Chapter Eighteen: Letters to a Dead Father and An Army of Headless Crows

George returned – a crumpled, sullen version of his adult self. He didn’t mention the missing book. And neither did I. Besides, he was too distracted by other sources of misery - Carla ignoring him one minute and criticising and accusing him the next. She was convinced he’d been unfaithful despite the fact that he kept telling her he’d just needed some ‘headspace’ - time to think things through. So there were no more happy-pram-hunting sessions, no loving looks at the dinner table or George’s steadying hand on Carla’s back as she struggled to clamber up the stairs for her fortieth visit to the toilet that day. Aside from the ‘headspace’ comment, George didn’t really speak about his time in the stock room. He carried on getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, and then getting insulted by Carla. Mum tried to speak to him but he just brushed her off and went to his room and played on the computer whilst Carla slept upstairs on the sofa bed in the front room. Slowly he seemed to be mutating back to his teenager incarnation- the communication channels had turned back to mono and all he did was grunt, eat and sleep with his black trousers and work shoes sticking out the bottom of his bed.

A few months earlier and I would’ve been holding a street party at this turn of events. It looked like Carla was going to leave and there’d be no baby about the place and perhaps things would go back to how they’d been before. The problem was, the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that things had been terrible back then. The one night stands, the hairy men and the desperate attempts to get a penis in my fanny. And Mum constantly so worried about George and George unable to find a purpose. And it was hard to believe it but I was kind of looking forward to this baby arriving. It wasn’t just George’s and Carla’s baby. The more I’d had to contend with Carla’s complaining and vomiting and her strange moods and the endless wee fest, the more I felt I was going through some of this stuff as well. And no I don’t believe that all women are intrinsically linked by some primitive moon force that makes us love one another and creates endless waves of sisterly respect. We may get our periods at the same time when we’re under the same roof but that’s where the solidarity ends. But yes I’d felt some sort of sympathy for Carla and her ordeal and it had also sobered me up, made me appreciate that having a baby wasn’t just about carrying a few extra pounds and buying nice stuff and getting lots of attention from strangers.

And now I’d read some of the book and therefore knew some of the terrible stuff inside George’s head (and was learning more everyday) and it was difficult to say which was the worst offence. Stealing is one thing. Reaching inside and pulling out your brother’s soul is another. That is why your heart speeds up every time you open the book and start reading. Your body is giving you an opportunity to turn back. Just read a bit and put it away again. Don’t turn him inside out. Put it down. Your chest will explode. Go on then. Go ahead. But you’ll regret it. I moved back to the flat so no one could hear my heart as it pumped inside my rib cage and the vibrations worked their way down my spine and into the mattress and into the floorboards, making even the glass of water next to the bed quivered with excitement and fear. Put it down. Pick it up. Put it down. You started now so you might as well continue.

And the first few pages were jaunty enough. It was hardly a chick lit novel but I could see it had a potential market as part of the ‘Confessional/Teenage’ genre. It was an interesting account of impending teenage fatherhood. And if you removed some of the sinister elements like the crows with human teeth that swooped down and ate children’s legs then you could see it being made into a film – like a Rom-com but with a bit of an edge. George had obviously been on high when he’d first found out he was going to be a Dad. And the letters were sweet and hopeful to start off with. Like he’d found a diamond in a puddle of dog plop.

Dear Dad,
I’ve had some amazing news! I’M GOING TO BE A FATHER!!! Can you fucking believe it? I never thought I’d be the first one to have a child and everything (what with Kate being so old) and I’ll be honest, when I found out, I just wanted to run away to the skate park and smoke but Carla - well she’s different. She’s not all neurotic like most old women. She never talks about wrinkles or eye bags and shit. And we are PERFECTLY matched. She even likes MANGA. And I keep thinking this was supposed to happen. I’ve been so down about things. So that’s it. I’ve told you. Watch this space!
George xxxx

P.S Sorry about the swearing but I really want to be TRUTHFUL. I want us to be completely open with one another.

And then, just when you thought ‘Oh that’s nice, it’s sad but it’s quite nice that he’s writing to Dad and keeping him informed’, you turned the page and there was a close-up pencil diagram of a man mutating into a crow, in four or five stages like the scene in ‘An American Werewolf in London’. George had taken great lengths to detail every feather as it burst through the surface of the man’s face and then he’d scrawled all these arrows that came out of the man’s torso and pointed to a complete blank space on the next page. I was no psychiatrist but these weren’t the drawings of a contented young man.

