The Artificial Anatomy of Parks

by Kat Gordon

  “I don’t blame her for going back to him,” Uncle Jack is saying. “Not really. She was scared and alone, and, out of all of us, Eddie’s the nicest. And maybe Viv was right, maybe she never stopped loving him anyway, the whole time we were together.” He stops and takes a cigarette out. “And then she watched me… ” He’s trying to light the cigarette but he’s shaking again. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says. “Guess I’m not as hard as I look. I just… ” He closes his eyes and a tear squeezes out, “I fucking adored her. And you. Or at least, the idea of you. I just keep thinking it was going to be so different. That’s all I think about, really. How my life was meant to be so different.”

  He takes a long, harsh breath, then he’s quiet and all I can hear is a hum in my ears.

  “I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but… ” He gestures to himself. “… Evie told me I’d ruin it for you two, then Eddie said he wanted to look after you, he said I’d do a shitty job. They gave me the money to disappear, and I guess I couldn’t really say no, the state I was in.”

  I feel a rush of conflicting feelings when he says this – so Edward actively chose to keep me, after all, even if he did a terrible job of making me feel wanted.

  Uncle Jack wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. And he wanted me too. “But Malkie… When he said he knew where you were… He said you wanted to see me… ”

  “Jack,” I say, and then I can’t go on.

  I can hear Toby running up the stairs as soon as I’ve buzzed him in, then he’s pounding on the flat door. I open it so suddenly he falls in, then has to grab me to stop me from falling too.

  “What happened?” he asks. His face is inches from mine; I feel calmer suddenly, in the face of his panic. My dad is not my real dad, I tell him, and watch him try to process it.

  “What?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is this… The one who had a heart attack?”

  “He’s my uncle,” I say, “but he was actually with my mum before she and my other uncle – my real dad – went out.”

  “Wait,” Toby says. He sits down at the kitchen table and pulls me in front of him. “Start again.”

  “I just saw him.”

  “Your…?”

  “Uncle Jack. My real dad.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “I told him I had to go to work, I couldn’t deal with any more revelations. And then I texted you.”

  “It’s a pretty big fucking revelation.” He circles his arms around me. “How are you feeling? Do you think you’ve taken it in yet?”

  “Wait, it gets better.” I can feel myself grinning, stupidly. Don’t fall apart now. “I also found out that Uncle Jack got into a fight with my grandad and my grandad had a heart attack and died and Uncle Jack – my dad – went to prison for manslaughter.” I drop my face into my hands. He’s going to run away if you tell him any more of this shit, I think. “It’s just a fucking mess,” I say, and then I start crying.

  “Tal,” Toby says, softly. He pulls me onto his knee. I press my face into his chest, letting the sobs break and subside. The cotton of his shirt is sucked away from his skin and towards my mouth with every deep breath inwards; I can hear his heartbeat.

  “No wonder you’re so fucking crazy,” he mumbles into my hair.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m joking.”

  I blow my nose on a napkin. “Sorry, I got mascara all over your shirt.”

  “I really need to stop wearing them around you,” he says, and I grin for real. “So, do you wanna talk about it?”

  “Where do I start?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  I blow my nose again. “What do I say to him now I know? If he wakes up. Do I bring it up? Do I wait for him to tell me?”

  “Bring it up.”

  “But he clearly didn’t want me to find out.”

  “Well maybe it was your mum’s idea to keep it a secret.”

  “Maybe.” I dunno how I feel about that, either.

  “And this was why your dad was weird with you when you were younger – is that what you think?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Actually, he was fine until Jack showed up.”

  “And then what?”

  “Maybe when Uncle Jack turned up, he thought my mum was going to leave with him and he was so scared of losing us he was horrible to us. Or maybe he was angry… I don’t know.”

  He pushed us away, I think, like he told Kathy’s mum. But he must have loved my mother a lot. He took her back even though it meant raising me; he must have really adored her.

  Toby’s frowning. “Did your mum still like Jack then?”

  I lean my head against his shoulder. “There was definitely something between them. Even I could tell and I was ten.”

  “Okay.”

  “God,” I say. I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. “I feel bad for all of them. I mean – one guy kills his abusive father and goes to prison, loses his girlfriend and daughter, and the other one’s stuck bringing up his brother’s child, wondering if his wife is pining away for the father-killer.”

  Toby shakes his head. “When you put it like that… ”

  “I know.”

  We catch each other’s eye, and suddenly we’re both laughing. I feel weirdly better already, I feel my mind and body stretching forwards, unfurling themselves. I feel hopeful, I think.

  Toby squeezes me. “What are you going to do now?” he asks.

  “I guess I’ll see him again,” I say, and I have a sudden tug of sadness again. “I should hear more about it, I want to hear more about it. He’s just… I’m not sure I can do it straight away.”

  “Understandable.”

  Maybe I’ll get Malkie to keep an eye on Jack, make sure everything’s okay. I give a silent prayer of thanks that he came back from Canada.

  Another thought strikes me, and I sit up again. “I just can’t believe all the adults knew what Jack did,” I say. “When he first turned up at my grandma’s, I thought everyone was tense because he hadn’t told them he was coming.”

