Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell

by Alison Whitelock

  He’d dressed himself in his good suit and the shirt and tie she’d bought him for Christmas the year before from Marks & Spencer’s, and he seemed much smaller now in death. She was surprised that those were her only thoughts as she stood there at the barn door, watching him swing in the gentle breeze that blew in from the potato fields they’d planted together only the season before. And then she thought about that day, as she watched him swing, and remembered how he’d accused her of being a useless, good-for-nothing, lazy cow and how she’d wished him dead right there and then.

  They’d had seven kids, him and Helen, and he’d shown more care and respect for his Rover 3000 than he ever did for my da. He garaged that car come rain, hail or shine, and polished it religiously every Sunday with turtle wax and a nice soft chamois leather from the car accessory shop in town.

  He had driven to see the doctor that day. Later the doctor told Helen that the cancer was everywhere and that he had told my da’s da that he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do. My da’s da thanked the doctor for his time then drove himself home and carefully parked his pride and joy in the barn. Then he went inside the house and dressed himself in his Sunday best before making his final journey back to the barn where he covered his most-beloved possession with a blanket to protect her before climbing on top of her to reach the rafters that would secure the rope that would see an end to all the pain and inconvenience that cancer brings.

  Helen turned slowly away from the barn door and took Rex in her arms as she headed back towards the house. Just before she reached her front door she noticed the cows lie down in the fields across the way and she knew that that meant the rain was coming and that she’d have to get the washing off the line. But the washing could wait. Before she turned the handle of the door to go inside, she turned around and looked back towards the barn and the rafters creaked in the breeze, and she called out his name and held her hand up in the breeze as if she were waving goodbye. Then she turned and sat down on the cold concrete doorstep and held her head in her hands and the tears trickled down her wrists and up into her sleeves.

  32

  Diagnosed one minute, dead the next

  It went so fast. It was like he was diagnosed one minute and dead the next.

  We weren’t close to my da’s side of the family, although we used to visit them every Sunday when we were wee and while we were there they never once spoke to us, or about us, except on the odd occasion when they’d feign interest and ask my da to remind them of our names again. But mostly they’d talk to my da about tractors and potatoes and the brake pads on their Rover 3000 and sometimes they talked about the increase in the price of tomatoes whenever the rains fell heavy in Tenerife.

  My da’s mother baked her own fairy cakes and sometimes when we went there she’d put the fairy cakes with the frosted pink icing on a white china plate on the table in front of us, but we didn’t dare touch one single cake for fear of my da telling us to mind our manners. So we’d just stare at the frosted pink icing for half an hour hoping somebody would tell us to help ourselves, but no one ever did.

  When we got older we stopped going to visit them every Sunday and they remained the strangers they had always been. I felt nothing when it was announced that my da’s da had cancer. Mum and I were busying ourselves in the gift shop my da had bought cheap on the Glasgow Road that day, unpacking the boxes of bric-a-brac we’d just bought at the wholesalers, and every so often Mum would open a box and pull out something like a porcelain fish that doubled as a barometer and she’d say, ‘What did we buy this for? We’ll never sell this shite!’ But actually she was wrong. We always sold that shite.

  Next, the front door of the shop burst open and my da rushed in, wailing like a mad man, tears running down his face and his eyes searching for a place to run to where he could retain his dignity and hide his pain. Mum ran out from behind the counter and took a hold of him and she wrapped him in her arms and she asked him to tell her what had happened. For moments he could only sob and hide his face behind his hands and I felt his embarrassment at being seen like that by me, so I turned away and stuck the price tags on the porcelain fish that doubled as barometers and pretended not to notice.

  Again Mum asked my da to tell her what had happened but he could barely speak. He sobbed from way deep down inside of himself and every so often he paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve and eventually his sobbing slowed and he prepared himself to say it.

  ‘He’s hung himself,’ he said.

