***
It was four o’ clock by the time we left the cemetery. The heat was just as suffocating as we passed through the gates; the sun just as bright as it had been when we had got there at half two. Daryl had taken off his tie, and to my relief his head had completely failed to cave in or crumble to pieces. If anything, he looked slightly better now that the worst part of the whole mess was over. I too had done away with my tie, and also gone one step further and was carrying my jacket over my shoulder. The occasional breeze felt like the breath of an angel.
Daryl had come to the funeral in a rented black Mercedes, complete with driver and air-conditioning, leaving his own beaten up Fiat Panda at home. As we headed towards where the car sat gleaming in the sun, looking rather like a beached killer whale, Daryl glanced at me.
“Hey Joey, I know this is kind of short notice, but could you look after Amy for me this afternoon? I’ve got some… things I need to clear out back home”.
Some ‘things’. Namely, I figured, the coffee table that had smashed the back of Claire’s head in when she fell. The blood on the corner might eventually wash out, but it would never be really gone. Not unless the table was gone. Perhaps, not even then.
What a way to go.
I swallowed back the sudden sorrow that was doing its best to rise up in my throat, and smiled instead. It didn’t feel very real. It felt like it had been cut into my face with a Stanley knife.
“With pleasure”, I said.
“If you had anything planned”, Daryl started, “I could always…”
I interrupted him before finding out what he could always.
“The only plans I have are to get out of this godawful suit and crash out of the sofa in front of the TV. My sofa is big enough for two, and Charlie… well, Charlie isn’t home”.
Charlie. My ex-housemate.
“That okay with you, Sweet?”, Daryl asked Amy, who had run out of tears for the time being and had resorted once again to hanging her head as she shuffled along at her father’s side.
Sweet. Long story short, Daryl was a chef. One day he had teasingly called Amy his ‘sweet potato’. When he had later realised, to his childlike delight, that ‘Amy’ was an anagram of ‘yam’, the nickname had stuck.
Amy looked up just long enough for a quiet ‘uh-huh’, and Daryl absent-mindedly ruffled her hair as we reached the car. The driver was already waiting by the door, but he hadn’t opened it yet. Probably didn’t want the summer heat invading the cool interior.
“Cheers, Joey. I’ll pick her up later tonight”.
“No hurry. It’s not often that I get a date alone with the prettiest girl in town”.
Daryl smiled, bent down to kiss the top of Amy’s head, and turned to the Merc. The driver smartly swung the door open on silent hinges and a blast of cool air drifted out, creating a haze in the air.
Then they were gone. I looked back at the cemetery; it was empty, as if the past few hours had never happened.
As if nothing had changed.
I shepherded Amy to where my car was parked, the last one left in the parking lot. My car wasn’t air-conditioned. The inside was like an oven, and the steering wheel burned my hands. The engine growled and coughed like an asthmatic terrier. Still, it got us to where I wanted to go.
Home.
***
It was only a fifteen minute drive from the cemetery to my place. I parked the car in a vacant spot right in front of my front door. It was near impossible to find anywhere to park in a small town like St John, but my problem had been solved seven years ago when Charlie had moved in. Charlie had a screwed-up leg, a result of a bad fall during a rougher than average game of football. He walked with a limp. By grossly exaggerating his injury, and with a little help from some doctor friend of his, Charlie had managed to convince the local council to paint a ‘Reserved for Handicaps’ display in bright yellow on the road right in front of my house. Charlie had since then done a runner and vanished off the face of the earth, but in the meantime, my parking problems were over. The only minor drawback was that I had to fake a limp every time I got out of the car. I was getting quite good at it.
Home was a small, two-bedroomed terraced house. The entrance led into a narrow hallway that branched off into an open plan living room, dining room and kitchen separated from each other by a series of stone arches. In the corner of my living room stood my pride and joy – an old Franklin stove that had taken three months to find and a further month to install. Its long black chimney went through the ceiling, through my bedroom and out through the roof – in the winter, it heated up the entire house. There’s nothing like the warm, comforting glow of a log fire to make a house a home.
At the far end of the hall was a flight of stairs that climbed up to an identical hall, which led off to my bedroom, Charlie’s ex-bedroom, and the bathroom. My bedroom led out onto a tiny terrace that was ideal for deckchair-lounging in the summer, with a cool drink close by and a portable stereo belting out the latest and greatest at top volume.
Home sweet home.
“You hungry, chief?” I asked Amy as we walked into the living room. I always called Amy ‘chief’ when I was trying to cheer her up. Or ‘princess’ when I was teasing her; ‘sweetheart’ when she was upset. I hardly ever called her by her given name. I don’t know why. I liked her name. I had helped choose it, for God’s sake.
Amy shook her head in the negative, and sat down on the sofa. Or rather, collapsed onto the sofa, like a puppet whose strings had been cut away all at once. The cushions made a soft ‘whoomph’ as the air was squeezed out of them.
“You’ve got to eat sometime, sweetheart”, I said. I knew from Daryl that she had only been picking at her food since Claire had… since Claire. That was two days ago. Normally she had the appetite of a horse.
“I’m not hungry”.
“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do”, I said, coming round to the front of the couch and crouching down in front of her, pretty much the same way I had done at the cemetery. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll get in the shower while you chill out here. Listen to music, or draw, or smoke a cigar, or whatever…” – no smile there – “…You know where everything is, so help yourself. I’ve also got some new stuff from work you might want to check out. When I get out of the shower, I’m going to need your help…”
Amy raised one eyebrow, while the other frowned. The look clearly said ‘okay, I’ll bite, you silly adult. What are you getting at?’
