Distortion

by Gautam Malkani

  The redhead in peep-toe slingbacks: she’d just shrug at your sick-note postal oversight. Or if you fucked up that hospital minicab booking.

  “Well, I did want to surprise you, Mum.” She weren’t even angryfied with you so why the fuck were you escalating? “That’s why I went to Waitrose instead of Tesco.”

  The blonde-haired goth: she wouldn’t keep waving the minicab card while shouting the words “One little thing” – meaning she’d only asked you to do that one little thing. You like some dickless limpdick telling your mum that, in your defence, she’d only asked you to do that one thing once. Wishing you could drive her to chemo yourself. But to do so you’d somehow need to turn seventeen and then pass your driving test in the next fourteen minutes.

  “But then why didn’t you just surprise me with the profiteroles, darling? Why to be so scared of these things? Why waste a phone call from Waitrose to ask me if I wanted profiteroles or cheesecake?”

  Tearing up the minicab card before tearing off her wig and her work clothes. Smacking her still-bald-from-the-last-C-bomb head. Straightening the crotch of her tights as she slipped on her peach summer dress.

  “I foned you from Waitrose because of what happened last time – with the ice cream.”

  “But I never complained about the ice cream, Dhilan, I just didn’t eat it. It was strawberry flavour, sweetheart – I was in a bad way that day and, I don’t know, I just didn’t like the smell of it.”

  “Well then, that means that I was right to be scared about whether to buy profiteroles or cheesecake – because the only cheesecake Waitrose had left was strawberry cheesecake.”

  “Please, Dhilan, why are we arguing about this? Anyway, if they only had strawberry cheesecake then in that case why couldn’t you just make the decision to buy profiteroles instead of cheesecake without phoning me?”

  Then driving off to the Department of Nuclear Medicine by herself even though she was too thermo-nuclear angryfied to even walk straight. Even though they’d nuke away any strength she had left to drive back again. Even though she was still with pin-and-plated hip and partially removed pecs. And before you could tell her it’d be dangerful for her to drive back afterwards, she guessed it and told you it’d be even more dangerous to leave her tumour untreated. And before you could tell her to take the bus or the Tube, she guessed it and told you that public transport was even less reliable than you. Tyres weeping, eyes screeching – didn’t even look at you standing like some dickless pussy in the disabled-access driveway. Telling yourself that it weren’t her, it was just the anti-oestrogens. Or some pre-treatment side effect of the treatment. Reminding yourself that when someone ain’t well, people always say, “They aren’t themselves.”

  “Look, Mum, we been through this a thousand times in couples therapy: ain’t no point in me making decisions about profiteroles or cheesecake or pasta sauce or soap when the consequences of me making a decision you don’t agree with are so stressful.”

  You followed her, of course. End of the day, you’d bunked off school to go with her. Just like you done for her scan – though she still never let you bunk off for her routine check-ups and stuff. Told yourself that’s why you were following her – just to square the fact that you’d skipped school. Not cos you were worried or nothing. Not cos you literally worried yourself sick if you didn’t go to her appointments with her. She never knew it, but you hopped on the Tube, legged it to the hospital, shortcut up the external stairwell, past the wig-recycling bin, watched her having her chemo through the hospital window. Just stood there and watched her face. From angry through worried to absolutely nothing – the most nothingstruck expression you’d ever seen. Her lights going out soon as the cooling packs were placed on her scalp.

  Hated yourself for being so sensitive, so over-absorb-imental. Technical term for that shit is “too porous to her emotions”. Except it weren’t just absorption – it was also the shock. Every time she got angryfied it still jumped you outta nowhere. Used to be a time she couldn’t tell you off without laughing – laughing at whatever you’d done.

  Your mummy sat down at the dining table like as if you were back in some mother–son marriage counselling room. You didn’t even bother to light the candles or scatter the rose petals. Just eating her food in silence. Sniffling through her eyes. Downing the wine glass of beetroot super juice. Standing up and smacking the pyramid of profiteroles – we’re talking full-on karate fork. Then picking up the profiteroles from the table and laughing at you like the two of you was having some kinda food fight. “So I complained once about the strawberry ice cream. So what, Dhilan? So what? Would you rather I lied to you and told you that I liked it? That I loved it and wanted to lick it off your face?”

