The House that Jack Built

by Catherine Barry

  ‘Oh, put a fucking sock in it, Jill. Do you think I’m a complete idiot? The two of you marching in here, like we’re all good buddies. Do you think I’m blind and deaf and dumb too?’ I screamed.

  Joe, Karen, Mick and Jill all stared at each other, looking for an explanation.

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’ Joe asked. Now he was getting red in the face.

  ‘You and Jill!’ I screeched.

  Karen threw her hands up in the air. ‘Huh?’

  Then Joe proceeded with his devastating words. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but let me say something now. So I don’t care, is that right, Jack? I’m not his father, is that right? You fucked-up little bitch. Who was the one who stayed with you all through the birth, who was the one who talked to you, and helped you through your pregnancy? Was there someone else there that I don’t know about? You’re so self-centred. Always thinking of yourself! You’re not the only one who’s struggling, you know. What makes you so fucking special?’ He threw his hands up in exasperation, and for a moment I thought he was going to punch me right in the face. ‘If anybody cared about you,’ he raved on, ‘it’s me! Do you think anyone else would tolerate your sad little life this long — huh? You’re sick, Jack. You’re sick, and you need help and until you get it, lose my phone number. I’m washing my hands of you from now on.’ He grabbed his coat and made for the door.

  ‘You’re jealous!’ I lunged at him. ‘You’ve always been jealous — because you couldn’t have me for yourself. You’re jealous because I’m seeing Matt, because I’m getting my life together. You’ve always resented my feelings for Matt. You can’t handle it, so you had to strike back like a rattlesnake, dirty and low, and get together with Jill.’

  Joe started to laugh at me. ‘Is that right? You selfish little moron! I’ve always tried to protect you from Matt. You’re such a stubborn self-righteous know-it-all that you won’t listen. You won’t heed your own friends’ good advice!’

  Karen was nodding in agreement. Jill lunged forward and lashed her hand out at me. Mick stood between us to try and intervene. I struggled to get free of his grip. I would have tom her hair out.

  ‘C’mon, you’re wasting your time. I think it’s time to go.’ Mick took charge.

  Jill was out of breath but pulled back. Joe opened the front door. I wasn’t letting them go. I had never heard Joe speak to me that way before. Not ever. It frightened me.

  I had to stop him from leaving. I had to.

  ‘I know I have a problem,’ I cried out.

  Joe stopped and turned around.

  ‘I know I have a problem,’ I repeated, more quietly. ‘I intend to do something about it.’

  Joe was still furious, his eyes flashing with anger. The others were urging him to move on. He desperately needed to hear me say something that would fix this.

  ‘I’m joining Weight Watchers,’ I lied. ‘I’ll do it on Monday. I know I have an eating disorder. I’ve known it for some time. That’s what makes me drink so much. I wouldn’t drink so much if I could get a handle on my weight.’ There that ought to do it.

  ‘What?’ they all said in disgusted unison.

  ‘This is fucking unreal!’ Karen started to laugh hysterically.

  Joe’s expression was indescribable. His eyes welled with tears. It was clearly obvious he was extremely upset.

  ‘You do that, Jack,’ he sighed. ‘You do that. Join Weight Watchers. If that’s what your problem is, then go ahead and solve it. If it’s as simple as all that, then go for it.’

  I hadn’t lost a single pound for weeks. I had no intention of ever going to Weight Watchers. It was the only thing I could think of to stop this horrible nightmare. Jill was crying openly. Mick was trying to remove Joe from the flat.

  Joe paused in the doorway. ‘By the way, what’s there to be jealous of — this stinking existence you call your life? Nothing was ever good enough for you. Stay the drunken bum that you are, Jack. I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck if you drink yourself to death. Just don’t involve me any more,’ he spat. Then he walked down the steps.

  ‘Shame on you, Jack,’ Jill was weeping. ‘Shame on you.’

  I saw Alice’s curtain draw back slightly. It was all her fault, I thought savagely. If she hadn’t stuck her big fucking nose into my personal life, none of this would be happening. I wanted to knock on her door and tell her exactly what I thought of her.

