Then he smooths a canine with his tongue, as if naming it the one, some treacherous left behind. The tic again. I love his mouth even as he presses on it now.
The most difficult thing though, as a child, was the food. It’s hard to describe how bad that was. I don’t know if she was anorexic, or phobic, or what but, when I was seven or eight, she started this starving herself and really down to nothing at all and as it got worse — whatever it was — the rest of us as well. It seemed to come out of nowhere because she was beautiful, my mother. At least I always thought she was and then, this thing began and it turned her into I can’t explain but you could almost see through her in the end it must’ve been the anger that kept her alive. It started with just not eating, herself. Then not being able to watch us at it. Then cooking it, handling it — especially meat — and that was bad news for us. That was very bad. I spent years dreading going home for tea — all three of us did — because you wouldn’t know what would be waiting when you got in. We’d hang around out the back until she’d call us. Then we’d troop in, starving, but steeling ourselves against the inevitable slop and it always was you know mince burned to a crisp or chicken that looked like it could defend itself fucking mouldy peas and her going off on these crazy tirades Jesus the number of times I got smacked round the head for just sitting there trying to swallow that awful shit. The fucking anxiety of it every fucking meal. The only thing she could bear to make was cake and that was only once a week. We’d have our tongues hanging out for it by Sunday evening but one little piece, that was it. I just remember being hungry every day, sneaking down in the middle of the night to fill up on stale bread. We were all so underweight there were letters home from school. Even the boys got whacked for that and I got the ruler until my knuckles bled. Apparently it was my fault we were these perfectly turned-out but half-starved boys.
I touch his foot and his eyes come back to smile at that. I think he’s only finding light though for my benefit. Everything else in him seems growing still. Just watch, I promise Wait with him. Don’t let him be alone.
It wasn’t all bad though. Fridays were good because he’d arrive home with fish and chips. Then they’d go out and leave us with the wireless, or later TV and sweets. Plus, every summer we had a week at the seaside — ice cream, running on the beach, all that. She was so lovely then and so easy to be with. You’d wish you never had to leave. It was the only time she ever smiled. Also, she read like anything so there were books all over our house. She taught me to when I was pretty small. She was patient like that and with homework and stuff. She’d probably have made a good teacher if she hadn’t been so fucked up. But then, maybe if she’d done that instead of having me she’d never have had those problems at all.
And what about your father? I say. He shakes his head, like mock and disgust. Another cigarette. Easier though, like these waters are clear and he can see him somewhere far away.
Ahh, my father where to begin? He’s a useless bastard at the very best of times. Five or six marriages I know of. Countless kids. Never understood the point of all the marrying myself but he seems to like it and — not that I’m one to talk — he could never keep it to himself so I’m probably related to most of the North. I’m the eldest I think although that only means I’ve never heard of one older than me. Can’t say much about the rest. Now and then one of them pitches up here and it’s weird to open your door to versions of your father wanting answers to stuff you don’t know anything about, like Why was he in prison? Is he a bigamist? Nothing would surprise me but I don’t know, I never saw him, growing up. There were only a few months when I was about ten and some wife wanted to ‘heal the rift’. Some kind of hippy or something. There was a letter one day. My mother lost her reason of course but was, somehow, persuaded because, from nothing at all, I was suddenly in Liverpool once a month. At first I was excited because he was ‘Oh my son’ and ‘These are the lessons life’s taught me’ but that didn’t last very long. By the third round, he was slinking off down the pub, leaving the wife to instruct me on how miraculous he was but — as the bottle went down — that he was a cunt. So I preferred going out with him, even if it was my job to get him home. Even when he’d pick someone up and talk himself back to hers. Good luck on those days consisted of sitting outside her bedroom door. Bad luck was on the bonnet with them in the back seat. Really bad luck was rain and me in the front desperately turning the radio up. Don’t tell — whoever she was — he’d say after especially if he’d paid. I didn’t give a shit. She got sick of me anyway soon enough, or he got sick of her. Either way the visits soon stopped and he never bothered after that except for birthday cards — mostly one month late. Wedding invites now and then, very much dependent upon my being owned or not. I went once or twice but all I’ll say is that, after my mother, he liked them good and thick. So I didn’t miss him, except in the abstract or when the stepfather’d take his to the Wednesday matches and I’d be left at home. That was kind of shit. Still hate the fucking football now.
That’s sad, I say. Not really, he shrugs And the lack of a father turned out to be the least of my worries. She was always the one.
Over the years I’d worked out ways to avoid the rage. How to calm her down, get her to laugh instead — she didn’t have a bad sense of humour when she wasn’t being insane. And when I was twelve things really changed. We moved to a bigger house on a nicer street. She was delighted with that. Going up in the world. Bought a piano. I got a room of my own and, for a while, life became very normal. I hardly knew myself. Even the food thing improved. Anyway, it was all looking up until I hit fourteen. Started getting tall. She said Like him — I never saw it myself. It was just that I was growing up really but enough to set her off again. The paranoid rages and the ritual amends — bed and her slice of cake but getting different now, wanting to talk about him. The strange thing is, it didn’t seem strange because I was interested I suppose. I wanted to know about him. I mean, I was the only evidence that life had existed and it wasn’t great always being the odd one out. Besides, it started off as harmless enough. Things you wouldn’t mind. How the first time they met she’d sneaked out to a dance. He was so drunk he spilled something all down her dress but he was the best-looking man there so it didn’t matter. The next week he was at the school gates to walk her home after and all very covert because of her father. To go away together, she’d faked some pilgrimage with something like the Legion of Mary. Ingenious really but I can’t help wondering how that ended, probably with me. It was love though, she always said, which apparently made up for everything else. Some nights she’d tell me about what he was interested in: boxing, racing, anything with an engine. I liked hearing all that because I still hadn’t grasped what an utterly worthless fucker he was. It began to feed on itself though, all that talking. Opened some door that should have stayed shut. Started extending itself into what I had no business knowing about. About marrying my stepfather. How she’d done it for me, how she hadn’t wanted more children but he was a pig. Then the stories about my father becoming more involved. More explicit and the way they were told, over and over, as if I hadn’t understood. As if she wanted a reaction I didn’t know how to give. And she got and it got I dreaded her coming in. I’d pretend I was asleep and when she hit me I’d pretend it didn’t hurt just so she’d leave me be. It was so bizarre, like she was pouring herself into me, trying to stop my brain making the difference between and I got so confused and it got so hard to breathe the fucking weight of all the talk, all the paranoid shit, all the memories and like she was creeping all over me. Then one night, after she’d already been and gone, I was doing what you do when you’re a fourteen-year-old boy. I was pretty practised by then so I’m sure I took care but when I opened my eyes after she was there. Watching. I nearly died of fright. I thought she’d kill me but she didn’t say anything. Just turned and went and After that it got different again. The way she was with me. The way she’d lie in the bed and I’d be completely still, trying not to touch. Saying anything I could think of to get her out but God even to remember it now makes me feel sick.