Sorcerer

by Menon, David

  Gabby could feel her heart pounding. If her father was telling her what she dreaded he was telling her then this was going to ignite a bomb underneath the family.

  ‘Dad, are you telling me that you were abused as a child?’

  Ed nodded his head.

  Gabby swallowed hard. This was difficult to hear from her own father but he needed to tell someone and she was in some ways glad that it was her he was finally unburdening himself to. She felt nothing but compassion for him. He was hunched down like a little boy.

  ‘And are you saying it was Granddad who did it?’

  Ed nodded his head again.

  Gabby felt her father’s body shaking in her arms. This was the time he needed her most.

  ‘I used to dread the door opening. I kept my eyes shut but I knew he was there. Then he’d get into bed beside me. The more I tried to resist the more he hurt me until in the end I just had to give in’.

  ‘And when did it stop?’

  ‘After I moved out and moved in with your mother’.

  ‘Does Mum know any of this?’

  ‘No’.

  ‘Why have you never told her? She could’ve understood you a lot better if she’d known’.

  ‘It’s not easy, Gabby’.

  ‘No’ said Gabby. ‘That was a stupid question. Sorry’.

  ‘What am I going to do now?’

  ‘Dad, Owen will know someone at the hospital who can help you. I’m not being flippant and I know it’s not going to be easy. I’m going to call Mum now and ask her to come straight home’.

  ‘I don’t want her coming back here out of pity so don’t do that, Gabby. He won’t be happy until he’s destroyed every part of my life’.

  ‘Well he’s not going to get the chance, Dad’.

  ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Dad, I’m your daughter and of course I believe you’.

  Ed placed his hand on Gabby’s which was on his shoulder. Then he stood up but his legs felt weak. He dropped to his knees.

  ‘Dad?’ said Gabby as she reached out to steady him.

  Ed’s mind was full of all the times George had touched him, held him down, made him do all the things that ripped his childhood away from him. He opened his mouth and let out a roar from deep inside his soul before he fell to the floor in a curled up heap and began to weep uncontrollably.

  The more Gabby thought about how her Dad must’ve suffered when he was growing up the more it absolutely broke her heart. All she could see was how he’d been when he collapsed and cried his heart out. She believed him implicitly. He wouldn’t lie about something as evil as that. What a thing to have carried around inside his head all this time. Then she thought of her Granddad. He’d always lauded it over everything and everyone and now his manner and behavior had been turned on its head for Gabby. He was a monster and she was going to quash the reputation of the sad excuse for a man once and for all.

  ‘Jeez, Gabby, it doesn’t look like a penny would be enough for what’s going through your head’.

  Gabby looked up to see Cameron’s open, ruggedly handsome Australian face staring down at her as he made his way round his coffee shop picking up dirty dishes. She’d gone in for some tea whilst she waited for the latest news on her Dad. He was with the hospital psychiatrist.

  ‘Sorry, Cameron, it‘s not proving to be a very easy time’.

  ‘Is that because of the death of your Gran?’

  ‘Sort of … not really … it’s complicated’.

  Cameron put the dishes he’d been carrying down on the next table and then sat down beside her. ‘Well look, we’re not busy so if you want to have a bit of a yarn?’

  Gabby smiled. ‘I love all your little Australianisms!’

  ‘Is there such a thing?’

  ‘There is to a Manchester girl like me who’s only used to one way of saying things’.

  ‘Well come on, tell your uncle Cameron what’s got you looking so blue’.

  ‘You know I’m getting married in a couple of weeks?’

  ‘Of course I do. Angie and I are coming to the evening party. Why? Are you getting cold feet?’

  ‘Cold feet? Oh no, not at all. I can’t wait to be married to Owen’.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Do you get on with your Mum and Dad, Cameron?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. Very well actually, always have’.

  ‘You must really miss them being so far away?’

  ‘I miss them heaps to be honest’ Cameron admitted. ‘But my life is here with Angie and our little bloke’.

