Blood Relatives

by Stevan Alcock

  ‘You know, Rick, I used to bring your mother up here. When we wor courting.’

  ‘Courting?’ The very word seemed old-fashioned. ‘Back in ’62?’

  Mitch raised his face to t’ escarpment ridge. ‘Did you know I met your mother at a ten-pin bowling club?’

  ‘You’ve said. Thing is, now I’m grown I wor thinking that …’

  ‘I hung out wi’ a few rockabilly lads, and sometimes we’d go bowling. It wor a good place to meet girls. One day there wor this new lass waitressing there. She wor somehow different to anyone I’d met before, you know, shy, friendly, just summat about her. She worn’t uppity or brassy like some of them.’

  ‘Aye. Winter of ’63.’

  Mitch’s brow furrowed. ‘Remember the time I took you to see Leeds Utd? The one and only bloody time you ever came to a footie match?’

  ‘Aye, I know, but what I want to tell you is …’

  ‘And then afterward – we won 3–0, for pity’s sake – I asked you if you’d had a great time?’

  ‘You didn’t ask – you told me I’d had a great time. Well I hadn’t. It wor boring. I wor ruddy-well frozen. Colder than I am now.’

  ‘So what do you remember?’

  ‘It wor yonks ago. I wor eleven. What should I remember? That my feet felt like blocks of ice? That all I could see wor t’ backs of people’s heads?’

  ‘You don’t remember what you said on t’ way home?’

  ‘That I hated it and wouldn’t go again?’

  ‘Aye. Well, that’s when t’ penny dropped, so to speak. When it dawned on me about you.’

  ‘Which is what?’ I said hoarsely.

  ‘Family tradition, lad. You broke wi’ three generations of family tradition. Broke it like a spoke on t’ wheel.’

  I kicked a loose stone irritably. As usual, Mitch wor fleet-footing his way around t’ subject. We’d started walking again, stepping cautiously over tree roots and trying not to slip. This meant that neither of us had to look at t’other.

  ‘1963,’ I said. ‘The last winter when everything wor frozen like this. That wor 1963, not ’62.’

  ‘Why does it matter which ruddy winter it wor?’

  ‘Cos it does! It matters to me! Wor it really mine to break, this spoke on t’ wheel?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But Mitch knew what I meant all right. He rasped, ‘Things wor different back then. I did the right thing by you, taking you on. Damn you, I did the right thing. Brought you up like you wor my own flesh and blood.’

  He removed his gloves, took out his penknife and prised a stone from t’ sole of his boot. His fingers wor trembling. Strands of hair blew across his bald patch. He tossed the stone aside and closed the knife. Hearing raised voices, the dog came bounding back. It snuffled around Mitch’s legs protectively. Reassured, it scarpered off again. Snow wor stuck to its back where it had been rolling in t’ drifts.

  ‘We’ve come to see her,’ Mitch said, his voice almost choking. ‘See t’ tarn all frozen over and walk the dog. So let’s go see t’ tarn.’

  We approached the shore, each of us carrying the weight of our own silence. Anger crackled inside me, trapped by Mitch’s refusal to hear me out. Mother had said it often enough for it to stick in my brain: ‘We met during that hard, terrible winter of ’62.’

  Except that it worn’t ’62. It wor ’63. Terry had said so, and like as not Terry could tell you what the weather wor like on t’ same day back in 1900, never mind 1962 or ’63. It wor all recorded in his little black weather books. They met after I wor born. So maybe I worn’t a freak for hating footie. Maybe I wouldn’t lose my hair. But I needed confirmation. I needed him to look me in t’ face and say it out loud: ‘I am not your real father.’ We squelched through t’ trickle of a small beck and trudged along t’ far bank ’til we wor nearly halfway round. Max came belting back wi’ t’ stick again, so this time I threw it further, launching it in t’ direction of t’ tarn. The stick scythed through t’ air, a dark thing against t’ aching whiteness.

  ‘No!’ Mitch shouted. ‘Max, no!’

  Too late. The dog wor already out on t’ ice, his head up, his eyes fixed on t’ somersaulting stick.

  ‘Max! Max, come back here!’

  Suddenly realising where it wor, the dog’s feet began to slither, its legs splaying.

  ‘Max!’

  The dog blinked at us both as if comprehending its own doom. Then t’ ice beneath parted a little and black, cold water slurped across t’ surface. The ice made a hideous retching sound and started to give. The dog wor scrabbling its paws for some grip as the freezing water began to envelop it. We crouched down at the shoreline, both of us calling the dog’s name. Mitch broke off a long, thin birch branch. I stepped onto a rock that protruded into t’ tarn.

