her from the concaving loneliness. Two women stood outside a doorway wearing colours Marcie had only ever seen on spring flowers. One of them giggled with a large, suited man. The other lifted her skirt and laughed.

“If you haven’t got money, move on, boy.” The large man said, distracted by the pretty women. His face was red and sweaty.

“I’m not a boy.” Marcie said.

Mama had warned her about Jamie Wright. She said he was a mean man. Could anyone be meaner than Papa? Marcie wondered.

“So, you’re not.” He said, getting a better look. “Wipe that blood off your face. You’d be pretty if you weren’t so filthy.”

“What are those ladies doing?”

“Making a living.”

“Can I make a living?” Marcie asked.

Jamie laughed before taking her cheeks in his big hand. He admired her in the light of the sun.

“When you’re older, you come back to Jamie’s place, okay? If you’re still pretty, of course.”

When Jamie let her go, she ran through a nearby alleyway like a stray cat. In the shadow, she threw herself down and brought her knees up to her chest. She started to cry. She hated Papa. She hated the schoolgirls. She hated her whole, miserable life.

The sun found its way to her, like a searchlight, burning her skin and turning her thoughts to dust. All she could think about was a cold glass of water.

The afternoon light bounced off something shiny, making Marcie squint. She ran her fingers over metal. Something was buried there, in the dirt. She made sure she was alone before she dug her little fingers into the earth.

As soon as she opened the copper box, she knew it would be nothing but trouble. The scent of paper and dirt hit Marcie’s nose, and she told herself to leave it be. That it wasn’t hers to take. She picked up a handful of notes and felt them between her fingertips. Some were crisp and new, some were as feathery as tissue paper. There were gold coins at the bottom as well, pleasantly cold after being in the ground.

Marcie didn’t know much about money, but she knew there was enough there to send her to school. Besides, Marcie felt like doing something wrong. She felt like taking something that wasn’t hers. Didn’t she deserve it? Didn’t she deserve something?

Marcie dragged the chest behind the shops and bars, and all the way home, leaving deep lines in the ground.

Papa’s expression was unreadable. Mama had worry etched into her brow. Marcie was exhausted and sunburnt. The silence was too long to bare.

“That’s a box from Jamie’s.” Papa said. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in the grassland.” Marcie replied.

“Liar!” Papa flipped, throwing an empty bottle against the wall. Mama’s body seized up.

“Go to your room, Marcie.” She said.

Marcie was livid. That money could change their life, but somehow, she had still failed. She listened at her bedroom door to her parent’s hushed conversation.

“We have to take it back.” Mama said.

“It’s twenty thousand. We’re keeping it.”

“Jamie will send his boys! They’ll kill us if they find this.”

“We’re all the way out of town. He won’t suspect us.”

Papa was wrong. After he left for work the next day, there was a bang at the door. Mama and Marcie hid in the bedroom, but the door was blown out with a gunshot that made Mama scream.

Jamie told his men to tear the shack to pieces. Without saying a word, they tore doors off cupboards, pulled up floorboards, ripped the stuffing out of Papa’s armchair. They smashed the family picture out of its frame, freed the springs from the mattress and dug up half the porch.

“Where is it?” Jamie screamed at Marcie, who held her hands over her ears. “If I don’t find it, you can work off your debt!”

“No!” Mama shouted, but he slapped to the floor. “We’ll find it.” She said, her mouth swelling. “We’ll find it.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Jamie said. He called off his dogs and they left, leaving the place unrecognisable and silent.

When Papa got home, he picked up an overturned chair and sat down, lighting a cigarette with a match.

“Where is it, Papa?” Marcie asked, desperately.

“Where’s what?” He said, not looking at her.

Marcie turned to Mama, who looked as confused as she felt, her lip turning a dark purple.

“The money. What have you done with the money?”

Papa looked at her for the first time.

“Are you stupid?” He asked. “Are you? What do you think they would have done if they found it, eh?” He paused, inhaling the smoke. “I burnt it.”

