Wronged Sons, The

by Marrs, John

  But nothing came close to matching what she’d asked for. My designs were, at best, bland and lacked oomph and if I knew it, Margaret would too.

  If ever I needed a glass of wine for inspiration, it was then. And when the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed four times, I retired to bed, defeated but sober.

  The following three nights were exactly the same; I’d already buckled under pressure. On day five, I tossed and turned in bed and reluctantly admitted it had all been pie in the sky. My mum was right; I’d never be as good as her. Her work was so much better than mine, yet she knew her place, and it wasn’t creating something for someone else’s approval.

  I thought about the clothes in her wardrobe and how they were timeless pieces that would’ve looked fantastic on rails twenty years later. Well, maybe with a raised hem here or a belt there. Or an extra couple buttons and a zip. Actually there were a lot of her designs that could work, I told myself. Then I had an idea.

  I padded down the stairs in my dressing gown and slippers; spread out the silk fabric I’d been keeping for something special and began to work from memory borrowing some of my mum’s designs for inspiration.

  And I continued like that for the next two weeks with different materials until I finished my three original pieces. Then I thanked my mum and went to bed, knackered but smiling.

  From Harpole’s cemetery, I swear I heard the sound of her turning in her grave.

  February 4, 1pm

  Silence. Fifteen long, gut-wrenching minutes of it. I was so nervous my hands were sweating.

  After presenting Margaret with a business suit, a pair of stirrup pants and a silk satin dress my heart was in my throat as I watched her prod them, tug at their seams, hold them up to the light and shake them like she was trying to get the last drop out of ketchup out of a bottle. Finally, she was done.

  “How quickly can you make another three?” she asked. I wanted to grab her and squeeze her till her beehive fell apart or her shoulder pads split.

  With a couple of minor alterations, my outfits were on Fabien’s clothes rails by the end of the week. Every time I thought about what I’d accomplished over that fortnight, I’d break into a huge, beaming smile. I crossed my fingers and hoped at least one of them might find a buyer.

  I needn’t have worried. By the time I returned with more, the first three had already been snapped up. Margaret handed me a cheque for £140 – the equivalent of two weeks’ supermarket work. If I hadn’t needed the money so badly, I’d have framed it and stuck it on the wall for the entire world to see.

  However, dividing my life three ways between three jobs and three kids stressed me out. And I knew I could make so many more clothes if I had full days and not just a few snatched hours here and there. When I fell asleep at the sewing machine for a second time, I was ready to admit I wasn’t Wonder Woman. Something had to give so I took the plunge and handed my notice in at the supermarket but as I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, I kept ironing my neighbours’ clothes. And I saved a little money from each of Margaret’s payments to start refurnishing our home.

  First I bought the children second-had bikes, then, gradually, I replaced the pieces of furniture I’d sold and started kitting out my sewing room. Soon what was once the dining room became a space crammed with clothes rails, stacks of magazines, materials, two mannequins’ torsos and boxes of coloured cotton bobbins.

  I thought back to a few months earlier when I’d used that room to come up with ridiculous theories as to what could’ve happened to you. Now I was using it to leaf through library books on the modern history of clothing from classics like Christian Dior and Guccio Gucci to new stars like Giorgio Armani and Muccia Prada.

  As my ideas and inspirations flowed thick and fast I began to realise when you found your way home, I wouldn’t be the Kitty you used to know. I was moving in a new direction and becoming stronger off my own back. While I was getting to know, and like, the new me, I felt guilty for thinking not all change was a bad thing.

  February 19, 3.50am

  In my dreams, you were only ever an outline of a man; a quiet blur hiding in the corners of rooms, watching me.

  But that night, I saw your face. I stood by our bedroom window in the wee hours, watching your motionless body in the fields peering back at me. Eventually, you smiled, and I felt myself blush like the first time you looked at me in English Lit class.

