by Kevin Brooks
God, I hate those people.
(And when you get to Reason Three, you'll realize why – and how much – I hate them.)
I despise them.
The last time they came to our house, about three weeks before Christmas, they made my mum cry. It was around lunchtime, and I'd taken the day off school because Mum was having one of her really bad days. She gets them sometimes – days when she can't stop thinking about Dad, days when everything gets too much for her… she just kind of breaks down a bit. There's not really all that much I can do for her, but I still try to be at home when she gets like that, you know, just in case…
So, anyway, that day, when the doorbell rang, I was out in the garden with Jesus and Mary. It'd been snowing, and I was trying to make a snowdog… actually, I was trying to make a snow-dachshund, but it's not as easy as it sounds, and I wasn't really having much luck. I had my iPod on, of course, so I didn't hear the doorbell ringing, but I could see that Jesus and Mary had heard something, and from the way they went rushing into the house, yapping and howling like short-legged sausage-wolves, I knew there was someone at the door. But, unfortunately, by the time I got there, Mum had already answered it. And the three Christians in the doorway – two women and one man – were smiling at her and talking at her and ever so kindly pushing leaflets into her hands… and she was crying. I mean, she was crying. And then I saw one of the smiling Christian women step forward and gently touch Mum on the arm, and I heard this awful smiling woman say something about God and faith and healing, which only made my mum cry even more…
And that's when I set the dogs on them.
Reason Two: If God was dead, the shops could stay open later on Sundays.
Reason Three: If God was dead, my dad would never have become addicted to him. And if he'd never become addicted to God, he'd never have lost himself. And if he'd never lost himself…
(as sure as life means nothing)
My dad always had a lot of demons in his head. I don't know where they came from, or what they were, all I know (or think I know) is that he had stuff inside his head (and his heart) that he didn't want to know, and he spent most of his time trying to forget it was there. And I guess that's why he lived his life the way he did. I mean, don't get me wrong, he was a truly wonderful man, and he loved me and my mum so much, and we loved him, that it makes me cry just thinking about it. He was just such a brilliant dad, you know? He used to take me to places all the time (the park, the cinema, the library, the zoo), and he was always telling me stories, making me laugh, playing me songs, singing to me… he even used to dance with me sometimes.
I'll always remember the day, about four or five years ago, when he took Mum and me on a (non-birthday) surprise trip to London. He didn't tell us where we were going or anything, he just woke us up quite early in the morning and told us to hurry up and get dressed because we were all going out for the day. At first, me and Mum just thought he was taking us to the beach or something, but when a taxi arrived and drove us to the train station, and we got there just in time to catch the train to London (on which we had first-class reservations)… well, it was pretty obvious then that we weren't just going to the beach. And it became even more obvious when we arrived in London and there was a stretch limousine waiting for us outside the station. I mean, I know that stretch limos aren't that big a deal any more, but it was still pretty cool, and (because we were all so totally uncool) it was pretty funny too. Which is why, as we piled into the back of the limousine, we were all smiling and giggling like idiots. Inside, the limo was all decked out with leather seats and luxury gadgets and stuff, and the driver was wearing a uniform and a cap, and as he drove us around London, Mum and Dad helped themselves to posh-looking drinks from posh-looking bottles (and I had some iced Coke in a tall glass), and Dad kept pointing out all the famous landmarks to me (Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square)… and eventually we pulled up outside this huge swanky hotel, and a hotel guy (who was also wearing a uniform and a cap) opened the car door for us and welcomed us to the hotel… and that was really funny too, because he kept kind of bowing his head and calling Mum and Dad Madam and Sir, and I don't think either of them had ever been treated like that before. Especially not
Dad. I mean, my dad was kind of grungy, a bit punky, a little bit hippy-y. I'm sure you know what I mean – shoulder-length dyed-blond hair, black nail varnish, baggy jumpers with holes in them, ripped black jeans, earrings, studs, patchouli oil… kind of like a middle-aged (and undead) Kurt Cobain. A Kurt Cobain who wasn't famous and lived with his wife and daughter in a crappy little two-bedroomed house.