  ‘Max! Max, boy!’

  Mitch prodded the ice wi’ t’ stick, then eased one foot onto t’ surface, keeping t’other on t’ bank. Then he let the ice take his full weight. He kept his legs spread as wide as he could, edging out a little further, using his hands for support. Here, the ice wor thick enough that it held easily, but out there, a few feet beyond, out where t’ dog wor struggling, we both knew it wor dangerous. That dog wor going to drown.

  ‘Max, Max,’ Mitch called out softly, calming it, encouraging it, cajoling it toward him. He ventured out a tad further. The dog pawed at the ice, whimpering. Mitch flattened himsen and stretched out the stick, trying to hook it through t’ dog’s collar. I looked on from t’ rock.

  The tarn just swallowed him. It creaked and complained, then opened its black jaws and Mitch flopped into t’ water. I saw him thrashing to gain control, trying to haul himsen onto t’ ice. Then he slipped under. Moments later he resurfaced, flapping his arms uselessly. His pleading eyes met mine. Then he wor gone.

  I jumped from t’ rock to t’ shore. A raven flew low over t’ tarn surface, cawing bleakly. I kept my eyes fixed on t’ spot where Mitch had been only seconds before, half-expecting the ice to seal over and Mitch to reappear. Like a rewinding film.

  The ice remained silent.

  Somehow Max had struggled to t’ shore. He wor shaking himsen and looking about for Mitch wi’ nowt more than a dog’s expression of having momentarily misplaced its master. The dog, intent on saving itsen, had not seen Mitch go under.

  I pelted back to t’ car park, Max bounding along behind me. I drummed my fists on t’ blue van’s side window. Max wor barking at my feet. Only when I stopped drumming did I see that the van had been abandoned. I slumped against its side and inhaled the crystalline air. I wor hot and clammy. I yanked my scarf away from my neck and tore at the top buttons of my jacket, letting the winter wind blast against my exposed neck. I stared numbly out across t’ white fields toward t’ arc of t’ horizon. I must have stayed like that for t’ longest time, cos I remembered later being puzzled at how much darker it had become. My limbs felt heavy, and I could not will mesen to move. Better to stay here, stay here, I wor thinking, and wait for someone to find us. I tossed my hat into t’ snow. I tore off my jacket and chucked it aside. Max wor whimpering to be home. He barked once and then started to pad away, every so often stopping and turning his head, ’til finally he gave up on me and bounded out of view.

  I smiled to mesen. I would stay here. I liked it here. Dusky mauve clouds wor skidding across t’ sky.

  Cumulus, or cirrus? Terry would know.

  I came to in my own bed, pinned beneath weighty bedclothes, blinking slowly, letting the light bleed in. The sky through t’ crack between my curtains wor t’ colour of unwashed sheep.

  I listened to t’ murmurings of t’ house. I could hear my alarm clock ticking, and the heating pipes knocking as the immersion heater cooled down. Every sound wor magnified a millionfold.

  I moved my fingers and wiggled my toes. It wor an effort to push back the blankets. I wor wearing pyjama bottoms, a T-shirt and thick socks. The T-shirt wor damp, and clung clammily against me. It took an effort to swing my legs round
and set my feet on t’ floor. I clocked wi’ a woozy horror that the pyjama bottoms I wor wearing belonged to Mitch. A flash recollection came into my head of his drowned and decaying corpse dressed in t’ same pyjama bottoms. I cried out. Pushing on my hands, I tried to stand. I collapsed onto t’ floor. I could hear footsteps coming hurriedly up the stairs.

  It wor a bitter, bone-freezing day when Mitch wor cremated at Rawdon crematorium. Before that could happen there wor an investigation into his death by t’ police, and then an inquest. I wor interviewed in a kindly manner. I told the policewoman what I felt I should remember. I didn’t feel like embroidering it wi’ extra stuff, like making out that I’d tried to rescue him or owt.

  Mitch’s death got a mention in t’ Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Mand showed me t’ clipping. ‘Man Falls Through Ice and Drowns’, followed by eight lines about him trying to rescue his dog. For some reason I worn’t in t’ story at all. That left me feeling all hollowed out. Mand said that a farmer, bringing in his cows before dusk and alerted by Max’s barking, had lucked upon me collapsed by t’ van. I wor taken to t’ hospital, she said, kept overnight and then brought home. None of this I remembered.

