Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist

by John Young

  Chapter 32

  The Meaning of Silence

  Emma welcomes me with a hug. Good old Emo. She always knows what to do. She wasn’t annoyed when I left Stornoway without warning, she’s just happy I’m back. I relish how just being near her calms me down.

  Not surprisingly, I was shaking as I walked to her house. The row over my parents’ refusal to tell me the truth about Dad now seems unimportant, but it’s distracting. And distracting is good; I need a distraction from the impending doom of the Room 9 letter. Silly really, like hitting your toe with a hammer to take away an ache in your head.

  I scream inside with the frustration of it all, but Emo’s hug is like honey on a sore throat and for those few moments I feel the euphoria of nothing. For now.

  “That’s still a bit big for you.” She laughs at Gumbo’s sweater.

  “I’ll grow into it,” I say, even though I know now that I won’t grow into anything any more. I remove the orange sunnies, which I’ve taken to wearing constantly to hide my black chemo-rimmed eyes.

  Her mum interrupts with a “Hi, Connor.”

  I say hi in reply. We chat for a bit and she goes off to the kitchen. Emma isn’t wearing her usual dark make-up and she looks great. I tell her that and she smiles and reddens. She really does have a lovely smile. I tell her that too. She doesn’t look comfortable with compliments. I guess that’s part of the reason for her emo outfit, to hide behind something. I can understand that, but I have the urge to tell her good things about herself while I have the chance. The prospect of early death lets me do this without fear or embarrassment, as if the bad news has released all my inhibitions, which is a surprisingly good feeling. I notice too that she’s no longer pulling her sleeves down as if to hide her hands. It’s as if she’s coming out of a chrysalis, changing into something new and beautiful. I’m changing too, but I don’t like what I’m changing into.

  She plugs her phone into a speaker system and plays Simple Minds. “I like your mum’s taste in music,” she says and I smile. “I played this a lot while you were away.”

  “Sorry Emma,” I say.

  “What for?” She looks at me strangely for calling her Emma. I don’t care, I’ve had enough of nicknames and I don’t think Emma should hide behind anything. I tell her that too.

  She reddens again and says thanks.

  I shrug. “And thanks, for all you’ve done for me.”

  “Don’t be silly, ya numpty. Drink?”

  “Just water,” I say. I feel surprisingly calm. I have to tell Emma about the letter sometime, but just want to talk about normal stuff for a while, before the tears. “I heard from Skeates.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “He’s still in Aberdeen, with his mum. Seems to be turning his life around.”

  “Talking of Skeates, Soapy and the Trolls have been doing their nut about you and him.”

  “So I hear, but those losers are the last of my worries,” I say. “With me back on the chemo and Dad home, I haven’t given them a thought.”

  “How’s your dad coping?”

  “He seems to have settled in. He has to report to the polis every day and wear a tag. Apart from that it seems weirdly normal now to have him around. Even after him being away for so long.” I let it all pour out – the distraction. “I just wish they’d tell me why they wouldn’t let me see him. It really jars. They gave me some shit about it being tough inside, but I didn’t believe them. It feels like he’s embarrassed about why he was in there, some deed that I’ll hate him for. I wouldn’t hate him for anything he did though, I know he would’ve had good reasons. Not knowing only makes me feel worse. Like everybody knows something personal about me that I don’t. That’s why I came here,” I lie. “Well, that and to see you. You always say the right thing.”

  She looks embarrassed again at another compliment. “Oh no, Connor, I’m so sorry. Just, whatever you need…” she stumbles over her words. “Come here whenever you want.”

  I smile.

  Emma places her hand in mine. “It doesn’t seem right for them not to tell you.”

  “Can you try telling that to my parents?”

  “Maybe after everything settles down they’ll open up? Everything must be strange and tough for them too.” She smiles and the darkness disappears. “But they should know better.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right. I mean, they’ve spent a lot of their lives in institutions. That can’t be a sign of people who should know better!”

