Evil Relations (45 page)

Mary arrives at the red house every day after work, always knocking first and bringing gifts of chocolate or peaches. The boys soon learn to wait for her knock, yelling and racing down the hallway to be the first to let her in. We eat together as a family – taking it in turns to cook dinner. Bedtime then becomes fun-time: I stand and watch with a big grin as Mary baths the boys (‘Scrub, scrub, scrub!’) and then dries them (‘Rub, rub, rub!’). Occasionally I’m downstairs when this part of our routine takes place, but the laughter, shrieks and sound of splashing always makes me smile. The boys are good at going to bed afterwards, once the ‘goodnights’ and ‘God blesses’ are over. Then it’s my time alone with Mary, although we’ve made it a never-to-be-broken rule that she must return to Hyde by eleven o’clock each night. We spend the last hours on the settee, talking, kissing or just holding each other. The television flickers in the corner, but we never watch it. The flames and warmth of the coal fire are the only accompaniment we need.

The weeks go by peacefully, apart from Dad’s vicious outbursts about Mary. He refers to her as ‘that bitch’ or ‘that slut’ and is forever throwing her age in my face whenever he’s been drinking, which is almost every night. He rants that she will never run ‘his’ family and that Maureen is the only one entitled to ‘his’ grandchildren. When he spits in my face, I struggle to remind myself that he is dying. I drag myself off to bed with fists clenched, sitting on the edge of the mattress with my head in my hands, knowing there are things crawling around inside him far worse than the cancer he carries.

Wednesday, 16 October 1972. The boys are getting ready for school and I am, as usual, behind with my jobs. I put out a breakfast of fish fingers and baked beans as the boys arrive at the table, miraculously washed and neatly dressed.

There is a sound in the hallway. The boys leap up, shouting, ‘Mary! It’s Mary!’

I turn in surprise. Mary is standing at the kitchen door, smiling: ‘Hi, I don’t fancy work today . . .’

I’m flustered but delighted to see her. ‘I didn’t hear you knock,’ I say. ‘Did I leave the door open?’

She shakes her head slowly. ‘No. I used my key. Remember? You asked me to use the key if I wanted to see you. So here I am.’

I stare at her for a moment. The boys begin making a fuss of her, insisting that they don’t want to go to school now. As we get them into their coats, Mary promises that she’ll still be there when they get home.

The two of us walk back from school in uncharacteristic silence. Nervously, I ask her if she’s sure about this. Yes, she tells me calmly, she is very sure. And when we reach the red house, we go upstairs.

In the afternoon, the boys dash through the school gates and into my arms and Mary’s. When they are in bed that night, we curl up together again in front of the crackling fire. I feel complete as I’ve never done. I am somebody at last; I am the ‘me’ I always wanted to be. The future looks as bright as a yellow submarine.

Mary explains our situation fully to her father, telling him that she wants to spend the weekends at the red house with the boys and me. Big Martin is as understanding as a parent who cares only about his child’s happiness can be and assures her that it’s fine with him. An unusual routine begins: after work every Friday Mary arrives to stay with us, and at the same time Dad moves out to spend the weekend with Big Martin, then on Monday Mary goes back to Hyde and Dad returns to the red house. Despite Dad’s incessant grumbling, it works.

It’s around this time that a letter arrives from the council, telling us that our home has been earmarked for demolition.
Typical
, I think,
just when we’ve got the old girl back on her feet
. But it turns out to be a good thing: the house we’re allocated in Lloyd Street South, another area of Moss Side, is far better and even has its own gardens, front and back. I honestly believe that my bright future just got brighter.

I must be the original fool on the hill.

One day we have a visit from a Welfare Officer. The news she brings shakes us to the core: Nellie Hindley, Maureen and Myra’s mother, has asked to see her grandsons. Dad can’t hide his delight and crows about it. At last: contact.

I have no problem in allowing Nellie to visit the boys. She doesn’t have to answer to me or anyone else for what her elder daughter – or her younger daughter – has done. But I sink into a bleak mood that can’t be shifted, aware that I still have a wife out there somewhere. I’m not yet divorced, no matter how free I’ve felt with Mary these past few months. What troubles me most of all is the knowledge that if Nellie turns up, Maureen won’t be far behind.

