Distortion

by Gautam Malkani

This time checking for caps lock and Freudian typos.

  Invalid username. Invalid password.

  Even sign up from scratch as some brand-new customer – i.e. creating a brand-new email address, a new fake name and so on. But this don’t work either. It’s like as if the website’s specifically blocked off access from my specific laptop.

  Next, I just search Google, even though I already know that the stories I digitised won’t come up on Google. Don’t search for Dad’s name, of course – already know for definite that I deffo didn’t include his name. Instead, I search for the fake names – the people he’d made up for the eyewitness quotes he’d made up. Don’t even need the actual scrapbook to remember some of them – that’s how fake they was: John Squirrel, Jack Badger, Ravi Otter. Oh, and let’s not forget the other made-up names he’d used: Jack Dylan, Hardip Dylan, John Dylan.

  No hits for the newspaper that used to be my client.

  But ain’t no zero search results, either. Each time I click open a story, it’s like I’m clicking down my room’s thermostat switch. Turns out that all Dad’s made-up eyewitnesses – or at least the ones that I remembered – also show up in stories published by other newspapers. Ditto their word-for-word quotes.

  All in, the fake names appear in stories published by four different newspapers under nine different bylines. Fone a couple of switchboards to check if each of these bylines is the name of a real, actual journalist and not some made-up name for my dad.

  My room doesn’t actually have a thermostat switch.

  Turns out the other journalists are real. Can picture all the reporters shoving their dictaphones and microphones in front of the same eyewitness just like they do in films. Cos whichever way you cut it, this can only mean one thing: the eyewitness quotes are actually real and my dad didn’t fabricate diddly-fuck. He made up all that shit about making shit up.

  33

  SEVENTH TIME YOUR mum told you she had the C-bomb, she was trying to tip off prospective burglars. Note stuck to the wall by her bed that she’d typed up in size forty-eight font: “Please do not steal these tablets. If you are a burglar, there is £100 cash on the kitchen table. Please take it and leave these tablets alone. These pills will not make you feel happy as a kite. These pills are my medicines. I have cancer.”

  One good thing about her sleeping in the living room: she no longer set the burglar alarm. You dropped your house keys in another pocket to stop them rattling against the keys to your student halls. Switched your mobile to silent and used it as a makeshift torch. Shoulda invested in a proper flashlight instead of always using your phone to search for stuff.

  You pulled up a dining chair beside her bed. Checked she was deffo set to sleep mode. Technically, it was your bed – no point lugging down her Ikea king-size. Noises from her liquid-filled lungs drowning out Masi’s snoring from up in your mum’s room. All this musical beds fuckery. Back when it first started eating away her bones, you’d looked into getting one of them chair-lift-stair-lift things. But then the council sorted her out with a downstairs disabled-access bathroom. With a bed now in the living room, she could wake up and admire her self-laid patio. The patio eaten away by the bathroom.

  You offed the baby monitor that connected her to your masi. Dimples breaking on her cheeks where your lips had just been. Even in a chemical sleep, your mum hesitated before committing to a smile. Gauntness pronouncing her grin like how your school French teacher used to exaggerate the accents. Beside the bed, a silver bell for minor masi-league emergencies. A blood-red button for ambulance ones. Laptop, plastic kidney bowls and a three-volume alternative guide to some hypno-homeopathic-past-life-regression approach to regaining your positive health. Hand behind her ear like she was listening out for some better dream. Your own recurring dream in which you were an actual appendage of her. Your arm growing out of her hip, your leg coming out of her ankles. Cold sweat, bottle of Volvic, telling yourself it weren’t no big deal, that it was just some dream – that she was your mother, not your torso. Apparently when we’re babies, we reckon that our mothers are appendages of us. You drop your rattle from your high chair, try to reach to pick it up, your mother’s arm magically does it for you. Same shit when your nappy needs changing. Same shit when you wanna be fed. Her hands magic-like unbuttoning her blouse. Figuring out that she ain’t actually part of you is one of the first things you ever know about yourself. Must be a proper mindfuck for little babies – a mashup of shit-horror and sigh of relief. Maybe that’s what it’s like even when grown-ups find out who the fuck they really are – when they bust through all the bullshit and the smoky mirrors and finally crash into the truth. That’s all for today about Oedipus.

