Hate

by Alan Gibbons

  ‘Do you think they can?’

  Meaning: do you think they should?

  ‘Mr McKechnie doesn’t want us to make an issue of it.’ She started laughing, streams of sadness and bitterness mixing. ‘That’s what he said. He doesn’t want us to make an issue of him being in school. You’d think Anthony Broad was the victim.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  She thumbed her phone and stared at the unread emails.

  ‘Mum, what did you say?’

  ‘I gave him my assurance that we wouldn’t cause a scene. Mr McKechnie will make sure you don’t have to have any direct contact with Anthony.’

  My gaze slipped away. I found myself studying the passers-by struggling with coats, hats, umbrellas, as they battled the wind and rain.

  ‘Eve,’ she said. ‘There’s something else, another reason I don’t want this to come out.’ She stroked the back of my hand. ‘You’ve had to put up with so much.’

  ‘Why do I know I’m not going to like this?’

  ‘If I can persuade this boy to act as a witness . . .’

  ‘You’re going to see Anthony?’

  ‘I’m going to see his mother.’

  ‘Did you tell Mr McKechnie?’

  She let go of my hand.

  ‘No.’

  I THOUGHT YOU KNEW

  Saturday, 1 March 2014

  Anthony hit the gleaming surface cleanly. The muffled sounds of the world above boomed in his ears. He swam powerfully, ploughing up and down the pool. He was aware of three boys about ten years old, racing along the side and jumping in, gripping their knees. They ignored the sign that said ‘No Bombing’. The lifeguard didn’t take his eyes off them. Any moment he was going to remind them about the safety rules.

  Anthony relaxed into his stroke, gliding through the water, but he was unable to calm his thoughts. They raced. They tormented him. Cartmel Park replaced the shimmering water. Gollum was offering him a can of Coors.

  ‘It’ll put hairs on your chest.’

  He laughed.

  ‘You need some. Look at this. You’ve got skin like a girl.’

  Gollum didn’t mean anything. That was his sense of humour. They’d been mates for years. That’s when they saw a gang of lads, roaring and messing around, high on a cocktail of Lambrini, Schnapps and various beers and lagers. Anthony wondered how they were still standing. He wanted to leave, to walk through the windless night and sit in his room, playing his guitar. Anthony didn’t know why Gollum even started to talk to them. He loathed them instantly, their sick sense of humour, the way they wanted him to act like them.

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Oh, wait a bit, Ant,’ Gollum said.

  They noticed the couple taking a shortcut through the park.

  ‘Now what have we got here? Look at the moshers.’

  Anthony squeezed his eyes shut as he swam. That’s how it had started. That was the beginning. He tried to force the stifling August night from his thoughts. Jess took its place. He had been on edge, leaving home to come to the pool. In an unguarded moment he had let it slip that he liked swimming. Jess had seized on the information, asking him when he went. He had been offhand, but Jess was nothing if not persistent. So he had left it as late as possible to make his way to the pool, arriving an hour before it closed. To his relief, it was all but deserted. There had been no time for girls after the incident. Yet there was a wall between him and Jess, one of which she was still ignorant. He had no choice but to keep her at arm’s length. A voice echoed suddenly.

  ‘Anthony!’

  His heart slammed. He reached the end and turned towards the voice. Jess looked stunning in a sapphire-blue swimsuit. She perched on the side with her feet dangling next to him. He gazed up at her, the light from the glass atrium falling on her face.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming. I was just drying my hair then I decided to take one last look and there you were.’

  He made an attempt at humour.

  ‘Here I am. Yay!’

  She laughed. How he would have loved to make her laugh more often, but how could he, with what happened to Rosie hanging over him? His smile faded. Jess looked disappointed.

  ‘You should smile more often. It suits you.’ She tilted her head. ‘What makes Anthony so sad?’

  He changed the subject.

  ‘Where’s Eve?’

