81

 

April 1996

            I’d felt myself teetering close to the edge of sanity, many times since he left, but I’d pulled myself back every time.  I’d held on.  I had forced myself to fall back on the things I knew and trusted; patience and composure.  I had my eyes wide open. I suppose that was one good thing to have come out of it all.  I knew I was surrounded by jealous backstabbers who wanted to see me fail.  They were everywhere, waiting to watch me fall, watching to see if my empire was about to implode.  Fuck you, I wanted to say to them on a daily basis, fuck you all.  That greasy whale still gloating in his cesspit of a record shop.  Those sneering, long haired kids still sneaking around town when they thought I wouldn’t notice, thinking they had won, thinking they had got one over on me.  I ran these things over inside my mind constantly.  I allowed them to grow and swell and burn inside of me.

            I went to work, and I worked hard.  The club was a ridiculous success.  I had more money than I knew what to do with.  I drank a little more than I used to, and then I went home.  Each and every day I woke up in the morning and wondered whether today would be the day I got my revenge.  I thought about it constantly.  Did I want revenge, and if so, what form would it take?  What would I do?  I had to be careful.  I sometimes felt like I was utterly detached and removed from the rest of normal society.  I was lost at times, without Jack.  We’d been the same, him and me.  We saw what had to be done and we got on with it, no time for tears, no cause for regrets, or worries.  I missed the understanding that had existed for so long between us; that we were above the rest of them, that whatever we wanted was ours for the taking.  We’d had some good times, you know,  me and Jack.  Some good times.  I didn’t have anyone I trusted anymore, and I missed just sharing a drink with him.  I sometimes found myself gazing around, wondering if I ought to try to replace him, narrowing my eyes in search of another right hand man.  But there was no one.  That Lawler kid Jack had seemed so keen on, was nothing but a waste of space junkie, no good to anyone.  Jumped out of his skin if you so much as spoke to him.  I didn’t trust him.  I watched his movements like a hawk.  I had to be careful.  There were eyes that darkened when they turned my way.  Rumours circulating about the whereabouts of Jack, Chinese whispers about a kid beaten up in the centre of town, stories about people you should not mess with…

            For months I’d trawled the streets after dark in my car.  Part of me was looking for him, part of me was desperate to catch sight of him, walking along the street alone, and part of me was just killing time, just searching for ways to sooth my rage.  In the end, I’d resorted to sorting Kay out when she needed it, and it was enough, almost.  I’d let things drift so long with her, and she’d been taking the piss for months.  I knew there was more to his disappearance than she was letting on.  I knew she’d been in on it somehow, she must have been.  She never once sat and shed a tear for him, you know?  That always struck me as very odd, for one thing.  It was like she already knew he was safe, and she didn’t need to worry.

            So I’d known, I had always known she was involved.  The night I returned home from work and found her curled up asleep on the sofa with a piece of paper clutched inside her palm, was the night I had my suspicions confirmed.  It was back in February, and I had driven home from the club in the early hours of the morning, with a can of Carlsberg wedged between my thighs.  My car prowled slowly through the back streets of town, my eyes as always, scanning the streets and the alley ways, peering into crowds and clusters of youths, trying to pick him out.  When I arrived home, I’d reached for my Jack Daniels and a glass.  Right away, I’d noticed the state of the kitchen.  Two mugs and a plate turned upside down on the drainer.  Why the fuck couldn’t she follow the job through?  Dry them, and put them back in the cupboards?  I put my whiskey down, and did it myself, snatching a clean tea towel from the hook and rubbing aggressively at each mug, and the plate, before putting them where they were supposed to be.  I wondered why there were two mugs.  She didn’t normally have visitors, so my skin prickled and crawled with growing rage, and I poured myself a whiskey and downed it in one.  I would have to speak to her again about the state of the house.  I mean, it was a joke.  What the fuck did she do all day anyway?  Lounged around in her bloody dressing gown watching crappy American chat shows, no doubt.  I didn’t make her go out to work, did I?  All I asked for in return was a nice, clean, and tidy house to return to, to be proud of.  I wondered how many times I would have to drill it into her.  She should have known how I liked things by now.  For fucks sake, even the fucking boy had done a better job than her.  I peered around at the rest of the kitchen, feeling with my socks for any dirt or dust on the floor.  I could feel something, something that felt like biscuit crumbs, and my body grew rigid with displeasure.

            Lazy bloody cow.  I stalked through to the lounge, only to discover the TV still on, flickering in the darkened room.  “Bloody woman,” I muttered, storming over and switching it off.  I turned around, deciding to settle on the sofa to sink a few whiskeys, and that’s when I saw her there.  She was fast asleep.  Curled up sideways and covered in her silly pink fluffy throw.  The phone was on the coffee table next to her, and there was another plate down on the floor.  For fucks sake.  I walked over to her.  Considered giving her a good slap to wake her up and send her to bed.  It was then that I saw the curl of paper sticking out the end of her tightened fist.  I stopped, and mulled it over.  I crouched slowly down next to her sleeping face, cocking my head over to one side and listening to her breathe.  I wondered how far under she was.  I put out my hand, closed my thumb and forefinger around the edge of the paper, and tugged.  It slipped from her grasp easily and she did not stir.  I stood up and moved back, grimacing as I uncurled it in my own hand.  It was an address.  An address in Belfield Park.  Written in that sneaky little shits handwriting.  I folded my hand over it and glared back down at her, considering my options, as the heat flooded me violently. 

            I turned in a slow circle, letting it sink through me.  Then I stopped, and stared back at her, shaking my head slowly from side to side.  I curled a fist and considered smashing it quickly into her pretty little nose.  That would wake her up.  Then I would grab her by the hair and shove the piece of paper into her gaping mouth.  I’d make her fucking eat it.  I shook the fist at her as she slept on.  “You were meant to be tell me when he got in touch,” I snarled at her in the darkness.  I opened my hand and watched the paper float back down to land on her covered lap.  “You lying, sneaking, treacherous little bitch…” I narrowed my eyes.  A satisfying realisation washed over me, and I felt calm again.  I nodded at her.  “Oh you want your precious boy back now do you?  Is that it?  You miss him, do you?  Well sweetie, you only had to say.  If you want him back that much, I’ll get him for you.”  With a smile upon my lips, I left her alone, turned and walked out.

 

            The next night I had left the manager in charge of the club.  I got in my car and drove it over to Belfield Park.  It was a stinking, filthy, rotting corpse of a town.  It reeked of fish and chips, seagull shit and decaying seaweed.  All the homeless people gravitated there.  You saw them shuffling about everywhere.  Sleeping on benches, and downing cans of Special Brew with their toothless friends.  Tough dogs on chain leads.  Sleeping bags and newspapers scattered around their feet.  The buildings were all falling down, collapsing, sagging within their own depression.  They needed to take a fucking bulldozer to the entire area in my opinion.  It was a waste of money, wasn’t it?  A seaside town in a state like that, full of dossers and scroungers, layabouts and criminals.  I drove around the miserable back streets, with my window rolled down, and my elbow hanging out.  I caught a glimpse of people heading to Chaos.  I drove smoothly past them, my eyes squinting as I took in the dirt and the squalor.  Every street was mile high with rancid Victorian doss houses.  Bed sit city, people called it.  I felt above it all, as I passed them by, the Goths and the skinheads, the metalheads and the hippies, and the punks, all flowing, all pushing towards Chaos, like warped followers of some twisted religion, all flocking towards their church. 

            I smoked cigarettes as I drove, finally turning the car around and letting the engine idle lazily at the end of the road, with the club in sight.  I recalled the address on the paper, and counted the dwellings to the right.  A smile pulled my lips across my face.  That was it then.  The tall red building.  The shithouse on the corner.  How nice.  They’d moved in opposite their favourite club.  How very nice.  How extremely convenient. How fucking easy they had made it.  I smiled further when I thought about going in there, finding the little shit stain in the middle of the crowd and making a fool out of him.  Dragging him back out by his scrawny neck.  Dragging him back to his lying whore of a mother.  The anger clenched painfully at my chest.  I wondered what to do.  I had been given the information I needed.  Not just the address, but the evidence against Kay.  She was a lying bitch, keeping things from me, planning things behind my back.  I wondered what else she was keeping from me, what else she was up to, and I wondered what to do about it all.

            I tapped my ash out of the window, down onto the grimy street below.  I glanced up and to the right, as another bundle of scruffs made their way towards the club.  I pressed myself instantly back into the seat, because it was them, it was fucking them!  It was all of them.  There was the dark haired boy, Michael, and his older brother.  Christ, you could hardly tell them apart these days.  The other two little idiots were there too.  The ginger one, and the one  I’d given a talking to in the alley that day.  And there was the precious boy himself.  Her darling son.  King fucking Danny, eh?  I felt the trembling start in my dry, pursed lips, and in my nostrils as they widened, and in my eyes as they rolled back to stare at my step-son.  He was throwing his head back with laughter, one arm slung around his girlfriends shoulders.  I wanted so much to go over there and give him something to fucking laugh about.  I shook my head, and my eyes glazed over, and I felt sick, and numb and raw.  Tears moistened my eyes.  I gave you so many chances, I was thinking, so many chances to be good, so many chances…and you couldn’t do it could you?  Couldn’t just be a good boy? My hands were frozen to the steering wheel, clawed and shaking and I hung onto it, using it to anchor my aching body to the car.  I put the car into reverse suddenly.  I took one more lingering look at the laughing boy, with his friends.  I wanted something so badly then, and it angered me, what I wanted, it repulsed me and shamed me.  I screeched off down the road with it banging and clattering noisily inside my head.  I wanted to give him one more chance.

 

            I kept away.  I forced myself to.  It was too soon.  Too obvious.  He would be nervous and jumpy, having passed his address over to her.  Fucking little idiot.  It made me laugh sometimes when I was alone, at work.   I would sit behind my desk and chuckle.  Why did he trust her eh?  Why did he think she gave a shit?  Big mistake, I would tell him when the time came.  I let the weeks and the months slide by.  I kept up the sunny pretence when I had to.  I kept myself ticking over, I kept my mind on work, and I tried not to let anything show.  But I was watching, the whole time, I was watching her, and watching for signs of him.  I knew he came over sometimes.  There were less biscuits in the tin, and she didn’t eat the bloody things, did she?  One day I found white dog hairs on my trousers.  Another day I found the toilet seat up in the downstairs loo.  I knew it was him.  I could smell him.  It enraged me down to the very core of my soul.  To think of him, that little piece of shit, thinking he could stroll on into my house whenever he fucking felt like it.  I bet he was feeling full of himself alright.  I bet he thought he was unfuckingtouchable. 

            I pretended I knew nothing.  I let them think they had fooled me.  I let them carry on their little game of pretence and lies.  I didn’t know exactly when I would put a stop to it, I just knew that I would feel it, when it was time, when it was right.  You can’t rush things, I reminded myself, as ever.  Patience is the key.  Patience is always the key. 

80

 

 

            I guess I retreated a bit after that.  Pushed them all aside for a while.  I don’t really know why, except I suppose I was very confused, and needed time to think.  On the way back from my mothers I had shut Lucy out completely, pulling on my headphones and pressing play.  I sat slumped against the window, pulling my hand away when she tried to reach for it.  Pretty nasty of me, I know, but I couldn’t help it.  The memories were making me sad, and angry, and I was scared I would start shouting at her, or something. It just seemed impossible that I would be able to contain that much feeling.  I kept my mouth shut and my eyes turned away, simply to avoid hurting her.  If I’d opened my mouth I might have started screaming and I might never have stopped.  So she sat there beside me, her hands entwined in her own lap, her teeth chewing at her lips, while I pressed my forehead to the glass of the window and nodded along to The Stone Roses.  Never go anywhere without music, I’m telling you.  You never know when you are going to need it.  Sometimes I….fantasiiiiiiiiiise, when the streets are cold and lonely, and the cars they burn below me. I watched the town rolling past the window and a deep and dark depression seemed to settle over me.  I felt like I’d always felt back then.  What’s the point in anything?  Really?  There’s no god, there’s no heaven, there’s no afterlife, only this, endless turning shit and stress, so what’s the point?  Are you all alone?…Is anybody home?….Are you made of stone?  Dunno mate.  Might as well be.

