by Simon Lelic
Stephen Geraghty. That was his name. My old man. My so-called father. And his middle name was Donald as well, by the way. It must have been a family tradition or something. I don’t know for certain. And to be honest I don’t much care.
The weird thing was my father being with my mother at all. Because whereas she was beautiful, my old man was . . . not ugly exactly but he was short and he was bald, balding, and he wore these thick black glasses. But my mother loved him, I guess, or else why would they have been together? And for so long? Because they were childhood sweethearts. That’s what he used to claim anyway. That they were together when they were young and then they moved apart and then something happened that brought them back together. Like in a movie. That’s the way he made it sound. Which I have my doubts about frankly because how could anyone ever fall in love with him?
Twice.
He hated me from the day I was born. I say I don’t remember much from when I was small but I definitely remember that. How? Just because of the way he used to treat me. He never hit me or anything, but some of the things he used to do, for example, were . . .
Wait.
My mother’s death. Let’s go back to that.
It was sudden. Her illness. I don’t even know what she had exactly but—
You know what?
That’s a lie.
I do know what she had. What it was that killed her. It was her kidneys. She got ill when she was pregnant and didn’t get the right treatment. Not in time. And it damaged her. Having me. Left her vulnerable. So there you go, Susanna. Therapize that.
But anyway, that’s what happened. She got ill and then she died. And afterward it was just me and him.
And it’s obvious why. Right? Why he hated me. It was because he blamed me for my mother being ill all the time, which I guess is why she was never around. She got pre-eclampsia, it’s called. When she was pregnant. But it wasn’t spotted, or not soon enough, anyway, and although she got better, she also never really recovered. It can affect your organs, you see. Your kidneys in particular, which is what happened eventually with my mum.
And my old man . . . As much as he hated me is the amount he adored his wife. You’d say it was sweet, I expect. True love and all that. Me, I think it’s pathetic. I know it was. I saw it. The way he fell apart. At the funeral someone had to hold him up. One of his friends or his brother or something. No one I knew. But literally, they had to physically stop him from collapsing to the ground.
So yeah, first my mother was ill and then, at the end of it, she died. Because of me. Because of what I’d done to her. So in fairness to my old man, I guess if I was him I would’ve hated me too.
Some of the things he used to do.
This is what you really want to hear, isn’t it, Susanna? What my father actually did to me. Because this is like . . . What’s that phrase? Grist to your mill. And the other thing, I bet you get all sorts of people in here whining about how their parents resented them, blah blah blah, and I bet half the time you’re thinking, yeah right. Like, they say their parents hated them but the only actual evidence they can point to is the fact their dad sometimes shouted maybe and their mother could get a bit stroppy. But for some people that’s enough. Enough of an excuse, I mean. Because I bet that’s what most people who come to you are looking for. An excuse, basically, for why their lives are such a mess. Can’t get a job? It’s all my parents’ fault. Can’t get a girlfriend? That’s my parents’ fault too. Too sad to get out of bed in the morning? To take a shower and pour yourself some corn flakes? Blame my parents for squashing my self-esteem.
Seriously, I bet you get that all the time.
So what I’m saying is you probably think I’m exaggerating. I wouldn’t blame you if you—
No.
Don’t.
Don’t interrupt.
You asked me to tell you, so I’m telling you. So why don’t you sit there and just listen?
Where was I . . .
So this one time—and I remember this clearly—we were at the park. I don’t know what we were doing there because my dad never took me to the park. But we were there, for whatever reason, and these older kids started giving me hassle. They were twelve, maybe thirteen. I was ten. They took my ball and I asked for it back. They said no, obviously, and started pushing me around. I guess we were round the back of the café or something, or somewhere anyway that no adults could see. We were, because I remember I was kicking my ball against the wall. Just on my own. Just playing on my own. And like I say, nobody could see us—nobody apart from my old man. Because he saw. He was sitting on a bench. A way away but close enough that I remember watching the pigeons that were pecking at his feet. Which means he saw when the older kids stole my ball and he saw them surround me when I asked for it back. He saw the biggest one hit me. He saw another one kick me in the shin. He watched when they shoved me to the ground and he didn’t even move enough to scare the pigeons away when, one by one, they took turns to lean over me and spit.
So, yeah. He never hit me. But he was happy enough when other people did.
That was the last time I ever asked him for help, by the way. The last time I physically called out. Like, if I had a nightmare or something after that, I never ran crying to my father’s room. I just lay in bed and dealt with it myself. It was the same at school. I got hassled at school as well, but there was no point telling anyone. I didn’t want to give my father the satisfaction.
This other time I got a bad tooth. It was over Christmas, which was always when my father was at his meanest. So anyway I started getting toothache and normally what you’d do is go to the dentist. Right? But I was eight at the time, just turned, so I would have needed somebody to take me. Cue my father. But instead, what he did is, he let me suffer. And toothache for me is basically the worst kind of pain. It—
Look.
Do you see?
I’m getting goose bumps just talking about it.
