Chapter 23 - Vocal
Short story by James Garside
The door was unlocked so we let ourselves in. We left it open just in case. Used pots were piled up on the kitchen sink and cheap dirty lino stuck to my feet.
“Are you there Muriel?” Dad said.
A man coughed in the living room.
“It’s just him,” I said. “Good.”
It was my grandmother’s house. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. Sandy’s dog basket was made up in the kitchen corner. He had been dead for years and wouldn’t be back to lie down.
I was first into the living room. Dad stood behind me just inside the door. It was painted in the same purple and pink paint as before. There hadn’t been enough of either to do all the walls.
The room stank of smoke and dusty old curtains, but there was another smell, like rancid meat that had been left in the shade.
Geoff was slumped in an armchair opposite the living room door. A cigarette hung from his bony fingers. He stared at the corner where the television used to be.
“Alright, Geoff?” I said.
“Bloody hell, to what do we owe this honour?” he said, “The last time I saw you was — “
“Is Muriel in?” Dad said.
“No. I don’t suppose that you brought my Sister with you?”
“Mam’s at home,” I said.
“No, I didn’t think that lady muck would come to see me,” Geoff said.
He took one last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the full ashtray next to his feet. The carpet around it was covered in ash.
“Where’s my Gran?” I said.
“She’s nipped down the shops, should be back any minute. Do you want a drink?”
He gripped both arms of the chair and tried to heave himself forward. The backs of his knuckles were white as he tried to stand, but I walked over and stood right in front of him.
“No, you sit right there,” I said. “It’s you I came to see.”
He was half stood up but forced to sit back down in the chair. He turned and looked at my Dad.
“What’s going on, Jim?” he said.
Dad leaned against the wall and rested his weight against one hand.
“I want a word with you,” I said. “That’s what.”
Geoff didn’t take his eyes off my Dad.
“What about?” he said.
“You know what about,” I said. “We’re going to have a little talk, Geoff. Or to be exact, I am going to talk and you are going to listen.”
That got his attention. He looked at me then. The corners of his mouth were yellow like his nicotine stained fingers. He continued to grip the chair like he was trying to hold up his own weight and there was nothing underneath to support him.
“Do you remember when you used to baby-sit for me and my brother?” I said.
“What?”
“Do you remember when you used to baby-sit for me and my brother?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I remember too.”
His head snapped straight back to my Dad.
“I didn’t do anything Jim, I swear,” he said.
“Don’t you dare look at him when I am talking to you,” I said. “It’s me who is talking to you, not him. You look at me. Look at me. I said look at me.”
His hands started to shake.
“That’s better,” I said. “That’s right. I want you to remember this.”
He stared right at me but his eyes were like deep holes that went all the way to the back of his head.
“How could you do it,” I said, “How could you do something like that?”
“I didn’t — “
“Don’t deny it, Geoff, you know what you did.”
“I would never do anything to hurt you — “
“I was four years old, did you think that I’d enjoy it?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I loved you. Both of you, you and your brother — “
“If you ever laid a hand on him I will kill you right now,” I said. “Did you touch him?”
“No.”
“No what, Geoff?”
“I didn’t touch him,” he said.
“So it was just me then?” I said. “It better have only been me.”
Dad drummed his fingers on the wall.
Geoff convulsed and stared at the floor. That was it. That was all there was to him. The pale sweated flesh of my Uncle.
“You have no idea how much I hate for your what you did to me. That’s right, I hate you.”
Geoff looked one last time to my Dad.
“Jim — “ he said.
Dad slammed his fist against the wall.
“You heard him,” Dad said. “He wants to talk to you. I’ll just say one thing, Geoff. It’s a good job that it isn’t me stood there, because that’s not what I’d do. You make my balls ache.”
Geoff looked away and Dad turned to me.
“I’ll be in here if you need me,” he said and walked into the kitchen.
“Alright, Dad,” I said.
Geoff picked up an open packet of cigarettes on the chair arm.
He watched his own hands as they shook and with great effort managed to co-ordinate them for long enough to take out one cigarette and hold it to his lips. It took so long that I lost track of what I’d said.
He put the packet down and went for the little plastic Bic lighter next to it. He looked so frail and pathetic that when it fell on to the floor I relented and picked it up.
I even leant over and lit up for him, without thinking, before I put the lighter back on the arm rest.
Geoff took a greedy long drag on the cigarette and sank into the chair.
“I just want you to know that I remember,” I said. “I remember you sending my brother to bed early. You told me I could stay up late with you to watch the telly. You were drunk. There was a programme on that I wanted to watch, but Mam and Dad had already said not to let me. You pulled your pants down and rolled around whilst it was on.”
