Read Online Something Quite Beautiful by Amanda Prowse - Free Book Online

had a pair before. He bought Amy a pram for her dolls and that made me really happy, cos she never had stuff like that either. They got married and I was happy to have a dad at first, it was a really good day, my mum laughed all day long and I had to wear a suit. I thought it was the start of something really good, but he turned out to be a lazy pig, a really nasty piece of work. By the time I realised what he was really like it was too late. My mum had kind of shrunk, she just went quiet, and he called all the shots, even though it was our house, where we had always lived way before him, it was like he owned the place. We were all frightened of him. He started to knock my mum about and then started on me and I could have coped with that, I did cope with that for a number of years.’ Warren closed his eyes briefly and saw the fist coming towards his face; his mum’s voice in background, softly begging, Please Dave, leave him alone... no... no more...
    ‘I planned on leaving, I worked hard at school so I could get taken on in an apprenticeship, I was doing okay. I was just going to disappear one day and leave him wondering where I’d got to, not that he’d have cared. I wanted to take Amy with me, I was trying to work out how I could do it, just waiting for the chance. I think about that now and I can see that it wasn’t practical, I don’t know how I would have looked after her and done an apprenticeship and we didn’t have anywhere to live, plus of course my mum would probably have come and got her back. But, it was weird, it was like I couldn’t think straight and in my head, I convinced myself it was all possible and I was just waiting for the right time to escape. One day, I came home from college early and...’ Warren swallowed the sharp pull of tears that slid down his throat. He exhaled through bloated cheeks, trying to keep it together. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘That’s okay, Warren, you take your time.’
    ‘I came home early and he was laying face down on the sofa. I could smell the drink on him, but that wasn’t unusual, he went up the club most lunchtimes and got pissed and then he’d sleep all afternoon until he could go back to the club and drink some more. I thought he was on his own, I was going to tiptoe up the stairs past him and leave him to it, but he wasn’t.’ Warren paused to swipe at the tears that now coursed freely down his cheeks, angry and embarrassed. ‘He wasn’t on his own. He was on top of Amy. I could see her little hand sticking out from under his fat gut; she was still holding her blanky, gripping it tightly. She’d painted her little fingernails and the polish had worn off; I could see these little blobs of pink, sparkly paint, hanging onto her blanky. She was seven years old—’ his mouth was contorted with crying now ‘—I didn’t think about what to do, I just did it. I ran to the cupboard under the stairs and grabbed the chisel from my toolbox. I went back into the front room and I reached under his gut and I stuck it in him, up under his ribs, just once, but I stabbed him hard. I meant to kill him, I did. I wanted him dead and that’s what I told the judge. She was seven and she was the only thing in our shitty little family that wasn’t broken, she was the only thing that was perfect and I had made a promise to look after her. But I broke that promise, I broke it, because I didn’t keep her safe, did I?’ Warren’s face was red and blotchy, and he hung his head to wipe furiously at his eyes.
    The Principal didn’t say a word, and so Warren carried on, injecting a false note of brightness into his voice as if trying to lighten the mood. ‘So that’s it! And now I’m here. And when Henry said something not very nice about Amy, I couldn’t handle it. I don’t mind a joke or the piss-taking that you expect in here, but not her, nothing about her. She’s just a little girl and she’s already been through too much.’ He fought to get his breath under