So, anyway, despite my dad's non-famous grunginess (and me and Mum's general scruffiness), this hotel guy Madam-ed and Sir-ed us into the hotel, and Dad (with a sly wink at me) slipped him a £5 tip (God knows where he got the money for all this, by the way… although I'm pretty sure now that it must have come from some kind of dodgy-dealery) and then Dad led us into the hotel restaurant, which was unbelievably enormous and plush, and we had what was probably the most expensive meal in the world.
It was fantastic.
Mum and Dad couldn't stop smiling at each other all the time.
Dad kept grinning at me.
And I was just sitting there, stuffing my face, looking around (with wide-open eyes) at the rich people eating their dinners.
It was wonderful.
But that was only the start of it.
After we'd eaten ourselves stupid, Dad surprised us again by taking us up to the fifteenth floor and showing us into the best room in the hotel, which he'd not only booked for the night, but he'd also had filled with all kinds of incredibly nice stuff. There were big bunches of flowers all over the place, boxes of chocolates, bottles of champagne, jars of sweets, some stupidly nice stuffed animals, a selection of DVDs and computer games… he'd even got hold of a big pile of board games from somewhere – Monopoly, Twister, Cluedo, Risk.
It was like an Aladdin's cave in there.
A very luxurious Aladdin's cave.
We spent the rest of the day out and about in London (in our stretch limousine), shopping and seeing the sights, then we came back to the hotel for a rest, then we went out again, this time to an ice-skating rink (where Dad fell over at least a hundred times), and then, at night, we just stayed in the hotel room playing games and watching TV and ordering room service and dancing like fools to rubbishy old songs and laughing ourselves stupid until we couldn't stay awake any more. And then, finally, some time in the early hours of the morning, we all clambered dozily into a bed the size of a football pitch and fell asleep in each other's arms.
(and heaven i think
is too close to hell)
Yeah, he was the best, my dad. Even when he was at his worst, he really was the best. But, like I said, he had his problems.
(take me to the dark)
I don't really understand a lot of these things, so it's kind of hard to explain them, but I think that one of Dad's problems was that he just didn't want to grow up, because growing up (as far as I know) means facing reality, taking responsibility, being normal. And Dad didn't want any of that. All he ever wanted to do was have fun, listen to music, get drunk, take drugs, forget about the bad stuff, pretend everything was OK… and I think Mum was fine with that for a while. She was pretty wild and punky herself, and she was perfectly happy to carry on living it up with Dad, even after I came along. But, as time went on, I think she just got a bit bored with it all. I mean, she didn't stop having fun or listening to music or getting drunk or taking drugs, but she didn't do it all the time.
Unlike Dad.
Dad never stopped.
His demons wouldn't let him.
By the time I was around eight or nine, he was already spiralling out of control. Instead of simply wanting drugs, he was needing drugs. Heroin, mostly. I mean, he'd take anything and everything given the chance, but it was heroin that he was addicted to. And then he started dealing to feed his addiction, and that got him mixed up wit
h all the wrong people, and that led to him getting busted a couple of times and spending a few months in prison. And that kind of scared him into realizing what he was doing, and eventually he managed to kick his heroin habit. But instead of staying clean, he just started drinking like a madman, and for the next few years my truly wonderful dad became this truly horrendous puffy-faced alcoholic.
And then, one day…
Mum and me had been out shopping together (well, not so much shopping together as walking around town together, looking in shop windows at stuff we'd like to buy if we had any money), and Mum was in a fairly bad mood about something, which I guessed was something to do with Dad, because the day before I'd heard them shouting at each other, and later that night I'd heard her crying quietly in their bedroom.
