History

History

The past moves, shifting
While the present sits stagnant
The future lies, waits

I think I might want to talk about my mum.
My mum died of secondary lung cancer when I was seventeen. I don't
really recall much of that time. I remember it, but I don't recall.
This was the biggest transition in my life, and could probably fill a
book on its own, but that's not what I'm writing about. This will
probably just explain a bit more about me.

I can remember most of the day that my mum told us all she had cancer.
It was in 1992; we had been living in the pub for a few months. I can
remember in vivid detail tiny, unimportant things, but the wider
picture, I can't. It was after we'd been holiday to Spain. I don't know
which month it was - September?

My Cheetah 125+ joystick had broken the night before - I threw at the
wall playing Rainbow Islands on the Commodore 64. My trusty Atari stick
had been pulled from its semi-permanent storage and was not performing
to specification. I was sitting in the living room cleaning the innards
carefully with a cotton bud and white spirit when my mum and dad came
in.

They looked exhausted. My mum had just had a benign lump removed from
her right breast. I knew it was really sore for her, but she never,
ever complained. Things would only get better now. We had big plans for
the pub - an upstairs bar that hadn't been used in years was planned to
be made into a massive living room. The actual pub had recently been
done up, it was in the middle of a renaissance, ours was probably the
most successful pub in the high street that summer.

My life was brilliant. I had punched fuck out of Sammy just before
going on holiday - the bullies were off my back. I was drinking a lot.
Too much. I couldn't go to school without drinking two or three cans of
cider that had been purloined from downstairs. Me and Tony were selling
a lot of drink and making a lot of money. We never ID'ed anybody, and
you were guaranteed your order, provided it wasn't too big. Later, I'd
feel guilty about it, but at the time, it was a laugh, it was
exciting.

In the local area, I was not a boy with whom to fuck. I had made my
presence felt to ensure that I didn't get hassle. Nobody was scared of
me, I was Big Wull - nobody tried anything. Life was good.

>I've got cancer.

There were words before that, and words after, but I remember those
words. I remember nearly laughing. I looked at my dad for a sign of a
joke. His eyes were down. My mum was sat on her chair looking from one
of us to the next, her three children. My dad was on the arm of the
chair, a hand on her shoulder.

I knew.

I had dreamt it the night before. I had dreamt my mum had vomited up a
huge black maggot and screamed at me to kill it, but I stood frozen in
terror, blood and bile sliding from the squat, greasy form. Kill
it!

But I couldn't.

I choked down tears. My sisters ran to her and they hugged, all three
of them crying. I kept cleaning the joystick; I was trying to look
strong and mature.

>What can they do?

>You're always in about they things, she smiled, nodding at the
controller. I smiled back. I could feel the smile slip then regain.
Nancy and Tracy were buried in her. My dad was looking worried,
massaging her shoulder as if he could knead the cancer out.

She talked about mastectomy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. It was
lost to me as I sat nodding. She was calm. She was positive. She would
need our support. She reached the end then asked;

>Do you want a hug?

I was kneeled in front of her with my arms round her neck before I knew
what was happening. I was crying. I didn't really know why, but I was
crying. She took away all my fear just by smoothing down my hair.

For us, things stayed the same. We barely noticed anything, except when
my mum lost her hair. Everyone who came into the pub supported her.
They all got her a baseball cap to use when she didn't want to use her
wig or NHS turban. It was pink with the legend Sex Instructor: First
Lesson Free! I thought it was hilarious.

Then my dad left.

Now, I might go on to talk about this later, but when I was young, me
and my dad didn't get on. The only real memory I have is when I worked
out he was seeing someone - I just didn't know who. He had been
avoiding eye contact for quite a while (no big deal, he was never that
big on it anyway), then one night he was getting ready to go to
hospital to visit my mum. He was in the kitchen, checking himself out
in the mirror. I could smell his Givenchy Gentleman, he was well
dressed.

>You look more like you're going out than going to see my mum, I
teased.
I hit the opposite wall, banging my head, dazed. I almost retaliated,
my newfound cockiness that great.

>Button it! my dad was pointing at me.
Stunned, I got my glass of juice and returned to my room without
another word. He was going out. I couldn't believe it. But maybe I was
wrong. Fifteen minutes later.

>William, through my door.

>Whit.

>Don't 'whit' me. C'mere.

I opened my door. He went into his wallet and gave me a tenner. I
considered telling him to stick his tenner up his arse, but a tenner is
a tenner.

>Ta, I took it.

>Tidy up this room, he left.

I looked at the tenner for what it was: absolute confirmation. I
wondered who my dad was seeing.