“…because I’m hungry enough to eat my own head, and the only meals I can make come out of a can. I’ve heard that you’re pretty nifty in the kitchen. So we’ll whip up some gourmet platter together, and I’ll eat whatever you don’t. Deal?”
Silence.
I sighed, and straightened up.
“Looks like Spaghetti Hoops for one again”, I said sadly. “I’m getting in the shower”.
***
The music started while I was rinsing off the soapsuds under a hot spray of water. I spun the tap off and stood there motionless with my ears pricked as ‘Monday Monday’ by The Mamas and the Papas came drifting up the stairs. The song was cut off seconds after it started. The Marcels’ ‘Blue Moon’ came on, and suffered a similar fate. Then ‘Leader of the Pack’, followed immediately by ‘For Your Love’ by the Yardbirds. I knew where this was heading. I stood in the shower as if suspended in time, and waited for the CD to spin to the inevitable song.
Let’s go for a little walk,
Under the moon of love…
This time the song played uninterrupted to the last note. When it finished, there was a pause, and it started again. And again…
Showaddywaddy’s ‘Moon of Love’ had been Claire’s all-time favourite. Sometimes, when Daryl was at work and Claire was bitten by the lonely-bug, she and Amy would come over to my place. We would sit on the floor in the living room; Claire and Charlie and me and sometimes Rachael; with Amy crashed out on the sofa; talking about nothing and laughing about everything, sipping on red wine and playing CDs by firelight until the early hours, and every time ‘Moon of Love’ played we would all sing along to it, but quietly so that we wouldn’t wake Amy. Although now it dawned on me that Amy hadn’t been as fast asleep as she had made out…
I realised with a start that I was crying. Standing naked in the shower with soap drying on me and sobbing like a two-year-old as Showaddywaddy sang about walking and talking under a full moon, over and over again. I was crying for Claire, who was no more. I was crying for Charlie, who had left a note saying I’ve Got To Go and disappeared off the face of the earth. I shed tears for Rachael, who was in love with someone else; for the little girl downstairs who had lost her mother; for my best friend Daryl who had lost his wife; and I even cried a little for myself, although I have no idea why. I cried until I had no tears left, and then I cried some more until Showaddywaddy finally left the stage and Bryan Hylands ‘Sealed With a Kiss’ came on. Then, worn out but feeling much better than I had all day – all week – I rinsed off the sticky congealing soap suds, and got out of the shower. I dried up, dressed up, and went back downstairs.
***
Amy was asleep on the sofa, the CD remote clutched tightly in her hand. The cushion under her head was damp. I gently pulled the CD clicker from her grip, and went through the dining room and into the kitchen. In spite of what I had said to Amy earlier, I wasn’t all that hungry. I built myself a cheese and ham sandwich, adding lettuce and tomato as an afterthought.
I went back into the living room, holding the plate with the sandwich in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. I sat on one end of the sofa, flicked on the TV and spent the next couple of hours watching the moving pictures on mute without actually acknowledging them. I sipped at the beer. I finished my sandwich and wondered briefly whether or not I could be bothered to make myself another one. I eventually let laziness win over greed, and made do with just the one.
It started getting dark at around seven, so I leaned over Amy and switched on the table lamp. It gave out a warm cosy glow, casting shadows to the furthest corners of the room. I lit a cigarette, smoked half of it and put it out when Amy started mumbling and wrinkling her nose in her sleep. I downed the last of my beer instead. It was warm.
Daryl came over for Amy at half eleven. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. It was a black T-shirt, and I found myself wondering whether it had been chosen intentionally or just happened to be at the top of the pile in the drawer. I decided that it didn’t matter. I ushered Daryl into the kitchen and made him a cup of coffee. He looked like he could use it. I also opened another beer for myself.
Amy was still out like a light on the sofa. She hadn’t even stirred when the doorbell had chimed announcing Daryl’s arrival. I had covered her with a blanket as the night set in, and she had made a cocoon of it in her sleep. All that was visible of her from the kitchen was the top of her head.
Daryl hadn’t said a word since his short ‘hi’ at the door. I could tell that he had something that he needed to get off his chest. He looked as if he had very recently suffered from the grandfather of all headaches, and he was extremely pissed off about it. His eyes were blazing, his jaw set, his body as tense as a bowstring and visibly quivering. I decided not to push him, just in case I set off a spark and he blew up in my face. I figured that he would speak when he was ready. We hung around in silence in the kitchen; Daryl standing by the fridge, his coffee shaking in the cup as he raised it fiercely to his lips and gulped half of it down in one swallow, even though it was still piping hot. I was sitting on the cupboard by the sink. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. I blew out the smoke and watched it curl its way to the ceiling and disperse. I sipped some beer. Seconds got together, made friends and became minutes. I finished the cigarette and drained the bottle. Finally, Daryl spoke.
“Claire’s parents came round this evening”. He almost spat out the words, as if Claire’s parents had taken a dump in his mouth while they were there.
Claire’s parents were the sort of people you could run down with your car on your way to work in the morning and then spend the rest of the day congratulating yourself on making the world a slightly better place. That afternoon, at the funeral, I had offered them my commiserations and sympathy, more for Claire’s sake than anything else. I know that she would have appreciated the effort.
“Yes… well”, Claire’s mother had said, glaring down her nose at me as if she held me responsible for her daughter’s death. And also for Chernobyl, Starship Challenger and Children of Thalidomide. Claire’s bald old banker dad had completely ignored me, staring stiffly ahead as if I were a little brat who would go away if he pretended that I wasn’t actually there. Granted, I hadn’t made the best of impressions when I had first met them, but still…
Mr and Mrs Moore hated Daryl with an unbelievable passion, perhaps because they felt he had stolen their only child away from them. Or perhaps they believed that he wasn’t good enough for Claire. More likely, however, it was because of the fact that he had got Claire pregnant at the tender age of seventeen, after they had expressly forbidden her to go on seeing him. Whatever the reason, they hated him. So I suppose I was already on their shit-list just for being Daryl’s best friend.
