vessel

Not for the first time, I’ve a terrible urge to seize the album from my mother’s trembling hands and smash her head in with it. Simultaneous feelings of shame and self-loathing cannot quell the rage, but only fan the flames until I could tear myself in two, drive my fingers through my skull and wrench it open, anything to be free of this fleshy, pulsing prison. My eyes are fixed on the artex. Her voice leaks through the turmoil, twittering like a caged bird.

“Look, there’s me and you at Skegness when you were three, d’you remember that? A seagull came and snatched your iced bun right out of your hand, d’you remember? Oh, you cried and cried, I had to take you back to the shop and buy you another one.” She gives a dry little laugh.

I can’t see the photo- I’m still looking at the artex- but I can see it in my mind’s eye. My mum, barely twenty, pretty and full of hope. I’m on her knee, my face red and angry, the replacement bun clutched in a chubby fist. My mum loves that photo. I loathe it in equal measure.

She is fluttering now on the edge of my vision, chirping with that affected cheerfulness that makes me want to rise up and swallow her whole. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to see how she is shrunken, wrinkled, debased like a nasty caricature of the girl in the picture. I did this to her. We limp through baby photos, first day of school, wide-eyed Christmases.

“Look, there you are with Mr Squiggles. D’you remember him? He was your favourite. There you are with your little friend Jamie, remember him? You’re still friends, you know. He still comes to see you.”

I like Jamie’s visits, though I hate to see the sadness in his face when he looks at me. But he talks to me like normal, about work and girls and the other lads. It’s like I’m alive.

We are nearing the end of the album. Spaces appear in the story- photos she has deemed too laden with pain to be looked at. Dad, before it all got too much. Anna, my gorgeous girlfriend, with her smile that made my throat close. She soon stopped coming. I don’t blame her. Then there’s the first car. First and last car. I’m hanging out the driver’s door, thumb in the air, giant grin splitting my face. There must be a drawer somewhere, full of banished photos.

Mum’s chatter has petered out. I can feel her looking at me, and I know her eyes are full of tears. She puts her hand in mine, and I try, I try so hard to squeeze it. My eyes roll. I feel beads of sweat pushing through my pores. I need to give her this. In my head I am roaring with the effort. Nothing happens. She sighs, wipes her eyes, and leaves the room.