  “How did your grandma react?” Toby asks.

  “She didn’t really.”

  Why not, Grandma? Did you feel responsible? For the first time since I went to live with her, I can’t imagine what she’d say in this situation. I remember Vivienne, that summer back in 1991, saying ‘she did what she always did, nothing.’ Maybe my grandmother was so worn down she could only go along with her circumstances. Not act for herself, not make decisions. She couldn’t have been so crazy for my grandfather she sacrificed her kids for him, I try to tell myself, not when she was so loving to me.

  I realise Toby’s been talking. “What was that?”

  “Could I wash myself in your kitchen?” He nods at the shower, “I ran all the way from the station.”

  “Sure,” I say. I try to pull myself together; I look at him like I’m seeing him for the first time, run my finger along his jawline. “You don’t have a beard.”

  “Nope.”

  “But you’ve got more manly-looking since I knew you.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “You were so cute back then,” I say. “What happened?”

  I lean forwards for a kiss, then we’re interrupted by the telephone. It sounds shriller than normal, and louder, and it brings me back to what’s going on around me. I’m up and across the floor before it rings for a third time, the receiver in my hand.

  “Miss Park?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m calling from the hospital.” Down the line she clears her throat. I look at Toby, we both seem frozen exactly as we are. Outside, the evening is still, hanging perfectly in the air.

  “He’s awake,” she says.

  Aunt Gillian and Aunt Vivienne are in the reception area when I arrive. They’re both in yellow, strangely – Aunt Vivienne in a Grace Kelly-style lemon dress with a nipped-in waist, and Aunt Gillian in an apricot chiffon shirt and black trousers.

  “There you are,” Aunt Gillian says.
“What took you so long?”

  “Taxi got stuck in traffic,” I say, peeling my jacket off. I left Toby at the flat when I went out to hail one; it feels nice to know I’ll be going home to someone tonight.

  We file into my father’s room. He’s staring at something on the ceiling and doesn’t seem to hear us.

  “Don’t get him too excited,” the nurse says. She looks suspiciously at Aunt Vivienne, who looks back at her, all innocence.

  We stand over him. Aunt Gillian is crying already and Aunt Vivienne looks wary.

  “Hi Dad,” I say.

  My father tears his eyes very slowly away from the ceiling. “Who’s that?” he asks.

  “It’s me, Tallulah.”

  “Tallulah?” My father seems to think about the name for a minute.

  “Your daughter,” Aunt Gillian bursts out. “And Gillian and Viv. Your sisters.”

  “Sisters?” my father asks.

  “Oh God,” Aunt Gillian wails.

  We stand awkwardly in front of him, not knowing what to say next. I look at Aunt Vivienne; she shrugs.

  My father sighs. His face looks funny, unfocused. I lean closer so he can take a look at me. My throat is pulsing in time with my heartbeat.

  “Evelyn,” he says, very quietly.

  “No, it’s Tallulah,” I say. “Mum was Evelyn.”

  My father’s face clears. It hits me, now that our eyes are locked, how there are little flecks of gold in his irises.

  “It’s Tallulah,” I say again.

  “I know,” my father says. “Tallulah.”

  The technical term for bleeding is ‘hæmorrhaging’, meaning the loss or leaking of blood either outwardly, such as through an orifice or break (cut) in the skin, or inwardly, when the blood escapes from blood vessels within the body.

  As an adult in good health, you can lose up to twenty percent of your total blood volume with no long-term damage done. After that your skin might become clammy, your fingernails and lips bluish, your head dizzy. After a loss of forty percent, your body goes into shock, and immediate treatment becomes critical. However, if incompatible blood is transfused the new cells are perceived as ‘foreign invaders’ and the body’s immune system will attack them, causing shock, kidney failure and even death.

  It is the red blood cells that determine the blood type for each person. These contain a variety of antigens (substances that trigger the production of antibodies), which divides them into types: A, B, AB and O. Each child inherits one antigen from the mother and one from the father, which is why it is common for children to have the same blood type as at least one parent.

  I’ve always known my blood type, it’s the same as my father’s: O negative, the universal donor. Anyone can receive a transfusion of our blood, but we can only receive from another O negative individual. If I start hæmorrhaging, it will be my father who can save me.

  “Edward,” Aunt Gillian says, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “You gave us such a fright.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask my father.

  “I’ve been better,” he says.

  “Yeah, probably,” I say, and I try to smile.

  “How have you been?” he asks, looking at me. His face is as blank as it always was, except that now his eyes are bigger, and purplish underneath.

  “Okay,” I say. “Worried about you.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “Don’t talk in code, you two,” Aunt Gillian says, automatically. “It’s rude.”

  I’m looking at my father, drinking him in. I guess he does look a little bit like Omar Sharif – not the smiley, horse-betting, card-playing Omar Sharif in real life, more like his character in Doctor Zhivago, the tortured, honourable medic.

  “Always enjoy sticking your nose in, don’t you?” Aunt Vivienne’s saying now. “People don’t need to tell you absolutely everything that’s going on, Gillian.”