  When you turned your back and walked away, I panicked and shouted for you, but you ignored me. I hammered on the glass with my fists, but you slipped into a speck of dust on the horizon. I screamed louder and louder until I woke myself up, then lay there, angry with you.

  Suddenly Dougie’s face burst into my head with such uninvited speed, it made me jump. For two years, I’d kept him at arm’s length, but I’d have been a fool to think it was that easy. I’d always believed I could read people quite well because the only way to stop myself from being burned by my mum’s acid tongue was to judge her flavour before approaching her.

  Steven and Roger were easy to pigeonhole and they hadn’t changed much as they’d grown from boys to men. But Dougie was different. When it was just you and he, you’d be a lot more serious; with the others, you were one of the lads. I nicknamed you the chameleon and quite liked that you’d change your colours to suit your environment without ever losing sight of who you were. Dougie, Steven, Roger and I were all just pieces of you.

  But you were more to Dougie than just his best friend. He didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms once you’d invited me into your little gang. He wasn’t just a boy whose head hadn’t been turned by yucky girls. He genuinely couldn’t understand why his best friend had fallen for one.

  And when once he caught me watching him, watching you, while you remained oblivious to the both of us, his blushes revealed what his words never said. I was a little jealous of how close you were and Dougie and I began playing childish games of one-upmanship. If I told him something you’d said to me, he’d antagonise me with a ‘yeah, I already know.’ And other times, in petty retaliation, I’d do the same. We’d compete for your attention.

  I’d always regretted our first kiss. Not that it happened, but how and where. I instigated it in Dougie’s bedroom on purpose, aware that he was about to walk in and catch us. I kissed you because I wanted to, but I knew putting Dougie in his place, in his own territory, would end our rivalry.

  As soon as he saw us, I wished I hadn’t been such a bitch. He looked so pitiful standing there with a tray of scones and glasses of milk on his tray. The corners of his mouth unravelled and the light in his eyes paled. I’d won your heart but trampled across his.

  That marked a turning point in Dougie and my relationship. We reached an unspoken understanding, that while we could share you, I would always have the upper hand. And eventually we became unlikely friends in our own right.

  Then one night, many years later, everything changed.

  March 17, 1.45pm

  I was exhausted defending an invisible man for so many months.

  I’d abandoned chanting ‘Simon is still alive’ in the bathroom mirror, because in my heart of hearts, I’d begun to accept it might not be true. It came down to one single fact - you couldn’t have been gone for eight months without something having happened to you. And with no evidence telling me you were still alive, I reluctantly came to terms with Roger’s theory you’d most likely died in an accident the day you disappeared.

  In the meantime, our children had come up with their own ideas.

  “Did Daddy commit soo-side?” Robbie asked out of the blue in the garden.

  “Who told you that?” I replied.

  He looked anxious. In truth, he’d been looking more and more anxious of late and it was starting to worry me. He’d often take himself into your garage office and I’d hear him whispering to you about his day. I’d thought I was the only one who did that. I wasn’t sure if leaving him to chat to a memory was the best thing or not, but if it gave him the
comfort his mummy obviously couldn’t, then maybe it wasn’t doing any harm.

  “What’s soo-side?” asked Emily.

  “My friend Melanie says that when people are sad and they want to go to heaven, they commit soo-side,” Robbie continued.

  “It’s called suicide,” James chipped in before I could explain, “and it’s when people hurt themselves on purpose because they don’t want to be with their families any more.”

  “No, Daddy didn’t commit suicide,” I replied, unsure of how to end the conversation.

  “But how can you know that?” asked James.

  “Because Daddy had no reason to. People only do that when they don’t think they have any other choice. Daddy loved us too much.”

  I hadn’t told another living soul but it had crossed my mind that maybe you had. I mulled over everything that happened with Billy and wondered if I’d been too wrapped up in myself to notice how badly it had affected you too. If I’d been a better wife, maybe I’d have noticed your sadness instead of wallowing in mine.

