Ugly Beautiful (10 page)

'Do you still want to know about my parents?' Jason asked, breaking the relaxing silence.

'Of course I do, yes.' said Haley. Instantly she turned her head towards him, giving him her full attention.

'It's not a very pretty tale.' Jason continued half smirking. Haley took a comforting hold of his hand. Jason stared up at the starlit sky in a dream like gaze, contemplating where to start.

'That picture in the cottage beside your bed?' said Haley.

'My parents on their honeymoon.' replied Jason, sounding distant. 'It's the only image I have of them happy together as a couple. Even to this day I have no memory of my mother looking as joyful as that picture suggests. To me, she will always be this miserable, depressed, sad, lonely and pathetic person I'm ashamed to confess. When I was growing up my mother did everything for me... everything. She never shouted at me, told me off or argued with me. She never even struck me or punished me as a child. Christ, she was more like some hired nanny than a mother. And I tell you, I could be an absolute little shit at the best of times. '

Jason hesitated for a moment. He took a deep breath to compose his inner emotions before continuing on with his story.

'I used to listen and watch for my father coming home most nights. And when he did he always had drink on his breath… He would treat her like shit... just absolute utter shit you know. It was horrible to listen too. I mean he would slap her around, bang her head off walls and doors, using excuses like dinner was overcooked or the house wasn't tidy enough. Christ, sometimes he wouldn't even have an excuse. He'd just beat the living piss out of her for the sheer hell of it, just because he could, for the plain and simple reason that he enjoyed it. On other occasions and while he knew I was sitting in the living room pretending to pay no attention to their arguments, pretending to be studying some imaginary homework or watching some crappy TV soap opera… Not that I could even see or read in the first place since my eyes were so blurred with tears… Well he would be next door in the kitchen holding her head down to his groin... and forcing her... you know… to do things.'

Jason scrunched his eyes up in a bout of raw anguished emotion. A single tear trickled down his cheek while he took in another deep breath. He couldn't believe he was sharing such private details of his parents marriage with Haley from his childhood. Yet because he believed she would be the last person to ever judge him, he felt more safe with the confession than he'd ever felt before in his entire life.

'And she did nothing.' continued Jason. His tone beginning to fill with anger and bitterness. 'She did absolutely fuck all about it. She never hit him back or made an effort to try and stop him. She never even answered him back or stood up for herself in any way. Nor did she even make a half decent attempt to leave the sadistic fuck.'

Jason paused, trying to compose himself. Desperately trying to calm his own thoughts and emotions which were all over the place.

'And I know how difficult it would've been for her to just get up and leave back then, without even a second glance or a second thought, especially being the perfect devoted robot mother to me that she was. But even if she would've just left me behind back then and started all over for herself, somewhere, someplace… Then I think in time...I think, I know, I would've respected her for that and even eventually forgiven her. But because she just sat there and took it... took that abuse for God knows how many years. I began to hate her. I began to fucking despise her for her weakness. And the more she did nothing, the more... '

Jason hesitated again. He grimaced and scrunched his face tightly. He struggled to get the words out. Whatever they were they felt like the most difficult words he'd ever spoken before in his whole life.

'...The more I began... to disrespect her too.' Tears filled Jason's eyes. In no time at all they had trickled down his cheeks. 'I mean part of me knew it was wrong to start treating her the same way as my father did. Although my abuse was always mental with her, never physical. Although deep down inside I knew it wasn't right, I didn't think it was wrong either. It was just the way I'd been brought up by that bastard.'

Jason fell silent and stared with great intent out into the night sky. His face was filled with emotion and guilt and complete and utter disgust for himself. It was clear to Haley that this was the first time he'd ever spoken and confessed the tale of his childhood and family history to anyone.

'Did your father ever abuse you?' asked Haley, holding Jason's hand even tighter. Jason wiped the tears from his face while thinking hard about his reply.

'No! Never. That was the funny thing. My dad and I... our relationship was unreal. We were two of a kind. Throughout my entire childhood and teenage years my father was my hero. Even though he would beat up my submissive mother almost every other night of the week. He was my fucking hero. I worshipped him for being such a big strong leader of men. When in reality, he was nothing more than a drunken abusive coward.'

'I remember on some occasions he'd bring these other women back to our home while mum and I were in the house. He'd have shameless sex with these women upstairs in my mother's bed or even on the living room couch for everyone to see and hear, but he was still my fucking hero you know.'

Jason's voice quickly filled up with even more anger and self loathing.

'If I wanted a bike he went out and got me a bike. A specific toy I wanted from the TV. He would go out and get it for me the very next day. Tickets for the cup final, no bother. So of course he was my hero. One year on my thirteenth birthday he took me to see one of his lady friends across town to give me my first ever sexual experience.'

Jason smiled half heartedly while shaking his head in disbelief.

'That was his birthday gift to me. Taking away my virginity and innocence. What a dad eh. Women loved his sexually forward charm and direct no nonsense bullshit chat. Men both respected and feared it. But everyone knew him or knew tales about him, true or false, they commanded attention. He had so many friends who all knew his name and his stories and his banter. I mean most kids have film or sport stars as their heroes. But I had my fucking dad.'

