Less Than Perfect (33 page)

Josh was my first love, and I loved him so instinctively and with such devotion I thought it would last forever. Maybe it could have, I don't know, but considering how young we were, there was every possibility that we would have eventually split up, perhaps one of us breaking the other's heart.

But Liam should have been a given, he should have been there always, forever. He should be married now, to some nice local girl, with one or two kids – boys, little rascals with red hair, thick legs and an obsession with kicking balls of all shapes and sizes. Instead, he's dead. I have no brother now and never will again. Even though it's been eleven years, I can't seem to come to terms with this stark, irreversible fact, and now I realise that's why I shut out what happened to him. Difficult and heartbreaking and unfathomable as it was, I did manage to process Josh's death – but Liam's I simply couldn't accept. In my mind,
he's frozen at the stage he was at before he died: afternoons spent booting a ball against the side of the house, low, powerful shots, honed through frustration and boredom; coming in on Saturday nights, eyes glazed, a smirk on his mouth, spirits raised by the combination of pool and beer. On one such occasion, Mum smacked him when she saw how intoxicated he was, forgetting in her anger that he was a man, not a boy. There was a moment of stunned silence before he laughed, and then she laughed, and so did I, until tears ran down our faces.

I remember Liam on the day of the bombing, slouched in the armchair, one leg hooked over the armrest, joystick in his hand. My father was parked in the other armchair, occasionally looking up from the papers he was marking to frown at Liam. Josh and I were on the couch, my head resting against his shoulder as we both read our books, content to be together despite the tension building around us.

‘For the love of God, Liam, would you put that thing away and find something constructive to do with yourself!'

My father's low, contemptuous voice permeated the room. If he had shouted in anger, I imagine Liam would have instantly retaliated. But contempt is harder than outright anger to answer, and Liam was mute in its wake.

My father's aggravation increased even further at this lack of response. ‘Did you hear me? You've been playing that thing all week. I can't bear to see you doing something so utterly useless.
There must be something else you can do, Liam.
'

Liam still persevered with the game, glaring at the screen, jerking the joystick back and forth, a tic working at the side of his mouth.

‘What's wrong with you?' Dad was relentless. ‘Are you too lazy to even answer me now?'

Liam quite obviously didn't have the energy or imagination to craft an answer that would satisfy my father. There was a dangerous pause.

‘Answer me, damn it. Show some
bloody
respect.'

Liam's answer, when it came, was not what any of us expected. He hurled the joystick across the room, the wire dislodging from the PlayStation and trailing behind it like a ribbon. It whizzed past my father's ear before crashing into the wall behind him. Liam leapt up from his seat. ‘There! You can fucking well keep it for all I care.'

Josh and I exchanged alarmed glances and stood up too.

My father, apoplectic with rage, was the last to get to his feet. ‘Get out of this house,' he roared. ‘Get out
now
!'

‘Don't fucking worry,' Liam spat, his fists clenched. ‘I'm going.'

Josh, worried about Liam's fists and what he might do with them, took his arm and forcefully assisted his departure.

‘Why are you always picking on him?' I screamed at Dad. ‘Why can't you leave him alone?' Not waiting for an answer, I ran after Josh and Liam. I found them outside, standing by the front gate. Liam looked pale and depleted, as though his anger had bled out of him.

‘I'm going into town,' he muttered.

‘We'll go with you,' I offered as a show of solidarity.

That was how we all ended up going into town that day. Josh and I walked the first leg with Liam, before he detoured to pick up a friend. Later on, when the town centre was evacuated, Liam
was standing on the opposite side of the road from us, close to the dark-green car. I exchanged a shrug with him and pointed in the direction of home. He shook his head; I knew he had no desire to return to the house and sit in the same room as my father, being made to feel so inadequate and worthless.

Josh was uneasy, though. He kept looking back over his shoulder, at the car, at Liam. He felt compelled to go back. Josh and Liam were side by side when the bomb exploded, Josh's hand on Liam's arm as he tried to convince him to come home with us. The blast took them both. Nothing was left of them. Nothing but the ash that hailed from the sky and landed on my arms as I screamed their names.

