Sin (19 page)

I stepped forward and suddenly I
was home. I was the little kid bouncing down the stairs on my bum.
I was older, being told off for dragging mud in from playing
football on the school fields. Older yet, my head down the toilet
as I 'celebrated' my first attempt at being drunk, swearing I'd
never touch alcohol again - until the next time. Bringing home my
first girlfriend and being told that the only pair of tits that
were going up those stairs were my mother’s. Storming out after yet
another argument over something that just wasn't fair. The last day
of my last school. The first day of my first job. Memories filled
me up and spilled out, bursting from my eyes in the form of tears.
Not tears of regret or of pain, but of relief. Of release.

Home. It hadn't always been
sweet - it had, in fact, mostly been sour - but it had always been
home. Regardless of whether I'd been in exile in Scunthorpe or
living with friends or girlfriends, this house, with its high back
fence and its crappy mobile phone reception and its ever-flaking
banister running up the stairs, was still home with a capital
aitch. How crap was that then? Wherever I may wander? Oh yes. There
was no place like it. A father who seemed to think I was an
irritation rather than a blessing. A mother who seemed to let him.
And a name that made sure the kids at school rubbed my parents'
contempt of me right in my face.

The name's Sin. Spit in your
eye, wish I could die.

But hey, what doesn't kill us
can only make us stronger, right? So I'm the sum total, carry the
one, of my father's distaste and my mother's disinterest? It's a
wonder I turned out normal, don't you think?

The tears dried and the house
became less of a mystical being, guardian of my childhood, and more
of a simple building. It was, finally, exactly what it should have
been - a refuge. Joy and I had kept the house on after our parents'
death, her not needing to sell it and me not wanting to. It had
become our escape from the pains of the world; somewhere we could
go and just be. No phone calls (the phone had been disconnected
when dear dad spent the bill money on a nag in the 4:30 and had
never been reconnected) and no visitors. In the street that time
forgot, we were able to kick back and chill. Dad had never won on
the horses, but Mum had once won on the only lottery ticket she'd
ever bought. Not a single penny of the hundred thousand or so she'd
received came the way of either myself or my sister, but there was
enough left after their death to keep paying the bills for their
house. As such, we didn't touch their money but came and went as we
pleased and the house stayed in the family.

Maybe it was a reminder of our
childhood. Weren't they supposed to be the best days of your life?
Perhaps we kept the house to make sure the thorn of memory stayed
stuck in our side.

It might seem strange that, when
others had their own home and a villa in Spain, we kept one in the
same town for our sanctuary, but a change was as good as... well, a
change. 'Different' was sometimes all that was needed to recharge
our Evereadies and spring that spark back up our behinds. Maybe a
villa, complete with pool, palms trees and piñatas, tucked away on
a Mediterranean beach would have been better. Then we could
really
get away from the grinding and grouching. But our
parents' was, obviously, much closer and you didn't have to book
flights to get there. And everyone spoke English (although they
might be as difficult to understand), and you could be sure not to
miss an episode of Coronation Street or some other wonderfully
exciting television program. It was only odd days, or the
occasional weekend here and there, but it still felt like we were
getting away - packing up our troubles in our old tote bag and
trying to find that smile, smile, smile again. In more cases than
not, it was successful.

The house wasn't entirely as it
had been when we'd taken over ownership. We hadn't quite stamped
our own brand of melancholy on the rooms, but we'd modified them
enough to dilute some of the memories and exorcise most of the
Ghosts of Childhoods Past. Simple things like changing a carpet
here, painting the walls there, emptying a room and sealing it off
completely... That was the main bedroom. Ma and Pa's Love Pad, as
he used to call it. Calling it that was one thing. Advertising it
as such at any time of the day and night, was quite another. Didn't
he know doors were meant to be closed? Once the door was
plasterboarded over, both Joy and I could walk past it without
having to suppress a shudder. We tried hanging a picture - the
Grand Canyon at sunset - over the area to distract us from what was
behind it, but the picture never wanted to stay up and would often
try to leap off as we walked past. We put it down to the weight of
our footsteps on the landing, or maybe an earthquake in Central
China - or anything close to normal. Of course we didn't know then
what we, or rather what I know now. Now I'd be more inclined to
think the house was shuddering along with me. Or that my own
shudders were not confined to my body, and were reaching out,
holding the wall for support.