Fortunately, it’s a long time before Nellie Hindley pitches up on our doorstep. Before then, one afternoon I board the 125 bus from Manchester to Mottram, a small village in Cheshire. My frame of mind is darker than it has been since my release from prison and my soul is numb. I press my forehead against the window until it hurts.

The bus travels through the suburbs of my childhood. I look out at the Hyde Road Hotel, Dad’s favourite watering hole, where I spent many boyhood hours eating crisps and drinking Tizer while he got pissed with his mates. We rattle through Gorton, and to my right is Belle Vue, where Dad used to take me every weekend to feed buns to the elephants and ponder the demented loneliness of the tigon. Then further, over Reddish Bridge and the junction that took us to Aunt Dorothy’s for triangle sandwiches and a pilchard salad.

Every fibre in my body stiffens as the bus stops at the New Inn opposite Wardle Brook Avenue. I turn my head away from the view and the chattering passengers who don’t know me and never did.

In Mottram, I climb down and walk towards the brightly lit stone-built house that’s home to the second-most important woman from my childhood. A hundred yards away, the village pub breathes noise and laughter, but my hand trembles as I light a cigarette, drawing in the smoke so deeply that it burns my throat. Then I cross the street and knock on the door.

The Duchess herself opens it. She stands in its frame, small and unsmiling, her eyes dark behind the thick-rimmed spectacles she wears. She knows me well enough to understand that something momentous has brought me to her door and guides me in with scarcely a word.

In the sitting room, Uncle Bert rises from his chair, greeting me with a firm handshake. I take the seat he gestures towards, wondering how we all ended up in a world so different from the one we knew less than twenty years ago. No more the cobbles and clatter of the pony-trap and the booming holler of the rag-and-bone man, no more the Saturday night tin baths and the hiss of the gas-mantles lighting the scullery with an eerie glow. Their home retains something of the past, though: oak beams congested with bright horse-brasses, lushly patterned wall-to-wall carpets and a fire burning in the grate, filling the room with its snug heat.

Uncle Bert pads through to the kitchen for beer. I sit opposite the Duchess, who looks down at the carpet, hands clasped together on her knees. Uncle Bert returns, placing a cold tin of beer on the wooden coffee table. He has an affectionate habit of always calling me ‘lad’, and when he asks, ‘What’s the trouble, lad?’ it’s in a soft, leading voice. I can’t think of what to say; the blackness in the pit of my stomach is spreading through every limb and vein. I fight back tears, fumbling for another cigarette. As I lift it to my lips, I notice that my fingers are nicotine-stained, just like Dad’s, and the realisation wraps a cold, damp cloak about my shoulders. Uncle Bert pushes an ashtray across the table and I drop my cigarette into it.

Suddenly, words pour out of me.

Dad is nearing the end. His cancer is rampant and I can’t fight or feel it, but I can see and smell its destructiveness. It has him beat, finished, a mere shell, and yet it still won’t leave him alone and let him go. The doctor can’t increase his medication, but this thing is eating him alive from the inside. He doesn’t use the toilet any more because there is nothing to get rid of – the cancer has taken every last drop of his strength and feeds on the remains.

Uncle Bert becomes tearful. He slips into the platitudes of our Catholicism, talking about sleeping for ever and going to a better place. Then he declares, in a rickety pitch, ‘All this pain is in God’s hands now.’ Religion might help Uncle Bert, but there’s nothing in it for me. I’ve come here looking for something stronger than faith.

We sit for a long time, almost until the last bus is ready to depart the village for Manchester. Uncle Bert leaves the room to dry his eyes and fetch another tin of beer.

This is my last chance.

I look at the Duchess. Time is slipping away as I shout to her silently from inside my head:
you know I love you, I’ve always trusted you, so please, tell me what I have to do
.

At last she raises her head, proud as always, and our eyes meet. The silence between us is thunderous and neither she nor I blink in the ongoing moment. I hear a breath leave my body; it takes for ever to fade away. Staring at her, I’m aware of Uncle Bert moving about the room, setting down a second unopened tin in front of me, as I force my thoughts into her head.
Tell me. Just tell me what I have to do
.
Your judgement is the one constant in my life
.
If you say it, I will do it
.