***
A week after Amy was born, Daryl had called on the phone in a state of panic:
“The Monsters are coming to dinner! They want to see their granddaughter and Claire’s attempting yet another reconciliation thing, so they’re coming to dinner. Tonight! You’ve got to come! I can’t handle it on my own, so you’ve got to come…” and so on and so forth.
So I had.
Claire’s mother I disliked immediately. She swept into the room as if she were the queen visiting a peasant’s hut, her eyes taking in everything and approving of nothing. She was wearing a navy blue dress that didn’t have a single crease in it. It looked like she had ironed it quickly on the doorstep before coming in. Her hair was pulled back in a perfect bun, so tightly that it was a wonder she hadn’t pulled her own face off. She spoke through her rather impressive nose.
“Daryl”, she said as her eyes passed over him.
Daryl nodded. “Mrs Moore”, he said, his face carefully expressionless. It took me a while to figure out that they had just said hello to each other.
Mrs Moore’s eyes landed on Claire. “Hello Claire”, she said. Her tone of voice seemed to suggest that she was waiting for an apology. When none came, she added, “your father is looking for somewhere to park the car”. Then her eyes rested on me.
“Who is this? I thought we were having a family meal?”
The miserable old cow could actually speak in italics. I hadn’t thought it was possible, especially using nasal vocalization, but she managed it without too much trouble.
Claire hurried forward to introduce me.
“This is our friend Joey, mum. He’s going to be Amy’s godfather”.
“Pleased to meet you”, said I.
She looked me up and down. “Yes… well”, she said finally.
Yes well what? I wondered. I was to learn later that this was Mrs Moore’s favourite expression, and it roughly translated as ‘yes, well I suppose that’s the way it is, and there is nothing I can do about it but suffer in silence’.
Claire’s dad finally arrived, looking worked up and harassed. He was a tall man, bald on top with tiny grey curls circling his head like a faded halo. Big bushy eyebrows and a big bushy moustache compensated for the lack of hair upstairs. When he walked in, the eyebrows were frowning. Two hairy caterpillars sizing each other up before a punch-up. Apparently, he’d had to park the car three blocks away, and was not too happy about it.
“Adequate parking place is what you should always look for before purchasing a home”, he told Daryl sternly. At first I thought he was joking, but no, he really did talk like that.
“This is Joey. Amy’s godfather”, said Mrs Moore, pointing at me with her nose. That was another thing she was good at.
“Good evening, Joseph”.
“Um… it’s Joey, Mr Moore”.
“Very well”.
After that, we all went to the bedroom where Amy was awake in her cradle. Mr Moore insisted that Amy had his eyes (which she didn’t) and Mrs Moore said that Amy had her nose (which she didn’t either, thank Christ for that). The one and only thing that we all agreed on was that Amy was a gorgeous baby. “At least one good thing has come out of all this”, was the charming way that Mrs Moore put it. Daryl, doing his best for Claire’s sake, said nothing, but I could see that he was committing GBH in his head.
The meal was a tense, uncomfortable affair, accompanied only by the sound of chewing, the scrapes of cutlery on plates and the smallest of small talk. Daryl didn’t look up once from his plate; he was jamming his fork into his food as if he wanted to pulverize it. Claire was anxiously looking from him to me and back again. Her ‘reconciliation thing’ was going hopelessly wrong.
I decided that it was up to me to save the day.
“So…” I started brightly, turning to Mr Moore, “…Claire tells me that you’re a wanker?”
Everyone looked up at me, mouths agape in shocked silence.
***
I meant to say ‘banker’. I swear on all that is holy that I meant to say ‘banker’. I was just thinking ‘wanker’, and it came out that way.
“Well!” Mrs Moore exclaimed in an outraged whisper.
“I… er… I mean…” I started, but was interrupted by Daryl.
Who started laughing uncontrollably.
Mrs Moore glared daggers at him as she slammed her fork down onto the table.
“I will not sit here and be ridiculed like this!” she spat, and I have never in my life heard so much raw fury compressed into just one voice.
Daryl, tears in his eyes, shoulders shaking and fighting for breath, held up a hand and managed to gasp out, “I’m sorry… I…” before exploding into laughter again.
Mr Moore snarled, “I fail to see any humour in this whatsoever!” He turned to where I sat, red as a beetroot and temporarily speechless.
“You”, he hissed, “are a vulgar, uncouth juvenile delinquent, young man”. He actually hissed the sentence, although there were no esses to hiss with. One would have to be pretty furious to manage that.
They stomped out of the room, not even bothering to finish their food, with poor Claire chasing after them and apologizing profusely. I heard Mrs Moore say “… made your bed – you sleep in it”. And then the front door slammed shut like a gunshot.
Needless to say, when Claire stormed back into the dining room, she treated us both to the most vicious verbal lashing I have ever been on the receiving end of. I discovered that she had quite a talent for stringing together four-lettered words. Daryl and I just sat there at the dinner table with our heads hung like two naughty schoolkids, muttering ‘sorry’ every five seconds and ‘you’re right, you’re right’ every ten.
But when Claire left the room, her voice hoarse from screaming at us, Daryl looked at me and whispered with a grin:
“You know, that’s the best time I’ve ever had in the company of those miserable old wankers”.
I laughed like an idiot all the way home.
