Bright Burning Things(34)

‘Yes, Sonya. I spoke to Sister Anne. I will bring Tommy to see you next Sunday.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘I have been advised not to interfere.’ His voice drops a notch, as if he doesn’t want his next words witnessed, as if he’s ashamed. ‘He doesn’t really know me, Sonya.’

And this was your chance to change all that.

‘What are you going to tell him when you see him? What is this place?’

‘I don’t know yet, Sonya.’ His voice is becoming fractious. ‘I’ll take advice from the experts on that.’

Experts. Who are these people?

‘Tell him exactly how long it will be before I’m out of here, Dad. Tell him I’ve been unwell. Getting better…’ Nothing they say can explain this away.

The receptionist waves at me. ‘Time’s up.’

‘See you Sunday. Between two and five, remember? Come at two?’

He mutters that he will see me then.

‘Bye, Dad.’ I almost choke on the word. I throw a final insincere ‘And thank you’ down the line, which reverberates back, an empty echo.


The next few days are exhausting, my nights being taken over by bolts of manic energy, my dreams and waking state at 4 a.m. jumbled together, one indistinguishable from the other. Surges of adrenalin rush through me, making me want to run. At home I’d masturbate, before Tommy came along, for a kind of release. Here, with people either side of me, it’s impossible, so I lie rigid, eyes open and staring, trying to block the livid images that snarl and unsnarl behind my lids any time my eyes close.


‘You ok?’ Linda asks early one morning. ‘Crazy dark circles under your eyes.’

‘Can’t sleep.’ I push myself to sitting, arranging the lumpy pillow behind my back.

‘Is it my snoring? Maybe you should ask to be moved, or I could?’

Funny how Linda’s snoring has become a strange nocturnal companion, a welcome distraction from my own chasing, circling thoughts.

‘Fuck, no. Don’t think I could do this without you.’

Linda responds so well to any kind of compliment that I can see how easy it must be for Mark to manipulate her. Her cheeks flush and a broad smile reveals her yellow teeth and wide gaps between them. It’s endearing in a way that a toddler’s gummy mouth is. A longing so powerful to hold my boy floods me and I close my eyes to stop the tears.

‘What’s going on?’

I lie back on the pillow, spent. There’s the crack, directly above my head. It doesn’t seem to be offering any out, any portal to another world.

‘Tommy,’ I manage. ‘I’m going to see my little boy on Sunday. It’s been so long I’m scared he won’t recognise me, that he’ll make strange. Scared of hearing him talk about Herbie. I’ve no idea what’s happened to Herbie.’

‘You’ve never spoken about him before.’ Her voice is shaky and small. ‘He another boy?’

‘Our dog.’

‘Fuck’s sake, you had me worried there for a moment.’

I’m not even going to bother trying to explain how much like a second son, or big brother to Tommy, he is.

Linda rolls on to her back and the two of us lie there, staring at the dirty smudges and a bad paint job at the corners of the ceiling, before she says quietly, ‘I had a little girl taken away from me.’

‘Jesus… Linda…’

She holds her hand up to silence me.

‘How old was she?’

‘Three. Never told anyone that before,’ she says, before she gets up to go into the bathroom and turns on the shower, the sound of the water running almost, but not quite, loud enough to drown out the sound of her choking back sobs.





20


My stomach’s loud and cranky, like my thoughts, and my ankles are chafed in my shitty Converse. I’ve been circling the grounds for the past two hours, having skipped rosary, and lunch. He won’t come. He wouldn’t even bother calling. Why expect anything else? One of the nuggets I’ve taken from the meetings is this idea of lowering expectations – life rarely gives you what you want, and anyway, lemonade is for pussies. A leaf falls from the sky and lands on me. Wake up, dummy! I take it and put it in my pocket. And then I see them.

My voice rips out of me, any attempt at presenting a respectable front gone. ‘Tommy!’ – wild and desperate. All heads turn in my direction as I crash past my father, pushing Lara – what’s she doing here? – aside to get to my boy. I lift him high in the air, expecting to hear squeals of excitement.

‘Spinnies?’ I say, catching him under the arms.

‘Careful with the boy.’ My father’s voice slaps me.

Tommy’s face is scrunched up, eyes squeezed shut, and not in the ecstatic way I remember. I place him gently on the ground and stoop to kiss his forehead. He flinches. Lara is staring at me.

‘Come, now. It’s all a bit much for the lad. Why don’t we get a nice Fanta or sweeties in the shop over here?’

What the hell does she know about what’s too much for my son? How does my father allow this blatant intrusion?

‘Dad.’ I look directly at him. ‘I’d like some time alone with Tommy.’

‘Son? Lara and I will be just over here.’ He points to the shop. ‘Tell your mummy when you’ve had enough, ok?’