  ‘I came by myself. We’re not joined at the hip, you know.’

  She tapped his shoulder with her toe.

  ‘I’ll see you at the door. You can walk me back.’

  Jess was still smiling when she got home. Anthony had started to come out of his shell. He could be charming company when he tried. The smile drained from her face the moment she entered the living room. Oli had his hands laced behind his head. He was leaning back in a not very convincing show of nonchalance while Mum and Dad sat opposite him. The showdown had started without her.

  ‘They think I should stay in the closet,’ he said, barely acknowledging her arrival.

  His father reacted furiously. ‘Neither of us said anything remotely like that! You will not misrepresent us.’

  Oli dropped the front legs of the chair back on the floor with a thud.

  ‘Dad, you flipped.’

  ‘I did not flip. I was surprised, that’s all. It comes as a bit of a shock when your son tells you he’s gay. It came out of the blue. Your mum and I had no idea, did we, Karen?’

  She dropped her head.

  ‘Karen?’

  ‘I’m sorry, John.’

  The united front between them dissolved in Dad’s look of disbelief.

  ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘I knew. I’ve known for some time.’

  ‘You never said anything.’

  It was hardly an accusation. He was drifting, trying to learn how to steer.

  ‘I thought you knew too. I mean, how could you not?’

  Dad leaned closer to Mum and hissed a bewildered complaint.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything? Is that how much I matter in this house?’

  ‘I don’t know. It never seemed to be the right time. Maybe somehow I knew it had to come from Oli.’

  ‘It did,’ Oli said, coming to her rescue. ‘You can’t force somebody into the closet. You can’t make them come out either.’ A sigh. ‘Look, I didn’t do this to upset anybody. This isn’t some kind of teen rebellion. I didn’t go, ooh, get a tattoo, be gay, what’s it going to be? I didn’t set out to shock. I’m setting things straight. I’m telling you what . . . I don’t know . . . what I am.’ He gave his words a moment’s reflection and corrected himself. ‘I’m explaining who I am.’

  He waited for his father to react.

  ‘Dad? Say something.’

  The answer was some time coming.

  ‘You are what you are, Oli. God knows, I wasn’t expecting this, but it looks like I’m going to have to get used to it.’

  ‘So you’re OK with it?’

  Everybody in the room heard the question sway like a toddler reaching for the couch, totter, then crash to the floor.

  ‘You can’t leave it at that. Come on, Dad.’ There was no answer. ‘Mum, what about you? Please, anything.’

  ‘Oli, your dad and I love you so much. You’re a fine young man and a wonderful son.’

  ‘Is there a “but” coming?’

  ‘There is no “but”. Our love for you is unconditional. You know we’re not prejudiced. Times have changed, but some people are still so full of hate. At least it’s not like the old days. It’s going to take some getting used to, that’s all.’

  ‘But you’re prepared to get used to it? You’re not going to freak all the time?’

  ‘We’re your mum and dad. You can rely on us. Can’t he, John?’

  The silence was long enough to be uncomfortable.

  ‘John?’

  Then there was a gruff answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE HIM!

  Saturday, 1 March 2014
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  The drive to Ingleton took an hour. There wasn’t much conversation on the way. Dad drove. I stared out of the window. Why is it that the more you’ve got to say, the harder it is to say it? It was as if we had a third passenger, a kind of gremlin who sat between us and pressed his fingers to both our lips.

  Mum had her interview with the journalist that afternoon. We had left her arranging the material she wanted to show him, about the attack and its aftermath. She had this engine inside her, driving her on, striving after a truth that always seemed out of reach. Rosie had left a hole in her life. The fight for justice would never fill it, but maybe, if it could go part of the way she would begin to heal or at least learn to live with the pain.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ Dad said as we pulled into the Broadwood car park and paid the entrance fee to the attendant, who told us the walk would take two to four hours. There were ten waterfalls, a thousand steps. The guy seemed to have a thing with numbers. Dad caught my eye and smiled. We found a parking space.

