I force a noise out of me to show I'm listening.
"Though I preferred Basil the Bastard."
I should laugh. If I wasn't about to drop a bombshell, I would one hundred percent be laughing at the audacity of child Bess and my complete lack of surprise that she would choose a much more antagonistic name than the other children. I push something up and out that could be interpreted as laughter. "Why was he a bastard?"
"He was mean. It's as simple as that. Mean in a way that played on your insecurities and let you know how insignificant you were. He wanted to make you feel worthless."
Now I'm paying full attention. This is clearly someone who had a large presence in Bess' life, and potentially not a very good one. "And did you? Feel worthless?"
"He told me at the age of six they might as well load me on to the knacker's truck now and save the education system a whole lot of money."
"Jesus."
"Yeah." Bess folds her arms. "It wasn't just me. He did it to most kids that were vulnerable. Jeanette, Lutek were victims of his abuse."
I immediately comprehend why Jeanette and Lutek might be ripe for the picking on – sweet, eccentric Jeanette and quiet, new-to-the-country-and-language Lutek – but not Bess. "Why were you vulnerable?"
"Because I had a father I never saw. He was always away working. And when he did come home, he was too tired to deal with children."
Bess has never shared this information with me. She talks about her parents, but not in any way that suggests her childhood parenting was lacking.
"I had a longing for a father replacement. I gravitated to the two male teachers in the school. I'd follow them around when they were out on patrol at lunchtime, like a puppy. I'd make them presents. I was desperate for their attention and approval. But...it's a small school, so it didn't take long for Bas to notice."
Her words sound dispassionate, but there are small tells that this subject has taken a toll on her. The tightening around her eyes. The hard set of her mouth.
And just as if I'd been looking at Bess through glasses that were the wrong prescription, things are now coming into view.
Bess turns to look at me. "Do you know I visit his grave to show him how wrong he was? That I – that Jeanette, Lutek and I – have amounted toso much morethan he could have possibly imagined for us? I tell him about all my accomplishments." She turns back to face the grave. "I've been visiting a lot lately."
Something inside me cracks.
"I've been thinking recently – doing a bit of amateur psychoanalysis – that my conviction about men needing to prove their worth is because I had two men tell me I had none throughout my childhood. One through his words and the other through his actions.”
"I see."
She puts a hand on her hip in a gesture that reads as defiance and places the pointer finger of the other to her chest. "Idon't need to prove I'm worthy. Not to anybody. Fuck that."
I allow the words to settle before saying gently, "Bess?"
"Yes?"
"You are, actually, doing exactly that. You do it every time you come here and try to rub Basil the Bastard's face in your success."
Bess goes very still. For a long, long time.
I can't be certain of what is happening inside her brain, but I imagine it's the difficult process of re-calibrating the relationship she's formed with this dead man.
The sound of adoppulls my attention to her shoe, where a dark, round, wet mark sits in the middle of the leather.
I jerk my head up to look at her face.
Another tear sits waiting to disengage from her chin.
I have that unsettling sensation of having just stepped off a lift but still experiencing the motion of travelling on it. I've never seen Bess cry as the result of being upset. I've never seen Bess remotely close to crying due to unhappiness.
I take a step towards her and she throws her head towards the sky and yells the kind of yell that empties your lungs and makes the back of your throat raw.
There's no possible way, in this moment, that I can pull the kill switch.
