Xion Island: Chapter 17

I am filled with hatred. And, to my disgust, something close to nostalgia. The flesh remembers things the memory has never known.

I tell her my name is Colton Parrish. It’s a quiet, forgettable alias, with just enough cowboy to justify my American drawl. I spin her a story about working in offshore energy. I’m Houston-based, I say, and moving through contracts. I heard about her through an old contact who remembered she once housed contractors—colleagues of her son—during the North Morecambe field expansion.

None of it’s true.

Except for the part about her son working offshore. That’s real. He hops between rigs in the Gulf of Guinea and the North Sea. He never married and has no legitimate children, only me. He’s proving difficult to track down.

I am his mistake, perhaps one of many.

And Iris Taylor is his mother.

I come to her door on a Wednesday afternoon with a bag of teacakes and a bouquet from the petrol station. She opens the door and I’m taken aback when I recognise her. I see her essence when I look in the mirror. Her eyes are watery but sharp, and she’s wearing a Mountain Warehouse fleece and a wrap-around scarf. She looked like a woman who could knit you a jumper and poison your tea in the same afternoon.

‘Mrs Taylor? Hi, I’m Colton Parrish, and I was told you’re the person to talk to hereabouts for a clean room?’

The word clean appeals to her ego, and she puffs her chest out. ‘Don’t do that no more, Son. Not for a long time. You’re American,’ she says. It isn’t a question.

I smile and force myself not to punch her teeth out when she calls me son. ‘Born and raised.’

‘That explains the forthrightness,’ she says.

She’s old, but not lacking. If I don’t pull this back, she’s going to end the conversation and close the door. I start coughing. Nothing too over the top to gross her out, but persistent enough to need a grandmother’s love—and maybe a bowl of chicken soup.

‘Crikey, that’s the devil on your back. You need to take something for that cough.’

I lean against the door frame, visibly exhausted. ‘Not used to the English weather yet, ma’am. It sure does blow here.’

‘Look, you’d better come in, love. You’ll freeze your bits off out here.’

Her house is small and cluttered with what can only be described as stuff. The things an old lady accumulates from years of birthdays and Christmases. It’s a tidy-penny bungalow tucked in the hills at the top of Roose, with gnomes on the lawn and photos of people she hardly ever sees framed above the fireplace. I’ve done my research. I hand over the flowers and teacakes.

She looks confused but fills the gap with words. ‘Colton. That’s a name with personality.’

‘That’s why it was chosen.’ I show her my pearly whites to disarm her.

‘A friend of mine takes in contractors,’ she says. ‘Homos.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘When you get a room and have to share a bathroom.’

‘Oh, a House in Multiple Occupation. HMO. We don’t have them in the US, just apartments, mainly, but I’ve read about them.

‘Lisa’s lovely. All very nice, I promise you. Pristine toilet and plenty of paper, I’m sure. Not as clean as me, mind. But I don’t do it anymore. My knees, you see.’

I was left wondering what she’d done with her knees to prevent her from renting out her two spare rooms. She led me into the kitchen and motioned to a wooden chair with a circular yellow cushion. Talking nonstop, she put the kettle on. Maybe she was lonely.

 ‘Tea?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Can’t beat a good cuppa. Most people I meet from the rigs just want to brag about near-death experiences and drink me out of Tetleys.’

I don’t know what Tetley’s is, some kind of spirit, I assume. Grandma could be a lush. She brews tea like we’re in a national emergency, fast, and with a splash of judgment, then offers me a mug. The tea smells like lavender and burnt toast.

‘You remind me of someone, son. Can’t quite put my finger on it, though.’

I sip, smiling, and change the subject. ‘Have you ever heard of The Hairy Bikers?’

Her face lights up. ‘Have I! My Arthur used to play darts with Dave. I tell you, I cried for hours when he passed. His poor old mum. A proper man, Dave was. Beardy, but makes a lovely scone. Or so I’m told.’

‘I know he’s from around here. Him and my dad were mates. Back in the old biker days, apparently.’

‘Well. What a coincidence. I bet your dad knows my Alan. He knocked about with Dave. Always racing something, he was, motorbikes, boats, women.’ She chuckles, and I feel a tea light ignite in my stomach. I didn’t recognise the warmth in my chest. It’s been missing so long that it felt like heartburn.

‘Not that he brought many home. I don’t hold with all that malarky.’

‘Alan,’ I say, tasting the word for memories. ‘Do you know, I think the name rings a bell.’

She squints at me. ‘He’s private. Always was. Like his dad.’

‘Do you see much of him?’