Tony and I had a book running with each other - I reckoned it was some
woman called Betty (I think), while Tony reckoned it was girl called
Rebecca. I vowed to keep that specific tenner to give Tony if he was
right, but I spent it on 5 two-litre bottles of Diamond White during a
special offer.

Then we heard a rumour. The rumour was that my dad was seeing Rachel,
Rebecca's sister - a girl two years older than us. We had great laugh
at that. Tony was certain that it was bollocks, because he was certain
that Rachel fancied him. I wasn't so sure - she helped us out in the
pub a bit, and we had talked a few times, sort of at length. She'd been
up to see my mum in the hospital a couple of times when I'd been there.
I thought that she might have a bit of thing for me.

Then came the rumour that she was pregnant.

Then came the stark reality of my dad leaving to live with her.

I remember thinking how much easier my life would get. One parent to
navigate around. It would be pretty cool. I could see a lot of
possibilities. He came in and told us all that he had fell in love with
someone else. He told us that he didn't love us any less. Nancy and
Tracy were distraught. He looked at me.

>You know it's not your fault?

>I ken. It's yours.

I meant no malice. It was the truth. The girls were cuddled into him.
He was still looking at me - he spread his arms and gestured for me to
go to him. I nearly did.

Then I remembered the times when I wanted to hug him, but I was "too
old for that".

I snorted and left the room. Sonic the Hedgehog was calling.

>I'm off, William, he shouted after about an hour with the girls. I
ignored him. >William?

>Leave him a while, my mum said.

>See you in a couple of days.

>Don't think so, I said out loud, but I was choked up, so I don't
think he heard.

Later, when the girls went to bed, my mum and I spoke about it. She
told me not to be hard on my dad. I told her that I didn't hate him for
how I felt - I honestly didn't care when he moved out, it made no real
difference to me - but he had upset the girls and he had upset my mum.
She told me that she would be fine and that I shouldn't worry, I should
just try hard at my upcoming exams.

I was fine with this until that night. The walls in our flat weren't
very thick and my mum and dad's? my mum's room was right next door to
mine. I spent three hours listening to my mum crying. I spent three
hours thinking about how my dad would pay for every tear she shed. I
spent three hours crying because my dad had left us.

I hated him then. I hated him for just then trying to be a good dad. I
hated how every time he was over he would ask me how I was, and how was
school, and?

It took me a couple of months to even look him the face without
glaring, never mind talk to him.

The only conversation I remember having with him was one about Aliens.
He had seen it on TV and suddenly had common ground with me. He made
sure by asking me if that was the one that I had on video.

>Yeah, I felt a tinge of pity for him then, like he was clutching at
straws, trying to connect with me, >I've got the Special
Edition.

I looked about me, bored. We always talked at the bottom of the stairs,
never letting him into our home. He threw his arms around me
suddenly.

>Son, he wept, >I've missed you.

I patted his back. I was in tears at this point. My throat hurt the way
it does when you try not to cry. It hurt all the way down my chest. All
I wanted to do was hold my dad.

>You shouldn't have left us then, I broke off, >I'll see you
later.

He juddered in pure hurt as I legged it up the stairs. I heard him
almost whisper;

>I didn't leave you?

I went into my room and cried for an hour afterwards. My mum came to
see if I was OK. I told her I was and to leave me for a while. The next
day she went into hospital with septicaemia, which nearly killed
her.

Then my aunt Joan, her boyfriend Andy, and my two cousins moved over
from Arran to live with us - eight of us in a three bedroom flat. Worse
things happen, I know, but I had always had my own room, my own
personal space, that I now shared with Nancy and Tom, my cousin. There
was no privacy, except in the bathroom, and even then, it could be
guaranteed that someone would want in ten minutes after you got
in.

It was round about this time that my mental health slipped a great
deal. I got violent, and hurt myself often. Not in obvious ways - it
wasn't for attention, that was the last thing I needed. The "uncle"
that moved in wasn't a very nice man. In fact, he was, is, a control
freak. He hid behind a weed addled peace and love hippie bullshit
fa?ade that even my eight year old cousin could see through, my aunt
couldn't, though.

He used to promise to do things for my mum, then tell me to do them,
like hose down the cellar, unblock the drains, and knock down our
rickety old garage and lean-to. It was quite a list.

I remember a bunch of mates and I had arranged to go to "Quasar", a
kind of laser paintball that was fairly new at the time. We had had it
planned for weeks. Then the "uncle" told me on the Friday night that he
expected the drain cleared the next day. I told him that I had a day in
Ayr planned. He told me I had to learn responsibility. I learned a few
years later that he had told my mum he would do it, and told her he had
done it.