'And as the years went by and he continued to do those awful and abusive things to my mum, putting her through sheer hell. I guess I kind of blocked them all out you know. I convinced myself that the stupid bitch deserved it. Deserved everything she got for being so weak and passive.'

Jason chuckled half heartedly as Haley rubbed his arm trying to comfort him.

'Do you want to know how she died?' said Jason, grinning falsely while shaking his head in even greater disgust. Haley took an even tighter hold of Jason's hand, but remained silent. She knew this tale was never going to have a happy ending.

'My mother tried to kill my father five years ago. She stabbed him while he slept around half a dozen times all over his upper body then she packed her things and did a runner. She must half thought the old bastard was dead for sure, but in a cruel twist of fate, I came home early from a night out, discovered my father's gruesome and bloodied dying body and saved his life by getting him an ambulance immediately. I think it was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.'

'While my father recovered the police eventually found my mother and arrested her. Better the police than my father though. If his people had found her first then I dread to think what fate she would have suffered. She was jailed for ten years and I never, ever forgave her for it. I never, ever forgave her for trying to murder my father, my hero. She was in jail and I was glad and fucking delighted. I never even went to visit her... not once. Even though she wrote me hundreds of letters, begging me to come and see her, pleading for my forgiveness. But there was just no way I could ever forgive her.'

Jason paused again for a long time. Haley continued to clutch his hand in comfort. She didn't even contemplate for one second to edge him onwards. She knew he would continue in his own time. He trusted her now and she trusted him too, immensely.

'One year into her jail term and she 'allegedly' killed herself inside her prison cell with a knife she'd smuggled in from the canteen. Although, if I were to take a good guess, then I'm pretty damn sure my father had something to do with it.'

Jason closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. One tear after another began streaming down the sides of his cheeks. Haley was speechless. But all she could do was keep holding his hand a little tighter and a little closer to her chest. Jason wiped his tears again and tried to regain his lost compose.

'The night after I found out about my mother's death I took a good, long hard look at myself in the mirror. And for the first time in my life I cried as the truth of my father's ways revealed themselves to me. I cried at what a shit, callous, bastard son I'd been. That I knew she wasn't to blame for any of the hardships myself and my father had inflicted upon her. Her only real crime was having such a selfish, arrogant and malicious piss-ant of a son who gave a shit about nothing and no one in this world, only himself.'

More tears streamed down his face. Haley hugged him just as tightly as she could.

'You'd have thought I'd at least try and change my selfish ways and immature arrogant attitude after that, but I didn't. Instead I shut off all my emotions, feelings and thoughts. Swearing that I would never, ever become weak like her or get close to anyone ever again to let them inside or let them get to know the real me. This was the forefront of weakness I was taught by my father. Showing your emotions and talking about your feelings, especially to women. This had no place, no place at all in a real man's world.

'I had to get away though from my father and his ways. So I ran away. I travelled around for a year then joined the army for a few years before getting kicked out and finally coming back home again with my tail between my legs. But I'd actually become a worse person for it. I had turned into an even bigger ignorant, arrogant and sexist, womanising, selfish pig than my father. Continuing to always take care of number one and only number one. I kept telling myself that everything else and everyone else would just fall into place. So for the last year I hid my grief away, my hurt, my remorse. I hid it all deep, deep down inside. Far deeper down than any of my other secrets and lies. I felt like it was my duty to continue to treat the women in my life with the same shitty disrespect as I'd treated my own mother. Just as my father had taught me. And it almost destroyed me. Gnawing all the way to the very core of my soul. Now here I am, one year later, running away once again.'

Jason chuckled to himself then fell silent. Tears still filled his eyes, but the emotional pain, anguish and guilt of his past seemed to have disappeared from his face entirely. It was replaced by an ever broadening wave of relief. A relief that he'd finally found the courage to confess out loud, most of the guilty feelings that he'd held so deep inside, his whole life.

'Maybe it only helped to destroy the old you. To make way for the new.' said Haley, smiling warmly.

'Maybe' replied Jason, as he tried to gather his wild running thoughts.

The something strange happened.

Haley, who continued to rub her hand all the way up and down the length of Jason's forearm, winced in great pain suddenly, before glancing away in anguish. Her warm smile evaporated from her face immediately as she held her head in her hands in great distress. Jason's sad look turned to one of enormous concern as he snapped out of his distant state of reminiscence and turned his full attention to Haley.

'Haley, what's wrong? Are you okay? I haven't upset you have I, shit.'

Haley massaged her fingers into the sides of her head, trying to ease the intense throbbing pain there.

'No ...Of course not, I just...'

The short burst of throbbing pain inside her head was gradually subsiding. Haley laid back down upon the windscreen and glanced up towards the stars, but still rubbing her head.

'The pain in my head. I think it's coming back again Jason.'

'It's probably from all this cheap as shit wine I've been forcing down your throat.' Jason joked. He turned away from her briefly as he tried to find a way of bringing up his next delicate subject.

'So what are we going to do now?' said Jason, turning back to her.

'What do you mean?' said Haley, not understanding the question.

'I mean what do we do now? We can't stay here in this place any longer. No more food or wine. No washing machine.' Jason smiled, then teasingly smelled an imaginary stench on Haley's clothes. Haley slapped him playfully away. 'I'm running out of clothes for you to wear.'