I looked around the kitchen. The
toaster was in the same place as the last time I was here. The
kettle too. The clock on the oven was lit and the little colon in
the middle of the time was blinking, so the electricity was still
on. It felt as if there should have been a layer of dust across
everything and that I would be brushing aside cobwebs as I moved.
It had lain empty, dormant, for such a long time that, if this had
been a Hammer film, the house would have given itself over to
spiders and rats and bears, oh my! Well, maybe not the bears, eh?
Not in Grimsby - except for after kick out time at the Tavern on a
Saturday night.

Ah. Olivia.

Joy, bless her little rotting
eye socket, had the foresight, long ago, to employ a lovely old
Philipino woman from three doors down as a cleaner. Apparently (I'd
only met her a couple of times), she was known to be both
meticulous and thorough, and her mouth would stay zipped into the
bargain. Discretion was all part of the job description Joy told me
once, a fact that was confirmed when it emerged that the doctor
whose surgery she kept spick and span and shipety shape was using
his after hours appointments for certain liaisons he might want to
keep to himself. Olivia had discovered him whilst looking for a
socket for her hoover. The physical examination he'd been
performing had much less to do with medicine than it had to do
with, well, let's say biology. This discovery only came to light
three months later when Angela Simpson, the 'patient', went about
as public as she could to a packed waiting room, because Dr. Hurst
wouldn't keep his promise to leave his wife of thirty years.

So Olivia, it became known, was
one woman whom you could trust, and this prompted an influx of
requests for her services. Whether that was due to her cleaning
abilities or her silence, I was never entirely sure, but you had to
hand it to her. She knew how to whip a duster across a coffee table
as well as she knew how to keep incidents such as the good doctor's
dilly-dally to herself. And she could vacuum in all the nooks and
crannies too, much the same as Dr. Hurst seemed to be attempting to
do, by all accounts. The kitchen surfaces were testament to one
side of her talents, and I hoped, if she came whilst I was still
here, that me remaining undiscovered would be testament to the
other.

Because Joy and I were not at
the house too often, and we were house trained, Olivia was only
asked to visit once a month for a spruce up here and there. That
could have been four weeks ago or that morning, I didn't know, but
the lack of dust on the worktop implied that I had at least a week
or two before I'd have to think of explaining my surprise return
from my travels across South America. Well, Brazil and Mexico
sounds so much more exotic than a mental institution, doesn't it?
It also meant that she'd kept up her job, and there was still money
being paid into her account. Aren't direct debits a wonderful
thing?

So. Ghoulies and ghosties and
all manner of ferocious beasties were not, one would hope, lurking
in the crevices and behind the furniture to gobble me up for lunch.
Yay. Christopher Lee wasn't ready to jump out, gagging for a pint
of my very own ruby red. Hammer was humdrum and Craven was calm and
a zombie wasn't poised to rip off my arm. Yay, again.

I still felt as though the house
was watching me, remaining a touch wary, waiting for... something.
Well, let it. I wasn't an intruder, I was just maybe the prodigal
son returning. If the house didn't like that, tough. It wasn't as
if I had a lot of options, was it? I daren't go to my own home,
just in case there'd be an unwelcoming committee. This was our safe
haven so it would just have to get a grip and be safe, and a
haven.

I briefly thought about checking
the fridge and cupboards to see if there was any food, but then
decided that, after a couple of years, I'd rather hope there
wasn't. I didn't want to be accosted by a rogue ciabatta or raving
pot noodle. I decided the toilet was my best bet. Let my bladder
relax a bit before it burst its banks. The bathroom was upstairs,
but there was a small room with a toilet and wash basin at the
bottom of the stairs. The 'little toilet' as we'd always called it.
Not little as in a five year old could sit on it comfortably, but
little as in big brother, little brother, red lorry, yellow lolly.
Thinking about it had suddenly added about a gallon to the confines
of my bladder, so I figured Little Bro was my best bet. I left the
kitchen and walked along the hall. The walls and the pictures and
the light bulbs all kept their beady eyes on me as I went and I
almost asked for a little privacy please!