            Back at the bed sit, I avoided their eyes and their questions, only shaking my head to indicate that I was not in the mood for talking.  I changed the tape in my Walkman, clipped the lead onto Kurt and went back out again on my own to walk him.  I left them behind, with  their puzzled, cautious faces, and their weighted silence following me out the door. I knew they would talk about me when I was gone.  Let them, I thought, let them.  I walked Kurt down to the beach and let him off.  It was freezing cold, the sea was rough and grey and violently throwing murky looking froth up onto the sand.  Kurt ran about barking at seagulls.  I lit a cigarette and sat on the steps to the promenade. 

            I didn’t think about anything for a while.  Just sat, and watched Kurt chasing the birds, and listened to the music.  That’s the nice thing about having music constantly with you, you see, you can immerse yourself in it, in the melody and in the lyrics, you can hold your own shit at bay for a while.  I’d picked Radiohead, completely at random.  The sea crashed silently, Kurt’s barking was muted, and my head was full of tortured words; You can crush it as dry as a bone, you can walk it home straight from school, you can kiss it, you can break all the rules, but still everything is….broken…Why can’t you forget?

            I sat there and instead of thinking about my mother, and what to do about it all, I thought about calling Jaime up, buying some speed or some pills or some coke from him and getting high, getting really fucking high.  I remembered how it used to feel.  Like I was untouchable, like nothing could get through, like everything was fucking amazing.  I remembered how I used to laugh, and smile, at nothing.  How amazing the music would sound, how my imagination would take me off to other places, beautiful places I never knew existed within my own mind.  I could do with some of that now, I was thinking.

            Do you want to know the other thing I was thinking?  You won’t like this.  I was thinking about pain, and what it was, and what it amounted to, and how easy it was to withstand if you knew how to.  I was wishing I still had my knife on me, but I didn’t, I hadn’t carried one about for months now.  I pulled up my sleeve and traced a finger down the jagged scar I’d given myself that day on the bench at the park.  I touched it, stroked it, and couldn’t deny the incredible urge I had to get something sharp and just tear into myself with it.  I don’t know why.  I’m not a shrink.  I just felt the urge.  I wanted to see blood and I wanted to feel that little hiss of pain that reminds you that you are still alive.  I wanted to scratch at my own skin until it all fell away.  I hated it.  I hated the feel of it, weighing me down, coated in the shame of the past…how to get rid of it?  How to get free? 

            I rested my elbow on my knee, dropped my head into my hand and tightened my fingers in my hair.  I closed my eyes.  I breathed in and out, and it didn’t seem enough.  It didn’t seem real.  I wanted to take my head and crash it into the rocks.  I don’t know why. Tears were stinging under my eyelids, so I wouldn’t open my eyes for a while, refusing to let the bastards out, the weak shitty little bastards.  I kept them in, I squeezed them backwards, I shook with it all inside of me.  Finally I had to breathe, I opened my mouth up wide and sucked in salty sea air, and opened my eyes and the tears dried on them, and I stared out at the sea, at everything.  I wanted a drink.

           

            Weeks passed, and my friends watched me like a hawk.  Lucy was more attentive than usual, walking on eggshells around me, the rigid smile she offered doing fuck all to soften the fear in her eyes.   I was feeling suffocated.  If they weren’t offering to come with me every time I left the bed-sit, then I’d find them whispering in corners, and asking me if I was alright the whole time.  I knew I was lucky to have people that cared, really lucky, but all the same, I was having to bite my tongue the whole time for fear of snapping at them.  I knew they meant well, but I didn’t want to be that person anymore, that scared kid they all felt sorry for, that little kid they wanted to look after, and keep safe.  I didn’t want to be watched over, or seen as a victim.  I decided it was time that I stood tall and took matters into my own hands.  It was time I had some control for once.  It was time I addressed the past, so that I could move on into the future, and leave it all behind.

            I showed them my bravest face at all times, whether they bought it or not.  I got drunker than usual when we went to Chaos, just to let rip, just to not give a shit, and it worked.  I told Lucy to stop worrying, that everything was fine, but she didn’t believe me, I could see it all over her face.

            “You’re thinking of going back to see her again,” Michael said to me when we were alone in the bed-sit one evening sharing a bottle of cheap wine.  Anthony was on a late shift at The Ship, so we had the place to ourselves.  I frowned at him, wondering how long he had been thinking about asking me that question.  I took a sip from the wine bottle and held it out to him.  He took it from me, and I stuffed my arms back under my sleeping bag, where I had Kurt all curled up asleep on my lap.  It didn’t matter what we did, that bed-sit was always freezing cold, winter or summer.  Anthony had bought two electric heaters, pinned thick blankets up over the windows, and stuffed towels under the doors, but it made no difference.  You could always see your breath when you spoke.  You had to wear three pairs of socks, and we seemed to be permanently wrapped up in duvets or sleeping bags. 

            “You mean my mum?” I asked him patiently, and he nodded, guzzling from the bottle, his dark eyes watching me carefully.  I rolled my eyes at him, shook my head and looked back at the TV.  TFI Friday was on, one of our favourite new shows.  I didn’t want to have the conversation I could sense him gearing towards.  “It’s just Lucy thinks that you are,” Michael went on, when a few minutes had passed, and I knew why he was asking then; because Lucy had probably begged him to speak to me.  “Because,” he went on again when I didn’t answer. “You keep changing the subject whenever anyone brings it up, and you’re really quiet about it…not good quiet…She’s really worried about you mate.”

            He passed the bottle back and I took it, easing one arm up from the sleeping bag to take it.  I sighed and looked at him.  “I knew it.  She put you up to this.”

            “You can’t blame her mate.  You’ve been weird since you saw your mum.  Might help if you told us about it, you know.”

            “Nothing to tell,” I shook my head. “Nothing that Lucy hasn’t already told you.”

            “But not what happened Danny, I mean how you felt, how you are now.  Whether or not you’re thinking of going back?”

            I drank the wine, staring back at the TV.  I felt dozy and sleepy.  I wondered why everything always had to be so hard.  I swallowed, wiped my mouth and passed it back. “Let me ask you a question Mike,” I said to him.  He nodded at me, waiting. “What do you think about your own mum these days?  I mean, she wasn’t exactly mother of the year either, was she? Do you know where she is?  Would you go and see her if she wanted you to?”

            Michael smiled at me wearily. “We’ve got her address,” he replied with a casual shrug. “My Aunt sent it.  Apparently she’s getting help for her drink problem. So fucking what?  You think I care?”

            “You wouldn’t go and see her then?”

            He shrugged again. “Don’t think so.  No reason to.  She left, didn’t she?  Her choice.  I’m not chasing after her.  If she wanted to see me, then fine, she can come here, see how it goes.  I’m not running after her, not ever.”  He passed the bottle back to me.

            “What about your dad?” I asked. “Do you ever think about him?”

            “Nope,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “Not once, not ever.  Wouldn’t waste my fucking time mate.  They screwed up, see?  They don’t get another chance.”

            I looked back at the TV, drank some more wine.  Michael lit up a cigarette beside me and tucked his legs up under his chin.  We were quiet again for a while, just watching and chuckling at the antics on TFI Friday.  During the ad break, we finished the wine and I lit up my own cigarette.  “Do you ever think about it though?” I asked Michael then. “I mean, why they screwed up so bad, or if they care about it now, if they regret it?”

            Michael turned his incredulous eyes upon me.  He looked about to ready to burst with indignation and contempt for my musings.  “Why would I waste my time mate?  The way I see it, it’s simple, right?  They never wanted kids, ‘cause they were both fucking boozers, got pregnant twice by accident, had me and Anthony and then legged it the first chance they got.  What more is there to understand?”

            “But would you talk to them, if you could?” I persisted. “If you got the chance?  If either of them turned up here, knocking on the door?  You’d have questions for them, wouldn’t you?  You’d want to try to understand it?”

            He sighed. “Look Danny, I get it, this is obviously how you’re feeling since you saw your mum.  I get it, you want to go and see her again, I don’t fucking like it, but I get it.”

            “Do you?”

            “Yeah,” he said. “You must want to make her feel bad yeah?  Rub her nose in it a bit, make her feel bad, ‘cause you got away from it all, and now she’s getting it, which is fucking funny if you think about it, considering she didn’t believe you.”

            I frowned at him and shifted under my sleeping bag. “Hmm,” I said. “That’s not really it Mike.  I mean, I do sort of want to let her know, the stuff she doesn’t know, to get it off my chest or whatever.  But I don’t think I want to make her feel any worse than she does.”

            “Oh you think she feels bad?” He shook his head and laughed. “You think she feels guilty about what happened to you?” I shrugged at him. “Yeah, right, well I don’t.  I think she feel scared and wants your help.  And I think if you go back there mate, you are asking for serious fucking trouble.  Think about it.  That bastard has left you alone for ages.  You really want to give him a reason to start it all up again?”

            “I know that,” I told him, dragging the ashtray across the bed to tap my cigarette against.  “But it didn’t make me feel good Mike, seeing her all beaten up like that.”

            “Yeah, she probably wants you back again so he can go back to hurting you, and not her!” Michael was staring at me angrily.  He tapped his cigarette and wiped at his mouth hard.  “For fucks sake Danny.  Why’d you write the 999 down for her then?  That must have made her feel like shit, and rightly so!  Why should you help her?”

            “I regret that now,” I looked him in the eye and told him.  “I do.  I’ve felt bad about it ever since.”

            “Oh fuckinghell Danny,” Michael sighed miserably and shook his face into both of his hands, before dropping them heavily and looking at me in pity. “Mate.  Please, please do not feel sorry for that woman!  She is a grown woman mate!  She can leave any fucking time she wants, she can call the cops, tell the neighbours, get a divorce!  What’s stopping her?  You were a kid, and you shouldn’t forget that Danny. Why the hell do you feel bad?” He glared at me, expecting an answer that I just didn’t have.  “What have you got to feel bad about?  So you were a pain in the arse as a kid?  So fucking what?  You should have been able to tell her the first time he did anything, and she should have believed you, and that should have been the end of it!  He should have been out!  You know that don’t you?  You know she let you down, fucked you over?  What about Freeman and all that shit?”

            I got off the bed then.  Pushed my sleeping bag down in one quick motion, tipping unsuspecting Kurt out onto the floor.  I ran my fingers through my hair, back and forth, stretching and yawning as I stepped out from the bag.  “Don’t,” I told him, before walking into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

            “Sorry,” he called out after me.  “But you have to remember all that shit Danny, so you don’t make the mistake of going back to her!  I don’t wanna’ fucking remind you of all that shit, all the stuff that went on, but you have to remember, you have to ask, where was she eh?  Where was she the day you broke down on the beach?  Where was she the day you had your famous bike crash?  All the rest of it?  Eh?”

            I turned the kettle on and reappeared in the doorway.  It was time for the conversation to end.  And to do that I knew I would have to give in to him. “Alright,” I said. “You’re right.  I’ll leave it.”

            He turned around on the bed to face me properly.  I thought how much like Anthony he looked these days.  If he grew much taller they would look like twins.  “Look,” he said to me. “Let me tell you what I think, for what it’s worth.  You don’t owe her anything.  She’s done sod all for you.  She let that cunt move in when she knew nothing about him, she didn’t care if you liked him or not, she didn’t believe you, she turned a blind eye and she’s still fucking with him!  And now he’s beating her up, she wants to see you?  You went and saw her, and you told her to call the cops.  What else can you do?  Nothing mate, nothing. Because if you go back there, if you try and help her or anything, that crazy bastard is gonna’ catch wind of it and then we’re right back to square fucking one, aren’t we? You don’t want him back in your life, do you Danny?”

