30 Days in June

by Chris Westlake

  I kept glancing up at Erica. She continued peeking at me and then looking back at her canvas. Continued painting. I wondered what the painting looked like, whether I looked good; but then I decided that didn’t really matter, either. It was me.

  Eventually, Erica stopped painting. She washed her brushes in water. Did so methodically. She walked over to the edge of the deckchair, her hips shimmering, as they always did. Her eyes never left mine.

  “So, are you going to ask me to put your cock in my mouth, or should I just go right ahead and put it in there anyway?"

  I just groaned from my throat and the next thing I knew her long beautiful hair was splayed over my thighs and my belly.

  That was the beginning of our intimate relationship. It started passionately, and the pace had never subsided.

  I push my buttocks further down the chair now to stop my erection digging into the table. I look up and wonder whether it is just coincidence the woman opposite glances at me and flashes a smile.

  I know the journey like the back of my hand, even though I rarely take it. The train takes twenty-five minutes from Paddington to reach Reading before continuing onwards to Swindon and then Bristol Parkway. The next stop, and the first in Wales, is Newport. Then, just over two hours since departing Paddington Station, the train arrives into Cardiff Central.

  This is where nearly all of the other passengers on our journey disembark. Cardiff is where Spartacus started his journey, on the first day of June. The train station hasn't changed much since then. The city has. It has become bigger and stronger, whilst the towns that surround it have shrunk, weakened and faded, older, more depleted. Cardiff was a different city when Spartacus began his journey of terror thirty years ago. Empty spaces have been replaced by tall, modern office buildings, each competing to be taller, and more modern, than the last. Cardiff has become the preferred option for hen weekends, for sporting events. It has become trendy and cosmopolitan. I wonder whether Spartacus - if he really is still out there - approves of the progress.

  I become aware of the rest of the table now. The fog has cleared, maybe only temporarily. Their bodies have awoken from their slumber. They each in turn stand up and collect their luggage. I notice that the girl opposite me is young and beautiful, and her blonde hair flows like a waterfall over the curve of her back. She notices my eyes scanning her body, and she smiles. The other eyes quickly glance at me, perhaps wondering why I remain sitting, perhaps noticing the erection that I can't quite hide. Weren't we all travelling to Cardiff? What is there beyond Cardiff?

  The train disembarks. Nobody embarks. We were huddled together like cattle on the way to market. Now it feels like I have the whole carriage to myself. My hand dips into my pocket again, tracing the train ticket. It moves to the other item in my pocket that has become a part of me over the last few days. The new phone. The red one. His phone. He hasn't contacted me since that first night on the boat, when he gave the phone to me. I consider taking the phone out of my pocket and leaving it on the seat, leaving it on the train. How would he contact me then? What is the worst that can happen? How can it be worse than this? This is a very real thought, a very real option. I think better of it. I know that somehow he will know, that he is challenging me to do this, that he is inviting me to do so. It is the easy choice and, therefore, it is the wrong one. I decide to keep the phone in my pocket.

  It is twenty-two minutes till my stop. I raise my head above the tops of the seats. There really aren't many going with me. My nerves, which had subsided and become almost complacent, rise again. I imagine a sudden, sharp rise on a Richter scale. What if he was on this train with me? What would I do then? I consider going to the toilet, heading to the bar, just doing something to help the minutes pass that little bit quicker. I stay sat. The minutes pass slowly.

  The train reaches the next stop. I observe, with interest, that Bridgend train station has changed not one bit.

  ******

  Maybe he isn't in?

  I'm hit by a sudden surge of panic. I haven't even considered that he might possibly not be in. I just assumed he would be, you know, because he is old and all that, and therefore his life is much simpler and less fulfilling; but of course, he has a life, too, just like me, just like you. What am I going to do now? Here? I realise that there are still things I want to do, places I want to go to, that it wouldn't be a wasted trip, that I could still make the most of it, but it would feel like I was going through the motions, doing everything but the one thing I absolutely want to do...

