Zom-B (9 page)
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Mum asks, bewildered.
“We’d be better off if they took a dozen little Indians and dumped them in the Thames.” Dad laughs, like he’s only joking, but I know he’s genuinely angry.
Mum frowns. “Don’t say things like that, Todd. It’s not funny. It’s not the poor baby’s fault it’s Indian.”
“It’s not mine either, is it?” Dad snaps. He glares at Mum, then looks at me and grimaces. “I like that you tried to help, but if it had been an English kid…”
“That’s outrageous,” Mum says frostily. “Babies are innocent. Would you have left the child to those two beasts?”
“Nobody’s innocent,” Dad says. “It’s us against them. Always has been, always will be. If we start fighting their battles for them, where will it stop? Do we let them stay because they have cute babies? Keep on giving them benefits, so they can spit out more of the buggers, until they have enough to out-vote us? Babies grow up. They infest good schools and ruin them. They buy houses and destroy neighborhoods. They import drugs and sell them to our kids. They blow things up.
“They were all babies once,” Dad says. “Every last terrorist and job-stealing scab was like that boy in the museum. We can’t be soft. We can’t give ground.
Ever.
”
“You’re wrong,” Mum says, and I think Dad’s even more amazed than I am. She’s never spoken to him like this before. I wouldn’t have thought that she could. “There are bad people in the world,
Todd, white as well as colored. We can’t let people steal babies. We’d be cruel if we–”
Dad’s hand shoots up and he slaps her, hard. Her head cracks back and she cries out. He grabs her throat and squeezes. His eyes are wild. I throw myself at him, roaring at him to stop. He hits me with his free hand, slaps me even harder than he slapped Mum. I’m knocked to the floor by the force of the blow, but Dad barely notices. He’s fully fixed on Mum.
“Don’t ever talk to me that way,” Dad snarls. “I won’t have you turn on me. If you ever stick up for those bastards again, I’ll kill you. You hear me, woman? Do. You. Bloody. Well.
Hear.
Me?”
He shakes her with every word. Mum makes a choking noise and tries to nod. Her fingers scratch at his arms. For a moment I think he’s gonna finish her off, that this is how it will end. All these years, all the beatings, all leading to this. I push myself to my feet, ready to lunge at him again, desperate to stop him, to save Mum, to escape with her before he can make good on his threat.
But then Dad’s fingers relax and withdraw. He clutches Mum’s chin and gives her the evil eyeball. She’s weeping. Her nose is bleeding. The flesh under her left eye is already starting to puff up. Dad wipes blood from her lip and smiles tightly.
“You’ll be all right,” he says as if she’d just tripped and hurt herself. “Go make us all a cuppa. Have a cig out back. You’ll be fine when you come in. Won’t you?”
Mum gasps repeatedly like a dying fish. Dad’s fingers clench.
“
Won’t you?
” he barks, sharper this time, wanting to hear an answer.
“Yes… Todd,” Mum wheezes.
Dad releases her. She gets up and stumbles to the kitchen, trying not to sob, knowing that if she makes too much noise it will infuriate him and maybe set him off again.
Dad looks at me and I wait for him to follow up his first blow. If he lays into me, I’ll just stand here and let him beat me. It’s the best thing to do. He loses his head completely if I fight back. I don’t mind the beatings, the pain. As long as Mum’s out of the way and safe, he can hit me as hard as he likes.
“I’ll say this, though,” Dad says slowly, then pauses, letting me know that he could swing either way right now, that he can laugh this off or come down hard on me, that he has the power, that me and Mum are his to control. “I wish I’d been there to see you knee that sod.”
We both laugh, Dad loudly, me weakly. He switches channels to a quiz show, gets a few answers right and chuckles proudly, delighted with himself. Mum brings the tea and he pats her bum as she places it before him. She smiles crookedly, sits by his side and kisses the hand he struck her with.
Later, in my room, sitting up in bed, listening to tunes on my iPod. Crying. I hate tears but tonight I can’t hold them back. I’m not
in much pain–the slap didn’t even leave a mark–but inside I feel wretched.
I don’t want to blame Dad for what he did. I make excuses for him, the way I always do. Mum shouldn’t have challenged him. She knows what he’s like. She should have read his mood and…
No. I can’t put the blame on her. I was wrong too. I shouldn’t have risked my neck for an Indian kid. I should have left the baby to the mutants. One less for us to kick out of the country. Dad was right. He was trying to help us see the world the way it really is. We should have listened. It wasn’t his fault. I shouldn’t have saved the baby. Mum should have kept her mouth shut.
I tell myself that over and over. I make every excuse for him that I can. And I try to believe. I try so bloody hard to justify his actions, because he’s my dad and I love him. But deep down I know it’s a load of bull.
When I’m crying so hard that I’m making moaning sounds, I channel the music through my speakers so that Dad won’t hear. Then I weep harder, fingers balled into fists, face scrunched up with hate and confusion.
He’s a bully. A wife beater. A racist. A hateful, nasty sod. I want to hang him up by his thumbs. Sneer at him as he writhes in agony. Ask him if he’s proud of himself now, if he still thinks it’s all right to beat up a woman and child.
Then I despise myself for thinking such a terrible thing. He wants what’s best for us. He’s trying to help, doing all that he can to
steer us the right way. He only hits us when we let him down. We have to try harder. We…
“I hate him,” I moan, burying my face in my hands.
But he’s my dad.
“I hate him.”
But he’s my dad.
“I hate him.”
But…
Saturday drags. I stay in all day. A few of my mates call and ask me to come meet up, but I tell them I don’t feel well. They say everyone’s talking about me and how I rescued the baby. I laugh it off like it’s no big deal.
