A Suitable Lie (22 page)

I
left the office that day without saying a word to anyone. With briefcase in hand, I walked out of the front door, trying to look as if I was going about my normal business. Shame and confusion spat fire in my stomach. Inadequacy and worry flicked at the muscle of my heart. My pace was slow and measured, yet I felt out of breath. By the time I reached my car I was panting.

At about the fifth attempt I managed to insert the key into the lock and gratefully sat in the driver’s seat. Looking around me, I was relieved to see no familiar faces. Automatically, I turned on the engine and clicked in my seatbelt, but I couldn’t quite concentrate enough to drive. I stared out of the window, seeing nothing. What was I going to do? And how many times was I going to ask that question? First, I hit Anna, then I assault some poor stranger, then I become implicated in a fraud for God knows how much? Could my life get any worse?

Closing my eyes, I forced my breathing into a slower rhythm. But just before each breath was fully exhaled, I felt panicked into inhaling. It was only two-thirty in the afternoon, far too early to go home. I couldn’t face Anna just yet. How was she going to react when I told her I was suspended? Because, whatever way I looked at it that was what had happened. I wasn’t on ‘gardening leave’, nor was I on an unplanned vacation. I was suspended, plain and simple. My breathing was faster again. Slowly I filled my lungs and dropped my shoulders as I breathed out. Again, I had to breathe in too quickly.

By now I was becoming accustomed to the strategy of inertia. If something happens, do nothing, was my new motto. Plainly, it wasn’t working; but it was much easier than the emotional cost of having to act, or even worse, react. My new course of action therefore
was blindingly simple: each day I would leave home as if going to work. Instead I would go to the town library and pass the day reading newspapers. Before too long had passed, the powers-that-be would realise that I couldn’t have stolen any money and they would reinstate me. This would take no more than a week. Anna, therefore, need know nothing. This episode of my life would then be filed under ‘bad dream’. I could concentrate on the important stuff, like making Anna and the boys happy.

O
n most days, nine to five in the office seemed to pass in the single movement of a clock’s hand. In the library, each tiny movement of the same hand had the pace of dripping treacle. By lunchtime each day, I had read every newspaper. Thursday was a poor news day and I read most of them twice. In the afternoons, I picked up magazines, on any topic. It didn’t really matter, because very little that raced before my eyes reached my brain. As long as it contained the written word, it would do. As long as it provided the illusion that I was keeping my brain active then I was happy.

I lost count of the times I would get to the edge of a page, turn over, then turn back, wondering what I had been reading about. On a couple of occasions, I mercifully fell asleep. Despite myself, I wakened with a start, hoping that hours had passed. The clock showed that it had been barely minutes.

Otherwise, the reading room of the library had a curious, but beneficial effect on me. Whether it was the general sense of peace in the room or the shared hush of its occupants, I wasn’t sure, but it was the only place that my breathing returned to normal. At home, I felt as if I was continually out of breath. At night, I would fall asleep only to wake up moments later as I fought for air. I knew this was not normal, but to do anything about it would be too difficult. Besides, if I went to my doctor, he would only laugh. No, I would wait and, like everything else, it would go away. It became so that the library was my sanctuary from the world. Each day as I drove there, I anticipated the calm I so needed and pressed my foot on the accelerator.
Once inside, serenity flowed from the rows of books until my breathing slowed and my posture eased. The events of the real world could not touch me here. I was unable to forget them, or to stop worrying, but their cold grasp didn’t tighten muscle or shorten breath. By the Friday of that week, I was able to sustain this composure almost until I reached the house. Only when I parked in front of my house that afternoon did the calm recede.

The front door of the house opened in time with me closing the car door. But instead of waiting for me to walk up the path, Anna turned and walked back into the living room, leaving the door open. What was all that about? I wondered as I moved up the path.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Anna shouted as soon as I entered the room.

‘Eh … at work. Where else?’ My breathing quickened, my limbs leaked energy into the carpet.

‘Liar.’ Her fist was a blur, then pain bloomed at the right corner of my mouth.