Something shifts within the grate and sparks flit out from the fire. I get to my feet, shaking hands with Uncle Bert. The Duchess sees me to the door with a quick, hard hug. She steps away from me, her eyes pained but unclouded: ‘Be a good boy and safe home.’

On the bus I feel strangely at peace. I dare to hope that Dad might have died in his sleep while I’ve been away, robbing the cancer of its continual assault. I smoke cigarette after cigarette and let myself think everything is going to be all right.

I walk quickly home from the bus stop, a smile curling my mouth as I spot Mary standing on the doorstep. The smile freezes as I near her; something is badly wrong. I can hear the boys playing noisily within, but when Mary speaks any sense of normality shatters like glass.

‘It’s your dad. He’s on the floor. He fell out of bed and I can’t get him up. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t do it.’

The stairs disappear under my feet. I push Dad’s bedroom door open and instantly feel that cold, damp cloak settle on my shoulders again.

He’s lying on the floor in his pyjamas, skeletal body curled and twisted as if consumed by fire, legs pulled up beneath him. Weak bleats of pain issue from his mouth. I stand there, feeling a rare and terrible anger at the disease that has annihilated him. God is very, very far from this room. Nothing remains but silence and suffering on the floor.

Gently, I pick him up. He weighs nothing to me; every bone is like a knife with no flesh to protect it. I place him upright in bed, supported by the many pillows he needs, and sit down on the mattress beside him. Mary stands in the doorway. Somewhere in the house the children have begun a new game.

I look at Dad and touch his forehead; pearls of cold sweat stick to my palm. I light a cigarette and hold it to his lips, watching his feeble efforts to smoke. Nothing happens; he just sucks the air around the cigarette. I look at his eyes – watery, open wide and bulging fear. When I pass my hand slowly in front of his face, he can’t follow it. The silence is shutting in on us both. Dimly, I’m aware of Mary sobbing at the door.

His time must be very close now. Quietly, I ask, ‘Do you know who I am? Tell me you do. Tell me you know me.’ I hold his hand in case he wants to squeeze it, but he stares through me, utterly vacant.

I stand up and ask Mary to see to the boys’ bath. She asks if I am all right. I smile and reply that I’m fine. When she goes out of the room, I head down to the kitchen and take the bottle of pills from the cupboard: it’s almost full. I tip the contents out and crush them into a fine powder, then inhale deeply on a cigarette while I wait for the pan of milk to boil on the cooker. I can hear the boys being chased in and out of the bathroom by Mary, their joyful screams echoing about the house. I pour the milk carefully into a large glass and the powder dissolves.

At the bathroom door, I pause to listen to the three boys splashing like dizzy fish in the tub. It gives me strength as I enter the bedroom, shutting the door softly behind me. I sit next to Dad on the bed and test the milk on the back of my hand, just as if it’s come from a baby’s bottle.

I hold the glass to his mouth. He gulps and slurps at it with no control, but eventually it’s empty and I ease him back in the bed, rearranging the pillows until I’m certain he’s as comfortable as he can be. His watery eyes stare up at the ceiling. I kiss his forehead and taste the saltiness of the sweat that covers every wasted inch of his body. The darkness has somehow gone from the room, leaving only the shouts and laughter of his grandchildren playing in the bath. These are the sounds I hope he will take with him.

I cross the floor and stand at the door for a few, final seconds, my hand on the switch. I leave the light on; I don’t want him to be alone in the dark.

Dad is 52 years old.

I stand with Mary in the telephone box, waiting for the Duchess to answer my call. The ringing tone seems to go on for ever, then suddenly she’s there. I tell her what I’ve done and she expels a long breath.

‘Phone the doctor,’ she instructs me. ‘Wait for him at the house.’ After a pause she adds, ‘These things must be done properly.’ I feel better for hearing her voice.

The doctor arrives promptly. I know him well; he’s been treating Dad since he contracted cancer. I take him upstairs and together we stand by the bed.

Dad lies against the pillows, ashen. His mouth is locked wide open in a soundless scream. Grey milk swims between the slits of his eyes. The doctor examines him quickly and, to my shock, declares that he is still breathing. When I tell him what happened, his shoulders droop.

Giving me the sort of look that speaks volumes, he asks in a deliberate voice, ‘David, you don’t have to say anything, but if you repeat what you’ve just told me then I must listen and something will have to be done. Do you understand?’