***
Daryl wasn’t laughing now. He was prowling around the kitchen as if he was looking for something to kick and destroy. I hoped it wouldn’t be my fridge; I liked that fridge. It was almost brand new.
“Tell me about it”, I told him, “but try not to hit the roof too hard. You’ll wake Amy”.
That was all the prompting he needed.
“Those bastards”, he spat in a low, angry voice. “They said that they wanted to be sure that, with Claire gone, Amy wouldn’t miss out on a ‘strong family environment’. They want to be sure that Amy won’t be neglected and that she’s raised properly. They don’t think that I’m capable of looking after her myself. They want her to stay with them for weekends… and when I’m at work… hell, they want to keep her away from me as much as they possibly can…”
“They actually said all that?”
“Not in so many words. The way they put it; how tough it is to be a single father and needing all the help I can get; they were trying to come across as angels of fucking mercy. That’s what really got to me. They hate my guts, and they always have, and then they come to me with this ‘dear old concerned Grandpa and Grandma’ crap. They’ve never shown any interest in Amy before – they always believed that she was the sole reason that me and Claire got married – a mistake. And now this? They expected me to thank them, for Christ’s sake! Joey, they thought they were making me an offer I couldn’t refuse…”
“Maybe they really were concerned?” I said, but there was doubt in my voice and I knew that Daryl must have heard it too. I pressed on regardless. “Maybe they want to ease the burden of raising a child single-handedly, not to mention working to put food in said child’s mouth”.
“What they want to do”, said Daryl quietly, “is sever the links between me and them. Now that Claire is gone, Amy is the only thing we have in common. Take her away, and to them, I no longer exist”.
I sighed. “You’re probably right. Okay. So what did you tell them?”
Daryl frowned. “Nothing. I just nodded and showed them out, told them I was busy. But Mr Monster gave me a horrible look as they left”.
You are a vulgar, uncouth juvenile delinquent, young man. Yep, I knew all about that look. It was the glint of sunshine on a car windscreen just before it ploughed into an innocent bystander. The flash of a descending blade caught in candlelight; the eye of a wolf in the gloom of the forest. Angry, hungry and, most of all, determined.
I nodded slowly.
“And then they left”, said Daryl. “Just like that”.
I lit myself another cigarette. “I wouldn’t take any notice of them, to be honest. They’re not worth getting worked up about”.
Daryl sighed, “I know”.
“I’ll look after Amy whenever you need me to”.
“I know”.
“She’s a sweet kid”.
“You going to keep telling me things I already know?”
“I’ve run out of things you already know”.
“Oh, I get it. Comedy, yes?”
We grinned at each other then, and in that instance it was as if we were kids again, chasing each other with our plastic guns and making ‘bang bang’ noises.
After a while of companionable silence, Daryl looked at his watch.
“Almost half midnight”, he sighed. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”. A grey cloud of pain blew quickly across his eyes as he remembered that, tonight and forever more, home had simply become the place where he lived with his daughter, and nobody else. Then it was gone. He walked into the living room and gently shook Amy awake.
“Time for us to make like bananas and split, Sweet”, he said as she rose from the depths of sleep, blurry eyed and semiconscious, “Uncle Joey needs his beauty sleep. Badly”.
Amy got to her feet and half-walked, half-wobbled over to me with that funny dream-state sleepwalk that kids do. Her eyes were half-closed as she wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed.
“I love you”, she mumbled.
“Me too, princess”.
She let go of me and joined Daryl, who was standing by the front door. He took her hand.
“Cheers, Joey”, he said as he stepped outside, a cool breeze ruffling his hair like an invisible motherly hand.
“Hey Daryl”, I called.
He looked over his shoulder.
“Things can only get better”, I said simply.
He nodded and smiled a small smile. Then they were gone.
***
Things can only get better, I said.
Well, how the hell was I to know?
Daryl had come to the funeral in a rented black Mercedes, complete with driver and air-conditioning, leaving his own beaten up Fiat Panda at home. As we headed towards where the car sat gleaming in the sun, looking rather like a beached killer whale, Daryl glanced at me.
“Hey Joey, I know this is kind of short notice, but could you look after Amy for me this afternoon? I’ve got some… things I need to clear out back home”.
Some ‘things’. Namely, I figured, the coffee table that had smashed the back of Claire’s head in when she fell. The blood on the corner might eventually wash out, but it would never be really gone. Not unless the table was gone. Perhaps, not even then.
What a way to go.
I swallowed back the sudden sorrow that was doing its best to rise up in my throat, and smiled instead. It didn’t feel very real. It felt like it had been cut into my face with a Stanley knife.
“With pleasure”, I said.
“If you had anything planned”, Daryl started, “I could always…”
I interrupted him before finding out what he could always.
“The only plans I have are to get out of this godawful suit and crash out of the sofa in front of the TV. My sofa is big enough for two, and Charlie… well, Charlie isn’t home”.
Charlie. My ex-housemate.
“That okay with you, Sweet?”, Daryl asked Amy, who had run out of tears for the time being and had resorted once again to hanging her head as she shuffled along at her father’s side.
Sweet. Long story short, Daryl was a chef. One day he had teasingly called Amy his ‘sweet potato’. When he had later realised, to his childlike delight, that ‘Amy’ was an anagram of ‘yam’, the nickname had stuck.
Amy looked up just long enough for a quiet ‘uh-huh’, and Daryl absent-mindedly ruffled her hair as we reached the car. The driver was already waiting by the door, but he hadn’t opened it yet. Probably didn’t want the summer heat invading the cool interior.
“Cheers, Joey. I’ll pick her up later tonight”.
“No hurry. It’s not often that I get a date alone with the prettiest girl in town”.