  You’d had to go. Had no choice, had to go. Not to keep things going with Ramona or nothing, but cos you couldn’t even share the same unaired airspace without having one of your mother–son marital rows. The couples therapist had told you that you had to go. Google had told you that you had go. Not to mention confirmation of the oracle’s prophecy from your three bearded aunties. HE WILL TAKE THE FATHER’S PLACE. Yes, yes, yes – he will take the father’s place. He will sleep in his mother’s bed.

  You’d told her it was cos of the commute to uni. One hour each way on the Piccadilly line Tube. Dressed it up like minor-level pillow talk. She’d told you to stop bullshitting her. Begged you to just please, just tell her the truth. Then she said something about the bathroom extractor fan not working. Or needing batteries for her MP3 player. Dhilan, do you remember that time? Your marriage therapist advised couples to just change the channel whenever their rows started entering the red zone. Just talk about some other subject for two minutes. Apparently this was better than simply counting to ten. Any topic would do.

  “Dhilan, do you remember when you started primary school and I picked you up at lunchtimes to bring you home for proper Indian food? Saved you from the moody dinner ladies. You remember?”

  Any topic would do.

  “But I didn’t realise that lunchtime was also a playtime. That all the other children gobbled their school dinners and went outside to play. And so I got so upset with myself. I didn’t want to be that kind of mother, Dhilan.” Dropping some eye saliva as she spoke.

  “You’ve told me all this before, Mummy.”

  “So then you can see why I want you to be truthful with me. Because if it really is just about the commute then you’ll only need to stay in halls from Monday to Friday. But I think the truth is maybe you should be there on weekends as well.”

  The pillow-talk-tucking-in routine had started way back before her sickness. Those months straight after her divorce when you’d stand in her doorway each night and just talk and talk and talk. Not about any complicated family-related crap – just about school or TV or the universe. You’d time it just before she switched off her lights. Harder to get the timing right now that you no longer lived in the same house. Previous night, you’d turned up too early. A mashup of mixed-up signals – couldn’t work out if she was asking you to stay the night. The nightcap, the negligee, the hints about early-morning visits from relatives. You offered to make her a mug of Horlicks instead.

  “Horlicks? Not even hot chocolate?” One of the living-room walls had just been repaired and redecorated. The paint watching her die. “I see – so now that you’re in student halls you only have time to drink with your student halls friends.”

  You gave her some sancti-sappiness about not being like all them others – the ones who pissed away their opportunities down All Bar One urinals.

  “Well then, you’ll be okay to have a little tipple with your mummy.” And again with the accents on her smile.

  Couple of weeks after you’d moved out, she’d made herself believe that it wasn’t her, it was just the sight of her in hospital you couldn’t stand. The high-tech wiring and the low-tech tubing. The G-clamps, the wax, the leftover forceps. The unsealable disposable gown. And so now that your living room had become a hospital room, she weren’t upset that you couldn’t s
tand the sight of her at home. Her pillow talks getting proper rambling not cos of meds or dementia or morphine, but cos she didn’t wanna think this through.

  She’d suggested the nightcap even before you’d started putting your coat back on cos you hadn’t even taken it off yet. Her wearing the negligee you once bought her for Mother’s Day. Lilac – satin lilac with a matching below-the-knee nightie. Only three times in the year when a guy can linger in a lingerie department without the sales assistants thinking he’s a pervert: Valentine’s, Christmas and Mothering Sunday. Weren’t even your mum’s most lingerie-like nightwear set – that would be her beige one. As she hobbled to the hallway, she reminded you of Yoda. You following but forgetting how to walk so slowly. After all, ain’t like you intended to knock into her. You grabbed both her shoulders to stop her from toppling, she swivelled round faster and hugged you tighter than shoulda been possible.

  “Mum, maybe it’s time for you to go to bed.”

  “Well, it’s been a very long time since you told me that, Dhilan. I’ve already forgotten what it’s liked to be tucked in.”

  “I only moved out like a month ago. Are you sure the doctors said it’s okay for you to drink? Like, will you be able to walk?”

  “Why – are you offering to carry me?