‘He comes home when he can. He’s a good boy. Always visits when he’s not up a rig.’ She stares down at her tea. ‘He doesn’t talk to me much about his life, though. He thinks I’m a silly old woman. But he’s kind in other ways.’

‘With his job, it must be hard getting away. Where’s he stationed at the moment?’

She ignores my question. ‘He sends postcards,’ she says. ‘And he never forgets my birthday.’

She looks at me strangely, and I’m on my guard. Forcing my shoulders down, I relax into the chair. Body language is important. It’s like she’s trying to see behind my eyes.

‘Follow me. I’ll show you something.’ She leads me to the living room and I perch on another chair. ‘I was having a clear-out, but you might be interested in this lot from your dad’s time. He might even be in some of these old pictures. People forget, but before Facepost and TikTack, we had fun.’ She winks and knows exactly what she’s saying. I know not to underestimate this old dear.

She opens a chocolate tin and sorts through long-forgotten things. ‘There’s Alan as a boy. He had big ears, and look at those mud-streaked jeans.’ I see a man who could walk past me on the street and not feel any recognition stir his blood.

‘That’s him on his first Yamaha. He crashed it into the neighbour’s privet hedge and lied about it for years.’

I stare, appraising the stranger in the picture with my scientific eye. He’s not bad-looking, but I got his best genes and some better ones from my mother, I suspect. Thank God I didn’t inherit the ears. I feel the warmth of what could have been—like belonging. There’s a line drawn between me and him that makes me want to snap it. This is the man I’ve hated my entire life.

And something shifts.

Her voice is kind, and the room smells like old biscuits and furniture polish. It could almost be home. She gives me her kindness, but doesn’t realise it’s a currency I don’t accept.

I shake it off. Hard.

She pulls out a black-and-white photo. ‘That’s my mother, Carys Mayburn. She was Welsh, originally, but married a steel man from Barrow. Hard as nails she was. She could sew your buttons on, kiss your grazed knee, or skin a rabbit and all without changing expression.’

Something in me coils. I feel it tighten.

She nods, even though I can’t speak. ‘Half of my family are Welsh. I still have a few relatives out there. Big family. The old blood, kind.’

I freeze. I like her. What’s this feeling? It’s warm. I want her approval.

And instantly, I switch off. I hate her. I was born from this tainted line. I bled from it, and I was cast out of it. She has to pay for what they did to me—what she did.

I reach into my coat where the last case sits with one insect scratching around inside, my sixth female. It’s the special one born and modified to reunite father and son. I’m tempted, but I can’t use it. Ticks are arthropods. They reproduce by laying eggs after feeding. This one won’t lay her clutch until afterwards, but all of them will carry the genetic implanting of my family DNA, and will perpetuate the scourge that my OGs have started. She will lay eight thousand eggs before she dies.

I need more ticks now. But I have to wait and be methodical, the way I’m trained.

I’m angry. And it’s because this stupid, funny woman makes me feel something I don’t understand. I’m suffering alien emotions, and I can’t abide it.  She’s showing me her bloodline as if it’s something to be proud of, and I want to be in the photos with my family.

She wipes her eyes with a tissue and lifts another photo. ‘Here’s me on my wedding day. Look at all that hair. I was a beauty back then. And my Arthur. Tragic. I wish my Alan would marry and give me grandchildren. Too selfish that one.’

I snap.

It happens too fast to think. I have one hand around her throat and the other pressing her into the armchair cushions. Her mug of tea crashes to the carpet. Her slippers—pink moccasins—twitch once, then they’re still.

She doesn’t scream. But she stares at me the whole time, wide-eyed and stunned. Her eyes ask me why. She doesn’t understand.

I don’t give her anything. She made me care. Who the hell does she think she is?

It’s messy. Brutal and sloppy. This isn’t part of the plan. I hold on too long, and feel something break in her neck. I add more pressure and destroy her larynx so she can’t talk about her perfect son. When it’s over, I wipe my hands on a blue throw and step back. Her mouth is slack. Her eyes are open in rigid terror, but she isn’t here.

 I hate her for it.

I never meant to touch her with my hands, but she was always meant to die eventually. I was giving her the second phase, letting her be until the hatchlings were free to swarm Barrow and beyond, taking out every Taylor gene in existence. But she had to keep talking. Why did she do that? She’s part of the wreckage now. The Taylor Matriarch is dead, and it feels good.

I tear the family photos in half before I leave and burn the box in her garden incinerator. I walk away with her last breath still dying on my palms. There are no witnesses, and no sentiment or origin.

Only ash.

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