Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell (14 page)

33
Mum tries to kill my da using out-of-date tranquillisers

The clock finally struck five. Mum had never been a clock-watcher since she started her wee part-time job as nursing assistant at the local hospital, but tonight was different. Tonight there was something worth heading home for and as she raced past big Janet, the sister in charge, she yelled good night only to have Janet race after her and beg her to take old Bessie to the toilet before she left. Ah, fuck it, Mum thought, but unable to say no, she about turned and frogmarched old Bessie to the toilet, pulled down her big sensible knickers, eased her slowly down onto the toilet seat and chatted idly to her as they both waited for nature to take its course. When it was over Mum bent over and wiped Bessie's arse with the harsh hospital-grade toilet paper and sprinkled some talcum powder in her crack and returned her, relieved and dignified, to her chair in the day room that was filled with unsuspecting roommates and visitors alike. Mission accomplished, Mum ran like a mad woman to the locker room, grabbed her fake Burberry raincoat and matching handbag she'd got at the Marie Curie cancer shop on the Glasgow Road, and ran out into the torrential rain.

It had been torrential for days and just wouldn't let up. Mum held her raincoat high above her head as she ran from the safety of Ward 27, splashing her way across the car park and avoiding the potholes like she was dancing through a field of land mines. Finally she jumped into the car, relieved. ‘Aaaah, thank Christ. I made it,' she said out loud as she put the key in the ignition, turned on the cassette player and slipped in her favourite recording of Michael Crawford singing
Phantom of the Opera
. She'd bought the tape twelve years before and she listened to it every day and never tired of it. Track one started up as she pulled out of the hospital grounds and headed off into the dark night with the window wipers on maximum, headlights full beam, and Michael's voice for company on the dark and lonely journey home.

Track seven was just about to start as she turned off the dirt track and crunched up the pebble driveway. She could see a light on in the lounge room. ‘Ah, fuck it, he's back already,' she thought, and she switched off the tape player as the car came to a halt and the three dogs inside the house stuck their wet noses through the pussy flap ­desperate for her to come inside. Mum ejected Michael from the cassette player and placed him in his cassette cover before slotting him gently in the glove box on top of
Boy George's Greatest Hits
and the twelve-inch disco remix cassette version of
Saddle Up And Ride Your Pony
. She gathered her bag and raincoat and raced to the house, less apprehensive of the future now, in fact more hopeful than she'd ever been. And the rain was still pouring down.

‘I wonder if it will ever stop,' she said quietly to herself.

She'd no sooner thrown her coat and bag down on the kitchen table when he started yelling for her to get him a fucking whisky. And, without thinking, she prepared it, more whisky than water, just the way he liked it, and she delivered it to him in his leather armchair in the good room and the dogs followed her along the red carpeted hallway as far as the good-room door and waited patiently outside for her to come back out. He grabbed the whisky from her hand and downed it in one and thrust the empty glass back into her hand.

‘Fill it up—and less water this time,' he growled. She made her way back to the kitchen followed by the dogs who stuck their wet noses up her skirt and tickled her arse, and she bent down in the kitchen and cuddled each one of them. And then she turned back to the fridge and made him his drink and took it back to him. He held out his hand without taking his eyes off his game show on the telly, grabbed the drink from her and downed it in one, then tossed the empty glass in the air and Mum watched it fall in slow motion, like she was in a dream. And all the while he paid no attention to her, reminding her of her invisibility. Sure, all she was good for was filling up his glass, cooking his meals and picking up his skid-marked underpants from the toilet floor and soaking them in a bucket of bleach. Then he barked that he wanted his dinner and so back she went down the corridor to the kitchen and started to prepare it. Once the potatoes were boiling and the fish was simmering she pulled from her handbag the small glass bottle that Martha at the hospital had given her before she died. ‘They worked a treat for me, Betty,' Martha had said. ‘Mind you, they're out of date now, but try them anyway. What have you got to lose?'