  We each give a sad laugh, which is interrupted by Emma’s mum coming in with a tray of biscuits and orange juice. Emma reddens slightly and thanks her mum in Gaelic.

  “Are you OK, Connor?” her mum asks.

  I nod. She makes good eye contact with me before going. In that brief stare, I can see that she knows I’m not OK. She asked the question to show she cares and to make sure that I know it, but she won’t push it further and I love that about her.

  “Your mum is cool,” I say.

  Emma nods.

  I peel off my hat. “What do you reckon, should I keep my hair like this?”

  She smiles.

  “So, what’s the next step with treatment…?”

  Even before she finishes the question my face tells her the answer. For a few moments we stare at each other. I can see water slowly building in her green eyes. A little blob appears in the corner of her left eye, it gradually swells like a tiny balloon, then it drops, spills down her cheek. Her right eye soon follows. She still hasn’t moved or blinked, she doesn’t even wipe the tears away. I watch, mesmerised. I wish I was here to make her happy.

  Emma puts her arms around me again and we hug and cry for what seems like for ever. She keeps hold of me until I stop. Eventually she sits back, but as she does so a button on her shirt catches the edge of my nasal tube.

  “Aggghhhh!” I shout and move after her to stop it pulling at my insides.

  We fall in a heap on the floor and start laughing. Our faces are close and I can’t pull away, the tube still caught in her button. At once we stop laughing and don’t move. That feeling returns and I see her as something else, something more than a friend and it scares me now. She has a look in her eyes that says she felt something too. It makes me feel vulnerable and terrified. She reaches up slowly and unhooks the line from her button, without taking her eyes off mine. I sit back slowly, knowing that something great has just happened between us that I don’t understand.

  “Sorry,” I say with a forced laugh. “I couldn’t face that tube having to go back in again.” I sit back, thinking that it wouldn’t have mattered if it had come out. It’s not like I’ll need it again.

  She passes me a glass of juice and stares as I gulp it down. I stop snivelling and dry my tears. I feel better for a good gurn, lots of bottled-up stuff had come out. Strangely I feel elated too, a feeling I haven’t had since I was an outlaw.

  But it’s tinged with a massive sense of disappointment. I don’t know how to explain it to her, but from that moment I know I have so much more to lose. I think of all the stuff I won’t get a chance to do. The friends that will live without me, the girlfriend I’ll never have, the future that isn’t there. I try to put it into words. “You know when you’re about to go to a party and you get sick and your mum says you can’t go?”

  She nods. “Yeah?”

  “I feel like that, except magnified a billion times. Everyone else, everyone I care about and love, is waving happily at me as they go off to the future party of their lives while I’m going nowhere for ever. It feels like…” I can’t think of the right words, “…out-of-control, cold, desperate disappointment.”

  She laughs in surprise at my use of disappointment to describe my impending doom.

  “I know disappointment isn’t the right word, but that’s what it is – hollow, empty, a feeling of hopelessness, loss of opportunity, of being left behind.

  Emma, I’m scared, like really, really scared.” Emma takes my hands in hers and stares at me in silence. I
can see tears building in her eyes again but their progress is halted by the phone ringing downstairs. We hear her mum answering it.

  “I’m so sorry if I’m making you miserable,” I say and I mean it. I feel guilty that my need for her support eclipses the pain I know I’m causing her.

  “Don’t be such a bamstick, Connor! I’m chuffed that you’re here, I’ll never know anyone like you again.” She’s properly crying now.

  Emma’s mum comes up the stairs into the room. She hesitates when she sees our teary messy faces and looks at us with concern. “The phone call is for you, Connor, it’s your mum. She says it’s urgent.”

  Emma and I exchange glances. I follow her mum downstairs and take the receiver. I breathe deeply. “Yeah?”

  “Get back here, please, now.” Her voice is really edgy, unsurprising really.

  I don’t want to go home yet. I want to spend as much time with Emma as I can.

