by Kate Bradley
‘But what are you saying? I just don’t get it.’ I press my fingertips against my growing headache. ‘Are you saying this is just one big dig at me? That doesn’t fit. If you didn’t care about Jack, if you knew I was going to come to the flat and take him, if you set me up to do it, it doesn’t mean you’d be so angry you’d murder elderly folk in their beds.’
‘Just because I knew you would take Jack, doesn’t mean you should’ve taken Jack. You always let me down Lisa, you always have. That’s why I’m pissed off.’
‘You are so . . . cold.’
‘Just. Like. You.’
‘No. I am nothing like you. I accept I’ve struggled. I accept I may have had a little postnatal depression. I hold my hands up that I didn’t always get it right with you, but I was never cold with you.’
‘Incorrect. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life not knowing where I stand with you. You were either super loving and in my face, making up for all the times you were shit, or you were just shit. I feel my entire childhood was waiting for you to come back to me, staring at you when you were either zonked out, or staring out the window, or locked in the bathroom crying, or shut behind your bedroom door. Then after, you’d be cloying, guilty, telling me you love me, love me. But you are not like that with Jack. You’d risk taking him from under my nose, just to do right by him. How do you think that makes me feel?
‘I never felt safe with you. You’ll keep my son safe, but never me. You know why I kicked off when you took me into the prison? Why you had to start giving me Sleepy? Because I thought you were just going to forget about me and leave me there. Just like you did to Ted. Do you remember Ted, Lisa?’
Ice. In. My. Veins.
‘You do, don’t you? Oh, yes, Lisa, my teddy who I just loved so much. Like Jack loves Bunny now. Except he’s eight and he still has his. You’ve managed not to fuck him up and lose his precious toy, I notice. Go on, let’s test your legendary memory. What age was I when you left my Ted behind, in prison?’
Two. Jack was just two.
‘I bet you never had to give me Sleepy before then, did you?’
I’m so cold. He’s right, I know it. Giving him Sleepy started after then. I don’t know why I didn’t see it. Yes I do. It’s because I didn’t want to.
It was my last visit to my mum at Holloway prison, before she was moved. It was the only time I’d walked out on my mum during a visit, crossing the visiting hall before the bell, shaming her that I was leaving before our time was up. We’d had a row about something, I can’t even remember what, and I was so furious with her, I ignored the crying Jack, thrusting him along in his buggy – You were so angry, Lisa – all the way to the tube station. We had boarded our train at Kings Cross before I lost my temper with his crying and moaning and finally noticed him. And I heard him, properly and realised what he’d known all the time: that his precious, most loved, Ted, was left behind in the prison.
I’d try to reassure him. I hadn’t yet got a mobile phone but I told him I’d ring as soon as we got home, that the prison officers would send it on, that we couldn’t go back – and we couldn’t, I couldn’t – but he wouldn’t be calmed.
Ted did come in the post within a week, sent on by the prison to our home. But Jack never wanted it again. Wouldn’t have it on his bed; insisted it stay in his wardrobe. He said Ted had been changed and said Ted wanted to take him back to prison in revenge for leaving him there. It took Nadia’s trick of antihistamine to get him to step back inside a prison again.
Jack’s speaking now, his voice emotionless. ‘Dad tried to persuade me to hold Ted again: but I thought you were just ganging up on me to get rid of me. When I saw Dad in his police uniform, I thought he was going to arrest me and take me to prison. But don’t worry, Lisa dear, I don’t view Dad as any better than you. He was more interested in his dog than me. And then he was more interested in criminals. And then he was more interested in Anne-Marie, Amelia and Sophie. Did you know this interesting fact? I have never met Sophie. She is nine years’ old, was born on the 12th June, but I have never been invited to her birthday, ever. Not once. My sister.’
