Inheritance

by Thomas Wymark

Seeing my dad shaken and tearful had wrong footed me. I had never seen him cry before. I needed to get my bearings again.

  He and Mum obviously had something they needed to sort out between themselves. And I needed time to think.

  ‘Are you OK here, Mum? If I go and finish unpacking?’

  ‘Of course, dear. You go ahead.’

  Her face was pale, her lips tight and showing only marginally more colour than her face. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or scared.

  On the way upstairs my arm brushed against one of the photos on the wall. It was of me and Dad. I must have been about twelve years old. Dad was in his fishing gear, I had tried to dress like him.

  I remembered the day. Damp and cold. I held a tiny fish in my hand and flashed an enormous grin.

  Dad’s grin was even bigger, although he had no fish to show.

  Straightening the photo, I continued up to my room. Once inside, I shut the door then opened it again, just a couple of inches, fell onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

  The open window blew a draft to the door, causing it to creak as it moved slightly.

  I was sure that Dad had wanted to tell me something.

  His questioning about what would happen if I was assessed with some sort of psychiatric disorder had jarred me. Mum’s reaction to him was out of character. They normally gelled together seamlessly. Rarely discordant, rarely at odds. But something had definitely shifted between them in the kitchen.

  I ran through what he had said again and again, desperate to find a hidden meaning.

  But perhaps the meaning wasn’t hidden at all. Perhaps it was more obvious.

  Maybe there was something in my past that I either didn’t know about or had forgotten.

  Or maybe there was something in my parents’ past. Something that Dad felt ready to share with me, but that Mum wanted him to keep quiet about. A hidden secret of madness in the family?

  My mind whirred, as though someone was turning a handle against it around and around, like a butter churn, trying to make something solid out of the sloshing liquid of my thoughts. Memories and flashbacks flipped around inside my head. I thought of all the relations I had met. I thought about my grandparents. Had I missed something in one of them? I remembered the silly things Grandpa used to do. Was that more than just silliness? Had Grandpa been mad?

  The pictures spun ever quicker, I could almost hear the flickering noise as each one popped up before me, only to be replaced instantly by another.

  Although Dad had only spoken a few sentences, the air had felt heavy and tense. Tense enough for Mum to react almost immediately to what he was saying. She knew the meaning in his words. The meaning that I couldn’t see.

  I could hear her downstairs, moving from the kitchen to the living-room. She shut the living-room door behind her.

  I laid as still as I could. Made my breathing shallow and opened my ears.

  At first there was nothing.

  Then I heard Dad’s voice. Muffled, of course, through the closed door and the ceiling. He coughed, or sneezed. I wanted to give him a hug.

  Mum’s voice was louder. Still muffled, but more shrill than Dad’s. Somehow easier to understand. It always had been like that. When I was little I used to lie awake listening out for their voices downstairs. Occasionally I would hear Dad laughing at something on the telly. But mostly, it was Mum, her voice carrying upstairs to my room. When I was scared of monsters and ghosts, I found it comforting to hear her.

  Hearing her voice now only brought with it anxiety and questions.

  A small child materialised in my mind. A boy.

  I have no idea where he came from, no idea who he was. But my mind soon found a reason for him.

  “You were our only child. You made our lives worth living.”

  It had seemed an odd thing for Dad to say.

  But what if that wasn’t true? What if I wasn’t their only child?

  The whirring pictures in my mind, until now consisting of real people and genuine memories, gave way to darker scenes. Mind-made scenes.

  The boy.

  Was he a long-lost brother? My sibling, perhaps born before me? A disturbed child? One with problems of the mind?

  No doubt it took a disturbed mind to come up with such an alternative background. However, disturbed mind or not, the idea grew in stature and reality.

  Had the child died in his early years? Before I was born? Or had he lived? Did he live still?

  Was HE the one attacking the girls?

  And now my heart raced. I had discovered a hidden secret of such horror that I couldn’t string together any coherent thoughts at all. Sweat erupted over my body and heat burned from every pore.

  There was madness in the family. I had a sibling who was insane. A psychotic killer of young girls. And I shared his genes.

  If the mad sibling was in an institution somewhere, that would surely be my ultimate destination too. What would happen to Michael and Rose? To Neil?

  My life started to unravel, keeping pace with the unravelling of my mind. Tears tickled the side of my face and dripped onto the pillow. I clenched my fingers into the duvet and held on, trying to stop myself from spinning away.

  Downstairs Mum’s voice grew more shrill, Dad’s voice became louder.

  I felt a cold breeze blow across my face from the open window.

  For the first time in my life, as far as I could remember, I was aware of my parents arguing.

  I latched on to every sound and nuance. Tried to hold firm to the voices. I didn’t want to think about the other mad child that had been hidden from me. Couldn’t bear to think about it. He had already cursed my future.

