My Name is Erica

My Name is Erica
by Jane Seaford

My name is Erica; I’m fourteen years old. The worst thing I’ve done so far in my life is to make love to my brother-in-law and now my sister won’t talk to me. She’s in the garden, lying curled up on a rug on the lawn and ignoring her two children. The baby is grizzling and the toddler is pulling heads of our mum’s few flowers. I don’t see it as my business to stop him, although Ma won’t be pleased when she comes back from town. She’s gone shopping for food, or so she says, having my sister and her family staying with us means she has to do a lot of extra housework, and that she hates.

****

They arrived last week. My sister, Alison, telephoned on Saturday afternoon and I answered.

‘Is Ma in?’ She said

‘Nope, just me, you’ll have to put up with me.’ I could hear her sighing.

‘When’s she back?’

‘Dunno. She’s gone to have lunch with a new boy friend. Don’t suppose they’ll be home for ages.’ I blew a great big bubble with my chewing gum and it burst.

‘You crying?’ I asked Alison.

‘No,’ she said, but there were tears in her answer.

‘Why you phoning? You after something?’

‘We want to come and stay, we want to come this afternoon.’

‘Why? Been thrown out of the commune?’ There was silence, so I knew I’d got it right.

My sister is a hippie and so’s her husband, Steve. She left home when she was sixteen and got pregnant almost straight away. She came with Steve to tell us, but she didn’t really need to, you could see her tummy was round even under the floaty clothes she wears. Our mum couldn’t really say very much, given the kind of life she leads; I’ve lost count of the number of her men friends me and Alison have had to put with. She looked at Alison and lit another cigarette and sighed.

‘What do you want me to say, congratulations? I don’t know that I feel old enough to be a grandmother.’ That was 2 years ago, 1970, and Ma was not yet forty and looked lots younger. Men really fancied her, still do. I could see Steve looking at her in that way and looking puzzled at the same time, I don’t think he expected to find his future ma-in-law so attractive. As for him, I thought he was a real dish, tall and muscular with enormous blue eyes but dark hair. He’s got such a pretty face it’s a good thing his body is so masculine, else you might think he was a girl.

‘We’re going to get married, aren’t we Steve?’ He didn’t answer; he was the silent type.

‘Steve!’ Alison shook his shoulder.

‘Oh, yeah.’ He nodded. He didn’t look that enthusiastic, nor did he at the wedding, nor when they brought their first baby Frith to stay with us, nor when they came to tell us another one was on the way. Felix was born just a year and a day after his brother. Ma and I went to see them all and when we arrived, Steve was sitting in the garden, leaning against the wall of the house, smoking dope. He nodded to us as we came through the gate, but didn’t get up. He watched us as we walked up the path and as he did, he stared to smile and his eyes turned flirty.

‘Want a toke?’ He asked, waving the joint at us.

‘No,’ said my Mum. She smokes cigarettes and drinks a lot, and although she knows about drugs, she’s scared of them. She’s not quite the right generation, I suppose, and when I squatted down and took the joint, she smacked the back of my head.

‘You’re not old enough for that.’ I ignored her and inhaled deeply.

‘S’not the first time, Ma, ‘ I said and Steve laughed.

We didn’t stay long, Alison was tired and there seemed to be some sort of row going on between the commune members. While we were inside one of the men came home and we could hear him shouting at Steve.

‘Hey, man, what ya doing? You supposed to be mending the fucking fence.’

‘Oh piss off, I’ll do it when I’m good and ready, you’re not my boss and life is for living, not working.’ I think it was the longest sentence I’d ever heard Steve use, but he still sounded relaxed, not angry at all. One of the women put her head out of the window and joined in.

‘Come on Steve, we’ve all got our chores to do.’

‘Leave him alone, he’s tired, the baby kept us awake last night,’ said Alison and the woman turned and stared at her, shaking her head.

‘Oh yeah? He was up till late getting stoned, wasn’t the baby keeping him awake.’

And now they’ve been thrown out and come to live with our mum and me. Ma owns the house, our Dad signed it over to her after they split up and for a time it was full of lodgers. But when I started school, she went back to work and gradually the lodgers left. Just as well, as there are only three bedrooms. The kids are in with Alison and Steve.

They arrived that Saturday before Ma had come home in their old van that Steve had started to paint pink and green and psychedelic. He’s only done part of one side and the rest is boring brown. Alison was upset and Steve was silent, except when he was telling Frith to shut up; Frith was whinging.

‘How long you planning on staying?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know, we need time to decide what to do next, don’t we Steve?’

