A Suitable Lie (16 page)

‘Dad.’ I was on my knees before Pat, tucking his shirt into his trousers. His eyes were on Ryan’s rapidly receding back. ‘Do you think
my
Mum is watching me?’

‘Of course she is, son.’

The question surprised me. Watching Pat over the last couple of years I had convinced myself that he had accepted Anna as his mother. With my hand resting on his shoulder I realised that I had seen exactly what I wanted to see.

‘Can I look at the photos of her again, Dad?’ He paused. ‘I don’t remember her face.’

‘C’mon. We’ll go up to the loft. Get out the photos.’

‘Yes!’ he squealed and ran into the house.

U
nder the harsh light of a bulb with no shade, Pat stared at one photograph in particular. It had been taken on our wedding day. Patricia was on her own and the photographer had snapped her unawares. I knew that off camera, I had been swapping insults with Jim, with Patricia as our audience of one. Whatever I was saying, Patricia’s face was vivid with joy. Her cheeks were pushed out by her smiling mouth into those dimples that I used to love so much.

After she died, I would look at this photograph and try to remember what I said to Jim that was so funny. For days I would sit with it in my cold hands and try to dive into the memory. I would come up gasping for air, remembering nothing.

I looked over at Pat. Infected by a moment that happened before he was even considered, he sported identical dimples to his mother’s.

‘Andy?’ Anna’s voice rose up the ladders. ‘What are you guys doing?’

‘Nothing, sweetheart. Do you want to join us?’

‘No way. The place is crawling with spiders.’ She sounded like a little girl. ‘How can you go up there?’ I heard the shiver in her voice.

‘Be down in a second.’

When her footsteps retreated down the stairs Pat tore his gaze from his mother’s face.

‘Dad, I saw Gran yesterday.’

‘Oh.’

‘She came to see me at school. She was waiting outside at playtime.’

‘That was nice.’ Inwardly, I groaned. How could I have allowed things to deteriorate to such an extent that my mother felt she had to sneak a visit with her grandson.

‘How come we don’t see her as much?’ he asked.

Startled by his question I could only mumble a weak reply and hope that he would be satisfied with it. ‘Dad’s just been too busy recently. I’ve had a lot of things to do.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, this and that. Do you miss her?’ Guilt forced the last four words from my mouth. I needed evidence of how I had let my son down.

‘Well, she is nice, and she did bring me some sweets.’ A typical Scotsman in the making, he avoided the admission of emotion. Or is that typical of all males?

‘Don’t worry, Pat.’ I reached over and squeezed his knee. ‘We’ll meet up with Gran soon.’ Concern over how Anna would react to this led me to modify this assertion. I whispered, ‘But we’ll just make it our little secret.’

T
hat evening passed without event. The boys were tired after their day of play in the sun, Pat was a happy little boy after his time with me in the loft, and the pair of them submitted to bath- and bed-time with only a token protest. Anna and I had a couple of hours in front of the TV and then followed the boys’ example and went to bed at an early hour.

I woke some time later. Disorientated in the dark, my first instinct was that something was wrong. I sat up in bed and listened.

Anna’s breathing was slow and even beside me and there wasn’t the slightest noise from the boys’ room.

Just in case, I walked through to their room and peeked in. Both boys were fast asleep, each body a warm disarray of limbs, quilts tossed to the side. I felt a surge of love and sent them each a silent kiss.

Wondering what had disturbed me I walked on the balls of my feet down the stairs and into the kitchen. I opened the fridge, pulled out the milk and from the fridge’s light I located a glass and poured.

As I knocked back the cold drink, something snagged my attention. I looked out through the window. Was there someone out there? I bristled. Felt a surge of adrenalin. Then I closed the fridge door to help me see better in the darkness.

I moved closer to the window and stared.

And relaxed.

There was no one there. I turned and leaned against the sink to finish off my drink. An image of a shape thrust itself into my mind’s eye. It was there, indistinct in the weak light and strong shadow, but clearly human shaped. There by the boys’ swing.

Dropping the glass into the sink, I walked over to the kitchen door, unlocked it and stepped outside. My bare feet shrunk from the cold paving, but I ignored the chill and walked out into the garden.

‘Who’s there?’ I asked in a harsh whisper.

The night settled around me. The breeze stippled my skin. A car moved somewhere off to my right.

‘Who’s there?’

I heard something behind me.

I whipped round. Anna. She was coming out of the kitchen, pulling a dressing gown round her to ward off the cool night air.

‘What the hell are you doing, Andy?’

‘Thought I saw someone.’ I turned away from her and searched the shadows of our garden. I stepped over nearer the swing and viewed the garden from there.

Nothing.

‘Andy. What’s going on?’ Anna stayed by the door as if afraid to venture too far out into the dark.

