The intruder

Words 530

“He’s gone!” That’s what my mother said.

“What the hell?” That was what my father said, when my mother turned the power back on.

My father had his hands around my twenty-year-old brother Brian’s neck, attempting to subdue who dad thought was the intruder. They both were as confused as each other. My brother stopped trying to thump my father when he realised they’d been fighting each other in the dark.

“Can anyone tell me what’s happening?” My other brother, Alan, staggered down the stairs, bleary eyed and as confused as the rest of the family.

There came a knock at the back door, Mum opened it to the old couple who lived next door. Fred was in his pyjamas and Mary stood trembling behind her husband, her hair in dozens of bright pink curlers. She looked ready to bolt, sure there had been a murder, because that’s what they thought all the noise must have been about.

“It’s okay, no one’s hurt,” my mother assured them that an ambulance wasn’t needed and that, yes, she would call the police.

Mums favourite Hummel figures were lying smashed into many pieces They had been displayed on the large sideboard which the intruder had dragged across the lounge room door in an attempt to block anyone chasing him after he fled. Dad had ended up sprawled across the carpet after falling over the furniture when he’d rushed in the pitch darkness to help me, after he’d heard my screams. That was before Brian grabbed him and began the tussle which ended when Mum found the mains power switch and turned on the lights.

The police came quite soon after my mother made the call. I was interviewed and asked if I was injured before they required me to describe the attack.

“I was sound asleep,” I told the police officer, “I woke suddenly, unable to breathe.” I began to cry, retelling the experience made me aware for the first time what had actually happened.

“Did he hurt you?”

I showed him the red marks from where a knife had been held at my throat.
There was a rag on the floor next to my bed, a piece of cloth, covered in dried green paint, which he’d used to gag me. The police bagged it for evidence, but this all happened in 1962 when I was just eighteen years old. There was no such thing as DNA in those days.

I began to hyperventilate and an ambulance was called for to take me to the hospital to be checked over. I was simply suffering from shock. After all a couple of hours before, I had been sleeping in my downstairs bedroom while the rest of the family slept upstairs.

I had heard nothing when the man prised open the kitchen widow and climbed through, having first turned off the power at the main switch board. Using a flashlight he had searched through drawers and cupboards looking for any valuables, stealing my wage packet from my drawer.
It was only then he realised I was sleeping in the room.

I awoke to the voice in the dark, hand across my mouth asking “how old are you.”