"You did try, Dad," I say. "Remember when you came to my room for a fatherly chat? You were sent by Mum, for sure. You did everything you could. There was no way you could have avoided what happened. Everyone was obsessed, Dad. He was a national obsession during that month of June."
My dad shimmies his shoulders, reluctantly accepts that there is some truth in this. But we both know he is right. Children pretended to be him in the playground. Workers gossiped in the break room. He quickly became a myth, a fantastic legend, growing ever more amazing with each passing day. People excitedly talked about him, fascinated by what he'd do next, who'd be his next victim. He enlightened people's morbid curiosity. But it was much more for me. I felt like I knew him. He felt like a dark, disturbed friend. I sprung down the stairs in the morning to pick up the newspaper before my parents took it away from me. I returned to my bedroom and absorbed every word that was written about him. I remember my dad's horrified face when he came to see me in my room and the newspapers were scattered over my bed. He did try, though. He even tried to talk about her.
But how can you fix a problem when you don't even know what the problem is?
Mum had some idea. I'm sure even Dad didn't know about the chat I had with Mum.
They fretted that I was spending too much time in my room, that I was lonely and isolated. Sure, I'd been lonely and isolated for years. By that time, though, the real problem, and the problem that led to my eventual downfall, was that I wasn't actually festering in the room when they thought I was. Sure, sometimes I told them when I went out. Other times I waited until they were asleep before climbing down the drain pipe. Sometimes I met up with a few friends, other times I just went out on my own. Somehow it was often more exhilarating that way; nobody I knew was there to laugh at me when I got drunk, nobody could report back what a fool I made of myself. Of course, I was painfully shy, and the booze boosted my confidence. And, just like Holden Caulfield, who became something of an inspiration, I was free to roam. I was underage, too, but only just, and besides, they were much more lenient with the licensing rules back then. Truth be told, my adventures didn't last long, and there were only a few occasions when I actually got up to anything of note.
"I know you were at your mum's funeral," my dad says.
I jerk my head up, shaken from my thoughts. He knew? I don't know whether I should lie, whether I should lie to my own dad. What difference would one more lie make? But not this. I can't lie about this.
"I saw you," my dad says.
"I wanted to speak to you," I say. "I so wanted to speak to you, to be there for you, to comfort you. You need to believe me. But how could I speak to you? How could I after everything I did to you? And to Mum?"
My dad shakes his head. I notice that he has shrunken, that he appears to be shrinking in front of my eyes, disappearing into the floor. "I was just so pleased that you came. I knew you would. I looked out for you. I saw you behind the wall, trying to fade into the background. You looked so smart and handsome in your black suit. I wanted you to come out and speak to me, too, because I was so proud of you. I wanted to show off my son. You were the only thing I really had left. I know your mum would have been so pleased, too, and so proud, just like me."
"That means so much, Dad."
"She got help, you know," my dad continues, absorbed in his thoughts now. "She was referred to some psychiatrist in Cardiff. It was about five years or so after you left. The appointment kind of came out of the blue, to be honest. I thought he might make a difference. She came back so much brighter after the first time she met him. Your mum gushed that he was a handsome young doctor with all these fantastic ideas and he was confident he could make her better. Give the black dog his marching orders, was what he said. But it just wasn't to be. The initial exuberance quickly faded. Your mother continued to get much worse. Not even this fantastic psychiatrist could help her. She must have seen him for about a year before it happened..."
I blank my mind of terrible thoughts, and think back to the photograph on the mantelpiece in the lounge. There were four of us. Luke was healthy then, but within a couple of years the illness ate away at him until there was nothing left. Life was taken away from him. He had no choice. How can a mother cope with the death of her own little boy? Mum only just survived his death. She spent years in pain and anguish and she was only just recovering, becoming something that resembled her old self, when I left. Through my own choice.
How can Dad say it wasn't my fault?
"I'm so sorry, Dad," I say. "For everything."
******
Just like the wildlife park, the club has been shut, and the building left rotting, for years.
Morning has turned to afternoon; a breeze gathers up dust and cigarette ashes from the cracks in the pavement. I look up at the wood that has been nailed into gaps in the windows. Running