  Mum went pale as she took my da in her arms and walked with him to the darkness of the storeroom at the back of the shop where he wouldn’t be seen like this by anyone, and pulled the door shut tight behind her. I heard his limp body slump against the door and slide down to the ground and I heard his cries of pain, the likes of which I hope I’ll never hear again. I could hear Mum comfort him and for the first time he let himself be comforted by her, her of all people, her that he abused on every occasion that he could and here she was offering love and safety and tenderness and that made him feel even worse.

  He allowed himself to be comforted for five minutes more and not one minute longer and when his time was up, he disentangled himself from the warmth of Mum’s embrace and pulled the storeroom door open announcing that he had work to do, that this was no time to be behaving in such a way. He dusted himself down, took a deep breath, stormed past me like he always did, and, without stopping nor looking me in the eye, asked me what price I had put on the porcelain fish that doubled as a barometer. So I told him and he told me that was way too cheap for an ornament so fine. And with that he disappeared out of the shop and the door closed behind him with a bang.

  33

  Mum tries to kill my da using out-of-date tranquillisers

  The clock finally struck five. Mum had never been a clock-watcher since she started her wee part-time job as nursing assistant at the local hospital, but tonight was different. Tonight there was something worth heading home for and as she raced past big Janet, the sister in charge, she yelled good night only to have Janet race after her and beg her to take old Bessie to the toilet before she left. Ah, fuck it, Mum thought, but unable to say no, she about turned and frogmarched old Bessie to the toilet, pulled down her big sensible knickers, eased her slowly down onto the toilet seat and chatted idly to her as they both waited for nature to take its course. When it was over Mum bent over and wiped Bessie’s arse with the harsh hospital-grade toilet paper and sprinkled some talcum powder in her crack and returned her, relieved and dignified, to her chair in the day room that was filled with unsuspecting roommates and visitors alike. Mission accomplished, Mum ran like a mad woman to the locker room, grabbed her fake Burberry raincoat and matching handbag she’d got at the Marie Curie cancer shop on the Glasgow Road, and ran out into the torrential rain.

  It had been torrential for days and just wouldn’t let up. Mum held her raincoat high above her head as she ran from the safety of Ward 27, splashing her way across the car park and avoiding the potholes like she was dancing through a field of land mines. Finally she jumped into the car, relieved. ‘Aaaah, thank Christ. I made it,’ she said out loud as she put the key in the ignition, turned on the cassette player and slipped in her favourite recording of Michael Crawford singing Phantom of the Opera. She’d bought the tape twelve years before and she listened to it every day and never tired of it. Track one started up as she pulled out of the hospital grounds and headed off into the dark night with the window wipers on maximum, headlights full beam, and Michael’s voice for company on the dark and lonely journey home.

  Track seven was just about to start as she turned off the dirt track and crunched up the pebble driveway. She could see a light on in the lounge room. ‘Ah, fuck it, he’s back already,’ she thought, and she switched off the tape player as the car came to a halt and the three dogs inside the house stuck their wet noses through the pussy flap ­desperate for her to come inside. Mum ejected Michael from the cassette player and placed him in his cassette cov
er before slotting him gently in the glove box on top of Boy George’s Greatest Hits and the twelve-inch disco remix cassette version of Saddle Up And Ride Your Pony. She gathered her bag and raincoat and raced to the house, less apprehensive of the future now, in fact more hopeful than she’d ever been. And the rain was still pouring down.

  ‘I wonder if it will ever stop,’ she said quietly to herself.

  She’d no sooner thrown her coat and bag down on the kitchen table when he started yelling for her to get him a fucking whisky. And, without thinking, she prepared it, more whisky than water, just the way he liked it, and she delivered it to him in his leather armchair in the good room and the dogs followed her along the red carpeted hallway as far as the good-room door and waited patiently outside for her to come back out. He grabbed the whisky from her hand and downed it in one and thrust the empty glass back into her hand.