  “What for? I’ll be back later, Mum—”

  “Shut up, Connor!” Mum’s voice is panicked, which isn’t abnormal; but there’s an unusual edge to her tone that stops me from continuing. “Your friend Skeates is here… with a knife, threatening to harm your dad, so just get home. Now!”

  She hangs up. I drop my hand and look at the phone cradled in it.

  “What’s up?” asks Emma.

  “Skeates… says he’s going to stab Dad or something.”

  “What? I thought you guys were friends! You said he was in Aberdeen!”

  “I know.” My mind is racing. And I said life couldn’t get any worse. “I’d better go.”

  “Don’t go, Connor, I’ll get the police.”

  “No! Dad’s on probation.”

  She tries to stop me and I snatch my arm free from her grip.

  “I have to go, Emma. I don’t have a choice.”

  I hobble out of the house. She doesn’t follow but runs to her mum. I limp-jog my way home. I don’t falter at the entrance and crash through the front door into the living room. The scene that greets me is like one from a film: Mum and Dad on the sofa and Psycho on the other seat with a big knife.

  It takes a few minutes for anyone to say anything. I stand at the door goldfishing them all, and notice a fresh scar down the side of Skeates’s face.

  “I saw my mum, Taytie,” he says. It’s a shock to hear him speak to me like that again – and using the name he knows I hate. It’s enough to make me regain control of my voice.

  “What are you doing here? Put that thing down.”

  “You should let me finish. You know my patience isn’t too reliable and you clearly don’t know the full story. Like why your dad went to jail. Do you, Connor? You haven’t a clue. They still haven’t told you. And no wonder.”

  I look between Skeates and my parents for an explanation.

  “My mum was none too happy about me turning up, having put all this behind her. She met me anyway. I was dead excited, even though she’d legged it and abandoned me. I thought time would’ve healed things. I chatted to her and acted all happy, like a stupid gullible little loser.” He’s getting more and more worked up as he speaks. “I wasn’t expecting her to move back here or anything, but I sort of hoped she’d keep in touch. So I told her what has been going on. She didn’t have a clue, hadn’t read the news of the crash at the roundabout. She doesn’t speak to anyone on the island any more. She’s all full of laughs until she hears that I’ve been away with you.”

  Nothing makes sense. I can’t hold Skeates’s stare.

  “Look at my face, Connor.” He points to the scar, fresh and nasty. “She hit me with the toaster.”

  “I… I don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think she did it?”

  “’Cause she knows you’re a prat?” I say; in reaction to Skeates’s return to his old character I have to retaliate.

  He laughs. “She hit me because he is out,” he points the knife at Dad, “and because I’m friendly with you.” He points it at me.

  “What have we got to do with anything?” I ask.

  “Hey, tell him why you were in prison.” He nods to Dad. “Go on. He’ll find out soon enough, like I did. Go on, tell him.”

  I look to Dad. I know that whatever he’s done will make no difference to how I feel about him. It won’t justify why Skeates is here with a knife, threatening my family. I try to make it easier on him.

  “You can tell me, Dad. I don’t care what you did. I’m just glad you’re home.”

  It takes a few seconds before Dad speaks.

  “I killed his dad.” He points to Skeates.

  I can’t say anything.

  Dad continues with his confession. “I killed him with my bare hands. Believe me, that takes some doing. That’s why I was in prison.” He nods towards Skeates. “It’s not really surprising that the boy’s wound up.”

  Chapter 33

  Sins of the Father

  Just a few weeks ago, I hated Skeates – more than anything. Somehow, within a few days he became my best mate, an empathetic pal who would have done anything for me and me him. But we no longer have a common denominator: my dad’s here; his dad’s gone. Now the hatred is back, with justification to stoke the vengeance. This time though, neither of us can be blamed.

  I recall the words of that church sign and look at Dad. I haven’t moved since returning to the house. Skeates is rigid too, still clutching Soapy’s knife.

  “Why did you do it, Dad?” I still haven’t accepted that he killed Skeates’s dad, despite his confession. I look to Skeates and back to Dad. Then to Mum, who’s terrified.

