You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

Just then, I realised that something stiff was crusted all over me. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ I replied absently as I touched my hardened, tangled hair.

‘Why isn’t she picking up, then? She didn’t answer the home phone or her mobile.’

‘She’s probably praying. Or in the bathroom, or out on her balcony.’ I felt my chest, then my stomach, then my legs. I was still wearing the same clothes from last night but they felt completely different. My soft, airy sweater was stiff. My trousers were hard, like raw leather. I raised my foot; that was caked with something too.

‘Oh. So everything’s fine?’

I murmured in annoyance. What could be wrong, other than the fact that I was apparently covered in mud? ‘If you’re so worried, just give her a call later.’

‘Nah. I’ll be home soon.’

‘Okay.’ Why was I muddy, though? Had I fallen on my way home? But where was there mud? Had I gone the long way round, past where the new flats were being constructed? Had I slipped, maybe, as I tried to leap over a flower bed?

‘I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be home by nine at the latest,’ Hae-jin said, and we hung up.

I sat up, placed the phone back on my bedside table and turned on the overhead light.

‘Yu-jin!’ Mother’s scream rang in my ears. But it wasn’t real – the flat was silent.

I looked around the room. My breath caught in my throat and I began choking and coughing, pounding on my chest as I fell forward on the bed, tears springing to my eyes.

Once, after I’d won gold in a 1,500-metre race, a journalist had asked me, ‘What would you say your strengths are?’ Modestly, the way Mother had instructed me to, I answered that I had relatively stable breathing. When the same question was posed to my swimming coach, he’d said, slightly less modestly, ‘He has the most extraordinary lung capacity of all the kids I’ve ever coached.’ There were few things that could affect my extraordinary lung capacity; they included the two women who used me as a sofa cushion, and the torpedo that seemed to explode in my throat as I looked around my room now.

Bloody drips and footprints were smeared all over the silvery marble floor. They started by the door, crossed the room and stopped at the foot of the bed. Assuming that the person leaving the prints hadn’t walked backwards, whatever had happened had occurred outside my bedroom door. My bed was drenched in blood – the sheets, blankets and pillow. I looked down at myself. Clots of the stuff hung all over my black sweater, sweatpants and socks. So the tang of blood that had made me lurch awake wasn’t a sign of impending seizure; it was the real thing.

Were those my footsteps? What had happened outside my room? Why was I covered in blood? Did I have a seizure? If so, it must have been bad. Did I bite my tongue? Could you bite your tongue so that the blood covered your whole body? Given the amount, it would make more sense that someone had spitefully thrown a bucket of pig’s blood over me, or stabbed me. Neither seemed likely.

Where had Mother been while all this was happening? She must have been sleeping. Mother kept strict routines for most things in life, from eating to going to the bathroom to exercising. Her sleeping habits were another such thing. Each night, she went to bed at nine after taking one of the sleeping pills Auntie had prescribed. I had to be home before then. The only time she didn’t follow her nightly routine was when I was late.

This rule didn’t apply to Hae-jin. Mother justified this discriminatory practice by saying that she didn’t need to worry about him having a seizure on the streets late at night. It was unfair, but I had to accept it; I didn’t want to collapse in front of people, fall onto the tracks while waiting for a train, or flail around in the street and get run over by a bus. Nevertheless, it was my curfew that led me, from time to time, to run in the middle of the night, sneaking out via the steel door on the roof like a person starved of darkness.

I had done it just last night. I’d arrived home at 8.55 p.m., having had to leave in the middle of drinks with professors to make it back in time. I’d had three or four glasses of soju mixed with beer, even though I normally didn’t drink, and had walked home from the bus stop in the rain, hoping it would cool my flushed face. The heat subsided but I was still buzzed enough to feel happy. Maybe I was a little more than buzzed – I forgot that the front door to the flat didn’t work unless you punched in a code followed by an asterisk, so I waged a hopeless battle with the door for twenty minutes. All the flats in this building had keyless locks. After a while, I just stood there with my hands in my pockets, glaring at the malfunctioning lock. My mobile pinged several times. I knew they were texts from Mother. I didn’t have to read them to know what they said:

Have you left?

Where are you?

Are you close?

It’s raining. I’ll pick you up at the bus stop.

Five seconds after the last message, the door flew open. Mother, who dressed elegantly even to go to the supermarket, appeared with her car keys in her hand, looking stylish in a baseball cap, white sweater, brown cardigan, skinny jeans and white trainers.

Annoyed, I pursed my lips and looked down at my feet. Let me be , I wanted to snap at her.

‘When did you get here?’ She secured the half-open door with the doorstop and stood in the opening. No way was she going to let me in without a fuss.

My hands still in my pockets, I glanced down at my watch: 9.15 p.m. ‘A while ago…’ I stopped short, realising I was digging my own grave. My head felt like lead. My face was on fire. I must have looked like a ripe tomato. I kept looking straight ahead so she wouldn’t notice. Then I carefully and slowly rolled my eyes towards her. My gaze met hers. ‘I couldn’t get in. The door wouldn’t open,’ I added quickly.

Mother glanced at the lock. She pressed the seven-digit code, her fingers a blur. The door unlatched with a beep. She looked at me again. What was the problem?

‘Oh…’ I nodded, trying to convey that I understood nothing was wrong with it. Water rained down from my wet hair. A drop slid past my eyes and dangled at the tip of my nose. I blew upwards to make it drop. Mother’s eyes were boring into me. More precisely, she was staring at the small scar in the middle of my forehead as though that was where all my lies were generated.

‘Have you been drinking?’

Well, that was an awkward question. According to Auntie, alcohol brought on seizures. Drinking was the ultimate rule I couldn’t break. ‘Just a little. A teeny bit.’ I showed her with my thumb and forefinger.

Mother’s gaze didn’t soften. My scar burned.

‘Just one beer,’ I added, hoping it would turn the situation.

Mother blinked. ‘Oh, is that so?’

‘I wasn’t going to, but my professor offered me one…’ I stopped. Here I was, in trouble for having a few drinks at the age of twenty-five! All because of the damn front door. If it had worked, I would have slipped inside and run upstairs, calling, ‘I’m home!’ as I passed Mother’s bedroom. I wouldn’t have missed my curfew, Mother wouldn’t have come out to accost me, and I wouldn’t have been caught drunk. My legs grew weak and my left knee buckled. I swayed.

‘Yu-jin!’ Mother grabbed my elbow.

I nodded. I’m okay. I’m not drunk. It really was just one drink.

‘Let’s go inside and talk.’

I did want to go inside but I didn’t want to talk. I brushed Mother’s hand off my elbow. This time, my right leg gave way and I tipped towards her, catching myself by hanging onto her shoulders. Mother drew in a quick breath, her small, thin body stiffening. Maybe she was surprised, or moved, or thought it out of character for me to touch her. I held onto her, thinking, Let’s not talk. What’s the point? I’ve already been drinking – it’s too late to stop me now.