Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  It was like, just me and Mum. We barely saw Dad: he was out in the morning and again in the evening. He didn’t care so long as he got his dinner all right. She was always telling me how she didn’t know how she’d cope without me. She made a real fuss of me. I liked it, It would have worked but…my mum, she’s such a shyster.

  I mean, she didn’t have to bother after that, see. At first I was just helping her. But…I started coming home and she’d be lying dead drunk on the settee next to a pile of ironing or something and beg me to do it because Dad needed his shirts and he’d be furious if she hadn’t done them. I didn’t mind the work, but I knew she was just using me. The thing that really annoyed me was, when she was going out somewhere, or when someone was coming round, she managed to get it together then. The house would be cleaned then. The shopping would be in then. But if it was just me and Dad, she never lifted a finger.

  It started to get me into trouble. One day I was sitting in maths trying to write a shopping list and Mr. Webster the maths master caught me.

  “Well, at least you can add up properly,” he said. I guess he knew what was going on because he smiled and gave it back to me. But he must have told the headmaster or someone and someone obviously got in touch with Mum and Dad at home.

  I got home a couple of days later and they were both there waiting for me, dead drunk, both of them. They were furious. He was going on at me for doing her work and interfering and encouraging her to drink. He was going on at her for using me like a skivvy and interfering with my education, and she was screaming at him for getting between her and her son and telling me how much she relied on me and needed me while she was ill.

  She was really drunk. She started clinging on to me. She does that. She wraps her arms round me and starts moaning and crying and tells me how much she loves me, and I have to help her stand up. It’s horrible. And then…Dad just really lost his temper. He was suddenly coming at both of us with his arms out and his eyes bulging. I thought he was going to kill her. She ducked behind me and I got it right on the side of the face. He knocked me flying. I was just getting up to see if Mum was okay when he came in with the boot…

  It was me he was after, all the time! I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t understand it. He kicked me right round the room. Mum was lying next to the table while it was going on. I saw her find a can of lager and take a swig. Then she got up and flung herself at him and he left me alone after that and went running upstairs. I heard him charge out of the house a moment later and start up the car. Mum was dabbing at my cuts with a flannel. They made me spend a week off school but I was still bruised when I went in the next Monday. No one ever complained to my mum and dad again.

  The thing I could never work out was what he was getting at me for. I mean, if it was Mum, that’d be normal. I’m not saying I wish it had been her, but I could have understood what was going on. So why me?

  I still can’t work it out.

  Things improved for a bit but then it started up again. Dad really used to hate me doing the housework for some reason, so I used to try and get it done before he came home. That way he might think she had done it. So Mum left more and more of it to me, and she was getting drunk earlier and earlier and I felt guilty because I was giving her less to do. They were having more and more rows and I was getting beat up more often…

  That’s why I left. The trouble is…she depended on me. See? I kept thinking of the rows they must be having. I kept thinking about how angry he was going to get, how he’d tell her she’d driven me away…

  Vonny offered to come with me for the phone call, but I felt I had to do it on my own—I don’t know why. It was a mistake, really. If only I’d followed what Gemma said—she understands people so much better than I do. But I found a phone box down the road and dialled the number. My heart was bursting. I said, “Hello,” quietly so as not to shock her too much and…it was like a shock coming down the phone.

  She just said, “David…” Then she waited for me to explain myself.

  I started to talk. I can’t remember what—stuff about me being all right, about finding somewhere to live and everything being okay, and the people being okay and how I was eating enough and looking after myself. You know.

  When I finished there was nothing. I could hear her smoking, that was all. Half the time my mother is falling about, or grabbing hold of me or the tablecloth or the wall or anything else that’s nearby. But this time I felt that she was wide, wide awake, like a bird or a fish that never slept, listening to everything and waiting.

  “I’m sorry I went away,” I said. “I didn’t mean to…I didn’t want to, I mean. And…are you all right, Mum? Mum, say something, won’t you?”

