by A B Turner
“You’d better come in, Martin.”
As he passed me, he smiled before following her down the hallway and into the main room, when I moved go in with them, she shook her head and shut the door, leaving me wondering what the hell was going on although there was something inexplicably familiar about him. Despite the fact, it was obviously wrong to listen to someone else’s conversation, I didn’t make any move to leave the hallway, instead, I stood quietly, hoping to be able to pick up at least some of what was being said. However hard I strained to hear, both their voices were so frustratingly low, it was impossible, but, despite this, I couldn’t make myself leave. After all, I didn’t know what was happening and I wanted to be close in case this stranger turned out to be violent or put Mum in some other kind of danger. After some time, sitting on the bottom stairs, the silence was shattered by the sound of something hitting a wall, before I had a chance to even think, I leapt up and burst into the room. Mum was standing flat against the far wall, her feet surrounded by shards of glass, her eyes were wide open, too wide, she looked terrified, the man was only a few feet away from her,
“What the hell’s going on?” I yelled, before really thinking, I grabbed his shoulder and spun him round,
“You need to leave before I call the police.”
He looked calmly back at me,
“Take your hands off me,” he looked back at Mum, saying “I see she has my temper,” before turning back to me,
“That’s no way to speak to your father.”
Those last two words hit me so hard, my hand dropped to my side, suddenly the unexpected familiarity made sense, I had seen him before, in that wedding picture I’d found as a kid. I looked over at Mum, her head was bowed, she looked deflated, and even though we’d had such a bad history between us, I hated seeing her so beaten.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Martin glared at her,
“This was always going to happen, Jocelyn, you didn’t really think I wouldn’t find you, you must have known, it was only a matter of time,” his words spat out with long-held anger, “When you take everything from someone, they’re always going to want it back.”
Mum said nothing, I stood in the middle feeling completely confused, after all, hadn’t she told me, he’d left her with nothing? Hadn’t she always given me the impression, he had hurt her? That’s what I’d believed for years and now, now it had all been a lie, a great big, black lie. I looked at her in total disbelief, but she intentionally refused to meet my gaze, she just shook her head slightly and remained silent. Martin walked slowly up to her until there was hardly any space between their faces, he put his hand on her face, his fingers and thumb gripping around her chin, she flinched but still said nothing.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Martin snarled, “Well perhaps it’s time she knew, they both knew, where’s the boy?”
Even though, my whole body seemed to be trembling, I heard myself explaining my brother was out for the evening and wouldn’t be back for hours. He sighed,
“Well, you can tell her what you did, or perhaps I should?”
Mum seemed frozen, her mouth opened yet no words came out, so without letting her go, Martin coolly told her story, not once looking away from her, as if he needed the pleasure of waiting for a reaction.
“We were married,” he began, “Everything seemed good, I worked my butt off, to provide and I was happy to do it too, stupid fool I was back then, I believed I was doing everything right, you let me think that, didn’t you Jocelyn?”
He paused and inched slightly closer to her face,
“When I knew I was going to be a Dad, it was the best day of my life and when I saw my daughter for the first time…” his voice softened briefly, as the memory came to mind, “I didn’t think my life could be any better, I had everything.”
Each word seemed to echo around the room, not one of us really moved, my brain struggled to make sense of what I was hearing, but it felt like every belief I’d ever had, was wrong, every thought was a lie and it was too much.
“For the first few years, I thought everything was perfect, but then…” he paused, the brief moment of a softer tone to his voice, faded and was to be replaced with pure contained anger,
“I had to go away for work, only for a few days, but when I came home and it was all gone, my wife, my daughter and every last penny in the bank, you even must have sold my mother’s jewellery, you bitch.”
He must have tightened his grip on her face, because I saw Mum try and pull away from him, but he was obviously too strong,
“You sold everything we owned, you left me with nothing but debts,” he continued, “Oh yes, Jocelyn, the credit cards you maxed and the loans you took out…I lost the house, I lost it all, I was homeless because of you and why ? Why did you do it? Because you were screwing that fucking loser, you took everything of mine to have a life with him, but it didn’t work out for you, did it Jocelyn? He left you as soon as he found out you were pregnant!”
That last word seemed to be like a physical blow to Mum, despite his hand still being on her, it was like her knees gave way and she slumped to the floor, I wanted to help her, but my whole body was rigid, as if I was paralysed. Martin stood over her,
“Even then, even when I knew what you’d done, I would have taken you back because I was just that stupid, but you didn’t care about me, did you? I wasn’t enough for you! Was he Jocelyn? Tell me, was he?”
Mum broke down,
“What do you want me to say? I knew I’d hurt you, but all this time I’ve been paying back every last penny I took..I’ve had to do things I never wanted to do….”