He draws heavily on his cigarette and regards broken me with amused eyes. ‘You want me to have feelings. You’re disappointed in me because I don’t care about stuff. But tell me this, why would I want to have feelings with you two for parents? Neither of you even noticed it was my birthday last week. The truth is, Lisa, there’s loads of ways like that you’ve both wronged me. I can’t be bothered to explain even one more to you. To explain would be to care. But I will say this: I’ve never been able to reach you, Lisa. You’ve never listened to me.’
He smokes, watching my devastation. I can’t see him because my eyes are now closed, but I can feel his on me, just as I feel and smell the smoke blown at me.
‘Trust me on this, Lisa, it’s been a pleasure every single time I’ve wound you up. It’s been worth it to me because it makes me feel alive to punish you. I hated it that you were all perfect and mushy with Jack but not with me. It’s an insult. I always had to work so hard to get your attention.
‘So, all the effort of the flat, looking after Jack at the weekends, it’s been worth every bit of effort, ten-fold. And you can trust me on that.’
‘You’re a psychopath,’ I say it aloud, not meaning to. But his reaction surprises me.
He sips his drink. ‘Don’t let it bother you – it doesn’t bother me.’
‘It should. The things you’ve done – it should bother you a lot.’
He shrugs. ‘Why would it? It makes my life easier. I don’t have to care what other people think. It makes it easier at work; makes it easier with girls. I like being an island.’
I almost gasp aloud at the expression – it’s like he’s taken my own thoughts.
– I’m an island –
and bent them into a different shape. I made him. He’s broken, dangerous, and he doesn’t even care. But I care, very much.
It feels vital to me that if I neglected him, then I’m sorry. I want him to know that he can reach me – he always did. I didn’t show it enough, I believe him, but I’ve never not loved him.
With shaking fingers I reach out and do something I haven’t done in so, so long, and touch him kindly. He’s still my child, no matter what he’s done, what’ve I’ve done. There’s nothing he could do that would make me feel any different. Motherhood has always been both my love affair and my greatest challenge. My fingers brush his jaw but he starts like a bull stung by a wasp.
Irritation burns in his eyes. ‘I am who I am.’
‘But—’
‘No. Don’t pity me because I don’t need it.’
‘I’m sorry for what I did – and didn’t do . . .’ I touch him again, so lightly.
His irritation brews in his face and I know he’s not pretending. He was such an angry baby, such an angry child. He let me take care of him, dress him, feed him, but I could never reach him. I don’t think I ever stopped trying, but I certainly stopped believing. Maybe that amounts to the same thing in the end. He certainly felt the gap. We both did.
But I can’t stop trying, even now: I take his hand in both of my own. For a moment it rests there, for a moment I think he’s going to allow it. With one swift moment he whips it free and, still seated, he must have pushed the kitchen table hard, because it’s suddenly slamming into me.
The force of it takes me by surprise and it catches me in the stomach, hard. It pushes me back and I fall back from my chair. As I’m falling I hear another noise:
Bang!
I hear this over the sound of me falling to the floor, over the sound of my oomph! as the air is knocked out of me, over the sound of my chair clattering against the tiles. The bang, I realise, is from the back door being slammed open. From the angle of looking up from the floor, the face of the figure at the door is obscured by the table. But I still know who it is, I recognise those legs. My son, I note, doesn’t even turn round to see who has arrived.
&nb
sp; I think he already knows.
seventy-six:
– now –
‘What have you done to her?’ Nick bellows, advancing on us. He’s above me, reaching down. He takes my hand in his and pulls me up. He checks I’m all right before turning on our son. ‘I know what you did!’
At first, I think he’s talking about me. All my physical hurts start singing a cacophony of pain, as if trying to be heard over this new, savage stomach pain. I think a lower rib might’ve been cracked, but Nick is so angry, I can’t help but play it down. ‘It’s not too bad –’
But Nick has left me and has crossed the floor and our son is rising out of his chair to meet the fury of his dad.
‘Please, Nick, don’t worry about it, it’s fine! I just want you to keep your voice down – please don’t wake Jack.’ And suddenly, I’m back twenty years, reliving our lives all over again. And just like before, no one pays attention to me.