  The front door of this quaint house with a pretty garden front and back and a view from the bedroom of the Bristol Channel, suddenly pushes open. The door seems reluctant, like it is fighting against some fantastic wind, like Storm Hector has got back on his feet and come back for some more. But Hector loses the fight, and the front door pushes open.

  We stand just feet apart from each other, the first time in years. I suddenly feel tall. A giant. Our roles have reversed. He can't quite see me. He knows I am there. He shelters his eyes from the sun with the back of his hand, lowers his head and then his glasses slide down his nose, allowing him to look over the top of them. He squints. The process takes time - time I wish would just vanish. It makes everything even more awkward than it already is, and I find myself glancing around at the garden, marvelling at how green and luscious the lawn looks, how vibrant the red roses are.

  "Son."

  I'm not sure how to react. It is almost like a question. He knows it is me, of course he does; he just can't quite believe it. I don't know if he is happy or if he is angry. He has a right to be both, and more. I don't want there to be this distance between us, even if now it is only a few yards. The crinkles in the face suggest pain. That is the last thing I want. Maybe I should just turn around and jump on the first train back to Paddington? I detest the idea of putting him through any more pain. But I stand still, like a wax model, lifelike but unable to move, to function.

  "Son," he repeats. You could slot pennies in the dimples in his cheeks. He opens out his arms. His bones feel delicate and brittle. He smells of soap and powder. Yet his grip, as he clings to my body, is amazingly strong.

  Eventually, he pulls away. He looks up at me, takes me all in. "I cannot believe it," he says. "This truly is a wonderful day. I got out of bed this morning and something felt different. I had no idea what it was, because I wasn't planning to do anything different from normal. I was going to walk down to the shop to get the paper, stop off and read the paper in the cafe. I couldn't work out why today was so special, but it just felt different. In a good way."

  "Well, now you know why, Dad."

  He hurriedly tells me to stop standing on the doorstep like some sort of intruder, that it is just as much my home as it is his. I don't quite understand his eagerness to get me inside, for he has been stood outside with open eyes and hands, repeatedly expressing his amazement and disbelief that I am here.

  I step inside and it does feel like my home, much more than the boat parked up in London, even though I haven't lived here for nearly thirty years, even though I haven't stepped foot in the house for all of that time.

  I recall when I last walked out of the house. It was Saturday morning. Mum and Dad were in the kitchen, eating their breakfast and drinking their tea and browsing the newspapers. I know this because I stood outside the door, listening in. I heard the occasional rustling of paper, the tapping of spoons against bowls, even gentle slurping from cups. They didn't speak, but that was normal. They didn't need to. I literally stood on the tips of my toes as I silently opened and then closed the door. I didn't say goodbye. I repeat; I didn't say goodbye to the two people who had delivered me into the world and brought me up, even though I was disappearing from their lives forever. I couldn't. They wouldn't have let me go. Physically, my dad was the stronger of the two, but I know my mum would have put up the bigger fight.

  My dad is first through the door and - naturally - he does not understand the significance of me closing the d
oor behind me. It is the same door. Blue, plain, sturdy and wooden. So much has changed, but that door has remained exactly the same.

  The delicious scent of fresh flowers is still here, too. Mum always ensured fragrant flowers filled a vase in the kitchen; my dad had continued the tradition. The house is fresh and airy, the sun blares through the open curtains. It feels slightly cranky and delicate in places, just like Dad, but really it is in amazing condition all things considered, just like Dad.

  "Cup of tea?"

  "That will be nice," I reply. "And thanks, Dad."

  He turns around and then, without warning, he gives me another hug. His face is wet. He is blubbering. "I started to doubt that this day would come, son. And you know me, I have always had faith."

  "I know, Dad," I say. "I truly am sorry."

  "It's not your fault," he says. Surely, though, we both must know that it really is?

  We've maintained regular contact on the phone. At first I'd call Mum and she'd briefly pass the phone to Dad and we'd share a few words before he passed the phone back again. There have been occasional meets, at mutual venues, first with both of them, then, of course, just with Dad. I've occasionally been back to Bridgend since Mum passed, when I just couldn't resist the urge any longer, but I didn't tell him I was here.