  “Please, Mum, let’s just forget it. It’s only profiteroles. I got the right dessert, even if I didn’t get it the right way.” You hated the way your voice went shrill whenever you tried fronting with her. Like you were shooting for high pitch cos your dumb ass couldn’t hit high volume. “Anyway, Mama, we haven’t talked about your cancer yet.”

  “What’s there to say about my cancer?”

  “Well, how about what the gameplan is?”

  “You mean the ‘prognosis’, Dhilan – it isn’t a bloody idiot game. And, no, this isn’t only about the profiteroles. It’s about why is it so bloody difficult for you to make any decisions.”

  Truth is, you couldn’t even decide if you really did have some chronic inability to make decisions. Obviously couldn’t make decisions involving the future. Did having dinner count as having a future?

  “But why do you always need me to decide everything, Mum?”

  “What everything?”

  “Your wallpaper, your wigs, your underwear, the curtain rod – what do I care what kind of pasta shape the ends of the curtain rod look like?”

  “But why wouldn’t I ask you what kind of pasta you wanted, Dhilan? I cook it for you, not for myself, not for anyone else. Why the hell can’t you just make decisions and be a man?”

  You wiped some profiterole cream from your face and laid down your fork. Loud and deliberate-like. And manly. Scraping your chair as you stood up. Chucking your napkin ring on the table like some wedding ring. Like a post-vomit dollop of flickable phlegm. Like a fifty-quid note on some stretch-marked bed. “Why the fuck can’t you just chill the fuck out for once, Mum? For fuck’s sake, it’s only profiteroles – ain’t like anyone’s dying.”

  30

  MORNING. THE CURTAINS. I sit up. The curtains. Know I had that dream but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember which appendage.

  The curtains.

  My student room.

  The stink of disinfectant still on my bed sheets.

  At first I reckoned that making my bed counted. Another tick in the list of the things I helped her with. This was back before my bed became her bed. Our bed. Whatever. Back when I used to keep score.

  “You want a gold star for making your own bed, Dhilan? What do I get for making you?”

  “Stress and school runs and errands and headaches.”

  “I’m only stressed because at this rate I’ll run out of gold stars.”

  The curtains, the smell of Lynx deodorant.

  The bleach stains on my carpet where Naliah had vomited.

  Now the sink and the taste of my mouthwash.

  Empty bottles of Dettol inside my bathroom bin.

  I look at my face in the mirror and see my father’s.

  Ain’t talking about me having my father’s eyes or his hairy ears or some other lonely loser resemblance. I mean I see my actual dad. Standing right behind me. Fronting like he’s been in a punch-up. Doesn’t even give me time to freak out. “Dylan, we need to talk.”

  “Where the fuck did you come from?”

  “I was knocking. Your room door just swung open – did you know that your lock’s broken?”

  I tell him I had break-in.

  He asks me if I’m sorted for contents insurance.

  Ther
e are three different brands of toothpaste in the corners of my mouth.

  Dad’s got zero bants today. Waits in my room till I’m done brushing. Asking on repeat play how long I’ll take. How long is a piece of dental floss? Now pretending I’m taking a dump so that I can shut my bathroom door. Truth is I just ain’t ready to have a father watch me shaving.

  “I don’t have much time,” he goes when I re-enter my room. “So can I please just have it back?”

  I look back towards my bathroom. But it’s too late for that other play – the one where you pull the flush and just pretend not to hear your parent.

  “Look, I know you took it,” he goes. “I’ve had no one else round to my flat. It isn’t exactly a place for entertaining.”

  I tell him I liked his place – there was so much light and space.

  “Do you know how difficult it’s been for me to come here and confront you? I was agonising for days over whether this was the right thing to do.”

