©Ian Gosling 2008

FRIDAY 13th AUGUST 1993

He has talked about it all night – he has talked about it for days, weeks, months … for as long she can remember. Sometimes he talks of nothing else.

Counting down the days.

She has watched him become increasingly restless as the confrontation drew nearer; his moods swinging wildly, one moment ready to take on the world, the next running for cover.

Last night she listened for hours, holding his hand and stroking his head; calming him when he became over-excited and talking him up when he wavered. This morning he is ready, she has straightened him out – or so she thinks. He seems calm, and tells her everything is clear.

She could have tried to stop him, but she knows better, and instead she tells him what he has to do. ‘Go straight there and get it over with. Do it now, while you’re in control. It will be all right.’

She has not reckoned on him being waylaid by an old friend.

Tries to resist the temptation, but Jack Daniels can be very persuasive – what the hell. Just one won’t do any harm.

‘The usual?’ the barman has already opened the bottle and starts to pour. He reaches beneath the counter, where he keeps a small supply of green-glass bottles containing six and a half fluid ounces of imported, genuine US-bottled Coca-Cola.

Shakes his head, ‘Not today, I’ll have it straight.’

Picks up the glass and tosses it back.

The double-shot disappears in seconds. ‘Aaagh,’ lets out an involuntary gasp as the unadulterated spirit sears his throat.

Should have – could have – waited longer.

The only person setting the agenda is himself. But, he’s been waiting for three years – and it has to be today.

Stays too long in the company of his two-faced friend and, inevitably, just one becomes two and then – Keith comes in – several more.

 Not for Dutch courage – at least that’s what the voice in his head is telling him. This is a wilful challenge to her.

She abhors alcohol. It is the only vice from which she abstains. It will add drama. He imagines her, backing away from him, in disgust as his whiskey sodden breath assaults her senses. And that is as good a reason as any to have another.

Keith urges him on, ‘Fuckin’ cow. Just like mine. You’ve got to sort the bitch out ... show her who’s boss. Do you want another one?’

 ‘Same again … cheers mate’

Doesn’t feel drunk – just a little unsteady on his feet – but they won’t serve him again.

'I’ll be ok … just need to get some air.’

Stumbles through the double doors.

Grabs at the arm of a stranger.

Mutters some incoherent words of apology.

Trips on the step.

Sitting on the pavement.

Shrugs off the disproving comments of the passers-by – arseholes.

Picks himself up.

Dusts down his clothes and shuffles off towards Drummer Street.

Realises that Jack has betrayed him, again.

Seeks salvation at the bus-station kiosk.

Grunts at the youth behind the counter, ‘Coffee, black, three sugars.’

Throws a handful of change on the counter, ‘Keep it.’

Walks to the bench, sipping the insipid brew through the hole in the lid.

Fumbles with the lid of the polystyrene cup.

Feels something warm and wet.

Looks down and sees the muddy-brown trail.

Stains on his new T- shirt, ‘Fuck … Fuck … Fuck it!’ 

Sits on the bench – spills some more.

Drains the cup quickly – before the coffee gets cold.

His confidence is draining too.

When he wakes only dregs of both will remain.

Should have – could have – gone home to sober up. a lot more.

Finally reaches the house.

Sober enough, now?

Walking up the driveway.

Seeing the house again – is it really three years?

Not what he expected.

No longer excited,

Strange feelings – nothing to do with alcohol.

Apprehensive.

Agitated.

Guilty?

Feels like a trespasser, skulking furtively in the shadows.

The sound of gravel crunching under foot echoes through the trees, crackling like gunshots. There was a time when the dogs would have raised the alarm, and seen off an intruder, before he was within sight of the front door. But, there’d been no dogs here for many years. And only he can hear of his footsteps – amplified by his growing anxiety.

Tries to keep focused on his mission, but can’t ignore the neglect that surrounds him. Lips tremble – what’s she done to my garden?

Taught by his father, he had tended it since he was a small boy; barely big enough to wield the tools. And now – where did all those weeds come from?

 Dandelions, docks, and thistles, deep rooted, growing through the gravel. And, in the dishevelled borders, this year’s growth of herbaceous perennials heroically scrambling thorough the withered stems of several previous summers; somehow defying the choking ligatures of the bindweed.

In some places, starved of nutrients and light by thick beds of nettles, the battle has been lost.

And the lawn – once emerald-green striped, beautifully manicured by the razor-sharp blades and roller of the Atco, its large grass-box always very carefully emptied onto the compost heap – more like a field now, rough cut by the slashing knives of a neighbour’s rotary mower and the clippings left to rot where they lay.

 How could she let it get to this state?

She knows how much he loves the garden.

