Tony Black - Long Time Dead

My mother sat on the arm of the chair. Her hair had grown white. ‘Gus, it’s been so long.’ She reached out, placed a hand on my shoulder. I started to cough. I could hear my lungs rattling.

I said, ‘It has that… Sorry, I’ve been a bit, y’know…’

She pressed out a thin smile, rubbed my arm, ‘I was sorry to hear about you and Deborah…’

I was shocked that she knew. I don’t know why, it had been long enough now – surely my own mother had the right to know such things. How had we grown so far apart?

‘You heard?’ The words seemed feeble, pathetic even.

She nodded. ‘Catherine bumped into her in the Co-op.’

It was a small city. I tended to forget that.

‘Well, yes… it’s over. Has been some time now.’

She rubbed harder at my arm. ‘Maybe you’ll get back together… again.’

I sensed the hope in her voice. She had every right to expect we’d patch things up – we had done it so many times in the past; but never again. I shook my head. ‘No, not this time, Mam… not this time.’

She stood up. ‘Well, they say time’s a great healer… Give it time, son.’ She walked towards the kitchen. ‘Will I make us some coffee? I know you don’t like tea.’

I nodded, and watched her turn away from me. She walked stiffly, uncomfortable with the rheumatism in her hips.

Alone in the room I couldn’t bear to have my father’s eyes upon me, I rose and turned over his picture. As I touched it I saw that my hand had started to tremble again. I reached into the pocket of my tweed jacket and removed a can of Guinness, took a quick belt. I chased it with a lengthier blast as my mother walked in carrying a tray with cups. I spluttered and removed the can from my mouth.

‘Sorry, I’m virtually off it.’ It was a lie and she knew it. She’d given up trying to stop me drinking; hadn’t everyone. I put the can away and she went back through to the kitchen to wait for the kettle to boil.

My mind was racing. Whenever I came back to this place I felt a flood of memories assail me. The time I remembered most prominently now was the day my father died. He’d been up in his bed, confined indoors with a weak heart, but it hadn’t stopped him roaring and shouting at my mother with every ounce of breath in him. She had taken it all too; had trotted up those stairs like the doting wife of old. Why? I wanted to know why she never left him. Surely we would have all been better without him.

She came through with the pot of coffee, placed it on the tray. I thought about pouring the cups out, but in my current condition, knew I’d spill the lot. I waited until she offered me a cup, my hand remained thankfully steady as I took it.

‘So, you look well,’ I said.

She smiled, knew she wanted to say, Wish I could say the same about you , but went with, ‘Well… it’s a quiet enough life.’

I wondered if that was a dig at me being absent for so long. Thought better of it – knew my mam didn’t have it in her for digs. She was as close to the perfect human being as you could get; perhaps that’s why her suffering hurt me so much.

‘Mam, I’ve been thinking a lot…’ I stalled, looked out the window. Could I really do this? My mind wandered off track, a long silence stretched out between us.

‘Yes, son?’

I turned back, refocused. Her face looked open and approachable. ‘Mam, I’ve had some time to think… a lot of time, actually, since the split from Debs.’

Mam sipped her coffee. ‘Is that so wise?’

‘What? I mean, I know… thinking’s never a good idea, is it?’

She seemed to agree but gave nothing away. Did she sense what I was here to ask her? The thought slayed me. I knew my mother had been through enough grief in her life – now she was old, she had earned her peace. Who was I to come here and disrupt that? And for what? To satisfy my ego, to let me sleep better at night? Christ on a bike, if any one of us deserved to sleep soundly it was her. I couldn’t bring up the past in this house again. She deserved better.

She put down her coffee, clasped her fingers together, spoke: ‘These walls have seen a lot over the years, have they not?’ It was as if she knew what I was thinking, what it was I needed to know. ‘At times these walls felt like a prison to me, Angus…’

‘They did?’

‘Oh, I think they felt like that for us all.’

I knew what she meant, but we had never spoken about him like this. It felt strange to be treading towards this territory. ‘Mam, why?’

‘Why what? Why did I stay with him? Why didn’t I take you all away to safety… somewhere else?’

The words faltered on my lips. ‘I-I guess so…’

My mother looked at me, but at the same time seemed to be staring straight through me. ‘Where to, Angus? I had nowhere to go… Back to my family? Oh, I tried. They sent me back to him… It wasn’t the done thing, then. You didn’t leave a marriage, not when you had children. I had no choice.’ Suddenly her eyes flickered. It was as if she sensed I wanted more. ‘Angus… it would have made no difference, he would have found us. He would have found us wherever we went.’

She made him sound like a monster; my own mother conceded that my father’s actions had harmed us all. She knew all we had suffered at his hand, she knew Catherine and I were still damaged and confused children at heart and she knew it was all because of him.

‘Mam, do you remember the night I had to call the ambulance?’ There had been many nights I’d had to call the ambulance, but only one like this. ‘For you.’

Her face changed shape; she seemed to straighten her back. She spoke through pinched lips: ‘I remember it, yes.’ It was hard for her to find any words. I didn’t want to make her speak. I didn’t want to force her to tell me the answer to the question I had carried around with me for decades.

I stood up. ‘I should go, Mam.’

She watched me rise. ‘Your father had something inside him, Angus… a dark place that he couldn’t escape. No matter what good he had in his life, the darkness was always there.’

I knew what she was trying to say.

‘Mam, I have to go… I’m sorry to-’

She placed a hand on my face. It felt soft and cold. ‘I know you have the same dark place inside of you, son… but you have a better heart than him. Please, son… try and listen to that heart of yours, and not the other place.’

I MADE MY WAY TO the Regent, ordered in a pint of Guinness. Got some looks from a fruity boy at the bar in a boy band get-up, all low-cut T-shirt, tight waistcoat and skinny jeans. I gave him a smile, a good wide view of my gaping mouth. He turned tail. Couldn’t say I was taken with the place, but at least it looked like a drinker and not a gay bar. Don’t know what I expected – men with handlebar moustaches dancing to ‘YMCA’ maybe? – but this place seemed down to earth. I made a note to stop flying to all kinds of conclusions about people based on their personal make-up. I knew that now, more than ever, I needed to put the brakes on my assumptions. Ben Laird’s murderer – and likely Calder’s – was still out there. If I was to get to the root of these killings, I’d have to sweep aside every silver-spooned animus I harboured.

Took a seat at the front window and kept an eye out for Fitz. My mind was working overtime; surprisingly, since my visit to my mam, I felt rejuvenated. Was in a ‘glass is half full’ as opposed to ‘half empty’ mood. But I knew it wouldn’t last long. I had stopped worrying about whether the man I called father had actually fathered me; but the realisation that I was his son didn’t fill me with joy. Somewhere inside me I guess I had always hoped that I wasn’t his. Even when I knew in my heart that I was.