The Blame Game

by C. J. Cooke

  ‘I think it was more that he wanted to keep an eye on me,’ she says carefully. ‘He’s very possessive. I was flattered by it. It’s nice to be wanted.’ She bites her lip. ‘Well, I don’t have anyone else.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugs. ‘I mean, I have friends, but I don’t have any family. My little sister lives in Grimsby. She’s only nine. I’ve no idea who my father was. Our mum was always a bit …’

  ‘Useless?’

  ‘Alcoholic. She died a few years ago. Emotionally she abandoned us a long time before she died. My sister and I grew up in foster care.’ She shifts in her seat, as though her own words surprise her. ‘Sorry,’ she says, covering her mouth. ‘Luke’s always saying I say the wrong thing and he’s right. Why don’t we talk about the weather or something?’

  ‘You’re not saying the wrong thing,’ I say quickly. ‘My mum left me a long time ago, too.’

  She searches my face, the flames of the campfire glinting in her eyes. ‘She did?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t know why for a long time. It was Dad’s fault. He was always controlling her, punishing her in stupid ways. Like he’d lock her in their bedroom all day and she couldn’t get out until he came home from work.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. Why am I saying all of this? I haven’t told anyone this stuff, ever. Saying it aloud makes my whole body tremble and my teeth chatter. A strange reaction. Luckily, Helen doesn’t seem to notice, though she looks concerned.

  ‘Did he … you know … beat her?’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. He always made a point of saying he never laid a finger on her, like this made him a hero or something. All I knew was that one morning I got up and got dressed, and she wasn’t there.’

  She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘How old were you?’

  I swallow hard. ‘Nine. It took a day or so to realise that she’d left. About a month before I considered that maybe she wasn’t coming back. And she never did.’

  ‘What did your dad say?’

  ‘He didn’t even acknowledge it.’ A swirl of anger boils up in my stomach. I try not to let it show. ‘I kept asking where Mum was and he kept changing the subject. It messed with my head. After a while I actually wondered if she’d ever existed. He threw out every photograph, every piece of clothing that she left, even her shampoo.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Helen said.

  Her pity is like a knife twisting in my gut.

  ‘That’s … that would mess with your head,’ she says. ‘You were just a little boy … it was so manipulative of him.’

  I nod vigorously. She’s just put into words the base note of my entire adolescence. It feels like a cool rain washing on my bare skin to be heard, to be finally understood. To say that I had a mother.

  ‘Did you ever find her?’ Helen says, and I take a deep breath. I’m trembling all over like I’m terrified and I don’t want her to think I’m going to burst out crying or anything.

  ‘Four years ago,’ I say slowly, ‘I found a stack of letters under his bed. All from her. All to me. They said that she’d tried to see me, tried to take me away from him. Dad told her to stay well clear, made threats, said she was a terrible mother for abandoning me. He’d never told me any of this. He hid her letters.’

  Helen shuffles closer and puts her arm all the way across my shoulders, her other hand clasping mine. To my horror I realise that snot and tears are streaming down my face.

  ‘She’d written that she thought Dad was right,’ I say, unable to stop spewing this verbal diarrhoea. ‘She said she was a terrible mum. She’d left because he made her feel trapped and that he might kill her one day. She said he’d held a pillow over her face the night before she left and she was convinced that her life was in danger. So she’d left but tried to get access to me. Dad had told her I didn’t want to go.’ I break down then. It feels embarrassing and good at the same time.

  ‘And what happened?’ Helen asks. ‘When you found the letters did you go looking for her?’

  I give a rueful laugh. ‘She had died shortly before I found the letters, hadn’t she? She’d found a place in Liverpool, got a job as a secretary. Went to night school. Became a personal assistant. Met a guy. Then got cancer.’

  I swipe tears from my face. ‘I remember her. She was such a nice person. Nervy, anxious, but now I know why. It was Dad’s fault. She was a wonderful mum. I was going to confront my dad about it, actually thought about beating the crap out of him for what he’d done to her. And for the lies he told me.’

  ‘Lies?’

