Life, Interrupted

by Damian Kelleher

  ‘Morbid,’ Polly corrects him. ‘Okay, let’s go for cheerful and uplifting then, shall we?’

  But the more they read, the more depressing the poems seem to get.

  ‘Why don’t you read something that you liked at school?’ says Uncle Stu, standing in the doorway, drying a saucepan with a tea towel. ‘Something you associate with your mum. Something that made her happy.’

  ‘I know!’ says Jesse and he runs upstairs to his room. He emerges a few minutes later with an old exercise book.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ he says. ‘I read it out for class assembly in Year Four and Mum said it made her cry.

  The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

  In a beautiful pea-green boat.

  They took some honey, and plenty of money,

  Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

  The Owl looked up to the stars above,

  And sang to a small guitar,

  “O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

  What a beautiful Pussy you are,

  You are,

  You are!

  What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

  ‘It was my favourite poem,’ says Jesse, holding up the dog-eared exercise book. ‘Look, I even drew a picture of the Owl and the Pussy-Cat.’

  He passes the book to Uncle Stu.

  ‘You don’t think it’s too babyish, do you?’

  ‘I think it’s perfect,’ he says. ‘And if your mum loved it, that’s all the more reason to read it out.’

  ‘Yes!’ says Jesse, punching the air as though he’s scored a winning goal.

  chapter twenty-five

  ‘What’s he look like?’ says Jesse. ‘Is he that tall spotty bloke over there?’

  We’re standing outside the Holy Cross church, and Jesse’s craning his neck round the pillars in the church porch, trying to work out which one is our father (not the one who art in heaven, the one who art down here on earth). He’s pointing at one of the hospital porters who must be about eighteen.

  ‘No,’ I say patiently. ‘I can’t remember what he looks like, but it’s definitely not him. That’s Joe who works at Gospel Park.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Jesse, screwing up his eyes. ‘I thought I recognised him.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ I say. ‘We’ve talked to Joe loads of times. He always used to give us chewing gum when Mum wasn’t looking.’

  Jesse is screwing up his eyes. He probably needs glasses.

  I’m not altogether sure our dad has shown up after all. Trouble is, there are a lot of people we don’t know, so he could be any one of a number of possible suspects.

  The church is packed and after the service everyone empties out slowly on to the forecourt at the front where the hearse is waiting. Nobody rushes round at funerals, I discover. Everyone takes their time. Uncle Stu is walking about kissing and hugging people, saying, ‘Thank you for coming’ and, ‘Are you coming back to the house afterwards?’ and shaking hands. Most of the crying seems to have stopped now, although I can still see the odd Kleenex being dabbed about. I’m worried for a moment that Mrs M might have turned up, but I scan the congregation and can’t see any sign. She’s probably busy knitting tea-cosies or whatever it is she gets up to during the day. A couple of undertakers are loading the coffin on to the hearse, and Jesse’s football is propped up beside it, next to a posy of anemones with my poem attached. There’s a big pearlyended steel pin piercing the envelope that’s been impaled through the middle of the flowers, binding the two together.

  It got a bit hairy in the church at one point. Uncle Stu was giving a speech about Mum (his eulogy as he had been calling it for the past few days) and he was just saying that ‘her sunshine smile warmed all our lives’ when he started getting choked up. He almost went into emotional meltdown, but he stopped a moment, cleared his throat, took a deep breath and finished his piece before returning to his seat. I wanted to clap but I didn’t think it was the done thing in churches, and probably never at funerals. As he sat down, Polly, who was seated to his left, rubbed his arm as if to say, ‘You did well’ and, ‘Phew, that’s over’ all in one, and Uncle Stu reached out for Jesse’s hand (he was sitting on the other side). Then the next hymn started up. It was Jesse’s choice.

  Bearing in mind that Mum had said she didn’t want anything too gloomy, he’d chosen ‘Kum Ba Yah’. Now I have a sneaking suspicion that Mum couldn’t stick ‘Kum Ba Yah’. I seem to remember on one occasion when we were in church and ‘Kum Ba Yah’ kicked in, complete with acoustic guitar and tambourine accompaniment, she sighed loudly and said, ‘Not that ruddy hippy anthem’ under her breath, but Jesse was singing away like the clappers (he reckons they sing it sometimes on the terraces at matches but they change the lyrics to something less godly), so I just shut up and sang along, if that’s not a contradiction. I’ve still got no idea what it means. Probably something filthy in Swahili.