Daryl smiled, bent down to kiss the top of Amy’s head, and turned to the Merc. The driver smartly swung the door open on silent hinges and a blast of cool air drifted out, creating a haze in the air.
Then they were gone. I looked back at the cemetery; it was empty, as if the past few hours had never happened.
As if nothing had changed.
I shepherded Amy to where my car was parked, the last one left in the parking lot. My car wasn’t air-conditioned. The inside was like an oven, and the steering wheel burned my hands. The engine growled and coughed like an asthmatic terrier. Still, it got us to where I wanted to go.
Home.
***
It was only a fifteen minute drive from the cemetery to my place. I parked the car in a vacant spot right in front of my front door. It was near impossible to find anywhere to park in a small town like St John, but my problem had been solved seven years ago when Charlie had moved in. Charlie had a screwed-up leg, a result of a bad fall during a rougher than average game of football. He walked with a limp. By grossly exaggerating his injury, and with a little help from some doctor friend of his, Charlie had managed to convince the local council to paint a ‘Reserved for Handicaps’ display in bright yellow on the road right in front of my house. Charlie had since then done a runner and vanished off the face of the earth, but in the meantime, my parking problems were over. The only minor drawback was that I had to fake a limp every time I got out of the car. I was getting quite good at it.
Home was a small, two-bedroomed terraced house. The entrance led into a narrow hallway that branched off into an open plan living room, dining room and kitchen separated from each other by a series of stone arches. In the corner of my living room stood my pride and joy – an old Franklin stove that had taken three months to find and a further month to install. Its long black chimney went through the ceiling, through my bedroom and out through the roof – in the winter, it heated up the entire house. There’s nothing like the warm, comforting glow of a log fire to make a house a home.
At the far end of the hall was a flight of stairs that climbed up to an identical hall, which led off to my bedroom, Charlie’s ex-bedroom, and the bathroom. My bedroom led out onto a tiny terrace that was ideal for deckchair-lounging in the summer, with a cool drink close by and a portable stereo belting out the latest and greatest at top volume.
Home sweet home.
“You hungry, chief?” I asked Amy as we walked into the living room. I always called Amy ‘chief’ when I was trying to cheer her up. Or ‘princess’ when I was teasing her; ‘sweetheart’ when she was upset. I hardly ever called her by her given name. I don’t know why. I liked her name. I had helped choose it, for God’s sake.
Amy shook her head in the negative, and sat down on the sofa. Or rather, collapsed onto the sofa, like a puppet whose strings had been cut away all at once. The cushions made a soft ‘whoomph’ as the air was squeezed out of them.
“You’ve got to eat sometime, sweetheart”, I said. I knew from Daryl that she had only been picking at her food since Claire had… since Claire. That was two days ago. Normally she had the appetite of a horse.
“I’m not hungry”.
“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do”, I said, coming round to the front of the couch and crouching down in front of her, pretty much the same way I had done at the cemetery. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll get in the shower while you chill out here. Listen to music, or draw, or smoke a cigar, or whatever…” – no smile there – “…You know where everything is, so help yourself. I’ve also got some new stuff from work you might want to check out. When I get out of the shower, I’m going to need your help…”
Amy raised one eyebrow, while the other frowned. The look clearly said ‘okay, I’ll bite, you silly adult. What are you getting at?’
“…because I’m hungry enough to eat my own head, and the only meals I can make come out of a can. I’ve heard that you’re pretty nifty in the kitchen. So we’ll whip up some gourmet platter together, and I’ll eat whatever you don’t. Deal?”
Silence.
I sighed, and straightened up.
“Looks like Spaghetti Hoops for one again”, I said sadly. “I’m getting in the shower”.
***
The music started while I was rinsing off the soapsuds under a hot spray of water. I spun the tap off and stood there motionless with my ears pricked as ‘Monday Monday’ by The Mamas and the Papas came drifting up the stairs. The song was cut off seconds after it started. The Marcels’ ‘Blue Moon’ came on, and suffered a similar fate. Then ‘Leader of the Pack’, followed immediately by ‘For Your Love’ by the Yardbirds. I knew where this was heading. I stood in the shower as if suspended in time, and waited for the CD to spin to the inevitable song.
Let’s go for a little walk,
Under the moon of love…
This time the song played uninterrupted to the last note. When it finished, there was a pause, and it started again. And again…
Showaddywaddy’s ‘Moon of Love’ had been Claire’s all-time favourite. Sometimes, when Daryl was at work and Claire was bitten by the lonely-bug, she and Amy would come over to my place. We would sit on the floor in the living room; Claire and Charlie and me and sometimes Rachael; with Amy crashed out on the sofa; talking about nothing and laughing about everything, sipping on red wine and playing CDs by firelight until the early hours, and every time ‘Moon of Love’ played we would all sing along to it, but quietly so that we wouldn’t wake Amy. Although now it dawned on me that Amy hadn’t been as fast asleep as she had made out…
I realised with a start that I was crying. Standing naked in the shower with soap drying on me and sobbing like a two-year-old as Showaddywaddy sang about walking and talking under a full moon, over and over again. I was crying for Claire, who was no more. I was crying for Charlie, who had left a note saying I’ve Got To Go and disappeared off the face of the earth. I shed tears for Rachael, who was in love with someone else; for the little girl downstairs who had lost her mother; for my best friend Daryl who had lost his wife; and I even cried a little for myself, although I have no idea why. I cried until I had no tears left, and then I cried some more until Showaddywaddy finally left the stage and Bryan Hylands ‘Sealed With a Kiss’ came on. Then, worn out but feeling much better than I had all day – all week – I rinsed off the sticky congealing soap suds, and got out of the shower. I dried up, dressed up, and went back downstairs.
