This Is Not Forgiveness (9 page)

‘Why don’t you go and see if he’s OK?’ She says this in a bright and breezy, what-a-good-idea kind of way.

‘Do I have to? It’s not exactly what I had planned and I’m working this afternoon!’

I’ve had enough of Rob for the time being. I’m feeling bruised from the night before, and not just on my arm.

‘Please, Jamie. It’ll put my mind at rest and you know I can’t go.’

‘Oh, OK.’ I figure she’s got enough on her plate without me making her life more difficult. Besides, I’m spent up from last night and need to be in her good books.

‘You can take him these.’ She hands me a stack of ready-meals. ‘I’m worried he’s not eating properly.’

‘And those are “eating properly”?’ Martha raises an eyebrow.

‘It’s better than chips and takeaways.’

‘Only marginally.’

‘Give it a rest, Martha.’ Mum gives her a look. ‘I don’t want a lecture on nutrition from you.’

Martha doesn’t reply but looks mutinous and sulky. Nobody’s saying it, but Mum’s main worry about Rob isn’t to do with food, it’s to do with a drug intake and alcohol consumption which is verging on heroic. Mum doesn’t know the half of it, but what she does know about has her worried. She’d never blame him for it. He holds such rage deep inside him; drinking and smoking dope are the only way to damp it down. Mum knows that as well as I do.

‘Your dad had his own demons,’ is what she says. ‘I’m the last one to judge.’

It was her forgiveness, her understanding that made it so Rob couldn’t stand to be near her. It’s better now he doesn’t live here, but he doesn’t like her going down there. When she does go to see him, she does things that really annoy him, like collecting all the bottles and putting them into the recycling. She doesn’t mean to, but she just gets on his nerves.

‘Anything else you want me to take?’

‘Yes – I’ve got some stuff in the freezer. I suppose he was drinking last night?’

It’s so obvious, I don’t even answer.

‘He really shouldn’t, not with all the medication he’s taking.’

‘
Supposed
to be taking,’ Martha says. ‘He knows that, Mum.
We
know that. How do you stop him?’

‘That’s why I wish he was back here . . .’

Mum stops what she’s doing and leans on the kitchen counter. All her concerns about him settling on her, pulling her face down into sagging lines.

‘Oh!’ Martha turns  on her. ‘And that worked, didn’t it? He still drank like a fish, smoked all the time, came in at all hours, making the whole place stink of beer and takeaways. He never took a bit of notice of you, or any of us. It was a nightmare, Mum, and you know it. It’s been loads better since he went down to Grandpa’s.’

Mum does not reply. She just winces as though each one of Martha’s words is a little tiny blow and goes to get things out of the freezer.

‘Take these down, too,’ she says to me. ‘They’re home-made.’ She looks over at Martha. ‘And I wish one of you at least would go and visit Grandpa. He does so like to see you.’

Mum is trying to deflect the conversation away from Rob, but Martha’s not having any.

‘Never mind Grandpa. He doesn’t even know who we are! Rob’s a fuck-up, Mum. Why don’t you admit it?’

Swearing was a mistake. Mum rallies. ‘I won’t have you swearing, Martha.’

‘Why not? Rob does, so does Jamie.’

‘Hey! Don’t drag me into it!’

‘I don’t like
any
of you swearing. Not in the house. You know that.’

‘I wasn’t swearing as such, Mother, just making a statement of fact.’ When she’s in the wrong, when she’s cornered, Martha shows her claws. ‘Perhaps you prefer the term “nutter”. Is that more acceptable?’

‘He’s your
brother
, Martha. I would expect you to be more understanding.’

‘Whatever. He’s only happy when he’s causing trouble, I know that. He’s doing it now and he isn’t even here. He nearly split you and Jack up and . . .’

‘Don’t drag me into it, either,’ Jack says, trying to make light of it but his shoulders tighten. He carries on putting cans and groceries away.

‘I’ll be off now,’ he says. ‘See you later.’

He goes without anyone really noticing. He doesn’t like it when we row like this. Who would? It doesn’t happen all that often, and it’s always about Rob. Martha’s right. He doesn’t have to
be
there – he can detonate rows by remote control.