  “I can’t say much, David,” she said in a fairly ordinary voice. “He’s upstairs listening.” Then she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper and she said, “He’s started to beat me…”

  And the bottom just fell out of everything.

  You know, I’d never thought of that. I’d never thought he might do that. But it was so obvious! It was only me being there that stopped him. It felt like someone had picked up the entire world about ten feet and then dropped it on a concrete floor. And it was all my fault.

  She started then, the way she does. I’d thought she was stone cold sober at first, but she was as drunk as ever, really. It was nighttime after all.

  “I’ve been so scared,” she said. “Every night he gets so drunk and I never know what he’ll do next. It’s so lonely. I can’t get the housework done, darling. I try…you know what he’s like…so fussy, so angry when things aren’t right. It’s not his fault, I’ve been a bad wife and a bad mother. You shouldn’t have left me, David, you know that, don’t you?”

  There was a pause. “Yes,” I said. Well, what else could I say?

  “You know how much I’ve relied on you…and I’ve been trying so hard…oh, darling, how could you…?”

  I could almost feel her sliding down the sofa onto the floor and dissolving, weeping. I felt that her tears would trickle out of the telephone and onto my hands.

  “Listen, Mum…” I could hear the sound of her sobs. “Mum, just stop crying, please stop and we’ll talk about it. Is it bad, Mum? Is he hitting you hard?”

  “Darling, please come home, please…He’s been saying that I drove you away…” And she was weeping and weeping and weeping…

  “All right, Mum, please stop…look, I’ll come home, I’ll come home. It’s not forever. I’ll come home.” I would have said anything, then. It was so terrible, him saying that it was her who drove me away, because it wasn’t true at all. It was him who drove me away. But…it was true, too.

  “I’ll come home. All right?”

  “When?”

  “Soon. Mum, there’s just a couple of things I have to do first.”

  “You could do it now. You could walk away and catch a coach…”

  “I haven’t got any money.”

  I could hear her drawing a breath of cigarette smoke as she thought about it. “Hitchhike,” she told me.

  “I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  “And you haven’t got any money? But I thought you said you were all right…”

  Then she was off about me looking after myself. She always worries about me. She always wants to know that I’ve eaten properly and that I’m wearing decent clothes. That sort of thing. She’s a good mother really. Or she would be if she managed to get off the bottle.

  Then she started asking me questions. I was scared about saying too much…she was asking me about the people I was with, where I was, what my address was, what their names were. She said she wanted to thank them in some way, but I didn’t trust her. She got angry because I wouldn’t tell her.

  “Don’t you trust me, David? Don’t you trust me?” she kept saying. And of course I didn’t but I could never say, “No, I don’t trust you,” so I had to make excuses. It went on and on. The pips kept going but I stuffed more money in. I spent three quid talking to her. I onl
y stopped when the money ran out and the phone went dead in mid-sentence.

  I hate my mum more than my dad, because my dad only scares me but my mum makes me feel dirty and useless. She undoes everything I want to do with myself. I felt so shitty when I went away from that box. I’d promised her to come home, I promised her everything I’d sworn I wouldn’t promise. I knew I shouldn’t have rung!

  She always does it. She can make me do anything. She used to do it for fun sometimes, just to amuse herself. She did it in front of Gemma when Gemma came round to see me…just talked and talked and made me go around the house doing stupid jobs for her until I got so anxious and confused I started dropping things and getting embarrassed. I saw my mum glance at Gemma. I knew what was going on. Gemma did too, I’m sure, although she never said anything. My mum was showing off.

  But I’d promised her to go back and I can’t break promises—not to Mum. Not to her of all people. Now I’d have to ring Gemma and tell her not to come. Now I’d have to go back home and the whole mess’d all just carry on forever…

  I was walking round for ages. I got back to the house hours later. It was late. I was hoping they’d all have gone to bed but the light was on in the basement. They’d all want to know how I’d got on.

