Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller (20 page)

I zipped up my coat with a rapidity that I hoped carried my displeasure to her, a movement that said I can’t believe you ever gave birth to me. I can’t believe you cried out in pain and then held me wet and sticky against your breast. You’re not my mother. Who on earth are you? I know I’m not your son, for God’s sake! Don’t tell me I’m your son. It’s not true. Tell me it can’t be true. Where was the woman I trusted with my very life? Where was this rock upon which I could lean? That mountain of a person who, like some benevolent god, knew all, saw all, gave all? It had been reduced to this – this fragile lump of chintz-crowded, cotton-wreathed soft flesh, with its equally soft mind sitting in an all too capacious skull that lusted more for the straightforwardness of a new set of pine kitchen cupboards than the involvedness of shared human emotion. I don’t recognise you anymore. You’re foreign to me, I thought.

And yes, what of me? Where now was safe? She was no more a refuge than Eilean Mor, her yielding parental sanctuary an illusion, a false allure, a dream that is all the more frightening because I am awake. I shudder inside and tell her I’ll see her again.

But I’ll never really
know
her again.

And because of that I wondered if I would ever know myself. If she was not the woman I thought her to be, then who then was I?

I mumbled my goodbyes, took myself off to my shoebox and turned on the electric fire, watching the bars turn from dusty white to red, through to orange and then to a brilliance that made my eyes sting, but I kept them on it for all that, quite content that when I closed my eyes the bars remained, seared into my very being like a brand.

Ruby came home that evening with her carrier bag.

We told each other hurriedly it was all a big mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again, that we’d both change, be more considerate of each other’s lives, each other’s needs. We kissed. Oh, we kissed! The feel of her. Her smell. My arms full of her flesh again, her body heavy against me. And the room came to life a little. The smell of age and decay went away. I forgot all about Bernard, about Connie and Max and my mother. The electric fire gave off some of the warmth I thought it had lacked, and I was happy for a while.

Two days later we argued again.

Four days after that Bernard was dead.

*  *  *  *

She never thought of herself as religious, and had only ever attended church services for the purposes of special occasions – christenings, weddings and funerals. Like a lot of people, she guessed. Too busy otherwise. Too concerned with getting on with real life. Never really paid it much thought.

And yet, limited though those special occasions were, they never failed to force a memory to the surface; the time when she was a child going into a church for what she thought was the very first time, a church that she – at the age when everything and everyone appears to be far taller and more impressive than they actually are – felt sure was far too large and spacious to be a mere church, but instead had to be a cathedral. Christmas Eve. To this day she hadn’t the faintest idea where the church was, but she could recall the visit as if it had happened but hours ago. The sights, smells and sounds of that particular Christmas. That particular Christmas Eve. The night of Golden Promises, of satin dreams, when life is as good as it gets. That had been exciting, the very air in the church electric with anticipation and a nervousness that made her shiver. Her mother asked her if she was feeling cold, and she’d said yes, because she’d been embarrassed about the tremors that shuddered through her tiny body. All the same it was nice when her mother put an arm around her and snuggled close so that she could smell the warmth and mother-smell drifting from her. Then they sang Christmas carols, like they did at school, only here it was more real, because they were closer to God and He was bound to hear them, unlike in the school hall that had a vague smell of boiled fish, where she felt sure God didn’t bother to hang out in spite of what the teachers preached. She remembered singing doubly loud, because she did so want God to hear her above the others.

But that was about it. She never felt they were places for her. Churches. Pocket Little Englands populated by illustrations from People’s Friend, all smiles and grey hair, with grey minds fearing change and Johnnie Foreigner. “Cup of tea, dear? Sugar? Sweet enough, are we?” (laugh) “We’re selling paperbacks over there, in aid of those poor starving children. Plenty of Mills and Boon, love. It’s such a shame, isn’t it, that they spend all that money on fighting wars like they do, instead of feeding their own poor? (shaking of head). Then they want to come over here, don’t they? I’m not saying it’s wrong, we all have to get along together, but if their governments got their own houses in order there wouldn’t be starvation like there is, and we do have such a problem getting jobs for our own, don’t we? Here we are, then, one tea, no sugar. Ten pence, please. Thank you. Over there, a collection box full of them, all the money going to feeding those poor, poor children. You sure you won’t have a scone with that?”