‘He’s had his problems, you know that, Martha,’ Mum says. ‘He was very badly wounded. It takes a long time to get over it. It’s up to us to be understanding. He’s suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’

‘Is he crap! That’s just an excuse for doing what he likes and being a total prick. No one asked him to join the Army. No one asked the Army to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. He joined up because he wanted to. He loved it. He actually
liked
killing people. He told me.’

‘You are making out he’s a monster.’ Mum rounds on her. ‘I won’t have it.’

‘He didn’t actually say that,’ I point out. ‘He said he liked being a sniper.’

‘And what do snipers do? They kill people!’

‘Only bad guys.’

‘We all know that’s not strictly true.’ Martha glares, defiant, but I can tell that she knows she has gone too far.

The kitchen goes quiet. You can hear the tap drip, drip, dripping in the silence. When Rob first came back, he’d wake up sobbing and Mum would go in to him. He talked to her about things he’d done that he shouldn’t. One time, Martha overheard them. She’s stored it away to use against him.

‘We don’t talk about that, Martha.’ Mum’s voice drops to just above a whisper. ‘Not ever. Do you understand me?’

Martha nods. Her face is still flushed with anger but she doesn’t say anything. She bites down on her lip and looks away from me quickly to hide the tears starting in her eyes. However hard she tries to be, she doesn’t like to fight with Mum. Mum doesn’t like to fight, either. I dash upstairs to grab a shower. I’m still in T-shirt and boxers. I don’t want to be around for the hugging and crying and girly heart-to-heart.

Chapter 11

I go down on my bike. All the curtains are drawn. He’s generally an early riser, but after last night I’m not sure that he’s going to be up. The door’s on the latch, he must have forgotten to lock it last night, so I let myself in. I go into the kitchen to drop off the stuff and he’s there, sitting in his boxers, laptop open on the counter. One eye is closed, the lid red and shiny, the skin underneath stained purple shading to black. His nose is swollen, thickened across the bridge, and his lip is cut and puffy. His knuckles are scabbing over. There are bruises as big as hand-spans down the sides of his torso, blue and green circles with purple centres where the boots connected.

‘You’re lucky your ribs aren’t bust.’

I lay the boxes on the counter. The laptop goes to the screensaver downloaded from
The Sun
. He was probably on some porn site. The screen he was viewing comes back momentarily. He wasn’t looking at porn; he was looking at guns.

‘Will you look at that?’ He keeps his finger on the touch pad. ‘The Barrett M107 50 cal. Most powerful sniper rifle to date. The bullets are five inches long.’ He stretches thumb and forefinger. ‘Big as your dick, little brother. It’s accurate up to one and a half miles, maybe two. It can punch through concrete, armour-plating. If you get hit by that, you don’t get up.’

He closes the site and the screensaver comes back again.

‘How’s your lip?’

‘It’s nothing.’ He’s speaking with a lisp out of the left side of his mouth. ‘Must have got hit by a south paw. Don’t hurt. Much.’ He gives a lopsided grin and his laugh turns to a wince. ‘That does.’ He reaches across and opens the bag that I’ve put on the counter. ‘Not more stuff from Mum.
Be Good to Yourself
? Jesus Christ! I bet that’s Martha.’ He squints at it through his good eye. ‘Do us a favour and chuck it in the bin.’

But I don’t do that. I put it in the freezer. There is no food in the fridge. The shelves are stacked with cans and bottles: Guinness, Murphy’s, Stella, Carlsberg, Budweiser, Miller, Magners, all arranged by size and label.

‘Stop fussing around.’ He reaches past me to take out a Bud, then readjusts a Carlsberg that has got slightly out of line. ‘You’re as bad as the old dear.’

He pulls the tab and gulps the contents, the beer spilling down his chin and dripping on to his chest. He wipes it round, like it’s some kind of lotion.

‘That’s better!’ He lets out a belch. ‘Beer’s the best thing for a hangover, you know that? What you doing now? I fancy a full English. They do a good one down at Kelley’s. Wash it down with a pint of Murphy’s. Coming?’

‘Nah. I’m on my way to work.’

‘Punting the punters, eh?’

‘I’m the punter, to be strictly accurate.’

‘You said it!’ His laugh ends in a grimace. ‘Piss off, will you? You’re killing me! Literally!’ He doubles up. ‘They really did my ribs over. Jesus Christ! I think I’ve punctured something.’