  ‘About Mum. But other things, too. He made out that he was a good man, cared about his family. He said, a strong man protects his family. That was his reason for keeping her away. He was protecting me. It was all lies. I promised myself that I never wanted to be like that. I would be a good man, and I would protect my family. But not like that.’

  She rests her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry you didn’t get to see your mum before she died, Michael. She would have been so proud to see how you turned out.’

  I turn to her then, pricked by her words. The nine-year-old in me is suddenly there, and he’s on his knees, pleading for her to be right. Pleading for Mum to be proud of me. I couldn’t bring her back but I hoped that, wherever she was, she was glad I was doing something with my life. It was why I’d gone to Oxford – my mum had always wished she’d been able to go to university, to the best university. She talked about people who went to Oxford like they were royalty.

  The gold glow of the fire passes over Helen’s face, and as she lifts her head our faces are so close that I can feel the warmth of her breath on my cheeks, and I have the strongest desire to kiss her. The urge is so strong. Her hand finds its way into mine. I feel something pass unsaid between us, a decision that’s made by the language of our bodies.

  ‘Hope I’m not interrupting you,’ a voice says behind us, and Helen gasps and pulls her hand from mine. Theo steps forward, a look of anger on his face. He looks at me.

  ‘Comfy, Michael?’

  ‘Theo …’ I can’t think fast enough. I need to come up with something, give him an explanation, but the gears of my brain are rusty.

  ‘We were … we were just chatting, Theo,’ Helen interjects in a tight voice.

  His expression darkens. ‘Yeah. Looked like it and all.’

  He turns on his heel, heading back to the hut where Luke is. I laugh it off but Helen looks shaken. She won’t meet my eye. I rise quickly to my feet and race after Theo. He keeps walking, and I jog in front of him.

  ‘Theo, wait,’ I say. ‘No need to cause a fuss, mate. I wasn’t doing anything.’

  ‘What or who you do is your business, Mike,’ Theo says. ‘Move.’

  ‘Mate, don’t go telling Luke what you saw,’ I say, standing in front of him. ‘Yeah? It really was nothing. We were just talking, that’s all. Nothing more.’

  He lifts his pale eyes to mine. A muscle in his jaw twitches. ‘I can’t have you stealing my brother’s girlfriend.’

  ‘That’s not what I was doing …’

  ‘It’s what it looked like.’

  ‘I promise, Theo. Please. The last thing we need on this trip is a bust-up between mates. Alright?’

  He gives me a final grim look before stomping off. I know he’s seen sense but I feel uneasy for Helen’s sake. I think quickly about the bruises I saw on her arm and shoulder. I’m fairly sure Luke’s been hurting her, and instantly my panic turns to fury. If I find out he has there will be no stopping me.

  My father was right, in some ways. A good man does protect his loved ones.

  He was never speaking about himself.

  Later, when I open my sleeping bag, the smell of chamois dung hits me like an open sewage pipe. It’s so powerful I can taste it. Theo has stuffed my bag full of it, and even when I shake out the contents and climb inside the stench is s
trong enough to make me hack and gag all night.

  It’s punishment for talking to Helen, for stepping on his brother’s territory.

  Luke comments on the smell the next day, clearly unawares.

  ‘Michael, mate. You feeling alright?’

  I narrow my eyes at Theo, who is whistling a merry tune, well chuffed with himself.

  ‘Had a bit of tummy trouble,’ I mutter to Luke. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Gee whizz, mate,’ Luke says, beating the air with his hand. ‘You want to see a doctor tout suite. You smell terrible.’

  33

  Helen

  6th September 2017

  I go upstairs to check on Reuben. He’s sitting at his desk drawing what looks a blue whale on his iPad.

  ‘Your face looks puffy,’ he tells me, glancing up. ‘Like a mattress.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I say.

  He shakes his head. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  I catch my breath, choose my words carefully. ‘I spoke to the police this morning. They are working out the very best way to find Dad and bring him home. OK?’

