Lying in Wait(28)

I never got the baby I wanted so badly, and the stress of it all killed Andrew. I hold Annie Doyle entirely responsible.





8


Laurence


Wishing my father dead, and then having him actually die minutes later, made me feel very strange, powerful and guilty at the same time. As if I had made it happen.

I had never been to a funeral before. Everyone told me to ‘stay strong’ and that ‘you’ll get through it’, but I felt fine. I accepted condolences on behalf of my zoned-out mother, kept Granny Fitz supplied with tissues, and carried the coffin down the aisle with Uncle Finn and the paid pall-bearers. It was a lot heavier than I expected. My shoulder ached for days afterwards. The worst part was having to restrain Mum at the graveside and keep her and Granny Fitz apart.

Dad’s friends and some neighbours came back to the house afterwards. Helen was there. I was glad to see her, and she held my hand in the kitchen when the priest came to say goodbye. She pointed out that we had even more in common now that we were both fatherless. I questioned what she meant by ‘more’.

‘Ah well, you know, the way we’re both freaks,’ she said. ‘Fatherless freaks.’

It had a certain ring to it.

‘At least you know your father’s dead. I’m not even sure who mine is!’

She told me I was very brave and that she didn’t think it was unmanly to cry at one’s father’s funeral. I got the impression that she wanted me to cry so that she could make a display of comforting me and being a girlfriend. I accepted her hugs and squeezes gratefully, but I had no need of comfort.

Two boys from my class came. I don’t remember speaking to them before, but they hadn’t particularly bothered me in school. They shoved Mass cards into my hand but didn’t stay long because they were on their way to Funderland to meet girls. A few boys from my old school, Carmichael Abbey, came also and we made unspecific plans to meet up again in an undefined number of weeks’ time.

Afterwards, when everybody had departed, Helen and I washed up and put all the linen and silver away, and Helen helped me put my mother to bed.

We came downstairs then and opened a bottle of whiskey.

‘It’s really OK to cry, you know,’ said Helen again. ‘Your dad’s just died and you’re acting like nothing’s wrong.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You think you are, but it will hit you later.’ She gave me a consoling hug, but I wanted sex and suggested we go upstairs since Mum was knocked out on sleeping pills.

Helen refused. ‘You’re some weirdo, you know that?’ she said.

Afterwards, I tried to think about my father the way he had been before the money troubles, before my weight gain and before Annie Doyle. He had not always been a bad father to me, and it was clear that he adored my mother. Although he could sometimes be impatient with her, I think he felt he didn’t deserve her. I often caught him simply gazing at her as if she were a prize painting. He did every single thing he possibly could to make her happy. Even after Bloody Paddy Carey, he didn’t cancel her Switzers account, though she swore she could easily give it up. I think he was jealous of my mother’s love for me. He hated how close we were. She loved him too, but I think not as much as she loves me. A strange triangle.

My mother took his death very badly. It was like before. After her miscarriages, my mother had had to be sedated for days. Her inability to conceive after my birth broke her heart, and Aunt Rosie’s constant pregnancies and eight children depressed her. For weeks after the funeral, I renewed her tranquillizer prescriptions, and soon my mother was calm and distant and, just as in the past, she was no longer a mother, or a widow, or a daughter-in-law, or even a woman, but just a shadow. However, this time she showed no signs of recovering.

I was managing reasonably well. I got Mum to sign cheques that I cashed at the bank and, as far as I could see, we weren’t destitute yet. The new school term had started and, while I missed a few days here and there, I was capable of preparing my uniform and lunches, and I could cook oven chips and sausages (my favourites), and the mourners’ shepherd’s pies and beef casseroles had stocked our freezer well. I marked their efforts out of ten, grading for taste, texture and presentation. I also did additional general shopping.

After three weeks, Mum had stopped communicating altogether and slept almost all the time. Eventually, I rang an old friend of Dad’s who was a doctor. He’d been at the funeral and told me to call him if I needed anything. I wish people wouldn’t say that when they don’t mean it. I ended up having to beg him. He very reluctantly agreed to come to the house, a big tall man with a sinister death-rattle cough of his own which he used to punctuate every sentence, and which only underlined the gravity of what he was saying. He examined her in her room. Then he came down and started asking me questions about how I was managing, cough-splutter, what I was eating, splutter-hack-phlegm, as if I were the patient. He suggested that my mother needed residential psychiatric care, that she needed to ‘go in somewhere for a rest’. I thought this was a mistake and said so. I suggested that all she needed were stronger tablets and time. Dr Death-Rattle insisted she needed professional medical supervision. My mother, even in her drug-induced stupor, screamed at the thought of going into a mental hospital.

Dr Death-Rattle broke the Hippocratic oath and told my uncle that my mother was in a terrible mental state and that I was coping alone. I sincerely regretted getting a family ‘friend’ involved. An enormous fuss ensued, and despite my insistence that I could look after myself, that I was eighteen, an adult, Granny Fitz declared she was moving into Avalon ‘to look after the boy’ while my mother was committed to St John of God’s. I didn’t get a say. The doctor had informed my school, who immediately pretended to be very concerned for my welfare. The headmaster expressed grave concerns about my unexplained absences, my undone homework and my free-falling grades. They hadn’t given a shit when I was beaten up every day in my first month there.