I looked up at the house. At Anna, and then back at the house. My boys’ bedroom. Everything I cared about, right there. If anything happened to either one of them, I didn’t know how I might cope.

My feet were cold in the damp of the grass. I moved. My right sole felt a different texture, something faintly warm. I lifted my foot up, balanced and picked at the something that had adhered to the pad under my big toe.

A cigarette stub.

Where the hell had that come from?

Anna reached me, looked around herself. ‘Come on in, Andy.’ She shivered. ‘It’s freezing.’

‘Someone was here,’ I said. ‘Look. A cigarette.’

We both looked at it. It was about an inch long and homemade. I gave it a sniff. I didn’t know what I was trying to decipher. I wouldn’t know tobacco from weed.

‘Look at you, the great detective,’ laughed Anna. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘So where did this come from?’ I demanded and held up the stub for her to see.

‘One of the girls was over this afternoon. Jean Given.’

I knew Jean. She was a part-time teller. Had twin boys around Ryan’s age.

‘I didn’t know Jean smoked.’

‘You don’t know everything,’ Anna said and held a hand on my arm. Then she stepped in towards me and leaned her head on my shoulder. I felt her laugh. ‘My hero.’ She moved back slightly and looked up into my eyes. ‘C’mon My Protector. Let’s get you back to bed.’

T
he next morning, while we were still in bed, I told Anna she needed a rest. She was surely due some time to herself, I said, and insisted that I do her a favour and take the boys out of her way on a Saturday morning, so she could have a long lie-in.

‘Thank you, honey,’ she replied, turned on her side to face me, pulled the quilt up to her chin and burrowed into her pillow. ‘That would be lovely.’

The cigarette stub we discovered during the night was still on my mind, but I decided against bringing it up. Besides, if she was sure it was Jean’s, why should I argue?

The shadow was probably just in my imagination.

I told her that I was taking them to Pet Corner at a local farm park, where they could feed the deer and rabbits. I worried that Anna would renege on the deal and join us, so, instead of the farm park, I took them to Kidz Play.

Where their Gran was waiting.

Joy flushed Mum’s face as I walked towards her. She was holding her handbag tight against her body, as if practising the hug she would give the boys. Guilt scorched my gullet. I felt like the worse son alive to have deprived her for so long of their company.

‘How are my lovely boys?’

She walked towards us with her arms outstretched. Her handbag fell to the floor. If I had been nearer, I would have been included in that embrace, but I held back, content for Pat and Ryan to receive my mother full beam. There would have been far worse things to endure at that point than an embrace from my mother, but I was afraid that my emotions might be too near the surface.

‘How are you, son?’ She reached up and touched my cheek.

Inadvertently, I stepped back, but immediately regretted my response as a little of the heat was dissipated from her joy. Somewhat self-consciously, I bent over and picked up her handbag and passed it to her.

‘Shall we get a seat?’ I asked.

She nodded and turned to face the bombardment of questions from Pat. Ryan, who hadn’t shared his gran’s company so much as Pat had, held on to my hand. His little fingers held me tightly, showing his alarm at his brother’s response to a relative stranger. Mum answered one of Pat’s queries and then turned to Ryan.

‘And how’s my favourite two-year-old?’ she beamed.

Ryan’s answer was to hide his head behind my knee.

‘Don’t pretend you’re shy, Ryan Boyd.’ I picked him up and he buried his head into my shoulder as I remembered the last time that these two had met: six months ago at Ryan’s birthday party.

‘Gran, I can climb all the way to the top of that,’ said Pat, trying to reclaim some of the attention. He pointed at a large climbing structure that inhabited most of the space within the large, hanger-like building.

‘You are a clever boy,’ she cooed.

‘Pat, why don’t you take your brother into the ball pit and play with him for a while. Gran and I have a lot to talk about,’ I said. There was an inquisition coming and it would be better to get it out of the way.

‘Daaad.’ Pat let me know that he wasn’t completely enamoured of this idea.

‘Go and play for a wee while and when you come back we’ll have a Coke and some chips.’

‘Okay,’ he smiled. The parents’ official last resort: bribery. Worked every time.

We sat within viewing distance of the boys at play.

‘Ryan’s really coming on,’ said Mum, ‘and Pat is turning into a wee heartbreaker.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘You must be very proud of them.’ While I agreed with every fibre of my body, I considered Mum’s words. Her statement was something that a stranger might produce. I felt that it was something that a salesman might say after reading the How To Get On with Parents Guide. Had I driven her so far away?

‘Jim says hello.’ Her eyes didn’t leave the boys. ‘I told him that I was spending some time with you today.’

‘Right,’ I said noncommittally, as if I had just read the Parents’ Guide to Handling Salesmen.

