I pour the syrup in a zigzag. The bacon is crispy enough to snap.
Dad asks me if I’m listening.
I watch the syrup being absorbed into the French toast. I cut off a corner, mop it in some juices and put it in my mouth. There is still the faint taste of bile.
My mother says something about me not even listening.
I pick up a piece of bacon with my fingers and bite off the thin, fatty end. I chew it five times, then swallow.
My stomach muscles feel beefy and tense. Like I spent the evening working out.
I finish my breakfast and retire to the sofa in the front room to digest.
I find my father leaning into the mirror above the mantelpiece, examining his nose, close enough to count the pores. He seems surprisingly calm considering that he has recently had to talk about his emotions.
I am wearing my Lands’ End old-man slippers that I was given for Christmas. I tuck my knees up to my chest.
I look at the ridged glass bowl on our coffee table. I try not to think of the time that Chips came round my house after school. He explained that the bowl would easily carry twenty sets of car keys. He said: ‘I’d love to shag your mum.’
My father pulls a pair of tweezers from his shirt pocket. He tests a few different grips in his right hand before settling on the thumb and index finger pincer-grip. He air-clips twice in satisfaction. The bay window’s curtains are open: he is in full view of the road.
This is not the first time I have seen him harvesting. There was one occasion I found him in the privacy of the music room, using a Dvořák CD as a mirror, trying to grab a nose hair between thumb and forefinger. But I have never seen him engage in such a public display of vanity. This is unprecedented. And shameless. He even moves the Moroccan candelabra off the mantelpiece to allow for an unimpeded examination.
Dad is trying to raise his game.
He starts with the blond hairs lying flat across the tip of his nose, before plucking blacks from his nasal passages and browns from in between his eyebrows. Disturbingly, he tilts his jaw to throw light on the uni-haired mole that squats, the size and colour of a sultana, on his neck. This is futile; Mum has tried before. I know from experience that his mole’s supercharged single tendril can grow a centimetre within hours.
I put on Songs of Praise to see if it will make him feel bad. God made facial hair in his own image. Dad reels slightly from uprooting an inch of banjo string from his right ear. After examining it in the light, he holds it towards me with an air of self-congratulation. The hair is amber at the tip, fading to ginger; the bulbous root is a white match-head. I turn back to God and focus on the lyrics:
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness,
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
The camera watches an attractive Christian girl, her straight black hair falling from behind her ears as she sings.
‘Hoh,’ says Dad, pointing at her while looking to me for approval, ‘worth converting for, I’d say.’
Where has this virility come from? The jeans – he’s wearing jeans. Perhaps corduroy had been restricting his libido.
Mum hoofs open the door, carrying a loaded tray: a bowl of uneven brown sugar cubes, a miniature jug of milk, an unplunged cafetiére, two small cups and a teaspoon. Dad moves quickly to hold the door, all chivalrous. He props it open with the antique metal clothes iron that we use as a door stop but which could just as easily be a murder weapon.
She slides the tray on to the coffee table.
‘Oliver’s had a religious awakening,’ he says.
‘Are you sure it’s not a hangover?’ she says.
Where is this coming from? These jokes. They think they are so healthy.
Mum leaves again.
Dad goes back to leaning with his forearm on the mantelpiece – imitating nonchalance. He is planning something.
I wonder if he even thinks Mum has done anything wrong. Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance may be at work. He seems too calm, too cocky.
‘Dad, you need to come to terms with what happened between Mum and Graham,’ I tell him.
‘Oliver, your mother told me everything. We had it out yesterday.’
I start with the small details.
‘Did she tell you that, afterwards, she slept out in the dunes?’
They start singing another hymn.
‘Oh yes, she was drunk as a bishop,’ he says, not taking his eyes off the telly.
‘Right.’
He looks so peaceful, watching the choir.
Because Dad does not watch TV very often, he is very susceptible to it. It doesn’t matter what’s on – adverts, game shows, Countryfile – he stares at the moving pictures like an astonished simpleton.
When I watch the telly, I am very savvy. I wonder why Songs of Praise has a higher turnover rate of presenters than almost any other programme. Today, it is Aled Jones; he is Welsh and, it seems to me, fiercely asexual.
I have one tried-and-tested way to make my father angry.
I flick through the channels: snooker, a black and white film, the news (about a factory), Pobol y Cwm, the news, a black and white film, snooker, Songs of Praise, snooker, Songs of Praise.
It’s too easy: ‘Oliver don’t flick.’
I keep going: snooker, black and white film, the news (about hospitals), Pobol y Cwm, the news…
‘Flick-flick-flick,’ he says.
Snooker, Songs of Praise, snooker, Songs of Praise, snooker, ITV advert break…
‘Oliver, I’ll put a brick through that fucking machine!’
He leans down and yanks the adapter plug from the wall: the TV and video die. I have filled his skull with blood. I put down the remote control. He is pinkish. He breathes. He looks a bit confused. Like a man waking up the night after a full moon and finding blood all around his mouth. Dad doesn’t have nearly enough body hair to be a werewolf.