  “Well, this is what I think happened,” I began softly. “The day that Daddy disappeared, I think he went out for one of his runs somewhere new. And I think he got lost, and then he had an accident. But because nobody knows where he went, we can’t find him.”

  “Shall we go and look for him again?” asked Robbie, helpfully.

  “I don’t think that will help. I don’t think he’s able to come back.”

  I still couldn’t bring myself to say out loud that maybe you were dead. We arrived home and Emily skipped over towards the swing.

  “Is he in heaven?” Robbie continued. I paused, hating myself for what I was about to say.

  “Yes, I think he might be.”

  “When will Daddy come back?” yelled Emily from the swing.

  “I don’t think he will, sweetie.”

  “Oh,” she replied, and frowned. “Push me really hard, Mummy.” I began pushing her more gently than she’d expected so she wriggled her legs backwards and forwards to gain more height.

  “Harder Mummy, you’re not pushing hard enough!” she complained.

  “Why do you want to go so high?”

  “So I can kick God in the bum until he sends Daddy home.”

  Good idea, I thought.

  ***

  Paris, Twenty-Four Years Earlier

  January 10, 2.40pm

  I raised my head to look up at the publisher’s third floor offices on Boulevard Haussmann, and fumbled nervously with the twenty thousand French francs crammed into my trouser pockets.

  I felt a pang of disappointment in myself for being the man to have sold all that Pierre Chareau had written, sketched and then shipped to the Hotel Pres de La Cote for reasons unknown. But I’d done what was necessary to carry me forward.

  It took four trains and two buses to reach Paris. My backpack contained very few personal belongings to make room for the rarest items I’d rescued from the skip. The rest I’d sent by post six weeks earlier to Madame Dipthique, a publisher of arts and historical work, to offer it for sale.

  I considered handing the collection to the Musée des Art Décoratifs where it could be displayed alongside other notable works of famous French visionaries. But the next part of my journey would be expensive, and I was still more charity than charitable.

  On my arrival, it took Madame Dipthique several days to verify the authenticity of the most recent deliveries. But once deemed genuine, I was offered a fee and a percentage of future book sales.

  I requested those royalties were instead forwarded to an address in England. I doubted whether Darren Glasper’s family would ever know why they were receiving intermittent cheques from a Parisian publisher. But if it helped perpetuate the myth their deceased son had made a success of his all-too-brief travels, then it was worth every centime.

  I however, preferred to be paid in cash, as a man who no longer exists has no need for a bank account. And with the financial means to move forwards, my next stop was a travel agent to book a one-way flight.

  New York, America

  February 4, 2.40am

  While everyone else slept soundly around us in designated bunk beds, the girl and I silently made love in hers.

  I’d placed the palm of my hand against the breezeblock wall to stop the bed’s metal frame from rocking against it. The other was held over her mouth to mask from the slumbering masses her groans while she climaxed. It wasn’t long before I joined her, then allowed my limp body to flop to her side. Her name had already escaped me, but it didn’t matter as she’d made plans to leave for Chicago in the morning. I pulled on my underwear and went to give her a polite peck on the cheek, but she had already fallen into a drunken sleep.

  The day after bidding adieu to Paris, my alter ego Darren Glasper landed in New York.

  The ignorant often looked upon America as a modern country lacking history or culture. What I saw was a continent littered with small pockets of culture in every person, in every building and on every street. Just because no one creed, religion or class stood prouder than any other didn’t mean a whole nation was lacking in essence.

  And what better country was there for me to begin again than in one whose gateway housed a landmark with broken chains at her feet and a torch to light my way forward?

  In the Lower Manhattan Youth Hostel, I lived the life of a teenager trapped in a thirty-three year-old man’s body. My days lacked routine and spontaneity was the only call I answered to. I aspired to throw myself at every new sensation I chanced upon. And that included the opposite sex. As teenagers, my friends experimented with any girls who’d indulge them. But you were the only one I’d ever been intimate with. And by marrying the first girl I’d fallen for, there was so much I’d missed out on.