  I went away and walked round for a bit more, but the light was still on, so I thought, Oh, well, get it over with…

  When I’d finished no one said a word, but then Richard got up and gave me a big hug, then Vonny…even Jerry got up and hugged me. It was…it wasn’t like they knew me so well or anything, and it felt a bit awkward at first because I’m not…my family doesn’t hug much. Sort of like it was medicine they were giving me. But then I forgot about that and clung hold of them and I had to try and try not to cry. It was so miserable.

  Richard said, “But of course you’re not going, you know that, don’t you?”

  I was so surprised. I really didn’t expect them to say that.

  “No,” said Vonny. “Gemma was right about that. Leaving home was the best thing you ever did.”

  I said, “But I promised…”

  “She made you—that’s not a promise,” said Jerry.

  “I don’t think confessions under pressure count,” said Richard.

  “But he’s hitting her…”

  It went on for hours. I just didn’t see any way I could leave her like that. They said all sorts of things to try and convince me. Vonny reckoned that now that he’d started hitting her, he’d keep doing it, so I couldn’t stop it anyway. Richard was going on about how I wasn’t responsible, which I knew anyway but it didn’t help.

  He said, “She can’t look after you and you can’t look after her, can you.

  Everything they said was true. I’d thought all of it myself before. The trouble was it didn’t make any difference. It didn’t matter, none of it. What mattered was, he’d started beating her up since I went away and maybe I could stop him doing it by going back.

  Gemma

  I told him, “She’s lying.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Tar said.

  “Wouldn’t she?” I said, but I hardly needed to, because we both knew she would. She’d tell him she’d been to bed with Prince Charles if it suited her. And expect him to believe it.

  And he would.

  “I told you not to ring her up. She’s only saying it to make you feel guilty. Same as she always does.”

  There was a long pause. I could almost hear him thinking down the phone. I held my breath. Then he said, “I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” And I almost crowed because I was scared stiff he’d come back, and where was I supposed to run away to then?

  “I’m so stupid.”

  “Nah, you’re just too nice,” I said, and I would have covered him with kisses if I could.

  To be honest I wasn’t half as convinced as I made out. He beats Tar up and then when Tar goes he starts on his wife. It was quite logical, except that it was equally logical that she was lying about it.

  “It seemed so typical of him to start on her…” he said.

  “That’s why she said it. That’s what she does, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah…I know.”

  Tar and I made arrangements for Saturday. I think I can say he was a much more cheerful boy by the time I put the phone down.

  I pretty soon found out it was all true after all. Joanne Roberts told me. She lives round the corner from his mum and dad and she found out everything from her mum and dad. Jo said it was the best thing that had happened on their street for years.

  She had a big fat lip. Joanne actually saw the lip when she was out shopping with it. She wore dark glasses but she couldn’t hide the lip.

  Of course, she could have done it falling down the stairs or walking into a wall. She’d done that before. But it sounded like a fair bet it was Mr. Muscles wot done it. It seemed like he didn’t waste much time, either. He walked straight in and thumped her one as soon as she showed him Tar’s note and she ran straight off down the road to a friend of hers who told Joanne’s mum all about it. She slept on the sofa and their cleaning lady said there was a pile of sick behind it in the morning.

  I wasn’t telling Tar that, though. Not yet, anyway. He only needed the slightest excuse to dash back and get beaten up for Mumsy.

  I went round there once and she was all over him. I was surprised she didn’t put her tongue in his ear and wiggle it about. Honestly. She was grabbing hold of him and pulling him on top of her and holding on to him like Young Love, except that she’s about forty and all baggy and scrawny with her hair all over the place, like the Hag Woman of Minely. It quite put me off him for a bit. I’d smell her on him sometimes. She used to use gallons of perfume to try and drown out the booze, and she came out smelling like she drank the stuff. Maybe she did.

