by Dan Tyte
Something hit me hard and wet on my right temple. A horn sounded. There were bare chests and goggled faces for as far as I could see. All throwing, all dodging, all screaming. Tomato flesh was everywhere. The gutters ran red. I sank to the cobbled floor and the juice washed over me. It tasted familiar. My body sank. Underneath the liquid, I could hear a knowing, vindictive laugh.
The alarm went off. It was 7.01 a.m.
It was the weekend, which meant I didn’t have to drag my bones out of bed and try to revitalise myself with a cigarette in the shower (there was a knack to it, trust me), before heading off to massage the truth for money. Oh no, today brought a different walk through the valley of the shadow of death: a visit to my mother’s house. Well, not strictly just my mother’s house. My mother and Barry’s house. Their little shag-pile-carpeted, feature-fireplaced, trinket-strewn love nest. You’d think I had other affairs to attend to on my day off; correspondence to catch up on, petunias to prune, a sedan to wash, wax and polish, or a church hall bring-and-buy sale to co-ordinate. Well, I’m afraid all that was going to have to wait. It was their third wedding anniversary (denoted by leather, I dread to think of what they bought each other) and I had to go and bathe in their second-marriage smugness. I had to. There was no getting out of it. Was there? Could I not concoct an excuse? An embarrassing ailment that called for careful quarantining? No, I said I would go. I’d been a disappointment enough. I said I’d go.
My mother and Barry lived in an anodyne, soulless suburb. It was the kind of place social climbers moved to be away from the foreigns and the traffic and the late night noise and the drugs, but all they were left with when they got there were shit CD collections and each other. It was the home of pooper-scoopers and swinger’s parties, right-wing newspapers and patio heaters. It was everything they thought they’d ever wanted, all those years ago in the dark, damp rooms of their distant youth. This was progress. This was each generation doing better than the last. Evolution needed a revolution or we were all going to be watching a Blu-ray in surround sound or at a cheese and wine party when the computers finally took over or the aliens came to fuck us up, whichever comes first.
‘How’s that lovely couple you live with, love?’ said my mum, flicking the bangs of her too-young hairstyle behind her ear.
‘They’re good, Mum, really great,’ I lied.
‘Must be a bit queer living with a couple mustn’t it, Bill?’ said Barry. Fat-faced, receding hairline, no soul, spawn of Satan, Barry.
‘Well, I lived with my mum and dad and they were a couple, Barry.’
‘Don’t be smart, son,’ said my mum. I bit my lip. ‘I wish you could find something like that.’
‘I do most nights, Mum.’
‘Oh, Bill.’
Barry bounced off his stool and strutted around the kitchen island to the ice dispenser in the fridge door, like a cockerel with rickets and a paunch. He wore black jeans, far too tight for his figure or age, and a black vest which revealed formerly muscular, currently flabby, hairy arms. Colour was provided through peroxide flecked liberally throughout his gravity and fashion-defying spiked haircut. His bouffant had been eroded on both sides by the wash of an existence in the lowest common denominator ‘entertainment’ industry, leaving a sad spit of hair on the top of his head.
‘Do you want some nibbles, love? We’ve got some of that hummus in. Barry can’t get enough of it. He’s got such an exotic palate.’
‘I’m okay, thanks, mum. I wouldn’t want to spoil the roast.’
Vasco de Gama would turn in his watery grave if he saw my mum’s cupboards. Their shelves stocked not a sniff of a spice or a hint of a herb. My mum was a somewhat simple but effective cook, steeped in the tradition of stodge. Barry had designs on a higher station but, as with everything he tried, his voyage to the vanguard of cutting-edge cuisine came to a halt about 10 years before the present day. Hummus? How retro. We wouldn’t have fed that to the Morgan & Schwarz dog.
‘Okay, love. We can go into the posh room if you like, seeing as how it’s a special occasion and all.’
‘Of course, Mum. Did your card come in the post?’
‘No, love.’
‘NO? I could bloody throttle my secretary. And no flowers either?’
‘No, love.’