‘Martha's right, I've got nothing to lose,' Mum reassured herself as she set about crushing ten of the tranquillisers between two spoons. And as she crushed them, her mind started wandering to that night not so long ago when Andrew had wanted to do the job she was about to do now and she'd stopped him and now she couldn't think why.

As the potatoes came to the boil she dipped her finger in the water and tasted it to make sure there was enough salt. How she could dip her finger into a pot of boiling water and not feel anything is anybody's guess, but then she lived in a pot of constantly boiling water and hadn't felt a thing for the whole of her married life to him. But today there was light at the end of the tunnel and she felt excited, Christ she felt
something
, and she caught herself singing her favourite piece from
The Phantom
where there's a great crescendo and Michael gets all passionate and goes up into his high voice. Whenever she listened to that part while she was driving she'd turn up the volume, and if she was stopped at the traffic lights she'd roll down the windows and let the sound escape for the benefit and enjoyment of the passers-by.

Mum took the potatoes from the stove and drained them in the colander, then put the finishing touches to the mornay sauce and poured it over the slice of grilled lemon sole she'd picked up at the fish shop earlier in the day during her tea break. Then she took the potato masher from the kitchen drawer, added a chunk of butter to the pot of drained potatoes and stood there, with the masher in her hand, and took a deep breath. She contemplated the crushed tranquillisers still on the spoon and knew she could back out now if she really wanted to. With no hesi­tation she held the spoon of crushed tranquillisers over the steaming pot of potatoes and let the crushed powder fall slowly into it. And she savoured every moment, one crushed molecule for every moment of pain she'd ever ­suffered at his hands, and as it entered the pot the ­molecules began to dissolve and she set about mashing slowly at first, then she built up speed until finally she was mashing ­frantically, adding milk, more butter and salt as she went. When she was finally convinced that all the evidence had been ­dissolved she spooned the mashed potato alongside the lemon sole and added a sprig of continental parsley. ‘Presentation is everything,' that's what Mum used to say.

My da started shouting for Mum to hurry up with his fucking dinner and she yelled out from the kitchen that she was coming and then she made her way down the red ­carpeted hall and handed him his dinner plate. He surveyed the dish for a split second then started by eating most of the mashed potato in one go and Mum sat down on the chair opposite him and waited. She watched him eat every mouthful of that potato and she didn't take her eyes off him for fear of missing the moment where he'd slip into a coma and she'd get peace for the night, if not the rest of her life. And she waited and watched him and nothing happened. Then she waited and watched some more and still no joy. She waited and watched for so long that her own eyes started getting heavier and the more she fought the heavier they got until finally Mum keeled over on the chair and dozed off, snoring away right there in front of him with her head tilted back and her mouth wide open like she was catching flies. And my da looked up from his dinner and started yelling at her to get up off her fat lazy arse and to get him a fucking whisky. He may as well have yelled at the wall for all the good it did, 'cause Mum was out for the count and there was nothing he could do.

34
Cock-a-leekie

Mum kept lacing my da's dinners with Martha's out-of-date tranquillisers until her stock ran out. Then one night as she sat at the kitchen table reading the latest copy of
Your Health And You
, she came across an article talking about the dangers of a high cholesterol diet and how you had to avoid creamy sauces and animal fats and custards and ­puddings and all the food my da loved and suddenly Mum's future looked rosy again. Of course she had con­sidered other alternatives like having him bumped off by a hit man when he left the pub drunk one night, or waiting until he was in his bed asleep and then sneaking in and covering his entire body from top to toe in nicotine patches. But once she'd pulled off the nicotine patches prior to the arrival of the police his once hairy body would be covered in perfectly square bald patches and how are you going to explain that to the coroner?

No, this dangerously high cholesterol diet seemed like the perfect solution and so Mum set about it straightaway. Feeling happier than she had for a long time Mum put her Michael Crawford
Phantom of the Opera
tape into the tape deck and the music filled the nooks and crannies of every room and once again her heart was filled with hope, just as it had been when she was lacing his dinners with Martha's out-of-date tranquillisers.