***
Amy was asleep on the sofa, the CD remote clutched tightly in her hand. The cushion under her head was damp. I gently pulled the CD clicker from her grip, and went through the dining room and into the kitchen. In spite of what I had said to Amy earlier, I wasn’t all that hungry. I built myself a cheese and ham sandwich, adding lettuce and tomato as an afterthought.
I went back into the living room, holding the plate with the sandwich in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. I sat on one end of the sofa, flicked on the TV and spent the next couple of hours watching the moving pictures on mute without actually acknowledging them. I sipped at the beer. I finished my sandwich and wondered briefly whether or not I could be bothered to make myself another one. I eventually let laziness win over greed, and made do with just the one.
It started getting dark at around seven, so I leaned over Amy and switched on the table lamp. It gave out a warm cosy glow, casting shadows to the furthest corners of the room. I lit a cigarette, smoked half of it and put it out when Amy started mumbling and wrinkling her nose in her sleep. I downed the last of my beer instead. It was warm.
Daryl came over for Amy at half eleven. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. It was a black T-shirt, and I found myself wondering whether it had been chosen intentionally or just happened to be at the top of the pile in the drawer. I decided that it didn’t matter. I ushered Daryl into the kitchen and made him a cup of coffee. He looked like he could use it. I also opened another beer for myself.
Amy was still out like a light on the sofa. She hadn’t even stirred when the doorbell had chimed announcing Daryl’s arrival. I had covered her with a blanket as the night set in, and she had made a cocoon of it in her sleep. All that was visible of her from the kitchen was the top of her head.
Daryl hadn’t said a word since his short ‘hi’ at the door. I could tell that he had something that he needed to get off his chest. He looked as if he had very recently suffered from the grandfather of all headaches, and he was extremely pissed off about it. His eyes were blazing, his jaw set, his body as tense as a bowstring and visibly quivering. I decided not to push him, just in case I set off a spark and he blew up in my face. I figured that he would speak when he was ready. We hung around in silence in the kitchen; Daryl standing by the fridge, his coffee shaking in the cup as he raised it fiercely to his lips and gulped half of it down in one swallow, even though it was still piping hot. I was sitting on the cupboard by the sink. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. I blew out the smoke and watched it curl its way to the ceiling and disperse. I sipped some beer. Seconds got together, made friends and became minutes. I finished the cigarette and drained the bottle. Finally, Daryl spoke.
“Claire’s parents came round this evening”. He almost spat out the words, as if Claire’s parents had taken a dump in his mouth while they were there.
Claire’s parents were the sort of people you could run down with your car on your way to work in the morning and then spend the rest of the day congratulating yourself on making the world a slightly better place. That afternoon, at the funeral, I had offered them my commiserations and sympathy, more for Claire’s sake than anything else. I know that she would have appreciated the effort.
“Yes… well”, Claire’s mother had said, glaring down her nose at me as if she held me responsible for her daughter’s death. And also for Chernobyl, Starship Challenger and Children of Thalidomide. Claire’s bald old banker dad had completely ignored me, staring stiffly ahead as if I were a little brat who would go away if he pretended that I wasn’t actually there. Granted, I hadn’t made the best of impressions when I had first met them, but still…
Mr and Mrs Moore hated Daryl with an unbelievable passion, perhaps because they felt he had stolen their only child away from them. Or perhaps they believed that he wasn’t good enough for Claire. More likely, however, it was because of the fact that he had got Claire pregnant at the tender age of seventeen, after they had expressly forbidden her to go on seeing him. Whatever the reason, they hated him. So I suppose I was already on their shit-list just for being Daryl’s best friend.
***
A week after Amy was born, Daryl had called on the phone in a state of panic:
“The Monsters are coming to dinner! They want to see their granddaughter and Claire’s attempting yet another reconciliation thing, so they’re coming to dinner. Tonight! You’ve got to come! I can’t handle it on my own, so you’ve got to come…” and so on and so forth.
So I had.
Claire’s mother I disliked immediately. She swept into the room as if she were the queen visiting a peasant’s hut, her eyes taking in everything and approving of nothing. She was wearing a navy blue dress that didn’t have a single crease in it. It looked like she had ironed it quickly on the doorstep before coming in. Her hair was pulled back in a perfect bun, so tightly that it was a wonder she hadn’t pulled her own face off. She spoke through her rather impressive nose.
“Daryl”, she said as her eyes passed over him.
Daryl nodded. “Mrs Moore”, he said, his face carefully expressionless. It took me a while to figure out that they had just said hello to each other.
Mrs Moore’s eyes landed on Claire. “Hello Claire”, she said. Her tone of voice seemed to suggest that she was waiting for an apology. When none came, she added, “your father is looking for somewhere to park the car”. Then her eyes rested on me.
“Who is this? I thought we were having a family meal?”
The miserable old cow could actually speak in italics. I hadn’t thought it was possible, especially using nasal vocalization, but she managed it without too much trouble.
Claire hurried forward to introduce me.
“This is our friend Joey, mum. He’s going to be Amy’s godfather”.
“Pleased to meet you”, said I.
She looked me up and down. “Yes… well”, she said finally.
Yes well what? I wondered. I was to learn later that this was Mrs Moore’s favourite expression, and it roughly translated as ‘yes, well I suppose that’s the way it is, and there is nothing I can do about it but suffer in silence’.
Claire’s dad finally arrived, looking worked up and harassed. He was a tall man, bald on top with tiny grey curls circling his head like a faded halo. Big bushy eyebrows and a big bushy moustache compensated for the lack of hair upstairs. When he walked in, the eyebrows were frowning. Two hairy caterpillars sizing each other up before a punch-up. Apparently, he’d had to park the car three blocks away, and was not too happy about it.