  Freya comes up to me and gives me a big hug from behind while Jack skulks around us. Both sets of parents are hovering on the sidelines, and Freya’s wearing a canary-yellow sundress and a pair of gold ballet pumps. It’s so bright I almost wish I was wearing sunglasses, but not like the ones Freya is wearing. They’re huge pink stars that cover half her face. ‘You look very, er . . . summery,’ I say.

  ‘Well, I thought this was meant to be a celebration,’ says Freya. ‘You distinctly told me your mum said no black.’

  She raises an eyebrow, and looks at my jacket accusingly.

  I’m wearing a smart jacket that Uncle Stu and I bought from Top Man two days ago. I’ve never had a smart jacket before and I’m thinking we really should have got the bigger size as it’s pinching a bit under the arms, but I don’t suppose I’m going to wear it again anyway. It’s not exactly going to conjure up happy memories. I suppose I could always drag it out of mothballs for work experience if I get desperate and I manage not to grow in the next year.

  ‘It’s blue,’ I say, ‘not black. It’s navy blue.’

  Freya gives me one of her sideways glances that says ‘same difference’ but she doesn’t take it up again. Jack is wearing his parka which looks a little out of place at this time of year, but at least he hasn’t got the hood up.

  ‘Are you coming to the cemetery?’ I ask. Jack looks at Freya.

  ‘She is. I’m not,’ he says.

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘Cemeteries kinda freak me out,’ says Jack. ‘You know, vampires and that . . .’

  I can see Freya grinding a gold ballet pump into his toe and Jack says ‘ow’ a little too loudly in his cross voice.

  ‘I’ll come,’ she says, ‘if that’s all right with you? I’ll leave David and Angela here to make their own way home, though.’ She looks over her shoulder. Freya’s parents smile sympathetically. They look a bit lost, as though they’re desperate to get away. ‘They’ll only get . . .’ she pauses, ‘. . . upset.’

  I nod.

  As we’re climbing into the back of this super-sized Seventies Daimler, Freya scans the horizon like a bird of prey and whispers, ‘Which one’s your dad?’

  I whisper back, ‘I can’t really remember. He did leave six years ago, you know.’

  ‘Well, you must have some photos of him knocking around the house.’

  ‘Mum burnt them all,’ I explain. ‘Well, I think she scratched his face out first, then ripped them up, and then burnt them.’

  ‘Ooh,’ says Freya, drawing in her breath dramatically. ‘Sounds acrimonious to me.’

  ‘There’s loads of room in here,’ says Jesse. For once he’s right. I imagine in some parts of the world whole families inhabit a space a fraction of this size.

  ‘Is Dad here, Uncle Stu?’ Jesse asks.

  ‘Yes, he’s here,’ says Uncle Stu. ‘He was sitting a few rows behind us.’

  ‘He could have said something to us,’ says Jesse. ‘It’s not very friendly, just ignoring us like that.’

  ‘Hey, come on,’ says Uncle Stu. ‘It’s a bit tricky right now. I’ll call hi
m over after the . . .’ he pauses, and his voice goes all quiet, ‘. . . interment.’

  ‘The what?’ says Jesse.

  ‘Burial,’ says Freya. ‘After the burial.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ he says.

  And he does. We’re walking away from the grave, like a school snake of mourners. There’s Mia and Andy walking beside me, and Uncle Stu is next to me and Jesse’s on the other side. Polly and Luiz have come too, and they’re walking behind us with Freya, and there are more friends of Mum, some of whom go back years that I remember her talking about but I’ve never actually met.

  Uncle Stu is looking a bit spaced out, but I suppose he’s had a lot to take in. Polly skips up behind him as we approach the cemetery gates where the big black vulture of a Daimler is waiting to fly us back home, and she hooks her arms through mine and Uncle Stu’s.

  ‘It’s like the Batmobile,’ says Jesse.

  Polly rubs Uncle Stu’s shoulder.

  ‘You look as though you need a drink,’ she says.

  Suddenly, Jesse remembers and starts shaking Uncle Stu’s sleeve.