  I tell him it’s only been one day. Two at most. Fuck – maybe three. This is the problem with mainlining Red Bull.

  “So first let’s be clear, son, I’m not angry with you or accusing you of doing anything wrong. But that cuttings book that you took from my kitchen the other night – I need to have it back.”

  The light from behind my always-drawn curtains is a mash-up of morning sun and backlit billboard. Enough light to zoom in on what I’d thought were Dad’s bloodstains but are probly just ketchup stains. Guessing this is cos of the milkshake stains. Whiff of Egg McMuffin. The all-over glow of breakfast at McDonald’s.

  “I just wanted to read your work. Just semi-skim your stories. I’m sorry, Dad – I know I shoulda asked.”

  He starts scanning my freshly Lynxed and bleached dorm room. The tidiness is proper shameful. Like I got way too much time on my hands. Like there’s too much room in my headspace. Like I had parents who pegged some poncey pocket money package to the completion of household chores. The room ain’t much more than an en-suite box room – the floor just a path between fitted-in furniture. But Dad’s now moving about as if ain’t no furniture in here at all.

  “No harm, Dylan. Nothing to worry. Where is it?”

  The desk. The files. The chest of drawers.

  “Is it in one of these?” He points.

  The shelves. The bed. The clothes that sit on my chair.

  “Or up there?” he says to the shelves.

  The box files by my radiator. The box files by my bedside.

  “Here?” He pulls open my top drawer. My socks, my self-bought boxer shorts – well, at least I don’t store my garms in kitchen cabinets like how he does. Now again my desk, again my bed, my socks, the other socks. Blanking all my pre-bereavement bereavement props like as if he knows to don’t even go there.

  “Dad, you do know that it’s rude to just rummage through someone else’s stuff, right?”

  “Well, I don’t want to.” He starts checking the cabinet in the bathroom. “Why don’t you just give it to me, then, instead of just standing there?”

  Now he sees me in my bathroom mirror.

  “Well, where is it, son? Your mother’s house?”

  “What the hell? Why’d I take it there for?”

  Next that big blue Ikea bag I use for dirty laundry.

  “Okay, look, Dad, your book was stolen when I had that break-in.”

  “Oh, come on. What kind of burglar steals a scrapbook?”

  I try and smooth the flames by acting stupid. Ask him if he needs his cuttings book for a job interview.

  Dad’s moustache relaxes. “Dylan, listen, I’m very flattered that you took it because you wanted to read my work. But nevertheless it belongs to me. It’s my property.”

  “This is about your fake news stories, right? Your made-up eyewitness quotes.”

  “It’s not important why I want it, son, what’s important is that I want it. And that I don’t believe for one second that it was stolen from you. Come on, Dylan, I don’t have time for this nonsense. I mean, have you told the police?”

  “About the cuttings book?”

  “About the break-in.”

  I try fronting non-responsive but I guess something in my eyes shakes its head.

  “No. Didn’t think so. The lock on your door looks more like it’s been broken by a drunken student – probably trying to enter the wrong room.”

  “You saying I’m lying about being burgled?”

  “You’ve already proved yourself capable of stealing – when you took it from my kitchen.”

  “I only borrowed it.”

  “Well then kindly give it back. That’s what people do when they borrow things.”

  Dad sits at the foot of my bed. Unbuttons his navy-blue suit jacket. I keep staring at his dandruff – like as if his shoulders are lumps of sky on some clear night. Fingers on his forehead, he nods at my kettle.

  I ask him how he takes his coffee.

  “But you don’t have a coffee machine, Dylan.”

  When Dad tells me how many sugars he takes, I do my best not to memorise it. Just chuck in the asked-for two lumps and then, quick time, I start thinking of other random numbers to confuse myself.

  Hi sniffs the jar of freeze-dried instant. “Why does your room reek of deodorant?” Doesn’t clock that I’m using baby formula instead of coffee whitener. “And why does your deodorant smell like disinfectant?”