            I looked at him and shook my head.  My mouth felt dry, and my skin was crawling with goosebumps. “Okay,” I told him, and in that moment, I meant it.  “Okay.  You’re right.  I know it.  Sorry.”

            Michael laughed a little nervously.  He got up to turn the channel over. “Well hallelujah!  Thank fucking god!”  I made the tea and brought it in.  We wrapped our hands around the warm mugs, with our sleeping bags pulled right up to our chins.  “This much coldness is insane,” he remarked, puffing his breath into the air to demonstrate. “It would drive anyone mental.  I can’t cope with it much longer, I’m telling you.  I keep expecting to wake up and find us all frozen stiff!”

            “We should complain again,” I said.

            “Anthony has, millions of times! They don’t give a shit, but hey, you know what?” he looked at me with a sparkle in his eye. “Anthony reckons another month or so and we could afford another place, a bigger, better place. Like a flat, with bedrooms, and heating!”

            I grinned back at him.  “God, that would be amazing Mike.”

            “I know, I know it will.  Everything will be amazing, just so long as you stay away from the past, yeah?”

            I smiled, and nodded, and looked back at the TV.  I knew that would be enough to satisfy him, but inside my own head, I knew it was never going to be as simple as that.

 

            So in my head, I devised a plan.  I didn’t mean to.  I want you to know that.  I didn’t want to.  It just kept happening.  It got into my brain and refused to be kicked out.  It formed, painstakingly slowly over several sleepless nights.  I would lay awake, remembering how those cold fingers of fear had once lived inside my belly, scrabbling around in there night after night.  How they had fallen quiet, for so long now.  I wondered if it was the same for her, my mother.  I imagined how she felt, hearing her husband return from work at night.  I wondered how quickly he started laying into her, what little things he used as reasons and justifications for hurting her.  I wondered if there were house inspections, and interrogations about her whereabouts.  She had no friends, I knew that.  No one to turn to.  No one to tell her what to do.  I’d lie awake, knowing exactly how she felt if she broke a cup, or left a smear on the window when cleaning it.  I knew that she probably found herself living with a constant gnawing terror in her gut, that warded off sleep, and peace, and sanity.  I lay awake, night after night, denying to myself, what I knew deep down inside.  That I had to see her again.  Maybe just once.  On my own, without Lucy.  I had to see her again and get some answers.  I had to find some peace somehow, from somewhere. 

            I knew what my friends would say, so I did not tell them.  I asked Terry if I could work late one night.  “You don’t have to pay me,” I was quick to point out when he looked about to argue.  “I’ve got this list, getting longer all the time, of people I’ve got to call about records they wanted.  I’m too busy to do it in the day.”

            “Well it’s up to you then,” Terry told me with a shrug.  “I’ll be upstairs getting my lips around a frozen meal for one.  Let me know if you have any trouble closing up.”

            I had no trouble closing up.  I ran up the stairs and knocked on the door to his flat, sliding the keys under the door for him.  “Cheers!” I heard him call out, as I dashed back down the stairs.  I grabbed my coat from the hook, pushed my arms through it, clipped Kurts lead on and went out the back way, taking care to properly slam the heavy door behind me.  It was dark.  I paused to button my coat up to my chin, and pull my scarf out from my pocket to wrap around my neck and over my mouth.  I put my hood up, shoved my hands into my pockets and set off down the alley as if I owned it, with Kurt yawning and trotting alongside me. 

            I tried to ignore the violent lurching of my heart, which felt like it had been asleep for some time, only to be rudely awakened by the memory of fear.  It was remembering now alright, as I walked with my shoulders hunched against the cold, towards the back of Howards club.  They would just be starting to open up, I thought, and sure enough, there was Howards flashy silver Merc, parked out the back.  I breathed in, and then out, looked straight ahead and kept walking.  I walked down to the end of the alley and then turned right and came out onto the high street.  I walked fast, because it was cold, and I wanted to warm up my bones, and I walked fast because I wanted to outrun my fears.  My mind was fighting a battle with my body the entire way there.  My body was playing the old game, screaming at me to stop, to turn around and run, to get away and be gone, while my mind attempted to argue calmly back, and I took deep breaths, and thought about Lucy, and music, and my friends, and I walked on and on.

            I listened to Oasis as I walked.  Don’t ever stand aside, don’t ever be denied,  they roared into my ears as I marched grimly on, you gotta’ be who you be, if you’re coming with me, I think I got a feeling I’m lost inside, I think I got a feeling I’m lost inside…When I reached the house, I stopped on the driveway and pressed stop.  The security light flicked on, drenching the drive and me in cold yellow light.  Immediately I saw a movement in the kitchen, and as I approached the front door, it was opened to me.  She was surprised to see me.  You could see that.  She was really shocked.  Tears filled her eyes again.  Her face looked much better, not so swollen, and the bruises had faded.  She looked like she was going to have a scar on her lip though.  I slipped past her and into the hallway with Kurt, and began to unbutton my coat.  She was wide eyed and nervous, but was smiling.  “He’s at work,” she told me, her voice coming out croaky, little more than a whisper.  She closed the door and gazed down at the dog.  “So who is this then?”

            “This is Kurt,” I told her.  “And I know Lee is at work, because I checked.  Walked past his car.”

            “What are you doing here?” she asked me, stepping forward and sort of reaching for me with her arms, before thinking better of it, and wrapping them around herself.  I shook a hand through my hair, flattened by my hood.

            “Came to see if you called that number yet,” I said.  She opened her mouth, and then closed it again, her shame turning her cheeks pink.  She shook her head at me.

            “I know I should…”

            “Easier said then done?” I asked at her, a smile tugging at me lips.  She smiled back.

            “I need to work out what to do,” she said. “I’m not as strong as you Danny.”

            “Plenty of times I should have called that number, but didn’t,” I told her then and shrugged. “Don’t even know why I didn’t, half the time.  So are you gonna’ make me a cup of tea or what?  It’s bloody freezing out there.”

            She nodded, and turned into the kitchen.  I unclipped Kurt, and he scampered around the hallway with his nose down, before hurrying quickly after me, and sitting down on my feet.  I didn’t blame him.  I felt the same.  Everything about the house made me feel small.  The kitchen was immense.  The shininess made my eyes ache in their sockets.  At the far end were French doors that led out onto a patio.  Two cream sofas were positioned there with view of the garden.  The ceiling was high, as were the cupboards.  I could imagine my mother stretching up on tiptoes to try to reach them.  The interior doors were huge, making me feel like a child.  It was like the house had been designed for giants.  Or monsters.  I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I had got away before they moved.  I didn’t fit in a house like that.  I stood out like a sore thumb.  My mother looked tiny, I thought, as I watched her move jerkily around the room, making the tea.  She was wearing a long floaty blue top, and tight jeans.  She had lost weight where they had been none to lose.  Her golden waves were twisted and pinned up at the back of her head.  I leant back against the marble worktop and felt my mouth growing drier.  My stomach was now in knots.  I kept expecting Howard to walk back in at any moment.

            “Can’t say I like your house much,” I remarked to break the silence.  She crossed her arms and waited for the kettle to boil.  She offered me a wry and knowing look.

            “Well not exactly your taste is it?” she grinned, nodding her head at my scruffy attire and nearly shoulder length hair.  “I’ve missed you, you know,” she said then. “I was shocked when you ran away that day.  Really shocked.  I was that naïve, I really thought things would be better in this house, when we all moved into it together.  Then I was sort of relieved, in a weird way.  I don’t know, it was like I always had this awful tension inside of me, and whenever I looked into your face, I would see it staring right back at me.”

            “Yeah?  What was it?  The truth?”

            “It was after my mum died,” she went on, gazing at the kettle as the steam began to pummel out of the spout.  “I realised what an awful relationship I’d always had with her, and that I was doing the exact same thing with you.  I started to see things about Lee, after she died, things I’d either not noticed before or made excuses for. I started to feel uneasy, but at the same time, I so wanted things to work out. Didn’t want to be on my own again, I suppose.” She shrugged her small shoulders and turned to pour the water from the kettle. “So I was relieved for a while when you went, for you and for me.  What I couldn’t understand was Lee’s reaction.”  She was frowning as she set the kettle back down and picked up a teaspoon to swirl the teabags in their mugs. 

            “He hates to lose,” I said, my eyes shooting back to the front door.  “It would have been okay if he’d thrown me out, if it had been on his terms, not mine.”

            “Maybe you’re right,” she sighed, picking up one of the chrome canisters that lined the worktop like soldiers.  “Are you still one sugar?” I nodded and watched her spoon it in.  “He kept going on about it, especially the first few weeks.  Storming around the house, furious all the time, accusing me of helping you go. He even accused me of not caring about you like he did!  Said you were holed up with druggies and criminals.  I couldn’t understand why he cared so much, I mean, he was horrible to you most the time you were here. Why would he want you back?  I didn’t get it.”

            “Control,” I said flatly, taking the tea when she handed it to me.  “There’s probably a name for what he’s got.  He has to be completely in control, of everything.  He has to own you.  That, and he’s addicted to violence.  Which explains why he attacked my friend Jake for no reason because he couldn’t find me.”

            Mum turned and rested her back beside mine.  She wrapped one thin arm around her body and held her tea up to her lips.  “I think you’re tight,” she murmured. “The first few times I made excuses…I was probably in shock.  I couldn’t think straight.  I tried to understand why he did it, but all along I knew why really.  Because he wasn’t the man I thought he was.  He was someone else entirely.  And it all came out.  And then it got worse.” She sipped her tea as her eyes filled up with tears.  “I’m terrified of him now,” she said softly. “I don’t know what to do.”

            “He’s pretty good at deceiving people,” I said to her.  “You ought to see the people down at the club, they all fucking love him!  He’s king of the castle, and that’s what he thrives on.  Yeah, he fooled you, but not just you.  He fooled the cops, the school, John.  He took advantage of what he walked into, you know.”

            “I do know,” she nodded firmly. “Me and you at each other’s throats, because you didn’t like my boyfriends.” She laughed a little and pushed a strand of golden hair back behind one ear.  “Well you were right weren’t you?  They were all bastards or idiots one way or another.  Jesus Christ, I should have listened to you.  I should have known you were only trying to protect us all.  I really don’t deserve you, you know, not then, and certainly not now.”

            “I was a little shit though,” I reminded her with a grin.  “I wasn’t like John.”

            “God no,” she laughed. “You weren’t, and I bet I bloody told you it a million times a day!  But I didn’t love you any less, you know that, right?”  She turned her body to face me.  “You were hard work, oh yes, from day one, but that just scared me you know, as you got older.  You were becoming more and more like me.”

            “Really?”

            She looked me right in the eye.  “Yep. I was just like you, with my mother.  Didn’t think about it until she’d died.  But I was always arguing her, challenging her, fighting her.  Now if you ever kids, just don’t make the same mistakes hey?”

            She winked and smiled at me, but I felt unable to return it.  I felt terribly worn down then, as if just being in his house was draining the life from me.  “I am never having kids,” I told her.  “Never.  No way.”

            “Well of course you’d say that at sixteen years old.”

            “No, I mean it, I really do. No way I’m risking passing on that motherfuckers parenting skills.”