For a second, I honestly thought he was going to kick her as she laid on the floor, but almost as soon as his leg raised, he slammed it down and turned away from her,
“I didn’t care about the money, you took my life,” with these last few words, he slumped down on to the armchair and held his head in his hands. The room, which only moments earlier had been filled with so much emotion, suddenly fell silent, as if nobody was even breathing any more. Mum looked up at me, her face still bore the mark of his hand, her eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. I knew she wanted me to say something, anything, but not a single word came to my mind, instead all I wanted to do – at that exact moment- was walk out of this room, this house and never come back. Martin stood up, straightened his suit and pushed his hair back out of his eyes, he coughed, as if trying to force a lump from his throat,
“I’m going now, we are done here, forget the rest of the money you owe me, Jocelyn, I don’t want any more, I’ve wasted enough of my life on you.”
He started to walk towards the door, but paused by my side,
“At least you know the truth now,” he said simply, “Take care of yourself.”
He turned away from me, but despite my concern for Mum and the total shock of what I’d just witnessed, I knew there was no way I could let him just go, he was my father, the missing piece that had haunted me for my whole life, so I took hold of his arm. My sudden action took him obviously took him by surprise as he stopped in his tracks,
“Is that all you have to say to me?” I asked, “After all this time? Take care of yourself ?”
He looked completely bemused, as if my even speaking to him at all, was not something he had previously considered,
“What do you want me to say?” he replied.
I could feel him try to move, to somehow loosen my grip, but this only made my fingers tighten,
“You could have made some effort, at some time, through all those years, you could have tried to see me,” I glanced down at Mum and then back at him, “And don’t say she stopped you because we both know that’s a lie, just by the way you walked in here, the way you talked to her, if you’d really wanted to see me, you would have found a way.”
For a moment, he shifted uncomfortably, obviously not being used to such a confrontation, he looked down and away
from me, as if making any kind of eye contact was just too much for him,
“I don’t know what you expect me to say,” he said, “You were a child when I last saw you,” he paused and then looked straight into my eyes,
“I don’t even know you now, we could pass on the street and you’d be just another face in the crowd,” he said dismissively.
He sounded cold and unfeeling, in that moment, I had no choice but to accept, he just didn’t care so there was no real point in keeping him here anymore, so I released his arm, allowing my hand to drop to my side. Without another word or gesture, I heard him walk down the hallway, then the front door closed followed by the sound of a car driving away. Despite knowing there was no hope of us ever having any kind of relationship, for a split second, I still wanted to run after him, to scream, yell, beg or anything that might make him stay and just talk to me, but my feet remained rooted to the spot. I felt as if my body had taken control of my brain and flatly refused to move because somehow it knew, any further contact would only result in more hurt and disappointment. Still motionless I watched as Mum struggled to stand up, gripping on to the arm of the chair for support, she was obviously suffering some level of physical pain. Despite myself, I reached forward and took her arm,
“Are you alright?” I asked, she looked up at me, apparently surprised despite everything that had just happened, I wanted to help her.
“Not really, “she replied, so quietly, I could only just hear her voice, “I should probably explain…”
I knew I wanted to understand, I knew I wanted to ask a hundred questions, but I also knew she was in no state to speak and I had absolutely every need to try and make some kind of sense of what I knew, but this wasn’t the time,
“Not now, we can talk tomorrow, you need to rest.”
She thanked me and I helped her upstairs, as we walked together, I could feel her leaning heavily on me and I knew, that wasn’t all because of her illness. Once she was safely on her bed, I turned off the light and walked along the landing to my own bedroom, I felt completely drained. My mind started to make a lame effort to process not only what I’d been told but how I felt, but it was too much, so I opted to just climb under the covers and try to sleep. Despite everything that should have kept me awake, within moments, my head felt heavy and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, it was as if my body had decided, I needed to switch off completely or I would lose what was left of my mind.
Chapter Eleven
I had wanted to sleep the whole night, I had wanted to block everything out, but my mind obviously had other plans, as I found myself sitting at the kitchen table at 4.00a.m. As I sipped at a glass of water, I tried to take out all the obvious emotional content and just try and examine the facts, but even after only a few minutes, it became abundantly clear, everything I had learned last night, was steeped in every possible feeling. Aside from the realisation, my mother had lied to me – for my entire life- about my father, it turned out, he was only my father, Cal’s was some unknown man, for whom she had betrayed everything. She was, at the very least, a liar and a thief, but there was more, one phrase she had said, about ‘having to do things she hadn’t wanted too’, what did that even mean? I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes, as if this act alone would make my mind find some kind of answer, suddenly, an image flashed into my brain. When Cyrus and I had been at lunch, I’d thought I’d seen her at the restaurant, it had only been a glimpse, but I had been sure it was her. She’d been with a man, could he have been Cal’s father? I quickly dismissed the question, after all, Martin had said that man had dumped Mum, so if it wasn’t him, who was it? This brief sighting along with all the late nights she’d said she’d been working, what job could she have possibly been doing? Again the phrase, ‘doing things she hadn’t wanted too’ kept coming back into my mind, what would that be? She obviously needed money and a lot of it, so how was she earning if she was out for lunch with some strange man? Suddenly my eyes sprang open, when one thought hit me like a train, could it be she was a prostitute? In my sleep-deprived mind, it all seemed to make perfect sense, it all added up, I sank back again, it couldn’t be true, could it? I knew there’s that saying about, the simplest explanation is usually the truth, but it seemed so hard to believe, but I knew, all I could do now, was add that question to the growing list forming in my mind. As I pushed that to one side, other questions appeared, had her attitude to me been solely because I reminded her of Martin, my father? Did she treat Cal differently because she had really loved his father? And if so, how was she going to justify it to me? Was any of this Godawful mess really my fault? For my whole life, had she been making me pay for how he had treated her? I mean, after all, despite what he had said, she would only have had an affair in the first place, if she’d been unhappy with him – that was plain common sense. Nobody cheats on someone who is everything they want in a partner. The chances were, following that logic, Martin had been as bad to her as she ended up being to him.