  A high turnover of guests meant the hostel’s arteries constantly pumped with fresh young blood. I enjoyed the company of women, and brief dalliances and one-night stands meant there was no risk of them urging me to take things further or trying to get to know me. I needed to connect with people physically, but rarely for long and never emotionally. For just enough time to remind myself I could still connect, even if it was only expressed through empty, near-anonymous sexual acts with like-minded folk.

  And it happened anywhere, from restaurant toilets, to alleyways; dormitories full of sleeping people to an underpass in Central Park. I had no filter for shame and few boundaries. I had many wasted years to catch up on and sex without emotion brought immediate gratification. New York was the city that never slept, and I had every intention of following suit.

  I reached my bunk bed on the other side of the dorm and zipped myself up in my sleeping bag and thought back to my first kiss.

  I’d never told you it wasn’t with you.

  February 21, 4.10pm

  I’d already walked the length of the Brooklyn Bridge once that day. On my return, I paused and leaned against the grey railings of the centre-way to stare across the vast expanse of the East River.

  I thought back to when I was eleven and Dougie and I spent an afternoon in Abington Park. We stuffed decaying elm tree leaves and a stack of discarded Daily Expresses dumped by a lazy paperboy into an overflow pipe leading from an adjacent stream. Finally, when our masterpiece of modern engineering was complete, we waited patiently for a watery wrath to sweep over the town once the stream burst its banks. It was, however, an overly ambitious plan, and after an hour, Northampton was as dry as a bone.

  Bored, I sat on the grass, leaned back on my elbows and closed my eyes. Suddenly something soft gently pressed itself against my lips. It remained there momentarily as I puzzled over whether I was awake or midway between sleep and consciousness. I opened my eyes to find Dougie’s lips upon mine.

  He withdrew them as quickly as they’d been planted. He stared at me wide-eyed as if they’d developed a life of their own and he’d lost control of them. We remained motionless, one taking in the action and the other waiting for the reaction.

  “Sorry,” he
finally blurted out, before picking up his bike and cycling away as fast as his gangly legs could pedal.

  I remained rooted to the grass, bewildered. Boys didn’t kiss boys; boys kissed girls. If a boy kissed a boy, he was a poof. All I knew about homosexuality was that poofs were to be feared, and if found, given a good hiding. They were dirty old men that sat alone in cinemas waiting to touch young lads if the opportunity arose. Or they ended up in prison for doing filthy things to each other that I didn’t really understand.

  I was at a loss as to how I should respond, so I walked through the consequences of confiding in someone else. Should I tell my father, or Roger what had happened? Or would they think I was a poof too for not knocking his block off? I didn’t want to be guilty by association. Then if others knew, I wouldn’t be allowed to play with Dougie again, spend time at his house and be a part of his family. I didn’t want to be the one to blame for sending my best friend to jail. So because I had more to lose than him, I kept quiet.

  The next morning, I stopped at Dougie’s house as normal to walk with him to school.

  “Come on, we’re going to be late,” I began. He looked at me, confounded, I’m sure, that I’d gone anywhere near him again. And as we walked briskly down the High Street, from the corner of my eye I kept seeing his mouth opening and words forming before sentences evaporated into nothing. Eventually he spoke.

  “The other day…” he began.

  “Forget about it.”

  “Have you told…?”

  “Of course not. Now hurry up or we’ll get detention.” It was the last time the subject was ever touched on again. But it didn’t mean I’d ever forget.

  My second first kiss was with you a couple of years later. As we sat together on Dougie’s bed scanning the hit parade in the Melody Maker, you leant over without warning, cupped your hand under my chin, and pulled it close to yours and kissed me. It was a wonderful, warm, sweet, kiss. You tasted of Parma Violets. I knew the longer it lasted, Dougie would catch us. You gradually pulled away and gave me the most beautiful, grin I’d ever seen. Then a shadow caught our eye, and we turned to find Dougie standing in the doorway.