I fell onto the couch and brought my knees up to protect my genitals. There was a noise issuing from behind me. It sounded like a dog in pain. Then I realised it was Pat and Ryan. Without even looking, I could see them in my mind, knees pulled up to their chest, Ryan leaning into his big brother. This was no life for a child.

‘Pat, Ryan, go up to your room.’ At the sound of my voice, they shot from behind the settee and ran for the door.

‘Stay where you are.’ Anna’s voice halted their run as if they had slammed into a glass door. ‘Stay and see what a disgrace your father is.’

They edged along the wall towards the corner of the room that was furthest from us. Once there, they huddled together, each seeking comfort and strength from the other. The displaced observer in my mind appreciated how my two boys looked to each other for help. The father wept silent tears into a well of self-hate. How had I managed to reduce my beautiful sons to this?

Anna continued to fling words into the room. Words of poisoned
steel with barbed edges. Edges that tore at the lines joining each of us. Edges that shredded any mote of self-esteem we may have clung to. She hit me once more. Her hand was cupped and aimed at my ear. The pain was immense. What had she done? I held my hand to the side of my head and willed the ache to stop. Streams of syllables, acrid with hate, continued to shoot from her tortured mouth. Even her lips curled away from their intent.

‘Please, Anna. Leave the boys out of this. Don’t you see what you’re doing to them?

‘I’m letting them see what an excuse for a father they have. It’s better they find out now. It’s better they learn while they are still young. Then they won’t get let down. Don’t you see, boys? I’m doing it for your own good.’ Her head was pointed towards them and was about ten inches in front of her feet.

Eyes huge with uncertainty, the boys looked first at her, then at me. At such an early age Pat was clearly aware of the politics of the situation. Anna had the strength. He had to do and say what pleased her. But he struggled with the betrayal of his father.

‘You see it boys, don’t you? You have to see what an utter waste of time your father is now, before he lets you down. Don’t you?’ Her eyes snapped from one to the other, demanding an affirmation of her claim with her eyes.

Pat stole a glimpse at me, as if begging for permission to let me down. With the slightest nod of my head, I tried to show my eldest that he had to save himself.

‘Yes.’ His voice was a whisper.

‘See.’ Anna faced me triumphant. ‘Even your precious first-born can see what a stupid, worthless cunt you are. What are you?’

‘A stupid, worthless cunt,’ I admitted, head down at my knees. ‘Can the boys go to their room now?’

‘Okay, boys,’ Anna said. ‘Go upstairs. Leave me and your father alone. We have things to discuss.’ Their feet drummed out of the room.

‘Look at you. Pathetic. I should get myself another man. A real man. Right, before I throw you out…’

‘What?’

‘Before I throw you out, I want to know what is going on.’

‘You’re throwing me out?’

‘Of course I am. Look at you. You’re a mess. You’re not fit to be a father. You’re a drunk, a bully, you’ve stolen money from your employers…’

‘You know about that?’ My head shot up

‘What’s more, you’re a wife-beater and I’ve got the bruises to prove it.’

‘You know about the missing money?’

‘Of course I know about it. Do you think I’m stupid? Where did I used to work, Andy?’

‘In the bank.’

‘In the bank. Right. And I still have contacts there. So what I want to know is how much you stole, where it is and where that boyfriend of yours is. You know I must be blind. All this time, I’ve been thinking you’ve been sleeping with another woman, while it’s really another man. Is that where you’ve been all week, shagging the arse off Malcolm Kay?’

‘Anna…’ Where was she getting all of this?

‘Don’t you “Anna” me. You can tell me where the money is and then you’re out of here.’

‘You can’t throw me out.’ My voice was a flat-line on a heart monitor. I had no strength, no will and no opinion. Any fight I offered was merely a token. I was crushed and I knew it.

‘I can and I will throw you out. No court in the land will let you stay or keep the boys once they know what kind of man you are.’

Anna had just given sound to the thought that worried me above all else. I didn’t know one man who had been granted custody of his children. If Anna and I separated, there was little chance that I would get the boys, especially now I had a history of violence.