Mum's trips to the supermarket started to take a little longer as she loaded up her trolley with dairy products and ten-litre drums of animal fat and my da was none the wiser and tucked in to everything that Mum prepared and sometimes he even licked his plate clean, it tasted that good.

Izzy was studying law at Aberdeen University at that time and on one of her weekends home we sat at the kitchen table and watched Mum as she poured the contents of a one-litre carton of cream into the pot of cock-a-leekie soup she was preparing for my da.

‘Mum, do you think what you're doing is ethical?' Izzy asked.

‘Do I think
what
is ethical?'

‘Deliberately trying to increase another human being's cholesterol levels for your own gain? I mean, you could go to jail for that kind of behaviour.'

‘Ethical? Don't fuckin' talk to me about ethical! Do you think it's ethical that he shouts and screams from morning till night and still dictates his orders to me like I'm his fuckin' slave? Do you think it's ethical that there are times when I can't pay all the bills that come in, but there's always whisky in the house? Do you think it's ethical that he terrorised the life out of my own mother and father before they died? Do you think it's ethical that he refused to give Bruce the title deeds to the house he sweated blood to build? Do you think it's ethical that he abused the animals you brought home and kicked your very own puppy to death right there in front of your eyes? Ethical? Don't talk to me about fuckin' ethical!'

‘Okay, okay, I get your point, just so long as this doesn't come back and bite you.'

‘Izzy, I don't care if it does come back and bite me. Things have changed. Now I'd happily swing for that bastard and I'll do everything I can to make us all free from him some day.'

‘Sure, Mum, it would be great to be free, but does he
really
have to die for that to happen?'

‘No, he doesn't
absolutely
have to die, but it would make me happy if he did.'

‘All right, do what you like, but it sounds like I might have to defend you on a premeditated murder charge some day.'

‘Well, I've thought that through and I think they'll reduce it to manslaughter and if I do end up inside, I'm going to do a degree in Forensic Science by distance edu­cation, I hear it's a helluva interesting course. But anyway, Izzy, you'll not have to defend my innocence 'cause I'll proudly plead guilty and anybody that knows your da would understand why I did it.'

‘Well, if you're happy with what you're doing, Mum, I won't stand in your way.'

‘Good and keep your fingers crossed for me. He's on his way right now for his medical to get his heavy goods vehicle licence renewed, so hopefully I'll get good news this afternoon about his cholesterol levels.'

‘Aye, fingers crossed, eh Mum?' I said, smiling at the prospect of my da having a massive heart attack in the not-too-distant future.

Later in the afternoon my da's lorry pulled into the drive and my da jumped out of the cabin and made his way to the house in a light jog across the field. Mum and I looked at each other. We'd never seen him do a light jog before and he opened the door to the house and breezed into the kitchen beaming from ear to ear.

‘Well, that's confirmed,' he said. ‘The doctor cannae remember ever seeing anybody healthier than myself in a long time. He says my diet must be fantastic. My cholesterol level is low, my blood pressure is normal—so you'll all be delighted to know, I'm as fit as a fuckin' fiddle!'

All of our faces fell as he made his way in another light jog through the kitchen and up the stairs to the bathroom to have a shower and I turned to Mum and said, ‘How does that work? After all your effort! After all that dairy produce! All that animal fat!'

‘Fucked if I know how it works, Ali hen. Pass me another litre of cream.'

35
Oh no, my da's no' got cancer

Izzy moved to Australia first, well she's always been more adventurous than me. I was in my 30s and still living in Scotland when she moved and the burdens of the past weighed me down like a sack of Maris Piper potatoes around my neck. And I'd had enough of that. I wanted a change. I wanted to wake up in the morning and love my life and I couldn't do that stuck in such close proximity to my da and all of the black memories that go along with that. So I jumped on a plane and I joined Izzy, and it's such a long way away, Australia, it seemed like I sat on that plane forever, but all the while I was happy, knowing with each passing minute I was another few kilometres further away from my da and closer to the freedom I thought Australia would bring.