I had to get up at 5.00am, and manually unblock this outside drain. It
was the drain that went from the ladies' toilet. It was backed up with
about half a dozen tampons and it stunk to high heaven. When it was
cleared, a huge amount of human waste just flooded the entire back
garden. I had to hose that all up, clean it with a deck scrubber, then
wake him up to check my work, then he went back to bed. I spent the
next hour and half in the shower scrubbing myself. I could still feel
it where any of the shit had touched me.

When I returned that night, my gran went ballistic at me - I hadn't
mopped the cellar, I wasn't pulling my weight, Drew was doing all my
work. I pointed him out for the liar he was, and was promptly verbally
beaten down. I remember how his face flushed as he dove to defend
himself, his voice rose an octave, like a child protesting innocence,
"He's lying!"

>Aye, my gran shook her head sadly, >And I know what's to
blame?

She meant my new Atari ST that I had bought with my ill-gotten
gains.

My mum kept silent through all this. I nodded I understood.

My Aunt glared daggers at me, >Ca'ing ma man a liar! You'll no be
half the man?

I calmly walked to my room, collected my Atari and threw it downstairs.
I happily picked up the remains and put them in the bin, whistling the
whole time.

Later, my mum explained that we shouldn't be ungrateful for all the
help we were getting, and that they would be moving into their new
house as soon as my mum was well enough. In the mean time, Andy
continued to deal drugs from behind the bar and allegedly stealing
money (from a Fun Run my mum arranged for the Marie Curie Fund). My
mum, Andy and my aunt were the only people with access to the money,
and it wasn't my mum - she stumped up the ?125 that was missing.
I felt that were lucky in a way in what happened next. My other gran,
grampa and their sons threw us out of the pub and our home.

As I mentioned before, I was drinking a lot at the time. In fact, when
I tried to stop drinking later, I realised that I had become an
alcoholic. All I remember of the day we left was the refugee suddenness
of packing our belongings into a couple of vans and living with one of
my other Aunts.

These were dark times in my world. I had been accustomed to fairly
liberal parents who set very reasonable boundaries that I accepted and
lived within happily. This was a whole other barrel of shit. Now I
don't know if they got off on the power thing, or if they genuinely
thought that they were doing the right thing, but now?

In the house by 9.00pm - 10.00pm on Fridays.

No visitors.

Ready for bed by 9.30pm (I. Shit. You. Not.)

No drinking after 9.30pm (cos then you'd need a pee in the middle of
the night, which leads to).

Go for a pee at 10.30pm (Bedtime).

If I'd've been sober? Jesus?

FUCK!!

I just remembered! We moved out in the January. That was the Christmas
my dad "kidnapped" my sisters. That was funny.

My dad took the girls over to his brother's to spend some time - I
wasn't really into it. I stayed at home. Then my dad phoned, to tell my
mum that he was going to keep them. My mum and Aunt Sharon (the one we
went to live with.) went over to resolve the dispute with tact. In a
fit of rage, Sharon went for and slapped the pregnant Rachel. Even
then, I thought that was pretty fucked-up - I never had, and never will
have, anything against Rachel.

Anyway, my point is that I had to sit and suck up all this bullshit.
Sharon was doing us a favour by letting us stay. We shouldn't be
ungrateful. I resented everything. Every thrown game of chess with
Uncle Tommy. Yeah, the "ah ha ha," did make me want to panel him every
time he won, but I was warned by my mum that he thought I was smartarse
because I kept beating him. I made sure that my mum knew I was throwing
the games.

At least Andy and Joan were out of my face.

I nearly died when we were living with Auntie Suzanne. One night I
downed an entire bottle of whiskey. I vommed it back up later. In my
sleep. On my back.

All I remember was hearing my mum's terror. I can't remember the words,
but the pleading anger is burned onto my mind. I stopped drinking
completely then. It was easy until I stopped being able to sleep and
started seeing spiders and other crawling things in the periphery of my
vision. The paranoia. The burning sweats. I endured them all, then I
was clean and we had our own house.

To me, my mum never recovered from the breast cancer, or losing her
breast, her home and her livelihood. She always seemed ill, but that
was put down to the radiotherapy. Then she was diagnosed with
pleurisy.

It turned out that what was thought to have been liquid in the lungs on
the x-ray were, in fact, dozens of cancer modules. I was the first one
she told. We lay and cried all day. She insisted.

We got all of our grief out in one day so that we could function as
normally as possible in the coming months. Once again, chemotherapy,
radiotherapy and medication were mentioned. Remission was not expected,
but at least the cancer wasn't in her lungs. She told me there and then
that she wouldn't see a year pass and that she didn't have a good
feeling about it. In the end she actually kicked the shit out of the
cancer, but as it always does, it won out in the end. She lasted just
under two years.

I've just realised that I don't want to talk about this any more. I
will come back to it later, though.