White Goods

by Guy Johnson

  ‘I’m glad you came, please come in,’ she had said, inviting me in, offering me a coffee. A little too eager to please me, to ingratiate herself; the effect of so many years of feeling guilty, I guess. ‘I want to say so much to you,’ she continued, once we were settled in the lounge of her small flat. ‘I’ve finally sorted myself out – I’ve had to, what with this little one’ – she indicated the boy – ‘and Jackie leaving us again. Been having therapy at that hospital you saw me at. Trying to get sorted. And I’m sorry. For what happened. I’m really sorry.’

  And that was how it started: an invitation, an apology and an introduction. I guess Shirley had only herself to blame for what would follow. I began to visit them regularly, asking Shirley to talk more about her treatment, about how sorry she was, telling her it was good for me to hear, like a therapy of my very own. She said she had seen me about, saw Rory and Jim attacking me that day at the crematorium. Had wanted to help, to make up for what she had done, but had been too afraid to intervene, to approach me.

  ‘I’m so glad that you came to me, that you’ve given me a second chance.’

  The visits allowed me to get to know the boy as well – my nephew, as she referred to him, but I had a different thought in my head. He was my vengeance. He was her offering to balance the scales; words were not enough. But I let her think they were. It secured me further invitations to the flat, where she provided me with coffee, information and time to calculate my next move.

  There were two vital pieces of information that led me to the opportunity I needed: her appointments were occurring fortnightly on a Wednesday afternoon at the hospital; she left the boy at the flat on his own during these occasions.

  ‘I know he’s only four,’ she excused, ‘but he’s very sensible. I’ve no one to leave him with. Unless…’

  I declined, politely. ‘He hardly knows me. I don’t feel comfortable.’

  ‘No, no,’ she replied, a little deflated, as if our relationship hadn’t quite developed in the way she had hoped.

  ‘Maybe when I get to know him a little better?’

  Several weeks later, after watching her leave the flat for her latest session, I approached 5 Chelsea Gardens and knocked on the door. Tiny feet padded up the hallway and then the letterbox was slowly opened by little fingers. Seeing it was me, a huge grin split open his chubby infant face and seconds later, I was inside.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Uncle Ian, he asked, as I marched him along the road, in the direction of the crematorium.

  Several police cars sirened past, followed by an ambulance, and I wondered for a second if they were meant for us. Had she discovered him missing and made the obvious conclusion; fearing the very worst, had she demanded the full attention of the emergency services? Yet, the convoy of urgent vehicles sped ahead of us and turned off right. We turned left: cutting through the crematorium, taking the short cut to the hospital where both our mothers were seeking recovery and, no doubt, a sense of forgiveness and peace.

  ‘What is in there?’ he asked, looking up at me, his questioning eyes huge with innocence.

  Death, I wanted to say. Death is in there, and any minute now, you’ll stare it in the face.

  Within five minutes, we were signed in, the nurse had left us and I was doing the one thing that I knew would kill Shirley White. I had introduced little Jackie to his living-dead grandmother; the living-dead grandmother who would smother him with love, who would offer him a sense of familial adoration Shirley White wouldn’t be able to compete with. I was also certain she would – one day – tell him everything that had happened. How his mother had ruined Jackie’s life, my life, everyone’s, how she was bad through and through, how she had done this to his grandmother, who had done nothing but love, love, love.

  There was a certain thrill, coming here when Shirley White was also resident. Knowing that I could bump into her, that she could bring it all to an end. But the biggest thrill was the knowledge that she thought the place was doing her good; that it was a place full of help. That it was the making of her. In fact, if all went to plan - as she completed her therapy session in another part of the hospital - it would be the very breaking of her.

  ‘And who is this little charmer?’ Mum said, grinning, more alive than dead on this particular day.

  ‘This is little Jackie,’ I told her, sitting in her guest chair, the boy jumping up on my trusted lap. ‘This is your grandson.’

  I saw a glimpse of cloud grey her already pallid complexion; a moment of dark thought that passed quickly.