I harbour some guilt about that day, guilt that's been eating away at me. I should have said more, I should have stood up for Liam properly, shown unflinching support, attempted to defuse my father's contempt. I never got to say sorry to him for privately thinking he should have been trying harder to get a job, for not fully empathising with his situation. As I raked through the rubble with my bare fingers, the apology was burning in my throat, and it has been ever since.

I'm remembering other things too, details I had pushed to the back of my mind and mislaid with the passing of time. My father driving me to dancing, to swimming and friends' houses, never complaining though it must have been inconvenient and annoying. The little gifts he occasionally brought home from work, pens, pencils, brightly coloured stationery he knew I liked. And the day, a few lifetimes ago, when Mandy and I fell off our bikes …

After I said goodbye to Mandy at the corner of the street and walked the rest of the way home, I took my dented bike around the back where Liam was taunting Maeve with a basketball, bouncing it around her and laughing at her attempts to gain possession. They glanced my way but didn't notice the state of me or the bike. I knew I wouldn't be as lucky when I got inside.

As I sneaked in the back door, as inconspicuously as possible, my parents were in the kitchen, Mum at the sink, Dad setting the table for lunch. Mum looked over her shoulder with a smile. ‘Hi, love.' Her smile fell away when she saw my torn and bloody knees. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What happened to you?'

‘I came off my bike.'

‘How?'

‘I hit a pothole.'

‘Were you going too fast?' This was from my father and I turned to look at him.

‘Maybe a little.'

Mum left the sink, drying her hands on her skirt, and came over to assess my injuries. ‘Where does it hurt the most?' she asked sympathetically, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes looking me up and down.

‘My knees and my hands.' I turned up my palms to reveal the stinging grazes.

She tutted at the shorn skin and steered me to a seat. ‘Come here and sit down. Let me see those knees …' Blood had glued the fabric to my skin and I winced as she lifted it away. ‘Sorry, love, I'm trying to be gentle. I'll clean it and put some cream on and it'll feel a lot better.' She went to the bathroom to get the first aid box and I was left to face my father's wrath.

‘You were lucky to get off so lightly.'

I said nothing.

‘Where did it happen?'

‘Just outside town.'

‘Did you cycle home afterwards?'

I gulped. I didn't want to tell the truth, but my bike was outside and clearly not roadworthy. ‘I got a lift …'

His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘You got a lift!' he repeated. ‘And from whom did you get a
lift
?'

‘A farmer. He had a trailer, he put the bikes in …' I trailed off, knowing there was nothing I could say to remedy the situation.

Mum returned from the bathroom and, sensing the friction, paused in the doorway.

My father's expression was forbidding. ‘You got into a car with a stranger?'

‘Mandy was with me,' I said feebly.

‘So you're as stupid as each other!'

Mum turned on him, her eyes blazing and her voice harsh. ‘Jesus, Jonathan, the girl is battered and bruised. Can you get off your high horse for once and show some sympathy?'

Through welling tears, I saw the anger drain from my father's face and in a matter of seconds he softened into a different man. He came over, sat down next to me and lifted me onto his knee. I buried my head in the curve of his neck, where I could smell the familiar musk of his aftershave.

‘Sorry, love. I worry about you – about road accidents, about men in cars who don't have good intentions … about everything, really.'

Sitting there, in the warm crook of his arm, I understood his worries, and I knew for once where he was coming from. And I felt safe and loved in the way that only he could make me feel.

Now I find myself remembering that sense of being protected, of being kept safe. I had all but forgotten that side of my father. His generosity too: the brand-new bike he bought me a few days after the accident, metallic blue with drop handlebars, multiple gears and narrow high-pressure tyres; the allowance he paid into my bank account when I was at Queen's; the money he gave to Liam to supplement his dole. His weakness was Liam's unemployment. It grated at him, frustrated him no end; it was his Achilles heel. In almost every other respect, Dad was dependable, decent and fairly level-tempered.