  *

  Now in the living-room-cum-bedroom, you tried telling yourself that the fact you wanted to move back home meant that moving out had worked – which meant that you shouldn’t move back. Moonlight from the patio like the ghost of a pillow, trying to smother her face.

  You’d positioned her bed directly opposite the sofa – your bed, her bed, whatever. The bed was opposite the sofa. Headboard in the place of a plasma television. Pakora crumbs and popcorn – the residues of rolling family gatherings. Your mum always texted to warn you before each consignment of complicated family-related relations. Just that week, the fifth carload of relatives from Birmingham since the last time she’d been discharged/ readmitted/redischarged. All along the M6 to repay or renew their penultimate respects. All the way, all of them saying what a bloody-asshole you were. SICK – ABSOLUTELY, HE MAKES ME THE SICK. THIS THING WOULD BE SICKENING EVEN IF SHE WASN’T WITH THE SICKNESS. Yes, better now that she doesn’t live a long life – otherwise one day that jerk would put her in an old person’s home as if he was white. BUT WHY HE CAN’T DELAY THE STUDIES? Because she says she wants him to finish his degree quickly – she wants to live to see his graduation photo. And now she says that he’s running his own business – that this is why he’s always so busy, busy, busy. BULLSHIT RUBBISH BULLSHIT! HIS MASI TOLD ME HE’S JUST A TYPIST. Yes – yes, yes, yes. He’s become a typist so he can sit with the miniskirt ladki secretaries.

  And then the exact same bullshit all the way back to Birmingham. All of them who’d dissed her when she’d got divorced and made out like her cancer was her karma. Rolling their eyes whenever she limped or coughed. All of them who’d been feeding her and holding her and wiping her and hugging her and probly hiring a dehumidifier to cope with her eye saliva ever since you’d fucked off.

  34

  “DADDY, WE NEED to talk about your stories.”

  Check my dad landing his tray on the table like some toy aeroplane. Some kinda L’Oréal bounce in his moustache. Check me telling him how thanks to the Happy Meal, McDonald’s is the largest toy distributor in the world – though I ain’t sure if that’s by volume or by revenue.

  “Your news stories, Daddy – the ones that are supposedly fake.”

  Now check me teaching Dad how to Instagram his Big Mac – cos otherwise his food won’t exist and he’ll starve.

  “Thanks very much for returning my cuttings book, Dylan.”

  Dad’s got chocolate today.

  Removes the lid from his cup like he’s waiting for his milkshake to cool down.

  “Look, Dad, if I had it then I’d give it back to you.”

  “Thank you for finally doing so, son.”

  “I swear down, if it shows up I’ll give it straight back.”

  “I’m very glad you did, Dylan. But you could have just brought it along with you now – you needn’t have biked it over by courier.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Steam rises from his milkshake. “You should let me reimburse you for the cycle courier. I know you have your data-entry income, but you should let me help you.”

  I tell him he knows damn well I didn’t bike over diddly nothing.

  “That’s a good one, son. I like how you use humour to defuse our differences.” Check his stripy drinking straw like a punchline into his face. “Just like that library borrowing slip you stuck inside the cuttings book, Dylan – that was a nice touch also.”

  “Okay, Dad, what fresh-brewed bullshit is this?”

  “It was very good of you to return it to me, Dylan. It was the decent thing to do.”

  I tell him it was no problem.

  Tell him it was a pleasure.

  Tell him to Instagram his milkshake or supersize cappuccino or whatever, his pint of Horlicks. Otherwise his beverage won’t exist and he’ll dehydrate. Young Carer’s Playbook #172: Gotta pick your battles cos your parent can’t pick theirs. Anyway, allow all this fuckery. Ain’t got enough memory space. And I ain’t meaning the voice memo app on my fone – today I’m packing a single-function, top-of-the-range dictaphone. Pop-out USB connection to pin his bullshit straight to my hard drive.

  “Daddy, we need to talk about your stories.”

  “Why all the fiddling with your jacket, Dylan? If you need to check your phone then go ahead.”

  Tell him I’m just checking I ain’t been pickpocketed.

  “Well? Has anything gone missing in the last thirty seconds?”