            She just stared at me in silence.  I sighed and looked down at Kurt sat on my feet, and wondered what the hell I was doing there.  I checked the door again, and I hated the feeling that was rising inside my chest, that old fluttery feeling of panic stirring.  I rubbed at my eyes with my hand.  “I don’t even know why I came…”

            “I don’t deserve you to be here, I know that…”

            “No one knows I’m here.  Not even Lucy.  They all think I’m nuts.  They think I’ll get all caught up in it again.  Get myself in trouble.” I shrugged and put down my cup.  “So are you going to leave him or what?  ‘Cause I think that’s the only way I can keep coming to see you. If you’re not with him.” I found it hard to look at her then.  Inside was this awful heaviness pulling me down, grabbing at my heart and squeezing all of the joy out of it.  Michael had been right, I thought, I should stay away from the past.  She was thinking about it, holding her cup in both hands under her chin, as he eyes scanned the room nervously and her teeth chewed at her lip. 

            “There’s a part of me that still loves him,” she replied so softly I almost missed it.  I felt like punching myself in the head when I realised what she had said.  I pushed one hand through my hair and held onto my head, while my heart was yanked down to the floor. 

            “Don’t say that,” I begged, turning away from her.  “Fuck, I come all the way here, to fucking help you and you go and say that! You can’t say that mum, if you fucking knew him like I do, you wouldn’t be able to say that!”

            “A part of me, I said, a tiny part of me. There are obviously sides to my relationship with him that are different to yours.”

            I just stared at her, enraged, unable to believe what I was hearing. “What the fuck does that mean?”

            “It means it’s complicated, that’s what it means.  It’s not as simple for me to just leave, Danny.  I’m not young.  I have no friends round here thanks to him, and the house is in his name, and I have no job!”  She finished her tea, wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and carried the cup over to the sink.  I felt the strongest urge to just laugh at her.

            “You don’t need money.  You just go.  You just leave.  Go to John, or back to Southampton. Call the police.  Get him arrested.  There are plenty of choices mum.  Or you can carry on like you are, a prisoner living with a psychopath, and this will be the last time you ever see me.”

            “I do want to leave him Danny, for goodness sake, I do!” She whirled around, tea towel clutched in one hand.  “I just need to work out what to do, financially and everything else. I know I can’t go on like this, I know that, I know I can’t..” She made a noise like a sob and covered her face with her hands.  “He’ll kill me if this carries on….I know it.”

            “He’s dangerous,” I said, my eyes shooting back to the door again.  She lowered her hands and traipsed slowly back towards me.  “I’m serious mum. If he’s only just started hitting you, you’ve got no idea how bad it will get.  He’s twisted inside.  He enjoys it mum, haven’t you noticed that yet?  He gets a kick out of it, I swear to God, it’s like a drug, it calms him down…” I had to break off, move back from her, my eyes held prisoner by the fucking door.  The memories were back again, trying to choke me, dark images crashing through my mind, trying to force their way through before I could push them back where I kept them. 

            She folded her arms and her eyes searched my face. “That’s why you came back today?  To convince me to leave him?”

            I sighed, my shoulders dropping under my heavy coat.  “I dunno mum.  Don’t know why I’m here, or what good it will do.  Maybe I’m an idiot hey?  I ought to stay away.  Let you get on with it.”  I thought suddenly of Lucy, up in her room, doing her homework, and a sharp pain pulled at me and made me want to run towards her.  “No one thinks I should be here.”

            “Then why are you here?”

            “I don’t know,” I repeated again, helplessly.  But I did know.  I knew there was still this little part of me that felt like a kid, a kid who just wanted to make his mother listen to him for once.  “Maybe I needed to hear something from you,” I exhaled loudly and glanced again at the front door.  “I don’t know.”

            She stepped towards me, her face so wrecked with emotion that I could hardly bear to look at her.  She was slowly reaching out for me, and I was torn in half, caught between wanting desperately to fall into her arms, and running for the door and never returning.  “That I’m sorry?” she asked me.  “That I was a crap mother from start to finish, that I let you down  so badly, that I will never forgive myself?  I should have known better Danny.” She stopped right in front of me, and her hands rose hesitantly and jerkily up to my face.  I froze, dreading her touch as much as I craved it.  Then I watched her hands curl into fists and draw back under her own chin.  “I thought it was drugs,” she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears.  “And god, how much I want to ask Lee about what Lucy said, about the drugs, because I still don’t understand Danny, I don’t understand any of it. Was that true?  Was it him and Jack all the time?”  I nodded at her and her eyes fell shut, squeezing our fresh water. “Bastards.  I can’t say anything, I can’t let him know I’ve seen you…”

            I pushed my hands into my pockets and tried to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat.  “No,” I said. “Don’t let him know, don’t say anything to him, whatever you do.” She moved forward suddenly then, catching me off guard, and her arms were around me before I could react, or pull away.  I stiffened against her and despised the tears that were threatening me, and she just held on.  She buried her face in my clothes, and the sobs shook both our bodies.  I gave in to it quietly.  I toyed with the grotesque possibility of Howard walking in and catching us.  “My son,” she was mumbling into my chest.  “I’m so sorry….so sorry….”

            “It’s alright,” I told the top of her head. “I’m okay, you know.  I’m okay.”

            “I will leave him,” she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeves and pulling back to look at me.  “There has to be a way.  I’m going to speak to John. What do you think?”

            I managed a tight smile.  “Think that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”  She nodded firmly.

            “The least I can do is get that man out of my life and then I can start to try to make it up to you.” She planted her hands on her hips and shook her hair out of her eyes, and I thought she looked stronger like that, almost like the old her. “I’ve got to get myself out of this god awful mess.”  She eyed the kettle and then looked back at me.  “How long can you stay?”

            I shrugged. “Another hour maybe.  As long as it’s safe.”

            “We can see the road from here,” she said, nodding at the window.  “And the light goes on when a car pulls in the drive.  If he does come back, you’ll have plenty of time to run out the back way.”

            I nodded.  “Okay then.”

            I ended up staying another hour.  I breathed, in and out, slowly and methodically the entire time, nurturing a thin restraint on my pounding heart. Never again, I kept telling myself, my eyes narrowed as they moved constantly between the door and the window, never again will I get stomped on by that evil bastard…and if mum leaves him…Relax, I told myself.  My mind whirled with confusion, hope and fear.  My mother chattered on.  I took my turn when I was supposed to.  I told her about the bed-sit, and my job, and my writing, and my dog.  She sat up on a high kitchen stool, her hand wrapped around her cup, and her eyes moist as she listened to me talk about my life.  “You always were a strange kid,” she grinned at me, and I supposed I was meant to take that as a compliment.

            “I’ll write down my address,” I said to her, before I left. “So you can pass it on to John.”  She passed me a piece of notepaper and I scrawled the address on it and passed it back. 

80

 

 

            I guess I retreated a bit after that.  Pushed them all aside for a while.  I don’t really know why, except I suppose I was very confused, and needed time to think.  On the way back from my mothers I had shut Lucy out completely, pulling on my headphones and pressing play.  I sat slumped against the window, pulling my hand away when she tried to reach for it.  Pretty nasty of me, I know, but I couldn’t help it.  The memories were making me sad, and angry, and I was scared I would start shouting at her, or something. It just seemed impossible that I would be able to contain that much feeling.  I kept my mouth shut and my eyes turned away, simply to avoid hurting her.  If I’d opened my mouth I might have started screaming and I might never have stopped.  So she sat there beside me, her hands entwined in her own lap, her teeth chewing at her lips, while I pressed my forehead to the glass of the window and nodded along to The Stone Roses.  Never go anywhere without music, I’m telling you.  You never know when you are going to need it.  Sometimes I….fantasiiiiiiiiiise, when the streets are cold and lonely, and the cars they burn below me. I watched the town rolling past the window and a deep and dark depression seemed to settle over me.  I felt like I’d always felt back then.  What’s the point in anything?  Really?  There’s no god, there’s no heaven, there’s no afterlife, only this, endless turning shit and stress, so what’s the point?  Are you all alone?…Is anybody home?….Are you made of stone?  Dunno mate.  Might as well be.

            Back at the bed sit, I avoided their eyes and their questions, only shaking my head to indicate that I was not in the mood for talking.  I changed the tape in my Walkman, clipped the lead onto Kurt and went back out again on my own to walk him.  I left them behind, with  their puzzled, cautious faces, and their weighted silence following me out the door. I knew they would talk about me when I was gone.  Let them, I thought, let them.  I walked Kurt down to the beach and let him off.  It was freezing cold, the sea was rough and grey and violently throwing murky looking froth up onto the sand.  Kurt ran about barking at seagulls.  I lit a cigarette and sat on the steps to the promenade. 

            I didn’t think about anything for a while.  Just sat, and watched Kurt chasing the birds, and listened to the music.  That’s the nice thing about having music constantly with you, you see, you can immerse yourself in it, in the melody and in the lyrics, you can hold your own shit at bay for a while.  I’d picked Radiohead, completely at random.  The sea crashed silently, Kurt’s barking was muted, and my head was full of tortured words; You can crush it as dry as a bone, you can walk it home straight from school, you can kiss it, you can break all the rules, but still everything is….broken…Why can’t you forget?

            I sat there and instead of thinking about my mother, and what to do about it all, I thought about calling Jaime up, buying some speed or some pills or some coke from him and getting high, getting really fucking high.  I remembered how it used to feel.  Like I was untouchable, like nothing could get through, like everything was fucking amazing.  I remembered how I used to laugh, and smile, at nothing.  How amazing the music would sound, how my imagination would take me off to other places, beautiful places I never knew existed within my own mind.  I could do with some of that now, I was thinking.

            Do you want to know the other thing I was thinking?  You won’t like this.  I was thinking about pain, and what it was, and what it amounted to, and how easy it was to withstand if you knew how to.  I was wishing I still had my knife on me, but I didn’t, I hadn’t carried one about for months now.  I pulled up my sleeve and traced a finger down the jagged scar I’d given myself that day on the bench at the park.  I touched it, stroked it, and couldn’t deny the incredible urge I had to get something sharp and just tear into myself with it.  I don’t know why.  I’m not a shrink.  I just felt the urge.  I wanted to see blood and I wanted to feel that little hiss of pain that reminds you that you are still alive.  I wanted to scratch at my own skin until it all fell away.  I hated it.  I hated the feel of it, weighing me down, coated in the shame of the past…how to get rid of it?  How to get free? 

            I rested my elbow on my knee, dropped my head into my hand and tightened my fingers in my hair.  I closed my eyes.  I breathed in and out, and it didn’t seem enough.  It didn’t seem real.  I wanted to take my head and crash it into the rocks.  I don’t know why. Tears were stinging under my eyelids, so I wouldn’t open my eyes for a while, refusing to let the bastards out, the weak shitty little bastards.  I kept them in, I squeezed them backwards, I shook with it all inside of me.  Finally I had to breathe, I opened my mouth up wide and sucked in salty sea air, and opened my eyes and the tears dried on them, and I stared out at the sea, at everything.  I wanted a drink.

           

            Weeks passed, and my friends watched me like a hawk.  Lucy was more attentive than usual, walking on eggshells around me, the rigid smile she offered doing fuck all to soften the fear in her eyes.   I was feeling suffocated.  If they weren’t offering to come with me every time I left the bed-sit, then I’d find them whispering in corners, and asking me if I was alright the whole time.  I knew I was lucky to have people that cared, really lucky, but all the same, I was having to bite my tongue the whole time for fear of snapping at them.  I knew they meant well, but I didn’t want to be that person anymore, that scared kid they all felt sorry for, that little kid they wanted to look after, and keep safe.  I didn’t want to be watched over, or seen as a victim.  I decided it was time that I stood tall and took matters into my own hands.  It was time I had some control for once.  It was time I addressed the past, so that I could move on into the future, and leave it all behind.

            I showed them my bravest face at all times, whether they bought it or not.  I got drunker than usual when we went to Chaos, just to let rip, just to not give a shit, and it worked.  I told Lucy to stop worrying, that everything was fine, but she didn’t believe me, I could see it all over her face.