  “Oh for goodness’s sake, Vivienne,” Aunt Gillian says. “Would it really hurt so much to be civil?”

  My father closes his eyes.

  “Both of you shut up,” I say. “Dad’s awake, so let’s try and get on for half an hour. Just half a fucking hour.”

  I see my father smile quickly; just a flash, then it’s gone.

  “I swear,” Aunt Vivienne says grimly. “Someone in this room is going to die of high blood pressure, and it might just be me.”

  Twenty

  Aunt Vivienne comes to stand next to me by the window. We watch Gillian plump my father’s pillow for him.

  “My daughter’s been updating me on your whereabouts, your health, you know,” she says. “Little details like that.”

  “I thought so,” I say. “It feels funny.”

  She folds her arms. “I’m not a mind-reader, Tallulah.”

  “Knowing that you two were thinking about me, I mean.” I rock back on my heels, resting my hands against the windowsill behind me. “I always assumed that everyone just went on with their lives without me.”

  “Well, we did struggle on,” Aunt Vivienne says; her mouth twitches. “But you don’t forget family. Even when they seem to have forgotten you.” She cocks her head at me. “Why did you come back?”

  I chew my lip. “My mum said something when I was younger,” I say. “About damaged people.”

  “Yes, well,” Aunt Vivienne says. “If anyone knows damaged people it would be this family.”

  “But not just that they’re damaged.”

  “No?”

  “She said it’s a cycle. So when you’re damaged, you’re damaged for life.”

  Aunt Gillian looks up from my father’s side. “Tallulah, darling. Must you talk about that here?”

  “She can talk about whatever she pleases,” Aunt Vivienne says. “It’s one of the great things about our democratic society.”

  “This is not a democracy, this is a hospital,” Aunt Gillian says, but she turns back to my father.

  “And what was the conclusion?” Aunt Vivienne asks.

  I shrug. “She was saying that when you’re damaged, you damage others, and you put yourself in situations where you’re going to be damaged again because it’s the only way you know how to be.” I shrug again. “But I didn’t get it. And then I was so angry that she left me… ” I stop. She wasn’t just talking about the Parks, I realise. She needed security because she’d lost it after her parents died. And then when my father went away too she needed reassurance, and she turned to Uncle Jack. She just fell for him harder than she expected. But that was why she blamed herself – she thought that her neediness had caused all the trouble.

  Aunt Vivienne looks impatient. “And now you want to prove her wrong?”

  “I guess.”

  “Your mother was very smart, you know,” she says. “I wasn’t her biggest fan, obviously, but she was no ball of fluff.”

  “I know you don’t hate us as much as you pretend to,” I say, and she smiles at me. I think about telling her that Jack is back – that I know everything. That I understand now why she might have felt my mother betrayed her brothers, why she resented her. It wasn’t her fault though, Aunt Vivienne. That was the way she was damaged.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and think of Jack as he was in my flat, half strung-out and high, and I can’t bring myself to say any of it. Aunt Vivienne loves Jack I know, really loves him, and it’ll be much worse for her to see him in that condition than it was for me. He knew that too – that’s why he wouldn’t let her visit him in prison.

  “Starr’s flying home tonight,” I say. “She said she’ll come visit.”

  “As long as she doesn’t bring that ape with her.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “You know Starr – she never brings them home if she likes them. She’s afraid I’ll scare them off.”

  “He’s probably really nice,” I say. “She wouldn’t like him otherwise.”

  “I did something right, then,” Aunt Vivienne says. “It’s a t
errible bore loving men who don’t give a hoot for you.”

  I think of a fourteen-year-old Vivienne, unconscious with her teeth in the fireplace; I think of Uncle Jack trying to rile my grandfather himself so Vivienne would be left alone. I think of the scene between her and Malkie after my mother’s party – ‘I’d die for him, you know.’ I think of Aunt Vivienne at the prison, being turned away by the guards, sitting in her car in case Uncle Jack changed his mind. Waiting for hours, then driving home and checking the calendar to see when the next visitation day was.

  I lean in quickly to kiss her cheek. She puts her hand up to the spot I’ve just pecked, blushing; it makes her look like a little girl.

  “What was that for?”

  “For being you,” I say.

  She blushes deeper, then calls over to Aunt Gillian, “Gillian, just be quiet for a minute, will you? Let’s leave these two alone.”

  “We’ve only just got here,” Aunt Gillian says, but Aunt Vivienne takes her by the elbow.

  “You owe me,” she says over her shoulder.

  I sit next to my father again when they’ve gone, leaning forwards and resting my hands on the bed. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about.” He coughs. It sounds like a smoker’s cough – a proper hacking noise, with plenty of phlegm behind it.

  “I thought you were going to die.”

  My father leans back onto his pillows. He pats my hand. I take his in mine; it’s very cold.

  “I went over what you said for a very long time,” he says, slowly. “I suppose I was in denial. I didn’t want to face up to the guilt of having put you in that situation. I tried to talk to the school about it and have action taken against the person who… But without you there, and I didn’t even know if it was a teacher or a student.” He grips his bedsheets.

  “It was a teacher.”

  I think I see his eyes glisten. “I’m so sorry that it happened to you.”