A Suitable Lie

by Michael J Malone

  The shadow was probably just in my imagination.

  I told her that I was taking them to Pet Corner at a local farm park, where they could feed the deer and rabbits. I worried that Anna would renege on the deal and join us, so, instead of the farm park, I took them to Kidz Play.

  Where their Gran was waiting.

  Joy flushed Mum’s face as I walked towards her. She was holding her handbag tight against her body, as if practising the hug she would give the boys. Guilt scorched my gullet. I felt like the worse son alive to have deprived her for so long of their company.

  ‘How are my lovely boys?’

  She walked towards us with her arms outstretched. Her handbag fell to the floor. If I had been nearer, I would have been included in that embrace, but I held back, content for Pat and Ryan to receive my mother full beam. There would have been far worse things to endure at that point than an embrace from my mother, but I was afraid that my emotions might be too near the surface.

  ‘How are you, son?’ She reached up and touched my cheek.

  Inadvertently, I stepped back, but immediately regretted my response as a little of the heat was dissipated from her joy. Somewhat self-consciously, I bent over and picked up her handbag and passed it to her.

  ‘Shall we get a seat?’ I asked.

  She nodded and turned to face the bombardment of questions from Pat. Ryan, who hadn’t shared his gran’s company so much as Pat had, held on to my hand. His little fingers held me tightly, showing his alarm at his brother’s response to a relative stranger. Mum answered one of Pat’s queries and then turned to Ryan.

  ‘And how’s my favourite two-year-old?’ she beamed.

  Ryan’s answer was to hide his head behind my knee.

  ‘Don’t pretend you’re shy, Ryan Boyd.’ I picked him up and he buried his head into my shoulder as I remembered the last time that these two had met: six months ago at Ryan’s birthday party.

  ‘Gran, I can climb all the way to the top of that,’ said Pat, trying to reclaim some of the attention. He pointed at a large climbing structure that inhabited most of the space within the large, hanger-like building.

  ‘You are a clever boy,’ she cooed.

  ‘Pat, why don’t you take your brother into the ball pit and play with him for a while. Gran and I have a lot to talk about,’ I said. There was an inquisition coming and it would be better to get it out of the way.

  ‘Daaad.’ Pat let me know that he wasn’t completely enamoured of this idea.

  ‘Go and play for a wee while and when you come back we’ll have a Coke and some chips.’

  ‘Okay,’ he smiled. The parents’ official last resort: bribery. Worked every time.

  We sat within viewing distance of the boys at play.

  ‘Ryan’s really coming on,’ said Mum, ‘and Pat is turning into a wee heartbreaker.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  ‘You must be very proud of them.’ While I agreed with every fibre of my body, I considered Mum’s words. Her statement was something that a stranger might produce. I felt that it was something that a salesman might say after reading the How To Get On with Parents Guide. Had I driven her so far away?

  ‘Jim says hello.’ Her eyes didn’t leave the boys. ‘I told him that I was spending some time with you today.’

  ‘Right,’ I said noncommittally, as if I had just read the Parents’ Guide to Handling Salesmen.

  I watched her watching the boys. She hungrily took note of every action and I was struck by the thought that she looked like an expensive wool cardigan that had been put through the wrong cycle in a washing machine and come out slightly smaller and slightly faded.

  I prayed that concern about me wasn’t wearing her down. No, my mother was tough, she had come through a lot. Surely less of me in her life wouldn’t have such repercussions.

  ‘So.’ She faced me. I noticed the small but sharp intake of breath as she did. ‘What’s been happening with you, son? Tell me all your news.’

  ‘Nothing much, Mum. You know, work, nine to five-ish. Come home, play with the boys, sleep, work…’ I let my voice trail off. The washing machine’s cycle must have been tougher than I thought; the lines on her forehead were deeper than I remembered. My hand fell on to her forearm and rested there for a moment. ‘Just the usual stuff.’ I attempted a smile.

  ‘As long as you’re happy, son.’

  ‘Oh, I’m happy alright.’ Realising that I had taken my eyes from hers as I spoke and with the further realisation of how that might be translated, I continued, ‘How could I not be, with two such beautiful kids?’