  Ramona had thought I’d sprayed my bed sheets for her benefit. To encryptionise the scent of some other girl’s perfume. Took me half an hour to convince her. And then, when she finally began to believe me, I started to feel some proper guilt – even though, for once, when it had come to my efforts to disguise the smell of another woman’s vomit, I’d actually been telling her the truth. She kept asking me to explain once again what the hell Naliah had been doing in my room in the first place. So I kept telling her everything all over again. Everything that happened after Naliah had shown up – the dog shit, the vomit, the bleach stain on my carpet. Left out Naliah’s questions about “Dhilan” and my mother, of course, but otherwise I pretty much just told her the truth. Could really get used to just telling Ramona the truth.

  “Okay,” Dad goes. “Coffee break’s over. Where the hell’s my scrapbook?”

  I tell him again it was stolen when my room was burgled. He tells me again he don’t believe me. We roll back and forth like this for another ten minutes. Just like our meet the other day in McDonald’s when we kept screen-freezing over who’d been the one who got back in touch with whom. And just like he done back then, Dad all sudden-like starts accusing me of piss-taking. Pointing at me with his coffee mug. “You’re just trying to play games with me, aren’t you? Don’t think I don’t realise it. That I don’t notice. Like the way you always leave the father field blank.”

  “What?”

  “In your online profiles. Father’s name: blank. Father’s occupation: blank. Or the way you put on Facebook once that you don’t have a father – that your father’s estranged. As if you want the whole world to know you have no relationship with me.”

  “Why the hell you been scoping out my Facebook page?”

  “Because apparently that’s what parents do.” Then he throws down the mug of coffee and stands over the brand-new stain. “Stop bloody messing me about, Dylan, this is serious. I need my cuttings book.”

  “Okay, just tranquilate, yeh. I think I know who took it.”

  “Who? Who did you give it to?”

  “I didn’t give it … Look, there are these two guys who’ve been hassling me. At uni, I mean. Two old dudes. I reckon they the ones who broke into my room.”

  “I’m sorry, son, but I don’t accept that.”

  “But I swear down it’s true.”

  “And I swear that it isn’t.”

  “Dad, why are you being like this again?”

  “Are you being slow on purpose, Dylan? I’m certain these men you talk of didn’t break into your room because I was the one who broke into
your room. And I couldn’t fucking find it then either.”

  What Dillon does next ain’t easy to comprehend, even to himself. Dude tries to comfort his father. Even though the man had bust into his room, staged some burglary, fucked up his shit, smeared actual shit into his carpet. Ain’t cos Dillon’s trying to be big about it. If anything, he’s being little – doesn’t want to fight with his daddy. Doesn’t want a drama-queen father–son bust-up. In fact, Dillon doesn’t even mention the dog shit. He just points to the bleach stains at his father’s feet. “Look what the bleach did when I tried to clean it.”

  “What the hell has your carpet got to do with this, Dylan? I’ve got milkshake and ketchup all over my suit. I’m trying to protect you from something you won’t understand and you’re more worried about some stain on some dormitory carpet. And anyway, why would you even need to clean your carpet?”

  Then his father starts pacing again – pumping out aggro with his legs to offset the way his mouth is now begging Dillon’s forgiveness. “I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry I broke your door lock. I didn’t want you to get accidentally involved in something you shouldn’t get involved in. So I thought I’d just take the scrapbook back and then you’d tell me that it had been stolen and I’d tell you not to worry about it – that it wasn’t important. And that would be that. But then I couldn’t find my scrapbook, Dylan. I couldn’t find my scrapbook.”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Dillon says. “It’s not important.”

  After that, Dad hits the bathroom to clean up his face.

  “What now?” I ask his image in my mirror. “Are you at least gonna clue me in about what this is all about?”

  It’s like we’re playing some kinda poker-face game in my bathroom mirror – just me, him and my male grooming products. I curse the never-opened box of condoms. The stray strands of used dental floss. Dad staring at the floss like as if somehow he knows the red stains ain’t from bleeding gums – they’re from the flakes of Ramona’s toenail varnish that got stuck between my teeth.