‘You can’t throw me out.’ My voice was as lifeless as the rags that put together a scarecrow. I couldn’t lose the boys. I needed them in my life. I needed to see them develop in size and stature; to see their
first game of football for the school team, to mop up tears at the end of their first love affair; to hold their shoulder as they opened their exam results. The job of Sunday father was not for me. I’d noticed other guys with their kids in McDonalds or at the bowling alley, trying hard to maintain some form of a relationship, but, judging by the expressions of the bored children, failing abjectly.

I had to form part of the fabric of their lives. I had to be on the thread they travelled to their first day at the High School, woven into the cloth that bound them when they fell and hurt themselves. The steps that Anna was about to take would unravel all of this and turn my life into a shapeless, colourless rag.

‘I’m not going.’ A voice issued from a well of strength I didn’t know existed. Its reserves were almost gone, but enough remained for one last fight. I stood up and faced her.

‘I’m not going,’ I repeated. Louder. ‘The bank will soon realise that I’ve done nothing and I’ll get my job back.’

Anna opened her mouth as if to speak and stopped, jaw wide. Her expression changed as thoughts occurred to her. I could read them as easily as if she had projected them onto a wall. The change in my demeanour surprised her. She didn’t know I had it in me to fight back. She couldn’t let me fan the spark of my fightback into a revolution. I was almost dead and buried and she had to finish it now.

Her scream reached me only seconds before she did. Hair, teeth and knuckles blurred before me like a grotesque Spirograph. My balls were her usual target so I doubled over to protect them. Her fists were everywhere, my kidneys, my ears, my ribs. In a foetal position, I submerged the pain and cloaked her blows with images of the boys. I was taking this for them. This reminder served to keep my anger under control. It could seethe and rage within the confines of this conscience-cage, but I couldn’t, wouldn’t allow it freedom again. Because then I would be the loser. After what seemed hours, the blows stopped. Anna stood beside me, panting.

‘Prick. I want you out of here.’

I stood up slowly, testing for breaks. I breathed slow and deep to check my ribs. They were sore but unbroken.

‘Anna, I’m not leaving you or the kids.’ I grimaced at the pain.

‘No? We’ll see about that. I’ll just phone the police. They’ll get you out of here.’ If we had been living in a cartoon, a light would have appeared above her head, while an axe hung above mine. ‘That’s what I’ll do, phone the police.’

‘Do what you like, Anna, I’m going upstairs to see how the boys are.’

I
n a weak attempt to inject some routine into the day, I was dressing the boys for an early bedtime when I heard the scream from downstairs.

Panicking, I ran down, taking three steps at a time, my pain forgotten. Anna was screaming insults at someone, but using my name. My steps slowed as I realised what was going on. I walked into the room just as Anna replaced the receiver. Her face was lined with pleasure. Had it been anyone else, I could never have believed the noise that had issued from this room had come from the same woman.

‘The police,’ she smiled, ‘will be here shortly.’ She then walked over to the kitchen door and turning her head to the side and slammed it against the bridge of her nose.

‘What the … are you crazy?’ I sank onto a chair.

Blood bloomed from her nose and sent its garland curving over her lip and down her chin. She made no effort to staunch its flow. Shaking her head wildly, she posted drops of blood all over the room.

‘Anna, stop it.’ I ran for a cloth and amazed at how much blood could stem from a nose bleed, began to clean. A knock at the door interrupted my endeavours.

‘That didn’t take long,’ grinned Anna. ‘Plod must be quiet tonight.’ Then she began to scream. ‘Help, help, somebody help.’ She sank to the floor.

‘Anna, get up and stop acting the fool.’ I stood over her, the
stained cloth in my hand. Footsteps. I was roughly pulled to the side. Turning to my assailant, the first thing I noticed was the uniform. Two uniforms. One belonged to a female, the other male. It was the male, about the same height I was, who held onto my arm. He looked about the same age as me, his once-handsome features softened by too many beers and curries. Anna began to sob pathetically.

‘Thank God, thank God you’re here. I thought he was going to kill me.’

The female officer went over to Anna to console her. She was tall and slim, with blonde hair tucked under her cap. Her finely drawn features were clean of make-up and her eyes sparked with intelligence.