“What great parents,” I said out loud to myself, my tone laced with both irony and more than a hint of angry disappointment. I sipped the cool water again, hoping somehow, it would calm down the growing mass of contradictory emotions which were now coursing through me, anger and resentment for her, total disappointment in him as he had made no effort to contact me all these years, a deep desire to just drive away from the whole saga, but also blind panic, as how was I going to tell Cal? I mean, we shared the same mother, so we were pretty much, still the same brother and sister, so did he really need to ever know the rest? What would telling him really achieve in the grand scheme of things? I could feel the unmistakable twinge of a headache starting in my front temple, it was clearly a signal from my body, telling me to stop now and to try and get some sleep. I walked over to the sink and, as I washed up the glass, I looked out of the window. I could just hear the sounds of the birds starting to wake up, even though it was still pretty dark outside. The distant trees on the hills looked like silhouettes pasted across the dark blue sky, as I looked, I could just make out the large curved shapes of the horses in the field, if only it was possible to just run outside, jump on one and ride far away from everything. But as I pictured myself, gripping on to the mane as we galloped towards the hills, I remembered, all I would find on the other side was the highway into the city. I had run away too, so perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so harsh on my mother, I’d had a whole sea of problems and instead of trying to solve anything, I had done what she did, I’d swum away. But it didn’t matter how far we had run, she had been right all along, there is no escaping the past, because, every time I looked out of this window and saw that skyline, there it was. I put the glass on the side and plodded back upstairs to my room, the lack of sleep was now taking its toll, so it was time to try and rest. I couldn’t think any more, all those burning questions for Mum would have to wait a few more hours to get their answers.
Despite everything that had invaded my mind, I had obviously managed to fall asleep, as I was awoken by the sound of Cal thumping down the stairs in his work boots. At first, I wanted to race down to the kitchen, where I knew he would be stuffing a large slice of bread and jam into his mouth before going out to start work with Jim, But I was still completely torn between telling him everything or nothing at all, as I lay there in the half-light, both options seemed to have their merits, but I finally resolved to wait and get the whole story from Mum. I heard the back door close, as Cal called out to Uncle Jim, still apparently oblivious to the fact, it was possible, some people might still be asleep. I heard their muffled voices become more distant, as they walked away down the lane towards the field. I had never really understood why Cal had never really moved from here, he’d only visited me a few times, when I’d lived in the city and had rarely talked of travelling at all. He seemed to have found his place and was reluctant to explore anywhere else, even in his personal life, there’d been no great romance either, it was as if, he hadn’t moved on since we were children. But then again, consider
ing how my alleged grand plan has worked out, perhaps his approach, had proven to ultimately more successful than mine. After all, here I was, back at home, I’d lost my own place, my job and was undoubtedly in debt too – perhaps Cal was fearful of change, but with me as an example, it was impossible to blame him. As the sun was now creeping over the window sill and it was clear, there was no further possibility of sleep, I wearily got out of bed. After stretching my whole body, I walked down the landing to Mum’s bedroom door, it was slightly open, so I could see inside. She was lying on her back and staring up at the ceiling, she seemed completely lost in thought, so it felt wrong to disturb her. As I started to move, the slight creak of a floorboard under my feet caused her to look round,
“Come in,” she said croakily, “I’m not asleep.”
I went into the room and she motioned for me to sit on the end of her bed, her eyes looked slightly puffy as if she’d been crying, her whole face was etched with worries that had plagued her for years, truth was, she looked old.
“I heard Cal go, have you told him anything?” she asked hesitantly, when I shook my head, her relief was visible,
“I wanted to talk with you first,” I replied, “I thought it would be best.”
She sighed heavily and wiped her eyes, as if either trying to wake them or remove something, so I waited before saying anything more. She rested back on her pillow and looked steadily at me,
“You must have many questions,” she began, “with Cal out of the house, perhaps now it’s the time to talk.”
I was about to speak, when she sighed again,
“It’s funny, isn’t it? Despite everything I tried to do, I always knew-at the very back of my mind- one day, this conversation was going to happen.”