  ‘I notice you didn’t include your wife in that.’ Her eyebrows were raised in sympathy.

  ‘Mum, Anna and I are very happy.’ My tone was harsher that I intended. I tried to soften the line of my shoulders. Relax, I told myself.

  ‘What has Jim been saying to you?’ I continued in the same vein.

  ‘Don’t get all defensive, Andy. Jim has said nothing. I do have eyes in my head and this brain might not be as sharp as it was, but I’m not a fool.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Where’s your wife today, Andy? Why isn’t she with you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Didn’t want to be in the same room as the in-law, is that it?’

  ‘Is that it? You think Anna doesn’t like you?’ I could handle that objection quite easily. ‘Anna thinks you’re great.’

  ‘Of course she does.’ Mum’s voice leaked sarcasm. ‘Don’t patronise me, Andy. I’m not in my dotage yet. I couldn’t care less what Anna thinks of me. What I do care about is why my son, after remarrying, doesn’t want me to be part of his life.’

  Ryan chose this point to fall and hurt his head. Hoping this would deflect my mother from the conversation, I rushed to him and spent more time putting him together again than I normally would. He was struggling to get out of my arms, to join his brother, while I was still kissing his forehead and saying ‘There, there.’

  ‘Tea and a biscuit?’ I joined Mum at the table.

  ‘Please,’ she said quietly. ‘Andy, I’m sorry…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I turned and walked over to join the queue at the food counter. When I returned, my tray was laden with tea and cakes for Mum and I, and soft drinks and fries for the boys.

  ‘I really am sorry, son,’ Mum said as I poured her tea.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I said, trying to hide my relief that she was going to drop the subject. Nothing short of a thumbscrew-wielding Spanish Inquisitor would make me divulge to my mother the mess that I was in. Mrs Boyd’s sons should be self-confident, capable, well-adjusted men. She hadn’t raised her son to be a weakling.

  ‘It’s not okay. I should know better than to interfere. I’ve always believed that I should let you both make your own lives.’

  ‘You haven’t interfered, Mum. You’re concerned about me and rightly so…’

  Alarm at what I said halted her cup about a centimetre from her mouth. ‘I’m right to be concerned?’

  Shit, I cursed inwardly. I shouldn’t have been so keen to appease her. ‘I mean … I would be concerned if one of my boys suddenly stopped coming to see me…’ Damn, I was shovelling myself quite nicely into a rather large hole.

  ‘You have stopped coming to see me and I am worried.’

  ‘You know how it is, Mum. Life just gets busy, it gets in the way.’

  ‘You’ve been busy before, Andy. You didn’t stop seeing me then. You’ve been married before. You didn’t stop seeing me then either.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t getting into that.’

  ‘What is there to get into?’ She leaned forward.

  I leaned back on my chair. ‘Nothing. Jesus, will you back off.’ The fact that she was stung registered somewhere at the back of my mind, but I had tapped into a well of frustration and couldn’t quite stop. ‘What is it with everyone? I’m fine, we’re fine, everybody is fucking fine!’

&nbs
p; ‘Fine, FINE!’ Her tone rose to meet mine. Then she pulled her lips tight and controlled herself with a deep breath. Now composed but undeterred she continued. ‘I’m sorry but you don’t look fine, you are not acting fine and as far as I can see everything is far from fine. You put on lots of weight – now you’ve lost it; you look … grey, and you’ve got shadows under your eyes that could block out the sun. All I want is for my sons to be happy and to play a part in their lives. If that makes me a bad mother then sue me. And don’t ever use that language to me again.’

  Her eyes held fiercely onto mine and I felt that I was twelve years old again. She placed her cup on the table and moved her hand to grip mine. I couldn’t move it away.

  ‘This job’s for life, Andy. Don’t expect me to stop caring just because you’re with another woman. I know that there’s something not quite right. You don’t want to tell me what it is? I have to respect that. What I don’t have to do is bow out when my son is in trouble.’ She applied more pressure to my hand. ‘My door is open to you any time, day or night. Let me help you.’