Anyway, it must have been about four o'clock when we got back from town. The November sky was already darkening, and a cold drizzly rain was beginning to fall. After we'd hurried back home from the bus stop and let ourselves into the comparative warmth of the house, the first thing I noticed was the whiffy smell of dog poo. Jesus and Mary were about seven or eight months old at the time, and although they were pretty much house-trained, they still had their little accidents now and then – especially if whoever was supposed to be looking after them had neglected to let them out… which, in this case, was Dad.
Me and Mum both spotted the dog poo on the hallway carpet at the same time, and we both saw Jesus skulking guiltily into the kitchen, and we both knew whose fault it was.
‘Oh, Dad…’ I sighed.
‘John!’ Mum called out angrily.
There was no answer.
But we knew Dad was in, because we could hear voices coming from the front room – Dad's voice, and some others that I didn't recognize. When I looked at Mum, she closed her eyes in exasperation and slowly shook her head, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing – that Dad was in the front room getting drunk with a bunch of his drunk/ druggy friends, and because he was drunk he'd forgotten all about Jesus and Mary.
Of course, it didn't really matter that Jesus had pooed on the floor. I mean, it wasn't like a disaster or anything. But letting it happen, and making Jesus feel guilty about it when it wasn't his fault… well, it was just such a lousy thing for Dad to do – so thoughtless and selfish and stupid. And what was even more idiotic about it was that Dad was already in Mum's bad books anyway. Which is why I wasn't at all surprised when Mum shoved open the door and went marching into the front room, her fists clenched, her eyes narrowed, her anger about to explode…
But the explosion never happened.
Instead, as I followed Mum into the room, I saw her stop suddenly and say ‘Oh,’ in a taken-aback kind of way, as if she'd just seen something she hadn't expected to see, and when I moved to her side and looked into the room, I knew exactly how she felt.
Dad was drunk, and he wasn't alone, but the people in the room with him were nothing like the drunk/druggy people we'd both imagined. There were three of them – two men and a woman. The men were sitting on the settee, the woman was in the armchair, and Dad was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them. The men (both in their twenties) were pale-faced and wore cheap black suits, and the woman (who was about sixty) was dressed in a brown woollen jacket and a long black smocky kind of skirt. They all had Bibles in their hands, and they all had those simpering God-seller smiles on their faces.
Dad was smiling too.
And he had a Bible in his hand.
And his eyes…
God, his eyes.
Although they were the same old booze-addled eyes that I'd got to know so well – unfocused, reddened, puffy, dull – they somehow weren't his eyes any more. They were the eyes of someone who thinks they've found the answer to everything.
It was terrifying.
About a week after that, Dad sobered up.
Stopped drinking.
Stopped taking drugs.
And replaced them both with God.
(i'm going to the darklands)
That was the worst time for me, when Dad became a God addict. For the first few weeks, all he ever did – day and night – was sit in the front room reading the Bible. He stopped eating, stopped going out, stopped washing, stopped changing his clothes. And the only time he ever slept was when he physically couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. All he did, hour upon hour, was sit there like a man possessed (which I guess he was), devouring every single word of the Bible. Occasionally he'd mutter and mumble to himself as he underlined particular passages or scribbled tiny notes in the margins, but most of the time he was silent.
And that wasn't my dad.
That was someone else.
Something else.
Another dad.
Even when he started getting back to some of his old ways – going out again, mixing with the wrong people again… boozing again – he still wasn't my dad any more. He'd start drinking (and reading the Bible) as soon as he woke up now, glugging down the remains of last night's bottle, and he wouldn't stop drinking (and reading the Bible) until he passed out. It was almost as if he'd become some kind of born-again alcoholic. Like he'd found whatever he was looking for – he'd found his salvation – through drinking again, only now it was all mixed up with God, like some kind of abominable cocktail. And it was the God part of the cocktail that really ripped me apart. I mean, I'd never liked it when he'd been just a junky or just an alcoholic, but at least then he'd still been my dad. Even when he was totally whacked out of his head, he'd still have some of his Dadness left. But now he'd found God… well, it just seemed to suck all the Dadness out of him. It sucked everything out of him – his mind, his soul, his life, his love…
I hated it.