I watched her watching the boys. She hungrily took note of every action and I was struck by the thought that she looked like an expensive wool cardigan that had been put through the wrong cycle in a washing machine and come out slightly smaller and slightly faded.

I prayed that concern about me wasn’t wearing her down. No, my mother was tough, she had come through a lot. Surely less of me in her life wouldn’t have such repercussions.

‘So.’ She faced me. I noticed the small but sharp intake of breath as she did. ‘What’s been happening with you, son? Tell me all your news.’

‘Nothing much, Mum. You know, work, nine to five-ish. Come home, play with the boys, sleep, work…’ I let my voice trail off. The washing machine’s cycle must have been tougher than I thought; the lines on her forehead were deeper than I remembered. My hand fell on to her forearm and rested there for a moment. ‘Just the usual stuff.’ I attempted a smile.

‘As long as you’re happy, son.’

‘Oh, I’m happy alright.’ Realising that I had taken my eyes from hers as I spoke and with the further realisation of how that might be translated, I continued, ‘How could I not be, with two such beautiful kids?’

‘I notice you didn’t include your wife in that.’ Her eyebrows were raised in sympathy.

‘Mum, Anna and I are very happy.’ My tone was harsher that I intended. I tried to soften the line of my shoulders. Relax, I told myself.

‘What has Jim been saying to you?’ I continued in the same vein.

‘Don’t get all defensive, Andy. Jim has said nothing. I do have eyes in my head and this brain might not be as sharp as it was, but I’m not a fool.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Where’s your wife today, Andy? Why isn’t she with you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘Didn’t want to be in the same room as the in-law, is that it?’

‘Is that it? You think Anna doesn’t like you?’ I could handle that objection quite easily. ‘Anna thinks you’re great.’

‘Of course she does.’ Mum’s voice leaked sarcasm. ‘Don’t patronise me, Andy. I’m not in my dotage yet. I couldn’t care less what Anna thinks of me. What I do care about is why my son, after remarrying, doesn’t want me to be part of his life.’

Ryan chose this point to fall and hurt his head. Hoping this would deflect my mother from the conversation, I rushed to him and spent more time putting him together again than I normally would. He was struggling to get out of my arms, to join his brother, while I was still kissing his forehead and saying ‘There, there.’

‘Tea and a biscuit?’ I joined Mum at the table.

‘Please,’ she said quietly. ‘Andy, I’m sorry…’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ I turned and walked over to join the queue at the food counter. When I returned, my tray was laden with tea and cakes for Mum and I, and soft drinks and fries for the boys.

‘I really am sorry, son,’ Mum said as I poured her tea.

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I said, trying to hide my relief that she was going to drop the subject. Nothing short of a thumbscrew-wielding Spanish Inquisitor would make me divulge to my mother the mess that I was in. Mrs Boyd’s sons should be self-confident, capable, well-adjusted men. She hadn’t raised her son to be a weakling.

‘It’s not okay. I should know better than to interfere. I’ve always believed that I should let you both make your own lives.’

‘You haven’t interfered, Mum. You’re concerned about me and rightly so…’

Alarm at what I said halted her cup about a centimetre from her mouth. ‘I’m right to be concerned?’

Shit, I cursed inwardly. I shouldn’t have been so keen to appease her. ‘I mean … I would be concerned if one of my boys suddenly stopped coming to see me…’ Damn, I was shovelling myself quite nicely into a rather large hole.

‘You
have
stopped coming to see me and I
am
worried.’

‘You know how it is, Mum. Life just gets busy, it gets in the way.’

‘You’ve been busy before, Andy. You didn’t stop seeing me then. You’ve been married before. You didn’t stop seeing me then either.’

‘I thought we weren’t getting into that.’

‘What is there to get into?’ She leaned forward.

I leaned back on my chair. ‘Nothing. Jesus, will you back off.’ The fact that she was stung registered somewhere at the back of my mind, but I had tapped into a well of frustration and couldn’t quite stop. ‘What is it with everyone? I’m fine, we’re fine, everybody is fucking fine!’

‘Fine, FINE!’ Her tone rose to meet mine. Then she pulled her lips tight and controlled herself with a deep breath. Now composed but undeterred she continued. ‘I’m sorry but you don’t look fine, you are not acting fine and as far as I can see everything is far from fine. You put on lots of weight – now you’ve lost it; you look … grey, and you’ve got shadows under your eyes that could block out the sun. All I want is for my sons to be happy and to play a part in their lives. If that makes me a bad mother then sue me. And don’t ever use that language to me again.’

Her eyes held fiercely onto mine and I felt that I was twelve years old again. She placed her cup on the table and moved her hand to grip mine. I couldn’t move it away.

‘This job’s for life, Andy. Don’t expect me to stop caring just because you’re with another woman. I
know
that there’s something not quite right. You don’t want to tell me what it is? I have to respect that. What I don’t have to do is bow out when my son is in trouble.’ She applied more pressure to my hand. ‘My door is open to you any time, day or night. Let me help you.’