  On t’ morn of t’ cremation the house wor stealthily quiet. I could hear Mandy and Mother creeping about and speaking in low voices. Summat about shoes. Usually at this hour Mand would have been bouncing about like a beachball to Radio 1 and making hersen ready for work, while Mum would be hollering up the stairs that brekkie wor on t’ table. Even t’ dog just lay quiet in his basket in t’ kitchen, eyes fixed on t’ back door. Since t’ drowning that was how it had been, this day and every day. I sloughed about, sniffling cos I had a stinking cold. I made mesen some tea and toast, but couldn’t finish the toast so I threw it out for t’ birds. A magpie swooped out of t’ morning mist and snaffled it.

  We followed the hearse in a taxi, all three of us sitting stiffly in t’ back. Mother had wanted to keep the cremation simple – no flowers on t’ hearse spelling out MITCH or DAD or owt like that, and she dismissed out of hand Don’s suggestion that a US Confederate flag should be draped over t’ coffin.

  Waiting in a huddle at the crematorium gates wor Nora, Janice wi’ little Damien in a buggy, Mavis and Don, who wor blowing warm air into his gloveless hands, and Mrs Fibak, who moved gingerly wi’ t’ aid of a stick since her fall, but no Mr Fibak, who ‘didn’t feel up to a funeral this morning’.

  Craner pitched up an all, wearing black jeans and a pale-grey suit jacket peeking beneath a muddy-brown parka, which he kept on throughout. Just before t’ service kicked off, a couple of Mitch’s lorry driver mates shuffled in at the back, together wi’ a small bloke wi’ big square specs and an egg-shaped head who Mother whispered wor t’ depot manager of Maid Marion Foods.

  It wor all over in under fifteen minutes. Lined along t’ pews, we stuttered through a hymn and mumbled the Lord’s Prayer, then t’ vicar, a fat little man wi’ bulging blue eyes, doled out a few words about Mitch, his heroic and tragic loss, his devotion to his family. Then we all had to listen to Elvis’s ‘My Way’, and I drooped my head and noticed a piece of chuddy gum stuck to t’ back of t’ pew. I wor feeling ill. Had I eaten summat bad? Had I eaten at all? I couldn’t tell if my stomach wor wheezing in protest or pain. Then I remembered the toast, and wished I’d finished it.

  Light-headed, I let my mind go on a gadabout, lulled perhaps by t’ Elvis song or t’ vicar droning on, or perhaps by t’ mind-numbing otherness of it, ’til I felt a jab in t’ ribs and saw Mandy’s reddened, kohl-streaked eyes staring into me as if I wor stood hard on her toe, and I realised the coffin had disappeared behind t’ curtains and folk wor wanting to file out.

  ‘It isn’t the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in.’

  I sniggered. Mavis gave me a surprised frown, but said nowt. Why did that come into my head right now? Summat Granddad used to say in his teasing voice. A spot in time – dark, like a rainspot?

  Outside, on t’ steps, I heard talk about car space and travel arrangements. Craner came up to me and patted me on t’ shoulder.

  ‘Take your time, son, before returning to work,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Take a whole week if you have to.’

  I don’t recall the car journey. I recall getting in t’ car, and my nose against t’ side window as we u-turned, and then being back home, but the ride itsen never happened. Although it must have – this worn’t Star Trek.

  Once we wor back home we stood about in t’ lounge not talking, a gathering in grieving. The table wor laden wi’ sarnies, sausage rolls and cake. The dog had its nose up against t’ table edge, its tail drumming on t’ floor.

  ‘It isn’t the cough that carries you off, it’s the …’

  I guffawed, placing my hand over my gob to stop mesen. Everyone wor looking at me, sorrowful and aghast. I saw it. Felt it.

  Nora and Mrs Fibak went into t’ kitchen to brew tea. Mavis followed them, and lit up a ciggie – through t’ kitchen hatch I could see it burning down between her fingers. She’d painted her nails a dark plum. The men stood about, supping beer and exchanging remarks on t’ weather, food or Mitch in low, rumbling voices. Mother kept a fixed stare out through t’ window nets, as if she wor expecting Mitch to be coming up the front path any moment. Mandy sat beside her on a dining chair, her face set stonily in distress.

  Then Damien started caterwauling to escape his buggy, so Janice moved it into t’ hallway so he wouldn’t be quite so loud. Motherhood had aged Janice beyond her years; her hair wor lank and her clothes wor what Mother would call ‘practical’. Drew, I heard Janice say, had moved to Blackpool to work the summer season as a fairground-ride operator on t’ sea front. Then he’d stayed on for t’ Illuminations, then Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night, then Christmas.

  Mrs Fibak came through wi’ t’ tea in a large pot I didn’t recognise, then fetched a tray of cups and various assorted mugs. One of t’ mugs had been a Christmas present from Mandy to Mitch, a Carry On mug that laughed like Sid James when you cocked it toward your gob. Mrs Fibak must have found it at the back of t’ cupboard.