‘What’s your problem?’ sneers our son, now several inches taller than his father.
Nick stands there, just looking at him. He’s red in the face and I remember Nick’s temper: slow to rouse but then slow to dissipate again. What’s happened? I must have asked this question because Nick turns to me. ‘You tried to tell me he was the same. I didn’t want to believe you, Lisa. I wanted to think it was you,’ he says, his voice filled with his fire. ‘But it wasn’t, was it, because you were right all along. It was because of him. Him!’
Now he turns to our son.
‘You tricked me. You attacked your mother as soon as you could; I thought you’d grown out of that crap, but shame on you, you’re a grown man and you’re still not grown up. You stole police property out of my car boot. You’ve shredded all four of my car tires and you set me up, you little fucker!’ His finger is in his son’s face. ‘That’s police property. That’s a massive show of disrespect, my friend. Massive error – massive. You’ve not changed at all. You’re just the same, I can see that now. Nicking my car keys, to steal my stuff. You’re a thief. I could have you cuffed. In fact, I should. That would change your plans, wouldn’t it?’
Very slowly, very deliberately, Jack blows his cigarette smoke into Nick’s face before saying: ‘Just you try.’
Nick flushes a deeper red like a warning light – since he gave up, he’s always hated smoking – and then his face drops to white: the true sign of danger.
‘Please, please!’ I flap, jumping between them. I’m not sure what’s happened, but I don’t want them to wake Jack. Being frightened, listening to adults argue, was the childhood I had.
‘Why’ve you got a stinger anyway?’ he sneers at his father. The butt of his cigarette glows fire and I’m worried he’ll stub it out on Nick’s face. ‘You’re not a traffic cop.’
‘None of your business, you little shit. I’m just sorry I didn’t listen to your mother.’ He turns back to me. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? And why were you on the floor anyway?’
I don’t answer this question because it would do nothing to improve the tension in this kitchen, which is suddenly red hot. ‘What’s a stinger?’
‘A metal contraption deployed by trained police officers after drivers fail to stop. They’re only supposed to used after authorisation and following thorough risk assessment. They’re used to span a road, so a car who’s failed to stop, drives over a series of spikes. But they’re dangerous and our son has failed to consider the potential risk to road users. He has failed on all sorts of levels. Including keeping his nose out of my stuff!’
He turns back to our son. ‘Why was she on the floor anyway? What were you about to do to her?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re a liar. And a thief. I had to pack away that stinger and then I had to walk back here, in the dark, for two miles. You know what I was thinking as I did? That I’d be mad to let you take that child. I did always have a sense of unease, but now I’ve got something on you – theft; assault; criminal damage; intent to cause a traffic accident – I’ll throw the book to stop you from having sole custody. Assaulting your own mother – you’re an arsehole.’
I’m the shortest and, standing between them, they bookend me. ‘Nick! Don’t call him that!’
‘Why not?’ Nick looks at me, daggers in his eyes. ‘He tricked me. Jack called me, saying he needed help. I thought he was upstairs, not in Cleasong. But he asked me to get him from the village, said he’d explain. I actually blamed you, Lisa! I was cursing you on the drive out! But about two miles from here I drove over a stinger – out there in the dark. I get out, check all my tyres – shredded by the way, thank you very much – walk back, see the fucking thing, and I’m like, what idiot has left that out here? I’m about to call it in and . . . bam! I suddenly get it: I had one in my car . . . and yes, when I look in my car, sure enough, it’s missing from my boot!’ He jabs a finger over my shoulder into our son’s chest: ‘He took it. And he doesn’t have the decency to even admit why.’
Jack leans forward, his eyes narrowing, and there’s a darkness in his voice that I don’t like: ‘I just wanted a chat with Lisa on her own, if that’s all right with you? I needed you gone for a bit.’
‘If you wanted your mother to yourself, you only had to say. Instead, you set me a trap and wrecked my car, which by the way, is now stuck on the side of the road. I didn’t even have time to call the AA because I thought you were up to something. Which clearly you were – because that’s not what grown adults call talking, if you don’t know. How am I supposed to get back to my family tomorrow now?’