  ‘Did you know, I’m allowed out again,’ she said, suddenly sparky; her eyes shone and colour flushed in her cheeks. ‘We could go for a walk. Would you like that, Jackie? A nice little walk in the gardens with your nan?’

  He shrugged, a little shy, a little in fear of this zombie relative who had abruptly entered his life.

  ‘You just have to ask permission,’ she said directly to me. ‘Could you ask the nurse, whilst I find my jumper, fix my hair?’

  ‘You okay here with Nan?’ I asked him. He shrugged again. When I stood up, he simply took my place on the chair. ‘I’ll just be one minute.’

  I was nearly ten minutes. I had to walk all the way back to reception to find someone who was able to help me with Mum’s request. The nurse who escorted me – unlocking and re-locking doors as we went – knew nothing about such requests. After checking through Mum’s file and making a telephone call to a more senior member of staff, the truth was revealed: Mum remained a securely held patient; there would be no nice-little-walk-in-the-gardens.

  By the time I was back in her room, Mum and Jackie were gone.

  24.

  I couldn’t just do nothing. Not forever. It was bad enough that I had stood back and watched my best friend and his siblings demolish two lives. They weren’t innocent lives, but they were still lives. I couldn’t just pretend that it hadn’t happened. There were witnesses, living witnesses. Witnesses the now-rabid Tankard trio might have gone after. And I was one of those witnesses.

  Seeing Ian and the little boy up ahead of me had been a distraction. But when I lost them, turning into St James Road, there was nothing left to divert me from what was necessary. I was left with questions, yes – but that wasn’t sufficient; that wasn’t excuse enough.

  Halfway along St James Road, there was a red telephone box. I didn’t have any change, but I wouldn’t need any for the call I had to make. I didn’t leave my name – just a location and a vague reference to what might have occurred: a beating at the derelict house, just across from the crematorium, people screaming. Then I hung up and walked along St James Road, turning into Victoria Avenue.

  The extent and nature of my loss would take a while to hit me. Mum, Nan Buckley, Sylvie, even Jackie, who I would never meet: all gone, more or less. But it didn’t stop there: Justin, Sharon and Stevie-the-little-shit, Uncle Gary, too; all gone away and all affecting me and my life. Rory and Jim: more loss, but complex loss. For now, it was just numbers: a body count. But eventually, when the numbness lessened, when the consequences and the feelings took their place at the front of things, the loss would strike me. Sorry for your loss. The loss, despite its very nature, would be for keeps.

  Once home, I went up to my room and took off my parka. I never wore it again. It hadn’t protected me at all. It was full of false promise; as false as the lies I had woven around Mum’s whereabouts, as false as pretending I didn’t understand the way adults spoke to me. A false skin, easily shed. Like all the other white lies I had surrounded myself with, it no longer served a purpose.

  With my parka off, I perched on the edge of my bed and waited.

  In the distance, I heard the sound of sirens.

  25.

  A fortnight later and I was setting out on a journey: physically and mentally. Walking a path from 45 Victoria Avenue to a destination I knew very well. Only, on this occasion, things were different. Some things had been lost; other things were gained.

  And everything ha
d changed.

  ‘You want me to come with you?’ Tony had asked, as I set out on my quest.

  Tony, that was new. Not Dad, but Tony.

  ‘Should I still call you Dad?’ I asked him, the night he told me the truth.

  ‘Scotty, I’ll always be your dad. Nothing has changed.’

  But that wasn’t true. And I’d tried pretending that nothing had changed before, when Mum left us, but that hadn’t worked out. It hadn’t helped with anything. Best to be honest.

  ‘Think I’ll call you Tony, though,’ I said to him, and if he was hurt at all, he hid it well.

  ‘You have to do what feels right, Scotty. I understand that.’

  And calling him Tony felt right.

  ‘You definitely okay to do this on your own?’ he asked again, on the day of my mission. ‘I could walk there with you.’

