Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell (13 page)

30
The longest knife in the cutlery drawer

Andrew was angry. About everything. Angry about being my da's son; about the way my da treated Mum, me, Izzy, Nanny, Grampa and Bruce; angry about the way he treated our animals; angry about a lifetime of being shouted at morning, noon and night. And the anger ate away at him bit by bit, until there was almost nothing left of him and he arrived at an anonymous destination, a place where he didn't know who he was anymore, and by that time, anyway, he didn't care.

So Andrew went from being a lovely wee laddie baking potatoes in bonfires with Donald next door, to being a dread-locked troubled soul who popped pills, snorted speed, sniffed amyl nitrate and smoked dope night after night after night.

Andrew had no way of supporting himself so he still lived at home under my da's roof and every morning my da reminded him of that fact when he got up at five o'clock in the morning to get ready for work and he'd start banging on Andrew's bedroom door, shouting and screaming about how lazy Andrew was and how if he didn't get up right there and then, there would be hell to pay. But what my da didn't realise was that Andrew was already in hell, and getting out of bed wasn't going to change anything.

My da banned all of Andrew's friends from coming to the house to see Andrew, what with them looking like a bunch of lazy bastards with long untidy hair and no jobs, so Andrew just told his pals to come around to the back of the house late at night and climb in his bedroom window if they wanted to see him, which they did. Rory Corr was the only one who didn't have to come and go by Andrew's bedroom window. We all liked Rory, even my da tolerated him, which was really saying something 'cause Rory had long hair and a dope habit unsurpassed by anybody else in our town. The difference with Rory was that he had a job. Whenever Rory came to our place he'd just walk in through the front door and he'd shout out, ‘Awright, Betty, are you in?' And Mum would be in the kitchen and she'd shout back, ‘Aye, I'm in, Rory. I'm in the kitchen! Come on through and I'll put an egg and a slice of bacon in the pan fur yae!' And Rory would make his way to the kitchen and slap his egg and slice of bacon between two pieces of white sliced bread and butter, then he'd make himself a cup of tea and chat to Mum for a while before he made his way to Andrew's room to wake him up, which was no mean feat, 'cause Andrew didn't even want to be alive, never mind be woken up.

Rory painted buildings for a living. Sometimes he painted in the local banks when they were shut at night and whenever he had a big job like that on he'd ask Andrew to come and help him, 'cause Andrew was big and strong. Rory would come to our place in the afternoon before the job was to start and after he'd had his cup of tea and bacon and eggs on two slices of bread and butter he'd head to Andrew's room to try to wake him up.

‘Come on, Andy, I've got a bank job on tonight. Are you comin' to help me?'

And Andrew would tell Rory to fuck off and go and paint his own banks, then he'd roll back over and fall asleep.

The years went by and nothing changed, my da still shouted morning, noon and night about everything and nothing, and Andrew, well he was numb to it all by now and he resigned himself to thinking that that's just how life was and, sadly, he thought he had no means of ever getting out of the situation he was in. So he stayed there, at home under my da's fucking roof, and it wouldn't have surprised me if one day Rory went into Andrew's room and found Andrew dead right there on the polished floor.

But that never happened. In fact, some years later it was Rory who was found dead, not in Andrew's room, but on the polished floor of a tenement flat in Glasgow's south side. They say he died of an overdose and that came as no surprise, 'cause Rory had a fierce drug habit that would have put most to shame.

Eventually Andrew stopped snorting speed and popping pills and all he did from time to time was smoke a little dope. He even managed to get his own wee council flat in Garthamlock and sometimes he'd sit in his flat late at night by himself and think of all the wrongs my da had done and one night it all got too much for him and he decided to do something about it. So he armed himself with the longest knife he could find in his cutlery drawer and he made his way to my da's house, crossing fields in the middle of the black night while the rain blew horizontally and soaked him to the skin and he couldn't have cared less.

Mum was at the kitchen sink when she looked out the window and saw the shape of something moving through the fields towards the house. She didn't think much about it until the shape got closer and she could see it was Andrew and that's when she glanced at the clock and saw it was close to ten o'clock and what was Andrew doing crossing fields at this time of night in the rain? A panic set in her as she raced to the back door. Andrew was already standing there waiting for her to open it and he was clutching his knife, the longest one he could find in his cutlery drawer, and he had a far-away look in his eye.

‘What are you doing, son?' she said.