  ‘Is that what you call him? Little bloke?’

  ‘Yeah, and that’s another little Australianism for you! As for Mum and Dad, they’re coming over next month for about six weeks and we’re going to do a bit of touring round and they’ll get to spend a lot of time with the little bloke which is what they’re really coming over for. And then we’re going down to Australia for a month after Christmas’.

  ‘You, Angie, and the little bloke?’

  ‘Me, Angie, and the little bloke’ said Cameron, smiling. ‘We’ll spend Christmas with Angie’s family and then we fly out from Manchester on 28th December via Dubai on that big double deck Airbus 380. It’ll blow the little bloke’s mind’.

  ‘It will’ said Gabby. ‘Sounds like you’re counting the days’.

  ‘Well like I said, my life is here now but, no disrespect, Australia will always be home’. He leaned forward on the table. ‘So come on, is it something to do with your Mum and Dad?’

  ‘They’ve split up’ said Gabby.

  ‘Oh well done to them just before your wedding’.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself’ said Gabby as she pushed her hair back behind her ears with her fingertips. ‘But that’s not all. Oh Christ, Cameron, my poor Dad. He’s had a breakdown’. She felt a lump in her throat. She took a deep breath. ‘He’s been through Hell, Cameron. For years he’s kept something to himself that is so … so massive that I don’t know how he’s survived it’.

  ‘Gee, that sounds heavy’.

  ‘It’s about as heavy as you can get’ said Gabby, shaking her head.

  ‘So what’s happening with him now?’

  ‘Well I found him this morning. I rang Owen and drove Dad over to the hospital. Owen arranged for him to see someone at the psychiatric unit and that’s where he is now’.

  Gabby broke down in tears. It was the first time she’d cried about the whole situation and now she couldn’t keep it in any longer. Cameron put his arm round her and pulled her to him.

  ‘Hey, my shoulder’s free’ he said. ‘Sounds like you’ve done everything you can’.

  ‘He’s my Dad and I love him. I’d do anything for him’.

  ‘He’s lucky to have you and you’ll get him through whatever this is. I know you will’.

  Gabby used a tissue to wipe her tears.

  ‘Still beautiful’ said Cameron.

  Gabby laughed. ‘Cameron, after the day I’ve had my make-up must look like a disaster’.

  ‘Well if that’s what a disaster looks like then I’m a fan’.

  Gabby laughed again, louder. ‘How does Angie put up with you?’

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret’.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m fantastic in bed’.

  ‘Oh too much information!’

  ‘Well at least it got you laughing again which, funnily enough is what Angie does when we’re in bed. Heaven only knows how we got the little bloke’.

  ‘I don’t believe that for one minute’ said Gabby. ‘Nor would any of the women round here who come in wishing they could have a sandwich made of the meat that stands behind the counter’

  ‘Oh that is so sexist. And I thought they came in here for my scintillating conversation and my meat pie Aussie humour’.

  ‘Yeah, and I’m getting married to Prince Harry’.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Give over! You’re not supposed to be making me laugh. I’m a sad pers
on today’.

  ‘And that’s precisely why I should be making you laugh’.

  ‘You’re better than any medication from the doctor, Cameron’.

  ‘Glad to be of service’ said Cameron. ‘But what are you going to do? About your Dad, I mean?’

  ‘Cameron, if someone did something to hurt your Dad, and I mean really hurt him, what would you want to do to that person?’

  ‘I’d want to kill them’.

  ‘And that’s precisely what I want to do’ said Gabby. ‘If I could get away with it’.

  Jack White was walking round the Trafford shopping centre on the outskirts of Manchester with his friend Doreen. Jack wasn’t a keen shopper. He liked to go in, get what he wanted and then get out of there. But Doreen liked to browse. She was much more of a serious shopper than he was but when they passed a computer store it gave her the inspiration to voice her concerns about the modern world.

  ‘There’s far too many stores like this’ she said. ‘All this rush to embrace gadgets. Where’s it going to end?’