  Mum and Dad were now shouting at each other. Louder and louder, still muffled, until a full and clear sentence reached me. My mum’s shrill shouting had reached the point of understanding.

  ‘She doesn’t have to know!’

  I held my breath. Stopped it where it was in my lungs. Held it there, waiting for the next words to fly upstairs to me.

  But instead, the living-room door opened. Dad’s heavy footsteps stomped along the hall and the front door was pulled open and slammed shut.

  I heard his footsteps in the drive, then nothing.

  Through the open living-room door I heard Mum sobbing. Gentle cries, but not controlled or managed.

  I listened to her forever. She didn’t stop. I closed my eyes and breathed in time with her sobs. My fingers still gripped the duvet. I don’t think I could have gone to her, even if I had wanted to. I wanted her voice to make me feel better. To protect me from the monsters and ghosts. But her crying gave them permission to be there. She wasn’t protecting me anymore.

  When I awoke, my bedroom door was closed. The window and curtains too. I opened the window.

  I had no idea who had been in the room.

  The bedside clock said 4:30pm. I had slept for approximately five and a half hours.

  My throat was dry and my eyes sore. I needed to wash my face and have a drink.

  When I got downstairs the first thing I spotted were Dad’s shoes at the bottom of the stairs.

  I could hear that the television was on in the living-room.

  I drank two glasses of water at the kitchen sink. As I turned the cold tap off I thought about Neil, on his own. Microwave meals.

  When I pushed open the living-room door, they both looked up at me. All seemed quiet between them. For a moment I wondered whether I had dreamt it all. Perhaps there had been no argument. Perhaps Dad hadn’t stormed out of the house.

  But Mum’s eyes told the true story. Red rimmed and puffy.

  I sat down on the sofa. Mum was sitting in the armchair to my left, Dad in the one to my right. A familial triangle.

  Dad forced a smile. He shifted about in his chair. I noticed his head twitch.

  ‘How are you, dear?’ Mum said. ‘You obviously needed that.’

  So it was her who had been in my bedroom.

  ‘I didn’t even know I was tired,’ I sai
d.

  ‘Neil rang while you were asleep,’ she said. ‘He’s going to give you a call later, after dinner.’

  ‘Was he OK?’ I said.

  ‘Fine, I think. He just wanted to make sure you got here OK.’

  I nodded. One of the rare occasions he rang me from work, and I was asleep.

  ‘Shall I get us a drink?’ Mum said.

  Dad stood up and walked over to the television. He switched it off at the set, rather than using the remote control that had been resting on the arm of the chair he had just pulled himself out of.

  ‘Chris,’ he said. ‘Darling. We need to talk to you.’

  I tried to stand up, but some invisible force kept me pushed back into the sofa.

  ‘I’d love a drink, Mum,’ I said.

  Mum stood up.

  ‘Diane,’ Dad said quietly. ‘We need to speak to her. We need to do it now.’

  My shoulders and neck tensed. Every slight movement I made was in staccato. Although I had just drunk two full glasses of cold water, I felt as though I needed a gallon.

  The pump of my heart was more obvious and more intense than I had ever known it before, pounding against my ribcage. My stomach constricted.

  I thought of the time I had been sent to see the headmaster at school. I had thrown another girl’s plimsole through the window of the gym. The window had broken and the girl’s plimsole had ripped. Waiting outside the headmaster’s office had been one of the most frightening moments of my schooling.

  And now I waited for my parents to speak to me.

  I already knew what they were going to say. I was simply waiting for the judge to pass sentence after the jury had already found me guilty.

  “Christine Marsden. You have been found guilty of insanity, as your brother was before you. Your children will be taken from you and you will be deprived from ever seeing them or your husband again. You will be sent from here to an institution from which you will never be freed.”

  Dad cleared his throat with a ragged cough. Mum put her hand to her mouth. I drew in as large a breath of air as I could manage. I hoped to god I wouldn’t pass out.

  ‘Chris, love,’ he said. ‘Me and your mum love you more than anything. We have only ever wanted to give you the very best life you could have.’

  His voice broke and stuttered, like an engine dying. He managed to keep it going.

  ‘We just wanted to pour our love into you. And no matter what happens. No matter what you decide to do, and no matter what you think of us, please know this. We have always loved you.’ He brought his trembling hand up to his temple. His cheeks flushed red. ‘We have always had your best interests at heart, and we will always love you for the rest of our lives.’

  I shook violently on the sofa. Tears streamed from my eyes and the air barely made it to or from my lungs. I felt like a child again, desperate to be somewhere happy. I couldn’t bring any words from my mouth. None came to my mind.

  Through blurred eyes I saw Mum crying into her hands. Dad shook as he fought to control his voice.

  I had never before been hurt by my Dad. But now, as he spoke, one word pierced my heart and tore into it, ripping my soul away as it passed through me.

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