  ‘Fill it up—and less water this time,’ he growled. She made her way back to the kitchen followed by the dogs who stuck their wet noses up her skirt and tickled her arse, and she bent down in the kitchen and cuddled each one of them. And then she turned back to the fridge and made him his drink and took it back to him. He held out his hand without taking his eyes off his game show on the telly, grabbed the drink from her and downed it in one, then tossed the empty glass in the air and Mum watched it fall in slow motion, like she was in a dream. And all the while he paid no attention to her, reminding her of her invisibility. Sure, all she was good for was filling up his glass, cooking his meals and picking up his skid-marked underpants from the toilet floor and soaking them in a bucket of bleach. Then he barked that he wanted his dinner and so back she went down the corridor to the kitchen and started to prepare it. Once the potatoes were boiling and the fish was simmering she pulled from her handbag the small glass bottle that Martha at the hospital had given her before she died. ‘They worked a treat for me, Betty,’ Martha had said. ‘Mind you, they’re out of date now, but try them anyway. What have you got to lose?’

  ‘Martha’s right, I’ve got nothing to lose,’ Mum reassured herself as she set about crushing ten of the tranquillisers between two spoons. And as she crushed them, her mind started wandering to that night not so long ago when Andrew had wanted to do the job she was about to do now and she’d stopped him and now she couldn’t think why.

  As the potatoes came to the boil she dipped her finger in the water and tasted it to make sure there was enough salt. How she could dip her finger into a pot of boiling water and not feel anything is anybody’s guess, but then she lived in a pot of constantly boiling water and hadn’t felt a thing for the whole of her married life to him. But today there was light at the end of the tunnel and she felt excited, Christ she felt something, and she caught herself singing her favourite piece from The Phantom where there’s a great crescendo and Michael gets all passionate and goes up into his high voice. Whenever she listened to that part while she was driving she’d turn up the volume, and if she was stopped at the traffic lights she’d roll down the windows and let the sound escape for the benefit and enjoyment of the passers-by.

  Mum took the potatoes from the stove and drained them in the colander, then put the finishing touches to the mornay sauce and poured it over the slice of grilled lemon sole she’d picked up at the fish shop earlier in the day during her tea break. Then she took the potato masher from the kitchen drawer, added a chunk of butter to the pot of drained potatoes and stood there, with the masher in her hand, and took a deep breath. She contemplated the crushed tranquillisers still on the spoon and knew she could back out now if she really wanted to. With no hesi­tation she held the spoon of crushed tranquillisers over the steaming pot of potatoes and let the crushed powder fall slowly into it. And she savoured every moment, one crushed molecule for every moment of pain she’d ever ­suffered at his hands, and as it entered the pot the ­molecules began to dissolve and she set about mashing slowly at first, then she built up speed until finally she was mashing ­frantically, adding milk, more butter and salt as she went. When she was finally convinced that all the evidence had been ­dissolved she spooned the mashed potato alongside the lemon sole and added a sprig of continental parsley. ‘Presentation is everything,’ that’s what Mum used to say.

  My da started shouting for Mum to hurry up with his fucking dinner and she yelled out from the kitchen that she was coming and then she made her way down the red ­carpeted hall and handed him his dinner plate. He surveyed the dish for a split second then started by eating most of the mashed potato in one go and Mum sat down on the chair opposite him and waited. She watched him eat every mouthful of that potato and she didn’t take her eyes off him for fear of missing the moment where he’d slip into a coma and she’d get peace for the night, if not the rest of her life. And she waited and watched him and nothing happened. Then she waited and watched some more and still no joy. She waited and watched for so long that her own eyes started getting heavier and the more she fought the heavier they got until finally Mum keeled over on the chair and dozed off, snoring away right there in front of him with her head tilted back and her mouth wide open like she was catching flies. And my da looked up from his dinner and started yelling at her to get up off her fat lazy arse and to get him a fucking whisky. He may as well have yelled at the wall for all the good it did, ’cause Mum was out for the count and there was nothing he could do.