  He shuts off his iPad and stares at me. His eyes are dark and sunken and his bottom lip trembles. ‘I heard the doctors say that Dad walked out of the hospital. Was it because of me?’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t.’

  He nods as if he wants to believe me, then starts to wail and hit his head with his fist. I have to do the feet thing. It’s the only way to get him to be calm. I get him to lie back on his bed and sit opposite him, cross-legged, with his feet on my lap. I pull off his socks and stroke his feet. Within a few seconds he’s breathing normally.

  ‘Reuben, sweetheart. Dad didn’t leave because of you. I promise you that.’

  ‘Then why did he leave?’ he sniffs, staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘I don’t know. But we’re going to figure it out, really soon …’

  ‘Is it because of what happened with Josh’s dad? Because I would have said sorry. I didn’t mean to say horrible things to him. It was just …’ His face crumples again.

  ‘Helen?’ Jeannie calls up from downstairs. ‘Helen, love, are you up there? Dinner’s ready.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a sec,’ I call back, gently pulling Reuben’s socks back over his feet. I move to sit on the side of the bed beside him, holding his hand.

  ‘I know it’s really difficult,’ I say gently, and very, very slowly, ‘but … do you think you can tell me what happened … at Josh’s party?’

  ‘Joshie’s party was stupid,’ he snaps tearfully, and I consider telling him alright, we don’t have to talk about it. But I press on, because I have to know. I wasn’t there, and I never got the full story from Michael. We have to talk about this.

  ‘Please, Reuben,’ I say, my voice on the edge of a whisper. ‘Can you tell Mummy what happened? You’re safe here. It won’t ever happen again, I promise.’

  He keeps his eyes on the ceiling and remains silent for a few minutes as I stroke his shins and feet.

  ‘Dad took me to Josh’s birthday party,’ he says on an exhale. ‘I gave him the postcode on the birthday invitation. Dad was … confused when we got there. He … he kept asking where the party was.’

  ‘It was at the Simonside Hills, wasn’t it?’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Josh said we had to meet in the car park. His dad had all the gear. Everyone was there. Jagger, Dylan, Lucas. Most of the class and their parents were already there.’

  He starts to stutter and grow upset at the memory of it.

  ‘It was a hike, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes but no. Josh said it was a hike but he was being funny. The pick-up time was seven o’clock that evening. Dad’s face was all worried when he saw Josh’s gear. He said, “You’re just walking, yeah?”, and I said yeah. But then Josh’s dad came over and told Dad that he had helmets and harnesses for everyone. He said we’d only be doing a small abseil today, nothing major.’

  ‘You were abseiling?’ I say, and he nods. The order of events starts to lace together in my mind.

  ‘Dad held up his hands and his voice got really shouty. He started going on about how it was dangerous and if he’d known that he would have turned around and taken me home. All the other kids and their parents were staring. I said, “Dad, settle down, I’ll be fine,” but he started trying to pull me away.’

  ‘And what happened with Josh’s dad? Did he say something to Dad?’

  Reuben grows upset, his face crumpling. He covers his eyes with one hand, the other clicking, faster and faster, like a racing heartbeat.

  ‘It’s OK, Reuben,’ I say, reminding myself how delicate he is, how gentle I need to be. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to tell me.’

  He slips out of my grasp, his dark hair damp with sweat. Picking up his Minecraft models from the shelf he sits down on the ground, placing the models around him in a tight circle. I wait patiently until he has them ordered the way he wants. I can see the stillness this brings to him, having his precious items near to him and in order.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, calmer now. ‘Dad scared me. I was trying on helmets to get the right size and then I turned around and saw Dad punch Josh’s dad in the face and Josh’s dad fell to the ground. I’ve never seen Dad act that way.’

  No wonder Reuben reacted so badly. A flash of that afternoon comes to me in a rush. I was surprised to see the car pull up in the driveway. They weren’t due back for hours so I thought Reuben must have left something at home. Reuben raced in ahead of Michael, went to his room, slamming the door behind him. In an instant I heard the sound of yelling and crashing from behind his door. I approached Michael. What happened? Why’s he so upset?

