(Published in The Sunday Statesman, New Delhi, 5 September 1976)
I was getting desperate. It was already 9.30 am and still the babysitter hadn’t arrived. She hadn’t even called, which was so untypical of her. Since my wife’s death two years ago, she came in whenever the kindergarten was closed to look after Tina, my four-year old daughter, while I was away at work. And today, just when I had a vitally important meeting, she had to be late.
I had just been appointed a director in my company and today was the first time that I would be meeting the rest of the board in my new capacity.
I was striding up and down the living room glancing at my watch every now and then, when the bell rang. I opened the door and there stood my younger brother. I was relieved to see him; not because I hadn’t seen him in ages but because I could get him to look after Tina until the babysitter arrived.
“I was passing by and saw your car in the driveway. Thought I’d say hello.”
Strange time of the day to visit I mused but draped a smile over my face. “What a pleasant surprise! Tina will be delighted to see you.”
“Hello Uncle Tony, how are you?” she clutched my trousers as she offered him a large and friendly smile. They were both very pleased to see each other.
“Hello, my little princess,” he smiled awkwardly.
I made a quick decision. “Tony, I have a problem. The babysitter hasn’t arrived yet and I have an important meeting in an hour. Could you look after Tina until Suzie comes in?”
“Ah, uh, O.K,” he hesitated, “I’m between jobs anyway.”
I hustled him. “She isn’t any trouble and she’ll tell you which cartoons are her favourites. Help yourself to the fridge.”
Though making friends wasn’t his forte, I was sure Tony could handle Tina until the babysitter arrived. My daughter was the spitting image of her mother, whom my brother had always adored. In fact, the only reason he had ever visited us in the past was because my wife would fuss over him. They had got on really well. After her death his visits had become more and more infrequent, till they had stopped altogether. This hadn’t really bothered me as we had never been close.
I gave him a final set of instructions and prepared to leave. Tina, in that delightful way that reminded me so much of her mother was already drawing him out of his shell. Kissing her and thanking him once again, I sped off to the office, barely arriving on time.
At the office I grabbed my papers and headed towards the conference room. A couple of people congratulated me on my appointment as I slipped into my chair around the swimming pool-sized table.
Despite being the youngest, and most inexperienced, director great responsibilities were being handed to me. The financial crisis of the last year had devastated our company and the last six months had been especially disastrous. With the economy looking up, bold initiatives were currently being planned to regain our once pre-eminent position in the market and I was to be in charge of implementing the new strategy. If the rumours that I was being groomed for the top job were true, then truly big things were expected of me. That must have been the reason for my uneasiness.
An hour or more had passed and I was still feeling uncomfortable. I tried to concentrate but could not. Something kept nagging me and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was looking distractedly at one of the calendars in the room advertising sanitary ware, one of our product lines, when God, it suddenly struck me.
Sanitary, sanatorium.
A cold sweat broke out as I remembered that day some thirty years ago. My brother, who was being treated for TB in a sanatorium, had savagely attacked two other inmates. For some inexplicable reason he had gone for two boys, almost killing one of them. Numbness seized me as memories of that day flashed past.
It was a Sunday, visiting day, and my parents and I had gone to the sanatorium to see him. As usual, he was indifferent to our presence. My mother fussed over him but he hardly reacted. He lacked the vitality normal to 14-year olds and it was assumed that this was due to his illness. He preferred being indoors by himself and was so different from me. I was good at studies and sport, he at neither.
While we sat on the grass having lunch some children were playing cricket nearby. A few of the fielders were throwing their hands in the air appealing noisily. After one particularly raucous appeal my brother charged onto the field. Grabbing the bat from the batsman, he attacked the nearest fielder. When the batsman tried to stop him he turned on him with such ferocity that a number of fielders fled in terror. My father and a number of the male nurses rushed onto the field and with considerable effort subdued him. The image of him frothing from the mouth haunted me for ages. The batsman was rushed to hospital where he remained in a coma for nearly a week. After that my brother was treated in isolation and later spent time in a psychiatric hospital. I don’t know what the doctors told my parents but I noticed he was always kept away from other children.
Without excusing myself, I rushed out of the conference room and raced home. Driving back at breakneck speed, I heard myself repeating over and over again, “Please God, don’t let anything happen to Tina. She’s everything I have; don’t let anything happen to her.” After my wife’s death Tina meant everything to me; she was my sole link to what had been the happiest days of my life.
Reaching home I rang the bell and when the door wasn’t opened immediately I started pounding on it desperately. After a while my brother opened the door and I yelled, “Where’s Tina?” He didn’t answer. He seemed frightened, almost guilty. I pushed him aside and charged into the flat calling to her. I ran from room to room searching for her but she was nowhere to be found. “Where’s Tina?” I yelled again and again but he kept cringing back, too frightened, or too guilty to answer.
“Where’s Tina?” I grabbed him by the shoulders shaking him with all my strength. He murmured something. I yanked his head back so that I could look into his eyes. “Where’s Tina?” I screamed again.
“I don’t know,” he whimpered.
“What? Where have you hidden her?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” he stammered.
That’s when I lost control of myself. I buried my fist into his face. As he fell to the floor I started kicking him; in the head, in the stomach, anywhere, everywhere.
“Give me back my Tina,” I begged, I howled.
Then picking up an antique, brass candle-stand I hit him across the head. I hit him again and again pleading with him to give back my Tina. That’s when I heard a little noise from the next room. I hurled the door open and there was she behind the curtain, one little finger across her nose, hushing me.