When I finally landed, I walked out of the terminal building and into my new life where the jaggy yellow sun has nothing to do all day but dazzle your eyes and shine on your milk-bottle skin turning it pink. And it wasn't long before I discovered the cold black thoughts I thought I was leaving behind in Scotland had followed me here.

The first few years I lived in Sydney I hated Scotland and I was thankful with every day that passed that I was as far away from the place as I could possibly be. Then one day, out of the blue, I woke up and realised that actually it wasn't Scotland I hated, but the memories of my past there, and that's when my thoughts started to lighten and slowly I let the orange rays of the sun warm my cold black thoughts and I started to think fondly again of tartan kilts and snow-capped mountains and Johnny Frost's patterns on the inside of the windows in the mornings and I think that's maybe when I started to forgive my da a little too.

It was during those first few years in Sydney that Thomas appeared in my life, much like the ice-cream cone reward you might get on a Sunday when you're wee and you've washed the dishes, including the pots, all week long.

Thomas was born and bred in Paris and he left France ten years earlier when he was only twenty. I met him at a friend's dinner party and of course I fell in love with him the moment I saw him with his warm brown eyes and olive skin and jet-black hair all the way to his shoulders and I hoped that one day he would love me too. That night after our baked Alaskas, he invited me to see
Forest Gump
with him at the pictures the next weekend and things just grew from there. Thomas's love wrapped me up in the safest place I'd ever known and six weeks after our first date I'd moved into his apartment. Four months later we were married.

Twelve years on we're still married and Thomas is my rock, the kindest and most tender man I've ever known. Thomas who lies on my cold side of the bed in winter to take the chill away before I get into the bed myself. And sometimes while he's still lying on my side, I pull back the covers and carefully lie on top of him, for fear of my skin touching the cold cotton sheets, and once they're warmed, Thomas slides out from under me and onto his own side that's still icy cold to the touch and I lie down on the warmth that he's left behind and if that's not love, then I don't know what is.

Thomas helped me get back the confidence I must surely once have had. A day doesn't go by but he's complimenting me on how smart I am, when all I ever feel is daft. He tells me every day how beautiful I am, when all I can think about is the shame of my Joan Crawford lips. He tells me I couldn't cook the noodles of South-East Asia to save my life, but I'm creative and funny and great to be with and sometimes I wonder if we're talking about the same person.

Secure in Thomas's love my mind drifted back to all those years ago when I locked my banana box away in the attic and to the promise I made myself that there would be no more time for fun and careless moments, pushing stupid stuffed animals on wheels up and down the street. But now, with Thomas by my side, I no longer feared having fun. Instead, I finally knew that I deserved it. So that day, as I sat on my stripy deckchair under the jaggy yellow sun in Sydney, I closed my eyes and took myself back to the attic.

The attic smelled of damp dogs and brown seaweed and skinny rays of squashed sunlight squeezed in through the cracks in the slate roof. I crouched down to avoid banging my head on the sloping roof and I shuffled further in. From the corner of my eye I saw my crocus bowl with ‘Plant Use Only' stamped on the side, discarded and lying upside down in a corner. And then my eyes fell on it, my beautiful banana box, sitting in the same spot I'd left it all those years ago, waiting patiently for me to come back as if it always knew I would. I crouched further down and blew away the thick layer of dust that had gathered on the top over the years. When I lifted the lid, wily spiders that had lived there all this time eating daft flies that dared to come too close, scurried for cover. Inside my box, I saw the ­precious wheel from Molly my Airedale Terrier and one by one the memories of the red handle and the track marks and the fingerprints in the black tar softened by the afternoon sun came back to me and I sat in my stripy deckchair in Sydney with my eyes still closed and smiled. With the warmth of the memories came the heartache of the past too, but I reminded myself that life was different now, I had Thomas in my life, and my heart was stronger than before. Isn't it true, love changes everything?