  The honest and raw emotion in her plea, nearly unmanned me. Salt stung my eyes and muscles bunched in my jaw as I fought to control myself. A deep, quavering breath filled my lungs before I could speak.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’ I could barely hear myself. I’d have to do better than that. I cleared my throat and went for The Oscar. Smiling, my words were much louder. ‘I’m fine, Mum. The truth is…’ I built myself up for the lie ‘… we haven’t been getting on that well recently.’

  ‘I knew it.’ She leaned forward.

  ‘The thing is … Anna wants another child. She’s desperate to try for a girl.’ She had mentioned that it would be nice, but only in passing. The most convincing lie is one that strays just a little from the truth.

  ‘Aww, pour soul.’ Mum sat back in her chair, her tension dispersed by my words. ‘I can relate to that after having you two big lumps. So why is that causing so much strain?’

  ‘It’s in the bedroom, Mum.’

  She flushed a little. ‘Right,’ she said as her eyes slid from mine.

  ‘I’m afraid to let things get too far in case…’

  ‘All right, all right,’ she held her hand up. ‘Enough information, thank you. Goodness, what are you like? One extreme to the other. First you don’t tell me enough, then when I get you to open your mouth, you can’t stop. A mother shouldn’t have to hear what goes on behind her son’s bedroom door.’

  While grinning at her discomfort, I congratulated myself on my story. Mum wouldn’t dare to ask me any more questions on the subject.

  ‘Well, that’s you sorted. Now I need to deal with Jim.’

  ‘What’s up with him?’

  She stuck a teaspoon in her coffee and stirred. ‘Don’t know if I should tell you, if he hasn’t.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum.’

  ‘Alright,’ she said quietly. ‘For two brothers who’re close, you tell each other nothing.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I felt a shimmer of fear on behalf of my brother.

  ‘Oh, he says he’s fine now that he’s on the happy pills…’

  ‘Happy pills?’

  ‘Prozac. Agnes at number 32 is on something similar. She says it’s calmed her right down.’

  ‘You talked to Agnes at number 32 about this.’

  ‘No,’ she replied, looking as if I’d slapped her. ‘Course not. I’m just saying that she—’

  ‘Enough of Agnes whatsername. Tell me about Jim.’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘He’s clearly not fine if he’s on Prozac.’

  ‘Says he feels a bit lost. Says he’d love to just give it all away and join a monastery.’

  ‘A monastery? Jim?’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she smiled. Grew wistful. ‘You know, when I look back at him, Jim was a thinker. He always was the deep one.’

  ‘Deep?’ I laughed. ‘Are we talking about the same guy?’

  Mum dismissed me with a look. ‘See you when you boys talk? Do you ever actually, you know, talk?’

  For the remainder of our time together that day the conversation was occupied by less contentious issues: the boys. Mum wanted to hear every little detail of the last few months: what they were eating, how Ryan was coping with teething, how Pat enjoyed having a little brother. While I answered her questions a weight on my shoulders gorged on the guilt that I was feeling and grew heavier with every word. I did want Mum to be in my son’s lives, I did want to see her more often, but the truth was that each visit was punctuated with a slap or a punch from Anna. She wanted me all to herself, I reasoned. The best thing to do was to limit those things that might cause a fight, and if seeing less of my family meant a happier, less threatened Anna, then that’s what would happen. The problem was seeing less of eventually became seeing nothing of. My Mum didn’t deserve such shabby treatment. I would have to do better and I would.

  I just wasn’t sure how.

  On the way home in the car, I worried that the boys might let it slip just who we had spent time with that morning. Sneaking behind Anna’s back would not be received well. Ryan would be fine, I was sure he hadn’t grasped just who paid him all that attention. Pat would have to be warned to say nothing.

  ‘Pat…’ I looked in the driver’s mirror into the back seat.

  ‘What, Dad?’

  ‘Do me a favour, son. Don’t tell your mum that you saw your gran today.’ Pain thudded just where my neck met my shoulder. I didn’t want to include my son in my lies, but it would make life easier for us all.

  ‘Why not?’ His nose lifted up closer to his eyes as he squinted quizzically.