  34

  Cock-a-leekie

  Mum kept lacing my da’s dinners with Martha’s out-of-date tranquillisers until her stock ran out. Then one night as she sat at the kitchen table reading the latest copy of Your Health And You, she came across an article talking about the dangers of a high cholesterol diet and how you had to avoid creamy sauces and animal fats and custards and ­puddings and all the food my da loved and suddenly Mum’s future looked rosy again. Of course she had con­sidered other alternatives like having him bumped off by a hit man when he left the pub drunk one night, or waiting until he was in his bed asleep and then sneaking in and covering his entire body from top to toe in nicotine patches. But once she’d pulled off the nicotine patches prior to the arrival of the police his once hairy body would be covered in perfectly square bald patches and how are you going to explain that to the coroner?

  No, this dangerously high cholesterol diet seemed like the perfect solution and so Mum set about it straightaway. Feeling happier than she had for a long time Mum put her Michael Crawford Phantom of the Opera tape into the tape deck and the music filled the nooks and crannies of every room and once again her heart was filled with hope, just as it had been when she was lacing his dinners with Martha’s out-of-date tranquillisers.

  Mum’s trips to the supermarket started to take a little longer as she loaded up her trolley with dairy products and ten-litre drums of animal fat and my da was none the wiser and tucked in to everything that Mum prepared and sometimes he even licked his plate clean, it tasted that good.

  Izzy was studying law at Aberdeen University at that time and on one of her weekends home we sat at the kitchen table and watched Mum as she poured the contents of a one-litre carton of cream into the pot of cock-a-leekie soup she was preparing for my da.

  ‘Mum, do you think what you’re doing is ethical?’ Izzy asked.

  ‘Do I think what is ethical?’

  ‘Deliberately trying to increase another human being’s cholesterol levels for your own gain? I mean, you could go to jail for that kind of behaviour.’

  ‘Ethical? Don’t fuckin’ talk to me about ethical! Do you think it’s ethical that he shouts and screams from morning till night and still dictates his orders to me like I’m his fuckin’ slave? Do you think it’s ethical that there are times when I can’t pay all the bills that come in, but there’s always whisky in the house? Do you think it’s ethical that he terrorised the life out of my own mother and father before they died? Do you think it’s ethical that he refused to give Bruce the title deeds to the house he sweated blood to build? Do you think it’s ethical that he abused the anim
als you brought home and kicked your very own puppy to death right there in front of your eyes? Ethical? Don’t talk to me about fuckin’ ethical!’

  ‘Okay, okay, I get your point, just so long as this doesn’t come back and bite you.’

  ‘Izzy, I don’t care if it does come back and bite me. Things have changed. Now I’d happily swing for that bastard and I’ll do everything I can to make us all free from him some day.’

  ‘Sure, Mum, it would be great to be free, but does he really have to die for that to happen?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t absolutely have to die, but it would make me happy if he did.’

  ‘All right, do what you like, but it sounds like I might have to defend you on a premeditated murder charge some day.’

  ‘Well, I’ve thought that through and I think they’ll reduce it to manslaughter and if I do end up inside, I’m going to do a degree in Forensic Science by distance edu­cation, I hear it’s a helluva interesting course. But anyway, Izzy, you’ll not have to defend my innocence ’cause I’ll proudly plead guilty and anybody that knows your da would understand why I did it.’

  ‘Well, if you’re happy with what you’re doing, Mum, I won’t stand in your way.’

  ‘Good and keep your fingers crossed for me. He’s on his way right now for his medical to get his heavy goods vehicle licence renewed, so hopefully I’ll get good news this afternoon about his cholesterol levels.’

  ‘Aye, fingers crossed, eh Mum?’ I said, smiling at the prospect of my da having a massive heart attack in the not-too-distant future.

  Later in the afternoon my da’s lorry pulled into the drive and my da jumped out of the cabin and made his way to the house in a light jog across the field. Mum and I looked at each other. We’d never seen him do a light jog before and he opened the door to the house and breezed into the kitchen beaming from ear to ear.