With my eyes still closed, I brought my banana box and myself back from the attic in Scotland to the safety of my stripy deckchair in Sydney. I opened my eyes, ready to have fun again, but had no idea where to start. Looking for inspiration I picked up a brochure from my local community centre and flicked through it for hours on end. That's when I stumbled on ‘Pottery for beginners' and I smiled as I recalled the pottery course Grampa had done when he was 80 years old and the misshapen ashtrays he filled the house with and the clay plates he made and painted with pictures of wild horses galloping through the prairies of Lithuania, not to mention the crumpled plant pots that leaned to the side much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa does.

I enrolled, excited, and waited impatiently for the first day of the course to arrive. Once the class was underway though, I discovered I was shite at pottery and knew instantly how Grampa's garden shed ended up packed to the hilt with plant pots that even the Italians couldn't turn into a tourist attraction. I didn't go back for week two. Somewhat deflated, I flicked through the brochure again. My eyes lit up when I saw ‘Singing for beginners' and thought maybe I could re-live the Lena Zavaroni ­aspirations I had as a child. I enrolled but discovered that actually I was shite at singing too. Next I tried ‘Watercolours for beginners', closely followed by ‘Classical guitar for ­beginners', then ‘The noodles of South-East Asia and how to cook them'. And I was shite at all of them.

Then one day, after enrolling in ‘Yoga for beginners', I had a call from the college to advise that the yoga class was unfortunately full and would I like to try something else?

‘What else is available?' I asked.

‘Well, there's a few spaces left in “Creative writing for beginners”.'

‘Are you sure I can't get a refund, I mean it's not my fault the yoga class is full.'

‘Sorry, Alison, college policy, no refunds. But wait, if you're not keen on the creative writing course, how about stamp collecting—there's about a hundred-and-fifty places left on that course. Would you like me to put you down for that instead?'

‘Hmm. Can I think about it overnight?

‘No, I'm sorry. The cut-off point for all enrolments is today.'

‘Bloody hell. All right, just put me down for the creative writing. I'll give it a go.'

On the first night of that course our teacher Dean asked us all to introduce ourselves and to tell the group what had brought us to the course. I stood up and told the group I'd enrolled in loads of other courses and that I'd hated all of them and based on this pattern, it was highly unlikely I'd show up for week two. Dean didn't seem to mind that answer at all, in fact he told me he hoped he would see me for week two and inside my head I'm thinking, I doubt it.

He gave us some homework that night for the following week and he gave us a subject to write about but we didn't have to stick to it, for there were no rules in this writing game, at least that's what Dean said. And he gave us tips along the way and one of those was to write every day, come hell or high water, 'cause ‘it's the process of writing that makes you a writer'. And I had no idea what to write and so I called Andrew in Scotland, what with him writing songs all day I was sure he'd be able to help.

I was lucky to catch Andrew on the phone, what with the time difference between Australia and Scotland, and I got him as he was driving down the M8 motorway to Duntocher.

‘Awright, Blinky!' he shouted down the phone at me, competing against the noise of the motorway traffic and Radio Scotland's Gaelic FM that he had blaring through the speakers, ‘What's happenin'?'

‘It's all happenin', Nobbie,' I shouted back, my voice insignificant amongst the bagpipes and the hewchin' and chewchin' that was going on in the car as he sped along. Andrew calls me Blinky and I call him Nobbie—I don't know why, it's just always been that way. Nobbie has its origins in knob—you know, from the noun, ‘to be a right knob', and of course it's a term of endearment, I mean you know how it is between families on the west coast of Scotland, or maybe you don't. You should have seen us laugh when Andrew came to visit us in Australia and we came across Nobby's Nuts in the nibbles section at the supermarket and as if the name wasn't funny enough, their slogan ‘Nibble Nobby's Nuts' had us splitting our sides.