‘Sure you don’t want to go down the hospital? Check it out?’

‘Fuck that! I hate hospitals. Look what they did to Grandpa.’

‘He had a stroke. There was nothing they
could
do.’

‘That’s their story. He was OK when he went in. Next thing you know, he can’t find his own arse.’

That’s not how it was, but there’s no point arguing. Rob loved Grandpa and doesn’t like what’s happened to him.

‘If it gets any worse, I’ll get Bryn to strap it for me. It’s only what they’d do, anyway.’

‘He still here?’

‘Yeah, sleeping on the sofa. Couldn’t face the wifey giving him grief. Lads stayed, had a bit of a session. What happened to you? I can’t remember that much . . .’

‘Bryn gave the cabbie money to take me on home.’

I look through the glass door to the living room. A couple of the guys are in there, sleeping on cushions. A faint reek seeps out: beer and cigarette smoke. All the bottles and cans have been removed and the ashtrays emptied. The magazines on the table are in a squared stack, spines facing out, even if they are porn. Even though his life is in chaos, Rob likes things to be neat. When he lived at home, he’d put his toiletries out in a row on the bathroom windowsill; he even had creases in his flannel. Everything had to be just so; he’d go spare if anyone so much as nudged his razor so it lay at a different angle. Martha thinks he’s got OCD – obsessive–compulsive disorder. Mum put it down to wanting to be tidy.

It suited him living with Grandpa. He was the same way. It’s probably something to do with being in the Army. Grandpa’s stuff is still about the place. His clock is on the mantelpiece, stopped on the day he left the house. Rob won’t wind it. Or perhaps he can’t be bothered. Grandpa’s souvenirs are arranged on the shelf above the telly with his books on military history. Rob keeps them dusted and polished, along with some of Gran’s ornaments: a pair of pottery dogs, a shepherd and shepherdess, little china baskets where she used to keep sweets for us. Grandpa only kept a few of her things, enough to remember her by. What Mum didn’t want, he sent to Oxfam. Strange to think that they are all still here and he’s not coming back.

‘I better get going.’

‘Yeah? Say “hi” to Alan for me. Sure you don’t want a beer?’

‘Nah, I’m good.’

‘Please yourself.’

He goes to the fridge to get another can. He looks vulnerable, dressed just in boxer shorts, his nakedness brutally revealing. He’s got a lot of tattooings, varying from unrecognisable squiggles to regimental insignia and more elaborate designs that aren’t finished, as if he got bored halfway through, or came to and left the tattooing parlour, but it’s not the gallery on his arms and chest which attracts the eye. His right leg is quite a bit shorter than the left. He wears an insert in his shoe, so normally it’s almost undetectable, but barefoot it’s obvious. It gives him a rolling gait, the limp very pronounced. He goes back to the counter and lights a cigarette, stretching out the bad leg. It still hurts him. Aches all the time. The crossed rifles, the snipers’ insignia, are high on the thigh. Below that the scars show in silver-white lines, up and down like zips. The muscles are twisted, puckered and pitted where the pins went in, the skin ridged and patched with transplanted flesh. I’ve seen him rage and cry with frustration, but through all the months of treatment he never complained about the pain. He just endured it. He’s brave – no doubt. But the other stuff, the stuff he wants to do but can’t, never will be able to, that’s getting to him now. I want to help, but there’s nothing I can do.

I don’t know what to do about him, or the sadness I’m feeling, so I just say, ‘See you,’ and I go down the hall past Grandpa’s photographs of past wars. Him and his mates perched on tanks and armoured cars, grinning at the camera, arms round each other, fags dangling. The photos are faded; all the young men in them are old now, dead or gaga.

‘Yeah, see you, bro.’

I leave him staring at his laptop, sucking on a can of beer, his other hand moving as he brings the picture back again. He looks vulnerable. Lonely. His life is fucked and he’s going nowhere, living in an old man’s house, surrounded by an old man’s stuff, in a geriatric cul-de-sac. He hasn’t adapted well to civilian life. He hasn’t adapted at all. He’s stopped going  to counselling. He refuses to take advantage of any kind of rehabilitation package. ‘Lots of lads got it worse than me,’ that’s what he says.