Blurred Lines. Hannah Begbie

no. Mary gave up weeks ago.

      Adam holds her in his arms, asking nothing of her, simply being her friend.

      Soon after, like it has been biding its time, waiting to be brought out into the open, the size and shape of Becky’s body betrays her and she becomes the example to be avoided, the beaming red sign for how wrong things can go.

      People give her a wide berth in the school corridor, like she’s got a contagious illness.

      Adam walks her to and from school and holds back her hair when she is sick on her shoes outside the school gates.

      Sometimes he says that if she ever wants to talk, then he is there for her.

      At home she eats very little and then goes straight to bed and watches television. It’s easy at first, when her dad isn’t talking to her and her mum is smoking a lot at the kitchen table. Becky just has to endure the times between when her dad makes tea and leaves the room, if she is in it, and the times he conveniently finishes eating as soon as she arrives at the table.

      But it becomes less easy to shut herself away as her parents’ responses grow more vocal and persistent, like a cancer metastasizing. Her father, in particular, who has spent a lifetime calling pop stars and actresses in short skirts ‘harlots’ and ‘sluts’, becomes consumed with the idea of his daughter having underage sex as a leisure pursuit. He fills with rage and shouts things like: How could you be so irresponsible? Becky finds this response particularly unjust and excruciatingly painful, sinking further into a kind of listless, inward blame – the very worst form of rage. As if it wasn’t enough to watch her belly fill to the brim with her own shame, she has to add her father’s to the mix as well.

      Then come the endless stream of questions – questions that sound more like accusations: Did it happen at home? In our home? How many of them have there been?

      They receive a congratulations card from a neighbour and a helium balloon printed with the words: You’re going to be grandparents! Her father bursts it with the tip of a carving knife.

      She stops going to school.

      She can’t read. She just wants to watch those soaps on television, to be held in the soft bubble of other people’s mistakes, conflict and intrigues.

      Her mum and dad stand in the doorway of her bedroom, faces pinched with anger. They ask her the same questions every day.

       Who did this to you?

       Who is its father?