He is wearing a light-pink shirt, tucked into his beltless jeans. He has two buttons undone and the top of his vest is just visible beneath. I think, again, about the story of my father tearing off his vest. I return to the fact that he has hardly any body hair.
His face regains its normal colour. He raises his streamlined eyebrows. I wait for him to say something. But he just turns to gaze out the window. There is no Corky.
I expect he is planning to give me a lecture about the importance of respect for other people’s property.
Then I realize that he’s waiting for me to talk about the things that I have learnt. He doesn’t want to lecture me because it is more gratifying if I come to the correct conclusions without being prompted. This will prove that my parents have imbued me with a shiny moral compass.
I clear my throat pointedly.
My dad looks at me.
‘I’ve come to realize that I’ve done some very bad things. I have learnt that my parents are only human beings and, as such, they make mistakes. I cannot expect to wield control over the lives of others. I am full of regret.’
My dad’s still staring at me. He is frowning slightly.
‘What?’ I say.
There is a lengthy pause.
‘Has he really got a heart-shaped hot-water bottle?’ Dad says.
‘Yes, he has.’
Dad shakes his head, looks briefly at the ceiling, and then turns back to me and asks: ‘And you cut holes in it?’
‘I’m bad. I know.’
There’s another pause. Then the hint of something – mischief – at the edges of his mouth.
‘What else?’ he says.
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a confession of guilt or an action replay.
‘Um. A metal teaspoon in the microwave?’
‘Graham’s got a microwave?’ Dad says. He seems thrilled by this.
‘Yes. Nine hundred watts,’ I tell him.
‘Nine hundred watts!’ he says.
<
br /> He’s beaming now – I can see his gums.
‘That’s great,’ he says.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so happy.
‘Does he know about the teaspoon?’ he asks.
‘Nobody knows,’ I tell him.
Dad bites his bottom lip and nods.
Mum comes in and sits next to me on the sofa.
Dad changes his face into something resembling sombre.
She reaches to the cafetiére and depresses the plunger with the exactness of someone conducting a controlled explosion. Mum pours a couple of cups and drops a single sugar-cube depth charge into each.
‘I was just telling Oliver that, in situations like these…’
Dad stops to pick up his coffee. I wonder how many of these situations my father has been in.
‘… it’s important to be able to talk things out.’
We were talking about wattage.
Dad holds his coffee in pincered fingers. He normally takes milk but New Dad drinks his coffee black.
Milk is literally for babies.
I watch the calm horizon. A distant strip of Devon divides sea and sky.
Mum and Dad exchange slurps.
I look back and forth. I watch them enjoying their coffee.
I look at Mum. She stares into her coffee cup. I look back at Dad.
‘I think it’s fair to say that we all want to break this self-destructive cycle,’ he says.
Where has this come from?
‘Are you mentally ill?’ I enquire.
‘Oliver,’ Mum says. She doesn’t like being reminded of the truth.
‘This has been a difficult time for all of us,’ he says, ‘but we think it’s important that we talk about it as a family.’
Dad thinks he lives in California.
‘Ha,’ I say and I look out to sea.
‘Your father wants to talk to you, Oliver,’ Mum says.
She puts her hand on my leg. It is not sexy. I look at her. She does something with her eyes. I begin to realize that this may be about my father rather than about the family. I remember that there is a chapter in one of the parenting books entitled: ‘The Family Meeting: Can Confrontation be Healthy?’
‘Dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I were you, I’d be very angry,’ I say.
‘Sometimes things happen. The important thing here is that we’re being honest.’ His vocabulary is virtually non-existent. I suspect he may still have a list of acceptable phrases in his pocket.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘How are you feeling?’
He starts slowly nodding, as if this question has not occurred to him. ‘I am feeling hurt,’ he says. ‘But your mother and I are going to do our best to get through this.’ Then he nods some more.
‘If I were you, I’d be furious, I’d be tamping.’
‘That would be destructive,’ he says.
‘Yes. Yes it would.’
‘What I think your mother and I need to understand…’ he says.
Mum stands up suddenly. Dad stops. We both think she is going to say something important. But she moves quickly to stand in front of the window. She folds her arms.
Dad continues: ‘We need to understand that you’ve been going through a hard time.’
He is speaking to the large crêpe-paper lampshade, hanging in the middle of the room. Nobody is listening to him. His crotch juts. ‘All that exam stress and then breaking up with Jordana, which is never easy at your age. Your mother and I can see why you got things out of proportion.’
Mum spins round with her hands held out in front of her. She looks serious.
‘Lloyd,’ she says. ‘Get a grip.’
Her eyes are wide open. She is on the weepy verge.
My dad is baring his teeth and pursing his lips intermittently.
He shakes his head.
‘Round and round we go,’ she says.
‘Round and round,’ he says.
They are speaking in the secret code that develops from sharing a bed with someone for longer than a decade. They glare at each other. But their gazes weaken as they realize that I am watching them. This is the disappointing fact of my parents’ arguments. They always fizzle out just as I get close enough to see the whites of their eyes. Dad pushes his specs up his nose. Mum blinks repeatedly.
What they need is a really good blow-out.
I decide to play my part.