  I sit in the living room, my body sunk into the sofa. There is a picture of the four of us in the centre of the mantelpiece, beaming to the camera, outside the penguin pool at Penscynor Wildlife Park. Mum. Dad. Me. Luke. That place has changed. It remains abandoned and overgrown, now just a childhood memory for many middle-aged folk, just like me. I remember that trip. Life seemed so simple. Dad had more hair and more padding to his face, but still he is instantly recognisable. Mum is just as I remember. Her face is alight with happiness. How is it possible? How did I let it happen? How did I make it happen?

  Truth be told, the house never felt the same after Luke passed away. It became just that: a house, not a home. Nothing felt the same after Luke left. We papered over the cracks, but it was just a matter of time until something terrible happened.

  I isolated myself as much as I could. I was game for anything that didn't involve other people. I devoured paperbacks. I ran along the grassy cliffs that lead to the beach, and I savoured the sensation of drowning out the outside world by swimming laps at the local pool.

  I tended to live in my own bubble, like I wore a headset that played music at full blast. That was probably why I didn't notice the three boys from the conker trees until it was too late to run.

  It was early evening and it must have been winter because the windows of the changing room were pitch black. I'd swum more laps than ever before, relentlessly kept going and going. I was just drying myself, wondering whether I had enough coins in my pocket to buy a chicken soup from the machine. I didn't even look up: I just saw three large shadows on the tiled floor and I knew I was in trouble. I instinctively glanced over my shoulder. My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach.

  “There is no big brother to help you this time,” one of them said, laughing. They picked me up and dragged me to the showers, one holding my feet, another gripping their hands around my shoulders. I kicked and scratched and screamed, but then I went completely limp, utterly silent. They pulled my bathers down so that I lay naked on the floor, the hot water from the shower burning my skin. I closed my eyes and counted. Waited for them to finish, to leave me alone. I reached the number sixty-three before they stopped firing punches and kicks down against my bruised face and body.

  That was when things really changed, when it truly hit home that, without my brother by my side, I was weak, horrid, loathsome. I couldn't bear to look myself in the mirror anymore, so why would anybody else want to look at me, let alone spend time with me? It was years before I started making friends again. And then I discovered something that numbed my pain, that boosted my confidence, helped me hide from the torrid reality: booze.

  Dad enters the room with two cups. Mine is milk and no sugar. Sometimes I take my coffee black, just to vary things up, but never my tea. Dad didn't need to ask. Never before has a simple cup of tea been so welcome, so inviting. I blow a circle around the rim of the cup. We drink in silence, just like Mum and Dad did. Dad takes away the empty cups and washes them at the sink. I hear him dutifully putting the cups on the plastic drainer. He comes back full of energy, his hands upturned.

  "Want to see your bedroom?"

  I am up on my feet and following him up the stairs. I remember the creeks, how I worried that I would be heard when I took the stairs that last time. I don't even question why he is keen to show me my bedroom.

  "I haven't changed a thing," my dad says, glancing around the four corners, his cheeks a beautiful shade of crimson.

  I break into a smile, but for all the wrong reasons. I just cannot - absolutely cannot – fail to think of the Hot Tub Time Machine film. It feels so wrong to think of this in the circumstances. But I'm instantly transferred to 1988. A poster of Ruud Gullit, in his short-sleeved tangerine shirt, is flimsily pinned to the wall with blue tac. A bright-eyed Paul Gascoigne in a Newcastle shirt looks over at me from the cover of a pile of Shoot magazines. A red plastic chair is pushed under the wooden desk where I used to complete my homework. It looks like any other teenage bedroom from the time. But then I glance at the window, the one that overlooks the Bristol Channel. I know that on the other side of the window, to the right, is a black drain pipe that is nailed to the wall, and that if you are careful and do not pull back too harshly on the pipe then you can use it to navigate all the way down to the ground, to the big world outside.