            “You’re thinking of going back to see her again,” Michael said to me when we were alone in the bed-sit one evening sharing a bottle of cheap wine.  Anthony was on a late shift at The Ship, so we had the place to ourselves.  I frowned at him, wondering how long he had been thinking about asking me that question.  I took a sip from the wine bottle and held it out to him.  He took it from me, and I stuffed my arms back under my sleeping bag, where I had Kurt all curled up asleep on my lap.  It didn’t matter what we did, that bed-sit was always freezing cold, winter or summer.  Anthony had bought two electric heaters, pinned thick blankets up over the windows, and stuffed towels under the doors, but it made no difference.  You could always see your breath when you spoke.  You had to wear three pairs of socks, and we seemed to be permanently wrapped up in duvets or sleeping bags. 

            “You mean my mum?” I asked him patiently, and he nodded, guzzling from the bottle, his dark eyes watching me carefully.  I rolled my eyes at him, shook my head and looked back at the TV.  TFI Friday was on, one of our favourite new shows.  I didn’t want to have the conversation I could sense him gearing towards.  “It’s just Lucy thinks that you are,” Michael went on, when a few minutes had passed, and I knew why he was asking then; because Lucy had probably begged him to speak to me.  “Because,” he went on again when I didn’t answer. “You keep changing the subject whenever anyone brings it up, and you’re really quiet about it…not good quiet…She’s really worried about you mate.”

            He passed the bottle back and I took it, easing one arm up from the sleeping bag to take it.  I sighed and looked at him.  “I knew it.  She put you up to this.”

            “You can’t blame her mate.  You’ve been weird since you saw your mum.  Might help if you told us about it, you know.”

            “Nothing to tell,” I shook my head. “Nothing that Lucy hasn’t already told you.”

            “But not what happened Danny, I mean how you felt, how you are now.  Whether or not you’re thinking of going back?”

            I drank the wine, staring back at the TV.  I felt dozy and sleepy.  I wondered why everything always had to be so hard.  I swallowed, wiped my mouth and passed it back. “Let me ask you a question Mike,” I said to him.  He nodded at me, waiting. “What do you think about your own mum these days?  I mean, she wasn’t exactly mother of the year either, was she? Do you know where she is?  Would you go and see her if she wanted you to?”

            Michael smiled at me wearily. “We’ve got her address,” he replied with a casual shrug. “My Aunt sent it.  Apparently she’s getting help for her drink problem. So fucking what?  You think I care?”

            “You wouldn’t go and see her then?”

            He shrugged again. “Don’t think so.  No reason to.  She left, didn’t she?  Her choice.  I’m not chasing after her.  If she wanted to see me, then fine, she can come here, see how it goes.  I’m not running after her, not ever.”  He passed the bottle back to me.

            “What about your dad?” I asked. “Do you ever think about him?”

            “Nope,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “Not once, not ever.  Wouldn’t waste my fucking time mate.  They screwed up, see?  They don’t get another chance.”

            I looked back at the TV, drank some more wine.  Michael lit up a cigarette beside me and tucked his legs up under his chin.  We were quiet again for a while, just watching and chuckling at the antics on TFI Friday.  During the ad break, we finished the wine and I lit up my own cigarette.  “Do you ever think about it though?” I asked Michael then. “I mean, why they screwed up so bad, or if they care about it now, if they regret it?”

            Michael turned his incredulous eyes upon me.  He looked about to ready to burst with indignation and contempt for my musings.  “Why would I waste my time mate?  The way I see it, it’s simple, right?  They never wanted kids, ‘cause they were both fucking boozers, got pregnant twice by accident, had me and Anthony and then legged it the first chance they got.  What more is there to understand?”

            “But would you talk to them, if you could?” I persisted. “If you got the chance?  If either of them turned up here, knocking on the door?  You’d have questions for them, wouldn’t you?  You’d want to try to understand it?”

            He sighed. “Look Danny, I get it, this is obviously how you’re feeling since you saw your mum.  I get it, you want to go and see her again, I don’t fucking like it, but I get it.”

            “Do you?”

            “Yeah,” he said. “You must want to make her feel bad yeah?  Rub her nose in it a bit, make her feel bad, ‘cause you got away from it all, and now she’s getting it, which is fucking funny if you think about it, considering she didn’t believe you.”

            I frowned at him and shifted under my sleeping bag. “Hmm,” I said. “That’s not really it Mike.  I mean, I do sort of want to let her know, the stuff she doesn’t know, to get it off my chest or whatever.  But I don’t think I want to make her feel any worse than she does.”

            “Oh you think she feels bad?” He shook his head and laughed. “You think she feels guilty about what happened to you?” I shrugged at him. “Yeah, right, well I don’t.  I think she feel scared and wants your help.  And I think if you go back there mate, you are asking for serious fucking trouble.  Think about it.  That bastard has left you alone for ages.  You really want to give him a reason to start it all up again?”

            “I know that,” I told him, dragging the ashtray across the bed to tap my cigarette against.  “But it didn’t make me feel good Mike, seeing her all beaten up like that.”

            “Yeah, she probably wants you back again so he can go back to hurting you, and not her!” Michael was staring at me angrily.  He tapped his cigarette and wiped at his mouth hard.  “For fucks sake Danny.  Why’d you write the 999 down for her then?  That must have made her feel like shit, and rightly so!  Why should you help her?”

            “I regret that now,” I looked him in the eye and told him.  “I do.  I’ve felt bad about it ever since.”

            “Oh fuckinghell Danny,” Michael sighed miserably and shook his face into both of his hands, before dropping them heavily and looking at me in pity. “Mate.  Please, please do not feel sorry for that woman!  She is a grown woman mate!  She can leave any fucking time she wants, she can call the cops, tell the neighbours, get a divorce!  What’s stopping her?  You were a kid, and you shouldn’t forget that Danny. Why the hell do you feel bad?” He glared at me, expecting an answer that I just didn’t have.  “What have you got to feel bad about?  So you were a pain in the arse as a kid?  So fucking what?  You should have been able to tell her the first time he did anything, and she should have believed you, and that should have been the end of it!  He should have been out!  You know that don’t you?  You know she let you down, fucked you over?  What about Freeman and all that shit?”

            I got off the bed then.  Pushed my sleeping bag down in one quick motion, tipping unsuspecting Kurt out onto the floor.  I ran my fingers through my hair, back and forth, stretching and yawning as I stepped out from the bag.  “Don’t,” I told him, before walking into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

            “Sorry,” he called out after me.  “But you have to remember all that shit Danny, so you don’t make the mistake of going back to her!  I don’t wanna’ fucking remind you of all that shit, all the stuff that went on, but you have to remember, you have to ask, where was she eh?  Where was she the day you broke down on the beach?  Where was she the day you had your famous bike crash?  All the rest of it?  Eh?”

            I turned the kettle on and reappeared in the doorway.  It was time for the conversation to end.  And to do that I knew I would have to give in to him. “Alright,” I said. “You’re right.  I’ll leave it.”

            He turned around on the bed to face me properly.  I thought how much like Anthony he looked these days.  If he grew much taller they would look like twins.  “Look,” he said to me. “Let me tell you what I think, for what it’s worth.  You don’t owe her anything.  She’s done sod all for you.  She let that cunt move in when she knew nothing about him, she didn’t care if you liked him or not, she didn’t believe you, she turned a blind eye and she’s still fucking with him!  And now he’s beating her up, she wants to see you?  You went and saw her, and you told her to call the cops.  What else can you do?  Nothing mate, nothing. Because if you go back there, if you try and help her or anything, that crazy bastard is gonna’ catch wind of it and then we’re right back to square fucking one, aren’t we? You don’t want him back in your life, do you Danny?”

            I looked at him and shook my head.  My mouth felt dry, and my skin was crawling with goosebumps. “Okay,” I told him, and in that moment, I meant it.  “Okay.  You’re right.  I know it.  Sorry.”

            Michael laughed a little nervously.  He got up to turn the channel over. “Well hallelujah!  Thank fucking god!”  I made the tea and brought it in.  We wrapped our hands around the warm mugs, with our sleeping bags pulled right up to our chins.  “This much coldness is insane,” he remarked, puffing his breath into the air to demonstrate. “It would drive anyone mental.  I can’t cope with it much longer, I’m telling you.  I keep expecting to wake up and find us all frozen stiff!”

            “We should complain again,” I said.

            “Anthony has, millions of times! They don’t give a shit, but hey, you know what?” he looked at me with a sparkle in his eye. “Anthony reckons another month or so and we could afford another place, a bigger, better place. Like a flat, with bedrooms, and heating!”

            I grinned back at him.  “God, that would be amazing Mike.”

            “I know, I know it will.  Everything will be amazing, just so long as you stay away from the past, yeah?”

            I smiled, and nodded, and looked back at the TV.  I knew that would be enough to satisfy him, but inside my own head, I knew it was never going to be as simple as that.

 

            So in my head, I devised a plan.  I didn’t mean to.  I want you to know that.  I didn’t want to.  It just kept happening.  It got into my brain and refused to be kicked out.  It formed, painstakingly slowly over several sleepless nights.  I would lay awake, remembering how those cold fingers of fear had once lived inside my belly, scrabbling around in there night after night.  How they had fallen quiet, for so long now.  I wondered if it was the same for her, my mother.  I imagined how she felt, hearing her husband return from work at night.  I wondered how quickly he started laying into her, what little things he used as reasons and justifications for hurting her.  I wondered if there were house inspections, and interrogations about her whereabouts.  She had no friends, I knew that.  No one to turn to.  No one to tell her what to do.  I’d lie awake, knowing exactly how she felt if she broke a cup, or left a smear on the window when cleaning it.  I knew that she probably found herself living with a constant gnawing terror in her gut, that warded off sleep, and peace, and sanity.  I lay awake, night after night, denying to myself, what I knew deep down inside.  That I had to see her again.  Maybe just once.  On my own, without Lucy.  I had to see her again and get some answers.  I had to find some peace somehow, from somewhere. 

            I knew what my friends would say, so I did not tell them.  I asked Terry if I could work late one night.  “You don’t have to pay me,” I was quick to point out when he looked about to argue.  “I’ve got this list, getting longer all the time, of people I’ve got to call about records they wanted.  I’m too busy to do it in the day.”

            “Well it’s up to you then,” Terry told me with a shrug.  “I’ll be upstairs getting my lips around a frozen meal for one.  Let me know if you have any trouble closing up.”

            I had no trouble closing up.  I ran up the stairs and knocked on the door to his flat, sliding the keys under the door for him.  “Cheers!” I heard him call out, as I dashed back down the stairs.  I grabbed my coat from the hook, pushed my arms through it, clipped Kurts lead on and went out the back way, taking care to properly slam the heavy door behind me.  It was dark.  I paused to button my coat up to my chin, and pull my scarf out from my pocket to wrap around my neck and over my mouth.  I put my hood up, shoved my hands into my pockets and set off down the alley as if I owned it, with Kurt yawning and trotting alongside me. 

            I tried to ignore the violent lurching of my heart, which felt like it had been asleep for some time, only to be rudely awakened by the memory of fear.  It was remembering now alright, as I walked with my shoulders hunched against the cold, towards the back of Howards club.  They would just be starting to open up, I thought, and sure enough, there was Howards flashy silver Merc, parked out the back.  I breathed in, and then out, looked straight ahead and kept walking.  I walked down to the end of the alley and then turned right and came out onto the high street.  I walked fast, because it was cold, and I wanted to warm up my bones, and I walked fast because I wanted to outrun my fears.  My mind was fighting a battle with my body the entire way there.  My body was playing the old game, screaming at me to stop, to turn around and run, to get away and be gone, while my mind attempted to argue calmly back, and I took deep breaths, and thought about Lucy, and music, and my friends, and I walked on and on.