‘I've come to kill the bastard,' Andrew said, pushing past Mum to come inside. ‘I cannae fuckin' take the torment any longer. The way he's treated you, Ali and Izzy—the way he treated Nanny, Grampa and Bruce. I cannae fuckin' stand it any longer, do you understand?'

‘Aye, son, of course I understand. But the bastard's no' worth swinging for! Do
you
understand?'

‘I don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life locked up, Mum. I'll happily do the time. I just want the pleasure of cutting his fuckin' throat and making him pay the price, so get out of my way, I'm going through to do it now!'

‘But he's in the good room watching the telly, son. Please don't do it, Andrew,
please
I beg you. Go home and think about what it is you're about to do and think about what it'll do to me if you go through with it.'

Mum stood in the doorway to the red carpeted hallway that would lead Andrew to my da in the good room, barricading his way with her body. Andrew tried to push past her and through her tears Mum begged him again not to do it and asked him wasn't it already bad enough that we'd all gone through this hell with the bastard, without one of us ending up in jail? Andrew was still clutching his knife as Mum begged and his hands were shaking and Mum looked him in the eye and begged him some more and in the end his own eyes filled with tears and he dropped his knife, the longest one he could find in his cutlery drawer, and it landed on the floor. Mum bent down slowly and picked it up.

‘Mum, I love you,' Andrew sobbed, ‘and I don't want to hurt you any more than you've already been hurt. But my anger won't go away. It's just there all the time, burning a hole in my gut while that prick sits in his good room watching his fuckin' game shows none the wiser, and it's all of us who carry the burden.'

‘I know, son, I know,' Mum said gently, pushing the wet dreadlocks from his forehead and in behind his ears, ‘but it's us who have the bigger shoulders and we can afford to carry that burden. Some day, Andrew, we'll sort everything out and we'll look back on these times and we'll laugh 'cause we'll be free. Free from him and the pain he's put us through and your anger'll disappear son, I promise you.'

While Andrew sobbed some more Mum rocked him in her arms like he was still her wee boy, and he told her again that he loved her then he turned and left and made his way in the dark through the fields again and he took his time, for he was in no rush. And he was sorry he didn't cut my da's throat that night, but there would be other nights, and the thought of that consoled him. Just then the black sky opened up again and the rain came lashing down harder than before and Andrew was soaked through to the skin again and still he didn't care.

All the while my da sat in his good room watching his game show and when the adverts came on, he walked down the red carpeted hallway that led him to the kitchen and he opened the door and stood in the doorway, the same doorway that Mum had barricaded only moments before to save his life, and demanded she pour him another fucking whisky. And Mum went to the fridge and poured his whisky, more whisky than water, just the way he liked it, and she wondered why she'd stopped Andrew after all.

31
Swinging in the gentle breeze

My da's mother, Helen, had just come home from picking up the weekly groceries from the village store and as she pulled into the driveway she could see that stupid dog Rex sitting outside the barn door whimpering and fidgeting, unable to sit at peace, and she thought that maybe it was worms that were causing him to fidget like that. She got out of the car and lifted all the bags of groceries out of the boot with one hand and headed to the house and called to Rex, ‘Come away from that barn door ya stupit wee bastard! Come and get your bone.' Rex looked towards her, but he didn't budge, just sat there with one ear sat straight up in the wind and one ear folded forward covering half his right eye.

She took the shopping into the house and reappeared a few minutes later with Rex's bone in her hand. ‘What the fuck are you doing up there at that barn door?' she yelled. ‘Come down here now and get your fuckin' bone!' But still Rex didn't move. Stubborn wee bastard, she thought as she walked up the slope to the front of the barn door and put the bone down in front of him.

‘Right, here's your fuckin' bone.' She placed it at his feet and Rex wouldn't even look at it. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?' she said as she bent down to stroke him behind the ear that was standing up in the wind and all the while she thought it was weird 'cause normally he'd knock her over in the rush to get his weekly bone. Rex started to bark and jump at the barn door. Helen had never seen him behave like this. ‘What wrong wi' you Rex?' she said, ‘you want inside the barn now, is that it?' So with all her might Helen slid the door wide open and the daylight rushed in, chasing out the darkness, and particles of hay hung effortlessly in the beams of sunlight that shone on a sight she would rather not have seen.

He'd dressed himself in his good suit and the shirt and tie she'd bought him for Christmas the year before from Marks & Spencer's, and he seemed much smaller now in death. She was surprised that those were her only thoughts as she stood there at the barn door, watching him swing in the gentle breeze that blew in from the potato fields they'd planted together only the season before. And then she thought about that day, as she watched him swing, and remembered how he'd accused her of being a useless, good-for-nothing, lazy cow and how she'd wished him dead right there and then.