  ‘Because Gran and I are planning a surprise for Mum.’

  Just then Ryan began to chant, ‘Ganny, ganny.’ He was still having problems with his r’s.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ said Pat, reading my worry that Ryan would give the game away. ‘Mum won’t know what he’s saying.’ The pain became sharper. Just how much was Pat aware of? ‘I know, I know, we’ll say my friend, Danny was there,’ he continued, excitement at helping us in the ‘surprise’ heightening the pitch in his voice. ‘Say “Danny, Danny”.’ He leaned over his little brother.

  ‘Ganny, ganny,’ was Ryan’s response.

  ‘Leave him, son,’ I said wearily. ‘We’ll just have to hope for the best.’

  ‘Wee brothers are stupid,’ Pat said, folding his arms in disgust.

  Feeling drained, I didn’t have the energy to correct him and we drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  Anna was waiting at the open door as I parked the car. My stomach lurched as I noted the set of her arms, folded tight against her body, and her legs, shoulder-width apart. Even from the car I could see the rage simmering in her expression. The acid content in my stomach raised another pH as I realised that she must have gone to the farm park to meet us.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ She waded down the path, her elbows punching the air behind her as she walked.

  ‘It was raining, so we went to Kidz Play. Why? Did you go to the farm park?’

  ‘Rain? What rain? And yes, I went to the bloody farm park. No bloody husband, no bloody sons.’

  ‘Relax will you, we’re fine.’

  ‘What bloody rain?’ She tilted her head back to peer at the cloudless sky.

  ‘Honey, this is Scotland. We are talking about two or three hours ago. Plenty of time for the sky to dump its load and then clear.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re a bloody weather man now?’ Her voice was barely audible. I was sure I could see some of the neighbour’s net curtains twitching on the periphery of my vision.

  ‘Let’s go inside and carry on this discussion.’ I herded the two boys up the path towards the front door. Anna followed.

  ‘What have you been up to, Boyd?’ she demanded. Once we were inside, I closed the front door and answered her.

  ‘Nothing, Boyd. I took our sons to the soft play because it looked like rain at the far
m park.

  ‘Oh, so it looked like rain. A moment ago the sky dumped its load.’

  ‘What’s with the third degree? The boys were at a different place than I told you. You weren’t even meant to be out there. You were supposed to be having the morning off. Last time I try and do you a favour.’

  ‘And it’ll be the last time that I let you have the boys on your own. You can’t be trusted to do what you say you will.’

  As Anna spoke, Ryan was tugging at her trousers still chanting, ‘Ganny, ganny.’

  Pat was leaning against the far edge of the settee, staring at the silent TV. He looked as if he was trying to fold in on himself.

  ‘Let’s not argue in front of the boys, love.’ My tone was conciliatory.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Anna was winding herself up even further, ‘Let them see what an arse their father is and how he can’t be trusted to take his sons out for the day. Can’t be trusted to tell the truth.’ Her saliva sprayed my face. She moved closer to me. So far she had never struck me in front of the boys and I was confident that she wouldn’t start today, so I stood my ground.

  ‘Liar,’ she hissed. ‘You men are all the same, fucking liars.’ Her hand snaked out and struck my cheek.

  Pat stood facing us with his eyes as large as his open mouth. Ryan ran to him, crying.

  ‘Anna, control yourself,’ I shouted. ‘Can’t you see that you’re frightening the boys?’

  ‘The boys, the boys,’ she mocked. ‘All you fucking care about is the boys. What about your fucking wife?’ Another slap. This time on the other side. ‘What about me? I’m the one you tell lies to. I’m the one who goes looking for you and thinks that you’re all dead in a car crash.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Anna.’ My head hung in shame. ‘I’m sorry, I should have phoned you.’

  ‘Too late for sorry now, you lying scumbag.’ Her knuckles connected with the side of my chin, a foot missed my kneecap and collided with the meaty flesh of my thigh.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Pat’s small body was between us. His face was twisted with fear, yet he stood his ground. ‘Dad took us to Kidz Play and we met my gran. He didn’t want to tell you because they were planning a surprise for you.’