He held the cigarette in his lap. There was a cheap blue plastic bottle of lager by his feet and a used glass whiskey tumbler with suds at the bottom.
“I ignored you, so you masturbated in front of me on the living room floor. I didn’t know what you were doing, and I started to laugh. That’s when you decided you wanted to see mine too. You said it was only fair now that I had seen yours. You said it was just a game and that I shouldn’t tell anyone else. Then you made me get on the floor with you and pull down my pants.”
What was he doing drinking lager out of a Whiskey glass?
“You touched me, and you tried to make me touch you. The TV was still on but I didn’t want to watch my programme any more. I tried to get up but you wouldn’t let me. I don’t know how long it took me to get up but when I did I sent myself straight to bed. You shouted after me, but you were too drunk to do anything about it.”
This was the same man who made a giant Christmas Cracker filled with sweets every year that I pulled with my brother on Christmas Eve.
“Then you came upstairs. I was in the same bedroom as my brother. I remember lying on my back with my eyes shut tight pretending to be asleep. You said that you knew I wasn’t asleep because my breathing was too fast, and ever since then I have always been good at pretending to be asleep because I know how to breathe.”
This was the room that we pulled it in, right where I was standing.
“It almost came out about what you’d done, when I was a kid, do you remember? I was dragged up here by my Dad and made to stand by the coal shed as he spoke to you. No-one believed me and I had to back down. He smacked my arse in front of you and dragged me back home. But at least after that you didn’t baby-sit for us any more.”
The same room where I gave my brother his first black eye when he stepped in to the middle of a fight between me and my cousin.
“Not long after that, I asked Mam not to hold and kiss me any more on a night, when she tucked me into bed. I said that I didn’t like it and I wanted her to stop.”
“I’m sorry,” Geoff said.
“Don’t say sorry to me,” I said. “How dare you apologise now for what you did? You shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
I heard Dad’s footsteps as he paced in the kitchen.
The cigarette had burned to almost nothing but a long line of ash in Geoff’s fingers.
“Look, I know it was only the one time — “ I said.
Geoff frowned and looked up at me. The corners of his eyes wrinkled up. He almost grinned.
My knees went but I managed to keep myself upright.
“You bastard,” I said.
Geoff lurched and put his arm up as I stepped forward. The cigarette ash went on the crotch of his trousers.
“Don’t hurt me,” he said.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Geoff,” I said. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it. All the way through my first year at Uni I imagined what I was going to do to you when I got home. And then I get back and find out that you’re dying. Sclerosis of the liver, that’s what they said.”
I shook my head and laughed.
“You’re lucky,” I said. “I was going to kill you.”
Dad stopped pacing in the kitchen. Somehow that was louder than him moving about.
“But now, I won’t touch you. I’m not like you,” I said. “I don’t touch people who can’t do anything about it.”
Geoff grabbed the plastic bottle from the floor and opened it. Cheap lager fizzed all over the carpet as he filled his glass. He gulped down the contents but most of it was froth so he started again.
“That’s right, have another drink, Geoff. That’s all it’s about with you, isn’t it?”
“I think that’s what a lot of things have been about,” he said. “Down to this.”
Dad stood in the doorway.
“Well, you know what?” I said. “I’m glad that you’re dying. I hope it hurts, and I hope it takes a long time. And every time it hurts, I want you to think about what you did. Every bit of pain that you feel is punishment for what you did to me. I’ve carried this around inside of me for years, Geoff. I want you to have it. And when you die, I want you to take it with you. It’s yours now. Keep it.”
“Are we done?” Dad said.
“Yes. I’m finished with him,” I said.
I walked back into the kitchen. Dad held the back door open for me and I started to cry.
“It’s alright,” he said and we stepped out in to bright sunshine. I stood by the coal shed as Dad closed the door.
My Grandma came through the back gate with shopping bags in both hands. She started to say hello but saw my face and then looked at my Dad.
“What have you done?” she said.
“We’ve just had a little talk with Geoff, that’s all,” Dad said.
“What about?”
“I’ll tell you what about,” I said. “It’s about him in there. What he did to me when I was little.”
She dropped her shopping bags on the ground.
“You’ve always hated me,” she said to Dad. “You’re always trying to stir up trouble. You’ve got it in for this family.”
“Shut up, Muriel,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I wanted to come here,” I said. “I had to — “
She burst into tears as she put her hand over my mouth and tried to shush me.
“No, love,” she said. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
I moved my mouth to one side.
“I had to confront that bastard about what he did to me,” I said.
She slapped me hard across the face.
“You shouldn’t talk about these things,” she said.
Muriel needs to be dropped to the ground.