‘What are you up to, darlin'?' I shouted down the phone just as big Boaby McTavish, the guest accordionist on Radio Scotland's Gaelic FM, played the final chord in ‘Oh, bonny Mary come muck out the byre with me'.

‘I'm on my way down to the studio to practise these wee songs I finished writin' this week. I've got a few session musicians comin' and there's a record company comin' as well to check me out, so fingers crossed they know good music when they hear it, eh? So, tell me, Blinky, how're things?'

‘Aye, everything's good,' I said. ‘Except I've started this writing course and we have to write a wee somethin' for next week and read it out to the class and I haven't a clue what to write. By the way, while I remember, have you heard our da might have cancer?'

‘Well, I hadn't heard a sausage since he attacked me with that iron bar and I got the court order out against him, then just the other day Bruce told me he'd heard something about him having cancer and I thought you fuckin' beauty, there is a God—after all that shite he's put us through. So, what have you heard?'

‘Well, Bruce rang me the other week and he was telling me that big John Brown had been in at the garden centre to buy a few plants for his herbaceous border and while he was there he mentioned to Bruce that he'd heard my da had cancer.'

‘And what did Bruce say to big John?' Andrew asked, impatient to hear some seriously bad news.

‘Well, apparently Bruce just asked him if he wanted a buy a few petunias for his terracotta tubs and John said a'right and then he told John that'd be eight pound ninety-five and did he want a carrier bag for the petunias.'

‘Naw, what did Bruce say to big John about my da having cancer?'

‘Oh, apparently Bruce just told him he wasn't interested in whether my da had cancer or not and had he ­considered planting some daffodils to add a splash of colour to his front lawn. He's having a hard time shifting those ­daffodils, or so he was saying.'

‘Aye, its true, daffodils are always hard to shift, especially at the tail end of the season. Well, maybe the rumour's true about him right enough then, Blinky,' Andrew said. ‘And I don't mind telling you, when I heard the rumour I did a cancer dance all night long—fuckin' rained nonstop the whole of the next day and it was my day for the steamie and I couldnae get my sheets dried.' Andrew paused and I heard him light up a fag and take a long, deep draw. ‘So what do you reckon, has he got cancer or no'?' he asked.

‘Well, I've been trying to phone him for days to find out and I was beginning to think he was already dead and buried when I got a text from him just yesterday,' I said.

‘A text message?' Andrew said. ‘Fuckssake, how did he manage to work out how to send one of them?'

‘I don't know, I couldnae believe it myself. Anyway, the message just said he was fine and he left his mobile number so I gave him a bell this morning.'

‘Right, so tell me, tell me—is it true? Does he have cancer?'

‘Well, he didn't mention any cancer to me when I spoke with him this morning but what I can confirm is that he does have a bad case of constipation and now has extremely high blood pressure and the doctor thinks the two might be connected in some way. Mind you, since he saw the doctor he's made a few drastic lifestyle changes. Apparently he's stopped drinking and smoking, and he's eating fruit and vegetables every day and a serve of fresh fish once a week. Christ, next thing you know he'll be at the church on Sunday. That's all we fuckin' need,' I said.

‘Christ Almighty. So what you're saying is he's not on his death bed?' Andrew asked, unable to conceal his ­disappointment.

‘Well, I never heard of anybody dying of constipation, Nobbie, but you never know. I'll keep you posted on that front. So, got any smart-arsed ideas for a wee story for me then? I'm desperate for inspiration. I can't seem to write a word at the minute.'

‘Hey, I've got an idea. You could write a wee story called “Oh No, My Da's No' Got Cancer”,' Andrew said.

‘That's in bad taste, Nobbie, don't you think? Seriously, have you got any ideas for me?'

‘Well, Blinky, if you're having a few issues with your creative outlet, answer this question. How are you feeling about life in general at the moment?'