Does she really hate me that much?

Climbs the three, wide, stone steps at the front of the house; heart quickens.

Stands under the ornate portico, rubs his hands over the columns, looks up and admires the carved stonework. His ancestor spared no expense in employing skilled artisans to decorate the house, and the elaborate entrance is merely an appetiser for the architectural feast waiting inside.

This is what he has come back for. It is the only reason he has for keeping a house that holds so many bad memories.

He grew up in this house, although he can’t remember when he last thought of it as home. Maybe once, but that was over twelve years ago, before she drove his father away.

Now, he feels like a stranger – and that is a feeling he was expecting.

She never wanted him.

He was, as she never tired of reminding him – an ‘accident’.

Every day of his life, he has borne the burden of her resentment, and has always been a stranger in this house.

Sometimes in his darkest moments, he hates his father too.

Hates him for leaving him with her. Because, she was never with him; he was on his own for all those years.

When he was a child, about ten years old, he wrote about her. He wrote stories and poems. He wrote in his English book, in his Maths book, in his History book, in every book – he just wanted them to know. He just wanted someone … anyone to take notice and take him away from her.

His teacher told the head. The head told his mother, and suggested that she take him to see a psychologist – ‘The school just doesn’t have the resources to deal with problems like this, Mrs. Everett’.

And so, it was official – he was a problem.

But not for long.

She locked him in.

Locked him away from his books, his pencils and his paper.

He was down there for four days.

She sent him back to school with a note – ‘sickness and diarrhoea’.

He wasn’t really ill. But he couldn’t tell them that; he was too afraid.

He never wrote anything about her in his schoolbooks again.

Problem solved?

No – he wrote on the walls instead, using ballpoint pens, pencils, crayons, marker pens, whatever he could smuggle down there without her seeing.

Then, on his twelfth birthday, he found an old six-inch nail and scratched the words on the bedroom wall. He could have used a pen or a pencil, but gouging the letters into the plaster was altogether more satisfying and felt like the ultimate act of defiance, although she would never see it.

It was difficult to see, with only moonlight for illumination and he missed out some of the letters and punctuation; some of the spelling is wrong, too.

It was painful too – he still has a feint scar where the nail cut into his palm. There are still some bloodstains on the floor. When he looks at the scar, he can remember all the words, even the mistakes.

Im an orphan

Its not my fault

they mad me like this

they are spposed to love me

they are suposed to be here

not just with there bodys

but in their heds

Dad ran away from HER

he is never here

SHE is always here

SHE is never here

they made me an orphan

they dont need to be ded for that

He covered it with a ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ poster and she never knew it was there. He has vowed never to decorate that wall.

Takes a deep breath and a firm grip on the bell-pull; trembling with excitement.

It is over two years since they last exchanged words and he expects their meeting to be brief. Today is his twenty-first birthday and the house is his at last.

Soon, she will be the outsider; the stranger not welcome at his door.

Rings the bell, a second time.

Waits – a moment seems like hours – no reply.

Pulls again – shouting, ‘I know you’re there.’

Still no reply.

Knows she can hear him – wonders if she can see him.

The reception hall is always a dark and dingy place when the sun is at the back of the house. It hasn’t always been this way; the room was originally illuminated from above, by a large roof lantern, but this was covered over during the war and forgotten.

Presses his face against the door.

Can’t see anything – the coloured panes of antique glass are translucent, but not transparent – only dark indistinct shapes, although he can describe from memory, every detail of the hall furniture that has been there for over a century.

Suddenly – sunlight dances across his face, in all the colours of the rainbow – the rays of the low evening sun come streaming through an open door, flooding the hall with soft amber light and backlighting the figure in the kitchen doorway.

The shadow moves towards him, calling out in a strident tone, ‘Go away, boy. I don’t want to see you.’

He calls out again, ‘It’s no use playing games, Mother. I’m not leaving. You’ll have to open the door sometime.’

He has resolved to be fair to her, fairer than she deserves, fairer than she has ever been to him. Although he does not have to, he is going to allow her a few more weeks. That is fair, considering that, she has had years to prepare.

But fair isn’t something she understands and now she’s laughing at him; not in jest, but in derision.

The cackling shadow shimmers behind the leaded lights like a multi-coloured ghost as it moves towards the back of the house. Then she is gone, and the light too – shut out, as the kitchen door slams.

Runs down the steps

Quickly, round to the back of the house, the side door is never locked.

Inside the outbuilding, standing opposite the kitchen door.

Moves towards it, footsteps clicking on the quarry-tiled floor.

Too late.

The key is turning in the old-fashioned lock – the rusty levers, which have not seen a drop of oil for years, creaking as they force home the bolt.