But that would have meant I was
talking to a house. Haven't I mentioned I wasn't quite insane?

Anyway. I gave my bladder the
relief it deserved, washed and dried my hands, then stood in back
in the hall. I didn't know what to do. Sit and watch television?
Sleep? Shower? After so long with my daily routine being firmly
regimented, I was somewhat lost at the prospect of having to make a
decision myself. My escape and the events since had more or less
played themselves out, with me simply being a participant swept
along with the current. Now I'd washed up on the shore of my own
free will, and I didn't have a clue which direction to take. I'd
only planned, after changing from suicide to flight, to find out
where I was and end up somewhere. I was Somewhere.

So what now?

I looked down at myself and
realised the clothes that I'd taken from Martin's bedroom were more
than a little too big. They hung off me as if I was an extra in the
next Rick Moranis film, Honey I Shrunk the Neighbour's Postman or
something. It didn't matter now. Within these walls I no longer had
to be the escaped lunatic, nor did I need to pretend to be the
dedicated doctor. I was just me, Sin, a lost boy. If only Peter Pan
or Kiefer Sutherland were here to help me. Well, maybe not Kiefer,
he'd be a pain in the neck. But young Pan. A quick trip to
Neverland, and straight on till morning, would be mighty fine. No
passport required. Did Neverland have duty free? Could you buy
alcohol and cigarettes cheap? Did Captain Hook have a black market
in Bells or Benson & Hedges? Customs would have a job trying to
impound that little lot.

A shower. That would be good.
Wash away the grime both inside and out. Maybe even a shave, if the
battery on my razor that I kept in the bathroom cabinet still had a
residue of charge left in it. My own clothes. It would help me feel
sane. Normal. Even if I wasn't, entirely.

An hour later I was looking at
myself in the mirror in my bedroom. It was a three bedroomed house,
and Joy and I had taken one of the smaller two each for when we
visited, the main one - the Lurve Pad - being wiped from the memory
of the house like chalk off a blackboard. The rooms were almost
identical to each other. We'd refrained from applying any of our
personal touches here. We didn't want this place to be a surrogate
home, merely a refuge. So there were no photos or knick-knacks or
stuffed toys dotted around. A wardrobe, double bed, bedside cabinet
and mirror. That was it. Functional rather than fancy. Downstairs,
I'd upgraded the TV and the sound system, and Joy had brought one
of her reclining armchairs, but nothing else. It stayed as it had
when our parents had lived here. The same tired wallpaper and worn
carpets. The same faded curtains and the same settee you sank into
so far your bum was almost touching the floor. Neither of us had
the inclination to improve something that meant so little to
us.

And it wasn't home. It wasn't,
however I’d felt when I walked back in. It was a house I'd lived in
for a while when I was younger. Did I have a Home? No. I wasn't a
nomad, but I hadn't settled in any one place long enough for me to
become attached. To grow roots. Did I protesteth too much?
Methinks, possibly, verily.

Oh well.

My reflection regarded me
solemnly. What had I become? What was I reduced to? An outcast. A
fugitive. But hold on a God-damned minuet! I'd walked into that
place. Surely, now I was out, they had no claim on me? I hadn't
been committed. I hadn't been dragged there by those men in their
white coats. It was
my
decision to jump on the groovy train
to Nutsville. So it should be
my
decision to get off at the
next station. The thing was, I didn't think Dr. Connors would see
it that way. He wouldn't appreciate one of his pets escaping. Once
you were in his 'care', your own decisions were a thing of the past
and became something he made on your behalf, for your benefit, of
course. Such a nice man.

I regarded my reflection
regarding me, reflecting. This felt like it could be the first day
of the rest of my life. It could also be the last for a lot of
other people. I was teetering on the edge. I wasn't sure if this
precipice was an abyss, hungrily waiting to swallow me whole, or a
whizzy-wee slide I could zoom down into the great big ball pool of
everlasting contentment. I leaned towards the former, although
leaning towards anything this close to the brink was a more than a
little dangerous.