  I hated this godforsaken place. I hated Alice. I hated David. I hated Joe.

  How dare he speak to me like that? After all the time and effort I had put into our friendship in the last few weeks. Just because his relationship had fallen apart, that didn’t give him an excuse to take it out on me. I went back inside and fixed myself a drink, at the same time turning the music up to full volume. I didn’t care if it woke David or any of the neighbours. God knows, I had to listen to their fucking parties, night after night.

  Typical Jill. Only home three seconds and straight in with her ‘holier than thou’ bullshit. She made me sick. Miss fucking Prim and Proper. Her life was so simple. No kids. No bills. No housework. What the fuck would she know about anything? They had probably been talking about me behind my back. As for Karen and Michael, they lived in the twilight zone. They had each other. They were cute whores too. No children or mortgages. They didn’t know what it was like to be alone, night after night, when the only conversation available was with a five-year-old kid and the forty-year-old illiterate twat next door. How could they be so cruel?

  ‘Fuck them! Fuck ‘em all!’ I ranted. ‘I don’t have any reason to feel ashamed. They are the ones who should be ashamed!’ Destroying the night like that, after all the trouble I had gone to. Jesus Christ! The fucking nerve of Joe, speaking to me like that about Matt. It was obvious that he was bitter. He was always trying to fill my head with stories about Matt. Trying to put me off. It wasn’t out of friendly concern, either. Jesus, I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes now.

  ‘I’m not doing anything about this situation,’ I said loudly to the room. ‘I’m just going to sit pretty and they’ll all be begging my forgiveness in the morning. When they do, I’m not going to give in, either.’

  As soon as I could manage it, I was going to get as far away from this place as I could. I had never belonged there. It was all right to talk to Alice once in a while. After all, she was my neighbour — I had to be polite. But I shouldn’t have let her into my life. I had invited her in for a cup of tea and now she was living in my ear!

  I wished I’d never had David. I wouldn’t be living in this godforsaken kip if it wasn’t for him. Now my two best friends had gotten together behind my back and abandoned me into the bargain. I was filled with an overwhelming rage. It surged through me like an overdose of cocaine. I got all my CDs and records and laid them out on the floor. Then I went to the kitchen drawer and drew out the largest, sharpest knife I could find — the bread knife.

  Yes. This will do the job nicely.

  One by one, I slowly carved into the CDs, drawing circles, squares. Then lunging at them like a madwoman, tearing into them as deeply as I could. I ripped. I hacked. I stabbed. I stood up and threw them all about the room. I picked up the leftover glasses and smashed them at the wall. It felt great. The noise was deafening. The music blared. The hatred spilled. I was running out of objects to destroy.

  As I stood in the centre of the room looking around me, I was like a wild woman scanning the place for new objects on which to unleash my wrath. My breathing was rapid and my body shook from head to toe. Suddenly, I heard loud thumping on the walls from the flat on my other side.

  ‘Go fuck yourself!’ I screamed, picking up the table. I smashed it against the wall and the broken fragments flew through the air. I was completely out of control. I heard the bedroom door creak. Who was that? A neighbour? The bastards were after getting in. I picked up a broken leg of the table and burst out into the hall.

  David was standing in his py
jamas tearfully clutching his Action Man. ‘I want my granny,’ he whispered, tears cascading down his cheeks.

  I stared at him, wondering who he was. Who is this child? Then it stopped. Just as suddenly as it had started, the hurricane abated.

  ‘David,’ I said calmly. He stood motionless, his face white with fear. He was trembling from head to foot. His pyjamas were soaking wet. He had pissed in them. A pool was forming beneath his feet. He stood in it shaking and crying.

  ‘I want my granny,’ he whispered again.

  Slowly, I began to return. I could feel my body return into itself, as if it had been astral travelling. As if it had taken flight. It had visited Hell and was slowly slipping back into my skin. Suddenly, my limbs felt sore, my arms ached. I looked at my hands. They were cut and bleeding.

  What the fuck happened? Were we mugged?