As I flicked through, there were more letters. George telling Dad about Carla moving into the house. Then stories of them shopping online for baby accessories and George hunting around in Dad’s old shed for some tools to make a baby highchair (I remembered him going on about it but had called him an idiot – I mean who made stuff for babies when everything was so damned cheap these days?). And as I got into bed and reached for the book on the second night, I told myself yet again that I was doing it for George. But I soon lost interest in his inane ramblings (all of it was stuff that he’d been wittering on and on about and even Dad would have told him to change the record). So I started fast-forwarding the pages like when you’re watching a crap film and you want to get to the exciting part. I just hoped there was an exciting part. And then I started scanning pages for any letters where he mentioned me. Most of it was Carla. Carla is great. Carla is so understanding. Carla is different because she does fun things like play computer games and laugh at You Tube. There was really some sort of voodoo going on between them.

Then in one letter, he described me as ‘bitter’ which was frankly ludicrous. Disappointed maybe. But there’s a difference. Being disappointed isn’t permanent. And he kept referencing these ‘neurotic old women’ and it was pretty obvious he was talking about me because Mum didn’t even bother plucking her eyebrows anymore and had these straggly, grey feathers that danced above her eyes whenever she laughed. And if you’re not supposed to read your brother’s innermost thoughts, you’re certainly NOT supposed to find the ones that relate to you. These are the most damaging of all. Because you can’t forget them. And sometimes, just sometimes they might be true.

Another example:

I’m concerned about Kate. She’s so selfish. And she never listens. The last time we went to the pub, all she did was look at blokes. Dad- it was disgusting! Something’s happened and she’s gone man crazy. Remember that time you told her not to eat all those Wagon Wheels or she’d be sick and she didn’t listen? Well that’s what she’s like except it’s worse.

And then this one:

Carla says Kate’s jealous of the baby but I told her that’s ridiculous. Kate would NEVER want a baby! And besides she told me about a million times that she didn’t want a big, fat stomach like Carla. She also told me that no one fancies you if you have a kid? Is that true?

It’s difficult when you’re experiencing anger and guilt at the same time. I didn’t know whether to fight or cry. The drawings went all blurry - the stupid headless crows and crows giving birth to stick men who ran screaming off the page and into the ether. Here was George telling Dad how selfish I was and yet next he was telling Dad how worried he was about me. I hunched over the book hunting for the evidence I needed to prove that George was wrong, and I was right. I needed some words that reassured me that I hadn’t been responsible for his suffering. I’d actually forgotten most of the things I’d said, the ways in which I’d tried to convince him that fatherhood at his age was wrong. But obviously some of these things had impacted more than others. The girl angle was a worrying one for George. He wasn’t very experienced. Carla was probably his first lover. She could laugh at You Tube as much as the next girl but she couldn’t offer him an entire lifetimes worth of nubile and exciting sexual partners. Part of what was worrying George was never being able to have sex with one of the girls that he saw in the pages of Nuts. But unfortunately it didn’t look that straightforward.

The next morning I called in sick for work. It didn’t really matter because Simon was sort of taking over some of Carla’s role and I expected him to give me an easy ride, be a bit sympathetic - we were buddies after all. Instead he started moaning and said they were low staffed and it was the last thing he needed, what with George wandering about listlessly with a mental breakdown. Give someone a bookshop management position and they think they’re Jesus Christ! It was a good thing we hadn’t gone into business together. He’d become a raving egomaniac! And besides I was the one who should have been angry. Simon hadn’t even spotted George’s hideaway despite the fact he’d been down there twice to dump some of the ‘3-for-1s’. But then I also felt some guilt working its way up inside because I’d completely neglected Simon and hadn’t made any effort to spend time with him. So there it was again. The Crying Fighter and his guilty anger. Then Mum called to see how I was and I shouted at her even though I knew she was finding it incredibly difficult trying to hold the family together, prepare for the new arrival and chop aubergines until her fingers were bruised and raw. Moreguiltyangerguiltyangerguilty. And that put me into a state of paralysis so I didn’t look at the book for at least a day and just watched TV and tried to lose myself in house renovations, singing auditions, obese teenagers and beauty makeovers. There are always people who are worse off. Except even the saggy, wild- eyed woman who was having surgery to remove her wrinkle-bags hadn’t tried to make her brother abandon his baby. And even the couple, whose house had fallen down, hadn’t failed to notice their brother slowly going downhill. Even the couple that lost the singing audition because they sounded like two cats being dropped into a cement mixer hadn’t been so hateful to the ones they loved.

I went back to the book, hoping there’d be some sort of respite. Some sort of cheery tale where I’d said something nice to George and he’d felt better. Or a small act of kindness where I’d offered to do his shift at the bookshop or helped him pick out some clothes. Or jumped at the opportunity to be the baby’s godmother rather than pooh-poohing the idea. But instead George’s writing became more unpredictable, difficult to unravel and the letters ceased being letters and the cartoons and the words just mashed up together like his pen was being controlled by someone doing remote writing from a padded cell in an insane asylum (and the cell had just caught fire).