            I listened to Oasis as I walked.  Don’t ever stand aside, don’t ever be denied,  they roared into my ears as I marched grimly on, you gotta’ be who you be, if you’re coming with me, I think I got a feeling I’m lost inside, I think I got a feeling I’m lost inside…When I reached the house, I stopped on the driveway and pressed stop.  The security light flicked on, drenching the drive and me in cold yellow light.  Immediately I saw a movement in the kitchen, and as I approached the front door, it was opened to me.  She was surprised to see me.  You could see that.  She was really shocked.  Tears filled her eyes again.  Her face looked much better, not so swollen, and the bruises had faded.  She looked like she was going to have a scar on her lip though.  I slipped past her and into the hallway with Kurt, and began to unbutton my coat.  She was wide eyed and nervous, but was smiling.  “He’s at work,” she told me, her voice coming out croaky, little more than a whisper.  She closed the door and gazed down at the dog.  “So who is this then?”

            “This is Kurt,” I told her.  “And I know Lee is at work, because I checked.  Walked past his car.”

            “What are you doing here?” she asked me, stepping forward and sort of reaching for me with her arms, before thinking better of it, and wrapping them around herself.  I shook a hand through my hair, flattened by my hood.

            “Came to see if you called that number yet,” I said.  She opened her mouth, and then closed it again, her shame turning her cheeks pink.  She shook her head at me.

            “I know I should…”

            “Easier said then done?” I asked at her, a smile tugging at me lips.  She smiled back.

            “I need to work out what to do,” she said. “I’m not as strong as you Danny.”

            “Plenty of times I should have called that number, but didn’t,” I told her then and shrugged. “Don’t even know why I didn’t, half the time.  So are you gonna’ make me a cup of tea or what?  It’s bloody freezing out there.”

            She nodded, and turned into the kitchen.  I unclipped Kurt, and he scampered around the hallway with his nose down, before hurrying quickly after me, and sitting down on my feet.  I didn’t blame him.  I felt the same.  Everything about the house made me feel small.  The kitchen was immense.  The shininess made my eyes ache in their sockets.  At the far end were French doors that led out onto a patio.  Two cream sofas were positioned there with view of the garden.  The ceiling was high, as were the cupboards.  I could imagine my mother stretching up on tiptoes to try to reach them.  The interior doors were huge, making me feel like a child.  It was like the house had been designed for giants.  Or monsters.  I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I had got away before they moved.  I didn’t fit in a house like that.  I stood out like a sore thumb.  My mother looked tiny, I thought, as I watched her move jerkily around the room, making the tea.  She was wearing a long floaty blue top, and tight jeans.  She had lost weight where they had been none to lose.  Her golden waves were twisted and pinned up at the back of her head.  I leant back against the marble worktop and felt my mouth growing drier.  My stomach was now in knots.  I kept expecting Howard to walk back in at any moment.

            “Can’t say I like your house much,” I remarked to break the silence.  She crossed her arms and waited for the kettle to boil.  She offered me a wry and knowing look.

            “Well not exactly your taste is it?” she grinned, nodding her head at my scruffy attire and nearly shoulder length hair.  “I’ve missed you, you know,” she said then. “I was shocked when you ran away that day.  Really shocked.  I was that naïve, I really thought things would be better in this house, when we all moved into it together.  Then I was sort of relieved, in a weird way.  I don’t know, it was like I always had this awful tension inside of me, and whenever I looked into your face, I would see it staring right back at me.”

            “Yeah?  What was it?  The truth?”

            “It was after my mum died,” she went on, gazing at the kettle as the steam began to pummel out of the spout.  “I realised what an awful relationship I’d always had with her, and that I was doing the exact same thing with you.  I started to see things about Lee, after she died, things I’d either not noticed before or made excuses for. I started to feel uneasy, but at the same time, I so wanted things to work out. Didn’t want to be on my own again, I suppose.” She shrugged her small shoulders and turned to pour the water from the kettle. “So I was relieved for a while when you went, for you and for me.  What I couldn’t understand was Lee’s reaction.”  She was frowning as she set the kettle back down and picked up a teaspoon to swirl the teabags in their mugs. 

            “He hates to lose,” I said, my eyes shooting back to the front door.  “It would have been okay if he’d thrown me out, if it had been on his terms, not mine.”

            “Maybe you’re right,” she sighed, picking up one of the chrome canisters that lined the worktop like soldiers.  “Are you still one sugar?” I nodded and watched her spoon it in.  “He kept going on about it, especially the first few weeks.  Storming around the house, furious all the time, accusing me of helping you go. He even accused me of not caring about you like he did!  Said you were holed up with druggies and criminals.  I couldn’t understand why he cared so much, I mean, he was horrible to you most the time you were here. Why would he want you back?  I didn’t get it.”

            “Control,” I said flatly, taking the tea when she handed it to me.  “There’s probably a name for what he’s got.  He has to be completely in control, of everything.  He has to own you.  That, and he’s addicted to violence.  Which explains why he attacked my friend Jake for no reason because he couldn’t find me.”

            Mum turned and rested her back beside mine.  She wrapped one thin arm around her body and held her tea up to her lips.  “I think you’re tight,” she murmured. “The first few times I made excuses…I was probably in shock.  I couldn’t think straight.  I tried to understand why he did it, but all along I knew why really.  Because he wasn’t the man I thought he was.  He was someone else entirely.  And it all came out.  And then it got worse.” She sipped her tea as her eyes filled up with tears.  “I’m terrified of him now,” she said softly. “I don’t know what to do.”

            “He’s pretty good at deceiving people,” I said to her.  “You ought to see the people down at the club, they all fucking love him!  He’s king of the castle, and that’s what he thrives on.  Yeah, he fooled you, but not just you.  He fooled the cops, the school, John.  He took advantage of what he walked into, you know.”

            “I do know,” she nodded firmly. “Me and you at each other’s throats, because you didn’t like my boyfriends.” She laughed a little and pushed a strand of golden hair back behind one ear.  “Well you were right weren’t you?  They were all bastards or idiots one way or another.  Jesus Christ, I should have listened to you.  I should have known you were only trying to protect us all.  I really don’t deserve you, you know, not then, and certainly not now.”

            “I was a little shit though,” I reminded her with a grin.  “I wasn’t like John.”

            “God no,” she laughed. “You weren’t, and I bet I bloody told you it a million times a day!  But I didn’t love you any less, you know that, right?”  She turned her body to face me.  “You were hard work, oh yes, from day one, but that just scared me you know, as you got older.  You were becoming more and more like me.”

            “Really?”

            She looked me right in the eye.  “Yep. I was just like you, with my mother.  Didn’t think about it until she’d died.  But I was always arguing her, challenging her, fighting her.  Now if you ever kids, just don’t make the same mistakes hey?”

            She winked and smiled at me, but I felt unable to return it.  I felt terribly worn down then, as if just being in his house was draining the life from me.  “I am never having kids,” I told her.  “Never.  No way.”

            “Well of course you’d say that at sixteen years old.”

            “No, I mean it, I really do. No way I’m risking passing on that motherfuckers parenting skills.”

            She just stared at me in silence.  I sighed and looked down at Kurt sat on my feet, and wondered what the hell I was doing there.  I checked the door again, and I hated the feeling that was rising inside my chest, that old fluttery feeling of panic stirring.  I rubbed at my eyes with my hand.  “I don’t even know why I came…”

            “I don’t deserve you to be here, I know that…”

            “No one knows I’m here.  Not even Lucy.  They all think I’m nuts.  They think I’ll get all caught up in it again.  Get myself in trouble.” I shrugged and put down my cup.  “So are you going to leave him or what?  ‘Cause I think that’s the only way I can keep coming to see you. If you’re not with him.” I found it hard to look at her then.  Inside was this awful heaviness pulling me down, grabbing at my heart and squeezing all of the joy out of it.  Michael had been right, I thought, I should stay away from the past.  She was thinking about it, holding her cup in both hands under her chin, as he eyes scanned the room nervously and her teeth chewed at her lip. 

            “There’s a part of me that still loves him,” she replied so softly I almost missed it.  I felt like punching myself in the head when I realised what she had said.  I pushed one hand through my hair and held onto my head, while my heart was yanked down to the floor. 

            “Don’t say that,” I begged, turning away from her.  “Fuck, I come all the way here, to fucking help you and you go and say that! You can’t say that mum, if you fucking knew him like I do, you wouldn’t be able to say that!”

            “A part of me, I said, a tiny part of me. There are obviously sides to my relationship with him that are different to yours.”

            I just stared at her, enraged, unable to believe what I was hearing. “What the fuck does that mean?”

            “It means it’s complicated, that’s what it means.  It’s not as simple for me to just leave, Danny.  I’m not young.  I have no friends round here thanks to him, and the house is in his name, and I have no job!”  She finished her tea, wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and carried the cup over to the sink.  I felt the strongest urge to just laugh at her.

            “You don’t need money.  You just go.  You just leave.  Go to John, or back to Southampton. Call the police.  Get him arrested.  There are plenty of choices mum.  Or you can carry on like you are, a prisoner living with a psychopath, and this will be the last time you ever see me.”

            “I do want to leave him Danny, for goodness sake, I do!” She whirled around, tea towel clutched in one hand.  “I just need to work out what to do, financially and everything else. I know I can’t go on like this, I know that, I know I can’t..” She made a noise like a sob and covered her face with her hands.  “He’ll kill me if this carries on….I know it.”

            “He’s dangerous,” I said, my eyes shooting back to the door again.  She lowered her hands and traipsed slowly back towards me.  “I’m serious mum. If he’s only just started hitting you, you’ve got no idea how bad it will get.  He’s twisted inside.  He enjoys it mum, haven’t you noticed that yet?  He gets a kick out of it, I swear to God, it’s like a drug, it calms him down…” I had to break off, move back from her, my eyes held prisoner by the fucking door.  The memories were back again, trying to choke me, dark images crashing through my mind, trying to force their way through before I could push them back where I kept them. 

            She folded her arms and her eyes searched my face. “That’s why you came back today?  To convince me to leave him?”

            I sighed, my shoulders dropping under my heavy coat.  “I dunno mum.  Don’t know why I’m here, or what good it will do.  Maybe I’m an idiot hey?  I ought to stay away.  Let you get on with it.”  I thought suddenly of Lucy, up in her room, doing her homework, and a sharp pain pulled at me and made me want to run towards her.  “No one thinks I should be here.”

            “Then why are you here?”

            “I don’t know,” I repeated again, helplessly.  But I did know.  I knew there was still this little part of me that felt like a kid, a kid who just wanted to make his mother listen to him for once.  “Maybe I needed to hear something from you,” I exhaled loudly and glanced again at the front door.  “I don’t know.”

            She stepped towards me, her face so wrecked with emotion that I could hardly bear to look at her.  She was slowly reaching out for me, and I was torn in half, caught between wanting desperately to fall into her arms, and running for the door and never returning.  “That I’m sorry?” she asked me.  “That I was a crap mother from start to finish, that I let you down  so badly, that I will never forgive myself?  I should have known better Danny.” She stopped right in front of me, and her hands rose hesitantly and jerkily up to my face.  I froze, dreading her touch as much as I craved it.  Then I watched her hands curl into fists and draw back under her own chin.  “I thought it was drugs,” she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears.  “And god, how much I want to ask Lee about what Lucy said, about the drugs, because I still don’t understand Danny, I don’t understand any of it. Was that true?  Was it him and Jack all the time?”  I nodded at her and her eyes fell shut, squeezing our fresh water. “Bastards.  I can’t say anything, I can’t let him know I’ve seen you…”

            I pushed my hands into my pockets and tried to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat.  “No,” I said. “Don’t let him know, don’t say anything to him, whatever you do.” She moved forward suddenly then, catching me off guard, and her arms were around me before I could react, or pull away.  I stiffened against her and despised the tears that were threatening me, and she just held on.  She buried her face in my clothes, and the sobs shook both our bodies.  I gave in to it quietly.  I toyed with the grotesque possibility of Howard walking in and catching us.  “My son,” she was mumbling into my chest.  “I’m so sorry….so sorry….”