  I stood there amidst the destruction. The broken table, the smashed glasses, the CDs scattered everywhere. Even the cushions had been lacerated, their downy feathers still fluttering in the air. Somebody had gone crazy. Somebody had destroyed my home.

  Some madman had run amok and wrecked our flat. I picked up the CDs and looked at them. They were mine: I had spent a lifetime collecting them. Splinters of glass lay sprinkled on the carpet; now and again, big chunks of it came into view. I collected a few in my hand and looked at them. Then I carefully placed them in the kitchen bin. It would take me for ever to clean all this up. What had happened? Where had I been?

  I suddenly felt so, so tired. I sat on the edge of the broken table and I looked at the boy. He was my child, wasn’t he? Perhaps he was hungry, or thirsty.

  He stood there staring at me.

  ‘David, what on earth are you doing out of bed?’ I asked him.

  He turned on his heel and walked back into his room. I laid my head on the floor. I was so, so tired. Just then, I spotted a yellow object, stuck down beside the heater. I reached over and pulled it out. It was Sam.

  Joe, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me like this.

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-i, ee-i- o. And on that farm he had some…

  Chapter 17

  I am thirty years old and have just graduated with Honours in my chosen subject of ‘Escapology’. I am convinced that I am right and the whole world is wrong. There are no exceptions, grey areas, maybes, ifs, buts or anything else.

  I awoke the morning after with the worst hangover of my life. My eyes were glued together. When I did manage to open them, my vision was blurred and limited. I wanted to die there and then. At that stage, I had only taken in the horrors of my hangover. In the minutes that followed, my brain launched a further invective, bombarding me with the details of the terrible night before.

  I cursed loudly, trying to pull the non-existent covers over my head. That’s when I realised I was sleeping on the kitchen table. Then I remembered I had a son. I pulled my body up and tried to stand on my two feet. A sharp pain shot through both legs and my hands felt swollen and sore. I looked at them in shock. They were bandaged, very badly, with bits of toilet roll that had hardened with blood and adhered to my fingers.

  My legs were black and blue from bruising, as if someone had spent the night kicking me. I was terrified to look in the mirror, but I knew I had to.

  It wasn’t my face, or anything like it. What had happened? I could remember the argument with Joe, and 1 vaguely recollected them leaving. I couldn’t remember anything else after that. It frightened me. The absence of David’s voice only fuelled my anxiety.

  I walked to his room. His bed was empty and a pair of soggy pyjamas lay in a heap on the floor. My stomach began to rise with fright. I fled to the toilet and puked into it. Nothing came up, but the dry retching continued. I tried to light a cigarette but it only made me want to vomit again.

  Jesus Christ. David, where are you? Sweet Jesus, please fill me in, because I think I am losing my mind. Please tell me what has happened? Where the fuck is David?

  Confusion and terror had come at me with a terrible force. Shaking and weeping, I searched each room thoroughly, calling out for him.

  ‘David? David! Where are you? For Christ’s sake answer me!’

  The doorbell rang and I raced to open it.

  ‘Registered letter, Mam.’ The postman thrust a large clipboard under my nose. I signed it just to get rid of him. Then I threw the brown envelope on the ground.

  The doorbell rang again. I ran at it like an animal, tripping over some of David’s toys. I opened the door and there stood Alice, with David. He was washed and dressed, and stood holding her hand.

  ‘David!’ I squealed, pulling him to me. He didn’t react the way he usually did. No hugs. No kisses. He maintained a blank expression and an even less emotive response. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I turned on Alice.

  ‘You weren’t in the best, love,’ the big woman tried to explain. ‘David knocked at the door so I took him inside and I…’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are!’ I screamed at her, grabbing David’s arm. ‘Get in here this minute!’ I told him.

  ‘Listen, love —’Alice tried to intervene but I slammed the door shut in her face. David stood in the hall staring at me, then he turned on his heel and went inside.