  ‘I know the way,’ I reminded him, and he finally ceased fussing. It occurred to me at the last minute what his real concern might be. ‘I’m definitely coming back,’ I told him and his shoulders relaxed, a soft half-smile semi-circled on his face.

  ‘Okay. See you later.’

  The truth finally came out the night the Tankard kids were arrested. At least, the night two of them were. I’d been waiting for something to happen for hours. Waiting on my own, wondering if making that call to the police had been the right thing. It wasn’t the Tankard way, after all. But I wasn’t a Tankard, was I? At least, I wasn’t yet; that would come a bit later.

  Della was the first to return home that day. Skulked in and took herself off to her room; there was a whiff of boyfriend trouble about her demeanour, so I left her be. Ian was next. He looked stressed and flustered, as if he had lost something, which he had. He had lost the boy. And it turned out he wasn’t just any boy. More loss that I would have to deal with. Ian kept it all in, though. There was no mention of the boy or visiting Mum that evening. All that came out another time.

  Tony was the last one home and there was pain in his face, pulling down his skin, making it appear to hang off his jaw-frame.

  Me and Ian were in the back room, watching TV in silence, both waiting for something to happen. Della was still in her room, a boom of music marking her territory.

  ‘Get your sister,’ Tony said to Ian, sitting in one of the arm chairs, putting his head in his hands, exhaling in bulk, squeezing all the air from his lungs with one, mighty push. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

  When Della was back in the room, Tony switched off the television and said a line that would begin a long night of revelations:

  ‘Steven and Sharon Tankard have been arrested,’ he told us, looking at me most of the time, guessing I would be the one most affected. ‘They’ve killed some boys, Scotty. I’m really sorry.’ Looking right back into his eyes, I could see they were rimmed with red and the skin surrounding them was patchy, sore. ‘A terrible thing, I know.’

  ‘Who?’ Della asked, the only one of us who appeared curious for this fact. If he noticed, Tony didn’t say.

  ‘They’ve been identified as two boys from Ian’s year. Not at school any more. They attacked Justin a few months ago. Scot, Adrian thinks you might have seen this. The police might want to speak to you, but we’re not saying anything. We’re not involving you, okay?’

  I nodded, accepting his words, but my mind was elsewhere.

  Steven and Sharon Tankard have been arrested, he had said. Just two of them. What about Justin? Why hadn’t Justin been arrested? I wanted to ask the question, but I couldn’t, could I? It would reveal my role as voyeur of their crime. So, I kept back my questions and hoped they would be answered in time.

  Tony took in another abrupt breath and held it for a few seconds, before letting it rush out. He was stalling; there was something else coming.

  ‘Dad?’ Ian asked; there was panic in that tone. I thought about the boy I’d seen with Ian. Had something happened to him? Was Ian expecting to hear something about that? ‘What is it?’

  When he spoke, Tony didn’t look at Ian; he looked at me.

  ‘I don’t know everything that has gone on today. I don’t know who’s involved with what. But there’s been a lot of things said over the last couple of days. A lot of anger and tears. And some lies. Some covering up.’ All the time, he was looking at me with those reddened eyes and they began to magnify. He was crying. ‘Scot, we need to tell you the truth. Need to tell you what happened to Theresa. What happened to Jackie.’

  Referring to her as Theresa should have been the first clue; it wasn’t. I just thought it was odd, but nothing more. But saying the other name – saying Jackie – that made me alert. It was the first time it was volunteered to me; the first time he’d said it with the intention I’d hear.

  ‘Dad-.’ Ian cut in, but Tony held up a flat hand, silencing him instantly.

  ‘Just remember, that whatever I tell you, whatever is said here tonight, that we all love you very much. Always have. Nothing has changed, okay?’

  I nodded, very slowly, fearful of what was to come. I looked at Della and Ian. Ian was looking into his lap. Della smiled, flatly. There were tears in her eyes too.

  ‘Is Mum dead?’ I asked, thinking it had to be that. The answer I got wasn’t quite what I expected.