The old scullery has changed little since his great-great-grandfather built the house in 1881 and in common with the rest of the property, modernisation has been carried out piecemeal by the succeeding generations; the old marrying with the new in haphazard fashion. The scullery plumbing has been improved twice – copper pipes and hot water, installed at the behest of his grandfather in 1961; the plumbing for the automatic washing machine commissioned by his father. The latter, completed just a few months before he was born; when, after the fashion of the times, this small, dark, damp space became “the utility room”.

He can hear a familiar, slow, steady and strangely reassuring sound, plip-plop, plip-plip-plop …

The original cold water supply, at mains pressure, still runs through Victorian lead piping to an ancient brass tap over the deep Belfast sink, and, plip-plop, plip-plip-plop … it has been dripping for as long as he can remember.

The cracked glass-globe shade of the antique gas lamp still bears traces of soot. It was, like several others in the house, still functioning well into the nineteen-fifties, although his great-grandfather, a director the Cambridge Electricity Company, forbade their use after the installation of the electric lighting.

The house was one of the first in the area to get an electricity supply. However, it was many years before the scullery got its power socket. Unfortunately, when his grandfather modernised the wiring in the nineteen-sixties, he failed to anticipate the future abundance of domestic appliances.

Sprouting from the single socket is a double adapter plug, an extension lead trails from it, terminating in a multi-socket bar from which more leads connect to the washing machine, tumble drier, and freezer. Even with his rudimentary knowledge of electricity, He knows this is not safe, and the rectification of this fire hazard is close to the top of his list of jobs.

It is a long list. He has big plans for the house, although he has no idea how long it will take or what it will cost. There is a little money left from his father’s estate, but nowhere near enough to finance even the essential improvements – kitchen, bathroom, heating, electrics, and … As soon as he gets a job, he will take out a mortgage, but in the meantime, there will be plenty to do.

Fortunately, all of the family’s previous improvements have been practical rather than aesthetic, and consequently the house has a wealth of original architectural features – fireplaces, cornices, doors, ironmongery, window sashes, and shutters – which many similar houses have forfeited to the diktats of fashion. Restoring most of these treasures will simply require the careful removal of layers of paint and a century’s accumulation of ingrained dirt and dust. He plans to lavish as much attention on restoring the house as his great-great-grandfather had on its original construction. It will be hard work, but it will bring the house back to its former glory. It will be a labour of love, and he will start as soon as he can – as soon as she is gone.

But for now, she is still here, and she is making him angry.

Hammers on the kitchen door.

Her shadow moves behind the glass.

Shouts at her, again, ‘Open the door, you evil bitch.’

Thumps on the door, again, ‘Come on’ he rasps.

‘Open it now or I’ll ...’ his words tail off as though they are stuck in his throat, as the shadow moves closer to the door.

Sees her hand, reaching out towards the lock.

Hears the key turning again.

The hinges creak, the sound grates, jangling his already ragged nerves.

Should have – could have – left when I could?

Too late now.

The door is wide open’ she is facing him.

‘Or you’ll what?’ she snaps, glaring at him.

Her stare turns him to jelly.

She is forty-one years old, and by any measure, good looking. Her figure has filled out only slightly over the years, and she dresses in a way that enhances the curves. If she finds a man attractive, her eyes sparkle conveying an unambiguous message.

Men have always found her attractive. The face they see is unlined, the soft pale skin unblemished, the lips full and beckoning; she keeps it in the jars on her dressing table.

They rarely look beneath the surface.

He never sees her as others do.

The face he sees is cruel, the lips twisted and snarling, and the eyes cold and threatening; she keeps it in a cold, dark corner, and brings it out only for him.

Unlike the others, he can see the evil inside; the whore who broke his father’s heart; the witch who brewed his nightmares.

 ‘I, I, I’ll, I …’ he stammers.

‘Come on then. Let it out … don’t wet yourself.’

Memories come flooding back. Across the kitchen, he can see the door leading into the hallway and beside it another door – ‘that door’.

Behind ‘that door’ is the steep flight of hard brick steps, on which, in the darkness, it was all too easy for a small boy to lose his footing. And he can see the boy now…

Standing outside ‘that door’, crying as his mother’s hand turns the latch above his head, and the entrance to the cellar opens behind him.

The boy’s tears mix with the pool of urine on the floor, as he tries to plead for forgiveness. But – and it was always the same – the boy’s words are all tangled up in the stammer, and won’t come out.

Only he can hear the boy’s voice – as it joins the chorus inside his head.

‘I, I, I, I’ll …’ he stammers again, trying desperately now to unravel his own words. More than ever, he needs to summon up some resistance, but all trace of the spirit of Jack Daniels has long since deserted him.

