Oil On Troubled Waters

by Clare Tanner

Oil On Troubled Waters

  Clare Tanner

  Copyright 2011 Clare Tanner

  Oil On Troubled Waters

  How long are they going to leave me in this room? It’s so small and claustrophobic. I feel as if I’m going to explode. I press my hands as hard as I can against my ears and clench my eyes shut and grit my teeth. It’s the only way I can stop myself screaming and kicking the wall. I can’t stop pacing round the room though, not that there’s much space to pace. What are they going to do with me? I’m still angry, but I’m starting to feel the cold finger of fear creeping up and down my spine as well. Am I in real trouble? I didn’t mean to lose it, but it’s so hard when she riles me all the time, day in day out. It’s enough to make anyone angry. Oh God, I can’t take it any more! When is someone going to come in and tell me what’s going to happen?

  I hear footsteps. Is someone coming? The door bursts open and in walks the scariest policeman I’ve ever seen. He looks old and tough, like he’s seen it all before and won’t believe anything I say. What am I going to do?

  “Right, Lad. No need to look like a rabbit trapped in the headlights. I’m not going to eat you.”

  His words sound kind, but his face is telling a different story. He has deep hard furrows in his forehead, and he is frowning so hard they look like crevasses. His eyes are small and hard. He knows what he thinks of me, that’s for sure.

  “I’m sure you know that you’re in serious trouble. We take a very tough line on violence against women, and raising your hand against your own mother is about as bad as it gets.” He pauses, and stares at me.

  I gulp, and look down at my feet.

  “The good news, as far as you’re concerned, is that your mother doesn’t want to press charges. I think that she is as shocked as I hope you are by what’s happened. The bad news is that she doesn’t want you back in the house, not now, not ever. And I’m not going to let it drop either." He is glaring at me, but now he pauses, and breaks eye contact. "But I’ve got kids myself, and I don’t think you’re bad, deep down. So I’m going to give you a while to think things through, and when I come back I want answers. And they’d better be good. How did it come to this, eh?”

  With this parting shot, he is gone. The door slams shut behind him.

  * * *

  How did it come to this? I never meant to hurt Mum, but I’ve felt this anger rising up inside me for years now, but it’s been getting worse and worse recently, and it’s been getting harder and harder to control. Mum doesn’t seem to understand. She’s so tied up in all her own problems that there’s no time left for me, except to criticise me. I can’t remember the last time she actually asked me how I was feeling, or said a kind word to me.

  I’ve never found it easy living in my family. I’ve never really felt right or comfortable. It’s as if I don’t belong like the others do. And I guess you could say we’re dysfunctional. Not that that makes it any easier to cope with. My older brother, Josh, he’s the goody-goody. He’s always got on well with Mum, and he’s really laid back. So if she does go on at him, he seems to be able to switch off and not get angry. My younger brother, Mikey, well he’s a bit wild, but he gets away with it because he’s the baby, and he's cute. He can do no wrong. And then there’s me, Ben, the difficult one, or so everyone tells me. I feel like I’ve been labelled as the awkward, middle child, and that I can’t escape from that, whatever I try to do. There are two years between Josh and me, and then only another eighteen months between me and Mikey. I don’t think I ever really got a chance to be the baby. I was just shunted off when Mikey arrived. Then, when I was five, Dad walked out. I don’t feel I ever really knew him. He didn’t keep in touch. We keep hoping he’ll turn up some day, but I’m sixteen now. I guess I’ve got to accept that I have to find out how to be a man without his help.

  That’s what I find the hardest. I really don’t know how I’m supposed to behave. I’ve got no-one to watch and learn from. I look at Josh, but he’s so different to me. I really can’t relate to him. And then there’s Mum. But for as long as I can remember, all I ever got from her was anger. She was always ranting at me for not being ready for school, for making a mess, for fighting, for getting bad marks, for being rude. You name it, she’s told me off for it, over and over again. It’s not as if it does any good. I don’t know how to become better. She tells me, again and again, what I’m doing wrong, but she never tells me how to get it right. I feel lost and alone.

  That’s probably why I started to hang around with the boys who seemed older and really streetwise at school. I thought I might learn something from them. Apparently I didn’t learn the right things, because that became another stick for Mum to beat me with. I was mixing with “the wrong crowd”. But at least with them I felt that I belonged to something or someone. It didn’t help my grades at school though. They hadn’t been brilliant to start with, but they got worse and worse. And then I totally messed up my GCSEs. Mum was furious with me. But I really did want to do well. Mum seems to think that I did it on purpose, to spite her, but I didn’t. I don’t want to be a loser, but I really needed help and encouragement. She practically ignored me for the whole year of GCSEs. I don’t think she even really noticed that I was doing the exams. She was so busy with her job, and her boyfriends. I was the inconvenience, the one that got in the way. She still spent plenty of time going on at me about my results, of course.

  Since those results came through, things have gone from bad to worse. Mum said I had to pay rent for my room, that she couldn’t afford to keep me for nothing in return. Anyone would think I was about thirty. But I haven’t got enough money. I’ve managed to get a part-time job, but you try finding a well-paid job when you’re sixteen. It’s impossible. So I started to fall behind with the rent, and I guess I got a bit defensive when she demanded it. But she’s always so angry with me. I don’t feel I can get through to her. So she gave me an ultimatum, pay up or move out. I didn’t have the money, so she kicked me out. She can’t see how scary that is at sixteen. I don’t have a dad and now I don’t have a mum either. Of course, I said that I could go and stay with my mate, because I didn’t want to look like a loser, but then when she said alright, off you go, I actually had to go and ask him. He has let me, or rather his mum has, but neither of them were too keen. But I think that they felt sorry for me. It’s a shame my own mum doesn’t.

  Then, tonight, I needed to go back to pick up some stuff. I left in a bit of a hurry when she chucked me out. I thought I’d go when she wouldn’t be home, because I didn’t want to face her and have her go on and on at me again. But when I turned up, my key didn’t work. She’s changed the locks. I couldn’t believe it, locked out of my own house. So I climbed in through Josh’s bedroom window. That catch has been dodgy for years. I was grabbing a few things when Mum arrived back from work, earlier than usual. She was furious with me, called me a criminal and a burglar. All I’d done was get into my own house. And then she went on about how she’s let my room out, to a proper lodger who was paying real rent. That’s when I saw red. It was as if she’s written me out of her life. I’m too inconvenient. I don’t fit. Therefore, I’m out of the story. I didn’t hit her, either. I shouted at her, sure, just like she was shouting at me, but I didn’t hit her. I just sort of grabbed her. I wanted to shake her, I was so angry and hurt that she didn’t want me in her life. But she started screaming, and she picked up her mobile and called 999. I couldn’t believe it, my own mother.

  So that’s how it came to this. But I can’t tell the policeman that. It sounds like I’m whingeing. It’s not a justification, is it? And no-one’s going to believe me again
st my mother. He thinks I’m some low-life lout, destined for the rubbish heap.