They'd had seven kids, him and Helen, and he'd shown more care and respect for his Rover 3000 than he ever did for my da. He garaged that car come rain, hail or shine, and polished it religiously every Sunday with turtle wax and a nice soft chamois leather from the car accessory shop in town.

He had driven to see the doctor that day. Later the doctor told Helen that the cancer was everywhere and that he had told my da's da that he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do. My da's da thanked the doctor for his time then drove himself home and carefully parked his pride and joy in the barn. Then he went inside the house and dressed himself in his Sunday best before making his final journey back to the barn where he covered his most-beloved possession with a blanket to protect her before climbing on top of her to reach the rafters that would secure the rope that would see an end to all the pain and inconvenience that cancer brings.

Helen turned slowly away from the barn door and took Rex in her arms as she headed back towards the house. Just before she reached her front door she noticed the cows lie down in the fields across the way and she knew that that meant the rain was coming and that she'd have to get the washing off the line. But the washing could wait. Before she turned the handle of the door to go inside, she turned around and looked back towards the barn and the rafters creaked in the breeze, and she called out his name and held her hand up in the breeze as if she were waving goodbye. Then she turned and sat down on the cold concrete doorstep and held her head in her hands and the tears trickled down her wrists and up into her sleeves.

32
Diagnosed one minute, dead the next

It went so fast. It was like he was diagnosed one minute and dead the next.

We weren't close to my da's side of the family, although we used to visit them every Sunday when we were wee and while we were there they never once spoke to us, or about us, except on the odd occasion when they'd feign interest and ask my da to remind them of our names again. But mostly they'd talk to my da about tractors and potatoes and the brake pads on their Rover 3000 and sometimes they talked about the increase in the price of tomatoes whenever the rains fell heavy in Tenerife.

My da's mother baked her own fairy cakes and sometimes when we went there she'd put the fairy cakes with the frosted pink icing on a white china plate on the table in front of us, but we didn't dare touch one single cake for fear of my da telling us to mind our manners. So we'd just stare at the frosted pink icing for half an hour hoping somebody would tell us to help ourselves, but no one ever did.

When we got older we stopped going to visit them every Sunday and they remained the strangers they had always been. I felt nothing when it was announced that my da's da had cancer. Mum and I were busying ourselves in the gift shop my da had bought cheap on the Glasgow Road that day, unpacking the boxes of bric-a-brac we'd just bought at the wholesalers, and every so often Mum would open a box and pull out something like a porcelain fish that doubled as a barometer and she'd say, ‘What did we buy this for? We'll never sell this shite!' But actually she was wrong. We always sold that shite.

Next, the front door of the shop burst open and my da rushed in, wailing like a mad man, tears running down his face and his eyes searching for a place to run to where he could retain his dignity and hide his pain. Mum ran out from behind the counter and took a hold of him and she wrapped him in her arms and she asked him to tell her what had happened. For moments he could only sob and hide his face behind his hands and I felt his embarrassment at being seen like that by me, so I turned away and stuck the price tags on the porcelain fish that doubled as barometers and pretended not to notice.

Again Mum asked my da to tell her what had happened but he could barely speak. He sobbed from way deep down inside of himself and every so often he paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve and eventually his sobbing slowed and he prepared himself to say it.

‘He's hung himself,' he said.

Mum went pale as she took my da in her arms and walked with him to the darkness of the storeroom at the back of the shop where he wouldn't be seen like this by anyone, and pulled the door shut tight behind her. I heard his limp body slump against the door and slide down to the ground and I heard his cries of pain, the likes of which I hope I'll never hear again. I could hear Mum comfort him and for the first time he let himself be comforted by her, her of all people, her that he abused on every occasion that he could and here she was offering love and safety and tenderness and that made him feel even worse.

He allowed himself to be comforted for five minutes more and not one minute longer and when his time was up, he disentangled himself from the warmth of Mum's embrace and pulled the storeroom door open announcing that he had work to do, that this was no time to be behaving in such a way. He dusted himself down, took a deep breath, stormed past me like he always did, and, without stopping nor looking me in the eye, asked me what price I had put on the porcelain fish that doubled as a barometer. So I told him and he told me that was way too cheap for an ornament so fine. And with that he disappeared out of the shop and the door closed behind him with a bang.