My feelings about him seem to be in a state of flux, taking new perspective from the memories and nuances I'd all but forgotten about, changing hour by hour, softening. I'm aware that this shift in how I feel about him has in fact been building, against my will, over the last few months. Matthew's balanced opinion of Steve, Sophie's cheating ex-husband, along with Jeanie's assertions about her own imperfect family have played a part. The realisation that Maeve and Dad have a relationship, a working father–daughter relationship salvaged from the wreckage of our family, has played another part. By the time I finished listening to his voice message, the one about Maeve's new job, the one where he sounded like a normal, caring father instead of a distant, opinionated professor, there was a chink in my feelings, a significant shift that I could no longer ignore. Maybe that's why I fought so hard with Matthew and Mum. I was hanging on to the hatred, fighting for it, because it's all I've
known for the last eleven years and in its own way it's helped me survive, kept me going.

These thoughts about my father are confronting and they leave me feeling so drained that I usually fall asleep before I reach any definitive conclusion or decision on what to do about him.

Mona is back. She was off yesterday and I missed her. She's the only nurse who stops to chat. We talk about how I'm feeling today, the weather outside, the news and, with the preliminaries over, we talk about home. Mona has been here twenty years, ten more than me. She has two teenagers, born and raised Australians.

‘They talk and act like Aussies,' she smirks, ‘but their skin is bluey white and the two of them couldn't look more Irish if they tried!'

I laugh, trying to imagine two Irish-looking, Australian-sounding angsty teenagers. Mona's husband is also from Belfast. They emigrated straight after they got married.

‘Australia was our honeymoon, in effect. And we're still here, still on honeymoon.'

‘Why did you choose Australia?'

She grimaces. ‘I couldn't wait to get out of Belfast. I wanted to get as far away as possible. If I could have practically gone further away than Australia, I would have!'

That sounds familiar. I briefly wonder how many of us there are, Northern Irish who have run as far away as they practically can.

‘Do you miss home at all?' I ask.

‘It took me a long time to miss it. To want to go home again. But now, aye, I do.'

‘Have you been back?'

‘Three times in all. The last visit was two years ago.'

‘Did you find it different?' I'm surprised by how curious I am.

‘Aye, I did. There's construction and new buildings and a bit more sophistication to the place. There's still division, though, two sides with very different views and opinions. But I've realised that's not entirely a bad thing. There's no denying that Belfast has heart, that the people are passionate and prepared to stand up for what they believe in. When my kids mope or say they don't care about things, I feel like shaking them. They have no idea how good they have it. Give me passion rather than complacency any day!'

Mona doesn't look remotely like my mother but her turn of phrase and kindliness remind me of her. I haven't spoken to Mum. She phoned twice, once when Mona was changing my drip and another time when the doctor was here and it was equally inconvenient to answer. The nurses at reception updated her on my progress and scribbled a message onto a pink slip that they brought in later with my meds.
Your mum called. Very worried about you but glad to hear you're doing better.

I tried to call her back last night. The phone rang out and I left a message of my own: ‘Hi, Mum. Just letting you know I'm okay and that I'm going home the day after tomorrow. I'll talk to you soon.' I hung up feeling extremely relieved that she wasn't there to receive the call, and extremely guilty for being so relieved. It's not really making the apology that I'm dreading: it's facing up to how much I've let her down. Mum has got through the last eleven years on the reassurance that I was safe, and that Maeve was safe, and that nothing bad would happen to her remaining children. But I didn't keep myself safe. I exposed myself, and her, to another potentially disastrous situation, and I can only imagine just how rattled and insecure she is feeling right now.

I haven't spoken to Jeanie either. According to Matthew she's in Brisbane on business but she'll be home tomorrow to greet me when I come out of hospital. I'll apologise to her then, straight up, no fuss. No fancy words, just a plain ‘I'm sorry'.