“Ssh papa. Don’t tell Uncle Tony where I am. Want to play with us?”
COMMENTS
Sarah
Oh! Didn’t see that one coming at all. I feel quite shocked. I’ll read it again and write more later.
Sarah Riley
Anna
Oh my goodness, Percy, what a story. Shivers went through my body three times at the end.
It starts off in such a mundane way, seeming only to tell the sad but common story of a father who is too caught up in work to care about his brother who comes to visit, or about leaving his daughter for an important meeting.
Just re-read the last bit and got the shivers again.
Anna Lundberg
Anna
PS the title is disturbingly oxymoronic, with just a TOUCH of frenzy (who’s? the brother’s, we think at first, but then the man himself?) – but what devastating consequences.
Anna Lundberg
Mary
Wow, Percy! I didn’t see that coming either. You’re carried along by the story and it reads so easily that the twist is indeed shocking. How easily the frenzy switches from one to the other. The point where he remembers the reason for his unease – where it clicks – reminded me of a scene in the film The Usual Suspects at the end, where a character makes a similar kind of connection prompted by something he sees written on a noticeboard. The title is great as it doesn’t give anything away at the outset but speaks volumes afterwards…
Mary O’Neill
Sarah
The first time I read this I thought it seemed a little bit ordinary for a Percy special. But that was just the lull before the storm. Disturbing, to say the least. (The story, not you, Percy). Very neat and clever. (Both).
Sarah Riley
Kathryn
Oh wow Percy, this was unexpected, left me feeling a bit disturbed! Really well written though, the tension and the dad’s fear was palpable, I also felt sorry for the poor brother, I hope he didn’t end up killing him?!! Goes to show us how we get so caught up with our own lives that we could ‘forget’ such significant things about people who are meant to be closest to us, and also it’s sad that he immediately assumed his brother had done something terrible to Tina, uggh, I can’t imagine unleashing that sort of rage onto family, even one with a history of psychiatric illness! Scary.
Kathryn Tse
Tania
Shivers, me too. He killed him right? Makes me feel guilty that even as a reader I thought that Tony had done something to Tina. My only point of minor ‘critique’ would be that would something as important as your brother having attacked a child in the past be easily forgotten, especially when choosing someone to take care of your child? I appreciate he was too focused on work to remember it – maybe a further, disturbing twist would be that he does remember it in the beginning, but has no other choice than to leave Tina with him – and then as the meeting progresses he starts to panic more and more at the idea until he has formed the entire ‘murder’ scene in his head by the time he gets home.
I agree with Sarah – seems like a ‘normal’ and down to earth story for your standards Percy! – and Anna – in that the choice of title is genius!
Tania Thomas
Gabrielle
OK, I also had a problem believing that this guy would have left his daughter with a brother with a violent past. But maybe the protagonist doesn’t remember until that moment because it didn’t happen, or at least the way it is described in the story? Why is the wife dead? Maybe it is the father that in fact is the delusional psychopath, and is projecting his repressed memory of being instutionalised and attacking two boys onto his brother. Perhaps this is why they have a strained and distant relationship–the brother is wary of him. This then also explains how the father is capable of violently attacking and likely killing his brother. This makes the story way creepier for me, even if it’s all in my head!
Gabrielle Phyo
Judith
I’m also slightly confused as the guy must have been over 14 when his brother attacked the two men, so I’m not sure why he wouldn’t remember this.
I thought the ending was brilliant – the build up was intense, and the reader comes to the same conclusion as the protagonist that his daughter is in danger.
We also seem to have found a common theme in the treatment of mental patients – people will always assume the worst of them, which makes their unfortunate lives even worse.
Judith Donnelly
Caroline
Don’t they say the brain can suppresses painful memories so that either immediately, or over time, it can be repressed entirely, with only a powerful trigger to bring the memory to consciousness…which might explain how he’d misplaced his brother’s violence from the past? But I’m no clinical psychologist!! You could switch it around and have the babysitter leave the child in the hands of the Uncle who’s called round as she has to leave but that’s too easy – we are probably supposed to question why he’s left the girl with his unstable bro, and the narrator’s state of mind. He doesn’t seem to have come to terms with wife’s death and thought of losing his child has driven him to a crazed attack himself. ‘Nice’ irony that he judged his brother to be a psychopath, and he’s the one unable to act rationally.
Caroline Mcshane
Jacky
Great pace, and build up to the end Percy. Two things – I too find it hard to take that he wouldn’t remember the incident until after he’d left his brother with the child, and also, wouldn’t Tina be upset by the sound of her uncle being bashed on the head – or the sight of blood? Minor points though! Great twist that, as adults, it’s the narrator who is the violent one.
Jacky Barrett-Mcmillan
Angela
I really hope the poor brother survives!! Such a good twist at the end which I really didn’t expect. The dead pan narration belies the seething anger of the narrator which is released at the end…he is the ticking time bomb-not his brother. Very effective and very visual..would like to hear how matter is resolved and believe that brother ok
strange that yesterday read an article in guardian of how man had killed his own child and attacked his wife in frenzied unpremeditated attack…tragic and reminded me of this story
Angela Flynn
Percy
The idea came to me after reading a news item about a man who one night thought he heard a prowler in the house and shot his young son who was going to the toi
© Percy Aaron
Wow Laos 