And perhaps she was afraid too. Afraid that God might punish her with a lightning bolt, or by having the ground open up and swallow her, even though she knew the notion to be childish and absurd, and even though she knew the thoughts were but the persistent impression left by graphic illustrations in a book on the stories of the Bible her mother had given her one birthday. So yes, she’d been wary of churches all her adult life, but she was drawn to them all the same. She couldn’t pass one these days without feeling that familiar tug, drawing her to look to the door, aware that at any moment she might give in to the unknown force that wrapped around her legs and attempted to impel them against her will to the oak-lined portal. They offered cool and calm and peace.

She craved peace.

She needed somewhere to offload the crippling guilt that had built up inside her, someone to talk to about things she could never talk about.

And God, for all He didn’t exist for her, provided the only solution, and so this time she allowed the force to take her and she found herself pushing open the double doors and stepping into the ancient church, aware of the weight of centuries pressing down on her, aware of her own lonely body being the only warm living thing in a place of cold stone, wood and polished brass.

She did what she’d seen other people do, mainly on television and in films, sitting down at a pew and wondering whether she was trespassing, conscious of her own amateurism in all this. There were bright red hymnbooks lying in front of her and she thought she ought to pick one up, but refrained. She looked around her, at the luminous colours streaming through the windows and lying on the grey stone floor in gay puddles, at the thick white candle that burnt in a highly polished brass candlestick, at the many alien instruments of peace and forgiveness. She clasped her hands in prayer, the act self-conscious and awkward, and she felt slightly foolish. But she clasped them tighter and closed her eyes. Should she speak aloud, or would He hear her thoughts? If He existed at all, she remembered. But in case He did, which was it to be? She couldn’t actually say anything out loud could she? Not even here. And anyhow, if He was indeed this all-seeing, omnipotent Thing then there was no need to speak of anything, because He knew everything, saw everything, heard everything. He already had the sordid map of her life stretched out on a celestial table before Him no doubt, ticking off the good points, weighing them up against the many bad.

But what exactly was bad? What was evil?

That was the problem she had to live with constantly. One day she considered herself as good as the next person, and another day the most evil woman alive. Why should this be so? Why couldn’t good and evil be easily defined, fall readily into one category or another, an action being either one or the other? Why must she frustrate herself by believing that good can be evil, and evil can be good? This felt wrong. It wasn’t how it should be. When she sang Christmas carols all those years ago good and evil were clearly delineated, and she sang songs to all that was good. The Devil was outside in the cold, and he was causing wars and famine and things like that. Famines that they sold Mills and Boon paperbacks to try to alleviate.

But now it wasn’t so easy. She’d spent many years trying to figure it out, because, inside, she felt she was a good person, a very good person, and therefore the evil she’d done couldn’t be evil, not if evil was done for a good purpose.

She clasped her hands and eyes tighter, forcing the actions to have more meaning.

“I have tried to be a good woman,” she said, and realised the words had mistakenly come out aloud. They seemed to hover in the air, bouncing off the stone walls. Glancing up she looked anxiously around her, but she was alone still. Her heart, nonetheless, beat furiously. Cautiously she closed her eyes and resumed her link with God. Or whoever.

Look at all those families I’ve helped. Doesn’t that count for anything? Children. Countless children. I’ve helped them all.

So why couldn’t I help my own child?

Her body scrunched up in anguish when she thought about him, her stomach tightening, limbs going rigid.

Was I really responsible for all that happened to him? And am I really so bad to want to do all I can to help him now, no matter what it takes? That can’t be wrong, surely. That’s love. And love isn’t evil. Love is good. You can’t hate me for loving him too much. That’s terrible of You to think such a thing. If You exist, of course.

She knew where it had all started to go wrong. With him. With her first marriage. She’d hated the smell of beer ever since. Ever since she’d caught it on his breath, his clothes, infused into his very being so that he constantly reeked of it. And ever since she’d associated it with the beatings.

At first she’d blamed herself, because she was young and maybe she was a little too attractive, and maybe men did think she flirted with them when all she wanted was a good time, to laugh, to talk. So when he told her she was nothing but a tart and hit her for it she went along with it, came to believe it herself, and so she didn’t go out, didn’t give herself the opportunity to dress up and to talk to other men, avoided being a bad woman. But he only grew angry when she didn’t dress up for him and he started to call her a slovenly, good-for-nothing little bitch, beating her up for not being something he didn’t want her to be anyway. She could have withstood that, because she thought by then she deserved it. But she couldn’t take it when he beat up her son. He’d done nothing wrong; he was a baby, a child. But it didn’t stop him breaking his tiny bones.