The second to last page was just a list of questions:
What should I call our baby?
What are the things you wished you hadn’t done/had done/had done more?
What is the best thing about being a father?
What do you hate about it?
Can you still go to the skate park? If so when?
Is it okay to live at home? If so, how long? How long can you live at home and not be a burden?
Is it wrong to masturbate when you have a baby? Is it normal? Is it normal to go on the Internet and do it?

And then on the next page:

I always make mistakes.

Then on the following one:

I can’t remember what you look like. What colour was your hair? I thought it was dark brown but actually it wasn’t was it? Are you alright? Are you disappointed that I’ve made this big mess? Mum is angry. She pretends it’s okay. She keeps feeding us aubergines even though I can’t stand them.

Then on the final page:

What do you do if you don’t want a baby?

Each plea was made even more desperate because no one was ever going to answer and it just emphasised the enormous Father-shaped absence - the fact that there was no one George could talk to. And all this time he’d been slicking his hair back with optimism but now it was dripping down his face and getting in his eyes. And here was the EVIDENCE of my selfishness. Here it was - right next to a scribble of a decapitated crow. Writ loud and clear. Me busy counting my eggs and obsessing over getting myself up the duff whilst my brother flapped about like a landed fish. And then I remembered all the times when he’d dawdled back from his lunch break when we’d been together- anxious to talk but I’d been too busy plotting my next sperm donor. Or the time he’d asked if we could go to the pub and I’d said no because I couldn’t stand another night of his baby yak. It was obvious why George had sought refuge with Dad. Dad never walked away or ignored him or called him a shitbag (which I did many times). Dad never teased him about his cheap polyester work shirt which made him look like a seventies snooker player. Dad never told him that he was going to make a lousy father.

And the depth of my hatefulness, made me question whether I really loved George at all. There was such a big age gap and we were both at such different stages. I tried to justify my behaviour. It was my parents’ fault! Why had they waited so long to have another baby? No wonder I’d grown up so estranged and resentful! And that was why I’d wanted a baby of my own. I hadn’t got enough attention. Then as I lit a cigarette I thought up all the reasons why my behaviour was reasonable. I was old. I wanted a baby. I’d been devastated that George was going to be a Dad. And then I thought back to the Lenor incident and I wondered whether I’d always wanted to hurt him. Perhaps I really didn’t want him to be happy. And if that was true, what kind of monster was I? I’d always been jealous of George, before he’d got someone pregnant, even when he was just a kid and mooning about and people were laughing at his odd, little ways. I scratched the scar that ran down my ankle and thought how it was probably God who’d smacked me off that stool in the kitchen. And it was probably God who’d messed about with my eggs and made them all lethargic and sleepy and hopeless. I’d never been religious before but it was clear that something, somewhere was trying to teach me a lesson. But what was the lesson? Hate Thou Brother And Thou Shalt Not Procreate Effectively. And if that was true, would I be redeemed? Was I cured? What was the cure?

I thought back to the last time I’d felt close to George, felt some sort of affinity and bond. It was on a drive back from Alton Towers. Dad was driving and he had some Talking Heads playing and George was only about eleven. And Mum was babbling away about the prices of all the cakes and the toasted sandwiches and how we should have brought our own picnic. And Dad was looking tired – it’s easy to think that there were always signs that something was lurking underneath the surface. And George’s face was all red because he’d exhausted himself running from one ride to the next and then he’d started crying because some big lad had pushed him out the way and Dad had put him on his shoulders (he was actually much too heavy and perhaps that was the real reason Dad had looked so weary when our eyes met in the rear view mirror). And ‘Psycho Killer’ blasted from the stereo and George nuzzled into my armpit and at first I tried to push him away because he was so sweaty and his hair was stuck down across his forehead but then I relaxed and I let my arm wrap around his shoulders and I studied his eyelashes as his eyes closed.

And my arm started really aching, like it was going to fall off with this dead weight, George’s mouth slightly ajar and drool spilling out onto my sweatshirt. Those minutes, with George dribbling on my arm, a rash of freckles across his nose and his sweat smelt like milk that had gone a bit sour. That started it all. My obsession with having babies. Not that it was really an obsession at first. It was just a nice, warm fuzzy feeling in the back of my head when I’d had one too many glasses of wine and would visualise a round head of my own with sweat that smelt of sour milk. And whilst I wasn’t solely responsible for George’s pain, it was clear that my obsession had made a severe dent in his mental wellbeing. Dad would have been really sad (if he was watching, if he was lurking about in the pages of un-read classics). He would have done the face where his eyebrows went up into his disappearing hairline and then he would have sighed like every last bit of oxygen was leaving his body and being replaced by disappointment. He didn’t care if I was a loser in my professional life. But family was important. He’d asked me to look after Mum and George when he went. I’d laughed in his face because I would always be the one who ate five Wagon Wheels and then threw up on her lap.

I just hoped there was some way of sticking that crow’s head back onto its body.