  I looked at my watch. It was 10.30 am. Too late to send him to school. I knew from my earlier look in the mirror that I couldn’t have gone out the door anyway. I phoned my job and told them I had a sore throat. I did a very good impression of a hoarse voice, all thanks to my yelling and the forty cigarettes I had smoked the night before. Then I went inside to David, who was sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street, clutching his Thomas the Tank Engine.

  I was in no mood for humouring him. Besides, if I started to get into all that guilt, I was as good as dead. One small chink in the armour could have sent me reeling with remorse and regret. I couldn’t remember half the details of the previous night and this frightened me. No, there was no room for any of that. Anyway, any minute now, the phone was going to start ringing. They would all be on their knees. I had already made the decision that I would not accept the first apology. Perhaps not even the second. It all depended on how good the grovelling was.

  I made some tea and toast for David. He accepted it calmly, still not speaking to me. Fuck you, you little bastard, I thought. See if I care. Fuck all of you!

  I had a small shot of vodka and managed to keep it down. I didn’t really want a drink, but I knew it would ease the horrific hangover. I then took two Anadin Extra. About a half hour later I was beginning to feel slightly human again. I made some coffee and lit a cigarette. Then I sat down beside the phone, and waited.

  That was Tuesday morning. By Friday night, the Ice Queen had begun to thaw. I had gone through every emotion known to mankind. Rage would overwhelm me. When it had run its course, it would slowly begin to dissipate. Then I would plunge into a terrible depression and sob for hours into my pillow. Then the justifying would start again and the rage would follow. I was up and down like a whore’s knickers. Going around and around in circles. Poring over every detail until I had myself completely insane. I found it almost impossible to sleep at night. As time passed, I realised very slowly that nobody was going to call. As with all these situations, when the shock began to wear off, I wondered how I had ever thought they would.

  I was completely stunned at their behaviour, never mind my own. What had happened to cause such an exaggerated response from them all? We had had our tiffs in the past, but this was completely beyond the beyonds. Had they all been drinking on the sly themselves? I could excuse Jill. She was away most of the time and didn’t really know what she was talking about. She was always anti-drugs and drink. Her outburst came as no surprise. She was responsible at least in part for my return to Ireland.

  Nobody could have listened to her day in, day out, complaining. All I was doing was having a good time. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that! I still couldn’t prove that
she and Joe were having a fling. The mere thought of this justified everything I had done. I was entitled to be angry! It was me who had been hurt!

  As for Karen and Mick, their behaviour was outrageous. They hardly ever called to see me any more. I decided that wasn’t my fault either. They never bothered to keep in touch with me. They were happy being together, made a point of rubbing it in. However, it was Joe’s words that ricocheted around my brain late at night. How could he be so cruel? How could he have called me those things?

  I was anything but selfish. I was raising David alone. It was very difficult. Sure, he had been there for me as a friend, but not all the time. I was doing most of the hard work. He had called me a ‘fucked-up little bitch’. I couldn’t erase the words from my mind, no matter how hard I tried. They hurt so much I thought I would die from the pain.

  Fucked up little bitch.

  Fucked up little bitch.

  Fucked up little bitch.

  To make matters worse, he had left it like that. I was certain that he would phone soon; he just needed time to see how wrong he was.

  Another seven days passed. I was desperate. I had picked up the phone several times to call Joe. When I heard the dial tone, I would quickly put the phone down. I had now come to the conclusion that it was a conspiracy. They had all gotten together and made a pact. Then I came up with an even better theory. They had all been killed in a car crash on the way home. There had to be some logical explanation for this unbearable silence. I spent the days in a drunken fog. Not caring to stop, not daring to try. If I was a drunk, then I was going to do the job properly. I was going to be a spectacular drunk. A drunk with character, with finesse! I’d give ‘em something to talk about!

  I wandered around the flat during the day, hovering about the telephone. It only rang three times in the two weeks. The first time it was Mam, wanting to know would I come over for tea. She sounded a bit worried about me. I couldn’t face her or Dad or anything remotely connected to the family. When I had run out of reasons to blame my friends for my predicament, I turned back to the original source, my family. A little voice tried to tell me that it wasn’t their fault, either, but I quickly dealt with it by drinking some more.