‘No way!’
I upped the pace but my legs bucked. I felt a stagger towards the flags, for a second it was like I was flying… I was wrong – I was dropping. I landed face first on the paving stones. My hands broke my fall – stung like a bastard. A million tiny nerve endings registered their disapproval as the flesh ripped open and painted two black-red streaks on the pavement. My face followed, smacked my mouth off the concrete. For a second it felt as though a china cup had been broken in my mouth, then my bridgework made a bid for freedom, spilled like shattered glass on the street before me. My pain centres arked up. I felt a sharp stab in my gut as my face bounced, then my forehead slapped into the ground.
I could taste warm, salty blood rise on my tongue. For a moment I coughed to clear my throat, then gave up. I sensed a frothy stream of vomit spilling from the side of my mouth as I passed out.
The times I’ve seen this…
He’s been dropped from the first team. The man carries a gut Jocky Wilson would be proud of – what does he expect? I must be twelve or thirteen, everyone says it’s a ‘difficult age’. They don’t know the half of it.
I come in from school and I’m shocked to see him so drunk. It’s not four o’clock yet. This is new territory. Even for him.
‘Oh, it’s himself… little Boy Wonder.’
I brought home a report card the day before; he has it in his hand. In the other, a tin of Cally Special. There’s a stack of them in the waste bin with the Spanish dancing lady painted on the front, and more yet on the carpet. He’s been sat in the seat by the fire throwing empty tins to the bin. My mother is perched on the edge of the couch like a delicate little bird; her hand trembles every time she brings the Berkeley Superking to her mouth. Her spine straightens as she sees me come in. Some ash falls from the cigarette in her pale, thin hand. Her eyes flit quickly between my father and me as I stand in the doorway. I know what’s coming.
‘So what the fuck do you call this?’ He shakes the report card at me.
I shrug.
Mam stands up, dowps her cig in the ashtray, smooths down the sides of her skirt. ‘Now, now… come on,’ she says.
The mighty Cannis Dury roars, ‘And you can shut the fuck up… When I want to hear an opinion from you I’ll fucking well tell you what to say!’
Mam curls her lower lip. I can see the heavy make-up filling the creases at the sides of her mouth. She puts an arm around me and pats down my stray fringe. It’s as if the action sparks a bolt of life in my father. He leaps from the chair and jerks her from me.
‘Get away from him.’ He throws my mother on the floor. She looks up at him as she lands with a clatter of bone on wooden floorboards. Her face is twisted, her mouth seems to change colour. I want to go to her but I’m frozen to the spot. My father is looming over me. He’s an awesome size, drowns my pathetic child’s frame into shadows. ‘What the fuck is this?’ He waves the report card at me. I see the line of As… and the single C.
I say nothing. I feel my throat freeze but an almighty anger is burning in my gut. I want to go to my mother. She speaks: ‘Please, Cannis… leave the laddie. He’s a good laddie.’
He turns to her, waving the report card again. ‘But whose fucking laddie?… no’ fucking mine!’
I can’t believe I’ve heard the words. I know what they mean – I’m a smart laddie, everyone says so.
My mother looks away, starts to cry. My father strides over to her, grabs her hair and throws her to the wall. She lands against the bin, Cally Special tins spill out onto the floor. Her eyes close tight as she falls; there’s blood on her mouth. As she lands I see the blood drip down the side of her pure white cheek. It seems so red, so out of place on that perfectly drawn face of hers.
I watch him loom over her. She doesn’t move. Even when he kicks her in the stomach and raises her whole body from the ground again and again there doesn’t seem to be any movement from her. She’s lifeless. All that moves is the slow trickle of blood when he steps back from her.
‘He’s no’ ma fucking laddie… C for Games. No’ ma fucking laddie, y’dirty hoor.’
He’s still holding the report card as he turns from her. He staggers into the dresser, breathing heavily as he approaches me. I know I should move, dive out of the way, but I’m frozen to the spot. He sees me staring at him, wipes the sweat from his brow. I wonder will he speak but he doesn’t seem to have any words for me, just brushes me aside.
I hear his noisy footfalls on the staircase, then his heavy frame falling into the bed. I wait for what seems like an age for my muscles to return to my control. I feel like a different person now, confused and alone. I begin to tremble, in my shoulders to begin with, then all down my spine and into my legs. My knees are buckling and I fall over.
The floor jolts me, sends a shock through my body and I come back to myself. I remember my mother, lying beaten in the corner. I try to get up to go to her but find myself walking on all fours like a dog. When I reach her I see her pale white face is now streaked with blood. I touch her but she doesn’t move. Her skin feels cold as stone. For a moment, I think he’s killed her.
A bolt of electricity passes through me.
I run out to the street. I don’t know where I’m going. I know my sister and brother will be home from school soon; they can’t see her like this. They’d have questions – what would I tell them?
I run to the red call box at the end of the street.
I know I have no money, but quickly remember emergency calls are free. I dial 999.
In no time at all the loud bells of the ambulance are in the street. Neighbours come out to see what the commotion is all about. Old women in tabards and headscarves touch their faces and look shocked as the stretcher men carry my mother away.
My father doesn’t raise himself from his bed as the ambulance bells start up again and rush her to hospital.
I watched the blue flashing lights…
‘Mr Dury… Mr Dury… can you hear me, sir?’
I said nothing. My mind was very far away.
‘Mr Dury…’
The words didn’t register. I saw people standing over me. The street seemed to have come to a standstill. It felt like I was floating. On a cloud, maybe.
‘Mr Dury…’ said the man again. ‘Nope, he’s away. Get him up.’
A red blanket was brought out, the paramedics raised me.
I saw the blue lights flashing brighter for a moment, then all the lights stopped.
Chapter 22
I WAS BACK IN HOSPITAL, trying to piece things together.
For a while now my memory hadn’t been what it once was, or what it should be. There were huge gaps appearing in the annals of my mind. The day-to-day stuff I could just about get away with, bluffing out the standard responses and catchphrases everyone used to grease the wheels of life, but the more important matters were slipping from me. Short term I was a disaster: put down a set of keys or a coat and I needed a sniffer dog to find them. Long term wasn’t much better; tying dates to past events was an impossibility. About the only things that I did recall with any clarity were the hard times: boyhood beatings and scoldings from my father; the wreckage of my marriage to Debs. Figured I’d replayed those so many times in morose, whisky-soaked meanderings that they were on repeat play at the back of my mind. Couldn’t wash them out with a power hose. Had tried to drown them, but that was coming back to haunt me now.
I knew I needed to confront my mother. I had been to the brink replaying the times my father had beaten her senseless… but one memory haunted more than others.
I’d put my mother on ice for so long now, since I’d relapsed into drink and had lost any pretence to normality, there was no way I could face her without scalding her heart. She knew me too well; she’d take one look at me and suss that I was close to the grave. Still, I didn’t want to go there just yet, and I sure as hell didn’t want to go there without asking her the question I’d kept inside me for all these years. Why was I thinking about this now? I knew