  "We should have seen the signs," my dad says. He looks down at my shoes. He shakes his head. From this angle I can see that his wispy grey hair is plastered down over his scalp. There are a few red pimples coating his crown. "You started spending more and more time in this room. We just thought it was a normal part of being a teenager, of growing up and finding your feet. You know? But looking back, we should have known. You were fascinated by him before it even happened, weren't you? These very walls were filled with newspaper clippings. That wasn't normal. It was like it was meant to happen, like it was a story that was just unfolding..."

  I feel like punching my fist against the wall. No, that is not right. I feel like punching my fist against my own forehead. I detest myself that this man could possibly feel guilt for what happened, and not only that; he said we.

  "You did try, Dad," I say. "Remember when you came to my room for a fatherly chat? You were sent by Mum, for sure. You did everything you could. There was no way you could have avoided what happened. Everyone was obsessed, Dad. He was a national obsession during that month of June."

  My dad shimmies his shoulders, reluctantly accepts that there is some truth in this. But we both know he is right. Children pretended to be him in the playground. Workers gossiped in the break room. He quickly became a myth, a fantastic legend, growing ever more amazing with each passing day. People excitedly talked about him, fascinated by what he'd do next, who'd be his next victim. He enlightened people's morbid curiosity. But it was much more for me. I felt like I knew him. He felt like a dark, disturbed friend. I sprung down the stairs in the morning to pick up the newspaper before my parents took it away from me. I returned to my bedroom and absorbed every word that was written about him. I remember my dad's horrified face when he came to see me in my room and the newspapers were scattered over my bed. He did try, though. He even tried to talk about her.

  But how can you fix a problem when you don't even know what the problem is?

  Mum had some idea. I'm sure even Dad didn't know about the chat I had with Mum.

  They fretted that I was spending too much time in my room, that I was lonely and isolated. Sure, I'd been lonely and isolated for years. By that time, though, the real problem, and the problem that led to my eventual downfall, was that I wasn't actually festering in the room when they thought I was. Sure, sometimes I told them when I went out. Other times I waite
d until they were asleep before climbing down the drain pipe. Sometimes I met up with a few friends, other times I just went out on my own. Somehow it was often more exhilarating that way; nobody I knew was there to laugh at me when I got drunk, nobody could report back what a fool I made of myself. Of course, I was painfully shy, and the booze boosted my confidence. And, just like Holden Caulfield, who became something of an inspiration, I was free to roam. I was underage, too, but only just, and besides, they were much more lenient with the licensing rules back then. Truth be told, my adventures didn't last long, and there were only a few occasions when I actually got up to anything of note.

  "I know you were at your mum's funeral," my dad says.

  I jerk my head up, shaken from my thoughts. He knew? I don't know whether I should lie, whether I should lie to my own dad. What difference would one more lie make? But not this. I can't lie about this.

  "I saw you," my dad says.

  "I wanted to speak to you," I say. "I so wanted to speak to you, to be there for you, to comfort you. You need to believe me. But how could I speak to you? How could I after everything I did to you? And to Mum?"

  My dad shakes his head. I notice that he has shrunken, that he appears to be shrinking in front of my eyes, disappearing into the floor. "I was just so pleased that you came. I knew you would. I looked out for you. I saw you behind the wall, trying to fade into the background. You looked so smart and handsome in your black suit. I wanted you to come out and speak to me, too, because I was so proud of you. I wanted to show off my son. You were the only thing I really had left. I know your mum would have been so pleased, too, and so proud, just like me."

  "That means so much, Dad."

  "She got help, you know," my dad continues, absorbed in his thoughts now. "She was referred to some psychiatrist in Cardiff. It was about five years or so after you left. The appointment kind of came out of the blue, to be honest. I thought he might make a difference. She came back so much brighter after the first time she met him. Your mum gushed that he was a handsome young doctor with all these fantastic ideas and he was confident he could make her better. Give the black dog his marching orders, was what he said. But it just wasn't to be. The initial exuberance quickly faded. Your mother continued to get much worse. Not even this fantastic psychiatrist could help her. She must have seen him for about a year before it happened..."