‘I expressly told her to… oh, look, it doesn’t matter does it, Mum? I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay, love, I know you’re so busy. The fact you’re here is all that counts.’ I’d post a card on Monday.
‘I know, Mum. We’re so slammed in the office at the moment that I’m working most weekends.’
‘Well, I hope they’re paying you double-time, love.’
‘Something like that, Mum.’
‘It really is a shame you can’t make it tonight, love. Barry’s booked a Motown tribute act – The Four Degrees. There’ll be five when you get up with them won’t there, Barry, love?’
‘I’m not sure about the equipment and acoustics in the club, babe, but I’ll give the old lungs an airing after a few shandies, no doubt. Just like old times…’
Now don’t be drawn in by his nostalgia bullshit. Old times, my fucking arse. Costa Del Sol karaoke bars still looked shit in sepia. That was Barry’s Everest: running five-time weekly sing-along sessions in the sun, playing the Sonny to a revolving saloon door of desperate divorcée Chers. Which, yes, as you’ve guessed, was where he met my mum. Four years ago today. They married 365 days later. She’d been drawn in by the glamour, the attention, the chance to be in the spotlight and on the stage. My dad had barely put her on a bus. It’s hard to know if they were over over when she fell for Barry’s bum notes. In truth, they’d never even got started. My dad was distant and drunk, or drunk and distant. After a while it was better for him to be the latter, Mum and me got along just fine when he was out of the picture. The house was better without his brooding, boozing time-bomb around the place. You never knew when he’d be back to explode. He didn’t give warning calls like the IRA. When I thought about it, really fucking thought about it, you know, objectively, I suppose in some ways Barry was better for her. Probably. At least he was there. And when he was there, he wasn’t out of his head.
But I hated him.
Why?
He made my mum happy, something she’d only known fleetingly before. I hated him because – without getting all Holden Caulfield on you – he was a phoney. He had one dogshit song in the charts 40 years ago, and then pressed play on a tape deck and hogged a mike until his crow’s feet kicked in. To call him a failed rock star would be a disservice to failures. But at least he tried, I suppose. My dad was trying, but he never tried, not at anything worthwhile. Maybe I hated Barry because he wasn’t him. And, slowly, little by little, I was.
My mum went back into the kitchen. I looked at Barry. He looked at me. She reappeared with three glass dishes. This wasn’t a roast.
‘Now, I know you said you didn’t want to spoil your roast, but I’ve done a prawn cocktail. I know how you like prawns.’ Christ, she was doing her Christmas menu. She’d bring me in some socks and a body spray and shower gel gift-pack any minute now.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘You’re welcome, love.’
The silence we ate in was broken only by Barry’s chewing. Some Thousand Island dressing dribbled onto his chin.
‘Remember Jessica Jennings, love?’
‘Who’s that, babe?’
‘No, not you, Barry. Bill, remember her, love?’
‘Vaguely, Mum, vaguely.’ I remembered her alright, she lived on our street. She was fat and ugly then. She’d be fatter and uglier now. Time was no one’s friend.
‘Vaguely? Gosh, Bill, you practically grew up with her. Well, she’s coming tonight. She’s been teaching English in Japan you know. She doesn’t even speak Japanese.’
‘Don’t get me started on the Japanese, babe. Do not get me started. Mean, horrible little gits. Pardon my French. Very cruel people. Very cruel. They were heartless in the war, and the
y’re heartless now. I mean, what’s a bloody whale ever done to them?’ Barry finished, and stuffed a prawn in his mouth.
The rest of the meal passed without much more incident. Mum trying to fatten me up, Barry playing the ageing glam rocker flirting with the far right, me just being, well, not me. I left the table and took a walk up the stairs. I still had some things, old books and records mainly, that were stored in their spare room. It was comforting to thumb through old things: a song, a sentence, a sentiment could take you back to another time, another place, another life. I liked it. Maybe needed it.