He fell down the stairs, she’d lied, and that was one of the most painful lies she’d ever told anyone. It was obvious that the nurse didn’t believe it, but they didn’t much care in those days, because you didn’t meddle in the affairs of families. Families were good. Mother, father, baby. Mary, Joseph, Jesus. The Devil was outside, always outside, making plans for his wars and his famines. He had no part inside the house amongst families.

Except when she found the Devil beating her son about the head with a fist. The Devil, whose breath stank of Tetley Bitter and spirits.

“He pulled a face at me!” the Devil screamed. “He tried to make fun of me! Nobody makes a fool of me, nobody!” And the beating continued in spite of all her efforts to drag the uncontrolled beast away from the crumpled form of her child. Afterwards she cradled her child in her arms, like Mary did when Christ was taken down from the cross and she wept for his still, bruised body.

After that he was never the same boy. His character had altered in some subtle way. He became morose, temperamental, prone to unprovoked attacks of aggression and even violence. She saw the boy she loved gradually being replaced by this other, cold, emotionally impenetrable child. She always knew it was the beating to the head that caused it. She was certain of it.

It hadn’t always been so. There had been a brief interlude of happiness. In another town, another county. Before her husband moved them away to that damn house miles from anywhere.

Gavin Miller served fruit and vegetables on his father’s stall. She could picture him even now, standing behind the pyramid of bright Spanish oranges, eyes and hands working over the fruit, tossing it deftly into brown paper bags, and, like his mum and dad beside him, every now and again calling out to the crowd the price of a pound of potatoes or carrots.

The first time she met him she asked for a cabbage, and he avoided looking her in the eyes, and it wasn’t till much later that he told her beautiful women could sometimes frighten men, make them great lumbering fools. So he handed her the cabbage and gave her sixpence change without really talking to her. And, because he interested her, she thought his reaction was because he found her uncouth and ugly, like her husband said she was. But every time she went to the market she would wait till the good looking young man with the Brylcreemed hair and shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbows was free of customers and darted in at the right moment to place her order with him, and him alone. She smiled openly at him, but still he would not respond. Of course she did not like to be away from home too long, because her husband was waiting for her. Not close by, for he hated shopping, but in the bookies. Time was limited.

Eventually the young man gave a banana to her son, picked out one of the biggest, and leant over to place it tenderly into his little hand.

“It’ll make you grow big and strong,” he said, and she was taken with the kindness that rang in his voice. “And I’ve slipped in a few extra for you too,” he said, handing her the paper bag.

For the first time in her young life she was speechless and choked with emotion. “They’re lovely bananas,” she said, rather pathetically.

As the weeks went by, he told her his name was Gavin. Gavin Miller. “They reckon we were millers – you know, like our surname,” he said, “but as far as I know we’ve always sold fruit and veg, ever since we can remember. I wonder what it is that makes a man change occupations like that, because someone must have decided one day that enough was enough, got to make a change, a new life, mustn’t they?”

Her husband occasionally questioned the increase in cooked dinners and the well-stacked fruit bowls, but he rarely complained as long as he was fed enough. Then one day she summoned all her courage to tell him that she had to visit the doctors with ‘women’s trouble’, something her husband would not bother to question or probe too deeply into, and she arranged to meet Gavin in the park, a bus ride away.

She peeled the potatoes and carrots before she left that morning, so that the meal would be half prepared for when she got in during the late afternoon, and hopefully, when he came home from work, he wouldn’t notice she’d been out that long. She kept her son off school so that he could come too, and the three of them walked on the grass, threw pieces of bread to the ducks that her son found so frightening. Gavin told her how one day he’d open a shop of his own, not a big thing, but one with his own name above the door in gold lettering, and he’d get a Bedford van with his name on the side, too. He made the idea sound positively thrilling. They argued lightly over where the apples should be displayed in their imaginary shop window, and eventually he gave in to her wishes. He bought them an ice-cream each from an old man who pedalled his ice-cream cart around the park, blowing his whistle. She happened to remark to Gavin that her son had never had an ice-cream, which made his face grow gloomy. But eventually he perked up and picked up a white goose feather from the grass. He held it out to her son.

“See this feather, eh? It’s a magic feather. How do you think the bird keeps up in the air like it does, eh? Because these things are magic, aren’t they? Especially the white ones. The white feathers have a magic all of their own. Well you just take this in your hand, like so, and it’ll bring you good luck and magic. Make sure you look after it.” He laughed at her little boy’s enraptured expression. He hung onto that feather all day, and then slept with it under his pillow for ages afterwards. He never threw it away.