  Poor Tar was ever so embarrassed but his dad was livid. He was clanging around in the background pouring drinks for him and her, not forgetting to abuse her for drinking it, of course. I never heard language like it. His dad, actually, must have known she was only doing it to wind him up but he couldn’t help getting angry about it. Not that he wanted to have her wet tongue in his ear…but he didn’t want her to even pretend to put it in anyone else’s, especially not Tar’s. And of course that’s exactly why she did it.

  It was all deeply crazy stuff and both Tar and his dad knew exactly what she was up to but they didn’t seem able to help themselves. She had the old man knocking Tar about, when all he really wanted to do was land one on her.

  It sounded as though he hadn’t wasted much time waiting for his dreams to come true. And of course she wanted Tar to come back and carry on inserting his face in between his dad’s fist and her own ugly mug.

  I had no intention of letting him.

  I tried to get round to have a look at his mum myself. I thought I’d go and knock on the door and pretend to be all sympathetic. Fat chance. My mum and dad would have fed me to the sharks first.

  Since Tar ran off, things had been tighter than ever. Dad wasn’t just picking me up from school. He’d started taking me there as well. He must have got time off work to do it, because I didn’t get ready until about ten to nine. There were top-level meetings at school. I used to catch glimpses of the teachers keeping an eye on me when I went to the loo, that sort of thing. Of course it was All For My Own Good. They wanted every second of my life accounted for. I suppose they thought that the moment I had a spare minute, I’d be peeling my knickers off and diving into the boys’ toilets.

  I tried telling them. “I’M STILL A VIRGIN!” I screamed from the top of the stairs one day.

  There was no reply.

  I’d had the police round questioning me about Tar. Mum and Dad hated that. I think they hated me for it, bringing their home into disrepute or something. They’d even taken to locking the doors in the evening to stop me sneaking out. The stupidity of it, when you think…I mean, I could have gone out of the windows or anything. And, of course, my weekends out hadn’t been banned, not
yet anyway, although I assumed that it was only a matter of time. Let’s face it, if I was going to run off there wasn’t much they could do about it, beyond tying me to the bannisters. As they were soon to find out.

  They thought I was on drugs, too. I got accused of smoking and sniffing glue on the beach with the crowd.

  “I expect that boyfriend of yours is dead by this time,” my father suggested, sounding as though it would be no bad thing. Tar, sniffing glue…I ask you. Or me, for that matter. It’s true some of the kids did it but all I’d ever done was smoke a bit of hash. Of course, they knew all about it. I don’t know who told them but they knew all right.

  My parents belonged to the Slippery Slope school of thought. They had no doubt at all that unless my life was made as miserable as possible, I’d be a junkie whore by midnight.

  I made my plans. I went along with it, staying in, presenting my homework for the nightly check, waiting for my dad at the school gate to collect me. I was even dropping the sarcasm.

  “I hope there’s nothing behind this good behaviour, missy,” my mother told me. Talk about trust. I suppose I overdid the not being sarcastic. Sarcasm flows in my veins like blood. But it shows how much they thought of their darling daughter, that I couldn’t even be good without arousing suspicion.

  If things hadn’t been falling to bits at home I could have arranged it better. I’d have pretended I was staying away with a friend for the weekend. I’d have left on Friday night and they wouldn’t have even known until Monday morning. But there was nothing I could have said. If it involved going away for the weekend they’d know I was out having an orgy and beating up old ladies.

  Still, I did pretty good. Saturday was the best day for it. They’d get furious at teatime when I was supposed to check in and start worrying at night when I didn’t turn up. But in the end they’d get hoisted by their own paranoia. I reckoned they’d think I was staying the night with some boy. It wouldn’t occur to them I was actually giving them the elbow. They’d start really worrying, I mean police worrying, about Sunday night. Monday morning, and they’d get a nice letter in the post from their loving daughter.