  “His name was Morrison,” Dad croaks.

  “What happened?” I scream.

  “Colin Morrison, that was his dad’s name. I didn’t know he had a son.”

  I remember Skeates telling me he didn’t have his dad’s name, that he barely knew him.

  “Morrison was a nutter. Always pissed all hours of the day and fighting in the pubs.”

  Skeates’s hand tightens around his knife, but my dad continues.

  “Most people kept their distance – I was told that the week we moved here. Morrison would drive home in a state no matter how wasted. One day he took a short cut via the park access gates, which were open to allow the bin collectors in.”

  I suddenly realise where he’s going with this story. My hands start to tremble and I stare at Skeates. Mum lets out a little whimper and I look up to see tears dripping down her face. She’s had one shocker of a week, that’s for sure.

  “He raked across the park up towards the ice-cream van. Erica ran out, not looking where she was going. She was only a wean.” He stops and stares at me. “You know what happened after that, son, don’t you?”

  I don’t answer, but look at Skeates in a new light. He’s staring down at the floor now.

  Dad isn’t finished, he keeps his eyes on me. “My temper was always hard to find, but even harder to stop once it started. I was grieving…” He hangs his head. “I confronted Morrison in the street. We argued and he laughed. Then he admitted it – he was so pissed he didn’t know who he was telling. I had no control over my response. We fought, and well, he came off the worst and I got banged up for culpable homicide.”

  “Homicide.” Skeates spits the word. “You murdered him!”

  “Aye, son, I felt like I did. But to onlookers it seemed like one of Morrison’s typical bar brawls gone wrong. Murder is a legal term and the courts sided with my lawyer’s arguments – that Erica had just died and I wasn’t in my right mind, and that the fight was started by Morrison. I went along with it; I was sad, angry and didn’t want to go down for life.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “I thought Erica’s killer was never found?”

  “The polis didn’t have any evidence at the scene, but I knew it was him. Only one person round here could be so callous as to drive drunk through a children’s park in the middle of the day. When he told me to my face, that was it. I took justice into my own hands.”

 
Skeates snorts in disgust. He’s shaking uncontrollably now, but I can’t take my eyes off Dad.

  “I refused to see anyone for four years after that,” says Dad. “Even your mum. I had to persuade her to visit after a while. Don’t take it personally. I just didn’t want you to know, I didn’t want it to affect your life – there was a court order out to protect you. I didn’t know Morrison had a kid.” He nods towards Skeates.

  My mind is piecing the last week together. “You bastart Skeates! You knew all along, that’s why you gave me such a hard time at school.” I move to jump him, I don’t care what he does, but he just bats me away. “Was our trip to Shotts all some sick joke at my expense? Get me on side so you can make me watch while you kill my dad?”

  “No, Connor. I didn’t know anything about this. Mum thought if I didn’t have the same memories as her, the past wouldn’t affect my life. But you can’t hide something like this for ever, can you? Silence never stays quiet, it always comes back and bites your arse.”

  I notice something unusual in Skeates’s actions. Every day we were away he surprised me with his scheming on how to resolve dead-end situations. Right from our first conversation before the Children’s Panel, his whole chat was intended to string me along. The escape was planned methodically, well before we scrambled out the toilet window; his trip to Slots-o-Fun was organised on a day when the Trolls shouldn’t have been there; he stole those car keys knowing full well he would be using them. He gave me his phone at the prison knowing that I would charge it in case he called. He didn’t do anything unless he’d thought it through, right down to sneaking into the nightclub. The difference this morning is that he’s stuck for direction. His appearance at our house with a knife is spontaneous, without planning or forethought. For the first time since I’ve known him, he’s confused.

  I wonder if he’s more dangerous now. Shining through all his apparent uncharacteristic behaviour is the old aggression, which had been disappearing bit by bit each day we were away. I think all this in a fraction of a second whilst staring at Soapy’s shiny blade. Adrenaline is an amazing thing.