{"id":1919,"date":"2024-01-22T11:05:37","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2024-01-22T11:05:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:05:41","slug":"the-chimes-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-chimes-of-freedom\/1919\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chimes of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Which one of us would do it?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018He targeted my daughter. It should be me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You\u2019d really\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Could I actually just go in there and\u2026? Let me think. Smother him? Yes, yes I could.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018We might not need to, Natasha. I\u2019ve not been feeding him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You\u2019ve been cutting back on his meals?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019ve not given him any food in seven days. Just water.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018He\u2019s looking very gaunt, Annette. Do you mean you\u2019ve been deliberately\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I want him dead. I hate him. This way we just say he wouldn\u2019t eat, we say he\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Refused food\u2026 we say he didn\u2019t want to live any more with the pain of the cancer\u2026 we\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018We wait two more days. He can\u2019t last out if we starve him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In his studio they looked at the paintings, many of them of themselves in the first flush of puberty, thin, uncomfortable, unhappy, all naked. Natasha remembered him painting Annette many times, then her turn came. She didn\u2019t quite know what was going on. It\u2019s art<\/em>, darling,<\/em> her mother insisted, keep still for Daddy and stop complaining.<\/em> Her mother had practically pimped her. Creation from exploitation? That wasn\u2019t art. Post-Jimmy Saville his reputation had crashed. Now he was reviled by many, his works removed from galleries. Quite right. Burn them all. A vile paedophile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His sister though believed they had aesthetic value, said each haunted portrait revealed her mixed feelings: fear of her father and her unbreakable connection to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018We\u2019re free.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019ll never be free.\u2019 Annette\u2019s cheeks, hair, even her lips were grey. \u2018Why would I have come back to care for him if I were free? My jailer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You have to move on.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Like you? I suppose you\u2019re a success in the eyes of the world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Screw the world. In my own<\/em> eyes I\u2019ve overcome my nightmares. I\u2019m unchained.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Yet you hate him as much as me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I thought he had changed, Annette. When he became older, he seemed gentler. But he kept his real self hidden. He was cunning, he fooled me. Just one occasion, just one, I let Louise out of my sight and he pounced. She was twelve. He didn\u2019t do to her what he did to us. Just touching. Grooming her, you could say. Thank God she told me. She never returned to this evil house.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I can\u2019t trust men. I don\u2019t want a relationship with anybody.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Don\u2019t you trust me?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You let your guard down for that brief moment. I can never relax.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018He\u2019s dead.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018He\u2019s in me. I\u2019ve never wanted a child. I would\u2019ve been scared of mistreating it, making an object out of it. He\u2019s corrupted me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Listen? Hear them in the distance? Church bells.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Welcoming in the new year.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Make a resolution. This year find freedom, won\u2019t you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doorbell was ringing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That must be the ambulance,\u2019 Annette said nervously. \u2018He wouldn\u2019t eat. <\/em>We tell them that. Agreed?\u2019 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Trust me. Just for once feel safe.\u2019 Natasha touched her sister\u2019s chilly hand, then went to the front-door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Which one of us would do it?\u2019             \u2018He targeted my daughter. It should be me.\u2019             \u2018You\u2019d really\u2026?\u2019             \u2018Could I actually just go in there and\u2026? Let me think. Smother him? Yes, yes I could.\u2019             \u2018We might not need to, Natasha. I\u2019ve not been feeding him.\u2019             \u2018You\u2019ve been cutting back on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1129,1130],"tags":[1133,643,1134,95,8,7,122,20,145,804,13,12,978,632,117],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-january-2024-a-winters-tale","tag-annette","tag-been","tag-free","tag-had","tag-he","tag-her","tag-him","tag-his","tag-just","tag-many","tag-me","tag-my","tag-say","tag-ve","tag-would"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-uX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1921,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/1921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}