  ‘Which one is he? Our dad?’ he demands.

  Uncle Stu turns round and puts his hand up against the sun and I can see a man walking on his own, slightly apart, smoking a cigarette. And now I look at him, there is something familiar about this bloke, the way he walks, some sort of memory that seems to be rising up to the surface. He looks shorter than I remember somehow – though he’s about six foot – and a bit older, but as I haven’t seen him for years that’s not surprising. He’s got floppy sandy-coloured hair, a bit like Jesse I suppose, and as he looks up he sees Uncle Stu pointing him out to us, and we three start walking towards him.

  ‘Hello, Stuart,’ he says to Uncle Stu, holding out his hand to him. ‘Good to see you. Well, I mean, sorry it’s not happier circumstances . . .’

  ‘Ian,’ says Uncle Stu in acknowledgement, taking his hand and shaking it.

  Dad (seems weird calling someone you hardly know ‘Dad’) takes a drag on his cigarette, then flicks it away.

  ‘Thought I’d given those up,’ he says in a soft Scottish drawl. ‘First thing you reach for when you get bad news, isn’t it?’

  He looks at me. I’m thinking, he’s got a Scottish accent. It doesn’t sound that Scottish when he phones.

  ‘How are you, Luke? All right?’

  It’s not a stupid question really, he’s just talking to fill the gaps.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Jesse pipes up, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looks up at him.

  ‘Of course I do,’ says Dad. ‘I was there when you were born, you know. Both of you.’

  ‘Haven’t been around much lately though,’ I say. I didn’t mean it to come out like that – it sounds really hostile and bitter – and he looks at me and does a sort of smiley-sighy thing, and says, ‘No. No I haven’t.’

  ‘Will you come back to the house for a drink?’ says Uncle Stu.

  ‘I’d love to,’ says Dad, ‘I could do with a drink. But I’ve got to get the train back, Stuart. Jasmine’s working tomorrow and I’m looking after the kids.’

  He means his other family, his real kids. We’re his old life, the one that doesn’t count any more.

  ‘I’ll call you for a chat next week, lads,’ he says. ‘Find out how you’re going, how things are settling down.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’ll be nice.’

  Yeah, I’m thinking. That’ll be the day.

  ‘We’re in the finals,’ says Jesse. He seems desperate to make some kind of connection with this bloke. The man-formerly-known-as-Dad gives him a gormless look that says, ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re going on about.’

  ‘Football,’ says Jesse by way of explanation.

  ‘You playing for the school team, now?’

  Jesse nods proudly.

  ‘We’re in the finals,’ he repeats.

  ‘That’s great,’ he says. ‘I’ll want to hear all about it next week when I call.’

  We’re just outside the cemetery gates now, and we have to get into the Deathmobile to take us home. I suppose we could offer him a lift to the station – the car’s big enough – but we don’t. I don’t really feel like it’s my place to do the offering, and I think Uncle Stu has other things on his mind. I think he’s fretting about whether the two catering packs of sausage rolls he bought yesterday are going to be enough to go round.

  Dad says, ‘Bye then’ and starts walking away from us, towards the station, reaching inside his pocket for his mobile phone. Or maybe another fag.

  ‘Do you think he’ll call?’ asks Jesse.

  ‘Oh, I reckon he will,’ I say. ‘Five minutes next week then we won’t hear from him again till Christmas.’

  ‘What are you up to tomorrow, Jesse?’ asks Freya, who’s coming back with us in the car. ‘You’ve had a good break from training now. It’s time to get back on the horse.’

  ‘What horse?’ says Jesse. ‘We’re not riding, are we?’

  ‘No, we’re not riding,’ says Freya. She’s always quite patient with Jesse. He’s one of the youngest in his year and he’s not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. Unless you’re counting players or comparing league tables, in which case he’s as quick as a calculator. ‘That’s just a saying. We’re jogging tomorrow morning, and practising turns. Seven-thirty at the rec. If you’re late you’ll do double press-ups.’

  Jesse doesn’t say anything. I don’t suppose today’s been easy for him, and he’s not done any training with Freya since Mum died.

  ‘I saw Duane Whatsit at the rec the other day,’ says Freya, casually. ‘Running with Shav, he was. Getting a bit speedy, I’d say.’