  We set off along the river through Swilla Glen. The thin March sunlight was on the oak, ash and birch, picking out their early spring colours and defining them against the grainy shades of the sky. I climbed quickly over the steep steps.

  ‘Good choice,’ I said, glancing back to see him labouring forward. He’d looked better.

  ‘It’s good to make the effort,’ I said. ‘Coming up here beats going to McDonald’s and wondering what to talk about.’

  That nod again. Dad seemed to register my comments without feeling any desire to answer them. I wouldn’t have dared mention McDonald’s if Rosie had been there. She detested the brand. She must have protested outside half their restaurants in north-west England. I seem to remember Paul wearing a chicken hat, but maybe that was one of their mates. I never quite got the point of the pickets.

  ‘Isn’t that where fathers take their kids when marriages break up?’

  ‘I don’t know, love. I’m no expert. Fell in love once. Married once. Long-term relationships – one.’

  ‘So why are you and Mum living apart?’

  ‘I don’t think of us as broken up,’ he said. ‘We just can’t live together right now.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He considered it for a few moments. ‘Doesn’t broken up mean there’s no love left?’

  ‘So you still love each other?’

  He shrugged uneasily. ‘Sharp, aren’t you? I love her too much to find someone else, but not enough to move back in.’

  He snapped open his carrying case and trained the camera lens on the turn of the river. He took some shots and reviewed them with a few flicks of the thumb. Somebody once said that children keep families together. But what about the child who died? Does their loss push families apart? Is grief a blade that saws away at the fraying fibres of love?

  We reached Pecca Bridge. Bracken and heather were tossing in the strengthening wind. The clouds were beginning to race, transformed from an ominous blanket to a series of tumbling cascades, mirroring the falls below. Dad took his photographs and gave me one of those uncertain smiles of his.

  ‘The first time we brought you here, you went on strike,’ he chuckled.

  ‘What do you mean, went on strike?’

  ‘You said you were tired, so you sat on the ground and refused to go any further. What you didn’t realise was that you were plonking yourself down in a puddle. You weren’t best pleased.’

  ‘I bet I wasn’t!’

  ‘Rosie called you Soggy Knickers all the way to the café.’

  ‘She would!’

  I said it with feeling. As if she was still here. As if I could remind her about it. As if . . .

  He got me in his viewfinder. I leaned forward so my hair masked my features.

  ‘Don’t do that. You’ve got such a pretty face.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’

  ‘Give me a smile, Eve.’

  ‘Proper photographers don’t get you to grin into the lens, Dad. They get you to gaze wistfully into the distance so they can capture your profile.’

  I posed by way of illustration; Jane Eyre turning towards Thornfield Hall. That’s when he got his photo.

  ‘There you go, Madonna of the Falls.’

  ‘That’s cheating!’

  ‘Got your picture though, didn’t I?’

  He did a little dance, embarrassing dad stuff, but it made me smile all the same. He didn’t deserve what had happened. None of us did. The stuff with the camera was the moment that banished the discomfort we felt in each other’s company. After that we were able to talk more easily, not that we said much, but when we shared our feelings it wasn’t stilted, it wasn’t for the sake of it.

  Jess wanted to chat about what had happened, and who better to confide in than me? She left it until after eight o’clock. She knew I’d gone out with Dad for the day. Jess was always asking how my mum and dad could have split up. They seemed settled, for keeps, the way the hills are, forever.

  ‘Eve? Great. You’re back. How was your day?’

  ‘We went to Ingleton Falls.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Yorkshire. It wasn’t far, an hour’s drive.’

  ‘Your dad OK?’

  I wasn’t sure how to answer at first. I wound up telling her what she wanted to hear.

  ‘Yes, he’s fine. You know, getting by.’

  Jess was usually a good listener, but she had her own story to tell.

