No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [22]
“Who were you before? A warrior or the wounded, my sweet boy?” She’d ruffle his hair and he would smile as though he knew the answer but dared not share it.
Sam had started out in the world as a gawky creature, too skinny for his large or piercing facial features. The kids at school made fun of his square jaw, often referring to him as “Desperate Sam the Pie-eating Man”. It hadn’t bothered him – at least, not at first. He was too busy locked in his thoughts and playing riffs in his head while others around him talked nonsense just to hear themselves speak. But as the years passed the noise grew louder and their contempt became harder to ignore. He often wondered why they couldn’t just leave him be. But jealous souls demand to be heard, and his ambivalence taunted them as surely as their bullying haunted him. He was in his mid-teens when he began to fill out. His features no longer overtook the rest of him. His blond hair was shaped into a crew-cut by the local barber.
“As handsome as your grandfather in his day,” his granny whispered. He might have had a rocky start but she’d always known he’d be a heartbreaker one day.
The girls in school noticed too and suddenly he was considered deep instead of weird. He instantly recognized the hypocrites for who they were and retreated further into himself, distrustful of his new-found popularity and cursing his appearance for drawing unwanted attention. Instead of hanging with the guys, getting drunk and exploring girls, he hid for hours in his room with his guitar, losing himself in melody, playing from his heart – a heart that was full of all kinds of music. His gran would bring him tea, shaking her hips; he’d grin when she’d twirl around without spilling a drop or letting a biscuit slip from the plate.
“You’ll be a star some day,” she’d say proudly.
He’d shake his head modestly, but deep down he prayed he’d reach the dizzying heights his loving granny dreamed of. Playing guitar was the only time he felt he was honest with the world.
It was just after his sixteenth birthday when his granny keeled over in the kitchen, taking a pot of mercifully cold tomato soup to the floor with her. She woke up a day later, the left side of her face sliding towards her shoulder, her speech impaired, an arm and a leg now useless. He sat with her and talked while she stared blankly at the ceiling, one eye blinking. It was only when he played his guitar and a tear escaped her that he knew she was still with him.
His parents flew into action. First they put a bed downstairs in the unused drawing room. Then they hired a nurse and a physiotherapist, who would call three times a week. But Granny wasn’t improving at home – or not the way the professionals thought she should. After six months Granny Baskin was moved to a hospital that specialized in stroke-victim aftercare. It was Sam who helped his mother to wheel her to the car. She hung on to him loosely while his mother removed the chair from beneath her. His strong arms manoeuvred her into the front seat, where he smoothed her skirt when it rode up her leg. His mother was busy attempting to fit the chair into the trunk, cursing silently when she scratched the paintwork.
It was then that his granny leaned forward, almost flopping, with a sideways grin. “Don’t let the bastards get you down!” she managed. It had been the first real sentence she’d spoken since the stroke. With her good arm she ruffled his hair and he could have sworn that, after all those months, the twinkle returned to her eye, if only for a moment and just for him.
His mother drove away, leaving him to sit and rock on the stairs that led to his bedroom and the world his old granny had helped him create. The pain