“Adequate parking place is what you should always look for before purchasing a home”, he told Daryl sternly. At first I thought he was joking, but no, he really did talk like that.
“This is Joey. Amy’s godfather”, said Mrs Moore, pointing at me with her nose. That was another thing she was good at.
“Good evening, Joseph”.
“Um… it’s Joey, Mr Moore”.
“Very well”.
After that, we all went to the bedroom where Amy was awake in her cradle. Mr Moore insisted that Amy had his eyes (which she didn’t) and Mrs Moore said that Amy had her nose (which she didn’t either, thank Christ for that). The one and only thing that we all agreed on was that Amy was a gorgeous baby. “At least one good thing has come out of all this”, was the charming way that Mrs Moore put it. Daryl, doing his best for Claire’s sake, said nothing, but I could see that he was committing GBH in his head.
The meal was a tense, uncomfortable affair, accompanied only by the sound of chewing, the scrapes of cutlery on plates and the smallest of small talk. Daryl didn’t look up once from his plate; he was jamming his fork into his food as if he wanted to pulverize it. Claire was anxiously looking from him to me and back again. Her ‘reconciliation thing’ was going hopelessly wrong.
I decided that it was up to me to save the day.
“So…” I started brightly, turning to Mr Moore, “…Claire tells me that you’re a wanker?”
Everyone looked up at me, mouths agape in shocked silence.
***
I meant to say ‘banker’. I swear on all that is holy that I meant to say ‘banker’. I was just thinking ‘wanker’, and it came out that way.
“Well!” Mrs Moore exclaimed in an outraged whisper.
“I… er… I mean…” I started, but was interrupted by Daryl.
Who started laughing uncontrollably.
Mrs Moore glared daggers at him as she slammed her fork down onto the table.
“I will not sit here and be ridiculed like this!” she spat, and I have never in my life heard so much raw fury compressed into just one voice.
Daryl, tears in his eyes, shoulders shaking and fighting for breath, held up a hand and managed to gasp out, “I’m sorry… I…” before exploding into laughter again.
Mr Moore snarled, “I fail to see any humour in this whatsoever!” He turned to where I sat, red as a beetroot and temporarily speechless.
“You”, he hissed, “are a vulgar, uncouth juvenile delinquent, young man”. He actually hissed the sentence, although there were no esses to hiss with. One would have to be pretty furious to manage that.
They stomped out of the room, not even bothering to finish their food, with poor Claire chasing after them and apologizing profusely. I heard Mrs Moore say “… made your bed – you sleep in it”. And then the front door slammed shut like a gunshot.
Needless to say, when Claire stormed back into the dining room, she treated us both to the most vicious verbal lashing I have ever been on the receiving end of. I discovered that she had quite a talent for stringing together four-lettered words. Daryl and I just sat there at the dinner table with our heads hung like two naughty schoolkids, muttering ‘sorry’ every five seconds and ‘you’re right, you’re right’ every ten.
But when Claire left the room, her voice hoarse from screaming at us, Daryl looked at me and whispered with a grin:
“You know, that’s the best time I’ve ever had in the company of those miserable old wankers”.
I laughed like an idiot all the way home.
***
Daryl wasn’t laughing now. He was prowling around the kitchen as if he was looking for something to kick and destroy. I hoped it wouldn’t be my fridge; I liked that fridge. It was almost brand new.
“Tell me about it”, I told him, “but try not to hit the roof too hard. You’ll wake Amy”.
That was all the prompting he needed.
“Those bastards”, he spat in a low, angry voice. “They said that they wanted to be sure that, with Claire gone, Amy wouldn’t miss out on a ‘strong family environment’. They want to be sure that Amy won’t be neglected and that she’s raised properly. They don’t think that I’m capable of looking after her myself. They want her to stay with them for weekends… and when I’m at work… hell, they want to keep her away from me as much as they possibly can…”
“They actually said all that?”
“Not in so many words. The way they put it; how tough it is to be a single father and needing all the help I can get; they were trying to come across as angels of fucking mercy. That’s what really got to me. They hate my guts, and they always have, and then they come to me with this ‘dear old concerned Grandpa and Grandma’ crap. They’ve never shown any interest in Amy before – they always believed that she was the sole reason that me and Claire got married – a mistake. And now this? They expected me to thank them, for Christ’s sake! Joey, they thought they were making me an offer I couldn’t refuse…”
“Maybe they really were concerned?” I said, but there was doubt in my voice and I knew that Daryl must have heard it too. I pressed on regardless. “Maybe they want to ease the burden of raising a child single-handedly, not to mention working to put food in said child’s mouth”.
“What they want to do”, said Daryl quietly, “is sever the links between me and them. Now that Claire is gone, Amy is the only thing we have in common. Take her away, and to them, I no longer exist”.
I sighed. “You’re probably right. Okay. So what did you tell them?”
Daryl frowned. “Nothing. I just nodded and showed them out, told them I was busy. But Mr Monster gave me a horrible look as they left”.
You are a vulgar, uncouth juvenile delinquent, young man. Yep, I knew all about that look. It was the glint of sunshine on a car windscreen just before it ploughed into an innocent bystander. The flash of a descending blade caught in candlelight; the eye of a wolf in the gloom of the forest. Angry, hungry and, most of all, determined.
I nodded slowly.
“And then they left”, said Daryl. “Just like that”.
I lit myself another cigarette. “I wouldn’t take any notice of them, to be honest. They’re not worth getting worked up about”.
Daryl sighed, “I know”.