            “It’s alright,” I told the top of her head. “I’m okay, you know.  I’m okay.”

            “I will leave him,” she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeves and pulling back to look at me.  “There has to be a way.  I’m going to speak to John. What do you think?”

            I managed a tight smile.  “Think that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”  She nodded firmly.

            “The least I can do is get that man out of my life and then I can start to try to make it up to you.” She planted her hands on her hips and shook her hair out of her eyes, and I thought she looked stronger like that, almost like the old her. “I’ve got to get myself out of this god awful mess.”  She eyed the kettle and then looked back at me.  “How long can you stay?”

            I shrugged. “Another hour maybe.  As long as it’s safe.”

            “We can see the road from here,” she said, nodding at the window.  “And the light goes on when a car pulls in the drive.  If he does come back, you’ll have plenty of time to run out the back way.”

            I nodded.  “Okay then.”

            I ended up staying another hour.  I breathed, in and out, slowly and methodically the entire time, nurturing a thin restraint on my pounding heart. Never again, I kept telling myself, my eyes narrowed as they moved constantly between the door and the window, never again will I get stomped on by that evil bastard…and if mum leaves him…Relax, I told myself.  My mind whirled with confusion, hope and fear.  My mother chattered on.  I took my turn when I was supposed to.  I told her about the bed-sit, and my job, and my writing, and my dog.  She sat up on a high kitchen stool, her hand wrapped around her cup, and her eyes moist as she listened to me talk about my life.  “You always were a strange kid,” she grinned at me, and I supposed I was meant to take that as a compliment.

            “I’ll write down my address,” I said to her, before I left. “So you can pass it on to John.”  She passed me a piece of notepaper and I scrawled the address on it and passed it back. 

79

 

 

            She pulled back the door, revealing herself to me, and her eyes ran with tears, and her broken mouth tried desperately to smile, but that was impossible, and all that emerged was a strained grimace.  Six months, I thought, as Lucy and I stepped cautiously through the open door, can it really be six months since I left?  She closed the heavy door behind us, and just stood there staring at me.  It was awkward to say the least, so I gazed around at the hall, thinking shit, here I am, in the bastards new house.  I could feel him there, and I’m not joking.  Everything was bright, white, clean and sparkling, but that didn’t diminish the darkness that seeped through everything.  I shivered, and went cold all over.  All was how I had expected it to be.  Pristine and spotless.  The carpet was thick and cream, the walls white and the ceiling high.  I felt immediately uncomfortable, stifled and uneasy.  I stood waiting, not saying anything because I had no idea what to say.  My hand remained linked with Lucys.  I wondered if we ought to remove our shoes, or wash our hands, or something.  My mother clasped her hands together under her chin and looked me up and down.  She was sobbing.  Just a little bit at first, but they were getting louder and harder, racking her rail thin body, and all she could do was stare at me, and look me up and down. 

            In the end, it was me who moved towards her.  It was a sort of sliding, half step, my free arm lifting, as if reaching out.  I don’t even know why I did it.  She went to me, sobbing harder, and throwing her skinny arms up and around my neck.  I was taller than her now, I realised then, as she cried against my collarbone.  “You’ve grown,” she was murmuring.  “Had that growth spurt.”  I felt myself stiffen under her touch, and while one hand remained with Lucy’s, the other fluttered reluctantly down to the small of her back.  She sighed, sniffed, and pulled back, taking my face in her cold shaking hands.  “Oh Danny,” she said, again attempting to smile through her split and swollen lips.  “You’re really here…and you’re okay, you’re okay.”  I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or telling me, so I nodded and cleared my throat. 

            “I’m okay.”  She stood back from me then, her shoulders dropping as she exhaled loudly, and I looked her over and raised my eyebrows.  “He did this to you then?”

            She nodded miserably in reply, and rubbed at her wet eyes with the sleeve of her apricot coloured cardigan.  She gestured towards a door behind us.  “Please, go through. I’ll put the kettle on.”  With that she turned and walked into the kitchen.  I got a glimpse of it before following Lucy into the lounge.  It looked too bright, and sparkly, black and white floor tiles beaming back at me, neat white blinds, and kitchen units so white they hurt my eyes.  The lounge was no different.  It had Howard’s stamp all over it.  It was huge, at least three times the size of the room we’d had in the old house.  The walls were a dusky green colour, the carpets cream again, and arranged around the biggest TV I had ever seen in my life, sat three huge, fat, black leather sofas.  I didn’t want to sit on any of them, so I hovered around the edges, hands in pockets.  Lucy sat, in a slow, stiff manner, as if the sofa somehow offended her.  She sat on the very edge of it, and her face was set hard, as my mother walked back in, and placed a tray of tea and biscuits down on the large, glass coffee table.  I looked at Lucy’s face and knew exactly how she was feeling.  She looked like she didn’t want to touch anything in case she caught something unpleasant. 

            My mother lowered herself onto one of the other sofas, and I could tell she was trying not to wince, or gasp or invite attention to her injuries.  I scratched the back of my head, walked around the sofa and sat down next to Lucy.  The sofa groaned beneath me, making my stomach turn over.  I watched my mother restraining her pain and thought god I did that so many times back then.  Keeping it all under wraps, under clothes, pretending even to myself that it wasn’t there, that the pain did not exist.  She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.  Her hands rested lightly on her tiny knees.  She looked shrunken I thought.  Like he had sucked the very soul out of her. “So when did it start?” I asked her.  Lucy’s hand landed on my knee and stayed there.  My mother looked surprised and her eyes rose reluctantly to meet my stare.

            “After we moved in,” she croaked through her battered lips.  “Although, if I’m honest, looking back, the signs were there for some time.  Him being controlling, and strict, flying off the handle over silly things.  I always shrugged it off though, you see.  Blamed it on the stress of his job, moving. After a while though, there were no more excuses to be found.” Her eyes travelled back to the carpet and stayed there.  “I should have known better,” she said. “I should have believed you when you tried to tell me what he was really like.”

            “Hmm,” I said.  “So what do you want?”

            She looked taken back.  Her eyes blinked rapidly. “What? I don’t want anything…I mean, I…” she lifted her shoulders in a weak shrug and gave up.  I felt irritated then, looking at her.

            “Why now?” I asked. “It’s been six months mum.  Why now?  You know where I work, you could have come there any time to see me.”

            She met my stare. “I thought it was safer for you if I didn’t,” she said softly. “He went very strange Danny, after you left…I thought he’d be pleased really, you know, to have you out of his hair, but he went wild, and it was like all he wanted to do was find you, and he wouldn’t let it go.  He even accused me of helping you, and of knowing where you were.” She looked down at her hands, now gripped together tightly on her knees. “One day he came home and just grabbed me round the throat, for no reason…I mean, I was just stood there mopping the kitchen floor…That was the first time.” Her head dipped lower under the intensity of our eyes.  Nobody had touched their tea.

            I stared at her for a moment.  I half thought about getting up and walking out.  But then I realised she was offering me something I had never had before.  A chance to speak, an opportunity to tell my side.  Years had been filled with silences, one after the other, dark nights wrapped in private pain, surreal days where I walked stiffly, cloaked in dirty shame, silent.  I took a breath and opened my mouth. “You want to know the first time he hurt me?”

            She looked shocked, and desperate, and she sort of rocked forward towards her knees and shook her head in misery. “Second time I met him,” I told her and right away, her head jerked up, her eyes clashing into mine.  She frowned heavily, not understanding.  I nodded calmly. “Oh yeah, you remember he came to dinner that time, because John arranged it, because he was leaving and everything?” She nodded, her mouth hanging open, her hand rising to it.  “He stayed in the kitchen to help wash up.  He came up to me and told me nothing I could do would scare him off and then he squeezed my neck.  Had bruises the next day, but I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t want to believe what it was.”

            Her hand caressed her broken mouth and she released a noisy, juddering moan behind it.  “I didn’t know that…oh I didn’t know that Danny, is that what he did?  All the way back then? …Oh god…I am so sorry.”

            “I tried to tell you,” I said to her. “You and John both thought I was making up lies to split you up from him.  Then you let him move in.  You hardly knew him mum.” There was anger in my voice now, even I could hear it. 

            “I didn’t know,” she said again, shaking her head. “I thought you were being malicious, after the way things went with Frank? Why didn’t you come right away and tell me?”

            I shrugged.  I felt reckless.  Part of me was enjoying the haggard and bewildered look upon her face.  “Loads of reasons.  I didn’t understand it.  I wasn’t sure what it was, if he meant it, or what. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, or making a big deal, and I knew you’d take his side over mine, I just knew you would! Then I was scared, as time went on, when he got worse, and worse, and I was embarrassed and I didn’t want anyone to know, and I bet you get that now, don’t you?” I nodded at her swollen face, my eyes narrow. “Or do you invite the neighbours round to have a look?” She shook her head at me because she had no choice, and because I was right, and she knew it.  I nodded and went on.  “He turned everything around, I bet you see that now too. It’s never his fault is it? He’s always got his reasons, I mean number one being it’s for your own good, yeah? Number two being he makes you think life will be worse if you tell. He told me constantly I’d end up in care if I talked.  He threatened my friends, he fucked them over, jesus, you don’t even know the half of it mum, what he did to Anthony?”  She shook her head violently, and I laughed. “Well, long story, if you’ve ever got the time.  But he got him sent back down, all because Anthony knew what was going on and stood up for me.  So after that, I stayed away from my own friends, so he’d leave them alone.  Just went around on my own.  Perfect for him.”

            I stood up then.  I just had to.  I pulled away from Lucy’s grasping hand and stormed around the back of the sofa away from the both of them.  The memories and the escalating anger were too much for me then; and I wondered how to go forward, what to say, where it would end.  Why was I even there?  Talking to her?  There was so much she didn’t know, so much she had turned away from.  I looked up and found her staring at me.  “I got arrested once,” I said then, planting my hands on the back of the sofa behind Lucy. “For fighting down at the beach with some kids from school.  You never knew about it, because he kept it from you, because we had a deal.  He picked me up from the station because you were at work, and he took me home and taught me a lesson.  A pretty bad one.  I had no doubt after that day, mum. He was fucking insane.  We had this deal.  He wouldn’t tell you I’d been arrested, and I wouldn’t tell what he’d done to me. Cool, hey?”

            Mum swallowed more tears and sat up a little straighter.  “What about that time I went away?” she asked. “When your Gran was ill?”

            I laughed and folded my arms. “Oh when I had my infamous bike accident?”  She nodded stiffly from across the room. “Oh well that was probably the first time I actually thought I was gonna’ die.  I mean, seriously.  You had that yet?  You been on the floor yet, with him kicking the shit out of you?  I mean, he’s got a powerful kick, right?  You felt that yet?  Sent me right across the room every fucking time.”  I closed my mouth, pressed my lips tightly together and closed my eyes briefly.  When I opened them together, she was still staring at me, and waiting for more, silent tears running rapidly down her sunken cheeks.  I felt hard, and then I felt weak with it all, weakened and close to sagging and dropping.  Tears were threatening, but then so was violence.  I looked around at his palace and felt like whipping out my dick and pissing up the walls.  “He used his belt on you yet?” I asked her just for fun, and I watched her mouth gaping again, behind her hands.  It was like I was torturing her for the hell of it, but what else did she expect?  What did she even fucking want?  It was all rising up inside of me, and instead of feeling pity or empathy for her, and the state she was in, all I could think about was the times I’d been on the floor, just taking it. 

