Junk - Melvin Burgess [107]
I offered to put him up. He could have stayed with his mother, there was enough space there. But no, he went and stayed with friends. And apparently – I never heard about this for ages afterwards – apparently he got very angry about it all, very bitter. He started going round there late at night and shouting outside the door until she let him in. Shouting. Drunk. Disturbing the child. Making a nuisance of himself.
How very familiar.
And one day, to cut a long story short, he went round there pissed up, and he did the dirty. Oh yes. He knocked her down and kicked her around the room. She wasn’t that hurt, not black eyes or fat lips. But that’s not the point. The point is, he hit her.
He didn’t tell me about that, of course. Gemma came round after he’d left Minely and I got most of it off her then. I’d hardly seen anything of him for ages; I didn’t even know he’d gone.
I waited a long time for him to get in touch with me. I wanted to talk to him about it; I mean, I wanted him to talk to me. I thought, O-ho, what have you got to say for yourself now, mister? I hoped he might turn to me then, at last. Not for advice as such. But I thought by that time our similarities would have been too strong for him to ignore. It would have been nice to share a common weakness. Actually, I did gloat. He’d spent so much time telling me what a bastard I was and now… ho ho ho.
Well, I know I’m not being fair. It’s different, it was just once. He went round and apologised the next day. Maybe I make too much of it – anyone can lose their temper, especially after all he’d been through. I bet it gave him a fright. I bet he thought he was turning into the old man – the bogeyman!
But we’ve both lost our relationships, we’ve both lost our children. We’ve both been addicted to something or other. I know the shapes of our lives were different. I was a respectable teacher with a mortgage and a family living inside the law and he was a junkie living in a squat outside the law. But still, you’d have thought – certainly hoped – that there was something in me he might relate to. But he went away and never got in touch. There was a postcard from Hereford some time later. Apparently he had friends there; he was going to do his A-levels at college. Had a girlfriend. Sounded happy enough. Gemma says so. They’re friends these days. More than me and Jane are.
‘He’s really well, he’s got a lovely girlfriend. No, he’s great, he’s clean, we get on really well,’ she says. He comes to see her and Oona from time to time. He takes Oona away on holiday so Gemma has some time off. It sounds all very worked out. He never comes to see me even though he’s in Minely from time to time. I’m patient. One day I hope there’ll be a phone call or a knock at the door. He’s a good boy, a good person. It’s his instinct to help. I believe he’s capable of great love and affection. I know I’ll never receive these things from him but I like to think I was instrumental – when he was little, before things went wrong – in nurturing them in him.
One day, my boy, all this will be yours. As they say. All my goods and shackles, such as they are. There’s no one else. The other thing you leave your children is your life – the example of it. One day, my boy…
And so, in your absence, David, I raise my glass to you – a cup of tea, actually – and I say, Here’s to you. Good luck! Make the most of it.
And don’t end up like me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tar
EVER FALLEN IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE
EVER FALLEN IN LOVE
IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE
EVER FALLEN IN LOVE
WITH SOMEONE YOU SHOULDN’T FALL IN LOVE
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH?
The Buzzcocks
It was a love story. Me, Gemma and junk. I thought it was going to last forever. It was the biggest adventure of my life, you know. Gemma’s something special, isn’t she? And so’s junk.
I liked being in love. It’s like giving part of yourself away. Love is forever! Yeah, well, I don’t believe that any more. It’s something that happens to you, like anything else. It starts and then it stops. Being an addict… now that lasts