‘Oh! Shut up and come inside,’ she crows, cutting him off – as she always has; never gave him a chance to conquer his impediment.

‘You’re pathetic. Do you really think I’m afraid of you?’

 Then she laughs, and her face, already sour, becomes rancid, as she pours scorn on him.

‘Oh! Look at that sad little face. Oh! Poor little boy, are you upset? Do you want Mummy to feel sorry for you?’

He says nothing, but feels as he always did, whenever she taunted him. Frightened, diminished, inconsequent – worthless. She is right, he is pathetic and for a moment, he just wants to run away and hide – why did I come here?

Should have – could have – waited until she was gone.

The solicitor said that the bailiffs would get her out. But the thought of today has been in his head for so long; a dream he’s been living since his father died, leaving the house in trust for him.  He’s been waiting nearly five years to see her face on the day that he has the upper hand; the day that he turns her out.

 And now, with just a few words and one of those looks, she has cut him down, and he feels like a helpless child again.

‘Come in,’ she takes his hand, and leads him inside.

‘We’ll have some tea. Then, I’ll tell you how it’s going to be.’ And to make her point, she smiles at him, but not as a mother should look on her son. That should be a look of love; but this smile carries no warmth; no tenderness.

The smile she reserves for him is ugly, cruel, brutal, and designed to instil fear.

As he expected, the meeting is brief.

And very one-sided, which, foolishly, he had not anticipated; although he has no reason to be surprised, it has always been this way and he doesn’t know why he thought today would be different.

 There is no discussion, and therefore, there can be no compromise. She talks at him; ridiculing him for his naivety. ‘Did you really expect to find me waiting with my bags packed?’

She tears up the letter from his solicitor and throws the pieces in his face. ‘What do I care for your threats? Am I supposed to be grateful for two extra months?’ enough.

She is bored with him now and wants him gone.

‘I’ll decide when, if ever, it is time for me to leave,’ she spits the words in his face, forcing them out through the twisted smile. Her words are barbed and he can feel them hanging from his face, waiting to rip his skin when he wipes them away.

 Then, pungently and smiling again – just to emphasise the point, and leave nothing to doubt – she sneers, ‘But you … you can leave now.’

He does not argue – he could never win; never had – and leaves with less than when he arrived. Not just empty-handed and drained of all residues of confidence. Worse – he feels less of a man.

He is now a big, powerful man – a couple of inches over six-foot, rows at number three in the senior eight – but she has reduced him, and now he feels even smaller than the boy in the cellar. Not just small and insignificant, but extinguished – crushed, almost to non-existence, by the pressure of their mutual hatred.

He spends hours just wandering the streets; going nowhere. She is expecting him to return and tell her everything has gone as planned. But he is too ashamed to go back to the flat and face her.

Afraid to tell her, he lost his nerve.

Afraid that now, he will lose her.

It should have been so easy, they had it all worked out, and every word was rehearsed. But when it came to it, he said nothing.

Like, he never said anything during a lifetime in that house.

The clamour in his head is deafening.

The boy – begging for his mother’s love – ‘Please Mummy, give me a hug. I’ll be a good a boy’.

Her – bitter and spiteful – ‘Poor little boy … come to Mummy. Now get in there’.

The boy – ‘Please Mummy … I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be an orphan’.

Her – ‘Don’t talk nonsense … count yourself lucky … there are lots of boys who don’t have a mother to look after them.’

A man he used to know – ‘Leave the boy alone woman’.

Her – ‘Keep out of this. He’s mine now’.

The boy – ‘Please, don’t go Dad’.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a jukebox starts playing. His John Lennon jukebox only plays two songs.

‘Mother, you had me but I never had you … Father, you left me …’

‘…. one thing you can’t hide, is when you’re crippled inside …’

And once the songs begin to play, he can’t stop them. Only the voices can do that. Sometimes he can choose between the voices or the jukebox; sometimes they fight for his attention. Sometimes they are all silent, and then – sometimes he wishes he could turn them on.

 Sometimes, when he can’t hear them, he is afraid it is because he is dead.

He knows that there is another song, but the jukebox has never let him select it. He knows the words and longs for the day when he can press the button.

‘My Mummy’s dead …’

But for now he knows that she is very much alive.

Shuts his eyes and all he can see is her face.

Clamps his hands over his ears, but he can hear her voice, battling with the jukebox.

She is still laughing at him, still mocking him.

The jukebox falls silent and now all he can hear are the words she shouted after him, as he walked down the steps, just before she slammed the door.

‘You’d better get used to it. I’m never going to leave this house.’

©Ian Gosling 2008

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