From the top of the stairs I could see their bedroom door was open. It might as well have been Pandora’s Box. Silk sheets and tiger print scatter cushions. I couldn’t help thinking this was a house where old people had sex. I was sick a little in my mouth. A prawn swam in the bile. I went into the bathroom, spat it down the plughole and rinsed my mouth out with water. The toilet seat called me. A shit. That’s what was needed. There was something comforting about shitting in your mum’s house. It felt like childhood. Not the fact that she was there to wipe your arse if needs be. Just the fact that she was there, and you were taking a dump, and she didn’t give a fuck or judge you because you used to live inside of her stomach. After that, anything went. And the toilet paper, unlike at Craig and Connie’s, didn’t feel like it could take a coat of paint off the door.
I had some of my most meditative moments while sat on the can. The porcelain provided an escape from the maelstrom of modern life. Some much needed me time, which admittedly was used mostly to read shampoo bottles. With the diet I enjoyed, it was best not to look down at my work. Think Jackson Pollock goes New England autumn. I clocked off the job, washed my hands and stared at my reflection in the glass cabinet. Why did the smell of my own shit not make me puke? The scent was reassuring, alluring even. Maybe that’s why my life was spent trudging through my own shit. I needed a new fragrance, and quick.
I opened the left hand side door of the cabinet. A head made up of half a bloodshot, bags-under-my-eyes face and half a collection of pills and potions sprouted off my neck and stared back at me. It was as if the mirror had X-ray specs and saw through my skin into the substances that whirled around inside. I slammed the door shut. Even my weary expression was better than some sci-fi vision of my insane inner workings. The apothecary belonged to Mum. She’d been a med-head for as long as I could remember. Life with Dad had written a prescription as long as the weekly big shop list. I snatched a foil packet. The label read ‘Citalopram’. I popped two little white ones. I could have done with a few Thin Lizzys before coming to visit love’s middle aged nightmare.
As they waved me off, I felt a pang of guilt about pinching the pills from my mum. She was going to need a fucking shipment to get through tonight.
Chapter 10
‘Gold. It’s a great thing to have in your portfolio, especially in times of crisis. It really is the most tangible thing you can trade at the moment. But what do I know? I’m only listening to the so-called experts. So, there I was in the jewellers the other day trying to value some of Mother’s old rings. You know what the lady in the shop told me? Buy a sovereign, put it under your bed and forget about it for a couple of years. It’s a very sound investment right now, if you’ve got the money, that is.’ Pete was in microeconomic mode. The only sovereigns under my bed had fallen off the fingers of the single mothers I’d fucked from the rough side of town. Quite why Pete was advising me on investments was anyone’s guess. I didn’t have the money. Or at least I would have had the money if I didn’t blow it all on the weekend. I’ll have the money again on the 28th of the month. And the 28th of the month after that. And after that. But I’ll never have the money. Not for comforts like that. Gold. Stocks. Shares. Holiday homes. Retirement funds. Nest eggs. Nothing for a rainy day. How do you save anything for a rainy day when it’s always fucking tipping down?
Something tells me I could have done with an umbrella for this afternoon’s session with Christy. I could barely tie my shoelaces, yet I was being entrusted with the pastoral care of an over-the-top attractive life-damaged girl. I didn’t know where the nearest fire exit was, or how best to contact Human Resources, and I was definitely not equipped for issues and tissues. If anything, the fact I had been charged with Christy’s care was recognition of the fact I managed to just about hold it together in front of the other drones. That, or there was a rota. But I was going to take all of the positives out of this that I could.
Christy, Christy, Christy…
‘Yes, Bill.’ Damn, no inner monologue.
‘Oh, hi Christy. Good to see you again.’
‘I saw you earlier, Bill.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes, I was on reception, of course….’
‘Because that’s where you work,’ I cut in.
‘You got it. You kind of shuffled past at nine-ish. You said hello but looked a bit distracted.’
‘Ah, sorry. I was…’
‘Late? stressed? hungover?’
‘All of the above,’ I answered.
She laughed.
‘I can see this is the kind of place that can get to people. You know, stress them out. I don’t know if Jill’s going to bite my head off or stroke my face. And I was sure I saw Pete counting grains of sugar onto a spoon yesterday afternoon.’
‘The pressure of working at one of the city’s top public relations agencies can affect us all in very different ways.’
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘But more than anything it makes me laugh.’