‘Ma might not be too keen, there’s this new man around, and in any case there’s not much room.’

‘I’m her daughter; she won’t throw me out. These are her grandchildren.’

‘You should know, Alison, she’s not the motherly type and being a grandmother cramps her style a bit.’

Steve was rolling up. I turned to him.

‘And she’s not that keen on joints, you’d better be careful.’

Steve laughed. ‘I’ll see if I can’t get her using the stuff.’ He carried on rolling and laughing and as he lit up he winked at me, a very slow, very deliberate wink and I felt sort of liquidy inside and I knew I was going to sleep with him and the sooner, the better.

****

Alison had put the boys down for the night before Ma came home. I’d helped her make up the bed and the cot in the spare room, feed Frith and bath him and I’d even read him a story, not that he understood it, but I think he liked the sound of my voice reading. I don’t know what I feel about my nephews, I don’t think I love them, I don’t feel old enough to be an aunt. They almost seem like large troublesome dolls that Alison is playing with. And it’s hard to think of Alison as a mother, she tries hard to look after the boys properly, too hard, perhaps. But that’s the way she is, not just with the kids but with everything.

We were sitting in the garden, Steve was drinking beer, and Alison was sewing a button onto one of Frith’s shirts, when we heard our mum come in. The new man was with her and they both came into the garden, Ma looking irritated and the man pushy and possessive.

‘What you two doing here?’

‘We’ve had to leave the commune, we’ve come to stay for a bit.’ Alison was biting her lip and squeezing the shirt between her hands.

‘You might have asked first.’

‘I phoned, you weren’t here. We had to leave quickly.’ Alison blushed and looked at Steve, but he said nothing. Neither did Ma; she just shrugged her shoulders and pouted.

‘Are you going to introduce me?’ The new man asked.

‘Yes, yes, sorry, my elder daughter, Alison and her husband, Steve. Erica you’ve met. This is Pete.’ She paused. ‘Well, Pete, since my family has unexpectedly arrived I’ll be spending the evening with them. Sorry, but… another time. I’ll see you to your car.’ Pete patted her bum in a proprietorial way I didn’t like, and I knew she didn’t either. The new man was swiftly becoming ex-man. After he’d gone Ma opened some wine and I left, I had a date. When I came home, Alison was in bed and Ma and Steve were pissed.

That was last Saturday and it’s Saturday again today. It’s been a pretty awful week on the whole, the second of my summer holidays. The only bits that have been any good was being in bed with Steve, but since Alison found us at it that’s probably over now. In any case, although I don’t regret it, it really was a wicked thing to do. And I suspect Alison’s going to tell Ma. Don’t know what she’ll have to say about it.

****

Ma got up late last Sunday and said: ‘Well you’re all in luck, I’ve decided to cook you a proper roast lunch.’ Ma’s a good cook when she wants to be and there was a chicken in the fridge that had originally been planned for the evening before. Lunch was great, and we had wine, but my mum was sharp with Frith, who sat in his high chair, whining and turning his head away from whatever Alison gave him to eat. After we’d cleared away and washed up, Ma indicated that it would be nice if the children could be removed from the house to give her a break, and so Alison and I took them to the local park.

‘Try and stay out till tea time,’ Ma yelled from the door as we left the house.

‘You’d think she’d be more interested in her grandchildren, ‘ Alison moaned. I shrugged.

‘It’s the good life she likes, Alison, remember when we were little, she loved us, but she wasn’t very interested in being a mother or a housewife.’

‘It was OK, we weren’t neglected. She stayed at home and looked after us.’

‘Yeah, but she still preferred going out, remember how sparkly she used to get when she was dressing up for a date.’

When we came home, our Mum and Steve were lazing in the garden They’d opened another bottle of wine and were smoking, Steve a joint, Ma a cigarette.

None of us helped Alison to feed the children and put them to bed. We just sat around in the garden and she came and joined us looking cross and tired. When Ma went in and found the bathroom in a shambles she opened the window and shouted into the garden.

‘For God sakes Alison, clean up after yourself, please. There’s not enough room in the house for all of us and it’s far worse when it’s untidy.’ And that went on all week, the kids creating disorder, Steve too lazy to do anything about it, Alison too tired and busy to care and Ma getting angry at her.

Monday Ma went to work and I went to meet some friends at the swimming pool, I came home and helped Alison prepare some lunch. She was really frazzled, she kept sighing and every now and then she’d shout at Steve or Frith.