“I’ll look after Amy whenever you need me to”.
“I know”.
“She’s a sweet kid”.
“You going to keep telling me things I already know?”
“I’ve run out of things you already know”.
“Oh, I get it. Comedy, yes?”
We grinned at each other then, and in that instance it was as if we were kids again, chasing each other with our plastic guns and making ‘bang bang’ noises.
After a while of companionable silence, Daryl looked at his watch.
“Almost half midnight”, he sighed. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”. A grey cloud of pain blew quickly across his eyes as he remembered that, tonight and forever more, home had simply become the place where he lived with his daughter, and nobody else. Then it was gone. He walked into the living room and gently shook Amy awake.
“Time for us to make like bananas and split, Sweet”, he said as she rose from the depths of sleep, blurry eyed and semiconscious, “Uncle Joey needs his beauty sleep. Badly”.
Amy got to her feet and half-walked, half-wobbled over to me with that funny dream-state sleepwalk that kids do. Her eyes were half-closed as she wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed.
“I love you”, she mumbled.
“Me too, princess”.
She let go of me and joined Daryl, who was standing by the front door. He took her hand.
“Cheers, Joey”, he said as he stepped outside, a cool breeze ruffling his hair like an invisible motherly hand.
“Hey Daryl”, I called.
He looked over his shoulder.
“Things can only get better”, I said simply.
He nodded and smiled a small smile. Then they were gone.
***
Things can only get better, I said.
Well, how the hell was I to know?
***
Forward to Chapter Two | Part One
1 comment:
"Daryl had taken off his tie, and to my relief his head had completely failed to cave in or crumble to pieces."
Glad to see this image revisted one more time.
"The occasional breeze felt like the breath of an angel."
Slighty melodramatic.
"Amy looked up just long enough for a quiet ‘uh-huh’, and Daryl absent-mindedly ruffled her hair as we reached the car."
Watch point of view here. We're in Joey's head, not Daryl's. It might look absent minded, but Joey can't say that it is for sure.
"The driver smartly swung the door open on silent hinges and a blast of cool air drifted out, creating a haze in the air."
Why is this smart? Why doesn't he just open the door.
"I shepherded Amy to where my car was parked, the last one left in the parking lot."
Shepherded?? I think you might be overwriting a little bit. Excuse me if this next little section seems like I'm being really picky and just looking for things to find wrong, but the idea of over writing was in my head and this next passage is a good one to tear apart. You're definetly entitled to say, 'screw you, wojo, I'll write how I want,' but I'll do it anyways...
"It was only a fifteen minute drive from the cemetery to my place. [why do you need the word 'only'? stay simple when you can] I parked the car in a vacant spot right in front of my front door. [of course it's a vacant spot. you wouldn't park in an occupied spot would you? just say, "I parked the car in front og my door.] It was near impossible to find anywhere to park in a small town like St John, [near impossible? what does that mean?] but my problem had been solved seven years ago when Charlie had moved in. Charlie had a screwed-up leg, a result of a bad fall during a rougher than average game of football. [how about just 'a rough game of football. if you say it's rough than that means it wasn't average.]" Yes, a lot of that is very picky and it's all a matter of style, neither one being any more correct than the other. My personal feeling is to try to make as concise of statements as possible. Words like 'only' 'just' 'nearly' can be deleted 90 percent of the time without hurting the sentence.
I'm not going to mention everytime I see something like this, but if you agree with me, or would like me to do another closer read on a more technical level, I'd be happy to. Back to the story...
"I was crying for Claire, who was no more. I was crying for Charlie, who had left a note saying I’ve Got To Go and disappeared off the face of the earth. I shed tears for Rachael, who was in love with someone else; for the little girl downstairs who had lost her mother; for my best friend Daryl who had lost his wife; and I even cried a little for myself, although I have no idea why. I cried until I had no tears left, and then I cried some more until Showaddywaddy finally left the stage and Bryan Hylands ‘Sealed With a Kiss’ came on."
This is an important moment in the story. What happens - Joey crying in the shower - is very believable, almost expected. What isn't that believable is that Joey has the presence of mind to know exactly why he's crying. He just lost one of his best friends, just got home from the funeral, and her daughter is in the other room, basically depressed. Joey doesn't have the insight into his own actions, as they're happening. What's a lot more realistic is to show Joey crying, then have him comment about how later on he realized why, or just leave it alone.
"I hadn’t made the best of impressions when I had first met them, but still..."
Here's that thing where you mess with the reader again. You explain the first meeting almost immediately after. Why frustrate the reader?
The scene where Joey first meets the parents is great. It's a little story in itself, and I think the wanker comment is a hilarious and extremely fitting ending to it.
Overall comments about this part:
Where'd that voice go? The one who was very conscious that he was writing something? Who told us when things happend and when he'd talk about them? It's really muted in this part. Again, I'm only this far along but I hope it either doesn't come back or it comes back and stays around. It's better to pick one, and stay consistent with it, rather than go back and forth.
This part seemed like it wanted to revolve around the relationship between Amy and Joey, but didn't know exactly how to do it. There's a bunch of oppurtunites to explore the dynamics going on while she's at his house, but instead she just falls asleep. Then she wakes up and says, "I love you" To me this seemed to be the point you wanted to express throughout the entire part - that Amy is really attached to Joey - but instead of showing it throughout the scene you just throw it in at the end.
Very good place to end the section. The reader is still very intrigued.
I'll continue reading and commenting, but if you get a chance, send me a message about what I've said already. I think it works best where there's a conversation going on between the reader and the writer. Tell me when I'm way off base or tell me areas you want me to look at closer. Interaction is never a bad thing.
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