‘They say it’s the best medicine,’ I replied. ‘It just makes me angry.’
‘I’m not taking it that seriously, Bill.’ When you’ve been through what I’ve been through, she didn’t add to the end of the sentence. Her red hair was tied back today. With her fringe out of her face, and her bangs behind her ears, her eyes took over her face, big and smudged black with make-up. They looked like they’d seen more and lived longer than the taut skin that clung to her cheekbones. Experienced beyond her years, but not necessarily in a nice way. Plus she looked like she’d been up half the night. And I should know what that looks like.
‘And so you shouldn’t. There are more important things in life,’ I said. Unfortunately I was still struggling to find them. ‘But anyway, this isn’t about me. You’re not my buddy, erm, well I hope you are, can be, but I’m your buddy, so I’m, erm, meant to be helping you, not you psychoanalysing me.’
‘Were we psychoanalysing you?’
‘Well, I kind of was,’ I said.
‘Well, you got to the heart of your feelings about this place a lot quicker than any of my previous experiences of that crock of shit.’
‘Go on…’ I said. This I wanted to know about. What had she been through? Could I help her? Could she help me?
‘No, it’s boring. Look, can we just get on with this? I’m tired.’
‘Late night too?’
‘Yes, it usually is, but not having the fun it looks and smells like you had.’ I smelt myself. I stunk of gin. I knew that had been a bad idea.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that. It’s my brother, he’s not sleeping so well. He’s been having these night terrors. They really upset him.’
‘I dreamt I was being chased by a giant killer tomato the other day. Maybe I could talk to him.’
‘No, it’s fine. We’re fine. God, why am I even telling you this?’
‘Because it’s better than talking about work,’ I said. Because you want me in your life, I meant.
‘Is it? Work’s an escape for me.’
‘So are things with your brother that bad then? Can’t your parents look after him?’ I was fishing. And using a ton fucking weight as bait.
‘Sorry?’ She looked peeved. ‘I’ve already told you my dad’s as good as dead. Well, to us at least.’
‘I’m sorry. And your mum?’
‘She is dead. Actually dead. It’s always just been me and Joe. Even when Dad was around. It was so mu
ch better when he wasn’t.’ I looked out of the window of the interrogation room. Through the Venetian blinds I could see Miles perched on the end of Carol’s desk. He had a hacky sack in his hand and was throwing it skywards with his right hand before catching it with his left; his platinum bracelet, a gift from Kira’s latest modelling assignment in Tokyo, catching the light. Carol was doing all she could not to flinch every time the ball was thrown into the air. She wasn’t facing us but you could see it in her shoulders.
‘Can we just talk about work?’ Christy said.
I didn’t want to talk about work. ‘I know how you feel,’ I said.
‘What, tired?’
‘No, with your dad. I told you mine was dead. He died recently. Not long ago. Well, that’s when he was pronounced dead, but his heart stopped a long time before that.’ I looked up at those huge eyes to see if this was too much or out of line. She didn’t look like she pitied me. Or was scared of me. This was a rare occurrence. I went on. ‘He was a lot like your dad sounds. There. Not there. Not there. You being glad he wasn’t there but scared shitless that he’d come back.’
‘That sounds about right.’
‘I’ll never forget one time. I was about seven or eight. Young. But old enough to sense an atmosphere, to know when things weren’t right. I was in bed but didn’t sleep well in those days. Well, I’d yet to discover a few drinks before bed. I could hear this commotion downstairs. Nothing too sinister, just raised voices, familiar voices. I got out of bed and crept towards them. I didn’t want them to stop, I wanted to know what was being said, what was going on; maybe this would answer why things had been weird recently. I tried to edge the door ajar slightly so I could hear a bit more. They seemed to be talking about a woman called Maria. I didn’t know any women called Maria. There was a girl in my class called Maria, but why would they be talking about her? The door creaked and the voices got louder and directed towards me. I looked up to see a missile coming towards me and my dad’s face all screwed up and red. Really fucking red. I managed to dodge it but hot tea scalded my leg through my pyjamas. A commemorative Charles and Diana china mug had scattered around me into a hundred pieces.’