And I don’t know if it’s because the tooth is part of your jaw, connected through your bones to all the rest of you, but what I find is that when your tooth hurts it’s not just the tooth that throbs. You must have had toothache, you must know what I’m talking about, the way the pain gets channeled all around your body. It hurts to walk, to talk, to breathe, to look. It hurts when you’re just lying still. Especially when you’re just lying still. And obviously you can forget about eating or drinking.
My father must have known that too. He must have known how much pain I was in. In fact it’s not even in question. He did know. I told him. But there was no school for me to go to, nobody else around who would have seen, so as far as he was concerned it was an opportunity, a chance to let me suffer. To punish me, basically, for something I didn’t even know I’d done.
He took me to the dentist in the end but claimed when we got there that the ache had only started that morning. Three days he let me suffer with it. I was in my room for most of that time, living off milk and orange juice. Room temperature because if it was cold it was like someone had come at me with pliers.
But that’s how it went. It was less that he actively hurt me, more that he did nothing to keep me safe. It was like he ignored me. Except not like that because if he’d ignored me I would have preferred it. If he’d ignored me I would have known where I stood. Because he could be nice. Not nice but normal. Like, he made me dinner most evenings, made sure I took a sandwich to school. He did the stuff other adults would have noticed if he hadn’t. The stuff kids notice, though—my father did none of those things. He didn’t hug me or kiss me or comfort me or love me. He made me feel small. Made me feel like I was a burden. Even the nice stuff he did, the normal stuff—he did it out of spite. To remind me how much I owed him. How much I’d ruined his life.
Because that’s the thing. That’s basically what it came down to. It was something I only found out when I was older. I didn’t find out. Or I
did but only because my father told me, which to my mind isn’t quite the same thing. But what he told me was they never wanted me in the first place. Neither of them.
He was blunt like that, just spelled it out. This was after my mother died, when he was sure I was old enough to understand. He blamed religion. They were both Catholic, him and my mum. And it was because of the religion thing that they didn’t get rid of me. When they found out my mother was pregnant. They weren’t married then either, so that’s like a double sin, isn’t it? Or it would have been, if she’d had an abortion as well.
Whatever.
The point is they kept me and I ruined my mother’s life. She had to give up work, my father told me. She had to sacrifice her career. Because of her health. That was one of his favorite words, by the way. Sacrifice. When he was talking to me about what he’d done or what my mother had done, for my sake I mean, it was all “we sacrificed this” and “she sacrificed that” and “you, look at you, you’ve never said one word to show you’re grateful.” When he said that once—later on, this was—I remember I answered back, said I didn’t know what he expected me to be grateful for, and that was the only time he did hit me. Slapped me, right across the face. Which, again, pathetic. Slapping me like that. Like a little girl would, not a man.
But when he told me about how they’d never wanted me in the first place, that’s when it all started to make sense.
I remember I was in my dad’s bedroom when he said it. My mum and dad’s room, it had been, and I was looking through some of her things. There were boxes on the top shelf of the cupboard that I knew I wasn’t supposed to look in but I’d done it anyway and I’d found a load of old photographs, just of my mum when she was younger, with friends of hers, relatives of hers, I guess, her mum and dad—people, basically, I’d never met. And that’s when he found me. “Get out!” he started yelling. “Get your filthy little hands off your mother’s things!” And I argued, said I had as much right to see them as he did. And my father was like, “You have no right! None whatsoever!” And it went on like that until basically he just came out with it. “She never loved you, you know. She never wanted you. You were a curse. You were a curse and in the end you killed her!”
And it was . . . It was like one of those moments when suddenly you just get it. Why I was always so lonely. Why I can barely remember anything about my mother and why I wasn’t upset or anything when she died.
I know what you’re thinking, Susanna.
I do. Again. I know.
You’re thinking you finally understand. Right? Poor Adam. His parents never loved him. It’s no wonder he turned out the way he did. All angry, all damaged, all bursting into some random stranger’s office. I bet you’re even wondering whether you can help me. Whether you can cure me. And who knows? Maybe in normal circumstances you could.
The thing is, though, that’s not the end of the story. I think you know it isn’t.
The real end is: it was all a lie. A clever one because it was hidden in truth. Like, my father blaming me for my mother’s death? Him saying they never wanted me in the first place? He did. They didn’t. But that wasn’t all. It wasn’t even the half of it.
Was it, Susanna?
12.
“Let’s take a break.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m thirsty. It’s all this talking. You’re all right, you’ve got your bottle of water, but I haven’t had anything to drink since I got here.”
“There’s a jug of tap water on the table beside you. The glasses are clean if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Adam wrinkles his nose. “I don’t drink water. Can never really see the point.” He gestures toward the door. “You must have a little kitchen area out back. Haven’t you got any, like, juice or something?”
“Juice?”
“Come on,” Adam says, standing. “You can show me around.”