‘I can’t fucking handle this!’ I yell. ‘You two are wrecking my life!’ I run out the door, slamming it shut. The ornamental door stop is no match for me.
I take a deep breath, and then, one more for luck: ‘I hate you both!’
I stomp repeatedly on the bottom step so it sounds like I’m running upstairs to my room.
I stealthily tiptoe over the linoleum and stand with my ear to the cool door.
They are not raising their voices.
‘Oh dear,’ Dad says.
‘Lloyd – you should be that angry,’ she says.
‘I’m very angry,’ he says, not sounding angry.
There is a pause.
‘I am very angry,’ he says. I almost believe him.
‘You know what I did.’
‘I know. I’ve taken it on board,’ he says.
My dad is a cargo vessel.
‘I wanted to do it,’ she says. ‘I wanted to. I’m still angry with you.’
‘I’m upset,’ he says. ‘I’m angry.’
‘Round and round,’ she says.
They stop again, possibly to stare into each other’s eyes or kiss or wrestle or take off an item of clothing.
‘Remember what I burnt?’ she asks.
‘Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas, performed by Johanna Martzy.’
‘You remember,’ she says, chuffed, like he has remembered an anniversary.
‘They’re wonderful records.’
‘I was very angry,’ she says.
‘I know. I deserved it,’ he says.
‘Do you hate me now?’ she says.
There is another pause.
‘I’m hiding it. The hate,’ he says.
‘I see,’ she says.
‘I’m pretending it’s not there.’
‘You’re sweet.’
‘It’s there though.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s there.’
Apotheosis
I leave them to – hopefully – fight then fuck. I go upstairs and think about how I could rewrite last night’s disappointing showdown. I imagine the meeting as an adventure-wrestling story. Graham plays Cyclops. My parents play toddlers. I play myself. In the final scene, I elbow-drop Graham in the eye – from my attic window – and it sounds like the time at the beach that I played hop-squelch on washed-up jellyfish.
Then I imagine last night as a love story but with passion and illegal Chinese fireworks and a mystery to do with a diamond.
Then I imagine my dad as a werewolf with chest hair like Ryan Giggs, Wales’s greatest footballer.
Then I make a decision.
I stand up and reach over my desk to unscrew the fastener of my single-glazed sash window. I sit on the desktop to get a decent angle to push up the window’s bottom half. With my shoulder underneath, I shove it fully open; it sticks like a faulty guillotine.
I sit on the windowsill with my feet bouncing against the grey, textured outside of the house. The wind flaps my fringe against my forehead. I look down at the rose bush and wonder if it would cushion my fall. Or if I could aim for the old coal chute and slide safely into a pile of firewood. I reach back into my room and grab my diary from my desk. The first page has been torn out because Jordana took it to distribute around the school.
I start to become nostalgic.
I should have known this would happen. There is another bad thing about diaries: they remind you of how much you can lose in just four months.
The first remaining diary entry begins:
Word of the day: propaganda. I am Hitler. She is Goeb
bels.
I think about Mark Pritchard. We might have been friends if it wasn’t for Jordana. I tear the page out and let it fall from my fingers. It is snatched by the wind and shoved back against the wall of the house; it falls in front of my parents’ bedroom window where it does flips for a while before zipping off down the street. I realize I need a paper shredder. I want birds to have strips of my soppy diary to pad out their nests. I want the mother birds to regurgitate food for their young and little bits of half-chewed sick to accidentally land on my name.
I reach into my desk and grab the paper scissors with the fluorescent green handle. I cut down through the pages in pinstripes, dividing each page into ten lengths. Blue Peter should run a feature on destroying evidence.
Eventually, I have two fists full – pom-poms. A kind of celebration. I let them go.
The strips flutter and churn in the wind. They move like a flock, up and out, shape-shifting, until they’re higher than the house and spreading across the sky, licks of white like hundreds of badly drawn seagulls.
The job’s not done yet.
I grab the dictionary from my desk.
I yank out the page with the small picture of disembodied hands appliquéing a daisy on to a napkin. I read that an apple-pie bed is a bed in which the sheets are so tightly folded that you cannot stretch your legs. Also ‘apotheosis’. I let the page slip from my fingers and curlicue around in the sky. I find the page with ‘curlicue’ on it and tear it out. There is a picture of a currycomb. It looks like a medieval weapon but is supposed to be used for rubbing down horses. I look up ‘knacker’ and tear out the page. The other meaning of a knacker is someone who buys and wrecks old houses. I start to tear out chunks. It is quite hard work and I am aware that my buttock muscles are clenching. I shift on the windowsill. I think of my mother coming into my room and seeing me here. The sight of her face would be enough to make me jump. The wind is blowing towards town. Some of the pages have got caught in the oak trees that push up the paving stones on my street. I reach behind me and hold on to the window with one hand as I toss the dictionary’s carapace out into the sky. It wheels like a shot bird as it drops into the garden. A carapace is a protective shell-like covering but, in good time, I will forget this.
I pick up the red thesaurus and shot-put it. It fans above the horizon before plummeting on to the pavement. It lies paralysed, spine broken, in the gutter.
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