Mum hated it.
‘It's killing him,’ she told me once.
And she was right.
But that wasn't the end of it…
(oh something won't let me
go to the place
where the darklands are)
Reason Four: There is no Reason Four.
head (1)
I'm still sitting on my bed with Jesus and Mary, still lost in my head with my Dad-thoughts and my God-thoughts and the drowning beauty of The Jesus and Mary Chain swirling darkly around the room, when all at once the dogs' ears prick up and they both jump off the bed and start yapping away like crazy at the bedroom door. It's their someone-at-the-front-door bark (ROWROWROWROWROWROWROW), which is kind of surprising because the clock on my bedside table says 22:39… not that that's late or anything. I mean, when Dad was here we'd get people calling round at all times of the night. But Dad isn't here any more. And me and Mum don't get too many visitors, especially at this time of night.
Hence the surprise.
Anyway, by the time I've got off the bed and turned the music down and let Jesus and Mary out, and they've gone careering down the stairs (ROWROWROWROWROWROWROW), I can already hear Mum opening the front door and cautiously saying hello to someone.
‘Who is it, Mum?’ I call out, starting down the stairs.
I can't really hear much over the excited barking, but what I can hear doesn't sound too bad. I mean, it doesn't sound like someone Mum doesn't want to see (she's been dreading a visit from the police ever since Dad disappeared).
‘Mum?’ I call out again, nearing the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you all right? Who is it?’
Whoever it is, she's letting them in now. And Jesus and Mary aren't barking any more, they're just kind of squiggling around in the doorway, wagging their tails, whining and groaning in doggy delight.
‘It's some friends of yours,’ Mum says, stepping unsteadily to one side and smiling dopily at me. (Friends of mine? I think to myself.) She turns back to whoever's at the door and ushers them inside. ‘Go on in,’ she tells them.
And in they come – a bad-assed vision of flat bellies and breasts and clinking carrier bags – Mel Monroe and Taylor Harding.
‘Hey, Dawn,’ Taylor grins. ‘How's it going?’
<
br /> (What?)
‘Yeah,’ says Mel. ‘Y'all right?’
I can't speak. I just stand there at the foot of the stairs, staring dumbly at them as they move along the hallway towards me. Taylor peers into the front room as she passes by, giving it a quick once over, and Mel's eyes are kind of flicking around too, taking everything in. Behind them, I can see Mum closing the front door and giving me a vague nod of approval, as if to say – well done, Dawn, it's good to see you've got some friends at last. And I want to tell her – no, these aren't my friends… I don't even want them to be here. But Taylor's standing right in front of me now, and all I can do is look up into her eyes and see the hardness beneath the smile.
‘So,’ she says quietly. ‘D'you fancy a drink then?’
(walk away
you empty head)
Taylor starts jabbering at me as I reluctantly lead them upstairs to my room. ‘The party got blown out,’ she tells me. ‘Mel's mum came back, so we had to call it off. We just thought we'd better come round and let you know, you know? We would've rung you, but we don't know your number…’
I'm not really listening to her (although I'm listening enough to wonder why she's gone back to the story about the party being at Mel's place rather than hers), I'm just kind of filled with a belly-wobbling mixture of strangeness, confusion, and unwanted curiosity. I don't want to be curious about what they're doing here. I don't want to be anything about it. I just want them to be gone. Please, I want to say, get out of my house, leave me alone. I don't want you to be here.
But I don't have the guts to say anything.
Instead, as Taylor is still yapping away – ‘… and as we were coming round here anyway, we thought we might as well bring something to drink… you know, like it's a shame to waste it…’ – I open my bedroom door and they follow me inside.