  ‘The snowdrops looked nice,’ she said, setting the tray down. ‘Peeking through t’ ground.’

  I excused mesen, went upstairs and locked mesen in t’ bathroom.

  ‘… carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in.’

  I grabbed a hand towel and laughed into it ’til I wor dry-heaving and my eyes wor watering. I stayed like that for some time, steadying my breathing. Wi’ my forefinger I stroked t’ bath rim, then around t’ sink and over t’ taps, then along t’ top of t’ loo-roll holder. Someone tried the door, the handle waggling freely on my side. I coughed loudly, counted to five and then flushed the loo.

  Whoever it wor had gone. I ducked into Mandy’s room, opened the top right drawer and pressed my hand on t’ cover of her diary, trying to feel the words through my palm. I closed the drawer again and went back downstairs.

  As I turned the corner of t’ stairs I came upon Mavis, backed against t’ wall, and Don, prodding her repeatedly in t’ throat wi’ his forefinger, his face red and sweating, hers stretched and fearful. Don had been drinking all morning. On seeing me he hugged Mavis tightly and said loudly, ‘There, there, don’t worry my petal, don’t you worry,’ his fat arms covering Mavis’s face while he nailed me wi’ a cold, dead eye as I edged past. Behind me I heard Mavis thudding up the stairs and then Don saying loudly for my benefit, ‘She’s upset, that’s all. She’ll be as right as rain.’

  After this wor all over, a routine of sorts resumed. Only it worn’t a routine I welcomed.

  Every night I’d been having t’ same bad dream. I’d see a hand reaching out from t’ water. The hand wor large and grasping and kept coming toward me, the fingers stretched wide like an eagle’s claw. At the very last moment I’d jump back, and then t’ hand would wither away and Mitch’s contorted lips would appear before me, forming some wordless plea as he wor being sucked below. All t�
� while I’d hear Max barking like an echo in my inner ear ’til I woke up, knackered and basted in cold sweat. I’d lie there, my head on my pillow, staring around my room and thinking how friggin’ unreal everything looked.

  I slid out of bed, sloughed over to t’ window and pulled back the curtains. Two of Mitch’s freshly washed shirts wor flapping on t’ washing line. I fathomed that this wor in readiness for charity, or to be given away. I wor wrong. Mother ironed them and hung them in t’ wardrobe, just as she’d always done.

  Each evening Mother laid a place for Mitch at the table, and chatted away like he wor there, shrilling his name up the stairs or over t’ banisters into t’ hallway below. On Saturday afternoon she asked Mand to switch on t’ telly cos the wrestling wor on. We supposed it soothed her to hear t’ wrestling or horse racing on t’ telly in t’ next room.

  After about a week of this Mand let rip at Mother, her voice bursting into a sob. ‘Why are you doing this? He’s dead, Dad’s dead! Why lay his place at the table and talk as if he wor still here?’ She shoved her dinner plate away from her and stood up, then picked up the cutlery, plate and beer glass that had been laid for Mitch and stomped off into t’ kitchen. We heard them crashing into t’ waste bin. Mother sat there and wept.

  As for me, there wor so much to do, I didn’t have no time to think about Mitch being gone. Jobs about t’ house. A kitchen-cabinet door had loosened on its hinges and needed tightening. I went to fetch a screwdriver from t’ garage. I shouldered open t’ garage side door and wor met by t’ smell of oily rags, rusting tools and old rubber, of sawdust shavings and marinading paintbrushes.

  ‘Hello hammers,’ I croaked. ‘Hello mushroom-head and claw. Hello paintbrushes. Rusting paint tins. Hello clamp. Vice. Saws. Tobacco tins of carpet tacks and screws and nails. Hello oil drum and bottle of turps. Tyres, ironing board, dartboard. Blunt darts. Bag of Xmas tree mishaps. Number 7 iron and driver, garden hose and taps.’

  I stroked the surfaces of all these things as I spoke.

  ‘Hello tins of car paint, bikkie tins and Royal tin tray. Hello Sun calendars 1973 and ’76. Busty Brenda – wi’ t’ massive tits. Hello mono record player, needleless. Hello horse blanket covering old pram. Wigwam for my seventh birthday, never played in. Hello garden fork and spade, watering can wi’ a hole in t’ bottom, and all them flowerpots, never used. Hello. Hello old toilet seat, hanging from t’ ceiling. Hello faded photos of Mum and sis. And me. Propped against a rusting tea tin. Hello.’