‘Steve, can’t you clear up the toys in the living room? Ma’ll go potty if they’re still there when she comes home… Stop whining, Frith and let go of my legs.’ Frith spent most of his time clinging on to Alison with his thumb in his mouth. When she was really fed up she’d pick him up and dump him on Steve’s knees. The two would communicate in a silent sort of way for a minute or two, and then Frith would climb down and either go in search of his mum or start playing with things he wasn’t supposed to touch.

She moaned at me: ’You’re so lucky, Erica, look at my life compared to yours.’ I didn’t want to point out that she’d chosen to run off and had stupidly got pregnant twice before she was eighteen. I wasn’t intending to do any such thing, I’d never make love without taking precautions.

After lunch I told her I’d wash and tidy up if she’d take the children out to the park, and so she did. And I went and sat in the garden with Steve. I shared his joint, lent on his knees, and made sure that he could see how sexy my body was.

It wasn’t long before he kissed me and then we went upstairs to my room. But before we’d taken all our clothes off he said: ‘Hey, you’re rather young, I do’n wanna be the first.’ ‘You’re not,’ I told him. I discovered sex a few months ago and I’d already had two lovers, but none as exciting as Steve. I’d also got myself fixed up with contraception, which is difficult when you’re my age, but if you’re resourceful, as I am, you can find a way. Steve was impatient when I stopped him so that I could put in my Dutch cap, but afterwards it was wonderful. He didn’t say much, but I loved caressing his body and the way he kissed and touched me.

I got him out of my bed before Alison came home and did a bit of cleaning. Ma was in a bad mood when she came home because the place was seriously untidy and told us all to clear up while she went to get a takeaway. And the week slid by like that: mess and bad temper, but whenever we found ourselves alone Steve and I made love. Mostly it was during the day when Alison went out with the kids, but we had one evening when Ma took Alison to the cinema to stop her complaining about how she never went out. We were always careful to be dressed and apart by the time Alison was due home, until this morning, but that wasn’t our fault, she’d changed her mind and come home almost as soon as she’d left.

****

Ma went off into town early, she said she had a lot to do and wouldn’t be back for lunch. Alison didn’t want to take the kids out, but Steve said: ‘If you don’t take them, they’ll mess the place up and we’ll have to tidy up.’

‘I’ll have to tidy up, you mean,’ Alison said.

‘Whatever, just get the kids out of the house, will ya?’ Alison looked at him as she does these days, as if she wondered who he was and why she was bothering with him. But she took the kids off to the park and Steve and I went straight up to my room. Each time we made love it was better than the last and I was sitting on Steve and moaning when my bedroom door flung open and there was Alison. She stood there her face red and runny looking, her mouth open. It was then that I realised just how bad we were being.

‘You bitch,’ she said finally, her voice high with disbelief. Steve said nothing and then Felix started wailing and Alison turned and left the room. I got up and dressed, while Steve just lay there.

‘You’d better get up, what you going to do, what you going to say?’

He shrugged.

‘Well, Steve, you’ve got to do something?’

‘She’ll get over it.’

‘What about you and me?’

‘S’pose we’d better stop, or be more careful.’

Finally he got up. ‘Going out for a bit,’ he said. Escaping more like, I thought, but I said nothing, I went into the garden and there was Alison, crying on the rug.

‘I’m sorry, ‘ I said.

‘Don’t be silly, it’s not something you can be sorry for, it’s something you should never have done, I dunno what’s worse, him betraying me, you betraying me, or you being still a child. I’ve got to tell Ma, what if you get pregnant?’ Her face was swollen and angry and I did feel sorry for her, not so much for what I’ve done as for what she’s done to her life. Me, I’m not going to be like her: no way.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t get pregnant.’

‘Just go away, leave me alone, I never want to see you again, I never want to speak to you again,’ she said.

And she’s been curled up on that rug now for nearly an hour and though I’ve offered to make her tea or a sandwich, she won’t talk.

****

Our mum’s just come home. ‘For God’s sake, what’s she doing, letting the kids loose in my garden,‘ she’s saying, going into the garden and I follow. She picks up the grizzling baby and pulls Frith out of the flower bed, he’s got soil all over his mouth, she stands and looks at the mound on the rug.

‘Alison, get up now, the kids need you.’

Alison unrolls and starts to cry. She sits up and looks up at our Mum and she says, a sob between each word and her voice as whinny as her son’s: ‘It’s Erica, Ma, she’s a bitch and a pig and…. I found her this morning, in bed with Steve, making love.’

Ma’s turning to look at me, her eyes wide open and her nostrils slightly flared.

‘You, too,’ she’s saying.