  ‘He was yelling and shouting at Josh’s dad,’ Reuben continues.

  I can see it’s beginning to upset him, recalling it. He lifts his Minecraft models and shifts them about, creating a tighter circle.

  ‘Did you hear what he shouted?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Josh said it was going to be fun,’ he says, his voice breaking. ‘We were going to climb up to the top of the cliff and he’d use his drone to capture us as we abseiled down. He said it’d be like nothing we’d ever done before but it would be safe because his dad was a climber and knew all about it.’

  His voice peters out with confusion and pain at the memory of it and he curls up into a ball on the ground. I lie down next to him and his breaths lengthen and slow.

  ‘Reuben, I promise that Dad didn’t leave the hospital because of anything you’ve done. This has nothing to do with the fight at Josh’s birthday.’

  ‘But I didn’t speak to Dad for a long time. I hated him. I told him that I hated him. What if he left the hospital because he thought I didn’t love him?’

  ‘I promise you, Reuben,’ I say gently. ‘Dad knows you love him. And he loves you.’

  A flash of anger. He looks up, his eyes full of pain. ‘Then why isn’t he here?’

  I have no way to answer him.

  When I get up to leave his room a thought comes to me. I turn and say, ‘Reuben, when Dad and I decided to leave Cancún to stay at the beach hut, did you mention it to anyone? Like Josh, perhaps?’

  He looks up, an expression of fear on his face.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say quickly. ‘I promise you’re not in any trouble.’

  He lowers his eyes. ‘I guess I told Malfoy.’

  ‘Malfoy?’

  ‘My iPix buddy. And Josh.’

  ‘You told Josh?’

  He nods. ‘Yes. I told Josh.’

  34

  Helen

  22nd June 1995

  I stand by the window and drink in the view. Towering peaks right there in front of me, so tall that they throw perspective into disarray – it’s only when I see that the small white thread in the distance is actually a gushing waterfall that I really grasp just how big they are. I can tell which of the mountains is Mont Blanc, or the White Beast, as Theo calls it. I have to admit, I’m quite daunted by the fact
that I’m going to climb to the top. It looks incredibly high – literally as though you could reach up and touch the sky from the tip of it.

  I make coffee on the stove and one of the other climbers, a German guy, offers me some sort of German muffin. It looks like it’s made of sawdust. I smile and quickly say ‘nein, danke’ – I picked this phrase up last night – in case Luke comes along and sees. He might think I’m flirting. The German guy cracks a joke and I laugh but he could be saying I have a huge backside for all I know. This is the problem when you try and communicate with people who speak a different language – you always have to find a way to backpedal from complex conversation.

  Last night in the tent wasn’t too bad. Luke and I kept our gear on for warmth and held each other like an old couple. It was blissful. But I kept thinking about Michael. I thought he was such a grandad when I met him, so stiff and uptight. He barely looked in my direction. Luke said Michael was really excited for me to come along on their expedition and couldn’t wait to meet me, so I was shocked by how cold he was towards me. I’d had the impression that Michael was a great guy. He’s Luke’s best friend, too, so I was eager to meet him and make a good impression. I can’t describe how disappointed I felt when he snubbed me.

  At least, at first. And then last night he opened up to me.

  Turns out that he is a lovely guy, just like Luke said. We had a heart-to-heart that made me feel like we covered a lot of ground and grew closer. I felt a bit weird, to be honest, when Theo saw us. I hadn’t meant anything by it at all, but the dynamic of the group is all out of kilter up here and I can’t seem to find my boundaries. We’re certainly not the only ones climbing Mont Blanc but even so, it feels very much like the four of us against the world, against the elements. Mother Nature is more mercurial and ruthless than I’d ever imagined until I came on this journey. Luke, Theo, Michael and I are dependent on each other. Every day is harder than the one before. Time seems to be contracted up here, too. It’s strange to think that just a handful of days ago I met Michael for the first time. The four of us having a drink in Chamonix, as though we were about to have a walk along the beach and not up the hard spine of a mountain, passing into another realm.