  ‘It’s called progress, Doreen’ said Jack.

  ‘But Jack, computers are taking over the world’

  ‘And that’s a problem because?’

  ‘Because I think there are so many dangers in it’ Doreen went on. ‘People don’t talk to each other anymore. They text and they email and they click on social network sites’.

  ‘Well you can reach a whole bunch of your friends that way in one foul swoop. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘We should go back to the old fashioned ways when people actually wrote letters and posted them. I think we were a lot happier then’.

  ‘Oh yes when women didn’t have the vote and we sent kids up chimneys. That was a much happier time’.

  ‘I don’t mean that, Jack’.

  ‘Well I like the way the world is changing’.

  ‘Well I don’t’ Doreen admitted. ‘It’s like when there used to be a Soviet Union. We knew who our enemy was then. Things were more certain than they are in the world today. We don’t know who the hell our enemy is these days’.

  ‘Well do we have to have one?’

  ‘We need to know for certain just who we can trust and who we can’t’.

  ‘So you were happier when the iron curtain was up?’

  ‘Well at least we knew where we stood and who we were up against’.

  ‘So it didn’t matter about all those people living behind the Iron Curtain under Soviet oppression? So long as you knew who your enemy was when you went about buying the flat screen TV that those people behind the Iron Curtain could only dream about?’

  ‘Well I didn’t mean it to sound as selfish as that’.

  ‘But it is what you’re saying’.

  ‘I can’t embrace change like you do, Jack’.

  ‘That’s why I ended up owner of Valley engineering and you didn’t’.

  ‘I can’t argue with that’.

  Jack smiled. His friend had become such a product of her suburban surroundings. She never used to be like that. She had been quite a fiery revolutionary sort when he’d first met her but she’d undergone a mellowing process over the years brought on by having more money now than she had done back then. It often made Jack smile at how many principles people can ditch when they see how much tax they’re paying. He’d never been anything other than your average capitalist. But Doreen could still be shocked. That’s why he’d been holding off telling her about an affair he’d started with the painter and decorator he’d hired to decorate his dining room but perhaps now was the moment. His name was Mick, he had a wife and four kids and he’d never been abroad in his life. He was a big thick set guy with tattoos on his forearms and a gold loop earring in his left earlobe. He liked Jack to suck him off like there was no tomorrow and Jack was crazy in lust with his ‘straight’ man. Doreen pulled a face. She’d once met Mick when he was working at Jack’s house.

  ‘You mean, big Mick with the hairy chest that he likes to show off by working topless when the weather’s hot?’

  Jack grinned. ‘That’s him. I was always desperate to get my hands on him’.

  ‘You are so bad, Jack’

  ‘Oh don’t look at me like that, Doreen. The opportunity has come along for this stale old man to get his hands on a bit of rough trade and I’m taking it’.

  ‘Well I can’t say I approve, Jack’.

  ‘Well I can’t say that it keeps me awake at night worrying whether or not you do approve, Doreen’ retorted Jack, firmly. ‘You’re my friend and I love you but I don’t need your approval’.

  ‘Good job considering some of the things you’ve been up to over the years’.

  ‘I’ve never broken the law’.

  ‘No but you’ve sailed pretty close to it’.

  ‘Well as long as I have you as my moral parachute I won’t die when I hit the ground’.

  ‘You are a dirty old bugger’.

  ‘Yes, that’s just what Mick says too’.

  ‘What about this Mick’s wife?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well don’t you feel any conscience about her?’

  ‘Why? I’m not married to her so she’s not my responsibility. Anyway, I see her in the village. She works in the flower shop. I get quite a kick from going in there and chatting about life, love and the pursuit of happiness when all the time she doesn’t know what I’m getting up to with her husband’.

  ‘Jack!’

  ‘Well if she wanted to get licked out by one of the local lesbians then what would it matter to man or beast?’

  ‘Oh I’ve heard it all now’.