The honest and raw emotion in her plea, nearly unmanned me. Salt stung my eyes and muscles bunched in my jaw as I fought to control myself. A deep, quavering breath filled my lungs before I could speak.

‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’ I could barely hear myself. I’d have to do better than that. I cleared my throat and went for The Oscar. Smiling, my words were much louder. ‘I’m fine, Mum. The truth is…’ I built myself up for the lie ‘… we haven’t been getting on that well recently.’

‘I knew it.’ She leaned forward.

‘The thing is … Anna wants another child. She’s desperate to try for a girl.’ She had mentioned that it would be nice, but only in passing. The most convincing lie is one that strays just a little from the truth.

‘Aww, pour soul.’ Mum sat back in her chair, her tension dispersed by my words. ‘I can relate to that after having you two big lumps. So why is that causing so much strain?’

‘It’s in the bedroom, Mum.’

She flushed a little. ‘Right,’ she said as her eyes slid from mine.

‘I’m afraid to let things get too far in case…’

‘All right, all right,’ she held her hand up. ‘Enough information, thank you. Goodness, what are you like? One extreme to the other. First you don’t tell me enough, then when I get you to open your mouth, you can’t stop. A mother shouldn’t have to hear what goes on behind her son’s bedroom door.’

While grinning at her discomfort, I congratulated myself on my story. Mum wouldn’t dare to ask me any more questions on the subject.

‘Well, that’s you sorted. Now I need to deal with Jim.’

‘What’s up with him?’

She stuck a teaspoon in her coffee and stirred. ‘Don’t know if I should tell you, if he hasn’t.’

‘For God’s sake, Mum.’

‘Alright,’ she said quietly. ‘For two brothers who’re close, you tell each other nothing.’

‘What’s going on?’ I felt a shimmer of fear on behalf of my brother.

‘Oh, he says he’s fine now that he’s on the happy pills…’

‘Happy pills?’

‘Prozac. Agnes at number 32 is on something similar. She says it’s calmed her right down.’

‘You talked to Agnes at number 32 about this.’

‘No,’ she replied, looking as if I’d slapped her. ‘Course not. I’m just saying that she—’

‘Enough of Agnes whatsername. Tell me about Jim.’

‘He’s fine.’

‘He’s clearly not fine if he’s on Prozac.’

‘Says he feels a bit lost. Says he’d love to just give it all away and join a monastery.’

‘A monastery? Jim?’

‘Yeah, I know,’ she smiled. Grew wistful. ‘You know, when I look back at him, Jim was a thinker. He always was the deep one.’

‘Deep?’ I laughed. ‘Are we talking about the same guy?’

Mum dismissed me with a look. ‘See you when you boys talk? Do you ever actually, you know,
talk
?’

For the remainder of our time together that day the conversation was occupied by less contentious issues: the boys. Mum wanted to hear every little detail of the last few months: what they were eating, how Ryan was coping with teething, how Pat enjoyed having a little brother. While I answered her questions a weight on my shoulders gorged on the guilt that I was feeling and grew heavier with every word. I did want Mum to be in my son’s lives, I did want to see her more often, but the truth was that each visit was punctuated with a slap or a punch from Anna. She wanted me all to herself, I reasoned. The best thing to do was to limit those things that might cause a fight, and if seeing less of my family meant a happier, less threatened Anna, then that’s what would happen. The problem was seeing less of eventually became seeing nothing of. My Mum didn’t deserve such shabby treatment. I would have to do better and I would.

I just wasn’t sure how.

O
n the way home in the car, I worried that the boys might let it slip just who we had spent time with that morning. Sneaking behind Anna’s back would not be received well. Ryan would be fine, I was sure he hadn’t grasped just who paid him all that attention. Pat would have to be warned to say nothing.

‘Pat…’ I looked in the driver’s mirror into the back seat.

‘What, Dad?’

‘Do me a favour, son. Don’t tell your mum that you saw your gran today.’ Pain thudded just where my neck met my shoulder. I didn’t want to include my son in my lies, but it would make life easier for us all.

‘Why not?’ His nose lifted up closer to his eyes as he squinted quizzically.

‘Because Gran and I are planning a surprise for Mum.’

Just then Ryan began to chant, ‘Ganny, ganny.’ He was still having problems with his r’s.

‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ said Pat, reading my worry that Ryan would give the game away. ‘Mum won’t know what he’s saying.’ The pain became sharper. Just how much was Pat aware of? ‘I know, I know, we’ll say my friend, Danny was there,’ he continued, excitement at helping us in the ‘surprise’ heightening the pitch in his voice. ‘Say “Danny, Danny”.’ He leaned over his little brother.