I knew, as soon as he’d said it, it was wrong. And I saw his face freeze with the understanding that he knew it was wrong, too. Slowly, I turned to see Jack’s face.
His face seemed to tighten, but when he spoke, it was light, almost conversational. ‘We are your family.’
It’s funny how you can recall your life. Standing there, between husband and son, I remembered our family life in a series of vignettes: eating around the kitchen table; trips out in the car; watching films while eating popcorn. We were, for those first five years, a real family. The good bits glued us, for a while, at least.
‘I never said you weren’t,’ Nick says, now edgy, his gaze flicking towards the door.
‘I think you just did.’
There’s a single moment when there’s nothing. I like to think that Nick didn’t move first, but I don’t know, I don’t know. But there’s no space between them really, only me and the frailties of decency, a construct of how family should be.
Then it’s gone.
Nick’s fist is raised. But his son is quicker and knocks Nick over with an easy move. As Nick goes to right himself, Jack grabs him by the throat and powers him back up against the wall.
It’s only at the last minute that I see he has a knife in his hand – the missing knife from the block. I recall the single-handedness of his shaking a cigarette out and then lighting it with his left hand, then lighting one from the other, letting me pour the drinks, and I realise I never once saw his right hand. I realise he must’ve been holding the knife under the table the whole time. I choose not to think why.
I choose not to think if Nick hadn’t arrived back, what might’ve happened.
I choose not to consider his lies that he was going to leave Jack with me when clearly he had other plans.
But I do remember the yawning missing tooth in the knife block and I do see the missing knife now clutched in his white-knuckled fist, and his arm is now drawn back and I realise—
seventy-seven:
– now –
– I realise that Jack’s about to kill his father. ‘Don’t!’ I scream. I jump up onto his broad back. From over his shoulder, I can see Nick’s widened eyes, transfixed on the knife in our son’s right hand.
Then I hear a bang.
His arm draws back, brushing my waist, and I think: He’s going to stab him! Jack’s about to kill his father! But then there’s a shout and there’s someone standing in the open back do
orway. I can’t see who it is, because my face is in Jack’s neck. I realise the noise has come from the kitchen door being slammed back on itself, again, but this time it’s not Nick.
I hear a woman shout: ‘Drop the knife!’
As my son turns his body towards the intruder, I’m still hanging on to his back so I turn, too. With one movement, Jack only pauses to fling me aside, before he smoothly steps torwards the trespasser.
It’s Erica. She’s standing there, eyes narrowed, holding the discarded shotgun better than I ever could. It’s so secure in her arms, it looks like she’s held it all her life. She shifts her posture a little and speaks again, her voice low and even. ‘Drop the knife, you fucker. Don’t think I won’t shoot you.’
His knife is still raised.
‘Dickhead, this is your final warning. I consider you a threat. Drop your weapon or I shoot you.’
He steps forward.
‘Step back! Step back!’ shouts Erica. There’s a stiffening in her posture – she’s about to shoot. ‘Step back and drop the knife.’
But my son will not do as he’s told. Not ever. He picks up a chair and hurls it at Erica. She steps neatly to one side and it hits the ground just outside the back door.
He takes another step towards her. We are all shouting for him to stop. Nick tries to grab him, but he’s kicked away. I try the same and am punched to the floor.
He glances over his shoulder at me and then abruptly rushes towards her, knife high in the air.
seventy-eight:
– before –
– Jack’s about to kill his father! With this realisation, I ran across my bedroom and grabbed the knife from Jack’s small five-year-old hands. My son is surprised to see me and lets go of it easily. Shaking, I stared at my bed: Nick lay sleeping. He snorted and turned over, still in his dreams. The light leaked through the gaps in the bedroom curtains, throwing a bar across the bed, but it doesn’t disturb him. Nick had long ago got used to sleeping in the daytime, after working night shifts on the beat.