  ‘He parks his van at the end of the lane and walks up to the house’ Jack revealed, knowing how much he was goading Doreen. ‘It’s so exciting’.

  ‘But at the risk of repeating myself, Jack what about his wife?’

  ‘It’s not about her, Doreen. It’s about him having sex when there’s no possibility of it leading to a child he can’t afford to bring up but which she’s decided she wants. It’s about him going home with a smile on his face and his balls empty. He wants a sex life and she doesn’t really want anything more than a sperm donor who she can control through nagging. He’s not exactly Mr. Mastermind. I mean, he reads the Daily Express for God’s sake. But he does have a rather wonderful tool and a real bloke’s attitude and body to go with it. She puts about as much feeling into their sex life as I do into eating a yogurt. She talks down to him like he’s one of the children. He has to ask permission to go to the pub for God’s sake. It’s the classic northern working class reality of family life that’s gone on for centuries and when guys like Mick get married they not only get a wife they get a replacement mother as well. I’m just offering him a break from being that kind of straight man. I’m giving him back some of what he’s lost to her and her needs’.

  ‘And do you think it’s really like that for Mick?’

  ‘I’ve heard it from him and so many married men in his position’.

  ‘And you’ve had quite a few of those’.

  ‘Yes, I have, because they’ve needed something I can give them and it isn’t just married women who suffer in silence, Doreen’.

  ‘Phew. Stop for breath, will you. Anyway, how did it get started with Mick?’

  ‘He liked to wander about with his top off as you observed yourself and one day he said that his back was aching. I said he needed a massage with some hot oil. It kind of went from there’.

  ‘You are shameless’.

  ‘Maybe so’ said Jack who was getting rather irritated by Doreen’s stance. ‘But can you just remind me how long you and Roger have been married?

  ‘You know how long. You were at the wedding’.

  ‘Right, thirty two years. Now the two of you are very lucky to have found the strength in a relationship that leads to it lasting that long so don’t you dare look down your nose from the top of Mount smug on those of us who haven’t been as lucky and have to take whatever we can when we can. Okay?’<
br />
  ‘Sorry’.

  ‘It’s alright but … well I just get a bit tired of friends in happy, secure relationships telling me I should feel ashamed for having some fun when I’m the one who spends every night alone’.

  ‘I do understand you get lonely, Jack’.

  ‘Well then you should be able to understand the whole Mick situation. I never show it but I hate it when he leaves. I end up going up to bed as pissed as a fart after he’s gone home because I take solace in the bottle’.

  ‘Okay, so have your fun as long as it puts a smile on your face’ said Doreen who was concerned that, reading between the lines, Jack was falling for Mick in a much bigger way than he probably should. ‘Now, what else do you have to get in here?’

  ‘Well nothing, really. I’ve got the new jacket I wanted and you know how I detest browsing’

  ‘Then I think we should go down the pub’

  ‘I thought you had more stuff to get?’

  ‘Yeah, but I can’t be bothered anymore. There are too many people about and I need wine’.

  ‘Shall we ask them to open up the place an hour early one day next week exclusively for you so that you don’t have to trip over the common man and woman as you go about relieving yourself with Roger’s credit card?’.

  ‘Fuck off you!’

  ‘No, because it’s your round at the pub’.

  ‘Well I’m going shopping with our Vicky next week’ said Doreen. ‘I’ll drag her round’.

  ‘Oh that’s good’ said Jack. ‘It’s always nice to take someone shopping who can’t afford to spend anything like as much as you can. That always makes me feel so superior and is such a morally upright thing to do. So caring and considerate. How is your sister Vicky by the way? Still on benefits whilst you and Roger never have to worry about money again?’

  ‘I really will smack you in a minute. Come on, a bottle of some description has got our name on it’.

  ‘Do you fancy popping into the flower shop on the way? There’s a lovely girl who works in there. Devoted to her husband and children but sadly, she hasn’t given her husband any head since the day he asked her to marry him and now he goes elsewhere for it’.