            “Danny,” she started, barely able to form words behind her sobs.  She reached out to me with one hand, but remained seated.  “I didn’t know…please, I didn’t know, I didn’t know all that…”

            “Does he stand on you?” I asked her, getting to my feet.  “He likes doing that.  Makes him feel really big, I reckon, keeping you down with his big fuck off boot. You see, that was an interesting time.  Jack shows up out of nowhere, and next thing we know Anthony is arrested. Someone got in their house and hid drugs there, and he got busted and sent back to jail.  That was your husband mum, and Jack.  They did it to get Anthony out of the way, because he was trying to help me! I thought I was gonna’ die up in my room.  It went on so long.  He phoned the school, told them I’d had an accident.  Everyone fucking believed him, everyone except Michael. But I couldn’t go near him after that, you know why?” She shook her head, sniffing and whimpering.  “He threatened to do something to him, like he did to Anthony.  I believed him mum.  He said he’d kill you too. God, he said that a lot.”  I walked around the sofa, and started rubbing at my head with my hands.  It was all getting too much, and I could sense Lucy shifting uneasily on the sofa.  There was too much.  My head was full of it, and I’d tried so hard to crush it all down, to make it fade away.  What did the fucking bitch want to do to me?  Dragging it all out again, and why?  For what? “So I didn’t tell anyone, ‘cause I was scared of what he’d do. I hated myself for what happened to Anthony. So you don’t even know, if he’s just started knocking you about, you don’t even fucking know what he’s capable of.”  I dropped my hands and stared at her. “He’s evil mum.  He’s sick. Why else would I run away and not tell you where I was going?”

            She got shakily to her feet, and hugged herself with her arms, quivering from head to toe.  “I was blind,” she said, her voice strangled with tears.  “I just saw what I wanted to see.  I know that now.  You were being good, and he was so firm all the time, and sometimes…I know this sounds terrible, but I just felt relieved, to take a back seat, you know?  I was wrong.  I was a mess.  I should have stood up for you more…That time he hit you, at Christmas?”

            “Yeah that was me trying to show you,” I told her through my teeth.  “I tried to provoke him so you’d see the real him.  And I told you once, and you accused me of telling lies.  You believed him over me. You would have seen it, if you’d cared mother.  But you never cared about me, you never wanted me, so I suppose it was easy for you really?”

            She came towards me then, this awful shivering whining mess of a woman, and I stood my ground and crossed my arms.  I glared into that face and I thought of all the times I’d needed her.  “Not true, that’s not true,” she was blubbing on.  Her hands landed on my arms, gripping and clawing.  “He might have told you that, but it’s not true Danny, I couldn’t cope with you, I admit that, but I loved you!”

            “Bullshit,” I laughed at her, tearing my arms from her grip.  I looked her up and down in pure disgust, and the anger was winning now, and I knew that somewhere deep and ugly inside of me, I hated her, I really fucking hated her.  “If you’d cared you would have kept an eye on things.  You never once asked me if I was happy.  Never once asked me what I thought of him.  If I’d thought for one second that you cared, I would have told you stuff.  You’d be in one room, off your head on sleeping pills, and he’d be in my room attacking me! He didn’t even care! You let him!  That’s the truth of it mum!  You let him!”

            She reached for me again, and I moved back. “I didn’t know, I thought he was talking to you, sorting you out…I thought…”

            “I know what you fucking thought!” I roared at her then, my breath taking the hair from her face.  “You thought it was fucking good the control he had over me!  That’s what you thought mother!  You thought it was great how well behaved I suddenly was, and hey, what’s wrong with the old fashioned way anyway?  Odd clip round the ear, the odd slap.  Belt when you really deserve it.  Kettle cord once at Jack’s place. Oh yeah. Pretty inventive hey? Probably did me good, eh?  That’s what he thinks, you know. It’s all supposed to make me a good boy. Yeah? Does he say that to you?  Does he?”  I stepped towards her, leant down so that my face was close to hers.  “Is he trying to make you into a good girl mum?  Is that it eh?  Are you tidy enough for him?  Is the house too dirty?  Do you look at him the wrong way?”

            She looked like she was sagging slowly down to the floor, her mouth hanging open in horror, her eyes a mess.  “I didn’t know…” she kept saying it.  Over and over again.  “I didn’t know he went that far…I didn’t know…he was so good at convincing me it was all you, it was all your fault, and all he was trying to do was help you, and have a bond with you.”  She sniffed, sucking her snot and tears back up her nose, and she wiped her face and glanced down at the floor.  “He’d even cry sometimes…cry because you hated him, because you wouldn’t let him be a dad to you.  I fell for it…I was such a fool, such an idiot! I didn’t know the truth until we moved here.  Not really.” She looked up then and her eyes met mine. “You remember once you said to me, we reap what we sow?  Well this is it isn’t it.  I’m reaping what I sowed.  What I caused.”

            I snorted and moved back from her again.  “You don’t expect me to feel sorry for you do you?  ‘Cause I don’t!  He hasn’t even got started on you yet! This,” I  gestured violently at her battered face. “This is nothing! Wait til he really gets started!  Wait ‘til he burns you with his fags, kicks you around the room!”  I wrenched my coat up then, yanking my jumper and t-shirt up, turning just enough so that she could see.  I heard her moan.  “Like that!” I yelled in triumph.  “Wait ‘til you look like that!  Then I might feel sorry for you!” I pulled my clothes down and faced her.  I was shaking hard.  I smiled at her viciously.  Was a part of me enjoying this?  Seeing her suffer, making her see the truth, finally?  I’d waited so long, I thought, I’d waited so long for her to see me. 

            “I don’t want or expect your pity…” she started to say to me. 

            “Well you never felt sorry for me, did you? Do you know how sick it used to make me, watching you two fawn all over each other?  Kissing and cuddling on the sofa? When behind your back he was pure fucking evil?  Oh you thought it was great, didn’t you mum?  Danny doing what he was told finally, finally. Danny keeping his room tidy, so he could come and inspect it twice a fucking day!  Oh you loved it, don’t tell me you didn’t!  Danny doing what he was told, whoo hoo! Yeah I did what I was told because I was fucking terrified the whole time!  Do you want to hear any more about how it was?” I asked her, bringing my face aggressively close to hers again.  “’Cause I can tell you a horror story from beginning to end, if you like!”  I pulled away, my face crumpling, pain crashing in, and I wanted to get out of there, I wanted to get far away from her and her beaten face.  Lucy shot up from the sofa, came to me and wrapped her arms around me.

            “Don’t do this to yourself,” she said. “Let’s just go, you’ve had enough.”

            “No, please don’t go!  Not yet!” My mother spread her legs, held out her hands, as if that would be enough to stop us getting past.  Her hands were shaking, as she looked at me pleadingly.  “Please don’t go yet, I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be! You can tell me, tell me anything, please, I need to know, I want to know…”

            “Why?” Lucy turned and shot at her.  Her voice was different, I thought.  She didn’t sound like my Lucy at all then.  She kept one hand on my arm, and faced my mother. “Why do you want to know?  Why now?  You have no idea do you?” Her voice was rising, becoming shrill and tight with anger.  “Danny is lucky to be alive!  Did you know that?  What about the drugs Mrs Howard?  What about the big uproar from you and the school over that?  You know who gave him the drugs, do you?  Your husband and his sick little friend! They were in it together from the start.”  Lucy’s lips snarled back, and she looked at me, holding my hand, rubbing it with hers. “Let’s go,” she hissed.

            “I don’t understand,” my mother cried, her hands back over her mouth. “What are you talking about?  Lee doesn’t do drugs!  He doesn’t….”  She shook her head behind her hands, and I guess the full truth was really hitting her then.  You could practically see it, when you looked at her face.  She reached out for the sofa, gripped the back of it with one hand.  I could have sneezed and knocked her over then.  She looked like she was going to be sick, as her eyes moved from Lucy, to me.  “What about Jack?” she whispered. “Why would he do that?  Why would he sell you drugs?”

            I had to sit down.  My eyes were pissing me off, filling up with fucking tears, pain rushing in from every angle, memories, horrors, chasing away the anger, and I couldn’t take it.  I sat down and covered my face….don’t go there…don’t go there, for fucks sake, why did I come? “They were in it together,” Lucy was saying behind me. “Your husband brought Jack here on purpose, supplied Danny with drugs, to keep him quiet, to keep him out the way, and while you were swanning around with new haircuts and clothes, your son was practically having a nervous breakdown! And it gets worse…” Lucy came around the sofa, holding her hand out to me.  “We’re not staying though, ask your precious husband if you want to know the truth, we’re going, come on Danny.”

            I didn’t take her hand, because I couldn’t move.  I was rigid, frozen, barely there.  Tears were sliding slowly down my face behind my hands, and I didn’t want either of them to see.  Lucy tugged my hand away from my face and pulled me until I got up.  “Please don’t go,” mum was sobbing again, still clinging to the sofa as if she was too weak to stand up alone.  “What are you talking about Lucy?  Why does it get worse?  What do you mean?”

            “Ask your husband,” Lucy snarled at her, dragging me towards the door. “Ask him about Jack’s past, ask him why he was thrown out of the police, ask him why he sent him round to Danny on the day he ran away!  Ask him why!”  She was shouting now, really shouting, and I had never heard her raise her voice before.  I shook my head, it was hurting it was hurting everywhere.

            “Don’t Lucy,” I uttered, glancing at mum.

            “We’re not staying here to rake it up anymore,” Lucy went on, her arm suddenly tightly around my waist.  We were in the hallway and my mother followed us, her face aghast, her hands up under her chin.  “You’ve no idea how long it’s taken Danny to get his life back together again, and I’m not gonna’ let you ruin it all!”  She was at the door, fumbling with the handle and lock.  Her cheeks were bright red, her eyes wide and glazed with fury.  I hung back, felt my mothers hand on my shoulder, tentative and light.

            “Please come back another day,” she was begging me.  “Please come again, please tell me about Jack, tell me everything, please, I need to know, I need to make it up to you somehow, I need to…I am sorry, Danny?  Danny?”  I turned slowly, and her hand turned with me, moving to settle on my chest, just below my shoulder.  Tears made her face look like a blurred reflection.  “I need to get away from him too Danny…He’s going to kill me.  I know it.  I don’t how to..I’m not as strong as you are…”

            I looked at her, and my jaw tightened.  I wondered what to tell her.  I wondered if I owed her anything.  “I was lucky I had my friends,” I told her stiffly, my lips barely moving to allow the words to escape.  She nodded vigorously.  “They helped me.  They saved me.  I’d be dead if it wasn’t for them, one way or another.  That’s the truth.  They stood by me, they put themselves at risk, and everything is good now.” I breathed out slowly, turned and found Lucy’s hand again. 

            “Good,” my mother babbled, smiling through her wet washed face.  “Good, good, I am so glad, I am so relieved. Please say you’ll come again?  If he’s away?  Or we could meet?  Please say you will…I know I don’t deserve it, I know I don’t deserve anything from you, but please, we need to talk.  There’s so much more that needs to be said Danny.  Please.  I don’t want to lose you again.”

            I nodded and sighed.  I glanced behind me and saw the hall table, neatly laid out with telephone, notepad, pen and vase of carefully arranged flowers.  I went to it wonderingly, picked up a sheet of paper and scribbled on it.  I folded it in half, and turned to my mother.  She had a hopeful smile, pulling up her busted lips.  It made her look like she was snarling at me.  I pressed the paper into her hand.  “Call that number,” I said to her, before heading out the door with Lucy.

            “Thank you,” she gasped after us. “Thank you!”

            Outside, the February sun was a hammer upon my head, and the ice cold air a slap across my face.  I caught my breath, and started walking.  Lucy quickened her pace to catch up with me, but suddenly I did not want her anywhere near me.  “What did you write?” she asked me, her breath puffing out in front of her like bursts of steam.  “What number did you give her?”

            “999,” I replied, and walked on, head down, shoulders hunched.