  She turns away and looks out of the window. I like her style.

  ‘Seven-thirty,’ says Jesse. ‘I’ll be there.’

  chapter twenty-six

  ‘Get off me now!’

  I’m kneeling on top of Jesse’s chest, desperately trying to hold his arms down while he’s thrashing about, doing his best to topple me.

  He’s red in the face and looks like he’s ready to burst, like an overripe tomato.

  ‘Sod off, you big bully!’

  Uncle Stu suddenly comes bursting into the lounge, hauling me off my brother.

  ‘Okay, okay, time out, lads,’ he says, as he deposits me on the sofa. He’s quite strong, is Uncle Stu. Because he manages to pull me up with one arm and keep Jesse where he is with the other.

  ‘What was it this time?’

  Jesse is crying now in fury – he hates it when I pin him down – and he’s got snot hanging out of his nose as he gets up. Disgusting. He starts trying to wipe it away on the sleeve of his grey school jersey, and he snivels as he wipes.

  ‘It’s Luke. He’s picking on me again,’ says Jesse. ‘He’s always having a go at me. It’s not fair.’

  He’s really bawling now, and I can tell he’s about ready to blow his top.

  ‘Why don’t you leave me alone, you . . . you . . . bastard!’ he screams and runs out of the room and up the stairs.

  Uncle Stu looks at me and sighs.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you two are getting on so well,’ he says. ‘What was it about this time, Luke?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give me the TV remote,’ I explain. ‘He knew I wanted to watch Hollyoaks. He’s just winding me up constantly.’

  This is true, I tell myself. He’s always trying to rile me, talking about his stupid football and singing his silly soccer songs and trying to hog the remote when it’s my turn to watch the telly. I’ve almost convinced myself.

  ‘Arguing over a daft soap, for God’s sake,’ says Uncle Stu. ‘You don’t even like Hollyoaks, Luke. You’ve got to get along, you two. I was going to go out tonight, but I can’t exactly leave you on your own if you’re going to start killing each other.’

  Uncle Stu looks at me. It’s been two weeks since the funeral and I can see him thinking, I shouldn’t have said that.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘
You don’t have to get embarrassed every time you mention death or dying or killing, you know.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not very sensitive of me,’ says Uncle Stu, sitting down next to me on the sofa and running his fingers through his hair. ‘You and Jesse have just lost your mother and I seem to have the happy knack of raking up death every five minutes.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I tell him. ‘And I’m sorry about the fighting. I suppose it’s our way of saying we’re back to normal.’

  ‘Normal?’ he says, sounding exasperated. ‘If bashing seven shades of shit out of each other is normal then God help us. I am trying to get a job at the moment, you do realise? If I’m working during the day, I’m not going to be around when you two get home from school. I don’t fancy wiping up bits of bone and blood off the carpet every night, thanks very much.’

  ‘How did your interview go today, Uncle Stu?’ I ask him.

  He gives me the sideways look. This reminds me of Mum, but I’m not going to mention that. It’s his way of saying, I realise that’s a not-very-subtle subject swerve but I’m going to ignore it. I figure they were quite alike, Mum and Uncle Stu. I wish I’d seen them together a bit more, but it wasn’t easy with him being up in Manchester.

  ‘Listen, kiddo,’ he says, ‘I think it’s time you dropped the “Uncle”.’

  I look at him, alarmed. What’s he mean, drop the ‘Uncle’? What are we meant to call him? Mum?

  ‘Now I’m looking after you,’ says Uncle Stu, ‘I think we can be a little less formal, don’t you? It’s Uncle Stu this, Uncle Stu that, every five minutes. Which is fine. But you two aren’t kids any more, and I’m not exactly the Werthers Original type.’

  I see his point. The constant Uncle Stu-ing was starting to irritate me too, to be honest. Somehow it doesn’t sound so bad when you’re tacking ‘Mum’ on to the end of every sentence, but ‘Uncle Stu’ is a bit of a mouthful.

  ‘What do you want us to call you?’ I ask. Please God, don’t let it be ‘Dad’, I’m thinking.

  ‘Well, obviously nothing obscene,’ he jokes. ‘Stuart. Stu, if you’re feeling friendly. It is my name, you know.’