“You’re a liar!” Marcie cried, as Mama held her skinny arms.

“And you’re a thief.” He said. “Look at what you've done to your family. You’re selfish.”

“Jamie is going to be back tomorrow.”

“Well then, you better get a job.” Papa joked.

Marcie slept badly that night. Jamie’s red face was scorched onto the back of her eyelids. The sound of those men destroying the house echoed in the silence. She wondered whether they had been watching the house, waiting for Papa to leave. Maybe they were watching right now, outside her window in the dark.

Marcie decided that she didn’t believe Papa. She didn’t believe that he would burn money. He was too poor and worked too hard to do something so stupid.

She woke up to a room full of sunlight, disorientated and confused. But the memory of the previous day was stuck in her head like a shard of glass.

When Papa left for work and Mama went for water, Marcie thought of the places Jamie’s men wouldn’t know about. Did they search in pillowcases or between the mattress and the bed frame? Did they look between the pages of Papa’s newspapers or in Mama’s little dresser?

It was simple, she realised, looking out of her bedroom window. Running out onto the hot ground, Marcie flung open the outhouse door and lifted the wonky floor panel.

The money wasn’t there. But her disappointment was caught before it hit the ground.

Marcie lifted out a little, black book, lined with fresh leather and edged with blue. She had never seen something so beautiful. Even the copper box she had found was a cheap imitation of gold. The pages of the book were crisp and white, unlike the yellow newspapers Papa read or the old notes she found. This book looked expensive.

She flipped through the book for clues, but it was useless. Marcie couldn’t read. She used the pages as a fan to cool her face, when a piece of paper fell out. Marcie picked it up and saw faces smiling back at her.

It was a photograph.

There was a blonde woman and two children: a boy and a girl wearing the school uniform.

She could see it before she understood it, felt the punch before she had realised it had happened. Papa’s eyes stared back at her from the children’s faces. The boy had his smile.

Marcie could feel her heart sinking, being gently engulfed by wet concrete.

Papa had other children.

The anger came like lightening. She restrained herself from tearing the photograph to shreds, and instead just ripped off a corner and ate it. She chewed it, tasting the papery dye, and then spat it out.

Papa may have given her money to these brats, but Marcie had something better. She had his secret.

The next morning, Marcie could hear Papa eating in the kitchen. She could hear him turning the pages of his paper, as carefree as the whistling birds. She listened to Mama leaving for town and decided to take this moment. She had a few hours before Jamie would be back. Her mouth was dry. Her face was sweating.

She threw the book at his head with all her strength. It bounced off and landed on the floor.

He looked at it and didn’t say a word.

“I know where the money is. Get it back, or I’m telling Mama.”

Papa laughed.

“Tell Mama? You two would die without me.”

“No, we wouldn’t.” Marcie was shaking.

“A stupid woman and her pathetic, little pup.”

She could feel tears burning in her eyes. She resented his other children, but this wasn’t their fault. It was his.

“If you’re not going to get the money, then I’ll tell Jamie where it is. I’ll show him the photograph.” She could taste acid on her tongue. “He’ll kill them in their sleep.” She whispered.

Marcie had never seen Papa move so quickly. He grabbed her by her little neck and flung her against the wall. She screamed as Papa’s breakfast crashed off the kitchen table.

“Are you threatening me, girl?”

“I won’t tell him! I won’t tell him.” She cried. “But just give us something, please. Give us something and we can leave. Jamie is going to kill me!” She was crying now; hot tears were running down her neck and onto Papa’s hands. This scene wasn’t playing out how she had hoped. Her windpipe was being crushed. She was choking. The image of the kitchen was dissolving. He was going to kill her before Jamie got a chance. The last thing she would see would be a shadow coming through the door. And all she could think of was those happy children, of how much they would miss their Papa.

No, Mama! She wanted to shout. Please, don’t use the knife.