  ‘Yes. Your mum is dead, Scot,’ Tony began, leaning towards me, his features and his voice softening in tandem. ‘But she died a long time ago. You see, Theresa isn’t your mother. At least, she’s not your birth mother.’

  As this revelation made its way from Tony’s mouth to my ears, and from my ears across to my brain, I looked around and tried to take in what I now saw. Looked at my no-longer family. I saw a father, a brother and a sister who were no longer that to me at all. Who were they then? Who were these people I had been living with for the last thirteen years?

  ‘Who am I?’ I asked, a simple question that was repaid with a complex answer.

  Within an hour, I knew it all. My mother – my birth mother, as Tony kept referring to her, as if giving birth was her sole contribution to my life – had died just after I was born. Killed by a hit-and-run just outside the Chequers public house. Emma, that was her name. Emma.

  So why had I come to live with them? What relation was I to my no-longer family?

  ‘Theresa is your grandmother,’ Tony said, answering several other questions in the process. If Mum was my grandmother then… ‘Jackie was your father.’ Was. He said was, not is. We would come back to that. Still taking in the news of my parentage, I looked around the room again and reassessed the familial connections. In place of siblings, I saw an aunt and an uncle. I remembered something Uncle Gary had said: Jackie was Mum’s first born, but not Dad’s. Not Tony’s. ‘Who is my grandfather?’ I asked.

  I so wanted it to be Dad, to be Tony. And I knew from the pain in his eyes, the strain in his features that he wanted it too. His not being my dad or granddad had another consequence: Nan Buckley wasn’t mine, either. I’d felt all that sorrow and loss for something that wasn’t mine after all.

  ‘Theresa was very young when she had Jackie. Too young to marry. Her own parents were furious and ashamed, didn’t want her to keep him, but she insisted. Was headstrong. She did keep Jackie, but they didn’t stay together. Her and-.’

  ‘Adrian.’ I interrupted, said it for him. Adrian Tankard was my grandfather. Fragments over the last few days were piecing together, making a fuller picture.

  ‘Yes,’ Tony conceded. ‘Yes, Adrian is your grandfather, Scot.’

  ‘And you? Who are you?’

  He didn’t have an answer; just a shrug and a face creased with years and sorrow.

  My mind had to work quickly, re-thinking my history. One family was lost, changed, another gained and yet also lost. Justin, Stevie-the-little-shit and Sharon: two uncles and an aunt. All lost to me, though; their violent actions from earlier that day guaranteeing that. Uncle Stevie-the-little-shit and Auntie Sharon arrested; the fate of Uncle Justin still undisclosed.

  ‘I know this
is a lot to take in. I know we should have told you, but we thought we were protecting you.’ Tony didn’t say from what but I knew: they were protecting me from Jackie. And maybe Mum had been protecting me from the Tankards, from their trashiness, from a past she was ashamed of.

  Mum; not Mum anymore, but Nan.

  ‘Scot, do you want to take a break?’

  I shook my head at him.

  ‘No, I don’t want to stop. I want you to keep telling me,’ I insisted, feeling shaky, feeling a little sick, too. It was a lot to take in, Tony was right on that. It was too much, far too much and my mind was awash with so many different fragments from so many different conversations, events and memories. Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed; again. But I couldn’t let it stop; not until it had all been laid out before me. They might reconvene and change their minds; or worse, change the story of my life again.

  I had so many questions, so many recollections to unravel, to re-take, to re-think. Families to re-name and families to discover, too. I needed to know who my mother was. So far, she was just a hit-and-run victim called Emma. But this wasn’t my first concern. It wasn’t the question burning away most urgently. My most pressing need was regarding him.

  ‘Why didn’t I live with him? Why did I live with you guys?’

  Tony and Ian shared a brief look; a look that said there was history to tell.

  ‘He just agreed it was best, Scot. Best for everyone. Best for you.’

  ‘Didn’t he want me?’

  Another look between father and son.

  ‘Trust me, Scot, it really was best,’ Tony said, doing his utmost to reassure me, but not answering my question. I decided to move on to another one instead.

  ‘What happened to him?’