Dad takes us out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Mum dresses up and slaps makeup over her bruise. She and Dad share a couple of bottles of wine. He lets me have a sip when nobody’s watching. Laughs when I grimace.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get used to it.”
Dad’s polite as he can be to the staff. Funny how he doesn’t have a problem with foreigners when they’re serving him food. Most of his favorite grub comes
from overseas, Chinese, Italian, Indian. I consider pointing that out to him, but I don’t want to set him off again.
Mum and Dad head to the pub after the meal, leaving me to guard the fort at home. Dad gives me a fiver and tells me to treat myself to some chips and sweets. He scratches my head and grins. I grin back. The aggro of yesterday isn’t forgotten by any of us, but we move on, the way we always do. No point living in the past. We’d have burned out long ago if we held grudges.
I watch a film, surf the Web, download some new tracks, play a few games, go to bed late. I don’t hear the old pair come home.
I get up about midday. Dad’s still asleep. Mum’s working on a Sunday roast. We’re a bit stiff with each other. It always takes us a while to return to normal after Dad loses his temper. We’re both embarrassed.
We eat at two. Dad’s hungover but he still manages to polish off his plate. He loves roasts, never leaves more than scraps. He drinks beer with the meal, saying that’s the only way to combat a hangover. Normally he praises Mum’s cooking but he doesn’t say much today, nursing a headache.
“That was nice,” I mutter as Mum clears up.
“I’ve got dessert for later,” Mum smiles. “Pavlova. Your favorite.”
It’s actually Dad’s favorite, but I don’t mind. We share a smile. Things are getting better. The air doesn’t feel so tight around me now.
Dad watches soccer in the afternoon. I watch some of the match with him. I make a few scathing comments about Premiership players and how they’re overpaid prima donnas. That’s usually guaranteed to set him off on an enthusiastic rant, but today he just grunts, wincing every now and then, rubbing his head as if that will make the pain go away.
Some of Mum’s friends come to visit. They don’t say anything about her face, don’t even ask if she had an accident. They start chirping about what happened at the War Museum but Mum shushes them before Dad kicks off again. They retreat to the kitchen and carry on in whispers.
I go to my room when the soccer’s over and phone Vinyl, hoping he won’t have heard about the museum. No such luck.
“I hear you’re London’s newest superhero,” he chuckles.
“Get stuffed.”
“They should send you over to Ireland to stamp out the zombies.”
“Don’t make me come and give you a kicking,” I warn him.
He asks if I’ve heard the latest rumors. Apparently Pallaskenry wasn’t the first place the zombies struck. According to supposedly classified documents that have somehow surfaced on the Internet, there were at least three other attacks in small, out-of-the-way villages, one in Africa, two in South America.
“If that’s true,” Vinyl says, “you can bet there’s been even more of them in places we haven’t heard of yet.”
“It’s all crap,” I tell him. “They’re trying to scare us.”
“Maybe,” he hums. “But it looks like the curfew’s going ahead. They’ve already introduced it in a lot of towns in Wales, since that’s so close to Ireland. London nightlife’s gonna be a thing of the past soon.”
“That won’t last,” I snort. “You think people here will stand for a lockdown? I give it a week or less. The rumors will die away, the curfew will be lifted, everything will go back to normal.”
“I hope so,” he sighs.
We chat about TV and music. I tell Vinyl how Nancy confronted me at school, treating me like a racist. I get huffy about it, conveniently not mentioning the fact that I made gorilla noises. Vinyl isn’t in the least sympathetic.
“Well, you
are
a racist,” he notes.
“No I’m not,” I snap. “I’m talking to you, and you’re hardly Snow White.”
“I’m your token black friend,” he chuckles.
“No,” I sniff. “You’re my token retarded friend.”
I hang up before he can yell at me. Giggling wickedly, delighted to have trumped him, I punch the air, then go take a long, hot bath. There’s nothing like a good soak when it comes to relaxing. I lie in the tub for an hour, staring at the drops of condensation on the ceiling and window, feeling peaceful. The old scar on my thigh is itchy, so I scratch it, then turn on my side and let the air at it. When it stops annoying me, I lie flat again.
Mum and I watch TV together later. Dad’s gone out to the pub. Mum opens a box of chocolates and we share them. Belgian chocs. They’re nice, but I prefer Roses or Quality Street. You can’t beat a good Strawberry Cream.
Dad gets back with a few of his mates not long after ten. My stomach tenses when they enter–I think Owl Man is going to be with them–but these are just some of his campaign buddies. They have posters and leaflets. Local elections aren’t for another three or four months, but they’ve been asked to start canvassing early. One of the posters has a picture of a zombie, set next to a photo of a Muslim bomber. WHICH DO YOU FEAR MOST? it asks.
Dad and his mates love the poster. Mum and I pretend to admire it too. Then we go to bed early. Dad doesn’t like us hanging around when he’s talking shop. I’m sure that I’ll struggle to drop off, or have the nightmare again, but I don’t. I’m out in a minute and sleep the sleep of the dead after that.
I could do without school on Monday. I think about giving it a miss–wouldn’t be the first time–but I don’t fancy the idea of trudging around the streets by myself. If I’d met up with my mates over the weekend, I could have arranged for a few of them to skip school with me. But it’s too late to organize that now, so I decide to struggle through and maybe take tomorrow off instead.
Everyone’s still talking about the museum, the way I rescued the baby. Suze and La Lips shiver when they ask me to re-create it for them, eyes wide, wanting a tale of blood, treachery and heroism.