“But . . .” Susanna is . . . disappointed? Really? She checks and finds that she is. She doesn’t want to be here, would give anything to be somewhere else, but she was enthralled by what Adam was telling her. She supposes it is just as Adam said. Stories like his are grist to her mill. And even though she has heard variations of the same tale before, each time it is totally unique.
“I would have thought you’d be dying to escape this room,” Adam says. “Aren’t you feeling a bit claustrophobic? A bit, you know. Trapped?”
Susanna stands, wobbling slightly as she does so. Adam uses the knife to gesture for her to lead the way.
* * *
• • •
Geraghty. Adam Geraghty. Catherine Geraghty. Stephen Geraghty. Geraghty. Geraghty.
The name means nothing to Susanna. She hasn’t spent a great deal of time dwelling on it until now, because she has been assuming it must have been made up. There is still a chance it could have been of course
(it was all a lie . . .)
but she has seen Adam’s driving license, his bank cards, and anyway there’s no telling what Adam meant. What was a lie? Which part? Not who his parents were, not the way he grew up. Susanna is convinced his story had the ring of truth. Besides which, she has seen his acting. And though he is better at it than he gave himself credit for, there are certain things, in therapy, that can’t be faked. Adam’s intensity once he started talking, for example. Susanna would have liked the opportunity to dig deeper, which is why she is so frustrated by this interruption. She is curious, yes, that’s part of it. But also she remains convinced that the sooner she understands Adam, the sooner her daughter will be safe.
“It’s just through here.” Susanna leads Adam along the landing. She can hear him behind her and she is trying not to think about the knife. It is leveled at her kidneys, she imagines, and if she were to abruptly stop moving, Adam would walk it straight through her.
She bears right and weaves past Alina’s desk. “This way.”
The kitchenette is opposite the staff toilet and isn’t actually much bigger. There are two cupboards and a sink, as well as a kettle, a mini fridge and, tucked in a corner on the counter, a tatty, soup-encrusted microwave. The soup is Ruth’s doing. Even though Ruth’s surgery is spotless, elsewhere in her life she is a self-confessed slob. “When it seizes up I’ll buy us all a new one,” she told Susanna when Susanna happened to mention the microwave’s condition. “Life’s too short to be scrubbing minestrone.”
“I’m fairly sure there isn’t any juice or anything,” Susanna says but when she looks across her shoulder she realizes Adam is no longer there.
“Just pick something for me,” he calls. From the sound of it he has continued along the landing into Ruth’s surgery. “Anything with flavor.”
Susanna is momentarily discombobulated. She is alone. How odd it feels to be standing here alone. Her heartbeat accelerates as once again she has the urge to run. Is Adam testing her? she wonders. Or is he taunting her, reminding her that she is tethered here no matter how much slack he gives the rope?
She opens a cupboard, retrieves the Nescafé from behind Ruth’s tin of biscuits. “You mean coffee or—”
“Not coffee.”
What is he doing? He sounds distracted, as though something has captured his attention.
Susanna turns to the mini fridge, which she insists they keep cleaner than the microwave. Even so, it emits the smell of something curdled, which may in fact be embedded in the fridge itself. They bought it off eBay, and it hasn’t worked properly since they plugged it in.
Inside are milk, an apple, a piece of cheese wrapped in cling film. Something pasta-y in Tupperware—Alina’s, almost certainly—and, behind that, a can of fizzy drink.
“There’s a Diet Coke in the fridge,” Susanna calls.
There is a pause. “Diet?” Adam responds.
Susanna waits.
“Fine,” says Adam at last, getting back to whatever it is he
’s doing. “Just as long as it’s cold.”
Susanna presses her palm against the can. It’s not. It’s basically the same temperature as her hand. But it will do. Susanna may have no choice other than to play Adam’s games but she’ll be damned if she’s going to act like his waitress.
As she turns to leave, her eyes catch on the draining board. She freezes. Her gaze flicks up, toward the empty doorway, and then back again. There, beside the washing-up sponge, is a little paring knife. It is curved and viciously sharp. Susanna knows because she has a scar on her left thumb from the last time she used it. The knife would look like a toy, Susanna suspects, set beside Adam’s but it would be just as effective against someone’s jugular and this one would fit up her sleeve. Susanna wouldn’t have imagined, even an hour ago, that she would seriously contemplate wielding a weapon but the longer this has gone on, the more she has come to realize how unlikely it is to end on her terms. She needs a backup plan. Huh. She needs a plan, is what she needs, but where is the harm in having a contingency?
Adam could see: there’s the harm. He could discover the knife and decide there and then that this game of his has gone on long enough.
More than the fear, though, the thing that makes Susanna hesitate is Adam’s story. It is ridiculous, she knows, but she cannot suppress her instinct for sympathy. It is ingrained in her the way that odor is ingrained in their little refrigerator. It permeates her very being, sits at the core of everything she does. It’s like the lying. Since Jake she has done everything in her power to resist the urge to cast blame. First, always, she endeavors to attempt to understand. It was something about herself—one of the only things—of which she was proud. It gave her strength, she thought, although in these circumstances, clearly, it is a weakness.