  Should’ve freed up more gigabytes. Erased last term’s lectures. Delete a pre-bereavement bereavement session, the secret recording of her crooning while croaking, the sounds of her smiling in her sleep. When Dad had finally shown up, I slipped the dictaphone into my shirt pocket, but like a dumbass I forgot to hit record.

  Before it got jacked from my student halls, I’d kept Dad’s scrapbook in the drawers beside my bed. His stories, my bedside; the clock saying half-past bedtime. Get it? Got it? Good.

  “Dad, we need to talk about your stories.”

  He looks at me like, sure, fire away.

  So I start hitting him up with the full download. Everything I’ve managed to puzzle out about his supposedly fake eyewitness quotes. Even catch myself reckoning myself – Hey Daddy, look at me riding my bicycle. That kinda thing. Cos if your daddy doesn’t see you, your bike won’t actually exist and you’ll fall flat on the fucking ground. Graze your elbow and your backbone. Apologising out of nowhere. Your teachers or line manager thinking you’re some dumbfuck chump. Every sentence you speak becoming some oil-slick egg-and-spoon race.

  But not today.

  I tell Dad how instead of googling his name, I been searching online for the names of his supposedly fake eyewitnesses. How I’d spotted them popping up in other stories – stories written by other journalists for other publications. “And here’s the thing, Dad: those other stories contained the word-for-word exact same eyewitness quotes that you told me you’d made up.”

  Wanna just leave it at that. Let my daddy fill in the blanks. Don’t let him see me crash.

  He asks me to please continue.

  “Well, I’m just saying that … Look, Dad, some of them other websites even posted video footage and audio clips.”

  For instance: “‘My family and I have been waiting at the airport for eight hours’, said John Smith, a blacksmith from Cheshire.”

  For instance: “‘They didn’t have any beds so they did the surgery in the corridor,’ said Anna Cook, a chef from Croydon.”

  “So the others had the same quotes and posted video clips. So what, Dylan?”

  “So I was just thinking that, well, you know, clearly you couldn’t have just made them up. All them eyewitnesses must’ve been for real and their quotes must�
��ve been genuine.”

  Now cupping his milkshake to warm up his hands. “I see. So instead of concluding that the whole dishonest news media must’ve been faking and fabricating things, you instead conclude that I’ve been lying to you?”

  “Well … yeh.” I sit back and work the logic again – just to be sure my conclusion is the blatantly bloody obvious one. Not too long ago, this shit would be open-and-shut. If everyone’s story is basically the same, chances are the story is true. Same shit goes for random eyewitness statements. Same shit goes for answers to random quiz questions. General knowledge, trivia, the facts of the fucking matter. But today this shit don’t feel so open-and-shut. Today it feels like open season on shut.

  “Look, way I see it, Dad, only way they could’ve all got the exact same quotes is if they all pulled out their notebooks and dictaphones and microphones in front of the same eyewitnesses – just like how they do in films. So you see, you couldn’t have just made it all up. Which means your fake stories ain’t actually fake.” I take a hit of my own milkshake. Emergency protein injection. “They had the exact same quotes,” I tell him again. “Word-for-wordbatim. C’mon Dad, work with me here.” Like as if I’d rather that he’d lied in all his stories and was therefore telling me the truth.

  “Dylan, first of all, I didn’t lie to you. Secondly, if I’d told you the truth, you wouldn’t have believed me.”

  “Okay, I don’t know even know what that means.”

  “The only thing that it can mean. That I’m telling you the truth when I say I faked all those quotes. But also that what you’ve since found out is also true: my fabrications somehow started appearing in other people’s stories for other publications. Except that in those other publications they weren’t trumped-up fabrications – they were genuine.”

  “Sorry, is that supposed to clear shit up?”

  “Actually, Dylan, I’m a very plain-speaking person. Believe me, I’m probably the plainest speaker you’ll ever meet. So let me speak plainly with you, son: what happened with my stories was a major paranormal phenomenon.” His face now somehow uplit by the downlights in the ceiling. “Either I was having premonitions of words that would later genuinely be spoken by genuine eyewitnesses. Or, by making things up, I was somehow making it come true – and all the other journalists on other publications were genuinely reporting that truth.”