drops the hankie I gave her. I want to tell her, but I’m too far gone from this world for words now. I wonder: Will I ever come back?
Chapter 34
I had more pressing matters to attend to, but I couldn’t put this off a minute longer.
My mother’s street was crammed with cars. When I was a boy, I played kerbie here, raced bikes with my brother Michael. Now there wasn’t a single child. Hot-hatches lined both kerbs. The yuppie tideline had risen again.
My mother’s front lawn — if you could call it that; barely a patch, really — had grown to a depressing height. Some litter blowing about, old Maccy D’s boxes and kebab-shop containers. I’d never seen the place neglected like this. For a moment I wondered if I had the right house.
‘What a tip,’ I mouthed.
The window in the front door looked filthy. This was something my mother usually took such pride in. I could still remember her scrubbing the step the last time I visited. What the hell was up here?
I rapped on the door.
Nothing.
Another rap.
Movement, voices.
I opened the letter box. The place looked like a dosshouse. Three or four sets of dirty trainers lying in the hallway, a pile of mail and a new Yellow Pages stacked up on the telephone shelf.
I yelled in, ‘Hello… hello?’
‘Who the fuck’s that?’ came back.
I didn’t know that voice: a male, young.
I dropped the letter box, stepped back. What the hell was going on here? The place a cowp, a young lad cursing like a trooper — in my father’s house only one person was ever allowed to speak like that.
I stepped back from the door. My heart pounded ferociously. I was about to put a boot through the frosted glass but thought better of it. I edged up to the front window, peered through a gap in the filthy, stained-yellow net curtains. Inside two youths in Adidas trackies and baseball caps sat on the couch, one of them crouched over, trying to light the bong in his hand. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Who the hell were they? What the hell was going on here?
I ran back to the door. I was ready to kick the lock off. Had a boot aimed when suddenly a key turned.
My mother peered out through a slit of light.
‘Mam?’
A shriek.
She shut the door quickly. Slammed it on me.
I knocked on the glass. ‘Mam, it’s me… Gus.’
‘Angus, go away.’
I heard some voices raised — the youths’, carrying out into the street.
I thumped on the door. ‘Mam, what the hell’s going on?’
Behind me a neighbour appeared at her gate, lugging two bulging Iceland carriers. ‘Oh, it’s you… Hope you’re there to sort that pair of wee bastards out.’
I turned. ‘What?’
‘Those little shits have been nothing but trouble since they moved in. You should be ashamed to have your own mother live like that, drug dealers round every other night, police cars. It’s a disgrace!’ She scowled at me, then marched indoors.
I went back to the letter box.
‘Mam, open this door now or I’m putting my foot through it.’
The key turned in the lock again. When my mother appeared I got the shock of my life — she looked drawn and pale, close to collapse. But the heart-stopper was her split lip, a cut that looked like she’d been batted one. I put a hand on her face and she started to cry.
‘Mam, what’s this?’
Two yobs in trackies came into the hall, stooped over her. One of them had a five-skinner in his hand, toked away whilst listening to every word I said.
‘Mam, is this Catherine’s boys?’
My mother sobbed, nodded.
I looked at the pair of them. They had dopers’ eyes, ringed in red.
‘Come on, Mam… let’s get you upstairs, have a nice lie down.’
She was in pieces, exhausted. I put her into bed, said I’d make her a cup of tea once she’d had some rest.
She smiled, said, ‘They were such lovely laddies… once.’
‘Shhh, get your head down. I’ll see you in a while.’
I closed her bedroom door.
It was only once I was in the hall that I realised the last time I’d been in there was to watch my father die.
Should I feel a flicker of sympathy for the man?
Nothing came.
I descended the stairs, slowly.
My heart calmed. Pure anger, white rage, doesn’t pump hard. I’ve felt it many times before and it’s always surprised me by its methodical calm.
At the foot of the stairs I removed my coat.
Chapter 35
I opened the living-room door slowly. Inside, Chuckle-Vision blared. I switched the telly off. Put my folded coat on the chair beside the mantel.
‘I was fucking watching that,’ said one of my nephews from the couch; I couldn’t tell which. This lot all sounded the same to me.
‘Not any more you’re not.’
‘Y’what?’
‘Let’s say you’ve lost your privileges.’
The pair laughed, hacking coughs like chucking-out time at the bingo.
I started to take off my watch, roll up my sleeves. Said, ‘How did my mother get that lip?’
‘I don’t fucking know,’ said one.
‘Maybe she walked into a door,’ said the other.
They both laughed, high-fived.
I picked up an ashtray, said, ‘Put that out.’
‘What if I say no?… You gonna smack me, eh?’
‘Put it out.’
‘Fuck off… You’ll no’ touch me.’ He rose, fronted me. ‘You’re family so you are — you can’t.’
I grabbed his face in my hand. ‘You think that counts for fuck all?’
The other one rose too. ‘Hey, fuck right off! You’re supposed to be our uncle.’
They both laughed, it was all a joke to them.
I said, ‘Let me tell you, blood never protected me from my own father in this house and it’s not going to protect you.’