  ‘Eve,’ she raced seamlessly into it, ‘you won’t believe what’s happened. Oli’s only gone and told Mum and Dad.’

  I was still thinking about my own dad, and the burden of sadness he carried.

  ‘What, the big one?’

  ‘Yes, he came right out with it. “Mum, Dad, I’m gay”.’

  ‘How did they take it?’

  ‘Mum was fine. Dad kind of flipped. It’s not that he’s homophobic or anything. I think he’s worried about how people are going to react. He says there used to be queer-bashers round here. Grown men used to follow anybody they thought was gay and kick their heads in. Can you imagine it, beating the crap out of a stranger for nothing?’

  The question felt like a slap across the face.

  ‘You know what, Jess, I really can.’

  Jess heard the mix of hurt and accusation in my voice. She realised instantly what she had said.

  ‘Oh my God, Eve, I’m so sorry. Why don’t I think before I open my stupid mouth?’

  I didn’t rush to reassure her.

  ‘You can’t feel what it’s like until you’ve been there. Nobody can.’

  ‘I didn’t . . .’

  ‘Look, I’m not angry, Jess.’ I had made my feelings known. That was enough. ‘Let’s not talk about this. You phoned about Oli. Is he OK?’

  I could almost hear her scraping together her scattered thoughts.

  ‘Eve . . .’

  ‘Just tell me about Oli.’

  There was a moment’s silence before she picked up her thread.

  ‘Well, that’s the first step taken.’

  I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  ‘First step?’

  ‘Yes, he’s come out to Mum and Dad. What about everybody else?’

  ‘You mean he’s going to tell everybody?’

  ‘Can you see Oli staying in the closet now?’ Jess said.

  I thought about that spiky, confident brother of hers.

  ‘Come to think of it, no.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Is he worried about how it’ll go down at school?’

  ‘He doesn’t let on,’ Jess said, ‘but he’s got to be a bit nervous.’

  ‘You tell him I’m there for him,’ I said.

  I could hear the warmth in Jess’s voice.

  ‘He knows, Eve. We both do.’

  Sunday, 2 March 2014

  In the flat above the estate agent the bell rang. Anthony looked up. There was an apprehensive glance from his mother.

  ‘You
didn’t invite anyone round, did you? Somebody you met in school?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Who knows where we live?’

  The reply was instant.

  ‘Nobody.’

  But Jess knew. Eve knew. His mother edged to the window and peered through the blinds.

  ‘Mum, who is it?’

  ‘A woman. I don’t recognise her.’

  His mother glanced down at the street a second time and cursed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s seen me. She’s started waving.’ She thought for a moment. ‘She’s nothing to do with Roy.’ Her breath caught. ‘Oh God, I’ve seen her picture in the papers. It’s the girl’s mother. I’ll have to talk to her.’

  Anthony felt a rush of panic.

  ‘Mum, don’t!’

  The bell shrilled again. He closed the door and sat on the edge of his bed. His throat was tight. He knew at that moment that the nightmare was never going to end. A few moments later there were footsteps on the stairs and the hinges squeaked. His mother let the stranger in. The woman identified herself. Anthony didn’t catch what she said, but he knew Mum was right. It was Eve’s mother.

  ‘How did you find us?’ she said.

  ‘My daughter’s friend got the address from your son.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Morrison, what do you want from me?’

  ‘I want your son to make a statement to the police. There’s still time to tell the truth before the case comes to trial. Others have been brave enough to come forward. Why not Anthony?’

  Anthony squeezed his eyes shut. No. Dear God, no, not this.

  ‘Anthony told them the truth. He doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. He was in the park that night. The police interviewed him.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Mrs Broad?’

  ‘I can only tell you what Anthony told the police. He was in the park. Nobody is disputing that. He was there when your daughter arrived with her boyfriend. There was some banter then it started to get ugly. The police must have told you what was in Anthony’s statement.’ A short breath followed. ‘Mrs Morrison, I know what you must have been through.’